So we arrived at Noyon, less than two hours by car from Compiegne. The
nearness of it to the heart of France struck me suddenly. I could hear
the echo of sad voices curbing the optimists: "The Germans are still at
Noyon!"
Well--they are not at Noyon now. They've been gone for many moons. Yet
there's a look on the faces of the people in the town--a look when they
come to the windows or doors of their houses, or when they hear a sudden
noise in the street--which makes those moons seem never to have waned.
Washington has adopted Noyon, so the Becketts could not offer any great
public charity, but they could sprinkle about a few private good deeds,
in remembrance of Jim, who loved the place, as he loved all the
Ile-de-France. One of Mother Beckett's most valued letters from
"Jim-on-his-travels" (as she always says) is from Noyon, and she was so
bent on reading it aloud to us, as we drove slowly--almost
reverently--into the town, that she wouldn't look (I believe she even
grudged our looking!) at the facade of the far-famed Hotel de Ville,
until she'd come to the end of the last page. She seemed to think that
to look up prematurely would be like wanting to see the stage before the
curtain rose on the play!
I loved her for it--we all loved her--and obeyed as far as possible. But
one couldn't shut one's eyes to the Stars and Stripes that flapped on
the marvellously ornate front of the old building--flapped like the
wings of the American Eagle that has flown across the Atlantic to help
save France.
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