"Are they afraid of an operation?" said the specialist. "It's his only chance." He handed me a silver funnel to wash.

"No, no, no; she 's all right. Do you notice that the daddy went away? Women don't need suffrage in France. They 've virtually had it since seventy.'

"If we have to take him to the hospital, are you willing, Madame?" I asked.

"Oui, Madame." Her eyes were tearless, and the voice was steady.

"It means an operation, you know."

"I understand. They will let me come? O Madame, I am bold; you will come with me?"

"What is she saying?" asked the doctor.

"She is a brick," I exclaimed. "My soul! the mothers of France!"

I bundled the boy up and took him in my arms.

The fellow in the next bed called François "mon vieux," and as the mother and I left, he was telling François cheerily:

"Thou art lucky, little one, to be in this hospital. The Americans are our brothers. After the war I shall go to the United States to get Yankeefied myself."

The next day I was going into the wards with the Red Cross searcher, Miss Crump, to read to the patients. I saw

"Come, Sonny," I said, "the doctors are going to give us a ride in their automobile. Mother is coming, too. We are going to take you to the hospital to stop the pain. They have lemon-drops there. Do you know what lemon-drops are?"

At the receiving-office two orderlies arranged François on a stretcher, and gave his pillow and blanket back to his mother. Three or four Poilus stood smoking at the door. I explained to them about François and brought them over to talk to him and his mother.

"You are a soldier?" asked one. "Poilus are well off in this house," said another.

I was giving name, age, etc., to a sergeant at a desk. He came to a place where the printed slip said rank.

"Ask him what rank he wants to have," I called to one of the French soldiers.

Even his mother laughed when the little fellow answered promptly:

"Me? I'm a lieutenant-Lieutenant François Clouette." He took my hand and smiled.

"Of a will power," his mother had said. We put François in a ward with Poilus.

François about noon. They had put him in a private room with a special nurse. He was just coming out of the ether, and recognized me. Poor lamb! the operation had been one of the worst known to ear surgeons.

Ten days later I went to the hospital to be present at a consultation on François's case. The incision was healing nicely, but François was coughing. Was it pneumonia, or were we up against an abscess in the lung?

"I am glad you came," said the major. "You can tell madame straight about François. She 's been here with him ever since his operation. All I can make out is that the woman sincerely appreciates what we are doing for the boy. Do you know," he continued, "if she had to pay for this care in a big city back home, it would cost her a huge sum."

"Uncle Sam's pockets are deep, and the hearts of his nephews are very warm," I said. "Doctor, if you save this boy, it will be a feather in your cap, and do you realize what good propaganda for America. that will be?"

"A physician is never inspired by any other thought than saving his case," responded the major, gravely. "His reward is having the opportunity to fight for a human life."

François's day nurse came in with another doctor. She had been out to the tent hospital to get the tuberculosis man.

The doctors began their consultation. Half an hour later, Major Gracy turned to me and said:

"It is not pneumonia, and there will be no further trouble from the ear. Pus has got into the lung. A new abscess is there. Tell madame."

"Will he pull through?"

"We do not know."

"you and I know we have a very sick little boy here."

The two doctors stood quietly watching me as I translated their opinion.

"I know, I know, Madame. Was I not here during those five dreadful hours yesterday when he was unconscious? Did madame hear Prinquiau church bell this morning? The curé will say nine prayers for him to-day."

"She is a wonder, that little mother," said Major Gracy; "but there is no use telling her yet that the child is clearly the product of alcoholic stock, and therefore is virtually sure to get tuberculosis, if not immediately, then later. It's fifty-fifty whether we can save him now. father's apple-jack will do for him later. Oh, the ravages of Brittany alcohol!"

His

François's bird-claw hand fluttered toward his throat. Around the bandaged head lay a rosary; his mother fixed it for him. He wheezed and coughed and tried to speak. He looked at Major Gracy and held out his hand. Then he spoke.

"Dites, mon vieux," said he, "donne-moi une cigarette!"

"What's that?" said the major.

The next time I saw François he made his mother give him his toy basket from the window-sill. He fished around in the basket and found a box. With trembling hands he opened it.

"Look, Madame! One, two, three, four. Every time I don't cry when the major dresses my head he gives me a cigarette. I'll light them when I get home."

"André sat up with François last night to let me sleep," said Mme. Clouette. "André says he won't be a curate when he grows up. He wants to be an American, because they have cigarettes."

"I can't let the major get ahead of me, François," I said, "I'll give you a cigarette because I love you. Help yourself."

"A silver case is better than a pasteboard box. I 'll keep that, too."

His mother gasped. I beckoned to her. We went into the corridor.

"Let him have it, Madame," I urged. "We don't dare cross him if we can help it while he has that temperature."

François lingered all summer. An abscess developed in a tooth, which had to be extracted; then another formed on the leg. Week after week we did not know. In August fifty-fifty changed to forty-sixty, and then to thirty-seventy, with François on the winning side.

September found the boy living in a tent. In the daytime his bed was out in the sunshine. He was still pitifully thin, but his cheeks were rosy, and the bandages had gone. He had a whole box of lemondrops always on his table now, and could eat two every day. American soldiers love kids. They spoiled François lavishly. He told me that one day his friend the aviator came coasting down the clouds and did the loop-the-loop for him. "Just up there," he cried, pointing with a finger that was steady now.