The next morning dawned bright and clear, and Mother Van Hove and the Twins went about their work as usual. The sunshine was so bright, and the whole countryside looked so peaceful and fair, it was impossible to believe that the terrors of the night could be true.
"To-day we must begin to gather the potatoes," said Mother Van Hove after breakfast. "Jan, you get the fork and hoe and put them in the wagon, while I milk the cow and Marie puts up some bread and cheese for us to take to the field." She started across the road to the pasture, with Fidel at her heels, as she spoke. In an instant she was back again, her eyes wide with horror. "Look! Look!" she cried.
The dazed children looked toward the east as she pointed. There in the distance, advancing like a great tidal wave, was a long gray line of soldiers on horseback. Already they could hear the sound of music and the throb of drums; already the sun glistened upon the shining helmets and the cruel points of bayonets. The host stretched away across the plain as far as the eye could reach, and behind them the sky was thick with the smoke of fires.
"The church! the church!" cried Mother Van Hove. "No, there is not time. Hide in here, my darlings. Quickly! Quickly!"
She tore open the door of the earth-covered vegetable cellar as she spoke, and thrust Jan and Marie inside. Fidel bolted in after them. "Do not move or make a sound until all is quiet again," she cried as she closed the door.
There was not room for her too, in the cellar, and if there had been, Mother Van Hove would not have taken it, for it was necessary to close the door from the outside. This she did, hastily, throwing some straw before it. Then she rushed into the house and, snatching up her shining milk-pans, flung them upon the straw, as if they were placed there to be sweetened by the sun. No one would think to look under a pile of pans for hidden Belgians, she felt sure.
Nearer and nearer came the hosts, and now she could hear the sound of singing as from ten thousand brazen throats, "Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles," roared the mighty chorus, and in another moment the little village of Meer was submerged in the terrible gray flood.
At last, after what seemed to the imprisoned children like a year of darkness and dread, and of strange, terrifying noises of all kinds, the sound of horses' hoofs and marching feet died away in the distance, and Jan ventured to push open the door of the cavern a crack, just intending to peep out. Immediately there was a crash of falling tinware. Jan quickly drew back again into the safe darkness and waited. As nothing further happened, he peeped out again. This time Fidel, springing forward, flung the doors wide open, and dashed out into the sunshine with a joyous bark.
In a moment more Jan and Marie also crawled out of their hiding-place after him. For an instant, as they came out into the daylight, it seemed to the children as if they had awakened from a dreadful dream. There stood the farmhouse just as before, with the kitchen door wide open and the sun streaming in upon the sanded floor. There were only the marks of many feet in the soft earth of the farmyard, an empty pigpen, and a few chicken feathers blowing about the hen house, to show where the invaders had been and what they had carried away with them. Jan and Marie, followed by Fidel, ran through the house. From the front door, which opened on the road; they could see the long gray line sweeping across the fields toward Malines.
"The storm has passed," cried Marie, sobbing with grief, "just as Mynheer Pastoor said it would! Mother! Mother, where are you?" They ran from kitchen to bedroom and back again, their terror increasing at every step, as no voice answered their call. They searched the cellar and the loft; they looked in the stable and barn, and even in the dog-house. Their mother was nowhere to be found!
"I know where she must be," cried Jan, at last. "You know Mynheer Pastoor said, if anything happened, we should hide in the church." Led by this hope, the two children sped, hand in hand, toward the village. "Bel is gone!" gasped Jan, as they passed the pasture bars. "Pier, too," sobbed Marie. Down the whole length of the deserted village street they flew, with Fidel following close at their heels. When they came to the little church, they burst open the door and looked in. The cheerful sun streamed through the windows, falling in brilliant patches of light upon the floor, but the church was silent and empty. It was some time before they could realize that there was not a human being but themselves in the entire village; all the others had been driven away like sheep, before the invading army. When at last the terrible truth dawned upon them, the two frightened children sat down upon the church steps in the silence, and clung, weeping, to each other. Fidel whined and licked their hands, as though he, too, understood and felt their loneliness.
"What shall we do? What shall we do?" moaned Marie.
"There's nobody to tell us what to do," sobbed Jan. "We must just do the best we can by ourselves."
"We can't stay here alone!" said Marie.
"But where can we go?" cried Jan. "There's no place for us to go to!"
For a few minutes the two children wept their hearts out in utter despair, but hope always comes when it is most needed, and soon Marie raised her head and wiped her eyes.
"Don't you remember what Mother said when she put the locket on my neck, Jan?" she asked. "She said that she would find us, even if she had to swim the sea! She said no matter what happened we should never despair, and here we are despairing as hard as ever we can."
Jan threw up his chin, and straightened his back. "Yes," he said, swallowing his sobs, "and she said I was now a man and must take care of myself and you."
"What shall we do, then?" asked Marie.
Jan thought hard for a moment. Then he said: "Eat! It must be late, and we have not had a mouthful to-day."
Marie stood up. "Yes," said she; "we must eat. Let us go back home."
The clock in the steeple struck eleven as the two children ran once more through the deserted street and began a search for food in their empty house.
They found that the invaders had been as thorough within the house as without. Not only had they carried away the grain which their mother had worked so hard to thresh, but they had cleaned the cupboard as well. The hungry children found nothing but a few crusts of bread, a bit of cheese, and some milk in the cellar, but with these and two eggs, which Jan knew where to look for in the straw in the barn, they made an excellent breakfast. They gave Fidel the last of the milk, and then, much refreshed, made ready to start upon a strange and lonely journey the end of which they did not know. They tied their best clothes in a bundle, which Jan hung upon a stick over his shoulder, and were just about to leave the house, when Marie cried out, "Suppose Mother should come back and find us gone!"
"We must leave word where we have gone, so she will know where to look for us, of course," Jan answered capably.
"Yes, but how?" persisted Marie. "There's no one to leave word with!"
This was a hard puzzle, but Jan soon found a way out. "We must write a note and pin it up where she would be sure to find it," he said.
"The very thing," said Marie.
They found a bit of charcoal and a piece of wrapping-paper, and Jan was all ready to write when a new difficulty presented itself. "What shall I say?" he said to Marie. "We don't know where we are going!"
"We don't know the way to any place but Malines," said Marie; "so we'll have to go there, I suppose."
"How do you spell Malines?" asked Jan, charcoal in hand.
"Oh, you stupid boy!" cried Marie. "M-a-l-i-n-e-s, of course!"
Jan put the paper down on the kitchen floor and got down before it on his hands and knees. He had not yet learned to write, but he managed to print upon it in great staggering letters:—
"DEAR MOTHERWE HAVE GONE TO MALINES TO FIND YOU.JAN AND MARIE."
This note they pinned upon the inside of the kitchen door.
"Now we are ready to start," said Jan; and, calling Fidel, the two children set forth. They took a short cut from the house across the pasture to the potato-field. Here they dug a few potatoes, which they put in their bundle, and then, avoiding the road, slipped down to the river, and, following the stream, made their way toward Malines.
It was fortunate for them that, screened by the bushes and trees which fringed the bank of the river, they saw but little of the ruin and devastation left in the wake of the German hosts. There were farmers who had tried to defend their families and homes from the invaders. Burning houses and barns marked the places where they had lived and died. But the children, thinking only of their lost mother, and of keeping themselves as much out of sight as possible in their search for her, were spared most of these horrors. Their progress was slow, for the bundle was heavy, and the river path less direct than the road, and it was nightfall before the two little waifs, with Fidel at their heels, reached the well-remembered Brussels gate.
Their hearts almost stopped beating when they found it guarded by a German soldier. "Who goes there?" demanded the guard gruffly, as he caught sight of the little figures.
"If you please, sir, it's Jan and Marie," said Jan, shaking in his boots.
"And Fidel, too," said Marie.
The soldier bent down and looked closely at the two tear-stained little faces. It may be that some remembrance of other little faces stirred within him, for he only said stiffly, "Pass, Jan and Marie, and you, too, Fidel." And the two children and the dog hurried through the gate and up the first street they came to, their bundle bumping along behind them as they ran.
The city seemed strangely silent and deserted, except for the gray-clad soldiers, and armed guards blocked the way at intervals. Taught by fear, Jan and Marie soon learned to slip quietly along under cover of the gathering darkness, and to dodge into a doorway or round a corner, when they came too near one of the stiff, helmeted figures.
At last, after an hour of aimless wandering, they found themselves in a large, open square, looking up at the tall cathedral spires. A German soldier came suddenly out of the shadows, and the frightened children, scarcely knowing what they did, ran up the cathedral steps and flung themselves against the door. When the soldier had passed by, they reached cautiously up, and by dint of pulling with their united strength succeeded at last in getting the door open. They thrust their bundle inside, pushed Fidel in after it, and then slipped through themselves. The great door closed behind them on silent hinges and they were alone in the vast stillness of the cathedral. Timidly they crept toward the lights of the altar, and, utterly exhausted, slept that night on the floor near the statue of the Madonna, with their heads pillowed on Fidel's shaggy side.
When the cathedral bells rang the next morning for early mass, the children were still sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion. It was not until the bells had ceased to ring, and the door, opening from the sacristy near their resting place, creaked upon its hinges, that even Fidel was aroused. True to his watchdog instincts, he started to his feet with a low growl, letting the heads of Jan and Marie down upon the floor with a sudden bump. For an instant the awakened children could not remember where they were or what had happened to them. They sat up and rubbed their heads, but the habit of fear was already so strong upon them that they made no sound and instantly quieted Fidel. Again the door creaked, and through it there appeared a tall figure dressed in priestly robes. The children were so near that had they thrust their hands through the railing of the communion bank behind which they were concealed, they might have touched him as he passed before the altar of the Virgin and presented himself in front of the high altar to conduct the mass. His head, as he passed them, was bowed. His face was pale and thin, and marked with lines of deep sorrow.
"Oh," whispered Marie to Jan, "it must be the Cardinal himself. Mother told me about him."
The whisper made such a loud sound in the silence of the great cathedral aisles that Jan was afraid to reply. For answer he only laid his finger upon his lips and crept still farther back into the shadow. Fidel seemed to know that dogs were not allowed in church and that it was necessary for him to be quiet, too, for he crawled back with the children into the sheltering darkness.
There were only a few persons in the cathedral, and those few were near the door; so no one saw the children as they knelt with folded hands and bowed heads in their corner, reverently following the service as the Cardinal ate the sacred wafer and drank the communion wine before the altar. Later they were to know his face as the bravest and best beloved in all Belgium next to those of the King and Queen themselves.
When again he passed the kneeling little figures on his return to the sacristy, their lonely hearts so ached for care and protection, and his face looked so kind and pitiful, that they almost dared to make their presence known and to ask for the help they sorely needed. Marie, bolder than Jan, half rose as he passed, but Jan pulled her back, and in another instant the door had closed behind him and he was gone.
"Oh," sobbed Marie under her breath, "he looked so kind! He might have helped us. Why did you pull me back?"
"How could we let him see Fidel, and tell him that our dog had slept all night before the altar?" answered Jan. "I shouldn't dare! He is a great Prince of the Church!"
The sound of scraping chairs told them that the little congregation had risen from its knees and was passing out of the church. They waited until every one had disappeared through the great door, and then made a swift flight down the echoing aisle and out into the sunlight. For a moment they stood hand in hand upon the cathedral steps, clasping their bundle and waiting for the next turn of fortune's wheel.
The bright sunlight of the summer day, shining on the open square, almost blinded them, and what they saw in the square, when their eyes had become used to it, did not comfort them. Everywhere there were German soldiers with their terrible bayonets and pointed helmets and their terrible songs. Everywhere there were pale and desperate Belgians fleeing before the arrogant German invader.
"Oh, Jan," whispered Marie clinging to him, "there are so many people! How shall we ever find Mother? I didn't know there were so many people in the whole world."
"It isn't likely that we'll find her by just standing here, anyway," answered Jan. "We've got to keep going till we get somewhere."
He slung the bundle on his shoulder and whistled to Fidel, who had gone down the steps to bark at a homeless cat.
"Come along," he said to Marie. And once more the little pilgrims took up their journey. At the first corner they paused, not knowing whether to go to the right or to the left.
"Which way?" said Marie.
Jan stood still and looked first in one direction and then in the other.
"Here, gutter-snipes, what are you standing here for? Make way for your betters!" said a gruff voice behind them, and, turning, the children found themselves face to face with a German officer dressed in a resplendent uniform and accompanied by a group of swaggering young soldiers. Too frightened to move, the children only looked up at him and did not stir.
"Get out of the way, I tell you!" roared the officer, turning purple with rage; "Orderly!" One of the young men sprang forward. He seized Jan by the arm and deftly kicked him into the gutter. Another at the same moment laid his hands on Marie. But he reckoned without Fidel, faithful Fidel, who knew no difference between German and Belgian, but knew only that no cruel hand should touch his beloved Marie, while he was there to defend her. With a fierce growl he sprang at the young orderly and buried his teeth in his leg. Howling with pain, the orderly dropped Marie, while another soldier drew his sword with an oath and made a thrust at Fidel. Fortunately Fidel was too quick for him. He let go his hold upon the leg of the orderly, tearing a large hole in his uniform as he did so, and flung himself directly between the legs of the other soldier who was lunging at him with the sword. The next instant the surprised German found himself sprawling upon the sidewalk, and saw Fidel, who had escaped without a scratch, dashing wildly up the street after Jan and Marie. Beside himself with rage, the soldier drew a revolver and fired a shot, which barely missed Fidel, and buried itself in the doorstep of the house past which he was running.
If Jan and Marie had not turned a corner just at that moment, and if Fidel had not followed them, there is no telling what might have happened next, for the young soldier was very angry indeed. Perhaps he considered it beneath his dignity to run after them, and perhaps he saw that Jan and Marie could both run like the wind and he would not be likely to catch them if he did. At any rate, he did not follow. He picked himself up and dusted his clothes, using very bad language as he did so, and followed the officer and his companions up the street.
Meanwhile the tired children ran on and on, fear lending speed to their weary legs. Round behind the great cathedral they sped, hoping to find some way of escape from the terrors of the town, but their way was blocked by the smoking ruins of a section of the city which the Germans had burned in the night, and there was no way to get out in that direction. Terrified and faint with hunger, they turned once more, and, not knowing where they were going, stumbled at last upon the street which led to the Antwerp gate.
"I remember this place;" cried Jan, with something like joy in his voice. "Don't you remember, Marie? It's where we stood to watch the soldiers, and Mother sang for us to march, because we were so tired and hungry."
"I'm tired and hungry now, too," said poor Marie.
"Let's march again," said Jan.
"Where to?" said Marie.
"That's the way Father went when he marched away with the soldiers," said Jan, pointing to the Antwerp gate. "Anything is better than staying here. Let's go that way." He started bravely forward once more, Marie and Fidel following.
They found themselves only two wretched atoms in one of the saddest processions in history, for there were many other people, as unhappy as themselves, who were also trying to escape from the city. Some had lived in the section which was now burning; others had been turned out of their homes by the Germans; and all were hastening along, carrying babies and bundles, and followed by groups of older children.
Jan and Marie were swept along with the hurrying crowd, through the city gate and beyond, along the river road which led to Antwerp. No one spoke to them. Doubtless they were supposed to belong to some one of the fleeing families, and it was at least comforting to the children to be near people of whom they were not afraid. But Jan and Marie could not keep pace with the swift-moving crowd of refugees. They trudged along the highway at their best speed, only to find themselves straggling farther and farther behind.
They were half a mile or more beyond the city gate when they overtook a queer little old woman who was plodding steadily along wheeling a wheelbarrow, in front of her. She evidently did not belong among the refugees, for she was making no effort to keep up with them. She had bright, twinkling black eyes, and snow-white hair tucked under a snow-white cap. Her face was as brown as a nut and full of wrinkles, but it shone with such kindness and good-will that, when Jan and Marie had taken one look at her, they could not help walking along by her side.
"Maybe she has seen Mother," whispered Marie to Jan. "Let's ask her!"
The little old woman smiled down at them as they joined her. "You'll have to hurry, my dears, or you won't keep up with your folks," she said kindly.
"They aren't our folks," said Jan.
"They aren't?" said the little old woman, stopping short. "Then where are your folks?"
"We haven't any, not just now," said Jan. "You see our father is a soldier, and our mother, oh, have you seen our mother? She's lost!"
The little old woman gave them a quick, pitying glance. "Lost, is she?" she said. "Well, now, I can't just be sure whether I've seen her or not, not knowing what she looks like, but I wouldn't say I haven't. Lots of folks have passed this way. How did she get lost?" She sat down on the edge of the barrow and drew the children to her side. "Come, now," she said, "tell Granny all about it! I've seen more trouble than any one you ever saw in all your life before, and I'm not a mite afraid of it either."
Comforted already, the children poured forth their story.
"You poor little lambs!" she cried, when they had finished, "and you haven't had a bite to eat since yesterday! Mercy on us! You can never find your mother on an empty stomach!" She rose from the wheelbarrow, as she spoke, and trundled it swiftly from the road to the bank of the river, a short distance away. Here, in a sheltered nook, hidden from the highway by a group of willows, she stopped. "We'll camp right here, and I'll get you a dinner fit for a king or a duke, at the very least," she said cheerily. "Look what I have in my wheelbarrow!" She took a basket from the top of it as she spoke.
Fidel was already looking in, with his tail standing straight out behind, his ears pointed forward, and the hairs bristling on the back of his neck. There, on some clean white sand in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, wriggled a fine fat eel!
"Now I know why I didn't sell that eel," cried Granny. "There's always a reason for everything, you see, my darlings."
She seized the eel with a firm, well-sanded hand as she spoke, and before could spell your name backwards, she had skinned and dressed it, and had given the remnants to poor hungry Fidel. "Now, my boy," she said gayly to Jan as she worked, "you get together some twigs and dead leaves, and you, Big Eyes," she added to Marie, "find some stones by the river, and we'll soon have such a stove as you never saw before, and a fire in it, and a bit of fried eel, to fill your hungry stomachs."
Immensely cheered, the children flew on these errands. Then Marie had a bright thought. "We have some potatoes in our bundle," she said.
"Well, now," cried the little old woman, "wouldn't you think they had just followed up that eel on purpose? We'll put them to roast in the ashes. I always carry a pan and a bit of fat and some matches about with me when I take my eels to market," she explained as she whisked these things out of the basket, "and it often happens that I cook myself a bite to eat on my way home, especially if I'm late. You see, I live a long way from here, just across the river from Boom, and I'm getting lazy in my old age. Early every morning I walk to Malines with my barrow full of fine eels, and sell them to the people of the town. That's how I happen to be so rich!"
"Are you rich?" asked Marie wonderingly.
She had brought the stones from the river, and now she untied her bundle and took out the potatoes. Jan had already heaped a little mound of sticks and twigs near by, and soon the potatoes were cooking in the ashes, and a most appetizing smell of frying eel filled the air.
"Am I rich?" repeated the old woman. She looked surprised that any one could ask such a question. "Of course I'm rich. Haven't I got two eyes in my head, and a tongue, too, and it's lucky, indeed, that it's that way about, for if I had but one eye and two tongues, you see for yourself how much less handy that would be! And I've two legs as good as any one's, and two hands to help myself with! The Kaiser himself has no more legs and arms than I, and I doubt if he can use them half as well. Neither has he a stomach the more! And as for his heart" she looked cautiously around as she spoke "his heart, I'll be bound, is not half so good as mine! If it were, he could not find it in it to do all the cruel things he's doing here. I'm sure of that."
For a moment the cheerfulness of her face clouded over; but she saw the shadow reflected in the faces of Jan and Marie, and at once spoke more gayly. "Bless you, yes, I'm rich," she went on; "and so are you! You've got all the things that I have and more, too, for you legs and arms are young, and you have a mother to look for. Not every one has that, you may depend! And one of these days you'll find her. Make no doubt of that."
"If we don't, she'll surely find us, anyway," said Jan. "She said she would!"
"Indeed and she will," said the old woman. "Even the Germans couldn't stop her; so what matter is it, if you both have to look a bit first? It will only make it the better when you find each other again."
When the potatoes were done, the little old woman raked them out of the ashes with a stick, broke them open, sprinkled a bit of salt on them from the wonderful basket, and then handed one to each of the children, wrapped in a plantain leaf, so they should not burn their fingers. A piece of the eel was served to them in the same way, and Granny beamed with satisfaction as she watched her famished guests.
"Aren't you going to eat, too?" asked Marie with her mouth full.
"Bless you, yes," said Granny. "Every chance I get. You just watch me!" She made a great show of taking a piece of the eel as she spoke, but if any one had been watching carefully, they would have her slyly put it back again into the pan, and the children never knew that they ate her share and their own, too.
When they had eaten every scrap of the eel, and Fidel had finished the bones, the little old woman rose briskly from the bank, washed her pan in the river, packed it in her basket again, and led the way up the path to the highway once more. Although they found the road still filled with the flying refugees, the world had grown suddenly brighter to Jan and Marie. They had found a friend and they were fed.
"Now, you come along home with your Granny," said the little old woman as they reached the Antwerp road and turned northward, "for I live in a little house by the river right on the way to wherever you want to go!"
For several days the children stayed with the little old woman in her tiny cottage on the edge of the river. Each morning they crossed the bridge and stationed themselves by the Antwerp road to watch the swarm of sad-faced Belgians as they hurried through Boom on their way to the frontier and to safety in Holland. Each day they hoped that before the sun went down they should see their mother among the hurrying multitudes, but each day brought a fresh disappointment, and each night the little old woman comforted them with fresh hope for the morrow.
"You see, my darlings," said she, "it may take a long time and you may have to go a long way first, but I feel in my bones that you will find her at last. And of course, if you do, every step you take is a step toward her, no matter how far round you go."
Jan and Marie believed every word that Granny said. How could they help it when she had been so good to them! Her courage and faith seemed to make an isle of safety about her where the children rested in perfect trust. They saw that neither guns nor Germans nor any other terror could frighten Granny. In the midst of a thousand alarms she calmly went her accustomed way, and every one who met her was the better for a glimpse of the brave little brown face under its snowy cap. Early each morning she rose with the larks, covered the bottom of her barrow with clean white sand, and placed in it the live eels which had been caught for her and brought to the door by small boys who lived in the neighborhood. Then, when she had wakened the Twins, and the three had had their breakfast together, away she would trudge over the long, dusty road to Malines, wheeling the barrow with its squirming freight in front of her.
Jan and Marie helped her all they could. They washed the dishes and swept the floor of the tiny cottage and made everything tidy and clean before they went to take up their stand beside the Antwerp road. When the shadows grew long in the afternoon, how glad they were to see the sturdy little figure come trudging home again! Then they would run to meet her, and Jan would take the wheelbarrow from her tired hands and wheel it for her over the bridge to the little cottage under the willow trees on the other side of the river.
Then Marie's work was to clean the barrow, while Jan pulled weeds in the tiny garden back of the house, and Granny got supper ready. Supper-time was the best of all, for every pleasant evening they ate at a little table out of doors under the willow trees.
One evening, when supper had been cleared away, they sat there together, with Fidel beside them, while Granny told a wonderful tale about the King of the Eels who lived in a crystal palace at the bottom of the river.
"You can't quite see the palace," she said, "because, when you look right down into it, the water seems muddy. But sometimes, when it is still, you can see the Upside-Down Country where the King of the Eels lives. There the trees all grow with their heads down and the sky is 'way, 'way below the trees. You see the sky might as well be down as up for the eels. They aren't like us, just obliged to crawl around on the ground without ever being able to go up or down at all. The up-above sky belongs to the birds and the down-below sky belongs to the fishes and eels. And I am not sure but one is just as nice as the other."
Marie and Jan went to the river, and, getting down on their hands and knees, looked into the water.
"We can't see a thing!" they cried to Granny.
"You aren't looking the right way," she answered. "Look across it toward the sunset."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Marie, clasping her hands; "I see it! I see the down-below sky, and it is all red and gold!"
"I told you so," replied Granny triumphantly. "Lots of folks can't see a thing in the river but the mud, when, if you look at it the right way, there is a whole lovely world in it. Now, the palace of the King of the Eels is right over in that direction where the color is the reddest. He is very fond of red, is the King of the Eels. His throne is all made of rubies, and he makes the Queen tie red bows on the tails of all the little eels."
Jan and Marie were still looking with all their eyes across the still water toward the sunset and trying to see the crystal palace of the eels, when suddenly from behind them there came a loud "Hee-haw, hee-haw." They jumped, and Granny jumped, too, and they all looked around to see where the sound came from. There, coming slowly toward them along the tow-path on the river-bank, was an old brown mule. She was pulling a low, green river-boat by a towline, and a small boy, not much bigger than Jan, was driving her. On the deck of the boat there was a little cabin with white curtains in the tiny windows and two red geraniums in pots standing on the sills. From a clothesline hitched to the rigging there fluttered a row of little shirts, and seated on a box near by there was a fat, friendly looking woman with two small children playing by her side. The father of the family was busy with the tiller.
"There come the De Smets, as sure as you live!" cried Granny, rising from the wheelbarrow, where she had been sitting. "I certainly am glad to see them." And she started at once down the river to meet the boat, with Jan and Marie and Fidel all following.
"Ship ahoy!" she cried gayly as the boat drew near. The boy who was driving the mule grinned shyly. The woman on deck lifted her eyes from her sewing, smiled, and waved her hand at Granny, while the two little children ran to the edge of the boat; and held out their arms to her.
"Here we are again, war or no war!" cried Mother De Smet, as the boat came alongside. Father De Smet left the tiller and threw a rope ashore. "Whoa!" cried the boy driving the mule. The mule stopped with the greatest willingness, the boy caught the rope and lifted the great loop over a strong post on the river-bank, and the "Old Woman" for that was the name of the boat was in port.
Soon a gangplank was slipped from the boat to the little wooden steps on the bank, and Mother De Smet, with a squirming baby under each arm, came ashore. "I do like to get out on dry land and shake my legs a bit now and then," she said cheerfully as she greeted Granny. "On the boat I just sit still and grow fat!"
"I shake my legs for a matter of ten miles every day," laughed Granny. "That's how I keep my figure!"
Mother De Smet set the babies down on the grass, where they immediately began to tumble about like a pair of puppies, and she and Granny talked together, while the Twins went to watch the work of Father De Smet and the boy, whose name was Joseph.
"I don't know whatever the country is coming to," said Mother De Smet to Granny. "The Germans are everywhere, and they are taking everything that they can lay their hands on. I doubt if we ever get our cargo safe to Antwerp this time. We've come for a load of potatoes, but I am very much afraid it is going to be our last trip for some time. The country looks quiet enough as you see it from the boat, but the things that are happening in it would chill your blood."
"Yes," sighed Granny; "if I would let it, my old heart would break over the sights that I see every day on my way to Malines. But a broken heart won't get you anywhere. Maybe a stout heart will."
"Who are the children you have with you?" asked Mother De Smet.
Then Granny told her how she had found Jan and Marie, and all the rest of the sad story. Mother De Smet wiped her eyes and blew her nose very hard as she listened.
"I wouldn't let them wait any longer by the Antwerp road, anyway," she said when Granny had finished. "There is no use in the world in looking for their mother to come that way. She was probably driven over the border long ago. You just leave them with me to-morrow while you go to town. 'Twill cheer them up a bit to play with Joseph and the babies."
"Well, now," said Granny, "if that isn't just like your good heart!"
And that is how it happened that, when she trudged off with her barrow the next morning, the Twins ran down to the boat and spent the day rolling on the grass with the babies, and helping Father De Smet and Joseph to load the boat with bags of potatoes which had been brought to the dock in the night by neighboring farmers.
When Granny came trundling her barrow home in the late afternoon, she found the children and their new friends already on the best of terms; and that night, after the Twins were in bed, she went aboard the "Old Woman" and talked for a long time with Father and Mother De Smet. No one will ever know just what they said to each other, but it must be that they talked about the Twins, for when the children awoke the next morning, they found Granny standing beside their bed with their clothes all nicely washed and ironed in her hands.
"I'm not going to town this morning with my eels," she said as she popped them out of bed. "I'm going to stay at home and see you off on your journey!" She did not tell them that things had grown so terrible in Malines that even she felt it wise to stay away.
"Our journey!" cried the Twins in astonishment. "What journey?"
"To Antwerp," cried Granny. "Now, you never thought a chance like that would come to you, I'm sure, but some people are born lucky! You see the De Smets start back today, and they are willing to take you along with them!"
"But we don't want to leave you, dear, dear Granny!" cried the Twins, throwing their arms about her neck.
"And I don't want you to go, either, my lambs," said Granny; "but, you see, there are lots of things to think of. In the first place, of course you want to go on hunting for your mother. It may be she has gone over the border; for the Germans are already in trenches near Antwerp, and our army is nearer still to Antwerp and in trenches, too. There they stay, Father De Smet says, for all the world, like two tigers, lying ready to spring at each other's throats. He says Antwerp is so strongly fortified that the Germans can never take it, and so it is a better place to be in than here. The De Smets will see that you are left in safe hands, and I'm sure your mother would want you to go." The children considered this for a moment in silence.
At last Jan said, "Do you think Father De Smet would let me help drive the mule?"
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Granny.
"But what about Fidel, our dear Fidel?" cried Marie.
"I tell you what I'll do;" said Granny. "I'll take care of Fidel for you! You shall leave him here with me until you come back again! You see, I really need good company, and since I can't have you, I know you would be glad to have Fidel stay here to protect me. Then you'll always know just where he is."
She hurried the children into their clothes as she talked, gave them a good breakfast, and before they had time to think much about what was happening to them, they had said good-bye to Fidel, who had to be shut in the cottage to keep him from following the boat, and were safely aboard the "Old Woman" and slowly moving away down the river. They stood in the stern of the boat, listening to Fidel's wild barks, and waving their hands, until Granny's kind face was a mere round speck in the distance.
When they could no longer see Granny, nor hear Fidel, the children sat down on a coil of rope behind the cabin and felt very miserable indeed. Marie was just turning up the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, and Jan was looking at nothing at all and winking very hard, when good Mother De Smet, came by with a baby waddling along on each side of her. She gave the two dismal little faces a quick glance and then said kindly:
"Jan, you run and see if you can't help Father with the tiller, and, Marie, would you mind playing with the babies while I put on the soup-kettle and fix the greens for dinner? They are beginning to climb everywhere now, and I am afraid they will fall overboard if somebody doesn't watch them every minute!"
Jan clattered at once across the deck to Father De Smet, and Marie gladly followed his wife to the open space in front of the cabin where the babies had room to roll about. Half an hour later, when Mother De Smet went back to get some potatoes for the soup, she found Jan proudly steering the boat by himself.
"Oh, my soul!" she cried in astonishment. "What a clever boy you must be to learn so quickly to handle the tiller. Where is Father De Smet?"
"Here!" boomed a loud voice behind her, and Father De Smet's head appeared above a barrel on the other side of the deck. "I'm trying to make the 'Old Woman' look as if she had no cargo aboard. If the Germans see these potatoes, they'll never let us get them to Antwerp," he shouted.
"Sh-h-h! You mustn't talk so loud," whispered Mother De Smet. "You roar like a foghorn on a dark night. The Germans won't have any trouble in finding out about the potatoes if you shout the news all over the landscape."
Father De Smet looked out over the quiet Belgian fields.
"There's nobody about that I can see," he said, "but I'll roar more gently next time."
There was a bend in the river just at this point, and Jan, looking fearfully about to see if he could see any Germans, for an instant forgot all about the tiller. There was a jerk on the tow-rope and a bump as the nose of the "Old Woman" ran into the river-bank. Netteke, the mule, came to a sudden stop, and Mother De Smet sat down equally suddenly on a coil of rope. Her potatoes spilled over the deck, while a wail from the front of the boat announced that one of the babies had bumped, too. Mother De Smet picked herself up and ran to see what was the matter with the baby, while Father De Smet seized a long pole and hurried forward. Joseph left the mule to browse upon the grass beside the tow-path and ran back to the boat. His father threw him a pole which was kept for such emergencies, and they both pushed. Joseph pushed on the boat and his father pushed against the river-bank. Meanwhile poor Jan stood wretchedly by the tiller knowing that his carelessness had caused the trouble, yet not knowing what to do to help.
"Never mind, son," said Mother De Smet kindly, when she came back for her potatoes and saw his downcast face. "It isn't the first time the 'Old Woman' has stuck her nose in the mud, and with older people than you at the tiller, too! We'll soon have her off again and no harm done."
The boat gave a little lurch toward the middle of the stream.
"Look alive there, Mate!" sang out Father De Smet. "Hard aport with the tiller! Head her out into the stream!"
Joseph flung his pole to his father and rushed back to Netteke, pulled her patient nose out of a delicious bunch of thistles and started her up the tow-path. Jan sprang to the tiller, and soon the "Old Woman" was once more gliding smoothly over the quiet water toward Antwerp.
When Father De Smet came back to the stern of the boat, Jan expected a scolding, but perhaps it seemed to the good-natured skipper that Jan had troubles enough already, for he only said mildly, "Stick to your job, son, whatever it is," and went on covering his potatoes with empty boxes and pieces of sailcloth. Jan paid such strict attention to the tiller after that that he did not even forget when Father De Smet pointed out a burning farmhouse a mile or so from the river and said grimly, "The Germans are amusing themselves again."
For the most part, however, the countryside seemed so quiet and peaceful that it was hard to believe that such dreadful things were going on all about them. While Father De Smet's eyes, under their bushy brows, kept close watch in every direction, he said little about his fears and went on his way exactly as he had done before the invasion.
It was quite early in the morning when they left Boom, and by ten o'clock Joseph was tired of trudging along beside Netteke. He hailed his father.
"May I come aboard now?" he shouted.
Father De Smet looked at Jan.
"Would you like to drive the mule awhile?" he asked.
"Oh, wouldn't I!" cried Jan.
"Have you ever driven a mule before?" Father De Smet asked again.
"Not a mule, exactly," Jail replied, "but I drove old Pier up from the field with a load of wheat all by myself. Mother sat on the load."
"Come along!" shouted Father De Smet to Joseph, and in a moment the gangplank was out and Jan and Joseph had changed places.
"May I go, too?" asked Marie timidly of Father De Smet as he was about to draw in the plank. "The babies are both asleep and I have nothing to do."
Father De Smet took a careful look in every direction. It was level, open country all about them, dotted here and there with farmhouses, and in the distance the spire of a village church rose above the clustering houses and pointed to the sky.
"Yes, yes, child. Go ahead," said Father De Smet. "Only don't get too near Netteke's hind legs. She doesn't know you very well and sometimes she forgets her manners."
Marie skipped over the gangplank and ran along the tow-path to Jan, who already had taken up Netteke's reins and was waiting for the signal to start. Joseph took his place at the tiller, and again the "Old Woman" moved slowly down the stream.
For some time Jan and Marie plodded along with Netteke. At first they thought it good fun, but by and by, as the sun grew hot, driving a mule on a tow-path did not seem quite so pleasant a task as they had thought it would be.
"I'm tired of this," said Jan at last to Marie. "That mule is so slow that I have to sight her by something to be sure that she is moving at all! I've been measuring by that farmhouse across the river for a long time, and she hasn't crawled up to it yet! I shouldn't wonder if she'd go to sleep some day and fall into the river and never wake up! Why, I am almost asleep myself."
"She'll wake up fast enough when it's time to eat, and so will you," said Marie, with profound wisdom.
"Let 's see if we can't make her go a little faster, anyway," said Jan, ignoring Marie's remark. "I know what I'll do," he went on, chuckling; "I'll get some burrs and stick them in her tail, and then every time she slaps the flies off she'll make herself go faster."
Marie seized Jan's arm.
"You'll do nothing of the kind!" she cried. "Father De Smet told me especially to keep away from Netteke's hind legs."
"Pooh!" said Jan; "he didn't tell me that. I'm not afraid of any mule alive. I guess if I can harness a horse and drive home a load of grain from the field, there isn't much I can't do with a mule!" To prove his words he shouted "U—U" at Netteke and slapped her flank with a long branch of willow.
Now, Netteke was a proud mule and she wasn't used to being slapped. Father De Smet knew her ways, and knew also that her steady, even, slow pace was better in the long run than to attempt to force a livelier gait, and Netteke was well aware of what was expected of her. She resented being interfered with. Instead of going forward at greater speed, she put her four feet together, laid back her ears, gave a loud "hee-haw!" and stopped stock-still.
"U—U!" shouted Jan. In vain! Netteke would not move. Marie held a handful of fresh grass just out of reach of her mouth. But Netteke was really offended. She made no effort to get it. She simply stayed where she was. Father De Smet stuck his head over the side of the boat.
"What is the matter?" he shouted.
"Oh, dear!" said Jan to Marie. "I hoped he wouldn't notice that the boat wasn't moving."
"Netteke has stopped. She won't go at all. I think she's run down!" Marie called back.
"Try coaxing her," cried the skipper. "Give her something to eat. Hold it in front of her nose."
"I have," answered Marie, "but she won't even look at it."
"Then it's no use," said Father De Smet mournfully. "She's balked and that is all there is to it. We'll just have to wait until she is ready to go again. When she has made up her mind she is as difficult to persuade as a setting hen."
Mother De Smet's head appeared beside her husband's over the boat-rail.
"Oh, dear!" said she; "I hoped we should get to the other side of the line before dark, but if Netteke's set, she's set, and we must just make the best of it. It's lucky it's dinner-time. We'll eat, and maybe by the time we are through she'll be willing to start." Father De Smet tossed a bucket on to the grass.
"Give her a good drink," he said, "and come aboard yourselves."
Jan filled the bucket from the river and set it down before Netteke, but she was in no mood for blandishments. She kept her ears back and would not touch the water.
"All right, then, Crosspatch," said Jan. Leaving the pail in front of her, he went back to the boat. The gangplank was put out, and he and Marie went on board. They found dinner ready in the tiny cabin, and because it was so small and stuffy, and there were too many of them, anyway, to get into it comfortably, they each took a bowl of soup as Mother De Smet handed it to them and sat down on the deck in front of the cabin to eat it. It was not until the middle of the afternoon that Netteke forgot her injuries, consented to eat and drink, and indicated her willingness to move on toward Antwerp.