There was nothing in the basket but fruit and Red Cross candy, with some bits of tinsel saved from the tree that had ornamented the ward where the men lay who were too sick to attend the Christmas dinner. But as Lucy distributed the basket’s contents the children’s cheeks flushed pink and their eyes shone as they stammered, “Danke, gnädige Fräulein, danke.”
A step sounded on the threshold and Adelheid held up her full hands to cry joyfully, “Look, Papachen, look!”
Franz’ big, lean frame filled the doorway, his face heated from woodland labors. With a soiled red handkerchief he began, at sight of his visitors, to brush bark and dirt from his shabby clothing. His expression was somewhat grim as he glanced at the foreigners; but at the children’s insistence, after one quick, frowning contraction of his heavy brows, his sour lips curved in something like a smile. He stroked Adelheid’s head, having made the visitors before his threshold an awkward bow, and, to their astonishment, addressed them in French—German French, remarkable in sound and accent:
“Ponjour, Messieurs et Mestemoiselles. Merci peaucoup. Foulez-fous entrer tans ma bauvre maison?”
Michelle was the first to decipher this utterance. She smiled faintly and shook her head. “We came only to see the children,” she explained, also in French.
Franz’ keen eyes had left her face to scrutinize the two officers who stood behind her, though as soon as their glance met his he shifted his gaze to the children and summoned his difficult smile once more.
“Let’s go,” said Lucy, looking up from where she sat holding Freidrich, and trying to persuade him not to cram all his candy into his mouth at once.
Footsteps sounded again inside the cottage and a woman appeared behind Franz, and, peering out over his shoulder, nodded to Lucy with a smile as cheerless as her husband’s, but tired and spiritless rather than sullen. She was young, but sad and anxious looking. Her light brown hair was twisted up anyhow on her head, and the sleeves of her faded calico were rolled above her elbows.
“Thank you, kind Fräulein,” she said, amiably enough. “The little ones are grateful. Good-day to your young friend, and to each Herr Officer.”
With this greeting she shuffled back into the cottage, without a word to her husband, who was staring at the ground now, forgetting his attempts at civility.