Are they not calling you?
“Back over the long trail moving,
Sing sweet, sing low, sing wide,
Following the law of loving,
France, we come to thy side!”
A murmur of applause, and then a group of girls in Camp Fire costumes stepped out of the house and into the front yard. The March afternoon was unusually warm with a flood of pale sunshine covering the landscape, the sky was a delicate blue, the clouds changing into fantastic shapes. Beyond, the open country was showing little patches of green in the upturned fields; on the branches of a few newly planted fruit trees were tiny buds.
“I want to congratulate you, Bettina, on your original Camp Fire song,” one of the girls declared. She had dark hair with red lights in it, a slightly tanned skin, a little slender figure, as forceful and erect as a young boy’s. Indeed both in her appearance and manner Mary Gilchrist gave one the impression at this time in her life that she possessed certain qualities of mind and character which are not supposed to be essentially feminine.
Bettina Graham, who was a tall, fair girl, older than her companion, smiled.
“It is good of you, Gill, to congratulate me, when I realize that you were longing to be outdoors and at work during all our Camp Fire ceremony. If there was any value in my song it was due to Yvonne’s singing.”
Standing close beside the two American girls was a young French girl who apparently had not heard their conversation. Her expression was troubled, there was a frown between her brows. It was as if she were listening, straining her ears for the sounds of battle which had been resounding through France for almost four years.