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her journal last night, or search out the silhouette of the mysterious stranger standing on his balcony.
    Instead she’d collapsed onto her bed in her dirty uniform and fallen asleep.
    Agnes gave her another gentle shake. Grace opened her eyes. “Oh, Agnes, I wish Mrs. Vance would let you work with me today. I surely need help.”
    “Are you all right, miss?” Concern lit her brown eyes. “Breakfast is ready. Shall I bring you something?”
    “No, I’m fine, really.” Grace rubbed at her eyes. “You go ahead.”
    “All right, but don’t go back to sleep,” Agnes warned.
    “I’ll be down presently,” Grace said. Once her maid had left, she rolled over and closed her eyes. Just another minute, she told herself.
    She’d nearly dozed off when a voice sounded from the doorway. “Up with you, Mabry, or you’ll miss breakfast.”
    Blinking, Grace sat up as Mrs. Vance entered the room looking spry in her clean and pressed uniform. Self-conscious about her own dirty, rumpled state, Grace swung her feet over the side of the bed, grateful Agnes had thought to remove her boots and her gaiters last night.
    The supervisor read her thoughts. “You slept in your uniform,” she stated, shaking her head. “You look an absolute fright, Mabry. I hope you plan to change. In the Women’s Forage Corps, we take pride in our appearance.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Grace quickly rose and retrieved her other uniform from the portmanteau beneath her bed. How she longed for a bath! But last night she’d slept through her chance to get clean, as well.
    She was smoothing the wrinkles from her fresh garments when Mrs. Vance asked, “Mabry, did you perform any actual field drainage work during training?”
    Grace looked up and shook her head. “We received a lecture, with photographs,” she said slowly. “Why?”
    “Mr. Tillman isn’t pleased. He inspected your work last evening. You barely made progress on the ditch, and you left your tools lying half buried in the mud.” Mrs. Vance eyed her sternly. “He didn’t notice the shovel until he’d tripped over it and took a spill.”
    Mortified, Grace asked, “Is he injured?”
    “His ankle is sprained, but not broken, thank goodness.” She took a deep breath. “I’m assigning you a different task today. The Army ordered more sacks, and a shipment of tarpaulins needs mending. Lucy Young is overwhelmed. While I catch up on my reports, you’ll work with her.” She paused. “You can sew?”
    Relieved to be excused from digging, Grace recalled many afternoons spent mastering petit point . “Of course,” she said, confident she could mend a few sacks. “I’m happy to do it.”
    ———
    The morning air felt chill when, after breakfast, Grace and Lucy ventured into Roxwood where they would do their mending in a back room of the shop owned by Mr. Horn, the village cobbler. Each woman in the WFC had been assigned a bicycle; Grace and Lucy parked theirs in front of the building and went inside.
    “Good m-morning, Mr. Horn,” Lucy called to the cobbler as they entered.
    An aged man in leather apron and black bargeman’s cap waved his cobbler’s hammer as they continued to the rear of the shop.
    The back room was spacious and a bit austere, with a trio of gaslight fixtures mounted above the rustic pine wainscoting. Two wooden chairs and an enormous pile of white tarpaulins took up one half of the room. At the opposite wall stood a treadle sewing machine. A mound of burlap fabric cut into rectangular sheets lay on the floor beside it.
    “You’ll work there.” Lucy pointed at the sewing machine.
    Grace chewed on her lip while she studied the contraption. She’d seen one at Selfridges in London, but wasn’t familiar with how it worked.
    “I’ll show you,” Lucy said, reading her hesitation. “It’s already been threaded, so you c-can start sewing.” She moved to sit in the chair facing the machine and retrieved two precut squares of burlap from the floor. Once she’d