The old woman looked at them, and nodded her head as both boys saluted her respectfully. They were given chairs, and seemed glad to sit down to rest, being more or less tired after walking.
“What a wonderful day this has been for us, taken in all,” Amos was saying as they looked out of the small window and saw how steadily the rain was coming down.
“We’ll have to mark it with a white stone in our log of this trip abroad to the battlefields of the world war,” Jack asserted.
“Do you think they mean to keep us over night?” asked Amos, in a low tone, as he noted that both man and woman seemed to be stirring around, getting the fire started afresh, as though meaning to do some cooking.
“Oh! yes, he said as much as that,” Jack replied. “There’s an upstairs to the house, and perhaps some sort of loft where we can lie down to sleep. But it’s a poor family, remember. So don’t expect too much of them.”
“I’m willing to put up with almost anything,” hastily observed Amos. “But do you notice how often they glance this way, and then if they see either of us looking, seem confused? Jack, it isn’t curiosity that makes them act so, but something more in the line of fear.”
“They may have a notion that after all we’re German spies, and meaning to get secret evidence that will bring them under the military ban later on. So, while we are here we must be careful not to say or do the least thing to add to their anxious feeling. Let our talk be wholly of America, and of how she feels for the wrongs of poor Belgium.”
Once there was a knock at the door which produced the greatest consternation on the part of both the old man and his better half. He finally answered the summons, and seemed greatly relieved when he found it was only a neighbor who may have seen the two boys go in and felt desirous of knowing who and what they were.
So the dull afternoon wore on to a close. The housewife busied herself over her fire, and the old man talked with the boys. He seemed to grow a little easier in his mind the more he heard them tell about the land beyond the ocean. It was as if some of his secret fears may have been set at rest.
While the supplies of food may have run pretty low in that humble Belgian home, as was the universal case, still the housewife knew how to get the most out of what she had. The appetizing odors that floated to the boys began to make them anxious for the summons to sit down at the table.