“But birds are so amusing,” replied Yvonne. “Just now,” she added, “we are in a hurry with our gift to the soldiers—there are lint, preserves and tobacco and liqueurs, and linen to send them. We have a committee here, and we occupy ourselves with it at our monthly meetings. And when it isn’t that, it’s something else. My cousin Henri accompanies me at the piano, or I read French history or some treatise on education. I haven’t a minute to myself, especially here, because grand’mère is the president of the committee.”
“Alas! what a different idea of the Frenchwoman psychological novelists have been giving!” was Phil’s thought as he looked at Caracal, with his monocle glistening in the shadow.
“In your place, madame,” said grandma, speaking directly to grand’mère, “I’d start a committee for general disarmament.”
Mme. de Grojean opened her eyes wide. Ethel, who saw the effect which had been produced, hastened to say, “Grandma is joking.”
“Not at all, Ethel,” replied grandma. “The country is very pretty, with its flowers and its soldiers; but I prefer our Western plains, and I’d give all the military music in the world for our peaceful tunes.”
Grand’mère and grandma were face to face; they formed a perfect contrast to each other.
Grandma seemed to have in her clear eyes the sheen of the sea and of the prairies, where new dawns had arisen for her. Incredible energy could be read on her nervous features. One would have said that she was still young and active, and full of ambition; and, if she was able to talk with grand’mère, it was because during the past months she had begun again to speak and read French with as much ardor as a school-girl. She did not feel herself growing old so long as she improved herself. She detested things which never changed, homes too shut in, too hushed a silence, and too passive obedience. Leaning forward, she looked into the eyes of grand’mère. The latter was the majestic representative of changeless things, of tradition that must not be touched. Of what use is it to learn so much, since all sin comes from knowledge? And why change, since all through the centuries men have gone to war, while women stayed at home and spun.
Seated squarely back in her arm-chair, she looked like a tower of the Middle Ages, ready for the assault. She prepared her batteries and took from her arsenal replies a thousand years old, with which to overwhelm the assailant. To grandma asking, “Why not change?” grand’mère would answer, “What use to change?”
She had the proverbs of her ancestors all in line. Against the taste for travel she could throw this bomb: “Each in his place!” She would stifle the spirit of adventure with “A rolling stone gathers no moss!” Against the pursuit of progress her ammunition was ready: “The better is the enemy of the good.” And the daring ones who would attempt to climb up, in the name of modern ambition and equality for all, would receive from her mitrailleuse: “There was a frog who tried to become as big as an ox, and who burst in the endeavor!”
Last of all, if the enemy should really force a way into the stronghold, she had the crushing reply: “Ça ne se fait pas [It isn’t done]!”