In the village streets snow-ball fights are in order. As soon as the boys start an offensive, all the inhabitants of the _Faubourg de France_ run out and put up their shutters. Better to sit in the dark while the battle rages than to risk a pane of precious window-glass! Yesterday out at Iloud the boys caught the Y Secretary, a meek and mild little man, in the road and started to give him a thorough pelting. He ran for the hut, they chased him, he gained his refuge, locked the door after him; they proceeded to heap about half a ton of snow against it, making it immovable. The unhappy man had to remove a window frame and crawl out through the opening, then spend the rest of the afternoon digging out his hut door. Here at our billet our little pea-green porcelain stove with the lavender thistles growing over it has proved to be more ornamental then useful. Since the Gendarme is one of your naturally efficient souls, I feel that such practical details as building fires belong to her. If she wishes to coax and cozen the wretched thing for an hour on end, well and good. As for me I prefer to go and hug the cook stove in Madame’s parlor. French fires don’t burn the way American fires do, I tell Madame. But to her the matter is quite simple. The stove, she says, doesn’t understand English. Today I met the sergeant of engineers. Some imp impelled me to question jovially; “Where’s that sled you promised me?” “It’s almost done.” My knees went weak beneath me. Tonight I confided my apprehensions to the Gendarme. She looked at me with an unpitying eye. “The more goose you, for encouraging him,” was her cold comfort. “What are you going to do about it?” “I’m going to pray for a thaw,” I told her. Bourmont, January 8. Life at the Maison Chaput doesn’t flow quite so peacefully these days as it did before Christmas. The disturbing factor is four-year old Max, left by his mother to visit his grandparents. Max is a spoiled child according to the Chaput point of view. He is expected to walk a chalk line with his little red felt toes, and failing this, he is spanked early and often. It is unlucky for him that the fagots by the hearth afford a continual supply of handy switches. “The little Jesus will never bring you anything again at Christmas,” warns Grandmamma; “never again! And neither will the _Père Nicolas_!” Then she appeals to me; “All the little children in America are always well-behaved, are they not?” “But yes, certainly!” I reply, avoiding Max’s eye.