A Girl to Come Home To (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
themselves, and then suddenly they heard a car coming.
“That wouldn’t be our friends, would it?” asked the father anxiously. “Perhaps you better all scatter as swiftly as possible. Here, Mother, you take this tiny flashlight. I don’t want you to fall. I guess the rest of you can manage in the dark, can’t you? I’ll wait a minute and make the fire safe for the night.”
Swift embraces, tender kisses, and they scattered silently, and when Marcella’s car arrived before the door the house was dark as a pocket and silent, too, everyone lying quietly under blankets and almost asleep already.
“Why the very idea!” said Jessica sharply as she clambered out of the car. “They can’t have gone to bed this early, and they wouldn’t have been likely to go out anywhere this first night.”
“You seem to have forgotten that Rod was wounded and has been in the hospital for some time,” said Marcella.
“Nonsense!” said Jessica. “Anyhow I’m going to ring the bell good and loud. I guess they won’t sleep long after that.”
CHAPTER V
Three girls were grouped together in a pleasant corner of the Red Cross room sewing as if their very life depended upon their efforts. One was running the sewing machine, putting together tiny garments for the other two to take over and finish. The second girl was opening seams and ironing them flat and then finishing them off with delicate feather-stitching in pink and blue, binding edges of tiny white flannel jackets and wrappers with pink and blue satin ribbon. The third girl was buttonholing scallops with silk twists on tiny flannel petticoats. They were making several charming little layettes for a number of new babies who had arrived overnight without bringing their suitcases with them, and these three girls had promised to see that the needy babies were supplied before night. And because these three girls were used to having all things lovely in their own lives, it never occurred to them to sling the little garments together carelessly. They set their stitches as carefully and made their scallops as heavy and perfect as if they had been doing them for their own family. Others might sling such outfits together by expeditious rule, but they must make them also beautiful.
“Aren’t they darling?” said Isabelle Graham. “I feel as if I were making doll clothes and I’d like to play with the dolls myself. They say that a couple of these poor little mothers have wept their hearts out mourning for their husbands and they haven’t taken time to get anything ready for their babies. The husband of one baby’s mother has been reported killed, and another one is taken prisoner. A terrible world for a little child to be born into.”
“Yes,” said an elderly woman coming over from a group across the room to take the measurement of the hems the girls were putting into the little petticoats, “I think it’s a crime! Bringing little helpless babies into a world like this. And all because their silly mothers couldn’t wait till their men came back from fighting. It’s ridiculous!”
Alida Hopkins shut her pretty lips tightly on the three pins she was holding in her mouth, ready to set the measurement of the little petticoat she was working on, and cast a scornful look at the woman.
But the woman pursued the subject. “Don’t you think so, Alida?”
“I don’t think it’s any of my business,” said Alida with a little laugh. “It certainly isn’t the poor babies’ fault, and they’re here and can’t go around without clothes in this freezing weather, so I’m here to make clothes for them. Beryl, have you got any more of that lovely white silk twist? I’ve an inch more scallops to make on this petticoat, and I don’t like to change color.”
“Oh yes,” said Beryl Sanderson, fishing in her handbag for the spool and handing it out. “I have a whole lot at home. I bought it before they stopped selling such things. I thought it might fit in somewhere.”
“Well you certainly were forehanded,” said the critical woman sharply. “But I wouldn’t waste real silk twist on baby garments for little war foundlings. It won’t be appreciated I tell you. Better save it for your own children someday.”
Beryl smiled sweetly and covered the rising color in her cheeks with a dimple. “Well, you see, Mrs. Thaxter,” she said amusedly, “I haven’t reached that need yet, so I guess we’d better let this little war baby have the benefit.”
Mrs. Thaxter cast a pitying, disapproving glace at the girl, pursed her lips and tossed her head. “Oh, well, I guess you’re as improvident as the rest,” she said sharply. “I thought you had better sense.”
“Improvident?” laughed Beryl. “Why should I provide for children I don’t possess and may never have and let some other little child suffer?”
“Hm!” said Mrs. Thaxter. “I guess they won’t do much suffering for the lack of a few needlefuls of buttonhole twist.” And she marched off to the other end of the room with her head in the air. Her departure was announced to the room by little rollicking ripples of laughter from the girls she had left.
“Shhh!” warned Beryl softly. “There’s no need to make her angry, even if she is an old crab. Do you know she has worked all this week cutting out garments, worked hours over time?”
“Yes,” said Bonny Stewart with a twinkle, “and ripped every last worker up the back while she did it. I was here. I heard her, and believe me it was the limit!”
“Well, I guess she’s pretty upset that her Janie got married without letting her know before her soldier went away. And now he’s got himself killed and Mrs. Thaxter has to keep telling Janie ‘I told you so’ all the time,” said Isabelle with a trill of a laugh.
“Oh, but he didn’t get himself killed, he’s only a prisoner. Hadn’t you heard?” said Celia Bradbury, drawing her chair over to join the group and getting out the little pink booties she was knitting. “The word came last night from the War Department. Janie called up and told my sister. She’s in her Sunday school class. She’s very hopeful that he will get home now.”
“Being taken prisoner by the enemy is almost worse than death these days,” commented Beryl sadly.
“Yes, I think this war is horrid,” said Bonny with tears in her voice. “I don’t see why somebody doesn’t put a stop to it.”
“That’s what they are trying to do, child,” said Beryl with a smile.
“Yes, I suppose it is,” answered Bonny. “But say, did you know both the Graeme brothers came home last night? I was on the train. I saw them, and they’re perfectly stunning in their uniforms. Not all the servicemen get killed or taken prisoner. Say, Beryl, didn’t you used to know those Graeme boys?”
“Why yes,” said Beryl looking up interestedly. “I went to high school with Jeremy. He was a fine scholar and a swell person. I didn’t know his brother so well; he was older than I and out of high school, in college, but I’ve always heard good things about him. They’ve got a wonderful mother and father. My mother has often told me nice little kindly things they’ve done for people who were in trouble.”
“Oh, yes,” said Alida with a half-contemptuous smile, “they’re like that. Always doing good. Terribly kind but kind of drab and uninteresting.”
“No,” said Beryl suddenly, “they’re not drab and uninteresting. My mother has told me a lot about them. She loves to talk with them. And certainly Jeremy was interesting. The whole school loved to hear him recite. He could make the dullest study sound interesting. He always found so much to tell that wasn’t really in the books.”
“You mean he made it up, out of his head?” asked Alida.
“Oh no,” said Beryl, “he’d look it up in other books, the dictionary and encyclopedia, and sometimes several other books. He always told where he’d found it and who had written things about