The ladies were so absorbed in work and talk that they did not hear the click of the front gate and the stumbling and stamping of feet coming up the steps.
Susan opened the parlor door. “There’s some menfolks out here, Miss Agnes,� she said to her mistress. “They say please’m they want to see the Red Cross ladies.�
“To see me?� asked Mrs. Wilson.
“To see the Red Cross ladies; that’s what they say, Miss Agnes.�
“Ask them to come in,� said Mrs. Wilson.
Miss Fanny modestly hid a hospital shirt she was ripping and began to knit a wristlet. Susan opened the door and ushered in nine old men. They were feeble and broken with years, years not only of age but of poverty and many hardships. They shuffled in, some on wooden legs, some dragging paralyzed feet, some supporting rheumatic limbs with canes and crutches. There were palsied arms and more than one empty sleeve.
The old fellows came in panting and wheezing from the exertion of climbing the steps. At the door they took off their hats, baring bald pates and straggling white locks, and stood in line.
Mrs. Wilson went forward swiftly and greeted them with gracious courtesy, but they did not respond as friends and neighbors.
“We came on an errand to you Red Cross ladies,� Captain Anderson said formally. “We�—he straightened his old shoulders—“are Confederate veterans.�
At the words the ladies came to their feet, in respect and homage.