The houses round about have fared better, in the main, than the mill,
though none of them has come scatheless out of the fight. Hardly a
windowpane is whole; hardly a wall but is pocked by bullets or rent by
larger missiles. Some houses have lost roofs; some have lost side
walls, so that one can gaze straight into them and see the cluttered
furnishings, half buried in shattered masonry and crumbled plaster.

One small cottage has been blown clear away in a blast of artillery
fire; only the chimney remains, pointing upward like a stubby finger. A
fireplace, with a fire in it, is the glowing heart of a house; and a
chimney completes it and reveals that it is a home fit for human
creatures to live in; but we see here--and the truth of it strikes us as
it never did before--that a chimney standing alone typifies desolation
and ruin more fitly, more brutally, than any written words could typify
it.

Everywhere there are soldiers--German soldiers--in their soiled, dusty
gray service uniforms, always in heavy boots; always with their tunics
buttoned to the throat. Some, off duty, are lounging at ease in the
doors of the houses. More, on duty, are moving about briskly in squads,
with fixed bayonets. One is learning to ride a bicycle, and when he
falls off, as he does repeatedly, his comrades laugh at him and shout
derisive advice at him.

There are not many of the townsfolk in sight. Experience has taught us
that in any town not occupied by the enemy our appearance will be the
signal for an immediate gathering of the citizens, all flocking about
us, filled with a naive, respectful inquisitiveness, and wanting to know
where we have come from and to what place we are going. Here in this