The
Little One, she loves us. That is the difference; do you see?"
It was all the difference--a wide difference; she loved them all, with
the warmth and fire of her young heart, for the sake of France and of
their common Flag. And though she was but a wild, wayward, mischievous
gamin,--a gamin all over, though in a girl's form,--men would tell in
camp and hospital, with great tears coursing down their brown, scarred
cheeks, how her touch would lie softly as a snowflake on their heated
foreheads; how her watch would be kept by them through long nights of
torment; how her gifts of golden trinkets would be sold or pawned as
soon as received to buy them ice or wine; and how in their delirium
the sweet, fresh voice of the child of the regiment would soothe them,
singing above their wretched beds some carol or chant of their own
native province, which it always seemed she must know by magic; for,
were it Basque or Breton, were it a sea-lay of Vendee or a mountain-song
of the Orientales, were it a mere, ringing rhyme for the mules of
Alsace, or a wild, bold romanesque from the country of Berri--Cigarette
knew each and all, and never erred by any chance, but ever sung to every
soldier the rhythm familiar from his infancy, the melody of his mother's
cradle-song and of his first love's lips. And there had been times when
those songs, suddenly breaking through the darkness of night, suddenly
lulling the fiery anguish of wounds, had made the men who one hour
before had been like mad dogs, like goaded tigers--men full of the
lusts of slaughter and the lust of the senses, and chained powerless and
blaspheming to a bed of agony--tremble and shudder at themselves, and
turn their faces to the wall and weep like children, and fall asleep, at
length, with wondering dreams of God.
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