CHAPTER XI
MISSING
Sure enough, in the morning came better news. Father Bob’s face, when he turned around from the telephone, told that, even before he opened his lips.
“Sidney is holding his own,” he said.
You may think that wasn’t much better news, but it meant a great deal to the Camerons. “Sidney is holding his own,” they told every one who inquired, and their faces were hopeful. If Father Bob had any fears, he kept them to himself. The rest of the Camerons were young and it didn’t seem possible to them that Sidney could do anything but get well. Last night had been a bad dream, that was all.
The next morning’s message had the word “better” in it. “Little” stood before “better,” but nobody, not even Father Bob, paid much attention to “little.” Sidney was better. It was a week before Mother Jess wrote that the doctors pronounced him out of danger and that she and Laura would soon be home. Meanwhile, many things had happened.
You might have thought that Sidney’s illness was enough trouble to come to the Camerons at one time, but as Bruce quoted with a twist in his smile, “It never rains but it pours.” This time Bruce himself got the message which came from the War Department and read:
You are informed that Lieutenant Peter Fearing has been reported missing since September fifteenth. Letter follows.
The Camerons felt as badly as though Peter Fearing had been their own brother.
“The telegram doesn’t say that he’s 246 dead,” Trudy declared, over and over again.