The Outdoor Girls in Army Service; Or, Doing Their Bit for the Soldier BoysHope, Laura Lee
History
The Outdoor Girls in Army Service; Or, Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys
Hope, Laura Lee
Adventure stories; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
"Oh, yes! Well, she suggested that we give the same performance over
again. Everybody liked it, and any number of people had spoken to her
about it, saying they'd like to see it over again. Of course we'd
have to leave out the booths and things; they would take too much
time to get ready, but we might give the sketch."
"Goodness, that's a regular compliment," gurgled Mollie, knitting
furiously. "Instead of--as Roy would say--'getting the hook,' they
ask us to do it all over again. I wouldn't have thought any audience
would stand for it."
"Well," continued Betty, "I told Mrs. Ross I'd talk it over with you
folks, and if we did it at all, it would be for the benefit of the
Y.W.C.A. Of course, we don't know how the boys will feel about it."
But the boys were perfectly willing to give the play again, declaring
that "if Deepdale could stand for it, they surely could."
Deepdale did stand for it to the amount of a sum that made Mrs.
Barton Ross open her eyes wide in delighted astonishment. The affair
was a huge success.
"I don't know how to thank you," she had said to Betty and Grace, who
had been appointed by the others to take the money to her. "You girls
have waked Deepdale up with a vengeance. We were always intensely
patriotic, but we hardly knew how to go about showing it, until you
came and pointed the way."
Mrs. Barton Ross was the manager of the local Y.W.C.A., and every one
in Deepdale both loved and respected her personally and as an
influence for good.
"I believe," said Betty, as the two girls left her and started for
home, "I'd like to join the Y.W.C.A. also if only to be near Mrs.
Barton Ross. When I've talked with her for a little while, I always
feel as if I'd been to church, or something like that."
And that was the way it came about. Not being satisfied with Red
Cross work alone, the Outdoor Girls joined the Y.W.C.A., and from
that time on their days were filled to overflowing.
"It's all very well to knit in the day time," Roy complained one
stormy evening, when the four couples of young folks had congregated
in Mollie's cheerful living-room; "but I don't see why you have to
keep it up all evening too. It gets me dizzy just to watch the
needles."
"Well, why don't you get busy and learn to knit yourselves?" asked
Mollie with a twinkle. "Percy Falconer was telling me that in one
place several men had gotten together, and formed a knitting club. Of
course, they're too old to join the army or the navy, so they thought
they'd do their bit that way."
"Yes, and they've even made up a knitting song," chuckled Betty. "And
while they knit, they sing."
"The little dears," said Frank disgustedly. "Well, thank heaven, I'm
not too old to fight."
"I imagine that's just the sort of club dear Percy would like to
join," remarked Allen, smiling. "It's easier to imagine him in a
corner by the fireside knitting socks for soldiers, than in any other
role."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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