MY GARDEN IN VERDUN 



MAUDE BALLINGTON BOOTH 



Persistently Carrying On Under the Very Heels 

 of War, Flowers Solace the Wounds of Earth 

 Even as They Comfort the Heart of Humanity 



pHEN I was homesick or tired I would pass down the 

 street of wrecks and ruins and go out by one of the 

 gates of Verdun to a quiet spot I had found, just be- 

 hind the ancient moat and beyond a mass of barbed 

 wire entanglements. So I went forth on a day that I had 

 for rest, when the fact that for long no mail had reached our 

 city made me crave the comforting touch of nature. 



Back in the dear homeland a garden in January shows no 

 beauty — except to the eyes of its planter, who can vision the 

 golden treasure of the future and can dream, while tramping 

 over the snow, of the beauty and color and fragrance that 

 will wake again next spring. I know nothing of the climate 

 of Verdun but what this ruined garden has told me; but I do 

 know that it whispered of many things to my heart as I 

 walked its moss-covered paths between broken Box borders 

 and under gnarled and twisted fruit trees. 



THE sky was very blue, the sun shone golden, and in the 

 trees a cheery little bird sang me a greeting. He was so 

 -glad that someone else had found his garden and appreciated 

 it. Had I heard him at home I should have called him a 

 chick-a-dee, but his color was rather gayer, and he had a dis- 

 tinctly French accent. Though I spoke to him with an 

 equally Frenchy correctness, he flirted his tail and cocked his 

 head and refused any information as to his identity. 



Why is the garden mine? 1 did not even live near it, for my 

 home was amid the ruins within the walls. But that is the joy 

 of a garden; it blooms for all who have eyes to appreciate it, 

 and all may claim it, because it gives its beauty so freely to 

 every garden lover. Then no one else seemed to have found 

 my garden — no one loved it! It was somewhat of a ruin 

 indeed, poor dear! And why not, with the flights of shells 

 and deadly missiles of war that, for four black years, 

 hurtled over it at the valiant city whose defiant " thou shalt 

 not pass" withstood the Hun legions so amazingly. 



STANDING there in the stillness I glance back over the 

 barbed wire across the moat to the city ramparts, and 

 see the great gashes and scars made by the pounding projec- 

 tiles — and the gate that held so valiantly against the tramp 

 of alien feet. 



As I stand there I hear the rumble of wheels. Army wa- 

 gons, a whole train of them, are rolling past my garden, driven 

 by smiling khaki-clad lads, — boys of America to whom the 

 portals of Verdun stand wide. There are horsemen in the 

 blue of France too, and smiling darkies driving mules — these 

 wishing doubtless that the city was New Orleans or Savannah 

 or any other sunny place away back in Dixie — passing by and 

 disappearing beyond the gates. Far afield a mighty detona- 

 tion rends the air— but the gate remains open, and no one 



turns an apprehensive face toward the hills, for we all know 

 that it is but the explosion of German "duds" and ammuni- 

 tion, now under the control of friends and harmless to the 

 city. 



Ah, what tales could not my garden tell of all these days, 

 could its gnarled trees and its broken fountain and its ruined 

 arbors but speak! Where is the master of the garden? As 

 I wander at will down the moss-grown paths I speculate. 

 Sleeping maybe under one of those crude gray crosses on the 

 shell-pitted fields of battle, over which I picked my way yes- 

 terday. And the mistress of the garden? Is she in some distant 

 refuge, waiting until the citizen population shall return, to 

 seek heart-ease in this dear, familiar spot? 



MY GARDEN has no house near it — but it may have 

 had! Here in France we can never tell what stood 

 on the gr.ound over which we tread. Whole towns and vil- 

 lages are now only a name and rubbish heap. Maybe a pretty 

 villa or stately mansion stood where now I can see but a mass 

 of rusty barbed wire. These questions my garden cannot 

 answer, but other tales it has told. For instance, on this 21st 

 of January it reassured that the climate of Verdun — where I 

 had resided but one month — is not severe, and that I need 

 not dread the remaining winter days. I learn too that the 

 spring will come early this year, both of which facts were com- 

 forting. 



I find big clumps of Snowdrops; a few I gather- 



and hundreds will be here for me in a day. or two. Sweet 

 yellow Primroses are blooming freely, and here and there red 

 ones (Polyanthus) add a touch of color amid the thick tufts 

 of green leaves. Some of the choicest blooms grow around 

 a great, jagged shell-hole. Another great hole is already al- 

 most covered with Ivy. Everywhere the Ivy trails its leaves, 

 veined and beautifully colored — some with the reds and 

 browns of fall, some of vivid or dark green; and everywhere 

 also grows the feathery moss, brilliant and soft, just the con- 

 trast needed with Ivy and Primroses, in my nosegay. 



Then there is promise in this garden, that I can only vision 

 in the future and shall never see in luxuriant bloom — Oriental 

 Poppies, Iris, Narcissus, Marguerites, Violets, Lilies, grown 

 even now to the height ours only attain at home in May, all 

 speaking of a nearer spring than ours. What a riot of color 

 my garden will be under the warming touch of spring, when 

 its wild, wide stretches have bravely answered the call of the 

 sunshine! In the broken fountain are still aquatic plants, 

 and many long, unpruned masses of Roses show their 

 future strength; everywhere the fruit trees stretch out shelter- 

 ing arms that will in brief space be draped and veiled in misty 

 white and pink finery, while clumps of golden Daffodils catch 

 the sunshine in mossy shadows. 



Will others love my garden then, because of its spring 

 beauty — though now they pass it unnoticed? Or will the 



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