THE
OLD MINE’S SECRET

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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“There was Dick, waving his hand tauntingly�—page [18]

THE
OLD MINE’S SECRET

BY
EDNA TURPIN
AUTHOR OF “HONEY SWEET,� “PEGGY OF
ROUNDABOUT LANE,� “TREASURE
MOUNTAIN,� ETC.

FRONTISPIECE BY
GEORGE WRIGHT

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1921,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1921.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.

TO
REBECCA BROCKENBROUGH
AND
TERRY LEE ROBERTS

THE OLD MINE’S SECRET

CHAPTER I

“O-O-OH! oh me-e!� Dick made the sigh very sad and pitiful.

His father did not seem to hear it. He tilted his chair farther back, perched his feet on the porch railing, and unfolded his newspaper.

It was a mild April morning, and the Osborne family had drifted out on the porch,—Mr. Osborne with his papers and Mrs. Osborne with her sewing; Sweet William was playing jackstraws with himself, Patsy sat on the steps with her back to the others, especially Dick, who, however, was pitying himself too much to notice her.

“I always get blamed for everything I do,� he said mournfully, “but David——�

“‘House for War: Vote 373 to 50.’� Mr. Osborne read the headline. “That is the answer to the President’s message four days ago. Now the Senate——�

“Father! If you’ll just let me off to-day, I’ll work from school-out till dark every day next week. I certainly will. Father, please——�

“Richard Randolph Osborne! You are to work your assigned part of the garden to-day, to-day, without further pleas for postponement.� Mr. Osborne’s mild voice and red flabby face stiffened with determination. This was not the first week that Dick had neglected his garden task.

“Yes, sir,� Dick answered meekly, wriggling a little. That was all he could do—wriggle a little—because he was made into a sort of merman by having an old Persian shawl wrapped about him, from the waist down. “I think you might let me off,� he persisted in an undertone; “just this one more time. If mother had patched my trousers last night—if she’d let me put on my Sundays now—I could get that hateful old garden worked this morning. I’ve got something else to do to-day, something awfully important.�

“I’m sorry I forgot, son,� said his mother. “I certainly meant to mend them last night. I was reading, and forgot. I wish you had reminded me.� She took quicker stitches and her thread snarled so that she had to break it and begin again. “I am so sorry,� she repeated in the delicious voice that made her words seem as fresh and sweet as the red roses that fell from the mouth of the fairy-tale maiden.

Mrs. Osborne was a dear, sunny-hearted little woman with dark hair, irregular features, and a vivid, eager face. She loved to read; indeed, she could no more resist a book than a toper could refuse a drink, but she was always so sorry and so ashamed when she neglected home duties that every one except the person who suffered from it forgave her freely.

Patsy, Dick’s twin sister, came now to her mother’s defense. “It’s your fault, Dick,� she said. “It’s all your own fault. If you had locked the bookcase door, it would have reminded her there was something to do. And then she would have thought of the trousers.�

“I forgot,� Dick confessed. That put him clearly in the wrong, and made him the crosser. He turned on his sister, growling: “What business is it of yours, miss? You please let my affairs alone and attend to your own. What are you doing, Patsy?�

He tried to wriggle near enough to see, but Patsy made a face at him and ran into the yard. Dick was such a tease! She was not going to tell him that she had decided to be a poet and was composing a wonderful ballad. How surprised he would be when it came out in the Atlantic or St. Nicholas, with her name in big black letters—Pocahontas Virginia Osborne, as it was in the family Bible. Or would she have a pen-name, like ‘Marion Harland’? If she could think of a lovely original name—— But perhaps she had better finish the poem first.

She perched herself in the swing and chewed her pencil and read over the four lines she had written:

“Johnny was a sailor,

He was brave and bold;

He thought he would make an adventure

To find the North Pole.�

She could not think of anything else to say, so she read that over again; and then again. While inspiration tarried, an interruption came. It took the shape of her small brother William with two of his followers—Hop-o-hop, a lame duck that he had adopted when its hen mother pecked it and cast it off, and Scalawag, a sand-colored, bob-tailed stray dog that had adopted him.

“Hey, Patsy! I think I’ll give you a kiss,� announced Sweet William, raising his fair, serious face to hers. “I think I might give you two kisses. You are so sweet. Patsy,� he went on coaxingly, “wouldn’t you want to lend me a pencil? Just one little minute, to make you a picture of a horse.�

“Oh, Sweet William, you’re such a nuisance!� said Patsy. “I’m awfully busy. How can I ever finish this, if you bother me?�

But she gave him pencil and paper, and sat swinging back and forth, looking idly about the spacious yard where the budding oaks made lacelike shadows, on that April morning.

In the center of the yard was a great heap of bricks. That was the remains of Osborne’s Rest, the family mansion that had been burned in a raid during The War, as those southern Virginians called the War of Secession from which they dated everything. Since then, two generations of Osbornes had dwelt in The Roost, a cottage in one corner of the yard. It was now the home of Patsy, her father and mother, her two brothers, Dick and Sweet William, and a motherless cousin, David Spotswood.

The big front gate opened on The Street, the one thoroughfare of The Village. There were a church, a tavern, two shops, a dozen frame and brick dwellings set far back in spacious grounds, and the county Court-house in a square by itself. Behind the Court-house rambled The Back Way which had once expected to become a street, but remained always The Back Way with only a blacksmith’s shop, a basket-maker’s shed, and a few cabins on it.

A century and a half before, three royal-grant estates, Broad Acres and Larkland and Mattoax, cornered at a stone now on Court-house Green. These plantations had long ago been divided into small farms; but in The Village still lived Wilsons and Mayos and Osbornes who counted as outsiders all whose grandfathers were not born in the neighborhood and the kinship.

While we have been looking about, Sweet William lay flat on the ground, holding his tongue between his teeth, to assist his artistic efforts.

“Look at my horse, Patsy!� he crowed, holding up the paper.

“Hm-m! I don’t call that much like a horse,� observed Patsy.

Sweet William’s face clouded, and then brightened. “Tell you what!� he said. “It’ll be a cow. I’ll kick out one hind leg and put a bucket here. Now! She’s spilt all the milk.�

Patsy laughed; and then one knew that she was pretty, seeing the merry crinkles around her twinkling hazel eyes, and the upward curve of her lips that brought out dimples on her freckled pink cheeks.

“I love you when you laugh, Patsy!� exclaimed Sweet William, hugging her knees. “You may have my picture. And I’ll sit in the swing with you.�

“You and Scalawag and Hop-o-hop may have the swing,� said Patsy. “I’m going in. I’ll finish my poem to-morrow. I want to find out—I think Dick has a secret.�

She jumped out of the swing, gave Sweet William’s ear a “love pinch,� and strolled back to the porch.

“Dick,� she asked in an offhand way, “what are you going to do with that candle you got this morning?�

Dick’s gloom relaxed and he winked tantalizingly.

“You wish you knew,� he said. “But—you’ll—never—find—out. Ah, ha-a-a!�

“Don’t you tell, Mister Dick!� said Patsy. “I don’t want you to tell. I’d rather find out for myself. And I certainly will find out, sir. You just see if I don’t.�

Mr. Osborne still had his nose in his day-old paper; news younger than that seldom, came to The Village. “‘Army plans call for a million men the first year.’ That is a gigantic undertaking, Miranda, and—�

“It certainly is,� she agreed placidly. “Mayo, Black Mayo has bought some more pigeons; and Polly says he’ll not tell what he paid for them, so she knows it’s some absurd sum that he can’t afford.�

“Yes.� Her husband agreed absently. “And a million men means not only men, but arms, equipment, food. Bless my life! Is that clock striking—it can’t be!—is it ten? And I here instead of at the Court-house.� He got up and stuffed the newspaper and a Congressional Record in his pocket.

“What are you going to do, dear?� asked his wife.

“We want to find out if the Board of Supervisors can appropriate money to send our Confederate veterans to the Reunion in June. There have been so many unusual expenses, bridges washed away and that smallpox quarantine, that funds are low. I hope they can raise the requisite amount.�

“Of course they will. They must,� Mrs. Osborne said quickly and positively. “Why, the yearly reunion—seeing old comrades, being heroized, recalling the glorious past—is the one bright spot in their gray old lives.�

“Mr. Tavis and Cap’n Anderson were talking about the Reunion at the post office yesterday,� said Dick. “They are just crazy about having it in Washington. Cap’n has never been there. But he was telling how near he and old Jube Early came to it, in ’64.�

“What an experience it will be, taking peaceful possession in old age of the Capital they campaigned against when they were soldier boys, over fifty years ago!� said Mrs. Osborne. “Certainly they must go. How many are there, Mayo?�

“Nine in our district,� answered her husband. “Last year there were sixteen. Three have died, and four are bedridden.�

“Ah! so few are left; so many have passed on.� Mrs. Osborne glanced through the open door at a portrait, her father in a colonel’s gray uniform. “Of course they must go, our nine old soldiers.�

“Sure!� said Dick. “If there isn’t money enough, we boys can help raise it. Mr. Tavis says he’ll pay me to plant corn, afternoons and Saturdays. I wasn’t thinking about doing it. But our old Confeds mustn’t miss their Reunion.�

“Good boy! that’s the right spirit,� exclaimed Mrs. Osborne.

She adored the memory of her gallant father and of the Confederate cause to which he had devoted himself. The quiet, uneventful years had brought no new deep, inspiring interests to the little Southern community. Its love and loyalty clung to the past. To the children the Lost Cause was a tradition as heroic and romantic as the legends of Roland and Arthur; but it was a tradition linked to reality by the old gray-clad men who had fought with Lee and Jackson. As Jones and Tavis and Walthall, they were ordinary old men, rather tiresome and absurd; but call them “Confederate veterans� and they were transformed to heroes whom it was an honor to serve. Dick, shirking the work that meant food for his family, would toil gladly to send them to their Reunion.

“They must have this, perhaps their last—�

Mrs. Osborne paused, and her husband said: “We’ll manage it; we’ll manage it somehow. If there is a deficit, we may be able to make it up by private subscription. Perhaps I’ll get a case next term of court, and can make a liberal contribution.� He laughed.

Mr. Osborne—called Red Mayo to distinguish him from a dark-haired cousin of the same name, called Black Mayo—was a lawyer more by profession than by practice; there were not enough law crumbs in The Village, he said, to support a sparrow.

He strolled toward the Court-house while Mrs. Osborne took her last hurried stitches. Then she handed the patched trousers to her son, who rolled indoors and put them on. He went into the garden and gloomily eyed the neglected square where peas and potatoes and onions were merely green lines among crowding weeds.

“I certainly can’t finish it this morning,� he growled. “There’s too much to do.�

“If you work hard, you can finish by sundown,� said his cousin, David Spotswood, who was planting a row of beets on the other side of the garden.

“I can’t work after dinner,� said Dick. “I’ve got something else to do. I just can’t finish it to-day.�

“You’d better,� said Patsy, who had followed him into the garden. “When father says ‘Richard’ and shuts his mouth—so! he means business. Say, Dick! What were you getting that candle for? What are you going to do? Let us go with you, Anne Lewis and me, and I’ll help you here.�

“You help!� Dick spoke in his most superior masculine manner. “Girls haven’t any business in gardens. They ought to stay in the house and make bed-quilts. They’re too afraid of dirty hands and freckled faces.�

Patsy flared up and answered so quickly that her words stepped on one another’s heels. “That’s mean and unfair! You know I hate gloves and bonnets, and I just wear them because mother makes me. But anyway, sir, I think they’re nicer than great-grandmother’s shawl for trousers.�

She went back up the boxwood-bordered walk.

“I’ll keep my eyes on you, Mr. Richard Randolph Osborne,� she said to herself. “Where you go to-day, I’ll follow.�

Halfway up the long walk, she came upon Sweet William, sitting on the ground, holding a maple bough over his head.

“Won’t you come to our picnic, Patsy?� he said. “Me and Scalawag are having a loverly picnic in the woods down by Tinkling Water.�

“No, thank you,� said Patsy. “I want to see Anne Lewis about going somewhere after dinner.�

“Where?� asked Sweet William.

“I don’t know—till I find out,� laughed Patsy. “But Anne and I will do that; we certainly will.�

“I wish Anne was staying here,� Sweet William said wistfully.

“So do I,� agreed Patsy. “Easter holiday is too short to divide with Ruth. Oh! I’ll be so glad when it’s summer and Anne comes to stay a long time.�

“It isn’t ever a long time where Anne is,� said Sweet William. “I’m going with you to see her, Patsy, and I’ll have my picnic another day.�

They went off and left Dick raking and weeding and hoeing very diligently; but, working his best, he had not half finished his task when the dinner bell rang. He surveyed the garden with a scowl.

“It’ll take hours and hours to get it done,� he said. “And then it would be too late to go where I’m going. Maybe I can work the potato patch after supper.�

“You can’t,� said David, who had a straightforward way of facing facts.

“Oh! maybe I can,� said Dick, who had a picturesque way of evading them. “You might help me. You might work on it awhile after dinner.�

“Thank you! I’ve something else to do. I’m going to harrow my corn acre. I want to plant it next week,� said David, who was a blue-ribbon member of the Boys’ Corn Club.

At the dinner table the boys were joined by Sweet William, Patsy, and Anne Lewis, a cousin who was spending her Easter holiday in The Village. The two girls watched Dick like hawks, and jumped up from the table as soon as he went out of the dining room. He hurried to the little upstairs room he shared with David that was called the “tumble-up room� because the steps were so steep. Presently he came down and showed off the things he was putting in his pockets—a candle, a box of matches, and a ball of stout twine. He sharpened his hatchet and fastened it to his belt.

“Yah! You wish you knew what that’s for,� he said, with a derisive face at Patsy and then at Anne.

He strutted across the yard toward the front gate, but he was not to march off in undisturbed triumph.

“Dick! uh Dick!� called his mother. “Remember you’ve your garden work to finish.�

“Yes’m.� He scowled, then he said doggedly: “There’s something else I’ve promised myself to do first.�

Anne and Patsy waited only to see that he turned up, not down, The Street; then they ran around The Back Way and came out just behind him at the church; there The Street turned to a road which led past the mill and on to Redville. Dick walked quickly, and the girls hurried after him; then he walked slowly, and they loitered so as to keep just behind him.

“Where are you going?� he turned and challenged them.

“Oh! we might go to the mill to see Cousin Giles, or to Larkland to look at Cousin Mayo’s new pigeons, or to Happy Acres,� answered Patsy.

Dick strode on, and the girls trotted behind him, making amicable efforts at conversation.

“Steve Tavis has gone fishing with John and Baldie Eppes,� Anne remarked. “He said we girls might go, too. But Patsy and I thought there might be something—something more fun to do.�

No answer.

Patsy made an effort. “Dick,� she said, “I hope you’ll finish your garden work to-day. Father’s tired of excuses and he’s made up his mind for punishing. But even if we do get home late, I can help you.�

Silence.

“It’s a mighty nice day,� Patsy went on pleadingly, “to—to do outdoor things. You say yourself I’m as good as a boy to have around. I wouldn’t be in the way at all; and I could hold the candle for you.�

By this time they were at the mill where the Larkland road and the Happy Acres path turned from the highway. Dick kept to the main road and the girls followed. He stopped and faced them.

“You said you were going to the mill, or Larkland, or Happy Acres. Trot along!�

“I said we might go there,� Patsy amended. “Or we might go—’most anywhere. Do let us go with you; please, Dick.�

“Where?�

“Oh! wherever you are going. We’ll not tell.�

“You certainly will not,� he declared; “for a mighty good reason: you are not going to know anything to tell.�

Patsy’s eyes flashed. “We’ll show you,� she said. “We are going to follow you, like your shadow. You know good and well I can run as fast as you. Now take your choice, sir; let us go with you, or give up and toddle home and finish your task so as not to get punished.�

“Hm!� he jeered. “If I’ve got something on hand good enough to take punishment for, it’s too good to spoil with girls tagging along.�

He walked briskly up the road. Anne and Patsy followed him for a silent mile—up and down hills scarred with red gulleys, through woods, by brown plowed fields and green grain land. They passed several log cabins; the Spencer place, an old mansion amid tumbled-down out-buildings; Gordan Jones’s trim new house gay with gables and fresh paint. Then they came to an old farmhouse surrounded by neglected fields.

“Why, that door’s open!� Anne remarked with surprise. “Is somebody living at the old Tolliver place?�

“A new man; Mr. Smith. He came here last winter,� explained Patsy.

“Somebody new in the neighborhood!� laughed Anne. “Doesn’t that seem queer? What sort of folks are they?�

“Um-mm; unfolksy,� said Patsy. “There’s just Mr. Smith, and his nephew Albert that goes to our school. We’ve never got acquainted with Albert. He’s sort of stand-offish; not as if he wanted to be, but as if he were afraid.�

“Afraid of what?� asked Anne.

“Oh! I don’t know. Nothing. I reckon he’s just shy.�

“What sort of man is Mr. Smith?� inquired Anne.

“Ugly; and grins. He’s away from home most of the time. He’s a salesman or agent of some kind. Dick,� Patsy returned to a more interesting subject, “do please tell us what you are going to do.�

“We-ell,� Dick began as if he were about to yield reluctantly; then he interrupted himself eagerly: “Oh! look at that squirrel!�

Their eyes followed his pointing finger, and crying, “Easy marks!� he darted into a dense thicket of pines on the other side of the road. The girls followed quickly, but he made good use of his moment’s start and they caught only glimpses of him here and there behind the trees.

“Run, Anne!� Patsy called presently. “To the left. Here! Let’s head him off!�

They ran around a thick clump of pines to meet him—and he was not there. He did not seem to be anywhere. He had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

“We may as well give up,� Anne sighed at last.

“Yes,� Patsy agreed reluctantly. “I reckon he’s miles away by this time.�

Crestfallen and disappointed, they went back to the road and started slowly down the hill.

Then a red-brown head rose out of a heap of pine brush, so cautiously that it did not disturb the woodpecker drumming on a nearby stump. A pair of merry brown eyes watched the girls till they were at a safe distance; then Dick, to the terror and hasty flight of the woodpecker, scrambled out of the brush heap.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo-oo-oo!� he called deridingly.

Anne and Patsy started and looked back.

“There he is!� groaned Patsy.

Yes, there he was, standing in the middle of the road, waving his hand tauntingly.

“Shall we chase him again?� asked Anne.

“Yes,� said Patsy; and then: “No, it’s no use. He’s too far away; before we could get halfway up the hill, he’d be out of sight again.�

“Oh, well!� laughed Anne. “We don’t care, Patsy-pet. Let’s go to Happy Acres and see what flowers are in bloom.�

They went back to Larkland mill that had been a mill ever since The Village had been a village; crossed a foot bridge over Tinkling Water; and followed the path to the woodland nook they called Happy Acres. Long ago a house had been there, and persistent garden bulbs and shrubs gave beauty and fragrance to the place. One spring, Anne had adopted it and christened it Happy Acres, and she and her friends had made it a little woodland park that was a joy to all the neighborhood. It was fragrant now with a blossoming plum-tree and gay with the pink and scarlet of flowering almond and japonica.

Anne and Patsy plucked a few sprays to carry home the beauty of it, and started down the path for a little visit to their cousin, Giles Spotswood, the miller.

Patsy, who was in front, stopped suddenly. “What’s that?� she whispered.

“It sounds like men quarreling,� Anne whispered back. “Who on earth—�

“Look there!�

Anne crept to Patsy’s side and peeped through the bushes. There were two men on the roadside. One was their cousin, Black Mayo Osborne.

“Who’s that man?� asked Anne.

“Mr. Smith; the new man at the Tolliver place.�

“Ugh! he’s horrid! snarling like a spiteful cur dog!� exclaimed Anne.

The stranger was indeed odd and unpleasant-looking. He had long loose-jointed limbs and such a short body that it seemed as if its only function was to hold his head and limbs together. The two sides of his blond face were quite unlike. The left side was handsome with its straight brow and wide blue eye; but the right eye, half hidden by its drooping lid, slanted outward and down, the tip of the nose turned toward the bulging right nostril, and the mouth drooped at the right corner and ended in a heavy downward line.

“Easy! go easy, my German friend!� Black Mayo’s voice rang out clear and mocking.

“I am not a German; that am I not!� screamed Smith. “I am an American citizen. I can my papers show. I am more American than you. What are your peoples here? Ach! what do they? This morning they did the last cent out of their treasury take, the expenses of old traitors and rebels to pay—�

The sentence was not finished. A quick blow from the shoulder stretched him on the ground.

“Hey! lie there a minute!� cried Black Mayo, with an impish light twinkling in his dark eyes. “Listen! Here’s a tune you’ve got to respect in this part of the world.� He whistled “Dixie� with vim and vigor, over and over again. Then he stepped aside and held out his hand, saying: “Ah, well! You didn’t know any better. Forget it!�

The man glared up at him, without a word.

“Oh! if that’s the way you feel about it—� Mr. Osborne laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and, still whistling “Dixie,� took the road that led to his home at Larkland.

Mr. Smith scrambled to his feet and looked after Black Mayo, from under down-drawn brows, with his thin wide lips writhing like serpents; then he went limping up the road.

The girls turned white amazed faces to each other.

“Ugh!� said Patsy. “Let’s go home. Do—do you reckon he’ll hurt Cousin Mayo?�

“Of course not. He can’t. How can he?� said Anne. After a pause she added: “He certainly will if he can.�

CHAPTER II

EXULTING at the way he had diddled the girls, Dick pranced along the Redville road. He did not meet any one, for it was a fair spring day and the country people were busy; but he saw men and boys he knew, plowing and grubbing, hallooing to their teams and to one another.

About two miles from The Village, Dick turned off on the Old Plank Road. Twenty years before, this had been a highway going through The Village, on its long way to Richmond. Then the railroad was built. It wanted to come through The Village, between court-house and church, but the people rose up in arms. They did not want shrieking, grinding trains, to scare horses and bring in outsiders, nor an iron track parting their homes from their graves in the churchyard. So the railroad went by Redville that was six miles from The Village in summer and three or four times as far in the winter season of ruts and red mud.

After the railway was built, however, the road by Redville station became the thoroughfare; the Old Plank Road was seldom traveled except by negroes who lived in clearings in the Big Woods that covered miles of the rocky, infertile ridge land.

Dick was near one of these clearings, a patch of stumpy land around a log cabin, when he heard a voice calling loudly, “Whoa! Gee! Whoa, I say!�

An old negro was coming up the hill, in a cart drawn by bony, long-horned oxen.

“Hey, Unc’ Isham!� said Dick. “What are you making such a racket for?�

Isham Baskerfield jumped nervously; but when he recognized the speaker, he grinned and said: “Howdy, little marster! howdy! I was jest talkin’ to my oxes. I tuk ’em down to de creek to gin ’em some water.�

“You sounded scared,� commented Dick. “And you looked scared, too.�

“Skeered? Course I aint skeered. Huccome I be skeered?� Isham replied loudly. Then he mumbled: “I aint nuver liked to go down dis road since dat old man—Whar you gwine, Marse Dick?� he interrupted himself. “Don’t you fool ’round dat lowermos’ cabin. Dat’s�—he breathed the name in a whisper—“Solomon Gabe’s house, dat is. An’ he can shore cunjer folks.�

Dick laughed. “So that’s what you are afraid of. You—�

“Sh—sh, little marster!� The old negro looked around, as if afraid of being overheard. He stopped his oxcart in front of his cabin. “I got to git my meal bag,� he said. “Lily Belle emptied it to make a hoecake for dinner, so I got to go to mill an’ git some corn ground ’fore supper time. I don’t worry ’bout nothin’ long as my meal bag can stan’ up for itself, but when it lays down I got to stir about. What you doin’, Marse Dick, strayin’ so fur from home?�

“Oh! I’m just strolling ’round,� Dick answered vaguely.

“Umph! When I fust see you, I thought you mought be gwine fishin’; but you aint got no fishin’ pole.�

“No use to carry a pole in the woods, when you’ve got a knife,� said Dick. “Where is a good place to go?�

“Uh! any o’ dem holes in Mine Creek below de ford,� said the old man; “taint good fishin’ ’bove thar.�

“O. K.!� said Dick. “If I catch more fish than I can carry, I’ll leave you what I can’t tote home.�

“Yas, suh; yas, suh! I reckon you will,� chuckled the old negro.

Dick went on down the road. But his merry whistle died on his lips as he passed Solomon Gabe’s cabin.

It stood, like a dark, poisonous fungus, under low-branching evergreens in a dank, somber hollow a little away from the road. The squat old log hovel had not even a window; the door stood open, not hospitably, but like the yawning mouth of a pit.

Dick ran on down the road and came presently to Mine Creek, a little stream straggling along a rocky, weed-fringed bed. Near the ford, there was a pile of rotting logs and fallen stones that had once been a cabin. He left the road here, but he did not take Isham’s advice and go down Mine Creek. Instead, he went up stream, following a vague old path that presently crossed the creek and climbed a little hill. There was a small enclosure fenced in with rotting rails. In and around the enclosure were piles of earth and broken stones of such ancient date that saplings and even trees were growing on them.

Dick paused on the hilltop and looked around cautiously. No one was in sight; and all was still except for the chatter of squirrels and the drumming of woodpeckers. He jumped over the old fence and advanced to the edge of a well-like opening. Again he stopped and looked around. Then he took out of his pocket a ball of string. He tied a stone to one end of it; dropped the stone into the hole; played out his line until it rested on the bottom; and tied a knot in the string at the ground level.

Then he went into the woods and cut down a hickory sapling; he measured it with his line and cut it off at the top; and trimmed the branches, leaving stout prongs at intervals of about eighteen inches. Every now and then, he stopped and looked about, to make sure that he was not observed. After nearly an hour’s work, he finished an improvised ladder which he carried to the hole and slid over the edge. Then with a final sharp lookout, he descended.

He found himself in a pit about ten feet in diameter, heaped knee-deep with twigs and leaves swept there by winds of many winters. At one side there was an opening four feet wide and five or six feet high, the mouth of a tunnel that was roofed with logs supported on the sides by stout rough timbers.

Dick lighted his candle and started down this tunnel. But after a few steps he turned back, set down his candle, and pulled his ladder into the hole.

“Now,� he said. “Anybody’s welcome to look in here. I reckon they’ll not find little Dick.�

He picked up his candle and went along the tunnel. Now and then it dropped down abruptly, but there were timbers and old ladders that made the way passable. At last the tunnel broadened into a room about thirty feet square and high enough to stand upright in. This room also was roofed with logs and poles propped by stout timbers of white oak. Here and there were heaps of earth and stones and piles of rotting timbers; on the left side there was another tunnel.

Dick hesitated a minute, then he muttered: “I reckon I’ll find it here. But I’ll look around first.�

He followed the lower tunnel. It, too, slanted downward, but it was longer than the upper one and had several short spurs. It ended in a pit a dozen feet deep, that had an old ladder in it. Dick climbed down and looked around, then he went back to the main room and began examining the clay and stone between the supporting timbers.

“It certainly seems as if they would have left some,� he said earnestly to himself. “I ought to see little bits sparkling somewhere. If they were ever so little, they would show me where to work.�

His tour of investigation brought him at last to a corner where there was a heap of earth and stones. He scrambled on top of the mound,—and, in a twinkling, he landed at the bottom of a hole.

For a minute he was stunned. Then he staggered to his feet, lighted the candle which had been extinguished in his fall, and looked around. He had fallen into a pit ten or twelve feet deep—probably an opening of the mine that had been abandoned with the failure of a vein that was being followed. The place had been covered with a layer of logs and poles on top of which earth and stones had been thrown. The rotting timbers—how many years they had been there!—had given way under his weight.

How was he to get out? The walls of the pit, stone in one place and clay on the other sides, were steep, almost perpendicular.

After considering awhile, he set his candle on a projecting rock, took out his knife, and dug some crannies for finger-holds and toe-holds, to serve as a ladder. But when he put his weight in them and tried to climb up, the clay slipped under his feet and he slid back. He made the holes larger and deeper, but after he mounted two or three steps he slid back again; and again; and again. At last he gave up this plan. Anyway, if he could climb to the top, how could he get out? He had crashed through the middle of the pit, and the broken downward-slanting poles barred the sides.

Must he stay here and wait for help to come? Help? What help? No one knew where he was. Oh! how he regretted now his careful plans to put every one off the trail. Anne and Patsy could only say that they had last seen him on the main road to Redville. And Isham thought he had gone down Mine Creek.

If only he had left the ladder in place, there would be a chance that when they missed him and made search, they would look in the mine. But he had taken that chance away from himself by pulling the ladder into the pit.

He must dig his way out. He must! There was no other way of escape. He selected a place that seemed free from rocks, and began to hack at the wall. He toiled till his arms ached and his hands were sore and blistered. It was a slow and painful task, but he was making progress. He piled up loose rocks and stood on tiptoe, so as to reach higher on the wall. In spite of his weariness and his tormented hands, his spirits rose.

“A tight place like this is lots of fun—after you get out. Won’t Dave and Steve pop their eyes when I tell ’em about it?�

He laughed and, with renewed vigor, drove his knife into the hard clay. There was a sharp scratch and a snap. Something fell, click! on a stone. It was his knife blade, broken against a rock that extended shelf-like above him, and formed an impassable barrier. All these hours of work and pain were wasted. He must begin again and dig out in another place; or try to, and perhaps run against rock again. And with this broken knife!

He groaned and looked around.

“O-oh!� he gave a sharp, startled cry. His candle! Only an inch of it was left. Oh! he must get out! How terrible it would be here in the pitch-black, shut-in dark!

He seized a broken bit of timber for a makeshift spade, and gave a hurried stroke. Alas! The old timber snapped in two, bruising and cutting his hands cruelly. He threw aside the useless fragment and then, as if he had lost the power of motion, he stood staring at his bit of candle that shortened with every passing second.

He pulled himself together. He must view every foot, every inch of the pit, so that he could work to purpose in the dark, not just dig, dig, dig, and get nowhere. He scrutinized the wall, noting every angle and projection; then he looked up, and studied the position of every log, every broken pole. For the first time, he observed a log that did not extend across the pit; its end was about two feet from the wall. Ah! perhaps, perhaps—

He jerked the string out of his pocket, made a slip noose, and threw it at the end of the log; the noose fell short. He threw it again; and again it went aside. The next time, it caught a broken pole, and to get it off he had to poke and push with a piece of timber for two or three minutes—minutes that seemed hours as he glanced fearfully at the flickering candle. He threw the noose again; and at last it went over the log. He tried to pull it along. He wanted to get it near the middle, free of the broken poles, and pull himself up by it, if—oh! how he prayed it was!—stout enough to bear his weight; but now it was fast on a knot and he could not move it.

He glanced at the candle. It was a mere bit of wick in a gob of grease; every flicker threatened to be its last. He could not wait any longer! he must do something! something! He would pull himself up to the end of the log and try to break through the poles.

As he pulled, the log began to move. Ah! If he could pull the end into the pit, it would be a bridge to climb out on. He jerked with all his might, and it moved, slid, slipped downward; the end caught against a projecting rock about four feet from the top; there it held fast.

The candle flame flared and dropped and—no, it was not out; not yet.

Dick jumped up and caught hold of the log. The movement fanned the failing light; it spurted and went out. No matter now! He had firm hold of the log. He scrambled up on it and managed presently to push and pull himself between the broken poles. At last, at last, thank Heaven! he was out of that awful pit.

He staggered along, feeling his way by the wall, making one ascent after another, until a light glimmered before him and he reached the entrance well. He raised his ladder and climbed out. Then his strength gave way. He dropped down on a pile of leaves at the mine entrance, and lay there, gazing blankly at the blue sky shining beyond the fretwork of budding branches.

Suddenly he began to laugh. He sat up and slapped his knees. “I’ll pass it on to them,� he said. “I’ll cover up that hole, and I’ll take Dave and Steve there—after I find it—and let them tumble in without a light. Then I’ll go off and pretend I don’t hear them, and—oh! I’ll let them stay there long enough for them to think, to feel—� His face was suddenly solemn. “I might have stayed there and died. Died!�

He got up and dragged the ladder out, and hid it under the leaves piled against the fence.

“I reckon I ought not to expect to find it right away,� he sighed. “I’ve got to keep on looking and looking and looking. And I say I will! But I need some real tools. A knife, specially a broken one, isn’t much force for mining.�

He went toward home, but he was in no hurry to complete the journey at the end of which were his unfinished task and his father. Instead of going down The Street, he took The Back Way behind the Court-house, and slipped around the corner of the blacksmith shop.

Mr. Mallett, the blacksmith, with only his corncob pipe for company, was sitting in a chair tilted against the door jamb of the grimy log cabin. He was a vivacious little man with blue eyes and dark hair, and a face that would have been sallow if it had been visible under the grime. All the Village boys liked to loaf at his shop, but Dick had now a special reason for visiting him.

“Mr. Mallett—� Dick began.

The smith started. “You young imp!� he exclaimed. “What do you mean by jumping at me, sudden as a jack-in-the-box? I wasn’t thinking ’bout you—and here you are, close enough to hear my very thoughts. I never see such a boy. Why, what’s the matter with your face?�

“I fell down. It got scratched,� Dick explained briefly. “Mr. Mallett, I was thinking about the Old Sterling Mine, near your great-grandfather’s shop. Do you reckon it was silver, real silver, he got there?�

“Do I reckon? No, I don’t! I know it, sure and certain as I’m setting here in this chair, smoking my corncob pipe. Aint I heard my father tell time and again what his granddad told him? Why, my father could remember him good. He was a little quick man with blue eyes and black hair—we all get our favor from him. He never did learn to talk like folks over here; he always mixed his words and gave ’em curious-sounding twists. He come from France, one of Lafayette’s soldiers he was.�

“Why didn’t he go back with Lafayette?� asked Dick. “I should think he’d have been lonesome here, away from his own home and folks.�

“Certainly he was lonesome,� said Mr. Mallett. “My father said, when he was old and child-like, he’d set in the corner, jabbering French by the hour, with tears dripping down his face.�

“I don’t see why he stayed here,� persisted Dick.

“He just stayed and kept staying,� said the smith. “Maybe that old silver mine had something to do with it. He was always expecting to get out a fortune. He come with the Frenchers to chase Cornwallis, and they stopped here, two or three days, to mend shoes and get victuals.

“The old Mr. Osborne that owned Larkland in them days see what a good blacksmith my great-grandad was, and told him when the war was over to come back here and he should have a home. So he did, and the squire helped him get some of the old glebe land, and he married Mr. Osborne’s overseer’s daughter. He had a smithy on the Old Plank Road by Mine Creek. I reckon you know the place.�

Dick nodded. He did not say he had been there that very afternoon.

“And he found silver on that hill. My grand-daddy used to tell us children about seeing his father getting silver out of the ground and beating it on his anvil with his sledge hammer. And Black Mayo that’s always finding out something ’bout everything, he found them old reecord papers.�

“And they proved about the silver mine?� asked Dick.

“Certainly they did,� asserted Mr. Mallett. “Would folks try a man in law court for making money out of silver he didn’t have? Great-granddad didn’t deny making of it. He just said he wasn’t making no false coins. He was hammering out sterling pure silver. That’s why they call it the Sterling Mine. And he was making pieces like Spanish six shilling pieces—our folks counted money by shillings in them days—and was giving them, in place of what they called alloy; he was giving better and purer money than the law. And what could folks say to that? Why, nothing; for it was the truth.�

“And so they didn’t punish him?� asked Dick.

“Punish him? What for? For doing better than the law of the land? No, sirree!�

“I don’t reckon he got out all the silver,� said Dick, more to himself than to Mr. Mallett.

“Course not! Some was got out in my father’s day, by the Mr. Mayo that owned the land before The War.�

“How did they get it out?� asked Dick.

“Dug it out with tools, of course. Aint there the old picks and sledges and things, setting there in that shed, that my father made for them? And Mr. Mayo—�

“Are they—�

Dick tried to interrupt, but Mr. Mallett went on with what he had to say: “He aint made much out of it. They say it was what they call ‘free silver’, and great-granddad chanced to strike where it was rich. It petered out, and silver was so scarce and the rock so hard it didn’t pay to work the mine. Some folks say that. There was a tale that the manager wasn’t trying to make it pay; he wanted to get the mine for himself. He tried to buy it. But he didn’t. He died. Anyway, The War came, and ’twasn’t worked any more.�

“Yes.� Dick accepted the fact that The War ended everything, even the worth of the silver mine. “It does seem, if it was real silver, we could see it there now,� he said thoughtfully.

“Shucks!� Mr. Mallett got up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Course they took out all in sight. Folks would have to dig for any more they got.�

“And the tools; will you—� Dick checked himself. If he asked for the tools now, Mr. Mallett would guess what he was planning to do and somehow all The Village would know before sunset. He must wait and manage to get them, without betraying his purpose.

Mr. Mallett was looking at the westering sun. “Fayett ought to be home,� he said. “He went to Redville, and he was to be back in time to help me with a little work.�

“Fayett!� exclaimed Dick. “Why, I didn’t know he came home for Easter.�

“Yes,� said Mr. Mallett. “He’s mighty stirred up ’bout this war. What have we got to do with Europe’s war that started with the killing of a little prince in a country I’d never heard tell of? But Fayett’s got a notion in his head— Here! I’ve got to fix some rivets. Don’t you want to blow the bellows?�

“I wish I had time,� said Dick. “I’ve got to go home. I—I haven’t finished my garden work.�

“Then I reckon you’ll save it for another day,� said the smith. “Sun’s ’most down.�

Its long rays lay like a red-gold band across The Street, as Dick started home, wishing—too late!—that he had finished his garden task and postponed his adventuring to another day. Seeing his father on the porch, the truant slipped behind the boxwood at the edge of the walk. But Mr. Osborne called, “Dick!� and then more sternly, “Richard!�

It was useless to pretend not to hear.

“Sir!� Dick answered meekly.

“Have you completed your garden work?�

“Not—not quite, sir,� said Dick. “I am just going to it now, sir. I can get a lot done before dark. And I’ll get up soon Monday morning, and finish it, sir, indeed I will.�

“My son,—� Mr. Osborne spoke in a magisterial voice and took Dick by the arm.

Just then the front gate clicked, and Black Mayo came up the walk.

“War has been declared,� he said without a word of greeting. “War! The United States has declared war with Germany.�

Red Mayo dropped Dick’s arm. “How’d you hear?�

“I met Fayett Mallett coming from Redville. He’d heard the news, if we can call it news. We knew it was coming.�

“Of course; it was inevitable. We knew that the minute we read the President’s War Message. He held off as long as he could.�

“Yes. Now the War Resolution has passed Congress and the President has signed it.�

Dick stood listening a minute, then slipped indoors just as his mother came out.

“What are you talking about?� she asked. “What is the matter?�

“War!� said her husband. “The United States is in the War, Miranda.�

Sweet William was at his mother’s elbow. He spoke in a puzzled little voice. “I thought The War was done. I thought the Confedacy was overrun.�

“This is another war, son,� laughed Mr. Osborne. “This is war with Germany.�

CHAPTER III

JUST then Emma came to the door. Emma was the Osbornes’ old servant, brown and plump as one of her own baked apple dumplings, and as much a part of the family as the tall clock in “the chamber.�

“Supper is ready, Miss M’randa, an’ you-all come right away, please’m,� she said. “De muffins is light as a feather. Come on an’ butter ’em. If you-all will live on corn bread, please’m eat it hot.�

“Poor Emma!� laughed Mrs. Osborne. “She cannot reconcile herself to our food program.�

“I tell Emma ’bout the Belgians,� complained Sweet William. “But she says ‘them folks is too far off for her to bother ’bout; corn bread don’t set good on her stomach; and she’s going to eat what she likes, long as she can get it.’ And, mother, she has light bread and hot biscuits for herself every day, and—�

“Sh-sh, son boy!� said Mrs. Osborne. “Emma doesn’t know any better, and we do. Come, Mayo, and Mayo. Come to the hot corn muffins!�

“I ought to go home,� said Black Mayo. “Polly’ll be expecting me.�

“Indeed she will not,� said Mrs. Osborne. “Polly never expects you till she sees you coming in the gate. How is she, and how are your pigeons? I understand they are a part of your family now. Of course you’ll stay to supper, Mayo. Patsy, tell Emma to put another plate on the table.�

A visit from their Cousin Mayo, always a delight, was now especially welcome to Dick because it postponed, perhaps prevented, a disagreeable interview with his father. He slipped to his place and quietly devoted himself to the hot muffins, cold ham, and damson preserves.

“Why, Dick! What have you done to your face?� asked his mother.

“Nothing. It got scratched,� he mumbled, glancing at his father.

But Mr. Osborne was not thinking of the garden; he was about to present to his family an amazing piece of news. He prepared for it by an impressive “Ahem!� with his eyes fixed on Black Mayo.

“A client came to my office to-day,� he said solemnly.

“Really, Mayo!� exclaimed his wife.

“What is a client?� asked Sweet William.

“Who disturbed the hoary dust of your sanctum?� asked Black Mayo.

“Well may you inquire!� said the Village lawyer. “You are responsible for his coming.�

“I?� There was a look of blank astonishment, followed by a peal of laughter. “You don’t mean to say that scoundrel Smith—�

“Yes. He wants to take action against you for assault and battery.�

“What is a client?� Sweet William asked again.

“What in the world are you talking about?� inquired Mrs. Osborne.

“Oh, I reckon I know.� Patsy eagerly aired her knowledge. “That Smith, the new man at the Tolliver place, quarreled with Cousin Mayo, and Cousin Mayo knocked him down. We saw it, Anne and I.�

“Oh, Princess Pocahontas! Are you and Lady Anne taking the witness stand against me?� Black Mayo said in mock reproach. “Well, it’s true.�

Mrs. Osborne gave a little exclamation of horror. “Oh, Mayo!� she said, frowning at her husband. “I’ve begged you not to let outside people buy land around here. And now Mayo’s had to knock one of them down.�

“But, Miranda dear, when a man sells his farm and the purchaser comes to get me to look up the title—�

“You just ought to tell him we don’t want him here,� said Mrs. Osborne. “What is the use of being a lawyer if you can’t put some law on outsiders to keep them from spoiling The Village?�

The two men laughed.

Then Black Mayo said: “I suppose he told you about it, Mayo. The ‘I saids’ and ‘he saids’?�

“Yes; oh, yes!�

“H’m! I hope you’ll make him pay you a good fat fee for the case.�

“Fee!� Red Mayo stared in amazement. “Assuredly you don’t think I’d accept his dirty money! Case! I informed him he had none.�

“But I did knock him down.�

“Of course you did. When he repeated what he said, I’d have knocked him down myself, if he hadn’t been in my own office. I told him if The Village heard such talk, he’d be tarred and feathered and drummed out of the community. Then I ordered him out of my office.�

“And that is how you treat your rara avis, a client!� said Black Mayo.

“What is a client?� repeated Sweet William, whose questions were always answered because he never stopped asking till they were.

“A client, young man, is the golden-egg goose that a lawyer tries to lure into his coop,� Black Mayo explained. “One fluttered to your father and he shooed it away.�

“I wish I had a goose that laid gold eggs,� said Sweet William. “I wouldn’t kill it, like the silly man in that story.�

“Perhaps I can find one and trade it to you for Hop-o-hop,� suggested his cousin.

Sweet William considered and shook his head. “Hop-o-hop couldn’t get on without me,� he said gravely.

“Ah, it’s a family failing,� laughed Black Mayo, as they left the table. “None of you is willing to pay the price for the goose.�

The evening was so mild that they settled themselves again on the porch. The men resumed their discussion of the war; David pored over a bulletin about corn; Dick snuggled down in a corner with “The Days of Bruce�; Anne and Patsy brought out their Red Cross knitting, and whispered and giggled together. Sweet William put a stool beside his mother’s chair and cuddled against her knee, with Scalawag at his feet.

Mrs. Osborne left the discussion of public affairs to the menfolks. She was intent on her own task, the making out of a program for the Village Literary Society. What pleasant meetings they would have, reading about the Plantagenet kings, supplementing Hume’s history with Waverley novels and Shakespeare plays. She smiled and folded her paper.

As the twilight deepened, Dick shut his book and grinned at the girls.

“Too bad not to have your company on my walk to-day, after you promised it, too!�

“Oh! we thought of a nicer place to go, where we wouldn’t scratch our faces,� said Anne.

“We’ll go with you some day, after you tear down all the barbed wire and briers,� said Patsy.

“I dare you!� Dick defied them.

“You say that because you know I’m going away so soon,� said Anne.

“You’re coming back in June. I dare and double dare you for then,� replied Dick. “I’ll be going to this place—oh! right along.�

“All right,� said Anne. “We’ll follow you; see if we don’t. We’ll not take a dare; will we, Patsy-pet?�

Their bickering was interrupted by the approach of guests. Three men strolled across the yard—Giles Spotswood, the cousin from the mill; Will Blair, another cousin, who kept the Village post office; and old Mr. Tavis, a villager outside the cousinship.

“We saw Black Mayo here, and we dropped in to talk over the news,� said Mr. Blair. “Giles says Fayett Mallett heard at Redville that the United States has declared war. That’s what comes of sinking American ships; eh, Mayo?�

“Yes,� answered Black Mayo; “the German sinking of American ships was the overt act which brought on this war, just as the Stamp Tax brought on the Revolution. But at bottom, in both cases, the real cause is the same: it’s a fight against a despotic government for liberty and human rights.�

“It’s strange the Germans kept up submarine fighting after the United States’ protests,� said Mr. Blair; “getting another powerful enemy.�

“I reckon they count on winning the war with U-boats before the United States gets over there with both feet,� answered Black Mayo. “But I’ll bet on the British Navy; it’s saved the Allies so far.�

“You said the Belgians saved them by that ten days of defense that gave the French and British time to come,� said David.

“You told me the French saved them by driving the Germans back at the battle of the Marne,� said Dick.

“Oh! but you said the stubborn retreat of that first little British army was a real victory that made possible the Marne victory,� Patsy reminded him.

“Well, well! a good deal of saving is necessary; and maybe the old United States will jump in and do the final saving.�

“The French and British are pushing forward now,� said Mr. Blair. “Yesterday’s paper says——�

The men discussed the war news in an interested but remote way, just as they had discussed plagues in India, famines in China, the Boer War. Their sympathies were as wide as humanity; but, after all, these things did not touch them, really and personally, as did the death of Joe Spencer’s little daughter or the burning of a negro cabin with a baby in it. No one said “we� about the war; it was always “they.�

“What do you reckon they will do?� asked Mr. Spotswood. “Will they send an army over, do you think?�

“Oh, no!� Red Mayo answered confidently. “The war will be over before they could send men abroad, even if they had a trained army ready to start. They’ll lend the Allies money; they’ll give some—large amounts, millions, no doubt. And they’ll supply food and munitions; they must hustle around and get ships.�

“The main job will be to get the food to send,� said Mr. Spotswood. “There’s an alarming shortage of grain. I never saw it so scarce and high, since I’ve been milling. The first war work is the farmers’, to raise a bumper crop.�

“Then I’m in war work, father,� said David. “I’m going to beat the record on my corn acre this year.�

Dick laughed. “A poor war worker! Not even a one-horse farmer, just a one-acre boy!�

“My one-acre boy multiplied by hundreds of thousands makes the Boys’ Corn Club a big thing,� said Mr. Spotswood. “Why aren’t you in it, Dick?�

“I’ve got something better to do,� said Dick, confidently and mysteriously.

“Isn’t it strange the Germans don’t see they are beaten?� said Mr. Blair.

“Man, man! What are you talking about?� Black Mayo exclaimed. “Beaten? In three years of war, German soil has been trampled by enemy feet only once, those few days in that first August when the French invaded Alsace. I fear there’s a hard struggle and dark days ahead.�

This speech amazed every one.

“Why, Cousin Mayo! Can’t the United States whip the world?� exclaimed David.

“Aren’t most of the nations against Germany?� asked Dick.

“Oh, yes! A score of nations are united against Germany and her sister autocracies, Austria-Hungary and Turkey and Bulgaria.�

“Is Germany so much the best fighter?� David wanted to know.

“No! But she has the inside lines, and she was ready for war. For nearly forty years she was preparing for ‘the day,’ while the rest of the world was busy with works of peace.�

“Didn’t the other countries have armies and navies, too?� David persisted.

“No country ever built up such a perfect war machine as Germany,� said Mr. Osborne. “Every point was prepared. Optical and dye experts produced an inconspicuous gray-green uniform; engineers constructed the Kiel Canal and a network of railroads leading to Belgium and France; scientists captured nitrogen from the air for explosives and fertilizers, and devised Zeppelins, huge guns, submarines, and poison gas; experts made war plans; officers were drilled to carry them out with soldiers trained by years of service. And the minds of people were prepared—abroad by propaganda, and at home by patriotic-sounding talk about ‘the seas must be free’ and ‘we demand our place in the sun.’ Even Kuno——� He paused and then said to himself, “I wonder where Kuno is!�

“Kuno?� said Red Mayo, questioningly.

“Kuno Kleist, a German friend of mine with whom I tramped through Mexico. He was coming home with me, but he had news that his mother was ill, so he went back to Germany. Such a clever, merry, kind-hearted fellow he was; confident that the eternal jubilee of peace and brotherhood was at hand, ‘made in Germany,’ by his Socialist brethren.�

Mr. Blair laughed. “Now we are seeing what is really ‘made in Germany’ by your friend Kuno Kleist and the others.�

Black Mayo shook his head. “Not Kuno, not the will and heart of him. They may have his body—I hope not, I hope not—as a cog in this terrible military machine, crushing helpless nations and people with its awful policy of frightfulness.�

“They ought all to be killed, them German scoundrels ought,� wheezed old Mr. Tavis. “They ought to be treated like they treat the Belgians and them other people Will Blair reads us about in his newspaper.�

“No and no!� Black Mayo said emphatically; then he went on, looking not at Mr. Tavis, but at David and Dick: “The worst thing that could happen to the world, to us, would be to be infected by the germ of hate.�

“But the Germans do such mean things, Cousin Mayo. How can we not hate them?� Patsy looked up with a frown. “Father read in the paper to-day that two more relief ships have been sunk, ships loaded with food for the starving Belgians.�

“And I gave all my money to buy it,� said Sweet William, indignantly. “I’m saving my sugar for the poor little Belgians. Do you reckon the Germans’ll sink that, too?�

“Relief ships!� said David. “Why, they sink hospital ships, with wounded soldiers and doctors and nurses; and ships with women and babies. Remember the Lusitania!�

“I think we ought to hate them,� said Anne.

“No, dear, no,� said Black Mayo. “We ought to fight fair and hard and without hate, for our own rights and the rights of all people, the Germans, too. Why, the German people had no voice in making this war. It was declared by the kaiser without consulting the Reichstag in which the people are represented.

“Remember, children, most wars are made by governments, against the wishes and interests of the people. War is a disaster, a scourge; war, more than famine, is the seven blasted ears of corn, the seven lean-fleshed kine, destroying the full and the well-favored. All the waste and woe of this World War will be worth while if they make people realize the horror and wickedness of war and put an end to it forever.�

“You are talking over their heads,� laughed Red Mayo.

“I am not sure of that,� said Black Mayo, looking at David’s thoughtful face. “And if I am, it is not a bad thing for young folks to have things above them to grow up to.�

“Dick, get a chair for Cousin Alice Blair,� said Mrs. Osborne, as a fat, smiling woman waddled up the path. “She likes the big rocker. Get two chairs, son. There’s Miss Fanny coming down The Street, and she’ll stop to find out what we are talking about.�

Sure enough, Miss Fanny Morrison turned in at the gate. She was the Village seamstress, a blunt-featured, blunt-mannered, kind-hearted woman who lived with an invalid sister in a cottage across the street from the Osborne home.

“I saw you-all out here and I just had to come in,� she said. “Oh! you’re talking about this war. Is it really true that the United States is in it? Isn’t it awful? War is a terrible thing. I certainly am glad I don’t live in a country that is in it, I mean, really in it. My mother said that during The War they used to——� She carried the conversation away from the war that was convulsing the world, to their “The War,� fought before they were born.

“Did the supervisors appropriate money for our veterans to go to the Reunion, Mayo?� Mrs. Osborne asked presently.

“The treasury’s almost empty,� answered her husband. “They gave what they had. And we started a subscription to make up the deficit.�

“We can raise part of the money by selling lunches on the Green during court week,� said Mrs. Osborne.

Patsy spoke quickly. “Oh, no, mother! You forget I told you the school’s going to serve lunches that week for the Red Cross.�

Mrs. Osborne turned a surprised, indignant face to her daughter. “Why, my dear! Aren’t you patriotic enough to give up any other plans for the sake of our dear old Confederate soldiers?�

Patsy hung her head, with a submissive mumble.

Sweet William, now nestling against his mother’s knee, put a caressing hand on her cheek to demand attention.

“Mother, is Virginia the United States, too?� he inquired.

“Virginia the United States?� repeated his mother.

“Virginians used to be accused of thinking so, son,� said Mr. Osborne, laughing. “It is the general opinion that our State is a part of the Union; it’s so on the map.�

“Then if Virginia is in the United States, we are, too; aren’t we, father?�

“We certainly are, son; we are whatever Virginia is,� declared Mr. Osborne.

“Then we are in this war.� Sweet William imparted the information solemnly, as his own special discovery. “Virginia’s the United States, and we are Virginia; and so we are in the war!�

“It sounds reasonable, son,� remarked his father, with a dry chuckle, “but you are the first of us who has thought of it.�

While they were laughing over Sweet William’s great discovery, two men, one leading a horse, turned from The Back Way into The Street and came toward the Osborne home.

Black Mayo jumped up.

“There’s Jack Mallett bringing Rosinante,� he said. “I left her at the shop to be shod, and told him I’d be back in ten minutes.�

“We all know the length of your ‘ten minutes,’� laughed Mrs. Osborne.

“It’s your fault, Miranda, all your fault,� Black Mayo turned on her. “You asked me to stay to supper; and you know I never know when to go home.�

By this time, Mr. Mallett and his son were at the steps, receiving a cordial greeting. They were a little circle of friends, gentlefolks and seamstress and blacksmith, who had grown up together in The Village.

As children and men and women, in school and shop and church, they played and worked and worshipped together. Each stood on his own merits, and only old negroes spoke slightingly of “poor white trash.� But the class lines were there, as deep or even deeper than when they were marked by wealth and land and slaves. An Osborne or Wilson or Mayo was—oh, well! an Osborne or Wilson or Mayo, and not a Tavis or Jones or Hight.

“I’m awfully sorry, Jack——� began Black Mayo, going to get his horse.

“Oh! that’s all right,� interrupted Mr. Mallett. “I was shutting up the shop and I saw you here, so I thought I’d bring the mare. She don’t like to stand tied.�

“Thank you, Jack.�

“Come in, Jack; come in, you and Fayett, and sit awhile,� said Red Mayo, heartily.

“No, Red; no, Miss Miranda, thank you,� replied Mr. Mallett. “I can’t set down. I’ve got to go straight home. I promised my old woman I would.� But he tarried to share his news with them. “You’ve been talking ’bout the war, I reckon. Fayett heard to-day at Redville the Congress has voted for it. And—what do you think?—he’s going to give up agricultural school and be a soldier.�

“Fayett a soldier!� exclaimed Dick, looking at his neighbor with amazement and a sort of awe.

The elders, too, were exclaiming and questioning, looking at the boy whom they had known all his life as if he had suddenly become a stranger. That a Village boy was going as a soldier did not bring home to them the fact that the World War had become an American war; it merely seemed to carry him away from them, making him a part of that mighty overseas conflict.

“Is Fayett really going?� asked Miss Fanny Morrison.

“Well, he wants to, and my old woman and me’ve been talking it over and we’ve done both give our consent; so I reckon it’s settled,� was the answer.

“How could his mother agree?� As Mrs. Osborne asked the question, her hold tightened on the man child drowsing at her knee.

“He told us he felt he ought to go, and she says she wouldn’t stand in the way of anything he thought he ought to do,� Mr. Mallett said quietly. “And if his mother can give him up, I’ve got no right to hold him back.�

“But, Fayett,—� Mr. Blair turned to the boy—“I don’t understand your wanting to go. You were always such a peaceable fellow.�

“Yes, sir,� said the lad, as if that were a reason for him to fight in this war. “And now that the United States is in it, it seems like I must go. Of free will. Not waiting to be sent.�

He spoke as an American, but those listening remembered that he was the great-great-grandson of a Frenchman.

Black Mayo turned to Mr. Mallett. “Well, well, well! Your great-grandfather came here to fight for American liberty, and now your son is going to France to fight for freedom there. Wouldn’t that old Mallett of the mine be proud of Fayett? Ah, it’s fine to act so that our ancestors might be proud of us! God bless you, boy!�

He wrung Fayett’s hand, man to man, and then took his bridle rein.

“Thank you, Jack,� he said again. “Good night, folks. It’s ten minutes to eight. Polly is locking the back door this minute, and when I get there she’ll be settled with her knitting. Come to see us, all of you.�

He paused in the yard and said, “Mayo, a word with you.� Then he said in an undertone: “It’s best to keep quiet about what happened to-day. Tell Anne and Patsy so. That fellow Smith doesn’t understand how we feel about things. If his foolish speech gets abroad, it will injure him. Maybe I was a little too quick on the trigger.�

He swung into the saddle and the roan mare galloped away.

While the other guests were saying good night, Dick slipped to his bedroom, avoiding a private interview with his father.

“He won’t punish me to-morrow,� he said. “It’s Sunday, Easter Sunday.�

Easter Sunday! And America, that had striven so hard for peace, had been whirled into the red World War.

But it was not of the nation that Mrs. Osborne was thinking as she put Sweet William to bed.

“Poor Mrs. Mallett!� she said to herself. “What if it were my boy that is going?� And she kissed her little son so fiercely that he stirred and opened his eyes.

“Mother,� he said drowsily, “will my sugar be enough——�

He was asleep before the question was finished.

CHAPTER IV

DICK was up early Monday morning, meekly and diligently hoeing the potato patch. But his father had seen this humility and industry follow too many offenses to overlook Saturday’s disobedience; so the culprit received a severe lecture ending with the command to spend his Saturday afternoons for a month working in the garden.

A month! A whole month before he could go back to the Old Sterling Mine! All that he could do, in the meantime, to help carry out his plan of working the mine and making a fortune, was to get tools and collect candles.

He rummaged among the old irons in the blacksmith’s shed on several afternoons, under pretense of finding horseshoes.

“What’s this old tool; and that one?� he asked with assumed carelessness, pulling out one after another, until he identified and set aside some that the miners had used.

Then he chose an occasion when Mr. Mallett was busy shoeing a fractious mule and said in an offhand way: “Mr. Mallett, I want to dig a hole, where I reckon there’s rock. May I take some of the old tools out of your shed?�

“Help yourself.�

“And I needn’t bring them back right away?�

Mr. Mallett did not look up from his task. “Keep ’em long as you please. They’re there to sell for old iron. Whoa, you brute!�

“Thank you!� Dick went away then, but at dusk that evening he slipped back to the shop and got the pick and spade and sledge hammer he had set aside, and sped down the unlighted street and deposited them under the churchyard hedge.

Many an hour, during the days that followed, while he sat with a textbook in his hand, he was in fancy unearthing vast treasures and displaying them to the envy and admiration of his comrades. Slowly, oh! very slowly, the days went by that kept him chained to his tasks at home.

One pleasant afternoon in mid-April, the children drifted out of school, in the usual merry chattering groups. The Village schoolhouse was across The Street from The Roost. It was a quaint, ivy-mantled brick cottage, the old “office,� in the corner of the yard at Broad Acres. Broad Acres, once a lordly estate, was now “broad acres� in name only. Farm after farm, field after field, had passed from the family ownership until the mansion, with the rambling yard and garden, was all that was left.

The house was a stately red-brick building with wide halls and spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. Mrs. Wilson, who lived there with her daughter Ruth, spent her days teaching A B C’s to babies and preparing Dick and the older boys for the university. People who were able paid her in money or wood or meal or shoes, and she accepted their pupils and fees, but oh! how she struggled to get the children whose parents were too poor to pay for schooling or to realize its value.

“I wish and I wish you weren’t going away, Anne, you precious darling Anne!� Patsy wailed for the twentieth time, giving Anne Lewis a frantic embrace.

“It’s a horrid shame!� exclaimed Ruth Wilson.

“But I’m coming back in the summer,� Anne said, to comfort them and herself. “Oh! and, Patsy, won’t we have a lovely time, going around with Dick!� she said, with a mischievous glance at Patsy’s twin.

“Bet you will—not!� declared Dick.

“And think what a good time we’ll all have at Happy Acres.�

“Let’s go to Happy Acres now,� suggested David Spotswood. “We boys will catch some fish—maybe, and you girls can get flowers, and we’ll come home by the mill.�

“Oh, yes! let’s do that,� exclaimed Anne. “You can go, can’t you, Patsy? Ruth? Alice?�

“I don’t see how I can, to stay all afternoon,� Patsy said regretfully. “Our Red Cross box is to go off next week and I’m not half done my sweater.�

“I’ve got to f-finish my scarf,� stammered Ruth.

“I want to knit another pair of socks, if I have time,� said Alice.

The Village was working and denying itself to help stricken France and Belgium. If the contributions were not large in dollars and cents, they were great in the efforts and self-sacrifice of the little country neighborhood. But the offerings came from the hands of good Samaritans, not of patriots. America had accepted the war; it had not yet come home to The Village. Later on, it was to—but we shall see what we see.

“Oh, you girls!� grumbled Stephen Tavis. “You are doing that Red Cross stuff all the time.�

“And you boys are playing while we work,� said Patsy, tossing her head.

“We are saving flour and sugar for the Belgians. Do you want us to knit and sew?� laughed Dick.

“Some of the boys in Washington are knitting,� Anne said gravely; “and lots of men, real men, like firemen and soldiers. And they—we—are all making gardens, so there will be more food to send to hungry France and Belgium.�

“Father read from the paper last night something the President said,� said Patsy. “‘Every one who makes or works a garden helps to solve the problem of feeding the nations.’�

“Yes, the President says the fate of the nation and the world rests largely on the farmer,� said David, importantly. “He wants them to plant food crops; and that’s what I am doing.�

“Oh, your old corn acre! You’re so biggity about it,� jeered Dick.

“I wouldn’t mind a little farm work or gardening; but I certainly draw the line at knitting,� said Steve.

“Oh! oh! oh!� Anne jumped up and down, uttering little squeals of excitement. “Steve! David! Dick! Why don’t you have a school war garden?�

“A school garden?� questioned Steve.

“Yes; like we have in Washington, that all the pupils work in,� said Anne.

“Thank you! I get enough gardening at home,� said Dick, sourly. “I don’t want to spend all my life hung to one end of a stick with a hoe at the other end.�

“Oh! but this is fun, and good war work too. It takes just a few hours a week from each of us. The more there are to help, the less there is for each one to do.� Then Anne went on indignantly: “It seems to me you’d want to help, you boys, when you think about all those poor people over there, old folks and children and women with babies, homeless and without food. Hundreds and thousands of them stand in line for hours every day to get a little soup and a piece of bread; and if we in America don’t provide that bread and soup, they’ll starve.�

“I’ll make a garden for them,� said a high, sweet voice, quavering on the verge of tears. “If I had a hoe and a place to work, I’d begin right away. I ain’t quite as big as Dick, but father says I’ve got mighty good muscle. Just you feel it, Anne,� said Sweet William. “Where’s a hoe? And where’s the garden going to be?�

“Yes; where could we have a garden?� said Steve. “I don’t mind working a little, enough to keep up with Sweet William, if we had a good place.�

There was a pause.

“There isn’t any place. You see we can’t have it,� Dick said triumphantly.

“There is; you can,� Anne declared vehemently. “You may have my Happy Acres that Cousin Rodney gave me. I’ll—yes, I’ll be willing and glad to dig up the flowers for potatoes and things.� Her voice broke and she winked back her tears.

“O-oh!�

“Why, Anne!�

“Of course you wouldn’t!�

“What’s this about digging up flowers?� Mrs. Wilson, coming out of the schoolroom, with her hands full of papers, heard Anne’s last words and the horrified exclamations they excited. “Surely you aren’t talking about dear Happy Acres?�

“Anne wants us to have a garden, a sort of war garden,� explained Patsy.

“We have them in Washington, you know, Cousin Agnes,� Anne said. “We raise lots of vegetables, and it isn’t hard work, with so many to help; and anyway, it’s worth working hard for, to help feed the world when it’s hungry and starving.�

“And Steve asked where the garden could be,� Patsy continued her explanation. “Anne says it can be Happy Acres, even if they have to dig up the flowers.�

“That would be dreadful!� exclaimed Alice Blair.

“It’s dreadfuller for people to be starving,� said Anne.

“Shucks! We couldn’t work a garden at Happy Acres,� said Dick. “By the time we walked there after school, it would be time to walk back to do our home work.�

“We could run,� suggested Sweet William.

Mrs. Wilson laughed with the others; then she said: “Possibly you are right, Dick; and certainly Anne is. Let me think a minute. If you boys are willing to give part of your time to work for the hungry, I will give part of my garden and my help. What do you say?�

“Yes, ma’am, thank you!� screeched Sweet William.

“I’m Sweet William’s partner,� said Steve.

“I’ll help,� said Tom Walthall, “if you don’t ask me to do too much.�

“So will I,� said Tom Mallett.

“I’ll help when pa can spare me,� promised Joe Spencer.

“I will, if Baldie will,� said John Eppes, who never wished to do anything without his brother Archibald.

“Oh! I’ll be in it with the others,� said Archie.

“Of course you will, David?� Anne appealed to the silent boy whose voice she had expected to hear first.

“There’s my corn acre——� David began hesitatingly.

“Of course!� laughed Dick.

“That’s just it,� Anne said eagerly. “You’ve done such splendid work, raising such fine corn and winning prizes. You know so much more than the rest of us about working crops that—why, we need you dreadfully.�

David tried not to look pleased. “I’ll do what I can,� he agreed. “But I just tell you, I’m not going to neglect my corn acre for anything; that I’m not.�

“Of course not,� said Mrs. Wilson. “And you, Dick—you’ll help, of course?�

“No; no, Cousin Agnes,� Dick answered positively. “I’m getting enough garden work to last my lifetime. And besides, I’ve got something else to do, if I ever get a chance at it.�

“What part of the garden are you going to give us, Cousin Agnes?� asked David.

“Let’s go and look over the ground,� said Mrs. Wilson. “I’ve just had it plowed and harrowed, ready for planting.�

She led the way to the big, old-fashioned garden. In front were beds of hardy flowers, and arbors and summerhouses covered with roses and jasmine and honeysuckle. Back of the flowers were vegetable beds and rows of raspberries and gooseberries and fig bushes. And in a far corner, hedged by boxwood and carpeted with blue-starred periwinkle, rose the lichened marble slabs of the family burying-ground.

David, the star member of the county Corn Club, looked admiringly at the fertile vegetable beds. “Gee!� he exclaimed. “I’d beat the record if my corn acre was like this; it’s rich as cream.�

“It has been a garden more than a hundred years,� said Mrs. Wilson. “Broad Acres was the first clearing in the wilderness where The Village is now. Here, boys, I am going to give you this sunny southeast square. Now, let’s see who are our gardeners. You’ll join, won’t you, Albert?� she said kindly to Albert Smith, who stood uncomfortably apart from any of the friendly groups.

“No. I can’t,� he said abruptly. Then he turned his head with a queer little gesture as if he were listening to hear how his speech sounded. He added confusedly: “My uncle needs me to come home. I came to ask the arithmetic page lesson.�

Mrs. Wilson indicated the page and then, as he slipped away, she turned to the other boys. All except Dick Osborne enrolled as members of The Village War-Garden Club. Meanwhile, the girls were whispering together, and Patsy became their spokeswoman.

“Cousin Agnes,� she said, “we want to war-garden, too.�

“Y-yes, mother,� said Ruth. “We’ve been having flower gardens; why c-can’t we raise real things, beans and potatoes?�

“You can; of course you can,� said her mother.

There was a howl from the boys.

“We don’t want girls bothering around,� said Archie. “Let them stay in the house and sew.�

“They’ve got their Red Cross stuff,� said Steve. “That’s enough for them.�

“We girls have Red Cross work in Washington, and we do war gardening, too. And who suggested this garden, I’d like to know?� Anne asked.

“That’s all right; suggest,� said Joe. “Girls are good at talking; but we don’t want them around in our way when we are working.�

There was a clamor of indignation from the girls.

“Boys! Girls!� Mrs. Wilson said in her schoolroom voice. In the silence that it brought, she went on: “Of course the girls may have a garden, if they wish. I’ll give them the strip of land by the rose garden.�

But the girls scornfully rejected this offer.

“We don’t want a little ribbon like that,� said Patsy. “We want a real garden or none at all. We don’t care if you give us a bigger place than the boys have—I’m sure we can manage it—but we don’t want an inch less. There are more of us than there are of them; two more, counting Anne, who’s coming back in June.�

“Give us the square by the one the b-b-boys have,� said Ruth.

“Oh, you greedy!� said David. “That would be taking nearly all of Cousin Agnes’s garden, these two big squares.�

“Make the boys divide their square with us, Cousin Agnes,� suggested Patsy.

“No! no! no!� the boys objected loudly.

“Who’s greedy now?� Patsy inquired scornfully.

“G-g-give us that s-southwest square, mother,� urged Ruth. “You and I don’t need such a big garden. Let’s l-l-let the Belgians have it.�

“Well,� Mrs. Wilson agreed. She and Ruth did need the garden; it was their main support; but in this time of world need, they must give not only all they were able, but more and still more. She and Ruth would get on, somehow. “You girls may have the square next to the boys,� she said.

There were groans and cheers.

“We’ll see which do the best work. To-morrow morning let’s meet here and start the planting. Bring hoes and rakes. I,� she added, “will supply seeds.�

That meant another sacrifice. She and Ruth would stint themselves to give for seed the peas and beans and potatoes they had stored for food.

On the way home, Dick and some of the others stopped at the post office. It occupied a corner of Mr. Blair’s general merchandise shop and it was, Black Mayo said, the Village club where young and old gathered in the afternoons for mail and gossip.

When Dick went in, there were a dozen villagers and countrymen lounging in the room, Mr. Blair was sorting the mail, and Black Mayo was perched on the counter, reading the news in Mr. Blair’s paper the only daily that came to The Village.

“The British are holding Vimy Ridge,� he said.

“What about Congress and army plans?� asked Red Mayo.

“Congress is still discussing, discussing. Why doesn’t it go ahead and put a draft bill in shape? The President’s right; that’s the way to raise an army.�

“Hey, Black Mayo! Here’s a letter for Polly,� said Mr. Blair. “And here are two letters for Mr. Carl Schmidt.� He looked around.

The man who lived at the old Tolliver place came forward. “I guess they are for me,� he said, “from somebody that did not know my name; it’s Smith, good American Charley Smith.�

“Carl Schmidt; that’s a queer-sounding name. What is it?� asked Mr. Jones, a stout, red-faced countryman.

“It is a German name,� Black Mayo said crisply.

“My father did from Germany come,� the man who called himself Smith said hastily, darting an angry glance at Black Mayo and then looking around without meeting any one’s eyes. “He was sensible, and he did come to America. I was here born. I am an American citizen.�

“I’d hate to be one of them low-down Germans,� said Pete Walthall, taking a chew of tobacco.

“Ach! so would I,� Smith proclaimed loudly. “They are bad people. Awful bad people.� He met defiantly Black Mayo’s quizzical eyes. “I got no use for them German peoples.�

“Nobody has,� said Mr. Tavis.

“Oh, yes!� Black Mayo declared. “I have. One of my best friends is a German, a fine fellow named Kuno Kleist that I spent months with, in Mexico, helping him collect bugs and butterflies.�

“Why, Mr. Mayo!� said Pete. “You mean to say you don’t hate Germany?�

“I hate the Germany of Prussianism, power-mad Junkerism, the ‘blood and iron’ of Frederick the Great and Bismarck and Kaiser William,� said Black Mayo; “but I love the Germany of Goethe and Schiller and Luther and Beethoven.�

“Germany is one!� Mr. Smith’s voice rang out. “It is one, I say.�

“So are we all, all one.� Black Mayo looked around with a sudden winning smile. “Remember that first Christmas when German and British soldiers came out of the trenches to exchange food and to talk together. ‘You are of the same religion as we, and to-day is the Day of Peace,’ a German said to a Scottish officer. And those men had to be transferred to other parts of the line; they were enemies no longer, but friends; they could not fight one another.

“Facts come out now and then that show the difference in spirit between people and war lords. A German paper recently announced that the people of a certain town had been jailed for improper conduct to prisoners and their names were printed, to make their shame known to coming generations.

“An American consul investigated the case. He found that a trainload of Canadian prisoners had been sidetracked in the little town, and the citizens had found out they were thirsty and starving; so they brought food and drink. This was the crime for which they were imprisoned and held up to shame!

“Oh! the war lords are trying to carry out their policy of frightfulness. But they have studied history to little purpose if they think Edith Cavell and the Lusitania victims and the murdered Belgians and the tortured prisoners are dead.�

“What do you mean, Cousin Mayo,� asked Dick.

“Are the Greeks of Thermopylæ dead? Or Roland and King Arthur, who perhaps never lived?� Leaving Dick to make his own explanation, Mr. Osborne turned to Mr. Blair. “Will, give me two pounds of nails, please. I must be going.�

“Going!� said Mr. Blair, in surprise. It was an unwritten law that when a man came to the post office he was to loaf there until night drove him home.

“I’m busy making a new pigeon cote.�

“So you’ve gone back to the amusement of your boyhood, eh?� said Mr. Blair, as he weighed the nails.

There had always been pigeons at Larkland, Black Mayo Osborne’s home. When the house was built, the master, the first Osborne in Virginia, erected a dovecote and stocked it with birds from the family home in England. There they had been ever since. Sometimes they were carefully bred; sometimes they were neglected; but always they were there, flying, cooing, nesting in the quiet old country place.

As a boy, Black Mayo took great interest in raising and training them. And this spring he had sent to a famous breeder for new stock and had begun again to train carrier pigeons.

He answered Mr. Blair with a smile and a nod, and started out. “Hey, Dickon!� he said. “It’s a long time since you came to see the pigeons. Have you lost interest in them?�

“No; no, sir,� answered Dick, looking embarrassed. “I—I—that I haven’t.�

“Richard is—h’m!—keeping bounds this month,� Red Mayo said austerely. “He diso——�

“I understand.� Black Mayo spared Dick a public explanation. “Well, come when you can. I’ll bring you one of my young birds to-morrow, to turn loose for a trial flight.�

“Oh, thank you, Cousin Mayo!�

Mr. Smith sidled to the door and looked after Mr. Osborne, with a malignant scowl.

“He, the one you call ‘Black Mayo,’ is—isn’t he queer?� he said to Jake Andrews and Mac Hight, who were sitting on the porch.

“What do you mean?� asked Jake Andrews.

“He takes up for the Germans; says they are such good, kind people and he loves them. It sounds to me strange to hear a man call himself now a friend of the German peoples.�

“Shucks! Black Mayo ain’t said that; is he, Mr. Tavis?� Jake appealed to the old man who now came shuffling out on the porch.

“Yes, he did,� said Mr. Tavis. “He explained at it somehow; but he certainly said he loved them Germans that are tearing the world to pieces over yonder.�

“And here, too,� said Jake. “Ain’t they been blowing up railroad bridges, and factories, and public buildings? Why, they’ve got soldiers guarding the warehouses at South City; near us as that!�

“That’s what South City gets for being on the railroad where all sorts of folks go traipsing up and down,� said Mr. Tavis. “I stand to what I’ve always said, I’m glad the railroad don’t come a-nigh The Village.�

“It’s good that Mr. Osborne so talks here where you permit him what he pleases to say,� said Mr. Smith. “In New York State a man for that talk would be arrested and punished.�

“Shucks!� said Mr. Tavis. “Black Mayo didn’t mean no harm. He always had a funny way of talking.�

“You heard him say he loves the Germans; not so?� insisted Mr. Smith.

“Well, yes; he certainly said that,� admitted Mr. Tavis again.

“H-m-m! That’s mighty curious talk,� said Jake.

CHAPTER V

THE next morning the young folks gathered at Broad Acres. All the school children were there except Albert Smith and Dick Osborne; and Dick, poor boy, was toiling sullenly and alone in the garden at home.

The young war gardeners became so interested in the task they had set themselves that they returned to it in the afternoon, and there Black Mayo found them when he came to bring Mrs. Wilson some tomato plants.

“What is this, Agnes? a Chatterbox Club?� he inquired, setting a basket carefully in a shaded place. “From the noise I heard at a distance, I thought crows or blue jays might be holding a caucus in your garden.�

The young folks were duly indignant at the slander, and asserted that their hands—most of them, anyway, and—well, most of the time—were going as fast as their tongues.

“Come and see what we are doing,� invited Patsy. “Here are our potatoes; we are giving half of our garden to them. Isn’t the soil fine, and aren’t the rows pretty and even? Cousin Agnes showed us how to lay them off, by a string tied to sticks at the ends of the row.�

“I wish the potatoes would hurry and come up,� said Sweet William, “so I can get the bugs off them.�

“Hey, old scout!� said Black Mayo. “Are you in it, too?�

“Course I am,� was the complacent answer. “I was the first to join. Wasn’t I, Cousin Agnes? I reckon I’ve walked ten miles—well, I know I’ve walked a mile—to-day, carrying buckets of potatoes to the children to plant. Didn’t I, Cousin Agnes?�

“You’ve been helping, dear. We couldn’t get on without you. Nothing in The Village could get on without our Sweet William,� said Mrs. Wilson, kissing him.

He accepted the caress soberly and then said with a little frown: “I reckon I’m ’most too big for ladies to kiss.�

“Ah, Billy boy, you’ll change your mind in a few years,� laughed Black Mayo. “What’s that bag-of-bonesy thing at your heels?�

“He’s my dog; he’s Scalawag,� the youngster explained with dignity.

“A dog, eh? A poor excuse for a dog! Where’d you get it?�

“I didn’t get him. He came and adopted me,� explained Sweet William. “He’s a mighty good dog. See! He’s watching me like he wants to help.�

“Cousin Mayo, look at the bean rows I am laying off,� called Patsy.

“Really and truly, Cousin Mayo,� said Anne, “don’t you think it’s good for us to have a garden?�

“Truly and really, my dear,� he said, “I think it’s splendid. You are helping—and how much the willing, diligent children all over the land can help!—in America’s work of saving the world from starving. The fighters can’t farm, so we must feed the armies; and we have the people of France and Belgium on our hearts and hands; and there are the U-boats—we must have food enough to send another shipload for every one they sink. It’s a big job.�

“We gardeners will do our part. I’m going to help when I come back in June,� said Anne.

“She’s helping while she’s away, Cousin Mayo,� said Patsy. “She suggested our having a garden. And her Happy Acres, all except the flower part, is to be put in corn. Our Canning Club is going to can corn and butterbeans and tomatoes together, to make Brunswick stew. Cousin Agnes says we can surely sell all we put up.�

“The girls think pie of their old Canning Club,� said David, jealously. “We boys are doing real work in our Corn Club, and we are going to have a real garden; not dawdle around, like a parcel of girls.�

“Come, come!� chided Mr. Osborne. “You are working for the same cause. You are in friendly camps, not hostile ones. By the way, what are their names?�

“Names? They haven’t any,� said Patsy.

“Pshaw! They must have names; of course they must. Camp Feed Friend, isn’t that a good name for yours, Patsy? And the boys’ plot can be Camp Fight Foe.�

“All right,� said David; then he laughed. “Maybe the girls will raise enough to feed Friend Humming Bird!�

“Here, my boy!� said Mr. Osborne. “It isn’t a sign of wisdom or experience to be scornful of girls and women. You may do better work than the girls; and then again you may not. Time will prove. Suppose you keep a record of your work and have a competitive exhibition of garden products this autumn. I’ll give a prize, the silver cup I cut my teeth on, to the best gardeners.�

“Fine!� said Steve. “That cup is as good as ours.�

“‘There’s many a slip

’Twixt cup and lip,’�

Patsy reminded him, with a saucy tilt of her chin.

Mr. Osborne laughed. “Well, while I loaf here, my work’s getting no forwarder. I must go home. By the way, Agnes, I have two or three bushels of potatoes for you that I’ll send——�

“But, Mayo, you can’t spare——�

“Neither could you,� he said, looking at the war-garden rows. “G’by! Oh, I was forgetting the pigeon I brought Dick.� He picked up his basket. “Poor hungry bird!�

“Hungry? Let me feed it,� said Mrs. Wilson. “Here are a few peas left in my seed box.�

“Oh, no! no, thank you,� he answered. “It is a racing pigeon that I’m beginning to train. It must start off hungry, so it will fly home to be fed.�

“Let me see it, Cousin Mayo; please let me take it in my hands,� said Anne. She cuddled the dove against her cheek. “What a pretty, gentle bird it is! The emblem of peace, isn’t it? Oh, what a shame it seems to send it from this quiet, sweet place to those terrible battlefields!�

Mr. Osborne put one caressing hand on the bird and the other on Anne’s head.

“These God’s dear creatures bear messages of help and rescue through the battle cloud; they soar above and beyond it, and their wings catch the eternal sunshine. Ah! our doves of war are still—are more than ever—the birds of peace. For this war isn’t just a fight for territory and undisturbed sea ways; it is a war for freedom and human rights, and so for true and lasting peace. Agnes,� he turned to Mrs. Wilson, “have you given our young folks the President’s message?�

“Not yet,� she answered.

“Not yet!� he repeated reproachfully. “And already it is being read in French schools. It is a part of the history of our times, of all time; it’s like the Declaration of Independence, but wider, higher, grander.�

“I’m going to read it to my history class,� said Mrs. Wilson.

“To every one of these young folks, from primer babies up, and now,� Black Mayo said impetuously. “Get the paper. Let’s sit in the summerhouse here and fancy it’s the Capitol and this is the history-making night of April 2d.

“Here we are, waiting for the President. He’s coming. The throngs on the streets are cheering him at every step. The floor of the House is crowded,—its own members, senators, Cabinet officers, judges of the Supreme Court, representatives of the Allied nations. The galleries, too, are crowded; people waited at the doors for hours for the precious privilege of a seat.

“The President rises, solemn and resolute with a great duty. He stands there before the House, before the world for all time. He is America speaking. He gives the message that devotes a hundred million people to war for American rights and world freedom.

“It is done. He turns to go. And now, ah! now statesmen are not Democrats, not Republicans; they are only patriots. Men who have stood with the President, men who have stood against him, throng shoulder to shoulder to clasp his hand and pledge themselves to support him in this sacred cause. Only the ‘little group of willful men’ stands shamefully apart.

“Here are the words that expressed and inspired the soul of America.�

And then Mayo Osborne read the President’s war message.

“‘The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life....

“‘We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states....

“‘The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquests, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make....

“‘The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

“‘To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

“‘God helping her, she can do no other.’�

There was a minute of silence at the end.

With eyes shining through tears, Mrs. Wilson turned to her daughter.

“Oh, Ruth, Ruth!� she said. “If only you were a boy in khaki, and I at your side!�

“Oh, mother! I w-w-wish I were!� cried Ruth.

“It’s wonderful!� Black Mayo tapped the paper with a thoughtful finger. “He Americanizes the war, and does it by putting aside everything for which the ‘land of dollars’ is supposed to stand and upholding our old high ideals. No indemnity, no conquests. The Lusitania was an insult to our flag; more than that, it was a dishonor to humanity.�

“He starts us on a high-going road,� said Mrs. Wilson.

“Please,� broke in David, “let’s finish planting our corn before dark.�

“Righto, boy!� exclaimed Black Mayo, jumping up. “And my plow’s standing still. Geminy! how time flies!�

He hurried away and the war gardeners went back to work.

“Will you look who’s coming?� Patsy exclaimed presently, glancing toward the gate. “Jeff Spencer and Will Eppes!�

Mrs. Wilson hastened to meet the visitors who had been her pupils from A B C days till they went to university and engineering corps.

“Why, Jeff! I didn’t know you were at home!� she said, shaking hands with the boy in front, a pleasant-looking, round-faced fellow, so fat that he resembled a well-stuffed pincushion.

“I—I am not at the University any longer, Miss Agnes,� he said soberly.

“Not at the University!� She looked at him in dismay. He had always been a mischievous chap, and she had had her doubts and fears about his college course, but gradually these had subsided. Now he was in his senior year; and here he was back home. What scrape had he got into?

Jeff’s light-blue eyes were twinkling, and now he laughed till his fair, freckled face reddened to the roots of his sandy hair.

“I always could get a rise out of you, Miss Agnes!� he said. “Here you are wondering what I’ve done to get sent away from the University, just as mother did. And it never occurred to you that I’ve left of my own free will.� A new light came into the bright eyes. “I’ve enlisted. And, gee! won’t a uniform be full of me!�

“Enlisted!� she echoed. “But, Jeff, your mother—she always said she could never consent to——�

“Oh, she’s a trump, the ace of trumps! Of course she hates war. The War took so many of her people—her father and both her uncles—and all the things. She knows what war is. But when I put it up to her, she said ‘Go!’ Of course I’d have had to do it anyway. I couldn’t look myself in the face in a mirror if I sat safe at home and let others risk their lives to make the world a decent place for me to live in. So I’ve come to say good-by to you who�—he returned to his waggish tone—“put me up to going.�

“I?� She was amazed. “Why, Jeff, I’ve not seen you even to say ‘how-dye-do’ since war was declared.�

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about lately. It was the way you taught us history; not Jack’s book that was so dry every time we turned a page it raised dust, but in spite of it you made us know what America stands for, the things for which a man ought to be willing and glad to risk his life. Grandmother says�—he grinned—“I’m fighting for Confederate principles, the right of self-government. Isn’t she a darling, red-hot old Southerner?�

“And I’m going, too, Cousin Agnes,� said William Eppes. “I didn’t know it till yesterday; but father knew it.�

“Your father knew it?� she repeated.

“Yes’m. He’d been might quiet lately, and at last he came out with, ‘there never had been an American war without an Eppes in it, and here are the two of us, and I can take my choice; but he hoped I’d stay at home and let him go, being a Spanish-American vet.’ I asked him if he knew what a whopper he was telling. Why, he’d have dropped in his tracks if I had showed the white feather and said I wasn’t willing to go. But I just hadn’t thought of it. It didn’t take me two secs to decide. Of course I’m going.�

“And so you boys are joining the army; going to France to fight.�

It seemed but yesterday since they were little fellows in her primer class. And now they were going, with the bodies and hearts of men, to do men’s work in the world. Through the mist in her eyes she had a vision: New pages of the history book opened, heroes walked out, took form and life; lo! they were her own schoolboys—shy Fayett Mallett, mischievous Jeff Spencer, slow William Eppes—and others, others would come. Why, here were the youngsters, even little Sweet William, putting aside play to do their part.

“Oh, goody! goody!� Sweet William was saying now, in his high, eager little voice. “We’ve got soldiers, our own soldiers, to send things to. Come on, Jeff; you and Will, look at our gardens.�

And then half a dozen, talking at once, explained about Camp Fight Foe and Camp Feed Friend.

“I’m surely glad to see these gardens,� said Jeff. “I always was a hearty eater, and my ‘stomach for fighting’ needs to be a full one. We’re going to claim the best food we see over there, aren’t we, Bill? biggest potatoes and sweetest beans, for I know they’ll come from The Village straight to us.�

“We’ll think of you when the weather gets warm, and we’ll work hard and not loaf on the job,� said Alice Blair.

“Thank you,� said William. “It seems a shame for you to tan your face and blister your hands—for us.�

“I like to do it—for you,� said Alice; and then she blushed.

“I should think you’d be going to Fort Myer, Jeff,� said David.

“Well, I did think about the O. T. C.,� answered Jeff; “but I felt sorry for those poor officers. It seemed to me they need a few privates under them; so I decided to be in the ranks. And I’m going to try to get with Northern boys.�

“Jeff Spencer! Why——�

“So I can do missionary work,� he explained. “Those Harvard chaps I met on our last game—bully fellows they were!—thought the old United States began in 1620 on Plymouth Rock. I broke to ’em the news about 1607 and Jamestown,—that before their Mayflower sailed, Virginia was here, with a House of Burgesses standing for freemen’s rights, just as we’re standing to-day. Hurrah for Jamestown and Woodrow Wilson!�

The enthusiasm excited by the President’s message and the volunteers extended to the smallest small boys. For weeks they had been carrying on a war play on their way home from school. Now the game was blocked. The boys who had composed the kaiser’s forces refused to be Germans; they were Americans.

At last, after a whispered consultation with Jeff Spencer, Joe Eppes said with a grin: “Oh, wait a minute. I’ll be the Germans one more time; I’ll be them all, kaiser and generals and army.�

He ran home and soon came back, wearing a German helmet made of an old derby hat with a tin oil can fastened on top of it.

He did the goosestep backward down the hill, shouting, “On! on! on! straight to Paris!� At Tinkling Water, he swaggered on the foot log and tumbled, with a mighty splash, into the water, to the huge delight of the other children who loudly applauded the ignominious end of the German forces.

CHAPTER VI

THE first Saturday afternoon in May found a busy group of ladies and girls in the big parlor at Broad Acres which Mrs. Wilson had given up to Red Cross work.

Saturday was usually sacred to needle and broom and cookstove, in preparation for the quiet, strictly kept Presbyterian Sunday; but to-day was an exception. A Red Cross box was to be sent off next week, and everything else was put aside to get it ready.

Mrs. Wilson was cutting out hospital shirts.

“This finishes our last piece of cloth,� she said regretfully. “I do wish we had some money.�

There was an awkward silence. Money had to be mentioned sometimes in a shop—asking Mr. Blair the price of shoes and umbrellas, in an apologetic tone. But to wish for it, in public and aloud! No one had ever before heard a Village lady do such a thing.

Miss Fanny Morrison, who had charge of the work, broke the embarrassing silence. “These shirts ain’t ready to pack,� she said with a frown, as she pushed aside a bundle she had just opened. “I’ve got to rip ’em and do ’em over. Every seam is crooked or puckered.�

“If you would tell whoever did them——� began Mrs. Blair.

“Course I can’t tell her,� said the seamstress, who was supposed to have a tongue as sharp as her needle. “It’s Mrs. Tavis. Ain’t she doing her best, with her dim old eyes and trembly old hands? I can’t tell her it would save me time for her to sit and twirl her thumbs, and let me make the shirts instead of unmaking ’em and making ’em over. Well, we’ve got a lot done. And you girls have certainly worked splendid. I thought you-all—Alice and Ruth and Patsy and Mary Spencer and Essie Walthall, the bunch of you—would just be a lot of trouble. But you’re faithful and painstaking, and you do as good work as anybody.�

“We like to do it,� said Patsy, whose fingers were flying in the effort to finish a sweater.

“This will be six pairs of socks I’ve knit,� said Alice Blair; “and I thought I’d never get done that first pair!�

“You’ve learned how,� said her mother; then she chuckled: “Will says he expects to wake up some night and find me knitting in my sleep!�

“Ah, dears!� Mrs. Spencer said in her gentle, quavering old voice. “This takes me back to The War. We used to gather here, in this very room, to knit socks and make bandages and tear linen sheets and underwear into lint for our poor, dear, wounded soldiers.�

“Those awful days!� said Miss Fanny. “I certainly am thankful we are not really in this war; in it with our men and our homes.�

“I am beginning to feel,� Mrs. Wilson said quietly, “that we are in it, and that this is our war. There are Fayett and Jeff and William; and the President’s war message; and now the draft.�

“It’s awful to think they may make our boys go to foreign parts to fight,� groaned Mrs. Blair.

“They don’t seem to need much making,� remarked Mrs. Wilson.

“Europe doesn’t seem so far off as it used to,� said Mrs. Red Mayo Osborne, who had locked herself out of the bookcase for a whole week. “Who’d have thought, three years ago, we’d be giving up our Saturday duties to make things to send to France and Belgium?�

“Europe isn’t so far off,� Mrs. Wilson replied. “The Germans gave us two object lessons last year, to prove that—sending the Deutschland and U-53 to our very harbors. And next thing we know, aircraft will cross the ocean.�

The others laughed at the idea of such a thing.

“Well, there are other nearnesses,� said Mrs. Wilson. “The ties are tightening among English-speaking people. Didn’t it thrill you to read about the Stars and Stripes floating from the highest tower of the Parliament buildings?—the first time a foreign flag was ever displayed there.�

“I didn’t care so much about that.� Miss Fanny tossed up her chin; she prided herself on being an “unreconstructed rebel� and kept a little Confederate flag draped over a chromo of “Lee and his generals.� “But,� she went on, “it did give me a queer feeling to read about that great service the English had in St. Paul’s, to celebrate America’s joining in the war. They sang ‘O God! our help in ages past,’ the very hymn we were singing Sunday morning.�

“We people of the same tongue and blood, are getting together,� said Mrs. Red Mayo.

“I don’t see anything good anywhere outside The Village� declared Mrs. Walthall. “When my old man comes home and tells the cruel, wicked, dreadful, terrible things�—Mrs. Walthall’s language was broken out with adjectives like smallpox—“Will Blair reads in his paper—you feel as if the world was upside down and something mean and awful might even happen here!�

This was such a wild flight of fancy that every one laughed.

“Why, even during The War,� said Mrs. Spencer, “The War that we were in, bodies of all the men and hearts of all the women and children, even that, my dears, didn’t come to The Village, except the one raid from Sherman’s army marching north that awful April.�

“I am glad we are shut up here in this safe, quiet little corner,� said Mrs. Blair; “for, as Mrs. Walthall says, terrible things are happening. Not only factories and munition plants destroyed in the North, but railroad bridges and trestles right here in Virginia; a bridge near Norfolk, a bridge that trains with troops and supplies and munitions have to cross, was saturated with oil and set afire, by foreigners and negroes.� Her voice dropped.

“There is our bridge——� began Mrs. Walthall.

She was interrupted by a little indignant stir. Mrs. Osborne said crisply, “That bridge is just as safe as our own doorsteps.�

“They say,� Mrs. Walthall said, “that in New York poison has been put in Red Cross bandages and dressings. I declare, I feel like we ought to inspect our things and keep them locked up.�

“Nonsense, Anna!� exclaimed Mrs. Red Mayo. “Inspect things! And lock them up! Who ever locks up anything in The Village? Why, we never lock our outside doors, and in summer-time they stand wide open every night.�

“Strange and curious and terrible things are happening in other places,� said Mrs. Walthall.

“In other places,� Mrs. Osborne repeated, dryly and emphatically.

The ladies were so absorbed in work and talk that they did not hear the click of the front gate and the stumbling and stamping of feet coming up the steps.

Susan opened the parlor door. “There’s some menfolks out here, Miss Agnes,� she said to her mistress. “They say please’m they want to see the Red Cross ladies.�

“To see me?� asked Mrs. Wilson.

“To see the Red Cross ladies; that’s what they say, Miss Agnes.�

“Ask them to come in,� said Mrs. Wilson.

Miss Fanny modestly hid a hospital shirt she was ripping and began to knit a wristlet. Susan opened the door and ushered in nine old men. They were feeble and broken with years, years not only of age but of poverty and many hardships. They shuffled in, some on wooden legs, some dragging paralyzed feet, some supporting rheumatic limbs with canes and crutches. There were palsied arms and more than one empty sleeve.

The old fellows came in panting and wheezing from the exertion of climbing the steps. At the door they took off their hats, baring bald pates and straggling white locks, and stood in line.

Mrs. Wilson went forward swiftly and greeted them with gracious courtesy, but they did not respond as friends and neighbors.

“We came on an errand to you Red Cross ladies,� Captain Anderson said formally. “We�—he straightened his old shoulders—“are Confederate veterans.�

At the words the ladies came to their feet, in respect and homage.

“Confederate veterans!� Captain Anderson repeated.

The bent, stiff forms stirred with a memory rather than a reality of soldierly bearing; the bleared, dim old eyes brightened.

Their spokesman went on in his thin, quavering voice: “Ladies, fair flowers of Virginia womanhood, we, the little remnant surviving of the gallant defenders of our glorious Lost Cause, greet you. By the noble generosity of The Village, funds have been raised for us to attend the Reunion at Washington.

“It is a grand and glorious place to hold the Reunion. We are glad and proud that—that our old comrades are to meet there—in the capital they threatened six times by their dauntless and renowned valor, but the streets of which they were never to tread in uniform and under flag until now, after a half century of peace. They are to camp in the very shadow of the Capitol of our glorious and reunited country, and their battle-shattered and death-thinned ranks are to parade before the President and be addressed by him—the first President since The War born on the sacred soil of old Virginia, and the greatest President since Washington. Three cheers for President Wilson!�

They were given with a will by the thin, cracked old voices.

“And—and——� stammered Captain Anderson.

“Gettysburg,� said old Mr. Tavis, in a stage whisper.

“Yes. Gettysburg; Gettysburg. That comes presently.� He mopped his brow with a bandanna handkerchief. “A-ah! The President to address us. Yes, yes! No more is needed to make it a grand and perfect occasion. But more is to be added. The veterans in gray and their brethren in blue are to make a pilgrimage to Gettysburg, that was the high-water mark of our glorious and unsuccessful war; there is to be erected a monument to our brave comrades, the heroes that fell on that bloody field. I tell you, ladies, we are as glad and proud of it all as if we were going to that Reunion ourselves.�

“But you are going!� cried Patsy.

“And now here’s war again—we don’t count that little skirmish with Spain—but now the United States is in a real war, and South and North and East and West are standing shoulder to shoulder together.

“This isn’t like The War we fought, a decent war of man against man on the earth God gave them to fight over. This war—it’s like nothing that ever was before in civilized times—robbing and burning towns by the hundred, shooting down unarmed people in gangs, killing men with poisonous gases like you would so many rats, sinking ships without giving folks a chance for their lives, dropping bombs from airships on homes and schools and hospitals.

“It makes our hearts sick for people to suffer such things; and it makes our blood boil for people to do them. So we’ve talked it over together, we old Confeds, and we’re all of one mind. We want to help the women and children and the pieces of men left by this hellish fighting. So here is the money, please, ma’am�—he held out a purse to Mrs. Wilson—“that you-all so generously raised to send us to the Reunion. We bring it to you as our contribution to the Red Cross.�

“Oh!� cried Patsy, “but you mustn’t miss it, the grandest of all Reunions. You must go.�

He shook his head.

“This is what Marse Robert would do, if he was here to-day,� he said simply, looking up now in his old age, as to a beacon, to the hero he had adoringly followed in youth.

Mrs. Wilson controlled her voice and spoke: “We accept your offering; don’t we?� She turned to her companions, and every head was bowed. “We accept it in the noble spirit in which it is given, a spirit worthy of your peerless leader. And we thank you from our hearts, in the name of suffering humanity, to whose service it is consecrated.�

“But for you to give up the Reunion, the Reunion that you’ve looked forward to!� mourned Miss Fanny.

The old men glanced at one another with a sort of shy glee. Then Captain Anderson said: “That isn’t all. We are going to volunteer! They’re going to have that draft and raise soldiers. Folks said at first they’d just need American dollars and food and steel; but they’re calling for soldiers now. And I tell you they’ll need American valor. As long as war is war, they’ll want men. The young soldiers, the drafted boys, will do their best. But we—well, we are going to write to the President and tell him we are ready to go, and we seasoned old soldiers will show those youngsters what fighting is!�

While the old heroes were making their offering, Dick Osborne was creeping along the edge of a field near The Village, carrying in his arms something bundled up in a newspaper. He scrambled through the churchyard hedge and crept into the woodshed at the back of the church. Now that its winter uses were over, no one else gave the shed a look or a thought, and Dick had hidden here his mining tools and a bundle with something white in it.

His garden task was off his hands at last, and he had planned to spend to-day at the old mine; but Patsy had watched him keenly all the morning, and this afternoon David and Steve were at work in a cornfield near the road. Usually it would be easy enough to elude them, but not to-day, burdened with the tools he had to carry. And anyway, he had devised a plan to lend interest and excitement to the long, weary way to the mine. In order to carry out his plan and avoid embarrassing questions, he had obtained permission to spend the night with his cousin at the mill.

Safe in the shed, he opened the package he had been carrying so carefully and chuckled as he looked at its contents. It was a cow’s skull!

“Uh, it’s a beauty!� he said, gazing admiringly at the bleached and whitened old thing. “And when I fix it——!�

He proceeded to “fix it� by pasting green tissue paper over the eyeholes and fastening his flashlight inside. Then he stood back and looked at it. Ah, it was as fearful looking as he had hoped it would be! He opened the other package and took out a sheet which he smeared with phosphorus. It was getting dark now; late enough, Dick thought, for him to venture out. He fastened the tools together with an old chain and slung them over his shoulder; then he draped the sheet around him and fastened the skull on his head. He crept out of the shed, slipped around the corner of the church, and looked up and down the road.

The coast was clear, and he took the road to Redville. For a mile he had it to himself. Then he heard wheels and voices behind him. He hesitated a minute, then prudently withdrew to the wayside. It might be people who would accept him as a ghost; or it might not. Ah! It was Mr. Spencer, trotting homeward from The Village, with his son Joe. Dick crouched in the bushes.

“Wait a minute, pa,� said Joe. “There’s something queer in those chinquapin bushes; something white and light looking. Let’s see what it is.�

“Shuh! It’s just Gordan Jones’s old white cow,� replied Mr. Spencer. “We haven’t time to stop. We’re late for supper already.�

When they were safely out of sight, Dick came back to the highway and hurried along till he came to the Old Plank Road and the Big Woods. From here on, there were only a few negro cabins, and he felt secure in his ghostly array.

Isham Baskerfield’s cabin was dark and seemingly deserted, but the door of the next house was open and from within came a bright light and loud voices and laughter. Peter Jim Jones was having a “frolic.� The guests were overflowing on the porch, and the barking of dogs and the squealing of children mingled with the jovial voices of men and women.

As Dick stalked down the road toward the cabin, a dog began to bark and then subsided into a whine. One of the negroes on the porch looked around and caught a glimpse of the white, tall figure.

“Wh-what’s dat?� he stammered.

“What’s what?�

Dick took a few steps forward, clanking and rattling his chains, and stood still in an open space, revealed and concealed by the light of a fading young moon. His white drapery glimmered and gleamed with pale phosphorescent light, and the green eyes in the ghastly old skull glared like a demon’s. He uttered a sepulchral moan.

The negroes rushed pell-mell into the cabin, tumbling over one another.

“A ha’nt! a ha’nt! a ha’nt!�

Dick’s moan broke into a laugh, but that came to an abrupt end. For a dozen dogs ran to investigate the strange appearance which, after all, had a human scent. Dick in his flowing drapery stood for a moment at a disadvantage. But he jerked up the sheet and gave a kick that sent one cur yelping away. And then he laid about him so vigorously with his bundle of tools that the dogs retreated, yelping and howling, while their masters crouched indoors, shaking with terror.

Mightily amused and pleased with himself, Dick went on down the road. He passed the hollow where Solomon Gabe’s cabin stood, and came to Mine Creek. He paused to look at his gruesome image in the still, dark water. Then he turned to follow the path to the mine.

As he turned, he faced a pile of logs, the ruins of the old blacksmith’s hut. It was in shadow except for a ray of moonlight at one side. In that streak of moonshine, there rose, as if the earth had yawned and let forth a demon, a little, dark, bowed figure with a black, evil face. It was horribly contorted, the eyes wide and staring, the lips writhing in terror.

For a minute Dick and the fiendlike figure stood silent, face to face. Then the boy stepped back. His foot caught on a root; he stumbled and, with a wild gesture and an awful clanking of chains, fell flat on the ground.

A screech quivered through the air, so sudden, so wild and terrified that it seemed like a live, tormented thing. The dark form crashed through the bushes and was gone.

Dick recovered himself in a minute. He scrambled to his feet and, clutching his drapery, ran up the hill toward the old mine. He hurriedly rid himself of his ghostly apparel, took out his flashlight, and threw the skull and the tools into the mine hole. Then, with the sheet bundled under his arm, he sped homeward. As he passed Peter Jim’s cabin, he heard fervent prayers and pious groans; the “frolic� had been turned into a prayer meeting.

Dick smiled ruefully. “I don’t reckon they were much worse scared than I was,� he said to himself. “What—who on earth could that have been?�

CHAPTER VII

AT last and at last, school was out! Patsy, free and merry as a bird, wrote a long letter to Anne Lewis.

She begged Anne to hurry and come to The Village. There were so many things to do! Camp Feed Friend was getting on famously; Anne would see it was better than the boys’ Camp Fight Foe. Happy Acres was a bower of roses; they would take their knitting to the summerhouse every day. Anne remembered—of course she remembered—Dick’s dare and double dare about their following him and finding out what he was doing? They must certainly do that. He went off every few days, no one knew where. David and Steve had tried to follow him, but Dick led them a chase—like an old red fox, Cousin Mayo said—for miles and miles, and then back home. It was certainly a secret, and she and Anne must find it out. And Patsy ended as she began; begging Anne to hurry and come to The Village.

It was such an important letter that Patsy took it to the post office herself to put it into Mr. Blair’s own hand, feeling that would make it go more surely and safely than if she dropped it into the letter box. She had to wait awhile, for he was talking to Mr. Spencer who had come in just before her.

“We missed you at church yesterday, Joe,� said Mr. Blair. “What’s the matter? You look seedy.�

“It’s malaria, I reckon,� Mr. Spencer said in a weak, listless voice. “I stayed in bed yesterday, but I don’t feel much better to-day.�

“You ought not to have got up,� said Mr. Blair.

“I have to crawl around and do all the work I can. Crop’s in the grass, Will. Give me two plow points and half a dozen bolts; I must start a plow to-morrow. And I ought to be a dozen hoe hands at the same time.�

“Can’t you hire hands?�

Mr. Spencer shook his head. “I never saw labor so scarce and unreliable. I counted on Jeff to help work the crop after I put it in; now he’s in the army, you know.�

“You need him mighty bad at home.�

“Yes, but we must do without him; there’s where he ought to be. Well, if I can’t get hands to chop my cotton this week, I’ll have to plow it up and sow peas or something that I can raise without hoe work. Cotton is like tobacco, a ‘gentleman crop’ that requires waiting on; it won’t stand grass. My crop must be worked this week, or it’s lost.�

Patsy went home, frowning to herself as she thought how sick and worried Mr. Spencer looked. At the dinner table that day, she told about seeing him and what he had said about his cotton.

“Poor fellow!� said Mrs. Osborne. “I hope he can get hands. It would be a serious thing for him to lose his crop.�

“I wish——� began Patsy.

“It would be a severe personal loss,� said Mr. Osborne, “and these things are national calamities, too; cotton is one of the sinews of war.�

“Sinews of war? What do you mean, Uncle Mayo?� asked David.

“Cotton is one of the great essentials of war,� explained Mr. Osborne. “Its fiber is used for tents and soldiers’ uniforms and airplane wings and automobile tires; its seed supplies food products; and fiber and seed are used in making the high explosives of modern warfare—guncotton, nitroglycerin, cordite. Cotton is one of the great essentials of war.�

“What a lot of things it’s good for!� exclaimed Dick.

Patsy spoke again, and this time she did not say “I wish.� Instead, she said: “I know we could help Mr. Spencer, and the war. Mother, father, please let us do it. I’m sure Ruth and Alice and the other girls will help; and maybe the boys. We can work rows of cotton as well as rows of beans.�

Dick laughed. “H’m! I was just thinking we boys might get together and help Mr. Spencer. But you girls!�

“If we all help, the twenty of us, it’ll not take long to chop over Mr. Spencer’s cotton,� said David. He was more respectful of girls’ work, since he was seeing their flourishing garden.

“Good!� cried Patsy, clapping her hands.

“My dear!� exclaimed Mrs. Osborne. “You don’t mean, Patsy,—are you suggesting that you girls work a crop, like common field hands?�

“They’re very uncommon nowadays,� laughed Patsy. “That’s why Mr. Spencer’s cotton is in the grass. Oh, mother dear! he’s so sick and miserable looking! We would love to save his crop, and we can, if you’ll let us. You heard what father said. It will be patriotic as well as neighborly; with Jeff in the army, too! It’ll not be a bit harder than gardening. Do say we may, mother.�

Finally it was agreed that the young folks might undertake the task. As Patsy said, if they could work rows of vegetables in a garden, they could work rows of cotton in a field. They would use light hoes, and the soil was sandy and easy to work. But it was a big job to undertake, those acres and acres of cotton!

Patsy and Dick and David went to see all the members of Camps Feed Friend and Fight Foe, to enlist them in the little army of crop savers. They were easily persuaded. It was harder to win over their parents. The Malletts and Walthalls and Joneses were unwilling to let their girls “do field work like niggers,� but they consented when they learned that Alice Blair and Ruth Wilson and Patsy Osborne were in the party; whatever the Blairs and Wilsons and Osbornes did was right and proper.

On Tuesday morning, the volunteer workers, with hoes on their shoulders, presented themselves to Mr. Spencer.

“Why—why,� he stammered, “it’s awfully kind of you. But I can’t let you do it, you girls, you young ladies! If the boys will help chop my cotton, and let me pay them——�

“Come on, Mr. Spencer, and do your talking while we work,� laughed Patsy. “Come on! You may be our overseer and boss the job.�

Before the morning was half over, however, they deposed him. Why, he wanted them to stop and rest every few minutes; at that rate, it would be cotton-picking time before they finished chopping the crop! So they elected David foreman.

Sweet William, as water boy, trotted back and forth to supply cool drinks; and about the middle of the forenoon, he proudly invited the workers to a surprise luncheon, where each had half a dozen delicious little wild strawberries on a sycamore-leaf plate.

At noon they rested and ate their picnic dinner in the grove at the spring. Evening found them healthily and happily tired, and they went gladly back to work the next day. Thursday brought showers that gave them a rest and made the freshly worked crop grow like magic. By noon on Saturday, they finished hoeing the cotton and, for the time at least, the crop was saved.

On Saturday afternoon, the young workpeople loafed like real farmers; for, according to rural custom, that day was a sort of secular Sabbath on which the men of the community rested from all their labors and gathered sociably in the post office or on Court-house Green.

What wonderful things they had to talk about these days!

Mr. Blair read the account in his daily paper of the Confederate Reunion at Washington and the President’s Arlington speech. The old soldiers chuckled at hearing that foreigners, seeing the Stars and Bars displayed alongside the Allies’ flags, asked wonderingly, “What flag is that? What new nation has entered the war?� They straightened their stooped old shoulders at the description of their ten thousand comrades, in gray suits and broad hats, marching along the Avenue. And they said, with a sigh, that the story was as good—almost—as being there.

Then they rehearsed tales of their battles and marches and sieges, and compared old feats with new.

Those brilliant Canadian drives were like Jackson’s charges. And like one of his messages was Foch’s telegram to Joffre in the battle of the Marne: “The enemy is attacking my flank; my rear is threatened; I am, therefore, attacking in front.�

The heroic, hopeless, glorious Gallipoli campaign—ah! it was the epitome of their War of Secession. As long as the world honors high courage and stanch devotion to a desperate cause, it will remember those men who, like the Franks in the old story of Roland, beat off army after army and died, defeated by their own victories, “triumphing over disaster and death.�

And the trench warfare——

“They learned that from us,� chuckled old Captain Anderson; “and iron ships. Ah! we showed the world a thing or two.�

But never had they dreamed of trenches like these—stretching in long lines from the Swiss mountains to the Belgian coast, bent in and out by great attacks like the British at Neuve-Chapelle, the Germans at Verdun, and both sides in the bloody battle of the Somme.

And there were strange, new modes of warfare—U-boats hiding underseas, aircraft battling miles above the earth, tanks pushing forward and cutting barbed wire like twine.

There were many things besides fighting to discuss.

America was making vast and speedy preparation for its part in the World War.

Two weeks after war was declared, Congress without a dissenting voice voted the largest war credit in the history of the world. And there was a two-billion-dollar issue of Liberty Bonds. The government must be trying to gather up all the money in the United States, so as to have enough to carry on the war many years, so these country people said, little dreaming of the billions and billions to be raised during the next two years.

There was the draft, too, to discuss. The Selective Conscription Bill had passed. “They� were having men from the ages of twenty-one to thirty registered, and “they� were to pick and choose soldiers from these registered men. It was wonderful how calmly this supreme assertion of the government’s power was accepted. There was a little opposition here and there—in the Virginia mountains, in Kansas and Ohio, in New York City—but all plots were promptly and firmly quelled.

The Draft Act was accepted quietly by The Village. It had its sentimental, passionate devotion to the past; but now that it was being tested, it realized the living, sacred strength of the ties that bound it to the Union.

It heard, with even more horror than of things “over there,� of outrages at home—the German plot to get Mexico to declare war against the United States, factories blown up, railroad bridges destroyed, food poisoned; even here in Virginia, things were happening. “They� said loyal citizens everywhere ought to be on the lookout.

“There’s one safe place in the world; that’s The Village,� said old Mr. Tavis, who was sitting on the post office porch with Pete Walthall and Jake Andrews and Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith shook his head and smiled. “See who comes there,� he said.

“It’s Black Mayo,� Mr. Tavis said in a constrained tone.

Somehow, no one understood how or why, there had grown up a feeling of constraint about Black Mayo whenever Mr. Smith was present.

“He’s got a basket,� commented Jake Andrews, “and I bet there are pigeons in it. Yes, Mr. Smith, it does look foolish for a grown-up man to be raising birds and carrying them about and playing with them.�

Dick Osborne, who came out of the post office just then, spoke up indignantly. “Why, Mr. Andrews! Cousin Mayo’s training those pigeons for war; they use them to carry messages.�

“Shucks!� Jake laughed deridingly.

“Well, they can fetch and carry, you know,� old Mr. Tavis said mildly. “It’s in the Bible; Noah sent a dove out of the Ark and it came to him in the evening with an olive leaf pluckt off.�

“That’s all right—in the Bible,� said Jake. “But we’re talking ’bout our days. My daddy was in The War; I never heard him tell of using pigeons. You were in The War yourself, Mr. Tavis. I ask you, is you ever sent your news by a pigeon?�

Mr. Tavis had to confess that he never did.

“And Black Mayo says they can fly a thousand miles. Did you ever see a pigeon fly a thousand miles, Mr. Tavis?�

“I never went a thousand miles myself,� Mr. Tavis answered.

“I never did neither,� said Jake; “and I don’t believe no pigeon ever did.�

Black Mayo now came up the porch steps, greeting his neighbors cordially.

“Hope your ‘rheumatiz’ is better, Mr. Tavis. Hey, Pete! Jake! How are folks at home? and your crops? Ah, Dick! You are the boy I was looking for. Here is the pigeon—a fine fellow he is—that I want you to take this afternoon for a three- or four-mile flight.�

“Good! I was just starting,� said Dick. “What are you going to do with that other bird, Cousin Mayo?�

“I’m going to send it to Richmond.�

“To Richmond! What for?� asked Jake Andrews.

“To be set free there and fly back here, as a part of its training.�

“Cousin Mayo——� began Dick.

But Pete Walthall interrupted. “To fly back here? You think it’ll come all that ways?� He laughed incredulously.

“A hundred miles!� It was Black Mayo’s turn to laugh. “He’ll make it in two or three hours. Why, man, I have had birds fly nine hundred miles, and they have been known to go eighteen hundred, flying over forty miles an hour.�

“Whew!� Jake Andrews whistled his unbelief, and Pete Walthall stared and laughed.

“That beats the dove in the Ark,� Mr. Tavis said doubtingly.

Dick now got in his question. “Cousin Mayo, aren’t carrier pigeons useful in war?�

“Certainly and indeed they are,� Mr. Osborne answered. Then, as Mr. Tavis still looked doubtful, he gave an instance. “At Verdun a company of Allied troops was cut off from the main line, and one man after another, who tried to go back for help, was shot down. At last a basket of pigeons was found beside a dead soldier. The birds were weak, almost starved; but the men, as a desperate last chance, started them off with notes fastened to their legs. Off they flew, through that curtain of fire no man could pass. The message was delivered; forces came to rescue the trapped soldiers—saved by those birds.�

Pete and Jake shook their heads incredulously.

Mr. Tavis pondered a while, and then said: “Well, they could carry that note just as good as that other dove could carry the olive leaf for Noah. I am going to believe it, Mr. Mayo.�

“Of course,� said Black Mayo. “What’s the matter with you folks? Don’t you always believe what I say? And why shouldn’t you?�

No one answered, and he went on into the post office, looking a little puzzled.

Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced around with a disagreeable smile. “Pe-cu-li-ar amusement; pe-cu-li-ar statements; he himself is pe-cu-li-ar.� The drawled-out word was unfriendly and sinister.

“Black Mayo is all right; all right,� old Mr. Tavis said emphatically.

But Pete and Jake dropped their eyes. Black Mayo Osborne was a queer fellow. They had known him all their lives. But did they really know him? Why was he playing about with birds, like a schoolboy, while other men were working their corn and cotton and tobacco? They looked askance at him as he came out of the post office and went up The Street toward The Roost.

He found Mrs. Osborne sitting on the porch with her eyes on a book propped on the railing and her hands busily knitting a sweater.

“Howdy, Miranda! Where’s David?� he asked.

She looked up with a start. “Oh! it’s you, Mayo,� she said. “David isn’t here; he’s at his corn acre, I suppose. But, Mayo, come in a minute. There’s something I want to speak to you about. It’s Dick,� she went on, as her cousin took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and settled himself on the porch step.

“What about Dick?�

She hesitated a minute. “The other young folks are working splendidly in their war garden.�

“Yes; that was a good suggestion of Anne’s. The food question is serious,� said Black Mayo. “Did you ever know anything like the way the price of wheat has climbed—and soared? Flour is fifteen dollars a barrel, and it will go to twenty, if the government doesn’t get those Food Bills through Congress and take control. I hope it will be a good crop year. The young folks are doing a splendid work in their war gardens.�

“And Dick not in it,� said Dick’s mother, frowning. “He goes off alone somewhere every chance he gets. We’ve never interfered with their little secrets; but this looks so selfish! We’ve thought of compelling him to help, but——�

“But you’ll not. This gardening is free-will work.�

“Yes.� Mrs. Osborne agreed. “And we’ve always taken the stand that after the children do their regular home work, their spare time is their own. But, if Dick could be persuaded, influenced——� She looked hopefully at Black Mayo. “You can do anything with him,� she said. “Your word is law and gospel to all the Village young folks.�

“I refuse to be flattered into coercing Dick,� laughed Black Mayo. “If you want him spoken to, my dear Miranda, speak to him yourself.� He leaned back against the porch post, stretched out his long legs, and then twisted them comfortably together. “Speak to your own erring boy!�

“I have done it,� she said. “I tried to shame him just now. I reminded him how David and Patsy and even little Sweet William are working to raise food for the hungry, suffering world. I told him about the Richmond Boy Scouts who are going on farms, to save the potato crop.�

“And he refused to be shamed?�

“He cocked up his head, with that superior, self-satisfied air—oh, big as he is, I want to slap him when he does that!—and said, ‘It’s a nice little thing David and Patsy and the others are doing—the best they can, I reckon. But I’d rather do a big thing; something to get a lot of money, enough to buy a whole Liberty Bond at a whop.’ And before I could get my wits together to answer that amazing foolishness, he said he’d finished his tasks, hoed the beans, and brought in stove wood, and couldn’t he go. And off he went. What would you do, Mayo?�

“I think I’d do nothing, Miranda,� her cousin replied. “A boy’s got to have his adventures. And Dick’s a fellow that can stand a lot of letting alone. If he’s on the wrong track, he’s got sense enough to find it out and get on the right one. Don’t worry, Miranda. Will you tell David he can get one of my plows any day he wants it? And don’t you worry about Dick, Miranda,� he repeated, untwining his long legs and getting up.

As he started down the walk, Mrs. Osborne put aside her work and went out to the kitchen, a one-roomed cabin behind the Roost dwelling-rooms, to speak to Emma.

The old woman was standing at the door, looking worried and grum.

“Why, Emma, you haven’t kindled your fire!� Mrs. Osborne exclaimed.

Emma started. “Naw’m. My shoe sole was floppin’. I had to go to de shop to git it sewed on.�

“De shop� was a shed on The Back Way where shoes were cobbled by Lincum Gabe, old Solomon Gabe’s son.

“I’m gwine to start de fire now.� Emma’s voice was mournful, and as she rattled the stove lids, she shook her head and sighed dolefully.

“Is anything the matter? Are you sick?� Mrs. Osborne asked anxiously.

“Naw’m, I ain’t sick, Miss M’randa. I don’t reckon I is. I ain’t got no out’ard pains. I’m just thinkin’ ’bout my boy, an’ wonderin’ who’ll git him——� She went off into a confused mumble. Suddenly she turned to her mistress and said earnestly: “If dey take de colored folks back in slavery, I’ll belong to you; won’t I, Miss M’randa? Like my folks always did to yore folks?�

“What nonsense are you talking, Emma?� Mrs. Osborne asked sharply. “No one could put you back in slavery. No one wants to. We hate and abhor it more than you do. Why, we wouldn’t have you back in slavery for anything in the world. What put such a silly notion in your head?�

“I ain’t faultin’ you ’bout it, Miss M’randa. It’s dem folks off yander,� said Emma, vaguely. “Dey done started it. Dey done numbered de young bucks an’ dey’re goin’ to nomernate ’em to be slaves. Dey’re just waitin’ for de orders. My boy Tom is one of ’em.�

Patsy, who had followed her mother, laughed and exclaimed: “Why Aunt Emma! They numbered all the men, white and colored, from twenty-one to thirty years old, and they are going to select soldiers from them, to go and fight the Germans.�

“Emma, some due has told you a lie, a wicked, silly lie,� said Mrs. Osborne. “There isn’t a word of truth in it. As Patsy says, the white boys are going, too. Why, some of them have gone—Fayett Mallett and Jeff Spencer and Will Eppes—boys that you know, and lots of others. They need a great many soldiers, and they are going to select them from that draft list.�

“Dey say as how dem white ones was took to be offiseers, an’ boss de colored ones till dey git ’em handcuffed an’ back in slavery,� said Emma, lowering her voice and glancing fearfully around as if she were betraying secrets of state.

Mrs. Osborne laughed. “How silly! Who are ‘they’ that say such foolish things?�

“Uh, it’s jest bein’ talked ’round,� Emma answered evasively.

“It sounds like propaganda,� said Mrs. Osborne, wrinkling her brow.

“Naw’m, ’tain’t no sort o’ gander. It’s just talk dat’s goin’ ’round. You-all want some seconds batter-cakes, you say, honey?�

And Emma went bustling about her work, deaf to all further questions.

CHAPTER VIII

“COME on, Sweet William! Sweet William!� sang Patsy, catching her small brother by the hand and dancing down the walk. “Let’s go to Broad Acres for a look around. Alice! uh, Alice!� She called Alice Blair, who was sitting in the swing, with her knitting. “Come and see how our gardens are growing. We’ve been so busy being field hands for Mr. Spencer’s cotton, I’ve not been to our garden for two whole days.�

“I ran by to look at it this morning,� said Alice. “I feel real lonesome if I don’t see it every day.�

“So do I,� agreed Patsy. “I know now how David felt that first year he had corn at Happy Acres, and he used to ‘go by’ to see it every time he was sent to the store for the mail or a spool of thread.�

At the garden gate they paused and called Ruth. She came out on the back porch, but stopped at the head of the steps.

“I’ve j-just come in,� she said. “I weeded a row of p-peas. Now I’m helping mother. I’ll see you p-p-presently.�

The others went into the garden, admired the flourishing vegetables, and pulled up a few stray weeds.

“Isn’t it beautorious?� exclaimed Patsy. “Things have just been leaping and bounding along these two days.�

“Scrumptious!� agreed Alice.

“We-all boys have got the biggest potatoes,� said Sweet William, wagging his head proudly.

“You-all boys! Will you look at those beans? What about them, Mr. William Taliaferro Osborne?� demanded Patsy. “Anne Lewis had a lot to say about their Washington gardens. They aren’t a bit better than this; they can’t be. Just think! Anne is coming next week.�

“Goody, goody, goody!� cried Sweet William, clapping his hands.

As they went chattering back up the walk, Ruth came out to ask them to stay to supper; her mother had a strawberry shortcake.

“I’ll go and ask——� “If mother knew——� began Patsy and Alice.

“If I had a piece of strawberry shortcake in my hand,� suggested Sweet William, “I could go home and tell them you were invited. We are going to have batter-cakes for supper; Emma makes good little batter-cakes with lacy brown edges.�

Patsy was properly horrified at her small brother’s greediness, but Mrs. Wilson laughed and sent him home, munching a generous slice of shortcake.

After supper Mrs. Wilson and the girls went out on the front porch. It was wide and long, set high on brick pillars, with a flight of steps leading down to the long boxwood-bordered walk.

“There is a loose railing,� said Mrs. Wilson. “I must nail it in place to-morrow.�

“You are as careful about mending and tending Broad Acres as you are about Ruth’s darning and patching,� laughed Patsy.

“Yes,� said Mrs. Wilson. “It’s all in the family. Broad Acres is a dear old part of the family.�

“How old is it, Cousin Agnes?�

“The house was built in 1762,� said Mrs. Wilson, with quiet pride. “It was made strong, to be a fort, in case of Indian attacks. That is why the shutters are so thick, with the little hinged middle pieces for loopholes to fire from.�

“The Yankees came by here in The War,� said Ruth.

“In April, ’65,� agreed her mother. “The doors and shutters were closed, with crape hanging from them, in mourning for the dead Confederacy. Sherman’s men marched past, without disturbing the house, thinking there was a corpse in it.�

“This very bench we’re s-s-sitting on is c-called the President’s bench, because W-W-Washington sat here when he was v-visiting my way-back-grandfather. Tell about that, mother,� said Ruth.

But an interruption came before Mrs. Wilson could begin the story, the more loved because it was old and well known. The front gate clicked. Patsy glanced toward it and, seeing a negro girl standing there, exclaimed in surprise, “Why, there’s Lou Ellen!�

“Go to the side gate, Lou Ellen,� Mrs. Wilson said sharply. “What do you mean by coming the front way?�

“I ain’t comin’ in,� said Lou Ellen, in a pert, high voice, as she lounged on the gate. “I jest come to de store an’ stopped to leave you a message, Miss Agnes. I was comin’ down de mill path an’ a man—I reckon he was Van—hollered to me an’ said Mr. Black Mayo say for you please’m to go an’ spen’ de night wid Miss Polly. He got to go ’way an’ she was feelin’ sort o’ puny, an’ he didn’t want to left her at home by herse’f.�

“It’s strange he didn’t tell me when he was in The Village to-day,� said Mrs. Wilson. “Van told you, you say?�

“It sounded like Van,� answered Lou Ellen. “He was in de woods an’ I didn’t see him good.�

She tossed her head and strolled away.

“She’s a horrid thing!� said Ruth.

“How could she help it?� asked Alice. “Her mother, Louviny, is as trifling as she can be, and so is her father, Lincum; and his father is that horrid old Solomon Gabe that they call a trick doctor; all the other darkies are afraid of him.�

“Darkies are queer things,� laughed Patsy. And then she told what Emma had said about the draft.

“She isn’t the only one who believes that,� said Alice. “Unc’ Isham told father he’d heard tell they are all going to be put back in slavery; he said they always told him if the Democrats got strong in power, they would make the darkies slaves again.�

“I wonder how they get these foolish notions into their heads?� said Mrs. Wilson. “Well, chickens, Ruth and I must be starting to Larkland.�

“Let Ruth spend the night with me, Cousin Agnes,� entreated Patsy.

Mrs. Wilson consented, and the three girls walked with her as far as the mill on her way to Larkland. Sweet William did not see them go, and he was surprised to find the house dark and deserted when he came running back, with Scalawag at his heels, for his sweater. He went, with a little feeling of awe, down the somber boxwood walk—it was now nearly dark—and it was a relief to hear Scalawag, who had run ahead of him, give a sharp bark.

“Cats-s! cats-s!� hissed Sweet William urgingly.

Scalawag ran to a rose arbor at the back of the garden, but his furious barking changed to a sudden yelp and whine; he ran back to his master.

“Old tabby cat must have scratched you,� said Sweet William. “Sic her! sic her, Scalawag!�

But the dog, bristling and growling, kept at his master’s heels, as if unwilling to encounter again whatever he had found in that dark, secluded place. Sweet William groped around for his sweater and ran home. Then he had his bath and went to bed. The older children followed soon, as behooved those who must be at Sunday school at half past nine o’clock and know a Psalm and the story of Gideon and be ready to answer seven new questions in the Shorter Catechism.

The next morning, when the Osbornes were at breakfast, Steve came running into the room, with a tragic face.

“Our gardens are ruined!� he cried.

“Oh, Steve! What do you mean?�

“Ruined?�

“They can’t be!�

“Ruined!� he repeated, with doleful emphasis. “I went by there, just after breakfast, taking our cow to pasture. I saw the gate open——�

“Who left it open?� demanded David.

“And Miss Fanny Morrison’s old cow was there, gorging herself on our corn and peas. Everything is grazed off; trampled down.�

With no more appetites for breakfast, the war gardeners ran to Broad Acres, to see the wreck of their gardens.

“But who left the gate open?� David demanded sternly.

“We were the last ones here,� said Patsy; “and I know we shut it.�

“I was here about dark,� Sweet William confessed bravely; “I came for my sweater. But I shut the gate and I fastened it. I had to climb up on the garden fence to put the hook in the hole.�

“You didn’t put it in,� Patsy said severely. “You let it slip to the side. And our gardens are ruined.�

“It’s my garden, too. And I did fasten the gate,� sobbed Sweet William.

He seemed so clearly the culprit that black looks and little pity were being given him when Mrs. Wilson came up.

She, too, was horrified and distressed, but she said: “If Sweet William is sure he fastened the gate, I am sure he fastened it. There is something strange about this matter. Mayo did not send for me. He is away, but Polly had told him she would have Chrissy sleep in the house. She was surprised—but of course pleased—to see me; I would have come back home, if it hadn’t been so late.�

“Could Lou Ellen have done it?� suggested Patsy. “She came with that message; and she’s so pert and horrid.�

They examined the premises carefully. Near the rose arbor, at the back of the garden, they found footprints, the track of a big, bare, flat foot. Dick carefully made a copy of it on a piece of paper, and Mr. Blair and Mr. Red Mayo Osborne went with the gardeners to Lincum’s cabin on the Redville road, and confronted Lou Ellen. She stoutly denied the charge, and when her foot was measured it proved to be much smaller than the print. Evidently, then, she was not the intruder. Who could it be?

That was a doleful Sabbath for the young villagers. They were thinking more about their wrecked garden than their Sunday school lesson; the sermon fell on deaf ears; and in the afternoon they stood mournfully around the scene of their destroyed hopes.

But with the next morning came cheer and good counsel. Black Mayo, having come back on an early train, stopped at the post office and was told about the catastrophe and he went to view the garden.

“It is pretty bad, but it might be worse,� he said cheerily. “Some of these things will come up from the roots. Some of the rows will have to be plowed up and planted in things that will still have plenty of growing time. The soil is in fine condition. Let’s get to work and make a garden day of it. One of you boys go to Larkland, and get Rosinante and a plow.�

Mr. Tavis came to help them, and so did Mr. Blair, who shut up the post office, saying casually that any one who came for mail could look him up or wait till he got back.

Several hours of diligent, intelligent toil worked wonders. The gardens would be later, of course, but with a long growing season before them that was no serious disadvantage; it would require more work, much more work, but that they were all willing and glad to give. Why, Dick had offered to help this morning, and he had been just as interested and busy as any one else. Perhaps he would join the garden club now. But he did not. When Mr. Osborne went home to dinner, Dick started off with him, to get a pigeon for a trial flight.

Patsy looked after him and set her lips firmly. “Just you wait, young man,� she promised him, “till next week when Anne Lewis comes. We’ll show you what it means to dare and double dare us.�

For weeks Dick had been going off alone every few days, and coming back late, tired and dirty and with a joyful air of mystery. The others were too busy with gardening and Red Cross and Corn Club work to make any real effort to find out where he went.

But he always watched to make sure that he was not followed, and he never relaxed his precautions at the mine. He pulled his ladder in and out, blurred his footprints, and stirred up the dead leaves so as not to make a path. It would take, he proudly thought, a Sherlock Holmes or a bloodhound to trace his course.

He had examined the main room without seeing any place that it seemed worth while to work in the crude fashion possible to him. The most promising places, he thought, were in the spurs of the lower tunnel, where there was more clay than rock. If he dug a little farther—a few inches or some feet—perhaps he would find silver that the miners had missed.

He planned to extend each spur a certain distance; at first he said ten feet, but a little work convinced him that was too far, so he decided to go six feet—or five—or four. It was too discouraging to compute how long it would take to go even four feet, at his snail-like rate of progress. He could not use alone the drill and sledge hammer he had brought from Mr. Mallett’s shop. So he had to content himself with digging along a ledge, breaking off rough bits of rock and eagerly examining them for silver.

He had inquired furtively about dynamite, but the law made it difficult for him to get it—fortunately; for in his ignorant, inexperienced hands there would probably have been an accident which might even have cost him his life.

On this pleasant June afternoon, Dick went blithely with his Cousin Mayo to Larkland. He nearly always went there on his way to the Old Sterling Mine; it was only half a mile off the road; and the distance to the mine seemed shorter to him when he had a carrier pigeon for company.

Breeding and blood were telling in the Larkland pigeons. Mr. Osborne showed Dick that afternoon a marked copy of The Bird World telling, with big headlines, about the thousand-mile flight of a young pigeon trained by Mr. Mayo Osborne, of Virginia.

“I bet Snapshot will make a record, too,� said Dick, stroking the plumage of a petted young bird.

“Dick,� said Mr. Osborne, suddenly, “I’m glad to have your help and interest about these birds; I want you to learn all you can about training them. Your Cousin Polly knows all there is to know about their feeding and care. But when I go away——�

“Oh! you are going away?� interrupted Dick. “When, Cousin Mayo?�

“Early this fall, I hope; as soon as some business matters can be arranged. I’ve been wanting to be in the army from the first.�

“I said you would go. It wasn’t true you wanted to stay at home playing with birds.�

Mr. Osborne looked at Dick and started to ask a question, but it did not seem worth while. So he merely said: “When I leave, I’m going to ask your father to let you stay here at Larkland with your Cousin Polly and help her with the doves, our doves of war.�

“Thank you, Cousin Mayo; I’ll do my best,� promised Dick.

Mr. Osborne wrote a note and fastened it to the bird’s leg—that was always part of the ceremony; then he put it into a makeshift cage, an old shoe box with holes punched in it, and gave it to Dick.

“Where are you going?� asked Mr. Osborne.

“To the mine—creek,� said Dick, almost telling his secret. It was hard not to give a forthright answer to his cousin’s direct look.

“Why don’t you boys—do you?—ever go to the Old Sterling Mine?�

“Maybe so. Sometimes,� he mumbled.

Black Mayo did not notice the boy’s conscious air. He was watching his pigeons fluttering and circling about, white against the woodland, dark against the shining sky.

“I used to go there;� he said. “Ah! the hours and days I spent, seeking its treasure. It was one of the great adventures of my boyhood.�

“Did you ever find any?—any silver in the mine, I mean,� Dick asked eagerly.

His cousin gave a smiling negative.

“Do you suppose?—perhaps there isn’t any.� Dick’s voice dropped in disappointment.

“I believe there is,� said Black Mayo. “Silver was found there by old Mallett, not long after the Revolution. You’ve heard the tale handed down in his family. Some years ago, when I was rummaging through old court records, I found the account of his trial for ‘feloniously making, uttering, and passing false and counterfeited Coin in the likeness and similitude of Spanish milled Dollars of the value of six shillings Current money of Virginia.’ That was in 1792.�

“But the mine was worked after that, wasn’t it?� asked Dick.

“Oh, yes! My grandfather Mayo, your great-grandfather, had it worked, but it never paid. It doesn’t seem reasonable that the old blacksmith spaded out all the silver that was there. There’s a tale that a valuable vein was struck and lost. You might take a look around to-day, and you and I might go prospecting some time,� he said, now looking keenly at Dick.

The boy reddened to the roots of his hair. “Yes, sir,� he said. “It’s time I was gone.�

Mayo Osborne looked after him with a whimsical smile. “Straight to the Old Sterling Mine, I’ll wager my head!� he laughed.

CHAPTER IX

ANNE LEWIS had come, and that was a jubilee for her and her Village cousins. She and Patsy and Alice and Ruth wanted to go to every place at once and to tell in one breath everything that had happened since they had parted in the spring.

There was Happy Acres to be visited, and its budding and blossoming beauty to be welcomed. There was the mill, Larkland mill that was loved almost as dearly as the miller, Mr. Giles Spotswood. There were all the cousins at Larkland, Broad Acres, and The Roost. And there was the dear outside host, Tavises and Morrisons and Walthalls, and the old servants and their families, for whom Anne had gifts and greetings. The girls made a round of visits, with their tongues going like bell clappers.

“And haven’t you found out yet where Dick is going—not yet?� Anne asked Patsy, privately. “Oh, I’m so glad! It’ll be so much fun to follow him up!�

“If we can. We’ll certainly do it, if we can,� said Patsy, with less assurance. “Anne, even Dick has never kept a secret like this.�

“I don’t see why you haven’t found out, in all these weeks,� said Anne; “though I’m glad you haven’t, so we can do it together.�

“Dick isn’t so easy to catch up with,� answered Patsy. “And then there are our gardens. The boys won’t stop working for fear we’ll get ahead of them, and we won’t stop for fear they’ll get ahead of us. No one has time—and time it would take!—to follow Dick.�

“You must win out in the gardening; we must certainly beat those boys,� said Anne. “I’m so glad I’m here to help.�

They were on their way now to inspect Camp Feed Friend and Camp Fight Foe, that were thriving wonderfully after being replanted and reworked ten days before. Black Mayo said Jack’s famous beanstalk must surely have grown in the deep, fertile soil of Broad Acres garden; no other place could produce such magic results.

Patsy and Anne found most of the war gardeners already at Broad Acres, at work. Black Mayo had lent them Rosinante, and David was plowing while the others were weeding and hoeing the rows of vegetables. Anne and Patsy set to work, side by side.

“Don’t you think our garden is the better?� Patsy asked for the dozenth time.

And for the dozenth time, Anne—partial judge!—answered emphatically: “I certainly do. Your potatoes are taller than theirs. And your peas are better; I’ve counted the pods on the biggest vines in both gardens. It’s just splendid what you’ve done—all but Dick.�

“Oh!—Dick.� Whatever Patsy herself might say about Dick, she could never bear to have others find fault with her twin brother. “He helps Cousin Agnes in her garden. He would work here sometimes—real often—but the boys call him ‘slacker’ because he won’t join them. He’s working hard over his secret, whatever it is. He comes home so dirty! And—well, Anne, I know it’s something big, from the way he acts.�

“We’ll find out what it is,� Anne said confidently.

“I hope so,� sighed Patsy.

“But now,� said Anne, “this garden is the most important thing. Oh! it’s awful to think of all those people with nothing to eat except what we send them across these thousands of miles of ocean.�

“We’ve been saving our flour and sugar for a long, long time; looks like they might have enough to eat now,� Sweet William said, frowning. “Oh! I did want them all to have enough, and leave me sugar for a birthday cake. It’s such a so-long time since I’ve seen a real cake!� He sighed. “I don’t reckon we’ll ever have another one; not till I get old as Miss Fanny Morrison and don’t have any birthdays.�

“Father says conditions are terrible along the Hindenburg Line,� said Alice. “Cousin Mayo, what is the Hindenburg Line?� she asked her cousin who, having finished some errands in The Village, was waiting to take Rosinante home.

He explained. “The first of this year, the Germans realized that they could not repel Allied attacks in the position they then held. So in March they drew back and entrenched themselves in northern France in a position as strong as the nature of the country and their science could make it; that is their ‘impregnable Hindenburg Line.’ The Allies began, with the battle of the Aisne in April, the attacks they will continue till that great Hindenburg Line is smashed.

“Well! The Huns laid waste the country that they left; robbed and burned homes and villages in that rich farming country, and kidnapped men and women and children and set them to work in Germany. And they left behind wrecks of people in wrecks of homes, many of them little fellows like Sweet William here, half starved and crippled and shell-shocked.�

Anne put a comforting arm around Sweet William. “Don’t cry, dear,� she said.

He stiffened his lips bravely. “I—I’m not crying,� he announced. “I—I think I caught a cold. I’ve got a frog in my throat. I wish I could find a lot of potato bugs! I want to work hard to help all those poor people.�

He set to work very diligently, but presently David called out: “You Bill! You’re wearing out those potato plants, looking for the bugs you caught yesterday. And every row I plow, you’re in my way.�

“I isn’t not moved since I got out your way the other time you told me to,� complained Sweet William, stumbling over a furrow.

“Well, get out of the patch and stay out till I finish this plowing, if you please,� said David, who was warm and tired and getting cross.

The little fellow turned away with injured dignity and went into the back yard. He sat on the porch steps for a while, then he began rummaging around. Presently he came back into the garden, with his arms full of little sticks, and busied himself in a corner where the war gardeners had a bed of radishes for work-day refreshment.

“What are you doing now?� Anne stopped to ask.

“Playing this is my garden. I’m building a fence ’round it,� explained Sweet William.

“Phew! What a horrid smell! It smells like—why, I smell kerosene oil,� said Anne, sniffing and frowning.

“I reckon it’s these little sticks,� he said. “They’re all smelly.�

“Where did you get them?� asked Anne.

“From under the back-porch steps.�

“That’s queer!� said Anne. “I wonder——�

“Come on, Anne, and let’s start our next rows at the same time, so we can race—and talk,� called Patsy.

Anne went her way and forgot the little sticks that smelled of oil.

Sweet William put them aside presently and had a party—filling some oyster shells with make-believe dainties and setting them out on a flat stone.

Mrs. Mallett, who came to consult Mrs. Wilson about some Red Cross work, paused to watch the youngster who was the Village pet.

“You are having a fine party, ain’t you?� she said.

“It’s a birthday party,� he said. “But I’m just having ash-cake. I reckon Mr. Hoover wouldn’t want me to have fruit cake and pie. Mother says he wants us to save everything we can, so as to feed our armies and our Allies.�

“Bless your heart!� she said. “I wish the grown folks ’round here would act that way. You know,� she said, turning to Mrs. Wilson, “those Andrewses and Joneses and Walthalls aren’t making a mite of change in the way they eat, for all the government tells them ‘food will win the war’ and ‘if we waste at home, our boys over there will go hungry.’�

“I know. Food has become sacred; it means life,� said Mrs. Wilson. “It is dreadful that some of our own people are so slow to realize the situation and their duty. Miranda Osborne and I carried the government pamphlets to the Andrewses and Joneses and Walthalls and talked to them, but they listened as if their minds were shut and locked. They think, as Gordan Jones said, those who raise wheat and corn and hogs have a right to use all the flour and meal and meat they please.�

“A right! Who with a heart and conscience wants the right to use victuals extravagant when other folks are starving? Well, I must go and take this wool to the women that said they would knit.�

“I’ll go with you,� said Sweet William, scrambling to his feet. “I’d rather go visiting with you than to stay here and play party by myself.�

Mrs. Mallett gladly accepted his company, and, with Scalawag at his heels, he trotted along with her, to collect knitted garments and dispense wool.

Suddenly Scalawag, usually a well-mannered dog that did not interfere with people on the public road, ran at a negro boy, barking furiously. The boy jerked up a stone, and Scalawag came back to Sweet William’s heels, whimpering and growling. As soon as they were at a safe distance, he again barked angrily.

“I never saw him do that way before,� said Sweet William; “never, but that night in the garden.�

“Who was he barking at then?� asked Mrs. Mallett.

“I don’t know,� said Scalawag’s master; and then he told about his trip to Broad Acres the night before the gardens were destroyed and about the dog’s queer behavior.

“H’m!� Mrs. Mallett said thoughtfully. “Who was that boy we passed?�

“Kit, Lincum Gabe’s boy,� said Sweet William. “Scalawag’s met him a hundred times, I reckon, and never noticed him before.�

“H’m!� Mrs. Mallett repeated. “Sweet William, you tell Mr. Black Mayo how this dog acted to-day, and about that night. Some dogs have got a lot of sense, and some are pure fools; they’re just like folks. Well, here’s a place we’ve got to stop,� she said, frowning at the pea-green gabled and turreted house that was the outward and visible sign of Gordan Jones’s prosperity.

The door was wide open, and in response to Mrs. Mallett’s knock there was a hearty “Come in!� She and Sweet William walked through the hall and turned into the dining room where Mr. and Mrs. Jones were sitting at the dinner table.

“O—oh!� Sweet William stared at the table. It was strangely unlike what he was used to at home these days. Why, it was loaded with food, vegetables swimming in sauces and gravies, two or three kinds of meat, hot biscuits, cakes, and pies. “O-o-oh!� he said again.

“Howdy, folks!� called Mr. Jones, a stout man in shirt sleeves. “Come in, come in, you-all, and set down to dinner.�

“Howdy, Mrs. Mallett,� said Mrs. Jones, getting up to greet the guests. “And howdy, little man. It’s Mr. Red Mayo’s little boy, ain’t it?�

“Yes; it’s William, Sweet William Osborne,� said Mrs. Mallett, stiffly. “I just come to bring you the wool you said——�

“Here, here!� interrupted Mr. Jones’s big voice. “Eat first and then do your talking. We’ve got plenty victuals for you.� He laughed and surveyed the table with pride. “Come and eat with us, Mrs. Mallett. Come on, little boy, and set right here by me.�

“Oh, the little French and Belgians!� exclaimed Sweet William, whose eyes had never moved from the table.

“No, thank you, Mr. Jones,� said Mrs. Mallett, drawing her lips into a tight line. “Now, Mrs. Jones, this wool——�

“Aw, come along and set and eat,� urged Mr. Jones, hospitably. “I want you to sample this old home-cured ham; and that’s prime good bacon with the greens.�

The little woman’s face flushed and her eyes snapped. “Mr. Jones,� she said, “them victuals would choke me.�

“Wh-what?� He gazed at her with blank astonishment.

“I can’t set down to a gorge like that,� she said. “I’d be thinking ’bout them hungry mouths over there.�

“Starving Belgians and French,� interjected Sweet William.

Mrs. Mallett hurried on: “Yes, them and our other Allies; they’ve got no time to raise wheat and such; their farmers are fighting their war and ours, and the women are working in munition factories and taking the men’s places at home. And there are our boys—my boy—going over there, depending on us at home to send them food. If we are lazy and selfish and don’t raise it, or if we are greedy and selfish and use it wasteful and extravagant, what’s to become of them?�

“Why, why�—Mr. Jones was bewildered—“I raised all that’s on this table, ’cept a little sugar and such, that if I didn’t buy somebody else would. I always was a good provider; we’re used to a good table, and nobody’s got a right to ask me to live stinting,� he said, with rising anger.

“They’ve got a right to ask me to give my son, my own flesh and blood,� said Mrs. Mallett, with a fire of righteous wrath that paled Mr. Jones’s flicker of temper. “And yet you think they haven’t got a right to ask you to give up your hot biscuits and meat three times a day! S’pose you are used to being a good provider? Ain’t I used to going to bed easy in mind about my boy Fayett—and any day I may hear he’s dead.�

“They oughtn’t to have sent him, your boy,� mumbled Mr. Jones. “They’ve got no business to send our men over there to fight, and maybe——�

“They’ve got all the right to send him to fight for his country. But Fayett didn’t wait for any draft. He went of his free will—I’m glad and proud of it—to fight for liberty. And if he dies, I want it to be the Germans that kill him. I don’t want you, that have known him since he was a curly-headed baby boy, to be the ones to help kill him.�

“Why, Mrs. Mallett!� Mrs. Jones said in a hurt, amazed voice. “We wouldn’t harm a hair of his head; not for the world, we wouldn’t.�