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"Dear me!" exclaimed Mary Louise, with ready sympathy; "I hope he he isn't dead?" "No," said Kasker, wiping his eyes, "not that, thank God. A shell splinter took out a piece of his leg my little Jakie's leg! and he's in a hospital at Soissons. His letter says in a few weeks he can go back to his company. I got a letter from his captain, too.
I once told you I loved you better than my country, but Jake Kasker loves his country better than his son." The Liberty Girls were forced to abandon their Shop when a substantial offer was made by a business firm to rent the store they had occupied.
"You all know what I think about this war," said Kasker in a loud voice and with a slight German accent. "I don't approve of it, whatever anyone says, and I think we were wrong to get into it, anyhow." A storm of hisses and cries of "Shame!" saluted him, but he waited stolidly for the demonstration to subside.
"Thank you, Kasker," said the old gentleman, in a cold voice. "You have really helped us, although you should have omitted those traitorous words. They poisoned a deed you might have been proud of." "We don't agree, Colonel," replied Kasker, with a shrug. "When I talk, I'm honest; I say what I think." He turned and walked away and Colonel Hathaway looked after him with an expression of dislike.
"I don't suppose the man has forgiven me yet for suspecting his loyalty, but you've always defended him, Gran'pa Jim, so he will probably tell you why he is celebrating." They entered the store and Kasker came forward to meet them. "What's the meaning of all the flags, Jake?" asked the colonel. "Didn't you hear?" said Kasker. "My boy's been shot my little Jakie!" Tears came to his eyes.
He turned his bland smile on Josie. He was a short, thickset man with a German cast of countenance. He spoke with a stronger German accent than did Kasker. Though his face persistently smiled, his eyes were half closed and shrewd. When he looked at her, Josie gave a little shudder and slightly drew back. "Ah, that's a wrong guess," said Mr. Kauffman quickly. "I must beg your pardon, my girl.
"Those pro-Germans," remarked little Jane Donovan, "are clever and sly. They work in the dark. Kasker said he hated the war but loved the flag." "I'm afraid of those people who think devotion to our flag can cover disloyalty to our President," said Mary Louise earnestly. "But the flag represents the President, and Kasker said he'd stand by the flag to the last."
"All buncombe, my dear," said Edna decidedly. "That flag talk didn't take the curse off the statement that the war is all wrong." "He had to say something patriotic, or he'd have been mobbed," was Lucile's serious comment. "I hadn't thought of Jake Kasker, before, but he may be the culprit." "Isn't he the only German in town who has denounced our going into the European war?" demanded Edna.
Mary Louise flushed but stood her ground. "Isn't it the duty of every patriotic person to denounce a traitor?" she inquired. "Yes, if there is proof. I think you are wrong about Kasker, but if you are able to bring me proof, I'll arrest him and turn him over to the federal agents for prosecution. But, for heaven's sake, don't bother me with mere suspicions."
While she gathered her wits to escape from an unpleasant situation, a quick step sounded on the aisle and a man brusquely entered the office and exclaimed: "Hello, Jake; I'm here again. How's the suspender stock?" Kasker gave him a surly look. "You come pretty often, Abe Kauffman," he muttered. "Suspenders? Bah! I only buy 'em once a year, and you come around ev'ry month or so.
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