"Yes, sit down and we'll read it together," said Mrs. Gordon, looking up for a second from the closely-written sheets.
Bob's letters, arriving very erratically from France, sometimes two and three at a time and often weeks apart, were precious things these days, and Lucy needed no second bidding. Marian, too, pulled off her blue velvet tam and sank down on the floor by Lucy's side while Mrs. Gordon recommenced the letter aloud.
"Dear Mother and all of you:
"No news from home for a week, because I haven't been where I could get any, but hope to by to-morrow, when I shall have a chance to stop at my headquarters. I'll mail this then, too, if somebody doesn't turn up to take it in the meantime.
"It's three weeks to-day since I was transferred to the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps, and I am just about beginning to realize how little I know, though it seems as if I had never worked so hard in my life. Behind the lines here—there's no use in my being more definite, for they wouldn't pass my letter—we beginners are kept at it, as long as there is daylight to work by, overhauling the airplanes after every flight, and learning their construction from end to end. I have been up twice as observer, both times with Benton—he's a wonder in the air. They are awfully short of observers here, and I draw pretty well, and know how to take pictures. But that is as far as I have got yet, and it seems very little when there is such a monstrous lot of work waiting to be done.
"We get plenty to eat, Mother, and if we didn't there's a little village right behind us where they sell you food for almost nothing,—they'd give it to us if we hadn't the money to pay. I think these are the kindest, friendliest people in the world.
They can't do enough to welcome us here, and it's funny how much friendship can be expressed without knowing each other's language. My French, as you know, is rather weak, but it's better than the enlisted men's,—still they seem to get what they want.
"Well, I must tell you the best piece of news I have. I met Dick Harding on the road day before yesterday, while I was marching a detachment from our squadron back to camp after an exercising hike. He was riding on reconnoitering duty with some other officers, so of course there wasn't much time. But when he saw me he pulled up and jumped off his horse, and I halted my men while we shook hands and grinned at each other and tried to get everything we wanted to say into about three minutes. I sure was glad to see him. He asked about you all and what I was doing and tried to arrange a meeting when we should be off duty, though that's always too uncertain to count on.
"He looks well, though a little thin. Of course I hadn't seen him since my furlough. He says his regiment—you know which it is—will go into the first line trenches this week. It has been declared in first-class condition and training, and mentioned already in home despatches. He is awfully proud about it, of course, and wants to show what they can do. It made me more than ever anxious to get somewhere in aviation. They need every one of us right now. He had to mount again almost at once to overtake the others, and I don't know when we can find each other, for we are ten miles apart even while he's behind the firing line.
"Father's regiment is somewhere in this sector, he told me."
"Oh, Lucy, wasn't it fine for Bob to see him!" Mrs. Gordon stopped reading to exclaim.
"Wasn't it?" said Lucy with shining eyes. "I've been hoping so they would meet. But go on, Mother, won't you?"
"There isn't much more," said Mrs. Gordon, turning to the last page.
"Don't worry about whether you are sending me the right things for Christmas. If I get some of Lucy's fudge I shall be thankful. We appreciate things so much more over here that it ought to be easier to choose them than when we were at home. Compared with the French we have so much just now. I hope the people back home won't forget that there are few families in this part of France who have any money left to buy presents for their own soldiers. But anyway, we'll share what we have with them. Nobody could help doing that.
"I have to get into my oiling togs now and go over a machine that has just come in. It's Benton's, and he has been flying over the German trenches. He came to the door of my place just then to say he was nearly frozen and was going to take a run to warm up. Our shacks are getting cold at night, too, but some of the men are out to-day cutting fire-wood.
"Good-bye, if I don't find time to write any more to-day. I'm almost too sleepy at night to put anything like a sentence together. But I always think of you a lot.
"With much love,
"Bob."
"He never said whether our fruit cake came or not, Lucy," cried Marian, disappointed. "But perhaps it's waiting where the rest of his mail is," she reflected, tossing back her bright hair to look up inquiringly into Mrs. Gordon's face.
"Yes, probably it is, dear," Mrs. Gordon agreed, putting Bob's letter carefully back into its envelope. "I'm glad they have plenty to eat," she added with a smothered little sigh. "Lucy, call in William and we'll have lunch. Here comes Father now. He has to hurry off to-day to inspect supplies for these new recruits."
The post had seen a good many changes in the two months since Bob's regiment sailed. Many women of the Twenty-Eighth had packed up and gone away to their old homes or elsewhere. The new Infantry battalion had already been succeeded by another, and of the recruits of the early summer many were already overseas and all were trained men scattered to various regiments. Those drilling on the post now were not so numerous since the National Army camps had opened, though several hundred still remained in training, destined to fill vacancies among the regulars. In October another regiment had camped overnight on Governor's Island to slip away to their transports at dawn. But this one had not been so fortunate as the Twenty-Eighth, and had sent back word of an uneasy passage made among attacking submarines in the midst of a heavy storm which almost drove the transports from their convoy.
Mr. Leslie was straining every nerve to supply his lumber for ship-building as fast as the government asked for it, and he wrote feelingly of the great difficulties in the way of transportation, but also of brave and patriotic efforts in the West to get the utmost accomplished. He wrote much, too, rather anxiously, about his prolonged absence, though he had been a good deal cheered by Marian's letters, which showed an increasing interest in her cousins and in the life of the post.
Marion had taken it on herself to help Lucy a little in the tasks that fell to her share while Margaret was their only servant, and after luncheon they went out together on the piazza to put it in order after William's playing circus there with the puppy most of the morning. William tried to help by picking up his blocks, but did not make much of a success of it and ended by sitting on the steps and holding Happy in his arms, while the puppy wriggled with wild curiosity to get down and find out what a squirrel on the grass was burying with its quick little paws at the foot of a tree.