Betty was the first to break the silence.
"But, of course," she said, and they started at the sound of her voice—so far away had their thoughts been wandering, "it may only be one more of those rumors the boys are always talking about."
"I suppose so," said Grace, with a sigh. "Anyway, it won't do any good to worry about it till the time comes."
"Well, I don't know," said Mollie a little irritably. "It's like having a sword hanging over your head all the time. I'd just as soon have it cut me in two now and get it over with."
"Yes, it is something like cutting the poor dog's tail off an inch at a time," sighed Amy, and at the comparison and her sober countenance they had to laugh despite the very real trouble at their hearts.
"I wish," said Betty wistfully after a while, "the boys could have gotten leave to-day. I should like to have just one more picnic with them. We've had such good times together. And we're going to have lots more," she added, springing to her feet with a sudden, swift smile. "That's our part of the business from now on. Just to keep smiling and make up our minds that they're coming back to us just as they went—only better."
"They couldn't be," declared Amy, and once more the other Outdoor Girls laughed and hugged her.
"Anyway, they've got one good backer in you, Amy dear," said Betty fondly. "You've no idea how fond all the boys are of you. I declare, sometimes I'm almost jealous."
"You," cried Amy incredulously, looking at the flushed face and shining eyes. "You'll never need to be jealous of anybody in your life Betty Nelson—and especially of me," she added modestly.
Betty laughed and hugged her again.
"Girls, it's getting late," she said suddenly, with another of her swift changes of subject. "I guess perhaps it's time we were starting back. Oh, I forgot," she added, in consternation, "I, or rather, Amy and I, promised Mrs. Sanderson we'd gather some flowers for her, and now we've got to do it, even if it is late—"
"Of course we have," agreed Mollie, rising with alacrity. "It wouldn't do at all to disappoint her."
"It must have been a pretty lonely day for her," said Amy thoughtfully, as she snapped the lid of a basket shut. "I wish she had come with us."
"Well, we're pretty much in the same boat as she is—or will be soon," mused Mollie, as the girls scattered to make good Betty's promise.
"How so?" queried Amy.
"Why," said Mollie, "she's already lost her boy and now we're about to lose ours."
"Goodness, Mollie," cried Grace indignantly, while the others chuckled, "you make me feel eighty years old. They're not our sons, you know."
"Of course you had to tell me that—" Mollie was beginning, when a scream from Amy and a hurried scramble onto a convenient stump interrupted her.
"What is it?" they cried, running to her anxiously.
"Look out, look out," Amy cried, bringing them up with a sharp turn a couple of feet from her perch.
"What is it?" they cried again, looking wildly about them.
"A snake," she screamed. "Look out, Grace, it's coming for you! Oh, look out!"
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the girls looked where Amy pointed, and saw, wriggling ominously toward them through the short grass, a large coppery-headed snake.
Grace gave one desperate leap and landed beside Amy on the stump while Betty and Mollie stepped to one side out of the reptile's path. Then, almost miraculously—or so Betty thought when she looked back upon it afterward—her eye fell upon a forked twig lying at her feet.
Quick as light she stooped and picked it up, then turned to Mollie, who was standing backed up against a tree, white-faced, terrified, in a half-hypnotized condition, staring at the snake.
The reptile had coiled itself and lay hissing at them viciously.
"I'm going to hold out this stick," whispered Betty feverishly between lips that scarcely moved, "and when he strikes, pick up that rock at your feet and let him have it. Ready?"
"Y-yes," stammered poor Mollie, terrified, yet game to the last. "Oh, Betty—"
But the sentence was never finished for, with a menacing movement, Betty had thrust the stick toward the reptile and the latter with a hiss had struck.
Quick as a flash and before the snake had time to coil again, Mollie picked up the rock and hurled it at his sinister copper head. Her aim was true, and the long, slithery body, robbed of its deadliness, writhed and beat furiously at the short stubbly grass.
Mollie put her hands before her eyes, shivering, and even Betty leaned weakly against a tree, faint and sick, now that the crisis had passed.
"I—I thought you'd be k-killed," moaned Amy, and though the tears of excitement and horror were rolling down her cheeks, she would have been the first to deny it had you told her she was crying. "Oh, B-Betty, you're w-wonderful!"
"No I'm not—I'm just scared stiff," cried Betty hysterically. "Anyway, M-Mollie did it all."
"Well, let's g-get out of here," cried Grace. Later they had time to laugh at the chattering teeth that made it impossible to say anything without stammering—but it seemed anything but funny to them then. "Let's g-get out!"
"Second the motion," cried Betty, with a wry little twist to her mouth, being, as usual, the first to recover her self control. "I can't see any sense in lingering."
A few seconds later they had gathered up their belongings and jumped thankfully into the road—out of sight of that sinister body still writhing in the grass.
It was not until they had climbed into the car and were whirling over the smooth road at a rapid rate that they began to feel like themselves again.
"I guess that was one of the narrowest escapes we ever had," said Mollie over her shoulder with a laugh that was still a little unsteady. "I guess we won't go picnicking in the woods alone again for quite some time."
"But I didn't know there were any snakes around here," said Grace wonderingly, and, it must be admitted, still with a little quaver in her voice.
"There aren't many," Betty explained, "Allen told me that poisonous snakes of any sort had been so rarely seen around these parts that people thought the stories of them were made up. He said they always looked suspiciously at the bearers of the snake tales, shrugged their shoulders, winked, and asked each other to guess where So-and-So had been the night before."
"Goodness," cried Mollie. "I suppose we'll never dare to tell it then. They'll think we are—"
"Slightly inebriated," finished Betty drolly.
"Goodness, I don't know what that means," objected Mollie, "but it sounds worse than what I was going to say. Now what's the matter?"
This last exclamation was caused by a sudden, grinding noise within the machine and a jerking stop that jarred them all nearly out of their seats.
Mollie looked back over her shoulder with a despairing expression:
"Well, this certainly isn't our lucky day," she said, with forced calm. "First we nearly get eaten up by a snake, and then the car breaks down—"
"But, Mollie, what's the matter?" cried Grace impatiently. "We can't stay here. Can't you see?—there's a storm coming up."
"Well I didn't do it," snapped Mollie. "I do think, Grace, you can be the most unreasonable—"
"Oh, please don't start anything else," cried Betty, herself a little on edge with the rather exciting day's events. "Let's get out and see if we can find what's wrong. We certainly can't do any good by talking about it."
They got out, and Mollie even consented to "get under," but all to no avail. The machine refused to be placated and stood stubbornly still in the middle of the road while the storm clouds gathered and the first drops began to fall.
"Well," Mollie decided at last, sitting miserably on the running board, "I guess we've either got to sit here all night or walk home and trust to luck the car doesn't get stolen."
"Also get soaked through ourselves," Grace was adding disconsolately, when a familiar sound caught their ears. It was the regular tramp, tramp of marching men.
"Some of the boys from the camp!" cried Mollie, springing up joyfully. "Maybe they'll help us."
As the small squad swung around the turn in the road they were delighted to see that Sergeant Mullins was in charge. He brought the boys to a sharp halt at sight of them, and came forward to meet them, saluting gravely.
"Are you in trouble?" he asked, with his quiet smile and a glance at the stalled machine. "May I help?"
"Oh, would you?" cried Betty, her pretty forehead puckered. "We do want to get back before the storm breaks."
Without a word, the young fellow removed his jacket and examined the machine carefully. Then, with equal gravity, he wormed his way under the car.
In what seemed to the girls no more than a minute, he reappeared and smiled at them.
"I guess it's all right now," he assured them with another punctilious salute. "If I might suggest that there's no time to be lost—" with a significant glance toward the lowering sky. For answer, Mollie threw in the clutch and the machine purred evenly. Then, with a little impulsive gesture, she turned to the sergeant.
"It's—it's a long way to Camp Liberty," she said, with pretty hesitation. "Won't you let us show you how grateful we are by letting us take you there?"
"Please do," urged Betty.
He considered a moment, then with another of his grave smiles saluted once more and turned to the boys who stood waiting in the road.
"Pile in, fellows!" he said. "We'll just about make it before the storm."
Then, while the boys obeyed, scrambling in any way, and Betty and Grace squeezed themselves into the front seat, Sergeant Mullins leaned over and said, very quietly:
"Thank you."
"A week!" sighed Betty. "Oh, Mollie dear, a week's such a very little time!"
"Goodness, it isn't even that now," Mollie returned, dropping a stitch in the sweater she was making and not even noticing it—an almost unheard of procedure. "That is," she added, with a slight little flicker of hope, "if you're sure you heard the major aright, Betty. Mightn't he have been speaking of something else?"
"Well, I told you what he said," answered Betty, a trifle impatiently, for she also had dropped a stitch and saw before her the weary process of ripping out two whole rows of her helmet—and helmets were such mean things to make, anyway!
"When he spoke of a week," she added, ripping vindictively, "and then said that the boys would be glad the waiting was over, it seems to me there's just about one conclusion we can come to."
"Oh, all right, but you needn't be so cross about it," returned Mollie, who, being very cross herself, could not make allowance for the malady in any one else.
"Have you seen any of the boys lately?" she asked, after an interval of deep concentration. "We've been kept so busy here at the Hostess House lately with these other boys that our boys might as well be dead and buried for all I've seen of them."
"Who's talking about being dead and buried?" demanded a third voice, and they turned to see Grace in the doorway with the inevitable candy box under her arm.
"Can't you choose a more cheerful subject?" she added, coming in and seating herself luxuriously in a big chair. "There's enough of that being done anyway—"
"You talk as if getting dead and buried were some sort of new indoor sport," interrupted Mollie, glad to have this old familiar enemy to spar with.
"Goodness, there's no more sport in anything," returned Grace, disconsolately. "I don't see why any old swell-headed German—"
"Grace!" exclaimed Betty, but with twinkling eyes. "What language!"
"Oh, I could do lots better than that," returned Grace tranquilly, "if I weren't in polite society."
"You flatter us," murmured Mollie.
"I know it," Grace retorted, still calmly. "Anyway, I was remarking that I didn't see why any swell-headed old German was allowed to take the world by the ears and turn it upside down—"
"Gee, who's allowing him?" cried a masculine voice from the door, and the girls turned with a chorus of greetings to welcome Roy.
"We were just saying we thought you were dead," remarked Mollie somberly, never lifting her eyes from the sweater as he seated himself beside her.
"Sorry to disappoint you," he replied cheerfully. "As Frank remarked unflatteringly this morning, 'You are far from being a dead one—go and reform.'"
"Was he speaking of me?" demanded Mollie Billette in deadly quiet, but Roy raised a placating hand.
"No, no, of course not," he said hurriedly. "He was speaking of me, poor worm that I am. But, I say," he added, looking around at the busily flying needles, "what's the idea of the knitting. We've got more sweaters and things than we know what to do with now."
Mollie lifted her eyes long enough to give him a withering glance.
"Do you think you're the only ones we care about?"
"I hope so," he responded promptly and daringly.
"Do you think maybe we'd better leave, Betty?" inquired Grace with delicately lifted eyebrows, while Mollie flushed scarlet.
"If you do, I'll never speak to you again," cried the latter, in alarm, adding, to change the subject: "Where are the other boys, Roy? You usually travel in fours."
"Well, as long as you didn't say on all fours, it's all right," responded Roy in a weak attempt at a joke that focused three pairs of girlish eyes scornfully upon him.
"Roy!" they chorused.
"All right, don't shoot," he pleaded. "What was that you asked me, Mollie?"
"I asked you," returned Mollie, with deliberation, "where the other boys were."
"I don't know, and what's more I don't care," replied Roy independently, leaning back and crossing his long legs with a sigh of content. "We've all been trying to get leave to come over and see you girls, and so far I'm the only one who's succeeded. The old boy, that is, the colonel," he corrected himself, gravely saluting the imaginary officer, "is drawing the reins pretty tight these days. Looks," he added, striving to keep the excitement out of his voice, "pretty much like business."
"Like business," they repeated in chorus, and were about to follow it up with a shower of questions when there was the sound of more masculine voices in the hall and the missing members of the quartette precipitated themselves upon the assembled company. Roy looked disgusted—the girls happy.
"So you thought you'd have the field all to yourself, did you?" Allen demanded of the disconsolate Roy. "Well, that's the time you counted your chickens too soon."
Then, turning to Betty, he caught her two hands in his and waltzed her exuberantly about the room.
"Betty, Betty," he cried, his voice keen, his eyes shining with excitement, "we've got special permission to tell you, because you're in the service. We're going, little girl! We're on our way to lick the tar out of those Huns!"
"Allen!" Betty's face went suddenly white and she sank down on the arm of a chair, regarding him with wide, dark eyes. The other three boys with Mollie and Grace were gathered in the opposite corner of the room, chattering like magpies.
"It's—it's really come?" she demanded, unsteadily. "Oh, Allen, when?"
"Day after to-morrow," he replied, his own hands shaking a little as they closed over hers. "Are you going to congratulate me, Betty?"
"A—of course," she answered, smiling at him with a bravery that made him long to gather her in his arms and comfort her. She looked so little and plucky and utterly adorable.
"Then do it," he said whimsically, putting his hands behind him to keep them out of temptation.
"C-congratulations," she stammered, then her lip trembled and she bit it to keep it steady. "I know how much you've been wanting it," she continued, striving for a matter-of-fact tone, "and so, of c-course, I'm glad for your sake. Only—"
"Only?" he prompted, gripping his hands hard to make them behave.
"Only," she added, her voice scarcely above a whisper, and glancing up at him shyly, "I can't very well help missing you, Allen, just at first—"
"Betty," he cried, his hands breaking away from their imprisonment and seeking hers fiercely, "I'm trying so hard to do the right thing,—be honorable and all that—wait till I come back, you know—but I can't. It—it isn't human nature. You're too wonderful—too utterly—"
"Allen, don't!" she cried breathlessly. "You forget we're not alone."
"I—don't—care—" he was beginning headily, but she wrenched her hands free, and, eluding him, plunged into the excited group at the other end of the room.
"Hello, Betty," Mollie cried, her voice high with excitement. "I guess you were right after all—only it's five whole days sooner than we expected."
"I—I wish they'd stop the old war," sighed Amy, who had come in in time to share the wonderful news. "I just can't bear the thought of it."
"Gee, that would be a nice note," broke in Will boyishly. "After all these weeks of training, to have the war stop just as we got ready to have a hand in it!"
"We'll be lucky if we don't leave a couple of hands in it," said Roy, again trying to be witty and again finding himself the battery for a score of indignant glances.
"If you think that's funny," Grace was beginning when Betty, color high, heart still beating suffocatingly from that brief little battle with Allen and her own inclination, interceded in his behalf.
"Oh, do leave him alone," she cried, patting Roy's scorned shoulder soothingly. "I, for one, would forgive him for anything he said or did just now without even being asked."
Roy gave her a grateful glance and Allen whispered close in her ear.
"You can be kind to every one but the one who loves you, Betty. Is that it?"
His voice was so low that no one but Betty could hear. And Betty felt an added rush of color sting her cheeks, and turned her eyes away to hide the confusion, the sudden fright in them.
If they had been alone no one knows what might have happened. But, even as it was, Allen, watching the flaming color and the downcast eyes, felt his heart leap joyfully and was almost—almost—satisfied.
The rain that had been pouring down steadily all night stopped about dawn. Betty raised herself on one elbow to look out the window and was greeted by a dazzling burst of sunshine, as the glorious disc dispersed the fog and took possession of the world.
"A good omen," she murmured to herself, rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes. "Perhaps that's how the Huns will melt away before our boys!"
"What are you talking to yourself about?" queried Grace, irritably. "A person has a fine chance to sleep—"
"Sleep!" cried Betty, indignantly. "What on earth do you want to sleep for? Do you know what day this is?"
"Friday," Grace answered mechanically, then seeing the point of the question, sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes.
"Oh, I—forgot," she stammered. "They're—they're going away, aren't they?"
"Yes; unless, they've changed their minds since last night," returned Betty dryly. "Oh, Grace, please don't look so sleepy. You—you annoy me," she finished hysterically.
"Well, I'm sorry," said Grace, trying comically to appear dignified. "But it really isn't so strange that I should look the way I feel—"
"Goodness, if I looked the way I feel, I'd be an awful mess," sighed Amy from the other bed.
"Maybe you do," chuckled Mollie. "Shall I get you a mirror?"
"Well, if you'd been awake almost all night," Amy began, but Mollie cut her short with a bear's hug.
"Forgive me, Amy," she said, with unusual humility. "I do know how awful it is to lie awake nearly all night and just think.
"And I shouldn't blame any one the least bit," she finished, "for calling me a mess, because I know I am. I'm positively afraid to look in the mirror."
"All right, we'll have 'em all draped in black, just for your special benefit," said Grace dryly. "Mollie, where did you put my stockings?"
"Goodness, what do you think I am?" retorted Mollie. "Your little French maid?"
"Nothing half so cute," returned Grace ungraciously, while Betty and Amy exchanged glances which, interpreted, meant: "We'll have our hands full with these two, to-day, all right."
"Anyway, you didn't answer my question," Grace persisted. "I asked you what you did with my stockings."
"Oh, I've got 'em on," replied Mollie sarcastically, smothering a yawn. "I mislaid my slumber shoes and used them instead."
The girls giggled and Grace looked around for an instrument of punishment. Not finding any, she was forced to resort to sarcasm.
"I guess you must have caught that particular form of insanity from Roy," she said.
"Well, as long as it wasn't the measles—" Mollie was beginning when Amy broke in with one of those absolutely irrelevant remarks of hers, that made her different from every one else.
"I wonder," she said thoughtfully, "if the boys will fall in love with those nice little French girls. They say they're awfully attractive."
"Amy, what ever put such a thing into your head?" cried Betty, while the other two stared at her wide-eyed, not knowing whether to laugh or to be indignant.
"Oh—nothing," she answered vaguely. "I was just wondering, that's all."
"Well," said Mollie, throwing back the covers preparatory to rising, "I might suggest that the next time you feel it coming on, you might choose something more comfortable, that's all. Wondering about such things might become wearing. What's that?" she asked, as a sharp tap sounded on the door.
"A caller, presumably," Grace remarked, as she slipped on a dressing gown and approached the door.
The early morning caller proved to be, much to their surprise and delight, no other than Mrs. Sanderson.
The old lady's eyes were unusually bright, and there was a flush on her face.
"I haven't been able to sleep all night," she said, her hands fluttering nervously in her lap. "Ever since Betty told me the boys were going this morning I couldn't think of anything but just that one thing."
"I am sorry I told you then until this morning," cried Betty, reproaching herself. "I didn't know it was going to make you feel bad."
"Oh, it wasn't your fault, dear," the old woman hastened to reassure her. "And it really didn't make me feel bad—not for them, anyway. They're lucky to be able to fight—even to die—for a country like ours. Only," she paused, and some of the light died out of her eyes, "I couldn't help wishing—"
"Yes," they prompted gently.
"That my Willie boy could have gone with them," she said, the words so soft that they had to lean close to her to catch them. "I would have been so proud of him."
The girls were silent, not knowing how to comfort the poor old woman.
"Perhaps," said Amy at last, scarcely knowing what she was saying, yet trying so hard to comfort, "he is a soldier somewhere. There are so many thousands of them, you know."
Mrs. Sanderson turned to her with such fierce emotion in her eyes that the girl unconsciously shrank back.
"If I thought that," she said, her voice tense, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white, "I'd be willing, glad, to die the next minute. If I could just see my boy in uniform—even if I knew I could never see him again—" her voice trailed off, and once more the light died out of her eyes.
"But, of course, that's impossible," she said wearily. "If my boy had been alive, he'd have come back to me. But that wasn't why I came in to see you so early," she added after a moment, straightening up with that indomitable courage that had won, first, the girls' admiration, then their love. "I jest wanted to find out when 'twas the boys was startin'."
"We're not quite sure. The boys thought some time between nine and ten o'clock, but they didn't seem to be at all sure about it. The only thing we really know is that they're going to start early," Betty answered.
"Thank you, dear." The old lady rose, and when she started for the door Mollie ran before her and opened it.
When she had gone, the girls sat still, just looking at each other for a few minutes. Then—
"Isn't she wonderful?" breathed Betty. "After all these years she would give him up gladly for the sake of her country. That's real patriotism."
"She deserves to get him back," murmured Mollie, as though speaking to herself.
"Well, that's just the reason she won't," said Grace, irritably struggling with an unruly lock of hair. "Nobody ever gets what he deserves in this awful world. What is the matter with my hair this morning? It looks just exactly as I feel."
"Oh, come away from the mirror, Gracie," cried Betty, putting an arm about her and dragging her, an unwilling victim, out into the hall. "You'll feel better after you've had your breakfast. And remember," she added diplomatically, "there's a brand new box of candy in your left-hand dresser drawer."
The ruse worked, and a smile forced its way through Grace's discontent. Then a sudden thought struck her and the smile flickered and went out altogether.
"It was Roy's parting gift," she said, striving to speak lightly, though her voice trembled ever so little. "You know, Betty," she said in a rare burst of confidence, "I never had the slightest idea I could feel so really b-bad—" her eyes filled and she brushed her hand across them impatiently.
"Am I not a goose?" she asked plaintively, and Betty, trying to laugh, choked, too, and abandoned the attempt.
Then they both smiled, an April sort of uncertain smile and went in to breakfast.
"I guess," remarked Betty whimsically, just as Mollie and Amy ran down the stairs and into the room, "that we're fast becoming what you said you were the other day, Gracie—a regular flock of geese!"
The roads were muddy from the heavy rain that had fallen over night, but Mollie demurred when the girls suggested that they walk to the station rather than go in the automobile.
"It may be all very well for you," she declared, "but I certainly don't feel in any mood for taking a two-mile walk this morning."
"Well, my knees do feel kind of weak and wobbly," agreed Amy plaintively. "But you know how reckless you are, Mollie, and on these wet roads we're very apt to skid."
"Well, but what's one skid more or less in a good cause?" interrupted Betty merrily. "Besides, I guess we wouldn't have time to walk, anyway," she added quickly, as dozens of soldiers began pouring from their barracks. "We'll never be able to get to the station before the boys unless we take the car."
"Girls, they're really going," wailed Amy, as they quickly got into their wraps.
"Certainly looks like it," said Grace grimly, for once not knowing or caring whether the becoming little hat was tilted at exactly the right angle or not. "It makes me feel all queer and—wobbly inside."
"Better take some candy along," advised Mollie, with a weak attempt at raillery as they ran down the porch steps and piled into the car. "You won't be able to come out of it alive if you're not properly fortified, Gracie."
"Oh, that reminds me," cried Betty, springing from her seat and from the car at the risk of her neck, for the machine had already begun to move. "We forgot the chocolate and tobacco for the boys. Wait for me, Mollie."
But Mollie, who had already brought the car to a standstill with a jerk and a grinding of brakes, leapt out after her, and the two flew up the steps, taking two at a time, and into the house.
Left behind, Amy and Grace looked at each other.
"I wish I could move like that," sighed the latter. "Those two get things done while I'm just beginning to think about it."
"And here they come back again," marveled Amy.
"Yes we have, and it's just about time, too," panted Betty, as they scrambled into the machine. "The boys are coming from the main gate now, and we'll have to make things hum if we want to get there before them."
"As Frank would remark," agreed Mollie: "'You said it!' This is going to be the race of a lifetime,"
"But Mollie," said Amy, gripping both hands tight in her lap as the car swerved sharply and executed a magnificent skid on two wheels, "you know it won't do either the boys or us any good if we get killed on the way. Do be—"
"Amy Blackford," cried Mollie in an ominous tone of voice, "if you say that word to me again I will run into a tree or something just for spite!"
Amy gave a plaintive little moan, and her two hands gripped tighter in her lap.
"All right," she said. "I'm glad I made my will a couple of days ago."
Grace turned an interested and speculative eye upon her.
"Oh, you did," she remarked, adding in a wheedling tone, "What did you leave me, dear? You know I always was your best friend."
"Goodness, I wonder who's my worst then," retorted Amy, with an unexpected flash of humor.
"Oof, that was a bad one, Gracie," Betty laughed, glad of any diversion to keep the vision of those splendid, marching boys in the background as long as possible.
Unconsciously the girls were sparring for time. They knew that once they let themselves think, that once they let themselves realize the full significance, the utter finality of this thing that was about to happen, it would be hard for them to smile. And they so wanted to smile!
They had been so glad, so proud when the boys had volunteered among the very first. Down in their hearts they had known that that was the only thing they could have done.
And the thought of their going away had seemed so far in the future that, as yet, it need not worry them. Blinded by their own passionate patriotism, they had seen all of the glory of war and none of its horror.
And now, in order to send the boys away with the thought of bright faces and encouraging smiles to cheer them on their long, grim journey, the girls joked and laughed, carefully avoiding the subject that was uppermost in their minds.
"Oh, well, that's all a person can expect in this world," Grace had answered resignedly, in reply to Amy's thrust. "Just be kind and loving and thoughtful of other people's comfort, and you're sure to be sat upon—"
"Goodness, she doesn't think anything of herself, does she?" Mollie flung back over her shoulder. "Now see what you made me do!" the exclamation was fairly jerked from her as the car lurched into a deep rut at the side of the road, skidded for a minute, seemingly uncertain whether to fling them out on the bank or continue its way, then bumped up on the road again and continued its flight.
"Oh, Mollie, do be—" Amy began, but a sudden grim straightening of Mollie's back warned her in time and with a gasp she choked back the forbidden word.
"Goodness, isn't she well trained?" laughed Betty, as Mollie bent once more over the wheel.
"Who wouldn't be," protested Amy plaintively, "if a cannibal should come and hang an axe over his head—?"
"Is she calling me names?" demanded Mollie ferociously, half turning in her seat. "If she is, please tell her to say it to my face."
"Well, I would if I could," cried poor Amy desperately. "But I'd have to be an acrobat—or an idiot—"
"The last ought to be easy," drawled Grace, then hastily offered her candy. "I didn't mean it, Amy dear," she retracted humbly. "Really I didn't."
"Don't you believe her," said Betty whimsically. "She only wants to find out what you left in your will, Amy."
"I wouldn't dare tell her now, anyway," returned Amy, with a twinkle. "Methinks it might very easily become my death warrant."
"How so?" queried Mollie with interest—or perhaps it might be said, Mollie's back expressed interest. For Mollie's back could express, Grace had once said, "more emotions in a minute than most people's faces could in a year." And, riding as they so often did, in full view of that expressive back, the girls had come to interpret its owner's emotions correctly in nine cases out of ten. So now they were able to detect a very quickened interest.
"Why," Amy explained naïvely, "it's barely possible that I've left something to Mollie, too, isn't it?"
"Barely," agreed Mollie dryly.
"Well," Amy chuckled, "then what would be easier than for Mollie to precipitate an accident, dash my brains out against some convenient tree, and then brazenly protest all innocence in the murder."
"Nothing," said Mollie, with the same dryness of intonation, "except the bare possibility of dashing my own brains out in the transaction."
"Oh, well, it could be fixed," said Amy with confidence.
"Do you really think so?" Mollie's back once more betrayed a lively interest, and the girls chuckled. "Suppose you tell me about it."
"And sign my own death warrant?" returned Amy plaintively. "Goodness, you must think I'm foolisher than I am."
"Impossible," retorted Mollie and once more Amy sighed and folded her hands resignedly in her lap.
"All right," she threatened, "if we only live through this, I'll change my will, that's all, and leave everything to Betty and Mrs. Sanderson."
"Goodness, what have I done?" cried Grace in dismay. "Didn't I just offer you another candy and—and—everything"
"I didn't notice the everything," said Amy.
"Well, you noticed the candy," retorted Grace with spirit, "and it was the fattest, juiciest one in the box, too."
"Well, give it back, Amy," directed Mollie, and Amy, in the act of swallowing the fat juicy chocolate, choked on a chuckle.
"Too late," she cried. "It is decapitated."
"I thought I heard its death rattle," sighed Grace, mournfully adding, as the girls laughed at her: "Oh, I don't know what's the matter with me this morning. I never felt so foolish before.
"Girls," she said, and suddenly her voice quivered and her eyes filled, "I've tried so not to think of it, but I can't fight it off much longer. Will and I have always been such chums, played and worked and even—quarreled—together—"
"Please don't, Gracie," cried Betty, her face flushing and her eyes growing dark and wide. "It would be so easy just to g-give way, but we're in the service, too, you know, and we must be at least as b-brave as the boys."
"I—I guess maybe that's impossible," said Mollie, her voice, even her straight little back betraying emotion. "Nobody could be as b-brave as they are."
"Well, we never know what we can do till we try, do we?" cried Betty, that indomitable fighting spirit of hers rising to the emergency. "If we say we can't, of course we can't, but we can do our best, can't we? If the boys aren't c-crying, why should we?"
"That's the way to talk," cried Mollie, straightening defiantly at the challenge. "We don't have to, and, what's more, we won't!"
It was a valiant determination, that one to smile whatever happened; but somehow, 'way down in their brave hearts, the girls doubted a little. They would do their best, but, after all, they were only human and there are times when to smile is the hardest achievement in the world.
"We're—we're nearly there," ventured Amy, after a little interval of silence, during which the girls had been busily gathering all their resources for the crisis just before them. "Do you suppose we've got in ahead of the boys?"
"Goodness, I should hope so," retorted Mollie, with a brief return of her old spirit. "If this old car couldn't make better time than boys on foot, I'd give it away to any one who'd take it off my hands."
As she spoke the car swung around a sharp curve, and the station that had appeared so attractive to them several months ago, loomed into view. To-day they greeted its appearance with as much enthusiasm as they would the electric chair.
A train was coming in, but it was not one for the troops. It was a mixed train, composed of one passenger car, a baggage and smoker combined, and several milk cars.
"What a country-looking train," was Amy's comment.
She addressed Betty, but the Little Captain did not answer, for the reason that she was staring into the baggage car, the side door to which was wide open.
"See that man!"
She pointed to an individual who stood in the baggage car, his hands holding up a motorcycle.
"Oh, Betty, is it that man—our motorcyclist—?" began Mollie.
"I am sure it is!" cried Grace.
The man was looking toward the end of the baggage car, so they got only a side look at his face. Then the train moved away and was soon out of sight.
"Well, if that's the fellow, he is gone," murmured Amy.
"Now, maybe, we'll never have a chance to catch him," added Mollie.
"Oh, we'll catch him yet," declared Betty,
Under ordinary circumstances the Outdoor Girls would have given the incident considerable attention. But now their thoughts were of the soldier boys so soon to leave.
"Didn't the boys say they were entraining for Philadelphia?" asked Grace, trying hard to make her voice sound natural and merely conversational.
"Yes, that's where a great many of them go," Betty answered, praying desperately that she might fight down that flood of tears that every moment threatened to rise and overwhelm her. "I won't be weak and f-foolish," she was saying, over and over, to herself. "I won't, I won't, I won't!"
Then the car came to a standstill beside the platform and the girls sat looking at each other, not quite sure what to do next.
"Do you think it would be all right to stay here?" asked Mollie uncertainly. "Of course we could get out when the boys came."
"It's a little conspicuous, don't you think?" suggested Amy mildly.
"Yes, it looks as if we had come to see a parade or something," Grace agreed.
There was a great deal of luggage and many boxes piled at one end of the station and it was upon these that Betty's eyes, roaming in search of some sheltered spot, finally focused.
"We could slip in behind those packing cases and things," she suggested; "and then we could see without being too much seen ourselves."
"Then the boys might not see us," protested Mollie, clenching her teeth over her trembling lip. "We don't want them to think we weren't here to say g-good-bye."
"Well, they'll see the car, won't they?" Betty argued, a little impatiently, for even her sweet temper was beginning to give way under the strain. "They'll know by that that we're here and then if they miss us, they deserve to—that's all."
"Well, I suppose we'll have to take a chance," said Molly, almost crossly, as she jumped out after Betty. "I only wish it was all over. The waiting is getting on my nerves."
"Well, you don't think you're alone in that, do you?" Grace was beginning when Betty interrupted with a little hysterical laugh.
"I—I don't see how it's going to make us feel very much better to quarrel about it," she said, adding whimsically: "Come ahead you two—kiss and make up before the boys come. You know they always said it made them jealous enough to commit murder when we did it in their presence."
They laughed unsteadily, and Mollie threw an affectionate and repentant arm about the Little Captain's shoulders.
"Betty, dear, you make me ashamed of myself," she said impulsively. "As if you didn't have enough to worry about yourself without my making you more. I'm a selfish pig, that's all."
Just then the sound that they had all been unconsciously listening for struck heavily upon their ears. The regular tramp, tramp of hundreds, thousands, of marching feet!
"Oh, they're coming, they're coming!" cried Amy, in a sort of suffocated little moan.
"Well, of course they're coming," retorted Mollie, her nerves jumping with the effort to speak coolly. "We've been almost expecting that they would, haven't we?"
"Oh, I know. But it all seemed like a terrible d-dream till now," returned Amy, looking so like a bewildered child that Betty put a comforting arm about her and drew her into the little recess beside her.
"It isn't a dream, Amy dear," she said, very steadily. "I don't think we were ever more fully or terribly awake than we are now. Not even that day when we heard of the sinking of the Lusitania, did we realize just what this war was going to mean to us. It's only by some sacrifice—some personal sacrifice—" but the brave voice broke and died into silence while she listened with almost straining intensity to that regular beat of marching feet, coming nearer, ever nearer—
And in the distance came the long, warning whistle of the train—the train that was going to take them away!
"Oh, keep still," cried Mollie, turning with sudden, unreasoning fury toward the oncoming locomotive with the smudge of smoke in its wake, her hands clenched passionately and her black eyes smoldering. "We know you're coming for them—Roy and Allen and Will and Frank and—and—all the others. But that's no reason why you have to rub it in, is it?"
At any other time, the rather unreasoning attack upon the train would have seemed funny to the girls, and even in their trouble a faint gleam of humor came to them, but no one laughed, no one even smiled.
"I—I wonder," said Grace, nervously patting a stray lock of hair into place beneath the smart little hat which, under the spell of excitement, had gotten slightly awry, "if we'll be able to pick our boys out from all that crowd. Oh, girls," taking a quick little survey over the top of her own particular packing case, "they're almost here! Swarms, just swarms of them!"
"Goodness, that sounds like locusts—or mosquitoes," cried Betty hysterically, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "Squeeze in tight, Amy, or you'll get your toes stepped on. Grace, look again. How far away are they?"
"Just around the corner," reported Grace. "Goodness," she cried in sudden panic, "I almost wish we'd stayed in the automobile. I'd feel s-safer—"
"Safer?" cried Mollie scornfully, "I'd like to know what there is to be afraid of. Oh, there you go again," shaking an impotent little fist as the great train rumbled into the station with a screaming of brakes and a shrieking of whistles.
And then the flood broke. Down the station platform came hundreds upon hundreds of khaki-clad figures, talking, gesticulating, faces eagerly flushed, eyes brilliant as they prophetically looked into the future.
"Oh, we'll never be able to pick them out of the crowd," cried Grace despairingly. "I'm getting cross-eyed as it is. Oh, there's Corporal Harris! Yes, and there goes James McDonald! Oh, oh—"
And indeed there were scores of familiar faces among the boys that were passing perhaps forever out of their lives. Some saw the girls and saluted them gaily, but most of them were too intent upon boarding the train and embarking upon the glorious adventure with as little delay as possible to look either to the right or the left.
Then, just as the girls thought they must have missed "their own particular four" and were bracing themselves to stand the disappointment, they saw them!
They were together, the four of them, splendid specimens of young manhood with their cropped heads and service hats and packs slung over their backs.
"Allen," cried Betty impulsively, and he turned as though shot, a deep flush staining his face.
They came over then, those four, to the girls they were leaving indefinitely—perhaps forever. Their young faces were very grave, their jaws grim and set, and the girls realized suddenly that these were not the boys who had so joyously left Deepdale in the service of their country. These were no longer careless, irresponsible boys, but men with a great and glorious duty to perform, and their hearts thrilled with a new pride.
And while eloquent things were being said, not only with lips, but with eyes and clasping hands, Allen bent nearer to Betty's little, upturned face.
|
"It may be a long, long time, little girl," he whispered, gravely, "but—I'm coming back. And, Betty, I have your picture—that little snapshot you gave me, the laughing one, you remember?"
Betty nodded, smiling bravely while she choked back something deep down in her throat.
"And—" his eyes had grown very wistful, "and—I'm counting on some letters from you, Betty?"
"Oh, Allen," she cried breathlessly, "I'll write you all the time, dear, every day—"
But he had caught both her hands in his and was drawing her irresistibly toward him.
"'Dear,'" he was repeating dizzily, incredulously. "Did you call me that, Betty? Did you say 'dear'?"
"Y-yes," she nodded, breathless, a little frightened, yet adorably brave. Why, this was Allen, and he was going away! He might be killed over there! She might never see him again! "And," she added, looking up into his eyes with a shy recklessness, "I—I'd say it again, Allen, if you asked me—"
With a little cry he drew her to him, and for one unbelievable, breathless second his lips rested on hers.
"Betty, Betty, I love you," he whispered unsteadily. "I'll be dreaming of you always. Whatever I do 'over there' will be because of you—" The whistle shrieked a rude warning and his hands tightened on hers. They were both trembling a little.
"Good-bye," he whispered hoarsely. "I—love—you—" then he tore himself away, swinging up the steps and into the car.
The train began to move amid a great storm of cheering and waving of service hats. Betty saw it all dimly, through a mist of tears. She pressed her hand against her lips to still their trembling.
"Good-bye, dear," she murmured brokenly.
"Well—it's—over," sighed Grace, as they made their way slowly down the platform to where the machine stood waiting. "I feel as though I'd like to go home and cry for a week without stopping."
"Favorite indoor sport," retorted Mollie, wiping her own eyes impatiently. "I'm sure the boys would admire us for doing that."
"I don't think they'd admire us very much if they could see us now," sighed Amy, dabbing a rather red nose with a generous portion of talcum powder. "Crying is so terribly damaging to my particular style of beauty! Every time I do it I vow I never will again—"
"And then the boys do foolish things like going away to be shot," finished Mollie, "and—poof, go all our good resolutions."
"But you girls are all Helen of Troys compared to me when I cry," said Grace, her tear-dimmed eyes fixed mournfully on space. "Why, after I've had a good cry I cover up all the mirrors in the house for a couple of days afterward."
"I guess," sighed Betty, "that just about everybody we know went away on that train this morning. Oh, girls, I feel as though somebody were dead."
"Well, I'd rather be, than look like this," said Grace, eyeing her somewhat disheveled reflection in the tiny mirror somberly.
"Oh, you're not quite as bad as that, Gracie," Betty comforted her, laughing a little despite the ache at her heart. "A little cold water and a curling iron will work wonders—"
"Betty," cried Grace, pausing in the act of applying still more powder to the tip of her nose and regarding the Little Captain with a horrified expression, "why drag the mention of such unromantic things into the open—"
"Goodness, nothing could be much more unromantic than straight hair and red noses," broke in Mollie practically. "It's lucky the boys don't do this every day—I'd be a wreck in a week!"
"Well, at least you'd be wrecked in a good cause," said Betty, half wistfully, half whimsically.
"Goodness, you'll make me cry again after I've just powdered my nose," cried Grace in alarm, and the foolishness of it made them all laugh.
"You're a goose, Gracie," Mollie commented. "But I love you, just the same. Now," she added, "who's going to take the wheel while I do my duty with the powder puff? I need both hands you know—"
"Heavens, don't let Amy do it," cried Grace, in still greater alarm. "She doesn't know a thing about it. Mollie, what are you doing?"
"You put the powder on then," Mollie suggested, and Amy reached for the vanity case. "If you can't drive you can at least do that much. Amy! you're getting it in my eyes. Do be careful!"
"Mollie Billette, if you dare use that word again," cried Amy, her eyes twinkling, "I'll blind you with powder—just for spite!"
The girls chuckled, and Mollie, figuratively speaking, threw up her hands.
"Oh, all right," she said, meekly yielding up her nose to treatment. "I surrender. Only, Amy, do be—"
Amy raised the puff threateningly, and the badgered one continued hastily: "I was only going to say—do be a nice little girl."
"As if I were not always that!" retorted Amy, dabbing so liberally at the unfortunate member that Mollie sneezed, bumped over a rock in the road and nearly dashed the car against that long-threatening tree.
"Oh, goodness! I was sure we'd never come out of this alive," cried Grace miserably. "Isn't it enough to have our hearts broken, without our necks in the bargain?"
"Oh, might as well make a good job of it," returned Mollie cheerfully. "I don't know that I'd mind very much, anyway."
"Oh, now I know I'm going to cry!" wailed Grace, wiping a starting tear with her handkerchief. "Just when we're almost at Camp, too, and apt to meet somebody any minute—"
"Didn't you just hear Betty say," Mollie broke in, with the patient air one assumes in speaking to little children, "that everybody who is really worth anything has gone away on that train?"
"Well, I guess I didn't altogether mean that," said Betty thoughtfully. "Of course there is the medical personnel that is stationed here indefinitely and very much against its will. And, of course," she added, after a moment's pause, "there is Sergeant Mullins."
"Goodness! we did forget all about him, didn't we?" agreed Mollie, as though surprised at herself. "I don't know how we could have done such a thing!"
"And he's simply desperate at being kept here," added Amy suddenly. "He's done everything he possibly could to get away, but they say they need him more here than on the other side, and so, of course, he can't do a thing."
"How did you know?" they asked in chorus, growing gleeful as she colored under their gaze.
"Why, he—he told me," she stammered.
"Aha! I have you now, woman," cried Mollie, with a deep villain frown. "Secret meetings on moonlit nights—"
"This one happened to be in the broad daylight, in the glare of noon," Amy retorted. "And if you can find anything secret or romantic about that, you're welcome to."
Mollie stared for a minute, then joined in the laugh.
"Strike one," she cried. "But do tell us, Amy clear, about this meeting with Sergeant Mullins that occurred in the broad light of day. It must have been interesting—though unforeseen," she added hastily, as Amy turned a suspicious eye upon her.
"Yes, Amy, I humbly beseech you," added Grace.
"No, sir, I have been insulted enough," declared Amy stoutly, and nothing they could say seemed to have any effect upon her decision.
"You ask her, Betty," entreated Grace at last, turning to the Little Captain, who had been very silent and thoughtful during the ride. "She'll do anything for you, you know."
Betty brought back her wandering attention with a start. She had been thinking of those last words of Allen's, had been seeing again that exalted look in his eyes, could feel again the trembling of his hands as he grasped hers in a grip that hurt—hurt gloriously.
"Wh-what did you say?" she asked, dimly conscious of having been addressed. "I—I'm afraid I wasn't listening."
"I'm afraid you weren't," returned Grace, throwing a loving arm about her.
Then she repeated Amy's confession and her own question, and gradually there began to dawn in Betty's eyes a real interest.
"Oh, Amy, do tell us about it," she begged earnestly. "You know he has always been something of a mystery to us because of his reserve, and we'd love to know more about him. You know we're really not curious—just truly interested."
"Well," agreed Amy, with a smile, not able to resist Betty—nobody ever was for long—"of course, I'll tell you all there is to tell—although it really isn't much. I was hurrying along the parade a day or two ago, watching the boys drill, when somebody ran plump into me and made me drop the package I was carrying. I gasped and started to apologize for not looking where I was going when I saw that it was Sergeant Mullins. Then we both laughed and he picked up my package and offered to see me safely back to the Hostess House. Now what are you laughing at, Mollie?"
"I was just thinking," Mollie chuckled, "of the desperate need there was of a brave escort and of all the lions and tigers that were apt to attack you on the parade—"
"Well, you don't have to be silly," Amy retorted hotly, flushing despite herself, adding, rather lamely: "He said it was so no one else would run into me."
"Worse and worse, and more of it," chortled Mollie, skidding deftly about a curve. "What an excuse!"
"Oh, all right then," Amy was beginning indignantly, when Grace hurriedly thrust the candy box beneath her nose.
"Have one, honey," she said, in a voice of sugar sweetness. "You needn't pay any attention to Mollie, you know. We're listening."
"Well," Amy continued, slightly mollified, "it was then he told me all about the ambition he had had of being one of the first on the firing line and how hard it was to train all the boys to go after the Huns and then not have a chance at them himself."
"And, of course, you told him the same old thing about his doing a great deal more for his country here than he could do on the other side—" began Mollie.
"Well, what else was there to say?" Amy replied, a little sharply. "Of course, it didn't make him feel any better, and I knew in my heart that it wouldn't, but anything's better than just staying quiet and acting foolish."
"And natural," murmured Grace.
"Anyway, he seemed to understand that I was really sorry for him," Amy continued, not noticing the interruption. "He said he was sorry he'd bothered me with his grouchiness, that he wouldn't have felt so bad about it if it hadn't been for all the boys going away, and he supposed he'd even get used to that after a while if he tried hard enough.
"Just the same, he did look mighty grim as he turned away," she finished, with a little smile at the memory, "and he said something about not being surprised if he got mad at the last minute and hitched on the rear platform, anyway."
"It's wonderful how eager they all are," said Betty, her eyes shining and a little catch in her voice. "I suppose there are slackers, lots of them, but so far I haven't met a boy who wasn't desperate at being given a 'safe berth' away from the firing line and danger.
"It never seems to enter their minds to be thankful that they don't have to run the risk of having their arms and legs shot off, or perhaps being blinded for life.
"And it isn't that they don't think of it, either," she went on, her face flushing with enthusiasm, "or realize what it means. Just the other night Will was talking to me, Gracie—you know he's always been almost as much my brother as yours—and he said, 'I tell you what, Betty, it isn't often I let the grim side of this war business get to me, and it's the same with the other fellows. Of course we know it's there, but we're willing to take the bad with the good for the sake of doing what we're pretty darn sure is the only thing to do. Only,' he added, slowly, 'we're none of us pretending to say that we enjoy the idea of being maimed or perhaps crippled for life. There's not one of us but who's praying that if we have to go, it will be a good swift bullet that will do the business.
"'But,' he added, with a smile—and I could have hugged him for that smile, girls. 'But, of course, as I said before, we're not thinking of that side of it. It's enough to know that if it comes, we'll know how to meet it.'"
"And th-that's my brother," cried Grace, half tearful, yet radiant with pride in him. "Those horrible old Huns won't have even half a chance when he gets at them."
"And Frank and Allen and Roy," added Mollie loyally. "You can't leave any one of our boys out, Gracie. They're all built on the same plan—as far as bravery is concerned."
"Of course, I know that," said Grace, her eyes softening with the picture of Roy as he had said good-bye—so youthfully gay, yet so strangely self-reliant.
And Mollie's eyes that could flash so wrathfully at times, were also soft with memory, and Amy, thinking of those last words that were almost, yes, so very near, a promise, flushed hotly and wondered if after all she ought—so soon—
"It's no wonder that we're proud of them—our boys," said Betty softly.