A big cake this birthday
Encouraged by the compliments, the quints, the jumelles, as they call themselves and as the rest of the family call them, decided then and there with the possible help of Mademoiselle Montpetit, the cook, to bake another cake. A great big one for their ninth birthday. "And just think," they chorused, hazel eyes beaming, "that cake will have 45 candles on it!" "Forty-five," repeated Yvonne, counting the numbers on all her fingers. "Each one of us," piped up Annette, my compartment-mate on the train, "will try to blow out nine candles, no more and no less. Don't you think that will be fun, Mademoiselle Barker?" Knowing the girls as I do, I foresaw fun, and plenty of it, however the candle-blowing turns out. For, regardless of individual scores, the quints will put on an amusing act. For their own hilarity and for the benefit of onlookers. Not because they are "stagey", just the contrary, but because they will want to make everybody happy. Such is the nature of the 9-year-olds whose lives as wards of the British crown and as Ontario's $20,000,000-a-year tourist attraction for eight years were more fantastic than any fiction ever written. Fantastic, glamorous and supposedly happy. But the quints were anything but happy, living as "cloistered actresses" in luxurious isolation away from their home folks. They were so miserable indeed they used to call themselves "the poor little quints" (pauvres petites jumelles) because they couldn't ride to mass in Papa's car and live with their parents just like their brothers and sisters. Over and over they recited their grievances to me and to everybody else near and dear to them during the parents' long-drawn-out feud with Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, the quints' physician whom the father and mother, from the start, charged with "usurpation of their rights." The fighting Dionne, as they were called, also waged a custody battle, the most famous on record, against the province which had made the quintuplets wards of the crown over their violent protests.

And, at long last, in the fall of 1942, Oliva and Elzire Dionne won both their fights. Dr. Dafoe resigned and the government restored Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie to their family. Since then the million-dollar quints have been really and truly happy. "It's so marvelous," they say, "to live under one roof with Papa and Mama and all our brothers and sisters." They're glad, too, that quint parades are things of the past and all they ask is a chance to settle down in their big reunion home, which should be finished in a month or so, with their family. That, and much more along the same line, they confided to me as our train whizzed by north Canadian mountains, rolled past Michigan farm and timber lands and clanged into the Butler Shipyards at Superior, Wis.

Don't understand ship's war paint
At sight of the quint fleet in the launching slip, however, Canada's little good-will ambassadors to the United States changed their subject. They were so struck by the rust painting of the five cargo vessels, built by the Walter Butler ship-builders in co-operation with the United States Maritime Commission for British use against the Axis powers. The orange shade was beautiful, they thought, and they all hoped the ships would go to sea just as they were, till I explained in French and English that vessels so dazzling in color would be easy targets for enemy nations. "We don't want the quint fleet to be torpedoed", said Emilie, the one left-hander in the group. "And we came all the way to Wisconsin to christen the fleet so we could help beat Hitler, didn't we?" "We certainly did," chorused Yvonne and her and her other same-age sisters. "Hitler and Mussolini.." "And the Japs," put in Marie, with Cecile adding: "Every one of our enemies." The five were then for the battleship gray and the camouflage I assured them would cover the rust color before the vessels sail through the Great Lakes, into the St. Lawrence, and on out to sea. All of with shows the patriotic spirit of the war-conscious youngsters who keep up with the news by studying maps, listening to the radio and attending newsreel movies put on in their nursery from time to time by Father Sauve of the University of Ottawa. It was their patriotism, too, along with a desire to "please Papa and Mama," which made the quints so eager to break their pint-size christening bottles on the prows of the ships they'd thought would be named Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie, according to press dispatches released two months ago.

Sea captain's names are okay
Even when the children learned that the dispatches had been an innocent mistake on the part of somebody or other, and that the vessels would be named for long-dead Yankee sea captains, they showed no sign of disappointment. And no flagging patriotism. They just resolved anew to smash their red white and blue beriboned bottles, come what might. For, long before they set out on their historic mission, they'd heard "it was a sign of bad luck if christening bottles failed to break." Mounting the christening platform, her hand and mine, Annette spoke to me about the sign and said, above everything, she and her quint sisters wanted their fleet to bring bad luck only to our enemies and not to the United Nations or any of the officers and sailors who will sail them. "So keep your fingers crossed, Mademoiselle," she begged. "For me, for Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne." And, figuratively, I did keep my fingers crossed as I stood by the quintuplets, one after another, on the five separate platforms and repeated to them in French the English directions of George Dolan, administrative manager of the Butler Shipyards. Instructions the quints - all brilliant children in the words of Mr. Dolan - followed without a hitch. And with split-second timing that amazed thousands of spectators, many of whome had seen strong-armed adults try, and fail to break their christenin bottles. Because of jittery nerves, "ship-fright" or for some other unexplained reason. Closer to the quints than anyone else except Mr. Dolan during the most dramatic moment of their dramatic lives, I know I was impressed by their poise; and by the look of grim determination on their pretty little faces as they swung away with their bottles and batted one-two-three-four-five-hundred percent and wrote a new chapter in maritime history.

But what is the secret of the poise and "carry-through-ness" of these girls who, when separated from their family, called themselves "the poor little quints" and cried to "go home and live with Papa and Mama"? It is, as you must have guessed, their return to their family fold and a desire at all times to please theur father and mother. I saw that desire touchingly manifested after the ship-launchings when the quintuplets, on the train bound for Callander, crowded around their parents and asked: "Did we do all right, Mama? Were you satisfied with us, Papa? We did our best to please you."

Back home, they're still trying to please their father and mother, going to bed and getting up early, "eating right," learning to cook and knit socks for soldiers, planting victory gardens and being "good little girls generally." Just as good and unspoiled as if nobody outside Callander had ever even heard of them. And these are the children who turned their hometown, a mere dot on the map, into the cross roads of the world... who made Dr. Dafoe rich and famous... who became a quint gold mine to their province and rolled up a million-dollar fortune for themselves and their family!

The Quints blow out the candles on last year's "gateau". This year's will be bigger - and as good.




1943