The Twins looked blank.  “Can’t we just tell him?” they asked anxiously.  “We can’t write very well—­not well enough to write to the Commandant.”

“Oh, but,” said Mademoiselle, “I’m sure he will expect a letter, and you must just write the very best you can, and it will be good enough, I’m sure.  Get writing-materials, and I will help you.”

At her direction Pierre brought paper and ink from her little house, and the two children sat down on the ground beside the truck.

“Now, what shall we say?” asked Pierrette.

“I know,” said Pierre; “let’s say:  ’Thank you for asking us to your party.  We are all coming.  Amen!’ Don’t you think that would do?”

Mademoiselle bent over her tire.  “Yes,” she said, “I think he will like that, but I’d both sign it if I were you.”

So the Twins signed it and put it in an envelope and gave it to the orderly, who promptly put it in his pocket, saluted, wheeled his horse, and galloped away toward camp.

The days before the party were full of excitement for the Twins.  They thought of nothing else, and how strange it was that Bastille Day and the Commandant’s birthday both should be the same as theirs.  Mother Meraut bought some cloth, and made Pierrette a new dress, and Pierre a new blouse, to wear on the great occasion, and when the day finally came, the children searched the fields to find flowers for a bouquet for the Commandant; since they had no other birthday gift to offer him.

At three o’clock in the afternoon the whole village was ready to start.  Mademoiselle drove the truck with the old people and little children sitting in it on heaps of straw.  Kathleen was the driver of the Ford car, and had as passengers Father Meraut, because he was lame, and Grandpere because he was Grandpere, and the Twins because it was their birthday; and everybody else walked.

When they reached the camp, they found Jim and Uncle Sam ready to act as guard of honor to conduct them to the Commandant, who, with the Captain beside him, waited to receive them beside the flagstaff at the reviewing-stand of the parade-ground.  It seemed very strange to Pierre and Pierrette that they should walk before their parents, and even before the Doctor and Mademoiselle, but Uncle Sam and Jim arranged the procession, and placed them at its head.  So, carrying their bouquet of flowers, they followed obediently where their escort led.  “Now, kids,” said Uncle Sam in a low voice as they neared the reviewing-stand, “walk right up and mind your manners.  Salute and give him the bouquet, and speak your piece.”

“We haven’t any piece to speak,” quavered Pierrette, very much frightened, “except to wish him many happy returns of his birthday.”

Uncle Sam’s eyes twinkled.  “That’ll do all right,” he said; only of course he said it in French.

The regiment was massed before the reviewing-stand as the little company came forward to meet their host, and when at last Pierre and Pierrette stood before the Commandant, with the beautiful flag of France floating over them, though they had been fearless under shell-fire, their knees knocked together with fright, and it was in a very small voice that they said, together, “Bonjour, Monsieur le Commandant, accept these flowers and our best wishes for many happy returns of your birthday.”