The Outdoor Girls in Army Service | Page 2

"How could he be when he's been in town for over a week?" she
retorted with unusual spirit "It's just that nobody will read the paper,
and I'm just dying to hear the news. I want to keep up with the times."
"Well, if that's all," said the Little Captain, sitting up with alacrity, "I'm
always willing to oblige. Mollie, you're sitting on it!"
"Knit one, purl two," chanted Mollie. "Wait till I get this needle off and
I'll give it to you. I can't stop now!"
"All right, then I'm going to get my knitting."
Betty made as though to rise but Amy held her down and turned
despairingly to Mollie.
"Mollie," she pleaded, "be reasonable. You know very well that if Betty
ever gets started with her knitting then nobody'll read the news."
"Knit one, purl two, knit one, purl two," sang Mollie imperturbably.
"There, now, isn't that beautiful?"

She sprang from the seat and whirled around upon them, holding up the
almost-finished sweater for their inspection.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she repeated enthusiastically.
"Of course," said Grace, dryly, while Betty deftly grabbed the paper.
"It's the most beautiful and most curious thing I ever laid eyes on. It
isn't as though," she added, with biting sarcasm, "I had seen hundreds
just like it within the last month or two--"
"Oh, you can't make me mad," said Mollie, settling down with energy
to the final finishing. "You're just jealous, that's all, and the more you
turn up your nose, the more you show your real feelings."
"Oh, is that so?" retorted Grace, reaching out for the candy box for the
twentieth time that morning. "Well, as my kind of nose has never,
under any circumstances whatsoever, been known to turn up--"
"Oh, do stop chattering," Mollie interrupted heartlessly. "Who cares
what kind of noses we've got? Go ahead, Betty, you'd better get started
before Grace gets to quarreling on the subject of eyelashes or
something."
"I never quarreled with my eyelashes," said Grace haughtily. "I leave
that to other people."
"My, isn't she conceited!" chuckled Betty. "Now I'm going to read," she
added, letting her eyes rest upon the glaring headlines of the first page.
"If you want to listen, all right; and if you want to talk about sweaters
and eyelashes--"
"Oh, Betty, do go on," sighed Amy. "We've been waiting so long."
"All right," said Betty obligingly; then, as the full sense of what she
read was borne in upon her, her face clouded and she bit her lip and
shook her head.
"Girls," she began, and something in her tone made them drop their

knitting for a moment and gather anxiously about her. "Those, those--
Germans--"
"Huns, you mean," interrupted Mollie fiercely, as she read over the
Little Captain's shoulder.
"Have sunk another of our ships," said Betty, her lips set in a straight
line. "And--and they think the loss will be heavy. Oh, girls, I can't read
it--it's too horrible!"
She flung down the paper, but Mollie snatched it almost before it
reached the step. Then with eyebrows drawn together, and twin spots of
red flaming in either cheek, she read the account of the disaster from
beginning to end.
"There," she said at last, flinging down the paper and glaring about her
as though the girls themselves were at fault. "Now you see what we're
knitting sweaters for, and--and--everything! Oh, if I could just put on a
uniform, and take up a gun and--and--go after those-- those awful
Huns!"
"Goodness, if you looked like that," commented Grace, "you wouldn't
have to fire a shot. They'd all drop dead just from fright."
"So much the better," said Mollie, beginning to knit again ferociously.
"It would be a shame to waste good ammunition on them."
"I wonder," said Betty thoughtfully, her eyes on the far-off horizon,
"what the boys are going to do. They've seemed so mysterious lately,
and the minute you begin to question them about enlisting, they change
the subject."
"Yes, and it's made me desperate," cried Mollie, the tempestuous,
flinging down the unfortunate sweater once more. "I know what I'd do
if I were a man, and Betty and all the rest of us girls! But either they
didn't know or they wouldn't tell. Do you suppose--"
"They've decided to wait for the draft?" finished Grace, settling her

cushions more comfortably. "That's a funny thing to say, Mollie-- about
our boys."
"I know," said Mollie, knitting more furiously than ever. "But just the
same, I can't understand why they have been so terribly secretive about
it."
"I guess we needn't worry about that," said Betty, although there was a
little worried line between her brows that belied her words. "Allen
wouldn't--" here she stammered, stopped and flushed, while the girls
turned laughing eyes upon her.
"Of