A Story for a Preface

(Which Tells of the People, Scenery and Animals in Belgium)

The name which the Belgians give to their country is Belgique. The

English form Belgium is that from the Latin of ancient days.

The country is inhabited by two races. Draw a line across the map of

Belgium and you divide the kingdom into two regions, inhabited by

Flemings and Walloons.

Let the line pass from east and west through Brussels. North of this,

as a rule, there are farms, gardens and sea coast. Here the people

speak old Dutch, or Flemish, and most of them are fishermen, farmers,

seaport men and traders. South of this line are mines, factories,

furnaces, or flax fields and their talk is French. They are called

Walloons, which is only another way of pronouncing Gaul-loons. When

Cæsar met and fought with their ancestors, whom he called the Belgii,

he declared them “the bravest of all.”

We Americans ought to know who the Walloons are; for, in 1624, some of

these people—even before the Dutch mothers and fathers, boys and girls

came—settled New York and New Jersey. It was they who introduced on our

soil the marguerite, or white-and-yellow daisy, and they were the first

farmers in the Middle States. Moreover, when New Netherland received a

civil government, it was named Nova Belgica, or New Belgium.

The finest part of Walloon Belgium is the hill country of the Ardennes.

Here lived, in 1912, a boy named Emile, seventeen years old. His home

was in one of those stone houses, which are common in the highlands of

southern Belgium. All around him grew pine and birch trees, which made

his part of the country look so different from the lowlands around

Antwerp, where the tall, stiff poplars and the low branched willows

abound. The one tree points its boughs up to the sky and the other down

to the ground.

Emile’s father was a farmer, but the land of the hill country was not

rich, because it was too full of rocks and stones. The soil was quite

different from that down on the flax meadows, towards France, and the

flower gardens and truck farms of Flanders. Emile’s father could make

more money by raising horses, for the pasture was rich and splendid

horses they were, so big and strong.

The buyers, from the horse markets over in Germany, came every year

into the Ardennes forest country, for they liked nothing better than to

get these horses for the Kaiser’s artillery regiments. For, although

the animals of this breed were not as big and heavy as the Flemish cart

horses, they were not so slow and clumsy. In fact, there were few

places in Europe, where the horses excelled, in their power to gallop

while harnessed to heavy loads. They had what jockies call good “wind”

and “bottom,” that is, staying power, stamina, grit, or what we call,

in boys and men, “pep.” Emile, with his father, learned to take good

care of the mares and kept them in fine condition with brush and curry

comb, until their coats were glossy. One day, an unusually fine colt

was born, just before Christmas of 1909.

“What shall we name it?” asked the father of his wife; for it was her

favorite mare. She drove it to church every Sunday, and when born

Emile’s mother had named it “Jacqueline,” after the famous medieval

princess.

Now, it was a day or two after King Leopold had died, ending a long

reign of forty-four years, and the present King Albert had become ruler

of the Belgic country. Yet he did not call himself “sovereign,” or

“autocrat,” like a Czar, or “emperor,” as the German Wilhelm did, but

“king of the Belgians.” That is, he wished to treat his fellow

countrymen not as subjects, but as gentlemen like himself. So, when he

issued a proclamation, he addressed them, not as inferiors, but as

“Messieurs,” that is, gentlemen.

Emile’s mother who had, years before, lost one of her baby boys,

answered:

“Our dead ruler will have a great monument, but for Baldwin, his son,

who was to have been king, instead of Albert, but died early, there

will be few to remember him: So let us call our new colt ‘Baldwin’ and

let it be Emile’s own—his pet always.”

“Good,” said the father, and Baldwin it was, or “Baldy,” for short; and

the pretty young horse was given to Emile for his very own.

“It’s yours to play with, and to work for you, all your life,” said

papa Henri, “but you must care for it, as your mother and I have cared

for you.”

“That I will, father. You may trust me,” answered the boy.

As soon as the new long-legged stranger was able to cease taking

refreshments from its mother, Emile fed the colt out of his hand. After

Sunday dinner, he would go out into the garden, pluck some tops or

leaves of tender plants, such as radishes, peas, or the like, hiding a

lump of beet sugar under the greens. Then he would follow the path to

the stable to give a treat to both mother and son. Both the old mare

and young Baldy seemed to have an almost human look of gratitude, when

they cast their eyes on their owners and good friends. Nevertheless, no

horse ever yet learned to talk with its tail and say “thank you,” like

a dog.

When the time came to break Baldy to harness and for farm work, the

well fed and kindly animal proved to be one of the strongest and best.

It seemed equal to most horses of at least six years of age.

But it was not always sugar and young carrot tops, for Baldy! Emile

usually gave it salt out of his own hand. Sometimes he loved to play a

joke and even to tantalize his pet, though for a minute or two, only.

When out at pasture, and its master wanted to throw the halter over its

neck, Baldy would give Emile tit for tat and had his horse-fun by

cantering off. Then Emile would gather up the heads of white clover and

holding these, down deep in the palm of his hand, would entice Baldy

near, as if it were salt. Then he would throw the halter over his neck,

and Baldy was a prisoner. Emile took care not to play this trick too

often, and sometimes gave his pet real salt, even when out in the

field. If horses could smile, Baldy would have laughed out loud.

There were other pets in Emile’s home, besides the colt; and, first of

all, his dog Goldspur, named after the trophies found on the field of

Courtrai, when the Flemish weavers, with their pikes, beat the French

knights, in 1302. Though he worked hard all day, outdoors on the farm

in summer, and tended the cows and horses in winter, he had plenty of

time to give to his hares, which were so big and fat, that they took

the prize at the local fair. In his loft over the barn, he had a dozen

or two carrier pigeons. Some of these had been hatched on his father’s

farm, but most of them had been brought from Ghent, a city down on the

plain, where the two rivers, the Lys and the Scheldt join. Here, where

there were plenty of canals, he had a cousin Rogier, a boy of his own

age. The two lads often sent messages to each other by their winged

letter carriers.

The Walloon folk pronounced the name of this city of Ghent, or Gand, in

the French way, which sounds a good deal like “gong”; while the

Flemings, who talk Dutch, say it with a hard g, and as if “gent.” We

Americans put an h in the name; for fear, I suppose, lest we should

pronounce it like “gent” in gentleman.

In fact, when you get into Belgium, you find that even the laws and

some of the newspapers, as well as names of places, have two forms,

French or Walloon, and Dutch or Flemish. The British soldiers usually

take no further trouble to pronounce foreign names, except as they are

spelled at home, on their island. That is the reason why, for the name

of Ypres, around which the war raged during four years, one may hear

the sounds—French, eepe, or epray; Flemish, i-per; and, what the

English Tommies say, “wipers.”

Not long after his nineteenth birthday, Emile sent to his cousin

Rogier, at Ghent, a message. It was written on a note sheet, as light

as tissue paper. Rolled inside a bit of tin foil, in case of rain, and

with black sewing silk from his mother’s work basket, it was tied on

the pigeon’s right leg, between its pink toes and the first joint of

the knee. Safely making the journey, the bird fluttered down on

Rogier’s dove cote, which was set on a post in his garden. Untying the

missive very gently, and letting the bird into the cote to rest, Rogier

read:

Dear Cousin:

“Crops were poor this year, and father had to sell my pet horse,

Baldwin. I took it hard, and almost cried, to see a German horse

dealer pay down the money and lead it off. When out in the road,

Baldy actually turned round and looked back at us. The very next

day, word came from the army headquarters that I must report to

camp at Ypres. From next week, Tuesday, I shall be a soldier under

the black, yellow and red flag. Hurrah! Sister Yvette has been

singing the ‘Brabançonne,’ when she isn’t crying. I have only one

sister, you know. I hope they’ll put me in the cavalry; or, if not,

assign me to the machine-gun battalion. Goodbye! We’ll meet, when I

get down into Flanders.”

All too soon, the looming shadow, cast from the east, shortened and the

war-storm broke. On Sunday night, August 2, 1914, Germany sent an

ultimatum, demanding passage of her armies through Belgium to France.

To the Kaiser, Belgium was no more than a turnpike road to Paris. The

hero, King Albert, knowing he had his people behind him, refused to

cringe and become a German slave. It was like the boy David defying the

giant Philistine. The national flag—black, yellow and red—the ancient

colors of Brabant, the central province in the kingdom of the nine that

made Belgium a nation—was unfurled everywhere by “men determined to be

free.” That is what our Anthony Wayne said at Stony Point, in 1779.

By this time, in 1914, Emile was a seasoned soldier, not in the saddle,

as he had hoped at first, but with the dog-drawn mitrailleuse, or

machine-gun battalion, No. 40. A happy soldier he was, ready to fight

“for King, for Law, for Liberty”—as the chorus in the Brabançonne—the

national anthem—declared. Still happier was he to have with him in

harness, drawing the revolving, quick-firing cannon, of which he was

sergeant pointer, his pet dog, Goldspur. Like man, like dog was the

Belgian War Department’s acceptance of both—“in the first class of

efficiency.”

This was Belgium at peace, under her beloved King Albert and Queen

Margaret. Rich in wonders of art and architecture, in fairy, folk

wonder and hero lore, in traditions of valor and industry. When, again

and again, the story teller visited the country, he brought back, each

time, the seed, for flowers, in the bed-time story-garden.