The French Twins | Page 6

began. First the Abby
asked the children to recite the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten
Commandments in unison, and when they had done this without a
mistake, he said "Bravo! Now I wonder if you can each do as well
alone? Let me see, I will call upon--" He paused and looked about as if
he were searching for the child who was most likely to do it well.
Three girls--Genevieve, Virginie, and Pierrette--raised their hands and
waved them frantically in the air, but, curiously enough, the Abbe did
not seem to see them. Instead his glance fell upon Pierre, who was
gazing thoughtfully at the vaulted ceiling and hoping with all his heart
that the Abbe would not call upon him. "Pierre!" he said, and any one
looking at him very closely might have seen a twinkle in his eye as
Pierre withdrew his gaze from the ceiling and struggled reluctantly to
his feet. "You may recite the Ten Commandments."
Pierre began quite glibly, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me,"

and went on, with only two mistakes and one long wait, until he had
reached the fifth. "Thou shalt not kill," he recited, and then to save his
life he could not think what came next. He gazed imploringly at the
ceiling again, and at the high stained-glass window, but they told him
nothing. He kicked backward gently, hoping that Pierrette, who sat next,
would prompt him, but she too failed to respond. "I'll ask a question,"
thought Pierre des perately, "and while the Abbe is answering maybe it
will come to me." Aloud he said: "If you please, your reverence, I don't
understand about that commandment. It says, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and
yet our soldiers have gone to war on purpose to kill Germans, and the
priests blessed them as they marched away!"
This was indeed a question! The class gasped with astonishment at
Pierre's boldness in asking it. The Abbe paused a moment before
answering. Then he said, "If you, Pierre, were to shoot a man in the
street in order to take his purse, would that be wrong?"
"Yes," answered the whole class.
"Very well," said the Abbe, "so it would. But if you should see a
murderer attack your mother or your sister, and you should kill him
before he could carry out his wicked purpose, would that be just the
same thing?"
"No," wavered the class, a little doubtfully.
"If instead of defending your mother or sister you were simply to stand
aside and let the murderer kill them both, you would really be helping
the murderer, would you not? It is like that today in France. An enemy
is upon us who seeks to kill us so that he may rob us of our beautiful
home land. God sees our hearts. He knows that the soldiers of France
go forth not to kill Germans but to save France! not wantonly to take
life, but because it is the only way to save lives for which they
themselves are ready to die. Ah, my children, it is one thing to kill as a
murderer kills; it is quite another to be willing to die that others may
live! Our Blessed Lord--"
The Abbe lifted his hand to make the sign of the Cross--but it was
stayed in mid-air. The sentence he had begun was never finished, for at
that moment the great bell in the Cathedral tower began to ring. It was
not the clock striking the hour; it was not the chimes calling the people
to prayer. Instead, it was the terrible sound of the alarm bell ringing out
a warning to the people of Rheims that the Germans were at their

doors.
Wide-eyed with terror, the children sprang from their seats, but the
Abbe, with hand uplifted, blocked the entrance and commanded them
to stay where they were.
"Let no one leave the Cathedral," he cried.
At this instant Mother Meraut appeared upon the threshold searching
for her children, and behind her, coming as fast as his lameness would
permit, came the Verger. The Abbe turned to them. "I leave these
children all in your care," he said. "Stay with them until I return."
And without another word he disappeared in the shadows.
Mother Meraut sat down on one of the chairs she had dusted so
carefully, and gathered the frightened children about her as a hen
gathers her chickens under her wing. "There, now," she said cheerfully,
as she wiped their tears upon the corner of her apron, "let's save our
tears until we really know what we have to cry for. There never yet was
misery that couldn't be made worse by crying, anyway. The boys will
be brave, of course, whatever happens. And the girls--surely they