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diff --git a/19851-h/19851-h.htm b/19851-h/19851-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9cb46a --- /dev/null +++ b/19851-h/19851-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7401 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>More Tish | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + p.titleblock {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: center;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; + position: absolute; right: 2%; border:1px solid white; + padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; + color: #444; background-color: #EEE;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + hr.major {width:75%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width:30%; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + + + .border1 {border-width: 1px;} + .cellpadding2 {padding: 2px;} + .width450 {width: 450px;} + .width500 {width: 500px;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .right {text-align: right;} + div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of More Tish, by Mary Roberts Rinehart</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: More Tish</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 17, 2006 [eBook #19851]<br> +[Most recently updated: May 4, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: by Roger Frank<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br> + (http://www.pgdp.net/) +<br>Revised by Richard Tonsing.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE TISH ***</div> + + + + +<hr style='width:30%; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; height: 3px; background: black;'> +<p style='text-align:center; font-size:150%;'>MORE TISH</p> +<hr style='width:30%; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; height: 1px; background: black;'> +<p style='text-align:center; font-size:110%;'>MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</p> +<hr style='width:30%; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; height: 3px; background: black;'> + +<hr class='major'> + +<table> +<tr><td> +<hr style='height: 3px; background: black;'> +<span class="smcap">By</span> MARY ROBERTS RINEHART<br> +<hr> +A POOR WISE MAN<br> +DANGEROUS WAYS<br> +THE AMAZING INTERLUDE<br> +“K”<br> +BAB: A SUB-DEB<br> +TISH<br> +MORE TISH<br> +SIGHT UNSEEN AND THE CONFESSION<br> +AFFINITIES AND OTHER STORIES<br> +LOVE STORIES<br> +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS<br> +TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE<br> +“ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN?”<br> +ETC., ETC.<br> +<hr style='height: 3px; background: black;'> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='major'> + +<table class='width450 cellpadding2 border1'><tr><td> +<h1> MORE TISH</h1> +<p class='titleblock' style=' font-size: 80%;'> BY</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' margin-bottom: 10px;'> MARY ROBERTS RINEHART</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' font-size: 80%;'> AUTHOR OF “A POOR WISE MAN,” “DANGEROUS DAYS,”</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' font-size: 80%; margin-bottom: 200px;'> “THE AMAZING INTERLUDE,” “BAB,” “K,” ETC.</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' font-size: 110%;'> NEW YORK</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' font-size: 110%; margin-bottom: 50px;'> GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class='major'> + +<div style='font-style:italic;'> +<p class='titleblock' style='margin-top: 30px;'>Copyright, 1921,</p> +<p class='titleblock' style='margin-bottom: 60px;'>By George H. Doran Company</p> +<p class='titleblock'> Copyright, 1912, 1917, 1919,</p> +<p class='titleblock'> By The Curtis Publishing Company</p> +<p class='titleblock' style=' margin-bottom: 30px;'>Printed in the United States of America</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major'> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><a id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2></div> +<div class="smcap"> +<table class='width500 cellpadding2'> +<col style="width:85%;"> +<col style="width:15%;"> +<tr><td class="left">THE CAVE ON THUNDER CLOUD</td><td class="right"><a href="#THE_CAVE_ON_THUNDER_CLOUD">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="left">TISH DOES HER BIT</td><td class="right"><a href="#TISH_DOES_HER_BIT">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="left">SALVAGE</td><td class="right"><a href="#SALVAGE">161</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="major"> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a id="THE_CAVE_ON_THUNDER_CLOUD"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_9">9</a></span> +<div class='chapter'><h2>THE CAVE ON THUNDER CLOUD</h2></div> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It is doubtful if Aggie and I would have known anything about Tish’s +plan had Aggie not seen the advertisement in the newspaper. She came to +my house at once in violent excitement and with her bonnet over her ear, +and gave me the newspaper clipping to read. It said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">“Wanted</span>: A small donkey. Must be gentle, female, and if possible +answer to the name of Modestine. Address X 27, Morning News.”</p></div> + +<p>“Well,” I said when I had read it, “did you insert the advertisement or +do you propose to answer it?”</p> + +<p>Aggie was preparing to take a drink of water, but, the water being cold +and the weather warm,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_10">10</a></span> she was dabbing a little on her wrists first to +avoid colic. She looked up at me in surprise.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say, Lizzie,” she demanded, “that you don’t recognize +that advertisement?”</p> + +<p>“Modestine?” I reflected. “I’ve heard the name before somewhere. Didn’t +Tish have a cook once named Modestine?”</p> + +<p>But it seemed that that was not it. Aggie sat down opposite me and took +off her bonnet. Although it was only the first of May, the weather, as I +have said, was very warm.</p> + +<p>“To think,” she said heavily, “that all the time while I was reading it +aloud to her when she was laid up with neuralgia she was scheming and +planning and never saying a word to me! Not that I would have gone; but +I could have sent her mail to her, and at least have notified the +authorities if she had disappeared.”</p> + +<p>“Reading what aloud to her—her mail?” I asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“‘Travels with a Donkey,’” Aggie replied. “Stevenson’s ‘Travels with a +Donkey.’ It isn’t safe to read anything aloud to Tish any more. The +older she gets the worse she is. She thinks that what any one else has +done she can go and do. If she should read a book on poultry-farming she +would think she could teach a young hen to lay an egg.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_11">11</a></span></p> + +<p>As Aggie spoke a number of things came back to me. I recalled that the +Sunday before, in church, Tish had appeared absorbed and even more +devout than usual, and had taken down the headings of the sermon on her +missionary envelope; but that, on my leaning over to see if she had them +correctly, she had whisked the paper away before I had had more than +time to see the first heading. It had said “Rubber Heels.”</p> + +<p>Aggie was pacing the floor nervously, holding the empty glass.</p> + +<p>“She’s going on a walking tour with a donkey, that’s what, Lizzie,” she +said, pausing before me. “I could see it sticking out all over her while +I read that book. And if we go to her now and tax her with it she’ll +admit it. But if she says she is doing it to get thin don’t you believe +it.”</p> + +<p>That was all Aggie would say. She shut her lips and said she had come +for my recipe for caramel custard. But when I put on my wraps and said I +was going to Tish’s she said she would come along.</p> + +<p>Tish lives in an apartment, and she was not at home. Miss Swift, the +seamstress, opened the door and stood in the doorway so we could not +enter.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Miss Aggie and Miss Lizzie,” she said, putting out her left +elbow as Aggie tried to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_12">12</a></span> duck by her; “but she left positive orders to +admit nobody. Of course if she had known you were coming—but she +didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“What are you making Miss Letitia?” Aggie asked sweetly. “Summer +clothes?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Some little thin things—it’s getting so hot!”</p> + +<p>“Humph! I see you are making them with an upholsterer’s needle!” said +Aggie, and marched down the hall with her head up.</p> + +<p>I was quite bewildered. For even if Tish had decided on a walking tour I +couldn’t imagine what an upholsterer’s needle had to do with it, unless +she meant to upholster the donkey.</p> + +<p>We got down to the entrance before Aggie spoke again. Then:</p> + +<p>“What did I tell you?” she demanded. “That woman’s making her a——”</p> + +<p>But at that very instant there was a thud under our feet and something +came “ping” through the floor not six inches from my toe, and lodged in +the ceiling. Aggie and I stood looking up. It had made a small round +hole over our heads, and a little cloud of plaster dust hung round it.</p> + +<p>“Somebody shot at us!” declared Aggie, clutching my arm. “That was a +bullet!”</p> + +<p>I stooped down and felt the floor. There was<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_13">13</a></span> a hole in it, and from +somewhere below I thought I heard voices. It was not very comfortable, +standing there on top of Heaven knows what; but we were divided between +fear and outrage, and our indignation won. With hardly a word we went +back to the rear staircase and so to the cellar. Halfway down the stairs +both of us remembered the same thing—that it was Tish’s day to use the +basement laundry, and that perhaps——</p> + +<p>Tish was not in the laundry, nor was Hannah, her maid. But Tish’s +blue-and-white dressing sacque was on the line, and the blue had run, as +I had said it would when she bought it. In the furnace room beyond we +heard voices, and Aggie opened the door.</p> + +<p>Tish and Hannah were both there. They had not heard us.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!” Tish was saying. “If anybody had been hit we’d have heard a +scream; or if they were killed we’d have heard ’em fall.”</p> + +<p>“I heard a sort of yell,” said poor Hannah. “I don’t like it, Miss Tish. +The time before you just missed me.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you stick your arm out?” demanded Tish. “Now take that +broomstick and we’ll start again. Did you score that?”</p> + +<p>“How’ll I score it?” asked Hannah. “Hit or<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_14">14</a></span> miss?” She went to the +cellar wall and stood waiting, with a piece of charcoal in her hand. The +whitewashed wall was marked with rows of X’s and ciphers. The ciphers +predominated.</p> + +<p>“Mark it a miss.”</p> + +<p>“But I heard a yell——”</p> + +<p>“Fiddle-de-dee! Are you ready?” Tish had lifted a small rifle into +position and was standing, with her feet apart, pointing it at a white +target hanging by a string from a rafter. As she gave the signal, Hannah +sighed, and, picking up a broomhandle, started the target to swaying, +pendulum fashion; Tish followed it with the gun.</p> + +<p>I thought things had gone far enough, so I stepped into the cellar and +spoke in ringing tones.</p> + +<p>“Letitia Carberry!” I said sternly.</p> + +<p>Tish pulled the trigger at that moment and the bullet went into the +furnace pipe. It was absurd, of course, for Tish to blame me for it, but +she turned on me in a rage.</p> + +<p>“Look what you made me do!” she snapped. “Can’t a person have a moment’s +privacy?”</p> + +<p>“What I think you need,” I retorted, “is six months’ complete seclusion +in a sanitarium.”</p> + +<p>“You nearly shot us in the upper hall,” Aggie put in warmly.</p> + +<p>“Well, as long as I didn’t shoot you in the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_15">15</a></span> upper hall or any other +place, I guess you needn’t fuss,” said Tish. “Ready, Hannah.”</p> + +<p>This time she shot Hannah in the broomhandle, and practically put her +<i>hors de combat</i>; but the shot immediately after was what Tish +triumphantly called a clean bull’s-eye—that is, it hit the center of +the target.</p> + +<p>That is the time to stop, when one has made a bull’s-eye in any sort of +achievement, I take it. And Tish is nobody’s fool. She took off her +spectacles and wiped the perspiration and gunpowder streaks from her +face. She was immediately in high good humor.</p> + +<p>“Every unprotected female should know how to handle a weapon,” she said +oracularly, and, sitting down on the edge of the coal-bin, proceeded to +swab out the gun with a wad of cotton on the end of a stick.</p> + +<p>“The poker has been good enough for you for fifty years,” I retorted. +“And if you think you look sporty, or anything but idiotic, sitting +there in a flowered kimono and swabbing out the throat of that gun——?”</p> + +<p>Just then the janitor came down, and Tish gave him a dollar for the use +of the cellar and did not mention the furnace pipe. Aggie and I glanced +at each other. Tish’s demoralization had begun. From that minute, to the +long and entirely<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_16">16</a></span> false story she told the red-bearded man in Thunder +Cloud Glen several days later, she trod, as Aggie truthfully said, the +downward path of mendacity, bringing up in the county jail and +hysterics.</p> + +<p>We went upstairs, Tish ahead and Aggie and I two flights behind, +believing that Tish with an unloaded gun was a thousand times more +dangerous than any outlaw with an entire arsenal loaded to the muzzle.</p> + +<p>We had a cup of tea in Tish’s parlor, but she kept us out of the +bedroom, where we could hear Miss Swift running the sewing machine. +Finally Aggie said out of a clear sky:</p> + +<p>“Have you had any answers to your advertisement?”</p> + +<p>Tish, who had been about to put a slice of lemon in her tea, put it in +her mouth instead and stared at us both.</p> + +<p>“What advertisement?”</p> + +<p>“We know all about it, Tish,” I said. “And if you think it proper for a +woman of your age to go adventuring with only a donkey for company——”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had worse!” Tish snapped. “And I’m not feeble yet, as far as my +age goes. If I want to take a walking tour it’s my affair, isn’t it?”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_17">17</a></span></p> + +<p>“You can’t walk with your bad knee,” I objected. Tish sniffed.</p> + +<p>“You’re envious, that’s what,” she sneered. “While you are sitting at +home, overeating and oversleeping and getting fat in mind and body, I +shall be on the broad highway, walking between hedgerows of +flowering—flowering—well, between hedgerows. While you sleep in +stuffy, upholstered rooms I shall lie in woodland glades in my +sleeping-bag and see overhead the constellation of—of what’s its name. +I shall talk to the birds and the birds will talk to me.”</p> + +<p>Sleeping-bag! That was what Aggie had meant that Miss Swift was making.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do when it rains?”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t rain much in May. Anyhow, a friendly farmhouse and a glass +of milk—even a barn——”</p> + +<p>Aggie got up with the light of desperation in her eyes. Aggie hates +woods and gnats, has no eye for Nature, and for almost half a century +has pampered her body in a featherbed poultice, with the windows closed, +until the first of June each year. Yet Aggie rose to the crisis.</p> + +<p>“You shan’t go alone, Tish,” she said stoutly. “You’ll forget to change +your stockings when your feet are wet and you can’t make a cup of coffee +fit to drink. I’m going too.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_18">18</a></span></p> + +<p>Tish made a gesture of despair, but Aggie was determined. Tish glanced +at me.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she snapped. “We might as well make it a family excursion. +Aren’t you coming along, too, to look after Aggie?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” I observed calmly. “I’ll have enough to do looking after +myself. But I like the idea, and since you’ve invited me I’ll come, of +course.”</p> + +<p>At first I am afraid Tish was not particularly pleased. She said she had +it all planned to make four miles an hour, or about forty miles a day; +and that any one falling back would have to be left by the wayside. And +that if we were not prepared to sleep on the ground, or were going to +talk rheumatism every time she found a place to camp, she would thank us +to remember that we had really asked ourselves.</p> + +<p>But she grew more cheerful finally and seemed to be glad to talk over +the details of the trip with somebody. She said it was a pity we had not +had some practice with firearms, for we would each have to take a +weapon, the mountains being full of outlaws, more than likely. Neither +Aggie nor I could use a gun at all, but, as Tish observed, we could pot +at trees and fenceposts along the road by way of practice.</p> + +<p>When I suggested that the sight of three<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_19">19</a></span> women of our age—we are all +well on toward fifty; Aggie insists that she is younger than I am, but +we were in the same infant class in Sunday-school—three women of our +age “potting” at fences was hardly dignified, Tish merely shrugged her +shoulders.</p> + +<p>She asked us not to let Charlie Sands learn of the trip. He would be +sure to be fussy and want to send a man along, and that would spoil it +all.</p> + +<p>What with the secrecy, and the guns and everything, I dare say we were +like a lot of small boys getting ready to run away out West and kill +Indians. In fact, Tish said it reminded her of the time, years ago, when +Charlie Sands and some other boys had run away, with all the carving +knives and razors they could gather together, and were found a week +later in a cave in the mountains twenty miles or so from town.</p> + +<p>Tish showed us her sleeping-bag, which was felt outside and her old +white fur rug within. Aggie planned hers immediately on the same lines, +with her fur coat as a lining; but I had mine made of oilcloth outside, +my rheumatism having warned me that we were going to have rain. I was +right about the rain.</p> + +<p>I had an old army revolver that had belonged to my father, and of course +Tish had her coal-cellar rifle, but Aggie had nothing more dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_20">20</a></span> +than a bayonet from the Mexican War. This being too heavy to carry, and +dull—being only possible as a weapon by bringing the handle down on +one’s opponent’s head—Aggie was forced to buy a revolver.</p> + +<p>The man in the shop tried to sell her a small pearl-handled one, but she +would not look at it. She bought one of the sort that goes on shooting +as long as one holds a finger on the trigger—a snub-nosed thing that +looked as deadly as it was. She was in terror of it from the moment she +got it home, and during most of the trip it was packed in excelsior, +with the barrel stuffed with cotton, on Modestine’s back.</p> + +<p>Which brings me to Modestine.</p> + +<p>Tish received three answers to her advertisement: One was a mule, one a +piebald pony with a wicked eye, and the third was a donkey. It seemed +that Stevenson had said that the pack animal of such a trip should be +“cheap, small and hardy,” and that a donkey best of all answered these +requirements.</p> + +<p>The donkey in question was, however, not a female. Tish was firm about +this; but on no more donkeys being offered, she bought this one and +called him Modestine anyhow. He was very dirty, and we paid a dollar +extra to have him washed with soap powder, as our food was to be<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_21">21</a></span> +carried on his back. Also the day before we started I spent an hour or +so on him with a fine comb, with gratifying results.</p> + +<p>I must confess I entered on the adventure with a light heart. Tish had +apparently given up all thought of the aeroplane; her automobile was +being used by Charlie Sands; the weather was warm and sunny, and the +orchards were in bloom. I had no premonition of danger. The adventure, +reduced to its elements of canned food, alcohol lamp, sleeping-bags and +toothbrushes, seemed no adventure at all, but a peaceful and pastoral +excursion by three middle-aged women into green fields and pastures new.</p> + +<p>We reckoned, however, without Aggie’s missionary dime.</p> + +<p>Aggie’s church had sent each of its members a ten-cent piece, with +instructions to invest it in some way and to return it multiplied as +much as possible in three months. This was on Aggie’s mind, but we did +not know it until later. Really, Aggie’s missionary dime is the story. +If she had done as she had planned at first and invested it in an egg, +had hatched the egg in cotton wool on the shelf over her kitchen range +and raised the chicken, eventually selling the chicken to herself for +dinner at seventy-five cents, this story would never have been written.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_22">22</a></span></p> + +<p>What the dime really bought was a glass of jelly wrapped in a +two-day-old newspaper. But to go back:</p> + +<p>We were to start from Tish’s at dawn on Tuesday morning. Modestine’s +former owner had agreed to bring him at that hour to the alley behind +Tish’s apartment. On Monday Aggie and I sent over what we felt we could +not get along without, and about five we both arrived.</p> + +<p>Tish was sitting on the floor, with luggage scattered all round her and +heaped on the chairs and bed.</p> + +<p>She looked up witheringly when we entered.</p> + +<p>“You forgot your opera cloak, Lizzie,” she said, “and Aggie has only +sent five pairs of shoes!”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to have shoes,” Aggie protested.</p> + +<p>“If you’ve got to have five pairs of shoes, six white petticoats, summer +underwear, intermediates and flannels, a bathrobe, six bath towels and a +sunshade, not to mention other things, you want an elephant, not a +donkey.”</p> + +<p>“Why do we have a donkey?” I asked. “Why don’t we have a horse and +buggy, and go like Christians?”</p> + +<p>“Because you and Aggie wouldn’t walk if we did,” snapped Tish. “I know +you both. You’d have rheumatism or a corn and you’d take your<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_23">23</a></span> walking +trip sitting. Besides, we may not always keep to the roads. I’d like to +go up into the mountains.”</p> + +<p>Well, Tish was disagreeable, but right. As it turned out the donkey, +being small, could only carry the sleeping-bags, our portable stove and +the provisions. We each were obliged to pack a suitcase and carry that.</p> + +<p>We started at dawn the next day. Hannah came down to the alley and +didn’t think much of Modestine. By the time he was loaded a small crowd +had gathered, and when we finally started off, Tish ahead with +Modestine’s bridle over her arm and Aggie and I behind with our +suitcases, a sort of cheer went up. It was, however, an orderly +leave-taking, perhaps owing to the fact that Tish’s rifle was packed in +full view on Modestine’s back.</p> + +<p>I have a great admiration for Tish. She does not fear the pointing +finger of scorn. She took the most direct route out of town, and by the +time we had reached the outskirts we had a string of small boys behind +us like the tail of a kite. When we reached the cemetery and sat down to +rest they formed a circle round us and stared at us.</p> + +<p>Tish looked at her watch. We had been an hour and twenty minutes going +two miles!<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_24">24</a></span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>We were terribly thirsty, but none of us cared to drink from the +cemetery well; in fact, the question of water bothered us all that day. +It was very warm, and after we left the suburban trolley-line, where +motormen stopped the cars to look at us and people crowded to the +porches to stare at us, the water question grew serious. Tish had +studied sanitation, and at every farm we came to the well was improperly +located. Generally it was immediately below the pigsty.</p> + +<p>Luckily we had brought along some blackberry cordial, and we took a sip +of that now and then. But the suitcases were heavy, and at eleven +o’clock Aggie said the cordial had gone to her head and she could go no +farther. Tish was furious.</p> + +<p>“I told you how it would be!” she said. “For about forty years you +haven’t used your legs except to put shoes and stockings on. Of course +they won’t carry you.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t my feet, it’s my head,” Aggie sniffed. “If I had some water +I’d b-be all right. If you’re going to examine everything you drink with +a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_25">25</a></span> microscope you might as well have stayed at home.”</p> + +<p>“I’d have died before I drank out of that last well,” snapped Tish. “One +could tell by looking at that woman that there are dead rats and things +in the water.”</p> + +<p>“You are not so particular at home,” Aggie asserted. “You use vinegar, +don’t you? And I’m sure it’s full of wrigglers. You can see them when +you hold the cruet to the light.”</p> + +<p>We got her to go on finally, and at the next well we boiled a pailful of +water and made some tea. We found a grove beside the road and built a +fire in our stove there, and while Modestine was grazing we sat and +soaked our feet in a brook and looked for blisters. Tish calculated that +as we had been walking for six hours we’d probably gone twenty-two +miles. But I believe it was about eight.</p> + +<p>While we drank our tea and ate the luncheon Hannah had put up we +discussed our plans. Tish’s original scheme had been to follow the +donkey; but as he would not move without some one ahead, leading him, +this was not feasible.</p> + +<p>“We want to keep away from the beaten path,” Tish said with a pickle in +one hand and her cup in the other. “These days automobiles go +everywhere.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_26">26</a></span> I’m in favor of heading straight for the mountain.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not,” I said firmly. “Here in civilization we can find a barn on a +rainy night.”</p> + +<p>“There are plenty of caves in the mountains,” said Tish. “Besides, to +get the real benefit of this we ought to sleep out, rain or shine. A +gentle spring rain hurts no one.”</p> + +<p>We rested for two hours; it was very pleasant. Modestine ate all that +was left of the luncheon, and Aggie took a nap with her head on her +suitcase. If we had not had the suitcases we should have been quite +contented. Tish, with her customary ability, solved that.</p> + +<p>“We need only one suitcase,” she declared. “We can leave the other two +at this farmhouse and pack a few things for each of us in the one we +take along. Then we can take turns carrying it.”</p> + +<p>Aggie wakened finally and was rather more docile about the suitcases +than we had expected. Possibly she would have been more indignant; but +her feet had swollen so while she had her shoes off that she could +hardly get them on at all, and for the remainder of the day her mind +was, you may say, in her feet.</p> + +<p>At four we stopped again and made more tea. The road had begun to rise +toward the hills and<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_27">27</a></span> the farmhouses were fewer. Ahead of us loomed +Thunder Cloud Mountain, with the Camel’s Back to the right of it. The +road led up the valley between.</p> + +<p>It was hardly a road at all, being a grass-grown wagontrack with not a +house in a mile. Aggie was glad of the grass, for she had taken off her +shoes by that time and was carrying them slung over her shoulder on the +end of her parasol. We were on the lower slope of the mountain when we +heard the green automobile.</p> + +<p>It was coming rapidly from behind us. Aggie had just time to sit on a +bank—and her feet—before it came in sight. It was a long, low, +bright-green car and there were four men in it. They were bent forward, +looking ahead, except one man who sat so he could see behind him.</p> + +<p>They came on us rather suddenly, and the man who was looking back yelled +to us as they passed, but what with noise and dust I couldn’t make out +what he said. The next moment the machine flew ahead and out of sight +among the trees.</p> + +<p>“What did he say?” I asked. Aggie, who has a tendency to hay fever, was +sneezing in the dust.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” returned Tish absently, staring after them. “Probably +asked us if we wanted a ride. Lizzie, those men had guns!”</p> + +<p>“Fiddlesticks!” I said.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_28">28</a></span></p> + +<p>“Guns!” repeated Tish firmly.</p> + +<p>“Well, what of it? Our donkey has a gun.”</p> + +<p>And as at that instant the sleeping-bags and provisions slid gently +round under Modestine’s stomach, the green automobile and its occupants +passed out of our minds for a while.</p> + +<p>By the time we had got the things on Modestine’s back again we were +convinced he had been a mistake. He objected to standing still to be +reloaded, and even with Tish at his head and Aggie at his tail he kept +turning in a circle, and in fact finally kicked out at Aggie and +stretched her in the road. Then, too, his back was not flat like a +horse’s. It went up to a sort of peak, and was about as handy to pack +things on as the ridge-pole of a roof.</p> + +<p>For an hour or so more we plodded on. Tish, who is an enthusiast about +anything she does, kept pointing out wild flowers to us and talking +about the unfortunates back in town under roofs. But I kept thinking of +a broiled lamb chop with new potatoes, and my whole being revolted at +the thought of supper out of a can.</p> + +<p>At twilight we found a sort of recess in the valley, level and not too +thickly wooded, and while Tish and I set up the stove and lighted a fire +Aggie spread out the sleeping-bags and got supper ready. We had canned +salmon and potato<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_29">29</a></span> salad. We ate ravenously and then, taking off our +shoes and our walking suits, and getting into our flannel kimonos and +putting up our crimps—for we were determined not to lapse into slovenly +personal habits—we were ready for the night.</p> + +<p>Tish said there were all sorts of animals on Thunder Cloud, so we built +a large fire to keep them away. Tish said this was the customary thing, +being done in all the adventure books she had read.</p> + +<p>Aggie had to be helped into her sleeping-bag, her fur coat having been +rather skimp. But, once in, she said it was heavenly, and she was asleep +almost immediately. Tish and I followed, and I found I had placed my bag +over a stone. I was, however, too tired to get up.</p> + +<p>I lay and looked at the stars twinkling above the treetops, and I felt +sorry for people who had nothing better to look at than a wall-papered +ceiling. Tish, next to me, was yawning.</p> + +<p>“If there are snakes,” she observed drowsily, “they are not poisonous—I +should think. And, anyhow, no snake could strike through these heavy +bags.”</p> + +<p>She went to sleep at once, but I lay there thinking of snakes for some +time. Also I remembered that we’d forgotten to leave our weapons within +reach, although, as far as that goes, I should not<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_30">30</a></span> have slept a wink +had Aggie had her Fourth of July celebration near at hand. Then I went +to sleep. The last thing I remember was wishing we had brought a dog. +Even a box of cigars would have been some protection—we could have +lighted one and stuck it in the crotch of a tree, as if a man was +mounting guard over the camp. This idea, of course, was not original. It +was done first by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the detective.</p> + +<p>It must have been toward dawn that I roused, with a feeling that some +one was looking down at me. The fire was very low and Aggie was sleeping +with her mouth open. I got up on my elbow and stared round. There was +nothing in sight, but through the trees I heard a rustling of leaves and +the crackling of brushwood. Whatever it was it had gone. I turned over +and before long went to sleep again.</p> + +<p>At daylight I was roused by raindrops splashing on my face. I sat up +hastily. Aggie was sleeping with the flap of her bag over her head, and +Tish, under an umbrella, was sitting fully dressed on a log, poring over +her road map. When I sat up she glanced over at me.</p> + +<p>“I think I know where we are now, Lizzie,” she said. “Thunder Cloud +Mountain is on our left, and that hill there to the right is the +Camel’s<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_31">31</a></span> Back. The road goes right up Thunder Cloud Glen.”</p> + +<p>I looked at the fire, which was out; at Modestine, standing meekly by +the tree to which he was tied; at the raindrops bounding off Aggie’s +round and prostrate figure—and I rebelled. Every muscle was sore; it +hurt me even to yawn.</p> + +<p>“Letitia Carberry!” I said indignantly. “You don’t mean to tell me that, +rain or no rain, you are going on?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly I am going on,” said Tish, shutting her jaw. “You and Aggie +needn’t come. I’m sure you asked yourselves; I didn’t.”</p> + +<p>Well, that was true, of course. I crawled out and, going over, prodded +at Aggie with my foot.</p> + +<p>“Aggie,” I said, “it is raining and Tish is going on anyhow. Will you go +on with her or start back home with me?”</p> + +<p>But Aggie refused to do either. She was terribly stiff and she had slept +near a bed of May-apple blossoms. In the twilight she had not noticed +them, and they always bring on her hay fever.</p> + +<p>“I’b goi’g to stay right here,” she said firmly between sneezes. “You +cad go back or forward or whatever you please; I shad’t bove.”</p> + +<p>Tish was marking out a route on the road map<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_32">32</a></span> by making holes with a +hairpin, and now she got up and faced us.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she said. “Then get your things out of the suitcase, which +happens to be mine. Lizzie, the canned beans and the sardines are yours. +Aggie, your potato salad is in those six screw-top jars. Come, +Modestine.”</p> + +<p>She untied the beast and, leading him over, loaded her sleeping-bag and +her share of the provisions on his back. She did not glance at us. At +the last, when she was ready, she picked up her rifle and turned to us.</p> + +<p>“I may not be back for a week or ten days,” she said icily. “If I’m +longer than two weeks you can start Charlie Sands out with a posse.”</p> + +<p>Charlie Sands is her nephew.</p> + +<p>“Come, Modestine,” said Tish again, and started along. It was raining +briskly by that time, and thundering as if a storm was coming. Aggie +broke down suddenly.</p> + +<p>“Tish! Tish!” she wailed. “Oh, Lizzie, she’ll never get back alive. +Never! We’ve killed her.”</p> + +<p>“She’s about killed us!” I snarled.</p> + +<p>“She’s coming back!”</p> + +<p>Sure enough, Tish had turned and was stalking back in our direction.</p> + +<p>“I ought to leave you where you are,” she said disagreeably, “but it’s +going to storm. If you decide<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_33">33</a></span> to be sensible, somewhere up the valley +is the cave Charlie Sands hid in when he ran away. I think I can find +it.”</p> + +<p>It was thundering louder now, and Aggie was giving a squeal with every +peal. We were too far gone for pride. I helped her out of her +sleeping-bag and we started after Tish and the donkey. The rain poured +down on us. At every step torrents from Thunder Cloud and the Camel’s +Back soaked us. The wind howled up the ravine and the lightning played +round the treetops.</p> + +<p>We traveled for three hours in that downpour.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_34">34</a></span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Only once did Tish speak, and then we could hardly hear her above the +rush of water and the roar of the wind.</p> + +<p>“There’s one comfort,” she said, wading along knee-deep in a torrent. +“These spring rains give nobody cold.”</p> + +<p>An hour later she spoke again, but that was at the end of that journey.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe this is the right valley after all,” she said. “I don’t +see any cave.” We stopped to take our bearings, as you may say, and as +we stood there, looking up, I could have sworn that I saw a man with a +gun peering down at us from a ledge far above. But the next moment he +was gone, and neither Tish nor Aggie had seen him at all.</p> + +<p>We found the cave soon after and climbed to it on our hands and knees, +pulling Modestine up by his bridle. A more outrageous quartet it would +have been impossible to find, or a more outraged one. Aggie let down her +dress, which she had pinned round her waist, releasing about a quart of +water from its folds, and stood looking<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_35">35</a></span> about her with a sneer. “I +don’t think much of your cave,” she said. “It’s little and it’s dirty.”</p> + +<p>“It’s dry!” said Tish tartly.</p> + +<p>“Why stop at all?” Aggie asked sarcastically. “Why not just have kept +on? We couldn’t get any wetter.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I added, “between flowering hedgerows! And of course these spring +rains give nobody cold!”</p> + +<p>Tish did not say a word. She took off her shoes and her skirt, got her +sleeping-bag off Modestine’s back, and—went to bed with the worst +attack of neuralgia she had ever had.</p> + +<p>That was on Wednesday, late in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>It rained for two days!</p> + +<p>We built a fire out of the wood that was in the cave, and dried out our +clothes, and heated stones to put against Tish’s right eye, and brought +in wet branches to dry against the time when we should need them. Aggie +sneezed incessantly in the smoke, and Tish groaned in her corner. I was +about crazy. On Thursday, when the edge of the neuralgia was gone, Tish +promised to go home the moment the rain stopped and the roads dried. +Aggie and I went to her together and implored her.</p> + +<p>But, as it turned out, we did not go home for some days, and when we +did—<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_36">36</a></span>—</p> + +<p>By Thursday evening Tish was much better. She ate a little potato salad +and we sat round the fire, listening to her telling how they had found +the runaways in this very cave.</p> + +<p>“They had taken all the hatchets and kitchen knives they could find and +started to hunt Indians,” she was saying. “They got as far as this cave, +and one evening about this time they were sitting round the fire like +this when a black bear——”</p> + +<p>We all heard it at the same moment. Something was scrambling and +climbing up the mountainside to the cave. Tish had her rifle to her +shoulder in a second, and Aggie shut her eyes. But it was not a bear +that appeared at the mouth of the cave and stood blinking in the light. +It was a young man!</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said, peering into the firelight, “but—you +don’t happen to have a spare box of matches, do you?”</p> + +<p>Tish lowered the rifle.</p> + +<p>“Matches!” she said. “Why—er—certainly. Aggie, give the gentleman some +matches.”</p> + +<p>The young man had edged into the cave by that time and we saw that he +was limping and leaning on a stick. He looked round the cave approvingly +at our three sleeping-bags in an orderly row, with our toilet things set +out on a clean<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_37">37</a></span> towel on a flat stone and a mirror hung above, and at +our lantern on another stone, with magazines and books grouped round it. +Aggie, finding some trailing arbutus just outside the cave that day, had +got two or three empty salmon cans about filled with it, and the fur rug +from Tish’s sleeping-bag lay in front of the fire. The effect was really +civilized.</p> + +<p>“It looks like a drawing room,” said the young man, with a long breath. +“It’s the first dry spot I’ve seen for two days, and it looks like +Heaven to a lost soul.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you stopping?”</p> + +<p>“I am not stopping. I am on a walking tour, or was until I hurt my leg.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think you’d better wait until things dry up?”</p> + +<p>“And starve?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“The woods are full of nuts and berries,” said Tish.</p> + +<p>“Not in May.”</p> + +<p>“And there is plenty of game.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if one has a weapon,” he replied. “I lost my gun when I fell into +Thunder Creek; in fact, I lost everything except my good name. What’s +that thing of Shakespeare’s: ‘Who steals my purse steals trash, ... but +he——’”</p> + +<p>Aggie found the matches just then and gave<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_38">38</a></span> him a box. He was almost +pathetically grateful. Tish was still staring at him. To find on Thunder +Cloud Mountain a young man who quoted Shakespeare and had lost +everything but his good name—even Stevenson could hardly have had a +more unusual adventure.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do with the matches?” she demanded as he limped +to the cave mouth.</p> + +<p>“Light a fire if I can find any wood dry enough to light. If I can’t—— +Well, you remember the little match-seller in Hans Christian Andersen’s +story, who warmed her fingers with her own matches until they were all +gone and she froze to death!”</p> + +<p>Hans Christian Andersen and Shakespeare!</p> + +<p>“Can’t you find a cave?” asked Tish.</p> + +<p>“I had a cave,” he said, “but——”</p> + +<p>“But what?”</p> + +<p>“Three charming women found it while I was out on the mountainside. They +needed the shelter more than I, and so——”</p> + +<p>“What!” Tish exclaimed. “This is your cave?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all; it is yours. The fact that I had been stopping in it gave +me no right that I was not happy to waive.”</p> + +<p>“There was nothing of yours in it,” Tish said suspiciously.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_39">39</a></span></p> + +<p>“As I have told you, I have lost everything but my good name and my +sprained ankle. I had them both out with me when you——”</p> + +<p>“We will leave immediately,” said Tish. “Aggie, bring Modestine.”</p> + +<p>“Ladies, ladies!” cried the young man. “Would you make me more wretched +than I already am? I assure you, if you leave I shall not come back. I +should be too unhappy.”</p> + +<p>Well, nothing could have been fairer than his attitude. He wished us to +stay on. But as he limped a step or two into the night Aggie turned on +us both in a fury.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” she said. “Let him go, of course. So long as you are dry +and comfortable it doesn’t matter about him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you are dry and comfortable too,” snapped Tish. “What do you +expect us to do?”</p> + +<p>“Call him back. Let him sleep here by the fire. Give him something to +eat; he looks starved. If you’re afraid it isn’t proper we can hang our +kimonos up for curtains and make him a separate room.”</p> + +<p>But we did not need to call him. He had limped back and stood in the +firelight again.</p> + +<p>“You—you haven’t seen anything of the bandits, have you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Bandits!”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_40">40</a></span></p> + +<p>“Train robbers. I thought you had probably run across them.”</p> + +<p>All at once we remembered the green automobile and the four men with +guns. We told him about it and he nodded.</p> + +<p>“That would be they,” he said. As Tish remarked later, we knew from that +instant that he was a gentleman. Even Charlie Sands would probably have +said “them.” “They got away very rapidly, and I dare say an automobile +would be—— Did one of them have a red beard?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” we told him. “The one who called to us.”</p> + +<p>Well, he said that on Monday night an express car on the C. & L. +Railroad had been held up. The pursuit had gone in another direction, +but he was convinced from what we said that they were there in Thunder +Cloud Glen!</p> + +<p>As Tish said, the situation was changed if there were outlaws about. We +were three defenseless women, and here was a man brought providentially +to us! She asked him at once to join our party and look after us until +we got to civilization again, or at least until the roads were dry +enough to travel on.</p> + +<p>“To look after you!” he said with a smile. “I, with a bad leg and no +weapon!”</p> + +<p>At that Aggie brought out her new revolver<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_41">41</a></span> and gave it to him. He +whistled when he looked at it. “Great Scott!” he said. “What a weapon +for a woman! Why, you don’t need any help. You could kill all the +outlaws in the county at one loading!”</p> + +<p>But finally he consented to take the revolver and even to accept the +shelter of the cave for that night anyhow, although we had to beg him to +do that. “How do you know I’ll not get up in the night and take all your +valuables and gallop away on your trusty steed before morning?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“We’ll take a chance,” Tish said dryly. “In the first place, we have +nothing more valuable than the portable stove; and in the second place, +if you can make Modestine gallop you may have him.”</p> + +<p>It is curious, when I look back, to think how completely he won us all. +He was young—not more than twenty-six, I think—and dressed for a +walking tour, in knickerbockers, with a blue flannel shirt, heavy low +shoes and a soft hat. His hands were quite white. He kept running them +over his chin, which was bluish, as if a day or two’s beard was +bothering him.</p> + +<p>We asked him if he was hungry, and he admitted that he could hardly +remember when he had eaten. So we made him some tea and buttered<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_42">42</a></span> toast, +and opened and heated a can of baked beans. He ate them all.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious,” he said, with the last spoonful, “what a world it would +be without women!”</p> + +<p>At that he fell into a sort of study, looking at the fire, and we all +saw that he looked sad again and rather forlorn.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Tish said, “you’re all ready enough to shout ‘Beware of woman’ +until you are hungry or uncomfortable or hurt, and then you are all just +little boys again, crying for somebody to kiss the bump.”</p> + +<p>“But when it is a woman who has given the—er—bump?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Aggie is romantic. Years ago she was engaged to a Mr. Wiggins, a roofer, +who met with an accident due to an icy roof. She leaned forward and +looked at him with sympathy.</p> + +<p>“That’s it, is it?” she asked gently.</p> + +<p>He tried to smile, but we could all see that he was suffering.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s it—partly at least,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That is, if it were not for a woman——” He stopped abruptly. “But why +should I bother you with my troubles?”</p> + +<p>We were curious, of course; but it is hardly good taste to ask a man to +confide his heartaches. As Tish said, the best cure for a masculine +heartache<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_43">43</a></span> is to make the man comfortable. We did all we could. I dried +his coat by the fire, and Tish made hot arnica compresses for his ankle, +which was blue and swollen. I believe Aggie would gladly have sat by and +held his hand, but he had crawled into his shell of reserve again and +would not be coaxed out.</p> + +<p>“I have a nephew about your age,” Tish said when he objected to her +bathing his ankle. “I’m doing for you what I should do for Charlie Sands +under the same circumstances.”</p> + +<p>“Charlie Sands!” he said, and I was positive he started. But he said +nothing, and we only remembered that later. We were glad to have a man +about. Heaven only knows why women persist in regarding men as absolute +protection against fire, burglars and lightning. But they do. A sharp +storm came up at that time, and ordinarily Aggie would have been in her +sleeping-bag, with Modestine’s saddle on top by way of extra protection. +But now, from sheer bravado, she went to the mouth of the cave and stood +looking out at the lightning.</p> + +<p>“Come and look at it, Tish!” she said.</p> + +<p>“It’s—— Good gracious! There’s a man across the valley with a gun!”</p> + +<p>We all ran to the mouth of the cave except the walking-tour gentleman, +who had his foot in a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_44">44</a></span> collapsible basin of arnica and hot water. But +none of us saw Aggie’s man.</p> + +<p>When we went back: “Wouldn’t it be better to darken things up a bit?” he +suggested. “If there are bandits round it isn’t necessary to send out a +welcome to them, you know.”</p> + +<p>This seemed only sensible. We put the fire out and sat in the warm +darkness. And that was when our gentleman told us his story.</p> + +<p>“Ladies,” he began, “in saying that I am on a walking tour I am telling +the truth, but only part of the truth. I am on a walking tour, but not +for pleasure. To be frank, I—I am after the outlaws who robbed the +express car on the C. & L. Railroad Monday night.”</p> + +<p>I heard Aggie gasp in the dark.</p> + +<p>“Did you expect to capture them with a walking-stick?” Tish demanded. +She might treat his ankle as she would treat Charlie Sands’ ankle, +but—Tish has not Aggie’s confidence in people, or mine.</p> + +<p>“Perfectly well taken,” he said good-humoredly. “I left home with an +entire arsenal in my knapsack, but, as I say, I lost everything when I +fell into the flooded creek. Everything, that is, but my——”</p> + +<p>“Good name?” Aggie suggested timidly.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_45">45</a></span></p> + +<p>“Determination. That I still have. Ladies, I’m not going back +empty-handed.”</p> + +<p>“Then you are in the Government service?” Tish asked with more respect.</p> + +<p>“Have you ever heard of George Muldoon, generally known as Felt-hat +Muldoon?”</p> + +<p>Had we? Weren’t the papers full of him week after week? Wasn’t it +Muldoon who had brought back the communion service to my church, with +nothing missing and only a dent in one of the silver pitchers? Hadn’t he +just sent up Tish’s own Italian fruit dealer for writing blackhand +letters? Wasn’t he the best sheriff the county had ever had?</p> + +<p>“Muldoon!” gasped Tish. “You Muldoon!”</p> + +<p>“Not tonight or for the next two or three days. After that—— Tonight, +ladies, and for a day or two, why not adopt me to be your nephew—what +was his name—Sands?—accompanying you on a walking tour?”</p> + +<p>Adopt him! The great Muldoon! We’d have married him if he had said the +word, name and all. We sat back and stared at him, open-mouthed. To +think that he had come to us for help, and that in aiding him we were +furthering the cause of justice!</p> + +<p>He talked for quite a long time in the darkness, telling us of his +adventures. He remembered<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_46">46</a></span> perfectly about getting back the silver for +the church, and about Tish’s Italian, and then at last, finding us good +listeners, he told about the girl.</p> + +<p>“Is it—er—money?” Aggie breathlessly asked.</p> + +<p>“Well—partly,” he admitted. “I don’t make much, of course.”</p> + +<p>“But with the rewards and all that?” asked Aggie, who’d been sitting +forward with her mouth open.</p> + +<p>“Rewards? Oh, well, of course I get something that way. But it isn’t +steady money. A chap can’t very well go to a girl’s father and tell him +that, if somebody murders somebody else and escapes and he captures him, +he can pay the rent and the grocery bill.”</p> + +<p>“Is she pretty?” asked Aggie.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful!” His tone was ardent enough to please even Aggie.</p> + +<p>He sat without speaking for a time, and none of us liked to interrupt +him. Outside it had stopped raining, and the moon was coming up over the +Camel’s Back. We could hear Modestine stirring in the thicket and a +watery ray of moonlight came into the cave and threw our shadows against +the wall.</p> + +<p>“If only,” said Sheriff Muldoon thoughtfully—“If<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_47">47</a></span> only I could get my +hands on that chap with the red beard!”</p> + +<p>We all went to bed soon after. Aggie, as usual, went to sleep at once, +and soon, from behind the kimono screen across the cave, loud noises +told us that Mr. Muldoon also slept. It was then that Tish crept over +and put her mouth to my ear.</p> + +<p>“That may be Muldoon all right,” she whispered. “But if it is he’s got a +wife and two children. Mrs. Muldoon is related to Hannah.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_48">48</a></span></p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Somehow, with the morning our suspicions, if we had any, vanished. Mr. +Muldoon had been up at dawn, and when we wakened he had already brought +water from a near-by spring and was boiling some in the teakettle.</p> + +<p>Seen by daylight, he was very good-looking. He had blue eyes with black +lashes and dark-brown hair, and a habit of getting up when any of us did +that kept him on his feet most of the time. His limp was rather +better—or his ankle.</p> + +<p>“That’s what a little mothering has done for me,” he said gayly, over +his coffee and mackerel. “It’s a long time since I’ve had any one to do +anything like that for me.”</p> + +<p>“But surely your wife——” began Tish. He started and changed color. We +all saw it.</p> + +<p>“My wife!”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got a wife and two children, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>He looked at us all and drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“Ladies,” he said, “I see some of my painful history is known to you. +May I ask—is it<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_49">49</a></span> too much to beg—that—that we do not discuss that +part of my life?”</p> + +<p>Tish apologized at once. We could not tell, from what he said, whether +he had been divorced or had lost them all from scarlet fever. Whichever +it was, I must say he was not depressed for very long, although he had +reason enough for depression, as we soon learned.</p> + +<p>“It’s like this,” he said. “They know I’m here in the glen—the outlaws, +I mean. The red-bearded man, Naysmith, has sworn to get me.”</p> + +<p>“Get you?” from Aggie.</p> + +<p>“Shoot me. The other three all owe me grudges, too, but Naysmith’s the +worst. He’s just out of the pen—I got him a ten-year sentence for this +very thing, robbing an express car.”</p> + +<p>“Ten years!” I exclaimed. “You look as if you hadn’t shaved in ten +years!”</p> + +<p>He looked at me and smiled.</p> + +<p>“I’m older than you think,” he said, “and, anyhow, he got a lot off for +good behavior. It’s outrageous, the discount that’s given to a criminal +for behaving himself. He got—I think I am right when I say—yes, he was +sent up in ’07—he got seven years off his sentence.”</p> + +<p>We all thought that this was a grave mistake, and Tish, whose father was +once warden of the penitentiary, observed that there was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_50">50</a></span> like +that in old times, and she would write to the governor about it. Tish +has written to the governor several times, the last occasion being the +rise in price of brooms.</p> + +<p>“It’s like this,” said Mr. Muldoon. “They’ve got the glen guarded. +There’s a man at each end and the rest are covering the hilltops. A +squirrel couldn’t get out without their knowledge. I might have before I +got this leg, but now I’m done for.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!” we chorused.</p> + +<p>“It amounts to that,” he said dejectedly. “They’ve been watching you +women and they’re not afraid of you. As long as I stay in the cave here +I’m safe enough, but let me poke my nose out and I’m gone. It’s an awful +thing to have to hide behind a woman’s petticoats!”</p> + +<p>We could only silently sympathize.</p> + +<p>It was bright and clear that day. The sun came out and dried the road +below. It would have been a wonderful day to go on, but none of us +thought of it. As Tish said, here was a chance to assist the law and a +fellow being in peril of his life. Our place was there.</p> + +<p>Even had we doubted Mr. Muldoon’s story, we had proof of it before noon. +A man with a gun came out on a ledge of rock across the valley and +stood, with his hands to his eyes, peering across<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_51">51</a></span> at our cave. Tish was +hanging some of our clothing out to dry, and although she saw the outlaw +as well as we did she did not flinch. After a time the man seemed +satisfied and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Tish came into the cave then and took a spoonful of blackberry cordial. +As we knew, her intrepid spirit had not quailed; but, as she said, one’s +body is never as strong as one’s soul. Her knees were shaking.</p> + +<p>We put in a quiet and restful afternoon. Mr. Muldoon had a pack of cards +with him and we played whist. He played a very fair game, but he was on +the alert all the time. At every sound he started, and once or twice he +slipped out into the thicket and searched the glen in every direction +with his eyes.</p> + +<p>He had asked us, if the outlaws surprised us, to say that he was Tish’s +nephew, Charlie Sands, and to stick to it. “Unless it’s Naysmith,” he +said. “He knows me.” From that to calling us Aunt Tish, Aunt Aggie and +Aunt Lizzie was very easy. At four o’clock we stopped playing, with Mr. +Muldoon easily the winner, and Aggie made fudge for everybody.</p> + +<p>Late in the afternoon Tish called me aside. She said she did not want +Mr. Muldoon to feel that he was a burden, but that we were almost out of +provisions. We had expected to buy eggs,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_52">52</a></span> milk and bread at farmhouses, +and instead we had been shut up in the cave. She thought there was a +farm up the glen, having heard a cow-bell, and she wanted me to go and +find out.</p> + +<p>“Go yourself!” I said somewhat rudely. “If you want to be shot down in +your tracks by outlaws, well and good. I don’t.”</p> + +<p>Aggie, called aside, refused as firmly as I had. Tish stood and looked +at us both with her lip curling.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she said coldly; “I shall go. But if I get my neuralgia +again from wading through the creek bottom don’t blame me!”</p> + +<p>She put on her overshoes and, taking a tin bucket for milk and her +trusty rifle, she started while Mr. Muldoon was showing Aggie a new game +of solitaire. I went to the cave mouth with her and listened to the +crackling of twigs as she slid down into the valley. She came into view +at the bottom much sooner than I had expected, having, as I learned +later, slipped on a loose stone and rolled fully half the way down.</p> + +<p>The next two hours seemed endless. Mr. Muldoon, tiring of solitaire, had +rolled himself up in a corner and was peacefully sleeping, with his +injured foot on Aggie’s hop pillow. Aggie and I sat on guard, one on +each side of the cave mouth,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_53">53</a></span> and stared down at the valley, which was +darkening rapidly.</p> + +<p>Tish had been gone two hours and a half and no sign of her, when Aggie +began to cry softly.</p> + +<p>“She’ll never come back!” she whimpered. “The outlaws have got her and +killed her. Oh, Tish, Tish!”</p> + +<p>“Why would they kill her?” I demanded. “Because she’s trying to buy milk +and eggs?”</p> + +<p>“B-because she knows too much,” Aggie wailed. “We’ve found their lair, +that’s why—don’t tell me this isn’t an outlaw’s cave. It’s just b-built +for it. They’ll do away with her and then they’ll come after us.”</p> + +<p>Aggie never carries a secret weight in her bosom. She always opens up +her heart to the nearest listener. This probably relieves Aggie, but it +does not make her a cheerful companion. Eight o’clock and darkness came, +and still no Tish. I went into the cave and brought out my gun, and +Aggie roused Mr. Muldoon and explained the situation to him. He grew +quite white.</p> + +<p>“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “What possessed her anyhow? To the +farmhouse! Why, they’ll——”</p> + +<p>His face more than his words convinced us that the matter was really +serious. He examined<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_54">54</a></span> Aggie’s revolver, which he mostly carried in his +hip pocket, and, going to the mouth of the cave, listened carefully. +Everything was quiet. The cave and both sides of the valley were in deep +shadow, but over the ridge of the Camel’s Back across from us there was +still a streak of red sunset light. Mr. Muldoon looked and pointed.</p> + +<p>Against the background of crimson cloud a man’s figure stood out +clearly. He was peering down toward us, although in the dusk he could +hardly have seen us, and he carried a gun. Mr. Muldoon smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>“Well, they’ve spotted me, I guess,” he said. “I’d better move on before +I get you into trouble. They won’t hurt women.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you shoot him?” Aggie asked. “It would be one bandit less. If +you do arrest him, and he gets nearly all his sentence off for good +behavior, he’ll be out again in no time, doing more mischief.”</p> + +<p>But at that moment we saw the man on the hill throw his gun to his +shoulder and aim at something moving below in the valley. Aggie +screamed, and I believe I did also.</p> + +<p>“Tish!” cried Aggie. “He’s shooting at Tish!” And at that instant the +bandit fired. He fired three times, and the noise of his gun echoed +backward and forward among the hills. We thought<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_55">55</a></span> we heard a yell from +the valley. Then the next second there was a faint crack from below and +the outlaw’s gun flew out of his hands. Mr. Muldoon’s jaw dropped. “Did +you see that?” he said feebly. “Did—you—see—that—shot?”</p> + +<p>The outlaw disappeared from the skyline and perhaps ten minutes later +Tish crawled up to the cave and put down a tin pail full of milk, a +glass of jelly wrapped in a newspaper, and a basket of eggs. Aggie fell +on her and cried with joy.</p> + +<p>“Be careful of those eggs,” Tish warned her. “That outlaw charged me +forty cents a dozen.”</p> + +<p>“You gave him a good fright anyhow,” said Aggie fondly.</p> + +<p>“Fright?”</p> + +<p>“When you shot at him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that one! I’m talking about the woman at the farm.”</p> + +<p>“And—the one on the hill over there?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Well, he fired at me and I fired back. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>With an air of exaggerated indifference Tish swaggered into the cave and +took off her overshoes.</p> + +<p>“Hurry up supper, Ag,” she said—never before or since has she called +Aggie “Ag”—“I’m starving.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_56">56</a></span></p> + +<p>She said she had heard little or nothing. She had found the farmhouse, +had bought her supplies from a surly woman and had come away again. +Asked by Mr. Muldoon if she had seen any men, she said she had seen a +farmhand milking. That was all, except the outlaw on the hill.</p> + +<p>But under her calmness Tish was terribly excited. I could tell it by her +glittering eyes and the red spot in each cheek. Manlike, Mr. Muldoon did +not see these signs; he ate very little and sat watching her, +fascinated. Only once, however, did he broach the subject.</p> + +<p>“I had no idea you were such a shot, Miss Letitia,” he said. “It—that +was a marvel.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I shoot a little,” said Tish coolly. “Only for my own amusement, of +course.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Muldoon made no reply. He was very thoughtful all evening, did not +care to play whist, and watched Tish whenever he could, furtively.</p> + +<p>Tish herself was in an exalted mood, but not about the shot—she was +modest enough about that.</p> + +<p>And with cause. Months after she told us how it happened. She said she +was carrying the eggs and milk with her left hand and had the gun in her +right, when a shot struck a tree beside her. She was so startled that +her finger pulled the trigger of her own rifle, which was pointed up,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_57">57</a></span> +with the result we know of. She would probably never have confessed even +then, had she not taken rheumatic fever and thought she was dying.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Muldoon went out to fix Modestine for the night Tish called us +to the back of the cave.</p> + +<p>“I bought the milk and eggs,” she said hurriedly, “and having a dime +left—your missionary dime, Aggie, I borrowed it—I went back and bought +a glass of jelly. Men like preserves. The woman wrapped it in a +newspaper, and there is a full account of the robbery and of Muldoon +being after the outlaws. He’s after the outlaws, but he’s after the +reward too. They’re quoted at a thousand dollars!”</p> + +<p>“He can have the thousand dollars for all of me,” said Aggie.</p> + +<p>“A thousand dollars!” said Tish. “A thousand dollars to hand in to the +church as the return from your missionary dime! And if we don’t get it +Muldoon will! As soon as he can get about on his leg he’ll cease being +hunted and begin to hunt. Why should he have it? He has plenty of +chances, and we’ll never have another.”</p> + +<p>That was all she had a chance to say, Muldoon joining us at that moment.</p> + +<p>We retired early, but I did not sleep well. I<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_58">58</a></span> wakened from time to time +and I could hear Tish stirring next to me. At last I reached over and +touched her.</p> + +<p>“Can’t you sleep?” I whispered.</p> + +<p>“Don’t want to,” she whispered back. “I’ve got it all fixed, Lizzie. +We’ll take those outlaws back to the city, roped two by two.”</p> + +<p>It was a cool spring night, but I broke into a hot perspiration.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_59">59</a></span></p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Tish began with Mr. Muldoon the next morning. He could not leave the +cave to carry up water, for daylight revealed another guard across the +valley and it was clear we were being watched. While Aggie and I went to +the spring Tish talked to him.</p> + +<p>She told him that he had undertaken too much, single-handed, and that he +should have brought a posse with him. He agreed with her. He said he had +started with a posse, but that they had split up. Also he insisted that +but for his accident he could have managed easily.</p> + +<p>“I’m up against it,” he said, “and I know it. They’ll get me yet. For +the last day or two they’ve been closing up round this cave, and in a +night or two they’ll rush it. They’ve got their headquarters at that +farmhouse.”</p> + +<p>“The thing for you to do then,” said Tish, “is to get out while there is +time. You can get help and come back.”</p> + +<p>“And leave you women here alone?”</p> + +<p>“They’re not after us,” Tish replied, “and<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_60">60</a></span> we’ve managed alone for a +good many years. I guess we’ll get along.”</p> + +<p>But when she proposed her plan, which was that he should put on Aggie’s +spare outfit and her sun veil and ride out of the valley on Modestine’s +back in daylight, he objected. He said no outlaw worthy of the name +would fall for a thing like that, and he said he wouldn’t wear skirts, +and that was all there was to it.</p> + +<p>But in the end Tish prevailed, as usual.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to the farmhouse this morning and I am going to say that one +of the ladies is leaving this afternoon and going back home. That will +be you. I wish you had a razor, but the veil will hide that. They’ll not +molest you. You’ll not only look like Aggie—you’ll be Aggie.”</p> + +<p>Well, it seemed to be his best chance, although none of us dared to +think what might happen if the hat blew off or Aggie’s gray alpaca +ripped at the seams.</p> + +<p>We worked feverishly all day, letting out the dress and setting forward +the buttons on her raincoat. Mr. Muldoon was inclined to be sulky. He +sat at the back of the cave, playing solitaire and every now and then +examining the road maps. Aggie was depressed too. But, as Tish said, +getting rid of Muldoon was the first step toward the thousand dollars, +and even if Aggie<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_61">61</a></span> never got her gray alpaca again it had seen its best +days.</p> + +<p>That morning, while Aggie and I sewed and ripped and Mr. Muldoon sat +back in the cave with the road map on his knees, Tish went to the +farmhouse. She came back at eleven o’clock with a chicken for dinner and +a flush on each cheek.</p> + +<p>“I’ve fixed it, Mr. Muldoon,” she said. “I talked to one of the +outlaws!”</p> + +<p>“What?” screeched Aggie.</p> + +<p>“He’d come in for something to eat—the red-bearded one. We had quite a +chat. I told him we were traveling like Stevenson—with a donkey; but +that one of the ladies had an abscess on a tooth and was going home. He +said it was no place for women and offered himself as an escort.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Muldoon groaned. “What am I going to do if one of them comes up and +makes an ass of himself?” he demanded. “Kiss him?”</p> + +<p>Tish looked at him coldly.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have your jaw tied up,” she said. “That will cover your chin, +and you needn’t speak. Point to your jaw. Anyhow, they’ll not bother +you. I said the toothache had affected your disposition, and we were +just as glad you were going. The red-haired man says he’s got relatives +near the mouth of the valley and you<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_62">62</a></span> can stay there overnight. One of +the men folks pulls teeth in emergencies.”</p> + +<p>It is hard, writing all this of Tish, to remember that she has always +been a truthful woman. As Charlie Sands said later, when we told him the +story and he had sat, open-mouthed, staring from one to the other of us, +no one knows what depths of mendacity lie behind the most virtuous +countenance.</p> + +<p>We started “Aggie” off at two o’clock that afternoon, sitting sideways +on Modestine, jaw tied up, veiled and sun-hatted, with Aggie’s +flowered-silk bag hanging to one wrist and a lunch-basket on the other +arm. Tish and I saw “her” down the hill and kissed “her” good-by.</p> + +<p>This was Tish’s idea. I thought it unnecessary, but as a matter of fact, +no matter what Charlie Sands may say, it was not a real kiss, going as +it did through a veil and a bandage.</p> + +<p>The man with a gun watched “her” off, and Tish, having waved “her” out +of sight round a curve, looked up at him and nodded. Far away as he was, +he saw that and swept his hat off with quite an air.</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>Tish’s plan was very simple. She told us as we cleared up the cave after +the day’s excitement.</p> + +<p>“When I go for the evening milk,” she said,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_63">63</a></span> “I shall mention that we +have a young man with us, a stranger, who has hurt his ankle and cannot +walk. And I’ll ask for arnica. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all!” Aggie and I exclaimed together.</p> + +<p>“Certainly that’s all. Sometime tonight they’ll rush the cave.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a fool!” said Aggie shortly.</p> + +<p>“Why?” demanded Tish. “We won’t be in it. We’ll be outside. The moment +they are in we’ll start to shoot. Not one of them will dare to stick his +nose out.”</p> + +<p>When we told this to Charlie Sands he slid entirely off his chair and +sat on the floor. “Not really!” he kept saying over and over. “You +dreamed it! You must have! A thing like that!” I hastened to explain. +“Tish planned it,” I said. I remember him, looking at Tish—who was +crocheting as she told the story—and moistening his lips. He was quite +green in color.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_64">64</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Clipping from the <i>Morning News</i> of May the seventh:</p> + +<p class='center'>SHERIFF AMBUSHED</p> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Remarkable Experience of Muldoon and Party in Thunder Cloud Glen</span></p> + +<p>An extraordinary state of affairs was discovered by the relief party of +constables, city and county detectives and state constabulary sent to +the relief of Sheriff Muldoon and his posse, who have been on the track +of the C. & L. train bandits since last Monday.</p> + +<p>The relief party was sent out in response to a telephone message from a +farmhouse in Thunder Cloud Glen, and transmitted from the farmer’s line +to a long-distance wire. This message was to the effect that the sheriff +and his posse, shut in a cave, were being held prisoners by the outlaws, +being shot at steadily, and that so far every attempt at escape had been +thwarted by the terrific fire of the bandits.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_65">65</a></span></p> + +<p>A relief party in automobiles was rushed at once to the scene.</p> + +<p>Thunder Cloud Glen is a narrow valley between the Camel’s Back and +Thunder Cloud Mountain. A mile or so from the entrance to the glen the +road, always bad and now almost washed away by the recent heavy rains, +became impassable. The party abandoned the machines and in skirmish +order proceeded up the glen.</p> + +<p>Within an hour’s time firing was heard, and the rescuers doubled their +pace. Passing a bend in the valley, the scene of the outrage lay spread +before them: On the left the low mouth of a cave, and across the valley, +on a slope of the Camel’s Back, a faint cloud of smoke, showing where +the outlaws had their lair. As the rescuers came in sight the firing +ceased and an ominous stillness hung over the valley.</p> + +<p>The relief expedition had been seen by the imprisoned party also. +Muldoon’s well-known soft felt hat, tied to the end of a pole, was +thrust from the cave mouth and waved vigorously up and down, showing +that some of the imprisoned party still lived. One solitary shot was +aimed at the hat, followed by profound quiet.</p> + +<p>Using every precaution, Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy deployed his men with the +intention of closing<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_66">66</a></span> in on the outlaws from all sides at the same +time.</p> + +<p>At this time an interesting interruption occurred. From the underbrush +at the foot of the Camel’s Back emerged three elderly women, their +clothing in tatters, and in the wildest excitement. They insisted that +the outlaws were in the cave, and hysterical with fright from their +terrible experience, declared that they had been holding the bandits in +check and demanded the reward for their capture. They were rational +enough in other ways and explained that they had been on a walking tour +with a donkey. There was, however, no donkey.</p> + +<p>Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy, who is noted for his gallantry, sent the three +women to a safe place at the rear of the party and detailed a guard to +make them comfortable. It being thought possible that the women were +accomplices of the outlaws, precautions were also taken to prevent their +escape.</p> + +<p>No trace of the outlaws was found. Sheriff Muldoon and his three +deputies, now enabled to leave the cave, joined the searchers. Every +inch of Thunder Cloud Glen was searched, but without result. Across from +the cave mouth, behind a heap of fallen rocks, was found the spot from +which the outlaws had been shooting. The<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_67">67</a></span> ground was trampled and the +rock chipped by the return fire from the cave. Here, too, was found a +new automatic revolver, a small rifle and another gun of antique +pattern. In a crevice of rock was discovered a flowered-silk bag, +containing various articles of feminine use, including a packet of +powders marked “hay fever,” a small bottle labeled “blackberry cordial,” +and a dozen or so unexploded cartridges for the revolver.</p> + +<p>Convinced now that the three women were accomplices of the outlaws—and +this corroborated by Sheriff Muldoon’s statement that he had positively +seen one of the three women peering over the rock and aiming a rifle at +him, and that the same woman, two days before, had fired at him from the +valley, knocking his gun out of his hand—Deputy Sheriff Mulcahy +promptly arrested the women and had them taken in an automobile to the +city.</p> + +<p>At the jail, however, it was discovered that an unfortunate error had +been made, and the ladies were released. They went at once to their +homes. While their names have not been divulged it is reported that they +are well known and highly esteemed members of the community, and much +sympathy has been expressed for their disagreeable experience.</p> + +<p>Up to a late hour last night no trace had been<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_68">68</a></span> found of the outlaws. It +is believed that they have left Thunder Cloud Glen and have penetrated +farther into the mountains.</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>Charlie Sands came for us at the jail. He asked us no questions, which I +thought strange, but he got a carriage and took us all to Tish’s. He did +not speak a word on the way, except to ask us if we had no hats. On +Tish’s replying meekly that we had left them in the cave, he said +nothing more, but sat looking like a storm until we drew up at the +house.</p> + +<p>I dare say we did look curious. Our clothes were torn and draggled, and +although we had washed at the jail we were still somewhat +powder-streaked and grimy.</p> + +<p>Charlie Sands led us into Tish’s parlor and shut the door. Then he +turned and surveyed the three of us.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” he said grimly.</p> + +<p>We sat. He stood looking down at each of us in turn.</p> + +<p>“I’ll hear the story in a minute,” he said, still cold and disagreeable. +“But first of all, Aunt Tish, I want to ask you if you realize that this +last escapade of yours is a disgrace to the family?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing of the sort,” Tish asserted with<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_69">69</a></span> something of her old spirit. +“It was all for Aggie’s missionary dime. I——”</p> + +<p>“A moment,” he said, holding up his hand. “I’m going to ask a question. +I’ll listen after that. <i>Did you or did you not hold up the C. & L. +express car?</i>”</p> + +<p>We were too astounded to speak.</p> + +<p>“Because if you did,” he said, “missionary dime or no missionary dime, I +shall turn you over to the authorities! I have gone through a lot with +you, Aunt Tish, in the past year.”</p> + +<p>Aggie and I expected to see Tish rise in majesty and point him out of +the room. But to our amazement she broke down and cried.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said feebly, “we didn’t rob the car. But oh, Charlie, Charlie! +We nursed that wretch Muldoon, and fed him and sent him off on Modestine +in Aggie’s gray alpaca, and he got away; and if you say to go to jail +I’ll go.”</p> + +<p>“Muldoon!”</p> + +<p>“The wretch who said he was Muldoon. The—the train robber.”</p> + +<p>Well, it took hours to tell the story, and when we had all finished and +Aggie had gone to bed in Tish’s spare room with hysteria, and Tish had +gone to bed with tea and toast, Charlie Sands was still walking up and +down the parlor, stopping<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_70">70</a></span> now and then to mutter: “Well, I’ll be——” +and then going on with his pacing.</p> + +<p>Hannah brought me a cup of junket at eight o’clock, for none of us had +eaten dinner. I was sitting there with the cup in my lap when the +doorbell rang. Charlie Sands answered it. It was a letter addressed to +all three of us.</p> + +<p>We called Tish and Aggie and they crept in, very subdued and pallid. +Charlie Sands opened the letter and read it:</p> + +<div class='blockquot'> +<p><i>Dear and Charming Ladies:</i> I am abject. What can I say to you, who have +just come through such an experience on my account? How can I apologize +or explain? Especially as I am confused myself as to what really +happened. Did Muldoon actually attack the cave? Were you in it when he +arrived? Or is it possible that, with my foolish fabrication in your +mind, you attempted—— But that is absurd, of course.</p> + +<p>Whatever occurred and however it occurred, I am on my knees to you all. +Even a real bandit would have been touched by your kindness. And I am +not a real bandit any more than I am a real sheriff.</p> + +<p>I am an ordinary citizen, usually a law-abiding citizen. But as a +result of a foolish wager<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_71">71</a></span> at my club, brought about by the ease with +which numerous trains have been robbed recently, I undertook to hold up +a C. & L. train with an empty revolver, and to evade capture for a +certain length of time. The first part was successful. The train +messenger, on seeing my gun, handed me, without a word, a fat package. I +had not asked for it. It was a gift. I do not even now know what is in +it. The newspapers say it is money. It might have been eggs, as far as I +know. The second part would have been simple also, had I not hurt my +leg.</p> + +<p>Things were looking serious for me when you found me. I shall never +forget the cave, or the omelets, or the tea, or the fudge. I can never +return your hospitalities, but one thing I can do.</p> + +<p>The express company offers a reward of a thousand dollars for my little +package. Probably they are right and it is not eggs. Whatever it is, it +is buried under the tree where we tied our noble steed, Modestine. +Please return the package and claim the reward. If you have scruples +against taking it remember that the express company is rich and the Fiji +Islanders needy. Turn it in as the increased increment on Miss Aggie’s +missionary dime.</p> + +<p style='text-align:right;'>(Signed)<br> +<span class="smcap">The Outlaw of Thunder Cloud</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_72">72</a></span>We +found the package, or Charlie Sands found it for us, and the express +company paid us the reward. We gave it to Aggie, and with the exception +of fifty dollars she turned it all in at the church, where it created +almost a riot. With the fifty dollars we purchased, through Charlie +Sands, a revolver with a silver inlaid handle, and sent it to the real +Sheriff Muldoon. It eased our consciences somewhat.</p> + +<p>That was all last spring. It is summer now. Tish is talking again of +flowering hedgerows and country lanes, but Aggie and I do not care for +the country, and the mere sight of a donkey gives me a chill.</p> + +<p>Yesterday evening, on our way to prayer meeting, we heard a great noise +of horns coming and stopped to see a four-in-hand go by. A young +gentleman was driving, with a pretty girl beside him. As we lined up at +the curb he turned smiling from the girl and he caught our eyes.</p> + +<p>He started, and then, bowing low, he saluted us from the box.</p> + +<p>It was “Muldoon.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_73">73</a></span></p> + +<hr class="major"> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a id="TISH_DOES_HER_BIT"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_74">74</a></span> +<div class='chapter'><h2>TISH DOES HER BIT</h2></div> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_75">75</a></span>From the very beginning of the war Tish was determined to go to France. +But she is a truthful woman, and her age kept her from being accepted. +She refused, however, to believe that this was the reason, and blamed +her rejection on Aggie and myself.</p> + +<p>“Age fiddlesticks!” she said, knitting violently. “The plain truth +is—and you might as well acknowledge it, Lizzie—that they would take +me by myself quick enough, just to get the ambulance I’ve offered, if +for no other reason. But they don’t want three middle-aged women, and I +don’t know that I blame them.”</p> + +<p>That was during September, I think, and Tish had just received her third +rejection. They were willing enough to take the ambulance, but they +would not let Tish drive it. I am quite sure it was September, for I +remember that Aggie was having hay fever at the time, and she fell to +sneezing violently.</p> + +<p>Tish put down her knitting and stared at Aggie fixedly until the +paroxysm was over.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_76">76</a></span></p> + +<p>“Exactly,” she observed, coldly. “Imagine me creeping out onto a +battlefield to gather up the wounded, and Aggie crawling behind, going +off like an alarm clock every time she met a clump of golden rod, or +whatever they have in France to produce hay fever.”</p> + +<p>“I could stay in the ambulance, Tish,” Aggie protested.</p> + +<p>“I understand,” Tish went on, in an inflexible tone, “that those German +snipers have got so that they shoot by ear. One sneeze would probably be +fatal. Not only that,” she went on, turning to me, “but you know +perfectly well, Lizzie, that a woman of your weight would be always +stepping on brush and sounding like a night attack.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” I replied, slightly ruffled. “And for a very good reason. +I should not be there. As to my weight, Tish, my mother was always +considered merely a fine figure of a woman, and I am just her size. It +is only since this rage for skinny women——”</p> + +<p>But Tish was not listening. She drew a deep sigh, and picked up her +knitting again.</p> + +<p>“We’d better not discuss it,” she said. But in these days of efficiency +it seems a mistake that a woman who can drive an ambulance and can’t +turn the heel of a stocking properly to save her<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_77">77</a></span> life, should be +knitting socks that any soldier with sense would use to clean his gun +with, or to tie around a sore throat, but never to wear.</p> + +<p>It was, I think, along in November that Charlie Sands, Tish’s nephew, +came to see me. He had telephoned, and asked me to have Aggie there. So +I called her up, and told her to buy some cigarettes on the way. I +remember that she was very irritated when she arrived, although the very +soul of gentleness usually.</p> + +<p>She came in and slammed a small package onto my table.</p> + +<p>“There!” she said. “And don’t ever ask me to do such a thing again. The +man in the shop winked at me when I said they were not for myself.”</p> + +<p>However, Aggie is never angry for any length of time, and a moment later +she was remarking that Mr. Wiggins had always been a smoker, and that +one of his workmen had blamed his fatal accident on the roof to smoke +from his pipe getting into his eyes.</p> + +<p>Shortly after that I was surprised to find her in tears.</p> + +<p>“I was just thinking, Lizzie,” she said. “What if Mr. Wiggins had lived, +and we had had a son, and he had decided to go and fight!”</p> + +<p>She then broke down and sobbed violently, and<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_78">78</a></span> it was some time before I +could calm her. Even then it was not the fact that she had no son which +calmed her.</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m silly, Lizzie,” she said. “I’ll stop now. Because of +course they don’t <i>all</i> get killed, or even wounded. He’d probably come +out all right, and every one says the training is fine for them.”</p> + +<p>Charlie Sands came in shortly after, and having kissed us both and tried +on a night shirt I was making for the Red Cross, and having found the +cookie jar in the pantry and brought it into my sitting room, sat down +and came to business.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said. “What’s she up to?”</p> + +<p>He always referred to Tish as “she,” to Aggie and myself.</p> + +<p>“She has given up going to France,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps! What does Hannah report?”</p> + +<p>I am sorry to say that, fearing Tish’s impulsive nature, we had felt +obliged to have Hannah watch her carefully. Tish has a way of breaking +out in unexpected places, like a boil, as Charlie Sands once observed, +and by knowing her plans in advance we have sometimes prevented her +acting in a rash manner. Sometimes, not always.</p> + +<p>“Hannah says everything is quiet,” Aggie said. “Dear Tish has apparently +given up all thought<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_79">79</a></span> of going abroad. At least, Hannah says she no +longer practises first aid on her. Not since the time Tish gave her an +alcohol bath and she caught cold. Hannah says she made her lie +uncovered, with the window open, so the alcohol would evaporate. But she +gave notice the next day, which was ungrateful of her, for Tish sat up +all night feeding her things out of her First Aid case, and if she <i>did</i> +give her a bit of iodine by mistake——”</p> + +<p>“She is no longer interested in First Aid,” I broke in. Aggie has a way +of going on and on, and it was not necessary to mention the matter of +the iodine. “I know that, because I blistered my hand over there the +other day, and she merely told me to stick it in the baking soda jar.”</p> + +<p>“That’s curious,” said Charlie Sands.</p> + +<p>“Because—— Great Scott, what’s wrong with these cigarettes?”</p> + +<p>“They are violet-scented,” Aggie explained. “The smell sticks so, and +Lizzie is fond of violet.”</p> + +<p>However, he did not seem to care for them, and appeared positively +ashamed. He opened a window, although it was cold outside, and shook +himself in front of it like a dog. But all he said was:</p> + +<p>“I am a meek person, Aunt Lizzie, and I like to humor whims when I can. +But the next time you have a male visitor and offer him a cigarette,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_80">80</a></span> +for the love of Mike don’t tell him those brazen gilt-tipped incense +things are mine.”</p> + +<p>He then ate nine cookies, and explained why he had come.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like the look of things, beloved and respected spinsters,” he +said. “I fear my revered aunt is again up to mischief. You haven’t heard +her say anything more about aeroplanes, have you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I replied, for us both.</p> + +<p>“Or submarines?”</p> + +<p>“She’s been taking swimming lessons again,” I said, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie!” Aggie cried. “Oh, my poor Tish!”</p> + +<p>“I think, however,” said Charlie Sands, “that it is not a submarine. +There are no submarine flivvers, as I understand it, and a full-size one +would run into money. No, I hardly think so. The fact remains, however, +that my respected and revered aunt has made away with about seven +thousand dollars’ worth of bonds that were, until a short time ago, +giving semi-annual birth to plump little coupons. The question is, what +is she up to?”</p> + +<p>But we were unable to help him, and at last he went away. His parting +words were:</p> + +<p>“Well, there is something in the air, and the only thing to do, I +suppose, is to wait until it<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_81">81</a></span> drops. But when my beloved female relative +takes to selling bonds without consulting me, and goes out, as I met her +yesterday, with her hat on front side behind, there is something in the +wind. I know the symptoms.”</p> + +<p>Aggie and I kept a close watch on Tish after that, but without result, +unless the following incident may be called a result. Although it was +rather a cause, after all, for it brought Mr. Culver into our lives.</p> + +<p>I think it important to relate it in detail, as in a way it vindicates +Tish in her treatment of Mr. Culver, although I do not mean by this +statement that there was anything of personal malice in the incident of +June fifth of this year. Those of us who know Tish best realize that she +needs no defence. Her motives are always of the highest, although +perhaps the matter of the police officer was ill-advised. But now that +the story is out, and Mr. Ostermaier very uneasy about the wrong name +being on the marriage license, I think an explanation will do dear Tish +no harm.</p> + +<p>I should explain, then, that Tish has retained the old homestead in the +country, renting it to a reliable family. And that it has been our +annual custom to go there for chestnuts each autumn. On the Sunday +following Charlie Sands’ visit, therefore, while Aggie and I were having +dinner<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_82">82</a></span> with Tish, I suggested that we make our annual pilgrimage the +following day.</p> + +<p>“What pilgrimage?” Tish demanded. She was at that time interested in +seeing if a table could be set for thirty-five cents a day per person, +and the meal was largely beans.</p> + +<p>“For chestnuts,” I explained.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I’ll go this year,” Tish observed, not looking at either +of us. “I’m not a young woman, and climbing a chestnut tree requires +youth.”</p> + +<p>“You could get the farmer’s boy,” Aggie suggested, hopefully. Aggie is a +creature of habit, and clings hard to the past.</p> + +<p>“The farmer is not there any more.”</p> + +<p>We stared at her in amazement, but she was helping herself to boiled +dandelion at the time, and made no further explanation.</p> + +<p>“Why, Tish!” Aggie exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Aggie,” she observed, severely, “if you would only remember that the +world is hungry, you would eat your crusts.”</p> + +<p>“I ate crusts for twenty years,” said Aggie, “because I’d been raised to +believe they would make my hair curl. But I’ve come to a time of life +when my digestion means more to me than my looks. And since I’ve had the +trouble with my teeth——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_83">83</a></span></p> + +<p>“Teeth or no teeth,” said Tish, firmly, “eating crusts is a patriotic +duty, Aggie.”</p> + +<p>She was clearly disinclined to explain about the farm, but on being +pressed said she had sent the tenants away because they kept pigs, which +was absurd and she knew it.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t keeping pigs a patriotic duty?” Aggie demanded, glancing at me +across the table. But Tish ignored the question.</p> + +<p>“What about the church?” I asked.</p> + +<p>Tish has always given the farm money to missions, and is therefore +Honorary President of the Missionary Society. She did not reply +immediately as she was pouring milk over her cornstarch at the time, but +Hannah, her maid, spoke up rather bitterly.</p> + +<p>“If we give the heathen what we save on the table, Miss Lizzie,” she +said, “I guess they’ll do pretty well. I’m that fed up with beans that +my digestion is all upset. I have to take baking soda after my meals, +regular.”</p> + +<p>Tish looked up at her sharply.</p> + +<p>“Entire armies fight on beans,” she said</p> + +<p>“Yes’m,” said Hannah. “I’d fight on ’em too. That’s the way they make me +feel. And if a German bayonet is any worse than the colic I get——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_84">84</a></span></p> + +<p>“Leave the room,” said Tish, in a furious voice, and finished her +cornstarch in silence.</p> + +<p>But she is a just woman, and although firm in her manner, she is +naturally kind. After dinner, seeing that Aggie was genuinely +disappointed about the excursion to the farm, she relented and observed +that we would go to the farm as usual.</p> + +<p>“After all,” she said, “chestnuts are nourishing, and might take the +place of potatoes in a pinch.”</p> + +<p>Here we heard a hollow groan from the pantry, but on Tish demanding its +reason Hannah said, meekly enough, that she had knocked her crazy bone, +and Tish, with her usual magnanimity, did not pursue the subject.</p> + +<p>There was a heavy frost that night, and two days later Tish called me up +and fixed the following day for the visit to the farm. On looking back, +I am inclined to think that her usual enthusiasm was absent, but we +suspected nothing. She said that Hannah would put up the luncheon, and +that she had looked up the food value of chestnuts and that it was +enormous. She particularly requested that Aggie should not bake a cake +for the picnic, as had been her custom.</p> + +<p>“Cakes,” she said, “are a reckless extravagance. In butter, eggs and +flour a single chocolate<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_85">85</a></span> layer cake could support three men at the +front for two days, Lizzie,” she said.</p> + +<p>I repeated this to Aggie, and she was rather resentful. Aggie, I regret +to say, has rather a weakness for good food.</p> + +<p>“Humph!” she said, bitterly. “Very well, Lizzie. But if she expects me +to go out like Balaam’s ass and eat dandelions, I’d rather starve.”</p> + +<p>Neither Aggie nor I is inclined to be suspicious, and although we +noticed Tish’s rather abstracted expression that morning, we laid it to +the fact that Charlie Sands had been talking about going to the American +Ambulance in France, which Tish opposed violently, although she was more +than anxious to go herself.</p> + +<p>Aggie put in her knitting bag the bottle of blackberry cordial without +which we rarely travel, as we find it excellent in case of chilling, or +indigestion, and even to rub on hornet stings. I was placing the +suitcase, in which it is our custom to carry the chestnuts, in the back +of the car, when I spied a very small parcel. Aggie saw it too.</p> + +<p>“If that’s the lunch, Tish,” she said, “I don’t know that I care to go.”</p> + +<p>“You can eat chestnuts,” said Tish, shortly. “But don’t go on my +account. It looks like rain anyhow, and the last time I went to the farm +in<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_86">86</a></span> the mud I skidded down a hill backwards and was only stopped by +running into a cow that thought I was going the other way.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, Tish,” I said. “It hasn’t an idea of raining. And if the +lunch isn’t sufficient, there are generally some hens from the Knowles +place that lay in your barn, aren’t there?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” she said stiffly, although it wasn’t three months since +she had threatened to charge the Knowleses rent for their chickens.</p> + +<p>Well, I was puzzled. It is not like Tish to be irritable without reason, +although she has undoubtedly a temper. She was most unpleasant on the +way out, remarking that if the Ostermaiers’s maid continued to pare away +half the potatoes, as any fool could see around their garbage can, she +thought the church should reduce his salary. She also stated flatly that +she considered that the nation would be better off if some one would +uncork a gas bomb in the Capitol at Washington, in spite of the fact +that my second cousin, once removed, the Honorable J. C. Willoughby, +represents his country in its legislative halls.</p> + +<p>It is always a bad sign when Tish talks politics, especially since the +income tax.</p> + +<p>Although it had no significance for us at the time, she did not put her +car in the barn as she usually does, but left it in the road. The house<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_87">87</a></span> +was closed, and there was no cool and refreshing buttermilk with which +to wash down our frugal repast, which we ate on the porch, as Tish did +not offer to unlock the house. Frugal repast it was indeed, consisting +of lettuce sandwiches made without butter, as Tish considered that both +butter and lettuce was an extravagance. There were, of course, also +beans.</p> + +<p>Now as it happens, Aggie is not strong and requires palatable as well as +substantial food to enable her to get about, especially to climb trees. +We missed her during the meal, and I saw that she was going toward the +barn. Tish saw it also, and called to her sharply.</p> + +<p>“I am going to get an egg,” Aggie replied, with gentle obstinacy. “I am +starving, Tish, and I am certain I heard a hen cackle. Probably one of +the Knowles’s chickens——”</p> + +<p>“If it is a Knowles’s chicken,” Tish said, virtuously, “its egg is a +Knowles’s egg, and we have no right to it.”</p> + +<p>I am sorry to relate that here Aggie said: “Oh, rats!” but as she +apologized immediately, and let the egg drop, figuratively, of course, +peace again hovered over our little party. Only momentarily, however, +for, a short time after, a hen undoubtedly cackled, and Aggie got up +with an air of determination.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_88">88</a></span></p> + +<p>“Tish,” she said, “that may be a Knowles’s hen or it may be one +belonging to this farm. I don’t know, and I don’t give a—I don’t care. +I’m going to get it.”</p> + +<p>“The barn’s locked,” said Tish.</p> + +<p>“I could get in through a window.”</p> + +<p>I shall never forget Tish’s look of scorn as she rose with dignity, and +stalked toward the barn.</p> + +<p>“I shall go myself, Aggie,” she said, as she passed her. “You would +probably fall in the rain barrel under the window. You’re no climber. +And you might as well eat those crusts you’ve hidden under the porch, if +you’re as hungry as you make out you are.”</p> + +<p>“Lizzie,” Aggie hissed, when Tish was out of hearing, “<i>what is in that +barn?</i>”</p> + +<p>“It may be anything from a German spy to an aeroplane,” I said. “But +it’s not your business or mine.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be so dratted virtuous,” Aggie observed, scooping a hole in +the petunia bed and burying the crusts in it. “Whatever’s on her mind is +in that barn.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally,” I observed, “while Tish is in it!”</p> + +<p>Tish returned in a short time with one egg, which she placed on the +porch floor without a word. But as she made no effort to give Aggie the +house key, and as Aggie has never learned to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_89">89</a></span> swallow a raw egg, +although I have heard that they taste rather like oysters, and slip down +in much the same way, Aggie was obliged to continue hungry.</p> + +<p>It is only just to record that Tish grew more companionable after +luncheon, and got into a large chestnut tree near the house by climbing +on top of the hen house. We had always before had the farmer’s boy to do +the climbing into the upper branches, and I confess to a certain +nervousness, especially as Tish, when far above the ground, decided to +take off her dress skirt, which was her second best tailor-made, and +climb around in her petticoats.</p> + +<p>She had to have both hands free to unhook the band, and she very nearly +overbalanced while stepping out of it.</p> + +<p>“Drat a woman’s clothes, anyhow,” she said. “If we had any sense we’d +wear trousers.”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” I said, “that even trousers are not easy to get out of, +Tish.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be a fool, Lizzie,” she said tartly. “If I had trousers on I +wouldn’t have to take them off. Catch it!”</p> + +<p>However, the skirt did not fall clear, but caught on a branch far out, +and hung there. Tish broke off a small limb and poked at it from above, +and I found a paling from a fence and threw it up to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_90">90</a></span> dislodge it. But +it stuck tight, and the paling came down and struck Aggie on the head. +Had we only known it, this fortunate accident probably saved Aggie’s +life, for she sat down suddenly on the ground, and said faintly that her +skull was fractured.</p> + +<p>I was bending over Aggie when I heard a sharp crack from above. I looked +up, and Tish was lying full length on a limb, her arm out to reach for +the skirt and a most terrible expression on her face. There was another +crack, and our poor Tish came hurtling through the air, landing half in +Aggie’s lap and half in the suitcase.</p> + +<p>I was quite unable to speak, and owing, as I learned later, to Tish’s +head catching her near the waist line, Aggie had no breath even to +scream.</p> + +<p>There was a dreadful silence. Then Tish said, without moving:</p> + +<p>“All my property is to go to Charlie Sands.”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I cried, in an agony, and Aggie, who still could not speak, +burst into tears.</p> + +<p>However, a moment later, Tish drew up first one limb and then the other, +and observed that her back was broken. She then mentioned that Aggie was +to have her cameo set and the dining room sideboard, and that I was to +have the automobile, but the next instant she felt a worm on<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_91">91</a></span> her neck +and sat up, looking rather dishevelled, but far from death.</p> + +<p>“Where are you hurt, Tish?” I asked, trembling.</p> + +<p>“Everywhere,” she replied. “Everywhere, Lizzie. Every bone in my body is +broken.”</p> + +<p>But after a time the aching localized itself in her right arm, which +began to swell. We led her down to the creek and got her to hold it in +the cold water and Aggie, being still nervous and unsteady, slipped on a +mossy stone and sat down in about a foot of water. It was then that our +dear Tish became like herself again, for Aggie was shocked into saying, +“Oh, damn!” and Tish gave her a severe lecture on profanity.</p> + +<p>Tish was quite sure her arm was broken, as well as all the ribs on one +side. But she is a brave woman and made little fuss, although she kept +poking a finger into her flesh here and there.</p> + +<p>“Because,” she said, “the First Aid book says that if a lung is +punctured the air gets into the tissues, and they crackle on pressure.”</p> + +<p>It was soon after this that I saw Aggie, who had made no complaint about +Tish falling on her, furtively testing her own tissues to see if they +crackled.</p> + +<p>Leaving my injured there by the creek, I went back to the tree and +secured my paling again.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_92">92</a></span> By covering it with straw from the barn I was +quite sure I could make a comfortable splint for Tish’s arm. However, I +had but just reached the barn and was preparing to crawl through a +window by standing on a rain barrel when I saw Tish limping after me.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she said. “What idiotic idea is in your head, Lizzie? Because if +it is more eggs——”</p> + +<p>“I am going to get some straw and make a splint.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense. What for?”</p> + +<p>“What do you suppose I intend it for?” I demanded, tartly. “To trim a +hat?”</p> + +<p>“I won’t have a splint.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” I retorted. “Then I shall get some straw and start a fire +to dry Aggie out.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll stick in that window,” Tish said, in what, in a smaller woman, +would have been a vicious tone.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Tish,” I said, balancing on the edge of the rain barrel, “is +there something in this barn you do not wish me to see?”</p> + +<p>She looked at me steadily.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said. “There is, Lizzie. And I’ll ask you to promise on your +honor not to mention it.”</p> + +<p>That promise I am glad to say I have kept<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_93">93</a></span> until now, when the need of +secrecy is past, Tish herself having divulged the truth. But at the time +I was greatly agitated, and indeed almost fell into the rain barrel.</p> + +<p>“Or try to find out what it is,” Tish went on, sternly.</p> + +<p>I promised, of course, and Tish relaxed somewhat, although I caught her +eye on me once or twice, as though she was daring me to so much as guess +at the secret.</p> + +<p>“Of course, Lizzie,” she said, as we approached Aggie, “it is nothing I +am ashamed of.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” I replied hastily. I took my courage in my hands and +faced her. “Tish, have you an aeroplane hidden in that barn?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she replied promptly. She might have enlarged on her denial, but +Aggie took a violent sneezing spell just then, pressing herself between +paroxysms to see if she crackled, and we decided to go home at once.</p> + +<p>Here a new difficulty presented itself. Tish could not drive the car! I +shall never forget my anguish when she turned to me and said:</p> + +<p>“You will have to drive us home, Lizzie.”</p> + +<p>“Never!” I cried.</p> + +<p>“It’s perfectly easy,” she went on. “If children can run them, and the +idiots they have in garages and on taxicabs——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> + +<p>“Never,” I said firmly. “It may be easy, but it took you six months, +Tish Carberry, and three broken springs and any number of dead chickens +and animals, besides the time you went through a bridge, and the night +you drove off the end of a dock. It may be easy, but if it is, I’d +rather do something hard.”</p> + +<p>“I shall sit beside you, Lizzie,” she said, in a patient voice. “I +daresay you know which is your right foot and which is your left. If +not, I can tell you. I shall say ‘left’ when I want you to push out the +clutch, and ‘right’ for the brake. As for gears, I can change them for +you with my left hand.”</p> + +<p>“I could do it sitting in a chair,” I said, in a despairing voice. “But +Tish,” I said, in a last effort, “do you remember when you tried to +teach me to ride a bicycle? And that the moment I saw something to avoid +I made a mad dash for it?”</p> + +<p>“This is different,” Tish said. “It is a car——”</p> + +<p>“And that I rode about a quarter of a mile into Lake Penzance, and would +likely have ridden straight across if I hadn’t run into a canoe and +upset it?”</p> + +<p>“You can always <i>stop</i> a car,” said Tish. “Don’t be a coward, Lizzie. +All you have to do is to shove hard with your right foot.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_95">95</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet, when I did exactly that, she denied she had ever said it. Fond as I +am of Tish, I must admit that she has a way of forgetting things she +does not wish to remember.</p> + +<p>In the end I consented. It was against my better judgment, and I warned +Tish. I have no talent for machinery, but indeed a great fear of it, +since the time when as a child I was visiting my grand-aunt’s farm and +almost lost a finger in a feed-cutter. In addition to that, Tish’s +accident and her secret had both unnerved me. I knew that calamity faced +us as I took my place at the wheel.</p> + +<p>Tish was still in her petticoat, as we were obliged to leave her dress +skirt in the tree, and Aggie was wrapped in the rug to prevent her +taking cold.</p> + +<p>“When we meet a buggy,” Tish said, “we’d better go past it rather fast. +I don’t ache to be seen in a seersucker petticoat.”</p> + +<p>“Fast,” I said, bitterly. “You’d better pray that we go past it at all.”</p> + +<p>However, by going very slowly, I got the thing as far as the gate going +into the road. Here there was a hill, and we began to move too rapidly.</p> + +<p>“Slower,” said Tish. “You’ve got to make a turn here.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_96">96</a></span></p> + +<p>“How?” I cried, frantically.</p> + +<p>“Brake!” she yelled.</p> + +<p>“Which foot?”</p> + +<p>“Right foot. <i>Right foot!</i>”</p> + +<p>However, it seems that my right foot was on the gas throttle at the +time, which she had forgotten. I jammed my foot down hard, and the car +seemed to lift out of the air. We went across the ditch, through a stake +and rider fence, through a creek and up the other side of the bank, and +brought up against a haystack with a terrific jolt.</p> + +<p>Tish sat back and straightened her hat with a jerk.</p> + +<p>“We’d better go back and do it again, Lizzie,” she said, “because you +missed one or two things.”</p> + +<p>“I did what you told me,” I replied, sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Did you?” said Tish. “I don’t remember telling you to leap the creek. +Of course, cross-country motoring has its advantages. Only one really +should have solid tires, because barbed wire fences might be awkward.”</p> + +<p>She then sat back and rested.</p> + +<p>“Well?” I said.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Tish.</p> + +<p>“What am I to do now?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she said. “I thought you preferred doing it your own way. I don’t +object, if you<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_97">97</a></span> don’t. You are quite right. Roads do become monotonous. +Only I doubt, Lizzie, if you can get over this stack. You’d better go +around it.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” I said. “My own way is to walk home, Tish Carberry. And if +you think I am going to steer a runaway automobile you can think again.”</p> + +<p>Aggie had said nothing, but I now turned and saw her, pale and shaken, +taking a sip of the blackberry cordial we always carry with us for +emergencies. I suggested that she drive the thing home, but she only +shook her head and muttered something about almost falling out of the +back end of the car when we leaped up out of the creek. She had, she +asserted, been clear up on the folded-back top, and had stayed there +until the jolt against the haystack had thrown her forward into the seat +again.</p> + +<p>I daresay we would still be there had not a young man with a gun run +suddenly around the haystack. He had a frightened look, but when he saw +us all alive he relaxed. Unfortunately, however, Aggie still had the +bottle of blackberry cordial in the air. His expression altered when he +saw her, and he said, in a disgusted voice:</p> + +<p>“Well, I be damned!”</p> + +<p>Tish had not seen Aggie, and merely observed that she felt like that and +even more. She then<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_98">98</a></span> remarked that I had broken her other arm, and her +nose, which had struck the wind shield. But the young man merely gave +her a scornful glance, and leaning his gun against the haystack, came +over to the car and inspected us all with a most scornful expression.</p> + +<p>“I thought so!” he said. “When I saw you leaping that fence and jumping +the creek, I knew what was wrong. Only I thought it was a party of men. +In my wildest dreams—give me that bottle,” he ordered Aggie, holding +out his hand.</p> + +<p>Now it is Aggie’s misfortune to have lost her own teeth some years ago, +owing to a country dentist who did not know his business. And when +excited she has a way of losing her hold, as one may say, on her upper +set. She then speaks in a thick tone, with a lisp.</p> + +<p>“Thertainly not!” said Aggie.</p> + +<p>To my horror, the young man then stepped on the running board of the car +and snatched the bottle out of her hand.</p> + +<p>“I must say,” he said, glaring at us each in turn, “that it is the most +disgraceful thing I have ever seen.” His eyes stopped at Tish, and +traveled over her. “Where is your clothing?” he demanded, fiercely.</p> + +<p>It was then that Tish rose and fixed him with a glittering eye.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_99">99</a></span></p> + +<p>“Young man,” she said, “where my dress skirt is does not concern you. +Nor why we are here as we are. Give Miss Pilkington that bottle of +blackberry cordial.”</p> + +<p>“Blackberry cordial!” jeered the young man.</p> + +<p>“As for what you evidently surmise, you are a young idiot. I am the +President of the local branch of the W. C. T. U.”</p> + +<p>“Of course you are,” said the young man. “I’m Carrie Nation myself. Now +watch.”</p> + +<p>He then selected a large stone and smashed the bottle on it.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he observed, “come over with the rest of it, and be quick.” But +here he seemed to realize that Tish’s face was rather awful, for he +stopped bullying and began to coax. “Now see here,” he said. “I’m going +to help you out of this if I can, because I rather think it is an +accident. You’ve all had something on an empty stomach. Go down to the +creek and get some cold water, and then walk about a bit. I’ll see what +I can do with the car.”</p> + +<p>Aggie was weeping in the rear seat by that time, and I shall never +forget Tish’s face. Suddenly she got out of the car and before he +realized what was happening, she had his gun in her good hand.</p> + +<p>“Now,” she said, waving it about recklessly,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_100">100</a></span> “I’ll teach you to insult +sober and God-fearing women whose only fault is that one of them hasn’t +all the wit she should have and let a car run away with her. Lizzie, get +out of that seat.”</p> + +<p>It was the young man’s turn to look strange.</p> + +<p>“Be careful!” he cried. “<i>Be careful!</i> It’s loaded, and the safety +catch——”</p> + +<p>“Get out, Aggie.”</p> + +<p>Aggie crawled out, still holding the rug around where she had sat down +in the creek.</p> + +<p>“Now,” Tish said, addressing the stranger, “you back that car out and +get it to the road. And close your mouth. Something is likely to fly +into it.”</p> + +<p>“I beg of you!” said the young man. “Of course I’ll do what I can, +but—please don’t wave that gun around.”</p> + +<p>“Just a moment,” said Tish. “That blackberry cordial was worth about a +dollar. Just give a dollar to the lady near you. Aggie, take that +dollar. Lizzie, come here and let me rest this gun on your shoulder.”</p> + +<p>She did, keeping it pointed at the young man, and I could hear her +behind me, breathing in short gasps of fury. Nothing could so have +enraged Tish as the thing which had happened, and for a time I feared +that she would actually do the young man some serious harm.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_101">101</a></span></p> + +<p>He sat there looking at us, and he saw, of course, that he had been +mistaken. He grew very red, and said:</p> + +<p>“I’ve been an idiot, of course. If you will allow me to apologize——”</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk,” Tish snapped. “You have all you can do without any +conversation. Did you ever drive a car before?”</p> + +<p>“Not through a haystack,” he said in a sulky voice.</p> + +<p>But Tish fixed him with a glittering eye, and he started the engine.</p> + +<p>Well, he got the car backed and turned around, and we followed him +through the stubble as the car bumped and rocked along. But at the edge +of the creek he stopped and turned around.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he said. “This is suicide. This car will never do it.”</p> + +<p>“It has just done it,” Tish replied, inexorably. “Go on.”</p> + +<p>“I might get down, but I’ll never get up the other side.”</p> + +<p>“Go on.”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” Aggie cried, anguished. “He may be killed, and you’ll be +responsible.”</p> + +<p>Aggie is a sentimental creature, and the young man was very +good-looking. Indeed, arriving at the brink, I myself had qualms. But +Tish has a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_102">102</a></span> will of iron, and was, besides, still rankling with insult. +She merely glued her eye again to the sight of the gun on my shoulder, +and said:</p> + +<p>“<i>Go on!</i>”</p> + +<p>Well, he got the car down somehow or other, but nothing would make it +climb the other side. It would go up a few feet and then slide back. And +at last Tish herself saw that it was hopeless, and told him to turn and +go down the creek bed.</p> + +<p>It was a very rough creek bed, and one of the springs broke almost at +once. We followed along the bank, and I think Tish found a sort of grim +humor in seeing the young man bouncing up into the air and coming down +on the wheel, for I turned once and found her smiling faintly. However, +she merely called to him to be careful of the other springs or she would +have to ask him to pay for them.</p> + +<p>He stopped then, in a pool about two feet deep, and glared up at her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, certainly,” he said. “I suppose the fact that I have permanently +bent in my floating ribs on this infernal wheel doesn’t matter.”</p> + +<p>At last he came to a shelving bank, and got the car out. I think he +contemplated making a run for it then and getting away, but Tish +observed that she would shoot into the rear tires if he<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_103">103</a></span> did so. So he +went back to the road, slowly, and there stopped the car.</p> + +<p>However, Tish was not through with him. She made him climb the chestnut +tree and bring down her dress skirt, and then turn his back while she +put it on. By that time, the young man was in a chastened mood, and he +apologized handsomely.</p> + +<p>“But I think I have made amends, ladies,” he said. “I feel that I shall +never be the same again. When I started out today I was a blithe young +thing, feeling life in every limb, as the poet says. Now what I feel in +every limb does not belong in verse. May I have the shotgun, please?”</p> + +<p>But Tish had no confidence in him, and we took the gun with us, +arranging to leave it at the first signpost, about a mile away. We left +him there, and Aggie reported that he stood in the road staring after us +as long as we were in sight.</p> + +<p>Tish drove the car home after all, steering with one hand and taking the +wheel off a buggy on the way. I sat beside her and changed the gears, +and she blamed the buggy wheel on me, owing to my going into reverse +when I meant to go ahead slowly. The result was that we began to back +unexpectedly, and the man only saved his horse by jumping him over a +watering trough.</p> + +<p>I have gone into this incident with some care, because the present +narrative concerns itself with<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_104">104</a></span> the young man we met, and with the +secret in Tish’s barn. At the time, of course, it seemed merely one of +the unpleasant things one wishes to forget quickly. Tish’s arm was only +sprained, and although Aggie wore adhesive plaster around her ribs +almost all winter, because she was afraid to have it pulled off, there +were no permanent ill effects.</p> + +<p>The winter passed quietly enough. Aggie and I made Red Cross dressings +for Europe, and Tish, tiring of knitting, made pajamas. She had turned +against the government, and almost left the church when she learned that +Mr. Ostermaier had voted the Democratic ticket. Then in January, without +telling any one, she went away for four days, and Sarah Willoughby wrote +me later that the Honorable J. C., her husband, said that a woman +resembling Tish had demanded from the gallery of the Senate that we +declare war against Germany and had been put out by the +Sergeant-at-arms.</p> + +<p>I do not know that this was Tish. She returned as unannounced as she had +gone, and went back to her pajamas, but she was more quiet than usual, +and sometimes, when she was sewing, her lips moved as though she was +rehearsing a speech. She observed once or twice that she wanted to do +her bit, but that she considered digging<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_105">105</a></span> trenches considerably easier +than driving a sewing machine twelve miles a day.</p> + +<p>I remember, in this connection, a conversation I had with Mrs. +Ostermaier some time in January. She asked me to wait after the Red +Cross meeting, and I saw trouble in her eye.</p> + +<p>“Miss Lizzie,” she said, “do you think Miss Tish really enjoys sewing?”</p> + +<p>“Not particularly,” I admitted. “But it is better than knitting, she +says, because it is faster. She likes to get results.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” Mrs. Ostermaier observed. “I’ll just ask you to look at this +pajama coat she has turned in.”</p> + +<p>Well, there was no getting away from it. It was wrong. Dear Tish had +sewed one of the sleeves in the neck opening, and had opened the sleeve +hole and faced back the opening and put buttons and buttonholes on it.</p> + +<p>“Not only that,” said Mrs. Ostermaier, “but she has made the trousers of +several suits wrong side before and opened them up the back, and men are +such creatures of habit. They like things the way they are used to +them.”</p> + +<p>Well, I had to tell Tish, and she flew into a temper and said Mrs. +Ostermaier never could cut things out properly, and she would leave the +society. Which she did. But she was very unhappy<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_106">106</a></span> over it, for Tish is +patriotic to her finger tips.</p> + +<p>All the spring, until war was declared, she was restless and +discontented, and she took to long trips in the car, by herself, +returning moodier than ever. But with the announcement of war she found +work to do. She made enlisting speeches everywhere, and was very +successful, because Tish has a magnetic and compelling eye, and she +would fix on one man in the crowd and talk at him and to him until all +the men around were watching him. Generally, with every one looking he +was ashamed not to come forward, and Tish would take him by the arm and +lead him in to the recruiting station.</p> + +<p>It was on one of these occasions that we saw the young man of the +blackberry cordial again.</p> + +<p>Tish saw him first, from the tail of the wagon she was standing in. She +fixed him with her eye at once, and a man standing near him, said:</p> + +<p>“Go on in, boy. You’re as good as in the trenches already. She landed me +yesterday, but I’ve got six toes on one foot. Blessed if she didn’t try +to take me to a hospital to have one cut off.”</p> + +<p>“Now,” said Tish, “does any one wish to ask any questions?”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_107">107</a></span></p> + +<p>I saw the blackberry cordial person take a step forward.</p> + +<p>“I would like to ask you one,” he said. “How do you reconcile blackberry +cordial with the W. C. T. U.?”</p> + +<p>Tish went white with anger, and would no doubt have flayed him with +words, as our blackberry cordial is made from her own grandmother’s +recipe, and a higher principled woman never lived. But unluckily the +driver of the furniture wagon we were standing in had returned without +our noticing it, and drove off at that moment, taking us with him.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that Charlie Sands came to see me one day, +looking worried.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he said, “what’s this about my having appendicitis?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you ought to know,” I replied rather tartly. “Don’t ask me if you +have a pain.”</p> + +<p>“But I haven’t,” he said, looking aggrieved. “I’m all right. I never +felt better.”</p> + +<p>He then said that once, when a small boy, he had been taken with a +severe attack of pain, following a picnic when he had taken considerable +lemonade and pickles, followed by ice cream.</p> + +<p>“I had forgotten it entirely,” he went on. “But the other day Aunt Tish +recalled the incident, and suggested that I get my appendix out. It<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_108">108</a></span> +wouldn’t matter if she had let it go at that. But she’s set on it. I may +waken up any morning and find it gone.”</p> + +<p>I could only stare at him, for he is her favorite nephew, and I could +not believe that she would forcibly immolate him on a bed of suffering.</p> + +<p>“I used to think she was fond of me,” he continued. “But she’s—well, +she’s positively grewsome about the thing. She’s talked so much about it +that I begin to think I <i>have</i> got a pain there. I’m not sure I haven’t +got it now.”</p> + +<p>Well, I couldn’t understand it. I knew what she thought of him. Had she +not, when she fell out of the tree, immediately left him all her +property? I told him about that, and indeed about the entire incident, +except the secret in the barn. He grew very excited toward the end, +however, where we met the blackberry-cordial person, and interrupted me.</p> + +<p>“I know it from there on,” he said. “Only I thought Culver had made it +up, especially about the gun being levelled at him, and the machine in +the creek bed. He’s on my paper; nice boy, too. Do you mean to say—but +I might have known, of course.”</p> + +<p>He then laughed for a considerable time, although I do not consider the +incident funny. But<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_109">109</a></span> when I told him about Mr. Culver’s impertinent +question at the recruiting station, he sobered.</p> + +<p>“You tell her to keep her hands off him,” he said. “I need him in my +business. And it won’t take much to send him off to war, because he’s +had a disappointment in love and I’m told that he walks out in front of +automobiles daily, hoping to be struck down and make the girl sorry.”</p> + +<p>“I consider her a very sensible young woman,” I observed. But he was +already back to his appendix.</p> + +<p>“You see,” he said, “my Aunt Letitia has a positively uncanny influence +over me, and if I have it out I can’t enlist. No scars taken.”</p> + +<p>I put down my knitting.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps that is the reason she wants it done,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>“By George!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Well, that <i>was</i> the reason. I may as well admit it now. Tish is a fine +and spirited woman, and as brave as a lion. But it was soon evident to +all of us that she was going to keep Charlie Sands safe if she could. +She was continually referring to his having been a sickly baby, and I am +quite sure she convinced herself that he had been. She spoke, too, of a +small cough he had as indicating weak lungs, and was almost indecently +irritated when the chest specialist said that it was from<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_110">110</a></span> smoking, and +that if he had any more lung space the rest of his organs would have had +to move out.</p> + +<p>One way and another, she kept him from enlisting for quite a time, +maintaining that to run a newspaper and keep people properly informed +was as patriotic as carrying a gun.</p> + +<p>I remember that on one occasion, when he had at last decided to join the +navy and was going to Washington, Tish took a very bad attack of +indigestion, and nothing quieted her until after train time but to have +Charlie Sands beside her, feeding her peppermint and hot water.</p> + +<p>Then, at last, the draft bill was passed, and she persuaded him to wait +and take his chance.</p> + +<p>We were at a Red Cross class, being taught how to take foreign bodies +out of the ear, when the news came. Tish was not paying much attention, +because she considered that if a soldier got a bullet or shrapnel in his +ear, a syringe would not help him much. She had gone out of the room, +therefore, and Aggie had just had a bean put in her auditory canal, and +was sure it would swell before they got it again, when Tish returned. +She said the bill had passed, and that the age limit was thirty-one.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ostermaier, who was using the syringe,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_111">111</a></span> let it slip and shot a +stream of water into Aggie’s right eye.</p> + +<p>“Thirty-one!” she said. “Well, I suppose that includes your nephew, Miss +Tish.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Tish. “He will have his thirty-second birthday on the +fifth of June, and he probably won’t have to register at all. It’s +likely to be July before they’re ready.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the fifth of June!” said Mrs. Ostermaier, and gave Aggie another +squirt.</p> + +<p>Now Tish and I have talked this over since, and it may only be a +coincidence. But Mrs. Ostermaier’s cousin is married to a Congressman +from the west, and she sends the Ostermaiers all his speeches. Mr. +Ostermaier sends on his sermon, too, in exchange, and every now and then +Mrs. Ostermaier comes running in to Tish with something delivered in our +national legislature which she claims was conceived in our pulpit.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, when the draft day was set, <i>it was the fifth of June</i>!</p> + +<p>Aggie and I went to Tish at once, and found her sitting very quietly +with the blinds down, and Hannah snivelling in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“It’s that woman,” Tish said. “When I think of the things I’ve done for +them, and the way I’ve headed lists and served church suppers and made<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_112">112</a></span> +potato salad and packed barrels, it makes me sick.”</p> + +<p>Aggie sat down beside her and put a hand on her knee.</p> + +<p>“I know, Tish,” she said. “Mr. Wiggins was set on going to the Spanish +war. He said that he could not shoot, but that he would be valuable as +an observer, from church towers and things, because he was used to being +in the air. He would have gone, too, but——”</p> + +<p>“If he goes,” Tish said, “he will never come back. I know it. I’ve known +it ever since I ran over that black cat the other day.”</p> + +<p>Well, we had to leave her, as Aggie was buying wool for the Army and +Navy League. We went out, very low in our minds. What was our surprise, +therefore, on returning late that afternoon, to find Tish cheerfully +hoeing in the garden she had planted in the vacant lot next door, while +Hannah followed her and gathered up in a basket the pieces of brick, +broken bottles and buried bones that Tish unearthed.</p> + +<p>“You poor dear!” Aggie said, going toward her. “I know just how you +feel. I——”</p> + +<p>“Get out!” Tish yelled, in a furious tone. “Look what you’re doing! +Great heavens, don’t you see what you’ve done? That was a potato +plant.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_113">113</a></span></p> + +<p>We tried to get out, although I could see nothing but a few weeds, but +she yelled at us every moment and at last I gave it up.</p> + +<p>“I’d rather stay here, Tish,” I said, “if you don’t mind. I can keep the +dogs away, and along in the autumn, when it’s safe to move, you can take +me home, or put me in a can, along with the other garden stuff.”</p> + +<p>Here Tish fired a brick at Hannah’s basket, but struck her in the knee +cap instead, and down she went on what Tish said was six egg plants. In +the resulting conversation I escaped, and went up to Tish’s sitting +room.</p> + +<p>Tish followed us soon after, and jerked the window shades to the top.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing like getting close to nature,” she said. “I feel like a +different woman, after an hour or so of the soil.”</p> + +<p>She then took Hannah’s basket and placed it on the window-sill +overlooking the vacant lot, explaining that she used its contents to +fling at dogs, cats and birds below.</p> + +<p>“It makes a little extra work for Hannah,” she commented. “But it’s +making a new woman of her. It would be good for you, too, Lizzie. +There’s nothing like bending over to reduce the abdomen.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_114">114</a></span></p> + +<p>But Aggie, having come to mourn, proceeded to do it.</p> + +<p>“To think,” she said, “that if they had only made it a day later, dear +Charlie would have been exempt. It’s too tragic, Tish.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Tish in a cold tone. “He +does not have to register. He was born at seven in the morning, June +fifth.”</p> + +<p>“In the evening, Tish,” said Aggie gently. “I was there, you know, and I +remember——”</p> + +<p>Tish gave her a terrible look.</p> + +<p>“Of course you would know,” she observed, icily. “But as I was in the +room, and recall distinctly going out and telling old Amanda, the cook, +about breakfast——”</p> + +<p>“Supper,” said Aggie firmly. “You were excited, naturally. But I was in +the hall when you came out, and I was expecting my first gentleman +caller, which no girl ever forgets, Tish. I remember that Amanda was +hooking my dress, which was very tight, because we had waist lines in +those days and I wanted——”</p> + +<p>“Aggie,” Tish thundered, “he was born early in the morning of June +fifth. He will be thirty-two years of age early in the morning of +Registration day. And if he tries to register I shall be on hand with +the facts.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_115">115</a></span></p> + +<p>Well, whether she was right or not, she was convinced that she was, and +it is useless to argue with her under those circumstances. Luckily she +heard a dog in the lot just then, and threw down a broken bottle and +some bricks at him, and the woman in the apartment below raised a window +and threatened to report her to the Humane Society. But, as usual, Tish +was more than her equal.</p> + +<p>“Come right up, then,” she said. “Because I am a member of the Humane +Society and have been for twenty years. I consider throwing bricks at +that dog as patriotic a duty as killing a German, any day.”</p> + +<p>Here, by accident, the basket slid off the window-sill, and Tish closed +the window violently.</p> + +<p>“It hit her on the head,” she said, in what I fear was an exultant tone. +“I wouldn’t have done it on purpose, but I guess it’s no sin to be +thankful.”</p> + +<p>Because the incident I am about to relate concerns not only Registration +Day, but also Mr. Culver and the secret in the barn, I have been some +time in getting to it. And if, in so doing, I have reflected at any time +either on Tish’s patriotism or her strict veracity, I am sorry. No one +who knows Tish can doubt either.</p> + +<p>In spite of Aggie, in spite of Charlie Sands,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_116">116</a></span> who protested violently +that he distinctly remembered being born in the evening, because he had +yelled all the ensuing night and no one had had a wink of sleep—in +spite of all this, Tish remained firm in her conviction that 7 A. M. on +Registration Day, when the precincts opened, would find him too old to +register.</p> + +<p>On the surface the days that followed passed uneventfully. Tish sewed +and knitted, and once each day stood Aggie and myself on the outskirts +of her garden and pointed out things which she said would be green corn, +and tomatoes and peppers and so on. But there was a set look about her +face, to those of us who knew and loved her. She had moments of +abstraction, too, and during one of them weeded out an entire row of +spring onions, according to Hannah.</p> + +<p>On the third of June I went into the jeweller’s to have my watch +regulated, and found Tish at the counter. She muttered something about a +main spring and went out, leaving me staring after her. I am no idiot, +however, although not Tish’s mental equal by any means, and I saw that +she had been looking at gentlemen’s gold watches.</p> + +<p>I had a terrible thought that she intended trying to purchase Charlie +Sands by a gift. But I might have known her high integrity. She would +not stoop to a bribe. And, as a matter of fact,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_117">117</a></span> happening to stop at +the Ostermaiers that evening to show Mrs. Ostermaier how to purl, I +found that dear Tish, remembering the anniversary of his first sermon to +us, had presented Mr. Ostermaier with a handsome watch.</p> + +<p>It was on the fourth of June that I had another visit from Charlie +Sands. He is usually a most amiable young man, but on that occasion he +came in glowering savagely, and on sitting down on Aggie’s knitting, +which was on steel needles, he flung it across the room, and had to +spend quite a little time apologizing.</p> + +<p>“The truth is,” he said, “I’m so blooming upset that I’m not myself. Let +me put these needles back, won’t you? Or do they belong in some +particular place?”</p> + +<p>“They do,” Aggie retorted grimly. “And for a young man who will be +thirty-two tomorrow morning——”</p> + +<p>“Evening,” he corrected her, with a sort of groan. “I see she’s got you +too. Look here,” he went on, “I’m in trouble, and I’m blessed if I see +my way out. I want to register tomorrow. I may not be drawn, because I’m +an unlucky devil and always was. But—I want to do my bit.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I observed, tartly. “I guess no one can prevent you. Go and do +it, and say nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” he replied, getting up and striding<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_118">118</a></span> up and down the room. +“Not a bit of it. I grant you it looks simple. Wouldn’t any one in his +senses think that a young and able-bodied man could go and put his name +down as being willing to serve his country? Why, she herself—she’s +crazy to go. I’d like to bet a hat she’ll get there before long, too, +and into the front trenches.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!” Aggie wailed suddenly.</p> + +<p>“But not I,” went on Charlie Sands fiercely. “Not I. How she ever got +around that old fool Ostermaier I don’t know. But she has. He’s +appointed her an assistant registrar in his precinct, which is mine. And +she’ll swear until she’s black in the face that I’m over age.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you have the place opened before seven in the morning?” I +suggested.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been to him, but he says the law is seven o’clock. Besides,” he +added bitterly, “she knows me, and as like as not she’ll sleep there, to +be on hand to forestall me.”</p> + +<p>As I look back, I am convinced that a desire to do his bit, as he termed +it, was only a part of his anger that evening. The rest was the feeling +that Tish’s superior acumen had foiled him. He had a truly masculine +hatred of being thwarted by a woman, even by a beloved aunt.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said at last, picking up his hat. “I’ll<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_119">119</a></span> be off.” He went to +the door, but turned back and glowered at us both, although I am sure we +had done nothing whatever. “But mark my words, and remind her of them +the day after tomorrow. This thing’s not over yet. She’s pretty devilish +clever”—(I regret to record this word, but he was greatly +excited)—“but she hasn’t all the brains in the family.”</p> + +<p>For a day that was to contain so much, however, the fifth of June +started quietly enough. We telephoned Hannah, and she reported that Tish +had left the house at five-thirty, although obliged to go only one block +to the engine house which was her destination.</p> + +<p>So far as I can learn, for Tish is very uncommunicative about the entire +matter, the morning passed quietly enough. She had taken the precaution +of having her folding card table and two pillows sent to the engine +house, and when Aggie and I arrived at midday she was seated +comfortably, with her hat hung on a lamp of the fire truck. When we +arrived she was asking the sexton of the Methodist Church, whom she has +known for thirty years, if he had lost a leg or an arm.</p> + +<p>Aggie had brought a basket with some luncheon for her, and she placed it +on the truck. But there was an alarm of fire soon after, and the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_120">120</a></span> thing +went out in a rush with the lunch and also with Tish’s hat.</p> + +<p>Tish was furiously angry. Indeed, I have since thought that much of what +followed was due to the loss of the luncheon, which the firemen declared +they had not seen, although Aggie was positive she saw one of them +eating one of the doughnuts that afternoon behind a newspaper.</p> + +<p>But, worst of all, Tish’s hat was missing. It reappeared later, however, +but was brought in by the engine house dog, after having been run over +by the Chief’s machine, two engines and a ladder truck.</p> + +<p>As I say, that was part of her irritation, but what really upset her was +the number of married men. More than once, as she grew excited, I heard +her say:</p> + +<p>“Married? How many wives?”</p> + +<p>When of course she meant how many children.</p> + +<p>She had registered twenty-four married men and two single ones by one +o’clock, and she was looking very discouraged. But at one o’clock the +clerk from the shoe store at the corner came in, and said he had +dependent on him a wife, four children, a mother-in-law, a sister-in-law +and his sister-in-law’s husband.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Tish said bitterly, “you claim exemption.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_121">121</a></span></p> + +<p>“Me?” he said. “Me, Miss Carberry? My God, no.”</p> + +<p>Well, about two o’clock Charlie Sands came in. Tish saw him the moment +he entered the door, and stopped work to watch him. But he made no +attempt to register. He said he was doing a column on slackers for the +next morning’s paper.</p> + +<p>“There’s aren’t many,” he said, “but of course there are some. The +license court is the place to nail them.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me,” Tish demanded, “that there are traitors in +this country who are getting married <i>today</i>?”</p> + +<p>“There are,” said Charlie Sands, sitting down on the fire truck. “Even +so, beloved aunt. They are getting married so they can claim exemption +because of a dependent wife. And I’ll bet the orphan asylums are full of +fellows trying to get ready-made families.”</p> + +<p>Tish is a composed and self-restrained woman, but she spoke so +distinctly of how she felt about such conduct that Charlie Murray, our +grocer’s assistant, who has four children, did not so much as mention +them when she made out his card.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Charlie Sands observed, “I don’t want to dictate to you, +because you’re doing all that can be expected of you now. But if some +one would go to the license court and tell those<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_122">122</a></span> fellows a bit of +wholesome truth, it might be valuable.”</p> + +<p>“You do it, Lizzie,” Tish said.</p> + +<p>“I? I never made a speech in my life, Tish Carberry, and you know it.”</p> + +<p>“And I never before tried to get the truth from an idiot who says he is +twenty-eight and has a daughter of eighteen! See here,” Tish said to a +man in front of her, waving her pen and throwing a circle of ink about. +“I’ll have you know that I represent the government today, and if you +think you are being funny, you are not.”</p> + +<p>Well, it turned out that he had married a widow with a child, but had a +cork leg anyhow, so it made no difference. But Tish’s mind was not on +her work. However, she was undecided until Charlie Sands said:</p> + +<p>“By the way, I saw your friend Culver among the Cupid-chasers today. And +this is his district. You’d better round him up.”</p> + +<p>“Culver!” Tish said. “Do you mean that—Lizzie, where’s my hat?”</p> + +<p>Well, we had to recover it again from the engine house dog, whom we +found burying it in the back yard. Tish’s mind, however, was far away, +and she merely brushed it absently with her hand and stuck it on her +head. Then she turned to Charlie Sands.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_123">123</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m going to the license court,” she said, between clenched teeth. “And +I am going to show that young fool that he is not going to hide behind +any petticoats today.”</p> + +<p>“It’s his privilege to get married if he wants to.”</p> + +<p>“When I finish with him,” said Tish, grimly, “he won’t want to.”</p> + +<p>All the way to the court house Tish’s lips were moving, and I knew she +was rehearsing what she meant to say. I think that even then her shrewd +and active mind had some foreboding of what was to come, for she called +back unexpectedly to Aggie:</p> + +<p>“Look in the right-hand pocket and see if there is a box of tacks +there.”</p> + +<p>“Tacks?” said Aggie. “Why, what in the world——”</p> + +<p>“I had tacks to nail up flags this morning. Well?”</p> + +<p>“They are here, Tish, but no hammer.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t need a hammer,” Tish replied, cryptically.</p> + +<p>I am afraid I had expected Tish to lead the way into the license court +and break out into patriotic fury. But how little, after all, I knew +her! Already in that wonderful brain of hers was seething the plot which +was so to alter certain<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_124">124</a></span> lives, and was to leave an officer of the +law—but that comes later on.</p> + +<p>Mr. Culver was at the desk. Just as we arrived, a clerk handed him a +paper, and he walked across the room to an ice-water cooler and took a +drink.</p> + +<p>“The slacker!” said Tish, from clenched teeth. “The coward! The +poltroon! The——”</p> + +<p>At that moment Mr. Culver, with a paper cup in his hand, saw us and +stared at us fixedly. The next moment he had whipped off his hat, and +was coming toward us.</p> + +<p>“Well!” he said, as he came up to us, “so it really did happen!”</p> + +<p>Tish took a deep breath, to begin on him, but he went on blithely:</p> + +<p>“You see, when I got back home that day, I felt it hadn’t really been +true. I had <i>not</i> gone rabbit-shooting, and found three ladies +half-buried in a haystack. And of course I had not driven an automobile +along a creek bed and through the old swimming hole, with my own gun +levelled at my back.”</p> + +<p>Tish took another breath and opened her mouth.</p> + +<p>“Then, the other day,” he went on, smiling cheerfully, “I thought I had +had a return of the hallucination, because I fancied I saw you all on a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_125">125</a></span> +wagon. But the next moment the wagon was driving on, and you were +nowhere in sight.”</p> + +<p>“That was because,” said Aggie, “when the wagon started we all sat down +unexpectedly, and——”</p> + +<p>“Aggie!” Tish said, in a savage tone. “Now, young man, I want to say +something to you, and I’d thank you——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I say!” he broke in, looking suddenly depressed, “I can see you are +still down on me. But don’t scold me. Please don’t. Because I am a +sensitive person, and you will ruin what was going to be a perfect day. +I know I was wrong. I apologize. I eat my words. And now I’ll leave you, +because if you should vanish into thin air again I should have to go and +lock myself up.”</p> + +<p>Well, with all his gaiety he did not look particularly gay, and he was +rather hollow in the cheeks. I came to the conclusion that he was going +to marry another young woman, partly to keep out of going to war, but +partly to spite the first. I must say I felt rather sorry for him, +especially when I saw the way he looked at her. Oh, yes, I picked her +out at once, because she never took her eyes off him.</p> + +<p>I didn’t think she was fooled much, either, because she looked as if she +needed to go off into<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_126">126</a></span> a corner and have a good cry. Well, she got her +wish later, if that was what she wanted.</p> + +<p>But Tish is a woman of one idea. While he chattered with one eye on the +girl, Tish was eyeing him coldly. At last she caught him by the arm.</p> + +<p>“I have something to say to you, young man,” she commenced. “I want to +ask you what you think of any one who——”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he interrupted, and freed his arm. “Awfully sorry. +I think a young lady over there wishes to speak to me.”</p> + +<p>He left us briskly enough, but he slowed up before he got across the +room. He stopped once and half turned, too, with the unhappiest face +I’ve ever seen on a human being. Aggie was feeling in her knitting bag +for the glasses.</p> + +<p>“Is she pretty?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Too pretty to be a second choice,” I replied, shortly. “She’s a nice +little thing, and deserves something better than a warmed-over heart.”</p> + +<p>Tish had been angry enough before, but when I told her that he had been +disappointed in love, and was merely making the girl a tool, her eyes +were savage.</p> + +<p>“She is pretty,” Aggie observed. “Perhaps, after all, he <i>does</i> love +her. Or if not he may learn to. And he cannot be very unhappy about<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_127">127</a></span> +marrying her. He said, you know, it was a perfect day.”</p> + +<p>“Go down and get into the car,” Tish said, in a choking voice. “I’ll fix +his perfect day for him. Go down and start the engine.”</p> + +<p>I took a last glance as Aggie and I left the License Court, and if we +had had any doubts they vanished then, because he was speaking to the +girl with angry gestures, and she was certainly crying.</p> + +<p>“Brute,” Tish said, with her eyes on him. “A bully as well as a slacker. +Never mind. She won’t have to put up with him long. If I have any +influence in this community that youth will be drafted and sent to a mud +hole in France. Mark my words,” she went on, settling her hat with a +jerk, “that boy will be registered as a single man before this day’s +over. Go and start the engine, Lizzie. I daresay you remember that +much.”</p> + +<p>Seeing that she had a plan, and “ours not to reason why, ours but to do +and die,” as Aggie frequently quotes, we went down to the street again. +I was even then vaguely apprehensive, an apprehension not without +reason, as it turned out. For, reaching over to start the engine, as +Tish had taught me by turning a lever on the dashboard and moving up a +throttle on the wheel,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_128">128</a></span> what was my horror to see the car moving slowly +off, with Aggie in the rear seat and as white as chalk.</p> + +<p>Tish, in her patriotic fervor, had stopped the thing in gear.</p> + +<p>I ran beside it, but was unable to get onto the running board. I then +saw Aggie, generally so timid, crawling over the back of the seat, and +called to her to put on the brake. She did so, but not until the car had +mounted the sidewalk and struck a policeman in the back.</p> + +<p>This would not be worth recording, as there were no immediate results, +had it not been for the policeman. It brought us to his attention, and +came near to ruining Tish’s plan. But of this later on.</p> + +<p>I do not, even now, know just what arguments Tish used with Myrtle. Yes, +that was her name. We had a great deal of time later on to learn her +name, and all about her. The matter is a delicate one, and we have not +since discussed the events of that day. But Aggie said later on, when we +were sitting in the dark and wondering what to do next, that Tish had +probably waited until Mr. Culver went out to look up a minister.</p> + +<p>Whatever Tish said or did, the result was that only a short time after +Aggie had jammed on the brake, they came out together, and Tish was<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_129">129</a></span> +carrying a suitcase. Myrtle was hanging back, but Tish had her by the +arm.</p> + +<p>At first she did not see us. When she did, however, she worked her way +through the crowd and opened the rear door.</p> + +<p>“Get in,” she said, in an uncompromising tone.</p> + +<p>“But I really think,” said Myrtle, “that I should——”</p> + +<p>“Get in,” Tish said again, firmly. “We can talk it over later.”</p> + +<p>“But are you sure he sent for me?” she demanded, looking ready to cry +again. “I think it must be a mistake. He said to wait, and he would come +back as soon as——”</p> + +<p>It was the crowd that really settled the matter, for some one yelled +that the girl had been eloping and that her mother had caught her in the +License Court. Most of them were men, but they called to Myrtle not to +let the old lady bully her. Also one young man said that if her young +man didn’t come back she could have him and welcome. It frightened +Myrtle, and she got into the car and asked Tish to drive away quickly.</p> + +<p>“I know it will be in the papers,” she said forlornly. “And my people +think I am at a house party.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_130">130</a></span></p> + +<p>But the next moment I caught her looking at Tish’s hat, and her lip +quivered.</p> + +<p>“I guess I’m nervous,” she said, in a choking voice. “I had no idea it +was so much trouble to get married.”</p> + +<p>Tish heard her, although she had her hands full getting the car back to +the street. She said nothing until we were in the street again, and +moving away slowly.</p> + +<p>“Then you might as well settle down and be quiet,” she said. “Because +you are not going to be married today.”</p> + +<p>Myrtle may have suspected something before that, perhaps when she first +saw Tish’s hat, for she looked dazed for a moment, and then stood up in +the car and yelled that she was being kidnapped. Tish threw on the gas +just then, and she had to sit down, but I looked back just in time to +see Mr. Culver and the policeman standing in the center of the street, +gesticulating madly.</p> + +<p>“Little fool!” Tish muttered, and bent low over the wheel.</p> + +<p>Well, they followed us. At the top of the first hill the girl was crying +hard, and there were eleven automobiles, Aggie counted, not far behind +us. At the end of the next rise there were still ten. It was then that +Tish, with her customary<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_131">131</a></span> presence of mind, told us to scatter the tacks +over the road behind us.</p> + +<p>The result was that only four were to be seen when we got to the top of +Graham’s Hill, and they had lost time and were far away. Tish was in a +terrible way. Her plan had been merely to take the girl away, because +Culver belonged in her precinct and it was her business, as ordered by +the government, to gather in all the slackers, matrimonial or otherwise. +Then, after Culver had registered as a single man, he could, as Tish +tersely observed later, either marry or go and drown himself. It was +immaterial to her.</p> + +<p>But now we were likely to be arrested for abduction, and the whole thing +would get in the papers.</p> + +<p>“Tish,” Aggie begged, “do stop and put her out in the road. That Culver +and the policeman are in the first car. I can see them plainly—and they +can pick her up and take her back.”</p> + +<p>But Tish ignored her, and kept on. She merely asked, once, if we had any +scissors with us, and on Aggie finding a pair in her knitting bag, said +to get them out and have them ready.</p> + +<p>I pause here for a moment to reflect on Tish’s resourcefulness. How many +times, in the years of our association, has her active brain come to our +rescue in trying times? And, once the danger<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_132">132</a></span> is over, how quickly she +becomes again one of us, busy with her charities, her Sunday school +class, and her knitting for the poor! Indomitable spirit and Christian +soul, her only fault, if any, perhaps a slight lack of humor, that is +Letitia Carberry.</p> + +<p>“Watch for a barbed wire fence, Lizzie,” she said, as we flew along. +“And see how near they are.”</p> + +<p>Well, they were very close, but owing to Tish leaving the macadam at +this point, they lost time at a crossroads. At the top of the next hill +Aggie said she could not see anything of them. It was then that Myrtle +tried to jump out, and would have succeeded had not Tish speeded up the +car.</p> + +<p>I could hear Aggie trying to soothe her, and telling her that Tish was +not insane, but was merely saving her from a terrible fate.</p> + +<p>“I have never been married, my dear, owing to an unfortunate +circumstance,” she said, in her gentle voice. “But to marry without +love——”</p> + +<p>The girl sat up, startled.</p> + +<p>“But how do you know I don’t love him?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“I am speaking of the young man,” said Aggie. “My dear child, all over +this great land of ours today, here and there are wretches who would use +a confiding young woman in order——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_133">133</a></span></p> + +<p>“Barbed wire!” said Tish exultantly, and stopped the car with a jerk. In +an instant she was out in the road, cutting lengths of barbed wire from +a fence with the scissors and placing them across the road behind us. +Her expression was set and tense. When she had placed some six pieces of +wire in position, she returned to the car.</p> + +<p>“We can thank the war for that,” she observed, coolly. “As long as the +barbed wire fences hold out they’ll never get us.”</p> + +<p>The first car was in sight by that time, and we could see that Mr. +Culver and the policeman were in it. They shouted with joy when they saw +us, but Tish merely smiled, and let in the clutch. Soon after we heard a +series of small explosions, and Tish observed that the enemy attack was +checked against our barbed wire, and that she reckoned we could hold the +position indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Aggie looked back and reported that they were both out of the car, and +that the policeman was standing on one foot and hopping up and down.</p> + +<p>It had been Tish’s intention, as I learned later, merely to take the +young woman for a country ride, and there to strive to instill into her +the weakness and folly of being married by Mr. Culver as an exemption +plea. But as we had been<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_134">134</a></span> making forty-five miles an hour by the +speedometer, there had been little opportunity.</p> + +<p>However, as the last car was now standing on four rims in the barbed +wire entanglement behind us, and as Tish’s farm was not far ahead, she +improved the occasion with a short but highly patriotic speech, flung +over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe it,” said Myrtle, sullenly. “He loves me. We only ran +away today instead of some other day later because my father is leading +the parade in my town, and mother is presenting a flag at the +schoolhouse.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Tish. “If he loves you, well and good. When your young +man has registered, I’ll see that you get married, if I have to kidnap a +preacher to do it. But I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think you’ll be +getting anything worth having.”</p> + +<p>Well, Myrtle grew quieter then, and I heard Aggie saying Miss Tish never +made a promise she could not fulfill. She then told about Mr. Wiggins, +and had just reached the place where he had slipped on the eve of his +wedding and fallen off a roof, when the car stopped dead.</p> + +<p>Tish pushed a few things on the dashboard, but it only hiccoughed twice +and then stopped breathing.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_135">135</a></span></p> + +<p>“No gasoline!” she exclaimed, in a rage. “We’ll have to run for it.”</p> + +<p>The farmhouse was in sight now, about a half mile ahead. Aggie groaned, +but got out and turned to Myrtle. But Myrtle was sitting back in the car +with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Certainly <i>not</i>,” she said calmly.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” Tish replied. “I don’t know but you are just as well where +you are. That last car is done for, if I know anything about barbed +wire, and they’re not likely to chase a machine on foot. They’re +probably on their way back to town now, and I hope the policeman has to +hop all the way. It’s only forty miles or so.”</p> + +<p>She then started up the road, but turned:</p> + +<p>“Bring her suitcase, Lizzie,” she said. “There’s no use leaving it there +for tramps to come along and steal it.”</p> + +<p>She then stalked majestically up the road, and we followed. I am not a +complaining woman, but if that girl had left any clothes at home they +couldn’t have amounted to much. Aggie refused to help with the suitcase, +as she had her knitting bag, and as any exertion in summer brings on her +hay fever.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps five minutes later that I heard a faint call behind me, +and turned to see Myrtle<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_136">136</a></span> coming along behind. She was not crying now, +and her mouth was shut tight.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” she said angrily, “that it does not matter if tramps get +<i>me</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Tish invited you to the farm,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Invited!” she snapped. “If this is what she calls an invitation, I’d +hate to have her make it a request.”</p> + +<p>However, she seemed to be really a very nice girl, although misguided, +for she took one end of the suitcase. But I learned then how difficult +it is for the average mind to grasp the high moral purpose and lofty +conception of a woman like Tish.</p> + +<p>“I might as well tell you now,” she said, “that I don’t believe they’ll +pay any large sum. They’re not going to be very keen about me at home, +since this elopement business.”</p> + +<p>“Who’ll pay what sum?”</p> + +<p>“The ransom,” she said, impatiently. “You don’t suppose I fell for all +that patriotic stuff, do you?”</p> + +<p>I could only stare at her in dumb rage.</p> + +<p>“At first, of course,” she said, “I thought you were white slavers. But +I’ve got it now. The other game is different. Oh, I may come from a +small town, but I’m not unsophisticated. You<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_137">137</a></span> people didn’t send my +father those black hand letters he’s been getting lately, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I called sharply.</p> + +<p>But Tish had stopped and was listening intently. Suddenly she said:</p> + +<p>“Run!”</p> + +<p>There was a sort of pounding noise somewhere behind, and Aggie screeched +that it was the Knowleses’ bull loose on the road. I thought it quite +likely, and as we had once had a very unpleasant time with it, spending +the entire night in the Knowleses’ pig pen, with the animal putting his +horns through the chinks every now and then, I dropped the suitcase and +ran. Myrtle ran too, and we reached the farmhouse in safety.</p> + +<p>It was then that we realized that the sound was the pursuing car, +bumping along slowly on four flat tires. Tish shut and bolted the door, +and as the windows were closed with wooden frames, nailed on, we were +then in darkness. We could hear the runabout, however, thudding slowly +up the drive, and the voices of Mr. Culver and the policeman as they +tried the door and the window shutters.</p> + +<p>Tish stood just inside the door, and Myrtle was just beside me. Aggie +had collapsed on a hall chair. I have, I think, neglected to say that +the farmhouse was furnished. Tish’s mother used<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_138">138</a></span> to go out there every +summer, and she was a great woman for being comfortable.</p> + +<p>At last Mr. Culver came to the front door and spoke through it.</p> + +<p>“Hello, inside there!” he called, in a furious voice. As no one replied, +he then banged at the door, and from the sound I fancy the policeman was +hammering also, with his mace.</p> + +<p>“Open, in the name of the law!” bellowed the policeman.</p> + +<p>“Stop that racket,” Tish replied sternly. “Or I shall fire.”</p> + +<p>Of course she had no weapon, but they did not know this. We could hear +Mr. Culver telling the policeman to keep back, as he knew us, and we had +any other set of desperadoes he had ever heard of beaten for +recklessness with a gun.</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s silence, during which I heard Aggie’s knitting +needles going furiously. She learned to knit by touch once when she had +iritis and was obliged to finish a slumber robe in time for Tish’s +birthday. So the darkness did not trouble her, and I knew she was +knitting to compose herself.</p> + +<p>Tish then stood inside the door, and delivered through it one of the +most inspiring patriotic speeches I have ever heard. She spoke of our +long tolerance, while the world waited. Then of<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_139">139</a></span> the decision, and the +call to arms. She said that the sons of the Nation were rising that day +in their might.</p> + +<p>“But,” she finished, “there are some among us who would shirk, would +avoid the high and lofty duty. There are some who would profane the name +of love, and hide behind it to save their own cowardly skins. To these +ignoble ones there is but one course left open. Go. Put your name on the +roster of your country as a free man, unmarried and without impediments +of any sort. Then return and these doors will fly open before the magic +of a blue card.”</p> + +<p>It was at that time, we learned later, that the policeman, who was but a +rough and untutored type, decided that Tish was insane—how often, alas, +is genius thus mistaken!—and started off for the Knowles farm to bring +help. Mr. Culver made no reply to Tish’s speech, and we learned later +had gone away in the midst of it. Later on he was reported by Aggie, who +looked out from an upper window, to be sitting under the chestnut tree +where he had once rescued Tish’s black alpaca skirt, sulking and +watching.</p> + +<p>Tish then went up and spoke to him from the window.</p> + +<p>“See here,” she said angrily, “do you think that I did not mean what I +said through that door?”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_140">140</a></span></p> + +<p>He had the audacity to yawn.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t hear all of it,” he said. “But judging from what I know of +you, I daresay you meant it. Would you mind tossing me a tin cup or +something to drink out of?”</p> + +<p>“You are not going back to town to register, then?”</p> + +<p>“It’s early,” he replied, coolly. “If you mean do I intend to walk back, +I do not. I shall wait for the Sheriff and the posse.”</p> + +<p>It was then that Tish saw the policeman crossing a field toward the +Knowles farm and she tried to reason with the young man. But he dropped +his pretence of indifference, and would not even listen to her.</p> + +<p>“I’ve only one thing to say,” he said, fiercely. “You be careful of that +young lady. As to whether I register or not, that’s my business and has +nothing to do with the case. When you open that door and send her out, +with four good tires to take the place of the ones you ruined, I’ll talk +to you, and not before.”</p> + +<p>He then got up and walked away, and Tish came downstairs and lighted a +candle with hands that shook with rage. We had heard the entire +conversation, and in the candlelight I could see that Aggie was as white +as wax.</p> + +<p>Well, the situation was really desperate, but<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_141">141</a></span> Tish’s face forbade +questions. Aggie ventured to observe that perhaps it would be better to +unlock the door and release the girl, but Tish only gave her a ferocious +glance.</p> + +<p>“I am doing my duty,” she said, firmly. “I have done nothing for which +the law can punish me. If a young lady comes willingly into my car for a +ride, as you did”—she turned sharply to Myrtle—“and if a young fool +chooses to sit in my front yard instead of registering to serve his +country, it is not my fault. As a matter of fact, I can probably have +him arrested for trespass.”</p> + +<p>As I have said, the farmhouse is still furnished with Tish’s mother’s +things. She was a Biggs, and all the things the Biggses had not wanted +for sixty years were in the house. So at least we had chairs to sit on, +and if we had only had water, for we were all thirsty from excitement +and dust, we could have been fairly comfortable, although Myrtle +complained bitterly of thirst.</p> + +<p>“And I want to wash,” she said fretfully. “If I could wash I’d change my +blouse and look like something.”</p> + +<p>“For whom?” Tish demanded. “For that slacker outside?”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Myrtle laughed. She had been in tears for so long that it +surprised us. We all<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_142">142</a></span> stared at her, but she seemed to get worse and +worse.</p> + +<p>“She’s hysterical, poor child,” Aggie said, feeling for her smelling +salts. “I don’t know that I blame her, Tish. No one knows better than I +do what it is to expect to be married, and then find the divine hand of +Providence intervening.”</p> + +<p>But Myrtle suddenly walked over to Aggie and, stooping, kissed her on +the top of her right ear.</p> + +<p>“You dear thing!” she said. “I still don’t get all the idea, but I don’t +much care if I don’t. I haven’t had so much excitement since I ran away +from boarding school.”</p> + +<p>She then straightened and looked at Tish. It was clear that her feeling +for dear Tish was still vague, but was rather more of respect than of +love.</p> + +<p>“As for the—the young man outside,” she said, “I seem to gather that he +hasn’t registered, and that I am not to marry him until he has. Very +well. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that speech of +yours—suppose you tell him that I won’t marry him until he has a—a +magic blue card. I should like to see his face.”</p> + +<p>But Tish is a woman of delicacy, and she suggested that Myrtle do it +herself, from an upper window. I went up with her, and we found Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_143">143</a></span> +Culver again under the tree. The conversation ran like this:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Myrtle</span>, (looking very pretty indeed but very firm): Look here, I—I’ve +decided not to marry you.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Culver</span> (rousing suddenly and staring up at her): I beg your pardon!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Myrtle</span>: I know now that I was making a terrible mistake. No matter how +much I care for you, I cannot marry a slacker.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. C.</span> (furiously angry and glaring at her): You know better than that!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Myrtle</span>: Not at all. Can you deny that you haven’t registered yet?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. C.</span>: What’s that got to do with it? I daresay I’m losing my mind. It +wouldn’t be much wonder if I have. When I think of the way I’ve suffered +lately—look at me!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Myrtle</span> (in a somewhat softened voice): Have you really suffered?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. C.</span>: I? Good Lord, Myrtle—why, I haven’t slept for weeks. I——</p> + +<p>But here he stopped, with his eyes fixed on the roof overhead.</p> + +<p>“Watch out!” he yelled. “Get back. Myrtle, she’ll fall on you.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Tish’s calm voice from overhead. There was a rasping +sound, and then a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_144">144</a></span> long wire fell past the window. “Now,” she called +triumphantly, “let your policeman telephone for the Sheriff and a posse! +That was a party wire, and that farmhouse over there is on it. There +isn’t another telephone for ten miles.”</p> + +<p>Well, I looked around for Myrtle, and she was on the guest room bed, +face down.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she groaned, “I wouldn’t have missed it for a trip to Europe. And +his face! Miss Lizzie, did you see his face?” She then got up suddenly +and put her arms around me. “I’m simply madly happy, Miss Lizzie,” she +said. “I have to kiss somebody, and since he—may I kiss you?”</p> + +<p>Well, of course I allowed her to, but I was surprised. It was not +natural, somehow.</p> + +<p>Myrtle came down soon after and said that Mr. Culver was bringing some +water from the well, and would he be allowed to come in with it? But +Tish was firm on this point. She gave her consent, however, to his +leaving the pail on the porch and then retiring to the chestnut tree. He +did so, whistling to signify that he was at a safe distance, and I then +carried it in.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he called to me when he saw me, “this situation is getting on +my nerves. I carried off that policeman, for one thing. He was on duty.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t stay here.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_145">145</a></span></p> + +<p>“I daresay not,” he replied rather bitterly. “But what I want to ask is +this: Won’t it be deucedly unpleasant for you three, when I report that +you deliberately put my car out of commission so I could not get back by +nine o’clock to register? Of course,” he went on, “a box of tacks may +have spilled itself on the road, but I never heard of a barbed wire +fence trying to crawl across a road and getting run over, like a snake.”</p> + +<p>I reported this to Tish, and I saw that she was uneasy, although she +merely remarked that he still had two legs, and that she had not asked +him to follow us. All she had set out to do was to see that he didn’t +get married before he registered, and she was doing that to the best of +her ability. The rest was his affair.</p> + +<p>It was six o’clock by that time, and Tish had had nothing to eat since +five in the morning, and none of us had had any luncheon. Although a +woman who thinks little or nothing of food, I found her, shortly +afterwards, in the pantry, looking into jars. There was nothing, +however, except some salt, a little baking powder and a package of dried +sage. But Aggie, going to an attic window to look for the policeman, +discovered about a quart of flour in a barrel up there, and scraping it +out, brought it down.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_146">146</a></span></p> + +<p>“I might bake some biscuits, Tish,” she suggested. “I feel that I’ll +have to have some nourishment. I’m so weak that my knees shake.”</p> + +<p>“Myrtle,” Tish said abruptly, with that quick decision so characteristic +of her, “you might tell that worthless young man of yours to look in the +granary. Sometimes the Knowleses’ hens come over here, and I daresay +they’ve eaten enough off the place to pay for the eggs.”</p> + +<p>But Myrtle, after a conference from the window, reported that Mr. Culver +had said he would get the eggs, if there were any, on condition that he +get his pro rata share of them.</p> + +<p>“If there are ten eggs,” she said, “he wants two. And if there is an odd +number he claims the odd one.”</p> + +<p>This irritated Tish, but at last she grudgingly consented. In a short +time, therefore, Mr. Culver knocked at the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>“I am leaving,” he said, “eleven eggs, eight of undoubted +respectability, two questionable, and one that I should advise opening +into a saucer first. Also some corn meal from the granary. And if you +will set out a pail and come after me if I am wounded, I shall go after +a cow that I see in yon sylvan vale.”</p> + +<p>His voice was strangely cheerful, but, indeed, the prospect of food had +cheered us all, although<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_147">147</a></span> I could see that Tish was growing more and +more anxious, as time went on and no policeman appeared in the +Knowleses’ machine. However, we worked busily. Myrtle, building a fire +and setting the table with the Biggses’ dishes, and Aggie making +biscuits, without shortening, while Tish stirred the corn meal mush.</p> + +<p>“Many a soldier in the trenches,” she said, “would be grateful for such +a frugal meal. When one reflects that the total cost of mush and milk is +but a trifle——”</p> + +<p>Here, however, we were interrupted by Mr. Culver outside. He spoke in +gasps and we heard the pail clatter to the porch floor.</p> + +<p>“I regretfully report——” he said, through the keyhole. “No milk. Wrong +sex. Sorry.”</p> + +<p>Ten of the eggs proving good, we placed two of them on a plate with +three biscuits and a bowl of mush, and Tish carried it out, placing it +on the floor of the porch, much as she would have set it out for the +dog.</p> + +<p>“Here,” she called. “And when you have finished you might go after that +accomplice of yours. He’s probably asleep somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Dear lady,” said Mr. Culver, “I would, but I dare not. A fiery +creature, breathing fury from its nostrils, is abroad and——”</p> + +<p>But Tish came in and slammed the door.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_148">148</a></span></p> + +<p>It was after supper that we missed Tish. She was nowhere in the house, +and the kitchen door, which had been bolted, was unlocked. Aggie wrung +her hands, but Myrtle was quite calm.</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t worry about her,” she said. “She’s about as well able to +take care of herself as any woman I ever saw.”</p> + +<p>It was now quite dark, and our fears increased. But soon afterwards Tish +came in. She went to the stove and pouring out a cup of hot water, drank +it in silence. Then she said:</p> + +<p>“I’ve been to the Knowleses’. The dratted idiots are all away, probably +to the schoolhouse, registering. The car’s gone, and the house is +closed.”</p> + +<p>“And the policeman?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t see him,” said Tish. But she did not look at me. She fell to +pacing up and down the kitchen, deep in thought.</p> + +<p>“What time is it, Lizzie?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Almost eight.”</p> + +<p>Here Tish gave what in another woman would have been a groan.</p> + +<p>“It’s raining,” she observed, and fell to pacing again. At last she told +me to follow her outside, and I went, feeling that she had at last made +a decision. Her attitude throughout her period of cogitation had been +not unlike that of Napoleon before Waterloo. There were the same bent +head<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_149">149</a></span> and clasped hands, the same melancholy mixed with determination.</p> + +<p>Mr. Culver was sitting under his tree, with his coat collar turned up +around his neck. Tish stopped and surveyed him with gentle dignity.</p> + +<p>“You may enter the house,” she said. “The country will gain nothing by +your having pneumonia, although personally I am indifferent. And, after +thinking over your case, I have come to this decision.” She paused, as +for oratorical effect. “I shall deliver you to your registration +precinct by nine o’clock,” she said impressively, “and immediately after +that, I shall see that you two are married. I am not young,” she went +on, “and perhaps I do not think enough of sentiment. But it shall never +be said of me that I parted two loving hearts, one of which may, before +the snow flies, be still and pulseless in a foreign grave.”</p> + +<p>She then, still with that new air of melancholy majesty, led me to the +barn, leaving him staring.</p> + +<p>It was there, by means of a key hanging round her neck, that Letitia +Carberry, great hearted woman and patriot that she is, bared her inner +heart to me. In the barn was a large and handsome ambulance, with large +red crosses on side and top, which she had offered to the government if +she might drive it herself. But the government<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_150">150</a></span> which she was even then +so heroically serving had refused her permission, and Tish had buried +her disappointment in the bucolic solitude of her farm.</p> + +<p>Such, in brief, was Tish’s tragic secret.</p> + +<p>“I shall take it in to the city tonight, Lizzie,” she said heavily. “And +tomorrow I shall present it to the Red Cross. Some other hand than mine +will steer it through shot and shell, and ultimately into Berlin. It has +everything. There’s a soup compartment and—well,” she finished, “it is +doing its work even tonight. Get in.”</p> + +<p>We found Aggie on the porch, having with her usual delicacy of feeling +left the lovers alone inside. When she saw the Ambulance, however, she +fell to sneezing violently, crying out between paroxysms that if Tish +was going to the war, she was also. But Tish hushed her sternly.</p> + +<p>There was a good engine in the Ambulance. Tish said she had ordered a +fast one, because it was often necessary to run between shells, as it +were. She then shoved on the gas as far as it would go, and we were off. +After a time, finding it impossible to sit on the folding seats inside, +we all sat on the floor, and I believe Mr. Culver held Myrtle’s hand all +of the way.</p> + +<p>He said little, beyond observing once that he felt a trifle queer about +leaving the policeman,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_151">151</a></span> who had been on duty when he picked him up at +the Court House, and who was now lost some forty-five miles from home, +in a strange land.</p> + +<p>I am glad, in this public manner, to correct the report that on the +evening of June fifth a German Zeppelin made a raid over our country, +and that the wounded were hurried to the city in a Red Cross Ambulance, +traveling at break-neck speed.</p> + +<p>At nine o’clock Mr. Culver was registered at Engine House number eleven, +fourteenth ward, third precinct.</p> + +<p>At nine-fifteen Mr. Culver and Myrtle were married at the same address +by Mr. Ostermaier, standing in front of the fire truck.</p> + +<p>But this should be related in detail. So bitter was Charlie Sands, so +uneasy about the license, and so on, that I feel in fairness to Tish +that I should relate exactly what happened.</p> + +<p>At ten o’clock that night everything was over, and we had gathered in +Tish’s apartment while Hannah broiled a steak, for Tish felt that the +occasion permitted a certain extravagance, when Charlie Sands came in. +Behind him was a dishevelled young man, with wild eyes and a suitcase. +Charlie Sands stood and glared at us.</p> + +<p>“Well!” he said. And then: “Where’s the young lady?”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_152">152</a></span></p> + +<p>“What young lady?” asked Tish, coldly.</p> + +<p>The young man stepped forward, with his fists clenched.</p> + +<p>“Mine!” he bellowed. “Mine! Don’t deny it. I recognize you. I saw +you—the lot of you. I saw you drag her into a car and kidnap her. I saw +that ass Culver and a policeman chasing you in another car. Oh, I know +you, all right. Didn’t I pay twenty-two dollars for a taxicab that got +three punctures all at once thirty miles from the city? <i>Now where is +she?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Just a moment,” said Tish’s nephew, holding him back by an arm across +his chest. “Just remember that whatever my aunt has done was done with +the best intentions.”</p> + +<p>“D—— her intentions! I want Myrtle.”</p> + +<p>The dreadful truth must have come to Tish at that moment, as it did to +the rest of us. I know that she turned pale. But she rose and pointed +magnificently to the door.</p> + +<p>“Leave my apartment,” she said majestically. And to Charlie Sands: “Take +that madman away and lock him up. Then, if you have anything to say to +me, come back alone.”</p> + +<p>“Not a step,” said the young man. “Where’s my marriage license? +Where’s——”</p> + +<p>But Charlie Sands pushed him out into the hallway<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_153">153</a></span> and closed the door +on him. Then, with folded arms he surveyed us.</p> + +<p>“That’s right!” he said. “Knit! I believe most pirates knit on off days. +Now, Aunt Letitia, I want the whole story.”</p> + +<p>“Story?”</p> + +<p>“About the license. He says the girl had the license.”</p> + +<p>“What license?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t evade!” he said sternly. “Where were you this afternoon?”</p> + +<p>“If you want the truth,” said Tish, “although it’s none of your +business, Charlie Sands, and you can unfold your arms, because the pose +has no effect on me,—I was out rounding up a young man who had not +registered. I got him and brought him in to my precinct at five minutes +to nine.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s the truth?”</p> + +<p>“Go and ask Mr. Ostermaier,” said Tish, in a bored tone.</p> + +<p>“But this boy outside——”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Tish said suddenly, “go and ask that noisy young idiot for +his blue card. It’s my belief he hasn’t registered and more than likely +he’s been making all this fuss so he’ll have an excuse if he’s found +out. How do we know,” she<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_154">154</a></span> went on, gaining force with each word, “that +there <i>is</i> a Myrtle?”</p> + +<p>“By George!” said Charlie Sands, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>It was then, for the first time in her valiant life, that I saw our Tish +weaken.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie!” she groaned, leaning back in her chair. “That Culver was +married with another man’s name on the license. What’s more, I married +him to that flibbertygibbet who had just jilted him. What have I done? +Oh, what have I done?”</p> + +<p>“They both seemed happy, Tish,” I tried to soothe her. But she refused +all consolation, and merely called Hannah and asked for some blackberry +cordial. She drank fully half a tumbler full and she recovered her poise +by the time Charlie Sands stuck his head through the door again.</p> + +<p>“You’re right, most shrewd of aunts,” he said. “He’s been playing me for +a sucker all right. Not a blue card on him! And he belongs out of town, +so it’s too late.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a jail matter,” said Tish, knitting calmly, although we afterwards +discovered that she had put a heel on the wristlet she was making. +“You’d better get his name, and I’ll notify the sheriff of his county in +the morning.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_155">155</a></span></p> + +<p>Charlie Sands came over to her and stood looking down at her.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Tish,” he said. “I believe you. I believe you firmly. I shall not +even ask about a young man named Culver, who went to get our marriage +license list at the Court House this afternoon and has not been seen +since. But I want to bring a small matter to your attention. That +policeman had not registered.”</p> + +<p>He then turned and went toward the door.</p> + +<p>“But I did, dear Aunt Letitia,” he said and was gone.</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>Tish came to see me the next afternoon, bringing the paper, which +contained a glowing account of her gift to the local Red Cross of a fine +ambulance. An editorial comment spoke of her public spirit, which for so +many years had made her a conspicuous figure in all civic work.</p> + +<p>“The city,” it finished, “can do with many like our Miss ‘Tish’ +Carberry.”</p> + +<p>But Tish showed no exultation. She sat in a rocking chair and rocked +slowly.</p> + +<p>“Read the next editorial, Lizzie,” she said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>I have it before me now, cut out rather raggedly, for I confess I was +far from calm when I did it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_156">156</a></span></p><hr class="minor"> + +<p class='center'>“A SHAMEFUL INCIDENT.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps nothing has so exposed this city to criticism as the conduct of +Officer Flinn, as shown in a news item in our columns exclusively. +Officer Flinn has been five years on the police force of this city. He +has until now borne an excellent record. But he did not register +yesterday, and on limping into the Central Station this morning told a +story manifestly intended to indicate temporary insanity and thus still +further disqualify him for the service of his country. His statement of +seeing three elderly women kidnap a young girl from in front of the +Court House, his further statement of following the kidnappers far into +the country, with a young man he cannot now produce, is sufficiently +outrageous.</p> + +<p>“But, not satisfied with this, the inventive ex-officer went further and +added a night in a pigpen, constantly threatened by a savage bull, and a +journey of forty-five miles on foot when, early this morning, the animal +retired for a belated sleep!</p> + +<p>“Representatives of this paper, investigating this curious situation, +found the farmhouse which Officer Flinn described as being the den of +the kidnappers and which he stated he had left in a state of siege, the +bandits and their victim within<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_157">157</a></span> and the young man who had accompanied +the officer, without. Needless to say, nothing bore out his story. A +young married couple, named Culver, who are spending their honeymoon +there, knew nothing of the circumstances, although stating that they +believed that a neighboring family possessed a belligerent bull.</p> + +<p>“It is a regrettable fact that the only scandal which marred a fine and +patriotic outburst of national feeling yesterday should have involved +the city organization. Is it not time that loyal citizens demand an +investigation into——”</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>“Never mind the rest, Lizzie,” Tish said wearily. “I suppose I’ll have +to get him something to do, but I don’t know what, unless I employ him +to follow me around and arrest me when I act like a dratted fool.”</p> + +<p>She sighed, and rocked slowly.</p> + +<p>“Another thing, Lizzie,” she said. “I don’t know but what Aggie was +right about Charlie Sands. I’ve been thinking it over, and I guess it +was evening, for I remember seeing a new moon just before he came, and +wishing he would be a girl. But I guess I was too late. If I’d known +about this war, I’d have wished it sooner. I’m a broken woman, Lizzie,” +she finished.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_158">158</a></span></p> + +<p>She put on her hat wrong side before, but I had not the heart to tell +her, and went away.</p> + +<p>However, late that evening she called me up, and her voice was not the +voice of a broken creature.</p> + +<p>“I thought you might like to come over, Lizzie,” she said. “That woman +below has told the janitor she is going to pour ammonia water down on my +tomato plants tonight, and I am making a few small preparations.”</p> + +<hr class="major"> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a id="SALVAGE"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_159">159</a></span> +<div class='chapter'><h2>SALVAGE</h2></div> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>After Charlie Sands had gone to a training camp in Ohio there was a +great change in Tish. She seemed for the first time to regret that she +was a woman, and there were times when that wonderful poise and dignity +that had always distinguished her, even under the most trying +circumstances, almost deserted her. She wrote, I remember, a number of +letters to the President, offering to go into the Secret Service, and +sending a photograph of the bandits she had caught in Glacier Park. But +she only received a letter from Mr. Tumulty in reply, commencing “May I +not thank you,” but saying that the Intelligence Department had recently +been increased by practically the entire population of the country, and +suggesting that she could best use her energies for the national welfare +by working for the return of the Democratic Party in 1920.</p> + +<p>However, as Tish is a Republican she was not interested in this, and for +a time she worked valiantly for the Red Cross and spent her evenings +learning the national anthem. But she recited<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_162">162</a></span> it, since, as the +well-known writer, Mr. Irvin Cobb, has observed, it can only be properly +sung by a boy whose voice is changing. It was evident, however, that she +was increasingly restive, and as I look back I wonder that we did not +realize that there was danger in her very repression.</p> + +<p>As Aggie has said, Tish is volcanic in her temperament; she remains +inactive for certain preparatory periods, but when she overflows she +does so thoroughly.</p> + +<p>The most ominous sign was when, in July of 1917, she stopped knitting +and took up French.</p> + +<p>Only the other day, while house cleaning, she came across the aeroplane +photograph of the French village of V——, where our extraordinary +experience befell us, and she turned on us both with that satiric yet +kindly gaze which we both knew so well.</p> + +<p>“If you two idiots had had your way,” she observed, “I should have been +knitting so many socks for Charlie Sands that he’d have had to be a +centipede to wear ’em all, instead of——”</p> + +<p>“Tish,” Aggie said in a shivering voice, “I wish you wouldn’t talk about +it. I can’t bear it, that’s all. It sets me shivering.”</p> + +<p>Tish eyed her coldly. “The body is entirely controlled by the mind, +Aggie,” she reminded her.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_163">163</a></span> “And when I remember how nearly your lack of +control cost us our lives, when you insisted on sneezing——”</p> + +<p>“Insisted! If you had been in a shell hole full of water up to your +neck, Tish Carberry——”</p> + +<p>“The difference between you and me, Aggie,” Tish replied calmly, “is +that I should not have been in a shell hole full of water up to my +neck.” The war was over then, of course, but there was still a disturbed +condition in certain countries, and Tish’s eyes grew reflective.</p> + +<p>“I see they are thinking of sending a real army into Russia,” she said +thoughtfully. “I suppose that Russian laundress of the Ostermaiers +could teach a body to talk enough to get about with.”</p> + +<p>Shortly after that Aggie disappeared, and I found her later on in Tish’s +bathroom crying into a Turkish towel.</p> + +<p>“I won’t go, Lizzie,” she said, “and that’s flat! I’ve done my share, +and if Tish Carberry thinks I am going to go through the rest of my life +falling into shell holes and being potted at by all sort of strange men +she can just think again. Besides that, I have been true to the memory +of one man for a good many years, and I simply refuse to be kissed by +any more of those immoral foreigners.”</p> + +<p>Aggie had in her youth been betrothed to a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_164">164</a></span> gentleman in the roofing +business, who had met with an unfortunate accident, owing to having +slipped on a tin gutter, without overshoes, one rainy day; and it is +quite true that we had all been kissed by two French generals and a man +in civilian clothes who had not even been introduced to us. But up to +that time we had kept the osculatory incident a profound secret.</p> + +<p>“Aggie,” I said with sudden suspicion, “you haven’t told Mrs. Ostermaier +about that affair, have you?”</p> + +<p>Aggie put down the towel and looked at me defiantly.</p> + +<p>“I have, Lizzie,” she said. “Not all of it, but some. She said she had +gone to the moving pictures with the youngest girl, but that she had +been obliged to take her away before it was over, owing to a picture +from France of Tish’s being kissed by a French general. She said that as +soon as he had kissed her on one cheek she turned the other, and that +she thinks the effect on Dolores was extremely bad.”</p> + +<p>It was a great shock to us all to learn that the incident of the town of +V—— had thus been made public, and that there was a moving picture of +our being decorated, et cetera, going about the country. It is, I +believe, quite usual to kiss the persons receiving the Croix de Guerre, +even when<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_165">165</a></span> of the masculine sex, and I know positively that Tish never +saw that French general again.</p> + +<p>However, in view of the unfortunate publicity I have decided to make +this record of the actual incident of the French town of V——. For the +story has got into the papers, and only yesterday Tish discovered that +the pleasant young man who had been trying to sell her a washing machine +was really a newspaper reporter in disguise.</p> + +<p>Certain things are not true. We did not see or have any conversation +with the former Emperor of the Germans; nor were any of us wounded, +though Aggie got a piece of plaster in her right eye when a shell hit +the church roof, and I was badly scratched by barbed wire. It is not +true, either, that Aggie had her teeth knocked out by a German sentry. +She unfortunately fell in the darkness and lost her upper set, and it +was impossible to light a match in order to search for them.</p> + +<p>It was, as I have said, in July of the first year of the war that both +Aggie and I noticed the change in Tish. She grew moody and abstracted, +and on two Sundays in succession she turned over her Sunday-school class +to me and went for long walks into the country. Also, going to her +apartment for Sunday dinner on, I believe, the second Sunday of the +month we were startled to see the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_166">166</a></span> Andersons, very nice people who +occupy the lower floor of the building, running out wildly into the +street. They said that the janitor had been quarreling with some one in +the furnace cellar, and that from high words, which they could plainly +hear, they had got to shooting, and a bullet had come up through the +floor and hit the phonograph.</p> + +<p>I had a strange feeling at once, and I caught Aggie’s agonized eyes on +me. We remained for some time in the street, and then, everything +seeming to be quiet, we ventured in, with two policemen leading the way, +and the Anderson baby left outside in its perambulator for fear of +accident. All was quiet, however, and we made our way upstairs to Tish’s +apartment. She was waiting for us, and reading the <i>Presbyterian +Banner</i>, but I thought she was almost too calm when we told her of the +Andersons’ terrible experience.</p> + +<p>“It’s a good riddance,” she said, referring to the phonograph. “Besides, +what right have people over here to fuss about one bullet? Think of our +boys in the trenches.”</p> + +<p>After a time she looked up suddenly and said: “It didn’t go anywhere +near the baby, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>We said it had not, and she then observed that<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_167">167</a></span> the building was a mere +shell, and that people with small children should raise them in the +country anyhow.</p> + +<p>It was during dinner—Tish had been reading Horace Fletcher for some +time, and meals lasted almost from one to the next—that Hannah came in +and said the janitor wanted to see Tish. She went out and came back +somewhat later, looking as irritated as our dear Tish ever looks, and +got her pocketbook from behind the china closet and went out again.</p> + +<p>“I expected as much,” Hannah said. Hannah is Tish’s maid. “She’s paying +blackmail. Like as not that janitor will collect a hundred dollars from +her, and that phonograph never cost more than thirty-five. They’re +paying for it on the installment plan, and the man only gets a dollar a +week.”</p> + +<p>“Hannah,” I said sharply, “if you mean to insinuate——”</p> + +<p>“Me?” Hannah replied in a hurt tone. “I don’t insinuate anything. If I +was called tomorrow before a judge and jury I’d say that for all I know +Miss Tish was reading the <i>Banner</i> all morning. But I’d pray they +wouldn’t take a trip here and look in the upper right-hand sideboard +drawer.”</p> + +<p>She then went out and slammed the door.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_168">168</a></span></p> + +<p>Aggie and I make it a point of honor never to pry into Tish’s secrets, +so we did not, of course, look into the drawer. However, a moment later +I happened to upset my glass of water and naturally went to the +sideboard drawer in question for a fresh napkin. And Tish’s revolver was +lying underneath her best monogrammed tray cover.</p> + +<p>“It’s there, Aggie,” I said. “Her revolver. She’s practicing again; and +you know what that means—war.”</p> + +<p>Aggie gave a low moan.</p> + +<p>“I wish we’d let her get that aeroplane. She might have been satisfied, +Lizzie,” she said in a shaken voice.</p> + +<p>“She might have been dead too,” I replied witheringly.</p> + +<p>And then Tish came back. She said nothing about the Andersons; but later +on when the baby started to cry she observed rather bitterly that she +didn’t see why people had to have a phonograph when they had that, and +that personally she felt that whoever destroyed that phonograph should +have a vote of thanks instead of—— She did not complete the sentence.</p> + +<p>It was soon after that that we went to visit Charlie Sands, Tish’s +nephew, at the camp where he was learning to be an officer. We called to +see the colonel in command first, and Aggie gave him<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_169">169</a></span> two extra blankets +for Charlie Sands’ bed and a pair of knitted bedroom slippers. He was +very nice to us and promised to see personally that they went to the +proper bed.</p> + +<p>“I’m always delighted to attend to these little things,” he said. “Fine +to feel that our boys are comfortable. You haven’t by any chance brought +an eiderdown pillow?”</p> + +<p>He seemed very regretful when he found we had not thought of one.</p> + +<p>“That’s too bad,” he said. “I’ve discovered that there is nothing so +comforting as a down pillow after a day of strenuous labor.”</p> + +<p>It was rather disappointing to find that the duties of his position kept +him closely confined to the office, and that therefore he had not yet +had the pleasure of meeting Tish’s nephew, but he said he had no doubt +they would meet before long.</p> + +<p>“They’re all brought in here sooner or later, for one thing or another,” +he said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>As Tish observed going out, it was pleasant to think of Charlie +Sands’ being in such good hands.</p> + +<p>It was, however, rather a shock to find him, when we did find him, lying +on his stomach in a mud puddle with a rifle in front of him. We did not +recognize him at once, as a lot of men were<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_170">170</a></span> yelling, and indeed just at +first he did not seem particularly glad to see us.</p> + +<p>“Suffering cats!” he shouted. “Don’t you see we’re shooting? You’ll be +killed. Get behind the line!”</p> + +<p>“I guess it won’t defeat the Allies if you stop shooting for two +minutes,” Tish observed with her splendid poise. “But if you will take +charge of this homemade apple butter, which I didn’t trust your colonel +with, we will go to your sitting room, or wherever it is you receive +visitors.”</p> + +<p>There was quite a crowd of young officers round us by that time and we +waited to be introduced. But Charlie Sands did not seem to think of it, +so Tish put down the apple butter on the ground and said to one of them:</p> + +<p>“Now, young man, since we seem to be in your way, perhaps you will take +us to some place to wait for my nephew.” Then seeing that he looked +rather strange she added: “But perhaps you have never met. This is my +nephew, Mr. Sands. If you will tell me who you are——”</p> + +<p>“Williams is my name,” he said. “I—Major Williams. I—I’ve met your +nephew—that is—— Private Sands, take these ladies to the Y. M. C. A. +hut, and report back here in an hour.”</p> + +<p>Tish did not like this; nor did I. As Tish observed<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_171">171</a></span> later, he might +have been speaking to the butler.</p> + +<p>“He might at least have said ‘Mister,’ and a ‘please’ hurts no one,” she +said. As for giving him only an hour when we had come a hundred +miles—it was absurd. But war does queer things.</p> + +<p>It had indeed strangely altered Tish’s nephew. We were all worried about +him that day. It was his manner that was odd. He seemed, as Tish said +later, suppressed. When for instance we wished to take him back to +headquarters and present him to the colonel he said at once: “Who? Me? +The colonel! Say, you’d better get this and get it right: I’m nothing +here. I’m less than nothing. Why, the colonel could walk right over me +on the parade ground and never even know he’d stepped on anything. If I +was a louse and he was a can of insect powder——”</p> + +<p>“Now see here, Charlie Sands,” Tish said firmly, “I’ll trouble you to +remember that there are certain words not in my vocabulary; and louse is +one of them.”</p> + +<p>“Still, a vocabulary is a better place than some others I can think of,” +he observed.</p> + +<p>“What is more,” Tish added, “you are misjudging that charming colonel. +He told us himself that he tried to be a mother to you all.”</p> + +<p>She then told him how interested the colonel<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_172">172</a></span> had been in the blankets, +and so on, but I must say Charlie Sands was very queer about it. He +stopped and looked at us all in turn, and then he got out the dirtiest +handkerchief I have ever seen and wiped his forehead with it.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you’d better say it again,” he said; “I don’t seem to get it +altogether. You are sure it was the colonel?”</p> + +<p>So Tish repeated it, but when she came to the eiderdown pillow he held +up his hand.</p> + +<p>“All right,” he said in a strange tone. “I believe you. I—you don’t +mind if I go and get a drink of water, do you? My mouth is dry.”</p> + +<p>Dear Tish watched him as he went away, and shook her head.</p> + +<p>“He is changed already,” she observed sadly. “That is one of the +deadliest effects of war. It takes the bright young spirit of youth and +feeds it on stuff cooked by men, with not even time enough to chew +properly, and puts it on its stomach in the mud, while its head is in +the clouds of idealism. I think that a letter to the Secretary of War +might be effective.”</p> + +<p>I must admit that we had a series of disappointments that day. The first +was in finding that they had put Tish’s nephew, a grandson of a former +Justice of the Supreme Court, into a building with a number of other +men. Not only<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_173">173</a></span> that but without so much as a screen, or a closet in +which to hang up his clothing.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, hang up my clothes?” he said when we protested. +“They’re hung up all right—on me.”</p> + +<p>“It seems rather terrible,” Aggie objected gently. “No privacy or +anything.”</p> + +<p>“Privacy! I haven’t got anything to hide.”</p> + +<p>We found some little comfort, however, in the fact that beneath the +pitiful cot that he called his bed he had a small tin trunk. Even that +was destroyed, however, by the entrance of a thin young man called +Smithers, who reached under the cot and dragging out the trunk proceeded +to take out one of the pairs of socks that Aggie had knitted.</p> + +<p>Charlie Sands paid no attention, but Tish fixed this person with a cold +eye.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you made a mistake?” she inquired. The young man was changing +his socks, with his back to us, and he looked back over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Sorry!” he said. “Didn’t like to ask you to go out. Haven’t any place +else to go, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you putting on my nephew’s socks?”</p> + +<p>“Extraordinary!” he said. “Did you notice that?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll trouble you to take them off, young man.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said reflectively, “I’ll tell you what<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_174">174</a></span> we’ll do: I’ll take +off these socks if he’ll return what he’s got on that belongs to me. I +don’t remember exactly, but I’m darn sure of his underwear and his +breeches. You see, while you good people at home are talking democracy +we’re practicing it, and Sands’ idea is the best yet. He swaps an entire +outfit for a pair of socks. Even the Democratic Party can’t improve on +that.”</p> + +<p>Tish was very thoughtful during the remainder of the afternoon, but she +brightened somewhat when, later on, we sat on the steps of a building +watching Charlie Sands and a number of others going through what Major +Williams called setting-up exercises. She was greatly interested and +made notes in her memorandum book. I have a copy of the book before me +now. The letters T, S, A and B stand respectively for Toes, Stomach, Arms and Back. Arms +and Back. I shall not quote all Tish’s notes, but this one, for +instance, is illustrative of her thorough methods:</p> + +<p>“Lying on B. in mud, H. flat on ground, L. rigidly extended: Rise L. in +air six times. Retaining prone position rise to sitting position without +aid of A., but using S. muscles. Repeat six times. [Note: Director uses +language unfitting a soldier and a gentleman. Report to the Secretary of +War.]”</p> + +<p>She recorded the other movements with similar<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_175">175</a></span> care, and after one is +the thoughtful observation: “Excellent to make Lizzie look less like a +bolster.”</p> + +<p>I find all of Tish’s notes taken that day as very indicative of the +thoroughness with which she does everything. For instance she made the +following recommendations to be sent to the War Department:</p> + +<p>“That the camp cooks be instructed to use hemmed tea towels instead of +sacking, and to boil the dish towels after each meal, preferably with +soap powder and soda.</p> + +<p>“That screens be provided between cots, to give that measure of privacy +necessary to a man’s self-respect.</p> + +<p>“Large, commodious clothes closets in the barracks. A bag of camphor in +each one would serve to keep away moths. Also, that wearing apparel +should not be borrowed.</p> + +<p>“All army blankets should be marked as to the end to go to the top of +the cot. Sheets should also be provided, as blankets scratch and have a +tendency to keep the soldier awake.</p> + +<p>“Soda fountains here and there through the camp would do a great deal to +prevent the men in training from going to neighboring towns after +certain deleterious liquids. [Should, however, be served by male +attendants.]</p> + +<p>“Pyjamas should be included in every soldier’s<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_176">176</a></span> equipment. [Charlie +Sands had told us a startling thing. On inquiring what had become of the +raw-silk pyjamas we had made him as a part of his army equipment he +confessed that he did not use them, and in fact had torn them into rags +to clean his gun. He went even further, and stated that it was not the +custom of the men to use pyjamas at all, and that in fact on cold nights +some of them merely removed their hats and shoes, and then retired.]</p> + +<p>“Table linen, even if coarse, should be provided. Are our men to come +back to us savages?”</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>It may have been purely coincidence, but soon after Tish’s +recommendations had been received at the War Department the Fosdick +Commission was appointed. Yet we carried away a conviction that though +certain things had been sadly neglected Charlie Sands was in good hands. +The colonel came up to speak to us when, seeing the men standing in rows +on the parade ground about sunset while the band played, we stood +watching.</p> + +<p>He was very pleasant, and said that they were about to bring in the +flag. Some such conversation then ensued:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tish</span>: Do you bring in the flag every night?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Colonel</span>: Every night, madam.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_177">177</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tish</span>: Then you are a better housekeeper than I thought you were.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Colonel</span>: I beg your pardon?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tish</span> (magnanimously): You may not know much about dishcloths, but you +are right about flags. They do fade, and I dare say dew is about as bad +as rain for them.</p> + +<p>He seemed very much gratified by her approval, and said in twenty-five +years in the Army he had never failed to have the flag brought in at +night. “I may fail in other things,” he said wistfully. “To err is +human, you know. But the flag proposition is one I stand pat on.”</p> + +<p>It was after our return visit to the camp that the real change in Tish +began. We had gone to our cottage in Lake Penzance for the summer, and +Tish suggested that we study French there. She had an excellent French +book, with photographs in it showing where to place the tongue and how +to pucker the lips for certain sounds. At first she did not allow us to +do anything but practice these facial expressions, and I remember +finding Hannah in the kitchen one night crying into her bread sponge and +asking her what the trouble was.</p> + +<p>“I just can’t bear it, Miss Lizzie,” she said; “when I look in and see +the three of you sitting there making faces I nearly go crazy. I’ve got +so<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_178">178</a></span> I do it myself, and the milkman won’t leave the bottles no nearer +than the gate.”</p> + +<p>After some days of silent practice Tish considered that we could advance +a lesson, and we began with syllable sounds, thus:</p> + +<p><i>Ba</i>—Said with tip of tongue against lower teeth.</p> + +<p><i>Be</i>—Show two upper middle teeth.</p> + +<p><i>Bi</i>—Broad smile.</p> + +<p><i>Bu</i>—Whistle.</p> + +<p><i>Bon</i>—Pout.</p> + +<p>It was an excellent method, though we all found difficulty in showing +only two upper middle teeth.</p> + +<p>There were also syllables which called for hollow cheeks, and I remember +Tish’s irritation at my failure.</p> + +<p>“If you would eat less whipped cream, Lizzie,” she said scathingly, “you +might learn the French language. Otherwise you might as well give it +up.”</p> + +<p>“I dare say there are plump people among the French,” I retorted. “And I +never heard that a Frenchwoman who put on twenty pounds or so went dumb. +That woman who trims your hats isn’t dumb so you could notice it. I’d +thank my stars if she was. She can say forty dollars fast<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_179">179</a></span> enough, and +she doesn’t suck in her cheeks either!”</p> + +<p>In the end Aggie and I gave up the French lessons, but Tish kept them +up. She learned ten nouns a day, and she made an attempt at verbs, but +gave it up.</p> + +<p>“I can secure anything I want, if I ever visit our valiant Ally,” she +said, “by naming it in the French and then making the appropriate +gesture.”</p> + +<p>She made the experiment on Hannah, and it worked well enough. She would +say “butter” or “spoon” and point to her place at the table; but Hannah +almost left on the strength of it, and when she tried it on Mr. +Jennings, the fishman, he told all over Penzance that she had lost +either her mind or her teeth.</p> + +<p>Aggie and I were extremely uneasy all of July, for Tish does nothing +without a motive, and she was learning in French such warlike phrases as +“Take the trenches,” “The enemy is retiring,” and “We must attack from +the rear.” She also took to testing out the engine of her automobile in +various ways, and twice, trying to cross a plowed field with it, had to +be drawn out with a rope. She took to driving at night without lights +also, and had the ill luck to run into the Penzance doctor’s buggy and +take a wheel off it.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_180">180</a></span></p> + +<p>It was after that incident, when we had taken the doctor home and put +him to bed, that I demanded an explanation.</p> + +<p>But she only said with a far-away look in her eyes: “It may be a useful +accomplishment sometime. If one were going after wounded at night it +would be invaluable.”</p> + +<p>“Not if you killed all the doctors on the way!” I snapped.</p> + +<p>The limit to our patience came soon after that. One morning about the +first of August the boatman from the lake came up the path with a spade +over his shoulder. Tish, we perceived, tried to take him aside, but he +gave her no time.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve done it, Miss Tish,” he said, “and God only knows what’ll +happen if somebody runs into it between now and tomorrow morning.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody will know you did it unless you continue to shout the way you +are doing now.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll not tell,” he observed; “I’m not so proud of it. But +’twouldn’t surprise me a mite if we both did some time together in the +county jail, on the head of it, Miss Tish.”</p> + +<p>Well, Aggie went pale, but Tish merely gave him five dollars and spent +the rest of the day shut in the garage with her car. I went back and +looked in the window during the afternoon, and<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_181">181</a></span> she was on her back +under it, hammering at something.</p> + +<p>That night at dinner she made an announcement.</p> + +<p>“I have for some time,” she said, “been considering—go out, Hannah, and +close the door—been considering the values of different engines for an +ambulance which I propose to take to France.”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” Aggie cried in a heart-rending tone.</p> + +<p>“And I have come to the conclusion that my own car has the best engine +on the market. Tonight I propose to make a final test and if it succeeds +I shall have an ambulance body built on it. I know this engine; I may +almost say I have an affection for it. And it has served me well. Why, I +ask you, should I abandon it and take some new-fangled thing that would +as like as not lie down and die the minute it heard the first shell?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” I said with some feeling; “why should you, when you can count +on me doing it anyhow?”</p> + +<p>She ignored that, however, and said she had fully determined to go +abroad and to get as near the Front as possible. She said also that she +had already written General Pershing, and that she expected to start the +moment his reply came.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_182">182</a></span></p> + +<p>“I told him,” she observed, “that I would prefer not being assigned to +any particular part of the line, as it was my intention, though not +sacrificing the national good to it, to remain as near my nephew as +possible. Pershing is a father and I felt that he would understand.”</p> + +<p>She then prepared to take the car out, and with a feeling of desperation +Aggie and I followed her.</p> + +<p>For some time we pursued the even tenor of our way, varied only by +Tish’s observing over her shoulder: “No matter what happens, do not be +alarmed, and don’t yell!”</p> + +<p>Aggie was for getting out then, but we have always stood by Tish in an +emergency, and we could not fail her then. She had turned into a dark +lane and we were moving rapidly along it.</p> + +<p>“When I say ‘Ready!’ brace yourselves for a jar,” Tish admonished us. +Aggie was trembling, and she had just put a small flask of blackberry +cordial to her lips to steady herself when the machine went over the +edge of a precipice, throwing Aggie into the road and myself forward +into the front of the car.</p> + +<p>There was complete silence for a moment. Then Aggie said in a +reproachful voice: “You didn’t say ‘Ready!’ Tish.”</p> + +<p>Tish, however, said nothing, and in the starlight I<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_183">183</a></span> perceived her bent +forward over the steering wheel. The car was standing on its forward end +at the time.</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I cried. “Tish!”</p> + +<p>She then straightened herself and put both hands over the pit of her +stomach.</p> + +<p>“I’ve burst something, Lizzie,” she said in a strangled tone. “My gall +bladder, probably.”</p> + +<p>She then leaned back and closed her eyes. We were greatly alarmed, as it +is unlike our brave Tish to give in until the very last, but finally she +sat erect, groaning.</p> + +<p>“I am going back and kill that boatman,” she said. “I told him to dig a +shell hole, not a cellar.” Here she stood up and felt her pulse. “If +I’ve burst anything,” she announced a moment later, “it’s a corset +steel. That boatman is a fool, but at least he has given us a chance to +see if we are of the material which France requires at this tragic +juncture.”</p> + +<p>“I can tell you right away that I am not,” Aggie said tartly. “I’m not +and I don’t want to be. Though I can’t see how biting my tongue half +through is going to help France anyhow.”</p> + +<p>But Tish was not listening. She had lifted three shovels out of the car, +and we could see her dauntless figure outlined against the darkness.</p> + +<p>“The Germans,” she said at last, “are over<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_184">184</a></span> there behind that chicken +house. The machine is stalled in a shell hole and contains a wounded +soldier. We are being shelled and there are those what-you-call-’em +lights overhead. We must escape or be killed. There is only one thing to +do. Lizzie, what is your idea of the next step?”</p> + +<p>“Anybody but a lunatic would know that,” I said tartly. “The thing to do +is to go home and make an affidavit that we never saw that car, and that +the hole in this road is where it was struck by lighting.”</p> + +<p>“Aggie,” Tish said without paying any attention to me, “here is a shovel +for you.”</p> + +<p>But Aggie sniffed.</p> + +<p>“Not at all, Tish Carberry,” she observed. “I am the wounded soldier, +and I don’t stir a foot.”</p> + +<p>In the end, however, we all went to work to dig the car out of the hole, +and at three o’clock in the morning Tish climbed in and started the +engine. It climbed out slowly, but as Tish observed it gave an excellent +account of itself.</p> + +<p>“And I must say,” she said, “I believe we have all shown that we can +meet emergency in the proper spirit. As for the hole, that driveling +idiot who dug it can fill it up tomorrow morning and no one be the +wiser.”</p> + +<p>I have made this explanation because of the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_185">185</a></span> ugly reports spread by the +boatman himself. It is necessary, because it appears that he became +intoxicated on the money Tish had so generously given him, and the milk +wagon which supplied us going into the hole an hour or so after we had +left he shamelessly told his own part and ours in the catastrophe. The +result was that waking the next morning with a severe attack of lumbago +I heard our splendid Tish being attacked verbally by the milkman and +forced to pay an outrageous sum in damages.</p> + +<p>By September Tish had had the old body removed from her automobile and +an ambulance body built on. She made the drawings for it herself, and it +contained many improvements over the standard makes. It contained, for +instance, a cigarette lighter—not that Tish smokes, but because wounded +men always do, and we knew that matches were scarce in France. It also +contained an ice-water tank, a reading lamp, with a small portable +library of improving books selected by our clergyman, Mr. Ostermaier, +and a false bottom. This last Tish was rather mysterious about, merely +remarking that it might be a good place for Aggie to retire to if she +took a sneezing spell within earshot of the enemy.</p> + +<p>When I look back and recall how foresighted Letitia Carberry was I am +filled with admiration<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_186">186</a></span> of those sterling qualities which have so many +times brought us safely out of terrible danger.</p> + +<p>We were, however, doomed at first to real disappointment. With +everything arranged, with the ambulance ready and our costumes made, we +could not get to France. Tish made a special trip to Washington to see +the Secretary of War, and he remembered very well her recommendations as +to the camps, and so forth, and said that he had referred the matter of +pyjamas, for instance, to the Chief of Staff. He himself felt that the +point was well taken. He believed in pyjamas, and wore them, but that he +had an impression, though he did not care to go on record about it, that +the chief of staff advocated nightshirts. He also said that he had a +letter from General Pershing asking that no relatives of soldiers go to +France, as he was afraid that the gentle and restraining influence of +their loved ones would impair their taste for war.</p> + +<p>Aggie and I began to have a little hope at that time, and Aggie tore up +a will she had made leaving her property to the Red Cross, on condition +that it kept up Mr. Wiggins’ lot in the cemetery. But just as we were +feeling more cheerful Aggie had a warning. She had been reading +everywhere of the revival in spiritualism, and once before when she was +in doubt she had been most<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_187">187</a></span> successful with a woman who told the future +with the paste letters that are used in soup. She went to a clairvoyant +and he told her to be very careful of high places, and that the warning +came from some one who had passed over from a high place. He thought it +was an aviator, but we knew better, and Aggie looked at me with agonized +eyes.</p> + +<p>Aggie has said since that when she was in her terrible position at V—— +she remembered that warning, but of course it was too late then.</p> + +<p>It was when we had gone back to the city that we realized that Tish was +still determined to get to France. Only two days after our return she +came in with a book called “Military Codes and Signals,” and gave it to +Aggie. She had it marked at a place which told how to signal at night +with an electric flashlight, and from that time on for several weeks she +would sit in her window at night, with Aggie on the pavement across the +street, also with a pocket flash, both of them signaling anything that +came into their heads. It was rather hard on Aggie on cold evenings, and +I remember very well that one night she came in and threw her flashlight +on the floor, and then burst into tears.</p> + +<p>“I’m through, Tish,” she said, “and that’s all there is to it! I’ve +stood being frozen until my<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_188">188</a></span> feet are so cold I can’t tell one from the +other, but I draw the line at being insulted.”</p> + +<p>“Insulted?” Tish said. “If you are going to mind trifles when your +country’s safety is in question you’d better stay at home. Who insulted +you?”</p> + +<p>Well, it seems that by way of conversation Aggie had flashed that the +wretch with the cornet who rooms above Tish’s apartment was at the +window watching and she wished he’d fall out and break his neck.</p> + +<p>He had then put out his own light and had appeared in the window again, +and had flashed in the same code: “Come, birdie, fly with me.”</p> + +<p>For certain reasons I have decided not to reveal how Tish finally +arranged that we should get to France. As the Secretary of War says, it +might make him very unpopular with the many women he had been obliged to +refuse. It is enough to say that the wonderful day finally came when we +found ourselves on the very ocean which had carried Tish’s nephew on his +glorious mission. Aggie was particularly exalted as we went down the +bay, escorted by encircling aeroplanes.</p> + +<p>“I’m not a brave woman, Tish,” she said softly, “but as I look back on +that glorious sky line I feel that no sacrifice is too great to make for +it. I am ready to do or die.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_189">189</a></span></p> + +<p>“Humph,” said Tish. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, after the prices +they charged me at that hotel the Germans are welcome to New York. I’d +give it to them and say ‘Thank you’ when they took it.”</p> + +<p>We then went below and tried on our life-preserving suits, which the +clerk at the steamship office had rented to us at fifteen dollars each.</p> + +<p>He said they were most essential, and that when properly inflated one +could float about in them for a week. Indeed, as Tish said, with a +compass and a small sail one could probably make the nearest land, such +as the Azores, supporting life in the meantime with ship’s biscuits, and +so on, in waterproof packages, carried in the pockets provided for the +purpose. She did indeed go so far as to place a bottle of blackberry +cordial in the pocket of each suit, and also a small tin of preserved +ginger, which we have always found highly sustaining. But we were +somewhat uneasy to discover that it required a considerable length of +time to get into the suits.</p> + +<p>We had barely got into them when we heard a bugle blowing and men +running. Just after that an alarm bell began to ring, and Aggie said “It +has come!” and as usual commenced to sneeze violently. We ran out on +deck, dear Tish saying to be calm, as more lives were lost through +excitement<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_190">190</a></span> than anything else; though she herself was none too calm, +for when we found afterward that it was only a lifeboat drill I +discovered that she was carrying her silver-handled umbrella.</p> + +<p>Every one was on the deck, and I must say that we were followed by +envious glances. As we had inflated the suits they were not immodest, +effectually concealing the lines of the figure, but making it difficult +to pass through doorways.</p> + +<p>There was a very nice young man on deck, in a Red Cross uniform, and he +said that as he was the only male in our lifeboat he was pleased to see +that three of the eighteen ladies in it were prepared to take care of +themselves. He said that he felt he would probably have his hands full +saving the fifteen others.</p> + +<p>“Not,” he added, “that I should feel comfortable until you were safely +in the boat anyhow. I should not like to think of you floating about, +perhaps for weeks, and possibly dodging sharks and so on.”</p> + +<p>Tish liked him at once, and said that in case of trouble if the boat +were crowded we would only ask for a towing line.</p> + +<p>It was while this conversation was going on that Aggie suddenly said: +“I’ve changed my mind, Tish, I’m not going.”</p> + +<p>Well, we looked at her. She was a green color,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_191">191</a></span> and she said she’d thank +us to put her off in something or other and let her go back. She wasn’t +seasick, but she just didn’t care for the sea. She never had and she +never would. And then she said “Ugh!” and the Red Cross man put his arm +around her as far as it would go in the rubber suit, and said that +certainly she was not seasick, but that some people found the sea air +too stimulating, and she’d better go below and not get too much of it at +first.</p> + +<p>He helped us get Aggie down to her cabin, but unluckily he put her down +on Tish’s knitting. We had the misfortune to hear a slow hissing sound, +and her inflated suit began to wilt immediately, where a steel needle +had penetrated it.</p> + +<p>Even then both Tish and I noticed that he had a sad face, and later on, +when we had put Aggie to bed in her life suit, for she refused to have +it taken off, we sat in Tish’s cabin across, listening to Aggie’s moans +and to his story.</p> + +<p>Tish had immediately demanded to know why he was not in the uniform of a +fighting man, and he said at once: “I’m glad you asked me that. I’ve +been wanting to tell the whole ship about it, but it’s so darned +ridiculous. I’ve tried every branch and they’ve all turned me down, for +a—for a physical infirmity.”</p> + +<p>“Flat feet?” Tish asked.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_192">192</a></span></p> + +<p>“No. The truth is, I’ve had a milk leg. Fact. I know it +is—er—generally limited to the other sex at—er—certain periods. But +I’ve had it. Can’t hike any distance. Can’t run. Couldn’t even kick a +Hun,” he added bitterly. “And what’s more, there’s a girl on this ship +who thinks I’m a slacker, and I can’t tell her about it. She wouldn’t +believe me if I did—though why a fellow would make up a milk leg I +don’t know. And she’d laugh. Everybody laughs. I’ve made a lot of people +happy.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you tell her you have heart disease?” Tish inquired in a +gentler tone. Though not young herself she has preserved a fine interest +in the love affairs of youth.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve got that all right,” he said gloomily. “But it’s not the sort +that keeps a fellow out of the Army. It’s—well, that doesn’t matter. +But suppose I told her that? She wouldn’t marry me with heart disease.”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” Aggie called faintly.</p> + +<p>In the end we were obliged to cut the rubber suit off with the scissors, +as she not only refused to get up but wanted to drown if we were +torpedoed. We therefore did not see the young man again until evening, +and then he was with a very pretty girl in a Y. M. C. A. uniform. We had +gone up on deck for air, and Tish was looking<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_193">193</a></span> for the captain. She had +a theory that if we could put Aggie in a hammock she would feel better, +as the hammock would remain stationary while the ship rocked. Just as we +passed them, the girl said: “He’s the best-looking man on the ship +anyhow. And he’s a captain in the infantry. He says it is the most +dangerous branch of the service.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he does, does he?” said the Red Cross young man. “Well, you’d +better wait six months before you fall too hard for him. He may get his +face changed, and there isn’t much behind it.”</p> + +<p>He spoke quite savagely, and both Tish and I felt that he was making a +mistake, and that gentleness, with just a suggestion of the caveman +beneath, would have been more efficacious. Indeed when we knew Mr. +Burton better—that was his name—we ventured the suggestion, but he +only shook his head.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know her,” he said. “She is the sort of girl who likes to +take the soft-spoken fellow and make him savage. And when she gets the +cave type she wants to tame him. I’ve tried being both, so I know. I’m +damned—I beg your pardon—I’m cursed if I know why I care for her. I +suppose it’s because she has about as much use for me as she has for a +dose of Paris green. But if you hear of that Weber who hangs round her<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_194">194</a></span> +going overboard some night, I hope you’ll understand. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>That conversation, however, was later on in the voyage. That first night +out Tish saw the captain and he finally agreed, if we said nothing about +it, to have a sailor’s hammock hung in Aggie’s cabin.</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t do to have it get about, madam,” he said. “You know how it +is—I’d have all the passengers in hammocks in twenty-four hours, and +the crew sleeping on the decks. And you know crews are touchy these +days, what with submarines and chaplains and young shave-tails of +officers who expect to be kissed every time they’re asked to get off a +coil of rope.”</p> + +<p>We promised secrecy, and that evening a hammock was hung in Aggie’s +cabin. It was not much like a hammock, however, and it was so high that +Tish said it looked more like a chandelier than anything else. Getting +Aggie into it required the steward, the stewardess, Mr. Burton and +ourselves, but it was finally done, and we all felt easier at once, +except that I was obliged to stand on a chair to feed her her beef tea.</p> + +<p>However, just after midnight Tish and I in our cabin across heard a +terrible thud, followed by silence and then by low, dreadful moans. +Aggie had fallen out. She did not speak at all for some<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_195">195</a></span> time, and when +she did it was to horrify Tish. For she said: “Damnation!”</p> + +<p>Tish immediately turned and left the cabin, leaving me to press a cold +knife against the lump on Aggie’s head and to put her back into her +berth. She refused the hammock absolutely. She said she had forgotten +where she was, and had merely reached out for her bedroom slippers, +which were six feet below, when the whole thing had turned over and +thrown her out.</p> + +<p>She insisted that she did not remember saying anything improper, but +that the time Tish’s horse had thrown her in the cemetery she had +certainly used strong language, to say the least.</p> + +<p>I remember telling Tish this, and she justified herself by the +subconscious mind, which she was studying at the time. She said that the +subconscious mind stored up all the wicked words and impulses which the +conscious mind puts virtuously from it. And she recalled the fact that +Mr. Ostermaier, our clergyman, taking laughing gas to have a tooth +drawn, tried to kiss the dentist on coming out, and called him a sweet +little thing—though Mrs. Ostermaier is quite a large woman.</p> + +<p>We became quite friendly with Mr. Burton during the remainder of the +voyage. He formed the habit of coming down every evening before<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_196">196</a></span> dinner +to our cabin and having a dose of blackberry cordial to prevent +seasickness.</p> + +<p>“I’ve had it before,” he said on one occasion, “but never with +such—er—medicinal qualities. You don’t put anything in it but +blackberries, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Only a little alcohol to preserve it,” I told him with some pride. I +generally make it myself.</p> + +<p>“I will say this for it: It’s extremely well preserved,” he said, and +filled up the tooth mug again. It was after that that he told us that +Hilda had refused to marry him, and was flirting outrageously with +Captain Weber.</p> + +<p>“I only say this,” he added gloomily: “He’s right when he says he +belongs in the infantry. He’s got the photographs of five youngsters in +his cabin; or he did have. He’s probably hidden them now.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you tell her?” Tish demanded.</p> + +<p>“Why should I? Let her make a fool of herself if she wants to,” he said +despondently. “What chance have I against a shipload of ’em, anyhow? If +it wasn’t this one it would be another. She’s got her eye on a tank now, +and she’s only waiting for that aviator to forget his stomach to sit at +his feet and worship. God only<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_197">197</a></span> knows what would happen if we had a +Croix de Guerre on board.”</p> + +<p>He sat for some time, sipping the blackberry cordial and looking into +space.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got it figured out this way,” he said at last. “I’ve got to pull +off something over there. That’s all. Got to get in the papers and get a +medal and a wooden leg. She’d stand for a wooden leg better than a milk +one,” he added viciously.</p> + +<p>Both Aggie and I noticed that Tish regarded him with a contemplative +eye, and from that time on she spent at least a part of every day with +him. He paid no attention at all to Hilda from that time on, and one +morning while Tish and Mr. Burton were walking by her chair she dropped +a book. But he did not seem to see it, and that evening the captain +moved over to her table, and Mr. Burton was very gay, but ate hardly any +dinner.</p> + +<p>We all went in the same train to Paris, and he had a sort of revenge +then. For the captain could not speak French, and she had to ask Mr. +Burton to order her dinner for her. But he ordered only one, and the +captain was furious, naturally.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Burton,” he said, “I’m here, you know.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_198">198</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why, so you are,” said Mr. Burton coldly. “I hadn’t noticed you.”</p> + +<p>“How the devil can I make that woman understand that I’m hungry?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton reflected.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you,” he said. “You might open your mouth and point down your +throat. Most of these French know the sign language.”</p> + +<p>He turned away then, and I saw a gleam of triumph in Tish’s eye. She +leaned over to him.</p> + +<p>“She’s furious that he can’t speak French,” she said. “Talk to me in +French, and don’t mind what I say. The only thing I can remember is a +list of a hundred nouns. I’ll string them together somehow.”</p> + +<p>There was a French officer near us, and I saw him watching Tish +carefully as the conversation went on. She said afterward that as near +as she could make out, Mr. Burton was telling the history of the country +we went through, and that when he paused she would say in French: +“Handkerchief, fish, trunk, pencil, book, soup,” or some such list.</p> + +<p>But it impressed Hilda; I could see that.</p> + +<p>It was some time before we got out of Paris, and the news we had of +Charlie Sands was that he was at the Front, near V——, which was held +by the enemy. Tish went out and bought a map,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_199">199</a></span> and decided that she +would be sent in that direction or nowhere. But for several weeks +nothing happened, and she found the ambulance had come and was being +used to carry ice cream to convalescent hospitals round Paris. What was +more, she could not get it back.</p> + +<p>For once I thought our dauntless Tish was daunted. How true it is that +we forget past success in present failure! But after a number of +mysterious absences she came into my room after Aggie had gone to bed +and said: “I’ve found where they keep it.”</p> + +<p>“Keep what?”</p> + +<p>“My ambulance.”</p> + +<p>I was putting my hair on wavers at the time, and I saw in the mirror +that she had her hat and coat on, and the expression she wears when she +has decided to break the law.</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to spend this night in a French jail, Tish Carberry,” I +said.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she retorted, and turned to go out.</p> + +<p>But the thought of Tish alone, embarked on a dangerous enterprise, was +too much for me, and I called her back.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go,” I said, “and I’ll steal, if that’s what you’re up to. But I’m +a fool, and I know it. You can’t deceive a lot of Frenchmen with your +handkerchief-fish-trunk-pencil<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_200">200</a></span> stuff. And you can’t book-soup-oysters +yourself out of jail.”</p> + +<p>“I’m taking my own, and only my own,” Tish said with dignity.</p> + +<p>Well, I dressed and we went out into the street. I tried to tell Tish +that even if we got it we couldn’t take it home and hide it under the +bed or in a bureau drawer, but she was engrossed in her own thoughts, +and besides, the streets were entirely dark and not a taxicab anywhere. +She had a city map, however, and a flashlight, and at last about two in +the morning we reached the street where she said it was stored in a +garage.</p> + +<p>I was limping by that time, and there were cold chills running up and +down my spine, but Tish was quite calm. And just then there was a +terrific outburst of noise, whistles and sirens of all sorts, and a man +walking near us suddenly began to run and dived into a doorway.</p> + +<p>“Air raid,” said Tish calmly, and walked on. I clutched at her arm, but +she shook me off.</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I begged.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be a craven, Lizzie,” she said. “Statistics show that the +percentage of mortality from these things is considerably less than from +mumps, and not to be compared with riding in an elevator or with the +perils of maternity.”</p> + +<p>All sorts of people were running madly by<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_201">201</a></span> that time, and suddenly +disappearing, and a man with a bird cage in his hand bumped flat into me +and knocked me down. Tish, however, had moved on without noticing, and +when I caught up to her she was standing beside a wide door which was +open, staring in.</p> + +<p>“This is the place,” she said. And just then half a dozen men poured out +through the doorway and ran along the street. Tish drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>“You see?” she said. “Providence watches over those whose motives are +pure, even if compelled to certain methods——”</p> + +<p>There was a terrible crash at that moment down the street, followed by +glass falling all round us.</p> + +<p>“——which are not entirely ethical,” Tish continued calmly. “We might +as well go inside, Lizzie. They may drop another, and we shall never +have such a chance again.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t walk, Tish,” I said in a quavering voice. “My knees are bending +backward.”</p> + +<p>“Fiddlesticks!” she replied scornfully and stalked inside.</p> + +<p>I have since reflected on Tish during that air raid, on the calm manner +in which she filled the gasoline tank of her ambulance, on the way in +which she flung out six empty ice-cream freezers,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_202">202</a></span> and the perfect +aplomb with which she kicked the tires to see if they contained +sufficient air. For such attributes I have nothing but admiration. But I +am not so certain as to the mental processes which permitted her calmly +to take three spare tires from other cars and to throw them into the +ambulance.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is with all true greatness an element of ruthlessness. Or +perhaps she subsequently sent conscience money to the Red Cross +anonymously. There are certain matters on which I do not interrogate +her.</p> + +<p>I was still sitting on the running board of a limousine inhaling my +smelling salts when she pronounced all ready and we got into the driving +seat and started. Just as we moved out a man came in from the street and +began to yell at us. When Tish paid no attention to him he took a flying +leap and landed on the step beside us.</p> + +<p>“Here, what the —— do you think you are doing?” he said in English. +“Where’s your permit?”</p> + +<p>Tish said nothing, but turned out into the street and threw on the gas. +He was on my side and the jerk almost flung him off.</p> + +<p>“Stop this car!” he yelled. “Hey, Grogan! Grogan!”</p> + +<p>But whoever Grogan was he was still in some<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_203">203</a></span> cellar probably, and by +that time we were going very fast. Unluckily the glass in the street cut +all four tires almost immediately, and we swung madly from one side to +the other. And just then, too, we struck the hole the shell had made, +and went into it with a terrible bump. The man disappeared immediately, +but Tish was quite composed. She simply changed gears, and the car +crawled out on the other side.</p> + +<p>“This motor will go anywhere, Lizzie,” she said easily. “I feel that my +judgment is entirely vindicated. Where’s that man?”</p> + +<p>“Killed, probably,” I retorted with a certain acidity.</p> + +<p>“I hope not,” she replied with kindly tolerance. “But if he is it will +be supposed that a bomb did it.”</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the <i>Herald</i> next morning reported the miraculous +escape of an American found on the very edge of a shell hole, +recovering, but showing one of the curious results of shell shock, being +convinced that two women had stolen a car from his garage, and had run +it into the hole in a deliberate attempt to kill him.</p> + +<p>Aggie read this to us at breakfast, and Tish merely observed that it was +very sad, and that she proposed studying shell shock at the Front.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_204">204</a></span> Not +until months later did we tell Aggie the story of that night.</p> + +<p>That morning Tish disappeared, and at noon she came back to say that she +had at last secured the ambulance, and that we would start for the Front +at once. Privately she told me that in a pocket of the car she had found +permits to get us out of Paris, but that the car would be missed before +long, and that we would better start at once.</p> + +<p>It is strange to look back and recall with what blitheness we prepared +to leave. And it is interesting, too, to remember the conversation with +Mr. Burton when he called that afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” he said, glancing about. “This looks like moving on. Where to, +oh, brave and radiant spirits?”</p> + +<p>“We haven’t quite decided,” Tish said. She was cleaning her revolver at +the time.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t decided! Great Scott, haven’t you any orders? Or any +permits?”</p> + +<p>“All that are necessary,” Tish said, squinting into the barrel of her +revolver. “Aggie, don’t forget your hay fever spray.”</p> + +<p>“But look here,” he began, “you know this is France in wartime. I hate +to throw a wrench into the machinery, but no one can travel a mile<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_205">205</a></span> in +this country without having about a million papers. You’ll be arrested; +you’ll be——”</p> + +<p>“Young man,” Tish said quietly, pouring oil on a rag, “I was arrested +before you were born. Aggie, will you order some tea? And make mine very +weak.”</p> + +<p>“Weak tea!” he repeated with a sort of groan. “Weak tea! And yet you +start for the Front, picking out any trench that takes your fancy, +and—weak tea! And I am going to St.-Nazaire! I, a man, with a man’s +stomach and a mad affection for a girl who thinks I prefer serving +doughnuts to fighting! I do that, while you——”</p> + +<p>“Why do you go to St.-Nazaire?” Tish inquired. “You can sit with Aggie +inside the ambulance, and I’m sure you could be useful, changing tires, +and so on. You could simply disappear, you know. That is what we intend +to do.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have a cup of tea,” he said in a strange voice. “Very strong, +please; I seem rather dazed.”</p> + +<p>“I figure this way,” Tish went on, putting down her revolver and taking +up her knitting: “I don’t believe an ambulance loaded with cigarettes +and stick candy and chocolate, with perhaps lemons for lemonade, is +going to be stopped anywhere as long as it’s headed for the Front. I +understand they don’t stop ambulances anyhow.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_206">206</a></span> If they do you can +stretch out and pretend to be wounded. This is one way in which you can +be very useful—being wounded.”</p> + +<p>He took all his tea at a gulp, and then looked round in an almost +distracted manner.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” he said. “Of course. It’s all perfectly simple. You—you +don’t mind, I suppose, if I take a moment to arrange my mind? It seems +to be all mussed up. Apparently I think clearly, but somehow or +other——”</p> + +<p>“We are actuated by several motives,” Tish went on, beginning to turn +the heel of the sock. “First of all, my nephew is at the Front. I want +to be near him. I am a childless woman, and he is all I have. Second, I +fancy the more cigarettes and so on our boys have the better for them, +though I disapprove of cigarettes generally. And finally, I do not +intend to let the biggest thing in my lifetime go by without having been +a part of it, even in the most humble manner.”</p> + +<p>“Entirely reasonable too,” he said.</p> + +<p>But he still had a strange expression on his face, and soon after that +he said he’d walk round a little in the air and then come back and tell +us his decision.</p> + +<p>At five o’clock he was back and he was very pale and wore what Aggie +considered a haunted<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_207">207</a></span> look. He stalked in and stood, his cap in his +hand.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll go, and I don’t give a—I don’t care whether I +come back or not. That’s clear, isn’t it? I’ll go as far as you will, +Miss Tish, and I take it that means moving right along. I’ll go there, +and then I’ll keep on going.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve seen Hilda!” Aggie exclaimed with the intuition of her own +experience in matters of the heart.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen her,” he said grimly. “I wasn’t looking for her. I’ve given +that up. She was with that—well, you know. If I had any sense I’d have +stolen those photographs and mailed them to her, one at a time. Five +days, one each day, I’d have——”</p> + +<p>“You might save all that hate for the Germans,” Tish said. “I don’t care +to promise anything, but I have an idea that you may have a chance to +use it.”</p> + +<p>And again, as always, our dear Tish was right.</p> + +<p>We left Paris that evening. We made up quite comfortable beds in the +ambulance, which had four new tires and which Tish with her customary +forethought had filled as full as possible with cigarettes and candy. I +have never inquired as to where Tish secured these articles, but I have +learned that very early Tish adopted an<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_208">208</a></span> army term called salvage, which +seems to consist of taking whatever is necessary wherever it may be +found. For instance, she has always referred to the night when she +salvaged the ambulance and the extra tires; and the night later on, when +we found the window of a warehouse open and secured seven cases of +oranges for some of our boys who had no decent drinking water, she also +referred to our actions at that time as salvage.</p> + +<p>In fact, so common did the term become that I have heard her speaking of +the time we salvaged the town of V——.</p> + +<p><i>In re</i> the matter of passports—<i>in re</i> is also military, and means +referring to, or concerning; I find a certain tendency myself to use +military terms. <i>In re</i> the matter of passports and permits, since the +authenticity of our adventure has recently been challenged here at home, +particularly in our church, though we have been lifelong members, it is +a strange fact that we never required any. The sacred emblem on the +ambulance and ourselves, including Mr. Burton, was amply sufficient. And +though there were times when Mr. Burton found it expedient to lie in the +back of the car and emit slow and tortured groans I have always +contended that it was<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_209">209</a></span> not really necessary in the two months which +followed.</p> + +<p>Over those two months I shall pass lightly. Our brave Tish was almost +incessantly at the wheel, and we distributed uncounted numbers of +cigarettes and so on. We had, naturally, no home other than the +ambulance, but owing to Tish’s forethought we found, among other +articles in the secret compartment under the floor, a full store of +canned goods and a nest of cooking kettles.</p> + +<p>With this outfit we were able to supplement when necessary such +provisions as we purchased along the way, and even now and then to make +such occasional delicacies as cup custard or to bake a few muffins or +small sweet cakes. More than once, too, we have drawn up beside the road +where troops were passing, and turned out some really excellent hot +doughnuts for them.</p> + +<p>Indeed I may say that we became quite well known among both officers and +men, being called The Three Graces.</p> + +<p>But when so many were doing similar work on a much larger scale our poor +efforts are hardly worthy of record. Only one thing is significant! We +moved slowly but inevitably toward the Front, and toward that portion of +the Front where Charlie Sands was serving his country.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_210">210</a></span></p> + +<p>During all this time Mr. Burton never mentioned Hilda but once, and that +was to state that he had learned Captain Weber was a widower.</p> + +<p>“Not that it makes any difference to me,” he said. “She can marry him +tomorrow as far as I’m concerned. I’ve forgotten her, practically. If I +marry it will be one of these French girls. They can cook anyhow, and +she can’t. Her idea of a meal is a plate of fudge.”</p> + +<p>“He’s really breaking his heart for her,” Aggie confided to me later. +“Do you notice how thin he is? And every time he looks at the moon he +sighs.”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” I said tartly; “and I’m not in love either. Ever since that +moonlight night when that fool of a German flew over and dropped a bomb +onto the best layer cake I’ve ever baked I’ve sighed at the moon too.”</p> + +<p>But he was thinner; and, when the weather grew cold and wet and we +suggested flannels to him as delicately as possible, he refused to +consider them.</p> + +<p>“I’d as soon have pneumonia as not,” he said. “It’s quick and easy, +and—anyhow we need them to cover the engine on cold nights.”</p> + +<p>It was, I believe, at the end of the seventh week that we drew in one +night at a small village within sound of the guns. We limped in, indeed, +for we<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_211">211</a></span> had had one of our frequent blowouts, and had no spare tire.</p> + +<p>Scattering as was our custom, we began a search for an extra tire, but +without results. There was only one machine in the town, and that +belonged to General Pershing. We knew it at once by the four stars. As +we did not desire to be interrogated by the commander-in-chief we drew +into a small alleyway behind a ruined house, and Aggie and I cooked a +Spanish omelet and arranged some lettuce-and-mayonnaise sandwiches.</p> + +<p>Tish had not returned, but Mr. Burton came back just as I was placing +the meal on the folding table we carried for the purpose, and we saw at +once that something was wrong. He wore a look he had not worn since we +left Paris.</p> + +<p>“Leg, probably,” I said in an undertone to Aggie. He was subject to +attacks of pain in the milk leg.</p> + +<p>But Aggie’s perceptions were more tender.</p> + +<p>“Hilda, most likely,” she said.</p> + +<p>However, we were distracted by the arrival of Tish, who came in with her +customary poise and unrolled her dinner napkin with a thoughtful air. +She commented kindly on the omelet, but was rather silent.</p> + +<p>At the end of the meal, however, she said:<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_212">212</a></span> “If you will walk up the +road past the Y. M. C. A. hut, Mr. Burton, it is just possible you will +find an extra tire lying there. I am not positive, but I think it +likely. I should continue walking until you find it.”</p> + +<p>“Must have seen a rubber plant up that way,” Mr. Burton said, rather +disagreeably for him. He was most pleasant usually.</p> + +<p>“I have simply indicated a possibility,” Tish said. “Aggie, I think I’ll +have a small quantity of blackberry cordial.”</p> + +<p>With Tish recourse to that remedy indicated either fatigue or a certain +nervous strain. That it was the latter was shown by the fact that when +Mr. Burton had gone she started the engine of the car and suggested that +we be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. She then took a folding chair +and placed herself in a dark corner of the ruined house.</p> + +<p>“If you see the lights of a car approaching,” she called, “just tell me, +will you?”</p> + +<p>However, I am happy to say that no car came near. Somewhat later Mr. +Burton appeared rolling a tire ahead of him, and wearing the dazed look +he still occasionally wore when confronted with new evidences of Tish’s +efficiency.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, dropping the tire and staring<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_213">213</a></span> at Aggie and myself, +“she dreamed true. Either that or——”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Burton,” Tish called, “do you mind hiding that tire until morning? +We found it and it is ours. But it’s unnecessary to excite suspicion at +any time.”</p> + +<p>I am not certain that Mr. Burton’s theory is right, but even if it is I +contend that war is war and justifies certain practices hardly to be +condoned in times of peace.</p> + +<p>Briefly, he has always maintained that Tish being desperate and arguing +that the C. in C.—which is military for commander-in-chief—was able to +secure tires whenever necessary—that Tish had deliberately unfastened a +spare tire from the rear of General Pershing’s automobile; not of course +actually salvaging it, but leaving it in a position where on the car’s +getting into motion it would fall off and could then be salvaged.</p> + +<p>I do not know. I do know, however, that Tish retired very early to her +bed in the ambulance. As Aggie was heating water for a bath, having +found a sheltered horse trough behind a broken wall, I took Mr. Burton +for a walk through the town in an endeavor to bring him to a more +cheerful frame of mind. He was still very low-spirited, but he offered +no confidences until we approached<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_214">214</a></span> the only undestroyed building in +sight. He stopped then and suggested turning back.</p> + +<p>“It’s a Y hut,” he said. “We’ll be about as welcome there as a skunk at +a garden party.”</p> + +<p>I reprimanded him for this, as I had found no evidence of any jealousy +between the two great welfare organizations. But when I persisted in +advancing he said: “Well, you might as well know it. She’s there. I saw +her through a window.”</p> + +<p>“What has that got to do with my getting a bottle of vanilla extract +there if they have one?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she’ll have one probably; she uses it for fudge! I’m not going +there, and that’s flat.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you had forgotten her.”</p> + +<p>“I have!” he said savagely. “The way you forget the toothache. But I +don’t go round boring a hole in a tooth to get it again. Look here, Miss +Lizzie, do you know what she was doing when I saw her? She was dropping +six lumps of sugar into a cup of something for that—that parent she’s +gone bugs about.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what she’s here for.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it is, is it?” he snarled. “Well, she wasn’t doing it for the +fellow with a cauliflower ear who was standing beside him. There was a +line of about twenty fellows there putting in their own sugar, all +right.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_215">215</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you this, Mr. Burton,” I said in a serious tone, “sometimes I +think things are just as well as they are. You haven’t a disposition for +marriage. I don’t believe you’ll make her happy, even if you do get +her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll not get her,” he retorted roughly. “As a matter of fact, I +don’t want her. I’m cured. I’m as cured as a ham. She can feed sugar to +the whole blamed Army, as far as I’m concerned. And after that she can +go home and feed sugar to his five kids, and give ’em colic and sit up +at night and——”</p> + +<p>I left him still muttering and went into the Y hut. Hilda gave a little +scream of joy when she saw me and ran round the counter, which was a +plank on two barrels, and kissed me. I must say she was a nice little +thing.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t France small after all?” she demanded. “And do you know I’ve seen +your nephew—or is it Miss Tish’s? He’s just too dear! We had a long +talk here only a day or two ago, and I was telling about you three, and +suddenly he said: ‘Wait a minute. You’ve mentioned no names, but I’ll +bet my tin hat my Aunt Tish was one of them!’ Isn’t that amazing?”</p> + +<p>Well, I thought it was, and I took a cup of her coffee. But it was poor +stuff, and right then and there I made a kettleful and showed her how.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_216">216</a></span> +But I noticed she grew rather quiet after a while.</p> + +<p>At last she said: “You—I don’t suppose you’ve seen that Mr. Burton +anywhere, have you?”</p> + +<p>“We saw something of him in Paris,” I replied, and glanced out the +window. He was standing across what had once been the street, and if +ever I’ve seen hungry eyes in a human being he had them.</p> + +<p>“He was so awfully touchy, Miss Lizzie,” she said. “And then I was never +sure—— Why do you suppose he isn’t fighting? Not that it’s any affair +of mine, but I used to wonder.”</p> + +<p>“He’s got a milk leg,” I said, and set the coffee kettle off.</p> + +<p>“A milk leg! A milk—— Oh, how ridiculous! How—— Why, Miss Lizzie, +how can he?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask me. They get ’em sometimes too. They’re very painful. My +cousin, Nancy Lee McMasters, had one after her third child and——”</p> + +<p>I am sorry to say that here she began to laugh. She laughed all over the +hut, really, and when she had stood up and held to the plank and laughed +she sat down on a box of condensed milk and laughed again. I am a +truthful woman, and I had thought it was time she knew the facts, but I +saw at once that I had make a mistake. And<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_217">217</a></span> when I looked out the window +Mr. Burton had gone.</p> + +<p>I remained there with her for some time, but as any mention of Mr. +Burton only started her off again we discussed other matters.</p> + +<p>She said Charlie Sands was in the Intelligence Department at the Front, +and that when he left he was about to, as she termed it, pull off a +raid.</p> + +<p>“He’s gone to bring me a German as a souvenir; and that Captain +Weber—you remember him—he is going to bring me another,” she cried. +“He gave me my choice and I took an officer, with a nice upcurled +mustache and——”</p> + +<p>“And five children?”</p> + +<p>“Five children? Whatever do you mean, Miss Lizzie?”</p> + +<p>“I understand that Captain Weber has five. I didn’t know but that you +had a special preference for them that way.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Miss Lizzie!” she said in a strained voice. “I don’t believe it. +He’s never said——”</p> + +<p>I was washing out her dish towels by that time, for she wasn’t much of a +housekeeper, I’ll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never +looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm +she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over she kicked at it.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_218">218</a></span></p> + +<p>Finally she said: “I don’t know why you think I was interested in +Captain Weber. He was amusing, that’s all; and I like fighting men—the +bravest are the tenderest, you know. I—if you ever happen on Mr. Burton +you might tell him I’m here. It’s interesting, but I get lonely +sometimes. I don’t see a soul I really care to talk to.”</p> + +<p>Well, I promised I would, and as Mr. Burton had gone I went back alone. +Tish was asleep with a hot stone under her cheek, from which I judged +she’d had neuralgia, and Aggie was nowhere in sight. But round the +corner an ammunition train of trucks had come in and I suddenly +remembered Aggie and her horse trough. Unfortunately I had not asked her +where it was.</p> + +<p>I roused Tish but her neuralgia had ruffled her usual placid temper, and +she said that if Aggie was caught in a horse trough let her sit in it. +If she could take a bath in a pint of water Aggie could, instead of +hunting up luxuries. She then went to sleep again, leaving me in an +anxious frame of mind.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton was not round, and at last I started out alone with a +flashlight, but as we were short of batteries I was too sparing of it +and stepped down accidentally into a six-foot cellar, jarring my spine +badly. When I got out at last it was very late, and though there were +soldiers all<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_219">219</a></span> round I did not like to ask them to assist me in my +search, as I had every reason to believe that our dear Aggie had sought +cleanliness in her nightgown.</p> + +<p>It was, I believe, fully 2 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> when I finally discovered her behind a +wall, where a number of our boys were playing a game with a lantern and +dice—a game which consisted apparently of coaxing the inanimate objects +with all sorts of endearing terms. They got up when they saw me, but I +observed that I was merely taking a walk, and wandered as nonchalantly +as I was able into the inclosure.</p> + +<p>At first all was dark and silent. Then I heard the trickle of running +water, and a moment later a sneeze. The lost was found!</p> + +<p>“Aggie!” I said sternly.</p> + +<p>“Hush, for Heaven’s sake! They’ll hear you.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you?”</p> + +<p>“B-b-behind the trough,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Run and get my +bathrobe, Lizzie. Those d-d-dratted boys have been there for an hour.”</p> + +<p>Well, I had brought it with me, and she had her slippers; and we started +back. I must say that Aggie was a strange figure, however, and one of +the boys said after we had passed: “Well, fellows, war’s hell, all +right.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_220">220</a></span></p> + +<p>“If you saw it too I feel better,” said another. “I thought maybe this +frog liquor was doing things to me.”</p> + +<p>Aggie, however, was sneezing and did not hear.</p> + +<p>I come now to that part of my narrative which relates to Charlie Sands’ +raid and the results which followed it. I felt a certain anxiety about +telling Tish of the dangerous work in which he was engaged, and waited +until her morning tea had fortified her. She was, I remember, sitting on +a rock directing Mr. Burton, who was changing a tire.</p> + +<p>“A raid?” she said. “What sort of a raid?”</p> + +<p>“To capture Germans, Tish.”</p> + +<p>“A lot of chance he’ll have!” she said with a sniff. “What does he know +about raids? And you’d think to hear you talk, Lizzie, that pulling +Germans out of a trench was as easy as letting a dog out after a +neighbor’s cat. It’s like Pershing and all the rest of them,” she added +bitterly, “to take a left-handed newspaper man, who can’t shut his right +eye to shoot with the left, and start him off alone to take the whole +German Army.”</p> + +<p>“He wouldn’t go alone,” said Mr. Burton.</p> + +<p>“Certainly not!” Tish retorted. “I know him, and you don’t, Mr. Burton. +He’ll not go alone. Of course not! He’ll pick out a lot of men who<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_221">221</a></span> play +good bridge, or went to college with him, or belong to his fraternity, +or can sing, or some such reason, and——”</p> + +<p>Here to my great surprise she flung down one of our two last remaining +teacups and retired precipitately into the ruins. Not for us to witness +her majestic grief. Rachel—or was it Naomi?—mourning for her children.</p> + +<p>However, in a short time she reappeared and stated that she was sick of +fooling round on back roads, and that we would now go directly to the +Front.</p> + +<p>“We’ll never pull it off,” Mr. Burton said to me in an undertone.</p> + +<p>“She has never failed, Mr. Burton,” I reminded him gravely.</p> + +<p>Before we started Mr. Burton saw Hilda, but he came back looking morose +and savage. He came directly to me.</p> + +<p>“Look me over,” he said. “Do I look queer or anything?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Look again. I don’t seem to be dying on my feet, do I? Anything wan +about me? I don’t totter with feebleness, do I?”</p> + +<p>“You look as strong as a horse,” I said somewhat acidly.</p> + +<p>“Then I wish to thunder you’d tell me,” he<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_222">222</a></span> stormed, “why that +girl—that—well, you know who I mean—why the deuce she should first +giggle all over the place when she sees me, and then baby me like an +idiot child? ‘Here’s a chair,’ she’d say, and ‘Do be careful of +yourself’; and when I recovered from that enough to stand up like a man +and ask for a cup of coffee she said I ought to take soup; it was +strengthening!”</p> + +<p>Fortunately Tish gave the signal to start just then, and we moved out. +Hilda was standing in her doorway when we passed, and I thought she +looked rather forlorn. She blew kisses to us, but Mr. Burton only +saluted stiffly and looked away. I have often considered that to the +uninitiated the ways of love are very strange.</p> + +<p>It was when we were out of the village that he turned to me with a +strange look in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t care for Weber after all,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you the +minute she found she could have him she wouldn’t want him? Do you think +I’d marry a girl like that?”</p> + +<p>“She’s a nice little thing,” I replied. “But you’re perfectly +right—she’s no housekeeper.”</p> + +<p>“No housekeeper!” he said in a tone of astonishment. “That’s the +cleanest hut in France. And let me tell you I’ve had the only cup of +coffee——”</p> + +<p>He broke off and fell into a fit of abstraction.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_223">223</a></span> Somewhat later he +looked up and said: “I’ll never see her again, Miss Lizzie.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because I told her I wouldn’t come back until I could bring her a +German officer as a souvenir. Some idiot had told her he was going to, +and, of course, I told her if she was collecting them I’d get her one. A +fat chance I have too! I don’t know what made me do it. I’m only +surprised I didn’t make it the Crown Prince while I was at it.”</p> + +<p>But how soon were our thoughts to turn from soft thoughts of love to +graver matters!</p> + +<p>Tish, as I have said before, has a strange gift of foresight that +amounts almost to prophecy.</p> + +<p>I have never known her, for instance, to put a pink bow on an afghan and +then have the subsequent development turn out to be a boy, or vice +versa. And the very day before Mr. Ostermaier fell and sprained his +ankle she had picked up a roller chair at an auction sale, and in twenty +minutes he was in it.</p> + +<p>At noon we stopped at a crossroads and distributed to some passing +troops our usual cigarettes and chocolate. We also fried a number of +doughnuts, and were given three cheers by various companies as they +passed. It was when our labors were over that Tish perceived a broken<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_224">224</a></span> +machine gun abandoned by the roadside, and spent some time examining it.</p> + +<p>“One never knows,” she said, “what bits of knowledge may one day be +useful.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton explained the mechanism to her.</p> + +<p>“I’d be firing one of these things now,” he said gloomily, “if it were +not for that devilish piece of American ingenuity, the shower bath.”</p> + +<p>“Good gracious!” Aggie said.</p> + +<p>“Fact. I got into a machine-gun school, but one day in a shower one of +the officers perceived my—er—affliction, badly swollen from a hike, +and reported me.”</p> + +<p>Tish was strongly inclined to tow the machine gun behind us and +eventually have it repaired, but Mr. Burton said it was not worth the +trouble, and shortly afterward we turned off the main road into a lane, +seeking a place for our luncheon. Tish drove as usual, but she continued +to lament the gun.</p> + +<p>“I feel keenly,” she said, “the necessity of being fully armed against +any emergency. And I feel, too, that it is my solemn duty to salvage +such weapons as come my way at any and all times.”</p> + +<p>I called to her just then, but she was driving while looking over her +shoulder at Mr. Burton, and it was too late to avoid the goat. We went<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_225">225</a></span> +over it and it lay behind us in the road quite still.</p> + +<p>“You’ve killed it, Tish,” I said.</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” she retorted. “It has probably only fainted. As I was +saying, I feel that with our near approach to the lines we should be +armed to the teeth with modern engines of destruction, and should also +know how to use them.”</p> + +<p>We were then in a very attractive valley, and Tish descending observed +that if it were not for the noise of falling shells and so on it would +have been a charming place to picnic.</p> + +<p>She then instructed Aggie and me to prepare a luncheon of beef +croquettes and floating island, and asked Mr. Burton to accompany her +back to the car.</p> + +<p>As I was sitting on the running board beating eggs for a meringue at the +time I could not avoid overhearing the conversation.</p> + +<p>First Mr. Burton, acting under orders, lifted the false bottom, and then +he whistled and observed: “Great Cæsar’s ghost! Looks as though there is +going to be hell up Sixth Street, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll ask you not to be vulgar, Mr. Burton.”</p> + +<p>“But—look here, Miss Tish. We’ll be jailed for this, you know. You may +be able to get away with the C. in C.’s tires, but you can’t steal a<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_226">226</a></span> +hundred or so grenades without somebody missing them. Besides, what +the—what the dickens are you going to do with them? If it had been eggs +now, or oranges—but grenades!”</p> + +<p>“They may be useful,” Tish replied in her cryptic manner. “Forearmed is +forewarned, Mr. Burton. What is this white pin for?”</p> + +<p>I believe she then pulled the pin, for I heard Mr. Burton yell, and a +second later there was a loud explosion.</p> + +<p>I sat still, unable to move, and then I heard Mr. Burton say in a +furious voice: “If I hadn’t grabbed that thing and thrown it you’d have +been explaining this salvage system of yours to your Maker before this, +Miss Carberry. Upon my word, if I hadn’t known you’d blow up the whole +outfit the moment I was gone I’d have left before this. I’ve got nerves +if you haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“That was an over-arm pitch you gave it,” was Tish’s sole reply. “I had +always understood that grenades were thrown in a different manner.”</p> + +<p>I distinctly heard his groan.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have about as much use for grenades as I have for pink eye,” he +said almost savagely. “I don’t like to criticize, Miss Tish, and I must +say I think to this point we’ve made good. But when I see you stocking +up with grenades instead of cigarettes, and giving every indication<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_227">227</a></span> of +being headed for the Rhine, I feel that it is time to ask what next?”</p> + +<p>“Have you any complaint about the last few weeks?” Tish inquired coldly.</p> + +<p>“Well, if we continue to leave a trail of depredations behind us—— +It’s bad enough to have a certain person think I’m a slacker, but if she +gets the idea that I’m a first-class second-story worker I’m done, +that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Fortunately Aggie announced luncheon just then.</p> + +<p>Every incident of that luncheon is fixed clearly in my mind, because of +what came after it. We had indeed penetrated close to the Front, as was +shown by the number of shells which fell in it while we ate. The dirt +from one, in fact, quite spoiled the floating island, and we were +compelled to open a can of peaches to replace it. It was while we were +drinking our after-dinner coffee that Tish voiced the philosophy which +upheld her.</p> + +<p>“When my hour comes it will come,” she said calmly. “Viewed from that +standpoint the attempts of the enemy to disturb us become +amusing—nothing more.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” said Mr. Burton, skimming some dust from the last explosion +out of his coffee cup. “Amusing is the word. Funny, I call it. Funny as +a crutch. Why, look who’s here!”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_228">228</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a young officer riding up the valley rapidly. I remember Tish +taking a look at him and then saying quickly: “Lizzie, go and close the +floor of the ambulance. Don’t run. I’ll explain later.”</p> + +<p>Well, the officer rode up and jumped off his horse and saluted.</p> + +<p>“Some of our fellows said you were trapped here, Miss Carberry,” he +said. “I didn’t believe it at first. It’s a bad place. We’ll have to get +you out somehow.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not anxious to get out.”</p> + +<p>“But,” he said, and stared at all of us—“you are—— Do you know that +our trenches are just beyond this hill?”</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d tell the Germans that; they seem to think they are in this +valley.”</p> + +<p>He laughed a little and said: “They ought to make you a general, Miss +Carberry.” He then said to Mr. Burton: “I’d like to speak to you for a +moment.”</p> + +<p>Looking back I believe that Tish had a premonition of trouble then, for +during their conversation aside she got out her knitting, always with +her an indication of perturbation or of deep thought, and she spoke +rather sharply to Aggie about rinsing the luncheon dishes more +thoroughly. Aggie said afterward that she herself<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_229">229</a></span> had felt at that time +that peculiar itching in the palms of her hands which always with her +presages bad news.</p> + +<p>“If he asks about those grenades, Lizzie, you can reply. Say you don’t +know anything about them. That’s the truth.”</p> + +<p>“I know where they are,” I said with some acidity. “And what’s more, I +know I’m not going to ride a foot in that ambulance with that +concentrated extract of hell under my feet.”</p> + +<p>“Lizzie——”</p> + +<p>She began sternly, but just then the two men came back, and the +officer’s face was uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“I—from your demeanor,” he said, “and—er—the fact that you haven’t +mentioned it I rather gather that you have not heard the er—the news, +Miss Carberry.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t see the morning papers,” Tish said with the dry wit so +characteristic of her.</p> + +<p>“You have a nephew, I understand, at the Front?”</p> + +<p>Tish’s face suddenly grew set and stern.</p> + +<p>“Have—or had?” she asked in a terrible voice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s not so bad as all that. In fact, he’s a lot safer just now +than you are, for instance. But it’s rather unfortunate in a way too. He +has been captured by the enemy.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_230">230</a></span></p> + +<p>Aggie ran to her then with the blackberry cordial, but Tish waved her +away.</p> + +<p>“A prisoner!” she said. “A nephew of mine has allowed himself to be +captured by the Germans? It is incredible!”</p> + +<p>“Lots of us are doing it,” he said. “It’s no disgrace. In fact, it’s a +mark of courage. A fellow goes farther than he ought to, and the first +thing he knows he’s got a belt of bayonet points, and it is a time for +discretion.”</p> + +<p>“Leave me, please,” Tish said majestically. “I am ashamed. I am humbled. +I must think.”</p> + +<p>Shortly after that she called us back and said: “I have come to this +conclusion: The situation is unbearable and must be rectified. Do you +know where he is enduring this shameful captivity?”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t take it too hard, Miss Tish,” said the officer. “He’s very +comfortable, as we happen to know. One of our runners got back at dawn +this morning. He said he left your nephew in the church at V——, +playing pinochle with the German C. O. The runner was hidden in the +cellar under the church, and he said the C. O. had lost all his money +and his Iron Cross, and was going to hold Captain Sands until he could +win them back.”</p> + +<p>He then urged her, the moment night fell, to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_231">231</a></span> retire from our dangerous +position, and to feel no anxiety whatever.</p> + +<p>“If I know him,” were his parting words, “he’ll pick that German as +clean as a chicken. Pinochle will win the war,” he added and rode away.</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the afternoon Tish sat by herself, knitting and +thinking. It was undoubtedly then that she formed the plan which in its +execution has brought us so much hateful publicity, yet without which +the town of V—— might still be in German hands.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_232">232</a></span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>We knew, of course, that Tish’s fine brain was working on the problem of +rescuing Charlie Sands; and Mr. Burton was on the whole rather keen +about it.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to get a German officer some way,” he said. “She’s probably +planning now to see Von Hindenburg about Sands. She generally aims high, +I’ve discovered. And in that case I rather fancy myself taking the old +chap back to Hilda as a souvenir.” He then reflected and scowled. “But +she’d be flirting with him in ten minutes, damn her!” he added.</p> + +<p>Tish refused both sympathy and conversation during the afternoon.</p> + +<p>On Aggie’s offering her both she merely said: “Go away and leave me +alone, for Heaven’s sake. He is perfectly safe. I only hope he took his +toothbrush, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>It is a proof of Tish’s gift of concentration that she thought out her +plan so thoroughly under the circumstances, for the valley was shelled +all that afternoon. We found an abandoned battery position and the three +of us took refuge in it,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_233">233</a></span> leaving Tish outside knitting calmly. It was a +poor place, but by taking in our folding table and chairs we made it +fairly comfortable, and Mr. Burton taught us a most interesting game of +cards, in which one formed pairs and various combinations, and counted +with coffee beans. If one had four of any one kind one took all the +beans.</p> + +<p>It was dusk when Tish appeared in the doorway, and we noticed that she +wore a look of grim determination.</p> + +<p>“I have been to the top of the hill,” she said, “and I believe that I +know now the terrain thoroughly. In case my first plan fails we may be +compelled to desperate measures—but I find my present situation +intolerable. Never before has a member of my family been taken by an +enemy. We die, but we do not surrender.”</p> + +<p>“You can speak for your own family, then,” Aggie said. “I’ve got a +family, too, but it’s got sense enough to surrender when necessary. And +if you think Libby Prison was any treat to my grandfather——”</p> + +<p>Tish ignored her.</p> + +<p>“It is my intention,” she went on, “to appeal to the general of his +division to rescue my nephew and thus wipe out the stain on the family +honor. Failing that, I am prepared to go to any length.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_234">234</a></span> Here she eyed +Aggie coldly. “It is no time for craven spirits,” she said. “We may be +arrested and court-martialed for being so near the Front, to say nothing +of what may eventuate in case of a refusal. I intend to leave no stone +unturned, but I think it only fair to ask for a vote of confidence. +Those in the affirmative will please signify by saying ‘aye.’”</p> + +<p>“Aye,” I said stoutly. I would not fail my dear Tish in such a crisis. +Aggie followed me a moment later, but feebly, and Mr. Burton said: “I +don’t like the idea any more than I do my right eye. Why bother with the +general? I’m for going to V—— and breaking up the pinochle game, and +bringing home the bacon in the shape of a Hun or two.”</p> + +<p>However, I have reason to think that he was joking, and that subsequent +events startled him considerably, for I remember that when it was all +over and we were in safety once again he kept saying over and over in a +dazed voice: “Well, can you beat it? Can you beat it?”</p> + +<p>In some way Tish had heard, from a battery on the hill, I think, that +headquarters was at the foot of the hill on the other side. She made her +plans accordingly.</p> + +<p>“As soon as darkness has fallen,” she said to Mr. Burton, “we three +women shall visit the commanding<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_235">235</a></span> officer and there make our +plea—without you, as it will be necessary to use all the softening +feminine influence possible. One of two things will then occur: Either +he will rescue my nephew or—I shall.”</p> + +<p>“Now see here, Miss Tish,” he protested, “you’re not going to leave me +out of it altogether, are you? You wouldn’t break my heart, would you? +Besides, you’ll need me. I’m a specialist at rescuing nephews. I—I’ve +rescued thousands of nephews in my time.”</p> + +<p>Well, she’d marked out a place that would have been a crossroads if the +German shells had left any road, and she said if she failed with the +C. O. he was to meet us there, with two baskets of cigarettes for the men +in the trenches.</p> + +<p>“Cigarettes!” he said. “What help will they be against the enemy? Unless +you mean to wait until they’ve smoked themselves to death.”</p> + +<p>“Underneath the cigarettes,” Tish went on calmly, “you will have a +number of grenades. If only we could repair that machine gun!” she +reflected. “I dare say I can salvage an automatic rifle or two,” she +finished; “though large-sized firecrackers would do. The real thing is +to make a noise.”</p> + +<p>“We might get some paper bags and burst them,” suggested Mr. Burton; +“and if you feel<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_236">236</a></span> that music would add to the martial effect I can play +fairly well on a comb.”</p> + +<p>It was perhaps nine o’clock when we reached the crest of the hill, and +had Tish not thoughtfully brought her wire cutters along I do not +believe we would have succeeded in reaching headquarters. We got there +finally, however, and it was in a cellar and—though I do not care to +reflect on our gallant army—not as tidy as it should have been. Mr. +Burton having remained behind temporarily the three of us made our way +to the entrance, and Tish was almost bayoneted by a sentry there, who +was nervous because of a number of shells falling in the vicinity.</p> + +<p>“Take that thing away!” she said with superb scorn, pointing to the +bayonet. “I don’t want a hole in the only uniform I’ve got, young man. +Watch your head, Lizzie!”</p> + +<p>“The saints protect us!” said the sentry. “Women! Three women!”</p> + +<p>Tish and I went down the muddy incline into the cellar, and two officers +who were sitting there playing cribbage looked at us and then stood up +with a surprised expression.</p> + +<p>Tish had assumed a most lofty attitude, and picking out the general with +an unfailing eye she saluted and said: “Only the most urgent matters +would excuse my intrusion, sir. I——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_237">237</a></span></p> + +<p>Unfortunately at that moment Aggie slipped and slid into the room feet +first in a sitting posture. She brought up rather dazed against the +table, and for a moment both officers were too surprised to offer her +any assistance. Tish and I picked her up, and she fell to sneezing +violently, so that it was some time before the conversation was resumed. +It was the general who resumed it.</p> + +<p>“This is very flattering,” he said in a cold voice, “but if you ladies +will explain how you got here I’ll make it interesting for somebody.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly the colonel who was with him said: “Suffering Crimus! It can’t +be! And yet—it certainly is!”</p> + +<p>We looked at him, and it was the colonel who had been so interested in +Charlie Sands at the training camp. We all shook hands with him, and he +offered us chairs, and said to the general: “These are the ladies I have +told you about, sir, with the nephew. You may recall the helpful +suggestions sent to the Secretary of War and forwarded back to me by the +General Staff. I have always wanted to explain about those dish towels, +ladies. You see, you happened on us at a bad time. Our dish towels had +come, but though neatly hemmed they lacked the small tape<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_238">238</a></span> in the corner +by which to hang them up. I therefore——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, keep still!” said the general in an angry tone. “Now, what brings +you women here?”</p> + +<p>“My nephew has been taken prisoner,” Tish said coldly. “I want to know +merely whether you propose to do anything about it or intend to sit here +in comfort and do nothing.”</p> + +<p>He became quite red in the face at this allusion to the cribbage board, +et cetera, and at first seemed unable to speak.</p> + +<p>“Quietly, man,” said the colonel. “Remember your blood pressure.”</p> + +<p>“Damn my blood pressure!” said the general in a thick tone.</p> + +<p>I must refuse to relate the conversation that followed—hardly +conversation, indeed, as at the end the general did all the talking.</p> + +<p>At last, however, he paused for breath, and Tish said very quietly: +“Then I am to understand that you refuse to do anything about my +nephew?”</p> + +<p>“Who is your nephew?”</p> + +<p>“Charlie Sands.”</p> + +<p>“And who’s Charlie Sands?”</p> + +<p>“My nephew,” said Tish.</p> + +<p>He said nothing to this, but shouted abruptly<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_239">239</a></span> in a loud voice: +“Orderly! Raise that curtain and let some air into this rat hole.”</p> + +<p>Then he turned to the colonel and said: “Thompson, you’re younger than I +am. I’ve got a family, and my blood pressure’s high. I’m going out to +make a tour of the observation posts.”</p> + +<p>“Coward!” said the colonel to him in a low tone.</p> + +<p>The colonel was very pleasant to us when the other man had gone. The +general was his brother-in-law, he said, and rather nervous because they +hadn’t had a decent meal for a week.</p> + +<p>“The only thing that settles his nerves is cribbage,” he explained. “It +helps his morale. Now—let us think about getting you back to safety. +I’d offer you our humble hospitality, but somebody got in here today and +stole the duckboard I’ve been sleeping on, and I can’t offer you the +general’s cellar door. He’s devoted to it.”</p> + +<p>“What if we refuse to go back?” Tish demanded. “We’ve taken a risky trip +for a purpose, and I don’t give up easily, young man. I’m inclined to +sit here until that general promises to do something.”</p> + +<p>His face changed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, now see here,” he said in an appealing voice, “you aren’t going to +make things difficult<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_240">240</a></span> for me, are you? There’s a regulation against +this sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“We are welfare workers,” Tish said calmly. “Behind us there stand the +entire American people. If kept from the front trenches while trying to +serve our boys there are ways of informing the people through the +press.”</p> + +<p>“It’s exactly the press I fear,” he said in a sad voice. “Think of the +results to you three, and to me.”</p> + +<p>“What results?” Tish demanded impatiently. “I’m not doing anything I’m +ashamed of.”</p> + +<p>He was abstractedly moving the cribbage pins about.</p> + +<p>“It’s like this,” he said: “Not very far behind the lines there are a +lot of newspaper correspondents, and lately there hasn’t been much news. +But perhaps I’d better explain my own position. I am engaged to a lovely +girl at home. I write to her every day, but I have been conscious +recently that in her replies to me there has been an element of—shall I +say suspicion? No, that is not the word. Anxiety—of anxiety, lest I +shall fall in love with some charming Red Cross or Y. M. C. A. girl. +Nothing could be further from my thoughts, but you can see my situation. +Three feminine visitors at nightfall; news-hungry correspondents;<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_241">241</a></span> all +the rest of it. Scandal, dear ladies! And absolute ruin to my hopes!”</p> + +<p>“Bosh!” said Tish. But I could see that she was uncomfortable. “If +there’s trouble I’ll send her our birth certificates. Besides, I thought +you said the general was your brother-in-law?”</p> + +<p>Aggie says he changed color at that but he said hastily: “By marriage, +madam, only by marriage. By that I mean—I—he—the general is married +to my brother.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” said Tish. “How unusual!”</p> + +<p>She said afterward that she saw at once then that we were only wasting +time, and that neither one of them would move hand or foot to get +Charlie Sands back. Aggie had been scraping her skirt with a table +knife, and was now fairly tidy, so Tish prepared to depart.</p> + +<p>“On thinking it over,” she said, “I realize that I am confronting a +situation which requires brains rather than brute force. I shall +therefore attend to it myself. Good night, colonel. I hope you find +another duckboard. And—if you are writing home present my compliments +to the general’s husband. Come, Aggie.”</p> + +<p>At the top of the incline I looked back. The colonel was staring after +us and wiping his forehead with a khaki handkerchief.</p> + +<p>“You see,” Tish said bitterly, “that is the sort<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_242">242</a></span> of help one gets from +the Army.” She drew a deep breath and looked in the general direction of +the trenches. “One thing is sure and certain—I’m not going back until +I’ve found out whether Charlie Sands is still in that town over there or +whether he has been taken away so we’ll have to get at him from +Switzerland.”</p> + +<p>Aggie gave a low moan at this, and Tish eyed her witheringly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be an idiot, Aggie!” she observed. “I haven’t asked you to go—or +Lizzie either. I’d be likely,” she added, “to get through our lines +unseen and into the very midst of the German Army—with one of you +sneezing with hay fever and the other one panting like a locomotive +from too much flesh.”</p> + +<p>“Tish——” I began firmly. But she waved her hand in silence and +demanded Aggie’s flashlight. She then led the way behind the ruins of a +wall and took a bundle of papers from under her jacket.</p> + +<p>“If the Army won’t help us we have a right to help ourselves,” she +observed. And I perceived with a certain trepidation that the papers +were some that had been lying on the table at headquarters.</p> + +<p>“‘Memorandum,’” Tish read the top one. “‘Write home. Order boots. Send +to British<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_243">243</a></span> Commissary for Scotch whisky. Insect powder!’ Wouldn’t you +know,” she said bitterly, “that that general would have to make a +memorandum about writing home?”</p> + +<p>Underneath, however, there was an aeroplane picture of the Front and +V——, and also a map. Both of these she studied carefully until several +bullets found their way to our vicinity, and a sentry ran up and was +very rude about the light. On receiving a box of cigarettes, however, he +became quite friendly.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t had a pill for a week,” he said. “Got to a point now where we +steal the hay from the battery horses and roll it up in leaves from my +Bible. But it isn’t really satisfying.”</p> + +<p>Tish gave him a brief lecture on thus mutilating his best friend, but he +said that he only used the unimportant pages. “You know,” he +explained—“somebody begat somebody else, and that sort of thing. You +haven’t any more fags about you, have you?” he asked wistfully. “I’ll be +sandbagged and robbed if I go back without any for the other fellows.”</p> + +<p>“We can bring some,” Tish suggested, “and you might show us to the +trenches. I particularly wish to give some to the men in the most +advanced positions.”</p> + +<p>“You’re on,” he said cheerfully. “Bring the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_244">244</a></span> life savers, and we’ll see +that you get forward all right.”</p> + +<p>Tish reflected.</p> + +<p>“Suppose,” she said at last—“suppose that we wish to be able on +returning to our native land to state that we have not only been to our +advanced positions but have even made a short excursion into the +debatable territory—that is, into what is commonly known as No Man’s +Land?”</p> + +<p>“All of you?” he asked doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“All of us.”</p> + +<p>He then considered and said: “How many cigarettes have you got?”</p> + +<p>“About a hundred packages,” Tish replied. “Say, five to you, and the +rest used where considered most efficacious.”</p> + +<p>“Every man has his price,” he observed. “That’s mine. I’m taking a +chance, but I’ve seen you round, so I know you’re not spies. And if you +get an extra helmet out there you might give me one. I’ve been here six +months and I’ve never seen one, on a German or off. I let a woman +reporter through last week,” he added, “and d’you think she thanked me? +No. She gave me hell because the Germans had a raid that night and +nearly got her. I’m a soldier, not a prophet.”</p> + +<p>Tish left us immediately to go back to Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_245">245</a></span> Burton, and Aggie clutched +at my arm in a frenzy of anxiety.</p> + +<p>“She’s going to do it, Lizzie!” she said with her teeth chattering. +“She’s going to V—— to rescue Charlie Sands, and we’ll all be caught, +and—Lizzie, I feel that I shall never see home again.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you ask me, I don’t think you will,” I said as calmly as +possible. Aggie put her head on my shoulder and wept between sneezes.</p> + +<p>“I know I’m weak, Lizzie,” she moaned, “but I’m frightened, and I’m not +afraid to say so. You’d think she only had to shoo those Germans like a +lot of chickens. I love Tish, but if she’d only sprain her ankle or +something!”</p> + +<p>However, Tish came back soon, bringing Mr. Burton with her and two +baskets with cigarettes on top and grenades below, and also our +revolvers and a supply of extra cartridges. She had not explained her +plan to Mr. Burton, so we sat down behind the wall and she told him. He +seemed quite willing and cheerful.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” he said. “It is all quite clear. We simply go into No Man’s +Land for souvenirs, and they pass us. Perfectly natural, of course. We +then continue to advance to the German lines, and then commit suicide. +I’ve been thinking of doing it for some time anyhow, and this way has an +element of the dramatic that appeals to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_246">246</a></span> me.” I have learned since that +he felt that the only thing to do was to humor Tish, and that he was +convinced that about a hundred yards in No Man’s Land would hurt no one, +and, as he expressed it, clear the air. How little he knew our dear +Tish!</p> + +<p>As it is not my intention to implicate any of those brave boys who +sought to give us merely the innocent pleasure of visiting the strip of +land between the two armies I shall draw a veil over our excursion +through the trenches that night, where we were met everywhere with +acclaim and gratitude, and finally assisted out of the trenches by means +of a ladder. As it was quite dark the grenades in the basket entirely +escaped notice, and we found ourselves at last headed toward the German +lines, and fully armed, though looking, as Mr. Burton observed, like a +picnic party.</p> + +<p>He persisted in making humorous sallies such as: “Did any one remember +the pepper and salt?” and “I hope somebody brought pickles. What’s a +picnic without pickles?”</p> + +<p>I regret to say that we were fired on by some of our own soldiers who +didn’t understand the situation, shortly after this, and that the bottle +of blackberry cordial which I was carrying was broken to fragments.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_247">247</a></span></p> + +<p>“If they hit this market basket there’ll be a little excitement,” Mr. +Burton said. He then stopped and said that a joke was a joke, but there +was such a thing as carrying it too far, and that we’d better look for a +helmet or two and then go back.</p> + +<p>“The Germans are just on the other side of that wood,” he whispered; +“and they don’t know a joke when they see one.”</p> + +<p>“I thought, Mr. Burton, you promised to take Hilda a German officer,” +Tish said scornfully.</p> + +<p>“I did,” he agreed. “I did indeed. But now I think of it, I didn’t +promise her a live one. The more I consider the matter the more I am +sure that no stipulation was made as to the conditions of delivery. +I——”</p> + +<p>But when he saw Tish continuing to advance he became very serious, and +even suggested that if we would only go back he would himself advance as +far as possible and endeavor to reach V——.</p> + +<p>Just what Tish’s reply would have been I do not know, as at that moment +Aggie stumbled and fell into a deep shell hole full of water. We heard +the splash and waited for her voice, as we were uncertain of her exact +position.</p> + +<p>But what was our surprise on hearing a deep<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_248">248</a></span> masculine voice say: “Hands +up, you dirty swine!”</p> + +<p>“Let go of me,” came in piteous accents from Aggie.</p> + +<p>There was then complete silence, until the other voice said: “Well, I’ll +be damned!” It then said: “Bill, Bill!”</p> + +<p>“Here,” said still another voice, a short distance away, in a sort of +loud whisper.</p> + +<p>“There’s a mermaid in my pool,” said the first voice. “Did you draw +anything?”</p> + +<p>“Lucky devil,” said the other voice. “I’m drawing about eight feet of +water, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Tish then advanced in the direction of the voices and said: “Aggie, are +you all right?”</p> + +<p>“I’m half drowned. And there’s a man here.”</p> + +<p>The first voice then said in an aggrieved manner: “This is my puddle, +you know, lady. And if my revolver wasn’t wet through I’m afraid there +would be one mermaid less, or whatever you are.”</p> + +<p>The Germans at that moment sent up one of their white lights, which +resemble certain of our Fourth of July pieces, which float a long time +and give the effect of full moonlight.</p> + +<p>“Down,” said Mr. Burton, and we all fell flat on our faces. Before doing +so, however, we had a short glimpse of Aggie’s head and another<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_249">249</a></span> above +the water in the shell hole, and realized that her position was very +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>When the light died away the two men emerged, and with some difficulty +dragged her out. It was while this was going on that Tish caught my arm +and whispered: “Lizzie, I have heard that voice before.”</p> + +<p>Well, it had a familiar sound to me also, and when he addressed the +other man as Grogan I suddenly remembered. It was the man we had thrown +from the ambulance in Paris the night Tish salvaged it! I told Tish in a +whisper, and she remembered the incident clearly.</p> + +<p>“You sure gave me a scare,” he said to Aggie. “For if you were a German +I was gone, and if you were an officer of the A. E. F. I was gone more. +Bill and I just slipped out to take a look round the town behind those +woods, account of our captain being a prisoner there.”</p> + +<p>“Who is your captain?” Tish asked.</p> + +<p>“Name’s Weber. We pulled off a raid last night, and he and a fellow +named Sands got grabbed.”</p> + +<p>“Weber?” said Mr. Burton, forgetting to whisper.</p> + +<p>“You—you don’t mean Captain Weber?” I asked after a sickening pause.</p> + +<p>“That’s the man.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_250">250</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, dear!” said Aggie.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mr. Burton stopped and put down the basket of grenades.</p> + +<p>“I’m damned if I’m going to rescue him!” he said firmly. “Now look here, +Miss Tish, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve got private reasons for +leaving Weber exactly where he is.</p> + +<p>“I don’t wish him any harm, but if they’d take him and put him to road +mending for three or four years I’d be a happier man. And as far as I’m +concerned, I’m going to give them the chance.”</p> + +<p>The two men had stood listening, and now Bill spoke:</p> + +<p>“Am I to understand that this is a rescue party?” he said. “Seeing the +basket I thought it was a picnic. I just want to say this: If you have +any idea of going to V——, and as we were going in that direction +ourselves, we might combine. My friend here and I were over last night, +and we know how to get into the town.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” Tish agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “I have no +objection. It must be distinctly understood, however, that I am in +charge. Captain Sands is my nephew.”</p> + +<p>Another light went up just then, and I perceived that he was staring at +her.</p> + +<p>“My—my word!” he gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_251">251</a></span></p> + +<p>We then fell on our faces, and while lying there I heard him whispering +to Bill. He then said to Tish: “I believe, lady, that we have met +before.”</p> + +<p>“Very possibly,” Tish said calmly. “In the course of my welfare work I +have met many of our brave men.”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t call it exactly welfare work you were doing when I saw you.”</p> + +<p>“No?” said Tish.</p> + +<p>“You may be interested to know that if you hadn’t stolen that +ambulance——”</p> + +<p>“Salvaged.”</p> + +<p>“——salvaged that ambulance I would now be in safety in Paris, instead +of—— Not that I’d exchange,” he added. “I wouldn’t have missed this +excursion for a good bit. But they made it so darned unpleasant for me +that I enlisted.”</p> + +<p>The starlight having now died we rose and prepared to advance. Mr. +Burton, however, was very difficult and tried to get Tish to promise to +leave Captain Weber if we found him.</p> + +<p>“It’s the only bit of luck I’ve had since I left home, Miss Tish,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Tish, however, ignored him, and with the help of our new allies briefly +sketched a plan of campaign.</p> + +<p>I make no pretensions to military knowledge,<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_252">252</a></span> but I shall try to explain +the situation at V——, as our dear Tish learned it from the general’s +papers and the two soldiers. The real German position—a military term +meaning location and not attitude—was behind the town, but they kept +enough soldiers in it to hold it, and in case of an attack they filled +it up with great rapidity. So far the church tower remained standing, as +the Allies wished on taking the town to use it to look out from and +observe any unfriendly actions on the part of the Germans.</p> + +<p>“If only,” Tish said, “we could have repaired that machine gun and +brought it the affair would be extremely simple. It has from the +beginning been my intention to give the impression of an attack in +force.”</p> + +<p>She then considered for a short time, and finally suggested that the two +soldiers return to the allied Front and attempt to secure two automatic +rifles.</p> + +<p>“And it might be as well,” she added, “to take Miss Aggie with you. She +is wet through, and will undoubtedly before long have a return of her +hay fever, which with her has no season. A sneeze at a critical time +might easily ruin us.”</p> + +<p>Aggie, however, absolutely refused to return, and said that by holding +her nostrils closed and her mouth open she could, if she felt the +paroxysm<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_253">253</a></span> coming on, sneeze almost noiselessly. She said also that +though not related to her by blood Charlie Sands was as dear as her own, +and that if turned back she would go to V—— alone and, if captured, at +least suffer imprisonment with him.</p> + +<p>Tish was quite touched, I could see, and on the two men departing to +attempt the salvage of the required weapons she assisted me in wringing +out Aggie’s clothing and in making her as comfortable as possible.</p> + +<p>We waited for some time, eating chocolate to restore our strength, and +attempting to comfort Mr. Burton, who was very surly.</p> + +<p>“It has been my trouble all my life,” he observed bitterly, “not to +leave well enough alone. I hadn’t any hope of the success of this +expedition before, but now I know you’ll pull it off. You’ll get Sands +and you’ll get Weber and send him back—to—well, you understand. It’s +just my luck. I’m not complaining, but if I’m killed and he isn’t I’m +going to haunt that Y hut and make it darned unpleasant for both of +them.”</p> + +<p>Tish reproved him for debasing the future life to such purposes, but he +was firm.</p> + +<p>“If you think I’m going to stand round and be walked through and sat on, +and all the indignities that ghosts must suffer, without getting<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_254">254</a></span> back,” +he said gloomily, “you can think again, Miss Tish!”</p> + +<p>When the two men returned Tish gave them a brief talking-to.</p> + +<p>“First of all,” she said, “there must be no mistake as to who is in +command of this expedition. If we succeed it will be by finesse rather +than force, and that is distinctly a feminine quality. Second, there is +to be no unnecessary fighting. We are here to secure my nephew, not the +German Army.”</p> + +<p>The man we had bumped off the step of the ambulance, whose name proved +to be Jim, said at once that that last sentence had relieved his mind +greatly. A few prisoners wouldn’t put them out seriously, but the Allies +were feeding more than they could afford already.</p> + +<p>“But a few won’t matter,” he added. “Say, a dozen or so. They won’t kick +on that.”</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>I have never learned where Tish learned her strategy—unless from the +papers she took from the general’s cellar.</p> + +<p>Military experts have always considered the plan masterly, I believe, +and have lauded the mobility of a small force and the greater element of +surprise possible, as demonstrated by the incidents which followed.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_255">255</a></span></p> + +<p>Briefly Tish adhered to her plan of making the attack seem a large one, +by spreading the party over a large area and having it make as much noise +as possible.</p> + +<p>“By firing from one spot, and then running rapidly either to right or +left, and firing again,” she said, “those who have only revolvers may +easily appear to be several persons instead of one.”</p> + +<p>She then arranged that the two automatic rifles attack the town from in +front, but widely separated, while Aggie and myself, endeavoring to be a +platoon—or perhaps she said regiment—would advance from the left. On +the right Mr. Burton was to move forward in force, firing his revolver +and throwing grenades in different directions. Of her own plans she said +nothing.</p> + +<p>“Forward, the Suicide Club!” said Mr. Burton with that strange sarcasm +which had marked him during the last hour.</p> + +<p>I have since reflected that certain kinds of men seem to take love very +unpleasantly. Aggie, however, maintains that the deeper the love the +greater the misery, and that Mr. Wiggins once sent back a muffler she +had made for him on seeing her conversing with the janitor of the church +about dust in her pew.</p> + +<p>In a short time we had passed through the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_256">256</a></span> wood and the remainder of the +excursion was very slow, owing to being obliged to crawl on our hands +and knees. We could now see the church tower, and Tish gave the signal +to separate. The men left us at once, but for a short time Tish was near +me, as I could tell by an irritated exclamation from her when she became +entangled in the enemy’s barbed wire. But soon I realized that she had +gone. Looking back I believe it was just before we met the Germans who +were out laying wire, but I am not quite certain. There were about ten +of the enemy, and they almost stepped on Aggie. She said afterward that +she was so alarmed that she sneezed, but that having buried her entire +face in a mudhole they did not hear her. We lay quite still for some +time, and when they had gone and we could move again Tish had +disappeared.</p> + +<p>However, we obeyed orders and went on moving steadily to the left, and +before long we were able to make out the ruins of V—— directly before +us. They were apparently empty and silent, and concealing ourselves +behind a fallen wall we waited for the automatic rifles to give the +signal. Aggie had taken cold from her wetting, and could hardly speak.</p> + +<p>“I’b sure they’ve taked Tish,” were her first words.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_257">257</a></span></p> + +<p>“Not alive,” I said grimly.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie! Oh, by dear Tish!”</p> + +<p>“If you’ve got to worry,” I said rather tartly, “worry about the +Germans. It wouldn’t surprise me a particle to see her bring in the +lot.”</p> + +<p>Well, the attack started just then and Aggie and I got our revolvers and +began shooting as rapidly as possible, firing from the end of the +village, and with Mr. Burton’s grenades from one side and our revolvers +from the other it made a tremendous noise. Aggie and I did our best, I +know, to appear to be a large number, firing and then moving to a new +point and firing again. I must say from the way those Germans ran toward +their own lines behind the town I was not surprised at the rapidity of +the final retreat which ended the war. As Aggie said later, we were not +there to kill them unless necessary, but they ran so fast at times it +was difficult to avoid hitting them. They fairly ran into the bullets.</p> + +<p>In a very short time there was not one in sight, but we kept on firing +for a trifle longer, and then made for the church, meeting the two +privates on the way. When we arrived Mr. Burton was already there and +had unfastened a large bolt on the outside of the door. We crowded in, +and somebody closed the door and we had a moment to breathe.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_258">258</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, here we are,” said Mr. Burton in a quite cheerful tone. “And not +a casualty among us—or the Germans either, I fancy, save those that +died of heart disease. Are we all here, by the way?”</p> + +<p>He then struck a match, and my heart sank.</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I cried. “Tish is not here!”</p> + +<p>It was then that a voice from the far end of the church said: +“Suffering snakes! I’m delirious, Weber! I knew that beer would get me. +I thought I heard——”</p> + +<p>Some one was hammering at the door with a revolver, and we heard Tish’s +dear voice outside saying: “Keep your hands up! <i>Lizzie!</i>”</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton opened the door and Tish backed in, followed by a figure that +was muttering in German. She had both her revolvers pointed at it, and +she said: “Close the door, somebody, and get a light. I think it’s a +general.”</p> + +<p>Well, Charlie Sands was coming with a candle stuck in the neck of a +bottle, and he seemed extremely surprised. He kept stumbling over things +and saying “Wake me, Weber,” until he had put a hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>“It’s real,” he said then. “It’s a real arm. Therefore it is, it must +be. And yet——”</p> + +<p>“Stop driveling,” Tish said sharply, “and tie<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_259">259</a></span> up this general or +whatever he is. I don’t trust him. He’s got a mean eye.”</p> + +<p>It has been the opinion of military experts that the reason the enemy +had apparently lost its morale and failed to make a counter attack at +once was the early loss of this officer. In fact, a prisoner taken later +I believe told the story that V—— had been attacked and captured by an +entire division, without artillery preparation, and that he himself had +seen the commanding officer killed by a shell. But the truth was that +Tish, having fallen into an empty trench a moment or so before I missed +her, had after recovering from the shock and surprise followed the +trench for some distance, finding that she could advance more rapidly +than by crawling on the surface.</p> + +<p>She had in this manner happened on a dugout where a German officer was +sitting at a table with a lighted candle marking the corners of certain +playing cards with the point of a pin. He seemed to be in a very bad +humor, and was muttering to himself. She waited in the darkness until he +had finished, and had shoved the cards into his pocket. When he had +extinguished the candle he started back along the trench toward the +village, and Tish merely put her two revolvers to his back and captured +him.</p> + +<p>I pass over the touching reunion between Tish<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_260">260</a></span> and her beloved nephew. +He seemed profoundly affected, and moving out of the candlelight gave +way to emotion that fairly shook him. It was when he returned wiping his +eyes that he recognized the German officer. He became exceedingly grave +at once.</p> + +<p>“I trust you understand,” he said to him, “that this—er—surprise party +is no reflection on your hospitality. And I am glad to point out also +that the pinochle game is not necessarily broken up. It can continue +until you are moved back behind the Allied lines. I may not,” he added, +“be able to offer you a church, because if I do say it you people have +been wasteful as to churches. But almost any place in our trenches is +entirely safe.”</p> + +<p>He then looked round the group again and said: “Don’t tell me Aunt Aggie +has missed this! I couldn’t bear it.”</p> + +<p>“Aggie!” I cried. “Where is Aggie?”</p> + +<p>It was then that the painful truth dawned on us. Aggie had not entered +the church. She was still outside, perhaps wandering alone among a cruel +and relentless foe. It was a terrible moment.</p> + +<p>I can still see the white and anxious faces round the candle, and Tish’s +insistence that a search be organized at once to find her. Mr. Burton +went out immediately, and returned soon<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_261">261</a></span> after to say that she was not +in sight, and that the retiring Germans were sending up signal rockets +and were probably going to rush the town at once.</p> + +<p>We held a short council of war then, but there was nothing to do but to +retire, having accomplished our purpose. Even Tish felt this, and said +that it was a rule of war that the many should not suffer for the few; +also that she didn’t propose losing a night’s sleep to rescue Charlie +Sands and then have him retaken again, as might happen any minute.</p> + +<p>We put out the candle and left the church, and not a moment too soon, +for a shell dropped through the roof behind us, and more followed it at +once. I was very uneasy, especially as I was quite sure that between +explosions I could hear Aggie’s voice far away calling Tish.</p> + +<p>We retired slowly, taking our prisoner with us, and turning round to +fire toward the enemy now and then. We also called Aggie by name at +intervals, but she did not appear. And when we reached the very edge of +the town the Germans were at the opposite end of it, and we were obliged +to accelerate our pace until lost in the Stygian darkness of the wood.</p> + +<p>It was there that I felt Tish’s hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>“I’m going back,” she said in a low tone.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_262">262</a></span> “Driveling idiot that she is, +I cannot think of her hiding somewhere and sneezing herself into +captivity. I am going back, Lizzie.”</p> + +<p>“Then I go too,” I said firmly. “I guess if she’s your responsibility +she’s mine too.”</p> + +<p>Well, she didn’t want me any more than she wanted the measles, but the +time was coming when she could thank her lucky stars I was there. +However, she said nothing, but I heard her suggesting that we separate, +every man for himself, except the prisoner, and work back to our own +side the best way we could.</p> + +<p>With her customary thoughtfulness, however, she held a short +conversation with Mr. Burton first. I have not mentioned Captain Weber, +I believe, since our first entrance into the church, but he was with us, +and I had observed Mr. Burton eyeing him with unfriendly eyes. Indeed, I +am quite convinced that the accident of our leaving the church without +the captain, and finding him left behind and bolted in, was no accident +at all.</p> + +<p>Tish merely told Mr. Burton that the prisoner was his, and that if he +chose and could manage to present him to Hilda he might as well do it.</p> + +<p>“She’s welcome to him,” she said.</p> + +<p>“He’s not my prisoner.”</p> + +<p>“He is now; I give him to you.”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_263">263</a></span></p> + +<p>Finding him obdurate, however, she resorted to argument.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t invalidate an engagement,” she said rather brusquely, “for a +man to borrow the money for an engagement ring. If it did there would be +fewer engagements. If you want to borrow a German prisoner for the same +purpose the principle is the same.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to be weakening.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to do it—if only to see her face,” he said slowly. “Not but +what it’s a risk. He’s a good-looking devil.”</p> + +<p>In the end, however, he agreed, and the last we saw of them he was +driving the German ahead, with a grenade in one hand and his revolver in +the other, and looking happier than he had looked for days.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately after that I felt Tish’s hand on my arm. We turned +and went back toward V——.</p> + +<p>Military experts have been rather puzzled by our statement that the +Germans did not reënter V—— that night, but remained just outside, and +that we reached the church again without so much as a how-do-you-do from +any of them. I believe the general impression is that they feared a +trap. I think they are rather annoyed to learn that there was a period +of several hours during<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_264">264</a></span> which they might safely have taken the town; in +fact, the irritable general who was married to the colonel’s brother was +most unpleasant about it. When everything was over he came to Paris to +see us, and he was most unpleasant.</p> + +<p>“If you wanted to take the damned town, why didn’t you say so?” he +roared. “You came in with a long story about a nephew, but it’s my plain +conviction, madam, that you were flying for higher game than your nephew +from the start.”</p> + +<p>Tish merely smiled coldly.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” she said in a cryptic manner. “But, of course, in these days +of war one must be very careful. It is difficult to tell whom to trust.”</p> + +<p>As he became very red at that she gently reminded him of his blood +pressure, but he only hammered on the table and said:</p> + +<p>“Another thing, madam. God knows I don’t begrudge you the falderals +they’ve been pinning on you, but it seems to me more than a coincidence +that your celebrated strategy followed closely the lines of a +memorandum, madam, that was missing from my table after your departure.”</p> + +<p>“My dear man,” Tish replied urbanely, “there is a little military word I +must remind you of—salvage. As one of your own staff explained it to me +one perceives an object necessary to certain operations. If on saluting +that object it fails to<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_265">265</a></span> return the salute I believe the next step is to +capture it. Am I not right?”</p> + +<p>But I regret to say that he merely picked up his cap and went out of our +sitting room, banging the door behind him.</p> + +<p>To return. We reached the church safely, and from that working out in +different directions we began our unhappy search. However, as it was +still very dark I evidently lost my sense of direction, and while +peering into a cellar was suddenly shocked by feeling a revolver thrust +against my back.</p> + +<p>“You are my prisoner,” said a voice. “Move and I’ll fire.”</p> + +<p>It was, however, only Tish. We were both despondent by that time, and +agreed to give up the search. As it happened it was well we did so, for +we had no more than reached the church and seated ourselves on the +doorstep in deep dejection when the enemy rushed the village. I confess +that my immediate impulse was flight, but Tish was of more heroic stuff.</p> + +<p>“They are coming, Lizzie,” she said. “If you wish to fly go now. I shall +remain. I have too many tender memories of Aggie to desert her.”</p> + +<p>She then rose and went without haste into the church, which was sadly +changed by shell fire in the last two hours, and I followed her. By the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_266">266</a></span> +aid of the flashlight, cautiously used, we made our way to a break in +the floor and Tish suggested that we retire to the cellar, which we did, +descending on piles of rubbish. The noise in the street was terrible by +that time, but the cellar was quiet enough, save when now and then a +fresh portion of the roof gave way.</p> + +<p>I was by this time exceedingly nervous, and Tish gave me a mouthful of +cordial. She herself was quite calm.</p> + +<p>“We must give them time to quiet down,” she said. “They sound quite +hysterical, and it would be dangerous to be discovered just now. Perhaps +we would better find a sheltered spot and get some sleep. I shall need +my wits clear in the morning.”</p> + +<p>It was fortunate for us that the French use the basements of their +churches for burying purposes, for by crawling behind a marble +sarcophagus we found a sort of cave made by the debris. Owing to that +protection the grenades the enemy threw into the cellar did no harm +whatever, save to waken Tish from a sound sleep.</p> + +<p>“Drat them anyhow!” she said. “I was just dreaming that Mr. Ostermaier +had declined a raise in his salary.”</p> + +<p>“Tish,” I said, “suppose they find Aggie?”</p> + +<p>She yawned and turned over.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_267">267</a></span></p> + +<p>“Aggie’s got more brains than you think she has,” was her comment. “She +hates dying about as much as most people. My own private opinion is and +has been that she went back to our lines hours ago.”</p> + +<p>“Tish!” I exclaimed. “Then why——”</p> + +<p>“I just want to try a little experiment,” she said drowsily, and was +immediately asleep.</p> + +<p>At last I slept myself, and when we wakened it was daylight, and the +Germans were in full possession of the town. They inspected the church +building overhead, but left it quickly; and Tish drew a keen deduction +from that.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s something in our favor,” she said. “Evidently they’re +afraid the thing will fall in on them.”</p> + +<p>At eight o’clock she complained of being hungry, and I felt the need of +food myself. With her customary promptness she set out to discover food, +leaving me alone, a prey to sad misgivings. In a short time, however, +she returned and asked me if I’d seen a piece of wire anywhere.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got considerable barbed wire sticking in me in various places,” I +said rather tartly, “if that will do.”</p> + +<p>But she only stood, staring about her in the semidarkness.</p> + +<p>“A lath with a nail in the end of it would<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_268">268</a></span> answer,” she observed. +“Didn’t you step on a nail last night?”</p> + +<p>Well, I had, and at last we found it. It was in the end of a plank and +seemed to be precisely what she wanted. She took it away with her, and +was gone some twenty minutes. At the end of that time she returned +carrying carefully a small panful of fried bacon.</p> + +<p>“I had to wait,” she explained. “He had just put in some fresh slices +when I got there.”</p> + +<p>While we ate she explained.</p> + +<p>“There is a small opening to the street,” she said, “where there is a +machine gun, now covered with debris. Just outside I perceived a soldier +cooking his breakfast. Of course there was a chance that he would not +look away at the proper moment, but he stood up to fill his pipe. I’d +have got his coffee too, but in the fight he kicked it over.”</p> + +<p>“What fight?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“He blamed another soldier for taking the bacon. He was really savage, +Lizzie. From the way he acted I gather that they haven’t any too much to +eat.”</p> + +<p>Breakfast fortified us both greatly, but it also set me to thinking +sadly of Aggie, whose morning meal was a crisp slice of bacon, varied +occasionally by an egg. I had not Tish’s confidence<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_269">269</a></span> in her escape. And +Tish was restless. She insisted on wandering about the cellar, and near +noon I missed her for two hours. When she came back she was covered with +plaster dust, but she made no explanation.</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking over the situation, Lizzie,” she said, “and it +divides itself into two parts. We must wait until nightfall and then +search again for Aggie, in case my judgment is wrong as to her escape. +And then there is a higher law than that of friendship. There is our +duty to Aggie, and there is also our duty to the nation.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I said rather shortly, “I guess we’ve done our duty. We’ve taken +a prisoner. I owe a duty to my backbone, which is sore from these rocks; +and my right leg, which has been tied in a knot with cramp for three +hours.”</p> + +<p>“When,” Tish broke in, “is a railroad most safe to travel on? Just after +a wreck, certainly. And when, then, is a town easiest to capture? Just +after it has been captured. Do you think for one moment that they’ll +expect another raid tonight?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think there will be one?” I asked hopefully.</p> + +<p>“I know there will.”</p> + +<p>She would say nothing further, but departed immediately and was gone +most of the afternoon.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_270">270</a></span> She came back wearing a strange look of triumph, +and asked me if I remembered the code Aggie used, but I had never +learned it. She was very impatient.</p> + +<p>“It’s typical of her,” she said, “to disappear just when we need her +most. If you knew the code and could get rid of the lookout they keep in +the tower, while I——”</p> + +<p>She broke off and reflected.</p> + +<p>“They’ve got to change the lookout in the tower,” she said. “If the one +comes down before the other goes up, and if we had a hatchet——”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” I said. “And if we were back in the cottage at Penzance, with +nothing worse to fight than mosquitoes——”</p> + +<p>We had no midday meal, but at dusk Tish was lucky enough to capture a +knapsack set down by a German soldier just outside the machine-gun +aperture, and we ate what I believe are termed emergency rations. By +that time it was quite dark, and Tish announced that the time had come +to strike, though she refused any other explanation.</p> + +<p>We had no difficulty in getting out of the cellar, and Tish led the way +immediately to the foot of the tower.</p> + +<p>“We must get rid of the sentry up there,” she<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_271">271</a></span> whispered. “The moment he +hears a racket in the street he will signal for reënforcements, which +would be unfortunate.”</p> + +<p>“What racket?” I demanded.</p> + +<p>But she did not reply. Instead she moved into the recess below the tower +and stood looking up thoughtfully. I joined her, and we could make out +what seemed to be a platform above, and we distinctly saw a light on it, +as though the lookout had struck a match. I suggested firing up at him, +but Tish sniffed.</p> + +<p>“And bring in the entire regiment, or whatever it is!” she said +scornfully but in a whisper. “Use your brains, Lizzie!”</p> + +<p>However, at that moment the sentry solved the question himself, for he +started down. We could hear his coming. We concealed ourselves hastily, +and Tish watched him go out and into a cellar across the street, where +she said she was convinced they were serving beer. Indeed, there could +be no doubt of it, she maintained, as the men went there in crowds, and +many of them carried tin cups.</p> + +<p>Tish’s first thought was that he would be immediately relieved by +another lookout, and she stationed herself inside the door, ready to +make him prisoner. But finally the truth dawned on us that he had +temporarily deserted his post. Tish<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_272">272</a></span> took immediate advantage of his +absence to prepare to ascend the tower, and having found a large knife +in the knapsack she had salvaged she took it between her teeth and +climbed the narrow winding staircase.</p> + +<p>“If he comes back before I return, Lizzie,” she said, “capture him, but +don’t shoot. It might make the rest suspicious.”</p> + +<p>She then disappeared and I heard her climbing the stairs with her usual +agility. However, she returned considerably sooner than I had +anticipated, and in a state of intense anger.</p> + +<p>“There is another one up there,” she whispered. “I heard him sneezing. +Why he didn’t shoot at me I don’t know, unless he thought I was the +other one. But I’ve fixed him,” she added with a tinge of complacency. +“It’s a rope ladder at the top. I reached up as high as I could and cut +it.”</p> + +<p>She then grew thoughtful and observed that cutting the ladder +necessitated changing a part of her plan.</p> + +<p>“What plan?” I demanded. “I guess my life’s at stake as well as yours, +Tish Carberry.”</p> + +<p>“I should think it would be perfectly clear,” she said. “We’ve either +got to take this town or starve like rats in that cellar. They’ve got so +now that they won’t even walk on the side next<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_273">273</a></span> to the church, and some +of them cross themselves. The frying pan seems to have started it, and +when the knapsack disappeared—— However, here’s my plan, Lizzie. From +what I have observed during the day pretty nearly the entire lot, except +the sentries, will be in that beer cellar across in an hour or so. The +rest will run for it—take my word—the moment I open fire.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll take your word, Tish,” I said. “But what if they don’t run?”</p> + +<p>She merely waved her hand.</p> + +<p>“My plan is simply this,” she said: “I’ve been tinkering with that +machine gun most of the day, and my conviction is that it will work. You +simply turn a handle like a hand sewing machine. As soon as you hear me +starting it you leave the church by that shell hole at the back and go +as rapidly as possible back to the American lines. I’ll guarantee,” she +added grimly, “that not a German leaves that cellar across the street +until my arm’s worn out.”</p> + +<p>“What shall I say, Tish?” I quavered.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the way she drew herself up.</p> + +<p>“Say,” she directed, “that we have captured the town of V—— and that +they can come over and plant the flag.”</p> + +<p>I must profess to a certain anxiety during the<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_274">274</a></span> period of waiting that +followed. I felt keenly the necessity of leaving my dear Tish to capture +and hold the town alone. And various painful thoughts of Aggie added to +my uneasiness. Nor was my perturbation decreased by the reëntrance of +the lookout some half hour after he had gone out. Concealed behind +debris we listened to his footsteps as he ascended the tower, and could +distinctly hear his ferocious mutterings when he discovered that the +rope had been cut.</p> + +<p>But strangely enough he did not call to the other man, cut off on the +platform above.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe there was another,” I whispered to Tish. But she was +confident that she had heard one, and she observed that very probably +the two had quarreled.</p> + +<p>“It is a well-known tendency of two men, cut off from their kind,” she +said, “to become violently embittered toward each other. Listen. He is +coming down.”</p> + +<p>I regret to say that he raised an immediate alarm, and that we were +forced to retire behind our sarcophagus in the cellar for some time. +During the search the enemy was close to us a number of times, and had +not one of them stepped on the nail which had served us so usefully I +fear to think what might have happened.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_275">275</a></span> He did so, however, and retired +snarling and limping.</p> + +<p>I believe Tish has given nine o’clock in her report to G. H. Q. as the +time when she opened fire. It was therefore about eight forty-five when +I left the church. For some time before that the cellar across had been +filling up with the enemy, and the search for us had ceased. By Tish’s +instructions I kept to back ways, throwing a grenade here and there to +indicate that the attack was a strong one, and also firing my revolver. +On hearing the firing behind them the Germans in the advanced trenches +apparently considered that they had been cut off from the rear, and I +understand that practically all of them ran across to our lines and +surrendered. Indeed I was almost run down by three of them.</p> + +<p>I was almost entirely out of breath when I reached our trenches, and had +I not had the presence of mind to shout “Kamerad,” which I had heard was +the customary thing, I dare say I should have been shot.</p> + +<p>I remember that as I reached the trenches a soldier called out: “Damned +if the whole German Army isn’t surrendering!”</p> + +<p>I then fell into the trench and was immediately caught in a very rude +manner. When I insisted that he let me go the man who had captured<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_276">276</a></span> me +only yelled when I spoke, and dropped his gun.</p> + +<p>“Hey!” he called. “Fellows! Come here! The boches have taken to fighting +their women.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be a fool!” I snapped. “We’ve taken V——, and I must see the +commanding officer at once.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t happen to have it in your pocket, lady, have you?” he said. +He then turned a light on me and said: “Holy mackerel! It’s Miss Lizzie! +What’s this about V——?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Carberry has taken V——,” I said.</p> + +<p>“I believe you,” was all he said; and we started for headquarters.</p> + +<p>I recall distinctly the scene in the general’s headquarters when we got +there. The general was sitting, and both Charlie Sands and Mr. Burton +were there, looking worried and unhappy. At first they did not see me, +and I was too much out of breath to speak.</p> + +<p>“I have already told you both that I cannot be responsible for three +erratic spinsters. They are undoubtedly prisoners if they returned to +V——.”</p> + +<p>“Prisoners!” said Charlie Sands. “If they were prisoners would they be +signaling from the church tower for help?”</p> + +<p>“I have already heard that story. It’s ridiculous.<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_277">277</a></span> Do you mean to tell +me that with that town full of Germans those women have held the church +tower since last night?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton drew a piece of paper from his pocket.</p> + +<p>“From eight o’clock to nine,” he said, “the signal was ‘Help,’ repeated +at frequent intervals; shortly after nine there was an attempt at a +connected message. Allowing for corrections and for the fact that the +light was growing dim, as though from an overused battery, the message +runs: ‘Help. Bring a ladder. They have cut the——’ I am sorry that the +light gave out just there, and the message was uncompleted.”</p> + +<p>How terrible were my emotions at that time, to think that our dear Tish +had cut off Aggie’s only hope of escape.</p> + +<p>The general got up.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid you young gentlemen are indulging in a sense of humor at +my expense. Unfortunately I have no sense of humor, but you may find it +funny. Captain Sands to continue under arrest for last night’s escapade. +As Mr. Burton is a member of a welfare organization I do not find him +under my direct jurisdiction, but——”</p> + +<p>“Then I shall go to V—— myself!” Mr. Burton said angrily. “I’ll +capture the whole damned town single-handed, and——”<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_278">278</a></span></p> + +<p>I then entered the cellar and said: “Miss Carberry has captured V——, +general. She asks me to tell you that you may come over at any time and +plant the flag. The signaling is being done by Miss Pilkington, who is +at present holding the tower. I am acting as runner.”</p> + +<p>I regret to say that I cannot publish the general’s reply.</p> + +<hr class="minor"> + +<p>As the remainder of the incident is a matter of historical record I +shall not describe the advance of a portion of our Army into V——.</p> + +<p>They found the garrison either surrendered, fled or under Tish’s fire in +the beer cellar, and were, I believe, at first seriously menaced by that +indomitable figure. It was also extremely difficult to rescue Aggie, as +at first she persisted in firing through the floor of the platform the +moment she heard any one ascending. In due time, however, she was +brought down, but as any mention of the tower for some time gave her a +nervous chill it was several weeks before we heard her story.</p> + +<p>I doubt if we would have heard it even then had not Mr. Burton and Hilda +come to Paris on their wedding trip. We had a dinner for them at the +Café de Paris, and Mr. Burton told us that we were all to have the Croix +de Guerre. He<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_279">279</a></span> insisted on ordering champagne to celebrate, and Aggie +had two glasses, and then said the room was going round like the weather +vane on the tower at V——.</p> + +<p>She then went rather white and said: “The ladder was fastened to it, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“What ladder?” Tish asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“The rope ladder I was standing on. And when the wind blew——”</p> + +<p>Well, we gave her another glass of wine, and she told us the tragic +story. She had fallen behind me, and was round a corner, when she felt a +sneezing spell coming on. So seeing a doorway she slipped in, and she +sneezed for about five minutes. When she came out there was nobody in +sight, and after wandering round she went back to the doorway and closed +the door.</p> + +<p>There were stairs behind her, and when the counter attack came she ran +up the stairs. She knew then that she was in the church tower, but she +didn’t dare to come down. When the firing stopped in the streets a +soldier ran down the stairs and almost touched her. A moment later she +heard him coming back, so she climbed up ahead and got out on a balcony +above the clock. But he started to come out on the balcony, and just as +she was prepared to be shot her hand<span class='pagenum'><a id="Page_280">280</a></span> touched a rope ladder and she went +up it like a shot.</p> + +<p>“It was dark, Tish,” she said with a shudder, “and I couldn’t look down. +But when morning came I was up beside the weather vane, and a sniper +from our lines must have thought I didn’t belong there, for he fired at +me every now and then.”</p> + +<p>Well, it seems she hung there all day, and nobody noticed her. Luckily +the wind mostly kept her from the German side, and the sentry couldn’t +see her from the balcony. Then at last, the next evening, she heard him +going down, and she would have made her escape, but he had cut the rope +ladder below. She couldn’t imagine why.</p> + +<p>Tish looked at me steadily.</p> + +<p>“It is very strange,” she said. “But who can account for the instinct of +destruction in the Hun mind?”</p> + + + + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE TISH ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 19851-h.htm or 19851-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/5/19851/</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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