AUNT ABELARD
Of course nothing just like this ever happened save in a fairy
story--or in real life. The paper without address, but meant only for
Ruth Fielding, had fallen from the aeroplane. She had seen it fall at
her feet and could not be mistaken.
Who the two men in the French Nieuport were she could not know. Masked
and hooded as they were, she could distinguish the features of neither
the pilot nor the man who had dropped the paper bomb. But--she was
sure of this--they were somehow in communication with Tom Cameron.
And Tom Cameron was supposed to have gone across the lines to the
Germans, or--as Ruth believed--had been captured by them. Yet, if he
was a captive, how had he been able to send her this message?
Again, how did he know she was worried about him? He must have reason
to suspect that a story was being circulated regarding his
unfaithfulness.
Who were those two flying men? Were they German spies? Had Tom been a
prisoner in the hands of the Huns, would spies have brought this word
from him to her?
And how--and how--and how----?
Her queries and surmises were utterly unanswerable. She turned the bit
of paper over and over in her fingers. She could not be mistaken about
Tom's handwriting. He had penciled those words.
It was true, any friend of Tom's who knew his handwriting and might
have picked up the loaded paper bomb, would have considered the written
line a personal message.
"Don't believe everything you hear."
But, then, what friends had Tom in this sector of the battle front save
his military associates and Ruth Fielding? The girl never for one
moment considered that the written line might have been meant for
anybody but herself.
And she did with it the very wisest thing she could have done. She
tore the paper into the tiniest of bits, and, as she continued her walk
to the Dupay farm, she dribbled the scraps along the grassy road.
She began to have a faint and misty idea of what it all meant--Tom's
disappearance, the general belief among his comrades that he was a
traitor, and this communication which had reached her hands in
seemingly so wonderful a manner.
Tom Cameron had been selected for some dangerous and secret mission.
It might have occasioned his entrance through the enemy's lines. He
was on secret service beyond the great bombarding German guns!
If this was so he was in extreme peril! But he was doing his duty!
Ruth's heart throbbed to the thought--to _both_ thoughts! His
dangerous work was not done yet. But it was very evident that he had
means of knowing what went on upon this side of the line of battle.
The men recently flying over her head in the French air machine must be
comrades of Tom's in the secret mission which had carried that young
fellow into the enemy's country. The message she had received might be
only one of several the flying men had dropped about Clair, and at the
request of Tom Cameron, the latter hoping that at least one of them
would reach Ruth's hands.
The girl knew that American and French flying men often carried
communications addressed to the German people into Germany, and dropped
them in similar "bombs." One of the President's addresses had been
circulated through a part of Germany and Austria by this means.
She had a feeling, too, that the man who had thrown the message to her
knew her. But Ruth could not imagine who he was. She might have
believed it to be Tom Cameron himself; only she knew very well that Tom
had not joined the air service.
The incident, however, heartened her. Whatever Tom was doing--no
matter how perilous his situation--he had thought of her. She had an
idea that the message had been written within a few hours.
She went on more cheerfully toward the Dupay farm. She arrived amidst
a clamor of children and fowls, to find the adult members of the family
gathered in the big living-room of the farmhouse instead of occupied,
as usual, about the indoor and outdoor work. For the Dupays were no
sluggards.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" cried Henriette, and ran to meet her. The
French girl's plump cheeks were tear-streaked and Ruth instantly saw
that not only the girl but the whole family was much disturbed.
"What has happened?" the American girl asked.
In these days of war almost any imaginable thing might happen.
"It is poor old Aunt Abelard!" Henriette exclaimed in her own tongue.
"She must remove from her old home at Nacon."
Ruth knew that the place was a little village (and villages can be
small, indeed, in France) between Clair and the field hospital where
she had herself been for a week, but on another road than that by which
she had traveled.
"It is too near the battle line," she said to Henriette. "Don't you
think she should have moved long ago?"
"But the Germans left it intact," Henriette declared. "She is very
comfortable there. She does not wish to leave. Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!
could you not speak to some of your gr-r-reat, gr-r-reat, brave
American officers and have it stopped?"
"Have _what_ stopped?" cried Ruth in amazement.
"Aunt Abelard's removal."
"Are the Americans making her leave her home?"
"It is so!" Henriette declared.
"It is undoubtedly necessary then," returned Ruth gently.
"It is not understood. If she could remain there throughout the German
invasion, and was undisturbed by our own army, why should these
Americans plague her?"
Henriette spoke with some heat, and Ruth saw that her mother and the
grandmother were listening. Their faces did not express their usual
cheerful welcome with which Ruth had become familiar. Aunt Abelard's
trouble made a difference in their feeling toward the Americans, that
was plain.
Nor was this to be wondered at. The French farmer is as deeply rooted
in his soil as the great trees of the French forests. That is why
their treatment by the German invader and the ruin of their farms have
been so great a cross for them to shoulder.
Ruth learned that Aunt Abelard--an aunt of Farmer Dupay, and a
widow--had lived upon her little place since her marriage over half a
century before. Without her little garden and her small fields, and
her cow and pig and chickens, she would scarcely know how to live. And
to be uprooted and carried to some other place! It was unthinkable!
"It is fierce!" said Henriette in good American, having learned that
much from Charlie Bragg.
"I am sure there must be good reason for it," Ruth said. "I will
inquire. If there is any possibility of her remaining without being in
danger----"
"What danger?" demanded Madame Dupay, clicking her tongue. "Do these
countrymen of yours intend to let the Boches overrun our country again?
_Our_ poilus drove them back and kept them back."
Ruth saw she could say nothing to appease the rising wrath of the
family. She was rather sorry she had chanced to come upon this day of
ill-tidings.
"Of course she will come here?" she asked Henriette.
"Where else can she go?"
"Will your father go after her in the automobile?"
"What?" gasped Henriette. "That is of the devil's concoction, so
thinks poor Aunt Abelard. She will not ride in it. And my father is
busy. Let the Yankees bring her--and her goods--if they desire to
remove her from her own abode."
Ruth could say nothing to soothe either her little friend nor the other
members of the family. They could not understand why Aunt Abelard must
be removed from her place; nor did Ruth understand.
She was convinced, however, that there must be something of importance
afoot in this sector, and that Aunt Abelard's removal from her little
cottage was a necessity. The American troops in France were not
deliberately making enemies among the farming people.
Henriette walked for some distance toward the hospital when Ruth went
back; but the French girl was gloomy and had little to say to her
American friend.
When Ruth reached the hospital and was ascending to her cell at the
back, the matron came hurrying through the corridor to meet her. She
was plainly excited.
"Mademoiselle Fielding!" she cried. "You have a visitor. In the
office. Go to him at once, my dear. It is Monsieur Lafrane."