Tom Slade with the Boys Over There | Page 2

father so often told them.
While Florette was still a mere child she committed the heinous crime of singing the Marseillaise. 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 passage 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 Marseillaise 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 Marseillaise 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 noble 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 noble 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