“That you chop off the Major’s head with it too.”
Gondrecourt, May 24.
I have always cherished a secret longing to have pets in my canteen: I have heard of huts that kept kittens and canaries, and once I visited in one where an ant-eater, if not an habitué, was at least a frequent and honoured guest and sat in the ladies’ laps at the movie-shows. At various times I have considered and regretfully abandoned the project of rabbits, a puppy, goldfish and a goat. But till recently the nearest I have come to realizing my dreams was when I found two large snails with black and yellow shells by the roadside. I carried them into the canteen and set them on a flowering branch in a vase. For two days the boys took a casual interest. They nicknamed them Bill and Daisy.
“The French eat snails you know,” I told them.
“You don’t say!”
“Yes and I had some myself the other day.”
“Aw shucks! You didn’t really, did you? Why, before I’d eat them things! Say, what did they taste like anyway?”
“They would have tasted pretty good,” I answered, “if only while you were eating them you could have stopped thinking what they were!”
One boy staring at my pets asked innocently;
“Will butterflies come but of those?”