tted."

"No," says I. "I see a piece in the paper where ladies can go in the
navy--yeowomen they call them; a fancy name for a stenographer!"

"A whole lot too fancy!" says Ma, very prompt. "And no daughter of mine,
a decent, respectable girl, is going sailing off on no battleship with a
lot of sailors--not to mention submarines; not if I know it!" says Ma.
"So, Mary Gilligan, you may as well put that idea out of your head, let
alone you ain't a stenographer and couldn't learn it in a month."

"Well, Ma," I says, "maybe you're right; and I do get seasick awful
quick. But--oh, Ma! I got to enlist some place. Can't you see the way I
feel?"

Ma could.

"I know!" she says, very sympathetic. "I was the same when your pa
missed both the third trapeze and the life net. I would of enlisted when
he died if there had been a war. And, of course, you feel like Jim was
dead. How about the Red Cross?"

"Won't do for me," I says, prompt. "I don't see myself sitting around in
no shop, with a dust cloth tied over my head, selling tickets. I got to
do something active or I'll go bugs!"

Then Ma had a real idea.

"How about this here Woman's Automobile Service?" says she. "The one I
read you the piece about? You're a woman and you got a auto."

"Ma, you're a wonder!" I says. "Look up the address while I get my hat
on! Tell Musette to call for the limousine; and watch me make a trial
for my new job!"

So they done like I asked, and I kissed Ma and Musette good-by; also the
two fool dogs, for I had a sort of feeling like I was going into battle
already.

"When Jim calls up tell him it's no good--he can't see me," says I, the
last thing. And then I set off in the limousine.

Well, I'd put on a very simple imported model and a small hat, and only
my diamond earrings, and a brooch Jim had give me, when we was first
engaged, over my aching heart. I wanted, above all things, to look
refined; for, even if the U. S. Army isn't always quite that, still,
this was a ladies' branch of it. And you know what women can
be--especially in organizations; though I admit I hadn't had much
previous experience with them, except the White Kittens, which Ma
insisted on me keeping up with and contributing to their annual ball,
because of she having always belonged. And--believe you me--the scraps I
seen at some of their Execution Committee meetings would make the Battle
of the Marne look like a pinochle post-mortem!

Well, as I was saying, I took