“Oh, I just wish I were a man, so I could go over there,” sighed Nathalie a little dolefully. “Sometimes I wish I had a million lives so I could give them to my country, and go over and fight.”
“Ho! ho! Blue Robin! You have changed your mind then, haven’t you?” good-naturedly jeered Nita, who had just come up behind them. Her blue eyes gleamed mischief as she continued laughingly, “Surely that was not the way you felt a short while ago.”
“No, that is true,” replied Nathalie with reddened cheeks, “but I was selfish then, and failed to read the handwriting on the wall.”
As Nathalie looked up in a shamefaced way at the young soldier she saw a strange expression flit across his face as he gazed down at her.
“Did you call Miss Page Blue Robin?” he asked hurriedly of Nita, with a sudden, strange interest.
“Oh, that is just a nickname,” began Nathalie, “and——”
“No, it isn’t a nickname,” returned Nita, with a defiant toss of her head. “It is just your own particular name. Shall I tell Mr. Darrell how you came by it?” And then, without waiting for permission, she told their companion the story of how Nathalie found the nest of bluebirds in the old cedar tree and thought they were blue robins. And when the Girl Pioneers claimed that she must become one of them, she had to join the Bluebird group. “Because, you see, she was a real bluebird,” ended the girl.
It was then that Nathalie, who hated to be the subject of a conversation, began to tell the young soldier of her many trials in training her boys in military tactics. To her joy he offered to give them a lesson, whereupon the young Sons of Liberty were lined up, Nita and Sheila with them, and drilled in a simple manual-of-arms,—how to stand as a sentinel on post, how to salute an officer or civilian, and how to stand at attention when the national anthem, the “Call to the Colors,” or “To the Standard,” were played, and when the flag went by.
There was a drill in calisthenics, and then the young military instructor explained to his youthful audience the necessity for a Son of Liberty—he had caught the phrase from Nathalie—to have clean hands, face, teeth, and finger-nails. “No boy or young man,” he emphasized, “will ever make a good soldier who will not discipline himself in these small things. It is also essential for a soldier not only to be clean, but to be courteous, helpful, and kind, especially to the aged and weak.”
The drill was conducted in such a masterful, soldier-like way, and the little talk made significant by so many points that Nathalie was laboring to teach her boys, that the girls were greatly impressed, and also the children, if one were to judge by their alert attention and the worshipful glances they cast upon the young soldier as they went through their war maneuvers.