To Maria-Ann it was a marvellous sight. She set down her valise by a window and, standing guard in front of it, gazed about her with intense satisfaction. In truth this was seeing the great world, of which she had read so much in the Journal and for which she had longed, at first hand. Around the counter--a long oval--were perched on the high, wooden, spring stools "all sorts and conditions of men," with a sprinkling of women and children. There was perpetual motion of knives, forks, teaspoons, arms, hands, mouths,--and a noisy conglomerate beyond description, accented by the shriek and toot of the switch-engines.
Suddenly the clangor of a gong-like bell and a stentorian voice rose above the chaos of sound;--there was a momentary lull in the confusion of masticating utensils, followed by a general slipping, sliding, and jumping off the round wooden perches,--and to Maria-Ann's amazement, the room was nearly vacant.
"Now 's my time," said Maria-Ann, with considerable complacency, and forthwith proceeded to hoist herself, by means of the foot-rail, upon one of the seats, at the same time placing her valise on another at her right. She looked at the varied assortment of delectables--an embarrassment of riches: jelly-roll cakes, pickles, squash pie, baked beans, frosted tea-cakes, sage cheese, ham sandwiches, lemon pie, cold, spice-speckled custards, doughnuts, great as to their circumference, startling as to their cubical contents.
"I 've heard tell of them," said Maria-Ann to herself, as her eye, ranging the oval marble slab, encountered a pyramidal pile of New England's doughty cruller. "I 'll have two of them, I guess," she said to the indifferent attendant, "an' a cup of coffee; that 'll last me for a spell, and I can keep my lunch for supper." She expected some response to her explanation, but there was none forthcoming, save that a cup of coffee, half-pint size, was shoved over the counter towards her, and the huge glass dome that protected the doughnuts was removed with a jerk, and the towering pile set down in front of her.
Maria-Ann helped herself. It seemed rather tame, after so much excitement, to be eating a doughnut the size of a small feather-bed, without company. She looked around. There were but three or four at the entire counter. Farther down to the left, his tall, gaunt figure silhouetted against the blank of the large window, a man was seated, bestriding the perch as if it were a horse. He wore the undress uniform of the volunteer cavalry. When Maria-Ann discovered this, she felt for a moment, to use her own expression, "flustered." The mere presence of the uniform brought to her a realizing sense of the importance of her mission; it seemed to bring her at once into touch with far-away Cuba, and the feminine knights of the Red Cross; with--her heart gave a joyful thump--with Chi! She felt in a way ennobled to be eating her doughnut within speaking distance of a hero (they were all that in Maria-Ann's idealizing imagination).
She had bitten only halfway into the periphery of the doughnut, when the man stepped from his seat. She watched him as he moved slowly towards the door; his back was turned to her. How feebly he moved! Almost seeming to drag one foot after the other.
A great flood of patriotic pity engulfed Maria-Ann's whole being. She forgot the doughnuts; she left the coffee; she forgot even her valise; her one thought was as she slid from the stool: "I ain't no call to wait till I get to Cuby; I 'm just as much a Red Cross nuss right here in White River Junction, Vermont, as if I was a thousand miles away." The girl at the counter looked after her in amazement--she hadn't even paid! But there was her valise.
She saw Maria-Ann whisk something out of her dress-waist and stop halfway down the room to pin it on her sleeve, and lo and behold!--it was a cross of bright red flannel. She saw her hurry after the man, who had dragged himself to the doorway, and stood there leaning heavily against the jamb.
"If you 're goin' to take a train, just you let me help you aboard," she said, speaking just at his elbow. The man's head half turned with a jerk. "You ain't fit to stan' more 'n an eight months baby, an' I 'm a Red Cross nuss on my way to Cuby--"
A gaunt, yellow face with haggard eyes was turned slowly full upon her, and a hand, shaking, as that of a man in drink, was laid on her arm: