"We haven"t any, not just now," said Jan. "You see our father is a soldier, and our mother, oh, have you seen our mother? She"s lost!"
The little old woman gave them a quick, pitying glance. "Lost, is she?"
she said. "Well, now, I can"t just be sure whether I"ve seen her or not, not knowing what she looks like, but I wouldn"t say I haven"t.
Lots of folks have pa.s.sed this way. How did she get lost?" She sat down on the edge of the barrow and drew the children to her side. "Come, now," she said, "tell Granny all about it! I"ve seen more trouble than any one you ever saw in all your life before, and I"m not a mite afraid of it either."
Comforted already, the children poured forth their story.
"You poor little lambs!" she cried, when they had finished, "and you haven"t had a bite to eat since yesterday! Mercy on us! You can never find your mother on an empty stomach!" She rose from the wheelbarrow, as she spoke, and trundled it swiftly from the road to the bank of the river, a short distance away. Here, in a sheltered nook, hidden from the highway by a group of willows, she stopped. "We"ll camp right here, and I"ll get you a dinner fit for a king or a duke, at the very least,"
she said cheerily. "Look what I have in my wheelbarrow!" She took a basket from the top of it as she spoke.
Fidel was already looking in, with his tail standing straight out behind, his ears pointed forward, and the hairs bristling on the back of his neck. There, on some clean white sand in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, wriggled a fine fat eel!
"Now I know why I didn"t sell that eel," cried Granny. "There"s always a reason for everything, you see, my darlings."
She seized the eel with a firm, well-sanded hand as she spoke, and before could spell your name backwards, she had skinned and dressed it, and had given the remnants to poor hungry Fidel. "Now, my boy," she said gayly to Jan as she worked, "you get together some twigs and dead leaves, and you, Big Eyes," she added to Marie, "find some stones by the river, and we"ll soon have such a stove as you never saw before, and a fire in it, and a bit of fried eel, to fill your hungry stomachs."
Immensely cheered, the children flew on these errands. Then Marie had a bright thought. "We have some potatoes in our bundle," she said.
"Well, now," cried the little old woman, "wouldn"t you think they had just followed up that eel on purpose? We"ll put them to roast in the ashes. I always carry a pan and a bit of fat and some matches about with me when I take my eels to market," she explained as she whisked these things out of the basket, "and it often happens that I cook myself a bite to eat on my way home, especially if I"m late. You see, I live a long way from here, just across the river from Boom, and I"m getting lazy in my old age. Early every morning I walk to Malines with my barrow full of fine eels, and sell them to the people of the town.
That"s how I happen to be so rich!"
"Are you rich?" asked Marie wonderingly.
She had brought the stones from the river, and now she untied her bundle and took out the potatoes. Jan had already heaped a little mound of sticks and twigs near by, and soon the potatoes were cooking in the ashes, and a most appetizing smell of frying eel filled the air.
"Am I rich?" repeated the old woman. She looked surprised that any one could ask such a question. "Of course I"m rich. Haven"t I got two eyes in my head, and a tongue, too, and it"s lucky, indeed, that it"s that way about, for if I had but one eye and two tongues, you see for yourself how much less handy that would be! And I"ve two legs as good as any one"s, and two hands to help myself with! The Kaiser himself has no more legs and arms than I, and I doubt if he can use them half as well. Neither has he a stomach the more! And as for his heart" she looked cautiously around as she spoke "his heart, I"ll be bound, is not half so good as mine! If it were, he could not find it in it to do all the cruel things he"s doing here. I"m sure of that."
For a moment the cheerfulness of her face clouded over; but she saw the shadow reflected in the faces of Jan and Marie, and at once spoke more gayly. "Bless you, yes, I"m rich," she went on; "and so are you! You"ve got all the things that I have and more, too, for you legs and arms are young, and you have a mother to look for. Not every one has that, you may depend! And one of these days you"ll find her. Make no doubt of that."
"If we don"t, she"ll surely find us, anyway," said Jan. "She said she would!"
"Indeed and she will," said the old woman. "Even the Germans couldn"t stop her; so what matter is it, if you both have to look a bit first?
It will only make it the better when you find each other again."
When the potatoes were done, the little old woman raked them out of the ashes with a stick, broke them open, sprinkled a bit of salt on them from the wonderful basket, and then handed one to each of the children, wrapped in a plantain leaf, so they should not burn their fingers. A piece of the eel was served to them in the same way, and Granny beamed with satisfaction as she watched her famished guests.
"Aren"t you going to eat, too?" asked Marie with her mouth full.
"Bless you, yes," said Granny. "Every chance I get. You just watch me!"
She made a great show of taking a piece of the eel as she spoke, but if any one had been watching carefully, they would have her slyly put it back again into the pan, and the children never knew that they ate her share and their own, too.
When they had eaten every sc.r.a.p of the eel, and Fidel had finished the bones, the little old woman rose briskly from the bank, washed her pan in the river, packed it in her basket again, and led the way up the path to the highway once more. Although they found the road still filled with the flying refugees, the world had grown suddenly brighter to Jan and Marie. They had found a friend and they were fed.
"Now, you come along home with your Granny," said the little old woman as they reached the Antwerp road and turned northward, "for I live in a little house by the river right on the way to wherever you want to go!"
IX
OFF FOR ANTWERP
For several days the children stayed with the little old woman in her tiny cottage on the edge of the river. Each morning they crossed the bridge and stationed themselves by the Antwerp road to watch the swarm of sad-faced Belgians as they hurried through Boom on their way to the frontier and to safety in Holland. Each day they hoped that before the sun went down they should see their mother among the hurrying mult.i.tudes, but each day brought a fresh disappointment, and each night the little old woman comforted them with fresh hope for the morrow.
"You see, my darlings," said she, "it may take a long time and you may have to go a long way first, but I feel in my bones that you will find her at last. And of course, if you do, every step you take is a step toward her, no matter how far round you go."
Jan and Marie believed every word that Granny said. How could they help it when she had been so good to them! Her courage and faith seemed to make an isle of safety about her where the children rested in perfect trust. They saw that neither guns nor Germans nor any other terror could frighten Granny. In the midst of a thousand alarms she calmly went her accustomed way, and every one who met her was the better for a glimpse of the brave little brown face under its snowy cap. Early each morning she rose with the larks, covered the bottom of her barrow with clean white sand, and placed in it the live eels which had been caught for her and brought to the door by small boys who lived in the neighborhood. Then, when she had wakened the Twins, and the three had had their breakfast together, away she would trudge over the long, dusty road to Malines, wheeling the barrow with its squirming freight in front of her.
Jan and Marie helped her all they could. They washed the dishes and swept the floor of the tiny cottage and made everything tidy and clean before they went to take up their stand beside the Antwerp road. When the shadows grew long in the afternoon, how glad they were to see the st.u.r.dy little figure come trudging home again! Then they would run to meet her, and Jan would take the wheelbarrow from her tired hands and wheel it for her over the bridge to the little cottage under the willow trees on the other side of the river.
Then Marie"s work was to clean the barrow, while Jan pulled weeds in the tiny garden back of the house, and Granny got supper ready.
Supper-time was the best of all, for every pleasant evening they ate at a little table out of doors under the willow trees.
One evening, when supper had been cleared away, they sat there together, with Fidel beside them, while Granny told a wonderful tale about the King of the Eels who lived in a crystal palace at the bottom of the river.
"You can"t quite see the palace," she said, "because, when you look right down into it, the water seems muddy. But sometimes, when it is still, you can see the Upside-Down Country where the King of the Eels lives. There the trees all grow with their heads down and the sky is "way, "way below the trees. You see the sky might as well be down as up for the eels. They aren"t like us, just obliged to crawl around on the ground without ever being able to go up or down at all. The up-above sky belongs to the birds and the down-below sky belongs to the fishes and eels. And I am not sure but one is just as nice as the other."
Marie and Jan went to the river, and, getting down on their hands and knees, looked into the water.
"We can"t see a thing!" they cried to Granny.
"You aren"t looking the right way," she answered. "Look across it toward the sunset."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Marie, clasping her hands; "I see it! I see the down-below sky, and it is all red and gold!"
"I told you so," replied Granny triumphantly. "Lots of folks can"t see a thing in the river but the mud, when, if you look at it the right way, there is a whole lovely world in it. Now, the palace of the King of the Eels is right over in that direction where the color is the reddest. He is very fond of red, is the King of the Eels. His throne is all made of rubies, and he makes the Queen tie red bows on the tails of all the little eels."
Jan and Marie were still looking with all their eyes across the still water toward the sunset and trying to see the crystal palace of the eels, when suddenly from behind them there came a loud "Hee-haw, hee-haw." They jumped, and Granny jumped, too, and they all looked around to see where the sound came from. There, coming slowly toward them along the tow-path on the river-bank, was an old brown mule. She was pulling a low, green river-boat by a towline, and a small boy, not much bigger than Jan, was driving her. On the deck of the boat there was a little cabin with white curtains in the tiny windows and two red geraniums in pots standing on the sills. From a clothesline hitched to the rigging there fluttered a row of little shirts, and seated on a box near by there was a fat, friendly looking woman with two small children playing by her side. The father of the family was busy with the tiller.
"There come the De Smets, as sure as you live!" cried Granny, rising from the wheelbarrow, where she had been sitting. "I certainly am glad to see them." And she started at once down the river to meet the boat, with Jan and Marie and Fidel all following.
"Ship ahoy!" she cried gayly as the boat drew near. The boy who was driving the mule grinned shyly. The woman on deck lifted her eyes from her sewing, smiled, and waved her hand at Granny, while the two little children ran to the edge of the boat; and held out their arms to her.
"Here we are again, war or no war!" cried Mother De Smet, as the boat came alongside. Father De Smet left the tiller and threw a rope ash.o.r.e.
"Whoa!" cried the boy driving the mule. The mule stopped with the greatest willingness, the boy caught the rope and lifted the great loop over a strong post on the river-bank, and the "Old Woman" for that was the name of the boat was in port.
Soon a gangplank was slipped from the boat to the little wooden steps on the bank, and Mother De Smet, with a squirming baby under each arm, came ash.o.r.e. "I do like to get out on dry land and shake my legs a bit now and then," she said cheerfully as she greeted Granny. "On the boat I just sit still and grow fat!"
"I shake my legs for a matter of ten miles every day," laughed Granny.
"That"s how I keep my figure!"
Mother De Smet set the babies down on the gra.s.s, where they immediately began to tumble about like a pair of puppies, and she and Granny talked together, while the Twins went to watch the work of Father De Smet and the boy, whose name was Joseph.
"I don"t know whatever the country is coming to," said Mother De Smet to Granny. "The Germans are everywhere, and they are taking everything that they can lay their hands on. I doubt if we ever get our cargo safe to Antwerp this time. We"ve come for a load of potatoes, but I am very much afraid it is going to be our last trip for some time. The country looks quiet enough as you see it from the boat, but the things that are happening in it would chill your blood."
"Yes," sighed Granny; "if I would let it, my old heart would break over the sights that I see every day on my way to Malines. But a broken heart won"t get you anywhere. Maybe a stout heart will."
"Who are the children you have with you?" asked Mother De Smet.