Chapter 18

THE EXPECTED HAPPENS

Miss Patricia Lord was on her way to the French village only a few miles from their farm house. Unless the call were urgent, rarely did Miss Patricia bestow her activities outside the environments of the farm, which of course included the house, garden, barns, fields, really a sufficient large sphere of activity even for her.

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 passing 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 pass 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'mère and Elise.

There was no restraint about Grand'mère'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 gratitude 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'mère. 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 pronounced 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 shell 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 shell 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.