The Liberty Girl
by Rena I. Halsey · English · Gutenberg #44928 · 539,225 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Liberty Girl
Author: Rena I. Halsey
Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
Release date: February 16, 2014 [eBook #44928]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERTY GIRL ***
[Illustration: “Ah there, girls! How are you?”—Page 11.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
LIBERTY GIRL
BY
RENA I. HALSEY
Author of “Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer”
and “America’s Daughter”
ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published, August, 1919
Copyright, 1919
By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
-------
All rights reserved
-------
THE LIBERTY GIRL
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSCRIBED,
WITH DEEP APPRECIATION,
TO
THE SONS OF LIBERTY,—
ALL THOSE SOLDIERS, SEAMEN, AND AIRMEN,
WHO HAVE HEROICALLY GIVEN OF
THEIR BEST FOR THE
BROTHERHOOD
OF MAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I “God Speed You” 11
II Giving Her Best 28
III The Liberty Girls 46
IV The Liberty Garden 60
V The Liberty Pageant 73
VI The Strange Letter 89
VII The Visit to Camp Mills 106
VIII Seven Pillars 121
IX The Little Old Lady in the Red House 133
X The Sweet-Pea Ladies 147
XI The Ride Through the Notch 164
XII Nathalie’s Liberty Boys 179
XIII “The Mountains with the Snowy Foreheads” 194
XIV “Sons of Liberty” 211
XV The Gallery of the Gods 222
XVI Butternut Lodge 238
XVII The Cabin on the Mountain 256
XVIII The Liberty Cheer 275
XIX “The White Comrade” 288
XX The Liberty Tea 302
XXI The Funnies 322
XXII The Man in the Woods 334
XXIII A Mystery Solved 348
XXIV The Winner of the Prize 362
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Ah there, girls! How are you?” (Page 11) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
“My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law” 76
“Is that your dog? Oh, I love dogs!” 184
The girl found herself gazing into the
sun-tanned face of a young man in khaki 232
Nathalie bent over in anxious solicitude 260
“Oh, it is Philip, my son!” 476
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LIBERTY GIRL
CHAPTER I
“GOD SPEED YOU”
“Oh, Nathalie, I do believe there’s Grace Tyson in her new motor-car,”
exclaimed Helen Dame, suddenly laying her hand on her companion’s arm as
the two girls were about to cross Main Street, the wide, tree-lined
thoroughfare of the old-fashioned town of Westport, Long Island.
Nathalie Page halted, and, swinging about, peered intently at the
brown-uniformed figure of a young girl seated at the steering-wheel of
an automobile, which was speeding quickly towards them.
Yes, it was Grace, who, in her sprightliest manner, her face aglow from
the invigorating breezes of an April afternoon, called out, “Ah there,
girls! How are you? Oh, my lucky star must have guided me, for I have
something thrilling to tell you!” As she spoke the girl guided the car
to the curb, and the next moment, with an airy spring, had landed on the
ground at their side.
With a sudden movement the uniformed figure clicked her heels together
and bent stiffly forward as her arm swung up, while her forefinger
grazed her forehead in a military salute. “I salute you, comrades,” she
said with grave formality, “at your service as a member of the Motor
Corps of America.
“Yes, girls,” she shrilled joyously, forgetting her assumed rôle in her
eagerness to tell her news, “I’m on the job, for I’m to see active
service for the United States government. I’ve just returned from an
infantry drill of the Motor Corps at Central Park, New York.
“No, I’ll be honest,” she added laughingly, in answer to the look of
amazed inquiry on the faces of her companions, “and ’fess’ that I didn’t
have the pleasure of drilling in public, for I’m a raw recruit as yet.
We recruits go through our manual of arms at one of the New York
armories, drilled by a regular army sergeant. Oh, I’ve been in training
some time, for you know I took out my chauffeur’s and mechanician’s
State licenses last winter.
“One has to own her car at this sort of government work,”—Grace’s voice
became inflated with importance,—“and be able to make her own repairs
on the road if necessary. But isn’t my new car a Jim Dandy?” she asked,
glancing with keen pride at the big gray motor, purring contentedly at
the curb. “It was a belated Christmas gift from grandmother.
“But I tell you what, girls,” she rattled on, “I’ve been put through the
paces all right, but I’ve passed my exams with flying colors. Phew!
wasn’t the physical exam stiff!—before a regular high official of the
army medical corps. I was inoculated for typhoid, and for paratyphoid.
I’ll secretly confess that I don’t know what the last word means. Yes,
and I took the oath of allegiance to the United States Government,
administered by another army swell,—and that’s where my Pioneer work
proved O. K. And then we had the First Aid course, too, at St. Luke’s.
The head nurse, who gave us special lessons in bandaging, said I was A
No. 1; and in wigwagging, oh, I did the two-flag business just dandy.”
“But what is your special work?” asked Nathalie, for the two girls were
somewhat surprised and bewildered by all these high-sounding,
official-like terms. To be sure, Grace had long been known as an expert
driver, but she had never shown her efficiency in any way but by giving
the girls joy-rides once in a while; yes, and once she had driven her
father to New York.
But war work, thought Nathalie, for this aristocratic-looking,
sweet-faced young girl, whose eyes gleamed merrily at you from under the
peaked army cap—with its blue band and the insignia of the Corps, a
tire surmounted by Mercury’s wings—set so jauntily on the fluffy hair.
To be sure the slim, trim figure in the army jacket, short skirt over
trousers, and high boots did have a warlike aspect, but it was
altogether too girlish and charming to be suggestive of anything but a
toy soldier, like one of the tiny painted tin things that Nathalie used
to play with when a wee tot.
“Do? Why, I am a military chauffeur,” returned Grace patronizingly, “and
in the business of war-relief work for the Government. At present I’m to
act as chauffeur to one of our four lieutenants, Miss Gladys Merrill.
Oh, she’s a dear! I have to drive her all over the city when she is
engaged on some Government errand. You should see me studying the police
maps, and _then_ you would know what I do. Sometimes we are called to
transport some of the army officers from the railroad station to the
ferry, or to headquarters. Then we do errands for the Red Cross, too.
“Why, the other day I helped to carry a lot of knitted things down on
the pier, to be packed in a ship bound for the other side; they were for
the soldiers at the front. We do work for the National Defense, and for
the Board of Exemption. I’m doing my ‘bit,’ even if it is a wee one,
towards winning the war,” ended the girl, with a note of satisfaction in
her voice.
“O dear, but wouldn’t I like to drive an ambulance in France! But I’ve
got to be twenty-one to do that sort of work,”—the girl sighed. “But
did I tell you that brother Fred is doing American Field Service? I had
a letter from him yesterday, and he said that he and a lot of American
boys have established a little encampment of ambulances not far from the
front-line trench. They live in what was once a château belonging to
Count Somebody or Another, but now it is nothing but a shell.
“Oh, Fred thinks it is glorious fun,” cried the girl, with sparkling
eyes. “He has to answer roll-call at eight in the morning, and then he
eats his breakfast at a little café near. He has just black
bread,—_think of that_, coffee, and, yes, sometimes he has an egg. Then
he has to drill, clean his car, and—oh, but he says it’s a great sight
to see the aëroplanes constantly flying over his head, like great
monsters of the air. And sometimes he goes wild with excitement when he
sees an aërial battle between a Boche and a French airman.
“Yes, he declares it is ‘some’ life over there,” animatedly continued
Grace, “for even his rest periods are thrilling, for they have to dodge
shells, and sometimes they burst over one’s head. Several times he
thought he was done for. And at night the road near the château is
packed with hundreds of _marching_ guns, trucks of ammunition, and war
supplies and cavalry, all on their way to the front.
“But when he goes in his ambulance after the _blessés_—they are the
poor wounded soldiers—it is just like day, for the sky is filled with
star-shells shooting around him in all colors, and then there is a
constant cannonading of shells and shot of all kinds. When he hears a
purr he knows it’s a Boche plane and dodges pretty lively, for if he
doesn’t ‘watch out’ a machine-gun comes sputtering down at him. He’s
awfully afraid of them because they drop bombs.
“But he says it would make your heart ache to see him when he carries
the _blessés_. He has to drive them from the _postes de secours_—the
aid-stations—to the hospitals. He has to go _very_ slowly, and even
then you can hear the poor things groan and shriek with the agony of
being moved. And sometimes,” Grace lowered her voice reverently, “when
he goes to take them out of the ambulance he finds a dead soldier.
“But dear me,” she continued in a more cheerful tone, “he seems to like
the life and is constantly hoping—I believe he dreams about it in his
sleep—that he’ll soon have a shot at one of those German fiends. Yes, I
think it would be gloriously exciting,” ended Grace with a half sigh of
envy.
“Gloriously exciting?” repeated Nathalie with a shudder. “Oh, Grace, I
should think you would be frightfully worried. Suppose he should lose
his life some time in the darkness of the night, alone with those
wounded soldiers? O dear,” she ended drearily, “I just wish some one
would shoot or kill the Kaiser! Sometimes I wish I could be a Charlotte
Corday. Don’t you remember how she killed Murat for the sake of the
French?”
“Why, Nathalie,” cried Helen with amused eyes, “I thought you were a
pacifist, and here you are talking of shooting people.” And the girl’s
“Ha! ha!” rang out merrily.
Nathalie’s color rose in a wave as she cried decidedly, “Helen, I’m
_not_ a pacifist. Of course I want the Allies to win. I believe in the
war—only—only—I do not think it is necessary to send our boys across
the sea to fight.”
“But I do,” insisted Helen, “for this is God’s war, a war to give
liberty to everybody in the world, and that makes it _our_ war. We
should be willing to fight, to give the rights and privileges of
democracy to other people, and our American boys are not slackers who
let some one else do their work.”
“_Our_ boys! You mean _my boy_,” said Nathalie, with sudden bitterness.
“It’s all right for _you_ to talk, Helen, but _you_ haven’t a brother to
go and stand up and be mercilessly bayoneted by those Boches. And that
is what Dick will have to do.” Nathalie choked as she turned her head
away.
“Yes, Nathalie dear,” replied Helen in a softened tone, “I know it is a
terrible thing to have to give up your loved ones to be ruthlessly shot
down. But what are we going to do?” she pleaded desperately, “we must do
what is right and leave the rest to God, for, as mother says, ‘God is in
his Heaven.’ And Dick wants to go,” she ended abruptly, “he told me so
the other day.”
“Yes, that is just it,” cried Nathalie in a pitifully small voice, “and
he says that he is not going to wait to be drafted. Oh, Helen, mother
and I cannot sleep at night thinking about it!” Nathalie turned her face
away, her eyes dark and sorrowful. No, she did not mean to be a coward,
but it just rent her heart to picture Dick going about armless, or a
helpless cripple shuffling along, with either she or Dorothy leading
him.
“Oh, I would like to be a Joan of Arc,” interposed Grace at this point,
her blue eyes suddenly afire. “I think it would be great to ride in
front of an army on a white charger. And then, too,” she added more
seriously, “I think it takes more bravery to fight than to do anything
else.”
“Perhaps it does, Grace,” remarked Helen slowly, “but when it comes to
heroism, I think the mothers who give their boys to be slaughtered for
the good of their fellow-beings are the bravest—” The girl paused
quickly, for she had caught sight of Nathalie’s face, and remorsefully
felt that what she had just said only added to her friend’s distress.
“But, girls,” she went on in a brighter tone, “I have _something_ to
tell you. I’m going to France to do my ‘bit,’ for I’m to be stenographer
to Aunt Dora. We expect to sail in a month or so. You know that she is
one of the officials in the Red Cross organization.”
There were sudden exclamations of surprise from the girl’s two
companions, as they eagerly wanted to know all about her unexpected
piece of news. As Helen finished giving the details as to how it had all
come about, she exclaimed, with a sudden look at her wrist-watch:
“Goodness! Girls, do you know it is almost supper-time? I’m just about
starved.”
“Well, jump into the car, then,” cried Grace Tyson, “and I’ll have you
home in no time.” Her companions, pleased at the prospect of a whirl in
the new car, gladly accepted her invitation, and a few minutes later
were speeding towards the lower end of the street where Helen and
Nathalie lived.
After bidding her friends good-by, Nathalie, with a _tru-al-lee_, the
call-note of their Pioneer bird-group, ran lightly up the steps of the
veranda. Yes, Dick was home, for he was standing in the hall, lighting
the gas. With a happy little sigh she opened the door.
“Hello, sis,” called out Dick cheerily,—a tall well-formed youth, with
merry blue eyes,—as he caught sight of the girl in the door-way. “Have
you been on a hike?”
“Oh, no, just an afternoon at Mrs. Van Vorst’s. Nita had a lot of the
girls there—” Nathalie stopped, for an expression, a sudden gleam in
her brother’s eyes, caused her heart to give a wild leap. She drew in
her breath sharply, but before the question that was forming could be
asked, Dick waved the still flaming match hilariously above his head as
he cried, “Well, sister mine, I’ve taken the plunge, and I’ve come off
on top, for I’ve joined the Flying Corps, and I’m going to be an army
eagle!”
“Flying Corps?” repeated Nathalie dazedly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Blue Robin, that I’m going to be an aviator, a sky pilot,”
replied the boy jubilantly. “I made an application some time ago to the
chief signal officer at Washington. I was found an eligible applicant,
for, you know, my course in the technical school in New York did me up
fine. To-day I passed my physical examinations, and am now enlisted in
the Signal Corps of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps. I’m off next week
to the Military Aëronautics School at Princeton University. It’s an
eight-weeks’ course. If I put it over,—and you bet your life I do,”
Dick ground his teeth determinedly,—“I go into training at one of the
Flying Schools, and then I’ll soon be a regular bird of the air; and if
I don’t help Uncle Sam win the war, and manage to drop a few bombs on
those Fritzies, I’ll go hang!”
For one awful moment Nathalie stood silent, staring at her brother in
dumb despair. Then she turned, and with a blur in her eyes and a
tightening of her throat, blindly groped for the stairway. But no!
Dick’s hand shot out, he caught the hurrying figure in his grasp, and
the next moment Nathalie was sobbing on his breast.
“That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his
voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt
at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of
that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.”
This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath
on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and
although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her
tears were stayed.
“Dick, _how could you do it_? Think of mother!” Then she raised her
eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—”
But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went
down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat.
“Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little
_tru-al-lee_ of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard
you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if
I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a
citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote
cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the
country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my
mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.
“Oh, Dick, don’t try to be funny,” Nathalie managed to say somewhat
sharply, as she drew away from her brother’s arm and dropped limply on
the steps of the stairs, in such an attitude of hopeless despair that
Dick was at the end of his tether to know what to say. He stared down at
the girl, unconsciously rubbing his hand through his hair, a trick the
boy had when perplexed.
Suddenly a bit of a smile leaped into his eyes as he cried, in a
hopelessly resigned tone, “All right, sis, seeing that you feel this way
about it I’ll just send in my resignation. It will let the boys know
I’ve laid down on my job, for if you and mother are going to howl like
two cats, a fellow can’t do a thing but stay at home and be a sissy, a
baby-tender, a dish-washer-er-er—”
“Oh, Dick, don’t talk nonsense,” broke in Nathalie sharply. “I didn’t
say that you were not to go, but,—why—oh, I just can’t help feeling
awfully bad when I read all those terrible things in the paper.” Her
voice quivered pathetically as she finished.
“Well, don’t read them, then,” coolly rejoined Dick. “Just steer clear
of all that hysterical gush and brace up. My job is to serve my
country,—she wants me. By Jove, before she gets out of this hole she’ll
need every mother’s son of us. And I’ve got to do it in the best way I
can, by enlisting before the draft comes. I’ll not only have a chance to
do better work, a prospect of quicker promotion, but, if you want to
look at the sordid end of it, I’ll get more pay. And as to being killed,
as you wailed, if you and mother will insist upon seeing it black, an
aviator’s chance of life is ten to one better—if he’s on to his
job—than that of the fellow on the ground. So cheer up, Blue Robin. I’m
all beat hollow, for I’ve been trying to cheer up mother for the last
hour.”
“Oh, what does mother say?” asked a very faint voice, just as if the
girl did not know how her mother felt, and had been feeling for some
time.
“Say! Gee whiz! I don’t know what she would have said if she had voiced
her sentiments,” replied Dick resignedly. “But the worst of the whole
business was that she took it out in weeping about a tank of tears; all
over my best coat, too,” he added ruefully. “You women are enough to
make a fellow go stiff.
“Now see here, Blue Robin, don’t disappoint me!” suddenly cried the lad,
as he stared appealingly into his sister’s brown eyes. “Why, I thought
that you would be my right-hand man. I knew mother would make a time at
first, but _you_,—I _thought you had grit_; _you_, a Pioneer, too.
Don’t you know, girl—” added Dick, rubbing the back of his hand quickly
across his eyes, “that I’ve got to go? Don’t you forget that. I’m on the
job, every inch of it, but, thunderation, I’m no more keen to go ‘over
there’ and have those Hun devils cut me up like sausage, than you or
mother. But I’m a man and I’ve got to live up to the business of being a
man, and not a mollycoddle.”
But Nathalie had suddenly come to her senses. Perhaps it was the brush
of the boy’s hand across his eyes, or the quivering note in his voice,
but she roused. She had been selfish; instead of crying like a ninny she
should have cheered. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed contritely, standing up
and facing him suddenly, “I’m all wrong. I didn’t mean to cry, and I
wouldn’t have either,” she explained excusingly, “if you had only let me
go up-stairs.
“No, Dick, I would not have you be a slacker, or a mollycoddle, or wash
the dishes,” she added with a faint attempt at a smile, “and we haven’t
any babies to tend. Yes, old boy, I don’t want you to lie down in the
traces, so let’s shake on it, and I’ll try to brace up mother, too,”
added the girl, as she held out her hand to her brother.
“Now that’s the stuff, Nat, old girl,” cried the boy with gleaming eyes,
as he took the girl’s hand and held it tightly, “and while I’m fighting
to uphold the family honor and glory,—remember father was a Rough
Rider,—you stay with dear old mumsie. Keep her cheered up, and see that
everything is made easy for her. Do all you can to take my place here at
home. Yes, Blue Robin, you be the home soldier. Gee whiz, you be the
home guard!” added the boy in a sudden burst of inspiration.
“The home guard! Yes, that’s what I’ll be,” cried the girl, her eyes
lighting with a sudden glow. “And then I’ll be doing my bit, won’t I?
I’ll cheer up mother, and do all I can,” she added resolutely; “and
don’t worry any more, Dick, for now,”—the girl drew a long breath,
“I’ll be on the job as well as you.”
And then Nathalie, with a wave of her hand at the boy as he stood gazing
up at her with his eyes fired with loyal determination, hurried up the
stairs, straight on and up to the very top of the house to her usual
weeping-place, for, oh, those hateful tears would not be restrained, and
if she did not have her cry out she would strangle!
Ah, here she was in her den, the attic. Dimly she reached out her hand
and pulled the little wooden rocker out from the wall and slumped into
it, and a minute later, with her face buried in the fold of her arm, as
it rested on the little sewing-table, she was weeping unrestrainedly.
Presently she gave a sudden start, raised her head and listened, and
then was on her feet, for, oh, that was her mother’s step,—she was
coming up after her. Oh, why hadn’t she waited until she had a hold on
herself. The next moment the little wooden door with the padlock opened,
and Mrs. Page was standing in the doorway gazing down at her.
“Why—oh, mother!” Nathalie cried in surprise and wonder, for her mother
was smiling. The girl’s eyes bulged out from her tear-stained face in
such a funny way that her mother broke into a little laugh. Then her
face sobered and she came slowly towards her.
“No, daughter mine, mother is not weeping. Yes, I heard what you and
Dick said, and you are patriots, and have shamed mother into trying to
be one, too.” Mrs. Page took the girl in her arms with tender affection.
“And Dick is a dear lad. Oh, Nathalie, in our grief at the thought of
parting with him,—perhaps of losing him,—” her voice weakened
slightly, “we have forgotten that he has been fighting a greater battle
than we.
“It is surely a great thing,” continued Mrs. Page sadly, “for a young
man in the buoyancy of youth and the very heyday of life, to give it all
up. For youth clings more tenaciously to life than older people do, for
to them it is an untried and shining pathway, flowered with hope,
anticipation, and the luring glimmer of unfulfilled aims and ambitions.
“And then to have to face about,” her voice lowered, “and silently
struggle with one’s self in the great battle of self-abnegation, to end
by taking this glorious life and casting it far behind you,—this is
what makes a hero. Then to face the dread ordeal of a battlefield, and
go steadily forward, buoyed only with a feeling of bravery,—the heroism
of doing what you believe to be right,—and, taking your one chance for
life in your hands,—plunge into the unknown darkness and the horrifying
perils of a No Man’s Land.”
There was a stifled sob in Nathalie’s throat, but her mother went
steadily on: “No, Nathalie, we must not weep. We must smile and be
cheerful. We must inspire Dick with courage and hope, and if it is meant
that he is to give his life, we must let him go with a ‘God speed you,’
his memory starred with the thought of a mother’s love and a sister’s
courage, and with the soul-stirring song of the victor over death.
“And, Nathalie, Dick belongs to God; he was only loaned to me,—to
you,—and if the time has come for God to call him home, we must not
complain. We must gladly give him back. Then we must remember, too,”
went on the patient mother-voice, “that, after all, life is not the mere
living of it, but the things accomplished for the betterment of those
who come after. And if Dick has been ‘on the job,’” Mrs. Page smiled,
“no matter how small his share in this great warfare for the right, he
will be the better prepared to enter into the Land where there is no
more suffering, or horrible war, but just a glorious and eternal peace.”
The last word was almost whispered, but, with renewed effort, she said:
“Now, Nathalie, let us be brave, as father would have had us,—the dear
father,—and go down to Dick with a bright smile and inspiring words of
cheer.” Mrs. Page bent and kissed the girl lightly, but solemnly, on the
forehead, and then she had turned and was making her way towards the
door.
CHAPTER II
GIVING HER BEST
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
Nathalie sat in the big rocker on the veranda, sewing a star on a
service-flag. Yes, as soon as Dick had gone to do his “stunt,” as he
called it, in the great warfare,—gone with all the honors of war, as
his mother had laughingly declared as he kissed them a noisy
good-by,—Nathalie had felt that it was incumbent upon her to sustain
the honor of the family, and had run lightly up to the attic. Here, in
the big piece-trunk she found a bundle of Turkey red, a bit of white,
and then, after begging a snip of blue from Helen for the star, she had
set to work.
She was sure that star would not come off, for she had double-stitched
into every angle and on every point. She held up the patriotic square,
bordered with red, and sorrowfully stared at that one lone star,
although a thrill of pride stirred at her heart and caused her eyes to
beam.
She must hang it up. And then she was busy tacking the little flag to a
small staff, which she had fastened to the roof of the porch so it could
be seen. Ah, the wind had caught it, and it was waving in a salute to
its many mates curling from the neighboring porches, and to the Red
Cross insignias that starred a window here and there, ofttimes
overshadowed by the graceful sweep of the Stars and Stripes.
But Nathalie’s heart was still sore, for although she had given up Dick
with as good a grace as she could muster, and had tried to show that she
possessed the true American spirit, yet it did seem as if it was a
needless sacrifice. With a sudden turn on her heel, the girl burst into
a new patriotic air that she had heard somewhere, as if hoping that it
would drive away the rebellious thoughts that jarred her attempt at
cheer, and hurried into the kitchen.
As Nathalie stepped to the window and stared carelessly out, her eyes
were caught by the gleam of yellow crocus and purple hyacinth as they
peeped up at her from their beds of green. Somehow their flaunting
colors reminded her of the spring blooms that used to nod so gayly to
her from the flower-beds in her beautiful city home in the upper part of
New York.
She could hardly believe it was a year since her father’s death. The
poignant grief she had suffered then again caused her eyes to fill with
tears, and her mind dwelt upon the sorrowful circumstances surrounding
her loss, the changes that had followed, in their financial losses, and
the many sacrifices it had entailed.
She again saw the sorrowful farewell to the first and only home she had
ever known; she again felt the grief that came to her in the giving up
of the many things that had made life so happy,—her schoolmates, her
many enjoyments, and her hope of going to college. She again experienced
the dolefulness that had assailed her mother, her brother Dick, her
younger sister, Dorothy, and herself, on their coming to the humble
cottage home in Westport, the being associated with strangers, and the
many people who at first had seemed so different from their city
associates.
Yes, there was the tree where she had found the nest of bluebirds. The
girl’s eyes gleamed amusedly as she peered down the garden at the old
cedar tree, and remembered that she had called them blue robins, thus
giving Dick an opportunity to nickname her, Blue Robin.
Nathalie attempted to smile, but the thought of Dick’s going away
aroused her slumbering grief, and once more the tears flowed silently
down her cheeks. But she bravely brushed them away and went on with her
reminiscences,—the remembrance of spraining her ankle up in the woods,
and how it had led to her meeting Helen Dame, her next-door neighbor,
and _now_ her dearest friend.
How lovely Grace Tyson had looked that day, and dear old Barbara with
her near-sighted eyes, and the girls’ favorite, Lillie Bell, with her
gracious charm and dramatic poses. The girl smiled again as she
remembered Edith Whiton, the sport, and her harum-scarum oddities. Yes,
they were all dear girls. And how glad she was that she had become a
Pioneer, and a real blue robin, by joining the Blue Bird group.
And what a dear Mrs. Morrow, the Pioneer director, was that day the
Pioneers called. Oh, that was the day the “Mystic” had passed. Who would
have thought she would turn out to be Mrs. Van Vorst, who was so lovely.
And that ride with Dr. Morrow to the big gray house, and then she
mentally saw herself, with that handkerchief over her eyes, talking to
the Princess, Nita, the little hunchbacked girl. And what good friends
they had become through those history lessons!
The many useful things she had learned from the Pioneer hikes and
crafts, and the joys she had experienced from their many sports and
activities had certainly proved worth while. And the “overcomes” she had
fought for by adopting the Pioneer motto, “I can,” had certainly meant
something in her life.
But they did have gloriously good times at Camp Laff-a-Lot at Eagle
Lake, with the Boy Scouts, Miss Camphelia, Miss Dummy, and all the other
good sports. Then, too, there was the surprise, on her return to learn
the good that had come to Dick through the money so kindly loaned by
Mrs. Van Vorst. Indeed, that one year had brought many new things into
her life, for—O dear, there was all that silver to be cleaned! For, now
that her mother kept no maid, this duty, with many other menial tasks,
had devolved upon Nathalie. Oh, how she hated that job!
With a resigned air, however, she managed to carry the basket of silver
from the sideboard to the kitchen table, and then returned to the
dining-room for the tea-service. After getting her cleaning cloths, her
brushes, and the scouring-powder, with vigorous determination she began
to rub and polish.
But somehow everything acted aggravatingly mean, for she dropped the
polish, and the powder flew all over; then she knocked the tray and the
knives and forks clattered to the floor. O dear! what ailed things
anyway? And how her arms ached trying to polish those horrid tarnished
stains on the teapot! The tableware had never seemed so obdurate, nor
the means for making it bright so utterly ineffective.
“Oh, I guess I am the one who is ailing,” she exclaimed glumly, as she
suddenly realized that her mind was not on her task, and that the
elation of playing at being a patriot had departed, with Dick evidently,
leaving her as limp as a rag. Oh, it does seem such a shame that we had
to get into that war—Nathalie bit off her thought like a thread,
resolved not to let her mind dwell on that forbidden topic. But how
angelic her mother had acted when Dick went. Well, she was a dear,
anyway, so brave. But suppose he _never_ _should_ come back after all.
Something suddenly seemed to snap in the girl’s breast, and down went
her head on the tray, into a heap of powder, while a great sob strangled
out of her throat.
O horrors! Nathalie’s brown head bobbed up from the tray, not very
serenely either, for she had heard a step on the kitchen porch. Oh,
Helen always came in that way! “Where _is_ my handkerchief?” The girl
grabbed desperately at something white lying on the tray, dimly seen
through a blur of tears, and began to scrub her nose energetically with
alas, not her handkerchief, but the powder-cloth with which she had been
polishing the silver! “Ah chee! Ah chee!” sneezed Nathalie again and
again, while groping frenziedly, but blindly, for her handkerchief. She
must have dropped it. And then Helen’s arms were around her, and she was
kissing the flushed cheek.
“What’s struck you, honey girl?” she asked in that gentle way of hers.
“Have you got the influenza? But here’s a very necessary article at
times, if that’s what you’re after,” she finished with a laugh, as she
stooped and picked up Nathalie’s handkerchief from the floor.
“Influenza? No,” blurted out Nathalie savagely, tortured to a pitch of
desperation at her unfortunate predicament. “I’ve been rubbing my nose
with that dirty old piece of rag I clean the silver with. Serves me
right, I suppose, for being such a fool as to cry when I should be ‘on
my job,’ as Dick says.” She shamefacedly tried to hide her red eyes from
her friend’s keen gaze.
“Oh, well, it will do you good to cry, Nathalie, dear,” advised Helen
softly, as she stroked the brown head caressingly, “for you were quite a
heroine when Dick went away, so courageous and cheery. Mrs. Morrow says
you are the nerviest Pioneer she knows.”
“But I’m not,” confessed Nathalie honestly, “in fact, I’m beginning to
think that I’m a bluff. But anyway, I’m glad to get a bit of praise,
something to warm me up, for I have felt like a congealed icicle for the
last few days. Yes, I have smiled and smiled like the poor Spartan boy,
while the fox of Grief was gnawing a hole into my internals. That sounds
like one of Lillie Bell’s dramatics, doesn’t it?” she smiled
pathetically into her friend’s kindly eyes.
“But, Helen, you are a dear, anyway,” cried Nathalie in a sudden burst
of admiration for her tried and trusted friend, who was always such a
stanch and timely comforter. “And do you know,” she added, swinging
about in her chair with the teapot in one hand and the despised
polishing-cloth in the other, “you grow better-looking every day. Oh, I
think you are just lovely!”
“_I lovely?_” mocked Helen, opening her eyes in surprise at this
unexpected praise. “Well, Blue Robin, what started you on that trail?
You must have been kissing the Blarney Stone, for you are handing me out
‘the stuff,’ as the boys say, for fair. Poor me, with a knob on my nose,
a wide mouth, and green eyes—to call me lovely is a libel on the word.”
“Oh, Helen, your eyes are just lovely—every one says that, for they are
so expressive,” retorted her friend loyally; “and as for the knob on
your nose, no one would know it was there if you weren’t constantly
telling them about it. But I don’t care what you look like anyway,” she
added determinedly, “for I think you are a love of a friend. But when do
you go to France?” she finished abruptly.
“I don’t quite know yet,” replied the girl; “perhaps not until a month
or so. But mother is brave about letting me go. She says it will be a
fine experience for me,—as long as I don’t have to go ‘over the top.’
Oh, you finished your service-flag! It’s a Jim Dandy!” Helen plunged
recklessly into another topic, again blaming herself for her trick of
alluding to forbidden subjects, for she had seen Nathalie’s lips quiver
as she said “Over the top.”
“Yes, I finished it, and now the neighbors know where _we stand_, even
if _you_ consider me a pacifist,” said the girl a little defiantly.
“Well, perhaps I shall think differently some day,” with a quickly
repressed sigh.
“Yes, and that day is coming very soon, too, Blue Robin,” rejoined
Helen; “for I’ll bet you a box of candy that you won’t be a pacifist
after you hear Mrs. Morrow talk on liberty. Surely you haven’t forgotten
that we are to go to a Liberty Tea at her house this afternoon?” she
inquired as she saw her friend’s face settle down into an expression of
gloom.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll go,” retorted Nathalie quickly, “for I don’t
feel a bit Pioneery this morning, and then I have all this silver to
clean.”
“But, Blue Robin,” returned her friend cheerily, “I’m going to help you
finish up that silver, and then I’m going home to dress for this
afternoon. Then I’m coming over here and just make you go to that
Liberty Tea with me. You know, Nathalie, it would be mean for you to
desert Mrs. Morrow,” she added wisely, “for you are the leader of the
band and should help to entertain the girls.”
Whereupon, Helen caught up one of Nathalie’s kitchen-aprons, and a few
moments later the two girls were laughing and chatting in the best of
spirits, as they rubbed and polished with youthful ardor, every bone and
muscle keyed to its task.
Yes, it was enlivening to be so warmly welcomed by her hostess, Nathalie
decided, as she greeted her a little later in the afternoon, and her
depression vanished. And how perfectly lovely Mrs. Morrow looked in that
blue gown; yes, it was just the color of her blue-gray eyes. Under the
fascination of this lady’s charming personality Nathalie was soon flying
about, showing the girls how to start sweaters, or to purl, as this task
had been delegated to her by the director, who herself had taught
Nathalie.
When the tea was served it was Nathalie who occupied the place of honor
at the little tea-table, decorated with the United States flag, and who
dispensed the dainty little china cups filled with what was
patriotically called _Liberty Tea_ in honor of the young ladies who had
given it its name over a hundred years ago, and who the Pioneers had
impersonated last year in their entertainment of “Liberty Banners.”
After the teacups had been removed, and one or two announcements of
coming events had been made, Mrs. Morrow, with sudden gravity, said:
“We have gathered here to-day, girls, to commemorate the Spirit of
Liberty, the one great principle that has budded like Aaron’s rod, and
brought forth other qualities as splendid and compelling as itself, as,
for example, the principles represented in our national emblem. The
principle of humanity, which means living the Golden Rule by taking
thought for your neighbor; democracy, the equal rights of mankind, which
in turn gives rise to justice, loyalty, and unity,—the principles that
have not only given us that wonderful, mystical something called
Americanism, but the principles that mean the Christianity of Christ.”
After the girls had discussed the meaning of liberty and summed it up as
standing for man’s right to self-expression, either by words or actions,
and made it clear that it had to be governed by the law of self-control,
as too much freedom would mean license or lawlessness, Mrs. Morrow
continued her little talk.
“Liberty is not something that sprang into being with the coming of the
settlers to America, for it is as old as man himself; but under the rule
of king-ridden states it has been fighting its way through many long
centuries, because the peoples of the Old World failed to grasp its
meaning.
“Under the stimulus of the Reformation and the Revival of Learning,
induced by the printing of the Bible and other books, the early comers
to America, as they endeavored to worship God as they thought right, not
only left the intolerant forms and bigoted narrowness of the Old World,
but threw the first light on liberty by teaching man his right to
freedom of the soul. The Pilgrims and Puritans were the Pioneers of
liberty, for they not only gave us religious freedom, but, by
establishing a government for and by the people without the aid of king
or bishop, laid the cornerstone of a great commonwealth, and gave us
democratic liberty.
“If you girls would make a study of the history of the Thirteen
Colonies,” went on their director, “you would learn that not only each
Colony contributed to the principles embodied in every stripe, star, and
color of our spangled banner, but that a universal love of freedom seems
to have animated the settlers. Each individual group, to be sure, had
its own peculiar belief, but, in the working-out of their cherished
ideals and aspirations, liberty was the bone and sinew of every colony.
“It was under the influence of these early settlers—the giving of their
best to mankind in their struggles for freedom—that the ideals and
beliefs of the New World were molded into higher and better
institutions, purified and strengthened by a new significance. Their
ideals and aspirations were essentially different from anything known
before,—ideals peculiar to this soil, which were absolutely American,
not only in religious freedom, but in the institutions of local
government and the union of all states into one, which gave rise to the
United States of America.
“Now we have come to the great subject of the hour, the war, and a
question I have heard several of you girls ask, ‘Why are we in the
war?’”
Nathalie felt her face redden, and shifted uneasily in her seat. O dear!
she did wish she had not come. Of course the talk was very interesting,
but still she didn’t want to think of this terrible war.
“I have heard it said,” pursued Mrs. Morrow, “that we are in the war to
avenge the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and that we must not allow the
Germans to break the international law by killing our sailors and
seamen. I have heard it said, too, that if they conquered the Allies
they would come over here and fight us. These are all sufficient reasons
in a sense.”
The lady paused, and then, with grave solemnity, said: “And I have heard
it put forth that we are in the war to maintain our national honor and
integrity. I think I hear some of you girls say, ‘But we haven’t done
any wrong: we have kept neutral; our principles are not involved.’”
Nathalie’s eyes were aglow as she bent forward, and with parted lips
anxiously awaited Mrs. Morrow’s reply to this question.
“Now that we realize the depth and grandeur of the principles given to
us by the founders of this nation, and know that every time our flag is
unfurled it tells the world that religious and democratic liberty were
born on these shores of America, are we going back on these principles?
Are we going to allow other nations to say that our principles are just
in the flying of our colors, that they stand for nothing but self-praise
and the nation’s glorification?
“No,” cried the lady with grave emphasis, “by our love for our flag, by
our love for our birth-land, by our reverence for the men who taught us
these principles we swear to defend every time we hoist our colors, we
must get into this war. We must prove that our flag is in the right
place, and that we carry it in our hearts. We must strive to show with
our soul’s might that we are living these principles by being true to
ourselves and to our nation’s honor, and carry our feelings into action.
“We must forget self, our desire for selfish ease and pleasure. We must
align ourselves with the suffering masses of people across the sea, and
help them to rid themselves of the iron-shod heel of one-man power. We
must stand side by side with the Allies for humanity, democracy, and
liberty. We must show the world that the so-called divine right of kings
is a worn-out belief of savagery, and prove by the principles back of
our flag, prove by the living of these principles, the sacredness of
God’s heritage to man, the right of the world’s people to know, as we
know, the principles that have made us the freest people in the world.
“Each one of you girls must not only do your bit, but must give of your
best to your brothers and sisters over the sea. And if the best means
the giving-up of those who are so dear to us, we must prove that we are
true daughters of liberty, and send them forth cheerfully, to give
freedom and liberty to the world.”
There was an impressive silence, and then Mrs. Morrow’s voice broke into
song. In another moment the girls had joined their voices with hers, and
were loudly sounding forth the old-time tune and the well-beloved words:
“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on!”
Later in the afternoon, as the girls hurried happily out from the white
house on the corner, each one chatting merrily, intent on telling what
she had done or intended to do for the war, Nathalie alone was silent,
weighed down, as it were, by a strange sense of shame. Yes, she had been
blindly selfish, and had failed to realize the momentousness of the
great questions of the day. When she had been called upon, to give love
and sympathy to her neighbors, the poor suffering masses of people over
seas, she had selfishly turned her back to the call—she had failed to
show herself a daughter of liberty. Why, she was not a patriot,—no, not
even an American; and in the spirit, if not in the letter, she had
dishonored Dick, yes, and her father, who had always been so steadfast
and true to everything that was American.
That night Nathalie could not sleep, but tossed restlessly from side to
side, as parts of Mrs. Morrow’s speech kept forcing themselves upon her
memory. And just as she had succeeded in driving them away, and also the
remorseful thought that she had not given her best, that she had failed
to show greatness, the song the girls had sung that afternoon, with the
luring, old-time air and the soul-stirring words, flashed with vivid
distinctness:
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.”
The girl sat up in bed, and in a crooning whisper hummed the whole verse
through, repeating again and again,
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
The beauty as well as the significance of the words had made their
appeal. Christ had died to make men holy; she must give of her best to
make men free. She must show herself great, but what could _she_ do?
But even as the question came, so flashed the answer, and Nathalie was
again softly humming,
“Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.”
And then suddenly a thought stamped itself upon her mind. The girl
caught her breath. Yes, she had given Dick up because she had been
forced to do so, but now she would make the sacrifice, give the best of
herself; she would stop once and forever all useless repining. She would
keep herself cheered by the thought that she was glad—she gritted her
teeth determinedly—that she had Dick to give to help make people free.
Yes, but she _must do something_—she must give _her best_; no, it might
not be anything very great or big, but she must show she was a true
daughter of liberty. Ah, she knew what she could do, and then Nathalie
fell back on her pillow, and although she lay very still, her brain was
alert, thinking and planning. Yes, she could get the girls together; she
would begin the very next morning. She would have every one in it, for
liberty wouldn’t be liberty unless it was free to all. And then one
thought and another kept popping into her mind, until finally the tired
brain went on a strike and refused to register any more thoughts, and
Nathalie, without a word of protest, tumbled into the land o’ dreams.
The next morning she was up betimes, and was soon singing cheerily at
her work, every now and then stopping in the midst of some favored
melody, to repeat softly,
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
In such a state of cheerfulness time flew swiftly, and soon Nathalie was
up in the attic writing a note. Yes, it sounded all right, she decided
as she read it over slowly. And then her hand was again flying over the
paper, and another note was written, and then another, and still
another, until, with a sigh of relief, Nathalie found that she had them
all finished. No, she wasn’t going to leave any one out. Quickly
gathering up the notes the girl was off, running lightly down the
stairs, and then flying swiftly across the lawn to see what Helen would
think of the thing she had planned in the stillness of the night.
CHAPTER III
THE LIBERTY GIRLS
“Yes, we must prove that we have the true spirit of liberty, the spirit
of humanity,” Nathalie spoke very earnestly, “and that is why I have
asked Marie Katzkamof to belong to the club. She is the little lame
girl, _you know_ who she is; she sits at the news-stand on the corner of
Main and West streets, and sells the papers when her father is at
business. She is always knitting—sweaters for the soldiers, she says.
It makes me feel ashamed when I realize how hard she works to do her
‘little bit.’”
“You are right, Nathalie,” replied Helen thoughtfully, “for you have
struck something big in your idea that we are all Americans, and that
the club should be free to all. But hurry over, and see what Mrs. Morrow
has to say. I believe she’ll think the whole scheme is fine.”
But Nathalie was already at the door, her brown eyes sparkling with
suppressed excitement, and her cheeks flushed with the soft pink that
all the girls admired, and _some_ envied. And then she was making her
way across the road to the white house on the corner, still softly
humming,
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
The Tuesday that Nathalie had designated in her notes to the invited
girls had arrived, and the girl, somewhat pale from nervousness, was
standing before a small table in the living-room of her home. Facing her
were a dozen or more girls, all more or less in an attitude of expectant
interest as they sat, some on chairs, others on the couch in the hall,
while the Pioneers, as was their wont when chairs were limited, were
seated in a circle on the floor.
“Now, girls,” cried Nathalie, determined to plunge ahead and get the
thing started before her enthusiasm and nerves collapsed to a frazzle,
as she told Helen afterward, “I have asked you all here to-day, to form
a club in the interest of liberty. The Girl Pioneers know just how big a
thing liberty is, for they had the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Morrow, our
Pioneer director, in her little talk on liberty. Oh, Lillie Bell, would
you mind repeating what you remember of Mrs. Morrow’s speech?” Nathalie
broke off abruptly, turning towards that young lady, one of the most
popular of the Pioneer girls. “I know you have a good memory, Lillie,”
Nathalie pleaded, “and are such a good elocutionist that you can do it
better than any one else I know.”
This calling upon Lillie Bell was a stroke of finesse on the part of
Nathalie. For Lillie, when she had learned that the club was to be so
democratic that the daughter of her newsdealer, a Russian Jew, had been
invited, had loftily declared that although she was a good American, and
wanted to do all she could for liberty, well, she didn’t know that she
cared to chum with all the Jews in the town.
Nathalie had been keenly alive to the desirability of having Lillie a
member, because she was not only bright and efficient, but because she
was such a good entertainer. This declaration of Lillie’s, however, had
caused her spirits to fall below zero, and she began to fear that the
whole thing would prove a fizzle. But when so many girls had responded
to her invitation, all keyed to expectant curiosity—Lillie among
them—her spirits had taken a leap into the nineties. Immediately her
alert mind had begun to plan in what way, and how, she could interest
Lillie in the club, so that she would take an active part in its doings.
And here was her chance.
Lillie Bell, with her usual timely poise, gracefully and smilingly rose
to the occasion. In her most luring manner she not only repeated Mrs.
Morrow’s speech, but interpreted it with such a stirring American
spirit, that not only was Nathalie electrified, but the whole audience
were inspired to such a pitch of enthusiasm that they broke into hearty
applause.
As soon as the clamor subsided, Nathalie cried earnestly, “Now that we
all know what liberty means, and the possibilities that lie before us, I
propose that we form ourselves into a club to be known as ‘The Liberty
Girls.’”
Another outburst of approval brought the speaker to a halt, but only for
a moment, and then she went on smilingly, “Well, I am glad that you like
the name, for it means something.” Then she briefly told of the
seventeen young girls, who, over a hundred and fifty years ago, had
formed a club called “The Daughters of Liberty.”
“They did their bit,” smiled the girl, “by sewing all day on homespun
garments to prove that the colonies could be independent of the
mother-country, and swore that they would drink no tea until the tax had
been removed. They also declared that they would have nothing to do with
any of their young gentlemen friends who dared to drink the detested
beverage.
“But, girls,” said Nathalie rather hurriedly, as she stepped from behind
the little table, “if we are to form ourselves into a club, we shall
have to have a chairman, for although the idea originated with me, that
does not mean that you have got to have me for a leader,” she ended
modestly.
“But we don’t want any one but you,” called out some one
enthusiastically, which cry was so emphatically echoed by others, that
Nathalie stood hopelessly bewildered, a wave of color dyeing her face a
rose-pink.
But in this crucial moment Helen came to her rescue, and jumping on her
feet cried,—even Lillie, Grace, and Edith bobbed up too,—“Girls, I
make the motion that we form ourselves into a club to be known as ‘The
Liberty Girls,’ and that we elect for president, Miss Nathalie Page. All
in favor of this motion stand up!”
There was a quick, simultaneous movement of many feet, and then, as
Helen sensed that Nathalie had been duly elected leader by her mates,
she called out, “Well, Nathalie, you will have to be president, for
every one wants you.”
“Yes, and we won’t have any one else,” added Edith quickly, with a
sudden clap of her hands. This was the signal for the girls to start up
a loud clapping in approval of the newly elected president, whose
rose-pink cheeks had deepened to scarlet as she stood bowing, somewhat
confusedly, to them.
Whereupon Lillie Bell gracefully came to the fore, and dramatically
seizing the hand of the young girl while leading her back to her seat,
in an impressive manner cried, “Allow me, Miss Nathalie Page, to lead
you to the seat of honor, as the president of the club, ‘The Liberty
Girls.’”
Nathalie bowed and laughed with embarrassment, but she determined to
carry off the honors bestowed upon her with a good grace, and as soon as
the somewhat noisy demonstrations of pleasure from the girls had ended,
she said modestly, “Girls, I thank you for wanting me to be your leader,
and only hope I will make a good one.”
There was more plaudits, and then Nathalie, with grave seriousness,
said: “Girls, now that we have pledged ourselves not only as a club, but
as individuals, to further the cause of liberty, I would suggest that
our watchword be, ‘Liberty and humanity—our best.’ Humanity means to be
helpful and kind to our neighbors, our best means to work with a
strenuous will to do everything we can to that end. Our neighbors at the
present moment loom very large and big as the needy and suffering ones
overseas, as the sick, the wounded, the dying, the prisoners, the
refugees, and all those who are fighting on land and sea: yes, and those
in the air, and all those who are helping to care for the ones I have
mentioned, as the doctors and nurses, for they, too, all need help. If
we can’t fight, we have got to help those who are fighting in our stead.
Yes,” she added solemnly, “and we must be prepared even to have the
desire to do what we can for our enemies, for as liberty makes no
discrimination as to who shall enjoy it, so in the doing of humane acts
we should remember all.”
As Nathalie, highly elated by the enthusiasm shown by her audience,
stood waiting for quietness, suddenly her eyes rested on little lame
Marie Katzkamof, whose big black eyes shone like two stars from her
pale, sallow face. Nathalie had another inspiration.
She bent forward and in a low, earnest voice cried, “Do you think,
little Marie, that you would enjoy being a member of this club? Wouldn’t
you like to do something—yes, _your best_—to help the poor refugees in
France and Belgium, and the brave soldier boys who are fighting, so that
the whole world can enjoy liberty?”
“Yiss, ma’am; I have a glad on liberty,” the girl giggled nervously,
“but it’s like this mit me, I likes I shure I don’t make you no
trouble.”
“But it won’t be any trouble to us, Marie,” answered Nathalie with a
smile. “We will all help you; humanity means to help others.”
“But, Missis Page,” the girl’s face was scarlet, her big eyes mournful.
“It’s like this mit me, I ain’t stylish like these young ladies; I make
nottings mit them, for I ain’t shmardt, hein? Und this leg it ain’t yet
so healthy. Und, Missis Page, I’m lovin’ mit liberty, but I ain’t lovin’
much mit Krisht, for I’m a Jewess.”
Nathalie faltered a moment, for she had seen a smile creep into the eyes
of the girls, which she knew would become a laugh if she did not say the
right thing. “Yes, you may not love Christ, as we Christians,” she
answered quickly, “but if you love the liberty, perhaps you may learn to
know what it means to love Him. And then, Marie, that will make no
difference, for as long as you want to help the suffering ones, and show
humanity, that makes you an American, no matter who, or what you are.”
“Thank you, Missis Page,” the girl’s face had lighted with repressed
joy, “sure I’m an American. I can’t do nottings mit the fight, like the
soldiers, but you bet yer life I can knit for them, hein?” And the
little daughter of Israel held up a strip of wool with its two shiny
needles. “Shure und my hands are straight,” she continued pathetically,
“even if my legs ain’t healthy.”
Nathalie’s eyes blurred, but she answered smilingly, “Why, that will be
lovely, Marie.” Then, turning towards the girls, she cried, “Every one
in favor of appointing Marie Katzkamof captain of the Knitting Squad,
please hold up her hand.” And every hand went up. “And we’ll call you
Captain Molly,” went on Nathalie, “in memory of that brave young woman,
Molly Pitcher, who, when her husband fell dead at the battle of
Monmouth, during the Revolution, took his place,—she was carrying water
to the soldiers,—seized the rammer of his gun, and fired it. And she
kept on firing it,” cried Nathalie with glowing eyes, “with the shot and
shell flying all about her, until the battle was over. And with that
name and the bravery of _that_ Molly—for I know you are brave, Marie—I
know you will do _your best_ for liberty, and for the soldiers who are
on the firing-line, doing their best, as the Sons of Liberty, for the
right of every man in the world.”
After Lillie Bell had been duly elected vice-president of the club, and
several other club matters had been disposed of, Nathalie proposed, as
an inspiration to the girls, that they form a circle in the center of
the room, and stand with clasped hands, to show the interdependence of
one upon the other. “Then in turn,” she explained, “let each girl tell
of some woman, or girl, who, by her bravery in doing what she could for
some one else, or for the world, has given of her best to mankind, and
shown that she was a true lover of humanity, and a daughter of liberty.”
The girls, quickly grasping Nathalie’s idea, were soon standing in a
circle, hurriedly trying to concentrate their minds on some one woman
who had given of her greatness to mankind.
“Can we tell about the Pioneer women?” asked a Girl Pioneer timidly.
“Yes, indeed,” answered the young president, “and we ought to hear about
them first, too, for they were the ones who really taught us what it
means to love liberty. Although they were not the first women who did
great things for their fellow-beings, they were the ones who made clear
to us that real liberty means humanity, justice, and democracy for all.”
Helen now started the liberty chain by clasping the hand of her neighbor
on each side of her and telling of the women of the _Mayflower_, who, by
their acts of sacrifice, and stern determination to worship God as they
thought right, gave us religious freedom.
Nita told of the coming of the ship, the _Arbella_, to Gloucester with
John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the two
noted Puritan brides, the Lady Arbella and Anne Bradstreet, the latter
our first American poetess. And gave testimony of their devotion to
Puritanism, and their desire to benefit mankind.
One Pioneer told of America’s first club-woman, Anne Hutchinson,
portraying her trial and banishment from Boston, in her efforts to
benefit mankind by teaching them freedom of thought. Another told of
Mary Dyer, the noted Quakeress, and how she was hanged from an old elm
on Boston Common because she believed in freedom of religion.
Margaret, the wife of John Winthrop, the governor, and Susannah, the
mother of John Wesley, both beloved for their sweet piety and charity,
were cited as examples of having given of their best in being the ideal
wife and mother. Lillie Bell told of Florence Nightingale, the young
English woman who gave up a life of luxury to help the soldiers during
the Crimean War in 1854. She became known as “The Lady of the Lamp,”
from a statue of her as she stands with a nurse’s lamp in her hand,
erected in a church in London.
A Girl Scout told of Dorothy Dix, that wonderful woman who made it her
life-work to visit prisons and insane asylums, in order to institute
reforms for the care and comfort of the inmates. She also did much for
the relief of wounded soldiers during the American Civil War.
Jenny Lind, the great Swedish singer, was cited as having given to
humanity when she gave her time and voice to raise thousands of dollars
for the benefit of broken-down musicians and writers. Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe gave of her best, Edith declared, when she wrote her book,
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and showed the world the evils of slavery; as also
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe when she wrote that wonderful patriotic song, “The
Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The two noted women astronomers, Caroline Herschel and Maria Mitchell,
when they studied the heavens in the interest of science, gave of their
best. Also Charlotte Cushman, the great actress, who raised large sums
of money by her acting, and gave it to the Sanitary Fund, during the
Civil War, was quoted as a lover of humanity.
The Baroness Burdett-Coutts and Miss Helen Gould, two of the world’s
noted philanthropists, as well as Miss Louisa Alcott, in her writings
for the youth of America, and other women writers were added to the
growing list of Liberty Daughters. Dolly Madison, the beautiful First
Lady of the Land, showed herself a true American during the War of 1812.
When the British burned Washington she refused to leave the White House
until the portrait of Washington was carried to a place of safety, while
she herself took the Declaration of Independence, with its autographs of
the signers, away with her, so that it would not be lost to America.
Even Marie, alias Captain Molly, caught the inspiration of the Liberty
Chain, and told of a young Russian girl, who, rather than betray the
secrets of a great man, from a paper that had fallen into her hands,
allowed herself to be exiled to Siberia. Then came the war stories, as
that of the noted Quakeress, Lydia Darrach, who, during the Revolution,
on learning the secrets of the British officers who were quartered at
her house, endured untold hardship in traveling many miles in the dead
of winter to reveal them to the American patrol, so as to save the
Continental Army from disaster.
Hannah Weston, who filled a pillow-case with pewter-ware when she heard
that a certain town was in need of ammunition, and carried it many miles
through the woods at night, was cited for her bravery and her sacrifice,
in her effort to help others. The story of Betty Zane and how she ran
from the palisade of a Western fort to her brother’s hut for a keg of
powder in the fire of a tribe of Indians, although a familiar one, was
listened to with glowing interest.
Ruth Wyllis, who hid the charter of Connecticut in an oak tree, and Katy
Brownell, the color-bearer at the battle of Bull Run, who stood by the
flag in the face of the advancing foe, and who would have been shot to
death if a soldier had not pulled her away, were but two recitals of
brave deeds for the sake of humanity.
But at last the liberty chain came to an end by Nathalie telling of
Saint Margaret, a plain, uneducated Irish woman, who, after losing her
husband and child, devoted her life and every penny she made to the
cause of orphan children. A statue, she said, had been erected in New
Orleans to this noble woman, who gave of her best to humanity when she
devoted her life to these little waifs.
After the girls had returned to their seats, Nathalie appointed seven
squads. She had made it seven, she said, not only because it was a lucky
number, but because there were just seven letters in the name,
_Liberty_. Helen was made the captain of the Florence Nightingale Squad,
since she had gained many honors, as a Girl Pioneer, as an expert maker
of bandages.
Nita, with a Girl Scout as a running mate, was made captain of the
Scrap-Book Squad, which meant the making of scrap-books for the
convalescing soldiers in the hospitals. Lillie Bell and a Camp Fire Girl
were placed at the head of the Garments Squad for the cutting and sewing
of garments for the refugee children of France and Belgium. Two Girl
Scouts were made captains of the Flower Squad, with the purpose of
raising and selling flowers for the Liberty Loan fund.
Jessie Ford had charge of the comfort-kits for the soldier-boys, while
Barbara Worth, who was an expert knitter, was appointed to work with
Captain Molly, the Russian Jewess. Nathalie was unanimously chosen as
the captain of the Liberty Garden, with Edith Whiton and several other
Girl Pioneers. They were not only to raise vegetables and fruits in
their garden-to-be, but they were to do canning as well.
After some discussion it was decided that the club members wear a
uniform consisting of a white shirtwaist, with the letters L. G. in red
on the arm, on the corners of their white sailor-collars, and on the
hatbands of their white sailor-hats, and to wear white or khaki skirts.
Nathalie had just appointed a committee to scour the town for a parcel
of ground to use as a flower and Liberty garden, when a sudden noise was
heard. The girl looked quickly up, to see Mrs. Morrow standing in the
doorway leading from the dining-room, with her arms filled with flowers.
In her hand was a large bell, which she was jingling softly, while her
blue eyes smiled down upon the girls with radiant good-will.
CHAPTER IV
THE LIBERTY GARDEN
Nathalie stared in amazement, and then, recovering her usual poise, she
cried, “Oh, Mrs. Morrow, please come right in, for I want you to meet my
Liberty Girls.” As the girl spoke she advanced towards her unexpected
guest, who was coming slowly forward, as if not assured of her welcome.
But the cordiality expressed in the tones of Nathalie’s voice and the
fact that the girls had all risen on their feet,—her own girls at
attention in the Pioneer salute,—with their faces aglow with pleasure,
quickly assured her that her welcome was a hearty one.
With a sudden movement she turned to Nathalie and asked, “May I have the
floor a moment, Miss President?” As the girl assented, although somewhat
mystified, Mrs. Morrow took her place behind the small table, and with a
quick nod of greeting to the faces upturned to hers, cried: “Girls, I am
greatly pleased to see you here to-day, and to know that our Pioneer
Blue Robin’s little plan to make you all work with a keener zest for
liberty, has succeeded so well. I also want to assure you of my hearty
cooperation, and my wish that all of you, those who are Pioneers, and
those who belong to other clubs, will be inspired to better work in your
own organizations by the fact that you have banded together to stand
unitedly as Daughters of Liberty, in order to show that you are all
_loyal Americans_. In proof of my good wishes I am going to present the
club with a bell. It is needless to say that it is not _the_ Liberty
Bell, but a facsimile in miniature.
“Wait, I have not finished,” laughingly protested the lady as she held
up her hand,—for some of the girls had started to clap. “I want you to
know before your president rings it,—it is to be rung to call you
together in the sacred cause of liberty,—that way up in the top has
been inserted a very tiny chip from the real Liberty Bell,—the bell
that was rung over a hundred years ago to announce that the thirteen
colonies had become the United States of America. I hope, girls, that
when you hear this bell ring you will feel the same inspiration to do
your best as animated the patriots in the war of 1776.”
As Mrs. Morrow paused, the long-delayed clapping burst forth with such
vigor that she and Nathalie—she had drawn the girl to her and was
pressing the bell into her hand—had to smile and bow again and again.
But the clapping only halted for a space, for when Nathalie saw that
quietness reigned, she rang the liberty bell so loudly and determinedly,
while a mischievous twinkle glowed in her eyes, that it broke forth
again.
As soon as the demonstration was over and the bell-ringing had subsided,
Mrs. Morrow’s voice was heard again: “Now, Liberty Girls, I am going to
ask your president to take a vote to get your opinion as to _who you
think_ told the best story about great women in your liberty chain.
“Perhaps you do not know,” the gray-blue eyes deepened, “but I was in
the dining-room, although not purposely an eavesdropper, and had the
pleasure of hearing the stories told. I have formed an opinion as to the
best story-teller, but would like to know if your opinion coincides with
mine.”
But alas, there were so many different opinions as to the best story,
and as to who was the best narrator, that to even matters Mrs. Morrow
had to take her big bouquet of flowers and divide it into three or four
nosegays. But a smile of satisfaction gleamed in the eyes of many when
Marie, the little Jewess, received a bouquet and a few words of
commendation from the giver. The little captain’s delight was so
genuine, and her eyes beamed so joyously, that every one rejoiced with
her.
After the flowers were distributed, and the girls had sung a few
patriotic songs, they filed out into the sunshine, happily aglow with
the joy of the meeting and the inspiration it had brought to them.
Several weeks later we find Nathalie coming slowly down the garden-walk
with its old-time hedge, from the big gray house. The tall pines—now
good old friends—that bordered the path bowed their tops in a cheery
good-morning, as she walked beneath their shade.
She had just given her usual morning lesson of two hours to her young
friend, for Nathalie, on her return from Camp Laff-a-Lot last summer,
had found that her studies with Nita were to be continued. Yes, and she
had banked every penny that she could spare from her weekly salary of
ten dollars. It had seemed such a big sum at first, but alas, now that
her mother’s income had slowly dwindled, and she had been compelled to
use it for her own personal needs, and to lay part of it aside every
week to repay Mrs. Van Vorst the loan for Dick’s operation, it seemed a
mere pittance.
But to-day she felt unusually joyful, for the last penny of that
haunting debt had been paid, and she was now free to call her money her
own. If there had been many disappointments in life—the going to
college was still a luring hope—and self-denials, added to the
unpleasantness of doing housework since their coming to Westport, there
had been several compensations that had cast their rosy shadows across
the darkness.
One was the joy and the profit she had gained from being a Pioneer, and
the other was the great pleasure that had come to her in the knowledge
that she had a purpose in life. Yes, she had told Helen many times, “I
think it is one of the delights of life to be legitimately busy, and to
know that you are really doing something that is a help to yourself or
some one else.” And now, added to these compensating joys had come the
thrills and joys from the new organization, the Liberty Girls, for that
little patriotic club now numbered almost a hundred. And it had thrived
so well, and Nathalie had gained so many honors from being its founder,
that sometimes she feared that she, too, would become a bird of the air,
like Dick, only in a different way, from sheer conceit.
But if she had been overmuch praised, and had found it a pleasant
diversion to plan and dream over the club’s future successes, she had
also found hard work and great discouragement. Discouragement, too, over
such small things, when the girl came to face them in the coolness of
after-thought, that she had felt like throwing the whole thing up, or
else just letting things drift, and taking what pleasure she could,
without so much conscientious worry over doing _her best_.
But through all the storm and stress Helen had buoyed her with the
frequent, sensible remark, that if it had taken the world thousands of
years to comprehend the true meaning of democracy and liberty, she must
expect her girls would be slow in realizing many things. But it was
tiresome to hold the reins of government, and yet sometimes be unable to
stop their silly chatter, or useless argument over mere trifles, all the
while holding back the legitimate work by their dallying.
Yes, and it had been an awful strain to manage that Liberty Garden. Of
course the Pioneers were all good workers, and she had given each one
some one thing to study over, but still she had had to know about these
things herself, so as to be sure they would do the right thing.
But it was something worth while, she reflected sagely, to know that
there are three kinds of soil, how to test it with litmus paper to see
if it was sour or not, and, if it was, how to neutralize it, or sweeten
its acidity. Then she had had to know what kind of chemicals acted as
food to the soil, so as to know what each plant or vegetable required to
enrich it and to sustain life. She had also learned how to draw moisture
from the land and how to fertilize it.
By placing seeds on wet blotting-paper in saucers she had demonstrated
how long it would take them to germinate, so as to be able to to write
her germinating-table for the girls. How old seeds should be before
planting, how deep to plant each kind, the method of planting, and how
many seeds to plant, and the distance apart, had all seemed tiresome and
trivial things to many, but it was necessary knowledge to a would-be
farmer.
Ah, she had reached the bank. She was going to get that ten dollars
deposited before it melted away. Suddenly her eyes became pools of
brightness, and the dimples twinkled in the red glow of her cheeks, for
there, right in front of her, stood Mrs. Morrow, with a kiddie boy, as
the girl called the twins, on each side of her. There was such genuine
pleasure in the lady’s smiling blue eyes, that Nathalie impulsively
cried, “Oh, Mrs. Morrow, this is just lovely! I’m so glad to see you!
When did you get back?” for her good friend had been away for several
weeks.
“Last night, Nathalie, and I am so pleased to meet you,” was the cordial
greeting, “for I have heard so many reports about the Liberty Girls’
club that I am anxious to hear all about it from you.”
“Oh, it is just the dandiest thing, Mrs. Morrow,” cried the girl
jubilantly. And then, lured by the kindly interest in her friend’s eyes,
her tongue unloosened, and she was soon busy telling about the club’s
many experiences, and the good that had come from the industry of its
members.
“And Helen is a dear,” Nathalie rattled on, “for she has taught her
girls the most wonderful things, and now they have all enrolled as Red
Cross members. She had been reading to them from Florence Nightingale’s
‘Notes on Nursing,’ and now she has taken up other works on the same
subject. Lillie, too, reads to the girls at the club meetings about
great women, while I inspect the work. The Garment and Comfort-Kit
squads meet together, and Jessie Ford not only tells them about the
French villages and the towns that have been destroyed by the Germans,
but reads to them from the ‘Prince Albert Book.’
“We are to have our Liberty Pageant to-morrow, and all the people who
live on the line of parade have been perfectly lovely, for they have
sold tickets for the seats on their verandas, and are to give the money
to us for the Liberty Fund, so we can buy Liberty bonds. And the day
after,” continued Nathalie, “we are to have a liberty sale on Mrs. Van
Vorst’s grounds, the Pioneers’ meeting-place, you know. Indeed, we are
almost over the tops of our heads in work, and we have enough plans to
last the rest of the summer. Mother declares I am the busiest girl she
knows.”
“And the Liberty Garden, has that turned out well? I understand it is
the work of my girls, the Pioneers.”
“Indeed, yes,” returned her companion: “it has been said to be one of
the beauty spots of Westport. We have bordered it with nasturtiums,
poppies, marigold, sweet peas, and all sorts of old-time posies. But _we
had_ a time getting the ground, for this year every one was hysterically
wild to cultivate every inch of ground for a war-garden, and nobody
wanted to loan any. Finally, however, Edith and Lillie tried their
powers of persuasion on old Deacon Sawyer,—you know he’s one of the
pillars of the old Presbyterian church, and he let us have an old lot of
his on Summer Street, about a hundred feet or so square.
“And how we have worked over it, for of course it had to be plowed.
Peter, Mrs. Van Vorst’s gardener,—he’s the kindest-hearted thing
alive,—offered to plow it for us, but we declined with a vote of
thanks, for we felt _that_ wouldn’t be our work. So Edith scoured the
town until finally she borrowed an old nag from the livery-stable
man,—he was just ready to crumble to pieces,—and Nita got a plow from
Peter, and we plowed it ourselves.
“But the time we had with that old steed,” Nathalie’s eyes gleamed
humorously, “for just as he would be going nicely across the field, he
would be inspired to take the ‘rest-cure’ and stand stock-still, and no
amount of pulling—we all got behind him and pushed—or coaxing would
induce him to budge a hair. O dear, we worked over him until we thought
we should expire with the heat, our faces all red and perspiring.
“Then Edith took to pulling his tail; she said she had read that would
make a balky horse go. Oh, it was funny to see her!” Nathalie laughed
outright. “But, dear me, it only made him lift one leg, very slowly, and
then the other, and then settle down in the same old rut, as still as
the wooden horse of Troy.
“You know Edith is a stick-at-the-job sort of person,” commented
Nathalie confidentially, “and what do you think? She actually got a
firecracker and set it off under that beast. But even that fiery
commotion only caused him to wink one lash and then resume his restful
pose. But finally the spirit moved him, and so suddenly,” laughed the
girl, “that Edith went sprawling on the ground, and Jessie tumbled in a
most humble attitude,—on her knees,—minus the reins, while our noble
steed went careering at a loping gallop across the field, while we, like
a lot of mutes, stared at him in stupid wonder.
“Well, after we got the land all plowed,” resumed Nathalie, “we had
irrigated it, by making a little ditch to let the water run down from
the hilly slope at one end, we planted our vegetables in rows. But
alas,” the girl gave a sigh, “when the plants began to come up we found
that the whole field was filled with coarse rye-grass which had roots,
and which had simply been cultivated, one might say, by the plow.
“We did not know what to do at first, until we remembered our Pioneer
motto, ‘I Can,’ and then we set to work with a will, and spaded every
inch of that lot; and it meant hard labor, too, for the grass was like
gristle. When the little plants began to come up and a girl would pull a
blade to see how it was doing, part of the plant would come up with the
roots. When we planted the different kinds of beans, using the string
and stakes, and pressing down the ground hard with our feet, on _five_
different occasions a violent rain came up during the night, and the
next morning we found all the seeds uncovered and washed down into
little piles at the end of the garden, and everything had to be done
over again.
“After we had planted rows and rows of hills of corn and rejoiced to see
coming forth little green plumes three inches high, we went to the
garden in our uniforms one day, laden with our garden-tools, ready for
work. But alas! we found that the crows had pulled out the corn from
almost every hill; the little black imps had bitten off the kernels and
gulped them down, and the stalks lay withering on the ground.
“Oh, I shall never forget the expression on Edith’s face that day,” said
Nathalie thoughtfully, “when she saw the havoc wrought by those crows;
it was such utter despair. I thought she was going to cry, but she
didn’t—just hurried to the little shed where we keep our tools and
things. When she reappeared her face was a sunbeam all right, as she
exclaimed, ‘Well, girls, let’s get the better of those crows, and plant
all over again.’
“Really, Mrs. Morrow, Edith inspired me to such respect for her
indomitable courage and pluck,” went on the girl candidly, “that I shall
always keep a very warm place in my heart for her, notwithstanding that
she sometimes gets on my nerves. Things went on swimmingly then until
that awful drought came. We had no way of watering the garden except by
watering-pots, and then we couldn’t do our weeding, or cultivating,
until late in the afternoon on account of the hot sun. But we did our
best, and we have been repaid,” smiled Nathalie, “although we did not
produce as much as I had hoped. Still—well, you’ll see at the pageant
to-morrow.” Nathalie, suddenly realizing that she had kept Mrs. Morrow
standing for some time, while she rattled on about that garden, now bade
her a hasty good-morning and hurried into the bank.
The young president of the Liberty Girls’ club passed a somewhat
troubled night, oppressed with the anxiety of her onerous
responsibility, knowing that the following day would be a well-filled
one. As the proposer and planner of the pageant there were numerous
details to arrange at the very last moment, and she was so afraid that
she would oversleep, that she awakened several times with a nervous
start, only to find everything enveloped in darkness.
Arousing finally, to see the East streaked with red, and the golden rim
of the sun gleaming above a silver line of clouds, she sprang out of bed
with a devout little prayer of thankfulness that the day at least was to
be a sunshiny one. An early breakfast, a hurried doing of her customary
duties, and then she and Grace—in the latter’s car—were off to inspect
the floats, eighteen of them, all ready in barns, or garages, awaiting
her word that they were properly equipped for the liberty parade, which
was to set forth on its journey through the town at two in the
afternoon.
And then, with many misgivings, fearing that the whole thing might prove
a fizzle,—for of course, many things had been wrong,—she hurried home
for luncheon. Then came a hurried dressing, a whirl in an automobile,
and she was dazedly taking her seat, a post of honor, on the front row
of the grand-stand, erected by the Boy Scouts and Peter, in front of
Mrs. Van Vorst’s high garden-walls.
She barely had time to realize that the notables of the village were
seated to the right and left of her, and to exchange a few greetings
with one or two old-time friends, when she heard the ringing of a bell,
the bell in the tower of the old Presbyterian church. This was the
signal that the Liberty Pageant, way up at the other end of the town,
was to issue from its shelter of green trees in front of the brick
schoolhouse, and set forth on its march down through Main Street, the
most important thoroughfare of the sleepy little town, with its wide,
asphalted road shaded by noble old elms.
CHAPTER V
THE LIBERTY PAGEANT
Nathalie was sure that she would never forget those tense, anxious
moments as she stared with strained eyes, trying to catch the first
glimpse of the coming show, while listening with alert ears to the
oncoming tread of many feet, the noise and bustle of moving equipages,
and the buzz and hum from the excited voices of the paraders and the
onlookers. High above the tumult floated snatches of patriotic song, as
sung by the Liberty Girls, and the loud outbursts of applause from the
villagers, who lined the street.
Ah, there it was! The girl’s heart leaped in wild bounds, she bent
forward eagerly, and then she was sitting with nervously clasped hands,
gazing with wide-open eyes at the slowly passing floats of the Liberty
Pageant. It was heralded by a procession of small maidens costumed as
Greek goddesses, who, while moving and swaying rhythmically, and holding
festoons of white flowers high above their heads, were singing Thomas
Paine’s “Liberty Tree.” As they burst out with the old familiar words:
“In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;”
Nathalie was forcibly reminded of the time when she had last heard that
song. Yes, it was almost a year ago, on Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn, when the
Girl Pioneers had held their little playlet of “Liberty Banners.”
But her thoughts were again on the series of living pictures, and she
smiled with her neighbors at the two small boys, one gowned as a doctor
of the law, and the other as a brass-buttoned, blue-coated guardian of
the peace, mounted on small horses caparisoned in white, whose trappings
were marked in gold with the words “Law” and “Order.” As the diminutive
doctor removed a pen from behind his ear, and peered learnedly through
his goggles at a ponderous volume of law resting on a rack in front of
him, while his companion on the neighboring flower-bedecked steed
flourished a somewhat formidable-looking club, in token of the duties of
his office, roars of laughter broke from the spectators.
But as their eyes wandered on to the snowy chariot, where the Spirit of
Liberty stood with outstretched hands, one holding a branch of
evergreen, and the other a lighted torch, their laughter ceased, and a
strange hush stilled their noisy clamor. For this beautiful maiden in
loosely flowing garments, with eyes as bright and shining as the starry
chaplet that wreathed her golden, unbound hair, was the little hunchback
of the big gray house, Nita Van Vorst!
High above the “angel face,” as Nathalie heard some one designate the
girl’s countenance, beautiful in its inspiration of happiness and
patriotism—her deformity hidden by her white wings—was a large banner
inscribed with the words:
“Enter at Freedom’s porch,[1]
For you I lift my torch,
For you my coronet
Is rayed with stars
My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law.”
Guarding the Spirit of Liberty, while holding the streamers that floated
from the banners above, were three more white-robed figures,
representing the three great principles for which the world was
striving. The unbound tresses of each were banded with white, and the
first bore the word, “Democracy,” the girl holding a white dove on her
hand. The second was Humanity,—who cuddled a little Belgian refugee in
her arms; and the third was Justice, who held aloft a pair of scales.
Nathalie’s eyes radiated with gladness as she heard her neighbors voice
their commendations in praises of the snowy chariot, the symbol of
freedom, man’s divine heritage from God. She began to feel that the many
hours that she and Helen had spent in devising and planning the details
of this float and its mates, after all, might be appreciated.
The second picture was a marriage scene, a float marked “Virginia,
1607,” and bore the famous words of its well-known orator, “Give me
liberty, or give me death.” It was decorated with white flowers in honor
of the bride, Pocahontas,—impersonated by a Camp Fire girl in an Indian
deerskin robe wondrously embroidered, and gay with many-colored
beads,—who stood by the flower-decked pulpit amid a bower of green,
being united in the holy bands of matrimony to John Rolfe.
The pose of the Indian maiden, the sweet seriousness of her tawny-dyed
face and melting black eyes, the dignified pose of the Virginia planter,
so vividly portrayed the romantic episode of the first American colony,
that the many onlookers broke forth into shouts of approval. The
quaintly attired figures of the Jamestown settlers in the foreground,
and the group of Indian warriors with their war-plumes and dabs of paint
were backed by a miniature tower. Some one inquired if it was a
monument, much to the young president’s disgust, as she considered it a
noble work of art, which had been laboriously built of old bricks by the
Girl Pioneers to represent the ruined tower of Jamestown.
[Illustration: “My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law.”—Page 75.]
Massachusetts was identified by the words, “The Founders of Liberty,”
and a simulated boulder, which Blue Robin watched with great trepidation
for fear the blithesome Mary Chilton, who stood victorious on this
Forefathers’ Rock, in too zealous jubilation would shake it too much.
But the sprightly Pilgrim maiden, in gray cape and bonnet—it was the
Sport—remembered the perilous foundations, and her scorn was discreetly
tempered with caution as she gazed at the somewhat crestfallen John, who
stood with one foot on the rock, and the other in a miniature shallop,
where the Pilgrim Fathers stood dismally regarding this forerunner of
the progressive American girl.
New York’s contribution to the cause of freedom was a float brilliantly
rampant with the Stars and Stripes, and a little white flag with a black
beaver on it, the State’s emblem. This float, which bore the words, “The
Sons of Liberty,” was in commemoration of the brave lovers of freedom on
the little isle of Manhattan, who, in February, 1770, raised the first
Liberty Pole in America at what is now known as City Hall Park. To be
sure, it was cut down twice, but Liberty was afire, and it was finally
hooped with iron and set up the third time, this time to stay.
“Liberty Hall,” the name of the home of a one-time governor of New
Jersey, was conspicuously seen on the next float. The girls had had some
difficulty in getting an appropriate design for this little garden State
that could be conveniently staged on a small-sized platform. But they
had evidently succeeded, for the quaintly gowned young maiden who acted
her rôle in pantomime was loudly applauded as she flew to an improvised
window, only to exhibit wild alarm, and then in frenzied haste scurried
to an old-time escritoire. Here she rummaged a moment or so, and then
extracted a bundle of letters, which she hurriedly secreted behind a
loosened brick beside a simulated fireplace. In explanation of this
silent drama Nathalie told that the young girl was Susannah, the
daughter of William Livingston, the governor, who, when she saw the
redcoats marching towards the house in her father’s absence, quickly
remembered his valuable papers and hid them for safety.
Five girls in homespun gowns, sewing on a United States flag, composed
the New Hampshire float, which flew the State emblem, with its motto of
Liberty inscribed on its side. The flag-makers, out of their best silk
gowns, were making, in accordance with the description in the resolution
just passed by Congress, June 14, 1777, the first Stars and Stripes that
floated from the _Ranger_, to which Captain Paul Jones had just been
commissioned, and which became known as “the unconquered and unstricken
flag.”
The Connecticut float bore the words, “The Liberty Charter,” while a
Liberty Girl, in a good impersonation of Ruth Wyllis, stood by a ladder
resting against a somewhat strange simulation of the Charter Oak,
handing the supposed charter to the redoubtable Captain Wadsworth, who
quickly secreted it in the hollow of the tree.
Terra Marie, the land of Mary, not only blazoned the words, “The Rights
of Liberty,” but portrayed Margaret Brent, the first woman suffragist,
as she stood before the Maryland Assembly and pleaded with those
worthies, with masculine energy, for her right to a say in the affairs
of the little State, the State noted for its Toleration Act of 1649.
Surely the good woman, as the representative of the deceased Governor
Calvert, who had given his all to her with the words, “Take all, and
give all,” had a right to demand that she be heard.
The “Daughters of Liberty” made a brilliant showing in big letters on
the little Rhody float, to honor the seventeen young girls who, in 1766,
met at the home of good old Deacon Bowen, in Providence, and not only
voiced their disapproval of the Colonies’ tax on tea and on cloth
manufactured in England, but formed the first patriotic organization
known in America. It was the same inspiration of liberty that impelled
their emulators to adopt their name, and to plan and push through the
demonstration of which every one was so proud. As these Liberty maidens
sat and spun at their looms, or whetted their distaffs on the float
before the gaping crowd, they were guarded by two impersonations,—one
the father of toleration, Roger Williams, who looked benignantly down
upon these devotees of freedom, and the other, America’s first
club-woman, the learned and martyred Anne Hutchinson.
Ah, but who is this riding astride a horse of sable blackness, curveting
and prancing with chafing irritation at the tightened rein of its rider,
who
“Burly and big, and bold and bluff,
In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff,
A foe to King George and the English state,
Was Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.”[2]
Of course there were a few who were not familiar with this little
incident in the history of Delaware, and how the aforesaid Rodney, a
member of the Continental Congress, spurred his horse from Dover to
Philadelphia, a distance of eighty-one miles, to reach Independence Hall
before night, in order to cast the vote of Delaware for freedom and
independence. It was, indeed, a great ride, and the townspeople must
have appreciated it, for the horse and rider were heartily cheered as
they read the words on the banner: “It is Liberty’s stress; it is
Freedom’s need.”
North Carolina proved most interesting, with the inscription, “The First
Liberty Bell of America,” on a big hand-bell resting in the center of
the float. The inscription and the bell aroused so much curiosity as to
why it should take precedence of the old Liberty Bell at Philadelphia,
that Nathalie was called upon by a group of friends sitting near, to
explain that it really was the first Liberty Bell used in the Thirteen
Colonies, having sounded its peal for liberty when rung by the patriots
of that State in 1771.
“These patriots,” went on the young Liberty Girl, “were the farmers and
yeomanry of that State, who, in a vigorous protest against the tyrannous
acts, misrule, and extortion during the administration of Governor
Tryon, banded themselves into a company known as the Regulators. This
bell was used to call them together in their struggle to maintain the
rights of the people. These Regulators were not only hounded,
persecuted, and sometimes executed as if they were rebels, but many of
their number were killed at the battle of the Alamance,—so named
because it took place on a field near that beautiful river,—when called
upon to defend themselves, when fired upon by the governor and a company
of the king’s troops. This battle has been called by some the first
battle of the Revolution,” continued the young girl, “and really
inspired the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the forerunner of
the noted Declaration signed at Philadelphia. Some historians claim that
‘God made the flower of freedom grow out of the turf that covered these
men’s graves.’”
After this little story, the inscription,
“And well these men maintained the right;
They kept the faith and fought the fight;
Till Might and Reason both
Fled fast before the oath
Which brought the God of Freedom’s battles down
To place on patriot’s brow the victor’s crown!”[3]
on the float was eagerly read and doubly appreciated. By the bell stood
a tiny maid in the long skirt of the days of colonial childhood, wearing
a long white apron. With the crossed kerchief and two bright eyes
peeping from beneath the golden curls that strayed from below the little
one’s Puritan cap, she looked so sweet and demure that murmurs of
admiration surged through the crowd, as they recognized that this
diminutive lady represented the first white child born in America,
little Virginia Dare.
Perhaps only a few knew that the white fawn that she was holding by her
side featured the legend of the white doe that was said to haunt the
isle of Roanoke for many years after the return of John White, who found
only the word _Croatan_ to tell him that his dear little granddaughter
had disappeared, never to be found. The legend was so suggestive of the
romance of North Carolina that the girls could not forbear giving it
prominence on the float. They had had some trouble to find a white doe,
but they had succeeded, and as Nathalie gazed at it she was again
reminded of how the legend told that it used to stand mournfully gazing
out to sea, on a hill of the little isle. The Indians, tradition
asserted, had failed to kill it, until one day it was shot and killed by
a silver bullet from the hand of an Indian chieftain, who claimed that
the bullet had been given to him by Queen Elizabeth to kill witches,
when a captive in England. As the beautiful doe sank upon the green
sward and expired it was said to have murmured, “Virginia Dare! Virginia
Dare!”
South Carolina, glaringly conspicuous with red and blue bunting, was
marked “Liberty” in honor of one of the most famous flags used in the
Revolutionary War. It was an ensign of blue with a white crescent in one
corner, said to have been designed by Colonel Moultrie, of Carolina
fame, and was declared to have been the first flag raised for liberty in
the South.
In the center of the float a miniature trench had been raised, on the
parapet of which stood a young lad waving this little blue flag, in
honor of that gallant hero, Sergeant Jasper, who, when the flag was shot
down during the bombardment of Fort Moultrie, June 28, 1776, leaped
fearlessly to the top of the ramparts, received the colors, and held
them in his hand until another staff was found.
“Lo! the fullness of time has come,
And over all the exiles’ Western home
From sea to sea the flowers of Freedom bloom.”
This little quotation was an apt one, from the Poet Whittier, but it was
not necessary to make known to those gazing at it, that it stood for the
strongest and proudest of the sisterhood of States, the home of freemen
and heroes, of Robert Morris, Dr. Franklin and our good brother, William
Penn.
This promoter of tolerance, independence, and the equal rights of men
was fittingly portrayed by a Boy Scout. Benignant of face, mild of eye,
with long hair falling from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, this friend
of the friendless stood surrounded by a group of Indian warriors,
resplendent in all the trappings of their tribes, making one of the
numerous peace treaties.
But the Georgia float, buried in white to represent bolls of cotton, in
memory of Eli Whitney, aroused such loud and long cries of admiration
that Nathalie feared that after her hard labor the other floats had not
received their due mead of appreciation. But no, it was the rousing
melody of “Marching through Georgia,” with its telling lines of,
“So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude—three hundred to the main;”
and the inspiration that always comes to every Northern heart when they
think of that gallant Son of Liberty, Sherman, and his triumphant march
to the sea, that had created the sudden tumult.
The few men in regimentals of the Union army,—in real life, boys in
brown from Camp Mills,—who were playing fifes and bugles on the float,
and the straggling darkies in the rear, who were shouting with verve and
gusto, as they followed in the wake of “Massa Sherman,” intensified the
appeal.
Ah, but now comes another edition of Liberty; this time no less a
personage than Lillie Bell, who, in the old costume worn over a year ago
on the lawn of the big gray house, was standing on a chariot, an old
farm wagon ablaze with the colors of Freedom, driven by four soldiers,
representing France, England, Belgium, and America. The young goddess
with sad and tragic eyes shining from beneath her helmet, gazed straight
before her as she held a drawn sword clasped closely to her breast, in a
graceful pose beneath the colors of the Allies floating gayly above her
head.
Yes, there was no doubt, as Helen had often said, Lillie was born for
stellar rôles, for somehow she had the happy faculty of always falling
into the desired attitude and mood of the part she was to portray. A
sudden silence gripped the line of people standing on the curb, as they
saw this familiar figure of Liberty, in a new and strange rôle. On a
beflagged chair of state good old Uncle Sam was seated, driving
America’s symbol of Freedom with reins of roses. Yes, roses to typify
that the good protector of the United States’ joys and interests was on
the job,—as the Sport expressed it,—but doing it with the silken reins
of love.
In the rear of this float a very small one appeared, but it was large
enough to display a cannon and a pile of cannon-balls, and also a member
of the United States Marines’ crack quartet of machine-gunners. As he
was the genuine article, as one of the girls declared,—being one of the
town’s boys home on a leave of absence, and held a Lewis gun, he was
received with wild cheers. A Jackie was perched on what was supposed to
be a conning-tower, apparently on the watch for a submarine, while
another soldier of the seas was ramming an old cannon, which created
much laughter.
It wasn’t much of a naval display, Nathalie thought regretfully, but it
was the best they could do with their poor equipment, for these
Daughters of Freedom were resolved to give due honor to these brave
guardians of the sea.
A contingent of husky young chaps from Camp Mills were lionized as soon
as their khaki-clad figures were sighted on the next float, which was
marked, “Liberty Boys.” A somewhat crude representation of a trench,
piled with sand-bags, with a few boys in tin hats, with guns in their
hands, clambering over it, represented to the spectators an “Over the
Top” scene. In the rear of the trench a few soldiers were grouped around
a camp-fire, presumably in a rest _billet_, having “eats.” Every moment
or so a soldier on this float would break forth into some war-song,
which was quickly taken up by his comrades, and which helped to make the
scene very realistic.
A small float with the Red Cross insignia, bearing the words, “The Cross
of Liberty,” with a few nurses seated around a table making bandages,
now appeared. A white cot, with a soldier boy in it, suddenly silenced
the cheers,—it was so suggestive of what every heart held in silent
dread and fear, ever since the United States had buckled to the fray.
But the sudden quiet was broken as the next, and last, float hove in
sight. It was so artistically gotten up as a Liberty Garden, and
represented so much freshness and beauty with its Liberty Girls, each
one dressed to represent either a fruit or a vegetable, that it was
wildly cheered. Masses of fruit piled up here and there peeped from
bowers of green leaves, or hung in festoons across the float. Potatoes,
green and red peppers, onions, cucumbers, and many other products of the
garden were lavishly in evidence. Carol, the Tike, was arrayed as a
pumpkin, a row of yellow leaves standing above a bunch of green ones.
Carrots, cucumbers, turnips, even beans, beets, and strawberries were
ingeniously represented by crêpe paper.
But the love of every heart were the Morrow twins, standing in the front
of the float in blue overalls, wide-brimmed hats, and blue shirts, with
rakes and hoes in their hands, as farmerettes, each one vigorously
waving a flag. This float completed the series of pictures that Nathalie
now felt had been duly admired, and she smiled happily at the many
plaudits that again burst forth. But when the farmerettes and these
living representations of fruits and vegetables broke into[4]
“Yes, we’ll rally round the farm, boys,
We’ll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em.’
We’ve got the ships and money
And the best of fighting men,
Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em.’
“The Onion forever, the beans and the corn,
Down with the tater—it’s up the next morn—
While we rally round the plow, boys,
And take the hoe again,
Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em!’”
it captured every heart present, and such prolonged applause rent the
air that Nathalie was duly satisfied.
As she turned to leave the grand-stand it seemed to the tired girl as if
every one in town stopped to shake hands, and to congratulate her on the
huge success of the Liberty Pageant. When she finally arrived home, it
was some hours before she reached her couch, for she found the family
unduly excited, all eagerly talking; no, not about the pageant, but
about a rather strange letter that had been received by Mrs. Page that
afternoon.
-----
Footnote 1:
“Liberty Enlightening the World,” E. C. Stedman.
Footnote 2:
“Rodney’s Ride.” Poems of American History. B. C. Stevenson.
Footnote 3:
“The Mecklenburg Declaration,” Wm. C. Elam.
Footnote 4:
“Patriotic Toasts,” Emerson Brooks.
CHAPTER VI
THE STRANGE LETTER
“Oh, Helen, mother received the strangest letter last night,” cried
Nathalie suddenly the following day, as she stood with her friend and
Nita in the Red Cross booth at the Liberty Sale. “And I am afraid it
means,” the girl’s eyes shadowed, “that I shall have to resign as
president of the club.”
“Resign?” exclaimed Helen and Nita simultaneously. “Oh, Nathalie, you
must not do that.”
“Well, I fear it will be necessary,” sighed the girl dolefully, “for the
home duties come first, especially the duties to mother, and she wants
to go—she really needs the change—and—”
“Go where?” questioned Helen sharply. “Oh, Nathalie, you are talking
Dutch to us, and—”
“Sure she is,” voiced Nita quickly, “jumbling letters and resignations
all together in a very queer way. Now suppose, young lady,” she
commanded imperiously, seizing her friend by the arm impulsively, “that
you unravel our tangled brains and tell us what you are aiming at.”
“Well, I guess I shall have to, from the stew you two girls have sizzled
into,” replied Blue Robin laughingly. “Well, as I said,” she continued
more soberly, “mother received a letter last night. But I shall have to
tell you a bit of family history, if you want to understand,” she added
hesitatingly.
As the two girls laughingly assured her that that would only make her
explanation more interesting, Nathalie gathered up her threads and went
on with her story. “Father had an older half-sister, whose mother—who
came of very wealthy people in Boston—left her all of her money, so
that she was quite wealthy, and in due time became very eccentric.
Father said she was spoiled with her pot of gold.
“She married when quite young and had one son, who, shortly after the
death of his father,—as soon as he was graduated from college,—went to
Europe, fell in love with a pretty girl, and married her. I have never
heard the details of this marriage, but I believe the girl was French.
No, she may have been English; anyway it was quite a romance, and the
young couple were quite happy.
“My aunt, however, was deeply wounded to think that her only son, her
idol, had spoiled all her plans and married some one whom she considered
beneath him. So when Philip came to America with his young wife, my aunt
refused to see her. This angered him so deeply that they quarreled, and
Philip rushed from his mother’s presence, declaring that she should
never see his face again.
“And she never did,” asserted Nathalie with grave emphasis. “Presumably
he immediately returned to Europe with his young wife, for although Mrs.
Renwick soon repented of her folly, as father called it, and wrote her
son again and again, she heard nothing from him. After employing
detectives by the score with no result, she finally went abroad and
endeavored herself to find some trace of him, but was not successful.
She finally returned to America and started to seek him here, but found
no clew to his whereabouts.
“As time passed—I think the matter preyed on her mind—she began to
have queer spells. No, she wasn’t crazy, or anything like _that_, but
just worried and unhappy, going off alone by herself for months at a
time, presumably still trying to find her boy. After a time she would
return from one of these erratic journeys, but she never told where she
had been, and never mentioned her son’s name.
“Now we have come to the letter mother received yesterday. It was from
my aunt’s lawyer, who summers in Littleton, New Hampshire. You see, Mrs.
Renwick had considerable property in Boston and other places, but she
was very fond of the White Mountains and always summered on Sugar Hill,
where she had a lovely place called Seven Pillars, only a few miles from
Littleton, and just a short distance from the mountain village of
Franconia.
“The lawyer,” continued Nathalie, who by this time had quite an
interested audience, “writes mother that Aunt Mary went off on one of
her queer jaunts over a year ago and has not returned. In accordance
with her wishes,—she always leaves a letter of instruction when she
goes off this way,—mother and two cousins of mine from the West have
been invited to spend the summer at this place on Sugar Hill. Mother
wants to go, and I feel that she needs the change, so I shall have to go
with her, and give up being a Liberty Girl.”
“But why should _you_ have to go?” questioned Nita insistently.
“Couldn’t your cousin, Lucille, or your sister, Dorothy, go with her?
And then, oh, Nathalie, you could stay with us! Oh, that would be the
dandiest thing! Oh, say yes, Nathalie; say yes.”
“Yes, Nita,” smiled Nathalie teasingly, as she placed her arm
affectionately about the young girl, “it would be just dandy, as you
say, for indeed I would like a rest myself this summer, because when the
warm weather comes, housework does drag on one so. But Lucille is going
to California to visit some cousins of hers, and has planned to take
Dorothy with her. Dorothy is wild to go, and mother would not disappoint
the child for the world. And then, too, the lawyer wrote mother that I
was to come with her, as my aunt had given instructions. Oh, I just hate
to give up my Liberty work!”
“But you will be back in the fall, Nathalie,” suggested Helen, “so why
not let Lillie Bell take charge—she is vice-president—for the summer?
It will give her something to think about, too, for she is possessed
with the idea of going on the stage, and her mother is worrying herself
ill over it.”
“Lillie wants to go on the stage?” repeated Nathalie in surprise. “Why,
I didn’t know she had aspirations in that line. But do you think she
would care to take charge of the club? O dear!” she broke off abruptly,
“we had planned to do so many things this summer.” The girl’s voice was
almost a wail.
“Why not carry your plans to the mountains with you,” inquired her
friend, “and form a club of Liberty Girls up there? I am sure there will
be some one who will be glad to belong, and you have such a fine way of
getting people interested in things, Nathalie.”
“Possibly mother may change her mind and decide not to go,” returned
Nathalie, brightening a little, “for she wants to be near Dick; you know
he is now stationed at the Aviation Camp, Hazlehurst, at Mineola, near
Camp Mills. And then, too, she says she hates to leave the house alone
for so long a period.”
“Why don’t you rent the house for the summer?” suggested Helen
practically. “You know that Westport is getting to be quite a
summer-resort since the new hotel was built on the bluff.”
“No such good luck for us, I’m afraid,” answered Nathalie dejectedly,
“but I’ll look up Lillie and see what—” But Helen had hurried away in
answer to a call for the captain of the Red Cross Squad. Nathalie stood
a moment watching her friend, as she helped one of the “white-veiled”
girls into her white head-covering, starred with its cross, and then
went slowly out of the booth.
As her eyes swept over the lawn in search of Lillie her glance fell upon
the little flag with its Red Cross insignia floating cheerily from the
top of the booth she had just left, as if in a salute to its companion
cross placed below on the front, so that its arms stretched outward,
dividing the booth into two sections.
Ah, here was the poster drawn by Barbara Worth representing a Red Cross
nurse standing by an invalid chair, in which sat a soldier boy with
bandaged eyes. The girl’s face saddened at its implication, and then she
had bent forward and was reading the placard persuasively held forth by
the nurse, on which was written:
“Please buy a Liberty bond of me,
It’s for the soldiers across the sea,
Bravely fighting to make the world free,
Wounded, and dying, for you and me.”
But now her eyes were held by the poster of a white-robed
figure,—representing the Spirit of Liberty which had heralded the
pageant of the day before,—waving a flag victoriously above her head,
while holding a shield with the Biblical quotation:
“I have fought a good fight ... I have kept the faith.”
The face of this water-color sketch of Freedom, although bearing no
resemblance to Nita’s, was so bright with hope that it thrilled the
girl’s heart with the suggestion that the Allies, by their faith in God
and their desire to do right, would finally win a victory over sin and
wrong.
At this moment she heard the voice of Nita as she called her to come and
see the display of small dolls, miniature Red Cross nurses, to be used
as weights, door-holders, or pincushions, which were on sale. But some
real dolls, as Nita called them, proved more interesting to Nathalie,
because they were the work of a shut-in, as her bit towards winning the
war, and because they were impersonations of some of the crowned heads
of the allied nations. They were queer little things, stiff and
stilted-looking, although several were excellent imitations, especially
those of their majesties, King George and Queen Mary, and the little
Princess Marie of Belgium.
The girl could not forbear giving Shep—a big, tawny-colored collie
belonging to the Morrow twins—a love-pat, as he stood in front of the
booth with red-hanging tongue and patient resignation in his brown eyes,
while several young nurses fussed over him. They were trying to fasten a
strip of white cloth around the center of his body, with a red cross on
each side, in imitation of a war-dog who had served with a Red Cross
hospital in France, and who had become famous by his acts of bravery,
running into shell-holes and dug-outs in search of wounded soldiers.
But Shep was no patriot, and evidently did not realize the honor of that
big red cross, for suddenly he gave his huge body a shake, slipped from
beneath the fussing fingers, and bounded away after his young masters,
leaving a gentle friend to humanity lying sprawling on the grass.
As Nathalie turned, her eyes traveled slowly from one booth to another.
There were seven of them, three on the left and three on the right of
the Red Cross booth, which was in the center of the lawn, at one end,
fronting its sister booths. The war booth, on the left, ablaze with the
flags of the Allies, was curiously decorated on its front and posts with
the paper coverings from magazines and books. On its counter were
displayed the latest war books,—all donated after a sharp drive by the
hostesses, the Camp Fire Girls, who wore embroidered deerskin robes
aglisten with many-colored beads, and trench-caps stuck jauntily on one
side of their heads, which gave them a very coquettish and natty
appearance.
Scrap-books, in which were pasted funny verses, tidbits of news from all
over the world, with many-colored pictures, and songs and rhymes to
amuse the convalescents in the hospitals, were also on sale. Little
candles of paper added to the attractiveness of this booth’s display,
while one or two Camp Fire Girls were in attendance, who, on the payment
of a nickel, taught the uninitiated the knack of making these
trench-candles.
But the booth that held the first place in Nathalie’s heart was the
Liberty-Garden booth, a leaf-embowered tent. Here were brilliant
splashes of color from the vegetables piled on wicker mats, as carrots,
turnips, beans, onions, beets, and other products, artistically softened
by the light green of lettuce, the red of beet-leaves, and the delicate,
lacy leaves of the carrot.
Here and there herbs tied in bunches, as thyme, caraway seeds, catnip,
sweet lavender, and other herbs, suggested the days of long ago, when
these little garden accessories held a higher place with the housewife
as necessities of the day. Unwieldy tomatoes and potatoes, lazily
resting on plates, added to the picturesque effect of the display, as
well as the festoons of peppers, radishes, parsnips, and vegetables of
similar character that were hung from side to side of the tent.
This booth was certainly a brilliant showing of the work done by the
Pioneers. Oh, how they had scrubbed and polished those vegetables to
bring out their colors, so they would not be messy or huddled-looking!
And the time it had taken to print the little labels so neatly fastened
to each exhibit!
Yes, through the sweat of her brow Nathalie had come to realize that
gardening was not merely a matter of digging, plowing, or even planting
or weeding, but that it meant straying into many paths of knowledge that
hitherto had been closed to her. Then, too, there was the trench
warfare, as she called the unceasing onslaught against the bugs,
insects, and garden slugs, by a constant fire of hand-grenades and
bombs, as the girls had come to call the spraying and powdering of the
plants.
Ah, there was Lillie, with a number of Girl Pioneers, who, in
bright-colored overalls and shirt-waists, and coquettish little
sunbonnets tied under their chins, were rather gay editions of
farmerettes, as they stood in picturesque attitudes, with their rakes
and hoes. But a moment later Lillie was forgotten, for as Nathalie
reached the booth she burst into a sudden squeal of delight on suddenly
perceiving, on the top of a wall of canned vegetables, a little green
imp, ingeniously made from a string-bean. He not only had a most rakish
air, with his tiny soldier-hat cocked on one side, as he stood at
attention with a flag for a gun, but he held forth a little placard on
which was written:
“Little Beans, little Beans, whence did you come?”
“We came from the ground at the sound of the drum.”
“Little Beans, little Beans, why are you here?”
“We were scalded and canned by a Girl Pioneer.”
“Oh, who wrote that?” merrily inquired the girl of one of the Pioneers,
for it was something she had not seen before.
“Why, one of the Pioneer directors,” answered the farmerette smilingly,
pleased at the young president’s surprise.
A moment’s inspection of the fine display of canned goods, and Nathalie
turned to seek Lillie, but that young lady had mysteriously disappeared.
One of the girls, suggesting that Lillie had gone to the Liberty Tea
booth to regale herself with a cup of tea, Nathalie hurried on to that
booth, where the Daughters of Liberty, attired in quaint, old-time
costumes, dispensed that beverage.
But Lillie was not drinking tea, and again Nathalie hurried across the
lawn, on her way to the opposite booth, a mass of vines and flowers, the
result of the labors of the Girl Scouts in their garden, which they had
named the Garden of Freedom.
Ah, here was Lillie talking to a brown-clad soldier-boy by the big
Liberty pole that had been erected in the center of the lawn, facing the
Red Cross booth. It flew the Stars and Stripes and the club’s ensign, a
little red banner blazoned with the white stars of hope, while a big
liberty bell was hung from a cross-beam. On its flag-bedecked platform
Carol Tyke was stationed as the bell-ringer, for later in the afternoon
she was to strike the big bell to announce some patriotic speech, or
fiery oration, to be made in a sharp drive to sell the Liberty bonds.
Lillie, seeing Nathalie coming in her direction, advanced towards her,
and immediately presented her soldier-friend, and in a few moments the
three young people were having a sprightly chat. But Nathalie, soon
recalled to the business on hand, turned and told the young
vice-president why she was so anxious to see her.
“Yes; yes, indeed, Nathalie,” cried the girl quickly. “I am Hooverizing
this summer, and as I do not expect to leave town until late in the
fall, I shall be most delighted to accept the office of acting president
for the summer.”
A few moments later, relieved of her anxiety as to what would become of
the Liberty Girls in case she went to the mountains, Nathalie thanked
her friend, and hastened over to the Garden of Freedom, where
nasturtiums, pink poppies, sweet peas, phlox, and other old-fashioned
blooms peered at her in a riotous flaunt of color.
The Girl Scouts, who were charmingly gotten up to represent flowers,
beamed with pleasure as their president complimented them on the
splendid display they made, and the honor they had won by their hard
labor. They not only sold cut flowers, but potted plants, as well as
toothsome sweets, made without sugar, they declared, as they coaxingly
tempted Nathalie to sample a few.
But she had time only for a nibble or two, and then she was off to the
knitting booth, where a bewildering assortment of sweaters, helmets,
mufflers, socks, and other knitted articles stared at her in a
“homespuney” sort of way that reminded her of her grandmother. She
remembered how, as a child, she used to watch her as she sat by the fire
knitting, and the fun it was when the ball went rolling under the table
and she scrambled after it.
No, she could not hurry by this booth, for Marie’s eyes, big but shy,
and bright with a beautiful soft blackness, shone so pleadingly from the
clear pallor of her ivory-tinted skin, that they could not be resisted.
“Oh, Mees President,” cried the girl in her soft musical voice, “I shall
tell somethings on you. I likes that you look at mine table—iss it not
shmardt, hein? My mamma she says it iss stylish. Shure, und the
peoples—oh, they buys und buys lots and lots of sweaters, und mufflers,
und the helmets—yiss, ma’am, they have a glad on them, for they go fast
mit the wind.”
“Yes, isn’t it lovely, Marie,” returned Nathalie, smiling into the
limpid eyes, “to think that every one is so patriotic, and so anxious to
make the soldier-boys who are to fight for us, happy and comfortable?”
“Shure, Mees, that iss because they are lovin’ much mit the liberty. Oh,
here comes mine papa. He buys sweater of me. I likes that you speak mit
mine papa, Mees,” exclaimed the little Jewess shyly, as her eyes again
pleaded with Nathalie.
The young president turned, to see a rather crumpled, mussy-looking
little man by her side, who stared at her with sudden embarrassment as
she quickly extended her hand in a cordial greeting to him.
Mr. Katzkamof seized the outstretched hand and shook it nervously, while
his bright black eyes beamed with good-natured surprise. “I be glad to
meet young Mees,” he cried hurriedly, “who makes mine little girl be so
happy. She sing, she smile all the day mit the liberty that you gives to
her.”
“But _I_ didn’t give it to her,” answered Nathalie quickly. “God gave it
to her. I am only trying to show her how to give it to those who haven’t
learned what liberty means. But you,” she added quickly, “you are an
American,—you love the liberty, too?” The girl raised her eyebrows
inquiringly, somewhat frightened at her temerity, for she suddenly
remembered that she had heard Edith say that the newsdealer was a fiery
socialist.
“Yes, Mees, I be an American. I vote for the President. But I no like
the war,” the black eyes hardened. “It makes me cold in mine heart. I
think it no right for the people to fight mit one und the other, likes
the cat und the dog. They spill much of the blood. I am lovin’ mit the
peace. I no fight.”
“Yes, it is a terrible thing to have to fight and kill one another,”
replied the girl sadly. “And the mothers,—oh, I feel so sorry for them,
when they have to give up their boys to go and fight. But it must be
done,” she added valiantly, although there was a catch in her breath as
the thought of Dick came to her.
“Oh, no, Mees, if all the people say _no fight_, they be no soldiers,
they be no war, we have the peace.”
“Yes, but what kind of a peace,” exclaimed the girl. And then a sudden
thought looming big. “Ah, Mr. Katzkamof, you love the Christ. Did He not
die to make men free? Shall we not die to give liberty to the world?”
“No, Mees, I ain’t lovin’ mit Krisht. I make nothings mit Him.” The
man’s tone was surly, although he shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
“I beg your pardon,” cried Nathalie with reddening cheeks. And then, as
if to recover lost ground. “But you believe in God, _your_ God, _the
God_ who brought the Israelites dry-shod over the Red Sea? And did _He_
not command you to fight and drive out the enemies of God, the heathen,
who did not serve him, and who were in the Promised Land? And is not the
Kaiser a Hun, a heathen, when he tortures and kills little children and
women? Yes,” continued Blue Robin, impelled by some indefinable feeling
to rush blindly on, “this is _God’s_ war. He has commanded us to fight,
to do away with tyranny and oppression. They must be overcome, so that
all the world shall have liberty, and then,—why then we shall have
peace, a peace that the Germans can’t destroy.” And then Nathalie
smiled, although her heart was leaping in great bounds at her sudden
boldness. But another thought had come, and, turning towards her
companion, for she had turned to leave him, she added smilingly, “And I
am sure that you are big-hearted enough to be willing to fight, so that
you can give to others the liberty that gives so much happiness to you.”
The man’s eyes had brightened with a sudden strange light, and he opened
his mouth to reply, but Nathalie had passed on, angry at herself for
being so outspoken. But O dear! she felt so sorry for those poor
ignorant people, who thought and did violent things just because they
couldn’t reason, and didn’t understand.
But she had reached the Love booth, the name given by the girls to the
tent where the comfort-kits were sold. By a pile on a seat in the rear
she knew that business had been brisk, and that people had not only
donated kits and then bought them back again, but had patriotically
returned them to the sellers, so that they could be given to the
soldier-boys.
Blue Robin stood a moment and watched the girls, who, busy as bees, were
selling their wares, as they chatted merrily over their sales, and then
she turned to cross the lawn to the Red Cross booth. She had not gone
more than a step or so, however, when a sudden clang of the liberty bell
brought her to a halt. Oh, some one had bought a Liberty bond; yes,
three bonds, for the three clangs of the bell announced the number sold.
Oh, it was still ringing! What did it mean?
She started to rush towards the booth where the bonds were being sold,
and then glanced back at the booth she had just left, to see that the
girls, in their eagerness to know who was buying so many bonds,—for the
bell was still clanging,—had dropped their work and were rushing in
frantic haste towards the booth.
Nathalie smiled, and turned to follow after the group of girls who were
speeding past her, when a sudden thought leaped into her mind. She
halted and again glanced back at the Comfort-Kit booth. Not a girl was
to be seen. Ah, now was her chance to get rid of that letter. The next
moment she had turned and was flying back to the now deserted booth.
CHAPTER VII
THE VISIT TO CAMP MILLS
As Nathalie reached the booth she glanced quickly about; no one was in
sight. With a hurried movement she drew a letter from the bag that hung
from her wrist, and after glancing at the written words, “To whomsoever
this Comfort Kit may come, greetings and good wishes,” she slipped out
the enclosure and slowly read:
“Dear Mr. Soldier Boy:
“Please remember that you are going to fight under the banner of
the Cross, which means that you belong to a Christian nation
whose motto is, ‘In God we Trust.’ Hold to the feeling that you
are a gentleman by the culture—not ‘Kultur’—that comes from
kindliness, courtesy, and consideration for all people, so
please don’t kill anybody unless you have to.
“Don’t forget that you are an American patriot, and that your
heart is seared with the Stars and Stripes, which means the red
of courage, the white of purity, and the blue of royal devotion
to the right, and starred with the divine fire of liberty.
“Remember you are fighting for the mothers and children: yes,
fighting so the mothers and children of all nations may have
liberty and peace. Be strong and brave in the thought that this
war is to maintain the principles back of our flag, the ideals
given to us by the founders of this nation. As Christ died to
make men holy, so these men suffered and shed their blood that
you might have the joy and independence that comes from the
liberty which God has given to us. Be happy with the thought
that no matter what comes to you you will not have lived in
vain, but will have fought for the grandest and greatest things
in life,—liberty and humanity. The best of luck to you,
“Blue Robin.”
Nathalie returned the letter to the envelope, and then rummaged under a
pile of kits that had been filled and fastened, ready for the boys at
camp, until she found one way down beneath the pile. She quickly opened
it. Then something stayed her hand.
“No, it will not be a wicked thing to do, for it can’t do any harm,” she
reasoned doubtfully; “and yet I just _hate_ to do it, but I feel that I
must do something to try to help some boy, who, perhaps, has a lagging
spirit, whose heart may fail him when he thinks of what is before him,
or who, perhaps, fails to realize the greatness of what we are fighting
for, the way I did. This letter may spur him on, give him courage to do
_his best_, perhaps, when he realizes the truth. And _no one will know_
who Blue Robin is, and yet it will do for a name, as mother always says
it is not considered fair to send an anonymous letter to any one, and I
surely would not sign my own.”
Nathalie heaved a deep sigh, and then, as if she would not let herself
have any more misgivings, she seized the letter and dropped it into the
bag. A moment later she was on her way to the Red Cross booth, to learn
who had won the prize for buying the first Liberty bond.
“Oh, Nathalie, Dr. Morrow bought fifteen bonds!” came in an excited
chorus from a group of girls, who were standing in front of the booth,
chatting excitedly over this unlooked-for event.
“Fifteen? Oh, isn’t that just too lovely,” answered the girl. And then
she hastily made her way towards the Morrow group, where the doctor,
with the twins clinging excitedly to his coat-tails,—trying to climb up
his back, he declared,—was signing the bond-certificate that made each
one of them the possessor of five bonds, and his wife the owner of five
more.
A Liberty button was now fastened to the doctor’s coat as a guarantee
that he was a good patriot, and then he was presented with the prize, a
box of Liberty candy from the Girl Scouts’ booth, something he never
indulged in, he laughingly asserted, as he stood with the box in his
hand, lookingly helplessly at it. But the twins did, and they quickly
relieved him of it and were soon blissfully happy as they munched on the
sweets.
A good beginning must have brought the girls good luck, for as soon as
Mrs. Van Vorst heard of this sale she followed the doctor’s example and
invested in ten bonds, five for herself and five for Nita. A few more
followed suit, some buying two or three, while others only took one, but
every little helped, the girl delightedly cried, jubilantly happy at the
many sales they were having. And then a surprise came, as her cousin
Lucille pushed her way through those surrounding the booth, and bought
three bonds,—one for herself, one for Dorothy, and one for Nathalie.
“Oh, Lucille, don’t do that!” cried distressed Nathalie with flushed
cheeks. “It is too much to give me.”
“Indeed, it is not,” insisted Lucille smilingly, who could be very
generous at times, as her cousin knew by the gift of her Pioneer
uniform. “I think you have worked hard enough for these Liberty Girls to
have that much at any rate.” And several must have agreed with
her,—judging by the nods and claps that came from those who were
standing near and heard this remark.
As Nathalie, sometime later, sat gathering up her certificates,—she had
been kept busy all the afternoon making out the little blue and pink
receipts that certified as to her many sales,—Lillie came flying up.
“Oh, Nathalie, hasn’t it been a big success!” she cried with gleaming
eyes. “And the patriotic speeches and recitations have been just fine.
But, O dear!” she added with a sudden note of disappointment in her
voice, “there are a lot of things that have not been sold. Of course
they will all go to the boys at camp, but I was in hopes that everything
would be sold, so as to add to our fund for the bonds.” For those who
had purchased that afternoon had patriotically returned the things they
had bought, as their donation for the boys at camp, thus giving the
girls an opportunity to use the purchase money for Liberty bonds.
“Yes, we have several sweaters and mufflers left,” announced Barbara,
who had been talking to Nathalie, “and poor Captain Molly is quite
disappointed, as she was so sure that we should sell everything we had.”
“And we have a number of flowers and potted plants that have not been
disposed of,” added a Girl Scout in a disappointed voice.
“But we can give those to the hospital,” answered Nathalie quickly, “and
give some sorrowful heart a bit of cheer.”
“Well, we have some boxes of candy, too,” added the Girl Scout
dolefully, “and they won’t do for the sick ones for—”
“And we have some books left over,” interrupted another bystander.
“Oh, I have an idea, a big one, too,” broke in Helen, her eyes all of a
glow. “Why could we not have an auction sale? Of course a good many will
return what they buy,—and I think it will be lots of fun.”
This idea was voted a good one, and a few minutes later Dr. Morrow
announced from the Liberty platform that he was to act as auctioneer. A
few brief words of explanation and the auction was on. First a box of
candy was bid for, which, after much laughter, was finally knocked down
for one dollar, a much larger sum than it would have brought earlier in
the afternoon. A few books were now disposed of, a pile of canned
vegetables, a number of comfort-kits, and so on, until everything, even
to the posters and decorations, had been auctioned off.
As the girls were counting up the proceeds of this expected sale, old
Deacon Perkins came up, and, after a few hems and haws, told the girls
that if they wanted to make a raid on his cherry-trees the next morning,
they could do so, and carry the fruit to the boys. They were to visit
Camp Mills the following afternoon, and present their many donations to
the young soldiers.
“Oh, isn’t that jolly good luck!” “Oh, that’s just glorious!” and many
similar outbursts of joy caused the old deacon to beam with complacent
benignity. The Sport, with a little giggle, whispered to Lillie that she
knew old Perkins had never felt so goody-goody in his life before,—he
was called the meanest man in town.
“Yes, girls,” admonished Nathalie, after the old deacon had been
overwhelmed with thanks, and had gone smilingly on his way, “you will
all have to get up very early to-morrow morning if you want those
cherries, for you know we are to start for Mineola at an early hour, for
it is some drive. Mrs. Morrow kindly offered me her car, so I asked her
to be one of the chaperons. Mrs. Van Vorst is the other, and then Grace,
you know, will take some of the party in her car.
“I am sorry,” her face sobered a little, “but there will only be room in
the three cars for the officers of the Club, and,—yes, I think we ought
to ask Marie, Captain Molly,” she explained, “to ride with us, for you
know, of course, that she can’t walk far. The rest of you girls will
have to go by train, that is, those who want to go.”
“But we all want to go,” called out several voices eagerly, “and we
expected to go by train, for Lillie and Helen have given us a
time-table, so we shall know just what to do, and we’ll meet you at the
camp.”
The raid on the cherry-trees proved “a lark,” Edith declared, as, an
hour or so before the girls started in the cars, she and Grace whizzed
up in the car, filled with several baskets of cherries. A little later
the three cars started for the camp, passing two or three groups of the
girls on the road, en route for the depot. But they were soon left far
behind as the cars whirled along the Merrick road, every one in the best
of spirits, the little newsdealer so buoyantly happy to think that she
was riding in the same car with the young president, that it did one
good to look at her face, keenly aglow with delight.
Nathalie’s eyes were sparkling, too, for the little Jewess had just
cried, “Bend down your head, Mees President, for I likes I shall whisper
mit you in your ear.” And then, as the girl had smilingly complied, she
heard the happy announcement, “My papa, he says like that you iss my
friend, und so my papa he buy me a Liberty bond, for he says you are
loving now mit me.” The owner of the pink ear into which these words had
been loudly whispered, dimpled with pleasure, and then came the thought,
“O dear, I wonder if my little liberty lecture had anything to do with
papa’s buying the bond?”
There was a short stop at the Military Police guardhouse, to learn the
way around the encampment, where several soldier-boys, with the big
letters M. P. on their arms, were viewed with much curiosity by the
girls. A call at the hostess house now followed, where the gifts for the
soldiers—the knitted articles, the books, candy, and fruits—were left,
the girls reserving the baskets of cherries to distribute to the boys
themselves.
The slow ride through the encampment, with its streets flanked by brown
and white tents, reminded Nathalie somewhat of an Indian encampment, and
she gazed about with eager interest, as this was her first visit to an
army post. The girls were specially interested in the prisoners,—two or
three men here and there guarded by a soldier-boy,—who were acting as
White Wings by gathering up flying papers, or débris of any kind lying
about, while other groups were digging ditches or performing similar
duties.
“But see,” cried one of the girls, “the prisoners carry clubs, while the
guard in the rear hasn’t any.”
“No, but he carries an automatic pistol in his trousers’ pocket,”
answered Mrs. Morrow quickly, who had visited the camp many times; “and
if he should fire it, a crowd of soldiers would immediately surround the
prisoners and disarm them. And then, too,” she added, “you must remember
that these prisoners, as a rule, are not real jailbirds, but just young,
thoughtless lads who have probably been punished for what we would
consider a very slight misdemeanor.”
But they were now in what Mrs. Morrow called the “chow” quarters, that
is, where the mess-tents were. It was quite an interesting sight to see
a long line of soldiers, with their plates, cups, and pans in their
hands, standing waiting for the “eats” at one of these tents.
The girls, alert-eyed, watched them with more than the usual curiosity,
for when they were supplied with food they came straggling out of the
line with their “chow” and sat down here and there in groups, while
others sat down on the street-curb and began their meal, using their
laps for a table. This elicited many exclamations of surprise,
especially when their director told them that Uncle Sam’s soldiers were
not allowed to sit at tables, but had to dine standing. Their
denunciation of this system and their expressions of pity were loud, but
when they were told that it was these very hardships to which a boy had
to be inured that made him a well-trained soldier, they became somewhat
reconciled to what they had seen.
Just at this moment a sudden inspiration came to Nathalie, and, leaning
forward, she whispered softly to Mrs. Morrow. That lady smiled and
nodded approval evidently, and immediately brought the car to a
standstill so that Nathalie and Helen could alight. Going swiftly
towards a couple of boys who were sitting on the curb, their eyes bright
and keen, and their faces tanned to a rich brown, Nathalie said,
somewhat timidly, “I beg your pardon, but wouldn’t you young
gentlemen—er—soldiers—” she hastily corrected herself laughingly,
“like to have some cherries to eat with your dinner?”
“Most assuredly we would,” responded one of the lads, a tall
broad-shouldered chap with dark hair, from whose sun-tanned face two
dark-lashed eyes looked down at her, with a half-smile in their blue.
The boys had courteously risen and were standing at attention when the
girl spoke.
Nathalie’s cheeks took on a deeper pink, and then she turned, and the
two girls walked back to the car with the boys in their wake. But
unfortunately, as she attempted to lift one of the heavy baskets over
the edge of the car, something jarred her elbow, and the next moment the
basket had fallen to the ground with the cherries rolling all over the
road.
There was a loud shout from the boys, and then a dozen or more
khaki-clad figures had rushed to the girl’s assistance, and presently
soldier-boys and girls were all scrambling about in the dust of the
road, gathering up the fruit. Indeed, by the time it was replaced in the
basket,—for, of course, the girls had to polish off the dust from the
luscious red fruit—they had all become very merry with one another.
Several minutes later, as the car whirled around the corner of the long
street, they saw the soldier lads gathered about the basket, while
laughing and joking with one another in good-natured banter. Suddenly
one of the boys looked up, and as he spied the now disappearing car he
took off his cap and waved it in a parting salute. Nathalie smiled back,
for she recognized this good-by as coming from the boy with the
dark-lashed, blue eyes.
“Wasn’t that young solider a handsome boy?” queried one of the girls
admiringly, as the car flew along the level road. “And what lovely blue
eyes he had.”
“Yes, and that boy with the light hair was nice-looking, too,” chimed in
Helen. “He had such a frank way of looking you right in the eye. I’ll
warrant you he’s no coward.”
But the cherries and the boys in the “chow” quarters were forgotten as
the girls drove by a group of buglers, who were sitting on the grass
near a large tent, practicing on their bugles. Every eye was curiously
watchful as the three cars went slowly past, for Mrs. Morrow, who was
driving, had slowed up as she saw “the camp alarm-clocks,” as she called
them. Every head was bent forward and eyes grew big with alertness, for
had the girls not set out that morning with the avowed intention of not
missing anything worth seeing, and surely a group of soldier buglers was
an interesting feature of the camp.
They were a merry-eyed crowd, those boys with their happy, care-free
faces under the brown hats with their gay-colored cords. All on undress
parade, Helen declared, as she noted their brown flannel blouses and
belts, as they knelt or stood upon the grass, blowing on their golden
horns as Captain Molly called their brass instruments.
Evidently they were not worrying about going overseas, or losing their
lives in No Man’s Land, but were good examples of live-wire American
lads, with the grit inherited from their ancestors, the Yanks, inspiring
them to make good when called by Uncle Sam to the job of making war.
The girls were alert and watchful, as they spied into open tents, or
behind flying flaps, at the rows of tiny white cots, or at a few stray
articles of clothing seen here and there, yes, even a pair of shoes set
out in the sun to dry were objects of their silent adoration as they
swung along the road.
But now the scene had changed as they whirled along, for, instead of
tents, the streets were lined with little wooden houses, or cabins, the
barracks of the United States Aviation School at Mineola, which adjoined
Camp Mills. A stop at the hostess house was next in order, where a call
was sent in for Dick.
Twenty minutes later Nathalie was blithesomely happy, as she and her
brother, over in a corner of the little wooden building, chatted about
home news,—how mother was getting along, yes, and about the wonderful
events that had occurred in the last few days. Then Nathalie turned
inquisitor, and Dick was subjected to a series of questions in regard to
his life as a war-eagle. In fact Nathalie’s questions were so many and
so swiftly put that her brother declared that one would have thought
that he was being interviewed by some expert reporter.
Yes, reveille was at five in the morning, followed in half an hour by
breakfast. His sister immediately asked, somewhat anxiously, if he got
enough to eat.
“You bet your life I do,” was Dick’s laughing rejoinder. “The ‘eats’ are
O. K.—nothing to be added. At six,” he continued, “I report at
headquarters for flying, and then, with an instructor, learn a few
flying stunts. I return to barracks at ten, and from eleven until
two-thirty have a ‘do-as-you-please time,’ which includes luncheon, and,
generally, a nap, for, by Jove!” exclaimed the young aviator, “this
flying business makes a fellow feel drowsy.
“Then we drill for a while, listen to a lecture,” he went on, “and then
again for a space I am a bird of the air. We dine about half-after
eight, and at ten comes taps, or ‘lights out.’ Anything more you would
like to know, young lady?” he inquired teasingly. But Nathalie was
satisfied, for surely her brother’s ruddy cheeks, tanned skin, and
glowing eyes attested to what he called the “joy-time of his life,” and
a few moments later the little party started for the aviation field.
Here Dick conducted them around the field and showed them many kinds of
aircraft, as aëroplanes, dirigibles, kite-balloons, serviceable in war;
in fact, they were so well instructed as to the uses and mechanism of so
many different machines that Mrs. Morrow declared that they would be
well-versed in aëronautics. But the little personal stories that Dick
told about the heroism of well-known war-eagles over in France made a
stronger appeal to the girls, especially when he explained the several
varieties of aviators and their special work.
To the girls’ disappointment there was no flying going on while they
were on the field, but they were partly appeased when Dick showed them a
group of students, aviation observers, he called them, who were learning
to sketch from a miniature battlefield, and in this way learn how it
would look from the air. As they were about to leave the field they saw
some students bringing out a machine, to get it ready for flying, as
testing the motor and so on.
At this particular moment one of the girls uttered a sudden cry, and as
all eyes glanced upward with newly awakened eagerness, they were
rewarded by seeing an aëroplane returning from a training flight. As
Nathalie gazed eagerly at the machine that flew like some strange
monster above their heads, the perils of flying in space came to her
with a sudden, keen realization, and, with a sickening pang as to what
might happen to Dick some day, her eyes darkened with apprehensive
terror and she turned hastily away. But Dick, catching sight of the
girl’s pale face and fear-haunted eyes, as if to divert her mind from
dismal forebodings, called attention to the camp mascot, a little yellow
police-dog, who was standing by his master, equipped, like him, with
goggles. The girls were soon laughing heartily as Dick told of the dog’s
alertness in doing “stunts,” and the eagerness he showed when waiting to
take a flight in one of the machines.
CHAPTER VIII
SEVEN PILLARS
Nathalie, seated in a low chair at one end of the broad white veranda,
gazed with rapt intentness at the sun-hazed landscape, rising in green,
undulating waves against the purple blur of the towering
mountain-heights, that stretched in wide expanse before her, with a
strange, mystical beauty.
Into her eyes, city-tired, came rest, as they swept over the velvet
green of the meadow, splashed with the bloom of wild flowers, its
scrubby bushes aglow with pink spires, and its spruces and maples
standing upright with the slimness of youth, as it sloped gently down to
the glen below. The trees of the glen, closely massed in a rich,
feathery green, sombered by the darker line of the pines and firs, to
the girl seemed weird and mysterious.
Her eyes quickly gathered in the stillness of the sunny slopes that rose
from the darker hollow in squares of yellow cornfields, or the light
green of unripe wheat or grain, and the brown of mountain meadow-land,
dotted with browsing cows. Here and there a lone farmhouse stood forth
on some higher knoll, or, from a background of forest land, came the
bright red of a solitary barn; while still higher, a hotel, its gables
and chimneys spying upward, glimmered picturesquely from the green. And
beyond all, high and dark, with majestic brooding silences, rose the
jagged ridge of mountain blue, its peaks looming with a strange
distinctness against the clear, soft blue of the sky, while sweeps of
white cloudlets trailed like films of spun silk across their tops.
The girl closed her eyes as if to imprint upon her subconsciousness the
rare loveliness of the scene, and then, as if fearful that in some
passing, whimsical mood the picture would flash out of view, she opened
them quickly. At that moment a passing breeze fluttered the pages of a
letter lying on a table by her side. With sudden recollection she caught
them up, and then as if to impress upon her mind what she had written,
in a soft, low tone read:
“Dear Helen:
“I presume you are now in glorious _La France_, wondering why
you have not heard from me. But my excuse is this magnificent
mountain scenery, and my new duties, which have taken every
minute of my time until to-day. We came up on the fifteenth from
New York. Mother knitted and read during the ten-hour ride,
while I wished inexpressibly good things for Mrs. Van Vorst for
renting our little dovecote, and planned liberty work. I have
decided to adopt the club’s motto, ‘Liberty and Humanity—our
best,’ for the summer’s watchword. As it means to try and be
helpful and kind to people, whether I like them or not, wish me
success, for I have undertaken something big.
“Mr. Banker, my aunt’s lawyer, met us at the Littleton station
with his car. He is a tall, lean man, but his brown eyes have a
quizzical gleam in them that makes you feel that you are
affording him some amusement. The seven-mile ride up one
mountain slope and down another, in the shade of the woods that
gloomed dark and weird on each side of the road, with the hush
of the gloaming in their moist depths, was most enjoyable.
“From out of their rustling shadows the white birches and
poplars peered at us like ghosts, while the resinous aroma from
the pines made us sniff with delight. Mountain villages with a
straggle of white cottages, and grizzly gray churches in a
setting of purple mountain-peaks, strangely somber and still, as
they stood forth from feathery masses of clouds tinted with
sunset’s glow, with gossamer wreaths of mist floating above
them, stilled us to a mute ecstasy of sheer joy.
“Stone gate-posts, beds of old-time posies, backed by
cobble-stone walls with hedges of green, and a little white
house, like a keeper’s lodge, peered curiously out of the silver
shadows of the rising moon as we whizzed up the roadway to Seven
Pillars, and came to a stop under the _porte-cochère_ of a
large, white mansion, set on a green knoll, facing the rocky
heights of far-distant mountains. Here square glass lanterns
threw yellowish gleams on the wide, low veranda, with its seven
magic pillars,—round, fluted columns reaching high above the
second-story windows, as with lofty stateliness they held the
pointed dome above the portico.
“Passing through the quaint, white-columned doorway, with its
tiny panes of glass and shiny brass knocker, we stood, dazed and
tired, in a broad, gloomy hall, where, in the flare from a
snapping log-fire, numerous trophies of the hunt eyed us
glassily, as we were welcomed by my cousin, Janet Page, and her
sister, Cynthia.
“Janet is a winsome thing. We have already become great chums,
although she is a few years older than your lonesome. She is
short and plump, with a white, satiny skin, and apple-blossom
cheeks that make you feel that you want to kiss the pink of
them. Her eyes fairly beam with kindliness as she looks at you
from under her short, wavy brown hair. She’s a pacifist and a
suffragist, and aims to be a farmerette. Although she has
decided ideas on the war and voting questions, they are rather
vague on farming, but she goes about saying, ‘God speed the plow
and the woman who drives it.’
“Cynthia Loretto Stillwell—she always insists on the Loretto,
as it is the sole heritage from some Italian ancestor, famed for
his noble birth and deeds of valor—is not my own cousin, as she
is the daughter of my uncle’s wife, who was a widow when they
married. She is distinctively tall, somewhat angular, with sharp
features, a drooping, discontented mouth, and a sallow skin
which she endeavors to hide by dabs of white and pink powder.
Her eyes are large and dark, and would be handsome, if they did
not repel you at times by their hard, metallic glitter. Her
coiffure is a wonderful combination of braids, curls, and puffs,
and made me wonder how she did it. She greeted us effusively,
but somehow its warmth seemed cold and artificial, and—well, I
don’t believe I’m going to like her.
“After our hunger was appeased,—Janet said she got the supper,
as we shall have to be our own maids up here,—Mr. Banker
‘personally conducted’ us through many high-ceiled rooms with
recessed window-seats, big doors, and dark closets, up winding
stairways and through rambling corridors. The antique furniture,
carved and black-looking, musty-smelling and stuffy, made one
feel as if long-ago-dead people were peering at you from the
eerie shadows of the hide-and-seeky nooks.
“Mr. Banker then read my aunt’s letter of instruction,—an odd
document, as it stated that each one of ‘we girls,’—as Cynthia
calls us,—she’s almost as old as mumsie,—during our stay is to
search the house for the most valuable thing in it. And the
lucky finder of the ‘mysterious it,’ as Jan and I call the
valuable thing, is to inherit something. Whether this something
is property, or money, or just some personal effects of my
aunt’s, I don’t know, for that letter was so queer it made me
feel creepy. And once when I glanced up, it really seemed as if
her eyes were glaring menacingly at me from a large portrait of
her which hangs over the library mantel.
“Each one of us is to keep a diary, and if we have not looked
for ‘It’ each day, we are to state what particular thing
prevented us. We can search every nook and corner in the house
but one room, the _mystery room_, as we call it, which is on the
second floor, and barred and locked so that no one can enter.
Mother only laughs when Janet and I talk about ‘It,’ and
declares that the whole thing is just my aunt’s eccentric way of
doing things. You know mother spent a summer up here with her
when I was a wee tot, and my aunt grew very fond of me.
“Although I have had no time as yet to search for the mystery of
mysteries, my first entry in my diary reads: ‘Arose at 7 A. M.
and prepared breakfast. Cooked three meals and did housework all
day, and am too tired to do anything but go to bed. Jan meant to
help me, but she had to hurry with her plowing, and Cynthia
Loretto says she never does housework, as it makes her hands
rough.’
“You would laugh if you could see Jan scratching the earth with
a baby rake. She was going to plant before she plowed, and
hadn’t the slightest idea as to the proper time and way of
planting her seeds. But she looks a dear in a smock and a big
pink sunbonnet that matches the pink in her cheeks and on her
nose, for her dear little snub has burned to the same color.
“It is great sport to see her take the stump, as I call it, and
hold forth on woman suffrage. She talks beautifully, is so
earnest and looks so sweet, and, as mumsie says, knows so little
about it from a commonsense point of view. But when Cynthia
Loretto suddenly appears and squelches her eloquence by
witheringly ordering her to do something for her,—she bosses
her dreadfully,—poor Jan drops from her pedestal and crawls
about with the meekness of a mouse for the rest of the day.
“I was afraid my dreams of teaching liberty were doomed to
oblivion, for there don’t seem to be any girls about to form a
club, when one day, while reading the paper, an inspiration
came. _Fi-fo-fum_, I have written to Mrs. Van Vorst, and she is
going to send me three little slum boys, and I am not only going
to give them the joy-time of their lives, but teach them
‘Liberty and Humanity—your best.’ When I asked Mr. Banker if
there would be any objection to having these little waifs, he
not only consented, but said he would pay their way up here.
Isn’t that the dandiest thing going?
“Mother objected at first, but when I said I would teach them to
wash the dishes—how I hate that job!—and to do chores about
the house, she only said, ‘Well, you will have to make the bread
then, for three hulking boys will eat a cartful,’—you know
mother is the bread-maker. Then her eyes twinkled, and I had to
hug her good and tight, for I knew she was just testing my ‘I
can’ motto.
“Janet thought the idea fine, but when Cynthia Loretto heard of
it she declared that she hated boys, they were such horrid,
smelly things,—one would have thought they were weeds,—and
that _she_ would not have them in the house. Well, I was not
going to be bossed by her, so promptly told her in my bestest
manner—I am always very cool and sweet when _awfully mad_—what
Mr. Banker had said. Well, that silenced _her_, but I can
foresee that she will make trouble for my little liberty kids,
for that’s what they’re going to be.
“Did I tell you that Cynthia is an artist? Her studio is up in
the little square cupola, or tower that crowns the house. Here
she paints, and sleeps until all hours of the morning, for she
slumbers in a beauty-mask—Janet let that out—and it has to be
kept on until noon. Janet has to bring up her coffee every
morning. At dinner my lady with ‘the manner’ and artistic
temperament appears in a freakish get-up. Yesterday she was a
Neapolitan maiden in a red skirt and blue bodice, with a rug for
an apron, and a white cloth on her head. She dresses this way to
create atmosphere, she declares, as she is her own model, and
paints herself in a big mirror, that she got Sam to lug up from
one of the lower rooms.
“She can be extremely disagreeable, for yesterday, while I was
on one of my mountain prowls—mother was taking a nap—she was
sitting on the veranda in one of her outlandish costumes, when
an odd, little old lady came along in a black poke-bonnet,
carrying a basket on her arm. As soon as Cyn saw that basket she
jumped up and ordered the old lady off the premises, saying that
we could not be bothered with peddlers.
“The poor old soul immediately turned about and hobbled away,
muttering and mumbling to herself, for Jan heard her as she came
up the path from her miniature hillside farm. Mother was quite
annoyed when she heard about it, for she said that she was
undoubtedly one of the neighbors, and had brought us something
in a basket to be friendly, as country people do. I think
Cynthia should have allowed her to rest on the veranda, even if
she was a peddler.
“I must close my letter if I want to get it in this mail, as I
have to walk almost a mile to post it. So, with a bushel of
kisses and good wishes, I am as ever your friend
“Nathalie Page.
“P. S. Be sure you tell me all about your work, and if you are
anywhere near the front-line trenches. I am wild to know. Again,
with love,
“Blue Robin.”
As Nathalie stood by the window putting on her hat in front of the
old-fashioned dresser, her eyes suddenly widened. “Why, isn’t that the
strangest?” she queried, as she stepped nearer the casement and stared
down at the farther end of the lawn, where, from between the fringe of
woodland on the side dividing their garden from their neighbor’s, came
the glimmer of a little red house, fronting the road.
“Why,” said the girl, almost wonderingly, “that red house glimmers
through the trees in the form of a cross.” Then her eyes brightened with
the sudden thought, “I do believe it has come that way on purpose, and,
yes, I am going to let it be my Red Cross insignia, warning me that I
have work to do this summer by not losing my temper, and by being kind
to people, even if it is _that irritating Cynthia Loretto_.
“I wonder who lives in that little red house,” soliloquized the girl. “I
must ask Sam. Ah, I remember now. I saw an old lady with silver-gray
hair, the other day, poking about in that little flower-garden; she
seemed to be weeding. Well, those flowers certainly repay her for her
care, for they are a mass of bloom and color.” And then Nathalie,
humming a snatch of melody, turned away and hurried down the stairway.
Some time later, on her way to the post-office at the near-by village of
Sugar Hill, as she passed the red house she again saw the old lady with
the silver hair, in a flopping sunbonnet, digging in the garden. She
raised her head as she heard Nathalie’s footsteps, and the girl, with
smiling eyes, pleasantly bowed a good-afternoon. But, to her surprise,
the old lady stared at her rudely for a moment, and then, without
returning her greeting, went on with her weeding.
“What a disagreeable old lady!” was the girl’s sudden thought, the blood
rushing to her cheeks in a crimson flood. “Why, I always thought country
people were pleasant and chatty with their neighbors. Well,” she
murmured ruefully, in an attempt to ignore the slight “perhaps the poor
old thing is near-sighted. No, I won’t worry, for, as mumsie says, it is
just as well not to be in a hurry to think that people mean to be rude
to you.”
So the little incident was forgotten, as she wended her way along the
road, cool and dark with the moisture and shade from the woodland that
fringed it on each side. On one side the trees screened green hills and
sloping meadows, while on the other they guarded Lovers’ Lane, a narrow
footpath, skirting the base of Garnet Mountain, that rose upward in
scrubby, brownish pasture-land to its summit, crowned with dense masses
of green foliage.
Nathalie hummed softly, in tune to the ripple of a tiny brooklet from a
spring near by, that trickled and splashed in a low murmur over its
pebbly bed in the ditch fringed with straggling wild flowers in
flaunting July bloom. They were too luring to be resisted, and presently
the beautiful dull pink of the Joe-Pye weed, saucy black-eyed Susans,
yellow buttercups, wild carrot, and blue violets, nodded gayly from the
nosegay pinned to her blouse.
A short walk and the woods had been left behind, as the girl stood on a
wide-spreading knoll with the rock-lit eyes of Garnet Mountain peering
down at her on her right, while on the left grassy meadows stretched
away into velvety slopes. Their green was crossed by low stone walls,
patched with the gray of apple orchard, and ribboned with avenues of
stately trees, or fringes of woodland, but always ending in the rugged
grandeur of craggy summit.
Nathalie drew a deep breath of the sweet-scented mountain breezes, as
her eyes dwelt on the scene before her, for to her every blade of grass,
or feathery fern, as well as each peeping floweret, wide-spreading tree,
or gray bowlder, were but details that added to the charm of each day’s
mountain-picture. The rare splendor of the scene inspired her, as it
were, to new thoughts and feelings, vague and undefined, but the shadow
of things to come, in the birth of ideals and words that were to find
expression later on.
But now she was strolling along under an avenue of stately maples,
bordered by a stone wall almost hidden with clambering vines, until
presently she had passed by another silent greenwood, to arrive at a
little white church, set on rising ground. A swift turn and she was
walking down the flagged street of the mountain village, sheltered with
friendly old trees, and lined with the usual straggle of white cottages,
blurred with the red of an old barn, while just beyond, against the
pearl gray of the horizon, rose the jagged line of the Green Mountains.
She glanced admiringly at the tiny Memorial Library perched
conspicuously on a terrace opposite, and then she was at the
post-office, once a small white cottage, but now used by Uncle Sam as a
mail distributor, the lounging-resort of aged mountaineers and sons of
the soil. Here, too, the village gentry, as well as the citified summer
folk from the boarding-houses and hotels on the upper slopes of Sugar
Hill, lingered for a chat or a word of greeting when they came for the
mail.
After slipping her letter into the box, Nathalie found that although the
mail had come in it had not been distributed, so she decided to wait for
it. With ill-concealed impatience, for she hated to linger in the stuffy
little store, she leaned idly against a glass case, in which one saw the
yellow-brown of maple-sugar cakes, the red and white of peppermint
sticks, as well as post-cards of mountain views, and pine pillows. As it
was the only store within a radius of some miles its wares were numerous
and varied, as almost anything, from a loaf of bread, a lollypop, or a
case of needles, to a bottle of patent medicine, was on sale.
Suddenly, as if impelled by some unknown power, the girl raised her eyes
to encounter the bold stare of a tall young man in a gray Norfolk
jacket, knickerbockers, and high leather boots, who was nonchalantly
leaning against the opposite counter, with his cap pushed on the back of
his head, smoking a cigar.
CHAPTER IX
THE LITTLE OLD LADY IN THE RED HOUSE
The girl turned her head quickly aside, for there was something in the
ill-concealed admiration in the man’s black eyes that caused the color
to rush in a wave to her cheeks. Several minutes later a careless glance
in the man’s direction, as she casually surveyed the other occupants of
the store, impelled her to stare curiously, as she perceived a rather
peculiar motion,—a sudden twitching shake of his head, repeated every
moment or so. Realizing that the man was the victim of some nervous
affliction, her eyes involuntarily softened with pity, and then noting
that there were several letters in her box, she hurried forward to get
them.
Slipping them into her bag, she hastened from the store, drawing quickly
back, however, as the man who had been staring at her brushed rudely
against her. Nathalie glanced up with annoyance, but as he begged her
pardon, with a sweep of his cap in an exaggerated bow, and another bold,
somewhat mocking glance from his eyes, the pink in her cheeks deepened
angrily.
Nathalie, irritated at the incident, walked slowly down the narrow path
leading to the flagging, but suddenly remembering her determination to
explore the little village set in the hollow of a hill, the unpleasant
occurrence passed from her mind. Attracted by the many flower-beds that
bloomed so luxuriantly with such vivid coloring in the door yards of the
little New England cottages beyond the post-office, she turned about and
slowly strolled in that direction.
Presently she came to a sudden pause to gaze admiringly across the road
at a white, gable-roofed house, with bright green blinds, on a grassy
terrace, peeping from beneath a mass of vines and leaves. It was
surrounded by a garden from which came the gleam of many colors, in the
tall, flowering rows of sweet peas that flanked its sides. But it was
not so much their beauty that held her eyes as the small east wing of
the building, where a wide, roomy porch was surmounted by the sign,
The Sweet Pea Tea-House
_Come in and have a cup of tea_
Nathalie would have enjoyed going over and having a sip of that social
beverage, lured by the daintiness of the house and its sweet-pea garden,
but, on discovering that she had left her purse at home, she continued
her walk. A few steps down the road, and she was staring up at a
timeless clock—looking as if its hands had been swept away in the mad
rush of the hours—in the steeple of a church some distance back from
the road. Then she was watching a horseshoer pounding with a noisy
“Clank, clank” on the hoof of a horse, patiently standing in front of
the blacksmith shop.
A half-hour later, as she stood in front of a little neglected cemetery
at one end of the village, staring in melancholy mood at its
time-scarred stones, gleaming with a dulled whiteness from the rank and
overgrown shrubbery, she heard the purr of an automobile.
Turning carelessly, she noticed a bright red car, with the glossy, shiny
look of newness, coming slowly in her direction, and quickly perceived
that its only occupant was the bold-eyed man who had annoyed her in the
post-office. She quickly glanced in another direction, but, to her
surprise, the car came to a sudden stop, and as the man threw away his
cigar, while doffing his cap, he said, pleasantly, “You have chosen
rather a dreary place to linger, have you not, on this beautiful
afternoon? Would you not like a little ride,—just a help up the hill,
you know?”
For a moment Nathalie was tongue-tied with astonishment, and was about
to walk quickly away, when sudden resentment at the man’s impertinence
overwhelmed her. Swinging about, with marked emphasis she answered in
stiff formality, “Possibly I might—with friends.” The next second she
was hurrying down the road, without waiting to see the man’s eyes darken
with annoyance, as he emitted a low whistle. With the peculiar motion of
the head already referred to, he started up the car, and a moment later
whirled around the bend out of sight.
Nathalie in her haste, caused by her anger and annoyance at the man’s
impertinence, was oblivious to the fact that the clouds had been
gathering for a thunderstorm, until she heard a loud clap of thunder and
a drop of rain swirled into her face. She was tempted to start and run,
for she was an arrant coward in a thunderstorm, but remembering that a
swiftly moving object is apt to attract the lightning, she curtailed her
speed, trying to make as much headway as she could by extra long
strides.
Oh, it was coming down in great big drops! What should she do? But with
her heart thumping nervously, she kept resolutely on her way, covering
her face with her hands in a spasm of terror every time a streak of
lightning zigzagged before her eyes. Oh, she had reached the tea-house!
She would take refuge on the wide veranda.
The next instant she was racing across the road; but before she gained
the desired haven, a deafening clap of thunder, followed by a blinding
glare of red flame, came bolting through the trees, causing her to utter
a loud, frightened scream, as she stumbled blindly up the steps. Another
instant and the door of the house was flung wide, as a sweet-faced lady,
with pleasant, smiling eyes, hurriedly beckoned for her to hasten in.
Nathalie, with a little cry of relief, made a wild rush for the door. As
the lady closed it, with shaking limbs and white lips, but with an
attempt at a smile the girl cried, “Oh, you are very kind to let me come
in, for I am just about drenched”; quickly pulling off her hat as she
spoke, and then shaking her wet, clinging skirts.
“Oh, my dear child! you must come in and take off your wet things,” at
this moment came in sudden call from an adjoining room, whose door was
standing ajar. Nathalie started in surprise, for the voice was
singularly low and sweet, in strange contrast to the somewhat
high-sounding, rather unpleasant voices of the few villagers whom she
had heard conversing, when waiting for her mail in the post-office.
Fearing she would be intruding,—she had noticed that the lady who had
opened the door for her, although she smiled pleasantly, had not
seconded the invitation,—she shook her head. “Oh, no,” she protested
with evident embarrassment, “I shall not take cold. I can stand here
until the storm is over. I am sure I shall be all dry in a moment or
so.”
But as the voice insisted that she come in, and the woman with the
smiling eyes laid her hand on her arm as if to lead her into the room,
she reluctantly entered. As she attempted to stammer forth her thanks,
and her fear of trespassing upon their kindness, she saw that the owner
of the voice was an elderly lady, evidently an invalid, for she sat in a
Morris chair by the window, propped up with pillows. As she motioned for
the girl to come nearer, and slowly and awkwardly put forth her hand to
feel her wet skirts, Nathalie noticed that her hands were swathed with
white cloths.
“Dear me,” she murmured worriedly, “you are wet. I am afraid you will
take cold. But just take off your blouse and skirt, and Mona will dry
them for you in a few moments by the kitchen fire.”
Then, with a few strange motions of the bandaged hands to the
sweet-faced woman,—which immediately revealed to Nathalie that she was
deaf and dumb,—the wet garments were quickly removed and taken out to
the kitchen to dry. Presently the girl, with humorous amazement, found
herself snugly wrapped in a silk Japanese kimono, seated in a big chair
by the invalid lady, gazing at her in silent admiration.
It was a face that could lay no real claim to beauty, and yet to
Nathalie there was a singular charm in the clear-cut outlines of the
delicate features, and the soft, warm tints of a complexion that,
although many years past youth’s fresh coloring, resembled a blush-rose.
But it was the eyes that held Nathalie, black-lashed, deep-set, with a
calm, peaceful expression in their deep blue; and the brown hair,
slightly threaded with gray, parted in the middle, and curling in a
natural wave on each side of her face, gave it the quaint sweetness of
some old-time miniature.
Fascinated, as it were, by the charm of the lady’s personality, the girl
was soon chatting volubly, as she told how she came to get caught in the
storm. “I am sure I should have reached home before the rain came,” she
cried in an aggrieved voice, “if it had not been for that _horrid_ man.
For I intended going home by the road he took, which is much shorter,
but he had made me so nervous by his rudeness that I took the longest
way back, for I was afraid I should meet him again.”
“Oh, you must not feel annoyed at receiving an invitation to ride in an
automobile when trudging up these mountain roads,” laughed the lady,
“for it is quite the customary thing to give a pedestrian a lift up the
hills. But I think, in your case,” she added more soberly, “that you did
right in refusing the man’s offer, for he was rude, as you say, and all
young girls should be careful.”
Won by her companion’s sympathetic interest, Nathalie told that they
were spending the summer at Seven Pillars, up near “Peckett’s on Sugar
Hill,” but she was cautious not to tell of the peculiar conditions of
their stay, or of her aunt’s strange letter. Miss Whipple, as that
proved to be the lady’s name, said that she had known her aunt, Mrs.
Renwick, and considered her a very interesting woman, although, to be
sure, she was somewhat eccentric. Nathalie also told about her Liberty
Girls, a subject that was always close to her heart, and how she was
going to try to teach liberty to the little settlement-boys, who were
coming up to stay with her for a few weeks.
The invalid, and also her sister, were both greatly interested in
Nathalie’s merry chatter; for Mona had come from the kitchen and seated
herself on a low stool by the feet of her sister, who would interpret to
her as the girl rattled on. In return for Nathalie’s confidences she
told how she and her sister, although having been born in the White
Mountains, had lived since childhood in Boston. On the death of their
parents, after meeting with some reverses, she explained, they had
determined to come up to the old homestead and start a sweet-pea farm,
as her sister was passionately fond of flowers.
It was delightful work, she said, and it meant so much that was
beautiful and joyous to her sister, who, of course, on account of her
infirmity, was deprived of many pleasures that other people enjoyed.
They had an old farm-hand who had lived with them when they were small
children, who did the rough gardening, and who made the farm pay by
selling the flowers to the mountain hotels.
“The tea-house was my sister’s inspiration,” continued Miss Whipple,
“and has always been a source of great enjoyment to us both, as so many
of the young people from the hotels and boarding-houses would drop in of
an afternoon for a cup of tea, or a little dance, as I always used to
make it a point to be on hand to play for them. My sister,” she added a
little sadly, “although deprived herself of the joys of girlhood, has
always been passionately devoted to the young, and has spent any amount
of labor in trying to make our little tea-room attractive.
“But now, as I cannot play any more,—you see I am the victim of
inflammatory rheumatism,”—she held up her bandaged hands
pathetically,—“the young people do not come in as much as they did. It
is a great disappointment to us both,” concluded the invalid dolefully,
“although perhaps my sister is partly compensated by her work among her
flowers.
“But I am wrong to complain in this way,” she hastened to add, a sudden
expression of contrition darkening the sweetness of her glance, “for
every one has to endure disappointment and sorrow, sooner or later, as
my mother used to tell me when I was a girl; and, after all, ours might
have been much worse. I try to comfort myself with the thought that all
these little jars of life are just ‘helps’ to fit one for the greater
life beyond. Indeed,” she added softly, “I grow ashamed of myself for
thinking I am even disappointed, when I think of the renunciation, the
sufferings, and the agony of the Man of Sorrows, that we might have
joy.”
Nathalie made no reply, not only because she was at a loss for words to
express her sympathy, but stilled, possibly, by the beautiful look of
calm peace that had crept into the sweet eyes.
“But I am wearying you,” smiled the invalid, her eyes lighting with a
warm glow, “making you think I am a great martyr because I am deprived
of a few things that I think needful to my happiness. Perhaps I am in a
particularly rebellious mood to-day, for I am so anxious to read a book
a friend sent me, but with my poor hands I cannot hold it, and it makes
my neck ache to read from the bookstand. But here comes Mona with your
dried clothing; yes, and to bring me off my cross of martyrdom by her
sweet patience, for she is always cheery and smiling under _her_ great
deprivations.”
“Oh, and she can’t even read to you!” lamented Nathalie impulsively,
suddenly reminded of what it must mean to live with a person who could
not talk to you.
“Yes, and that is one of the nails in the cross,” said the shut-in, with
whimsical sweetness, “for I not only want some one to talk, to read to
me, but sometimes I just yearn for the sound of a human voice. Oh, but I
am getting selfish again—for,—Yes, as soon as you get your gown on,
you must go with Mona to see her sweet peas; she would love to show them
to you.”
“And I would love to see them,” replied the girl as she dropped the
kimono and slipped into her skirt, “for I, too, adore flowers.” And
then, as Nathalie fastened up her blouse, and put on her belt, Miss
Whipple made her sister understand that their guest wanted to see her
bunches of sweet peas.
Mona’s face lighted happily as she comprehended, and in a few moments
she and Nathalie were standing in an outer shed, where masses of the
dainty flowers were piled in heaps, waiting to be tied into bunches,
their delicate odor filling the place with quite perceptible fragrance.
Nathalie watched the deaf-and-dumb woman tie a few bunches, dimpling in
gratified embarrassment as she softly touched the blossoms. She held a
beautifully pink-tinted one against the girl’s cheek, to indicate that
they were of the same hue, and then smilingly fastened a big bunch to
her waist.
By this time the worst of the storm was over, and Nathalie, seeing that
it had settled down to a slow drizzle, decided that she must hurry on,
for fear her mother would worry. So, after thanking her kind hostesses,
and declaring that she would return their umbrella very soon,—she had
promised to make them a real visit, as Miss Whipple called it, in answer
to their repeated urgings,—she hurried out into the rain and was soon
on her homeward way.
It was not a pleasant walk, this plodding over a road deep with mud, and
in some places running in tiny rivulets, for the girl had no rubbers on,
but she kept up her cheer by whistling softly, for not a person was in
sight until she reached the road through the woods, leading to Seven
Pillars. Here she spied a queer-looking little figure in black, hobbling
on ahead of her with a cane, but no umbrella.
Something, perhaps it was the basket the woman carried, suggested that
she might be the old lady who had called the afternoon before, so the
girl hurried her steps, hoping, by the proffer of her umbrella, to atone
for the seeming rudeness of her reception of the previous day.
As she reached the black figure, she pantingly cried, “Oh, won’t you
come under my umbrella, for I am sure you must be wet.” As she spoke she
peered at the woman’s face, almost hidden by the wide brim of an old,
rusty-looking black bonnet. But the bright blue eyes in the withered
face, under its halo of black, only stared coldly, stonily, while the
drooping mouth, seamed with a network of fine wrinkles, and deep lines
of worry and disappointment, narrowed into a tightly compressed slit of
red.
But Nathalie, notwithstanding the disdainful glare, and the woman’s
oppressive silence, pushed her umbrella over her head, and, somewhat to
her own amusement, after a shuffle or two, was soon walking in step to
the old woman’s hobble.
“It has been quite a storm, hasn’t it?” ventured the girl, although her
cheeks were flushed with embarrassment under the ill-timed silence of
the woman, who acted not only as if she could dispense with the shelter
of her umbrella, but with her company as well.
The only reply to the girl was a sniff,—sounding almost like a
sneer,—but, determined not to be daunted by the old woman’s surliness,
Nathalie kept up her chatter, telling how charmed they were with the
mountains, especially with Seven Pillars, with its magnificent view, and
expressed her regret that they had not been at home the afternoon
before, explaining that her mother had been lying down and did not know
of her call.
Presently, with a sudden movement, the old lady came to a halt. Before
Nathalie could understand what she was stopping for,—her umbrella was
held so closely over her companion’s head that she didn’t perceive the
splash of red peeping from between the trees,—she had turned in at a
little gate and the girl suddenly realized that the queer old lady was
her neighbor of the little red house!
For a moment she was speechless; then a smile dawned in her eyes, as she
suddenly understood why her greeting had not been returned when passing
by earlier in the afternoon. Quickly recovering her wits, however, she
stepped forward, and as she held the gate open for her new-found
neighbor to pass through, she cried, “Oh, I am so glad I met you, and
know that we are near neighbors. Mother will be very pleased to meet
you, I am sure, and will soon run over to see you.”
But no reply was forthcoming, and Nathalie, her patience at a boiling
point, hurried on, inwardly vowing that she was never going to speak to
that cantankerous old woman again, for had she not done her best to
apologize for an unintentional slight? As she reached the veranda with
its magic seven pillars her eyes gleamed humorously, as she suddenly
realized how funny she must have appeared, hobbling along with that old
woman. What a funny way she had of sniffing, and _that_ old black
poke-bonnet. Then she wondered if the rest of their neighbors were as
peculiar and queer as the old lady in the little red house.
CHAPTER X
THE SWEET-PEA LADIES
Nathalie, with girlish eagerness, hurried into the house, and was soon
telling her mother about her “adventure day,” as she called it, dwelling
at length upon her experiences at the Sweet Pea Tea-House, and, with
some show of resentment, on her encounter with their neighbor in the
little red house.
Mrs. Page became intensely interested in the Sweet-Pea ladies, as her
daughter designated them, but cautioned her against cherishing any
resentment at the rudeness of the little old lady in black, as,
naturally, she was offended that her overtures of friendliness had been
slighted by the city folks. She and Nathalie would go very shortly and
call upon her; she did not doubt but that her apologies would be
accepted, and that the unpleasant incident would be forgotten.
The next morning, while Nathalie was gathering some lettuce in the
garden near the barn, she met Sam, the tow-headed young farm-hand, who
looked after the place, and who, with his buxom young wife, lived in a
small white house a short distance down the road. He was a thick-set,
sturdy, young fellow, with a broad, good-natured face, from which
white-lashed, piglike blue eyes peered bashfully out above his shiny red
cheeks. When he met any of the city folks, as he called the inhabitants
of Seven Pillars, he would grin bashfully, and slowly drag off his old
straw hat in a greeting, growing very red from embarrassed shyness if
called upon to engage in conversation with any of them.
But Nathalie, who had had to depend upon Sam for a certain amount of
necessary knowledge in relation to the house and garden, had not only
grown to depend upon him in many ways, but had become quite friendly
with him. She had learned that he was a level-headed, well-meaning young
man and that his eyes could twinkle responsively, even if he was
somewhat slow of tongue.
As he began to show Nathalie how to select the heads with the soundest
hearts, she told him how she had been caught in the thunderstorm the
afternoon before and the kindness of the inmates of the Sweet Pea
Tea-House.
“Sure, Miss, they be nice ladies,” assented Sam. “I’ve knowed them this
long time. They were born in that old house, but when the old man
Whipple growed rich—some relative or t’other left him a pile o’
money—they went skylarking down to Boston—thought we country folks
weren’t smart enough fur them, I reckon. But when the old man’s luck
went agin him and he died, them gals come home to roost. I feel right
sorry for them, for the Lord knows they don’t have no stuffin’s to their
turkey these days. Too bad about the tea-house er goin’ to shucks, for
sure it use ter bring in er penny er two in the sellin’ o’ them posies.
“I see ole Jakes, with his old flivver a wheezin’ and blowin’ up these
ere hills, er takin’ them to the hotels er pile er times. By Gosh, that
Jakes sure is ole, fer he’s been er luggin’ round these parts with one
foot half-buried fer the last ten years. When he goes off the handle
what’ll become of the poor ole ladies—the folks hereabouts are er
guessin’. That deaf-and-dumb one—she makes me feel sort er lonesome.”
Sam suddenly confided, “with no gift of gab to er, and t’other one with
the rheumatics, sure they do be afflicted.”
Nathalie also told Sam about meeting their neighbor in the little red
house. But when she questioned him as to who she was, and if she lived
there all alone, his face became impassive and he grew evasive in his
answers. Surmising that he might possibly be a relative of hers—as she
had seen him working about the place, she said no more, but hurried into
the house, her mind intent on the Sweet-Pea ladies and their pathetic
little story, as told by Sam.
“What a misfortune,” she mused, “to be poor, an invalid, and with only a
deaf-and-dumb sister to depend upon. O dear! what terrible things people
have to suffer when they grow old. Well, I shall have to go this
afternoon and return that umbrella, and—yes, I just wish I could do
something to help them in some way, for Miss Whipple is a dear!”
But, as she hastened to her room to make her customary entry in her
diary, the two ladies were forgotten. This daily duty the girl found
quite irksome, especially when she had forgotten, and had to make her
entry at night when she was tired and wanted to tumble right into bed;
and then, too, she did not see how the everyday doings of _her_ life
could interest any one. And as for searching for the most valuable thing
in the house, this she had never found time to do. Possibly she had not
tried very hard to find time, as deep within her heart she considered
the whole thing sheer nonsense. And how was she going to judge the value
of the things in the house, anyway, she questioned rebelliously, for was
it not just an old curio shop filled with strange, odd junk, that her
aunt had brought from the other side?
But when she hinted this to her mother, she had been duly rebuked,
although Mrs. Page agreed with her daughter that it would be a difficult
task to determine the value of anything she might select. She said,
however, that she considered that Nathalie, as a courtesy to her aunt,
who was giving them such a delightful summer up in those beautiful
mountains, should do all that she could to comply with her request, even
if she thought it absurd.
“I doubt if the finding of this very mysterious valuable thing would
bring either money or property to any one,” continued the lady, “as I
understand that Aunt Mary left the bulk of her estate to some charitable
institution as long as no near relative or heir appeared. But she was,
as I have told you before, very queer in some ways, and probably took
this method of giving away some of her personal effects. It is not at
all likely, Nathalie, that you will be the lucky finder,”—there was a
smile in Mrs. Page’s eyes,—“but still you should make it a point to
search for it, no matter how you feel.”
“Oh I intended to hunt for the old thing, anyway,” returned Nathalie
excusingly, “but I have been a little slow, perhaps, because Cynthia has
been so obsessed with the idea, that I hate to be as silly. Jan says she
spends most of the day hunting in the attic and through the house when
we are down-stairs. She is wild to get into that mystery room, for she
thinks it is hidden there.
“But you should have seen her last night, mother,” giggled Nathalie. “I
was coming through the hall and suddenly saw a flash of light on the
stairs. And there was Cynthia, down on her knees, peering under the
stair-carpet and poking about with her flash-light. She seemed quite
annoyed when she saw that she was discovered, and, jumping up quickly,
scurried down the hall. Dear me! she is the queerest thing.”
“Well, let her look,” replied Mrs. Page kindly. “Perhaps her efforts
will be rewarded, for, as I understand, she is engaged to a Mr. Buddie,
and he is very poor, Janet says. I presume it would make them both very
happy if Cynthia came into a little money, or found something of value,
for perhaps they could be married.”
“But, mother, Janet hasn’t looked once. She hates this mystery prowl, as
she calls it, as much as I do,” emphasized Nathalie, “and I have hard
work making her write in her diary. She is busy writing a speech on
suffrage, which she expects to deliver this fall. Just imagine, mother,
Janet making a speech,” and Nathalie smiled at the thought.
Later in the day, dust-begrimed and with her hair all of a frowse,
Nathalie came trudging wearily up the staircase. She had been searching
for two hours in the library, a great dark room, lined with bookcases,
and whose wainscoted walls were hung with family portraits,—Nathalie
called them the Renwicks’ Honor Roll,—interspersed with medallions of
great authors and musicians, and valuable etchings.
The girl had laughed at Cynthia for prowling about, but as she threw
herself on her bed, tired and aching from stretching her arms and
climbing step-ladders, in order to peer behind the pictures and
cornices, she felt that she would never laugh at her again. For the more
she had searched, the more her interest had increased, and
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