Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand for all that was in her came as a godsend.
She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue the usual course of life unheeding—Joan was one of the first Americans to declare war upon Germany.
But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their sleeves and settled down to work.
Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the pursuit of culture for a course in hospital assistance. "So that we shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan.
"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral."
"Neutral?" cried the daughter of Richard Darcy. "Neutral? Have you ever seen a pit-terrier jump on a respectable little poodle-dog out in the front yard protecting his household—and were you able to remain neutral? I know my country better than that!"
In keeping up with Joan's new activities, the town quite forgot to look at her askance.
Nikolai, too, was making of the war a personal matter. He wrote that he, with other writers in New York, was financing a hospital unit with which he intended to go to France in any capacity where he would be useful. He had been in his youth, among other things, a student of medicine.
"Isn't it fine, Archie?" she cried, thrilling to this letter. "Oh, if we could only do something ourselves! I'd like to send him a contribution for his unit, anyway. May I?"
Archie hesitated. "How much, dear?"