The Girl from Alsace: A Romance of the Great War, Originally Published under the Title of Little ComradeStevenson, Burton Egbert
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The Girl from Alsace: A Romance of the Great War, Originally Published under the Title of Little Comrade
Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Alsace (France) -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
There were irritating bumps in the ground which seemed to come exactly
in the wrong place; but he finally adjusted himself, and lay and looked
up at the stars, and wondered what the morrow would bring forth. He was
growing a little weary of the adventure. He was growing weary of the
restraint which the situation imposed upon him. He was aching to take
this girl in his arms and hold her close, and whisper three words--just
three!--into her rosy ear--but to do that now, to do it until they were
in safety, until she had no further need of him, would be a cowardly
thing--a cowardly thing--a cowardly----
He was awakened by a touch on the arm, and opened his eyes to find the
sun high in the heavens and his comrade looking down at him with face
almost equally radiant.
"I did not like to wake you," she said, "but it is getting late."
Stewart sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. Her hair was
neatly combed, her face was fresh and shining, her hands showed some
ugly scratches but were scrupulously clean. Even her clothing, though
torn here and there, had evidently been carefully brushed.
"What astounds me," said Stewart, deliberately, "is how you do it. You
spend the first half of the night scrambling over rocks and through
briars, and the second half sleeping on the bare ground, and you emerge
in the morning as fresh and radiant as though you had just stepped from
your boudoir. I wish I knew the secret."
"Come and I will show you," she said, laughing gayly, and she led him
away into the wood.
Presently he heard the sound of falling water, and his guide brought him
triumphantly to a brook gurgling over mossy rocks, at whose foot was a
shallow basin.
"There is my boudoir," she said. "The secret of beauty is in the bath. I
will reconnoiter the neighborhood while you try it for yourself."
Stewart flung off his clothes, splashed joyously into the cold, clear
water, and had perhaps the most delicious bath of his life. There was no
soap, to be sure, but much may be done by persistent rubbing; and there
were no towels, but the warm wind of the morning made them almost
unnecessary. He got back into his clothes again with a sense of
astonishing well-being--except for a most persistent gnawing at his
stomach.
"I wonder where we shall breakfast to-day?" he mused as he laced his
shoes. "Nowhere, most probably! Oh, well, if that dear girl can stand
it, I oughtn't to complain!"
And he fell to thinking of her, of her slim grace, of the curve of her
red lips----
"Confound it!" he said. "I can't stand it much longer. Friendship is all
very well, and the big brother act may do for a while--but I can't keep
it up forever, and what's more, I won't!"
And then he heard her calling, in the clear, high voice he had grown to
love.
"All right!" he shouted. "Come along!"
Presently she appeared between the trees, and he watched her with
beating heart--so straight, so supple, so perfect in every line.
"Did the magic work?" she inquired, gayly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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