Dorothy Canfield

“ Thirty thousand soldiers were in that town that day.
Whatever else we are, I reflected, we are not a people of mystics. But then I remembered the American soldier who had said that Belgium was a good-enough whetstone for his bayonet. I remembered the rough, gloomy farmer who did not want to shirk his share of the world's dirty work. ”

“ I lingered by the counter. "How do you like our American troops, madame?" I asked.
"Very much indeed, if only they could talk. They don't do any harm. They are good to the children. They are certainly as brave as men can be. But there is one thing about them I don't understand. They overpay you, often, more than you ask ... won't take change ... and yet if you leave things open, as we always do, in front of the shop, they just put their hands in and help themselves as they go by. I have lost a great deal in that way. If they have so much money, why do they steal?" ”

“ He looked at me out of bright brown eyes, smiled, and entered into conversation; and at once I was acutely aware of a strong, unmistakable racial difference. As we talked, I tried desperately with the back of my brain to analyze what it was that made him so different from all the American soldiers I had been seeing. He was a very ordinary little poilu, indeed, such as you see by thousands—a rather short, strongly built, well-knit man, with a rather ugly face, not at all distinguished in line, not at all remarkably clean as to bluish, unshaven chin, nor even as to dingy neck ... ”

“ An old, white-capped woman, who had been one of my neighbors in the days before the little town had known German guns or American soldiers, called out to me:
"Oh, madame! See them! Isn't it wonderful? Just look at them! All day like that, all night like that. Are there any people left in America? And are all your people so big, so fine?"
"Where are they going?" I asked her, taking refuge for a moment in her doorway.
"To the front directly, the poor boys. They 'll be fighting in two hours.... Do you hear the big guns off there banging away? And they so good, like nice big boys! ”

“ We should not have left, ever, if the soldiers had not taken us away in camions ... our garden and vineyard just at the time when they needed attention every hour. Well, we will not wait for permission. We will go back, anyhow. The American soldiers are not bad, are they, madame? They would surely not fire on an old man and his wife going back to their homes? ”

“ It's good to talk to an American woman!"
A fresh-faced, splendidly built lad looked up from the first bite of his melon, crying: "Yes, suh, a cantaloup, a' honest-to-the-Lawd cantaloup! I neveh thought they'd heahd of such a thing in France."
They explained to me, all talking at once, pouring out unasked military information till my hair rose up scandalized, that this was their first experience with semi-normal civilian life in France, because they belonged to the troops from Georgia—volunteers ”

“ They are Second Division troops, from Ohio, mostly, just out of their French training-camp, going up to hold the reserve line. They never have been in action yet."
Our attention was distracted to the inside of a fruit-shop across the street: a group of American soldiers struggling with the sign-language, a flushed, tired, distracted woman shopkeeper volubly unable to conceive that men with all their senses could not understand her native tongue. I went across to interpret. One of the soldiers in a strong Southern accent said:
"Oh, golly, yes! If you would do the talkin' fo' us. ”

“ They are remarkably courageous, they really fight like lions, and there could be no better comrades in the world, but, oh, madame! as far as really knowing how to make modern war, they are children, just children. ”

“ THEY were detraining in dense brown crowds at what had been the station before German guns had knocked it into a shapeless heap of tumbled bricks; they were pouring in on foot along the road from the west ”

“ I addressed myself in English to a soldier loitering near, watching the troops pass, "So they are going to the front, these boys?"
After a stare of intense surprise, a broad smile broke over his face. He came closer. "No, ma'am," he said, looking at me hard. "No, these are the Alabama boys just coming back from the front. They've been fighting steadily for five days." He added: "My! it seems good to talk to an American woman. ”

“ We have brought the things for spraying the vineyards as far as here; surely we can get them to Villers-le-Petit, it is so near now. We can sleep on the ground, anywhere. In another week, you see, madame, it will be too late to spray. We have enough for ours, and our, neighbors', too. ”

“ So we neveh saw real sto's to buy things till we struck this town. And when I saw a cantaloup I mighty nigh dropped daid! I don't reckon I'm likely to run into a watermelon, am I? I suahly would have to be ca'ied back to camp on a stretcheh if I did! ”