A VEXING PROBLEM
The boys, who had attained a good working knowledge of the French language, listened breathlessly. The gentle questions of the officer were easy to follow, but without pressing too close to the sad group they were unable to hear the whispered, broken replies of the woman. That the story was a sad one, one of the uncounted tragedies of the invasion of a cruel and heartless enemy, they could easily guess by the break in the French officer's voice and the unashamed and manly tears that filled his eyes. Slowly, painfully she told her story, the two tiny children clutching her closely the while. Fainter and fainter grew the feeble voice. Porky and Beany knew instinctively that they were standing in the presence of death; not the glorious and gallant passing that the soldier finds on the battlefield, but the coming of release from a long and undeserved agony. As the little group watched, one bloodless hand reached up and drew the thin shawl away from her breast. There was a wound there; a cruel death wound that she had stanched as best she could and had covered from the eyes of the two babies. As though her story was all ended, the pitiful eyes fixed themselves on the face of the officer who held her. Rapidly he made the sign of the cross, then with his hand held high, he spoke to the dying woman. It was enough. A smile of peace lighted the worn face, one long look she bent on the two children, and turning her head as if for protection toward the blue tunic against which she rested, she closed her eyes, sighed, and was still.
Reverently laying down his burden, the officer rose to his feet. And while the group stood with bared heads, he told the story as he had just heard it.
The dead woman's name was Marie Duval. For two hundred years her people had lived in simple ease and comfort on the well tilled farm.
In rapid, thrilling sentences, he sketched the story of their happy, blameless lives, through Marie's innocent childhood, her girlhood, and up to the time of her meeting with young Pierre Duval. Pierre had a good farm of his own down the valley, and there they lived in simple happiness and prosperity. Three children were born, the two little creatures crouching before them and one a little older, now dead.
When the war broke out, Pierre put on his uniform and went away. For a while, like other heroic women, she tilled the little farm until one night when a small scouting party of Huns swept down, burning and destroying all that lay in their path. She escaped with her children under cover of the darkness and made her way back to her father's house. For a long time they escaped the tide of war, and lived on and on from day to day, the old, old father and mother and the young mother waiting for news from Pierre. It came at last.... He was dead.
"Then," said the French officer, "then her heart seemed to die too, but she knew that she must live for the sake of the little ones. Already she could see that the agony and terror of it all was killing the aged parents. Four sons were fighting, and one by one they followed Pierre to death.
"Nearer and nearer came the German lines until one awful day a horde of heartless warriors swept over them.
"Sirs, you know the rest," said the French officer, his fine face twitching with emotion. "It is the same old story, the old man ruthlessly tortured and killed, his old wife kept alive just long enough to see him die. The oldest grandchild was with her. He too was tortured while his mother, hidden and imprisoned in a portion of the cellar under the smoking ruins of the farmhouse, heard his childish screams of agony.
"She tried frantically to free herself from the ruins. A soldier saw her, brought the fainting child almost within reach of her hand and killed him. Then with the same weapon he made a savage thrust for her heart, but could only reach close enough to inflict a deep wound. Then making sure that she could not escape from the cellar, he rode away after his troop. She became unconscious, and for days the two little children must have lived on the vegetables stored about them. When she regained consciousness she found strength to drag herself to the shelves where the family provisions were stored. All that was not spoiled she fed to the children, but they were without water save for the rainwater that dripped down upon them. She felt herself growing steadily weaker as the untended wound grew worse. The whole neighborhood seemed abandoned, and their feeble cries brought no help. The children pined, and suffering as they were from shock, soon gave way to the cold dampness and insufficient food.
"Marie herself lived solely through her determination not to leave the two helpless babies to their fate. She prayed that they might die first, and she was glad to note their failing strength, so fearful was she of leaving them alone to a horrible, lingering death.
"She herself grew so weak that much of the time she lay almost unconscious with the little ones huddled against her. She commenced to see visions. Pierre came and comforted her and promised that she should soon be free to be with him. The little martyred son clasped her in his loving little arms, assuring her that he no longer suffered. The old mother and father sat beside her and told her to be brave and patient. But with all her courage she felt that her end was near. She could not endure much longer."
The French officer bowed his head.
"Then came deliverance," he said softly, "deliverance from all her pain and anguish. She has been released. She is with Pierre!"
One of the officers stepped forward and tenderly covered the still figure with his cloak. He took the younger child in his arms, but it screamed and struggled while the other one fought off the friendly hands stretched down to it. The French officer spoke to them pleadingly, but they only stared stupidly at him.
"They are almost done for," said one of the officers. "We have got to get them away from here and right away." He made another effort to take the older child but the little fellow fought with the fury of a little wildcat. One after another tried in vain to get hold of the terrified little fellow, who grew more and more frightened.
Porky and Beany, standing modestly in the rear of the group, watched the proceedings with growing uneasiness. Finally Porky stepped forwards, saluting as he did so.
"Will you please let us try?" he asked, and taking a worried nod from the Captain for answer, he sat down beside the dead mother, and for a long time, as it seemed to the watching group, stared idly ahead, without so much as a glance at the trembling children.
Then he turned, nodded as though he had just noticed them, and taking a cake of chocolate from his pocket, bit off a piece and then broke off a small corner for each child. It was only a taste, but as the delicious morsel melted on their tongues, they crept to Porky like a couple of starved kittens. He showed them the rest of the chocolate and hitched off a few feet. Beany came after. The children followed, and Porky broke off another small bit for each. Some one brought water from the cars for them to drink and in fifteen minutes the thing was done. Porky and Beany, each with a little skeleton in their arms, wandered well away from the spot where unaccustomed hands were awkwardly digging a grave for the dead young mother.
"This," said Porky, as the child in his arms sagged on his shoulder and seemed to sleep, "this is the worst thing yet!"
"You bet!" said Beany dismally. "Say, did you see me cry back there? I did!"
"Well, what of it?" demanded Porky. "Didn't everybody? I'd like to know how they could help it!"
"I wasn't looking," said Beany. "Oh, gosh, they didn't have to do things like this."
"Who, the Huns?" asked his brother. "Why, it's all like this and a million times worse!"
"Well, I wish I was grown up," mourned Beany. "To think we can't do much of anything! I want to get even! I want to look some of those fellows in the face!"
"What's your idea? Want to tell him what you think?" Porky laughed unpleasantly, as he shifted the weight of the child. "What's worrying me now is what is going to be done with these poor little kids. Isn't the one you have a pretty little thing? Even all the dirt and hunger can't hide her looks. I suppose they will have to go into some asylum!"
"I don't see why," said Beany suddenly. "Do you remember Mom and Pop said they wished if we brought them anything from across, it would be something good and worth while? They didn't want German helmets and junk like that. What do you suppose they would say to a couple of dandy little kids like these?"
"For the love of the board of health!" said his brother solemnly. "It's a great thought, sonny, but do you suppose Mom wants to start in bringing up another lot of children! You know if she ever started, she would make a good job of it; you know how thorough she always is."
"Yes, she is thorough, all right!" grinned Mom's son. "Look at us!"
"She did the best she could with us, anyhow," retorted Mom's other son solemnly, "and I think, no, I know she would be tickled to death to do something as real and important as taking these two little chaps to bring up. And we could help support them if we had to, later."
"That's silly," said Porky. "You know Dad has made a lot of money. And he could afford to bring up six of them if he wanted to."
"Well, all he ever wants is what Mom wants," said Beany.
"I guess that's so too," said Porky, "but perhaps some of those officers will have some other plans for them."
He looked down at the child on his arm. Already he felt a tenderness for the starved, sickly little creature who had trusted him.
"One apiece," he said, looking at Beany.
"One's a girl, though," said Beany.
Porky wanted to be fair.
"That's so," he said. "Well, we can draw straws to see which has to take her."
"Straws nothing!" said Beany. "She came to me, so she is mine. Darned if I know what to do with a girl, though! Can't teach her to play ball or marbles, and besides that she can't be a Boy Scout."
"Well, she can be a girl one. You know they have 'em, and if she can't play ball she can learn to swim and dive and ride and shoot, and it will be pretty handy to have her round the house when it comes to buttons and things. Mother must get tired sewing for three of us."
"Wonder how long it takes 'em to grow up to button size," said Beany, studying the tiny bundle in his arms.
"Don't know," said Porky. He looked anxiously at his brother. His generosity in accepting the care of the little girl worried him. He had to watch Beany, who was always more than generous and self-sacrificing.
"Why can't we both have both kids?" he asked. "I don't want you to be stung with a girl all the time. It isn't fair."
"Stuck with a girl!" said Beany. "Why, Porky, I like it! I never could see why when any one has a baby, everybody says, 'Gee, it's a boy! Isn't that bully!' or else 'Huh, it's a girl, too bad!' I never could see it. Course when they get our size they mostly are silly pills, but if I have a hand in bringing up this girl, why, you just watch her, that's all! I bet when she's fifteen she won't look cross-eyed at a boy. I bet she knocks their blocks off! She is going to have some sense!"
"Looks as though you mean to make a scrapper of her," laughed Porky.
"No, she has got to grow up just as much like Mom as she can."
"Well, Mom likes boys all right," was Porky's reminder.
"Yes, but I bet when she was young she never googled at 'em or passed notes or accidentally sat down in the same seat with them or any of that. She isn't that kind. You can see she isn't." And Beany, whose wavy hair and clear blue eyes had already caused him to suffer, nodded his head vigorously.
"Go ahead!" said Porky, "I think it's great having an assortment, only I didn't want you to feel as though you had the worst end of the bargain."
"Not a bit of it!" said Beany. "Not a bit, and I'll lend you my girl to look at or play with whenever you want."
"Much obliged," said Porky, "but I can't help thinking it might be a good plan to break the news to somebody."
"Your kidlet is asleep, so he won't notice. Suppose you go back there and see what they are doing."
"I can see from here," said Porky with a slight shudder. "They are sort of boarding up a place to put the youngster's mother. They have no way of getting a casket or even a box for her."
"It will be fixed all right," said Beany. "The Captain does everything all right. He will fix it just as well as ever he can. I'd like to go over and see just what they are doing."
"Better not; you might wake the baby, and we don't want her to see her mother again."
"Well, anyhow, one thing is settled. The pair is ours," said Porky with a sigh.
"They are ours if we can have them," said his brother.
"You watch me!" said Porky grimly.