Smiles Among Ruins



Scorched piles of brick and mortar where a home has been ought to
make about the same impression anywhere. When you have gone
from Belgium to French Lorraine, however, you will know quite the
contrary. In Belgium I suffered all the depression which a nightmare
of war's misery can bring; in French Lorraine I found myself sharing
something of the elation of a man who looks at a bruised knuckle with
the consciousness that it broke a burglar's jaw.

A Belgian repairing the wreck of his house was a grim, heartbreaking
picture; a Frenchman of Lorraine repairing the wreck of his house had
the light of hard-won victory, of confidence, of sacrifice made to a
great purpose, of freedom secure for future generations, in his eyes.
The difference was this: The Germans were still in Belgium; they were
out of French Lorraine for good.

"What matters a shell-hole through my walls and my torn roof!" said a
Lorraine farmer. "Work will make my house whole. But nothing could
ever have made my heart and soul whole while the Germans
remained. I saw them go, monsieur; they left us ruins, but France is
ours!"

I had thought it a pretty good thing to see something of the Eastern
French front; but a better thing was the happiness I found there.

Mon capitaine had come out from the Ministry of War in Paris; but
when we set out from Nancy southward, we had a different local