Their arrival at the dooryard of the roadside farm was signalized by a frantic clatter. Dogs barked, chickens squawked on their way to their roosts, ducks quacked, and even a calf tethered to a stake in the rear of the house set up a pitiful bleating, as if under the conviction that the dreaded butcher’s cart had arrived, and the last hope of life now hung by a slender thread.
“One thing I’m glad to see,” announced Josh, as they came to a halt amidst all this bustle and clamor.
“What’s that?” asked Hanky Panky, in duty bound.
“The terrible Germans have not come this way so far, that’s sure,” remarked the observing one.
“I’d like you to tell us just how you know that?” demanded the other.
“Shucks! open your eyes, and look around you, my friend. Would it stand to reason that a bunch of hungry soldiers, raiding through an enemy’s country, could pass by, and allow all this fat of the land to exist? Ducks, and chickens, and pigs, and calves would have gone to make up a German feast this night. And like as not the dogs would have been shot in cold blood because being French they had dared to bark at the uniforms of the Kaiser’s men.”
“Guess you’re right there, Josh,” admitted Hanky Panky, easily convinced when the evidence was there before his very eyes.
“Here are the good people of the house come to see what’s broken loose to give their live stock such a scare,” observed Rod just then.
A woman with a tottering, silver-haired old man just behind her, appeared around the corner of the low building. Possibly they had been alarmed by hearing the splutter of the coming motorcycle brigade’s machines, and hesitated about showing themselves. But when Rod advanced toward them, making a courteous salute, and they saw what a frank boyish face he had, somehow they lost all fear.
Arrangements were soon made that assured the lads some sort of entertainment. That they were not the terrible Germans was enough for the good woman of the farm house. In her mind the whole world was divided into two classes just then: enemies and friends; and all who did not have German blood in their veins she looked upon as naturally favoring the Allies.