“For the forty-ninth time, do I look good enough to be your husband?”
“Now, Bruce,” she began severely, “I have to keep my mind on this program and can’t think of the future just now.”
“All right! All right!” he said and grinned impishly. “I won’t ask you again today, but I make no promises for tomorrow.”
“I have a surprise for you,” she said, when she was about to leave him on one of the seats. “Hope you’ll like it.”
“I like anything you do,” he assured her.
“I’m not so sure,” she retorted. “Remember, I’m from Georgia and you from New York state.”
“I can’t imagine what difference that would ever make.”
“Just wait and see.”
The convalescents’ band led off with The Star Spangled Banner. Though Nancy had stood at attention a thousand times or more she still thrilled to the stirring music, and her heart swelled with pride that she was now an essential part of these great armies, intent upon keeping their own flags waving over all the lands of the free and homes of the brave.
After the national anthem Lieutenant Hauser led the nurses in singing America the Beautiful. Then the negro chorus stepped forward to give them a program of spirituals in sonorous, harmonizing voices. First they chanted I’m Goin’ Down De River o’ Jordan. Then their choir leader sang a solo with a group behind him humming an accompaniment, soft and sweet as any deep-toned organ. They finished off their first group with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which brought such storms of applause the spiritual had to be repeated.