The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House; Or, Doing Their Best for the Soldiers

"Oh, Mollie, please be careful!"

The big car skidded perilously around a sharp curve and chug-chugged merrily down the road.

"Goodness, I've been careful so long I'm afraid it will grow on me," Mollie Billette, sometimes known as "Billy," retorted, a determined set to her pretty chin. "Someway, I've got to get it out of my system."

The automobile, a big seven-passenger car, belonged to Mollie, and the four Outdoor Girls, having secured a half-holiday from their work at the Hostess House, were out for recreation.

As may have been gathered, Mollie was driving. Amy Blackwell, fearful of an accident, was in the seat beside her, while Grace Ford and Betty Nelson, their beloved Little Captain, occupied the tonneau and amused themselves by laughing at Amy's fears.

"Well, but you needn't take it out on us," Amy said in reply to Mollie's assertion. "If you're going to take many more of those two-wheel turns, I'm going to get out and walk. Oh, Mol-lie!" The speech ended in a wail, as Mollie wickedly rounded another curve, jolting Amy half out of her seat.

"I don't know but what I agree with Amy," drawled Grace, from the tonneau, helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie Billette, and pick them up. That's the least-"

The rest of the sentence was never uttered, for Mollie brought the car to so sudden a stop that Grace and Betty both lurched forward and narrowly escaped bumping their noses on the back of the seat in front of them.

"Sure," said the reckless driver, turning her bright black eyes expectantly upon them. "Will you promise to give me all I pick up?"

"All you-" Grace was beginning, striving desperately to recover her breath and her dignity at the same time, the accomplishment of which feat was decidedly retarded by growing indignation. "Goodness, I never heard such a-"

"Very well," returned Mollie, and, without deigning to parley further, turned determinedly to the wheel. "That's all I wanted to know-"

"Just a minute, Mollie, dearest," Betty's laughing voice broke in. "You know I'm not worrying about the chocolates at all, but I'm not particularly anxious to spoil my perfectly good shoes with crushed chocolate or, on the other hand, frump my perfectly good nose in a vain attempt to pick them-"

"Which, candy or shoes?" Mollie broke in impishly.

"Candy," answered Betty soberly. "As I was saying, neither of these alternatives appeal to me, so, with your kind permission, I would beg you to hold your horses-"

"As the vulgar herd would say," again murmured Mollie.

"Exactly-as the vulgar herd would say," agreed Betty, dimpling adorably, "-until we have a chance to collect the scattered sweets."

"You win," Mollie capitulated, speaking in a tone reserved for the "Little Captain." "Only please make Grace hurry or the afternoon will be over before she begins."

"Goodness, listen to it-" Grace was beginning, straightening indignantly from her stooping posture and preparing once more to enter the fray. "When it's all her fault, anyway-" But Betty upset both speech and dignity by unceremoniously pulling her down again.

"Come on! Hurry, Gracie!" she commanded. "And don't overlook any, because there's nothing so messy as a chocolate-"

"As if there were any chance of Grace's overlooking a chocolate!" scoffed Mollie. "Why, all she has to do is whistle to 'em and they come rolling up obediently."

"Goodness, who'd want them anyway, after they've rolled around and picked up all the dust and millions of germs from the bottom of the car?" grumbled Grace, cross at having to exert herself to even so small an extent. Grace, as my old readers doubtless remember, had been born with an ease-loving disposition that not even close association with the other Outdoor Girls had served to change. Perhaps, as Mollie had once remarked, that was why the girls were so fond of her-because she was "so different."

"Well, if you don't want 'em," Mollie replied practically, "why didn't you agree to my proposition? I promised to eat them for you, germs and all, and all I got for my sacrifice was one withering glance-"

"At that you're lucky," Grace retorted, straightening up from a spirited chase of the last elusive chocolate, red of face and fierce of eye. "Some time I'll come to the end of my patience, and then, Mollie Billette, you'd better look out."

"My!" chuckled Betty, "isn't she fierce? Never mind, honey, Roy will give you another box, if you ask him very prettily."

"Goodness, if he can't do it without being asked," retorted Grace crossly, "he can keep his old candies."

"If I thought you meant that, I'd say you ought to be ashamed of yourself," put in Amy, with unaccustomed spirit, as Mollie threw in the clutch and the big car started off again. "Anybody that had been as good to you as Roy has been-"

"Well, I don't know that you've been particularly neglected," retorted Grace, meaningly, while Amy reddened. "I never thought that Will could be such a perfect Romeo."

"Oh, dear," murmured Betty protestingly. "Can't we have just one good time, without bringing the boys into it?"

"Now, see who's talking," chuckled Mollie delightedly, changing into high and driving with wild, care-free recklessness along the smooth road. "Oh, Betty darling, much as I love you, there do come times when you make me laugh."

"Well, it's good to know I'm bringing happiness into some dark life," retorted Betty good-naturedly. "At least I have not lived in vain."

"And they were just mad," Mollie continued, as though talking to herself, "when they found we were going off this afternoon without them."

"Yes, and isn't it funny?" agreed Grace lazily. "They think they're so important."

"Well, they are," announced Amy suddenly, and even Mollie turned an amazed eye upon her.

"I think they're the most important people in the world," Amy continued stoutly. "I guess if we were going to give up our lives for somebody else we might think we were important, too."

"Oh, I didn't mean that way," Mollie returned, her eyes once more turning to the ribbon of road ahead while the girls' bright faces sobered thoughtfully. "Because when it comes to a thing like giving up their lives-well, I think they're the bravest-" Her voice broke, and in an effort to hide her emotion she nearly sent the car over the side of the road and into a six-foot ditch.

"Brave," repeated Betty, turning her eyes to the far horizon to hide the mist that suddenly gathered in them. "I don't think that's any word for our boys at all-"

"They don't seem to realize what they're going into," Amy broke in eagerly. "Or, if they do, they won't talk about it, or let any one else-"

"Oh, I guess it isn't that they don't realize it," Grace interrupted thoughtfully. "You know my father always used to say that a man who never knew what it was to be afraid wasn't really brave at all. He said it was the man who was scared to death in his heart, that gritted his teeth and went ahead and faced things anyway, that deserves all the credit."

"I presume that's right," said the Little Captain, leaning forward earnestly. "I don't suppose there is any one in the world who really enjoys the thought of losing an arm or a leg, or being broken in health for the rest of his life. I think what our boys are doing is just to take the fear of that with a smile and go ahead gayly to face whatever may come. Brave-" Her voice trailed off, and for a long time there was silence while the big car hummed rhythmically along the road and the miles swept by uncounted.

"Of course, there are lots of people," Betty resumed after a while, "who say the boys just enlisted for the love of adventure, the love of a good fight, and I suppose that had something to do with it."

"Of course it had," Mollie agreed. "And that's one thing that makes it harder for us who have to stay at home and can't have any of the thrill and excitement that helps to carry the boys through. But it's only one of a dozen reasons, after all."

"I wish we knew when they were going," said Grace, irrelevantly. "The suspense is worse than anything else. It's like cutting a dog's tail off an inch at a time."

"Goodness, isn't she complimentary?" flung back Mollie, laughing. "You can compare yourself to a four-footed dog, Grace, but please leave me out of it."

"Did you ever hear of a two-footed dog?" Grace retorted.

"To change the subject," Betty interposed hastily, seeking to avoid a storm. "Don't you think it's almost time to be turning back? We've gone farther than-Oh, Mollie! Girls! Look!"

They had rounded a curve in the road at their usual breakneck speed, and Mollie stopped the car with a jolt that very nearly sent its occupants flying into the roadway.

Before them, not twenty yards away, a little figure in black lay huddled in the road while the motorcyclist who had caused the accident, sped by the girls, exhaust open and head lowered.

Dazedly they gazed after machine and rider for a minute till they disappeared round a turn in the road. Then, with a cry of dismay, Betty tumbled out of the car, followed by the other girls.

The prostrate figure in the road lay very, very still.

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