As we talked to the aged man whose faith in human nature had been so bitterly shattered by this perfidy in a near relative, he pointed to the lad who was mending our tire.
“That fellow went through the war from start to finish,” he said. “Got decorated three times.”
We looked at the desolate fields and the one forlorn main street, and wondered how a hero who had known the tenseness of war and the civilized beauty of France could endure to return to the bleak stupidity of the town.
“Where were you stationed in France?” we asked him.
“Well, I was everywhere,—in the Argonne, at Belleau Woods and Chattoo Thierry, and all them places.”
“It must have been exciting.”
“Well, it was pretty hot.”
“Do tell us more about it.”
“Well it was pretty hot,—pretty hot.”
“Did you like France?”