The Campfire Girls On The Field Of Honor Part 6

"Here, Vera, you have more brains than the other girls, help me to move these crates. Polly Burton considered it possible to run a community farm without a farm animal within twenty miles. But then she was not brought up on a small place in Ireland where we kept the pig in the parlor!" And here Miss Patricia's rich Irish brogue betrayed her cheerfulness for she only gave sway to her Irish p.r.o.nunciation in moments of excitement.

The next moment, not only with Vera's but also with Peggy's and Alice Ashton's aid, the four women dragged forward a large wooden box with open slats containing a n.o.ble collection of fowls, then another of geese and ducks. Finally with extreme caution they engineered the landing of a crate which had been the temporary home of a comfortable American hog and her eugenic family.

"Good gracious, Aunt Patricia, how did you ever manage to acquire such valuable possessions?" Mrs. Burton demanded.

"By ordering them shipped from my own farm in Ma.s.sachusetts a month or more before we sailed for France and then by forwarding my address to the proper persons after we landed here," Miss Patricia answered calmly.

Ignoring any further a.s.sistance, she began opening a box which was filled with grain.

"I presume other things have arrived for me as well, Mary Gilchrist?"

Miss Patricia questioned.

Mary nodded and laughed. She looked very fetching in her motor driver's costume of khaki with the short skirt and trousers and the Norfolk jacket belted in military fashion. On her hair, which had ruddy red brown lights in it, she wore a small military hat deeply dented in the center.

"Goodness gracious, Aunt Patricia, dozens of things!" she replied. "You must have chartered an entire steamer to bring over your gifts to the French nation. Best of all, there are two beautiful cows waiting for you in Soissons at this moment. I could not bring them in the motor, nor did I dare invite them to amble along behind my car. But I have arranged with an old man in the town to escort the cows out to our place tomorrow, or as soon as possible."

No one did anything but stare at Miss Patricia for the next few seconds.

Whether or not this condition of affairs made her unusually self-conscious, or whatever the reason, finally she rested from her labor of opening boxes to gaze first at Mrs. Burton and then slowly from one girl's face to the other's.

"I don't mean to add to your burdens by asking any one of you to a.s.sist me in running my farm," she began in a tone which might have been considered apologetic had it emanated from any one than Aunt Patricia.

"I intend to find an old man to help and to do the rest myself."

Then a peculiar expression crossed the rugged old face.

"You see, I was raised on a tiny farm in Ireland and used sometimes to know what it meant to be hungry until my brother came over to the United States and made a fortune in ways I am more or less ashamed to remember.

I have been telling Polly Burton that I crossed over to France because I wished to look after her and also to help her care for you girls. But that was not the whole truth. I think I came largely because I could not sleep in my bed of nights knowing how many old people and babies there were in this devil-ridden portion of France who were hungry. Oh, there are many people as well as the governments interested in keeping the soldiers well fed! Maybe it's a crime these days for the old and for babies to require food! Yet they do need it. So if you don't mind, Polly, I want the people in our neighborhood to feel that they can come to our farm for milk and eggs, or whatever we have to give them. I left word with the manager of my farm near Boston to ship livestock to me in France whenever the chance offers. I am hoping after a little, when these old people get back on their farms that we may be able to give each family sufficient stock to keep them going until their young men and women return home. But remember, I don't wish to interfere with what you children are doing, nursing the sick and opening schools and starting play centers. Heaven only knows what you are not undertaking!

As I said before, I'll just look after my farm."

Here Miss Patricia attempted to return to her usual belligerent manner, but found it difficult because Mrs. Burton had placed her arm about her.

Try as Aunt Patricia might to conceal her adoration of Mrs. Burton, it was nearly always an impossible feat.

Besides Mrs. Burton was exclaiming with a little catch in her voice:

"You dear, splendid, old Irish gentlewoman! Is there anybody in the world in the least like you? Of course you were right when you announced that I never would think of the really practical things we should require for our work over here. But, although I spent as much money as I could possibly afford, I have realized every day since our arrival, that if I had expended every cent I ever hope to possess, it would have amounted to nothing. Yet I never once thought of the shipping of stock for the little farms in our neighborhood, Aunt Patricia. I am sure you will make life more worth while for every man and woman in this part of the French country before many months."

Instead of appearing gratified by these compliments, Miss Patricia was heard to murmur something or other about Polly Burton's fashion of exaggeration. Then, perhaps partly to conceal embarra.s.sment, she began tearing the slats from the side of one of her crates. Afterwards, driving her travel-worn flock of chickens toward the chicken house, which she herself had made ready, and shooing them with her black skirt, Miss Patricia temporarily disappeared.

Through tears Mrs. Burton laughed at the picture.

Vera followed Miss Patricia, whom she had learned to like and admire since the afternoon of their extraordinary introduction.

"I hope to be allowed to help with the farm work, Aunt Patricia," she urged. "You know I too was brought up on Mr. Webster's farm in New Hampshire, besides, all my people in Russia were peasant farmers."

Miss Patricia did not cease for an instant to continue to care for her brood. However, she did answer with unusual condescension:

"You are a sensible girl, Vera. I observed the fact on the afternoon I met you in New York City when you made no effort to argue with me in connection with the escape of that ridiculous burglar."

CHAPTER VII

BECOMING ADJUSTED

It was not a simple matter for the Sunrise Camp Fire unit to become accustomed to their new life in the devastated French country. The conditions were primitive and difficult. More than once in the first few weeks Mrs. Burton wondered if in bringing the Camp Fire girls with her to work in France hers had not been the courage of folly?

Tet they started out with excellent military discipline. Life at the farm house was modeled upon the precepts of the "Waacs," the Womans'

Army Auxiliary Corps of the British army in France. These girls, many thousands in number, are performing every possible service behind the British armies in the field.

Unexpectedly it was Sally Ashton who first demanded that a proper routine of life and work be laid down and obeyed. Also the household work must be equitably divided, each girl choosing her portion according to her tastes and talents.

Each day's calendar, written by Mrs. Burton upon her typewriter, was hung in a conspicuous place in the front hall at the French farm.

The domestic schedule read:

"Breakfast 8 o'clock, bedrooms cleaned immediately after.

Dinner 1 P. M.

Supper 6.30 P. M.

No work after 8.30 P. M.

Bedtime 10 o'clock."

In the proper observance of the hours for meals Sally Ashton was particularly interested, as she had volunteered to undertake the direction of the housekeeping, which consisted of deciding upon the menu of the simple meals and a.s.sisting in their preparation. It was not possible that Sally alone should do all the cooking for so large a family without wearing herself out and leaving no time for other things.

However, soon after their arrival Mrs. Burton had secured the services of an old French woman whom she had discovered wandering about the country homeless, her little hut having been entirely destroyed by the Germans. Not knowing what else to do, Mrs. Burton originally invited her to live with them at the farm temporarily. But she had proved such a help in getting settled and the girls had become so fond of her that no one of them willingly would have allowed Mere Antoinette to depart.

After the wonderful fashion of French cooks, Mere Antoinette could make nourishing and savory dishes out of almost nothing, so she and Sally had princ.i.p.al charge of the kitchen. Notwithstanding, two of the Camp Fire Girls were to prepare supper each evening, so that they should not forget their accomplishments and in order to relieve the others.

Marie, Mrs. Burton's maid, had accompanied her to France, although none too willingly. It was not that she did not adore her afflicted country, but because she feared the dangers of the crossing and the hardships she might be forced to endure.

Marie, alas! was a patriot of a kind each country produces, a patriot of the lips, not of the heart or hand.

It must be confessed that she had wandered far from her chosen work as maid to a celebrated American actress. Would any one have dreamed in those early days when Marie had first entered her service that Mrs.

Burton would have followed so eccentric a career as she had wilfully chosen in the past few years? First to wander about the United States, living outdoors in Camp Fire fashion with a group of young girls, then with the same group of girls and two additional ones to undertake the present reclamation work in France!

Having accomplished the journey across the sea in safety, Marie would cheerfully, yes, enthusiastically have remained in Paris, even if it were a Paris unlike the gay city she remembered. She would have enjoyed accompanying her "Madame" to the homes of distinguished persons, caring in the meantime for her wardrobe and urging her to return to her rightful place upon the stage. But since Mrs. Burton for the present would do none of these things and since Marie had refused positively to be separated, once more she had to make the best of a bad bargain.

So voluntarily Marie offered to take charge of the greater part of the housework and to devote the rest of her time to sewing for the French children in their vicinity, whose clothes were nothing but an odd a.s.sortment of rags.

Marie had her consolations. It was good to be out of a country which produced men of the type of Mr. Jefferson Simpson, who having _once_ proposed marriage and been declined, had not the courtesy to renew his suit. Also it was good to speak one's own tongue again, and although at present there were but few men to be seen in the neighborhood under sixty, there were military hospitals in the nearby villages. Moreover, there was always the prospect of the return of some gallant French _poilu_ for his holiday from the trenches. So Marie was unable to feel entirely wretched even while undergoing the hardships of an existence within a half-demolished farm house on the Aisne.

As a matter of fact, the old farm house was not in so unfortunate a condition as the larger number of French homes, which had been wrecked by the enemy before he began his "strategic retreat."

Only a portion of the left wing of the house had been demolished.

This had comprised a large kitchen, a pantry and the dining room.

However, a sufficiently large amount of s.p.a.ce remained for the uses of the Camp Fire unit.

In the center the house was divided by a long hall. On one side were two comfortably large rooms. The back one was chosen for the dining room and the front for the living room. The pantry was restored so that it could serve for the kitchen; as the old stove had been destroyed, a new one was ordered from Paris. This developed into a piece of good fortune, as it required far less fuel than the old, and fuel was one of the greatest material problems in France, coal selling at this time for $120 a ton.