Jose, the black-looking Mexican, alone in the room. He had taken both of the chemical fire extinguishers from the wall-one had hung at one end of the room and the other at the other end-and was doing something to them.
Repairing them, perhaps, or merely cleaning them. He sat there cheerfully whistling in a low tone and manipulating a polishing rag, or something of the kind. He had a bucket beside him.
"I wonder if he can"t sleep nights, and that is why he is so busily engaged?" thought Ruth, as she went on out of the building. "I never knew of his being so workative before."
But the matter made no real impression on her mind. It was a transitory thought entirely. She went to her clean little cell in the Y. W. C. A.
home and forgot all about Mr. Jose and the fire extinguishers.
CHAPTER IX-TOM SAILS, AND SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS
"You can see your son, Second Lieutenant Thomas Cameron, before he sails for France, if you will be at the Polk Hotel, at eight o"clock to-morrow p. m."
There have been other telegrams sent and received of more moment than the above, perhaps; but none that could have created a more profound impression in the Cameron household.
There have been not a few similar messages put on the telegraph wires and received by anxious parents during these months since America has really got into the World War.
There is every necessity for secrecy in the sailing of the transports for France. The young officers themselves have sometimes told more to their relatives than they should before the hour of sailing. So the War Department takes every precaution to safeguard the crossing of our boys who go to fight the Huns.
With Mr. Cameron holding an important government position and being ready himself to go across before many weeks, it was only natural that he should have this information sent him that he might say good-bye to Tom. The latter had already been a fortnight with "his boys" in the training camp and was fixed in his a.s.signment to his division of the expeditionary forces.
Ruth chanced to be at the Outlook, as the Cameron home was called, for over Sunday when this telegram was received. Both she and Helen were vastly excited.
"Oh, I"m going with you! I must see Tommy once more," cried the twin with an outburst of sobs and tears that made her father very unhappy.
"My dear! You cannot," Mr. Cameron tried to explain.
"I can! I must!" the girl cried. "I know I"ll never see Tommy again.
He-he"s going over there to-to be shot--"
"Don"t, dear!" begged Ruth, taking her chum into her arms. "You must not talk that way. This is war--"
"And is war altogether a man"s game? Aren"t we to have anything to say about it, or what the Government shall do with our brothers?"
"It is no game," sighed Ruth Fielding. "It is a very different thing.
And our part in it is to give, and give generously. Our loved ones if we must."
"I don"t want to give Tom!" Helen declared. "I can never be patriotic enough to give him to the country. And that"s all there is to it!"
"Be a good girl, Helen, and brace up," advised her father, but quite appreciating the girl"s feelings. There had always been a bond between the Cameron twins stronger than that between most brothers and sisters.
"I know I shall never see him again," wailed the girl.
"I hope he"ll not hear that you said that, dear," said the girl of the Red Mill, shaking her head. "We must send him away with cheerfulness.
You tell him from me, Mr. Cameron, that I send my love and I hope he will come back a major at least."
"He"ll be killed!" Helen continued to wail. "I know he will!"
But that did not help things a mite. Mr. Cameron went off late that night and reached the rendezvous called for in the telegram. It was in a port from which several transports were sailing within a few hours, and he came back with a better idea of what it meant for thousands of men under arms to get away on a voyage across the seas.
Tom was busy with his men; but he had time to take supper with his father at the hotel and then got permission for Mr. Cameron to go aboard the ship with him and see how comfortable the War Department had made things for the expeditionary force.
Mr. Cameron stopped at Robinsburg on his return to tell Ruth about it, for she had returned to Headquarters, of course, on Monday, and was working quite as hard as before. He brought, too, a letter for Ruth from Tom, and just what their soldier-boy said in that missive the girl of the Red Mill never told.
Ruth was left, when her friends" father went on to Cheslow, with a great feeling of emptiness in her life. It was not alone because of Tom"s departure for France; Mr. Cameron and Helen, too, would soon go across the sea.
Mr. Cameron had repeated Helen"s offer-that Ruth should accompany them.
But the girl, though grateful, refused. She did not for a moment belittle his efforts for the Government, or Helen"s interest in the war.
But Mr. Cameron was a member of a commission that was to investigate certain matters and come back to make report. He would not be over there long.
As for Helen, Ruth was quite sure she would join some a.s.sociation of wealthy women and girls in Paris, as Jennie Stone had, and consider that she was "doing her bit." Ruth wanted something more real than that. She was in earnest. She did not wish to be carefully sheltered from all hard work and even from the dangers "over there." She desired a real part in what was going forward.
Nevertheless, while waiting her chance, she did not allow herself to become gloomy or morose. That was not Ruth Fielding"s way.
"I always know where to come when I wish to see a cheerful face," Mr.
Mayo declared, putting his head in at her door one day. "You always have a smile on tap. How do you do it?"
"I practice before my gla.s.s every morning," Ruth declared, laughing.
"But sometimes, during the day, I"m afraid my expression slips. I can"t always remember to smile when I am counting and packing these sweaters, and caps, and all, for the poor boys who, some of them, are going to stand up and be shot, or ga.s.sed, or blinded by liquid fire."
"It is hard," sighed the chief, wagging his head. "If it wasn"t knowing that we are doing just a little good--But not as much as I could wish!
Collections seem very small. Our report is not going to be all I could wish this month."
He went away, leaving Ruth with a thought that did not make it any easier for her to smile. She saw people all day long coming into the building and seeking out the cashier"s desk, where Mrs. Mantel sat, to hand over contributions of money to the Red Cross. If only each brought a dollar there should be a large sum added to the local treasury each day.
There was no way of checking up these payments. The money pa.s.sed through the hands of the lady in black and only by her accounts on the day ledger and a system of card index taken from that ledger by Mr. Legrand, who worked as her a.s.sistant, could the record be found of the moneys contributed to the Red Cross at this station.
Ruth Fielding was not naturally of a suspicious disposition; but the honesty of Mrs. Mantel and the real interest of that woman in the cause were still keenly questioned in Ruth"s mind.
She wondered if Mr. Mayo knew who the woman really was. Was her story of widowhood, and of her former business experience in New Orleans strictly according to facts? What might be learned about the woman in black if inquiry was made in that Southern city?
Yet at times Ruth would have felt condemned for her suspicions had it not been for the daily sight of Mrs. Mantel"s hard smile and her black, glittering eyes.
"Snakes" eyes," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "Quite as bright and quite as malevolent. Mrs. Mantel certainly does not love me, despite her soft words and sweet smile."
There was some stir in the headquarters at last regarding a large draft of Red Cross workers to make up another expeditionary force to France.
Two full hospital units were going and a base supply unit as well.
Altogether several hundred men and women would sail in a month"s time for the other side.
Ruth"s heart beat quicker at the thought. Was there a prospect for her to go over in some capacity with this quota?
Most of the candidates for all departments of the expeditionary force were trained in the work they were to do. It was ridiculous to hope for an appointment in the hospital force. No nurse among them all had served less than two years in a hospital, and many of them had served three and four.
She asked Mr. Mayo what billets there were open in the supply unit; but the chief did not know. The State had supplied few workers as yet who had been sent abroad; Robinsburg, up to this time, none at all.
"Why, Miss Fielding, you must not think of going over there!" he cried.