now, a strange and jagged thing of twisted
branches, as though it had died in agony. She stood there while the
pony nuzzled her gently. If she called, would he come? But, then, all
of life was one call now, for her. She went on slowly.

After that it was not unusual for her to go to the trenches, on such
nights as no men could come to the little house. Always she was joyously
welcomed, and always on her way back she turned to send from the poplar
trees that inarticulate aching call that she had come somehow to
believe in.

January, wet and raw, went by; February, colder, with snow, was half
over. The men had ceased to watch for Henri over the parapet, and his
brave deeds had become fireside tales, to be told at home, if ever
there were to be homes again for them.

Then one night Henri came back--came as he had gone, out of the shadows
that had swallowed him up; came without so much as the sound of a
sniper's rifle to herald him. A strange, thin Henri, close to
starvation, dripping water over everything from a German uniform, and
very close indeed to death before he called out.

There was wild excitement indeed. Bearded private soldiers, forgetting
that name and rank of his which must not be told, patted his thin
shoulders. Officers who had lived through such horrors as also may not
be told, crowded about him and shook hands with him, and with each other.

It was as though from the graveyard back in the fields had come, alive
and smiling, some dearly beloved friend.

He would have told the story, but he was wet and weary.

"That can wait," they said, and led him, a motley band of officers and
men intermixed, for once forgetting all decorum, toward the village.
They overtook the lines of men who had left the trenches and were moving
with their slow and weary gait up the road. The news spread through the
column. There were muffled cheers. Figures stepped out of the darkness
with hands out. Henri clasped as many as he could.

When with his escort he had passed the men they fell, almost without
orders, into columns of four, and swung in behind him. There was no
band, but from a thousand throats, yet cautiously until they passed the
poplar trees, there gradually swelled and grew a marching song.

Behind Henri a strange guard of honor--muddy, tired, torn, even
wounded--they marched and sang:

Trou la la, ca ne va guere;
Trou la la, ce ne va pas.

Sara Lee, listening for that first shuffle of many feet t