[Illustration: “Ah there, girls! How are you?”—Page 11.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
LIBERTY GIRL
BY
RENA I. HALSEY
Author of “Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer”
and “America’s Daughter”
ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published, August, 1919
Copyright, 1919
By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
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All rights reserved
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THE LIBERTY GIRL
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSCRIBED,
WITH DEEP APPRECIATION,
TO
THE SONS OF LIBERTY,—
ALL THOSE SOLDIERS, SEAMEN, AND AIRMEN,
WHO HAVE HEROICALLY GIVEN OF
THEIR BEST FOR THE
BROTHERHOOD
OF MAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I “God Speed You” 11
II Giving Her Best 28
III The Liberty Girls 46
IV The Liberty Garden 60
V The Liberty Pageant 73
VI The Strange Letter 89
VII The Visit to Camp Mills 106
VIII Seven Pillars 121
IX The Little Old Lady in the Red House 133
X The Sweet-Pea Ladies 147
XI The Ride Through the Notch 164
XII Nathalie’s Liberty Boys 179
XIII “The Mountains with the Snowy Foreheads” 194
XIV “Sons of Liberty” 211
XV The Gallery of the Gods 222
XVI Butternut Lodge 238
XVII The Cabin on the Mountain 256
XVIII The Liberty Cheer 275
XIX “The White Comrade” 288
XX The Liberty Tea 302
XXI The Funnies 322
XXII The Man in the Woods 334
XXIII A Mystery Solved 348
XXIV The Winner of the Prize 362
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ILLUSTRATIONS
“Ah there, girls! How are you?” (Page 11) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
“My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law” 76
“Is that your dog? Oh, I love dogs!” 184
The girl found herself gazing into the
sun-tanned face of a young man in khaki 232
Nathalie bent over in anxious solicitude 260
“Oh, it is Philip, my son!” 476
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THE LIBERTY GIRL
CHAPTER I
“GOD SPEED YOU”
“Oh, Nathalie, I do believe there’s Grace Tyson in her new motor-car,”
exclaimed Helen Dame, suddenly laying her hand on her companion’s arm as
the two girls were about to cross Main Street, the wide, tree-lined
thoroughfare of the old-fashioned town of Westport, Long Island.
Nathalie Page halted, and, swinging about, peered intently at the
brown-uniformed figure of a young girl seated at the steering-wheel of
an automobile, which was speeding quickly towards them.
Yes, it was Grace, who, in her sprightliest manner, her face aglow from
the invigorating breezes of an April afternoon, called out, “Ah there,
girls! How are you? Oh, my lucky star must have guided me, for I have
something thrilling to tell you!” As she spoke the girl guided the car
to the curb, and the next moment, with an airy spring, had landed on the
ground at their side.
With a sudden movement the uniformed figure clicked her heels together
and bent stiffly forward as her arm swung up, while her forefinger
grazed her forehead in a military salute. “I salute you, comrades,” she
said with grave formality, “at your service as a member of the Motor
Corps of America.
“Yes, girls,” she shrilled joyously, forgetting her assumed rôle in her
eagerness to tell her news, “I’m on the job, for I’m to see active
service for the United States government. I’ve just returned from an
infantry drill of the Motor Corps at Central Park, New York.
“No, I’ll be honest,” she added laughingly, in answer to the look of
amazed inquiry on the faces of her companions, “and ’fess’ that I didn’t
have the pleasure of drilling in public, for I’m a raw recruit as yet.
We recruits go through our manual of arms at one of the New York
armories, drilled by a regular army sergeant. Oh, I’ve been in training
some time, for you know I took out my chauffeur’s and mechanician’s
State licenses last winter.
“One has to own her car at this sort of government work,”—Grace’s voice
became inflated with importance,—“and be able to make her own repairs
on the road if necessary. But isn’t my new car a Jim Dandy?” she asked,
glancing with keen pride at the big gray motor, purring contentedly at
the curb. “It was a belated Christmas gift from grandmother.
“But I tell you what, girls,” she rattled on, “I’ve been put through the
paces all right, but I’ve passed my exams with flying colors. Phew!
wasn’t the physical exam stiff!—before a regular high official of the
army medical corps. I was inoculated for typhoid, and for paratyphoid.
I’ll secretly confess that I don’t know what the last word means. Yes,
and I took the oath of allegiance to the United States Government,
administered by another army swell,—and that’s where my Pioneer work
proved O. K. And then we had the First Aid course, too, at St. Luke’s.
The head nurse, who gave us special lessons in bandaging, said I was A
No. 1; and in wigwagging, oh, I did the two-flag business just dandy.”
“But what is your special work?” asked Nathalie, for the two girls were
somewhat surprised and bewildered by all these high-sounding,
official-like terms. To be sure, Grace had long been known as an expert
driver, but she had never shown her efficiency in any way but by giving
the girls joy-rides once in a while; yes, and once she had driven her
father to New York.
But war work, thought Nathalie, for this aristocratic-looking,
sweet-faced young girl, whose eyes gleamed merrily at you from under the
peaked army cap—with its blue band and the insignia of the Corps, a
tire surmounted by Mercury’s wings—set so jauntily on the fluffy hair.
To be sure the slim, trim figure in the army jacket, short skirt over
trousers, and high boots did have a warlike aspect, but it was
altogether too girlish and charming to be suggestive of anything but a
toy soldier, like one of the tiny painted tin things that Nathalie used
to play with when a wee tot.
“Do? Why, I am a military chauffeur,” returned Grace patronizingly, “and
in the business of war-relief work for the Government. At present I’m to
act as chauffeur to one of our four lieutenants, Miss Gladys Merrill.
Oh, she’s a dear! I have to drive her all over the city when she is
engaged on some Government errand. You should see me studying the police
maps, and _then_ you would know what I do. Sometimes we are called to
transport some of the army officers from the railroad station to the
ferry, or to headquarters. Then we do errands for the Red Cross, too.
“Why, the other day I helped to carry a lot of knitted things down on
the pier, to be packed in a ship bound for the other side; they were for
the soldiers at the front. We do work for the National Defense, and for
the Board of Exemption. I’m doing my ‘bit,’ even if it is a wee one,
towards winning the war,” ended the girl, with a note of satisfaction in
her voice.
“O dear, but wouldn’t I like to drive an ambulance in France! But I’ve
got to be twenty-one to do that sort of work,”—the girl sighed. “But
did I tell you that brother Fred is doing American Field Service? I had
a letter from him yesterday, and he said that he and a lot of American
boys have established a little encampment of ambulances not far from the
front-line trench. They live in what was once a château belonging to
Count Somebody or Another, but now it is nothing but a shell.
“Oh, Fred thinks it is glorious fun,” cried the girl, with sparkling
eyes. “He has to answer roll-call at eight in the morning, and then he
eats his breakfast at a little café near. He has just black
bread,—_think of that_, coffee, and, yes, sometimes he has an egg. Then
he has to drill, clean his car, and—oh, but he says it’s a great sight
to see the aëroplanes constantly flying over his head, like great
monsters of the air. And sometimes he goes wild with excitement when he
sees an aërial battle between a Boche and a French airman.
“Yes, he declares it is ‘some’ life over there,” animatedly continued
Grace, “for even his rest periods are thrilling, for they have to dodge
shells, and sometimes they burst over one’s head. Several times he
thought he was done for. And at night the road near the château is
packed with hundreds of _marching_ guns, trucks of ammunition, and war
supplies and cavalry, all on their way to the front.
“But when he goes in his ambulance after the _blessés_—they are the
poor wounded soldiers—it is just like day, for the sky is filled with
star-shells shooting around him in all colors, and then there is a
constant cannonading of shells and shot of all kinds. When he hears a
purr he knows it’s a Boche plane and dodges pretty lively, for if he
doesn’t ‘watch out’ a machine-gun comes sputtering down at him. He’s
awfully afraid of them because they drop bombs.
“But he says it would make your heart ache to see him when he carries
the _blessés_. He has to drive them from the _postes de secours_—the
aid-stations—to the hospitals. He has to go _very_ slowly, and even
then you can hear the poor things groan and shriek with the agony of
being moved. And sometimes,” Grace lowered her voice reverently, “when
he goes to take them out of the ambulance he finds a dead soldier.
“But dear me,” she continued in a more cheerful tone, “he seems to like
the life and is constantly hoping—I believe he dreams about it in his
sleep—that he’ll soon have a shot at one of those German fiends. Yes, I
think it would be gloriously exciting,” ended Grace with a half sigh of
envy.
“Gloriously exciting?” repeated Nathalie with a shudder. “Oh, Grace, I
should think you would be frightfully worried. Suppose he should lose
his life some time in the darkness of the night, alone with those
wounded soldiers? O dear,” she ended drearily, “I just wish some one
would shoot or kill the Kaiser! Sometimes I wish I could be a Charlotte
Corday. Don’t you remember how she killed Murat for the sake of the
French?”
“Why, Nathalie,” cried Helen with amused eyes, “I thought you were a
pacifist, and here you are talking of shooting people.” And the girl’s
“Ha! ha!” rang out merrily.
Nathalie’s color rose in a wave as she cried decidedly, “Helen, I’m
_not_ a pacifist. Of course I want the Allies to win. I believe in the
war—only—only—I do not think it is necessary to send our boys across
the sea to fight.”
“But I do,” insisted Helen, “for this is God’s war, a war to give
liberty to everybody in the world, and that makes it _our_ war. We
should be willing to fight, to give the rights and privileges of
democracy to other people, and our American boys are not slackers who
let some one else do their work.”
“_Our_ boys! You mean _my boy_,” said Nathalie, with sudden bitterness.
“It’s all right for _you_ to talk, Helen, but _you_ haven’t a brother to
go and stand up and be mercilessly bayoneted by those Boches. And that
is what Dick will have to do.” Nathalie choked as she turned her head
away.
“Yes, Nathalie dear,” replied Helen in a softened tone, “I know it is a
terrible thing to have to give up your loved ones to be ruthlessly shot
down. But what are we going to do?” she pleaded desperately, “we must do
what is right and leave the rest to God, for, as mother says, ‘God is in
his Heaven.’ And Dick wants to go,” she ended abruptly, “he told me so
the other day.”
“Yes, that is just it,” cried Nathalie in a pitifully small voice, “and
he says that he is not going to wait to be drafted. Oh, Helen, mother
and I cannot sleep at night thinking about it!” Nathalie turned her face
away, her eyes dark and sorrowful. No, she did not mean to be a coward,
but it just rent her heart to picture Dick going about armless, or a
helpless cripple shuffling along, with either she or Dorothy leading
him.
“Oh, I would like to be a Joan of Arc,” interposed Grace at this point,
her blue eyes suddenly afire. “I think it would be great to ride in
front of an army on a white charger. And then, too,” she added more
seriously, “I think it takes more bravery to fight than to do anything
else.”
“Perhaps it does, Grace,” remarked Helen slowly, “but when it comes to
heroism, I think the mothers who give their boys to be slaughtered for
the good of their fellow-beings are the bravest—” The girl paused
quickly, for she had caught sight of Nathalie’s face, and remorsefully
felt that what she had just said only added to her friend’s distress.
“But, girls,” she went on in a brighter tone, “I have _something_ to
tell you. I’m going to France to do my ‘bit,’ for I’m to be stenographer
to Aunt Dora. We expect to sail in a month or so. You know that she is
one of the officials in the Red Cross organization.”
There were sudden exclamations of surprise from the girl’s two
companions, as they eagerly wanted to know all about her unexpected
piece of news. As Helen finished giving the details as to how it had all
come about, she exclaimed, with a sudden look at her wrist-watch:
“Goodness! Girls, do you know it is almost supper-time? I’m just about
starved.”
“Well, jump into the car, then,” cried Grace Tyson, “and I’ll have you
home in no time.” Her companions, pleased at the prospect of a whirl in
the new car, gladly accepted her invitation, and a few minutes later
were speeding towards the lower end of the street where Helen and
Nathalie lived.
After bidding her friends good-by, Nathalie, with a _tru-al-lee_, the
call-note of their Pioneer bird-group, ran lightly up the steps of the
veranda. Yes, Dick was home, for he was standing in the hall, lighting
the gas. With a happy little sigh she opened the door.
“Hello, sis,” called out Dick cheerily,—a tall well-formed youth, with
merry blue eyes,—as he caught sight of the girl in the door-way. “Have
you been on a hike?”
“Oh, no, just an afternoon at Mrs. Van Vorst’s. Nita had a lot of the
girls there—” Nathalie stopped, for an expression, a sudden gleam in
her brother’s eyes, caused her heart to give a wild leap. She drew in
her breath sharply, but before the question that was forming could be
asked, Dick waved the still flaming match hilariously above his head as
he cried, “Well, sister mine, I’ve taken the plunge, and I’ve come off
on top, for I’ve joined the Flying Corps, and I’m going to be an army
eagle!”
“Flying Corps?” repeated Nathalie dazedly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Blue Robin, that I’m going to be an aviator, a sky pilot,”
replied the boy jubilantly. “I made an application some time ago to the
chief signal officer at Washington. I was found an eligible applicant,
for, you know, my course in the technical school in New York did me up
fine. To-day I passed my physical examinations, and am now enlisted in
the Signal Corps of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps. I’m off next week
to the Military Aëronautics School at Princeton University. It’s an
eight-weeks’ course. If I put it over,—and you bet your life I do,”
Dick ground his teeth determinedly,—“I go into training at one of the
Flying Schools, and then I’ll soon be a regular bird of the air; and if
I don’t help Uncle Sam win the war, and manage to drop a few bombs on
those Fritzies, I’ll go hang!”
For one awful moment Nathalie stood silent, staring at her brother in
dumb despair. Then she turned, and with a blur in her eyes and a
tightening of her throat, blindly groped for the stairway. But no!
Dick’s hand shot out, he caught the hurrying figure in his grasp, and
the next moment Nathalie was sobbing on his breast.
“That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his
voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt
at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of
that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.”
This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath
on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and
although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her
tears were stayed.
“Dick, _how could you do it_? Think of mother!” Then she raised her
eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—”
But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went
down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat.
“Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little
_tru-al-lee_ of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard
you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if
I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a
citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote
cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the
country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my
mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.
“Oh, Dick, don’t try to be funny,” Nathalie managed to say somewhat
sharply, as she drew away from her brother’s arm and dropped limply on
the steps of the stairs, in such an attitude of hopeless despair that
Dick was at the end of his tether to know what to say. He stared down at
the girl, unconsciously rubbing his hand through his hair, a trick the
boy had when perplexed.
Suddenly a bit of a smile leaped into his eyes as he cried, in a
hopelessly resigned tone, “All right, sis, seeing that you feel this way
about it I’ll just send in my resignation. It will let the boys know
I’ve laid down on my job, for if you and mother are going to howl like
two cats, a fellow can’t do a thing but stay at home and be a sissy, a
baby-tender, a dish-washer-er-er—”
“Oh, Dick, don’t talk nonsense,” broke in Nathalie sharply. “I didn’t
say that you were not to go, but,—why—oh, I just can’t help feeling
awfully bad when I read all those terrible things in the paper.” Her
voice quivered pathetically as she finished.
“Well, don’t read them, then,” coolly rejoined Dick. “Just steer clear
of all that hysterical gush and brace up. My job is to serve my
country,—she wants me. By Jove, before she gets out of this hole she’ll
need every mother’s son of us. And I’ve got to do it in the best way I
can, by enlisting before the draft comes. I’ll not only have a chance to
do better work, a prospect of quicker promotion, but, if you want to
look at the sordid end of it, I’ll get more pay. And as to being killed,
as you wailed, if you and mother will insist upon seeing it black, an
aviator’s chance of life is ten to one better—if he’s on to his
job—than that of the fellow on the ground. So cheer up, Blue Robin. I’m
all beat hollow, for I’ve been trying to cheer up mother for the last
hour.”
“Oh, what does mother say?” asked a very faint voice, just as if the
girl did not know how her mother felt, and had been feeling for some
time.
“Say! Gee whiz! I don’t know what she would have said if she had voiced
her sentiments,” replied Dick resignedly. “But the worst of the whole
business was that she took it out in weeping about a tank of tears; all
over my best coat, too,” he added ruefully. “You women are enough to
make a fellow go stiff.
“Now see here, Blue Robin, don’t disappoint me!” suddenly cried the lad,
as he stared appealingly into his sister’s brown eyes. “Why, I thought
that you would be my right-hand man. I knew mother would make a time at
first, but _you_,—I _thought you had grit_; _you_, a Pioneer, too.
Don’t you know, girl—” added Dick, rubbing the back of his hand quickly
across his eyes, “that I’ve got to go? Don’t you forget that. I’m on the
job, every inch of it, but, thunderation, I’m no more keen to go ‘over
there’ and have those Hun devils cut me up like sausage, than you or
mother. But I’m a man and I’ve got to live up to the business of being a
man, and not a mollycoddle.”
But Nathalie had suddenly come to her senses. Perhaps it was the brush
of the boy’s hand across his eyes, or the quivering note in his voice,
but she roused. She had been selfish; instead of crying like a ninny she
should have cheered. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed contritely, standing up
and facing him suddenly, “I’m all wrong. I didn’t mean to cry, and I
wouldn’t have either,” she explained excusingly, “if you had only let me
go up-stairs.
“No, Dick, I would not have you be a slacker, or a mollycoddle, or wash
the dishes,” she added with a faint attempt at a smile, “and we haven’t
any babies to tend. Yes, old boy, I don’t want you to lie down in the
traces, so let’s shake on it, and I’ll try to brace up mother, too,”
added the girl, as she held out her hand to her brother.
“Now that’s the stuff, Nat, old girl,” cried the boy with gleaming eyes,
as he took the girl’s hand and held it tightly, “and while I’m fighting
to uphold the family honor and glory,—remember father was a Rough
Rider,—you stay with dear old mumsie. Keep her cheered up, and see that
everything is made easy for her. Do all you can to take my place here at
home. Yes, Blue Robin, you be the home soldier. Gee whiz, you be the
home guard!” added the boy in a sudden burst of inspiration.
“The home guard! Yes, that’s what I’ll be,” cried the girl, her eyes
lighting with a sudden glow. “And then I’ll be doing my bit, won’t I?
I’ll cheer up mother, and do all I can,” she added resolutely; “and
don’t worry any more, Dick, for now,”—the girl drew a long breath,
“I’ll be on the job as well as you.”
And then Nathalie, with a wave of her hand at the boy as he stood gazing
up at her with his eyes fired with loyal determination, hurried up the
stairs, straight on and up to the very top of the house to her usual
weeping-place, for, oh, those hateful tears would not be restrained, and
if she did not have her cry out she would strangle!
Ah, here she was in her den, the attic. Dimly she reached out her hand
and pulled the little wooden rocker out from the wall and slumped into
it, and a minute later, with her face buried in the fold of her arm, as
it rested on the little sewing-table, she was weeping unrestrainedly.
Presently she gave a sudden start, raised her head and listened, and
then was on her feet, for, oh, that was her mother’s step,—she was
coming up after her. Oh, why hadn’t she waited until she had a hold on
herself. The next moment the little wooden door with the padlock opened,
and Mrs. Page was standing in the doorway gazing down at her.
“Why—oh, mother!” Nathalie cried in surprise and wonder, for her mother
was smiling. The girl’s eyes bulged out from her tear-stained face in
such a funny way that her mother broke into a little laugh. Then her
face sobered and she came slowly towards her.
“No, daughter mine, mother is not weeping. Yes, I heard what you and
Dick said, and you are patriots, and have shamed mother into trying to
be one, too.” Mrs. Page took the girl in her arms with tender affection.
“And Dick is a dear lad. Oh, Nathalie, in our grief at the thought of
parting with him,—perhaps of losing him,—” her voice weakened
slightly, “we have forgotten that he has been fighting a greater battle
than we.
“It is surely a great thing,” continued Mrs. Page sadly, “for a young
man in the buoyancy of youth and the very heyday of life, to give it all
up. For youth clings more tenaciously to life than older people do, for
to them it is an untried and shining pathway, flowered with hope,
anticipation, and the luring glimmer of unfulfilled aims and ambitions.
“And then to have to face about,” her voice lowered, “and silently
struggle with one’s self in the great battle of self-abnegation, to end
by taking this glorious life and casting it far behind you,—this is
what makes a hero. Then to face the dread ordeal of a battlefield, and
go steadily forward, buoyed only with a feeling of bravery,—the heroism
of doing what you believe to be right,—and, taking your one chance for
life in your hands,—plunge into the unknown darkness and the horrifying
perils of a No Man’s Land.”
There was a stifled sob in Nathalie’s throat, but her mother went
steadily on: “No, Nathalie, we must not weep. We must smile and be
cheerful. We must inspire Dick with courage and hope, and if it is meant
that he is to give his life, we must let him go with a ‘God speed you,’
his memory starred with the thought of a mother’s love and a sister’s
courage, and with the soul-stirring song of the victor over death.
“And, Nathalie, Dick belongs to God; he was only loaned to me,—to
you,—and if the time has come for God to call him home, we must not
complain. We must gladly give him back. Then we must remember, too,”
went on the patient mother-voice, “that, after all, life is not the mere
living of it, but the things accomplished for the betterment of those
who come after. And if Dick has been ‘on the job,’” Mrs. Page smiled,
“no matter how small his share in this great warfare for the right, he
will be the better prepared to enter into the Land where there is no
more suffering, or horrible war, but just a glorious and eternal peace.”
The last word was almost whispered, but, with renewed effort, she said:
“Now, Nathalie, let us be brave, as father would have had us,—the dear
father,—and go down to Dick with a bright smile and inspiring words of
cheer.” Mrs. Page bent and kissed the girl lightly, but solemnly, on the
forehead, and then she had turned and was making her way towards the
door.