structure that bore signs of having been vacated for
many years.

The area billeting officer produced a large key, threw open the door
and half the battery was ushered inside. It immediately fell their
task to brush the cow-webs from the ceilings; gather up the fallen
plaster from the floor; sweep out several years' accumulation of dirt
and dust; while the old-fashioned shutters were pried open for the
first time in many years and the sunshine streamed into the rooms, to
drive away, to some degree, the mustiness of environment.

The other half of the battery was directed to a barn structure
about a block distant from the first battery abode. Clean-up
activities of similar nature were instituted in the barn.

About 3 o'clock that afternoon the barrack bags of the regiment were
received and distributed to the soldiers. The bags had been in transit
ever since leaving Camp Meade.

Arrangements were made with several French farmers to bring a quantity
of straw to the public square, where the soldiers, later in the
afternoon, filled their bed ticks. It was on a tick of straw, thrown
on the floor of the old dilapidated, vacated house, that one hundred
of the battery spent their nights of sleep in Montmorillon while the
other half occupied similar beds on the upper-lofts of the barn.

There were no formations the morning after arrival. The battery men
spent most of the time about town. It was strange to observe the
peasantry hobbling along in their wooden shoes, the flopping of the
loose footwear at the heels beating a rhythmic clap, clap on the
cobblestone pave.

Each day brought new scenes of peasant life. Quaintly and slowly oxen
under yoke were used on the streets to haul the farmers' grain to the
large public square, where, under the scorching sun the farmer and his
helpers toiled with hand flailers, thrashing the grain. Strange
looking carts, drawn by donkeys with large ears, vied with the
ox-carts for supremacy of traffic.

Along the river's edge were located public places for clothes-washing.
The peasant whose house adjoined the river had a private place at the
water's-edge where the family washing was done. The river served as a
huge tub for the entire community, the women carrying their wash to
the river, where, kneeling at special devised wash-boards, garments
were rubbed and paddled until they shown immaculate.

Washing was greatly increased at the river when the 311th came to
town. The hundreds of soldie