Tonight I confided my apprehensions to the Gendarme. She looked at me with an unpitying eye.
“The more goose you, for encouraging him,” was her cold comfort. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to pray for a thaw,” I told her.
Bourmont, January 8.
Life at the Maison Chaput doesn’t flow quite so peacefully these days as it did before Christmas. The disturbing factor is four-year old Max, left by his mother to visit his grandparents. Max is a spoiled child according to the Chaput point of view. He is expected to walk a chalk line with his little red felt toes, and failing this, he is spanked early and often. It is unlucky for him that the fagots by the hearth afford a continual supply of handy switches.
“The little Jesus will never bring you anything again at Christmas,” warns Grandmamma; “never again! And neither will the Père Nicolas!” Then she appeals to me; “All the little children in America are always well-behaved, are they not?”
“But yes, certainly!” I reply, avoiding Max’s eye.
Coming home in the evening I often stop on my way back to the chilly Salle des Assiettes, in response to an urgent invitation, to warm myself at the fireplace. Old Monsieur will be sitting on one side of the hearth and I on the other, while Baby Max toasts his toes in their scarlet slippers on a stool between us. Sometimes they will sing for me. Monsieur had a fine voice when he was young and even now he sings with a delightful air, a sort of indescribable old gallantry that is a joy to me. When he and Max sing together the effect is irresistible.
“Now we will sing Le Drapeau de la France,” cries Monsieur. “We must stand for this!” And Monsieur in his gay red neck cloth and little Max in his blue checked pinafore stand up before the fire and sing with their hearts in the words “Saluons le drapeau de la France.” When they come to that line, Monsieur le Commandant veteran of 1870 and baby Max salute together.
Then, “Vive la France!” I cry, and “Vive la France!” they echo.