Read Ebook: Penmanship: Teaching and Supervision by Hiles Leta Severance

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Ebook has 506 lines and 27517 words, and 11 pages

Then there was Will Ford, Grace Ford's brother, who was not only devoted to his pretty sister, but, in spite of Amy's flushed protestations to the contrary, to Amy Blackford, also--although in quite a different manner!

Frank Haley was a high school chum of Will's, who from the time of his first meeting with Mollie Billette had seemed inclined to become her shadow, to the latter's secret gratification and outward indifference.

The last of the quartette was Roy Anderson, one of the Deepdale boys, who was chiefly distinguished by his very open admiration for Grace.

The boys had shared in many of the adventures of the Outdoor Girls, and of course had been among the very first to volunteer to help "lick the Boche" as they slangily but ardently put it. The girls had gloried in their patriotism, and it was their assignment to Camp Liberty that had first given Betty the idea of working in the Hostess House there.

They had been very happy, fired as they were by enthusiastic patriotism, until the fateful day had come when the boys had entrained for Philadelphia and from there to the Great Adventure. Then for the first time the girls had had the real and terrible meaning of war brought home to them. And the boys, so merry and care-free when they had first entered the service, had seemed suddenly older, more important, more manly, only the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes showing their indomitable youth.

Several months had passed since that day of mingled tears and pride and heartache, and the girls had had time to get used to the separation a little--a very little. And now Betty had brought them the letters they were always hungry for, anxiously eager, yet always, at the very back of their hearts, a little haunting fear of what they might contain.

For several minutes they sat engrossed while occasionally one of them read a funny or characteristic extract over which they laughed happily.

"Listen to this," chuckled Mollie, while the girls looked up expectantly. "Frank says that Roy is getting terribly fat in spite of all the exercise--"

"Horrors!" interjected Grace.

"And when he, Frank, ventured to remonstrate with him the other day and advised him to cut down on his chow, Roy said: 'Nothing doing! I've got a definite end in view, old man. This khaki outfit has acquired so much terra firma it's beginning to stand alone, but if I get so fat I can't wear it they'll have to give me another one--see?'"

The girls laughed, but there was just a shade of wistfulness in their laughter, for they knew that the boys were only skirting the outer edge of the hardships they would be called upon to encounter later on.

Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of dismay.

"Oh, girls," she cried when they looked up at her fearfully, "it's come! What we've been dreading so long! The boys have been ordered to the front!"

BAD NEWS

The girls stared wide-eyed at Betty while slowly the color drained from their faces. It was true they had been dreading just this news for a long, long time, yet now that it had come they felt strangely quiet and numb. They had much the same feeling as one who had received a stunning blow. Until the paralysis had passed there could be no pain. That would come later.

"How do you know?" asked Mollie at last, in a voice that sounded strange even to herself. "Frank hasn't mentioned it."

"He will probably, toward the end," Betty explained, while slowly her heart contracted and the tears welled to her eyes. "Allen didn't--not till the last sentence. It's only a line, but th-that's enough. He says not to be alarmed if his letters are delayed--it may be hard to get them through."

"They are going to the front," Amy repeated dazedly, as if she found it hard to really believe. "When--did he say when, Betty?"

"No, he didn't," said Betty slowly. "But you know Allen. He wouldn't have said anything about it if the time hadn't been pretty close at hand."

"Why," cried Grace, catching her breath as though the thought had just occurred to her, "they may be in the front line trenches now! They may be--they may be--"

And while the girls gazed at her in tragic silence, imagining terrible, unbelievable things, a moment will be taken to sketch briefly for the benefit of new readers the various exciting or amusing adventures which had befallen the Outdoor Girls in the days before the grim shadow of war had spread itself over the land.

In the first volume of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale," the girls had formed a camping and tramping club and had tramped for miles over the country, meeting with many interesting adventures on the way.

After this, one good time had followed hard on the heels of another, first at Rainbow Lake, then at a winter camp where they had novel and interesting experience on skates and ice-boats.

At Ocean View some time later the Outdoor Girls had cleared up a mystery centering about a strange box they had found in the sand. Then had followed that splendid summer at Pine Island, when the girls had accidentally discovered a gypsy cave and had succeeded not only in rounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering several valuable articles that had been stolen from them. The four boys who were now facing the enemy in France had shared in their fun that summer, pitching camp near the bungalow of the girls.

Their next adventure found the girls and boys again at Pine Island, but under greatly altered circumstances. America had just entered the great war, and the four boys had responded eagerly to the bugle call. Later they were sent to Camp Liberty for training, to which the girls soon followed them to work in the Hostess House.

Will Ford, the brother of Grace, had caused the girls, and especially his sister, anxiety and uneasiness because of his failure to enlist with the other boys. In the end he justified himself, however, by delivering a German spy to justice and enlisting in the service of his country immediately afterward. The girls also recovered some valuable jewelry that the spy had stolen from them.

Then in the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House," the girls had befriended an old woman who had been knocked down by an unscrupulous motorcyclist. They later learned the secret tragedy in the life of their little old lady.

Now the girls had come home to Deepdale for a much needed rest, only to be confronted with the terrible, though, naturally, expected, news that the boys had been ordered to the front.

"Yes they may be, probably are, facing death at this minute," said Mollie slowly, finishing the broken sentence. "Perhaps at the very minute we were playing and singing and enjoying ourselves--"

"Mollie, don't!" cried Amy brokenly. "I don't feel as if I could ever enjoy myself again."

"Well, we've got to, whether we can or not," said Betty, striving to control her quivering lips and tilting her little chin at a brave angle. "We can't just lie down at the very first shot, you know."

"You talk as if we were on the firing line," said Grace hysterically.

"I suppose in a way we are," returned the Little Captain slowly, wishing desperately that those troublesome tears would stay where they belonged--her eyes were so misty she could hardly see Grace! "Only ours is a harder kind of battle, because it's made up mostly of waiting and working without any of the thrill and excitement of the real fight to help us. But I'd like to know," and there was a little ring of pride and renewed courage in her voice, "what the real fighters would do without us anyway. We're just as much soldiers as they are, and if we don't do our share, they can't do theirs."

"Of course you are right, Betty dear, you always are!" cried Mollie, taking heart and even smiling a little. "We can't do anybody good by moping."

"No," added Grace with a philosophy unusual in her. "That's why we have the hardest share, I guess--because we have to keep gay and bright, no matter how we feel."

"And we still have our work at the Hostess House," Amy reminded them. "Maybe," she added, a little wistfully, "if we work hard enough we'll be able to forget--"

"What's all this about working and forgetting?" cried Mrs. Nelson, coming gayly into the room. "I thought you had come home for a vacation."

The girls explained, and Mrs. Nelson looked pityingly at their grave young faces.

"So that is it," she was beginning, when Mollie sprang to her feet with a cry. She was staring at the paper that Mrs. Nelson had carelessly thrown on the table.

"What is it?" they cried, as she snatched it up and read the glaring headlines.

"The Hostess House!" gasped Mollie. "Gone! Burnt up! Read this!"

Dazedly the girls obeyed, the big type seeming to strike them in the face as they read:

"Great Fire at Camp Liberty! Hostess House and Several Barracks Buildings Burned to the Ground!"

MAKING PLANS

"I can't seem to get used to it," sighed Mollie several days later, as she ran up the steps of her porch and opened the screen door for the girls. "To think that no matter how much we want to go back to the Hostess House--"

"There is no Hostess House to go back to," finished Grace, sinking down in a luxurious porch swing and plumping the cushion behind her back. Grace always had a gift for finding the soft places. "It is rather discouraging."

"Just as we were going to work hard and forget how unhappy we were, too," added Amy plaintively.

"Goodness, but we're not going to be unhappy," put in Betty, rocking vigorously. "I thought we decided that three days ago."

"I know. But when we think--"

"But we musn't think," Betty interrupted quickly, adding with a little twinkle: "About being unhappy, that is. All we have to do is just hold on to the belief that the boys are coming back a year from now, maybe less--coming back without a hair less than they had when they went away."

"We didn't count 'em," said Mollie drolly. "The hairs, that is, so how can we tell?"

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