Part 3 (1/2)

”You shouldn't call your superiors names, especially when I have more ideas coming to me,” said Jim severely. ”Look here--I agree with Dad that you couldn't have a convalescent home, where you'd need nurses and doctors; but I do think you might ask fellows on final sick-leave, like us--who'd been discharged from hospitals, but were not quite fit yet. Chaps not really needing nursing, but not up to much travelling, or to the racket and fuss of an hotel.”

”Yes,” said Wally. ”Or chaps who had lost a limb, and were trying to plan out how they were going to do without it.” His young face looked suddenly grave; Norah remembered a saying of his once before--”I don't in the least mind getting killed, but I don't want Fritz to wing me.”

She moved a little nearer to him.

”That's a grand idea--yours too, Jimmy,” she said. ”Dad, do you think Sir John would be satisfied?”

”If we can carry out our plan as we hope, I think he would,” Mr.

Linton said. ”We'll find difficulties, of course, and make mistakes, but we'll do our best, Norah. And if we can send back to the Front cheery men, rested and refreshed and keen--well, I think we'll be doing our bit. And after the War? What then?”

”I was thinking about that, too,” said Norah. ”And I got a clearer notion than about using it now, I think. Of course,”--she hesitated--”I don't know much about money matters, or if you think I ought to keep the place. You see, you always seem to have enough to give us everything we want, Dad. I won't need to keep it, will I? I don't want to, even if I haven't got much money.”

”I'm not a millionaire,” said David Linton, laughing. ”But--no, you won't need an English income, Norah.”

”I'm so glad,” said Norah. ”Then when we go back to Billabong, Dad, couldn't we turn it all into a place for partly-disabled soldiers,--where they could work a bit, just as much as they were able to, but they'd be sure of a home and wouldn't have any anxiety. I don't know if it could be made self--self--you know--earning its own living----”

”Self-supporting,” a.s.sisted her father.

”Yes, self-supporting,” said Norah gratefully. ”Perhaps it could.

But they'd all have their pensions to help them.”

”Yes, and it could be put under a partly-disabled officer with a wife and kids that he couldn't support--some poor beggar feeling like committing suicide because he couldn't tell where little Johnny's next pair of boots was coming from!” added Jim. ”That's the most ripping idea, Norah! What do you think, Dad?”

”Yes--excellent,” said Mr. Linton. ”The details would want a lot of working-out, of course: but there will be plenty of time for that. I would like to make it as nearly self-supporting as possible, so that there would be no idea of charity about it.”

”A kind of colony,” said Wally.

”Yes. It ought to be workable. The land is good, and with poultry-farming, and gardening, and intensive culture, it should pay well enough. We'll get all sorts of expert advice, Norah, and plan the thing thoroughly.”

”And we'll call it 'The O'Neill Colony,' or something like that,” said Norah, her eyes s.h.i.+ning. ”I'd like it to carry on Sir John's name, wouldn't you, Dad?”

”Indeed, yes,” said David Linton. ”It has some sort of quiet, inoffensive name already, by the way--yes, Homewood.”

”Well, that sounds nice and restful,” said Jim. ”Sort of name you'd like to think of in the trenches. When do we go to see it, Dad?”

”The lawyers have written to ask the tenants what day will suit them,”

said his father. ”They're an old Indian Army officer and his wife, I believe; General Somers. I don't suppose they will raise any objection to our seeing the house. By the way, there is another important thing: there's a motor and some vehicles and horses, and a few cows, that go with the place. O'Neill used to like to have it ready to go to at any time, no matter how unexpectedly. It was only when War work claimed him that he let it to these people. He was unusually well-off for an Irish landowner; it seems that his father made a heap of money on the Stock Exchange.”

”Horses!” said Norah blissfully.

”And a motor.”

”That will be handy for bringing the Tired People from the station,”

said she. ”Horses that one could ride, I wonder, Daddy?”

”I shouldn't be surprised,” said her father, laughing. ”Anyhow, I daresay you will ride them.”

”I'll try,” said Norah modestly. ”It sounds too good to be true. Can I run the fowls, Daddy? I'd like that job.”

”Yes, you can be poultry-expert,” said Mr. Linton. ”As for me, I shall control the pigs.”