the girls remained longer than they expected in the little hut. it was extraordinarily interesting, with a thriftiness and tidiness that were characteristically french. indeed, living seemed to have been reduced to the simplest conditions.
one big room formed the center of the hut. it had a stone floor and a big fireplace where the food was cooked over a peat fire. a plain wooden table and some benches were the only furniture, except two tall and strangely handsome chairs, which must have been the property of some old french family. they had drifted into the cottage by mistake, probably as a gift to an old servant.
on the walls of the room hung a gun of a pattern of the franco-prussian war, a cheap lithograph of president poincairé, and one[151] of general joffre and general french. so this little hut was also filled with the war spirit. but the old french mère explained that her husband and four sons were in the battle line, so few persons had a greater right to a display of patriotism.
the two american girls found the old french woman one of the most picturesque figures they had ever imagined. she wore a bodice and short blue cotton skirt and a cap with pointed ends. her shoes were wooden and her stockings homespun. although only between fifty and sixty years old, her visitors were under the impression that mère marie must be at least seventy except for her vigor. for her shoulders were bent and her tanned cheeks wrinkled into a criss-cross of lines. only her black eyes shone keenly above a high arched nose, and she moved with a sprightliness any young person might envy.
then too she was agreeably hospitable to her unexpected guests, though not communicative. she did not appear to wish to talk about her own affairs.
but although the old woman was so[152] interesting, her son anton was a dreadful person of whom the two visitors felt a little afraid. he was almost uncanny, like a character you may have seen in a play, or read of in some fantastic book. his coarse black hair hung down to his shoulders and was chopped off at the end in an uneven fashion, his eyes were black and stared, but with a peculiar blank look in them, and his big mouth hung open showing huge yellow teeth. one of the unhappy things about the boy was that he looked so like the woman who was his mother and yet so horribly unlike her because there was no intelligence behind the mask of his face. he did not look brutish, however, only vacant and foolish, and sat in the corner mumbling to himself while nona and barbara and mrs. curtis had their coffee and rolls.
but once the two girls were away from the little house, barbara, glancing behind, saw the boy following them. first she shook her head at him, pointing toward his own home, then she brandished a stick. the lad only grinned and kept after them.
[153]
the girls had not yet started back to the hospital, as they had more than an hour before them and the morning was too beautiful to be wasted.
“we have got to get rid of that boy somehow, nona; he gives me the creeps,” barbara suggested. “suppose we slip out of this field, which may belong to them, and go down to the foot of that little hill. there is an orchard on the other side of the wall and we can stay there under the trees until we must go back to work. hope no one will think it wrong, our having wandered off in this fashion! the truth is they will probably be too busy to miss us. at least, i am glad that mildred and eugenia are being so successful. they may save the day for the united states until our chance comes.”
the two girls then sat down in the grass under an old french apple tree, which looked very like one of any other nationality, but was the more romantic for being french. this country of northern france ravaged by mad armies is an orchard and vineyard land and one of the fairest places on earth.
[154]
looking up into the clear sky, nona spoke first.
“it is as though the war were a horrible nightmare, isn’t it?” she began, leaning her chin on her hand and gazing out over the country. “but do you know, barbara, dreadful as you may think it of me, i am not content to stay on here in the shelter of the hospital, hard and sad as the work of caring for the wounded is. i feel i must know what the battlefield is like, smell the smoke, see the trenches. often i think i can hear the booming of the great guns, see the wounded alone and needing help before help can come. i am going over there some day, though i don’t know just how or when i can manage it.”
the girl’s face was quiet and determined. she was not excited; it was as if she felt a more definite work calling her and wished to answer it.
then nona quieted down, and without replying barbara lay resting her head in the older girl’s lap. there was a growing sympathy between them, although so unlike.
[155]
barbara’s blue eyes were upturned toward the clear sky when suddenly her companion felt her body stiffen. for an instant she lay rigid, the next she pointed upward.
“nona,” she exclaimed in a stifled voice, “it doesn’t seem possible, but—well, what is that in the sky over there? perhaps we are not so far from the fighting as you believe.”
nona followed the other girl’s gaze, but perhaps she was less far-sighted and her golden brown eyes had not the vision of her friend’s blue ones.
“why, dear, i only see two small black clouds.” then she laughed. “we are talking like sister anne and bluebeard’s wife. remember sister anne’s speech. ‘i can only behold a cloud of dust arising in the distance.’” and nona made a screen of her hand, laughingly placing it over her eyes.
but barbara jumped to her feet. “don’t be a goose, nona. look, i am in earnest. those are not clouds, they are aeroplanes and i believe they are trying to destroy each other.”
[156]
but there was no need now for barbara to argue; the situation was explaining itself.
even in this brief moment of time the two air-craft had come closer, the one plainly in pursuit of the other. but they made no direct flight. now and then they both hung poised in the air, then they darted at each other, or one plunged toward the earth and the other soared higher.
“one of them must be a german scout trying to locate the enemy’s position near here,” barbara remarked. she herself a few weeks before would not have believed that she could have seen such a spectacle as the present one without being overpowered with alarm and excitement. but war brings strange changes in one’s personality. both girls were entranced, awed, but above all profoundly interested. they had not yet thought of fear for themselves nor for the men who must be guiding the destinies of the ill-omened birds now driving nearer and nearer toward them. but for the moment one could not associate human beings with these winged creatures; they were too swift and terrible.
[157]
the german plane was evidently the larger and heavier of the two.
it could escape only by disabling the other craft, but the smaller one would not remain long enough in one position to have the other’s guns turned upon it.
now and then there were reports of explosions in the air above them. nona and barbara expected to see one or the other of the two machines disabled, but somehow the shots missed their aim.
barbara had a sudden remembrance of having once seen a fish-hawk chased by a kingfisher. the resemblance was strange. here was the great bird, powerful and evil, moving heavily through the air, while the smaller one darted at it, now forward, now backward, then to the side, causing it endless annoyance, even terror. yet the larger bird could not move swiftly enough to be avenged.
once the two planes circled almost out of sight and unconsciously the two watchers sighed, partly from relief, although there was a measure of disappointment. for whatever terror the spectacle held was overbalanced[158] with wonder. moreover, by this time they were both becoming exhausted. nona started to sit down again to rest her eyes for a moment.
the next instant barbara clutched her. back into their near horizon the fighting air-craft reappeared, and now it was plain enough that the larger was swaying uncertainly. the smaller aeroplane made a final dash toward it, another report sounded, then a white flash appeared and afterwards a cloud of heavy yellow smoke. away from the smoke, still lumbering uncertainly but keeping a course in the desired direction, the big taube machine was sailing out of sight. for a few moments longer the smaller aeroplane hung suspended, although it was impossible to see more than the outline of its great white wings through the thick vapor surrounding it.
then the wings began to waver and the aeroplane to descend toward the earth.
instinctively, with almost the same emotion that a child feels in reaching the scene of a falling balloon, nona and barbara ran forward. unless its course changed[159] the aeroplane must fall in a field not more than two hundred yards away.
but the atmosphere about them, which a short while before had been clear and fragrant, was now growing stifling, and blowing about them was a yellow cloud.
with a suffocating sensation nona put up her hand to her throat. what could be the trouble with her? she could see barbara running on ahead, and the great ship fluttering downward, leaving much of the cloud of smoke dissolving behind it. once she tried to call to her companion, but the feeling of choking was too painful. it would make no difference if she should sit down for a few moments. if there were any service to be done a little later when this curious sensation had passed she could go on.
but whatever the poisonous air that had suddenly come out of the blue heavens the fumes grew thicker on the ground. no sooner had she sat down than nona dropped backward, her mouth opening slightly and her face turning a queer dark color.
nevertheless barbara kept on. from[160] the beginning she had been slightly in advance of nona and running more quickly. she had been conscious of the sudden thickening of the atmosphere, but had put up her hand, covering her nose and mouth and so had gotten away from the fumes. moreover, she had not become aware that nona was not following. naturally the sight ahead held her mind and eyes.
the airship as it drew nearer the earth seemed to hold its wings outspread, quiet as a weary bird settling to rest. the machinery did not appear to have been seriously wrecked by whatever bomb its enemy had finally used. barbara could by this time plainly see a man still seated at his post, his hand holding his steering gear. yet the man looked not like a man so much as a wooden image and seemed unaware of what he was doing. the instant his machine touched the earth he fell forward face downward, rolled over a little when one of the giant wings of his air-craft partly covered him.
