If the bulletins didn't do it, the way the Quebecois troops in Rosenfeld acted was liable to. The Americans, whatever else you could say about them, had behaved correctly most of the time. They'd known how to keep their hands to themselves, even if their eyes were known to wander. The Frenchies didn't just look. They touched.

Not only that, the soldiers in blue-gray spoke French. Most of them had grown up since the Republic of Quebec broke away from Canada. They'd never had much reason to learn English. Nor had the local Manitobans had any more reason to pick up French. Hearing the Quebecois troopers jabber away in a language the locals couldn't understand made them seem much more foreign than the Americans ever had.

They came in to eat at the Pomeroys' diner fairly often. Even if they had to pay for it, the food there was better than what their own cooks dished out. Mort and his father took their money without learning to love them.

"It's humiliating, that's what it is," he said when he got home one summer's evening. "At least the lousy Yanks licked us. The Frenchies never did."

"The Yanks shouldn't have, either," Mary said.

Mort only shrugged at that. "Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong. I don't know. I've never been much good at might-have-beens. All I know is, they did. I used to think they were pretty bad. Now I know better. The Frenchies showed me the difference between bad and worse."

"Well, the Frenchies wouldn't be here if they weren't doing the Yanks' dirty work for them," Mary pointed out.

"That's true," her husband admitted. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"May I be excused?" asked Alec, who'd finished the drumstick and fried potatoes in front of him.

"Yes, go ahead," Mary answered. He hurried off to play. Mary looked after him with a smile half fond, half exasperated. "Little pitchers have big ears."

"He is getting old enough to repeat anything he hears, isn't he?" Mort said.

"Yes, but he's not old enough to know there are times when he shouldn't," Mary answered. "Whenever we start talking about the Yanks, we start coming close to those times, too."

"I don't want to talk sedition. I'm too tired to talk sedition," Mort said.

Mary was never too tired to talk sedition. She didn't talk it very much with Mort. For one thing, she knew he was more resigned to the occupation than she was. For another, since she'd done more than talk, she didn't want him to know that. The more people who knew something, the more who could give you away.

She did say, "The Yanks are flabbling about sedition on the wireless more than they used to."

Mort smiled and cocked his head to one side. "That's not a word I expected to hear from you."

"What?" Mary didn't even know what she'd said. She had to think back. "Oh. Flabbling?" Her husband nodded. She shrugged. "People say it. You hear it on the wireless. They'll probably stop saying it in a little while."

"I even heard a Frenchy use it today," Mort said. "This little kid started to cry and have a fit in the diner, and this soldier, he goes,, 'Ey, boy! Vat you flabble for?' " He put on a French accent.

"Did the kid stop?" Mary asked, intrigued in spite of herself.

"Not till his mother warmed his fanny for him," Mort answered. "Then he really had something to cry about."

"Good for her." Mary didn't approve of children who made scenes in public. She didn't know anyone who did, either. The sooner you taught them they couldn't get away with that kind of nonsense, the better off everybody was. She said, "The Yanks must be worried about sedition and sabotage, or they wouldn't talk about them on the wireless so much."

"Does sound like they're hurting down south, doesn't it?" Mort allowed. "Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks." He didn't love the Yanks. He never had. But he'd hardly ever been so vocal about showing how little he liked them, either.

Mary was tempted to let him know she still carried on the fight against the occupiers. She was tempted to, but she didn't. Three could keep a secret, if two of them were dead. That was Benjamin Franklin: a Yank, but a Yank who'd known what was what. The Americans routinely broke up conspiracies against them. Traitors to Canada and blabbermouths gave the game away time after time. But her father had carried on the fight against the USA undetected for years, simply because he'd been able to keep his mouth shut. Collaborators hadn't betrayed him; only luck had let him down. Mary intended to follow the same course.

Her husband went on, "The worst of it is, probably none of what happens down there matters to us. Even if the Confederates lick the Yanks, how can they make them turn Canada loose? They can't. If you think straight, you've got to see that. We're stuck. England can't get us back, either, not if she's fighting Germany. Even if she isn't, she's an ocean away and the Yanks are right next door. I don't know what we're supposed to do about that."

Fight them ourselves! Mary thought. She didn't say it out loud, though. She knew what she needed to do. She waited only on opportunity. But dragging Mort in, when he plainly didn't want to be dragged in, wouldn't have been fair to him and might have proved dangerous to her. One man-or one woman-going it alone: that was the safe way to do it.

Every now and again, she wished she could be part of a larger movement. Many people working together could harry the Yanks in a way a loner couldn't. But a large operation could also go wrong in ways a small one couldn't. She was willing to give her life for her country. She wasn't willing to throw it away.

Mort said, "I may be wrong, but I do believe there's fewer Frenchies in town lately. Maybe they've decided we aren't going to start turning handsprings right here."

Mary shook her head. "That's not it. A lot of them are out guarding the railroad lines."

Her husband gave her an odd look. "How do you know?"

Careful! She couldn't tell him the truth, which was that she'd driven around and looked. She'd taken care not to examine any one stretch more than once; she hadn't done anything to rouse the least suspicion in any Quebecois corporal's heart. She didn't want to make Mort wonder, either, so she answered, "I heard somebody talking about it in Karamanlides' general store."

"Oh." Mort relaxed, so she must have sounded as casual as she hoped she had. He went on, "Good luck to them if somebody does decide to sabotage the railroad. Too many miles of train tracks and not enough Frenchies."

"Wouldn't break my heart," Mary said. Mort only smiled. He already knew how she felt about the Yanks. Saying she hoped somebody else did them a bad turn was safe enough. The only thing she couldn't tell him-couldn't tell anybody-was that she intended to do them a bad turn herself.

"Talk about hearing things," Mort said. "Reminds me of what else I heard in the diner today. Wilf Rokeby's retiring."

"You're kidding!" Mary exclaimed. "He's been postmaster as long as I can remember."

"He's been postmaster as long as anybody can remember," Mort agreed. "He's been here since dirt. But he's going to give it all up at the end of the year. Says he's getting too old for all the standing and lifting he's got to do." He chuckled. "Says he's had it with being polite to people all the time, too."

"But him going! I can't believe it," Mary said. "And what will the post office be like without the smell of that hair oil he uses? It won't be the same place."

"I know," Mort said. "We've got to do something nice for him when he does quit. The whole town, I mean. You said it: it'll hardly be Rosenfeld without Wilf."

"Good luck to him. I wonder what he'll do when he's not being polite to people all day long," Mary said. Mort snorted at that.

Mary certainly did wonder what Wilf Rokeby would be doing. Rokeby knew things he shouldn't. He hadn't done anything with the knowledge. The proof was that Mary was still sitting at the supper table talking things over with Mort. If Rokeby had gone to the Yanks, she'd be in jail or shot like her brother.