"Do you mean to say," demanded Helen Cameron, with some anger, "that
they have no interest in the war, or in our boys who will soon begin to
go over there? Impossible!"
"I repeat that," said Ruth. "'Impossible,' indeed."
"Oh, each may knit for her own kin or for other organizations," Mercy
said. "I am repeating what I have just heard, that is all. Girls! I am
just boiling!"
"I can imagine it," Helen said. "I am beginning to simmer myself."
"Wait. Let us be calm," urged Ruth, smiling as she laid off her things,
preparatory to going into the large front room where Mrs. Curtis was
entertaining the Ladies' Aid Society.
"Is it all because of that woman in black?" demanded Helen.
"Well, she has been pointing out that the Red Cross is a great
money-making scheme, and that it really doesn't need our small
contributions."
"And she is a member herself!" snapped Helen.
"Well, she joined, of course, because she did not want anybody to think
she wasn't patriotic," scoffed Mercy. "That is the way she puts it. But
you ought to hear the stories she has been telling these poor, simple
women."
"Did you ever!" cried Helen angrily.
"It is well we came here," Ruth said firmly. "Let me into the lions'
den, Mercy."
"I am afraid they are another breed of cats. There is little noble or
lionlike about some of them."
Ruth and Helen were quite used to Mercy Curtis' sharp tongue. It was
well known. But it was evident, too, that the girl had been roused to
fury by what she had heard at the meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society.
The ladies of the church society were, for the most part, very good
people indeed. But at this time the war was by no means popular in
Cheslow (as it was not in many places) and the plague of pacifism, if
not actually downright pro-German propaganda, was active and malignant.
When the door into the big front room was opened and the girls entered,
Mrs. Curtis rose hastily to welcome Ruth and Helen warmly. The women
were, for the most part, busily sewing. But, of course, that puts no
brake upon the activities of the tongue. Indeed, the needle seems to be
particularly helpful as an accompaniment to a "dish of gossip."
"I still think it is terrible," one woman was saying quite earnestly to
another, who was one of the few idle women in the room, "if an
organization like that cannot be trusted."
The idle woman was dressed plainly but elegantly in black, with just a
touch of white at wrists and throat. She was a graceful woman, tall, not
yet forty, and with a set smile on her face that might have been the
outward sign of a sweet temperament, and then----
"Mrs. Mantel!" whispered Helen to Ruth. "I do not like her one bit. And
nobody knows where she came from or who she is. Cheslow has only been
her abiding place since we went to college last autumn."
"Sh!" whispered Ruth in return. "I am interested."
"Oh, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Crothers, that it may not be the
organization's fault," purred the woman in black. "The objects of the
Red Cross are very worthy. None more so. But in certain places--locally,
you know--of course I don't mean here in Cheslow----
"Yet I could tell you of something that happened to me to-day. I was
quite hurt--quite shocked, indeed. I saw on the street a sweater that I
knitted myself last winter."
"Oh! On a soldier?" asked another of the women who heard. "How nice!"
"No, indeed. No soldier," said Mrs. Mantel quickly. "On a girl. Fancy!
On a girl I had never seen before. And I gave that to the Red Cross with
my own hands."
"Perhaps it belonged to the girl's brother," another of the women
observed.
"Oh, no!" Mrs. Mantel was eager to say. "I asked her. Naturally I was
curious--very curious. I said to her, 'Where did you get the sweater, my
girl, if you will pardon my asking?' And she told me she bought it in a
store here in Cheslow."
"Oh, my!" gasped another of the group.
"Do you mean to say the Red Cross sells the things people knit for
them?" cried Mrs. Crothers.
"How horrid!" drawled another. "Well, you never can tell about these
charitable organizations that are not connected with the church."
Ruth Fielding broke her silence and quite calmly asked:
"Will you tell me who the girl was and where she said she bought the
sweater, Mrs. Mantel?"
"Oh, I never saw the girl before," said the lady in black.
"But she told you the name of the store where she said she purchased
it?"
"No-o. What does it matter? I recognized my own sweater!" exclaimed the
woman in black, with a toss of her head.
"Are you quite sure, Mrs. Mantel," pursued the girl of the Red Mill
insistently but quite calmly, "that you could not have made a mistake?"
"Mistake? How?" snapped the other.
"Regarding the identity of the sweater."
"I tell you I recognized it. I know I knitted it. I certainly know my
own work. And why should I be cross-questioned, please?"
"My name is Ruth Fielding," Ruth explained. "I happen to have at present
a very deep interest in the Red Cross work--especially in our local
chapter. Did you give your sweater to our local chapter?"
"Why--no. But what does that matter?" and the woman in black began to
show anger. "Do you doubt my word?"
"You offer no corroborative evidence, and you make a very serious
charge," Ruth said. "Don't be angry. If what you say is true, it is a
terrible thing. Of course, there may be people using the name of the Red
Cross who are neither patriotic nor honest. Let us run each of these
seemingly wicked things down--if it is possible. Let us get at the
truth."
"I have told you the truth, Miss Fielding. And I consider you
insulting--most unladylike."
"Mrs. Mantel," said Ruth Fielding gravely, "whether I speak and act as a
lady should make little material difference in the long run. But whether
a great organization, which is working for the amelioration of suffering
on the battle front and in our training camps, is maligned, is of very
great moment, indeed.
"In my presence no such statement as you have just made can go
unchallenged. You must help me prove, or disprove it. We must find the
girl and discover just how she came by the sweater. If it had been
stolen and given to her she would be very likely to tell you just what
you say she did. But that does not prove the truth of her statement."
"Nor of mine, I suppose you would say!" cried Mrs. Mantel.
"Exactly. If you are fair-minded at all you will aid me in this
investigation. For I purpose to take up every such calumny that I can
and trace it to its source."
"Oh, Ruth, don't take it so seriously!" Mrs. Curtis murmured, and most
of the women looked their displeasure. But Helen clapped her hands
softly, saying:
"Bully for you, Ruthie!"
Mercy's eyes glowed with satisfaction.
Ruth became silent for a moment, for the woman in black evidently
intended to give her no satisfaction. Mrs. Mantel continued to state,
however, for all to hear:
"I certainly know my own knitting, and my own yarn. I have knitted
enough of the sweaters according to the Red Cross pattern to sink a
ship! I would know one of my sweaters half a block away at least."
Ruth had been watching the woman very keenly. Mrs. Mantel's hands were
perfectly idle in her lap. They were very white and very well cared for.
Ruth's vision came gradually to a focus upon those idle hands.
Then suddenly she turned to Mercy and whispered a question. Mercy
nodded, but looked curiously at the girl of the Red Mill. When the
latter explained further Mercy Curtis' eyes began to snap. She nodded
again and went out of the room.
When she returned with a loosely wrapped bundle in her hands she moved
around to where the woman in black was sitting. The conversation had now
become general, and all were trying their best to get away from the
previous topic of tart discussion.
"Mrs. Mantel," said Mercy very sweetly, "you must know a lot about
knitting sweaters, you've made so many. Would you help me?"
"Help you do what, child?" asked the woman in black, rather startled.
"I am going to begin one," explained Mercy, "and I do wish, Mrs. Mantel,
that you would show me how. I'm dreadfully ignorant about the whole
thing, you know."
There was a sudden silence all over the room. Mrs. Mantel's ready tongue
seemed stayed. The pallor of her face was apparent, as innocent-looking
Mercy, with the yarn and needles held out to her, waited for an
affirmative reply.