A SOLDIER
"'T was August, and the fierce sun overhead
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green;
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen
In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited.
"I met a preacher there I knew, and said:
'Ill and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?'
'Bravely!' he said; 'for I of late have been
Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the _living bread_.'"
Nora Costello was even more moved than Flint by their chance meeting,
if meeting it could be called, under the white light of the lamps of
Madison Square. On leaving Nepaug, she had resolutely shut out of her
mental horizon the acquaintances that she had made in her few days
there. She felt instinctively that any further continuance of the
associations would be fraught with embarrassing complications, if not
actual perils. These people belonged to a world to which she was as
dead as though she had taken the black veil in a convent.
As the daughter of the manse, in her young girlhood she had come in
contact with people of refinement and some wealth; people of keen
perceptions if somewhat pronounced limitations; and she realized that
in enlisting in the Salvation Army, she had not only shocked their
prejudices beyond repair, but had wrenched herself out of their
sympathies in a degree which could not have been exceeded by an actual
crime on her part.
Time had in some measure healed the sensitiveness which had been
sorely wounded by the withdrawal and disapproval of these early
friends; but she seemed to feel all reflected and renewed in her brief
acquaintance with the strangers at Nepaug, especially in her
intercourse with Miss Standish. There is a curious resemblance, which
lies deeper than outward circumstances, between New England and
Scotland. The same outward environment of frugal poverty, the same
inward experience of intense religious exaltation, continued from
generation to generation, produced in early New England a type closely
allied to the Scotch Covenanters, and many resemblances still linger
among their descendants, widely as they may be removed from the
primitive conditions which formed their ancestors.
Miss Standish's manner was marked by all the old Covenanters'
directness, and in spite of her prepossession in Nora Costello's
favor, showed clearly that she looked upon her as an extremist, if not
a fanatic.
"What took you into that Salvation Army?" she had asked, as she sat by
Nora's bedside in the upper front chamber of the White-House.
"A divine call, I hope," Nora had answered.
"Couldn't you have done just as much good in some of the churches?"
"Very likely, but there's many will be doing that work, and there's no
over-crowding among us highway-and-hedgers."
Nora remembered a curious little look on Miss Standish's face, as if
she thought the answer savored of sarcasm. This expression had led her
on to further explanation:--
"I know just how folk will be feeling about the Army. I know how I
felt myself before I signed the Articles of War,--as if it was much
like joining a circus-troop, going about so with a brass band."
"Well, isn't it?" asked Miss Standish, bluntly.
Nora colored, but answered amiably: "No, it does not look so to me
now,--whiles there's things in the Army work for which I've no liking
myself, the noise and a'; but such things are not for you and me. We
can get our spiritual aid and comfort somewhere else; but these are
like a snare spread for the souls we are hunting, and when you see the
rough men come round us like those in the London streets, it's fair
wonderfu' how they be taken wi' the drums and torches."
"Humph!" sniffed Miss Standish, "it is as easy to gather converts with
a drum as to collect flies round a lump of sugar,--men will always
come buzzing about where there is any excitement. The question is,
Have you got the fly-paper to make 'em stick?"
At Nepaug Nora had smiled at Miss Standish's blunt questions; but
here, in the depression of spirits caused by overwork and the deadened
atmosphere, the words came back to her with overwhelming force. When
she rose on the morning after seeing Flint standing in the window at
Delmonico's, she found more than one importunate question arising in
her mind. Was it worth while after all--the sacrifice she was making,
the work, the worry, and above all the contact with so much that
offended her taste and judgment?
Were not those people behind the curtains, with their purple and fine
linen, more nearly right than she? They at least found and gave
pleasure for the moment--while she--? Then there swept over her the
recollection of the drunkard who had shouted loudest in the hallelujah
chorus and reeled home drunk after the meeting, of the penitent girl
whom she had seen one night dissolved in tears, the next out on the
streets again at her old calling,--"Yes," she admitted sadly, "Miss
Standish is right. It is one thing to catch them, but another to keep
them." If it had been only the sinners, she would not have minded so
much, but there were some things about her fellow-officers-- Here
she stopped, for her loyalty would not allow her to go on, even in
thought. This mood of depression was not an uncommon thing in Nora
Costello's life, but she sought the antidote in prayer and work.
After her morning devotions, she spent an hour in setting her room to
rights; watering the plants on the window-sill, feeding the bird in
the cage, and then, after a breakfast of the most frugal sort, she
started on her way to her post. Although it was not yet eight o'clock
when she emerged from the door of the tenement-house where she lodged,
a haze of heat hung over the city like a pall, the sun was already
beating with a sickening glare upon the sidewalk, which still showed
signs of having been made a sleeping place by those who found their
crowded quarters within too suffocating for endurance. On the
doorstep, worn with the feet of the frequent passers, sat a weary
woman, nursing her baby. Nora's heart sank as she noticed the deathly
pallor of the little thing. She stopped, bent over, and listened to
its breathing. Then she lifted the eyelid streaked with blue, and
looked into the fast dimming eye.
"That bairn needs a doctor," she said to the mother. "Come with me;
there is a dispensary on the next block."
Rising stupidly, with her infant in her arms, the woman in dull
obedience followed her down the sun-baked block to the door marked:
"DISPENSARY.
"PATIENTS TREATED FREE FROM TEN TO TWELVE O'CLOCK."
Nora looked at the sign in discouragement; instinct told her that two
hours of delay would be fatal. The child was evidently nearing a state
of collapse. Turning about entirely baffled, Nora's eyes fell upon an
elderly man coming down the street at a brisk trot, a travelling bag
in one hand and a large white umbrella in the other. He was evidently
a gentleman,--which was strange, for gentlemen did not often appear in
Bayard Street. What was stranger still, he looked up at the numbers of
the houses as if he were seeking a friend, and, strangest of all, at
the sight of herself he took off his hat, and her astonished gaze
rested upon Dr. Cricket.
"Well, well, Captain," the little Doctor cried, peering at her with
his near-sighted frown. "I _am_ in luck. I came down on the night
boat, and hurried over here right away; but we were so late I was
afraid you might have got off to headquarters to report for duty. I
promised Miss Standish when I left Nepaug that I would surely see you
on my way through New York. She felt so worried about your coming back
so soon to this town, which is like a bake-oven,--or would be if it
smelled better."
All this the good Doctor poured forth so rapidly that Nora could not
get in a word edgewise. When at length she found space to utter a
reply, she cried out, "Oh, Doctor, never mind me, but take pity on
this bairn! It's in an awfu' way."
"Pooh, Pooh, nothing of the sort!" answered the Doctor, with
professional cheerfulness, before he had fairly glanced at the child.
Then aside to Nora: "We must get into the dispensary somehow. Water,
hot and cold, are what the child needs. It is near a convulsion."
At this juncture, as eight o'clock was striking, the dispensary clerk
arrived, key in hand, and, seeing the emergency, put all the resources
of the building at the disposal of Dr. Cricket, who soon brought a
better color to the little face, and handing the child, rolled in a
blanket, to the mother, bade her keep it cool. The woman looked
blankly at the rising wave of heat outside; Dr. Cricket too looked
out, and felt the shadow of her hopelessness fall on himself. "Here,"
he said suddenly, pressing a bill into her hand, "take that; get your
baby dressed and onto the Coney Island boat as quick as you can."
The woman took the bill and crumpled it in her fingers; but she turned
away without uttering either thanks or protest.
"You must na mind the ongraciousness o' the puir mither," Nora said,
as they turned away. "She is too fashed and clear worn out to have any
sense o' gratitude left." In her excitement the girl dropped into a
nearer approach to dialect than marked her ordinary speech.
"My dear young lady," said the Doctor, "do you suppose I hold you
responsible for the manners of Bayard Street? You won't be here to be
held responsible for anything long if this heat lasts. I wish to the
devil (excuse me!) I could get you out of the hole. We need just such
a person as you at our Sanatorium in Germantown. What do you say to
coming to try it for two months at least?"
The offer chimed in so with her morning thoughts that it seemed to
Nora a direct temptation of the devil, and she thrust it away almost
angrily.
"Never be speaking o' such a thing! Do you think I would desert now
when the war is raging?"
"I don't know anything about your Salvation Army jargon," answered the
Doctor, with equal brusqueness; "if it's the war with sin you're
talking about, you needn't be afraid of lack of fighting wherever you
go--I'll wager Philadelphia can furnish as lively service as New
York."
Nora laughed, showing her white teeth in genuine amusement.
"Well, I'm fearing you're richt, Doctor, and you must na fancy I dinna
recognise your kindness in wanting to get me out of 'this hole;' but
I'm called to work right here, and I must 'stay by the stuff,' like
the men in the Bible."
"Then my taking the trouble to come here without any breakfast goes
for nothing," said the Doctor, a little crossly. He liked his own way,
and he liked to help people, and this girl was balking him in both
desires.
"Good for nothing!" cried Nora. "You must na say so. You dare na say
so, when God put it into your hands to save a life! Dinna ye remember
the story of Abdallah, and how the golden leaf of his clover, the most
precious leaf he found on earth, was the life which it was given to
him to save?"
Nora stopped in her words, as in her walk, for they had reached the
corner where her division headquarters stood. Dr. Cricket made no
answer to her little sermon--only put out his hands in response to
hers, and gave her a grip like a freemason's. "Maybe you're right
after all," he said, "and I like your pluck, right or wrong. Only
remember, if you want help, or think better of my offer, just drop a
line to Dr. Alonzo Cricket at the Sanatorium."
When the good-byes were said, Nora stood a moment watching the
Doctor's little figure moving jerkily down the street under its white
umbrella. "I believe he was sent," she said to herself. "I must try to
be to some other puir soul what he has been to me this day."
At her desk at headquarters Nora found a memorandum of four letters to
be written,--three to men in the prison at Sing-Sing. These she
despatched speedily, with the aid of a typewriter; but the fourth she
wrote with her own hand, for it was in answer to one from an orphan
girl who was coming to New York in search of work, and who desired to
be put in the way of finding a safe boarding-place. Nora's heart was
touched by a peculiar sympathy at the thought of the girl's
loneliness, so closely allied to her own, and she wanted her to feel
that it was a friend, and not merely an officer of the Army, who
responded to her appeal, and held out the right hand of fellowship.
It was eleven o'clock when the letters were written, and Nora ran
downstairs to vary her industry by cutting out baby-clothes in the
workroom. Just as she was taking the shears in hand, however, news was
brought in of an accident to a factory-girl who had crushed her foot
in the machinery, and had been brought home to her lodgings in the
house on the next corner.
To this house Nora went, and found the girl alone, and weeping more
from loneliness than suffering. The doctor had left, promising to come
again, and to send an ambulance later in the day, to take the sufferer
to the hospital. Nora knocked gently at the chamber door.
"Come in!" a voice from within answered wearily.
The visitor, standing in the doorway, was impressed by the dreariness
of disorder which reigned inside. Such a room would have been
impossible to Nora herself while hands and knees and a scrubbing-brush
were left to her. In one sweeping glance she took in the hastily
dumped clothing on the floor, the bureau heaped with mussy finery, the
fly-specked window-pane, and soiled bed-spread.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, raising her head from the pillow. "Oh,
one of those Salvation Army women," she added, as she caught sight of
the dark bonnet.
"Yes," answered Nora, "I heard of your accident and that you were all
alone. I have come to try to help you."
"You can't. Nobody can help me. I wish I was dead." With this the girl
buried her face in the pillow and resumed her half-hysterical weeping.
Nora wisely wasted no words in trying to prove her ability to help,
but began quietly to hang up the clothes, to slip the soiled lace and
brass chains from the top of the bureau into the drawer, to close the
blinds, and fold a towel over a basin on the chair within reach of the
sufferer.
"There," she said, "maybe if you could wash you'd feel a bit more
comfortable, and I'll run round to my lodgings--they're not far
off--and back in no time."
When she reappeared, it was with a snowy white dimity spread taken
from her own bed, a pitcher of ice-water, and a large palm-leaf fan.
When the bed was re-made, the self-appointed nurse seated herself by
the bedside of the sick girl, promising to stay until the coming of
the ambulance, and settling down to listen to all the details of the
accident, which seemed to give the victim a grewsome satisfaction in
rehearsing.
When the ambulance arrived, and the patient departed, the nurse began
to realize that it was three o'clock, and that she had had no food
since seven. As the Bible-reading was at four, she had time only for a
hastily swallowed cup of tea, and a slice of bread and butter, with a
bit of cold meat, before the reading, after which she went home,
bathed, rested, and supped, before presenting herself again at
headquarters for the night duty, which called her to patrol the
streets with a companion officer (a dull, rather coarse woman, who
"exhorted" and sang through her nose) until after midnight.
Then she went home and to bed, inwardly thanking Heaven for her happy
day. She felt, as she would have said, that she had been "awfu'
favored."