The war had banished Monsieur de Mauprais and whatever family he may have possessed, so that Mrs. Burton had been able to rent his farm for a small sum through an agent who lived in the nearest village.
It is possible that the farm house had been spared in a measure by the German soldiers because of their greater pleasure in the destruction of the old château which was only about half a mile away. At the present time the château appeared only as a mass of fallen stone.
This single spacious room the Camp Fire girls chose for their school room for the French children in the neighborhood.
The better furniture of the farmhouse had been hacked into bits of wood by the German soldiers and was fit only for burning. The simple things had not been so destroyed. Fortunately their camping life out of doors had accustomed this particular group of American girls to exercising ingenuity, so that the problem of furnishing and making attractive their school room with so little to go upon rather added to their interest.
Two long planks raised upon clothes-horses discovered in the barn formed a serviceable table. Stools and odd chairs were brought down from the attic. On the floor were two Indian rugs Mrs. Burton had induced the Indian woman near the Painted Desert in Arizona to weave for her with the special Camp Fire design, the wood-gatherer's, the fire-maker's and the torch-bearer's insignia, inserted in the chosen shades of brown, flame color, yellow and white.
On the walls hung a few Camp Fire panels and the coverings of sofa cushions and some outdoor photographs of the Sunrise Camp during former camping experiences which the girls had brought over with them.
Besides these larger articles, they had managed to store away in their trunks the materials necessary for the regulation Camp Fire work, honor beads and the jewelry indicating the various orders in the Camp Fire. If they were to interest French girls in the movement, they must have the required paraphernalia.
But the school at the farm house was not primarily a place where the French girls of the neighborhood were only to be interested in Camp Fire ideas. It was also a practical school.
During the past year Marta Clark had been studying kindergarten.