Don Demorest, son of Prof. and Mrs. L.B. Demorest of Marysville, Ohio, and a personal friend of Dr. A.H. Morey of this city writes a very interesting letter to his parents from back in France where he is busy doing Y.W.C.A. work among the soldiers and war prisoners.
The following letter is taken from a recent copy of the Marysville, O., Tribune:
Dear Folks O’Mine:
Here I am in a big fine clean room in a little hotel in the military zone, “somewhere in France.” I first arrived here night before last, with Rusty Dyer, who will be attached here, yesterday had a long fine conference with Gen. ---, about getting the Y.M.C.A. going here before the arrival of troops, which will come in a few days, caught the late afternoon train for Paris, had a conference this morning there with the bosses, brought two more men back, stopped two hours at the nearest big town and gobbled up some big supply of opportunities, got here this evening, had a fine big dinner, and here I am, with only a few minutes to write before it’s time to “hit the hay” a knockout blow for eight hours of the right out from the shoulder kind of snooze.
This sketch of my movements, the past two days is typical of them for the past three weeks or so, they have been strenuous ones and among the happiest of my life, buoyed up by big opportunities experiences among soldiers and men, rare unforgettable sights, and the sense of a tremendous worthwhileness about it all that all together have made them valuable and precious.
We’ve seen some very picturesque parts of wonderfully picturesque France, the famous chateau region, the cave-dweller region, hilly country, level land, forest and plains, and now here I am for a few days in a land which three years ago was in the claws of the Hun, whose stomach was full of wines from its cellars and head full of arrogant boasting and heart full of lust and black savagery. But today things are different, the war cloud has rolled far away, it is no longer here a land a death and winter in summer, but once again La Belle France, smiling France, triumphant, glowing, great-hearted France.
In these days black things happened to these good people here, and perhaps in this very room was billeted a Bosch, perhaps even one of those very Boschs who today are billeted here in another kind of hotel de luxe, within the barbwire enclosures, and helping France beat their fellows. This indeed would be irony of Fate, but these “guests” of France certainly seem like a contended lot, almost happy, because here and well fed rather than being on the other side of No Man’s Land.
Though I sometimes imagine I hear the far away rumble of war here, in more than a figurative sense, and though I can read cruel tragedies in many anxious and sorrowing faces, though great military preparations and movements are to be seen on all sides, great camouflaged transport trains, huge pieces of artillery, masses of French troops and all the rest, yet such is the spirit of the good people and such the peaceful harvest time aspect of this smiling country-side that despite “all these things” I often find it hard to realize that a few miles away the war cloud is breaking black and men are slaying one another because a few low ambitious souls seized a high occasion and dragged it into the mire with them to sate the repulse lusts of their greedy cravings for world-domination, and because many blind souls tragically visionless automatous followed as the mice did the Red Piper of Hamelin, who was a worthier leader in a worthier cause forsooth.
Yes, it is hard to realize, even with all the flotsom and jetsom cast back here and left by the rece4ding tide of war—the armless and the legless, the eyeless, the almost bodiless who yet remain. But there are other things which perhaps of their novelty, have been striking me these last few days, with the poignant pity, the titanic tragedy of it all. These last three days I have followed three routes between here and Paris, all different—one by auto, two by train, all wonderfully interesting and picturesque—and all sharing in the poignant touches here and there—the remains of hastily constructed, shallow trenches, like jagged, livid, ugly partially healed scars across the face formerly smiling and fair, the frequent little military burying grounds where lie the bodies of the heroes of those gallant, tragic hopeless early days of the France at bay—bodies whose souls reincarnated in thousands and millions of other hero-hearts, go marching on to victory. It seems a ghastly, incongruous thing to see the smiling country-side dotted with these little groups of graves, each with its cross on which usually some loving hand or other has hung a wreath or a handful of flowers, and each of which seems to be proclaiming those wonderful words of the Master, so full of meaning and hope these days: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” And those nude little wooden military crosses seem to me a symbol of the vicarious suffering of man, innocent man, to atone in beautiful brave sacrifice ofr man, guilty bloody man, after the example of Him, whose sacrifice symbol rests over the heads of the fallen, beacon crosses of the Savior’s message that it is good to have died for others.
And then there is another grim reminder that the iron boots of Mars have trampled out the vintage of the Lord, that comes as a shock here and there in the midst of harvest scenes, as though in a gallery of rare and fair pictures, suddenly one comes to a hideous, repulsive night-mare. This is which I refer to the occasional cross roads group of houses, no longer houses, but masses of ruined stones. Day before yesterday as we approached this village, after a rainstorm of no mean proportions, the West was aflame with one of the most richly radiantly beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, even in this land of rare sunsets. And our hearts were full of the beauty and glory of it all. And a minute later our hearts were full of something else, a great sorrow and rage, for there, against that glorious horizon, was what had formerly been a picturesque cross-roads collection of homes, but now clearly outlined against the vivid background were a few jagged walls, and here and there a piece of roof precariously hanging on and a chimney or two, looming up above a mass of debris like the arms of a dying man, held up to the heavens in mortal agony and petition to the heavens to right the foul wrong.
Word, Words. The grim fact remains. And those walls are not 10 minutes from here, and others like them, much closer. And in the meantime the three-quarters of an hour available for this letter have more than passed, and I must stop for tonight, not having told you a tenth of the things I had planned.
It looks as though we are going to have things finely set up here. The general was great. Treated me like an old friend almost and yet was all business, keen and clear-visioned and active. Very sympathetic with our work and glad to help. At my suggestion has turned over two large buildings for Y.M. and more later. Fine French colonel and officers also.
Good night, folks dear, and may you all be as happy as I am. Mother and Dad and all the rest of you, when the North Star changes to the east, county that you no longer have the daily growing love and affection of Your Boy and Brother, Don.
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