Girls -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
Then Keineth thought of a confession she must make.
"Is it dreadful, Daddy, but I have forgotten to be lonesome for Tante?
I am ashamed because I do not think of her oftener. Where do you
suppose she is?"
"I saw her, my dear! Think what a coincidence it was! When I was in
Paris one of the secretaries from the American Embassy took me around
to visit the soup kitchens they have opened up there to feed the needy
children of the soldiers at the front. At the very first one we went
into, a woman in charge came up to greet us--and it was good Madame
Henri! I might have known she'd be doing something like that! She knew
me, of course--the tears ran down her cheeks as she clasped my hand.
She couldn't say a word at first. She herself took us through the place
and as it was at noontime, we stayed to see her hungry family. It was a
sight I'll never forget--women, shivering in ragged clothing, with
babes in their arms and gaunt, unhappy faces and eyes that looked at
you as if they were eternally asking something and afraid to ask! Most
of them had some scrap of dingy crepe somewhere about them--had lost
their men at the battle-front! And little children gulping down the
hot soup as though they were starved! Tante said it was the only meal
most of them had during the day. After her work was over she and I went
into a little room to talk. I knew she wanted to ask me about you--'her
baby,' she called you. When I told her you were well and happy she
broke down and sobbed 'thank God!'
"She told me that her mother was dead and that her brother's wife and
her little family were on a farm in northern France. When they did not
need her longer she had gone to Paris to help.
"'Give her my love,' she said to me--I knew she meant you. 'Keep her
safe! It is my one comfort in these terrible days that she is not
suffering! I love America--but I can never go back--my work is here!' I
knew then that until the end Madame Henri would stick to her post and
help wherever she could do the most good. She is a noble woman!"
Keineth sighed. "It doesn't seem right to be so happy when others are
not," she said, troubled.
"But remember what she said--because you are happy is the one bright
spot in Madame Henri's life! So it may be with others; you can always
help someone."
"You couldn't do anything else at the Lees'," broke in Keineth,
"because Aunt Nellie is so kind and unselfish that we children are
terribly ashamed to be anything else! Daddy--" Keineth stopped short;
for the first time it crossed her mind that now that her daddy had come
back her visit at the Lees' would end. "Where will we live now, Daddy?"
He waited a moment before he answered.
"I am going to ask you to decide that for yourself, Keineth." Keineth
remembered then the night her father had made her decide between Aunt
Josephine and the Lees! How hard it had been!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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