Little Jeanne of France

One day when Margot came home, she said to Grandmother, "Grandmother dear, I have at last thought what you may give me on my birthday."

Grandmother took her hand.

"I am glad, chérie," she answered, "because the day is drawing near."

"If I may take Jeanne with me to the Bois and spend the day there, that is all I wish," said Margot.

"And no party?" Grandmother looked surprised.

"No. I prefer that," said Margot.

Grandmother telephoned to Auntie Sue. It was arranged that Jeanne was to be spared for that one day – Margot's birthday.

A day in the woods was planned with a picnic and a boat ride, but, best of all, with Jeanne and Pierrot.

The morning of Margot's birthday arrived. As the little girl opened her eyes, a dismal sight met them.

The gray sky was pouring down bucketsful of rain. The morning was as gray and dark as a rainy morning can be. Margot saw her day in the woods spoiled, and she started to cry.

But Grandmother arranged that Jeanne was to come to the apartment.

Margot's pout did not make of her a very happy looking birthday girl. But she had to be satisfied with these plans.

"It would have been so nice to play in the Bois," she sulked.

"Yes, chérie," said Grandmother, "but we cannot change the weather."

And so in front of a crackling fire in Margot's toy stuffed nursery, the two little girls spent the day.

Margot met Jeanne with, "Isn't it too bad?"

But Jeanne could find nothing to feel sorry about.

"Oh, what a beautiful fire!" she exclaimed.

And after a little while, Margot began to be glad that the day was rainy, because Jeanne was glad.

CHAPTER XVI

"I WANT TO PLAY"

Auntie Sue worked very hard. She now had several large orders to fill.

She was finishing Madame Villard's order to-day, and she hoped to bring the little dresses to the apartment that evening.

Jeanne was spending Margot's birthday at the Villard apartment. So Suzanne determined to deliver the dresses and fetch Jeanne when the day was over.

She worked steadily and tried to banish thoughts and voices inside of her. Since Madame Villard's visit to the shop, Suzanne had not had a moment's peace from Conscience.

It was only the thought that Jeanne really loved to show the pretty clothes that kept Suzanne the least bit happy.

She answered Conscience thus: "But see how happy the child is when I give her a new frock to show! She knows, too, that she is the envy of every child in Paris!"

And Conscience always replied, "Perhaps. But maybe she is telling you that. Maybe she is really like any other child who wants and needs to play!"

This was the thing that always caused Auntie Sue to shudder. If she had thought that Jeanne cared, she could never have gone on asking her to work. She hoped that Jeanne did not like to play and did not mind being different from other children.

Always this hope made Auntie Sue argue with the voice. You see, Auntie Sue tried to believe that Jeanne was glad to be a live puppet!

Two little girls played and chatted before a crackling fire. While they sat in Margot's cheerful, rosy room, they made journeys throughout the land of France.

Stories and stories and stories!

Once Pierrot was a soldier, and they played the Great War. Margot and Jeanne were nurses. Through battlefields of France they took their fancies.

Margot had motored many times with Grandmother throughout the valley of the war. She had passed villages, gray and ruined. She had passed villages, new and shiny, with American flags flying beside the French.

She had passed American cemeteries, with thousands of little white crosses like snow upon the ground. There were brown crosses, too, and huge stone monuments to soldiers.

There was one monument built around a line of bayonets where a company of soldiers had been buried alive by an enemy bomb. Their bayonets still show above the ground.

She had seen great tanks along the roadside – barbed wire and trenches.

Through beautiful France the little girl had journeyed with Grandmother. Through the famous wine country – the lands of Burgundy (bûr´-gŭn-dĭ), Champagne (shăm-pān´), and Dijon (dē-zhôn´), the city of churches, palaces, and famous mustard they journeyed!

Along the road sat women knitting or sorting and cleaning the cotton of their mattresses. They were washing in little outdoor water troughs along the roadway.

The children made a play for every part of France. They made one for every French character they had ever heard about. Jeanne could weave a play about anything, and Margot could not help saying, "What a pity you do not have more time to play!"

At this moment the doorbell rang. Auntie Sue was ushered into the hall by the Villard maid. Auntie Sue had come to deliver her parcel and to fetch Jeanne.

"Madame Villard is not in," said the maid, "but the children are in the nursery. Would you like to go to them?"

Thus it happened that Auntie Sue arrived at the nursery door in time to hear the two little girls discussing a serious question.

Auntie Sue did not want to eavesdrop. She would not have listened to the children if she could have helped herself. But the fact of the matter was that Auntie Sue became rooted to the floor, and she could not move.

For the first thing she heard was Jeanne's voice saying, "Oh, Margot! I hate all those silly clothes! I hate being a model. I want to be just a little girl."

Jeanne's voice was bitter. Is it any wonder that Auntie Sue could not move from the spot on which she was standing? She grasped the door knob to keep herself from falling.

Then the conversation went on.

"Then why do you do it?" asked Margot's voice.

"Because," came Jeanne's, "I dare not tell Auntie. She works so hard and takes such good care of me. You see, I have no mother and father."

There was silence, and then Jeanne's voice went on, "My papa was a soldier. But Auntie does not know where he fell."