“Cooking that wasn’t?” repeated Mary, puzzled. “Oh! I know what you mean—when they couldn’t get anything.”
A number of their friends came in during the evening to see them, and the young folks had an enjoyable time dancing and in singing in a group around the piano, which the girls took turns in playing.
“We’ll have to have another and a larger gathering when our fathers get home,” declared Mary.
“Oh, won’t we have the bully good time then!” cried her brother.
“Maybe they won’t have some stories to tell!” piped in Andy.
“I want to hear all about how Uncle Dick won that medal,” came from Randy.
It was not until after eleven o’clock that the little gathering broke up, and then Mrs. Dick Rover called her children to her.
“Now you must tell me about your eyes, Jack, and you, Martha, must tell me about Ruth Stevenson’s,” she said.
Thereupon the young captain and his sister related the particulars of what had occurred during the outing on Bluebell Island and what had been done by Doctor Borden to relieve the sufferers.
“It was a vile thing to do!” exclaimed Mrs. Rover, her eyes showing her displeasure. “Why, that Gabe Werner is nothing but a criminal! You can be thankful, Jack, that you escaped as you did. But are you sure poor Ruth’s eyes are not permanently injured?”
“Her eyes looked a great deal better when we came away than they had,” answered Martha. “Just the same, I’m greatly worried, and I know Jack is too.”
“Ruth is to write to us and let us know how she is getting along,” went on the oldest Rover boy.
“Ruth is such a splendid girl, and so fine looking, it would be a shame if her eyes were hurt,” continued Mrs. Rover. And this remark about Ruth caused Jack to think more of his mother than ever.
Two days passed quickly, the boys and girls spending their time in getting settled and renewing old acquaintances. The girls went shopping with their mothers, while the lads visited the offices of The Rover Company in Wall Street to see with their own eyes how matters were going.
“Everything seems to be moving along swimmingly,” remarked Jack, when he and his cousins came away.
“I’ll bet it will seem strange to our dads to settle down to the grind once more after seeing so much fighting,” remarked Fred.
“It will be hard for all of the soldiers and sailors to settle down, I’m thinking,” added Randy. “A fellow can’t knock around here, there, and everywhere for months and then come down to a regular routine all in a minute.”
That night the young folks retired rather early. Andy and Randy were indulging in some horseplay in their bedroom when they heard the door-bell ring.
“I’ll bet it’s a telegram from dad!” burst out Andy.
“Maybe it’s dad himself!” answered his twin. “Come on down and see.”
As they hurried down the stairs they heard their mother’s room door open and heard one of the servants going to the front door. The next instant there was a cry from below.
“Mr. Rover! Is it really you!”
“It’s dad! It’s dad!” yelled the twins simultaneously, and fairly leaped to the bottom of the stairs and ran to greet their father.
“Hello, boys! So you got home ahead of me, did you?” came from Tom Rover, as he hugged and kissed each in turn. “My, how big you are getting!”
“Tom! Tom!” cried his wife Nellie. And then she rushed down the stairs as he rushed up to meet her. He caught her up in his strong arms as he had been wont to do so many times in the past and fairly swung her above him. Then he kissed her on each cheek and on the mouth and set her down with his hands on her shoulders.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for, Nellie,” he declared. “Just waiting to see you again!”
“And I’ve been waiting too, Tom—waiting every day,” she murmured, with tears in her beautiful eyes.
In the meantime similar scenes were taking place in the adjoining houses. Dick Rover, having a key, had let himself in unobserved, and gave his wife quite a shock when he met her at the door to her room. But she was overjoyed to see him, as were also Jack and Martha, and all clustered around to listen to what he might have to say.
“Why, Dad, you are as brown as a berry!” declared the young captain.
“And look how tall and strong he seems to be!” put in Martha.
It was Mrs. Sam Rover herself who answered her husband’s ring, and her shout of joy quickly brought Fred downstairs. Mary had already retired, but, leaping up, she threw a kimona around her and came flying down in bare feet.
And then what a reunion there was among the members of all three families! The doors which connected the three residences were thrown wide open, and all gathered in the middle house. All seemed to be talking at once, and boys, fathers and uncles shook hands over and over again, while the girls and their mothers came in for innumerable hugs and kisses.
“We are not yet mustered out,” said Dick Rover. “But we expect to be before a great while.”
“You ought to be very proud of having done your bit for Uncle Sam,” said Mary to her father and her uncles.
“Well, I think our boys did their bit, too, if I am any judge,” was Sam Rover’s fond comment. “First they helped to catch those chaps who blew up the Hasley ammunition factory, then they aided in rounding up the crowd who had the hidden German submarine, and lastly they prevented those Huns from establishing that wireless station in the woods. I certainly think they did remarkably well.”
“But they’ve made some terrible enemies,” broke in Mrs. Dick Rover. “Just look at Jack’s eyes. One fellow tried to throw pepper into them.”
“Oh, let’s not talk about that now, Ma!” cried the young captain. “I want to hear all about what dad and Uncle Tom and Uncle Sam have been doing in France.”
“If we started to give you all the details we wouldn’t get to bed to-night,” said his Uncle Tom, with a grin. They had already been talking for quite a while, and the clock hands pointed to nearly one in the morning.
“Oh, well, this is a red-letter night, Dad,” broke out Randy.
“Such a coming together may not happen again in a lifetime,” added his twin.
Then the older Rovers told of many of their adventures, both while in camp in France and during the time they had been on the firing line.
“We were in some pretty hot fights,” admitted Tom Rover. “One in particular—when we forced the Huns out of a stretch of woods they were holding—none of us is liable to forget. That’s the fight in which Sam and I were wounded.”
“Yes, and the day after they were wounded I was caught in a gas attack,” said Dick Rover. “My! but that was something pretty nasty! I felt as if somebody had me by the throat and at the same time was trying to twist my stomach inside out. I never felt such a sensation in my life,” and he shook his head and sighed deeply over the recollection of what he had passed through.
“Was that where you won your medal, Dad?” questioned Jack eagerly.
“No, my boy. The medal was won some time later, while your two uncles were in the hospital trying to recover from their wounds. We made two advances, and then were told to hold our new line. There was a fierce bombardment early in the morning, and then, because of a mix-up of orders, part of our command fell back while another tried to go forward. One of our men, a fellow named Lorimer Spell, a queer sort of chap who hailed from Texas, was hit by a piece of shell and knocked partly unconscious. He was unable to save himself, and as I didn’t want to see him killed I ran out from behind our shelter and brought him in.”
CHAPTER XVI
DICK ROVER’S HEROISM
It can readily be believed that the Rovers did not sleep much that night. The boys and girls were downstairs by seven o’clock and waited anxiously for the appearance of their parents in the dining-room of Dic
k Rover’s residence, where the fathers were to have breakfast before returning to the troopship which was docked across the river, at Hoboken.
“We’ve got to get back by noon,” announced Tom Rover, “and Sam and I want to pay a visit to Wall Street before we go, so we won’t be able to spend much more time here.”
“You were going to tell us how you won that medal, Dad,” said Jack, after breakfast was over and his two uncles had said good-bye to everybody and left. “What about it?”
“Well, if you must have the story, sit down and I’ll give it to you,” answered Dick Rover, with a smile. “As it happens, the death of Lorimer Spell may make quite a difference in my plans for this Summer.”
“Oh, then the poor man died in spite of your efforts to rescue him!” said Martha in crestfallen tones.
“He didn’t die from that shell wound,” answered her father. “But I had better tell the story from the beginning, since you seem to be so anxious to hear it.”
“You must remember, Dick, that Jack is something of a soldier himself. He is a captain of the cadets, you know,” remarked the mother of the lad.
“Oh, but that isn’t like being a real soldier and fighting for Uncle Sam!” protested the youth.
“This Lorimer Spell, the fellow I saved, was a tall, lanky Texan who joined our command after we arrived in France. Just how he got in I can’t say. He was rather a quiet sort of man, and some of the soldiers thought he was decidedly queer. He took a great interest in botany and geology, and I take it he was something of a student in those lines, although he was by no means well educated.
“The day that he was knocked out by a fragment of a shell was a misty one—the kind of a mist that makes it very uncertain to see any great distance. We did not know how close some of the Huns might be, and as a matter of fact they were closer than we expected, and some time later two of our men were shot down while moving from one trench to another close by.
“When Spell went down I was over a hundred feet away from him. Before he became unconscious he tried to crawl back to the trench from which he had come. But evidently he was confused and went down in plain sight of the Huns.
“I didn’t care very much for the man, as I told you before, but I could not see him remain there exposed to the fire of the enemy, and so without thinking twice I jumped up out of the trench and ran across the ground to where he was lying. The shells had torn the soil dreadfully, so that I had considerable difficulty in reaching him.
“I placed him on my shoulder, and just then several Huns began firing at us. One bullet grazed my side, giving me a deep scratch, and another went through the cloth of Spell’s coat. I stumbled down into a shell crater with the man and had all I could do to drag him and myself out. Then I plunged forward again, and just as the Huns let out several more shots, both of us stumbled down into the trench, and the rescue, if you might call it such, was over.”
“Well, I think that was a grand thing to do, Dad!” burst out Jack, his face beaming. “Simply grand!”
“You couldn’t beat it for pluck!” said Fred.
“And that’s how you won the medal?” broke in Andy. “Fine!”
“You certainly deserved it,” added his twin. “Gee! but suppose those Huns had plugged you when you were carrying the fellow!”
“And that’s how I got him back to the trenches,” went on Dick Rover. “He was taken to the field hospital, and there his injuries were found to be slight, and in a few days he was back on the firing line again.”
“He ought to have been mighty thankful,” declared Martha, who sat close by, holding her father’s hand.
“He was thankful; and for that reason he did something which may have an important bearing on my future business dealings,” answered Dick Rover. “He said he had no relatives of any kind, and he then and there made a will whereby if anything happened to him all that he possessed in this world should go to me.”
“And then he was killed?” questioned Mrs. Rover.
“Yes. Just two days after his return to duty we were making another advance. Spell was in one part of the field while I was in another. Suddenly I saw him running off to a place just in front of where our squad was located. Then he made a turn as if to come toward us, and just at that instant he threw up his hands and fell forward on his face.”
Here Dick Rover paused and dropped his eyes. No one cared to speak, and for an instant there was utter silence.
“When the skirmish was over we had gained our position, and a few hours later the body of Lorimer Spell was picked up and carried to the rear,” went on Jack’s father. “A bullet had struck him in the back of the head, and death must have been instantaneous.
“I confess that I felt pretty bad. A number of the company knew of the will Spell had made, and two of them were witnesses to the crude document he had drawn up. As a consequence, Spell’s personal effects were turned over to me. They included a small amount of money, a ring, a wrist watch, and a number of papers, including an order for a box in a safe deposit vault in a bank in Wichita Falls, Texas.”
“Poor fellow, it’s too bad he couldn’t have lived to enjoy himself now the war is at an end,” remarked Mrs. Sam Rover.
“Were any of his papers of value?” questioned Jack curiously.
“That remains to be found out, Jack. His papers spoke of a valuable tract of oil land in Texas close to the boundary line between that State and Oklahoma.”
“Oil lands!” exclaimed Randy. “Why, they may be worth a fortune, Uncle Dick! They are making immense strikes in oil down in that territory.”
“I know that, Randy. Some of the wells are worth a fortune. But, on the other hand, you must remember that many of the tracts that are supposed to have oil on them have so far proved to be utterly dry. Men spend ten to forty thousand dollars in sinking a well only to find in the end that they have had their labor for their pains.”
“Did Lorimer Spell say that his land had oil on it?” questioned Fred.
“From the way his papers and letters read one would think so, Fred. But, as I said before, Spell was a very queer kind of man. In fact, some of the fellows in our company thought he was a little bit out of his mind at times. It is just possible that he only imagined that he possessed valuable oil land.”
“But you are going to investigate, aren’t you, and make sure?” questioned Jack.
“Certainly, Son. I intend to go to Texas and make an investigation just as soon as I am mustered out of the service.”
“Oh, Dad! do you mean that you might go to Texas this Summer?”
“I will if they muster me out.”
“If you go, won’t you take me along?”
“I’ll think about it,” and Dick Rover smiled at his son, whose face showed his eagerness.
“Gee! I’d like to go to Texas myself,” burst out Fred.
“Such a trip would suit me down to the ground,” announced Andy.
“I’ve always wanted to see a big oil well in operation,” added his twin.
“I’d like to see them shoot an oil well,” went on Jack. “They say it is a wonderful sight, especially if the well happens to be a real gusher.”
“The queerest part of it is this,” went on Dick Rover. “Before the war came on I was more or less interested in the oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as in Kansas. A good oil well, or series of wells, is a splendid paying proposition in these days, and I’d like first rate to get possession of such a holding and then start a first-class oil company.”
“Oh, there are millions in oil! I know that!” burst out Martha. “Why, I was reading in a magazine only the other day of some folks in Texas who were quite poor. They had a farm of less than a hundred acres, and could make barely a living on it. Then the oil prospectors came along and located a well or two, and now those poor farm people have so much money they don’t know what to do with it.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could go down there and locate a few of those first-class wells?” said Fred, with a sigh. “I’d just like to know how it feels to be a real millionaire.”
“Can I go, Dad, if you go?” questioned Jack again.
“I’ll see about that later. I don’t wish to make any promises now.”
“If Jack goes I want to go with him,” put in Fred sturdily.
“Of course we’ll want to go with him!” added Andy and Randy in a breath.
“What’s the matter with us girls going along?” demanded Martha.
“What would girls be doing in the oil fields?” asked Fred. “A well might go off and shoot all your beautiful dresses full of oil.”
“Huh! what about it if some oil got on that flaming red necktie you are wearing, Fred?” questioned his sister quickly. In his haste to get dressed that morning her brother had donned a necktie which she detested.
“Never mind my necktie, Mary. If Jack goes to Texas I’m going to see if I can’t go along.”
The matter was talked over a few minutes longer, and then Dick Rover went off with his wife to arrange some private affairs before he should take his departure for Hoboken. Then he said good-bye all around and was off.
“The next time you see us I think we’ll be in a big parade,” said Jack’s father on leaving.
“A parade?” queried several of the others.
“Yes. They are talking of having a big parade of the soldiers on Fifth Avenue. If they do, of course we’ll be in it.”
“Hurrah! that’s the stuff,” cried Andy. “I’ve been aching to see one of those big parades ever since war was declared.”
“If you do parade, Dad, we’ll all be there to see you,” declared Martha.
“We’ll want front seats in the grandstand,” added Mary.
“I don’t think you’ll get any front seats, Mary,” answered her mother. “More than likely those seats will be reserved for the gold-star mothers—those who have lost their sons in battle.”
“Well, those mothers deserve the front seats every time,” said Jack.
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