A wizened boy, in a pair of soldier's boots--a French Hop o' My Thumb
in the giant's boots--was gazing wistfully at some tin soldiers, and
inside the shop a real soldier, not a bit like the tin one, was buying
some Christmas cards worked by a French artist in colored wools for
the benefit of English Tommies, with the aid of a dictionary. Other
soldiers read their legends and laughed at them: "My heart is to you."
"Good luck." "To the success!" "Remind France."
The man who was buying the cards fumbled with French money, and looked
up sheepishly at me, as if shy of the sentiment upon which he was
spending it.
"The people at home will be glad of 'em," he said. "I s'pose one can't
forget Christmas altogether. Though it ain't the same thing out here."
Going in search of Christmas, I passed through a flooded countryside
and found only scenes of war behind the lines, with gunners driving
their batteries and limber down a road that had become a river-bed,
fountains of spray rising about their mules and wheels, military
motor-cars lurching in the mud beyond the pave, despatch-riders side-
slipping in a wild way through boggy tracks, supply--columns churning
up deep ruts.
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