Again the hot blood rushed up into Gretel’s cheeks, and she hurried away that Miss Laura might not see the tears that had started to her eyes.
“I don’t suppose they mean to be unkind,” she told herself, as she went up-stairs to her own room. “Perhaps Miss Laura didn’t even remember that Father was a German, but it does hurt when people say such things, and I can’t altogether blame Fräulein for being angry, although, of course, she had no right to be rude to Miss Minton.”
CHAPTER III
BREAKING-UP DAY
It was the fourteenth of June, and “Breaking-Up” day at Miss Minton’s. For more than two months the United States had been at war with Germany, and during that time many things had happened. Even the quiet little Connecticut village, where Miss Minton lived, had begun to realize something of what war meant. There was a Service Flag waving from each of more than a dozen houses, and only the day before there had been a sad leave-taking at the station, when thirty boys had left for the nearest training-camp. Registration Day had come and gone, and more than ten million young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty had signed their names.
Among the girls at Miss Minton’s, war was also beginning to seem very real. Amy’s brother had left Harvard, and gone for a month’s training before being sent overseas. One of Olive’s brothers had joined the Flying Corps, and the other was already on his way to France. Angel Thayer’s father had offered his services for foreign duty, and Gretel’s brother was doing Government work in Washington.
But people cannot always be sad, even in war time, and on that glorious June morning, when the air was heavy with the fragrance of roses and honeysuckle, and the birds were singing as birds only do sing in June, a group of very bright young faces was gathered on Miss Minton’s front porch, awaiting the arrival of the station bus.
“I’m so excited at the thought of going home I can hardly wait to get to the station,” said Molly Chester, joyfully. “It seems an age since I saw my family in March.”
“Haven’t your people gone to the country yet?” inquired Kitty, whose own family had already moved to their summer home on the Jersey shore.
“Oh, yes, they went up to New London on the first. I’m to meet Father in town this afternoon, and go up with him.”