Read Online Girl to Come Home To by Grace Livingston Hill - Free Book Online

worker up the back while she did it. I was here. I heard her, and believe me it was the limit!”
    “Well, I guess she’s pretty upset that her Janie got married without letting her know before her soldier went away. And now he’s got himself killed and Mrs. Thaxter has to keep telling Janie ‘I told you so’ all the time,” said Isabelle with a trill of a laugh.
    “Oh, but he didn’t get himself killed, he’s only a prisoner. Hadn’t you heard?” said Celia Bradbury, drawing her chair over to join the group and getting out the little pink booties she was knitting. “The word came last night from the War Department. Janie called up and told my sister. She’s in her Sunday school class. She’s very hopeful that he will get home now.”
    “Being taken prisoner by the enemy is almost worse than death these days,” commented Beryl sadly.
    “Yes, I think this war is
horrid
,” said Bonny with tears in her voice. “I don’t see why somebody doesn’t put a stop to it.”
    “That’s what they are trying to do, child,” said Beryl with a smile.
    “Yes, I suppose it is,” answered Bonny. “But say, did you know both the Graeme brothers came home last night? I was on the train. I saw them, and they’re perfectly stunning in their uniforms. Not all the servicemen get killed or taken prisoner. Say, Beryl, didn’t you used to know those Graeme boys?”
    “Why yes,” said Beryl looking up interestedly. “I went to high school with Jeremy. He was a fine scholar and a swell person. I didn’t know his brother so well; he was older than I and out of high school, in college, but I’ve always heard good things about him. They’ve got a wonderful mother and father. My mother has often told me nice little kindly things they’ve done for people who were in trouble.”
    “Oh, yes,” said Alida with a half-contemptuous smile, “they’re like that. Always doing good. Terribly kind but kind of drab and uninteresting.”
    “No,” said Beryl suddenly, “they’re not drab and uninteresting. My mother has told me a lot about them. She loves to talk with them. And certainly Jeremy was interesting. The whole school loved to hear him recite. He could make the dullest study sound interesting. He always found so much to tell that wasn’t really in the books.”
    “You mean he made it up, out of his head?” asked Alida.
    “Oh no,” said Beryl, “he’d look it up in other books, the dictionary and encyclopedia, and sometimes several other books. He always told where he’d found it and who had written things about it. He studied up all his subjects that way.”
    “My word!” said Isabelle. “He must be a hound for hard labor.”
    “But he seemed to like it,” said Beryl, “and certainly the class liked it, and the teachers were crazy over him.”
    “I’ll bet they were. It probably saved them a lot of work preparing for the class, and they likely lauded him to the skies. I suppose he’s as conceited as they make ’em.”
    “No,” said Beryl gravely, “he didn’t seem to be. In fact, he always appeared to be quite humble, in spite of the fact that he was well thought of in athletics.”
    “Well, speaking of Jeremy Graeme,” said Bonny Stewart, “he’s going to speak at our church next Sunday night. I just remembered it was in the church paper that my sister brought home from Sunday school, and I happened to read it. It was headed ‘Local hero will speak at the evening service’!”
    “Hm!” said Mrs. Thaxter, appearing on the scene to make sure she had the right measurement for petticoat hems. “I guess you mean his older brother, Rodney Graeme. They wouldn’t ask
that
little squirt to speak. He’s only been in service a little over a year, and Rodney has been there three years. I understand Rodney did some notable things during his service.”
    “No,” said Bonny firmly. “It was Jeremy. Definitely. I remember thinking what a strange name he had. And it said he had only been over there a