The Red Signal (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
What did it mean? Where did they keep it? Surely not down in that hole with the iron trap-door below her bedroom window. They wouldn't put such things near enough to a house to blow it up! The tool house! It looked too small to hide much. It was little more than a wart on the side of a bunchy hill with young corn, growing all about it. The barn? It was very large, but did they ever keep such things in a wooden building? Was that one reason why the barn was always locked? Why Schwarz was so angry at Sylvester once for leaving the door ajar?
Hilda shuddered at thought of the peril that might be all about her. She shuddered again as the sharp voice of the woman below stairs called her. She was peeling potatoes in the kitchen and her mistress was busy making pies at the kitchen table when she heard the strange whirring noise again that had so startled her in the night. She jumped and dropped a potato back into the pan again, looking up at Mrs. Schwarz with wide eyes:
“Oh, what is that?"
“How should I know? Attend to your work!” the woman answered crossly.
But Hilda's eyes were fixed on the open Window, for out of the meadow behind the barn there arose a large, bird-like structure, skimming the air, and floating upward as lightly and easily as a mote in a sunbeam.
“Why! That must have been———!” Hilda began breathlessly, then caught her breath and changed her sentence. “Why! That is an aeroplane! I have seen them sometimes far up over Chicago. But never so close. But an aeroplane out here in the country! How did it come, Mrs. Schwarz?”
There was no answer and, turning, the girl saw that the woman stood absently gazing out of the window, a. look of woe on her face and tears streaming down her cheeks.
CHAPTER IV
Hilda's heart was touched instantly. Springing toward her mistress she cried:
“Mrs. Schwarz, you are crying! Is something dreadful the matter? Oh, I am so sorry!” and she timidly put her arm about the stout shoulder that, since the words of sympathy, had begun to shake with sobs. There was something terrible in seeing this great bulk of a woman with her sharp tongue and stolid ways all broken up crying.
“It iss my poy!” she wailed into her apron. “They vill send him avay to var! My only poy! Und there iss no need. He iss too young, und I know he vill get into drubble. He vas exempt. Ve got him exempt on accound of the farm, und now the orders haf come from the Fatherland, und he must go!”
“But what has the Fatherland got to do with him?” asked Hilda puzzled. “This is America. We are Americans. Why don't you tell the Fatherland you don't want him to go?”
Hilda's heart sank within her at the thought of keeping Sylvester at borne; nevertheless, she was touched by the poor woman's grief.
But the woman shook her head and wiped her eyes despairingly.
“It iss no use!” she sighed. “Ye must do as the Fatherland orders. Ve are Germans. They know pest!”
Suddenly the voice of Schwarz boomed forth just outside the door. His wife turned as if she had been shot and bolted up the stairs. Hilda had sense enough to finish her potatoes without a sign that anything unusual had just been going on, but her mind was in a turmoil over the strange and dreadful things which were constantly being revealed to her. What did it all mean, anyway? How should the Fatherland reach out to free America and presume to order what free Americans should do? And why should they want men to go into an army with whom they were at war? A great light suddenly broke upon her understanding as she sat staring out into the brilliant blue of the sky where only a few moments ago the great aeroplane had become a mere speck and vanished out of sight. There certainly was something queer about this place, and she must get out of it just as quickly as possible. She wished with all her heart she had taken warning from the few light words the nice young engineer had said about spies and turned about then and there. But how absurd! She had no money with which to return. And where would she have gone? Her mother had already been hurried off to Wisconsin to take charge of the orphans, and Uncle Otto would have been very angry to have her return before she had even been to the place where he sent her. Of course, Uncle Otto did not realize what this place was like, or he never would have sent her. He would not want her to stay, and, of course, he would send her money to come back when he got her letter. But, oh, even a day or two was long to wait!
She began to wonder whether she had made her case strong enough in the letter. Uncle Otto would have no patience with suspicions. And yet she could scarcely have told more without writing a very long letter, and for that she had not had time. But perhaps she ought to write again to hurry matters. She would mail the letter herself this time to make it sure.
Mr. and Mrs. Schwarz were still talking angrily in the room overhead. Hilda gave a quick glance out the door. The men were all in the field working. She could identify each one. She slipped, softly up the stairs and locked herself into her room. Then, with hurried fingers, she wrote a penciled appeal:
“Dear Uncle Otto:
“Won't you please, please send me money by telegraph, or at least by return mail, to come home? I cannot possible stay here any longer. There is something very queer about this place and the people. I haven't time to tell you now, but when I come home I will explain. I am sure you would not want me to stay if you knew all about it. There are a lot of dreadful men here, and I am frightened. I hope you won't be angry with me, and I hope you will send me the money at once. I can get a place to work and pay it back to you. Please hurry!
“Your affectionate niece,
Hilda Lessing.”
Hastily addressing the letter she slipped it into her blouse and stole silently down the stairs again. A glance out the door showed the men still at work in the distance. She sped down the path toward the station as if on the wings of the wind. There would be a letter box at the station, of course.
It never occurred to Hilda until she reached the station and mailed her letter that she would be in full view of Mrs. Schwarz's bedroom window, but when, after a hasty glance at the deserted little shanty of a station, noting that there was no sign of agent or telegraph office, she turned to come back, she suddenly became aware of two faces framed in the upper window of the house. Not anxious to anger her employer she quickened her steps, running as nimbly as possible over the rough ground, reaching the kitchen door without delay. But to her unspeakable dismay she saw Schwarz standing there glaring out at her, his whole big frame filling the doorway, his face red and angry, the odor of liquor about him.
“Where you pin?” he snarled.
A frightened little smile of apology trembled out on Hilda's white lips:
“I've just been down to mail a letter that I wanted to have go this morning. It didn't take me a minute. I mustn't trouble you every time I have a letter to mail,” she explained.
“You don't go down to that station mitout permission! You onderstandt?” he thundered.
“Oh, very well,” said Hilda, dropping her lashes with a dignified sweep, though she was trembling with indignation and terror. There was something about the whole domineering make-up of Schwarz that made her think of a mailed fist.
Schwarz, with something akin to a growl, stood aside to let her pass in and she fled upstairs to her room, where she stayed behind a locked door until she heard him go down the path to the station. Her heart was fluttering wildly, and tears of bitterness were on her cheeks. It was some minutes before she could calm herself enough to return to the kitchen.
She had been at work not more than five minutes when she saw through the open door that Schwarz was striding back over the furrows to the house.
Her instinct was to flee again, but the peremptory commands of Mrs. Schwarz about putting on the vegetables for dinner held her at her post.
There was something belligerent in Schwarz's attitude as he entered