THE WEAVER OF MERNON
But for all these fine deductions, you are not to suppose that Tom and
Archer approached the little house without trepidation. The nearer they
came to it the less dependable seemed Tom's theory.
"It might be all right in a story book," Archer said, backsliding into
dismal apprehensions. But before he had a chance to lose his courage Tom
had knocked softly on the door. They could hear a scuffling sound inside
and then the door was opened cautiously by a little stooping old man
with a pale, deeply wrinkled face, and long, straight white hair. From
his ragged peasant's attire he must have been very poor and the
primitive furnishings in the dimly lighted room, of which they caught a
glimpse, confirmed this impression. But he had a pair of keen blue eyes
which scrutinized the travellers rather tremulously, evidently supposing
them to be German soldiers.
"What have I done?" he asked fearfully in German.
Tom wasted no time trying to understand him, but bringing forth his iron
button he held it out silently.
The effect was electrical; the old man clutched the button eagerly and
poured forth a torrent of French as he dragged the boys one after the
other into his poor abode and shut the door.
"We're Americans," said Tom. "We can't understand."
"It iss all ze same," said the man. "I will talk in ze American. How you
came with ziss button--yess? Who have sent you?"
To Tom's surprise he spoke English better than either Florette or her
brother, and the boys were infinitely grateful and relieved to hear
their own language spoken in this remote place.
"We are Americans," said Tom. "We escaped from the prison camp across
the Alsace border, and we're on our way to the frontier. I knew you were
French on account of the fleur-de-lis on the end of your flagpole----"
"And ze button--yess?" the old man urged, interrupting him.
Tom told him the whole story of Frenchy and the Leteurs, and of how he
had come by his little talisman.
"I have fought in zat regiment," the old man said, "many years before
you are born. I have seen Alsace lost--yess. If you were Germans I would
_die_ before I would give you food. But I make you true welcome. I have
been many years in America. Ah, I have surprise you."
"What is this place?" Archer ventured to ask.
"Ziss is Mernon--out of fifty-two men they take forty-one to ze
trenches. My two sons, who are weavers too, they must go. Now they take
the women and the young girls."
Further conversation developed the fact that the old man had worked in a
silk mill in America for many years and had returned to Alsace and this
humble place of his birth only after both of his sons, who like himself
were weavers, had been forced into the German service. "If I do not come
back and claim my home, it is gone," he said. So he had returned and was
working the old hand loom with his aged fingers, here in the place of
his birth.
He was greatly interested in the boys' story and gave them freely of his
poor store of food which they ate with a relish. Apparently he was not
under the cloud of suspicion or perhaps his age and humble condition
and the obscurity and remoteness of his dwelling gave him a certain
immunity. In any event, he carried his loathing of the Germans with a
fine independence.
"In America," he said, "ze people do not know about ziss--ziss beast.
Here we _know_. Here in little Mernon our women must work to make ze
road down to ze river. Why is zere needed a road to ze river? Why is
zere needed ze new road above Basel? To bring back so many
prisoners--wounded? Bah! Ziss is what zey _say_. Lies! I have been a
soldier. Eighty-two years I am old. And much I have travelled. So can I
see. What you say in Amerique--make two and two together--yess? Zere
will be tramping of soldiers over zese roads to invade little
Switzerland. Am I right? If it is necessaire--yess! _Necessaire!_
Faugh!"
This was the first open statement the boys had heard as to the new
roads, all of which converged suspiciously in the direction of the Swiss
frontier. They were for bringing home German wounded; they were to
facilitate internal communication; they were for this, that and the
other useful and innocent purpose, but they all ran toward the Swiss
border or to some highway which ran thither.
"Ziss is ze last card they have to play--to stab little Switzerland in
ze back and break through," the old man said. "In ze south runs a road
from ze trench line across to ze Rhine. Near zere I have an old
comrade--Blondel. Togezzer we fight side by side, like brothers. When ze
boat comes, many times he comes to see me. Ze last time he come he tell
me how ze new road goes past his house--all women and young girls
working. It comes from ziss other road zat goes from ze trenches over to
ze Rhine. South it goes--you see?" he added shrewdly. "So now if you are
so clevaire to see a fleur-de-lis where none is intentioned, so zen you
can tell, maybe, why will zey build a road zat goes south?"
Tom, fascinated by the old man's sagacity and vehemence, only shook his
head.
"Ah, you are not so clevaire to suspect! Ziss is Amerique! Nevaire will
she suspect."
Tom did not altogether like this reference to Uncle Sam's gullibility,
but he contented himself with believing that it was meant as a thing of
the past.
"They can't flim-flam us now," Archer ventured.
"Flam-flim--no," the old man said, with great fervor.
"Maybe that's where they took my friend's sister and his mother," Tom
said.
"I will tell you vere zey take them," the old man interrupted. "You know
Alsace--no? So! See! I tell you." He approached, poking Tom's chest with
his bony finger and screwing up his blue eyes until he seemed a very
demon of shrewdness. They wondered if he were altogether sane.
"Nuzzing can zey hide from Melotte," he went on. "Far south, near Basel,
zere lives my comrade--Blondel. To him must you show your button--yess.
In Norne he lives."
"We'll write that down," said Tom.
"Nuzzing you write down," the old man said sharply, clutching Tom's arm.
"In your brain where you are so clevaire--zere you write it. So! You are
not so clevaire as Melotte. Now I will show you how you shall find
Mam'selle," he went on with a sly wink.
Emptying some wool out of a paper bag, he pressed the wrinkles from the
bag with his trembling old hand and bending over the rough table close
to the lantern, he drew a map somewhat similar to, though less complete
than, the one given here.
[Illustration: SHOWING THE ROUTE TAKEN BY TOM AND ARCHER.]
There is nothing like a map to show one "where he is at," to quote
Archer's phrase, and the boys followed with great interest as Melotte
penciled the course of the Rhine and the places which he wished to
emphasize in the southern part of Alsace.
"Here at Norne lives my comrade, Blondel," he said. "Two years we work
togezzer at Pas_sake_--you know? In ze great silk mills."
"Passaic," said Tom; "that's near Bridgeboro, where I live."
"Pas_sake_, yess. So now you are so clevaire to know who shall leeve in
a house, I will tell you how you shall know ze house of my comrade,
Blondel. _By ze blue flag with one black spot!_ Yess? You know what ziss
shall be? _Billet!_" He gave Archer a dig in the ribs as if this
represented the high water mark of sagacity.
"Oh, I know," said Archer; "it means Gerrman officerrs are billeted
therre. Go-o-od _night_! Not for us!"
The old man did not seem quite to understand, but he turned again to his
map. "Here now is ze new road," he said, drawing it with his shaky old
hand. "From ze Rhine road it runs--south--so. Now you are so
clevaire--Yankee clevaire, ha, ha, ha!" he laughed with a kind of
irritating hilarity; "why should zey make ziss road? From ze north--from
Leteur--all around--zey bring our women to make ziss road. Ziss is
where Mam'selle is--so! Close by it lives my comrade, Blondel. Ziss is
noble army to command, ugh!" He gritted his teeth. "_All are women!_"
Tom looked at the map, as old Melotte poised his skinny finger above it
and peered eagerly up into his face from the depths of his scraggly
white hair. It was little enough Tom knew about military affairs and he
thought that this lonesome old weaver was in his dotage. But surely this
new road could be for but one purpose, and that was the quick transfer
of troops from the Alsatian front to the Swiss border. And the sudden
conscription of women and girls for the making of the road seemed
plausible enough. Could it be that this furnished a clew to the
whereabouts of Florette Leteur? And if it did, what hope was there of
reaching her, or of rescuing her?
He listened only abstractedly to the old man's rambling talk of
Germany's intention to violate Swiss neutrality if that became necessary
to her purpose. His eyes were half closed as he looked at the rough
sketch and he saw there considerably more than old Melotte had drawn.
He saw Frenchy's sister Florette, slender and frail, wielding some
heavy implement, doing her enforced bit in this work of shameless
betrayal. He could see her eyes, sorrow-laden and filled with fear. He
could see her as she had stood talking with him that night in the arbor.
He could see her, orphaned and homeless, slaving under the menacing
shadow of a German officer who sprawled and lorded it in the poor home
of this Blondel close by the new road. _Here he climb to drop ze grapes
down my neck. Bad boy!_ Strange, how that particular phrase of hers
singled itself out and stuck in his memory.
"So now you are so _clevaire_," he half heard old Melotte saying to
Archer.
And Tom Slade said nothing, only thought, and thought, and thought....