THE CALL OF THE RED CROSS
Despite the enthralling interest of her new work and surroundings, it seemed to Rose, during the year after she gained entrance to the temple of her desire, that her life was standing still, while all things else were speeding by her at a breakneck pace.
It had never been so before. Even in the isolation and simplicity of her former home she had felt that she was a part of it all. It had seemed to her, somehow, as though her existence had been patterned after her own turbulent mountain stream, which danced along through sunshine and shade, with here and there a ravine and cataract, here and there a rapid or impeding boulder in its course; but always moving, moving. Then, suddenly, it was as though that swift little river had fallen into a broad, quiet basin, walled in, where it moved forward almost imperceptibly. True, it was daily gaining greater depth and fulness as it gathered to itself the tributary waters of knowledge and experience, and Smiles was not insensible to this fact. But it was difficult to remember it always, for the outer world of events was moving forward so fast.
The very day upon which her probationary period came to an end and, with a smile on her lips, a song in her heart, she placed the cherished cap upon her gold-brown curls, there came, from the heart of the swiftly piled up, lowering clouds, the blinding flash which shattered the peace of the world and started the overwhelming conflagration into the seething, bloody-tongued vortex into which nation after nation was sucked irresistibly. The world had become the plaything of the Gods of Wrath.
Black days passed, shuddering things of horror to Rose, when she had time to allow her mind to dwell upon them, and her keen imagination to picture the atrocities which the fiend was committing upon the helpless babies of Belgium and France.
Then, in answer to the cries and lamentations from overseas, the banner of the Red Cross was shaken forth anew, like a holy standard, and, like crusaders of old, doctors and nurses flocked beneath it for the battle. From her own hospital home went physicians and graduate nurses to dedicate themselves afresh to service. The call reached and wrung the heart of Rose. She could not go as a nurse, she knew; yet the need was so great that it seemed to her that somehow she must answer; but she resolutely closed her ears to it and fixed her eyes the more steadfastly upon the rocky, shut-in path which she had set forth to climb.
It was a raw, bleak evening in late November when she made her final resolve. At noon Donald had met her in one of the corridors and stopped to speak with her. His face, she thought afterwards, had appeared unusually serious and determined, even for him, as he said, "This is your afternoon and evening off duty, isn't it, Rose? I want to talk with you, if you haven't made any other plans."
As it chanced, she had been eagerly anticipating a visit to the theatre with Miss Merriman, who was home for a few days between cases; but something about his manner caused her to tell a white lie without hesitation.
"Good," he said. "I'll call for you in my car and take you to Ethel's for dinner. Be ready at six o'clock."
All the rest of the day Donald's presence had been strangely close to her, and she found herself wondering what it portended; but not until the pleasant family meal was over, and he was taking her home, did she learn.
When they came out of the house they found a baby blizzard sending the first snow of the season, as light and dry as tiny particles of down, whirling and eddying through the broad street. As Rose stood in surprise at the top of the brownstone steps, a dry vagrant, left from one of the trees which was tossing its gaunt arms protestingly, came tumbling down to become stem-entangled in her hair. With a laugh, she dashed for the motor car and, when she had sprung inside it, she was panting a little, for the thieving wind had taken advantage of her lips being open in laughter to steal away her breath, so that Donald was sensible of her quickened heart beats as she leaned against him while his big but deft fingers removed the leaf almost tenderly from its imprisoning mesh.
"Doctor Bentley would make a pretty speech about getting caught in my hair," challenged Rose with a teasing pout.
The next instant she drew quickly back, for Donald's arms were almost about her. He as quickly recovered himself, with the words, "But you can't expect pretty speeches from a brother."
"You have been a dear big brother; I don't know why you have been so good to me, Donald. Do you know what this snow reminds me of? That awful night on the mountain when I went down to Fayville to telegraph for you—and you came." For a moment they both sat in silent memories, then Rose added, "Dear little Lou, I wonder how she is getting along now ... and Juddy, too. Isn't it a strange thing, Donald, that one can forget the old things so quickly—no, not forget, either; but have them forced into the background of the mind by new surroundings and new friends. Sometimes, all those years on the mountain seem to me like a dream. I used to see the people there, Grandpap, Mr. Talmadge, Judd and all the rest, every day, they were a part of my life, and now they have been completely withdrawn and who knows if I shall ever see any of them again? They hardly seem real to me."
"Yes, strange, perhaps, but it happens many times in the course of a life." He paused, then added hurriedly, "I suppose that in a few months you will be saying the same thing about me—'I used to see him every day, he was a part of my life, but now he is only in the background of my memory, and doesn't seem real.'"
There was a note almost of bitterness in Donald's voice; but Rose was too stunned by his words to notice or attempt to analyze the manner of their utterance.
"Donald, what ... what do you mean? You're not ..." She gasped, and laid her hand with an impulsive clutch on his arm.
"Look out! Don't interfere with the motorman," he laughed more naturally, as the car swerved almost into the curbing. "Yes, I am. I'm going away ... almost immediately."
"Away? Where?"
"To France."
"Oh, Don, you mustn't; you can't. You're needed here so much."
"They need me over there more, little Smiles. I've realized it, and felt the pull, for days; but it didn't become insistent until yesterday, when I received a letter from a chap whom I have known for years. He's always had a good deal more money than was good for him, and been a sort of social butterfly. I liked him, although I didn't believe that he had a serious thought in his head, didn't think that he was capable of one, but ... here, read what he has written me," he concluded abruptly, as a temporary block forced their car to a stop beneath an electric light on Massachusetts Avenue. "The first page doesn't matter; it merely contains a description of how he happened to be caught in Paris by the outbreak of the war, and got mixed up in volunteer rescue work through a spirit of adventure."
Rose turned to the second sheet and, holding the pages close to the glass in the door, through which came enough snow-filtered light to illumine them, read.
"I am beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining, and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I look back on the old, superficial, utterly useless life that I formerly led, I actually thank God for the foolish whim that brought me to Paris in the fall, and the equally whimsical decision that led me to volunteer my services as an auto driver. The work has stirred something inside of me that I didn't know existed, and, if I come through this scrape (we're working in villages pretty close to the front a good deal of the time), I'll come home 'poorer, but wiser.' Yes, they've touched my pocketbook as well as my heart.
I suppose the papers give you some idea of conditions here; but no verbal description can begin to do it justice; the need is simply overwhelming and hourly growing greater. Think of it, old man, there are thousands upon thousands of babies and little kiddies of Belgium and northern France homeless, many of them orphaned, most of them sick and all helpless and with their lives—which have every right to be carefree and happy—filled with sorrow and suffering.
France has been glorious in the way she has met the staggering, almost insuperable difficulties which everywhere confront her, but how could she be expected to meet this incidental problem when she was so overburdened with the crushing pressure of the battle for her very existence. It has been a mighty lucky thing for her that the Red Cross was ready to take it off her shoulders, and she has turned to us (How does that sound? Can you imagine me doing anything useful?) with tears of appeal and gratitude. That isn't a figure of speech. I have actually seen the Prefect of this Province, who would rank with the governor of one of our states, and who is a brave, capable man, cry like a woman over the seeming hopelessness of the ghastly problem. I have heard him say that he—that France—was helpless, and beg us in the name of common humanity to do what we could.
Believe me, we're doing it, and I'm proud of my countrymen and women who have gone into this thing with the typical Yankee pep; proud of the American Red Cross and just a bit proud of myself. You used to make fun of my vaunted ability to stay up half the night, and be fresh as a daisy the next morning. It's serving me in good stead now. I can't begin to tell you about the work we have done already and are doing; it is a task to overwhelm the courage, but we are 'carrying on,' as the Tommies say.
New children, by the scores and hundreds, are brought into the hospital bases daily, and many of them have been living for weeks, and even months, filthy in cellars of Hun-shattered villages which are almost continually under fire. They are generally sick, naturally, indescribably dirty and, in fact, mere wraiths of childhood. God, Don, it gets me when I imagine my own nephews and nieces in their places!
We clean 'em up, give them help and something to live for. We have already established hospitals, schools and nurseries in —— and —— and our ambulances and 'traveling baths' go out daily to give aid to the less needy in the neighborhood. Can you picture me acting as chauffeur for a magnified bath tub for Belgian babies? That's what I'm doing, now!
Get into the game, old man. We need you over here, and the kids of the disgustingly rich at home will be the better for not having a doctor to give them a pill every time their little noses run a bit. Pack up your saws, axes and other trouble-makers in your old kit bag and climb aboard a ship bound for France."
Donald saw that there were tears in Smiles' deep eyes as she silently folded the pages, and replaced them in their envelope.
"Of course you ought to go," she said simply. "I spoke selfishly. But oh, Don, I don't know what I shall do without you; you're the only 'family' I've got. I don't see you very often; but I know that you are here in Boston, and I guess that I have got the habit of leaning on you in my thoughts. You know I called you a tree, years and years ago."
"Yes, I remember, an 'oak,' wasn't it? I thought that you meant that I was tough," he laughed. "The idea of you leaning on any one is funny, Rose." Then he added, with some hesitancy, "I've been thinking ... Would you like to go over there, too, Rose? I could take you ... that is, I am quite sure that I could arrange for you to do so, not as a Red Cross nurse, of course, for they have to be graduates; but as a volunteer helper in one of those base hospitals. It would be a wonderful experience, and you would be performing the kind of service that you like best. It would not be time wasted, by any means."
She started, and her lips parted eagerly; then the light slowly faded from her eyes and she shook her head slowly.
"I would love it. It would be glorious, Don, and I should be working with you, perhaps, but ... No, I must keep on doing as I have planned. I can't falter or fail now, Don. There is going to be greater need every day, not for helpers, but for trained workers. When this awful war is ended and the weary, weary world turns back to peaceful pursuits, its hope and salvation will lie in its babies. Won't it, Don? I would like to help those babies over in France; sometimes I dream of being a Red Cross nurse and helping the poor, wounded soldiers; but I am sure that it is better for me to keep on making myself ready to serve the coming generations to the best of my fully trained ability. Don't you think so, too, Don?"
Her words had rung firm and true until the last question, when there crept in a note which seemed to his ears to carry an appeal for him to disagree, and argue with her; but the man answered, "Yes, dear. You are dead right, and I felt certain that you would say what you have said. You have got to stay until you are trained; I have got to go, because I am. You see that, don't you?"
"Yes. Oh, I shall miss you awfully, Don; I can't tell you how much. But I want you to go. And I mean to pray for you, and the poor little babies over there, too. I'll write you as often as I can; as often as you want me to."
"That's fine," he answered heartily. "But, as I told you once before, don't feel hurt if I answer only occasionally. I have a suspicion that there will be plenty of work for me to do over there."
"Yes, I'll understand. Besides, you will have to write to ... to Miss Treville more than to me. Are you ... are you going to get married before you go?"
"Married? Good Lord, no ... that is, I hadn't even thought of it," he said with a forced laugh. "Why, I haven't even told her yet that I am going."
"You haven't? You told me, first?"
"Well ... er ... you see I had to tell you, because ... because I ... I hold a position of trust in respect to you, and have got to make arrangements for your future. Big Jerry told me to use my own judgment about your money, and I believe that you are fully competent to take care both of yourself and of it.
"Here," he drew a small package from his side pocket, "is a bank deposit and check book, for I have already had the account transferred from my name, as trustee, to you individually. Now it is up to you to prove that you are a careful little business woman. With more than a thousand dollars in the bank you may feel quite like an heiress, but I warn you that a big city is a glutton and its avaricious maw is always open for money. Be warned by one who knows. If you need any advice of any nature that a man can give better than Miss Merriman, I want you to promise to call on Phil ... Dr. Bentley, that is, for I mean to put you in his charge. You can trust him just as you do me."
"I know that," answered Rose frankly.
"Well, here we are, little sister. Don't tell any one what I have just told you, for I want to make all my preliminary arrangements before I astound the world with the announcement of what I am going to do."
"You needn't laugh," answered Rose. "I guess that it will dismay plenty of Back Bay families who have babies."
There was a catch in her voice as she bade him good-night, and she was not sorry for an excuse for running into the hospital, offered by the mellow notes of a distant church clock tolling the hour of ten. It was the signal for "lights out" in the bedrooms, and this was appreciated, too, for it made it possible for her to undress in the dark, and the pale moonlight which came in through the window, as the moon played hide and seek behind the broken masses of storm clouds—for the blizzard had ended as quickly as it had come on—was reflected on two glistening tear drops on her flushed cheeks. In the darkness her roommate could not see them and be led to ask questions.
The two girls, one the self-educated, unknown child of the southern mountain side, the other the college-bred daughter of one of New England's oldest families, had become fast friends and generally exchanged whispered confidences until the sleep which comes of physical exhaustion speedily claimed them; but to-night Rose was in no mood for conversation.
The last thread which bound the old life to the new was soon to be broken, and she felt lonelier, more nearly homesick, than she had since leaving Webb's Gap.
"Perhaps I shall never see him again," she half whispered. "But I shall never, never forget him, he has been so good and meant so much to me. And I shall always love him." She saw that her roommate was asleep, softly raised the window-shade to let in the moonlight that she loved, and, clad in her simple nightdress, short sleeved and cut low at the neck, seated herself before the mirror to brush her wavy mass of hair, and, as she leaned forward, and it fell about her face, tear bedewed and made almost childlike again by its frame of tumbling curls, she smiled faintly in recollection. "I look the way I used to in my homemade, one-piece dresses," she breathed. "Just as I did that afternoon when he first saw me. 'Yo' looked so funny a-fallin' over thet thar dawg, an' a-rollin' on the floor.' What a way to greet a famous physician—only I didn't know it then."
For a moment she sat like this, her thoughts far away from the northern city; then a faint blush mantled her face, and she hastily jumped up and shut out the soft light by pulling down the shade.