Where the Sabots Clatter Again | Page 2

ancient family of Noyon.
But now, her ancestral home was a heap of debris, a tomb for men of
many nations, which she did not like to visit. She took me there once,
and we walked through the old tennis court where a little summer
house remained untouched, its jaunty frailty seeming to mock at the
desolation of all that is solid.
"Ah, I have had good times here," she said in the expressionless voice
of one who has endured too much.
For now she was alone. Tennis tournaments for her were separated
from the present by a curtain of deaths, by the incomparable space of
those four years.
Mademoiselle Gaston had played her part in it all. When the Germans
were advancing upon Noyon, she had stuck to her post and remained in
the hospital where she nursed her compatriots under enemy rule during
the first occupation of the city. Something about her had made them
treat her with respect, although I have been told that the Prussian
officers were always vaguely uncomfortable in her presence. There was,

perhaps, not enough humility in her clear eyes, and they worked her to
the breaking point. Yet so impeccable and businesslike was her conduct
that they could never convict her of any infringement of rules. Little
did these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with
the hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing
with nimble and irreverent pencil portraits of her captors, daring
caricatures which she exhibited in secret to the terrified delight of her
patients. Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been
discovered, for doubtless she would have paid dearly for her Gallic
audacity.
She was small of stature and very thin. Not even the nurse's flowing
garb could conceal the angularity of her figure. One wondered how so
fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war.
What secret of yielding and resisting was hers? The tension,
nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin
over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line
too rigid for her years. This severity of feature she aggravated by
pinning her coiffe low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun's.
Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit. Yet whatever of
tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the
beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing eyes that belied her austere
manner. No sight of blood nor weariness, no insult had hardened them.
Even when their greenish depths went dark and wide with reminiscence,
a light lurked at the bottom--the reflection of something dancing. Yes,
everybody loved Mademoiselle Gaston.
For weeks we had seen it coming. She had told us of her engagement at
breakfast one Monday morning after a week-end visit to her married
sister in Paris. It had seemed a good business proposition. She
announced it as such, calmly, with a frankness that astonished my
American soul. We were pleased. She would have a château and money,
and a de before her name. Best of all she would have peace and
companionship after her lonely struggles. On the whole we were very
much pleased. Madame de Vigny and her gentle niece were entirely
delighted. Noyon was vociferous in its approval and congratulations. I
could have wished--but at least I did not thrust any transatlantic notions

into the general contentment.
And I soon saw--no one could fail to see--the change that day by day
came over our reserved companion. The stern line of her lips relaxed.
In amazement one day we heard her laugh. Then her laughter began to
break forth on all occasions; and we listened to her singing above in her
room, and we smiled at each other. That tightness of her brow
dissolved in a carefree radiance. At work, she mixed up her faultless
card catalogues and laughed at her mistakes. Once, during our busy
hours of distribution, we caught her blithely granting the request of fat
Mère Copillet for a cook stove and thereupon absently presenting that
jovial dame with a pair of sabots, much too small for her portly foot, to
the amusement of all the good wives gathered in the Red Cross office.
They laughed loudly in a sympathetic crowd, and Mademoiselle Gaston
laughed also, and they loved her more than ever. When they learned
that she had chosen to be married in the ruined cathedral of her native
town, their affection turned to adoration. Not a peasant in the region but
took this to be an honor to his city and to himself. Gratitude and a
nameless hope filled the hearts of the people of Noyon.
The day was at hand. The poste was closed, for within there was a feast
to