Rebecca Mary had walked over to the farmhouse for Joan, but Joan was
feeding the chickens and just couldn't come at once, so Rebecca Mary sat
down on the steps and talked with Mrs. Erickson until the last downy
chicken had been given its dinner.
"My, Miss Wyman, I expect you'll be glad when they're through their work
here and you can leave," Mrs. Erickson remarked sympathetically, as she
offered Rebecca Mary a plate of crispy flaky gooseberry tarts. "It must
have been pretty hard to start for a wedding and find yourself in jail.
I know how it is with me. I never was much of a gadabout, but, land
knows, I'll be glad enough when the guards are taken off, and I can come
and go as I please."
"It is rather horrid," Rebecca Mary carelessly agreed as she ate a
gooseberry tart. "But I'm not having such a bad time really, Mrs.
Erickson. It might be a lot worse."
"I wish I could look at it like that. But I ain't one to dwell much on
the cheerful side of things. What's the use, I say, when there's so
much that ain't cheerful. I suppose the old Major knows what he's about,
but there's queer things going on in Riverside, or I miss my guess."
Rebecca Mary looked up quickly. "What do you mean?" she wanted to know
at once. Mrs. Erickson looked as if she meant such a lot.
Mrs. Erickson drew a sigh from the sole of her stout shoes and moved
closer to Rebecca Mary, quite ready and willing to tell her what she
meant.
"Well," she said in a whisper which blew a lock of Rebecca Mary's yellow
brown hair across her face, "as I understand it, Major Martingale
brought all these men down here to work on his experiment and locked us
up with them so he wouldn't be disturbed or interrupted and so he
wouldn't have any Germans nosing around. Wouldn't you think, then, that
he wouldn't want any Germans here? But last night her father," she
nodded to Joan, who was vainly trying to divide the dinner evenly among
the hungry chickens, "was over here talking to one of the mechanics,
George Weiss. He took him down behind the shed there and talked to him
in German. They didn't know I heard them, but I did. There isn't much
that goes on around Riverside that I don't hear something of. Erickson
said talking German don't mean anything but it does to me. Don't it to
you?"
"Not much." Rebecca Mary helped herself to another tart. "My word, but
these are good, Mrs. Erickson. No, I don't think it means anything for
Mr. Befort to talk German. He was brought up practically in Germany."
And she told Mrs. Erickson of the Luxembourg town which was just across
the river from Rhenish Prussia. "He hates the Germans," she added, and
her white teeth closed over the crispy flaky tart.
"He didn't sound as if he hated the Germans the way he was talking
German. Maybe you're right, Miss Wyman, you see more of him than I do,
but seems to me if I was trying to keep what I was doing from the
Germans I wouldn't have no Germans working with me. Major Martingale
oughta know his business, but I dunno----" She shook her head dolefully.
"And more than once, Miss Wyman," she went on in almost a whisper, "I've
seen Mr. Befort coming up from the river at sunrise. What's he doing
down there I'd like to know? Why ain't he in bed and asleep like the
rest of folks? Swimming may be excuse enough for you but it ain't for
me. I don't say he ain't what he says he is but I must say that under
the circumstances it's mighty queer. I said to George Weiss myself,
said I, 'You got a name that sounds like sauerkraut to me,' said I.
'What side was you on in the late war?' I said. And he looked at me and
laughed and said, 'Now Mrs. Erickson,' said he, 'you know very well that
I was one of Uncle Sam's boys. It wasn't my fault if I didn't get to
France. Maybe my name does have a German sound but the father what gave
it to me didn't stay in Germany. He brought it to America, and his boys
are a hundred per cent American,' he said. But, land, you dunno whether
to believe him or not. A man'll say 'most anything he wants to." And she
drew a second sigh from the sole of her thick shoe.
Rebecca Mary should have gasped, but she didn't. She giggled. "You don't
look on the cheerful side of things, do you, Mrs. Erickson?"
"Well, it ain't so easy to be cheerful when you know the world as it
really is. I've had some experience with these I. W. W. Bolsheviks, Miss
Wyman. Not here at Riverside. Land, no! Erickson keeps too good a watch
on things, and our men have been working here long enough to know which
side of their bread's buttered. But I got a brother up in North Dakota
and last summer his crops was set on fire and a new thrashing machine
ruined by putting nails and other truck into it. I dunno who I do
trust, Miss Wyman, but it ain't a man who talks enemy language and acts
what I can't understand. I don't blame the Major for being afraid of
I. W. W.'s and anarchists, but what I can't see is the way he trusts
some folks. My brother said the Germans was back of all the trouble in
North Dakota, and he's a truthful man if there is one. Do you know
anything about this great work we're doing here, Miss Wyman?"
"Not a thing." Rebecca Mary looked a trifle puzzled. She was a trifle
dazed, also, at the flood of words which had poured from Mrs. Erickson's
lips.
"No more do I. And Erickson don't know anything or I'd know. More'n
once I've slipped down beside that shop hoping to pick up a word, but
they don't use language I can understand, and what they're working on
don't look like nothing to me through the window. I don't dare go very
close for if the old Major'd see me he'd be sure to give me a piece of
his mind. He's got a harsh tongue when things don't go his way. I
declare, Miss Wyman, when I got so much to worry me I almost wish Mr.
Cabot hadn't been so free with Riverside. I hope he don't find himself
wishing that, too." But she smacked her lips and there was a greedy look
in her eyes which flatly contradicted her words. Rebecca Mary jumped to
her feet and brushed the crumbs of crispy flaky tart from her fingers.
"It's easy to make mountains out of mole hills, Mrs. Erickson," she said
quickly. "But it's rather a waste of time. Major Martingale knows what
he is doing. He isn't blind nor deaf. Come, Joan. Haven't you finished
yet? We'll be late for our own dinner if you don't hurry."
"I've just finished." Joan held up the empty pan and spoon. "It's such
fun, Miss Wyman. Isn't it kind of Mrs. Erickson to let me feed them? But
I do think she should teach them better manners. That big white rooster
wants to eat it all. If I hadn't driven him away the weeny little ones
wouldn't have had a bite."
Mrs. Erickson snorted. "The big white rooster is just like some folks,"
she told Joan. "And if you can teach him table manners, Miss Joan,
you're welcome to the job. I've got enough on my hands without showing
roosters how to be polite."
"Isn't she a funny woman, Miss Wyman?" Joan asked when they had closed
the farmhouse gate behind them. "She is always asking me about daddy.
Every day she asks me if he is an American citizen or if he isn't. And
when I asked daddy he said he couldn't be an American citizen because
he isn't through with being another kind of a citizen yet."
"He's a Luxembourger, you know, Joan. Why didn't you tell Mrs. Erickson
that?"
"I did, and she just sniffed and said she never heard of such a country.
She sniffs awfully funny, Miss Wyman, but she's kind, too. She gave me a
doughnut and a piece of cheese as well as a gooseberry tart. She said
they'd probably make me sick but I could eat them if I wanted to. And I
wanted to, and I wasn't sick. She makes awfully good doughnuts. I think
she must be a good cook. The chickens liked their dinner awfully much."
"Positive proof that Mrs. Erickson is the perfect cook. None but the
best would do for a flock of hungry chickens. Joan, I'll race you to the
house. Wait a minute. Now, one--two--three--Go!"
And they were off, down the driveway, by the lilac bushes to the old oak
where Peter and Wallie, on their way from the shop, stretched a barrier
across the walk.
"You must be in a hurry," grinned Peter. "Hold on and we'll ride with
you, but you must have some regard to the speed limit."
"Tired?" They did look hot and tired. "It must be horrid to spend a
perfectly gorgeous day like this in a stuffy shop with a gasoline
engine that says nothing but puff-puff. Aren't you almost through?"
"We'll never be through," moaned Wallie. "I expect the Major will keep
us here on the job until we are gray and tottering. You'll be a dear
little old lady then, Miss Wyman."
"Silly!" Rebecca Mary tilted her nose. "But, honest, won't you be
through soon? Granny and I have been perfect saints. We haven't made any
fuss at all, but we can't stay here forever. Of course, I don't know
anything about your great experiment----"
"It is great, all right!" interrupted Peter. "The more we work at it the
more sure I am of that. I don't wonder old Germany moved heaven and
earth to get hold of it."
When Peter spoke of Germany Rebecca Mary remembered Mrs. Erickson's
gloomy fears and she asked impulsively; "Has Germany given up trying to
get your wonderful secret?"
The two men stared at her in surprise.
"Don't you know that's why the Major brought the whole works down here?"
Peter asked. "In Waloo the Huns made trouble more than once, through the
mechanics, you know, regular bolshevik work. You'd never believe how
sly they were. That's why Joshua Cabot turned this place over to the
Major, and why the rule was made to bar people, and why you are here to
shed light on our dark way. The Major isn't taking any chances of having
anything stolen from him nor of any dirty sabotage, either, you may
believe me. Every man here had to pass a pretty rigid examination that
went back to his father and his grandfather."
"Every man?" Rebecca Mary could not help but put a little dash of
significance into those two words.
"Every one," Peter told her stoutly. "It is only the women who got in
without. When I drove you in here I hadn't any idea how necessary
secrecy was. You should have heard the wigging the Major gave me.
Perhaps you have been bored but you've been a life-preserver just the
same, hasn't she, Wallie?"
"Sure thing!" Wallie gave a strong and hearty indorsement to Peter's
statement that Rebecca Mary had been a life-preserver. "I wish we could
tell you more about this work, Miss Wyman, you'd be interested, but
we're on oath, you know. You'll just have to trust us and wait."
"M-m," murmured Rebecca Mary. It is so much easier to ask for trust and
patience than it is to furnish it. "You are sure you can trust your
men?"
"Why not?" Peter's voice was sharp and quick. "Why not, Rebecca Mary?
What do you mean?"
Rebecca Mary laughed uneasily. "I don't suppose it is anything but----"
And she told them what Mrs. Erickson had told her, that Frederick Befort
and George Weiss had been heard talking German behind the Erickson
woodshed, and Mrs. Erickson feared the worst.
"Just like a woman," jeered Peter. "You take my word for it, Rebecca
Mary. I guess I know as much about it as old Mother Erickson. Befort is
all right. So is George Weiss. I suppose if I were to go back of the
chicken run and murmur 'hickory dickory dock' Mrs. Erickson would swear
I was a red Russian. You just keep your hair on, Rebecca Mary, and
listen to me. Some day you'll know that I'm right, won't she, Wallie?"
"Sure thing," Wallie said again. "We didn't run any chance of a leak,
Miss Wyman. Believe me, we have picked men."
Rebecca Mary looked from Wallie to Peter. They nodded to her as if to
emphasize what they had told her. Surely they must know more than Mrs.
Erickson, who had only been able to peek through the shop window. Mrs.
Erickson had told her that she always looked on the dark side of things
and naturally she had hunted for a dark side to the great experiment. It
was foolish for Rebecca Mary to look at the dark side when Peter and
Wallie were insisting that there was such a bright and sunny side.
"Mrs. Erickson makes awful good gooseberry tarts and doughnuts," Peter
said gently. "But she hasn't much of a record as a detective."
"I didn't really think she had. I'm not a complete idiot," Rebecca Mary
exclaimed with considerable scorn. "But I thought it was only right to
tell you what I heard. Of course, I know that Major Martingale didn't
take any chances. Germany couldn't get a clue now to what you are
doing."
"Huh," grunted Peter. "I wouldn't go quite as far as that. I think
Germany will still make a try, don't you, Wallie?"
"I do, but don't let's talk about Germany as if the war was still on;
let's guess what Ben is going to give us for dinner. I'm so hungry I
could eat you, Miss Wyman. You'd better not come near me garnished with
any bunch of mint."
"Silly!" Rebecca Mary's nose was elevated disdainfully. "Well, you can't
say I have any secrets from you. And Ben is going to give you roast
beef for your dinner, Mr. Marshall. I heard him tell Joan."
"Trust the kid to find out. I rather thought we might have lamb." And
Wallie grinned impudently.