Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1918 — PROCESSION RIVAL OF PIED PIPER’S [ARTICLE]

PROCESSION RIVAL OF PIED PIPER’S

Five Hundred Little Children, Refugees From Belgium, Tramp Into Allied Village. LED BY POILB TRUMPETERS Worn by Hunger, Tired, All Sing National Anthem—Big Celebration at „ Evian for Them —Glad to Escape Germans. Evian-les-Bains. —Five hundred little children, a trifle tired-looking, perhaps a little hysterical because worn by the strain of three days on the train, tramped joyously up the street, their wooden sabots pattering a triumphant tattoo on the hard pavement, skipping, some of them, to the blare of the trumpeters who led the way, and crying “Vive la France” at every welcoming tri-color. They rushed up by dozens to shake hands with anyone who was on the street to see them at five O’clock in the morning. Each of them was dressed in his or her Sunday best, and toting a homemade pack. All the time/fhe six old ex-Poilus tooted away on their trumpets as they led the bobbetty procession. It reminded one of the Pied Piper who piped strange tunes in Hamelin and led away all the village children when their elders refused to pay him for ridding the town of its rats.

These trumpeters were leading Belgian children to a warm meal at Evian. Five hundred children, who had left their mothers and fathers in the land where food is scarce, were on their way to a big refuge in the old Chartreuse monastery at Le Giandier. There the Belgian government and the American Red Cross have fitted up a home for a thousand refugees. Not Enough to Eat. They were not' orphans —just children who were not getting enough to eat. Back in Belgium a Belgian committee had picked them out as undernourished and asked their mothers to let them go to France, where wheat and sugar are not too plenty, but where the rations are more liberal. The commission for relief in Belgium brought something to them in Belgium. but. especially since the Americans left, it had to be stretched a long way. “Aren’t you hungry?” some one asked one of the Belgian children. “Why, no,” the ten-year-old replied. “I ate yesterday.” The trumpeters piloted them to the Casino, where the women of livian had laid out a breakfast. Six or seven children, too weak to stand the mile’s walk, were carried in the big American Red Cross ambulances that transport the old men and women week-

days, when the trains bring in * the French repatriates. There was a big celebration in the Casino. The mayor of Evian made a speech, but most of the children were obviously much too tired to try to puzzle out his big words. They were much more interested in the band. The band played '‘The Savoyard,” the anthem of Evian’s mountain province, and then it played the “Brabanconne,” the. national hymn of Belgium. Those children stood up on the tables to applaud and wave their handkerchiefs! They knew it, every one of them, although they had not been allowed to sing it out loud for three years. Some of them were so small that they must have learned it behind closed shutters. Off in a corner half a dozen little girls joined hands and danced.

Too Tired for Candy. But they were tired out; there were one or two who were too tired to eat the candy placed beside them —and that is very tired. And in the middle of the second verse of the “Brabanconne,” one small son of Belgium laid his head on his arms and went to sleep. And before the “Marseillaise” was sung there were sleepy little groups, oblivious to the noise about them, at every table. It was dark when they entered the Casino —inuch too dark for the pictures that ought to have been taken of them—and it was still very gray twilight when they came out. One of the American Red Cross nurses who was helping care for them saw two little girls arguing sleepily about something or other. “N’est-ce pas?” the tinier of the two said as she came up. “C’est le matin; •c’est pas le soir?” —“It is morning, isn’t it? It’s not evening?” Later, when the children were passing the American Red Cross doctor, who examined them for contagious diseases, the nurse learned more. Lui cienne and Louise, sisters, came from

-near Namur. Their father had worked in a Belgian factory until the Germans took it over; then he quit. He did not get enough to eat, and last winter he died. Their mother worked in one of the municipal kitchens and made a bare living so, but not quite enough for all three—so she sent them out to France to grow fat and happy while she toils on in the soup kitchen. Lucienne and Louise seemed a bit weepy as they told their story, but they brightened quickly. It is always morning if one is young enough. “We’re going to good friends,” they announced. ~ ' ' - “Do you know where you are going?” “No,” they said; “but it’s sure to be like this, and they're going to be good friends.”