"It is very sad," she continued, in the excellent French spoken by the peasants of the Loiret department. "He comes by the river and declaims. He speaks of Linkum and Wash'ton. I watch from my cottage, for my daughter Mathilde is housemaid at Madame Greyshield's, and I hear her talk. Monsieur le colonel Greyshield is a grand officer in America; but his wife, she is proud. She brings her children to France to study. She leaves the poor man lonely. This boy is most heartbroke. Mathilde says he talks of his dear country in his sleep, then he rises early to study the foreign languages, so he can more quickly go to his home. But he is sick, his hand trembles. Mathilde thinks he is going to die. I say, 'Mathilde, talk to madame,' but she is afraid, for madame has a will as strong as this stout stick. It will never break. It must be burnt. Perhaps mademoiselle will talk."
"I will, if I get a chance."
The old woman turned her brown, leathery face toward the blue waters of the Loire. "Mademoiselle, do many French go to America for the accent?"
"No; they have too much sense!"
"It is droll," she went on, "how the families come here. The gentlemen wander to and fro, the ladies occupy themselves with their toilettes. Then they travel to other countries. They are like the leaves on that current. They wander they know not whither. I am only a peasant, yet I can think, and is not one language good enough to ask for bread and soup?" And muttering and shaking her head, she went on gathering her sticks.
On Sunday I looked for my American boy. There he was, sitting beside a handsomely dressed woman, who looked as if she might indeed have a will like a stout stick. After the service he endeavoured to draw her toward me, but she did not respond until she saw me speaking to a lady of Huguenot descent, to whom I had had a letter of introduction. Then she approached, and we all went down the street together.
When we reached the boulevard leading to my hotel, the boy asked his mother's permission to escort me home. She hesitated, and then said, "Yes; but do not bore her to death with your patriotic rigmaroles."
The boy, whose name was Gerald, gave her a peculiar glance, and did not open his lips until we had walked a block. Then he asked, deliberately, "Have you ever thought much of that idea of Abraham Lincoln's that no man is good enough to govern another man without the other man's consent?"