For His Country, and Grandmother and the Crow

FOR HIS COUNTRY.

"My country! 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing!"

Here the singer's voice broke down, and I peered curiously around my corner of the wall. He was pacing to and fro on the river-bank--a weary-faced lad with pale cheeks and drooping shoulders. Beyond him a fat French footman lay asleep on the grass, one hand loosely clutching a novel. An elderly goat, grazing nearer and nearer the man, kept a wary eye on the book, and finally seizing it, devoured it leaf by leaf. At this the weary-faced boy did not smile, and then I knew there was something the matter with him.

Partly because I wished to console him, partly because I was lonely, I continued the song in notes rather more cheerful than his own:

"Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring!"

The boy stood stock-still, only moving his head slightly after the manner of a bird listening to a pleasant strain. When I finished he came toward me, cap in hand.

"Mademoiselle, you are an American?"

"No, my boy. I am a Canadian."

"That's next best," he said, politely.

"It's better," I rejoined, smiling.

"Nothing is better than being an American."

"You are patriotic," I observed.

"If your ancestors fought with Indians, and English and rebels, and if you expect to die for your country, you ought to be patriotic."

I surveyed him curiously. He was too grave and joyless for a boy in a normal condition. "In youth one does not usually speak of dying," I said.

His face flushed. "Ah, mademoiselle, I am homesick! I have not seen America for a year."

"Indeed? Such a patriotic boy should stay at home."

"My mother wished me to finish my education abroad."

"A woman should educate her children in the country in which they are to live," I said, irritably.

"I guess you're most old enough to be my mother, aren't you?" he replied, gently, and with such tenderness of rebuke that I smiled irrepressibly. He had delicately intimated that if I were his mother I would not care to have him discuss me with a stranger.

"I've got to learn foreign languages," he said, doggedly. "We've been here one year; we must stay one more and then go to Italy, then to Germany. I'm thankful the English haven't a different language. If they had, I'd have to go learn it."

"And after you leave Germany?"

"After Germany--home!"

He was not a particularly handsome lad, but he had beautiful eyes, and at the word home they took on such a strange brilliance that I gathered up my parasol and books in wondering silence.

"I suppose," he said, soberly, "that you will not be at the Protestant church on Sunday?"

"Probably I shall."

"I don't see many people from America," he went on, turning his head so far away that I could hardly hear what he said. "There isn't anybody here who cares to talk about it. My mother, of course, is too busy," he added, with dignity.

"_Au revoir_, then," I said, with a smile.

He stood looking quietly after me, and when I got far up the river-bank I turned around. He was adjusting a slight difference between the footman and the goat; then, followed by the man, he disappeared up one of the quaint old streets leading into the heart of the city.

Close beside me a little old peasant woman, gathering sticks, uncurled her stooping figure. "_Bon jour, mademoiselle!_ You have been talking to the American boy."

"_Oui, madame._"

"It is very sad," she continued, in the excellent French spoken by the peasants of the Loiret department. "He comes by the river and declaims. He speaks of Linkum and Wash'ton. I watch from my cottage, for my daughter Mathilde is housemaid at Madame Greyshield's, and I hear her talk. Monsieur le colonel Greyshield is a grand officer in America; but his wife, she is proud. She brings her children to France to study. She leaves the poor man lonely. This boy is most heartbroke. Mathilde says he talks of his dear country in his sleep, then he rises early to study the foreign languages, so he can more quickly go to his home. But he is sick, his hand trembles. Mathilde thinks he is going to die. I say, 'Mathilde, talk to madame,' but she is afraid, for madame has a will as strong as this stout stick. It will never break. It must be burnt. Perhaps mademoiselle will talk."

"I will, if I get a chance."

The old woman turned her brown, leathery face toward the blue waters of the Loire. "Mademoiselle, do many French go to America for the accent?"

"No; they have too much sense!"

"It is droll," she went on, "how the families come here. The gentlemen wander to and fro, the ladies occupy themselves with their toilettes. Then they travel to other countries. They are like the leaves on that current. They wander they know not whither. I am only a peasant, yet I can think, and is not one language good enough to ask for bread and soup?" And muttering and shaking her head, she went on gathering her sticks.

On Sunday I looked for my American boy. There he was, sitting beside a handsomely dressed woman, who looked as if she might indeed have a will like a stout stick. After the service he endeavoured to draw her toward me, but she did not respond until she saw me speaking to a lady of Huguenot descent, to whom I had had a letter of introduction. Then she approached, and we all went down the street together.

When we reached the boulevard leading to my hotel, the boy asked his mother's permission to escort me home. She hesitated, and then said, "Yes; but do not bore her to death with your patriotic rigmaroles."

The boy, whose name was Gerald, gave her a peculiar glance, and did not open his lips until we had walked a block. Then he asked, deliberately, "Have you ever thought much of that idea of Abraham Lincoln's that no man is good enough to govern another man without the other man's consent?"

"Yes, a good deal; yet one must obey."

"Yes, one must obey," he said, quietly. "But sometimes it is puzzling, especially when a fellow is growing up."