To reach the peaceful village of Étainville, which, more fortunate than many another in France, had never known the horror and tragedy of war, it was necessary to pass through several little patches of woods. That walk with a number of his compatriots proved to be a very delightful one to Don Hale. Nature, in the soft, greenish moonlight, which filtered in between the foliage and ran in straggling lines and patches on the underbrush or fell in splotches on the trunks and branches, presented a very poetic—a very idyllic appearance. Here and there, amid the pines and firs, gnarled, rugged oaks, ages old, reared their spreading branches against a cloudless sky. A fragrant, delightful odor, like incense, nature’s own, filled the air; and the gentle sighing of leaves and grasses swayed to and fro by a capricious breeze joined with the ever constant chant of the insect world of the woods.
Étainville possessed only one main street, a cobbled, winding highway, lined on either hand with picturesque and sometimes dilapidated houses. Near the centre of the village rose the ancient church, the tall and graceful spire of which could be seen over the countryside for many miles. The twentieth century is a busy and a bustling age. Progress, ever on the alert, fairly leaps ahead, but it seemed to have carefully avoided Étainville in its rapid march.
Of all its inhabitants, none was better known or liked than old Père Goubain, proprietor, as was his father and grandfather before him, of the Café Rochambeau. Père Goubain was very fat—so fat, indeed, that he sat practically all day long in a big armchair. During the winter it was generally in the main room of the café, before the big round stove near the centre; but the summer days generally found him comfortably installed in the garden which enclosed the old stuccoed building.
Père Goubain appeared to be the very personification of contentment, except, however, when the Germans happened to be mentioned within his hearing. Then, his rubicund face became redder, his mild, blue eyes fairly blazed with a fierce, vindictive light, and, altogether, he looked quite ferocious indeed.
Such, then, was the Café Rochambeau and the man who greeted the crowd of Americans. To Don and George he was especially gracious. He asked many questions, and delightedly informed them that only the day before he had actually seen a detachment of American soldiers marching through the village street.
“Ah! and how grand they looked, mes amis!” he cried. “With their help—‘On les aura’—we shall get them! Ah, les Boches!”
The placid look on his face was gone, and, rising in his chair, he began to sing in a deep bass voice:
“‘Ye sons of freedom, wake to glory!
Hark, hark, what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives and grandsires hoary,