Uncle Jabez's letter and Tom Cameron arrived at the hospital at Clair on
the very same day. This was the second visit the captain had made to see
Ruth since her injury. At this time Helen and Jennie had returned to
Paris and Ruth was almost ready to follow them.
"It reads just like the old fellow," Tom said, smiling, after having
perused the letter. "Of course, as usual he has made a mountain of
trouble out of a molehill of vexation. But I am sorry for Aunt Alvirah."
"The dear old soul!" sighed Ruth. "I begin to feel that my being bombed
by the Hun may not have been an unmixed evil. Perhaps Aunt Alvirah--and
Uncle Jabez, too--very much need me at home. And without the excuse of my
broken shoulder I don't see how I could have got away from here."
"I wish I were going with you."
"What! To leave your regiment and all?"
"No, I do not want to leave until this war is finished. But I hate to
think of your crossing the ocean alone."
"Pooh! I shall not be alone. Lots of other people will be on the boat
with me, Tommy."
"But nobody who would have your safety at heart as I should," he told
her earnestly. "You cannot help yourself very well if--if anything should
happen."
"What will happen, do you suppose?" she demanded.
"There are still submarines in the sea," he said, grimly enough. "In
fact, they are more prevalent just now than they were when you came
over."
"You bother about my chances of meeting a submarine when you are
planning to go up into the air with that Mr. Stillinger! You will be
more likely to meet the Hun in the air than I shall in the water."
"Pooh! I am just going on a joy ride in an airplane. While you----"
"It is not just a joy ride I shall take, I admit, Tom," Ruth said, more
seriously. "I do hate to give up my work here and go home. Yet this
letter," and she tapped the missive from Uncle Jabez, "makes me feel
that perhaps I have duties near the Red Mill."
"Uh-huh!" he grunted understandingly.
"You know I have been running around and having good times for a good
many years. Aunt Alvirah is getting old. And perhaps Uncle Jabez should
be considered, too."
"He's an awful old grouch, Ruth," said Tom Cameron, shaking his head.
"I know. But he really has been kind to me--in his way. And if he has had
to close down the mill, and is making no money, he will surely feel
pretty bad. Somebody must be there to cheer him up."
"He don't need to run that mill," said Tom shortly. "He has plenty of
money invested in one way or another."
"But he doesn't think he is earning anything unless the mill runs and he
sees the dollars increasing in his strong box. You know, he counts his
ready cash every night before he goes to bed. It is almost all the
enjoyment he has."
"He's a blessed old miser!" exclaimed her friend, "I don't see how you
have stood him all these years, Ruthie."
"I really believe he loves me--in his way," returned the girl
thoughtfully. "Poor Uncle Jabez! Well, I am beginning to feel that it
was meant that I should go home to him and to Aunt Alvirah."
"Don't!" he exclaimed. "You'll make me wish to go home, too. And the way
this war is now," said Tom, smiling grimly, "they really need all us
fellows. The British and the French have fought Fritz so long and at
such odds that I almost believe they are half scared of him. But you
can't make our Buddies feel scared of a German. They have seen too many
of them running delicatessen stores and saloons.
"Why, they have already sent some of their great shock troops against us
in this sector. All the 'shock' they have given us you could put in your
eye and still see from here to the Goddess of Liberty in New York
Harbor!"
"That's a bit of 'swank,' you know, Tom," said Ruth slyly.
"Wait! You'll see! Why, it's got to be a habit for the French and the
British to retreat a little when the Germans pour in on top of them.
They think they lose fewer troops and get more of the Huns that way. But
that isn't the way we Yankees have been taught to fight. If we once get
the Huns in the open we'll start them on the run for the Rhine, and they
won't stop much short of there."
"Oh, my dear boy, I hope so!" Ruth said. "But what will you be doing
meanwhile? Getting into more and more danger?"
"Not a bit!"
"But you mean right now to take an air trip," Ruth said hastily. "Oh, my
dear! I don't want to urge you not to; but do take care, if you go up
with Ralph Stillinger. They say he is a most reckless flier."
"That is why he's never had a mishap. It's the airmen who are unafraid
who seem to pull through all the tight places. It is when they lose
their dash that something is sure to happen to them."
"We will hope," said Ruth, smiling with trembling lips, "that Mr.
Stillinger will lose none of his courage while you are up in the air
with him."
"Pshaw! I shall be all right," Tom declared. "The only thing is, I am
sorry that he has made the date for me so that I can't go down to Paris
with you, and later see you aboard the ship at Brest. But this has been
arranged a long time; and I must be with my boys when they go back from
the rest camp to the front again."
Ruth recovered herself quickly. She gave him her good hand and squeezed
his in a hearty fashion.
"Don't mind, Tom," she said. "If this war is pretty near over, as you
believe, you will not be long behind me in taking ship for home."
"Right you are, Ruthie Fielding," he agreed cheerfully.
But neither of them--and both were imaginative enough, in all good
conscience!--dreamed how soon nor in what manner Tom Cameron would follow
Ruth to sea when she was homeward bound. Nor did the girl consider how
much of a thrilling nature might happen to them both before they would
see each other again.
Tom Cameron left the hospital at Clair that afternoon to make all haste
to the aviation camp where he was to meet his friend and college-mate,
Ralph Stillinger, the American ace. Ruth was helped by the hospital
matron herself to prepare for an automobile trip to Lyse, from which
town she could entrain for Paris.
It was at Lyse that Ruth had first been stationed in her Red Cross work;
so she had friends there. And it was a very dear little friend of hers
who came to drive the automobile for Ruth when she left Clair. Henriette
Dupay, the daughter of a French farmer on the outskirts of the village,
had begged the privilege of taking "Mademoiselle Americaine" to Lyse.
"_Ma foi!_" gasped plump little Henriette, or "Hetty" as almost
everybody called her, "how pale you are, Mademoiselle Ruth. The bad, bad
Boches, that they should have caused you this annoyance."
"I am only glad that the Germans did no more harm around the hospital
than to injure me," Ruth said. "It was providential, I think."
"But no, Mademoiselle!" cried the French girl, letting in her clutch
carefully when the engine of the motor began to purr smoothly, "it
cannot be called 'providential.' This is a serious loss for us all. Oh,
we feel it! Your going away from Clair is a sorrow for all."
And, indeed, it seemed true. As the car rolled slowly through the
village, children ran beside the wheels, women waved their hands from
the doorways of the little cottages, and wounded poilus saluted the
passage of the Red Cross worker who was known and beloved by everybody.
The tears stung Ruth's eyelids. She remembered how, the night before,
the patients in the convalescent wards--the boys and men she had written
letters for before her injury, and whom she had tried to comfort in
other ways during the hours she was off duty--had insisted upon coming to
her cell, one by one, to bid her good-bye. They had kissed her hands,
those brave, grateful fellows! Their gratitude had spilled over in
tears, for the Frenchman is never ashamed of emotion.
As she had come down from her chamber every nurse and orderly in the
hospital, as well as the surgical staff and even the porters and
_brancardiers_, had gathered to bid her God-speed.
"The dear, dear people!" Ruth murmured, as the car reached the end of
the village street. She turned to throw kisses with her one useful hand
to the crowd gathered in the street.
"The dear, dear people!" she repeated, smiling through her happy tears
at Hetty.
"Ah, they know you, Mademoiselle," said the girl with a practical nod.
"And they know they will seldom see your like again."
"Oh, la, la!" responded Ruth, using an expression of Henriette's, and
laughed. Then suddenly: "You are not taking the shortest road, Henriette
Dupay!"
"What! do you expect to get away from Clair without seeing Madame the
Countess?" laughed the younger girl. "I would not so dare--no, no! I have
promised to take you past the château. And at the corner of the road
beyond my whole family will await you. Papa Dupay has declared a holiday
on the farm till we go past."
Ruth was really very happy, despite the fact that she was leaving these
friends. It made for happiness, the thought that everybody about Clair
wished her well.
The car mounted the gentle slope of the highway that passed the château
gates. It was a beautiful road with great trees over-arching it--trees
that had sprung from the soil at least two hundred years before. With
all the air raids there had been about Clair, the Hun had not worked his
wrath upon this old forest, nor upon the château almost hidden behind
the high wall.
The graceful, slim figure of the lady of the château, holding a big
greyhound in leash, appeared at the small postern when the car came
purring up the hill. Henriette brought the machine to a stop where the
Countess Marchand could give Ruth her hand.
"Good-bye, dear child!" she said, smiling cheerfully at Ruth. "We shall
miss you; but we know that wherever you go you will find some way of
helping others. Mademoiselle Jeannie," (it was thus she spoke of her
son, Henri's, sweetheart) "has told us much of you, Ruth Fielding. And
we know you well, _n'est-ce pas_, Hetty? We shall never forget her,
shall we?"
"_Ma foi_, no!" rejoined the practical French girl. "She leaves her mark
upon our neighborhood, does she not, Madame la Countesse?"
On they rolled, past the end of the farm lane where stood the whole
Dupay household, even to Aunt Abelard who had never quite forgiven the
Americans for driving her back from her old home north of Clair when the
Germans made their spring advance. But Aunt Abelard found she could
forgive the military authorities now, because of Ruth Fielding.
They all waved aprons and caps until the motorcar was out of sight. It
dipped into a swale, and the last picture of the people she had learned
to love faded from Ruth Fielding's sight--but not to be forgotten!