id="pgepubid00018">MOTHER GERVAISE

Neither Ruth nor the driver was thrown out of the stalled ambulance. But Charlie jumped out in a hurry and held out his hand to the girl.

"You got to beat it away from here, Miss Ruth," he urged. "Another of those shells is likely to drop any minute. Hurry!"

Ruth had no desire to stay at that perilous corner of the road; but when she started away from the stalled car she found that she was alone.

"Aren't you coming, Charlie Bragg?" she demanded, turning back.

"Go on! Go on!" he urged her. "I've got to get this old flivver out of the mud. Keep right on to a little house you'll see on the left under the bank. Don't go past it in the dark. That's Mother Gervaise's cottage. It's out of reach of the Boches' shells."

"But you'll be killed, Charlie Bragg!" wailed the girl, suddenly realizing all the peril of their situation.

"Haven't ever been killed yet," he returned. "I tell you I've got to get this flivver out of the hole. These supplies have got to be taken to that field hospital. They're needed. I can't leave 'em here and run."

"But you expect me to run!" burst out Ruth, in sudden indignation.

"You can't help here. No use your taking a chance. You'll be in enough danger later. Now, you go on, Miss Ruth. Scoot! Here comes another!"

They heard the whine of the flying shell almost on top of the thud of the distant gun. Charlie seized her hand and they ran up the road for several yards. Then he stopped short, as the shell burst—this time far to the left of the stalled ambulance.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed. "You've got me rattled, too. Here! I'll go along to Mother Gervaise with you. Some of the fellows may be there and I can get help. Come on."

"Oh, Charlie!" murmured the girl. "I'm afraid for you."

"Trying to make me a quitter, are you?" he demanded. "Don't you know that if the Boches get you, they get you, and that's all there is to it? And one way or another that fliver's got to be got out of that hole."

Ruth was silenced. This young fellow—"boy" he called him in her own mind—had a quality of courage that shamed her. It was just the kind of bravery needed for the work he was doing in the war—a measure of recklessness that keeps one from counting the cost too exactly. Charlie Bragg had a philosophy of his own that kept him cheerful in the face of peril and was eminently practical at just this time.

He hurried her along the road, his hand under her elbow, seemingly able to see in the dark like a cat. But it was all black before Ruth's eyes, and she stumbled more than once. Her knees felt weak.

"I—I am scared, Charlie," she confessed, almost in a whisper.

"Yep. So was I, at first. But you know a fellow can't give in to it. If he does he'll never get to be a first-class ambulance driver. I bet some of the boys will be here at Mother Gervaise's and I can get help."

Another moment, and they seemed to turn a corner in the road and Ruth saw a small patch of light at the left of the roadway. She made it out to be an open window—the swinging shutter flung back against the wall. There was no glass in the opening.

"There it is," Charlie said. "You might have passed it right by, alone. You see, the house is close up against the high bank, and the hill is between us and the front. The Boches can't drop a shell here. It's a regular wayfarer's rest. There's a car—and another. We'll be all right now."

Ruth saw the outlines of the two cars parked beside the road. The young fellow led her directly toward the patch of yellow lamplight. She saw finally a broad, thatched cottage, the eaves of the high-peaked roof almost within reach as they came to the door.

Charlie Bragg knocked, then, without waiting for a summons to enter, lifted the wooden latch and shoved the sagging door open.

"Hello, folks!" he said. "Got shelter for a couple of babes in the woods? I got stalled down there at the Devil's Corner, and—— Let me introduce Miss Fielding. She's real folks like ourselves."

He had pushed Ruth in and entered behind her. Two young men—plainly Americans—rose from the table where they were eating. A squarely built woman bent over the fire at the end of the room. She did not look around from her culinary task.

"Hello, Bragg!" was the response from the other ambulance drivers.

"Cub Holdness and Mr. Francis Dwyer," said Charlie, introducing the two. "I've got stalled, fellows."

He swiftly told of the accident and the two young men left the table. The Frenchwoman turned and waddled toward the table, stirring spoon in hand and volubly objecting.

"Non, non!" she cried. "You would spoil the so-good ragout. If you do not eat it while it is hot——"

"The ragout can be heated over," put in Charlie. "But if the Boches get my car with a shell—good-night! Come on, fellows. And bring a rope. I believe we three can pull the old girl out."

The boys tramped out of the cottage. Mother Gervaise turned to Ruth and stared at her with very bright, black eyes.

She was a broad-faced woman, brown and hearty-looking, and with a more intelligent appearance than many of the peasants Ruth had seen. She wore sabots with her skirt tucked up to clear her bare ankles. Her teeth were broad and strong and white, and she showed them well as she smiled.

"The mademoiselle is Americaine?" she said. "Like these ambulanciers? Ah! brave boys, these. And mademoiselle is of the Croix Rouge, is it not?"

"I am working in the hospital at Clair," Ruth told her. "I am on my way with supplies to a station nearer the front."

"Ma foi!" exclaimed Mother Gervaise. "This has been a bad business. You will sup, Mademoiselle, yes?"

"I will, indeed. The accident has not taken away my appetite."

"Isn't it so? We must eat, no matter what next happens," said the woman. "Me, now! I am alone. My whole family have been destroyed. My husband and his brother—both have been killed. I had no children. Now I think it is as well, for children are not going to have much chance in France for years to come. All my neighbors have scattered, too."

"Then you have always lived here? Even before the war?" Ruth asked.

"Oui, Mademoiselle. Always. I was born right in that corner yonder, on a straw pallet. The best bed my mother had. We have grown rich since those days," and she shrugged her shoulders.

"I was an only child and the farm and cot came to me. Of course, I had plenty of the young men come to make love to me and my farm. I would have none of that kind. Some said I went through the wood and picked up a crooked stick after all. But Pierre and me—ma foi! We were happy, even if the old father and Pierre's brother must come here to live, too.

"The old father he die before the Germans come. I thank le bon Dieu for that. Pierre and his brother were mobilized and gone before the horde of les Boches come along this road. I am here alone, then. I begin making coffee and soup for them. Well, yes! They are men, too, and become hungry and exhausted. I please them and they treat me well. I learn what it means to make money—cash-money; and so I stay. Money is good, Mademoiselle.

"I might have wished poison into their soup; but that would not have killed them. And had I doctored it myself I would have been hung, and been no better off. So I made friends," and she smiled grimly.

"But I learned how boastful men could be—especially Germans. One—he was a major and one of the nobility—stayed here overnight. He promised to take me back to Germany when the war was over—which would be in a few weeks. They were to be in Paris in a few days then.

"He promised I would be proud when I became all German. France, he said, would never be a separate country again. For most of the people—my people—he said, were weaklings. They would emigrate to America and the remaining would intermarry with Germans. So all France would become Germany.