“And they hold their classes every Thursday. I expect to be in the neighborhood, anyway, because father will. And Sara, you know, is staying with me. The other girls go back to the city to-morrow, to be in time for a ceremonial meeting of our Camp Fire Group, at which we’re going to have a novel initiation of our own--initiate, as a novice, that is, a foreign-born Camp Fire Sister, whom we’ve adopted for nine months, little Flamina Miola, born in Italy! I’m teaching her one or two patriotic poems--along with our special ritual--and you should hear her begin on:
“’Merica’s de lan’ we lova.
Oh, granda lan’ so free,
An’ school-a-mate, wherto I go,
Dis is de Flag fora me!”
“Good!”
“I chose her name for her, too: Nébis, A Green Leaf. Isn’t that pretty? She’s going to camp out with us this summer.”
“Green Leaf for Little Italy! It is poetic. I hope you’ll make it a laurel leaf. Well! I guess that sometimes, over there, when a fellow misses some of the things that--that make life hum, you know; when I’m ‘gooing’ up my gas-mask or, maybe, drawing pictures with my ‘toothpick’ (bayonet) in the mud, I’ll think of you Camp Fire Girls. You certainly have a corner on the poetic--fringes, beads, ceremonies--and it only seems to hearten you to meet what’s rough--ugly.”
“That’s our outdoor life,” half whispered Olive. “We get so many new sensations, come so near to--to the heart of things that we----Why! sometimes I,”--she caught her breath in a little low gush of confidence--“I feel as if it were only the fag-end of me that was shut up in--in the five feet eight or nine of flesh and blood--bloomers and blouse--called Olive.” The low girlish voice soared softly upon the last word as to a height from which the girlish soul looked out upon a great Adventure.
“You mean that you get a real glimpse into unseen things--spiritual things!” The soldier’s voice was low too--low and thrilled. “Well, since we are wading into the deep things, I may say to as much of Olive as is left in the fetching jersey suit beside me now, that ours is a rough game, but somehow, as it were, I have come nearer--nearer to God since I volunteered.... I wish it could help me to get the better of a--whiz-bang temper.”