Three Sides of Paradise Green

by Augusta Huiell Seaman

On looking back in this journal, I find that I have kept it exactly one year. I have fulfilled my promise to Miss Cullingford, and I believe, if she could only read it, she'd find it a very interesting "supplement to history." But of course she never will read it. That would be breaking my promise to the marquis. I do not think I will write in it any more. The year is over, and Louis has gone—and may never come back any more.

April 10, 1917. To-day, in an old drawer of my desk, locked away and almost completely forgotten by me, I found this journal that I kept three long years ago. How long, how very long they seem now! I was sixteen then, and still in high school. I am nineteen—nearly twenty—now, and have been a year in college. At present I am home for the Easter vacation, back in little Paradise Green, and in rummaging through my desk I found this journal. The idea has come to me to add one more entry, because it will make the story complete.

When I last wrote here, I was positively certain that Louis would die, that he would be killed in some terrible battle or have some accident to his aëroplane. Nothing of the sort has occurred, marvelous as it may seem. Yes, the miracle has happened, and Louis, our same old Louis, is back in his home on Paradise Green! What is more, the Meadows, or Mettots, as I now call them, are back here with him, just as in the old days. It's too wonderful for words!

But the marquis is not here. He never will be here any more, for he died a year ago, leaving his title and what little remains of his estate to Louis. The greater part of it has been turned over to the French Government.

But Louis! Oh, that has been the wonderful part of the story! He has been known for two years as one of the most daring and successful members of the French Aviation Corps, with a record of captured enemy machines and successful engagements to be proud of. He has been decorated by the French Government and honored in a dozen ways, and has never been wounded or injured till just lately.

In an engagement at Eaucourt l'Abbaye last October, toward the finish of the great Somme battle, he was wounded in the side, but managed to land his machine safely. The wound was not serious in itself, but his old enemy, blood-poisoning, set in, and for a while it was nip-and-tuck whether he could recover. But Louis says his constitution is "sound American," and after a long siege he was pronounced out of danger and recovered. He has been compelled by his commanding officer, however, to take a long leave of absence, to recover complete health before he returns to the front.

So he came back to Paradise Green, to take up life, as he says, where he left it. During this Easter vacation we four have been rollicking around, just as we used to when we were children and hadn't a care on our minds. Carol is as grown-up as I am, and is attending college with me. The Imp is a tall, lanky creature now, nearly through high school, and at times can be quite as exasperating as ever. They say she's cut out for a brilliant future, but just at present her whole mind is concentrated on becoming a Red Cross nurse, so that she can go off to "the front" and get in the thick of it. Mother and Father won't stand for it, of course, but trust the Imp to get her way—somehow.

And that brings me to another thing. America has at last entered the war. We can scarcely believe it yet. Louis is jubilant, and Dave promptly claimed the promise that Father made him three years ago. Father has consented, as he said he would, but is feeling pretty grave about it. And the look in Mother's eyes is enough to keep Dave from effervescing too openly. I dare not think very far into the future, but for the immediate present we all are trying to be happy.

I had almost decided to destroy this journal, but something Louis told us has made me change my mind. He said that before Monsieur (I cannot get out of the habit of calling him that!) passed away, he told Louis that he had changed his mind about keeping secret any longer the story of Louis's descent. He said that he believed the dauphin would have been filled with pride at the wonderful attainments and service to France of the descendant of his own adopted son, and would glory in the world's knowledge of his connection with him. So Louis said that, although he wasn't ever going to say anything about it himself, he didn't specially care if the rest of us did. The matter seemed of little importance to him, anyhow. He said that probably no one would believe it, anyway, as there were too many stories already concerning the escape and claims of the "lost dauphin."

Probably they won't, and I wouldn't blame them, for it does seem well-nigh incredible. However that may be, I've changed my mind about this journal. I'm going to show it to Miss Cullingford. She and I have always been great friends, even after I left high school, and I want her to read for herself the whole history of this wonderful thing that happened on little, out-of-the-way Paradise Green.