Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 2.djvu/503



ST. NICHOLAS

THE TOMBOY FROM BORDEAUX

BY KATHERINE DUNLAP CATHER

“You think you have a daughter, my Sophia, but you are mistaken, for Rosalie is not a girl. She is just a boy in petticoats!”

Madame Bonheur looked up from her spinning with a smile that was tinged with sadness, for she knew her father spoke the truth, and it grieved her. But a musical laugh floated into the room just then, and her eyes turned lovingly toward the girl who was romping under the chestnut-trees.

“It seems that way,” she replied, “and I often wish she were different. But she has a clear mind and a good heart, and I think will come out all right.”

“Aye, aye, I hope so,” the old man said, as he walked to the door and looked out at the sky against whose midsummer blue were painted the masts of a hundred ships. The Bonheurs lived not far from the Bordeaux docks, and between the trees might always be had a glimpse of the vessels anchored there; so he stood with a pleas- ant expression on his wrinkled face, listening to the calls of the men who were working among the boats.

Madame Bonheur went on with her household tasks, now turning from the spinning to tend the stew that simmered over the charcoal fire, or to turn the square of linen bleaching just outside the window, and wondering much, as she threw the creamy tow over the spindle, what made her Rosalie so different from other girls, always

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wanting to romp with boys instead of doing a stint of embroidery as a French maiden should.

But out in the pleasant garden Rosalie was having a beautiful time. No thought of anything but the game of soldier they were playing was in her mind, for she was captain, and the fighters who followed her were her brother Auguste and a group of neighborhood children, charging and retreating against a fort—which was n't a fort at all, but just a stone wall over which pale pink roses tumbled in a mass of bloom. They sallied and skirmished as if each one were a chevalier of France, and of course there was victory for the assaulting army. For no death-dealing guns thundered from that rampart, and it was easy-to become a general or even a field-marshal through victories gained so quickly and easily. Perhaps many a battle might have been waged in that one short afternoon, but a call from the door sent military tactics out of the young commander’s head. The neighborhood children scurried home- ward, and with Auguste at her heels she scam- pered toward the house, leaving the wall and its roses to sleep in the sunshine as before.

“Your father is here, and he has something to tell you,” the mother announced as they ran into the low-ceiled room. “See if you can guess what it is.”

And the two climbed up on his chair, begging to be told all about it.

“I know!” Auguste exclaimed, as he clapped

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