The vacations at the Grange were arranged in rather an unusual fashion, a full week’s holiday being given at Whitsuntide instead of the ordinary little break at half-term. This year Miss Gibbs, who was nothing if not patriotic, evolved a plan for the benefit of her country. She saw an advertisement in the local newspaper, stating that volunteers would soon be urgently needed to gather the strawberry crop upon a farm about fifteen miles away, and begging ladies of education to lend their services. Such a splendid opportunity of war work appealed to her. She wrote at once for particulars, and after some correspondence and a visit to the scene of action, announced her scheme to the school. She proposed that any girls who cared to devote their holidays to a useful end should join a camp of strawberry-pickers who were to be employed on the farm.
“It is being arranged by a Government bureau,” she explained, “and many people will be coming who, like ourselves, want to help to bear their country’s burdens—university students, journalists, social workers, hospital nurses, matrons of institutions, and mistresses and scholars from other 108 schools. We shall sleep in tents, and lead an absolutely outdoor life. It will be a healthy way of passing a week, as well as a benefit to the nation. Any girl who would like to do her share may give me her name this afternoon, and Miss Beasley will write to her parents for permission for her to join the camp.”
Outside in the quadrangle the school talked over the proposition at its leisure.
“Will they let us eat the strawberries?” asked Fauvette anxiously.
“Certainly, you little glutton!” snapped Veronica. “You’ll be allowed to stuff till you loathe the very thought of swallowing a strawberry. But you’ll have to pick hard and do your share, or they’ll turn you off!”
The monitresses were fired with the idea, and all, except Linda, had decided to “do their bit.” Their enthusiasm spread downward like a wave. Before the day was over, eighteen girls had given in their names as volunteers, Raymonde, Morvyth, Katherine, and Aveline being among the number.
“I would like to have joined you, really!” protested Fauvette, “only I know I’ll be so dreadfully home-sick all the rest of the term if I don’t go home, and––”
“Don’t apologize, child!” interrupted Raymonde. “Nobody in their senses expects you to go. You’d be a huge embarrassment to the rest of us. Blue-eyed darlings, all baby-ribbon and fluffy hair, aren’t meant for hard work. Why, you’d pick about six strawberries in an hour, and eat three-quarters of them! Go home and be petted, by all means! We don’t want you weeping yourself to sleep at night, 109 it disturbs the dormitory. The country’ll survive without your services!”
Raymonde’s harum-scarum mind was for once really filled with a wish to help. She meant to do her full share of work. Also she was determined to enjoy herself. The prospect of camp-life was alluring. There was a gipsy smack about it that satisfied her unconventional instincts. It seemed almost next door to campaigning.
“If I’d only been a boy, I’d have run away to the front long ago!” she announced.