Tom Slade with the Boys Over There.
by Percy K. Fitzhugh.
CHAPTER I
THE HOME IN ALSACE
In the southwestern corner of the domains of Kaiser Bill, in a fair district to which he has no more right than a highwayman has to his victim"s wallet, there is a quaint old house built of gray stone and covered with a clinging vine.
In the good old days when Alsace was a part of France the old house stood there and was the scene of joy and plenty. In these evil days when Alsace belongs to Kaiser Bill, it stands there, its dim arbor and pretty, flower-laden trellises in strange contrast to the lumbering army wagons and ugly, threatening artillery which pa.s.s along the quiet road.
And if the prayers of its rightful owners are answered, it will still stand there in the happy days to come when fair Alsace shall be a part of France again and Kaiser Bill and all his clanking claptrap are gone from it forever.
The village in which this pleasant homestead stands is close up under the boundary of Rhenish Bavaria, or Germany proper (or improper), and in the happy days when Alsace was a part of France it had been known as Leteur, after the French family which for generations had lived in the old gray house.
But long before Kaiser Bill knocked down Rheims Cathedral and black-jacked Belgium and sank the Lusitania, he changed the name of this old French village to Dundgardt, showing that even then he believed in Frightfulness; for that is what it amounted to when he changed Leteur to Dundgardt.
But he could not very well change the old family name, even if he could change the names of towns and villages in his stolen province, and old Pierre Leteur and his wife and daughter lived in the old house under the Prussian menace, and managed the vineyard and talked French on the sly.
On a certain fair evening old Pierre and his wife and daughter sat in the arbor and chatted in the language which they loved. The old man had lost an arm in the fighting when his beloved Alsace was lost to France and he had come back here still young but crippled and broken-hearted, to live under the Germans because this was the home of his people. He had found the old house and the vineyard devastated.
After a while he married an Alsatian girl very much younger than himself, and their son and daughter had grown up, German subjects it is true, but hating their German masters and loving the old French Alsace of which their father so often told them.
While Florette was still a mere child she committed the heinous crime of singing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_. The watchful Prussian authorities learned of this and a couple of Prussian soldiers came after her, for she must answer to the Kaiser for this terrible act of sedition.
Her brother Armand, then a boy of sixteen, had shouted "_Vive la France!_" in the very faces of the grim soldiers and had struck one of them with all his young strength.
In that blow spoke gallant, indomitable France!
For this act Armand might have been shot, but, being young and agile and the German soldiers being fat and clumsy, he effected a flank move and disappeared before they could lay hands on him and it was many a long day before ever his parents heard from him again.
At last there came a letter from far-off America, telling of his flight across the mountains into France and of his working his pa.s.sage to the United States. How this letter got through the Prussian censorship against all French Alsatians, it would be hard to say. But it was the first and last word from him that had ever reached the blighted home.
After a while the storm cloud of the great war burst and then the prospect of hearing from Armand became more hopeless as the British navy threw its mighty arm across the ocean highway. And old Pierre, because he was a French veteran, was watched more suspiciously than ever.
Florette was nearly twenty now, and Armand must be twenty-three or four, and they were talking of him on this quiet, balmy night, as they sat together in the arbor. They spoke in low tones, for to talk in French was dangerous, they were already under the cloud of suspicion, and the very trees in the neighborhood of a Frenchman"s home seemed to have ears....
CHAPTER II
AN APPARITION
"But how could we hear from him now, Florette, any better than before?"
the old man asked.
"America is our friend now," the girl answered, "and so good things must happen."
"Indeed, great things will happen, dear Florette," her father laughed, "and our beloved Alsace will be restored and you shall sing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ again. _Vive l"Amerique!_ She has come to us at last!"
"Sh-h-h," warned Madame Leteur, looking about; "because America has joined us is no reason we should not be careful. See how our neighbor Le Farge fared for speaking in the village but yesterday. It is glorious news, but we must be careful."
"What did neighbor Le Farge say, mamma?"
"Sh-h-h. The news of it is not allowed. He said that some one told him that when the American General Pershing came to France, he stood by the grave of Lafayette and said, "Lafayette, we are here.""
"Ah, Lafayette, yes!" said the old man, his voice shaking with pride.
"But we must not even know there is a great army of Americans here. We must know nothing. We must be blind and deaf," said Madame Leteur, looking about her apprehensively.
"America will bring us many good things, my sweet Florette," said her father more cautiously, "and she will bring triumph to our gallant France. But we must have patience. How can she send us letters from Armand, my dear? How can she send letters to Germany, her enemy?"
"Then we shall never hear of him till the war is over?" the girl sighed.
"Oh, it is my fault he went away! It was my heedless song and I cannot forgive myself."
"The _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ is not a heedless song, Florette," said old Pierre, "and when our brave boy struck the Prussian beast----"
"Sh-h-h," whispered Madame Leteur quickly.
"There is no one," said the old man, peering cautiously into the bushes; "when he struck the Prussian beast, it was only what his father"s son must do. Come, cheer up! Think of those n.o.ble words of America"s general, "Lafayette, we are here." If we have not letters from our son, still America has come to us. Is not this enough? She will strike the Prussian beast----"
"Sh-h-h!"
"There is no one, I tell you. She will strike the Prussian beast with her mighty arm harder than our poor n.o.ble boy could do with his young hand. Is it not so?"
The girl looked wistfully into the dusk. "I thought we would hear from him when we had the great news from America."
"That is because you are a silly child, my sweet Florette, and think that America is a magician. We must be patient. We do not even know all that her great president said. We are fed with lies----"
"Sh-h-h!"
"And how can we hear from Armand, my dear, when the Prussians do not even let us know what America"s president said? All will be well in good time."
"He is dead," said the girl, uncomforted. "I have had a dream that he is dead. And it is I that killed him."
"This is a silly child," said old Pierre.
"America is full of Prussians--spies," said the girl, "and they have his name on a list. They have killed him. They are murderers!"
"Sh-h-h," warned her mother again.
"Yes, they are murderers," said old Pierre, "but this is a silly child to talk so. We have borne much silently. Can we not be a little patient now?"
"I _hate_ them!" sobbed the girl, abandoning all caution. "They drove him away and we will see him no more,--my brother--Armand!"