He Learned French from a Laundress.

 Century Magazine
By HELEN DAVENPORT GIBBONS

 

When I entered the office of the shop where motor-ambulances are assembled, the sergeant and the lieutenant were checking up material.

"May I see the work here?" I asked.

"Oh, good!" cried the lieutenant. "And come up to the mess to lunch afterward.

There is just time."

The sergeant was a master of arts with a serious mouth. Back of his glasses was

a twinkle. Said he:

"Here 's pencil and paper. To fix this right, I 'm going to let you hear what the

boys really say. Come on."

He hurried me past the time-clock, where the soldiers stick peg-nails in holes

to mark themselves in or out, as in a factory back home. Scattered motor parts lay on the floor. Shiny metal tracks made long lines the length of the building.
There was steady hammering everywhere; for the boys obey their slogan, posted on
the wall:

"Don't kill the Kaiser with your tongue. Use your tools."

The sergeant laid his hand on the shoulder of a private who had a hammer in one hand and a board in the other.

"This lady is a French journalist. She's come to visit the shop. Got to get busy

here and give her the right impression."

I gasped.

"She wants to know if she can get a box to sit on."

While the box was being found, the sergeant asked the boy with the hammer how long he had been on the border.

"Try your Spanish on her," said he.

"Can't get away with it," replied the hammerer through two or three nails he had in his mouth. Another boy was picking his way across to us.

"I have the character for you now," whispered the sergeant. "The man coming

is called Watson ; thinks he can speak French, and he can't."

A soldier went by, carrying an electric drill. Above a sound unpleasantly reminiscent of the dentist, the sergeant murmured:

"Get down his French as fast as you can;" and in a louder voice, as he bowed politely, "Madame, Monsier, I'interprete."

 

 "Oh, go on, sergeant. Watcha get me into this for!"

"Go to it, boy," commanded the sergeant.

"I '11 help you."

The private gave a deep sigh, and for the first time glanced at me. We moved

toward an ambulance body nearly set up.

"Moi trayvay,"—putting his forefinger to his eye,—"regarder ici. Ce soldat arranger ici. Apres fini—je regarder.

Peut-etre bon, peut-etre non bon. Moi inspector. See?"

Watson tried the door of the little cupboard in the ambulance.

"Ici emergency-supplies," making elaborate gestures to illustrate bandaging.

"Medecin—medicine. Which word means the doctor, and which is the stuff the doctor gives you?" The latch on the cupboard did not work. He shook his head gravely, then beckoned to me to come to the back of the ambulance.

"Autres soldats ici dedans." Putting his hand on the leather cushion of the

seat, he went on: "Bed. Leet pour blesses."

"Combien de blesses?" I asked.

"Oh, let 's see. Oon, deux, troy, quatre," he answered, telling out the numbers on successive fingers.

He jiggled the tail-board. Something seemed to be loose.

"Ici pas bon. Ici soldats trayvay pas bon ; couple of screws missing."

We were standing now at the side of the ambulance body. My interpreter was opening a box-like affair above the front wheel.

"How the devil do you say trimmings?" murmured Watson. "Ici petit, petit—no,

no, no; . . . ici marteau, tools. See? Ici—what's the word for occupants, Sergeant?"

He gave that up, and moved on to the next ambulance body, which a soldier was

varnishing.


"Apres fini la-bas, c'est ici pour—paint.

What's the word for paint?" he asked imself. Turning to me with a beaming smile, he said convincingly, "Couleur."

Private Watson pried open a freshly painted green door, and explained, while he wiped the paint off his penknife :

"Pour ventilation. Troy petit portes—oon, oon, oon. Americans beaucoup fresh air."

He inhaled and exhaled with vigor, so I should not miss the lesson.

"Here heat," pointing to a little grating. Then, "Pour

chaud. Peut-etre froid at the front."

I was examining a tin drum-like affair under the front seat.

"Un reservoir pour de I'c" I asked.

"Oui, oui. Tell her the big one above is for gasolene. Sergeant."

Watson walked swiftly ahead of us, glancing at ambulance after ambulance.

"Sergeant, you are a rascal," said I.

"Are you sure these boys don't know me?

I lectured a while ago at the Y. M. C. A. hut, you remember."

"Fixed that, too, Mrs. Gibbons. Oh, Lord, this is real stuff! Only one man in the shop has seen you before, and he promised to keep his mouth shut. Fire some more questions at him."

The sergeant covered his face with his handkerchief, and his giggles with a thorough nose-blow as Watson plucked my coat-sleeve gently and pointed to a finished ambulance at. the end of the line.

"Here Croix Rouge et U. S. medical insignia. Derniere chose. Ambulance 'fini, fini maintenant."

Say, Sergeant, tell her these ambulances are for wounded, but they are also the wagons that take you out and don't bring you back. You stay there by request. Tell her we work like the devil in this shop. If any man slows down, we ask him if he is working for Uncle Sam or the kaiser."

"Combien de temps faut-il pour faire une ambulance, Monsieur?" I asked.

"Don't get you. Gosh!" cried my interpreter, with startled eyes.

"It 's all right, Watson," said the sergeant "she wants the real dope on our

output. One ambulance every four hours."

Then followed a discussion between the private and the sergeant that revealed to me much about the spirit of the outfit and the quantity of work produced.

"Be sure she gets that dope straight," called a soldier as he ducked behind an

ambulance. He was laughing.

The sergeant steered us quickly into a

little room, where Watson said:

"Ici peinture—you said that was the word for paint. Sergeant?"

For answer he patted Watson on the back and said:

"Look here, boy, we have been putting over a dirty trick on you. This lady is

not a French journalist. She is Mrs. Gibbons, the mother of the Little Gray Home
in France."

Watson's blue eyes gave me a long look.

With his right fist he pushed his campaign hat away back on his head and groaned.

"It 's a shame," said I, "to have treated you like this." I slipped a cigarette-case out of my pocket and asked, "Will you show me you forgive me by smoking one

of my cigarettes?"

Watson took the cigarette and burst out laughing.

"Gee! I'm a donkey," he cried. "That sure is a good one on me!"

"I suppose you are thinking about the guying you will get," I said. "But listen

to me. I '11 tell you right now the impression I should have got, had I really
been a French journalist. If what I say tallies with the truth, that 's all you'11 need. You know I 've never been in this hop before to-day."

As I talked, the private smiled more nad more, and when I finished, his pleased

comment was:

"To think I got away with that, and I learned mv French from a laundress!"