Of late Aunt Tryphosa had been growing suspicious of Maria-Ann, and the
latter felt she was being watched; to use her own words, "it nettled
her."
One afternoon, late in August, her grandmother, coming upon her rather
suddenly in the pasture as she sat under the shade of a patriarchal
butternut, ostensibly watching Dorcas, asked her sharply:
"What you doin', Maria-Ann?"
"'Tendin' to my own business," retorted Maria-Ann, with an unwonted snap
in her voice, and hurriedly folded something out of sight beneath the
Hearthstone Journal which lay upon her lap.
This was the signal of open revolt on the part of her granddaughter, and
the like had occurred but once before in all the time of her up-bringing
with Aunt Tryphosa. The old dame's lips drew to a thinner line than
usual, as she fired the second shot into the hostile camp:
"You been cryin', Maria-Ann."
"What if I be?" demanded her granddaughter, with a flash of indignation
from beneath her reddened eyelids. "S'pose I have a right to have
feelin's same as other folks."
Suddenly Aunt Tryphosa swooped like a hen-hawk upon a small piece of
bright scarlet flannel, that the breeze had caught away from the
protecting folds of the Hearthstone Journal, and landed in the covert of
sweet fern just at her feet.
"What's that?" She held up the glowing bit of color, dangling it before
Maria-Ann's eyes.
Upon poor Maria-Ann's inflamed sense of injustice, it had much the same
effect as a red rag waved before the eyes of an infuriated bull.
She sprang to her feet, snatched the bit of cloth from between her
grandmother's thumb and fore-finger, and thrust it into her dress waist,
crying out shrilly in her unwonted excitement:
"You let that be, Grandmarm Little! It's my cross and I 'm going on a
crusade--so now!"
Aunt Tryphosa sat down rather suddenly in the middle of the sweet-fern
patch. Was Maria-Ann going crazy? Her breath came short and sharp; she
drew her thin lips still more tightly, and, although really alarmed,
braced herself for the combat.
"What 'd you say you was goin' on, Maria-Ann?"
"I never knew you was growin' deef before, grandmarm; I said a crusade."
She had raised her voice to a still higher pitch, as she stooped to
gather up the Hearthstone Journal, the bits of red cloth, her scissors,
and thimble which had fallen from her lap as she sprang to her feet.
"Is that the thing you read me about last winter in the Journal, with
the soldiers with crosses on their backs on hosses startin' out for
Jerusalem?" demanded the old dame, but in a strangely agitated voice.
"Yes," responded Maria-Ann, promptly, but with less acerbity of manner.
"And is that red rag you hid away a _cross_, Maria-Ann Simmons?" No
words can do justice to the old dame's tone and its implied impiety of
her granddaughter's conduct.
Maria-Ann was silent.
"Be you a Christian girl, or an idolater, Maria-Ann?"
Her grandmother's voice shook pitiably. Maria-Ann's conscience gave a
twinge, when she heard it; but she felt the time was ripe, and she must
put in the sickle.
"I hope I 'm a Christian, grandmarm, but I 'm an idolater, too,--" Aunt
Tryphosa drew in her breath, as if hurt. "But, anyway, I guess I was an
American 'fore I was a Christian, an' I jest _idolize_ my Country--"
Maria-Ann's eyes filled with tears--"an' I can't do anything for her,
nor make sacrifices same as other women do who can send their
husbands--," a sob, "an' lovers--," another sob, "an' nuss 'em, an' help
on their Country's cause livin' 'way up here in an old back paster with
an old cow--an' an old wo--Oh, grandmarm!" Maria-Ann broke down
utterly, laid her head upon her knees, and sobbed unrestrainedly.
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--"
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:
"Don't you know me, Marier-Ann?"
Maria-Ann sat down suddenly on the doorstep at the man's feet. There
was no strength left in her. Then she put her head into her hands, and
began to cry softly; there were few to see her, and had the whole world
been there, she would not have cared.
"Just help me into the waitin'-room, Marier-Ann, where we can talk."
She bounced to her feet, with streaming, tear-blinded eyes, and Chi,
linking his arm in hers, led her into the "Ladies' Room."
A porter followed them in; he addressed Chi. "She ain't paid for what
she ordered, and she ain't eat it neither, and she 's left her valise."
Chi pulled out a ten-cent piece and put it into his hand. "Bring 'em all
in," he said, "grub 'n' all, 'n' I 'll pay for 'em. We 'll sit here a
spell till train time." Maria-Ann sobbed afresh.
The porter brought in the plate with the doughnuts, the cup of coffee,
and the valise, and set them down on the wooden settee. He pointed to
the ten-cent piece that lay within the inner ring of a doughnut:
"I don't take nothin' of that kind from you fellers." He touched the
bit of braid on the cuff of Chi's coat; Chi smiled, and pocketed the
money.
"Guess you was n't expectin' to meet an old friend so soon, was you?"
said Chi, gently, setting the plate in her lap.
Maria-Ann shook her head vigorously, but she could not control the sobs.
Chi crossed one leg over the other, and waited.
The flies buzzed on the smoke-thickened panes, and an empty truck
rattled down the platform. There were no other sounds.
"When does your train go, Marier-Ann?"
There was another sob, but no answer.
"Did n't I hear you say you was on your way to Cuby?"
Maria-Ann nodded.
"Bad place for women--'n' men, too. What you goin' for?"