The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House | Page 2

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,