Margaret Vandercook - The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France

She did not look at her directly, yet one could see that the expression of her eyes had changed. They had lost their childish look of dreaming and were wide open and startled. Her face had ceased to possess its former softly rounded curve and there were tiny hollows in her cheeks and lines about her mouth.

“Sally, I am tired, won’t you come with me? I do not feel strong enough to walk alone. The other girls and I have found a little cottage not far away which we think deserted. I believe we had best spend the night there. We are all too weary to go on any further and besides, darkness will be upon us in another hour. I will explain to Aunt Patricia, and she and Vera will join us later when they have finished feeding the little multitude.”

After a few words of explanation to Miss Patricia, Sally and Mrs. Burton went on toward the abandoned cottage, neither of them attempting any conversation.

Approaching them a few yards from the house were Alice Ashton and Bettina Graham. At once Alice took charge of her sister and Bettina of their Camp Fire guardian.

Both girls reported that the house they had discovered was entirely abandoned and that they had taken possession of it for the night. Supper was ready and waiting.

An hour after the entire party was asleep.

It was shortly before eleven o’clock on the morning of November eleventh when the bells of Paris began pealing.

The following instant a group of young American girls who had been seated about a tiny fire in a large, bare room, jumped hurriedly to their feet.

“It has come at last, the Germans have signed the armistice! Vive la paix! ” one of them exclaimed.

Her words were almost drowned in the noise of the firing of guns, the thunder of cannon, noises to which Paris had been listening for the past four years in bitterness, but which she now heard with rejoicing.

“Let us start out at once, Aunt Patricia, to take part in the celebration before the streets become too crowded,” Peggy Webster suggested. “What luck to be in Paris today! I should rather be here than in any city in the world at the present time, for surely the city which has suffered most through the war must rejoice most!”

As she finished speaking, Peggy walked over to a window and flung it open. Already they could hear the sounds of cheering. Below Peggy could see people running into the street, windows of other houses being thrown open. Voices were calling, vive, vive everything, except, “ la guerre .”

“Isn’t it a pity Tante is not with us? We shall miss her more than ever today,” Bettina added. “Yet I am glad she is not too ill to feel the deepest thankfulness even if she cannot take part in the celebration and we may manage to see her later this afternoon. Aunt Patricia, do you feel equal to going with us? The crowds may make you overtired. Don’t worry, we promise to be as careful as possible, but do let us hurry. I feel as if I could scarcely bear the four walls of a house ten minutes longer. I want to shout, weep, laugh over victory. Glorious France, how much she has suffered and how much she has won!”

“Nevertheless, Bettina Graham, there is no reason to talk in such a high-flown fashion,” Miss Patricia Lord returned, “as if you were making a speech on one of the boulevards. I think we had better be saying our prayers. Just the same please be quiet a moment while I try to think; the noise outside is sufficient without your increasing it. I am afraid it will not be safe for you Camp Fire girls to go out into the streets for at least another twenty-four hours. But most certainly I shall go, however, I will return as promptly as possible to let you know what I have seen.”

At this instant Miss Patricia removed the large horned spectacles, through which she had been reading the morning paper, and wiped the moisture from them carefully. She then wiped her eyes, but entirely unconscious of what she was doing.

Nevertheless, she may have remained unaware of the expressions upon the faces of the half dozen girls who were her present companions.

At this moment an arm encircled her waist.

“Really, truly, Aunt Patricia, you don’t think we can stay indoors when all the rest of Paris is rejoicing? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to ask it of us, you who have preached courage in the time of war, would not have us turn cowards with the approach of peace?”

And Mary Gilchrist looked imploringly into Miss Patricia’s fine eyes, wise enough not to appear to notice their unusual moisture.

“You come with us, Aunt Patricia, and I think we shall manage to keep together and not to lose either our heads or our way. Remember we made a safe retreat to Paris when the Huns believed they were soon to follow after us and take possession of the city.”

As Mary Gilchrist had just announced, it was true that a number of months before, after an arduous retreat, first from their farmhouse on the Aisne and later from the Château Yvonne, the Camp Fire girls and their guardians had arrived safely in Paris. During the following summer months they had lived in a French pension not far from the Place de la Concorde, while the long range German guns vainly endeavored to frighten the city with a sense of her impending doom.

At present neither Mrs. Burton nor Sally Ashton was with their Camp Fire group in the pension. Soon after their arrival, not having recovered sufficiently from her wound to endure the long strain and fatigue of the retreat, Mrs. Burton had again been seriously ill. By her surgeon’s advice she had been removed to a hospital nearby, where she had been for the past few months, and although by this time a great deal better, she had not yet rejoined her friends.

Sally Ashton, without appearing to be actually ill and indeed always denying every suggestion of illness, had never from the day of the retreat from the farmhouse been like her former self. Six weeks before, influenced more by Miss Patricia’s wish than the doctor’s orders, she had departed for rest and quiet to a little house in the country a few hours journey from town.

At this moment, following Mary Gilchrist’s words, the Camp Fire girls formed an imploring circle about their chaperon, Miss Patricia Lord, who, in Mrs. Burton’s absence, had no one to dispute her authority.

Never to appear actually to oppose Miss Patricia, the girls had learned to be the better part of wisdom, therefore the present moment was fraught with danger. To disobey Miss Patricia’s wish, which might at any moment be translated into a command, would be disagreeable and perchance succeeded by uncomfortable consequences. However, not to see Paris in her carnival of joy and to share in the celebration was not to be considered.

And in all probability Miss Patricia had always appreciated this fact.

“Oh, very well,” she conceded with unexpected suddenness, “and do get ready as soon as possible. I have only to put on my bonnet. In truth I have been prepared for this moment ever since our arrival in France. Have I not always insisted that victory was always a mere question of time!”

A few moments later the throngs in the streets of Paris were increased by the presence of the half dozen American Camp Fire girls and Miss Lord.

Perhaps not much more than a half an hour had passed since the announcement of the signing of the armistice and yet already a multitude had appeared out of doors. Paris was happy and expressing her happiness as only Paris can.

The air was filled with cheers, with snatches of songs, not so frequent the “Marseillaise,” as “Madelon,” the song of the poilus, since it was the French soldier who had brought victory to glorious France.

Through the crowds Miss Patricia engineered the way, Yvonne Fleury clinging to one arm, Mary Gilchrist to the other, while behind them followed Vera Lagerloff and Alice Ashton and next came Bettina Graham and Peggy Webster.