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diff --git a/old/69146-0.txt b/old/69146-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 797e606..0000000 --- a/old/69146-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7792 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The old mine's secret, by Edna Turpin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The old mine's secret - -Author: Edna Turpin - -Illustrator: George Wright - -Release Date: October 13, 2022 [eBook #69146] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Carla Foust, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MINE'S SECRET *** - - - - - -THE OLD MINE’S SECRET - - - - - [Illustration] - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS - ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO - - MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED - LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA - MELBOURNE - - THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. - TORONTO - - -[Illustration: “There was Dick, waving his hand tauntingly”--_page 18_] - - - - - THE - OLD MINE’S SECRET - - BY - EDNA TURPIN - - AUTHOR OF “HONEY SWEET,” “PEGGY OF - ROUNDABOUT LANE,” “TREASURE - MOUNTAIN,” ETC. - - FRONTISPIECE BY - GEORGE WRIGHT - - New York - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 1921 - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - COPYRIGHT, 1921, - BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - - Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1921. - - Press of - J. J. Little & Ives Company - New York, U. S. A. - - - - - TO - REBECCA BROCKENBROUGH - AND - TERRY LEE ROBERTS - - - - -THE OLD MINE’S SECRET - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -“O-O-Oh! oh me-e!” Dick made the sigh very sad and pitiful. - -His father did not seem to hear it. He tilted his chair farther back, -perched his feet on the porch railing, and unfolded his newspaper. - -It was a mild April morning, and the Osborne family had drifted out -on the porch,--Mr. Osborne with his papers and Mrs. Osborne with her -sewing; Sweet William was playing jackstraws with himself, Patsy sat on -the steps with her back to the others, especially Dick, who, however, -was pitying himself too much to notice her. - -“I always get blamed for everything I do,” he said mournfully, “but -David----” - -“‘House for War: Vote 373 to 50.’” Mr. Osborne read the headline. -“That is the answer to the President’s message four days ago. Now the -Senate----” - -“Father! If you’ll just let me off to-day, I’ll work from school-out -till dark every day next week. I certainly will. Father, please----” - -“Richard Randolph Osborne! You are to work your assigned part of the -garden to-day, _to-day_, without further pleas for postponement.” Mr. -Osborne’s mild voice and red flabby face stiffened with determination. -This was not the first week that Dick had neglected his garden task. - -“Yes, sir,” Dick answered meekly, wriggling a little. That was all he -could do--wriggle a little--because he was made into a sort of merman -by having an old Persian shawl wrapped about him, from the waist down. -“I think you might let me off,” he persisted in an undertone; “just -this one more time. If mother had patched my trousers last night--if -she’d let me put on my Sundays now--I could get that hateful old garden -worked this morning. I’ve got something else to do to-day, something -awfully important.” - -“I’m sorry I forgot, son,” said his mother. “I certainly meant to mend -them last night. I was reading, and forgot. I wish you had reminded -me.” She took quicker stitches and her thread snarled so that she had -to break it and begin again. “I am so sorry,” she repeated in the -delicious voice that made her words seem as fresh and sweet as the red -roses that fell from the mouth of the fairy-tale maiden. - -Mrs. Osborne was a dear, sunny-hearted little woman with dark hair, -irregular features, and a vivid, eager face. She loved to read; -indeed, she could no more resist a book than a toper could refuse a -drink, but she was always so sorry and so ashamed when she neglected -home duties that every one except the person who suffered from it -forgave her freely. - -Patsy, Dick’s twin sister, came now to her mother’s defense. “It’s your -fault, Dick,” she said. “It’s all your own fault. If you had locked the -bookcase door, it would have reminded her there was something to do. -And then she would have thought of the trousers.” - -“I forgot,” Dick confessed. That put him clearly in the wrong, and made -him the crosser. He turned on his sister, growling: “What business is -it of yours, miss? You please let my affairs alone and attend to your -own. What are you doing, Patsy?” - -He tried to wriggle near enough to see, but Patsy made a face at him -and ran into the yard. Dick was such a tease! She was not going to tell -him that she had decided to be a poet and was composing a wonderful -ballad. How surprised he would be when it came out in the _Atlantic_ or -_St. Nicholas_, with her name in big black letters--Pocahontas Virginia -Osborne, as it was in the family Bible. Or would she have a pen-name, -like ‘Marion Harland’? If she could think of a lovely original -name---- But perhaps she had better finish the poem first. - -She perched herself in the swing and chewed her pencil and read over -the four lines she had written: - - “Johnny was a sailor, - He was brave and bold; - He thought he would make an adventure - To find the North Pole.” - -She could not think of anything else to say, so she read that over -again; and then again. While inspiration tarried, an interruption -came. It took the shape of her small brother William with two of -his followers--Hop-o-hop, a lame duck that he had adopted when its -hen mother pecked it and cast it off, and Scalawag, a sand-colored, -bob-tailed stray dog that had adopted him. - -“Hey, Patsy! I think I’ll give you a kiss,” announced Sweet William, -raising his fair, serious face to hers. “I think I might give you two -kisses. You are so sweet. Patsy,” he went on coaxingly, “wouldn’t you -want to lend me a pencil? Just one little minute, to make you a picture -of a horse.” - -“Oh, Sweet William, you’re such a nuisance!” said Patsy. “I’m awfully -busy. How can I ever finish this, if you bother me?” - -But she gave him pencil and paper, and sat swinging back and forth, -looking idly about the spacious yard where the budding oaks made -lacelike shadows, on that April morning. - -In the center of the yard was a great heap of bricks. That was the -remains of Osborne’s Rest, the family mansion that had been burned -in a raid during The War, as those southern Virginians called the -War of Secession from which they dated everything. Since then, two -generations of Osbornes had dwelt in The Roost, a cottage in one corner -of the yard. It was now the home of Patsy, her father and mother, her -two brothers, Dick and Sweet William, and a motherless cousin, David -Spotswood. - -The big front gate opened on The Street, the one thoroughfare of The -Village. There were a church, a tavern, two shops, a dozen frame and -brick dwellings set far back in spacious grounds, and the county -Court-house in a square by itself. Behind the Court-house rambled The -Back Way which had once expected to become a street, but remained -always The Back Way with only a blacksmith’s shop, a basket-maker’s -shed, and a few cabins on it. - -A century and a half before, three royal-grant estates, Broad Acres and -Larkland and Mattoax, cornered at a stone now on Court-house Green. -These plantations had long ago been divided into small farms; but in -The Village still lived Wilsons and Mayos and Osbornes who counted as -outsiders all whose grandfathers were not born in the neighborhood and -the kinship. - -While we have been looking about, Sweet William lay flat on the ground, -holding his tongue between his teeth, to assist his artistic efforts. - -“Look at my horse, Patsy!” he crowed, holding up the paper. - -“Hm-m! I don’t call that much like a horse,” observed Patsy. - -Sweet William’s face clouded, and then brightened. “Tell you what!” -he said. “It’ll be a cow. I’ll kick out one hind leg and put a bucket -here. Now! She’s spilt all the milk.” - -Patsy laughed; and then one knew that she was pretty, seeing the merry -crinkles around her twinkling hazel eyes, and the upward curve of her -lips that brought out dimples on her freckled pink cheeks. - -“I love you when you laugh, Patsy!” exclaimed Sweet William, hugging -her knees. “You may have my picture. And I’ll sit in the swing with -you.” - -“You and Scalawag and Hop-o-hop may have the swing,” said Patsy. “I’m -going in. I’ll finish my poem to-morrow. I want to find out--I think -Dick has a secret.” - -She jumped out of the swing, gave Sweet William’s ear a “love pinch,” -and strolled back to the porch. - -“Dick,” she asked in an offhand way, “what are you going to do with -that candle you got this morning?” - -Dick’s gloom relaxed and he winked tantalizingly. - -“You wish you knew,” he said. “But--you’ll--never--find--out. Ah, -ha-a-a!” - -“Don’t you tell, Mister Dick!” said Patsy. “I don’t want you to tell. -I’d rather find out for myself. And I certainly will find out, sir. You -just see if I don’t.” - -Mr. Osborne still had his nose in his day-old paper; news younger than -that seldom, came to The Village. “‘Army plans call for a million men -the first year.’ That is a gigantic undertaking, Miranda, and--” - -“It certainly is,” she agreed placidly. “Mayo, Black Mayo has bought -some more pigeons; and Polly says he’ll not tell what he paid for them, -so she knows it’s some absurd sum that he can’t afford.” - -“Yes.” Her husband agreed absently. “And a million men means not -only men, but arms, equipment, food. Bless my life! Is that clock -striking--it can’t be!--is it ten? And I here instead of at the -Court-house.” He got up and stuffed the newspaper and a _Congressional -Record_ in his pocket. - -“What are you going to do, dear?” asked his wife. - -“We want to find out if the Board of Supervisors can appropriate money -to send our Confederate veterans to the Reunion in June. There have -been so many unusual expenses, bridges washed away and that smallpox -quarantine, that funds are low. I hope they can raise the requisite -amount.” - -“Of course they will. They must,” Mrs. Osborne said quickly and -positively. “Why, the yearly reunion--seeing old comrades, being -heroized, recalling the glorious past--is the one bright spot in their -gray old lives.” - -“Mr. Tavis and Cap’n Anderson were talking about the Reunion at the -post office yesterday,” said Dick. “They are just crazy about having it -in Washington. Cap’n has never been there. But he was telling how near -he and old Jube Early came to it, in ’64.” - -“What an experience it will be, taking peaceful possession in old age -of the Capital they campaigned against when they were soldier boys, -over fifty years ago!” said Mrs. Osborne. “Certainly they must go. How -many are there, Mayo?” - -“Nine in our district,” answered her husband. “Last year there were -sixteen. Three have died, and four are bedridden.” - -“Ah! so few are left; so many have passed on.” Mrs. Osborne glanced -through the open door at a portrait, her father in a colonel’s gray -uniform. “Of course they must go, our nine old soldiers.” - -“Sure!” said Dick. “If there isn’t money enough, we boys can help -raise it. Mr. Tavis says he’ll pay me to plant corn, afternoons and -Saturdays. I wasn’t thinking about doing it. But our old Confeds -mustn’t miss their Reunion.” - -“Good boy! that’s the right spirit,” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne. - -She adored the memory of her gallant father and of the Confederate -cause to which he had devoted himself. The quiet, uneventful years -had brought no new deep, inspiring interests to the little Southern -community. Its love and loyalty clung to the past. To the children -the Lost Cause was a tradition as heroic and romantic as the legends -of Roland and Arthur; but it was a tradition linked to reality by the -old gray-clad men who had fought with Lee and Jackson. As Jones and -Tavis and Walthall, they were ordinary old men, rather tiresome and -absurd; but call them “Confederate veterans” and they were transformed -to heroes whom it was an honor to serve. Dick, shirking the work that -meant food for his family, would toil gladly to send them to their -Reunion. - -“They must have this, perhaps their last--” - -Mrs. Osborne paused, and her husband said: “We’ll manage it; we’ll -manage it somehow. If there is a deficit, we may be able to make it up -by private subscription. Perhaps I’ll get a case next term of court, -and can make a liberal contribution.” He laughed. - -Mr. Osborne--called Red Mayo to distinguish him from a dark-haired -cousin of the same name, called Black Mayo--was a lawyer more by -profession than by practice; there were not enough law crumbs in The -Village, he said, to support a sparrow. - -He strolled toward the Court-house while Mrs. Osborne took her last -hurried stitches. Then she handed the patched trousers to her son, who -rolled indoors and put them on. He went into the garden and gloomily -eyed the neglected square where peas and potatoes and onions were -merely green lines among crowding weeds. - -“I certainly can’t finish it this morning,” he growled. “There’s too -much to do.” - -“If you work hard, you can finish by sundown,” said his cousin, David -Spotswood, who was planting a row of beets on the other side of the -garden. - -“I can’t work after dinner,” said Dick. “I’ve got something else to do. -I just can’t finish it to-day.” - -“You’d better,” said Patsy, who had followed him into the garden. “When -father says ‘Richard’ and shuts his mouth--so! he means business. Say, -Dick! What were you getting that candle for? What are you going to do? -Let us go with you, Anne Lewis and me, and I’ll help you here.” - -“You help!” Dick spoke in his most superior masculine manner. “Girls -haven’t any business in gardens. They ought to stay in the house and -make bed-quilts. They’re too afraid of dirty hands and freckled faces.” - -Patsy flared up and answered so quickly that her words stepped on one -another’s heels. “That’s mean and unfair! You know I hate gloves and -bonnets, and I just wear them because mother makes me. But anyway, sir, -I think they’re nicer than great-grandmother’s shawl for trousers.” - -She went back up the boxwood-bordered walk. - -“I’ll keep my eyes on you, Mr. Richard Randolph Osborne,” she said to -herself. “Where you go to-day, I’ll follow.” - -Halfway up the long walk, she came upon Sweet William, sitting on the -ground, holding a maple bough over his head. - -“Won’t you come to our picnic, Patsy?” he said. “Me and Scalawag are -having a loverly picnic in the woods down by Tinkling Water.” - -“No, thank you,” said Patsy. “I want to see Anne Lewis about going -somewhere after dinner.” - -“Where?” asked Sweet William. - -“I don’t know--till I find out,” laughed Patsy. “But Anne and I will do -that; we certainly will.” - -“I wish Anne was staying here,” Sweet William said wistfully. - -“So do I,” agreed Patsy. “Easter holiday is too short to divide with -Ruth. Oh! I’ll be so glad when it’s summer and Anne comes to stay a -long time.” - -“It isn’t ever a long time where Anne is,” said Sweet William. “I’m -going with you to see her, Patsy, and I’ll have my picnic another day.” - -They went off and left Dick raking and weeding and hoeing very -diligently; but, working his best, he had not half finished his task -when the dinner bell rang. He surveyed the garden with a scowl. - -“It’ll take hours and hours to get it done,” he said. “And then it -would be too late to go where I’m going. Maybe I can work the potato -patch after supper.” - -“You can’t,” said David, who had a straightforward way of facing facts. - -“Oh! maybe I can,” said Dick, who had a picturesque way of evading -them. “You might help me. You might work on it awhile after dinner.” - -“Thank you! I’ve something else to do. I’m going to harrow my corn -acre. I want to plant it next week,” said David, who was a blue-ribbon -member of the Boys’ Corn Club. - -At the dinner table the boys were joined by Sweet William, Patsy, -and Anne Lewis, a cousin who was spending her Easter holiday in The -Village. The two girls watched Dick like hawks, and jumped up from -the table as soon as he went out of the dining room. He hurried to -the little upstairs room he shared with David that was called the -“tumble-up room” because the steps were so steep. Presently he came -down and showed off the things he was putting in his pockets--a candle, -a box of matches, and a ball of stout twine. He sharpened his hatchet -and fastened it to his belt. - -“Yah! You wish you knew what that’s for,” he said, with a derisive face -at Patsy and then at Anne. - -He strutted across the yard toward the front gate, but he was not to -march off in undisturbed triumph. - -“Dick! uh Dick!” called his mother. “Remember you’ve your garden work -to finish.” - -“Yes’m.” He scowled, then he said doggedly: “There’s something else -I’ve promised myself to do first.” - -Anne and Patsy waited only to see that he turned up, not down, The -Street; then they ran around The Back Way and came out just behind him -at the church; there The Street turned to a road which led past the -mill and on to Redville. Dick walked quickly, and the girls hurried -after him; then he walked slowly, and they loitered so as to keep just -behind him. - -“Where are you going?” he turned and challenged them. - -“Oh! we might go to the mill to see Cousin Giles, or to Larkland to -look at Cousin Mayo’s new pigeons, or to Happy Acres,” answered Patsy. - -Dick strode on, and the girls trotted behind him, making amicable -efforts at conversation. - -“Steve Tavis has gone fishing with John and Baldie Eppes,” Anne -remarked. “He said we girls might go, too. But Patsy and I thought -there might be something--something more fun to do.” - -No answer. - -Patsy made an effort. “Dick,” she said, “I hope you’ll finish your -garden work to-day. Father’s tired of excuses and he’s made up his mind -for punishing. But even if we do get home late, I can help you.” - -Silence. - -“It’s a mighty nice day,” Patsy went on pleadingly, “to--to do outdoor -things. You say yourself I’m as good as a boy to have around. I -wouldn’t be in the way at all; and I could hold the candle for you.” - -By this time they were at the mill where the Larkland road and the -Happy Acres path turned from the highway. Dick kept to the main road -and the girls followed. He stopped and faced them. - -“You said you were going to the mill, or Larkland, or Happy Acres. Trot -along!” - -“I said we might go there,” Patsy amended. “Or we might go--’most -anywhere. Do let us go with you; please, Dick.” - -“Where?” - -“Oh! wherever you are going. We’ll not tell.” - -“You certainly will not,” he declared; “for a mighty good reason: you -are not going to know anything to tell.” - -Patsy’s eyes flashed. “We’ll show you,” she said. “We are going to -follow you, like your shadow. You know good and well I can run as fast -as you. Now take your choice, sir; let us go with you, or give up and -toddle home and finish your task so as not to get punished.” - -“Hm!” he jeered. “If I’ve got something on hand good enough to take -punishment for, it’s too good to spoil with girls tagging along.” - -He walked briskly up the road. Anne and Patsy followed him for a silent -mile--up and down hills scarred with red gulleys, through woods, -by brown plowed fields and green grain land. They passed several -log cabins; the Spencer place, an old mansion amid tumbled-down -out-buildings; Gordan Jones’s trim new house gay with gables and fresh -paint. Then they came to an old farmhouse surrounded by neglected -fields. - -“Why, that door’s open!” Anne remarked with surprise. “Is somebody -living at the old Tolliver place?” - -“A new man; Mr. Smith. He came here last winter,” explained Patsy. - -“Somebody new in the neighborhood!” laughed Anne. “Doesn’t that seem -queer? What sort of folks are they?” - -“Um-mm; unfolksy,” said Patsy. “There’s just Mr. Smith, and his nephew -Albert that goes to our school. We’ve never got acquainted with Albert. -He’s sort of stand-offish; not as if he wanted to be, but as if he were -afraid.” - -“Afraid of what?” asked Anne. - -“Oh! I don’t know. Nothing. I reckon he’s just shy.” - -“What sort of man is Mr. Smith?” inquired Anne. - -“Ugly; and grins. He’s away from home most of the time. He’s a salesman -or agent of some kind. Dick,” Patsy returned to a more interesting -subject, “do please tell us what you are going to do.” - -“We-ell,” Dick began as if he were about to yield reluctantly; then he -interrupted himself eagerly: “Oh! look at that squirrel!” - -Their eyes followed his pointing finger, and crying, “Easy marks!” he -darted into a dense thicket of pines on the other side of the road. The -girls followed quickly, but he made good use of his moment’s start and -they caught only glimpses of him here and there behind the trees. - -“Run, Anne!” Patsy called presently. “To the left. Here! Let’s head him -off!” - -They ran around a thick clump of pines to meet him--and he was not -there. He did not seem to be anywhere. He had vanished as completely as -if the earth had opened and swallowed him. - -“We may as well give up,” Anne sighed at last. - -“Yes,” Patsy agreed reluctantly. “I reckon he’s miles away by this -time.” - -Crestfallen and disappointed, they went back to the road and started -slowly down the hill. - -Then a red-brown head rose out of a heap of pine brush, so cautiously -that it did not disturb the woodpecker drumming on a nearby stump. A -pair of merry brown eyes watched the girls till they were at a safe -distance; then Dick, to the terror and hasty flight of the woodpecker, -scrambled out of the brush heap. - -“Cock-a-doodle-doo-_oo-oo_!” he called deridingly. - -Anne and Patsy started and looked back. - -“There he is!” groaned Patsy. - -Yes, there he was, standing in the middle of the road, waving his hand -tauntingly. - -“Shall we chase him again?” asked Anne. - -“Yes,” said Patsy; and then: “No, it’s no use. He’s too far away; -before we could get halfway up the hill, he’d be out of sight again.” - -“Oh, well!” laughed Anne. “We don’t care, Patsy-pet. Let’s go to Happy -Acres and see what flowers are in bloom.” - -They went back to Larkland mill that had been a mill ever since The -Village had been a village; crossed a foot bridge over Tinkling Water; -and followed the path to the woodland nook they called Happy Acres. -Long ago a house had been there, and persistent garden bulbs and shrubs -gave beauty and fragrance to the place. One spring, Anne had adopted -it and christened it Happy Acres, and she and her friends had made it -a little woodland park that was a joy to all the neighborhood. It was -fragrant now with a blossoming plum-tree and gay with the pink and -scarlet of flowering almond and japonica. - -Anne and Patsy plucked a few sprays to carry home the beauty of it, -and started down the path for a little visit to their cousin, Giles -Spotswood, the miller. - -Patsy, who was in front, stopped suddenly. “What’s that?” she whispered. - -“It sounds like men quarreling,” Anne whispered back. “Who on earth--” - -“Look there!” - -Anne crept to Patsy’s side and peeped through the bushes. There were -two men on the roadside. One was their cousin, Black Mayo Osborne. - -“Who’s that man?” asked Anne. - -“Mr. Smith; the new man at the Tolliver place.” - -“Ugh! he’s horrid! snarling like a spiteful cur dog!” exclaimed Anne. - -The stranger was indeed odd and unpleasant-looking. He had long -loose-jointed limbs and such a short body that it seemed as if its -only function was to hold his head and limbs together. The two sides -of his blond face were quite unlike. The left side was handsome with -its straight brow and wide blue eye; but the right eye, half hidden by -its drooping lid, slanted outward and down, the tip of the nose turned -toward the bulging right nostril, and the mouth drooped at the right -corner and ended in a heavy downward line. - -“Easy! go easy, my German friend!” Black Mayo’s voice rang out clear -and mocking. - -“I am not a German; that am I not!” screamed Smith. “I am an American -citizen. I can my papers show. I am more American than you. What are -your peoples here? _Ach!_ what do they? This morning they did the last -cent out of their treasury take, the expenses of old traitors and -rebels to pay--” - -The sentence was not finished. A quick blow from the shoulder stretched -him on the ground. - -“Hey! lie there a minute!” cried Black Mayo, with an impish light -twinkling in his dark eyes. “Listen! Here’s a tune you’ve got to -respect in this part of the world.” He whistled “Dixie” with vim and -vigor, over and over again. Then he stepped aside and held out his -hand, saying: “Ah, well! You didn’t know any better. Forget it!” - -The man glared up at him, without a word. - -“Oh! if that’s the way you feel about it--” Mr. Osborne laughed, -shrugged his shoulders, and, still whistling “Dixie,” took the road -that led to his home at Larkland. - -Mr. Smith scrambled to his feet and looked after Black Mayo, from under -down-drawn brows, with his thin wide lips writhing like serpents; then -he went limping up the road. - -The girls turned white amazed faces to each other. - -“Ugh!” said Patsy. “Let’s go home. Do--do you reckon he’ll hurt Cousin -Mayo?” - -“Of course not. He can’t. How can he?” said Anne. After a pause she -added: “He certainly will if he can.” - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -Exulting at the way he had diddled the girls, Dick pranced along the -Redville road. He did not meet any one, for it was a fair spring day -and the country people were busy; but he saw men and boys he knew, -plowing and grubbing, hallooing to their teams and to one another. - -About two miles from The Village, Dick turned off on the Old Plank -Road. Twenty years before, this had been a highway going through The -Village, on its long way to Richmond. Then the railroad was built. It -wanted to come through The Village, between court-house and church, -but the people rose up in arms. They did not want shrieking, grinding -trains, to scare horses and bring in outsiders, nor an iron track -parting their homes from their graves in the churchyard. So the -railroad went by Redville that was six miles from The Village in summer -and three or four times as far in the winter season of ruts and red mud. - -After the railway was built, however, the road by Redville station -became the thoroughfare; the Old Plank Road was seldom traveled except -by negroes who lived in clearings in the Big Woods that covered miles -of the rocky, infertile ridge land. - -Dick was near one of these clearings, a patch of stumpy land around a -log cabin, when he heard a voice calling loudly, “Whoa! Gee! Whoa, I -say!” - -An old negro was coming up the hill, in a cart drawn by bony, -long-horned oxen. - -“Hey, Unc’ Isham!” said Dick. “What are you making such a racket for?” - -Isham Baskerfield jumped nervously; but when he recognized the speaker, -he grinned and said: “Howdy, little marster! howdy! I was jest talkin’ -to my oxes. I tuk ’em down to de creek to gin ’em some water.” - -“You sounded scared,” commented Dick. “And you looked scared, too.” - -“Skeered? Course I aint skeered. Huccome I be skeered?” Isham replied -loudly. Then he mumbled: “I aint nuver liked to go down dis road since -dat old man--Whar you gwine, Marse Dick?” he interrupted himself. -“Don’t you fool ’round dat lowermos’ cabin. Dat’s”--he breathed the -name in a whisper--“Solomon Gabe’s house, dat is. An’ he can shore -cunjer folks.” - -Dick laughed. “So that’s what you are afraid of. You--” - -“Sh--sh, little marster!” The old negro looked around, as if afraid of -being overheard. He stopped his oxcart in front of his cabin. “I got to -git my meal bag,” he said. “Lily Belle emptied it to make a hoecake for -dinner, so I got to go to mill an’ git some corn ground ’fore supper -time. I don’t worry ’bout nothin’ long as my meal bag can stan’ up for -itself, but when it lays down I got to stir about. What you doin’, -Marse Dick, strayin’ so fur from home?” - -“Oh! I’m just strolling ’round,” Dick answered vaguely. - -“Umph! When I fust see you, I thought you mought be gwine fishin’; but -you aint got no fishin’ pole.” - -“No use to carry a pole in the woods, when you’ve got a knife,” said -Dick. “Where is a good place to go?” - -“Uh! any o’ dem holes in Mine Creek below de ford,” said the old man; -“taint good fishin’ ’bove thar.” - -“O. K.!” said Dick. “If I catch more fish than I can carry, I’ll leave -you what I can’t tote home.” - -“Yas, suh; yas, suh! I reckon you will,” chuckled the old negro. - -Dick went on down the road. But his merry whistle died on his lips as -he passed Solomon Gabe’s cabin. - -It stood, like a dark, poisonous fungus, under low-branching evergreens -in a dank, somber hollow a little away from the road. The squat old log -hovel had not even a window; the door stood open, not hospitably, but -like the yawning mouth of a pit. - -Dick ran on down the road and came presently to Mine Creek, a little -stream straggling along a rocky, weed-fringed bed. Near the ford, -there was a pile of rotting logs and fallen stones that had once been -a cabin. He left the road here, but he did not take Isham’s advice and -go down Mine Creek. Instead, he went up stream, following a vague old -path that presently crossed the creek and climbed a little hill. There -was a small enclosure fenced in with rotting rails. In and around the -enclosure were piles of earth and broken stones of such ancient date -that saplings and even trees were growing on them. - -Dick paused on the hilltop and looked around cautiously. No one was in -sight; and all was still except for the chatter of squirrels and the -drumming of woodpeckers. He jumped over the old fence and advanced to -the edge of a well-like opening. Again he stopped and looked around. -Then he took out of his pocket a ball of string. He tied a stone to -one end of it; dropped the stone into the hole; played out his line -until it rested on the bottom; and tied a knot in the string at the -ground level. - -Then he went into the woods and cut down a hickory sapling; he measured -it with his line and cut it off at the top; and trimmed the branches, -leaving stout prongs at intervals of about eighteen inches. Every now -and then, he stopped and looked about, to make sure that he was not -observed. After nearly an hour’s work, he finished an improvised ladder -which he carried to the hole and slid over the edge. Then with a final -sharp lookout, he descended. - -He found himself in a pit about ten feet in diameter, heaped knee-deep -with twigs and leaves swept there by winds of many winters. At one side -there was an opening four feet wide and five or six feet high, the -mouth of a tunnel that was roofed with logs supported on the sides by -stout rough timbers. - -Dick lighted his candle and started down this tunnel. But after a few -steps he turned back, set down his candle, and pulled his ladder into -the hole. - -“Now,” he said. “Anybody’s welcome to look in here. I reckon they’ll -not find little Dick.” - -He picked up his candle and went along the tunnel. Now and then it -dropped down abruptly, but there were timbers and old ladders that made -the way passable. At last the tunnel broadened into a room about thirty -feet square and high enough to stand upright in. This room also was -roofed with logs and poles propped by stout timbers of white oak. Here -and there were heaps of earth and stones and piles of rotting timbers; -on the left side there was another tunnel. - -Dick hesitated a minute, then he muttered: “I reckon I’ll find _it_ -here. But I’ll look around first.” - -He followed the lower tunnel. It, too, slanted downward, but it was -longer than the upper one and had several short spurs. It ended in -a pit a dozen feet deep, that had an old ladder in it. Dick climbed -down and looked around, then he went back to the main room and began -examining the clay and stone between the supporting timbers. - -“It certainly seems as if they would have left some,” he said earnestly -to himself. “I ought to see little bits sparkling somewhere. If they -were ever so little, they would show me where to work.” - -His tour of investigation brought him at last to a corner where -there was a heap of earth and stones. He scrambled on top of the -mound,--and, in a twinkling, he landed at the bottom of a hole. - -For a minute he was stunned. Then he staggered to his feet, lighted the -candle which had been extinguished in his fall, and looked around. He -had fallen into a pit ten or twelve feet deep--probably an opening of -the mine that had been abandoned with the failure of a vein that was -being followed. The place had been covered with a layer of logs and -poles on top of which earth and stones had been thrown. The rotting -timbers--how many years they had been there!--had given way under his -weight. - -How was he to get out? The walls of the pit, stone in one place and -clay on the other sides, were steep, almost perpendicular. - -After considering awhile, he set his candle on a projecting rock, took -out his knife, and dug some crannies for finger-holds and toe-holds, -to serve as a ladder. But when he put his weight in them and tried -to climb up, the clay slipped under his feet and he slid back. He -made the holes larger and deeper, but after he mounted two or three -steps he slid back again; and again; and again. At last he gave up -this plan. Anyway, if he could climb to the top, how could he get -out? He had crashed through the middle of the pit, and the broken -downward-slanting poles barred the sides. - -Must he stay here and wait for help to come? Help? What help? No one -knew where he was. Oh! how he regretted now his careful plans to put -every one off the trail. Anne and Patsy could only say that they had -last seen him on the main road to Redville. And Isham thought he had -gone down Mine Creek. - -If only he had left the ladder in place, there would be a chance that -when they missed him and made search, they would look in the mine. But -he had taken that chance away from himself by pulling the ladder into -the pit. - -He must dig his way out. He _must_! There was no other way of escape. -He selected a place that seemed free from rocks, and began to hack at -the wall. He toiled till his arms ached and his hands were sore and -blistered. It was a slow and painful task, but he was making progress. -He piled up loose rocks and stood on tiptoe, so as to reach higher -on the wall. In spite of his weariness and his tormented hands, his -spirits rose. - -“A tight place like this is lots of fun--after you get out. Won’t Dave -and Steve pop their eyes when I tell ’em about it?” - -He laughed and, with renewed vigor, drove his knife into the hard -clay. There was a sharp scratch and a snap. Something fell, click! on -a stone. It was his knife blade, broken against a rock that extended -shelf-like above him, and formed an impassable barrier. All these -hours of work and pain were wasted. He must begin again and dig out in -another place; or try to, and perhaps run against rock again. And with -this broken knife! - -He groaned and looked around. - -“O-oh!” he gave a sharp, startled cry. His candle! Only an inch of it -was left. Oh! he _must_ get out! How terrible it would be here in the -pitch-black, shut-in dark! - -He seized a broken bit of timber for a makeshift spade, and gave a -hurried stroke. Alas! The old timber snapped in two, bruising and -cutting his hands cruelly. He threw aside the useless fragment and -then, as if he had lost the power of motion, he stood staring at his -bit of candle that shortened with every passing second. - -He pulled himself together. He must view every foot, every inch of the -pit, so that he could work to purpose in the dark, not just dig, dig, -dig, and get nowhere. He scrutinized the wall, noting every angle and -projection; then he looked up, and studied the position of every log, -every broken pole. For the first time, he observed a log that did not -extend across the pit; its end was about two feet from the wall. Ah! -perhaps, perhaps-- - -He jerked the string out of his pocket, made a slip noose, and threw -it at the end of the log; the noose fell short. He threw it again; and -again it went aside. The next time, it caught a broken pole, and to -get it off he had to poke and push with a piece of timber for two or -three minutes--minutes that seemed hours as he glanced fearfully at -the flickering candle. He threw the noose again; and at last it went -over the log. He tried to pull it along. He wanted to get it near the -middle, free of the broken poles, and pull himself up by it, if--oh! -how he prayed it was!--stout enough to bear his weight; but now it was -fast on a knot and he could not move it. - -He glanced at the candle. It was a mere bit of wick in a gob of grease; -every flicker threatened to be its last. He could not wait any longer! -he must do something! something! He would pull himself up to the end of -the log and try to break through the poles. - -As he pulled, the log began to move. Ah! If he could pull the end into -the pit, it would be a bridge to climb out on. He jerked with all his -might, and it moved, slid, slipped downward; the end caught against a -projecting rock about four feet from the top; there it held fast. - -The candle flame flared and dropped and--no, it was not out; not yet. - -Dick jumped up and caught hold of the log. The movement fanned the -failing light; it spurted and went out. No matter now! He had firm hold -of the log. He scrambled up on it and managed presently to push and -pull himself between the broken poles. At last, at last, thank Heaven! -he was out of that awful pit. - -He staggered along, feeling his way by the wall, making one ascent -after another, until a light glimmered before him and he reached the -entrance well. He raised his ladder and climbed out. Then his strength -gave way. He dropped down on a pile of leaves at the mine entrance, and -lay there, gazing blankly at the blue sky shining beyond the fretwork -of budding branches. - -Suddenly he began to laugh. He sat up and slapped his knees. “I’ll pass -it on to them,” he said. “I’ll cover up that hole, and I’ll take Dave -and Steve there--after I find _it_--and let them tumble in without a -light. Then I’ll go off and pretend I don’t hear them, and--oh! I’ll -let them stay there long enough for them to think, to feel--” His face -was suddenly solemn. “I might have stayed there and died. Died!” - -He got up and dragged the ladder out, and hid it under the leaves piled -against the fence. - -“I reckon I ought not to expect to find it right away,” he sighed. -“I’ve got to keep on looking and looking and looking. And I say I will! -But I need some real tools. A knife, specially a broken one, isn’t much -force for mining.” - -He went toward home, but he was in no hurry to complete the journey at -the end of which were his unfinished task and his father. Instead of -going down The Street, he took The Back Way behind the Court-house, and -slipped around the corner of the blacksmith shop. - -Mr. Mallett, the blacksmith, with only his corncob pipe for company, -was sitting in a chair tilted against the door jamb of the grimy log -cabin. He was a vivacious little man with blue eyes and dark hair, and -a face that would have been sallow if it had been visible under the -grime. All the Village boys liked to loaf at his shop, but Dick had now -a special reason for visiting him. - -“Mr. Mallett--” Dick began. - -The smith started. “You young imp!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean by -jumping at me, sudden as a jack-in-the-box? I wasn’t thinking ’bout -you--and here you are, close enough to hear my very thoughts. I never -see such a boy. Why, what’s the matter with your face?” - -“I fell down. It got scratched,” Dick explained briefly. “Mr. -Mallett, I was thinking about the Old Sterling Mine, near your -great-grandfather’s shop. Do you reckon it was silver, real silver, he -got there?” - -“Do I reckon? No, I don’t! I know it, sure and certain as I’m setting -here in this chair, smoking my corncob pipe. Aint I heard my father -tell time and again what his granddad told him? Why, my father could -remember him good. He was a little quick man with blue eyes and -black hair--we all get our favor from him. He never did learn to -talk like folks over here; he always mixed his words and gave ’em -curious-sounding twists. He come from France, one of Lafayette’s -soldiers he was.” - -“Why didn’t he go back with Lafayette?” asked Dick. “I should think -he’d have been lonesome here, away from his own home and folks.” - -“Certainly he was lonesome,” said Mr. Mallett. “My father said, when he -was old and child-like, he’d set in the corner, jabbering French by the -hour, with tears dripping down his face.” - -“I don’t see why he stayed here,” persisted Dick. - -“He just stayed and kept staying,” said the smith. “Maybe that old -silver mine had something to do with it. He was always expecting to get -out a fortune. He come with the Frenchers to chase Cornwallis, and they -stopped here, two or three days, to mend shoes and get victuals. - -“The old Mr. Osborne that owned Larkland in them days see what a good -blacksmith my great-grandad was, and told him when the war was over to -come back here and he should have a home. So he did, and the squire -helped him get some of the old glebe land, and he married Mr. Osborne’s -overseer’s daughter. He had a smithy on the Old Plank Road by Mine -Creek. I reckon you know the place.” - -Dick nodded. He did not say he had been there that very afternoon. - -“And he found silver on that hill. My grand-daddy used to tell us -children about seeing his father getting silver out of the ground and -beating it on his anvil with his sledge hammer. And Black Mayo that’s -always finding out something ’bout everything, he found them old -_ree_cord papers.” - -“And they proved about the silver mine?” asked Dick. - -“Certainly they did,” asserted Mr. Mallett. “Would folks try a -man in law court for making money out of silver he didn’t have? -Great-granddad didn’t deny making of it. He just said he wasn’t making -no false coins. He was hammering out sterling pure silver. That’s why -they call it the Sterling Mine. And he was making pieces like Spanish -six shilling pieces--our folks counted money by shillings in them -days--and was giving them, in place of what they called alloy; he was -giving better and purer money than the law. And what could folks say to -that? Why, nothing; for it was the truth.” - -“And so they didn’t punish him?” asked Dick. - -“Punish him? What for? For doing better than the law of the land? No, -sirree!” - -“I don’t reckon he got out all the silver,” said Dick, more to himself -than to Mr. Mallett. - -“Course not! Some was got out in my father’s day, by the Mr. Mayo that -owned the land before The War.” - -“How did they get it out?” asked Dick. - -“Dug it out with tools, of course. Aint there the old picks and sledges -and things, setting there in that shed, that my father made for them? -And Mr. Mayo--” - -“Are they--” - -Dick tried to interrupt, but Mr. Mallett went on with what he had to -say: “He aint made much out of it. They say it was what they call ‘free -silver’, and great-granddad chanced to strike where it was rich. It -petered out, and silver was so scarce and the rock so hard it didn’t -pay to work the mine. Some folks say that. There was a tale that the -manager wasn’t trying to make it pay; he wanted to get the mine for -himself. He tried to buy it. But he didn’t. He died. Anyway, The War -came, and ’twasn’t worked any more.” - -“Yes.” Dick accepted the fact that The War ended everything, even the -worth of the silver mine. “It does seem, if it was real silver, we -could see it there now,” he said thoughtfully. - -“Shucks!” Mr. Mallett got up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. -“Course they took out all in sight. Folks would have to dig for any -more they got.” - -“And the tools; will you--” Dick checked himself. If he asked for the -tools now, Mr. Mallett would guess what he was planning to do and -somehow all The Village would know before sunset. He must wait and -manage to get them, without betraying his purpose. - -Mr. Mallett was looking at the westering sun. “Fayett ought to be -home,” he said. “He went to Redville, and he was to be back in time to -help me with a little work.” - -“Fayett!” exclaimed Dick. “Why, I didn’t know he came home for Easter.” - -“Yes,” said Mr. Mallett. “He’s mighty stirred up ’bout this war. What -have we got to do with Europe’s war that started with the killing of a -little prince in a country I’d never heard tell of? But Fayett’s got a -notion in his head-- Here! I’ve got to fix some rivets. Don’t you want -to blow the bellows?” - -“I wish I had time,” said Dick. “I’ve got to go home. I--I haven’t -finished my garden work.” - -“Then I reckon you’ll save it for another day,” said the smith. “Sun’s -’most down.” - -Its long rays lay like a red-gold band across The Street, as Dick -started home, wishing--too late!--that he had finished his garden task -and postponed his adventuring to another day. Seeing his father on the -porch, the truant slipped behind the boxwood at the edge of the walk. -But Mr. Osborne called, “Dick!” and then more sternly, “Richard!” - -It was useless to pretend not to hear. - -“Sir!” Dick answered meekly. - -“Have you completed your garden work?” - -“Not--not quite, sir,” said Dick. “I am just going to it now, sir. I -can get a lot done before dark. And I’ll get up soon Monday morning, -and finish it, sir, indeed I will.” - -“My son,--” Mr. Osborne spoke in a magisterial voice and took Dick by -the arm. - -Just then the front gate clicked, and Black Mayo came up the walk. - -“War has been declared,” he said without a word of greeting. “War! The -United States has declared war with Germany.” - -Red Mayo dropped Dick’s arm. “How’d you hear?” - -“I met Fayett Mallett coming from Redville. He’d heard the news, if we -can call it news. We knew it was coming.” - -“Of course; it was inevitable. We knew that the minute we read the -President’s War Message. He held off as long as he could.” - -“Yes. Now the War Resolution has passed Congress and the President has -signed it.” - -Dick stood listening a minute, then slipped indoors just as his mother -came out. - -“What are you talking about?” she asked. “What is the matter?” - -“War!” said her husband. “The United States is in the War, Miranda.” - -Sweet William was at his mother’s elbow. He spoke in a puzzled little -voice. “I thought The War was done. I thought the Confedacy was -overrun.” - -“This is another war, son,” laughed Mr. Osborne. “This is war with -Germany.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Just then Emma came to the door. Emma was the Osbornes’ old servant, -brown and plump as one of her own baked apple dumplings, and as much a -part of the family as the tall clock in “the chamber.” - -“Supper is ready, Miss M’randa, an’ you-all come right away, please’m,” -she said. “De muffins is light as a feather. Come on an’ butter ’em. If -you-all will live on corn bread, please’m eat it hot.” - -“Poor Emma!” laughed Mrs. Osborne. “She cannot reconcile herself to our -food program.” - -“I tell Emma ’bout the Belgians,” complained Sweet William. “But she -says ‘them folks is too far off for her to bother ’bout; corn bread -don’t set good on her stomach; and she’s going to eat what she likes, -long as she can get it.’ And, mother, she has light bread and hot -biscuits for herself every day, and--” - -“Sh-sh, son boy!” said Mrs. Osborne. “Emma doesn’t know any better, and -we do. Come, Mayo, and Mayo. Come to the hot corn muffins!” - -“I ought to go home,” said Black Mayo. “Polly’ll be expecting me.” - -“Indeed she will not,” said Mrs. Osborne. “Polly never expects you till -she sees you coming in the gate. How is she, and how are your pigeons? -I understand they are a part of your family now. Of course you’ll stay -to supper, Mayo. Patsy, tell Emma to put another plate on the table.” - -A visit from their Cousin Mayo, always a delight, was now especially -welcome to Dick because it postponed, perhaps prevented, a disagreeable -interview with his father. He slipped to his place and quietly devoted -himself to the hot muffins, cold ham, and damson preserves. - -“Why, Dick! What have you done to your face?” asked his mother. - -“Nothing. It got scratched,” he mumbled, glancing at his father. - -But Mr. Osborne was not thinking of the garden; he was about to present -to his family an amazing piece of news. He prepared for it by an -impressive “Ahem!” with his eyes fixed on Black Mayo. - -“A client came to my office to-day,” he said solemnly. - -“Really, Mayo!” exclaimed his wife. - -“What is a client?” asked Sweet William. - -“Who disturbed the hoary dust of your sanctum?” asked Black Mayo. - -“Well may you inquire!” said the Village lawyer. “You are responsible -for his coming.” - -“I?” There was a look of blank astonishment, followed by a peal of -laughter. “You don’t mean to say that scoundrel Smith--” - -“Yes. He wants to take action against you for assault and battery.” - -“What is a client?” Sweet William asked again. - -“What in the world are you talking about?” inquired Mrs. Osborne. - -“Oh, I reckon I know.” Patsy eagerly aired her knowledge. “That Smith, -the new man at the Tolliver place, quarreled with Cousin Mayo, and -Cousin Mayo knocked him down. We saw it, Anne and I.” - -“Oh, Princess Pocahontas! Are you and Lady Anne taking the witness -stand against me?” Black Mayo said in mock reproach. “Well, it’s true.” - -Mrs. Osborne gave a little exclamation of horror. “Oh, Mayo!” she said, -frowning at her husband. “I’ve begged you not to let outside people buy -land around here. And now Mayo’s had to knock one of them down.” - -“But, Miranda dear, when a man sells his farm and the purchaser comes -to get me to look up the title--” - -“You just ought to tell him we don’t want him here,” said Mrs. Osborne. -“What is the use of being a lawyer if you can’t put some law on -outsiders to keep them from spoiling The Village?” - -The two men laughed. - -Then Black Mayo said: “I suppose he told you about it, Mayo. The ‘I -saids’ and ‘he saids’?” - -“Yes; oh, yes!” - -“H’m! I hope you’ll make him pay you a good fat fee for the case.” - -“Fee!” Red Mayo stared in amazement. “Assuredly you don’t think I’d -accept his dirty money! Case! I informed him he had none.” - -“But I did knock him down.” - -“Of course you did. When he repeated what he said, I’d have knocked -him down myself, if he hadn’t been in my own office. I told him if The -Village heard such talk, he’d be tarred and feathered and drummed out -of the community. Then I ordered him out of my office.” - -“And that is how you treat your _rara avis_, a client!” said Black Mayo. - -“What is a client?” repeated Sweet William, whose questions were always -answered because he never stopped asking till they were. - -“A client, young man, is the golden-egg goose that a lawyer tries -to lure into his coop,” Black Mayo explained. “One fluttered to your -father and he shooed it away.” - -“I wish I had a goose that laid gold eggs,” said Sweet William. “I -wouldn’t kill it, like the silly man in that story.” - -“Perhaps I can find one and trade it to you for Hop-o-hop,” suggested -his cousin. - -Sweet William considered and shook his head. “Hop-o-hop couldn’t get on -without me,” he said gravely. - -“Ah, it’s a family failing,” laughed Black Mayo, as they left the -table. “None of you is willing to pay the price for the goose.” - -The evening was so mild that they settled themselves again on the -porch. The men resumed their discussion of the war; David pored over -a bulletin about corn; Dick snuggled down in a corner with “The Days -of Bruce”; Anne and Patsy brought out their Red Cross knitting, and -whispered and giggled together. Sweet William put a stool beside his -mother’s chair and cuddled against her knee, with Scalawag at his feet. - -Mrs. Osborne left the discussion of public affairs to the menfolks. She -was intent on her own task, the making out of a program for the Village -Literary Society. What pleasant meetings they would have, reading about -the Plantagenet kings, supplementing Hume’s history with Waverley -novels and Shakespeare plays. She smiled and folded her paper. - -As the twilight deepened, Dick shut his book and grinned at the girls. - -“Too bad not to have your company on my walk to-day, after you promised -it, too!” - -“Oh! we thought of a nicer place to go, where we wouldn’t scratch our -faces,” said Anne. - -“We’ll go with you some day, after you tear down all the barbed wire -and briers,” said Patsy. - -“I dare you!” Dick defied them. - -“You say that because you know I’m going away so soon,” said Anne. - -“You’re coming back in June. I dare and double dare you for then,” -replied Dick. “I’ll be going to this place--oh! right along.” - -“All right,” said Anne. “We’ll follow you; see if we don’t. We’ll not -take a dare; will we, Patsy-pet?” - -Their bickering was interrupted by the approach of guests. Three men -strolled across the yard--Giles Spotswood, the cousin from the mill; -Will Blair, another cousin, who kept the Village post office; and old -Mr. Tavis, a villager outside the cousinship. - -“We saw Black Mayo here, and we dropped in to talk over the news,” -said Mr. Blair. “Giles says Fayett Mallett heard at Redville that the -United States has declared war. That’s what comes of sinking American -ships; eh, Mayo?” - -“Yes,” answered Black Mayo; “the German sinking of American ships was -the overt act which brought on this war, just as the Stamp Tax brought -on the Revolution. But at bottom, in both cases, the real cause is the -same: it’s a fight against a despotic government for liberty and human -rights.” - -“It’s strange the Germans kept up submarine fighting after the United -States’ protests,” said Mr. Blair; “getting another powerful enemy.” - -“I reckon they count on winning the war with U-boats before the United -States gets over there with both feet,” answered Black Mayo. “But I’ll -bet on the British Navy; it’s saved the Allies so far.” - -“You said the Belgians saved them by that ten days of defense that gave -the French and British time to come,” said David. - -“You told me the French saved them by driving the Germans back at the -battle of the Marne,” said Dick. - -“Oh! but you said the stubborn retreat of that first little British -army was a real victory that made possible the Marne victory,” Patsy -reminded him. - -“Well, well! a good deal of saving is necessary; and maybe the old -United States will jump in and do the final saving.” - -“The French and British are pushing forward now,” said Mr. Blair. -“Yesterday’s paper says----” - -The men discussed the war news in an interested but remote way, just as -they had discussed plagues in India, famines in China, the Boer War. -Their sympathies were as wide as humanity; but, after all, these things -did not touch them, really and personally, as did the death of Joe -Spencer’s little daughter or the burning of a negro cabin with a baby -in it. No one said “we” about the war; it was always “they.” - -“What do you reckon they will do?” asked Mr. Spotswood. “Will they send -an army over, do you think?” - -“Oh, no!” Red Mayo answered confidently. “The war will be over before -they could send men abroad, even if they had a trained army ready to -start. They’ll lend the Allies money; they’ll give some--large amounts, -millions, no doubt. And they’ll supply food and munitions; they must -hustle around and get ships.” - -“The main job will be to get the food to send,” said Mr. Spotswood. -“There’s an alarming shortage of grain. I never saw it so scarce and -high, since I’ve been milling. The first war work is the farmers’, to -raise a bumper crop.” - -“Then I’m in war work, father,” said David. “I’m going to beat the -record on my corn acre this year.” - -Dick laughed. “A poor war worker! Not even a one-horse farmer, just a -one-acre boy!” - -“My one-acre boy multiplied by hundreds of thousands makes the Boys’ -Corn Club a big thing,” said Mr. Spotswood. “Why aren’t you in it, -Dick?” - -“I’ve got something better to do,” said Dick, confidently and -mysteriously. - -“Isn’t it strange the Germans don’t see they are beaten?” said Mr. -Blair. - -“Man, man! What are you talking about?” Black Mayo exclaimed. “Beaten? -In three years of war, German soil has been trampled by enemy feet -only once, those few days in that first August when the French invaded -Alsace. I fear there’s a hard struggle and dark days ahead.” - -This speech amazed every one. - -“Why, Cousin Mayo! Can’t the United States whip the world?” exclaimed -David. - -“Aren’t most of the nations against Germany?” asked Dick. - -“Oh, yes! A score of nations are united against Germany and her sister -autocracies, Austria-Hungary and Turkey and Bulgaria.” - -“Is Germany so much the best fighter?” David wanted to know. - -“No! But she has the inside lines, and she was ready for war. For -nearly forty years she was preparing for ‘the day,’ while the rest of -the world was busy with works of peace.” - -“Didn’t the other countries have armies and navies, too?” David -persisted. - -“No country ever built up such a perfect war machine as Germany,” -said Mr. Osborne. “Every point was prepared. Optical and dye experts -produced an inconspicuous gray-green uniform; engineers constructed -the Kiel Canal and a network of railroads leading to Belgium and -France; scientists captured nitrogen from the air for explosives and -fertilizers, and devised Zeppelins, huge guns, submarines, and poison -gas; experts made war plans; officers were drilled to carry them out -with soldiers trained by years of service. And the minds of people were -prepared--abroad by propaganda, and at home by patriotic-sounding talk -about ‘the seas must be free’ and ‘we demand our place in the sun.’ -Even Kuno----” He paused and then said to himself, “I wonder where Kuno -is!” - -“Kuno?” said Red Mayo, questioningly. - -“Kuno Kleist, a German friend of mine with whom I tramped through -Mexico. He was coming home with me, but he had news that his mother was -ill, so he went back to Germany. Such a clever, merry, kind-hearted -fellow he was; confident that the eternal jubilee of peace and -brotherhood was at hand, ‘made in Germany,’ by his Socialist brethren.” - -Mr. Blair laughed. “Now we are seeing what is really ‘made in Germany’ -by your friend Kuno Kleist and the others.” - -Black Mayo shook his head. “Not Kuno, not the will and heart of him. -They may have his body--I hope not, I hope not--as a cog in this -terrible military machine, crushing helpless nations and people with -its awful policy of frightfulness.” - -“They ought all to be killed, them German scoundrels ought,” wheezed -old Mr. Tavis. “They ought to be treated like they treat the Belgians -and them other people Will Blair reads us about in his newspaper.” - -“No and no!” Black Mayo said emphatically; then he went on, looking not -at Mr. Tavis, but at David and Dick: “The worst thing that could happen -to the world, to us, would be to be infected by the germ of hate.” - -“But the Germans do such mean things, Cousin Mayo. How can we not hate -them?” Patsy looked up with a frown. “Father read in the paper to-day -that two more relief ships have been sunk, ships loaded with food for -the starving Belgians.” - -“And I gave all my money to buy it,” said Sweet William, indignantly. -“I’m saving my sugar for the poor little Belgians. Do you reckon the -Germans’ll sink that, too?” - -“Relief ships!” said David. “Why, they sink hospital ships, with -wounded soldiers and doctors and nurses; and ships with women and -babies. Remember the _Lusitania_!” - -“I think we ought to hate them,” said Anne. - -“No, dear, no,” said Black Mayo. “We ought to fight fair and hard and -without hate, for our own rights and the rights of all people, the -Germans, too. Why, the German people had no voice in making this war. -It was declared by the kaiser without consulting the _Reichstag_ in -which the people are represented. - -“Remember, children, most wars are made by governments, against the -wishes and interests of the people. War is a disaster, a scourge; -war, more than famine, is the seven blasted ears of corn, the seven -lean-fleshed kine, destroying the full and the well-favored. All the -waste and woe of this World War will be worth while if they make people -realize the horror and wickedness of war and put an end to it forever.” - -“You are talking over their heads,” laughed Red Mayo. - -“I am not sure of that,” said Black Mayo, looking at David’s thoughtful -face. “And if I am, it is not a bad thing for young folks to have -things above them to grow up to.” - -“Dick, get a chair for Cousin Alice Blair,” said Mrs. Osborne, as a -fat, smiling woman waddled up the path. “She likes the big rocker. Get -two chairs, son. There’s Miss Fanny coming down The Street, and she’ll -stop to find out what we are talking about.” - -Sure enough, Miss Fanny Morrison turned in at the gate. She was the -Village seamstress, a blunt-featured, blunt-mannered, kind-hearted -woman who lived with an invalid sister in a cottage across the street -from the Osborne home. - -“I saw you-all out here and I just had to come in,” she said. “Oh! -you’re talking about this war. Is it really true that the United States -is in it? Isn’t it awful? War is a terrible thing. I certainly am -glad I don’t live in a country that is in it, I mean, really in it. -My mother said that during The War they used to----” She carried the -conversation away from the war that was convulsing the world, to their -“The War,” fought before they were born. - -“Did the supervisors appropriate money for our veterans to go to the -Reunion, Mayo?” Mrs. Osborne asked presently. - -“The treasury’s almost empty,” answered her husband. “They gave what -they had. And we started a subscription to make up the deficit.” - -“We can raise part of the money by selling lunches on the Green during -court week,” said Mrs. Osborne. - -Patsy spoke quickly. “Oh, no, mother! You forget I told you the -school’s going to serve lunches that week for the Red Cross.” - -Mrs. Osborne turned a surprised, indignant face to her daughter. “Why, -my dear! Aren’t you patriotic enough to give up any other plans for the -sake of our dear old Confederate soldiers?” - -Patsy hung her head, with a submissive mumble. - -Sweet William, now nestling against his mother’s knee, put a caressing -hand on her cheek to demand attention. - -“Mother, is Virginia the United States, too?” he inquired. - -“Virginia the United States?” repeated his mother. - -“Virginians used to be accused of thinking so, son,” said Mr. Osborne, -laughing. “It is the general opinion that our State is a part of the -Union; it’s so on the map.” - -“Then if Virginia is in the United States, we are, too; aren’t we, -father?” - -“We certainly are, son; we are whatever Virginia is,” declared Mr. -Osborne. - -“Then we are in this war.” Sweet William imparted the information -solemnly, as his own special discovery. “Virginia’s the United States, -and we are Virginia; and so we are in the war!” - -“It sounds reasonable, son,” remarked his father, with a dry chuckle, -“but you are the first of us who has thought of it.” - -While they were laughing over Sweet William’s great discovery, two men, -one leading a horse, turned from The Back Way into The Street and came -toward the Osborne home. - -Black Mayo jumped up. - -“There’s Jack Mallett bringing Rosinante,” he said. “I left her at the -shop to be shod, and told him I’d be back in ten minutes.” - -“We all know the length of your ‘ten minutes,’” laughed Mrs. Osborne. - -“It’s your fault, Miranda, all your fault,” Black Mayo turned on her. -“You asked me to stay to supper; and you know I never know when to go -home.” - -By this time, Mr. Mallett and his son were at the steps, receiving a -cordial greeting. They were a little circle of friends, gentlefolks and -seamstress and blacksmith, who had grown up together in The Village. - -As children and men and women, in school and shop and church, they -played and worked and worshipped together. Each stood on his own -merits, and only old negroes spoke slightingly of “poor white trash.” -But the class lines were there, as deep or even deeper than when they -were marked by wealth and land and slaves. An Osborne or Wilson or Mayo -was--oh, well! an Osborne or Wilson or Mayo, and not a Tavis or Jones -or Hight. - -“I’m awfully sorry, Jack----” began Black Mayo, going to get his horse. - -“Oh! that’s all right,” interrupted Mr. Mallett. “I was shutting up the -shop and I saw you here, so I thought I’d bring the mare. She don’t -like to stand tied.” - -“Thank you, Jack.” - -“Come in, Jack; come in, you and Fayett, and sit awhile,” said Red -Mayo, heartily. - -“No, Red; no, Miss Miranda, thank you,” replied Mr. Mallett. “I can’t -set down. I’ve got to go straight home. I promised my old woman I -would.” But he tarried to share his news with them. “You’ve been -talking ’bout the war, I reckon. Fayett heard to-day at Redville the -Congress has voted for it. And--what do you think?--he’s going to give -up agricultural school and be a soldier.” - -“Fayett a soldier!” exclaimed Dick, looking at his neighbor with -amazement and a sort of awe. - -The elders, too, were exclaiming and questioning, looking at the -boy whom they had known all his life as if he had suddenly become a -stranger. That a Village boy was going as a soldier did not bring home -to them the fact that the World War had become an American war; it -merely seemed to carry him away from them, making him a part of that -mighty overseas conflict. - -“Is Fayett really going?” asked Miss Fanny Morrison. - -“Well, he wants to, and my old woman and me’ve been talking it over and -we’ve done both give our consent; so I reckon it’s settled,” was the -answer. - -“How could his mother agree?” As Mrs. Osborne asked the question, her -hold tightened on the man child drowsing at her knee. - -“He told us he felt he ought to go, and she says she wouldn’t stand -in the way of anything he thought he ought to do,” Mr. Mallett said -quietly. “And if his mother can give him up, I’ve got no right to hold -him back.” - -“But, Fayett,--” Mr. Blair turned to the boy--“I don’t understand your -wanting to go. You were always such a peaceable fellow.” - -“Yes, sir,” said the lad, as if that were a reason for him to fight in -this war. “And now that the United States is in it, it seems like I -must go. Of free will. Not waiting to be sent.” - -He spoke as an American, but those listening remembered that he was the -great-great-grandson of a Frenchman. - -Black Mayo turned to Mr. Mallett. “Well, well, well! Your -great-grandfather came here to fight for American liberty, and now your -son is going to France to fight for freedom there. Wouldn’t that old -Mallett of the mine be proud of Fayett? Ah, it’s fine to act so that -our ancestors might be proud of us! God bless you, boy!” - -He wrung Fayett’s hand, man to man, and then took his bridle rein. - -“Thank you, Jack,” he said again. “Good night, folks. It’s ten minutes -to eight. Polly is locking the back door this minute, and when I get -there she’ll be settled with her knitting. Come to see us, all of you.” - -He paused in the yard and said, “Mayo, a word with you.” Then he said -in an undertone: “It’s best to keep quiet about what happened to-day. -Tell Anne and Patsy so. That fellow Smith doesn’t understand how we -feel about things. If his foolish speech gets abroad, it will injure -him. Maybe I was a little too quick on the trigger.” - -He swung into the saddle and the roan mare galloped away. - -While the other guests were saying good night, Dick slipped to his -bedroom, avoiding a private interview with his father. - -“He won’t punish me to-morrow,” he said. “It’s Sunday, Easter Sunday.” - -Easter Sunday! And America, that had striven so hard for peace, had -been whirled into the red World War. - -But it was not of the nation that Mrs. Osborne was thinking as she put -Sweet William to bed. - -“Poor Mrs. Mallett!” she said to herself. “What if it were my boy that -is going?” And she kissed her little son so fiercely that he stirred -and opened his eyes. - -“Mother,” he said drowsily, “will my sugar be enough----” - -He was asleep before the question was finished. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Dick was up early Monday morning, meekly and diligently hoeing the -potato patch. But his father had seen this humility and industry follow -too many offenses to overlook Saturday’s disobedience; so the culprit -received a severe lecture ending with the command to spend his Saturday -afternoons for a month working in the garden. - -A month! A whole month before he could go back to the Old Sterling -Mine! All that he could do, in the meantime, to help carry out his plan -of working the mine and making a fortune, was to get tools and collect -candles. - -He rummaged among the old irons in the blacksmith’s shed on several -afternoons, under pretense of finding horseshoes. - -“What’s this old tool; and that one?” he asked with assumed -carelessness, pulling out one after another, until he identified and -set aside some that the miners had used. - -Then he chose an occasion when Mr. Mallett was busy shoeing a fractious -mule and said in an offhand way: “Mr. Mallett, I want to dig a hole, -where I reckon there’s rock. May I take some of the old tools out of -your shed?” - -“Help yourself.” - -“And I needn’t bring them back right away?” - -Mr. Mallett did not look up from his task. “Keep ’em long as you -please. They’re there to sell for old iron. Whoa, you brute!” - -“Thank you!” Dick went away then, but at dusk that evening he slipped -back to the shop and got the pick and spade and sledge hammer he had -set aside, and sped down the unlighted street and deposited them under -the churchyard hedge. - -Many an hour, during the days that followed, while he sat with a -textbook in his hand, he was in fancy unearthing vast treasures and -displaying them to the envy and admiration of his comrades. Slowly, oh! -very slowly, the days went by that kept him chained to his tasks at -home. - -One pleasant afternoon in mid-April, the children drifted out of -school, in the usual merry chattering groups. The Village schoolhouse -was across The Street from The Roost. It was a quaint, ivy-mantled -brick cottage, the old “office,” in the corner of the yard at Broad -Acres. Broad Acres, once a lordly estate, was now “broad acres” in name -only. Farm after farm, field after field, had passed from the family -ownership until the mansion, with the rambling yard and garden, was -all that was left. - -The house was a stately red-brick building with wide halls and -spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. Mrs. Wilson, who lived there with her -daughter Ruth, spent her days teaching A B C’s to babies and preparing -Dick and the older boys for the university. People who were able paid -her in money or wood or meal or shoes, and she accepted their pupils -and fees, but oh! how she struggled to get the children whose parents -were too poor to pay for schooling or to realize its value. - -“I wish and I wish you weren’t going away, Anne, you precious darling -Anne!” Patsy wailed for the twentieth time, giving Anne Lewis a frantic -embrace. - -“It’s a horrid shame!” exclaimed Ruth Wilson. - -“But I’m coming back in the summer,” Anne said, to comfort them and -herself. “Oh! and, Patsy, won’t we have a lovely time, going around -with Dick!” she said, with a mischievous glance at Patsy’s twin. - -“Bet you will--not!” declared Dick. - -“And think what a good time we’ll all have at Happy Acres.” - -“Let’s go to Happy Acres now,” suggested David Spotswood. “We boys will -catch some fish--maybe, and you girls can get flowers, and we’ll come -home by the mill.” - -“Oh, yes! let’s do that,” exclaimed Anne. “You can go, can’t you, -Patsy? Ruth? Alice?” - -“I don’t see how I can, to stay all afternoon,” Patsy said regretfully. -“Our Red Cross box is to go off next week and I’m not half done my -sweater.” - -“I’ve got to f-finish my scarf,” stammered Ruth. - -“I want to knit another pair of socks, if I have time,” said Alice. - -The Village was working and denying itself to help stricken France and -Belgium. If the contributions were not large in dollars and cents, they -were great in the efforts and self-sacrifice of the little country -neighborhood. But the offerings came from the hands of good Samaritans, -not of patriots. America had accepted the war; it had not yet come home -to The Village. Later on, it was to--but we shall see what we see. - -“Oh, you girls!” grumbled Stephen Tavis. “You are doing that Red Cross -stuff all the time.” - -“And you boys are playing while we work,” said Patsy, tossing her head. - -“We are saving flour and sugar for the Belgians. Do you want us to knit -and sew?” laughed Dick. - -“Some of the boys in Washington are knitting,” Anne said gravely; “and -lots of men, real men, like firemen and soldiers. And they--we--are all -making gardens, so there will be more food to send to hungry France and -Belgium.” - -“Father read from the paper last night something the President said,” -said Patsy. “‘Every one who makes or works a garden helps to solve the -problem of feeding the nations.’” - -“Yes, the President says the fate of the nation and the world rests -largely on the farmer,” said David, importantly. “He wants them to -plant food crops; and that’s what I am doing.” - -“Oh, your old corn acre! You’re so biggity about it,” jeered Dick. - -“I wouldn’t mind a little farm work or gardening; but I certainly draw -the line at knitting,” said Steve. - -“Oh! oh! oh!” Anne jumped up and down, uttering little squeals -of excitement. “Steve! David! Dick! Why don’t you have a school -war garden?” - -“A school garden?” questioned Steve. - -“Yes; like we have in Washington, that all the pupils work in,” said -Anne. - -“Thank you! I get enough gardening at home,” said Dick, sourly. “I -don’t want to spend all my life hung to one end of a stick with a hoe -at the other end.” - -“Oh! but this is fun, and good war work too. It takes just a few -hours a week from each of us. The more there are to help, the less -there is for each one to do.” Then Anne went on indignantly: “It seems -to me you’d want to help, you boys, when you think about all those -poor people over there, old folks and children and women with babies, -homeless and without food. Hundreds and thousands of them stand in line -for hours every day to get a little soup and a piece of bread; and if -we in America don’t provide that bread and soup, they’ll starve.” - -“I’ll make a garden for them,” said a high, sweet voice, quavering on -the verge of tears. “If I had a hoe and a place to work, I’d begin -right away. I ain’t quite as big as Dick, but father says I’ve got -mighty good muscle. Just you feel it, Anne,” said Sweet William. -“Where’s a hoe? And where’s the garden going to be?” - -“Yes; where could we have a garden?” said Steve. “I don’t mind working -a little, enough to keep up with Sweet William, if we had a good place.” - -There was a pause. - -“There isn’t any place. You see we can’t have it,” Dick said -triumphantly. - -“There is; you can,” Anne declared vehemently. “You may have my Happy -Acres that Cousin Rodney gave me. I’ll--yes, I’ll be willing and glad -to dig up the flowers for potatoes and things.” Her voice broke and she -winked back her tears. - -“O-oh!” - -“Why, Anne!” - -“Of course you wouldn’t!” - -“What’s this about digging up flowers?” Mrs. Wilson, coming out of the -schoolroom, with her hands full of papers, heard Anne’s last words and -the horrified exclamations they excited. “Surely you aren’t talking -about dear Happy Acres?” - -“Anne wants us to have a garden, a sort of war garden,” explained Patsy. - -“We have them in Washington, you know, Cousin Agnes,” Anne said. “We -raise lots of vegetables, and it isn’t hard work, with so many to help; -and anyway, it’s worth working hard for, to help feed the world when -it’s hungry and starving.” - -“And Steve asked where the garden could be,” Patsy continued her -explanation. “Anne says it can be Happy Acres, even if they have to dig -up the flowers.” - -“That would be dreadful!” exclaimed Alice Blair. - -“It’s dreadfuller for people to be starving,” said Anne. - -“Shucks! We couldn’t work a garden at Happy Acres,” said Dick. “By the -time we walked there after school, it would be time to walk back to do -our home work.” - -“We could run,” suggested Sweet William. - -Mrs. Wilson laughed with the others; then she said: “Possibly you are -right, Dick; and certainly Anne is. Let me think a minute. If you boys -are willing to give part of your time to work for the hungry, I will -give part of my garden and my help. What do you say?” - -“Yes, ma’am, thank you!” screeched Sweet William. - -“I’m Sweet William’s partner,” said Steve. - -“I’ll help,” said Tom Walthall, “if you don’t ask me to do too much.” - -“So will I,” said Tom Mallett. - -“I’ll help when pa can spare me,” promised Joe Spencer. - -“I will, if Baldie will,” said John Eppes, who never wished to do -anything without his brother Archibald. - -“Oh! I’ll be in it with the others,” said Archie. - -“Of course you will, David?” Anne appealed to the silent boy whose -voice she had expected to hear first. - -“There’s my corn acre----” David began hesitatingly. - -“Of course!” laughed Dick. - -“That’s just it,” Anne said eagerly. “You’ve done such splendid work, -raising such fine corn and winning prizes. You know so much more than -the rest of us about working crops that--why, we need you dreadfully.” - -David tried not to look pleased. “I’ll do what I can,” he agreed. “But -I just tell you, I’m not going to neglect my corn acre for anything; -that I’m not.” - -“Of course not,” said Mrs. Wilson. “And you, Dick--you’ll help, of -course?” - -“No; no, Cousin Agnes,” Dick answered positively. “I’m getting enough -garden work to last my lifetime. And besides, I’ve got something else -to do, if I ever get a chance at it.” - -“What part of the garden are you going to give us, Cousin Agnes?” asked -David. - -“Let’s go and look over the ground,” said Mrs. Wilson. “I’ve just had -it plowed and harrowed, ready for planting.” - -She led the way to the big, old-fashioned garden. In front were beds -of hardy flowers, and arbors and summerhouses covered with roses and -jasmine and honeysuckle. Back of the flowers were vegetable beds and -rows of raspberries and gooseberries and fig bushes. And in a far -corner, hedged by boxwood and carpeted with blue-starred periwinkle, -rose the lichened marble slabs of the family burying-ground. - -David, the star member of the county Corn Club, looked admiringly at -the fertile vegetable beds. “Gee!” he exclaimed. “I’d beat the record -if my corn acre was like this; it’s rich as cream.” - -“It has been a garden more than a hundred years,” said Mrs. Wilson. -“Broad Acres was the first clearing in the wilderness where The Village -is now. Here, boys, I am going to give you this sunny southeast square. -Now, let’s see who are our gardeners. You’ll join, won’t you, Albert?” -she said kindly to Albert Smith, who stood uncomfortably apart from any -of the friendly groups. - -“No. I can’t,” he said abruptly. Then he turned his head with a queer -little gesture as if he were listening to hear how his speech sounded. -He added confusedly: “My uncle needs me to come home. I came to ask the -arithmetic page lesson.” - -Mrs. Wilson indicated the page and then, as he slipped away, she turned -to the other boys. All except Dick Osborne enrolled as members of The -Village War-Garden Club. Meanwhile, the girls were whispering together, -and Patsy became their spokeswoman. - -“Cousin Agnes,” she said, “we want to war-garden, too.” - -“Y-yes, mother,” said Ruth. “We’ve been having flower gardens; why -c-can’t we raise real things, beans and potatoes?” - -“You can; of course you can,” said her mother. - -There was a howl from the boys. - -“We don’t want girls bothering around,” said Archie. “Let them stay in -the house and sew.” - -“They’ve got their Red Cross stuff,” said Steve. “That’s enough for -them.” - -“We girls have Red Cross work in Washington, and we do war gardening, -too. And who suggested this garden, I’d like to know?” Anne asked. - -“That’s all right; suggest,” said Joe. “Girls are good at talking; but -we don’t want them around in our way when we are working.” - -There was a clamor of indignation from the girls. - -“Boys! Girls!” Mrs. Wilson said in her schoolroom voice. In the silence -that it brought, she went on: “Of course the girls may have a garden, -if they wish. I’ll give them the strip of land by the rose garden.” - -But the girls scornfully rejected this offer. - -“We don’t want a little ribbon like that,” said Patsy. “We want a real -garden or none at all. We don’t care if you give us a bigger place -than the boys have--I’m sure we can manage it--but we don’t want an -inch less. There are more of us than there are of them; two more, -counting Anne, who’s coming back in June.” - -“Give us the square by the one the b-b-boys have,” said Ruth. - -“Oh, you greedy!” said David. “That would be taking nearly all of -Cousin Agnes’s garden, these two big squares.” - -“Make the boys divide their square with us, Cousin Agnes,” suggested -Patsy. - -“No! no! no!” the boys objected loudly. - -“Who’s greedy now?” Patsy inquired scornfully. - -“G-g-give us that s-southwest square, mother,” urged Ruth. “You and I -don’t need such a big garden. Let’s l-l-let the Belgians have it.” - -“Well,” Mrs. Wilson agreed. She and Ruth did need the garden; it was -their main support; but in this time of world need, they must give not -only all they were able, but more and still more. She and Ruth would -get on, somehow. “You girls may have the square next to the boys,” she -said. - -There were groans and cheers. - -“We’ll see which do the best work. To-morrow morning let’s meet here -and start the planting. Bring hoes and rakes. I,” she added, “will -supply seeds.” - -That meant another sacrifice. She and Ruth would stint themselves to -give for seed the peas and beans and potatoes they had stored for food. - -On the way home, Dick and some of the others stopped at the post -office. It occupied a corner of Mr. Blair’s general merchandise shop -and it was, Black Mayo said, the Village club where young and old -gathered in the afternoons for mail and gossip. - -When Dick went in, there were a dozen villagers and countrymen lounging -in the room, Mr. Blair was sorting the mail, and Black Mayo was perched -on the counter, reading the news in Mr. Blair’s paper the only daily -that came to The Village. - -“The British are holding Vimy Ridge,” he said. - -“What about Congress and army plans?” asked Red Mayo. - -“Congress is still discussing, discussing. Why doesn’t it go ahead and -put a draft bill in shape? The President’s right; that’s the way to -raise an army.” - -“Hey, Black Mayo! Here’s a letter for Polly,” said Mr. Blair. “And here -are two letters for Mr. Carl Schmidt.” He looked around. - -The man who lived at the old Tolliver place came forward. “I guess they -are for me,” he said, “from somebody that did not know my name; it’s -Smith, good American Charley Smith.” - -“Carl Schmidt; that’s a queer-sounding name. What is it?” asked Mr. -Jones, a stout, red-faced countryman. - -“It is a German name,” Black Mayo said crisply. - -“My father did from Germany come,” the man who called himself Smith -said hastily, darting an angry glance at Black Mayo and then looking -around without meeting any one’s eyes. “He was sensible, and he did -come to America. I was here born. I am an American citizen.” - -“I’d hate to be one of them low-down Germans,” said Pete Walthall, -taking a chew of tobacco. - -“_Ach!_ so would I,” Smith proclaimed loudly. “They are bad people. -Awful bad people.” He met defiantly Black Mayo’s quizzical eyes. “I got -no use for them German peoples.” - -“Nobody has,” said Mr. Tavis. - -“Oh, yes!” Black Mayo declared. “I have. One of my best friends is a -German, a fine fellow named Kuno Kleist that I spent months with, in -Mexico, helping him collect bugs and butterflies.” - -“Why, Mr. Mayo!” said Pete. “You mean to say you don’t hate Germany?” - -“I hate the Germany of Prussianism, power-mad Junkerism, the ‘blood and -iron’ of Frederick the Great and Bismarck and Kaiser William,” said -Black Mayo; “but I love the Germany of Goethe and Schiller and Luther -and Beethoven.” - -“Germany is one!” Mr. Smith’s voice rang out. “It is one, I say.” - -“So are we all, all one.” Black Mayo looked around with a sudden -winning smile. “Remember that first Christmas when German and British -soldiers came out of the trenches to exchange food and to talk -together. ‘You are of the same religion as we, and to-day is the Day of -Peace,’ a German said to a Scottish officer. And those men had to be -transferred to other parts of the line; they were enemies no longer, -but friends; they could not fight one another. - -“Facts come out now and then that show the difference in spirit between -people and war lords. A German paper recently announced that the people -of a certain town had been jailed for improper conduct to prisoners -and their names were printed, to make their shame known to coming -generations. - -“An American consul investigated the case. He found that a trainload of -Canadian prisoners had been sidetracked in the little town, and the -citizens had found out they were thirsty and starving; so they brought -food and drink. This was the crime for which they were imprisoned and -held up to shame! - -“Oh! the war lords are trying to carry out their policy of -frightfulness. But they have studied history to little purpose if -they think Edith Cavell and the _Lusitania_ victims and the murdered -Belgians and the tortured prisoners are dead.” - -“What do you mean, Cousin Mayo,” asked Dick. - -“Are the Greeks of Thermopylæ dead? Or Roland and King Arthur, who -perhaps never lived?” Leaving Dick to make his own explanation, Mr. -Osborne turned to Mr. Blair. “Will, give me two pounds of nails, -please. I must be going.” - -“Going!” said Mr. Blair, in surprise. It was an unwritten law that when -a man came to the post office he was to loaf there until night drove -him home. - -“I’m busy making a new pigeon cote.” - -“So you’ve gone back to the amusement of your boyhood, eh?” said Mr. -Blair, as he weighed the nails. - -There had always been pigeons at Larkland, Black Mayo Osborne’s home. -When the house was built, the master, the first Osborne in Virginia, -erected a dovecote and stocked it with birds from the family home in -England. There they had been ever since. Sometimes they were carefully -bred; sometimes they were neglected; but always they were there, -flying, cooing, nesting in the quiet old country place. - -As a boy, Black Mayo took great interest in raising and training them. -And this spring he had sent to a famous breeder for new stock and had -begun again to train carrier pigeons. - -He answered Mr. Blair with a smile and a nod, and started out. “Hey, -Dickon!” he said. “It’s a long time since you came to see the pigeons. -Have you lost interest in them?” - -“No; no, sir,” answered Dick, looking embarrassed. “I--I--that I -haven’t.” - -“Richard is--h’m!--keeping bounds this month,” Red Mayo said austerely. -“He diso----” - -“I understand.” Black Mayo spared Dick a public explanation. “Well, -come when you can. I’ll bring you one of my young birds to-morrow, to -turn loose for a trial flight.” - -“Oh, thank you, Cousin Mayo!” - -Mr. Smith sidled to the door and looked after Mr. Osborne, with a -malignant scowl. - -“He, the one you call ‘Black Mayo,’ is--isn’t he queer?” he said to -Jake Andrews and Mac Hight, who were sitting on the porch. - -“What do you mean?” asked Jake Andrews. - -“He takes up for the Germans; says they are such good, kind people and -he loves them. It sounds to me strange to hear a man call himself now a -friend of the German peoples.” - -“Shucks! Black Mayo ain’t said that; is he, Mr. Tavis?” Jake appealed -to the old man who now came shuffling out on the porch. - -“Yes, he did,” said Mr. Tavis. “He explained at it somehow; but he -certainly said he loved them Germans that are tearing the world to -pieces over yonder.” - -“And here, too,” said Jake. “Ain’t they been blowing up railroad -bridges, and factories, and public buildings? Why, they’ve got soldiers -guarding the warehouses at South City; near us as that!” - -“That’s what South City gets for being on the railroad where all sorts -of folks go traipsing up and down,” said Mr. Tavis. “I stand to what -I’ve always said, I’m glad the railroad don’t come a-nigh The Village.” - -“It’s good that Mr. Osborne so talks here where you permit him what he -pleases to say,” said Mr. Smith. “In New York State a man for that talk -would be arrested and punished.” - -“Shucks!” said Mr. Tavis. “Black Mayo didn’t mean no harm. He always -had a funny way of talking.” - -“You heard him say he loves the Germans; not so?” insisted Mr. Smith. - -“Well, yes; he certainly said that,” admitted Mr. Tavis again. - -“H-m-m! That’s mighty curious talk,” said Jake. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -The next morning the young folks gathered at Broad Acres. All the -school children were there except Albert Smith and Dick Osborne; and -Dick, poor boy, was toiling sullenly and alone in the garden at home. - -The young war gardeners became so interested in the task they had set -themselves that they returned to it in the afternoon, and there Black -Mayo found them when he came to bring Mrs. Wilson some tomato plants. - -“What is this, Agnes? a Chatterbox Club?” he inquired, setting a basket -carefully in a shaded place. “From the noise I heard at a distance, I -thought crows or blue jays might be holding a caucus in your garden.” - -The young folks were duly indignant at the slander, and asserted that -their hands--most of them, anyway, and--well, most of the time--were -going as fast as their tongues. - -“Come and see what we are doing,” invited Patsy. “Here are our -potatoes; we are giving half of our garden to them. Isn’t the soil -fine, and aren’t the rows pretty and even? Cousin Agnes showed us how -to lay them off, by a string tied to sticks at the ends of the row.” - -“I wish the potatoes would hurry and come up,” said Sweet William, “so -I can get the bugs off them.” - -“Hey, old scout!” said Black Mayo. “Are you in it, too?” - -“Course I am,” was the complacent answer. “I was the first to join. -Wasn’t I, Cousin Agnes? I reckon I’ve walked ten miles--well, I know -I’ve walked a mile--to-day, carrying buckets of potatoes to the -children to plant. Didn’t I, Cousin Agnes?” - -“You’ve been helping, dear. We couldn’t get on without you. Nothing in -The Village could get on without our Sweet William,” said Mrs. Wilson, -kissing him. - -He accepted the caress soberly and then said with a little frown: “I -reckon I’m ’most too big for ladies to kiss.” - -“Ah, Billy boy, you’ll change your mind in a few years,” laughed Black -Mayo. “What’s that bag-of-bonesy thing at your heels?” - -“He’s my dog; he’s Scalawag,” the youngster explained with dignity. - -“A dog, eh? A poor excuse for a dog! Where’d you get it?” - -“I didn’t get him. He came and adopted me,” explained Sweet William. -“He’s a mighty good dog. See! He’s watching me like he wants to help.” - -“Cousin Mayo, look at the bean rows I am laying off,” called Patsy. - -“Really and truly, Cousin Mayo,” said Anne, “don’t you think it’s good -for us to have a garden?” - -“Truly and really, my dear,” he said, “I think it’s splendid. You are -helping--and how much the willing, diligent children all over the -land can help!--in America’s work of saving the world from starving. -The fighters can’t farm, so we must feed the armies; and we have the -people of France and Belgium on our hearts and hands; and there are the -U-boats--we must have food enough to send another shipload for every -one they sink. It’s a big job.” - -“We gardeners will do our part. I’m going to help when I come back in -June,” said Anne. - -“She’s helping while she’s away, Cousin Mayo,” said Patsy. “She -suggested our having a garden. And her Happy Acres, all except the -flower part, is to be put in corn. Our Canning Club is going to can -corn and butterbeans and tomatoes together, to make Brunswick stew. -Cousin Agnes says we can surely sell all we put up.” - -“The girls think pie of their old Canning Club,” said David, jealously. -“We boys are doing real work in our Corn Club, and we are going to have -a real garden; not dawdle around, like a parcel of girls.” - -“Come, come!” chided Mr. Osborne. “You are working for the same cause. -You are in friendly camps, not hostile ones. By the way, what are their -names?” - -“Names? They haven’t any,” said Patsy. - -“Pshaw! They must have names; of course they must. Camp Feed Friend, -isn’t that a good name for yours, Patsy? And the boys’ plot can be Camp -Fight Foe.” - -“All right,” said David; then he laughed. “Maybe the girls will raise -enough to feed Friend Humming Bird!” - -“Here, my boy!” said Mr. Osborne. “It isn’t a sign of wisdom or -experience to be scornful of girls and women. You may do better work -than the girls; and then again you may not. Time will prove. Suppose -you keep a record of your work and have a competitive exhibition of -garden products this autumn. I’ll give a prize, the silver cup I cut my -teeth on, to the best gardeners.” - -“Fine!” said Steve. “That cup is as good as ours.” - - “‘There’s many a slip - ’Twixt cup and lip,’” - -Patsy reminded him, with a saucy tilt of her chin. - -Mr. Osborne laughed. “Well, while I loaf here, my work’s getting no -forwarder. I must go home. By the way, Agnes, I have two or three -bushels of potatoes for you that I’ll send----” - -“But, Mayo, you can’t spare----” - -“Neither could you,” he said, looking at the war-garden rows. “G’by! -Oh, I was forgetting the pigeon I brought Dick.” He picked up his -basket. “Poor hungry bird!” - -“Hungry? Let me feed it,” said Mrs. Wilson. “Here are a few peas left -in my seed box.” - -“Oh, no! no, thank you,” he answered. “It is a racing pigeon that I’m -beginning to train. It must start off hungry, so it will fly home to be -fed.” - -“Let me see it, Cousin Mayo; please let me take it in my hands,” said -Anne. She cuddled the dove against her cheek. “What a pretty, gentle -bird it is! The emblem of peace, isn’t it? Oh, what a shame it seems to -send it from this quiet, sweet place to those terrible battlefields!” - -Mr. Osborne put one caressing hand on the bird and the other on Anne’s -head. - -“These God’s dear creatures bear messages of help and rescue through -the battle cloud; they soar above and beyond it, and their wings catch -the eternal sunshine. Ah! our doves of war are still--are more than -ever--the birds of peace. For this war isn’t just a fight for territory -and undisturbed sea ways; it is a war for freedom and human rights, and -so for true and lasting peace. Agnes,” he turned to Mrs. Wilson, “have -you given our young folks the President’s message?” - -“Not yet,” she answered. - -“Not yet!” he repeated reproachfully. “And already it is being read in -French schools. It is a part of the history of our times, of all time; -it’s like the Declaration of Independence, but wider, higher, grander.” - -“I’m going to read it to my history class,” said Mrs. Wilson. - -“To every one of these young folks, from primer babies up, and -now,” Black Mayo said impetuously. “Get the paper. Let’s sit in -the summerhouse here and fancy it’s the Capitol and this is the -history-making night of April 2d. - -“Here we are, waiting for the President. He’s coming. The throngs on -the streets are cheering him at every step. The floor of the House is -crowded,--its own members, senators, Cabinet officers, judges of the -Supreme Court, representatives of the Allied nations. The galleries, -too, are crowded; people waited at the doors for hours for the precious -privilege of a seat. - -“The President rises, solemn and resolute with a great duty. He stands -there before the House, before the world for all time. He is America -speaking. He gives the message that devotes a hundred million people to -war for American rights and world freedom. - -“It is done. He turns to go. And now, ah! now statesmen are not -Democrats, not Republicans; they are only patriots. Men who have stood -with the President, men who have stood against him, throng shoulder to -shoulder to clasp his hand and pledge themselves to support him in this -sacred cause. Only the ‘little group of willful men’ stands shamefully -apart. - -“Here are the words that expressed and inspired the soul of America.” - -And then Mayo Osborne read the President’s war message. - -“‘The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; -they cut to the very roots of human life.... - -“‘We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted -that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong -done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are -observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.... - -“‘The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted -upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish -ends to serve. We desire no conquests, no dominion. We seek no -indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices -we shall freely make.... - -“‘The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the -things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, -for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their -own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a -universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall -bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last -free. - -“‘To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything -that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those -who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend -her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and -happiness and the peace which she has treasured. - -“‘God helping her, she can do no other.’” - -There was a minute of silence at the end. - -With eyes shining through tears, Mrs. Wilson turned to her daughter. - -“Oh, Ruth, Ruth!” she said. “If only you were a boy in khaki, and I at -your side!” - -“Oh, mother! I w-w-wish I were!” cried Ruth. - -“It’s wonderful!” Black Mayo tapped the paper with a thoughtful finger. -“He Americanizes the war, and does it by putting aside everything for -which the ‘land of dollars’ is supposed to stand and upholding our old -high ideals. No indemnity, no conquests. The _Lusitania_ was an insult -to our flag; more than that, it was a dishonor to humanity.” - -“He starts us on a high-going road,” said Mrs. Wilson. - -“Please,” broke in David, “let’s finish planting our corn before dark.” - -“Righto, boy!” exclaimed Black Mayo, jumping up. “And my plow’s -standing still. Geminy! how time flies!” - -He hurried away and the war gardeners went back to work. - -“Will you look who’s coming?” Patsy exclaimed presently, glancing -toward the gate. “Jeff Spencer and Will Eppes!” - -Mrs. Wilson hastened to meet the visitors who had been her pupils from -A B C days till they went to university and engineering corps. - -“Why, Jeff! I didn’t know you were at home!” she said, shaking hands -with the boy in front, a pleasant-looking, round-faced fellow, so fat -that he resembled a well-stuffed pincushion. - -“I--I am not at the University any longer, Miss Agnes,” he said soberly. - -“Not at the University!” She looked at him in dismay. He had always -been a mischievous chap, and she had had her doubts and fears about his -college course, but gradually these had subsided. Now he was in his -senior year; and here he was back home. What scrape had he got into? - -Jeff’s light-blue eyes were twinkling, and now he laughed till his -fair, freckled face reddened to the roots of his sandy hair. - -“I always could get a rise out of you, Miss Agnes!” he said. “Here you -are wondering what I’ve done to get sent away from the University, just -as mother did. And it never occurred to you that I’ve left of my own -free will.” A new light came into the bright eyes. “I’ve enlisted. And, -gee! won’t a uniform be full of me!” - -“Enlisted!” she echoed. “But, Jeff, your mother--she always said she -could never consent to----” - -“Oh, she’s a trump, the ace of trumps! Of course she hates war. The War -took so many of her people--her father and both her uncles--and all the -things. She knows what war is. But when I put it up to her, she said -‘Go!’ Of course I’d have had to do it anyway. I couldn’t look myself in -the face in a mirror if I sat safe at home and let others risk their -lives to make the world a decent place for me to live in. So I’ve come -to say good-by to you who”--he returned to his waggish tone--“put me up -to going.” - -“I?” She was amazed. “Why, Jeff, I’ve not seen you even to say -‘how-dye-do’ since war was declared.” - -“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about lately. It was the way you taught us -history; not Jack’s book that was so dry every time we turned a page it -raised dust, but in spite of it you made us know what America stands -for, the things for which a man ought to be willing and glad to risk -his life. Grandmother says”--he grinned--“I’m fighting for Confederate -principles, the right of self-government. Isn’t she a darling, red-hot -old Southerner?” - -“And I’m going, too, Cousin Agnes,” said William Eppes. “I didn’t know -it till yesterday; but father knew it.” - -“Your father knew it?” she repeated. - -“Yes’m. He’d been might quiet lately, and at last he came out with, -‘there never had been an American war without an Eppes in it, and here -are the two of us, and I can take my choice; but he hoped I’d stay at -home and let him go, being a Spanish-American vet.’ I asked him if -he knew what a whopper he was telling. Why, he’d have dropped in his -tracks if I had showed the white feather and said I wasn’t willing to -go. But I just hadn’t thought of it. It didn’t take me two secs to -decide. Of course I’m going.” - -“And so you boys are joining the army; going to France to fight.” - -It seemed but yesterday since they were little fellows in her primer -class. And now they were going, with the bodies and hearts of men, to -do men’s work in the world. Through the mist in her eyes she had a -vision: New pages of the history book opened, heroes walked out, took -form and life; lo! they were her own schoolboys--shy Fayett Mallett, -mischievous Jeff Spencer, slow William Eppes--and others, others would -come. Why, here were the youngsters, even little Sweet William, putting -aside play to do their part. - -“Oh, goody! goody!” Sweet William was saying now, in his high, eager -little voice. “We’ve got soldiers, our own soldiers, to send things -to. Come on, Jeff; you and Will, look at our gardens.” - -And then half a dozen, talking at once, explained about Camp Fight Foe -and Camp Feed Friend. - -“I’m surely glad to see these gardens,” said Jeff. “I always was a -hearty eater, and my ‘stomach for fighting’ needs to be a full one. -We’re going to claim the best food we see over there, aren’t we, Bill? -biggest potatoes and sweetest beans, for I know they’ll come from The -Village straight to us.” - -“We’ll think of you when the weather gets warm, and we’ll work hard and -not loaf on the job,” said Alice Blair. - -“Thank you,” said William. “It seems a shame for you to tan your face -and blister your hands--for us.” - -“I like to do it--for you,” said Alice; and then she blushed. - -“I should think you’d be going to Fort Myer, Jeff,” said David. - -“Well, I did think about the O. T. C.,” answered Jeff; “but I felt -sorry for those poor officers. It seemed to me they need a few privates -under them; so I decided to be in the ranks. And I’m going to try to -get with Northern boys.” - -“Jeff Spencer! Why----” - -“So I can do missionary work,” he explained. “Those Harvard chaps I -met on our last game--bully fellows they were!--thought the old United -States began in 1620 on Plymouth Rock. I broke to ’em the news about -1607 and Jamestown,--that before their _Mayflower_ sailed, Virginia was -here, with a House of Burgesses standing for freemen’s rights, just as -we’re standing to-day. Hurrah for Jamestown and Woodrow Wilson!” - -The enthusiasm excited by the President’s message and the volunteers -extended to the smallest small boys. For weeks they had been carrying -on a war play on their way home from school. Now the game was blocked. -The boys who had composed the kaiser’s forces refused to be Germans; -they were Americans. - -At last, after a whispered consultation with Jeff Spencer, Joe Eppes -said with a grin: “Oh, wait a minute. I’ll be the Germans one more -time; I’ll be them all, kaiser and generals and army.” - -He ran home and soon came back, wearing a German helmet made of an old -derby hat with a tin oil can fastened on top of it. - -He did the goosestep backward down the hill, shouting, “On! on! on! -straight to Paris!” At Tinkling Water, he swaggered on the foot log -and tumbled, with a mighty splash, into the water, to the huge delight -of the other children who loudly applauded the ignominious end of the -German forces. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -The first Saturday afternoon in May found a busy group of ladies and -girls in the big parlor at Broad Acres which Mrs. Wilson had given up -to Red Cross work. - -Saturday was usually sacred to needle and broom and cookstove, in -preparation for the quiet, strictly kept Presbyterian Sunday; but -to-day was an exception. A Red Cross box was to be sent off next week, -and everything else was put aside to get it ready. - -Mrs. Wilson was cutting out hospital shirts. - -“This finishes our last piece of cloth,” she said regretfully. “I do -wish we had some money.” - -There was an awkward silence. Money had to be mentioned sometimes -in a shop--asking Mr. Blair the price of shoes and umbrellas, in an -apologetic tone. But to wish for it, in public and aloud! No one had -ever before heard a Village lady do such a thing. - -Miss Fanny Morrison, who had charge of the work, broke the embarrassing -silence. “These shirts ain’t ready to pack,” she said with a frown, as -she pushed aside a bundle she had just opened. “I’ve got to rip ’em -and do ’em over. Every seam is crooked or puckered.” - -“If you would tell whoever did them----” began Mrs. Blair. - -“Course I can’t tell her,” said the seamstress, who was supposed to -have a tongue as sharp as her needle. “It’s Mrs. Tavis. Ain’t she doing -her best, with her dim old eyes and trembly old hands? I can’t tell -her it would save me time for her to sit and twirl her thumbs, and let -me make the shirts instead of unmaking ’em and making ’em over. Well, -we’ve got a lot done. And you girls have certainly worked splendid. I -thought you-all--Alice and Ruth and Patsy and Mary Spencer and Essie -Walthall, the bunch of you--would just be a lot of trouble. But you’re -faithful and painstaking, and you do as good work as anybody.” - -“We like to do it,” said Patsy, whose fingers were flying in the effort -to finish a sweater. - -“This will be six pairs of socks I’ve knit,” said Alice Blair; “and I -thought I’d never get done that first pair!” - -“You’ve learned how,” said her mother; then she chuckled: “Will says he -expects to wake up some night and find me knitting in my sleep!” - -“Ah, dears!” Mrs. Spencer said in her gentle, quavering old voice. -“This takes me back to The War. We used to gather here, in this -very room, to knit socks and make bandages and tear linen sheets and -underwear into lint for our poor, dear, wounded soldiers.” - -“Those awful days!” said Miss Fanny. “I certainly am thankful we are -not really in this war; in it with our men and our homes.” - -“I am beginning to feel,” Mrs. Wilson said quietly, “that we _are_ in -it, and that this _is_ our war. There are Fayett and Jeff and William; -and the President’s war message; and now the draft.” - -“It’s awful to think they may make our boys go to foreign parts to -fight,” groaned Mrs. Blair. - -“They don’t seem to need much making,” remarked Mrs. Wilson. - -“Europe doesn’t seem so far off as it used to,” said Mrs. Red Mayo -Osborne, who had locked herself out of the bookcase for a whole week. -“Who’d have thought, three years ago, we’d be giving up our Saturday -duties to make things to send to France and Belgium?” - -“Europe isn’t so far off,” Mrs. Wilson replied. “The Germans gave us -two object lessons last year, to prove that--sending the _Deutschland_ -and _U-53_ to our very harbors. And next thing we know, aircraft will -cross the ocean.” - -The others laughed at the idea of such a thing. - -“Well, there are other nearnesses,” said Mrs. Wilson. “The ties are -tightening among English-speaking people. Didn’t it thrill you to read -about the Stars and Stripes floating from the highest tower of the -Parliament buildings?--the first time a foreign flag was ever displayed -there.” - -“I didn’t care so much about that.” Miss Fanny tossed up her chin; she -prided herself on being an “unreconstructed rebel” and kept a little -Confederate flag draped over a chromo of “Lee and his generals.” “But,” -she went on, “it did give me a queer feeling to read about that great -service the English had in St. Paul’s, to celebrate America’s joining -in the war. They sang ‘O God! our help in ages past,’ the very hymn we -were singing Sunday morning.” - -“We people of the same tongue and blood, are getting together,” said -Mrs. Red Mayo. - -“I don’t see anything good anywhere outside The Village” declared Mrs. -Walthall. “When my old man comes home and tells the cruel, wicked, -dreadful, terrible things”--Mrs. Walthall’s language was broken out -with adjectives like smallpox--“Will Blair reads in his paper--you feel -as if the world was upside down and something mean and awful might even -happen here!” - -This was such a wild flight of fancy that every one laughed. - -“Why, even during The War,” said Mrs. Spencer, “The War that we were -in, bodies of all the men and hearts of all the women and children, -even that, my dears, didn’t come to The Village, except the one raid -from Sherman’s army marching north that awful April.” - -“I am glad we are shut up here in this safe, quiet little corner,” said -Mrs. Blair; “for, as Mrs. Walthall says, terrible things are happening. -Not only factories and munition plants destroyed in the North, but -railroad bridges and trestles right here in Virginia; a bridge near -Norfolk, a bridge that trains with troops and supplies and munitions -have to cross, was saturated with oil and set afire, by foreigners and -negroes.” Her voice dropped. - -“There is our bridge----” began Mrs. Walthall. - -She was interrupted by a little indignant stir. Mrs. Osborne said -crisply, “That bridge is just as safe as our own doorsteps.” - -“They say,” Mrs. Walthall said, “that in New York poison has been put -in Red Cross bandages and dressings. I declare, I feel like we ought to -inspect our things and keep them locked up.” - -“Nonsense, Anna!” exclaimed Mrs. Red Mayo. “Inspect things! And lock -them up! Who ever locks up anything in The Village? Why, we never lock -our outside doors, and in summer-time they stand wide open every night.” - -“Strange and curious and terrible things are happening in other -places,” said Mrs. Walthall. - -“In other places,” Mrs. Osborne repeated, dryly and emphatically. - -The ladies were so absorbed in work and talk that they did not hear the -click of the front gate and the stumbling and stamping of feet coming -up the steps. - -Susan opened the parlor door. “There’s some menfolks out here, Miss -Agnes,” she said to her mistress. “They say please’m they want to see -the Red Cross ladies.” - -“To see me?” asked Mrs. Wilson. - -“To see the Red Cross ladies; that’s what they say, Miss Agnes.” - -“Ask them to come in,” said Mrs. Wilson. - -Miss Fanny modestly hid a hospital shirt she was ripping and began to -knit a wristlet. Susan opened the door and ushered in nine old men. -They were feeble and broken with years, years not only of age but of -poverty and many hardships. They shuffled in, some on wooden legs, some -dragging paralyzed feet, some supporting rheumatic limbs with canes -and crutches. There were palsied arms and more than one empty sleeve. - -The old fellows came in panting and wheezing from the exertion of -climbing the steps. At the door they took off their hats, baring bald -pates and straggling white locks, and stood in line. - -Mrs. Wilson went forward swiftly and greeted them with gracious -courtesy, but they did not respond as friends and neighbors. - -“We came on an errand to you Red Cross ladies,” Captain Anderson said -formally. “We”--he straightened his old shoulders--“are Confederate -veterans.” - -At the words the ladies came to their feet, in respect and homage. - -“Confederate veterans!” Captain Anderson repeated. - -The bent, stiff forms stirred with a memory rather than a reality of -soldierly bearing; the bleared, dim old eyes brightened. - -Their spokesman went on in his thin, quavering voice: “Ladies, fair -flowers of Virginia womanhood, we, the little remnant surviving of the -gallant defenders of our glorious Lost Cause, greet you. By the noble -generosity of The Village, funds have been raised for us to attend the -Reunion at Washington. - -“It is a grand and glorious place to hold the Reunion. We are glad and -proud that--that our old comrades are to meet there--in the capital -they threatened six times by their dauntless and renowned valor, but -the streets of which they were never to tread in uniform and under -flag until now, after a half century of peace. They are to camp in the -very shadow of the Capitol of our glorious and reunited country, and -their battle-shattered and death-thinned ranks are to parade before the -President and be addressed by him--the first President since The War -born on the sacred soil of old Virginia, and the greatest President -since Washington. Three cheers for President Wilson!” - -They were given with a will by the thin, cracked old voices. - -“And--and----” stammered Captain Anderson. - -“Gettysburg,” said old Mr. Tavis, in a stage whisper. - -“Yes. Gettysburg; Gettysburg. That comes presently.” He mopped his brow -with a bandanna handkerchief. “A-ah! The President to address us. Yes, -yes! No more is needed to make it a grand and perfect occasion. But -more is to be added. The veterans in gray and their brethren in blue -are to make a pilgrimage to Gettysburg, that was the high-water mark -of our glorious and unsuccessful war; there is to be erected a monument -to our brave comrades, the heroes that fell on that bloody field. I -tell you, ladies, we are as glad and proud of it all as if we were -going to that Reunion ourselves.” - -“But you are going!” cried Patsy. - -“And now here’s war again--we don’t count that little skirmish with -Spain--but now the United States is in a real war, and South and North -and East and West are standing shoulder to shoulder together. - -“This isn’t like The War we fought, a decent war of man against man -on the earth God gave them to fight over. This war--it’s like nothing -that ever was before in civilized times--robbing and burning towns by -the hundred, shooting down unarmed people in gangs, killing men with -poisonous gases like you would so many rats, sinking ships without -giving folks a chance for their lives, dropping bombs from airships on -homes and schools and hospitals. - -“It makes our hearts sick for people to suffer such things; and it -makes our blood boil for people to do them. So we’ve talked it over -together, we old Confeds, and we’re all of one mind. We want to help -the women and children and the pieces of men left by this hellish -fighting. So here is the money, please, ma’am”--he held out a purse -to Mrs. Wilson--“that you-all so generously raised to send us to the -Reunion. We bring it to you as our contribution to the Red Cross.” - -“Oh!” cried Patsy, “but you mustn’t miss it, the grandest of all -Reunions. You must go.” - -He shook his head. - -“This is what Marse Robert would do, if he was here to-day,” he said -simply, looking up now in his old age, as to a beacon, to the hero he -had adoringly followed in youth. - -Mrs. Wilson controlled her voice and spoke: “We accept your offering; -don’t we?” She turned to her companions, and every head was bowed. “We -accept it in the noble spirit in which it is given, a spirit worthy of -your peerless leader. And we thank you from our hearts, in the name of -suffering humanity, to whose service it is consecrated.” - -“But for you to give up the Reunion, the Reunion that you’ve looked -forward to!” mourned Miss Fanny. - -The old men glanced at one another with a sort of shy glee. Then -Captain Anderson said: “That isn’t all. We are going to volunteer! -They’re going to have that draft and raise soldiers. Folks said at -first they’d just need American dollars and food and steel; but they’re -calling for soldiers now. And I tell you they’ll need American valor. -As long as war is war, they’ll want _men_. The young soldiers, the -drafted boys, will do their best. But we--well, we are going to write -to the President and tell him we are ready to go, and we seasoned old -soldiers will show those youngsters what fighting is!” - -While the old heroes were making their offering, Dick Osborne was -creeping along the edge of a field near The Village, carrying in his -arms something bundled up in a newspaper. He scrambled through the -churchyard hedge and crept into the woodshed at the back of the church. -Now that its winter uses were over, no one else gave the shed a look or -a thought, and Dick had hidden here his mining tools and a bundle with -something white in it. - -His garden task was off his hands at last, and he had planned to spend -to-day at the old mine; but Patsy had watched him keenly all the -morning, and this afternoon David and Steve were at work in a cornfield -near the road. Usually it would be easy enough to elude them, but not -to-day, burdened with the tools he had to carry. And anyway, he had -devised a plan to lend interest and excitement to the long, weary way -to the mine. In order to carry out his plan and avoid embarrassing -questions, he had obtained permission to spend the night with his -cousin at the mill. - -Safe in the shed, he opened the package he had been carrying so -carefully and chuckled as he looked at its contents. It was a cow’s -skull! - -“Uh, it’s a beauty!” he said, gazing admiringly at the bleached and -whitened old thing. “And when I fix it----!” - -He proceeded to “fix it” by pasting green tissue paper over the -eyeholes and fastening his flashlight inside. Then he stood back and -looked at it. Ah, it was as fearful looking as he had hoped it would -be! He opened the other package and took out a sheet which he smeared -with phosphorus. It was getting dark now; late enough, Dick thought, -for him to venture out. He fastened the tools together with an old -chain and slung them over his shoulder; then he draped the sheet around -him and fastened the skull on his head. He crept out of the shed, -slipped around the corner of the church, and looked up and down the -road. - -The coast was clear, and he took the road to Redville. For a mile he -had it to himself. Then he heard wheels and voices behind him. He -hesitated a minute, then prudently withdrew to the wayside. It might be -people who would accept him as a ghost; or it might not. Ah! It was -Mr. Spencer, trotting homeward from The Village, with his son Joe. Dick -crouched in the bushes. - -“Wait a minute, pa,” said Joe. “There’s something queer in those -chinquapin bushes; something white and light looking. Let’s see what it -is.” - -“Shuh! It’s just Gordan Jones’s old white cow,” replied Mr. Spencer. -“We haven’t time to stop. We’re late for supper already.” - -When they were safely out of sight, Dick came back to the highway and -hurried along till he came to the Old Plank Road and the Big Woods. -From here on, there were only a few negro cabins, and he felt secure in -his ghostly array. - -Isham Baskerfield’s cabin was dark and seemingly deserted, but the door -of the next house was open and from within came a bright light and -loud voices and laughter. Peter Jim Jones was having a “frolic.” The -guests were overflowing on the porch, and the barking of dogs and the -squealing of children mingled with the jovial voices of men and women. - -As Dick stalked down the road toward the cabin, a dog began to bark -and then subsided into a whine. One of the negroes on the porch looked -around and caught a glimpse of the white, tall figure. - -“Wh-what’s dat?” he stammered. - -“What’s what?” - -Dick took a few steps forward, clanking and rattling his chains, and -stood still in an open space, revealed and concealed by the light of a -fading young moon. His white drapery glimmered and gleamed with pale -phosphorescent light, and the green eyes in the ghastly old skull -glared like a demon’s. He uttered a sepulchral moan. - -The negroes rushed pell-mell into the cabin, tumbling over one another. - -“A ha’nt! a ha’nt! a ha’nt!” - -Dick’s moan broke into a laugh, but that came to an abrupt end. For a -dozen dogs ran to investigate the strange appearance which, after all, -had a human scent. Dick in his flowing drapery stood for a moment at a -disadvantage. But he jerked up the sheet and gave a kick that sent one -cur yelping away. And then he laid about him so vigorously with his -bundle of tools that the dogs retreated, yelping and howling, while -their masters crouched indoors, shaking with terror. - -Mightily amused and pleased with himself, Dick went on down the road. -He passed the hollow where Solomon Gabe’s cabin stood, and came to Mine -Creek. He paused to look at his gruesome image in the still, dark -water. Then he turned to follow the path to the mine. - -As he turned, he faced a pile of logs, the ruins of the old -blacksmith’s hut. It was in shadow except for a ray of moonlight at -one side. In that streak of moonshine, there rose, as if the earth -had yawned and let forth a demon, a little, dark, bowed figure with a -black, evil face. It was horribly contorted, the eyes wide and staring, -the lips writhing in terror. - -For a minute Dick and the fiendlike figure stood silent, face to face. -Then the boy stepped back. His foot caught on a root; he stumbled and, -with a wild gesture and an awful clanking of chains, fell flat on the -ground. - -A screech quivered through the air, so sudden, so wild and terrified -that it seemed like a live, tormented thing. The dark form crashed -through the bushes and was gone. - -Dick recovered himself in a minute. He scrambled to his feet and, -clutching his drapery, ran up the hill toward the old mine. He -hurriedly rid himself of his ghostly apparel, took out his flashlight, -and threw the skull and the tools into the mine hole. Then, with the -sheet bundled under his arm, he sped homeward. As he passed Peter Jim’s -cabin, he heard fervent prayers and pious groans; the “frolic” had -been turned into a prayer meeting. - -Dick smiled ruefully. “I don’t reckon they were much worse scared than -I was,” he said to himself. “What--who on earth could that have been?” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -At last and at last, school was out! Patsy, free and merry as a bird, -wrote a long letter to Anne Lewis. - -She begged Anne to hurry and come to The Village. There were so many -things to do! Camp Feed Friend was getting on famously; Anne would see -it was better than the boys’ Camp Fight Foe. Happy Acres was a bower -of roses; they would take their knitting to the summerhouse every day. -Anne remembered--of course she remembered--Dick’s dare and double dare -about their following him and finding out what he was doing? They must -certainly do that. He went off every few days, no one knew where. David -and Steve had tried to follow him, but Dick led them a chase--like an -old red fox, Cousin Mayo said--for miles and miles, and then back home. -It was certainly a _secret_, and she and Anne must find it out. And -Patsy ended as she began; begging Anne to hurry and come to The Village. - -It was such an important letter that Patsy took it to the post office -herself to put it into Mr. Blair’s own hand, feeling that would make -it go more surely and safely than if she dropped it into the letter -box. She had to wait awhile, for he was talking to Mr. Spencer who had -come in just before her. - -“We missed you at church yesterday, Joe,” said Mr. Blair. “What’s the -matter? You look seedy.” - -“It’s malaria, I reckon,” Mr. Spencer said in a weak, listless voice. -“I stayed in bed yesterday, but I don’t feel much better to-day.” - -“You ought not to have got up,” said Mr. Blair. - -“I have to crawl around and do all the work I can. Crop’s in the grass, -Will. Give me two plow points and half a dozen bolts; I must start a -plow to-morrow. And I ought to be a dozen hoe hands at the same time.” - -“Can’t you hire hands?” - -Mr. Spencer shook his head. “I never saw labor so scarce and -unreliable. I counted on Jeff to help work the crop after I put it in; -now he’s in the army, you know.” - -“You need him mighty bad at home.” - -“Yes, but we must do without him; there’s where he ought to be. Well, -if I can’t get hands to chop my cotton this week, I’ll have to plow it -up and sow peas or something that I can raise without hoe work. Cotton -is like tobacco, a ‘gentleman crop’ that requires waiting on; it won’t -stand grass. My crop must be worked this week, or it’s lost.” - -Patsy went home, frowning to herself as she thought how sick and -worried Mr. Spencer looked. At the dinner table that day, she told -about seeing him and what he had said about his cotton. - -“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Osborne. “I hope he can get hands. It would be -a serious thing for him to lose his crop.” - -“I wish----” began Patsy. - -“It would be a severe personal loss,” said Mr. Osborne, “and these -things are national calamities, too; cotton is one of the sinews of -war.” - -“Sinews of war? What do you mean, Uncle Mayo?” asked David. - -“Cotton is one of the great essentials of war,” explained Mr. Osborne. -“Its fiber is used for tents and soldiers’ uniforms and airplane -wings and automobile tires; its seed supplies food products; and -fiber and seed are used in making the high explosives of modern -warfare--guncotton, nitroglycerin, cordite. Cotton is one of the great -essentials of war.” - -“What a lot of things it’s good for!” exclaimed Dick. - -Patsy spoke again, and this time she did not say “I wish.” Instead, she -said: “I know we could help Mr. Spencer, and the war. Mother, father, -please let us do it. I’m sure Ruth and Alice and the other girls will -help; and maybe the boys. We can work rows of cotton as well as rows of -beans.” - -Dick laughed. “H’m! I was just thinking we boys might get together and -help Mr. Spencer. But you girls!” - -“If we all help, the twenty of us, it’ll not take long to chop over Mr. -Spencer’s cotton,” said David. He was more respectful of girls’ work, -since he was seeing their flourishing garden. - -“Good!” cried Patsy, clapping her hands. - -“My dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne. “You don’t mean, Patsy,--are you -suggesting that you girls work a crop, like common field hands?” - -“They’re very uncommon nowadays,” laughed Patsy. “That’s why Mr. -Spencer’s cotton is in the grass. Oh, mother dear! he’s so sick and -miserable looking! We would love to save his crop, and we can, if -you’ll let us. You heard what father said. It will be patriotic as well -as neighborly; with Jeff in the army, too! It’ll not be a bit harder -than gardening. Do say we may, mother.” - -Finally it was agreed that the young folks might undertake the task. -As Patsy said, if they could work rows of vegetables in a garden, they -could work rows of cotton in a field. They would use light hoes, and -the soil was sandy and easy to work. But it was a big job to undertake, -those acres and acres of cotton! - -Patsy and Dick and David went to see all the members of Camps Feed -Friend and Fight Foe, to enlist them in the little army of crop savers. -They were easily persuaded. It was harder to win over their parents. -The Malletts and Walthalls and Joneses were unwilling to let their -girls “do field work like niggers,” but they consented when they -learned that Alice Blair and Ruth Wilson and Patsy Osborne were in the -party; whatever the Blairs and Wilsons and Osbornes did was right and -proper. - -On Tuesday morning, the volunteer workers, with hoes on their -shoulders, presented themselves to Mr. Spencer. - -“Why--why,” he stammered, “it’s awfully kind of you. But I can’t let -you do it, you girls, you young ladies! If the boys will help chop my -cotton, and let me pay them----” - -“Come on, Mr. Spencer, and do your talking while we work,” laughed -Patsy. “Come on! You may be our overseer and boss the job.” - -Before the morning was half over, however, they deposed him. Why, he -wanted them to stop and rest every few minutes; at that rate, it would -be cotton-picking time before they finished chopping the crop! So they -elected David foreman. - -Sweet William, as water boy, trotted back and forth to supply cool -drinks; and about the middle of the forenoon, he proudly invited the -workers to a surprise luncheon, where each had half a dozen delicious -little wild strawberries on a sycamore-leaf plate. - -At noon they rested and ate their picnic dinner in the grove at the -spring. Evening found them healthily and happily tired, and they went -gladly back to work the next day. Thursday brought showers that gave -them a rest and made the freshly worked crop grow like magic. By noon -on Saturday, they finished hoeing the cotton and, for the time at -least, the crop was saved. - -On Saturday afternoon, the young workpeople loafed like real farmers; -for, according to rural custom, that day was a sort of secular Sabbath -on which the men of the community rested from all their labors and -gathered sociably in the post office or on Court-house Green. - -What wonderful things they had to talk about these days! - -Mr. Blair read the account in his daily paper of the Confederate -Reunion at Washington and the President’s Arlington speech. The old -soldiers chuckled at hearing that foreigners, seeing the Stars and -Bars displayed alongside the Allies’ flags, asked wonderingly, “What -flag is that? What new nation has entered the war?” They straightened -their stooped old shoulders at the description of their ten thousand -comrades, in gray suits and broad hats, marching along the Avenue. And -they said, with a sigh, that the story was as good--almost--as being -there. - -Then they rehearsed tales of their battles and marches and sieges, and -compared old feats with new. - -Those brilliant Canadian drives were like Jackson’s charges. And like -one of his messages was Foch’s telegram to Joffre in the battle of the -Marne: “The enemy is attacking my flank; my rear is threatened; I am, -therefore, attacking in front.” - -The heroic, hopeless, glorious Gallipoli campaign--ah! it was the -epitome of their War of Secession. As long as the world honors high -courage and stanch devotion to a desperate cause, it will remember -those men who, like the Franks in the old story of Roland, beat off -army after army and died, defeated by their own victories, “triumphing -over disaster and death.” - -And the trench warfare---- - -“They learned that from us,” chuckled old Captain Anderson; “and iron -ships. Ah! we showed the world a thing or two.” - -But never had they dreamed of trenches like these--stretching in long -lines from the Swiss mountains to the Belgian coast, bent in and out -by great attacks like the British at Neuve-Chapelle, the Germans at -Verdun, and both sides in the bloody battle of the Somme. - -And there were strange, new modes of warfare--U-boats hiding underseas, -aircraft battling miles above the earth, tanks pushing forward and -cutting barbed wire like twine. - -There were many things besides fighting to discuss. - -America was making vast and speedy preparation for its part in the -World War. - -Two weeks after war was declared, Congress without a dissenting voice -voted the largest war credit in the history of the world. And there was -a two-billion-dollar issue of Liberty Bonds. The government must be -trying to gather up all the money in the United States, so as to have -enough to carry on the war many years, so these country people said, -little dreaming of the billions and billions to be raised during the -next two years. - -There was the draft, too, to discuss. The Selective Conscription -Bill had passed. “They” were having men from the ages of twenty-one -to thirty registered, and “they” were to pick and choose soldiers -from these registered men. It was wonderful how calmly this supreme -assertion of the government’s power was accepted. There was a little -opposition here and there--in the Virginia mountains, in Kansas and -Ohio, in New York City--but all plots were promptly and firmly quelled. - -The Draft Act was accepted quietly by The Village. It had its -sentimental, passionate devotion to the past; but now that it was being -tested, it realized the living, sacred strength of the ties that bound -it to the Union. - -It heard, with even more horror than of things “over there,” of -outrages at home--the German plot to get Mexico to declare war against -the United States, factories blown up, railroad bridges destroyed, food -poisoned; even here in Virginia, things were happening. “They” said -loyal citizens everywhere ought to be on the lookout. - -“There’s one safe place in the world; that’s The Village,” said old Mr. -Tavis, who was sitting on the post office porch with Pete Walthall and -Jake Andrews and Mr. Smith. - -Mr. Smith shook his head and smiled. “See who comes there,” he said. - -“It’s Black Mayo,” Mr. Tavis said in a constrained tone. - -Somehow, no one understood how or why, there had grown up a feeling of -constraint about Black Mayo whenever Mr. Smith was present. - -“He’s got a basket,” commented Jake Andrews, “and I bet there are -pigeons in it. Yes, Mr. Smith, it does look foolish for a grown-up man -to be raising birds and carrying them about and playing with them.” - -Dick Osborne, who came out of the post office just then, spoke up -indignantly. “Why, Mr. Andrews! Cousin Mayo’s training those pigeons -for war; they use them to carry messages.” - -“Shucks!” Jake laughed deridingly. - -“Well, they can fetch and carry, you know,” old Mr. Tavis said mildly. -“It’s in the Bible; Noah sent a dove out of the Ark and it came to him -in the evening with an olive leaf pluckt off.” - -“That’s all right--in the Bible,” said Jake. “But we’re talking ’bout -our days. My daddy was in The War; I never heard him tell of using -pigeons. You were in The War yourself, Mr. Tavis. I ask you, is you -ever sent your news by a pigeon?” - -Mr. Tavis had to confess that he never did. - -“And Black Mayo says they can fly a thousand miles. Did you ever see a -pigeon fly a thousand miles, Mr. Tavis?” - -“I never went a thousand miles myself,” Mr. Tavis answered. - -“I never did neither,” said Jake; “and I don’t believe no pigeon ever -did.” - -Black Mayo now came up the porch steps, greeting his neighbors -cordially. - -“Hope your ‘rheumatiz’ is better, Mr. Tavis. Hey, Pete! Jake! How are -folks at home? and your crops? Ah, Dick! You are the boy I was looking -for. Here is the pigeon--a fine fellow he is--that I want you to take -this afternoon for a three- or four-mile flight.” - -“Good! I was just starting,” said Dick. “What are you going to do with -that other bird, Cousin Mayo?” - -“I’m going to send it to Richmond.” - -“To Richmond! What for?” asked Jake Andrews. - -“To be set free there and fly back here, as a part of its training.” - -“Cousin Mayo----” began Dick. - -But Pete Walthall interrupted. “To fly back here? You think it’ll come -all that ways?” He laughed incredulously. - -“A hundred miles!” It was Black Mayo’s turn to laugh. “He’ll make it in -two or three hours. Why, man, I have had birds fly nine hundred miles, -and they have been known to go eighteen hundred, flying over forty -miles an hour.” - -“Whew!” Jake Andrews whistled his unbelief, and Pete Walthall stared -and laughed. - -“That beats the dove in the Ark,” Mr. Tavis said doubtingly. - -Dick now got in his question. “Cousin Mayo, aren’t carrier pigeons -useful in war?” - -“Certainly and indeed they are,” Mr. Osborne answered. Then, as Mr. -Tavis still looked doubtful, he gave an instance. “At Verdun a company -of Allied troops was cut off from the main line, and one man after -another, who tried to go back for help, was shot down. At last a basket -of pigeons was found beside a dead soldier. The birds were weak, almost -starved; but the men, as a desperate last chance, started them off -with notes fastened to their legs. Off they flew, through that curtain -of fire no man could pass. The message was delivered; forces came to -rescue the trapped soldiers--saved by those birds.” - -Pete and Jake shook their heads incredulously. - -Mr. Tavis pondered a while, and then said: “Well, they could carry that -note just as good as that other dove could carry the olive leaf for -Noah. _I_ am going to believe it, Mr. Mayo.” - -“Of course,” said Black Mayo. “What’s the matter with you folks? Don’t -you always believe what I say? And why shouldn’t you?” - -No one answered, and he went on into the post office, looking a little -puzzled. - -Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced around with a disagreeable -smile. “Pe-cu-li-ar amusement; pe-cu-li-ar statements; he himself is -pe-cu-li-ar.” The drawled-out word was unfriendly and sinister. - -“Black Mayo is all right; all right,” old Mr. Tavis said emphatically. - -But Pete and Jake dropped their eyes. Black Mayo Osborne was a queer -fellow. They had known him all their lives. But did they really know -him? Why was he playing about with birds, like a schoolboy, while other -men were working their corn and cotton and tobacco? They looked askance -at him as he came out of the post office and went up The Street toward -The Roost. - -He found Mrs. Osborne sitting on the porch with her eyes on a book -propped on the railing and her hands busily knitting a sweater. - -“Howdy, Miranda! Where’s David?” he asked. - -She looked up with a start. “Oh! it’s you, Mayo,” she said. “David -isn’t here; he’s at his corn acre, I suppose. But, Mayo, come in a -minute. There’s something I want to speak to you about. It’s Dick,” she -went on, as her cousin took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and settled -himself on the porch step. - -“What about Dick?” - -She hesitated a minute. “The other young folks are working splendidly -in their war garden.” - -“Yes; that was a good suggestion of Anne’s. The food question is -serious,” said Black Mayo. “Did you ever know anything like the way -the price of wheat has climbed--and soared? Flour is fifteen dollars a -barrel, and it will go to twenty, if the government doesn’t get those -Food Bills through Congress and take control. I hope it will be a good -crop year. The young folks are doing a splendid work in their war -gardens.” - -“And Dick not in it,” said Dick’s mother, frowning. “He goes off alone -somewhere every chance he gets. We’ve never interfered with their -little secrets; but this looks so selfish! We’ve thought of compelling -him to help, but----” - -“But you’ll not. This gardening is free-will work.” - -“Yes.” Mrs. Osborne agreed. “And we’ve always taken the stand that -after the children do their regular home work, their spare time is -their own. But, if Dick could be persuaded, influenced----” She looked -hopefully at Black Mayo. “You can do anything with him,” she said. -“Your word is law and gospel to all the Village young folks.” - -“I refuse to be flattered into coercing Dick,” laughed Black Mayo. “If -you want him spoken to, my dear Miranda, speak to him yourself.” He -leaned back against the porch post, stretched out his long legs, and -then twisted them comfortably together. “Speak to your own erring boy!” - -“I have done it,” she said. “I tried to shame him just now. I reminded -him how David and Patsy and even little Sweet William are working -to raise food for the hungry, suffering world. I told him about the -Richmond Boy Scouts who are going on farms, to save the potato crop.” - -“And he refused to be shamed?” - -“He cocked up his head, with that superior, self-satisfied air--oh, big -as he is, I want to slap him when he does that!--and said, ‘It’s a nice -little thing David and Patsy and the others are doing--the best they -can, I reckon. But I’d rather do a big thing; something to get a lot -of money, enough to buy a whole Liberty Bond at a whop.’ And before I -could get my wits together to answer that amazing foolishness, he said -he’d finished his tasks, hoed the beans, and brought in stove wood, and -couldn’t he go. And off he went. What would you do, Mayo?” - -“I think I’d do nothing, Miranda,” her cousin replied. “A boy’s got -to have his adventures. And Dick’s a fellow that can stand a lot of -letting alone. If he’s on the wrong track, he’s got sense enough to -find it out and get on the right one. Don’t worry, Miranda. Will you -tell David he can get one of my plows any day he wants it? And don’t -you worry about Dick, Miranda,” he repeated, untwining his long legs -and getting up. - -As he started down the walk, Mrs. Osborne put aside her work and went -out to the kitchen, a one-roomed cabin behind the Roost dwelling-rooms, -to speak to Emma. - -The old woman was standing at the door, looking worried and grum. - -“Why, Emma, you haven’t kindled your fire!” Mrs. Osborne exclaimed. - -Emma started. “Naw’m. My shoe sole was floppin’. I had to go to de shop -to git it sewed on.” - -“De shop” was a shed on The Back Way where shoes were cobbled by Lincum -Gabe, old Solomon Gabe’s son. - -“I’m gwine to start de fire now.” Emma’s voice was mournful, and as -she rattled the stove lids, she shook her head and sighed dolefully. - -“Is anything the matter? Are you sick?” Mrs. Osborne asked anxiously. - -“Naw’m, I ain’t sick, Miss M’randa. I don’t reckon I is. I ain’t got -no out’ard pains. I’m just thinkin’ ’bout my boy, an’ wonderin’ who’ll -git him----” She went off into a confused mumble. Suddenly she turned -to her mistress and said earnestly: “If dey take de colored folks back -in slavery, I’ll belong to you; won’t I, Miss M’randa? Like my folks -always did to yore folks?” - -“What nonsense are you talking, Emma?” Mrs. Osborne asked sharply. “No -one could put you back in slavery. No one wants to. We hate and abhor -it more than you do. Why, we wouldn’t have you back in slavery for -anything in the world. What put such a silly notion in your head?” - -“I ain’t faultin’ you ’bout it, Miss M’randa. It’s dem folks off -yander,” said Emma, vaguely. “Dey done started it. Dey done numbered de -young bucks an’ dey’re goin’ to nomernate ’em to be slaves. Dey’re just -waitin’ for de orders. My boy Tom is one of ’em.” - -Patsy, who had followed her mother, laughed and exclaimed: “Why Aunt -Emma! They numbered all the men, white and colored, from twenty-one to -thirty years old, and they are going to select soldiers from them, to -go and fight the Germans.” - -“Emma, some due has told you a lie, a wicked, silly lie,” said Mrs. -Osborne. “There isn’t a word of truth in it. As Patsy says, the white -boys are going, too. Why, some of them have gone--Fayett Mallett and -Jeff Spencer and Will Eppes--boys that you know, and lots of others. -They need a great many soldiers, and they are going to select them from -that draft list.” - -“Dey say as how dem white ones was took to be offiseers, an’ boss de -colored ones till dey git ’em handcuffed an’ back in slavery,” said -Emma, lowering her voice and glancing fearfully around as if she were -betraying secrets of state. - -Mrs. Osborne laughed. “How silly! Who are ‘they’ that say such foolish -things?” - -“Uh, it’s jest bein’ talked ’round,” Emma answered evasively. - -“It sounds like propaganda,” said Mrs. Osborne, wrinkling her brow. - -“Naw’m, ’tain’t no sort o’ gander. It’s just talk dat’s goin’ ’round. -You-all want some seconds batter-cakes, you say, honey?” - -And Emma went bustling about her work, deaf to all further questions. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -“Come on, Sweet William! Sweet William!” sang Patsy, catching her small -brother by the hand and dancing down the walk. “Let’s go to Broad Acres -for a look around. Alice! uh, Alice!” She called Alice Blair, who was -sitting in the swing, with her knitting. “Come and see how our gardens -are growing. We’ve been so busy being field hands for Mr. Spencer’s -cotton, I’ve not been to our garden for two whole days.” - -“I ran by to look at it this morning,” said Alice. “I feel real -lonesome if I don’t see it every day.” - -“So do I,” agreed Patsy. “I know now how David felt that first year he -had corn at Happy Acres, and he used to ‘go by’ to see it every time he -was sent to the store for the mail or a spool of thread.” - -At the garden gate they paused and called Ruth. She came out on the -back porch, but stopped at the head of the steps. - -“I’ve j-just come in,” she said. “I weeded a row of p-peas. Now I’m -helping mother. I’ll see you p-p-presently.” - -The others went into the garden, admired the flourishing vegetables, -and pulled up a few stray weeds. - -“Isn’t it beautorious?” exclaimed Patsy. “Things have just been leaping -and bounding along these two days.” - -“Scrumptious!” agreed Alice. - -“We-all boys have got the biggest potatoes,” said Sweet William, -wagging his head proudly. - -“You-all boys! Will you look at those beans? What about them, Mr. -William Taliaferro Osborne?” demanded Patsy. “Anne Lewis had a lot to -say about their Washington gardens. They aren’t a bit better than this; -they can’t be. Just think! Anne is coming next week.” - -“Goody, goody, goody!” cried Sweet William, clapping his hands. - -As they went chattering back up the walk, Ruth came out to ask them to -stay to supper; her mother had a strawberry shortcake. - -“I’ll go and ask----” “If mother knew----” began Patsy and Alice. - -“If I had a piece of strawberry shortcake in my hand,” suggested Sweet -William, “I could go home and tell them you were invited. We are going -to have batter-cakes for supper; Emma makes good little batter-cakes -with lacy brown edges.” - -Patsy was properly horrified at her small brother’s greediness, but -Mrs. Wilson laughed and sent him home, munching a generous slice of -shortcake. - -After supper Mrs. Wilson and the girls went out on the front porch. It -was wide and long, set high on brick pillars, with a flight of steps -leading down to the long boxwood-bordered walk. - -“There is a loose railing,” said Mrs. Wilson. “I must nail it in place -to-morrow.” - -“You are as careful about mending and tending Broad Acres as you are -about Ruth’s darning and patching,” laughed Patsy. - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Wilson. “It’s all in the family. Broad Acres is a dear -old part of the family.” - -“How old is it, Cousin Agnes?” - -“The house was built in 1762,” said Mrs. Wilson, with quiet pride. “It -was made strong, to be a fort, in case of Indian attacks. That is why -the shutters are so thick, with the little hinged middle pieces for -loopholes to fire from.” - -“The Yankees came by here in The War,” said Ruth. - -“In April, ’65,” agreed her mother. “The doors and shutters were -closed, with crape hanging from them, in mourning for the dead -Confederacy. Sherman’s men marched past, without disturbing the house, -thinking there was a corpse in it.” - -“This very bench we’re s-s-sitting on is c-called the President’s -bench, because W-W-Washington sat here when he was v-visiting my -way-back-grandfather. Tell about that, mother,” said Ruth. - -But an interruption came before Mrs. Wilson could begin the story, the -more loved because it was old and well known. The front gate clicked. -Patsy glanced toward it and, seeing a negro girl standing there, -exclaimed in surprise, “Why, there’s Lou Ellen!” - -“Go to the side gate, Lou Ellen,” Mrs. Wilson said sharply. “What do -you mean by coming the front way?” - -“I ain’t comin’ in,” said Lou Ellen, in a pert, high voice, as she -lounged on the gate. “I jest come to de store an’ stopped to leave you -a message, Miss Agnes. I was comin’ down de mill path an’ a man--I -reckon he was Van--hollered to me an’ said Mr. Black Mayo say for you -please’m to go an’ spen’ de night wid Miss Polly. He got to go ’way an’ -she was feelin’ sort o’ puny, an’ he didn’t want to left her at home by -herse’f.” - -“It’s strange he didn’t tell me when he was in The Village to-day,” -said Mrs. Wilson. “Van told you, you say?” - -“It sounded like Van,” answered Lou Ellen. “He was in de woods an’ I -didn’t see him good.” - -She tossed her head and strolled away. - -“She’s a horrid thing!” said Ruth. - -“How could she help it?” asked Alice. “Her mother, Louviny, is as -trifling as she can be, and so is her father, Lincum; and his father -is that horrid old Solomon Gabe that they call a trick doctor; all the -other darkies are afraid of him.” - -“Darkies are queer things,” laughed Patsy. And then she told what Emma -had said about the draft. - -“She isn’t the only one who believes that,” said Alice. “Unc’ Isham -told father he’d heard tell they are all going to be put back in -slavery; he said they always told him if the Democrats got strong in -power, they would make the darkies slaves again.” - -“I wonder how they get these foolish notions into their heads?” said -Mrs. Wilson. “Well, chickens, Ruth and I must be starting to Larkland.” - -“Let Ruth spend the night with me, Cousin Agnes,” entreated Patsy. - -Mrs. Wilson consented, and the three girls walked with her as far as -the mill on her way to Larkland. Sweet William did not see them go, -and he was surprised to find the house dark and deserted when he came -running back, with Scalawag at his heels, for his sweater. He went, -with a little feeling of awe, down the somber boxwood walk--it was now -nearly dark--and it was a relief to hear Scalawag, who had run ahead of -him, give a sharp bark. - -“Cats-s! cats-s!” hissed Sweet William urgingly. - -Scalawag ran to a rose arbor at the back of the garden, but his furious -barking changed to a sudden yelp and whine; he ran back to his master. - -“Old tabby cat must have scratched you,” said Sweet William. “Sic her! -sic her, Scalawag!” - -But the dog, bristling and growling, kept at his master’s heels, as -if unwilling to encounter again whatever he had found in that dark, -secluded place. Sweet William groped around for his sweater and ran -home. Then he had his bath and went to bed. The older children followed -soon, as behooved those who must be at Sunday school at half past nine -o’clock and know a Psalm and the story of Gideon and be ready to answer -seven new questions in the Shorter Catechism. - -The next morning, when the Osbornes were at breakfast, Steve came -running into the room, with a tragic face. - -“Our gardens are ruined!” he cried. - -“Oh, Steve! What do you mean?” - -“Ruined?” - -“They can’t be!” - -“Ruined!” he repeated, with doleful emphasis. “I went by there, just -after breakfast, taking our cow to pasture. I saw the gate open----” - -“Who left it open?” demanded David. - -“And Miss Fanny Morrison’s old cow was there, gorging herself on our -corn and peas. Everything is grazed off; trampled down.” - -With no more appetites for breakfast, the war gardeners ran to Broad -Acres, to see the wreck of their gardens. - -“But who left the gate open?” David demanded sternly. - -“We were the last ones here,” said Patsy; “and I know we shut it.” - -“I was here about dark,” Sweet William confessed bravely; “I came for -my sweater. But I shut the gate and I fastened it. I had to climb up on -the garden fence to put the hook in the hole.” - -“You didn’t put it in,” Patsy said severely. “You let it slip to the -side. And our gardens are ruined.” - -“It’s my garden, too. And I did fasten the gate,” sobbed Sweet William. - -He seemed so clearly the culprit that black looks and little pity were -being given him when Mrs. Wilson came up. - -She, too, was horrified and distressed, but she said: “If Sweet William -is sure he fastened the gate, I am sure he fastened it. There is -something strange about this matter. Mayo did not send for me. He is -away, but Polly had told him she would have Chrissy sleep in the house. -She was surprised--but of course pleased--to see me; I would have come -back home, if it hadn’t been so late.” - -“Could Lou Ellen have done it?” suggested Patsy. “She came with that -message; and she’s so pert and horrid.” - -They examined the premises carefully. Near the rose arbor, at the back -of the garden, they found footprints, the track of a big, bare, flat -foot. Dick carefully made a copy of it on a piece of paper, and Mr. -Blair and Mr. Red Mayo Osborne went with the gardeners to Lincum’s -cabin on the Redville road, and confronted Lou Ellen. She stoutly -denied the charge, and when her foot was measured it proved to be much -smaller than the print. Evidently, then, she was not the intruder. Who -could it be? - -That was a doleful Sabbath for the young villagers. They were thinking -more about their wrecked garden than their Sunday school lesson; the -sermon fell on deaf ears; and in the afternoon they stood mournfully -around the scene of their destroyed hopes. - -But with the next morning came cheer and good counsel. Black Mayo, -having come back on an early train, stopped at the post office and was -told about the catastrophe and he went to view the garden. - -“It is pretty bad, but it might be worse,” he said cheerily. “Some of -these things will come up from the roots. Some of the rows will have -to be plowed up and planted in things that will still have plenty of -growing time. The soil is in fine condition. Let’s get to work and make -a garden day of it. One of you boys go to Larkland, and get Rosinante -and a plow.” - -Mr. Tavis came to help them, and so did Mr. Blair, who shut up the post -office, saying casually that any one who came for mail could look him -up or wait till he got back. - -Several hours of diligent, intelligent toil worked wonders. The gardens -would be later, of course, but with a long growing season before them -that was no serious disadvantage; it would require more work, much more -work, but that they were all willing and glad to give. Why, Dick had -offered to help this morning, and he had been just as interested and -busy as any one else. Perhaps he would join the garden club now. But he -did not. When Mr. Osborne went home to dinner, Dick started off with -him, to get a pigeon for a trial flight. - -Patsy looked after him and set her lips firmly. “Just you wait, young -man,” she promised him, “till next week when Anne Lewis comes. We’ll -show you what it means to dare and double dare us.” - -For weeks Dick had been going off alone every few days, and coming back -late, tired and dirty and with a joyful air of mystery. The others were -too busy with gardening and Red Cross and Corn Club work to make any -real effort to find out where he went. - -But he always watched to make sure that he was not followed, and he -never relaxed his precautions at the mine. He pulled his ladder in and -out, blurred his footprints, and stirred up the dead leaves so as not -to make a path. It would take, he proudly thought, a Sherlock Holmes or -a bloodhound to trace his course. - -He had examined the main room without seeing any place that it seemed -worth while to work in the crude fashion possible to him. The most -promising places, he thought, were in the spurs of the lower tunnel, -where there was more clay than rock. If he dug a little farther--a few -inches or some feet--perhaps he would find silver that the miners had -missed. - -He planned to extend each spur a certain distance; at first he said ten -feet, but a little work convinced him that was too far, so he decided -to go six feet--or five--or four. It was too discouraging to compute -how long it would take to go even four feet, at his snail-like rate of -progress. He could not use alone the drill and sledge hammer he had -brought from Mr. Mallett’s shop. So he had to content himself with -digging along a ledge, breaking off rough bits of rock and eagerly -examining them for silver. - -He had inquired furtively about dynamite, but the law made it difficult -for him to get it--fortunately; for in his ignorant, inexperienced -hands there would probably have been an accident which might even have -cost him his life. - -On this pleasant June afternoon, Dick went blithely with his Cousin -Mayo to Larkland. He nearly always went there on his way to the Old -Sterling Mine; it was only half a mile off the road; and the distance -to the mine seemed shorter to him when he had a carrier pigeon for -company. - -Breeding and blood were telling in the Larkland pigeons. Mr. Osborne -showed Dick that afternoon a marked copy of _The Bird World_ telling, -with big headlines, about the thousand-mile flight of a young pigeon -trained by Mr. Mayo Osborne, of Virginia. - -“I bet Snapshot will make a record, too,” said Dick, stroking the -plumage of a petted young bird. - -“Dick,” said Mr. Osborne, suddenly, “I’m glad to have your help and -interest about these birds; I want you to learn all you can about -training them. Your Cousin Polly knows all there is to know about their -feeding and care. But when I go away----” - -“Oh! you are going away?” interrupted Dick. “When, Cousin Mayo?” - -“Early this fall, I hope; as soon as some business matters can be -arranged. I’ve been wanting to be in the army from the first.” - -“I said you would go. It wasn’t true you wanted to stay at home playing -with birds.” - -Mr. Osborne looked at Dick and started to ask a question, but it did -not seem worth while. So he merely said: “When I leave, I’m going to -ask your father to let you stay here at Larkland with your Cousin Polly -and help her with the doves, our doves of war.” - -“Thank you, Cousin Mayo; I’ll do my best,” promised Dick. - -Mr. Osborne wrote a note and fastened it to the bird’s leg--that was -always part of the ceremony; then he put it into a makeshift cage, an -old shoe box with holes punched in it, and gave it to Dick. - -“Where are you going?” asked Mr. Osborne. - -“To the mine--creek,” said Dick, almost telling his secret. It was hard -not to give a forthright answer to his cousin’s direct look. - -“Why don’t you boys--do you?--ever go to the Old Sterling Mine?” - -“Maybe so. Sometimes,” he mumbled. - -Black Mayo did not notice the boy’s conscious air. He was watching his -pigeons fluttering and circling about, white against the woodland, dark -against the shining sky. - -“I used to go there;” he said. “Ah! the hours and days I spent, seeking -its treasure. It was one of the great adventures of my boyhood.” - -“Did you ever find any?--any silver in the mine, I mean,” Dick asked -eagerly. - -His cousin gave a smiling negative. - -“Do you suppose?--perhaps there isn’t any.” Dick’s voice dropped in -disappointment. - -“I believe there is,” said Black Mayo. “Silver was found there by old -Mallett, not long after the Revolution. You’ve heard the tale handed -down in his family. Some years ago, when I was rummaging through old -court records, I found the account of his trial for ‘feloniously -making, uttering, and passing false and counterfeited Coin in the -likeness and similitude of Spanish milled Dollars of the value of six -shillings Current money of Virginia.’ That was in 1792.” - -“But the mine was worked after that, wasn’t it?” asked Dick. - -“Oh, yes! My grandfather Mayo, your great-grandfather, had it worked, -but it never paid. It doesn’t seem reasonable that the old blacksmith -spaded out all the silver that was there. There’s a tale that a -valuable vein was struck and lost. You might take a look around to-day, -and you and I might go prospecting some time,” he said, now looking -keenly at Dick. - -The boy reddened to the roots of his hair. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It’s -time I was gone.” - -Mayo Osborne looked after him with a whimsical smile. “Straight to the -Old Sterling Mine, I’ll wager my head!” he laughed. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -Anne Lewis had come, and that was a jubilee for her and her Village -cousins. She and Patsy and Alice and Ruth wanted to go to every place -at once and to tell in one breath everything that had happened since -they had parted in the spring. - -There was Happy Acres to be visited, and its budding and blossoming -beauty to be welcomed. There was the mill, Larkland mill that was loved -almost as dearly as the miller, Mr. Giles Spotswood. There were all the -cousins at Larkland, Broad Acres, and The Roost. And there was the dear -outside host, Tavises and Morrisons and Walthalls, and the old servants -and their families, for whom Anne had gifts and greetings. The girls -made a round of visits, with their tongues going like bell clappers. - -“And haven’t you found out yet where Dick is going--not yet?” Anne -asked Patsy, privately. “Oh, I’m so glad! It’ll be so much fun to -follow him up!” - -“If we can. We’ll certainly do it, if we can,” said Patsy, with less -assurance. “Anne, even Dick has never kept a secret like this.” - -“I don’t see why you haven’t found out, in all these weeks,” said Anne; -“though I’m glad you haven’t, so we can do it together.” - -“Dick isn’t so easy to catch up with,” answered Patsy. “And then there -are our gardens. The boys won’t stop working for fear we’ll get ahead -of them, and we won’t stop for fear they’ll get ahead of us. No one has -time--and time it would take!--to follow Dick.” - -“You must win out in the gardening; we must certainly beat those boys,” -said Anne. “I’m so glad I’m here to help.” - -They were on their way now to inspect Camp Feed Friend and Camp Fight -Foe, that were thriving wonderfully after being replanted and reworked -ten days before. Black Mayo said Jack’s famous beanstalk must surely -have grown in the deep, fertile soil of Broad Acres garden; no other -place could produce such magic results. - -Patsy and Anne found most of the war gardeners already at Broad Acres, -at work. Black Mayo had lent them Rosinante, and David was plowing -while the others were weeding and hoeing the rows of vegetables. Anne -and Patsy set to work, side by side. - -“Don’t you think our garden is the better?” Patsy asked for the dozenth -time. - -And for the dozenth time, Anne--partial judge!--answered emphatically: -“I certainly do. Your potatoes are taller than theirs. And your peas -are better; I’ve counted the pods on the biggest vines in both gardens. -It’s just splendid what you’ve done--all but Dick.” - -“Oh!--Dick.” Whatever Patsy herself might say about Dick, she could -never bear to have others find fault with her twin brother. “He -helps Cousin Agnes in her garden. He would work here sometimes--real -often--but the boys call him ‘slacker’ because he won’t join them. He’s -working hard over his secret, whatever it is. He comes home so dirty! -And--well, Anne, I know it’s something big, from the way he acts.” - -“We’ll find out what it is,” Anne said confidently. - -“I hope so,” sighed Patsy. - -“But now,” said Anne, “this garden is the most important thing. Oh! -it’s awful to think of all those people with nothing to eat except what -we send them across these thousands of miles of ocean.” - -“We’ve been saving our flour and sugar for a long, long time; looks -like they might have enough to eat now,” Sweet William said, frowning. -“Oh! I did want them all to have enough, and leave me sugar for a -birthday cake. It’s such a so-long time since I’ve seen a real cake!” -He sighed. “I don’t reckon we’ll ever have another one; not till I get -old as Miss Fanny Morrison and don’t have any birthdays.” - -“Father says conditions are terrible along the Hindenburg Line,” said -Alice. “Cousin Mayo, what is the Hindenburg Line?” she asked her cousin -who, having finished some errands in The Village, was waiting to take -Rosinante home. - -He explained. “The first of this year, the Germans realized that they -could not repel Allied attacks in the position they then held. So in -March they drew back and entrenched themselves in northern France in a -position as strong as the nature of the country and their science could -make it; that is their ‘impregnable Hindenburg Line.’ The Allies began, -with the battle of the Aisne in April, the attacks they will continue -till that great Hindenburg Line is smashed. - -“Well! The Huns laid waste the country that they left; robbed and -burned homes and villages in that rich farming country, and kidnapped -men and women and children and set them to work in Germany. And -they left behind wrecks of people in wrecks of homes, many of them -little fellows like Sweet William here, half starved and crippled and -shell-shocked.” - -Anne put a comforting arm around Sweet William. “Don’t cry, dear,” she -said. - -He stiffened his lips bravely. “I--I’m not crying,” he announced. “I--I -think I caught a cold. I’ve got a frog in my throat. I wish I could -find a lot of potato bugs! I want to work _hard_ to help all those poor -people.” - -He set to work very diligently, but presently David called out: “You -Bill! You’re wearing out those potato plants, looking for the bugs you -caught yesterday. And every row I plow, you’re in my way.” - -“I isn’t not moved since I got out your way the other time you told me -to,” complained Sweet William, stumbling over a furrow. - -“Well, get out of the patch and stay out till I finish this plowing, if -you please,” said David, who was warm and tired and getting cross. - -The little fellow turned away with injured dignity and went into -the back yard. He sat on the porch steps for a while, then he began -rummaging around. Presently he came back into the garden, with his arms -full of little sticks, and busied himself in a corner where the war -gardeners had a bed of radishes for work-day refreshment. - -“What are you doing now?” Anne stopped to ask. - -“Playing this is my garden. I’m building a fence ’round it,” explained -Sweet William. - -“Phew! What a horrid smell! It smells like--why, I smell kerosene oil,” -said Anne, sniffing and frowning. - -“I reckon it’s these little sticks,” he said. “They’re all smelly.” - -“Where did you get them?” asked Anne. - -“From under the back-porch steps.” - -“That’s queer!” said Anne. “I wonder----” - -“Come on, Anne, and let’s start our next rows at the same time, so we -can race--and talk,” called Patsy. - -Anne went her way and forgot the little sticks that smelled of oil. - -Sweet William put them aside presently and had a party--filling some -oyster shells with make-believe dainties and setting them out on a flat -stone. - -Mrs. Mallett, who came to consult Mrs. Wilson about some Red Cross -work, paused to watch the youngster who was the Village pet. - -“You are having a fine party, ain’t you?” she said. - -“It’s a birthday party,” he said. “But I’m just having ash-cake. I -reckon Mr. Hoover wouldn’t want me to have fruit cake and pie. Mother -says he wants us to save everything we can, so as to feed our armies -and our Allies.” - -“Bless your heart!” she said. “I wish the grown folks ’round here -would act that way. You know,” she said, turning to Mrs. Wilson, “those -Andrewses and Joneses and Walthalls aren’t making a mite of change in -the way they eat, for all the government tells them ‘food will win the -war’ and ‘if we waste at home, our boys over there will go hungry.’” - -“I know. Food has become sacred; it means life,” said Mrs. Wilson. “It -is dreadful that some of our own people are so slow to realize the -situation and their duty. Miranda Osborne and I carried the government -pamphlets to the Andrewses and Joneses and Walthalls and talked to -them, but they listened as if their minds were shut and locked. They -think, as Gordan Jones said, those who raise wheat and corn and hogs -have a right to use all the flour and meal and meat they please.” - -“A right! Who with a heart and conscience wants the right to use -victuals extravagant when other folks are starving? Well, I must go and -take this wool to the women that said they would knit.” - -“I’ll go with you,” said Sweet William, scrambling to his feet. “I’d -rather go visiting with you than to stay here and play party by myself.” - -Mrs. Mallett gladly accepted his company, and, with Scalawag at his -heels, he trotted along with her, to collect knitted garments and -dispense wool. - -Suddenly Scalawag, usually a well-mannered dog that did not interfere -with people on the public road, ran at a negro boy, barking furiously. -The boy jerked up a stone, and Scalawag came back to Sweet William’s -heels, whimpering and growling. As soon as they were at a safe -distance, he again barked angrily. - -“I never saw him do that way before,” said Sweet William; “never, but -that night in the garden.” - -“Who was he barking at then?” asked Mrs. Mallett. - -“I don’t know,” said Scalawag’s master; and then he told about his trip -to Broad Acres the night before the gardens were destroyed and about -the dog’s queer behavior. - -“H’m!” Mrs. Mallett said thoughtfully. “Who was that boy we passed?” - -“Kit, Lincum Gabe’s boy,” said Sweet William. “Scalawag’s met him a -hundred times, I reckon, and never noticed him before.” - -“H’m!” Mrs. Mallett repeated. “Sweet William, you tell Mr. Black Mayo -how this dog acted to-day, and about that night. Some dogs have got a -lot of sense, and some are pure fools; they’re just like folks. Well, -here’s a place we’ve got to stop,” she said, frowning at the pea-green -gabled and turreted house that was the outward and visible sign of -Gordan Jones’s prosperity. - -The door was wide open, and in response to Mrs. Mallett’s knock there -was a hearty “Come in!” She and Sweet William walked through the hall -and turned into the dining room where Mr. and Mrs. Jones were sitting -at the dinner table. - -“O--oh!” Sweet William stared at the table. It was strangely unlike -what he was used to at home these days. Why, it was loaded with food, -vegetables swimming in sauces and gravies, two or three kinds of meat, -hot biscuits, cakes, and pies. “O-o-oh!” he said again. - -“Howdy, folks!” called Mr. Jones, a stout man in shirt sleeves. “Come -in, come in, you-all, and set down to dinner.” - -“Howdy, Mrs. Mallett,” said Mrs. Jones, getting up to greet the guests. -“And howdy, little man. It’s Mr. Red Mayo’s little boy, ain’t it?” - -“Yes; it’s William, Sweet William Osborne,” said Mrs. Mallett, stiffly. -“I just come to bring you the wool you said----” - -“Here, here!” interrupted Mr. Jones’s big voice. “Eat first and then -do your talking. We’ve got plenty victuals for you.” He laughed and -surveyed the table with pride. “Come and eat with us, Mrs. Mallett. -Come on, little boy, and set right here by me.” - -“Oh, the little French and Belgians!” exclaimed Sweet William, whose -eyes had never moved from the table. - -“No, thank you, Mr. Jones,” said Mrs. Mallett, drawing her lips into a -tight line. “Now, Mrs. Jones, this wool----” - -“Aw, come along and set and eat,” urged Mr. Jones, hospitably. “I want -you to sample this old home-cured ham; and that’s prime good bacon with -the greens.” - -The little woman’s face flushed and her eyes snapped. “Mr. Jones,” she -said, “them victuals would choke me.” - -“Wh-what?” He gazed at her with blank astonishment. - -“I can’t set down to a gorge like that,” she said. “I’d be thinking -’bout them hungry mouths over there.” - -“Starving Belgians and French,” interjected Sweet William. - -Mrs. Mallett hurried on: “Yes, them and our other Allies; they’ve got -no time to raise wheat and such; their farmers are fighting their war -and ours, and the women are working in munition factories and taking -the men’s places at home. And there are our boys--my boy--going over -there, depending on us at home to send them food. If we are lazy and -selfish and don’t raise it, or if we are greedy and selfish and use it -wasteful and extravagant, what’s to become of them?” - -“Why, why”--Mr. Jones was bewildered--“I raised all that’s on this -table, ’cept a little sugar and such, that if I didn’t buy somebody -else would. I always was a good provider; we’re used to a good table, -and nobody’s got a right to ask me to live stinting,” he said, with -rising anger. - -“They’ve got a right to ask me to give my son, my own flesh and blood,” -said Mrs. Mallett, with a fire of righteous wrath that paled Mr. -Jones’s flicker of temper. “And yet you think they haven’t got a right -to ask you to give up your hot biscuits and meat three times a day! -S’pose you _are_ used to being a good provider? Ain’t I used to going -to bed easy in mind about my boy Fayett--and any day I may hear he’s -dead.” - -“They oughtn’t to have sent him, your boy,” mumbled Mr. Jones. “They’ve -got no business to send our men over there to fight, and maybe----” - -“They’ve got all the right to send him to fight for his country. But -Fayett didn’t wait for any draft. He went of his free will--I’m glad -and proud of it--to fight for liberty. And if he dies, I want it to be -the Germans that kill him. I don’t want you, that have known him since -he was a curly-headed baby boy, to be the ones to help kill him.” - -“Why, Mrs. Mallett!” Mrs. Jones said in a hurt, amazed voice. “We -wouldn’t harm a hair of his head; not for the world, we wouldn’t.” - -“I’d do anything I could to bring him back safe home,” said Mr. Jones. - -“That’s what you say,” the little woman cried passionately. “But words -don’t count. And you are doing your part to starve him. They can’t get -food over there, unless we send it to them. It’s being rationed out to -folks in France and Italy. The English ships that used to go to South -America to get wheat are busy taking over our soldiers and munitions -and food, food, food. And there’s just so-o much and all the world to -feed--the world and my soldier boy. If we use it wasteful, there won’t -be any to send. Yes, sir! I say your good dinner would choke me. I’d -feel I was helping to kill my own son. You may not mean it, but it’s -true that every time you set down to a meal like this you are helping -kill my son, beat our armies, make the Germans win.” - -“I don’t want your cake, your pie,” sobbed Sweet William. “I’m hungry, -but I--I want to be hungry.” - -Mrs. Jones pushed back her plate and sobbed with him. “I can’t swallow -a morsel,” she declared. “I can just see Fayett, like when he was a -little boy playing with my Tommy”--her own son who was dead--“when -they’d come in and say, ‘We’re hungry; give us a snack!’ I ain’t never -said ‘no’ to them.” She buried her tear-wet face in her apron. - -Mr. Jones winked hard and cleared his throat loudly. “Come, come, -mother,” he said. “Don’t you cry. We hadn’t thought ’bout things like -she put ’em. I reckon you are right, Mrs. Mallett. Yes, you are! A man -that won’t work at home for them that’s fighting over there for him -ain’t much of a man. The world to feed--and Fayett! I’ll double the -crop of wheat I was going to put in, and I’ll--say, Mrs. Mallett, if -you won’t take a feed with me, won’t you and the little boy set and -have a bite?” - -“That I will, thank you,” said Mrs. Mallett, smiling through tears. “I -didn’t mean to fault you too rough, Mr. Jones. But when I think ’bout -them things, it’s like I had a pot in me that was boiling over.” - -“That’s all right,” answered Mr. Jones. “You put it strong to me; and -we’ll put it strong to other folks. We must see Jake Andrews and Pete -Walthall, and make ’em know what they’ve got to do. We won’t have men -here in our neighborhood that are so low-down and greedy and selfish -they won’t do their part. We’ll see to them! What’ll you have, Mrs. -Mallett? some corn bread and greens and a bit of bacon? Folks have -got to eat, you know, so they can work. Um, um! What’ll I do ’bout my -hounds?” - -“Come now, Willie, you’ll have a cake and a piece of pie, being as -they’re here and got to be et,” said Mrs. Jones, bustling about to get -plates and chairs. - -Sweet William gravely and wistfully considered the matter. “We don’t -have cakes at home,” he said. “But these cakes are already made--with -icing tops and raisins! I reckon it won’t hurt for me to eat one--maybe -two, to save them. The little Belgians couldn’t get this sugar anyway.” -He sighed, not altogether sad, and fell to with a will. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -The war gardeners went home at noon, but they came back late in the -afternoon. When they finished the tasks they had set themselves, Mrs. -Wilson suggested that they take eggs and radishes and lettuce, and meal -to make ash-cakes, and have a picnic supper at Happy Acres; they might -find some berries to add to the feast, and the boys were always hoping -to catch fish in Tinkling Water, though they seldom did. - -The plan was welcomed with enthusiasm, and they had a merry time and -came home in the twilight. Anne, who was to spend the night at Broad -Acres, sat on the porch with Mrs. Wilson and Ruth, knitting and talking. - -“Wasn’t it dear of our old soldiers,” said Ruth, “to g-g-give up going -to the Reunion, and have just the little service and parade here, and -give their money to the Red Cross, to help in the war?” - -Anne laughed. “Oh, Ruthie! You said ‘the war’ about this war,” she said. - -“Well, why not?” Having used the word inadvertently, Ruth now defended -it. “There never was such a big war in the world. And we are in it; it -is our war; some Village b-boys are there and others are going. It is -The War, isn’t it, mother?” - -“Yes,” her mother answered slowly. “This is The War. The other--we’ve -been living in its shine and shadow all these years--it is history now; -a war. Why, our old soldiers put in acts what none of us before have -put in words--that this is The War, our war.” - -Presently the girls yawned and their fingers went more and more slowly -with their knitting. Mrs. Wilson said an early bed hour would be the -fitting end to their strenuous day. So they went upstairs, and Ruth -escorted Anne to a spacious guest chamber. - -“This is the room W-Washington stayed in,” said Ruth. - -“I love it,” said Anne, looking around. “Oh! I love Broad Acres. Don’t -you?” - -Ruth laughed. “Love it? Why, it’s a part of us. The -way-back-grandfather that c-c-came from England built it like his home -there, and all our people since have lived here. It’s home.” Her voice -lingered and thrilled on the word. Then she threw her arms around Anne -and kissed her. - -Anne had left her own old home early in her orphaned childhood, and -now lived, as an adopted daughter, with friends in Washington. She was -happy there and dearly loved; but Ruth, with her intense devotion to -home and family, was always distressed when she remembered that Anne -“didn’t belong to her own folks.” - -“I w-wish you lived with us,” she said, kissing Anne, again and again. - -“Then I wouldn’t have the fun of coming to see you,” her cousin -reminded her, returning the caresses. - -“Sweet William says having you all the time would be like having -Christmas all the year.” - -Anne laughed. - -“Anne darling,” said Ruth, “I was g-going to stay with you to-night, -but mother has a headache and may want a hot-water bottle or something. -You’ll not mind my staying with her? We’ll be across the hall, at the -other end.” - -“Oh! I’m used to staying alone,” said Anne. “My room at home is across -the hall from Aunt Sarah’s.” - -Ruth went out and Anne undressed and climbed into the great bed. She -lay there, looking out into the soft summer night, listening to a -mocking bird’s joyous melody. There was a magnolia tree in blossom near -the front window and the night breeze wafted in the delicious odor of -the blossoms. How beautiful and peaceful it all was! Could anything be -lovelier than those great white magnolia blossoms, shining like moons -in the dark foliage? Blossom-moons--fragrant white moons--moons---- The -moons came nearer and nearer. And as they drew nearer, they changed. -They were no longer white and fragrant. They were red and hot. Why, -they were bombs, bombs that Germans were throwing. They exploded with a -great noise and blinding flame and thick, pungent, choking smoke. - -“Whizz-bangs, that’s what they are,” Anne thought, recalling something -she had read about bombs that exploded time and time again, like -Chinese firecrackers. - -She wanted to get away from them, but she could not. She was in the -thick of the battle. - -Suddenly she sat up in bed and opened her eyes. The room was filled -with smoke and there was a glare and a roar around her. Were the -Germans here, attacking The Village? Then her senses awoke. The sounds -that she heard were not the bursting of bombs, but fire crackling and -voices shouting. - -She sprang up and ran to the door. Smoke poured in, and through it she -saw leaping flames, a great column of fire rising from the stairway -between her and her cousin’s room. - -“Cousin Agnes! Cousin Agnes! Ruth! oh, Ruth!” she called at the top of -her voice. - -There was no answer. There was only the horrible roar of the mounting -flames. She slammed the door to shut out the noise which was more -terrifying than the smoke and the flames. She ran to a front window. -The yard was full of people, her friends and cousins, who seemed very -far away and strange, with their excited, anxious faces lighted by the -red glare of the conflagration. - -Some one saw her as soon as she opened the shutter and raised a shout -of relief. “There she is! There’s Anne!” - -“Anne, Anne! Oh, Anne!” - -There was an agonized screech from old Emma. The words were lost in the -roar of the fire or unheeded in the excitement; but Dick knew afterward -that he heard her yell, “That old devil! he’s burnin’ up little Miss -Anne!” - -For a minute Anne stood dazed and motionless at the window. But now the -fire had eaten through the door; the air was stifling with lurid smoke; -the roaring, crackling flames came nearer. She was gasping, choking. -She climbed on the window sill. - -“Don’t jump! don’t jump! We’ll get you in a minute!” called Dick. - -She stood still. It was a fearful distance; she might break her arm, -leg, neck; but--she moved restlessly--anything would be better than -being caught by those awful flames. - -“Wait, Anne, wait!” called Mrs. Osborne. “Wait! They are bringing a -ladder.” - -A group of men came around the corner of the house, dragging a ladder. -They raised it, but in their haste it was pushed too far to one side -and caught on the window blind. Anne clutched at a swaying rung. - -“Stop, Anne! Steady, old girl, steady!” - -Dick pushed past Mr. Mallett, went like a cat up the ladder, steadied -the upper end of it against the window sill, while Anne climbed down. - -Explanations came by degrees, piecemeal, in ejaculations. When Mrs. -Wilson and Ruth awakened, the flames had made a wall across the hall -which they could not cross. They called and called Anne, but she did -not answer. - -“Oh! that’s what I heard in my sleep!” exclaimed Anne. “I thought you -were the Germans.” - -At last they had to shut the door as a temporary barrier to the fire. -When it blazed, they climbed on a trellis below one of the windows. -There they clung till help came. - -Miss Fanny Morrison, who lived in the cottage next door, had awakened -at last and she ran out, screaming and beating at doors, and aroused -The Village. - -As soon as Mrs. Wilson and Ruth and Anne were rescued, people set to -work to save the contents of the house. But the upper floor was cut off -by the burning of the staircase, and the fire had now made such headway -that they succeeded in getting only a few articles from the lower -rooms. The rapidly advancing flames drove them back and they stood, in -helpless, sorrowful groups, like watchers at a deathbed. - -“Oh, my home! my home!” sobbed poor Mrs. Wilson. - -Mrs. Osborne threw her arms around her. “Thank God, you and Anne and -Ruth are safe.” - -“Yes, yes! Thank God for that. But my home, my precious home!” - -“Go with Miranda, Agnes; go to The Roost,” urged Red Mayo. “Don’t -distress yourself staying here. We will put your things in the -schoolhouse; that’s safe, I’m sure.” - -But the poor lady stood and watched, with fascinated horror, the flames -racing through the house and thrusting fierce, demonlike tongues out of -the windows. - -“Stand back! out of the way!” shouted Red Mayo and Will Blair. The roof -had caught; there was a great burst of flame, burning shingles soared -through the air. Fortunately, it was a windless night and the Village -houses were far apart, in lawns and groves. - -After that great upflare, the fire subsided. When the east wall toppled -and crashed down, there was another fierce spurt of flame. Then the -fire died down. And at last they all went sadly home. - -In the gray morning, an old, bent, black negro man crept out of a shed -on The Back Way and looked with a curious mixture of triumph and terror -at the smoldering ruin, the blackened walls with the windows like -ghastly loopholes. That was all that was left of Broad Acres, which had -been for over a hundred years a home and a landmark. - -“Of course you’ll stay right here with us,” said Mrs. Red Mayo Osborne -to Mrs. Wilson, the next morning. - -“Undoubtedly!” Mr. Osborne was surprised that his wife considered it -necessary to say so. - -“You and Ruth.” “Of course you will.” “Oh, yes!” and “Sure!” exclaimed -Patsy, Sweet William, David, and Dick. - -“Why, dears, you haven’t room for us,” said Mrs. Wilson. - -“Certainly, there is plenty of room,” said Mrs. Osborne. “I have it -all planned. You and Ruth will stay in ‘the bedroom,’ Patsy will move -out of it, into the dressing room that Sweet William will give up. He -can sleep on a pallet in ‘the chamber’ or go into the ‘tumble-up room’ -with Dick and David. Of course you will stay here.” - -“What’s that you are saying?” asked Black Mayo, who came up the walk -just then. “‘Stay here?’ You aren’t hoping you can have Agnes and Ruth -with you?” - -“Yes, indeed!” said Patsy. “Now, don’t you come and try to hog them -away. They are going to live with us.” - -“Indeed they are not,” declared Black Mayo. “They’re going to Larkland. -Van is on the way with the wagon, Agnes, to carry your things. Of -course you are coming to us. Why, we really need you. Think of all -those big empty rooms. And you’ll be such company for Polly when I’m -away.” - -While he was arguing the matter, the Miss Morrisons came up the walk, -followed by Mr. Tavis and Mr. Mallett. - -Miss Elmira was an invalid, but she had hobbled across The Street with -Miss Fanny to invite Mrs. Wilson and Ruth to come to their cottage. - -“It is so convenient, with just the grove between it and Broad--the -schoolhouse,” said Miss Fanny. “And it’s just right for two families; -there are two rooms on each side, with the hall between, like a street, -and we’ll be just as particular about crossing it, we assure you.” - -“We spoke for them first. Stay with us, Cousin Agnes, you and Ruth; -please do,” pleaded Sweet William. - -“No; they want a home of their own,” said Mr. Mallett. “Miss Agnes, I -ain’t got a house to ask you to, not to call it a house; it’s just a -hole to put my gang of children in. I come to say we-all are going to -build you a house. We’ve been talking it over, Joe Spencer and Benny -Hight and a bunch of others; everybody wants to help. There’s the -sawmill in the Big Woods, and we’ll cut trees and haul lumber and----” - -“Shucks!” said Mr. Tavis, in his high, wheezy voice. “Ain’t no sense -in building a house, when there’s one all ready for Miss Agnes and her -gal to live in. I built a big house with upstairs and all that, ’cause -I had the money and I wanted a place like you-alls. My old woman and me -are used to living in one or two rooms, and it comes awkward to have -so much house ’round us. We’re going to move in the little room next -to the kitchen, and, Miss Agnes, you’re to take the rest of the house; -you’re used to having room to spread yourself. We cert’n’ly will be -thankful to you.” - -“Dear people! my people! my own family, all of you!” Mrs. Wilson said; -it was some minutes before she could speak between sobs. “I can’t tell -you--I never can say--how grateful I am--how I love you all, for--for -being so dear and good to me.” - -“Dear Agnes!” Mrs. Osborne’s arms were around her. - -Mr. Mallett cleared his throat loudly. “Good to you!” he said. “Ain’t -you taught my children and every Village child, never asking if you’d -get pay or not, and beating sense in them that ain’t got no sense, -and----” - -“Ain’t I seen you grow up from a baby, age of my girl that’s dead?” -said Mr. Tavis, blowing his nose like a trumpet. - -Sweet William wailed aloud. - -“Sh, sh, son!” His mother soothed him. “Why are you crying?” - -“I don’t know,” sobbed Sweet William. “I--I just got to cry.” - -“I didn’t know I could love you all better than I did!” exclaimed Mrs. -Wilson. “Oh, you are so good, so dear! But we’ve made up our minds, -Ruth and I, what we are going to do. We are going to live in the -schoolhouse.” - -“But, Agnes----” began Red Mayo. - -“But, Mayo!” she said. “It was the Broad Acres ‘office,’ just as The -Roost here where you live was the ‘office’ of Osborne’s Rest, and it’s -almost as large. There are two big rooms and a little one. Oh! there is -room and room enough for Ruth and me.” - -“But, Miss Agnes----” - -“Oh! Cousin Agnes----” - -“Agnes dear----” - -“But me no more buts,” she said, laughing through her tears. “It is -best; I know it is best for us to make our home there. There’ll not be -room for the Red Cross work----” - -“We’ll take that,” said Miss Fanny, hastily. - -“You wont! I will,” asserted Mr. Tavis. - -It was at last decided that the Red Cross workers were to occupy the -Miss Morrisons’ spare rooms, and Mr. Tavis was comforted with the -promise of furnishing a schoolroom in the autumn. - -Mrs. Wilson had her way about living in the cottage in Broad Acres -yard, but The Village had its way about furnishing the rooms. At -first people came pell-mell, haphazard, with their best and filled -the cottage to overflowing. Then Polly Osborne, who was the soul of -order and common sense, took charge of things. She made a list of -house furnishings that had been saved and of those that were needed, -and accepted and rejected offerings accordingly. She sent back several -center tables and big clocks and three or four dozen parlor chairs, and -asked for kitchen utensils and bed linen. - -By nightfall, the little home-to-be contained the choicest offerings -of The Village. In the bedroom were the Blairs’ best mahogany wardrobe -and bureau, and the Black Mayo Osbornes’ four-poster bedstead arrayed -with the Red Mayo Osbornes’ lavendered linen sheets. The kitchen stove -had been saved and a procession of housewives had piled up utensils and -pantry supplies. In the living room Mr. Tavis’s red plush rocking-chair -reposed on the Miss Morrisons’ best rag rug. - -Beside the window was a bookcase full of books, clothbound and -sheepskin old volumes that had been read and loved, and that had old -names in them, like Mrs. Wilson’s own dear lost volumes which had -belonged to the forefathers of The Village. There was a note from Black -Mayo, saying of course it did not make any real difference whose house -the books were in, because they belonged to any one who wished to read -them, but he’d rather they’d be in her home so his wife would not have -them to dust. - -Mrs. Wilson laughed and cried as she read the note. - -A procession of people came in with food that broke all conservation -rules--beaten biscuits, batter-yeast bread, fried chicken, baked ham, -and countless varieties of jams and jellies and pickles and preserves. - -It was bedtime when at last Mrs. Wilson and Ruth were left alone. They -undressed and hand in hand, they knelt at their bedside, and then they -lay down to rest in the new home, shadowed by the ruins that had been -home the night before. - -Who would have thought it possible for so sad a day to be so happy? - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Like most Southern communities, The Village had not the habit of -celebrating the Fourth of July. It had its fireworks and jollifications -at Christmas, which was the gala season of its year, a whole week of -holiday and feasting. - -But now that the United States was in the World War, Independence Day -acquired a new and deeper meaning. There were flags and addresses -in the Court-house, and they sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” after -“Dixie.” Then there was a picnic dinner, with plenty of fried chicken -and a hooverized amount of ice cream and cake. - -The pleasant new patriotic enthusiasm about the Fourth was tremendously -deepened two days later when Black Mayo came to the war gardens and -told the workers about that wonderful American Fourth of July in France. - -The American Expeditionary Force had crossed the submarine-infested -ocean and had landed, every man safe, at “a seaport of France.” On the -Fourth, the splendid, brave, eager fellows in khaki and blue jackets -marched along the streets of Paris, hundreds and thousands of them, -forerunners of hundreds of thousands who were coming. - -Paris went wild with joy. The streets were strewn with flowers; -the Stars and Stripes waved a welcome; French bands played “The -Star-Spangled Banner” and American bands responded with the -“Marseillaise.” - -“_Vive l’Amérique! vive l’Amérique!_” - -“Pershing’s boys are here!” - -Ah, what a day it was! - -The Americans were sorely needed in 1917. - -In the west, British and French and Belgians were bravely holding the -entrenched long line from the Alps to the Channel. But alas! for the -east. There was a revolution in Russia, beginning with bread riots in -Petrograd. Patriots echoed anxiously the prayer of the abdicating Czar: -“May God help Russia!” as she dropped from the ranks of fighting Allies -and became the battleground of warring factions. - -German submarines continued to take their toll on the seas. And German -air raids grew more frequent. Night after night Zeppelins swept down, -like huge, evil birds of prey; day after day airplanes darted and dived -like swallows. People heard the whir of motors, the explosion of -bombs, the rattle of anti-aircraft guns; in a few minutes it was over, -all but the counting of the wounded and the dead, chiefly women and -children. - -The Village listened with interest to all news from overseas as a part -of “our war.” Then it turned to the work at home. - -In June men registered in obedience to the Draft Act. One day in July -the Secretary of War, blindfolded, drew one capsule out of a great jar; -it was opened; on a slip of paper in it was a number. Another capsule -was drawn out; and another; and another. All day and until long after -midnight went on that drawing of capsules containing numbers. - -And the numbers, when they came to The Village and to all the country -places and little towns and great cities of the whole nation, were no -longer mere numbers, but names; and when they went to the homes of the -community they were neither numbers nor names, but sons, brothers, -sweethearts, friends--men who had to go to fight, perhaps to die, for -the nation. - -The end of the summer found nearly a million men under arms and in -training camps scattered over the country. A great brave, efficient -army of soldiers was being formed. And everywhere men and women and -children were enrolled in the nation’s greater army of service, as -patriotic and brave and efficient and as necessary as soldiers. - -The Second Liberty Loan was under way, and people who had thought they -had not a dollar beyond their needs found they could “buy a bond to -help Uncle Sam win the war.” - -There was Red Cross work to do--feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, -caring for the sick and wounded; millions of people were helping with -money and service, at home and overseas. - -Millions, too, were enrolled in the work of food conservation. During -that spring and summer and autumn of 1917, crop reports were watched as -anxiously as news from the war front, for even the children knew that -“armies march on their feet and on their stomachs.” - -At family worship, night and morning, in that little old-fashioned -Presbyterian Village, voices prayed God to bless our homes and soldiers -and Allies, and thanked Him for great ideals and wholesome food, for -President Wilson and bounteous crops. - -The crops were, indeed, bounteous. There were record-breaking yields -of corn and oats, and an abundant yield of potatoes. The wheat crop -was smaller; we must stint at home, to send supplies to Europe. But -the country, going calmly through its sugar famine, was ready for -“meatless Tuesdays” and “wheatless Wednesdays”--anything, everything to -help win the war. - -The members of Camp Fight Foe and Camp Feed Friend went -enthusiastically to Broad Acres, one pleasant day in early autumn, to -harvest their crop of white potatoes. - -Mr. Mallett, who had volunteered to help with his horse and plow, ran a -furrow beside each row; potato diggers had never been heard of in The -Village. Behind him came the young gardeners--collecting the tubers -turned up by the plow, picking them out of the soft soil, or raking out -those that were more deeply embedded. Not one must be overlooked and -left behind, for close was the contest between the rival gardeners. -The bucket- and basketfuls of potatoes were emptied into a half-bushel -measure, over which Mrs. Wilson presided, and then put into bags. The -gardeners were jubilant over the results of their labors, and with -reason. Mrs. Wilson said that Broad Acres had never yielded a better -crop than the one they were harvesting. - -“Isn’t this a crackerjack?” cried David, holding up a huge tuber. - -“Here’s a better one. It’s just as big as yours, and it’s smooth, -instead of being all bumpy,” Patsy said critically. - -“O-oh!” wailed Ruth. “J-just see this lovely one that the plow c-cut in -two. It would have been best of all. Isn’t it a pity?” - -“These nice little round ones are loverly,” said Sweet William, who -was making a collection of the tiny, smallest potatoes. “The little -Belgians can play marbles with them first, and then eat them.” - -“Alice, empty your basket in the measure and let’s see if we haven’t -another bushel,” called Patsy. - -“You girls! Make haste and put your potatoes in a bag, so we can have -the measure,” urged Steve. “We’ll fill it in a hurry.” - -When the last measureful was emptied, it was found that the boys had a -half peck more than the girls. - -“Yah! yah! Of course we beat you!” cried Steve. - -“By measuring all Sweet William’s marbles,” Anne Lewis said scornfully. -“Our potatoes are bigger. And anyway you had four more hills on your -last row.” - -“Yes, sirree! And this is the first crop out of our gardens. You wait -till we come to the last,” said Patsy, confidently. - -“Our gardens will feed a lot of soldiers,” Sweet William said proudly. -“They’ll take care of our Village boys a year--or a while, anyway. -Jeff’s such a big eater! We’re all working our hardest; and Scalawag’s -helping.” - -Sweet William never tired of singing Scalawag’s praises, since by his -aid the destroyer of the war gardens had been discovered and punished. - -Kit, closely questioned by Mr. Black Mayo Osborne, confessed that he -had gone into the garden, and had hidden behind the arbor when he heard -some one coming; he had kicked Scalawag, to drive him away; and--he -finally owned--he had driven in the cow from the adjoining pasture. - -He gave no reason except “because”; and Mr. Osborne shook his head and -frowned. There was something back of this, he felt sure. What was it? -Were there wanton mischief-makers in The Village? The burning of Broad -Acres--was it an accident, caused by rats and matches, as was generally -believed? He wondered, but he got no clews, and other matters were -disturbing him. For the present, things went on their usual quiet way -in The Village. - -When the gardeners started to dig potatoes, Dick shrugged his shoulders -and started off whistling, as if he were having a grand good time. -But, to tell the truth, he was getting tired of these excursions to -the mine. He continued them, at more and more infrequent intervals, -chiefly to plague Anne and Patsy. - -Time after time they had left gardening and Red Cross work and -followed him. Sometimes he had turned across a field, and twisted and -doubled--like an old red fox, to which Black Mayo compared him--and -made a successful get-away. - -Sometimes, in a teasing humor, he kept just far enough ahead to -encourage them to continue the pursuit and led them over miles of -rough country and back to The Village; then he would ask, with an -exasperating grin, “Haven’t we had a lovely walk?” - -Anne looked after him to-day and said, as often before, “Oh! I wish we -could find out Dick’s secret.” - -“If just we could!” Patsy replied; “but--well, sometimes I think we -might as well give up. We can’t keep on forever trotting after him, -with the Red Cross and Camp Feed Friend and the Canning Club and Happy -Acres and all the other things there are to do.” - -“Oh, no, Pats-pet! We’ll not give up,” Anne said decidedly. “There’s -some way to manage it. But of course we mustn’t take time from the -garden; not now, while there’s so much to do. The main thing is to make -our garden beat those bragging boys’. Oh! I’m so glad I’m going to -stay here this winter and see it through.” - -On account of the housing shortage in Washington, Anne’s adoptive -parents had given up their home to war workers, and Anne was to -continue her studies this winter with her cousins in The Village; Mrs. -Wilson was as good as a university for scholarship. - -Dick went by Larkland as usual. His Cousin Mayo was silent and seemed -preoccupied as they went to the pigeon cote. - -“Here’s a bird for you,” he said, taking one at random. - -Dick stood a minute with the caged pigeon in his hand, then said -abruptly: “Cousin Mayo, you told me that you were going in the army. -When?” - -“Hey?” Black Mayo gave a start. - -Dick repeated his question. - -His cousin frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. There are -things here. I don’t see how I can get away.” - -Couldn’t get away! Why, Cousin Mayo had always been footloose; he -picked up, on a day’s notice, and went to Alaska or Mexico or the South -Sea Islands, for a month or two, or a year or two. And now to say he -couldn’t get away! People were saying he stayed at home because he was -a coward and a slacker. It was not true. And why were they saying it -about Cousin Mayo and not about other men who didn’t go to war? - -Dick went on toward the mine, feeling mystified and worried. He -proceeded cautiously as usual, varying his route and making cut-offs -and circuits to avoid possible observation and pursuit. The door of -Solomon Gabe’s cabin was open, as it often was, revealing nothing in -the gloomy interior. Dick circled behind the hovel, going rather close -to keep away from a little swamp. The place was usually as silent as -the grave. But now he heard two voices--Solomon Gabe’s old monotone and -another voice that he felt he might have recognized if it had been a -little louder. He scurried along the edge of the swamp, and in a minute -he was out of sight and hearing. - -He paused at Mine Creek as usual to set free his bird. It perched on -his shoulder a moment; then it soared up and wheeled and was off. - -Dick went on to the mine and stood several minutes on the lookout -before he put his ladder into the hole and descended. He always took -precautions against stray passers-by, although in all these months he -had never seen any one thereabouts. - -Down in the mine, he lighted a candle and went to one of the lower -spurs and set to work, following the line between a layer of clay and -rock. After a while he came to a projecting ledge of rock and, using -pick and sledge hammer with difficulty, he broke off a piece. He picked -it up--it was very heavy--and looked at it. On the broken surface there -were bright specks and streaks. How they shone and sparkled in the -candlelight! Silver! Ah, he had found it at last! - -He sped to the mine opening to examine his find by daylight, and his -eager confidence was confirmed. How beautifully the specks and streaks -glinted and glittered! He climbed out and hid his ladder, and went -homeward on winged feet. He was too hurried and eager to take his usual -roundabout course; but he saw no one as he sped along the Old Plank -Road except Mr. Smith, whom he passed on the hill beyond Peter Jim’s -cabin. - -Dick dropped from a trot to a walk when he came to The Village, and -sauntered up The Street to The Roost, where his father was sitting -on the porch reading a _Congressional Record_. With an elaborate -assumption of carelessness, Dick held out the shining stone. - -“See what I’ve found, father,” he said. “What do you reckon it is?” - -Mr. Osborne examined the stone deliberately. - -“H-m! It is----” - -A vagrant breeze caught the _Congressional Record_ and tossed it on the -floor. - -“Pick up that paper, son,” said Mr. Osborne, “and smooth out the pages; -gently, so as not to tear them. You know I file----” - -“Yes, sir. But my rock, father!” Dick interrupted in uncontrollable -impatience. - -“It is quartz,” said his father; “quartz with a little silver in it. -These minute particles and streaks are free silver, such as is found -occasionally in the quartz in this section. This looks like a poor -specimen from the Old Sterling Mine. Where did you get it?” - -“Oh! I found it,” Dick said vaguely. - -“Somewhere along Mine Creek, I presume, my son?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Well, don’t venture too close to the old mine,” cautioned his father. -“Of course you wouldn’t think of entering it. The timbers are probably -all decayed; there might be a cave-in any time. It is a dangerous -place.” - -“Yes, sir,” Dick answered meekly. - -And forthwith he went to Mr. Blair’s store and invested his last dime -in two candles. He was very zealous about going to the mine for some -time after that, but he only succeeded in chipping off a few bits -rather worse than better than the one he had first secured. - -The glow of that little success died away, and he felt discouraged and -ashamed of himself when his schoolmates held their garden exhibit in -the Tavern parlor. - -All The Village and the surrounding country gathered there on the -evening of that crisp autumn day, the last Saturday in October. The -big parlor that had been a gathering place since stagecoach days had a -gala air. It was decorated with American flags, and the vegetables were -piled in pyramids on tables covered with red, white, and blue tissue -paper. Every withered leaf had been cut from the cabbages. Each potato -and onion and tomato had been washed as carefully as a baby’s face. The -ears of corn had the husks turned back and tied, and were fastened in -great bunches on the wall with tri-colored streamers. By the side of -each pile of vegetables was a card saying how many bushels or gallons -or quarts the garden had yielded. The girls had jars and jars of -tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, berries--canned, pickled, preserved. - -On a neatly lettered card above the door were the President’s words: -“Every bushel of potatoes properly stored, every pound of vegetables -properly put by for future use, every jar of fruit preserved, adds -that much to our insurance of victory, adds that much to hasten the end -of this conflict.” - -“I tell you, dears,” quavered Mrs. Spencer’s gentle old voice, as she -looked around, “this exhibition would be a credit to grown-up farmers -anywhere. I don’t believe,” she added thoughtfully, “that people worked -during The--that other war, like they are working now. Of course that -was at home, and all our men were in it and our women all felt it as a -personal thing. But people--well, they weren’t organized. Did you ever -know children do anything like this, all this gardening and Red Cross -work? Oh, it’s wonderful, wonderful! And they’ve all worked--even that -dear little dove, Sweet William.” - -“Oh, Sweet William! I always knew you’re a bird,” laughed Anne Lewis, -who was standing near. “Now I know the kind. You are a dove; oh, you -are a dove of war, like Cousin Mayo’s birds!” - -“Good, Anne!” said Black Mayo. “Sweet William is a dove of war, and so -are all you dear children and all you good and lovely people here and -everywhere. Doves of war, harbingers of real peace that can only come -from winning this war and securing freedom and human rights.” - -“Come, come, Mr. Osborne!” called Mr. Martin, who was in charge of the -County Corn Clubs: “Mr. Jones and I are waiting for you. We judges must -get to work. And we’ve got no easy job,” he said, looking around at the -exhibits. - -The garden produce was arranged in two groups. No one except the -contestants knew which was the girls’ and which was the boys’. The -judges went from one to the other--looking, admiring, considering, -reconsidering. At last they announced their decision: Both exhibits -were highly creditable, but this was the better. - -There was a shout of joy from the girls. They had won, they had won! -After a little pause, the boys--for they were generous rivals--joined -in the applause and congratulations. - -Anne Lewis, who had suggested the war gardening, was deputed by the -girls to receive the silver cup presented by Black Mayo Osborne, and -the blue ribbon; and David received the red ribbon for the boys. - -Dick Osborne looked so forlorn that David said: “Cheer up, old boy! If -you hadn’t been busy about something else when we started the garden, -you’d have been in it with us.” - -“I’m not much forwarder about that than I was in April,” Dick -confessed. “I’m going to keep on trying, though. But if there’s a war -garden next year I’ll be in it.” - -“There isn’t any ‘if’ about it,” declared David. “We are going to keep -on gardening, to help win the war. And we’ll get that cup back from the -girls next year; see if we don’t.” - -“We’ll see--you don’t,” said Patsy. - -Just then there was a little stir at the door. Mr. Mallett, who had -been to Redville on business, came in and said something in an excited -undertone to Black Mayo Osborne. Mr. Osborne asked a quick question or -two, and then jumped on a table and caught the big flag draped over the -mantelpiece and waved it above his head. - -“Hurrah! hurrah!” he said. “News, great news!” - -“The Liberty Loan has gone over the top,” guessed Red Mayo. - -“Of course, of course! But something else is going over the top. Our -American boys! They are facing the Germans in ‘No Man’s Land.’ To-day, -to-day for the first time, our American boys were in the first-line -trenches on the French front. Hurrah! hurrah! We are in The War!” - -Every voice joined in a cheer that rang and rang again. Mr. Tavis and -the other old Confederates raised the “rebel yell,” their old valiant -battle cry. The children clapped their hands and shouted: “We are in -it! We are in it! We are in The War!” - -Sweet William clapped and cheered with the best. Then he turned to his -mother. “What does it mean, mother, our men ‘in the trenches’?” he -asked. “Does it mean we’ve beat the war?” - -“It means our soldiers are over there, fighting side by side with -our Allies against the Germans,” explained his mother. “I don’t know -whether it’s defeat or victory to-day; but we Americans will stay there -till we win The War--if you and I have to go to help, little son--to -conquer the world for peace and freedom.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -In his Christmas sermon, the Village minister gave thanks that the -British, in this twentieth-century crusade of liberty, had accomplished -the purpose of the old Crusades and had wrested Jerusalem, the Holy -City, from the Turks who had held it for nearly seven hundred years. -And a few Sundays later, he charged each citizen to take, as his New -Year’s resolution for the nation, the “fourteen principles of peace” -formulated by the first citizen of America and of the world. - -Thanksgiving and peace terms! Those were the things people were taking -as matters of course, feeling sure, that now America was in the war, -the victorious end would come, and that soon. But days began to darken. -The spring of 1918 was a tragic, anxious time. - -Germany had failed to clear the seas and win the war with submarines. -Every few minutes a wooden or steel or concrete ship left the New -World, bearing soldiers and food and munitions, and ninety-nine per -cent of them came safe to harbor; soon there would be millions of -trained and equipped doughboys in Europe. Germany’s one chance was to -strike a decisive blow on the Western Front before those fast-coming -Americans were there in full force. - -And Germany was ready to strike that blow. The Reds’ shameful peace at -Brest-Litovsk enabled her to mass armies in the west. She had there -Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff and six million soldiers. And having the -inner lines, she could concentrate troops and outnumber the Allies two -or three to one in every attack, although they had eight million men. - -Late in March, the great German offensive began. - -The first drive was on a fifty-mile front. It swept onward with -terrible force, capturing vast numbers of prisoners and guns. The -monster guns in the St. Gobain Forest dropped shells on a church in the -heart of Paris. Late in April, that drive was checked, but the Germans -had thrust forward thirty-four miles on their way to the French capital. - -Before that first drive was halted, the second drive began in Flanders; -its purpose was to reach the Channel ports and to cut off the British -Army from the French and Americans. The British held their broken -ranks and stood “with their backs to the wall.” The Germans were again -checked, but they had advanced ten long, hard-fought miles. - -The Village received with growing dismay the tidings from the battle -front. Months ago the older men had offered themselves for war service -and formed a company, and now they drilled regularly on Court-house -Green. They might as well be ready, in case they were needed, said Red -Mayo Osborne. - -Black Mayo Osborne did not join the company. Nor did he enter the army -as he had said months before he was going to do. He spent a great deal -of his time wandering about the countryside, with baskets of pigeons, -seemingly unconscious of the sneers at his expense--that came most -frequently and openly from men who were leaving no stone of political -influence unturned, to keep themselves and their sons and brothers out -of the army. - -One of Black Mayo’s favorite walks was toward the high bridge, eight -miles from The Village, where frequent trains bearing soldiers and -supplies crawled across the long, high trestle far above the river and -the lowlands. - -One day as he was sauntering near the bridge, he saw a man and boy who -were following a by-path through the woods. Circling through a pine -thicket, he came near enough to hear part of their conversation. - -The man was not speaking English, but Black Mayo understood what he -was saying: “Not train time. You walk the bridge and”--there Black Mayo -missed some words. - -“No,” the boy said curtly. - -The man insisted. - -“That will I not!” declared the boy, speaking in English. “Nothing to -hurt, all to help!” - -“Coward that you are!” the man cried in his guttural language. “You, a -boy as at play, could do it without suspicion. Must I risk, not only -myself, but the Cause?” - -Then he discovered Black Mayo, almost at his elbow, apparently intent -on the pigeons--scrawling a line and affixing it to a bird. He released -it; it soared, circled, and was gone. - -Mr. Smith knew that, at that nearness, Mr. Osborne must have heard his -words and understood probably his purpose. With an oath he jerked out -a pistol. Albert caught his arm, and before he could free it and take -aim, Black Mayo said: “Look out! That pigeon carried my message home: -‘High bridge. Threatened by Smith.’” - -For a minute the two men stood silent, face to face. - -Smith thought quickly. To shoot down this unarmed man whom he -hated--only to be arrested as a murderer---- The game was not worth -the candle. He spoke with an angry laugh: “You did startle me. _Ach!_ -I was talking nonsense with my nephew. Go, with your little birds! -But if”--he scowled, and his evil left eye became a mere glinting -spark--“if you make harm where there is none, I will shoot you with my -last act.” - -Black Mayo considered a moment before he answered: “I will go home and -receive my own message. But I will put another where it will be found -the minute harm comes to me.” - -Mr. Smith laughed and put his pistol into his pocket. “Go, save your -skin,” he sneered. Then he said to his nephew: “_Ach!_ That is the man -you adore, a coward who dares not tell on me for fear of himself. It is -well. The German victory is a matter now of the days.” - -Was that indeed true? Every day brought new Allied losses; guns and -men and miles; on the north the English were being forced back; in the -south the French were being forced back. - -But in that time of dire need, two new factors entered the war. One was -Foch as commander-in-chief; the other was the Americans. - -Instead of being many, the Allied armies became one; American Pershing, -British Haig, French Pétain, Italian Diaz, Belgian Albert, served under -Foch, whom all the world knew as a brilliant strategist. - -So far the American troops had been in training and held in reserve. -But late in May newspapers had two news items. One announced, in -glaring headlines, that the Germans had advanced ten miles, crossed -two rivers, and taken twenty-five thousand prisoners; the other said, -in small type, that the Americans had advanced their lines and taken -the village of Cantigny and two hundred prisoners. A big advance and a -little one. Ah! but in that day at Cantigny the Americans were tried -and not found wanting. - -The Germans, already talking of a “hard peace,” pushed forward on their -“Victory Drive” toward Paris. Hundreds of square miles were taken, -and thousands of prisoners and guns. They crossed the Marne River and -reached Château-Thierry, only forty miles from Paris. - -Had Foch and the Americans come too late? - -Ah! now they moved, swiftly and successfully, both of them. Foch had -let the Germans advance so as to make flank attacks. The Americans, -given the post of honor at Château-Thierry, drove back the best of -the Germans and carried positions deemed impregnable. Up and down the -long battle line from the Alps to the North Sea, went the tidings: -“The Americans have held the Germans. They are as good as our best. A -million of them are here, and there are millions ready to come.” - -The Germans made their last great offensive, a desperate drive on a -sixty-mile front toward Paris. They were checked. They retreated. The -Allies took the offensive. - -During these stirring days, The Village could not wait the leisurely -roundabout course of the mail rider and accept day-old papers as -“news.” Some one rode every day to Redville and brought back the -morning _Dispatch_ and then the war news was read aloud in the post -office. - -There was a deep personal as well as patriotic interest now, for -Village volunteers and drafted soldiers were overseas. All the -community mourned with the Spencers when Jeff’s name was among the -“missing” after Château-Thierry. They looked every day for news of him, -but hope died as weeks and months passed and none came. - -One September Saturday brought an overseas letter for Mrs. Mallett. -Dick Osborne ran to deliver it, and then they waited for her to come as -usual and share its tidings. - -An hour passed and she did not come. Then she walked swiftly down The -Street and passed the post office, without turning her head. Her face -was pale and she was biting her lips to keep them steady. - -“It’s bad news,” they whispered one to another. - -“Awful!” groaned Dick, as she went straight to the pastor’s study at -the back of the church. No one knocked at that door on sermon-sacred -Saturday afternoon unless the need were extreme. - -Mr. Harvie met her with grave, kind, questioning eyes. “My dear Mrs. -Mallett----” he began. - -Then she broke down and sobbed as if her heart would break. - -“It’s Fayett,” she said as soon as she could speak. “He’s in hospital.” - -“The Great Physician can heal our dear boy. Let us----” - -“He says he’s all right; it was a flesh wound; he was starting back to -the army. It--it isn’t that!” - -“Not that? Then what----” - -Mrs. Mallett again burst into tears. - -“My dear woman, what _is_ it?” asked Mr. Harvie. - -“Oh!” she gasped out the awful news. “They’ve got him; those terrible -Catholics. Read--you read for yourself.” - -She handed him the letter and sat there sobbing with her face buried in -her apron. - -As Mr. Harvie read Fayett’s letter, his face cleared and he set his -lips to keep back a smile. - -“Don’t cry, Mrs. Mallett,” he said gently. “You’ve reason to be glad -and proud of your son. And I’m sure he’s just as good a Presbyterian as -when he was here in the Village Sunday school. He----” - -“But they’ve give him their cross; he too-ook it!” she sobbed. - -“It was given not as a symbol of religion, but as a token of valor,” he -explained. “Don’t you see what he says in this sentence or two?--that -he went under fire from his refuge in a trench to the rescue of two -wounded men in a disabled tank.” - -“He had to help them out; they couldn’t get away,” she said. - -“Just so; and he saved them at the risk of his own life. That is why -this _Croix de Guerre_ was given. Fayett is a hero.” - -“Course he is. Did they think he was a coward?” she asked indignantly. -“But he ain’t any better’n Jack. And Jack, my little Jack, is in this -new draft.” - -Jack’s eighteenth birthday was just past, and so he came in the second -draft that included men between eighteen and forty-five. For the most -part, this draft, like the first one, was met frankly and bravely. But -if any one had observed carefully, which no one seemed to be doing, he -might have found two little Village groups where sentiment seemed to -drift away from the current of loyalty. - -One was in the shed on The Back Way where Lincum had his cobbler’s -bench. His father, Solomon Gabe, was there oftener than formerly; -perhaps he was lonely now that his other son, Cæsar, had been drafted -for service. The old man sat far at the back of the shed, mumbling to -himself or throwing a sharp sentence into his son’s conversations with -other negroes. They talked in lower tones and laughed less than usual; -and when they went away, they sometimes let fall curious misstatements -and misunderstandings about the war and the draft, like that of Emma’s, -which the white people who heard them laughed at, tried to explain, and -then forgot. - -But one would have felt more disturbed at the other group that lounged -on the Tavern porch on Saturday afternoons, chewing and smoking and -whittling. Mr. Charles Smith was generally there, and the most ignorant -and least public-spirited of the men about The Village. - -“Now what do you fellows think--” Jake Andrew was saying fiercely -one day. Mr. Smith nudged him, Jake turned, saw Black Mayo Osborne -approaching, and concluded in an entirely different tone, “of--of the -weather?” - -Mr. Osborne laughed. “You fellows spend a lot of energy -discussing--weather and crops,” he said, speaking lightly but glancing -keenly about him, “Don’t you ever talk about public affairs, this great -war we are in?” - -There was a little embarrassed silence. Mr. Smith’s suave voice broke -it. “We are poor and hard-worker farmers, Mr. Osborne. About crops and -weather we are interested to talk. We have not the gentleman’s time to -amuse with pretty little doves.” - -The other men snickered or guffawed. Black Mayo seemed about to speak, -then turned on his heel and walked away. - -“Doves! He’ll send them to war; but he ain’t so ready to give his -folks,” said Jake Andrews, who had done a deal of political wirepulling -to get off his drafted sons. - -“Or himself,” growled Zack Gordan, a young ne’er-do-well, who had made -the widowed mother who supported him an excuse for evading war service. -“What business have we got in this war anyway? What harm have them -Germans ever done us?” - -“Now what?” inquired Mr. Smith. He darted a look of pure venom after -Black Mayo. “That fellow is a queer one. Can one believe he goes, -comes, comes, goes about the little birds?” He gave a scornful, -incredulous laugh. “And you say he had the years of absences? Where?” -He made the question big and condemning. - -Ever since the April day that Charles Smith had lain in the mud and -looked up at Black Mayo Osborne’s mocking face, his heart had been full -of hate. For a few weeks after the incident at the bridge, he had been -cautious, perhaps a little fearful. But as time passed and Black Mayo -kept silence, Mr. Smith grew contemptuously bold and missed no chance -for slur and insinuation against the man he hated. - -And slur and insinuation were not in vain. The community had always -accepted Black Mayo’s roving habits without question, never surprised -when he went away, welcoming him warmly when he turned up at home a -week or a month or a year later. But now--not one of them could have -said why--they were suspicious of those unknown weeks and months and -years. - -“And no one can question him or seek to know his goings, for _he_ is an -a-ris-to-crat.” Mr. Smith’s voice was silky. - -Jake Andrews uttered an oath. “’Ristocrat! I’m sick and tired of this -old ’ristocrat business. He ain’t no more’n any other man, for all his -being a Mayo and a Osborne. I’m a law officer, and so’s my Cousin Bill -at Redville. I’m going to look into things. Seems to me----” - -“Easy, friend!” Mr. Smith chuckled and pulled at his fingers, making -his knuckles snap in a way he had when he was pleased. “Those girls -come.” - -The girls were Anne and Patsy. Mrs. Osborne had asked them to carry a -basket of food to Louviny, Lincum’s wife. He had said she had a “misery -in her back” and was “mightly porely,” so she could not come to help -about Mrs. Osborne’s house-cleaning. - -Anne and Patsy gave casual glances and greetings to the group on the -porch. - -“Isn’t that Mr. Smith horrid?” said Patsy. “I despise a man like -that--with a mouth that runs up on one cheek when he grins.” - -“And I despise a man that’s so hateful about Cousin Mayo--laughing -about his pigeons and saying things about his not being in the army.” - -“Cousin Mayo used to speak so often of going; now he never says -anything about it. He looks awfully worried.” - -“Dear Cousin Mayo!” Anne said affectionately. “He’s in this draft, and -he may have to go. I don’t want him not to go, but, oh, how we’d miss -him! Even when you don’t see him, you feel The Village is a happier -place to live in because he’s here. It’s a kind of adventure to meet -him on the road.” - -“Yes,” said Patsy, “he sets your mind traveling to all sorts of lovely, -unexpected places.” - -“Don’t his doves make you feel excited?” said Anne. “Oh, I hope some of -his birds were with our boys fighting at St.-Mihiel. There must have -been! For Cousin Will read in the paper that they had three thousand -carrier pigeons.” - -Chattering thus, the girls beguiled their way to Lincum’s cabin, on -the edge of the old Tolliver place. They took a short cut across a -field, and then as they came close to the cabin they heard loud voices -and laughter that was more spiteful than merry. They paused at the old -rail fence. There was a tangle of blackberry vines and sassafras bushes -between them and the house. - -“That’ll be a grand day for us.” - -They could not see the speaker, but they recognized her voice. She was -Betty Bess, a “trifling” negro girl whom Cæsar had been “going with” -before he was drafted. - -“You’re right, honey,” agreed Louviny. She was bustling about, with -no sign of the “misery” that her husband said was keeping her bedrid. -She threw aside the broom and sat down in a splint-bottomed chair. -“I’ve been like old Bet mule in de treadmill--go, go, go, an’ nuver git -nowhar. But now I’m gwine in de promised land. I’m gwine to eat turkey -an’ cake. An’ I’m gwine to have six silk dresses an’ a rockin’-cheer. -An’ Monday mornin’ I’m gwine to put on my blue silk dress an’ set my -cheer on de porch an’ rock--an’ rock--an’ rock!” - -She swayed back and forth as she spoke and her voice was shrill and -jubilant. - -“An’ Chewsday mornin’ I’m gwine to put on my purple silk dress, an’ -Wednesday my green silk dress, an’ Thursday I’ll dress in red, an’ -Friday in yaller, an’ Sat’day I’ll put on my pink silk dress. An’ -Sunday,” she concluded triumphantly, “I’m gwine to lay out all six my -silk dresses an’ look ’em up an’ down an’ take my ch’ice.” - -Patsy laughed. “Did you ever hear such foolishness?” she asked. - -“What’s that? Who’s out thar?” queried Betty Bess, sharply. - -“I reckon you hearn dat old dominecky hen a-squawkin’,” said Louviny, -bringing her chair down with a thump. - -Patsy, followed by Anne, came out of the thicket and went to the door. - -“Howdy, Aunt Louviny,” said Patsy. “Lincum said you were mighty bad -off with a misery in your back, and so mother asked us to come to see -you. But we ought to have waited till you had on one of your six silk -dresses.” - -She laughed, but the woman looked confused--frightened, Anne would have -said, if that had not been too absurd a thought. - -“Wh-what--what you mean, Miss Patsy?” Louviny stammered. “What--what is -you talkin’ ’bout?” - -“About what I heard you say,” responded Patsy. - -“You--you ain’t hear me say nothin’--nothin’ much,” Louviny said -defensively. - -“Oh! yes, I did. I heard you say you were tired working like a mule -in a treadmill, and you are going to have six silk dresses and a -rocking-chair,” said Patsy, laughing. - -Louviny, still confused, looked relieved. “Shuh, Miss Patsy! You -mustn’t mind my foolishness. I was just talkin’ ’bout what I would do, -if I had all them things.” - -“Lincum said you were ‘mighty porely,’” said Anne. “And so we brought -you some soup and rolls.” - -“But you don’t deserve them,” said Patsy; “for you aren’t sick.” - -“Lawsy, honey! I’ve been havin’ sech a misery in my back I couldn’t -lay still, neithermore move,” whined Louviny. “Uh, it was turrible, -turrible! I got a little easement just now, an’ I crope out o’ bed to -clean up de house.” - -“Here are the soup and rolls,” Patsy said shortly, and she turned away. - -“Wasn’t it queer the way Louviny was talking?” Anne said presently. “It -sounds so--so impertinent.” - -“Um, h’m,” agreed Patsy. “She’s a trifling thing, and made up that -excuse about being sick, to keep from working for mother.” - -“She’s a silly thing!” laughed Anne. “Where’d she expect to get six -silk dresses? Oh, Patsy! Let’s go by Larkland and help Cousin Mayo feed -the pigeons.” - -This was evidently their day for appearing where they were not expected -or wanted. As they went up the walk, they saw, through the open front -door, two men in the hall--Cousin Mayo and a stranger, a tall, fair, -youngish man. They had only a glimpse of him, however, for Cousin -Mayo opened the parlor door, ushered him in, and shut the door. Then -Mr. Osborne came forward to greet the girls, went with them into the -sitting room, and looked about for Cousin Polly. He did not mention -the guest shut up in the parlor, and the girls--for the first time at -Larkland--felt themselves in the way. They soon started home, wondering -who the stranger was. - -“Oh, I know; I’m sure I know,” Anne exclaimed. “It’s Kuno Kleist, -Cousin Mayo’s German friend. Fair and light-haired; he’s a real German.” - -“But what would he be doing here?” asked Patsy. - -Anne’s imagination was equal to the occasion. “You know he’s a -Socialist, and he doesn’t like war. Cousin Mayo has brought him here to -hide, to keep the kaiser from making him be a soldier, and he doesn’t -want any one to know he’s here.” - -“He might have told us. We’d never let any one know,” said Patsy. - -“Never!” Anne agreed emphatically. - -The girls took the path by Happy Acres. If they had gone by the mill, -they would have met Dick, who had chosen this afternoon for one of -his visits to the mine that were now rare because of failing interest -and because this year he was heart and hand with the others in war -gardening. But there was nothing to do in the garden now, and this was -too good an outdoors day not to go adventuring. His hopes and spirits -rose with the crisp, brilliant weather. He had found some silver; he -might find a great deal. He had as good tools as the old blacksmith. -How grand it would be to find a big lump of solid silver! He would buy -a Liberty Bond and give a lot of money to the Red Cross. How all the -other boys would envy him! And the girls would know he was “some boy!” - -He scurried along the Old Plank Road until he reached Mine Creek, -where the path turned off to the Old Sterling Mine. Suddenly he -stopped stock-still, listening intently. Yes, there were voices; and -coming nearer. A dozen steps away was the tumbled-down cabin, the old -blacksmith shop. He crept into the rubbish pile--it was little more--to -wait till the people passed by. But they did not pass. They stopped at -the creek. Dick, peeping between the logs, could see them plainly; they -were two negro men, Solomon Gabe and his son Lincum. - -Old Solomon Gabe, with wild, wandering eyes, was rocking back and -forth, mumbling to himself. - -Lincum had a furtive, excited look. He was trying to fix his father’s -attention. “I told him you knowed dat old place. Hey?” he said. “You -c’n tell him all ’bout it, can’t you? Hey? He axed me to come wid him -last night, but I wa’n’t gwine to project on dis road in de dark, not -atter seem’ dat ha’nt so nigh here; up on dat hillside. Um-mm! It was -graveyard white; higher’n de trees; wid gre’t big green eyes!” - -For the first time the old man seemed to regard what his son was -saying. He chanted over his last words: “Green eyes; gre’t green eyes; -ghos’ white! Not on de hillside. Right here. I seed it.” - -So it was Solomon Gabe Dick had run upon that night he was playing -“ha’nt!” He had been so startled by the sudden appearance and the old -man’s face was so distorted by terror that he had not recognized him. -Of course it was Solomon Gabe! - -The old negro was still speaking. “I seed it dat fust night I come to -meet dat man. Right here. Down it went--clank-clankin’ like gallows -chains--in de groun’; right whar yore foot is.” - -Lincum moved hastily. “I don’t like dis-here place,” he said. “An’ -I don’t like dat white man. If de white folks ’round here finds -out----Thar he is!” - -A man was coming down the road. It was Mr. Smith. - -“Come!” he said quickly. “Let’s get where we are to go. Some one might -come and see us.” - -“Don’t nobody travel dis-here road but we-all colored folks an’ dat -venturesome Dick Osborne,” said Lincum. “An’ don’t nobody pester ’round -de place I tol’ you ’bout.” - -“Where is it?” Mr. Smith asked impatiently. - -“Up de hill a little piece,” replied Lincum. “Daddy knows all ’bout -it. But his mind’s mighty roamin’ to-day. Looks like he’s done tricked -folks so much he’s gittin’ tricked hi’self.” - -“Nonsense!” said Mr. Smith, sharply. “Here! Come, old coon! If you want -that gallon bucket of money to open, you must do what I say.” - -Mumbling to himself, “Money! money! money!” the old man took the lead -and went up the path toward the Old Sterling Mine. - -Dick came from his hiding place and crept through the woods. The men -were standing by the mine, talking earnestly in low tones. - -Had these negroes brought Mr. Smith here to seek its treasure? Gallon -buckets of money! That was queer talk. He would go to Larkland and tell -Cousin Mayo what he had heard. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -As Dick went up the hill, he saw on the porch a spot of blue with an -expanse of white beside it,--Mrs. Osborne in blue gingham, with a dozen -hospital shirts that she was basting, ready for machine work. - -Suddenly there was a commotion, a frightened fluttering and squawking -among the fowls in the side yard. Mother hens were warning their -young that a chicken hawk was near. It had alighted in a tall locust -tree, ready to pounce on some defenseless creature. Mrs. Osborne rose -quickly, but unhurriedly, went into the house, and reappeared in the -door with an old shotgun. As the bird poised for its downward dive, she -winged it with a quick, sure shot; it dropped in the midst of the young -things that were to have been its prey. - -“Whew! that was a fine shot, Cousin Polly!” Dick said admiringly. “A -hawk on the wing!” - -“I am glad to get the rascal,” Mrs. Osborne said quietly. “It has been -raiding my poultry yard, and I was afraid it would get some of Mayo’s -pigeons.” - -“Where’s Cousin Mayo?” Dick asked, beginning to feel embarrassed as -soon as he got over the thrill of the hawk-shooting. - -Mrs. Osborne always made the boys feel clumsy and untidy and ill at -ease. She was as different as possible from her dark, rugged, merry -husband. Everything about her was neat and prim and small. She had a -pretty little mouth, a little thin nose, little round blue eyes; her -fair glossy hair was plaited and coiled around her small well-shaped -head. - -“Mayo has gone away,” she answered. “He may not come back to-night. -Will you come in? Is there any message?” - -“No. No, thank you.” - -And Dick made his escape. - -After all, he was glad Cousin Mayo was not at home and he had not -yielded to the impulse to tell the tale which would have involved the -telling of his own secret. He would watch the mine himself and find out -if Mr. Smith and the two negroes were trying to get its treasure. - -At the mill Dick saw the mail hack coming from Redville and ran to get -a ride. Jim Walthall, the driver, had news to tell. - -“Three of them drafted niggers from Charleburg County run away from -Camp Lee; deserted, by jinks!--Bill and Martin Toole from the lower -end of the county and Cæsar Gabe. They traced them to a freight -train, and folks think maybe they come back here. I’ve got printed -descriptions of them, to put up at the post office. The sheriff’s on -the search for them.” - -“Oh! I hope he’ll find them,” said Dick. - -“He won’t,” declared Jim. “Those fellows wouldn’t think of coming back -here where everybody knows them; why, they’d be caught right away. No, -they’ve gone to Richmond or New York, a city somewhere.” - -When Dick got home Anne and Patsy were sitting in the swing in the yard. - -“There’s Dick! He’s been ‘secreting’ again,” laughed Anne. - -“I’ve just come from Larkland,” Dick said shortly. “And at the mill I -met----” - -They stopped swinging, and interrupted him before he could tell his -news about the deserter. - -“Did you see him?” Patsy asked excitedly. - -“Isn’t it Kuno Kleist?” demanded Anne. - -“I just saw Cousin Polly. Cousin Mayo’s gone away.” - -“With Kuno Kleist, that German friend of his, the one he was in Mexico -with. He was at Larkland. We saw him. And now Cousin Mayo’s gone away -with him and----” - -Patsy pinched Anne’s arm. Mr. Jake Andrews was coming up the walk, -was, in fact, close to them before any one saw him. On being told that -Mr. Osborne was not at home, he turned and went away. - -“I’m sure he heard me, and I’m awful sorry,” Anne said. “It’s a secret, -Dick, for Cousin Mayo didn’t----” And then she told the whole story. - -“Oh, well! What you said didn’t make any difference,” said Dick. “Jake -doesn’t know what you were talking about; he wouldn’t care if he did.” -And then he told them about the deserters. - -Anne and Patsy and Dick would have been dismayed if they could have -followed Jake Andrews. He left The Village and went straight along the -Redville road to the old Tolliver place. He gave a shrill whistle, and -a minute later Mr. Smith sauntered out of the back door toward a clump -of trees on a hillock. Andrews cut across the field and joined him on -the wooded eminence where they were secure from observation. - -“It’s like you said, Smittie,” declared Andrews; “them dog-gone -old ’ristocrats need watching. Black Mayo Osborne knows a German -spy”--Smith started violently--“friends with him, staying in his house. -Them gals saw him; that German he was with down in Mexico.” - -Mr. Smith had regained his composure. “He’s there, you say?” - -“Gone now; that mischeevious Dick Osborne was at Larkland after the -gals was there. The man’s gone away, and Black Mayo with him.” - -Mr. Smith knit his brows. “To have known this before! What the -devil----” He looked at Jake Andrews and adjusted his face and words. -“You have acted with the wisdom and patriotism in coming to me. It is -service to Government. And there are rewards; much money. But it is -of the most importance that you keep cemetery stillness.” He paused -and his lips writhed and set themselves in a hard, cruel line. Then he -said: “We shall not be surprised now to hear of the outrages. But what -happens, keep you silence except to me.” - -The week went by quietly, in spite of Mr. Smith’s prediction. Black -Mayo came home, without a word about his guest or his journey, and went -here and there more busily than ever with his pigeons for trial flights. - -And then things did happen. - -The Home Guard at Redville had received orders months before to patrol -the high bridge over which troops and supplies were constantly passing -on their way to Camp Lee or to Norfolk. Day and night the youths in -khaki paced to and fro, with guns on their shoulders. And then--what -a thrill of horror it sent through the community!--one of the bridge -guards was killed. The shot came from the heart of a black, rainy night -that hid the criminal. He went free, ready to strike again--where? -whom?--at any minute. Was it one of the deserters? Probably not. Their -one aim would be to “lay low” and avoid arrest; and probably they were -far away; the community had been thoroughly searched without finding -them. - -A few days after the bridge guard was killed, Sweet William came -running from the mill in great distress. - -“It’s poisoned, mother!” sobbed the little fellow. “There’s glass in -it; the flour we were saving for the Belgians.” - -“What’s the matter, dear? What is it, Patsy?” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne. - -“It’s so, mother,” cried Patsy. “Oh, mother! Cousin Giles found glass -in a lot of flour. Some one got in and put glass there, to poison it; -in our mill, our own mill here at Larkland.” - -The finding of glass in flour at Larkland mill was the one subject -of conversation in The Village that Saturday night. And on Sunday--a -day that in the little Presbyterian town seemed stiller and sweeter -than other days--people stood in troubled groups at the church door, -discussing the matter. The minister even referred to it in his -prayer--not directly, that would have been regarded as irreverent--but -with the veiled allusions considered more acceptable to the Almighty. - -Glass in flour at the mill, Larkland mill! The people resented it -with a vehemence that would have puzzled outsiders. Larkland mill was -not merely a mill. It was one of the oldest, most honored, most loyal -members of the community. As the quaint inscription on its wall said, -“This mill was finished building by Hugh Giles Osborne his men, 8 June, -in year of our Lord 1764, ye third year of his gracious majesty King -George III.” On its oaken beams were marks of the fire set to it by -Tarleton’s men because that Hugh Giles Osborne’s sons were fighting -side by side with Washington. Nearly a century later, soldiers in -blue marching from Georgia had taken toll of its stores. And then -Colonel Osborne, coming back in defeat to poverty, had laid aside his -Confederate uniform and become a miller, as his son was to-day. - -Larkland mill had served the whole community in peace and war, and it -was loved with a personal feeling. Had not the children even had a -birthday party in its honor at Happy Acres, not so long ago? For it to -deal out poison was like a father’s giving it to his children. - -Not that the mill was to blame. Of course not. - -Who could have taken advantage of it and put glass in its flour? No -one could even guess. Mr. Spotswood had not seen any suspicious person -around--only the usual frequenters of the mill, which included all the -men of the community, white and black. The evildoer, a stranger and an -outsider of course, must have come in the shielding twilight or the -covering night. Nothing easier. The mill was near the highway; the -doors stood wide open all day, and shutting them at night was a mere -matter of form; there were a dozen easy ways of ingress. - -Day after day passed and brought no trace of the criminals. There was -a growing feeling of uneasiness throughout the community. Whispers -went about, tales circulated among the Village loafers, the source and -foundation of which no one could give, but which were repeated, at -first doubtingly; but they were told over and over again and gained -credence with each repetition until they were believed like gospel -truth. These tales were about Black Mayo and his guest. - -Dick was in the back room of Mr. Blair’s store one morning, picking -over apples to pay for some candles. He was daydreaming about the mine, -and at first was only conscious of voices in the front room, without -really hearing the conversation. But presently he heard Mrs. Blair -ask excitedly, “Agnes, have you heard these shameful tales about Black -Mayo?” - -Shameful tales about Cousin Mayo! Dick listened now. - -“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Wilson. - -“People are saying---- Oh, Will! tell her. I am too furious to talk!” - -“Jake Andrews is accusing Mayo of being disloyal, a suspicious -character that ought to be watched, arrested.” - -“Mayo watched, arrested! Mayo! Jake Andrews accuses him! And, pray, who -is Jake Andrews?” - -“A common fellow from the upper end of the county, who schemed to keep -his sons out of the draft. This Andrews and some other fellows went -to Larkland and actually asked Mayo about a guest of his and what his -business was. Mayo refused to tell, and when Andrews persisted, why, he -settled the matter----” - -“‘Settled the matter,’ how?” asked Mrs. Wilson. - -“Knocked him down, of course. That was all right. The idea of Andrews -catechizing him! It was infernally insolent.” - -“I wonder he dared do it,” said Mrs. Blair. - -“Oh! The fellow is a justice of the peace or a deputy sheriff or some -sort of little officer,” conceded Mr. Blair. “It seems that Andrews has -been sneaking around, watching Mayo. And he’s found out, he claims, -that Mayo has been harboring an enemy alien, a German----” - -“I don’t believe any one at all has been there,” said Mrs. Blair. - -“So the thing has gone on, but----” Mr. Blair paused and frowned. - -“But what?” asked Mrs. Wilson. - -“Why doesn’t Mayo explain?” he exploded. “I gave him the opportunity, -deuce take it! I was so sure he would make it all right that I brought -up the subject yesterday when there was a crowd here in the office, -waiting for the mail. But instead of saying where he went or who his -guest was--I’m a Dutchman if he didn’t walk out of the office without a -word!” - -“And that makes it worse than if you had not given him the chance to -explain,” said Mrs. Wilson. - -“Of course. But I was so sure of him,” said Mr. Blair. Then he asked -impatiently: “Why doesn’t he tell where he goes and why?” - -“Because he doesn’t want to,” said Mrs. Blair. “He thinks people -haven’t any right to ask, and so he won’t tell.” - -“But he ought to tell,” said Mr. Blair. “Of course it’s all right; we -know that. But some people---- Dog-gone it!” he said vehemently. “I -wish I had knocked Andrews down when he came drawling his ‘suspicions’ -to me. I will beat the scoundrel to a pulp if he comes in my store with -another question. Of course Mayo’s all right.” - -“Of course!” said his wife, more vehemently than absolute certainty -required. “I--I wonder why--what--he wouldn’t tell you.” - -“Whatever Black Mayo does is right,” Mrs. Wilson said serenely. “He has -some good reason for silence.” - -“Of course!” “Of course!” Mr. and Mrs. Blair said, avoiding her eyes -and each other’s. - -“I know about it,” Dick thought, with a thrill of pride. “It is all -right. It was Kuno Kleist.” Kuno Kleist! He remembered with dismay Mr. -Blair’s words, “A German, an alien enemy he’s concealing.” Why, that -was what Kuno Kleist was, and for his Cousin Mayo to hide him was not -“all right,” in the eyes of the law, but a crime. “They’ll never find -out from me,” said Dick to himself, gritting his teeth. “I’ll be hanged -and drawn and quartered, like men in ‘The Days of Bruce,’ before I’ll -tell anything to get Cousin Mayo in trouble.” - -“Black Mayo feels--oh! we know how he feels,” said Mrs. Wilson. “But -in these times there are things we owe to ourselves, and to others. -Mayo ought to tell about his perfectly proper journeys and perfectly -proper guest, and I am going to ask him.” - -“Agnes!” - -“I know. I never thought I would interfere, would ask a question about -any one’s private affairs,” she said. “But I can’t help it. I am going -to do it. I must. Black Mayo suspected of treason! Black Mayo that -we’ve known and loved all our lives! Why, it is as if some one should -say my Ruth was a thief.” - -Mrs. Wilson was not one to postpone a disagreeable duty. She put on -her bonnet and gloves and started at once to Larkland. It was a path -familiar to her childish feet. How often she, like her own child, had -roamed about this dear, quiet country--playing in the mill, roaming -about Larkland, fishing in Tinkling Water. Miranda and Giles Spotswood, -Anne Mayo, Polly Spencer, Beverley Wilson, and Red and Black Mayo -Osborne had been her comrades; Black Mayo, the leader in all their -sports, was the chum of Beverley Wilson whom she married the very June -that Black Mayo married Polly Spencer. The friendship of early days had -lasted and deepened with the years. It was stronger than the tactful -habit of never asking personal questions. - -She found Polly Osborne on the porch, busy, as usual, with Red Cross -sewing. She dropped her work and set a comfortable chair in a pleasant -corner of the porch while she called greetings to the approaching -visitor. “How good of you to brave the heat and come to see me!” she -said. “Here is a fan. Take off your bonnet. I’ll get you a glass of -raspberry vinegar. It is so refreshing on a warm day!” - -Mrs. Wilson put a protesting hand on her arm. “Don’t, Polly. I can’t -sit down, not now. Where is Mayo? I want to see him--about something -important.” - -“Mayo? I reckon he’s in the garden. He has some pigeons there in the -old summerhouse. I’ll find him and tell him you want to see him.” - -“No, please, Polly. Let me go there and speak to him. Then I will come -back and see you.” - -“Certainly; just as you wish,” said Mrs. Osborne. “You know the -way--all the ways here--as well as I do.” - -Mrs. Wilson went along the flagstones across the yard, through the -garden gate, down the boxwood-bordered walk. She turned across the -huge old garden to the summerhouse embowered in microfila and Cherokee -roses, with their dark foliage starred with creamy blossoms. She heard -a merry voice whistling “Dixie,” the only tune that Black Mayo had ever -mastered. There he was in overalls, hard at work, putting up boxes for -nests. - -“How do you do, Mayo?” she said, speaking before he saw her. - -He dropped his hammer and caught both of her hands in his. - -“I wished you on me,” he said gleefully. “I was thinking so hard about -the rainy days when we children used to play here! I found a box with -some of our dominoes in that closet when I was clearing it out to make -a place to keep feed for my pigeons. Don’t you remember----” - -“I remember everything, Mayo,” she interrupted, with her lovely clear -eyes meeting his, “from the mud-pie days to the generous sending of -your books when mine were burned. And because I do, I have come to ask -you some questions. Who was your guest three weeks ago? Where did you -go, on what business, when you left home with him?” - -He looked her straight in the eyes. “You ask, Agnes----” - -He hesitated and she took up his words. “I ask, Mayo, about -your private affairs”--her voice did not falter, but her cheeks -flamed--“because people are saying things about you that I--we--want -you to disprove.” - -“Oh!” he said sharply. Then he dropped his voice and his eyes, and -answered: “I--I can’t do it, Agnes.” - -“Mayo!” she exclaimed. There was a little silence. Then she said, “Oh, -Mayo!” in a tone that implored him to answer. - -He looked away. “If you were asking me for yourself, Agnes,” he said, -“I--I ought not, but I might--probably I should--tell you.” - -“I do not ask for myself,” she said. “I trust you utterly. If there -were one little doubt in the thought of my heart, I could not come to -you with this question.” - -“A question I must leave unanswered,” he said with a wry smile. - -“Oh, no, Mayo!” she said. “You know I don’t wish to force your -confidence, but it seems to me that when people ask--how dare they -ask!--we have no right to refuse to prove our loyalty.” - -“Are they asking Giles Spotswood or Will Blair to prove theirs?” he -inquired a little bitterly. - -“They say--you can guess what they say, Mayo.” She could not make -herself give words to their suspicions. - -“Oh, yes!” he answered quickly. “I know. They’ve been questioning me -about Kuno Kleist, my friend in Mexico. Being a German, he was probably -a Prussian; being a Prussian, he was probably sent by the kaiser to -incite the Mexicans against the United States; being a German and a -Prussian and the kaiser’s emissary, he probably perverted me. Good -reasoning! - -“And they want to know about my comings and goings. My old absent -days rise up and damn me with my dear stay-at-home county people. And -I’ve had a guest and I’ve taken a few little trips and I haven’t put -a bulletin in the post office to say who and where and why. And so -they want me to explain. I can’t explain.” His voice grew harsh and -he laughed mirthlessly. “Let them roll their doubts and suspicions -like sweet morsels under their tongues.” Then his voice softened. “It -was like you, Agnes, to come to me in the spirit of our old loyal -friendship, and I thank you----” - -She put out her hand to stop him, turning away her head. She could not -give him at that minute the sight of her grieved face. - -“Don’t, Mayo,” she said unsteadily. “Not ‘thanks’ between us. You--you -understand why I came. I--I am sorry----” - -She walked slowly back across the fair, fragrant garden, taking time to -get control of herself before she went through the gate and along the -flagged walk and around the house corner. There was Polly on the porch, -still busy with her sewing. Mrs. Wilson compelled herself to sit down -and chat a few minutes about gardens and fowls and Red Cross work. Then -she said good-by and started home. - -Near the mill she met Dick Osborne and he looked at her with eager -eyes. Then his face fell. Cousin Mayo had not told her; Dick was sure -of that as soon as he saw her face. Why not? It must be a tremendous -secret if Cousin Mayo couldn’t tell Cousin Agnes--and she asking him -to! He remembered uneasily the conversation that Jake Andrews had -overheard; he was sorry that fellow had happened to come along just -then. He must tell Anne and Patsy to keep their lips glued up. Alas! It -was too late now for caution. The secret was out. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -“Cousin Polly dear,” called Anne Lewis, tripping up the Larkland path a -few days later, “here’s the wool you said you’d need to-day. And where -is Cousin Mayo? David wants to know if he’ll lend us a wagon Saturday, -to haul up our potatoes.” - -“Mayo will let David know about it. He is away from home now,” said -Mrs. Osborne, in her quiet voice. - -“Those pigeons keep him on the go, don’t they?” said Anne. - -Mrs. Osborne answered only with a smile. “Come, dear; sit down,” she -said. “Stay to dinner.” - -“No, thank you, Cousin Polly. We want to can a lot of butterbeans -to-day,” said Anne. “I’ll just run to the kitchen and say ‘howdy’ to -Chrissy; I haven’t seen her for a long time.” - -Anne went to the kitchen, which, according to Village custom, was a -cabin back of the dwelling house, and stopped at the door. - -“Well, Chrissy, how are you?” she said pleasantly. - -The old woman, usually good-humored and talkative, turned a glum face -toward her young visitor. “Uh! I ain’t nothin’ to-day,” she groaned. -“’Scuse me a minute, Miss Anne. I got to git a dish out de dinin’ -room.” She went out of the back kitchen door and took the long way -around to the house. - -“Goodness, Chrissy!” Anne said when she came back. “Why did you go that -roundabout way? Why didn’t you come out this door?” - -Chrissy looked around, and then said in a cautious undertone, “Miss -Anne, dat doorstep’s cunjered.” - -“Cunjered!” laughed Anne. - -“Cunjered,” Chrissy repeated solemnly. “Solomon Gabe was here yestiddy. -He tol’ Miss Polly he come to bring her shoes dat Lincum patched, but -I knows better. He come grumblin’ an’ mumblin’ ’roun’ here; an’ he was -puttin’ a spell on dat step, dat’s what he was doin’.” - -“What kind of spell?” asked Anne, still mirthful. - -“A spell to hurt me, Miss Anne; to give me a misery, maybe to kill me, -if I tromp on it.” - -“But I came in this door and it didn’t hurt me,” said Anne. - -“Naw’m. It can’t hurt you, ’cause ’twa’n’t laid in yore name. ’Twas put -dar for me.” - -“Why do you think Solomon Gabe--he looks mean enough for anything!--put -a spell for you?” - -“He’s mad with me, Miss Anne. I--I can’t tell you de why an’ de -wherefore. Dey say de birds o’ de air will let ’em know if I tell -anything. Miss Anne, don’t you breath what I done said.” The old woman -groaned. “Uh, dese is trouble times, trouble times! Who is dem folks -comin’ up de walk, Miss Anne? Dey ain’t de kind o’ folks dat come -visitin’ to Larkland.” - -Anne had joined her Cousin Polly in the hall when the three rough, -loud-talking men--Jake Andrews, Bill Jones, and Joe Hight--came -stamping up the front steps. Mrs. Osborne met them with the cordiality -that a Virginia country house has for any guest, even the unexpected -and unknown. Wouldn’t they come in and let Chrissy bring them some -fresh water? She was sorry her husband was not at home. - -“We saw him go away,” said Andrews, shortly. “They said he was carrying -pigeons to Richmond, to fly back home.” - -“Oh! Yes,” she said in a noncommittal way. - -“Was he?” asked Andrews, fixing his beadlike black eyes on her face. - -Anne saw her cousin flush; the rude manner of the men was enough to -bring an indignant color to her cheeks. - -Mrs. Osborne hesitated a minute, then said quietly: “That is the way -pigeons are trained. They are taken away hungry, and they fly back to -the place where----” - -Andrews cut short her explanation. “How fast do they fly?” - -“My husband had a bird come six hundred miles last week,” she said. “It -made that flight in fifteen hours.” - -“H’m! What made you think so--that it came in that time?” - -“Oh! my husband knows all his birds. And there is always a note -fastened to the leg, telling where it came from and where it is going, -so if any one catches it he will turn it loose to finish its flight.” - -“Ah!” said Andrews. “If a pigeon was coming from Richmond, it would be -here now. We’ll see if any of them have notes fastened to their legs, -to prove what you say.” - -Mrs. Osborne’s eyes blazed in her white face. “What have you to do with -my husband’s birds?” she demanded. - -“What I please, with him and them,” answered Andrews, throwing back his -coat and showing a badge. “I’m an officer of the law, I am. And I’m -dog-tired of the old ’ristocrats that been running Charleburg County, -and ain’t no better than other folks--and friends with Germans, in all -sorts of meanness. Now, ma’am, are you ready to prove what you said -about them pigeons?” - -There was a brief silence. Mrs. Osborne’s face went from white to -red and back again. At last she said quietly: “You need not wait, -gentlemen. No birds will come home to Larkland to-day. There are none -to come. My husband did not take them with him.” - -“Where did he go?” demanded Andrews. “And who’s that strange man that’s -been here with him?” - -“I refuse to answer your impertinent questions,” she said, looking over -his head. “Gentlemen, I bid you good day. Come, Anne.” - -She marched like a royal procession through the hall, with Anne -following her. They went into the sitting room, and Mrs. Osborne, with -a red patch on each cheek, sat stiffly erect in a straight-backed chair -and talked to Anne, jumping from one subject to another--Red Cross -work, war gardens, Mr. Tavis’s rheumatism, Miss Fanny Morrison’s new -hat--anything and everything except the one subject she and Anne had in -mind. - -“Which of your studies do you like best?” she asked. - -“Pigeons,” answered Anne. “Oh!” she gasped, and hastily said, “Math,” -which she hated. - -Then, very embarrassed and puzzled and troubled, she went back to -The Village. In the midst of her task and the merry chatter of her -companions, her thoughts wandered often to that strange scene at -Larkland. What did it, what could it mean? There was evidently some -secret; so she must not discuss it with any one, not even Patsy. But -what? and why? - -By the middle of the afternoon, the task they had set themselves was -finished. Anne went home with Patsy, and they dropped down on the shady -lawn to enjoy their well-earned rest. - -“I’m thirsty!” said Anne. - -Patsy laughed. “That’s the first time you’ve seemed to know what you -were saying to-day!” Then she called Emma, who brought fresh water, -and filled and refilled for them the big old “house” dipper, a coconut -shell rimmed with silver. - -“Oh, for some lemonade!” sighed Patsy. “Sweet and cold, with ice -tinkling in the glass!” - -“Hush! You make me so thirsty!” said Anne. “We could get the lemons at -Cousin Will’s store, but we ought not to use the sugar. Mr. Hoover -says we must save more than we’ve been saving.” - -“Dat Mr. Hoover shore is stingy wid his sugar,” grumbled Emma. “How -come folks let him have it all, anyway?” - -“He wants us to use less so there will be some for our Allies,” -explained Anne. - -“H’m!” snorted Emma. “I’ve always been havin’ all de sugar I could buy -an’ pay for. Why can’t dem ’Lies git on like dey always done?” - -Anne knew; she had read Mr. Hoover’s appeals. She said: “Our Allies -used to get most of their sugar from Germany and Austria, the countries -we are at war with. Now they can’t get that, so we must divide with -them the sugar from Louisiana and Cuba and the Hawaiian Islands.” - -“Wellum, course what you say is so; but I don’t believe a word of it,” -said Emma. “An’ here Miss M’randa come this mornin’ an’ say I can’t -have no sugar to make a cake for Sweet William’s birthday. Um, um, um! -If my old man was livin’, he’d git sweetenin’ for dat cake an’ for -you-all’s lemonade, too.” - -“How could he get sugar?” asked Patsy. - -“I ain’t say sugar,” answered Emma; “I say sweetenin’. I was talkin’ -’bout honey.” - -“But we haven’t any honey,” said Anne. - -“He’d git it, Amos would. He was a powerful hand for findin’ bee -trees.” - -“What is a bee tree?” “How did he find them?” asked Patsy and Anne. - -“Shuh, Miss Patsy! You-all know what a bee tree is. It’s a tree whar -bees home an’ lay up honey.” - -“Oh, yes! But how can you find it?” inquired Anne. - -“My old man was a notable bee courser,” said Emma. “Dis here’s de way -he done: He put some sirup on a chip an’ he took some flour----” - -“Flour! What for?” interrupted Patsy. - -“I’m a-tryin’ to tell you what for,” said Emma. “Well’m, he’d go wid -dat chip, like out yander whar de bees is on dem white clover blooms; -an’ thar he’d stand. Presen’ly de bees come an’ sip de sirup. Whiles -a bee’s a-sippin’, Amos takes an’ dusts it wid de flour, and den he -watches to see whichaway it goes. It flies ’long home, an’ den comes -back to git more sirup, an’ Amos he takes noticement how long it’s -gone; dat gives him a sort o’ noration ’bout how fur off de tree is. -Well, he follows Mr. Dusty-back fur as he c’n see it, an’ waits; an’ -follows, an’ waits; takin’ de course twel he comes smang to de bee -tree. An’ lawdy! de honey he got! We used to sell it, an’ give it ’way, -an’ eat honey an’ honey cakes. Um-mm!” - -She smacked her lips reminiscently. - -“Oh, Patsy!” said Anne, and “Oh, Anne!” said Patsy; and then both -together, “Let’s do it!” - -“Let’s go right away!” said Anne. - -Heat and fatigue were forgotten. They ran into the house, and Anne -scooped up a handful of flour while Patsy was getting sirup out of a -preserve jar. They did not have enough confidence in the amiability of -the bees to put the sirup on a chip; instead, they took a long stick, -and Patsy held it with some trepidation while Anne stood by with the -flour. - -“Dust that big one; that big fat one!” Patsy whispered excitedly. - -The bee buzzed and flirted its wings, and flew away from what must have -seemed to it an avalanche of white dust. Anne and Patsy, on tiptoe to -follow, watched eagerly to see the direction of its flight. It circled -aimlessly about, and then buzzed back to the clover blossoms. The girls -selected another fat bee and dusted it liberally; it flew off, buzzed -about the clover field, and came back to sip the sirup. - -“It’s all nonsense!” Patsy said crossly. “Let’s give up.” - -“I don’t want to give up,” said Anne. “I reckon Amos did something Emma -doesn’t know about. I wonder----” - -“We certainly can’t chase all the bees in the field,” said Patsy. “We -might as well be trying to follow Dick. Come on! I want to scold Emma -for sending us on a wild-goose chase.” - -“Wild-bee chase,” corrected Anne, laughing. - -Patsy was too warm and tired and cross to laugh. She went to the -kitchen door and said sharply: “Emma, what made you tell us that -foolishness about following bees to a tree? We’ve tried it, and the -bees don’t go anywhere; they just buzz around on the clover and come -back and eat some more sirup.” - -“Ump-mm, Miss Patsy. You just ain’t done it right. Maybe you was -coursin’ a bumbler or de wrong kind o’ bee.” - -“It was a honey bee. Don’t you reckon I know honey bees?” Patsy replied -indignantly. “Come out here and I’ll show you the kind it was. There! -It was like that.” - -“Um-hmm! Dat big fuzzy-end bee; dat’s a droner. You’ve got to chase a -honey-maker. Thar’s one, Miss Anne; dat little fellow. Dust it wid de -flour. Now you follow it.” - -Ah! this little creature was no loitering drone. Instead of buzzing -about the field, it took a straight, swift course, a “bee line,” to -the northeast. Anne and Patsy followed as far as they were sure of its -course, and then waited--waited what seemed a very, very long time, and -then dusted another honey bee. A minute later, the first flour-coated -little creature came flying back, to sip and fly away again. Again they -followed, in growing excitement and glee. It led them across a field, -through a swamp that they waded recklessly, across another field, and -into woods where their progress was slow because they could see only a -short distance ahead. They made up for it, however, by dusting several -bees, and at last they had a line of little messengers going in the -same direction. - -They followed the swift-flying, busy creatures to--of all lovely, -suitable places in the world--Happy Acres! Happy Acres, their dear -garden plot in an old field surrounded by woodland. There was a big oak -tree at the edge of that charming, beloved place, to which bees were -coming from all directions. The girls forgot caution and ran close to -the tree; there was a hole near the ground, and about eight feet up was -a larger hole black with bees crawling in and out. - -“Listen, Patsy!” exclaimed Anne. “It’s humming! the whole tree is -humming like a beehive!” - -Oh, there was no doubt of its being a bee tree! - -They made their discovery a great sensation in The Village. Mr. -Mallett, whose father had kept bees and who had a charm against stings, -volunteered to get the honey. - -The Village turned out that evening to watch the performance. - -Mr. Mallett set to work calmly and like a veteran. He stopped the upper -hole and started a smoldering fire of dry leaves and tobacco stalks -near the lower opening. After the smoke stupefied the bees, he sawed -and cut the upper hole, brushed aside the deadened bees by handfuls, -and got out the honey stored in the great hollow tree; there were -bucketfuls and bucketfuls of it. Anne and Patsy had a happy, important -time dividing it among their friends and neighbors. - -“They’re welcome to the honey,” laughed Anne. “But, O Patsy! aren’t you -glad you and I had the glory of finding the bee tree?” - -“That I am! And now hey for lemonade--cool, and tinkly with ice, and -sweet, sweet, sweet!” rejoiced Patsy. - -“Oh, goody! we can’t send this to the Belgians and Frenches,” said -Sweet William. “Anne, I wish you and Patsy’d find a bee tree every -week. Then I wouldn’t mind saving all my sugar. Emma says she’s going -to make me a cake, a real cake. And I am going to eat honey, and eat -honey, and eat honey!” He heaved a sigh of blissful content. - -While Anne and Patsy were coursing the bees, Dick was on his way to the -Old Sterling Mine. He had been there several times lately, looking -about jealously to see if Mr. Smith were investigating the mine. He had -not seen any one there again, and he had about decided that Mr. Smith -was looking over the timber in the Big Woods and had merely stopped to -see the old mine as a curiosity. - -And so, on this pleasant autumn afternoon, Dick went up the hill from -the creek, carefree and whistling merrily. Suddenly his tune changed to -a sharp, dismayed exclamation, and he stopped to gaze at the ground; -yes, there were footprints; and the tracks led--he followed swiftly and -anxiously--to the mine opening. - -“They’ve been here! They’ve been back to my mine!” he exclaimed. - -Instead of pulling his improvised ladder from its hiding place beside -the fence, he went to the mine hole and looked in. An old dead pine -branch was hanging on the edge; it might have been tossed there by a -gust of wind. Dick pulled it aside. It covered a ladder made of rough -timber. Some one had been in the mine; might be there now! - -Dick stood very still for several minutes, listening intently and -looking sharply around. Then he descended the ladder, with a shivery -feeling that some one might tumble a rock or send a shot on him from -above or drag him down by the legs or thrust a knife through him from -below. Nothing happened. He descended safely, and the tunnel ahead of -him was black and silent. He lighted his candle and went to the main -room. The odor of stale tobacco smoke hung about the place and there -were a few scraps of torn newspaper here and there. - -He went on toward the lower tunnel. At a sudden little noise, he jumped -and put out his candle and stood on the alert. There was no glimmer in -the murky darkness. All was still. The noise--if he had really heard -any noise--was probably outside, the fall of a dead bough or the cawing -of a crow. - -He relighted his candle and went on and set to work, but his spade made -a horribly loud noise. He felt as if some one were listening; creeping -down the tunnel; slipping behind him. Cold chills ran over him; he -peered into the darkness outside his little circle of light; he dropped -his spade and crouched behind a projecting rock. - -Oh, it was useless to try to work! He put his tools under a pile of -old timbers and went back. Just as he was starting up the ladder, he -noticed a pile of leaves between the foot of the ladder and the wall. -It was not there the last time he was in the mine. He kicked the -leaves aside. Under them was an old iron mortar and pestle. - -Something in the mortar glittered in the candlelight. Silver; silver, -of course! Dick picked up some of the particles to examine. There was a -little sharp pain and his finger began to bleed. Why, those particles -were glass! And there were bottles and pieces of bottles. What on earth -was any one doing here with a mortar and pestle, breaking up glass? It -was the strangest, silliest, most absurd thing! Why, what---- Oh, the -glass in the flour at Larkland mill! Had Germans, who put that glass in -the flour, been hiding in the mine? Suppose they should come back and -find him here! - -He hastily pushed the leaves over the mortar and climbed out. It never -entered his head then to question how German strangers would know of -this deserted place almost forgotten by the community. He sped down the -path, through the woods, took the path to Larkland, and hurried to the -hayfield where he saw Mr. Osborne at work. - -“Cousin Mayo!” Dick hardly had breath to speak. “I’ve been in the Old -Sterling Mine and I found----” - -“Silver!” his cousin interrupted, in humorous excitement. - -“A mortar with broken glass in it. There were the pestle and some -bottles.” - -“What!” exclaimed Black Mayo, the fun leaving his face and voice. - -“Some one had put a ladder in the hole. I found the mortar and pestle -and bottles at the foot, covered with leaves. They weren’t there last -week. Then I went down on my ladder.” - -“You may have got on the track of something of far more importance than -the silver in or out of that old mine,” Mr. Osborne said, frowning -thoughtfully. “Have you seen or heard anything else that might mean -mischief, at any time? Think! and think!” - -“No, sir,” said Dick; then he exclaimed: “Oh, Cousin Mayo! I’d -forgotten, but it was queer. The night before Broad Acres was burned, -when Sweet William was undressing, mother asked him how he got oil -on his blouse, and he said he reckoned it was from the little smelly -sticks he got under the steps at Broad Acres. And that night, Emma--she -was standing by me--let out a screech, ‘The devils--burning little Miss -Anne!’” - -“I wish you had told me these things before,” said Mr. Osborne. “Now, -keep a still tongue and open eyes.” - -“I certainly will,” promised Dick. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -That night Patsy was awakened by a hand on her arm, an excited voice in -her ear. - -“Patsy, Patsy!” whispered Anne. “Wake up! I’ve something to tell you. -Wake up and listen. I can’t wait till morning. Oh, Patsy! I know how we -are going to find out Dick’s secret!” - -“What? How?” Patsy was wide awake at once. - -“We’ve failed and failed; it did almost seem as if he could outdo us. -Oh, he would have held it over our heads the rest of our lives!” - -“But how----” interrupted Patsy. - -“We--it came to me in a flash--we are going to course him,” said Anne. - -“Course him?” Patsy made the words an amazed question. - -“As we did the bees,” Anne explained. “We’ll follow him as far as -we can see him; and then we’ll take up his course from that place -next time; and so on, till we get to Redville or the end of the -world--wherever he goes!” - -“I don’t see how we’ll manage it,” said Patsy. - -“Oh, yes you do! Or you will when I tell you from A, B, C to X, Y, Z,” -Anne exclaimed impatiently. “You see, Pats, we’ve got to watch him and -follow him.” - -“We’ve tried that dozens of times,” was Patsy’s despondent interjection. - -“Will you listen to me? I say we’ll follow him. He nearly always goes -by Larkland, to get a pigeon; then he comes back to the public road and -he goes up Jones’s hill. We know that, for we’ve followed him that far. -Well! Next time we see him getting ready to go, we’ll stroll to the -mill and stop, as if we just meant to visit Cousin Giles; then, while -Dick’s at Larkland, we’ll run along and hide in the pines where he gave -us the slip that first time. You remember?” - -Patsy emphatically did. - -“And then we’ll follow him. He’ll not be expecting us there, and we’ll -be careful to keep out of recognizing distance. If he gets away, we’ll -come back home and not let him know we followed him. And the next time, -we’ll race ahead and hide at the place where we lost sight of him, and -follow him from there.” - -“Oh! I see!” said Patsy. “We are to course him just like the bees.” - -“Oh! you see; at last!” laughed Anne. “Maybe we’ll find out the very -first time; or we may have to follow him again and again. Oh, it’ll be -lots and loads of fun!” - -The girls were on tiptoe with impatience, and rejoiced mightily when -they saw Dick put a candle into his pocket the next Saturday afternoon. -They went at once to the mill; presently they saw him take the path -to Larkland, and they ran ahead and dived into the pine woods where -he had hidden on that well-remembered April day. Half an hour later, -Dick came whistling along the road, and they crept from their hiding -place and followed at a cautious distance for about three quarters of a -mile; then they lost sight of him at a turn of the Old Plank Road. Anne -stopped. - -“Come on,” said Patsy, keen on pursuit. “There aren’t any paths here; -of course he went on down the road.” - -“He may have turned off in the woods,” said Anne. “The thing to do is -to course him, follow him as far as we see him. Oh, it’s such fun!” - -“It certainly is,” agreed Patsy. “We’ve followed him a long way. Why, -we’re over two miles from The Village. It’s out here somewhere in the -Big Woods that Solomon Gabe lives.” - -“Oh! the old ‘cunjer’ darky the others are so afraid of?” asked Anne. - -“Yes. And his son Cæsar is one of the deserters they’re looking for. -Oh, Anne! suppose we should walk up--zip, bang!--face to face with a -real deserter?” - -“Nonsense! Everybody says those men went to New York or somewhere; they -wouldn’t dare come back here, where people know them. Now, Pats-pet, -next time Dick starts off, we’ll run ahead and come here and--oh, -Patsy! that clump of chinquapin bushes will make a splucious hiding -place.” - -“If he sees us, we can just be looking for chinquapins. Anne, this was -a splendid plan of yours.” - -“It certainly was,” agreed Anne. “Oh! I do hope next time we’ll get -there--wherever it is--and find out Dick’s secret.” - -A few days later, they followed Dick again. He went toward Larkland, -and they hid in the chinquapin bushes as they had planned. And there -they stayed, weary hour after hour. No one passed except a negro man -who went slinking down the road. - -“Anne,” whispered Patsy, “that man looks like--I believe it is--Cæsar!” - -“Any darky you saw would look like Cæsar to you, now he’s a deserter,” -giggled Anne. “You don’t see anybody that looks like Dick, do you?” - -“No; and don’t let’s wait any longer. We’re so crazy to find out about -Dick we’re getting to be real slackers in Red Cross and gardening.” - -They “went by” Larkland, and there they found Dick, busy stretching -wire and driving staples, helping Cousin Mayo wire in a new pigeon cote. - -The next Saturday was perfect outdoor weather, with blue skies and -crisp air that invited one to the gorgeous October woodlands. Early in -the afternoon, Anne, who was spending the day with Alice Blair, came -running to The Roost. - -“Patsy! Patsy! Where’s Patsy?” she called. - -“I sent her to carry Mrs. Hight some wool,” said Mrs. Osborne. “She’ll -be back in an hour or so.” - -“Oh, dear!” Anne exclaimed. “I can’t wait. Tell her I’ve gone--she -knows where--about _the secret_. Tell her to follow to the last place, -please, Cousin Miranda. She’ll understand. I must run.” - -Away she sped, to pass the mill while Dick was at Larkland and get to -the chosen covert on the Old Plank Road. Near the mill the mail hack -passed her, with passengers that excited a sensation when they came to -The Village. They were the sheriff and a deputy with two of the negro -deserters, Bill and Martin Toole. - -“Where d’you catch them?” asked Mr. Blair, neglecting his mail bags. - -“Not so far from you folks,” answered the sheriff. “Lewis Jones saw two -men sneaking ’round that old sawmill place in the Big Woods; he came -and told me, and Tom Robson and me went and nabbed these fellows. We’ve -brought them here to jail to-night; to-morrow we’ll deliver them to -army folks.” - -Just then Mrs. Red Mayo Osborne came in, hurried and anxious looking. - -“Will,” she called to Mr. Blair, “have you seen Anne Lewis this -afternoon?” - -“Not since directly after dinner,” he answered. “She passed the post -office then.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Osborne. “She came running in and asked for Patsy. -Patsy was away, at the Hights’, and Anne ran off, saying Patsy would -know where she was going. As soon as Patsy came home, she followed, but -she came back half an hour ago; she had looked and looked, and seen no -sign of Anne--on the Old Plank Road, where she expected to find her.” - -“Anne ought not to wander off that way,” said Mr. Blair. - -“Indeed not,” agreed Mrs. Osborne. - -“I’d send the boys to look for her,” suggested Mr. Blair. - -“They’ve gone,” said Mrs. Osborne. “David and Steve and Dick. It’s Dick -that made me so uneasy. When Patsy came back and found him at home, she -asked him where Anne was. He said he hadn’t seen her. And Patsy said -she had followed him, as far as the Old Plank Road, she was sure; and -farther. He looked startled, positively frightened. And he asked what -color her dress was; and when I said blue, a blue gingham, he said, -‘Oh, I’m afraid I saw her!’ He was off like a shot before I could ask a -question. He seemed so upset and excited that--well, it frightened me.” - -“Nonsense, Miranda!” laughed Mr. Blair. “You let your imagination run -away with you. Anne ought not to roam the woods alone, but she is safe, -perfectly safe.” - -Dick had, as his mother said, gone hurriedly in search of Anne. He did -not share Mr. Blair’s feeling of security; he was uneasy, alarmed. - -On his way to the Old Sterling Mine that afternoon, he had seen two -negroes going up the path from the creek toward the mine. He crept -into the bushes and followed a little way, but the undergrowth was so -straggling that he could not get near them. One of the negroes was -Solomon Gabe, he was sure; the other negro, a stout, youngish figure, -had his back toward him and was screened by bushes. Dick caught only -a word here and there of their mumbled speech--“hide,” “get away,” and -oaths and oaths. - -He crept back to the road, and then, to avoid Isham Baskerfield whose -oxcart was going up the hill, he went down the creek and cut through -the woods. He ran to Larkland to tell his Cousin Mayo what he had seen -and heard. The house was shut up. Perhaps he would find Cousin Mayo in -The Village. - -And so Dick ran home--to be greeted by the news that Anne was off alone -somewhere; had followed him, Patsy said, along the Old Plank Road. Then -he remembered something that filled him with vague terror; if that were -Anne, and she should wander to the Old Sterling Mine, and encounter -those men---- He turned and ran to seek her. It was nearly dark when he -came to Isham’s cabin. The old negro was on the porch with his wife, -who was talking in a rapid, excited voice. - -“Hey, Unc’ Isham!” Dick called. “Have you seen Anne?” - -The man started and the woman was suddenly silent. - -Dick called again; then he sprang over the fence and started toward the -cabin. - -Lily Belle said something sharply to Isham, who turned and said: “Hey? -Why, it’s little Marse Dick. Was you calling me?” and hobbled down the -path. - -“Have you seen Miss Anne Lewis?” - -“See who? What you say, Marse Dick? Laws, I’m gittin’ deef!” - -“Anne, Anne Lewis,” Dick said impatiently. “Which way did she go?” - -“How I know which way she go? I ain’t see her,” mumbled Isham. - -“What!” Dick said sharply. “I saw you going up the road in your cart, -and she was there at the top of the hill--in a blue dress.” - -Isham looked terribly confused. Then he said: “Was that her? Was that -Miss Anne? My old eyes ain’t no good nowadays. I knowed somebody -passed me, but I was studyin’ ’bout my business, an’ I ain’t took no -noticement who ’twas.” - -“But I thought she stopped and spoke to you,” said Dick. “It looked -like---- Didn’t she speak to you?” - -As Dick became uncertain, Isham grew positive. “Who? Miss Anne? I don’t -riccermember her speakin’ to me. Naw, Miss Anne ain’t spoke to me.” - -After all, Dick was not sure it was Anne. He had only seen a far-off -figure in blue. He thought--he was not certain--it paused by Isham’s -cart. He had not thought of Anne then, but now the conviction grew -that it was she; and he was curiously disturbed by Isham’s manner, -though he was sure the old negro would not hurt Anne. - -Perhaps she had gone back, straying in the woods to get chinquapins, -and was now safe at home. Oh! surely she was at home. Twilight was -deepening. He would go home. He started back, examining the road -closely. There in the sand were footprints, slim little tracks, Anne’s -footprints! - -So it _was_ Anne that Isham had met. Why did he say he had not seen -her? And why did he look so confused, frightened? - -All the tracks led in one direction. There were no homeward-going -footprints. Anne had passed this way, but she had not gone back. Where -was she now? Did Isham know? - -Dick ran to the cabin. No one was in sight, and door and shutter were -closed; but--for it was now dusk--he caught glimpses of flickering -firelight. He was just about to bang on the door when he heard a -voice,--not Isham’s and not Lily Belle’s. He peeped through a knothole. -There was a man sitting at the table. His back was turned. Dick crept -to the side of the cabin and looked through a crack. Now Lily Belle was -between him and the man. Isham threw a lightwood knot on the fire and -the blaze flared up. And Lily Belle moved. The man was Cæsar Gabe, the -deserter! - -This news ought to go at once to The Village. But Anne! He could not go -back without one effort to find her. He ran down the road to the ford. -There he stopped. After listening intently and hearing nothing but -the usual wood noises, he took out the candle he had brought for his -mining, lighted it, and looked about. There, on the soft, damp ground, -the footprints were distinct; and they went, not up the road, but along -the path toward the mine. - -Dick blew out the candle, squared his shoulders, and started up the -hill. If Anne had gone to the Old Sterling Mine, if she had encountered -the deserter-- - -Close to the mine he lighted his candle and saw rough, heavy tracks and -again that slim little footprint. - -Should he go into the mine to search for her? Or should he hurry back -for help--not because of the danger to himself, but because he only -could guide aright the search for Anne; and to tell about the deserter. - -As he stood there, trying to decide what was best to do, he heard--he -thought he heard--a faint cry. Anne? Was it Anne? Was she there, in -terror, in danger? He forgot his sober second thoughts about going back -for help. Anne there in need! He must go to her. - -He scrambled down the ladder and stumbled along the tunnel to the main -room, not daring to light his candle. There was no glimmer in the -darkness before him, and now he heard no sound; perhaps he had never -heard anything, had just imagined he had. He lighted his candle and -examined the ground, but he could not distinguish footprints, Anne’s or -others. Was he wasting precious time here, when he ought to be on the -way home to give the alarm? - -Anyway, he would go on to the second tunnel. - -There, about the height of his head, was something hanging on one of -the rough timbers that supported the roofing. It was a piece of blue -ribbon, the gay bow that he had seen on Anne’s hair. He sprang forward, -in certainty and terror now, going straight to the pit at the end of -the tunnel. He stumbled against something and almost fell; it was the -ladder that some one had pulled out of the pit. He pushed it to the -edge, slid it in, and scrambled down. - -As he reached the bottom, his arm was clutched, so suddenly that his -hand was jerked upward and his candle was extinguished. For a second -he was frozen with terror, awaiting he knew not what--a pistol at his -brow, a knife at his throat. - -And then to him, expecting any terrible thing, came a dear, familiar -voice. “Oh, Dick! Dick!” gasped Anne. “I was so scared! I didn’t dare -look or move! And when I saw it was you---- Oh! I thought no one would -ever come. I thought they were coming back to kill me!” - -“They? Who?” - -“I don’t know. They threw a hat over my face from behind and -blindfolded me. Then they put me here.” - -“Let’s get away, quick as we can,” said Dick. “I saw two men here this -afternoon. That’s why I went back.” - -They climbed out of the pit and hurried along the tunnel. - -Anne giggled hysterically. “O Dick!” she said. “I did find out your -secret. I said I would, and I did. But--I wish I hadn’t!” - -He started to answer, and then--they were now at the foot of the -ladder--he stopped in terror. He heard voices. The men were returning. - -“They’ve got us,” he said. - -“Go on, go on,” gasped Anne. “Let’s get out anyway.” - -“We’d just meet them,” replied Dick. - -“Oh, come on out!” Anne said desperately. “Don’t let them kill us in -this awful hole.” - -“A hole!” Dick exclaimed. “Oh! there’s one. Come here!” - -He caught Anne by the arm and pulled her along the tunnel, into the -main room, to the pit into which he had fallen on his first visit to -the mine. - -“Here’s a hole,” he explained in a rapid whisper; “behind this pile of -dirt. Wait a sec till I move these poles. Now! Grab that pole and slip -in. Feel for the log with your feet. There!” - -Instead of following Anne, he poised on the crosswise timber. - -“Hold the candle a minute,” he said. “Quick! And steady!” - -He dragged back the poles he had pulled aside. - -“Put out the light,” he said. “I’ll stay here and watch. If they don’t -step on the poles, they’ll never find us.” - -“Oh, Dick! If----” - -“Hush! They’re coming!” - -They crouched down in silence, listening fearfully to the footsteps -and voices that came nearer and nearer. Three men, the foremost one -carrying a lantern, stopped in the main room of the mine. Dick saw them -clearly; they were Solomon Gabe, Cæsar, and Isham. - -Solomon Gabe was moaning over and over: “Uh, my boy! Dey’ll git you, -dey’ll git you! My boy! my boy!” - -Cæsar spoke with impatient harshness: “Shet up! Is all yore senses -wandered off, so you can’t see nothin’ but chain gangs an’ gallowses? -I tell you, I’m goin’ to git off. If you’d got any spondulix from dat -white man dat said he had gallon tin buckets o’ money---- Well, I’m -gwine in dat post office to-night. I’m bleeged to have money. Den dat -daybreak train.” - -“What you drug me here for?” asked Isham’s frightened voice. “I got -nothin’ to do wid you an’ yore desertin’. You come to my house an’----” - -“You reckon I was gwine to stay here an’ starve?” snarled Cæsar. - -“An’ makin’ me tell dat lie ’bout not seein’ Miss Anne,” grumbled -Isham. “When dey finds out----” - -“If you tell on me I’ll kill you, if it’s my last livin’ act,” Cæsar -said fiercely. - -“Uh, I ain’t gwine to tell; I ain’t nuver gwine to tell,” promised -Isham, hastily. “But it don’t need me. Thar’s Miss Anne. What c’n you -do to----” - -“Kill her,” said Cæsar. - -“Uh, my boy! my boy! Trouble! trouble!” moaned his father. - -“Cæsar! Cæsar!” Isham’s voice was shocked and deprecating. - -“Killin’ is saftest,” insisted Cæsar. “If you-all’s feered, leave it to -me.” - -“Naw! naw!” protested Isham. “Boy, if you do a killin’---- I know dese -here white mens. Dey’re mighty soft an’ easy-goin’ long as you don’t -make ’em mad. But if harm comes to dat gal, dey’ll grub thar way down -to hell wid thar bare hands to git de man dat done it. You’ll nuver git -away. I--I’ve heerd bloodhounds run,” he quavered. - -Cæsar cowered. “You want to turn her loose, to start a search an’ git -me cotch?” he asked sullenly. - -“Naw. Just left her in dat hole awhile,” said Isham. “She don’t know -yore name or nomernation. An’ ’fore folks find her, you’ll be gone.” - -Cæsar thought it over. “Well,” he agreed. “If she stays thar two-three -days---- Le’s take a look ’round to make shore thar ain’t no way she -c’n climb out.” - -“Thar wa’n’t nothin’ but de ladder, an’ you done took it out,” said -Isham. - -“Le’s make shore. If she come here to de openin’, folks mought hear -her.” - -Cæsar, followed by Isham and Solomon Gabe, went down the tunnel toward -the pit. - -Anne clutched Dick’s arm. “They’ll miss me and find us here,” she -whispered. “Let’s get out. Let’s run.” - -“Too near. Not time enough. Sh-sh!” Dick answered hurriedly. - -Even then the negroes were coming back, in great excitement. - -“Who put dat ladder thar? Who got her out?” Isham was saying wildly -over and over. - -“Come on!” Cæsar was urging, between oaths. “We got to ketch her ’fore -she gits to de Village. Hit’s her life now; or mine!” - -“Yas, yas! An’ I’ll stan’ by you!” Old Solomon Gabe ended with an -awful, sobbing shriek. - -Anne and Dick, cowering in the hole, felt as if wild, bloodthirsty -beasts were on their trail. The fierce voices, the hurrying feet were -close at hand. But they passed by. They went toward the ladder. And -then voices and footsteps died away in the distance. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -As the voices died away, Dick sprang up and pushed aside the poles. - -“Come on, Anne!” he said. “Here! Take my hand. Now! We must get -home--quick!” - -“Oh, Dick! What if they come back? What if we meet them?” - -“We’ll not meet them,” he answered. “They’re going to The Village, -looking for you. And he’s planning to rob the post office. He may shoot -Cousin Will. We must hurry and let them know at home.” - -He took Anne’s hand and they groped through the tunnel and into the -mine opening. - -“Why, it’s night!” Anne whispered. - -“Late,” said Dick. “It was dark when I came. The moon’s up.” - -They crept up the ladder. Dick put his hand on Anne’s arm and they -stood still a minute, straining their eyes and ears into the woodland -night. Above the whir and chirp of insects and the murmur of the little -stream, they heard a trampling on the hillside; no voices. - -“Suppose just Cæsar and Isham have gone on?” whispered Anne, terrified. -“Suppose that awful old man is waiting to grab us?” - -“Oh, no!” Dick tried to soothe her; then he warned her: “Don’t talk. -Listen. And be on the lookout.” - -They went cautiously down the path, starting whenever a twig cracked or -a pebble rolled underfoot. Now and then they stopped to listen and peer -ahead. Thus they went on--across the creek, along the path, on the Old -Plank Road, up the hill by Isham’s cabin. - -The door was open, and by the brilliant blaze of the lightwood knots on -the hearth Anne and Dick saw Lily Belle moving restlessly about. She -came to the door and peered out; but she did not see the two figures -that slipped past in the darkness and hurried along the Old Plank Road -to the highway. - -At the path that turned off to the mill and Larkland, Anne caught Dick -by the arm. “Wait, Dick!” she said. - -“We haven’t time to stop,” he said impatiently. “Come on!” - -“But, Dick,” she said, “I’ve been thinking---- Suppose they’re -watching. If we go the straight road home, they’ll be sure to catch us.” - -“It’s a chance we’ve got to take, to get home to tell them,” he said. -“I must. Do you want to----” - -“If we turn off here and go to Larkland,” said Anne, “we can tell -Cousin Mayo. He’ll know what to do. It isn’t much farther this way, and -it’s a million times safer.” - -“Righto!” agreed Dick, turning into the path. “I’d been wondering if -we’d get past them.” - -They hurried along the path through the woods and splashed through -Tinkling Water, not taking time to grope for the stepping-stones. The -mill loomed before them, a huge, dark shadow on the shadows. - -Dick and Anne ran along the road to Larkland. Presently they heard -horse’s hoofs clattering down the road. There was a pause at the big -gate, and a familiar voice said, “Steady, Rosinante, steady!” as the -rider bent to open the gate. - -“Cousin Mayo! Cousin Mayo!” cried Dick and Anne, running toward him. - -“Hey! Who’s there?” he called sharply. - -“It’s just us,” said Anne; and Dick said, “Anne and me.” - -“Anne!--here at this time of night! Why, everybody in The Village is -distracted about you. Get on Rosinante behind me. I’ll take you to The -Roost.” - -“Cousin Mayo----” - -“Who’s that with you? Dick? Is this one of your fool pranks?” - -Mr. Osborne’s indignation for the instant dominated his relief. The -search for Anne had been growing hourly in intensity and uneasiness. -After walking about for hours, he had come home to get his horse, and -was starting off again. And here the girl for whom the community was -searching came strolling up the road to Larkland. - -“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” he exclaimed. - -“We were afraid to go home,” said Anne. “They are looking for me.” - -“Of course we are looking for you,” Black Mayo said impatiently. “They -are horribly uneasy about you.” - -“I mean, Cæsar’s looking for me,” Anne explained in a hurried, scared -undertone. “The deserter!” - -“What!” - -“They put her in the Old Sterling Mine. I found her,” said Dick. - -“We thought we’d better tell you about it. I ran up on that deserter, -and he’s afraid I’d tell. They’re looking for me, and---- Oh! what’s -that?” Anne gave a stifled cry. The noise that she heard was only--as -she realized on the instant--the crackling fall of a dead bough, but -it left her white and quivering. - -“Here, here!” said Black Mayo. “Let’s know what this is all about.” - -He sprang from his horse, threw the bridle rein over the gatepost, and -led Anne up the walk and into the house. - -“Why, Mayo! I thought you were gone. Anne! Where did you find her, -Mayo? And what is the matter?” asked Mrs. Osborne, as they hurried into -the room where she was sitting. - -There was no direct answer to her questions. Mr. Osborne put Anne in -a big chair and knelt down before her, grasping her cold, trembling -hands. “Tell me what happened. Quick!” he commanded. - -“I feel as if they are peeping in,” Anne said with a shuddering glance -at the windows. - -Mrs. Osborne drew the curtains close, and she and her husband listened -with exclamations and quick questions to the girl’s story. As Mr. -Osborne listened and questioned he was moving about--taking firearms -out of a closet, loading a gun with buckshot, oiling and loading a -revolver, getting out boxes of shells and cartridges. - -“They didn’t see you,” he said; “they don’t know where you are--or you -wouldn’t be here. Polly, you and Anne and Dick go into the chimney -room----” He nodded toward a small room opening out of the sitting -room, and called “the chimney room” because it was only the width of -the big old chimney. “Fasten the shutters; nail down the window and -put a blanket over it, so that not a ray of light can get out. Leave -the door ajar and a dim light in the sitting room, so you can see both -doors. Don’t answer any call unless it’s my voice.” - -“Your voice? You are going----” - -“To The Village. To warn Will and help there. If any one enters the -house, keep still till they open the sitting-room door, and then aim -straight and shoot to kill, Polly, as you do at the chicken hawks.” - -“Yes, Mayo; I will.” Her voice was as calm as if she were answering a -request to sew on a button. With an unfaltering hand she took the gun -she was accustomed to use with deadly execution on birds of prey. - -“God bless you, dear!” Her husband took her in his arms and kissed her -still, colorless face again and again. “Dick,” he said, “keep the gun -and pistol loaded for your Cousin Polly. She’s better than the best man -I know, in time of need.” - -He turned to go. - -“But, Mayo,” said his wife. “You must have firearms. Take a gun, the -pistol.” - -“No,” he said. “If that villain traces Anne here, you’ll need firearms. -Anyway, the pistol would be mighty little use to me; I’d be an easy -mark--on horseback, for them sneaking along in the dark. But I count on -getting safe to The Village. They aren’t after me, you know. And what’s -a man’s life for but to take in his two hands and put where it is -needed?” He unclasped her hands that clung to him. “If all goes well, -I’ll be back---- Oh! as soon as I can come.” - -He went out unarmed into the hostile night. The tense listeners heard -his firm, light tread on the flagged walk, the restive mare’s whinny, -and his soothing, “Whoa there! Gently, girl!” Then he galloped down the -hill, whistling “Dixie.” - -Hour after hour passed. Anne tumbled down on the bed, to rest a while, -and Dick, too, fell asleep. Mrs. Osborne sat there alone, very still -and heedful, with the firearms at her hand. - -Once the collie sleeping on the porch gave a quick, short bark, yelping -in a dream or at some little meaningless noise. Mrs. Osborne’s face -brightened. “Mayo!” she breathed, bending to listen. But no horse hoofs -rang on the road, no footsteps sounded on the walk; and gradually the -light faded from her face, leaving it bleak and sharp. - -At last the early-morning farm noises began to be heard. Roosters -crowed, a restless calf bawled and was answered by its lowing mother, -the collie whined and scratched at the door. The east lightened for -dawn. The gray sky became saffron and brightened to orange. Catbirds -and thrushes sang, wrens twittered and crows cawed. There was the -sweet, melancholy sound of cooing doves. Then came the pause when day -seems to “stand tiptoe.” - -Mrs. Osborne went into the sitting room. She looked through the front -window, down the road; quiet and untraveled, it lay there in the -brightening morning light. - -“If nothing had happened,” she said to herself; “if he were safe----” - -She turned from the window, with her lips pressed tightly together. - -Now sunrays were creeping through the eastern shutters, and the farm -creatures were growing insistent in their calls. Mrs. Osborne wakened -Anne and Dick, who were amazed and mortified to find that they had -slept so long and left her to watch alone. - -“Why, it’s day, broad day!” exclaimed Anne. “Hasn’t Cousin Mayo come -back?” - -“No.” - -“Isn’t that queer? I should think he’d be here,” said Dick. - -He and Anne ran to look out of the window, but Mrs. Osborne sat silent, -with averted face. - -“You look so tired, Cousin Polly!” said Anne. “Do lie down a little -while. We’ll watch.” - -“No,” Mrs. Osborne said quietly. “I am not tired. I must go out and -feed the stock, and the pigeons.” - -“Let me do it,” said Dick. - -“We’ll help you,” said Anne. - -“No. You mustn’t go outdoors and risk being seen. I’ll be back in a -little while.” - -Mrs. Osborne made the rounds of the farmyard. Last of all, she carried -a bucketful of small grain to the pigeon cote, and scattered it on the -ground. The pretty, gentle birds fluttered around her and alighted on -her arms and shoulders. She stroked the shining plumage of one of her -husband’s pets. Then her lips quivered and she dropped her face in her -hands. - -“God help me!” she said. “If he were alive, he would have come back to -me.” - -A few painful tears trickled between her fingers. But soon she regained -her self-control and went indoors. - -“Anne, Dick,” she said, “if something had not happened, Mayo would have -been back. I’ve stayed here all these hours because he said we must. -Now I’m going to look for him.” - -“And we are going with you,” Anne exclaimed. - -Mrs. Osborne considered a minute. “You’ll be just as safe, I reckon,” -she said. “Come on.” - -Dick ran ahead and opened the door. - -“Oh, Cousin Polly!” he cried. “There are people--two men--coming up the -hill. It’s father and----” - -“Cousin Giles!” said Anne. - -She and Dick ran down the path, followed more slowly by Mrs. Osborne. -She did not even hope to see her husband again, and it was with calm -misery that she met Red Mayo and Giles Spotswood. At least she would -have certainty instead of the terrible suspense of these long hours. - -Red Mayo Osborne ran forward and threw his arms around his son and -Anne, and kissed first one and then the other. - -“Dick, my boy! Anne, dear little Anne! Thank God, you are safe!” -exclaimed Red Mayo. “Mayo said you were safe with Polly.” - -“Where is Cousin Mayo?” asked Anne. “We’ve been looking and looking for -him to come back.” - -Red Mayo glanced away. He answered in a queer, hesitating voice. -“He--he couldn’t come now.” - -Polly Osborne’s face was as pale as death and drawn with anguish. Red -Mayo, keeping his eyes still averted, did not see it. She spoke in a -firm, low voice: “What about Mayo?” - -“The fact is,” Mr. Spotswood said, “Mayo--he told me to tell you, -Polly--Mayo--Mayo has been arrested.” - -“Arrested!” she repeated blankly. - -“Arrested,” Red Mayo said. “Jake Andrews came with a warrant. Arrested -as--as a pro-German, or something. But--he ran away.” - -“What!” exclaimed Anne, in amazement. - -By degrees they got the story. Mr. Osborne had ridden to The Village, -without seeing Cæsar or Solomon Gabe or Isham. He quickly told his -tale to the men who were waiting for him to start an organized search -for Anne; had she and Dick reached Larkland a few minutes later, the -deserter would have found all the Villagers away in search of Anne, and -the post office would have been easily rifled. As it was, the Village -men hid in the post office and waited till Cæsar came through a window -and seized him. Only one of the older negroes, probably Solomon Gabe, -came with Cæsar to The Village; he stayed outside the office, and ran -away when the fracas began inside. They sent a few shots after him in -the darkness, but evidently without effect. - -They carried Cæsar to the jail and locked him in a cell, to await the -officer who was to take him back to Camp Lee. - -And then in the early morning, just as Black Mayo was starting home, -Jake Andrews rode up The Street. - -“Huh! You’re the man I’m looking for,” he said to Black Mayo, without -any courtesies of greeting. “I was on my way to your house.” - -Black Mayo looked him up and down, without speaking. - -“I’ve got a warrant for your arrest,” Andrews said, producing a paper. - -“My arrest! On what charge, pray?” - -“Oh, there are charges enough; having traitors in your house, and being -one yourself likely, and----” - -“Who preferred these charges against me?” inquired Mr. Osborne. - -“A good citizen, if he ain’t none of you-all’s aristocrats. You’ll find -out who and what when your trial comes.” - -A dozen voices rose in protest. - -“That’s high-handed!” - -“Come, come, Jake! There’s a mistake somewhere. Why, we all know Mayo -Osborne. He’s all right.” - -“I know my duty, and I’ve got my warrant,” Andrews responded doggedly. - -Mayo Osborne looked perplexed. “We’ve got to submit to law -and officers,” he said, “Red, you and Giles go to Larkland, -please--Polly’ll be uneasy--and tell her about this arrest business--” -He laughed--“and get Anne and Dick.” - -“We’re going to stand by you, you know, Mayo,” said Red Mayo. “We know -it wasn’t--wasn’t an intentional crime. It was perfectly natural you -should not consider that your old friend was an enemy alien and that -you should shelter Kuno Kleist----” - -“Kuno Kleist! What do you mean?” demanded Black Mayo. - -“He was--wasn’t he?--the man who visited you secretly, who----” - -“That tall, fair man with a little pointed beard. If he wasn’t Kuno -Kleist, who was he?” - -“I can’t tell you. I submit to arrest. But, Mr. Law Officer, will you -explain why you are such an early bird, out at daybreak?” - -“I’m on my job,” replied Andrews. “A good citizen came to me in the -night and said you were fixing to skip the country and----” - -Black Mayo considered this with a frown. Suddenly he gave a startled -exclamation. “Charles Smith told you that?” he demanded sharply. - -“Yes; he----” - -“That express! Redville at seven-thirty!” exclaimed Black Mayo. - -Before any one had the ghost of an idea what he was going to do, he was -out of the group, at the horse rack where Rosinante was tied, on her -back, and galloped down the road. Andrews with an oath, jumped on his -horse and pounded after him. - -Without a word, the little group watched the fleeing and the pursuing -man till they were out of sight. Then they looked around at one another. - -“What on earth’s the meaning of it all?” Will Blair asked everybody. - -No one tried to answer. - -But David Spotswood said: “I know two things: Cousin Mayo’s all right, -and Jake Andrews will never catch him.” - -Red Mayo laughed. “Never! As Emma would say, he might as well try to -plant a rose bush on the tail of a comet. Well, we must go and tell -Polly.” And then his face grew sober. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -Black Mayo did not spare his good horse, but the train whistled long -before he reached Redville, and a desperate spurt of speed only brought -him to the station as the train was pulling out. He flung himself off -Rosinante and ran down the platform--just too late to clutch the rear -railing of the last coach. - -There was no one in sight; the station agent did not meet this early -train, and the telegraph office would not be open for another hour. - -Mr. Osborne stood a moment, looking after the departing train. Then, -frowning, he got on Rosinante and rode slowly homeward. Half a mile -from the station he met Jake Andrews, coming on merely because he had -started, and much surprised at seeing the fugitive whom he had long ago -given up hopes of overtaking. - -“Andrews,” Mr. Osborne said crisply, “come with me to Smith’s place. We -must make certain----” - -“Come with you!” Andrews recovered himself enough to sneer. “You’ll -come with me, under arrest.” - -“Nonsense, man!” Black Mayo threw open his coat and displayed a badge -that made Andrews stare. “Don’t make yourself a bigger laughingstock -than you’re bound to be when people find out you let yourself be that -scoundrel’s tool.” - -“Wh-what do you mean, Mr. Mayo?” stammered Andrews. - -“Come and find out,” commanded Mr. Osborne. - -Down the road they met a party of horsemen; Mr. Tavis, Mr. Blair--oh! -the whole Village, astonished at Black Mayo’s arrest, was following -after, hoping to have the mystery explained. - -But for the moment Black Mayo made no explanation. - -“Come!” he said, hurrying on to the old Tolliver place. - -Albert Smith came out to meet them. His eyelids were red, and he looked -lonesome and miserable, but he met Mr. Osborne’s eyes bravely and -frankly answered his questions. His uncle had gone away very early that -morning. - -“Exit Karl Schmidt, alias Charles Smith, German propagandist, bridge -destroyer, et cetera!” said Black Mayo, looking around at his -companions. - -There was a chorus of surprised exclamations. - -“Where has he gone?” thundered Andrews, turning to Albert. - -“I do not know, I do not want to know. I have nothing to tell you about -my uncle,” the boy answered in a low, firm voice. - -“You’d better--” - -“Stop that!” Black Mayo checked Andrews’ blustering, and put a -protecting hand on Albert’s shoulder. “But what are you to do, my boy?” - -Albert’s lip quivered. “My uncle said I might go to our cousin in New -York. But I do not want that. I like it here. I like to study and -war-garden and help liberty. I want to be American.” - -“Well, you can make plans later,” Mr. Osborne said kindly. “Now get -your horse and come home with me and let’s have our breakfast.” - -Albert went to the stable, watched suspiciously by Jake Andrews, who -began a mumbling which Black Mayo interrupted. “Oh, I forgot! Mr. -Andrews has a warrant to serve against me. Shall we----” - -Andrews, turning fiery red, jerked out his warrant and tore it in two. -“And I let that man make a fool of me!” - -“Yes,” Black Mayo agreed tranquilly. - -“But if you knew all this--you had authority, being a Secret Service -man--why didn’t you arrest him?” demanded Andrews. - -“Because there were things we wanted to find out, details of a plot, -proof against its leaders. I don’t mind telling now--you’re an officer -of the law and these others are friends--the tall, fair man who came to -Larkland was Thomas Milner. You’ve heard of him?” - -“Not the big Secret Service chap?” exclaimed Andrews. - -“Yes. I was in Washington, to make a report to him, when Smith sent you -fellows to Larkland to nose about.” - -“If Mrs. Osborne had told me----” Andrews began to mumble. - -“She didn’t know; and she wouldn’t have told you if she had known.” - -“But why did Smith set us on you?” - -“Oh! partly revenge for a beating I gave him last year and a fracas -we had later, and partly, no doubt, to shield himself from suspicion -by turning it on me and my guest. If he had suspected who that guest -was----” Black Mayo chuckled. - -“But what was Smith doing?” asked Mr. Blair. - -“This little out-of-the-way corner was a good place for him to -lie quiet between jobs. He didn’t do much right here except some -mischief-making among foolish negroes and silly whites.” Jake Andrews -reddened, but Mr. Osborne did not look at him. “Instead of being a -chewing-gum salesman, as he pretended, Smith had a nice little business -of directing bomb throwers. He got plans of all the railroad bridges in -this section, with a view to their destruction, so as to hinder troop -movements. The high bridge was such a tempting mark that he wanted a -whack at it himself, preferably with a troop train on it. I found out -that just in time. - -“Now, Andrews, you’d better go to Redville; the telegraph office will -be open. Mr. Jones comes down on that 8.45 train, and he must wire up -and down the road, and see that Smith is arrested.” - -“I’ll do whatever you say, Mr. Osborne,” Andrews said humbly. - -“Here comes Albert. Well, folks, let’s go home. A fine morning for an -early ride.” - -It was, indeed, a glorious day, early November in Southside Virginia. -The sunshine lighted up the bright gold of hickory and the pale gold -of down-fluttering locust leaves and the tawny purple of black haw and -the rich or flaming reds of oaks and Virginia creeper, all the more -splendid against the steadfast green of pines. - -“Our woods look like an army with banners,” said Black Mayo. “Banners -of victory! It’s at hand,” he said confidently. - -Ever since Château-Thierry, the Allies had been on the offensive. The -_mittel-Europa_ dream of Germany faded as Bulgaria and Turkey and -Austria-Hungary fell. Only Germany was left now. And all the world, and -none better than the kaiser and Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff, knew -that she soon must yield. “Retreat! retreat! retreat!” was the one -order. Never again, “Forward!” - -The victory news came two days later. David had ridden to Redville for -the daily _Dispatch_, and he came galloping up The Street, waving a -paper that had a big black headline: - -“ARMISTICE SIGNED!” - -The President had gone before Congress and given it the great tidings. -“My fellow countrymen: The armistice was signed this morning. -Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. The war thus -comes to an end.” - -For over four years Europe had been a battlefield for the nations of -the world. The conflict was less between nations than between two -principles: The right of kings to govern through armies, and the right -of people to govern themselves by law and justice. When the fate of the -world seemed in doubt, America turned the scale for right and justice. - -A day or two after the great armistice news, Black Mayo went with the -Village young folks to the Old Sterling Mine; they were all curious to -see the scene of Anne and Dick’s perilous adventure. - -“I wish Albert had come with us,” said David. - -“He preferred to stay at home,” said Mr. Osborne. “Naturally he feels -badly about his uncle’s arrest; the fellow’ll probably have a long term -in a federal prison.” - -“What’ll become of Albert?” asked Anne. - -“Oh, he’ll get on all right. He’s a good little American,” replied Mr. -Osborne. He did not say that he and his wife were planning to adopt the -little fellow who had endeared himself to them both. - -“Our boys will be coming back soon,” rejoiced David. - -“Those who are left of them,” Anne said soberly. - -Alas! there was a gold star for Mrs. Hight’s son William, and Jeff -Spencer was still missing. But the other Village boys would have -honorable discharges, and Fayett Mallett was bringing back a _Croix de -Guerre_. - -“If only I had been older----” David began enviously. - -“Well,” Mr. Osborne said, “I wanted to go, too, but if I had and we had -lost our bridge and perhaps a trainload of soldiers or supplies---- -Ah, David, we stay-at-homes can look our soldier boys in the face and -say, ‘We, too, did our part.’ Those brave fellows over there would have -been helpless if we here hadn’t been brave enough to do our duty.” - -Anne had been walking quietly along beside Mr. Osborne. Now she said in -an undertone, “Cousin Mayo, I----” Then she stopped. - -“Well, Anne?” - -“Cousin Mayo, I--I----” Then she blurted out, “I was to blame about -their thinking--about your arrest.” - -“You to blame? Of course not!” - -“The stranger I saw at Larkland that morning--I thought--I said it was -Kuno Kleist. And Jake Andrews heard me.” - -“It was Mr. Milner. As I did not present you to him, you ought not to -have mentioned him or guessed his name. The lips of an honorable guest -are sealed to the secrets of a house.” Mr. Osborne spoke gravely; The -Village had its standard of good breeding not to be lowered for its -young people; they must rise to it. - -“Yes, Cousin Mayo,” said Anne. “I’m awful sorry. I was so excited, -thinking it was Kuno Kleist.” - -“I thought so, too,” said Patsy. - -“You will never see Kuno, my dears,” Mr. Osborne said sadly. “He is -dead.” - -“Dead!” - -“Murdered. His sister wrote to me from Switzerland. He came home -once on a furlough, and she asked him if the tales were true about -brutalities to conquered people. He said: ‘I hope those things will not -be required of me; I am a human being before I am a German.’ - -“A month later came the news that he had been shot for refusing to obey -orders. She learned the details later from a comrade. An old Frenchman -had fired on a drunken German soldier who insulted his daughter, -and Kuno was one of a squad ordered to shoot a dozen citizens in -retaliation--men and women and children drawn by lot. Kuno refused. He -was put in front of the firing squad and was shot by his own comrades.” - -“I am so sorry,” Anne said softly. - -“I am so glad,” Black Mayo said, with a tender smile. “Death was his -only gate to freedom from the wicked tyranny of Prussia.” - -“Old Prussia’s beat at last, thanks be!” said Patsy. “What will the -Allies do to the Germans, Cousin Mayo?” - -“Say to them, as Julius Cæsar said to the Germans two thousand years -ago: ‘Go back whence you came, repair the damage you have done, and -give hostages to keep the peace for the future!’” - -“Peace!” said Anne. “Your doves are birds of peace now, Cousin Mayo.” - -“And again they find a deluged world.” - -“Oh, sound gladder, Cousin Mayo!” cried Dick. “We’ve won the war; -and--thanks to Albert and me helping this year--we walloped the girls -in garden work and took the silver cup. Oh, it’s a fine old world!” He -danced a jig on the roadside. - -His cousin smiled in sympathy. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, young -uns,” he said. “We did splendid work in war. When I look ahead, I see -such stupendous peace tasks that--well, it makes me solemn. Oh, well! -we’ll grope and stumble a little, but we are on an upward path, with -old ideals and new vision ahead of us--and thank God for the leader -with vision.” - -This talk brought them to the top of the long hill that led to Mine -Creek. - -“There’s Unc’ Isham’s cabin, still as a graveyard,” remarked Dick. “I -wonder where he and Aunt Lily Belle are?” - -“They ran away because they’re scared of being punished,” said Steve. - -“They’d better be scared; mean things!” exclaimed Patsy. - -“Oh! Unc’ Isham didn’t want to hurt me,” said Anne. “He was just afraid -to tell where I was. It was mighty comforting to hear the way he -talked.” - -“I say it was!” Dick agreed emphatically. “The old nig was in a tight -place, with Cæsar threatening to kill him.” - -“And there’s Solomon Gabe’s house,” said David. - -The door was open; but the house was a mere shell from which its -occupant had gone forever. When his son was captured, the half-crazed -old negro had rushed back to his poor little home and, overcome by -haste and terror, he had fallen dead on the threshold. There the -officers of the law had found him. - -“It was Solomon Gabe--poor old misguided wretch!--who set fire to Broad -Acres,” said Mr. Osborne. - -“What! Did he burn Broad Acres?” exclaimed Patsy. - -“Oh, Cousin Mayo! How do you know?” asked Alice. - -“Dick heard Emma say that night that ‘the old devil was burning little -Miss Anne.’ At first I couldn’t get anything out of her; she insisted -it was Satan she meant. But, now that Solomon Gabe is dead, she -confesses that he told her the night before not to let Mary Jane sleep -at Broad Acres; ‘the torch of the Lord was lit for that house.’ She -kept her daughter at home; and then she was afraid to tell, partly for -fear of being blamed herself and still more from fear of Solomon Gabe. -I’m pretty sure he put the glass in the flour at Larkland. He was at -the mill that day, I remember.” - -“Do you reckon any of the other darkies knew about it?” asked Anne. - -“They probably knew a little and suspected more; like Emma they were -afraid to tell.” - -“Louviny talked mighty queer one day when Patsy and I were there,” said -Anne. - -“Smith had made all sorts of promises and threats to her and Lincum,” -said Mr. Osborne. “When Kit destroyed the war gardens, he was merely -acting in the spirit of what he heard at home. Scalawag told us about -that; didn’t he, Billy boy?” - -“Yes, sirree!” said Sweet William, waggling his head proudly. “Hasn’t -anybody helped war gardens more than me and Scalawag.” - -“Look here, Anne! Here’s where I found your footprints, turning from -the road up to the path,” said Dick. - -“I saw somebody through the bushes; I thought it was you, and I -followed, down that ladder; and then that man--I didn’t know who he -was--pushed me in the pit and pulled out the ladder. Oh, Dick! here’s -where I thought they had us, on the way out. I stepped on a twig, and -it snapped--like a pistol shot it sounded.” Anne shuddered at the -memory. - -“What--who’s that?” Dick exclaimed, looking earnestly into the woods at -the left. - -“Nothing; nobody,” David said carelessly. “Well, here’s your mine hole, -with the ladder in it still.” - -They all went into the mine and examined it with a great deal of -interest, especially the hole in which Anne and Dick had hidden. Black -Mayo lingered there after the others were ready to go. - -“This place looks as if it had been intentionally and carefully -concealed,” he said; “the hole was covered with poles and then a layer -of dirt over it. I wonder why? Suppose we investigate a little. We have -plenty of time.” - -“Mother says she never expects us back till night when we go off with -you,” laughed Patsy. - -“Righto!” said Mr. Osborne. “Dickon, haven’t you some mining tools -hereabouts, a spade and pick and shovel?” - -“Yes, sir.” Dick grinned. - -“Well, we’ll get ready to use them. I’ll show you mining methods used -by the old Phœnicians and by the Mexicans to-day. Let’s pile these -poles and logs against the face of the rock.” - -The old timbers were piled as Black Mayo directed. Then he put leaves -and twigs under the dry wood. - -“It’s your party, Dick,” he said, when all was ready. “You may stick -a match to the kindling, and then we’ll flee to the open. We couldn’t -stand the smoke. Besides we’ve work to do out there.” - -As the bonfire flared and roared, they went scrambling up the ladder. - -“Now,” said Black Mayo, “we’ll go to Peter Jim’s cabin and borrow all -his buckets and tubs. We must fill them with water and have it ready.” - -“Ready for what?” inquired Dick. - -“I’ll show you presently,” said Black Mayo. - -The wondering young folks carried out his instructions, and then sat -around the old mine from which smoke poured as from a chimney. - -All at once Dick again said sharply, “What’s that?” He looked down the -wooded, rocky slope to the left. “I knew I saw somebody!” he exclaimed, -and ran down the hill. - -There was a rustle and stir in a clump of chinquapin bushes. The -foliage parted and a black face peered out, a man’s frightened, -pathetic old face. Suddenly a pair of bony black arms were thrust out -wildly from behind, clutched the woolly head, and dragged it back. -There was a violent struggle, and screeches and sobs and loud, excited -talking. - -“Oh, Dick, Dick! Come back!” Patsy screamed in terror. - -For Dick had vanished in the thicket, the scene of that strange -commotion. Mr. Osborne and David and Steve ran to find him and to see -what was the matter. - -Just then Dick reappeared, followed by an old negro man with a woman -tugging at his coat tails. It was Isham and Lily Belle. - -“Come on away!” she was wailing. “Uh, what you let ’em see you for? My -old man, my old man! Dey got to kill me, too, when dey kill you.” - -“Hush that racket. You’re all right,” said Dick. - -Isham went to Anne and put up appealing hands. “I didn’t mean you no -harm, Miss Anne,” he sobbed. “I wouldn’t ’a’ teched a hair o’ yore -head.” - -“I know you wouldn’t, Unc’ Isham,” said Anne. “Oh, don’t cry! Do stop -crying! Oh! we’re so glad to see you. We’ve wondered where you were.” - -“We runned away,” said Lily Belle. “We--we started to runned -away--an’--an’----” - -“Den we crope back,” said Isham. “We done lived here all our lives, -an’ we couldn’t go traipsin’ ’round strange neighborhoods. We ruther -you-all would kill us here at home.” - -“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Anne assured them. “We know you didn’t -mean any harm. Oh, Uncle Isham! Dick and I were hiding in a hole in the -mine, and we heard you telling Cæsar he mustn’t hurt me. We are all -your friends, and you’re just as safe as we are.” - -Lily Belle forgot her fears. “I told you so, old man,” she cried; “I -told you to come on out them bushes. Ain’t nobody gwine to hurt us. Our -white folks is gwine to take keer of us. Um, um! Come on home, old man; -an’ ain’t we glad to git back!” - -By this time the smoke came in lessening swirls from the mine hole. Mr. -Osborne and the boys carried the tub into the mine and set it at the -edge of the hole, and filled it with water. - -“Now for a smotheration!” he said. - -He poured bucketful after bucketful of water on the hot rock. It filled -the air with choking, blinding steam; and through its hissing came time -after time, like pistol shots, the popping of the rock. - -As soon as the steam cleared away a little, Black Mayo and the boys set -to work with pick and hammer. In a few minutes a large piece of the -split rock was broken off. The gray-green mass was full of glittering -specks and streaks. - -“Well, my boy, you found it!” said Mr. Osborne, turning to Dick. - -“Found it?” echoed the boys and girls who were crowding around. - -“Found the lost vein of silver. It was true, then, that tale about the -rascally mine manager. Evidently he concealed this place, hoping to get -possession of the mine and work it. But he died without being able to -carry out his plan. And now the mine comes back to its rightful owners.” - -“Its rightful owners!” stammered Dick. He had not thought of any right -except the right of discovery. “Rightful owner!” he repeated in dismay, -remembering that this land had been bought by Mr. Smith. - -“Yes; to your father and me, among other heirs,” said his cousin. “Our -grandfather never lost faith in the mine, and when he sold the land he -reserved the mineral rights. Your tumbling into this hole was a lucky -accident. But for that, the secret of the old mine’s treasure might -have remained hidden another half century, and you and I might have -died without knowing it.” - -“We surely might.” Dick’s eyes grew grave, then he turned with a -shining face to his young cousin. “Ah, Anne! that’s a real treasure -hole. Silver isn’t the”--he went closer to her and dropped his -voice--“the dearest thing it’s kept hidden and safe. But for it--oh! -what would have become of you that awful night?” - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MINE'S SECRET *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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