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diff --git a/31393-h/31393-h.htm b/31393-h/31393-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d33a48a --- /dev/null +++ b/31393-h/31393-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5544 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" > +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<meta name="generator" content="eppg.py 0.52 (25-Feb-2010)" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor by Margaret Vandercook</title> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;} +p {margin-top:1ex; margin-bottom:0; text-align:justify;} +.pagenum {display:inline; font-size:x-small; text-align:right; text-indent:0; + position:absolute; right:2%; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none; + background-color:inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} +.pncolor {color:silver;} +h1,h2 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal;} +h1 {font-size:1.6em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} +h2 {font-size:1.4em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} +a {text-decoration:none;} +div.toc a {text-decoration:underline;} +div.loi a {text-decoration:underline;} +hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver;} +table.books {border:1px solid black; padding:20px; font-variant:small-caps;} +.pb10 {padding-bottom:10px} +.b {font-weight:bold;} +.c {text-align:center;} +.mb10 {margin-bottom:10px;} +div.figcenter {text-align:center; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em;} +div.figcenter p {text-align:center;} +p.center {text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} +p.caption {font-size:smaller;} +div.titlepage {} +div.titlepage p {text-align:center;} +.fs16 {font-size:1.6em;} +.fs20 {font-size:2.0em;} +.mb60 {margin-bottom:60px;} +.fs12 {font-size:1.2em;} +.fs08 {font-size:0.8em;} +.mb55 {margin-bottom:55px;} +.fs13 {font-size:1.3em;} +.fs11 {font-size:1.1em;} +.sc {font-variant:small-caps;} +hr.hr50 {border:none;border-bottom:1px solid black; width:50%; margin-left:25%;} +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; clear:both;} +td.tcol1 {text-align:right; padding-right:1ex; vertical-align:top;} +td.tcol2 {text-align:left; padding-right:2ex; font-variant:small-caps; vertical-align:top;} +td.tcol3 {text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;} +td.center {text-align:center;} +td.fs12 {font-size:1.2em;} +td.fs08 {font-size:0.8em;} +td.tar {text-align:right;} +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; clear:both;} +td.tcol1i {text-align:left; padding-right:1ex; vertical-align:top;} +td.tcol2i {text-align:right; padding-left:2ex; vertical-align:top;} +span.h2fs {font-size:smaller;} +div.poetry {text-indent:0em; margin-left:2em; margin-bottom:4px; margin-top:4px;} +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor, by +Margaret Vandercook + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor + +Author: Margaret Vandercook + +Release Date: February 25, 2010 [EBook #31393] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPFIRE GIRLS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<table summary='' class='books'> +<tr><td class='c b pb10'>BOOKS BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK</td></tr> + +<tr><td class='c'>THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES</td></tr> + +<tr><td><p class='mb10'>The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge<br /> +The Ranch Girls’ Pot of Gold<br /> +The Ranch Girls at Boarding School<br /> +The Ranch Girls in Europe<br /> +The Ranch Girls at Home Again<br /> +The Ranch Girls and their Great Adventure</p></td></tr> + +<tr><td class='c'>THE RED CROSS GIRLS SERIES</td></tr> + +<tr><td><p class='mb10'>The Red Cross Girls in the British Trenches<br /> +The Red Cross Girls on the French Firing Line<br /> +The Red Cross Girls in Belgium<br /> +The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army<br /> +The Red Cross Girls with the Italian Army<br /> +The Red Cross Girls Under the Stars and Stripes</p></td></tr> + +<tr><td class='c'>STORIES ABOUT CAMP FIRE GIRLS</td></tr> + +<tr><td><p>The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls Across the Sea<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls’ Careers<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls in After Years<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls in the Desert<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail</p></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a id='link_i1'></a><img src='images/i002.jpg' alt='' /> +<p class='center caption'> +<span class='sc'>Sally and Lieutenant Fleury were Walking Side by Side Away from the Farm House.</span> +</p> +</div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<div class='titlepage'> +<p class='fs16'>THE</p> +<p class='fs20'>CAMP FIRE GIRLS</p> +<p class='fs16'>ON THE</p> +<p class='fs20 mb60'>FIELD OF HONOR</p> +<p>BY</p> <p class='fs12'>MARGARET VANDERCOOK</p> <p class='fs08 mb55'>Author of +“The Ranch Girls” Series, “The Red<br />Cross Girls” +Series, etc.</p> <p class='mb55'>ILLUSTRATED</p> <p>PHILADELPHIA</p> <p class='fs13'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.</p> <p class='fs11'>PUBLISHERS</p></div> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<p class='c'>Copyright, 1918, by</p> +<p class='c sc'>The John C. Winston Company</p> + +<hr class='hr50' /> + +<p class='c b'>STORIES ABOUT CAMP FIRE GIRLS</p> + +<p class='c'>List of Titles in the Order of their Publication</p> + +<table summary=''><tr><td> +<p class='sc'>The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls Across the Sea<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls’ Careers<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls in After Years<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls at the Edge of the Desert<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls Behind the Lines<br /> +The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<table summary='TOC'> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'>CONTENTS</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'></td></tr> +<tr><td class='fs08'>CHAPTER</td><td colspan='2' class='tar fs08'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>I.</td><td class='tcol2'>An Old House</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_1'>7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>II.</td><td class='tcol2'>Explanations</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_2'>24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>III.</td><td class='tcol2'>“A Long Time Going Over There”</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_3'>39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>IV.</td><td class='tcol2'>Chaperoning the Chaperon</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_4'>47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>V.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Confession</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_5'>66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VI.</td><td class='tcol2'>A French Farm House on the Field of Honor</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_6'>78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VII.</td><td class='tcol2'>Becoming Adjusted</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_7'>98</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>VIII.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Old Château</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_8'>113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>IX.</td><td class='tcol2'>A Mystery</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_9'>126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>X.</td><td class='tcol2'>Breakers Ahead</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_10'>138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XI.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Return</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_11'>154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XII.</td><td class='tcol2'>Other Days and Other Ways</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_12'>165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIII.</td><td class='tcol2'>A Departure and an Arrival</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_13'>176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIV.</td><td class='tcol2'>A Warning</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_14'>193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XV.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Discovery</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_15'>205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVI.</td><td class='tcol2'>An Unexpected Shelter</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_16'>223</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVII.</td><td class='tcol2'>Two Officers</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_17'>233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVIII.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Expected Happens</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_18'>254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIX.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Field of Honor</td><td class='tcol3'><a href='#link_19'>263</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<table summary='LOI'> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan='3' class='center fs12'></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1i'>Sally and Lieutenant Fleury were Walking Side By Side away from the Farm House</td><td class='tcol2i'><a href='#link_i1'>Frontispiece</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1i'>Have You Nothing Better to do than Steal?</td><td class='tcol2i'><a href='#link_i2'>14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1i'>The Figure Was that of a Young Soldier</td><td class='tcol2i'><a href='#link_i3'>122</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='tcol1i'>She and Old Jean Took an Entirely Opposite Direction</td><td class='tcol2i'><a href='#link_i4'>208</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='pb' /> + +<h1>The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor</h1> + +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span><a id='link_1'></a>CHAPTER I<br /><span class='h2fs'>AN OLD HOUSE</span></h2> + +<p>There are certain old houses in New York City built of rose-colored brick and +white stone which face Washington Square.</p> + +<p>On this morning in early winter a light snow covered the ground and clung to +the bare branches of the shrubs and trees.</p> + +<p>In a drawing-room of one of the old houses a young girl was moving quietly +about at work. She was alone and the room was almost entirely dismantled, the +pictures having been taken down from the walls, the decorations stored away and +the furniture protected by linen covers.</p> + +<p>The girl herself was wearing an odd costume, a long frock made like a <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span> peasant’s smock with +an insignia of two crossed logs and a flame embroidered upon one sleeve. With +her dark eyes, her dark, rather coarse hair, which she wore parted in the middle +over a low forehead, and her white, unusually colorless skin, she suggested a +foreigner. Nevertheless, although her mother and father were born in Russia, +Vera Lagerloff was not a foreigner. However, at this moment she was talking +quietly to herself in a foreign tongue, yet the language she was making an +attempt to practice was French and not Russian. Since the entry of the United +States into the world war, New York City had been exchanging peoples as well as +material supplies with her Allies to so large an extent that <i>one</i> language +was no longer sufficient even for the requirements of one’s own +country.</p> + +<p>Finally, still reciting her broken sentences almost as if she were rehearsing +a part in a play, Vera walked over to a front window and stood gazing +expectantly out into the Square as if she were looking for some one.</p> + +<p>It was about three o’clock in the afternoon <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span> and the neighborhood was almost deserted. +In the paths beyond the Washington Arch a few children were playing. Now and +then an occasional man or woman passed along the street, to vanish into a house +or apartment building.</p> + +<p>A few taxis and private cars rolled by, but not one made even a pretence of +stopping before the rose-colored brick house.</p> + +<p>After about five minutes of waiting, sighing and then, smiling at her own +folly, the girl turned away and began slowly to climb up the old colonial stairs +leading to the second floor.</p> + +<p>“When will human beings cease demanding the impossible?” she +asked of herself, yet speaking aloud. “I know that Mrs. Burton and Bettina +cannot arrive for another half hour, nevertheless I am wasting both time and +energy watching for their appearance.”</p> + +<p>During the past month Vera Lagerloff had been the guest of Mrs. Richard +Burton in her New York home. Together they had been closing the house for an +indefinite period and making their final arrangements for sailing for France. +Within a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span> few days +the American Sunrise Camp Fire unit, with Mrs. Burton as their guardian, was to +set sail to help with the work of reclamation in the devastated area of France +and also to establish the first group of Camp Fire girls ever recognized upon +French soil.</p> + +<p>Since their summer “Behind the Lines” in southern California, +Vera had been studying with these two purposes in mind.</p> + +<p>In the front of the house on the second floor Mrs. Burton’s private +sitting-room was to be left undisturbed until the day of her departure, and it +was toward this room Vera was making her way.</p> + +<p>Except for the two servants, man and wife, engaged only a short time before, +who were presumably busy downstairs, she supposed herself alone.</p> + +<p>Now as she approached the sitting-room, through the open door she caught +sight of the blue and silver of the walls, a pair of old blue curtains and a +tea-table decorated with a tea-service and a blue bowl of yellow jonquils. Then +an unlooked-for sensation made the girl pause within a few feet on the far side +of the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span> threshold, +almost holding her breath, for she had the extraordinary impression that the +room she had presumed empty was already occupied.</p> + +<p>The next instant Vera discovered that a man was standing in front of a small +mahogany desk endeavoring to break into a locked drawer. He had not heard her +approach, for he did not turn toward her, nevertheless she immediately +recognized the man and the situation. The day before, in order to meet the +expenses of the journey to France, Mrs. Burton had drawn a large sum of money +from bank, placing it in her desk for safe keeping. To the members of her own +household she had made no secret of this, and now one of them was taking +advantage of his knowledge.</p> + +<p>Vera recognized that she must think and act quickly, or it might be possible +that all their hopes and plans for service in France would vanish in one tragic +instant.</p> + +<p>In the bedroom in the rear of the hall she knew there was a telephone. Yet +the moments occupied in having the telephone <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_12'></a>12</span> answered and in calling the police seemed +interminable. In far less time surely the thief must have accomplished his +design!</p> + +<p>Yet naturally after her call had been answered Vera knew she must return to +make sure and equally naturally she feared to face the man were he still +upstairs.</p> + +<p>In the right hand corner of Mrs. Burton’s dressing table was a silver +mounted pistol. This had been Captain Burton’s parting gift to his wife +before his own departure for Europe a few weeks before. Vera distinctly +remembered her own and Mrs. Burton’s nervousness over the gift and Captain +Burton’s annoyance. They were about to make their home in a devastated +country recently occupied by the enemy and yet were afraid of so simple a method +of self-protection! Vera had shared in Captain Burton’s lecture and in his +instructions.</p> + +<p>Moreover, ordinarily she was not timid, but instead possessed a singular +feminine courage. So an instant later, holding the small pistol partly concealed +by her skirt, Vera slipped noiselessly back again into <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span> the hall, moving along in the shadow near +the wall. Within a few feet of the sitting-room suddenly the thief appeared in +the doorway. The next instant, startled by her appearance, he made a headlong +rush down the stairs with his purpose too nearly accomplished to think of +surrender.</p> + +<p>As Vera followed she wondered if, when the thief reached the front door, +where he must pause in opening it, would she then have the courage to fire? Much +as she desired to secure the stolen money, she felt the instinctive feminine +dislike of wounding another human being.</p> + +<p>Yet now she discovered that, in spite of having failed to notice the fact on +her way upstairs, the front door was not locked. It had been purposely left +slightly ajar so that there need be no dangerous delay.</p> + +<p>But before the thief actually reached the front door majestically it was +flung open. From the outside a voice called “Halt.”</p> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a id='link_i2'></a><img src='images/i014.jpg' alt='' /> +<p class='center caption'> +“<span class='sc'>Have You Nothing Better to do than Steal?</span>” +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span>Immediately after, +instead of a policeman as she anticipated, Vera beheld one of the most singular +figures she had ever seen. For the moment, in her excitement and confusion, she +could not tell whether the figure was a woman’s or a man’s. A long +arm was thrust forward, then, such was the thief’s surprise, that he +allowed the stolen pocketbook to be removed from his grasp without +opposition.</p> + +<p>As Vera regained sufficient equanimity to cover him with her pistol she heard +a rich Irish voice unmistakably a woman’s, saying:</p> + +<p>“Sure, man alive and have you nothing better to do than steal when the +world is so hard put for honest soldiers and workmen to carry on her affairs. +Now get you away and pray the saints to forgive you, for the next time +you’ll not be let off so easily.”</p> + +<p>Glad to take the newcomer at her word, the man vanished. Then before Vera +could either move or speak, the surprising visitor marched up to her.</p> + +<p>“Put that pistol away, child, and never handle it again, or you will +injure yourself! Now take me upstairs to Polly Burton’s sitting-room and +make me some tea, for the plain truth is I am famished. I have just arrived in +New York from Boston, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_16'></a>16</span> travel in war times certainly has its drawbacks. But +if you will wait I’ll first bring my suitcase inside the hall until we +feel more like carrying it upstairs.”</p> + +<p>Before Vera could offer her assistance a shabby suitcase was brought +indoors.</p> + +<p>Immediately after she found herself, not leading the way, but following the +unexpected intruder to the second floor. Evidently the elderly woman was +familiar with the house, for she made her way directly to the sitting-room and, +seating herself upon the divan, began untying her bonnet strings.</p> + +<p>In spite of her own confusion and excitement and the visitor’s +surprising appearance, Vera believed herself in the presence of an important +personage. She understood this, notwithstanding the fact that the woman’s +costume was conspicuously shabby and she herself extremely plain.</p> + +<p>The bonnet which she removed without waiting to be asked followed a fashion +of about a quarter of a century before. When her traveling coat had been laid +aside the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span> black +dress underneath was almost equally old-fashioned in design.</p> + +<p>“Here, child, please take this money and hide it in the same place, or +find a safer one,” she announced. “Yet it may be just as well not to +mention the robbery to Polly Burton. She is sure to need more strength than she +possesses to be able to start on this perilous journey to France almost at the +beginning of winter, with only you foolish children as her companions. Besides, +I presume Polly left the money in the most conspicuous place in the house; she +never has learned not to trust the entire world. I allowed the thief to escape +so we need give no further time to him. But tell me the whole story–who +are you, how did the man get into the house and why are you here +alone?”</p> + +<p>At last, in the first opportunity which had been vouchsafed her, Vera +endeavored to explain what had occurred. As she spoke she could feel herself +being observed with the keenest, most searching scrutiny. Yet for some reason, +although never having heard the name or seen her companion before, she had no +thought of disputing her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_18'></a>18</span> visitor’s right to whatever information she +desired. The dark eyes in the weather-beaten old face were wise and kind; the +manner belonged to a woman accustomed to being obeyed.</p> + +<p>Later Vera and her guest made a careful tour of the lower part of the house. +Of course the cook had vanished soon after her husband. But they were downstairs +in time to meet the police when they finally made their appearance.</p> + +<p>Vera opened the door, yet she stood aside to hear her companion announce.</p> + +<p>“You can go away again. No, we have no need of you, the telephone call +was a mistake.”</p> + +<p>Finally when the police had disappeared without requiring a great deal of +persuasion, for the second time Vera followed her unknown companion +upstairs.</p> + +<p>“You understand, child, it would have been the greatest interruption to +our present plans if I had not permitted the thief to escape. Some one would +have had to appear in court and doubtless Polly Burton would have had newspaper +reporters coming to the house at all hours. They <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span> would have liked a story in which a woman +of her prominence played a part.”</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes later, having presented the unexpected guest with the tea she +had requested, Vera was sitting beside the tea table waiting to satisfy her +further needs, when she caught the sound of a key being turned in the lock of +the front door downstairs and the next instant Mrs. Burton’s voice, +followed by Bettina Graham’s, calling for her.</p> + +<p>With a hurried apology and really fearful that her autocratic companion might +attempt to detain her, Vera ran out of the room.</p> + +<p>Over the banisters she could see Bettina Graham, who had just arrived from +Washington, and Mrs. Burton, who had gone down to the Pennsylvania station to +meet her.</p> + +<p>Standing near Bettina was a girl whom Vera had never seen before.</p> + +<p>As soon as she joined them Bettina introduced her explaining:</p> + +<p>“Vera, this is Mary Gilchrist, who is going abroad to drive a motor in +France. She had no friends with whom she could <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_20'></a>20</span> cross, and as we were intending to sail on the same +steamer, I suggested when we met in Washington the other day that she might like +to join our Camp Fire unit. At the depot I introduced her to Tante, who of +course insisted that she come home with us rather than stay in a hotel +alone.”</p> + +<p>During this conversation, Mrs. Richard Burton, the Sunrise Camp Fire guardian +of former days, having passed by the group of girls, was making her way upstairs +alone. She had moved so quickly that, in her effort to be polite to +Bettina’s new friend, Vera had no opportunity to mention the presence of +another stranger in the house. When she did murmur something, Mrs. Burton did +not hear.</p> + +<p>Reaching her own sitting-room she gazed uncertainly for half an instant at +the tall figure on the divan, who, having poured herself another cup of tea, was +now engaged in drinking it. The next she clasped her hands together and with a +manner suggesting both nervousness and apology, began.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Patricia, please don’t say you have come to argue with me +about taking <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span> my +group of Sunrise Camp Fire girls to work with me in the devastated area of +France. It is really too late now to interfere. I was finally able to secure my +husband’s permission.”</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia Lord carefully set down her tea-cup.</p> + +<p>“Come and kiss me, Polly Burton, and tell me you are glad to see me. I +don’t like your fashion of greeting an unexpected guest. But +there–you look tired out from too much responsibility before it is time to +set sail! As a matter of fact, I have not come to try to <i>prevent</i> your +going to France. Has anybody ever made you give up anything you had firmly set +your heart upon? But, mavourneen, I have come to go with you. Do you suppose for +a moment, after receiving yours and Richard’s letters telling me of your +plans, that I dreamed of allowing you to undertake such a project as you have in +mind alone? Why, you won’t be able to look after yourself properly, to say +nothing of more than half a dozen young girls! I am told there are eight hundred +and forty thousand homeless people in the devastated <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span> districts of France at the present time +and I cannot understand why you wish to add to the number. But as you will go, +well, I am determined to go with you.”</p> + +<p>A moment later, seated close beside the older woman, Mrs. Burton had slipped +an arm inside hers and was holding it close.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Aunt Patricia, I am so relieved,” she murmured. “I +have not confided this fact to any one before, but sometimes I have been so +nervous over the prospect of looking after my group of Camp Fire girls in France +that I have wanted to run away and hide where no one could ever discover me. Of +course I am not afraid of disaster for myself, Richard is in France and then +nothing ever happens to me! Besides, no one has a right to think of oneself at +present. But to be responsible to so many mothers for the safety of their +beloved daughters! I rise up each morning feeling that my hair must have turned +white in the night from the very thought. But if you are with me, why, I will +not worry! Still I don’t see just how you can arrange to sail with us; +perhaps you can manage to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_23'></a>23</span> cross later, but our passage has been engaged for +weeks and―”</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia Lord arose and walked over to the tea table, where she devoted +her energy to pouring her hostess a cup of tea.</p> + +<p>“You need not trouble about <i>my</i> arrangements, Polly. I secured my +ticket on the steamer upon which you are to sail some time ago and also my +passport. I sent my trunk directly to the boat. Of course I am taking but few +clothes with me, as a matter of fact, I have all I shall require in my suitcase +downstairs. But later there will be many things necessary for our housekeeping +in France of which you may not have thought.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span><a id='link_2'></a>CHAPTER II<br /><span class='h2fs'>EXPLANATIONS</span></h2> + +<p>“Bettina, who on earth is Miss Patricia Lord? A more formidable lady I +never imagined!”</p> + +<p>Sitting before a fire in their bedroom, which they had chosen to share so as +to be able to talk for as long a time as they wished before retiring, were the +two Sunrise Camp Fire girls, Bettina Graham and Vera Lagerloff. Both girls had +changed conspicuously in manner and appearance since the summer before when they +had been in camp together “Behind the Lines” in southern California. +However, there comes a day in every girl’s life when with entire +suddenness she seems to understand and accept the revelation of her +womanhood.</p> + +<p>To Bettina Graham had been given an added social experience. During the past +few months, without being formally introduced into society, nevertheless she had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span> been assisting her +mother in receiving in their home in Washington. In spite of the fact that there +had been but little entertaining on a large scale because of the war, Bettina +had gone to occasional dinners and small dances, and on account of her +father’s prominence and her mother’s popularity, had shared in the +best opportunities. Moreover, Washington had never been so crowded with +interesting men and women, and yet scarcely a day passed when Bettina did not +whisper to herself that nothing could make her enjoy a conventional society +existence. It was only because of the universal absorption in the war at the +present time that society had become more endurable. But to continue the life +indefinitely demanded an impossible sacrifice.</p> + +<p>One afternoon in late fall Bettina and her father, Senator Graham, in an hour +of mutual confidence, imparted the information to each other that they regarded +themselves as social failures.</p> + +<p>“You see, Bettina, my dear, I was not to the manner born in this social +game and had no one to teach me until I married <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_26'></a>26</span> your mother,” Senator Graham announced with a +certain embarrassment. “Indeed, I never had entered a drawing-room until I +was a grown man and then had not the faintest idea how the confounded thing +should be done. You don’t think you could have inherited a social +awkwardness from me?”</p> + +<p>Then, fearing to have wounded his daughter’s feelings Senator Graham +added quickly: “I don’t mean that you have not charming manners, +little Betty, as charming as any in the world aside from your mother’s. +And personally I have not seen a prettier girl in Washington or elsewhere. But +if you really are unhappy among strangers and would like to go to France with +your old friends to help with the work over there, why, I will try to see how +matters can be arranged. I don’t think I would speak of your idea to your +mother, not just at present, as there is no point in worrying her.”</p> + +<p>In answer Bettina had laughed and promised. Always she was touched by her +father’s use of her old childhood name <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_27'></a>27</span> now that she had become nearly as tall as he himself +was.</p> + +<p>“But, father, don’t think I mind sharing a social disability with +you. I am afraid my infirmity goes somewhat deeper,” Bettina answered. +“As a matter of fact, I heard one of mother’s friends say the other +day that there was no more brilliant or agreeable man in Washington society than +Senator Graham, once he could be persuaded to throw aside his social hauteur and +condescend to ordinary mortals,” she continued, imitating the +visitor’s voice and manner, to the Senator’s deep amusement.</p> + +<p>“But of course I won’t annoy mother until I am sure our Camp Fire +unit has a real chance of being accepted for the work in France. It is hard upon +mother to have had Tony inherit all the family beauty and charm. However, he +will make up to her some day for my failures!”</p> + +<p>Bettina was doing herself an injustice. In reality she was unusually handsome +and as she grew older her tall stateliness increased her distinction. Tonight +she looked especially attractive as she sat <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_28'></a>28</span> braiding her long yellow hair into two heavy plaits, +with a blue corduroy dressing gown worn over her night-dress.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Patricia? It is odd, Vera, you have never heard her name +mentioned! Yet I confess my personal acquaintance with Aunt Patricia also began +this afternoon, although I have known of her for a long time and my mother is +one of her great friends.</p> + +<p>“Years ago when Tante was first married Aunt Patricia arrived in this +country from Ireland, and as she seemed to be frightfully poor she secured a +position at the theatre as wardrobe woman. Right away she adopted Tante and +Uncle Richard and they have been devoted to one another ever since. Later on +Aunt Patricia’s brother died, leaving her an enormous fortune. Then it +developed that she had come to this country from Ireland because he had sent for +her and afterwards had refused to live with him or accept a cent of his money +because he would not do what she wished, or because for some reason or other she +disapproved of him.</p> + +<p>“After Aunt Patricia inherited the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_29'></a>29</span> money she has spent as little as possible for her own +needs, but instead gives away large sums in eccentric fashions which appeal to +her. Nevertheless I confess I am not happy over the prospect of her going to +France to be with us, although Tante seems immensely relieved to have her +companionship and our families will be glad to know she will not have to bear so +much responsibility alone. It is a good deal of a task to look after seven or +eight girls.”</p> + +<p>Vera frowned somewhat ruefully.</p> + +<p>“But I thought we were going to France to care for other people not to +be looked after ourselves. However, if Miss Lord’s behavior this afternoon +is a fair criterion I shall certainly become as a little child. For the entire +time we were together I don’t think I dared do anything except what she +commanded. But isn’t it wonderful that our entire Camp Fire unit is to go +to France for the reclamation work? I thought when Mrs. Burton offered me the +opportunity last summer that I should go alone.”</p> + +<p>Within the past months Vera Lagerloff <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_30'></a>30</span> had also changed, but the transformation was unlike +Bettina Graham’s.</p> + +<p>After Billy Webster’s death in California Vera had made astonishingly +little open protest. But for that reason the effect upon her character had been +the deeper.</p> + +<p>Since her earliest childhood there had been but little in her life for which +she cared intensely, save her friendship with the odd dreaming boy, whose +ambitions for his own future had absorbed so much of her time and thought. Until +Billy died Vera really had never considered her own future apart from his.</p> + +<p>In many ways she was superior to the members of her own family, which in +itself makes for a certain spiritual loneliness. Yet her parents were Russians, +and Russia is at present offering more contradictions in human nature than any +other race of people in the world. However, if her parents were peasants and had +but little education, they had possessed sufficient courage to emigrate to the +United States at a time when the Czar and autocracy ruled in their own land. +Afterwards Vera’s father had become a small farmer <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span> on Mr. Webster’s large place, and +here Vera and Billy had grown up together.</p> + +<p>But at least Vera’s family made no effort to interfere with her. The +other children appeared content to follow in the ways of their ancestors, living +with and by the land. In a measure they were proud that Vera cared for books and +people who could never be their friends. Yet perhaps Vera’s character had +been largely influenced by her one singular friendship.</p> + +<p>Now it remained to be seen what she could accomplish with her own life +uninspired by a dominating affection.</p> + +<p>She was an unusual looking girl, and not handsome according to Anglo-Saxon +standards. She was tall and ruggedly built, with broad shoulders and hips, +indicating strength more than grace. Her heavy dark hair, growing low over her +forehead, had a unique quality of vitality. Her nose and mouth were both a +little heavy, although her mouth gave promise of future beauty, and she had the +fine Slavic eyes with the slight slant.</p> + +<p>Vera and Bettina afforded a marked contrast. The one girl, whatever her +brilliant <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span> father +might say of his antecedents, showed only the evidences of high breeding, both +its charm and limitations. Yet, thinking more deeply, was not after all +Vera’s the older ancestry since the first men and women must have been +those who lived nearest to nature?</p> + +<p>At this moment, when the one girl finished speaking, leaning over Bettina +rested her chin in her slender hand. She had not seen Vera for some time and was +now trying to discover in her companion’s face what she knew would never +be confided to her, to what extent Vera had recovered from her sorrow over Billy +Webster’s death.</p> + +<p>But instead of speaking of this, Bettina continued:</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is extraordinary that our entire Camp Fire unit is so soon to +cross over to France. I only wish the rest of us were as well prepared for the +work as you are, Vera. You have been studying cooking and the care of children, +besides the first aid and the farm work, which you must have known already? I +was able to find time for only a short period of intensive <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span> study. Yet fortunately I know a good deal +of French. Ever since I was a tiny child I have been speaking French and +certainly I am familiar with our Camp Fire training and ideals. I only learned +recently that, although there are organizations similar to our Camp Fire in +England, China, Japan and Australia, there is none in France. Is it not a +wonderful thing that we are to be the pioneers of the Camp Fire movement in +France? Don’t you feel that if we can arouse sufficient enthusiasm among +the French girls to induce them to form a national organization it will bring +American and French girls into closer touch with each other?</p> + +<p>“Do you know, Vera, so many times in the past year I have heard +prominent men in Washington declare that the French, British, Italians and +Americans, having fought together on common ground for a common ideal, can never +in the future be anything but brothers in spirit. Yet never once have I heard +any one speak of the same need for intimate association among the women of the +different nations. Why is this not equally important? The <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span> women of the future must also acquire +something of the new international spirit, must also learn to work and play +together. I think our Camp Fire embodies all these inspiring principles and +ideas for girls, and so I hope our work in France may be the beginning of an +international Camp Fire organization all over the world.”</p> + +<p>Vera Lagerloff, who had apparently been watching the flickering yellow and +rose flames in their tiny fire while Bettina talked, now looked toward her and +smiled.</p> + +<p>“Be careful, Bettina, you are a dreamer. Remember, the world has room +for but a few dreamers. I suppose that is why Billy went away. After all, you +know it is the small, hard sacrifices that are required of women and girls in +time of war.”</p> + +<p>Then getting up, Vera began walking up and down the room as if finding relief +in action.</p> + +<p>“By the way, Bettina, have you heard the latest news from Gerry +Williams?–oh, I should have said Gerry Morris, I forgot her married +name.” Vera went on, apparently desiring to change the subject: <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span> “She hopes to see us +after we reach our headquarters in France, if she and her father-in-law are not +too far away. I have sometimes wondered if Mr. Morris did not give the money he +had recently inherited to help with the restoration work in France as a thank +offering because Felipe was required to serve only a short sentence for having +tried to escape the draft? Soon after he was permitted to enlist. Mr. Morris and +Gerry are living in one of the tiny ruined villages, assisting the old men and +women and children to rebuild their little homes.”</p> + +<p>Bettina frowned, hardly aware that her expression had become slightly +skeptical.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I was told that Gerry had sailed with her father-in-law, although +so far as I know Felipe is still in an American training camp,” Bettina +replied. “But, Vera, I am not yet an enthusiast over Gerry. However, as we +have never liked each other, perhaps I am not fair. I do not believe that +people’s natures ever entirely change, even if circumstances do affect one +for a time. So I shall have to behold the miracle of a transformed Gerry <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span> before I am convinced of +the change I am told has taken place in her.”</p> + +<p>At this instant Bettina suddenly ceased speaking because a faint knock had +just sounded on their bedroom door.</p> + +<p>When Vera opened the door another girl stood outside. She was small and dark +and had an upward tilt to her nose and indeed to her entire face.</p> + +<p>“I know this is the hour for confidences and so I won’t interrupt +you long,” she began. “Only I thought it might be just as well if I +present you with a short outline of my history. Miss Graham was kind enough to +allow me to travel to Washington with her after meeting me at the home of a +mutual friend. She does not know much about me, so I think she is especially +kind. But perhaps we girls are beginning to take one another more for granted! +As a matter of fact, my name is Mary Gilchrist, although I am usually called +‘Gill’ by my friends, because my father insists I am so small I represent +the smallest possible measure. I have no mother and have spent all my life with +my father on our big Wheat ranch <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_37'></a>37</span> in Kansas. I suppose I should have been a boy, +because I adore machinery and have been driving a car for years, even before the +law would have permitted me to drive one. Of course I only motored over our +ranch at first. Now I am hoping I can be useful in France. For the last few +years I have been able to manage a tractor for the plowing and harvesting of our +fields. My father has given me my own motor to take to France. He said he could +do nothing less, since he had no son to devote to his country’s service +and, as he was too old to fight himself, felt he could do his best work in +increasing our output of wheat. But I did not intend saying so much about +myself, only to thank you and Mrs. Burton for agreeing to allow me to make the +crossing with you. I shall try not to be a nuisance. Good-night.”</p> + +<p>Then actually before Vera or Bettina could reply the other girl vanished. Yet +she left behind her an affect of energy and warmth, her glowing, piquant face, +the red lights in her brown hair, even the freckles on her clear, lightly tanned +skin gave one <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span> the +impression that courage and action were essential traits of her character.</p> + +<p>After she had gone Vera smiled.</p> + +<p>“Well Bettina, I believe your new friend is original, whatever else she +may be.”</p> + +<p>And Bettina nodded in agreement.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span><a id='link_3'></a>CHAPTER III<br /><span class='h2fs'>“A LONG TIME GOING OVER THERE”</span></h2> + +<p>In a week Mrs. Burton and the Sunrise Camp Fire unit sailed from a port +somewhere in the United States to a port somewhere in France. Not only were they +accompanied by Miss Patricia Lord, but apparently they were led by her. Whenever +any information had to be imparted it was always Miss Patricia who gave it and +she also appeared to settle all questions and all disputes. Under ordinary +circumstances the Camp Fire girls would have been annoyed, but at present they +were too absorbed in a hundred interests and as many emotions to be more than +vaguely aware of Miss Patricia’s existence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton, in spite of finding her own position frequently usurped and her +opinions regarded as of small value, nevertheless from the moment of leaving New +York felt a sensation of gratitude each <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_40'></a>40</span> time she glanced at Aunt Patricia’s homely and +uncompromising countenance. In time past they had weathered many storms +together; if there were storms ahead Miss Patricia could be counted upon to +remain firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. Difficult and domineering, yet behind her +brusqueness there was great good sense. Moreover, Mrs. Burton knew that Miss +Patricia possessed the gift of kindness which is the rarest of human qualities. +The Irish humor was there also, although now and then it might be hidden out of +sight and only used by Miss Patricia as she used her Irish brogue in moments of +special stress.</p> + +<p>Conscious that her group of Camp Fire girls was not pleased by the addition +of a new member to their party, Mrs. Burton hoped in time they might come to +appreciate Miss Patricia’s real value, although she made no effort to +propitiate them at the start.</p> + +<p>The leave-taking these days is perhaps the hardest portion of the journey to +France. One must say farewell with apparent cheerfulness to one’s family +and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span> friends, +assuming that whatever dangers may lie in wait for other people, for you there +can be only plain sailing, since this is the gallant spirit these tragic times +demand. But for the Camp Fire girls there was also a certain fear that they +might find themselves unfit for the service they wished to offer. However, there +was no faltering and no regret, but only tremendous inspiration in the knowledge +that they were to be the first American Camp Fire girls to enter France upon a +special mission and with a special message to French girls.</p> + +<p>Of the date or the port from which passenger vessels sail these days there is +no published record. It is enough to state that the Camp Fire party sailed one +morning in the early winter a little before noon from a small harbor south of +New York City. The morning had been cold and rainy and the fog lay thick upon +the water many miles from the land.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that their vessel was to form one of a convoy of a dozen +ships, each boat left port at a different hour, to meet further out at sea.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span>Soon after their +own sailing, Mrs. Burton retired to her state-room. Aunt Patricia and the Camp +Fire girls insisted upon remaining on deck for an indefinite length of time.</p> + +<p>At what point the United States considers her ships have entered the danger +zone on this side of the Atlantic only persons who have lately crossed to the +other side can know.</p> + +<p>When this hour arrived the Camp Fire girls were standing close together, +although separated into small groups. Peggy Webster, Vera Lagerloff and Bettina +Graham were talking to one another; Sally Ashton and Alice Ashton stood a short +distance off with their arms about each other, drawn together only in moments of +excitement. Within a few feet Marta Clark was beside Mary Gilchrist, with Aunt +Patricia not far away, but apparently paying no attention to any of them.</p> + +<p>In truth, it was Aunt Patricia who gave the first signal. The ships which +until now had been at some distance apart were deliberately forming into the +position <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span> necessary +for their convoy. It was almost as if they were making ready for a naval attack; +the boats slowed down, mysterious whistles were blown, signals were run up.</p> + +<p>An hour or so later and the entire convoy, guarded by United States torpedo +destroyers, were steaming rapidly ahead.</p> + +<p>Bettina Graham was leaning over the ship’s railing looking toward the +western line of the horizon through a pair of long-distance glasses. In another +moment she offered the glasses to Vera.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you can see the destroyers more distinctly than I can +manage, Vera? The fog is so heavy and the boats are so nearly the same color. No +wonder they are known as the ‘gray watch-dogs of the sea!’ I suppose one +should feel safer because we are so surrounded, and yet in a way I am more +nervous. Certainly the destroyers do not allow one to forget the reason for +their presence, and I really had not thought a great deal of our danger from +submarines until they appeared.”</p> + +<p>For a few seconds as she stared through the glasses Vera made no reply.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span>As she turned to +present the glasses to Peggy, Vera shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Then I am a better American than you are, Bettina, because I most +assuredly do not feel as you do. Our guard of destroyers gives me an almost +perfect sense of security. It may be absurd of course and a kind of jingoism, +but I do not consider that we can possibly come to grief, protected by our own +navy.”</p> + +<p>As they stood thus close together the Camp Fire girls were wearing the +uniforms which had been especially designed for their trip abroad.</p> + +<p>Their ordinary Camp Fire outfit was of course not suitable; nevertheless the +new costumes had been made to follow as closely as possible the idea and the +model of the old. For military reasons they had chosen a darker shade of brown +than the ordinary khaki color. At present over their serviceable brown serge +traveling dresses they wore long coats of a golden brown cloth made with +adjustable capes to conform with the changes of climate. The only suggestion of +the Camp Fire was the insignia of the crossed logs with the <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span> ascending flames embroidered upon one +sleeve. Their hats were of soft brown felt.</p> + +<p>In spite of the variety of striking and interesting uniforms on board ship, +already the Camp Fire girls had excited a good deal of quiet attention. However, +this may not have been due to their uniforms alone. As a matter of fact, they +were younger than the other passengers and many persons were curious with regard +to the work they were planning to undertake in France.</p> + +<p>Sailing upon the same vessel there chanced to be a Red Cross unit of twenty +other girls who were to do canteen work among the French and American soldiers. +But except for one conspicuous exception, this unit of girls was noticeably +older.</p> + +<p>This made the one girl appear rather an outsider; moreover, the Camp Fire +girls learned that she was not an American girl, but a French girl returning to +her own country.</p> + +<p>There were no passengers on the ship who were not sailing to France for +urgent reasons and for reasons which the United <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_46'></a>46</span> States government considered of sufficient importance +to permit of their crossing.</p> + +<p>There were a number of business men whose affairs were not only of importance +to themselves, but to the Allied interests as well. There was a medical unit +with a staff of doctors, nurses and assistants, three or four newspaper and +magazine men, one well-known woman writer. But the most distinguished among the +travelers were several returning Frenchmen who had been in the United States +upon a special mission.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span><a id='link_4'></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><span class='h2fs'>CHAPERONING THE CHAPERON</span></h2> + +<p>One afternoon about midway in the voyage across the Atlantic, Mrs. Burton was +seated upon the upper deck in her steamer chair enveloped in a fur rug and a fur +coat. A small sealskin turban completely covered her hair, so only her face was +revealed, her brilliant blue eyes, long slender nose and chin, and her cheeks +upon which two spots of color were glowing.</p> + +<p>She was talking in French with a great deal of animation to a man who sat +beside her. From his manner and appearance and also from his pronunciation it +was self-evident that he was a Frenchman. Moreover, he revealed a certain +intellectual distinction typically French. Monsieur Georges Duval was of middle +age with clear-cut, aristocratic features, keen dark eyes and iron-gray hair. In +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span> comparison with him +Mrs. Burton looked like a girl.</p> + +<p>It was just before tea time and the deck was crowded with the ship’s +passengers. Since no lights were permitted after dark, it was necessary to enjoy +all the daylight possible out of doors. This afternoon was clear and lovely, +with a serene blue sky and sea.</p> + +<p>A number of the Camp Fire girls were strolling about talking to new +acquaintances. But if Mrs. Burton had any knowledge of their presence she gave +no sign, being too deeply interested in her conversation with her present +companion.</p> + +<p>“You are extremely kind, Monsieur, and I am most happy to receive any +advice you can give me. Later on I shall probably ask for your aid as well. Now +and then I have wondered if in coming to France to offer our services to your +country many American women may not prove more of a burden than a help. I hope +this may not be true of me or of my companions. We intend to settle down +somewhere in one of the devastated districts and do whatever we can to be +useful. But <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span> chiefly +the group of girls I have with me want to offer their services to French girls. +I have so often thought, Monsieur, that perhaps the greatest problem of the +future rests with the young girls of the present day. When the war is over it +will be their task to care for the wounded men and for many others whom these +long years of warfare will have made unfit for work. More than this, there will +be so many of these girls who can never have husbands or children. Our Camp Fire +organization in the United States has a special message for the women of the +future. But I must not bore you with this when you have so many matters of more +importance to hold your attention.”</p> + +<p>Monsieur Duval shook his head.</p> + +<p>“You are not boring me, Madame. You could not do that, but in any case +remember you are talking to a Frenchman about the women of his own country. +Sometimes I think we Frenchmen confuse our women and our country; to us they are +so much one and the same thing. When we fight for France, we are fighting for +our women, when we fight to protect our <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_50'></a>50</span> women we are fighting to save France. I do not +believe the world half realizes what great burdens the French women bore after +the Franco-Prussian war, only forty years ago, not only in working shoulder to +shoulder with their men, but by inspiring them after a bitter and cruel defeat. +The courage, the steadfastness which France has revealed in the four long years +of this present war is one way in which we have tried to pay our immense debt to +them.”</p> + +<p>Unable to reply because of the tears which she made no effort to conceal, +Mrs. Burton remained silent for a few moments. When she finally spoke it was +with a kind of diffidence:</p> + +<p>“Monsieur Duval, has it ever occurred to you how strange it is that, +aside from our American Revolution, most of the great modern wars for democracy +have been fought upon French soil? I have thought of this many times and +sorrowed over what seems the injustice to your race. Forgive me if I appear too +fanciful! Recently I have recognized why France always is represented by the +symbolic <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span> figure of a +woman. She has endured the birth of the world’s freedom inside her body +and her soul.”</p> + +<p>In Mrs. Burton’s speech there was perhaps nothing original, but always +there was the old thrilling beautiful quality to her voice which stirred her +audience, whether large or small.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Duval did not attempt to hide both his admiration and interest in +his companion. The second day out at sea they had been introduced to each other +by Mrs. Bishop, the woman novelist, with whom Mrs. Burton had a slight +acquaintance in New York City. Indeed, they had met only upon one occasion, but +on shipboard one is apt to renew acquaintances which one would have considered +of no special interest at other times.</p> + +<p>Since their original meeting Mrs. Burton and the French commissioner, whom +she had discovered to be a member of the French senate as well, had spent +several hours each day in talking together. There were many subjects in which +they were both interested, although of course the <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span> war absorbed the greater part of their +thought.</p> + +<p>“I only hope France may prove worthy of the sympathy and aid your +country pours out upon her so generously. But I think when you reach France you +will have no reason to complain of her lack of gratitude,” the Frenchman +answered.</p> + +<p>“Of course our cause at present is a common one and our soldiers are +fighting as brothers. But long before your men fought with ours, you American +women were rendering us every possible service. Please be sure if I can be of +the least assistance to you in making your plans for work in France I shall be +more than happy. In spite of all our conversations you never have told me +definitely what it is you intend doing.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton smiled. A cool breeze was blowing in from the sea so that she hid +herself closer inside her rug.</p> + +<p>“Just a moment then, Monsieur Duval, I will talk of our plans and then +we must discuss something frivolous. Every morning as I waken I make up my mind +not to speak of the war for at least a few hours, <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span> but somehow I never manage to keep my +promise to myself. We intend undertaking a certain amount of reclamation work in +one of the ruined French villages. Our present scheme is first to find an old +farm house and establish ourselves there in order to make a home where our +neighbors can come to us as they will. My Camp Fire girls thus hope to form +friendships with the French girls and later to induce them to become interested +in our Camp Fire ideas.</p> + +<p>“You may be amused, Monsieur Duval, but another thing we intend is to +teach the French women and girls to make corn bread, so as to help in the wheat +conservation. I was told by a woman in Washington, who had just come back from +the devastated regions, that this would be a real service to France, if once we +could persuade the French people to our use of corn. The Indians taught us. As +our Camp Fire is more or less modeled upon their institutions, we hope to carry +on the Indian message of the corn. But enough of this; you have been kind to +listen to me so long.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span>Monsieur Duval +shook his head courteously.</p> + +<p>“What you say is interesting and worth while, Madame, but I have an +idea that you need not personally give all of your own time to these efforts. +These matters your companions and other women may be able to accomplish with +equal success. But you, you probably will find more important work to do in +France. Perhaps you will allow me to see you later. I do not wish our +acquaintance to end with our voyage, and it may be I can persuade you to +additional tasks. But in any case I hope you will talk personally with many of +my country people, men and women; there is no one so well adapted to make our +nations understand each other as a gifted and charming American woman. I have +many friends in Paris and before you leave I trust I may be allowed the +privilege of presenting at least a few of them to you.”</p> + +<p>Feeling agreeably flattered, as any woman is flattered by the homage of a +clever man, Mrs. Burton was about to reply, when suddenly the tall figure of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span> Miss Patricia Lord +appeared, rising before her like a pillar of darkness.</p> + +<p>She gave Monsieur Duval a curt nod; except for this she made no explanation +of her presence, continuing standing until the courteous Frenchman felt +constrained to offer her his chair.</p> + +<p>However, not until he had walked away did she condescend to accept his place +and then she managed to sit perfectly upright, which is a <i>difficult</i> feat +in a reclining chair.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter, Aunt Patricia?” Mrs. Burton at once +demanded, feeling suddenly disturbed by Miss Patricia’s severe expression. +“Surely nothing has happened to any one of the Camp Fire girls! I think I +have noticed nearly all of them strolling about on deck in the past half +hour.”</p> + +<p>Gloomily Miss Patricia frowned. “I am not here to discuss with you the +girls whom you are suppose to be chaperoning. I wish to speak of your conduct, +Polly Burton. I have been considering the subject for the past twenty-four +hours. Under the circumstances you might as well know <i>first as last</i> that +I do not approve of your <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_56'></a>56</span> present intimacy with this unknown Frenchman, this +<i>Mr.</i> Duval.” Miss Patricia scorned the use of the French title. +“I have no idea of attempting to pronounce the foolish word the French +employ for plain ‘Mister.’ However, you realize perfectly well that from +the day following our sailing you have spent the greater part of your time in +his society. Sorry as I am to speak of this, my respect for your husband compels +me to warn you―”</p> + +<p>Here Aunt Patricia was interrupted by an explosion of laughter as fresh and +ingenuous as a girl’s.</p> + +<p>“My dear Aunt Patricia, really I beg your pardon, but I supposed you +were coming with me to France to help me chaperon my Camp Fire girls! I never +dreamed of your also feeling obliged to chaperon me. Remember, I am pretty old +and never was particularly fascinating, even as a girl. I am afraid you will +have a hard time to persuade my husband to jealousy. Richard is the fascinating +member of our family! As a matter of fact, I have simply been boring Monsieur +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span> Duval for the past +hour by discussing our plan of campaign after we reach France. You don’t +consider the subject a dangerous one?”</p> + +<p>But neither Miss Patricia’s face nor figure relaxed.</p> + +<p>“I may not be original, Polly Burton; as a matter of fact, I have no +idea that you <i>said</i> anything of the least importance to your Frenchman. +With you it is the old story; it is not <i>what</i> you say, but the <i>way</i> +you say it. I have been watching you and you may pretend to have noticed the +Camp Fire girls. However, if you tell the truth, you have not been aware of +anything or anybody except Mr. Duval during the entire afternoon.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Miss Patricia appeared so annoyed and suspicious that it was +difficult for Mrs. Burton to decide whether she were the more amused or +irritated. However, it made no difference; either attitude would be entirely +lost upon Miss Patricia Lord.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry you don’t approve of me,” Mrs. Burton returned +with a pretence of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span> +meekness, yet dropping her eyelids to conceal the expression of her eyes.</p> + +<p>“It is not that I do not approve of you, Polly, for I so seldom do +that,” Aunt Patricia replied. “It is that I also feel it <i>my +duty</i> to recall you to <i>your</i> duty. You speak of having lately observed +the Camp Fire girls wandering about near you. I feel it an effort to believe +this because only a short time ago, while undoubtedly you were enjoying yourself +with a foreigner concerning whom you know absolutely nothing, I discovered Sally +Ashton seated upon a coil of rope in an obscure portion of this vessel, flirting +outrageously with a young American physician. Your niece, Peggy Webster, is +walking up and down the lower deck with a French officer; lower deck not the +upper, mind you, where she might have been seen by you, although I doubt it. The +other girls are―”</p> + +<p>By this time Mrs. Burton had become seriously annoyed. She was obliged to +remember, of course, that Miss Patricia was a much older woman, yet, +nevertheless <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span> her +eyes darkened and her color deepened a little ominously.</p> + +<p>“Please Aunt Patricia, you are making a mistake,” she began +warmly. “I am not in the habit of spying upon my Camp Fire girls and I am +sure you will never find such a proceeding necessary.”</p> + +<p>Then, ashamed of the word she had employed, she continued more gently.</p> + +<p>“So you have been making a tour of investigation because you considered +that I was neglecting my duty? All I can say, Aunt Patricia, is that you will +always discover Sally Ashton flirting if there is an agreeable man in sight. I +cannot make up my mind whether or not Sally is unconscious, yet flirting with +her is either an instinct, an art, or both. However, every man who sees her +immediately succumbs. But as for Peggy, Peggy is an absolutely trustworthy +person! Did I not tell you that Peggy considers herself engaged to Ralph +Marshall, who is in the aviation service in France at the present time? None of +Peggy’s family will acknowledge her engagement; we feel she is too young, +yet Ralph’s parents are old friends of my <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_60'></a>60</span> sister and brother-in-law. After a time I am sure you +will understand the Camp Fire Girls better.”</p> + +<p>There was undeniably a tone of condescension in Mrs. Burton’s voice, +and Aunt Patricia sniffed.</p> + +<p>“I understand the girls as well as I consider necessary, Polly Burton, +and probably better than you do. I have always insisted that you have little +knowledge of human nature. As for thinking that a girl of Peggy’s age, +with almost no experience of life, can have any idea of the character of man she +could or should marry―”</p> + +<p>But here, realizing that Miss Patricia was mounted upon one of her favorite +hobbies and that nothing she could say or do would stop her, Mrs. Burton, +pretending to offer a polite attention, in reality allowed her mind to +wander.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia was usually antagonistic to all male persons safely past their +babyhood. Among her friends it was an open question whether Aunt Patricia had +been jilted at an early age, or whether she had never condescended to an +admirer.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span>“All men are +idiots,” is what she had been known to remark when hard pressed.</p> + +<p>Gradually Mrs. Burton allowed herself to slip back in her chair, resting her +head more comfortably against a brown velvet cushion.</p> + +<p>It was strange that she had felt so little fear of the submarine menace +during the present voyage, when she had expected to be fearful the entire way +across. There were odd moments at night when one could not sleep, thinking of +the possible, even the probable danger that might manifest itself at any moment. +But aside from obeying the ship’s rules with regard to life belts and +lights, the keeping of one’s state-room door unlatched, what was there to +do save trust in a higher power?</p> + +<p>Actually at this moment Mrs. Burton, while presumably listening, was deciding +that she was enjoying the very crossing to France she had so much dreaded.</p> + +<p>It would never do to shock Aunt Patricia, yet in a number of years she had +not met so agreeable a man as the French senator. Moreover, she was entertained +by the opportunity to form a new and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_62'></a>62</span> stimulating intimacy with a clever woman. Mrs. +Bishop, known to her public as Georgianna Bishop, having written several +successful novels, was at present traveling to Europe to write of the American +soldiers life in the trenches.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that Miss Patricia seemed also to regard Mrs. Bishop +with disfavor, Mrs. Burton had invited her to spend a part of her time in France +with them, if it could possibly be arranged.</p> + +<p>At this moment, if Miss Patricia would only stop talking, Mrs. Burton +believed that she would like to have Mrs. Bishop sit beside her during the hour +of afternoon tea.</p> + +<p>Tea would be served in a few moments. Perhaps, if Miss Patricia would decide +to move, one of the Camp Fire girls would appear to act as messenger and find +Mrs. Bishop.</p> + +<p>With this thought in mind, glancing carelessly up and down the deck, Mrs. +Burton discovered Vera Lagerloff and Bettina Graham coming hurriedly toward her. +What was more surprising, they were accompanied by the new friend with <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span> whom she had been talking +a few moments before.</p> + +<p>Both girls looked so white and frightened that Mrs. Burton, making a hasty +movement in attempting to jump up from her chair, found herself entangled in her +steamer rug.</p> + +<p>As Monsieur Duval endeavored to extricate her, he said quietly:</p> + +<p>“I hope we have not alarmed you, but a most unfortunate accident has +just occurred on board ship, which I hope may not develop into a tragedy. A +young French girl, traveling with the American Red Cross unit, is supposed to +have attempted to take her own life. I am by no means sure of this, she may be +ill and have fainted from some cause. I was sent for, I presume because of my +nationality, then some one suggested you.”</p> + +<p>But before Monsieur Duval had more than finished speaking, Mrs. Burton was +hurrying away, accompanied by Bettina and Vera.</p> + +<p>“I really do not know how to explain what has happened,” Bettina +continued. “You remember the French girl we have <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span> noticed because she appeared so much +younger than the other members of her Red Cross unit? It seems that at the +beginning of the war all her people were killed and her home in France +destroyed, so that she is now entirely alone. She was living with friends in the +United States, but suddenly decided that she wished to return to France. +Unexpectedly she must have lost her courage. However, all Vera and I really know +it what one of the other Red Cross girls told us, asking us to tell no one +else.”</p> + +<p>By the end of Bettina’s speech, Mrs. Burton and the two girls had left +the deck, and Vera was leading the way down one of the narrow corridors bordered +on either side by small state-rooms.</p> + +<p>At the door of one of the rooms a woman in the uniform of a Red Cross nurse, +after making a little motion to command silence, stepped quietly out.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing serious the matter, Mrs. Burton. It was hardly worth +while to disturb you. At present the young French girl who was crossing with us +to her former home is suffering from an attack <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_65'></a>65</span> of hysteria. As I have not been able to quiet her and +as you are here, perhaps you will come and see what you can do.”</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Vera and Bettina.</p> + +<p>“If there is any other story of what has occurred being told on board +ship, will you please do your best to contradict it? A ship is a hopeless place +for gossip. However, I am afraid Yvonne will scarcely be fit for the work our +Red Cross unit expects to undertake. I must find some one to befriend the child +after we reach Paris.”</p> + +<p>Bettina and Vera moved away, followed by the older woman.</p> + +<p>At the same instant Mrs. Burton, entering the half open door of the +state-room, discovered a young girl of about seventeen or eighteen, with large +brown eyes and fair hair, lying huddled on the bed. She was not crying, yet +instantly put up her hands before her face as if to escape observation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton sat down on the edge of the berth beside her.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span><a id='link_5'></a>CHAPTER V<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE CONFESSION</span></h2> + +<p>“Don’t talk if you prefer not; perhaps you may be able to sleep +after a little if I sit here beside you,” Mrs. Burton said gently.</p> + +<p>“But I would prefer to be alone,” the young French girl answered, +speaking English with a pretty foreign accent.</p> + +<p>Instantly Mrs. Burton rose, intending to leave the tiny state-room; however, +having gone but a few steps she heard the he same voice plead:</p> + +<p>“No, please don’t leave me. I have been watching you and your +friends ever since our ship sailed, and as I must talk to some one, I wish it to +be you. If you only knew how sorry I am to have created a scene and to have +given so much trouble, when everybody has been so kind.”</p> + +<p>Then the girl began to cry again, but softly as if her desire for tears was +nearly spent.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span>Without replying +Mrs. Burton took her former position.</p> + +<p>Occasionally she had a moment of thinking that perhaps after her years of +experience as a Camp Fire guardian she was beginning to understand something of +the utterly unlike temperaments of varying types of girls. Moreover, in spite of +Aunt Patricia’s judgment, her work had afforded her unusual opportunities +for the study of human nature.</p> + +<p>Now, as she sat silently watching the young French girl in her effort to +regain her self-control, Mrs. Burton realized that hers would be no ordinary +story. Her friend had chosen to protect her by stating that she was suffering +from an attack of nerves, yet this instant the girl was making an intense effort +to gain a fresh hold upon herself both mentally and physically.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry,” she repeated a moment later, “for I realize +now I should never have made the attempt to return home to France, although I +thought after nearly three years in the United States surely I had the courage! +Still, for the past few days I have been becoming more and more <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span> convinced that I was going +to fail, that I had not the strength for the work ahead of me. What you were +told just now, that I had merely fainted, was not true. I had made up my mind +that since I was not going to be able to be of service to my country I would not +add to her burden. I could not do that; there had to be some way out, and I +<i>had</i> to find the way.”</p> + +<p>Sitting up, Yvonne now leaned forward, resting her small head with its heavy +weight of fair hair upon her hands, clasped under her chin. She was not looking +at her companion. Her eyes held an expression which betrays an inner vision.</p> + +<p>“I did make an effort to do what you suspect. I wonder if I was wrong? +Certainly I was unsuccessful, since I do not even feel ill in consequence. I +suppose I ought to explain that I had written a note to apologize for the +mistake I had made in urging the Red Cross unit to bring me with them to France +and to say I regretted the distress and trouble I must give. Then as I was +carrying the letter to the room of the friend whom you found here with me I +think I must have <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span> +fainted. She was shocked and angry when she learned what I had attempted to do +and I have given my word I will not try again.” Yvonne was silent for a +moment and then added with another catch in her voice: “Do you think it +wicked of me, because I am still a little sorry I failed in what I attempted? +But I don’t think you will when I have told you my history.”</p> + +<p>Under ordinary circumstances Yvonne’s broken and incoherent story would +have annoyed Mrs. Burton. She had scant sympathy and could make but slight +excuse for the neurotic persons who have no fortitude with which to meet +life’s inevitable disasters but expend all their energy in compassion for +themselves. Especially did she resent this characteristic in a young girl, +having grown accustomed to the sanity and the outdoor spirit engendered by the +Camp Fire life. Moreover, one has at present no time or pity save for real +tragedies.</p> + +<p>Yet Yvonne’s attitude had not so affected her. Instead she realized +that the girl’s suffering had been due to a vital <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span> cause and that the secret of her action +still remained hidden.</p> + +<p>“Had you not better rest and talk to me later?” Mrs. Burton +inquired. “I think you are very tired, more so than you realize. After a +time perhaps you will see things more clearly. You are young, Yvonne, to believe +there is nothing more for you in life that is worth while.”</p> + +<p>“I know that would be true if these were not war times, Madame,” +the girl answered. “Will you please listen to my story now? There may be +no opportunity at another time.”</p> + +<p>Slipping out of her berth, Yvonne proffered the one small chair the +state-room afforded to her visitor.</p> + +<p>“Won’t you sit here? You may be more comfortable,” she +suggested.</p> + +<p>Then she found a seat for herself on the lounge which ran along one side of +the room.</p> + +<p>By this time the little French girl was looking so completely exhausted that +Mrs. Burton would have liked again to urge her to wait. Yet after all perhaps it +might be a relief to have her confession over!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span>“I was +living in a château with my mother and two brothers when the war began,” +Yvonne said, going directly to the heart of her story. “After the news +came that war was declared and the Germans had invaded our country, my older +brother, Andre, left at once to join his regiment near Paris. At that time we +did not dream there could be danger near our home, which seemed so far from the +front. I do not know whether you have noticed my name on our passenger list, +Yvonne Fleury, and our home was called the Château Yvonne. It is not in +existence any longer. But I am afraid I am not telling my story clearly. +Sometimes I grow confused trying to remember when things actually happened, as +they all came quickly and unexpectedly. After my brother and our men servants +had gone my mother and I tried to carry on the work at the château as well as we +could with only the women to help. We were not rich people; my father had died +some years before, soon after my younger brother was born. But we had a good +deal of land and a beautiful orchard. It seems <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_72'></a>72</span> strange to think that even the orchard has been +destroyed!”</p> + +<p>As Yvonne talked she had a little habit of frowning, almost as if she were +doubting the truth of her own story. Nevertheless, however unique and impossible +her story might sound to her own ears, stories like hers had grown only too +familiar since the outbreak of the war in Europe.</p> + +<p>A moment later and she seemed confused, as if scarcely knowing how to take up +the threads of her own history. Afterwards she tried to speak more slowly, her +voice sounding as if she were worn out both from her recent suffering and from +the effort to recount her own and her country’s tragedy.</p> + +<p>“For weeks after the war started we had almost no news of any kind to +tell us what was taking place. My brother could not send us a letter, as all our +trains were devoted to carrying our troops. Now and then, when an occasional +motor car passed through our village, a soldier or an officer would drop on the +roadside an <i>edition speciale de la Presse</i>. Perhaps one of the old +peasants, picking up the paper, would <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_73'></a>73</span> bring it to our château. Afterwards a number of them +would gather around while either my mother or I read aloud the news. In those +first days the news was nearly always sad news.”</p> + +<p>Then for a little while Yvonne made no effort to continue her story and Mrs. +Burton understood her silence.</p> + +<p>“As soon as we could, my mother and I organized a little branch of La +Croix Rouge in our village and did what we could. We had many people to help and +so spent most of our time making bandages from old linen. We were told then that +the wounded might be sent back across the Marne to be cared for by us and that +our houses must be made ready to use as hospitals. But the wounded were not +cared for by us, not in those early weeks of the war. You know what took place, +Madame. Our soldiers were defeated; it is now an old story. One night when the +battle line was drawing closer and closer to our home we were warned to flee. +But my mother could not, would not believe the word when it came and so we +waited too long. We had only a farm wagon and an <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span> old horse with which to make our escape, +our other horses and car having been requisitioned for the army.”</p> + +<p>This time, when Yvonne hesitated, Mrs. Burton had a cowardly wish that she +would not go on with her story, so easy it was to anticipate what might +follow.</p> + +<p>In this moment Yvonne lived over again the night in her life she could never +forget. Instead of the soft lapping of the waves against the sides of the ship, +the young French girl was hearing the booming of guns, the shrieking of shells +and the final patter of bullets like a falling rain.</p> + +<p>“I would prefer not to tell you anything more in detail, Mrs. +Burton,” Yvonne afterwards added more calmly than one could have thought +possible.</p> + +<p>“The night of our attempted escape we were overtaken by the enemy and +my little brother was killed; a few days later my mother died of the shock and +exposure. I don’t know just how things happened. I remember I was alone +one night in a woods with a battle going on all around me. Next morning I +believe the Germans began a retreat. A French soldier found me and <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span> took me with him to the +home of some French people. I think I must have been with them several weeks +before I was myself again. Then I learned that our château had been burned and +my brother reported killed.</p> + +<p>“One day an American friend, who had learned of our family tragedy, +came to see me and decided that it would be wiser to take me home to his own +family in the United States. I was so dazed and miserable he believed I would be +happier there and would sooner learn to forget. Of course after a time I was +happier, but of course one can never forget. So at last I persuaded my friends I +must be allowed to return to my own country, that I must help my people who were +still going through all that I had endured. My friends were opposed to the idea, +but because I insisted, at last they gave their consent. Then after our boat +sailed I felt I could not go back to France. I was afraid. I remembered the long +night in the woods–the German soldiers―”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton’s arms were about the girl.</p> + +<p>“Please don’t talk any more of the past, <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span> Yvonne. Try to remember, my dear, that +the enemy is no longer in the neighborhood of your old home. He has been driven +further and further back until some day, please God, the last German soldier +shall have disappeared forever from the sacred soil of France.</p> + +<p>“Sleep now, I shall sit here beside you. Later I will talk to you about +joining my group of girls in France. You are not strong enough for the Red Cross +work at present, but a great deal of our work will be among young French girls +and you could be of the greatest aid to us if you care to help. Yet there will +be time enough later to speak of our Camp Fire plans.”</p> + +<p>However, when Yvonne had crawled back into her berth, more exhausted than she +had realized, Mrs. Burton continued sitting beside her. Then, hoping the sound +of her voice might be soothing and in order to help Yvonne to sleep and also +because of the power of suggestion, she repeated a Camp Fire verse:</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span>“As fagots +are brought from the forest,<br /> Firmly held by the sinews which +bind them,<br /> I will cleave to my Camp Fire sisters<br /> + Wherever, whenever I find them.<br />  <br /> “I will +strive to grow strong like the pine tree,<br /> To be pure in my +deepest desire;<br /> To be true to the truth that is in me<br /> + And follow the Law of the Fire.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span><a id='link_6'></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><span class='h2fs'>A FRENCH FARM HOUSE ON THE FIELD OF HONOR</span></h2> + +<p>“Is the French country more tragic or less so than you anticipated, +Vera?” Peggy Webster inquired.</p> + +<p>She and Vera Lagerloff were walking along what must once have served as a +road, each girl carrying a large, nearly empty basket on her arm.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean the actual country?” Vera questioned. “Then, +yes, conditions are worse than I expected to find them, certainly in a +neighborhood like this, where the work of restoration is only just +beginning.” She frowned, shaking her head sadly. “I could never have +imagined God’s earth could be transformed to look like a place of torment, +and yet this countryside suggests one of the hells in Dante’s +‘Inferno.’ But if you mean are the French people more tragic than I +thought to find them, then a thousand times, no! <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span> Was there ever anything so inspiring or +so amazing as their happiness and courage in returning to their old homes? The +fact that their homes are no longer in existence seems not to discourage them, +now their beloved land has been restored. When we have been working here a +longer time I hope I shall recover from my desire to weep each time I see an old +man or woman happily engaged in rebuilding one of their ruined huts. It is a +wonderful experience, Peggy, this opportunity to appreciate the spiritual +bravery of the French people. I hope I may learn a lesson from them. I have +needed just such a lesson since Billy’s death.”</p> + +<p>For a moment Peggy Webster made no reply.</p> + +<p>The entire countryside through which they were passing lay between the line +of the German advance into France at the beginning of the war and the famous +Hindenburg line to which the Boches were forced back. The Germans had so +devastated the French villages and country, it was as if the plague of the world +had swept across them. The valley had also <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_80'></a>80</span> suffered the bombardment of the enemy and the +returning fire from their own guns.</p> + +<p>Yet on this winter day the sun was shining brilliantly on the uptorn earth, +which once had been so fair, while in a bit of broken shell not far from the +road an indomitable sparrow had builded her nest.</p> + +<p>There were no shrubs and the trees were gaunt scarred trunks, without +branches or leaves, reminding one of an ancient gloomy picture in the old-time +family Bible, known as “Dry Bones in the Valley.”</p> + +<p>“Well, even the French country does not make me sorrowful, not just at +present,” Peggy replied. “If only the enemy can be forced further +back next spring when the expected drive takes place, what a wonderful +opportunity for us to be allowed to continue to help with the restoration of the +French country. I do not believe many years will be required before the land +will be lovely and fruitful again. But then you know I am a tiresome practical +person. You don’t suppose by any chance this portion of France will ever +be <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span> destroyed by the +enemy a second time? Yes, I know even such a suggestion sounds like disloyalty +and I do not of course believe such a tragedy could occur. Just think, Vera, +what only a handful of American women have accomplished here in the Aisne +valley! Ten American women have had charge of the rehabilitation of twenty-seven +villages and with the aid of the soldiers during their leaves of absence from +the trenches have placed five thousand acres of land under cultivation. I hope +we make a success of our work, Vera, yet whatever the future holds, we must +stick to our posts.”</p> + +<p>The two Camp Fire girls were walking ankle deep in the winter mud. Where the +roads had been cut into furrows by the passing of heavy artillery, miniature +streams of melted snow ran winding in and out like the branches of a river. Now +and then a gulley across the road would be so deep and wide that one had to make +a flying leap to cross safely.</p> + +<p>About a quarter of a mile away the Aisne watered the countryside and the +towns. Not far off was the classic old <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_82'></a>82</span> town of Rheims with her ancient Cathedral already +partly destroyed. Encircling the landscape was the crown of low hills where not +for days but years the tides of battle have surged up and down from victory to +defeat, from defeat to victory, until during the winter of 1917 and 1918 there +was a lull in the world conflict.</p> + +<p>Finally the two girls came in sight of a field. Already a devoted effort was +being made to prepare the ground for an early spring plowing. Stray bits of +shell, the half of a battered helmet, the butt of a broken gun had been laid in +a neat pile, the larger stones had been placed beside them.</p> + +<p>Standing in front of a tiny hut which evidently had been partly burned down, +were an old man and woman busily at work trying to rebuild their house. A small +quantity of new lumber lay on the ground beside them.</p> + +<p>“Dear me, I wish I were a carpenter, a mason, a doctor, I don’t +know what else, and a million times a millionaire, then one might really be +useful!” Peggy exclaimed, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_83'></a>83</span> as she and Vera stopped to gaze sympathetically at +the old couple.</p> + +<p>The next instant their attention was also attracted by a child who was +sitting near the pile of broken stones and shells nursing something in her arms. +At first she did not observe the two American girls, although they were facing +her and not many yards away.</p> + +<p>Her shock of dark hair looked as if it had been cut from her head in the +darkness, she had large unhappy black eyes and a thin, haggard face.</p> + +<p>Finally discovering the two older girls, with an unexpected cry of terror, +she made a flying leap toward the house, still clasping her broken doll, and hid +herself inside.</p> + +<p>At the child’s cry the man and woman also turned as if they too were +frightened and yet unable to flee. For an instant Vera and Peggy saw in their +faces a suggestion of what they all too recently had endured. The next moment +the old peasants were bowing and smiling with unfailing politeness.</p> + +<p>“Do you think we might speak to them, Vera?” Peggy inquired. +“Of course we <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span> +do not wish to be obtrusive, but I have a few groceries which I did not give +away in the village still remaining in my basket. It is possible they might find +them useful. How glad I am Yvonne Fleury is living with us! Already she has +taught me more than I could ever learn in any other way about the French people, +their gentleness, their infinite industry and patience and above all their +beautiful manners. I hope no one of them will ever feel any American tries to +help in a spirit of patronage; as for myself, each day I pray for a fresh gift +of tact.”</p> + +<p>Vera started forward.</p> + +<p>“Come with me, Peggy, I think I can persuade the two old people to +realize we only wish to be helpful. You see, my own people were Russian peasants +and there ought to be a bond of sympathy between us. It is true the French +earned their liberty over a century ago, while our liberty yet hangs in the +balance, now that German autocracy is trying to replace the Russian. I believe I +am a better carpenter than these old people; if they are friendly I intend to +ask them to allow me to return <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_85'></a>85</span> to assist them with their work tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>Afterwards for ten or fifteen minutes the two girls remained talking happily +with their new acquaintances.</p> + +<p>Like many other Americans, both Vera and Peggy had firm faith in their +knowledge of the French language until their arrival in France. Assuredly they +could understand each other perfectly as well as other Americans and English +friends who spoke French slowly and deliberately. But unfortunately the French +folk apparently speak with greater rapidity than any other nation on the face of +the earth and with a wealth of idioms and unexpected intonations, leaving the +foreigner who has never lived in France floundering hopelessly in pursuit of +their meaning.</p> + +<p>In contrast with their other new French acquaintances the two American girls +now found the old peasant and his wife a real satisfaction. Their vocabularies +were not large and they spoke in a halting, simple fashion not difficult to +translate.</p> + +<p>Their story was not unlike the story of thousands of other families in the +stricken regions of France. During the period of <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span> victory the Germans had been quartered in +the nearby village, but as the village was not large and the soldiers were +numerous, a few of them had been sent to live with the small peasant farmers not +far from the town. They were ordered not only to live upon them, but also to +secure whatever livestock they owned, or whatever food of value.</p> + +<p>Père and Mère Michét had possessed a daughter and a son-in-law. The son they +thought still alive and fighting for France. Their daughter, Marguerite Michét, +had disappeared.</p> + +<p>“La petite Marguerite, she has never been herself since her mother was +taken,” Mère Michét explained. “I tell her always <i>la bonne +mère</i> will return, but she is afraid of strangers; you will pardon +her?”</p> + +<p>When at last the girls had been permitted to leave their small offerings and +had started toward their new home, Vera had agreed to return next day to render +what assistance she could toward the restoration of the little house. Peggy was +to come back in order to persuade the little French <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span> girl to make friends and perhaps pay them +a visit at the farm.</p> + +<p>After walking on for a short added distance, both girls finally reached their +own French farm house.</p> + +<p>It was now late afternoon and the old battered building appeared homely and +forbidding. Once upon a time, with the French love of color, the farm house had +been painted a bright pink, but now the color had been washed off, as if tears +had rolled down the face of some poor old painted lady, smearing her faded +cheeks. A fire had evidently been started when the Germans began their retreat, +which for some freakish reason had died down after destroying only the rear +portion of the building.</p> + +<p>After the arrival of the Camp Fire unit in France the entire party had gone +straight to Paris as they planned, where their credentials had been presented to +the proper authorities, as well as a brief outline of the work which they hoped +to be allowed to undertake. Their idea was at once so simple and so practical +that no objection was raised.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span>The Camp Fire unit +looked forward to establishing a community farm in one of the ruined districts +of France. So after a short stay in Paris, following the advice of the American +Committee, Mrs. Burton and Aunt Patricia set out to find a home for their unit. +Later the Camp Fire girls joined them at the old farm house on the Aisne.</p> + +<p>Only a little time had passed, nevertheless the farm already suggested +home.</p> + +<p>As Peggy and Vera entered the open space where a gate had once stood, they +discovered the entire Camp Fire community outside in the yard.</p> + +<p>As usual, Aunt Patricia was giving orders to everybody in sight, while Mrs. +Burton in her effort to be of assistance as she urged the others not to attempt +too much, was fluttering about, as often as not in the way.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the Camp Fire girls were paying but little attention +either to her or to Aunt Patricia. Mary Gilchrist, a few moments before, having +driven her motor into the farm yard, the girls were at present helping her to +unload.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span>After crossing to +France with the Sunrise Camp Fire Unit, Mary had become so much one of them that +she had concluded to remain with them for a time, certainly until she could find +more useful work. Therefore her motor and her services were temporarily at their +disposal.</p> + +<p>It is amazing what women and girls are accomplishing these days without +masculine aid, and whether or not this is a fortunate state of affairs, the war +has left no choice.</p> + +<p>Since they were both strong and energetic, Vera and Peggy were glad to have +reached home at so critical a moment. However, the other girls were getting on +quite comfortably without their aid. Bettina and Alice Ashton, having placed a +plank at the end of the car, managed so that the large boxes and packing cases +could slide onto the ground without being lifted. Nearly every box of any size +bore the name of “Miss Patricia Lord.”</p> + +<p>Finally, “Gill,” for the Camp Fire girls were by this time +calling Mary Gilchrist by her diminutive title, as she seemed to <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span> prefer it, standing up on +the seat of her motor, began signaling for attention.</p> + +<p>“Be quiet for a moment everybody, please, and listen as diligently as +you can. I am not a magician, nor yet a ventriloquist, yet if you will be +perfectly silent you will think I am one or both.”</p> + +<p>The next instant and Mary’s audience became aware of an extraordinary +combination of familiar noises proceeding from the depths of her motor. One felt +like a guest at a “mad tea-party,” although of a different nature +from Alice’s. The noises were a mingled collection of squawks and cackles +and crowing, and pitched in a considerably lower key, a rich but unmistakable +grunt.</p> + +<p>Alone Aunt Patricia appeared gratified, almost exultant.</p> + +<p>Stepping over toward the car with her long, militant stride, she gave her +commands briefly.</p> + +<p>“Here, Vera, you have more brains than the other girls, help me to move +these crates. Polly Burton considered it possible to run a community farm +without a farm animal within twenty miles. But <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_91'></a>91</span> then she was not brought up on a small place in +Ireland where we kept the pig in the parlor!” And here Miss +Patricia’s rich Irish brogue betrayed her cheerfulness for she only gave +sway to her Irish pronunciation in moments of excitement.</p> + +<p>The next moment, not only with Vera’s but also with Peggy’s and +Alice Ashton’s aid, the four women dragged forward a large wooden box with +open slats containing a noble collection of fowls, then another of geese and +ducks. Finally with extreme caution they engineered the landing of a crate which +had been the temporary home of a comfortable American hog and her eugenic +family.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious, Aunt Patricia, how did you ever manage to acquire such +valuable possessions?” Mrs. Burton demanded.</p> + +<p>“By ordering them shipped from my own farm in Massachusetts a month or +more before we sailed for France and then by forwarding my address to the proper +persons after we landed here,” Miss Patricia answered calmly. Ignoring any +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span> further assistance, +she began opening a box which was filled with grain.</p> + +<p>“I presume other things have arrived for me as well, Mary +Gilchrist?” Miss Patricia questioned.</p> + +<p>Mary nodded and laughed. She looked very fetching in her motor driver’s +costume of khaki with the short skirt and trousers and the Norfolk jacket belted +in military fashion. On her hair, which had ruddy red brown lights in it, she +wore a small military hat deeply dented in the center.</p> + +<p>“Goodness gracious, Aunt Patricia, dozens of things!” she +replied. “You must have chartered an entire steamer to bring over your +gifts to the French nation. Best of all, there are two beautiful cows waiting +for you in Soissons at this moment. I could not bring them in the motor, nor did +I dare invite them to amble along behind my car. But I have arranged with an old +man in the town to escort the cows out to our place tomorrow, or as soon as +possible.”</p> + +<p>No one did anything but stare at Miss Patricia for the next few seconds.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span>Whether or not +this condition of affairs made her unusually self-conscious, or whatever the +reason, finally she rested from her labor of opening boxes to gaze first at Mrs. +Burton and then slowly from one girl’s face to the other’s.</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean to add to your burdens by asking any one of you to +assist me in running my farm,” she began in a tone which might have been +considered apologetic had it emanated from any one than Aunt Patricia. “I +intend to find an old man to help and to do the rest myself.”</p> + +<p>Then a peculiar expression crossed the rugged old face.</p> + +<p>“You see, I was raised on a tiny farm in Ireland and used sometimes to +know what it meant to be hungry until my brother came over to the United States +and made a fortune in ways I am more or less ashamed to remember. I have been +telling Polly Burton that I crossed over to France because I wished to look +after her and also to help her care for you girls. But that was not the whole +truth. I think I came largely because I could not sleep in my bed of nights +knowing how many old <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span> +people and babies there were in this devil-ridden portion of France who were +hungry. Oh, there are many people as well as the governments interested in +keeping the soldiers well fed! Maybe it’s a crime these days for the old +and for babies to require food! Yet they do need it. So if you don’t mind, +Polly, I want the people in our neighborhood to feel that they can come to our +farm for milk and eggs, or whatever we have to give them. I left word with the +manager of my farm near Boston to ship livestock to me in France whenever the +chance offers. I am hoping after a little, when these old people get back on +their farms that we may be able to give each family sufficient stock to keep +them going until their young men and women return home. But remember, I +don’t wish to interfere with what you children are doing, nursing the sick +and opening schools and starting play centers. Heaven only knows what you are +not undertaking! As I said before, I’ll just look after my +farm.”</p> + +<p>Here Miss Patricia attempted to return to her usual belligerent manner, but +found <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span> it difficult +because Mrs. Burton had placed her arm about her. Try as Aunt Patricia might to +conceal her adoration of Mrs. Burton, it was nearly always an impossible +feat.</p> + +<p>Besides Mrs. Burton was exclaiming with a little catch in her voice:</p> + +<p>“You dear, splendid, old Irish gentlewoman! Is there anybody in the +world in the least like you? Of course you were right when you announced that I +never would think of the really practical things we should require for our work +over here. But, although I spent as much money as I could possibly afford, I +have realized every day since our arrival, that if I had expended every cent I +ever hope to possess, it would have amounted to nothing. Yet I never once +thought of the shipping of stock for the little farms in our neighborhood, Aunt +Patricia. I am sure you will make life more worth while for every man and woman +in this part of the French country before many months.”</p> + +<p>Instead of appearing gratified by these compliments, Miss Patricia was heard +to murmur something or other about Polly <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_96'></a>96</span> Burton’s fashion of exaggeration. Then, perhaps +partly to conceal embarrassment, she began tearing the slats from the side of +one of her crates. Afterwards, driving her travel-worn flock of chickens toward +the chicken house, which she herself had made ready, and shooing them with her +black skirt, Miss Patricia temporarily disappeared.</p> + +<p>Through tears Mrs. Burton laughed at the picture.</p> + +<p>Vera followed Miss Patricia, whom she had learned to like and admire since +the afternoon of their extraordinary introduction.</p> + +<p>“I hope to be allowed to help with the farm work, Aunt Patricia,” +she urged. “You know I too was brought up on Mr. Webster’s farm in +New Hampshire, besides, all my people in Russia were peasant farmers.”</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia did not cease for an instant to continue to care for her brood. +However, she did answer with unusual condescension:</p> + +<p>“You are a sensible girl, Vera. I observed the fact on the afternoon I +met you <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span> in New York +City when you made no effort to argue with me in connection with the escape of +that ridiculous burglar.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span><a id='link_7'></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><span class='h2fs'>BECOMING ADJUSTED</span></h2> + +<p>It was not a simple matter for the Sunrise Camp Fire unit to become +accustomed to their new life in the devastated French country. The conditions +were primitive and difficult. More than once in the first few weeks Mrs. Burton +wondered if in bringing the Camp Fire girls with her to work in France hers had +not been the courage of folly?</p> + +<p>Tet they started out with excellent military discipline. Life at the farm +house was modeled upon the precepts of the “Waacs,” the +Womans’ Army Auxiliary Corps of the British army in France. These girls, +many thousands in number, are performing every possible service behind the +British armies in the field.</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly it was Sally Ashton who first demanded that a proper routine of +life and work be laid down and obeyed. Also the household work must be equitably +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span> divided, each girl +choosing her portion according to her tastes and talents.</p> + +<p>Each day’s calendar, written by Mrs. Burton upon her typewriter, was +hung in a conspicuous place in the front hall at the French farm.</p> + +<p>The domestic schedule read:</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“Breakfast 8 o’clock, bedrooms cleaned immediately after.<br /> +Dinner 1 P. M.<br /> Supper 6.30 P. M.<br /> No work after 8.30 P. +M.<br /> Bedtime 10 o’clock.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>In the proper observance of the hours for meals Sally Ashton was particularly +interested, as she had volunteered to undertake the direction of the +housekeeping, which consisted of deciding upon the menu of the simple meals and +assisting in their preparation. It was not possible that Sally alone should do +all the cooking for so large a family without wearing herself out and leaving no +time for other things.</p> + +<p>However, soon after their arrival Mrs. Burton had secured the services of an +old French woman whom she had discovered wandering about the country homeless, +her little hut having been entirely destroyed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_100'></a>100</span> by the Germans. Not knowing what else to do, Mrs. +Burton originally invited her to live with them at the farm temporarily. But she +had proved such a help in getting settled and the girls had become so fond of +her that no one of them willingly would have allowed Mère Antoinette to +depart.</p> + +<p>After the wonderful fashion of French cooks, Mère Antoinette could make +nourishing and savory dishes out of almost nothing, so she and Sally had +principal charge of the kitchen. Notwithstanding, two of the Camp Fire Girls +were to prepare supper each evening, so that they should not forget their +accomplishments and in order to relieve the others.</p> + +<p>Marie, Mrs. Burton’s maid, had accompanied her to France, although none +too willingly. It was not that she did not adore her afflicted country, but +because she feared the dangers of the crossing and the hardships she might be +forced to endure.</p> + +<p>Marie, alas! was a patriot of a kind each country produces, a patriot of the +lips, not of the heart or hand.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that she had wandered <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_101'></a>101</span> far from her chosen work as maid to a celebrated +American actress. Would any one have dreamed in those early days when Marie had +first entered her service that Mrs. Burton would have followed so eccentric a +career as she had wilfully chosen in the past few years? First to wander about +the United States, living outdoors in Camp Fire fashion with a group of young +girls, then with the same group of girls and two additional ones to undertake +the present reclamation work in France!</p> + +<p>Having accomplished the journey across the sea in safety, Marie would +cheerfully, yes, enthusiastically have remained in Paris, even if it were a +Paris unlike the gay city she remembered. She would have enjoyed accompanying +her “Madame” to the homes of distinguished persons, caring in the +meantime for her wardrobe and urging her to return to her rightful place upon +the stage. But since Mrs. Burton for the present would do none of these things +and since Marie had refused positively to be separated, once more she had to +make the best of a bad bargain.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span>So voluntarily +Marie offered to take charge of the greater part of the housework and to devote +the rest of her time to sewing for the French children in their vicinity, whose +clothes were nothing but an odd assortment of rags.</p> + +<p>Marie had her consolations. It was good to be out of a country which produced +men of the type of Mr. Jefferson Simpson, who having <i>once</i> proposed +marriage and been declined, had not the courtesy to renew his suit. Also it was +good to speak one’s own tongue again, and although at present there were +but few men to be seen in the neighborhood under sixty, there were military +hospitals in the nearby villages. Moreover, there was always the prospect of the +return of some gallant French <i>poilu</i> for his holiday from the trenches. So +Marie was unable to feel entirely wretched even while undergoing the hardships +of an existence within a half-demolished farm house on the Aisne.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the old farm house was not in so unfortunate a condition +as the larger number of French homes, which <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_103'></a>103</span> had been wrecked by the enemy before he began his +“strategic retreat.”</p> + +<p>Only a portion of the left wing of the house had been demolished.</p> + +<p>This had comprised a large kitchen, a pantry and the dining room. However, a +sufficiently large amount of space remained for the uses of the Camp Fire +unit.</p> + +<p>In the center the house was divided by a long hall. On one side were two +comfortably large rooms. The back one was chosen for the dining room and the +front for the living room. The pantry was restored so that it could serve for +the kitchen; as the old stove had been destroyed, a new one was ordered from +Paris. This developed into a piece of good fortune, as it required far less fuel +than the old, and fuel was one of the greatest material problems in France, coal +selling at this time for $120 a ton.</p> + +<p>A single long room occupied the other side of the hall; this room had a high +old-fashioned ceiling and was paneled in old French oak as beautiful as if it +had adorned a French palace.</p> + +<p>Mère Antoinette explained that the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_104'></a>104</span> farm house had been the property of Madame de +Mauprais, a wealthy French woman who had lived in the château not far away. It +had been occupied by her son, who had chosen to experiment in scientific farming +for the benefit of the small peasant farmers in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>The war had banished Monsieur de Mauprais and whatever family he may have +possessed, so that Mrs. Burton had been able to rent his farm for a small sum +through an agent who lived in the nearest village.</p> + +<p>It is possible that the farm house had been spared in a measure by the German +soldiers because of their greater pleasure in the destruction of the old château +which was only about half a mile away. At the present time the château appeared +only as a mass of fallen stone.</p> + +<p>This single spacious room the Camp Fire girls chose for their school room for +the French children in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>The better furniture of the farmhouse had been hacked into bits of wood by +the German soldiers and was fit only for burning. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span> The simple things had not been so +destroyed. Fortunately their camping life out of doors had accustomed this +particular group of American girls to exercising ingenuity, so that the problem +of furnishing and making attractive their school room with so little to go upon +rather added to their interest.</p> + +<p>Two long planks raised upon clothes-horses discovered in the barn formed a +serviceable table. Stools and odd chairs were brought down from the attic. On +the floor were two Indian rugs Mrs. Burton had induced the Indian woman near the +Painted Desert in Arizona to weave for her with the special Camp Fire design, +the wood-gatherer’s, the fire-maker’s and the torch-bearer’s +insignia, inserted in the chosen shades of brown, flame color, yellow and +white.</p> + +<p>On the walls hung a few Camp Fire panels and the coverings of sofa cushions +and some outdoor photographs of the Sunrise Camp during former camping +experiences which the girls had brought over with them.</p> + +<p>Besides these larger articles, they had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_106'></a>106</span> managed to store away in their trunks the materials +necessary for the regulation Camp Fire work, honor beads and the jewelry +indicating the various orders in the Camp Fire. If they were to interest French +girls in the movement, they must have the required paraphernalia.</p> + +<p>But the school at the farm house was not primarily a place where the French +girls of the neighborhood were only to be interested in Camp Fire ideas. It was +also a practical school.</p> + +<p>During the past year Marta Clark had been studying kindergarten.</p> + +<p>She, with Yvonne to help her, had charge of the tiny French children whom +they were able to persuade to come daily to the big farm house. They were such +starved, pathetic children, some of them almost babies! Yet they had been +through so much suffering, their eyes had looked upon such hideous sights, that +many of them were either nervous wrecks or else stupefied.</p> + +<p>Surely there could be no better service to France than this effort to bring +back to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span> her +children a measure of their natural happiness!</p> + +<p>Yvonne and Marta devised wonderful games in one end of the big school room. +At midday Vera and Peggy always appeared with a special luncheon for their small +guests and for the older ones as well. Bettina Graham and Alice Ashton took +charge of the older pupils, and in teaching it appeared that Alice at last had +found her metier.</p> + +<p>Vera and Peggy also worked at the farming out of doors.</p> + +<p>More important than any other of Miss Patricia Lord’s gifts to the +community farm and the surrounding country was a motor tractor, which one day +had rolled unconcernedly into the farm house yard, an ugly giant, proving of as +much future value to the poor farmers in the neighborhood as any good giant of +the ancient fairy tales.</p> + +<p>Fortunately Mary Gilchrist was able to explain its use to the French peasants +who had never seen the like before, and to show them how speedily their +devastated <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span> land +might again be turned into plowed fields.</p> + +<p>Vera and Peggy made frequent trips to the nearby villages, gaining the +friendship of the country people, inviting the younger ones to their farm and +helping in whatever ways they could. Now and then Sally Ashton went with them +and sometimes Sally played with the smallest of the children, but nearly always +her interests were domestic.</p> + +<p>In contrast, Mary Gilchrist never remained in the house an hour if it were +possible to be away. Besides engineering the tractor and being a general express +delivery for the entire neighborhood, she had formed the habit of motoring into +Soissons, which was one of the large towns nearby, and offering her services and +the use of her car to the hospitals. Occasionally she spent days at a time +driving invalided soldiers either from one hospital to another, or else in +taking them out on drives for the fresh air and entertainment.</p> + +<p>It would therefore appear as if each member of the Sunrise Camp Fire unit had +arranged her life with the idea of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_109'></a>109</span> being useful in the highest degree, except the Camp +Fire guardian.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Mrs. Burton often used to say that she found no especial +reason for her presence at the farm now that Aunt Patricia had become the really +important and authoritative guardian. Nevertheless, with that rare quality of +personality which as a girl Polly O’Neill had infused into every interest of her +life, there was nothing which took place at the farm or in the neighboring +country which she did not in a measure inspire.</p> + +<p>Once their household had been adjusted, it was true Mrs. Burton did not do a +great deal of the actual work. Instead, and oftentimes alone, she wandered from +one end of the French countryside to the other, occasionally returning so late +to the farm that Aunt Patricia would be found waiting for her at the front door +in a state of fear and indignation.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the country people began to watch and wait for her coming.</p> + +<p>After a time she brought newspapers with her. Then they began to gather +together in one of the larger huts to listen <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_110'></a>110</span> while she read aloud the war news, with not always +a perfectly correct French accent, and yet one they could understand.</p> + +<p>When they were weary of the reading she used to talk, speaking always of the +day when France would be free and the invader driven beyond her boundaries, +never to return. And among her audience were a few of the old peasants who could +recall the Franco-Prussian war.</p> + +<p>How amazingly these talks cheered the old men and women! Actually the daily +round of toil once more became worth while, so near seemed the return of Victor +and Hugo and Etienne. They would be happy to find the little homes restored and +the fields green that had been drenched in blood.</p> + +<p>Occasionally Mrs. Burton made her audience laugh until the tears ran down +their wrinkled faces with funny stories of the trenches, of their own +<i>poilus</i>, and the British Tommies and the new American Sammees.</p> + +<p>Never had the great actress used her talent to a better purpose.</p> + +<p>At least it gained for her from these <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_111'></a>111</span> simple and almost heart broken peasants the eternal +tribute of laughter and tears.</p> + +<p>Her greatest triumph was when Grand’mère, one of the oldest women in +the little village of M–, was at last persuaded to pour forth her +story.</p> + +<p>In more than three years she had not spoken except to answer +“Yes” or “No,” or now and then to make known her simple +needs, not since the Germans carried off her granddaughter, Elsie. Elsie was the +acknowledged beauty and belle of the countryside and engaged to marry Captain +François Dupis, who was fighting with his regiment at Verdun.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton had gotten into the habit of stopping at Grand’mère’s +tiny hut, which her neighbors had restored. At first she brought the old woman +little gifts of food in which she seemed not to take the least interest. Now and +then she talked to her, although the old woman seldom replied except to nod her +head with grave courtesy.</p> + +<p>Then one day without any warning as Mrs. Burton was standing near, +Grand’mère drew her new friend down into her <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span> lap and poured out her heart-broken +story. It left the younger woman ill and shaken.</p> + +<p>Afterwards returning late to the farm alone and entirely unafraid, so +completely had the country people become her friend, Mrs. Burton wondered what +had given the French nation its present faith and courage. Nothing approaching +it has the world ever before witnessed! Then she recalled that having paid so +dearly for their freedom in those mad days of the revolution, the French people +would never again relinquish the supreme gift of human liberty.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span><a id='link_8'></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE OLD CHÂTEAU</span></h2> + +<p>One afternoon the French farm house was deserted except for Sally Ashton, +Mère ’Toinette and Miss Patricia.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Miss Patricia was not in the house, but in the farm yard +which was separated from the house by a newly planted kitchen garden. It was +here that she spent the greater part of her time working far more diligently +than if she had been engaged for a few dollars a week. Yet in Massachusetts Miss +Patricia Lord’s three-hundred-acre farm was one of the prides of the +state. In ordinary times she was accustomed to employing from twenty-five to +fifty men, although always Miss Patricia acted as her own overseer.</p> + +<p>As she had announced, for the present she had managed to secure the services +of an old French peasant, nearer seventy <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_114'></a>114</span> years of age than sixty, to act as her assistant. +But Jean was possessed of a determination of character only equaled by Miss +Patricia’s. Not a word of any language did he know except French, while +Miss Patricia’s French was one of the mysteries past finding out. Also +Jean was nearly stone deaf. This misfortune really served as an advantage in his +relation with Miss Patricia, as he never did anything at the time or in the way +she ordered him to do it, there was consolation in the thought that he had not +understood the order. Jean had his own ideas with regard to farming matters and +an experience which had lasted through more than half a century.</p> + +<p>Therefore with the assistance of Peggy and Vera the outdoor work on the +Sunrise Camp Fire farm was progressing with surprising success. The supply of +livestock had been increased by a second shipment from the United States. This +shipment Miss Patricia had divided with her French neighbors.</p> + +<p>Beside old Jean there was at this time another rebel in Miss Patricia’s +camp, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span> Sally +Ashton. The other girls were frequently annoyed by the old lady, nevertheless, +appreciating her gallant qualities and for the sake of their Camp Fire guardian, +they usually agreed to her demands when it was impossible to evade them. But +Sally was not fond of doing <i>anything</i> she was told to do. Not that Sally +was disagreeable, and it was not in her nature to argue, she simply ignored +either suggestions or commands, always pursuing her own sweet way.</p> + +<p>This afternoon, for example, several of the girls had invited her to walk +with them to one of the French villages. Once a week they distributed loaves of +bread and a few grocery supplies to the neediest of the peasants, those who had +been unable to rebuild their huts or find regular occupation. Sally had declined +with entire frankness. She had done her duty by making the bread for the others +to give away and more successfully than any one of the girls could have made it. +She disliked long, fatiguing walks.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton had gone off alone on one of her dramatic pilgrimages.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span>Mary Gilchrist +had again motored into Soissons and Sally would have enjoyed accompanying her. +To have driven about through the French country with convalescent soldiers would +have been extremely entertaining. But Mary had not asked her, preferring to take +Yvonne, whom the American girls all appeared to adore.</p> + +<p>So in consequence Sally was vexed and a little jealous.</p> + +<p>Observing the others depart and that apparently Sally had nothing of +importance to occupy her, Miss Patricia had ordered her to come out into the +yard and help with the young chickens. They seemed to be afflicted with some +uncomfortable moulting disease.</p> + +<p>To this invitation Sally had made no reply. She especially disliked foolish, +feathery outdoor things and had no intention of sacrificing her well-earned +leisure. The school had a semi-weekly half holiday and for once the house was +quiet.</p> + +<p>Yet after a little more than an hour of leisure, Sally found herself bored. +Many times of late she had missed her old friendship with Gerry Williams, since +this was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span> her first +Camp Fire experience without Gerry, who had married Felipe Morris the summer +before in California.</p> + +<p>At least Gerry occasionally had been frivolous! Certainly these were war +times and yet could one be serious forever and ever, without an intermission? +The other Camp Fire girls now and then got upon Sally’s nerves.</p> + +<p>As she was seldom warm enough these days, covered with her steamer blanket +Sally had been curled up on the bed in her room which she shared with her +sister. First she had taken a short nap and then attempted to read a French +novel which she had discovered in the attic of the farm. The French puzzled her +and it was tiresome to have to consult a dictionary. So Sally lay still for a +few moments listening to Mère ’Toinette singing the Marseillaise in a cracked +old voice as she went about her work downstairs.</p> + +<p>Finally, stretching in a characteristically indolent fashion, Sally rose and +walked over to a window. She could only see through one small opening. All the +glass in the countryside had been smashed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_118'></a>118</span> by the terrific bombardments, and as there was no +glass to be had for restoring the windows, glazed paper had been pasted over the +frames. The one small aperture had been left for observation of climate and +scenery.</p> + +<p>Even without her birdseye view, Sally was conscious that the sun was shining +brilliantly. A long streak had shone through the glazed paper and lay across her +bed.</p> + +<p>She decided that she might enjoy a short walk. She really had forgotten Mrs. +Burton’s suggestion that no one of the girls leave the farm alone and had +no thought of deliberately breaking an unwritten law.</p> + +<p>Mère ’Toinette and Sally had become devoted friends and also there was an +unspoken bond of sympathy between her and Jean, expressed only by the way in +which the old man looked at her and in certain dry chucklings in his throat and +shakings of his head.</p> + +<p>As Sally was about to leave the front door suddenly Mère ’Toinette appeared, +to present her with a little package of freshly baked fruit muffins. +Sally’s appetite in <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_119'></a>119</span> war times, when everybody was compelled to live +upon such short rations, was a standing household joke and one which she deeply +resented. Mère ’Toinette resented the point of view equally, preferring Sally to +any one of the other girls, and also it was her idea that the good things of +this world are created only for the young. There was no measure to her own +self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>A few yards beyond the house Sally discovered old Jean, who was doubtless +coming to find her, as he bore in his hand a French fleur-de-lis, the national +wild flower, which he had found growing in a field as hardy and unconquerable as +the French spirit.</p> + +<p>Sally accepted his offering with the smile of gratitude which seemed always a +sufficient reward for her many masculine admirers.</p> + +<p>With Mère ’Toinette’s gift in her Camp Fire knapsack and with +Jean’s flower thrust into her belt, Sally then made a fresh start. She had +not thought of going far, as the roads and fields were in too disagreeable a +condition.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span>Pausing about an +eighth of a mile from the farm house, she considered whether after all it were +worth while to remain out of doors. Even if the afternoon were enchanting, +walking through the heavy upturned soil was unpleasant.</p> + +<p>Then by accident Sally chanced to observe the ruins of the old French château +shining under the rays of the winter sun.</p> + +<p>It was not far away and suddenly she made up her mind to go upon an exploring +tour. Half a dozen times in the past few weeks the Camp Fire girls had discussed +paying a visit to the château to see what interesting discoveries they might +unearth among the ruins. But no one of them had so far had the opportunity.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily Sally Ashton was the least experimental of the entire group of +girls. Instinctively, as a type of the feminine, home-staying woman, she +disliked the many adventurous members of her own sisterhood. With not a great +deal of imagination, Sally’s views of romance were practical and matter of +fact. Young men fell in love with one and she had no idea of how many lovers one +might have <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span> and no +thought of limiting the number so far as she was personally concerned. Then +among the number one selected the man who would make the most comfortable and +agreeable husband, married him, had children and was happy ever afterwards. So +you see, a romance which might bring sorrow as well as happiness had no place in +Sally Ashton’s practical scheme of life.</p> + +<p>Therefore the fates must have driven her to the old French château on this +winter afternoon.</p> + +<p>The walk itself occupied about half an hour. Around the château in times past +there had been a moat. For their own convenience the German troops quartered at +the old place had left the bridge over the moat undisturbed, else Sally would +never have hazarded a dangerous crossing.</p> + +<p>The house had been built of gray stone and it was difficult to imagine how +the enemy had managed so completely to reduce it to ruins. An explosion of +dynamite must have been employed, for the château appeared to have fallen as if +it had been destroyed by an earthquake. Certain portions of the outer walls +remained standing, but the towers in the center had caved in upon the interior +of the house.</p> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a id='link_i3'></a><img src='images/i122.jpg' alt='' /> +<p class='center caption'> +<span class='sc'>The Figure Was that of a Young Soldier.</span> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span>As Sally drew +near she felt a little desolate and yet she was not frightened, although a +proverbial coward.</p> + +<p>The place appeared too abandoned to fear that any living thing could be in +its vicinity. It was only that one felt the pity of the destruction of this +ancient and beautiful home.</p> + +<p>The waste and confusion of war troubled Sally as it does all women. So hard +it is to see why destruction is necessary to the growth and development of human +history!</p> + +<p>Wondering what had become of the French family who formerly had lived in the +château before the outbreak of the war, Sally walked up closer to the ruins. +From a space between two walls, forming an insecure arch, a bird darted out into +the daylight. Not ordinarily influenced by the beauties of nature or by +unexpected expressions of her moods, nevertheless Sally uttered a cry of +enchantment.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span>Between the +walls she had spied the ruins of an old French drawing room. The bird must have +flown through the opening into the room and then quickly out again into the +sunshine.</p> + +<p>A little table remained standing with an open book upon it, laid face down. +There was a rug on the floor, now thick with mould, and yet it was a rare +Aubusson rug with sturdy cupids trailing flowery vines across its surface. There +were pieces of broken furniture and bric-a-brac strewn over the floor.</p> + +<p>Sally must have continued staring inside the room for several moments before +she slowly became aware that there was a human figure seated in a chair in the +shadow near one of the half fallen walls.</p> + +<p>The figure was that of a young soldier. He was asleep when Sally discovered +him and incredibly dirty. His hair was long and matted, hanging thick over his +forehead. One arm was wrapped in a soiled bandage.</p> + +<p>Yet Sally did not feel frightened, only faint and ill for an instant from +pity.</p> + +<p>Coming to their farm house after a few <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_125'></a>125</span> days in Paris, Sally had seen trains filled with +wounded soldiers. In Paris she also had noticed blinded and invalided men being +led along the streets by their families or friends, yet never so piteous a +figure as this.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span><a id='link_9'></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><span class='h2fs'>A MYSTERY</span></h2> + +<p>Sally’s little cry of astonishment must have awakened the soldier.</p> + +<p>The terror on his face when he first beheld her took away any thought of fear +from the girl. Besides it was all too strange! Why should he, a soldier, be +afraid, and of her? And why should he be in hiding in this queer tumble-down old +place? For he <i>was</i> in hiding, there was no doubt of this from his furtive +manner.</p> + +<p>Some instinct in Sally, or perhaps the fact that she had seen so much hunger +since her arrival in this portion of France, made her immediately take out her +little package of bread which Mère ’Toinette had given her and thrust it +forward.</p> + +<p>She was standing framed in the arch made by the two fallen walls, not having +moved since the moment of her amazing discovery.</p> + +<p>The soldier’s hunger was greater than <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_127'></a>127</span> his fear, for he almost snatched the food from +Sally’s hands and, as he ate it she could not bear watching him. There is +something dreadful in the sight of a human being ravenously hungry.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, when he did not speak, Sally found herself making the first +remarks, and unconsciously and stupidly, not realizing what she was doing at the +moment, she spoke in English.</p> + +<p>The next instant, to her surprise, the soldier replied in the same tongue, +although it seemed to Sally that he spoke with a foreign accent, what the accent +was she did not know. Sally had not a great deal of experience, neither was she +particularly clever.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing here?” is what she naturally inquired.</p> + +<p>The soldier hesitated and placed his hand to his forehead, looking at the +girl dazedly.</p> + +<p>“Why am I hiding here?” he repeated. Then almost childishly he +went on: “I am hiding, hiding because no one must find me, else I would be +shot at once. I <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span> +don’t know how long I have been here alone. I am very cold.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t understand your reason,” Sally argued. +“Why don’t you find some one to take care of you? You cannot be +living here; besides you could not have been here long without food or water or +you would have died.”</p> + +<p>“But I have had a little food and water,” the soldier replied. +“I found a few cans of food in a closet and there is water in one of the +rooms.”</p> + +<p>His voice had a complaining note which was an expression of suffering if one +had understood. Then his face was feverish and wretched.</p> + +<p>“But you don’t look as if you had used much water,” Sally +remarked in her usual matter-of-fact fashion. She had a way of pursuing her own +first idea without being influenced by other considerations.</p> + +<p>“It is hard work when one’s arm is like this,” the soldier +returned fretfully.</p> + +<p>Again Sally surveyed the soiled bandage with disfavor. Apparently it had not +been changed in many days, since it was encrusted with dirt and blood and <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span> having slipped had been +pulled awkwardly back into place.</p> + +<p>Temprementally, Sally Ashton hated the sight of blood and suffering. In the +years of the Camp Fire training she had been obliged to study first aid, but she +had left the practical application to the other girls. Her own tastes were +domestic and she therefore had devoted her time to domestic affairs.</p> + +<p>Now something must be done for the soldier whose presence in the old château +and whose behavior were equally puzzling, and as there was no one else, Sally +had no idea of shirking the immediate task. In her Camp Fire kit she always +carried first aid supplies.</p> + +<p>“If you will go to the room where you found the water and wash your arm +as thoroughly as you can I will put on a fresh bandage for you,” she +offered. “Don’t argue and don’t be long, for something simply +has to be done for you, you are in such a dreadful condition.”</p> + +<p>Even in the midst of feeling a little like Florence Nightingale, Sally +preserved a due amount of caution. She had no idea <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span> of wandering about a tumble-down +château with a strange soldier. In reality she was not so much afraid of him as +of the house itself. She had the impression that the walls were ready to topple +down and bury her.</p> + +<p>When the soldier did not move, Sally beckoned him imperiously toward the open +arch where she had remained standing just outside the walls.</p> + +<p>“You are to come here, while I take off the old bandage. No one will +see you and I am afraid to enter so dangerous a place.”</p> + +<p>The man obeyed, and Sally cut away the soiled linen, trying not to get too +distinct an impression of the wound underneath. Yet what she saw alarmed her +sufficiently, for she knew enough to realize that the wound required more +scientific treatment than she felt able to give. “Now go and wash your +arm,” she directed, and without a word he went off.</p> + +<p>During the ten minutes her self-imposed patient remained away, Sally +seriously considered his puzzling situation and determined upon the advice she +would offer.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span>In the first +place, so far he had given her no explanation for his conduct.</p> + +<p>Why was he in concealment? The possibility that the soldier might have +committed a wrong which made it incumbent that he hide from justice did not +occur to Sally. She simply determined that they would discuss the subject to +some satisfactory end on his return.</p> + +<p>The young man did look much better, having made an effort to cleanse his face +as well as his wound, but as Sally took hold of his hand before beginning her +task, she was startled to discover that he was suffering from a fever through +neglect of his injury. This made her the more determined. Although appreciating +her own inefficiency and disliking the work, there was nothing to be done at +present but to go ahead with her own simple first-aid treatment. She had a +bottle of antiseptic and clean surgical gauze.</p> + +<p>As she wound the bandage, wishing she had taken the trouble to learn the art +more skilfully, Sally announced:</p> + +<p>“You must see a physician about your arm as soon as possible. You never +have <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span> explained to +me why you are hiding here. But in any case you cannot remain when you are ill +and hungry and cold and require a great deal of attention. You must go into one +of the villages to a hospital. While you were away I have been thinking what to +do. You look to me too ill to walk very far and, as I am living not more than +half a mile away, I will go back to our farm and tell my friends about you. +Later I think I can arrange to come back for you in a motor and then we will +drive you to one of the hospitals. I don’t know as much about the French +hospitals as my friends do, but of course everybody is anxious to do whatever is +possible for the Allied soldiers.”</p> + +<p>Sally placed a certain amount of stress on the expression “Allied +soldiers,” but never for an instant believing in the possibility that her +patient could belong to an enemy nationality.</p> + +<p>“If you tell anyone you have discovered me here in hiding, it will be +the last of me,” the soldier declared.</p> + +<p>By this time Sally was beginning to be troubled. Why did the young man look +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span> and speak so +strangely? He seemed confused and worried and either unable to explain his +actions, or else unwilling. Yet somehow one had the impression that he was a +gentleman and there need be no fear of any lack of personal courtesy.</p> + +<p>It was possible from his appearance to believe that he might be suffering +from a mental breakdown. Sally recalled that many of the soldiers were affected +in this way from shell shock or the long strain of battle.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I must tell you something. In any case, I have to trust my +fate in your hands and I know there is not one person in a thousand who would +spare me. I was a prisoner and escaped from my captors. I don’t know how I +discovered this old house. I don’t know how long I have been wandering +about the country before I came here, only that I hid myself in the daytime and +stumbled around seeking a place of refuge at night. If you report me I suppose I +will not be allowed even a soldier’s death. I shall probably be +hung.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly the soldier laughed, such an <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_134'></a>134</span> unhappy, curious laugh that Sally had but one +desire and that was to escape from the château and her strange companion at once +and forever. Yet in spite of his vague and uncertain expression, the +soldier’s eyes were dark and fine and his features well cut. He was merely +thin and haggard and dirty from his recent experiences.</p> + +<p>From his uniform it was impossible to guess anything; at least, it was +impossible for Sally, who had but scant information with regard to military +accoutrements.</p> + +<p>But even in the face of his confession she was not considering the +soldier’s nationality. He looked so miserable and ill, so like a sick boy, +that the maternal spirit which was really strongly rooted in Sally +Ashton’s nature awakened. He could scarcely stand as he talked to her.</p> + +<p>“Please sit down. I don’t know what you are to do,” she +remonstrated. “I don’t know <i>why</i> you ran away or from whom, +but no fate could be much worse than starving to death here in this old place +alone. Yet certainly I don’t want to give you up to–to +anybody,” she concluded <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_135'></a>135</span> lamely, as a matter of fact not knowing to whom one +should report a runaway soldier.</p> + +<p>This was a different Sally Ashton from the girl her family and friends +ordinarily knew. The evanescent dimple had disappeared entirely and also the +indolent expression in her golden brown eyes. She was frowning and her lips were +closed in a firmer line.</p> + +<p>At her suggestion the soldier had returned to the chair which he had been +occupying at the moment of her intrusion. But Sally saw that although he was +seated he was swaying a little and that again he had put up his uninjured arm to +his head.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I can get away from here, if you will help me. I have escaped +being caught so far. I only ask you to bring me a little food. Tomorrow I shall +be stronger.”</p> + +<p>Unconsciously Sally sighed. What fate had ever driven her forth into this +undesired adventure?</p> + +<p>She did not like to aid a runaway prisoner, nor did she wish him to meet the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span> disagreeable end +he had suggested through any act of hers.</p> + +<p>Any other one of the Camp Fire girls, Sally believed, would have given the +soldier a lecture on the high ideals of patriotism, or of meeting with proper +fortitude whatever fate might overtake him. At least he would have been required +to divulge his nationality, and if he were an enemy, of course there could be no +hesitation in delivering him to justice.</p> + +<p>However, Sally only found herself answering:</p> + +<p>“Yes, I suppose I can manage to bring you something to eat once more. +But I cannot say when I can get here without anyone’s knowing, so you must +stay where you can hear when I call. Afterwards you must promise me to go away. +I don’t know what I ought to do about you.”</p> + +<p>Sally had gone a few yards from the château when she glanced back an instant +toward the old stone ruins. The atmosphere of the afternoon had changed, the sun +was no longer shining and the château lay deep in shadow.</p> + +<p>A cold wind was blowing across the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_137'></a>137</span> desolate fields. Sally was not ordinarily +impressionable, yet at this moment she felt a curious sense of foreboding.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span><a id='link_10'></a>CHAPTER X<br /><span class='h2fs'>BREAKERS AHEAD</span></h2> + +<p>A little tired and also because her attention was occupied with her recent +experience, Sally did not choose her way over the rough countryside so carefully +and therefore managed to take a much longer time for her return to the farm.</p> + +<p>Now that the sun had disappeared, the countryside seemed to have grown +depressingly desolate. In the gray afternoon light the blackened tree trunks +which had been partly burned were stark and ugly.</p> + +<p>Under ordinary circumstances Sally was particularly susceptible to physical +discomfort, yet this afternoon she was too concerned over her problem to be more +than vaguely disturbed by her surroundings.</p> + +<p>One thought continually assailed her. Would it be possible to appear among +the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span> other girls +looking and behaving as if nothing unusual had occurred? For Sally had an honest +and profound conviction that she had no talent for deception. How could she +realize that she belonged to the type of women with whom dissimulation is a fine +art once the exigencies of a situation required it? She had come to one definite +conclusion, she would not betray the presence of the runaway soldier in the +château for at least another twenty-four hours. She would take him food the next +day and he might have the opportunity to attempt an escape. In all probability +he would soon be captured and punished, and this was doubtless the fate he +deserved; nevertheless Sally was glad that, in a cowardly fashion, she would not +be directly responsible.</p> + +<p>She looked forward to the evening and the next day with no joy, bitterly +regretting that she had not spent her leisure hours in resting and reading as +she had at first intended. Surely repose and a contented spirit were more to be +desired than unexpected adventures!</p> + +<p>Weary and dispirited, Sally finally arrived <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_140'></a>140</span> at home, only to be met in the front hall by Miss +Patricia, who at once showed signs of an approaching storm.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, she was excessively annoyed over a piece of information +she had just received, so it was unfortunate that Sally should return at a +moment when she must bear the brunt of it.</p> + +<p>Moving a little listlessly up the broad uncarpeted stairs toward the bedroom +she shared with her sister, the girl scarcely noticed the older woman’s +presence. She was hoping that Alice had not yet returned and that she might have +a few moments to herself.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia opened the attack with her usual vigor.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Sally, by going off this afternoon, knowing that I +particularly needed your help? You must understand that it is highly improper +for a young girl to tramp about over this French country alone. Even if Polly +Burton has permitted you Camp Fire girls the most extraordinary amount of +freedom, she surely has realized this and warned you against such indiscretion. +There is <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span> no way of +guessing into what difficulty you may have already managed to entangle +yourself!”</p> + +<p>Sally felt herself flushing until her clear skin was suffused with glowing +color.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry, Miss Patricia,” she said, “but remember that I +am not a child and cannot have you speak to me as if I were a disobedient one. I +have been for a walk and―”</p> + +<p>But fortunately Sally was not required to complete her sentence. Suddenly +Mrs. Burton had appeared out of her bedroom and began to hurry downstairs.</p> + +<p>“Sally!” she called with a suggestion of appeal in her voice. +“The excitement over your disappearance is my fault, so please don’t +you and Aunt Patricia quarrel. A little while ago when I returned home and Mère +’Toinette told me that you had gone out alone and she did not know in what +direction, why, I became uneasy. You will not again, will you? Really I am +afraid it is not safe for you children, although with me of course the case is +different. Aunt Patricia is not disposed to think so, forgetting my advanced +age. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span> Still, Sally, +no matter how enthusiastic we may feel over our work here in the shell-torn area +of France, we must remember these are war times when one never knows what may +happen next. Besides, the French do not always understand our American ideas of +liberty for young girls.”</p> + +<p>By this time having reached the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Burton slipped her +hand inside Sally’s, glancing back with a slightly amused and slightly +apologetic expression toward Miss Patricia.</p> + +<p>“Really, Aunt Patricia, I do regret your being so annoyed, yet you must +not take my news too seriously. Our guests are sure not to remain with us +long.”</p> + +<p>To the latter part of her Camp Fire guardian’s remark Sally Ashton paid +not the slightest heed, so concerned was she with the first part of her +speech.</p> + +<p>Why of all times should this question of her personal liberty come up for +discussion <i>this</i> afternoon? Of her own free choice Sally felt convinced +that she would never willingly go out alone. Nevertheless, how was she to keep +her word to the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span> +young soldier unless she returned next day to the château? with the food she had +promised him and without confiding the fact to any one else? Oh, why had she +allowed herself to be drawn into this reckless promise? At this moment if she +could only slip into her Camp Fire guardian’s room and ask her advice! +Miss Patricia would insist that if the soldier were a deserter he straightway +should be brought to justice. But Sally understood her Camp Fire guardian well +enough to appreciate that, once hearing the soldier in hiding was ill and +wounded, she would be as reluctant as Sally herself to follow her manifest +duty.</p> + +<p>Confidence on this particular subject was for the present out of the +question, and as soon as she conveniently could Sally disappeared inside her own +room. Later, when the other girls had returned, weary from their long errand of +mercy in the next village and yet immensely interested in their experience, +Sally pretended to have a slight headache.</p> + +<p>During supper she scarcely listened to the ever steady stream of conversation +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span> which flowed +unceasingly each evening. In the daytime the American newcomers to the old +French farm on the Aisne were too much engaged to allow opportunity for +conversation. After supper they gathered in their improvised sitting-room to +talk until their early bedtime.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room was oddly furnished with whatever furniture could be rescued +after the commandeering of the more valuable possessions by the Germans.</p> + +<p>In the attic a few broken chairs stored away for years had been brought down +and repaired. These were beautiful pieces of furniture in conspicuous contrast +to the couches and stools which originally had arrived at the farm as large +wooden boxes containing provisions.</p> + +<p>With old Jean’s assistance, Peggy and Vera had developed unexpected +talents as carpenters.</p> + +<p>Moreover, whatever her faults, Miss Patricia Lord was an unfailing source of +supply. During her brief stay in Paris, without mentioning the fact to any one +else, she had purchased thirty yards of old blue and rose cretonne, perhaps with +the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span> knowledge that +beauty even of the simplest kind helps one to happiness and accomplishment.</p> + +<p>Therefore the two couches in the sitting-room were covered with the cretonne, +and half a dozen box chairs; and there were cretonne valances at the +windows.</p> + +<p>Save a single old lamp which had been left in the sitting-room, it had no +other ornaments.</p> + +<p>The lamp was of bronze and bore the figure of a genie holding the stand, so +that obviously it had been christened “Aladdin’s lamp.” It was +supposed to gratify whatever wish one expressed, but the Camp Fire girls were +too busy with the interests of other people at present to spend much time in +considering their personal desires.</p> + +<p>There was one other object of interest in the room, a large photograph of the +ruined Rheims Cathedral, which Mrs. Burton had bought in the neighborhood of +Rheims not long before. The classic French city was not many miles from the +present home of the group of American girls.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span>As beautiful +almost in destruction as it had been in its former glory, the photograph stood +as a symbol of the imperishable beauty of French art. Also it represented +another symbol. Here on the white wooden mantel of the French farm house +“on the field of honor” it called to the American people to continue +their work for the relief and the restoration of France.</p> + +<p>Tonight as she lay resting upon one of the couches, dressed in a simple +dinner dress of some soft violet material, Mrs. Burton had glanced several times +toward the photograph.</p> + +<p>As a tribute to her headache and a general disinclination to associate with +her companions, Sally had been permitted to occupy the other couch which stood +on the opposite side of the room.</p> + +<p>In their one large chair, close to the table with the lamp, Aunt Patricia sat +knitting with her usual vigor and determination. Aside from Sally, the Camp Fire +girls were grouped about near her.</p> + +<p>After having been quiet for the past half hour, Mrs. Burton suddenly asked: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span> “Would any +of you care to hear a poem concerning the destruction of the Cathedral at +Rheims, written by a Kentucky woman? A friend sent it to me and it was so +exquisite I have lately memorized it. In the last few moments while I have been +looking at our photograph I have repeated the lines to myself. I wonder if it +would interest you?”</p> + +<p>The girls replied in a chorus of acquiescence, but Mrs. Burton did not +venture to begin until she also had received a nod of agreement from Aunt +Patricia. Between the older and younger woman there was a bond of strong +affection. Nevertheless, mingled with Mrs. Burton’s love and respect, +there was also a certain humorous appreciation.</p> + +<p>Since their arrival in France the Camp Fire girls had been compelled to spend +their evenings in doors. This was unlike their former custom.</p> + +<p>Recently, when they had grown weary of talking, perhaps for only a half hour +before bedtime, some one of them had fallen into the habit of reading aloud to +the others.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span>Apart from the +pleasure, Mrs. Burton regarded this as useful education.</p> + +<p>Not a great many newspapers and magazines reached the old farm house in +comparison with other days at camp; nevertheless they arrived in sufficient +number both from the United States and Paris to keep one fairly in touch with +world movements. The reading of the French papers and magazines was of course +especially good practice.</p> + +<p>Yet, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Burton could seldom be persuaded to be +anything save a listener. After reading or talking the greater part of the day +to her new French friends, she was apt to be worn out by evening.</p> + +<p>Tonight she began to speak in a low voice as if she were tired, yet as her +little audience was so near it did not matter and her voice never failed in its +beautiful quality.</p> + +<p style='margin-left:10em'>“Rheims</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p>“It was a people’s church–stout, plain folk they,<br /> +Wanting their own cathedral, not the king’s<br /> Nor prelate’s, +nor great noble’s. On the walls,<br /> On porch and arch and +doorway–see, the saints<br /> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_149'></a>149</span>Have the plain people’s faces. That sweet +Virgin<br /> Was young Marie, who lived around the corner,<br /> And whom +the sculptor knew. From time to time<br /> He saw her at her work, or with her +babe,<br /> So gay, so dainty, smiling at the child.<br /> That sturdy +Peter–Peter of the keys–<br /> He was old Jean, the Breton +fisherman,<br /> Who, somehow, made his way here from the coast<br /> And +lived here many years, yet kept withal<br /> The look of the great sea and his +great nets.<br /> And John there, the beloved, was Etienne,<br /> And good +St. James was François–brothers they,<br /> And had a small, clean +bakeshop, where they sold<br /> Bread, cakes and little pies. Well, so it +went!<br /> These were not Italy’s saints, nor yet the gods,<br /> +Majestic, calm, unmoved, of ancient Greece.<br /> No, they were only +townsfolk, common people,<br /> And graced a common church–that stood +and stood<br /> Through war and fire and pestilence, through ravage<br /> Of +time and kings and conquerors, till at last<br /> The century dawned which +promised common men<br /> The things they long had hoped for!<br /> + O +the time<br /> Showed a fair face, was daughter of great Demos,<br /> +Flamboyant, bore a light, laughed loud and free,<br /> And feared not any +man–until–until–<br /> There sprang a mailed figure from a +throne,<br /> Gorgeous, imperial, glowing–a monstrosity<br /> +Magnificent as death and as death terrible.<br /> It walked these aisles and +saw the humble ones,<br /> <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_150'></a>150</span>Peter the fisherman, James and John, the +shopkeepers,<br /> And Mary, sweet, gay, innocent and poor.<br /> Loud did +it laugh and long. ‘These peaceful folk!<br /> What place have they in my +great armed world?’<br /> Then with its thunderbolts of fire it +drove<br /> These saints from out their places–breaking roof,<br /> +Wall, window, portal–and the great grave arch<br /> Smoked with the +awful funeral smoke of doom.<br />  <br /> “Thus died they and +their church–but from the wreck<br /> Of fire and smoke and broken wood +and stone<br /> There rose a figure greater far than they–<br /> Their +Lord, who dwells within no house of hands;<br /> Whose beauty hath no need of +any form!<br /> Out from the fire He passed, and round Him went<br /> Marie +and Jean and Etienne and Francois,<br /> And they went singing, singing, +through their France–<br /> And Italy–and England–and the +world!”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>When Mrs. Burton began her recitation she sat up on the edge of her couch and +leaning forward kept her eyes fastened sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the +picture of the great cathedral. Now and then her gaze quickly swept the faces of +her audience.</p> + +<p>She was wondering if the poem had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_151'></a>151</span> bored any one of them. It was a long poem and +perhaps its spiritual meaning would not be altogether plain.</p> + +<p>However, as the poem reached its conclusion, and her voice with its dramatic +power and sweetness made the picture of the peasant people and their peasant +church a visible and compelling thing, she no longer felt fearful.</p> + +<p>The faces of the girls before her were fine and serious; Bettina and Marta, +who cared more for poetry and art than the others, had flushed and their eyes +were filled with tears.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Burton finished, it was as if one could actually hear the new spirit +of brotherhood which Christ preached two thousand years ago, “singing, +singing, through the world.”</p> + +<p>Yet in the silence which was a fitting tribute to the poem, suddenly the +entire audience broke into a ripple of laughter. From the far side of the room a +gentle snore had been Sally Ashton’s sole expression of appreciation.</p> + +<p>Following the sound of the laughter, Sally sat up and began blinking her soft +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span> golden brown eyes, +looking for all the world like a sleepy kitten.</p> + +<p>“I think you had far better give yourself up to justice and have +someone take care of you properly,” she announced in a far-away voice. +This was the conclusion which Sally had just reached at the end of her +half-sleeping and half-waking dream of her runaway soldier.</p> + +<p>She did not know that she was to make such an extraordinary remark aloud, but +fortunately no one had the faintest knowledge of her meaning.</p> + +<p>Indeed, no one really heard her, as the girls were too amused over +Sally’s characteristic habit of falling asleep on occasions when +conversation or entertainment bored her.</p> + +<p>Immediately after the laughter, Sally, not understanding its cause, +nevertheless arose and began her journey to bed. She was annoyed but not +seriously, since in waking she had reached the conclusion she desired. In the +morning at dawn, before the other members of her household were awake, she would +make a second trip to the château.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span>She would carry +provisions to the soldier and then advise him to leave the neighborhood +immediately. Unless he departed of his own free will, taking his chances as he +must, she then would be compelled to tell that he was in hiding.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span><a id='link_11'></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE RETURN</span></h2> + +<p>Before daylight Sally rose softly and began to dress, feeling extremely +irritated. She disliked getting up in the mornings and this scheme of arising +early was so annoying that it had kept her awake the greater part of the +night.</p> + +<p>Besides she had but little hope of not arousing Alice. Once as she was +searching quietly on the floor for her shoes, Alice sat up, asking severely:</p> + +<p>“What on earth are you doing, Sally Ashton? If you are not ill, come on +back to bed. If you are ill, come back in any case and let me get whatever it is +you desire.”</p> + +<p>Sally murmured something vague and indeterminate about endeavoring to +discover a lost pillow and Alice fell comfortably asleep again, nor did she +awaken <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span> when Sally +at last slipped out of the room and down stairs.</p> + +<p>In case any one else heard her or called, she had made up her mind to explain +that she was seeing about some preparation for breakfast. As “housekeeper +extraordinary” this statement <i>might</i> be believed, even if it were +unlike her to start her ministrations so early.</p> + +<p>But no one was disturbed and Sally got her little bundle of provisions +together quickly, since she knew just where the supplies of food were kept. They +had not a great deal, considering the demands that were constantly being made +upon them by the people in the neighborhood who were less well off, so Sally +felt that she had not the right to be over-generous, and made her selections +with due discretion.</p> + +<p>It was more than ever her determination to demand that the soldier leave the +château at once this morning, if he could be induced to see the wisdom of such a +proceeding, but if not by nightfall.</p> + +<p>Also Sally had made up her mind to ask no questions. If the soldier were +arrested <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span> later she +wished to know as little as possible concerning him.</p> + +<p>He had spoken of being captured and of running away from his captors. This +suggested that he was a German or an Austrian who had been taken prisoner and +was trying to effect an escape. If this were true Sally felt a fierce +condemnation of her own cowardly attitude. But was it not remotely possible that +the soldier had committed some offense and had then run away from his own +regiment? However, this point of view was but little in his favor. As he spoke +English with an accent and as foreign accents were all of an equal mystification +to Sally, it was possible that she need never know his origin.</p> + +<p>Outdoors and slipping through the garden, to Sally’s surprise and +consternation she nearly ran into old Jean, who appeared to have been up all +night caring for his stock.</p> + +<p>He looked like a gnome with his wrinkled skin, his little eyes, his muddy +gray hair and even his clothes almost of a color with the earth.</p> + +<p>He was carrying a lantern, but instead <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_157'></a>157</span> of speaking beckoned mysteriously to Sally to +follow him out to Miss Patricia’s barn, where a half dozen cows were now +installed.</p> + +<p>Not knowing what else to do, Sally stood by until she found herself presented +with a small pail of milk, and still with no comments, for immediately after +Jean went on with his morning’s work.</p> + +<p>She did not waste time, however, in puzzling over the old servant man.</p> + +<p>After drinking a small quantity of the milk, not wishing to throw the rest +away or to return to the house, Sally concluded to take it with her as a part of +her offering. Yet she had no real desire to give refreshment to her accidental +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Some curious feminine force must have moved Sally Ashton on this occasion. +Most women find it difficult to allow a human being to endure physical +suffering, once the person is delivered into their care.</p> + +<p>As she made her way to the château for the second time Sally loathed the cold +dark morning and there was no beauty nor significance to her in the gray leaden +sky <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span> which lay like +a mourning veil over the sad French landscape.</p> + +<p>Sally considered that she was engaged in an almost unjustifiable action. Yet +she could not make up her mind to leave the soldier to starve, or to betray his +presence in the château.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Sally was haunted by a small nervous fear, which may have been out +of place in the face of the larger issues which were involved. As the soldier in +hiding had no reason to believe she would arrive so early in the morning, he +might still be asleep. Sally disliked the idea that thus she might be called +upon to awaken him. The conventions of life were dear to her, she had a real +appreciation of their value and place in social life and no desire to break with +any one of them.</p> + +<p>The food could be left in the dismantled old drawing-room, under its arch of +leaning walls, but Sally wished to leave a command as well as the food. After +this one unhappy pilgrimage she would do nothing more for the soldier’s +safety and comfort. He must take his chances and slip away.</p> + +<p>The entire neighborhood was disturbingly <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_159'></a>159</span> quiet. An owl of late habits would have been almost +companionable. Upon one point Sally considered herself inflexible. She would not +enter the château; she might call softly from the outside if it were necessary. +If no one replied she would return to the farm and nevermore would the château +be honored by her presence.</p> + +<p>In an entirely different state of mind she approached the old house on this +second occasion and made her way to the opening between the walls.</p> + +<p>Inside there seemed an even more uncanny silence. Yet how could one call to +an utter stranger whose name, whose identity, whose nationality were all +unknown?</p> + +<p>“Halloo!” Sally cried in a faint voice, not once but three or +four times.</p> + +<p>There was no reply.</p> + +<p>She called again. Then she entered the drawing-room quickly with no other +idea than to put down her offerings and flee away as soon as possible. Sally was +possessed of the impression that, however long the wrecked walls might remain in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span> position while she +was outside them, once inside she would be buried beneath a descending mass.</p> + +<p>A few feet within the arch she discovered her soldier.</p> + +<p>He had made for himself a bed out of an old mattress which he had dragged +from some other room, using a torn covering which once had been a beautiful +eiderdown quilt. As he had no pillow and his face was completely uncovered, +Sally realized he was in a stupor and so ill that he had not heard her approach +or her repeated calls.</p> + +<p>Fortunately Sally Ashton was essentially practical.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in an extraordinary fashion for so young and presumably selfish a +girl she immediately forgot herself. She was living in an atmosphere of +unselfishness and devotion to others, so the thought that the object of her +present care was not a worthy object did not at the moment influence her.</p> + +<p>In a matter-of-fact and skillful fashion Sally first poured a small amount of +milk inside her patient’s parted lips. Except <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span> that the soldier became half aroused by +her act and seemed to wish more, there was no difficulty. Then unwrapping the +arm which she had bandaged the day before, she cleansed the wound a second time +with the antiseptic she had brought for the purpose.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, realizing that she must find the water she had been told was +still to be had in one of the rooms of the château, without considering her +previous fears, Sally climbed and crawled through one dangerous opening after +the other, in spite of her awkwardness in any unaccustomed physical exertion. +Finally she discovered the water. Then in a half broken pitcher, secured in +passing through one of the wrecked bedrooms, she carried a small amount to the +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Without hesitation or embarrassment the girl bathed her undesired +patient’s face and hands. He had fine, strong features; there was nothing +in the face to suggest weakness or cowardice. Still it remained impossible to +decide his nationality or whether he was an officer or merely <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span> a common soldier, since +his outfit was a patchwork of oddly assorted garments.</p> + +<p>Sally’s acquaintance with uniforms was limited. She knew that the +French wore the horizon blue and the British and Americans a nearly similar +shade of khaki.</p> + +<p>Her patient’s outfit was like no other she had seen.</p> + +<p>Yet over these minor details she did not trouble. In spite of her lack of +experience, Sally was convinced that the soldier was now suffering from blood +poison due to neglect of his wound and the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions +in which he had been living.</p> + +<p>The day before she had thought he looked and acted strangely and had half an +idea that he may have been partly delirious then, so she was not altogether +surprised by the present situation.</p> + +<p>During her journey across the fields daylight had come; because she would not +otherwise have been able to accomplish her present task even so inadequately as +she had accomplished it, Sally was pleased.</p> + +<p>Yet when the moment arrived and she <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_163'></a>163</span> had done all she could for the soldier’s +comfort she had to face her real difficulty.</p> + +<p>There is no mistake in this world more serious than to judge other +people’s problems in the light in which they appear to us. The problem +which is nothing to one human being appears insurmountable to another.</p> + +<p>So with Sally Ashton’s present difficulty.</p> + +<p>She had made up her mind to tell the soldier that unless he left the château +before the following day she would be compelled to tell her friends of his +hiding place and ask advice. But she had meant to warn him of her intention and +allow him to take his chances if he preferred.</p> + +<p>Now he appeared defenceless and entirely at her mercy.</p> + +<p>Should she betray him at once? Certainly there was a possibility that he +would die of neglect if left alone at the château. But then he must have faced +this possibility and deliberately chosen it.</p> + +<p>Sally wondered what would become of an escaped prisoner if he were discovered +to be desperately ill? It did not seem possible <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_164'></a>164</span> that the military authorities would be so severe as +he had anticipated.</p> + +<p>Yet she knew very little of the ways of military authorities, and an escaped +prisoner would scarcely be an object of devoted attention.</p> + +<p>Although not aware of the fact, already Sally had assumed a protective +attitude toward the soldier.</p> + +<p>One thing she might do and that was to wait another twenty-four hours. It was +barely possible that he might not be so ill as she now believed.</p> + +<p>At present she must not remain a moment longer at the château. Instead she +must run back across the fields, since it was her plan to reach the farm house +and be discovered in the act of assisting Mère ’Toinette in the preparation of +breakfast.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span><a id='link_12'></a>CHAPTER XII<br /><span class='h2fs'>OTHER DAYS AND OTHER WAYS</span></h2> + +<p>Under the new conditions of life in the devastated country of France, it has +been difficult to set down the effect which the change of environment, the +change of interest and of inspiration had upon each individual member of the +Sunrise Camp Fire unit.</p> + +<p>Certainly their present daily life bore but a faint resemblance to their +former outdoor summer encampments in various picturesque places in the United +States. Nevertheless the Camp Fire girls always had considered that they were +doing useful work merely by following the rules of their camp fire and by +gaining the honors necessary to the growth of their organization and their own +official rank.</p> + +<p>Now they realized that all their efforts had been but a preparation for the +service they were at present undertaking. There was no detail of their past +experience <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span> which +was not of service, their Health Craft, Camp Craft, Home Craft, Business and +Patriotism. Why, their very watch cry, “Wohelo”–work, health +and love–embodied the three gifts they were trying to restore to the +poverty-stricken French people in this particular neighborhood upon “the +field of honor!”</p> + +<p>On this afternoon, in spite of the cold, the girls had arranged to hold their +first out-of-doors Camp Fire meeting since their arrival in France.</p> + +<p>For weeks they had been working among the young French girls in the villages +and the country near at hand, persuading them to spend whatever leisure they had +in studying the Camp Fire ideas and activities.</p> + +<p>Bettina Graham and Alice Ashton had introduced as much Camp Fire study as +possible into the regular routine of the school which they held daily in the big +schoolroom at the farm. Even with the younger children there were like +suggestions of play and of service which Marta Clark and Yvonne were able to +give.</p> + +<p>But until this afternoon there had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_167'></a>167</span> been no actual organization of the first group of +Camp Fire girls in France. Strange that with Camp Fires in England, Australia, +Africa, Japan, China and other foreign places, there should have been none in +France! But Yvonne Fleury could have explained that, unlike American girls, +French girls were not accustomed to intimate association with one another, their +lives up to the time of their marriage being spent in seclusion among the +members of their own family.</p> + +<p>Indeed, upon this same afternoon Yvonne was thinking of this as she dressed +slowly before going outdoors to join the other girls. The house was empty save +that Mère ’Toinette was working downstairs.</p> + +<p>Marta Clark and Peggy had been kind enough to make her a simple Camp Fire +costume, the khaki skirt and blouse, which formed their ordinary service +costume. Notwithstanding she had been studying the Camp Fire manual and trying +to acquire the necessary honors, this was the first time Yvonne had worn the +costume.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span>How utterly +unlike anything she had ever dreamed were these past weeks in her life! From the +moment of her confession of weakness and the telling of her story to Mrs. +Burton, Yvonne had deliberately chosen to remain with her rather than continue +with the canteen work which she had originally planned to do in returning to her +own country.</p> + +<p>For one reason she had fallen under the spell of Mrs. Burton’s sympathy +and charm; moreover, the girls in the Camp Fire work were nearer her own age and +were to undertake a character of occupation in which she felt herself able to be +useful. They were also going to live in the neighborhood of her old home before +the outbreak of the war.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, although Yvonne had preferred not to confide the +information to any one except Mrs. Burton, she was at present not fifty miles +from the château in France where she had lived until the night word came that +she and her family must fly before the oncoming horde of the enemy.</p> + +<p>Well, more than three years had passed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_169'></a>169</span> since that night, three years which sometimes +seemed an eternity to Yvonne. She had no wish to revisit the ruins of her old +home, no wish to be reminded of it. There was no one left for whom she cared +except perhaps a few neighbors.</p> + +<p>However, in the last few weeks Yvonne ordinarily did not permit herself to +become depressed. This much she felt she owed to Mrs. Burton’s kindness +and to the comradeship which had been so generously given to her by the Camp +Fire girls. Yvonne felt a particular affection for each one of them. She could +not of course feel equally attracted. So far she cared most for Peggy Webster +and for Mary Gilchrist, possibly attracted toward Mary because she also was an +outsider like herself. Then Mary’s boyish attitude toward life, her utter +freedom even from the knowledge of the conventions in which Yvonne had been so +carefully reared, at first startled, then amused the young French girl. But for +Peggy Webster, Yvonne had a peculiar feeling of love and admiration. This may +have been partly due to the fact that Peggy was Mrs. Burton’s <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span> niece and so shared in +the glamor of the great lady’s personality, but it was more a tribute to +Peggy’s own character.</p> + +<p>After Yvonne’s pathetic account of her history, Mrs. Burton had told at +least a measure of her story to Peggy. She had asked Peggy to invoke the +compassion and aid of the other girls and to do what she could for Yvonne +herself.</p> + +<p>To Peggy’s strength, to the freedom and the courage of her outlook upon +life, Yvonne’s tragic story had appealed strongly, but more Yvonne’s +timidity. Often the young French girl appeared unwilling to go on with the daily +struggle of life when everything for which she had ever cared had been taken +from her.</p> + +<p>Among the American Camp Fire girls there was only one girl for whom Yvonne +felt a sensation of distrust which almost amounted to a dislike, and this was +Sally Ashton. Nevertheless, in the early days of their acquaintance, Yvonne had +not this point of view. Then she had admired Sally’s prettiness, the gold +brown of her hair and eyes, her white skin and even her indolent manners and +graces. Yet recently <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_171'></a>171</span> Yvonne had become aware of a circumstance, or +rather of a series of circumstances, which had first surprised, then puzzled and +finally repelled her.</p> + +<p>In a few moments Yvonne left the farm house. If she were late at their first +outdoor camp fire she realized she would have no difficulty in discovering the +site they had selected, although it was at some distance away.</p> + +<p>Some time had passed since the arrival of the Camp Fire party in this +neighborhood of France and now even in the winter fields there was a suggestion +of approaching spring.</p> + +<p>As Yvonne walked on she felt an unselfish joy, a greater lightness of heart. +Surely the spring would bring back some of her lost happiness to France. There +would be another great drive, another tragic contest of strength, but the +British and French lines would hold.</p> + +<p>Yvonne had the great faith and courage of her people, now she had learned to +lay aside her personal sorrow.</p> + +<p>In a few more weeks Miss Patricia’s American tractor, which was indeed +a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span> “strange +god in a machine,” would be able to turn these fields into plowed land +ready for the spring planting.</p> + +<p>But now in a meadow, while still some distance away, Yvonne beheld an +American, a French and a British flag set up on temporary staffs, and blending +their colors and designs in a symbolic fashion as they floated in the wind.</p> + +<p>Yvonne paused for a moment to watch the group of her acquaintances and +friends.</p> + +<p>Standing apart from the girls were Miss Patricia Lord, Mrs. Burton, and the +two visitors who had arrived only a few days before. They were the guests whose +approaching visit to the farm house Miss Patricia had so openly deplored, one of +them Mrs. Bishop and the other Monsieur Duval, both of them ship acquaintances. +Mrs. Bishop was in France to represent an American magazine and was at present +intending to write a series of articles on the reclamation work along the Aisne +and the Marne.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Duval had given no explanation for his appearance save to announce +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span> that he had some +especial work on hand for his government in the southern districts of +France.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that fuel was of such tremendous value in France at the +present time, the Camp Fire girls had permitted themselves the extravagance of a +fire to inaugurate their first outdoor Camp Fire ceremony. The boxes in which +Miss Patricia’s various purchases had come to the farm had proved useful +for more than one service.</p> + +<p>In a circle near the camp fire were eight young French girls who this +afternoon were to receive the wood-gatherers’ rings. Just beyond them the +American girls were seated.</p> + +<p>Peggy had been chosen to present the rings.</p> + +<p>Possibly they were waiting for Yvonne’s arrival, for no sooner had she +slipped silently into her place than Peggy Webster arose and recited the +Wood-gatherer’s Desire.</p> + +<div class='poetry'> +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span>“As fagots +are brought from the forest,<br /> Firmly held by the sinews which +bind them,<br /> I will cleave to my Camp Fire sisters<br /> + Wherever, whenever I find them.<br />  <br /> “I will +strive to grow strong like the pine tree,<br /> To be pure in my +deepest desire;<br /> To be true to the truth that is in me<br /> + And follow the Law of the Fire.”</p> </div><!-- poetry --> + +<p>Then she offered each one of the French girls a silver ring. When she came to +Yvonne, clasping the Fire Maker’s bracelet about her wrist, she +whispered:</p> + +<p>“We feel, Yvonne, that you have a right to a higher order in our new +Camp Fire group than the other members because of the help you have given us in +whatever work we have attempted since our arrival in France. In fact, you are +the leading French Camp Fire girl!”</p> + +<p>A moment later, in answer to a signal, Mrs. Burton walked over and stood just +beyond the two circles of girls and the camp fire and close to the Allied +flags.</p> + +<p>“There is not much I feel able to say to you,” she began, +speaking in a simple and friendly fashion. “I think perhaps you <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span> are already beginning to +understand how intensely the people of the United States desire to render to +France a part of the debt we owe her. It is France who has saved our liberty and +the liberty of the entire world.</p> + +<p>“Now I hope that the first group of Camp Fire girls in France will +later carry the flaming torch until the news of the Camp Fire movement has +spread through all the French land. In the Camp Fire life we look for the +romance, the beauty and the adventure which may be hidden in the smallest task. +More important than these things I hope Camp Fire girls the world over may +become a part of the new spirit everywhere growing up among women, the spirit of +union, the ability to work and play together as men have in the past. For once +all girls and women are united, there will be a new league for peace among the +nations such as this world has never known.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span><a id='link_13'></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>A DEPARTURE AND AN ARRIVAL</span></h2> + +<p>One evening two days later a little after the hour for bedtime at the farm, +Mrs. Burton knocked softly at Miss Patricia’s door.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia quickly opened it.</p> + +<p>“You are ill, Polly Burton. Well, it is just what I have been expecting +ever since the arrival of that strange man and woman. It seems to me that we had +quite enough to do without entertaining guests. Besides, it strikes me as pure +waste of energy, this riding about through the country with strangers when you +should be at some <i>real</i> work.”</p> + +<p>During her speech Miss Patricia had drawn the younger woman into her room, +closed the door behind her and was now gazing at her severely but it must be +confessed solicitously as well.</p> + +<p>“But I am not ill, Aunt Patricia,” Mrs. Burton protested as soon +as she was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span> allowed +an opportunity to speak. “I only came in to have a talk with you about +something important.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Patricia’s bedroom was large and empty, for there was more space +at the old farm house than furniture. A great old-fashioned French bed had been +spared from the general wreckage and upon this Mrs. Burton seated herself, +drawing her feet up under her and her lavender dressing gown about her, since +with so little heat in the house the bedrooms were uncomfortably cold.</p> + +<p>There was but one solitary stiff-backed chair, in which Miss Patricia sat +perfectly erect.</p> + +<p>“Why not come here and sit beside me? There is plenty of room, and you +will be more comfortable,” Mrs. Burton urged.</p> + +<p>Aunt Patricia shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I am quite comfortable where I am. Moreover, Polly Burton, if I am an +old woman and you no longer a young one, at the same time I am aware that you +have every idea of trying to persuade me to some point of view of which you do +not think I will approve. I have seen your <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_178'></a>178</span> methods before this evening. Thank you, I shall +remain where I am.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton laughed.</p> + +<p>Aunt Patricia did look so uncompromising in a hideous smoke-gray dressing +gown made without any attempt at decorations. Her small knot of hair was screwed +into a tight coil at the back of her head.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton’s own hair had kept its beautiful dusky quality, it had the +dark sheen of the hair of the mythical Irish fairies, for only in Anglo-Saxon +countries are fairies of necessity fair. Tonight Mrs. Burton’s hair was +unbound and hung about her shoulders as if she were a girl.</p> + +<p>Fearing that Miss Patricia might regard her frivolous appearance with +disfavor, she now began braiding it into one heavy braid.</p> + +<p>“What ever it is you desire to say, I do wish you would begin, Polly, +so that we both can go to bed,” the elderly spinster remarked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton shook her head. “You are not in a good humor, are you, Aunt +Patricia? But at least there is one thing you <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_179'></a>179</span> will be glad to hear: our guests, Monsieur Duval +and Mrs. Bishop, are leaving our farm the day after tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>“A good riddance,” Miss Patricia answered sharply.</p> + +<p>Then observing that her companion had flushed and undoubtedly was annoyed by +her plain speaking, Aunt Patricia’s manner became slightly mollified.</p> + +<p>“It is not that I have anything personal against your friends, Polly. I +must say they have both endeavored to be very agreeable since their arrival and +to give as little trouble as possible. But I told you on board ship I did not +like the attitude of that Frenchman toward you. It was no surprise to me when he +discovered he had important business in this part of France. Of course it should +not be necessary for me to remind you that you are a married woman, with your +unfortunate husband serving his country in France many miles from here and also +that you are chaperoning a group of young girls. I suppose you will simply tell +me that I do not understand French manners, but that is neither here nor there, +Polly Burton. Your <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span> +Frenchman is polite to your friend, Mrs. Bishop, I must confess he is also +courteous to me; but I am obliged to repeat that his manner neither to Mrs. +Bishop nor to me is in the least like his manner to you.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Patricia, you are so ridiculous! Still I don’t feel like +laughing this time; you really are making me angry,” Mrs. Burton +answered.</p> + +<p>“I have made a great many persons angry in my life, Polly. I cannot +even flatter myself that this is the first time I have offended you. However, I +feel compelled to speak the truth.” Miss Patricia’s tone remained +imperturbable.</p> + +<p>“But that is just the trouble, Aunt Patricia, you are not speaking the +truth, although of course I know you don’t realize it and I beg your +pardon,” Mrs. Burton argued. “But why do you allow yourself to +acquire such prejudices and such foolish impressions? I simply refuse to discuss +the suggestion you have just made. Please never speak of it to me +again.”</p> + +<p>Ordinarily when the celebrated Mrs. Burton assumed an air of offended dignity +such as she wore at present her world <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_181'></a>181</span> was apt to sue for pardon. Miss Patricia revealed +no such intention. As a matter of fact, as she remained resolutely silent and as +Mrs. Burton had not yet explained the reason for her visit, it was she who had +to resume the conversation in a conciliatory manner.</p> + +<p>“I presume you won’t approve then, Aunt Patricia, of what I wish +to speak to you. Monsieur Duval has been ordered to southern France on some work +for his government and has asked Mrs. Bishop and me to accompany him, because it +is work in which he thinks we may be useful. You know the Germans have been +sending back some of the French refugees whom they drove before them in their +retreat. There are groups of five hundred at a time who now and then are sent +over the border either from Germany or Switzerland. They are penniless and not +only have no money or food or clothes; they do not know whether their families +are living or dead and in any case have no way to reach them. The French +government is to try to arrange some plan by which homes may be secured for +these unfortunate <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span> +people until they can communicate with their relatives or friends.”</p> + +<p>“An excellent idea, but I do not exactly see your connection with +it,” Miss Patricia returned.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton shrugged her shoulders impatiently. In all her life she never +remembered any one who had opposed her desires in exactly the same fashion Miss +Patricia did. Then, a little ashamed of herself, she answered gently but +firmly:</p> + +<p>“My connection is that I am interested and that Mrs. Bishop and I have +both decided to accompany Monsieur Duval. It is barely possible that we may be +useful and able to offer a certain amount of advice. So many of the refugees are +young women who have suffered impossible things and may require special care and +shelter. Besides, I am very deeply anxious to see more of the country. We expect +to travel south in the sector the Germans held three years ago. I will thus be +able to find out how much restoration work has already been accomplished and how +great a task remains. Moreover, Aunt Patricia dear, I have a personal <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span> errand. Surely you will +think this important.</p> + +<p>“You remember my talking to you of the old peasant whose granddaughter, +Elsie, had been driven into exile. Except to me the old woman has never spoken +of her loss. Now there is a possibility that Elsie has been sent back into +France and I have promised Grand’mère to search for her.</p> + +<p>“Moreover, Aunt Patricia, each village in the devastated districts has +been ordered to prepare a list of names of the missing who disappeared at the +time of the German retreat. These lists are to be turned over to Monsieur Duval. +A committee is to be appointed near the frontier to take charge of the lists and +see that the refugees get in touch with their own people as soon as possible. +Don’t you think this a wonderful scheme?”</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Burton unfolded the plan which had been carefully worked out with a +great deal of foresight and care, in her enthusiasm she forgot Miss +Patricia’s chilling attitude. She had spent many hours during the brief +visit at the farm of Mrs. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_184'></a>184</span> Bishop and Monsieur Duval in the outline she had +just explained.</p> + +<p>Aunt Patricia continued to look unimpressed and uninspired.</p> + +<p>“I told you before, Polly, that I had no idea of criticizing Monsieur +Duval’s efforts in behalf of his government. I know the situation you +speak of is extremely deplorable. Still I fail to see any reason for your +assistance. There is sufficient work for you in this immediate neighborhood. +However, I presume you have definitely made up your mind,” Miss Patricia +concluded.</p> + +<p>Before replying, Mrs. Burton waited a moment, watching for a sign of yielding +in her companion. But as Miss Patricia gave none, she nodded her head.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Aunt Patricia, I am going with Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval, +although I am sorry you do not approve of my making the trip. I won’t be +away more than two weeks and I feel I may be of greater service than by +remaining here.”</p> + +<p>“You also feel that traveling about through the French country with a +distinguished <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span> +French politician and a woman author will be far more exciting than staying at +the farm and doing your duty, Polly Burton,” Miss Patricia added, allowing +her accumulated anger to overflow at last. “Do, please, whatever else you +wish to add by way of camouflage, at least confess the truth. I presume it is +your idea to leave me to look after the group of girls you undertook to chaperon +in France?”</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that by this time, Mrs. Burton, whose amiability was +never her strong point, was in as bad a temper as her antagonist, she had to +confess to herself that in Miss Patricia’s last speech the scales dropped +in her favor.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, Aunt Patricia, that is what I wish you to do. But will it be +such a serious responsibility? The work at the farm is so splendidly organized +now and the girls are so deeply interested, I don’t see why you should +have any especial difficulty if you will just allow things to go on as they are +at present.”</p> + +<p>Of her own free will Miss Patricia at this moment rose from her stiff chair +and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span> came and sat +on the edge of the bed facing the younger woman. She showed no sign of relaxing +either physically or mentally, or of any softening in her rigid point of +view.</p> + +<p>“I wonder, Polly Burton, if you have any reason for believing that +things usually go on in exactly the same fashion in this world, after one has +carefully arranged that they should? Of course I shall do my best to look after +the Camp Fire girls, although they do not like me and I do not understand them. +There is no telling what may occur in your absence,” Miss Patricia ended +so gloomily that Mrs. Burton’s eyes shone with merriment, although she +carefully lowered her lids.</p> + +<p>At the same instant, to her surprise, she felt Miss Patricia lean over and +seize her by both shoulders. For a second she wondered if Aunt Patricia had made +up her mind to shake her because of her rebellion. Instead Miss Patricia added +unexpectedly:</p> + +<p>“Polly, my dear child, I really don’t wish you to go on this wild +goose chase, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span> +partly for the reasons I have given you, but also because I am afraid for you. +You know the world is expecting another great German offensive this spring and +no one understands why it has been delayed so long. Well, you must realize that +as you travel farther south in France the line between the German and the French +armies grows narrower and narrower. Only a few miles of victory and the Germans +will again occupy their old line! It is possible you might arrive at some +district at a crucial moment when a battle was beginning. Then the saints alone +could preserve you!”</p> + +<p>With the last few words of her long speech Miss Patricia reverted to her +Irish brogue and her Irish faith.</p> + +<p>Afterwards Mrs. Burton was glad to remember that, although Aunt Patricia +certainly was not regarding her with affection at the moment, nevertheless, she +slipped her arm about the elderly lady’s hard and upright shoulders.</p> + +<p>“You are a dear, Aunt Patricia! But please don’t worry. We are +not going into any dangerous neighborhoods. The <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_188'></a>188</span> drive will not begin for many weeks. In any case +there will be no retreat. Yet indeed we mean to take every possible precaution +and at no time will we be near the German line. It is good of you to think I am +worth worrying over, but this time it is not necessary.”</p> + +<p>“Have you your husband’s permission for this trip, Polly? I +presume you have written Richard Burton of your new French friend?” Aunt +Patricia demanded as a last forlorn hope.</p> + +<p>In reply Mrs. Burton smiled and nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have done both of those things. I wrote Richard about Monsieur +Duval soon after our meeting on shipboard. But of course I have had no reply to +my letter with regard to my trip south with Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval, for +there is not time for me to hear before we leave.”</p> + +<p>“And nothing will change your decision, Polly?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton had slid down on to the floor from the high old bed and now stood +before Miss Patricia, hesitating for the fraction of a second.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span>“I do wish +you would not put the question in such a way, Aunt Patricia. You make me think +of what Sally Ashton said to you, as if I too were a disobedient child, and I am +more than twice Sally’s age. Of course I do not wish to do anything you +oppose, but the trip to southern France and the work I hope to be able to +accomplish will be a great opportunity and a great experience. I hope you will +make up your mind to feel as I do before we start the day after +tomorrow.”</p> + +<p>Before Aunt Patricia could reply, Mrs. Burton made a hasty and carefully +designed retreat. Being fully cognizant that there was no possibility of Miss +Patricia’s relenting, she wished to pretend to believe she might change +her mind and at the same time to announce the proposed time for her own +departure.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for Mrs. Burton’s courage and decision, her plan met with +no especial opposition from any other member of the Camp Fire group.</p> + +<p>The girls regretted her leaving, and Sally Ashton more than the others; +nevertheless it appealed to them as it had <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_190'></a>190</span> to Mrs. Burton, as a wonderful chance for service +and at the same time a thrilling adventure.</p> + +<p>Two days later, even at the moment when the automobile appeared at the door +to bear off Mrs. Burton and her two companions, Miss Patricia’s attitude +remained unchanged.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton devoted the last five minutes before her departure to begging +Aunt Patricia to bestow her final consent and parting blessing. Aunt Patricia +steadfastly refused.</p> + +<p>She also declined to see the automobile leave the farm. Instead, during the +final farewells, turning her back upon the assembly, she marched up alone to her +own room. Once inside, it is true she wiped away several tears, but immediately +after set herself to writing a letter to Captain Richard Burton. And Captain +Burton and Miss Patricia only were to know what the letter contained! +Fortunately Captain Burton understood Miss Patricia and her devotion to his +wife. Moreover, the extent of her devotion was to be proven later.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span>The following +day, perhaps because of Miss Patricia’s prediction that nothing in life +runs on continuously in the same groove, an unexpected telegram was brought out +to the French farm house for Peggy Webster.</p> + +<p>In the telegram Lieutenant Ralph Marshall of the United States Aviation +Service in France stated that, having been slightly injured by a fall, he had +secured a few day’s leave of absence. Would he be permitted to spend his +leave with Mrs. Burton and the Camp Fire girls at their farm house on the +Aisne?</p> + +<p>To Peggy Webster there appeared to be but one possible answer to this amazing +piece of good fortune, and fortunately she was able to persuade Aunt Patricia to +the same point of view. Miss Patricia did not approve of young men, but she did +approve of Peggy and understood the situation in regard to Ralph.</p> + +<p>Therefore the return telegram read: “Yes.”</p> + +<p>Except for brief intervals, Peggy and Ralph had seen but little of each other +since their summer together in Arizona, a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_192'></a>192</span> summer which had been fateful for them both. It had +not occurred to Peggy that either she or Ralph would ever change their minds +with regard to their future marriage, in spite of the fact that she was but +eighteen years old and Ralph not much older. There remained only the question of +persuading their two families to share their view.</p> + +<p>In the last two years Ralph had been redeeming his former idleness. Having +volunteered for aviation work before the entry of the United States into the +world war, he had been able to secure a commission and already had been in +France a number of months.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span><a id='link_14'></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /><span class='h2fs'>A WARNING</span></h2> + +<p>It was the morning after the departure of Mrs. Burton and her guests and +three days before the arrival of Ralph. Marshall for his visit at the farm house +on the Aisne.</p> + +<p>Having completed her work downstairs, Sally Ashton had hurried up to her +bedroom where at present she was making little nervous preparations as if +intending to go outdoors and anxious not to be observed.</p> + +<p>There was no reason why she should feel alarmed. So far as she knew, every +member of her household was occupied with the day’s work. From the +schoolroom below she could hear the voices of the children singing a little +French chanson, and now and then one of the older girls either asking a question +or reciting. Alice Ashton and Bettina Graham, Marta <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span> Clark and Yvonne Fleury were engaged +with their pupils.</p> + +<p>An hour before Peggy and Vera had driven off in the motor with Mary +Gilchrist, since Mary had promised to transport a number of wounded soldiers +from a train to a nearby convalescent hospital, and was uncertain whether she +would find anyone at the railroad station to help. Therefore she had asked the +two girls to accompany her. Peggy also desired to mail a letter to Ralph +Marshall which might reach him before he started upon his journey.</p> + +<p>Always Aunt Patricia was occupied outdoors from breakfast until lunch time. +So in spite of the fact that Sally Ashton showed a degree of suppressed +excitement both in her manner and appearance, there would seem to have been no +apparent excuse. A certain timorousness once wholly unlike her, lately had +appeared in Sally’s attitude.</p> + +<p>She also had grown thinner and her big golden brown eyes had lost their +sleepy expression and acquired an anxious appeal. The lines about her full, +rather <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span> pouting +lips were strained and apprehensive.</p> + +<p>Having at the moment pulled a small traveling bag down from a shelf overhead +and allowed it to fall on the floor, Sally did not hear the swift opening and +closing of her bedroom door. Therefore, when she had secured her bag and was +straightening up, she gave an exclamation of surprise on discovering her sister +standing within a few feet of her.</p> + +<p>Except that she was handsomer, Alice looked very like her mother, the Esther +of the first Camp Fire days, yet she and Sally bore no possible resemblance to +each other either in disposition or appearance.</p> + +<p>Alice was tall and slender, with a grave, severe air. She wore her dark red +hair parted and bound about the back of her head in a heavy braid. She was a +little angular. There was a suggestion that unless life dealt generously with +her, granting her the gifts which make for tenderness and softness in a +woman’s nature, she might in time have the appearance one is supposed to +associate with an old maid. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_196'></a>196</span> However, old maids are as unlike as the rest of the +human species.</p> + +<p>Certainly at the present moment her expression was austere, although uneasy +and distressed as well.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing, Sally?” she inquired, her voice gentle and +solicitous, yet observing that a wave of color had swept over Sally’s face +even before she had spoken.</p> + +<p>The next moment Sally flung her bag down on the floor again, answering +petulantly:</p> + +<p>“What am I doing? Well, really, Alice, I do not see what difference it +makes to you, or why you should slip into our room so quietly that you +frightened me. As a matter of fact, I got down my traveling bag +to–to―” Sally’s voice trailed off helplessly for an +instant. The next instant, gathering force, she repeated: “I pulled down +my bag because I wished to store away some odds and ends which I wish to keep +safely.”</p> + +<p>Then losing her temper in a most suspicious fashion, suddenly Sally stamped +her foot as if she were an angry child and at <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_197'></a>197</span> the same time her eyes grew unexpectedly dark and +lovely.</p> + +<p>“That is not what you came into this room to announce to me, Alice. So +please say whatever it is you wish and be through. I am going out for a little +walk before lunch.” In any event Sally was no coward!</p> + +<p>“Then sit down. You do not look very well and I am afraid you +won’t like what I must say,” Alice returned. “Understand, it +gives me no pleasure; instead, I am tremendously worried and unhappy. I suppose +I should have talked the situation over with Tante before she went away, but I +knew it would interfere with her trip and so avoided troubling her.”</p> + +<p>In answer to her sister’s suggestion Sally seated herself upon a tall, +old-fashioned wooden chair, so that only her toes were able to reach the ground. +All at once she had felt as if she would be more comfortable seated. It was not +because of Alice’s suggestion that she had agreed, but because of a sudden +sensation of weariness, almost of physical weakness, although this last idea +seemed absurd.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span>Yet somehow +Sally appeared so like a tired and rebellious child that her sister found it +difficult to continue their conversation. However, she must introduce the +accusation she had been schooling herself to make before entering the room.</p> + +<p>“Is there anything you would like to talk to me about, Sally? Outside +our daily life and work here at the farm is there anything which has been +interesting you recently and which you have preferred not to mention to +anybody?” Alice inquired gently, her voice shaken by her effort to hide +her concern, while a fine line appeared between her level brows.</p> + +<p>Pretending to be bored rather than affected in any other fashion by her +sister’s speech, first Sally shrugged her shoulders. Then making a +pretence of yawning, she placed her fingers lightly over her lips.</p> + +<p>“Really, Alice, what on earth is troubling you in connection with me? +Have you had me on your conscience more than usual recently? Can’t you +ever get over your unattractive habit of treating me as if I were a refractory +pupil and you an offended schoolmarm? In spite of being <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span> born in New England, there is no reason +to affect this pose, as it is unnecessary and I think most +unbecoming.”</p> + +<p>Sally’s manner was a little too self-assured, but otherwise she +appeared as enigmatic as an accomplished actress. Gazing at her earnestly, there +was nothing in her expression at present to suggest any emotion save a natural +annoyance at being catechized.</p> + +<p>But Alice was not deceived.</p> + +<p>“Please don’t assume such an air of offended virtue, Sally. You +are far too fond of employing it when anyone reproaches you,” Alice +continued, but really too sincerely disturbed to feel angered by her +sister’s behavior. “Evidently you do not wish to confide in me, so I +suppose there is no use wasting either your time or mine. For the past two +weeks–I don’t know the exact length of time, although you are aware +of it, Sally–you have been disappearing from the farm almost every day. At +first I did not notice. You seem to have been careful that neither Aunt +Patricia, nor Tante, nor I should know. And you have been clever. But you could +not <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span> escape +everybody’s observation and the other Camp Fire girls have seen you and +been puzzled and at last worried to guess what you could be doing. You need not +ask who the girls were; I shall not tell you. But finally several of them felt +compelled to speak to me and to suggest that I ask your confidence. Oh, +don’t pretend you think you have been spied upon and badly treated. You +know, Sally, that unless the girls cared for you they would not have troubled? +But we have lived almost as one family and our interests are bound together. Do +tell me what you have been doing, dear? What has taken you away from home so +many times alone? I have been watching you myself recently. When I came into our +room only a few minutes ago you were preparing to slip away.”</p> + +<p>Sally was biting her lips and had lost her childish look.</p> + +<p>“This is not a criminal court, Alice; neither are you the public +prosecutor. As a matter of fact, I refuse to answer your questions or to gratify +either your curiosity or the curiosity of the Camp Fire girls. <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span> What I have been doing +has harmed no one; at least I do not think it has, and I have not always been +alone. Old Jean has been with me much of the time and has helped in every way. +But by the time Tante returns I think I shall be free to tell her everything. +Can’t you trust me until then?”</p> + +<p>Sally’s voice and manner had suddenly changed from bravado to pleading, +but Alice was too angry and too frightened to be influenced. Moreover, she was +suffering from a frequent elderly sister attitude. She felt herself called upon +not only to examine Sally in regard to her proceedings but to condemn her +without any real evidence.</p> + +<p>“Very well, Sally, unless you decide to confide in me immediately I +shall be obliged to speak to Aunt Patricia.”</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of this speech Alice beheld in her sister’s face the +expression of sheer unrelenting obstinacy in which Sally was an adept. It was a +contradiction to her pretty softness, her indolent manner and even to the +elusive dimple which recently had vanished.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span>“I also +warn you, Sally, that I intend to watch you and find out your proceedings for +myself. In truth, I am frightened about you. If only Tante were here she could +influence you, but Aunt Patricia will only become bitterly angry. I confess I +don’t know what she will say or do when she learns that I have no choice +but to tell her.”</p> + +<p>If Alice Ashton had one characteristic which predominated over all others, it +was a fine sense of honor, a high ideal of personal integrity.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, she had never demanded the same standards from Sally she +had asked of herself. It was a family custom to regard her younger sister as a +person chiefly to be gratified and adored. Yet it had never occurred to Alice +that Sally could fail in any essential thing such as straightforwardness and +sincerity.</p> + +<p>“I don’t like to speak to you, Sally, or even to suggest the +idea, but I am afraid a few of the girls may be criticizing what you are doing +in a fashion you can scarcely imagine. They do not speak before me, but I can +hardly fail to guess what they <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_203'></a>203</span> are thinking from their manner. Sally, can’t +you realize that we are in a foreign country where the language, the customs, +the ideas are not like ours? Even if what you are doing might not be considered +wrong at home, can’t you see that here in France you may be misunderstood? +Please confide in me dear. You promised―”</p> + +<p>But Sally’s soft shoulders stiffened in resistance.</p> + +<p>“Evidently you do not trust me yourself, Alice, and naturally your +opinion is more important to me than anyone’s else. Yet when one has lived +with the same people a long time one does expect a certain amount of faith and +understanding. I am sorry, for I cannot tell you what you wish to know at +present. I may be able to in a very few days, if you will be good enough to wait +and not speak to Aunt Patricia. It is hardly worth while to make a difficulty +between us! Personally I am glad Tante <i>is</i> away; at least, I am glad she +is away today, since it would have been more difficult to refuse my confidence +to her than to any one else. But <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_204'></a>204</span> I shall regret it if I am able to make my +confession before her return. She at least would have tried to believe I have +not intended to do anything wrong. Now please leave me alone, Alice. You were +right, I am going out on an important errand. You need not worry over my going +alone this time, because old Jean has promised to go with me as soon as he is +free and I shall wait for him.”</p> + +<p>Then, although Alice lingered for several moments longer, when Sally would +neither speak to her, nor look at her, she slowly left the room.</p> + +<p>Afterwards when Alice had disappeared Sally’s pretence of courage +vanished and she sat with her hands clasped tightly together while the tears ran +down her face.</p> + +<p>All very well to pretend to Alice that she was convinced she had been doing +no wrong. But was this true? In the end would she not have to pay dearly in the +continuing condemnation and distrust of her friends? When her confession was +finally made, would they even then understand and forgive her?</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span><a id='link_15'></a>CHAPTER XV<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE DISCOVERY</span></h2> + +<p>A little more than an hour later Sally and Jean started forth upon their +mysterious pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>To have been spared the ordeal of this morning’s visit to the French +château Sally would have given a great deal. On other occasions she had been +nervous and fearful, but never to the extent to which the recent conversation +with her sister had reduced her.</p> + +<p>More than once within the hour of waiting before she and Jean could slip +away, Sally concluded to abandon her plan and never go near the château again, +regardless of results. Then she remembered that she had given her word and that +upon this visit many things were to be explained and arranged. Having endured so +much of struggle, strain and suspicion, one must not fail in the end. And in +spite of Sally’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_206'></a>206</span> apparent indolence and softness, failure had no +part in her mental make-up.</p> + +<p>Yet in being compelled to spend an hour of watching before daring to make her +escape there was a sense of humiliation, almost of degradation. Nevertheless, +what else could she do except wait until Alice was again absorbed in her +teaching and until there was no one about the farm house or in the yard who +would pay any especial attention to her actions?</p> + +<p>Sally’s final misfortune was in encountering Yvonne as she passed +through the hall downstairs.</p> + +<p>It may have been her imagination, due to her conversation with her sister. +Sally felt almost convinced that Yvonne shrank away from her as she passed, +almost as if she were drawing her skirts aside. In return Sally suffered a wave +of indignation and the conviction that she would never be able to forgive +Yvonne. She even had an impulse some day to avenge the other girl’s +injustice.</p> + +<p>She and Jean did not immediately move off in the direction of the château. +She and old Jean took an entirely opposite <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_207'></a>207</span> direction, until in a field about half a mile away, +altering their course, they walked rapidly toward the château. Sally never +ceased to gaze behind them every few moments, fearing they might be +followed.</p> + +<p>Small wonder that with the unaccustomed walks and the burden of a serious +responsibility Sally Ashton had altered in the past few weeks!</p> + +<p>Indeed, her only solace had been the loyal faith and allegiance which the old +French peasant, Jean, had given to her cause and to her.</p> + +<p>From the first day, when in halting and broken French she had begged him to +accompany her to the château to assist in the care of a wounded soldier, he had +not asked a question or refused his services.</p> + +<p>When it was impossible for him to escape Miss Patricia’s vigilance at +the hour Sally asked, she always found that he had managed to make the trip +sometime later, during the day or night, and accomplished what was necessary. +What he may have thought of the situation, what questions he may have asked +himself behind the inscrutability of his weather-beaten countenance with its +misty, coal-black eyes, Sally never inquired. There were enough problems to meet +without this. The important fact was that Jean never failed her and that he made +an otherwise impossible task possible.</p> + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a id='link_i4'></a><img src='images/i208.jpg' alt='' /> +<p class='center caption'> +<span class='sc'>She and Old Jean Took an Entirely Opposite Direction.</span> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209'></a>209</span>After +discovering the serious illness of the wounded soldier in hiding, Sally Ashton +had continued the amazing task of caring for him at the château.</p> + +<p>She did not come to this decision immediately; indeed, it had grown so slowly +that at times it did not appear as a decision at all. Nor did Sally attempt to +justify herself. She felt compelled to take a courageous attitude with her +sister, but she never had been convinced of her own patriotism or good sense. +Even up to the present time she was not sure of the nationality of her patient, +although it had been a relief that during his delirium he had spoken +occasionally in French.</p> + +<p>The truth is that as the days passed on and Sally’s responsibility +increased her attitude toward the soldier changed. At first she had been +annoyed, bored with the entire adventure and with the circumstances <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span> resulting from it. But +as the young man’s illness became more alarming and Sally’s anxiety +increased, a new characteristic awoke in her. Sally Ashton belonged to the type +of girl who is essentially maternal. She would be one of the large group of +women who love, marry and bring up a family and are nearly always adored by +their husbands, but feel no passionate affection until the coming of their +children.</p> + +<p>So unconsciously the wounded soldier’s dependence upon her for food and +attention, for life itself, aroused Sally’s motherly instinct, although +she did not dream of the fact and would have been angry at the suggestion.</p> + +<p>One convincing proof. In the beginning she had been both physically and +mentally repelled by the soiled and blood-stained soldier and by his confused +confession. She had not surrendered him to justice because she did not feel +called upon to appear as the arbiter of any human being’s fate and because +she had not the dramatic instinct of most girls. But Sally had presumed the +soldier would be arrested later <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_211'></a>211</span> and was not particularly concerned with his future +one way or the other.</p> + +<p>Now her point of view had completely altered. At first her idea was merely +that the soldier should recover with no other nursing save that which she and +old Jean could bestow upon him. But now that he was recovering, she was equally +determined he should be saved from whatever enemy he had feared before being +delivered into her hands.</p> + +<p>Before parting on the previous afternoon Sally had agreed with her patient +that they discuss his situation on her next visit to the château.</p> + +<p>As the old man and girl crept cautiously inside the opening between the arch +of walls, they could see their soldier lying asleep upon his mattress, but +between clean sheets and covered with blankets which Sally had managed to secure +from the supply at the farm.</p> + +<p>The half-dismantled room was cold but fragrant with the odors of the woods +and fields. Perhaps the fresh air which had at all times flooded the odd +sick-room had been in a measure responsible for the ill <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_212'></a>212</span> man’s recovery, having taken the +place of other comforts he had been obliged to forego.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes at the approach of his two friends and looked a little +wistfully at Sally.</p> + +<p>“You have come at last! I was afraid you would not be able to manage. +How kind you have been!”</p> + +<p>Sally made no reply except to offer him a glass of milk and to stand silently +by until he had finished drinking it.</p> + +<p>She looked very sweet. Today her walk and the excitement of her morning had +tired her so that she was paler than usual; yet her lips were full and crimson +and her brown hair had a charming fashion of curling in little brown rings on +her forehead as if she were a tiny child.</p> + +<p>The soldier no longer wore any look of mental confusion except that his +expression was puzzled and questioning.</p> + +<p>“You are much better. I am glad,” Sally said at last. “You +see I do not know how often I can come to the château after today, unless you +should become very <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213'></a>213</span> +ill again and then I would come in any case.”</p> + +<p>Sally’s direct fashion of speaking had its value amid the complexities +of human relations.</p> + +<p>Old Jean had disappeared to bring fresh water and to accomplish other tasks +so that Sally and the soldier were alone for a little time.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Jean’s had been the really difficult nursing. +Night after night when the soldier’s condition had been most critical Jean +had made no pretence of going to bed, but had hobbled over at bedtime to remain +until dawn by the ill man’s side.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you will sit down for a little so that I can ask you a great +many questions,” the soldier suggested. “Now that I am getting back +my senses, you can scarcely imagine what a mystery my present situation +is.”</p> + +<p>Nodding agreement, Sally drew a beautiful French chair across the strange +drawing-room and seated herself within a few feet of her patient’s bed. It +was odd that she had never felt any fear of the old <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_214'></a>214</span> walls tumbling down upon her from the +hour she had begun her nursing, although before that time she had believed +nothing could force her to trust herself inside the ruins.</p> + +<p>“I would like to ask you to begin at the beginning. In what condition +and how long ago did you find me here? If I could only guess the time! But I am +under the impression I have not been myself for several weeks until these last +few days. Yet I have a vague recollection of finding my way to this old house +and of seeing you standing one day framed in that open arch. After that I have +no memory of anything else until I became conscious of your face and of old +Jean’s bending over me and then of this extraordinary place. If I have +been ill, why have I not been cared for in a hospital?</p> + +<p>“I remember escaping from the Germans who had taken me prisoner and +then wandering, wandering about in a country where there were no trees, no +grass, no houses, nothing but the upturned earth and exploded shells. Afterwards +I was not sure I had reached the French country. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_215'></a>215</span> I know I used to hide in the day time +and prowl around at night. I think I must have become ill soon after my escape, +because I have an indistinct impression that I was trying to find my old home, +the château where I lived before the outbreak of the war. I suppose that is one +reason why I hid myself in here. But nothing I can remember explains +<i>you</i>.”</p> + +<p>Sally sighed.</p> + +<p>“I do not understand what you are talking about, at least not exactly. +I am not even convinced you do. But if you really are a French soldier and +managed to escape from the Germans, I am glad. I know you will think me stupid, +but still how could I have been expected to understand that you were a French +soldier when you seemed so horribly afraid of being discovered? You were in your +own country and among your own people! Personally there is very little for me to +tell about myself.</p> + +<p>“I am an American girl, I don’t suppose you consider me French, +and I am living at a farm house not far away with some American friends. One day +I was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216'></a>216</span> taking a +walk and just from curiosity slipped over here to look more closely at the +château. It frightened me when I discovered you were hiding in here. You can +never guess how you startled me! At our first meeting you told me some mixed-up +story and asked me to bring you some food. I thought you were an escaped +prisoner and I did not want to have anything to do with you. But you insisted if +you were caught you would be hung. The next day when I arrived with the food you +were too ill to recognize me. There is nothing more to tell.”</p> + +<p>“That is all,” the soldier repeated. “But that sounds more +like the beginning, does it not? You were not even sure of my nationality and +yet you have been coming here every day to care for me. Suppose I had been your +enemy?”</p> + +<p>By this time the soldier was sitting up and intently studying the face of the +girl before him. He was wearing a faded dark blue shirt which Jean had +generously bestowed upon him the day before, this being the first occasion for +which he had made an effort to dress himself.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217'></a>217</span>“Strange +human beings, women! I wonder if we men will ever understand you? I have no +doubt you would blow up the united armies of the Central Empires if it were +possible without a qualm and yet you would make any sacrifice to save the life +of one prisoner.”</p> + +<p>“But I was never convinced about you,” Sally apologized. +“Then after you became so seriously ill I never thought. But I am sure I +beg your pardon. As you are a Frenchman of course you would have been infinitely +better cared for in a hospital. If anything had happened to you it would have +been my fault. But really I did not know what was done to prisoners who ran away +from their captors and you suggested such an uncomfortable fate for +yourself.</p> + +<p>“Now you are better I don’t think I will come back to the château +again. You see you made me promise not to tell anyone that you were hiding here, +and my sister and friends think it strange because I have been spending so much +time away from the farm recently. I don’t suppose I shall ever be able to +make anyone understand. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_218'></a>218</span> It is hard, isn’t it, to be blamed for things +and then find they have been of no use? Jean will do whatever is necessary for +you until you are entirely well. He can bring me news of you and he will take a +message to anyone you care to see if you do not feel strong enough to be moved +to a hospital immediately.”</p> + +<p>Sally rose as if she meant to leave at once, then something in her +companion’s expression made her sink down into her chair.</p> + +<p>“No, you must not come to see me again,” he answered, +“although I shall wish to see no one else. Perhaps it will not be long +before I am able to call upon your friends if you will allow me. I am stronger +than you realize; but you have not told me what you are doing in this +neighborhood.”</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly Sally had a remarkable sensation. It was as if suddenly her +position and the soldier’s changed and as if he had begun to think of her +welfare rather than to have her devote herself to his.</p> + +<p>“Oh, we are doing reclamation work,” <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_219'></a>219</span> Sally returned; “that is, my +sister and friends are. I have not accomplished anything that is important. I +told you I was stupid.”</p> + +<p>All at once Sally’s soldier broke into a peal of clear boyish laughter +which was of more benefit to him than either of them appreciated.</p> + +<p>“No, you have done nothing except save my life. It is not kind of you +under the circumstances to announce you consider it unimportant. Some day when I +am able to rejoin my regiment perhaps I may be able to prove your work worth +while. Thanks to you, perhaps I shall again serve France as I have never served +her before! The enemy has taken from me everything else, my mother, my sister, +my little brother and my home. I made up my mind that they should not hold me a +prisoner whatever might befall me. If I had to give up my life I meant to die in +the open.”</p> + +<p>Then more excited and exhausted than either he or Sally had appreciated, the +soldier lay down again, closing his eyes.</p> + +<p>It was a part of Sally’s recent training <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_220'></a>220</span> which made her continue sitting quietly +beside him for the next few moments without speaking or moving.</p> + +<p>In the interval she studied the soldier’s face.</p> + +<p>For the first time he was appearing to her as a man. Up until now he had +simply been a human being who must be cared for, allowed to suffer as little as +possible and at last be restored to health.</p> + +<p>In considering him at present Sally did not particularly admire his +appearance. She thought his nose was rather too large and his lips too thin and +in spite of Jean’s devotion, his services as a barber left a good deal to +be desired.</p> + +<p>“Your arm is nearly well, still I think I should like to bandage it +once more before I go,” Sally suggested. “You do not realize it, of +course, but I have learned a great deal about nursing since I began to look +after you. I don’t like sick people, else I suppose I could become a Red +Cross nurse after more training if I wished. But I don’t think I should +like the work.”</p> + +<p>As Sally talked she was accomplishing her task, certainly with a good deal +more <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221'></a>221</span> skill than +she had shown several weeks before.</p> + +<p>However, her patient was not conscious of the fact. At present he was not +thinking of his wound but of his nurse.</p> + +<p>There was something about her so deliciously frank and ingenuous. At least +she seemed ingenuous to him, although it was difficult always to be sure +concerning Sally.</p> + +<p>When she had finished the young Frenchman took one of her hands and touched +it lightly with his lips.</p> + +<p>“Will you tell me your name, please, and where to find you before you +say farewell? I am Lieutenant Robert Fleury of the +French-cuirassiers.”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Sally was walking back home alone to the farm house, having +left Jean to continue to care for their patient.</p> + +<p>She was not to go back to the château again and she was to tell her friends +exactly what had taken place in the past few weeks. She seemed to have promised +this to her patient.</p> + +<p>Yet Sally was not sure when she would <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_222'></a>222</span> tell her story. She had no desire to make a +confession to Alice, and Aunt Patricia was not to be considered. If only she +might arrange to wait until Mrs. Burton’s return from her journey into +southern France.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223'></a>223</span><a id='link_16'></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /><span class='h2fs'>AN UNEXPECTED SHELTER</span></h2> + +<p>It was after the hour for their midday dinner when Sally finally arrived at +the farmhouse; however, she was able to reach her own room without any questions +being asked concerning her delay.</p> + +<p>Undressing slowly with the idea of lying down for a little while before +facing her friends, Sally was interrupted for the second time that day by the +unexpected appearance of her sister. On this occasion Alice’s expression +made any further discussion not only unnecessary but impossible.</p> + +<p>“Will you come with me, please, to Aunt Patricia’s room?” +she began at once. “I have been talking to Aunt Patricia and she says it +is only fair that we should hear your explanation before passing judgment. I +have spoken to no one else, although I suppose it will be impossible to hide the +facts from the other girls. <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_224'></a>224</span> In reality, I believe they already have guessed a +great deal and have been trying to keep the truth from me.”</p> + +<p>At the moment of her sister’s entrance Sally had been slipping into a +little blue dressing gown which had been her mother’s final gift the day +before their parting. The dressing gown did not have a utilitarian appearance, +since it was made of a soft blue, light woolen material with little clusters of +yellow roses scattered over the design and with blue ribbons and lace about the +throat and sleeves.</p> + +<p>In response to her sister’s speech Sally gathered about her the +dressing gown, which she had not yet fastened, and immediately started to leave +the room.</p> + +<p>“I shall be very glad indeed to talk to Aunt Patricia, but not to you, +Alice, nor do I ever intend to forgive you. I suppose you followed old Jean and +me to the château and have drawn your own inference from what you observed. Do +you know, Alice, I have often wondered why the puritanical conscience is always +so suspicious of other people?” And in this last <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_225'></a>225</span> speech of Sally’s there was more +of truth that she could fully appreciate.</p> + +<p>But if in this final analysis she were speaking the truth, the first part of +her remark had been a complete falsehood. At the present time there was nothing +she desired so little as being forced into making her confession to Miss +Patricia Lord, a severe spinster with no consideration for human folly. Would +any one else on earth be more difficult or more unrelenting?</p> + +<p>In the past hour or more, following her conversation at the château, Sally +had been facing one of the hardest experiences of life.</p> + +<p>Her weeks of self-sacrifice and devotion had been not only unnecessary, they +had been absurd. If only she could have enjoyed the inward satisfaction of +considering herself a heroine or a martyr! But she had risked her own reputation +and the young French officer’s life to what end?</p> + +<p>As the two girls entered Miss Patricia’s room, Sally, accompanied by +her sister, whose existence on earth she refused to recognize, considered that +Miss Patricia <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226'></a>226</span> +appeared as implacable as a stone image. Yet one could scarcely compare her to +the Sphinx. That ancient stone figure with the head of a woman and the body of a +lioness looks as if she had devoted the many centuries since her creation to +solving the riddles of human life.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia would consider anything but plain speaking a sheer waste of +energy and truth. There were no riddles in Miss Patricia’s mental +category.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Miss Patricia’s voice did not sound unkind when she +suggested that Sally occupy the solitary chair in her bedroom, although +undoubtedly this would leave the elderly woman standing as well as Alice. But +then Sally did not realize how appealing her appearance was at this moment even +to so harsh a critic of human nature.</p> + +<p>Sally indolent, Sally dreaming her own small and rather selfish dreams, or a +Sally self-assured and self-content were not unfamiliar figures to her world. +But Sally confused and tired, hurt and bewildered, not by her own actions or any +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227'></a>227</span> one’s else, +but by a web of circumstance, was a new study.</p> + +<p>“No, I would prefer not to sit down, Miss Patricia, and in any case I +would not have you stand,” Sally answered, still with an innate sense of +her own dignity and value which at no time in her life was she ever wholly to +lose. “Alice seems to have told you some disagreeable story about me. So I +think it just as well for me to tell you the exact truth. I hope I can make you +understand. I suppose I should have confided in some one before, but until a few +hours ago I did not feel that I had the privilege.”</p> + +<p>Sally’s golden brown eyes with the heavy upcurling lashes, which gave +to her face the expression of unusual softness, were now gazing upward into Miss +Patricia’s. The latter’s eyes were gallant also and steadfast, nor +did Sally find them so distrustful as she had anticipated.</p> + +<p>“Very well, my dear, go on with your story. I thought Alice was too +much excited,” Miss Patricia returned, seating herself in her upright +chair, as Sally seemed to prefer her to be seated.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228'></a>228</span>Then with her +little dressing gown wrapped about her as if it had been a Roman toga, Sally +told the history of the past weeks, her unexpected discovery of the wounded +soldier amid the ruins of the old French château, her belief that he was a +runaway prisoner and notwithstanding this, her effort, with Jean’s +assistance, to restore him to health.</p> + +<p>Sally’s explanation was less confused than her conversation with the +French soldier a short time before. However, since that hour many things had +become clearer in her own mind. She did not break down until her story was +completed and only then when she turned toward her sister.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Alice, what you and the other Camp Fire girls have +been thinking of me, and I don’t believe I care to guess. I know you have +not been generous. But since I don’t wish to discuss the subject with any +one save Aunt Patricia, and with Tante of course when she returns, I wish you +would offer the other girls any interpretation of my behavior you care to +give.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229'></a>229</span>At this +Sally’s voice broke in spite of her efforts at self-control. When Alice +made a step toward her with her arms outstretched to ask forgiveness, Sally +stepped back only to find herself enfolded by Miss Patricia and to hear Miss +Patricia declare:</p> + +<p>“I think it would be wiser, Alice, for you to leave Sally and me alone +for a little time; she is tired and unstrung. If you and the other girls have +been unfair, you will have an opportunity to apologize later. Then Sally herself +will feel more inclined to be reasonable.”</p> + +<p>Afterwards, when Alice had reluctantly disappeared, unexpectedly Sally found +herself seated as if she were a child in Aunt Patricia’s lap and listening +to a very wise and tender conversation, one she was never to forget, from a +woman of deep and broad experience.</p> + +<p>When she grew less disturbed Aunt Patricia made no effort not to scold Sally +for her unwisdom and her lack of reliance upon older judgment than her own. But +the great fact was that Aunt Patricia was never unfair, that she had no +sentimental <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230'></a>230</span> +suspicions and made no accusations with which Sally could not fairly agree.</p> + +<p>In their half hour together Sally Ashton learned to appreciate for the rest +of her life Aunt Patricia’s value, learned to understand why Mrs. Burton +cared for her so devotedly and considered her a tower of strength in adversity. +In this uncertain world in which we live there are fair weather and foul weather +friends. Miss Patricia belonged to the number who not only fail to strike other +people when they are down, but who spend all their energy and strength in the +effort to lift them up again.</p> + +<p>Later on the other Camp Fire girls were also to form a new estimate of Miss +Patricia’s character, but simply by force of circumstance Sally was the +first one of them to be admitted inside the stern citadel with which the elderly +spinster surrounded her great heart.</p> + +<p>“In the morning, Sally, when you have rested, and if I were you, child, +I would spend this afternoon in bed, why I intend to walk over with you to your +château and make the acquaintance of your soldier. If <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_231'></a>231</span> he is a gentleman my dear, or even if +he is a real man, I mean to bring him here to the farm house to remain as our +guest until he has completely recovered. Now, don’t argue with me, Sally. +Mrs. Burton will tell you that I am a hopeless old woman with whom to have an +argument. I simply never do any one’s way except my own. I do not wish to +discuss this side of the situation with you to any extent, but don’t you +see, my dear, that it is better for you that we have your soldier here? No one +shall think your friends have not understood and approved of your care of this +young Frenchman.”</p> + +<p>Sally murmured her acquiescence and her gratitude. Yet suddenly she felt that +she wished never again to see the young officer who for the past few weeks had +been her constant thought and care.</p> + +<p>He had recovered sufficiently no longer to need her services and although he +was not wilfully responsible, nevertheless he had given her a great deal of care +and trouble.</p> + +<p>“Of course you must do what you think best, Aunt Patricia,” Sally +added a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232'></a>232</span> moment +later, as she was preparing to start to her own room. “But don’t you +think we had best wait until Tante’s return?”</p> + +<p>Aunt Patricia shook her head.</p> + +<p>“What Polly Burton may think or desire in the matter will not have the +slightest influence with me. She cheerfully surrendered you girls into my charge +in order to make this trip, of which she knew I thoroughly disapproved. However, +in spite of the fact that I am very angry with her, I do not wish any one else +to feel uneasy, although I shall not have a happy moment until she +returns.”</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233'></a>233</span><a id='link_17'></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /><span class='h2fs'>TWO OFFICERS</span></h2> + +<p>A week later two young officers were guests at the farm house on the Aisne, +one of them an American aerial lieutenant, the other a lieutenant in the French +cavalry.</p> + +<p>Following his telegram within a few days, Lieutenant Ralph Marshall had +arrived to spend a short furlough, ostensibly with the entire group of American +Camp Fire girls, although in reality his visit was to Peggy Webster. +Notwithstanding the fact that he and Peggy were not supposed to be engaged, +chiefly because of Peggy’s youth, they shared a different conviction from +their families.</p> + +<p>The other young officer was none other than “Sally’s +soldier.” Absurd as the title appeared, particularly to Sally herself, +nevertheless under this name he was discussed secretly and at length in the Camp +Fire household.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234'></a>234</span>Toward late +afternoon on the day after Sally’s enforced confession, accompanied only +by Old Jean, Miss Patricia Lord had tramped across the fields to the French +château and had there interviewed its inmate with a directness and a searchlight +quality worthy of a public prosecutor.</p> + +<p>As a result she had received more valuable information than Sally Ashton had +acquired in the hour of their mutual and confused avowal. Among other things +Miss Patricia had learned that the wounded officer’s extraordinary outfit +was due to the fact that he believed it would make his escape more feasible.</p> + +<p>But whatever the details of his story, he was able to inspire Miss Patricia +with sufficient interest and faith to admit him as a temporary guest at the farm +house in spite of the absence of Mrs. Burton.</p> + +<p>However, although undoubtedly a guest, he was a guest according to rules and +restrictions laid down and adhered to by Miss Patricia and her household.</p> + +<p>In the first place, until he had completely recovered he was to remain in his +room at the farm house, cared for only <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_235'></a>235</span> by old Jean with occasional visits from Miss +Patricia. Under no circumstances was he to see or meet for the present a single +one of the Camp Fire girls. This rule was particularly to be observed with +regard to Sally Ashton.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia made no effort to conceal her intention of making a thorough +investigation of the account of his life the French officer had imparted to her. +She knew it would not be so difficult to verify his statements. It was possible +to communicate with the commander of his regiment and also his friends, as he +claimed to have lived in the French country not many miles away from their +neighborhood in the valley of the Aisne. After his recovery doubtless he would +be able to find a number of his former acquaintances by returning to his old +home.</p> + +<p>It was in his favor that the French officer entirely agreed with Miss +Patricia’s attitude in every particular save one. But he was wise enough +not to argue with her concerning this. In truth, thirty-six hours after his +installation at the farm house, the young Frenchman and Miss <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236'></a>236</span> Patricia had become +surprisingly intimate friends. One could explain this by stating that the +officer had a delightful sense of humor and a valuable appreciation of +character. Miss Patricia announced that no friendship could have been possible +between them if Lieutenant Fleury’s mother had not had the good sense to +have him taught English by an English governess when he was a small boy. His +accent Miss Patricia considered as peculiar as her own French one, nevertheless +they were able to understand each other amazingly well.</p> + +<p>One brilliant morning Miss Patricia entered the French officer’s room +bearing a cup of bouillon to find him staring out a window which he had just +opened in order to let in the air and for another purpose which Miss Patricia +instantly suspected.</p> + +<p>“Breaking parole,” she commented tersely.</p> + +<p>The young officer had not heard her entrance. In return he swung round and +laughed.</p> + +<p>“Is that fair, Miss Lord? A cat may look at a king, <i>comme cá</i> why +not at a number <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237'></a>237</span> of +queens? Besides, don’t you realize it is a miracle for a French soldier to +be able to dream that these devastated fields of France are soon to become green +and fruitful again? Having lost everything in the early days of the German +invasion, my family, home, my small fortune, nevertheless I rejoice that for +other French soldiers there may be a happier future when they return to their +former homes, thanks to the great hearts of the American people!”</p> + +<p>The young officer’s deep feeling and his quiet self-contained manner +caused a lump to rise in Miss Patricia’s throat and a mist before her +eyes. Therefore her manner became more belligerent than ever.</p> + +<p>“Here, sit down and drink this,” she commanded. “I suppose +you consider that you have entirely recovered your strength and that I am the +veriest old termagant not to permit you to enjoy your convalescence with a group +of more or less charming American girls. But as a matter of fact I am really +protecting you as well as the girls. We have lived without masculine society, +unless you wish to count <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_238'></a>238</span> old Jean, ever since our arrival at the farm house. +So whatever your impression, I am afraid you would soon be overpowered with +attention once I allowed you to leave this room.”</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Fleury finished his bouillon with a proper degree of gratitude and +enthusiasm before replying.</p> + +<p>Afterwards he gazed at Miss Patricia for several moments in silence as if +carefully considering a number of important matters.</p> + +<p>The young French officer was of more than medium height, had dark eyes and +hair, and except when he was talking, his expression was grave and sad. His arm +remained bandaged.</p> + +<p>“Miss Patricia, I do not wish to meet <i>all</i> your Camp Fire girls. +I agree with you I am not strong enough to make myself agreeable to them. But I +do wish to see <i>one</i> of them again. You are aware that I mean Miss Ashton. +If ever a man had cause to be grateful to a girl―-”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!” Miss Patricia interrupted, picking up the empty cup +as if she were intending to leave the room immediately. <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_239'></a>239</span> “Sally was a goose and ran the +risk of being the death of you instead of saving your life as you like to think. +Besides, she has not the slightest desire to see you; she told me this herself. +She feels now that she was ridiculous. She should never have paid any attention +to the disjointed tale of an ill man, or to the promise which you seem to have +exacted of the poor child in your original interview. As for being grateful to +Sally, that is also a waste of energy when you have none too much to spare. The +one dream of every girl in the world these days is to be allowed the privilege +of caring for a good-looking soldier. Sally had her opportunity under +particularly romantic and nonsensical circumstances. Besides, men will always be +grateful to Sally Ashton for something or other as long as she lives, grateful +because she is pretty and soft and selfish and, dear me, I suppose she is what +one calls essentially feminine! I confess I have rather a tender feeling toward +the child myself.”</p> + +<p>And without further answer to his request Miss Patricia hurriedly +departed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240'></a>240</span>Outdoors at the +same time Sally was occupied in the garden digging in a desultory fashion. As +soon as there was no further danger of the ground freezing the Camp Fire girls +were planning to plant a garden.</p> + +<p>Sally was alone at her task and alone because she preferred solitude.</p> + +<p>After her fantastic escapade had been disclosed to the other Camp Fire girls, +those of them who had been particularly annoyed by her mysterious behavior were +frankly regretful of their condemnation. They did not whole-heartedly approve of +what she had done, but no one doubted Sally’s good intention or the +unselfishness of her motive. Aside from Yvonne, whose attitude continued puzzled +and distrustful, each girl individually had approached Sally with a carefully +veiled apology. However, Sally, who was not in a friendly state of mind toward +the world at present, received their advances coldly.</p> + +<p>The only two persons whose opinion she really valued were Aunt +Patricia’s and Mrs. Burton’s. Aunt Patricia had been kinder and more +understanding than any <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_241'></a>241</span> human being could have dreamed possible. Mrs. +Burton had not yet returned from her journey into southern France. Indeed, no +word had been heard from her in a number of days, so that not alone did Aunt +Patricia suffer from uneasiness. The great German drive so long expected was +fanning the long line of the French battlefront into fiercer and more +terrorizing flames. At any hour the greatest struggle in human history would +once more burst upon the world.</p> + +<p>An hour later Sally Ashton knocked shyly upon Lieutenant Fleury’s +closed door. She did not do this in accordance with her own wishes, but because +of an urgent appeal made by Miss Patricia.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, for some days Miss Patricia had been haunted by the +story of his life, since the outbreak of the war, which the young French officer +had recounted to her. He was not conscious of asking for sympathy, nor did he +consider his story unusual. Nevertheless it occurred to Miss Patricia this +morning that she was unwilling to add loneliness to the difficulties which he +must face during the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_242'></a>242</span> hours of his return to health. Up to the present +time he had been too engaged with his soldiering to allow much opportunity for +reflection.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia was also convinced of the truth of what Lieutenant Fleury had +told her of himself, although she had no thought of not adding the necessary +proof to her instinctive conviction. But in the meantime if he really earnestly +desired to see and talk to Sally Ashton and to express his gratitude, what +possible harm could come of allowing them an interview? Their acquaintance had +been achieved under such remarkable circumstances, to meet in a more ordinary +and formal fashion would doubtless be best for them both. Afterwards they would +not develop fantastic and untruthful ideas concerning each other.</p> + +<p>At the moment of Sally’s arrival Lieutenant Fleury was despondent. It +was true he had managed to escape from the Germans and could congratulate +himself that he was not a prisoner and might hope within a reasonable length of +time to return to his own regiment. Nevertheless <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_243'></a>243</span> what an extraordinarily stupid +adventure he had stumbled into in his sub-conscious effort to seek the +neighborhood of his former home!</p> + +<p>He had come out of the experience a thousand times better than he had any +right to hope, yet had he not involved an American girl in what must have been +an extremely disagreeable and ungrateful task?</p> + +<p>At this moment of her entrance into the invalid’s room Sally Ashton did +not appear to have been seriously affected by her experience.</p> + +<p>Her hour of working in the garden in the warm late winter sun had given her +cheeks the color they frequently lacked, or else it was her embarrassment at +meeting the young officer. Sally’s hair was also curling in the delicious +and irresponsible fashion it often assumed, breaking into small rings on her +forehead and at the back of her neck in the fashion of which she at least +pretended to disapprove.</p> + +<p>“Miss Patricia said you wished to speak to me. I am glad you are so +much better,” she began in a reserved and ceremonious <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_244'></a>244</span> fashion as if she and the lieutenant +had met on but one previous occasion before today.</p> + +<p>In truth it seemed impossible to Sally that the French officer whom she was +facing at present had been the ill and disheveled boy she had found in hiding at +the château and nursed back to comparative health.</p> + +<p>In announcing that Sally did not desire to see the young French officer +again, Miss Patricia had been correct. Sally considered that she had made a +grave and foolish mistake and preferred, as most of us do, that her mistake be +ignored and forgotten.</p> + +<p>Yet Lieutenant Fleury had no idea either of ignoring or forgetting +Sally’s effort in his behalf.</p> + +<p>Immediately in reply to her knock he had risen. His serious expression had +now changed to one of boyish gratitude and good humor.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did wish to speak to you; you are kind to have come,” he +returned, although in reality surprised by Sally’s extremely youthful +appearance. He had only a confused memory of her face bending <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245'></a>245</span> above him during his +delirium. They had enjoyed but one conversation when he was entirely himself. On +that occasion he had supposed his rescuer a young woman of some years and +dignity, and Sally at present looked like a school girl. Indeed, she was a +school girl when at home in her own part of the world if one can count college +and school as one and the same thing.</p> + +<p>After coming in from the garden this morning she had hastily changed her +everyday Camp Fire dress for a white flannel of which she was especially fond, +and without observing that the skirt had shrunk until it was extremely +short.</p> + +<p>“I wished to tell you once again how more than grateful I am to you for +your great kindness,” the officer continued, smiling in spite of his +serious state of mind at the unexpectedness of Sally’s appearance. Looking +at her now, it was hard to believe that she had ever assumed the arduous burden +of nursing a wounded soldier under more than trying conditions. Yet if Sally had +not been immature, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246'></a>246</span> +she would have never have shouldered such a responsibility!</p> + +<p>She was smiling now and dimpling in an irresistible fashion.</p> + +<p>“Will you make me a promise?” she demanded. “It is the one +thing I ask of you. If you are really under the impression that I was good to +you when I was merely risking your life, then promise never to refer to what I +did for you as long as you live and never mention the story to anybody who could +have the faintest chance of knowing me. You see,” Sally continued, her +manner becoming more confidential, “I realize now that from every point of +view I was foolish. It is kind of you to have turned out to be some one whom +Miss Patricia and all of us are able to know, for you might have been a most +impossible person.”</p> + +<p>The young French officer laughed. As he recalled their last meeting and this +one his benefactress struck him as a person who had the gift of provoking +laughter.</p> + +<p>“I think this a good deal to require of me,” he returned. +“I will do what you ask only on condition that you―-”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247'></a>247</span>“That I +promise to allow you to do a favor for me some day?” Sally completed the +unfinished sentence. “I suppose that is what you were about to say, +wasn’t it? Of course you can do whatever kindness you like if you have the +chance. But it does not seem probable. After you go away from the farm I +can’t imagine any reason why we should ever see each other again. Besides, +you would do whatever you could for me whether I gave you permission or +not.” Here Sally smiled a second time.</p> + +<p>For an instant the French officer stared, nonplussed.</p> + +<p>But he was not the first person whom Sally had puzzled. She was so matter of +fact and so sure of herself one could not tell whether she was extremely simple +or correspondingly subtle.</p> + +<p>Since her companion regarded her as a child, he could have but one +impression.</p> + +<p>When finally he held out his hand, Sally hesitated an instant before placing +her own inside his. His exhibition of French courtesy and gratitude at their +last meeting had been slightly embarrassing. But <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_248'></a>248</span> this time the lieutenant only held her +hand gravely.</p> + +<p>“You are right, Miss Ashton, whatever was possible to show my gratitude +to you I should do, with or without your permission. If I am spared when the war +is over I may even create the opportunity which you seem to doubt my ever +having. When the war began I had a sister who was, I think perhaps only a few +years older than you. If you can ever make up your mind to regard me as she +would have done, it would mean a great real to me.”</p> + +<p>Sally was beginning to feel bored. She thought her companion was very +conventional and a little stupid.</p> + +<p>She had not the faintest desire to adopt an unknown young man as a brother. +Sally knew herself sufficiently well to realize that the sisterly attitude would +make but little appeal to her as long as she lived. And she hoped that her +interview with the rescued officer might be entertaining. Life was dull now at +the farm with Mrs. Burton away and her own occupation, which had been exciting +even if fatiguing, withdrawn.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249'></a>249</span>“What +happened to your sister?” Sally inquired politely, although intending to +make her escape as soon as possible should their conversation continue on such +sentimental lines.</p> + +<p>“She was killed in the retreat when the Germans conquered this part of +France at the outbreak of the war. I had gone to the front to join my regiment, +so Yvonne and my mother were alone except for my little brother and a few women +servants. Our château was destroyed.”</p> + +<p>The French officer paused because Sally was looking at him with a curious +expression as if an idea which she may have had in her mind for some time was +now slowly crystalizing into a fact.</p> + +<p>“Your sister’s name was Yvonne Fleury and your château was not +far from here, was it not?” Sally demanded.</p> + +<p>The young officer nodded. He did not care to discuss his past history with +Sally or with any one else in the world. There was nothing to be gained by +recalling the inevitable tragedies of the war.</p> + +<p>Sally did not appear seriously distressed. Unless she happened to be an <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250'></a>250</span> actual witness to +suffering it did not touch her deeply. Besides, at the present time she was +smiling oddly, as if she were pleased and displeased at the same time.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think that you need adopt me as your sister,” she +remarked.</p> + +<p>Until this moment they had both continued standing.</p> + +<p>Now Sally made a little motion toward the invalid’s chair which Miss +Patricia had removed from their sitting-room to bestow upon her patient.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we both sit down,” she suggested, taking the only other +chair at the same instant.</p> + +<p>“There is something else I wish to talk to you about if you feel you +are strong enough to hear. It may prove to be good news. I suppose it seems a +strange coincidence, although some people would call it an act of Providence, +but I am sure I don’t understand such things. It is just barely possible +your sister Yvonne Fleury was not killed. When we were crossing to France from +the United States we met a girl on shipboard named Yvonne Fleury, whose <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251'></a>251</span> home, the Château +Yvonne, had been destroyed in the early part of the war. As she believed her +brother had been killed at the front, she had gone to New York City, where she +had been living with some friends for several years. She told the entire family +tragedy to our chaperon, Mrs. Burton, who afterwards told the story to us, +hoping we might be especially kind to Yvonne because of her unhappiness. The +other girls have been, but Yvonne and I do not like each other and she has been +very disagreeable to me. Still, if she turns out to be your sister, it does not +matter. Under the circumstances I suppose I ought to say nothing against +her.</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking of this for some time, ever since you told me +your name, but of course there may be nothing in it. I only thought if you might +like to meet this Yvonne Fleury–you see she came here to the farm and is +living with us–I will speak first to Aunt Patricia and together you can +decide.”</p> + +<p>In reality Sally was not so unsympathetic or so childish as at present her +words <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252'></a>252</span> and manner +suggested. During her long speech she had been watching the young officer +narrowly. She had arrived at her present conclusion by putting certain facts +together in a practical and commonsense fashion. There was more than a +possibility that she might be wrong, so there was no reason for working oneself +up into a state of hysteria or of heroics. Moreover, Sally had been entirely +frank. She understood that the French officer would be overjoyed if Yvonne +should prove to be his sister, but Sally herself would have felt no enthusiasm +over the same discovery. As a matter of fact, she had no particular interest in +Yvonne’s opportunity for happiness through her aid.</p> + +<p>She was worried, however, because her former patient suddenly appeared so +white and shaken by her words, when only a few moments before he had looked so +remarkably well.</p> + +<p>Sally moved slowly backwards toward the door.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and find Aunt Patricia; perhaps I should have spoken to +her first of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253'></a>253</span> my +idea. Then after you have talked with her if you would like me to find Yvonne +and ask her to come to you―”</p> + +<p>With these words, having managed to reach the half closed door, Sally +disappeared.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254'></a>254</span><a id='link_18'></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE EXPECTED HAPPENS</span></h2> + +<p>Miss Patricia Lord was on her way to the French village only a few miles from +their farm house. Unless the call were urgent, rarely did Miss Patricia bestow +her activities outside the environments of the farm, which of course included +the house, garden, barns, fields, really a sufficient large sphere of activity +even for her.</p> + +<p>It is true she had been an extremely practical benefactress to the entire +neighborhood, yet her gifts had been made largely through other persons; Mrs. +Burton or one of the Camp Fire girls reporting a special need among their +neighbors, as promptly as possible Miss Patricia had seen that need +supplied.</p> + +<p>So, as she took her walk on this summer afternoon, had she liked she might +have given a good deal of credit to herself for the change in the appearance of +the countryside <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255'></a>255</span> +which the past two months had wrought.</p> + +<p>A number of the peasants’ huts near the road had been either entirely +or partly rebuilt. But more important than the actual physical shelter, Miss +Patricia’s tractor had plowed its way over many acres which otherwise must +have remained unproductive until, as far as the eye could see, the fields were +now being made ready for planting. Even if German guns were thundering along the +battle line, nevertheless behind that line the French peasants toiled on with +their patience and their eternal industry.</p> + +<p>Today Miss Patricia was thinking of life’s contrasts, of the peaceful +scenes through which she was passing which only a few years before had been an +altar of the world’s carnage and which might soon be so sacrificed +again.</p> + +<p>For it would seem as if the last gigantic struggle of the present war were +now about to take place. Surely humanity would never pass through this universal +Calvary again!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256'></a>256</span>Not yet had Mrs. +Burton returned from her journey into southern France!</p> + +<p>A few days before, a letter stating that, having accomplished a portion of +their mission, she, Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval were preparing to start on +their homeward way, had arrived for Miss Patricia, although the letter had been +delayed for a week.</p> + +<p>A more important witness of their mission had been the actual return to the +French village of a number of the refugees in whose welfare Mrs. Burton had been +especially interested. Among them was the French girl, Elise.</p> + +<p>At this moment Miss Patricia was intending to pay a call to offer her +congratulations to Elise and her grandmother and also to learn if Elise had seen +Mrs. Burton or heard any definite information concerning her. The visit was not +one to which she looked forward with pleasure, but was due to the fact that Mrs. +Burton had asked it of her as a favor. Miss Patricia’s use of the French +tongue was so impossible that all conversation between her and her French +neighbors was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257'></a>257</span> an +agony. Moreover, her unconsciously fierce manner seemed always to disconcert the +courteous peasants.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the old men and women and children whom she met on the road +into the village and later upon the village streets bowed to her with more than +ordinary friendliness. If they could not comprehend her words or her manner, the +value of her kindness they could understand.</p> + +<p>A child ran out of one of the houses and unexpectedly presented Miss Patricia +with a little battered image of St. Joseph, and although St. Joseph is one of +the patron saints of marriage, Miss Patricia accepted her gift with warm +appreciation.</p> + +<p>An hour later, when she received the first intimation of what had occurred, +Miss Patricia was standing in the little yard in front of their hut with +Grand’mère and Elise.</p> + +<p>There was no restraint about Grand’mère’s conversation now that +her granddaughter was restored to her; indeed, she was pouring forth such a +flood of rapid speech that Miss Patricia had the sensation <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_258'></a>258</span> of drowning in a sea of words of which +she could understand about one in fifty.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was pleasant to glance now and then toward Elise, who was as +charmingly pretty as her neighbors and friends had described her. From her weeks +of enforced imprisonment and something nearly approaching starvation, the young +French girl was thin and haggard. Yet as nothing more terrible had happened, she +was too rejoiced over her return not to show delight and gratitude in every +expression of her vivid face. Moreover, after being allowed to cross the +borderland from Germany into France, she really had a meeting of a few moments +with Mrs. Burton, who had given her the money and the information necessary for +her homecoming.</p> + +<p>At the moment when one of Elise’s friends ran into the yard from an +unexpected direction, Miss Patricia’s first sensation was that of relief. +At least she could enjoy a short respite from her position of exclusive audience +to Grand’mère. The woman appeared so excited and so full <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259'></a>259</span> of some story she +undoubtedly had come to tell, that immediately she became the center of +attention. Moreover, a dozen other persons soon followed her until in a few +seconds the little yard was crowded with gesticulating figures.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia was about to withdraw when a single word arrested her +attention. The word was of course pronounced in French fashion, yet in the past +few weeks Aunt Patricia had learned to recognize its peculiar French intonation. +The word was Mrs. Burton’s name.</p> + +<p>Through guessing, through intuition and also through the united efforts of +her new friends, soon after Miss Patricia learned as much of the woman’s +tale as it was desirable for her to hear at the present time.</p> + +<p>This story had spread through the village. A French ambulance bearing the +sign of the <i>croix de rouge</i> had just driven through the town en route to +the farm house on the Aisne, the present home of the Camp Fire girls. Returning +from her work in southern France, Mrs. Burton had been injured and rather than +be cared for <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260'></a>260</span> in a +hospital had begged to be brought directly to the farm.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Miss Patricia arrived at the farm house exactly two +minutes before the Red Cross ambulance drew up before the front door. How she +managed this one could only discover from Miss Patricia. The village owned a +single motor car used in transporting supplies and Miss Patricia saw that it +traveled faster on this occasion than ever before in its history.</p> + +<p>Besides, Mrs. Burton, who was so swathed in bandages one could scarcely +recognize her, the ambulance contained Monsieur Duval, the French senator, Mrs. +Bishop and a Red Cross nurse.</p> + +<p>Ignoring them all, Aunt Patricia lifted Mrs. Burton in her arms and carried +her upstairs to her room, placing her upon the bed.</p> + +<p>An hour later, when the farm house had grown strangely quiet and everybody +had been sent outdoors except the nurse and a doctor who had been hastily +summoned, Aunt Patricia stalked down the steps into the drawing-room. Here she +found Monsieur <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261'></a>261</span> +Duval and Mrs. Bishop waiting to explain the situation to her.</p> + +<p>They had been motoring toward home and several miles back of the French line, +when without any reason for such a catastrophe, a shell had dropped from a +German aeroplane and exploded near their car.</p> + +<p>Aside from Mrs. Burton, no member of the party had been hurt, but a piece of +the shell had imbedded itself inside her chest and was supposed to be too near +her lungs for an operation.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that Polly Burton has a chance to live without an +operation?” Miss Patricia demanded in grim tones when her two companions +had finished their unsatisfying explanation of what had taken place.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bishop shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid not; that is why we took the risk of bringing her home to +you when she wished so much to come.”</p> + +<p>“Is there a chance for her to recover through an operation?” Miss +Patricia next asked without a perceptible change either in her expression or +manner.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262'></a>262</span>This time, as +Mrs. Bishop appeared unable to speak, Monsieur Duval answered instead.</p> + +<p>“There is one in a hundred, but we dared not accept the responsibility +without first coming to you.”</p> + +<p>“Then telegraph at once for the best surgeon in Paris who can be spared +and also for Captain Richard Burton. I will give you his address. In the +meantime, if you can find hospitality elsewhere than at our farm I shall be +grateful. We shall have but little opportunity to make visitors comfortable for +the next few days.”</p> + +<p>With this Miss Patricia withdrew.</p> + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263'></a>263</span><a id='link_19'></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /><span class='h2fs'>THE FIELD OF HONOR</span></h2> + +<p>Some little time afterwards, late on a March afternoon, the yard in front of +the farm house on the Aisne, chosen by the Camp Fire girls for their temporary +home in France, was occupied by a number of persons. They had separated into +groups and were either walking about the place or else were seated in informal +attitudes.</p> + +<p>On the wooden steps leading directly down from the house two girls moved +aside to allow a woman and a man to pass them.</p> + +<p>The woman was Miss Patricia, who appeared taller and more painfully gaunt +than ever, and moreover, was laying down the law upon some subject in her usual +didatic fashion. Yet the man whose arm was slipped through hers was regarding +her with devoted and amused affection. According to Captain Richard Burton and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264'></a>264</span> in the opinion of +a number of other persons, Miss Patricia’s good sense and devotion in the +past few weeks had saved his wife’s life.</p> + +<p>Miss Patricia was discussing with him the question of increasing the number +of cows upon the farm until a dairy could be run upon really scientific +principles. She desired a dairy sufficiently large to supply milk to the nearby +hospitals as well as to the babies in the villages. Up to the present time she +had been largely interested in preserving the health of the young children who +came within her sphere of effort. But realizing that milk at present was one of +the greatest needs in France for the proper feeding of the wounded soldiers and +of the convalescents, Miss Patricia was arranging for the shipment of a herd of +a hundred cows from the United States. As a matter of fact, she was supposed to +be asking Captain Burton’s advice upon the subject, though Miss +Patricia’s method of asking advice was merely to announce what she +intended doing.</p> + +<p>After watching the two older persons <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_265'></a>265</span> disappear toward the barn, which had been restored +until it presented a very comfortable aspect, Peggy Webster glanced up from her +knitting to look earnestly at her companion.</p> + +<p>“How long do you intend remaining in France to continue with the +reconstruction work, Vera?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>Vera Lagerloff was sewing upon a dress for one of the children in the +neighborhood, since few of them had clothing enough to keep them warm and +comfortable in spite of all that was being done for them in the reclamation +districts by an increasing force of American women and girls.</p> + +<p>Vera’s eyes followed the direction Miss Patricia’s tall figure +had just taken.</p> + +<p>“I intend to stay on indefinitely until the war is over and afterwards +if I feel I can be of more use here than anywhere else. A few days ago Miss +Patricia told me that she would be very glad to pay my expenses, as she believed +I was ‘a laborer worthy of my hire.’ What an extraordinary woman she is +and how much she seems to get out of life, if not for herself, then certainly +for other people! I shall never <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_266'></a>266</span> forget our first meeting and the way in which she +then took hold of the situation. I think none of us will forget her recent +devotion to Mrs. Burton. Any one of us would have been willing to do what she +did, only no one would have had the courage or the intelligence.”</p> + +<p>Peggy nodded. “I have written mother pretty much the same thing you +have just said. Certainly no one of our family can ever pay our debt to Aunt +Patricia. Not that I should dare make the attempt!” Peggy added, smiling +and looking a little anxiously at the sock she was about to finish. “But I +wonder if I am envious of you, Vera, I mean of your planning to remain over here +so long? Mother and father have written they would like me to come home as soon +as I feel I am not especially needed and Tante has entirely recovered. They wish +her to return as well, but I am by no means sure she will. There are moments of +course when I am homesick and feel it my duty to be with my own people, now that +Billy is gone and Dan has at last been permitted to volunteer. Then on the other +hand, I naturally <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267'></a>267</span> +want to be in France while Ralph is here fighting. Have I told you that after +Ralph’s visit to us at the farm my family has consented to our engagement. +We have promised not to consider marrying until the war is over. I am not +speaking of this to any of the other Camp Fire girls, Vera, only to you and +Bettina. But I shall always think of you, even if the future should separate us +for a long time, as if you were almost my sister. I suppose if Billy had lived +you would have been my sister.”</p> + +<p>In response Vera shook her head with its heavy mass of dark hair.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Peggy. I am not at all sure. I don’t believe +Billy’s friendship and mine were like that. Perhaps when he grew older he +would have wished to marry a prettier and more romantic girl, but always he +would have come back to me for criticism and praise. Yet I should never have +wished to marry any one else and now I shall never marry any one.”</p> + +<p>As there is no real answer to a speech of this character, Peggy Webster made +no reply. What Vera’s future held in store <span class='pagenum +pncolor'><a id='page_268'></a>268</span> for her was, according to an ancient +pagan expression, “in the lap of the gods.”</p> + +<p>But Peggy wrinkled her brows at this moment, making a little motion with her +hand to attract Vera’s attention to the figure of a girl who was standing +alone about a dozen yards beyond them.</p> + +<p>“Sally looks pretty, does she not, with her dark hair and white dress? +But of course nothing would induce her to confess that there is any especial +reason why she wishes to look particularly attractive this afternoon. She is a +funny child,” Peggy concluded with the superior manner of an engaged +person.</p> + +<p>This afternoon the Camp Fire girls were enjoying a half holiday and the +unusual celebration of afternoon tea in honor of Mrs. Burton’s recovery +and also the arrival of the two guests whom they were now waiting out of doors +to greet.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately after the reunion of Yvonne Fleury and her brother they +left the farm together, returning to the neighborhood of their own château. Mrs. +Burton’s dangerous condition had made them feel it wiser to add no more +responsibility <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269'></a>269</span> to +the household. They also desired to look up the old friends whom they might be +able to find still living near their former home.</p> + +<p>Until this afternoon neither one of them had returned to the farm house even +for a brief visit, although of course many letters had been exchanged between +Yvonne and the other girls. Now Mary Gilchrist had motored over to the nearest +railroad station to meet them and Yvonne and her brother, Lieutenant Fleury, +were expected at any moment.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later, when the motor containing the two guests finally arrived, +Sally Ashton was the only one of the group of friends who did not go forward to +welcome the newcomers.</p> + +<p>She did not believe that she particularly liked either of them and there +would be time enough to do her duty later.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Sally was about to slip around the side of the house +toward the kitchen to assist in the preparation of their simple tea when +Lieutenant Fleury followed her and as he called her by name she felt obliged to +stop and speak to him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270'></a>270</span>He looked +extremely well as if he had entirely recovered from his illness and was better +looking than Sally would have dreamed possible.</p> + +<p>“You do not seem enthusiastic about seeing me again?” Lieutenant +Fleury began, smiling at Sally.</p> + +<p>“I am very glad to find you so well,” Sally announced as she +shook hands. It was difficult to confuse Sally. She had a great deal of poise of +her own kind and a little superior air of detachment which was oddly +amusing.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am very well, thanks to you. Still I insist upon knowing why +you are not pleased to see me? I remember you snubbed me for suggesting that we +might develop a sisterly and brotherly affection for each other, but now I have +discovered Yvonne, won’t you be friends? It is hard upon me if you refuse +to consent because my burden of gratitude to you must then be all the heavier. I +am going back to join my regiment in a few days. Today I also came to warn Miss +Lord and Captain Burton that there will be danger later this spring if you +insist upon remaining here <span class='pagenum pncolor'><a +id='page_271'></a>271</span> at your farm house. I cannot speak plainly, but I +have reason to believe the German drive will not be long delayed. The Allied +line will hold; they shall never break through, yet it might be wiser if you +were out of the range of any possible danger.”</p> + +<p>Without discussion of the question and disregarding the delightful +possibility of tea, Sally and Lieutenant Fleury were walking side by side away +from the farm house yard and toward the old château.</p> + +<p>“You are very kind, Lieutenant Fleury,” Sally answered, speaking +more gravely and with less childishness than one might have imagined, “but +I do not believe we will consent to leave our farm house and to give up our work +unless the war comes almost to our very door. Even then you know food might be +useful to the soldiers and I am an extremely good cook.”</p> + +<p>Sally’s seriousness had disappeared and she was more her accustomed +self.</p> + +<p>“Yet you have not answered my question or promised to be my +friend,” Lieutenant Fleury argued, looking at his companion <span +class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272'></a>272</span> with an amused frown. +Undoubtedly it was difficult to understand any human being who could be such a +complete child at one moment and so wise the next; but perhaps Sally embodied +the Biblical idea that true wisdom is only found among childish spirits.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Sally answered simply, “Why, of course I am your +friend, Lieutenant Fleury. Now when I am beginning to understand more of what +soldiers must endure, I feel as if I were a friend to every man in our allied +armies, although they probably are not aware of the honor,” and again +Sally dimpled in irresistible fashion.</p> + +<p>Moreover, with this general acceptance of his friendship, Lieutenant Fleury +was obliged to appear content, since Sally would give him no more satisfactory +reply.</p> + +<p>A few weeks later the long-heralded German drive burst with renewed fury +along a long line in France. How the group of American Camp Fire girls met the +unexpected dangers and demands upon their courage and resources will be the +subject of the next Camp Fire book.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Campfire Girls on the Field of +Honor, by Margaret Vandercook + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPFIRE GIRLS *** + +***** This file should be named 31393-h.htm or 31393-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/9/31393/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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