Page:Cather--One of ours.djvu/261

Rh Claude would have liked to listen longer, but he wanted to find the old woman’s tormentors before his train came in. Leaving his bags with her, he crossed the railroad tracks, guided by an occasional teasing tinkle of the bell in the cornfield. Presently he came upon the gang, a dozen or more, lying in a shallow draw that ran from the edge of the field out into an open pasture. He stood on the edge of the bank and looked down at them, while he slowly cut off the end of a cigar and lit it. The boys grinned at him, trying to appear indifferent and at ease.

“Looking for any one, soldier?” asked the one with the bell.

“Yes, I am. I’m looking for that bell. You’ll have to take it back where it belongs. You every one of you know there’s no harm in that old woman.”

“She’s a German, and we’re fighting the Germans, ain’t we?”

“I don’t think you’ll ever fight any. You’d last about ten minutes in the American army. You’re not our kind. There’s only one army in the world that wants men who’ll bully old women. You might get a job with them.”

The boys giggled. Claude beckoned impatiently. “Come along with that bell, kid.”

The boy rose slowly and climbed the bank out of the gully. As they tramped back through the cornfield, Claude turned to him abruptly. “See here, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that!” the boy replied airily, tossing the bell up like a ball and catching it.

“Well, you ought to be. I didn’t expect to see anything of this kind until I got to the front. I’ll be back here in a week, and I’ll make it hot for anybody that’s been bothering her.” Claude’s train was pulling in, and he ran for his baggage.