“Get down to the ‘Golden Key’ and come back with the cart. Look sharp!”
“Why not drive all the way?”
“Twenty kilometers there and twenty back; we should not be home all night, and supposing an English regiment comes to the farm when I’m not there?”
One of the great advantages Madeleine possessed over her father was that she could think so much quicker. The old man had fetched the cart, Madeleine had done her shopping, and they were two kilometers on the road home before he had thought of the next objection:
“What are you going to say to Blanquart?”
Blanquart was the schoolmaster and secretary of the Mairie.
“That I want a certificate that we have relatives at the war.”
“But that won’t get you a cheap ticket to visit the young baron in hospital.”
“You leave it to me.”
Obedient, the old man left it.