Rebecca's Promise Part 20

And they were off, down the driveway, by the lilac bushes to the old oak where Peter and Wallie, on their way from the shop, stretched a barrier across the walk.

"You must be in a hurry," grinned Peter. "Hold on and we'll ride with you, but you must have some regard to the speed limit."

"Tired?" They did look hot and tired. "It must be horrid to spend a perfectly gorgeous day like this in a stuffy shop with a gasoline engine that says nothing but puff-puff. Aren't you almost through?"

"We'll never be through," moaned Wallie. "I expect the Major will keep us here on the job until we are gray and tottering. You'll be a dear little old lady then, Miss Wyman."

"Silly!" Rebecca Mary tilted her nose. "But, honest, won't you be through soon? Granny and I have been perfect saints. We haven't made any fuss at all, but we can't stay here forever. Of course, I don't know anything about your great experiment----"

"It is great, all right!" interrupted Peter. "The more we work at it the more sure I am of that. I don't wonder old Germany moved heaven and earth to get hold of it."

When Peter spoke of Germany Rebecca Mary remembered Mrs. Erickson's gloomy fears and she asked impulsively; "Has Germany given up trying to get your wonderful secret?"

The two men stared at her in surprise.

"Don't you know that's why the Major brought the whole works down here?"

Peter asked. "In Waloo the Huns made trouble more than once, through the mechanics, you know, regular bolshevik work. You'd never believe how sly they were. That's why Joshua Cabot turned this place over to the Major, and why the rule was made to bar people, and why you are here to shed light on our dark way. The Major isn't taking any chances of having anything stolen from him nor of any dirty sabotage, either, you may believe me. Every man here had to pa.s.s a pretty rigid examination that went back to his father and his grandfather."

"Every man?" Rebecca Mary could not help but put a little dash of significance into those two words.

"Every one," Peter told her stoutly. "It is only the women who got in without. When I drove you in here I hadn't any idea how necessary secrecy was. You should have heard the wigging the Major gave me.

Perhaps you have been bored but you've been a life-preserver just the same, hasn't she, Wallie?"

"Sure thing!" Wallie gave a strong and hearty indors.e.m.e.nt to Peter's statement that Rebecca Mary had been a life-preserver. "I wish we could tell you more about this work, Miss Wyman, you'd be interested, but we're on oath, you know. You'll just have to trust us and wait."

"M-m," murmured Rebecca Mary. It is so much easier to ask for trust and patience than it is to furnish it. "You are sure you can trust your men?"

"Why not?" Peter's voice was sharp and quick. "Why not, Rebecca Mary?

What do you mean?"

Rebecca Mary laughed uneasily. "I don't suppose it is anything but----"

And she told them what Mrs. Erickson had told her, that Frederick Befort and George Weiss had been heard talking German behind the Erickson woodshed, and Mrs. Erickson feared the worst.

"Just like a woman," jeered Peter. "You take my word for it, Rebecca Mary. I guess I know as much about it as old Mother Erickson. Befort is all right. So is George Weiss. I suppose if I were to go back of the chicken run and murmur 'hickory d.i.c.kory dock' Mrs. Erickson would swear I was a red Russian. You just keep your hair on, Rebecca Mary, and listen to me. Some day you'll know that I'm right, won't she, Wallie?"

"Sure thing," Wallie said again. "We didn't run any chance of a leak, Miss Wyman. Believe me, we have picked men."

Rebecca Mary looked from Wallie to Peter. They nodded to her as if to emphasize what they had told her. Surely they must know more than Mrs.

Erickson, who had only been able to peek through the shop window. Mrs.

Erickson had told her that she always looked on the dark side of things and naturally she had hunted for a dark side to the great experiment. It was foolish for Rebecca Mary to look at the dark side when Peter and Wallie were insisting that there was such a bright and sunny side.

"Mrs. Erickson makes awful good gooseberry tarts and doughnuts," Peter said gently. "But she hasn't much of a record as a detective."

"I didn't really think she had. I'm not a complete idiot," Rebecca Mary exclaimed with considerable scorn. "But I thought it was only right to tell you what I heard. Of course, I know that Major Martingale didn't take any chances. Germany couldn't get a clue now to what you are doing."

"Huh," grunted Peter. "I wouldn't go quite as far as that. I think Germany will still make a try, don't you, Wallie?"

"I do, but don't let's talk about Germany as if the war was still on; let's guess what Ben is going to give us for dinner. I'm so hungry I could eat you, Miss Wyman. You'd better not come near me garnished with any bunch of mint."

"Silly!" Rebecca Mary's nose was elevated disdainfully. "Well, you can't say I have any secrets from you. And Ben is going to give you roast beef for your dinner, Mr. Marshall. I heard him tell Joan."

"Trust the kid to find out. I rather thought we might have lamb." And Wallie grinned impudently.

CHAPTER XVI

The days flew by as days will fly whether they are bright with diamonds or veiled in gray. Granny became rested, Joan was spoiled, and even Rebecca Mary began to feel the effect of too much attention. There had been a time when Rebecca Mary had thought that it would be perfect bliss to have just one man devoted to her, but now that she had four she found that she never had a minute to herself. Whether she wanted to or not she had to play tennis with Wallie Marshall, walk with George Barton, ride the farmhorses with Peter Simmons, recite French verbs to Frederick Befort or play accompaniments for Major Martingale, who still liked to hear the young people sing the old war songs. And you know how it is yourself if you have just had a generous portion of plum pudding you don't care to see another plum pudding no matter how holly wreathed it is. In spite of all the admiration and attention which were falling on Rebecca Mary like an April shower she was not satisfied; she was conscious of a vague longing for something, she didn't know what, for she did not a.n.a.lyze the faint discontent which annoyed her. She only knew that she wanted something which she did not have and she told herself that she was an ungrateful beast to ask more of her talisman when already the clover leaf had given her so much.

It was the same way with Granny, who had looked on Riverside when she arrived as a haven of rest, but she soon was as surfeited with rest as Rebecca Mary was with admiration. Granny had so little to occupy her mind that she just had to think of old Peter Simmons, to wonder uneasily what he was doing, to ask herself if he were thinking of her instead of his factory, if he had received her letter, and a thousand other things all of which had old Peter Simmons for their subject. Twice Major Martingale found her with her hand on the door of the room which he used as an office and which held the only telephone at Riverside and to which he alone had the key.

"Do you wish to leave any message with me?" he asked each time.

"If I said what I wanted to say I expect the message would be left with you," Granny said sadly. "You never would send it on. How much longer will it be before we may leave, Major Martingale?"

"You know as much about it as I do." Major Martingale was discouraged just then and was sadly in need of a word of encouragement.

But Granny hadn't enough encouragement for herself; she couldn't spare a word for any man. "The twenty-second is a week from yesterday," she said significantly. "I told you, you know, that we wouldn't stay a minute after the twentieth," she added in case he had missed the significance.

"I hope none of us will have to stay later than the twentieth, but you should have thought of that before you came."

"Came!" Granny was indignant. "I didn't come!"

"Well, I didn't bring you!" He was too exasperated to remember the courtesy which is ever due a lady.

"A perfect bear, my dear," Granny told Rebecca Mary five minutes later.

"If he has his way we'll be here for Thanksgiving," she prophesied gloomily.

Rebecca Mary sat up on the _chaise longue_ where she had hidden herself for a quiet half hour and stared at her. "Thanksgiving! We can't stay that long. Why, school begins the first of September!" The beginning of school was an event so large in the life of Rebecca Mary that everything should give away to it. Everything always had.

"Major Martingale wouldn't care for that. It isn't our wishes nor our convenience he is thinking of. If we could do anything to help him I shouldn't say a word. If we even knew anything about this wonderful experiment it would be different, but we might as well be in New York or Bombay for all we know of what is going on in that shop. We couldn't tell anything intelligent enough for even a German to understand. I'm beginning to feel that the whole thing is nonsense, Rebecca Mary, and so I don't think that we have to stay. And I'm worried for fear Edith won't order things the way I want them for my golden wedding. I never meant to stay away so long. I'm sorry we ever started for Seven Pines. But we can go back. We'll run away from here."

"But how can we run away from Riverside?" It didn't sound as easy to Rebecca Mary as it had to Granny.

"I'll find a way." Granny was not to be daunted. "I'll have to. I'm tired being a prisoner."

"So am I." Joan dropped her doll and came to tell them that she, too, was ready to leave Riverside. "I'd like to go somewhere else."

"I'm sorry now," went on Granny, "that I didn't stay at home and let old Peter Simmons ask his tormenting question and take the consequences."

"I'm not!" Indeed, Rebecca Mary wasn't. She had made far too many payments on her memory insurance policy ever to regret the past few weeks. "You see, we've helped here," she explained when Granny and Joan had cried, "You're not!" "The boys say we've been an inspiration to them, that they have worked a lot better because we were here to cheer them up."

"They would have worked a lot faster if we hadn't been here." There was a dry tone to Granny's soft voice which sent the ready color into Rebecca Mary's cheeks. "I've no doubt Joan and I have furnished lots of inspiration. It is pleasant to think so, isn't it, Joan?"

Joan looked doubtful. "Is it the same as being a nuisance? Mrs. Erickson said we were all nuisances, but I was the biggest. But she never said we were inspirations."