“‘Shave pate, number eightHit yo’ haid aginst the gate.’
“‘Shave pate, number eightHit yo’ haid aginst the gate.’
“‘Shave pate, number eightHit yo’ haid aginst the gate.’
“It sho did hurt Cho-Cho’s feelings. And Cho-Cho, she slish-slashed my hair off so’s I’d look cute. Nobody ain’t told us we look cute—and nobody ain’t spanked us nor nothin’—and nobody don’t love us.” This tirade came out between sobs.
Kent and Judy roared with laughter but Molly and her mother tried to look sad and mournful.
“Molly, I’m astonished! Why don’t you spank your kid? I never heard of such an inhuman parent,” teased Kent.
Molly was very happy indeed. The miracle had come! Her prayer was answered. She did not have to punish Mildred. Mildred was punished.
“You wouldn’t have treated yo’ dear little children so mean, would you, Granny?”
“You bet she wouldn’t have,” insisted Kent. “Why, if I had shave-pated, number-eighted my little Haythen friends, your granny would have torn me limb from limb and beaten me black and blue.”
“Sho nuf?”
“Yes, indeed, and if my little Haythen friend had chopped off all my pretty curls, I am sure her mother would have thrown her in the fire and poked holes in her with a red hot poker.”
“Jes’ ’cause they loved you so much?”
“Yes, just because they loved us so much.”
“Me’n’ Cho-Cho wisht we could git throwed in the fire,” sighed the repentant Mildred. “But,Uncle Kent,” and she got up and put her little mouth close to his ear, “don’t you think I made a mighty cunning little Japanese dolly out’n my Haythen friend?”
“Aunt Judy, my Poilu is tellible sick! He can’t open up his mouf mo’n ’bout a minute far. Won’t you please, ma’m, punch it open wif the button hook so’s I kin poke some breafkast down him?”
Mildred had the little puppy clasped in her arms and he did seem to be very miserable. His eyes were partly closed and his teeth were tightly clamped together.
“I weckon that big ol’ dog what eated a piece out’n him done made him so sick.”
“But, honey, that was a week ago, and if it had been going to make him sick it would surely have affected him long ago. It was nothing but a scratch, and don’t you remember Aunt Judy bound it up so tight it only bled a moment?”
Judy and Kent had remained at Wellingtonfor a visit. Kent was so soon to join his regiment that he felt he could not tear himself away from his mother and sister, so they had lingered on after the other guests had departed. The bride and groom had also returned after a flying visit to Nance’s old home and were now with the McLeans, Nance declaring that Andy’s mother must have all she could of her son before he was to sail for France.
Judy took the puppy in her lap and smoothed his silky sides. The little fellow opened his eyes and gave her a grateful glance. Mildred did squeeze a little too tight when a fellow felt as sick as poor little Poilu did.
“Maybe we had better get the doctor for him,” suggested Judy. “There come Andy and Aunt Nance now, across the campus! Call them, Mildred! Andy is not too proud to doctor a dog.”
Mildred delightedly ran to the door and waved her arms frantically. “Hi there, brideangroom! brideangroom! Somebody’s mighty sick in this here house. Better hurry up or they might go deaded!”
Andy and Nance quickened their pace and hastened into the house.
“Who is it?” they cried anxiously.
“It’s my littlest brudder!”
“Dodo! What is the matter with my little husband?” asked Nance anxiously.
“’Tain’t Dodo! He ain’t my littlest brudder. I’se got anudder brudder. Ain’t you knowed about him?”
Nance and Andy were much mystified, but they followed the amusing little creature into the library. Nance thought perhaps the big-hearted Molly had adopted a French orphan,—Molly was quite capable of doing it.
“There’s my brudder!” and Mildred pointed to the suffering puppy. “Ain’t it too bad he’s got a tail?”
Andy laughed as he lifted the poor little Poilu to his own knees.
“What is the matter with him, Andy?” was Judy’s anxious query.
“It looks like the last stages of tetanus.” The patient was even then in a violent convulsion.Andy mercifully laid his handkerchief over the little fellow’s head, dreading that Mildred should see his suffering.
“I’d put him out of his misery but he will be gone in a moment anyhow,” he said sadly. “Has he been hurt?”
“A week ago he got bitten by a dog, but it was a mere scratch and did not amount to a row of pins, so Molly and I decided.”
“Did you put anything on the wound?”
“Nothing but a surgical dressing down at the war relief rooms. I remember it was one of the beautifully made dressings Madame Misel had just brought in——”
Andy sprang up, a wild light in his eye. The puppy had breathed its last so he handed it over to Judy without more ado.
“Where is Molly?”
“She has gone down in the village to pack supplies at the war relief rooms. There were lots of things to get off, so she went quite early. I am to follow a little later, just as soon as Kent finishes primping. What is the matter?”
“There may be much the matter. You and Kent come as fast as you can,” and Andy and Nance hurried off without any more explanation.
The news was broken to Mildred that her pet was no more and her bruised heart was much comforted with promises of a funeral later on when Kizzie got time to make arrangements. Kent and Judy caught up with Andy and Nance before they reached the old church where the war work was carried on.
“What under Heaven is the matter?” panted Judy.
“It may be nothing, but I must investigate. Let’s go in as quietly as possible. Does Madame Misel still work on the surgical dressings?”
“Yes, indeed! And such beautiful work as she does! Molly insists that she must have a great deal of good in her to give so much time to this work. Sometimes I think I must have dreamed that they spoke as they did that night in the garden. Why should pro-Germans and spies choose this particular spot, anyhow?”
The workroom was filled with very busy ladies when our young couples entered. Molly was tying up dressings, after carefully inspecting and counting them. An order had come for many bandages and other dressings and all hands were at work trying to get them off. Madame Misel was deftly arranging the rolled bandages in pyramids and then tying them with strings made of the selvedge torn from the cotton. Nothing goes to waste in this war work. Madame’s countenance was as calm as ever as she bent over her work, but when she saw the two men enter, Judy noticed a sudden alertness in her glance and a tiny spot of red on her usually white cheek. As she pulled the selvedge string, she must have given it an unusual tug for it broke and the tightly-rolled bandages flew hither and yon over the floor.
“Humph! There is no telling how many germs got picked up in that scatteration,” muttered Andy as he stooped and gathered the bandages.
“The—bandage—does—not—touch the—wound,”said Madame, evidently forgetting she was speaking to a surgeon.
“No?” said Andy shortly.
“Molly,” he said, “I must speak with you a moment.”
“Well, Andy dear, I am awfully busy. You come home to luncheon with me, you and Nance, and then you can speak all you’ve a mind to.”
“I must speak now,” whispered Andy sternly.
“Heavens! Is anything the matter?” asked Molly.
“I am not sure,” and Andy drew her towards the vestry at the back of the church. “Tell me, Molly, have you packed all the dressings that that Misel woman has made?”
“Why, no, not all of them! Why?”
“Have you mixed them with the others?”
“No! They are so beautifully folded that I do not have to inspect them, and so I have put them in boxes to themselves. She is the best worker I ever saw.”
“Molly, I shall have to ask you not to get this shipment off to-day.”
“But, Andy, it is most important! The poor wounded are bleeding to death and the ship sails in two days. We must get them off this evening if they are to catch that boat. What is your reason?”
And then Andy told her of the puppy’s death. He said the fact that his first aid had come from those very rooms, and that tetanus, or lock-jaw, had set in on a perfectly healthy puppy when he had a mere scratch from another dog, made him suspicious that tetanus germs were on some of the bandages.
“Why, Andy, that is ridiculous! Poor Madame Misel may be in sympathy with Germany in spite of all she says, she and her husband, but she could not do such a vile thing as that.” Molly could not help feeling impatient and indignant with her old friend. “Only look at her sweet face and all thought of such infamy will leave your mind.”
Andy did glance towards Madame Misel andthe look of venomous hatred that he surprised on her face was shocking. The young physician laughed grimly. “Molly, you are no judge of persons unless they happen to be angels. You think wings are getting ready to sprout even from our enemies.”
“Perhaps they are! Who knows?”
“You may be right, but in the meantime, please don’t let any of these dressings get off. I must see those Secret Service men. Where are they?”
“Edwin knows, I believe, but he has not told me.”
Molly was irritated beyond endurance. How was she to let these women know that the shipment must be held up? It was all of it so absurd. The women had done the work and now these men must come poking their fingers into the pie that they had had none of the work of making. The idea of accusing Madame Misel of such a crime! Judy, too, seemed to be doubting the stranger, and Nance, of course, would be aiding and abetting Andy.
“I shall have to ask you to be very quiet, not to give this creature an inkling of our suspicions,” commanded Andy sternly. “That is very important.”
“Well, naturally, I’ll hardly be so rude as to let her think anyone is so unkind as to doubt her,” and Molly’s lip trembled.
“Molly, dear Molly, don’t hate me so. I can’t help seeing that something is wrong and if I have the slightest suspicion, I must surely probe to the bottom. You must see that.”
“Of course I do, Andy, but I just can’t bear to have anybody abused, especially a woman who makes such lovely dressings,” and Molly tried to smile at her friend.
“Well, I’ll depend upon you to stop the work of getting them off and still not let the woman know she is under suspicion. Just go on packing but do not make the shipment.”
“I hate to resort to such subterfuge, but I’ll do my best,” sighed Molly.
“Wouldn’t it be better to bring one criminal to justice than to kill thousands of poor woundedmen by dressing their wounds with tetanus germs?”
“Of course, only—but—you see——”
“Yes, I see that your heart is so tender and you are so honest yourself you think all the world must be like you.”
Molly went sadly back to her packing, all the joy and zest gone out of her work. How could nice men like Andy and Kent think such things about a poor defenseless woman? No doubt she did have a sneaking sympathy for Germany. Was not that natural? Had she and her countrymen not been under German rule long enough to consider the kaiser as their rightful ruler? Because her husband chose to pretend to be lame was no reason why everybody should think Madame Misel capable of such a dastardly thing as putting tetanus germs on the bandages of poor wounded soldiers. That was something no woman, no matter how bad, could do,—and surely this woman was not bad, not really bad. Molly Brown was so constituted that one had to be proven to be bad before she could believe evilof him or her, and then, as a rule, she would find some excuse for the sinner if not for the sin.
Nance and Judy stayed on to help in the work, while Andy and Kent went to find the Secret Service agents. While the task of making bandages, etc., went rapidly forward, the detectives quietly ransacked the cottage occupied by the Misels. This was the first opportunity they had had of going over the house. The occupants had never before left it alone. Much of dire importance was discovered. Among other things a small laboratory where no doubt all kinds of evil germs were incubated. The search was made very rapidly, as they were anxious to leave things in such order that the owners would not suspect that they were under surveillance.
As the two quietly-dressed, intelligent looking men were in the act of going through a desk, they saw from the window the slow and painful approach of M. Misel. Without a word they let themselves out of a back window, left open for emergencies, and before the master had opened the front door the detectives were over the back fence and out of sight. They were desirous of catching more than the Misels in their net and did not want to act too quickly.
Had they peeped through the window, they would have seen Misel with an impatient gesture sling his crutch in one direction, his cane in another.
“Lena!” he called, in anything but a gentle tone. “Lena!” And then with muttered curses, when he found his wife to be absent, he settled himself to look over the bunch of mail hehad just obtained at the post-office. One letter he examined very critically before opening. It was an inoffensive enough looking envelope, addressed on a typewriter and with a postmark from New York. It had the appearance of a circular or advertisement of some sort, being made of cheap, greyish-white paper, the kind of letter one would wait until last to open in a pile of mail, being sure it was of no especial interest or importance. Misel seemed to find it very interesting, however. It was the one he chose from all the letters and papers, and as he examined it, he scowled darkly.
“Lena!” he called as Madame Misel hurriedly entered the cottage, “Lena, some fool has been meddling with my mail!”
“Perhaps not such a big fool as you are!” she answered tartly.
“Look! The envelope has been opened before. Of course it is the letter from Fritz von Lestes, the one we have been awaiting.” He tore it open and read aloud: “‘The paint which you have ordered will be delivered immediately. Amsorry there should have been any delay. I am sending a light grey, as agreed upon.’ Umm—I don’t see how they could make much out of that.”
“Let me see the letter.—Of course they can make much out of it as there is no address,—you men bungle things so! Why should a man who is in the paint business write a letter with no address and sign his name so illegibly that no one could make it out? He should have had a letter head and a business envelope.”
“And speaking of bungling,—why did you go and leave the house with no one in it? Can’t you see that is imprudent?”
“Mrs. Green came for me and I had no excuse.—Besides, I am sure if I am by when the dressings are handed in that no one will inspect my work. I have been packing all morning and have seen to it that my labor has not been in vain.”
“Oh, peerless woman!” he said sarcastically.
Madame Misel said nothing but busied herself over the luncheon. Suddenly she gave a littlecry, half distress, half indignation. Misel hastened to her.
“What is it?”
“Look! This back window is not quite closed! Did you open it?”
“No! I have not been here in the kitchen.”
“Then someone has been in the house,” she announced in a dead tone.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course! I left the windows locked, stupid! Look about and see if all is in order.”
The detectives had worked as neatly as detectives can work, but the Misels found several traces of them. In one room a chair had been moved; in another a drawer had not been shut as close as Madame was confident she had left it; papers had been turned over in the desk, Misel was sure, although none were missing.
“Someone has been in the laboratory, too! Look at this crucible! I always place them so,—and this has been turned.”
The pair faced each other with despair on their countenances.
“What now?” they gasped.
“We must make a flitting this very night!” exclaimed the woman. “Thank goodness, nobody dreams that you are not crippled nor that I am anything but the homely hausfrau I appear. The dressings will be off this very afternoon, too, so my work is completed in that line, at least. If you could boast as much, no doubt you would not mind leaving. I told you to begin the teaching at Exmoor sooner.”
“The youths were not ripe for it. I have begun in a way, but not much has been accomplished. Perhaps the person who has been here is just some prying neighbor and we are not really being watched. Go out and see if you can discover anything!”
When Madame Misel peeped through the windows of the old church she saw enough to make her turn pale. Andy McLean was there with two strange men and Professor and Mrs. Green. Molly was weeping bitter tears as she untied the carefully packed surgical dressings. Madame saw at a glance that it was her work that was beingexamined by the men. She did not stop to make sure what they found on her beautifully made dressings, but turned and fled towards the cottage that she called home.
“Why is she weeping?” she asked herself, and there was woman enough in her to know that Molly wept because one of her own sex had proved faithless.
Blinds were pulled down in the cottage with the lovely old garden, and the activities that ensued could only be equaled by a circus breaking up to leave town. Madame Misel moved with a quiet precision that showed she was an adept at making a quick get-away. Misel worked with a fury of impatience. He went through his desk, scattering papers hither and yon and burning everything of no value. Other documents he stowed carefully away in his breast pocket. The laboratory was dismantled and small, mysterious-looking vials packed in boxes and placed in the huge suit-case that seemed to hold most of their belongings.
A letter was written to the landlord informinghim that his tenants had been called out of Wellington by the illness of a fictitious sister. A month’s rent was enclosed. Another letter was written to the postmaster asking that mail be forwarded to an entirely imaginary address. The work proceeded rapidly. The cottage was always in apple-pie order, as Madame Misel was certainly an excellent housekeeper.
“You must write to the president of the college,” commanded Madame.
“Naturally! Must I use the same sister?”
“Of course! Why two lies when one will suffice?”
A letter to Miss Walker was dispatched forthwith.
“And now for our disguises,—or rather the time has come to discard our disguises!” cried Madame almost joyfully. “I hate to appear as such a frump!”
Misel’s disguise was composed principally of cane and crutch, but at his wife’s instigation he shaved his mustache. With the help of a checked suit and red necktie and a brown derby hat atrifle too small for him, the pathetic and interesting teacher of the French language was transformed into the type of man one sees hanging around a race track. With a clever brush Madame put a quirk in his eyebrows that completed the portrait. Then a bit of court plaster was stuck on one of the perfect teeth which gave the handsome Misel a sinister look and suggested to the beholder former battles and fisticuffs in which he had been struck in the mouth.
“Even your dying sister will not recognize you!” exclaimed his wife.
Madame’s transformation was even more startling than her husband’s. First she shook out her smoothly brushed hair and with the help of curling tongs soon had a wave that the finest hair dresser in New York could not have exceeded. She piled her abundant hair up in curls and twists and coils, pulling out puffs over her ears. Then with pencil and rouge pot and powder puff she went to work on her countenance. A raging beauty was the outcome, but rather fast and loud looking. A lavender suit lined and slashed withcorn-colored silk was then donned, with many rings and bracelets. The flat-heeled shoes were packed away in the suit-case with the sober costume, and high-heeled French boots were fitted on in their stead. A plentiful sprinkling of musk was added so that the nostrils were assailed as soon as the eyes.
“Tough sports!” would have been the verdict of anyone meeting the Misels. They had decided on the night train to New York. The cottage was carefully locked, the key enclosed in the letter to the landlord, which they posted on their way to the station. Everything was going smoothly. The station was empty when the pair stepped upon the platform and in a moment the New York train came steaming around the curve.
“Thank God, we are getting away unnoticed!” gasped Misel.
“Thank God if you choose, but it would be more to the point if you thanked me. I can’t see that anyone has helped you but me.”
“Oh, well! Have it your own way!” saidthe spurious bookmaker as they boarded the train.
“Someone got left,” he laughed as they took their seats in the chair car. “I saw a man and woman running down the road just as we got aboard. I am glad they got left. Whoever it is might have recognized us.”
“Nonsense! Didn’t I tell you your own dying sister would not know you?” and Madame Misel smoothed her lavender draperies and jangled her many bracelets and rings, peeping in the mirror meantime to adjust her large beplumed hat. There was a commotion in the end of the Pullman and she heard a familiar voice. In the mirror she espied a familiar face, and under the heavily laid on rouge, the woman paled and the hand that adjusted her hat shook. Misel buried his face in the evening paper some traveler had left in his seat, while the innocent cause of their perturbation found a seat with the help of the porter.
“I don’t see why you take it so hard, Molly darling,” said Judy as Molly told her of the detectives’ findings and of the perfidy they had unearthed.
“Why, I fancy I am grieving that such wickedness can be in this world,” sighed Molly. “I liked Madame Misel so much.”
“Well, I never did like her,” declared Judy.
Molly smiled, well remembering Judy’s enthusiasm on arriving at Wellington and telling of the interesting couple she had met on the train.
“I know what you are thinking about—of course I said they were interesting, but I never did like the woman much—she was too catty for me.”
This conversation was interrupted by the loudringing of the telephone bell, which proved to be a long distance call for Judy from Mr. Kean in New York. His marching orders had come and he was to sail for France in a few days, and for the first time on record he could not take his little wife with him. Building roads and bridges in war time was very different from times of peace, and France at that time was no place for delicate little ladies.
“You had better come right up to New York on the next train,” was his ringing command. “Your mother needs you and I must see you, too.”
“All right, Bobby! Meet me at the Pennsylvania Station. I’ll take the 12.45—I am not going to let Kent come. He must be with his mother one more day,—his mother and Molly. So long! Be sure and meet me!”
Then such a scrambling ensued! Kent must be persuaded he was neither wanted nor needed, a few things hurled into a bag, her sketch book tucked in her jacket pocket, and Judy was off like a whirlwind. She and Kent ran all the wayto the station only to see the train pulling out as they stepped upon the platform.
“I can get it! Keep the old bag!” cried that young woman as she sprinted down the track, her young husband running lightly by her side, laughing in spite of himself. If you have never run after a train and caught it you cannot realize the triumphant feeling Judy had as she grasped the rail and swung herself up on the rear coach. Fortunately it was not a vestibule train or she would have been shut out. Kent slung the bag up after her and then stood in the middle of the track until his Judy was lost in the darkness.
“What a girl she is!” he laughed to himself. “What a dear girl!”
The dear girl was rescued by a rather indignant brakeman and led through the empty coach that happened to be hitched on to the train and finally installed in the chair car, after many explanations and excuses had been made to train conductor and then Pullman conductor.
Young women have no business on night trains with no tickets—certainly no business in boardingthose trains from the rear, thereby risking their own necks and making the railroads liable to damage suits.
“But you see my father telephoned me from New York,” she confided to the train conductor, a grizzled looking old fellow with a decidedly military bearing. “He is going to France next week and he simply had to see me.—Perhaps you know my father,” she added with a certain assurance that everybody connected with railroads ought to know Bobby.
“More than likely!” was the grim reply. The conductor had no idea of being cajoled into good humor by this daring girl.
“He is Mr. Robert Kean,—Bobby!”
The conductor was suddenly a changed creature.
“Know him! I should say I did! Bless my soul, if you don’t look like him—same eyes—same mouth! Ha, ha! See Bob Kean missing a train! Not much!” and the erstwhile stern captain of the train now grasped Judy’s hand. “Come on, I’ll see that you get a chair, MissKean. I’m certainly pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“I’m not Miss Kean any more,—I’m Mrs. Kent Brown now.—It was my husband who pitched me and my luggage on the back end of the train.”
“Married! By jiminy! I can’t believe Bob Kean has a married daughter! And your husband aided and abetted you in jumping on the back of fast trains, did he?” and the once grim captain laughed aloud. “Well, I’m glad you got a game husband. I don’t know what your father would have done with a ’fraid cat.”
Judy’s entrance in the Pullman caused some commotion. The old conductor was laughing heartily and the brakeman was in a much pleasanter frame of mind as he handed over Judy’s bag to the grinning porter. There were about eight persons in the chair car as Judy entered and Judy-like, she immediately became intensely interested in them.
Of course, the spot of color made by a flashy dame in lavender attracted her attention first,and then her companion in loud checks cried out to be noticed. What a couple! Race track written all over both of them! Even from three seats off Judy could smell the musk on the woman. The man’s face was hidden by the newspaper and the woman seemed to be engaged in rapt contemplation of her beauty in the narrow little mirror by her chair. To Judy’s disappointment the gaudy dame whirled her chair around so she could not see her face.
“I bet she’s a peacherino!” she said to herself.
There were other persons in the train that proved interesting, too: among them a mother and child who appealed to Judy’s artistic sense; a G. A. R. veteran who was sure he had been in worse battles than the Marne; an ancient lady from Louisiana who made our young artist wild to paint her white hair and patrician nose. Opposite Judy’s chair was a young man, (or was he a young man?) At least he was not an old man! There were a few tiny lines around his twinkling bright blue eyes, but his movements were as alert as a college athlete’s, and his mouth, though veryfirm, had the saucy expression of a street boy. Judy was sure she had seen his face before. The way his hair grew on his forehead in a so-called widow’s peak reminded her vaguely of someone,—the cleft chin she was sure she had known somewhere. He was interested in her, too, she could plainly see. He had a pleasant, dependable expression, the kind of look one felt meant that in time of trouble he would be a good person to call on. He was making himself generally useful to the madonna-like mother and child; he had assisted the ancient lady from Louisiana to get up and sit down several times since Judy had so unceremoniously boarded the car.
“I wish I knew where I had known him. His face is as familiar to me as my own.”
She felt in her jacket pocket for her sketch book. She must get an impression of the mother and child, and the old lady was destined to be sketched in, too. She longed to do the youngish-oldish person opposite, but he was too close for her to permit herself such a familiarity. She turned over the leaves of her book and suddenlycame upon the page given up to the Tucker twins and their friend Page Allison. What delightful girls they were! Suddenly she could place the resemblance seen in the gentleman across the aisle. Of course his forehead and widow’s peak were the same that Dum Tucker owned, and his cleft chin was the identical one belonging to Dee Tucker. Could he be their father?
She remembered what the girls had told her of their delightful father. He was a newspaper man in Richmond, Virginia, and according to the twins was just about the most wonderful person in the world. Page Allison, too, had given him praise, although not quite so wildly unstinted as his daughters.
“I think I’ll drop something and let him pick it up for me and get in a conversation with him,” Judy laughed to herself. “He is such a squire of dames, he is sure to pick it up.”
She turned the pages of her sketch book until she came to the quick impressions she had made of Madame Misel at the war relief rooms.
“The wretch!” was her inward comment, andher thoughts went back to the last days at Wellington. She looked up; her eye was again chained by the gaudy lavender spot and she suddenly became conscious that she could see the woman’s face in the large mirror at the end of the Pullman. Her eyes were down as she perused the pages of a magazine.
Another familiar face! Where under Heaven had she seen just that chin and nose? Her eyes fell again on the open sketch book. Why, it is Madame Misel—no other! With quick strokes she copied the sketch and then cleverly added the beplumed hat, fluffy collar and fashionably cut coat. The woman stood up for a moment to get something from the pocket of her great coat, hanging on the hook at one side, and then Judy took in her general contours standing, and added some draperies to the full length figure she had also obtained of Madame Misel in the work room. High heels were put on the flat, unstylish shoes. The straight severe dress and basque were transformed into the fashionable, if gaudy, creation. Judy was careful not to erase any of theoriginal lines and all of the new parts she sketched in in dots and dashes.
The gentleman opposite was plainly interested in what she was doing and it evidently required all his self-control to keep from asking to be allowed to see.
“They are the Misels and they are running away!” flashed into Judy’s mind. “It is up to me to stop them—but how? The gent in checks is undoubtedly Misel. They can’t fool me; I remember his ears too well and the way his hands held things.”
She glanced across the aisle and her eyes met the bright blue ones belonging to the widow’s peak and cleft chin.
“What would Bobby do in this case?” she asked herself.
“Use the sense God gave him and get help if he couldn’t cope with a thing single-handed,” she answered herself.
She accordingly let her sketch book slide from her lap, rubber and pencil hopping gaily after it.
“Oh, thank you so much!” she exclaimed asthe squire of dames immediately dived for the belongings and restored them to her. “I would not loose my sketch book for worlds.”
“I should say not! I have a daughter who is very much interested in art,—in fact, she is studying in New York now,—her specialty is sculpture, though.”
“Yes, I know her! She is Dum Tucker!”
“You know my Dum! How wonderful! And how did you know she was—I was her father?”
“By your widow’s peak! I also know you are Dee’s father by your chin.”
Mr. Tucker changed his seat, taking the one by Judy.
“By Jove! You artists are a clever lot. You would make a great detective, Mrs. Brown. You must excuse me for knowing your name, but I heard you tell the captain what it was,—Mrs. Kent Brown. My girls have written me how kind you have been to them and I have been dying to make myself known to you, but was waiting for some kind of opening wedge.”
“And I, too, Mr. Tucker, have been wondering where I had seen you, when I found your girls’ pictures in my little book. See! Here they are!”
“And little Page, too!” He exclaimed eagerly scanning the sketches. “You are wonderfully clever at a likeness.”
“Do you think so? I—Mr. Tucker—I deliberately scraped up an acquaintance with you because I want you to do something for me,” and Judy looked frankly into the honest eyes of her new acquaintance.
“Why, Mrs. Brown, you know I am at your service.”
“I was sure of you somehow, even if I had not been almost certain you were related in some way to Dum and Dee Tucker. My little sketch book told me that and it told me something else, too, but I must begin at the beginning.”
Judy, whispering, began with her meeting of the Misels, of her interesting the Greens at Wellington, of Misel’s substituting in French at the college and of Madame’s work in the war relief.Jeffrey Tucker’s eyes flashed as the newspaper man in him scented a rousing good story. When Judy got to the part where she and her friends went out in the night to hunt for adventure and found it in the manly shape of Misel taking strenuous exercise for a cripple, he beamed with joy and felt in his pocket for a pencil. Judy rapidly told him of the puppy’s wounded leg and of the tetanus germs as well as ground glass being found in the dressings. He set his square jaw and looked as though he could eat the kaiser and all his crew at one mouthful.
“And now I have come to thedénouement!”gasped Judy, excitement making her breathless. “If I could recognize you by your likeness to my sketches, I fancy I could also recognize Madame Misel by sketches of herself. I got two of her this morning at the war relief. The detectives did not arrest them, as they want to get others in their dragnet, but in some way the spies must have caught on to the fact that they were under suspicion, as they sneaked away.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure as shooting! In fact they are on this train.”
“No!” excitedly.
“Now, Mr. Tucker, you must compose yourself if we mean to catch the creatures!”
“Certainly!” and the eager man sank back in his seat and tried to look as though he were having a mild conversation with the attractive young woman who had jumped on the back of the moving train.
“Now that is better! Keep that nonchalant expression for what I am going to tell you——”
“All right, fire away!”
“They are on this coach, just three seats down.—Good boy, not to jump out of your skin! Now I am going to show you my sketch of the woman before and after. See, there is no doubt about her! You walk to the smoker and on the way back get a good look at her face and I bet you will be convinced.”
Jeffrey Tucker did as he was bid, giving Madame Misel such a casual look that he aroused no suspicion in her mind.
“Gee! This is great! I’d rather bag some of these spies than do big hunting in the African Jungle. Now, most wise of all female detectives, what do you advise? We must act quickly.”
“I think you should take the conductors, both train and Pullman, into your confidence, and then send telegrams to New York to have the spies met with the proper reception. You can telegraph Bobby, I mean my father, if you think it best, and he can get in cahoots with the Secret Service people in New York. Bobby is the kind of man who doesn’t let things go wrong. When he bores a hole in the mountain it comes out on the opposite side just exactly where he meant it to,—when he swings a bridge across a river it stays swung,—there is no giving way of supports and undermining from washings,—Bobby knows. If you telegraph him, he’ll have detectives there all right and they will have the necessary warrants and handcuffs, too.”
“Well then, Bobby it is!” and Jeffrey Tucker quickly took Mr. Kean’s address. Next the conductorswere interviewed, and those good Americans quickly complied with any and every request. A long and explicit telegram was written to the gentleman who did not let mistakes happen, another one sent to the chief of police, in case Mr. Kean should not be at home to receive the telegram, (Jeffrey Tucker being the kind of man who did not let mistakes occur, either,) and then there was nothing to do but sit quietly in the Pullman and wait for the train to steam into New York.
It seemed to Judy to be hours and hours, although the time certainly passed pleasantly with the friends she made on the train. She and Mr. Tucker talked to everybody except the two sporty looking individuals, and they would have had the audacity to talk with them if they had been given the slightest encouragement. But the Misels kept their backs studiously turned to their fellow travelers and did not court sociability.
“Suppose they get off at Manhattan Junction and go to the Hudson Terminal instead of the big Pennsylvania Station!” panted Judy, her eyes shining with excitement and her fluffy hair standing on end as though an electric shock had gone through her system.
“Who is giving the game away now?” teased her new friend. “I thought of that and warned the chief when I telegraphed him. If they do get off there, I’ll get off, too, and you can go on to the other station where your father will meet you.”
“Not much I will! I’m going to keep my eye on that lavender spot until I see those wrists with something on them besides gold bracelets. You see, I feel responsible for this pair, having beenthe one to introduce them to Wellington society. If they get off at Manhattan Junction, so do I. Bobby will understand! He would have no use for me if I didn’t see it through.”
“I believe you are a real patriot, Mrs. Brown.”
“Of course I am! But one thing sure I am not going to give my husband to the cause, and my father, and then let these mean spies go Scot-free. Now my dear friend and sister-in-law Molly,—Mrs. Edwin Green,—is so good that she can’t believe anyone can be bad. She is just as patriotic as I am but she can’t believe in the perfidy of Germany and the Germans. I truly believe she would not have the heart to nab these wretches even if she could not deny their guilt. Molly is an angel herself and I fancy maybe her angelic qualities do rub off some even on the worst characters. She may have helped this Madame Misel some, who knows? But I am going to help her even more by letting her get a taste of real punishment.”
“And I am going to do my best to help you help her,” laughed Mr. Tucker. “We are nearingManhattan Junction now and I do not see our friends making ready to get off.”
The pair sat quietly while the train stopped for a moment for passengers to change for the downtown station. Judy and Mr. Tucker were on the alert to leave the train if they saw the slightest movement on the part of the Misels, but the latter sat in evident certainty of their disguise not having been penetrated.
“Now the curtain is to go up in a moment!” cried Judy. “I have never been in such a stew of expectation!”
The train had entered its under-water tunnel and in what seemed hardly a minute they found themselves in the Pennsylvania Station. Jeffrey Tucker, true to his nature, must assist the old lady from Louisiana and the mother and child, but this time he assisted them by calling the porter and, with a generous tip, put them in his hands. He had other and more urgent fish to fry.
“There’s Bobby!” cried Judy. “They have let him through the gates!”
So they had, and others, also. Mr. Robert Kean was eagerly scanning the windows of the coaches as they slowly passed in review. By his side were several alert looking men in plain clothes and near them were some brass-buttoned policemen.
“You go out first,” whispered Mr. Tucker to the impatient Judy, who looked like a hunting dog straining at the leash. “I’ll bring up the rear in case of a bolt.”
The Misels got up quickly and without any delay moved towards the door. They seemed perfectly unconcerned, the woman patting her curls and hat into shape and Misel actually having the hardihood to cast an ogling glance at Judy. That young woman returned his admiring look with a saucy toss of her head, entering into the game with her usual vim.
One hug for Bobby and a whisper in his ear:
“The handsome dame in lavender and the lout in checks!”
He in turn handed the information on to theplain clothes men, who were ready with their bracelets not made of gold.
The arrest was made so quietly that the mother and child who were in the midst of it never did know what was going on, and the old lady from Louisiana took her serene way right by the handcuffed Madame Misel without knowing that that lady had had an addition made to her bangles. Misel was inclined to give some little trouble. When he realized they were trapped, he started back into the chair car, but was met in a head on collision by Jeffrey Tucker, who had a few football tricks left over from his not so far distant youth.
“Get out of my way! You fool!” cried the enraged Misel.
“Softly, my friend! The exit is the other way,” purred the redoubtable Mr. Tucker, at the same time putting up his guard, seeing the foreigner was about to spring upon him. “Madame has gone out by the door behind you.”
Bang! Misel’s fist shot out, but Jeffrey Tucker was a match for any ordinary boxer,having practiced that manly art to keep up with his daughters who always put on the gloves to settle any difficulty, and, as they expressed it, to let off steam when the family atmosphere got too thick. He dodged the blow, holding his guard ready for the next.
Before the furious creature could recover himself after having given the empty air such a drubbing, the detectives approached him from the rear and in a twinkling he was overcome.
“What does this mean?” he asked, attempting an air of dignity.
“You shall have to come and find out!” was the laconic reply deigned him by the grim policeman who had him in charge.
“Mr. Kean, I am sorry to tell you, but your daughter will have to come to the police court to tell what she knows of these persons,” said the leader of the plain clothes men.
“I’m not sorry! I want to see it through!” cried Judy.
“And so, we are to thank you for this indignity,” hissed Madame.
“Thank me or the picturesque garden by your cottage—whichever you choose. It is a stirring thing to creep in that lovely garden on a romantic night and suddenly to see a poor lame man who has won the sympathy of the community, come springing out in running togs and have him beat Douglas Fairbanks and George Walsh in his jumping. Then to have the gentle, courteous Madame Misel boldly state that Wellington is composed of blockheads,—all in perfect German, too, which was a strange language for such good Frenchmen to employ in the bosom of the family.”
“Judy, I wouldn’t say any more!” said her father, but his eye was twinkling as he tucked his daughter’s hand under his arm.
Mr. Tucker and Mr. Kean met as long lost friends. They were what Judy called soul brothers from the first. The old train conductor stopped to exchange greetings with his one-time acquaintance. He was loud in his praise of the young lady who had scared them all to death by jumping on the rear end of the moving train.He said nothing of the scolding he had given her before he found out she was Bob Kean’s daughter.
The sketch book was convincing evidence that the sporty couple were no other than Monsieur and Madame Misel. Judy told her story well to the chief, showing the clever sketches taken before and after.
While they were at the police court, a long distance message was received from Wellington with the news that the flitting of the spies had been discovered by the detectives sent there on the case.
“It would have been too late if you had not been so wide awake,” the chief informed Judy.
“And I could have done nothing if Mr. Tucker had not taken hold,” declared Judy.
“Why, my dear Mrs. Brown, you would have found some other way, I am sure. You do not come of a breed that lets accidents happen.”
The Misels turned out to be pure Prussian, with not one drop of the blood of Alsace in their veins. Their name was Mitzel and they hadmany crimes to answer for. They had been on the stage prior to the war and the man was a noted acrobat and prestidigitator; the woman had traveled with her husband and assisted him in his work on the stage, being the hypnotized lady, the Herodian mystery, the disappearing spirit, the person who got tied up in the chest and had a sword run through her,—anything, in fact, that is usually required of the assistant in such a business. They were employed to act as spies and to disseminate all the German propaganda in their power.
Misel, or Mitzel, was to have insinuated an anti-draft spirit at Exmoor, the male college near Wellington. Also to influence the girls at Wellington, who in their turn were to influence their brothers and sweethearts.
“Oh, Bobby! Only suppose we had not gone out that night in search of adventure!” cried Judy, when she was safe under her mother’s wing.
“Why don’t you just suppose you had never been born?” boomed the delighted Bobby.“When you were once born you were sure to be out hunting adventure. You are made that way, eh, Mother?”
“Yes, I am afraid she is,” sighed that tiny lady. “You and Judy are exactly alike.”
“Do you mind?” asked her big husband humbly.
“No, I would not have either one of you different. But I fancy Kent and I are in for lives of anxiety.”
“Well, he likes us the way we are, too,” declared Judy, blushing.
“Well, I have two things to say:” declared Mr. Kean, giving a mighty yawn, “I am glad I let you have a Parisian education if with it you can make clever enough sketches to catch these German spies; and the other is, that it is high time we were all of us in bed.”
Madame Mitzel, before she was sentenced to the imprisonment that she so richly deserved, requested an interview with Judy, which was granted, although Judy was most reluctant.
“I can’t bear to see her again! She looked like a snake caught in a net.”
“I—want—you—to tell—Mrs. Green—that—I—am sorry for—her to—know—about me—That is all! If—I could—have—had a woman—like that—to—be—my friend—in my—youth—I would have—been different.” She spoke in the faltering manner she had used at Wellington, one she employed in speaking English, and then she plunged into voluble German, so rapid that Judy could hardly follow her:
“But you! You have outwitted me and I cannot but admire you for it, but I hate you with all my heart.”
“That is all right! I’d rather have your hate than your love! I’ll tell Molly, though.”
Before we leave the Misels, or Mitzels, for good, I must tell you that the shipment of paint arrived at Wellington as the mysterious dealer had informed Monsieur Jean Misel it would. One of the Secret Service men remained in Wellington to receive it. It was light grey, as was promised; at least, it was marked light grey onthe outside of the six large cans. On opening these cans, which I can assure you the detective did with the utmost caution, many things besides paint were disclosed,—in fact, there was no paint there at all. He found various chemicals, necessary for the making of the modern bomb; poisons of all sorts, and innocent looking little vials containing deadly germs. Those six cans if let loose on the unsuspecting community would have caused as much damage as the imps in Pandora’s box.
Even Molly had to confess that the Misels were not very good persons, and when her husband gave her to understand that her own little Mildred and Dodo might have been poisoned by polluted water had the foreigners accomplished all they no doubt intended to with some of those bottled germs, the young mother came to the conclusion that they were not only not very good but they were extremely wicked, and perhaps just imprisonment was too mild a punishment to be meted out to them.
There was a very serious meeting of students of Wellington being held in the library of the Square Deal. Twenty of the leading spirits of the student body had asked Mrs. Edwin Green to let them confer with her on a most important matter.
The college authorities had announced that the H. C. of L. had affected Wellington just as it had every person and every institution, and students’ board would have to be raised for the ensuing year. This came as a blow to the majority of girls. Going to college is an expensive matter at best, and while there are many rich girls gathered in those institutions, the majority come from homes of moderate incomes and many from actualpoverty. It will never be known how many sacrifices had been made to educate some of those Wellington girls, and the H. C. of L. had affected their families just as much as it had the institution; and the news that the following year college expenses would increase had caused much consternation in the student body.
“We won’t stand for it!” said one tense little girl from Indiana, who had been working her way through three years of college by doing all kinds of odd jobs, which reminded Molly of her own strenuous student days.
“It’s harder on you than me, Mary Culbertson,” said a sturdy sophomore. “You haven’t but one more year. At least I haven’t wasted as much time in this old joint as you have.”
“But, my dear, please don’t look upon it as wasted time,” begged Molly.
“Well, I came for a degree and if I don’t get it, I consider I have wasted two years. I might just as well have taken a job at home. A teacher’s place was open for me then and now it may be filled for good. A degree will give one a bettersalary, but two years of college won’t get you anywhere.”
“I am sure some scheme can be worked to keep down the expenses,” insisted Molly.
“We can’t live on less food!” bluntly declared Lilian Swift.
“Nor plainer!” from a discontented one.
“It might be plainer without being less nourishing,” suggested Molly. “How about your doing some light housekeeping on your own hook and not trying to board with the college?”
“But I am sure the college authorities do not make money on the girls as it is,” said Billie McKym, who had come to the meeting from truly altruistic motives, as expenses made no difference to her personally. “If a great body of girls cannot be fed on the amount charged now, I am certain a girl could not live on less if she went in for herself.”
Billie, with all her wealth, had a good keen eye for business and understood the management of money rather better than any poor girl at Wellington.
“I reckon you are right,” said Molly sadly. “Would you girls mind if I ask my husband to come in and talk it over with you?”
“No!” in chorus. “Bring him in!”
“Not that knowing how to read Chaucer in old English will make him wise as how to live on nothing a year,” whispered one.
Professor Green was in the den with his cousin, old Major Fern, who had motored in from the country to have a chat with his favorite kinsman. Molly entered, smiling at the clouds of tobacco smoke which almost obscured the two gentlemen.
“Edwin, I know the Major will excuse you for a moment. I need you badly.”
“Of course, my dear! But I hope it is nothing serious that is beclouding your fair brow,” said the old gentleman with the courteous manner of his generation.
“Yes, it is serious in a way,” and Molly told her husband and his cousin what was the problem the girls had brought to her to solve.
“Of course, I can’t blame the college authorities,”she sighed. “It is hard to feed people as it is, and with expenses going up, up, I know they will have to raise the board. But on the other hand, there are many girls who simply cannot pay more than they are already paying. I feel for them, as I was one of them when I was at college. If the board had been raised one nickel I should have had to stop. I almost had to as it was. If it had not been for Edwin’s fondness for apples, I should have been degreeless to this day.”
“Adam and I!” laughed the professor. “But what do you want me to do, Molly? I am yours to command.”
“I don’t know exactly! I thought you might talk to the girls and we might keep on thinking and praying until some solution is reached.”
“I have a proposition to make that might interest your college friends,” said Major Fern. “They may scorn it, but on the other hand they may like the idea. Let me talk to them.”
“Oh, how lovely! I knew there would be a way,” cried the optimistic Molly.
“Wait until you hear it first,” smiled the old gentleman.
Molly led the way to the library, where the twenty girls were having a hot discussion on ways and means. She introduced Major Fern, who took his seat among them and beamed on them with kindly eyes.
“Ahem!” he began. “I am not much of a public speaker but I am going to put a plan before you and see how it strikes you. I understand that you are making a kick because of the raising of board for the ensuing year——”
“We are!”
“Well, you know that everything is going up?”
“Everything but prayer!” from the discontented one.
“Even that may be going up, too,” he answered solemnly. “Now listen: Perhaps you know that I am rich,—not so rich as some, but richer than I have any right to be or any reason for being——”
Here Mary Culbertson tossed her proud littlehead as much as to let him know that charity was not what she wanted. Major Fern saw her and smiled his approval.
“I have no idea of offering any of my ill-gotten gold to you.—I know how you would hate that. In fact, I haven’t any gold to offer. I am rich only in land and about as poor as they make ’em in other things. I am really land poor, having much more land than I have any use for or can till. I can’t get labor to keep up my farms. I have been thinking of selling an especially fertile farm about four miles from Wellington, but I don’t want to lose money on it, and if I sell at this time I am sure to. This farm comprises about two hundred acres of as good land as one can find in these parts, and that is saying a great deal. And now I am coming to my scheme——”
The old gentleman paused while the girls waited in breathless eagerness.
“I will let you have this farm if you will work it for me,—have it for as long as you need it. You don’t know what can be done in the way of intensive farming if one can get the labor. Youcould raise enough potatoes to run your mess for the winter; enough tomatoes and beans to can, and what’s more you can can them right on the spot.”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Billie McKym. “The problem is solved or I’m a Boche.”
“Are you willing to undertake it?” asked the Major.
“Of course we are willing!” cried Lilian.
“The ones who live far can take the first part of the summer, and the last, just before college opens, and the ones who are close can fill in during the midsummer,” said Molly, immediately grasping the possibility of the plan.
“Well, I’ll leave it to you young ladies to work up, and when you care to, I’ll take you over the place. There is a good house and well and plenty of fruit,—apples to feed to the hogs——”
“That suits me!” declared Edwin, who had been quiet while his cousin was unfolding the plan. “I see no reason, seriously, why this idea should not be wonderfully successful,—not only should it bring you back to college and keep youfor the same, or even less, money than you have hitherto had to pay, but it will at the same time help materially in the food situation that the country is going to have to face.”
“Will you be one of that committee that must take hold of this thing?” asked Billie.
“If the student body so wishes!”
“Well, we so wish!” came from twenty throats.
“You and Mrs. Green,—she is already one of us. As for you, Major Fern, we hardly know how to thank you for what you have done,” said the president of the juniors.
“Don’t thank me! I have done nothing! Instead of selling a farm at a loss when I can’t get labor to work it, I am going to ask some beautiful young ladies to work it for me.”
“We might drink him down,” whispered a timid girl.
“Of course! Drink him down!”
And without more ado the twenty girls, with Molly chiming in and Edwin holding down a second, sang: