Miss Mink started boldly forth to follow directions, but it was not until she had been ejected from the X-ray Room, the Mess Hall, and the Officers" Quarters, that she succeeded in reaching her destination. By that time her courage was at its lowest ebb. On either side of the long wards were cots, on which lay men in various stages of undress. Now Miss Mink had seen pajamas in shop windows, she had even made a pair once of silk for an ambitious groom, but this was the first time she had ever seen them, as it were, occupied.
So acute was her embarra.s.sment that she might have turned back at the last moment, had her eyes not fallen on the cot nearest the door. There, lying asleep, with his injured leg suspended from a pulley from which depended two heavy weights, lay Bowinski.
Miss Mink slipped into the chair between his cot and the wall. After the first glance at his pale unshaven face and the pain-lined brow, she forgot all about herself. She felt only overwhelming pity for him, and indignation at the treatment to which he was being subjected.
By and by he stirred and opened his eyes.
"Oh you came!" he said, "I mean you not to know I be in hospital. You must have the kindness not to trouble about me."
"Trouble nothing," said Miss Mink, husky with emotion, "I never knew a thing about it until to-day. What have they got you harnessed up like this for?"
Then Alexis with difficulty found the English words to tell her how his leg had not set straight, had been re-broken and was now being forced into proper position.
"It is like h.e.l.l, Madame," he concluded with a trembling lip, then he drew a sharp breath, "But no, I forget, I am in the army. I beg you excuse my complain."
Miss Mink laid herself out to entertain him. She unpacked her basket, and spread her meagre offerings before him. She described in detail all the surgical operations she had ever had any experience with, following some to their direst consequences. Alexis listened apathetically. Now and then a spasm of pain contracted his face, but he uttered no word of complaint.
Only once during the afternoon did his eyes brighten. Miss Mink caught the sudden change in his expression and, following his glance, saw Lois Chalmers coming through the ward. She had thrown aside her heavy fur coat, and her slim graceful little figure as alert as a bird"s darted from cart to cot as she tossed packages of cigarettes to right and left.
"Here you are, Mr. Whiskers!" she was calling out gaily to one. "This is for you, Colonel Collar Bone. Where"s Cadet Limpy? Discharged? Good for him! h.e.l.lo, Mr. Strong Man!" For a moment she poised at the foot of Bowinski"s cot, then recognizing Miss Mink she nodded:
"So you found your soldier? I"m going back to town in ten minutes, I"ll take you along if you like."
She flitted out of the ward as quickly as she had come, leaving two long rows of smiling faces in her wake. She had brought no pity, nor tenderness, nor understanding, but she had brought her fresh young beauty, and her little gift of gayety, and made men forget, at least for a moment, their pain-racked bodies and their weary brains.
Miss Mink reached her cottage that night weary and depressed. She had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and yet was too tired to prepare supper. She made her a cup of tea which she drank standing, and then crept into bed only to lie staring into the darkness tortured by the thought of those heavy weights on Bowinski"s injured leg.
The result of her weariness and exposure was a sharp attack of tonsilitis that kept her in bed several weeks. The first time she was able to be up, she began to count the hours until the next visiting day at the Camp. Her basket was packed the evening before, and placed beside the box of carnations in which she had extravagantly indulged. It is doubtful whether Miss Mink was ever so happy in her life as during that hour of pleased expectancy.
As she moved feebly about putting the house in order, so that she could make an early start in the morning, she discovered a letter that the Postman had thrust under the side door earlier in the day. Across the left hand corner was pictured an American flag, and across the right was a red triangle in a circle. She hastily tore off the envelop and read:
Dear Miss Mink:
I am out the Hospital, getting along fine. Hope you are in the same circ.u.mstances. I am sending you a book which I got from a Dear Young Lady, in the Hospital. I really do not know what to call her because I do not know her name, but I know she deserve a nice, nice name for all good She dose to all soldiers. I think she deserve more especially from me than to call her a Sweet Dear Lady, because that I have the discouragement, and she make me to laugh and take heart.
I would ask your kind favor to please pa.s.s the book back to the Young Lady, and pleas pa.s.s my thankful word to her, and if you might be able to send me her name before that I go to France, which I learn is very soon. Excuse all errors if you pleas will. This is goodby from
Your soldier friend, A. BOWINSKI.
Miss Mink read the letter through, then she sat down limply in a kitchen chair and stared at the stove. Twice she half rose to get the pen and ink on the shelf above the coal box, but each time she changed her mind, folded her arms indignantly, and went back to her stern contemplation of the stove. Presently a tear rolled down her cheek, then another, and another until she dropped her tired old face in her tired old hands, and gave a long silent sob that shook her slight body from head to foot.
Then she rose resolutely and sweeping the back of her hand across her eyes, took down her writing materials. On one side of a post card she wrote the address of Alexis Bowinski, and on the other she penned in her cramped neat writing, one line:
"Her name is Lois Chalmers. Hotel LeRoy."
This done she unpacked her basket, put her half dozen carnations in a tumbler of water and carried them into the dark parlor, pulled her chair up to the kitchen table, drew the lamp closer and patiently went back to her b.u.t.tonholes.
A DARLING OF MISFORTUNE
A shabby but joyous citizen of the world at large was Mr. Phelan Harrihan, as, with a soul wholly in tune with the finite, he half sat and half reclined on a baggage-truck at Lebanon Junction. He wag relieving the tedium of his waiting moments by entertaining a critical if not fastidious audience of three.
Beside him, with head thrust under his ragged sleeve, sat a small and unlovely bull-terrier, who, at each fresh burst of laughter, lifted a pair of languishing eyes to the face of his master, and then manifested his surplus affection by ardently licking the b.u.t.tons on the sleeve of the arm that encircled him.
It was a moot question whether Mr. Harrihan resembled his dog, or whether his dog resembled him. That there was a marked similarity admitted of no discussion. If Corp"s nose had been encouraged and his lower jaw suppressed, if his intensely emotional nature had been under better control, and his sentimentality tempered with humor, the a.n.a.logy would have been more complete. In taste, they were one. By birth, predilection, and instinct both were philosophers of the open, preferring an untrammeled life in Vagabondia to the collars and conventions of society. Both delighted in exquisite leisure, and spent it in pleased acquiescence with things as they are.
Some twenty-five years before, Phelan had opened his eyes upon a half-circle of blue sky, seen through the end of a canvas-covered wagon on a Western prairie, and having first conceived life to be a free-and-easy affair on a long, open road, he thereafter declined to consider it in any other light.
The only break in his nomadic existence was when a benevolent old gentleman found him, a friendless lad in a Nashville hospital, cursed him through a fever, and elected to educate him. Those were years of black captivity for Phelan, and after being crammed and coached for what seemed an interminable time, he was proudly entered at the University, where he promptly failed in every subject and was dropped at the mid-year term.
The old gentleman, fortunately, was spared all disappointment in regard to his irresponsible protege, for he died before the catastrophe, leaving Phelan Harrihan a legacy of fifteen dollars a month and the memory of a kind, but misguided, old man who was not quite right in his head.
Being thus provided with a sum more than adequate to meet all his earthly needs, Phelan joyously abandoned the straight and narrow path of learning, and once more betook himself to the open road.
The call of blue skies and green fields, the excitement of each day"s encounter, the dramatic possibilities of every pa.s.sing incident, the opportunity for quick and intimate fellowship, and above all an inherited and chronic disinclination for work, made Phelan an easy victim to that malady called by the casual tourist "wanderl.u.s.t," but known in Hoboland as "railroad fever."
Only once a year did he return to civilization, don a stiff collar, and recognize an inst.i.tution. During his meteoric career at the University he had been made a member of the Alpha Delta fraternity, in recognition of his varied accomplishments. Not only could he sing and dance and tell a tale with the best, but he was also a mimic and a ventriloquist, gifts which had proven invaluable in crucial conflicts with the faculty, and had const.i.tuted him a hero in several escapades. Of such material is college history made, and the Alpha Delta, recognizing the distinction of possessing this unique member, refused to accept his resignation, but unanimously demanded his presence at each annual reunion.
On June second, for five consecutive years, the ends of the earth had yielded up Phelan Harrihan; by a miracle of grace he had arrived in Nashville, decently appareled, ready to respond to his toast, to bask for his brief hour in the full glare of the calcium, then to depart again into oblivion.
It was now the first day of June and as Phelan concluded his tale, which was in fact an undress rehearsal of what he intended to tell on the morrow, he looked forward with modest satisfaction to the triumph that was sure to be his. For the hundredth time he made certain that the small brown purse, so unused to its present obesity, was safe and sound in his inside pocket.
During the pause that followed his recital, his audience grew restive.
"Go on, do it again," urged the ragged boy who sold the sandwiches, "show us how Forty Fathom Dan looked when he thought he was sinking.
"I don"t dare trifle with me features," said Phelan solemnly. "How much are those sandwiches. One for five, is it? Two for fifteen, I suppose.
Well, here"s one for me, and one for Corp, and keep the change, kid.
Ain"t that the train coming?"
"It"s the up train," said the station-master, rising reluctantly; "it meets yours here. I"ve got to be hustling."
Phelan, left without an audience, strolled up and down the platform, closely followed by Corporal Harrihan.
As the train slowed up at the little Junction, there was manifestly some commotion on board. Standing in the doorway of the rear car a small, white-faced woman argued excitedly with the conductor.
"I didn"t have no ticket, I tell you!" she was saying as the train came to a stop. "I "lowed I"d pay my way, but I lost my pocket-book. I lost it somewheres on the train here, I don"t know where it is!"
"I"ve seen your kind before," said the conductor wearily; "what did you get on for when you didn"t have anything to pay your fare with?"
"I tell you I lost my pocket-book after I got on!" she said doggedly; "I ain"t going to get off, you daren"t put me off!"
Phelan, who had sauntered up, grew sympathetic. He, too, had experienced the annoyance of being pressed for his fare when it was inconvenient to produce it.
"Go ahead," demanded the conductor firmly, "I don"t want to push you off, but if you don"t step down and out right away, I"ll have it to do."
The woman"s expression changed from defiance to terror. She clung to the brake with both hands and looked at him fearfully.