However, in the beginning of February, we again had difficulties with soldiers, coming from the trenches. Twice a week they went through Morny with heavily laden carts. Oh, these convoys! Monday and Thursday, as early as four in the morning, the carts rattled through the village, and noisily shook their empty sides on the pavement. They stopped at the station where there were large stores of straw, and a few hours later went back to the front full to the brim. The farmers took great interest in these personages. Loads, drivers, and carts engrossed their attention. "Whatever those lazy-bones do," cried an old peasant, "is badly done, and ought not to be done." To tell the truth, there is an art of loading carts with straw. The first layers should be well placed and should make a solid foundation according to time-honoured rules. The Prussians' loads always stood awry, and threatened ruin as soon as they were erected. First one bundle tumbled over, a second followed, then at a turn of the road the whole pyramid sank to the ground, hurling the listless drivers headlong into a ditch. Nearly every time they came to fetch straw the loaders managed to let it fall, and we watched them rebuild carelessly another tottering heap, Of course these men were thirsty after their hard toil, and they stopped at every fountain to refresh ... their horses; as to themselves they drank anything but water. Such is, then, the way fifteen soldiers happened to come to our house to draw water from our pump. Many buckets had been pulled up, and the men did not go. They went up and down, laughed, opened one door, then another, ventured into the garden, peeped in at the windows. Geneviève went to encounter them. "Do you want anything?" "Nothing at all. We are pleased to stay here because there are pretty girls in the house," answered the sergeant in very good French. "Then, if there is no need for you to stay here, you had better go away; I want to lock the gate, we never keep it open." And the men withdrew. Colette, who watched the scene from upstairs, said afterwards: "It was very funny! You'd have thought that our sister was driving these fifteen big louts before her." No sooner were they in the street than the Germans gazed at one another. Did it not look as if they had been kicked out of doors! "Hullo! we are not people to be trifled with!" They soon gave proofs of it. Suddenly they flung themselves upon the windows, doors, walls. We were forced to give way, and my mother-in-law opened the gate. This compliance with their wishes did not abate the assailants' anger. They rushed into the yard, and poured forth worse volleys of abuse than ever an Apache of Montmartre could invent. "Ah," cried the sergeant, grinding his teeth in anger, "you are not tamed down here; you do not know what the Germans are! Come to Lierval; you will see there how the people have been curbed. They don't say anything now.... They hold their tongues, I warrant you...."