The Morning Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Okla.) 1919-1927, 1922-11-26

36E2skls& But we shall jump
from y ace TO
place without regard to geography
and shall stop where we please in
Creasing the text on the screen as
human interest directs.
Most OF our snapshots will be of
the country. which just now is car
peted with alfalfa, wheat, oats, rye,
crimson clover and beets, embroid-
cred with red poppies as big as a
teapot. and all the Colors God made
for the changing hues OF his foot
stool. We shall find few blots on the
landscape. Every field, road and for
est is dressed up TO the mines" and
the whole is like new Paris gown.
] love my own country but l do not
see how any Frenchman can help
loving France.
The patches Of devastation accen-
tuate the beauty OF the new re-
creation. on the chalky hillsides
shell holes are still left and near
the battlefieids the trees are like a
dead forest in Alaska which the fire
has swept through.
The Red Zone.
But this is only the red zone"
where the ruin was so great that the
government cannot afford to restore
II. There the dead orchards and
trees stand as skeleton monuments
OF the past and weeds grow at will
upon the mine craters. Rusty
barbed wire and iron are lying
about. but the grass is sprouting
among them trying to cover the
waste and within few years there
~Eill be no signs of war. II must
De remembered, however. that the
patches making up the ''red zone
cover hundreds OF thousands OF
acres. They are all hills and hol-
lows: there are great rents in the
ground and the huge excavations
blown out by the mines make one
think of extinct Volcanoes. The
trees which are to be seen every
where else have been shaved off
by the war.
Nevertheless, in 1914, that zone
was as rich as these crops we are
now riding through, Its roads were
vast arbors. where tail poplars met
overhead and shut out the sun and
one passed towns and villages at
every few turns of the wheels. Now
there is nothing but thin grass,
daisies, wild peoples and weeds.
Some places are as barren as the
Sahara. BY the roadside are the
trunks of trees cut down by the
Germans, or 1t may have been by
the allies themselves for military
reasons. This snap Is made in old
Picardy, where the Somme river
flows. This department is plateau.
in some places 500 feet high. It Is
a blanket OF gravel and clay with
chalk underneath. We can SEQ the
chalk cropping out of the hills and
the mine craters are white. In one
chalk bank, along the roadside.
above some bales OF barbed wire.
] counted six shells.
Peasants Adore Their Old Homes.
As we ride on we pass through
village after village in all stages
Of rebuilding. Some are miserable,
some prosperous, but the meanest
is the beloved home of a peasant
who lived there before the war
wiped out the town and he is bound
20 come back. The government Of
fers new land and new houses where
the people will be better off than
before, but they refuse to leave.
Take, for instance, the rebuilding or
Belloy- en- Santerre, the village near
where Alan Seeger was killed. You
will remember his poems, among
The best written during the war.
and especially that which begins:
81 have a rendezvous with death
Well, It was at Belloy-en -Santerre
that death met him and made the
town a mud hole. The government
has refused to rebuild IL and has
offered each of its families 10 acres
of land. with good barns and build
lngs, in a more fertile region not
far away. The peasants will not ac-
cept and they are now living In
shacks and dugouts until they can
save enough to rebuild Already
several houses OF brick and stone
have grown up and their lands are
being worked on the cooperative
principle in wheat and oat fields,
each OF which contains fifty acres
or more. The town folk own trac-
tor and other farm machinery IN
common and are producing larger
Crops than in 1914, The peasants
will probably erect huge barns or
brick, rooted with red tiles, such
as stand amid the grain in other
parts OF the new agricultural re-
glons, crimson landmarks Of the re-
construction that has been going on
since the armistice.
The new village will be Ike the
old one. except that IL Will nave
10 conform to the building regula-
tions now laid down by the govern
ment. The French peasant does nor
want modern houses and he aboml .
mates the big windows and the sanl-
tary methods which our people ad-
wise. AS result INC b'NNA a. -
has had TO insist that none OF the
towns adopted hy Americans or
others shall he put up except IN
accord with the government plans
A Pot of Feudal Gold.
have talked with Miss Belle
Skinner OF Holyoke, Mass, who IL
spending something like a quarter or
million dollars in rebuilding the
little town OF Hattonchatel In the
Meuse. She has practically no con-
though she has done much by her
troi over tn. reconstruction, al
suggestions to make the houses
hygienic. do not believe that she
could design a doorstep and have
Il approved and as for putting IN
big windows and bathrooms the
people object.
It was in the ruins OF Hatton-
chatel that the men digging the new
foundations discovered great pot
OF coins which they gave TO MISS
Skinner. The coins were the savings
Of a French peasant OF ages ago.
They were OF all denominations hno
some OF them were coined IN the
middle ages. 1t was one or the
numismatic finds OF the century and
Miss Skinner has given some OF the
ancient pieces OF money 10 the NJ
tional museum in Paris.
Alan Secgar's Rendezvous.
And lust here / wish 10 pay trl-