[CHAPTER VII]
A TOUGH JOB
It was the first week in November, and a chilly wind was blowing across Governor's Island, shaking down the last leaves from the bare branches of the trees and tossing those on the ground into swirling heaps. The sentry walking past the Gordons' house wore an overcoat now, and Quartermaster's men were putting up storm doors and windows all along General's Row.
Lucy and Marian were hurrying home from the Matthews', for it was almost lunch time. For a month and a half Anne Matthews' governess had been giving lessons every morning to Anne, Julia, Lucy and Marian, and she made them work hard enough to be hungry by twelve o'clock. Mrs. Gordon had half intended sending Lucy to boarding-school this year, but just now she did not feel like losing her from home, and Lucy's interest in the plan had also faded. She might have gone over to the city to school, but her mother would not consent to this for Marian, and had been very glad on the whole to accept Mrs. Matthews' proposal. The four girls got along companionably together under Miss Ellis, and Marian had surprised them all by her quickness in catching up in spite of her handicap of lost schooling.
"It's really cold, but it can't be winter yet," said Lucy, thrusting her bare hands into her sweater pocket and looking reproachfully at the sun, which did not feel so warm as it used to.
"There's only a month and a half till Christmas, though," Marian reminded her. "When we began tying up the soldiers' Christmas packages last week it seemed awfully like winter, but Julia says maybe we'll have Indian summer yet."
"I never could make out when Indian summer comes. It's always coming soon and then the first thing you know there's a snow-storm," remarked Lucy, running up the piazza steps as she caught sight of her mother sitting inside the window.
Mrs. Gordon was reading a letter in the sitting-room, still wearing the hat and coat in which she had come from the Red Cross, and Lucy exclaimed as she entered the room:
"Oh, Mother, did you—is it from Bob?"