The little living room at the Tricots’ soon after the ceremony was full to overflowing, but every one squeezed in somehow. The old couple were very happy in dispensing hospitality. Their Jean came home for a few hours and their hearts were thankful for this glimpse of their son. Marie beamed with joy and the rosy baby delighted them all by saying, “Pa-pa!” the first word it had ever uttered.
Philippe, looking so handsome that Judy, too, wondered that all the American girls passed him by, fraternized with Jean, the peasant’s son, with that simplicity which characterizes the military of France.
The party was very gay, so gay that it seemed impossible that the Germans were really not more than thirty miles from them. Of course they talked politics, men and women. Old Mère Tricot had her opinions and expressed them, and they listened with respect when she pooh-poohed and bah-bahed the notion that the Nations had gone to war from altruistic motives.
“Belgium might as well die fighting as die not fighting. The Germans had her any way she jumped. France had to fight, too, fight or be enslaved. As for Great Britain—she couldn’t well stay out of it! When the Germans got Antwerp, why, where was England? Let us fight, I say—fight to a finish; but let’s be honest about it and each country say she is fighting for herself.”
“Do you think United States should come over and help?” asked Kent, much interested in the old woman’s wisdom.
“Not unless she has wrongs of her own to right!” spoke the grenadier.
“But think how France helped us out in ’76!” exclaimed Judy.
“Yes, and helped herself, no doubt. I am not very educated in history, but I’ll be bound she had a crow of her own to pick with England.”
“To be sure,” laughed Philippe, “France did want to destroy the naval supremacy of Great Britain. Her alliance with Spain meant more to France than her alliance with America. She was not wholly disinterested when she helped the struggling states.”
“Oh, Heavens, Philippe, please don’t take from me the romantic passion I have always had for Lafayette!” begged his mother. “I used to thrill with joy when tales were told of my great grandmother’s dancing with him.”