Girls -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
"Well, you can know her old secret for all I care," and Peggy started
for the barn. Billy did not follow. He had thought of a plan. He would
challenge Ken to a game of tennis. And he would let her beat him. Then
he'd ask her very casually about her father and promise, on his scout's
honor, not to tell a soul! The plan seemed good. He'd wait for her to
come down.
In her room Keineth had opened the large white envelope. From inside
she drew a sheet of paper upon which were written a few lines, and with
it a blue envelope of very thin paper, addressed in her father's
familiar handwriting. With a little cry she caught it up and kissed it
again and again. Before she broke its seal she read what was written on
the sheet which had enclosed it.
The few lines were signed "Faithfully, Woodrow Wilson." They began, "My
dear little soldier girl," and they told her that it was with great
pleasure he had forwarded her letter to her father and now returned to
her its answer. He called it an honor to serve them both and expressed
the hope that some day he might make her acquaintance and tell her how
deeply he admired and respected her father.
Keineth merely glanced at the lines. What mattered it to her that they
had been written by the President of the United States! Did she not
hold tightly in her fingers a letter from her Daddy?
"My precious child," it began. Keineth had suddenly to brush her eyes
in order to see the letters. "Your letter found me at one of my many
stopping places. It brought to me a breath of home. I shut myself in my
room and read and reread it, and it seemed to bring back the old room
and the chair that could always hold us both. I could hear your voice,
too. I miss you terribly, little girl, but I thank God daily that you
are well and happy and with good friends.
"I have travelled through many lands of which I will have much to tell
you. I have been in the Far East--poor Tante would have wept with joy
over the beauty of the Flowery Kingdom. I have bowed before enough
emperors and kings to make my poor back ache. Do you remember how you
used to rub the kinks out of it? I have spent hours and hours with the
great men of the world. I have seen wonderful beauty and glorious
sunshine. (How I'd like to ship some of it to old New York.) And I have
seen ugly things, too. We shall have great times when we are together
again, childy, telling one another the stories of these days we have
been parted. You shall tell me something first and then I will tell
you. It will take us hours and days and weeks.
"Now I am going in my wanderings to other lands that are black with the
horror of war. I shall have to witness the suffering it brings to the
homes and I will be more glad than I can tell that my baby is far from
its pain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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