JUST FRIENDS
"Here comes the sun," cried Betty, "the sun, the sun, the beautiful
sun."
"Well, I should say it was just about time," said Grace, carefully
arranging her hat before the mirror. "If it hadn't cleared up pretty
soon, I'd have stopped hoping. Are the other girls nearly ready?"
"Oh, we've been ready and waiting for hours," came Mollie's voice,
slightly bored, from the other room. "And we took our time, too,
because we knew how long you are getting dressed----"
"Oh, is that so?" Grace was beginning, when Betty interrupted
peaceably.
"Well, we're all ready now. In the words of the army--'let's go.'"
"Oh, it is lovely out!" cried Mollie, drawing in deep breaths of the
invigorating air, as they stood on the steps looking down the street.
"I feel like walking miles and miles and miles."
As the four girls walked down to the main gate of the cantonment,
they nodded and smiled continually to the khaki-clad,
respectfully-saluting boys they passed; for the fame of the girls
at the Hostess House had spread all over the barracks, and the boys
always looked forward to catching a smile or two or a merry word as
they passed.
Many there were who had been sentimentally inclined, but the Deepdale
boys had well nigh monopolized the girls from their home town and by
their actions had warned off all would-be intruders almost as plainly
as though they had put out a sign.
There were some hardy souls, however, who refused to recognize any
prior claim, and these had caused much grumbling among the Deepdale
boys.
"I wonder what will happen when we have to go across," Frank had said
once. "I suppose then those chaps will think they have it all their
own way."
And the bright faces of the girls had clouded so suddenly and they
had looked so distressed that poor Frank never dared repeat the
offense.
But stopping every few minutes to speak to some one you know,
necessarily makes progress slow, and it was some time before the
girls succeeded in reaching the gate and turning their steps toward
the country.
"It doesn't seem possible that Thanksgiving can be so near," said Amy
thoughtfully. "I never knew time to run away so."
"Yes, it makes me feel dizzy sometimes," said Mollie, with a little
perplexed frown. "I feel as if I wanted to get hold of him by the
forelock and hold him back. He's in altogether too much of a hurry."
"If we can only see that each one of the boys who can't go home for
Thanksgiving gets a regular, old-fashioned home-cooked dinner," said
Betty earnestly, "I'll feel as if we'd done some good in the world."
"Well, more than half the boys will be able to get home for it," said
Grace, "and I'm sure we'll find enough good-hearted families to
account for the rest."
"Yes, the people around here have certainly helped us more than we
dared to hope," said Betty enthusiastically. "We've hardly found one
so far who wasn't willing to open his house--and his heart, too, for
that matter--to the soldier boys. I love them all for being so
generous. It's done more than anything else to keep up the boys'
spirits and send them away happy and healthy and confident."
"Where are we going first?" queried Mollie, for Betty had made out a
list of the houses they were to canvass.
"The Shroths come first," she answered, consulting her list. "Then
the Atwaters and the Clarks. After that we'll just go up one street
and down the other till supper time."
"Sounds simple," said Amy plaintively, "but, oh, our poor feet!"
"We have walked a good deal, lately," laughed Betty. "But it's
nothing to what we _have_ done. Champion hikers like us shouldn't
complain about ordinary walking. Here we are at the Shroths. Now look
your prettiest and smile your sweetest for the sake of the soldier
boys!"
Mrs. Shroth, a sweet-faced, elderly woman, opened the door to them
herself and smilingly ushered them into the handsome library.
"I saw you coming, my dears," she said, settling down comfortably in
an enveloping armchair, "and I'm almost sure I know what you have
come to ask me. And you needn't even ask," she added, raising her
hand as Betty started to speak, "for the request was granted two
weeks ago. My whole house is at your disposal--to do with as you
please."
"Oh, you're lovely," Betty cried impulsively, and Mrs. Shroth gently
covered the eager young hand on the chair arm with her own, smiling
down into the flushed face.
"The admiration is mutual," she said, and then Betty's heart went out
to her entirely. "I've watched you girls for a long time, and the
work you've done for the boys has been simply splendid. I've tried to
help all I could---"
"You have," broke in Mollie enthusiastically. "And we've been so
grateful to you."
"And I've been grateful to you," Mrs. Shroth added, in her sweet
voice, "for showing me how best I could serve the boys and my
country. Now, how many do you think I could accommodate for
Thanksgiving dinner--or rather, how many would you like me to
accommodate?"
Betty was a little at a loss.
"Why, I hardly know," she said, hesitating. "We didn't expect you to
take in more than two, perhaps three at the outside----"
"Oh, nonsense," said Mrs. Shroth, brushing the suggestion aside. "Two
or three boys would be lost in this big house, even counting all my
relatives who usually spend Thanksgiving day with me. No, I can take
half a dozen, at least."
The girls looked at her a moment, delighted, but incredulous. Then
they told Mrs. Shroth what they thought of such generosity until she
found herself blushing with pleasure.
"It's such a little thing," she said, as she stood on the porch to
say good-bye to them, "that I feel almost guilty to take thanks for
it. Good luck." The girls went on down the street with singing hearts
and a warm sense of friendliness and love for all their fellow
beings.
They found the same spirit in every house they visited, and when they
at last started for home after walking "miles and miles" they were
too happy to feel tired.
"Oh, every one's so kind and dear and anxious to help," cried Mollie,
skipping a little in her delight, "that your heart just feels too big
to stay inside. Seems as if it ought to come out in the open where
everybody can see how hard it's beating."
"Well, I have heard of people wearing their hearts on their sleeves,"
said Betty, twinkling. "But I've never tried it myself."
"It's wonderful," said Amy softly, "what a comfortable, warm feeling
it gives you to find people--some of them you never knew before--who
are really working side by side with you for the same thing, ready to
hold out a helping hand when you need it."
"Yes," agreed Betty, her eyes fixed dreamily on the horizon, "it
makes you feel as if there weren't any strangers in the world, as if
we were all just friends, working for the common good of everybody."
"Betty, how pretty," cried Grace, and there was a thrill in her voice
as she repeated softly; "all just friends, working for the common
good of everybody."
"I'll never forget one thing that happened to me," said Amy, and they
looked at her lovingly. Amy was such a dear--but then everybody was
that to-night! "It was only a little thing, and yet it made me
think."
"Then it couldn't have been very little," Mollie, the irrepressible,
murmured.
"You know," Amy went on, so deep in her own thoughts, she scarcely
noticed the interruption, "I never did talk much--I always felt as if
people were cold and unfriendly--and so kept to myself, except for my
really good friends, of course. Then, one morning, I saw that it was
all my own fault.
"I just happened to be walking along the street, not noticing anybody
particularly, when an old woman dropped her nickel car fare and it
rolled out into the middle of the street. I ran after it and gave it
back to her, and she smiled at me. Somehow, that smile changed
everything for me."
"How, dear?" asked Betty, putting a sympathetic arm about her.
"Why," said Amy, blushing in her enthusiasm, "it just made me feel as
if everybody was ready to smile if you only gave them half a chance.
And I've found out it was true," she finished decidedly. "Because I've
tried it ever so many times since, and it's never once failed!"
"Yes," concluded Mollie. "I guess everybody's just plain nice and
human, after all!"