Where the Sabots Clatter Again — Edition Insights

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 prepare and a bride to adorn. In the early morning the sun-browned peasant women brought flowers, masses of goldenrod and asters. These we arranged in brass shells, empty husks of death, till the bleak spaciousness of our shattered house was gay. The rooms, still elegant in proportion, lent themselves naturally to adornment; and I found myself wondering what former festivities they had sheltered, what other brides had passed down this stately corridor before the bombs let in the wind and the rain and the thieves; and what remote luxuries had been reflected in the great mirror of which only the carved gilt frame was left? Today, goldenrod and asters bloomed against the mouldy walls and one little tri-colored bouquet. Flowers of France, in truth, sprung on the battle field and offered by earth-stained fingers to her who had served.

From the kitchen came noises of snapping wood, and a sizzling which tempted me to the door. It was a fine old kitchen, though now the tiles were mostly gone from the floor, and the cracked walls were smeared with uncouth paintings, the work of some childish soul--some German mess sergeant, perhaps, who had been installed there, but today Jeanne reigned again, bending her philosophic face over the smoking stove, and evoking with infallible arts aromatic and genial vapors from her casseroles. At her side, Thérèse, pink and cream in the abundance of her eighteen years, fanned the fire, her eyes wide open with the novel excitement of the occasion.