“Alphonse and Louise dropped flat and lay there hiding their faces in the damp earth. The sweeping searchlight came and went, came and went, then came to go away for good.”
“Oh—oo!” Peggy breathed. “They didn’t get them.”
Just then Tillie sat straight up. “Aunt Alice!” she cried. “We do have a spy on our farm. I saw his face at the window. I really did, just now.” At that same instant the dog Flash growled softly.
Visibly shaken, Alice managed to regain her poise. “Shish!” was all she said. Then she went on with her story.
“When this loyal French girl reached her home where German soldiers now were living, she began making lace and selling it from town to town. What was more important, she was finding friends to help her work as a spy. One was a scientist who could do strange things with chemicals, magnifying glasses, cameras and printing presses. Another was a map maker who in shorthand could write three thousand words with invisible ink on a piece of transparent paper so small Louise could paste it to a spectacle lens and carry it across the line that way.”
“What for?” Tillie breathed.
“So none of the German spies could read it,” Alice explained.
“You see,” she went on, “things were happening over there that great French and English officers needed to know. And Louise could tell them. Once there was a terrible battle. Thousands of Germans were wounded. How many? Louise must find out.
“There was a house close to the railroad track where all the cars filled with wounded soldiers were passing. Someone hid in the dark room. Every time a car passed, she’d tap on the floor, tap, tap, tap. In the next room, seeming to study her lessons, was a school girl.”
“Just like you and me!” Tillie squeezed Peggy’s arm.