arms.

Houses, especially old houses, absorbed the personality of the dwellers
therein, and I fancy that our host is not unknown to me. Were I to
meet him I would recognize him at once, for his spirit dwelt with us in
his home, and my prayer is that when he returns he will not find that
temple tainted by the spirit of any alien who occupied it in his
absence.

The village church slumbered in the centre of the village, and was its
sluggish heart. No discord or schism of sect or creed ever disturbed
its atmosphere. Unquestioned was its hold on the faith of men, women,
and children. Not more quietly did the dead rest beneath the stones of
the churchyard than did the worshippers who knelt before the carved
wooden images of the saints, trusting in their protection and receiving
from their placid immobility a benediction of peace. The cure from a
neighboring town only visited the village once a quarter, and the old
lady who kept the key was very reluctant to let us in; but when the
maire knew of our desire, he brought us the key that we might view it
at our leisure. Its pews were thick with dust, the images were chipped
and broken, some saints were minus nose or arm, the vestments in the
open cupboard were moth-eaten and tawdry, dried flowers lay on tombs of
the village great; but its atmosphere was one of peace, and it was not
difficult to realize that many had carried therein their burden of
grief and unrest and left it behind them, soothed on the bosom of
Mother Church, like a fretting child.

But it is not the business of soldiers to sleep, and suddenly came the
awakening with the sound of the hundreds of motor-buses that were to
carry us into the noise and devastation of hell! We marched up to the
rim of the village, and amid the smell of gasolene, the tooting of the
horns, and the roar of the engines we boarded these, thirty to a bus,
and rumbled on toward the greatest noise and flame and fire that has
ever torn the atmosphere asunder, outdoing any earthquake,
thunderstorm, or tornado that nature has ever visited upon humanity.

On this journey we saw more of the tremendous organization needed to
equip and feed an army than we had been able to visualize before. For
thirty miles we were a part of a stream of motor vehicles flowing in
one direction passing a never-ending stream going the other way.
Through the city of Amiens we went without stopping. With longing eyes
we gazed from the buses which hours of bu