THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
Or, Doing Their Best for the Soldiers
by
LAURA LEE HOPE
Author of _The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale_, _The Moving Picture Girls_,
_The Bobbsey Twins_, _Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue_, _Six Little
Bunkers at Grandma Bell's_, etc.
Illustrated
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
* * * * *
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
BY LAURA LEE HOPE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS
THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
(Twelve Titles)
THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
(Eight Titles)
SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
(Five Titles)
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
* * * * *
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I HERO WORSHIP
II THE ACCIDENT
III THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY
IV MRS. SANDERSON'S STORY
V FUN AND SOLDIERS
VI PLANNING CAPTURE
VII A LARK IN THE OPEN
VIII ENTER SERGEANT MULLINS
IX THE BAYONET DRILL
X ALARMING SYMPTOMS
XI POLITE KIDNAPPERS
XII WHERE LOVE IS DEAF
XIII THE COPPERHEAD
XIV THE REINS TIGHTEN
XV THE FATEFUL DAY
XVI SPARRING FOR TIME
XVII TEARS AND PATRIOTISM
XVIII AFTER THE BOYS LEFT
XIX REAL TRAGEDY
XX THE MOTORCYCLIST AGAIN
XXI THE CHASE
XXII STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
XXIII THE MIRACLE
XXIV MYSTERY EXPLAINED
XXV TO "CARRY ON"
CHAPTER I
HERO WORSHIP
"Oh, Mollie, please be careful!"
The big car skidded perilously around a sharp curve and chug-chugged
merrily down the road.
"Goodness, I've been careful so long I'm afraid it will grow on me,"
Mollie Billette, sometimes known as "Billy," retorted, a determined set to
her pretty chin. "Someway, I've got to get it out of my system."
The automobile, a big seven-passenger car, belonged to Mollie, and the
four Outdoor Girls, having secured a half-holiday from their work at the
Hostess House, were out for recreation.
As may have been gathered, Mollie was driving. Amy Blackwell, fearful of
an accident, was in the seat beside her, while Grace Ford and Betty
Nelson, their beloved Little Captain, occupied the tonneau and amused
themselves by laughing at Amy's fears.
"Well, but you needn't take it out on us," Amy said in reply to Mollie's
assertion. "If you're going to take many more of those two-wheel turns,
I'm going to get out and walk. Oh, Mol-lie!" The speech ended in a wail,
as Mollie wickedly rounded another curve, jolting Amy half out of her
seat.
"I don't know but what I agree with Amy," drawled Grace, from the tonneau,
helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested
longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a
girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the
big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents
rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie
Billette, and pick them up. That's the least--"
The rest of the sentence was never uttered, for Mollie brought the car to
so sudden a stop that Grace and Betty both lurched forward and narrowly
escaped bumping their noses on the back of the seat in front of them.
"Sure," said the reckless driver, turning her bright black eyes
expectantly upon them. "Will you promise to give me all I pick up?"
"All you--" Grace was beginning, striving desperately to recover her
breath and her dignity at the same time, the accomplishment of which feat
was decidedly retarded by growing indignation. "Goodness, I never heard
such a--"
"Very well," returned Mollie, and, without deigning to parley further,
turned determinedly to the wheel. "That's all I wanted to know--"
"Just a minute, Mollie, dearest," Betty's laughing voice broke in. "You
know I'm not worrying about the chocolates at all, but I'm not
particularly anxious to spoil my perfectly good shoes with crushed
chocolate or, on the other hand, frump my perfectly good nose in a vain
attempt to pick them--"
"Which, candy or shoes?" Mollie broke in impishly.
"Candy," answered Betty soberly. "As I was saying, neither of these
alternatives appeal to me, so, with your kind permission, I would beg you
to hold your horses--"
"As the vulgar herd would say," again murmured Mollie.
"Exactly--as the vulgar herd would say," agreed Betty, dimpling adorably,
"--until we have a chance to collect the scattered sweets."
"You win," Mollie capitulated, speaking in a tone reserved for the "Little
Captain." "Only please make Grace hurry or the afternoon will be over
before she begins."
"Goodness, listen to it--" Grace was beginning, straightening indignantly
from her stooping posture and preparing once more to enter the fray. "When
it's all her fault, anyway--" But Betty upset both speech and dignity by
unceremoniously pulling her down again.
"Come on! Hurry, Gracie!" she commanded. "And don't overlook any, because
there's nothing so messy as a chocolate--"
"As if there were any chance of Grace's overlooking a chocolate!" scoffed
Mollie. "Why, all she has to do is whistle to 'em and they come rolling up
obediently."
"Goodness, who'd want them anyway, after they've rolled around and picked
up all the dust and millions of germs from the bottom of the car?"
grumbled Grace, cross at having to exert herself to even so small an
extent. Grace, as my old readers doubtless remember, had been born with an
ease-loving disposition that not even close association with the other
Outdoor Girls had served to change. Perhaps, as Mollie had once remarked,
that was why the girls were so fond of her--because she was "so
different."
"Well, if you don't want 'em," Mollie replied practically, "why didn't you
agree to my proposition? I promised to eat them for you, germs and all,
and all I got for my sacrifice was one withering glance--"
"At that you're lucky," Grace retorted, straightening up from a spirited
chase of the last elusive chocolate, red of face and fierce of eye. "Some
time I'll come to the end of my patience, and then, Mollie Billette, you'd
better look out."
"My!" chuckled Betty, "isn't she fierce? Never mind, honey, Roy will give
you another box, if you ask him very prettily."
"Goodness, if he can't do it without being asked," retorted Grace crossly,
"he can keep his old candies."
"If I thought you meant that, I'd say you ought to be ashamed of
yourself," put in Amy, with unaccustomed spirit, as Mollie threw in the
clutch and the big car started off again. "Anybody that had been as good
to you as Roy has been--"
"Well, I don't know that you've been particularly neglected," retorted
Grace, meaningly, while Amy reddened. "I never thought that Will could be
such a perfect Romeo."
"Oh, dear," murmured Betty protestingly. "Can't we have just one good
time, without bringing the boys into it?"
"Now, see who's talking," chuckled Mollie delightedly, changing into high
and driving with wild, care-free recklessness along the smooth road. "Oh,
Betty darling, much as I love you, there do come times when you make me
laugh."
"Well, it's good to know I'm bringing happiness into some dark life,"
retorted Betty good-naturedly. "At least I have not lived in vain."
"And they were just mad," Mollie continued, as though talking to herself,
"when they found we were going off this afternoon without them."
"Yes, and isn't it funny?" agreed Grace lazily. "They think they're so
important."
"Well, they are," announced Amy suddenly, and even Mollie turned an amazed
eye upon her.
"I think they're the most important people in the world," Amy continued
stoutly. "I guess if we were going to give up our lives for somebody else
we might think we were important, too."
"Oh, I didn't mean that way," Mollie returned, her eyes once more turning
to the ribbon of road ahead while the girls' bright faces sobered
thoughtfully. "Because when it comes to a thing like giving up their
lives--well, I think they're the bravest--" Her voice broke, and in an
effort to hide her emotion she nearly sent the car over the side of the
road and into a six-foot ditch.
"Brave," repeated Betty, turning her eyes to the far horizon to hide the
mist that suddenly gathered in them. "I don't think that's any word for
our boys at all--"
"They don't seem to realize what they're going into," Amy broke in
eagerly. "Or, if they do, they won't talk about it, or let any one else--"
"Oh, I guess it isn't that they don't realize it," Grace interrupted
thoughtfully. "You know my father always used to say that a man who never
knew what it was to be afraid wasn't really brave at all. He said it was
the man who was scared to death in his heart, that gritted his teeth and
went ahead and faced things anyway, that deserves all the credit."
"I presume that's right," said the Little Captain, leaning forward
earnestly. "I don't suppose there is any one in the world who really
enjoys the thought of losing an arm or a leg, or being broken in health
for the rest of his life. I think what our boys are doing is just to take
the fear of that with a smile and go ahead gayly to face whatever may
come. Brave--" Her voice trailed off, and for a long time there was
silence while the big car hummed rhythmically along the road and the miles
swept by uncounted.
"Of course, there are lots of people," Betty resumed after a while, "who
say the boys just enlisted for the love of adventure, the love of a good
fight, and I suppose that had something to do with it."
"Of course it had," Mollie agreed. "And that's one thing that makes it
harder for us who have to stay at home and can't have any of the thrill
and excitement that helps to carry the boys through. But it's only one of
a dozen reasons, after all."
"I wish we knew when they were going," said Grace, irrelevantly. "The
suspense is worse than anything else. It's like cutting a dog's tail off
an inch at a time."
"Goodness, isn't she complimentary?" flung back Mollie, laughing. "You can
compare yourself to a four-footed dog, Grace, but please leave me out of
it."
"Did you ever hear of a two-footed dog?" Grace retorted.
"To change the subject," Betty interposed hastily, seeking to avoid a
storm. "Don't you think it's almost time to be turning back? We've gone
farther than--Oh, Mollie! Girls! Look!"
They had rounded a curve in the road at their usual breakneck speed, and
Mollie stopped the car with a jolt that very nearly sent its occupants
flying into the roadway.
Before them, not twenty yards away, a little figure in black lay huddled
in the road while the motorcyclist who had caused the accident, sped by
the girls, exhaust open and head lowered.
Dazedly they gazed after machine and rider for a minute till they
disappeared round a turn in the road. Then, with a cry of dismay, Betty
tumbled out of the car, followed by the other girls.
The prostrate figure in the road lay very, very still.