Burton saw Hilda, but he came back looking moroseand savage. He came directly to me.
"Look me over," he said. "Do I look queer or anything?"
"Not at all," I replied.
"Look again. I don't seem to be dying on my feet, do I? Anything wanabout me? I don't totter with feebleness, do I?"
"You look as strong as a horse," I said somewhat acidly.
"Then I wish to thunder you'd tell me," he stormed, "why thatgirl--that--well, you know who I mean--why the deuce she should firstgiggle all over the place when she sees me, and then baby me like anidiot child? 'Here's a chair,' she'd say, and 'Do be careful ofyourself'; and when I recovered from that enough to stand up like a manand ask for a cup of coffee she said I ought to take soup; it wasstrengthening!"
Fortunately Tish gave the signal to start just then, and we moved out.Hilda was standing in her doorway when we passed, and I thought shelooked rather forlorn. She blew kisses to us, but Mr. Burton onlysaluted stiffly and looked away. I have often considered that to theuninitiated the ways of love are very strange.
It was when we were out of the village that he turned to me with astrange look in his eyes.
"She doesn't care for Weber after all," he said. "Didn't I tell you theminute she found she could have him she wouldn't want him? Do you thinkI'd marry a girl like that?"
"She's a nice little thing," I replied. "But you're perfectlyright--she's no housekeeper."
"No housekeeper!" he said in a tone of astonishment. "That's thecleanest hut in France. And let me tell you I've had the only cup ofcoffee----"
He broke off and fell into a fit of abstraction. Somewhat later helooked up and said: "I'll never see her again, Miss Lizzie."
"Why?"
"Because I told her I wouldn't come back until I could bring her aGerman officer as a souvenir. Some idiot had told her he was going to,and, of course, I told her if she was collecting them I'd get her one. Afat chance I have too! I don't know what made me do it. I'm onlysurprised I didn't make it the Crown Prince while I was at it."
But how soon were our thoughts to turn from soft thoughts of love tograver matters!
Tish, as I have said before, has a strange gift of foresight thatamounts almost to prophecy.
I have never known her, for instance, to put a pink bow on an afghan andthen have the subsequent development turn out to be a boy, or viceversa. And the very day before Mr. Ostermaier fell and sprained hisankle she had picked up a roller chair at an auction sale, and in twentyminutes he was in it.
At noon we stopped at a crossroads and distributed to some passingtroops our usual cigarettes and chocolate. We also fried a number ofdoughnuts, and were given three cheers by various companies as theypassed. It was when our labors were over that Tish perceived a brokenmachine gun abandoned by the roadside, and spent some time examining it.
"One never knows," she said, "what bits of knowledge may one day beuseful."
Mr. Burton explained the mechanism to her.
"I'd be firing one of these things now," he said gloomily, "if it werenot for that devilish piece of American ingenuity, the shower bath."
"Good gracious!" Aggie said.
"Fact. I got into a machine-gun school, but one day in a shower one ofthe officers perceived my--er--affliction, badly swollen from a hike,and reported me."
Tish was strongly inclined to tow the machine gun behind us andeventually have it repaired, but Mr. Burton said it was not worth thetrouble, and shortly afterward we turned off the main road into a lane,seeking a place for our luncheon. Tish drove as usual, but she continuedto lament the gun.
"I feel keenly," she said, "the necessity of being fully armed againstany emergency. And I feel, too, that it is my solemn duty to salvagesuch weapons as come my way at any and all times."
I called to her just then, but she was driving while looking over hershoulder at Mr. Burton, and it was too late to avoid the goat. We wentover it and it lay behind us in the road quite still.
"You've killed it, Tish," I said.
"Not at all," she retorted. "It has probably only fainted. As I wassaying, I feel that with our near approach to the lines we should bearmed to the teeth with modern engines of destruction, and should alsoknow how to use them."
We were then in a very attractive valley, and Tish descending observedthat if it were not for the noise of falling shells and so on it wouldhave been a charming place to picnic.
She then instructed Aggie and me to prepare a luncheon of beefcroquettes and floating island, and asked Mr. Burton to accompany herback to the car.
As I was sitting on the running board beating eggs for a meringue at thetime I could not avoid overhearing the conversation.
First Mr. Burton, acting under orders, lifted the false bottom, and thenhe whistled and observed: "Great Caesar's ghost! Looks as though there isgoing to be hell up Sixth Street, doesn't it?"
"I'll ask you not to be vulgar, Mr. Burton."
"But--look here, Miss Tish. We'll be jailed for this, you know. You maybe able to get away with the C. in C.'s tires, but you can't steal ahundred or so grenades without somebody missing them. Besides, whatthe--what the dickens are you going to do with them? If it had been eggsnow, or oranges--but grenades!"
"They may be useful," Tish replied in her cryptic manner. "Forearmed isforewarned, Mr. Burton. What is this white pin for?"
I believe she then pulled the pin, for I heard Mr. Burton yell, and asecond later there was a loud explosion.
I sat still, unable to move, and then I heard Mr. Burton say in afurious voice: "If I hadn't grabbed that thing and thrown it you'd havebeen explaining this salvage system of yours to your Maker before this,Miss Carberry. Upon my word, if I hadn't known you'd blow up the wholeoutfit the moment I was gone I'd have left before this. I've got nervesif you haven't."
"That was an over-arm pitch you gave it," was Tish's sole reply. "I hadalways understood that grenades were thrown in a different manner."
I distinctly heard his groan.
"You'll have about as much use for grenades as I have for pink eye," hesaid almost savagely. "I don't like to criticize, Miss Tish, and I mustsay I think to this point we've made good. But when I see you stockingup with grenades instead of cigarettes, and giving every indication ofbeing headed for the Rhine, I feel that it is time to ask what next?"
"Have you any complaint about the last few weeks?" Tish inquired coldly.
"Well, if we continue to leave a trail of depredations behind us----It's bad enough to have a certain person think I'm a slacker, but if shegets the idea that I'm a first-class second-story worker I'm done,that's all."
Fortunately Aggie announced luncheon just then.
Every incident of that luncheon is fixed clearly in my mind, because ofwhat came after it. We had indeed penetrated close to the Front, as wasshown by the number of shells which fell in it while we ate. The dirtfrom one, in fact, quite spoiled the floating island, and we werecompelled to open a can of peaches to replace it. It was while we weredrinking our after-dinner coffee that Tish voiced the philosophy whichupheld her.
"When my hour comes it will come," she said calmly. "Viewed from thatstandpoint the attempts of the enemy to disturb us becomeamusing--nothing more."
"Exactly," said Mr. Burton, skimming some dust from the last explosionout of his coffee cup. "Amusing is the word. Funny, I call it. Funny asa crutch. Why, look who's here!"
There was a young officer riding up the valley rapidly. I remember Tishtaking a look at him and then saying quickly: "Lizzie, go and close thefloor of the ambulance. Don't run. I'll explain later."
Well, the officer rode up and jumped off his horse and saluted.
"Some of our fellows said you were trapped here, Miss Carberry," hesaid. "I didn't believe it at first. It's a bad place. We'll have to getyou out somehow."
"I'm not anxious to get out."
"But," he said, and stared at all of us--"you are---- Do you know thatour trenches are just beyond this hill?"
"I wish you'd tell the
Germans that; they seem to think they are in thisvalley."
He laughed a little and said: "They ought to make you a general, MissCarberry." He then said to Mr. Burton: "I'd like to speak to you for amoment."
Looking back I believe that Tish had a premonition of trouble then, forduring their conversation aside she got out her knitting, always withher an indication of perturbation or of deep thought, and she spokerather sharply to Aggie about rinsing the luncheon dishes