The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-13

i Paris, Nov 10.-Toussaint Barbar- ! in, wounded in the foot during the : fighting which took place just before the ar1nistice, was carried off the bat tIefield by American stretcher bear CTS who questioned him as they pore him along. He answered them in the pleasant tone in which he spoke to comrades, but seeing that they did not understand him, began enun- i ciating in a high voice. separating the i syIIabIes clearly one from the other. The second method, however, proved as futile as the first, he at length fell back into silence, and was carried off in a gray automobile to a fine new steel hospital train wonderfully equipped with every necessity. The transportation of wounded is never hurried affair, even when the New World has the matter in hand, so 9 1 day and a half passed before the train drew into the suburbs of the | town in which lay the hospital to which the casualties had been as | signed. Barbarin and the handful of l Frenchmen who had Lean caught up with soldiers from MassacnC sets, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. arriv- ed in the night in the courtyard of a great school. which had been trans formed Into a hospital, a great build ing with two els surrounded by huts of wood. By the light of the moon, the less seriously wounded had a kind of fugitive glimpse of the refuge.
 At the coming of dawn Toussaint Barbarin awoke in a very white bed in the middle of a long dormitory with very white walls. His wound was a serious one. He underwent sev- eraI operations, nearly died, nearly | lost his foot, and only began to feel | like himself again during the spring and summer of 1919. June arrived.
 For some time he had been strong enough to pay visits to his neighbors. It is astonishing what a F7renchman who knows no English and an Amer ican who knows no French can say to each other. Thirty words in com mon, a chance for gestures and the 1 play of facial expressions do as well as a vocabulary. When one no lon- ger understands, one laughs one losses ones head with the air of say l ing, I'll understand that sentence to- morrow
 We'll cared for, well washed, well nourished, accustomed to the 'pud- ding which was distributed in the doTnitOry at tea-tine. TouSsaint day by day grew stronger and stronger He heard it said that he would soor be released. He began to take little s walks; he stroIled in that part of the : garden which had been spared by American engineers. The site, thougI :. l of diminished charm, was p1easan t still. One found there various paths . some shaded by plane trees, other . by elrns.
 e One imagined there the ancien :, masters of the school, the teache l priests, glad of a refuge from tn $ noise of sports. the drowsiness of stu I dies, and the weariness of expIana tions to undeveloped little minds. Be n cause Toussaint Barbarin was no Il strong enough to be allowed by him
 self, he had beside him during hi
 first few pilgrinages, a young Amer
 ican nurse, Miss Florence Dolly. Per
 haps you have met her. She wa
 young, but of a certain maturity though her smile. when she did smile was one of real youth. She was good
 active, discreet, well educated an l. according to some well known i g America for the extensive travels O, IS which she had accompanied her faith '- CT, a distinguished scholar in the Uni J. versity world. At the hospital in tn y service, she had a serious and com = manding air which made an inpres = sian on the soldiers; obedience wa
 
 e to taking medicine, keeping still l. talking less loud; yet when she say l. that her orders were not to be re 1t sisted, Q swift smile. shining a tn h same time on her slender lips an | in her eyes. revealed a friends tru It heart. She showed a prediIection fo e the French wounded; she spoke thei
 language; they were the objects O
 her solicitude; she loved what sh
 
 loved what she divined in it l. Conversation. therefore, was no It lacking when Miss Florence wake J. in the garden with Toussaint Bar is barin. Other groups of conva1escent e were to be seen. The sun shone yer n warmly. Chickadees. at work sine l. the dawn. were hopping about, in O spectins the undarside of the leaves
 and the crevices of the bark for lar
 vac The nurse who had quick eye s. for this world of birds and trees an
 flowers, asked:
 1t What do you call those birds?' " ''The mesa ge. They have but lit V tie tc say: they are not like nightin l. gales
 at At these words, Barbarin saw up pr on the nurses face a look of inquir i- which. to a being less simple tha at he. would have revealed q soul flu ic of scientific and poetic passion, a ,u extremely intelligent mind eagerl
 gazing into the new world of France
 Am I not to hear the famou
 nightingale ?'ss she asked.
 No, mademoiselle. To begin witt '6 these huts have frightened him away If Moreover. it is now June, and tn y nightingale sings no more l. She tapped the earth with her foe D. and stood IL a- 'Ah, should have so liked to hay Id heard him. They say the nightin
 gale sings like a very soul
 But, surely you have the nightin
 gale at home in America
 No
 B 'ReallyI Can it be possible?' ik Yes, it is so.'
 le Her tone of lively affirmation. tn ts way in which she drowned a Iittl vo made him, and as they walked alon, ys he continued:
 ec The nightingale sings in April
 please his mate who is matching ol
 her brood
 The nurse made a little gesture