TEARS AND PATRIOTISM
It was a valiant determination, that one to smile whatever happened; but
somehow, 'way down in their brave hearts, the girls doubted a little. They
would do their best, but, after all, they were only human and there are
times when to smile is the hardest achievement in the world.
"We're--we're nearly there," ventured Amy, after a little interval of
silence, during which the girls had been busily gathering all their
resources for the crisis just before them. "Do you suppose we've got in
ahead of the boys?"
"Goodness, I should hope so," retorted Mollie, with a brief return of her
old spirit. "If this old car couldn't make better time than boys on foot,
I'd give it away to any one who'd take it off my hands."
As she spoke the car swung around a sharp curve, and the station that had
appeared so attractive to them several months ago, loomed into view.
To-day they greeted its appearance with as much enthusiasm as they would
the electric chair.
A train was coming in, but it was not one for the troops. It was a mixed
train, composed of one passenger car, a baggage and smoker combined, and
several milk cars.
"What a country-looking train," was Amy's comment.
She addressed Betty, but the Little Captain did not answer, for the reason
that she was staring into the baggage car, the side door to which was wide
open.
"See that man!"
She pointed to an individual who stood in the baggage car, his hands
holding up a motorcycle.
"Oh, Betty, is it that man--our motorcyclist--?" began Mollie.
"I am sure it is!" cried Grace.
The man was looking toward the end of the baggage car, so they got only a
side look at his face. Then the train moved away and was soon out of
sight.
"Well, if that's the fellow, he is gone," murmured Amy.
"Now, maybe, we'll never have a chance to catch him," added Mollie.
"Oh, we'll catch him yet," declared Betty,
Under ordinary circumstances the Outdoor Girls would have given the
incident considerable attention. But now their thoughts were of the
soldier boys so soon to leave.
"Didn't the boys say they were entraining for Philadelphia?" asked Grace,
trying hard to make her voice sound natural and merely conversational.
"Yes, that's where a great many of them go," Betty answered, praying
desperately that she might fight down that flood of tears that every
moment threatened to rise and overwhelm her. "I _won't_ be weak and
f-foolish," she was saying, over and over, to herself. "I won't, I won't,
I won't!"
Then the car came to a standstill beside the platform and the girls sat
looking at each other, not quite sure what to do next.
"Do you think it would be all right to stay here?" asked Mollie
uncertainly. "Of course we could get out when the boys came."
"It's a little conspicuous, don't you think?" suggested Amy mildly.
"Yes, it looks as if we had come to see a parade or something," Grace
agreed.
There was a great deal of luggage and many boxes piled at one end of the
station and it was upon these that Betty's eyes, roaming in search of some
sheltered spot, finally focused.
"We could slip in behind those packing cases and things," she suggested;
"and then we could see without being too much seen ourselves."
"Then the boys might not see us," protested Mollie, clenching her teeth
over her trembling lip. "We don't want them to think we weren't here to
say g-good-bye."
"Well, they'll see the car, won't they?" Betty argued, a little
impatiently, for even her sweet temper was beginning to give way under the
strain. "They'll know by that that we're here and then if they miss us,
they deserve to--that's all."
"Well, I suppose we'll have to take a chance," said Molly, almost crossly,
as she jumped out after Betty. "I only wish it was all over. The waiting
is getting on my nerves."
"Well, you don't think you're alone in that, do you?" Grace was beginning
when Betty interrupted with a little hysterical laugh.
"I--I don't see how it's going to make us feel very much better to quarrel
about it," she said, adding whimsically: "Come ahead you two--kiss and
make up before the boys come. You know they always said it made them
jealous enough to commit murder when we did it in their presence."
They laughed unsteadily, and Mollie threw an affectionate and repentant
arm about the Little Captain's shoulders.
"Betty, dear, you make me ashamed of myself," she said impulsively. "As if
you didn't have enough to worry about yourself without my making you more.
I'm a selfish pig, that's all."
Just then the sound that they had all been unconsciously listening for
struck heavily upon their ears. The regular tramp, tramp of hundreds,
thousands, of marching feet!
"Oh, they're coming, they're coming!" cried Amy, in a sort of suffocated
little moan.
"Well, of course they're coming," retorted Mollie, her nerves jumping with
the effort to speak coolly. "We've been almost expecting that they would,
haven't we?"
"Oh, I know. But it all seemed like a terrible d-dream till now," returned
Amy, looking so like a bewildered child that Betty put a comforting arm
about her and drew her into the little recess beside her.
"It isn't a dream, Amy dear," she said, very steadily. "I don't think we
were ever more fully or terribly awake than we are now. Not even that day
when we heard of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, did we realize just what
this war was going to mean to us. It's only by some sacrifice--some
personal sacrifice--" but the brave voice broke and died into silence
while she listened with almost straining intensity to that regular beat of
marching feet, coming nearer, ever nearer--
And in the distance came the long, warning whistle of the train--the train
that was going to take them away!
"Oh, keep still," cried Mollie, turning with sudden, unreasoning fury
toward the oncoming locomotive with the smudge of smoke in its wake, her
hands clenched passionately and her black eyes smoldering. "We know you're
coming for them--Roy and Allen and Will and Frank and--and--all the
others. But that's no reason why you have to rub it in, is it?"
At any other time, the rather unreasoning attack upon the train would have
seemed funny to the girls, and even in their trouble a faint gleam of
humor came to them, but no one laughed, no one even smiled.
"I--I wonder," said Grace, nervously patting a stray lock of hair into
place beneath the smart little hat which, under the spell of excitement,
had gotten slightly awry, "if we'll be able to pick our boys out from all
that crowd. Oh, girls," taking a quick little survey over the top of her
own particular packing case, "they're almost here! Swarms, just swarms of
them!"
"Goodness, that sounds like locusts--or mosquitoes," cried Betty
hysterically, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "Squeeze in tight,
Amy, or you'll get your toes stepped on. Grace, look again. How far away
are they?"
"Just around the corner," reported Grace. "Goodness," she cried in sudden
panic, "I almost wish we'd stayed in the automobile. I'd feel s-safer--"
"Safer?" cried Mollie scornfully, "I'd like to know what there is to be
afraid of. Oh, there you go again," shaking an impotent little fist as the
great train rumbled into the station with a screaming of brakes and a
shrieking of whistles.
And then the flood broke. Down the station platform came hundreds upon
hundreds of khaki-clad figures, talking, gesticulating, faces eagerly
flushed, eyes brilliant as they prophetically looked into the future.
"Oh, we'll never be able to pick them out of the crowd," cried Grace
despairingly. "I'm getting cross-eyed as it is. Oh, there's Corporal
Harris! Yes, and there goes James McDonald! Oh, oh--"
And indeed there were scores of familiar faces among the boys that were
passing perhaps forever out of their lives. Some saw the girls and saluted
them gaily, but most of them were too intent upon boarding the train
and embarking upon the glorious adventure with as little delay as possible
to look either to the right or the left.
Then, just as the girls thought they must have missed "their own
particular four" and were bracing themselves to stand the disappointment,
they saw them!
They were together, the four of them, splendid specimens of young manhood
with their cropped heads and service hats and packs slung over their
backs.
"Allen," cried Betty impulsively, and he turned as though shot, a deep
flush staining his face.
They came over then, those four, to the girls they were leaving
indefinitely--perhaps forever. Their young faces were very grave, their
jaws grim and set, and the girls realized suddenly that these were not the
boys who had so joyously left Deepdale in the service of their country.
These were no longer careless, irresponsible boys, but men with a great
and glorious duty to perform, and their hearts thrilled with a new pride.
And while eloquent things were being said, not only with lips, but with
eyes and clasping hands, Allen bent nearer to Betty's little, upturned
face.
[Illustration: "IT MAY BE A LONG TIME, BUT--I'M COMING BACK." _The Outdoor
Girls at the Hostess House. page 145_]
"It may be a long, long time, little girl," he whispered, gravely,
"but--I'm coming back. And, Betty, I have your picture--that little
snapshot you gave me, the laughing one, you remember?"
Betty nodded, smiling bravely while she choked back something deep down in
her throat.
"And--" his eyes had grown very wistful, "and--I'm counting on some
letters from you, Betty?"
"Oh, Allen," she cried breathlessly, "I'll write you all the time, dear,
every day--"
But he had caught both her hands in his and was drawing her irresistibly
toward him.
"'Dear,'" he was repeating dizzily, incredulously. "Did you call me that,
Betty? Did you say 'dear'?"
"Y-yes," she nodded, breathless, a little frightened, yet adorably brave.
Why, this was Allen, and he was going away! He might be killed over there!
She might never see him again! "And," she added, looking up into his eyes
with a shy recklessness, "I--I'd say it again, Allen, if you asked me--"
With a little cry he drew her to him, and for one unbelievable, breathless
second his lips rested on hers.
"Betty, Betty, I love you," he whispered unsteadily. "I'll be dreaming of
you always. Whatever I do 'over there' will be because of you--" The
whistle shrieked a rude warning and his hands tightened on hers. They
were both trembling a little.
"Good-bye," he whispered hoarsely. "I--love--you--" then he tore himself
away, swinging up the steps and into the car.
The train began to move amid a great storm of cheering and waving of
service hats. Betty saw it all dimly, through a mist of tears. She pressed
her hand against her lips to still their trembling.
"Good-bye, dear," she murmured brokenly.