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WHEN JOHNNY COMES 
 MARCHING HOME 
 
Interior of the church at Couilly looking out from the 
 choir across the nave to the right aisle 
 
 See page ij6 
 
When Johnny Comes 
 Marching Home 
 
 BY 
 MILDRED ALDRICH 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A HILLTOP ON THE MARNE, "TOLD IN A FRENCH 
 
 GARDEN, AUGUST, I914," " ON THE EDGE OF THE WAR 
 
 ZONE," *'tHE peak of THE LOAD " 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
r J^ 
 
 3V 
 
 
 Copyright, 19 1 9 
 By Mildred Aujrich 
 
 Utu 10 1319 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. 8. A, 
 
 ©CI.A586918 
 
To THE Memory of 
 
 ^ift iZioga from tlft ^tatBB 
 
 whose young bodies lie in bravely earned peace along 
 the quiet roadsides of beloved France 
 
 AND TO 
 
 ^ift Womtn 
 
 who, in silent pain, sent them ** overseas'* to meet then- 
 great adventure 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Interior of the church at Couilly looking out 
 from the choir across the nave to the 
 right aisle Frontispiece 
 
 Bridge at Chateau-Thierry defended by 
 American machine gunners. It was after- 
 ward destroyed 64 
 
 The bridge over the Grande Morin between 
 Couilly and St. Germain over which 
 thousands of American boys marched on 
 their way to Chateau-Thierry in June, 
 19 1 8. At the further end at the left is 
 the Route National which leads to Meaux 136 
 
 Tototte holding down her "scrap of paper" 
 
 and looking for another 210 
 
 Khaki in the arbor looking down at Tototte 218 
 
 Khaki in the garden waiting for his breakfast 218 
 
TO THE GENTLE READER 
 
 At the time the letters which made up 
 **The Peak of the Load" were edited, no 
 one '' over here " had any hope that the order 
 *' cease firing " would be given on the western 
 front before the spring of 19 19. Otherwise 
 that book would have been held back until 
 after the armistice. 
 
 It had been my intention when the 
 fighting on this front ended so prematurely, 
 to publish none of the letters written to the 
 States after the cessation of hostilities, for 
 the reason that there was no longer any war 
 activity here, and the war activity had 
 been their sole excuse. Here, the country- 
 side settled down at once to an outward 
 calm rarely disturbed by anything in the 
 least warlike, — that is, anything which 
 it seemed to me could make the smallest 
 appeal to even "the friends old and new," 
 who had received three books with such 
 touching and outspoken sympathy, and whose 
 whole thought, I was convinced, was al- 
 ready turned to larger events unrolling in 
 other places, beside which our simple life 
 could make no call. 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 More than that — it was Inevitable that In 
 the letters which I wrote to my Intimate 
 friends after the armistice I should write of 
 many things interesting only to them and to 
 me, which were more or less personal com- 
 ments and opinions on and of conditions and 
 events already familiar to every one in the 
 wide, wide world, and therefore containing 
 no single note of novelty, and that I shouH 
 also pick up threads that had been neglected 
 in the exciting days of actual warfare, and 
 that the spiritual movement In the air, as a 
 result of the stunning shock to which the 
 whole world had stood up, should have Im- 
 pelled me now and again to write in an in- 
 timate way of the thought and soul waves 
 which are sweeping over the earth, and 
 whose tides washed up here on the Hilltop. 
 
 Unfortunately for my Intention I have 
 been receiving during the weeks which have 
 elapsed since "The Peak of the Load" ap- 
 peared, letters from all over the States, and 
 from England, from Canada, from Austra- 
 lia, begging for all sorts of details about our 
 life "after the armistice" — how we were 
 living, how the people took the end of the 
 war, what they thought of It all. So I have 
 reluctantly — I am sure without the least 
 vanity — finally yielded to the wishes of 
 those who received the earlier letters with 
 so much Indulgent kindness, and edited these 
 final words from the Hilltop. 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 With keen appreciation of the fact that 
 the letters contain nothing In the way of facts 
 or ideas that have the least novelty and very 
 much that is already ancient history, I can 
 only say to those who have called for **more" 
 — you have asked — and you receive. 
 
 Mildred Aldrich. 
 
 Huiry, April, IQJQ. 
 
WHEN JOHNNY COMES 
 MARCHING HOME 
 
La Creste, Huiry, August j6, 1918 
 
 Dearest of Old Girls : 
 
 On returning from my last Sunday trip to 
 Versailles I found your letter of July 20th, 
 lying on my desk to welcome me. I was 
 touched, and comforted, too, to know that 
 you had felt so excited about me, but I was 
 sorry that you had worried. I actually for- 
 got this time that you would have any reason 
 for alarm. To begin with, I am accustomed 
 to the situation, and the conviction is woven 
 into my very soul that nothing can happen to 
 me now. 
 
 All the same I do not want you, for a 
 single second, to take It for granted — as you 
 seem to be doing — that I do not give full 
 credit to the way In which the Fates appear 
 to have taken care of me. Believe me, I 
 am never unmindful of it. Only, you see, 
 there are thousands of people over here who 
 have had much narrower escapes than I have 
 — only you don't happen to have known 
 them, and therefore they are not writing you 
 letters. Besides, I am now and then mod- 
 estly conscious that it is quite possible that 
 
 [ I ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the Individual here whom the gods have 
 thought it worth while to save may not be 
 yours truly at all. It Is the old story. I 
 never do seem to get a leading part, — can't 
 get in the limelight for even a short scene. 
 
 You are quite just in saying that I have no 
 right to have expected a " second miracle." 
 To tell you the truth, after the Germans 
 crossed the Marne, and bombed Meaux and 
 Mareuil, I did not expect it. Still, the Fates, 
 aided by some poilus, and a few Marines, 
 brought it off; and let me tell you a pretty 
 thing — I had a letter which was lying on my 
 desk with yours, from an American lad who 
 had been here, though I did not see him, tell- 
 ing me that on the opening of the battle of 
 Chateau-Thierry he and his comrades spoke 
 of me, and bore In mind that they were stand- 
 ing between me and the Germans. The letter 
 was guardedly written — mentioned no place 
 — and passed the censor. I understood. 
 But wasn't that touching? 
 
 From now on you can think of me every 
 day as quite free from any possible return 
 of the menace that threatened us for four 
 months. As sure as the sun rises and sets, 
 the Boches are going to take their medicine, 
 and we do hope that it Is going to be admin- 
 istered to them, without regard to cost, un- 
 til they lie down to it simply because they 
 can't take it standing. 
 
 The huge bundle of newspapers came too. 
 
 [ 2 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Thank you. Of course they filled me with 
 wonder and admiration — "knocked me 
 silly," as the boys say. I simply floundered 
 about in the long detailed accounts of the ex- 
 ploits of the Marines and the story of the 
 great Foch Offensive. We are so accus- 
 tomed to newspapers of two pages only that 
 a Sunday paper of 'steen pages, all full of 
 descriptive accounts of the fighting, seems 
 nothing short of amazing. And oh ! the 
 headlines — those "scare-heads" In huge 
 type ! They filled me with awe. You should 
 have seen Amelle hanging over them ! I 
 read every word. It took me days. Then 
 I translated the lines under all the pictures 
 — wrote the French under them — and Ame- 
 lle took them home to Pere, who was as de- 
 lighted as a child. I don't think they are 
 done admiring them yet. They cut some of 
 the pictures out, and pinned them up on the 
 wall. 
 
 It did seem odd to me to know that in 
 those great days in July, when we were so 
 silent here, you In the States had been ringing 
 your bells, firing your cannon, and making 
 the " welkin ring " generally with your shouts 
 of victory, even on the very day after the 
 Marines and the Territorials pushed the 
 Boches back across the Marne at Dormans. 
 I suppose, however, that It was perfectly 
 logical. You arc so far away from it all. 
 You have not had the four years of the ter- 
 
 [ 3 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 rible forward and back. You simply see 
 that our boys from home have jumped into 
 the great fight and that victory perched on 
 their "tin hats" at once. You know over 
 there in the States that you came when your 
 coming made victory sure — no one over 
 here ever concealed that from you. So it is 
 perfectly natural that you should glory in a 
 knockout blow from the Yanks in the first 
 round. For us Americans who have lived 
 over here, so close to the Allied Armies 
 standing up for four years against mighty 
 odds, declining to know it when they were 
 licked, and denying defeat when they were 
 close to annihilation, waiting and hoping for 
 the millions from home which could alone 
 stem the tide, the case is different. We can't 
 shout yet any more than the French can — or 
 the British. Not yet has France celebrated 
 any victory: not once since the war began 
 has she hung out her flags except to honour 
 the entering into line of a new Ally : no bells 
 have been rung here except to warn people 
 of an air raid or its finish : no guns have been 
 fired except for military purposes. Yet it 
 is four weeks since the Foch offensive began, 
 and from the beginning it has been successful. 
 Of course, to us here, who were watching 
 the German offensives so short a time ago, 
 and saw the Boche advance in such long and 
 rapid strides, it does look slow, but slow as 
 it is we are convinced that It Is sure. When 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It began, the nearest point In the German 
 lines to Paris was — as near as I could make 
 out — Ferte-MIlon, a 13th century walled 
 town where Racine was born, which Is only 
 forty miles from the capital. Last night the 
 nearest point was Fismes, sixty-six miles 
 from Paris, where the Americans are fighting 
 and giving a good account of themselves. 
 
 I know that there Is nothing that I can 
 possibly write to you for which you have such 
 a keen craving as the doings of our own boys. 
 You are not the only one who seems to think 
 that I can keep track of them. Bless you, I 
 can't. I don't see them except by accident. 
 
 I get letters by the score from old friends 
 In the States who say, "When you see my 
 darling boy, do give him a great big hug and 
 a kiss for his mother." There Is only one 
 reply. " * Barkis Is willin.' " Only your boy 
 must come after the hug and the kiss. I can't 
 very well go up and down the road, like a 
 sandwich man, advertising that " if any boy 
 wants to be kissed for his mother or his 
 best girl by proxy, now's his opportunity," 
 can I? 
 
 But, although I don't see the special boys 
 from whom my own friends want news, and 
 although I only see the others by accident, 
 when special service brings them Into this 
 neighbourhood, I do hear about them often, 
 since any French officer who comes here Inva- 
 riably comes to talk about them with me. 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 One of them told me yesterday, speaking of 
 the great Chateau-Thierry drive, where thirt}?- 
 per cent of the fighting army were Americans, 
 that our boys fought like veterans, and with 
 a tenacity that rivalled the best French regi- 
 merits de choc, m a battle which he pro- 
 nounced as ^^ furieuse^^^ and " one of the most 
 deadly " of his entire career. One can hardly 
 say more than that. So you may just hug to 
 your heart the knowledge that they have 
 made a great showing and provided the 
 world with the proof that the people of the 
 great democracy can be just as obedient to 
 discipline as any tyrant-ridden, whip-driven 
 race that ever went into war. I reckon that 
 we can agree in saying that if a government 
 can be as patriotic as the people of the States 
 have proved thejmselves, even becoming 
 temporarily autocratic can't smash the 
 democracy. 
 
 Of course the whole character of the war 
 has changed as we see it here. That was 
 inevitable as soon as, with the aid of the 
 English fleet, the States succeeded in the 
 wonderful feat of bringing Its millions 
 through the submarine zone, and thus in- 
 creasing the power of the Allied armies to a 
 point which made them absolutely irresist- 
 ible, by mere weight of numbers. Plenty of 
 us have always known that Germany was 
 going to be defeated. I imagine Germany 
 knew it soon as she realized that she had 
 [ 6 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 miscalculated again — the Yanks were over. 
 That Is what makes the battle going on now 
 so absolutely different from any of the great 
 battles we have lived through. Up to now, 
 we have watched great local offensives on 
 both sides. Never until now have we seen, on 
 either side, the entire battle-front from the 
 North Sea to the Swiss frontier put in move- 
 ment under the supreme command of one 
 chief. Up to now the staggering German 
 blows have been delivered first on one sec- 
 tion of the line, then on another. Up to 
 now these mighty German drives have rarely 
 lasted more than ten days In each phase. If 
 at the end of ten days the Bodies had not 
 actually achieved their objective, or definitely 
 put the Allied forces out of touch with one 
 another, we could say — no matter how 
 tragic had been our loss of ground, or how 
 crushing our losses In men — "All Is not lost." 
 So you can easily imagine what it is like here 
 now, when, day after day, the battle goes on, 
 day after day the Allies advance a little, and 
 when we know there there is no longer any 
 need to stop to reorganize, or to delay while 
 men are being hurried from one end of the 
 front to the other; no need to " let up " while 
 men and material are being moved to some 
 menaced point — for there is no lack to-day 
 of either men or guns. The fighting has been 
 heavier at one point to-day, at another to- 
 morrow. But It has been continuous. And 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 for this blessed state of affairs every one 
 says, " God bless America ! " 
 
 I am afraid that I can't quite make you 
 realize how different it is from what It was 
 in June even, when the heavy fighting was 
 going on behind the forest of Vllllers-Cot- 
 terets, east of Compiegne. I already look to 
 that time as if it were a bad dream. When- 
 ever I think of It I can see myself waiting in 
 silence for the news. I still remember the 
 uneasy sleep at night, the early morning 
 rising to wait for the news. I used to send 
 a boy on his wheel to wait at Esbly for the 
 Paris papers. It only gained an hour, but 
 that hour in the morning was well worth 
 gaining. It was so hard to listen to the guns 
 In absolute ignorance of what they were 
 saying. I used to stand on my lawn with a 
 field glass, watching the road from Conde, 
 and the moment I saw the wheel, I hurried 
 out to meet it. The boy, young as he was — 
 only twelve — had already got the news, and 
 he understood. He always waved his hand 
 as soon as we were within shouting distance, 
 and called out " All right. They 've not 
 broken through I " Then we all went back to 
 work and to bear it for another day. Now 
 and then — especially if the news were bad — 
 we used to hear from the mairie, when the 
 evening communique was telegraphed. We 
 have no evening papers. I imagine it is be- 
 cause you have never lived through that sort 
 [ 8 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 of long suspense that you are able to ring 
 out your bells of victory so soon. 
 
 Do forgive my harping on these things. 
 Though we believe they will never come 
 again, they are still very living memories to 
 us. 
 
 If It happens — and It may — that this 
 victory upsets our calculations, It will be 
 wonderful. We are all prepared here for 
 a fifth war winter. A month ago the sol- 
 diers expected it, — yet. If It should be that 
 the slogan "Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken for 
 Christmas " Is nearer a prophecy than the 
 joke it looked on July 4th, no one will deny 
 that it will be due to the speeding up of the 
 Americans, and the only danger Americans 
 have to guard against is mistaking speeding 
 up the machine for making It. 
 
 When we examine the maps of the Ger- 
 man offensives of March and May — and 
 they are all printed In detail here, and then 
 compare them with those of the slow going 
 back of the Allies to-day you might think it 
 would make simple people pessimistic, espe- 
 cially remembering how many times we have 
 advanced only to retreat again. It doesn't. 
 Even here In this corner of the Brie country 
 there Is n't a man, woman, or child who does 
 not knozi: that the Germans are now facing 
 a force which Is irresistible, and which leaves 
 them no choice : that not even the sacrificing 
 of their armies to a more wholesale slaughter 
 
 [ 9 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 than ever can save them. The only question 
 now is "when/' for It is sure that Germany 
 will never fight on when the threat of in- 
 vasion cannot be held off. For this condition 
 of the great war the people here religiously 
 believe the Americans to be responsible. 
 " God bless the Americans," is the phrase 
 oftenest on their lips. Well, God help us to 
 live up to it. 
 
 Last Thursday — that was the 8th — 
 Amiens was safe, with the Germans eight 
 miles further from the outskirts of the city 
 than they have been since the end of the 
 March offensive, which smashed the British 
 5th Army. By the way, I have a story to 
 tell you later regarding that disaster, which 
 removes the blame from the English officers 
 and puts it where the cause of so many dis- 
 asters in this war has had to be so justly 
 put — on politics and the war office. 
 
 Of course the Allies are a long way from 
 the line they held last March, but they are 
 moving slowly toward it across a devastated 
 country, — such a scene as you, safe In your 
 homes on the west side of the Atlantic, can- 
 not Imagine, try as you may, and which 
 kindly nature' is going to arrange so that you 
 never. In its full horror of naked freshness, 
 will be able to see. 
 
 I know that you arc going to twit me with 
 still harping on devastation. I may as well 
 anticipate the reproach and acknowledge that 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 it is absolutely deliberate on my part, — "lest 
 you forget," — in the glory of victory — 
 what it has cost others. It will require a 
 mighty effort not to. That is why I insist on 
 keeping devastation constantly before you in 
 the hope that you will keep it in the minds of 
 those about you. I would, if I could, inspire 
 you to speak of it everywhere — when you 
 go out to tea, when you make a call, when 
 you dine out, between the acts at the theatre, 
 at your Red Cross Unit, in the street car, even 
 after church. If constant dropping wears 
 away a stone, perhaps constant repetition of 
 this disaster may help those who are so far 
 away from the sight and the pain of the sit- 
 uation out there in the north of France, to 
 understand, in a measure, what has happened. 
 Of course you will become a common nui- 
 sance. But that is a matter of pure indiffer- 
 ence to me. I am making one of myself. 
 Do I care ? Not a jot. I shall return to the 
 subject often. Reconcile yourself to it. If 
 you can't, why, I'll have to find another cor- 
 respondent, that 's all, — some one who will 
 not mind helping me cry from the housetops 
 the truth of what has happened in France 
 until the very air vibrates with it from Hud- 
 son's Bay to Cape Horn, and from the At- 
 lantic to the Pacific. I have a reason for this. 
 No need to be explicit just now. It will 
 sooner or latter jump in your face without 
 aid from me — the reason, I mean. 
 
 [ II ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Let me see — I wrote you last on Au- 
 gust 4th, I think it was. Well, the Big 
 Bertha got to work again the next day, after 
 fifteen days of silence, and kept at it for five. 
 On the last day — August 9th, — she only 
 fired two shots. 
 
 I think we were all rather surprised. We 
 had hoped she had been pushed back so that 
 Paris was out of range. I had a letter from 
 Paris on the loth, which said that the bom- 
 bardments of the 5th and 6th were, so far as 
 the number of shots sent over, the worst since 
 those of March 23d and March 30th, and 
 more costly in lives than any since the day 
 the bomb fell on St. Gervais, March 29th — 
 Good Friday — during the musical service. 
 Singularly enough only one shot was fired 
 that day, but it was disastrous enough to 
 make the day forever memorable. 
 
 The greatest possible secrecy is still wisely 
 preserved about the result of these bom- 
 bardments as it is about the night raids of the 
 German avions, — from which, by the way, 
 Paris has been free since June 27th. No one 
 knows why — at least no one who tells. 
 Some say the Bodies are too busy elsewhere; 
 some that, at last, they lack material; some 
 that the air protection is now so perfected 
 that the Boche flyers can't get through. I 
 imagine any reason is more likely to be true 
 than the last. 
 
 It is much easier to preserve a kind of 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 localized secrecy regarding the night raids 
 than it is regarding the bombardments by 
 the Big Bertha, which occur in broad day- 
 light. During the bombardments 'of this 
 month, for example, every one knows just 
 where the shells fell, because they were well 
 within the city, and in places to which men on 
 the boulevards could hurry before the fire 
 department had time to clean up. When one 
 fell, in the early afternoon of a beautiful day, 
 in the rue des Capucines, just a step off the 
 grand boulevards, it was hardly possible to 
 conceal the fact, any more than it was on 
 another day when shells fell in a line across 
 the city, from the Invalides on one side of 
 the Seine, to the Avenue Marceau on the 
 other. You will be especially interested in 
 the latter achievement, as the line crossed the 
 Avenue Marceau not far from the place 
 where I was living with Virginia in 1899, 
 when you came there to see me. One bomb 
 fell in the rue Bassano just opposite the old 
 place. 
 
 That makes me think — did I ever tell 
 you that the Big Bertha reached the Made- 
 leine one day? I am sure that I did not. I 
 would not then have dared. I am bolder 
 now. The shot came in. from the rue Tron- 
 chet and decapitated the statue of some 
 saint — I forget which one, — and made a 
 hole in the pavement in front of it. 
 
 Paris would not be Paris if it did not get 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 some fun out of the Incident. Almost as 
 soon as the head rolled down the steps the 
 story ran along the boulevards that the Big 
 Bertha had decapitated a woman at the 
 Madeleine. People ran to see. There was a 
 crowd, and It was really quite a while before 
 any one saw the joke, — If It was one. 
 
 It was the 9th — a week ago to-day — that 
 I was In Paris, on my way to Versailles, with 
 the Big Bertha still at work. I lunched that 
 day with a New York friend, just over from 
 London, and having his first experience of 
 a city under bombardment. He had been 
 about to look at the damage done on the two 
 previous days, and expressed a mild surprise 
 when I said that no one considered these 
 bombardments of any military Importance. 
 
 "Why," he ejaculated, "how can you say 
 that? There were hundreds of thousands 
 worth of damage done yesterday alone, and 
 I don't know how many people killed, but 
 'they say' nearly a hundred. That seems 
 to me an act of war quite worth while." 
 
 I asked him If he had seen any signs of 
 demoralization. 
 
 "Well, no," he replied, "but Pve not 
 seen any one who liked It." 
 
 I had to own that I supposed that no one 
 did — I don't myself. But the Important 
 thing is that they put up with It. The streets 
 are not deserted and they are calm. 
 
 He had to admit that this was quite true, 
 
 [ 14 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and even to confess that London was much 
 sadder than Paris. Well, for that matter, it 
 always Is, even In peace times. 
 
 The Germans celebrated my return home 
 by an air raid on Thursday night. It seemed 
 to be directed toward Paris, but it did not get 
 there, although it did some smashing work 
 in the suburbs. They seem to be giving 
 Paris a long rest, but we hear of them every 
 day at Calais or Dunkirk or Boulogne, and 
 even at Rouen. We are having the kind of 
 nights that we used to call Ideal for them — 
 moon bright, air clear. But we have learned 
 since then that all weather Is the same for 
 them — except rain or snow. They came 
 over us again last night, and for an hour the 
 barrage was diabolical. I always tell myself 
 that I will lie quietly in bed. But it Is impos- 
 sible. I simply can't. So I get up, put on a 
 wrap, and sit on the edge of the bed, and try 
 to read by the light of a small electric lamp. 
 Last night it was evidently not Paris for 
 which they headed, for when I put out my 
 little lamp, and looked out, I could see the 
 searchlights getting themselves tangled up 
 in the sky trying to spot the Boche, whom 
 I could hear east of us, although I could not 
 see him. 
 
 On the nth, I had the pleasure of seeing 
 thousands of German prisoners marching 
 over the hill In the direction of Paris. I 
 happened to be on the road when I saw the 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 head of the column coming round the curve 
 at the top of the hill. As the line stretched 
 out I wondered what it was, and then I saw 
 people running toward the road from the 
 fields. When I saw the round caps and 
 green coats I realized that it was the prison- 
 ers being brought in from the American sector 
 and I stopped the cart to watch them pass. 
 We have seen a good many German prisoners 
 here, but never before anything like that. 
 It was an army marching four abreast — 
 officers as well as men, swinging their arms 
 as they came on in perfect order. Here and 
 there on either side of the road marched a 
 poilu, with his gun on his shoulder, and along 
 the road the peasants stood gazing at them 
 with silent, Indifferent curiosity. No one said 
 a word or made a sign. Once or twice a 
 military automobile passed carrying an of- 
 ficer toward the front, and I noted that he 
 never so much as raised his eyes or turned 
 his head to look at them. I suppose he was 
 more used to seeing them than I was. 
 
 I wish you could see my woodpile. I have 
 been gathering it from anywhere and every- 
 where since last spring. I propose to be 
 warm this winter, and that my house shall 
 look gayer than It has in the past four years. 
 Great fires will *' up my chimney roar,'' 
 though I don't expect the stranger will find 
 much in the way of a feast on my board. I 
 regret to tell you that they are cutting the 
 [ i6 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 trees on the canal, which changes the out- 
 look from the lawn. Still, as it opens spaces, 
 through which I can see more of the Marne 
 than I used to, it does not make it any the 
 less pretty. I hated to see the trees fall, 
 but still as it was being done, I bought my 
 share, and the refugies are getting it in for 
 me. It is getting to be a very handsome 
 woodpile, but I am paying for it by the pound 
 ■ — it really is that, though it looks better as 
 they put it "by the hundred kilos" so you 
 do not need to be told that something else 
 beside great fires are going to roar up my 
 chimneys. Anyway, when you think of me 
 this winter, you can think of me as warm, and 
 the house as cheery and comfy. 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
11 
 
 August 30, iQiS 
 I HAVE had a rather exciting fortnight 
 since I last wrote you. To begin with, the 
 war movements have kept us keyed up to con- 
 cert pitch every day. But I imagine that Is 
 the normal condition of the whole world. 
 I am sure that you in the States must have 
 been keenly feeling the situation, and per- 
 haps more than we do, since it Is new to you. 
 With our boys out there fighting like demons, 
 and already on the Vesle, with that pocket 
 between the Marne and Vesle cleared out, 
 with the French In the outskirts of Noyon, 
 with the Australians before Peronne, we 
 are feeling uplifted, but I know that on your 
 side of the ocean, where the casualty lists are 
 a new experience, you are probably less calm 
 than we are, who are so used to it. 
 
 I cannot find exactly the right words to 
 express the absolute calm which reigns here. 
 It seems at times almost unnatural to me. 
 I can't quite understand It in myself. I sup- 
 pose it must be explained by the four years 
 of suffering, and perhaps relief from a sort 
 of subconscious fear, to which no one was 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 willing to confess, and to the appalling — 
 there Is no other word for It — sacrifices 
 which the French have had to make. Calm 
 seems to be fixed on them all, and, as it is 
 contagious, I seem also to fall under It. 
 
 I have often thought — I may have said 
 this to you before — it is so hard for me to 
 keep track of what I write — that the French 
 will never fully realize their losses in their 
 naked truth until the army comes marching 
 back. Only then, I fear, when women and 
 children see other men return and their own 
 not in the ranks, will a full understanding 
 come to them. Do you realize — but of 
 course you can't — that there are women 
 about me here whose men v/ere reported 
 " missing" in the first terrible days of August 
 and September, 19 14, and who confidently 
 hope to see them return? That happened 
 in 1870. Why not again? Some of these 
 hopes may be justified, but alas, how few! 
 This time the work of the Red Cross at Ge- 
 neva and the untiring effort of the King of 
 Spain make one feel that, except under most 
 extraordinary circumstances, the missing who 
 have survived must have been mostly traced. 
 
 I have had a queer experience since I 
 wrote to you. It was almost an adventure, 
 with elements which might be suggestive to 
 a play-maker. I have hesitated about writ- 
 ing it to you. Still, It may interest you, and 
 it is an illuminating phase of war, a thing 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 which may happen often In any army, so here 
 it is. 
 
 In the afternoon of the 21st — that was 
 Wednesday of last week — just before sun- 
 down, I was going out of the gate to get 
 Dick from Amehe's, where he had been 
 having his supper with KikI, when I saw, 
 coming up the hill from Voisins, a soldier 
 wearing the American uniform. He was 
 walking close to the hedge by my garden, 
 and did not see me until he was almost at the 
 gate. 
 
 I ought to preface this by emphasizing, 
 what you probably surmise, that any man 
 wearing the American khaki Is a sort of 
 little god for me, to whom all homage is 
 due, and who has a perfect right to anything 
 of mine, if he wants It. That they are not 
 all en regie and perfect Bayards of heroism 
 — sans peur et sans reproche — had never 
 occurred to me. 
 
 I had supposed that I still looked too 
 American to escape detection from my coun- 
 trymen. Evidently, however, my environ- 
 ment colours me. At any rate, as he saw me, 
 he stopped, smiled, pointed to a cigarette 
 case I carried in my hand, pointed to himself, 
 and with a marked Interrogatory tone said 
 the one word : 
 
 ^'Cigarette?" 
 
 "Of course, '^ I replied with a laugh. 
 "Won't you come in?" 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 He looked at me, a bit dazed, and said 
 in evident astonishment: "You speak 
 English?" 
 
 " Rather," I answered. 
 
 "You're English?" 
 
 " Not at all. I am as good an American 
 as you are." And I held out the cigarette 
 case, adding, " If you are out of smokes come 
 In and let me fill your pocket. I always keep 
 them for the boys of all the armies." 
 
 After an Imperceptible hesitation he 
 laughed and followed me Into the salon, 
 where I gave him cigarettes and a light. 
 Then, as was perfectly natural, I asked him 
 to what branch of the service he belonged, 
 because, while he was perfectly neat and 
 well dressed, there was no Insignia on his 
 uniform to show his division or rank. 
 
 He said he was an aviator. 
 
 Mind you, there were plenty of things 
 about this interview which seemed clear to 
 me afterward, but I must Impress it on 
 you again that up to that day I would have 
 taken the word of any boy In the Ameri- 
 can uniform. I always have to learn by 
 experience. 
 
 It was quite natural for me to ask him 
 where he came from. He answered without 
 hesitation: "From Le B ," nam- 
 ing a well known aviation camp, not far from 
 Paris. 
 
 I asked him where he had landed, and he 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 pointed to the east, and said : " Just over 
 there." 
 
 "At Quincy?" I asked, giving him the 
 word quite naturally, and he nodded an 
 acquiescence. 
 
 As there is a broad plain there, where 
 more than one aviator had made a landing, 
 that sounded all right. 
 
 He did not seem to be making much con- 
 versation, so, to keep it up, I asked him some 
 more questions. The first was, unfortu- 
 nately, indiscreet — I asked him what he was 
 doing here all alone. The instant the ques- 
 tion was out of my mouth I knew that I had 
 no business to ask It. So I was not surprised 
 when. Instead of answering, he lighted a 
 match and took another cigarette. Under 
 the cover of which, and to conceal my con- 
 fusion, I asked his name. 
 
 He replied without hesitation that his 
 
 name was Robert W , and volunteered 
 
 the Information that his father was at the 
 head of some big oil wells — never mind 
 where. You will understand later why I am 
 no more explicit. To my question as to what 
 he did in civil life, he said that he was a 
 chauffeur. "That is to say," he added, 
 " I own several big cars and take rich people 
 out on long joy rides." 
 
 That sounded all right, and he looked the 
 job. He was a tall, straight, well set-up lad, 
 in, I judged, his early twenties. I couldn't 
 
 [ " ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 be quite sure of his class — I often can't with 
 Americans. The type I did not think about 
 until later. While he seemed perfectl)^ frank, 
 and was absolutely at his ease, he was not as 
 talkative as most of the boys from home 
 whom I have run across over here. I thought 
 instinctively of the Marines I saw here, who, 
 in two minutes, had told me all about home 
 and family, their school days, their careers 
 and their girls. He answered my questions 
 with perfect ease and good nature, but I 
 could not call him expansive. 
 
 With no reason which I could explain I 
 felt nervous, and disliked myself for it. It 
 did not seem quite according to Hoyle that 
 a boy of his age, belonging to the Flying 
 Corps, with no flying Insignia on his collar 
 or his cap, should be roaming about alone 
 Inside the war zone. So I put to him what 
 seemed to me the crucial question: *' Of 
 course you have reported to the militaiy 
 post?" 
 
 ''Oh, yes," he replied, "and I have an 
 appointment with a French officer down 
 there," and he indicated the direction of 
 Volslns, from which he was coming when I 
 first saw him. 
 
 But," I said, "there Is no military post 
 at Voisins." 
 
 "All I know," he replied, "Is that I am 
 to meet an officer there who speaks English, 
 at nine o'clock." 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It was at that time eight. I dismissed my 
 doubts from my mind. What did I know 
 about mlHtary matters, or secret missions 
 or the habits of the Flying Corps? So, 
 when he said to me : *' I wonder If you know 
 where I could get a bed for the night?" 
 adding " I can't get away until morning, and 
 there seems to be no hotel about here," 
 though, instinctively, I did not care to take 
 him here, I said that my housekeeper could 
 put him up, and I led him to Amelie's. 
 
 All the children on the hill turned out to 
 watch him go by, to gaze at him In admira- 
 tion and salute him — an American soldier 
 Is a hero to them. 
 
 We found Amelle feeding her rabbits, and 
 I said: "Amelle, let me present to you 
 
 Robert W of the American Air service. 
 
 He has just come down at Quincy, and wants 
 a bed for the night. Will you please to make 
 him comfortable, and give him his coffee In 
 the morning? I presume he will want to get 
 off early." 
 
 So Amelle said, "certainly," and led him In 
 to show him his room, asking me to explain 
 to him that she would leave the door open, 
 and a lamp on the kitchen table and he could 
 come In when he liked. 
 
 He thanked her prettily In English, which 
 she smilingly pretended to understand — she 
 did understand the Intention — and he walked 
 back with me to the garden, where he sat 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 quietly, talking, practically about nothing — 
 I could not afterward remember one thing 
 he had said, except that the view was pretty 
 — until a quarter to nine, when he bade me 
 "good night" and strolled down the hill to 
 Vdisins. 
 
 As I looked after him, I noticed that he 
 walked close to the hedge as he had done in 
 coming up the hill. 
 
 I came into the house, and, oddly enough, 
 at once forgot all about him, nor did I again 
 think of him until Amelie came in the morn- 
 ing when she volunteered the information 
 that he had come in at midnight, that he had 
 taken a "big bath," and she had left him 
 over his coffee, and he had a hearty appetite, 
 and after a moment, she added: "I am 
 afraid, Madame, that he had no dinner last 
 night. Do you know that the poor lad has 
 not a sou? He made me understand that 
 when I showed him his breakfast tray — he 
 emptied his pockets, nothing in them. He 
 has not got even a revolver. I made him 
 understand that he was to eat — I did not 
 want his money. But isn't it a bit queer for 
 an aviator like that to be flying around with- 
 out a sou in his pockets ? " 
 
 I rather thought it was. Still, I had seen 
 Americans before with empty pockets, — 
 some even whose pockets had been empty for 
 months. 
 
 I was still at the table, over my own coffee, 
 
 [ 25 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 when he came Into the garden, and I told 
 Amelle to send him in. He came and stood 
 in the doorway of the dining-room, to thank 
 me for my hospitality, and to ask me to con- 
 vey properly his thanks to Amelie. His 
 manner was absolutely correct. He assured 
 me that it had been a great pleasure to en- 
 counter a fellow countrywoman so unexpect- 
 edly in a little French hamlet like this, and 
 that it would be a joy to him to tell his chums 
 at the camp about it, and that he hoped later 
 to have the happiness of coming back to see 
 me, and bringing some of the boys with him. 
 Then he shook hands with me, and passed 
 through the kitchen to shake hands with 
 Amelie, and started down the hill toward 
 Voisins. 
 
 On the way out of the gate he met Louise 
 coming In. It Vv^as a Thursday — her day for 
 working In the garden. She was still at the 
 gate, gazing after him when I appeared In 
 the doorway. 
 
 " Good morning, Madame," she said. 
 "What's that chap doing here?" 
 
 I explained that he was an American avi- 
 ator who had come down at Quincy, and 
 that he had slept at Amelie's, and was on 
 his way back to his machine. 
 
 Louise stared at me. Then she made one 
 of those queer, derisive, upward jerks with 
 her elbow — you know the gesture — and 
 said, vAth an expressive grunt: "Not much 
 
 [ 26 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 he is n't. No avion has landed at Quincy for 
 weeks. Why that chap has been hanging 
 around here for almost a week. He does n't 
 care much to be seen — except by the women. 
 I've been watching him, and I notice that 
 whenever a soldier is in sight, or an automo- 
 bile, he hides. I've seen him lying in bushes 
 by the roadside. They say he can't speak 
 more than two words of French. He has n't 
 any money. He has eaten in half a dozen 
 houses — welcome for his beaux yeux and 
 his uniform, I suppose. Of course it is a fine 
 thing to be a good-looking youngster in an 
 American uniform, I can tell you, in these 
 days, and plenty of the girls down below 
 have been trailing round with that lad in the 
 woods down on the Pave de Roize. All I 
 can say is that he'd better look to himself if 
 any of our boys come home en permission 
 before he lights out." 
 
 I stood perfectly aghast during this tirade, 
 and once Louise is started nothing stops the 
 torrent of words but lack of breath. You 
 know there is nothing sentimental about 
 Louise. All the suspicions against which I 
 had struggled flashed through my mind with 
 the rapidity of a cinema film. Behind them 
 rushed things of which I had not thought. 
 His name of four letters might be spelled 
 in two ways — one English, one German, 
 and both equally common in the States. His 
 blonde good looks were distinctly German, 
 
 [ 27 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 though of a type so familiar to us that we 
 rarely think of its origin. 
 
 To make the situation more tormenting 
 for me I remembered that we had already 
 been warned that German avians were land- 
 ing spies behind the lines, and, for reasonsT 
 which I dare not write you just now, the 
 presence of a German spy here, at this mo- 
 ment, would be rather — shall I say, 
 annoying? 
 
 I was terribly perplexed. This was a sort 
 of dilemma I had never expected to encoun- 
 ter. I had acted in perfect good faith in put- 
 ting him up. Only you see there is a formal 
 order against harbouring any passers-by 
 whose papers have not been properly exam- 
 ined and stamped by civil or military author- 
 ities. I 'knew perfectly well that if he had 
 not been an American I should have man- 
 aged to see his papers. But with that idea, 
 of which I told you, that anything in Yankee 
 uniform was all right, I had accepted his 
 assurance that he had seen the military com- 
 mander and let it go at that. 
 
 Of course I knew that he might be a de- 
 serter — but then he might be the other thing. 
 I hated the word deserter. I don't know 
 which I had rather he turned out to be. 
 
 It takes me much longer to tell you this 
 
 than it did for me to decide what to do. I 
 
 knew that, with the fondness there is among 
 
 these simple people for the Americans, he 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 was sure of food and a certain kind of pro- 
 tection until some accident brought him to 
 the notice of the authorities, who are the 
 very last persons to hear of this sort of thing. 
 If he were a clever spy he would see all he 
 wanted to and could wait about until the 
 avion that landed him — if one had — could 
 get him off. Having no money might be part 
 of the clever game. 
 
 "Amelie," I called out, as I ran to the 
 house, "put Ninette into the cart. I am 
 going for a little drive," and I hurried in, 
 put a long coat over my morning dress, tied 
 a big veil over my cap, and grabbing my 
 gloves and whip, ran for the stable, and 
 fifteen minutes after the lad had left my gate 
 I was on my way to the military post at 
 Quincy. I had to laugh at the idea of hurry- 
 ing, for nothing, even the cry " the country is 
 In danger," would hurry Ninette. 
 
 I looked all along the road for the boy. 
 No sign of him. As I approached the cha- 
 teau, where I could see across the plain, I 
 scanned it with my glass — there was no 
 aeroplane in sight. 
 
 At the military post I found the Major, 
 and explained the situation. He took the 
 story as seriously as I could ask. He walked 
 excitedly up and down the room in deep 
 thought before he said: "I am inclined to 
 think the boy Is a deserter — there are a lot 
 of them. You see an American deserter 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 seems to be a very special article. It is not 
 that they desert from cowardice. They are 
 not accustomed yet to military discipline. 
 Sometimes they get ugly at being reproved — 
 run away in a temper — don't realize what 
 they are doing until it is too late — or — so 
 I am told — most frequently of all, they get 
 bored In camp and run away hoping to get 
 to the front, and ' get in it,' as they call it. 
 Then they get lost and turn up in odd places. 
 Anyway, once they light out — for no matter 
 what reason — they don't seem to know how 
 to get back. As a rule we don't care to in- 
 terfere. It is a matter for the American 
 police. But, considering the situation here, 
 I think we must know who he Is." 
 
 So he rang up the gendarmerie at Esbly, 
 and explained the case to the captain. That 
 done, he said to me : " If the lad comes back 
 to you, you had better take him in, without 
 asking any questions, treat him exactly as 
 you did yesterday — and manage to get word 
 to me, and we will come and take him. Is 
 he armed at all? " 
 
 I told him that I thought not; he wore 
 no revolver, and that Amelie had said that 
 he had none. She had seen him turn out his 
 pockets. So he said that was all right — 
 there was nothing to worry about, — and 
 he thanked me, and I came home, feeling 
 anything but happy. 
 
 I felt pretty certain that he would not re- 
 
 [ 30 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 turn to my house, for, Innocent as he had 
 found me of any suspicions, he had closed 
 up his story so well that he had better not 
 re-open it here. I could not help wondering 
 what he had done between nine o'clock and 
 midnight of the night before. Anyway, I 
 felt certain that he would not risk a second 
 visit even for a good bed and a breakfast. 
 However, I hunted up a wheel, and a boy to 
 ride it, if necessary, without explaining at 
 all. 
 
 At tea time Amelie remarked that Louise 
 was evidently perfectly right about the boy, 
 as she had seen him about three o'clock 
 going across the field north of my garden, 
 and had been told that he had spent a couple 
 of hours in the garden of a retired French 
 Commandant who lives in what we call the 
 " Chateau de Huiry " — you know the largest 
 house in a French hamlet Is always known 
 as the " chateau," even when It Is only a 
 modest villa. 
 
 I was distressed, but I had to do my duty. 
 So I trudged round by the road — I hated to 
 do It — and asked the Commandant, who, 
 in his shirt sleeves, was working In the gar- 
 den, If the American boy had been there. 
 The Commandant, a handsome old chap, 
 who lives like a recluse, having nothing to do 
 with his neighbours, — is a grumpy charac- 
 ter. He answered that an American soldier 
 had been there, but In a tone that said plainly 
 
 [ 31 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 that it was none of my business. I explained 
 that I wanted to see the lad, and asked him, 
 in case he should turn up again, if he would 
 be so kind as to let me know. 
 
 I rather imagine the old chap had had his 
 own suspicions aroused. If he had not, I 
 don't know why he should have jumped at me 
 as he did. He accused me of hunting the boy 
 down. I was at some pains to explain the 
 situation, which seemed to me simple — that 
 no American soldier could hope to roam 
 aimlessly about in the war zone without the 
 risk of being, sooner or later, asked to show 
 his papers. That was all I wanted. 
 
 "You had him in your house yesterday," 
 remarked the Commandant. "Why didn't 
 you see them then? " 
 
 I had to confess that I had been silly 
 enough to accept the story he told, but that I 
 found out afterward that it was untrue. I 
 wanted to know why he had lied. 
 
 "Are you afraid?" asked the Comman- 
 dant. 
 
 "A'fraldofwhat?" 
 
 "You have only to lock your doors if 
 you are afraid he will come back," he growled. 
 
 " I am afraid he won't come back," I 
 replied, "that's why I came here to ask you 
 to send him to me If you saw him." 
 
 "Well," he added, going back to his dig- 
 ging, " I reckon he 's harmless." 
 
 "That may be," I said, "but I think we 
 
 [ 32 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 had better make sure of that. If his papers 
 are in order it will not hurt him to show 
 them. If they are not, then he is either a 
 deserter or a spy. I propose to find out 
 which, if I can." 
 
 The Commandant snapped out something 
 to the effect that it was an unpretty business 
 for a woman to be hunting down one of 
 her own compatriots, to which I made the 
 obvious response : 
 
 "That is just it. Is he an American? 
 He is wearing the uniform, and all I want to 
 know is whether he has the right to wear it. 
 If he wore the bleu d'horizon I should leave 
 him to your discretion." And I marched out 
 of the garden, feeling as uncomfortable as 
 possible. I had done what seemed to me my 
 duty. I left it at that. 
 
 However, before night I heard of him 
 again. Louise stopped on her way back from 
 the fields to say that he had his supper with 
 one of her neighbors on the heights of Voi- 
 sins. I had not told her that we were look- 
 ing for him. I told no one, except the Com- 
 mandant, and there was no danger of his 
 telling any one. He never speaks to any one 
 if he can avoid it. So it looked as if there 
 were every chance of his hanging about until 
 the gendarmes arrived. 
 
 Early the next morning — before I was up 
 — the Captain of the gendarmes knocked at 
 my door. I slipped on a big coat and went 
 
 [ 33 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 down to talk with him. He seemed inclined 
 to think the lad was simply a deserter. So 
 after he heard what I had to say he went on 
 to Quincy to talk with the officers of the 
 military post and the mayor. I supposed 
 my part was done. 
 
 But can you imagine anything more absurd 
 than for a lad to desert in a warring country, 
 when he does not speak a word of the lan- 
 guage, and without a sou in his pocket? 
 The boy was intelligent, you know. It 
 seemed to me pretty terrible for him, and if 
 he were a deserter, it seemed to me the 
 sooner he was run down the better for his 
 own sake. 
 
 I tried to dismiss the thing from my mind, 
 but I was not allowed to, for in the afternoon 
 the mayor sent word, asking me to meet 
 him, at an unfinished house at the top of the 
 hill, at the Demi-Lune. That innocent- 
 looking, apparently empty house conceals a 
 military post with telephone, telegraph, 
 rockets for signalling, and inside, day and 
 night, there is a guard of soldiers. There 
 was no one but me here who could act as in- 
 terpreter if they ran him down. 
 
 There, before the telephone, in an empty 
 room with stacks of guns, and huge rockets 
 standing in the corners, we sat for an hour 
 trying to find some trace of where the boy 
 came from. The aviation camp at Le B — 
 had no record of any such person as Robert 
 
 [ 34 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 W , name spelt either way — and no 
 
 aviator was missing who corresponded to 
 our description of him. So we ended by 
 calling up the headquarters at Meaux, and 
 reported the case, and I walked home. 
 
 Half an hour after I left the post the 
 lad was discovered lying at his ease against 
 the bank behind that empty house, under a 
 wall eight feet high built on top of the bank, 
 which Is steep. He was not fifty feet from 
 the open window beside which was the tele- 
 phone at which we had been talking. Four 
 soldiers had tried to creep up on him, but he 
 saw them and did a pas de gymnastique 
 which was a brilliant success. He sprang at 
 the wall, from what must have been a mis- 
 erable footing, and went over. Not one of 
 the French soldiers could follow, and there 
 being no gate on that side, they had to make 
 a wide detour, and although they sprinted 
 for It, by the time they were around, he had 
 disappeared. 
 
 That was the end of his being seen about 
 here. He had understood that he was 
 wanted. All sorts of rumours flew about 
 when it was known that the gendarmes from 
 Meaux and Esbly were after him. Some 
 said he was hiding in the woods on the canal, 
 where the Uhlans hid In September, 19 14, 
 when the Yorkshires and Bedfords were here 
 before the opening of the first battle of the 
 Marne. All sorts of suspicions were afloat 
 
 [ 35 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 regarding a girl who was supposed to be 
 going Into the woods at night to feed him, 
 which would have been easy to do. There 
 were even people who claimed to have heard 
 the Boche avion arrive in the night to take 
 him off. Anyway, he had vanished into 
 space, and apparently left no trace, and im- 
 agination being a French quality, no one 
 wanted the incident to end tamely, as It 
 seemed to have done. 
 
 Then, suddenly, one morning, we heard 
 that he had been caught, and put Into the 
 prison at Esbly, until the American Mili- 
 tary Police could take him over. Almost the 
 next minute we heard that he had broken 
 out of prison the first night, and the gen- 
 darmes were after him again. Twenty- 
 four hours later they had caught him 
 again. 
 
 And that's all. 
 
 I am glad that I am a long way off, so that 
 you can't throw anything at me. 
 
 No, I don't know whether he was a de- 
 serter or a spy, and I don't know what be- 
 came of him. I didn't like not being able to 
 have any sequel to the incident any better 
 than you will. 
 
 The next time I met the mayor I took the 
 liberty of asking about it. He shrugged his 
 shoulders and spread out his hands — that 
 was all. I got for my pains. I felt as if I had 
 been to see an exciting melodrama, and been 
 
 [ 36 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 told when the curtain fell on the fourth act 
 that the fifth act had been lost and the au- 
 thor was dead. It was more irritating than 
 "Edwin Drood," and only interesting to 
 you as showing the sort of thing that can 
 happen in a thinly populated country in these 
 days when the smallest incident out of the 
 common gets projected into great visibility. 
 One can hide in a city. It is difficult in the 
 country. 
 
 Apart from that nothing Very exciting 
 has happened here. We are still kept aware 
 of the continued activity of the Germans in 
 the air by an occasional barrage In broad 
 daylight, which is a novelty, and evidently 
 means that the Boche observers are trying 
 to photograph, although why, at this late 
 day, they should be observing so far behind 
 the lines is hard to understand, unless some- 
 thing is going on of which we are ignorant. 
 We saw something rather unusual on the 
 morning of the 2 2d. I was In the garden at 
 the top of the hill cutting flowers. Suddenly 
 the guns at the forts at Chelles and Vaucluse 
 began to bark — the guns of the D.C.A. 
 have a very different sound from any others. 
 I straightened up and looked off to the west, 
 just as Amelie appeared In the kitchen door, 
 and called: "A barrage! Come into the 
 house this minute." 
 
 Before I could obey Abelard came running 
 down the hill, calling, as he pointed into the 
 
 [ 37 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 air: *'Just over the house. Look quick — 
 there they are ! " 
 
 I looked up, and there, high in the sky, 
 right over the salon chimney, a group of 
 round white puffs were widening, thinning 
 and floating away, like fluffs of cotton wool. 
 While I was watching them, fascinated by 
 the idea, that right over us, invisible to 
 our naked eyes, a German avion had passed 
 pursued by the shrapnel from the fort, came 
 a second volley, and a little to the north of 
 the fading white puffs floating so innocently 
 over us, a second group appeared, and began 
 to swell and float, and then a third one, still 
 more to the north, and we realized that the 
 invader was making for the frontier — and 
 had escaped. 
 
 It was a lovely morning. I cannot tell 
 you what a strange sensation it gave me to 
 stand out there in the sunlight, looking over 
 such a peaceful scene, and up into such a 
 pretty sky, and to see those soft white balls 
 floating away, and realize what it meant. We 
 have seen the same thing several times since, 
 and once on a cloudy day, when the bursting 
 shrapnel projected against the white clouds 
 looked almost black. Alas ! we have never 
 seen a machine brought down. The only 
 explanation of an experience like this so late 
 in the war is a tremendous amount of move- 
 ment on our roads. 
 
 I am planning to go to Versailles again for 
 
 [ 38 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 at least one Sunday. The place is still full 
 of American soldiers, but there are com- 
 paratively few visitors. So it is an ideal 
 time to go. I shall not go before next week 
 and shall be back by the first of September. 
 
 [ 39 ] 
 
Ill 
 
 September 12, IQ18 
 
 It seems to me that I have been terribly 
 busy since I last wrote to you, yet I cannot 
 truthfully say that I have accomplished a 
 great deal. Perhaps it is because I move 
 about so much more freely than I used, that 
 I feel busier than I really am. Now that the 
 Commander of the Fifth Army gives me a 
 sauf conduit good for three months, and I 
 can, for the first time in over three years, go 
 wherever I like, quite freed from all the for- 
 malities and red tape that so long made 
 leaving my gate difficult, it may be that I feel 
 as if I moved round more than I really do. 
 
 I came back from Versailles on the first, 
 as I told you I should. I brought a visitor 
 with me — an American journalist — the 
 very first person who has succeeded in get- 
 ting a permit to come here for many long 
 months. The power of the Press is mighty. 
 
 I don't believe you can imagine what a 
 great event a visitor was for us. We have 
 had callers — military, usually — but this 
 was our first visitor since 191 5, — unless I 
 call officers who are cantooned here visitors. 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 The event had Its humorous side — and 
 the humour was consoHng. 
 
 When I went to Paris, on the afternoon 
 of August 30th, I left the hill looking quite 
 warlike. When I came back forty-eight 
 hours later, it was as if a wand had been 
 waved, with the talismanic " presto-change ! " 
 Every sign of military operations had dis- 
 appeared. I can't tell you the impression 
 the change made on me, but I am sure you 
 can realize how wonderfully comforting it 
 was, since the change and the calm said "All 
 goes well at the front." 
 
 Of course, as the man from New York 
 had come down to sniff at the war zone, it 
 was really rather a joke on him. He thought 
 the joke was on me. 
 
 One thing, at least, it does allow me — 
 that is the chance of explaining to you why 
 we were so disturbed by the presence here 
 of a possible spy, of which I wrote you in 
 my last letter. 
 
 For many, many weeks, as I told you in the 
 summer, our road has been given over to 
 the army movements. It Is the direct road 
 to Rheims, Solssons, and Chateau-Thierry, 
 Verdun, and many other points on the front. 
 Over It thousands of American as well as 
 French troops have passed on the way to the 
 Marne. In fact It had become what the mili- 
 tary calls a ^^ Route Gardee^^^ — patrolled 
 and picketed. 
 
 [ 41 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 All the way from St. Germain to Meaux 
 about every thirty yards, on both sides of the 
 road, tall posts held up huge signs on which 
 in large letters were printed the words : 
 
 ROUTE GARDEE ROUTE GARD6E ROUTE GARDEE 
 TENEZ a DROITE °^ NE STATIONNEZ PAS °^ NE DOUBLEZ PAS 
 
 At the entrance to St. Germain, at Couilly, 
 at Quincy, as well as at the top of our hill, 
 big board signs bore the name of the town, 
 at the entrance of the town on the right hand 
 side of the road, and at the exit on the left, 
 while big arrows indicated the direction of 
 Paris, Meaux, Melun, Coulommiers, — all 
 done In characters so big that drivers of 
 flying automobiles, so many of them stran- 
 gers and travelling by maps, could read, 
 without slackening speed, v/here they were 
 and whither they were headed. Signs 
 printed with equal clearness Indicated at 
 the entrance to each town the presence of 
 a military post, and the location of repair 
 shop, the doctor, the military hospital, the 
 cantine, and the commander of the post. 
 But for that matter all France, from the 
 entrance to the war zone to the front, is 
 similarly ornamented, and many of the 
 roads resemble the approaches to a circus 
 ground. 
 
 More Important than all here was the fact 
 that, at the foot of our hill. In the yard of 
 the railway station, was a huge ammunition 
 park, and, at the corner, where the road 
 
 [ 42 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 turns off to approach the front of the station, 
 and at the entrance to the station-yard, were 
 huge signs, painted red and blue in triangular 
 sections, on which in white letters — making 
 the tricolors, — with a huge hand pointed 
 into the station-yard, — were the cabalistic 
 initials which told the camion drivers that 
 this was an ammunition depot for both heavy 
 and light artillery. 
 
 To and from the front, by night as well 
 as by day, ever since the big offensive began, 
 heavy camions and lorries have rushed up 
 and down the hill, making it more than 
 usually difficult for us to use the road. You 
 can judge from this that it hardly seemed 
 comforting to me to think of a possible 
 spy being around, and that will explain to 
 you why I was a bit nervous over the possi- 
 bility when the roving American soldier, 
 about whom I wrote you, turned up here. I 
 had a vision of what Couilly would look like 
 if a flyer let fall a bomb on the railway sta- 
 tion one night, as one did on La Ferte-sur- 
 Jouarre in July. 
 
 I did not dare explain this to you in my last 
 letter. This time I risk it. This was the 
 condition when I started for Paris, en route 
 for Versailles. But, thank the gods, things 
 have changed since then. 
 
 Oh, before I forget it, I must tell you 
 something — the sort of thing for which ygu 
 are always so eager — about our boys. The 
 
 [ 43 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 truth Is, I never see one of them strolHng 
 along the road — just out for a walk from 
 some near-by camp, — that I don't feel it to 
 be my duty to take a snap shot of him for 
 you. But, alas I no camera is allowed in the 
 war zone. 
 
 You must know that whenever I go to the 
 station to catch a train I always arrive at 
 least half an hour ahead of time. I have to 
 make a big allowance for fear that the road 
 may be full of camions, and that I may have 
 to make a detour by way of Moulignon. It 
 is a much prettier road, but it is half as long 
 again. I never mind waiting for the train, 
 as there Is always something going on at the 
 station, and it is rare that I do not find some 
 American boys there, 
 
 I am always — every day of life — thank- 
 ful that I am an old white-haired woman. 
 It gives me the blessed privilege of being able 
 to speak to them, and risk no misunderstand- 
 ing. I simply love to see their faces light up 
 at the sound of a greeting in English. They 
 give one look of surprise, and then they 
 simply drop to it, with a comprehensive 
 glance at the tiny American flag which I wear 
 In honour of the Chicago woman who sent It 
 across the big pond to me, and the Insignia 
 of the Red Cross under It, which Is all the 
 introduction I need. 
 
 As usual, the other morning, a number of 
 French poiliis and young girls of the village 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 were standing about, watching a group of 
 Americans. They — the French young 
 people — are always tremendously Interested 
 in the Americans, and by a sort of free-ma- 
 sonry, they seem to manage to carry on a 
 sort of conversation, consisting principally 
 of gestures and laughs. One thing that al- 
 ways surprises and amuses the French is to 
 see the American, before he gets down to 
 business, strip off his coat and roll his 
 shirtsleeves up to his elbows. There they 
 were this morning — although the day 
 was far from warm — In their thin khaki 
 shirts, with their sun-bronzed arms bare. 
 You 'd never catch a French soldier taking 
 off his jacket, although theirs are heavier 
 and longer and more cumbersome than those 
 worn by our boys. I am told, so strong is 
 the habit, that at the front, many of the 
 Americans stripped off their coats and threw 
 them away before going over the top, and I 
 can believe it, can't you ? 
 
 A group of American ca^nion drivers 
 stood near the station door, as I. drove up. 
 They turned to watch Ninette with amuse- 
 ment, then gave a quick start of surprise, 
 when I offered them the conventional greet- 
 ing: *'Hulloa, boys," and they simply 
 beamed on me. As I climbed out of the 
 little cart they came forward to shake hands. 
 
 A round-faced lad — a real mother's boy 
 — said: ^'You're an American?" 
 
 [ 45 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I said that I was — from Boston. 
 
 "How long have you been over?" he 
 asked, with a glance at the Red Cross pin. 
 I told him that I was afraid that I had been 
 over considerably longer than he had. 
 
 "You poor thing," he said. "When are 
 you going home?" 
 
 I told him that I did not know, and some- 
 how I did not add "perhaps never!" 
 
 " Lord," he sighed, " I wish you 'd go 
 to-morrow and take me with you." 
 
 "Oh," I said, "I'm sorry you don't like 
 It at all. I had hoped you boys would like 
 It a little — just enough to make you glad to 
 have seen It." 
 
 " Oh, It 's all right enough, I suppose. The 
 country is pretty, but I don't seem to hanker 
 for anything just now but good little old 
 United States," and he cast a wistful look 
 toward the west, as if out there he could see 
 it. I felt that I ought to be able to find the 
 right word unless I wanted to see him water 
 the sentiment with a few good old American 
 tears. I must confess that I did not hit It as 
 vv^ell as I might have, when I said : 
 
 " Oh, well, you may be going back to It 
 sooner than you dream. Besides, only think 
 how they are all adoring you over there, and 
 all the girls are preparing to go quite mad 
 about you when you go home, and the whole 
 country will give you such a home-coming 
 greeting that it will have been quite worth 
 
 [ 46 ] 
 
When Johnny Coimes Marching Home 
 
 while to have gone overseas for the joy of 
 being so cheered as you will be when you 
 march down Broadway again." 
 
 He looked vaguely west again, and almost 
 choked as he replied, with an attempt 
 to smile: "Lord! That will be a great 
 day, won't it? Wonder if I '11 be there? 
 There are more ways than one of ' going 
 west.' " 
 
 Luckily, one of his comrades clapped him 
 on the shoulder before I could reply, and 
 answered: 
 
 " You bet you '11 be there. We all shall,'^ 
 and then we all laughed. It was the easiest 
 thing to do. That was the first case of this 
 sort that I had ever met. I assure you that 
 a great many of the boys are having the 
 time of their lives, and are laying up ad- 
 ventures and hoarding memories which will 
 affect their whole existence, In spite of the 
 fact that the majority of them still have their 
 eyes fixed on home. I only tell you this, 
 just as I told you the story in my last letter, 
 because you are always asking for such 
 anecdotes. 
 
 Well, that was the way I left things when 
 I went down the hill. When I returned and 
 led my New York visitor up the hill — 
 everything was changed. Every sign of war 
 had disappeared as if by magic. The am- 
 munition park had gone. The Route Na- 
 tionale was no longer guarded. The big 
 
 [ 47 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 signs along the roadside had been taken 
 down — all save those indicating the names 
 of the towns and the directions. The mili- 
 tary post was no longer here. As we drove 
 up the hill we did not meet a single automo- 
 bile, let alone a camion. There was no sign 
 that there was a war, or had ever been one. 
 A few old men and women were working in 
 the fields. Otherwise the countryside looked 
 absolutely deserted. I was dumbfounded. 
 I never said a word, but I could actually feel 
 my visitor's mind going round. He did not 
 venture a remark until we drove up to the 
 gate. Then, as he helped me out of the 
 cart, he gave a great big guffaw, and said 
 two words: "You humbug I" 
 
 Now, I ask you, wasn't that cruel? 
 
 Amelie, who makes no secret of her relief 
 over the situation and is only afraid that it 
 may be temporary, said: '^Well, evidently 
 the bon Dieu said 'Look out! There is a 
 New York man who has no business down 
 here in the war zone. Get everything out 
 of sight, quick, so that he can't go back and 
 talk about things which are none of his 
 business.' " 
 
 Not only were all signs of war wiped out 
 here, but during the two days he remained 
 the heavy artillery was silent. Consequently 
 he had a quiet visit and I am afraid he was 
 disappointed. I felt that he did have some 
 just claim to be so. 
 
 [ 48 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I had hoped to divert him. So the next 
 day I took him across the Marne to show 
 him the big surgical hospital, and introduce 
 him to some of the brave women who have 
 been there so long. 
 
 When the car which was to take us across 
 the plain was at the gate, I asked which road 
 we should take — that through Meaux, or 
 by Esbly and over the new bridge by the way 
 of Trilbardou. He replied at once : 
 
 '' Oh, by Meaux, of course. That will be 
 more interesting. So many of our boys have 
 been there." 
 
 So by Meaux we went. 
 
 I had only hesitated because, although 
 Meaux is a sort of joke to the French ever 
 since the great success of ^^ Madame et Son 
 FilleuV at the Theatre du Palais Royal, 
 dating back to the days before it was ever 
 bombarded, it is usually terribly crowded. 
 The last time I had been there it was full 
 of troops and camions, so that it was not a 
 pleasant experience to get across the town 
 from the Marne to the route de Senlis. But 
 on that day I found Meaux as much changed 
 as the Hilltop. It was like a sleeping village 
 — streets empty — most of the civilians had 
 gone during the spring offensive and many 
 had not returned — no camions, almost no 
 soldiers, except those from the hospitals. 
 We slipped through the silent streets, under 
 the railway bridge, out into the open coun- 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 try. Then we looked at one another and 
 laughed. 
 
 If my New York friend had wanted to 
 take another rise out of me I should have 
 been perfectly willing. My heart simply 
 sang within me. Never since 19 14 had 
 Meaux looked like that. To me it said 
 plainly, as if written in big letters on all the 
 trees rushing by us on either side of the road, 
 that the retreating battle front was, so far 
 as we were concerned, definitive. I drew 
 long breaths and enjoyed myself, feeling that 
 we, who have by turns, for so many weary 
 months, been " zone des arniees " or " arriere 
 front,'" were at last liberated. I regretted 
 a little that I had nothing exciting to show 
 my visitor, but for myself it was a relief. 
 Of course I know that in some ways much 
 will not be changed for us, but I know also 
 that, even if the fighting goes on until next 
 spring, much that has been so hard is done 
 for me. I may have more nerve-trying 
 things to stand, but not the old things. You 
 have often accused me of being so much in- 
 side the clock that I can't tell the time of 
 day. I wonder if I am now? 
 
 I found Juilly also much changed since 
 my last visit there, over a year ago — only 
 in a different way. 
 
 During the tragic days in May and June, 
 when most of the hospitals nearer the front 
 had to be evacuated, Juilly took on a new 
 
 [ 50 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Importance. There the American Red Cross 
 accomplished one of Its most brilliant feats. 
 JuUly had been a private enterprise, financed 
 entirely, I have been told, by a well-known 
 New York woman. The Red Cross took It 
 over during the big German offensive, and 
 turned a hospital of some three hundred 
 beds Into a fully equipped hospital of a thou- 
 sand or more beds, and practically accom- 
 plished It — getting beds, operating room, 
 material and personnel Into working order 
 — in forty-eight hours, right In the heat and 
 excitement of the terrible battles. There the 
 operating rooms worked day and night dur- 
 ing the German advance, menaced for weeks 
 with the possible necessity of having, In their 
 turn, to retire on Paris. With the sound of 
 the battle in their ears, with the ambulances 
 coming in every day with their sad loads of 
 wounded and dying, the guns of the barrage 
 barking every night, and the Boche avians 
 whirring over their heads, these brave doc- 
 tors and nurses, with their kits packed ready 
 for marching orders, worked on, expecting 
 every hour to have to evacuate. 
 
 I remember that I wrote to you long ago 
 about Juilly, and how the college gave up its 
 big dormitories to the hospital, and how the 
 students were crowded Into other parts of 
 the huge buildings of the old Oratorlen mon- 
 astery school, and slept even in the cele- 
 brated Salle des Busies. Of course, when 
 
 [ 51 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the attack of May 27 began the students 
 and the children were at once removed, and 
 the American Red Cross took over the whole 
 place. 
 
 Even the Salle des Busies had been taken 
 over — that noble, lofty, long room, running 
 back into the beautiful park, with Its long 
 line of tall windows, with dark red draperies 
 on either side, with its wide steps leading 
 down from the estrade across one end, its 
 wide glass doors at the other end giving oq, 
 a stone terrace, from either end of which 
 leads a balustraded flight of steps with a 
 great sweeping curve down into the park, 
 almost opposite the statue of Ste. Genevieve. 
 
 My ! But that was a long sentence ! So 
 much for trying to get lots into a few words. 
 
 When I was at Juilly last year this long 
 hall was a school dormitory, with four lines 
 of narrow beds, each with a red and white 
 cover to harmonize with the prevailing tone 
 of the room. The other day I found it 
 turned into a white hospital ward, and In Its 
 narrow white beds were wounded Ameri- 
 cans. As I walked down it toward the ter- 
 race where the convalescents sat In all sorts 
 of long chairs looking out over the park, I 
 thought how many Americans In the future 
 would make pious pilgrimages to this place, 
 of which, In the past, so few Americans ever 
 heard. 
 
 But the view over the park Is even more 
 
 [ 52 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 changed than any other part of the place. 
 It Is now sprinkled with long brown tents, 
 for there is a big military post there. 
 
 The commanding officer — a Southerner 
 — was so kind as to walk through the camp 
 with us, so that we could see it all without 
 feeling like intruders, and I am able to sat- 
 isfy your curiosity by telling you exactly how 
 some of our boys, not yet in the fighting line, 
 are living in France, and also to relieve your 
 mind by assuring you that they are not a bit 
 militarized yet — they still remain camou- 
 flaged — just civilians in uniform, doing 
 their monotonous duties cheerfully, but not 
 over much gene by etiquette — officers no 
 more than men. 
 
 For example, as we entered each long tent 
 such of the boys as were inside sprang to 
 their feet and stood at attention. Each 
 time the officer — he was young — actually 
 blushed, sort of side-stepped (I was willing 
 to bet he was a dancing man), and with a 
 half-embarrassed movement of his hand said, 
 "All right, boys. Sit down," and down they 
 dropped. I was equally certain they all 
 called each other by their first names when 
 no one was listening. 
 
 There were a number of these tents.placed 
 end to end, with a curtain as a separation. 
 Sometimes there was a slight angle from the 
 straight line, but the effect to me was of a 
 long room lengthened by mirrors. We 
 
 [ 53 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 walked along a wide aisle, and on either side 
 was a line of beds, heads to the sides of the 
 tents, — such a variety of beds. Here and 
 there was a real Iron bedstead, now and then 
 a camp bed; sometimes the bed was two tres- 
 tles with a board across, again It would be 
 a long, wide, rudely made box — a bit too 
 reminiscent of a broad, lldless coffin — full 
 of straw. I said to a boy sitting on one of 
 these, '' Reckon you made that yourself?" 
 He grinned and replied, " Yes, ma'am." 
 It was an awfully good-looking crowd of 
 boys, and I am sure that most of them had 
 been accustomed to spring beds and hair 
 mattresses. Yet not one of them looked as 
 if he minded It or was any the worse for 
 roughing It. After all. It Is no worse than 
 camping out, and I never knew a worth-while 
 boy who did not adore that. 
 
 As I walked along the hard soil of the 
 aisle between the beds, I could not help 
 thinking how many women there were In the 
 States who would have loved to be, at that 
 minute. In my shoes. But I was being cere- 
 moniously escorted by the commanding offi- 
 cer, and I felt shy about stopping to chat 
 with the lads. I did not know what the eti- 
 quette of the situation was. I was sure that 
 there was a protocol. So I shed my smiles 
 all along the way, and hoped it might occur 
 to some of the youngsters that I was a sort 
 of proxy for home or mother, — or even the 
 
 [ 54 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 girl he left behind him, — for youth was the 
 predominant note in the whole crowd. I 
 suppose that impressed itself on me espe- 
 cially, because today the French poilu is 
 rarely young. The idea came as a sort of 
 shock that, after four years of fighting, the 
 youth of France lies buried on her battle- 
 fields; he has passed the torch, with a tragic 
 forward movement, to his elders, and today 
 it is the middle-aged who are carrying the 
 sacred flame of the future and keeping it 
 alight until the children growing behind them 
 can hold it up. 
 
 You would have loved to see the huge 
 kitchens — under a big tent — where white- 
 capped soldiers were cooking over big 
 ranges, while outside the door, under the 
 trees, one of them was stirring, with a big 
 wooden spoon almost as large as a snow 
 shovel, in a cauldron bigger than that in 
 which Macbeth's witches made their magic, 
 spells, a savory smelling mess — I presumed 
 it to be a giant Irish stew. I tried not to 
 remember that only a few days before an 
 American youngster had said to me, " When 
 I go back if the mater ever dares to offer 
 me a mess of boiled beef I shall strike." 
 
 We strolled through the park and back to 
 the hospital. In the park it was all like a 
 huge picnic. Some of the boys were doing 
 carpenter work. Some of them were playing 
 ball or tennis. Some were simply lying on the 
 
 [ S5 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ground. It was only on returning to the hos- 
 pital, where we met some boys who had been 
 lying outside for air, being carried in on 
 litters, that the park showed any signs of war. 
 
 But I can't tell you how very unmilitary 
 our boys succeed in looking. They are in 
 uniform, but there Is nothing military about 
 them. They salute in a half-apologetic way 
 as If to say, *'Good Lord, I hope that's all 
 right." There Is no rigidity in their bearing 
 or their gait. I fancy that little by little 
 they'll get It, and It Is certainly not surpris- 
 ing that It takes time, when you stop to think 
 seriously of what our army Is made up. Im- 
 agine being able to make a real soldier, with 
 the bearing modern tradition has labelled 
 " soldierly," In six months or a year out of 
 a boy who has followed a plough all his life 
 or bent over a desk. Is n't it lucky that none 
 of these things have any Importance In fight- 
 ing? I only mention it because when some 
 of the clever men now over here write char- 
 acter studies of the American Army, Ian 
 Hay's narrative won't be a patch on the tales 
 that will be told — In dialects from the down- 
 east twang to the East-side Jew and the al- 
 most non-English speaking recruit. The war 
 farce writer has his work all cut out for him. 
 
 The streets of Juilly looked to me as much 
 changed as the hospital. The last time I was 
 here most of the convalescent soldiers whom 
 I met In the streets were French. I saw them 
 
 [ 56 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 on crutches, or with their arms in slings or 
 their heads bandaged, or saw them sitting 
 in the sun against the walls. But this time 
 there were nothing but Americans every- 
 where. As soon as we approached the town 
 we began to meet the boys in khaki — Amer- 
 ican ambulances, American automobiles, 
 American camions, and Americans on foot. 
 The whole aspect of the town was changed, 
 and I imagine it will be long before Juilly 
 recovers her old look, — if she ever does. 
 The big hospital has been there four years. 
 It has cared for civilians as well as soldiers. 
 There is a free cUnique, In addition the 
 hospital has given work to the people of the 
 town, as laundresses, cooks, cleaners and 
 gardeners. So here, as in hundreds of parts 
 of the country, France has undoubtedly had 
 an Indelible mark put on her which will be 
 more lasting than that made by the German 
 guns — imprints stamped on the life as well 
 as on the land, on the soul as well as on the 
 body, on the race as well as on its spirit. 
 Whether this Is for good or evil the future 
 alone can show. One thing I fervently be- 
 lieve to be possible — that Is, that the 
 French, as a race, can face all this and as- 
 similate It, and still be true to type better 
 than almost any other people could. They 
 have not been the banner bearers of the 
 advance guard for so many centuries for 
 nothing. 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 We made a quick, uneventful run back 
 across the Marne just before sunset, and the 
 next day I took my visitor down the still de- 
 serted hill to the station at Couilly, and he 
 went back to Paris; and the joke was that 
 the next day — presto, change — and our 
 roads were packed with camions again. 
 Naturally no one knows what it means, but 
 there are all sorts of rumours afloat regard- 
 ing some big American move. I pay no at- 
 tention, because I know that if there is any- 
 thing on, that would be just the time when 
 we should know nothing. 
 
 On Wednesday we got the glorious news 
 here that the British had retaken Mont Kem- 
 mel and that a New York regiment had been 
 with them. I don't know whether that is 
 true or not, but by this time you do. Yet I 
 doubt if the retaking of that little hill meant 
 as much to you when you read the news as 
 it did to us. How it made my heart jump 
 back to those tragic days of the last week in 
 April, when, after a desperate fight about 
 that little elevation, the communique an- 
 nounced that the Germans had broken 
 through — Mont Kemmel was lost again, 
 and with it the Germans had taken sixty-five 
 hundred prisoners and hundreds of machine 
 guns. That was In the thirty-five days of 
 that terrible spring offensive of which the 
 Channel was the German objective. The 
 Allied counter-offensive failed. Then, on the 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 two following days — April 26th and 27th 
 — the coimnuniqite announced that "calm" 
 reigned on that secteur. 
 
 " Secteur calme " is a great joke to a po'ilu. 
 He usually gives a great " Ha-ha ! " if you 
 use the words, then he explains that, as a 
 rule, ^^ secteur calme^^ means we lost some- 
 thing we don't care to talk about — yet. 
 
 About this special two days of calm there 
 hangs a strange story, which may or may not 
 be true. The soldiers declare it is. It can't 
 do any harm to tell it to you, — that is, if 
 the censor lets it by. "They say" that at 
 Mont Kemmel, on that fatal April 26th, the 
 Germans actually had the Allied armies in 
 the north beaten to a finish, and that there 
 was not the smallest reason why they should 
 not have gone right through to the Channel, 
 as England expected them to do. No one 
 seems to know why the Germans stopped, 
 and during the two days announced as 
 "calm," allowed the British to get their re- 
 inforcements across, and hold up the ad- 
 vance. Some say the Germans did not real- 
 ize the full extent of their victory. Some say 
 that they were alarmed, and being afraid of 
 going into an ambushi, stopped to recon- 
 noitre. Some say they had to stop to reor- 
 ganize. Anyway, by a miracle again, Calais 
 was saved. So you can Imagine how we 
 rejoiced here on the morning of the 15th. 
 
 To make the news more personal to us 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I heard afterward that, but for the presence 
 in England of a large number of our boys 
 who are training there, England could have 
 hardly in April combed out so quickly her 
 army for Home Defence and sent such a big 
 reinforcement to hold up the German push. 
 England has always held a big home army 
 to protect her coast against the never-be- 
 lleved-In but not-altogether-impossible at- 
 tempt of the Germans to make a landing. 
 I should not be surprised if, at some future 
 time, the British Navy had a story to tell on 
 this matter which will give it quite a different 
 colour. 
 
 Since then every day has been a sort of 
 ^^ journee de gloire^ Since I wrote you we 
 have seen historic Peronne change hands 
 again, — Peronne best and most pictur- 
 esquely known to most people in Scott's 
 *' Quentin Durward," and to travellers as the' 
 place of the captivity of Charles the Simple 
 in the loth Century, and which long bore 
 the reputation of never having 'been cap- 
 tured. Poor Peronne I It has well outlived 
 that fame. Wellington took it in 1 8 1 5. The 
 Germans took It in January, 1870, and in 
 this war it has suffered terribly, having 
 changed hands four times. I don't suppose 
 you remember the long agony with which 
 we watched it being for weeks besieged after 
 the German retreat of 19 17, only to be lost 
 again in March. 
 
 [ 60 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Are you so busy following our own boys 
 that you do not realize that the French and 
 British are well across the HIndenburg line 
 in the north, and that in the centre they are 
 again approaching the tragic, desolate, bomb- 
 torn Chemin des Dames? 
 
 The Big Bertha has not tired for over 
 four weeks. We still speak of it, but always 
 with the conviction that it has had to retreat 
 so far that Paris is out of Its range. No 
 Gotha has visited Paris since June 27th — 
 ten weeks. We still wonder what desperate 
 attempt the chronic spirit of wilful destruc- 
 tion may inspire the Boches to bring off 
 before they give up. So we still take all sorts 
 of precautions. 
 
 I shall probably, after all, make one more 
 trip to Versailles. I can live on the map 
 there as well as here. Besides, I need a 
 change to keep my nerves steady in these 
 long days of waiting for the end. 
 
 [ 61 ] 
 
IV 
 
 September 26, 1918 
 
 Hip, hip, hurrah, and several tigers, and 
 with all my heart! 
 
 The very day after I wrote to you last, 
 I opened my morning paper, on the train, to 
 read that the Americans had attacked the 
 St. Mihiel pocket, in liaison with the French, 
 from Les Eparges to Bois le Pretre, and, 
 twenty-four hours later, at Versailles, we got 
 the great news that our boys had taken St. 
 Mihiel itself, that the pocket had been emp- 
 tied, and that the attacking force had pene- 
 trated the German line on a front of twenty- 
 three miles to a depth of fourteen miles. 
 
 Pictorially and sentimentally that was one 
 of the most striking events of the whole war, 
 and the excitement it caused showed that 
 every one felt it in that sense. 
 
 Although the great Chateau-Thierry bat- 
 des, in which our boys played such a big 
 part, and all the struggles between the 
 Marne and the Vesle were much more costly 
 in lives than this breaking down of the St. 
 Mihiel position, it had no such thrilling ef- 
 fect on the imaginations of us all as the 
 
 [ 62 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 taking of St. Mihiel. We all received it here 
 as though it were the first decisive victory 
 in the war. 
 
 The cleaning out of the salient between 
 the Marne and the Vesle was every bit as 
 important as the taking of St. Mihiel, but it 
 was slow. The fighting of the French Ter- 
 ritorials and the Americans at Chateau- 
 Thierry, and that of the Americans in Bel- 
 leau Wood, were probably marked with 
 more acts of desperate daring and personal 
 valour, but nothing has stirred the public 
 feeling like St. Mihiel. In June, at Chateau- 
 Thierry, the Germans were fighting in full 
 preparation for a third great offensive, still 
 absolutely convinced that they were going 
 to get to Paris, and little dreaming that it 
 was the untried American army, whose value 
 as a holding as well as a fighting power they 
 had not until then tested, which was going to 
 prevent them, and in closing that road for 
 the last time make an end of all their illu- 
 sions of victory. 
 
 At St. Mihiel it was a different matter. 
 The Americans had been tried and proved. 
 The emptying of the Vesle pocket had been 
 a lesson. 
 
 The Germans had held St. Mihiel from 
 September, 19 14. It was a sharp thrust 
 into the Allied front which all the efforts 
 of four years had not been able to break. 
 There the German fortified line crossed the 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Meuse several times. From behind the town 
 the heavy guns mounted in the old fort of 
 the Camp des Romains commanded the line 
 of the Paris-Metz railroad, and swept the 
 main roads with their long range artillery, 
 making transportation very difficult during 
 the long battles at Verdun. 
 
 We over here, who have been living on the 
 map for four years, have had that sharp 
 point in the front piercing our hearts as well 
 as our eyes all these long months. To the 
 north and east the line had wavered, but 
 St. Mihiel held, and so long as it did no 
 Allied offensive was possible between the 
 Argonne and Lorraine. 
 
 Early this month the most casual student 
 of the war maps could see that with the 
 French at Les Eparges and the Americans 
 at Pont aux Moussons, St. Mihiel was threat- 
 ened with encirclement, and that its fall, 
 either by evacuation or by a tremendous 
 battle, was inevitable. The result was half 
 one, half the other — the Germans made a 
 fighting retreat, In which they got away a 
 great part of their big guns, but only at the 
 expense of much hard fighting. 
 
 I have always told you that In this war we 
 Americans appear as a lucky people. Again 
 the " times give It proof." There has been 
 only one big battle of Chateau-Thierry, and 
 only one taking of St. Mihiel, and both are 
 scheduled as "great American victories," — 
 
 [ 64 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 picturesque, decisive victories, which have 
 impressed the French civilians as much as, 
 if not more than, any other events in the war, 
 except the rising up of Belgium. The battle 
 of Chateau-Thierry and the fighting advance 
 up the Vesle were a series of hard-fought 
 battles, with tragic ups and downs — the 
 baptism of fire of many of the boys from the 
 States. St. Mihiel, even more decisive, was 
 quick and sharp. The attack began at four 
 o'clock in the morning of the I2th, and on 
 the morning of the next day we knew that 
 the attacking armies — French and Ameri- 
 cans — had joined hands east of St. Mihiel 
 the night before. Can't you imagine the mo- 
 ment when the two armies sighted each 
 other? I have not seen the French so stirred 
 by anything since the war began. No one 
 talked of anything else, especially when the 
 afternoon communique announced that the 
 Americans were already at Thiaucourt. 
 
 Do you wonder that everybody speaks of 
 nothing but "the Americans " just now? A 
 French officer said to me on the train the 
 other day: "You are a wonderful people, 
 you Americans. I shall never forget the day 
 when we were told at the front that the States 
 had sent the message, ' Hold the line. We 
 are coming — ten millions strong!' Why, 
 you could see the poilu stilien his back, and 
 close his lips firmly. I, myself, instinctively 
 tightened my belt." So if only our boys re- 
 
 [ 6s ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 turn the compliment with the modesty to 
 remember all that had been done to prepare 
 the way in four years of suffering and sacri- 
 fice, why "honours are easy.'* 
 
 In the meantime Metz is lying under the 
 Allied guns. I can't imagine its being bom-' 
 barded. It is a French town, coming back 
 to the breast of its mother, and I hope not 
 coming back too maimed, if it can be helped. 
 
 Plenty of people are already crying 
 " Peace." Every one longs for it, of course 
 — but oh! do pray that it be not yet. We 
 can only treat with a really beaten Germany. 
 We cannot treat with a Germany who, recog- 
 nizing that she cannot win, is willing to stop 
 fighting to save herself. Before the order 
 *' cease firing" is given, we must be on the 
 Rhine with our guns commanding Germany, 
 and the Allies must treat with a Germany 
 who realizes, not only what the world thinks 
 of her, but that she will have to accept the 
 victor's terms — exactly as she would have 
 imposed them had she won. The whole 
 world knows what she intended to do with 
 the victory she expected to win. She has 
 made no secret of her ambitions. Any mis- 
 taken kindness, any philanthropic considera- 
 tion which is shown a predatory race like the 
 Germans will only be looked on by her as a 
 sign of weakness or fear. 
 
 " Of course," I can hear you say, " I know 
 what you want." I expect you do, and I have 
 [ 66 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 no intention of denying it. I want to see 
 them take a dose of their own broth — in- 
 vasion. I want those who claim that the Ger- 
 mans won't break to see what bad losers they 
 will be. I know, of course, that their situa- 
 tion is different from that of the Allies, who 
 have fought a long and heroic battle with 
 hope, while Germany will face invasion with 
 the game absolutely lost, and nothing to hope 
 for — except fooling her conquerors. 
 
 When I came back from Versailles I found 
 the tension here terrible. In spite of the fact 
 that victory is in sight, and the news of every 
 day inspiring, the people about me seemed 
 more nervous than I have ever seen them, 
 even when menaced with invasion. At first 
 I could not understand it. Then one day a 
 woman said to me: " Oh God! What shall 
 I do if my man, who has been in a regiment 
 de choc ever since the beginning, should be 
 killed at the very end? " 
 
 I had not thought of that, and it made me 
 understand why so many faces about me are 
 pale, and why the tension of these days is 
 worse than the suspense of the days of 
 uncertainty. 
 
 All minor happenings are covered over by 
 the excitement of the coming victory and its 
 possible consequences, and, of course, in my 
 case, by the knowledge that every hour is 
 writing up in history the glorious deeds of 
 valour that arc to shine in the archives of the 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 American Expeditionary Force. With all 
 that has passed and all that is to come can 
 you imagine how we should have felt, and all 
 that it would have meant to the future of the 
 race if the boys from the States had not come 
 over seas to do their bit? 
 
 I feel more every day, while I watch the 
 old re;gime: — another old regime — going 
 out, that there is an aristocracy of achieve- 
 ment. I hope that every one with real heart 
 and true sentiment will cultivate that idea, 
 and that every family that has a boy over 
 here — whether he returns to them or not — 
 will be taught to believe in that new aris- 
 tocracy, and to cherish and proudly hand 
 down to future generations of the family the 
 memory of the boy who fought in the Great 
 War, and that every city and every town 
 and village will have, in the French fashion, 
 inscribed on the walls of one of its public 
 buildings, the list of its heroes. Ours, at 
 Quincy, covers one entire wall of the room 
 in which the town council holds its meetings 
 and the business of the commune is trans- 
 acted. Every man, woman, or child who en- 
 ters that room to get a war allowance, to draw 
 a pension, to pay taxes, or celebrate a civil 
 marriage, can read on the table d'honneur the 
 name of the one of theirs who has died for 
 France and humanity, — or been decorated 
 for bravery, — -their title to distinction in the 
 community. 
 [ 68 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 One of the minor things which was almost 
 driven out of my mind by the great events 
 at the front was an air raid on the 15th, 
 while I was at Versailles. It was a Sunday 
 night. As I was getting ready for bed I re- 
 marked that it was nice and comfortable to 
 be able to lie down without listening for the 
 tir de barrage, and I added, "After all, as 
 most of the raids enter Paris from the north, 
 I doubt if we should hear the guns from 
 here." I had hardly got the words out when 
 "bang-bang-bang" went the gims, and for 
 an hour I sat on the bed listening to the 
 familiar sounds in the northeast instead of 
 the west. 
 
 I heard, when coming through Paris on 
 my way home, that bombs had fallen over a 
 wide area from La Chapelle to the Passy 
 entrance to the Bois, which explained why we 
 heard it so distinctly at Versailles. 
 
 I had to laugh at your calling me down for 
 my careless remark in a July letter to the 
 effect that Germany had waged a war more 
 brutal than so-called barbarous times had 
 ever seen. I take due and admiring note 
 of the fact that you are reading " The 
 Makers of History." All the same — I per- 
 sist in the statement. In fact and in intention 
 I believe exactly what I said. " Other days 
 — other manners." What was merely bar- 
 barous in the old days becomes simply mon- 
 strous now, when everything man has learned 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and all he had achieved has simply been 
 made to serve destruction. Yes, I know all 
 about the destruction of hundreds of thou- 
 sands of Moors. I have read about the sack 
 of Lille, the sack of Rome and several hun- 
 dred other sacks. I know about long-ago 
 Bulgarian atrocities, — and I could make a 
 list several feet long. But if I were to let 
 those facts stagger me I should have to re- 
 call the religious cruelties of our forefathers 
 on Boston Common, and little things of that 
 sort, which we don't do now any more than 
 we carry off Sabine women. Oh, no! In a 
 world that claimed to be rising " on stepping 
 stones of its dead self to better things" — 
 pardon the paraphrase — it is beyond words 
 abominable for any people to have waged a 
 war with the avowed purpose of wiping out 
 races to make room for the victor's expan- 
 sion, and with such acknowledged contempt 
 for the sacredness of life and liberty as to 
 permit the war theory that the quicker women 
 and children were killed the sooner it would 
 be over, and the sooner the victor could en- 
 joy the spoils. I never pretended that in 
 fundamental passions the world has much 
 changed, but its manners have, and — well, 
 Germany is out of fashion and ill-bred and 
 criminal. In fact she is indecent. One does 
 not associate by choice with indecency. We 
 may see other wars — we probably shall — 
 or other epochs will if ours does not — but 
 
 . [ 70 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 war is hardly likely to shock the world 
 again as this one has. It has destroyed so 
 many hopes, torn to pieces so many illusions ! 
 Next time we shall know what to expect. 
 None of us any longer blinds ourself to the 
 truth that it is going to be pretty difficult to 
 prevent war. Living is a struggle. Even 
 family life is not free from it. In commer- 
 cial life, if it is not often bloody it is terribly 
 cruel. So long as nations are ambitious — 
 and when they are neither ambitious nor 
 proud apathetic chaos w'ill come — aggression 
 cannot be prevented unless peace-loving na- 
 tions are willing to sit still and let races like 
 the Huns ride over them, and " turn the 
 other cheek." I cannot conceive that noble 
 theories can do anything but bind us up to 
 wage the same sort of holy war we are finish- 
 ing. They surely cannot prevent war so long 
 as it is the finest virtue of the noblest men and 
 women to feel that it is well worth while to 
 resist evil, even if the price of resistance be 
 death. 
 
 Prisons and capital punishment have never 
 prevented crime, but they have punished it. 
 That is what the Allies have to do to Ger- 
 many, and it must be a punishment she can't 
 forget. Fear of death has never made a 
 righteous man false to his ideals. I doubt if 
 fear of war will ever make a nation worthy 
 to survive when false to its principles. 
 
 I consider the United States of America In 
 
 [ 71 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 this war a living proof of that. When Wil- 
 son was elected to his second term on the 
 slogan " He kept us out of the war," and a 
 month and three days after his inauguration 
 was obliged by public opinion to declare the 
 very war he had tried to avoid, you wrote 
 me that " like the great statesman he was he 
 had waited until he had the country behind 
 him." I did not reply, as I might have, that, 
 in the words of a very great American, the 
 only men he had kept out of the war were 
 Theodore Roosevelt (God bless him!) and 
 Leonard Wood, nor did I trouble to speak 
 my mind then — you were so dead in earnest 
 — and say that I thought that you wronged 
 your country, and that whoever had raised 
 the Stars and Stripes when Belgium was in- 
 vaded or when the Lusitania was sunk would 
 have seen the nation flock as solidly under it 
 as they did in April, 191 7 — for you know, 
 my dear girl, they were not absolutely solid 
 when called. I am afraid that I think better 
 of my countrymen than you do. Unluckily, 
 our outlook Is terribly narrow. Standing 
 each on his little apex, we watch a limited 
 horizon. We see the petty faults of the 
 people near to us. We see the trying 
 meannesses of politics. Our families are not 
 always noble. Our governments are not in- 
 corruptible. In these days of free speech 
 our friends tear bandages off our eyes, and 
 the public press does not encourage rose- 
 
 [ 72 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 coloured spectacles, and we are so near that 
 our visions rarely see over the little things 
 right under our feet, and it took just the 
 climax of these years to show what the world 
 was, and especially of what stuff the States 
 were made. The big general average has 
 been absolutely splendid, and though we 
 bring charges against our organization, 
 though we cry " inefficiency " and " blunders " 
 from now to the crack of doom, nothing will 
 change the fact that the people — both those 
 who fought and those who obediently de- 
 prived themselves that the world might at 
 least try to live — have done their part and 
 done it magnificently. War is not all tragic, 
 any more than dying is, and without this war 
 the States would never have known them- 
 selves, nor without it could they ever have 
 been welded into the great world power they 
 are yet to be. Let us pray for a little racial 
 modesty to give us poise, and to help us real- 
 ize that we no longer need to assert our- 
 selves, that 's all. 
 
 Now there 's my final word. Nail it up. 
 
 We have been thrown back a long way in 
 this war. We have been forced to take up 
 the tools of evil to combat evil. Isn't it a 
 pity that we can't throw back still farther to 
 single combat, and God with the right? It 
 would be quite chic also if we could have a 
 well-kept international battle-field on which 
 alone international disputes could be settled. 
 
 [ 73 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Yet where would be the use so long as there 
 are people like the Germans, bound by no 
 treaties, with no idea of honor, who would 
 simply come and slaughter all of us civilians 
 while our noble armies were occupied in try- 
 ing it out a long way off? Besides, with the 
 world so populated, where could you find 
 a proper battle-field, since civilization — so- 
 called — has crossed the last frontier? Half 
 a century ago one might have said Sahara. 
 But Hichens made Sahara fashionable, and 
 the French, who own so much of it, are going 
 to turn it into one of the gardens of the world 
 in a century or less. 
 
 In spite of all these exciting and perplex- 
 ing thoughts I keep right on feeling that the 
 sum of it all is — beauty. It took the very 
 baseness of Germany to throw into relief, 
 with a blazing halo around it, the courage, 
 the willing self-sacrifice, the spirit of heroism 
 of the races that have made of their living 
 bodies a buckler at the cross-roads to save the 
 soul of the world. " Fight for your altars 
 and your hearths" is just as good a battle 
 cry as it ever was, though it lives only as a 
 symbol. We can't, even in these realistic 
 days, cry " Fight for your pulpits and your 
 central heat" without laughing at ourselves, 
 but we do it just the same, and I imagine we 
 always will. The idea is immortal — that 
 does not go out of fashion, docs it? 
 
 My ! What a long garrulous letter this is 
 
 [ 74] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 getting to be! Poor you — who can't " sass 
 back" for a whole month! 
 
 One more thing — just to change the sub- 
 ject and clear the air. It's about Versailles, 
 and I have meant to tell you about it every 
 time I have come back from there, and then 
 I go and get myself all stirred up with theo- 
 ries, and forget. I must do it now, as I have 
 probably seen Versailles for the last time in 
 its war array, and you will never see it under 
 that aspect. 
 
 I have already told you that the air raids 
 have reached as far as there, but I am sure 
 that I never told you that the town is full of 
 abris in which the population took refuge 
 whenever an alerte announced the approach 
 of the invader of the air, and that the entire 
 park and gardens are camouflaged. The 
 most precious of the sculptured vases, the 
 most valuable of the statuary, and all the 
 most famous bronzes in the fountains have 
 .been most carefully covered, not only to con- 
 ceal them, but to protect them if possible. 
 Looking down on the tapis vert side of the 
 palace the park looks something like a huge 
 Hottentot village of straw huts. 
 
 You might think the effect would be ugly 
 and disfiguring. It is not, although it is amus- 
 ingly droll. You know the French could not 
 do a thing like that without giving it an ar- 
 tistic pat which would lend it a certain charm. 
 Some of the big central bronze groups to the 
 
 [ 75 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 large fountains have a flat, roof-like plat- 
 form built over them, on which logs are 
 evenly piled as one makes a wood-pile to dry, 
 and on top of that Is a loose layer of faggots. 
 The vases and small statuary have been cov- 
 ered In with cone-shaped wrappers of straw 
 and faggots, tied In a knot at the top, and 
 resembling the straw protector of a precious 
 bottle of wine. You might think It looked 
 more like the head of a huge child with her 
 hair tied on top of her head, preparatory to 
 bath-time. Some of the groups are packed 
 with earth and boxed in with an outer layer 
 of faggots, over which a bath of plaster has 
 been poured, giving the impression of elabo- 
 rately cut stone. Time and the weather have 
 toned down all this, and the wind has brought 
 seeds from everywhere, and the coverings of 
 the big fountains are aglow with flowering 
 things — blue and yellow, pink and white — 
 while soft trailing vines droop over the edge 
 and wave In the breezes. I don't know how 
 It would look to anyone who has not known 
 It In all Its usual bravery, but to me It was 
 just a new aspect, and still pretty — If not 
 beautiful. 
 
 [ 76 ] 
 
October 6, 1918, By the light of candles 
 Well, I'd give a penny if you could see 
 me. I feel as if I had thrown back to the 
 days of my grand-dad. I am sitting up in 
 the attic, with its sloping roof, two rough old 
 beams, — worm-eaten, unpainted, seamed, — 
 and cement floor. It makes me think of the 
 unfinished attic in the old farmhouse at New 
 Sharon, only there are no dried herbs hang- 
 ing from the beams, there is no hand-loom at 
 one end, and no big spinning-wheel. I am 
 writing by the light of six candles arranged 
 in a semi-circle about my typewriter, tryihg 
 to consider that it is a sufficient illumination. 
 Anyway, it is all we have. We never had 
 gas or electricity, and our allowance of kero- 
 sene is a pint a month, — and often we don't 
 get that. Needless to say a pint of kerosene 
 is hardly sufficient to light me for one even- 
 ing. So a few weeks ago I laid in a huge 
 stock of candles, for to live in the dark in the 
 evening would be the worst misery the war 
 could bring me. When my friends who are 
 working out in the devastated regions, or 
 who go " out there " to carry relief, tell me 
 
 [ 77 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 that the most terrible thing they encounter is 
 the darkness, In which one crawls round in 
 the little ruined villages where there are ab- 
 solutely no lights and nothing to make them 
 with, and where they stumble over broken 
 roads with a pocket lamp — which may give 
 out at any time — It represents to me the very 
 acme of suffering. I can go hungry, but to 
 be cold in the dark is to me the last cry of 
 deprivation. 
 
 Even candles are not to be had here, and 
 I got my big stock from an English firm at 
 the noble price of eight cents apiece. So you 
 can calculate what it costs me to write you 
 this letter, with my circle of candles at graded 
 heights, endeavouring to get enough light and 
 avoid cross shadows. I am doing this be- 
 cause I have been terribly busy, and the days 
 are short, and I could not get time to write 
 by daylight. 
 
 As near as I can remember, I wrote you 
 late last month — the 25th. The day after 
 It turned cold, and I lighted up my salon 
 chimney — fully three weeks earlier than 
 usual. It hurt me to do it. But the grippe 
 is with us, and I could not afford to take any 
 risks. 
 
 That was the very day that news came that 
 Bulgaria was ready to lay down her arms, 
 although the actual armistice was not signed 
 until three days later. While we all realized 
 that this was the first scene In the last act, 
 
 [ 78 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 there was absolutely no excitement here. The 
 only thing that disturbs me is the fear that 
 Germany is to be allowed to talk. She has 
 been trying to for two years and more. It 
 would be a pity if she were allowed the op- 
 portunity now. 
 
 A Frenchman said the other day: "Wait 
 and see if Germany does not claim that, hav- 
 ing offered to stop fighting and make a com- 
 promise treaty in December, 191 6, she is 
 today an innocent victim of the pride of the 
 AlHes." 
 
 On Thursday morning — day before yes- 
 terday — we read Wilson's reply to the Ger- 
 man demand for the terms of an armistice. 
 Although every one here had felt puzzled 
 and indignant that Germany should have 
 dared to appeal over the head of Foch and 
 his fighting armies to the chief executive of 
 the last Ally to enter the combat, still Wil- 
 son's reply sounds all right. We would have 
 liked the short and sharp two words, " Un- 
 conditional Surrender," but after all the reply 
 they have received is to the point, isn't it? 
 No talk, even, with the Germans while their 
 armies are on invaded territory. If the letter 
 of that is adhered to, and there is no further 
 talk of an armistice until the Bodies are in- 
 side their own frontiers, and the Allied guns 
 are pointed across the Rhine, no one will 
 have any complaint to make. But they must 
 be thrashed to a finish. 
 
 [ 79 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 You have accused me several times lately 
 of seeming to wish to ruin the German nation 
 as well as to overthrow Its government. Well, 
 we have only one choice — If Germany Is not 
 ruined France will be. Which do you really 
 prefer? 
 
 Alas! That ruin may do Germany more 
 good In the end than escaping may do France. 
 It Is often a great deal easier to bear misfor- 
 tune — It was for France In 1870 — than to 
 keep the muscles from getting soft and the 
 soul selfish In the days after a great victory. 
 Luckily, In this case everything Is compara- 
 tive, and no nation is coming out prosperous. 
 Each nation has to suffer, but Germany's suf- 
 fering ought to be exactly what she, who 
 brought this disaster on the whole world, — 
 her allies as well as her enemies, — has 
 earned. I can see no place for two opinions 
 about that. 
 
 I can hear you asking what it is which has 
 kept me so busy that, in order to get time to 
 write to you, I have to try my eyes by candle- 
 light. First, as I told you, we have had the 
 grippe here, and the epidemic Is still spread- 
 ing. I really wonder, all things considered, 
 that we have not had worse epidemics than 
 the grippe, — with so m^iny re fugies, so badly 
 housed in empty granges, with only straw for 
 bedding, so poorly clad that many of them 
 for weeks did not undress because they had 
 only what covered them when they got here, 
 
 [ 80 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and so Inadequately fed because we had little 
 to share with them, except potatoes and 
 beans. Milk Is almost nonexistent. We have 
 half a pound of sugar each month, no butter, 
 almost no coffee, no cereals of any sort, no 
 fruit, no chocolate, and meat Is so expensive 
 that I wonder anyone can afford It. Olive oil 
 can only be had In small quantities at an 
 exorbitant price, and fuel Is so scarce that 
 they are cutting down more of the trees on 
 the canals. As for clothing, why, we all gave 
 away all we could spare ages ago, during the 
 first evacuations, and everything In the way 
 of shoes — so necessary — Is so expensive. 
 The wooden-soled galoches which the chil- 
 dren used to wear to school, and which, be- 
 fore the war, used to cost fifty cents a pair, 
 now cost one dollar and eighty cents, and a 
 pair of ordinary shoes, which used to cost two 
 dollars now cost four. As for the shoes I 
 used to buy In Paris for five dollars, they now 
 cost seventeen and eighteen, and are not 
 nearly so good In quality. 
 
 In this situation. In August, I suddenly 
 found myself — through no especial effort of 
 mine, unless having talked about the Hilltop 
 be an effort — more useful than I had ever 
 been In my long life. Suddenly the outreach- 
 Ing thoughts of the many Americans, who 
 have means and cannot be here, and who, 
 from the beginning, had now and then 
 touched me, stretched generously filled hands 
 
 [ 8i ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 over the Hilltop to drop on these little ham- 
 lets the plenty that has turned the course 
 of what otherwise would have been dire 
 tragedy. 
 
 It is small wonder that the very word 
 "American" has a sort of hypnotic effect on 
 the French. Unless you have been actually 
 inside the relief work on your end of the 
 line, I doubt if I can give you any conception 
 of what is going on here, for it is not only 
 the far-reaching work of the American Red 
 Cross, It is also work, quiet and unseen, done 
 by private individuals, and you can have no 
 idea, unless you have seen it, how quickly and 
 generously they respond to any call, and in 
 my case, and in many others, how often they 
 act without being called. I have written to 
 you about my New York friend, Mrs. Griggs. 
 Well, at the very beginning of the war, 
 through her, Mrs. Elizabeth Millbank An- 
 derson came to the aid of our little hospital 
 at Quincy, and provided our soldiers here 
 with every sort of comfort, from the food 
 that helped their convalescence to the air- 
 cushions which made them comfortable in 
 bed, and the warm flannels and sweaters and 
 stockings which sent them back to the front 
 with well-filled kits. Right on the heels of 
 that gift, while every one in the hospital was 
 blessing their unknown friend, Mrs. Ander- 
 son, one chilly winter night, just after dark, 
 a little camion with " CEuvre pour les Blesses 
 
 [ 82 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Frangais " painted on it, came up the hill, 
 and brought to our sick poiltis candies and 
 socks and surprise bags from the young 
 people In the States, and oh, so many times 
 after that our boys were cheered by gifts 
 from the same CEuvre, Including the phono- 
 graph, which was their joy and delight as 
 long as the hospital was open, and after that 
 amused the soldiers who were cantoned here. 
 Why, It was even played an entire afternoon 
 in September by some of the Marines, 
 fresh from Chateau-Thierry and the Belleau 
 Wood. 
 
 Since those days there has never been a 
 time when some American relief organiza- 
 tion has not seemed to have us in mind, and 
 it has been cumulative work, growing In gen- 
 erosity as the passing years made the necessity 
 more pressing. Mrs. Anderson sent up car- 
 loads of shoes — beautiful American shoes — 
 stockings, clothing, blankets, and all sorts of 
 food — the sort of food that even those with 
 money cannot buy here today, and I am 
 sure that I have made you understand enough 
 of the situation to guess what it means to 
 have condensed milk and rice and macaroni 
 for the children, who are being largely nour- 
 ished on potatoes. I wonder if, without ever 
 having lived under war conditions, you can 
 understand what it means to get such gifts 
 in a commune where even those who have 
 the means and the will to soften the condition 
 
 [ 83 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 of the poor and the sick cannot do it, and 
 where little babies cannot be properly fed 
 because what they most need does not exist. 
 Can you take that in? Unless you really can, 
 you have no realization of the sort of work 
 the American women, by the sacrifice of 
 themselves, or their generosity with their 
 money, did over here, long before our boys 
 came across with guns on their shoulders — 
 and are still doing. 
 
 The world had been so generous to us long 
 before the tragic evacuations of last spring, 
 and before the necessities in the absolutely 
 devastated regions had become so impera- 
 tive, that when, owing to those new evacua- 
 tions, our needs became pressing again, and 
 babies began to be born amongst our refu- 
 giees for whom there were no baby clothes, 
 I was rather put to it. However, I went up 
 to Paris and smiled out my story, and came 
 back laden with layettes. That relieved the 
 immediate necessity, but the re-opening of 
 school was looming before us, and French 
 children cannot go to school without shoes 
 and clean black aprons, and then winter was 
 coming. The summer had not been so bad. 
 It had been warm. The youngsters had not 
 needed much clothing. They had run around 
 bare-footed, bare-legged, in one garment. 
 But before winter something had to be done. 
 
 In that dilemma a miracle happened. 
 
 Unexpectedly — out of a clear sky — there 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 fell on my desk one morning a slip from the 
 Red Cross saying that they had received or- 
 ders to send me thousands of yards of mate- 
 rial — cotton cloth, flannel for underclothing, 
 cotton flannel, stuffs for dresses, black satin- 
 ette for children's aprons — and that all this 
 had already left Paris. 
 
 The announcement shook me right to the 
 tips of my toes. I simply can't tell you how 
 I felt. I could have taken the "little old 
 United States " right up in my two arms and 
 hugged it. I made a bee-line for the mayor's 
 to tell his wife the good news. It was the 
 only time I ever minded Ninette's lack of 
 speed. 
 
 Do you know I have never .found out who 
 inspired the deed? When I asked to whom 
 I was to send my thanks I was told that if 
 I wanted to thank anyone I might thank the 
 man at the head of the civil work for the Red 
 Cross — which I did. But wasn't that a 
 wonderful adventure? 
 
 So that is why I am busy. For days neither 
 Ninette nor I have had time to do anything 
 except go up and down the hill carrying mate- 
 rials as they are needed, and this attic where 
 I am working looked, and still looks, like a 
 warehouse. 
 
 Our mayor's wife is a great organizer. 
 The women of the commune who have any 
 spare time are always ready to cut and sew. 
 The local branch of the French Red Cross has 
 
 [ 8s ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 a little money to pay women who could not 
 afford to give their time, and all the young 
 girls, under the direction of the Cure's house- 
 keeper, who has charge of the patronage con- 
 nected with the Catholic Church, did their 
 part, and we sent all our children — the war 
 orphans, the refugies, the children of the men 
 at the front, and all the very poor of both 
 communes — to school the first of the month, 
 clean, comfortably dressed and shod. 
 
 We are still busy getting ready for winter. 
 Ninette and I still go up and down the hill, 
 sometimes twice a day, and I think, as I sit 
 in my little cart, that I wish I had some way 
 of sending telepathic messages which could 
 give American women like Mrs. Anderson a 
 vision of the good they are doing. 
 
 In the mean time, for a modest person my 
 position Is a bit trying. I am the visible dis- 
 penser of this generosity — humble, but on 
 the spot, and on the job. I explain often. I 
 make the names of their American friends 
 familiar to them. Every little while I make 
 some one write a letter. But It Is I who 
 get their pretty smiles and hear their dear 
 '' Merci, Mademoiselle^ 
 
 Do you wonder that I feel that the sum of 
 it is beauty? 
 
 - Surely, remarkable as may be the results 
 of this war on our boys who are unselfishly 
 offering their lives for the welfare of the 
 future, — In which many of them will per- 
 [ 86 1 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 haps have a better part than falls to those 
 who are to continue the race, since it is 
 they who are holding up the oriflamme 
 to point the way to the future, — they will 
 be equally so on many of the women over 
 here on more or less active service, and 
 who have found their work in unexpected 
 places. 
 
 I wonder if you remember in those old far- 
 off days — everything before the war seems 
 ancient history now — going with me to see 
 the Stein private gallery, which used to be, In 
 those days, the rendezvous for many people 
 of all nations who were interested in Matisse 
 and Picasso and how many others of the 
 revolutionary school of art to which they 
 belonged? Those were the days when Ger- 
 trude Stein was beginning to be talked about 
 as a possible pioneer in a post-impressionistic 
 school of literature, and was a red rag to 
 many even who did not consider themselves 
 de I' Academie. 
 
 I am sure that you must remember her. 
 No one who ever met her would be likely to 
 forget her. But would you have ever 
 dreamed that she would develop into a 
 crackerjack camion driver? Of course you 
 would not. Well, she did, and for three 
 years now has been driving her Ford camion- 
 ette, crossing the hills in a snowstorm to 
 carry aid to the hospitals in the Pyrenees, or 
 driving up and down the hills in the Gard, 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 carrying the sick and wounded, carrying re- 
 lief supplies — and driving lilce an expert. 
 
 Does n't it seem a far cry to those old days 
 when one used to meet at her studio, on Sat- 
 urday nights when it was opened to all 
 comers, the leading insurrectionists of all the 
 arts, with here and there an American mil- 
 lionaire trying to look at ease; and now and 
 then a group of American beauties feeling 
 that they simply had to be " in it " ; often the 
 leaders of the opposition, very much on their 
 good behaviour; or the common-or-garden 
 variety of traveller feeling that he had to 
 take it in (it would make such good dinner 
 conversation in New York, and make him 
 seem so knowing) ; and always American 
 journalists, and journalists from everywhere 
 else, looking wise or disconcerted or scornful, 
 according to their gifts; and seated round the 
 hostess at the long refectory table in the 
 middle of the studio — while the casual visi- 
 tors roamed round the room — there was 
 always her special group of intimates or those 
 who had brought letters of introduction. 
 Perhaps you met there that evening — I don't 
 remember — James Stephens, the Irish poet, 
 with his Byronic head, perhaps looking imp- 
 ish, but sure to be brilliantly aggressive — 
 and oh! so human and Irish; or it may have 
 been Myra Edgerly, the altruistic enthusiast 
 in search of a great mission, and incidentally, 
 en route, painting miniatures of titled people 
 [ 88 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 all over the world; or it may have been — 
 but where 's the good of naming them to you ? 
 But oh! my mind goes back in these days, 
 when we wxre feeling so near to the end, to 
 all the interests that the war has absolutely 
 wiped out, to wonder if they are dead, or 
 only sleeping, and in what form the future 
 is to see them resurrected, — in fact, what 
 sort of a world it is going to be when 
 
 ** Johnny comes marching home." 
 
 Johnny and his family tangoed, and fox- 
 trotted, and turkey-trotted, and gambled, and 
 strutted, each after his own self-centred in- 
 terests, or tried, in his undisciplined way, to 
 "get on," or was leisurely happy according 
 to his class, until the flag was unfurled, and 
 all Americans, equal in service under the 
 colours, became brothers of one family. I 
 am wondering, sitting up in my attic by 
 candlelight — and, by the way, the candles 
 are burning down — if Johnny, who is the 
 son of the nation, in his uniform under the 
 flag for which he is ready to die, will be — 
 if he lives — still the beloved son of the na- 
 tion when he strips that uniform off? He 
 has been, and still is, pampered over here, 
 where his uniform is his guarantee and no 
 one asks his social status. What is he going 
 back to? 
 
 Who knows? 
 
 Will he tango and loaf and once more 
 think only of himself? I doubt it. Even if, 
 
 [ 89 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 in the first joy of his discharge and of his 
 getting that uniform off — it is so unbecom- 
 ing — he may for a moment seem unchanged ; 
 if for a brief space he longs to roll like a dog 
 just unchained, and to rush about madly in 
 pure delight of liberty, I have a conviction 
 that he will carry home with him something 
 beside the kit he brought " over-seas," and 
 I believe that these boys who, in the next 
 decade, are to rule the country will soon be 
 heard from and felt. It will take a bit of 
 time for him to shake down, but if, 
 
 '^ When Johnny comes marching home 
 again^'^ 
 he does not carry with him the soul he has 
 found, in so many cases, over here, it will be 
 so much the worse for all the world and fatal 
 for the States. 
 
 I have a lot of things to say about that — 
 they must wait — this is a long letter and the 
 candles are burning out. 
 
 In looking this over — must hurry — only 
 two lights left — I find that there is some- 
 thing I must say for fear that you get a wrong 
 impression of the situation. When I tell you 
 of all that American generosity has done for 
 us here you cannot get an idea of whole ef- 
 fort unless I impress on you the fact that we 
 have never been invaded, and that we are 
 not devastated — we are only the temporary 
 asylum of those who have suffered both, and 
 are homeless and naked. Here it is only the 
 
 [ 90 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 dark, sad shadow of the real thing. What 
 has been so generously done here for us is 
 but a drop in the bucket of the great work 
 which the Relief Corps are doing for the 
 poor creatures still living in the ruins to the 
 north and east of us, where, in tiny hamlets, 
 the poor tillers of the soil — always poor 
 before the war swept over them — are likely 
 to freeze and to starve simply because the 
 aid which is so ready cannot reach them fast 
 enough. In many places there is no aid for 
 sickness unless some devoted Sister of Mercy 
 travels with it as far as human strength can 
 go. " Out there " new-born babies are put in 
 boxes and covered with sawdust to try to keep 
 them warm. There darkness, cold and hun- 
 ger form a perpetual trinity of suffering. It 
 is almost impossible to realize the amount of 
 aid needed simply to relieve the situation, — 
 curing it is impossible. When I look at the 
 amount that has been given us, and see, even 
 with great system, how rapidly it is distrib- 
 uted, and calculate what it must require to 
 soften the situation " out there," I am ap- 
 palled as much as I am thrilled by the effort. 
 It is not merely a question of today or to- 
 morrow, for those fed today and tomorrow 
 will be hungry the day after, and those who 
 are clothed now will be naked in the spring. 
 
 I often think when I see the almost super- 
 human efforts being made by men and women 
 all over the world, and especially in the 
 
 [ 91 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 States, to relieve the suffering from the war, 
 of the difficulty there used to be to get funds 
 for all sorts of necessary philanthropic work. 
 War has proved that the means exist. Of 
 course it is not as picturesque to do that sort 
 of thing against a peaceful background. But 
 if those who have felt it a privilege to serve 
 during the war felt it equally their duty in 
 times of peace what a different world it might 
 become. 
 
 There is an American Sanitary Corps at 
 Couilly — they have brought us some more 
 *' flu," as if we did not have enough of our 
 own. 
 
 There splutters the last candle — good- 
 night. 
 
 [ 92 ] 
 
VI 
 
 October i8, igi8 
 Well, this has been the first day of cheer- 
 ing that we have had here. There has been 
 no bell-ringing yet, though there may have 
 been in Paris. 
 
 Before I was out of bed this morning — 
 long before the boy who goes to Esbly for 
 the newspapers had got back — women and 
 children were running down the road crying 
 ^^ Lille est prise, le roi Albert est a Ostende,^^ 
 and then every one in the place seemed to be 
 shouting. I assure you that It was a most 
 unusual sound. It made us feel for a few 
 minutes as if the first objective was nearly 
 won, and that King Albert would soon be 
 back in his capital. It is, to be sure, a far 
 cry from that to our former dream of seeing 
 him ride down Unter den Linden at the head 
 of a triumphal procession. But we are more 
 modest than we once were, more 's the pity. 
 
 The taking of Lille releases half a million 
 French, but oh! the tragedies It will surely 
 bring to our already burdened souls. Four 
 years and five days of captivity must have 
 had a sorry ettect on many of them, and the 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 joy of the liberation is sure to be spoiled by 
 the tales of the years of German occupation, 
 the revived memories of the deportations, 
 and the sadness of those who will soon return. 
 
 My first thought was of all those brave 
 men of the 215th Regiment who were with 
 us in January, and nearly all of whom were 
 from Lille ; and most of whom had been with- 
 out news from home since August, 19 14. I 
 remembered the charming captain who used 
 to drop in for tea, and who had left a deli- 
 cate wife and an only son 111 with typhoid 
 fever, and wondered what news he would get 
 from home, and of the sad rush there would 
 be to get back, and of all the delays and 
 difficulties. 
 
 We know all about that In a small way 
 here. As soon as the Department of the 
 Aisne began to be liberated, such refiigies 
 from there as were here with us had but one 
 idea, — to go home. It was useless to argue 
 with them that their houses were probably 
 destroyed, that winter was coming, that, 
 apart from their not being properly shel- 
 tered, it would be, for the present, impossible 
 to get food to them, roads being destroyed 
 and transportation difficult. None of those 
 objections moved them. They preferred to 
 live in ruins on the land that was their ov/n, 
 no matter what Its condition, to risk starvation 
 in their native place rather than be comfort- 
 ably cared for here in comparative security. 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Of course the civil authorities could not at 
 once give them passports, and without them 
 they could not go Into the liberated districts. 
 It was pitiful to hear them plead, in spite of 
 the facts and with full knowledge of what 
 they had to expect when they got home. At 
 least they would find the ground they owned, 
 and you know to a peasant the land is much 
 more Important than the house. A house is 
 only a shelter, and for them a shelter is easily 
 arranged. 
 
 During my last visit to Paris I saw some 
 very touching scenes at the railway station. 
 I still have to get my papers stamped by the 
 military authorities in the station before I 
 can present myself at the ticket-office, where 
 another officer examines my book to be sure 
 I have had It properly countersigned. The 
 bureau of the officer who examines and 
 stamps my papers Is always crowded In these 
 days, since the beginning of the liberation, 
 with weeping women who pray to be allowed 
 to return to their devastated homes. They 
 are almost always poor peasants who are 
 being cared for In Paris, where all sorts of 
 committees help them and provide them with 
 work. But " home " is out there, and, de- 
 stroyed or not, " out there " is where they 
 want to go. 
 
 I wonder if that Is especially a French qual- 
 ity? I don't know. It seems to me not to 
 be like our country people. Such as I know 
 
 [ 95 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 usually asked nothing better than to move on 
 almost anywhere away from the " old place." 
 In France it is not only the peasant who has 
 that sentiment. Why, I remember when Le- 
 gouve — the author of "Adrienne Lecou- 
 vreur " and a hundred other plays — died, 
 just after I came to Paris to live, being sur- 
 prised to learn that he had died in the room 
 where he was born, and that in the centre of 
 Paris. So it must surely have been a new idea 
 to me, accustomed to see my friends move 
 about all over the place. I suppose that must 
 be a difference between an old country and a 
 new. 
 
 I often ask myself what will be done finally 
 about some of the re fugles we have here. 
 They were just as poor where they came 
 from as it is possible to be and 'live. They 
 owned nothing. They lived in the tumbling 
 down houses you have seen in your travels in 
 agricultural France — rent twenty dollars or 
 so a year — and worked for other people. 
 They could stay on and work here, but I dare 
 say that when the time comes they will be as 
 anxious to return to the place they were born 
 in and work among the people they grew up 
 with as if they had left property there as well 
 as sentiment. 
 
 Well, Germany declares herself ready to 
 accept Wilson's terms for the evacuation of 
 occupied territory, and the long-awaited revo- 
 lution is coming to her. Let the revolution 
 
 [ 96 ] . 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 go on by all means, but we don't want the 
 armistice yet. We want the war over — 
 every one on the face of the earth wants that 
 — but we want it really ended, and ended 
 properly. Ever since, in June, the American 
 Army proved itself on the Marne to be a 
 fighting army, Germany has known that she 
 could not win. Naturally she regrets that, 
 but I have seen no sign that she regretted 
 anything but that. One does not need to be 
 a very keen student of the racial characteris- 
 tics of Germany to know that she will some- 
 how save her skin — if we let her. It is a 
 purely military victory for the Allies, only 
 made possible so soon by the loyalty of the 
 States in speeding up as they have and the aid 
 of the English ships in making that speeding 
 up possible. I only pray that nothing will be 
 done which will permit the Boche to overlook 
 the fact that it is a military victory, or to 
 camouflage it in any way. It was as a mili- 
 tary power that Germany made this war, and 
 to her long-perfected military machine she 
 deliberately added every scientific terror, 
 every underhand method of attack, that a 
 trained, money-supplied, biologically cruel 
 race could muster. She has taught the world 
 much. It would be a pity if we could not 
 better her teaching. Her army is going to 
 be beaten to a finish. But her character is 
 hardly likely to change, and that is why we 
 here are praying with all the strength we have 
 
 [ 97 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 that there will be no armistice while there is 
 a chance of the Huns being in condition to 
 take advantage of it. 
 
 My entire household is down with the 
 grippe — that is, all except Abelard. He 
 seems to be immune from everything of that 
 sort. 
 
 I ask myself if one reason we have so much 
 illness is because it is so difficult for most 
 people to keep clean. We lacked soap here 
 for a long time. It is almost impossible to 
 get any washing done. Luckily I buy soap 
 in rather large quantities. In the end it is an 
 economy. Then also I had a couple of boxes 
 given me among the things to be distributed. 
 
 I have had more occasions to know how 
 rare it is than just not being able to get laun- 
 dry work done. I have told you that we lack 
 kerosene? Well, we lack wood alcohol and 
 gasoline also. The other day Amelie was at 
 Voisins, and she saw a military chauffeur 
 washing both hands and his camion with gaso- 
 line. She rushed at him, and asked him if 
 he had no shame to be wasting gasoline like 
 that when we had none at all? He replied 
 that he would like to know how he was to 
 clean the grease off his hands since he had no 
 soap. So she piloted him up here, and we 
 gave him hot water and soap, and he filled 
 the little night lamps for us. 
 
 Before we had recovered from that little 
 incident one of the American boys who is here 
 
 [ 98 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 with the Corps Sanltaire came to call. I no- 
 ticed that he kept his hands in his pockets all 
 the time, but as that is an American habit it 
 did not impress me particularly. When he 
 was leaving he said : " I 'd like to shake hands 
 with you, but the truth is, my hands are so 
 filthy that I don't dare even to let you see 
 them. Cold water and no soap Is not very 
 cleansing for us who have to fuss over a 
 motor." 
 
 I insisted on seeing the hands, since I could 
 remedy that situation for him and the whole 
 corps. 
 
 There was a chap who had never before 
 been dirty in his life. He was the son of a 
 college professor, and a literary man himself. 
 But, as Amelie says when she meets cases like 
 that, "^ la guerre comme a la guerre,''' and 
 when I say anything about the dirt and 
 pity the boys, she always replies, '' Dirt is 
 healthy," and tries to prove it by a family 
 we have here — four children — who have 
 never been clean in their lives — nor sick 
 either. So I don't know. Do you ? 
 
 As I am doing all my own work — I rather 
 like It — this Is only a brief line to tell you 
 nothing the papers have not told you except 
 that we did shout here for the taking of Lille. 
 
 Of course you know before now that our 
 boys are fighting their greatest battle — per- 
 haps the greatest ever fought by Americans. 
 I had a letter from the front this morning 
 
 [ 99 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 which IS headed simply " In Europe," and 
 says : " We have been on the move since the 
 last of August. First we were moved up as 
 reserves for the St. Mlhlel drive but did not 
 see any action there, as the reserves were not 
 needed. We camped round in the woods in 
 the rain until It was sure we were not wanted, 
 and then we hit the road again. We got one 
 short truck ride, — eighteen men to a truck 
 only meant for twelve, — and then it was 
 hike — and hike is no name for it. We 
 moved at night and camped by day, as our 
 next action was supposed to be a surprise 
 attack. 
 
 "After waiting all night in position on the 
 25th of September, we went ' over the top ' 
 at half-past five In the morning of the 26th 
 
 on the front. [The censor had erased 
 
 the name, but we knew here It was Argonne.] 
 Our barrage had literally turned the Boche 
 trenches upside down, and we had fairly easy 
 going until afternoon, when we met stiff op- 
 position from machine guns and snipers, and 
 from there on we simply caught It. If the 
 divisions on our right and left could have kept 
 up, it would have been a heap better for us, 
 but unfortunately we went too fast for them. 
 We were relieved once on October — [date 
 suppressed by censor] but we were no sooner 
 out than our brigade was ordered back to 
 help another division. After eighteen days 
 of It we were finally relieved." 
 
 [ 100 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 That was probably six days ago, and the 
 battle Is still going on. Today Is the twenty- 
 third day, and so far as we can judge there 
 Is no sign of a let-up, though generally speak- 
 ing our boys seem to advance. Only think, to 
 thousands of them this terrible battle is their 
 baptism of fire. 
 
 [ lOI ] 
 
VII 
 
 October 31, 1Q18 
 
 What can I write to you in a letter during 
 these hard days of suspense? We all know 
 that Germany is breaking down, but her in- 
 ternal troubles don't console us at all, and we 
 are indifferent to the royal crowns and ducal 
 coronets rolling about like knocked-down men 
 in the bowling alley of history. We take 
 note that Austria is out, and that it is only 
 a matter of a few days before the or- 
 der " Cease firing " will be given on the 
 Balkan front and Servia will be freed. We 
 hardly seem to have a word to say regard- 
 ing the fact that where it began it has first 
 stopped. 
 
 People have almost ceased to talk here. 
 We all have our eyes on the north-east, and 
 our hopes fixed on Foch, and we keep our 
 minds and hands nervously occupied with 
 anything that offers. Naturally I have my 
 own particular anxiety, for although Ger- 
 many is giving in she is not yet giving in 
 easily. The terrible fighting in the Argonne 
 Forest, where our boys are at grips with 
 them, is still going on, and today is the thirty- 
 [ 102 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 seventh day. It Is a. dreadful country to fight 
 in, — a Belleau Woods on a big scale. 
 
 Mademoiselle Henriette came back from 
 Salonica last week. She got the fever out 
 there and has come back for her time of 
 convalescence, but returns to her post — or 
 another — in December. She has brought 
 with her interesting and terrible stories of the 
 conditions out there, and a great amount of 
 photographic documents. But that is a long 
 story, and some time in the future, when you 
 are over here, she will show the pictures to 
 you, and you will get an Idea of what it is like 
 — life out there in war-time. 
 
 I really must tell you one thing. I have 
 often wondered what could be done with old 
 sardine boxes, old milk tins, old meat tins. 
 Here we have the greatest difficulty with 
 them. I rarely go to walk or drive that I do 
 not find them along the road where the sol- 
 diers have thrown them, and outside every 
 little hamlet there Is a heap of such things 
 salvaged from everywhere. Pere takes ours 
 and buries them In a big hole in the ground, 
 where stone has been quarried to mend the 
 roads. I always contended with Amelie that 
 something could be done, as there should be 
 no such thing as waste. Anyway, nothing is 
 done here with old tin boxes. But out in 
 Salonica the refugies build houses with them. 
 Henriette has brought photographs of whole 
 settlements so constructed. How Is that? 
 
 [ 103 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Tell me what they do In the States. In my 
 time tinned food was less common than now. 
 
 On Sunday I took Mademoiselle Henriette 
 to Meaux to lunch with the English friends 
 I have there. I wrote to you about them 
 after the big German drive of May and 
 June. They are still doing hospital service 
 until they can reorganize to advance with a 
 new cantine wherever they are most needed 
 on a new front. I wanted also to see a couple 
 of American boys who are in the Hospital 
 Jeanne d'Arc — boys who were wounded at 
 Soissons. 
 
 At the beginning of the first Foch offensive 
 there were a great many Americans at the 
 hospitals at Meaux. It was not Intended that 
 they should go into the French hospitals, but 
 It could not be helped sometimes, and for 
 those boys It was very fortunate that this little 
 group of English ladies were there. I often 
 wished that their mothers In the States could 
 have known what affectionate care their boys 
 had, so far from home, from them all; and 
 how one, a middle-aged woman, wife of an 
 English officer, petted them and loved them 
 as if they were her own. She has been work- 
 ing for a long time at the cantine at the rail- 
 way station, and when the hospitals at Meaux 
 began to receive the wounded boys from the 
 States — boys who could speak no French 
 and were cared for by doctors and nurses who 
 spoke no English — she gave up every free 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 hour, by night as well as day, to those Amer- 
 ican lads, with an enthusiasm so whole- 
 hearted and so loving that many an American 
 woman who will never know her name is in 
 deep debt to her. She watched over our boys. 
 She fed as well as loved and petted them. 
 Out of her own purse she bought wine and 
 fruit and such delicacies as she could find 
 which did not enter into the regime of a 
 French hospital, where the food is very 
 simple. She consoled them, amused them, 
 wrote their letters for them. More than one 
 American boy died with his hand in hers, and 
 many a morning she walked behind the burial 
 squad and stood at the grave of a boy from 
 the States — the only mourner. All over 
 Europe today there are women of all races 
 doing just these beautiful acts, but they im- 
 press one in a more personal way when one 
 knows well the woman who is doing them 
 so simply. 
 
 After lunch I went round to the hospital 
 to see these two lads, who were the only 
 Americans left there. They were lying in 
 bed, side by side, among the French — both 
 mere youngsters. I doubt if either of them 
 had ever been more than twenty miles from 
 home before. They had been seriously 
 wounded — machine-gun work — but they 
 were at last on the road to recovery, and 
 oh! they were so bored. Neither of them 
 had ever been sick before, so, although the 
 
 [ 105 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 hospital was a good one as military hospi- 
 tals go, they were pining for home. One of 
 them — a handsome six-footer — had seen 
 his younger brother, who was also his chum, 
 killed at his side. And wasn't he fussy at 
 being in a French hospital? He didn't like 
 the food. He could n't speak the language. 
 He was just well enough — out of pain — to 
 fret, and he wanted an American nurse. He 
 craved sweets. He was weary of his bed. 
 He was tired of having only one person to 
 talk to. He was sure that if he were in an 
 American hospital he would be out of bed, 
 wheeling around in a rolling chair. It was 
 difficult to convince him that he had probably 
 not been moved because he was not strong 
 enough. 
 
 His beautiful confidence in everything 
 American was so touching that it was a great 
 relief for me to get word a few days later 
 that both boys had been taken to Juilly, where 
 they wrote me little notes beginning '' Dear 
 Grandmama Miss Aldrich." Wasn't that 
 cunning? I loved it. By this time they are 
 rolling about in the longed-for chairs, if they 
 are not — which is more likely — walking in 
 the park, for the head nurse wrote to me that 
 they would soon be sent home. 
 
 Just to keep things lively my salon chimney 
 
 fell down the other day. It had to be rebuilt, 
 
 and the house is in a mess. Whatever else 
 
 you do, don't ever let the masons in your 
 
 [ io6 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 house while you are in it yourself. My poor 
 little house was arranged with no provisions 
 for this sort of work — main staircase right 
 in the salon, no doors on the ground floor, 
 except into the kitchen. I am living with 
 everything draped with big sheets, with heaps 
 of plaster and stone in the salon through 
 which I have to tramp when I go up and 
 down stairs. It is evident that I am to be 
 driven out whether I like it or not. I don't 
 mind eating my allotted peck of dirt, but I 
 draw the line at plaster. 
 
 Anyway, I need some more layettes for the 
 last of our refugie babies, and it will save 
 time to go after them. It takes a long time to 
 get anything down from Paris by express, 
 and I don't want the poor little ones to be 
 wrapped in rags if I can help it. I shall come 
 back the instant Amelie telegraphs that the 
 fires can be rebuilt. As things are I might 
 as well be living out of doors. I '11 write 
 again as soon as I get back. I never can 
 write letters in Paris. 
 
 [ 107 ] 
 
VIII 
 
 November 15, igiS 
 
 Well, dear old girl, the war is over. 
 
 I have tried to write every day since Tues- 
 day, but I simply could not. My nerves were 
 all frazzled. It is hard to be calm enough 
 to talk about it, and it has been impossible 
 to write. I suppose I shall make a mess of 
 it even now. But I know that, in the midst 
 of the first fury of excitement and the enthu- 
 siasm which I am-sure has arisen in one great 
 shout from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 
 from the Arctic Sea to the Gulf, to the ac- 
 companiment of bells and bands and cannon, 
 you have often thought of me, and wanted 
 to know how we got through the historic 
 nth of November. Can it be that it was 
 only last Monday? 
 
 I went up to Paris, as I told you I should, 
 my house not being habitable. I was ter- 
 ribly hurried, and so impatient to get home. 
 I went directly to the Bureau of the Fund 
 for the French Wounded, and while they 
 arranged to make up the bundle for me to 
 bring back, we had a gay little talk in the 
 same tiny room where in June, when the 
 
 [ 108 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Germans ^vere pushing toward Paris, we 
 had smiled courage at one another and as- 
 sured each other that the Huns could not 
 get to the capital. We all laughed as we 
 recalled that tragic day, and said, " Well, 
 they didn't, did they?" 
 
 I came back on the 7th. I found my 
 house in order, a huge fire roaring in the 
 new brick chimney, and every one — cats, 
 dogs, and all — glad to see me. 
 
 The days had been critical ones. The 
 Turks had already gone out of the fight on 
 the last day that I wrote you, but the news 
 had not reached us out here. At three 
 o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, No- 
 vember 4th, the Austrians had signed their 
 armistice and Servia was free. All these 
 things had been inevitable for a long time. 
 It had been only a question of the date, and 
 they left the principal criminal alone against 
 the wall, and brought to pass what has fol- 
 lowed sooner than we expected — or wished. 
 
 Germany had been defeated a long time, 
 and her civil population had been showing 
 what we all knew must come — signs that 
 we were facing the worst losers history had 
 ever seen, the most unsportsmanlike nation 
 that, convinced of its superior brute force, 
 ever went into war. When historians of the 
 future study the German mentality what a 
 showing-up the Huns will get! When you 
 remember — and who will ever forget? — 
 
 [ 109 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 how France stood up against her mighty and 
 tricky foe, how she was beaten back time 
 after time, and still staggered up and fought 
 on again on her devastated, blood-stained 
 soil, what a picture in comparison Germany 
 has traced of herself, safe within her own 
 frontiers, untouched and unspoiled, and yet 
 going to pieces at the approach of the Allied 
 Armies — while they were still fifty miles 
 from the Rhine ! 
 
 I had an exciting trip home. 
 
 Paris was almost unnaturally calm, in 
 spite of the lines of German cannon point- 
 ing their impotent camouflaged noses into 
 the Champs-Elysees, from the Arc to the 
 Place de la Concorde, which kept war before 
 the eyes of the city, and looked like a symbol 
 of Germany's hopeless position. But quiet 
 — almost strangely silent — as the city 
 looked, the air was full of whispered stories. 
 It was already known that the German Com- 
 mission had left Spa — Wilson having at last 
 put an end to all futile talk over the heads 
 of the armies by saying the words we had 
 so long listened for, — ''^ Adressez-vous a 
 Foch'' — and of Foch every one felt sure. 
 They knew he would give the world a mili- 
 tary, not a philosophical, armistice. 
 
 At the station I met a lot of American 
 boys just starting for the front — and so dis- 
 gusted. A young officer told me that it was 
 rumoured that the order to "cease firing'* 
 
 [ no ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 had been given at midnight. I was sure that 
 it was not possible, unless such an order 
 might have been given on that part of the 
 line toward which the German flag of truce 
 was approaching, if it had not already 
 passed. At that time we did not know where 
 the Germans were to meet Foch. 
 
 On the train no one talked. There were 
 no outward signs of excitement. Every one 
 had his nose buried in a newspaper. The 
 only person to whom I spoke was a young 
 French officer. We stood in the corridor, 
 and under my breath I asked him if he had 
 any news. He said he had not, and he added 
 that he hoped the armistice would not be 
 signed at once, as it was generally known 
 that the biggest Allied offensive of all was 
 soon to be launched, which would surely re- 
 sult In Germany's Sedan — which she had 
 well merited and ought not to escape. Then 
 he added: " If you saw the map of the battle 
 positions in the Excelsior on the 4th and that 
 of the American victory on the Argonne 
 yesterday, compare them, and you will see 
 what will happen in a few days If Foch is 
 left a free hand." 
 
 That very afternoon, before I unpacked, 
 I laid out the maps in question, and saw the 
 Germans being encircled. 
 
 Then I got out my layettes and started for 
 the Mairie. There I had a long talk with 
 one of the local authorities. I asked him if 
 
 [ m ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 any news had come by telegraph since we got 
 the morning papers. He told me " noth- 
 ing," except that the German emissaries 
 were crossing the frontier that night, prob- 
 ably at Haudroy. 
 
 You can imagine me hurrying home, — 
 that is, hurrying in Ninette's manner, — and 
 before I took off my hat, studying the map 
 again. I had the greatest difficulty in find- 
 ing out anything about Haudroy, which 
 proved to be only a tiny hamlet, hardly 
 more important than Huiry. As it is in that 
 part of the line where the Army of General 
 Debeney has done some hard fighting it was 
 easy to guess that the German flag of truce 
 would get some bumping. 
 
 It was not until Friday morning — the 
 8th — that we knew at what place Foch was 
 to receive the German delegates, and dic- 
 tate to them the only terms on which an 
 armistice for the cessation of hostilities could 
 be considered. 
 
 As soon as I knew the place selected was 
 Ronthondes, in the forest of Compiegne, I 
 went out Into the garden and looked to the 
 north, where, only forty miles away, the 
 historical meeting was taking place. In my 
 mind's eye I Imagined that I could see those 
 huge automobiles crossing the shell-ploughed 
 country, taking the word "pass" from the 
 lips of French officers guarding the route, 
 the white flags flapping in the French air by 
 
 [ 112 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 day, and by night the big phares sending 
 long rays of Hght into the faces of the 
 French poilus crouched along the way, or 
 signalling them to stop and give the word. 
 I suppose forever in the tradition of some 
 French families will be cherished the recol- 
 lection of that stirring moment, and the 
 memories of those of theirs who watched the 
 passing of those cars, — representative of 
 France's victory and Germany's defeat, — 
 and their children's children will relate It. 
 In future days it may be that tourists will 
 go over the road and still be touched by the 
 glory and pathos of what that passing has 
 cost. I only hope that the historical society 
 will mark the way with white stones. 
 
 Saturday morning we read here the armis- 
 tice, — as you did in the States, — and stiff 
 as the terms were, we knew that Germany 
 could not hesitate, just as we knew that Foch 
 would not discuss. I had only to look at the 
 two maps I had studied two days before to 
 know that Germany was forced to accept 
 even if the terms had been harder. Yet I 
 could have cried to think it had come so 
 soon. I knew that once Germany had, with 
 Wilson's aid, been allowed to talk, the ar- 
 mistice was inevitable. Beaten to the point 
 where her case was hopeless, and where the 
 final surrender of her army was in sight, she 
 could only save herself from invasion by 
 accepting any terms proposed. She could 
 
 [ 113 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 do It more easily than any other nation, 
 being devoid of real pride and not having 
 too much respect for her signature. As for 
 the Allies, no matter how they felt, they 
 could hardly go on with the fighting once 
 Germany yielded. Much as one grieved 
 that the surrender was made with Germany 
 still the invader, the order "Cease firing" 
 meant the saving of thousands of lives. I 
 simply put up a prayer that with all the les- 
 sons the Allied Nations have had from the 
 Germans, they will not this time give Ger- 
 many any chance to be tricky. 
 
 Convinced that the armistice was as good 
 as signed, Sunday was a quiet day — that is, 
 it was quiet for every one but me. 
 
 It happened that I was the only American 
 In sight, and it being in the minds of the 
 simple people among whom I live that the en- 
 trance into the war of the boys from the 
 States had saved the world from another 
 war winter, — as of course it did, — the 
 commune seemed to deem it necessary to 
 salute the Stars and Stripes in me. So early 
 in the afternoon, while I was still out on the 
 lawn, wondering at what time the next day 
 it would all be over, and still hearing now 
 and then the far-oi? sounds of the artillery, 
 which reminded us that they would fight 
 right up to the last minute, the garde-cham^ 
 petre from Couilly came into the garden, put 
 his heels together, — he is an old chasseur, 
 
 [ 114 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 — saluted me formally, presented mc the 
 hommages of the Civil government, and 
 asked if Madame would do them the honour 
 to receive them on Monday — probably 
 Armistice Day — at two o'clock. 
 
 Madame was a little confused, but she 
 said she would. The garde champetre 
 backed away, saluted again, and said he 
 should do himself the honour of escorting 
 them, and marched out of the garden in his 
 most soldierly manner. 
 
 I had not really bucked up after that sur- 
 prise when I saw a procession coming over 
 the brow of the hill, and there were the chil- 
 dren of the commune, conducted by the curSj 
 and marshalled by his housekeeper, — march- 
 ing two and two, — the little tots leading with 
 bunches of flowers in their hands, and the 
 bigger girls carrying a huge pot of chrys- 
 anthemums bringing up the rear. 
 
 I need not tell you that I was a bit con- 
 fused, and, Yankee fashion, I carried it off 
 by being very active and most informal. I 
 am afraid that I was as bad as dear Colonel 
 Roosevelt, who smashed the French protocol 
 all to pieces when the French Government 
 once went in its formal way to meet him at 
 the station. He spoiled their formality and 
 defied all their ideas of precedence, and scat- 
 tered his greetings where his affections were, 
 in true American spirit, which knows no law 
 but its heart. 
 
 [ IIS ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I did not, of course, realize what I was 
 doing until afterward. I upset the proces- 
 sion, spoiled the speech of the " littlest girl," 
 hustled them into the house without cere- 
 mony, not even giving them a chance to make 
 their reverences. Then I bustled round to 
 find a little chocolate which I had just re- 
 ceived from America, my one Idea being that 
 children must be fed at once. However, it 
 passed off prettily, and I did not realize until 
 afterward that the children's part had all 
 been rehearsed. Well, mine hadn't. 
 
 When It was over, and they had formed 
 their procession and marched away again, 
 I sat down and laughed. I suppose the little 
 tots had said: ^^ Elles sont droles, ces Ameri- 
 cainesy Really one has to be born French 
 and bred French to go through with these 
 functions properly, and everything has its 
 tradition with the French, even going to 
 school. That Is why French children have 
 such pretty, half-formal manners. There is 
 a correct way for them of doing everything, 
 even writing a letter, and they learn It all so 
 young that it becomes a second nature to 
 them, and enables them to do and say things 
 In an absolutely unconscious manner which we 
 outsiders In France cannot achieve without 
 embarrassment. 
 
 The expected news came early Monday 
 morning. As we anticipated, the Germans 
 had accepted the hard terms of the " uncon- 
 
 [ ii6 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ditional surrender," and the order had been 
 given to "cease firing" at eleven. We had 
 known it would come, but the fact that the 
 order had been given rather stunned us. To 
 realize that it was over! How could one 
 in a minute? 
 
 I was up early to wait for the papers. It 
 was a perfectly white day. The whole world 
 was covered with the first hoar frost and 
 wrapped in an impenetrable white fog, as 
 if the huge flag of truce were wound around 
 it. I went out on the lawn and turned my 
 eyes toward the invisible north. Standing 
 beside my little house I was as isolated as if 
 I were alone in the world, with all the memo- 
 ries of these years since that terrible day in 
 August, 1 9 14. I could not see as far as the 
 hedge. Yet out there I knew the guns were 
 still firing, and between them and me lay 
 such devastation as even the imagination 
 cannot exaggerate, and such suffering and 
 pain as the human understanding can but 
 partly conceive. Against the white sheet 
 which encircled me I seemed to see the back 
 water of the war which touched here, so far 
 from where the crests of the big waves had 
 broken and engulfed so much and left its 
 flotsam and jetsam for the future to salvage. 
 Four years and four months — and how much 
 is still before us? The future has its job 
 laid out for it. Is ordinary man capable of 
 putting it over? 
 
 [ 117 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I had expected that at eleven, when they 
 ceased firing at the front, our bells — which 
 have only tolled for so long — would ring 
 out the victory. We had our flags all ready 
 to run up. I was standing on the lawn listen- 
 ing, flags ready at the gate, and Amelie stood 
 in the window at her house, ready to hang 
 out hers. All along the road, though I could 
 not see them for the fog, I knew that women 
 and children were listening with me. The 
 silence was oppressive. Not a sound reached 
 me, except now and then the passing of a 
 train over the Marne. Then Amelie came 
 down to say that lunch was ready, and that 
 I might as well eat whether I had any appe- 
 tite or not, and that perhaps something had 
 happened, and that after lunch she would 
 go over to Quincy and find out what it was. 
 
 So, reluctantly, I went into the house. 
 
 It was just quarter past twelve when I 
 heard some one running along the terrace, 
 and a child's voice called, ^^ Ecoutez, Ma- 
 dame, ecoutez! Les carillons de Meaux!^^ 
 
 I went out on to the lawn again and 
 listened. 
 
 Far off, faint through the white sheet of 
 mist, I could hear the bells of the cathedral, 
 like fairy music, but nothing more. I waited, 
 expecting every moment to hear the bells 
 from Couilly or Quincy or Conde, and the 
 guns from the forts. But all was silent. 
 There were no longer any groups on the 
 [ ii8 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 roads. I knew that every one had gone 
 home to eat. Somewhere things were hap- 
 pening, I was sure of that. But I might 
 have been alone on a desert island. I was 
 too nervous to keep still any longer, so I 
 walked up to the corner of the Chemin 
 Madame, thinking I might hear the bells 
 from there. As I stood at the corner I 
 heard footsteps running toward me on the 
 frozen ground, and out of the fog came 
 Marin, the town crier, with his drum on his 
 back and a cocarde in his cap. He waved his 
 drumsticks at me as he ran, and cried, " I 
 am coming as fast as I can, Madame. We 
 are ringing up at four — at the same time 
 the Tiger reads the terms in the Chamber 
 of Deputies and Lloyd George reads them 
 in London," and as he reached the corner 
 just above my gate he swung his drum round 
 and beat it up like mad. 
 
 It did not take two minutes for all our 
 little hamlet to gather about him, while in 
 a loud, clear voice he read solemnly the ordre 
 de jour which officially announced that the 
 war had ended at eleven o'clock, and the in- 
 habitants of the commune were authorized 
 to hang out their flags, light up their win- 
 dows, and join in a dignified and seemly 
 celebration of the liberation of France from 
 the foot of the invader. Then he slowly 
 lifted his cap in his hand as he read the con- 
 cluding phrase, which begged them not to 
 
 [ 119 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 forget to pray for the brave men who had 
 given their Hves that this day might be, nor 
 to be unmindful that to many among us this 
 day of rejoicing was also a day of mourning. 
 
 There was not a cheer. 
 
 Morin swung the drum over his shoulder, 
 saluted his audience, and marched solemnly 
 down the hill. He had finished his round. 
 
 In dead silence the little group broke up. 
 I came slowly back to my garden, followed 
 by my household, including Dick and Khaki, 
 for they had gone out with me to listen to 
 the armistice proclamation. Amelie told 
 the whole story, when she dropped on a 
 bench at the kitchen door, and with dry eyes 
 and tightened lips exclaimed, ^^ Enfin/ C'est 
 fini. On les a!^^ 
 
 After all, that was the Important thing. 
 It Is not what we hoped for, or what we 
 wanted, but the butchery was over, and I 
 don't see how the French, on whose bodies 
 and souls the burden had fallen, or how that 
 France which has paid a price out of all pro- 
 portion to her population can, In her disap- 
 pointment even, have any other thought just 
 now. 
 
 But, of course, the day was not yet over 
 for me. I had still that official visit to face. 
 
 Less than an hour after Marin passed 
 
 over the hill the mayor and his suite arrived 
 
 to present me formally with the thanks of 
 
 the commune for the part I had taken in 
 
 [ I20 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 sharing the hard days with them. I did so 
 wish again for some magic means by which 
 every one of the American women who had 
 stretched out generous helping hands across 
 the sea to this little place could have wit- 
 nessed the scene, and heard me try to make 
 a French speech. It halted a bit, but the 
 French are apt at understanding. As far as 
 their faces went I might have been rivalling 
 the best French orator. I put the honors 
 where they were due. But In spite of all I 
 said, for the moment I was to them — 
 America. Then I had a surprise. 
 
 I am so little French, after all these years, 
 that It had not occurred to me that some- 
 thing ought to be opened up on such an oc- 
 casion. But, thank God, there is always 
 Amelle, who adores the Americans, and Is 
 terribly proud of us. You see every one who 
 comes to call says to her " I guess that you 
 are Amelle," and you should see her beam. 
 So just at the critical moment she appeared 
 in the salon behind me. I heard her pretty, 
 gay voice say, " Bonjour, Monsieur le viaire. 
 Bonjour, messieurs,''^ and there she stood be- 
 side me in her white apron, carrying a tray 
 of glasses and a bottle of champagne and a 
 jar of biscuit, and everything decked out 
 with the best there was in the house in a 
 manner that she believed to be tout a fait 
 Americain. Now I ask you — would you 
 swap her? 
 
 [ 121 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 So she filled the glasses and they all drank 
 my health, and then they held their glasses 
 high above their heads — the nice old men 
 — and cried, " Vivent les dames Ameri- 
 caines, et Dieu les benissenty So I pass the 
 blessing on to you who have earned it. I 
 have represented you the very best I knew 
 how. 
 
 You would have loved to hear them talk 
 about '''les soldats Americains^^ — our own 
 dear boys — "without whom," to quote the 
 mayor, "we should have been invaded here 
 in June, and without whose aid there would 
 have been no victory yet — and perhaps 
 never." 
 
 They all went out on the lawn before tak- 
 ing their leave to look off toward the battle- 
 field. It was still shrouded, although the mist 
 had thinned. "There," said the mayor, 
 making a sweeping gesture toward the north, 
 " there after all it was decided, perhaps, 
 right under our eyes. But for that victory 
 all the aid the States sent us later would have 
 been in vain." Perhaps. At any rate that is 
 still the opinion of every one, in spite of the 
 fact that we all know that speculation on 
 what " might have happened," if what did 
 happen had not happened, is vain. 
 
 Then we all shook hands at the gate, and 
 they hurried back to Couilly to ring the first 
 peal on the church bells to salute the victory. 
 
 I did not go with them, as they suggested. 
 [ 122 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I was content to sit here on the spot where 
 I had watched in those hot days of Sep- 
 tember, 1 9 14, and listen to the paean of vic- 
 tory where I had seen the first military suc- 
 cess. I knew that I should hear all about the 
 bell-ringing from those who went down. I 
 preferred to be alone. 
 
 The mist was lifting slightly. All along 
 the valley the bells rang for hours, cut at 
 regular intervals by the booming of the guns 
 at the forts. 
 
 I sat on the lawn alone, thinking that all 
 over France — wherever the bells had not 
 been destroyed — this same scene was being 
 enacted, and sure that in Paris, where Clem- 
 enceau was standing in the tribune before 
 the deputies, his reading of the terms of the 
 armistice was being punctuated by the guns 
 at Mont Valerian saluting the victory, and 
 the cheers in the streets. 
 
 Still, to see real France — to see Its very 
 soul — one should see it at such a time in the 
 small hamlets rather than In Paris, which is 
 more cosmopolitan than French, and which 
 is, in these days, so crowded with foreigners 
 of all sorts as to be almost anything rather 
 than really French. 
 
 I sat there a long time, with panoramic 
 memories racing before my mind, in the mist. 
 Now and then Amelle came out to throw an 
 extra cover over my knees — as it grew very 
 cold — or to fetch me a hot drink. But she 
 
 [ 123 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 never spoke. We were neither of us in the 
 mood to talk. 
 
 I am sure that everywhere outside the big 
 cities there were more tears than laughter 
 that afternoon. "We have won," as Ame- 
 lie said, but oh! it was hard to remember 
 that victory had come, just as I told you in 
 April it ought not to come — Germany had 
 got her armistice for the asking, and the 
 order, " Cease firing," had been given while 
 "no man's land" lay devastated and dis- 
 torted between the Allied armies and the 
 frontier. It seemed as if I simply could not 
 bear It — with Germany unpunished and ab- 
 solutely unrepentant — with her revolution 
 looking like a camouflage, her coward of a 
 Kaiser, without even the pluck to die at the 
 head of his army, in flight, evidently on the 
 principle that he " who fights and runs away 
 may live to fight another day." 
 
 Of course we have broken the 19 14 
 Humpty-Dumpty to bits, and it is true that 
 " all the King's horses and all the King's 
 men" can't put that Humpty-Dumpty to- 
 gether again, but they can easily make 
 another. 
 
 I could not help thinking what a pity it 
 was that the peace terms were not all ready 
 to be imposed at once. It is a great military 
 victory, pure and simple. The Allied armies 
 have beaten the great German military ma- 
 chine. Today Germany would have to ac- 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 cept any terms offered her, but, with such a 
 race, In another month it will be another 
 matter. 
 
 Did you ever think how menacing this fact 
 is — ^the Allies, following on and accepting 
 the Wilsonian idea, have declared loudly that 
 a people is entitled to choose its own govern- 
 ment, and seem to have entirely overlooked 
 the fact that Germany was perfectly content 
 with hers. Against one of the first prin- 
 ciples of the new order it has been smashed 
 because we have forced her to smash it or 
 be annihilated. You see I do want some real 
 peace for my closing years. I can't see any 
 chance of it until the attitude toward Ger- 
 many is stiffened. 
 
 Still, never mind that. For the present 
 at least the wholesale slaughter is over. 
 Never again in my time will our part of the 
 world lie down to restless sleep, tortured by 
 the thought of the young lives the day has 
 seen sacrificed even for a noble cause. 
 Never again shall we listen in the night for 
 the alerte which warns us of the passing of 
 death-dealers in the air. 
 
 Still, if I had dreamed that silencing the 
 guns was to bring me instant peace, I was 
 mistaken. I have rarely been more nervous 
 than I was on Armistice Day, or than I have 
 been ever since. I can't help remembering 
 that this Is only an armistice, and wondering 
 if, since Germany got it the first time she 
 
 [ 125 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 asked — saving her army, escaping invasion 
 — we can really impose on her a punishing 
 peace ? First and last every one of the Allies 
 has been a blunderer in diplomacy. Are they 
 going to blunder in imposing peace terms? 
 
 Finally, just to occupy myself and shake 
 off such black thoughts, I went into the house, 
 and while the guns were still thundering and 
 the bells pealing, I prepared for the illumina- 
 tion. I did not feel much in the humour. 
 Still, we call it a victory and I felt that light- 
 ing up might cheer other people even if it did 
 not me. Anyway, it was something to do. 
 
 I was glad that I had laid in that big stock 
 of candles. I made up my mind that even if 
 I had to sit in darkness all the rest of the 
 winter I would illuminate. I can tell you it 
 was a job, but it looked pretty enough to 
 repay me for the work. 
 
 We had to take down all the curtains, of 
 course, — you know those French windows. 
 I had a double row In every window from 
 attic to cellar — there are fourteen. Every 
 one came up both sides of the hill to see it. 
 They said It was visible from Conde, and a 
 neighbor who went to Meaux by a late train 
 told me that it made a bright spot in the thin 
 haze as seen from the train. 
 
 Suzanne and I had worked very hard. 
 We had to make the candle supports our- 
 selves, and ingeniously swung them with 
 wires. 
 
 [ 126 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I can^t tell you how wonderful it looked 
 to us who for over three years have not 
 been able to show a light, and for two years 
 have not been allowed a lantern on the road. 
 Have you ever walked on a moonless night 
 on a country road? Many a winter night I 
 have gone out to lock the garden gate when 
 I could not see it, and have walked off the 
 terrace into the flower beds, and had to feel 
 along the front wall of the house to find the 
 door. Of course I got used to it, but it really 
 was a queer sensation to think that it was all 
 over — and so suddenly — and that I had 
 no longer to be sure that the blinds were 
 closed and curtains drawn all over the house 
 before I could light a lamp. It was not only 
 in the winter that it was hard. In the sum- 
 mer, imagine having a sleepless warm night 
 and not being able to read unless blinds and 
 thick curtains excluded all air. Think of 
 all that, and then imagine being able to hear 
 a gun without giving it a thought, or watch 
 the phare of an aero at night without the 
 smallest nervousness. That is what the ar- 
 mistice means to us, unsatisfactory as it is. 
 
 While Suzanne and I were arranging the 
 candles those who had gone down to Couilly 
 or over to Quincy to take an active part in 
 the bell-ringing came back to tell us all about 
 it — how the civil authorities aided the bell- 
 man to ring the first peal, and then how every 
 one — women and children — hung on the 
 
 [ 127 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 rope and all pulled together. I rather re- 
 gretted that I had not gone down. 
 
 There must have been some pretty scenes 
 In that old church. Did I ever tell you that 
 every day at five o'clock there is a silent 
 prayer there and that all the men of our 
 commune at the front knew it and were sup- 
 posed, wherever they were, to pause, turn 
 their faces toward home, and join in the 
 prayer being said for them here? 
 
 I did not go to bed until midnight — not 
 until the candles were burned down. Every- 
 thing was quiet except now and then a foot- 
 step on the road, or the explosion of a can- 
 non cracker — as if we had not enough of 
 that sort of noise. But I suppose the young- 
 sters had not. I was walking at about half- 
 past ten In the garden, admiring my illumi- 
 nated house — you have no Idea how pretty 
 the outline of all the gables looked- — when 
 some one threw a petard over the wall and 
 it exploded right at my feet. I detest fire- 
 crackers. It gave me a start, and I called 
 out to the lad who threw it that I did not In 
 the least want to Interfere with his amuse- 
 ment, but that I begged him not to throw his 
 explosives Into my garden while I was walk- 
 ing there. He said, " Pardon, Madame," 
 and went on down the hill, but I suppose 
 that boy-like he resented It, and boy-like he 
 took his revenge later. 
 
 Shortly after I went to bed and before I 
 
 [ 128 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 had put out my lights, while I was quietly- 
 reading for lack of anything new, " The 
 Cloister and the Hearth," and finding a mean 
 pleasure in Gerald's description of Northern 
 Germany In the fifteenth century, — sud- 
 denly there came a sharp shot. It was like a 
 pistol right under my window. It gave me a 
 start. I sat listening — hesitated about get- 
 ting up, but, as I heard nothing more, de- 
 cided that it was probably some one return- 
 ing from Voisins and emptying his gun en 
 route. So I laid down again, and thought 
 no more about It until I heard voices In the 
 garden. For some reason, I suppose I In- 
 stinctively connected them with that shot, and 
 thinking some accident might have happened, 
 I jumped up, and put on my wrapper and 
 slippers. As I started down the stairs I 
 heard a frightened voice, and some one 
 began to pound and shouted, "Madame — 
 oh, Madame ! " While I was unbolting the 
 door — two bolts and a key to turn — I rec- 
 ognized Amelle's voice and realized that she 
 was crying. When the door opened she 
 stared at me, and then tumbled into the room 
 and sat right down on the floor, and there, 
 behind her, was Abelard with a big stick In 
 his hand, and two of my neighbours. 
 
 *'0h, Madame," sobbed Amelle, ''what 
 has happened? Didn't you hear anything? 
 Did n't you hear us calling you ? " 
 
 I said yes, that I had heard a pistol shot, 
 
 [ 129 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and that I supposed I had heard voices, but 
 that I paid no attention. 
 
 *^ There is some one hanging about the 
 house," said Amelie. " I thought you had 
 been assassinated. I saw some one with a lan- 
 tern moving about in front of the house after 
 the shot was fired. I woke Pere. Then I 
 thought perhaps it was you, so I called two 
 or three times. I could still see the light, but 
 you did not reply, so I made up my mind 
 that some one had shot you." 
 
 "Well, Amelie," I said, "if there is some 
 one in the garden we '11 go and find out who 
 it is. But you know that if any one were 
 here to do harm he would hardly have a 
 lighted lantern in a place that can be seen so 
 far." 
 
 Unluckily I laughed. I ought to have 
 seen how upset she was. But I only realized 
 it afterward. I lit my own lantern, and fol- 
 lowed by Abelard with his big stick I went 
 out in the garden to hunt for the other fellow 
 with the lantern. Naturally, as they had 
 come through the front garden, I went round 
 to the back of the house. I knew that I 
 should not find any one. I didn't. But as 
 I was returning to the front door I saw, roll- 
 ing to and fro on the ground, impelled by the 
 wind, a light. I leaned over it, as it moved, 
 and saw that it was the burning fuse of a big 
 petard — the fuse was as big round as my 
 wrist. 
 
 [ 130 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It was fully fifteen minutes since I had 
 heard it explode, and it was still burning 
 brightly. How Amelie ever got into the 
 garden without seeing it I don't understand. 
 I suppose her mind was so fixed on finding 
 the mistress shot in the house that she saw 
 nothing at all. The explanation was per- 
 fectly simple. The naughty boy, naughty-boy 
 like, had sent his final shot over the hedge 
 on his way home, with the excuse, I suppose, 
 that Madame had forbidden him because 
 she was in the garden, but that he had not 
 been forbidden to make her jump in her bed. 
 
 I am afraid that Amelie felt a bit silly 
 when it was all over. I had to be very care- 
 ful what I said next day and let her tell her 
 story in her own way. I took a neat cold 
 going out in the damp air with nothing on 
 my head and my bare feet thrust into 
 slippers. 
 
 I hope this amuses you. I feel so terribly 
 let down. Do you? 
 
 I 'd love to know what the men at the 
 front said when the news came that it was 
 over — or the fighting was. I have had only 
 one letter since the armistice, and that was 
 written a few days before. It told me some- 
 thing which surprised me — that the division 
 to which the writer belonged had been within 
 twelve miles of Brussels, but there was no 
 word to hint that they had any idea that the 
 end was near. 
 
 . [ 131 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I think of them all today as cleaning them- 
 selves up, getting out the colors and moving 
 in marching order toward the Rhine. How 
 many a homesick lad who Is crossing that 
 devastated country to the unspoiled Rhine- 
 land, and who. In the terrible days of the 
 Argonne Forest — forty-two days of fight- 
 ing — must often have thought that he might 
 never see the little old United States again, 
 will be whistling under his breath: 
 " When Johnny comes marching home agaiUy 
 
 hurrah ! Hurrah ! ' ' 
 and, although his back Is turned to It, think- 
 ing to himself that nothing else counts — 
 neither hard marches nor delays — so long 
 as In the end he is going back to where the 
 home fires burn. And on your side of the 
 water how many women's hearts must be 
 waiting for the last news from the Argonne 
 and the final list of casualties which will tell 
 them whether, 
 
 " When Johnny comes marching home,^^ 
 their own will be in the ranks, or, through 
 proud tears, they must salute the returning 
 heroes and rejoice for the more fortunate. 
 Of course, to millions of women the armistice 
 meant that the boys they had bravely offered 
 had never been called Into action. That does 
 not alter the spirit of the gift. 
 
 I have been busy clearing up the garden. 
 I wish you could see how active the taupes 
 are. We destroyed over twenty of their 
 
 [ 132 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 mounds today after filling the holes with 
 briar cuttings to wound the snouts of the 
 burrowing pest, after which we rolled the 
 lawn and hoped for the best. 
 
 It is bitterly cold, — a damp, penetrating 
 cold. However, our boys are going to be 
 more comfortable, and they have escaped 
 all the misery of winter in the trenches. I 
 expect those who are to guard the occupied 
 country, no matter how long they remain 
 under arms, will live in comparative luxury. 
 That is a comfort. 
 
 [ 133 ] 
 
IX 
 
 November 26, igi8 
 Thanks for your cable, which came the 
 very day after I mailed my long armistice 
 letter. I need not have worried, for not yet 
 is Othello's occupation gone. I reckon that 
 this disaster will not cease being an open 
 worry during your life or mine, and that we 
 have each got our work cut out. One thing 
 Is sure — if I want to keep what little wits 
 I have, I must cease trying to solve the ter- 
 rible dilemma myself, and extend to the un- 
 fortunate ones whose job It Is, all the sym- 
 pathy of which I am capable. 
 
 As to what I am going to do, to — as you 
 put It — "kill time"? Don't you worry yet. 
 First, having a little time on my hands, I 
 occupied It with having a kind of suppressed 
 grippe — the result of the cold of which I 
 had the beginning when I last wrote you. 
 I don't Imagine it Is the real Spanish article. 
 I am told that it Is not for my age. Besides, 
 I am immune from contagions. Anyway, if 
 it is, unlike murder, it will not out. I have 
 none of the usual symptoms. 
 
 Verv little has happened here since I 
 
 [' 134 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 wrote, except that on the Sunday after the 
 Armistice — that was November 17 — 
 Coullly had a solemn service in memory of 
 les enfants de Couilly, morte pour la Patrie. 
 Don't you love the idea of calling all the 
 dead soldiers "the children" of the Nation, 
 and France their mother? All over the 
 battle-fields of France you will find written 
 on the crosses that mark their graves, ^^ En- 
 fant de France.'''' 
 
 The ceremony of last Sunday was very 
 touching. It began with a solemn mass for 
 the dead, celebrated by our parish priest, my 
 very good friend, Abbe Segret, in the his- 
 toric church on the highest point of Couilly, 
 turning its graceful apse to Pont-aux-Dames, 
 where, from the road, one gets a most pic- 
 turesque view of it. 
 
 I must tell you that while this church is 
 not as beautiful as the one at La Chapelle, 
 a little further up the valley of the Grande 
 Morin, It Is a monument historique, and any 
 one who loves old-time church architecture 
 would find It well worth seeing. Its founda- 
 tions date back to the Eleventh Century — 
 to that great period of church-building In 
 which man, relieved from the fear of the 
 " end of the world," which has been prophe- 
 sied for the fin de siecle just passed, sprinkled 
 churches as thank-offerings all over the 
 landscape. Like so many of those built at 
 this time between the borders and Paris, this 
 
 [ 13s ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 church was partly destroyed by Norman in- 
 vasion, to be rebuilt In the twelfth century, 
 and restored at various times during the fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries. The nave, 
 as it stands today — lofty and well-lighted 
 — dates back to the twelfth century, and 
 the roomy aisles to the various periods of 
 the Renaissance. Unlike so many parish 
 churches — and also because it is classed as 
 a monument historiqtie and kept In order by 
 the Beaux-Arts — there is nothing tawdry 
 about it, and lovers of the beautiful can 
 find here and there bits of quaint carving 
 and touches of antiquity which are rather 
 Interesting. 
 
 But if you had been here that Sunday, I 
 could not have shown any of those things, 
 as the whole church was draped in black as 
 for a funeral of the premiere classe, and a 
 catafalque stood at the entrance of the choir 
 covered with flags and surrounded by tall 
 candles. 
 
 The aspect of the litde town — it only 
 counts about twelve hundred inhabitants — 
 was that of a great funeral. All the people 
 climbing the winding street leading to the 
 entrance of the church, perched aloft and 
 looking as if braced to prevent it from slip- 
 ping down into the town, were dressed in 
 black, — the French love that, you know, — 
 widows and orphans distinguished by their 
 crepe, for In France no one can mourn except 
 
 [ 136 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 under crepe, — they even put it on tiny 
 children. Some of the most touching calls 
 for aid that I have ever heard have been 
 from refugiees who had not money enough to 
 buy even the bit of crepe needed for the neck 
 and wrists of a dress as a badge of mourn- 
 ing. It does seem trivial to us, who have 
 outgrown the idea, but it is very real to 
 them. Of course they don't wear it every 
 day, only on ceremonious occasions like going 
 to church. Then it seems to them impera- 
 tive, for without their bit of crepe how could 
 one know they mourned? 
 
 The little church has a very good pipe 
 organ. The present Cure is musical, as was 
 his predecessor, and a young Conservatory 
 pupil who presides at the organ has taste, so 
 that part of the service was really fine. 
 
 After the benediction every one filed out 
 of the church and the procession formed on 
 the little square in front of it. Then, pre- 
 ceded by drums and fife, behind which 
 marched the firemen of the commune, for 
 lack of a real military escort the widows and 
 orphans took their places, with the rest of the 
 town people following informally. The pro- 
 cession wound slowly down the steep hill to 
 the little public park on the bank of the 
 Morin in which stands the simple monument 
 to the honor of the men of Couilly who fell 
 in 1870. 
 
 You have seen these funeral processions 
 
 [ 137 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 passing through the streets in France, where 
 even the unbelieving and the most radical 
 still salute their passing. As the group of 
 mourners turned at the entrance of the town 
 into the route nationale toward the little 
 park, wagons stopped and drivers uncovered, 
 and from a military automobile an officer de- 
 scended and stood at attention as the flag, 
 with its knot of crepe, went by. 
 
 The square had been all cleaned up for the 
 occasion. The war had badly damaged it. 
 Dozens of war camions have dashed into its 
 fence In the last four years and completely 
 wrecked that, and made big breaches in the 
 hedge behind It, while many military occupa- 
 tions of the little garden had quite destroyed 
 the ordered neatness of pre-war days. But 
 that had all been tidied up as well as a week 
 permitted. The simple monument was cov- 
 ered with masses of green branches and such 
 flowers — mostly dahlias and roses — as the 
 season could provide. 
 
 The mayor, with his aids about him, took 
 his place before the monument. The fire- 
 men, with Sergeant Louis at their head, 
 ranged themselves behind him. The widows 
 and orphans stood In a semicircle In front of 
 him, with the rest of us behind them. 
 
 I 'd like to send you that little discourse — 
 I will send you the printed copy, but I Ve not 
 time to translate It — It Is too long. You 
 know that It has been said that all the French 
 
 [ 138 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 are actors, and that the best of them are not 
 on the stage. I often feel that all the French 
 are orators and that the best of them never 
 mount the rostrum. This white-haired 
 mayor — tall, slight, alert — was a simple 
 man of the people. He has a strange sort of 
 distinction, a beautiful manner, and he speaks 
 well and thinks well too, for what he says is 
 always worth hearing. His souvenirs of the 
 days of the mobilization, his pictures of the 
 rising here in the defence of France, and his 
 tribute to the people of the little commune 
 in the time when France had her back to the 
 wall, were simple and touching. But it was 
 the end of the discourse — his tribute to the 
 men of the commune who would never re- 
 turn — that these people had come out to 
 hear. At the end, and it was a moving 
 tribute, he addressed himself to the group 
 of mourners before him, and said: "To you, 
 the families who have been so sorely stricken, 
 I say, * Weep no more.' Lift up your heads 
 in noble pride in remembrance of your dear 
 ones, and forget them not. The light of 
 their glory shall shine like a halo about your 
 heads and those of your children, and your 
 children's children, and assure to you forever 
 the respect of your neighbours. In the name 
 of the community I offer you on this great 
 day the homages of a sincere sympathy. 
 Vive la France f*^ 
 
 And the entire assembly responded by 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the cry of " Vive la France! Vive la Re- 
 puhlique! " 
 
 The dead silence which followed for a 
 moment was only broken by a few sobs, be- 
 cause, quite naturally, when the mourners 
 were told to " weep no more " they burst into 
 tears. 
 
 Then the drums and fife played " Garde 
 a vous^''^ and the mayor stepped down, and 
 his assistant took his place, while Sergeant 
 Louis, with his casque on his head, stepped 
 forward, and stood to the front, for the call- 
 ing of the roll of the dead. As each name 
 was read, the sergeant, standing rigid as a 
 statue, brought his hand to salute, and in a 
 firm voice replied, ^^ Morte pour la France.'^'* 
 
 It was all simple, but very moving. 
 
 That ceremony finished, the music sounded 
 ^'' Aux Champs^'^ and all the children, each 
 holding a flag, marched around the monu- 
 ment singing " La Marseillaise," and then 
 the procession re-formed, and, still headed 
 by the music, marched to the cemetery to 
 decorate the only soldier's grave there is 
 here — that of a young cyclist of the 26th 
 Battalion who died at Couilly on a hot sum- 
 mer day when his division stopped there to 
 rest during an advance, from jumping over- 
 heated into the Morin. 
 
 Is n't It a singular comment on this war to 
 think that here, in a commune which has 
 given so many of her children to France, the 
 [ 140 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 only soldier's grave should be that of a 
 passer-by, dead of an accident? It Is equally 
 significant that the commune should have 
 given him a burial of great pomp, and that 
 his grave should always be most carefully 
 tended, and Is a sacred spot to the children, 
 who keep fresh flowers upon It. To many 
 a pious hand that cares for It, It Is symbolic, 
 and the bunches of flowers brought almost 
 dally are often In memory of a grave " out 
 there " In the north, or of one of those sad 
 mounds on the cross at the head of which 
 are the words, "Here sleep 170 unknown 
 French soldiers." 
 
 Even when the children had redecorated 
 the grave and the older people had talked 
 about that single military funeral, they 
 seemed reluctant to separate. So they all es- 
 corted the mayor to his house, and there, be- 
 fore his door, the widows and orphans lined 
 up, and. In real French funeral fashion, the 
 people of the community, headed by the 
 mayor, passed along the line and shook each 
 mourner by the hand. 
 
 All these ceremonies are dear to the 
 French, and I felt sure that this part of the 
 affair was a great consolation to them. 
 
 I write you all these little details, which 
 are so local, because they are so characteris- 
 tically French, and because they will visual- 
 ize for you the sort of scene which is taking 
 place all over France In these first days after 
 
 [ 141 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the fighting Is done, and under the influence 
 of the thought which grips us all : " There is 
 to be no more killing — let us bury our 
 dead." 
 
 I am sure that all through the ceremony 
 I was not the only one whose mind was ob- 
 sessed by another picture — the victorious 
 armies advancing, with bands playing and 
 colors flying, toward the Rhine. Perhaps 
 that idea may not be so compelling to you 
 who have never had to see how armies have 
 advanced and retreated in this war with all 
 the modern improvements, — a picture so 
 different from anything that used to be con- 
 veyed by the word "martial," and in which 
 " Rally round the flag, boys, rally once 
 again" has become obsolete — except as a 
 symbol, of course. For all I know, the con- 
 quering armies may be approaching the 
 bridge heads on the Rhine in camions, for 
 one of the things which modern soldiers 
 most hate is walking. But my imagination 
 sees them marching to music and following 
 the flag. 
 
 Do you know that in spite of all that has 
 been written about this war I met a girl the 
 other day who still thought the boys from 
 the States went into battle with colors un- 
 furled and bugle calls sounding. She had 
 never even heard a military whistle. 
 
 Don't you love to think of them advancing 
 toward the frontier, with no battles ahead, 
 
 [ 142 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 or being carted all over the place In circular 
 trips toward the west with St. Nazaire and 
 Bordeaux ahead of them, then the Atlantic, 
 — then home? 
 
 I had a letter from New York the other 
 day from a woman who said that as her boy 
 had never got anywhere near the front she 
 expected him home at once. She did not 
 seem to realize that It took a year to bring 
 them over with England's fleet at our service, 
 and that It must, naturally, take much longer 
 than that to get them back. 
 
 In the mean time, the boys never needed 
 our sympathy more than they do at this 
 minute. With all the glamour of war, all 
 the tension of battles and danger and glory 
 removed, with only the dull routine of mili- 
 tary discipline and the monotonous round 
 of military duties left, with home waiting for 
 them across the ocean and the longing to 
 go marching back haunting them, the days 
 will be dreary for some of them. There are 
 a million of them, perhaps, who have never 
 seen any action. They have given up a year 
 of their lives to camp training, and have not 
 even smelled a battle, never even heard a 
 big gun except In artillery exercise, never 
 known anything of war except camp life. 
 Hundreds of them have worked building 
 roads near the coast, the only soldiering they 
 have known consisting In wearing a uniform. 
 ^Naturally, some of them are pretty sore. 
 
 r 14.3 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 You ask me again how I think our boys 
 have liked it over here? How can I tell 
 you? Up to now they have not had much 
 chance to find out for themselves. I doubt 
 if they will ever really know before they get 
 home, and personally, I believe that it will 
 take them some time after they are back in 
 the United States to show the moral and 
 spiritual marks the trip has put on them. 
 They show the physical already — those who 
 have stood up under the effort, and the big 
 majority have. The trip has been no joy 
 ride. The army in the depots has been some 
 bored. The fighting army was new to the 
 discomforts their allies had borne under 
 much more trying conditions for four years, 
 and they were not "in it" long enough to 
 get used to them. But I assure you that by 
 the time the boys get home even the talk of 
 the Argonne Forest will seem different from 
 what it does today. Time will have softened 
 the recollection, and the very fact that they 
 were in the great struggle and came out alive 
 will influence their memories of it all. Be- 
 sides, "distance lends enchantment" as much 
 to the past as to the future. 
 
 I am afraid that many will go back with 
 Illusions a bit shattered. But that was to be 
 foreseen. 
 
 For a great many reasons it was a pity 
 that they were not "in it" longer. It was 
 no joy ride to the fighting army, but it was 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and still is, to a great many who are wearing 
 the uniform, in civil work. 
 
 I had a boy say to me, just before the 
 armistice, when the end was in sight, in his 
 opinion : '' Good Lord ! Was this big push 
 all the Allies, when they were so near to worn 
 down, needed to knock the Boches out? It 
 is only taking us six months to finish them. 
 What will they think of us by and by?" 
 
 I could only reply that, up to date, I had 
 never heard them saying anything but 
 " Thank you, Messrs. Americans." 
 
 Here we are sitting up and taking notice 
 in a more personal way than we have for 
 many a long day. Living is costly. We are 
 told it is to be even more so. I suppose that 
 is the case everywhere. It is costing me just 
 six times as much to live as it did the first 
 few months I was here, and I am wondering 
 if the cost of mere existence will ever drop 
 back to what we used to call '^normal." 
 
 It is cold, but I am very comfortable, as 
 I told you I should be. So, even if it is a 
 hard winter, as far as I personally am con- 
 cerned you need not worry. 
 
 I have learned to love winter here as well 
 as summer. The landscape is never bare, 
 and the naked trees have even more character 
 than the leaf-dressed ones of summer. Be- 
 sides, the panorama is even more varied than 
 in summer, and, when it is clear, I am always 
 discovering a new hamlet which had been 
 
 [ 145 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 hidden in the foliage at other seasons. I am 
 getting terribly attached to the soil. Per- 
 haps all people of my age feel the same way 
 
 — or would if they had the chance to find it 
 out. Charles Dudley Warner once said that 
 the fondness for the ground comes back to 
 a man after he has run the rounds of busi- 
 ness, of pleasure, has eaten dirt and sown 
 wild oats, drifted about the world and taken 
 the wind in its moods, and that the love of 
 the ground is as sure to come back to him as 
 he is sure to go under the ground and rest 
 there. I am sure that this is not quite right 
 
 — but the idea is there. 
 
 We heard on Monday morning, the i8th, 
 that there was not a German left on French 
 soil, except, of course, the prisoners. That 
 is some comfort. 
 
 [ 146 ] 
 
December i, igi8 
 I HAVE been having a perfect orgy of 
 going up to Paris. So many events call out 
 to me, and I cannot seem to resist them. 
 Normal activity helps me to realize that It 
 Is really over, and to feel that the past four 
 years have been a nightmare from which the 
 world must try to wake to normal life, and 
 that I must wake up with it. 
 
 First, I felt It a sort of national duty to eat 
 a regular American Thanksgiving dinner on 
 Thursday, with an American face sitting 
 opposite to me. So, being bidden to Paris 
 for just that, I accepted and went. Then 
 I felt that I simply had to see the entrance 
 Into the city of the first of the victorious 
 visiting sovereigns, King George. 
 
 Never again In my time, perhaps never in 
 any time, will Paris, or any other city, see 
 such scenes of historic interest as are begin- 
 ning to take place there now. I felt I had 
 to look on at the first of the pictures which 
 will be unrolling there for months. Talk 
 about the excitement of a great drama on the 
 mimic stage, with the curtain rolling up and 
 
 [ 147 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 down between star actors and spectators I It 
 is piffle in comparison with the historical 
 drama disclosing its living scenes before the 
 eyes of the favored ones in Paris today. 
 Future generations may re-live these days in 
 the novels and dramas of coming ages and 
 curse or bless the prominent characters in 
 them according to how they play their roles 
 in the next few months. But I shall not be 
 here to see what the poets and historians, the 
 play-makers and novelists do with this epoch 
 when time shall have created a perspective 
 and permitted a proper selection. So I felt 
 that I might as well look at such of the pass- 
 ing show as came easily within my narrow 
 range of vision. It is not likely to be much. 
 King George of Great Britain, Emperor 
 of all the Indies, and his sons — the Prince 
 of Wales and the Duke of York — chose 
 Thanksgiving Day to arrive, so, as soon as 
 we had eaten our turkey and plum pudding 
 at noon, we went out on the Avenue du Bois, 
 only five minutes' walk from the house, to 
 see the royal guests pass up the Avenue, 
 from the station at the Porte Dauphine on 
 their way to the Palace of the Ministry of 
 Foreign Affairs, on the other side of the 
 Seine (close to the Chamber of Deputies), 
 where foreign royalty is always entertained. 
 Their route took them up the Avenue to the 
 Arc de Triomphe, from the top of which 
 only two months ago the guns of the defence 
 
 [ 148 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 against air raids were viciously barking, 
 down the Champs-Elysees, across the Place 
 de la Concorde and over the river, the hand- 
 somest and most popular drive Paris can 
 show. 
 
 There were plenty of places where we 
 might have gone and sat in a window to 
 watch, but I wanted to be in the street, and 
 nearer than one could possibly be in a house ; 
 the avenues are so very wide. As our end 
 of the route was the furthest from the centre 
 of the city it was possible to be there and not 
 risk being crushed, and being only five min- 
 utes' walk from the house, it was easy not 
 only to get there but also to get back. 
 
 So we strolled on to the Avenue, paid 
 two francs each for a wooden chair, with 
 a deposit of another franc to guarantee 
 the woman letting them that we would 
 not put them in our pockets and carry 
 them home. Then we found the best place, 
 fixed our chairs, and were free to sit down 
 on them until the procession came, and 
 then climb on them to look over the heads 
 of the guard and the people standing be- 
 hind them. As for me, I climbed up at 
 once, to look up and down the broad avenue. 
 It was a beautiful sight, so quiet, so dignified, 
 so exactly, it seemed to me, what the sorely 
 tried capital of such a people should be, 
 when, although the fighting has stopped, the 
 war is not yet ended. 
 
 [ 149 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It was a grey day. Paris is usually grey 
 at this season. A fine drizzle was falling, 
 yet few people put up their umbrellas. All 
 along the way, from the Porte Dauphine to 
 the great arch, on both sides of the road, 
 the poilus were standing shoulder to shoul- 
 der. As far as my eyes reached the guard 
 was made of the famous Chasseurs Alpins, 
 known to you as the "Blue Devils" — each 
 with a foiirragere on his left shoulder, a posy 
 in his rakishly set hereto and a decoration or 
 two on the left breast of his faded overcoat. 
 They were all standing at ease, joking and 
 laughing, looking so fit, and there was not 
 a bronzed face among them that was not 
 worth studying. I very much doubt if it is 
 possible to find anywhere else a crowd of 
 common soldiers who look so universally in- 
 telligent as these men. One had only to see 
 them to believe all the tales of their exploits. 
 
 Every house along the line, on both sides 
 of the Avenue, showed English and French 
 flags. Here and there along the way were 
 stands of the colors of all the Allies. There 
 was no bunting, nothing to conceal, disfigure 
 or spoil the real beauty of the Avenue, whose 
 chief decorations that day were the soldiers 
 outlining it with the crowd behind them, 
 with the groups massed in the windows fur- 
 ther back still. 
 
 It was a mild day. Every window, from 
 basement to mansards, stood wide open, and 
 
 [ 150 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 windows and balconies were packed with 
 women and children. There were compara- 
 tively few men, but I suppose that further 
 down the line, nearer the centre of the city, 
 the crowd was quite different. I could easily 
 imagine, for example, the Champs-Elysees 
 below the Ronde Pointe, with its border of 
 German guns of every calibre, from 88's to 
 huge trench mortars. They must have made 
 wonderful vantage-points from which to see 
 the passing show, and although the French 
 do not want any king in theirs, they love to 
 gaze at them as well as any race I know; it 
 Is pure curiosity plus a love of free speech. 
 The French have a gift for blague and few 
 things are sacred to the crowd. If it had 
 not been too far for me to walk I should 
 have liked to see the Champs-Elysees that 
 day, if only to watch the crowd mounted 
 upon these cannon. You may have been told 
 by American correspondents how they treat 
 them, and how they drag them out of place, 
 and, on occasion, as far as the boulevard, 
 and how Clemenceau practically encouraged 
 them with the information that there were 
 plenty more in the back shop. ' 
 
 It was a quiet crowd. There was no noise. 
 There were few of the bursts of laughter one 
 usually hears in a French crowd. People 
 did not even seem to talk much. There was 
 not a bit of gaiety. So as I stood quietly my 
 memory summoned up so many street scenes 
 
 [ 151 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I had witnessed in Paris from the first great 
 one I saw when Felix Faure was buried the 
 winter after I came. 
 
 Then I remembered one that we had seen 
 together. Do you remember one day, when 
 we were sitting near Ledoyen's, after lunch, 
 and saw the ex-Queen of Spain, Isabella, the 
 grandmother of Alphonso, passing down the 
 Avenue for the last time, on her way to the 
 royal tomb In the Escurlal ? Do you remem- 
 ber that, as the fourgon^ with a cavalry es- 
 cort thundering and clanking about It, came 
 down the hill au galop (from the famous 
 palace on the Avenue Kleber — on the site 
 of which the Hotel Majestic Is soon to house 
 the British Peace Commission — to the Gare 
 d'Orleans) hardly any one walking on the 
 Avenue even turned to look at It? I remem- 
 ber that you remarked that day that she 
 seemed In almost as great a hurry to get out 
 of France as she had been, years before, to 
 get out of Spain. It was the rapldest thing 
 in the way of a funeral that I had ever seen. 
 
 But all this is a far cry from King George's 
 arrival. 
 
 What I enjoyed most about the Thanks- 
 giving Day function was Its utter lack of fuss. 
 
 The train was due at half-past two. Ten 
 minutes before the time, the presidential car- 
 riage, a simple victoria, with two horses 
 only, just like any private turn-out, passed 
 slowly down the Avenue. There was not 
 
 [ 152 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 even a piqueur as in the old days, when the 
 President of the Republic could not go to the 
 races without outriders and a piqueur, 
 Poincare and Clemenceau acknowledged, 
 smilingly, the polite cheers that greeted them 
 — the heartiest enthusiasm being, of course, 
 for the "Tiger," whose time-worn old face, 
 though It looked tired, had still that lusty ex- 
 pression of vitality which has kept him up 
 so well in the gigantic task of holding France 
 In leash. His formidable white moustache 
 bristled, his eyes shone, he looked alive with 
 energy, this man of seventy-eight, who has 
 carried a burden which might well have stag- 
 gered a younger person. I suppose no finer 
 thing can be said of a man than that he has 
 " deserved well of his country," and surely 
 no one could ask a better fate than, at the 
 end of his life, after a varied and stormy 
 career, having well outlived his allotted 
 " three score and ten," to have met his great- 
 est days and successfully steered his country's 
 ship through the breakers. 
 
 As I looked after the carriage, making its 
 way by the cheers and waving handkerchiefs, 
 there came Into my mind a picture of him as 
 he stood in the Chamber of Deputies only 
 seventeen days before on that historic nth 
 of November, closing the war, which had 
 been inaugurated there with the memorable 
 phrase, " Lift up your hearts, and long live 
 France," with the equally unforgettable 
 
 [ 153 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 words, on that day punctuated by the can- 
 nons of victory : " Honour to our noble dead. 
 Thanks to them, France, — yesterday the sol- 
 dier of God, today the soldier of Humanity, 
 shall be tomorrow the soldier of the Ideal." 
 I wonder, now. Don't you? 
 
 However, it was a nice picture of the great 
 old man. I saw a drawing of him in his atti- 
 tude at the climax of the phrase, with his 
 arms lifted straight in the air above his head, 
 one of his most familiar gestures when he is 
 in the tribune and excited. 
 
 You see how my mind wanders, writing to 
 you. You can guess how it wandered as I 
 stood on the chair that day waiting for King 
 George to pass. 
 
 It was amusing to see how every one 
 jumped at the first boom of the royal salute. 
 Then every one laughed heartily. It was 
 the first laughter of the afternoon. One 
 does not recover at once from the days when 
 that sound was a menace. It was exactly 
 two months to a day since the last air raid. 
 I seem to have forgotten all about them, but 
 I know people who still dream of them. 
 
 As soon as the salute began there was a 
 movement along the line. From the officers 
 in front came a grunt, followed by another 
 one, — ^^ Porte — armesf'' I supposed it to 
 be, as it was followed by the shuffle of thou- 
 sands of feet as the soldiers drew their heels 
 together, and then the movement of thou- 
 
 [ 154 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 sands of hands on their rifles as they shifted 
 arms, and the officers wheeled, each fist hold- 
 ing a sword in front of each chin. 
 
 Then the little cortege slowly trotted up 
 the Avenue — only a line of mounted police 
 leading the way, followed by King George in 
 campaign uniform, sitting on the right of 
 Poincare, then a carriage containing the 
 Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, with 
 Clemenceau facing them — the protocol 
 being still place aux princes, even when they 
 are kids. A few carriages containing gov- 
 ernment people and officers, — French and 
 British, — followed by a line of mounted 
 police, and it was over. It had not taken 
 five minutes for them to pass. Then we 
 climbed down from our chairs and went 
 home. 
 
 The next day, by accident, I saw the same 
 little cortege pass through the Place de 
 rOpera on Its way to the Hotel de Ville. 
 I happened to be there, and had an oppor- 
 tunity to gaze down on the scene from an 
 upper balcony overlooking the Place. I got 
 there the same impression of great dignity 
 which I had received the day before. 
 
 The great square was empty. The en- 
 trances to it — six — were closed by cavalry. 
 The wide avenues were lined with poilus. 
 The sidewalks were packed. The windows 
 and balconies were full. The time of wait- 
 ing was gayer than it had been the day be- 
 
 [ 155 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 fore — the difference between a residential 
 and a business district. Women and chil- 
 dren in the balconies rained down chocolate, 
 cigarettes, and now and then flowers upon 
 the soldiers, and there were constant ripples 
 of laughter and the little cries which I had 
 missed the day before. Now at one point, 
 ,now at another, a soldier would rush out 
 into the street to catch or rescue or struggle 
 for the falling prizes, until a sharp command 
 ran along the line and cavalry mounted and 
 soldiers came rigidly to " attention.'' Then 
 the little cortege — with only a line of 
 mounted police as escort — passed. From 
 our lofty station the carriages looked like 
 toys, as they slowly crossed the wide square, 
 — the King and the Prince of Wales in 
 khaki, and the Duke of York in a naval 
 uniform, and Polncare holding his silk hat 
 most of the time in his hand. It was all 
 democratic enough, considering that it was 
 the king of a great nation in a foreign 
 capital. 
 
 I am going to Paris next week to see the 
 King and Queen of Belgium. There are no 
 figures in this war of whom I more ardently 
 desire to get a personal impression than those 
 rulers of the brave people who so unhesitat- 
 ingly sacrificed themselves to make victory 
 finally possible. I hope It will never be for- 
 gotten that but for the stand Belgium took 
 so quickly, the German hordes would have 
 
 [ 156 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 swept to the Channel in August, 1914? — 
 and to Paris. 
 
 The final result might have been the same, 
 for there was always the British fleet to be 
 considered, but, destroyed as France is now, 
 she would, without Belgium's stand, have 
 been more so. Speculations are stupid. 
 Things are as they are. Still it is certain 
 that more fought in this war than men and 
 guns and science. Horrible as it has been, 
 it might have been worse. That idea comes 
 back to me so often in these days, when it 
 is presumably over, and yet all so abiding in 
 our hearts with its years of uncertainty and 
 pain. I suppose that you are convinced, as 
 I am, that if war is to be, we must accept 
 the theory that those who fight, since fight 
 they must, must fight to win, and have (war 
 being permissible) the right to use every 
 weapon they have or can find or can create. 
 Isn't it a sort of sad comfort to feel that 
 Germany did all that with devilish ingenuity 
 and without a scruple, and was still defeated? 
 
 The world has got to find another way 
 out of the dilemma if the majority of the na- 
 tions have reached a plane of development 
 on which they no longer want to fight. But 
 have they? I am sure I don't know. When 
 man got above avenging his personal wrongs 
 with his own hand he created a police force 
 and public courts. Neither has prevented 
 murder. But they have decreed its punish- 
 
 [ 157 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ment — not always justly or In proper pro- 
 portions, but, at any rate, personal murder 
 went out of fashion. There were times in 
 man's history when an heroic murder was 
 rather admired. Today no well-regulated 
 family really cares to count any kind of mur- 
 derer among its members. Perhaps even the 
 O'Flaherties no longer pride themselves on 
 the days when they used to hear in the litany, 
 *' From the ferocious O'Flaherties, Good 
 Lord, deliver us." Yet they were Irish. 
 Who knows? It may be that Germany has 
 put war out of fashion. It has surely put it 
 out of fashion to be German — witness the 
 great number of people of German origin, 
 from King George down, who have sloughed 
 off their German names. 
 
 I am going to set it right down quick — 
 to save you from the danger of making un- 
 pleasant remarks — that I am no believer in 
 any League of Nations, except as a cause for 
 more wars, any more than I am an advocate 
 of the abolition of military service. We 
 may have reached a time when we can safely 
 shelve the maxim, "We should provide in 
 peace what we need in war." I don't know. 
 But I do know that fashions are often 
 resurrected. 
 
 I came back from Paris yesterday. I left 
 in a rain storm, but the sun came out to wel- 
 come me. I found my house in " apple-pie 
 order" (by the way, what is apple-pie 
 
 [ iS8 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 order?). A big fire was roaring in the new 
 brick chimney, and Amelie was full of stories 
 about the beasties. We Ve three new kittens 
 — Ninette, Rantintin, and Rhadadhu (I 
 can't spell that, but it looks picturesque and 
 pronounceable that way). They are winter 
 kittens, and Amelie says that "winter kittens 
 are hard to raise." But they flourish and 
 make the nicest topics of conversation. I 
 don't know how we should get along if it were 
 not for the cats. Khaki does not love them 
 as much as we do. He smells them over and 
 then retires some distance and spits. He 
 knows it is naughty, for the moment he spits, 
 he runs away. 
 
 Luckily Amelie and I agree on politics. 
 The house would be unlivable if we did not, 
 for she is at once violent and picturesque in 
 her language. The other day she got fussed 
 with Dick, who wanted to play when she was 
 not in the humour, and I heard her explode 
 with: ^^ Fa-t-on, bolchevikf' When I pro- 
 tested, she replied : " Well, I ask you — 
 just look at him, with his bushy head of 
 hair. He looks just like one of the frowzy 
 devils." 
 
 You see, we none of us here are socialists. 
 Very few farmers are. Amelie comes near 
 expressing the universal feeling when she 
 says : " We were happier In the old times. 
 We earned less and needed less. All I ask 
 is plenty of work and bread. We used to 
 
 [ 159 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 have both, and we had contentment. That 's 
 all gone." 
 
 It is a big question, Isn't It — this sowing 
 of " noble discontent " and reaping disorder? 
 It will never be the proletariats who can clean 
 up the business and re-sow the seeds of future 
 happiness In the world, which, so far as I can 
 see ahead, Is likely to know little happiness 
 in what remains of life to me. 
 
 I shall not stay at home long. The Bel- 
 gian sovereigns arrive Thursday — that will 
 be the 5th. Yes, yes, I know what you are 
 thinking. I am going up a week later, to 
 look on President Wilson. He Is, after all, 
 our chief executive — the head of the gov- 
 ernment In the country where I was born and 
 of which I am proud. It Is the sporting 
 chance with us Americans that we must 
 accept the leadership of the man the majority 
 elects, so long as he remains In power, as 
 gracefully as possible. I shall surely never 
 live to see another president of the United 
 States pack his grip, order his carriage, and 
 without a "by your leave" to the people 
 who turned him from an unimportant politi- 
 cal schoolmaster to the chief of one of the 
 four big powers, cross the ocean to arrogate 
 to himself work usually entrusted to men of 
 international reputation. Of course he may 
 be setting a fashion which will survive, but 
 even so, he will still be the first who ever did 
 the strange deed for which the constitution 
 
 [ 160 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 has no brake. So, at least, I might as well 
 look at him. 
 
 I have seen but one president during 
 his term of office — Abraham Lincoln. I 
 remember that as if it were yesterday — or 
 I think I do. I must have been about eleven. 
 I imagine — I can't be sure — that it was 
 just before his second inauguration, and so 
 not long before he was assassinated. It was 
 at the old St. James Hotel, which at the time 
 I left Boston, in 1898, was occupied by the 
 Conservatory of Music. I can remember 
 looking up in his worn face, as he bent his 
 tall, loose figure to speak to me. The face, 
 the ungraceful figure, the bony hand, are as 
 vivid to me today as the day I looked into 
 his eyes and told him my name, — or I think 
 they are. But it may be because all those 
 things have been so familiarized to me in 
 books and portraits. My father had told 
 me that I must never forget that I had seen a 
 very great man. I never did. 
 
 So I am going up to look at Wilson — who 
 seems to me to be the very first international 
 socialist who has arrived in the chair of a 
 ruler of a nation. I have as yet seen no sign 
 that in the States he is recognized as an in- 
 ternational socialist, but the party in Europe 
 seems to have noticed it, and considering the 
 fact that the United States of America has, 
 as I have told you before, got Europe hypno- 
 tized, and that Wilson means to them the 
 
 [ 161 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 people of the nation whose help has been so 
 opportune for the Allies, and whose wealth, 
 power and comparative immunity from war 
 disasters make them so imperatively neces- 
 sary to the welfare and reconstruction of the 
 war-worn nations, you cannot deny that there 
 are grounds for grave anxiety here already. 
 
 [ 162 ] 
 
XI 
 
 December 8, iQlS 
 
 Well, dear girl — IVe been to Paris 
 again. I Ve seen King Albert and his lovely- 
 Queen, and I wish I could invent some new 
 adjectives. It was one of the most satis- 
 factory sensations I ever had. 
 
 Of course the entrance into Paris was only 
 a repetition of the arrival of King George 
 of which I wrote you last week, except that 
 Madame Poincare rode up the avenue to the 
 station with the French President, and rode 
 back with Queen Elizabeth. It was the same 
 kind of crowd, and we saw the cortege come 
 slowly up the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne 
 from the same point where we had stood to 
 see the British King. 
 
 King Albert in his field uniform, sensitive- 
 looking and so manly, saluted the cheering 
 crowd with visible diffidence — and then 
 came Queen Elizabeth! How I did wish 
 that you were standing beside me. I have 
 seen many a charming woman, but It Is a 
 long time since I have seen one so altogether 
 adorable as this war queen of the Belgians. 
 Her smiling, sympathetic face turned with 
 
 [ 163 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 such frank pleasure to acknowledge the greet- 
 ings of the crowd; her expression was so 
 noble, so absolutely devoid of anything ap- 
 proaching affectation, that I could not help 
 feeling that it was a fine thing for a people to 
 have such a queen. My heart went right out 
 to her, and it seemed to me that every one's 
 did, and I felt absolutely satisfied. I could 
 only hope that in this work-a-day world the 
 Belgians appreciate their luck in having such 
 a King and Queen to inspire loyalty, to be led 
 by, to look up to, and to adore. 
 
 Of course I realize that the glamour of 
 romance hangs round these two. They are 
 both young and good-looking. It fell to 
 King Albert to make the first great chival- 
 rous gesture of the war, and nobly to dare 
 extermination for honour's sake, and to his 
 Queen, who has taken an ever-active part in 
 the actual warfare, to repudiate, in choosing 
 the cause of right, her native country and the 
 family from which she sprung. 
 
 I suppose you will ask me if she is pretty. 
 Really I can't tell you. To me she was beau- 
 tiful, and looked as I felt a Queen should, 
 but as they too rarely do, except on the stage. 
 I could not even have told you whether the 
 enthusiasm was great or not. However, the 
 very next day one of my friends said to me : 
 " If the royalties think they have had a great 
 reception in Paris, I can't help wishing they 
 had heard New York receiving Jolfre or the 
 
 [ 164 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Blue Devils. Why, you could hear the 
 cheering from the Battery to the Park! " 
 
 That was really none of my affair, except 
 that I was glad Papa Joffre got a rousing 
 reception at a time when I am sure It cheered 
 his fine old heart. There was no need for 
 me to take up the cudgels. But I am afraid 
 that I did, though I regretted It afterward. 
 Of course no one questions that. In the States, 
 when they undertake to make a noise, they win 
 out over all comers. We are a deep-throated 
 people. I am confident, for example, that 
 nowhere else In the world do artists get any 
 such tumultuous applause as they get In the 
 American theatres, and I have seen most of 
 the great first performances In Paris from 
 the Exposition Year to the War. Besides, 
 New York received Joffre before we came 
 to be actually engaged In the war, and the 
 streets of the city were packed with husky 
 men. 
 
 Here In Paris, the capital of a country 
 which has been fighting for four years on Its 
 own soil, and which has lost in that fight 
 one eighteenth of its entire population, and 
 one fourth of Its strength in mature men, 
 the crowd is largely made up of women and 
 children, and I know how ineffective the 
 cheers of the groups around me were and 
 how ill their voices carried. Besides, these 
 royal processions are very modest affairs. 
 Paris is not going to do her utmost until the 
 
 [ i6s ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 poilus come marching back, and she will not 
 spoil the glamour of that great day by an- 
 ticipating it in any way. Also on both the 
 days when royalty came a-visiting, all along 
 the five miles of road over which they passed, 
 there stood, on either side of their route, a 
 close rank of deep-throated soldiers, who 
 could have made the air ring with shouts, 
 each with a gun on his shoulder, his eyes 
 fixed front, silent and motionless as a statue, 
 or with a sabre, grasped in his fist at his chin, 
 held in front of his nose. 
 
 I suppose that I felt needlessly nettled 
 that the sincerity of a reception should be 
 gauged by Its volume of sound, and yet I 
 could not help remembering the significant 
 fact that on the Fourth of July, enthusiastic 
 as was the reception of the Americans, it was 
 their own poilus that got the French crowd. 
 
 One more trip to Paris to see the city re- 
 ceive Wilson, and then I am done. I like 
 well enough just now to do these little polite 
 duties. It is not only that I shall never see 
 such things again, but here all my neighbours 
 like to hear about it, and many of them have 
 never been to Paris. Of course they read 
 about it in the papers. But hearing me tell 
 about it seems different. 
 
 Still, it Is terribly hard work for me, and 
 
 I get very tired. In the first place, the trains 
 
 are slow and crowded. Then in Paris it Is a 
 
 tedious thing to get any kind of a conveyance 
 
 [ i66 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 for crossing the city. If I have only a small 
 dressing-case I cannot carry it far myself, 
 and there is rarely a time when I am not 
 forced to have something more in the way 
 of baggage. Taxi-autos are rare. I simply 
 cannot struggle for one myself. You could 
 not, energetic as you are. Some one else has 
 to do that for me. Luckily in years like 
 these one gets to be known by the regular 
 porters at the station, and my white hair gets 
 me some consideration. Amelie contends 
 that it is my eternal smile. I don't think it 
 is as fixed as that, but it may be. If I were to 
 be absolutely honest I suppose I should own 
 that it was all these things — plus something 
 I hold in my hand, and which does not go into 
 the cab with me, when I get It, — a fact 
 perhaps as well known to the station porter 
 as my white hair and my smile. 
 
 I often wish you could see me waiting 
 patiently on the terrace when the train 
 arrives, for I have learned patience In these 
 years, good-natured patience. The station 
 courtyard is a great sight. The big crowd, — 
 soldiers carrying heavy packs, men carrying 
 valises, porters with trunks on their 
 shoulders, and women with bags, all rush 
 out like ants from a hill. There is never a 
 waiting cab In the court. The only hope is 
 to be able to grab one entering the gate to 
 discharge a passenger. So soldiers drop 
 their packs, men their valises, porters their 
 
 [ 167 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 trunks, and, with the boys always waiting to 
 earn a few sous, they all dash for the street 
 in the hope of intercepting a taxi. When 
 one comes through the gate it is escorted by 
 a running, yelling mob. On either side a 
 man has mounted on the running-board, with 
 his hand on the door handle, and the crowd 
 is bidding as at an auction. The miserable 
 passenger inside has simply to fight to get 
 out, and while he is settling up, at least two 
 people have got into the cab and are fighting 
 inside. Then the chauffeur has to decide 
 which one he will take, and it becomes a 
 question of the shortest and easiest course 
 and the biggest tip. The police turn their 
 backs, unless called for, — and neither 
 chauffeur nor disputing clients care for 
 their aid. They can settle better without 
 It. They know that he will have no sym- 
 pathy with the big tipping — it is his busi- 
 ness not to. So they prefer to dispense with 
 him. What with tipping the porter who 
 fights for you, and the bidding with a tip to 
 seduce the chauffeur, one rarely gets off with- 
 out paying the value of a dollar and a half 
 over and above the fare registered on the 
 metre for the trip, which is Itself about 
 double what it used to be before the war tariff 
 came In. So you see that it is today just 
 about as expensive to get about in Paris as 
 It used to be In New York. It Is a far cry, 
 is n't it, from the old days, when cab-riding 
 [ i68 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 In Paris was so cheap? I ask myself some- 
 times if Paris will ever again be the Paradise 
 of the respectable person of taste and small 
 means ? I am afraid not. Today with butter 
 at two dollars a pound, coffee at a dollar and 
 a half, the outlook is not cheering. One can 
 only say, *' Sufficient unto the day is the cost 
 thereof" — so long as one can get the 
 wherewithal to put something Into one's 
 mouth ! 
 
 • [ 169 ] 
 
XII 
 
 December 15, 191S 
 
 I THINK I told you In my last letter that 
 I should go up to Paris to honour the People 
 of the great United States by looking at their 
 elected chief as he rode through the streets 
 to the acclamations of the crowd. I went. 
 It was a great day for Wilson, I assure you. 
 We had planned to follow our usual pro- 
 gramme, — buy our chairs on the Avenue 
 du Bois and stand on them. We started out 
 calmly, never for a moment supposing that 
 what was perfectly easy when kings were 
 passing might be less so when the great 
 democrat came. You may imagine, if you 
 can, our stupefaction on arriving one block 
 from the Avenue to find the way barred and 
 guarded by the police, and through that bar- 
 rier none but soldiers or people who had 
 tickets could pass. As such a dilemma had 
 not occurred to us, we naturally had no 
 tickets. That was a fix. 
 
 Looking over the barriers down the streets 
 leading to the Avenue, we could see the 
 khaki-clad backs of American soldiers lining 
 the edge of the roadway. It looked as if the 
 entire American Army had turned out. 
 
 [ 170 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Groups were still passing, and In front of 
 the barriers, women and children were vainly 
 trying to get through, while huge camions 
 full of lads in khaki were continually going 
 along the driveway above the Avenue in the 
 direction of the railway station. 
 
 I asked a policeman where on the route the 
 way was open, and he said " on the Champs- 
 Elysees." But that was too long a walk for 
 me, especially as Wilson's route would be 
 different from that taken by royal visitors. 
 The presidential family is not being put up 
 at the Government Palace, which receives 
 royal visitors, but Is occupying the Prince de 
 Murat's private house, — palatial enough, in 
 the smart Monceau quarter of the city, — 
 and there was no knowing whether or not we 
 could pass the Avenue Malakoff without 
 making a wide detour. 
 
 I was rather Inclined to give It up — you 
 know how I hate a crowd. Not so my 
 companion. 
 
 All the streets near the barriers were 
 crowded. Down the middle of the streets 
 the uniformed boys from home were walk- 
 ing along leisurely, and she accosted a group 
 of them to see if they could not get us 
 through. They are always delighted to talk 
 to anyone who speaks English, especially a 
 woman, and white hair helps. I expect it 
 makes them think of " mother." The first 
 one she addressed, explaining the situation, 
 
 [ 171 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 said cheerily: "Come on, let's try it. I can 
 go through, and perhaps I can take you two 
 with me." 
 
 So he pushed a way through the crowd 
 and cornered the nearest policeman. The 
 first time it did not go. But the boy from 
 home did not desert us. He simply led us a 
 little further up the street to a point where 
 the barrier was less crowded, explaining that 
 we were his " mother and aunt." The police- 
 man looked around, winked an eye, turned 
 his back, saying ^^passez vite,'" and we 
 slipped through, only to find another barrier 
 at the edge of the broad walk which pro- 
 hibited us from approaching the roadway. 
 But with a little patience we finally passed 
 that. Looking back we could see the crowds 
 packed about the ends of the streets behind 
 the barriers, mostly women and children. 
 Looking up and down the Avenue, edged 
 with poilus, we saw people massed behind 
 them, mostly men In uniform — there were 
 few women. 
 
 Along the wide path, behind the crowd, 
 everything was animated. Students were 
 everywhere, each with some Insignia of class 
 or club. They marched and countermarched, 
 shouting and singing and joking, blocking 
 the way to the few foot passers who were 
 hurrying to some special point. They 
 massed and unmassed and remassed, and 
 every now and then some special class formed 
 
 [ 172 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 in line and lockstepped right through the 
 barrier of soldiers, across the street, passed 
 through the line on the other side, made a 
 turn in the bridle path, and marched back 
 again. Now and then a group of St. Cyrians 
 met a group from St. Barbe or some other 
 lycee, and for a moment it looked like an 
 imitation riot, but the police intervened and 
 separated them, and then — they began all 
 over again. 
 
 In addition, the day was a holiday; every- 
 thing was closed — shops, factories and all 
 — so it was a very different sort of day and 
 a very different sort of crowd, and an utterly 
 different spirit from that which marked the 
 arrival of the kings. But I have already 
 told you that the very name of America has 
 the French hypnotized, and there was abso- 
 lutely nothing doing in Paris that day except 
 receiving the chief executive of the hypno- 
 tizing State, the first who ever went a-roam- 
 ing during his term of office. 
 
 It was an historical occasion fast enough. 
 
 It is quite needless, of course, to tell you 
 that Wilson got a great reception — the 
 American boys looked out for that. Besides, 
 the cables have told you all about it, and the 
 cinema also. I suppose they have told you 
 in the papers and shown you in the cinema 
 how he held his high hat at arm's length to 
 salute the cheering crowd and acknowledge 
 the shouts of ^^ Five Wilson!'^ ^^ Fivent les 
 
 [ 173 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Etats-Unis!^^ and wore his best broad grin. 
 He would hardly have been human if he had 
 not. We did not see much of Mrs. Wilson. 
 By some error, most unusual with the French, 
 there were four in her carriage. She sat 
 beside Madame Poincare, with Miss Wilson 
 and Madame Jusserand opposite to her, and 
 the floral offerings were so huge that hardly 
 anything was visible but Mrs. Wilson's head. 
 Madame Poincare was absolutely eclipsed. 
 I imagine that the protocol had not counted 
 on any women but the two presidential ladies 
 riding in the official cortege, as it is custom- 
 ary for all those in the suite to leave the sta- 
 tion by another route. 
 
 The breaking up of the crowd, if it could be 
 said to break up — in fact it only shifted, — 
 was as interesting, once Wilson had passed, 
 as the procession. Up the roadway on the 
 eastern side of the Avenue rushed camion 
 after camion loaded with singing and shout- 
 ing American soldiers, while the mass of 
 women and children on the sidewalk, in the 
 windows or on the balconies, w^aved hand- 
 kerchiefs and flags and rained kisses on them. 
 
 It was a Saturday, and later in the day, 
 when I had rested, I undertook to go to the 
 Soldiers' and Sailors' Club to fetch away my 
 hostess, — who puts in parts of her after- 
 noons there selling ice-cream tickets to the 
 boys, — with whom the club is very popular, 
 for there they find a cantine which serves 
 
 [ 174 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 them a lot of things dear to every American, 
 and there are books and billiards and some 
 of the " comforts of home." Now and then, 
 when I am in town, I love to run In there 
 just to see the boys. 
 
 I started out shortly after four, taking 
 Tototte, the little French bulldog, with me. 
 She loves to go and fetch her mother home, 
 and sometimes she goes for the afternoon 
 to play with the boys, for although she is a 
 little French girl and speaks no English, the 
 boys manage to understand her. What nice 
 American boy does not like a dog? I walked 
 a little way with her to give her a run, and 
 was rather surprised when I hailed a taxi 
 and told the chauffeur to take me to the Rue 
 Royale, to be informed that It was Impos- 
 sible to get there. When I asked why, he 
 mentioned Wilson. 
 
 "But," I said, ''the procession was over 
 long ago, at noon." Wilson had arrived in 
 the morning, just after nine. 
 
 "Ah!" replied the chauffeur, "but the 
 crowd did not go home." 
 
 "Well," I suggested, after a moment's 
 reflection, " take me as near as possible and 
 I will try to go on on foot." And we started. 
 
 On arriving at the entrance to the Place 
 de la Concorde I saw a sight which I have 
 not seen for years. As far as my eyes could 
 reach was a surging mass of heads. It looked 
 as If one could walk on them. All traffic had 
 
 [ I7S ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 been stopped. So I got out and started on 
 foot across the Place. It was only a short 
 five minutes to the Club, but it took me al- 
 most half an hour to make it. I started lead- 
 ing Tototte on her leash, but that was im- 
 possible. So finally I had to carry her — 
 and she is no light weight. Under ordinary 
 circumstances I should have abandoned the 
 effort, but with some one waiting for me who 
 might be worried, I persisted. I went step 
 by step through the jam, mostly American 
 boys and American and French girls, with 
 a smattering of English soldiers, some of 
 them with chips on their shoulders — for I 
 imagine it will be no news to you to hear that 
 when Americans and English meet there is 
 apt to be a chip on one or both shoulders, 
 and I expected every minute to find myself 
 in a row. But I finally got there by going 
 slowly, with one hand before me to make 
 way and save the dog from being crushed. 
 She was so good, and I think did her part in 
 inspiring the boys to help me through. So 
 as this Paris for Wilson was really a day in 
 honor of the States, it belongs to every one 
 of you as much as it did to the Wilsons, per- 
 haps more. 
 
 We did not attempt to get back until din- 
 ner time, when the Place de la Concorde was 
 temporarily cleared, though I heard after- 
 ward that it was densely packed in the 
 evening. 
 
 [ 176 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 The drive home gave me a real sensation. 
 Imagine rolling up the Champs-Elysees 
 again In a brilliant electric light! I simply 
 cannot tell you what it seemed like to be out 
 at night In a brightly lighted street. I felt 
 as if I were seeing Paris for the first time, 
 and for the first time knowing how very 
 beautiful It Is. Just think, for over three 
 years we have crawled around at night, if 111 
 luck took us out, In black darkness, with here 
 and there, at a corner, a glimmer through 
 blue glass, and here we were, driving in a 
 long line of autos up a broad avenue, shining 
 with a triple row of arc-lights, with houses 
 and shops gaily Illuminated. It looked like 
 fairyland. It brought home, as nothing else 
 has, the realization that it was over, that 
 what we had lived through v/e should never 
 have to live through again, and seemed sud- 
 denly to bridge with brightness that dark 
 gap between August, 19 14, and November, 
 191 8, — 1560 days of agony and suspense. 
 
 I came home on Monday to tell them all 
 about It. The one thing I could not do was 
 to answer the most frequent question : " Now 
 that President Wilson has come, will peace 
 be made at once?'' 
 
 For three weeks here we have been fol- 
 lowing the map just as carefully as we did 
 In the fighting days, *'but oh, the difference 
 to" — us. We have been watching the vic- 
 torious armies pushing the invaders across 
 
 [ 177 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the Rhine, and marching into Germany. 
 But, of course, you are following that in the 
 States, and, with the correspondents who are 
 in the American contingent, I '11 wager you 
 know more about it than we do. It was all 
 made very real to me yesterday by an Ameri- 
 can officer who came to call, who had been 
 with the armies of occupation, and was just 
 back from Strasburg. He was full of de- 
 lightful and picturesque detail of these days, 
 with here and there a note of disquietude. 
 It seems so different to chat about it with 
 some one who has actually seen it all, than 
 to read it in the newspapers. 
 
 He told me that he had never lived 
 through any experience so wonderful as the 
 entrance of the French into Strasburg, and 
 never expected to repeat the sensation, and 
 that one of the most remarkable things was 
 that in this city, which had been forty-eight 
 years under the German heel, where it was 
 a crime to own a French flag, by some 
 strange magic, when the French troops en- 
 tered, every one had a flag. It floated from 
 the tops of all the buildings, it hung out of 
 all the windows, there was not a child who 
 did not have one, the men wore them on 
 their coats, the women wore them in their 
 head-dresses. It was as if a conjurer had 
 done the trick. What was equally note- 
 worthy, even the children could sing "La 
 Marseillaise." 
 
 [ 178 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 He said the sights in the streets during the 
 entrance of the troops were unforgettable, 
 and I do hope the cinema will give it all to 
 you, and that American women and children 
 will watch the moving picture with a full 
 understanding of all it means. But no pic- 
 ture can give you the soul of it as I had it 
 from the American soldier who was there, 
 — the poilus marching to music through the 
 old streets of the loved and regained city, 
 the women and children, of all ages and all 
 classes, marching beside them, and at inter- 
 vals the divisions of troops separated by a 
 line of dancing girls stretching right across 
 the street, from curb to curb, — all in their 
 national dress, and with the cocarde on the 
 big Alsatian bow. " Remember," said the 
 narrator, '' these were the women and chil- 
 dren of all classes, without distinction of 
 rank or possessions, ladies and servants, the 
 artisan class and the student, the profes- 
 sional class and the commercial, and they 
 marched over the whole route." 
 
 Even prettier was the scene he drew of the 
 streets after the parade was dismissed when 
 the poilus mingled with the people. " It 
 was," he said, " as if they were all little 
 brothers and sisters together, — one huge 
 adoring family. There was nothing rough 
 or rowdy about it, only bubbling gaiety and 
 simple joy. I had the conviction that if any 
 soldier took the smallest liberty with one of 
 
 [ 179 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 those pretty girls, moving so frankly and 
 happily among them, his comrades would 
 make short shrift of him." No wonder the 
 tears streamed down Petaln's cheeks — at 
 least "they say" they did, and it does him 
 credit. 
 
 This may be ancient history by the time 
 you read it, but it is the sort of thing we live 
 on here In these anxious days, and I need 
 such little tales to cheer up the world about 
 me. The tension is terrible. Every one real- 
 izes that Germany gave up to save herself, 
 and ever one asks: "What now?" What 
 now, indeed? 
 
 There is not a boy who comes home on a 
 furlough — they get twenty days now — who 
 does not bring disquieting tales from the 
 Rhine, and the hopes that the most optimis- 
 tic had five weeks ago are already fading 
 away. In addition, as the Relief societies 
 advance with aid Into the evacuated and dev- 
 astated regions, which are shell-torn, and 
 into the cities, like Lille, which have been 
 scientifically ruined, we get back tales which 
 even the race that has faced so much can 
 hardly bear. I hope before Wilson talks at 
 all he will go through that part of France 
 which not a century's labor, nor the entire 
 war indemnity to be wrung from Germany 
 — if It ever Is — can remedy. Until he has 
 done that, he cannot judge of the relative 
 positions of France and Germany at all. But 
 [ i8o ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I suppose he must be as anxious to do that as 
 we are to have him. 
 
 Do you remember Aspirant B , who 
 
 was cantoned In my house two years ago, 
 when the 23rd dragoons were holding the 
 trenches nearest Paris? He is now Lieuten- 
 ant B . I had a letter from him the 
 
 other day, in which he says : '* JVilson aura 
 du etre heureux de son acceuil chaleureux, 
 mats je troiive qu'il n'est pas assez dur pour 
 les Boches. Pensez que chez moi il ne reste 
 que les fnurs et les toils — ni meubles, n't 
 vaisselle, — et qu'en rentrant ainsi victorieux 
 a la maison je suis encore plus malheureux 
 que le boche qui rentre defait, et vaincu. 
 Avec line race pareille il ne faut aucun me- 
 nagement, et la justice a leur egard ne devait 
 pouvoir commence que le jour oil ils auront 
 repare tous leurs crimes.'''' 
 
 Of course the French must feel like that. 
 Every day things are coming to their knowl- 
 edge which make the feeling deeper. One 
 hears nothing but tales of devastation. I 
 know you are getting to hate the word, be- 
 cause I am told that already many people in 
 the States want to forget there has been a 
 war. Here we can't forget it. Even going 
 back to those smashed-up districts is danger- 
 ous. Here Is a case. 
 
 We have had In our commune, since the 
 evacuation of the Alsne last spring, among 
 our refugies, a family driven out of Acy, a 
 
 [ 181 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 small town a few miles from Soissons. The 
 family consisted of a brave, sturdy grand- 
 mother, her son, recently returned as unfit 
 for further service in the army, the son's 
 wife, and two little girls, very intelligent, all 
 of them, — a superior class of farmers. The 
 Germans had kept the grandfather. Of 
 course he was liberated when the armistice 
 was signed and came at once to join his fam- 
 ily. In the fall, when Acy was liberated, the 
 son and his wife returned, leaving the grand- 
 mother here with the children because the 
 commune of Acy could not put up shelters 
 for more than fifty of the three hundred who 
 wanted to return, and so no one was per- 
 mitted to go back except those who could 
 best work in clearing the fields and getting 
 them ready to plant. As soon as the grand- 
 father was liberated, after he had seen his 
 wife and his grandchildren, he joined his son 
 at Acy to work. He was a handsome, sturdy 
 old chap of seventy-two, straight and tall, 
 and had never had a day's illness in his life 
 when he fell into the hands of the Germans, 
 and considered that he was good for twenty 
 more years of work. He was shockingly 
 abused by the Boches, and came here with a 
 terrible-looking left hand, — the result of an 
 accident while working for the Germans in 
 Germany. The hand had not had proper 
 care, and one useless finger is to be amputated 
 by the French doctor here, as the hand will 
 [ 182 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 be better without It. The old man did not 
 complain. He was too glad to get back. Be- 
 sides, It was a left hand, and the good right 
 hand remained. So he cheerfully went off 
 to join his son. 
 
 He was not gone long. The fields around 
 Acy were full of shell cases and all sorts of 
 debris from the battles, and of course there 
 were many duds. For a while they got these 
 out safely, but one day as they were handling 
 one it exploded, just as father and son were 
 lifting it, and the old man Is back here with 
 his right hand mangled and burned — while 
 the son was too badly Injured to be moved. 
 I suppose that sort of thing will happen 
 again and again for years. 
 
 Near as Acy is to us, only about forty 
 m/iles, It Is not yet fed. They Ve no food, no 
 clothing, no doctor, and the States are talking 
 about feeding Germany. I say, let Germany 
 rot. When every one of the poor suffering 
 people for whom the Allies have fought and 
 bled have been clothed, comforted, and fed, 
 and when Russia has been helped. In recog- 
 nition of the wonderful fight she put up in 
 the first years of the war, and In memory of 
 the days when some of them fought on with 
 only their naked fists for arms. It will be time 
 to even sell food to Germany, but not until 
 then. Nothing that has ever happened since 
 the war began has created such a dangerous 
 excitement here as the proposition made to 
 
 [ 183 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 feed Germany. The very first suggestion is 
 a month old now, but it is indignantly re- 
 ferred to every day. It was not as if the 
 armistice had ended suffering here. It 
 brought the very first suspicion that Germany 
 might be going to escape her punishment. 
 I am afraid that here, remembering how 
 German women have behaved, they see little 
 difference between German soldiers and Ger- 
 man civilians, and while no one wants to 
 apply Boche treatment to the German civil- 
 ians in the occupied territory, they see no 
 reason to aid them at the expense of the 
 races that, In addition to the ordinary depri- 
 vations of war, have suffered from the Ger- 
 man brutal methods of oppression. 
 
 An American officer said to me the other 
 day: *' It was not until I got into the part of 
 France that had been so long occupied by the 
 Huns that my gall really rose. We all hear 
 tales of the horrors of war. The air is full 
 of the stories of brutal things done. But I 
 saw something a few days ago that settled 
 anything German for me the rest of my life. 
 I was at a little country house which had 
 been for four years occupied by a group of a 
 dozen German officers. The house was the 
 home of an old man nearly eighty and his 
 wife, not much younger. The Germans had 
 taken possession of everything, leaving the 
 old couple to sleep in the corner of a shed, 
 without covers, without food, in a heap of 
 
 [ 184 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 straw that became rotten with filth. At the 
 end, the old folks lived on herbs and roots, 
 and the Germans refused them all aid. 
 There they were at the door of their own 
 little house, where they once had a cow and 
 chickens and rabbits, and a garden. Never 
 in all the time the Germans occupied the 
 place did they give the old people even a 
 crust. That settled the race for me, because 
 I argued that there might be certain Ger- 
 mans so brutal that the sufferings of the old 
 couple they had dislodged and robbed were 
 a matter of indifference to them, but, In a 
 "group of Germans, that there should not be 
 one who, in recollection of his own mother, 
 had in years been moved, even on the sly, 
 to feed the old people, that was too 
 significant." 
 
 The weather has been terribly unhealthful 
 so far. One good freeze would kill the 
 grippe. But it does not come. 
 
 [ 185 ] 
 
XIII 
 
 Christmas Day, igi8 
 
 I 'd like to feel like writing "Victory Christ- 
 mas," but I don't. However, I feel better 
 than I have for the last four Christmas Days, 
 if in some ways not so cheery. If anyone 
 had told me that six weeks after the armistice 
 was signed, with its hard terms, we should 
 know nothing of the terms of the peace, I 
 should not have believed it. We have known 
 the general outline of what was to be dictated 
 to Germany, and we are all aware that if it 
 had been done when Germany was down 
 and out they would have been accepted. I 
 can't make you understand how people feel 
 about it here, so it is no use to talk about it. 
 Let's talk Christmas. 
 
 I did not go to Paris. I have been up so 
 often lately that I thought I had better stay 
 at home, and celebrate the first peace Christ- 
 mas here among my beasties — not that they 
 appreciate it, alas ! The truth is that I am 
 afraid I have lost the spirit of Christmas, 
 and I do hope I can get it back when we 
 have a real peace celebration. 
 [ i86 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It snows. The only thing that has 
 "gayed" me up at all was the unexpected 
 arrival of a huge automobile this morning, 
 out of which climbed four nice American men, 
 on their way out to the devastated regions. 
 They stopped just long enough to wish me 
 a *' Happy Christmas " and give me some 
 American chocolates, and to let me find out 
 that they belonged to my political party, 
 which was a blessing, as it let me express an 
 opinion or two, which is a joy I have not 
 had for many a day. When you have had to 
 be careful as long as I have for the honour 
 of your country among people who idolize 
 it, you will learn the joy of striking out from 
 the shoulder. I had it this morning, and it 
 did me so much good that I rejoiced that I 
 had stayed at home today. 
 
 No, I shall certainly not tell you what I 
 said. 
 
 I have been a little saddened and much 
 wrought up these last few days. In the first 
 place, I have seen some of our prisoners re- 
 turning from Germany. Be thankful that 
 you don't have to see them. I hope Wilson 
 will, but of course he won't. I understand 
 that he does not like to see things that stir 
 him up, for fear that he cannot be impartial, 
 — as if anyone wanted him to be. That I am 
 not overwrought to the injustice point by the 
 incident is proved by a letter which I have 
 just received from a New York man who has 
 
 [ 187 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 been working for a long time with the Red 
 Cross. He wrote me the other day: 
 
 " Since seeing the returned French pris- 
 oners I have come to the conclusion that the 
 terms of the armistice are far too lenient. 
 I am afraid we shall never learn to deal with 
 the savages. When I think of the fat, well- 
 fed, well-clothed, kindly treated German 
 prisoners, for whom every one felt too sorry, 
 — and how many of us complained because 
 we could not do more for them, — and then 
 see the men whom Germany has sent back to 
 us, I feel that we ought to starve the whole 
 nation systematically." 
 
 As for me, I say '' second the motion," and 
 with all my heart. 
 
 Here the returning of the prisoners has 
 been as tragic as any episode of the war. 
 
 I am sure that I told you long ago that 
 here many women whose men were reported 
 "missing" in the early months of the war 
 had never given up hope, in spite of the fact 
 that in every case the Red Cross at Geneva 
 and the King of Spain had made every 
 possible effort to trace them. Well, among 
 the first of the missing men to return here 
 was a young man from St. Germain, who was 
 reported "missing" in August, 19 14, and 
 of whom no trace had ever been found. 
 He came back here from the Meuse, a part 
 of the country which has been occupied by 
 the Huns since August, 1 9 1 4, which they only 
 [ 188 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 left after the armistice. It seems that in his 
 very first battle he was cut off with several 
 comrades and hid when the Germans passed, 
 and was found by the French peasants, who 
 got him some clothes, burned his uniform, 
 and furnished him with false — or stolen — 
 civil papers. At any rate, he remained there 
 on the farm, and worked until the armistice 
 was signed. Of course under these con- 
 ditions, with the Germans in occupation, it 
 was impossible for him to communicate with 
 anyone. 
 
 Naturally his arrival threw the whole 
 commune into a terrible state of excitement. 
 Women who had not been able to get posi- 
 tive proof of the death of their men plucked 
 up hope, and lived under a dreadful strain, 
 but no more ^' missing " men arrived. There 
 Is one dear woman at Couilly who came 
 precious near going under at this second 
 blow. She had hoped against hope for four 
 years that her man would come back, and for 
 days after the boy at St. Germain arrived 
 she met every train, growing paler and 
 thinner every day, and living those first 
 weeks of 19 14 all over again. 
 
 Yesterday my good friend the Cure told 
 me one of the saddest stories I ever heard. 
 Among the first prisoners to arrive at Valres, 
 close to the fort of Chelles, and only a few 
 miles from us, was an old man of seventy, 
 whom no one there remembered. He was a 
 
 [ 189 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 prisoner of war in 1870, being at that time 
 only twenty-two years old. He was con- 
 demned by the Germans, for some military 
 offence — he does not himself seem to re- 
 member what — and sentenced to prison for 
 life, and for forty-eight years he has been in 
 confinement in a German fort. When the 
 prisoners of the present war were released 
 from that fort they brought him with them, 
 and he was sent back to Vaires where he had 
 last lived — but no one remembers him. It 
 is a little town where the chocolate works 
 are, and the population, as in all factory 
 towns, comes and goes. 
 
 Just think — to have left France in 1870, 
 a lad, and to come back at the age of seventy, 
 — forgotten by every one. There 's a better 
 subject for a romance-maker than Latude. 
 It simply haunts me. 
 
 This is a great letter for Christmas. 
 Sorry. But I feel no more Christmassy than 
 it sounds. To be sure, outwardly I have 
 tried to do the proper things. I have hung 
 a huge bunch of mistletoe in the centre of the 
 salon, and I had holly on the breakfast table 
 and dressed for dinner, and I drank every 
 one's health, with only Dick and Khaki to 
 witness the ceremony. I tried to think I was 
 happier, but I was not. Neither, for that 
 matter, is anyone else. 
 
 I once told you that many a woman in 
 France would not realize the full measure of 
 
 [ 190 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 her agony until the army returns, and in the 
 same way I am beginning to believe that 
 France will not know the greatness of her 
 disaster until peace is signed and she is free 
 to live normally again. During the long 
 years of fighting, to save France from death 
 was the people's one thought. She is living, 
 and the French have time to look at her, to 
 realize her condition, and ask themselves if 
 she can fully recover. Years and milliards 
 may put the North back as it was in 1 9 1 4, and 
 it will take generations before the trained 
 expert workmen can be replaced. How is 
 France to compete with the luckier races — 
 like the Germans, for example ? Nothing that 
 can be done to Germany can remedy this dis- 
 aster; and what can be done to her, even in 
 her so-called defeat, to prevent her profiting 
 by it, I don't see. Today all the agony of war 
 is being replaced by anxiety for the future, and 
 the suspense of the Peace Congress, and 
 Wilson's attitude regarding the imposition 
 of his idealistic League of Nations. What 
 no one can understand here is why this war 
 should have to be settled by a League of 
 Nations which did not exist when it broke 
 out, and why so serious a situation should 
 be held in abeyance while the League is 
 formed? I can't tell them. I don't know, 
 myself. Do you? 
 
 [ 191 ] 
 
XIV 
 
 January go, 1919 
 
 I did mean to write you a nice New Year's 
 letter. I simply could not. If this tension 
 keeps on until late spring, as they tell us it 
 will, my nerves will be so frazzled that I shall 
 not be able to write at all. In fact, there is 
 nothing much to write except things which 
 are disturbing. I have made one brief visit 
 to Paris since I went up to see Wilson arrive. 
 I did nothing but eat a New Year's dinner, 
 and came home sick — and that was no joke 
 at this season. 
 
 I have done nothing interesting, and noth- 
 ing interesting has happened, unless it in- 
 terests you to hear of the New Year's visit 
 of the children. It didn't happen on New 
 Year's Day. I wasn't here, and I was too 
 ill the week I returned to see anyone. 
 
 You know New Year's calls are made over 
 here by the people of all classes. Even 
 among the peasants, relatives religiously ob- 
 serve the custom. There are people who 
 make visits and people who receive them. 
 I, owing to my age, am not expected to make 
 them. 
 
 [ 192 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It is also the habit of the children of the 
 peasant class to make the round of the com- 
 mune, wishing each person a " Happy New 
 Year," and expecting to be kissed in return 
 for the salutation and receive a few sous for 
 their savings bank — just as the enfants du 
 chceur come to the door on Easter morning 
 and kneel on your threshold to sing, with 
 the same object. These are customs which 
 are as old as France, and which many for- 
 eigners dislike. They are classed in the griev- 
 ance against the race known as the " French 
 love of the 5ow." However, I find it, In the 
 end, much less costly than our habit of use- 
 less presents to the same class. The French 
 peasant children never have toys. They play 
 just as well without them. They never miss 
 them. Besides, their mothers consider two 
 francs spent for a plaything, when the same 
 sum would buy two days' bread, wicked, and 
 almost every child has her little savings fund 
 in the Post-Office Bank. 
 
 It was the first Sunday after I was better 
 
 — last Sunday, in fact — that the children, 
 accompanied by the Cure, and the Vice- 
 President of the Historical Society of the 
 Brie and his wife, came up the hill to present 
 me formally with their felicitations and wish 
 me, and — to use their words — my "dear 
 and noble country, the magnificent and gen- 
 erous America " (which I represent to them) 
 
 — a very Happy New Year. 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 You would have loved to see the dear 
 children, all In their best clothes, standing 
 in a circle in front of me, while one of the 
 smallest tots, led forward by the Cure and 
 told by him to " speak up, now," made me a 
 formal speech, tendering me, so prettily, 
 their thanks for all American ladies had 
 done for them, and ending with: "Accept, 
 then, our good wishes for 19 19, — the year 
 of victory and peace, — and let us all cry, 
 with one heart and one voice — * Long live 
 the United States. Long live France.' " 
 
 It was a pretty, touching little ceremony, 
 and I pass it on to all the American friends, 
 to whom it belongs more than it does to me. 
 
 I had to smile at your remark in your last 
 letter — that I ought now to go away and get 
 a nice rest. Do you know, I could not if I 
 wanted to. I have no passport, and have 
 not had for some months. Now thereby 
 hangs what I consider a very interesting tale. 
 In the spring of 1 9 1 8 I had a new passport — 
 it cost me twelve francs, plus the expense of 
 having new photographs taken for It. At 
 that time the passport bureau — served by 
 youngsters in their teens, or not much past 
 them — put me through the third degree. 
 There was very little of my private life that 
 the young man — who at that time did not 
 know me from Adam — did not require of 
 me. The fact that my home and all I pos- 
 sessed was In France did not move him at all. 
 
 [ 194 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I had no business to be here. Finally he told 
 me that I must go to the Red Cross to look 
 up my status. That was easy. One of the 
 important people in the Relief Corps, to 
 which I belonged, wrote a letter explaining 
 that I was the only person doing the relief 
 work here and could not be spared. I sent 
 it to the passport department, and in due 
 time I got my passport — which had been 
 paid for when I applied for it. 
 
 A few months later they combed out the 
 Americans in France again. There were 
 still nothing but young men in the bureau, 
 and I was told with great courtesy that there 
 was nothing personal in the matter, but that 
 the government wanted no Americans in 
 France who were not here on war business, 
 etc., etc., or who did not have a "worker's 
 ticket" — and they held up my passport. 
 
 Paris was simply crowded at that time 
 with Americans of all sorts who had political 
 pull or knew some one who had. I could 
 have asked at the Red Cross for a worker's 
 ticket and it would have been given me, but 
 as my health and the work I was doing would 
 not permit my doing the work which should 
 be done by every man or woman carrying 
 that ticket I simply declined to take advan- 
 tage of the circumstances to do what I abso- 
 lutely resent seeing done by so many. So 
 my government withdrew its protection from 
 me. I wanted to ask them to refund my two 
 
 [ 195 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 dollars, but it was hardly worth while being 
 facetious about it. I knew perfectly well 
 that the regulations under which passports 
 were being withdrawn was never meant to be 
 applied to a person In my position. I was 
 carrying every French paper which the law 
 could devise, and the only need I could have 
 here for an American passport would be to 
 go to the States, — or, for that matter, out 
 of the country, — neither of which I desired 
 to do. 
 
 So you behold me — technically — a lady 
 '' without a country," although my country 
 does not at all, I imagine, object to collecting 
 taxes from me. Bear that in mind the next 
 time you suggest my going to Spain or some 
 other nice place to " rest up," as you call it. 
 I assure you that we poor Americans — too 
 poor to live comfortably in the land of our 
 birth — have had some hard times when we 
 were trying to keep up the faith of the French 
 In the early days of the war. Don't run 
 away with the old Idea that I am resenting 
 this, or even feel hurt. I don't. Not a bit. 
 Rules are straight lines, like laws. They 
 always cut off the heads or feet of some Inno- 
 cent people. I am a martyr to a perfectly 
 good law, and until some harm comes of It I 
 can afford to laugh. I hope I could still 
 laugh If some embarrassment had come of It. 
 Is there such a thing as Liberty? Where? 
 
 By the way, that reminds me. You accused 
 
 [ 196 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 me In one of your recent letters of having 
 after all — to quote your own^ words — 
 " got lots of fun out of the war," and that, 
 so far as I can see, because I have found it 
 " as easy to laugh as to be crying." I Pl^ad 
 guilty, in a way. I have laughed, and I do 
 laugh still — on the smallest provocation, 
 and I thank God I can. Let me tell you some- 
 thing—no one has been any good over here 
 in th'e last years who could not laugh. On the 
 battle-fields, in the hospitals, in the cantonne- 
 merits, in the trenches even, it was laughter 
 that was needed. It was more healing than 
 medicine — it consoled where nothing else 
 could. It was the very sunshine. The great- 
 est tragic actor in the world, who could play 
 to five-dollar stalls on Broadway, was a frost 
 in the camps and at the front compared with 
 the slangiest razzle-dazzle vaudevillist with 
 a broad grin on his phiz and a broad joke 
 up his sleeve. 
 
 I learned that lesson from the poilus early 
 in the war, in our own little hospital, and in 
 seeing the shows the boys got up here when 
 they were billeted among us. I never saw 
 but one serious effort get across in any of the 
 shows here — and that was patriotic and 
 personal, and was sandwiched in between two 
 of the broadest farces I ever saw. It is the 
 old, old story: 
 
 " Laugh, and the world laughs with you, 
 Weep, and you weep alone'^ 
 
 [ 197 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 When some sudden thing knocked open the 
 tear trap, well, one had simply to laugh 
 through the flowing waters, and hope for a 
 spiritual rainbow. Anyway — out in the 
 open — I have done the best I could. Of 
 course, had I happened to have been born an 
 Armenian and to have lived at Van, I don't 
 know how far my sense of humour would 
 have carried, or if I could still have gone on 
 making, now and then, a feeble joke. But 
 since our visions are limited, and we can only 
 see just so far, whether it be over the surface 
 of the earth or on the surface of life, perhaps 
 even had I been an Armenian and survived 
 the evacuation of Van, I might, after a bit, 
 have pulled myself together and gone on, as 
 the surviving Armenians will, for you know 
 they still believe they are going to be a great 
 nation, and they have two thousand years of 
 Christian endeavor behind them. 
 
 It all seems cruel to our short sight. It 
 may be cruel, but it is not unproductive, and 
 it cannot be uninspiring, for if it were, the 
 bravest and the tenderest, the most intelligent 
 and the noblest, would not bear it, but would 
 find the '' open door," and slip away to leave 
 the world and life and all such things to the 
 unintelligent — one remove from the beasts. 
 
 So, you see, nervous, unquiet as I am, I am 
 not discouraged. Of course, things are 
 gloomy if one looks too closely, and the 
 misery is beyond words, and, as if that and 
 
 [ 198 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the grippe and the difficulty of the food ques- 
 tion were not enough, we are flooded, and 
 have been for weeks. Looking out of my 
 window in the work room where I write, the 
 Marne and the canal are merged into one 
 wide sea across which the railroad runs. The 
 Morin Is over its banks at Couilly and many 
 of the houses have their basements under 
 water. I am glad that I live on a hilltop, and 
 I am also glad that we don't have to think, 
 this time, that the poor boys are up to their 
 knees or their necks in it. 
 
 [ 199 ] 
 
XV 
 
 St. Valentine's Day, IQIQ 
 
 It would have been nice if we could have 
 had peace for a valentine, but, my word! It 
 seems further off than ever, and Wilson just 
 leaving to make you a ceremonious call in the 
 States. All I can do in honour of the day is 
 to wish that the saint who restored sight to 
 the Roman noble's daughter could bestow 
 clear vision on the Peace Congress, and in 
 some way inspire them to remedy the dis- 
 aster of the armistice and not to fling to the 
 dogs the victory that four years' suffering 
 and effort would have won but for that error. 
 
 You ask me in the letter just received how 
 it happens that "our Mr. Wilson" is such 
 a power, and I judge by your comments that 
 you are beginning to understand In the States 
 how dangerous the situation has become, 
 owing to the perverse determination to force 
 the so-called League of Nations to prevent 
 future wars before the terms of the peace to 
 conclude the present war are Imposed. That 
 is an easy question to answer, and I feel as if 
 I had answered it already. The truth Is, 
 America has had Europe hypnotized, and 
 [ 200 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 even now, when the war has passed its 
 fighting stage and the invader has gone 
 home, that obsession persists. It explains the 
 preeminence of Wilson. At least it does 
 when added is the determination to be the 
 whole show which has marred his whole 
 career as schoolmaster and politician. To 
 the people here Wilson was, at the time of 
 his arrival, the United States of America. 
 His ideas were accepted as their ideas. His 
 hopes were supposed to be their hopes. His 
 opinions and his voice were accepted as 
 theirs. You must hold that thought if you 
 wish to understand what has thus far hap- 
 pened here. 
 
 To understand how this came to pass you 
 must bear in mind that long before we came 
 into the war the American Red Cross and 
 the many private relief organizations (the 
 whole of whose great work has so helped 
 France to meet her fate) became in Europe 
 the symbol of America. Long before Wil- 
 son, in answer to the popular demand, finally 
 declared war, all over battle-torn Europe 
 the Americans have carried hope and care, 
 food and aid. Her boys bore arms and died 
 in the Foreign Legion. Her brave doctors 
 and tireless nurses tended and soothed the 
 sick and dying. All along the front her am- 
 bulances were behind the firing lines, her 
 stretcher-bearers on the battle-fields, and her 
 huge hospitals working their operating rooms 
 
 [ 201 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 day and night. Long before, in the eleventh 
 hour, the States were allowed to rise up en 
 masse against the German kultur, which had 
 so nearly blocked the road over which hu- 
 manity imagined it was moving to a finer 
 interpretation of justice and liberty, Amer- 
 ican women had left home and ease to rush 
 to the aid of suffering Europe, and had not 
 only given their services to the French and 
 the Belgians, but had marched among the 
 retreating Servians, had sowed hundreds of 
 relief works in poor Italy, had mingled with 
 the suffering in Russia under dangerous con- 
 ditions, and had been seen trying to soothci 
 all the disasters in the Far East. 
 
 In those hard days, when France was 
 listening, — not for " a new idea out from the 
 west," but to hear the great cry which finally 
 came, "Hold fast ! We are coming," — there 
 was not a secteiir in all the world at war that 
 had not become familiarized with the khaki- 
 clad American Ambulance Corps and the 
 white-coifed American women of the Hos- 
 pital Corps or the uniformed girls of the 
 Relief Corps. In addition, every American 
 hospital had a free clinic for civilians and 
 all overEurope there were homes and schools 
 for orphan children and refu^ies, where 
 little tots were being brought up as French 
 as they were born, with just a few seeds of 
 cleanliness and order thrown In, for which 
 those who fell under such care will be better 
 [ 202 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 all their lives. There were countless small 
 towns which had seen this work, and the 
 humbler the people the more they became ob- 
 sessed with the American idea. It repre- 
 sented to the people in remote places the 
 hope for the future, because they recognized 
 that it was absolutely disinterested. That 
 was why when Wilson came he represented to 
 them the States. I am sure that you know — 
 or have known — all this, but it is likely to be 
 forgotten, so I impress it on you. 
 
 Outwardly — in official, financial, and po- 
 litical sets — the same feeling existed, but for 
 other reasons. Official, financial and politi- 
 cal cliques are rarely disinterested. In the 
 present condition of the world's affairs the 
 States seem to stand apart, and the rest of 
 the world has need of them. America — 
 less tried than her Allies (I suppose I ought 
 to say *' associates "), her losses compara- 
 tively small, her spirit far less perturbed, 
 far richer in resources, in men and in money, 
 is actually necessary to the world, and the 
 world knows it. Just as the humble people 
 living about me are obsessed by the idea 
 of wonderful America, and can only be 
 awakened from it by a rude shock, in a 
 certain sense she has the whole world under 
 the same Influence, and Wilson knows It. 
 
 It Is rather an alarming idea, isn't it? 
 
 All sorts of stray thoughts keep starting 
 up before me to make me anxious. I remem- 
 
 [ 203 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ber that In the days before the war the one 
 thing we Americans who had lived over 
 here a long time, and were out of touch, 
 used to want to know was — "What about 
 Wilson." 
 
 One day I asked a New York man the 
 question, and he replied: "Well, I have yet 
 to see the person who really likes him, but 
 no one dares question his politics." It was 
 terse, but it explained a lot to me. 
 
 The disquieting thought Is that nothing 
 stands still, and there Is " no backward step, 
 no returning." The Allies did " a long pull, 
 a strong pull, a pull all together," until the 
 armistice, but — the slaughter being stopped 
 — they seem to be pulling in every direction, 
 and it looks to me as if the League of Nations 
 IS likely to inspire some more of just that 
 sort of pulling, — at least, as It Is now. 
 
 No, I am not kicking against the idea of 
 a League of Nations. Once the world is at 
 peace, in the calm, such a league might be 
 formed, but it cannot be done in a hurry. It 
 surely cannot be drawn up, well studied and 
 approved by all the governments In a rush. 
 
 You write as if I liked war. 
 
 I don't. 
 
 There are a great many things that I don't 
 like that I don't see any wav to prevent. I 
 don't believe that any one likes war except 
 the Huns. Still, I never can forget that 
 there are much worse things than death, and 
 
 [ 204 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 much worse ways to die than in a battle, and 
 that there are few more inspiring and up- 
 lifting things than a heroic death, and — 
 League of Nations or no League of Nations 
 — we shall still have death with us just the 
 same. That is what most people object to 
 in war — mind, I say most people. Yet 
 the effects of going into war and the results 
 of coming out of it are by no means all 
 bad. 
 
 If one gets smashed In an automobile 
 taking a *'joy ride," one's friends don't 
 really enjoy it. If one gets burned up in a 
 theatre the whole world is shocked, just as 
 it is when one is swallowed up in an earth- 
 quake, or sunk at sea by an iceberg, or buried 
 by volcanic lava. If one dies of a disease 
 sowed in the family by one's ancestors one 
 feels a bit cross about it. So what's the 
 odds? I don't like any of these things, war 
 included, any better than you do. What I 
 do like is playing the game as we find it. 
 
 One thirtg is sure. If we want a League of 
 Nations, a League of Nations we shall have 
 in one form or another. There may be all 
 sorts of arguments made against it, — bio- 
 logical, traditional, economical, paternal, 
 etc., — all unimportant if the world wants 
 it, since the very arguments urged against 
 It, when judged by past history, may be made 
 to plead for it in the future. It will probably 
 not prevent war any more surely than war, 
 
 [ 205 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 for a time, prevents itself. Don't forget 
 they are keeping up the fighting in the East 
 at this minute. 
 
 One of the masons who rebuilt my chimney 
 said, one day — you know here the people 
 are talking just as much about It as the 
 politicians, and this man was just back from 
 four years at the front: "As for me, I don't 
 know. It is a new Idea, or at least, one that 
 has never been tried. The world does not 
 seem to have got along any too well on the old 
 lines. Why not give the new Ideas a chance ? 
 What bothers me Is that they all seem to 
 plan as if, suddenly, every one had become 
 good and amenable to discipline. It will 
 take a great army to keep order. People 
 only behave in the face of danger." 
 
 Is that true ? I dunno. 
 
 Nor do I know why I bother to write 
 you all these things; but it is In the air — so 
 is faultfinding. I suppose it is healthy to 
 kick. It proves we Ve got muscles. Even 
 when I kick the hardest I am conscious of 
 the stupendous task before the Peace Con- 
 gress, and such a new one. It seems almost 
 beyond human power. Never before has 
 mere man had to try to settle up the affairs 
 of the entire globe, the whole future of the 
 human race, to re-make the European and 
 some of the Asiatic and African boundaries, 
 to right the wrongs of subject people, and 
 put them on their independent feet. I recog- 
 [ 206 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 nize, as does every one, the difficulties of the 
 task, but what we wish over here is that they 
 had set themselves down to judge and convict 
 Germany and impose her sentence first. Had 
 that been done, the world could have calmly 
 and patiently awaited the end of the task, — 
 always supposing that Germany's sentence 
 had been hard enough to satisfy us. Not 
 even the knowledge that we are ever so much 
 more just and divinely humane than our an- 
 cestors, and that we will bust the whole 
 balloon to demonstrate that we are not going 
 to fall Into any of the rude injustices of past 
 treaties, — no amount of flattery is going 
 to make France forget how the brutal treaty 
 of Frankfort was Imposed on her in 1871 
 without a protest from the nations now ex- 
 pecting her to be humane to Germany. She 
 is the only one of the Allies who can't afford 
 to be, — geographically. 
 
 Besides, Germany's attitude has got on 
 the nerves of all of us. Just to know that 
 she not only Is not repentant, but that she 
 claims not to have suffered a defeat, is irri- 
 tating to a world whose nerves are shaken, 
 especially as we all know that, having carried 
 war Into other people's territory, she can 
 recover more quickly than any country ex- 
 cept the States, on a future alliance with 
 whom she confidently counts. 
 
 With things In this condition unless the 
 League is formed on a military basis Ger- 
 
 [ 207 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 many will swallow up all the new eastern 
 buffer states in a wink of the eye. 
 
 The League, as it stands, Is too inter- 
 national, and internationalism is a danger 
 and the death of patriotism. All my sym- 
 pathies are against internationalism. I want 
 to see nations retain their racial characters 
 and habits, strictly confined within their own 
 frontiers, with a devotion to their national 
 institutions as strong as their love for their 
 own flag, first, last and always. Just as 
 ardently as I believe in that do I believe in 
 a universal military service. It Is a good 
 healthy thing that every one born under a 
 flag should realize what it represents and 
 that to it. In danger, he owes his life even if 
 he Is never called on to give It. I believe 
 that every man, woman and child should 
 grow up in that Idea. How else can one's 
 nation become a living thing? From my 
 point of view that Is a better protection and 
 a surer guarantee against war than all the 
 Leagues of Nations ever could be. Military 
 service does not militarize a nation. Swit- 
 zerland is the best proof of that. If every- 
 thing becomes obsolete which means pro- 
 tection of one's country, what is to take the 
 place of It to sustain national feeling? Mere 
 pride In achievement? In riches? In com- 
 mercial supremacy? 
 
 The odd thing is, races don't love one 
 another. Can you show me two peoples who 
 [ 208 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ever sincerely — as races — loved one an- 
 other? They make great protestations at 
 times — interest, policy, romance, excitement 
 usually accounts for it. When their interests 
 collide — puff — it all goes up either in swear 
 words or cannon smoke. Read your history, 
 even if it is disquieting. It is healthy. 
 
 Hands cold. It begun to snow a week ago 
 and kept it up for several days. As the 
 ground was frozen and mercury fell after 
 it, I am living in a beautiful white world. 
 It is pretty to look out over miles of unsullied 
 white only marked in the foreground by the 
 intricate and elaborate etching of the surface 
 where the birds have hopped about on the 
 crust. 
 
 Alas! My famous woodpile has faded 
 away. It surprises me every day to see so 
 much wood make so little ashes. Some of 
 the refugies are cutting wood for me in the 
 forest, but, owing to the depth of snow on 
 the roads, it will be some time before it can 
 be hauled. I am beginning to order fuel for 
 next winter, as I am afraid that, so far as I 
 can see, next winter will be hardly better 
 than the last five have been. Thanks to the 
 seasons, summer comes between. Summer 
 is my time. I never was a winter girl, even 
 in my youth. 
 
 [ 209 ] 
 
XVI 
 
 March I, I gig 
 
 I 'vE just been reading your letter of Feb- 
 ruary 6th, which arrived this morning. I 
 ignore all your sarcastic remarks to reply at 
 once to the most important question, "Who 
 isTototte?" 
 
 Do you mean to say that I have never told 
 you about Tototte? Let me introduce you 
 to the handsomest little French bulldog lady 
 you ever saw. She was born at La Villette, 
 and her mother died in giving her birth, and 
 she had a cat for a wet nurse. I am told 
 that cats make wonderful foster-mothers. 
 I can't prove this, though I do know there 
 is nothing in the world prettier to watch 
 than a cat and her kittens, and I do remem- 
 ber, in my childhood, to have seen a chicken 
 brought up by a cat who licked its feathers 
 all in the wrong direction. 
 
 Well, Mademoiselle Tototte has an ador- 
 ing lady-mama with whom she lives on 
 terms of great intimacy in the house I visit 
 when I go up to Paris, and where she does 
 the honors with the most exuberant hospi- 
 tality, as any of the American soldier boys 
 [ 210 ] 
 
Tototte holding down her *' scrap of paper" and 
 looking for another 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 who visit there can bear witness. I am not 
 always absolutely sure what Mademoiselle 
 Tototte thinks about things, but her 
 mother is. 
 
 Having been brought up by a cat, from 
 whom she learned many cat tricks, — and I 
 am told by the dog-wise that a dog never 
 forgets, — Tototte is supposed to have a 
 filial love for them. To be sure, she chases 
 them just as any small common dog, un-cat 
 bred, is apt to do, but it is supposed that she 
 does it from pure adoration. Oddly enough, 
 it makes the same impression on a cat that 
 the common or garden dog's worrying would 
 do. But that is the cat's fault. The cat 
 refuses to understand. Of course Tototte 
 knows that she would not hurt the cat — she 
 only wants to love it. Tototte's mother 
 knows it. But the cat does not. 
 
 Our cats and dogs, just now a large fam- 
 ily, — a "we are seven" family, — lie down 
 together in perfect harmony. Neither Dick 
 nor Kiki ever heard of such a thing as chas- 
 ing a cat. They never saw it done. If 
 Khaki is sleeping in an armchair and Dick 
 comes along and licks his ears. Khaki turns 
 his head sideways for the caress; but if Dick 
 persists too long the cat ends by lazily 
 stretching out a paw and pushing him away, 
 and if Dick does not take the hint, Khaki 
 puts out a claw and takes hold of Dick's long 
 ear and shakes it until Dick retires, but never 
 
 [ 2" ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 retaliates. In fact, all the cats love Dick and 
 crawl over him, and lie down against him to 
 sleep, often between his paws. When it 
 rains Khaki sometimes takes refuge in the 
 kennel with him. The one thing I have never 
 been able to make them do is sleep side by- 
 side in the same chair, although when they 
 come to say "good morning" they jump on 
 the bed together. 
 
 As for Marquis Kiki, though he is bigger 
 and younger than Dick, and has a naughtier 
 disposition, he will attack an intruder and 
 bite; he is perfectly tolerant with the cats 
 now, though he was not so much in love with 
 them when he was a puppy. Today, one of 
 my chief amusements is to watch Kiki lying 
 in front of my fire slowly waving his tail in 
 the air, while all three of the little kittens 
 play with it. 
 
 Now the theory is that Tototte " loves 
 Khaki," and that Dick is quite "indifferent" 
 to him, although he is a most frolicsome 
 fool for a grown dog, and as ready to play 
 with a ball or chase a stone as if he were six 
 months old instead of considerably over six 
 years. Indeed, he and Khaki, who follows 
 me in the road like a dog, will amicably 
 chase the same stone. Khaki does it for the 
 sake of the dash. Dick always picks up the 
 stone, even when Khaki gets there first. 
 
 With this preamble you can perhaps im- 
 agine Tototte visiting Khaki. 
 [ 212 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 The visit is engineered by four people — 
 the two " mummers " and the dog and the 
 cat. The instant Tototte catches sight of 
 Khaki she makes a dash of dehght. Of 
 course it is Khaki's fault that he does not 
 discriminate — never having had any edu- 
 cation in being run after — and more than 
 that, he seems to have no instinctive idea that 
 the little dog would be no match for him if 
 he chose to settle matters by single combat. 
 So the cat flies, and the dog exhibits, at once, 
 his natural instinct for the chase. Khaki 
 leaps to the highest point, — a high window 
 seat, or the top of the buffet or the stair rail- 
 ing if he is in the house, and a tree or the 
 top of the arbor if he is in the garden, — 
 swells himself up, and growls like a tiger in 
 the jungle. Tototte gets as near as possible, 
 leaps about, then, finding she cannot reach 
 him, sits down and stares at him, " in idola- 
 trous rapture," her mama says. To the 
 inexperienced outsider it looks exactly like 
 any ordinary cat and dog affair. But being 
 P^haki and Tototte, of course it isn't — • 
 at least I, who love both beasties, hope it 
 isn't. 
 
 Now Tototte is a most obedient little 
 creature, so the first emotions of her arrival 
 being over, we all settle down to enjoy our- 
 selves. Khaki is not very obedient. To be 
 absolutely truthful, he is not obedient at all. 
 What cat ever was? He has the cat's most 
 
 [ 213 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 marked qualities. In fact, he is a real cat, 
 and he is a slave to curiosity, while Tototte is 
 possessed with an ''idee fixe.^^ She knows 
 perfectly well — she is very intelligent — 
 that she may not touch that cat. But she 
 cannot forget him. She sits all day thinking 
 about him, and wondering where he is — 
 adoring him, you understand. She, who 
 sleeps half the day when she is at home, 
 never takes a daytime nap when she is here, 
 — any minute that cat may come. She who 
 in Paris loves to go to walk, does not care 
 when she is here to go far away from the 
 house — that cat might come in any time. 
 She even neglects her meals, or hurries 
 through them — Khaki might get by when 
 her nose was in her dish. 
 
 And the cat? 
 
 Well, the cat doesn't suffer. 
 
 After he has been chased up a tree, with 
 Tototte sitting beneath staring up at him 
 in gasping adoration, he waits patiently for 
 me to come and take him down and carry 
 him to the house. Then, when the door is 
 closed between them, with Khaki spitting on 
 one side, and Tototte trembling in adora- 
 tion on the other, and we two mamas want 
 a little quiet and profound political conversa- 
 tion, the little dog is lifted on to her mama's 
 knee — her mama can be very severe to 
 her — and bidden in a very deep, stern voice, 
 supposed to strike terror to her little heart, 
 
 [ 214 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 to *' behave" herself, and, as Tototte dares 
 not defy her mama, especially when mama's 
 strong hand holds her firmly by the collar, 
 for a while calm reigns. 
 
 Then, in the silence, Khaki's curiosity gets 
 the best of him. He scratches at the door, 
 and when asked what he wants, he miaows 
 that he wants to come out. The door being 
 opened — he is usually put upstairs, as he 
 loves to nap on the bed — he tiptoes out, 
 comes down the steps halfway and sits down 
 to glare at Tototte held firmly by the collar 
 on her mother's knee. Tototte trembles 
 with ecstasy. Khaki stares, and then, to 
 show his indifference, washes his face, puts 
 his whiskers in order, and often goes so far 
 as to clean his toes. He seems to under- 
 stand perfectly well that the dog can't get 
 at him. He finally comes down stairs, and 
 stalks the salon like a tiger in miniature, 
 taking the width of the room with his slow, 
 beautiful feline grace, and pausing at either 
 end to sit down a minute and gaze. 
 
 There is always a theory that they will 
 learn, but they don't — at least they have 
 not yet, and they have had lots of oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 The funny thing is that the cat seems to 
 know that the dog sleeps very soundly at 
 night; she would, of course, after the exciting 
 days she has. When Khaki goes down in 
 the morning he invariably stops at the open 
 
 [ 215 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 door where he knows the dog sleeps and 
 looks in. 
 
 I have been telling Khaki this morning, 
 as he sat on my knee making his toilet, that 
 he Is to have a visit soon from Tototte. If 
 he understood, he only winked at me and 
 made no other sign. Probably he thinks that 
 it Is all In the day's work. 
 
 I must tell you. It Is only fair, that Tototte 
 adores cats In exactly the same way when she 
 is at home. She knows every house where 
 a cat ever sits on the window sill. She knows 
 every shop where a cat lives. When she is 
 taken out to walk on the today Inevitable 
 leash, she drags her conductor, whether it 
 be mistress or maid, to all such places that 
 she may celebrate her rite of " adoring a 
 cat." She has In her time had her face 
 slapped more than once, but she does not 
 seem to mind, evidently likes it, and only 
 retires a few steps, returning at once to her 
 act of — adoration, quite ready to turn the 
 other cheek. I suppose she will continue her 
 rites until some day she gets really punished. 
 
 I suppose reasonable women would have 
 let them have It out and be done with it in 
 the first place. But I had fears for the beau- 
 tiful dog's lovely brown eyes, and so litde 
 deep knowledge of cats as not to be sure 
 whether, once driven out of the garden, 
 Khaki would ever come back. 
 
 Amelie says that is absurd, as he would 
 
 [ 216 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 only go to her house, which he does of his 
 own volition when I am in Paris. So I im- 
 agine the dog would run the greatest risk in 
 a free fight if the cat were cornered, which 
 I doubt if he would be. 
 
 I remember seeing a dog punished by a 
 cat when I was visiting my grandfather as a 
 little girl, and I never forgot it. The dog 
 was a big mastiff, and had worried a kitten. 
 The dog was given a dose of the whip, but 
 evidently the mother cat was not satisfied, 
 for she laid in wait for him the next day as 
 he trotted near the eaves of a lean-to, and 
 leaped on his back and cuffed him well. 
 Tige, the dog, made a circuit of the garden 
 in his fright, with the claws of the cat dug 
 into his shoulders, before it occurred to him to 
 roll her off, and he never chased a cat again. 
 
 Anyway, Tototte is consistent. She just 
 loves anything that moves. Cats move — 
 ergOf she adores cats. When she walks in 
 the garden a flying leaf, the smaller the bet- 
 ter, a bit of blowing paper, and she is radi- 
 antly happy, and so busy. I send you a pic- 
 ture of her standing on a bit of paper she 
 has just caught, and looking for another. 
 Her antics make walking with her a constant 
 joy. She has one other passion — motor- 
 cars. She simply hates to ride behind a 
 horse, and barks every minute. But in a 
 motor-car she sits up like a little lady and 
 gives every evidence of blissful content. 
 
 [ 217 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 She does not love other dogs much, and 
 she puts up with no familiarities. You would 
 be amused if you could see her try to drive 
 both Dick and Kiki out of the house. Some- 
 times she will play nicely, but if the humour 
 seizes her she doesn't hesitate to snap at 
 them. Luckily my dogs are perfect gentle- 
 men, and evidently " for all the wealth of 
 Indies would do nothing for to hurt her." 
 When she nips their heels they look indul- 
 gently down at her, and they actually smile. 
 Dogs are nice beasties. 
 
 In the meantime Khaki grows bigger and 
 handsomer every day. Here Is how he 
 looks, up in the arbor, gazing down at 
 Tototte, who is whining just out of reach of 
 the camera. I hope he'll live until you can 
 come over to see him. He Is just a few 
 weeks older than the war, so It Is easy to 
 keep track of his birthday — he will be five 
 in May. He Is very dignified, no longer 
 playful, except now and then for my pleas- 
 ure. But he Is sociable. He always likes 
 to take his afternoon nap — it lasts from 
 lunch-time to dinner — in the same room 
 with me, and he loves company. Nothing 
 ever wakes him in the afternoon but callers. 
 No matter who comes, almost as soon as 
 they are seated, he is sure to be standing on 
 his hind legs beside them, his white pattes 
 on the visitor's knee, and unless absolutely 
 driven away, he jumps slowly up, curls him- 
 [ 218 ] 
 
1. Khaki in the arbor looking down at Tototte 
 
 2. Khaki in the garden waiting for his breakfast 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 self round and purrs and is happy. It was a 
 bit embarrassing at first. Some people are 
 afraid of cats, but almost every one says, 
 " Oh, let him stay. I like cats, and feel flat- 
 tered." I hope they speak the truth. I am 
 convinced that he means to be hospitable. 
 He knows no other way. It is probably " cat 
 etiquette." Being a cat, you know that if 
 anyone wanted to pick him up he would not 
 stay with them a moment. He wants to go 
 to them of his own volition. 
 
 I suppose you think this is trivial stuff to 
 feel interest in at this time. To speak the 
 truth, it is a relief. We are all so war-worn 
 here. The times are proving how difficult 
 it is going to be to settle the problems of the 
 future — with the hatreds that are going to 
 survive, the misery and the pain that cannot 
 be forgotten until this generation has passed 
 out of sight with its thousands of spoiled 
 men, and with all the destruction that this 
 century cannot restore, — and always the 
 Germans on the same globe with us. It 
 would appall one if one did not remember 
 that the world has lived through great dis- 
 asters, survived them, risen above them, and 
 all that each of us can do now is just our 
 "bit" in each day's work as it passes, and do 
 that "bit" with hope and patience. 
 
 We 've had some rather nice weather, and 
 I have been able to play out of doors. The 
 tulips and jonquils are coming up. The prim- 
 
 [ 219 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 roses are In flower, and Louise has been rak- 
 ing the moss out of the lawn, for in this 
 damp country, with its green winters, the 
 prettiest sort of moss grows on everything, 
 and especially does its best to choke the 
 grass and usurp its place, — one of Nature's 
 Huns, that moss. But the few nice days 
 when we could really work to destroy it were 
 interspersed with floods of rain. The rivers 
 are still over their banks, and no field work 
 is possible. 
 
 Hope you are enjoying our president. 
 We '11 have him back before you read this. 
 Where is the capital of the great United 
 States of America in these days? I often ask 
 myself what Paris will be like when this is 
 all over. Poor France, she has suffered all 
 kinds of invasion this time ! 
 
 Well, as I believe that nothing Is thrown 
 away, I Insist on believing also that good will 
 come of it. In a way it is educational. But 
 try to imagine it — hundreds of boys on 
 *' three days' Paris leave" are being toted 
 about the city every day and being told things 
 about history and literature and architecture, 
 and Victor Hugo Is enjoying a renaissance 
 as the most popular of their trips in town 
 Is to the scenes of Jean Valjean's adventures 
 in " Les Miserables," while all over France 
 the new-made-Americans, who knew very 
 little about anything and could neither read 
 nor write, and hardly speak a word of En- 
 [ 220 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 glish, are going to school while they wait to 
 be taken home, and being taught what it 
 really means to be an American citizen. 
 There are compensations, you see, and some 
 of the seed sown always matures. Geo- 
 graphically, it has opened the world rather 
 wide to all of us. We all know lots jnore 
 about other countries and other people than 
 we did five years ago. Lots of us know it 
 all wrong, but that 's no matter. It is rather 
 like our written examinations at school — 
 it is by blundering that we get corrected, 
 and to wish to know Is the beginning of 
 learning. 
 
 [ 221 ] 
 
XVII 
 
 March 15, IQIQ 
 
 I HAVE had rather an occupied week and 
 I am thankful, because It is so hard to bear 
 with the direction in which the Peace Con- 
 gress is moving, after four months of nervous 
 anxiety. Germany, had she won, would have 
 imposed her conditions at once, and as a 
 conqueror would have permitted no discus- 
 sion. That we should be more human and 
 better bred is well enough, but that every 
 move of the Congress should be to soften 
 conditions for Germany, and to consider 
 not what Germany must be made to do, but 
 what she wants to be made to do, has had 
 a strange effect on every one. Little by little, 
 people are forgetting what they owed to one 
 another only a short time ago, and sometimes 
 it seems almost as though they were forget- 
 ting for what they fought, since all the hu- 
 manitarian sentiment seems to be for Ger- 
 many at the expense of France and Belgium. 
 
 I tell myself every morning that I will not 
 worry myself over the great problems, since, 
 by the grace of God, I am not responsible, 
 but it is hard, so I am glad for anything 
 which occupies me. 
 [ 222 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I have been seeing a great deal of Amer- 
 ican boys lately, and, really, they keep me on 
 the broad grin all the time — they are so 
 cocksure of themselves, so competent, and 
 have often such a keen sense of humour. But 
 oh, my ! oh, my ! They are the funniest things 
 In the way of an army I ever dreamed of. 
 Real soldiers. If they have the smallest sense 
 of humour left In them after their army train- 
 ing, must have what my grandmother used 
 to call '' conniption fits " in these days. Just 
 now the American Commander of Paris — 
 that is not what he calls himself, but never 
 mind, since I am about as green as the re- 
 cruits — Is determined that the boys in Paris 
 shall learn to salute their officers when they 
 pass them In the street, and American Mili- 
 tary policemen are on the lookout for boys 
 who are careless or forget, and they get 
 nabbed on the boulevards and elsewhere, and 
 go — I suppose — to the guard-house for an 
 hour or two, or perhaps they get a dose of 
 *' pack-drill." But officers must have a hard 
 time under the new regulations to keep a stiff 
 and suitably military expression at times, es- 
 pecially when something like this happens : A 
 nice great big youngster from some agricul- 
 tural district, who had probably never been 
 ten miles from home until he became un- 
 expectedly a recruit and had to travel to a 
 camp and learn to drill, then had to come 
 overseas to a country he had probably never 
 
 [ 223 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 heard of before, had to learn some more 
 drills and pass-words and all sorts of, to 
 him, "silly rubbish." He had probably 
 never before seen a soldier, perhaps never 
 read of one, surely knew nothing about being 
 one, and could not take it a bit seriously, nor 
 learn to behave like a real soldier any more 
 than he could like a real king. So one day, 
 when he passed his major he just grinned 
 good-naturedly and said, " Hello, Major," 
 just as he would have said, " Hello, Bill," or 
 "Hello, Ike," at home. 
 
 The Major stopped and said to the lad, 
 " Do you think that is the proper way to ad- 
 dress your superior officer?" 
 
 The soldier, still grinning but not embar- 
 rassed, scratched his head and replied cheer- 
 fully: "Wall, I dunno. You see there's so 
 many of your Captains and Colonels and 
 Majors and such-like about here, that I get 
 sort of careless-like." 
 
 Was It any wonder that when the Germans 
 said the Americans were not an army but a 
 mob that the Americans laughed and said, 
 "You bet we are." Well, they licked them, 
 that organized and drilled Boche army, all 
 the same. But it sure has Its comic side. 
 
 On Monday I made my first trip out to 
 the scene of the beginning of the second 
 battle of the Marne, as the guest of an 
 American officer whom I knew before he 
 cut his first teeth and who had just returned 
 [ 224 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 from Germany on his way back to the 
 States. 
 
 You know Chateau-Thierry is only a little 
 way from here. It was the first time I have 
 been east of Meaux since I made my first 
 pilgrimage to the field of the first battle of 
 the Marne in December, 19 14, just three 
 months after it was won. 
 
 The run out to Chateau-Thierry from here 
 took less than an hour in a little Ford car 
 which has just come down from Germany, 
 where it was pretty well used up; so with a 
 new car — providing there was no speed 
 limit — it could be done in a little over half 
 that time. 
 
 You can imagine how unimportant the 
 distance is when I tell you we left my gate 
 at eleven, ran out through Meaux and by 
 way of Vareddes to Lizy-sur-Ourcq, where 
 Von Kluck turned to face the Allied left wing 
 in September, 19 14, and made a half circular 
 detour to enter Chateau-Thierry from the 
 north-west by the way of Torcy, Belleau 
 Woods and Bouresches, returning by way 
 of Vaux and down the valley of the Marne 
 by way of Nanteuil-sur-Marne, Villiers-sur- 
 Marne to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, which was 
 bombed from the air July 15th — you re- 
 member when my sugar was burned — and 
 Trilport into Meaux across the Marne home, 
 and we were back at the gate at half-past 
 five, having made half a dozen stops. 
 
 [ 225 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 It was not an ideal day for the trip. It 
 was grey and windy, and there was a fine 
 drizzle of rain now and then. Still, it was not 
 at all a bad day to see the French landscape 
 — it was full of lights and shades, and some- 
 times a half ray of sun broke through the 
 clouds and seemed to pull the picture to- 
 gether. A sunny day would have been less 
 sad, but I doubt if it would have suited my 
 mood any better. 
 
 You are likely to make this trip some day, 
 and perhaps not very far in the future. You 
 will not see it as I saw it, and I did not see 
 it as it was last June. But I cannot imagine 
 anyone coming to France — any American — 
 and not wanting to know all about the country 
 where our boys first distinguished themselves. 
 Being really the first front of the American 
 Expeditionary Force, it will be more closely 
 knit into the affections of the American 
 people than any of the battle-fields except 
 Cantigny and the Argonne Forest, between 
 which the fight here was sandwiched. 
 
 It is a really beautiful country and it is not 
 devastated to ugliness. On passing through 
 Meaux we ran directly out to Vareddes, 
 through which the French pushed the Ger- 
 mans in 19 14 with Chateau-Thierry as their 
 objective, and descended the valley of the 
 Ourcq to Vaux sur Coylomb, a picturesque 
 little hamlet of about a hundred inhabitants, 
 which looks as if it had never heard of such 
 [ 226 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 a thing as war, and then took the road 
 through Gandelu, Bouresches, Torcy and 
 Belleau, into Chateau-Thierry from the 
 north-west. 
 
 Over the hne where the first battle of the 
 Marne passed in the fall of 19 14 — four 
 weeks after the Germans crossed the frontier 
 — time has effaced almost every trace, so it 
 was not until we neared Bouresches and 
 Belleau that we began to realize that here 
 battles had been fought. These three little 
 hamlets are so tiny that, although they figure 
 on road maps for the guidance of ardent 
 automobilists, you will find no mention made 
 of them in any guide-books, nor even on any 
 government postal and telegraphic lists. 
 Even by name they were, until June of last 
 year, unknown to every one outside the im- 
 mediate vicinity. Now, ruined as they all 
 are, each bears at either end a board sign, 
 with the name of the town painted In black 
 letters. 
 
 With the ruins of what was once a tiny 
 hamlet on one hand, across a shell-torn field 
 rises the small, densely wooded height whose 
 name is known today to every American — 
 the tragic Belleau Wood. The little hamlet 
 is just a mass of fallen or falling walls, as 
 c^serted as Pompeii and already looking 
 centuries old. 
 
 The road approaching it is still screaming 
 with reminiscences of war four months after 
 
 [ 227 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the last gun was fired. All along the way 
 are heaps of salvaged stuff of all sorts — 
 mountains of empty shell cases of all sizes, 
 piles of wicker baskets containing unused 
 German shell, thrown down and often broken 
 shell racks, all sorts of telegraphic materials, 
 cases of machine-gun belts, broken kitchens, 
 smashed buckets, tangles of wire and rolls 
 of new barbed wire — in fact all the debris of 
 modern warfare plus any quantity of aban- 
 doned German artillery material left in their 
 retreat — everything, in fact, except guns 
 and corpses. 
 
 Across the fields still zigzag barbed-wire 
 entanglements in many places, while In 
 others the old wire Is rolled up by the road- 
 side. Here and there is still a trench, while 
 a line of freshly turned soil in the green fields 
 shows where the trenches have been filled in. 
 
 In the banks along the road are the 
 German dugouts, with broken drinking cups, 
 tin boxes, dented casques, strewn about the 
 entrances, which are often broken down, 
 while every little way are the " foxholes " In 
 the banks marking the places where the 
 American boys tried to dig in. The ground 
 before the town which the Germans had 
 shelled so furiously, as the Americans were 
 pushing through to cross the fields and clean 
 out the wooded hill opposite, has been swept 
 and ploughed by the artillery of both sides. 
 The American Captain whose guest I was 
 [ 228 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 could say, from a glance at the shell holes : 
 "That Is one of ours." "That was one of 
 theirs." "That Is a 75." " That Is an 88." 
 " That Is a 240." " This place was rushed." 
 "That place was shelled." 
 
 Seeing It now, after eight months, imagine 
 what It must have been after the Americans 
 had advanced and retreated twice there 
 before they finally passed over It and des- 
 perately fought their way through that wood 
 with Its nest of machine guns. 
 
 Nature Is a kindly creature, In spite of the 
 abuse we often heap on her, because she 
 seems so unfeeling, so unmoved. Anyway, 
 she abhors stagnation. She Is doing her best 
 to heal the scarred landscape, but Belleau 
 Wood, across the field from the ruined 
 hamlets. Is a sinister sight still. It Is a 
 ghastly sort of place to fight In, — a thickly 
 wooded slope, a tangle of uncleared brush 
 on the outskirts ideal for masking machine 
 guns, and the clearing of it, while done with 
 less absolute suffering than In the awful days 
 in the Argonne, called for big feats of per- 
 sonal courage and a terrible loss of life. 
 There, time and time again, our boys pushed 
 by the carefully concealed machine guns to be 
 shot in the back. 
 
 Today the whole hill Is shell-shot. The 
 trees hang dead, dried and broken. The 
 ground looks as though verdure could never 
 clothe it again. Of course it will, and soon, 
 
 [ 229 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 but it did not give me that impression on 
 Monday. Everywhere else Nature has al- 
 ready laid her soothing hands, but she has yet 
 to touch that tragic wood. On the grey, rain- 
 washed walls of the little hamlets, green 
 things already trail and wild flowers are be- 
 ginning to grow. Even the shell-holes in the 
 fields are gay with dandelions and field prim- 
 roses, pdquerettes and boutons d^or. But 
 Belleau Wood, as seen from the ruined ham- 
 let, is an open grief on the face of Nature. 
 
 The roads are absolutely deserted — ex- 
 cept for Americans. Across the broken 
 fields toward the dark forest, groups of 
 boys in khaki, or women in the uniforms 
 of the various relief units, were constantly 
 passing as we sat In the road between the ruins 
 and the wood. At every corner stood an 
 American camion or a camionette, and we 
 passed no other sort of automobile on the 
 road, and no other pedestrians, as we slowly 
 ran over the sacred ground through ruined 
 Torcy and Into Chateau-Thierry. My mind 
 was obsessed by the imaginary picture of the 
 fighting in such a place — the beginning of 
 the last phase of the war with its struggle for 
 positions, as old-fashioned as war Itself. 
 One could imagine all the noise in the spot 
 today so silent, and the movement in the fields 
 today so deserted. Along the quiet roadsides 
 He burled the American lads who fell here 
 in the long battle which ended the war. 
 [ 230 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 All the little cemeteries are alike — rec- 
 tangular spaces, enclosed in a wire fence. 
 Usually there are three or four guns stacked 
 in the centre, often surmounted by a "tin 
 hat," as the boys call their helmets. There 
 are always several lines of graves, each with 
 a wooden cross at the head with a small 
 American flag set in a round disk under 
 isinglass, surrounded by a green metal frame 
 representing a wreath, to which is attached 
 a small card-shaped plaque with the name 
 and number. Eventually all the names will 
 be printed on the horizontal bar of the cross, 
 as they are in some cases already. 
 
 None of these cemeteries about Chateau- 
 Thierry is large. They are all on the banks 
 on the side of the road, and I can't tell you 
 how I felt as we approached the first, and 
 stopped the car beside it, and crawled out Into 
 the mud. Just now the well-ordered graves 
 are not sodded. I suppose it was the Idea of 
 seeing so many graves — we saw at least a 
 dozen of these little cemeteries — and re- 
 membering how young they were who slept 
 there that impressed me at first. I wonder 
 how I would feel If I ever saw the one In the 
 Argonne where over twenty thousand Amer- 
 icans will sleep together? Later, I Imagine, 
 when the graves are all properly tended, the 
 scene would lose its look of sadness, like the 
 English cemetery at Etampes, where a gar- 
 dener and twenty women have nothing to do 
 
 [ 231 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 but beautify It, and show the French, whose 
 cities of the dead are still formal and sad, 
 what the English churchyard and the Amer- 
 ican garden-like burial grounds are. 
 
 I was sorry the day was so bad, because 
 the snapshots I took near Belleau Wood 
 give a mere hint of the scene. But perhaps 
 you can guess at It, and the little wrecked 
 hamlet near by, of which I tried to get a 
 picture. Always the light, such as It was, 
 came on the wrong side. I should have 
 been there In the early morning Instead of 
 at noon. 
 
 I cannot tell you how beautiful this part 
 of the Marne Valley is. Chateau-Thierry 
 Itself Is a lovely town on the right bank of 
 the river, built on the side of a hill, which Is 
 crowned by the ruins of a feudal castle, to 
 which one climbs by steep steps to pass 
 through a Gothic arch between two huge 
 round towers Into a lovely public park, well 
 wooded, and, from the platform of the old 
 castle, get a wide and picturesque view of the 
 valley. That part of the town had to be con- 
 tinually bombarded to dislodge the Ger- 
 man artillery during the fifty days of their 
 occupation. 
 
 The streets are steep, and the town has 
 a well-situated church of no special Interest 
 as French churches go — St. CrepIn — which 
 Americans will of course view with a certain 
 interest because it was on its steps that Gen- 
 
 [ 232 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 eral Pershing stood to accept the grateful 
 ovation of the town after its liberation, and 
 to receive the children and their flowers. 
 
 Of course the town is In a state of chaos 
 today. It has no gas, as the Germans blew 
 up the gas works, and the streets are in great 
 disorder still. 
 
 As we rode through the town, after enter- 
 ing It by one of the temporary bridges which 
 replace those destroyed in the fighting, it 
 seemed to me that there was nobody there 
 but American soldiers, and German prisoners 
 working In the streets, their green coats bear- 
 ing on the back in huge white letters P. W. or 
 P. G., according to their surrender to Amer- 
 icans or Frenchmen. They were a husky 
 looking lot of youngsters and evidently well 
 cared for and perfectly contented. 
 
 I remarked on the number of Americans 
 In the town — officers, soldiers, women — 
 and my host simply replied over his shoulder: 
 " Chateau-Thierry is an American town. 
 We took it." Without any comment that 
 comes near to giving the attitude of most of 
 the boys over here now. 
 
 There has always been an American col- 
 ony at Chateau-Thierry, and judging by the 
 signs, it will be even larger in the future than 
 in the past. By the time you are able to get 
 over, there will be English tea-rooms. I 
 know of one that is being Installed there al- 
 ready, for Chateau-Thierry will very likely 
 
 [ 233 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 be the point from which most of the Amer- 
 ican excursions over the field will start. 
 
 I was surprised to find the town little 
 knocked to pieces — comparatively speaking. 
 The bridges, on which the American ma- 
 chine-gunners fought, are down, and along 
 the river front there are signs of the bom- 
 bardment, and here and there, up the steep 
 streets, we saw a space between buildings 
 where heaps of stone and plaster told 
 of a house destroyed. But the town will 
 be easily rebuilt, and the work is already 
 begun. 
 
 We came back down the north bank of the 
 Marne through Nanteuil-sur-Marne, where 
 the valley is very deep. From the road on 
 the top of the hill we looked into the valley 
 and across the river to the little hamlets 
 nestled in the green slope on the other bank, 
 — one of the most beautiful pictures I ever 
 saw. Personally I do not think that it is so 
 int'ime or so gay as my end of the valley. 
 It Is on a grander scale. I could imagine 
 myself being impressed up at Nanteuil, and 
 perhaps lonely. I could never be either down 
 here. 
 
 Only twelve miles east of Chateau-Thierry 
 lies Dormans, where the Germans crossed 
 the Marne at the limit of their advance on 
 Paris last spring, and where the American 
 boys drove them back. We had not time to 
 go on even that twelve miles, although there 
 
 [ 234 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 is a good church tower of the twelfth cen- 
 tury and the ruin of a chateau of the time of 
 the mad Charles VI. 
 
 We ran out of Chateau-Thierry by way of 
 the ruined hamlet of Vaux, another of those 
 tiny places which will never be restored but 
 will grow prettier and more decorative as 
 time dresses the ruins with beauty, in a land- 
 scape where ruins never seem out of place, 
 alas ! We skipped through Essonnes without 
 even stopping to look at what was left of the 
 thirteenth-century abbey, but we did make 
 a detour beyond Charly to pass round the 
 Chateau de Villiers-sur-Marne, — the home 
 of Francis Wilson's daughter, Madame 
 Huard, and the scene of *' My Home on the 
 Field of Honor." There, finding the big 
 gates standing wide open, and only a few 
 soldiers in the neglected park, we took the 
 liberty of making the wide circular drive part 
 of our route, just to say we had been there, 
 passing in front of the closed chateau, and on 
 by Nanteuil and Rouil to La Ferte-sous- 
 Jouarre, a rather prosperous-looking, siz- 
 able town where they used to make mill- 
 stones, — and do still, for all I know. We 
 had not either the time or the spirit to run 
 out a mile to the historical town of Jouarre, 
 a seventh-century place, which I am keeping 
 for a special trip, but rushed on through 
 Trilport, where the English destroyed the 
 big bridge in 19 14, and immediately after- 
 
 [ 235 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ward a big German automobile dashed into 
 the river and drowned four officers. 
 
 It was an easy and very picturesque little 
 trip. Except for the sadness of the destroyed 
 villages and the first shock of standing beside 
 so many American graves, the excursion 
 from here has none of the terror-striking 
 elements, none of the emotionally over- 
 whelming moments of the excursions in the 
 north, where the mutilation of Rheims is 
 simply heartbreaking, and the desolation of 
 the Chemin des Dames rivals Dante's 
 Inferno. Indeed, from the line on which the 
 Americans as an army first distinguished 
 themselves, east and north one moves in a 
 crescendo of devastation, grief and pain. 
 
 Still, an American woman who has been 
 going back and forward over that devastated 
 country said to me the other day, as she 
 stopped at my gate to say "howdy" on her 
 way into Paris : " Terrible as it all is it gets 
 less terrible every day. Time is doing its 
 work, and time is such a healer." 
 
 Is n't it lucky that it is ? But of course man 
 has got to get to work there soon and dis- 
 figure again nature's work in an effort to " re- 
 store " the devastated regions. I have seen 
 discouraged people who feel today that it 
 never should be restored simply to have Ger- 
 many come across again as soon as she is 
 rested. It is a serious problem. Much of the 
 capital invested there has been diverted to 
 [ 236 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 other and geographically safer parts of 
 France, and to Algeria, and unless the coming 
 treaty gives France promise of greater secur- 
 ity than it seems likely to do today the fate of 
 north-east France is a sad one. When you 
 consider that it will take six months' hard 
 work to clear the ruins away from one town 
 like St. Quentin alone, and that France must 
 build up her commerce and her civil life in 
 competition with undestroyed countries and 
 that her working capacity is diminished by 
 one fourth, I agree that it is a sorry outlook. 
 The only consolation is that she has arisen 
 from calamities in the past, and in some way 
 I believe she can from this. I only hope that 
 the world will be patient with her. 
 
 My mind does wander. Lay it to the 
 brain fag of four years and a half of war, 
 and be patient. I meant to tell you what 
 you will want to know, that the Graves' Reg- 
 istration Survey — if that is what it officially 
 calls itself — and the American Engineers 
 have done simply colossal work in the diffi- 
 cult country in which the American boys 
 fought, to locate every grave to photo- 
 graph it, with each photograph, carefully 
 marked, so that when the time comes for the 
 families to make their pious pilgrimages to 
 the spot in France which has been made 
 sacred by the boys they gave to the great 
 cause there will be no difficulty in locating the 
 graves of all those who were identified. 
 
 [ 237 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 The attempt to kill Clemenceau created a 
 great stir here. He came through it won- 
 derfully for his age. It would have been 
 a world's loss had he disappeared at such a 
 critical time. 
 
 Lloyd George has Wilson hypnotized. 
 I often wonder If Wilson knows It. To me 
 it is one of the comic sides of these days to 
 sec Lloyd George leading the Imperial 
 British lion In chains. I remember the at- 
 titude toward the stocky Welsh lawyer not 
 so very long before the war, when some 
 Englishman was defining the difference be- 
 tween an accident and a disaster, and gave 
 as an example: "If Lloyd George should 
 fall Into the Thames It would be an accident : 
 if any one pulled him out It would be a dis- 
 aster." Well, other days, other opinions, 
 perhaps. Anyway, he Is not leading Clem- 
 enceau yet, but the old Tiger, even with the 
 French cock — bloody spurs well sharpened 
 — on his wrist — Is having a hard fight 
 against Lloyd George and the Lion and Wil- 
 son and the Eagle, and It Is a pity. The 
 battle Is over. The umpires, sitting on the 
 edge of the bloody cockpit, seem to have 
 turned their back on it, and In their desire 
 to Impose their theories to have forgotten 
 the fight — how It happened, and where It 
 was, and what It was about. 
 
 Of course you will say that I am nervous. 
 I am. So is every thinking person in France, 
 
 [ 238 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and so we shall be until Peace is really signed. 
 Then, providing that Germany is really pun- 
 ished, even although the terms of the Peace 
 do not altogether please us, we shall bind up 
 our loins and make the best of it. I cannot 
 tell you how anxious every one here is to 
 have it done, that knowing even the worst, 
 we can take up our lives and go on. There 
 are many in France — as there are all over 
 the world — who want to begin to forget. 
 There are many — judging by appearances 
 — who already have. But neither class in- 
 cludes those on whom the future depends. 
 Isn't it lucky that just as more things than 
 men and cannon fought in this war — other- 
 wise there was no reason why Germany 
 should not have won out — something be- 
 sides politicians or man's finite will is to 
 direct the course of the future? 
 
 Well, spring is soon coming. With its 
 coming, as usual, we shall all brace up. At 
 least I shall, and so quite naturally I expect 
 every one else to. Besides, it won't be long be- 
 fore the big pond will be open to all comers 
 who have the price, and perhaps we two may 
 see each other again. It is a cheery thought 
 to go to sleep on — so good-night, and happy 
 dreams. 
 
 [ 239 ] 
 
XVIII 
 
 May Day, igig 
 
 Well^ this has been a horrid month. 
 
 I have not felt like writing. There is 
 nothing happening here except what you 
 know as much about as we do, which is prac- 
 tically nothing. Nearly six monthis since 
 the armistice, and the Peace Conference is 
 still sitting, and hatching nothing but discord. 
 That, too, in secrecy only unveiled for a mo- 
 ment when something happens like a prime- 
 minister rushing home in anger to consult 
 the people he represents. I notice that our 
 Mr. Wilson, author of the phrase " Open 
 covenants of Peace, openly arrived at," does 
 not ask any of the people of the great United 
 States what they think. Not he. It really 
 is a pity that he can't return to the States, 
 booted and spurred, cravache In hand, and, 
 with the gesture of a Louis XIV (whom In 
 some ways he singularly resembles) dismiss 
 Congress with the equivalent to the sixteenth 
 century, '^ Uetat, c'est moi/^^ 
 
 Anyway, he has lost the French. Like 
 some of the decorations they have bestowed 
 in a hurry lately, they'd take back the ova- 
 [ 240 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 tion given him if they could. Alas! ''^ Les 
 
 paroles restent/' amd acts also I 
 
 The weather has been simply abominable. 
 I remember many a May Day of my youth, 
 when we wore muslin dresses and only a 
 wreath of flowers on our heads. That was 
 In the early sixties when children had their 
 neck and arms bared, so I am sure that 
 climates have changed. Today It Is terribly 
 cold, a heavy rain Is falling, and I have a big 
 fire roaring in the salon. 
 
 It Is trying to have weather like this of 
 today — and worse — right through April, 
 since the work In the fields and gardens ought 
 to begin. We planted peas and onions the 
 first week in April, and sowed flowers In pots 
 to be re-set as soon as the ground was In 
 condition. We got out begonia bulbs and 
 put them In cases to start under cover, looked 
 over dahlia roots, trimmed rose bushes and 
 rearranged the borders — and there every- 
 thing stopped. 
 
 Fruit-trees all flowered beautifully, but 
 with the menace of the hme rousse ahead of 
 us, and coming very late this year, and with 
 the sad fruitless three years behind us, we 
 did not feel very courageous, and had reason 
 not to be so. 
 
 There was hardly a sunny day all through 
 April, and we had many rainy ones with the 
 ground too wet to work. In the middle of 
 the month it began to pour great buckets, 
 
 [ 241 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 and, oh! It was cold, and on the 29th the 
 lune rousse was ushered in by a snowstorm, 
 following a night of frost. Yesterday it 
 hailed, and as all the blossoms were wide 
 open I reckon that is the end of any hope of 
 fruit up here. 
 
 We are approaching the days when the 
 terms of the Peace Treaty must be given to 
 the world. The German delegates will soon 
 be here to listen to the conditions which 
 should be dictated with the order " take them 
 or leave them, but discuss them not." In- 
 stead, I am afraid, the ultimation will take 
 another form, and the Allies extend to their 
 conquered foe a courtesy they never would 
 have received had the order of things been 
 reversed. But there is no use in worrying 
 over that. We will have to accept the situa- 
 tion as it is, and do our mending afterwards. 
 Afterwards will include many years to come. 
 Germany can recover at once. France can- 
 not, except by a miracle. Still, France is a 
 land that has seen miracles; she may achieve 
 another. One of two things is certain, she 
 will brace up to it, or she won't. It is to 
 laugh, isn't it? 
 
 Everything is quiet here, outwardly. Of 
 course, there is a suppressed unrest which can 
 only be cured by the actual signing of the 
 peace, and even then I am afraid that we 
 shall continue to look nervously at the upset 
 world and all the menace of Germany's re- 
 [ 242 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching PIome 
 
 lations In the east, which no Peace Congress 
 like that of today can arrange with any magic 
 wand of their acquaintance. 
 
 Every intelligent person knows that what 
 is today called Bolshevism has in some form 
 followed every great war the world has 
 known. Like a disease, I suppose it has to 
 run its course. In the meantime, some 
 people say funny things. I heard a person 
 who never had to work in his life, and who 
 calls himself a " student of sociology," say 
 the other day, " Never again will the people 
 be mere pawns in the hands of the classes." 
 I wanted to ask him what would become of 
 him if the masses were mounted and began 
 to ride? All I am sure of isi that you and I 
 will have to get a gait on if we don't want 
 to be ridden down when the masses begin to 
 move. You know I love to see people get on. 
 As a rule they do if they have the ability, 
 and no road is closed to ability. Some of the 
 leading men in the world have " gotten on." 
 But that people, simply because they are 
 "people," demand "to get on," because 
 there is such a thing as " getting on," when 
 they " ain't got no excuse," is another thing. 
 However, these things — Bolshevist or not — 
 don't scare me. There is a logic in it, and 
 It works Itself out. It Is painful to look at, 
 of course, at times almost heartbreaking. 
 But once more — something moves across 
 the epochs more forceful than mere man- 
 
 [ 243 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 power. I am sure of that. We can't see it. 
 We ought not, since it is up to us to do our 
 level handsomest, and have faith in the final 
 issue of the struggle. 
 
 Nothing is so irritating to me as this idea 
 that "people" are capable of governing 
 themselves, or that they have proved them- 
 selves worthy to be taken into the confidence 
 of those who do govern. If all the people 
 were virtuous, we should have need for 
 neither laws nor prisons. You and I have 
 no desire to take what does not belong to us, 
 no inclination to kill. Consequently we need 
 no laws except to protect us from those of 
 different tastes. But that modern Utopians 
 should deliver us over to the rule of the mass 
 which has different ideas is to me absurd. 
 I firmly believe that people like to be gov- 
 erned, but they must be governed with a firm 
 hand, and respect the governing power. The 
 odd thing about the whole great war is that 
 it has produced for no country as yet a na- 
 tional hero, and, oh I one is needed today. 
 Instead of that there is a tendency to raise 
 the so-called "people" on a pedestal, and 
 see the result — discord everywhere. 
 
 I often ask myself, as I watch the lack of 
 accord about the Peace Table (?), what 
 England and America would have done if 
 their domains had been devastated as have 
 those of France and Belgium. I imagine the 
 atmosphere at the conference would have 
 
 [ 244 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 beeni a tiny bit different. It is easy to bear 
 every one's disasters but our own. But this 
 time we must all bear our part. Just as 
 against their will the Allied Nations went to 
 war and bore it over four years, so, whether 
 or not they like the Peace ( ?) that is going 
 to be arranged, they must accept it as they 
 accepted the unwelcome war. 
 
 But let us change the subject. 
 
 One thing I must tell you. I caught Khaki 
 in the asparagus bed this morning nosing 
 about for little green heads just peeping out. 
 I had to punish him — not that it will do 
 him much good. Asparagus is his one passion 
 in the way of green stuff. You 'd love to see 
 him eating his plate of it just as daintily as 
 any well-bred person would do. He picks 
 up a piece in his claws, puts the tender end 
 in his mouth and chews it slowly down, leav- 
 ing as neat a piece on his plate as you or I 
 could do. In the old days, when he was less 
 knowing, he used to be content with the ends 
 I left, but one day he found a dish, left to 
 cool for supper, and sat down beside it and- 
 ate off all the tender heads. Since then he 
 has turned his nose up at my leavings. 
 
 In your letter of February 5th you tell me 
 of strange tales which are reaching the States 
 regarding the attitude of our boys in the oc- 
 cupied German territory, and remark that 
 you suppose, as I have not mentioned it, that 
 the tales are probably not true. Well, we 
 
 [ 245 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 hear the same stories here, but in a certain 
 sense I am not much better placed to know 
 the truth than you are. To be sure, I get 
 all such rumours byword of mouth, while you 
 get them from the American newspaper cor- 
 respondents who are accompanying the 
 American boys on the Rhine. 
 
 Do you remember that I wrote you in the 
 middle of December, when I had just seen 
 an American officer who had been at Stras- 
 bourg when the French troops entered the 
 city, that all the things he told me were not 
 so encouraging as his story of the enthusiasm 
 of Alsace for the French victory? Well, I 
 referred exactly to the rumours of that sort 
 which we had, even before then, heard from 
 French poilus who came home from their 
 furlough not a fortnight after the armistice. 
 I did not think It wise to go Into the matter 
 then, and I should not do It now, if Clem- 
 enceau In his appeal, made for America, and 
 consequently familiar to you all, had not long 
 ago referred to the story — current every- 
 where — "that the Americans were frater- 
 nizing with the Germans," and expressed his 
 opinion that It " could not be true." 
 
 That much has been said broadcast, so one 
 might as well look at the story as we heard 
 It here. It came first from a French poilu 
 who said at my gate, " You know that before 
 the war we all felt that a great many Amer- 
 icans really liked the Germans. Well, they 
 
 [ 246 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 really do. You ought to see them together 
 out there In Germany!" 
 
 It was easy to contradict it and to explain 
 that the American temperament was rather 
 Inclined to be sporty — they had licked the 
 Germans, but they probably bore no malice, 
 and I tried to explain the Anglo-Saxon idea 
 of playing the game, but it made me nervous 
 all the same. When I talked it over with an 
 American officer, he laughed and said: 
 *' Well, to tell you the tnjth, when our boys 
 marched out of devastated France and came 
 into the Rhine country, so pretty, so com- 
 fortable and so clean, they were inclined to 
 cry ^ So this Is Germany ! It looks like home. 
 And these are the people? Why, they look 
 just like us,' but it won't last." 
 
 Since then I have talked with lots of people 
 about it, and I find the situation both pos- 
 sible and logical. Remember that our boys 
 had a hard time here. They were most un- 
 comfortable. They did not have four long 
 years of fighting in which to become familiar- 
 ized with German methods. They came to 
 fight in a strange country, among people 
 they did not understand, whose language 
 they did not speak. They came full of 
 Illusions. All most of them ever saw of 
 France was in camp — from the door of a 
 cattle car, which always avoided cities, or 
 in terrible fighting in a devastated country, 
 or among poor, hungry, suffering people. 
 
 [ 247 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Take, for example, the lads who were in the 
 forty-two days' fighting in the Argonne, 
 where they suffered from lack of food, lack 
 of water, errors of barrage — in fact every- 
 thing which an army under the best of con- 
 ditions must often suffer in such a war, plus 
 the very worst that may come to pass, and 
 don't forget that they were new to it. 
 
 Well, these boys after months — not years 
 — of that sort of experience, after living in 
 a devastated country, being billeted in ruins, 
 often without shelter In the rain, sometimes 
 sleeping in the mud, too weary to care, 
 marched out of the nightmare and arrived 
 in Germany — a lovely country, untouched 
 by the war. For the first time in months 
 they were billeted in unsmashed houses. For 
 the first time in months they walked on side- 
 walks in clean streets, where there were 
 shops, in which those who had money In their 
 pockets could buy things. For the first time 
 In months they slept In beds and saw women 
 and children walking about not clad in rags ; 
 they saw coal fires, streets lit by electricity — 
 for the universal testimony is that the con- 
 quering armies saw no signs of misery in 
 Germany. Naturally it looked like home, 
 and I don't doubt that some of them — prob- 
 ably German born — did cry, "Why, these 
 are the people ! They look just like us." 
 
 Besides, the German people were under 
 orders — propaganda work is better ar- 
 
 [ 248 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ranged than ever In Germany — and some 
 of them were afraid. All of them would — 
 no matter what their feelings — curry favor 
 — the German always cringes when he is the 
 under dog, just as he bullies when he thinks 
 he is the stronger. 
 
 I have discussed the situation with a great 
 many officers since then, and they all agree 
 that the longer the Americans have to stay 
 in the occupied territory the better they will 
 understand the real state of things. The 
 ordinary American boy Is too clever to be 
 taken In long by the German attitude. He 
 soon thinks It over and reflects that It Is not 
 possible for the Germans to love the Amer- 
 icans as ardently as they profess to do so 
 soon after such a terrible war, so bitterly 
 fought and actually lost to them by American 
 aid. The most intelligent of our boys soon 
 enough learned to despise such fawning and 
 hypocrisy, and that feeling will spread like 
 a contagion. It may be a good and timely 
 lesson for the Americans, and help tremen- 
 dously in their final judgment of the enemy 
 they have fought. A tendency to forget the 
 fighting Is natural to youth just after It Is 
 over, but. In the end, the Germans will prob- 
 ably find that they have again overleaped 
 the situation in their tendency to judge others 
 by themselves. 
 
 The systematic manner In which the propa- 
 ganda to change the opinion of the victor 
 
 [ 249 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 in regard to the real character of the Ger- 
 mans has been organized was explained to 
 me by an officer who "had been there." As 
 a rule, it amazes the officers and then dis- 
 gusts them. 
 
 When American officers arrived in an 
 occupied town and stopped their cars before 
 a hotel, the obsequious proprietor came bow- 
 ing and smiling to the door, and, rubbing his 
 hands, expressed regret that he had no rooms 
 vacant for them, but informed them that he 
 had a list of private houses where they could 
 be received and made comfortable. So he 
 consulted a list, put a hall boy on to the car 
 to accompany them, and in a jiffy the officers 
 found themselves gorgeously installed, with 
 the hostess at their disposal, places at the 
 family table, in every way treated as hon- 
 oured guests. There was nothing that was 
 not done for them, from washing their linen 
 to mending their socks, and they were made 
 to feel that it was a happiness to the family 
 to serve them, — and pay refused. 
 
 Strange people, who seem to think the 
 men who have fought can forget so easily, 
 or so easily believe that they have forgotten. 
 These women who sang hymns of praise 
 for the sinking of the Liisitania with its 
 freight of women and children, who cheered 
 the execution of Edith Cavell, who spat into 
 the drinking cups of wounded English pris- 
 oners, after four years of the misery their 
 [ 250 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 nation brought on the world, imagine that 
 now it Is over we can forget, and that all 
 there Is to do Is to kiss and make up. Even 
 If it were possible to them, how despicable 
 it would make the race, and how stupid it 
 makes them appear to suppose that it Is 
 possible to us ! The dodge won't work with 
 the French, not much with the English, and 
 even with our well-meaning, inexperienced 
 lads, it will, In the end, defeat itself. They 
 don't want to have fought for nothing. 
 
 So don't worry. As my grandmother used 
 to say, " It will all come out in the wash." 
 Be sure that It will. Besides, already the real 
 German character is beginning to show itself 
 out there In the occupied country, and before 
 our boys go home they bid fair to hate the 
 Germans as much — well, as sincerely as I 
 do — and good thing it is, too. 
 
 [ 251 ] 
 
XIX 
 
 May 12, iQig 
 
 The fine weather came just after I wrote 
 to you last, and with it came everywhere the 
 signs that, in spite of the delay in signing the 
 peace, in spite of the irritation of having 
 the Germans so long at Versailles, the war 
 is really over. 
 
 The delivery automobiles from the Paris 
 shops and from Meaux are again running 
 over our hill. The garden borders — Dc- 
 sespoir des Peintres, Corbeille d' argent, Eng- 
 lish grass — are all in flower. Roses are in 
 bud, lilac is in flower. The sun shines. The 
 Germans are seeing the '' promised land," 
 in which they only arrive as the conquered, 
 in all its loveliness. 
 
 Business took me up to Paris last week, 
 and it was a surprising sight. Never, in your 
 best days, did you ever see Paris so wonder- 
 fully beautiful, or so fascinating. The 
 crowded streets, the uniforms, the brilliant 
 shops, the incessant movement, beautiful 
 dresses, handsome men, lovely women, and 
 everywhere the signs of money, and money! 
 It simply stunned me. 
 [ 252 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I did not go out to the races. I long ago 
 outgrew the taste for that, even if I had 
 kept the necessary strength. But those 
 whom I saw who did go assured me that 
 never had they seen anything approaching 
 it In charm and dash and brilliancy. Never 
 had they seen such wonderful clothes, such 
 a kaleidoscopic vision of changing colours to 
 which the thousands of gala uniforms of all 
 the Allied nations added a note not seen 
 since the days of the Empire. 
 
 I was glad — much as I was amazed — 
 to think that some of our boys from home 
 were seeing It. 
 
 A great many people were shocked. 
 
 Still, Paris Is not France, and It seems to 
 me that the situation Is understandable. 
 After five years, natural character — long 
 repressed — will assert Itself. Victorious 
 Paris, so brave In Its days of cruel suspense 
 and approaching danger, cannot be expected, 
 now that the menace has been removed, to 
 persist In grieving. Besides, on the very 
 resurrection of her Inborn spirit depends 
 much of the hope of reviving the prosperity 
 of France. Even those who criticize her 
 most are, I notice, enjoying It with great 
 enthusiasm. No one In his heart wants Paris 
 changed. I am sure that I do not. 
 
 I wish you could have been here to see the 
 horse-chestnut trees in flower. But you have 
 seen them, and to see Paris at that season 
 
 [ '^S2 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 is always to love her. So close your eyes 
 and call up the most beautiful May you ever 
 saw in Paris, and multiply the impression by 
 the spirit of relief from agony, and to that 
 the presence of thousands of officers in gala 
 uniforms, and the strange costumes of the 
 women, with their reminders of eastern 
 harems, such as the west has never before 
 dared to wear, and you will approximate the 
 scene of today, when women wear their skirts 
 almost to their knees, and go bare-armed 
 by daylight and go as decollete at noon as 
 they used to go to balls — and that only In 
 what we uced to call the " smart set." 
 
 It would not be wise to conclude from this 
 that the seriousness which we dreamed was 
 to follow the great trial through which hu- 
 manity has passed will not come. This is 
 Paris — still " gay Paree " — in its first 
 spasm of relief — and Paris is not the world, 
 though it is and always will be the world's 
 joy, and life there is good to live. 
 
 I have had occasion to think lately that we 
 were all too much upset at the German armies 
 marching, laurel crowned and singing, from 
 the battle front home. Horrid as it looked 
 to us at the time, and shocking as it was to 
 our pride, I fancy that It might be explained 
 largely by the love of life innate in us all. 
 They had escaped ! They were going home ! 
 That would have been a sufficient expla- 
 nation, although, In their arrogance, they put 
 
 [ 254 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 another face on it. It was bad taste, of 
 course. But can one expect good taste or 
 dignity from the race which has given us 
 over four years' experience of worse char- 
 acteristics than a simple lack of tact? 
 
 Before you read this little scrawl — if my 
 letter does not go quicker than usual — the 
 treaty may be signed, and life recommence. 
 I imagine none of us are going to be perfectly 
 satisfied, but one thing is sure, — the Ger- 
 mans in the end will sign. They must. They 
 are going to make all the difficulties they can, 
 but they will sign. They cannot postpone 
 much longer the evil hour, when, under 
 military escort, they must ride through the 
 streets of Versailles — the nearest symbolic 
 approach modern etiquette will permit to 
 being dragged behind the victor's chariot — 
 to sign the clauses of their defeat In the Hall 
 of Mirrors, where forty-eight years ago 
 they arrogantly dared proclaim on French 
 soil King William of Prussia Emperor of 
 Germany. It will be a humiliation In spite of 
 every effort taken to camouflage the fact, 
 and a very wonderful day for Versailles. 
 Be sure the movies ought to give you this, 
 whether they are allowed to or not. 
 
 In the meantime, all the Americans are 
 going home as fast as possible, except such 
 of the army as must help to guard the fron- 
 tier, and the American Military Police 
 necessary to keep them in order there and on 
 
 [ ^ss ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 leave, and such of the Red Cross personnel 
 as will remain in the work of the Allied 
 Bureau. The truth is that it is the wish of 
 France that they should go. It has been 
 expressed with every delicacy, with every 
 expression of eternal gratitude, and accom- 
 panied by a most generous distribution of 
 every sort of decoration, but in unmistak- 
 able terms. France has got to " clean 
 house." She wishes to, and should be al- 
 lowed to do it in her own way, and in ac- 
 cordance with her own taste. 
 
 Most of the American soldiers want to 
 go back to the "land of heart's desire'* — 
 the " Little Old United States." But there 
 are plenty of Americans — men and women 
 — who do not want to go. Many American 
 youngsters — boys and girls — have had the 
 time of their lives, and it seems to them a 
 pretty tame thing to go back to the States 
 and settle down to a humdrum life in which 
 there will be no excitement and in which 
 laws of conventionality must be conformed 
 to. They will have to resign themselves, 
 unless they get a job here, and peace-time 
 jobs will be different from war-time jobs. 
 
 Speaking of jobs — let me tell you some- 
 thing amusing. Every one who has a scrap 
 of influence is pulling wires already for a 
 job at Geneva in the League of Nations. 
 Talk about carpet baggers! It was not a 
 patch on what the office seekers' efforts to 
 
 [ 256 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 get to Geneva will be. Funny, isn't It? 
 Well, it will be funnier if the U. S. Senate 
 blocks the way and the League of Nations 
 turns out a pipe dream or a castle in Spain. 
 Well, you may know that before you read 
 this. Why, I know Irishmen, if you please, 
 real independent, anti-English Irishmen, who 
 hope for a job at Geneva. 
 
 Well, we fussed because it rained so much 
 in March and April. Now it is too dry, and 
 we pray for water and don't get it. It has 
 not rained out here since the last day of 
 April, and the calendar says it won't rain for 
 weeks. I have planted my corn. It got a 
 good soaking for a whole day before the 
 planting, but. In spite of heat, I am anxious 
 about it. Cucumbers are coming up bravely, 
 strawberries are In flower, but the hail In the 
 last two days of April ruined my cherries. I 
 have told you before that the life of a farmer 
 Is hard. So you would be kind to pray for 
 rain for me. While you are about it, please 
 pray for the kind I want. I want it to rain 
 every night, and sunshine every day. It will 
 save a lot of work — like drawing water, 
 and working the hand pump. I am busy 
 picking caterpillars off my roses, and shak- 
 ing hannetons out of the trees and sweeping 
 them up by the bucketful. What with doing 
 that and worrying about the Germans, and 
 writing you letters, I am getting pretty well 
 used up. Like every one else I am beginning 
 
 [ 257 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 to realize what the war has done for me, and 
 I feel as though I ought to send in a bill for 
 indemnit}^ to Germany — one creditor to 
 Germany for one solid set of nerves badly 
 damaged. Of course it would only be an- 
 other " chiffon de papier ^ 
 
 I shall probably write you one or two 
 more letters, and then give myself a vacation. 
 I am afraid that after this, when you want 
 news from the hilltop, you will have to come 
 over and get it. Besides, I shall depend on 
 you to tell me what kind of a life Johnny 
 has really marched back to. I have done 
 my very best to give you an idea of the 
 sort of country he has gone marching away 
 from. 
 
 There are lots of things that I am sure I 
 should have told you, if we could have sat 
 down for a good old chat such as we used 
 to have in the last century. Sometimes I have 
 forgotten, In the hurry, to tell you very in^ 
 teresting things, and I am sure that if we 
 ever get together again we shall jaw away 
 just as energetically as if I had not written 
 to you so constantly through these hard 
 years. If you keep these letters, the mere 
 reading of them over In the future will call 
 up any number of Interesting facts and ab- 
 sorbing thoughts, as many, I am sure, as if 
 I had not written. Even as I write this I 
 think about the many firesides where, at 
 this minute, the returned soldier Is telling 
 
 [ 258 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the family the tale of his adventure as they 
 hang over the map on which he traces the 
 movements of the battles. I had this very 
 morning a letter from the Far West telling 
 of just such a gathering, where mother and 
 grandmother, sisters and cousins and the 
 "girl he left behind him" had gathered about 
 one home-arriving doughboy for just such 
 a treat. 
 
 This is one of many letters that have come 
 back across the Atlantic to tell me how 
 heavenly glad the boys are to set foot once 
 more on their native soil. 
 
 I can imagine it. 
 
 Don't you remember, when we were 
 younger, how we used to go over to the dock 
 at East Boston to meet friends — envied 
 friends — returning from a summer trip to 
 Europe, and how our hearts used to beat 
 as the ship came into the dock with the band 
 playing and every one singing: 
 
 ^^ Home again, home again^ from a foreign 
 shore, 
 And, oh, it fills my heart with joy, 
 ' To greet my friends once more^^ ? 
 
 " Going to Europe " has become such a 
 common thing since the days of your youth 
 and mine that girls of this generation would 
 feel silly to "sing in" their home coming. 
 Yet as a race, we Americans are the senti- 
 mentalists of the world, and during this war 
 
 [ 259 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 the world has found us out, and is amazed 
 at the discovery. 
 
 It seems to me that we must have been 
 franker about it and less self-conscious in the 
 days when I was young. Why, I can re- 
 member when we were schoolgirls, in our 
 early teens, that dear old Stephen Dublois, 
 when he was chairman of our school com- 
 mittee, and treated us all as if we were his 
 children (that was in the days of the old 
 Everett School under Master Hyde, and a 
 banner school, too), took us down the har- 
 bour to visit the school farm, and how we sang 
 *' Home again" as the little tug was coming 
 up to the wharf with as much emotion as 
 though we had been to Japan. Think what 
 it must mean to our boys after their hard 
 months over here, and don't you for a minute 
 believe that Johnny has not gone marching 
 home with many a thought he never had 
 before, and with a heart that can say with 
 more feeling than he knew he possessed: 
 
 *' Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
 
 Who never to himself hath said: 
 * This is my own, my native landy^ — 
 
 and then prate, if you dare, of Internation- 
 alism. 
 
 Let us be interested in other people. Let 
 
 us study them with sympathy; know them 
 
 understandingly, — if we can; fight with 
 
 them if we must; but let us otherwise guard 
 
 [ 260 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ourselves free. Racial traits are deep and 
 racial differences marked. They consist in 
 more than language, and goodness knows 
 that Is a sufficient barrier. 
 
 Now and then I envy you who are going 
 to watch at such close range the effect on 
 our boys of their punitive expedition, who 
 are going to hear what they are going to tell 
 about it when they get calmed down and their 
 foreign experiences have been re-colored by 
 their home life again. They came over Amer- 
 icans, and, so far as I have seen them, they 
 are going back more American than they 
 came. They are carrying lots that is good 
 with them, and lots that will In the end have 
 a fine effect. Those with eyes to see have 
 seen much beauty. A lad said to me the 
 other day when he made a second detour to 
 say *' good-bye " and thank me for a few 
 courtesies a year old: *' I am too happy for 
 words to be going back, but I am afraid that, 
 just at first, some things are going to look 
 pretty crude to me. I shall never see in the 
 States a dear little picturesque place like 
 this, — at least not In the West, where I come 
 from." 
 
 "Perhaps not," I replied, "but go down 
 east and walk across the old covered bridge 
 across the Sandy River and out to Farm- 
 ington, with Its streets of elm trees shading 
 white houses with green blinds and white 
 picket fences and tall hollyhocks — you'll 
 
 [ 261 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 find it beautiful. Go down the north shore 
 of Massachusetts to old Salem, — you can 
 hardly beat that here, — then teach the poor 
 to plant their back yards and live In them, 
 and to grow a common flower wherever a 
 common flower will grow." 
 
 You see, while we are not a young race, 
 wc are a young country, and we have every 
 advantage over Europe except picturesque 
 ruins. We have had no old regime to live 
 down. We were created on virgin soil by 
 thinkers, and we have made a great success 
 of it. 
 
 All America needs, in atddition to her great 
 heritage, is mental modesty. She was cre- 
 ated without it. She prides herself In certain 
 sets on being cosmopolitan — a detestable 
 quality. Paris is cosmopolitan, and It is 
 because more people know Paris than know 
 France that people so often misjudge the 
 French people, and wrongly Imagine that 
 they understand them. You see how cranky 
 I am becoming? Never mind that. In the 
 course of a few months now we are going 
 to have a peace declared. Then every one 
 must begin living his life again as best he 
 can. I must say that here we have been 
 doing it already, in spite of an hour or two 
 of excited argument every day. I have been 
 pretty well worn down by the war. At my 
 age, and with my temperament, that was 
 inevitable. But with my theories, of which, 
 
 [ 262 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 when I feel more like it and peace is actually 
 signed, I have a final word to say, I cannot 
 worry now too much over what I, no more 
 than you, can change. 
 
 The garden is beginning to grow. If 
 only a little rain would come it would soon 
 be pretty. Peas and onions are coming up. 
 The tulips are in bud, so are the lilacs. 
 Roses are beginning to bud and radishes and 
 melons are doing finely in the hot-beds. The 
 garden borders — painters' despair, baskets 
 of gold, violets — are in flower. But it is still 
 too cold for me to play much out-of-doors. 
 
 A very touching thing happened to me to- 
 day. The Cure of Couilly, of whom I have 
 often written you, came up to say that at Pen- 
 tecote the young people of the Commune 
 (who on Sunday are to make their first Com- 
 munion) , under his guidance and accompanied 
 by the older girls, are to make a pious pil- 
 grimage across the Marne to the battle-fields 
 of the Chateau-Thierry district " to pray at 
 the graves of the American heroes who saved 
 us nine months ago," and " in honour of the 
 American women to whom the commune is 
 so deeply beholden." 
 
 Is n't that a graceful thing? So if you get 
 this letter by Pentecote — which I suppose 
 you will not — you can think of our young 
 people leaving here at six in the morning to, 
 later in the day, pray beside the American 
 graves. 
 
 C 263 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 I am, glad that the little French girls who 
 have so much affection for " ces braves 
 Americains " are to see their graves in all 
 their Decoration Day glory. 
 
 I suppose before this that you have read 
 " The Education of Henry Adams " ? Is n't 
 it a treat, but, oh! isn't it Boston? It is 
 many a day since I have read a book with 
 such a relish, and yet I wonder if anyone 
 but a Boston-bred person can fully appre- 
 ciate it. 
 
 As a really great book. It seems to me to 
 come at a most opportune moment, not only 
 for what is in the book but for what it makes 
 one think; and it is so distinguished as 
 literature, and so illuminating as history, 
 especially the Civil War part! 
 
 In these days, when we are apt to get so 
 excited because people do not readily agree 
 with our political ideas, It is good for the 
 world to ,be reminded — directly or Indi- 
 rectly — that this condition is not new. It 
 is well for us Americans to recall that In the 
 days of our Revolution we had mighty 
 friends In the English parliament; that 
 although in the Civil War all Englishmen 
 did not side with the North, it had strong 
 friends there, and to recall also that England, 
 In the days of the Boer War, was divided 
 for a time against herself, and that In a most 
 outspoken way. These things must be borne 
 in mind today, if we Americans want to be 
 
 [ 264 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 just to the land from which as a Nation 
 we sprang, and to which, in spite of all, we 
 owe the ideas on which we were founded. 
 It is easy to say that England is coming out 
 "Number Two" in the struggle; but we 
 must not be too sure of that yet. The future 
 alone knows that, just as the future alone 
 knows where France is to stand when the 
 too-long discussed peace (?) is finally signed. 
 Things may be much the same in the States 
 after this is all over. They surely never 
 will be the same anywhere else in the big 
 world. 
 
 In the meantime no one seems yet to pause 
 to think that "Westward moves the Star of 
 Empire" — well for California, the Gate 
 City of the last great power to arrive, the 
 sun sets over Japan. What then? Is it still 
 to be " Westward Ho ! " ? 
 
 [ 265 ] 
 
XX 
 
 May 2g, igig 
 
 Once more the day goes by and the peace 
 Is not signed. Can you realize, across the 
 ocean, the nervous tension here? Every 
 time it appears to be in sight we all brace up 
 for it, and the depression that follows is 
 hard to bear. It seems to me that the last 
 six months has tried us more than the long 
 years of fighting. I often ask myself where 
 the men fighting for the League of Nations 
 get their inspiration to persist. It Is easy 
 to say that a new idea takes time to grow; 
 and that an old regime cannot be wiped out 
 at one blow. Against that there are some 
 strange facts to be considered. 
 
 Do you know that all along the occupied 
 territory where the Allied armies are still 
 under arms, and among thousands of the 
 soldiers still in camp in France, and In civil 
 circles all over the land, the strong hope is 
 that Germany will refuse to si^n, for. In case 
 she does, the treaty they do not sign at Ver- 
 sailles will only be signed at Berlin, where 
 it should have been in the first place. Isn't 
 it an odd comment on the present situation 
 [ 266 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 to know that even the lads from the nation 
 of which Wilson is the chief executive ask 
 no better than to hear the order " Shoulder 
 arms — March" ? 
 
 This is no theoretic statement — it is what 
 the boys themselves tell me, as only by that 
 order can they secure the victory they earned 
 and out of which they were cheated by the 
 Imposed armistice of last November, the 
 principal effect of which has been to save 
 Germany from the full punishment of her 
 crime and to throw an unbearable burden 
 on the two nations which have suffered the 
 most from that outrage. 
 
 In these days of upheaval, when any hour 
 may contain a great surprise, the things I 
 write you about may be all changed before 
 you read my letter. So you must note these 
 things as signs of the times and as a record 
 of the spirit here at the time I write. 
 
 When I came out from Paris the other 
 day a long military train, made up entirely 
 of surrendered German cars, was standing 
 on the next track to that on which my train 
 stood. It was full of French soldiers — 
 permissionaires — returning to Germany to 
 rejoin the army of occupation. Every car 
 had written on It, In chalk, " En avant pour 
 Berlin,'^ or the old 19 14 blague, ^^ Train de 
 plaisir pour Berlin/' As It pulled out ahead 
 of my train — also a train for the frontier, 
 in which were crowds of American soldiers — 
 
 [ 267 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 our boys hung out of the windows to cheer 
 the French troops and wish them a speedy 
 arrival in Berlin. 
 
 " Straws show which way the wind blows." 
 
 Unluckily, Germany knows all these things. 
 She knows everything, and that, too, long 
 before we do. 
 
 Do you know what strikes our boys most 
 in the region about Coblenz ? The number of 
 children. A young American officer, just 
 back from there, said to me the other day : 
 
 " I never saw so many children in one 
 area in my life. They simply swarm with 
 children, and not attractive children either, 
 as the French are. Why, in ten years from 
 now, or say fifteen, Germany will have a 
 bigger army than she had in 19 14, for, of 
 course, none of us believe for a moment that 
 she will not find a way to train them. If 
 there are no frankly supported barracks 
 and training camps, there will be so-called 
 gymnasiums which will be merely camou- 
 flaged barracks." 
 
 Is n't that a sad outlook, with France, the 
 barrier country, not only depleted by the 
 war in her population but the least pro- 
 ductive of all the races? 
 
 Face to face with the present situation, 
 in which the war and what it was fought 
 for and why it came to pass are being for- 
 gotten rapidly, and every effort is being made 
 to save all the countries except those on 
 
 [ 268 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 whose soil It was fought, can you real- 
 ize now why I insisted last autumn so stren- 
 uously on the matter of devastation, and 
 tried so hard to inspire you to talk about it 
 everywhere? Here, as soon as we knew 
 how the Peace Congress was to be made 
 up, evei-y one anticipated that what has 
 come to pass would come to pass exactly as 
 it has. 
 
 I know that It Is no use to worry about 
 these things. What Is to be, will be, and the 
 world will have to make the best of it, as It 
 always has done. But life would be stupid 
 but for the fact that we all care enough to 
 protest against things not to our taste. Pro- 
 tests keep the world going. I don't know 
 that all our protesting has much effect. I 
 imagine the sfheme is bigger than our finite 
 intelligences can grasp. 
 
 In the meantime we lookers-on mak^ many 
 odd notes on the signs of the times. There 
 has been a perfect rush since Easter to baptize 
 children. This is due to two reasons: first, 
 during all the years of the war fathers and 
 god-fathers were mosdy at the front. In 
 the second place, — and this is very sig- 
 nificant — many men who had revolted 
 against the church have softened In their 
 Ideas, and, even when they are not anxious 
 to go to the altar and hold their children 
 at the font, they make no objection to the 
 children going. So It has been a common 
 
 [ 269 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 sight to see families of four children all being 
 baptized together. 
 
 There have been no men braver at the front 
 than the priests, many of them bearing arms 
 in the trenches as common soldiers; and many 
 an anti-clerical workman has returned with 
 a new idea of them. There is no telling yet 
 whether or not this means anything, but as 
 a sign it may interest you. 
 
 Naturally, lots of amusing things happen 
 at these baptisms. The other day — last 
 Sunday in fact — a family of three were 
 baptized together. One of them, a boy of 
 four, who was baptized with his older sister 
 and his baby brother, was terribly interested, 
 but not used to church. When the priest 
 put the water on his head he looked up and 
 said politely: "No need to .do that. My 
 mamma Avashed my head last night." 
 
 When I speak of French children, I always 
 feel enthusiastic. I think there are nowhere 
 in the world more attractive children. Ask 
 the American boys when they get home what 
 they think of them. I have never found two 
 opinions among those with whom I have 
 talked. Invariably they tell me that they 
 never saw nicer or more attractive or better 
 behaved children. Never forward, they are 
 rarely shy. They talk delightfully, if you 
 want them to, but they are never intrusive, 
 and they are almost never quarrelsome. 
 They demand little and yet they are happy. 
 [ 270 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 If I were a rich woman, there Is one work 
 to which I should devote myself — the 
 founding of model creches and model ma- 
 ternity hospitals all over France. It is a 
 work which would do more for the race than 
 anything else. Eventually, France will do 
 it for herself. Talk about new ideas taking 
 long to root and old regimes dying hard! In 
 the days of the church supremacy the Sisters 
 did most of this work, and, when they were 
 driven out, the anti-church party did not at 
 once replace their works by civil institutions. 
 I suppose It will come sometime, and that 
 time will be after some of the seed the Amer- 
 ican Red Cross and the American Medical 
 Corps sowed here has rooted and grown as 
 it will in time, — unless the German threat 
 of returning In ten years is carried out. 
 When I say that, I know as well as you do 
 that time will not stand still In Germany any 
 more than it will here; and that we no more 
 know today what the effect of the last five 
 years is to be on the future race of Huns 
 than what it is going to be on the rest of the 
 world. Nothing stands still. It looks to me 
 as if the Constitution of the United States 
 of America had stood still as long as it wisely 
 can since the Fifteenth Amendment, which is 
 the last amendment I seem to know anything 
 about. 
 
 The days are long and full of sunshine, 
 and the new moon, like a thin, silver crescent, 
 
 [ 271 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 shines here on as beautiful a world as I can 
 conceive. Yet, though I look out at It Into 
 a silent, absolutely peaceful landscape, even 
 here I feel the vibrations of unrest, which, 
 as I have told you before, I feel that the 
 signing of the peace, however unjust, can 
 alone calm — but when? — how? — where? 
 — that is still the trying question. 
 
 272 
 
XXI 
 
 June 4, 1919 
 Well, dear, I have your letter written 
 when you felt sure that Peace would be pro- 
 claimed by the time 1 received it. Yet weeks 
 have gone by — it is not signed yet. You 
 know before this exactly how I feel, and 
 how ardently I believe it best that — just or 
 unjust (and probably unjust) — it should be 
 signed. I can dream of a better thing than 
 the signature at Versailles, but it is only a 
 dream. Judging by your letter you are a 
 Utopian. I am afraid that I am not. 
 
 Never mind, every generation has its 
 dream, and I fancy each aspires toward its 
 own special Utopia. Personally Utopia 
 seems a bit dull to me. 
 
 I have known few thinking people who 
 could be happy forever in what we call 
 " calm," or In a coddled tranquillity, with 
 nothing to do. It Is the struggle which 
 makes It interesting, and the great problem 
 of life is to find work — the more absorbing 
 the better — but it must be work one loves. 
 The strong love the struggle, and the happi- 
 est people I have ever known have been the 
 
 [ 273 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 hardest working — men and women who 
 could not call an hour their own, and had no 
 relations with the soft world, where society 
 exists and makes engagements as its only 
 occupation. But a hard worker wants suc- 
 cess in some form. Nine times out of ten it 
 IS not money, but the struggle which grips. 
 That makes it a mental or spiritual war, 
 and in many forms it is just as cruel as the 
 battlefield. It is often, as in commerce, just 
 as ugly as war, and it has none of war's 
 glory. 
 
 There is nothing in which the complexity 
 of the wonderful human soul is more visible 
 than In Its attitude to war. It looks on it 
 with horror, and then — cheers it like mad! 
 In a small way the theatre is an epitome of 
 it. You go to a tragedy. You know it Is a 
 tragedy, yet you choose to see it. It wrings 
 sobs and tears from you, but. If It holds you 
 and rings true, you go again and again, — at 
 least most of you do, — knowing that it will 
 make you suffer, yet enjoying your very 
 suffering. It Is the same with war — you 
 hate it, you shrink from It, yet it enthralls 
 you. 
 
 Science, development. Idealism, cannot do 
 away with death, nor can the League of Na- 
 tions with war. Even Wilson has had to own 
 that. They cannot subdue Vesuvius, nor 
 bridle the Iceberg, nor will they ever, I be- 
 lieve, check in man the love of combat. It 
 [ 274 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 does not seem to me that fundamentals 
 change much. Ways of doing things have, 
 even ways of thinking about it. 
 . Each of us, on becoming a thinking animal 
 — and thinking animals are in a very small 
 minority — seems to me to evolve a personal 
 idea of the scheme — that's not the right 
 word, but you understand. To me, — and 
 I believe that it is "not without a plan" — 
 evolution seems like a never-ending belt, 
 moving so slowly that finite instincts cannot 
 sense its motion, yet steady, direct, eternal, 
 while on it the generations struggle, agitate 
 themselves, or dream, while the beginning, 
 unending scheme moves on with us from our 
 invisible beginning to our end, — in spite of 
 us, not because of us, not for one breath 
 hastened any more than it is hindered by all 
 the turmoil and upheavals in which the gen- 
 erations that succeed each other are absorbed. 
 The veil through which we enter and be- 
 hind which we disappear has never been torn. 
 The space between its opening and closing 
 which we call " Life " is but a brief span, but 
 how interesting that span is every one who 
 has properly lived bears witness by living, 
 for the most compelling thing of all is that 
 it is the bravest, who are "the tenderest," 
 the loving, who are " the strong," who seri- 
 ously, and all understandingly, take part in 
 the show, — who never tire of it, nor cease 
 to be interested. So little does living weary 
 
 [ 275 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 them that It is in the minds of such people 
 that intelligence evolved the faith to believe 
 that this life is not all. I have that conviction 
 so fixed In my mind that I feel sure that, al- 
 though they talk so little about it, most In- 
 telligent people have, quite apart from 
 religion, the same Instinctive faith and hope. 
 It Is no new Idea In our generation. I have 
 said that no fundamental things change In 
 the centuries. But just as methods and 
 fashions and points of view change, It seems 
 to me that each century evolves a new form 
 of faith to meet Its own requirements. 
 
 I have long known that you craved an 
 exit to eternal silence. 
 
 You long for rest. You may be right. I 
 don't know. As for me, I have been so in- 
 terested that I ask to go on. You, who know 
 something of my life, cannot pretend that It 
 is because I have been happier or more lucky 
 than most people, — quite the contrary. Yet 
 I have the faith to believe — a faith inspired, 
 I suppose, by the desire, that when I dis- 
 appear into the au dela, I shall, and I trust 
 without too much delay, reappear through 
 the veil again bound once more on the Great 
 Adventure — not exactly like the supers In 
 the theatre who rush behind the scenes from 
 the exit to reappear In the same clothes at 
 the entrance, to re-cross the stage and pro- 
 long the mimic procession. No, not that. I 
 expect to return and re-begin my develop- 
 
 [ 276 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ment where I left off, bringing with me, as 
 baggage, all that I have acquired, and even 
 the results of all I have suffered, even my 
 failures and my mistakes. 
 
 You have asked me — well, there is my 
 faith. 
 
 It Is that faith which has carried mc 
 through these last years. I cannot believe 
 — I would not if I could — that all these 
 last years have been in vain for anyone. I 
 have no desire for " eternal rest," no longing 
 for " a mansion in the skies," no crav- 
 ing for "crown and reward," and I do hope 
 you will understand when I say that I 
 do not even ask to re-find in "their habit 
 as they walked" the treasures this life 
 has bestowed and withdrawn. Those are 
 part of me as I am, woven in the soul of me, 
 going out with me and returning with me. 
 For good or for evil I am content to be the 
 result of what I have lived through, what 
 I have learned, and what I have done. I may 
 not understand. I may not have weighed 
 values justly. The great surprise which we 
 call "Death" may be for me a knowledge 
 of the truth which the mortal covering we 
 call "Flesh" may have prevented me from 
 seeing. Well, I am ready to take the risk. 
 If I cannot, why all the struggles of life 
 would have been in vain, and this living to 
 me would have been a useless farce. 
 
 Nor could I look on this war as I have — 
 
 [ 277 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 or any war — if I did not feel what leaps In 
 advance our thousands and thousands of 
 youths made when they met heroic deaths 
 at an age when men do not look to die, who 
 have given precious life at an age when It 
 Is dear, and full of hope, — many of them, 
 of course. In response to a call they did not 
 fully understand, but most of them In a full 
 realization of exactly what they were doing. 
 To feel that, In dying for others, they have 
 won for themselves, takes the sting out of 
 death, and In believing, as I most ardently 
 do, that though they have disappeared for 
 a space, they are to return, wearing In their 
 souls and characters the results of their 
 noble sacrifice seems to me a promise for the 
 future, In which even the present can rejoice. 
 Of course your logical mind Is going to 
 say, " Prove It." I can't. I don't even try. 
 If I did, I should never use the word " Faith." 
 I know Intimately any number of people who 
 will prove some of it. I don't even ask to 
 have it proved. I have never done any 
 laboratory work such as so long occupied 
 Minot Savage, or such as occupies men like 
 Conan Doyle and Oliver Lodge today. I 
 have never had any occult experiences such 
 as dear Elsa Barker has had. I am even 
 willing to own that we each create our own 
 theory of the Great Adventure out of our 
 own needs. But I do know that moving over 
 the surface of modern life and through Its 
 
 [ 278 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 depths some Idea like mine has been moving 
 all through this generation, and that if there 
 is to come any vital improvement in the 
 future it can only come through the Indi- 
 vidual recognizing his obligations to his own 
 soul, and the fact that we are builders of 
 our own characters, the carvers of our own 
 destinies, and that on ourselves and on no 
 one else rest the penalties of our lives. The 
 person who has come to realize that, and 
 to feel that the judgment " Know thyself " 
 may be a bitterer punishment than ever the 
 ancient threat of hell-fire was, has not been 
 quite a mollusc. 
 
 Though I cannot give you the proofs your 
 logical mind will demand, I must confess 
 that only in this way can I explain many 
 things in life, like genius, for example. How 
 otherwise can we account for children like 
 Mozart, or, to come nearer to our own 
 experiences, Josef Hoffman, except by be- 
 lieving that the children who did at nine 
 years old what Intelligent men spent all 
 their lives to acquire, brought with them, 
 as baggage, the results of achievements 
 In some earlier incarnation? How else 
 can we account for the children of a 
 family who though physically resembling one 
 another bear no spiritual, mental or moral 
 relationship to one another? How do you 
 explain the fact that great geniuses rarely 
 father great geniuses, and that, on the con- 
 
 [ 279 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 trary, geniuses as an almost universal rule 
 have ordinary children, and from unexpected 
 parents great men are so often born? How 
 do you explain the sudden impulses which 
 people have toward each other — I am not 
 talking of the physical attraction we call 
 *' love," which, in nine times out of ten, is 
 as biological as the Huns, — but of the rare 
 friendships that are so soul-compelling that 
 they are hard to explain except by the 
 thought that they had their beginnings else- 
 where, and only blossomed here. I cannot 
 myself see how by any other belief we can 
 explain that while physical inheritance is so 
 common, spiritual, moral and mental inheri- 
 tance seems so rare in families. 
 
 Did It ever occur to you — of course it has 
 — that one can prove almost anything? It 
 all depends on the point from which one 
 starts, and, in subjects like this, the starting 
 point is pure conjecture, since no one really 
 knows the truth about the beginnings of 
 things. 
 
 Naturally, you and your scientific friends 
 will shoot this argument full of holes, only 
 It happens that Science, even, cannot riddle 
 Faith with Its arguments. 
 
 It, at times — when I am in a mood of 
 contrariness — seems to me a joke to remem- 
 ber how man has theorized from as long 
 ago as we know anything about him, and I 
 am persuaded he always will, and I am glad 
 [ 280 ] 
 
Whek Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 of It It kills so many hours that would 
 otherwise be idle. Each cycle in philosophy 
 — which is after all only mental gymnas- 
 tics, as fascinating for those interested as a 
 trapeze performance, and just as wonderful, 
 and now and then just as prett}^, and often 
 just as dangerous — has calmly overturned 
 the conclusions of the previous one — I might 
 except Plato — without in the very least 
 disconcerting the looker-on. Then some one 
 writes the history of it all, and we who are 
 interested read it with pertect sang-froid^ 
 not a bit realizing that the Future will do 
 with us and our creeds exactly what we do 
 with the Past — look on with interested 
 curiosity. Wouldn't you like to know what 
 the future will say of us ? Well, you probably 
 will — but without really knowing it. 
 
 Even today I am a bit overwhelmed with 
 all the marvels of it. Only think I can re- 
 member the first street cars on rails (horse- 
 drawn), the first electric cars, the first auto- 
 mobiles, the first telephone, the first bicycle, 
 the first typewriter, the first linotype. Rail- 
 roads were primitive In my youth, and 
 the telegraph was In Its Infancy when 
 I arrived on the scene this time. In fact 
 no epoch has ever made the mechani- 
 cal strides that this one has done, just as 
 none has ever produced such a war as ours — 
 a war with all the modern improvements. 
 We surely have provided topics of all sorts 
 
 [ 281 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 for the theorists of the future, and for the 
 writers. 
 
 I imagine that I have already, many times, 
 remarked how wonderful it seems to me that 
 Life and Living have been so arranged as if 
 to keep Man interested and occupied — with 
 the Earth full of wonders to be dug for, 
 and which are dug for by so many grown 
 and clever men with just as much interest 
 and absorption as that with which children 
 dig for worms or play with toys. Cities 
 are lost and forgotten that later generations 
 may be interested in digging them up and 
 talking about them. Races of men and 
 races of animals become extinct that very 
 cultivated scholars of future generations may 
 devote their serious maturity to bringing 
 them back to our interest, and the Earth 
 and the Air are full of strange animals and 
 strange bugs — visible and invisible — that 
 clever men, armed with microscopes and 
 other instruments and much erudition, may 
 write fascinating books about them, and re- 
 cite fascinating lectures to prove them more 
 wonderful, as well as more interesting, than 
 Man himself. 
 
 Just think of all the material for that sort 
 of research which is coming out of this war. 
 Only think of the thousands of heavily laden 
 ships of all sorts that have been sent to the 
 bottom by the diabolical submarines, which 
 the Huns did not invent, but which only 
 [ 282 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 such a race could have put to the use 
 they did. Under the waves lie not only the 
 bones of the men, women, and children sacri- 
 ficed in this mighty struggle for supremacy, 
 but untold treasures of all sorts. "The 
 Reef of Stars " sort of thing is not a patch 
 on this. 
 
 Not only have thousands and thousands 
 of tons of food gone down to feed the fishes 
 and the mermaids but there, among the flora 
 and in the " caves of the deep," are gold and 
 diamonds, clothing and bedding and beds, 
 porcelains and glass, carpets and furniture, 
 and all the lost trunks of ships like the 
 Lusitania. What a chance for a future 
 Jules Verne, and what a work of salvage 
 England has already begun. Fantastic im- 
 aginations have a field before them never 
 before presented in the same way. Imagine 
 — just try to Imagine In what wealth the 
 mermaids of Neptune's realms must be 
 living in these days. To be sure, Parisians 
 might consider them a bit demodee. 
 
 You must be patient with all this, if It Is 
 not what you are waiting to hear about. I 
 don't know what the tendency of the future 
 Is going to be. How can I ? I don't know 
 any better than you do whether or not this 
 philosophical attempt at a lasting peace is 
 going to lead where you hope it may. How 
 can I? I sometimes think that the intention 
 of the great scheme, — "A mighty maze" 
 
 [' 283 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 indeed — is that each generation should have 
 its great chance. We, who have lived these 
 days, surely know now that Life can give no 
 greater opportunity to each generation than 
 one which lets it give evidence to its belief 
 that there are things it values much more 
 than it values life, and, in its turn, to 
 prove that every day humanity Is ca- 
 pable of making the sacrifice, facing the 
 danger, and without repining demonstrate 
 that neither heroism nor chivalry is dead. 
 The point which we had reached and in which 
 so many saw only materialism, was but a tem- 
 porary turning place in the march toward the 
 future, a crossroads where humanity stopped 
 to think, and thinking, acted, because, gen- 
 erally speaking, what has happened to our 
 generation was no haphazard circumstance 
 ' — if anything is ever haphazard. 
 
 One thing I do know. Our generation 
 has made good. I have often said when 
 I was younger that I wished I had lived 
 in this or that epoch, which seemed more 
 interesting than ours. I don't say so any 
 more. As it recedes, I begin to get it in 
 perspective — and really it has been wonder- 
 ful, not because of its nine big wars, but in 
 spite of them. 
 
 I hope that I have seen my last. I mean 
 to settle down in the garden now and live 
 with my memories, not feeling yet too old to 
 write up over my desk: 
 
 [ 284 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 ''^ Happy the man, and happy he alone, 
 He who can call today his own; 
 He who, secure within, can say: 
 ' Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived 
 
 today; 
 Be fair or foul, or rain or shine. 
 The joys I have posssessed, in spite of fate, 
 
 are mine. 
 Not Heaven itself on the past has power. 
 But what has been, has been, and I have 
 
 had my hour."* " 
 
 Does n't that take you back to your school 
 days? It does me. 
 
 I can't tell you just how It all seems to me 
 here now. You remember that I was hardly 
 settled here when the war came, and my 
 well-laid plans for a quiet life in the quiet 
 country, forgotten and forgetting, were 
 ruined. I look out each morning on my 
 beautiful panorama — but it has been a 
 battlefield. I look at Amelie and try to re- 
 member what she was like in the days before 
 dangers drew us close together for ever and 
 aye. It is so quiet here, so peaceful, and yet 
 it is hard to forget the nights of bombard- 
 ments, the noisy passing of the military 
 trains, and all the movement to which we 
 became so accustomed. I don't know some- 
 times which seems the more remarkable — 
 that we lived through four years of it, or 
 that it is over. It is marvellous what the 
 
 [ 285 ] 
 
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 
 
 Immortal soul In Its human frame can stand, 
 and seemingly be the better for. So God 
 bless every one who has faced It and come 
 through It, and glory be to these who won 
 through at the great cost of the sublime 
 sacrifice. 
 
 H65 89 .(4«'« 
 
 [ 286 ] 
 

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