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.

I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as I can possibly be." Mrs.Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics.