Chapter 5

Father De Smet fled, too. He leaped over the frying-pan and tore down the river-bank after the boat. As he overtook it, Mother De Smet ran out the gang plank. "Boys!" shouted Father De Smet. "Get aboard! Get aboard!" Joseph and Jan instantly stopped the mule and, dropping the reins, raced up the gangplank, almost before the end of it rested safely on the ground. Father De Smet snatched up the reins. On went the boat at Netteke's best speed, which seemed no better than a snail's pace to the fleeing family. Sounds of the skirmish continued to reach their ears, even when they had gone some distance down the river, and it was not until twilight had deepened into dusk, and they were hidden in its shadows, that they dared hope the danger was passed. It was after ten o'clock at night when the "Old Woman" at last approached the twinkling lights of Antwerp, and they knew that, for the time being at least, they were safe.

They wore now beyond the German lines in country still held by the Belgians. Here, in a suburb of the city, Father De Smet decided to dock for the night. A distant clock struck eleven as the hungry but thankful family gathered upon the deck of the "Old Woman" to eat a meager supper of bread and cheese with only the moon to light their repast. Not until they had finished did Father De Smet tell them all that had happened to him during the few terrible moments when he was in the hands of the enemy.

"They overreached themselves," he said. "They meant to amuse themselves by prolonging my misery, and they lingered just a bit too long." He turned to Jan and Joseph. "You were brave boys! If you had not started the boat when you did, it is quite likely they might have got me, after all, and the potatoes too. I am proud of you."

"But, Father," cried Joseph, "who could have fired those shots? We didn't see a soul."

"Neither did I," answered his father; "and neither did the Germans for that matter. There was no one in sight."

"Oh," cried Mother De Smet, "it was as if the good God himself intervened to save you!"

"As I figure it out," said Father De Smet, "we must have stopped very near the trenches, and our own men must have seen the Germans attack us. My German friend had evidently been following us up, meaning to get everything we had and me too. But the smell of the onions was too much for him! If he hadn't been greedy, he might have carried out his plan, but he wanted our potatoes and our supper too; and so he got neither!" he chuckled. "And neither did the Kaiser get a toast from me! Instead, he got a salute from the Belgians." He crossed himself reverently. "Thank God for our soldiers," he said, and Mother De Smet, weeping softly, murmured a devout "Amen."

Little did Jan and Marie dream as they listened, that this blessing rested upon their own father, and that he had been one of the Belgian soldiers, who, firing from the trenches, had delivered them from the hands of their enemies. Their father, hidden away, in the earth like a fox, as little dreamed that he had helped to save his own children from a terrible fate.

XII

THE ZEPPELIN RAID

When the Twins awoke, early the next morning, they found that Father and Mother De Smet had been stirring much earlier still, and that the "Old Woman" was already slipping quietly along among the docks of Antwerp. To their immense surprise they were being towed, not by Netteke, but by a very small and puffy steam tug. They were further astonished to find that Netteke herself was on board the "Old Woman."

"How in the world did you get the mule on to the boat!" gasped Jan, when he saw her.

"Led her right up the gangplank just like folks," answered Father De Smet. "I couldn't leave her behind and I wanted to get to the Antwerp docks as soon as possible. This was the quickest way. You see," he went on, "I don't know where I shall be going next, but I know it won't be up the Dyle, so I am going to keep Netteke right where I can use her any minute."

There was no time for further questions, for Father De Smet had to devote his attention to the tiller. Soon they were safely in dock and Father De Smet was unloading his potatoes and selling them to the market-men, who swarmed about the boats to buy the produce which had been brought in from the country.

"There!" he said with a sigh of relief as he delivered the last of his cargo to a purchaser late in the afternoon; "that load is safe from the Germans, anyway."

"How did you find things up the Dyle?" asked the merchant who had bought the potatoes.

Father De Smet shook his head.

"Couldn't well be worse," he said. "I'm not going to risk another trip. The Germans are taking everything they can lay their hands on, and are destroying what they can't seize. I nearly lost this load, and my life into the bargain. If it hadn't been that, without knowing it, we stopped so near the Belgian line of trenches that they could fire on the German foragers who tried to take our cargo, I shouldn't have been here to tell this tale."

"God only knows what will become of Belgium if this state of things continues," groaned the merchant. "Food must come from somewhere or the people will starve."

"True enough," answered Father De Smet. "I believe I'll try a trip north through the back channels of the Scheldt and see what I can pick up."

"Don't give up, anyway," urged the merchant. "If you fellows go back on us, I don't know what we shall do. We depend on you to bring supplies from somewhere, and if you can't get them in Belgium, you'll have to go up into Holland."

Mother De Smet leaned over the boatrail and spoke to the two men who were standing on the dock.

"You'd better believe we'll not give up," she said. "We don't know the meaning of the word."

"Well," said the merchant sadly, "maybe you don't, but there are others who do. It takes a stout heart to have faith that God hasn't forgotten Belgium these days."

"It's easy enough to have faith when things are going right," said Mother De Smet, "but to have faith when things are going wrong isn't so easy." Then she remembered Granny. "But a sick heart won't get you anywhere, and maybe a stout one will," she finished.

"That's a good word," said the merchant.

"It was said by as good a woman as treads shoe-leather," answered Mother De Smet.

"You are safe while you stay in Antwerp, anyway," said the merchant as he turned to say good-bye. "Our forts are the strongest in the world and the Germans will never be able to take them. There's comfort in that for us." Then he spoke to his horses and turned away with his load.

"Let us stay right here to-night," said Mother De Smet to her husband as he came on board the boat. "We are all in need of rest after yesterday, and in Antwerp we can get a good night's sleep. Besides, it is so late in the day that we couldn't get out of town before dark if we tried."

Following this plan, the whole family went to bed at dusk, but they were not destined to enjoy the quiet sleep they longed for. The night was warm, and the cabin small, so Father De Smet and Joseph, as well as the Twins, spread bedding on the deck and went to sleep looking up at the stars.

They had slept for some hours when they were suddenly aroused by the sound of a terrific explosion. Instantly they sprang to their feet, wide awake, and Mother De Smet came rushing from the cabin with the babies screaming in her arms.

"What is it now? What is it?" she cried.

"Look! Look!" cried Jan.

He pointed to the sky. There, blazing with light, like a great misshapen moon, was a giant airship moving swiftly over the city. As it sailed along, streams of fire fell from it, and immediately there followed the terrible thunder of bursting bombs. When it passed out of sight, it seemed as if the voice of the city itself must rise in anguish at the terrible destruction left in its wake.

Just what that destruction was, Father De Smet did not wish to see. "This is a good place to get away from," he said to the frightened group cowering on the deck of the "Old Woman" after the bright terror had disappeared. When morning came he lost no time in making the best speed he could away from the doomed city of Antwerp which they had thought so safe.

When they had left the city behind them and the boat was slowly making its way through the quiet back channels of the Scheldt the world once more seemed really peaceful to the wandering children. Their way lay over still waters and beside green pastures, and as they had no communication with the stricken regions of Belgium, they had no news of the progress of the war, until, some days later, the boat docked at Rotterdam, and it became necessary to decide what should be done next. There they learned that they had barely escaped the siege of Antwerp, which had begun with the Zeppelin raid.

Father De Smet was now obliged to confront the problem of what to do with his own family, for, since Antwerp was now in the hands of the enemy, he could no longer earn his living in the old way. Under these changed conditions he could not take care of Jan and Marie, so one sad day they said good-bye to good Mother De Smet, to Joseph and the babies, and went with Father De Smet into the city of Rotterdam.

They found that these streets were also full of Belgian refugees, and here, too, they watched for their mother. In order to keep up her courage, Marie had often to feel of the locket and to say to herself: "She will find us. She will find us." And Jan, Jan had many times to say to himself, "I am now a man and must be brave," or he would have cried in despair.

But help was nearer than they supposed. Already England had begun to organize for the relief of the Belgian refugees, and it was in the office of the British Consul at Rotterdam that Father De Smet finally took leave of Jan and Marie. The Consul took them that night to his own home, and, after a careful record had been made of their names and their parents' names and all the facts about them, they were next day placed upon a ship, in company with many other homeless Belgians, and sent across the North Sea to England.

XIII

REFUGEES

If I were to tell you all the strange new sights that Jan and Marie saw, and all the things they did in England, it would make this book so big you could not hold it up to read it, so I must skip all about the great house in the southern part of England where they next found themselves. This house was the great country place of a very rich man, and when the war broke out he had given it to be used as a shelter for homeless Belgians. There were the most wonderful woods and parks on the estate, and miles of beautiful drives. There were great gardens and stables and hothouses; and the house was much bigger and finer than any Jan and Marie had ever seen in all their lives. It seemed to them as if they had suddenly been changed into a prince and princess by some fairy wand. They were not alone in all this splendor; other lost little Belgian children were there, and there were lost parents, too, and it seemed such a pity that the lost parents and the lost children should not be the very ones that belonged together, so that every one could be happy once more. However, bad as it was, it was so much better than anything they had known since the dreadful first night of the alarm that Jan and Marie became almost happy again.

At night they and the other homeless children slept in little white cots set all in a row in a great picture gallery. They were given new clothes, for by this time even their best ones were quite worn out, and every day they had plenty of good plain food to eat. Every day more Belgians came, and still more, until not only the big house, but the stable and outbuildings were all running-over full of homeless people. One day, after they had been in this place for two or three weeks, Jan and Marie were called into the room where sat the sweet-faced lady whose home they were in. It was like an office, and there were several other persons there with her.

The sweet-faced lady spoke to them. "Jan and Marie," she said, "how would you like to go to live with a dear lady in America who would love you, and take care of you, so you need never be lonely and sad again?"

"But our mother!" gasped Marie, bursting into tears. "We have not found her!"

"You will not lose her any more by going to America," said the lady, "for, you see, we shall know all about you here, and if your mother comes, we shall be able to tell her just where to find you. Meanwhile you will be safe and well cared for, far away from all the dreadful things that are happening here."

"It is so far away!" sobbed Marie.

Jan said nothing; he was busy swallowing lumps in his own throat.

"You see, dears," the lady said gently, "you can be together there, for this woman has no children of her own, and is willing to take both of you. That does not often happen, and, besides, she is a Belgian; I know you will find a good home with her."

"You're sure we could be together?" asked Jan.

"Yes," said the lady.

"Because," said Jan, "Mother said I must take care of Marie."

"And she said she'd find us again if she had to swim the sea," said Marie, feeling of her locket and smiling through her tears.

"She won't have to swim," said the lady. "We will see to that! If she comes here, she shall go for you in a fine big ship, and so that's all settled." She kissed their woebegone little faces. "You are going to start to-morrow," she said. "The good captain of the ship has promised to take care of you, so you will not be afraid, and I know you will be good children."

It seemed like a month to Jan and Marie, but it was really only seven days later that they stood on the deck of the good ship Caspian, as it steamed proudly into the wonderful harbor of New York. It was dusk, and already the lights of the city sparkled like a sky full of stars dropped down to earth. High above the other stars shone the great torch of "Liberty enlightening the World." "Oh," gasped Marie, as she gazed, "New York must be as big as heaven. Do you suppose that is an angel holding a candle to light us in?"

Just then the captain came to find them, and a few minutes later they walked with him down the gangplank, right into a pair of outstretched arms. The arms belonged to Madame Dujardin, their new mother. "I should have known them the moment I looked at them, even if they hadn't been with the captain," she cried to her husband, who stood smiling by her side. "Poor darlings, your troubles are all over now! Just as soon as Captain Nichols says you may, you shall come with us, and oh, I have so many things to show you in your new home!"

She drew them with her to a quieter part of the dock, while her husband talked with the captain, and then, when they had bidden him good-bye, they were bundled into a waiting motor car and whirled away through miles of brilliantly lighted streets and over a wonderful bridge, and on and on, until they came to green lawns, and houses set among trees and shrubs, and it seemed to the children as if they must have reached the very end of the world. At last the car stopped before a house standing some distance back from the street in a large yard, and the children followed their new friends through the bright doorway of their house.

Madame Dujardin helped them take off their things in the pleasant hallway, where an open fire was burning, and later, when they were washed and ready, she led the way to a cheerful dining room, where there was a pretty table set for four. There were flowers on the table, and they had chicken for supper, and, after that, ice cream! Jan and Marie had never tasted ice cream before in their whole lives! They thought they should like America very much.

After supper their new mother took them upstairs and showed them two little rooms with a bathroom between. One room was all pink and white with a dear little white bed in it, and she said to Marie, "This is your room, my dear." The other room was all in blue and white with another dear little white bed in it, and she said to Jan, "This is your room, my dear." And there were clean white night-gowns on the beds, and little wrappers with gay flowered slippers, just waiting for Jan and Marie to put them on.

"Oh, I believe it is heaven!" cried Marie, as she looked about the pretty room. Then she touched Madame Dujardin's sleeve timidly. "Is it all true?" she said. "Shan't we wake up and have to go somewhere else pretty soon?"

"No, dear," said Madame Dujardin gently. "You are going to stay right here now and be happy."

"It will be a very nice place for Mother to find us in," said Jan. "She will come pretty soon now, I should think."

"I hope she may," said Madame Dujardin, tears twinkling in her eyes.

"I'm sure she will," said Marie. "You see everybody is looking for her. There's Granny, and Mother and Father De Smet, and Joseph, and the people in Rotterdam, and the people in England, too; and then, besides, Mother is looking for herself, of course!"

"She said she would surely find us even if she had to swim the sea," added Jan.

XIV

THE MOST WONDERFUL PART

And now comes the most wonderful part of the story!

Madame Dujardin prepared a bath and said to Marie: "You may have the first turn in the tub because you're a girl. In America the girls have the best of everything", she laughed at Jan, as she spoke. "I will help you undress. Jan, you may get ready and wait for your turn in your own room." She unbuttoned Marie's dress, slipped off her clothes, and held up the gay little wrapper for her to put her arms into, and just then she noticed the locket on her neck. "We'll take this off, too," she said, beginning to unclasp it.

But Marie clung to it with both hands. "No, no," she cried. "Mother said I was never, never to take it off. It has her picture in it."

"May I see it, dear?" asked Madame Dujardin. "I should like to know what your mother looks like." Marie nestled close to her, and Madame Dujardin opened the locket.

For a moment she gazed at the picture in complete silence, her eyes staring at it like two blue lights. Then she burst into a wild fit of weeping, and cried out, "Leonie! Leonie! It is not possible! My own sister's children!" She clasped the bewildered Marie in her arms and kissed her over and over again. She ran to the door and brought in Jan and kissed him; and then she called her husband. When he came in and saw her with her arms around both children at once, holding the locket in her hands, and laughing and crying both together, he, too, was bewildered.

"What in the world is the matter, Julie?" he cried.

For answer, she pointed to the face in the locket. "Leonie! Leonie!" she cried. "They are my own sister's children! Surely the hand of God is in this!"

Her husband looked at the locket. "So it is! So it is!" he said in astonishment. "I thought at first you had gone crazy."

"See!" cried his wife. "It's her wedding-gown, and afterward she gave me those very beads she has around her neck! I have them yet!" She rushed from the room and returned in a moment with the beads in her hand.

Meanwhile Jan and Marie had stood still, too astonished to do more than stare from one amazed and excited face to the other, as their new father and mother gazed, first at them, and then at the locket, and last at the beads, scarcely daring to believe the testimony of their own eyes. "To think," cried Madame Dujardin at last, "that I should not have known! But there are many Van Hoves in Belgium, and it never occurred to me that they could be my own flesh and blood. It is years since I have heard from Leonie. In fact, I hardly knew she had any children, our lives have been so different. Oh, it is all my fault," she cried, weeping again. "But if I have neglected her, I will make it up to her children! It may be, oh, it is just possible that she is still alive, and that she may yet write to me after all these years! Sorrow sometimes bridges wide streams!"

Then she turned more quietly to the children.

"You see, dears," she said, "I left Belgium many years ago, and came with your uncle to this country. We were poor when we came, but your uncle has prospered as one can in America. At first Leonie and I wrote regularly to each other. Then she grew more and more busy, and we seemed to have no ties in common, so that at last we lost sight of each other altogether." She opened her arms to Marie and Jan as she spoke, and held them for some time in a close embrace.

Finally she lifted her head and laughed. "This will never do!" she exclaimed. "You must have your baths, even if you are my own dear niece and nephew. The water must be perfectly cold by this time!"

She went into the bathroom, turned on more hot water, and popped Marie into the tub. In half an hour both children had said their prayers and were tucked away for the night in their clean white beds.

Wonderful days followed for Jan and Marie. They began to go to school; they had pretty clothes and many toys, and began to make friends among the little American children of the neighborhood. But in the midst of these new joys they did not forget their mother, still looking for them, or their father, now fighting, as they supposed, in the cruel trenches of Belgium. But at last there came a day when Aunt Julie received a letter with a foreign postmark. She opened it, with trembling fingers, and when she saw that it began, "My dear Sister Julie," she wept so for joy that she could not see to read it, and her husband had to read it for her.

This was the letter: