Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"'Once upon a time I had a feller
Way down in Maine. AND
He took me home under his umbreller--'
"There is just one more I can do for you. I am a vairee little tired,
perhaps you are too. This song you have heard before tonight. I heard
this music playing it. Perhaps we can make them play it again. It was
Piqueur who told me this song. Piqueur is a vairee old gardener, who
once was a soldier. He fought in battle. He was hurt vairee much. His
head has nevaire been quite right since then. But some one taught him
to be a vairee good gardener and that made him forget how frightful
war had been. But in the spring, because spring makes all of us
remember when we were young, Piqueur would remember--war. He used to
tell me about it while we planted the garden. Early in the morning
when the sun was rising. And he would sing this song, in French of
course. It was Margot who told me what the words meant. You know them--
"Ye sons of France, awake to Glory!
Hark! Hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives and grandsires hoary--"
The violinist caught up his bow, the orchestra leader was on his feet.
Felicia was not smiling any more; her great eyes burned with
excitement; she saw Piqueur singing; she heard Piqueur trying to tell
her about war--she did not mute her whistle. She let it ring--
And after that they stood on their feet and whistled and sang and
cheered with her while she poured out her whole heart at them, gave
them her whole self until her tears blinded her and she turned and ran
away. To the blessed shelter of the wings where some one opened
comfortable arms and let her weep.
Nor could her rapturous audience get so much as even a little glimpse
of her again.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" called the chairman of the committee, "I beg
of you to be lenient. Mademoiselle Folly thanks you but she cannot
whistle any more tonight--she says--" he cleared his throat, "to thank
you--to tell you her lips and her heart are too much puckered up!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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