The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 3

"Fine," agreed Grace, adding with a chuckle as Mollie handed over the almost full box: "Since my candies were more than half gone, I don't call it such a bad bargain at that."

"I'll say it wasn't," dimpled Betty.

"Just the same," said Mollie, after a little pause, "even though the twins are a great deal of trouble, Mother said she just wouldn't have known what to do without them--especially after I went to Camp Liberty--the house would have been so frightfully dull."

"I should think so," said Grace, adding suddenly, as though she had thought of it for the first time: "Why she would have been all alone, wouldn't she? How awful!" For Mollie had no father, he having died several years before.

"And the other day she said the strangest thing," Mollie continued, suddenly earnest. "You know how she adores Paul. Well, I caught her looking at him with the most wistful expression, and when I asked her what the matter was she looked up at me and I saw there were tears in her eyes.

"'It's Paul,' she said softly. 'Of course I'm thankful he is so little that I can keep him safe at home with me, but sometimes when I think of my dear country and the terrible wrongs she has suffered, I almost wish that my little son were old enough to bring retribution upon those hideous Germans. Sometimes I feel cheated--yes, you needn't stare--that I have not a son "over there".'"

"Oh, Mollie!" cried the Little Captain softly, "what a wonderful thing to say. And yet I think she would die if anything happened to either of the twins."

"That's just it," said Mollie, her eyes glowing with pride. "Loving them as she does, she almost wishes it were possible to make the supreme sacrifice for her country."

"It was that spirit," said Grace thoughtfully, "that won the battle of the Marne."

For a long time after that the girls worked quietly, each busy with her own thoughts. It was Amy who finally broke the silence.

"And here we are," she said plaintively, "letting another whole afternoon slip by without deciding what we are going to do on our vacation. Can't somebody suggest something?"

"I have already suggested half a dozen things, only to be laughed to scorn," said Mollie, adding decidedly: "I'm through."

"And nothing I can say seems to meet with approval," added Betty plaintively.

"Well," said Grace, stretching herself, sitting up in the swing, and looking important, "n.o.body asks me whether I have anything to suggest,"

adding as they turned a battery of surprised and eager glances her way: "I don't know whether I can be persuaded to tell you now or not."

"Tell us!" they cried, piling into the swing till the supporting ropes creaked with the strain.

"Can't we bribe you with candy?" pleaded Amy.

"No. I just made an advantageous trade in that article, you will remember," was the answer.

"Anyway, we don't bribe, we command," put in Betty. "Grace, we refuse to be trifled with. What have you to suggest? Out with it!"

"You'd better hurry," added Mollie, raising her knitting needle threateningly, "before I spit thee like a pig!"

CHAPTER IV

GRACE SURPRISES HER CHUMS

"I'm not a pig," cried Grace, striving to look dignified, which is a rather difficult procedure when one is being hugged by three pairs of arms at once. "I don't care how many times you spit me, whatever that is, Mollie, but you shan't call me a pig."

"Of course she shan't," said Betty soothingly. "If she does it again, we'll try our hand at this spitting business--"

"Goodness, sounds like a cat fight," chuckled Grace, but Mollie unceremoniously shook her into attention.

"Grace, behave and tell us," she ordered.

"What?" asked Grace aggravatingly, but added hastily as Mollie again raised the knitting needle at a threatening angle: "All right, if you'll just give me s.p.a.ce enough to breathe I'll do any little thing you ask."

With that the three jumped from the swing so suddenly that Grace, the only occupant left, bounced into the air and landed with a thump on the cus.h.i.+ons.

They laughed and drew up three chairs in a semi-circle in front of her to make escape impossible. Then three pairs of merry eyes focused commandingly upon her.

"I didn't know it myself till last night," she said in response to the tacit order. "Then it was patriotic Aunt Mary who proposed it."

"Proposed what?" they cried.

"Well, that's what I'm going to tell you if you give me half a chance.

She said she felt as if she owed something to us girls for having stood so loyally behind Uncle Sam, and had decided to offer us her cottage at Bluff Point to use as long as we wanted it."

"Bluff Point!" cried Betty, while her eyes began to sparkle. "Why Grace!

isn't that the place you were telling us about--"

"Where the quaint little house stands on a bluff--" added Amy eagerly.

"Overlooking a sparkling white beach that leads down to the ocean?" went on Betty.

"The very same," nodded Grace, and they heaved a sigh of pure excitement and happiness.

"Isn't it wonderful," cried Mollie joyfully, "how somebody is always doing something to make us happy?"

"Yes, but when I said that to Aunt Mary last night she smiled and looked wise--you know how sweet she is--and said that that was the way happiness always came to us--by helping others to be happy."

"But we haven't done anything to make anybody happy--particularly that is," said Mollie wondering.

"I said that too," nodded Grace. "But she only went on smiling, and I realized she must have meant our work at the Hostess House."

"It's strange how everybody persists in calling it work and giving us so much credit when it was all such fun," said Betty. "But girls," she added, laughing breathlessly, "the great fact is that we are going to have another adventure in the open. The very thought of it makes me want to roll in the b.u.t.tercups."

"Goodness, there's one open in the back meadow," suggested Mollie. "You can roll in it, if you want to."

"Well, I don't--I want a whole patch of them!" cried Betty, while the rest laughed at Mollie's picture. "My, I feel younger already."

"Well of course you need to," drawled Grace, adding with a fond glance at the glowing Little Captain: "You look so terribly like a dried-up ancient, dear."

"But when shall we start?" cried Mollie, coming back to the all-absorbing topic at hand. "Goodness, I'd like to throw a few clothes in a suitcase and start right away--quick--this minute--I can't wait!"

"Do you think it's catching?" asked Grace, anxiously.

"From the way I feel I should say it was already caught," twinkled Betty, adding eagerly: "How long do you suppose we will have to wait, Grace? Did your Aunt Mary say when we could have the cottage?"