It is true she had been an extremely practical benefactress to the entire neighborhood, yet her gifts had been made largely through other persons; Mrs. Burton or one of the Camp Fire girls reporting a special need among their neighbors, as promptly as possible Miss Patricia had seen that need supplied.
So, as she took her walk on this summer afternoon, had she liked she might have given a good deal of credit to herself for the change in the appearance of the countryside which the past two months had wrought.
A number of the peasants" huts near the road had been either entirely or partly rebuilt. But more important than the actual physical shelter, Miss Patricia"s tractor had plowed its way over many acres which otherwise must have remained unproductive until, as far as the eye could see, the fields were now being made ready for planting. Even if German guns were thundering along the battle line, nevertheless behind that line the French peasants toiled on with their patience and their eternal industry.
Today Miss Patricia was thinking of life"s contrasts, of the peaceful scenes through which she was pa.s.sing which only a few years before had been an altar of the world"s carnage and which might soon be so sacrificed again.
For it would seem as if the last gigantic struggle of the present war were now about to take place. Surely humanity would never pa.s.s through this universal Calvary again!
Not yet had Mrs. Burton returned from her journey into southern France!
A few days before, a letter stating that, having accomplished a portion of their mission, she, Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval were preparing to start on their homeward way, had arrived for Miss Patricia, although the letter had been delayed for a week.
A more important witness of their mission had been the actual return to the French village of a number of the refugees in whose welfare Mrs.
Burton had been especially interested. Among them was the French girl, Elise.
At this moment Miss Patricia was intending to pay a call to offer her congratulations to Elise and her grandmother and also to learn if Elise had seen Mrs. Burton or heard any definite information concerning her.
The visit was not one to which she looked forward with pleasure, but was due to the fact that Mrs. Burton had asked it of her as a favor. Miss Patricia"s use of the French tongue was so impossible that all conversation between her and her French neighbors was an agony.
Moreover, her unconsciously fierce manner seemed always to disconcert the courteous peasants.
Nevertheless, the old men and women and children whom she met on the road into the village and later upon the village streets bowed to her with more than ordinary friendliness. If they could not comprehend her words or her manner, the value of her kindness they could understand.
A child ran out of one of the houses and unexpectedly presented Miss Patricia with a little battered image of St. Joseph, and although St.
Joseph is one of the patron saints of marriage, Miss Patricia accepted her gift with warm appreciation.
An hour later, when she received the first intimation of what had occurred, Miss Patricia was standing in the little yard in front of their hut with Grand"mere and Elise.
There was no restraint about Grand"mere"s conversation now that her granddaughter was restored to her; indeed, she was pouring forth such a flood of rapid speech that Miss Patricia had the sensation of drowning in a sea of words of which she could understand about one in fifty.
Nevertheless, it was pleasant to glance now and then toward Elise, who was as charmingly pretty as her neighbors and friends had described her.
From her weeks of enforced imprisonment and something nearly approaching starvation, the young French girl was thin and haggard. Yet as nothing more terrible had happened, she was too rejoiced over her return not to show delight and grat.i.tude in every expression of her vivid face.
Moreover, after being allowed to cross the borderland from Germany into France, she really had a meeting of a few moments with Mrs. Burton, who had given her the money and the information necessary for her homecoming.
At the moment when one of Elise"s friends ran into the yard from an unexpected direction, Miss Patricia"s first sensation was that of relief. At least she could enjoy a short respite from her position of exclusive audience to Grand"mere. The woman appeared so excited and so full of some story she undoubtedly had come to tell, that immediately she became the center of attention. Moreover, a dozen other persons soon followed her until in a few seconds the little yard was crowded with gesticulating figures.
Miss Patricia was about to withdraw when a single word arrested her attention. The word was of course p.r.o.nounced in French fashion, yet in the past few weeks Aunt Patricia had learned to recognize its peculiar French intonation. The word was Mrs. Burton"s name.
Through guessing, through intuition and also through the united efforts of her new friends, soon after Miss Patricia learned as much of the woman"s tale as it was desirable for her to hear at the present time.
This story had spread through the village. A French ambulance bearing the sign of the _croix de rouge_ had just driven through the town en route to the farm house on the Aisne, the present home of the Camp Fire girls. Returning from her work in southern France, Mrs. Burton had been injured and rather than be cared for in a hospital had begged to be brought directly to the farm.
As a matter of fact, Miss Patricia arrived at the farm house exactly two minutes before the Red Cross ambulance drew up before the front door.
How she managed this one could only discover from Miss Patricia. The village owned a single motor car used in transporting supplies and Miss Patricia saw that it traveled faster on this occasion than ever before in its history.
Besides, Mrs. Burton, who was so swathed in bandages one could scarcely recognize her, the ambulance contained Monsieur Duval, the French senator, Mrs. Bishop and a Red Cross nurse.
Ignoring them all, Aunt Patricia lifted Mrs. Burton in her arms and carried her upstairs to her room, placing her upon the bed.
An hour later, when the farm house had grown strangely quiet and everybody had been sent outdoors except the nurse and a doctor who had been hastily summoned, Aunt Patricia stalked down the steps into the drawing-room. Here she found Monsieur Duval and Mrs. Bishop waiting to explain the situation to her.
They had been motoring toward home and several miles back of the French line, when without any reason for such a catastrophe, a sh.e.l.l had dropped from a German aeroplane and exploded near their car.
Aside from Mrs. Burton, no member of the party had been hurt, but a piece of the sh.e.l.l had imbedded itself inside her chest and was supposed to be too near her lungs for an operation.
"Do you mean that Polly Burton has a chance to live without an operation?" Miss Patricia demanded in grim tones when her two companions had finished their unsatisfying explanation of what had taken place.
Mrs. Bishop shook her head.
"I am afraid not; that is why we took the risk of bringing her home to you when she wished so much to come."
"Is there a chance for her to recover through an operation?" Miss Patricia next asked without a perceptible change either in her expression or manner.
This time, as Mrs. Bishop appeared unable to speak, Monsieur Duval answered instead.
"There is one in a hundred, but we dared not accept the responsibility without first coming to you."
"Then telegraph at once for the best surgeon in Paris who can be spared and also for Captain Richard Burton. I will give you his address. In the meantime, if you can find hospitality elsewhere than at our farm I shall be grateful. We shall have but little opportunity to make visitors comfortable for the next few days."
With this Miss Patricia withdrew.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FIELD OF HONOR
Some little time afterwards, late on a March afternoon, the yard in front of the farm house on the Aisne, chosen by the Camp Fire girls for their temporary home in France, was occupied by a number of persons.
They had separated into groups and were either walking about the place or else were seated in informal att.i.tudes.
On the wooden steps leading directly down from the house two girls moved aside to allow a woman and a man to pa.s.s them.
The woman was Miss Patricia, who appeared taller and more painfully gaunt than ever, and moreover, was laying down the law upon some subject in her usual didatic fashion. Yet the man whose arm was slipped through hers was regarding her with devoted and amused affection. According to Captain Richard Burton and in the opinion of a number of other persons, Miss Patricia"s good sense and devotion in the past few weeks had saved his wife"s life.
Miss Patricia was discussing with him the question of increasing the number of cows upon the farm until a dairy could be run upon really scientific principles. She desired a dairy sufficiently large to supply milk to the nearby hospitals as well as to the babies in the villages.
Up to the present time she had been largely interested in preserving the health of the young children who came within her sphere of effort. But realizing that milk at present was one of the greatest needs in France for the proper feeding of the wounded soldiers and of the convalescents, Miss Patricia was arranging for the shipment of a herd of a hundred cows from the United States. As a matter of fact, she was supposed to be asking Captain Burton"s advice upon the subject, though Miss Patricia"s method of asking advice was merely to announce what she intended doing.
After watching the two older persons disappear toward the barn, which had been restored until it presented a very comfortable aspect, Peggy Webster glanced up from her knitting to look earnestly at her companion.
"How long do you intend remaining in France to continue with the reconstruction work, Vera?" she inquired.
Vera Lagerloff was sewing upon a dress for one of the children in the neighborhood, since few of them had clothing enough to keep them warm and comfortable in spite of all that was being done for them in the reclamation districts by an increasing force of American women and girls.
Vera"s eyes followed the direction Miss Patricia"s tall figure had just taken.
"I intend to stay on indefinitely until the war is over and afterwards if I feel I can be of more use here than anywhere else. A few days ago Miss Patricia told me that she would be very glad to pay my expenses, as she believed I was "a laborer worthy of my hire." What an extraordinary woman she is and how much she seems to get out of life, if not for herself, then certainly for other people! I shall never forget our first meeting and the way in which she then took hold of the situation. I think none of us will forget her recent devotion to Mrs. Burton. Any one of us would have been willing to do what she did, only no one would have had the courage or the intelligence."
Peggy nodded. "I have written mother pretty much the same thing you have just said. Certainly no one of our family can ever pay our debt to Aunt Patricia. Not that I should dare make the attempt!" Peggy added, smiling and looking a little anxiously at the sock she was about to finish. "But I wonder if I am envious of you, Vera, I mean of your planning to remain over here so long? Mother and father have written they would like me to come home as soon as I feel I am not especially needed and Tante has entirely recovered. They wish her to return as well, but I am by no means sure she will. There are moments of course when I am homesick and feel it my duty to be with my own people, now that Billy is gone and Dan has at last been permitted to volunteer. Then on the other hand, I naturally want to be in France while Ralph is here fighting. Have I told you that after Ralph"s visit to us at the farm my family has consented to our engagement. We have promised not to consider marrying until the war is over. I am not speaking of this to any of the other Camp Fire girls, Vera, only to you and Bettina. But I shall always think of you, even if the future should separate us for a long time, as if you were almost my sister. I suppose if Billy had lived you would have been my sister."