Where the Sabots Clatter Again | Page 8

gives me her recipé for a wonderful glue that will hold for years. They accompany me to the street.
"You will come again soon, Mademoiselle, and see it for yourself?"
I promise eagerly.
Across the street lives Monsieur Martin. He comes from his house to greet me and holds open the gate, a tall farmer in corduroys with gentle, genial face. His wife had died during the cruel flight from the invader, and he and his three sons have come back to the remains of their old home. He apologizes for it, though I find it immaculate. Shining casseroles hang by the hearth, the three beds are carefully made, and on the fire something savory is cooking in a cocotte.
"It needs a woman's touch," he says smiling. "We are four men and we do what we can, but--" he finishes with a gesture of the helpless male entangled in that most clinging, exasperating web of all--cooking and dish-washing! "Ca n'en finit plus, Mademoiselle," he exclaims in humorous misery. "One has no sooner finished, when one must begin again. Bah! It is woman's work," with a lordly touch of imperiousness. It is the ancient voice of Man.
The next house is dark. No one answers my knock, and I lift the latch and go in. The windows, being broken, are all boarded up to keep out the dreaded drafts. It is a moment before I can see, though a quavering voice that is neither man's nor woman's bids me enter. Gradually my eyes make out two wise old faces of ivory in the obscurity by the hearth. They are old, old--nobody knows how old they are.
"Entrez, Madame," and the old woman rises with difficulty, leaning on her cane, and draws forward a chair.
"Bonjour, Madame," in far-away tones from the aged husband, too feeble to move alone. I linger for some time with these two dear souls--for they are scarcely more than souls. We talk of bygone, happy days, of the war, and of their present needs--so few! Then I tell them I am American.
"American?" says the old man, peering into my face, "that means--friend."
"Yes," I reply, "that means--friend."
Then I come to a wooden barraque, a hive buzzing with children. They are clambering at the windows and playing in the dirt before the door, all clad in a many-colored collection of scraps which an ingenious mother has pieced together. A little boy, wearing the blue callot of a poilu on the back of his head, sits on the doorsill. He smiles and stands up, and tells me his mother is inside. Within I find the mother seated in a room of good-natured disorder, nursing her latest born. Her lavish smile of welcome lights her broad sunburned face framed in tawny braids, and she indicates a bench for me with the ease and authority of a long practiced hostess. She sits there with the infant at her ample breast, and on her face is written unquestioning satisfaction with her part in life. A swift laughing tale I hear, of little frocks outgrown and of sabots worn through, and no place to buy anything, and little Jean so thin and nervous, "but no wonder, Mademoiselle, for he was born during the evacuation, and only Cécile to take care of me, and she just sixteen years old, and I had to be carried in a wheelbarrow." I picture the flight, the father away at the front, the mother unable to walk, yet marshalling her little ones, comforting, cajoling, scolding, and feeding them through it all. The baby finishes with a little contented sigh and the proud mother exhibits him. "It's a boy, Mademoiselle," as exuberantly as though it were her first instead of her ninth. "C'est un petit gar?on de l'Armistice" with a happy blush.
"Ah, let us hope that he will always be a little child of peace." But in another moment she is playing with him, chucking him under the chin. "Tiens, mon coco! Viens, mon petit soldat--you must grow up strong and big, for you are another little soldier for France."
Little Vauchelles, far away in the hills of the fertile Oise, I think of you. I hope I may again visit you. And I wonder. What ripples from the seething capitals will stir the placid thoughts of your stouthearted peasants? And will your broad-browed women wait with age-old resignation for the next wave of war, or will they catch the echo that is rebounding through all the valleys of the world and join their voices in the swelling chord for brotherhood?
In your midst, where the three roads meet, still stands the image of Christ on the Cross.

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