The Camerons of Highboro Part 10

"Oh, well," said Laura, "I'd rather a little Belgian had my extra pounds, poor sc.r.a.p! Of course, now and then I get hungry for it, though Mother gives us all the maple we want, but when I do get hungry, I think about the Belgians and the people of northern France who have lost their homes, and of all those children over there who haven't enough to eat to make them want to play; and I think about the British fleet and what it has kept us from for four years; and about the thousands of girls who have given their youth and prettiness to making munitions. I think about things like that and then I say to myself, 'My goodness, what is a little sugar, more or less!' Why, Elliott, we don't begin to feel the war over here, not as they feel it!"

Elliott, who considered that she felt the war a good deal, demurred.

"I have lost my home," she said, feeling a little ashamed of the words as she said them.

"But it is there," objected Laura. "Your home is all ready to go back to, isn't it? That's my point."

"And there's Father," said Elliott.

"I know, and my brothers. But I don't feel that _I_ have done anything in their being in the army. It is doing them lots of good: every letter shows that. And, anyway, I'd be ashamed if they didn't go."

"Something might happen," said Elliott. "What would you say then?"

"The same, I hope. But what I mean is, the war doesn't really touch us in the routine of our every-day living. _We_ don't have to darken our windows at night and take, every now and then, to the cellars. The machinery of our lives isn't thrown out of gear. We don't live hand in hand with danger. But lots of us think we're killed if we have to use our brains a little, if we're asked to subst.i.tute for wheat flour, and can't have thick frosting on our cake and eat meat three times a day.

Oh, I've heard 'em talk! Why, our life over here isn't really topsyturvy a bit!"

"Isn't it?" There were things, Elliott thought, that Laura, wise as she was, didn't know.

"We're inconvenienced," said Laura, "but not hurt."

Elliott was silent. She was trying to decide whether or not she was hurt. Inconvenienced seemed rather a slim verb for what had happened to her. But she didn't go on to say what she had meant to say about candy, and she felt in her secret soul the least bit irritated at Laura.

Then Priscilla whirled in on her tiptoes, her hands behind her back.

"The postman went right straight by, though I hung out the window and called and called. I guess he didn't hear me, he's awful deaf sometimes."

"Didn't I get a letter?" Elliott's face fell.

"Mail is slow getting through, these days," said Aunt Jessica, coming in from the main kitchen. "We always allow an extra day or two on the road. Wasn't there anything at all from Bob or Sidney or Pete, Pris?

You little witch, you certainly are hiding something behind your back."

Then Priscilla gave a gay little squeal and jumped up and down till her black curls bobbed all over her face. When she stopped jumping she looked straight at Elliott.

"Which hand will you take?" she asked.

"I? Oh, have you a letter for me, after all?"

"You didn't guess it," said the child. "Which hand?"

"The right--no, the left."

Priscilla shook her head. "You aren't a very good guesser, are you?

But I'll give it to you this time. It's not fat, but it looks nice. He didn't even get out, that postman didn't; he just tucked the letter in the box as he rode along."

"Certain sure he didn't tuck any other letter in too, Pris?" queried Laura.

The child held out empty hands.

"That's no proof. Your eyes are too bright." Laura turned her around gently. "Oh, I thought so! Stuck in your dress. From Bob!"

"Two," squealed Priscilla, with an emphatic little hop. "Here, give 'em to Mother. They're 'dressed to her. Now let's get into 'em, quick.

Shall I ring the bell, Mother, to call in Father and the rest? Two letters from Bob is a great big emergency; don't you think so?"

The words filtered negligently through Elliott's inattention. All her conscious thoughts were centered on her father's handwriting. She had had a cable before, but this was his first letter. It almost made her cry to see the familiar script and know that she could get nothing but letters from him for a whole long year. No hugs, no kisses, no rumpling of her hair or his, no confidential little talks--no anything that had been her meat and drink for years. How did people endure such separations? A big lump came up in her throat and the tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes; but she swallowed very hard and blinked once or twice and vowed, "I won't cry, I _won't_!"

And then suddenly, through her preoccupation, she became aware of a hush fallen on the bubbling expectancy of the room. Glancing up from the page, she saw Henry standing in the doorway. Even to unfamiliar eyes there was something strangely arresting in the boy's look, a shocked gravity that cut like a premonition.

"They say Ted Gordon's been killed," he said.

"Ted--Gordon!" cried Laura.

"Practice flight, at camp. n.o.body knows any particulars. Cy Jones told Father." The boy's voice sounded dry and hard.

"Are they certain there is no mistake?" his mother asked quietly.

"I guess it's true. Cy said the Gordons had a telegram."

"I must go over at once." Mrs. Cameron rose, putting the letters into Laura's hands, and took off her ap.r.o.n.

"I'll bring the car around for you," said Henry.

"Thank you." She smiled at him and turned to the girls. "You know what we are having for dinner, Laura. Priscilla will help make the shortcake, I'm sure. I will be back as soon as I can."

Mutely the four watched the little car roll out of the yard and down the hill.

Then Henry spoke. "Letters?"

"From Bob," said Laura.

"Did she read 'em?"

Laura shook her head.

"Gee!" said the boy.

"Perhaps she thought she couldn't," hesitated Laura, "and go over there."

A moment of silence held the room. Henry broke it. "Well, we're not going. Let's hear 'em."

Elliott took a step toward the door.

"Needn't run away unless you want to," he called after her. "We always read Bob's letters aloud."

So Elliott stayed. Laura's pleasant voice, a bit strained at first, grew steadier as the reading proceeded. Henry sat whittling a stick into the coal-hod, his lips pursed as though for a whistle, but without sound, and still with that odd sober look on his face.

Priscilla, all the jumpiness gone out of her, stood very still in the middle of the kitchen floor, a kind of hurt bewilderment in the big dark eyes fixed on Laura's face. n.o.body laughed, n.o.body even chuckled, and yet it was a jolly letter that they read first, full of spirit and life and fun. High-hearted adventure rollicked through it, and the humor that makes light of hardship, and the latest slang of the front adorned its pages with grotesquely picturesque phrases. The Cameron boys were obviously getting a good time out of the war. Bob had got something else, too. The letter had been delayed in transmission and near the end was a sentence, "Brought down my first Hun to-day--great fight! I'll tell you about it next time if after due deliberation I decide the censor will let me."

"Some letter!" commented Henry. "Say, those aviators are living like princes, aren't they! Mess hall in a big grove with all the fixings.

And eats! More than we get at home. Gee, I wish I was older!"

"So you could come in for the eats?" smiled his sister.