Judy had, clasped in her arms, a package of mail, unopened except for the letter on top, which was the one that poor, brave Mrs. Brown had written her. She had kept throughout the letter the same gallant spirit of belief in her son’s safety, but Judy could not take that view.
“Gone! Gone! and all because of poor miserable, no-account me!” her heart cried out in its anguish, but she shed no tear and made no sound. Her face, glowing with health and spirits only a few minutes ago, was now as pale as a ghost and her eyes had lost their sparkle.
Père Tricot hastened towards her as she came slowly down the street.
“My dear little girl, what is it?”
“He is drowned and all for me—just my stubbornness!”
“Who? Your father?”
“No!”
“Your brother, then?”
“I have no brother.”
“Ah, then, your sweetheart? Your fiancé?”
“I—I—sometime he might—that is, we were not fiancéd, not exactly.”
The old man drew her down on the bench beside him:
“Now tell me all about it,ma pauvre petite.”
And Judy told him of her friends in Kentucky. Of Molly Brown and her brother Kent; of her own stubbornness in not leaving France when the war broke out; and then she translated Mrs. Brown’s letter for him.
“Ah, but the good lady does not think he is drowned!”
“Yes, but she is so wonderful, so brave.”
“Well, are you not wonderful and brave, too? You must go on with your courage. If a mother can write as she has done and have faith inle bon Dieu, then you must try, too—that will make you worthy of such abelle mère. Does she notsay that two passengers were seen to be saved by the enemy?”
“Oh, Père Tricot, you are good, good! I will try—if Kent’s own mother can be so brave, why surely I must be calm, too, I, who am nothing to him.”
“Nothing? Ah, my dear Mam’selle, one who is nothing does not have young men take trips across the ocean for her. But look at the spinach wilting in the sun! We must hasten to get the cooking done.”
Poor Judy! All zest had gone out of the morning for her. She put her package of mail in the cart, not at all caring if it got at the fishy end, and wearily began to push. Père Tricot, well knowing that work was a panacea for sorrow, let her take her share of the burden, and together the old peasant in his stiff blue blouse and the sad young American girl trundled the provisions down the boulevard.
“You have more letters, my daughter?”
“Yes, I have not read them yet. I was afraid of more bad news.”
“Perhaps there is something from the mother and father.”
“No, the big one is from Molly and the others are just from various friends.”
When they reached the shop, of course Mère Tricot started in with her usual badinage directed against her life partner, but he soon tipped her a wink to give her to understand that Judy was in distress, and the kind old grenadier ceased her vituperation and went quietly to work washing spinach and making ready the fowls for the spit.
Judy took her letters to a green bench in the diminutive court behind the apartment which passed for garden, with its one oleander tree and pots of geraniums. Her heart seemed to be up in her throat; at least, there was a strange pulsation there that must be heart. So this was sorrow! Strange to have lived as long as she had and never to have known what sorrow was before! The nearest she had ever come to sorrow was telling her mother and father good-by when they started on some perilous trip—butthey had always come back, and she was used to parting with them.
But Kent—maybe he would never come back! It was all very well for Mrs. Brown to refuse to believe in his being gone forever, but why should he be the one to be saved, after all? No doubt the passengers who were lost had mothers and—and what? Sweethearts—there she would say it! She was his sweetheart even though they were not really engaged. She knew it now for a certainty. Kent did not have to tell her what he felt for her, and now that it was too late, she knew what she felt for him. She knew now why she had been so lonesome. It was not merely the fact that war was going on and her friends were out of Paris—it was that she was longing for Kent. She understood now why she felt so homeless just at this time. She was no more homeless than she had always been, but now she wanted a home and she wanted it to be Kent’s home, too. Fool! fool that she had been! Why hadn’t she gone home like all the sensible Americans when war was declared? The Brownswould never forgive her and she would never forgive herself. She read again Mrs. Brown’s letter. How good she was to have been willing to have Kent turn right around and go back to Paris for that worthless Julia Kean. And now he was gone, and it was all her fault! Ah, me! Well, life must be lived, if all the color had gone out of it.
She wearily opened the letter addressed in Molly’s handwriting. It was from her father, and in it another from her mother, forwarded by Molly. At last she had heard from them. They, too, hoped she had gone back to America. Had taken for granted she had, since they had sent the letters to Molly. She read them over and over. The love they had for her was to be seen in every word. Never again would she part from them. How she longed for them! They would understand about Kent, even though she was not engaged to him. And now she knew what Bobby would advise her to do were he there in Paris: “Work! Work until you drop from it, but work!”
Already the great range, that stretched the entire length of the tiny tiled kitchen, was filled with copper vessels, and appetizing odors were permeating the living room and the little shop beyond.
“Let me help,” said Judy bravely. “Must I mind the shop or do you need me here? I can’t cook, but I can wash spinach and peel potatoes.”
“Marie can look after the shop this morning, my dear child, so you go rest yourself,” said the good wife.
“I don’t want to rest! I want to work!”
“Let her work, Mother! Let her work! It is best so,” and Judy’s old partner got the blue bowl, sacred to mayonnaise, and Judy sat on the bench in the court and stirred and stirred as she dropped the oil into the beaten egg. Her arm ached as the great smooth yellow mass grew thicker and thicker, but the more her arm ached, the less her heart ached. When the bowl was quite full, she started in on a great basket of potatoes that must be peeled, some for Saratoga chips and some for potato salad. Onions mustbe peeled, too, and then the spinach cleaned and chopped in a colander until it was a purée.
The Tricots worked with a precision and ease that delighted Judy. She never tired of watching the grenadier turn out the wonderful little tarts. On that morning a double quantity was to be made as Marie was to carry a basket of them to “the regiment”; that, of course, meant Jean Tricot’s regiment. They had not yet been ordered to the front, but were ready to go at any moment.
The old woman put batch after batch in the great oven. They came out all done to a turn and all exactly alike, as though made by machinery. Then they were put in the show cases in the shop; and more were rolled out, filled and baked.
“Sometime may I try to do some?”
The old woman smiled indulgently at Judy’s pale face.
“You may try right now.”
Judy made a rather deformed batch but Mère Tricot declared the children would not know thedifference, and they could be sold to them. “The soldats must have the prettiest and another time you can make them well enough for them.”
So far, Judy had not shed a tear. Her eyes felt dry and feverish and her heart was still beating in her throat in some mysterious way. Suddenly without a bit of warning the tears came. Splash! Splash! they dropped right on the tarts.
“Never mind the tarts!” exclaimed the kindly grenadier. “Those must go to Jean’s regiment. They will understand.”
“I could not help it,” sobbed poor Judy. “I was thinking how proud Kent would be of me when he knew I could make tarts and wondering how many he could eat, when all of a sudden it came to me that he never would know—and—and—Oh, Mother Tricot!” and she buried her face on the bosom of the good old woman, who patted her with one hand and held her close while she adroitly whisked a pan of tarts from the oven with the other.
“Tarts must not burn, no matter if hearts are broken!”
Judy’s cry did her good, although it left her in such a swollen state she was not fit to keep shop, which was what she had planned to do for the afternoon.
“I think I’ll go round to the studio in Rue Brea for a little while. I want to get some things.”
What she really wanted was to get a bath and to be alone for a few hours. Her kind hosts thought it would be wise to let her do whatever she wanted, so they gave her God-speed but begged her not to be out late.
Judy now longed for solitude with the same eagerness she had before longed for companionship. She knew it would be unwise for her to give up to this desire to any extent and determined to get back to her kind friends before dark, but be alone she must for a while. Shegot the key from the concierge and entered the studio. All was as she had left it. Windows and doors opened wide soon dispelled the close odor. A cold bath in the very attractive white porcelain tub, the pride of the Bents, made poor Judy feel better in spite of herself.
“I don’t want to feel better. I’ve been brave and noble all morning and now I want to be weak and miserable. I don’t care whether school keeps or not. I am a poor, forlorn, broken-hearted girl, without any friends in all the world except some Normandy peasants. The Browns will all hate me, and my mother and father I may never see again. Oh, Kent! Kent! Why didn’t you just pick me up and make me go with you? If you had been very, very firm, I’d have gone.”
Judy remembered with a grim smile how in old days at college she had longed to wear mourning and how absurd she had made herself by dyeing her hair and draping herself in black. “I’m going into mourning now. It is about all I can do for Kent. It won’t cost much and somehow I’d feel better.” Judy, ever visualizing, picturedherself in black with organdy collar and cuffs and a mournful, patient look. “I’ll just go on selling tarts. It will help the Tricots and give me my board.” She counted out her money, dwindled somewhat, but now that she was working she felt she might indulge her grief to the extent of a black waist and some white collars and cuffs. “I’ve got a black skirt and I’ll get my blue suit dyed to-morrow. I’ll line my black sport hat with white crêpe. That will make it do.” In pity for herself, she wept again.
She slipped out of the studio and made her few purchases at a little shop around the corner. Madame, the proprietaire, was all sympathy. She had laid in an especial stock of cheap mourning, she told Judy, as there was much demand for it now.
It took nimble fingers to turn the jaunty sport hat into a sad little mourning bonnet, but Judy was ever clever at hat making, and when she finished just before the sun set, she viewed her handiwork with pardonable pride. She slipped into her cheap black silk waist and pinned on thecollar and cuffs. The hat was very becoming, so much so that Judy had another burst of tears.
“I can’t bear for it to be becoming. I want to look as ugly and forlorn as possible.”
She determined to leave her serge suit in the studio and come on the following day to take it to a dye shop. As she was to do this, she decided not to leave the key with the concierge but take it with her.
Her kind friends looked sadly at the mourning. They realized when they saw it that Judy had given up all hope of her friend.
“Ah, the pity of it! The pity of it!” exclaimed the old grenadier.
Marie, whose apple-like countenance was not very expressive of anything but health, looked as sympathetic as the shape of her face would allow. Round rosy cheeks, round black eyes, and a round red mouth are not easy to mold into tragic lines, but Judy knew that Marie was feeling deeply for her. She was thinking of her Jean and the possibility of turning her bridal finery into mourning. There was so much mourningnow and according to theTemps, the war was hardly begun.
“I’ll have my serge suit dyed to-morrow,” Judy confided to her.
“Ah, no! Do not have it dyed! Mère Tricot and I can do it here and do it beautifully. The butcher’s wife over the way is dyeing to-morrow and she will give us some of her mixture. It is her little brother who fell only yesterday.”
That night there was great excitement in the Montparnasse quarter. A fleet of air ships circled over the city, dropping bombs as they flew. The explosions were terrific. The people cowered in their homes at first and then came rushing out on the streets as the noise subsided.
Père Tricot came back with the news that no great harm had been done, but it was his opinion that the Prussians had been after the Luxembourg.
“They know full well that our art treasures are much to us, and they would take great pleasure in destroying them. The beasts!”
“Where did the bombs strike?” asked Judy from her couch in the living room. She had wept until her pillow had to be turned over and then had at last sunk into a sleep of exhaustion only to be awakened by the ear-splitting explosions.
“I don’t know exactly, but it was somewhere over towards the Gardens of the Luxembourg. I thank the good God you were here with us, my child.”
Kent Brown, when he reached New York on his return trip to Paris in quest of the rather wilful, very irritating, and wholly fascinating Judy, got his money changed into gold, which he placed in a belt worn under his shirt.
“There is no telling what may happen,” he said to the young Kentuckian, Jim Castleman, with whom he had struck up an acquaintance on the train. “Gold won’t melt in the water if we do get torpedoed, and if I have it next me, whoever wants it will have to do some tearing off of clothes to get it. And what will I be doing while they are tearing off my clothes?”
“Good idea! I reckon I’ll do the same—not that I have enough to weigh myself down with.” Castleman was on his way to France to fight.
“I don’t give a hang whether I fight with theEnglish, French, Serbs or Russians, just so I get in a few licks on the Prussians.” He was a strapping youth of six feet three with no more idea of what he was going up against than a baby. War was to him a huge football game and he simply meant to get into the game.
TheHirondellewas a slow boat but sailing immediately, so Kent and his new friend determined to take it, since its destination, Havre, suited them.
“I like the name, too,” declared Kent, who shared with his mother and Molly a certain poetic sentiment in spite of his disclaimer of any such foolishness.
There were very few passengers, the boat being a merchantman. Kent and Jim were thrown more and more together and soon were as confidential as two school girls. Kent had been rather noncommittal in his replies at first to Jim’s questions as to what his business was in the war zone at such a time if it were not fighting. As their friendship grew and deepened, as a friendship can on shipboard in an astonishinglyshort time, Kent was glad enough to talk about Judy and his mission in Paris.
“She sounds like a corker! When is it to be?”
“I don’t know that it is to be, at all,” blushed Kent. “You see, we are not what you might call engaged.”
“Your fault or hers?”
“Why, we have just drifted along. Somehow I didn’t like to tie her down until I could make good—and she—well, I believe she felt the same way; but of course I can’t say. She knows perfectly well that I have never looked at another girl since I saw her at Wellington when she and my sister graduated there. She has—well,—browsed a little, but I don’t think she ever meant anything by it. We get along like a house afire,—like the same things,—think the same way,—we have never talked out yet.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think you were an ass not to settle the matter long before this.”
“Do you think so? Do you think it would have been fair? Why, man, I owed some moneyto my mother for my education in Paris and did not even have a job in sight!”
“Pshaw! What difference does that make? Don’t you reckon girls have as much spunk about such things as men have? If I ever see the girl I want bad enough to go all the way to Paris to get her, I’ll tell her so and have an answer if I haven’t a coat to my back.”
“Perhaps you are right. I just didn’t want to be selfish.”
“Selfish! Why, they like us selfish.”
Kent laughed at the wisdom of the young Hercules. No doubt they (whoever “they” might be) did like Castleman selfish or any other way. He looked like a young god as he sprawled on deck, his great muscular white arm thrown over his head to keep the warm rays of the sun out of his eyes. His features were large and well cut, his hair yellow and curly in spite of the vigorous efforts he made to brush it straight. His eyes were blue and childlike with long dark lashes, the kind of eyes girls always resent having been portioned out to men. There was nogreat mentality expressed in his countenance but absolute honesty and good nature. One felt he was to be trusted.
“Doesn’t it seem strange to be loafing around here on this deck with no thought of war and of the turmoil we shall soon be in?” said Jim one evening at sunset when they were nearing their port. “We have only a day, or two days at most, before we will be in Paris, and still it is so quiet and peaceful out here that I can hardly believe there is any other life.”
“Me, too! I feel as though I had been born and bred on this boat. All the other things that have happened to me are like a dream and this life here on the good oldHirondelle de Meris the only real thing. I wonder if all the passengers feel this way.”
There were no women on board but the other passengers were Frenchmen, mostly waiters from New York, going home to fight forla France. The cargo was pork and beef, destined to feed the army of France.
“What’s that thing sticking up in the waterout yonder?” exclaimed Kent. “It looks like the top of a mast just disappearing.”
“A wreck, I reckon!” exclaimed Jim.
Kent smiled at his countryman’s “reckon.” Having been away from the South for many months, it sounded sweet to his ears. The “guess” of the Northerner and “fancy” of the Englishman did not mean the same to him.
The lookout saw the mast-like object at the same time they noted it, and suddenly there was a hurrying and scurrying over the whole ship.
“Look, it’s sunk entirely out of sight! Jim Castleman, that’s a German submarine!”
The shock that followed only a moment afterwards was indescribable. It threw both of the Kentuckians down. They had hastened to the side of the vessel, the better to view the strange “thing sticking up out of the water.”
The boats were lowered very rapidly and filled by the crazed passengers and crew. The poor waiters had not expected to serve their country by drowning like rats. As for the crew,—theywere noncombatants and not employed to serve any country in any way. They were of various nationality, many of them being Portuguese with a sprinkling of Scandinavians.
“Here’s a life preserver, Brown! Better put it on. This ain’t the Ohio.”
“Good! I’ll take my chances in the water any day rather than in one of those boats. Can you swim?”
“Sure! I can do three miles without knowing it. And you?”
“Hump! Brought up within a mile of the Ohio River and been going over to Indiana and back without landing ever since I was in pants.”
“Well, let’s dive now and get clear of the sinking boat. If anything happens to me and you get clear, you write my sister in Lexington—she’s all I have left.”
“All right, Jim! Let’s shake. If I give out and you get through, please go get Judy and take her back to my mother.”
“That’s a go! But see here, there is nothing going to happen to us if endurance will countfor anything. Have you got on your money belt?”
“Yes; and you?” said Kent, feeling for the gold he carried around his waist.
“I’m all ready then.”
The boats, loaded to their guards, were putting off. Our young men felt it was much safer to trust to themselves than to the crazy manning of the already overloaded boats. They were singularly calm in their preparations as they strapped on the life preservers.
“Jim, throw away the papers you have, recommending you to that French general. We may get picked up by the submarine, and as plain, pleasure-seeking Americans we have a much better chance of being treated properly than if one of us was going to join the Allies.” Kent had inherited from his mother the faculty of keeping his head in time of peril.
“Good eye, old man! They are in my grip and can just stay there. I reckon I’m a—a—book agent. That won’t compromise me any.”
“All right, stick to it! And here goes! We must stay together.”
The Kentuckians dived as well as the bulky life preservers would permit and then they swam quietly along side by side. The ship was rapidly settling. The last boat was off, so full that every little wave splashed over its panic-stricken passengers.
The sea was comparatively calm and quite warm. If it had been anything but a shipwreck, our young men would have enjoyed the experience. They congratulated themselves that they had trusted to their own endurance and the life preservers rather than to the crazy boats when they saw one of the overloaded vessels come within an ace of turning turtle.
The submarine was now on top of the water and was slowly steaming towards the scene of disaster. The boats made for the opposite direction as fast as the oarsmen could pull. They had not realized that all the submarine wanted was to destroy the pork and beef cargo. The hungrier the French army got the sooner they would be conquered by the Germans.
“Well, my friend the book agent, what do youthink about swimming in the direction of the enemy? Remember we are Americans, just plain Americans with no desire to do anything in the way of swatting Prussians.—Neutral noncombatants!” said Kent, swimming easily, the life preserver lifting him so far out of the water that he declared he felt like a bell buoy.
“Yes, I’ll remember! My line is family albums and de luxe copies of Ruskin. I hope those poor devils in the boats will make land or get picked up or something.”
“Me, too! If the sea only stays so smooth they can make a port in less than a day, if they don’t come a cropper. We are almost in the English Channel, I should say, due south of the Scilly Islands.”
“Well, I feel as though I belonged on them—here we are shipwrecked and floating around like a beach party, conversing as quietly as though it were the most ordinary occurrence to book agents and damsel seekers!”
“There is no use in getting in a stew. I have a feeling that the Germans are going to pick usup. They are heading this way and I don’t reckon they will let us sink before their eyes. If they don’t pick us up, we are good for many hours of this play. I feel as fresh as a daisy.”
“Same here!”
“Thank God, there weren’t any women and children on board!” said Kent fervently.
“Yes, I was feeling that all the time. I’d hate to think of their being in those crazy boats.”
The German boat was quite close to them now. The deck was filled with men, all of them evidently in great good humour with themselves and Fate because of the terrible havoc they had played with the poorHirondelle de Mer, who was now at her last gasp, the waves washing over her upper decks.
“Wei gehts?”shouted Jim, raising himself up far in the water and wigwagging violently at the death dealing vessel.
It was only a short time before the efficient crew had Kent and Jim on board, in dry clothes and before an officer. The fact that they were Americans was beyond dispute, but their businesson the other side was evidently taken with a grain of salt by the very keen looking, alert young man who questioned them in excellent English.
Jim was quite glib with his book agent tale. He got off a line of talk about the albums that almost convulsed Kent.
“Why were you going to Paris to sell such things? Would a country at war be a good field for such an industry?”
“But the country will not be at war long. We expect the Germans to have conquered in a short time, and then they will want many albums for the snapshots they have taken during the campaign. I have been sent as an especial favor by my company, who wish to honor me. I hate to think of all my beautiful books being sunk in theHirondelle.” Jim looked so sad and depressed that the young officer offered him a mug of beer and urged him to try the Bologna sausage that was among the viands waiting for them.
Kent’s reason for going to Paris was received with open doubt. It was very amusing in a waythat they should be completely taken in by Jim’s ingenuous tale of albums while Kent, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, should be doubted.
“Going to Paris to bring home a young lady? Is she your sister?”
“No, she is a friend of my sister,” answered Kent, feeling very much as though he were saying a lesson.
“Do you know Paris?”
“Yes, I studied architecture at the Beaux Arts last winter.”
“Ah, then your sympathies are with France!”
“I am an American and my nation is remaining neutral on the war.”
“Yes, your nation but not the individuals! What were your intentions after finding the young lady?”
“To take her back to United States as fast as we could go.”
“Well, well! I am afraid the young lady will have to content herself in Paris for some weeks yet, as we are bound for other ports now.Make yourselves at home,” and with a salute the officer left them to the welcome meal which had immediately been furnished them after their ducking.
If the Kentuckians had had nothing to do but enjoy life on that submarine, no doubt they could have done it. They were treated most courteously by officers and men. The food was plentiful and wholesome, the life was interesting and conversation with the sailors most instructive, but Jim was eager to strike that blow against Prussia and it was extremely irksome to him to have to keep up the farce of being a book agent. Kent was more and more uneasy about Judy, realizing, from the sample of Germans he now came in contact with, that ruthlessness was the keynote of their character. They were fighting to win, and win they would or die in the attempt; by fair means or foul, they meant to conquer the whole world who did not side with them.
“Gee, if I don’t believe they can do it,” sighed Jim, as he and his friend were having one oftheir rare tete-a-tetes. “They have such belief in their powers.”
“Yes, they seem much more stable, somehow, than the French. Did you ever imagine anything like the clockwork precision with which this monster is run?”
“When do you reckon we will get off of her? We have been on a week now and I see no signs of landing us. I am always asking that human question mark, Captain von Husser, what he is going to do with us, and he just smiles until his moustache ends stick into his eyes, and looks wise. I feel like Hansel and Gretel and think maybe they are fattening us to eat later on. I am getting terribly flabby and fat,” and Jim felt his muscles and patted his stomach with disapproval.
“I’d certainly like to know where we are. You notice they never tell us a thing, and since we are allowed only in the cabin and on a certain part of the deck, we never have a chance at the chart. I wish they would let us bunk alone and not have that fat head in with us. This is thefirst time they have let us talk together since we got hauled in, and I bet some one is to blame for this.”
Kent had hardly spoken before a flushed lieutenant came hurriedly up and with ill-concealed perturbation entered into conversation with them.
“Gee whiz!” thought Kent. “I wish Jim Castleman and I knew some kind of a language that these butchers did not know. But the trouble is they are so terribly well educated they know all we know and three times as much besides.” Suddenly there flashed into his mind a childish habit the Browns used to have of speaking in a gibberish called Tutno. “I wonder if Jim knows it! I’ve a great mind to try him.” Putting his hand on his friend’s arm, he said quite solemnly: “Jug i mum, sank a nun tut, yack o u, tut a lul kuk, Tutno.”
“Sus u rur e!” exclaimed Jim, delightedly.
The lieutenant looked quite startled, wigwagged to a brother officer who was passing and spoke hurriedly to him in German. As Germanwas worse than Greek to Kent and Jim (they had studied some Greek at school but knew no German) they did not know for sure what they were saying, but from the evident excitement of the two officers they gathered they had quite upset the calculations of their under-sea hosts.
“Gug o tot, ’e mum, gug o i nun gug, sus o mum e!” exclaimed Kent with such a mischievous twinkle in his eye that the two officers bristled their moustaches in a fury of curiosity.
“Yack o u, bub e tut!” was Jim’s cryptic rejoinder.
For the benefit of my readers who have never whiled away the golden hours of childhood with Tutno or who have perchance forgotten it, I reckon (being a Southerner myself, I shall say reckon) I had better explain the intricacies of the language. Tutno is a language which is spoken by spelling and every letter sounds like a word. The vowels remain the same as in English but the consonants are formed by adding u and then the same consonant again. For instance: M is mum; N is nun; T is tut; R is rur.There are a few exceptions which vary in different localities making the language slightly different in the states. In Kentucky, C is sank; Y is yack; J is jug. Now when Jim exclaimed: “Yack o u bub e tut!” he conveyed the simple remark: “You bet!” to Kent’s knowing ears.
Kent had opened the conversation by the brilliant remark: “Jim, can you speak Tutno?” and Jim had answered: “Sure!” Then Kent had come back with: “Got ’em going some!”
The Kentuckians were in great distress when they realized that no doubt the sinking of theHirondelle de Merhad been reported in the United States and that their families must be in a state of doubt as to their whereabouts. They had requested the Captain to let them send a message if possible, and he had told them with great frankness that in war time the women must expect to be uncertain. Two more ships had been sunk since they had been taken on board, but they were kept in ignorance as to what ships they were or what had been the fate of the crew orpassengers. They knew that some men had been added to the number of prisoners on board, but as they were kept in a compartment to themselves, they never saw them.
Between operations, when the submarine came up on top of the water and all on board swarmed on deck to smoke and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, Kent and Jim were politely conducted down into the cabin after they were deemed to have had enough, and then the other prisoners, whoever they were, were evidently given an airing.
After our young men started their Tutno game they were never left alone one minute. Such a powwowing as went on after it was reported was never beheld. It was evidently considered of grave international importance. Once they found their keeper taking furtive notes. Evidently they hoped to gain something by finding out what the Americans were saying.
The plentiful food that had at first been served to them was growing more meagre and less choice. There was nothing but a small portionof black bread with very bad butter and a cup of coffee for breakfast; a stew of a nondescript canned meat and more black bread for dinner, and for supper nothing but black bread with a smearing of marmalade.
Jim’s superfluous flesh began to go and Kent got as lean as a grey hound.
“Pup rur o vuv i sus i o nun sus, lul o wuv, I rur e sack kuk o nun!” said Jim, tightening his belt.
It had been more than two weeks since the sinking of theHirondelleand the young men were growing very weary of the life. Their misery was increasing because of the uncertainty they knew their families must be in. No respite was in sight. They could tell by the balmy air when they were allowed on deck that they were further south than they had been when they were struck, but where, they had not the slightest idea.
“The water looks as it does around Burmuda, but surely we are not over there,” said Kent in Tutno.
“The Lord knows where we are!” answered Jim in the same language.
“I wish the brutes would let us telegraph our folks, somehow. They could do it if they chose. They can do anything, these Prussians.” When Kent said Prussians in Tutno: “Pup rur u sus sus i nun sus,” the young officer whose turn it was to guard them whipped out his note book and examined it closely.
“Sus often repeated!” he muttered.
“The orders of the Commander are for the Americans to disembark!”
A lieutenant clicked his heels in front of our friends and saluted.
“Bub u lul lul yack!” shouted Jim. “Where? When?”
“Immediately!”
The submarine was on the surface of the water, but Jim and Kent had been ushered below, evidently to give their mysterious fellow prisoners a turn at the deck. They were never allowed to see them, and to this day are absolutely ignorant as to who they were or how many or of what nationality.
It turned out that a Swedish vessel, theSigny, had been sighted thirteen miles off the Spanish port of Camariñas. She was signaled and ordered to take aboard the Kentuckians and landthem. Explicit commands were given the captain of theSignythat she was to land the young men immediately.
Kent and Jim were too glad to get off the submarine to care where they were being landed. They only hoped it was not in South America.
“Gug o o dud bub yack!” shouted Jim to the grinning crew of the German vessel.
The young lieutenant of the inquisitive mind made another note in his little book as the life boat from the Swedish ship bore the young men away.
They were very cordially received on board theSignybut not allowed to stay a moment longer than was necessary. The ship steamed to within a few miles of the Spanish port, all the time being followed up by the submarine, then the boats were lowered again and Kent and Jim rowed to shore. They were given a good meal in the interim, however, one that they were most pleased to get, too, as black bread and canned stew had begun to pall on these favored sons of Kentucky.
“Where in the thunder is Camariñas?” queriedKent. “I know it is Spain, but is it north, south, east or west?”
“Well, I reckon it isn’t east and that’s about all I know.”
It proved to be in the northwest corner and after some mix-ups, a person was found who could speak English. The American Consul was tracked, cablegrams were sent to Kentucky apprising their families of their safety, and at last our friends were on the train en route for Paris.
It was a long and circuitous journey, over and under and around mountains. They would have enjoyed it at any other time, but Kent was too uneasy about Judy to enjoy anything, and Jim was too eager to get in line to swat the Prussians, as he expressed it, to be interested in Spanish scenery. They traveled third class as they had no intention of drawing too recklessly on their hoarded gold.
After many hours of travel by day and night, they finally arrived in Paris. It was eleven at night and our young men were weary, indeed. The hard benches of the third class coaches hadmade their impression and they longed for sheets and made-up beds.
“A shave! A shave! My kingdom for a shave!” exclaimed Kent, as they stretched their stiffened limbs after tumbling out of the coach in the Gare de Sud.
“Don’t forget I am a stranger in a strange land, so put me wise,” begged Jim.
“I know a terribly cheap little hotel on Montparnasse and Raspail where we can put up, without even the comforts of a bum home, but we can make out there and it is cheap. TheHaute Loireis its high sounding name, but it is not high, I can tell you.”
“Well, let’s do it. I hope there is some kind of a bath there.”
“I trust so, but if there isn’t, we can go to a public bath.”
The Kentuckians were a very much dishevelled pair. They had purchased the necessary toilet articles at Camariñas, but sleeping for nights in suits in which they had already had quite a lengthy swim did not improve their appearance.The submariners had pressed their clothes after their ducking, but Jim’s trousers had shrunk lengthways until he said he felt like Buster Brown, and Kent’s had dried up the other way, so that in walking two splits had arrived across his knees.
“We look like tramps, but theHaute Loireis used to our type. I don’t believe we could get into a good hotel.”
“Are you going to look up your girl—excuse me, I mean Miss Kean, before you replenish your wardrobe?”
“Why, yes, I must not wait a minute. I would like to do it to-night.”
“To-night! Man, you are crazy! Get that alfalfa off your face first. One night can’t get her into much trouble.”
“Perhaps you are right. I am worn out, too, and a night’s rest and a shave will do wonders for both of us.”
Paris looked very changed to Kent. The streets were so dark and everything looked so sad, very different from the gay city he had left onlya few weeks before. TheHaute Loirehad not changed, though. It was the same little hospitable fifth class joint. The madame received the exceedingly doubtful looking guests with as much cordiality as she would had they been the President of the Republic and General Joffre.
There were no baths that night, but tumbling into bed, our Kentuckians were lost to the world until the next day. What if the Prussians did fly over the city, dropping bombs on helpless noncombatants? Two young men who had been torpedoed; had floated around indefinitely in the Atlantic Ocean; had been finally picked up by the submarine that had done the damage; had remained in durance vile for several weeks on the submarine, resorting to Tutno to have any private conversation at all; and at last been transferred to a Swedish vessel and dumped by them on the northwest coast of Spain—those young men cared little whether school kept or not. The bombs that dropped that night were nothing more than pop crackers to them. The excitement in the streets did not reach their tired ears.
Kent dreamed of Chatsworth and of taking Judy down to Aunt Mary’s cabin so the old woman could see “that Judy gal” once more. Jim Castleman dreamed he swatted ten thousand Prussians, which was a sweet and peaceful dream to one who considered swatting the Prussians a privilege.
“Tingaling, aling, aling! Phome a ringin’ agin! I bet that’s Mr. Paul,” declared Caroline, the present queen of the Chatsworth kitchen. “I kin tell his ring ev’y time. I’m a goin’ ter answer it, Miss Molly.”
Molly, who was ironing the baby’s cap strings and bibs (work she never trusted any one to do), smiled. It was one of Caroline’s notions that each person had a particular way of ringing the telephone. She was always on the alert to answer the “phome,” and would stop anything she was doing and tear to be first to take down the receiver, although it always meant that some member of the family must come and receive the message which usually was perfectly unintelligible to the willing girl.
The telephone was in the great old dining room,because, as Mrs. Brown said, every one would call up at meal time and if you were there, you were there. Molly followed Caroline to the dining room, knowing full well that she would be needed when once the preliminaries were over. She gathered the cap strings and bibs, now neatly ironed and ready for the trip to Wellington that she would sooner or later have to take.
Still no news from theHirondelle de Mer, that is, no news from Kent. The last boat load of sailors and passengers had been taken up, but none of them could say for sure whether the two Kentuckians had been saved or not. One man insisted he had seen the submarine stop and take something or some one on board, but when closely questioned he was quite hazy as to his announcement. Jimmy Lufton had kept the cables hot trying to find out something. The Browns and Jim Castleman’s sister had communicated with each other on the subject of the shipwrecked boys.
“‘Low!” she heard Caroline mutter with that peculiarly muffled tone that members of her race always seem to think they must assume whenspeaking through the telephone. “This here is Mrs. Brown’s res-i-d-e-n-c-e! Yessir! This here is Ca’line at the phome. Yessir! Miss Molly done made yo’ maw eat her breakfus’ in the baid. No, sir, not to say sick in the baid—yessir, kinder sick on the baid. Yessir! Miss Molly is a launderin’ of the cap ties fer the baby. We is all well, sir, yessir. I’ll call Miss Molly.”
Of course she hung up the receiver before Molly could drop her cap strings and reach the telephone.
“Oh, Caroline, why did you hang it up? Was it Mr. Paul?”
“Yassum! It were him. I done tole you I could tell his ring. I hung up the reception cause I didn’t know you was so handy, an’ I thought if I kep it down, it might was’e the phome somehow, while I went out to fetch you.”
Molly couldn’t help laughing, although it was very irritating for Caroline to be so intensely stupid about telephoning. Paul, knowing Caroline’s ways, rang up again in a moment and Molly was there ready to get the message herself.
“Molly, honey, are you well? Is Mother well? How is the baby?”
“All well, Paul! Any news?”
“Good news, Molly!” Molly dropped all the freshly ironed finery and leaned against the wall for support. “A cablegram from Spain! Kent was landed there by the German submarine.”
“Kent! Are you sure?”
“As sure as shootin’! Let me read it to you—‘Safe—well, Kent.’ Tell Mother as soon as you can, Molly, but go easy with it. Good news might knock her out as much as bad news. I’ll be out with John as fast as his tin Lizzie can buzz us.”
“Safe! Kent alive and well!”
Molly’s knees were trembling so she could hardly get to her mother’s room, where that good lady had been pretending to eat her breakfast in bed. Old Shep, standing by her bedside, had a suspiciously greasy expression around his mouth and was very busy licking his lips, which imparted the information to the knowing Molly that her mother’s dainty breakfast had disappeared toa spot to which it was not destined by the two anxious cooks, Molly and Caroline.
“Molly, what is it? I heard the ’phone ring. Was it Paul?”
“Yes, Mother! Good news!”
Mrs. Brown closed her eyes and lay back on her pillows, looking so pale that Molly was scared. How fragile the good lady was! Her profile was more cameo-like than ever. These few weeks of waiting, in spite of the brave front she had shown to the world, had told on her. Could she stand good news any better than she could bad?
“Kent?” she murmured faintly.
“Yes, Mother, a cablegram! ‘Safe, well, Kent.’”
“Where?”
“Spain, I don’t know what part.”
And then the long pent-up flood gates were opened and Mrs. Brown and Molly had such a cry as was never seen or heard of. The cap strings that Molly had dropped on the floor when she heard that there was news, she had gathered up in one wild swoop on the way to her mother’sroom, and these were first brought into requisition to weep on, and then the sheets and the napkin from the breakfast tray, and at last even old Shep had to get damp.
“I bus’ stop ad gall up Zue ad Ad Zarah. Oh, Bother, Bother, how good God is!”
“Yes, darling, He is good whether our Kent was spared to us or not,” said Mrs. Brown, showing much more command of her consonants than poor Molly.
Caroline appeared, one big grin, bearing little Mildred in her arms.
“She done woke up an’ say ter me: ‘Ca’line, what all dis here rumpus ’bout?’”
As Mildred had as yet said nothing more than “Goo! Goo!” that brought the smiles to Molly and Mrs. Brown.
“Lawd Gawd a mussy! Is Mr. Kent daid? Is that what Mr. Paul done phomed? I mus’ run tell Aunt Mary. I boun’ ter be the fust one.”
“No, no, Caroline! Mr. Kent is alive and well.”
“‘Live an’ well! Well, Gawd be praised!When I come in an’ foun’ you all a actin’ lak what the preacher says will be in the las’ day er jedgment, a weepin’ an’ wailin’ an’ snatchin’ er teeth, I say ter myse’f: ‘Ca’line, that there dream you had ’bout gittin’ ma’id was sho’ sign er death, drownin’ referred.’ Well, Miss Molly, if’n you’ll hol’ the baby, I’ll go tell Aunt Mary the good news, too. Cose ’tain’t quite so scrumptious to be the fust ter carry good news as ’tis bad, but then news is news.”
Sue was telephoned to immediately and joined in the general rejoicing. Aunt Sarah Clay was quite nonplussed for a moment because of the attitude she had taken about the family mourning, but her affection for her sister, which was really very sincere in spite of her successful manner of concealing it, came to the fore and she, too, rejoiced. Of course she had to suggest, to keep in character, that Kent might have communicated with his family sooner if he only would have exerted himself, but Molly was too happy to get angry and only laughed.
“Aunt Clay can no more help her ways than achestnut can its burr.” And then she remembered how as children they would take sticks and beat the chestnut burrs open and she wondered if a good beating administered on Aunt Clay might not help matters. She voiced this sentiment to her mother, who said:
“My dear Molly, Life has administered the beating on your Aunt Clay long ago. It is being childless that makes her so bitter. I know that and that is the reason I am so patient, at least, I try to be patient with her. Of course, she always asserts she is glad she has no children, that my children have been a never ending anxiety to me and she is glad she is spared a similar worry.”
“But, Mother, we are not a never-ending anxiety, are we?”
“Yes, my darling, but an anxiety I would not be without for all the wealth of the Indies. Aren’t you a little bit anxious all the time about your baby?”
“Why, yes, just a teensy weensy bit, but then I haven’t got used to her yet.”
“Well, when you get used to her, she will be just that much more precious.”
“But then I have just one, and you have seven.”
“Do you think you love her seven times as much as I love you, or Kent or Milly or any of them?”
“Oh, Mother, of course I don’t. I know you love all of us just as much as I love my little Mildred, only I just don’t see how you can.”
“Maybe you will have to have seven children to understand how I can, but when you realize what it means to have Mildred, maybe you can understand what it has meant always to poor Sister Sarah never to have had any children.”
“I suppose it is hard on her but, Mother dear, if she had had the seven and you had never had any, do you think for a minute you would have been as porcupinish and cactus-like in your attitude toward the world and especially toward Aunt Clay’s seven as she is toward yours? Never!”
Molly’s statement was not to be combatted, althoughMrs. Brown was not sure what she would have been like without her seven anxieties; but Molly knew that she would have been the same lovely person, no matter how many or how few children she had had.
“I’m going to try to feel differently toward Aunt Clay,” she whispered into her baby’s ear, as she cuddled her up to her after the great rite of bathing her was completed that morning. “Just think what it must be never to hold your own baby like this! Poor Aunt Clay! No wonder she is hard and cold—but goodness me, I’m glad I did not draw her for a parent.” The baby looked up into her mother’s eyes with a gurgle and crow, as though she, too, were pleased that her Granny was as she was and not as Aunt Clay was.
“We are going to see Daddy soon, do you know that, honey baby?” And Molly clasped her rosy infant to her breast with a heart full of thanksgiving that now there was no dire reason for her remaining in Kentucky longer.
A farewell visit must be paid to Aunt Mary.The baby was dressed in one of her very best slips and Molly put on her new blue suit for the occasion, as she well knew how flattered the old woman was by such an attention.
“Well, bless Gawd, if here ain’t my Molly baby and the little Miss Milly all dressed up in they best bibantucker! I been a lyin’ here a dreamin’ you was all back in the carstle, that there apple tree what you youngsters done built a house up’n an’ Miss Milly done sent me to say you mus’ come an wash yo’ faceanhans fer dinner, jes’ lak she done a millium times, an’ who should be up in the tree with you an’ that there Kent but yo’ teacher an’ that there Judy gal.”
Molly laughed as she always did when Aunt Mary called Professor Edwin Green, her teacher.
“Yes, chile, they was up there with you an’ Kent up’n had the imprence to tell me to go tell his maw that he warn’t comin’ ter no dinner, ’cause he an’ that there Judy gal was a keepin’ house up the tree.” The old woman chuckled with delight at Kent’s “imprence.”
“I shouldn’t be astonished if they did go tohousekeeping soon, Aunt Mary, but I don’t fancy it will be up a tree.”
“An’ what I done say all the time ’bout that there Kent not being drownded? When the niggers came a whining ’roun’ me a sayin’ he was sho’ daid ’cause they done had signs an’ omens, I say ter them I done had mo’ ter do with that there Kent than all of ’em put together an’ I lak ter know what they be havin’ omens ’bout him when I ain’t had none. If’n they was any omens a floatin’ ’roun’ they would a lit on me an’ not on that triflin’ Buck Jourdan. He say he dream er teeth an’ ’twas sho sign er death. I tell him mebbeso but ’twas mo’n likely he done overworked his teeth a eatin’ er my victuals, a settin’ ’roun’ here dayanight a strummin’ on his gittah, an’ what’s mo’ I done tole him he better git the blacksmith ter pull out one er his jaw teeth what ain’t mo’n a snaggle. Sukey low she goin’ ter send him in ter Lou’ville ter one er these here tooth dentists, but I say the blacksmith is jes’ as good a han’ at drawin’ teeth as they is, an’ hechawge the same as ter shoe a mule, an’ that ain’t much.”
“But Aunt Mary, I should think if there is anything serious the matter with Buck’s teeth he had better see a dentist. The blacksmith might break his tooth off.”
“Who? This here blacksmith? Lawsamussy, honey, why he’s that strong an’ survigorous that he would bust Buck’s jaw long befo’ he break his tooth. He’ll grab hol’ the tooth and put his knee in Buck’s chist an’ he gonter hol’ on till either Buck or the tooth comes.”
A groan from the next room, the lean-to kitchen, gave evidence that Buck was in there, an unwilling eavesdropper since the method of the blacksmith on his suffering molar was the topic.
“Don’t you think the baby has grown, Aunt Mary?” asked Molly, mercifully changing the subject.
“Yes, she done growed some an’ she done growed prettier. I seed all the time she were gonter be pretty, an’ when that there Paul came down here an’ give it to me that the new babylooked lak a pink mummy—I done tol’ him that I didn’t know what a mummy were, but what ever it were, the new baby didn’t look no mo’ lak one than he did when he was born, ’cause of all the wrinkly, scarlet little Injuns he would a fetched the cake. That done dried that there Paul up an he ain’t been so bombast since bout the looks er no new babies.” The old woman chuckled with delight in remembrance of her repartee.
“Aunt Mary, I think you are feeling better, aren’t you? You seem much more lively than when I saw you last.”
“’Cose I is feelin’ better. Ain’t we done heard good news from that there Kent?”
“But I thought you knew all the time he was all right.”
“Well now, so I did, so fur as I knew anything, but they was times when I doubted, an’ those times pulled me back right smart. Why, honey, I used ter pray the Almighty if he lacked a soul ter jes’ tak me. I is a no ’count ole nigger on the outside but mebbe my soul is some good yit. If Icould give up my life fur one er Miss Milly’s chillun, I’d be proud ter do it!”
“Oh, Aunt Mary, you have been so good to us always!”
“Lawsamussy, chile! What I here fur but ter be good ter my white folks? They’s been good ter me—as good as gole. I ain’t never wanted fur nothin’ an’ I ain’t never had a hard word from Carmichael or Brown, savin’, of cose, Miss Sary. She is spoke some hard words in her day, but she didn’ never mean nothin’ by them words. I don’t bear no grudge against po’ Miss Sary. The good Lord done made her a leetle awry an’ ’tain’t fur me ter be the one ter try to straighten her out. Sometimes whin I lies here a thinkin’ it seems ter me mebbe some folks is made lak Miss Sary jes’ so they kin be angels on earth like yo’ maw. Miss Sary done sanctified yo’ maw. She done tried her an’ rubbed aginst her, burnt her in de fire of renunciation and drinched her in the waters of reproachment until yo maw is come out refimed gold.”
“Maybe you are right, Aunt Mary. I am tryingto be nicer about the way I feel about Aunt Clay myself. I think if I feel differently, maybe Aunt Clay would feel differently toward me. She does not like me, and why should she, since I don’t really like her?”
“I don’t want ter take no Christian thoughts from yo’ min’ an’ heart, honey chile, but the good you’ll git from thinkin’ kin’ things ’bout Miss Sary will be all yo’ own good. Miss Sary ain’t gonter be no diffrent. She done got too sot in her ways. The leper ain’t gonter change his spots now no mo’n it did in the time er Noah, certainly no ole tough leper lak Miss Sary.”
It was hard to tell the old woman good-by. Every time Molly left Chatsworth she feared it would be the last farewell to poor old Aunt Mary. She had been bedridden now for many months, but she hung on to life with a tenacity that was astonishing.
“Cose, I is ready ter go whin the Marster calls,” she would say, “but I ain’t a hurryin’ of him. A creakin’ do’ hangs long on its hinges an’ the white folks done iled up my hinges so, whatwith good victuals with plenty er suption in ’em an’ a little dram now an’ then ’cordin’ ter the doctor’s subscription, that sometimes I don’t creak at all. I may git up out’n this here baid ’fo long an’ be as spry as the nex’. I wouldn’t min’ goin’ so much if I jes’ had mo’ idee what Heaven is lak. I’m so feard it will be strange ter me. I don’t want ter walk on no goldin’ streets. Gold ain’t no better ter walk on than bricks. Miss Milly done read me the Psalm what say: ‘He maketh me to lay down in the green pastures.’ Now that there piece sounds mighty pretty—jes’ lak singin’, but I ain’t never been no han’ to set on the damp groun’ an’ Heaven or no Heaven, I low it would give me a misery ter be a doin’ it now; an’ as fer layin’ on it, no’m! I wants a good rockin’ cheer, an’ I wants it in the house, an’ when I wants ter res’ myse’f, a baid is good enough fer me.”
The old woman’s theology was a knotty problem for all of the Brown family. They would read to her from the Bible and reason with her, but her preconceived notion of Heaven was toomuch for them. She believed firmly in the pearly gates and the golden streets, and freely announced she would rather have her own cabin duplicated on the other side than all the many mansions, and her own whitewashed gate with hinges made from the soles of old shoes than the pearly gates.
“What I want with a mansion? The cabin whar I been a livin’ all my life is plenty good enough for this old nigger. An’ what’s mo, blue grass a growin’ on each side of a shady lane is better’n golden streets. I ain’t a goin’ ter be hard-headed bout Heaven, but I hope the Marster will let me settle in some cottage an’ let it be in the country where I kin raise a few chickens an’ mebbe keep a houndog.”
“I am sure the Master will let you have whatever you want, dear Aunt Mary,” Molly would say.
“But if’n he does that, I’ll get too rotten spiled ter stay in Heaven. He better limit me some, or I’ll feel too proudified even fer a angel.”