Omaha daily bee., 1921-05-29
Tomorrow Is Memorial Day
= Here Is the Story of One
Grave in France, a Moth
er's Pilgrimage, and
Its Strange Ending.

TTN HE great days past and Becotreaux
sleeps in the Yet once, not long
- ago. 1t almost part of America, with
boys in khaki outnumbering it's simple pro-
vincial French inhabitants and swarming tu
multuously through the Grande Rue-Main
street, II you like. 1t was not for these memories
that had come there 1t was rather for Goth
ic doorway and for altarpiece in the Church
of st. Roch, attributed, quite falsely feel sure,
|, to PHILIPPE de Champagne
Indeed, l had come to Europe determined
not to visit battlefelds, but instead to revive tho
days when it had been possible to lounge care
lessly and happily in any corner of that ad-
mirable continent and to believe seriously that
gray carvings and faded paintings had any i'm
portance in the world But in Main street
Grande Rue If you like-J had met defeat. For
in this picturesque curving -thoroughfare in
imagination could not but hear the tramp OF
the boys feet and hear their gay laughter as by
night they must have come home from the
Cabaret Mondain.
Family in the air still hung some pleasant
perfume OF that odd great republic of the west
whose sons had once enjoyed the meager gayc-
ties Of BelcotreauX
say meager advisedly and indeed with spe-
eial reference to the Cabaret Mondain, pc
cularly squad and grim little cafe which I
had discovered my first evening in the little CITY,
! lay claim. however, TO being not only an ex-
pert to town pleasures but also philosopher
concerning them. And l realized that in dun
little Belcoreaux any gayety better than
none, and that even the desolate little sale with
corrugated iron roof and the almost more
desoate ladies who occasionally Obliged with
a song frightened tho night.
realized also that with laughing crowds OF
boys in khaki, seeing life in France against all
odds, the wretched place might indeed have
\ sparked. So much for Belcotreauxs poor plea
sure center as pass We are to return to it.
1t Is indeed at the very heart of the small
story have to tell. story which links Belco-
treauX with fairly inconspicuoVs village in
northern Ohio. linking only possible upon
planet so absurdly small as We have all lately
come to recognize this earth of ours to be-
My first evening" had intended it should be
my last-had been spent, as had been indicated,
partly in the Cabaret Mondain listening to a
lady, ridiculousy called Miss Sunshine-(a trib-
ute felt, to the American occupation)-wth
Worn dissipated face, yet at the same time love-
ly and tragic face. sing ballads in that sharp.
cracked voice of the cafe concert, partly in the
Grande Rue watching the moon come up behind
the Church OF St Roch.
I remember thinking that these two pleas
ures, though diverse, must have been those of
many a boy by turns happy to be in France and
homesick to be In America. And as / went
slowly 10 bed with my broad window wide open
upon the silent town. thought. as had per-
haps not thought before of all the random
memories of this fair land which must live in
the hearts Of young men at home who walk our
remember such towns as Beleotreaux-even
Miss Sunshine and her songs perhaps.
Such emotions and such meditations not
a unusual; lay claim to their betraying any
Hash genius Yet believe it to be true that
the story of the interplay OF influence-France
upon America and America upon Francis not
vet written nor understood. The small tale
have to tell is only the slightest contribution
to it.
had meant to go on after lunch the next
of, fnup m
vexcG by tourists. Meanwhile idled the morn
ing away in Belcotreaux There is nothing much
to report except that it was market oay--always
an agreeable. busting event in a small French
town. still believe the alleged PHILIPPE de
Champagne to be not authentic. There is how
ever a most pleasant, dirty tangle of narrow
streets around st. Roche's church and by the
river some lovely and unsanitary half-timbered
cottages |lth the smai'e est dooryards imaginable,
capable of holding. perhaps, two rosebushes or
half dozen OF pink perennial phlox.
always like lingering by rivers brim, and
that morning l most contentedly did SO, wonder
ing idly whether to philosophicaly minded
y young man, who was no longer very young, llfe
in Belcoreaux, with little fishing lin the Trle,
might be a career But, as so often before, L
ultinatey decided in favor of West Fifty-ninth
street and my view of Central park and the
rgors OF the New York literary life and started
back to the little Hotel de fEcu de France to
pack my bag, lunch heavily. and well, hoped,
and catch the train. But it was otherwise ap-
pointed
There we're two absurd Americans carrying
on hating conversation with the proprietor
the hotel use the word absurd not because 1t
expresses the truth ct ALL but because it reflects
a somewhat snobbsh mood that sometimes
scizes us all abroad. Do expect every travel
ing American to look as II he were the Hne
flower Of international fashion?
had even before I entered the hotel in an
instant's glance at the dull old couple dismissed
them as small town folk from the middle west
But in a moment thank God, asked myself
where indeed was from IL not Ohio. / became
an American again, even pa5slonately So Ano
as / saw that she was in black and saw, too, by
the faint pink that fingered on her faded cheek
how pretty a girl she had once been long ago
knew from past experiences that was fore
ordained TO be at least for day her slave. i
Is rot that even sentimcntalist exactly failS II
love with ladies old enough to be his mother
But sometimes they remind him of mother
that was his own, grandmother, perhaps
they awaken memories that he thought asleep
They bring back pictures of school and child
hood back there in the American America the.
bring, sometime es,N tears. Somehow the not too
smart dress of black made me guess.
AS stepped inside the door of the Ecu d.
France almost automatically offered myself a
their interpreter The proprietor had only a lit
tie English. This interpreting is an old dodg
Of mine-my study of languages has nowher
more richly repaid me than in the ways can il
foreign parts scrape immediate acquaint
= ance with helpless practitioners of English only
\ Now again the trick-comparatively harmless
l believe--worked. In scarcely more than
minute knew that he had been killed at Vile
branche-their son. He had been the youngest
and the only one left
This announcement left me oddly unprepare
for what Immediately followed.
We've never been abroad" said Mr.. Stan