CHAPTER VITHE STRANGE LETTER

“Enter at Freedom’s porch,[1]For you I lift my torch,For you my coronetIs rayed with starsMy name is Liberty,My throne is Law.”

Guarding the Spirit of Liberty, while holding the streamers that floated from the banners above, were three more white-robed figures, representing the three great principles for which the world was striving. The unbound tresses of each were banded with white, and the first bore the word, “Democracy,” the girl holding a white dove on her hand. The second was Humanity,—who cuddled a little Belgian refugee in her arms; and the third was Justice, who held aloft a pair of scales.

Nathalie’s eyes radiated with gladness as she heard her neighbors voice their commendations in praises of the snowy chariot, the symbol of freedom, man’s divine heritage from God. She began to feel that the manyhours that she and Helen had spent in devising and planning the details of this float and its mates, after all, might be appreciated.

The second picture was a marriage scene, a float marked “Virginia, 1607,” and bore the famous words of its well-known orator, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” It was decorated with white flowers in honor of the bride, Pocahontas,—impersonated by a Camp Fire girl in an Indian deerskin robe wondrously embroidered, and gay with many-colored beads,—who stood by the flower-decked pulpit amid a bower of green, being united in the holy bands of matrimony to John Rolfe.

The pose of the Indian maiden, the sweet seriousness of her tawny-dyed face and melting black eyes, the dignified pose of the Virginia planter, so vividly portrayed the romantic episode of the first American colony, that the many onlookers broke forth into shouts of approval. The quaintly attired figures of the Jamestown settlers in the foreground, and the group of Indian warriors with their war-plumes and dabs of paint were backed by a miniature tower. Some one inquired if it was a monument, much to the young president’s disgust, as she considered it a noble work of art, which had been laboriously built of old bricks by the Girl Pioneers to represent the ruined tower of Jamestown.

“My name is Liberty,My throne is Law.”—Page75.

Massachusetts was identified by the words, “The Founders of Liberty,” and a simulated boulder, which Blue Robin watched with great trepidation for fear the blithesome Mary Chilton, who stood victorious on this Forefathers’ Rock, in too zealous jubilation would shake it too much. But the sprightly Pilgrim maiden, in gray cape and bonnet—it was the Sport—remembered the perilous foundations, and her scorn was discreetly tempered with caution as she gazed at the somewhat crestfallen John, who stood with one foot on the rock, and the other in a miniature shallop, where the Pilgrim Fathers stood dismally regarding this forerunner of the progressive American girl.

New York’s contribution to the cause of freedom was a float brilliantly rampant with the Stars and Stripes, and a little white flag with a black beaver on it, the State’s emblem. This float, which bore the words, “The Sons of Liberty,” was in commemoration of the brave lovers of freedom on the little isle of Manhattan, who, in February, 1770, raised the first Liberty Pole in America at what is now known as City Hall Park. To be sure, it was cut down twice, but Liberty was afire, and it was finally hooped with iron and set up the third time, this time to stay.

“Liberty Hall,” the name of the home of a one-time governor of New Jersey, was conspicuously seen on the next float. The girls had had some difficulty in getting an appropriate design for this little garden State that could be conveniently staged on a small-sizedplatform. But they had evidently succeeded, for the quaintly gowned young maiden who acted her rôle in pantomime was loudly applauded as she flew to an improvised window, only to exhibit wild alarm, and then in frenzied haste scurried to an old-time escritoire. Here she rummaged a moment or so, and then extracted a bundle of letters, which she hurriedly secreted behind a loosened brick beside a simulated fireplace. In explanation of this silent drama Nathalie told that the young girl was Susannah, the daughter of William Livingston, the governor, who, when she saw the redcoats marching towards the house in her father’s absence, quickly remembered his valuable papers and hid them for safety.

Five girls in homespun gowns, sewing on a United States flag, composed the New Hampshire float, which flew the State emblem, with its motto of Liberty inscribed on its side. The flag-makers, out of their best silk gowns, were making, in accordance with the description in the resolution just passed by Congress, June 14, 1777, the first Stars and Stripes that floated from theRanger, to which Captain Paul Jones had just been commissioned, and which became known as “the unconquered and unstricken flag.”

The Connecticut float bore the words, “The Liberty Charter,” while a Liberty Girl, in a good impersonation of Ruth Wyllis, stood by a ladder resting against a somewhat strange simulation of the Charter Oak,handing the supposed charter to the redoubtable Captain Wadsworth, who quickly secreted it in the hollow of the tree.

Terra Marie, the land of Mary, not only blazoned the words, “The Rights of Liberty,” but portrayed Margaret Brent, the first woman suffragist, as she stood before the Maryland Assembly and pleaded with those worthies, with masculine energy, for her right to a say in the affairs of the little State, the State noted for its Toleration Act of 1649. Surely the good woman, as the representative of the deceased Governor Calvert, who had given his all to her with the words, “Take all, and give all,” had a right to demand that she be heard.

The “Daughters of Liberty” made a brilliant showing in big letters on the little Rhody float, to honor the seventeen young girls who, in 1766, met at the home of good old Deacon Bowen, in Providence, and not only voiced their disapproval of the Colonies’ tax on tea and on cloth manufactured in England, but formed the first patriotic organization known in America. It was the same inspiration of liberty that impelled their emulators to adopt their name, and to plan and push through the demonstration of which every one was so proud. As these Liberty maidens sat and spun at their looms, or whetted their distaffs on the float before the gaping crowd, they were guarded by two impersonations,—one the father of toleration, Roger Williams, who looked benignantly down upon these devotees of freedom,and the other, America’s first club-woman, the learned and martyred Anne Hutchinson.

Ah, but who is this riding astride a horse of sable blackness, curveting and prancing with chafing irritation at the tightened rein of its rider, who

“Burly and big, and bold and bluff,In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff,A foe to King George and the English state,Was Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.”[2]

Of course there were a few who were not familiar with this little incident in the history of Delaware, and how the aforesaid Rodney, a member of the Continental Congress, spurred his horse from Dover to Philadelphia, a distance of eighty-one miles, to reach Independence Hall before night, in order to cast the vote of Delaware for freedom and independence. It was, indeed, a great ride, and the townspeople must have appreciated it, for the horse and rider were heartily cheered as they read the words on the banner: “It is Liberty’s stress; it is Freedom’s need.”

North Carolina proved most interesting, with the inscription, “The First Liberty Bell of America,” on a big hand-bell resting in the center of the float. The inscription and the bell aroused so much curiosity as to why it should take precedence of the old Liberty Bell at Philadelphia, that Nathalie was called upon by a group of friends sitting near, to explain that it reallywas the first Liberty Bell used in the Thirteen Colonies, having sounded its peal for liberty when rung by the patriots of that State in 1771.

“These patriots,” went on the young Liberty Girl, “were the farmers and yeomanry of that State, who, in a vigorous protest against the tyrannous acts, misrule, and extortion during the administration of Governor Tryon, banded themselves into a company known as the Regulators. This bell was used to call them together in their struggle to maintain the rights of the people. These Regulators were not only hounded, persecuted, and sometimes executed as if they were rebels, but many of their number were killed at the battle of the Alamance,—so named because it took place on a field near that beautiful river,—when called upon to defend themselves, when fired upon by the governor and a company of the king’s troops. This battle has been called by some the first battle of the Revolution,” continued the young girl, “and really inspired the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the forerunner of the noted Declaration signed at Philadelphia. Some historians claim that ‘God made the flower of freedom grow out of the turf that covered these men’s graves.’”

After this little story, the inscription,

“And well these men maintained the right;They kept the faith and fought the fight;Till Might and Reason bothFled fast before the oathWhich brought the God of Freedom’s battles downTo place on patriot’s brow the victor’s crown!”[3]

on the float was eagerly read and doubly appreciated. By the bell stood a tiny maid in the long skirt of the days of colonial childhood, wearing a long white apron. With the crossed kerchief and two bright eyes peeping from beneath the golden curls that strayed from below the little one’s Puritan cap, she looked so sweet and demure that murmurs of admiration surged through the crowd, as they recognized that this diminutive lady represented the first white child born in America, little Virginia Dare.

Perhaps only a few knew that the white fawn that she was holding by her side featured the legend of the white doe that was said to haunt the isle of Roanoke for many years after the return of John White, who found only the wordCroatanto tell him that his dear little granddaughter had disappeared, never to be found. The legend was so suggestive of the romance of North Carolina that the girls could not forbear giving it prominence on the float. They had had some trouble to find a white doe, but they had succeeded, and as Nathalie gazed at it she was again reminded of how the legend told that it used to stand mournfully gazing out to sea, on a hill of the little isle. The Indians, tradition asserted, had failed to kill it, until one day it was shot and killed by a silver bullet from the hand of an Indian chieftain, who claimed that the bullethad been given to him by Queen Elizabeth to kill witches, when a captive in England. As the beautiful doe sank upon the green sward and expired it was said to have murmured, “Virginia Dare! Virginia Dare!”

South Carolina, glaringly conspicuous with red and blue bunting, was marked “Liberty” in honor of one of the most famous flags used in the Revolutionary War. It was an ensign of blue with a white crescent in one corner, said to have been designed by Colonel Moultrie, of Carolina fame, and was declared to have been the first flag raised for liberty in the South.

In the center of the float a miniature trench had been raised, on the parapet of which stood a young lad waving this little blue flag, in honor of that gallant hero, Sergeant Jasper, who, when the flag was shot down during the bombardment of Fort Moultrie, June 28, 1776, leaped fearlessly to the top of the ramparts, received the colors, and held them in his hand until another staff was found.

“Lo! the fullness of time has come,And over all the exiles’ Western homeFrom sea to sea the flowers of Freedom bloom.”

This little quotation was an apt one, from the Poet Whittier, but it was not necessary to make known to those gazing at it, that it stood for the strongest and proudest of the sisterhood of States, the home of freemen and heroes, of Robert Morris, Dr. Franklin and our good brother, William Penn.

This promoter of tolerance, independence, and the equal rights of men was fittingly portrayed by a Boy Scout. Benignant of face, mild of eye, with long hair falling from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, this friend of the friendless stood surrounded by a group of Indian warriors, resplendent in all the trappings of their tribes, making one of the numerous peace treaties.

But the Georgia float, buried in white to represent bolls of cotton, in memory of Eli Whitney, aroused such loud and long cries of admiration that Nathalie feared that after her hard labor the other floats had not received their due mead of appreciation. But no, it was the rousing melody of “Marching through Georgia,” with its telling lines of,

“So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,Sixty miles in latitude—three hundred to the main;”

and the inspiration that always comes to every Northern heart when they think of that gallant Son of Liberty, Sherman, and his triumphant march to the sea, that had created the sudden tumult.

The few men in regimentals of the Union army,—in real life, boys in brown from Camp Mills,—who were playing fifes and bugles on the float, and the straggling darkies in the rear, who were shouting with verve and gusto, as they followed in the wake of “Massa Sherman,” intensified the appeal.

Ah, but now comes another edition of Liberty; thistime no less a personage than Lillie Bell, who, in the old costume worn over a year ago on the lawn of the big gray house, was standing on a chariot, an old farm wagon ablaze with the colors of Freedom, driven by four soldiers, representing France, England, Belgium, and America. The young goddess with sad and tragic eyes shining from beneath her helmet, gazed straight before her as she held a drawn sword clasped closely to her breast, in a graceful pose beneath the colors of the Allies floating gayly above her head.

Yes, there was no doubt, as Helen had often said, Lillie was born for stellar rôles, for somehow she had the happy faculty of always falling into the desired attitude and mood of the part she was to portray. A sudden silence gripped the line of people standing on the curb, as they saw this familiar figure of Liberty, in a new and strange rôle. On a beflagged chair of state good old Uncle Sam was seated, driving America’s symbol of Freedom with reins of roses. Yes, roses to typify that the good protector of the United States’ joys and interests was on the job,—as the Sport expressed it,—but doing it with the silken reins of love.

In the rear of this float a very small one appeared, but it was large enough to display a cannon and a pile of cannon-balls, and also a member of the United States Marines’ crack quartet of machine-gunners. As he was the genuine article, as one of the girls declared,—being one of the town’s boys home on a leaveof absence, and held a Lewis gun, he was received with wild cheers. A Jackie was perched on what was supposed to be a conning-tower, apparently on the watch for a submarine, while another soldier of the seas was ramming an old cannon, which created much laughter.

It wasn’t much of a naval display, Nathalie thought regretfully, but it was the best they could do with their poor equipment, for these Daughters of Freedom were resolved to give due honor to these brave guardians of the sea.

A contingent of husky young chaps from Camp Mills were lionized as soon as their khaki-clad figures were sighted on the next float, which was marked, “Liberty Boys.” A somewhat crude representation of a trench, piled with sand-bags, with a few boys in tin hats, with guns in their hands, clambering over it, represented to the spectators an “Over the Top” scene. In the rear of the trench a few soldiers were grouped around a camp-fire, presumably in a restbillet, having “eats.” Every moment or so a soldier on this float would break forth into some war-song, which was quickly taken up by his comrades, and which helped to make the scene very realistic.

A small float with the Red Cross insignia, bearing the words, “The Cross of Liberty,” with a few nurses seated around a table making bandages, now appeared. A white cot, with a soldier boy in it, suddenly silenced the cheers,—it was so suggestive of what every heartheld in silent dread and fear, ever since the United States had buckled to the fray.

But the sudden quiet was broken as the next, and last, float hove in sight. It was so artistically gotten up as a Liberty Garden, and represented so much freshness and beauty with its Liberty Girls, each one dressed to represent either a fruit or a vegetable, that it was wildly cheered. Masses of fruit piled up here and there peeped from bowers of green leaves, or hung in festoons across the float. Potatoes, green and red peppers, onions, cucumbers, and many other products of the garden were lavishly in evidence. Carol, the Tike, was arrayed as a pumpkin, a row of yellow leaves standing above a bunch of green ones. Carrots, cucumbers, turnips, even beans, beets, and strawberries were ingeniously represented by crêpe paper.

But the love of every heart were the Morrow twins, standing in the front of the float in blue overalls, wide-brimmed hats, and blue shirts, with rakes and hoes in their hands, as farmerettes, each one vigorously waving a flag. This float completed the series of pictures that Nathalie now felt had been duly admired, and she smiled happily at the many plaudits that again burst forth. But when the farmerettes and these living representations of fruits and vegetables broke into[4]

“Yes, we’ll rally round the farm, boys,We’ll rally once again,Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em.’We’ve got the ships and moneyAnd the best of fighting men,Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em.’“The Onion forever, the beans and the corn,Down with the tater—it’s up the next morn—While we rally round the plow, boys,And take the hoe again,Shouting the battle cry of ‘Feed ’em!’”

it captured every heart present, and such prolonged applause rent the air that Nathalie was duly satisfied.

As she turned to leave the grand-stand it seemed to the tired girl as if every one in town stopped to shake hands, and to congratulate her on the huge success of the Liberty Pageant. When she finally arrived home, it was some hours before she reached her couch, for she found the family unduly excited, all eagerly talking; no, not about the pageant, but about a rather strange letter that had been received by Mrs. Page that afternoon.

[1]

“Liberty Enlightening the World,” E. C. Stedman.

[2]

“Rodney’s Ride.” Poems of American History. B. C. Stevenson.

[3]

“The Mecklenburg Declaration,” Wm. C. Elam.

[4]

“Patriotic Toasts,” Emerson Brooks.

CHAPTER VITHE STRANGE LETTER

“Oh, Helen, mother received the strangest letter last night,” cried Nathalie suddenly the following day, as she stood with her friend and Nita in the Red Cross booth at the Liberty Sale. “And I am afraid it means,” the girl’s eyes shadowed, “that I shall have to resign as president of the club.”

“Resign?” exclaimed Helen and Nita simultaneously. “Oh, Nathalie, you must not do that.”

“Well, I fear it will be necessary,” sighed the girl dolefully, “for the home duties come first, especially the duties to mother, and she wants to go—she really needs the change—and—”

“Go where?” questioned Helen sharply. “Oh, Nathalie, you are talking Dutch to us, and—”

“Sure she is,” voiced Nita quickly, “jumbling letters and resignations all together in a very queer way. Now suppose, young lady,” she commanded imperiously, seizing her friend by the arm impulsively, “that you unravel our tangled brains and tell us what you are aiming at.”

“Well, I guess I shall have to, from the stew you two girls have sizzled into,” replied Blue Robin laughingly.“Well, as I said,” she continued more soberly, “mother received a letter last night. But I shall have to tell you a bit of family history, if you want to understand,” she added hesitatingly.

As the two girls laughingly assured her that that would only make her explanation more interesting, Nathalie gathered up her threads and went on with her story. “Father had an older half-sister, whose mother—who came of very wealthy people in Boston—left her all of her money, so that she was quite wealthy, and in due time became very eccentric. Father said she was spoiled with her pot of gold.

“She married when quite young and had one son, who, shortly after the death of his father,—as soon as he was graduated from college,—went to Europe, fell in love with a pretty girl, and married her. I have never heard the details of this marriage, but I believe the girl was French. No, she may have been English; anyway it was quite a romance, and the young couple were quite happy.

“My aunt, however, was deeply wounded to think that her only son, her idol, had spoiled all her plans and married some one whom she considered beneath him. So when Philip came to America with his young wife, my aunt refused to see her. This angered him so deeply that they quarreled, and Philip rushed from his mother’s presence, declaring that she should never see his face again.

“And she never did,” asserted Nathalie with grave emphasis. “Presumably he immediately returned to Europe with his young wife, for although Mrs. Renwick soon repented of her folly, as father called it, and wrote her son again and again, she heard nothing from him. After employing detectives by the score with no result, she finally went abroad and endeavored herself to find some trace of him, but was not successful. She finally returned to America and started to seek him here, but found no clew to his whereabouts.

“As time passed—I think the matter preyed on her mind—she began to have queer spells. No, she wasn’t crazy, or anything likethat, but just worried and unhappy, going off alone by herself for months at a time, presumably still trying to find her boy. After a time she would return from one of these erratic journeys, but she never told where she had been, and never mentioned her son’s name.

“Now we have come to the letter mother received yesterday. It was from my aunt’s lawyer, who summers in Littleton, New Hampshire. You see, Mrs. Renwick had considerable property in Boston and other places, but she was very fond of the White Mountains and always summered on Sugar Hill, where she had a lovely place called Seven Pillars, only a few miles from Littleton, and just a short distance from the mountain village of Franconia.

“The lawyer,” continued Nathalie, who by this timehad quite an interested audience, “writes mother that Aunt Mary went off on one of her queer jaunts over a year ago and has not returned. In accordance with her wishes,—she always leaves a letter of instruction when she goes off this way,—mother and two cousins of mine from the West have been invited to spend the summer at this place on Sugar Hill. Mother wants to go, and I feel that she needs the change, so I shall have to go with her, and give up being a Liberty Girl.”

“But why shouldyouhave to go?” questioned Nita insistently. “Couldn’t your cousin, Lucille, or your sister, Dorothy, go with her? And then, oh, Nathalie, you could stay with us! Oh, that would be the dandiest thing! Oh, say yes, Nathalie; say yes.”

“Yes, Nita,” smiled Nathalie teasingly, as she placed her arm affectionately about the young girl, “it would be just dandy, as you say, for indeed I would like a rest myself this summer, because when the warm weather comes, housework does drag on one so. But Lucille is going to California to visit some cousins of hers, and has planned to take Dorothy with her. Dorothy is wild to go, and mother would not disappoint the child for the world. And then, too, the lawyer wrote mother that I was to come with her, as my aunt had given instructions. Oh, I just hate to give up my Liberty work!”

“But you will be back in the fall, Nathalie,” suggested Helen, “so why not let Lillie Bell takecharge—she is vice-president—for the summer? It will give her something to think about, too, for she is possessed with the idea of going on the stage, and her mother is worrying herself ill over it.”

“Lillie wants to go on the stage?” repeated Nathalie in surprise. “Why, I didn’t know she had aspirations in that line. But do you think she would care to take charge of the club? O dear!” she broke off abruptly, “we had planned to do so many things this summer.” The girl’s voice was almost a wail.

“Why not carry your plans to the mountains with you,” inquired her friend, “and form a club of Liberty Girls up there? I am sure there will be some one who will be glad to belong, and you have such a fine way of getting people interested in things, Nathalie.”

“Possibly mother may change her mind and decide not to go,” returned Nathalie, brightening a little, “for she wants to be near Dick; you know he is now stationed at the Aviation Camp, Hazlehurst, at Mineola, near Camp Mills. And then, too, she says she hates to leave the house alone for so long a period.”

“Why don’t you rent the house for the summer?” suggested Helen practically. “You know that Westport is getting to be quite a summer-resort since the new hotel was built on the bluff.”

“No such good luck for us, I’m afraid,” answered Nathalie dejectedly, “but I’ll look up Lillie and see what—” But Helen had hurried away in answer to acall for the captain of the Red Cross Squad. Nathalie stood a moment watching her friend, as she helped one of the “white-veiled” girls into her white head-covering, starred with its cross, and then went slowly out of the booth.

As her eyes swept over the lawn in search of Lillie her glance fell upon the little flag with its Red Cross insignia floating cheerily from the top of the booth she had just left, as if in a salute to its companion cross placed below on the front, so that its arms stretched outward, dividing the booth into two sections.

Ah, here was the poster drawn by Barbara Worth representing a Red Cross nurse standing by an invalid chair, in which sat a soldier boy with bandaged eyes. The girl’s face saddened at its implication, and then she had bent forward and was reading the placard persuasively held forth by the nurse, on which was written:

“Please buy a Liberty bond of me,It’s for the soldiers across the sea,Bravely fighting to make the world free,Wounded, and dying, for you and me.”

But now her eyes were held by the poster of a white-robed figure,—representing the Spirit of Liberty which had heralded the pageant of the day before,—waving a flag victoriously above her head, while holding a shield with the Biblical quotation:

“I have fought a good fight ... I have kept the faith.”

The face of this water-color sketch of Freedom, although bearing no resemblance to Nita’s, was so bright with hope that it thrilled the girl’s heart with the suggestion that the Allies, by their faith in God and their desire to do right, would finally win a victory over sin and wrong.

At this moment she heard the voice of Nita as she called her to come and see the display of small dolls, miniature Red Cross nurses, to be used as weights, door-holders, or pincushions, which were on sale. But some real dolls, as Nita called them, proved more interesting to Nathalie, because they were the work of a shut-in, as her bit towards winning the war, and because they were impersonations of some of the crowned heads of the allied nations. They were queer little things, stiff and stilted-looking, although several were excellent imitations, especially those of their majesties, King George and Queen Mary, and the little Princess Marie of Belgium.

The girl could not forbear giving Shep—a big, tawny-colored collie belonging to the Morrow twins—a love-pat, as he stood in front of the booth with red-hanging tongue and patient resignation in his brown eyes, while several young nurses fussed over him. They were trying to fasten a strip of white cloth around the center of his body, with a red cross on each side, in imitation of a war-dog who had served with a Red Cross hospital in France, and who had becomefamous by his acts of bravery, running into shell-holes and dug-outs in search of wounded soldiers.

But Shep was no patriot, and evidently did not realize the honor of that big red cross, for suddenly he gave his huge body a shake, slipped from beneath the fussing fingers, and bounded away after his young masters, leaving a gentle friend to humanity lying sprawling on the grass.

As Nathalie turned, her eyes traveled slowly from one booth to another. There were seven of them, three on the left and three on the right of the Red Cross booth, which was in the center of the lawn, at one end, fronting its sister booths. The war booth, on the left, ablaze with the flags of the Allies, was curiously decorated on its front and posts with the paper coverings from magazines and books. On its counter were displayed the latest war books,—all donated after a sharp drive by the hostesses, the Camp Fire Girls, who wore embroidered deerskin robes aglisten with many-colored beads, and trench-caps stuck jauntily on one side of their heads, which gave them a very coquettish and natty appearance.

Scrap-books, in which were pasted funny verses, tidbits of news from all over the world, with many-colored pictures, and songs and rhymes to amuse the convalescents in the hospitals, were also on sale. Little candles of paper added to the attractiveness of this booth’s display, while one or two Camp Fire Girls werein attendance, who, on the payment of a nickel, taught the uninitiated the knack of making these trench-candles.

But the booth that held the first place in Nathalie’s heart was the Liberty-Garden booth, a leaf-embowered tent. Here were brilliant splashes of color from the vegetables piled on wicker mats, as carrots, turnips, beans, onions, beets, and other products, artistically softened by the light green of lettuce, the red of beet-leaves, and the delicate, lacy leaves of the carrot.

Here and there herbs tied in bunches, as thyme, caraway seeds, catnip, sweet lavender, and other herbs, suggested the days of long ago, when these little garden accessories held a higher place with the housewife as necessities of the day. Unwieldy tomatoes and potatoes, lazily resting on plates, added to the picturesque effect of the display, as well as the festoons of peppers, radishes, parsnips, and vegetables of similar character that were hung from side to side of the tent.

This booth was certainly a brilliant showing of the work done by the Pioneers. Oh, how they had scrubbed and polished those vegetables to bring out their colors, so they would not be messy or huddled-looking! And the time it had taken to print the little labels so neatly fastened to each exhibit!

Yes, through the sweat of her brow Nathalie had come to realize that gardening was not merely a matter of digging, plowing, or even planting or weeding,but that it meant straying into many paths of knowledge that hitherto had been closed to her. Then, too, there was the trench warfare, as she called the unceasing onslaught against the bugs, insects, and garden slugs, by a constant fire of hand-grenades and bombs, as the girls had come to call the spraying and powdering of the plants.

Ah, there was Lillie, with a number of Girl Pioneers, who, in bright-colored overalls and shirt-waists, and coquettish little sunbonnets tied under their chins, were rather gay editions of farmerettes, as they stood in picturesque attitudes, with their rakes and hoes. But a moment later Lillie was forgotten, for as Nathalie reached the booth she burst into a sudden squeal of delight on suddenly perceiving, on the top of a wall of canned vegetables, a little green imp, ingeniously made from a string-bean. He not only had a most rakish air, with his tiny soldier-hat cocked on one side, as he stood at attention with a flag for a gun, but he held forth a little placard on which was written:

“Little Beans, little Beans, whence did you come?”“We came from the ground at the sound of the drum.”“Little Beans, little Beans, why are you here?”“We were scalded and canned by a Girl Pioneer.”

“Oh, who wrote that?” merrily inquired the girl of one of the Pioneers, for it was something she had not seen before.

“Why, one of the Pioneer directors,” answered thefarmerette smilingly, pleased at the young president’s surprise.

A moment’s inspection of the fine display of canned goods, and Nathalie turned to seek Lillie, but that young lady had mysteriously disappeared. One of the girls, suggesting that Lillie had gone to the Liberty Tea booth to regale herself with a cup of tea, Nathalie hurried on to that booth, where the Daughters of Liberty, attired in quaint, old-time costumes, dispensed that beverage.

But Lillie was not drinking tea, and again Nathalie hurried across the lawn, on her way to the opposite booth, a mass of vines and flowers, the result of the labors of the Girl Scouts in their garden, which they had named the Garden of Freedom.

Ah, here was Lillie talking to a brown-clad soldier-boy by the big Liberty pole that had been erected in the center of the lawn, facing the Red Cross booth. It flew the Stars and Stripes and the club’s ensign, a little red banner blazoned with the white stars of hope, while a big liberty bell was hung from a cross-beam. On its flag-bedecked platform Carol Tyke was stationed as the bell-ringer, for later in the afternoon she was to strike the big bell to announce some patriotic speech, or fiery oration, to be made in a sharp drive to sell the Liberty bonds.

Lillie, seeing Nathalie coming in her direction, advanced towards her, and immediately presented hersoldier-friend, and in a few moments the three young people were having a sprightly chat. But Nathalie, soon recalled to the business on hand, turned and told the young vice-president why she was so anxious to see her.

“Yes; yes, indeed, Nathalie,” cried the girl quickly. “I am Hooverizing this summer, and as I do not expect to leave town until late in the fall, I shall be most delighted to accept the office of acting president for the summer.”

A few moments later, relieved of her anxiety as to what would become of the Liberty Girls in case she went to the mountains, Nathalie thanked her friend, and hastened over to the Garden of Freedom, where nasturtiums, pink poppies, sweet peas, phlox, and other old-fashioned blooms peered at her in a riotous flaunt of color.

The Girl Scouts, who were charmingly gotten up to represent flowers, beamed with pleasure as their president complimented them on the splendid display they made, and the honor they had won by their hard labor. They not only sold cut flowers, but potted plants, as well as toothsome sweets, made without sugar, they declared, as they coaxingly tempted Nathalie to sample a few.

But she had time only for a nibble or two, and then she was off to the knitting booth, where a bewildering assortment of sweaters, helmets, mufflers, socks, andother knitted articles stared at her in a “homespuney” sort of way that reminded her of her grandmother. She remembered how, as a child, she used to watch her as she sat by the fire knitting, and the fun it was when the ball went rolling under the table and she scrambled after it.

No, she could not hurry by this booth, for Marie’s eyes, big but shy, and bright with a beautiful soft blackness, shone so pleadingly from the clear pallor of her ivory-tinted skin, that they could not be resisted. “Oh, Mees President,” cried the girl in her soft musical voice, “I shall tell somethings on you. I likes that you look at mine table—iss it not shmardt, hein? My mamma she says it iss stylish. Shure, und the peoples—oh, they buys und buys lots and lots of sweaters, und mufflers, und the helmets—yiss, ma’am, they have a glad on them, for they go fast mit the wind.”

“Yes, isn’t it lovely, Marie,” returned Nathalie, smiling into the limpid eyes, “to think that every one is so patriotic, and so anxious to make the soldier-boys who are to fight for us, happy and comfortable?”

“Shure, Mees, that iss because they are lovin’ much mit the liberty. Oh, here comes mine papa. He buys sweater of me. I likes that you speak mit mine papa, Mees,” exclaimed the little Jewess shyly, as her eyes again pleaded with Nathalie.

The young president turned, to see a rather crumpled, mussy-looking little man by her side, whostared at her with sudden embarrassment as she quickly extended her hand in a cordial greeting to him.

Mr. Katzkamof seized the outstretched hand and shook it nervously, while his bright black eyes beamed with good-natured surprise. “I be glad to meet young Mees,” he cried hurriedly, “who makes mine little girl be so happy. She sing, she smile all the day mit the liberty that you gives to her.”

“ButIdidn’t give it to her,” answered Nathalie quickly. “God gave it to her. I am only trying to show her how to give it to those who haven’t learned what liberty means. But you,” she added quickly, “you are an American,—you love the liberty, too?” The girl raised her eyebrows inquiringly, somewhat frightened at her temerity, for she suddenly remembered that she had heard Edith say that the newsdealer was a fiery socialist.

“Yes, Mees, I be an American. I vote for the President. But I no like the war,” the black eyes hardened. “It makes me cold in mine heart. I think it no right for the people to fight mit one und the other, likes the cat und the dog. They spill much of the blood. I am lovin’ mit the peace. I no fight.”

“Yes, it is a terrible thing to have to fight and kill one another,” replied the girl sadly. “And the mothers,—oh, I feel so sorry for them, when they have to give up their boys to go and fight. But it must be done,” she added valiantly, although there was a catchin her breath as the thought of Dick came to her.

“Oh, no, Mees, if all the people sayno fight, they be no soldiers, they be no war, we have the peace.”

“Yes, but what kind of a peace,” exclaimed the girl. And then a sudden thought looming big. “Ah, Mr. Katzkamof, you love the Christ. Did He not die to make men free? Shall we not die to give liberty to the world?”

“No, Mees, I ain’t lovin’ mit Krisht. I make nothings mit Him.” The man’s tone was surly, although he shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

“I beg your pardon,” cried Nathalie with reddening cheeks. And then, as if to recover lost ground. “But you believe in God,yourGod,the Godwho brought the Israelites dry-shod over the Red Sea? And didHenot command you to fight and drive out the enemies of God, the heathen, who did not serve him, and who were in the Promised Land? And is not the Kaiser a Hun, a heathen, when he tortures and kills little children and women? Yes,” continued Blue Robin, impelled by some indefinable feeling to rush blindly on, “this isGod’swar. He has commanded us to fight, to do away with tyranny and oppression. They must be overcome, so that all the world shall have liberty, and then,—why then we shall have peace, a peace that the Germans can’t destroy.” And then Nathalie smiled, although her heart was leaping in great bounds at her sudden boldness. But another thought had come, and,turning towards her companion, for she had turned to leave him, she added smilingly, “And I am sure that you are big-hearted enough to be willing to fight, so that you can give to others the liberty that gives so much happiness to you.”

The man’s eyes had brightened with a sudden strange light, and he opened his mouth to reply, but Nathalie had passed on, angry at herself for being so outspoken. But O dear! she felt so sorry for those poor ignorant people, who thought and did violent things just because they couldn’t reason, and didn’t understand.

But she had reached the Love booth, the name given by the girls to the tent where the comfort-kits were sold. By a pile on a seat in the rear she knew that business had been brisk, and that people had not only donated kits and then bought them back again, but had patriotically returned them to the sellers, so that they could be given to the soldier-boys.

Blue Robin stood a moment and watched the girls, who, busy as bees, were selling their wares, as they chatted merrily over their sales, and then she turned to cross the lawn to the Red Cross booth. She had not gone more than a step or so, however, when a sudden clang of the liberty bell brought her to a halt. Oh, some one had bought a Liberty bond; yes, three bonds, for the three clangs of the bell announced the number sold. Oh, it was still ringing! What did it mean?

She started to rush towards the booth where the bonds were being sold, and then glanced back at the booth she had just left, to see that the girls, in their eagerness to know who was buying so many bonds,—for the bell was still clanging,—had dropped their work and were rushing in frantic haste towards the booth.

Nathalie smiled, and turned to follow after the group of girls who were speeding past her, when a sudden thought leaped into her mind. She halted and again glanced back at the Comfort-Kit booth. Not a girl was to be seen. Ah, now was her chance to get rid of that letter. The next moment she had turned and was flying back to the now deserted booth.

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