“You couldn’t work any harder if you were a man grown,” she told him.
“Huh!” said Henry, “a lot I hurt myself!” But he liked the smile and the praise, wary though he might pretend to be of it. Sis was a good sort. “You’re some worker, yourself. Let’s get on to the next one.”
The second letter—and it too bore a date disquietingly far from the present—told of the fight. It thrilled the four in the pleasant New England kitchen. The peaceful walls opened wide, and they were out in far spaces, patrolling the windy sky, mounting, diving, dodging through wisps 131 of cloud, kings of the air, hunting for combat. Their eyes shone and their breathing quickened, and for a minute they forgot the boy who was dead.
“Why the Hun didn’t bag me, instead of my getting him,” wrote Bob, “is a mystery. Just the luck of beginners, I guess. I did most of the things I shouldn’t have done, and, by chance, one or two of the things I should—fired when I was too far off, went into a spinning nose-dive under the mistaken notion it would make me a poor target, etc., etc., etc. Oh, I was green, all right! He knew how to manœuver, that Hun did. That’s what feazes me. How did I manage to top him at last? Well, I did. And my gun didn’t jam. Nuff said.”
“Gee!” said Henry between his teeth. “And Ted Gordon had to go and miss all that! Gee!”
“If he had only got to the front!” sighed Laura.
“Anything from Pete?” asked the boy.
“No.”
“Sid?”