Part 2 (1/2)
Still no Jack! He grew more and more concerned, and began to picture all sorts of grievous things as having happened to his chum.
Several times he thought he heard the well known voice near by, but on each occasion discovered that he had deceived himself. Tom felt he could stand it no longer, and had even commenced to set forth when, to his delight, he discovered Jack coming.
”But what's he doing with that mite of a French child?” Tom asked himself, staring in wonder and perplexity. ”A cunning little girl she seems to be; but a battlefield isn't just the place for such an innocent. Poor thing! I suppose she's lost all her kin, and Jack brought her along because he couldn't let her stay at the ruins of her home and starve.”
He was so filled with joy over the coming of his chum, who did not seem to be wounded in the least, that everything else was forgotten.
”Letters from home, Jack, old scout; hurry your stumps!” he called out, waving the epistles above his head.
Jack, still in his pilot's dress, was so eager to hurry that he picked up the little six-year-old French child, and ran the last fifty yards.
”Did you get any yourself, Tom?” he demanded, as he came up; and then immediately added: ”I see you have some, and by the same token one of them has a French stamp on it--from Nice!”
”Oh, it's Bessie Gleason,” said Tom with a twinkle in his eye. ”You remember my telling you she promised to write to me if I'd answer and let her hear what stunts the air boys were pulling off over here in the Argonne. Let you read it if you care to, Jack.”
”Very good of you, Tom,” grinned the other. ”But excuse me while I look over my own letters. And say, perhaps you'll make friends with this little girl here until I get through. I've got something to tell about her that will give you a thrill, I reckon.”
It was just like Jack to say enough to set his chum guessing, and then leave him ”up in the air” so to speak. Tom looked again at the child. He could see that he had made no mistake when thinking she was winsome, at first sight. He also knew that it would be impossible to make Jack talk until he had read several times over the letter Bessie had written to him, and it was a very fat letter.
”Come and make friends with me, little girl,” Tom said. ”Can you speak English, I wonder, or will I have to try my stumbling French on you?
What is your name?”
”It is Jeanne, M'sieu!” lisped the child, sweetly, and Tom was more than ever drawn toward her when he saw the appealing smile on her face.
”Jeanne, is it? A very pretty name too. Jeanne what?” he went on. And as Tom always won the confidence of children by his kindly manner she drew closer to him, and he took her little hand in his and squeezed it.
”Jeanne Anstey, M'sieu. And my sister's name, it is Helene,” she told him.
”Oh! then you have a sister, have you?” Tom continued. ”Where is Helene just now, Jeanne?”
The child's eyes immediately filled with tears. Still, with a queer little French shrug that was almost comical in one so very young, she said pathetically:
”Ah, M'sieu, it is the pity that I do not know. That bad man took her away while my poor mamma lay dying, trying to hold Helene. Me, mamma hid from the man. I sometimes wish it had been me he took on his horse with him, instead of Helene.”
Tom began to wonder what lay back of all this. He looked toward Jack, to see that the other had paused in his reading as if to listen.
”Tell you all about it as soon as I get through this letter from my mother, Tom,” the other remarked. ”Well worth waiting to hear, too, I give you my word. One of the queerest things that ever happened to me.
I've already more than half promised Jeanne we'll try our level best to find Helene, her twin sister, for her.”
”Nice of you I'm sure,” chuckled Tom; ”but I want to hear what it's all about before I cast my vote. Little time we've got these busy days to go chasing around the country hunting for lost children, sorry as I feel for the little thing.”
”Just wait, and don't take snap judgment, that's all, Tom. Guess I know about how it'll strike you. Give me five minutes more to clean up here, and I'll tell you everything.”
So Tom continued to amuse himself by talking with the wonderfully bright little French child, who proved more and more interesting on further acquaintance. Undoubtedly one of her parents had been English, a fact which would account for her speaking the language so correctly. From her name of Anstey he concluded this must have been her father, while the mother was very likely French, hence Jeanne and that other name, Helene.
”Now I'm ready to explain things, Tom,” announced Jack, who wore the marks to tell that he, too, along with Tom, had reached the rank of sergeant in the Flying Corps.
”Glad to hear you say so, because you've managed to get me as curious as any old woman,” grumbled Tom. ”First of all, tell me how you fared back there over the battlelines. You didn't seem at all surprised to find me here; yet I reckon you knew I took a tumble?”