The hands of Harriet, Marie, Ethel, and Ruth went up promptly. A moment later Estelle and Ernestine also put up theirs.
“I believe I could learn how,” said Estelle.
“We don’t want too much demonstration around here this afternoon,” Miss Ladd warned. “Everything must proceed quietly and as if nothing unusual were taking place. How many rubber bands have you, Helen?”
“Oh, a dozen or twenty,” the latter replied.
“Well, we’ll proceed to cut half a dozen Y-forks and make them into catapults. We’ll start out at once. Hazel, you get a hatchet, and, Marie, you get a saw; the rest of you get your combination knives.”
In a few minutes they were in the thick of the timber, searching the small trees and saplings for Y-forks to serve as catapult handles. In half an hour they returned with a dozen of varying degree of symmetry and excellence.
Then the work of assembling the parts of these miniature engines of war began. Some of the girls exhibited a good deal of mechanical skill, while others made moves and suggestions so awkward as to occasion much laughter.
“Well, anyway,” said Marie after she had been merrily criticised for sewing up the “mouth” of a “pocket” so narrowly that a stone could hardly fly out of it; “there are lots of boys who would make a worse job sewing on a button. Don’t you remember last winter at a button-sewing contest, Paul Wetzler cast the thread over and over and over the side of the button—and he didn’t know any better.”
“That’s a very convenient way to dodge a joke on you, Marie,” said Violet. “But just because boys don’t know anything is no reason why we shouldn’t.”
“Whew! some slam at me,” Marie exclaimed. “I’m very properly squelched.”