We would see
the rows of hooks intended originally for the caps and umbrellas of
little people; but now from each hook dangled the ripped, bloodied
garments of a soldier--gray for a German, brown-tan for an Englishman,
blue-and-red for a Frenchman or a Belgian. By the German rule a wounded
man's uniform must be brought back with him from the place where he fell
and kept handily near him, with tags on it, to prove its proper
identity, and there it must stay until its owner needs it again--if ever
he needs it again.
We would see these things, and we would wonder if these schoolhouses
could ever shake off the scents and the stains and the memories of these
present grim visitations--wonder if children would ever frolic any more
in the courtyards where the ambulances stood now with red drops
trickling down from their beds upon the gravel. But that, on our part,
was mere morbidness born of the sights we saw. Children forget even
more quickly than their elders forget, and we knew, from our own
experience, how quickly the populace of a French or Flemish community
could rally back to a colorable counterfeit of their old sprightliness,
once the immediate burdens of affliction and captivity had been lifted
from off them.
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