The two boys were incredibly happy. Two mornings before they had landed
in Paris. What a reception they had had in the soldiers' club from the
splendid French women! How good the hot bath had seemed! Clean linen, a
fresh shave, a good breakfast, a soft cot, plenty of blankets,
twenty-four hours' sleep, and they had wakened up new men. The first
morning they walked along the streets, looking into the shop windows; in
the afternoon one of the ladies took them to a moving picture show, and
now on the second day here they were, at a little table before the cafe
in one of the best restaurants in the Latin Quarter, with good red wine
and black coffee, and plenty of cigarettes, and not even the boom of
cannon to disturb their conversation. Strange that in three days they
could have passed from the uttermost of hell to the uttermost of safety
and peace. "These are good times," said one of the boys, "and we are in
them."
Then they heard a policeman shouting. Looking up, they saw a singular
spectacle. Just in front of them was a poor old hearse drawn by two
horses, whose black trappings touched the ground. Shabbier hearse never
was seen. Strangest of all, there was only a little, thin, black-robed
girl walking behind the hearse. There were no hired mourners as usual.
There was no large group of friends walking with heads bared in token of
reverence; there was no priest; no carriages followed after. Saddest of
all, there was not even a flower. What could these things mean? How
strange that when they were so happy this little woman could be so sad.
Suddenly one of the soldier boys arose. He stepped into the street and
looked into the hearse. There he saw these words: "A soldier of France."
He began to question the woman. Lifting her veil, he saw a frail girl,
and while the traffic jam increased she told her story. The soldier had
been wounded at the Battle of the Marne. He was one of the first to be
brought to Paris. He never walked again. "I am very poor; I have only
one franc a day. We have no friends. I borrowed money for the hearse."
The boy returned to his fellows. "Fall in line, boys!" he shouted. "Here
is a soldier of France. This little girl has taken care of him for three
years on one franc a day. Line up, everybody, and tell the men to
swallow their coffee and wine and fall into the procession. Go into the
shops and say that a soldier of France lies here." When that hearse
began to move there were twenty men and women walking as mourners behind
the body. Two soldier boys walked beside the frail little girl with her
heavy crepe. As the soldiers walked along beside the hearse the
procession began to grow. On and on for two long miles this slowly
moving company increased in number until one hundred were in line, and
when they came into God's Acre they buried the poor boy as if he were a
king coming in with trumpets from the battle. For he was a soldier of
France.