Mrs. Cameron was still sleeping soundly, one work-worn hand partly shading her face. Ruth knew instinctively that she must have been weeping in the night. In the early morning dawn she drooped on the hard little cot in a crumpled heap, and the girl’s heart ached for her sorrow.
Ruth stole into the kitchen to ask for water to wash her face:
“I’m sorry,” said the pleasant-faced woman who was making coffee and frying bacon, “but the wash basins are all gone; we’ve had so many folks come in. But you can have this pail. I just got this water for myself and I’ll let you have it and I’ll get some more. You see, the water pipes aren’t put in the building yet and we have to go down the road quite a piece to get any. This is all there was left last night.”
She handed Ruth a two-gallon galvanized tin bucket containing a couple of inches of water, obviously clean, and added a brief towel to the toilet arrangements.
Ruth beat a hasty retreat back to the shelter of the piano with her collection, fearing lest mirth would get the better of her. She could not help thinking how her aunt would look if she could see her washing her face in this pittance of water in the bottom of the great big bucket.
But Ruth Macdonald was adaptable in spite of her upbringing. She managed to make a most pleasing toilet in spite of the paucity of water, and then went back to the kitchen with the bucket.
“If you will show me where you get the water I’ll go for some more,” she offered, anxious for an excuse to get out and explore the track.
The woman in the kitchen was not abashed at the offer. She accepted the suggestion as a matter of course, taking for granted the same helpful spirit that seemed to pervade all the people around the place. It did not seem to strike her as anything strange that this young woman should be willing to go for water. She was not giving attention to details like clothes and handbags, and neither wealth nor social station belonged to her scheme of life. So she smilingly gave the directions to the pump and went on breaking nice brown eggs into a big yellow bowl. Ruth wished she could stay and watch, it looked so interesting.
She took the pail and slipped out the back door, but before she went in search of water she hurried down to the railroad track and scanned it for several rods either way, carefully examining each bit of paper, her breath held in suspense as she turned over an envelope or scrap of paper, lest it might bear his name. At last with a glad look backward to be sure she had missed nothing, she hurried up the bank and took her way down the grassy path toward the pump, satisfied that Cameron had not yet left the camp.
It was a lovely summer morning, and the quietness of the country struck her as never before. The wild roses shimmered along the roadside in the early sun, and bees and butterflies were busy about their own affairs. It seemed such a lovely world if it only had not been for war. How could God bear it! She lifted her eyes to the deep blue of the sky, where little clouds floated lazily, like lovely aviators out for pleasure. Was God up there? If she might only find Him. What did it all mean, anyway? Did He really care for individuals?