Tom Slade with the Boys Over There

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Slade with the Boys Over There, by Percy K. Fitzhugh

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Title: Tom Slade with the Boys Over There
Author: Percy K. Fitzhugh
Illustrator: R. Emmett Owen
Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18954]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration: "I AM--AMERICAN. MY NAME--IS TOM SLADE." Frontispiece (Page 9)]
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TOM SLADE WITH THE BOYS OVER THERE
BY PERCY K. FITZHUGH
Author of TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT
Illustrated by R. EMMETT OWEN
Published With the Approval of THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
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Copyright, 1918, by GROSSET & DUNLAP
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To
F. A. O.
The real Tom Slade, whose extraordinary adventures on land and sea put these storied exploits in the shade, this book is dedicated with envious admiration.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I THE HOME IN ALSACE 1 II AN APPARITION 5 III TOM'S STORY 12 IV THE OLD WINE VAT 22 V THE VOICE FROM THE DISTANCE 32 VI PRISONERS AGAIN 38 VII WHERE THERE'S A WILL---- 42 VIII THE HOME FIRE NO LONGER BURNS 51 IX FLIGHT 58 X THE SOLDIER'S PAPERS 64 XI THE SCOUT THROUGH ALSACE 72 XII THE DANCE WITH DEATH 79 XIII THE PRIZE SAUSAGE 84 XIV A RISKY DECISION 90 XV HE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE 97 XVI THE WEAVER OF MERNON 103 XVII THE CLOUDS GATHER 112 XVIII IN THE RHINE 118 XIX TOM LOSES HIS FIRST CONFLICT WITH THE ENEMY 124 XX A NEW DANGER 131 XXI COMPANY 137 XXII BREAKFAST WITHOUT FOOD CARDS 141 XXIII THE CATSKILL VOLCANO IN ERUPTION 145 XXIV MILITARY ETIQUETTE 155 XXV TOM IN WONDERLAND 162 XXVI MAGIC 167 XXVII NONNENMATTWEIHER 174 XXVIII AN INVESTMENT 180 XXIX CAMOUFLAGE 184 XXX THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE 190 XXXI THE END OF THE TRAIL 196
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TOM SLADE WITH THE BOYS OVER THERE
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 pass 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