tage of the good weather. We shall doubtless find every
one very busy at Neuilly."

The thrashing machine had been set up on the public square, and all
along the last mile before entering the village we met great loads of
wheat and oats, drawn by huge white oxen, who in turn were led by what
seemed to me to be very small boys. The latter, stick in hand, walked
in front of their beasts, and swelling their youthful voices would
intone a kind of litany which the animals apparently understood and
obeyed.

The brilliant noonday sun shone down and bathed everything in gold.

In the shadow of the little church the engine, attended by two
white-bearded men, churned along, from time to time sending forth a
shrill whistle. Women with bandana handkerchiefs tied down closely
about their heads, unloaded the carts, and lifting the heavy sheaves in
their brawny arms, would carry them to the machine, where others,
relieving them, would spread them out and guide them into the aperture.

Two handsome girls that might have served as models for goddesses
stood, pitch-fork in hand, removing the chaff. The breeze blowing
through it would catch the wisps and send them dancing in the air,
while the great generous streams of golden grain flowing from the
machine seemed like rivers of moulten metal.

The children and tiny babies lay tucked away in the straw, sound asleep
beneath a giant elm that shaded one corner of the square. Now and
again a woman would leave her companions and wiping the perspiration
from her brow, approach this humble cradle, lift her infant in her
arms, and seeking a secluded spot, give it suckle.

I cannot tell how long I stood watching this wonderful rustic
spectacle, so rich in tone and colouring, so magnificent in its
simplicity, so harmonious in movement. There was no undue noise--every
motion seemed regulated, the work accomplished without haste but with
an impressive thoroughness. Here then was the very source of the
country's vitality. Elsewhere the war might crush and destroy lives,
cities and possessions, but this was the bubbling spring-head from
whence gushed forth, unrestrained, the generative forces; stronger than
war, stronger than death, life defiantly persistent. And I was seized
with an immense pride, an unlimited admiration for these noble, simple
women of France who had had the courage to set forth such a challenge!

For it is the women who have done it, of that there can be no doubt.