THIRD ACT


_The scene is the same trench in the year 2018. It is eleven o'clock of
the same summer morning. Four American schoolgirls, of from fifteen to
seventeen years, have been brought to see the trench, a relic of the
Great War, in charge of their teacher. The teacher, a worn and elderly
person, has imagination, and is stirred, as far as her tired nerves may
be, by the heroic story of the old ditch. One of the schoolgirls also
has imagination and is also stirred. The other three are "young
barbarians at play." Two out of five is possibly a large proportion to
be blessed with imagination, but the American race has improved in a
hundred years_.

_Teacher_. This, girls, is an important bit of our sight-seeing. It is
the last of the old trenches of the Great War to remain intact in all
northern France. It was left untouched out of the reverence of the
people of the country for one hundred Americans of the Blank_th_
Regiment, who died here--in this old ditch. The regiment had charged too
soon, by a mistaken order, across what was called No-Man's Land, from
their own front trench, about (_consults guide-book_)--about thirty-five
yards away--that would be near where you see the red poppies so thick in
the wheat. They took the trench from the Germans, and were then wiped
out partly by artillery fire, partly by a German machine gun which was
placed, disguised, at the end of the trench and enfiladed the entire
length. Three-quarters of the regiment, over two thousand men, were