On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

He reddened, stammered a bit, and finally said:  “After all I am French at heart.  Had England fought any other nation but France in a war in which France was not concerned it would have been different, but since England and France are fighting together what difference can it make if my heart turned to the land where I was born?”

Isn’t the naturalization question delicate?

I could not help asking myself how England looked at the matter.  I don’t know.  She has winked at a lot of things, and a great many more have happened of late about which no one has ever thought.  There are any number of officers in the English army today, enrolled as Englishmen, who are American citizens, and who either had no idea of abandoning their country, or were in too much of a hurry to wait for formalities.  I am afraid all this matter will take on another color after “this cruel war is over.”

This boy looked prosperous, and in no need of anything but kind words in English.  He did not even need cigarettes.  But I saw him turn his eyes frequently towards the library, and it occurred to me that he might want something to read.  I asked him if he did, and you should have seen his eyes shine,—­and he wanted English at that, and beamed all over his face at a heap of illustrated magazines.  So I was able to send him away happy.

The result was, early the next morning two more of them arrived—­a tall six-footer, and a smaller chap.  It was Sunday morning, and they had real, smiling Sunday faces on.  The smaller one addressed me in very good English, and told me that the sergeant had said that there was an American lady who was willing to lend the soldiers books.  So I let them loose in the library, and they bubbled, one in English, and the other in French, while they revelled in the books.

Of course I am always curious about the civil lives of these lads, and it is the privilege of my age to put such questions to them.  The one who spoke English told me that his home was in London, that he was the head clerk in the correspondence department of an importing house.  I asked him how old he was, and he told me twenty-two; that he was in France doing his military service when the war broke out; that he had been very successful in England, and that his employer had opposed his returning to France, and begged him to take out naturalization papers.  He said he could not make up his mind to jump his military service, and had promised his employer to return when his time was up,—­then the war came.

I asked him if he was going back when it was over.

He looked at me a moment, shook his head and said, “I don’t think so.  I had never thought of such a thing as a war.  No, I am too French.  After this war, if I can get a little capital, I am going into business here.  I am only one, but I am afraid France needs us all.”

You see there again is that naturalization question.  This war has set the world thinking, and it was high time.

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Project Gutenberg
On the Edge of the War Zone from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.