_ CHAPTER XII. WHERE LOVE IS DEAF
"Doesn't it seem funny," Amy was saying as she daintily but thoroughly gnawed a chicken bone, "not to have the boys with us?"
"Well I think," returned Mollie, her nose at an independent angle, "that it's mighty nice--for a change."
"Yes," Grace agreed, employing her paper napkin to remedy the damage done by a vivid spot of jelly on her skirt. "They seem to think they can dictate to us. Imagine it! To us! Outdoor girls who have never known what it was to take dictation from any one!"
"Except our Daddies," Betty broke in, her eyes twinkling. "I've seen even you stand at attention, Gracie dear, when Mr. Ford spoke."
"Oh well, of course," said Grace, dismissing the interruption with a wave of her hand. "We've got to obey our parents, till we're twenty-one anyway."
"Then I guess we've got to go on obeying all the rest of our lives," said Mollie, with a sigh.
They looked at her curiously.
"For who," she went on to explain reasonably, "in her right senses is going to admit to being twenty-one?"
"To finish what I was saying," Grace continued, while Betty and Amy chuckled and Mollie looked wide-eyed and innocent: "I, for one, will never take dictation from any one outside the home folks--especially mere boys our own age,"
"Well, no one asked you to," said Mollie calmly. "I really don't see what all the speech-making's about," she added.
"It was about the boys," said Amy, mumbling over her third piece of chicken.
"And by the way they take it for granted we've got to do what they say," finished Grace.
"Well," said Betty, plucking a piece of grass and rolling it thoughtfully between her fingers, "don't you think perhaps they act that way because they're going 'across' so soon?"
"I don't see what that's got to do with it," returned Mollie, puzzled. "I should think that would make them want to be especially nice to us--leave a good impression, you know."
"Just the same I can't help thinking," Betty persisted, "that that was why they acted so queerly about Sergeant Mullins. Maybe they think that when they're several thousand miles away the other boys will have their chance."
"But that's silly," objected Mollie. "As if we wouldn't think a good deal more of them when they get over there."
"Distance lends enchantment?" queried Grace, with lifted eyebrows.
"Goose," commented Mollie.
"Goodness," cried Grace plaintively, "that's the second time I've been called a goose in the last five minutes. Pretty soon I'll be a whole flock of them!"
The girls laughed, and Mollie said with aggravating condescension:
"It's hard sometimes to tell the truth, Grace dear, but we only do it for your own good. That's what friendship is for, you know."
"Then give me enemies!" cried Grace. "I don't care how many faults I have if people just won't tell me about them."
"Which reminds me of something," said Mollie with a chuckle.
"Well, don't tell us about it," said Grace hastily. "I'm trying hard to love you, Mollie, but I can't stand everything--"
"Oh, but it's a joke on me this time," Mollie reassured her, and Grace sat back with a sigh of relief.
"It happened while we were at Pine Island," Mollie continued with a chuckle. "I was sitting in the living room playing the piano--"
"Or trying to?" interrupted Grace.
"Or trying to," agreed Mollie with perfect good-nature. "You know my repertoire consists of two pieces, and I was humming one of them as I played.
"Frank and Roy were sitting on the steps of the porch outside and I heard Frank say to Roy very earnestly:
"'Do you know, I think Mollie would have a wonderful voice if she would only have it cultivated.'"
"Goodness, I thought--" began Grace, but the Little Captain very hastily pinched her into silence.
"Evidently they thought I couldn't hear them," Mollie continued. "But they were mistaken, for I heard Roy answer pityingly, 'Say, old man, I've heard of love being blind before, but here's a case where the poor little god is deaf.'"
"Mollie," cried Amy, shocked, while the others laughed merrily, "what did Frank say? Did he stand for that?"
"Most decidedly not," chuckled Mollie. "The last I saw of them, Frank was leaping a fence, hanging on to Roy's coat tails. It was awfully funny. I think I laughed for an hour afterward,"
"It was a wonder there was enough of poor Roy left to come home," giggled Betty. "Frank isn't what you might call gentle, when his temper is roused."
"Oh, I believe I know when that was now!" exclaimed Grace, with sudden animation. "It must have been that evening when I was baking biscuits and I looked out of the window and saw Roy. He looked like a tramp, hair all disheveled and face as red as a beat.
"I called to him and asked him if he'd been in a fight or something, and he just got redder than ever and backed off into the woods.
"I concluded he'd gone suddenly and violently insane, and as the aroma of nearly burned biscuits filled the air I promptly forgot all about him."
Mollie chuckled.
"There was probably a very good reason for his _backing_ off," she said. "I shouldn't wonder if after that he kept his meditations to himself."
"Yes," said Grace, with gentle malice, "I've long since concluded that it's better to keep still about personal matters, no matter what you think."
"Well, perhaps you have," said gentle Amy with sudden spirit: "But I must say I never noticed it."
Grace struck a dramatic attitude.
"And you too, Amy?" she cried. "Ah, this is too much--"
"Yes, it's all right, dear," soothed Betty, hastily rescuing a basket. "But please don't step on the lunch. These baskets cost four dollars and ninety-eight cents at a bargain sale."
"Oh, how sordid of you, Betty," chuckled Mollie. "As if Grace cared for a mere little five-dollar bill."
"Goodness, I don't know whether I do or not," remarked Grace plaintively. "It's so long since I've seen one I can't tell."
"As Allen remarks," laughed Betty, as she gathered up the remains of the lunch, "'money must think you're dead.'"
They laughed at her, and then suddenly Betty changed the subject.
"You know, I overheard something the other day," she said, "that's just made me terribly blue whenever I've let myself think of it."
"Oh, Betty," gasped Mollie, jumping unerringly to the catastrophe they had been dreading all these months, "do you mean the boys have got their orders?"
"Oh, no, I don't actually know a thing," Betty hastened to assure her, but there was a brilliant light of excitement in her eyes that did not reassure the girls.
"Then what do you mean?" cried Mollie impatiently. "Oh, Betty dear, I just haven't realized how awful it will be until this minute. When, those boys have actually gone, I'll lie down and die, that's all."
"Well, for goodness sake, don't tell them that," beseeched Grace. "Then they will think they can dictate."
"Well, let 'em," said Mollie recklessly. "They can, for all I care."
"Go on, Betty, do," urged Amy, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously. "Tell us what it was you heard."
"Well, Major Adams was talking with the colonel," Betty complied, her color bright, "and I just happened to catch a couple of phrases as I passed.
"'In a week!' the major was saying eagerly. 'The boys will be glad of that, Colonel. I've had all I could do to keep them pacified at all. Once let them get at the Huns and it will be all over but the shouting.'
"'Yes, they're a fine bunch of young fighters,' the colonel answered. And, oh girls, I wish you could have seen the way he looked, so splendidly straight and martial and proud. 'I tell you, Major,' he said, 'it's a great thing to have the leadership of such lads as those. They're the pick of the nation.'
"And then I went on and my heart was beating so hard I had to hold on to it," Betty finished. "It seemed to me I could almost hear the cannon and see the boys--our boys--"
Her voice trailed off into silence, and for a long time no one spoke. Each one of these young girls, who, a few short months before, had scarcely known the meaning of the word war except as they had read about it in their histories, was striving desperately to visualize the battle front--the trenches, great guns belching forth a deadly hail of shells, the roar of cannon, the moans of dying men--
And there, perhaps, in the mire and horror of it all--the boys--their boys-- _