on the tables had been getting smaller all the
time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced the very last name.

"Pierre Lafite," he called.

Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and started up the
aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The rest of the children had
returned to their seats. All the elders in the church were watching his
progress.

"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up the enormous boot.
"A pair of real leather shoes to fit in the foot of the boot." He placed
them there.

"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He so placed them.

"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a general
commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured them into the boot.

"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top of the soldiers.

"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.

"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets.
_Voila_, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in
overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment.

Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward
his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty,
and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more
than his companions in five.

Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band
struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone
down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.

"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness.

There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame
sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green.

"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more
rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other
commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and
pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was
economically combined with signal practice.

The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and
French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French
people learned to love us.

CHAPTER XV

CHATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU

I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the
young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to
the creation of units capable of independent action