"Well, Mary Gilligan!" says she. "Can ladies enlist? I had a idea," she says, "only gentlemen was permitted."
"No," says I. "I see a piece in the paper where ladies can go in the navy—yeowomen they call them; a fancy name for a stenographer!"
"A whole lot too fancy!" says Ma, very prompt. "And no daughter of mine, a decent, respectable girl, is going sailing off on no battleship with a lot of sailors—not to mention submarines; not if I know it!" says Ma. "So, Mary Gilligan, you may as well put that idea out of your head, let alone you ain't a stenographer and couldn't learn it in a month."
"Well, Ma," I says, "maybe you're right; and I do get seasick awful quick. But—oh, Ma! I got to enlist some place. Can't you see the way I feel?"
Ma could.
"I know!" she says, very sympathetic. "I was the same when your pa missed both the third trapeze and the life net. I would of enlisted when he died if there had been a war. And, of course, you feel like Jim was dead. How about the Red Cross?"
"Won't do for me," I says, prompt. "I don't see myself sitting around in no shop, with a dust cloth tied over my head, selling tickets. I got to do something active or I'll go bugs!"
Then Ma had a real idea.
"How about this here Woman's Automobile Service?" says she. "The one I read you the piece about? You're a woman and you got a auto."
"Ma, you're a wonder!" I says. "Look up the address while I get my hat on! Tell Musette to call for the limousine; and watch me make a trial for my new job!"