Tom Slade with the Boys Over There | Page 6

It's less than a hundred miles to Basel----"
"My pappa say you could nevaire cross ze frontier. Zere are wires--electric----"
"Electric wirres are ourr middle name," said Archer. "We eat 'em."
"We ain't scared of anything except the daylight," said Tom. "Archy can talk some German and I got Frenchy's--Armand's--button to show to French people. When we once get into Switzerland we'll be all right."
He waited while the girl engaged in an animated talk with her parents. Then old Pierre patted the two boys affectionately on the shoulder while Florette explained.
"It iss not for our sake only, it iss for yours. You cannot stay in ziss house. It iss not safe. You aire wonderful, zee how you escape, and to bring us news of our Armand! We must help you. But if zey get you zen we do not help you. Iss it so? Here every day ze Prussians come. You see? Zey do not follow you--you are what you say--too clevaire? But still zey come."
Tom listened, his heart in his throat at the thought of being turned out of this home where he had hoped for shelter.
"We are already suspect," Florette explained. "My pappa, he fought for France--long ago. But so zey hate him. My name zey get--how old----All zeze zings zey write down--everyzing. Zey come for me soon. I sang ze Marseillaise--you know?"
"Yes," said Tom, "but that was years ago."
"But we are suspect. Zey have write it all down. Nossing zey forget. Zey take me to work--out of Alsace. Maybe to ze great Krupps. I haf' to work in ze fields in Prussia maybe. You see? Ven zey come I must go. Tonight, maybe. Tomorrow. Maybe not yet----"
She struggled to master her emotion and continued. "Ziss is--what you call--blackleest house. You see? So you will hide where I take you. It iss bad, but we cannot help. I give you food and tomorrow in ze night I bring you clothes. Zese I must look for--Armand's. You see? Come."
They rose with her and as she stood there almost overcome with grief and shame and the strain of long suspense and apprehension, yet thinking only of their safety, the sadness of her position and her impending fate went to Tom's heart.
Old Pierre embraced the boys affectionately with his one arm, seeming to confirm all his daughter had said.
"My pappa say it is best you stay not here in ziss house. I will show you where Armand used to hide so long ago when we play," she smiled through her tears. "If zey come and find you----"
"I understand," said Tom. "They couldn't blame it to you."
"You see? Yess."
To Archer, who understood a few odds and ends of German old Pierre managed to explain in that language his sorrow and humiliation at their poor welcome.
All five then went into an old-fashioned kitchen with walls of naked masonry and a great chimney, and from a cupboard Florette and her mother filled a basket with such cold viands as were on hand. This, and a pail of water the boys carried, and after another affectionate farewell from Pierre and his wife, they followed the girl cautiously and silently out into the darkness.
Tom Slade had already felt the fangs of the German beast and he did not need any one to tell him that the loathsome thing was without conscience or honor, but as he watched the slender form of Armand's young sister hurrying on ahead of them and thought of all she had borne and must yet bear and of the black fear that must be always in her young heart, his sympathy for her and for this stricken home was very great.
He had not fully comprehended her meaning, but he understood that she and her parents were haunted by an ever-present dread, and that even in their apprehension it hurt them to skimp their hospitality or suffer any shadow to be cast on a stranger's welcome.
Florette led the way along a narrow board path running back from the house, through an endless maze of vine-covered arbor, which completely roofed all the grounds adjacent to the house. Tom, accustomed only to the small American grape arbor, was amazed at the extent of this vineyard.
"Reminds you of an elevated railroad, don't it," said Archer.
On the rickety uprights (for the arbor like everything else on the old place was going to ruin under the alien blight) large baskets hung here and there. At intervals the structure sagged so that they had to stoop to pass under it, and here and there it was broken or uncovered and they caught glimpses of the sky.
They went over a little hillock and, still beneath the arbor, came upon a place where the vines had fallen away from the ramshackle trellis and formed a spreading mass upon the ground.
"You see?" whispered the girl