The first hours of the day were spent at the home of Mrs. Emma Howland, whose son, Chester A. Howland, after receiving gunshot wounds in the Argonne forest, was taken to the Evacuation Hospital, Number 15, where we were privileged to care for him. In vain we searched for words to tell of the faith, courage, and self-sacrifice of a dear son, of this mother, whose photograph he so joyfully showed us on the first morning of our meeting, as he exclaimed:
"Here is a picture of the dearest mother in all the world."
How well we remembered that morning when the cheery rays of sunlight, the first of many days, stole through the windows and fell in golden bands and lay on the pure white brow, illuminating those manly features. A light divine filled his clear, blue eyes, as he said:
"I do not know how badly I am wounded, but then it will be all right."
Then we thought of the once lovely region around Verdun, where the homes were shot full of holes. In many places only heaps of blackened stone remained. The beautiful meadows of the Meuse had been torn full of pits, some small, others large and deep enough to bury a truck; and trenches, barbed wire entanglements and shattered trees were scattered all about. The American cannonading roared along the Argonne front, and the German artillery answered, until the air trembled with an overload of sound. Then as the clear, fine voice of this noble lad filled those halls of pain and death with a rippling melody of cheer, we looked again and a vision came.
In fancy we saw once more the French peasants toiling in their fields of grain; over the once desolate region the skylarks were soaring and singing above emerald meadows, covered with the blue of the corn-flower and crimson of poppies; the pines were peacefully murmuring their age-old songs of freedom and content, unmindful of the conquer-lust of the Hohenzollerns; the evening sky was no longer profaned by the lurid illumination of star shells as they looped across the ghastly field; in what were once shell holes filled with poisonous water the frogs were piping; in the lovely gardens overlooking the Meuse the mavis and merle were singing; and in the violet dusk no hissing shells screamed their songs of death and destruction, and no crashing of forests were heard from far-thrown shells, but the heavy box- scented breeze bore the heavenly psalm of the nightingale.
Across the road from the ward moving silently about the avenues of that vast "city of the dead," French mothers were scattering flowers on graves of their loved ones; and then it was understood why Chester Howland sang while the thundering cannon shook the wards. Soon for him there would be no weary marches, no days of terror and nights of pain. Ah, precious gold-star mother, rightly have you said it seems that he is just "away." The home he once brightened and filled with the beauty of his presence shall know him no more; but think to what radiant fields he has gone, for which you early taught him to prepare! There no cruel war will ever come to take him from your hearth- side.
I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead—he is just away!
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there,
And you—O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still, as he gave the blows
Of his warrior-strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things; where the violets grew
Blue as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
While the little brown thrush that harshly chirped
Was dear to him as the mocking bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain.
Think of him still as the same, I say
He is not dead—he is just away.
—Riley.
The first Pilgrim trail is now Leyden street, which leads from the edge of the water to the fort on Burial Hill. But we first made our way to a real wooded park whose grounds were covered with oak trees, clethra, alder, spice bushes, and green-brier, which we fancied still grew as they did in the days of the Pilgrims. We saw numbers of Indian tepees in this park, which added to its touch of original wildness. We learned that they belonged to the Winnebagoes of Maine, who came down to Plymouth to take part in the pageant. The park was full of blueberry and huckleberry bushes, and companies of the Indian boys and girls were gathering the berries which were just beginning to ripen, giving us a good idea of what the place must have been like before the coming of the white man.