The Search Part 14

"Wonderful!" he said softly, "do you mean it? I've been trying to get courage all day to suggest it, only I don't know of any place this side of Washington or Baltimore where you can be comfortable, and I hate to think of you hunting around a strange city late at night for accommodations. If I could only get out to go with you----!"

"It isn't necessary," said Ruth quickly, "we have our accommodations all arranged for. Your mother and I planned it all out before we came. But are you sure we can get into camp to-morrow?"

"Yes, I'm almost certain we can get you pa.s.ses by going up to officers'

headquarters and applying. A fellow in our company told me this morning he had permission for his mother and sister to come in to-morrow. And we are not likely to leave before Monday now, for this morning our lieutenant went away and I heard him say he had a three days' leave. They wouldn't have given him that if they expected to send us before he got back, at least not unless they recalled him--they might do that."

"Is that the lieutenant that you called a 'mess' the other day?" asked Ruth with twinkling eyes.

"Yes," said Cameron turning a keen, startled glance at her, and wondering what she would say if she knew it was Wainwright he meant.

But she answered demurely:

"So he's away, is he? I'm glad. I was hoping he would be."

"Why?" asked Cameron.

"Oh, I thought he might be in the way," she smiled, and changed the subject, calling attention to the meadow lark who was trilling out his little ecstasy in the tall tree over their head.

Cameron gave one glance at the bird and then brought his gaze back to the sweet upturned face beside him, his soul thrilling with the wonder of it that she should be there with him!

"But you haven't told me where you have arranged to stay. Is it Baltimore or Washington? I must look up your trains. I hope you will be able to stay as late as possible. They're not putting people out of camp until eight o'clock to-night."

"Lovely!" said Ruth with the eagerness of a child. "Then we'll stay till the very last trolley. We're not going to either Baltimore or Washington.

We're staying right near the camp entrance in that little town at the station where we landed, I don't remember what you call it. We got accommodations this morning before we came into camp."

"But where?" asked Cameron anxiously. "Are you sure it's respectable? I'm afraid there isn't any place there that would do at all."

"Oh, yes there is," said Ruth. "It's the Salvation Army 'Hut,' they called it, but it looks more like a barracks, and there's the dearest little woman in charge!"

"John, I'm afraid it isn't the right thing to let her do it!" put in his mother anxiously. "I'm afraid her aunt wouldn't like it at all, and I'm sure she won't be comfortable."

"I shall _love_ it!" said Ruth happily, "and my aunt will never know anything about it. As for comfort, I'll be as comfortable as you are, my dear lady, and I'm sure you wouldn't let comfort stand in the way of being with your boy." She smiled her sweet little triumph that brought tears to the eyes of the mother; and Cameron gave her a blinding look of grat.i.tude and adoration. So she carried her way.

Cameron protested no more, but quietly enquired at the Hostess' House if the place was all right, and when he put them on the car at eight o'clock he gave Ruth's hand a lingering pressure, and said in a low tone that only she could hear, with a look that carried its meaning to her heart:

"I shall never forget that you did this for my mother--and me!"

The two felt almost light-hearted in comparison to their fellow travellers, because they had a short reprieve before they would have to say good-bye. But Ruth sat looking about her, at the sad-eyed girls and women who had just parted from their husbands and sons and sweethearts, and who were most of them weeping, and felt anew the great burden of the universal sorrow upon her. She wondered how G.o.d could stand it. The old human question that wonders how G.o.d can stand the great agonies of life that have to come to cure the world of its sin, and never wonders how G.o.d can stand the sin! She felt as if she must somehow find G.o.d and plead with Him not to do it, and again there came that longing to her soul, if she only knew G.o.d intimately! Cameron's question recurred to her thoughts, "_Could_ anyone on this earth know G.o.d? Had anyone ever known Him? Would the Bible say anything about it?" She resolved to read it through and find out.

The brief ride brought them suddenly into a new and to Ruth somewhat startling environment.

As they followed the gra.s.sy path from the station to their abiding place two little boys in full military uniform appeared out of the tall gra.s.s of the meadows, one as a private, the other as an officer. The small private saluted the officer with precision and marched on, turning after a few steps to call back, "Mother said we might sleep in the tent to-night! The rooms are all full." The older boy gave a whoop of delight and bounded back toward the building with a most unofficer-like walk, and both disappeared inside the door. A tiny khaki dog-tent was set up in the gra.s.s by the back door, and in a moment more the two young soldiers emerged from the back door with blankets and disappeared under the brown roof with a zest that showed it was no hardship to them to camp out for the night.

There were lights in the long pleasant room, and people. Two soldiers with their girls were eating ice cream at the little tables, and around the piano a group of officers and their wives was gathered singing ragtime. Ruth's quick glance told her they were not the kind she cared for, and--how could people who were about to part, perhaps forever, stand there and sing such abominable nonsense! Yet--perhaps it was their way of being brave to the last. But she wished they would go.

The sweet-faced woman of the morning was busy behind the counter and presently she saw them and came forward:

"I'm sorry! I hoped there would be a room, but that woman from Boston came. I can only give you cots out here, if you don't mind."

Mrs. Cameron looked around in a half-frightened manner, but Ruth smiled airily and said that would be all right.

They settled down in the corner between the writing table and book case and began to read, for it was obvious that they could not retire at present.

The little boys came running through and the officers corralled them and clamored for them to sing. Without any coaxing they stood up together and sang, and their voices were sweet as birds as they piped out the words of a popular song, one singing alto, the little one taking the high soprano.

Ruth put down her book and listened, wondering at the lovely expressions on the two small faces. They made her think of the baby-seraphs in Michael Angelo's pictures. Presently they burst into a religious song with as much gusto as they had sung the ragtime. They were utterly without self-consciousness, and sang with the fervor of a preacher. Yet they were regular boys, for presently when they were released they went to turning hand springs and had a rough and tumble scuffle in the corner till their mother called them to order.

In a few minutes more the noisy officers and their wives parted, the men striding off into the night with a last word about the possibility of unexpected orders coming, and a promise to wink a flash light out of the car window as the troop train went by in case they went out that night.

The wives went into one of the little stall-rooms and compared notes about their own feelings and the probability of the ----Nth Division leaving before Monday.

Then the head of the house appeared with a Bible under his arm humming a hymn. He cast a keen pleasant glance at the two strangers in the corner, and gave a cheery word to his wife in answer to her question:

"Yes, we had a great meeting to-night. A hundred and twenty men raised their hands as wanting to decide for Christ, and two came forward to be prayed for. It was a blessed time. I wish the boys had been over there to sing. The meeting was in the big Y.M.C.A. auditorium. Has Captain Hawley gone yet?"

"Not yet." His wife's voice was lowered. She motioned toward one of the eight gray doors, and her husband nodded sadly.

"He goes at midnight, you know. Poor little woman!"

Just then the door opened and a young soldier came out, followed by his wife, looking little and pathetic with great dark hollows under her eyes, and a forced smile on her trembling lips.

The soldier came over and took the hand of the Salvation Army woman:

"Well, I'm going out to-night, Mother. I want to thank you for all you've done for my little girl"--looking toward his wife--"and I won't forget all the good things you've done for _me_, and the sermons you've preached; and when I get over there I'm going to try to live right and keep all my promises. I want you to pray for me that I may be true. I shall never cease to thank the Lord that I knew you two."

The Salvationists shook hands earnestly with him, and promised to pray for him, and then he turned to the children:

"Good-bye, d.i.c.ky, I shan't forget the songs you've sung. I'll hear them sometimes when I get over there in battle, and they'll help to keep me true."

But d.i.c.ky, not content with a hand shake swarmed up the leg and back of his tall friend as if he had been a tree, and whispered in a loud confidential child-whisper:

"I'm a goin' to pray fer you, too, Cap'n Hawley. G.o.d bless you!"

The grown-up phrases on the childish lips amused Ruth. She watched the little boy as he lifted his beautiful serious face to the responsive look of the stranger, and marvelled. Here was no parrot-like repet.i.tion of word she had heard oft repeated by his elders; the boy was talking a native tongue, and speaking of things that were real to him. There was no a.s.sumption of G.o.dliness nor conceit, no holier-than-thou smirk about the child. It was all sincere, as a boy would promise to speak to his own father about a friend's need. It touched Ruth and tears sprang to her eyes.

All the doubts she had had about the respectability of the place had vanished long ago. There might be all kinds of people coming and going, but there was a holy influence here which made it a refuge for anyone, and she felt quite safe about sleeping in the great barn-like room so open. It was as if they had happened on some saint's abode and been made welcome in their extremity.

Presently, one by one the inmates of the rooms came in and retired. Then the cots were brought out and set up, little simple affairs of canvas and steel rods, put together in a twinkling, and very inviting to the two weary women after the long day. The cheery proprietor called out, "Mrs.

Brown, haven't you an extra blanket in your room?" and a pleasant voice responded promptly, "Yes, do you want it?"

"Throw it over then, please. A couple of ladies hadn't any place to go.

Anybody else got one?"

A great gray blanket came flying over the top of the part.i.tion, and down the line another voice called: "I have one I don't need!" and a white blanket with pink stripes followed, both caught by the Salvationist, and spread upon the little cots. Then the lights were turned out one by one and there in the shelter of the tall piano, curtained by the darkness the two lay down.

Ruth was so interested in it all and so filled with the humor and the strangeness of her situation that tired as she was she could not sleep for a long time.

The house settled slowly to quiet. The proprietor and his wife talked comfortably about the duties of the next day, called some directions to the two boys in the puppy tent, soothed their mosquito bites with a lotion and got them another blanket. The woman who helped in the kitchen complained about not having enough supplies for morning, and that contingency was arranged for, all in a patient, earnest way and in the same tone in which they talked about the meetings. They discussed their own boy, evidently the brother of the small boys, who had apparently just sailed for France as a soldier a few days before, and whom the wife had gone to New York to see off, and they commended him to their Christ in little low sentences of rea.s.surance to each other. Ruth could not help but hear much that was said, for the rooms were all open to sounds, and these good people apparently had nothing to hide. They spoke as if all their household were one great family, equally interested in one another, equally suffering and patient in the necessities of this awful war.

In another tiny room the Y.M.C.A. man who had been the last to come in talked in low tones with his wife, telling her in tender, loving tones what to do about a number of things after he was gone.