ked in the fields in the
summer, and in the carriere de platre, at Mareuil-les-Meaux, in the
winter. It was a hard life, and most of them drank a little. It is never
the kind of drunkenness you know in America, however. Most of them
were radical Socialists in politics--which as a rule meant "ag'in' the
government." Of course, being Socialists and French, they simply
had to talk it all over. The cafe was the proper place to do that--the
provincial cafe being the workingman's club. Of course, the man
never dreamed of quitting until legal closing hour, and when he got
home, if wife objected, why he just hit her a clip,--it was, of course, for
her good,--"a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,"--you know the
adage.

Almost always in these provincial towns it is the woman who is thrifty,
and often she sees but too little of her man's earnings. Still, she is, in
her way, fond of him, tenacious in her possession of him, and
Sundays and fete days they get on together very handsomely.

All the women here, married or not, have always worked, and worked
hard. The habit has settled on them. Few of them actually expect their
husbands to support them, and they do not feel degraded because
their labor helps, and they are wonderfully saving. They spend almost
nothing on their clothes, never wear a hat, and usually treasure, for
years, one black dress to wear to funerals. The children go to school
bareheaded, in black pinafores. It is rare that the humblest of these
women has not money put aside.

You don't have to look very deep into the present situation to discover
that, psychologically, it is queer. Marriage is, after all, in so many
classes, a habit. Here are the women of the class to which I refer
working very little harder than in the days before the war. Only, for
nearly two years they have had no drinking man to come home at
midnight either quarrelsome or sulky; no man's big appetite to cook
for; no man to wash for or to mend for. They have lived in absolute
peace, gone to bed early to a long, unbroken sleep, and get twenty-
five cents a day government aid, plus ten cents for each child. As
they all raise their own vegetables, keep chickens and rabbits, and
often a goat, manage to have a little to take to market, and a little time
every week to work for other people, and get war prices for their
time,--well, I imagine you can work out the problem yourself.'

Mind you, there is not one of these women, who, in her way, will not