“Oh, Nathalie, I do believe there’s Grace Tyson in her new motor-car,” exclaimed Helen Dame, suddenly laying her hand on her companion’s arm as the two girls were about to cross Main Street, the wide, tree-lined thoroughfare of the old-fashioned town of Westport, Long Island.

Nathalie Page halted, and, swinging about, peered intently at the brown-uniformed figure of a young girl seated at the steering-wheel of an automobile, which was speeding quickly towards them.

Yes, it was Grace, who, in her sprightliest manner, her face aglow from the invigorating breezes of an April afternoon, called out, “Ah there, girls! How are you? Oh, my lucky star must have guided me, for I have something thrilling to tell you!” As she spoke the girl guided the car to the curb, and the next moment, with an airy spring, had landed on the ground at their side. With a sudden movement the uniformed figure clicked her heels together and bent stiffly forward as her arm swung up, while her forefinger grazed her forehead in a military salute. “I salute you, comrades,” she said with grave formality, “at your service as a member of the Motor Corps of America.

“Yes, girls,” she shrilled joyously, forgetting her assumed rÔle in her eagerness to tell her news, “I’m on the job, for I’m to see active service for the United States government. I’ve just returned from an infantry drill of the Motor Corps at Central Park, New York.

“No, I’ll be honest,” she added laughingly, in answer to the look of amazed inquiry on the faces of her companions, “and ’fess’ that I didn’t have the pleasure of drilling in public, for I’m a raw recruit as yet. We recruits go through our manual of arms at one of the New York armories, drilled by a regular army sergeant. Oh, I’ve been in training some time, for you know I took out my chauffeur’s and mechanician’s State licenses last winter.

“One has to own her car at this sort of government work,”—Grace’s voice became inflated with importance,—“and be able to make her own repairs on the road if necessary. But isn’t my new car a Jim Dandy?” she asked, glancing with keen pride at the big gray motor, purring contentedly at the curb. “It was a belated Christmas gift from grandmother. “But I tell you what, girls,” she rattled on, “I’ve been put through the paces all right, but I’ve passed my exams with flying colors. Phew! wasn’t the physical exam stiff!—before a regular high official of the army medical corps. I was inoculated for typhoid, and for paratyphoid. I’ll secretly confess that I don’t know what the last word means. Yes, and I took the oath of allegiance to the United States Government, administered by another army swell,—and that’s where my Pioneer work proved O. K. And then we had the First Aid course, too, at St. Luke’s. The head nurse, who gave us special lessons in bandaging, said I was A No. 1; and in wigwagging, oh, I did the two-flag business just dandy.”

“But what is your special work?” asked Nathalie, for the two girls were somewhat surprised and bewildered by all these high-sounding, official-like terms. To be sure, Grace had long been known as an expert driver, but she had never shown her efficiency in any way but by giving the girls joy-rides once in a while; yes, and once she had driven her father to New York.

But war work, thought Nathalie, for this aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced young girl, whose eyes gleamed merrily at you from under the peaked army cap—with its blue band and the insignia of the Corps, a tire surmounted by Mercury’s wings—set so jauntily on the fluffy hair. To be sure the slim, trim figure in the army jacket, short skirt over trousers, and high boots did have a warlike aspect, but it was altogether too girlish and charming to be suggestive of anything but a toy soldier, like one of the tiny painted tin things that Nathalie used to play with when a wee tot.

“Do? Why, I am a military chauffeur,” returned Grace patronizingly, “and in the business of war-relief work for the Government. At present I’m to act as chauffeur to one of our four lieutenants, Miss Gladys Merrill. Oh, she’s a dear! I have to drive her all over the city when she is engaged on some Government errand. You should see me studying the police maps, and then you would know what I do. Sometimes we are called to transport some of the army officers from the railroad station to the ferry, or to headquarters. Then we do errands for the Red Cross, too.

“Why, the other day I helped to carry a lot of knitted things down on the pier, to be packed in a ship bound for the other side; they were for the soldiers at the front. We do work for the National Defense, and for the Board of Exemption. I’m doing my ‘bit,’ even if it is a wee one, towards winning the war,” ended the girl, with a note of satisfaction in her voice.

“O dear, but wouldn’t I like to drive an ambulance in France! But I’ve got to be twenty-one to do that sort of work,”—the girl sighed. “But did I tell you that brother Fred is doing American Field Service? I had a letter from him yesterday, and he said that he and a lot of American boys have established a little encampment of ambulances not far from the front-line trench. They live in what was once a chÂteau belonging to Count Somebody or Another, but now it is nothing but a shell.

“Oh, Fred thinks it is glorious fun,” cried the girl, with sparkling eyes. “He has to answer roll-call at eight in the morning, and then he eats his breakfast at a little cafÉ near. He has just black bread,—think of that, coffee, and, yes, sometimes he has an egg. Then he has to drill, clean his car, and—oh, but he says it’s a great sight to see the aËroplanes constantly flying over his head, like great monsters of the air. And sometimes he goes wild with excitement when he sees an aËrial battle between a Boche and a French airman.

“Yes, he declares it is ‘some’ life over there,” animatedly continued Grace, “for even his rest periods are thrilling, for they have to dodge shells, and sometimes they burst over one’s head. Several times he thought he was done for. And at night the road near the chÂteau is packed with hundreds of marching guns, trucks of ammunition, and war supplies and cavalry, all on their way to the front.

“But when he goes in his ambulance after the blessÉs—they are the poor wounded soldiers—it is just like day, for the sky is filled with star-shells shooting around him in all colors, and then there is a constant cannonading of shells and shot of all kinds. When he hears a purr he knows it’s a Boche plane and dodges pretty lively, for if he doesn’t ‘watch out’ a machine-gun comes sputtering down at him. He’s awfully afraid of them because they drop bombs.

“But he says it would make your heart ache to see him when he carries the blessÉs. He has to drive them from the postes de secours—the aid-stations—to the hospitals. He has to go very slowly, and even then you can hear the poor things groan and shriek with the agony of being moved. And sometimes,” Grace lowered her voice reverently, “when he goes to take them out of the ambulance he finds a dead soldier.

“But dear me,” she continued in a more cheerful tone, “he seems to like the life and is constantly hoping—I believe he dreams about it in his sleep—that he’ll soon have a shot at one of those German fiends. Yes, I think it would be gloriously exciting,” ended Grace with a half sigh of envy.

“Gloriously exciting?” repeated Nathalie with a shudder. “Oh, Grace, I should think you would be frightfully worried. Suppose he should lose his life some time in the darkness of the night, alone with those wounded soldiers? O dear,” she ended drearily, “I just wish some one would shoot or kill the Kaiser! Sometimes I wish I could be a Charlotte Corday. Don’t you remember how she killed Murat for the sake of the French?”

“Why, Nathalie,” cried Helen with amused eyes, “I thought you were a pacifist, and here you are talking of shooting people.” And the girl’s “Ha! ha!” rang out merrily.

Nathalie’s color rose in a wave as she cried decidedly, “Helen, I’m not a pacifist. Of course I want the Allies to win. I believe in the war—only—only—I do not think it is necessary to send our boys across the sea to fight.”

“But I do,” insisted Helen, “for this is God’s war, a war to give liberty to everybody in the world, and that makes it our war. We should be willing to fight, to give the rights and privileges of democracy to other people, and our American boys are not slackers who let some one else do their work.”

“Our boys! You mean my boy,” said Nathalie, with sudden bitterness. “It’s all right for you to talk, Helen, but you haven’t a brother to go and stand up and be mercilessly bayoneted by those Boches. And that is what Dick will have to do.” Nathalie choked as she turned her head away.

“Yes, Nathalie dear,” replied Helen in a softened tone, “I know it is a terrible thing to have to give up your loved ones to be ruthlessly shot down. But what are we going to do?” she pleaded desperately, “we must do what is right and leave the rest to God, for, as mother says, ‘God is in his Heaven.’ And Dick wants to go,” she ended abruptly, “he told me so the other day.” “Yes, that is just it,” cried Nathalie in a pitifully small voice, “and he says that he is not going to wait to be drafted. Oh, Helen, mother and I cannot sleep at night thinking about it!” Nathalie turned her face away, her eyes dark and sorrowful. No, she did not mean to be a coward, but it just rent her heart to picture Dick going about armless, or a helpless cripple shuffling along, with either she or Dorothy leading him.

“Oh, I would like to be a Joan of Arc,” interposed Grace at this point, her blue eyes suddenly afire. “I think it would be great to ride in front of an army on a white charger. And then, too,” she added more seriously, “I think it takes more bravery to fight than to do anything else.”

“Perhaps it does, Grace,” remarked Helen slowly, “but when it comes to heroism, I think the mothers who give their boys to be slaughtered for the good of their fellow-beings are the bravest—” The girl paused quickly, for she had caught sight of Nathalie’s face, and remorsefully felt that what she had just said only added to her friend’s distress. “But, girls,” she went on in a brighter tone, “I have something to tell you. I’m going to France to do my ‘bit,’ for I’m to be stenographer to Aunt Dora. We expect to sail in a month or so. You know that she is one of the officials in the Red Cross organization.”

There were sudden exclamations of surprise from the girl’s two companions, as they eagerly wanted to know all about her unexpected piece of news. As Helen finished giving the details as to how it had all come about, she exclaimed, with a sudden look at her wrist-watch: “Goodness! Girls, do you know it is almost supper-time? I’m just about starved.”

“Well, jump into the car, then,” cried Grace Tyson, “and I’ll have you home in no time.” Her companions, pleased at the prospect of a whirl in the new car, gladly accepted her invitation, and a few minutes later were speeding towards the lower end of the street where Helen and Nathalie lived.

After bidding her friends good-by, Nathalie, with a tru-al-lee, the call-note of their Pioneer bird-group, ran lightly up the steps of the veranda. Yes, Dick was home, for he was standing in the hall, lighting the gas. With a happy little sigh she opened the door.

“Hello, sis,” called out Dick cheerily,—a tall well-formed youth, with merry blue eyes,—as he caught sight of the girl in the door-way. “Have you been on a hike?”

“Oh, no, just an afternoon at Mrs. Van Vorst’s. Nita had a lot of the girls there—” Nathalie stopped, for an expression, a sudden gleam in her brother’s eyes, caused her heart to give a wild leap. She drew in her breath sharply, but before the question that was forming could be asked, Dick waved the still flaming match hilariously above his head as he cried, “Well, sister mine, I’ve taken the plunge, and I’ve come off on top, for I’ve joined the Flying Corps, and I’m going to be an army eagle!”

“Flying Corps?” repeated Nathalie dazedly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Blue Robin, that I’m going to be an aviator, a sky pilot,” replied the boy jubilantly. “I made an application some time ago to the chief signal officer at Washington. I was found an eligible applicant, for, you know, my course in the technical school in New York did me up fine. To-day I passed my physical examinations, and am now enlisted in the Signal Corps of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps. I’m off next week to the Military AËronautics School at Princeton University. It’s an eight-weeks’ course. If I put it over,—and you bet your life I do,” Dick ground his teeth determinedly,—“I go into training at one of the Flying Schools, and then I’ll soon be a regular bird of the air; and if I don’t help Uncle Sam win the war, and manage to drop a few bombs on those Fritzies, I’ll go hang!”

For one awful moment Nathalie stood silent, staring at her brother in dumb despair. Then she turned, and with a blur in her eyes and a tightening of her throat, blindly groped for the stairway. But no! Dick’s hand shot out, he caught the hurrying figure in his grasp, and the next moment Nathalie was sobbing on his breast.

“That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.”

This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her tears were stayed.

“Dick, how could you do it? Think of mother!” Then she raised her eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—” But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat.

“Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little tru-al-lee of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.

“Oh, Dick, don’t try to be funny,” Nathalie managed to say somewhat sharply, as she drew away from her brother’s arm and dropped limply on the steps of the stairs, in such an attitude of hopeless despair that Dick was at the end of his tether to know what to say. He stared down at the girl, unconsciously rubbing his hand through his hair, a trick the boy had when perplexed.

Suddenly a bit of a smile leaped into his eyes as he cried, in a hopelessly resigned tone, “All right, sis, seeing that you feel this way about it I’ll just send in my resignation. It will let the boys know I’ve laid down on my job, for if you and mother are going to howl like two cats, a fellow can’t do a thing but stay at home and be a sissy, a baby-tender, a dish-washer-er-er—”

“Oh, Dick, don’t talk nonsense,” broke in Nathalie sharply. “I didn’t say that you were not to go, but,—why—oh, I just can’t help feeling awfully bad when I read all those terrible things in the paper.” Her voice quivered pathetically as she finished.

“Well, don’t read them, then,” coolly rejoined Dick. “Just steer clear of all that hysterical gush and brace up. My job is to serve my country,—she wants me. By Jove, before she gets out of this hole she’ll need every mother’s son of us. And I’ve got to do it in the best way I can, by enlisting before the draft comes. I’ll not only have a chance to do better work, a prospect of quicker promotion, but, if you want to look at the sordid end of it, I’ll get more pay. And as to being killed, as you wailed, if you and mother will insist upon seeing it black, an aviator’s chance of life is ten to one better—if he’s on to his job—than that of the fellow on the ground. So cheer up, Blue Robin. I’m all beat hollow, for I’ve been trying to cheer up mother for the last hour.”

“Oh, what does mother say?” asked a very faint voice, just as if the girl did not know how her mother felt, and had been feeling for some time.

“Say! Gee whiz! I don’t know what she would have said if she had voiced her sentiments,” replied Dick resignedly. “But the worst of the whole business was that she took it out in weeping about a tank of tears; all over my best coat, too,” he added ruefully. “You women are enough to make a fellow go stiff.

“Now see here, Blue Robin, don’t disappoint me!” suddenly cried the lad, as he stared appealingly into his sister’s brown eyes. “Why, I thought that you would be my right-hand man. I knew mother would make a time at first, but you,—I thought you had grit; you, a Pioneer, too. Don’t you know, girl—” added Dick, rubbing the back of his hand quickly across his eyes, “that I’ve got to go? Don’t you forget that. I’m on the job, every inch of it, but, thunderation, I’m no more keen to go ‘over there’ and have those Hun devils cut me up like sausage, than you or mother. But I’m a man and I’ve got to live up to the business of being a man, and not a mollycoddle.”

But Nathalie had suddenly come to her senses. Perhaps it was the brush of the boy’s hand across his eyes, or the quivering note in his voice, but she roused. She had been selfish; instead of crying like a ninny she should have cheered. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed contritely, standing up and facing him suddenly, “I’m all wrong. I didn’t mean to cry, and I wouldn’t have either,” she explained excusingly, “if you had only let me go up-stairs.

“No, Dick, I would not have you be a slacker, or a mollycoddle, or wash the dishes,” she added with a faint attempt at a smile, “and we haven’t any babies to tend. Yes, old boy, I don’t want you to lie down in the traces, so let’s shake on it, and I’ll try to brace up mother, too,” added the girl, as she held out her hand to her brother.

“Now that’s the stuff, Nat, old girl,” cried the boy with gleaming eyes, as he took the girl’s hand and held it tightly, “and while I’m fighting to uphold the family honor and glory,—remember father was a Rough Rider,—you stay with dear old mumsie. Keep her cheered up, and see that everything is made easy for her. Do all you can to take my place here at home. Yes, Blue Robin, you be the home soldier. Gee whiz, you be the home guard!” added the boy in a sudden burst of inspiration.

“The home guard! Yes, that’s what I’ll be,” cried the girl, her eyes lighting with a sudden glow. “And then I’ll be doing my bit, won’t I? I’ll cheer up mother, and do all I can,” she added resolutely; “and don’t worry any more, Dick, for now,”—the girl drew a long breath, “I’ll be on the job as well as you.”

And then Nathalie, with a wave of her hand at the boy as he stood gazing up at her with his eyes fired with loyal determination, hurried up the stairs, straight on and up to the very top of the house to her usual weeping-place, for, oh, those hateful tears would not be restrained, and if she did not have her cry out she would strangle!

Ah, here she was in her den, the attic. Dimly she reached out her hand and pulled the little wooden rocker out from the wall and slumped into it, and a minute later, with her face buried in the fold of her arm, as it rested on the little sewing-table, she was weeping unrestrainedly.

Presently she gave a sudden start, raised her head and listened, and then was on her feet, for, oh, that was her mother’s step,—she was coming up after her. Oh, why hadn’t she waited until she had a hold on herself. The next moment the little wooden door with the padlock opened, and Mrs. Page was standing in the doorway gazing down at her.

“Why—oh, mother!” Nathalie cried in surprise and wonder, for her mother was smiling. The girl’s eyes bulged out from her tear-stained face in such a funny way that her mother broke into a little laugh. Then her face sobered and she came slowly towards her.

“No, daughter mine, mother is not weeping. Yes, I heard what you and Dick said, and you are patriots, and have shamed mother into trying to be one, too.” Mrs. Page took the girl in her arms with tender affection.

“And Dick is a dear lad. Oh, Nathalie, in our grief at the thought of parting with him,—perhaps of losing him,—” her voice weakened slightly, “we have forgotten that he has been fighting a greater battle than we.

“It is surely a great thing,” continued Mrs. Page sadly, “for a young man in the buoyancy of youth and the very heyday of life, to give it all up. For youth clings more tenaciously to life than older people do, for to them it is an untried and shining pathway, flowered with hope, anticipation, and the luring glimmer of unfulfilled aims and ambitions.

“And then to have to face about,” her voice lowered, “and silently struggle with one’s self in the great battle of self-abnegation, to end by taking this glorious life and casting it far behind you,—this is what makes a hero. Then to face the dread ordeal of a battlefield, and go steadily forward, buoyed only with a feeling of bravery,—the heroism of doing what you believe to be right,—and, taking your one chance for life in your hands,—plunge into the unknown darkness and the horrifying perils of a No Man’s Land.”

There was a stifled sob in Nathalie’s throat, but her mother went steadily on: “No, Nathalie, we must not weep. We must smile and be cheerful. We must inspire Dick with courage and hope, and if it is meant that he is to give his life, we must let him go with a ‘God speed you,’ his memory starred with the thought of a mother’s love and a sister’s courage, and with the soul-stirring song of the victor over death.

“And, Nathalie, Dick belongs to God; he was only loaned to me,—to you,—and if the time has come for God to call him home, we must not complain. We must gladly give him back. Then we must remember, too,” went on the patient mother-voice, “that, after all, life is not the mere living of it, but the things accomplished for the betterment of those who come after. And if Dick has been ‘on the job,’” Mrs. Page smiled, “no matter how small his share in this great warfare for the right, he will be the better prepared to enter into the Land where there is no more suffering, or horrible war, but just a glorious and eternal peace.”

The last word was almost whispered, but, with renewed effort, she said: “Now, Nathalie, let us be brave, as father would have had us,—the dear father,—and go down to Dick with a bright smile and inspiring words of cheer.” Mrs. Page bent and kissed the girl lightly, but solemnly, on the forehead, and then she had turned and was making her way towards the door.