Part 2 (1/2)
demanded Hinpoha, with rising excitement.
”We certainly would!” replied Sahwah, with a fine flash from her brown eyes.
”Well, if we'd be perfectly willing to die for _our_ country's cause, why wouldn't Veronica be willing to die for _hers_?” demanded Hinpoha triumphantly.
”What I meant mostly,” said Sahwah, skillfully diverting a discussion that was becoming decidedly heated, ”was that none of us are likely to get a chance to die for our country, and neither is Veronica going to get a chance to die for hers, or do anything else for it, even if she were willing to. She's just a schoolgirl like ourselves and n.o.body would think of asking her to do anything.”
”That's the trouble,” sighed Hinpoha discontentedly. ”We're just girls, and the only thing we'll ever get to do is just knit, knit, knit, and there's no glory in that. That's the only 'bit' we'll ever be able to do.”
The other three echoed her sigh and reflected sadly upon their circ.u.mscribed sphere, and Sahwah's dream of being another Joan of Arc flickered out into darkness. Then she brightened again as her thoughts took a new turn.
”Well, there's one thing we have to be thankful for,” she said feelingly. ”If we can't help to make history, we won't have to learn it, either. We're past the history part of school. But just think what the pupils will have to learn in the years to come--and the names of all those battles that are being fought every day now, and the unp.r.o.nounceable names of all those cities in Europe, and all the different generals. It was hard enough to keep the Civil War generals straight, and there were only _two_ sets of them--think of having to remember all the American and English and French and Italian and Russian ones, to say nothing of the German! Why, it will be such a ch.o.r.e to study history that the pupils won't have time to study anything else!
People always look at little babies and say how fortunate they are; when they grow up the war will be over and everything lovely again, but I always think, 'Poor things, wait until they have to study history!' How lucky we are to be living through it instead of having to learn it out of books!”
All the while Sahwah was talking, Hinpoha had been watching with undisguised interest a man who sat in the seat directly across the aisle from them, who, with an artist's sketching pad on his knee, was drawing caricatures with a thick black pencil. Hinpoha, clever artist that she was herself, took a lively interest in anyone else who could draw, and from the glimpses she could get of the sketches being made across the aisle, she recognized the peculiar genius of the artist. She attracted the attention of the other three, and they too watched in wonder and with ever-growing interest. The artist finally looked up, saw the four eager pairs of eyes fastened on him, and nodding in a friendly way, handed his sketch-book across the aisle.
”Would you like to see them?” he asked genially, his eye lingering on Hinpoha's glory-crowned head with artistic appreciation.
He himself looked like the typical artist one sees in pictures. His hair was long and wavy and his blond beard was trimmed in Van d.y.k.e fas.h.i.+on.
Hinpoha nearly burst with admiration of him, and when he became aware of her existence and offered to show his sketches she was in a flutter of joy.
”Oh, may we?” she exclaimed delightedly, taking the book from his hand.
”Oh, lookee!” she squealed in rapture to the other girls. ”Did you ever see anything so quaint?”
The others looked and also exclaimed in wonder and delight. There were pictures of trains running along on legs instead of wheels, of houses and barns whose windows and doors were cunningly arranged to form features, of buildings that sailed through the air with wings like birds'; of drawbridges with one end sticking up in the air while an enormously fat man sat on the other end; of s.h.i.+ps walking along on stilts that reached clear to the bottom of the ocean!
”Oh, aren't they the most fascinating things you ever saw?” cried Sahwah, enraptured.
Utterly absorbed, she did not see the lieutenant of aviation gather up his things to leave the train at one of the way stations; was not aware that he paused on his way out and looked at her for a long, irresolute minute and then went hastily on.
The last page in the book of sketches had not been reached when the train came to a stop right out in the hills, between stations.
”What's the matter?” everybody was soon asking.
Heads were popped out of windows and there was a general rush for the platforms, as the sounds outside indicated excitement of some kind.
”Two freight trains collided on the bridge and broke it down,” was the word that pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. ”The train will be delayed for hours.”
Dismayed at the long wait in store for them, the Winnebagos sat down in their seats again, prepared to make the best of it, when the judicial-looking gentleman who had been sitting in front of them came up and said, ”Pardon me, but I couldn't help overhearing you girls talking about going to Oakwood. I am going to Oakwood myself--I live there--and I know how we can get there without waiting hours and hours for this train to go on. We are only about twenty miles from Oakwood now and right near an interurban car line. We can go in on the electric car and not lose much time. I will be glad to a.s.sist you in any way possible. My name is Wing, Mr. Ira B. Wing.”
”Not Agony and Oh-Pshaw's father!” exclaimed Hinpoha. ”I knew they lived in Oakwood, but----”
”The same,” interrupted Mr. Wing, smiling broadly. ”Are you acquainted with my girls?”
”Are we?” returned Hinpoha. ”Ask them who roomed next to them this last year at Brownell! Do we know the Heavenly Twins! Isn't it perfectly wonderful that you should turn out to be their father! We were having a discussion a while ago as to whether you were a lawyer or a professor, and Sahwah--excuse me, this is Miss Brewster, Mr. Wing, another one of the Winnebagos, that the Twins don't know--yet--Sahwah insisted that you were a lawyer and I insisted you were a professor, and now Sahwah was right after all. You _are_ a lawyer, aren't you? I believe Agony said you were.”
”I am,” replied Mr. Wing with a twinkle in his eye, ”and I'm more than delighted to meet you. Come along, and we'll see if we can't get to Oakwood before dark.”