The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-02-09
GREEN VISION BELOW THE BLUE SKIES
OF FRANCE WHERE OUR HEROES LIE.
BY wINIFRED BLACK.

T. LII. 9.-A..-- ~ 49,. 30
ana. i Hhite. ,saa, deilcats .Elueo j. aa.s.
them there today. They have never
oloorned so early in the spring or late
in the winter before the peasants. /,
is usually March before the Belleau
woods are gay with nodding flowers
but now the poor, bombed crushed
and broken trees are garianded with
the strange snoke-like wreath Of the
clematfs and prickfy leaves of the
holly are green and shiny and the
mfstietoe CLEANS white like the ghost
of some dead flower
| It Is as il the whole forest were
idraped in funeral flowers In honor of
the brave dead asleep 80 deep, In the
broken earth below.
| II was in BeIleau woods that the
American boys first rushed into the
open and chased the fleeing foe and
many OF our blood lie buried on the
edge OF the woods
1t is such quiet pretty little grove
OF trees. The place of the Americans
as the peasants are beginning to call
IL, just such a stretch OF upland for
est as We have in a Thousand little
pleasure parks at home.
We had such a grove in the out
skirts OF the town where / was a little
girl. just the place for picnics and
swings and harmless merrymakings
How strange to- think of all that has
happened in Belleau woods such a
little while aeo
1t was quite easy to SEQ It all when
YOU stand on the hill among tho dying
trees that look rs if some dreadful cy-
clone had twisted their torn branches
and broken stumps.
Green and Lovely Vision,
mo valley spreads below like
green and lovely vision: the plain
w1dens like a map and through 1t and
winding 10 the surrounding hills are
the clean white roads OF France.
The trenches our boys used are not
All elaborate in Belleau wood: they
are Just little narrow, shallow bitches
such as you and / have played in a
thousand times at home; muddy and
half full OF cloudy ditch water and
scooped out in the sides here and there
with special holes where the machine
guns nestled.
Along this shallow ditch the Wild
no wers blossom pink and blue, and
beside II and close to It up and down
the hillside we stumbled again and
again upon a shallow grave with a
haIf-buried hand or foot exposed:
these are the Germans who stayed
TOO long in Belleau wood after the
americans came through.
Helmets "duds'' cartridges. belts.
broken pipe a smashed canteen and
once wrinkled, soaking photograph
case Of leather with a soaked and nm
recognizable photograph inside fall
such things az these saw, not once.
put DOZENS of times, in Belleau wood
today, where the lush green grass
springs already upon the battlefields
anc tries its eager best to hide the
scars OF war.
, Down in the wide fields below. the
slow white oxen drew the old fash
Toned ploughs for the French peasants
who already are beginning to til
their ravaged fields. again and CAIN
ana smiling and at peace the whole
world seemed
! Where Our Boys Sleep.
But oh, below at the edge Of the
wood the rows and rows OF graves
where our boys lie asleep In a far and
foreign land.
They look 20 strange. these rows of
graves. especially from a distance
| There is n broad. squat wooden
cross at the head of each grave. and
AZ the top of the cross is a round disk
which tells the name Of the man. his
company and regiment. and some
thing In the shane OF these disks and
IN the portions OF the old squat crosses
makes them look not like crosses, but
IKE little round-faced children stand
ing with wistful trusting arm outheld
In a kind of loving. gentle, child-Hke
appeal ky.
| Rows and rows OF little lonely. visit
rui children they seem like; 1t was
strange and very SADIE and vet some
how comforting and human in all the
quick. relentless forgetting Of the lush
and growing fields, - :