“Too lovely for anything--if her mother will allow it!”
“Bless you! She’ll make no objection. They live in rather a stuffy little street; when she was well she took a boarder or two to help out while her husband was fighting over there--and she has three more children, the oldest twins, a boy and girl, between four and five, and a tot of two.”
“How--how about leaving Europa to sleep with her heavenly twin, the Peace Babe, and our taking those other twins out to see the big parade this afternoon--they’re soldier’s children,” suggested Sesooā, with sudden inspiration.
“Good idea! Only, of course, representatives from our group, from every Camp Fire in the city, are supposed to march with the Red Cross for which we have been knitting, sewing, making surgical dressings, working in a war-canteen, and so forth, right along--to parade on this won-der-ful Peace Day!” Little Owl’s lip quivered; she, too, wore a blue-starred service-pin for a young uncle, who had been to her childhood a pal and a protector--prisoner now on enemy soil--would the Armistice bring him back?
“Oh! we’ll let Blue Heron--Olive--hold our Morning-Glory end up in the parade, with the Rainbow, Arline, to support her. They’ll attract attention enough. Olive is doing that now, I believe, since she made her début in society two months ago, at her stepmother’s wish, but very quietly, the War not being over then and every one of us ready to stand on our heads, as now, for joy.... For you will come back!... Ah, well!” the Flame’s lip quivered. “Ah--well!”
The latter sigh introduced the least dark shade of panic into the day’s rainbowed panegyrics, lest he who was to return--Iver--Lieutenant O Pips of the alert eye, the observation post astuteness--might fall short of gaining his heart’s desire when he did return, might not get all he longed to ask from the Torch-Bearer whom he had seen in ceremonial dress, or kneeling by a gassed soldier, many and many a time, over there, when he missed the things that make life hum.
“Ah, well! no use in anticipating. At all events, I’ve got over being raspy on the score--the war-time score--of Olive’s cousins!” A little flaming shrug of shoulders now, as the two, with a last yearning look at Peace Europa--beneficent babe--a last almost reverent touch upon the tiny, pearly hand which had come to earth, as it seemed, bearing the boon mankind desired--turned to leave the tropical baby-room, the quiet hospital.
“Well! it’s to be the twins now, is it, Europa’s brother and sister?” said Lilla, as they emerged into the open, where, on all sides, the day, young yet, had gone mad, was running over with tomfoolery and innocent riot--a madcap child that could not contain its own gladness.
But the twins were no “peace handful,” as the two girls found. In the absence of their mother they were martyring a grandmother. They had baptized the joy of the day in mud-puddles and hung it out to dry from spikey fences--the boy of four and a half, especially--until not a clean, whole shred of clothing remained to him.
“Never mind! I’ll find something for him to wear,” proclaimed the grandmama hopefully. “Will I allow them to go an’ see the big parade with you!” eyeing the visitors with almost tearful gratitude. “Oh! you’d better believe I will. Now! to see how I can rig him up. There are these rompers of Elsie’s, fresh from the tub--I’ve just ironed them!”