“‘When you come to the end of a perfect day,
And you sit alone....’
“Well! we’re not sitting alone, so that’s more sentimental than suitable.” Sara Davenport broke off short in the low song which she had started, looking away over the yellow cantonments of broad Camp Evens, turned to fine gold by the sun’s last flaming ray.
“And I’m sure it’s been anything but a perfect day! What about the poor blighter, and his matches?” struck in her officer-brother, who, seated edgeways upon the railing of the lofty balcony surrounding the camp Hostess House, half-faced the four girls who had been his guests at the illuminated “smoke party” in Gas Valley.
At a little distance, absorbed in the sunset effects upon the burnished rows of elevated barracks brooding like gilded dove-cots, were Olive’s father, Colonel Deering, and a much-loved spinster-cousin, who, during the morning, had been calling upon an old friend, an officer attached to Headquarters Troop.
“The Blighter! Oh! he’s not outmatched yet,” laughed Olive. “Didn’t--didn’t the last word from the base hospital proclaim that he was getting better?”
“Anyhow, we could forgive him,” murmured Arline half under her breath, in quivering rainbowed speech, “because here we’ve been, for the past year or two, trying to live up to the hardy Minute-Girl program, hiking so many hours a week, sleeping out, though at first we ‘caved’ before a cow-bell,”--a double rainbow, this, shedding a reflection of laughter--“and now--now this morning proves that one of our number, at least, could be truly an Emergency Girl!”
She cast a moved look at Olive.
“Ah, yes!” Sesooā shot an amused glance through her half-closed lashes--pretty eyelashes they were, which began by being dark and, shading to amber, now stole gold tips from the sunset--a peculiarity rather typical of Sara herself, and of her speech at the moment, which showed that she was determined that any allusion to the morning should be tipped off with lightness. “Ah, yes! battling with gas is one thing, but--for Olive--battling with grass and grubs in a war-garden may be quite another! Wait till it comes to fighting weeds an’ witch-grass. How much--how much of the dauntless Emergency Girl will be on deck then, I wonder, in our oasis by the seashore?”
“Oh! she’ll be there--a hundred per cent of her!” protested the Torch Bearer, her courage rising to a treble trill.