on
their arms, safe for the time being. One scene reappears to memory as I
write: A young fellow back from the trenches bearing his sturdy boy of
two on his shoulder and the black-eyed young mother walking beside him,
both having eyes for nothing in the world except the boy.

The old fishermen would tell you as they waited for a bite that the
German was _fichu_, their faith in the credit of France unimpaired as
they lived on the income of the savings of their industry before they
retired. You asked gardeners about business, which you knew was good
with that ever-hungry and spendthrift British Army "bulling" the market.
One day while taking a walk, Beach Thomas and I saw a diver preparing to
go down to examine the abutment of a bridge and we sat down to look on
with a lively interest, when we might have seen hundreds of guns firing.
It was a change. Nights, after dispatches were written, Gibbs and I,
anything but gory-minded, would walk in the silence, having the tow-path
to ourselves, and after a mutual agreement to talk of anything but the
war would revert to the same old subject.

On other days when only "nibbling" was proceeding on the Ridge you might
strike across country over the stubble, flushing partridges from the
clover. And the women, the old men and the boys got in all the crops.
How I do not know, except by rising early and keeping at it until dark,
which is the way that most things worth while are accomplished in this
world. Those boys from ten to sixteen who were driving the plow for next
year's sowing had become men in their steadiness.

Amiens was happy in the memory of the frustration of what might have
happened when her citizens looked at the posters, already valuable
relics, that had been put up by von Kluck's army as it passed through on
the way to its about-face on the Marne. The old town, out of the battle
area, out of the reach of shells, had prospered exceedingly.
Shopkeepers, particularly those who sold oysters, fresh fish, fruits,
cheese, all delicacies whatsoever to victims of iron rations in the
trenches, could retire on their profits unless they died from exhaustion
in accumulating more. They took your money so politely that parting with
it was a pleasure, no matter what the prices, though they were always
lower for fresh eggs than in New York.

We came to know all with the intimacy that war develops, but for sheer
character and energy the blue ribbon goes to Madame of the little
Restaur