The Elk Mountain pilot., 1920-02-05
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
In Europe Follow the Great
World War;
NOW WEAK AND HEARTBRokEN
In Mourning and Poverty She Counts
Her Dead and Looks With Eyss Of
Sadness Toward the Threat
snlne Future.
Article II.
sy FRANK coMERFoRp.

August i, 1914, was the day. On
that day Germany declared war on
Russia. The IRE alarm rang around
the world. Peasants In the field
straightened their backs, listened and
ing. Flags were unfurled. bands
played. faces were white. tense and
serious. Men left their work and
talked in groups ON the street corners
Women laid down their brooms, put
aside their washing, and talked in
whispers; sad lights were in their
eyes. Children stopped playing. Some
thing had happened. Evil things were
ahead. August and found France
and Great Britain mobilizing their
sons. The torch was sweeping Eu-
rope-the fire Of death had started.
For four long years-heart-sicken-
ling years-the world ran red. Men
waded through mud and blood. fought,
suffered, cursed. prayed, while back
home in the manless houses women
and children worked. cried, prayed
and waited. The world was mad.
Death poisoned every breath the
people breathed.
It II over now, 1t IL finished. A
stunned, numbed. weak, hesrtbrsken
Europe 10 again sitting In the sun Of
peace. Europe 10 in dirty black rags.
Tho black 10 mourning. the rags are
poverty. Her face 10 deeply lined
trenches made by suffering. Her eyes
are downcast and dead. Hope hutters
weakly in her breast; faith has faded
from her soul. Her home il . house
Of darkness. The IRE on the hearth
has turned to cold gray ashes. The
kettle no longer sings, 1t moans. Her
mind 10 weary. her body is wasted.
Hunger has robbed her Of her strength.
Her stockingless, shoeless feet are
blue from the cold. Her lips wear
starvation color. Ice In the winters s
wind lashes her shivering. half-naked
body. She mumbles a. she stares va
cantly into space-she il tired. 30
tired. As beheld her It seemed to
me that = face 30 troubled and sad
must never have known 4 smile.
listened to her mutterings found
that she was counting. Over and over
again she counted on her thin, tired,
worn hands-she was counting her
dead.
Thinking sf Her Less.
She was thinking. Her eyes looked
over the hundreds Of thousands Of
square miles of war zone. slashed
with trenches, pitted and pockmarked
by shells. She sees where they fell.
No tears are in her eyes. Long ago
the hurt had reached the point where
tears dry up. Row upon row. line
upon line. mile upon mile. white
painted wooden crosses mark their
graves. For the most part they were
who dug deep in the soil to sleep for
ever in the dark dugouts.
As they fell bleeding from steel and
lead. choking from gas, writhing In
agony from fire. they proved in the dy-
ing word they spoke that they were
mere boys, as they had shown in their
fighting that they were brave men. To
the peoples they intrusted their mes
sage, and the red poppies remember
who went out into the great beyond
with this last word on their lips.
Mother"
She has finished counting; an ache
! shudders through her bent body. She
sighs and sobs, Seven and q half mill
lion Of my sons are dead"
Her thoughts turn to the living. her
arms open to receive them. she holds
them to her heart. They have come.
but how7
Some with sightless eyes. doomed to
grope through the world in never