“Poor moor burnt! Poor moor burnt!” she lamented. Then, with a delicious impulse qualified by characteristic caution, “Vivi kiss it where it is not black; kiss it and make it well!”
When her cousin and playmate’s father was tragically killed on the Yser, the little creature, who is devoted to her own father, was deeply concerned. The latter is heroically devoting himself to ambulance work at Calais. For many nights after the news of the young officer’s death was received, Viviane would anxiously inform everyone who came into her nursery that Papa was quite safe, pointing out his photograph on the chimney-piece at the same time.
“Vivi got her Papa quite safe,” in a confused association of ideas.
Though she has only seen him once for a very short time all these nine months, the child’s affectionate memory of him remains as distinct as ever, and returning the other day from a morning walk with a scratched knee, she declared pathetically she wished it had been a wound, for then Vivi’s father would have had to come and nurse her.
The spirit of the Belgian children is one of the most remarkable things of the war. As soon as they can understand anything at all they seem to grasp the situation of present valiant endurance and future glory. They know what sacrifices have been demanded of their parents. There is not a child that we have seen but measures the cost and its honour.
Upon the arrival of the _Faire part_ of that same young officer above mentioned, with its immense black edge and unending list of sorrowing relatives, Viviane’s eldest brother, a boy of nine, asked to read it. When he came to the words: _Mort pour la patrie_, he looked up, his face illuminated.
Not the least among the miscalculations of the Germans in Belgium has been their insane attempt to stifle the courage of the little country by ferocity. But Germany has never counted with souls, and it is by the power of the soul that this huge monster of materialism, with its gross brutality and gross reliance on masses and mechanism, will be overthrown. There is not a _gamin_ of the Brussels streets that does not mock the German soldiery, finely conscious that, by the immortal defiance of the spirit, Prussian brutality itself is already vanquished. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!...