An old woman sitting nearby held in her hands a livret de mariage. "Quel beau bébé!" she exclaimed. "Is it a girl?"
"No, madame, a boy," replied mademoiselle, smoothing the baby's swaddling blanket and pinning it tighter around Pierrot's little tummy.
"That's it, that's it," cried the old woman. "I came here to get a certificate myself. My daughter had a baby born this morning. It's a boy, too. It was like that in Soixante-Dix. Nearly all the babies born in war time are boys. O la, la, madame, what a baby! His father is fighting so he won't have to carry a gun." Here she pulled out a handkerchief.
The poor help the poor, when it comes to moral, as in everything else. I was sitting in my studio interviewing women who came for baby clothes. A white-faced girl sat down in the chair at the opposite side of the table.
"What can I do for you?" said I.
"A little white dress—" she sobbed. "Could you give me a little white dress?"
"Certainly I'll give it to you, and lots of other things too."
"I don't need anything else," she said softly, "My baby died this morning. They did everything at the hospital to save her. She was born three weeks ago and they let me stay on. They wrapped her in a little piece of sheeting. I can't stand it to bury her like that!" She put her head down on the table and wept.
"Shall I give madame a little white dress?"
The twenty other mothers sitting there answered "Yes, give it to her."