CHAPTER XII—THE TALE TOLD BY THE BELGIAN
“Agh, mine goot savior! Mine beeg fine frent! I feel so full to choy dat I must cry!” The Belgian acted exactly like an overjoyed mastiff when his master returns from a long absence.
“Why, Johann! This is a surprise,” cried Bob, rising from his chair and joining Bill who still remained pinned in the arms of the happy foreigner.
The others in the party at the dinner table watched with amazement as the little tableaux came to a finish.
“Now that Johann is on the stage, it is most appropriate that he tell the story of our adventures in France. For, be it known to all present, Jo was with us when we first went over with the Canadian boys, and it was Jo’s mother who nursed me after I got away from the Hun temporary prison in Belgium.”
Bill now turned to Johann and made him understand that he was to tell those around the table of the adventures of the three buddies. Mr. Dalken immediately placed a chair for Johann, but that worthy felt he could talk louder and gesticulate better if he stood upon his long staunch legs.
“Agh! Dat wass beeg times—ven we fight so fine for my countree, eh? But now—agh! poor Johann iss no more dan a keetchen boy.”
The great big fellow shook his head despairingly and had it not been that he was deadly in earnest over the complaint, his audience would have laughed at such a dire circumstance as his being a kitchen boy.
“Yah! I tells dat story fine, Beel! Now hear me: Von day in ver early morning, I am sent to find someting to eat fer my mudder and seek seester. I like to belong to a solger’s life but eferyone say I too younk and I got’ta tak care ofer my family. Dis time I hear one farmer got a beeg peeg what he not like the Huns to eat, and he sent me vord to come carry him off and help to keel him.
“Veil, I go so far on one road dat I think pretty soon thet farm he come up and show himself, but I finds onny black smokin’ ruins wherever I go. When I think I been gone far enough on one road I say to myself: ‘Jo, now go dis way—mebbe dat man live down dis way.’ I take him. But I not find a farm—I find plenty Huns what sit and laff and eat pork what dey fry ofer a wood fire.