CHAPTER VI
SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION
The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white
cotton. Word had come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets and
bandages would be required. Nan and Di and Rilla were hard at work. Mrs.
Blythe and Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a more
personal task. With dry, anguished eyes they were packing up Jem's
belongings. He must leave for Valcartier the next morning. They had been
expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came.
Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life.
When the word had come that Jem must go she had her cry out among the
pines in Rainbow Valley and then she had gone to her mother.
"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only a girl--I can't do anything
to win the war--but I must do something to help at home."
"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said Mrs. Blythe. "You can help
Nan and Di make them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could organize a
Junior Red Cross among the young girls? I think they would like it
better and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with the older
people."
"But, mother--I've never done anything like that."
"We will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us
that we have never done before, Rilla."
"Well"--Rilla took the plunge--"I'll try, mother--if you'll tell me
how to begin.
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