OCR Text |
Show THE MEANING OP THE COMING OP AMERICANS TO FRANCE How a division of American soldiers sol-diers 7in France played raven to the Elijah of a family of starving Frencn refugees, found cowering in the attic at-tic of an old meat market, and how Elijah, in turn, made the ravens comfortable, is told in this story, wrritten by a Y. M. C. A. secretary in France: "A division of our troops were on the move. For thirty-eight hours the men had been on the cars. Then they .had detrained, and started to hike for the front. Two days of marching had left them stiff and tireH "The. Y. M. C. A. men had gone ahead of them. They knew that the troops would be in a certain village by a certain time. So they loaded three big trucks with canteen supplies, sup-plies, hustled to the village, and looked around for a canteen. "They found an old meat market with the shutters up, located the oVner, and got the key. The supplies sup-plies were unloaded, and the trucks started back to town. The two men left behind to 'open up' lighted a candle and began an investigation. "Up the steep stone steps they found a room, with a family of refu-, gees crouched inside. The old fireplace fire-place had been opened. A few twigs, the size of a lead-pencil, made a fire as big as a coffee cup. "A mother nursing a baby sat on the floor in front of the fire, two small girls whose eyes seemed unnaturally un-naturally big in their thin, little faces cowering near her, scared by the steps they had heard. A daughter about fifteen years old was cooking some nondescript bits of food in an old frying pan. The father, a, little man, badly crippled in the early battles bat-tles of the war, started forward as the strangers approached. They spoke no English, and our men spoke no French, but suddenly they understood. under-stood. These were 'les Americaines!' They would not hurt. The' were even going to be fed. "When the American soldiers came, they found the mother making chocolate for fhem, while the oldest daughter scrubbed up the old market, mar-ket, humming the 'Marseillaise' as she worked. The two little girls, bursting with importance, ran on small errands. The baby sat on the canteen counter, chuckling at them. "As they entered, the crippled little lit-tle Frenchman, busy opening packing cases, straightened himself as well as he could, and saluted them. There was pride in the way he did It. He had worn a uniform, too. "The American hoys adopted the family at once. The Y. M. C. A. men had fed the refugees, of course, but the soldiers insisted upon buying them more food in the canteen. They tossed the baby in the air, and began teaching the little girls American slang. That night there was a real fire in the fireplace upstairs, and real food on the table. Windows, boarded board-ed up so long, were open. The family fami-ly chattered away at the top of their voices, instead of whispering, as they had done. There was nothing to be afraid of now. " Les Americaines' has come!" |