“Let’s go to Happy Acres now,� suggested David Spotswood. “We boys will catch some fish—maybe, and you girls can get flowers, and we’ll come home by the mill.�
“Oh, yes! let’s do that,� exclaimed Anne. “You can go, can’t you, Patsy? Ruth? Alice?�
“I don’t see how I can, to stay all afternoon,� Patsy said regretfully. “Our Red Cross box is to go off next week and I’m not half done my sweater.�
“I’ve got to f-finish my scarf,� stammered Ruth.
“I want to knit another pair of socks, if I have time,� said Alice.
The Village was working and denying itself to help stricken France and Belgium. If the contributions were not large in dollars and cents, they were great in the efforts and self-sacrifice of the little country neighborhood. But the offerings came from the hands of good Samaritans, not of patriots. America had accepted the war; it had not yet come home to The Village. Later on, it was to—but we shall see what we see.
“Oh, you girls!� grumbled Stephen Tavis. “You are doing that Red Cross stuff all the time.�
“And you boys are playing while we work,� said Patsy, tossing her head.
“We are saving flour and sugar for the Belgians. Do you want us to knit and sew?� laughed Dick.
“Some of the boys in Washington are knitting,� Anne said gravely; “and lots of men, real men, like firemen and soldiers. And they—we—are all making gardens, so there will be more food to send to hungry France and Belgium.�