. A village in Picardy . ears to fourteen months, huddled ina shed, listening open-mouthed to the sametales our children love, which begin, in Frenchas in English, with Once upon a time. But when, after a three-days inspection ofour outlying domain, I asked our Director forthe village of Canizy, I was given charge of allbranches of our work there. This meant notinterference but close cooperation with theother members of the Unit already occupiedwith its problems. Of all our villages, Canizywas the most beloved, not, perhaps, because itsneed was greatest, but because its isolation wasmost compl
. A village in Picardy . ears to fourteen months, huddled ina shed, listening open-mouthed to the sametales our children love, which begin, in Frenchas in English, with Once upon a time. But when, after a three-days inspection ofour outlying domain, I asked our Director forthe village of Canizy, I was given charge of allbranches of our work there. This meant notinterference but close cooperation with theother members of the Unit already occupiedwith its problems. Of all our villages, Canizywas the most beloved, not, perhaps, because itsneed was greatest, but because its isolation wasmost complete. No one could do enough forit. Were a sewing-machine to be repaired, thehead of our automobile department, a mechan-ical genius, spent hours making it doctors, with their own hands, took timeto scrub the childrens heads. They came tome with every need that they found on theirrounds, with the neighbourhood gossip, andwith kindly advice. The teachers gave me thenames of children requiring shoes; and, as the. 51 52 A Village in Picardy work developed* asked in turn for recommen-dations in regard to opening a childrenslibrary. To the farm department, I made re-quests that we buy largely of fodder andvegetables, until we had literally hundreds ofkilos of pumpkins, turnips and carrots beddedfor us in the cellars, on call. To this depart-ment went also requisitions that Mme. Cordierbe supplied with a pig, or M. Noulin with fivehens, or Mme. Gense with a goat. Or, werethere shipments of furniture to be delivered,one called again on the automobile depart-ment, which even through the drifts and coldof winter, kept at least one of its enginesthawed and running every day. It will be seen that our scheme of materialrelief followed closely that laid down by theGovernment. Our method was simple: wherethe Government supplies were on hand, or ade-quate, we used them; whatever was lacking,even up to kitchen ranges costing three hun-dred francs, we attempted to supply. In thiswe h
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
