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Updated: May 14, 2025
We were having dinner out of doors when, just as we had finished, one of us remarked how dark it was getting. Clouds were gathering quickly in the sky. "Children, we must go home," said M. Acquin, "there's going to be a storm." "Go, already!" came the chorus. "If the wind rises, all the glasses will be upset." We all knew the value of those glass frames and what they mean to a florist.
I should have let him pass without recognizing him. It was hard to recognize in this boy, black from head to foot, the chum who had raced with me down the garden paths in his clean shirt, turned up to the elbows, and his collar thrown open, showing his White skin. "It's Remi," he cried, turning to a man of about forty years, who walked near him, and who had a kind, frank face like M. Acquin.
You'll find some very good fellows there." I went to fetch the two boys, who were in the garden. Little Lise was sobbing; one of the men stooped down and whispered something in her ear, but I did not hear what he said. The parting was over very quickly. M. Acquin caught Lise up in his arms and kissed her again and again, then he put her down, but she clung to his hand.
During the day I had to shade the wall flowers with straw coverings to protect them from the sun. This was not difficult to do, but it took all my time, for I had several hundred glasses to move twice daily. Days and months passed. I was very happy. Sometimes I thought that I was too happy, it could not last. M. Acquin was considered one of the cleverest florists round about Paris.
We were to work until four o'clock, and when all was finished we were to lock the gates and go to Arcueil. Supper was for six o'clock. After supper we were to come home at once, so as not to be late in getting to bed, as Monday morning we had to be up bright and early, ready for work. A few minutes before four we were all ready. "Come on, all of you," cried M. Acquin gayly.
It then entrained at Eecke for Wizernes, near St. Omer, and marched to billets at Acquin. A stay of about a fortnight there was occupied in the use of an exceptionally good training area. A return was then made to the former front line, and detraining again at Brandhoek, the Battalion went this time to another hut camp known as Toronto.
One by one our guests arrive and Lise and I stand in the hall to welcome them. There is Mr. Acquin, Aunt Catherine and Etiennette, and a bronze young man who has just returned from a botanical expedition and is now the famous botanist Benjamin Acquin. Then comes a young man and an old man. This journey is doubly interesting to them for when they leave us they are going to Wales to visit the mines.
My new family consisted of the father, whose name was Pierre Acquin, two boys, Alexix and Benjamin, and two girls, Etiennette, the elder, and Lise, the youngest of the family. Lise was dumb. She was not born dumb, but just before her fourth birthday, through an illness, she had lost the power of speech.
The following lengthy epistle which I wrote in my billet in the Vale of Acquin at Westbecourt the following day draws a perfectly accurate picture of what happened: "You will be interested to learn that we have moved again. We are now billeted in a pretty little village in the heart of north-eastern France....
Yet, however, they were a beautiful pair of gray cloth trousers, with vest and coat to match, and I had been so proud of them when M. Acquin had given them to me, but I did not consider that I was spoiling them by shortening them, quite the contrary. At first I scarcely listened to Mattia; I was too busy cutting my trousers, but soon I stopped manipulating the scissors and became all ears.
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