iece adjoining what
he already owned, and put a fence around it. It is different here.
People own a piece of land here, and a piece there, and another
piece miles away, and there are no fences.

For example, around Pere Abelard's house there is a fruit garden and
a kitchen garden. The rest of his land is all over the place. He has a
big piece of woodland at Pont aux Dames, where he was born, and
another on the route de Mareuil. He has a field on the route de
Couilly, and another on the side of the hill on the route de Meaux, and
he has a small patch of fruit trees and a potato field on the chemin
Madame, and another big piece of grassland running down the hill
from Huiry to Conde.

Almost nothing is fenced in. Grain fields, potato patches, beet fields
belonging to different people touch each other without any other
barrier than the white stones, almost level with the soil, put in by the
surveyors.

Of course they are always in litigation, but, as I told you, a lawsuit is a
cachet of respectability in France.

As for separating a French man or woman from the land--it is almost
impossible. The piece of woodland that Abelard owns at Pont aux
Dames is called "Le Paradis." It is a part of his mother's estate, and
his sister, who lives across the Morin, owns the adjoining lot. It is of
no use to anyone. They neither of them ever dream of cutting the
wood. Now and then, when we drive, we go and look at it, and Pere
tells funny stories of the things he did there when he was a lad. It is
full of game, and not long ago he had an offer for it. The sum was not
big, but invested would have added five hundred francs a year to his
income. But no one could make either him or his sister resolve to part
with it. So there it lies idle, and the only thing it serves for is to add
to the tax bill every year. But they would rather own land than have
money in the bank. Land can't run away. They can go and look at it,
press their feet on it, and realize that it is theirs.

I am afraid the next generation is going to be different, and the
disturbing thing is that it is the women who are changing. So many of
them, who never left the country before, are working in the
ammunition factories and earning unheard-of money, and spending it,
which is a radical and alarming feature of the situation.

You spoke in one of your recent letters of the awful cost of this war in
money. But you must remember that the money is not lost. It is only
redistri