“Oh! nothing much, only sometimes it’s a mighty fine thing to have a good buffer when you meet up with trouble,” said Giraffe, calmly.
“Don’t mind him, Bumpus,” said Allan; “nothing is going to happen, for the motor seems to be on its best behavior. Let’s hope we’ll find only a Dutch guard on the road when we come to the border line.”
“I think that’s apt to be the case,” ventured Thad.
“So do I,” added Allan, “because the Germans as yet couldn’t be expected to care who left their country for Holland; while the Dutch would want to make sure there was no infringement of neutrality, no using their territory by one of the belligerents for passing around and taking the enemy by surprise. If either German, Belgians, French or British soldiers happen to land on Dutch soil they’ll have to be interned there until the close of the war.”
“Well, all I hope is that they won’t include Boy Scouts in that class,” ventured Bumpus, whose sole thought those days was to reach Antwerp and the suffering mother, who must be very anxious for her boy, knowing he was at the time in Germany and doubtless caught in the mad whirl accompanying the mobilization of millions of troops.
“They might if we were German scouts,” Thad told them, “but we can easily prove that we belong on the other side of the Atlantic. I think they’ll be pretty kind to us on that account, and do anything we might ask.”
“Well,” remarked Giraffe, with a longing look in his eyes, “if we happened on a nice clean tavern over there it might pay us to stop and get a Dutch dinner. I’ve heard a lot about what appetizing dishes those housewives can serve, and I’d like to say I’d eaten just one meal in the Netherlands.”
“Count on me to vote with you, Giraffe,” observed Bumpus, “though of course if it was going to delay us any I’d be willing to stand the famine till we got over in Belgium, and had to put up for the night on account of darkness.”
“For that matter, we will have a moon about nine o’clock to-night,” said Thad, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me from driving this crazy car over roads I don’t know, by moonlight. It’s bad enough in broad day.”
They continued to push steadily on. At no time were they out of sight of farms and gardens, all of them as neat as anything the boys had ever seen. They often remarked on the great difference between the thrift of these German market gardens and the ordinary shiftless way of doing things seen in their own country.