The boxes were intact. Jean carried them into the house and opened them. Everything was there, although the papers were moldy and the silver tarnished. While Paulette was fussing over the boxes Odette went out to feed the chickens. Jean followed, saying he would fill up the hole made by the boxes.
A little while later Lucie looked out. The spade was still sticking up in the earth as Jean had left it. “I wonder what Jean is doing,” remarked Lucie.
Paulette chuckled. “He is occupying himself very agreeably, I fancy.”
Presently Odette came back, her big eyes soft with emotion. She went quickly to Paulette and held out her hands appealingly.
“I know all about it, little daughter,” said Paulette, kissing her on each cheek, “and it is as I wish. Le bon Dieu has answered my prayer.”
Odette looked shyly down at a ring on her hand. It was made of steel and set with a bit of blue glass. She held it out for Lucie to see. “Jean made it for me from a piece of a Boche’s helmet and the blue is from the cathedral at Rheims.” She softly kissed the ring, at the same time looking at Lucie to see if she understood.
Lucie turned to Paulette who stood smiling exultantly. “They are fianced,” she said, “and now I shall again have a daughter.”
CHAPTER XX
THE END IS PEACE
THE towers of the little church were gone, the bells, carried off by the Germans, could give forth no joyous peal, but there came a day when the small town joined the rest of the world in celebrating the news of the armistice. “Make a joyful noise, all ye lands,” quoted the old curé as he stood on the steps of the church and smiled indulgently upon the boys who were raising a tremendous din with any kind of thing that would furnish a noise. An old bugle, a sheet of tin and a hammer, cow bells and sheep bells, were in great requisition. There was a descent upon the kitchens, every boy carrying off whatsoever he could lay his hands upon, from a tin plate to a copper cauldron, and he did it unreproved. People stood in little knots talking excitedly, weeping, shouting, singing. Anything resembling a tricolor was waved, was hung from windows, was carried in parade upon the end of a stick. The last gun was fired at eleven A.M. At that hour from the church steps the old curé raised his hands in benediction before he began mass.
Lucie and Odette joined the marching throng to swell the volume of song when the strains of the Marseillaise arose above the din. An old man with an ancient cornet played the air, the boys beat wildly upon their improvised drums. Men, women and children joined in.