My Home in the Field of Honor. Frances Wilson Huard
last three weeks. That will you do if it lasts longer? It never hurts to have a supply on hand!"
"All my salt, sugar and gasoline has been put aside for the army. I was ordered to do that this morning—but come around to the back door and I'll see what I can do for you," said my amiable grocery-woman.
"That's pleasant," thought I. "No gasoline—no motor—no electricity! Privation is beginning early. But why grumble! We'll go to bed with the chickens and won't miss it!"
Madame Leger and I made out a long list of groceries and household necessities, and she set to work weighing and packing, and finally began piling the bundles into the trap drawn up close to her side door.
Our dear old Cesar must have been surprised by the load he had to carry home, but Elizabeth and I decided that a "bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and one never could tell what astonishing "order" to-morrow might bring forth.
How H. laughed when he saw us driving up the avenue.
"I didn't think you'd take me so literally," said he. "Why, war isn't even declared, and here we are preparing for a siege!"
"Never mind," I returned, "you must remember that there are twelve persons to feed, and we'll soon get away with all I've got here."
The afternoon was spent in arranging our apartments. For convenience sake, we decided to close part of the chateau and all live as near together as possible in one wing. The children and younger servants seemed to consider the whole as a huge joke—or rather, a prolonged picnic party, and the house rang with peals of jolly laughter.
Monday, the third, Elizabeth and I tackled the provisions which were piled high on the table in the servants' hall. A visit to the storeroom and a little calculation showed that there were sufficient groceries already on hand to last the month out.
"Very good," said I. "Now, the rest we'll divide into three even parts—that makes September, October and November assured. By that time we'll know what precautions to take!"
"Well, I should hope so!" came the smiling reply. And we set to work. It all recalled the days of my childhood when I used to play at housekeeping and would measure out on the scales of my dolls' house so much rice, so much flour, so much macaroni, etc. I could hardly believe I was in earnest.
We were right in the midst of our task when our gardeners appeared bearing between them a clothes basket full of plums.
"Madame, they can't wait a day longer. They're ready to cook now."
It was almost a disagreeable surprise, for we were already as busy as we could be. But there was no way of waiting, or the fruit would be spoiled.
"Is that all the plums?"
"Ah, no, Madame, there are fully two baskets more. And in a day or two the blackberries and black currants must be picked or they'll rot on the vines."
"Heaven preserve us!" thought I. "Will we ever come to the end of it all!" But by four o'clock the first basket of plums was stoned, the sugar weighed, and a huge copper basin of confiture was merrily boiling on the stove.
"Where are you going to hide your provisions now you've got them so beautifully tied up?" enquired H., his eyes twinkling.
"Hide them?"
"Yes!"
"What for?"
"In case of invasion."
We all simply shook with laughter.
"Well, if the Germans ever reach here there won't be much hope for us all," I returned.
"No, but joking aside; suppose we suddenly get the French troops quartered on us, are you calmly going to produce your stock, let it be devoured in a day or so, and remain empty-handed when they depart? You see, it isn't the little fellows who'll suffer. A big place like this with all its rooms and its stables is just the spot for a camp!"
That idea had never dawned upon us, and we set to thinking where we could securely hide our groceries in three different places. Finally it was agreed that one part should be put back of the piles of sheets in the linen closet; the second part hidden on the top shelf of a very high cupboard in my dressing-room with toilet articles grouped in front of it; while the third was carried up a tiny flight of stairs to the attic and there pushed through a small opening into the dark space that leads to the beams and rafters. It was all so infantile that we clapped our hands and were as happy as kings when we had discovered such a good cachette.
Night was coming on as I stood pouring the last of the plum jam into the glasses lined up along the kitchen table. Berthe had counted nearly a hundred, and I was seriously thinking of adopting jam-making as a profession, when with much noise and trumpeting, a closed auto whisked up the avenue and stopped before the entrance. I hurried to the kitchen door, untying my apron as I ran, arriving just as an officer jumped from the motor, and before I had time to recognize him in his new uniform, Captain Gauthier rushed forward, exclaiming:
"I've come to fetch Elizabeth and the children!"
The others, too, had heard the motor, and in an instant there was quite an assembly in the courtyard.
"I had great difficulty leaving Paris at all. My passport is only good until midnight," the captain was explaining as his wife and H. appeared, and almost without time for greeting. "Make haste," he continued, turning to Madame Gauthier. "We must be off in a quarter of an hour, or our machine will never reach town on time."
I hurried with Elizabeth to her apartment, where we woke and dressed two very astonished children, while the little maid literally threw the toilet necessities and a few clothes into a huge Gladstone bag.
"Leon evidently doesn't think us safe down here! You'd better come, too," murmured Elizabeth as we went downstairs.
In the meantime, H. had questioned our friend as to what had transpired in Paris within the last twenty-four hours.
"England will probably join us—and there is every possibility of Italy's remaining neutral," he announced, as we made our appearance. And then—"You must come to Paris. You're too near the front here," he continued, as he piled wife, babies and servant into the taxi.
And so, with hardly time for an adieu, the motor whisked away as it had come, leaving H. and me looking beyond it into the night.
When I returned to the pantry, I found Nini weeping copiously. Imagining she had become frightened by the sudden departure of our friends, I was collecting my wits to console and reassure her, when she burst forth, "Oh, Madame—Madame—the pates—"
"Well?"
"The lovely pates!—all burned to cinders! Such a waste!"
In our excitement we had forgotten to take from the oven two handsome Pates de lievre of which I was more than duly proud. And as Nini expressed it, they were burned to cinders. How H. chuckled at our first domestic mishap.
"Fine cooks, you are," said he, turning to Berthe and Nini, who hung their heads and blushed crimson. "And it's to you that I'm going to entrust Madame when I leave!"
Tuesday, the fourth, the drum rolled at an early hour and the garde-champetre announced the declaration of war. It was not news to anyone, for all had considered the mobilization as the real thing.
We were breakfasting when we heard a strange rumbling up the road. It was such a funny noise—midway between that of a steam roller and a threshing machine—that we both went out towards the lodge to see what was passing by. We were not a little surprised on perceiving our gendarmes sitting in an antiquated motor, whose puffing and wheezing betokened its age. They stopped when they saw us, and after exchanging greetings, laughingly poked fun at their vehicle—far less imposing than their well-groomed horses, but the only thing that could cover between seventy and eighty miles a day! From them we learned that the mobilization was being carried out in perfection, and in all their tours to outlying villages and hamlets not a single delinquent had been found—not a single man was missing! All