While they fold bandages I read to them about what is going on in the war and what the Red Cross is doing everywhere, and we have beautiful times. The worst trouble around here is getting up to date things to read. There isn’t a library within fifty miles and the only books we have are the few I can manage to buy and those that Justice Sherman has. Would you mind sending out a magazine once in a while after you have finished reading it?
We had our first ceremonial meeting last night in blue calico instead of ceremonial gowns, but it didn’t make a mite of difference. We felt the magic spell of it just the same and promised with all our hearts to seek beauty and give service and all the other things in the Wood Gatherers’ Desire. That is the wonderful thing about Camp Fire. It makes you have exactly the same feelings whether you learn it in a mansion or in a shack, in an exclusive girls’ school or in a third-rate country schoolhouse. If Nyoda only could have seen us! Of all people to whom I had expected to pass on the Torch, this group of Arkansas Hard-Uppers would have been the very last to occur to me. Was this what she meant, I wonder?
Yours, trying hard to be a Torch Bearer,
Katherine.
HINPOHA TO KATHERINE
Dec. 15, 19—.
Darling Katherine:
There’s no use talking, I can never be the same again. My life is wrecked—ruined—blighted; my heart is broken, my faith in Man shattered, but try as I like I can’t forget him. His image is graven on my heart, and there it will be until I die. But for all that, I hate him—hate him—hate him! I don’t want to be unpatriotic, but I do hope he gets killed in the very first battle he’s in. Then at least she won’t have him! But a few short weeks ago I was a mere child, playing at life, a schoolgirl, carefree and heedless, with no other thought in the world beside winning the freshman basketball championship and surviving midyear’s; to-day I am a woman, old in experience, having eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and found it bitter as gall. And I must bear it all alone, because if I told the girls here they would laugh at me, and some would be spiteful enough to be glad about it. But I have to tell somebody or explode, and I know you will neither laugh nor tell anybody, being a perfect Tombstone on secrets.
It’s really all Agony and Oh-Pshaw’s fault anyway, for being born. Not that that actually had anything to do with it, but if they hadn’t been born they wouldn’t have had any birthday, and if they hadn’t had any birthday they wouldn’t have given that box party to the LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS and I never would have met Captain Bannister.
You will readily understand, Katherine, how I burn to serve my country at a time like this. There is nothing I would not do to save her from the clutches of the enemy. It is all very well to say that woman’s part in the war is to knit socks and sweaters and fold bandages and conserve the Food Supply, for that is all that the average woman would be capable of doing anyhow, but as for me, I know that my part is to be a much more definite and a far nobler one. Of course, I do all the other things, too, along with the other Winnies and the whole college, for that matter; joined the Patriotic League, go to Red Cross two nights a week and go without sugar and wheat as much as possible. When I wrote and told Nyoda that I hadn’t eaten one speck of candy for three months except what was given me and was sending the money I usually spent for it to the Belgians, she said I ought to have the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and that “greater love hath no man than this, that he give up the craving of his stomach for his country.” You see, Nyoda understands perfectly what it means to have an awful candy hunger gnawing at your vitals like the vulture at the giant’s liver and look the other way when you go past a window full of your favorite bon-bons. But somehow candy doesn’t seem so satisfying when you know there are little Belgian and French children suffering from a much worse gnawing than candy hunger, and usually dropping the price of a box of bonbons into the Relief Fund stops the craving almost as much as the bonbons themselves would.
But this is only doing what thousands of other girls all over the country are doing and there isn’t any individual glory in it. What I long to do is carry the message that saves the army from destruction, or discover the spy at his nefarious work. If only the chance would come for me to do something like that I could die happy.
Agony and Oh-Pshaw’s birthday celebration was quite an event. We had luncheon first at the Golden Dragon, a wonderful new Chinese restaurant that was recently opened, and had chop suey and chow main and other funny things in a little stall lit up with a gorgeous blue and gold lantern. Of course, after that luncheon and the funny toasts we made to the long life and health of Agony and Oh-Pshaw, we felt pretty frolicsome, and by the time we got settled in our seats at the Opera House we were ready to start something. Our seats were in the first row of the balcony, center aisle, and very prominent. I had my knitting along as usual, intending to do a few rows between the acts. I always knit in public places; it sets a good example to other people. Besides, my new knitting bag is too sweet for anything.