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chapter 30

Winter went by in a Nightmare of anxious


catastrophe should overwhelm France, Tye

Wait; ] ° AN days an Dg le were cold and rainy; all that the citizens of nd Rios

warm themselves with was the hope that the Ba ;

fail to break through the Maginot Line. Meanyh: Ou

tried to adjust themselves to the hardships of wart lle they tions. With the coming of Spring, Marguerite’, ie Cong:

Anna were more and more insistent, almost alarming ;

distress. No help could be gotten for the farm, She ae the;

of the men were away in the army, and the women ia swallowed by the factories. Louise was sinking fast. ¢: Anna had left the farm the sick woman had kept na i tinuous weeping. She wouldn’t stay alone for a moment. i the fields and orchards would wither and die if Anna diq = come back in time.

Anna wrote that she would not return—she was working in an ammunition factory. In fact, she found it hard to real. ize that she had lived among the grapes in the Vendome, when the grapes of wrath were being trodden under the menacing feet of marching armies. Let the fields rot, she wrote. France could survive without wine, but not without powder and guns. The two sisters, she reminded Marguerite, had enough money put by to see them over the bad times She closed her letter with a hope for a quick victory and

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