The Living Present

en to soldier and her mother had died a few weeks before. She was an only child. The bakery had supplied not only the village but the neighboring inn, which had been a favorite lunching place

mixing and baking bread than he did of washing clothes; and there was but this one bakery, hitherto sufficient, for the baker and his wife had been

ought of

tion her shop window was piled high with loaves as usual. The inn was supplied. The village was supplied. This little girl wo

ke coffee-beans, foot-weary marching regiments, with no time to stop for a meal, halted a moment and bought the stock on hand. But wi

, was too thoroughly imbued with the discipline of "The Family" to shirk for a moment the particular task that war had brought her. This iron discipline of The Family, one of the most salient characteristics of the French, is largely responsible for

lways their husband's partners, controlling the money, consulted at ever step. When the tocsin rings and the men disappear they s

energies than the petite bourgeoise suffers, especially in those districts devastated by the first German invasion-the valle

lustrated early in the war by the highly typical case of a laun

hree months, suggested delicately that I leave a tip for the laundress, for, said this practical person, herself a sufferer from many forms of imposition, "she has been extremely complaisante in coming every week for Madame's wash." I remarked that the laundress might reasonably feel some gratitude to m

by Mrs. Armstrong Whitney, one of the many America

to bring the family washing to her door, nor even to send a servant. The linen was called for a

er patrons were already in the country and remained there, both for economy's sake and to encourage and help the poor of their villages and farms.

s suddenly thrown out of work, to take the place of the vanished men. The business limped on but it never ceased for a moment; and as the months passed it assumed a firmer gait. People returned from the country, finding that they could be more useful in Paris as members of one or other of a t

ess by no means swaggers, this woman, thanks to her indomitable courage and energy, combined with the economical habit and the fi