The Martian, journal publié par les soldats américains de l'Hôpital de Mars-sur-Allier , item 23

• November 23, 2017 04:28:47 Thomas A. Lingner

  THE MARTIAN
  

  Hommes - 36-40
  

  Chevaux - 8
  

  Vol. 1 - No. 31.   SUNDAY, March 23, 1919.   Price: 30 centimes.
  

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  THE RETURN OF MARKET DAY
  

  Market Day, the first general one since the beginning of the war, brought back to Nevers last Saturday, a long lost pride and importance as the ruling city of the countryside. It was merely a day for disposing of cattle and other animals, but nevertheless it was the busiest, the most colorful and most thoroughly native day since the olive drab hosts of Americans descended upon the city. Along the Loire where the long lines of idly flapping laundry usually dispute the tree lined promenade with the pedestrians, was a Babel of voices and every where orderly confusion. Rope enclosures held animals, horses with tails and manes ornately braided with straw, squawking geese, and alarmed hens. The excited chatter of men and women struggled for audience with the profound bass of the cattle and the staccato baritone of lusty porkers. There was no place for inquisitive Americans in these mazes; it was too business like in the French fashion. In fact, after the long interlude, even the natives were unable to continue the pace without frequent resort to the buvettes or more pretentious hotels in search of endurance. It is not a thing to be taken lightly, this Market Day. Long days of preparation precede it; the animals must be carefully groomed; the bartering that is essential to a transaction must be carefully considered; the family council must decide what price is to be asked. Neither is it a haphazard venture. The ten or fifteen miles which must be traversed before the market place on the river bank is reached are a serious matter and not to be embarked on without the fullest consideration.
  

    Early in the morning the journey begins. All along the main roads are elderly peasants and their wives, and often younger women whose husbands are still under arms, driving cattle, or calves or droves of protesting but tame pigs. There are horses, too, scarcely of the Percheron strain that Rosa Bonheur delighted to paint, but since a horse is an extremely valuable possession, it is only with the full concord and benefit of masculine mental powers that such a sale is attempted.
  

    The cattle are remarkably handsome animals. Pure white with soft pink muzzles and well-shaped horns, there is no breed we have at home to excel them in appearance. They are of the Charleroi-Nivernais stock and are quite as famous in their way as our Guernseys or Durhams. The war has sadly depleted the herds of French cattle, but the high prices are a temptation to sell and the thrifty farmer is never so happy as when driving a bargain. The grown animals must furnish their own transportation, tied usually to the back of the funny little wagons that are in use here. Calves receive a little more consideration and are carried in deep, low-bottomed carts, and it is no infrequent sight to find the mother of the calf ambling complacently and untied, behind. Over the long Loire bridge this procession streams marketward during the early hours, for the latecomers secure unfavorable places on the quay.
  

    Pigs, too, come a pied, a veritable fortune on foot, for live pigs bring at least five francs a pound, making them aristocrats of the animal world in spite of their plebeian and unsanitary habits.
  

  (Continued on page 2)
  

  
  

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