rned to Ruth
and stared at her with very bright, black eyes.

She was a broad-faced woman, brown and hearty-looking, and with a more
intelligent appearance than many of the peasants Ruth had seen. She
wore sabots with her skirt tucked up to clear her bare ankles. Her
teeth were broad and strong and white, and she showed them well as she
smiled.

"The mademoiselle is _Americaine_?" she said. "Like these
_ambulanciers_? Ah! brave boys, these. And mademoiselle is of the
_Croix Rouge_, is it not?"

"I am working in the hospital at Clair," Ruth told her. "I am on my
way with supplies to a station nearer the front."

"_Ma foi_!" exclaimed Mother Gervaise. "This has been a bad business.
You will sup, Mademoiselle, yes?"

"I will, indeed. The accident has not taken away my appetite."

"Isn't it so? We must eat, no matter what next happens," said the
woman. "Me, now! I am alone. My whole family have been destroyed.
My husband and his brother--both have been killed. I had no children.
Now I think it is as well, for children are not going to have much
chance in France for years to come. All my neighbors have scattered,
too."

"Then you have always lived here? Even before the war?" Ruth asked.

"_Oui, Mademoiselle_. Always. I was born right in that corner yonder,
on a straw pallet. The best bed my mother had. We have grown rich
since those days," and she shrugged her shoulders.

"I was an only child and the farm and cot came to me. Of course, I had
plenty of the young men come to make love to me and my farm. I would
have none of that kind. Some said I went through the wood and picked
up a crooked stick after all. But Pierre and me--_ma foi_! We were
happy, even if the old father and Pierre's brother must come here to
live, too.

"The old father he die before the Germans come. I thank _le bon Dieu_
for that. Pierre and his brother were mobilized and gone before the
horde of _les Boches_ come along this road. I am here alone, then. I
begin making coffee and soup for them. Well, yes! They are men, too,
and become hungry and exhausted. I please them and they treat me well.
I learn what it means to make money--cash-money; and so I stay. Money
is good, Mademoiselle.

"I might have wished poison into their soup; but that would not have
killed them. And had I doctored it myself I would have been hung, and
been no better off. So I made friends," and she smiled grimly.

"But I learned how boa