It was an unusual sight, and Aunt Tryphosa was troubled. She felt it necessary to beat a retreat in the face of such genuine grief, but she was determined that it should be a dignified one.
"I ain't never seen you give way so, Maria-Ann, and you 're thirty-one year old come next January. I 've done my best to bring you up right, an' now you 're old enough to know your own mind, _I hope_; so, if you want to leave me, you can go jest as soon as you can get ready. I come up for Dorcas, an' now I 'm goin' home." In spite of her effort her old voice trembled, but her pride sustained her nobly, and Maria-Ann was all unaware that the tears were rolling down the wrinkled furrows in the old cheeks as her grandmother drove Dorcas before her down the fern-scented pasture slope.
Her granddaughter followed her half an hour later, and after a silent supper, except for Aunt Tryphosa's murmured "grace," and a faint "amen"
from the other side of the table, Maria-Ann lighted a lamp and shut herself into her small bedroom.
She placed a chair against the door, lest she might be suddenly raided, and drew the other splint-bottomed one up to the head of the bed.
Lifting the feather-bed she thrust her hand far under and drew out a square, white pasteboard box. It was tied with a narrow, white ribbon.
She undid it carefully, and took out a layer of tissue paper. The lamp-light shone upon a large, gilt heart, some ten by eight inches, with a thickness of two inches.
Maria-Ann turned the box this way and that, watching the play of light on it, for the heart was skewered with a large, silver-gilt arrow, and the shaft, where it penetrated, held a small, white card with simulated blood-drops in carmine splashed on in one corner, and the sentiment, written in the same, straggling diagonally across the other corner:
"In thy sight Is my delight."
Maria-Ann shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "Don't seems as if he 'd sent me that if he had n't meant somethin'," she murmured, and dreamed for a little while. Then she opened her eyes, prepared for new delights. Raising the gilt top with tender care, she took out a faded rose:
"Don't seem as if he 'd come back that nex' mornin' after Chris'mus an'
give me that, 'thout he 'd had some notion." She laid the rose carefully upon the tissue paper, and began to lift the leaves of the heart-shaped book, until she had lifted every one of the three hundred and sixty-five! She smiled to herself.
"'T ain't likely he 'd 'a' sent me jest such a cook-book, 'thout he 'd been tryin' to give me a hint." She began to read the recipes--it was absorbing: puddings, cakes, preserves. She was lost to time as she read; "An' he took that pair of socks I knit him last Chris'mus 'long with him, Rose said--" There was a fumbling at her door. Maria-Arm blew out the light.
"That you, grandmarm?" she called pleasantly.
There was no answer, and Maria-Ann laughed softly to herself as she undressed in the dark, and lay down to sweet dreams.
"I 'm goin' over to Mis' Blossom's, grandmarm," she announced the next afternoon, "to see if they 've had any news. I ain't heard for two days."
Her grandmother made no reply, but when her grand-daughter was well on her way to the Blossoms', Mrs. Tryphosa Little's conscience deemed it prudent to issue a private search-warrant and investigate Maria-Ann's premises--even to the under side of the feather-bed. The results perfectly justified the search, and upon Maria-Ann's return just before tea, she was amazed to have her grandmother offer her a wrinkled cheek to kiss.
"Why, grandmarm!" exclaimed Maria-Ann, in joyful surprise, "I 'm so glad you ain't laid it up against me--
"I can see through a barn-door when 't is wide open, even at my time of life, Maria-Ann Simmons," said the old dame, interrupting her.
"What did you hear over to Ben's?"
"Hazel's just had a letter from her father, and he says they 've got Mr.
Sherrill home to New York, an' if nothin' new sets in, he 'll get over it, but his lungs 'll be weak, mebbe, for two years. He was shot clean through the lungs."
"What do they hear from Chi?"
Maria-Ann's face grew suddenly radiant. "Oh, he 's been awful sick with the fever, an' ain't left Cuby yet, but he'll come North jest as soon as he can be transported. I 've been talking over my plans with Mis'
Blossom an' Rose an' Hazel, an' they 're goin' to do everything they can for me."
"So you 're a-goin' to Cuby, Maria-Ann?"
"Yes, grandmarm, I 've got a call to go an' nuss our sick an' wounded; I 've been readin' a lot 'bout the Red Cross misses in the Hearthstone Journal, an' I 'm goin' to wear a cross, an' Hazel's goin' to pay my fare, an' I 'm goin' to stop to Mr. Clyde's when I get to New York, an'
he 'll start me all right for Cuby--"
"Them beets are burnin' on, Maria-Ann; guess you 'd better stop for jest one more meal on the Mountin, had n't you?" said her grandmother, dryly.
Maria-Ann laughed merrily. "I know, grandmarm, it seems kinder queer and foolish to you, but I feel as if I could go now with nothin' on my mind, for you know Mandy's girl is comin' to stay all September an'
October, an' she 's grand help. You won't begin to miss me 'fore I 'll be back--an' I 'll own up, grandmarm, ever since Rose Blossom went to New York last winter, I 've hankered after seein' more of the world 'sides Mount Hunger."
"When you goin' to start?"
"I calc'late 'bout the last of next week, that 'll be into September--here, let me pare them beets, grandmarm;" and forthwith she seized the pan, and began peeling the steaming, deep-red balls, singing heartily the while:
"'Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas?'"
"Now be careful, and change at White River Junction," were Mr. Blossom's parting words at the station. "After that you go right through to New York."
"I 'll take good care, don't you any of you worry 'bout me!" She waved her handkerchief from the back platform of the car to the little group she was leaving,--Mr. and Mrs. Blossom, Rose, March and Hazel, Captain Spillkins and Susan Wood, with Elvira and Melissa. She was inflated with heroic resolve, and felt ennobled to be going forth to do battle, as she termed it to herself, for her Country's cause. Moreover she was seeing the world, and even at the start she found it most interesting, for she had been but ten miles at most by train, and here she was speeding towards White River Junction, distant forty miles from Barton's River.
She longed to communicate her enthusiasm to the occupants of the car, but found only one opportunity. She offered to hold a baby, one of a family of five, while the mother fed and watered the other four. She continued to dandle it recklessly till the woman protested:
"Guess you ain't had a fam'ly," she remarked sternly, rescuing her child; "a woman of your age ought to know better 'n to shake a baby up so when he 's teethin'--'t ain't good for their brains--like enough bring on chol'ry morbis." She pulled down the small clothes, turned the atom over on its stomach, and patted its back with a broad hand and a dove-like settling motion that bespoke the mater-familias.
Maria-Ann looked out of the window. True, she had n't any family--only Grandmarm Little and Aunt Mandy's one daughter who had just come to visit them. What was Aunt Tryphosa doing now? She was dreaming again, and before she could realize it, the brakeman called, "White River Junction! Change cars for all points south via Windsor, Springfield, New York."
Hearing that, Maria-Ann felt as if she had already travelled a thousand miles, so far away seemed Mount Hunger and its uneventful life.
She found herself on the platform. She had been so confident of taking care of herself--and now! She looked helplessly about. Trains to the right of her, trains to the left of her, trains in front of her and behind her switched, and shifted, and thundered. Engine-bells, dinner-bells, train-bells; stentorian voices of baggage-men, brakemen, call-men; frantic women, screaming babies, hurrying porters, indifferent travellers, fashionable women and city men; farmers, children, baskets, shawl-straps, dress-suit cases, golf bags, boys; dogs, yelping and crying, in arms or in leash; canaries in their wooden cages shrilling over all; and hither and thither and yon a bustling, and rustling, and rattling, and roaring, and clanking, and hissing, and shrieking, and hurrying, and scurrying, and pushing, and hauling, and prodding, and rushing! For a minute Maria-Ann was dazed and almost stunned. Then her courage rose to the occasion. _This_ was the famous Junction of which she had heard so much. _This_ was the great world. _This_ was Life!
"I 'll stand stock-still an' wait till it clears up a little. I 've got an hour here, an' mebbe I 'll see somebody from Barton's," she said to herself, and had just put down her valise when a hoarse voice cried in her ear,--"Hi, there! get out of the way!"
She dodged a baggage truck piled high with toppling trunks, only to be caught in the surging, living stream, and carried with it up a step into the restaurant of the station.
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--"