The Washington herald., 1919-05-22

at a time scouting, tney OIlen 1OunO
barracks in the villages and towns
-somber broad houses, ugly but
warm-and in these the refugees
managed to live.
Sometimes these barracks housed
several families And this the French
hate above everything. Privacy is es-
sentially French need. The walled
garden. the compartment car, the lit
tie private courtyard in the middle
class house-all these testify the
Frenchman's desire to be away from
the crowd. So he and his family went
to a dugout left by the soldiers rather
than go to the barracks; or the vii
layers went to n yaulted cellar under
some ruin, or boarded up a broken
wall in a roohess ruin, put in n tin
bucket under the more fluent leaks
and lived there rather than to go into
the community barracks.
Sometimes Not Even Dagouts.
Yet. so badly broken were some OF
the villages and so remote from mill
tary operations that no dugouts were
available and no two walls stood up
for the basis of shelter. In such
cases people were compelled to go
into barracks Occasionally the bar
racks were walled of into roms; per-
haps the men occupied one part and
the women the other. And in some
rare and joyous instances the people
coming back found that little square
board houses had been erected for
them-even if with but one room, and
in these houses they lived most hap
PLY. but not contentedly. For the
Frenchman hates ugliness with intense
L. ~ haN e. ~ y1-1Ny oil oct
as much as he hates to be herded in
masses.
As soon as the spring really opened
possibly in late March or early April.
a dozen people out of a thousand had
come back to their homes. And the
first thing these people did was to
get to work on their farms or In
their gardens. Garden tools and agri-
cultural implements were priceless.
Even the rich Americans could not
produce garden tools in sufficient num-
bers nor plows and horses enough to
till the fields. The Americans did
produce hundreds of tractor plows.
But in fields owned in such small
parcels as the French fields are own
cd. tractors are hard to use. They
make operations expensive. Yet they
were used. and served well-but not
as well as Americans at home would
suppose Living in duSouts. in cellars.
in ruins, even living in little RABBIT
warrens in trenches, with but q few
feet of moving space about them,
and walking miles to their farms. the
French villagers began their spring
work-only a handful of them. but
enough to get in their little gardens
and to plant some crops.
U. s. Help Much in Evidence.
Besides the mayor. usually in the
villages and in all the big towns
towns of over 3,0Oo-the refugees COM
ing back found some kind OF orga-
nized help. The Union of the Wom-
On of France was greatly in evi-
dence OF course the American Red
Cross was everywhere. 1t was fur
nishing blankets and such clothing as
might be improvised from the hos
pital garments left over from cur war
supplies, and the French women were
as handy as Yankees in making some-
thing out of something else in cloth.
The American Red Cross also fur
nished transportation. more or less.
for the returning families to move the
little goods they had saved from the
vi '7iiSC
leaving their homes.
The Red Cross, best of all. furnished
willing men and women to help in "a
thousand little ways about the new
homes. furnished doctors who went
about caring for the sick, in a land
despoiled Of doctors by the war, fur
nishes nurses to look after the chill
dren and furnished in every one of
twenty-five districts of France a sane,
kind wise man who. during those
first weeks of the re-establishment.
was guide, philosopher and friend to
thousands of people He was the dis
trict superintendent of all Red Cross
activities. II he could have had seeds
and tools and more men to help
him, he would have done vastly more
But with what he had he nearly i'm
provised divine Providence,
But the Red Cross was not the only
American agency at work among the
ruins to bring life out of civil
death. The American Committee for
Relief in the Devastated Area did 4
: splendid work; so did the Smith Col
lege Unit and so did the Friends, and
many other similar agencies. Hun.
dreds of helping hands from America
and Great Britain were working with
| the French people in those days of
March and April and May. 1919, bring
ing order out of chaos. They had pre-
pared the way during the winter.
American Work Typical
The work OF the American Com
mittee is typical. 1t picked out Ger
tain villages and literally mothered
those villages into life. During the
coldest days Of the winter the women
of this work were abroad, distribute
ing food and clothing. and helping
in any practical way to make a fam
lily comfortable. Incubators were
bought; a little button sold in America,
Have You a Chicken in France?''
Retted $1,000 for chicken growing. and