A Pocket Full of Seeds by Marilyn Sachs Read Free Book Online

you,” Françoise whispered.
    At first everybody seemed to get in everybody else’s way. The Rostens kept saying how much they appreciated being invited, and my parents said it was a great pleasure for them. When the Henris and Latours arrived, the Rostens told each of them how kind it was of my parents to ask them, and my parents said it really was such a great pleasure. Nobody seemed to have much else to say except how cold it was, and did anyone think it would snow.
    But after we sat down to eat, Jacqueline said there were so many legs under the table, she wasn’t sure which was hers. Then everybody began to laugh, and it was so much fun even if we all were squashed together. The food was delicious—the goose wasn’t tough and the tarts were very good even if the fruit was runny. Dr. Rosten told some stories about funny things that happened to him when he was in medical school. And the grownups kept laughing and laughing.
    Papa offered cigars around, but Dr. Rosten said he never smoked. And then Maman started laughing and couldn’t stop. Nobody knew why except Papa and me.
    Later, the children went out on the veranda. Maman gave us a little tray of chocolates, nuts, and hard candies, and we sat outside, and munched, and whispered about what kind of presents we thought we were getting the next day. But it was too cold to stay out for very long. The other children went back inside first. Françoise and I stayed out a while longer. She said her parents had been nervous about coming. They didn’t know what kind of people my parents were, but it seemed as if everybody was getting along very well. She said she was having a better time than she had ever had before on Christmas Eve, and she hoped the two of us could always spend it together.
    I said I hoped so too. Then the two of us stood up to go inside. I could see through the windows of the veranda that all the lights were on in Lucie’s house. And I wondered if she ever looked out one of her windows, and thought about what was happening in my house.
     
    July 1940
     
    The war didn’t really start for me until January 1940, when my father enlisted in the army.
    “Why?” Maman kept demanding. “Why you? Why a man, thirty-eight years old, who has never handled a gun, and who has a wife and two young children? Why? ... Why should such a man, and with a nervous stomach, too ... why?”
    Papa never answered all Maman’s whys. He just kept saying the war would be over in no time, and probably he would be home in a few months.
    He looked like somebody else in his uniform. Our Papa, who usually wore a cap, an old gray and blue sweater, and baggy pants. Our Papa, transformed into such a glamorous figure in his khaki uniform with the double row of gleaming gold buttons down the front of his long greatcoat, and a soldier’s hat on his head.
    We received letters from him at first and photographs, showing him with his companions. Papa was in the First Infantry Division, stationed a few miles outside of Sedan, near the Belgian border.
    He wrote that he missed us all very much, and Maman was not to worry. He was warm and dry, and had plenty to eat. But it was too quiet, Papa said. It was boring. Everybody knew the Germans were afraid and were looking for a way out. Hitler could intimidate weak, little countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria, but the combined strength of France and England must be giving him many a sleepless night. Since September, when Hitler invaded Poland, and England and France declared war on him, there hadn’t been a peep out of Germany. Everybody knew that Germany was finished.
    To me, the war meant that Papa was away. Nothing else was different.
    But in May, Germany attacked Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. In a few days, the German army had invaded France. The newspapers and the radio spoke of our victories, but Holland surrendered and so did Belgium and Luxembourg.
    When the German army attacked along the River Meuse, at the town of Sedan