"What, to keep from thinking?" asked Amy, while the other girls smiled a little and felt better.

"Who's that coming up the walk, Betty?" Grace asked, a moment later.

"The glimpse I got looked like a uniform."

"It's Allen," Betty answered, waving to the splendid specimen of manhood who was coming up the porch two steps at a time. "He looks as if he had some good news for us. You let him in, will you, Amy?

You're nearest the door."

So Amy, opening the door, admitted a six-foot cyclone, who swept her before him into the parlor, where she sank into a chair to get her breath.

"Well, what in the world?" asked Mollie, round eyes on his face, as he mopped his face and lowered himself into a seat.

"Talk about good luck," he began, beaming round upon them. "I guess the fellows were right when they said I was falling into it lately."

"Good news, Allen?" asked Betty, leaning forward eagerly. "I knew you had something wonderful to tell us the moment I saw you."

"Well, in the first place," said Allen, modestly putting himself last, "Frank has been promoted to the rank of corporal."

"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" they cried together, and thereafter arose a very babel of questions as to where, when and how the promotion had occurred, which Allen answered one after another with equal enthusiasm.

"Frank's taken hold and worked with all his heart," he finished, "and he simply got what's coming to him, that's all."

"But, Allen," Betty broke in, struck by a sudden thought, "you said something about _your_ having run into good luck. Was it something that happened to you personally, or was it just the good luck of being the friend of a corporal?"

"Since I've been a corporal myself from the start," said Allen with dignity, "I don't see why----"

"Yes, yes, go on," said Mollie impatiently.

"Well," said Allen, throwing the news like a bomb into their midst, "I've been promoted to a sergeant."

"What?" the girls cried, hardly knowing whether to believe him or not. "Are you really in earnest?"

"You're not very complimentary," he grumbled, though his eyes twinkled. "You don't suppose I'd come here and tell you a thing like that if it weren't so, do you?"

Then arose a second babel, louder and more prolonged than the first, and it was a long time before they quieted down enough to talk coherently.

"You see," Allen explained, "there's a chance for promotion now that there never was before. New men are coming in by the hundreds, and those men have to have officers. There's really no end to the chances if you just stick to the big game and do your level best. You're sure to win something good in the end."

"And hasn't Roy been promoted?" asked Grace. "Hasn't he been 'on the job,' as you say?"

"You bet your life he has," Allen defended loyally. "It's just our luck that we happened to get it; that's all. His turn will come next, you take it from me."

For a few minutes no one spoke, and only the ticking of the clock, and the regular click, click of the knitting needles broke the deep stillness. Then Allen bethought him of something.

"Saw Will, too, on the way up," he said, and at the name the girls all put down their knitting and looked at him inquiringly. "He seemed to be immensely excited about something. Fact is, I don't think he would even have seen me if I hadn't gotten in his way and flagged him. Mark my words--that boy's got something big up his sleeve. I bet he's going to surprise us all some day."

"Did he--did he--tell you anything?" asked Grace. "Anything to make you think that?"

"No," he answered, adding with a sincerity that brought a light of unutterable gladness to Grace's eyes: "But I've met lots of fellows in my business, and have learned to size them up pretty well. And if there was ever a brainy, plucky, true-blue fellow in this world, his name is Will Ford!"

CHAPTER XXIII

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 pa.s.sed; 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 pa.s.sed.

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 canva.s.s.

"The Shroths come first," she answered, consulting her list. "Then the At.w.a.ters 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!"