burning the first three days of the battle, were lying silent in the
wonderful sunshine, as if there were no living people in the world
except us few on this side of the river.

At no time can we see much movement across the river except with a
glass. The plains are undulating. The roads are tree-lined. We trace
them by the trees. But the silence over there seems different today.
Here and there still thin ribbons of smoke--now rising straight in the
air, and now curling in the breeze--say that something is burning, not
only in the bombarded towns, but in the woods and plains. But what?
No one knows.

One or two of our older men crossed the Marne on a raft on the 10th,
the sixth day of the battle. They brought back word that thousands
from the battles of the 5th, 6th, and 7th had lain for days un-buried
under the hot September sun, but that the fire department was
already out there from Paris, and that it would only be a few days
when the worst marks of the terrible fight would be removed. But they
brought back no news. The few people who had remained hidden in
cellars or on isolated farms knew no more than we did, and it was
impossible, naturally, to get near to the field ambulance at
Neufmortier, which we can see from my lawn.

However, on the 9th--the very day after the French advanced from
here--we got news in a very amusing way. We had to take it for what
it was worth, or seemed to be. It was just after noon. I was working in
the garden on the south side of the house. I had instinctively put the
house between me and the smoke of battle when Amélie came
running down the hill in a high state of excitement, crying out that the
French were "coming back," that there had been a "great victory,"