"Speak for yourself, please," he retorted amiably, swerving the car at a perilous angle about a turn in the road. "Say, this is pretty country along here, isn't it?"

They all agreed that it was, and for a few minutes sat in silent enjoyment of it.

While the Hostess House was in process of repair some friendly families living in the vicinity had opened their doors wide to the girls and the other visitors at the Hostess House. The fire had done a great deal of damage, but the house had been amply insured, and the work of rebuilding was proceeding as fast as possible. Meanwhile, the girls were going on with their work as usual, though eagerly looking forward to the time when they should be installed in their proper quarters again.

The fire had temporarily put the subject of Will and his mysterious doings out of their minds, but during the last few days their wonder and curiosity had returned.

To-day he had consented to accompany them, and during the early part of the ride had seemed in hilarious spirits. Now, for the last fifteen minutes or so, he had appeared gloomy and preoccupied, but as they neared the spot where they had decided to eat their lunch, his spirits seemed to revive somewhat, and he became talkative again.

"Say, I'm hungry," he announced, more like the old Will than he had been for weeks. "What are you girls going to give us, anyway?"

"Chicken," announced Betty, "and honey and biscuits, and peach cake and jelly, and hot coffee from the thermos bottle, some ham sandwiches and deviled eggs----"

"Stop her," pleaded Roy piteously. "Stop her, some one, before I forget myself and decamp with the hamper----"

"You'd be forgetting us too, if you tried it," said Frank grimly. "Do you suppose with three ravenous wolves at your back you'd have a chance of getting away with any of that kind of stuff?"

"Gee, it's awful the appet.i.te camp life gives you," said Roy mournfully. "I wrote home the other day and told the folks that if I ate like a wolf before, I eat like a flock of 'em, now."

"Whoever heard of a flock of wolves?" asked Mollie scornfully. "You must have been thinking of geese."

"No," retorted Roy soberly. "I wasn't speaking of you."

"Strike one for our side," chuckled Allen, while the others laughed at Mollie's look of surprise. "That was a good one, Roy--right from the shoulder."

"Now I _know_ I'm going home," said Mollie forlornly. "Everybody's agin me."

"I'm not," said Betty, putting an arm about her. "The more they try to down you, the more I love you."

"If that's the way you feel," put in Allen whimsically, "won't everybody please jump on me at once?"

"Yes, I always had a weakness for the under dog," Betty was beginning wickedly when Mollie drew sharply away from her, and the others began to laugh.

"Betty Nelson," said Mollie reproachfully, "I never expected it of you. Under dog, indeed----"

"Oh, I didn't mean you!" said Betty hurriedly, thereby increasing the general mirth.

"Oh, well, what does it matter, anyway?" said Frank philosophically, as he swung the car around a curve, and brought it to a standstill.

"I won't mind being an under dog or anything else as long as I get my share of the eats. Don't you think this is rather a pretty spot to have lunch?"

"I know a better spot to _put_ it, though," said Roy jocularly, as they sprang out upon the soft gra.s.s by the roadside. "And if I have my way it won't be long getting there."

Instinctively, Betty held out a hand to Allen, as he descended more slowly than the rest--she was very anxious about his "wabbliness."

Allen took the little hand eagerly, but it is doubtful if he gained much physical support from it.

"How are you feeling?" asked Betty as they followed the others up the gra.s.sy slope to a sort of ledge--just the kind of place for a picnic lunch. She did not look at him. Somehow, it was almost impossible to look at Allen, these days.

"Happy," he answered, in reply to her question. "Just being near you, Betty, makes me the happiest fellow on earth!"

CHAPTER XXII

MAKING GOOD

It was raining torrents outside, and the girls were seated in one of the big parlors of the Hostess House. As usual, they were knitting, and their tongues kept time to the rapid click, click, of their needles.

They were exceptionally thoughtful and, as Amy expressed it, "their mood matched the weather." The war was not going as well as every one had hoped. The dark cloud was growing darker and darker every day, and each morning paper seemed to bring more disquieting news than the one before.

"And it won't be long now," Mollie was saying, "before our boys are sent across. It's almost time for the second draft, and the camps will have to be emptied of the first troops. And when they're gone----"

she bowed her head to hide the unbidden tears that were glistening in her eyes.

"Yes, it will be terrible," said Betty, trying hard to keep the telltale tremulousness from her voice--trying desperately to sound brave and resigned. "But we must remember that thousands of women and girls all over the United States are going through the same thing.

And for the boys' sake, we must be cheerful."

"The boys themselves are cheerful--heaven bless them," cried Grace, in a rare burst of enthusiasm. "I never saw anything like their spirit!"

"Isn't it wonderful?" Mollie agreed, her eyes shining through her tears. "It makes you want to shout with pride in them, and cry at the same time."

"Yes," said Amy quietly, "and I don't think anybody who hasn't been close to military life, as we have been, can realize how great the American army will be. It's meeting the boys day after day, seeing them get more enthusiastic as the time comes near for them to face those terrible guns----"

"I feel as if I wanted to go down on my knees to every boy in uniform," cried Betty, gripping the arms of her chair till the knuckles showed white. "No matter how hard we try we can't make up to them for what they're giving up--and giving up so cheerfully. And they're so dear and appreciative and thankful for every little thing that we have done for them, it makes me want to cry.

"And have you noticed," she continued, while the girls stopped their work to watch her, "what happens if you ask them about their home folks? Their faces light up, and right away they begin to talk about 'mother.'

"'You know,' one of them said to me just a little while ago, 'when I first came to camp, I didn't exactly feel homesick, as I'd expected to; I just felt queer and uneasy and restless. For a couple of nights I couldn't sleep, just kept tossing and turning till reveille routed me out again. Then suddenly, one night, I found out what the matter was. I wasn't homesick; I was just missing my mother.'

"I smiled at him, trying my best not to cry, and said: 'Home is mother, isn't it?'

"Then the boy just turned away, and I knew it was because his eyes were misty and he was ashamed to let me see it, and when he looked at me again he was smiling a little wistfully.

"A few days after that he came up to me. 'You won't laugh, if I tell you something?' he asked. 'On my word of honor,' I answered him.

'Well,' he said, looking so dear and sheepish, I had all I could do to keep from hugging him, 'as soon as I found out what you said about home being mother, I just put the picture I had of her under my pillow, and honest, I've slept like a baby ever since.'"

The girls were all crying and Mollie impatiently shook a tear from the tip of her nose. "Betty, you never told us that before. If his mother could only know about it."

"She probably does," said Betty, wiping her eyes and taking up her knitting again. "Somehow, most mothers know those things by instinct."

"And to think boys like that," cried Mollie, knitting fast to keep time with her feelings, "to think boys like that have to go over to the other side, and be mowed down by the thousands. Oh, I can't believe it!"

"I guess we've all sort of closed our eyes to it, till now," said Grace, so unlike her usual self that she had completely forgotten to eat candy for fifteen minutes. "But we can't go on like that forever.

When it comes right down to us and we lose somebody we care for--"

her voice broke and the girls went on knitting faster than ever, fearing a general breakdown.

"We've just got to work so hard we can't think," said Mollie with decision, adding, a little hysterically: "It never used to be hard before."