“Girls!” She turned again to the field, the humble, oft-won field. “Girls--Minute-Girls--Victory Girls--what on earth are we about, weakening, thinking of knocking off before the time for which we pledged ourselves is over, simply because we’re not in the humor for work? Bah! Nice volunteers we are! What would our Soldier Boys think of us? Oh! I’ve got a letter here that would shame us--right here in the breast-pocket of my overalls”--plucking it forth, waving thin checked sheets, pennon-like. “It--it’s to my father from the captain of that infantry company in which my Cousin Clay is--Clay, who carried the big basket of household goods for the little old Frenchwoman--helped her to get settled again----”
“Humph!” interjected Sara; she still disliked to listen to any eloquence bearing upon the war score of Olive’s cousins--even on the ordinary “innings” of that rich boy who, seen leading a blind horse under a blazing sun through a country shipyard, not a dozen miles away, was apparently not reveling in his task any more than they had been in theirs--the only score on which she would have liked to hear her friend dilate was Iver’s.
“The captain’s letter tells of an experience which the Boys had, away back in January, before they had been on the front lines at all--while they were still in training--in barracks, somewhere in France.” Thus Olive took up the story. “It was their first day in the practice-trenches, (nine long miles from those barracks--about the worst day, for weather, the captain says, that he ever remembers) the men said ‘Sonny France’ had gone up front and got killed--sleet, snow, rain, mud--just a too-horrid sample of everything, girls!
“And after their nine-mile march to the trenches, the company put in long hours of hard work, training--practicing how to repel an attack, how to go over the top, ploughing round, knee-deep, in mud, with their gas-masks on--which the captain says is about as comfortable as walking about town on a day hot as this, with your head in a canvas bag.”
“Oh! we--we know a little about those chlorine-foolers--some of us--about the popping gas-cloud, too!” wetly exploded Sara.
“And then--then came the dreary march back to barracks in that freezing January weather, with the men tired almost to death.... But were they weakening, our gallant Boys of the Yankee Division?... our deary, cheery American Boys? No! No! They were singing. And one--one--the captain says, a mere lad, sang loudest of all--then dropped in his tracks as he reached the barracks! And shall we----”
“No-o, we--shan’t! We’re not ‘squawking’--crying quit! Not giving up! We’re out to make a showing, and we’re going to do it--no matter how hot the sun is, or how ‘witchety’ the weeds! Carry on’s the word; carry on!”
The failing squawk had, indeed, become a shout; it was a general cry, from one and all of the war-workers, for all had drawn near to listen--a sprayed cry, too, as if the gust sweeping up from the sea, over which that letter had traveled, brought a little brine on its wings.
“Just one thing morel” cried Olive, again the Torch-Bearer--the Maid. “I’ve read somewhere, though not in this letter, that when soldiers are marching a long distance, shoulder to shoulder, they can stand it much better than if one is hiking alone. There’s our lesson in team-work, girls; let’s take hold together--pull together, as we never did before--on the weeds, the superfluous vegetable chicks, the muck, or whatever it is! And--sing!”
“We don’t know how we’ll do it, but we’re on the way,”