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Show ONE MUTE STORY OF THE WAR Sunny Nieuport on the Yser, a Little City of 4,000, Among Others Wiped Out of Existence. Nieuport lies upon the Yser, the tidal stream that stopped the German rush for Calais, writes William Townsend Porter in the Atlantic Monthly. That June before the world went mad, the peaceful town drowsed In the sun the pearly Belgian sun that painters love. The men went down to the sea in their fishing boats, or worked their fields; old women, their lace upon their knees, sat in a patch of shade before the door and plied their bobbins ; children, with shrill sweet voices, darted about like birds; the creaking wain went to and fro piled high with the harvest. Four thousand simple folk ! Not one remains. Their houses, too, are gone. Their ancient church, their historic tower, are mounds of ruin. And still the hissing shells, hour by hour, day by day, tear down the crumbling walls, adding fresh ruin to a scene most desolate. deso-late. The people of the sun are gone. Another An-other race inhabits there. They live In holes beneath the ground. They come not forth except to kill. |