Dede's Bedtime Story

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 24, 27 July 1940, Page 19

Dede's Bedtime Story

YTTHEN Marie Bimont arrived home from the factory that evening, as usual, she found a letter from her son Dede, who had been evacuated from Paris. "Mother," he wrote, "we got to Clermont all right. I have nothing special to say except that we are crowded, that the weather is beautiful, and that we sleep in the hay. It smells good, but it tickles." Marie Bimont was furious. Little did she care about the difficulties the French Government had to face. As she read the letter her eyes turned towards Dede's little bed, a shabby enough little bed with a thin mattress; but the thought that her son had had to leave these fine sleeping quarters for hay shocked her principles. She grabbed a pen and wrote:

"My dear, all this is very well, but you are not a calf to sleep in the hay. You are a bright boy. Hurry up and make them give you a bed."

(Letters of a Liti

After a long week another letter came from Dede, saying:

"Mother, don't worry about the hay. By now we sleep in tents lent to us by the Scouts. They are pitched right in the open. It is wonderful. We can touch the roof by stretching our hands, and at night we hear the owls."

Marie Bimont rushed with the letter to a friend who knew something of the tent system, and she was now overcome with indignation.

"You stupid boy," she wrote, "have I worn my fingers to the bone for you that you should sleep out of doors? It is all right for the rich, as they can afford nursing homes afterwards; but you will have to. earn a living some day, so take care of yourself. Go to the headmaster and manage to get a bed. It is bad enough for me to miss you without having to think of you among owls and frogs."

;Ie French fcoy.)

Relieved by this epistle, the effect of which she could not doubt, Marie went about her usual work with a free mind. More news came another week later.

"Mother," wrote Dede, "don't bother about the tents; we have left them on account of the rain. Now we sleep in hammocks strung up in a shed. Hammocks are most interesting things. They hang from two nails, and the minute you move they swing."

Marie Bimont seized her pen in a rage. "Child of nothing," she wrote, "do you understand what I am telling you, or not? You began to sleep like a calf, then like a sheep, and now you sleep like a chicken. I am warning you for the last time; make them give you a bed or I jump on to the train and bring you home."

Then the postman brought a fourth letter from Dede.

"This time, Mother," he wrote, "you are going to be pleased. This is what happened. One morning the master said we were going to be transferred to private homes. Each house-ownen came to choose one of us, and a beau* tiful lady in mourning pointed to me* saying, 'Oh, I want this one; he reminds me of my poor little Paul sd much!' Then the lady took me to hen house, just like a city hall with ai beautiful park all around for me alone. My bed is made of shiny wood; thai blankets are in pale blue, and th# sheets have laces. Every once in ai while the lady says to me, 'Are you happy here, darling?* and I answer, 'Oh, yes!' Every morning a bowl ofi chocolate with bread and butter iaf served to me, and at night the beau* tiful lady comes and kisses me in bed, calling me her little one. I am to stay, with her for the .duration of the war. Do write me that you are pleased, Mother."

Marie Bimont read the letter «_ second time, glanced at the little iroa bed, and then, gripping the beautiful_# scented notepaper, she began to «£« j