Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/202

 "Grand'mère Bergues," she said when she returned beside Gerry, "lost for a moment her twig of the tree. I had to find it for her."

"Her twig of what tree?" Gerry asked.

"I forgot you didn't know," and Ruth told him of Grand'mère Bergues' tree. "When I convinced her at last," Ruth added, "that the Boche had broken through and were coming again, she had a stroke; but even so she would not let us carry her until I had brought her a twig of the tree—a twig which was green, and budding, and had sap, though last year the Boche called that tree destroyed. That now must be her triumph."

Ruth restarted the motor and, when they proceeded, Gerry sat without inquiring again of what dangerous, indefinite business this girl was going to do. While he watched her driving, a queer, pulling sensation pulsed in his breast; it associated itself with a vision of a young Englishman, who now undoubtedly was dead, standing behind this girl while she played a little organ with three octaves and they all sang. This was not jealousy, exactly; it was simply recognition of a sort of fellowship which she could share which he would have liked to have discovered himself. It suggested 'not something more than he had had with Agnes Ertyle; but something quite different and which he liked. He tried to imagine Agnes playing, and singing Clementine, and Wait for the Wagon; and—he couldn't. He tried to imagine her crying because someone had called to her, "Good old England"; and he couldn't. Agnes cried over some things—children who were brought to her and badly wounded boys who died. But Agnes could have told him