Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship Part 43

It seemed that he had obtained leave to return to America because he had lost his leg and could fight no more. Yes, he said, Mademoiselle Millerand had nursed him when his leg was taken off.

The spectators of the moving pictures looked at each other and nodded.

Mademoiselle had sent a message to the Secretary of the United Service Club, he went on. It was--he took a slip of paper from his pocket book.

"Message received. Answered in person."

The Club members laughed at this whose whole meaning it was clear that Mr. Schuler did not appreciate.

He had arrived, it seemed, only two hours before, on an Italian boat, and had heard on the way up from Quarantine of the sailing of the Christmas s.h.i.+p and so had crossed to wave a farewell before going out to Rosemont.

"And here I have found my best fortune," he said over and over again, his eyes resting fondly on Fraulein's face.

CHAPTER XXII

A WEDDING AND A SURPRISE

IT was a simple wedding that the U. S. C. went to in a body a few days after the arrival of the convalescent German soldier. Mr. Wheeler, the princ.i.p.al of the high school, acted as best man, and Miss Dawson, the domestic science teacher, was maid of honor, but Fraulein also gathered about her in the cottage sitting-room where the ceremony took place a group of the young girls who had been kindest to her when she was in trouble.

"I want you and the Ethels and Dorothy," she said to Helen; "and if your friends, Della and Margaret, would come with you it would give me greatest pleasure."

So the girls, all dressed in white, and wearing the forget-me-not pins that Grandfather Emerson insisted on giving them for the occasion, cl.u.s.tered around the young teacher, and the three boys, a forget-me-not in each scarfpin, held the ribbons that pressed gently back the cordial friends who were happy in Fraulein's happiness.

It was the Club that decorated the house with brown sedges and stalks of upstanding tawny corn and vines of bittersweet. And it was the Club that sang a soft German marriage song as the bride and groom drove off toward the setting sun in Grandmother Emerson's car.

Life seemed rather flat to the members of the U. S. C. after the wedding. For the last two months they had been so busy that every hour had been filled with work and play-work, and now that there was nothing especial scheduled for every waking moment it seemed as if they had nothing at all to do.

"We'll have to ask Roger about his house," laughed James who came over with Margaret one afternoon and confessed to the same feeling.

"Not yet," answered Helen.

"Helen is full of ideas up to her very eyebrows, I believe," said Ethel Blue. "She's just giving us a holiday."

"Mother said we needed one," a.s.sented Helen. "After we've had a few days' rest we can start on something else. There's no need to call on Roger yet awhile."

"Why not? My idea is a perfectly good one," insisted Roger, strolling in.

Just at this minute Mary entered with a note for "The Secretary of the United Service Club."

"For you, Ethel Blue," said Roger, handing it to his cousin.

Ethel Blue slipped a cutter under the edge while the others waited expectantly, for the address indicated that the contents was of interest to all of them.

"What does this mean?" she cried as she read. "What is it? Is it true?"

She was so excited that they all crowded around her to see what had taken away her power of explanation.

The letter was signed "Justine Millerand."

"Mademoiselle," cried all who could see the signature.

"She says," read Ethel Blue, finding her strength again, "'Here is the Belgian baby you asked for. She is two years old and her name is "Elisabeth," after the Queen of Belgium!'"

"Is that all?"

"That's all."

"But she says, '_Here_ is the Belgian baby.' _Where_ is the Belgian baby?"

They turned toward Mary who had remained in the room.

"There's a Red Cross nurse in the reception room," she explained. "She said she'd rather you read the letter first."

They made a rush for the door. Roger reached it first and ushered the nurse into the living room. She was dressed in her grey uniform and sheltered under her cape the thinnest, wannest mite of humanity that ever the Club had seen outside of the streets of a city slum.

"Mademoiselle Millerand said you had asked for a Belgian baby," she began, but she was interrupted by a cry from the entire throng.

"We did; we did," they exclaimed so earnestly that any doubts she may have felt about the cordiality of their reception of her nursling were banished at once.

"Your mother?" she asked.

"I don't believe Mother really expected it to come, any more than we did," replied Helen frankly, "but she will love it just as we will, and we'll take the very best of care of her."

She offered her finger to Elisabeth, who clutched it and gazed solemnly at her out of her sunken blue eyes.

Ethel Blue in the back of the group gave a sob.

"She'll pick up soon when she has good food every day," the nurse rea.s.sured them, and then she told them of her own experiences.

She had been, it seemed, in the same hospital with Mademoiselle in Belgium. Out on the field one day a bit of shrapnel had wounded her foot so that she was forced to come home. Mademoiselle had asked her to bring over this mite "to the kindest young people in the world," and here she was.

The baby's father and mother were both dead, she went on. That she knew.

"Are you sure her name is Elisabeth?" asked Dorothy.

"That's what she calls herself."

By this time Elisabeth had made friends with every one of them and was sitting comfortably on one of Roger's knees while d.i.c.ky occupied the other and made acceptable gestures toward her.

"She'll be happy here," said the nurse, and rose to explain her visit to Mrs. Morton.

Like the girls, Mrs. Morton had not expected that Mademoiselle would respond to their request for a Belgian baby and she was somewhat taken back by its appearance.

"I can see that you did not look for her," the nurse suggested, "but when you are on the spot and are seeing such hideous distress every day and a chance opens to relieve just one little child, it is more than you can resist. I know that is why Mademoiselle Millerand sent her."