"It looks as if there might be considerable fighting before Christmas!" declared Uncle Robert.
For the few who chose to find them there were duties enough. Brookside, as well as other places, began to feel the effects of the war. There were soldiers' widows and orphans, the sick and the wounded who were sent home to make room for newer cases. Then the churches at Brookside decided to give a grand Fair and Festival for this benevolent object, to be held Thanksgiving week.
Kathie found her hands quite full. Still she found time to dust the parlor every morning and take care of her own room, and often managed to get half an hour for her music practice. To be sure, she did not dawdle over her dressing, neither was there a waterfall wonderfully constructed, and adorned with puffs and braids.
"I mean to keep my little girl simple in her tastes as long as I can," Mrs. Alston replied to the dressmaker. "Nothing can be prettier than her hair as it is, and I do not feel justified in dressing her expensively when there are so many children suffering with cold and hunger."
"But young girls feel so sensitive on these matters," was the reply. "They all want to look like their companions."
"I hope there are some sensible mothers left," returned Mrs. Alston with a smile.
Kathie was very much interested in getting contributions and making fancy articles, though hers tended rather to the useful. And Aunt Ruth, to her great amusement, made up a dozen stout gingham kitchen aprons with bibs, a stack of kettle-holders, and knitted some dishcloths out of soft cotton.
In the mean while Kathie was delighted with a letter from Mr. Meredith. He was in the gayest spirits and related a host of comical episodes. He had been in several skirmishes, but no regular battle, was well and hearty, and brown as a berry already. Just at the last he said, "I have not forgotten our pleasant ride, and the other fighting we talked about."
Mr. Morrison was doing very well also. Kathie began to think that it was not such a terrible thing to go to war, after all.
As for Rob, his record was pretty fair. He did confess to being a little homesick at first. The Latin was "awful tough work," and some of the rules "rather hard on a fellow who was new to them." But they had a "jolly set of boys," and he liked it first-rate.