When they had finished their discussion, Father Duprey said, “Your plan will also keep the children out of the fields till the German land mines have been cleared up.” The following few days there was a great hubbub in the loft of the Gagnon barn. Children’s voices rang out. And music billowed over the rooftops. Early one morning, Father Duprey summoned André. Victor appeared with his cart, and with the priest and André jogged off, behaving mysteriously, to talk to the mayor of Ste. Mère Église. Bastille Day, Friday, July 14th, was the next day. By sunrise that morning all the little villages near Ste. Mère were alive with activity. Mothers bustled breakfast into their families and packed up lunch baskets. Older sisters swept the family’s best clothes, all nicely aired, over the heads of the younger children. Then mothers and big sisters pulled and twisted themselves into their own gayest Normandy dresses. Fathers put on the dark suits they had been married in. And all over the peninsula the French tricolor flags, which had been hidden away, flew in great flapping bursts of triumph from every house. All churchbells that had survived the bombing began to ring soon after the sun was up. In the Gagnon house, Maman was scurrying about, her own silk dress rustling as excitedly as she was. Marie, too, rustled in her new pale-yellow parachute gown. Old cars had been rolled out of sheds where they had been hidden, and somehow brought to life. They began to ease into the busy military traffic and headed for Ste. Mère. Carts, bright with flags and flowers, and loaded with chattering villagers, thronged the roads. Father Duprey and M. Blanc had gone to Ste. Mère still earlier in a borrowed car. In good time, Victor, Mme. Lescot, and their daughter showed up at the Gagnon door with La Fumée. The fat Percheron whinnied when André led the family out to jam themselves into the cart. When La Fumée entered the outskirts of Ste. Mère the town was already aflame with a noisy celebration. Victor found a spot where La Fumée could be hitched to a post with a pail of water beside her. In the heart of Ste. Mère Église the square was a churning mass of people. But in a cleared space in the center of the green, officials and police were arranging things in an orderly way. There was a flag-draped table on a raised platform, and rows of chairs for special personages stood in a square. At one side of the table, dignitaries were gathering. At the other side, M. Blanc and the Ste. Mère music master were herding the children who were to sing, into neat rows. Running to join the children, André saw uniformed French officers in a group among the dignitaries. All eyes were upon them. Farther back stood a company of about a hundred American soldiers. Marie went to join Leon, Jacquard, and the other Maquis who had been able to come.