Nathalie sat in the big rocker on the veranda, sewing a star on a service-flag. Yes, as soon as Dick had gone to do his “stunt,” as he called it, in the great warfare,—gone with all the honors of war, as his mother had laughingly declared as he kissed them a noisy good-by,—Nathalie had felt that it was incumbent upon her to sustain the honor of the family, and had run lightly up to the attic. Here, in the big piece-trunk she found a bundle of Turkey red, a bit of white, and then, after begging a snip of blue from Helen for the star, she had set to work.

She was sure that star would not come off, for she had double-stitched into every angle and on every point. She held up the patriotic square, bordered with red, and sorrowfully stared at that one lone star, although a thrill of pride stirred at her heart and caused her eyes to beam.

She must hang it up. And then she was busy tacking the little flag to a small staff, which she had fastened to the roof of the porch so it could be seen. Ah, the wind had caught it, and it was waving in a salute to its many mates curling from the neighboring porches, and to the Red Cross insignias that starred a window here and there, ofttimes overshadowed by the graceful sweep of the Stars and Stripes.

But Nathalie’s heart was still sore, for although she had given up Dick with as good a grace as she could muster, and had tried to show that she possessed the true American spirit, yet it did seem as if it was a needless sacrifice. With a sudden turn on her heel, the girl burst into a new patriotic air that she had heard somewhere, as if hoping that it would drive away the rebellious thoughts that jarred her attempt at cheer, and hurried into the kitchen.

As Nathalie stepped to the window and stared carelessly out, her eyes were caught by the gleam of yellow crocus and purple hyacinth as they peeped up at her from their beds of green. Somehow their flaunting colors reminded her of the spring blooms that used to nod so gayly to her from the flower-beds in her beautiful city home in the upper part of New York.

She could hardly believe it was a year since her father’s death. The poignant grief she had suffered then again caused her eyes to fill with tears, and her mind dwelt upon the sorrowful circumstances surrounding her loss, the changes that had followed, in their financial losses, and the many sacrifices it had entailed. She again saw the sorrowful farewell to the first and only home she had ever known; she again felt the grief that came to her in the giving up of the many things that had made life so happy,—her schoolmates, her many enjoyments, and her hope of going to college. She again experienced the dolefulness that had assailed her mother, her brother Dick, her younger sister, Dorothy, and herself, on their coming to the humble cottage home in Westport, the being associated with strangers, and the many people who at first had seemed so different from their city associates.

Yes, there was the tree where she had found the nest of bluebirds. The girl’s eyes gleamed amusedly as she peered down the garden at the old cedar tree, and remembered that she had called them blue robins, thus giving Dick an opportunity to nickname her, Blue Robin.

Nathalie attempted to smile, but the thought of Dick’s going away aroused her slumbering grief, and once more the tears flowed silently down her cheeks. But she bravely brushed them away and went on with her reminiscences,—the remembrance of spraining her ankle up in the woods, and how it had led to her meeting Helen Dame, her next-door neighbor, and now her dearest friend.

How lovely Grace Tyson had looked that day, and dear old Barbara with her near-sighted eyes, and the girls’ favorite, Lillie Bell, with her gracious charm and dramatic poses. The girl smiled again as she remembered Edith Whiton, the sport, and her harum-scarum oddities. Yes, they were all dear girls. And how glad she was that she had become a Pioneer, and a real blue robin, by joining the Blue Bird group.

And what a dear Mrs. Morrow, the Pioneer director, was that day the Pioneers called. Oh, that was the day the “Mystic” had passed. Who would have thought she would turn out to be Mrs. Van Vorst, who was so lovely. And that ride with Dr. Morrow to the big gray house, and then she mentally saw herself, with that handkerchief over her eyes, talking to the Princess, Nita, the little hunchbacked girl. And what good friends they had become through those history lessons!

The many useful things she had learned from the Pioneer hikes and crafts, and the joys she had experienced from their many sports and activities had certainly proved worth while. And the “overcomes” she had fought for by adopting the Pioneer motto, “I can,” had certainly meant something in her life.

But they did have gloriously good times at Camp Laff-a-Lot at Eagle Lake, with the Boy Scouts, Miss Camphelia, Miss Dummy, and all the other good sports. Then, too, there was the surprise, on her return to learn the good that had come to Dick through the money so kindly loaned by Mrs. Van Vorst. Indeed, that one year had brought many new things into her life, for—O dear, there was all that silver to be cleaned! For, now that her mother kept no maid, this duty, with many other menial tasks, had devolved upon Nathalie. Oh, how she hated that job!

With a resigned air, however, she managed to carry the basket of silver from the sideboard to the kitchen table, and then returned to the dining-room for the tea-service. After getting her cleaning cloths, her brushes, and the scouring-powder, with vigorous determination she began to rub and polish.

But somehow everything acted aggravatingly mean, for she dropped the polish, and the powder flew all over; then she knocked the tray and the knives and forks clattered to the floor. O dear! what ailed things anyway? And how her arms ached trying to polish those horrid tarnished stains on the teapot! The tableware had never seemed so obdurate, nor the means for making it bright so utterly ineffective.

“Oh, I guess I am the one who is ailing,” she exclaimed glumly, as she suddenly realized that her mind was not on her task, and that the elation of playing at being a patriot had departed, with Dick evidently, leaving her as limp as a rag. Oh, it does seem such a shame that we had to get into that war—Nathalie bit off her thought like a thread, resolved not to let her mind dwell on that forbidden topic. But how angelic her mother had acted when Dick went. Well, she was a dear, anyway, so brave. But suppose he never should come back after all. Something suddenly seemed to snap in the girl’s breast, and down went her head on the tray, into a heap of powder, while a great sob strangled out of her throat.

O horrors! Nathalie’s brown head bobbed up from the tray, not very serenely either, for she had heard a step on the kitchen porch. Oh, Helen always came in that way! “Where is my handkerchief?” The girl grabbed desperately at something white lying on the tray, dimly seen through a blur of tears, and began to scrub her nose energetically with alas, not her handkerchief, but the powder-cloth with which she had been polishing the silver! “Ah chee! Ah chee!” sneezed Nathalie again and again, while groping frenziedly, but blindly, for her handkerchief. She must have dropped it. And then Helen’s arms were around her, and she was kissing the flushed cheek.

“What’s struck you, honey girl?” she asked in that gentle way of hers. “Have you got the influenza? But here’s a very necessary article at times, if that’s what you’re after,” she finished with a laugh, as she stooped and picked up Nathalie’s handkerchief from the floor.

“Influenza? No,” blurted out Nathalie savagely, tortured to a pitch of desperation at her unfortunate predicament. “I’ve been rubbing my nose with that dirty old piece of rag I clean the silver with. Serves me right, I suppose, for being such a fool as to cry when I should be ‘on my job,’ as Dick says.” She shamefacedly tried to hide her red eyes from her friend’s keen gaze.

“Oh, well, it will do you good to cry, Nathalie, dear,” advised Helen softly, as she stroked the brown head caressingly, “for you were quite a heroine when Dick went away, so courageous and cheery. Mrs. Morrow says you are the nerviest Pioneer she knows.”

“But I’m not,” confessed Nathalie honestly, “in fact, I’m beginning to think that I’m a bluff. But anyway, I’m glad to get a bit of praise, something to warm me up, for I have felt like a congealed icicle for the last few days. Yes, I have smiled and smiled like the poor Spartan boy, while the fox of Grief was gnawing a hole into my internals. That sounds like one of Lillie Bell’s dramatics, doesn’t it?” she smiled pathetically into her friend’s kindly eyes.

“But, Helen, you are a dear, anyway,” cried Nathalie in a sudden burst of admiration for her tried and trusted friend, who was always such a stanch and timely comforter. “And do you know,” she added, swinging about in her chair with the teapot in one hand and the despised polishing-cloth in the other, “you grow better-looking every day. Oh, I think you are just lovely!”

“I lovely?” mocked Helen, opening her eyes in surprise at this unexpected praise. “Well, Blue Robin, what started you on that trail? You must have been kissing the Blarney Stone, for you are handing me out ‘the stuff,’ as the boys say, for fair. Poor me, with a knob on my nose, a wide mouth, and green eyes—to call me lovely is a libel on the word.”

“Oh, Helen, your eyes are just lovely—every one says that, for they are so expressive,” retorted her friend loyally; “and as for the knob on your nose, no one would know it was there if you weren’t constantly telling them about it. But I don’t care what you look like anyway,” she added determinedly, “for I think you are a love of a friend. But when do you go to France?” she finished abruptly.

“I don’t quite know yet,” replied the girl; “perhaps not until a month or so. But mother is brave about letting me go. She says it will be a fine experience for me,—as long as I don’t have to go ‘over the top.’ Oh, you finished your service-flag! It’s a Jim Dandy!” Helen plunged recklessly into another topic, again blaming herself for her trick of alluding to forbidden subjects, for she had seen Nathalie’s lips quiver as she said “Over the top.”

“Yes, I finished it, and now the neighbors know where we stand, even if you consider me a pacifist,” said the girl a little defiantly. “Well, perhaps I shall think differently some day,” with a quickly repressed sigh.

“Yes, and that day is coming very soon, too, Blue Robin,” rejoined Helen; “for I’ll bet you a box of candy that you won’t be a pacifist after you hear Mrs. Morrow talk on liberty. Surely you haven’t forgotten that we are to go to a Liberty Tea at her house this afternoon?” she inquired as she saw her friend’s face settle down into an expression of gloom.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll go,” retorted Nathalie quickly, “for I don’t feel a bit Pioneery this morning, and then I have all this silver to clean.”

“But, Blue Robin,” returned her friend cheerily, “I’m going to help you finish up that silver, and then I’m going home to dress for this afternoon. Then I’m coming over here and just make you go to that Liberty Tea with me. You know, Nathalie, it would be mean for you to desert Mrs. Morrow,” she added wisely, “for you are the leader of the band and should help to entertain the girls.”

Whereupon, Helen caught up one of Nathalie’s kitchen-aprons, and a few moments later the two girls were laughing and chatting in the best of spirits, as they rubbed and polished with youthful ardor, every bone and muscle keyed to its task.

Yes, it was enlivening to be so warmly welcomed by her hostess, Nathalie decided, as she greeted her a little later in the afternoon, and her depression vanished. And how perfectly lovely Mrs. Morrow looked in that blue gown; yes, it was just the color of her blue-gray eyes. Under the fascination of this lady’s charming personality Nathalie was soon flying about, showing the girls how to start sweaters, or to purl, as this task had been delegated to her by the director, who herself had taught Nathalie.

When the tea was served it was Nathalie who occupied the place of honor at the little tea-table, decorated with the United States flag, and who dispensed the dainty little china cups filled with what was patriotically called Liberty Tea in honor of the young ladies who had given it its name over a hundred years ago, and who the Pioneers had impersonated last year in their entertainment of “Liberty Banners.”

After the teacups had been removed, and one or two announcements of coming events had been made, Mrs. Morrow, with sudden gravity, said:

“We have gathered here to-day, girls, to commemorate the Spirit of Liberty, the one great principle that has budded like Aaron’s rod, and brought forth other qualities as splendid and compelling as itself, as, for example, the principles represented in our national emblem. The principle of humanity, which means living the Golden Rule by taking thought for your neighbor; democracy, the equal rights of mankind, which in turn gives rise to justice, loyalty, and unity,—the principles that have not only given us that wonderful, mystical something called Americanism, but the principles that mean the Christianity of Christ.”

After the girls had discussed the meaning of liberty and summed it up as standing for man’s right to self-expression, either by words or actions, and made it clear that it had to be governed by the law of self-control, as too much freedom would mean license or lawlessness, Mrs. Morrow continued her little talk.

“Liberty is not something that sprang into being with the coming of the settlers to America, for it is as old as man himself; but under the rule of king-ridden states it has been fighting its way through many long centuries, because the peoples of the Old World failed to grasp its meaning.

“Under the stimulus of the Reformation and the Revival of Learning, induced by the printing of the Bible and other books, the early comers to America, as they endeavored to worship God as they thought right, not only left the intolerant forms and bigoted narrowness of the Old World, but threw the first light on liberty by teaching man his right to freedom of the soul. The Pilgrims and Puritans were the Pioneers of liberty, for they not only gave us religious freedom, but, by establishing a government for and by the people without the aid of king or bishop, laid the cornerstone of a great commonwealth, and gave us democratic liberty.

“If you girls would make a study of the history of the Thirteen Colonies,” went on their director, “you would learn that not only each Colony contributed to the principles embodied in every stripe, star, and color of our spangled banner, but that a universal love of freedom seems to have animated the settlers. Each individual group, to be sure, had its own peculiar belief, but, in the working-out of their cherished ideals and aspirations, liberty was the bone and sinew of every colony.

“It was under the influence of these early settlers—the giving of their best to mankind in their struggles for freedom—that the ideals and beliefs of the New World were molded into higher and better institutions, purified and strengthened by a new significance. Their ideals and aspirations were essentially different from anything known before,—ideals peculiar to this soil, which were absolutely American, not only in religious freedom, but in the institutions of local government and the union of all states into one, which gave rise to the United States of America.

“Now we have come to the great subject of the hour, the war, and a question I have heard several of you girls ask, ‘Why are we in the war?’”

Nathalie felt her face redden, and shifted uneasily in her seat. O dear! she did wish she had not come. Of course the talk was very interesting, but still she didn’t want to think of this terrible war.

“I have heard it said,” pursued Mrs. Morrow, “that we are in the war to avenge the sinking of the Lusitania, and that we must not allow the Germans to break the international law by killing our sailors and seamen. I have heard it said, too, that if they conquered the Allies they would come over here and fight us. These are all sufficient reasons in a sense.”

The lady paused, and then, with grave solemnity, said: “And I have heard it put forth that we are in the war to maintain our national honor and integrity. I think I hear some of you girls say, ‘But we haven’t done any wrong: we have kept neutral; our principles are not involved.’”

Nathalie’s eyes were aglow as she bent forward, and with parted lips anxiously awaited Mrs. Morrow’s reply to this question.

“Now that we realize the depth and grandeur of the principles given to us by the founders of this nation, and know that every time our flag is unfurled it tells the world that religious and democratic liberty were born on these shores of America, are we going back on these principles? Are we going to allow other nations to say that our principles are just in the flying of our colors, that they stand for nothing but self-praise and the nation’s glorification?

“No,” cried the lady with grave emphasis, “by our love for our flag, by our love for our birth-land, by our reverence for the men who taught us these principles we swear to defend every time we hoist our colors, we must get into this war. We must prove that our flag is in the right place, and that we carry it in our hearts. We must strive to show with our soul’s might that we are living these principles by being true to ourselves and to our nation’s honor, and carry our feelings into action.

“We must forget self, our desire for selfish ease and pleasure. We must align ourselves with the suffering masses of people across the sea, and help them to rid themselves of the iron-shod heel of one-man power. We must stand side by side with the Allies for humanity, democracy, and liberty. We must show the world that the so-called divine right of kings is a worn-out belief of savagery, and prove by the principles back of our flag, prove by the living of these principles, the sacredness of God’s heritage to man, the right of the world’s people to know, as we know, the principles that have made us the freest people in the world.

“Each one of you girls must not only do your bit, but must give of your best to your brothers and sisters over the sea. And if the best means the giving-up of those who are so dear to us, we must prove that we are true daughters of liberty, and send them forth cheerfully, to give freedom and liberty to the world.”

There was an impressive silence, and then Mrs. Morrow’s voice broke into song. In another moment the girls had joined their voices with hers, and were loudly sounding forth the old-time tune and the well-beloved words:

“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on!”