we passed, and then we knew that "our flag was still there" and
that we were near our troops.

The boys must be popular in the neighbourhood. For in the next
village, which by the way was a town of ten thousand, our American
Red Cross uniforms were treated with distinguished courtesy. Henry
wanted a match. He could talk no French but a little boy at the
inn, seeing him fumbling through his clothes with an unlighted
pipe, came running to us with a little blue box of matches. Henry
gave the boy a franc--more to be amiable than anything else. The
boy flashed home to his mother proud as Punch! And just as we were
pulling out of the village the boy came running to us with another
little blue box of matches. We thought the boy had discovered that
matches would bring a franc a box from Americans and was preparing
to make his fortune. So Henry took the box, and as the car was moving
handed the boy another franc. We noticed him waving his hands and
shaking his head. And when we were a mile out of the village Henry
opened his second box and found his original franc in it. The boy's
mother was ashamed that he should have taken any money for a box of
matches, and had made him bring back the money with another box to
show how much the French appreciate the Americans coming to France.
We met many instances like that.

Soon the road was cluttered up with American soldiers. They were
driving motors, whacking mules, stringing along the by-paths and
sweating copiously under the autumn sun. We wondered in passing
what an American farmer boy and his self-respecting mule thought
of the two-wheeled French carts they were using. Then we turned the
corner and came into a new view; we saw our first troop of American
soldiers quartered in a French village. They were busy building