ability to find hard manual work
interesting did not seem to preclude the knowledge of how to put on
one's clothes.

But Laura's hands were not all that hands should be, by Elliott's
standard; they were well cared for, and as white as soap and water
could make them, but there are some things that soap and water cannot
do when it is pitted against sun and wind and contact with soil and
berries and fruits. Elliott hadn't meant to look so fixedly at Laura's
hands as to make her thought visible, and the color rose in her cheeks
when Laura said, exactly as though she were a mind-reader, "If you
prefer lily-white fingers to stirring around doing things, why, you
have to sit in a corner and keep them lily-white. I like to stick mine
into too many pies ever to have them look well."

"They're a lovely shape," said Elliott, seriously.

And then, to her amazement, Laura laughed and leaned over and hugged
her. "And you're a dear thing, even if you do think my hands are no
lady's!"

Of course Elliott protested; but as that was just what she did think,
her protestations were not very convincing.

"You can't have everything," said Laura, quite as though she didn't
mind in the least what her hands looked like. The strangest part of it
all was that Elliott believed Laura actually didn't mind.

But she didn't know how to answer her, Laura's words had raised the
dust on all those comfortable cushiony notions Elliott had had sitting
about in her mind for so long that she supposed they were her very own
opinions. Until the dust settled she couldn't tell what she thought,
whether they belonged to her or had simply been dumped on her by other
people. She couldn't remember ever having been in such a position
before.

Yes, Elliott found a good deal to think of. One had to draw the line
somewhere; she had told herself comfortably; but lines seemed to be
very queerly jumbled up in this war. If a person couldn't canteen or
help at a hostess house or do surgical dressings or any of the other
things that had always stood in her mind for girl's war work, she had
to do what she could, hadn't she? And if it wasn't necessary to be
tagged, why, it wasn't. Laura in blouse and short skirt, or even in
overalls, seemed to accomplish as much as any possible Laura in a
pantaloon suit or puttees or any other land uniform. There really
didn't seem any way out, now that Elliott understood the matter.
Perhaps she had been rather dense not to understand i