Folks are thinking a good deal of women, and I tell you they should do so. Annie says he has always been sore that she was not a boy. Looks as though he had a hunch that he might inherit the t.i.tle some day. I call him the old man right to his face, as somehow I can"t school myself to say Sir Arthur. It is too story booky for me.
I am here in France waiting to be sent out with the Red Cross. I may drive an ambulance and I may just be a stretcher bearer. I will do whatever they see fit to put me to doing. There is plenty to do, they tell me, and they welcome every American who comes over with joy and grat.i.tude. I wish we were in it as a nation. I believe we will end there, and if we do, I tell you someone else can drive the ambulance, as I mean to get in the game without a red cross on my sleeve.
You don"t know what I feel towards all of you girls, all of Annie"s friends. I have lived to bless the day that I met you, although on that day I did anything but bless it. You remember how you bundled me up in the soiled clothes ready to send me to the laundry?
I"ll never forget it! Also, I"ll never forget that you and the Tucker twins never told the rest of the fellows about it. That was sure white of you! Please put in a good word for me when you write to Annie, my Annie.
Yours truly, GEORGE Ma.s.sIE.
CHAPTER XXII
A LETTER FROM PAGE ALLISON TO THE TUCKER TWINS
_Bracken, Va._ _Milton P. O._
MY DEAREST TWEEDLES:
I am sending you letters from Annie and from Sleepy. I am awfully excited about Sleepy. He seems to be wide awake. Father says he will come through the war and be a distinguished person of some sort, he believes. I think Annie"s letter is awfully interesting. Isn"t it fun for old Sir Arthur Ponsonby Pore to have won the love of the Lady Annie by swearing? I know your father will die laughing over it.
I am up to my neck with Miss Pinkie Davis in the house, getting some sewing done so I won"t have to be worried with shirt-waists and things when we get to New York. Mammy Susan is still miffed with me for going, and I feel awfully bad about it. Isn"t it great that Mary can go, too? Do you reckon we"ll see Jessie Wilc.o.x in New York? Not if she sees us first, I fancy!
Four girls in a flat and that flat not so very swell wouldn"t appeal to Miss Wilc.o.x, I think.
Father is giving iron tonics right and left, and has made up a gallon of pump water with a beautiful pink vegetable dye in it for Sally Winn so she won"t have to die before he gets back. Poor Joe Winn is very sad that I did not let him know you were here on the last trip. I really forgot to do it. We were having such a wildly exciting time making our plans for New York that poor Joe never came into my head.
It is so splendid that Father is going, too. If these people will only stay well until he can get started, then they can be sick all they want and have a doctor over from the crossing. There is a perfectly good doctor there, that is, a perfectly good doctor if one is prepared for death!
Good-by! I must stop and help Miss Pinkie. How I do hate to sew! To think in a few days almost I"ll be IN NEW YORK WITH THE TUCKER TWINS.
Your best friend, PAGE ALLISON.
THE END