He and Dalton rode up to one of these houses, and, finding every door and window closed, knocked on the front door with a pistol butt. They knew it was occupied, as they had seen smoke coming from the chimney.
“This house surely belongs to a Dutchman,” said Dalton, meaning one of those Pennsylvanians of German descent who had settled in the rich southeast of Pennsylvania generations ago.
“I fear they don’t know how to talk English,” said Harry.
“They can if they have to. Hit that door several times more, Harry, and hit it hard. They’re a thrifty people, and they wouldn’t like to see a good door destroyed.”
Harry beat a resounding tattoo until the door was suddenly thrown open and the short figure of a man of middle years, chin-whiskered and gray, but holding an old-fashioned musket in his hands, confronted them.
“Put down that gun, Herr Schneider! Put it down at once!” said Dalton, who had already levelled his pistol.
The man was evidently no coward, but when he looked into Dalton’s eye, he put the musket on the floor.
Harry, still sitting on his horse-they had ridden directly up to the front door-saw a stalwart woman and several children hovering in the dusk of the room behind the man. He watched the whole group, but he left the examination to Dalton.
“I want you to tell me, Herr Schneider, the location of the Army of the Potomac, down to the last gun and man, and what are the intentions of General Meade,” said Dalton.
The man shook his head and said, “Nein.”
“Nine!” said Dalton indignantly. “General Meade has more than nine men with him! Come, out with the story! All those tales about the rebels coming to burn and destroy are just tales, and nothing more. You understand what I’m saying well enough. Come, out with your information!”
“Nein,” said the German.
“All right,” said Dalton in a ferocious tone. “After all, we are the rebel ogres that you thought we were.”
He turned toward his comrade and, with his back toward the German, winked and said:
“What do you think I’d better do with him?”
“Oh, kill him,” replied Harry carelessly. “He’s broad between the eyes and there’s plenty of room there for a bullet. You couldn’t miss at two yards.”
The German made a dive toward his musket, but Dalton cried sharply:
“Hands up or I shoot!”
The German straightened himself and, holding his hands aloft, said:
“You would not kill me in the shelter uf mein own house?”
“Well, that depends on the amount of English you know. It seems to me, Herr Schneider, that you learned our language very suddenly.”
“I vas a man who learns very fast when it vas necessary. Mein brain vorks in a manner most vonderful ven I looks down the barrel of a big pistol.”
“This pistol is a marvelous stimulant to a good education.”
“How did you know mein name vas Schneider?”
“Intuition, Herr Schneider! Intuition! We Southern people have wonderful intuitive faculties.”
“Vell, it vas not Schneider. My name vas Jacob Onderdonk.”
Harry laughed and Dalton reddened.
“The joke is on me, Mr. Onderdonk,” said Dalton. “But we’re here on a serious errand. Where is General Meade?”
“I haf not had my regular letter from General Meade this morning. Vilhelmina, you are sure ve haf noddings from General Meade?”
“Noddings, Jacob,” she said.
Dalton flushed again and muttered under his breath.
“We want to know,” he said sharply, “if you have seen the Army of the Potomac or heard anything of it.”
A look of deep sadness passed over the face of Jacob Onderdonk.
“I haf one great veakness,” he said, “one dot makes my life most bitter. I haf de poorest memory in de vorld. Somedimes I forget de face of mein own Vilhelmina. Maybe de Army uf de Potomac, a hundred thousand men, pass right before my door yesterday. Maybe, as der vedder vas hot, that efery one uf dem hundred thousand men came right into der house und take a cool drink out uf der water bucket. But I cannot remember. Alas, my poor memory!”
“Then maybe Wilhelmina remembers.”
“Sh! do not speak uf dot poor voman. I do not let her go out uf der house dese days, as she may not be able to find der vay back in again.”