THE MOTHERS OF FRANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12724, 20 August 1919, Page 7

THE MOTHERS OF FRANCE.

“And that’s madame!” The homely hostess of the Mermaid Inn in onr English "West Country carefully dusted the spotless, bright red velvet frame with a corner of her apron before she handed it to me. It contained a recent photograph of a plain and elderly French peasant woman, one of the millions of old French folk who have so greatly appealed to those who have visited the war zone. “ She lost her husband and four sons the first year of the war, poor thing. My Tom was a. bit of a help to her on the farm while he was billeted there.” the fond mother explained. “She always sends a message to me by Tom—he’s my boy who came back with the Australians, you know, and I sent her a card at Christmas. I’m going to see her when the Channel tunnel’s built—l can’t hear the water,” she added with a shudder, although, and perhaps because, she has spent her life with the sound of the sea in her ears, ‘ ‘ She has been that good to my Tom,” she continued, evidently glad of a sympathetic audience. “She is just like a sister somehow.” “ The bread’s home made, my dear,” she added irrelevantly, as she busied herself over the excellent old-fashioned tea that she had spread for me.

She had countless little incidents of the bereaved old French peasant’s kindness to her sou to recount. Her warm heart glowed with gratitude to, and aSection for, the lonely, unknown woman. Mutual suffering has knit an indissoluble tie of sympathy between the two such as no effort of ncace could ever have produced, and the attachment is more than a beautiful bond "between two mothers—it- Is -3/ TGprGSGHtation of the understanding between nations which has emanated from the chaos and horror of war. Those are but two of the- many thousands who have been drawn together during the last four and a half years for there are but few fighting men who have not made firm friends in the strange countries in which they have fought Every mother’s son has been adopted for the sake of their absent one, who in his turn has found friendship.

Over the seas and in strange lands the mothers have forged a chain of sympathy which is going to nrove the brm Touudation for the future friendor nations. There is more power m a mother’s heart than in Statecraft —(.By Ivy Sanders, in the “ Dailv Mail. ; "