Nevertheless all of them were united in thinking they had made a swift trip from the American sector of the fighting front in France to the town of Bridgeton in the Old Dominion in just four complete days.
Jack led the way, though, of course, Tom would have been just as competent a guide, since this was also his home town.
How those blinking lights in the well-remembered windows of the Parmly home held Jack's eyes, once he sighted them! Never before in all his life had he felt such a delicious thrill creep over him from head to toe.
Knocking on the door he and his chums carried out their pre-arranged plan. Jack and Tom were to keep back out of sight, leaving Lieutenant Beverly to break the glorious news first and prepare the family, so there might not be so loud an outcry as to arouse the neighbors and breed the excitement in the community that neither of the returned fighters wished.
Jack's aunt, who, a widow herself, made her home with her widowed sister-in-law, came to the door, for some reason or other. Perhaps the negro servants still went home at night, as had been the case before Jack went to the war. She looked surprised and anxious as soon as she saw that the caller was a stranger, and evidently an aviator from his dress.
"This is Mrs. Parmly, I believe?" the visitor hastened to say.
"Mrs. Job Parmly. Mrs. Parmly's sister-in-law."
"I see. Mrs. Parmly, my name is Beverly, Lieutenant Beverly of the United
States Aerial Corps, just over from France. I am a good friend of your
nephew, Jack, who has entrusted a message to me to deliver to his mother.
May I come in for a short time, Mrs. Parmly?"
He was immediately warmly greeted and drawn into the sitting-room where he met Jack's mother. The two outside could peep under the drawn shade and watch all that went on, Jack quivering with emotion as he looked on the beloved faces of his own people once again.
Beverly knew how eager the boy must be, and hence he lost little time in getting down to the main fact, which was that he wished them not to do anything to arouse curiosity in the neighborhood; but that Jack was near by, and all would be soon explained; also that they must not be troubled thinking he, Jack, had done anything really wrong.