Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1918 — REIMS CHILDREN PLAY WAR GAMES [ARTICLE]

REIMS CHILDREN PLAY WAR GAMES

Emerge From Cellars, When Bombardment Ceases, to Frolic in Sun. AIL HAVE THE SAME SPIRIT No One Ever Saw One of the Children Down-Hearted or Discontented — Will Be Great Help in ReJ building France. Parts. —Only a few months ago Reims still sheltered some 600 children, although the Germans almost dally bombarded the town. How these children lived in the cellars and the special shelters while the Germans fiercely bombarded the ♦own is a pathetic story. Though these cellars and shelters were dark, dreary and damp, where the sun’s rays never once showed themselves, no one eVer saw these children downhearted or discontented. Whenever ♦he bombardment let up, even for a few minutes, these children swarmed out of the cold cellars to play in the sun.

Duty and Resignation. A correspondent during one of these lulls walked down a narrow street bordered by the walls of houses of the sixteenth century, or such parts o' them as had survived the German bombardments. He met a youngster standing in the middle of the street gazing at one of the wrecked houses. Asked why he was gazing at ♦hat house, the hoy answered: “That house over yonder, monsieur? I was born in that house. When war broke out father was mobilized and mother went to live with an aunt in one of the houses on the outskirts of the city. Once a week I come here to look at my old home, or what is left of it.” “But aren’t you afraid?” “Afraid of what? My father is at the front, my mother is still here, and as long as she stays here, I will.” This child is a type of all. All have ♦he same spirit of duty and resignation, these children of “the Martyr City.” They tell how they received instructiol s to put on the masks against the poisonous gas; of how they played in shell holes filled with rainwater; of how they used walls which had escaped the German shells to play their game of war.