There were
priests occasionally and old, infirm men or half-grown boys; but of men
in their prime the land had been drained to fill up the army of defense
then on the other side of Belgium--toward Germany--striving to hold the
invaders in check until the French and English might come up. The
yellow-ripe grain stood in the fields, heavy-headed and drooping with
seed. The russet pears and red apples bent the limbs of the fruit trees
almost to earth. Every visible inch of soil was under cultivation, of
the painfully intensive European sort; and there remained behind to
garner the crops only the peasant women and a few crippled, aged grand-
sires. It was hard for us to convince ourselves that any event out of
the ordinary beset this country. No columns of troops passed along the
roads; no camps of tents lifted their peaked tops above the hedges. In
seventy-odd miles we encountered one small detachment of soldiers--they
were at a railroad station--and one Red Cross flag.
As for Brussels--why, Brussels at first glance was more like a city
making a fete than the capital of a nation making war.
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