ck
unwinkingly. We never try to coax him home now: we know it is of no
use. When Jem comes back, Monday will come home with him; and if
Jem--never comes back--Monday will wait there for him as long as his
dear dog heart goes on beating.

"Fred Arnold was here last night. He was eighteen in November and is
going to enlist just as soon as his mother is over an operation she has
to have. He has been coming here very often lately and though I like
him so much it makes me uncomfortable, because I am afraid he is
thinking that perhaps I could care something for him. I can't tell him
about Ken--because, after all, what is there to tell? And yet I don't
like to behave coldly and distantly when he will be going away so soon.
It is very perplexing. I remember I used to think it would be such fun
to have dozens of beaux--and now I'm worried to death because two are
too many.

"I am learning to cook. Susan is teaching me. I tried to learn long
ago--but no, let me be honest--Susan tried to teach me, which is a very
different thing. I never seemed to succeed with anything and I got
discouraged. But since the boys have gone away I wanted to be able to
make cake and things for them myself and so I started in again and this
time I'm getting on surprisingly well. Susan says it is all in the way
I hold my mouth and father says my subconscious mind is desirous of
learning now, and I dare say they're both right. Anyhow, I can make
dandy short-bread and fruitcake. I got ambitious last week and
attempted cream puffs, but made an awful failure of them. They came out
of the oven flat as flukes. I thought maybe the cream would fill them
up again and make them plump but it didn't. I think Susan was secretly
pleased. She is past mistress in the art of making cream puffs and it
would break her heart if anyone else here could make them as well. I
wonder if Susan tampered--but no, I won't suspect her of such a thing.

"Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cut
out certain Red Cross garments known by the charming name of 'vermin
shirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so I suggested she
call them 'cootie sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version of it.
But she shook her head and I heard her telling mother later that, in
her opinion, 'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for young
girls to talk about. She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in his
last letter to mother, 'Tell Susan I had a fin