Part 4 (2/2)
The thought of her twin brother going to war had at first shocked and startled Helen. Now she added:
”For you know very well, Ruth Fielding, that Tom Cameron should not be allowed to go over there to France all alone.”
”Goodness, Helen!” gasped the girl of the Red Mill, ”you don't suppose that Tom is going to const.i.tute an Army of Invasion in his own person, and attempt to whip the whole of Germany before the rest of Uncle Sam's boys jump in?”
”You may laugh!” cried Helen. ”He's only a boy-and boys can't get along without somebody to look out for them. He never would change his flannels at the right time, or keep his feet dry.”
”I know you have always felt the overwhelming responsibility of Tom's upbringing, even when he was at Seven Oaks and you and I were at Briarwood.”
”Every boy needs the oversight of some feminine eye. And I expect he'll fall in love with the first French girl he meets over there unless I'm on the spot to warn him,” Helen went on.
”They are most attractive, I believe,” laughed Ruth cheerfully.
”'Chic,' as Madame Picolet used to say. You remember her, our French teacher at Briarwood?” Helen said.
”Poor little Picolet!” Ruth returned with some gravity. ”Do you know she has been writing me?”
”Madame Picolet? You never said a word about it!”
”But you knew she returned to France soon after the war began?”
”Oh, yes. I knew that. But-but, to tell the truth, I hadn't thought of her at all for a long time. Why does she write to you?”
”For help,” said Ruth quietly. ”She has a work among soldiers' widows and orphans-a very worthy charity, indeed. I looked it up.”
”And sent her money, I bet!” cried the vigorous Helen.
”Why-yes-what I felt I could spare,” Ruth admitted.
”And never told any of us girls about it. Think! All the Briarwood girls who knew little Picolet!” Helen said with some heat. ”Why shouldn't we have had a part in helping her, too?”
”My dear,” said her chum seriously, ”do you realize how little interest any of us felt in the war until this last winter? And now our own dear country is in it and we must think of our own boys who are going, rather than of the needs of the French, or the British, or even the Belgians.”
”Oh, Ruth!” cried Helen suddenly, ”perhaps Madame Picolet might help us to get over there.”
”Over to France?”
”I mean to get into some work in France. She knows us. She may have some influence,” said the eager Helen.
But Ruth slowly shook her head. ”No,” she said. ”If I go over there it must be to work for our own boys. They are going. They will need us. I want to do my all for Uncle Sam-for these United States-and,” she added, pointing to Uncle Jabez's flag upon the pole in front of the Red Mill farmhouse, ”for the blessed old flag. I am sorry for the wounded of our allies; but the time has come now for us to think of the needs of our own soldiers first. They are going over. First our regular army and the guard; then the boys of the draft.”
”Ah, yes! The boys of the draft,” sighed Helen.
Suddenly Ruth seized her chum's wrist. ”I've got it, Helen! That is it!
'_The boys of the draft._'”
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