It was a strange picture they made there. On the wall, on a row of
hooks, still hung the small umbrellas and book-satchels of the pupils.
Presumably at the coming of the Germans they had run home in such a
panic that they left their school-traps behind. There were sums in
chalk, half erased, on the blackboard; and one of the troopers took a
scrap of chalk and wrote "On to Paris!" in big letters here and there.
A sleepy parrot, looking like a bundle of rumpled green feathers,
squatted on its perch in a cage behind the master's desk, occasionally
emitting a loud squawk as though protesting against this intrusion on
its privacy.

When their wine had warmed them our soldier-hosts sang and sang,
unendingly. They had been on the march all day, and next day would
probably march half the day and fight the other half, for the French and
English were just ahead; but now they sprawled over the school benches
and drummed on the boards with their fists and feet, and sang at the
tops of their voices. They sang their favorite marching songs--Die
Wacht am Rhein, of course; and Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles!
which has a fine, sonorous cathedral swing to it; and God Save the
King!--with different words to the air, be it said; and Haltet Aus!
Also, for variety, they sang Tannenbaum--with the same tune as Maryland,
My Maryland!--and Heil dir im Sieges-kranz; and snatches from various
operas.

When one of us asked for Heine's Lorelei they sang not one verse of it,
or two, but twenty or more; and then, by way of compliment to the guests
of the evening, they reared upon their feet and gave us The Star
Spangled Banner, to German words. Suddenly two of them began dancing.
In their big rawhide boots, with hobbed soles and steel-shod heels, they
pounded back and forth, while the others whooped them on. One of the
dancers gave out presently; but the other seemed still unimpaired in
wind and limb. He darted into an adjoining room and came back in a
minute dragging a half-frightened, half-pleased little Belgian scullery
maid and whirled her about to waltz music until she dropped for want of
breath to carry her another turn; after which he did a solo--Teutonic
version--of a darky breakdown, stopping only to join in the next song.

It was eleven o'clock and they were still singing when we left them and
went groping through dark hallways to where our simple hay mattress
awaited us. I might add that we were indebted to a corporal of lanc