This boy looked prosperous, and in no need of anything but kind words in English. He did not even need cigarettes. But I saw him turn his eyes frequently towards the library, and it occurred to me that he might want something to read. I asked him if he did, and you should have seen his eyes shine,—and he wanted English at that, and beamed all over his face at a heap of illustrated magazines. So I was able to send him away happy.
The result was, early the next morning two more of them arrived—a tall six-footer, and a smaller chap. It was Sunday morning, and they had real, smiling Sunday faces on. The smaller one addressed me in very good English, and told me that the sergeant had said that there was an American lady who was willing to lend the soldiers books. So I let them loose in the library, and they bubbled, one in English, and the other in French, while they revelled in the books.
Of course I am always curious about the civil lives of these lads, and it is the privilege of my age to put such questions to them. The one who spoke English told me that his home was in London, that he was the head clerk in the correspondence department of an importing house. I asked him how old he was, and he told me twenty-two; that he was in France doing his military service when the war broke out; that he had been very successful in England, and that his employer had opposed his returning to France, and begged him to take out naturalization papers. He said he could not make up his mind to jump his military service, and had promised his employer to return when his time was up,—then the war came.
I asked him if he was going back when it was over.
He looked at me a moment, shook his head and said, "I don't think so. I had never thought of such a thing as a war. No, I am too French. After this war, if I can get a little capital, I am going into business here. I am only one, but I am afraid France needs us all."
You see there again is that naturalization question. This war has set the world thinking, and it was high time.
One funny thing about this conversation was that every few minutes he turned to his tall companion and explained to him in French what we were talking about, and I thought it so sweet.
Finally I asked the tall boy—he was a corporal and had been watching his English-speaking chum with such admiration—what he did in civil life.
He turned his big brown eyes, on me, and replied: "I, madame? I never had any civil life."
I looked puzzled, and he added: "I come of a military family. I am an orphan, and I am an enfant de troupe."