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The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; or a Wreck and a Rescue, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 1. To The Front |
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_ CHAPTER I. TO THE FRONT "I know it's utterly foolish and unreasonable," sighed Amy Blackford, laying down the novel she had been reading and looking wistfully out of the window, "but I simply can't help it." "What's the matter?" asked Mollie Billette, raising her eyes reluctantly from a book she was devouring and looking vaguely at Amy's profile. "Did you say something?" "No, she only spoke," drawled Grace Ford, extricating herself from a mass of bright-colored cushions on the divan, preparatory to joining in the conversation. "I ask you, Mollie, did you ever know Amy to say anything important?" "Why yes, I have," said Mollie unexpectedly. "In fact, she is about the only one of us Outdoor Girls who ever does say anything important--except Betty, perhaps." Amy withdrew her gaze from the landscape and looked at the speaker with a twinkle in her eyes. "What will you have, Mollie?" she asked whimsically. "When you become complimentary, you are apt to rouse my suspicions." "Well, whatever you were going to say, please say it, and let me get back to my book," returned Mollie, ignoring the imputation. "I was in the most interesting part--" "Why, I'm just plain homesick," said Amy, adding quickly, as the girls looked at her in surprise. "For Camp Liberty and the Hostess House, you know. I miss the work and the long hours of entertaining and cheering people up. I feel," she looked around at them as though finding it hard to explain just what she meant, "sort of--lost." The three chums, Mollie Billette, Grace Ford, and Amy Blackford were gathered in the comfortable library of Betty Nelson's home--Betty being the fourth of the merry quartette, dubbed the "Outdoor Girls" by the people of Deepdale, because of their love of the open and of outdoor sports. The girls, as my old readers will doubtless remember, had helped establish a Hostess House at Camp Liberty, and since then had given all their strength and time and youthful enthusiasm to the great work of cheering our young fighters, entertaining their loved ones, and, in the end, sending them with fresh courage and happy memories to the "other side" for the great adventure. And now the girls, completely worn out in their loving service to others, had been sent, much against their will, home to Deepdale for a rest that they sorely needed. To-day they had gathered in Betty's house to discuss the rather hazy plans for their brief vacation. And Amy had simply voiced what was in the thoughts of all the girls. They were, undeniably and heartily, homesick for Camp Liberty and their work at the Hostess House. "Lost?" Mollie repeated Amy's expression thoughtfully. "Yes, I guess that would pretty well describe the feeling I've had for the last few days. Sort of restless and aimless--wondering what to do next." "Goodness!" cried Grace whimsically, stretching her arms above her head and smothering a yawn, "this is terrible, you know. If we don't look out, we'll be forgetting how to enjoy ourselves." "That would be queer, wouldn't it?" agreed Mollie, with a chuckle as she started to resume her reading. "Especially for the Outdoor Girls, who used to know how to enjoy themselves remarkably well." A brief silence followed, broken only by the rustle of paper as one of the girls turned a page. Then, so suddenly that Mollie jumped nervously and Grace almost upset a box of chocolates at her elbow, Amy threw down her book and sprang to her feet. "I can't stand it another minute!" she exclaimed desperately. "Girls, I must get out and do something--this loafing is getting on my nerves." "Goodness, the child's mad," declared Mollie, looking at her chum with a mixture of amusement and sympathy in her eyes. "What do you want to do, Amy, start a fight, or set the town on fire? Whatever it is, I'm for you, as Roy would say." "Oh, I guess I must be crazy," said Amy, subsiding and seeming a little ashamed of her outburst. "Only, after so much band music and parades and bugle calls--everything in Deepdale seems so quiet." "Well, if all you want is noise, we'll easily fix that," said Mollie briskly, running to the piano and gathering in Grace and Amy on the way. "Sing," she commanded, "and I'll make as much noise as I can on the piano." Half laughing, half protesting, the girls obeyed while Mollie conscientiously made good her threat with the piano, and it was into this uproar that Betty Nelson stepped a moment later. "Have mercy!" she screamed above the noise, both hands clapped over her ears while she laughed at them. "I thought they had turned the house into a lunatic asylum or something." The music, if such it can be called, stopped so suddenly that Betty's last words rang out with absurd distinctness. "Or something," Mollie mimicked, whirling around and catching the newcomer in a bear's embrace. "Come over to the couch, Betty Nelson, and explain yourself. Where have you been and why did you keep us waiting?" Laughingly the Little Captain, as she was often called by the girls because of her talent for leadership, permitted herself to be dragged over to the couch by the impulsive Mollie, while Amy and Grace seated themselves on the arms. "What would you?" protested Betty, looking from one accusing face to another. "I said I would meet you here at two-thirty, and it is only quarter past now." "Only quarter past!" exclaimed Amy. "Oh, is that all?" asked Mollie, in astonishment, adding, as Betty lifted her wrist watch for inspection: "Goodness, I thought we had been waiting ages." "I'm glad you wanted to see me so much," chuckled the Little Captain, adding, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes: "I imagine you would have been still more impatient if you had known--" she paused wickedly and just looked at them. "Don't tease, Betty! What is it?" they implored in chorus, fairly pouncing upon her, while Grace added, eagerly: "Is it possible you have anything really interesting to tell us?" "I shouldn't wonder if you would think so," Betty teased, adding quickly to forestall the outburst she saw was coming, "It really isn't anything at all--only--I met the postman on my way--" "Betty!" they cried, unable to contain their impatience another moment. "You have letters! Letters from our soldier boys!" "How did you guess it?" said Betty, her eyes dancing as she brought from a convenient pocket three--yes, three--fat letters, each containing the longed-for foreign postmark. "How much will you give me?" teased Betty, holding the precious missives behind her back. "Not one other word, Betty Nelson!" they cried, and after a merry but brief struggle the letters were seized and delivered to their rightful owners. "Now I wonder," drawled Grace with a twinkle, as she hastily tore open her envelope, "who could possibly be writing to us from the other side?" "Now I wonder," chuckled Betty, as she happily drew from the convenient pocket the last, but in her estimation decidedly not the least, fat letter and proceeded to devour its contents without delay. And indeed the Outdoor Girls had little reason to wonder who their correspondents might be, for as regularly as clockwork those precious letters with the strange foreign postmarks were delivered to their eager hands. There were other letters with that foreign postmark, too, for in addition to their work at the Hostess House, the girls had faithfully kept up a large correspondence with the brave boys who had already crossed the water and were waiting impatiently for their chance "at the Huns." But the four special letters were from their closest friends--boys who had lived in Deepdale before the war and were now in France preparing for the last stage of their journey. Allen Washburn, on his way to make a great name for himself in the law before the war put a temporary check upon his ambitions, had been in love with the Little Captain for--oh, yes, ever since he could remember, while Betty--but Betty would never really admit anything, not even to herself. Then there was Will Ford, Grace Ford's brother, who was not only devoted to his pretty sister, but, in spite of Amy's flushed protestations to the contrary, to Amy Blackford, also--although in quite a different manner! Frank Haley was a high school chum of Will's, who from the time of his first meeting with Mollie Billette had seemed inclined to become her shadow, to the latter's secret gratification and outward indifference. The last of the quartette was Roy Anderson, one of the Deepdale boys, who was chiefly distinguished by his very open admiration for Grace. The boys had shared in many of the adventures of the Outdoor Girls, and of course had been among the very first to volunteer to help "lick the Boche" as they slangily but ardently put it. The girls had gloried in their patriotism, and it was their assignment to Camp Liberty that had first given Betty the idea of working in the Hostess House there. They had been very happy, fired as they were by enthusiastic patriotism, until the fateful day had come when the boys had entrained for Philadelphia and from there to the Great Adventure. Then for the first time the girls had had the real and terrible meaning of war brought home to them. And the boys, so merry and care-free when they had first entered the service, had seemed suddenly older, more important, more manly, only the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes showing their indomitable youth. Several months had passed since that day of mingled tears and pride and heartache, and the girls had had time to get used to the separation a little--a very little. And now Betty had brought them the letters they were always hungry for, anxiously eager, yet always, at the very back of their hearts, a little haunting fear of what they might contain. For several minutes they sat engrossed while occasionally one of them read a funny or characteristic extract over which they laughed happily. "Listen to this," chuckled Mollie, while the girls looked up expectantly. "Frank says that Roy is getting terribly fat in spite of all the exercise--" "Horrors!" interjected Grace. "And when he, Frank, ventured to remonstrate with him the other day and advised him to cut down on his chow, Roy said: 'Nothing doing! I've got a definite end in view, old man. This khaki outfit has acquired so much terra firma it's beginning to stand alone, but if I get so fat I can't wear it they'll have to give me another one--see?'" The girls laughed, but there was just a shade of wistfulness in their laughter, for they knew that the boys were only skirting the outer edge of the hardships they would be called upon to encounter later on. Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of dismay. "Oh, girls," she cried when they looked up at her fearfully, "it's come! What we've been dreading so long! The boys have been ordered to the front!" _ |
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