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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 





Photograph by American Red Cross 



"KEEPING OUR CHRISTMAS MERRY STTEE" 



Nearly every billet in France where American soldiers last year celebrated their Christ- 

 mas had its own particular "Tara," battered, jiggly, and out of tune, but still with melody in 

 its soul. 



of holly or mistletoe stuck jauntily in the 

 sides of their oversea caps. Shouts of 

 "Merry Christmas !" could be heard, as 

 others came up from their makeshift 

 quarters along the way. 



One group swung by me in the jolliest 

 possible fashion, singing the good old 

 carols with a will. They had got up be- 

 fore dawn and marched round their huts 

 in the mud, singing the Christmas waits — 

 "Silent Night," "Little Town of Bethle- 

 hem," "Good King Wenceslas," and the 

 rest. 



Everywhere was the mud ; inches of it 

 covered the road, while through it slopped 

 the men in khaki with the evergreens in 

 their caps and the songs of good cheer on 

 their lips, bent upon keeping the spirit of 

 Christmas as bright as ever it had shone 

 at home. 



CAROLS AT THE VIEEAGE CHURCH 



By half after 6 the village church was 

 filled. Row upon row of men crowded 

 the nave, their quaint leather jerkins 

 glowing in the candlelight that shone 

 down upon them from the chancel. High 



in the eastern wall a great hole opened in 

 the masonry, marking the savage burst of 

 a shell. I could see where it had been 

 partially filled with holly boughs. The 

 men had gathered great quantities of the 

 green for that purpose on Christmas Eve. 



Small bits of stained glass, all that was 

 left of once beautiful windows, clung 

 here and there to the twisted bands of 

 lead that latticed the carved stonework of 

 the arches. These windows in chancel, 

 nave, and choir had been the glory of the 

 church once, the offering of praise and 

 devotion from the hand of some patient 

 workman-artist who had fitted them to- 

 gether centuries ago, bit by bit, each glori- 

 ous patch of color in its own appointed 

 place, held there by the metal strips, the 

 whole completed picture in its lacelike 

 frame of chiseled stone and sharply 

 pointed arch. Now they were gone, all 

 their glory reduced to a few bright stars 

 of vivid color that caught the morning 

 glow and pierced the twilight of the nave 

 with spears of light. 



The little church was gay with greens. 

 All Christmas Eve the men of the bat- 



