Her next experience
was as simple but more delicate. A younger woman had fitted up a corner of
her ruin with a petticoat for roof and a plank supported by two piles of
brick for counter and had laid in a supply of the post cards that pictured
with terrible fidelity the ruins of her village. Alexina bought the entire
stock, "to scatter broadcast in the United States," and promised to send
her friends for more; assuring the woman that when the tourists came to
France once more these ruined villages would be magnets for gold.
She managed to get rid of her coins without much difficulty, although
comparatively few of the village's inhabitants had returned, and these by
stealth. Many of them had trekked far! Others were still detained at the
hostels in Paris and other cities where they could be looked after without
too much trouble.
Several had set up housekeeping in the cellars in a fashion not unlike that
of their cave dwelling ancestors, and a few had found a piece of roof above
ground to huddle under when it rained. Some talked to her pleasantly, some
were surly, others unutterably sad. None refused her largesse, and she was
amused to look back and see a little procession making for the town, no
doubt with intent to purchase.
In one side street less choked with rubbish small boys were playing at war.
But for the most part the children looked very sober. They had been spared
the horrors of occupation but they had suffered privations and been
surrounded by grief and despair.
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