indeed. No soldier,” said Mrs. Mantel quickly. “On a girl. Fancy! On a girl I had never seen before. And I gave that to the Red Cross with my own hands.”
“Perhaps it belonged to the girl’s brother,” another of the women observed.
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Mantel was eager to say. “I asked her. Naturally I was curious – very curious. I said to her, ‘Where did you get the sweater, my girl, if you will pardon my asking?’ And she told me she bought it in a store here in Cheslow.”
“Oh, my!” gasped another of the group.
“Do you mean to say the Red Cross sells the things people knit for them?” cried Mrs. Crothers.
“How horrid!” drawled another. “Well, you never can tell about these charitable organizations that are not connected with the church.”
Ruth Fielding broke her silence and quite calmly asked:
“Will you tell me who the girl was and where she said she bought the sweater, Mrs. Mantel?”
“Oh, I never saw the girl before,” said the lady in black.
“But she told you the name of the store where she said she purchased it?”
“No-o. What does it matter? I recognized my own sweater!” exclaimed the woman in black, with a toss of her head.
“Are you quite sure, Mrs. Mantel,” pursued the girl of the Red Mill insistently but quite calmly, “that you could not have made a mistake?”
“Mistake? How?” snapped the other.
“Regarding the identity of the sweater.”
“I tell you I recognized it. I know I knitted it. I certainly know my own work. And why should I be cross-questioned, please?”
“My name is Ruth Fielding,” Ruth explained. “I happen to have at present a very deep interest in the Red Cross work – especially in our local chapter. Did you give your sweater to our local chapter?”
“Why – no. But what does that matter?” and the woman in black began to show anger. “Do you doubt my word?”
“You offer no corroborative evidence, and you make a very serious charge,” Ruth said. “Don’t be angry. If what you say is true, it is a terrible thing. Of course, there may be people using the name of the Red Cross who are neither patriotic nor honest. Let us run each of these seemingly wicked things down – if it is possible. Let us get at the truth.”
“I have told you the truth, Miss Fielding. And I consider you insulting – most unladylike.”
“Mrs. Mantel,” said Ruth Fielding gravely, “whether I speak and act as a lady should make little material difference in the long run. But whether a great organization, which is working for the amelioration of suffering on the battle front and in our training camps, is maligned, is of very great moment, indeed.
“In my presence no such statement as you have just made can go unchallenged. You must help me prove, or disprove it. We must find the girl and discover just how she came by the sweater. If it had been stolen and given to her she would be very likely to tell you just what you say she did. But that does not prove the truth of her statement.”
“Nor of mine, I suppose you would say!” cried Mrs. Mantel.
“Exactly. If you are fair-minded at all you will aid me in this investigation. For I purpose to take up every such calumny that I can and trace it to its source.”
“Oh, Ruth, don’t take it so seriously!” Mrs. Curtis murmured, and most of the women looked their displeasure. But Helen clapped her hands softly, saying:
“Bully for you, Ruthie!”
Mercy’s eyes glowed with satisfaction.
Ruth became silent for a moment, for the woman in black evidently intended to give her no satisfaction. Mrs. Mantel continued to state, however, for all to hear:
“I certainly know my own knitting, and my own yarn. I have knitted enough of the sweaters according to the Red Cross pattern to sink a ship! I would know one of my sweaters half a block away at least.”
Ruth had been watching the woman very keenly. Mrs. Mantel’s hands were perfectly idle in her lap. They were very white and very well cared for. Ruth’s vision came gradually to a focus upon those idle hands.
Then suddenly she turned to Mercy and whispered a question. Mercy nodded, but looked curiously at the girl of the Red Mill. When the latter explained further Mercy Curtis’ eyes began to snap. She nodded again and went out of the room.
When she returned with a loosely wrapped bundle in her hands she moved around to where the woman in black was sitting. The conversation had now become general, and all were trying their best to get away from the previous topic of tart discussion.
“Mrs. Mantel,” said Mercy very sweetly, “you must know a lot about knitting sweaters, you’ve made so many. Would you help me?”
“Help you do what, child?” asked the woman in black, rather startled.
“I am going to begin one,” explained Mercy, “and I do wish, Mrs. Mantel, that you would show me how. I’m dreadfully ignorant about the whole thing, you know.”
There was a sudden silence all over the room. Mrs. Mantel’s ready tongue seemed stayed. The pallor of her face was apparent, as innocent-looking Mercy, with the yarn and needles held out to her, waited for an affirmative reply.
CHAPTER IV – “CAN A POILU LOVE A FAT GIRL?”
The shocked silence continued for no more than a minute. Mrs. Mantel was a quick-witted woman, if she was nothing else commendable. But every member of the Ladies’ Aid Society knew what Mercy Curtis’ question meant.
“My dear child,” said the woman in black, smiling her set smile but rising promptly, “I shall have to do that for you another day. Really I haven’t the time just now to help you start any knitting. But later —
“I am sure you will forgive me for running away so early, Mrs. Curtis; but I have another engagement. And,” she shot a malignant glance at Ruth Fielding, “I am not used to being taken to task upon any subject by these college-chits!”
She went out of the room in a manner that, had she been thirty years younger, could have been called “flounced” – head tossing and skirts swishing with resentment. Several of the women looked at the girl of the Red Mill askance, although they dared not criticize Mercy Curtis, for they knew her sharp tongue too well.
“Mrs. Pubsby,” Ruth said quietly to the pleasant-faced, Quakerish-looking president of the society, “may I say a word to the ladies?”
“Of course you may, Ruthie,” said the good woman comfortably. “I have known you ever since you came to Jabez Potter’s, and I never knew you to say a dishonest or unkind word. You just get it off your mind. It’ll do you good, child – and maybe do some of us good. I don’t know but we’re – just a mite – getting religiously selfish.”
“I have no idea of trying to urge you ladies to give up any of your regular charities, or trying to undermine your interest in them. I merely hope
