Miss Mink"s Soldier and Other Stories.
by Alice Hegan Rice.
MISS MINK"S SOLDIER
Miss Mink sat in church with lips compressed and hands tightly clasped in her black alpaca lap, and stubbornly refused to comply with the request that was being made from the pulpit. She was a small desiccated person, with a sharp chin and a sharper nose, and narrow faded eyes that through the making of innumerable b.u.t.tonholes had come to resemble them.
For over forty years she had sat in that same pew facing that same minister, regarding him second only to his Maker, and striving in thought and deed to follow his precepts. But the time had come when Miss Mink"s blind allegiance wavered.
Ever since the establishment of the big Cantonment near the city, Dr.
Morris, in order to encourage church attendance, had been insistent in his request that every member of his congregation should take a soldier home to Sunday dinner.
Now it was no lack of patriotism that made Miss Mink refuse to do her part. Every ripple in the small flag that fluttered over her humble dwelling sent a corresponding ripple along her spinal column. When she essayed to sing "My Country, "Tis of Thee," in her high, quavering soprano, she invariably broke down from sheer excess of emotion. But the American army fighting for right and freedom in France, and the Army individually tracking mud into her spotless cottage, were two very different things. Miss Mink had always regarded a man in her house much as she regarded a gnat in her eye. There was but one course to pursue in either case--elimination!
But her firm stand in the matter had not been maintained without much misgiving. Every Sunday when Dr. Morris made his earnest appeal, something within urged her to comply. She was like an automobile that gets cranked up and then refuses to go. Church-going instead of being her greatest joy came to be a nightmare. She no longer lingered in the vestibule, for those highly cherished exchanges of inoffensive gossip that const.i.tuted her social life. n.o.body seemed to have time for her.
Every one was busy with a soldier. Within the sanctuary it was no better. Each khaki-clad figure that dotted the congregation claimed her attention as a possible candidate for hospitality. And each one that presented himself to her vision was indignantly repudiated. One was too old, another too young, one too stylish, another had forgotten to wash his ears. She found a dozen excuses for withholding her invitation.
But this morning as she sat upright and uncompromising in her short pew, she was suddenly thrown into a state of agitation by the appearance in the aisle of an un-ushered soldier who, after hesitating beside one or two pews, slipped into the seat beside her. It seemed almost as if Providence had taken a hand and since she had refused to select a soldier, had prompted a soldier to select her.
During the service she sat gazing straight at the minister without comprehending a word that he said. Never once did her glance stray to that khaki-clad figure beside her, but her thoughts played around him like lightning. What if she should get up her courage and ask him to dinner, how would she ever be able to walk out the street with him! And once she had got him to her cottage, what on earth would she talk to him about? Her hands grew cold as she thought about it. Yet something warned her it was now or never, and that it was only by taking the hated step and getting it over with, that she could regain the peace of mind that had of late deserted her.
The Doxology found her weakening, but the Benediction stiffened her resolve, and when the final Amen sounded, she turned blindly to the man beside her, and said, hardly above her breath:
"If you ain"t got any place to go to dinner, you can come home with me."
The tall figure turned toward her, and a pair of melancholy brown eyes looked down into hers:
"You will excuse if I do not quite comprehend your meaning," he said politely, with a strong foreign accent.
Miss Mink was plunged into instant panic; suppose he was a German?
Suppose she should be convicted for entertaining a spy! Then she remembered his uniform and was slightly rea.s.sured.
"I said would you come home to dinner with me?" she repeated weakly, with a fervent prayer that he would decline.
But the soldier had no such intention. He bowed gravely, and picked up his hat and overcoat.
Miss Mink, looking like a small tug towing a big steamer, shamefacedly made her way to the nearest exit, and got him out through the Sunday-school room. She would take him home through a side street, feed him and send him away as soon as possible. It was a horrible ordeal, but Miss Mink was not one to turn back once she had faced a difficult situation. As they pa.s.sed down the broad steps into the brilliant October sunshine, she noticed with relief that his shoes were not muddy. Then, before she could make other observations, her mind was entirely preoccupied with a large, firm hand that grasped her elbow, and seemed to half lift her slight weight from step to step. Miss Mink"s elbow was not used to such treatment and it indignantly freed itself before the pavement was reached. The first square was traveled in embarra.s.sed silence, then Miss Mink made a heroic effort to break the ice:
"My name is Mink," she said, "Miss Libby Mink. I do dress-making over on Sixth Street."
"I am Bowinski," volunteered her tall companion, "first name Alexis. I am a machinist before I enlist in the army."
"I knew you were some sort of a Dago," said Miss Mink.
"But no, Madame, I am Russian. My home is in Kiev in Ukrania."
"Why on earth didn"t you stay there?" Miss Mink asked from the depths of her heart.
The soldier looked at her earnestly. "Because of the persecution," he said. "My father he was in exile. His family was suspect. I come alone to America when I am but fifteen."
"Well I guess you"re sorry enough now that you came," Miss Mink said, "Now that you"ve got drafted."
They had reached her gate by this time, but Bowinski paused before entering: "Madame mistakes!" he said with dignity. "I was _not_ drafted.
The day America enter the war, that day I give up my job I have held for five years, and enlist. America is my country, she take me in when I have nowhere to go. It is my proud moment when I fight for her!"
Then it was that Miss Mink took her first real look at him, and if it was a longer look than she had ever before bestowed upon man, we must put it down to the fact that he was well worth looking at, with his tall square figure, and his serious dark face lit up at the present with a somewhat indignant enthusiasm.
Miss Mink pushed open the gate and led the way into her narrow yard. She usually entered the house by way of the side door which opened into the dining room, which was also her bedroom by night, and her sewing room by day. But this morning, after a moment"s hesitation, she turned a key in the rusty lock of the front door, and let a flood of sunshine dispel the gloom of the room. The parlor had been furnished by Miss Mink"s parents some sixty years ago, and nothing had been changed. A customer had once suggested that if the sofa was taken away from the window, and the table put in its place, the room would be lighter. Miss Mink had regarded the proposition as preposterous. One might as well have asked her to move her nose around to the back of her head, or to exchange the positions of her eyes and ears!
You have seen a drop of water caught in a crystal? Well, that was what Miss Mink was like. She moved in the tiniest possible groove with her home at one end and her church at the other. Is it any wonder that when she beheld a strange young foreigner sitting stiffly on her parlor sofa, and realized that she must entertain him for at least an hour, that panic seized her?
"I better be seeing to dinner," she said hastily. "You can look at the alb.u.m till I get things dished up."
Private Bowinski, surnamed Alexis, sat with knees awkwardly hunched and obediently turned the leaves of the large alb.u.m, politely scanning the placid countenances of departed Minks for several generations.
Miss Mink, moving about in the inner room, glanced in at him from time to time. After the first glance she went to the small store room and got out a jar of sweet pickle, and after the second she produced a gla.s.s of crab apple jelly. Serving a soldier guest who had voluntarily adopted her country, was after all not so distasteful, if only she did not have to talk to him. But already the coming ordeal was casting its baleful shadow.
When they were seated opposite one another at the small table, her worst fears were realized. They could neither of them think of anything to say. If she made a move to pa.s.s the bread to him he insisted upon pa.s.sing it to her. When she rose to serve him, he rose to serve her. She had never realized before how oppressive excessive politeness could be.
The one point of consolation for her lay in the fact that he was enjoying his dinner. He ate with a relish that would have flattered any hostess. Sometimes when he put his knife in his mouth she winced with apprehension, but aside from a few such lapses in etiquette he conducted himself with solemn and punctilious propriety.
When he had finished his second slice of pie, and pushed back his chair, Miss Mink waited hopefully for him to say good-bye. He was evidently getting out his car fare now, searching with thumb and forefinger in his vest pocket.
"If it is not to trouble you more, may I ask a match?" he said.
"A match? What on earth do you want with a match?" demanded Miss Mink.
Then a look of apprehension swept over her face. Was this young man actually proposing to profane the virgin air of her domicile with the fumes of tobacco?
"Perhaps you do not like that I should smoke?" Bowinski said instantly.
"I beg you excuse, I--"
"Oh! that"s all right," said Miss Mink in a tone that she did not recognize as her own, "the matches are in that little bisque figure on the parlor mantel. I"ll get you to leave the front door open, if you don"t mind. It"s kinder hot in here."
Five o"clock that afternoon found Miss Mink and Alexis Bowinski still sitting facing each other in the front parlor. They were mutually exhausted, and conversation after having suffered innumerable relapses, seemed about to succ.u.mb.
"If there"s any place else you want to go, you mustn"t feel that you"ve got to stay here," Miss Mink had urged some time after dinner. But Alexis had answered:
"I know only two place. The Camp and the railway depot. I go on last Sunday to the railway depot. The Chaplain at the Camp advise me I go to church this morning. Perhaps I make a friend."
"But what do the other soldiers do on Sunday?" Miss Mink asked desperately.
"They promenade. Always promenade. Except they go to photo-plays, and dance hall. It is the hard part of war, the waiting part."
Miss Mink agreed with him perfectly as she helped him wait. She had never spent such a long day in her life. At a quarter past five he rose to go. A skillful word on her part would have expedited matters, but Miss Mink was not versed in the social trick of speeding a departing guest. Fifteen minutes dragged their weary length even after he was on his feet. Then Miss Mink received a shock from which it took her an even longer time to recover. Alexis Bowinski, having at last arrived at the moment of departure, took her hand in his and, bowing awkwardly, raised it to his lips and kissed it! Then he backed out of the cottage, stalked into the twilight and was soon lost to sight beyond the hedge.
Miss Mink sank limply on the sofa by the window, and regarded her small wrinkled hand with stern surprise. It was a hand that had never been kissed before and it was tingling in the strangest and most unaccountable manner.