work," said
Frank. "Where do you suppose those chaps came from?"

"I don't know--that's exactly what's puzzling me," said Henri, his brow
knitted. "They don't look like reserve troops. I don't know exactly why,
either, but we can soon find out."

They bathed and dressed hurriedly, and went down to find that Marie, the
cook who had been with the Martin family ever since Henri could
remember, was ready to give them their breakfast. In a time when many
families for reasons of economy were allowing their servants to go,
Henri's mother had kept all of hers.

"Now, more than ever," she said, "they need the work and the wages. It
is a time for those who can possibly afford it to engage more servants,
rather than to discharge those they have already in their employ and
service."

Madame Martin, who, like Henri's aunt in Paris, was busy all day long in
helping the wounded, doing voluntary duty in the Red Cross hospital to
which she had been assigned, was not yet up. She had greeted the two
boys on their arrival the previous evening, but had left the house
immediately after dinner, since it was her turn to do some night work.

"She is wearing herself out," complained old Marie. "A fine lady like
her dressing the wounds of piou-pious, indeed!"

Frank laughed. He knew by this time what piou-piou meant. It is the
endearing term of the French for the little red-trousered soldiers who
form the armies of the republic, just as the English call a soldier
Tommy Atkins.

"It is for France," said Henri, gravely. "I shall perhaps be a piou-piou
myself before so very long, Marie."

"You will be an officer, will you not?" exclaimed Marie.

"It may be. I do not know," said Henri. "But the best and the greatest
men in France, those who govern us and write books and plays, and paint
pictures, and make fine statues, are in the ranks to-day. It is a
privilege even for my mother to nurse them."

"All very well--but I won't have her getting all tired out," grumbled
Marie. "Your father told me himself, when he went off, to look after
her. And I'm going to do it."

"Where did the soldiers who are in the park come from?" asked Henri,
changing the subject.

"Who knows? They come, they stay a few hours or a day, then they go, and
others take their places! More soldiers have been in Amiens than I knew
were in the world! We had some English--strange, mad men, who wore
dresses to their knees and had music that sounded like a dozen cats
fight