Pierre nodded gravely.
"Yes, I have a plan—or perhaps I better call it a dream. I should like to go to America. One can earn more money there. My mother's brother is at Paterson, New Jersey, which is in America, and I have some young cousins there also."
"Yes, yes, I know," exclaimed Henri eagerly. "There are great silk mills at Paterson where they make fine silks and ribbons—some of them as beautiful as any we make in France. Maybe some day you will go there."
"I'm afraid not," returned Pierre. "Even should the war end and my father and uncle come home again I have no money to go to America."
"Don't give up so easily," Henri said, placing a hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "We never can tell what will happen. My mother says that if we do the best we can every day sometimes the thing we wish most will come to us; if not, Le Bon Dieu will send something else which may be even better."
"I am trying to do my best," Pierre answered bravely. "And anyway so long as my father and uncle are safe nothing else really matters."
The boys exchanged a smile and passed on into the filature, as the factory where the reeling was done was called.
