LITMIR.BIZ

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letter and, he gave her a vicious look as he opened the stove lid and stuffed the letter in, shutting down the lid again and striding out.

      Hilda lifted her hands from the water in which she had been washing the cabbage and looked after him in sudden alarm. Then she sprang to the stove and lifted the lid. A flame rushed up to meet the draught and enveloped the paper, but not before she had read the words: “Dear Uncle Otto”; and “There is something strange about this place.”

      Trembling, she shut down the stove lid and a great despair seized her. She was then a prisoner in this house so far as any hope of writing to her friends for help was concerned! Mr. Schwarz had opened the post box and taken out her letter and read it! He had dared to do that! He did not intend that she should write any complaints to her friends. But how did he get the box open? She was sure it was a regular post office letter box such as they always have at stations. Of course, he might have been appointed station master. He probably was, as there did not seem to be any other official there. But it was a state's prison offence to open a letter! Didn't he know that? She had learned that when she was a very little girl. But perhaps he knew he had her in his power and did not care. Already she felt the iron grip of the hand that ruled this desolate household. One look in his eye was enough to know he was not troubled by any law of courtesy or kindness, or any sense of what was due to women under his protection. Protection! What a farce that word seemed when applied to him, with his little pig eyes and his cruel jaw. The cold truth slowly sank into her soul. She was in a terribly situation and there was no connection with the outside world. She must work her way out somehow and get away. The conviction that it would be no easy task and that there was a long, strong hand concealed about this farm somewhere that could and would reach out to bring her back if she attempted to run away; and that then her fate would be worse than at present, kept her from crying out and running through the open door at once, away down the track to the freedom of the world. Some intuition taught her that if she would elude these terrible people, people who were somehow mysteriously connected with the great German nation now at war with the United States, that she must not anger them nor let them suspect that she was aware of their attitude toward her. She must act out the stupidity that they now believed of her. It had been bad that Mr. Schwarz had discovered that she thought there was something strange about this place. He would begin to watch her. He would think she was not so stupid as she had at first seemed, and would perhaps set the men to guarding the house lest she escape. At any rate, she could not escape by daylight, that was certain. She must have time to think and plan. She had enough knowledge of the world to know that a girl alone without money and friends was in frightful danger. She must not move until she had thought out every detail. Meantime, she must be meek and innocent and go about her work.

      So she stilled her frightened heart as she heard Mrs. Schwarz come heavily down the stairs, and went briskly about her work. There was something strange about the atmosphere of the place, something intangible that got hold of the inmates. Hilda felt it. It gripped her and kept her from rebelling, kept her silent under the scathing tongue of her mistress; made her efface herself when the men came into the house. It seemed to hang about in the air and give her a helpless feeling that she must succumb —that nothing could help her out of this, that she was only a woman against a great power. Hilda had never felt anything like it before. She was a spirited girl and had ideas of her own, but now she felt as if they were gradually being paralyzed, and she would be compelled to let her will lie inert while she did the will of these stony-hearted people. Something in her struggled wildly against this state of things, but she was kept so busy that she had no time to think; and when the work was done bodily weariness was so great that she could not plan a way out of things; and so several days passed with no let-up and no hope. A strange non-resistance to the inevitable was stealing over her. Sometimes as she was dropping off to sleep she would know that if she could only be rested enough she could rise above this and plan a way out. There was just one thing she waited for and that was the end of the month, when she might hope to get her wages, and then she could quietly take her leave. She had not been told how much her wages were to be, but they would surely be enough to take her back to Chicago, or at least to some town where she could get a decent place to stay until she could find work. Sometimes, as she was going about her work, she would try to plan how little she could get along with, and once she summoned courage to ask Mrs. Schwarz how much she was earning a week, but the woman only stared with an ugly laugh and said:

      “I know nodding about it. Zumetimes I think you do nod earn your salt.”

      And with that she went out of the room.

      Hilda thought about it awhile and concluded that Mr. Schwarz managed all those matters, so that night she went to him.

      “Vages!” He roared. “I pay you no vages! It iss enough that I give you a good home. You should pe thankful for that! You are not worth vages!”

      Hilda, with flaming cheeks, opened her mouth to protest, to say that Uncle Otto had told her there would be good wages, but when she looked into the fierce, cunning eyes of the man, her very soul quaked. Something that would have protested two weeks before had crumpled up within her and she saw herself precipitately retiring to the kitchen from the roaring of his angry tongue.

      That night when she tried to sleep she kept thinking that it was men like Schwarz who had gone to war. It was such men that the American soldiers would have to fight! She shuddered in her dreams as she, thought of the long lines of gallant young soldiers she had watched marching in procession in Chicago. They had merry tunes on their lips and smiles on their faces. They walked with strength and sturdiness; but they would have to face men like Schwarz! Would the same lethargy steal over them when they got within German power as had come to her soul since she came to the truck farm to live?

      She must rouse herself to do something. If only there were just one friend. There was that strong young engineer. If he only knew her plight! But it had been seven long days since his whistle had sounded out its clear blasts, three long and two short, about two o'clock every day, and waked the echoes in the valley. Perhaps he was sick, or his route had been changed, or perhaps he had gone to war like so many brave boys. She sighed as she thought of it all, so much beautiful manhood going out to meet —what? Millions of men like Schwarz! Oh, it was terrible!

      It was lonelier than ever without that whistle. Of course, she had known all along that it would not last forever. He would grow tired of whistling to a stranger whom he had seen but once. It had been good to feel that there was at least one in the neighborhood who remembered her and greeted her once a day. But that was visionary. He had grown tired and he had forgotten. Of course, that was it. He had forgotten! She must never think of him any more. So she put the little red scarf away in her suitcase, for of what use would it be to hang out a signal when there was no eye to see? And she folded her neat white towel and hung it over the back of a chair in lieu of a towel rack, firmly resolving it should hang out of the window no more.

      And then, it was that very next day, just at five minutes past two, that the afternoon freight came racketting down the road and the whistle sounded forth in clear cheerful blasts:

      ——————! ——————! ——————! ————! ———!

      She was carrying a great pan of sour milk across the kitchen to Mrs. Schwarz at the time, and she started so that the milk slopped over on the clean kitchen floor and brought forth a reproof of unusual strength from the mistress.

      The color flamed into Hilda's cheeks and a glad light came in her eyes. Somehow a sense of more security stole over her, and almost a little song came to her lips as she went about her work. Almost, but not quite, for Mrs. Schwarz was not far away, and the men were working near the house and constantly coming back and forth.

      When she went up to her bed that night she did not feel quite so disheartened as she had for the last lonely week. It was ridiculous, she told herself, that a whistle should do that to her, but it did, and she could not afford just now to put by any source of comfort.

      It was that night that she was awakened again sharply; and sat up in bed with fear in her heart, and the strange whining sound in her ears. This time she knew what it was instantly, and her hand fluttered to her throat in her horror. The air-man had returned!

      Stiff

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