The village carpenter was never so busy. Reinforcing his working staff, he set speedily to work building coffins. These he made of plain pine boards, staining them to a dull brown, and furnishing with each a cross and marking stake. Thirty-two of these it was my sad duty to provide and distribute during our stay in Burgundy.
We soon outgrew the old churchyard at Ancey-le-Franc; and the good Cure and Monsieur le Docteur Thiery of the local hospital, set aside for us ground for another cemetery just outside the village. We enclosed this with a white picket fence and felt confident, when we marched away, that the graves of our brave boys there resting, would always be tenderly cared for by the devoted people.
"On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the Dead."
At the place of honor, just inside that "God's Acre," I buried Sergeant Omer Talbot of Kansas City, Kansas, one of the bravest and most beloved of Headquarters Troop, who received the last Sacraments, and died in my arms.
The Battle Swept Roadside was Sanctuary and Choir.
Our burials were always religiously attended by the villagers. A French veteran would go through the streets sounding his drum and giving early notice of the burial of an American soldier. The people would gather at the church, the farmer from the field, the artisan from the shop, all dressed as for Sunday. The cure, the mayor, the councilmen, the town major, all would be present. On foot, bearing flowers, they would follow the military cortège to the cemetery. There, following the Benedictus, the mayor would give an impassioned address, expressing the profound appreciation of France for the service and sacrifice of the gallant American soldiers. His closing words, repeated and echoed through the cemetery by the multitude, would be, "Vive l'Amerique! Vive Pershing! Vive Wilson!"
Among the most devoted attendants at our funerals were Monsieur and Madame Moidrey and their beautiful daughter Annette, a girl of sixteen years. In rain and shine they came, always with flowers most beautiful to place upon coffin and grave.
Returning one day from the cemetery, Monsieur respectfully addressed me—"If it would please Monsieur le Chaplain to ever visit our home (they lived just inside the village in a quaint old manor house I had often admired), we would consider it an honor indeed to entertain Monsieur le Chaplain and his friends," then naively adding, as if by way of further inducement, "we have the only piano in the village."