The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France

CHAPTER V

Armistice Day in Paris

It was shortly before eleven o’clock on the morning of November eleventh when the bells of Paris began pealing.

The following instant a group of young American girls who had been seated about a tiny fire in a large, bare room, jumped hurriedly to their feet.

“It has come at last, the Germans have signed the armistice! Vive la paix!” one of them exclaimed.

Her words were almost drowned in the noise of the firing of guns, the thunder of cannon, noises to which Paris had been listening for the past four years in bitterness, but which she now heard with rejoicing.

“Let us start out at once, Aunt Patricia, to take part in the celebration before the streets become too crowded,” Peggy Webster suggested. “What luck to be in Paris today! I should rather be here than in any city in the world at the present time, for surely the city which has suffered most through the war must rejoice most!”

As she finished speaking, Peggy walked over to a window and flung it open. Already they could hear the sounds of cheering. Below Peggy could see people running into the street, windows of other houses being thrown open. Voices were calling, vive, vive everything, except, “la guerre.”

“Isn’t it a pity Tante is not with us? We shall miss her more than ever today,” Bettina added. “Yet I am glad she is not too ill to feel the deepest thankfulness even if she cannot take part in the celebration and we may manage to see her later this afternoon. Aunt Patricia, do you feel equal to going with us? The crowds may make you overtired. Don’t worry, we promise to be as careful as possible, but do let us hurry. I feel as if I could scarcely bear the four walls of a house ten minutes longer. I want to shout, weep, laugh over victory. Glorious France, how much she has suffered and how much she has won!”

“Nevertheless, Bettina Graham, there is no reason to talk in such a high-flown fashion,” Miss Patricia Lord returned, “as if you were making a speech on one of the boulevards. I think we had better be saying our prayers. Just the same please be quiet a moment while I try to think; the noise outside is sufficient without your increasing it. I am afraid it will not be safe for you Camp Fire girls to go out into the streets for at least another twenty-four hours. But most certainly I shall go, however, I will return as promptly as possible to let you know what I have seen.”

At this instant Miss Patricia removed the large horned spectacles, through which she had been reading the morning paper, and wiped the moisture from them carefully. She then wiped her eyes, but entirely unconscious of what she was doing.

Nevertheless, she may have remained unaware of the expressions upon the faces of the half dozen girls who were her present companions.

At this moment an arm encircled her waist.

“Really, truly, Aunt Patricia, you don’t think we can stay indoors when all the rest of Paris is rejoicing? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to ask it of us, you who have preached courage in the time of war, would not have us turn cowards with the approach of peace?”

And Mary Gilchrist looked imploringly into Miss Patricia’s fine eyes, wise enough not to appear to notice their unusual moisture.

“You come with us, Aunt Patricia, and I think we shall manage to keep together and not to lose either our heads or our way. Remember we made a safe retreat to Paris when the Huns believed they were soon to follow after us and take possession of the city.”

As Mary Gilchrist had just announced, it was true that a number of months before, after an arduous retreat, first from their farmhouse on the Aisne and later from the Château Yvonne, the Camp Fire girls and their guardians had arrived safely in Paris. During the following summer months they had lived in a French pension not far from the Place de la Concorde, while the long range German guns vainly endeavored to frighten the city with a sense of her impending doom.

At present neither Mrs. Burton nor Sally Ashton was with their Camp Fire group in the pension. Soon after their arrival, not having recovered sufficiently from her wound to endure the long strain and fatigue of the retreat, Mrs. Burton had again been seriously ill. By her surgeon’s advice she had been removed to a hospital nearby, where she had been for the past few months, and although by this time a great deal better, she had not yet rejoined her friends.

Sally Ashton, without appearing to be actually ill and indeed always denying every suggestion of illness, had never from the day of the retreat from the farmhouse been like her former self. Six weeks before, influenced more by Miss Patricia’s wish than the doctor’s orders, she had departed for rest and quiet to a little house in the country a few hours journey from town.

At this moment, following Mary Gilchrist’s words, the Camp Fire girls formed an imploring circle about their chaperon, Miss Patricia Lord, who, in Mrs. Burton’s absence, had no one to dispute her authority.

Never to appear actually to oppose Miss Patricia, the girls had learned to be the better part of wisdom, therefore the present moment was fraught with danger. To disobey Miss Patricia’s wish, which might at any moment be translated into a command, would be disagreeable and perchance succeeded by uncomfortable consequences. However, not to see Paris in her carnival of joy and to share in the celebration was not to be considered.

And in all probability Miss Patricia had always appreciated this fact.

“Oh, very well,” she conceded with unexpected suddenness, “and do get ready as soon as possible. I have only to put on my bonnet. In truth I have been prepared for this moment ever since our arrival in France. Have I not always insisted that victory was always a mere question of time!”

A few moments later the throngs in the streets of Paris were increased by the presence of the half dozen American Camp Fire girls and Miss Lord.

Perhaps not much more than a half an hour had passed since the announcement of the signing of the armistice and yet already a multitude had appeared out of doors. Paris was happy and expressing her happiness as only Paris can.

The air was filled with cheers, with snatches of songs, not so frequent the “Marseillaise,” as “Madelon,” the song of the poilus, since it was the French soldier who had brought victory to glorious France.

Through the crowds Miss Patricia engineered the way, Yvonne Fleury clinging to one arm, Mary Gilchrist to the other, while behind them followed Vera Lagerloff and Alice Ashton and next came Bettina Graham and Peggy Webster.

As the crowd in their neighborhood was moving toward the Place de la Concorde there was no choice but to move with it.

In the Place de la Concorde, filled with statues commemorative of French history, the girls observed a vast mass of waving flags. Here all the trophies of war had been placed. Soldiers and young girls were climbing on the big guns, shouting, laughing, kissing one another.

Save for Miss Patricia’s leadership the Camp Fire girls would never have moved on with so little difficulty. Like a happy grenadier she marched with her head up and her old eyes flashing. France had no greater admirer than the elderly American spinster.

A French soldier, leaning over to kiss Mary Gilchrist, who was gazing upward and unconscious of him, found Miss Patricia’s hand suddenly interposed between his lips and Mary’s face. Being a Frenchman, he had the grace gallantly to kiss Miss Patricia’s hand and then to march off laughing at the joke on himself.

Finally the little group of Americans found themselves in a temporary shelter near the statue of Alsace-Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde. From the close of the Franco-Prussian war this statue of an heroic figure of a woman, representing the lost provinces, had been draped in mourning. Today the mourning had been torn away and the statue smothered in flowers.

It chanced that Bettina Graham and Peggy Webster were crowded close against the railing surrounding the statue.

“Peggy,” Bettina whispered, “I want to add my little tribute to France’s victory after forty years of waiting for the return of her provinces. I have nothing to offer but this little bunch of violets I have been wearing all morning. And certainly they are a faded tribute! Still there is no chance of getting any other flowers today.”

“Oh, never mind, it is the sentiment after all, isn’t it, Bettina? The tribute is no tinier than the effort we Camp Fire girls have been making in the last year to help France. It is simply that we have given all we had to give,” Peggy returned.

While she was speaking, Bettina had unfastened a large bunch of Roman violets, which she was wearing at her waist, and was leaning over the railing trying to find a place for her small bouquet. At the same instant a hand, holding an enormous bunch of red and white roses encircled with deep blue forget-me-nots, was thrust above her head.

Flushing at the contrast, Bettina hurriedly dropped her violets and glanced upward.

Behind her was a young man, evidently an American, although not a soldier, as he was not wearing a uniform.

“I beg your pardon, I hope I have not interfered with you,” an American voice apologized.

But before Bettina was able to do more than shake her head, there was an unexpected movement in the crowd and she and Peggy were again pushed onward.

A few feet ahead Miss Patricia was looking back and signaling. They could see that a girl had been lifted on the shoulders of two soldiers. The crowd was now following them.

When the girl began singing, the crowd became quieter. Her voice was clear and beautiful; she was singing the “Marseillaise,” then snatches of Allied songs.

Evidently the girl, whom the soldiers were bearing along in triumph, was some celebrated artist, who was giving the best she had to give to the people as her tribute to France. And the crowd now and then sang with her, whatever words of whatever national song they knew.

Finally toward dusk, the Camp Fire girls and Miss Patricia found themselves returning to the neighborhood of their pension. Lights were beginning to shine along the boulevards, when Paris until tonight had been in darkness for nearly four long years.

At a street corner where the crowd had thinned, Miss Patricia waited with Yvonne and Myra until the other four girls had caught up with them.

“You girls, can make your way home from here alone, can’t you?” she inquired. “I really must see Polly Burton before this day is past. I must say a few words to her else I shall never feel the day’s celebration has satisfied me.”

“Of course, Aunt Patricia, but since we all feel exactly as you do, why not let us go with you?” Peggy answered.

Soon after the Camp Fire girls and Miss Lord found Mrs. Burton seated by a window in her hospital bedroom, holding a little book in her hand and, except that she was pale from the excitement of the day, looking extraordinarily well.

“Oh, I never, never, never have been so glad to see people before!” she cried, jumping up and embracing Miss Patricia. “If you only knew what it has meant to stay here in a hospital with my nose glued against the window pane, when all the world is going mad with joy, you would be truly sorry for me. I think I should have tried to make my escape, if my doctor had not telephoned me I was not to think of going out for a moment. I suppose, Aunt Patricia, you managed to telephone him this instruction last night because you imagined the armistice would be signed today. But please everybody tell me at once just what you have seen and done.”

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1

See “The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor.”