“That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.”
This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her tears were stayed.
“Dick, how could you do it? Think of mother!” Then she raised her eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—” But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat.
“Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little tru-al-lee of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.
“Oh, Dick, don’t try to be funny,” Nathalie managed to say somewhat sharply, as she drew away from her brother’s arm and dropped limply on the steps of the stairs, in such an attitude of hopeless despair that Dick was at the end of his tether to know what to say. He stared down at the girl, unconsciously rubbing his hand through his hair, a trick the boy had when perplexed.
Suddenly a bit of a smile leaped into his eyes as he cried, in a hopelessly resigned tone, “All right, sis, seeing that you feel this way about it I’ll just send in my resignation. It will let the boys know I’ve laid down on my job, for if you and mother are going to howl like two cats, a fellow can’t do a thing but stay at home and be a sissy, a baby-tender, a dish-washer-er-er—”
“Oh, Dick, don’t talk nonsense,” broke in Nathalie sharply. “I didn’t say that you were not to go, but,—why—oh, I just can’t help feeling awfully bad when I read all those terrible things in the paper.” Her voice quivered pathetically as she finished.
“Well, don’t read them, then,” coolly rejoined Dick. “Just steer clear of all that hysterical gush and brace up. My job is to serve my country,—she wants me. By Jove, before she gets out of this hole she’ll need every mother’s son of us. And I’ve got to do it in the best way I can, by enlisting before the draft comes. I’ll not only have a chance to do better work, a prospect of quicker promotion, but, if you want to look at the sordid end of it, I’ll get more pay. And as to being killed, as you wailed, if you and mother will insist upon seeing it black, an aviator’s chance of life is ten to one better—if he’s on to his job—than that of the fellow on the ground. So cheer up, Blue Robin. I’m all beat hollow, for I’ve been trying to cheer up mother for the last hour.”
“Oh, what does mother say?” asked a very faint voice, just as if the girl did not know how her mother felt, and had been feeling for some time.
“Say! Gee whiz! I don’t know what she would have said if she had voiced her sentiments,” replied Dick resignedly. “But the worst of the whole business was that she took it out in weeping about a tank of tears; all over my best coat, too,” he added ruefully. “You women are enough to make a fellow go stiff.