It was now vacation. Mahla was too ill to go out; and, as for the other girls, they said they had the "sleeps;" and, instead of working for the soldiers, they preferred to lie under the trees and dream away the summer days.
Not so Grace Clifford. She saw so much of the sick men, and heard so much of them from Lieutenant Lazelle, that she was resolved to give the R. S. S. a good shaking, and wake it up. Quiet was Grace's abomination. She made a speech before the society—an off-hand effort, which I will record, first remarking that Grace could have done vastly better if she had stopped two minutes to think.
The Queen's Address.
DEAR PRINCESSES: In our early youth, while in the morning of life, and with the dew yet sparkling upon us like down on the cheek of a beautiful peach, I think (we think, I mean) it's our glorious duty, as little girls of the eighteenth century (nineteenth, I mean), to put our shoulder to the plough of our dear country! O, my Princesses, will we let the rebels, with glaring eyeballs, set their iron hoofs upon our necks, and choke, and grind, and crush, and trample us into—powder? Will we fold our idle arms, and shut our idle ears, and listen to the cry of their war-whoop, which goes rolling over and over the hills and down into the valleys of our glorious Union? Will we see the furious and howling enemy seize, plunder, and wring off the neck of our American Eagle,—that golden, glorious bird; and, while he screams with hoarse, cavernous echoes, pluck the noble eyes out of his head—his bald head, O Princesses!
(The queen looked round her for sympathy, and not in vain: she was carrying her audience away with her.)
Think of our great, great, very great grandpas, how they fought and bled in freedom's cause. Hail, ye heroes!—No, I mean to say, Friends, countrymen, girls, let's put on our—helmets, and fight for dear life! Are we too weak to fire cannonades? Will we be forbidden to pour out our hearts' blood? And are our limbs too tender to be broken in a thousand pieces? Then we'll fight with our needles! We'll make our glorious, splendid, poor, miserable, dying soldier-boys comfortable! If that's all we can do, we'll do that!—Now, girls, I'll tell you what it is, continued the queen, suddenly dropping from her airy flight, let's work like spiders, won't we? and buy jellies, and broths, and things! I'll not have a new dress forever if I can help it. Who's in for a Fair? All that are agreed say, Ay!
It "was a vote." The girls concluded to shake off the "sleeps," and go to work. Mahla, who was duly informed of all that went on, was delighted with the project, and promised to make lace bags and a few little things at home.
At Mahla's urgent request, poor Isa was taken back as a member of the society. She had been wretched enough to satisfy all ideas of justice, and could do no harm now by disclosing secrets. Isa was tolerably subdued and grateful, but a trifle sullen, withal. Her manner said, plainly,—
"O, girls, I'll do anything to make you trust me and like me once more. That's the way I feel; but I don't want you to know it; so I'm trying to look as if I didn't care."
The Princesses were rather youthful, but they had this advantage—they were old enough to know their own ignorance. They chose their mothers for advisers—the wisest thing they could have done.