In Canizy, one found always something new. It might be an obus, or a soldier en permission, or a family rÉfugiÉe, or a baraque. I learned to expect the unexpected. Having carefully negotiated with M. Lanne for certain timbers and chicken wiring which formed the basis for a roof of which I had need, I was prepared to see that they had vanished overnight, and to express neither surprise nor indignation when I was told that they were transformed into the foundation for Mme. Picard’s baraques. Having left glass, diamond cutter, putty, brads, and a list of those who needed the panes, I was not discouraged when week after week went by without M. Augustin’s cutting them. The fact that M. Noulin had brought the materials over in his cart, and held them on his premises, was doubtless reason enough why M. Augustin stayed his hand. At all events, it seemed wiser to leave the solution of this problem to the village; and the last I knew, it hinged on the return of a soldier en permission, a glazier by trade. He, all the world assured me, would actually out the glass!

The Noulins themselves were among my earliest surprises. How they came I know not, but one day I found the trio, father, mother and daughter, tidying up the premises they had rented from M. Huillard. The outermost room, from the walls of which still depended half-charred pictures, gaped to the sky. But this was used as a store-room for neatly stacked wood and fodder; within, the main room served as both kitchen and Épicerie; off it opened two bedrooms, and in the rear was a yard. The rooms were completely furnished and the yard stocked with hens and about thirty rabbits. In the stable stood a pony and a high-wheeled cart. All these goods had M. Noulin bought and brought back from CompiÈgne, whither he had fled at the outbreak of the war.

It was in the Épicerie, which we provisioned, that I came to look for most of the news of Canizy. Here, about the table, might sit drinking the Moroccans who were repairing the canal. Here Mme. Moulin thrust into my hand an account of our own Unit in her fashion journal of the month; an account glowing with undeserved praise of America and concluding with the words: “Heureux pays, oÙ sur les mairies des villages on pourrait Écrire: ‘Aide-toi, l’AmÉrique t’aidera.’ Plus heureuses AmÉricaines, qui peuvent et qui savent donner!”

Here she showed me a postal marked Deutschland, and bearing on its back the picture of a jovial-looking man in civilian dress. “It is my son,” explained Mme. Noulin. “He is a prisonnier militaire, and sends me this to show me how well he is. He writes, too, that he has plenty to eat, of sugar, of chocolate, and is always warm,—there is so much of coal! Think you it is true?”

On the table was lying a package, done up with many directions, all pointing to Germany. “What is this?” I asked. “That is for him; but the factrice could not take it to-day; such are her orders. No packages will be transported by Germany this week, or next, or who knows for how long? It is on account of a troop movement, she says.”

“But why then do you send, if he has no need?”

“There, what did I tell you?” broke in her husband. “Oh, these women; they have no minds! It is the enemy who sends the letters, that we may feel more bitterly the cold, the hunger, the misery, that we endure!”

It was at Mme. Noulin’s, in fine, that I first met M. l’AumÔnier.

A snowy, windy morning it was, and the glare and the smart in my eyes blinded me so that I did not at first note anything unusual about the blue-clad soldier sitting by the fire. Declining Madame’s invitation to share the open bottle of wine on the table, I was proceeding with my errand when she’ interrupted, “Mademoiselle, I want you to know that this is M. l’AumÔnier from Offoy, who takes an interest, like you, in Canizy.”

The chaplain arose at the informal introduction. A deprecatory smile became well his sensitive yet Roman features, and a quick flush heightened his colour. “But no,” he said, his enunciation betraying him a gentleman in spite of the plain uniform, “it is I who have been hearing of your goodness and that of your co-benefactresses, Mademoiselle.”

“Mademoiselle,” protested Mme. Noulin, “you should know that Monsieur walks from Offoy every morning before eight o’clock to conduct a class in the catechism in the church.”

“That matters nothing; it is my pleasure, I would say, duty. But you—you who have come from America to help my poor France, you who walk so much farther. I, I have legs trained for walking by long marches, by a soldier’s life——”

But I knew something of the duties of a military chaplain. Had I not seen the bare, dark infirmary where he comforted his invalided companions? Had I not visited the baraque called the Soldiers’ Library which was more or less in his charge; that cheerless hut with the books locked out of sight in one corner, and the directions for rifle practice confronting one on the wall? Could not one divine the battle charges when M. l’AumÔnier went forward in the ranks with his comrades, or stopped only to give them the sacrament as they fell? Did I not know the calls made upon him by the civilians also, now that he was en repos? A soldier’s life, indeed, has inured the military chaplains of the French army to hardships by contrast greater perhaps than any endured by the other soldiers of France.

I strove to stop him, to express to him something of my deep appreciation of this added burden he had taken on his shoulders in the spiritual care of the children of Canizy.

But he waved away all implied sacrifice. “It is a pleasure,” he repeated, “and the children are so good.”

Thereafter, M. l’AumÔnier became my most disinterested ally in our village. Did a mass seem desirable, the time was set late enough for me to reach it from the ChÂteau. What mattered it that thereby Monsieur did not breakfast till noon? When Mme. Gabrielle was still undecided over her distribution, he consented to lend his presence to the function, and thereby insured its success. He even undertook the responsibility of such a mundane matter as the cutting of the glass. Day after day, I met him in one family circle or another, making pastoral calls. Very different were those happy weeks to the villagers from the months preceding, when spiritual consolation came only with death. He seemed to find entrance into the hearts of the people, and they responded to his care as flowers to the sun.

Wherever M. l’AumÔnier went, went also a clean, blond soldier boy of twenty, who was studying to be a priest like his friend. He spoke English, which he had learned as a shipping clerk in an exporting house at Havre. “Our Colonel,” he explained, “is very much interested in the civilians, particularly in the children. He even sent one of his captains to Paris to buy warm clothing for every one of them in Offoy. He is a very rich man and very kind. He has detailed me to help M. l’AumÔnier all that I can.”

We were walking along the canal as we spoke, and the wind blew straight from the north. M. l’AumÔnier said something in a low voice, and the boy whipped off his scarf. “Yes, please, you are cold; you must take it,” and perforce the scarf was wound about my neck.

“How long are you to be here?” I asked, dreading to see this regiment pass back to the front.

“Me, I do not know. I have been wounded, you know; twice with the bayonet, and ten days ago I was gassed. The lungs pain me yet,—I cannot do much work.”

“You,” broke in his superior, “you, Mademoiselle, will go before we do—for you have told me that you leave soon for America. At least, you will have seen something, and can tell them there of the misery which France suffers.”

“But one sees so little,—the trenches, the battles, the hardships of the soldiers, I know nothing of these.”

“The trenches? There is little to see; is it not so, comrade? But this,” he swept his arm to indicate the circle of destruction all about us, “this you know. Tell them of the agony and of the fortitude of Picardy.”

We had come to the parting of our ways. Turning west, I was confronted by a winter sunset; bare branches, crimson streamers, cold lakes of turquoise; and bleak against this background, the ruins of Canizy. M. l’AumÔnier was right; of this one who has seen it cannot help to speak; of the terrible devastation, of the silent courage of those who live in it and fight, unheralded, their fight for France.