Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

"If you wait I'll show you!" Joan was only too eager to show what she could do, but he turned impatiently away.

"This may be the greatest day of my life, Miss Wyman." He stopped in front of her. "Will you be so very kind as to wish me luck?" He took the hand which hung at her side and pressed it.

She looked at him in surprise, and she was more surprised when she saw the flush on his usually pale face. She wondered why this should be such a great day, but as he did not tell her she did not ask but prettily offered her best wishes. He pressed her hand again and went toward the shop with long eager steps. Rebecca Mary looked after him curiously. She shook her head. No, she didn't understand him at all, not even a little bit. And because a closed box is always more fascinating than an open one she would have continued to think of Frederick Befort if Joan would have let her. But Joan was pulling her sleeve.

"I'll show you, then, Miss Wyman. Shall I? Shall I show you that I can throw my ball over the hedge?" She was on tiptoe to show Miss Wyman.

Rebecca Mary looked at the only hedge near them, the arbor vitæ which kept Riverside from spilling into the road, and shook her head. "You'll lose it if you do. You can't go after it, you know." She reminded Joan that she was a prisoner.

"The guard will bring it to me if I ask him." Joan was not a bit afraid that she would lose her ball even if Rebecca Mary did shake her head and doubt whether the guard would leave his post by the gate to hunt among the bushes which edged the road for a ball. She raised her arm to send the ball flying over the hedge, but Rebecca Mary caught her hand.

"I fear your father is not a very good ball maker, Joan. See, the fingers have come unfastened. The stuffing is falling out." She took the glove from Joan and tried to push the papers back into it.

"The stuffing is my father's papers. He took them from his pocket," Joan told her proudly. "Can you put them back?"

"I'd better sew them in or they will be all over the place. Why——" she broke off to stare at one of the scraps of papers which had fallen into her hand. There were figures on it and a tiny drawing and a few German words. How strange! She pulled a larger piece from the glove and after she had smoothed it she found more German words.

Like an express train dashing through a country station many things dashed through Rebecca Mary's brain as she stood and looked at the bits of paper. She remembered what Major Martingale had said about the great experiment, how important it was and how Germany was trying to get control of it to regain her old position in the commercial world. She remembered that Frederick Befort had been named for one kaiser and had been a friend of another kaiser, who had decorated him. She remembered many things Joan had said about Germany and that the kaiser had called her "ein gutes Kind, Johanna," and Joan's whisper that her father did not wish her to speak of Germany now, he wanted her to forget Germany. She remembered also that Frederick Befort had said he was from Luxembourg where the Germans had had great influence and power, that he had gone to school in Germany. And Mrs. Erickson had heard him talking German to one of the mechanics behind the woodshed!