“You watch me!” said Porky grimly.
CHAPTER IV
DECIDING DESTINIES
Tired of carrying the children about, the two boys sat down on a bench beside what had once been a large barn. The destructive fire started by the invaders had apparently been checked by a heavy rainfall as the half burned structures and charred timbers testified. There was still a chance to rebuild and save enough from the wreckage to enable the owners to start their lives afresh. But alas, of those owners but two were left—the two tiny, terrified, war-racked creatures in the arms of the two Boy Scouts. While their little charges slept, the boys continued their talk in a low tone. Their arms, unaccustomed to such burdens, were tired and stiff by the time one of the officers left the distant group and approached them.
“Why don’t you lay the poor little cubs down somewhere?” he asked, looking round vainly for a fit place.
“No place to put ’em, sir,” said Porky, “and every time we start to move them, they clutch us and start to scream. As long as we sort of keep ’em hugged up tight, they sleep.”
“It’s awful—awful!” said the officer. “I wish I knew what to do with them now. There’s not an asylum of any sort, not a place fit to leave them within miles and miles, and what’s to become of them I don’t know. Every orphan asylum in France is crowded.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Porky. “We don’t intend they shall go to any asylum. Our mother has adopted them.”
“Your what?” asked the captain after a prolonged stare.
“Our mother,” repeated Porky.
“Your mother has WHAT?” said the captain. “Just repeat it all.”