"Wood, you know I would rather take advice from you than from any other living person. And why shouldn't I? You always set me right. You started me right, but I got away from you, into a great deal of trouble. Anything you are willing to say you know, I will take at one hundred per cent. In fact, I would be mighty glad if you could tell me where to send her, but I don't know if I can stand it now," he added.
"I believe I do know just where to send her, and also just how to get her there safely, perhaps more so than if you went as you have planned. And I will take the time to tell you how I happened to know from personal contact. Let us go back in the boat and sit down again."
He followed me into the cabin and sat down opposite where I could study his face.
"Howard," I began seriously, "in order to make this plain to you I must give you some inside information that has not reached the public, and perhaps it never will officially, and for that reason treat it as ultra-confidential.
"When Germany began war on Europe it has been said and known positively that it was only a question of time when we would be in it, and that no preparation was made to meet that condition. But a great deal of work was done that has not begun to show yet. It is true that public sentiment would not support raising an army and equipping it, owing to such Hun stuff as 'I Did Not Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,' but other things perhaps as important were accomplished. One of them was to determine just how much power the Hun had in this country. The beginning was made in schools of all kinds, colleges and universities, in fact, every institution of an educational nature.
"I put in the best part of two years analyzing teachers and professors tainted with Prussianism, whether it was imported or domestic. It was a rare experience and required careful work. Directly or indirectly, I came in contact with all of them, and in many cases visited the schools and colleges, interviewing professors and teachers under one subterfuge or another, and in doing so developed some valuable and astounding information. It will require a big basket to hold the heads that must fall from this work. If I had them sufficiently at ease and could get them to use the words Kamerad, Kultur, and Middle Europe, by their face and tone I could tell. No one can repeat those words without giving themselves away, if pro-Hun.
"Girls' schools were the hardest to get into without revealing my purpose, which was always desirable. A man knocking at their gates was a big interrogation point, but I managed to see about all of them. Girls of to-day are mothers of to-morrow, and after all it's the mothers that count, Howard.
"I am telling you this," I went on, "expecting you to grasp the inference, in order to avoid going into details. I found a girls' school, perhaps two hours from New York, which is an ideal place for little Jim. The conditions are the best. She would be really educated, and be as safe as though at home and possibly more so, just now when she is advancing toward womanhood." I paused, watching Howard closely.
"But, Wood," he replied, with great concern, "little Jim has always been so free, wouldn't it be wrong to shut her up in a place like that? What would she do without her flowers and being able to go about as she pleased?"
"They have immense grounds, covered with a beautiful forest, in which she would be delighted. She can roam at will after school hours. Of course, students can't leave the grounds, or rather the estate, without escort. There are flowers in greatest profusion, everything to make the place attractive. It is the safest and best I found among all that I visited. In fact, I went back once or twice on a special invitation to do a small favor."