The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1921-01-15
There Is Not Much Change Ex-
cept in the Spaces Between
the Villages.
SHOWS HAVOC UNDISTURBED
The Soldier Who Goes Back to His
Dugout in the Woods Is Likely to
Find That Only the Rains
Have Reshaped II.

New York.-To any American COM
Ing back from France these days, the
first greeting from a quOndam men,
Der of the A. L. +. is always this:
swell, how's it look over there?
Changed much?"
|. To which, after some futile short
lived notion of describing the great
mutilated stretch of France, with its
million discouragements and its thou
sand and one evidences of renewing
life, the returning wanderer must
needs answer:
mo, not much"
For the impression that the old bat
tlefields make is of havoc undisturbed,
paralysis uncured, Alexander WoOll-
colt writes in the North American
Review. The soldier who goes back
to his old dugout in the woods near
Grand Pre- is likely to find that only
the steady rains have reshaped it. that
the old helmet the shell-hit blew from
years ago and more. The villages of
the Mouse, the OurcQ, the Vesle and
the Aisne look much as they did when
the American troops trudged out of
them for the last time. 1t is true that
the rubble is gone from the streets,
end the litter of stone has been re-
duced to neat piles of assorted pieces.
Here and there a rough new cottage
has been fashioned from the materials
of its demolished predecessor. At in
tervals there are unfamiliar shacks
and barracks. But on the whole, Mont
faucOn and Fere-en-Tardenois and Ju-
vigny-they all look much as they did
when the Yanks started home. Vaux
that little Marine village which the ar
tillery behind the ninth infantry blew
to bits in the excitement of June, 1918
-Vaux has only one new building. 1t
Is not much of a building at that-just
a shack Of wood and taxpayer. And
1t Is not a dwelling at all. 1t Is a
buvette.
Where improvements Are Seen.
1t is in The spaces between the viii
lagos that the change Is so remark
able. You see it even in the rolling
land of the ArgOnne and the blasted
of the Chemin-des-Dames
For almost everywhere some tilling
has been done.
Visitors to the American graves near
Juvigny in the spring of 1919 marveled
to find that the old quarries along
the ravine on the side Of the town,
which had once served as divisional
headquarters, message centers and
dugouts in time of battle, were then
serving as homes for the first six of |
the returning families, so that children !
were playing with the useless gas |
masks out in front while Spartan
bloomed at cave en-
and the weeks wash tapped
IN the wind.
Now another winter and another
summer have gone by. The fields near
BY have been largely cleared of their
wire and shells and have yielded some
iOod and a little income to Juvigny.
Perhaps 200 people are back in the
.own.
b 1t Is because Of this scantiness of
reconstruction as far as home build
ng goes that, as you walk along a
'uined street, Juvigny seems a de-
serted city. But it is hardly that and
Tou realize as much with something
# a thrill when In a clearing amid
he rubble, you come upon barrack
md catch through the windows the
drOne of childish voices.
I is school and glance through
he window shows row on row Of pig.