On the Edge of the War Zone From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes

ber 2

normal-much more normal than I dreamed could be possible forty miles from the front. We are still in the zone of military operations, and probably shall be until spring, at least. Our communications with the outside world are fre

e on the route nationale, when I drive down to Couilly. Across the fields it is a short and pretty walk

inette suspects me of doing anything so foolish. On the road I always meet officers riding along, military cars flying along, army couriers spluttering along on motor-cycles, heavy motor transports groaning up hill, or thundering down, and now and then a long train of motor-ambulances. Almost any morning, at nine, I can see the long line of camions carrying the revitaillement towards the front, and the other afternoon, as I was driving up the hill, I met a train of ambulances coming down. The big grey things slid, one after another, around the curve of the Demi-Lune, and simply flew by

it was held in the Channel ports, necessarily, and was spoiled. But apples and pears had no market. In ordinary years purchasers come to buy the trees, and send their own pickers and packers, and what was not sold in that way went to the big Saturday market at

ut I cannot get a temperature above 42 Fahrenheit. I am used to sixty, and I remember you used to find that too low in Paris. I blister my face, and freeze my back, just a

lves this year. Père has cut down all the old trees he could find-old prune trees, old apple trees, old chestnut trees-and it is not the best of firewood. I hated to

ect me to write often-I

university, eighteen years ago, how amazed I was to see the students huddled into a small space with overcoats and hats on their knees, a note-book on top of them, an ink-pot in one hand and a pen in the other, and, in spite of obstacles, absorbed

k was largely done by women, and the air was full of throbbing and dust. Yesterday it was the cider-press, and I stood about, at Amélie's, in the sun, half the a

, and with such affection. Perhaps it is only because I find myself once more living in the country. It may be true that life is a circle, and as one approaches the end the beginning bec

brook, and of the voices-so strange in the night-as they passed. There were more night sounds in those memories than I ever hear here-more crickets, more turnings over of Nature, asleep or awake. I rarely hear many night sounds here. From sundo

as they do in New England, for the trunks and branches are always covered with green moss. That is the dampness. Of course, we never have the dry invigorating cold that makes a New England winter so wonderful. I don't say that one is more beautiful than the other, only that each is different in its ch