produced from images generously made available by the kentuckiana digital library) the story of the red cross as told to the little colonel =works of= =annie fellows johnston= =the little colonel series= (_trade mark, reg. u.s. pat. of._) each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated the little colonel stories $1.50 (containing in one volume the three stories, "the little colonel," "the giant scissors," and "two little knights of kentucky.") the little colonel's house party 1.50 the little colonel's holidays 1.50 the little colonel's hero 1.50 the little colonel at boarding school 1.50 the little colonel in arizona 1.50 the little colonel's christmas vacation 1.50 the little colonel: maid of honor 1.50 the little colonel's knight comes riding 1.50 the little colonel's chum: mary ware 1.50 mary ware in texas 1.50 mary ware's promised land 1.50 the above 12 vols., _boxed_, as a set 18.00 the little colonel good times book 1.50 the little colonel doll book--first series 1.50 the little colonel doll book--second series 1.50 =illustrated holiday editions= each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in color the little colonel $1.35 the giant scissors 1.35 two little knights of kentucky 1.35 big brother 1.35 =cosy corner series= each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated the little colonel $.60 the giant scissors .60 two little knights of kentucky .60 big brother .60 ole mammy's torment .60 the story of dago .60 cicely .60 aunt 'liza's hero .60 the quilt that jack built .60 flip's "islands of providence" .60 mildred's inheritance .60 the little man in motley .60 =other books= joel: a boy of galilee $1.50 in the desert of waiting .60 the three weavers .60 keeping tryst .60 the legend of the bleeding heart .60 the rescue of the princess winsome .60 the jester's sword .60 asa holmes 1.25 travelers five along life's highway 1.25 =the page company= =53 beacon street= =boston, mass.= [illustration: "'do you suppose that i could train my dogs to do that?'" (_see page 39_)] the story of the red cross _as told to_ the little colonel _by annie fellows johnston_ author of "the little colonel series," "asa holmes," "the jewel series," etc. _illustrated by john goss_ [illustration] the page company boston mdccccxviii _copyright, 1902_, by the page company _copyright, 1918_, by the page company _all rights reserved_ first impression, october, 1918 the colonial press c.h. simonds co., boston, u.s.a. publisher's note this story in its original form appeared in =the little colonel's hero=, the fourth volume in the famous =little colonel series=. the publishers would have appropriately used on the cover of this book the red cross on a white field, adopted as its emblem by the red cross society, but any use of that emblem for purposes other than those of this society has been prohibited by law. the red cross society adopted its emblem in honor of switzerland, where the society originated, but reversed the colors of the swiss flag, which are a white cross on a red field. it is consequently, under the circumstances, appropriate that the cover design should show the white cross of switzerland, where the red cross society originated, and where its story was told to =the little colonel=. [illustration: the little colonel] [illustration: contents] chapter page i lloyd meets hero 1 ii hero's story 24 iii the red cross of geneva 44 iv homeward bound 69 v in after years 82 [illustration: the major] [illustration: list of illustrations] page "'do you suppose that i could train my dogs to do that?'" (_see page 39_) _frontispiece_ "he stepped aside to let the great creature past him" 8 "but it did not stop their mad flight" 16 "he plunged out alone into the deep snow" 30 "the two were wandering along beside the water together" 62 "he fastened the medal to hero's collar" 67 [illustration: hero] the story of the red cross _as told to_ the little colonel chapter i lloyd meets hero it was in switzerland in the old town of geneva. the windows of the big hotel dining-room looked out on the lake, and the little colonel, sitting at breakfast the morning after their arrival, could scarcely eat for watching the scene outside. gay little pleasure boats flashed back and forth on the sparkling water. the quay and bridge were thronged with people. from open windows down the street came the tinkle of pianos, and out on the pier, where a party of tourists were crowding on to one of the excursion steamers, a band was playing its merriest holiday music. far away in the distance she could see the shining snow crown of mont blanc, and it gave her an odd feeling, as if she were living in a geography lesson, to know that she was bounded on one side by the famous alpine mountain, and on the other by the river rhône, whose source she had often traced on the map. the sunshine, the music, and the gay crowds made it seem to lloyd as if the whole world were out for a holiday, and she ate her melon and listened to the plans for the day with the sensation that something very delightful was about to happen. "we'll go shopping this morning," said mrs. sherman. "i want lloyd to see some of those wonderful music boxes they make here; the dancing bears, and the musical hand-mirrors; the chairs that play when you sit down in them, and the beer-mugs that begin a tune when you lift them up." lloyd's face dimpled with pleasure, and she began to ask eager questions. "could we take one to mom beck, mothah? a lookin'-glass that would play 'kingdom comin',' when she picked it up? it would surprise her so she would think it was bewitched, and she'd shriek the way she does when a cattapillah gets on her." lloyd laughed so heartily at the recollection, that an old gentleman sitting at an opposite table smiled in sympathy. he had been watching the child ever since she came into the dining-room, interested in every look and gesture. he was a dignified old soldier, tall and broad-shouldered, with gray hair and a fierce-looking gray moustache drooping heavily over his mouth. but the eyes under his shaggy brows were so kind and gentle that the shyest child or the sorriest waif of a stray dog would claim him for a friend at first glance. the little colonel was so busy watching the scene from the window that she did not see him until he had finished his breakfast and rose from the table. as he came toward them on his way to the door, she whispered, "look, mothah! he has only one arm, like grandfathah. i wondah if he was a soldiah, too. why is he bowing to papa jack?" "i met him last night in the office," explained her father, when the old gentleman had passed out of hearing. "we got into conversation over the dog he had with him--a magnificent st. bernard, that had been trained as a war dog, to go out with the ambulances to hunt for dead and wounded soldiers. major pierre de vaux is the old man's name. the clerk told me that when the major lost his arm, he was decorated for some act of bravery. he is well known here in geneva, where he comes every summer for a few weeks." "oh, i hope i'll see the war dog!" cried the little colonel. "what do you suppose his name is?" the waiter, who was changing their plates, could not resist this temptation to show off the little english he knew. "hes name is _hero_, mademoiselle," he answered. "he vair smart dog. he know _evair_ sing somebody say to him, same as a person." "you'll probably see him as we go out to the carriage," said mr. sherman. "he follows the major constantly." as soon as breakfast was over, mrs. sherman went up to her room for her hat. lloyd, who had worn hers down to breakfast, wandered out into the hall to wait for her. there was a tall, carved chair standing near the elevator, and lloyd climbed into it. to her great confusion, something inside of it gave a loud click as she seated herself, and began to play. it played so loudly that lloyd was both startled and embarrassed. it seemed to her that every one in the hotel must hear the noise, and know that she had started it. "silly old thing!" she muttered, as with a very red face she slipped down and walked hurriedly away. she intended to go into the reading-room, but in her confusion turned to the left instead of the right, and ran against some one coming out of the hotel office. it was the major. "oh, i beg your pahdon!" she cried, blushing still more. from the twinkle in his eye she was sure that he had witnessed her mortifying encounter with the musical chair. but his first words made her forget her embarrassment. he spoke in the best of english, but with a slight accent that lloyd thought very odd and charming. "ah, it is mr. sherman's little daughter. he told me last night that you had come to switzerland because it was a land of heroes, and he was sure that you would be especially interested in mine. so come, hero, my brave fellow, and be presented to the little american lady. give her your paw, sir!" he stepped aside to let the great creature past him, and lloyd uttered an exclamation of delight, he was so unusually large and beautiful. his curly coat of tawny yellow was as soft as silk, and a great ruff of white circled his neck like a collar. his breast was white, too, and his paws, and his eyes had a wistful, human look that went straight to lloyd's heart. she shook the offered paw, and then impulsively threw her arms around his neck, exclaiming, "oh, you deah old fellow! i can't help lovin' you. you're the beautifulest dog i evah saw!" [illustration: "he stepped aside to let the great creature past him"] he understood the caress, if not the words, for he reached up to touch her cheek with his tongue, and wagged his tail as if he were welcoming a long-lost friend. just then mrs. sherman stepped out of the elevator. "good-bye, hero," said the little colonel. "i must go now, but i hope i'll see you when i come back." nodding good-bye to the major, she followed her mother out to the street, where her father stood waiting beside an open carriage. lloyd enjoyed the drive that morning as they spun along beside the river, up and down the strange streets with the queer foreign signs over the shop doors. once, as they drove along the quay, they met the major and the dog, and in response to a courtly bow, the little colonel waved her hand and smiled. the empty sleeve recalled her grandfather, and gave her a friendly feeling for the old soldier. she looked back at hero as long as she could see a glimpse of his white and yellow curls. it was nearly noon when they stopped at a place where mrs. sherman wanted to leave an enamelled belt-buckle to be repaired. lloyd was not interested in the show-cases, and could not understand the conversation her father and mother were having with the shopkeeper about enamelling. so, saying that she would go out and sit in the carriage until they were ready to come, she slipped away. she liked to watch the stir of the streets. it was interesting to guess what the foreign signs meant, and to listen to the strange speech around her. besides, there was a band playing somewhere down the street, and children were tugging at their nurses' hands to hurry them along. some carried dolls dressed in the quaint costumes of swiss peasants, and some had balloons. a man with a bunch of them like a cluster of great red bubbles had just sold out on the corner. so she sat in the sunshine, looking around her with eager, interested eyes. the coachman, high up on his box, seemed as interested as herself; at least, he sat up very straight and stiff. but it was only his back that lloyd saw. he had been at a fête the night before. there seems to be always a holiday in geneva. he had stayed long at the merrymaking and had taken many mugs of beer. they made him drowsy and stupid. the american gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. he could scarcely keep his eyes open. presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff and straight as a poker, he was sound asleep, and the reins in his grasp slipped lower and lower and lower. the horse was an old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but it had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection of many exciting adventures. now, although it seemed half asleep, dreaming, maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other american tourists, or wondering if it were not time for it to have its noonday nosebag, it was really keeping one eye open, nervously watching some painters on the sidewalk. they were putting up a scaffold against a building, in order that they might paint the cornice. presently the very thing happened that the old horse had been expecting. a heavy board fell from the scaffold with a crash, knocking over a ladder, which fell into the street in front of the frightened animal. now the old horse had been in several runaways. once it had been hurt by a falling ladder, and it had never recovered from its fear of one. as this one fell just under its nose, all the old fright and pain that caused its first runaway seemed to come back to its memory. in a frenzy of terror it reared, plunged forward, then suddenly turned and dashed down the street. the plunge and sudden turn threw the sleeping coachman from the box to the street. with the lines dragging at its heels, the frightened horse sped on. the little colonel, clutching frantically at the seat in front of her, screamed at the horse to stop. she had been used to driving ever since she was big enough to grasp the reins, and she felt that if she could only reach the dragging lines, she could control the horse. but that was impossible. all she could do was to cling to the seat as the carriage whirled dizzily around corners, and wonder how many more frightful turns it would make before she should be thrown out. the white houses on either side seemed racing-past them. nurses ran, screaming, to the pavements, dragging the baby-carriages out of the way. dogs barked and teams were jerked hastily aside. some one dashed out of a shop and threw his arms up in front of the horse to stop it, but, veering to one side, it only plunged on the faster. lloyd's hat blew off. her face turned white with a sickening dread, and her breath began to come in frightened sobs. on and on they went, and, as the scenes of a lifetime will be crowded into a moment in the memory of a drowning man, so a thousand things came flashing into lloyd's mind. she saw the locust avenue all white and sweet in blossom time, and thought, with a strange thrill of self-pity, that she would never ride under its white arch again. then came her mother's face, and papa jack's. in a few moments, she told herself, they would be picking up her poor, broken, lifeless little body from the street. how horribly they would feel. and then--she screamed and shut her eyes. the carriage had dashed into something that tore off a wheel. there was a crash--a sound as of splintering wood. but it did not stop their mad flight. with a horrible bumping motion that nearly threw her from the carriage at every jolt, they still kept on. [illustration: "but it did not stop their mad flight"] they were on the quay now. the noon sun on the water flashed into her eyes like the blinding light thrown back from a looking-glass. then something white and yellow darted from the crowd on the pavement, and catching the horse by the bit, swung on heavily. the horse dragged along for a few paces, and came to a halt, trembling like a leaf. a wild hurrah went up from both sides of the street, and the little colonel, as she was lifted out white and trembling, saw that it was a huge st. bernard that the crowd was cheering. "oh, it's h-hero!" she cried, with chattering teeth. "how did he get here?" but no one understood her question. the faces she looked into, while beaming with friendly interest, were all foreign. the eager exclamations on all sides were uttered in a foreign tongue. there was no one to take her home, and in her fright she could not remember the name of their hotel. but in the midst of her confusion a hearty sentence in english sounded in her ear, and a strong arm caught her up in a fatherly embrace. it was the major who came pushing through the crowd to reach her. her grandfather himself could not have been more welcome just at that time, and her tears came fast when she found herself in his friendly shelter. the shock had been a terrible one. "come, dear child!" he exclaimed, gently, patting her shoulder. "courage! we are almost at the hotel. see, it is on the corner, there. your father and mother will soon be here." wiping her eyes, he led her across the street, explaining as he went how it happened that he and the dog were on the street when she passed. they had been in the gardens all morning and were going home to lunch, when they heard the clatter of the runaway far down the street. the major could not see who was in the carriage, only that it appeared to be a child. he was too old a man, and with his one arm too helpless to attempt to stop it, but he remembered that hero had once shared the training of some collies for police service, before it had been decided to use him as an ambulance dog. they were taught to spring at the bridles of escaping horses. "i was doubtful if hero remembered those early lessons," said the major, "but i called out to him sharply, for the love of heaven to stop it if he could, and that instant he was at the horse's head, hanging on with all his might. bravo, old fellow!" he continued, turning to the dog as he spoke. "we are proud of you this day!" they were in the corridor of the hotel now, and the little colonel, kneeling beside hero and putting her arms around his neck, finished her sobbing with her fair little face laid fondly against his silky coat. "oh, you deah, deah old hero," she said. "you saved me, and i'll love you fo' evah and evah!" the crowd was still in front of the hotel, and the corridor full of excited servants and guests, when mr. and mrs. sherman hurried in. they had taken the first carriage they could hail and driven as fast as possible in the wake of the runaway. mrs. sherman was trembling so violently that she could scarcely stand, when they reached the hotel. the clerk who ran out to assure them of the little colonel's safety was loud in his praises of the faithful st. bernard. hero had known many masters. he had been taught to obey many voices. many hands had fed and fondled him, but no hand had ever lain quite so tenderly on his head, as the little colonel's. no one had ever looked into his eyes so gratefully as she, and no voice had ever thrilled him with as loving tones as hers, as she knelt there beside him, calling him all the fond endearing names she knew. he understood far better than if he had been human, that she loved him. eagerly licking her hands and wagging his tail, he told her as plainly as a dog can talk that henceforth he would be one of her best and most faithful of friends. if petting and praise and devoted attention could spoil a dog, hero's head would certainly have been turned that day, for friends and strangers alike made much of him. a photographer came to take his picture for the leading daily paper. before nightfall his story was repeated in every home in geneva. no servant in the hotel but took a personal pride in him or watched his chance to give him a sly sweetmeat or a caress. but being a dog instead of a human, the attention only made him the more lovable, for it made him feel that it was a kind world he lived in and everybody was his friend. chapter ii hero's story late that afternoon the major sat out in the shady courtyard of the hotel, where vines, potted plants, and a fountain made a cool green garden spot. he was thinking of his little daughter, who had been dead many long years. the american child, whom his dog had rescued from the runaway in the morning, was wonderfully like her. she had the same fair hair, he thought, that had been his little christine's great beauty; the same delicate, wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her laughing face. but christine's eyes had not been a starry hazel like the little colonel's. they were blue as the flax-flowers she used to gather--thirty, was it? no, forty years ago. as he counted the years, the thought came to him like a pain that he was an old, old man now, all alone in the world, save for a dog, and a niece whom he scarcely knew and seldom saw. as he sat there with his head bowed down, dreaming over his past, the little colonel came out into the courtyard. she had dressed early and gone down to the reading-room to wait until her mother was ready for dinner, but catching sight of the major through the long glass doors, she laid down her book. the lonely expression of his furrowed face, the bowed head, and the empty sleeve appealed to her strongly. "i believe i'll go out and talk to him," she thought. "if grandfathah were away off in a strange land by himself like that, i'd want somebody to cheer him up." it is always good to feel that one is welcome, and lloyd was glad that she had ventured into the courtyard, when she saw the smile that lighted the major's face at sight of her, and when the dog, rising at her approach, came forward joyfully wagging his tail. the conversation was easy to begin, with hero for a subject. there were many things she wanted to know about him: how he happened to belong to the major; what country he came from; why he was called a st. bernard, and if the major had ever owned any other dogs. after a few questions it all came about as she had hoped it would. the old man settled himself back in his chair, thought a moment, and then began at the first of his acquaintance with st. bernard dogs, as if he were reading a story from a book. "away up in the alpine mountains, too high for trees to grow, where there is only bare rock and snow and cutting winds, climbs the road that is known as the great st. bernard pass. it is an old, old road. the celts crossed it when they invaded italy. the roman legions crossed it when they marched out to subdue gaul and germany. ten hundred years ago the saracen robbers hid among its rocks to waylay unfortunate travellers. you will read about all that in your history sometime, and about the famous march napoleon made across it on his way to marengo. but the most interesting fact about the road to me, is that for over seven hundred years there has been a monastery high up on the bleak mountain-top, called the monastery of st. bernard. "once, when i was travelling through the alps, i stopped there one cold night, almost frozen. the good monks welcomed me to their hospice, as they do all strangers who stop for food and shelter, and treated me as kindly as if i had been a brother. in the morning one of them took me out to the kennels, and showed me the dogs that are trained to look for travellers in the snow. you may imagine with what pleasure i followed him, and listened to the tales he told me. "he said there is not as much work for the dogs now as there used to be years ago. since the hospice has been connected with the valley towns by telephone, travellers can inquire about the state of the weather and the paths, before venturing up the dangerous mountain passes. still, the storms begin with little warning sometimes, and wayfarers are overtaken by them and lost in the blinding snowfall. the paths fill suddenly, and but for the dogs many would perish." "oh, i know," interrupted lloyd, eagerly. "there is a story about them in my old third readah, and a pictuah of a big st. bernard dog with a flask tied around his neck, and a child on his back." "yes," answered the major, "it is quite probable that that was a picture of the dog they call barry. he was with the good monks for twelve years, and in that time saved the lives of forty travellers. there is a monument erected to him in paris in the cemetery for dogs. the sculptor carved that picture into the stone, the noble animal with a child on his back, as if he were in the act of carrying it to the hospice. twelve years is a long time for a dog to suffer such hardship and exposure. night after night he plunged out alone into the deep snow and the darkness, barking at the top of his voice to attract the attention of lost travellers. many a time he dropped into the drifts exhausted; with scarcely enough strength left to drag himself back to the hospice. [illustration: "he plunged out alone into the deep snow"] "forty lives saved is a good record. you may be sure that in his old age barry was tenderly cared for. the monks gave him a pension and sent him to berne, where the climate is much warmer. when he died, a taxidermist preserved his skin, and he was placed in the museum at berne, where he stands to this day, i am told, with the little flask around his neck. i saw him there one time, and although barry was only a dog, i stood with uncovered head before him. for he was as truly a hero and served human kind as nobly as if he had fallen on the field of battle. "he had been trained like a soldier to his duty, and no matter how the storms raged on the mountains, how dark the night, or how dangerous the paths that led along the slippery precipices, at the word of command he sprang to obey. only a dumb beast, some people would call him, guided only by brute instinct, but in his shaggy old body beat a loving heart, loyal to his master's command, and faithful to his duty. "as i stood there gazing into the kind old face, i thought of the time when i lay wounded on the field of battle. how glad i would have been to have seen some dog like barry come bounding to my aid! i had fallen in a thicket, where the ambulance corps did not discover me until next day. i lay there all that black night, wild with pain, groaning for water. i could see the lanterns of the ambulances as they moved about searching for the wounded among the many dead, but was too faint from loss of blood to raise my head and shout for help. they told me afterward that, if my wound could have received immediate attention, perhaps my arm might have been saved. "but only a keen sense of smell could have traced me in the dense thicket where i lay. no one had thought of training dogs for ambulance service then. the men did their best, but they were only men, and i was overlooked until it was too late to save my arm. "well, as i said, i stood and looked at barry, wondering if it were not possible to train dogs for rescue work on battle-fields as well as in mountain passes. the more i thought of it, the more my longing grew to make such an attempt. i read everything i could find about trained dogs, visited kennels where collies and other intelligent sheep-dogs were kept, and corresponded with many people about it. finally i went to coblenz, and there found a man who was as much interested in the subject as i. herr bungartz is his name. he is now at the head of a society to which i belong, called the german society for ambulance dogs. it has over a thousand members, including many princes and generals. "we furnish the money that supports the kennels, and the dogs are bred and trained free for the army. now for the last eight years it has been my greatest pleasure to visit the kennels, where as many as fifty dogs are kept constantly in training. it was on my last visit that i got hero. his leg had been hurt in some accident on the training field. it was thought that he was too much disabled to ever do good service again, so they allowed me to take him. two old cripples, i suppose they thought we were, comrades in misfortune. "that was nearly a year ago. i took him to an eminent surgeon, told him his history, and interested him in his case. he treated him so successfully, that now, as you see, the leg is entirely well. sometimes i feel that it is my duty to give him back to the service, although i paid for the rearing of a fine scotch collie in his stead. he is so unusually intelligent and well trained. but it would be hard to part with such a good friend. although i have had him less than a year, he seems very much attached to me, and i have grown more fond of him than i would have believed possible. i am an old man now, and i think he understands that he is all i have. good hero! he knows he is a comfort to his old master!" at the sound of his name, uttered in a sad voice, the great dog got up and laid his head on the major's knee, looking wistfully into his face. "of co'se you oughtn't to give him back!" cried the little colonel. "if he were mine, i wouldn't give him up for the president, or the emperor, or the czar, or _anybody_!" "but for the soldiers, the poor wounded soldiers!" suggested the major. lloyd hesitated, looking from the dog to the empty sleeve above it. "well," she declared, at last, "i wouldn't give him up while the country is at peace. i'd wait till the last minute, until there was goin' to be an awful battle, and then i'd make them promise to let me have him again when the wah was ovah. just the minute it was ovah. it would be like givin' away part of your family to give away hero." suddenly the major spoke to the dog--a quick, sharp sentence that lloyd could not understand. but hero, without an instant's hesitation, bounded from the courtyard, where they sat, into the hall of the hotel. through the glass doors she could see him leaping up the stairs, and, almost before the major could explain that he had sent him for the shoulder-bags he wore in service, the dog was back with them grasped firmly in his mouth. "now the flask," said the major. while the dog obeyed the second order, he opened the bags for lloyd to examine them. they were marked with a red cross in a square of white, and contained rolls of bandages, from which any man, able to use his arms, could help himself until his rescuer brought further aid. the flask which hero brought was marked in the same way, and the major buckled it to his collar, saying, as he fastened first that and then the shoulder-bags in place, "when a dog is in training, soldiers, pretending to be dead or wounded, are hidden in the woods or ravines and he is taught to find a fallen body, and to bark loudly. if the soldier is in some place too remote for his voice to bring aid, the dog seizes a cap, a handkerchief, or a belt,--any article of the man's clothing which he can pick up,--and dashes back to the nearest ambulance." "what a lovely game that would make!" exclaimed lloyd. "do you suppose that i could train my dogs to do that? we often play soldiah at locust. now, what is it you say to hero when you want him to hunt the men? let me see if he'll mind me." the major repeated the command. "but i can't speak french," she said, in dismay. "what is it in english?" "hero can't understand english," said the major, laughing at the perplexed expression that crept into the little colonel's face. "how funny!" she exclaimed. "i nevah thought of that befo'. i supposed of co'se that all animals were english. anyway, hero comes when i call him, and wags his tail when i speak, just as if he undahstands every word." "it is the kindness in your voice he understands, and the smile in your eyes, the affection in your caress. that language is the same the world over, to men and animals alike. but he never would start out to hunt the wounded soldiers unless you gave this command. let me hear if you can say it after me." lloyd tripped over some of the syllables as she repeated the sentence, but tried it again and again until the major cried "bravo! you shall have more lessons, until you can give the command so well that hero shall obey you as he does me." then he began talking of christine, her fair hair, her blue eyes, her playful ways; and lloyd, listening, drew him on with many questions. suddenly the major arose, bowing courteously, for mrs. sherman, seeing them from the doorway, had smiled and started toward them. springing up, lloyd ran to meet her. "mothah," she whispered, "please ask the majah to sit at ou' table tonight at dinnah. he's such a deah old man, and tells such interestin' things, and he's lonesome. the tears came into his eyes when he talked about his little daughtah. she was just my age when she died, mothah, and he thinks she looked like me." the major's courtly manner and kind face had already aroused mrs. sherman's interest. his empty sleeve reminded her of her father. his loneliness appealed to her sympathy, and his kindness to her little daughter had won her deepest appreciation. she turned with a cordial smile to repeat lloyd's invitation, which was gladly accepted. that was the beginning of a warm friendship. from that time he was included in their plans. now, in nearly all their excursions and drives, there were four in the party instead of three, and five, very often. whenever it was possible, hero was with them. he and the little colonel often went out together alone. it grew to be a familiar sight in the town, the graceful fair-haired child and the big tawny st. bernard, walking side by side along the quay. she was not afraid to venture anywhere with such a guard. as for hero, he followed her as gladly as he did his master. chapter iii the red cross of geneva a week after the runaway, the handsomest collar that could be bought in town was fastened around hero's neck. it had taken a long time to get it, for mr. sherman went to many shops before he found material that he considered good enough for the rescuer of his little daughter. then the jeweller had to keep it several days while he engraved an inscription on the gold name-plate--an inscription that all who read might know what happened on a certain july day in the old swiss town of geneva. on the under side of the collar was a stout link like the one on his old one, to which the flask could be fastened when he was harnessed for service, and on the upper side, finely wrought in enamel, was a red cross on a white square. "papa jack!" exclaimed lloyd, examining it with interest, "that is the same design that is on his blanket and shouldah-bags. why, it's just like the swiss flag!" she cried, looking out at the banner floating from the pier. "only the colors are turned around. the flag has a white cross on a red ground, and this is a red cross on a white ground. why did you have it put on the collah, papa jack?" "because he is a red cross dog," answered her father. "no, papa jack. excuse me for contradictin', but the majah said he was a st. bernard dog." mr. sherman laughed, but before he could explain he was called to the office to answer a telegram. when he returned lloyd had disappeared to find the major, and ask about the symbol on the collar. she found him in his favorite seat near the fountain, in the shady courtyard. perching on a bench near by with hero for a foot-stool, she asked, "majah, is hero a st. bernard or a red cross dog?" "he is both," answered the major, smiling at her puzzled expression. "he is the first because he belongs to that family of dogs, and he is the second because he was adopted by the red cross association, and trained for its service. you know what that is, of course." still lloyd looked puzzled. she shook her head. "no, i nevah heard of it. is it something swiss or french?" "never heard of it!" repeated the major. he spoke in such a surprised tone that his voice sounded gruff and loud, and lloyd almost jumped. the harshness was so unexpected. "think again, child," he said, sternly. "surely you have been told, at least, of your brave countrywoman who is at the head of the organization in america, who nursed not only the wounded of your own land, but followed the red cross of mercy on many foreign battle-fields!" "oh, a hospital nurse!" said lloyd, wrinkling her forehead and trying to think. "miss alcott was one. everybody knows about her, and her 'hospital sketches' are lovely." "no! no!" exclaimed the major, impatiently. lloyd, feeling from his tone that ignorance on this subject was something he could not excuse, tried again. "i've heard of florence nightingale. in one of my books at home, a _chatterbox_, i think, there is a picture of her going through a hospital ward. mothah told me how good she was to the soldiahs, and how they loved her. they even kissed her shadow on the wall as she passed. they were so grateful." "ah, yes," murmured the old man. "florence nightingale will live long in song and story. an angel of mercy she was, through all the horrors of the crimean war; but she was an english woman, my dear. the one i mean is an american, and her name ought to go down in history with the bravest of its patriots and the most honored of its benefactors. i learned to know her first in that long siege at strasburg. she nursed me there, and i have followed her career with grateful interest ever since, noting with admiration all that she has done for her country and humanity the world over. "if america ever writes a woman's name in her temple of fame (i say it with uncovered head), that one should be the name of _clara barton_." the old soldier lifted his hat as he spoke, and replaced it so solemnly that lloyd felt very uncomfortable, as if she were in some way to blame for not knowing and admiring this red cross nurse of whom she had never heard. her face flushed, and much embarrassed, she drew the toe of her slipper along hero's back, answering, in an abused tone: "but, majah, how could i be expected to know anything about her? there is nothing in ou' school-books, and nobody told me, and papa jack won't let me read the newspapahs, they're so full of horrible murdahs and things. so how could i evah find out? i couldn't learn _everything_ in twelve yeahs, and that's all the longah i've lived." the major laughed. "forgive me, little one!" he cried, seeing the distress and embarrassment in her face. "a thousand pardons! the fault is not yours, but your country's, that it has not taught its children to honor its benefactor as she deserves. i am glad that it has been given to me to tell you the story of one of the most beautiful things that ever happened in switzerland--the founding of the red cross. you will remember it with greater interest, i am sure, because, while i talk, the cross of the swiss flag floats over us, and it was here in this old town of geneva the merciful work had its beginning." lloyd settled herself to listen, still stroking hero's back with her slipper toe. "he was my friend, henri durant, and in the old days of chivalry they would have made him knight for the noble thought that sprang to flower in his heart and to fruitage in so worthy a deed. he was travelling in italy years ago, and happening to be near the place where the battle of solferino was fought, he was so touched by the sufferings of the wounded that he stopped to help care for them in the hospitals. the sights he saw there were horrible. the wounded men could not be cared for properly. they died by the hundreds, because there were not enough nurses and surgeons and food. "it moved him to write a book which was translated into several languages. people of many countries became interested and were aroused to a desire to do something to relieve the deadly consequences of war. then he called a meeting of all the nations of europe. that was over thirty years ago. sixteen of the great powers sent men to represent them. they met here in geneva and signed a treaty. one by one other countries followed their example, until now forty governments are pledged to keep the promises of the red cross. "they chose that as their flag in compliment to switzerland, where the movement was started. you see they are the same except that the colors are reversed. "now, according to that treaty, wherever the red cross goes, on sea or on land, it means peace and safety for the wounded soldiers. in the midst of the bloodiest battle, no matter who is hurt, turk or russian, japanese or spaniard, armenian or arab, he is bound to be protected and cared for. no nurse, surgeon, or ambulance bearing that red cross can be fired upon. they are allowed to pass wherever they are needed. "before the nations joined in that treaty, the worst horror of war was the fate of a wounded soldier, falling into the hands of the enemy. better a thousand times to be killed in battle, than to be taken prisoner. think of being left, bleeding and faint, on an enemy's field till your clothes _froze to the ground_, and no one merciful enough to give you a crust of bread or a drop of water. think of the dying piled with the dead and left to the pitiless rays of a scorching, tropic sun. that can never happen again, thank heaven! "in time of peace, money and supplies are gathered and stored by each country, ready for use at the first signal of war. the empress became the head of the branch in germany. soon after, the franco-prussian war began, and then her only daughter, the grand duchess louise of baden, turned all her beautiful castles into military hospitals, and went herself to superintend the work of relief. "your country did not join with us at first. you were having your terrible civil war at home; the one in which your grandfather fought. all this time clara barton was with the soldiers on their bloodiest battle-fields. when you go home, ask your grandfather about the battles of bull run and antietam, fredericksburg, and the wilderness. she was there. she stood the strain of nursing in sixteen such awful places, going from cot to cot among the thousands of wounded, comforting the dying, and dragging many a man back from the very grave by her untiring, unselfish devotion. "when the war was over, she spent four years searching for the soldiers reported missing. hundreds and hundreds of pitiful letters came to her, giving name, regiment, and company of some son or husband or brother, who had marched away to the wars and never returned. these names could not be found among the lists of the killed. they were simply reported as 'missing'; whether dead or a deserter, no one could tell. she had spent weeks at andersonville the summer after the war, identifying and marking the graves there. she marked over twelve thousand. so when these letters came imploring her aid, she began the search, visiting the old prisons, and trenches and hospitals, until she removed from twenty thousand names the possible suspicion that the men who bore them had been deserters. "no wonder that she came to europe completely broken down in health, so exhausted by her long, severe labors that her physician told her she must rest several years. but hardly was she settled here in switzerland when the franco-prussian war broke out, and the red cross sought her aid, knowing how valuable her long experience in nursing would be to them. she could not refuse their appeals, and once more started in the wake of powder smoke, and cannon's roar. "but i'll not start on that chapter of her life. i would not know where to stop. it was there i met her, there she nursed me back to life; then i learned to appreciate her devotion to the cause of humankind. this second long siege against suffering made her an invalid for many years. "the other nations wondered why america refused to join them in their humane work. all other civilized countries were willing to lend a hand. but clara barton knew that it was because the people were ignorant of its real purpose that they did not join the alliance, and she promised that she would devote the remainder of her life, if need be, to showing america that as long as she refused to sign that treaty, she was standing on a level with barbarous and heathen countries. "for years she was too ill to push the work she had set for herself. when her strength at last returned, she had to learn to walk. at last, however, she succeeded. america signed the treaty. then, through her efforts, the american national red cross was organized. she was made president of it. while no war, until lately, has called for its services, the red cross has found plenty to do in times of great national calamities. you have had terrible fires and floods, cyclones, and scourges of yellow fever. then too, it has taken relief to turkey and lately has found work in cuba. "i know that you would like to look into miss barton's jewel-box. old emperor william himself gave her the iron cross of prussia. the grand duke and duchess of baden sent her the gold cross of remembrance. medals and decorations from many sovereigns are there--the queen of servia, the sultan of turkey, the prince of armenia. never has any american woman been so loved and honored abroad, and never has an american woman been more worthy of respect at home. it must be a great joy to her now, as she sits in the evening of life, to count her jewels of remembrance, and feel that she has done so much to win the gratitude of her fellow creatures. "you came to visit switzerland because it is the home of many heroes; but let me tell you, my child, this little republic has more to show the world than its william tell chapels and its lion of lucerne. as long as the old town of geneva stands, the world will not forget that here was given a universal banner of peace, and here was signed its greatest treaty--the treaty of the red cross." as the major stopped, the little colonel looked up at the white cross floating above the pier, and then down at the red one on hero's collar, and drew a long breath. "i wish i could do something like that!" she exclaimed, earnestly. "i used to wish that i could go out like joan of arc to do some great thing that would make people write books about me, and carve me on statues, and paint pictures and sing songs in my honah, but i believe that now i'd rathah do something bettah than ride off to battle on a prancin' white chargah. thank you, majah, for tellin' me the story. i'm goin' for a walk now. may i take hero?" a few minutes later the two were wandering along beside the water together, the little colonel dreaming day-dreams of valiant deeds that she might do some day, so that kings would send _her_ a gold cross of remembrance, and men would say with uncovered heads, as the old major had done, "if america ever writes a woman's name in her temple of fame, that one should be the name of lloyd sherman--_the little colonel_!" * * * * * [illustration: "the two were wandering along beside the water together"] when the time came for the shermans to move on, the major was their travelling companion. but at zug, several weeks later, it was necessary for him to stop and send for his niece to accompany him to a hospital at zürich. he had been caught in a sudden storm on the mountainside and struck by a limb of a falling tree. if hero had not led a party of rescuers to him from the hotel he would have died before morning, but they were in time to save him. several lonely days followed for the little colonel. either her father or mother was constantly with the major, sometimes both. it greatly worried the old man that he should be the cause of disarranging their plans and delaying their journey. he urged them to go on and leave him, but they would not consent. sometimes the little colonel slipped into the room with a bunch of alpine roses or a cluster of edelweiss that she had bought from some peasant. sometimes she sat beside him for a few minutes, but most of her time was spent with hero, wandering up and down beside the lake, feeding the swans or watching the little steamboats come and go. one evening, just at sunset, the major sent for her. "i go to zürich in the morning," he said, holding out his hand as she came into the room. "i wanted to say good-bye while i have the time and strength. we expect to leave very early to-morrow, probably before you are awake." his couch was drawn up by the window through which the shimmering lake shone in the sunset like rosy mother-of-pearl. far up the mountain sounded the faint tinkling of goat-bells, and the clear, sweet yodelling of a peasant, on his homeward way. at intervals, the deep tolling of the bell of st. oswald floated out across the water. "when the snow falls," he said, after a long pause, "i shall be far away from here. they tell me that at the hospital where i am going, i shall find a cure. but i know." he pointed to an hour-glass on the table beside him. "see! the sand has nearly run its course. the hour will soon be done. it is so with me. i have felt it for a long time." lloyd looked up, startled. he went on slowly. "i cannot take hero with me to the hospital, so i shall leave him behind with some one who will care for him and love him, perhaps even better than i have done." he held out his hand to the dog. "come, hero, my dear old comrade, come bid thy master farewell." fumbling under his pillow as he spoke, he took out a small leather case, and, opening it, held up a medal. it was the medal that had been given him for bravery on the field of battle. [illustration: "he fastened the medal to hero's collar"] "it is my one treasure!" murmured the old soldier, turning it fondly, as it lay in his palm. "i have no family to whom i can leave it as an heirloom, but thou hast twice earned the right to wear it. i have no fear but that thou wilt always be true to the red cross and thy name of hero, so thou shalt wear thy country's medal to thy grave." he fastened the medal to hero's collar, then, with the dog's great head pressed fondly against him, he began talking to him in the speech lloyd could not understand, but the sight of the gray-haired old soldier taking his last leave of his faithful friend brought the tears to her eyes. then he called her to him and said that because she was like his little christine, he knew that she would be good to hero, and he asked her to take him back to america with her. she promised that she would. then he put hero's paw in her hand, and said, "hero, i give thee to thy little mistress. protect and guard her always, as she will love and care for thee." * * * * * chapter iv homeward bound on that long journey back to kentucky it was well for hero that he wore the red cross on his collar. the little symbol was the open sesame to many a privilege that ordinary dogs are not allowed on shipboard. instead of being confined to the hold, he was given the liberty of the ship, and when his story was known he received as much flattering attention as if he had been some titled nobleman. the captain shook the big white paw, gravely put into his hand at the little colonel's bidding, and then stooped to stroke the dog's head. as he looked into the wistful, intelligent eyes his own grew tender. "i have a son in the service," he said, "sent back from south africa, covered with scars. i know what that red cross meant to him for a good many long weeks. go where you like, old fellow! the ship is yours, so long as you make no trouble." "oh, thank you!" cried the little colonel, looking up at the big british captain with a beaming face. "i'd rathah be tied up myself than to have hero kept down there in the hold. i'm suah he'll not bothah anybody." nor did he. no one from stoker to deck steward could make the slightest complaint against him, so dignified and well behaved was he. lloyd was proud of him and his devotion. wherever she went he followed her, lying at her feet when she sat in her steamer-chair, walking close beside her when she promenaded the deck. everybody stopped to speak to him, and to question lloyd about him, so that it was not many days before she and the great st. bernard had made friends of all the passengers who were able to be on deck. the hours are long at sea, and people gladly welcome anything that provides entertainment, so lloyd was often called aside as she walked, and invited to join some group, and tell to a knot of interested listeners all she knew of hero and the major, and the training of the ambulance dogs. in return lloyd's stories nearly always called forth some anecdote from her listeners about the red cross work in america, and to her great surprise she found five persons among them who had met clara barton in some great national calamity of fire, flood, or pestilence. one was a portly man with a gruff voice, who had passed through the experiences of the forest fires that swept through michigan, over twenty years ago. as he told his story, he made the scenes so real that lloyd forgot where she was. she could almost smell the thick, stifling smoke of the burning forest, hear the terrible crackling of the flames, feel the scorching heat in her face, and see the frightened cattle driven into the lakes and streams by the pursuing fire. she listened with startled eyes as he described the wall of flame, hemming in the peaceful home where his little son played around the doorstep. she held her breath while he told of their mad flight from it, when, lashing his horses into a gallop, he looked back to see it licking up everything in the world he held dear except the frightened little family huddled at his feet. he had worked hard to build the cottage. it was furnished with family heirlooms brought west with them from the old homestead in vermont. it was hard to see those great red tongues devouring it in a mouthful. in the morning, although they had reached a place of safety, they were out in a charred, blackened wilderness, without a roof to shelter them, a chair to sit on, or a crust to eat. "the hardest thing to bear," he said, "was to hear my little three-year-old bertie begging for his breakfast, and to know that there was nothing within miles of us to satisfy his hunger, and that the next day it would be the same, and the next, and the next. "we were powerless to help ourselves. but while we sat there in utter despair, a neighbor rode by and hailed us. he told us that red cross committees had started out from milwaukee and chicago at first tidings of the fire, with car-loads of supplies, and that if we could go to the place where they were distributing we could get whatever we needed. "i wish you could have seen what they were handing out when we got there: tools and lumber to put up cabins, food and beds and clothes and coal-oil. they'd thought of everything and provided everything, and they went about the distributing in a systematic, business-like way that somehow put heart and cheer into us all. "they didn't make us feel as if they were handing out alms to paupers, but as if they were helping some of their own family on to their feet again, and putting them in shape to help themselves. even my little bertie felt it. young as he was, he never forgot that awful night when we fled from the fire, nor the hungry day that followed, nor the fact that the arm that carried him food, when he got it at last, wore a brassard marked like that." he touched the red cross on hero's collar. "and when the chance came to show the same brotherly spirit to some one else in trouble and pass the help along, he was as ready as the rest of us to do his share. "three years afterward i read in the papers of the floods that had swept through the ohio and mississippi valleys, and of the thousands that were homeless. bertie,--he was six then,--he listened to the account of the children walking the streets, crying because they hadn't a roof over them or anything to eat. he didn't say a word, but he climbed up to the mantel and took down his little red savings-bank. "we were pretty near on our feet again by that time, although we were still living in a cabin. the crops had been good, and we had been able to save a little. he poured out all the pennies and nickels in his bank,--ninety-three cents they came to,--and then he got his only store toy, a box of tin soldiers that had been sent to him christmas, and put that on the table beside the money. we didn't appear to notice what he was doing. presently he brought the mittens his grandmother up in vermont had knit for him. then he waited a bit, and seemed to be weighing something in his mind. by and by he slipped away to the chest where his sunday clothes were kept and took them out, new suit, shoes, cap and all, and laid them on the table with the money and the tin soldiers. "'there, daddy,' he said, 'tell the red cross people to send them to some little boy like me, that's been washed out of his home and hasn't any of his toys left, or his clothes.' "i tell you it made a lump come up in my throat to see that the little fellow had taken his very best to pay his debt of gratitude. nothing was too great for him to sacrifice. even his tin soldiers went when he remembered what the red cross had done for him." "my experience with the red cross was in the mississippi floods of '82," said a gentleman who had joined the party. "one winter day we were attracted by screams out in the river, and found that they came from some people who were floating down on a house that had been washed away. there they were, that freezing weather, out in the middle of the river, their clothes frozen on them, ill from fright and exposure. i went out in one of the boats that were sent to their rescue, and helped bring them to shore. i was so impressed by the tales of suffering they told that i went up the river to investigate. "at every town, and nearly every steamboat landing, i found men from the relief committees already at work, distributing supplies. they didn't stop when they had provided food and clothing. they furnished seed by the car-load to the farmers, just as in the galveston disaster, a few years ago, they furnished thousands of strawberry plants to the people who were wholly dependent on their crops for their next year's food." "where did they get all those stores?" asked lloyd. "and the seeds and the strawberry plants?" "most of it was donated," answered the gentleman. "many contributions come pouring in after such a disaster, just as little bertie's did. but the society is busy all the time, collecting and storing away the things that may be needed at a moment's notice. people would contribute, of course, even if there were no society to take charge of their donations, but without its wise hands to distribute, much would be lost." it was from a sad-faced lady in black, who had had two sons drowned in the johnstown flood, that lloyd heard the description of clara barton's five months' labor there. a doctor's wife who had been in the mt. vernon cyclone, and a newspaper man who had visited the south carolina islands after the tidal wave, and charleston after the earthquake, piled up their accounts of those scenes of suffering, some of them even greater than the horrors of war, so that lloyd dreamed of fires and floods that night. but the horror of the scenes was less, because a baby voice called cheerfully through them, "here, daddy, give these to the poor little boys that are cold and homesick;" and a great st. bernard, with a red cross on his back, ran around distributing mittens and tin soldiers. chapter v in after years time flies fast under the locusts. the sixteen years which have passed since hero followed his little mistress home have brought many changes. he is only a tender memory now. a square, white stone stands on the lawn where "taps" were sounded over him one september day, long ago. but the sight of it no longer brings pain to the little colonel. with the sweet ambition in her heart to make life happier for every one she touches, she has grown up into a veritable princess winsome. in a home of her own now, to her own little son, she sometimes tells the story that is set down here. he is too young yet, to be told the chapters which have been added since to that amazing history of sacrifice and service. and she cannot say now as the old major said then--"wherever the red cross goes is safety for the wounded soldiers. no nurse, surgeon or ambulance bearing that sign can be fired upon." that part is no longer true, although the day is coming soon when we shall make it true for all time. she cannot tell him that the very nation which was first and foremost in training such dogs as hero in service for mankind has violated its treaties and filled the world with horrors and suffering unspeakable. his trusting baby heart could not understand such treachery. but young as he is he knows what that red and white symbol means. because "daddy" wore one on his arm when he marched away with the other soldiers, he must have one on the sleeve of his little blue rompers. because "deah muvva" wears one on the veil which binds her forehead, when she comes back from the unit where she has spent long hours away from him, he associates it with all that is loveliest to him--her lovely face, her arms that are his peace and comfort and safety, her lips that kiss away all his hurts and make them well. long before he is old enough to hear the terrible war-part of the story, war shall be at an end, please god, and the red cross shall mean to the nations left upon the earth what it means to him--arms that enfold a suffering humanity, lips that press a great mother-love to all its hurts and make them well. the end. transcriber's note: on page 81, the word "acounts" was changed to "accounts." [illustration: jean henri dunant] _the_ origin _of_ _the_ red cross "_un souvenir de solferino_" by henri dunant translated from the french by mrs. david h. wright, of the philadelphia chapter of the american red cross, independence hall. philadelphia, pa. 1911 the john c. winston co. philadelphia, pa. copyright, 1911, by mrs. david h. wright. american red cross. washington, d. c., november 9, 1910. mrs. david h. wright, philadelphia, pa. dear mrs. wright: i appreciate and thank you for your courtesy in dedicating to me, as president of the american red cross, this recent translation of henri dunant's "un souvenir de solferino." whoever calls attention of the people to the sufferings and misery caused by war so that men realizing its results become loath to undertake it, performs a public service. [illustration: handwritten signature of william howard taft] _president american red cross._ _editor's note_ _so far as is known, this book of such far-reaching influence has never before been translated or published in english._ preface _henri dunant, the famous author of "a souvenir of solferino," was born in geneva in 1828._ _the instruction and philanthropic principles received by him in his youth, together with his natural energy and power of organization, were a good foundation for the unfolding of the ideas and inclinations which led to his fertile acts._ _in 1859 occurred the event which definitely impelled him to a course of action which did not discontinue during his whole life. a course of action for the mitigation of the sufferings caused by war, or from a broader point of view, for the commencement of the reign of peace._ _this event was the battle of solferino, when he first organized, in castiglione, corps of volunteers to search for and nurse the wounded._ _having thus started the idea of a permanent organization of these voluntary bands of compassionate workers, and also of an international treaty agreement in regard to the wounded, he presented himself to marshal macmahon and afterwards to napoleon iii, who became interested in the project of dunant and immediately ordered his army no longer to make prisoners of the physicians and nurses of the enemy._ _soon dunant organized an aid committee in geneva, and shortly afterwards he published his "souvenir of solferino," which was enthusiastically received and greatly applauded._ _he met, however, opposition and obstacles, principally from the french minister of war._ _the philanthropic ideas of this book were received with interest by many european sovereigns with whom dunant had intercourse, either by correspondence or by conversation; he always propagated persistently his ideas in regard to the organization of a national permanent committee for the wounded, his international treaty, and the neutralization of those injured in war (he developed in separate works his ideas which were outlined only in the "souvenir")._ _the geneva society of public utility created a commission for the purpose of studying the question. meanwhile dunant had the opportunity to speak with the king of saxony, and to persuade representatives of some other countries to take up the question with their respective sovereigns._ _dunant interested the governments so much in his project that various nations sent delegates to the international conference, which was held in geneva, in 1863, when it was decided to establish a national committee, and when the desire was expressed that the neutralization of the physicians, nurses and injured should be provided by treaty, and for the adoption of a distinctive and uniform international emblem and flag for the hospital corps, and the unanimous thanks of this conference were extended to dunant._ _to consider this subject, a diplomatic international congress was held in 1864, at geneva, by invitation of the swiss federate counsel. the treaty there drafted accepted the projects of dunant and the formation of volunteer aid societies, later called red cross societies, was recommended by the convention to the signatory powers._ _in the further development of the ideas of dunant the hague conference, in 1899, extended the provisions of the treaty of geneva to naval warfare._ _thus, a single individual, inspired with the sentiment of kindness and compassion for his fellow-creatures, by his own untiring energy attained the realization of his ideas, and aided in the progress of mankind toward peace._ _thus, truly all men, and above all, the workers for peace, owe to this laborer merited and everlasting gratitude and remembrance._ * * * * * _the recompense, however, arrived late._ _in the zealous propaganda, for which, during four years, he edited pamphlets and articles in all languages, and traveled continuously through the whole of europe, dunant spent everything that he possessed, and, for many years, nothing more was heard of the modest and good man, to whom the approval of his conscience was all sufficient._ _at last, in 1897, he was discovered in the swiss village of heiden, where he was living in misery, in a "home" for old men, with almost no means other than a small pension received from the empress of russia._ _the baroness von suttner sent at that time to the press of the whole world, and especially to those interested in international peace, an appeal to raise a contribution of money to ease his last years. in 1901, when the nobel-peace-prize, valued at 208,000 francs, was awarded for the first time, it was divided between henri dunant and frederick passy._ _it is true that many peace workers did not approve of this decision of the nobel committee. they said in opposition, that the projects of dunant not only were not pacific, but could even have the contrary effect. to lessen the terrors of war is really, according to them, to destroy the most effective means of turning men from it, and consequently tended to prolong the duration of its reign. one of the chief representatives of this idea, signor h. h. fried, said that the geneva convention was only a small concession by the governments to the new idea that is fighting against war._ _without doubt, they do not approve of the humane plan of dunant, on the contrary, they think that it is not essentially peace-making; that it should not be recompensed by the first peace prize, and that it is dangerous to confuse pacification with simple humanitarianism._ _the contrary opinion is shown by the following words, written by signor ruyssin, in the review "peace by right," at the time when dunant received his prize:_ _"his glory has grown each year in proportion to all the lessening of suffering which his work has accomplished, to all the lives which it saves, and to all the self-devotion to which it gives birth._ _"henri dunant has decreased the abomination of war; frederick passy fought to make it impossible. one has accomplished more; the other has created more remote, but brighter hopes. one has harvested already; the other sows for the future harvest; and so it would be arbitrary and unjust to compare such dissimilar lines of work, both equally meritorious. the accomplishment of the wishes of nobel rightly placed identical crowns on the heads of two old men who employed their lives in fighting against war."_ _this disagreement is interesting in that it shows the contrary judgment to which different zealous peace workers were led in regard to the project of dunant._ _whatever may be the conclusion of the reader, about the relation between it and the peace propaganda, he will certainly be of the opinion that "a souvenir of solferino," showing the abominations of war, is a useful instrument of the propaganda, and that the name of dunant should be blessed, as that of one of the most self-devoted benefactors of mankind._ _henri dunant died at heiden, switzerland, on october the thirty-first, 1910._ the origin of the red cross the bloody victory of magenta opened the gates of milan to the french army, which the towns of pavia, lodi and cremona welcomed enthusiastically. the austrians, abandoning the lines of the adda, the oglio, and the chiese, gathered their forces on the bank of the river mincio, at whose head the young and courageous emperor joseph placed himself. the king of sardinia, victor emmanuel, arrived on the seventeenth of june, 1859, at brescia, where, with great joy, the inhabitants welcomed him, seeing in the son of charles albert a saviour and a hero. during the next day the french emperor entered the same town amid the enthusiastic cries of the people, happy to show their gratitude to the monarch who came to help them gain their independence. on the twenty-first of june, napoleon iii and victor emmanuel ii left brescia, from which place their armies had departed during the previous day. on the twenty-second they occupied lonato, castenedolo and montechiaro. on the evening of the twenty-third napoleon, who was commander-in-chief, published strict orders for the army of the king of sardinia, encamped at desenzano, and forming the left flank of the allied armies, to proceed early the following day to pozzelengo. marshal baraguey d'hilliers was ordered to march on solferino; marshal macmahon, duke de magenta, on cavriana; general neil was to proceed to guidizzolo; marshal canrobert to medole; marshal regnaud de saint-jean d'angley, with the imperial guard, to castiglione. these united forces amounted to 150,000 men, with 400 cannon. the austrian emperor had at his disposition, in the lombardo-venetian kingdom, nine army corps, amounting in all to 250,000 men, comprising the garrison of verona and mantua. the effective force prepared to enter the line of battle consisted of seven corps, some 170,000 men, supported by 500 cannon. the headquarters of the emperor francis joseph had been moved from verona to villafranca, then to valeggio. on the evening of the twenty-third the austrian troops received the order to recross the river mincio during the night to peschiera, salionze, valeggio, ferri, goito and mantua. the main part of the army took up its position from pozzolengo to guidizzolo, in order to attack the enemy between the rivers mincio and chiese. the austrian forces formed two armies. the first having as commander-in-chief count wimpffen, under whose orders were the corps commanded by field marshals prince edmund schwarzenberg, count schaffgotsche and baron veigl, also the cavalry division of count zeidewitz. this composed the left flank. it was stationed in the neighborhood of volta, guidizzolo, medole and castel-gioffredo. the second army was commanded by count schlick, having under his orders the field marshals count clam-gallas, count stadion, baron zobel and cavalier benedek, as well as the cavalry division of count mensdorf. this composed the right flank. it occupied cavriana, pozzolengo and san martino. thus, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, the austrians occupied all the heights between pozzolengo, solferino, cavriana and guidizzolo. they ranged their artillery in series of breastworks, forming the center of the attacking line, which permitted their right and left flanks to fall back upon these fortified heights which they believed to be unconquerable. the two belligerent armies, although marching one against the other, did not expect such a sudden meeting. austria, misinformed, supposed that only a part of the allied army had crossed the chiese river. on their side the confederates did not expect this attack in return, and did not believe that they would find themselves so soon before the army of the austrian emperor. the reconnoitering, the observations and the reports of the scouts, and those made from the fire balloons during the day of the twenty-third showed no signs of such an imminent encounter. the collision of the armies of austria and franco-sardinia on friday, the twenty-fourth of june, 1859, was, therefore, unexpected, although the combatants on both sides conjectured that a great battle was near. the austrian army, already fatigued by the difficult march during the night of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, had to support from the earliest dawn the attack of the enemies' armies and to suffer from the intensely hot weather as well as from hunger and thirst, for, except a double ration of brandy, the greater number of the austrians were unable to take any food. the french troops already in movement before daybreak had had nothing but coffee. therefore, this exhaustion of the soldiers, and above all, of the unfortunate wounded, was extreme at the end of this very bloody battle, which lasted more than fifteen hours. both armies are awake. three hundred thousand men are standing face to face. the line of battle is ten miles long. already at three o'clock in the morning, corps commanded by marshals baraguey d'hilliers and macmahon are commencing to move on solferino and cavriana. hardly have the advance columns passed castiglione when they themselves are in the presence of the first posts of the austrians, who dispute the ground. on all sides bugles are playing the charges and the drums are sounding. the emperor napoleon who passed the night at montechiaro hastens rapidly to castiglione. by six o'clock a furious fire has commenced. the austrians march in a compact mass in perfect order along the open roads. in the air are flying their black and yellow standards, on which are embroidered the ancient imperial arms. the day is very clear. the italian sun makes the brilliant equipments of the dragoons, the lancers and the cuirassiers of the french army glitter brightly. at the commencement of the engagement the emperor francis joseph, together with his entire staff, leaves headquarters in order to go to volta. he is accompanied by the archdukes of the house of lorraine, among whom are the grand duke of tuscany and the duke of modena. in the midst of the difficulties of a field unknown to the french army the first meeting takes place. it has to make its way through plantations of mulberry trees, interlaced by climbing vines, which form almost impassable barriers. the earth is cut by great dried up trenches which the horses have to leap, and by long walls with broad foundations which they have to climb. from the hills the austrians pour on the enemy a constant hail of shot and shell. with the smoke of the cannon's continual discharge the rain of bullets is ploughing up the earth and dust into thousands of missiles. the french hurl themselves upon these strongly fortified places in spite of the firing of the batteries which falls upon the earth with redoubled force. during the burning heat of noon the battle everywhere becomes more and more furious. column after column throw themselves one against the other with the force of a devastating torrent. a number of french regiments surround masses of austrian troops, but, like iron walls, these resist and at first remain unshaken. entire divisions throw their knapsacks to the earth in order to rush at the enemy with fixed bayonets. if a battalion is driven away another replaces it; each hill, each height, each rocky eminence becomes a theatre for an obstinate struggle. on the heights, as well as in the ravines, the dead lie piled up. the austrians and the allied armies march one against the other, killing each other above the blood-covered corpses, butchering with gunshots, crushing each other's skulls or disemboweling with the sword or bayonet. no cessation in the conflict, no quarter given. the wounded are defending themselves to the last. it is butchery by madmen drunk with blood. sometimes the fighting becomes more terrible on account of the arrival of rushing, galloping cavalry. the horses, more compassionate than their riders, seek in vain to step over the victims of this butchery, but their iron hoofs crush the dead and dying. with the neighing of the horses are mingled blasphemies, cries of rage, shrieks of pain and despair. the artillery, at full speed, follows the cavalry which has cut a way through the corpses and the wounded lying in confusion on the ground. a jaw-bone of one of these last is torn away; the head of another is battered in; the breast of a third is crushed. limbs are broken and bruised; the field is covered with human remains; the earth is soaked with blood. the french troops, with fiery ardor, scale the steep hills and rocky declivities in spite of shot and shell. hardly does some harassed and profusely perspiring company capture a hill and reach its summit, when it falls like an avalanche on the austrians, overthrows, repulses and pursues them to the depths of the hollows. but the austrians regain the advantage. ambuscaded behind the houses, the churches and the walls of medole, solferino and cavriana, they heroically fight on and very nearly win the victory. the unending combat rages incessantly and in every place with fury. nothing stops, nothing interrupts the butchery. they are killing one another by the hundreds. every foot of ground is carried at the bayonet's point, every post disputed foot by foot. from the hands of the enemy are taken villages, house after house, farm after farm, each is the theatre of a siege. doors, windows and courts are abattoirs. a rain of cannon balls is sending death to the distant reserves of austria. if these desert the field they yield it only step by step, and soon recommence action. their ranks are ceaselessly reforming. on the plains the wind raises the dust, which flies over the roads like dense clouds, darkening the day and blinding the fighters. the french cavalry flings itself on the austrian cavalry; uhlans and hussars slash furiously at each other with their swords. the rage is so great that in some places, after the exhaustion of the cartridges and the breaking of the muskets, they fight with fists and beat one another with stones. the strongest positions are captured, lost, and recaptured, to be lost again. everywhere men are falling mutilated, riddled with bullets, covered with wounds. in the midst of these endless combats, these massacres, blasphemies arise in different tongues, telling of the diverse nationalities of the men, many of whom are obliged to become homicides in their twentieth year. the soldiers of the sardinian king, defending and attacking with fervor, continue their skirmishes from early morning. the hills of san martino, roccolo, madonno della scoperta are captured and recaptured five or six times. their generals mollard, la marmora, della rocca, durando, fanti, cialdini, cucchiari, de sonnoz, with all kinds and all grades of officers help the king before whose eyes lie the wounded generals cedale, perrier and arnoldi. the french emperor orders that the corps of baraguey d'hilliers and macmahon, together with the imperial guard, attack at the same time the fortress of san cassiano and occupy solferino. but the brave austrians make the allied army pay dearly for its success.... one of its heroes, prince aleksandro de hessen, after fighting with great courage at san cassiano defends against repeated attacks, the three heights of mount fontana.... at guidizzolo, prince charles of windischraetz, braves certain death in seeking to recapture under a hail of balls casa nova. mortally wounded, he still commands, supported and carried by his brave soldiers, who vainly make for him a rampart of their own bodies. marshal baraguey d'hilliers finally enters the town of solferino, courageously defended by baron stadion. the sky is darkened, dense clouds cover the horizon. a furious wind is rising. it carries away the broken branches of the trees. a cold rain, driven by the tempest, a veritable cloud-burst, drenches the combatants, exhausted from hunger and fatigue, while dust, hail and smoke are blinding the soldiers forced to fight also the elements. the army of the emperor francis joseph retreats. throughout the entire action the chief of the house of hapsburg shows admirable tranquillity and self-control. during the capture of cavriana the austrian emperor finds himself, together with baron schlick and the prince of nassau, on the adjacent heights, madonna della pieve, opposite a church surrounded by cypress trees. towards evening, the austrian center having yielded and the left flank not daring to hope to force the position of the allies, the general retreat is decided. in this grave moment, emperor francis joseph, around whom rained balls and bullets during the whole day, goes with a part of his staff to volta, while the archdukes and the hereditary grand duke of tuscany returned to valeggio. the austrian officers fought like lions. some, through despair, let themselves die, but sold their lives dearly. the greater number rejoin their regiments covered with the blood of their own wounds or with that of the enemy. to their bravery should be rendered merited praise. ... guidizzolo remains occupied by the austrians until ten o'clock in the evening.... the roads are covered with army wagons, carts and reserve artillery. the transport vans are saved by the rapid construction of improvised bridges. the first austrian wounded consisting of men slightly injured, commence to enter villafranca. the more seriously wounded follow them. austrian physicians and their assistants rapidly bandage the wounds, give some nourishment to the wounded and send them by railroad trains to verona, where the embarrassment is becoming terrible. although during its retreat the austrian army tries to carry away all the wounded which it could transport (and with what great suffering!), nevertheless, thousands remain lying on the ground moistened with their blood. the allied army is in possession of the conquered field. near the close of the day when the evening shadows creep over this vast field of carnage, more than one officer, more than one french soldier, seek here and there a comrade, a compatriot, or a friend, when he finds the wounded friend, he kneels beside, trying to restore him to consciousness, wiping away the blood, bandaging the wounds as well as he can, wrapping a handkerchief around the broken limb, but rarely can he secure water for the suffering man. how many silent tears were shed during this sad night, when all false pride, all human regard were set aside. during the battle, hospitals for the wounded established in nearby farmhouses, churches, monasteries, in the open air, under the shade of trees receive the wounded officers and non-commissioned officers, who are hastily given treatment. after these comes the turn of the soldiers, when that is possible. those of the latter who are still able to walk find their way to the field hospitals. the others are carried on litters and stretchers, weakened as they are by loss of blood, by pain, by continued lack of food, and by the mental and moral shock they have experienced. during the battle a pennant fixed on an elevation marks the station for the wounded and the field hospitals of the fighting regiments. unfortunately, only a few of the soldiers know the color of the hospital pennant or that of the hospital flag of the enemy, for the colors differ with the different nations. the bombs fall upon them, sparing neither physicians, nor wounded, nor wagons loaded with bread, wine, meat or lint. the heights which extend from castiglione to volta, sparkle with thousands of fires, which are fed by pieces of austrian gun-wagons and by huge branches of trees, broken by the tempest or by cannon balls. the soldiers dry their dripping clothes; then, overcome by fatigue and exhaustion, they fall asleep on the stones or on the ground. what terrible episodes! what touching scenes! what disillusionments! there are battalions without food, companies lacking almost every necessity, because of the loss of the knapsacks. water also is lacking, but their thirst is so intense that officers and soldiers resort to slimy and even bloody pools. everywhere the wounded are begging for water. through the silence of the night are heard groans, stifled cries of anguish and pain, and heartrending voices calling for help. who will ever be able to paint the agonies of this horrible night! the sun on the twenty-fifth of june, 1859, shines above one of the most frightful sights imaginable. the battle-field is everywhere covered with corpses of men and horses. they appear as if sown along the roads, in the hollows, the thickets and the fields, above all, near the village of solferino. the fields ready for the harvest are ruined, the grain trodden down, the fences overturned, the orchards destroyed. here and there one finds pools of blood. the villages are deserted. they bear traces of bullets, of bombs and shells and grenades. the houses whose walls have been pierced with bullets and are gaping widely, are shaken and ruined. the inhabitants, of whom the greater number have passed almost twenty hours in the refuge of their cellars, without light or food, are commencing to come out. the look of stupor of these poor peasants bears testimony to the long terror they have endured. the ground is covered with all kinds of debris, broken pieces of arms, articles of equipments and blood-stained clothing. the miserable wounded gathered up during the day are pale, livid and inert. some, principally those seriously injured, have a vacant look, they seem not to understand what is said to them. they turn their staring eyes toward those who bring them help. others, in a dangerous state of nervous shock, are shaking with convulsive tremblings. still others, with uncovered wounds, where inflammation has already appeared, seem frenzied with pain; they beg that someone may end their sufferings, and, with drawn faces, writhe in the last torments of agony. elsewhere, poor fellows are prostrated on the ground by bullets and bursting shells. their arms and legs have been fractured by the cannon wheels that have passed over them. the shock of the cylindrical ball shatters the bones, so that the wound it causes is always very dangerous. the bursting of shells and the conical balls make extremely painful fractures, the internal injury being terrible. every kind of pieces of bone, of earth, of lead, of clothing, of equipments, of shoes, aggravate and irritate the wounds of the patients and increase their sufferings. those who cross this vast field of yesterday's battle meet at every step, in the midst of a confusion without parallel, inexpressible despair and suffering of every kind. some of the battalions which had taken off their knapsacks during the battle, at last find them again, but they have been robbed of all their contents. during the night, vagabonds have stolen everything. a grave loss to the poor men whose linen and uniforms are stained and torn. not only do they find themselves deprived of their clothing, but even their smallest savings, all their fortune as well as of the treasures dear to them; small family mementoes given by mothers, sisters and sweethearts. in several places the dead are stripped of their clothing by the thieves, who do not always spare the wounded who are still living. besides these painful sights are others still more dramatic. here the old, retired general le breton wanders, seeking his son-in-law, the wounded general douay, who has left his daughter, madame douay, in the midst of the tumult of war, in a state of the most cruel uneasiness. there, colonel de maleville, shot at casa nova, expires. here, it is colonel de genlis, whose dangerous wound causes a burning fever. there, lieutenant de selve of the artillery, only a few weeks out of saint cyr, has his right arm amputated on the battle-field, where he was wounded. i help care for a poor sergeant-major of the vincennes chasseurs, both of whose legs are pierced through with balls. i meet him again in the brescia hospital; but he will die crossing mount cenis. lieutenant de guiseul, who was believed dead, is picked up on the spot, where, having fallen with his standard, he was lying in a swoon. the courageous sub-lieutenant fournier, of the flying-guard, gravely wounded, finishes in his twentieth year a military career commenced in his tenth year by voluntarily enlisting in the foreign legion. they bury the commander de pontgibaud, who died during the night, and the young count de saint paer, who had attained the rank of major hardly seven days before. general auger, of the artillery, is carried to the field hospital of casa morino. his left shoulder has been shattered by a six-inch shell, part of which remained imbedded for twenty-four hours in the interior of the muscles of the armpit. carried to castiglione he is attacked with gangrene, and dies as a result of the disarticulation of the arm. general de ladmirault and general dieu, both gravely wounded, also arrived at castiglione. the lack of water becomes greater and greater. the sun is burning, the ditches are dried up. the soldiers have only brackish and unwholesome water to appease their thirst. where even the least little stream or spring trickling drop by drop is found, guards with loaded guns have great difficulty in preserving this water for the most urgent needs. wounded horses, who have lost their riders, and have wandered during the whole night, drag themselves to their comrades, from whom they seem to beg for help. they are put out of their agony by a bullet. one of these noble chargers comes alone into the midst of a french company. the rich saddle-bag, fastened to the saddle, shows that it belongs to prince von isenberg. afterwards, the wounded prince himself is found; but careful nursing during a serious illness will allow him to return to germany, where his family, in ignorance of the truth, have believed him dead and have mourned for him. among the dead some have peaceful faces; these are the men who were struck suddenly and died at once. but those who did not perish immediately have their limbs rigid and twisted in agony, their bodies are covered with dirt; their hands clutch the earth, their eyes are open and staring, a convulsive contraction has uncovered their clenched teeth. three days and three nights are passed in burying the dead who are left on the battle-field. on so large a field, many of the corpses hidden in the ditches, covered by the thickets or by some uneveness of the ground are discovered very late. they, as well as the dead horses, emit a fetid stench. in the french army a number of soldiers from each company are detailed to recognize and bury the dead. as far as possible soldiers of the same corps must pick up their fellow-members. they write down the number stamped on the clothing of the dead. then, aided in this painful duty by paid lombardy peasants, they put the corpses in a common grave. unfortunately, it is possible that, because of the unavoidable rapidity in this labor, and because of the carelessness and inattention of the paid workmen, more than one living man is buried with the dead. the letters, papers, orders, money, watches found on the officers are sent to their families, but the great number of the interred bodies make the faithful accomplishment of this task impossible. a son, the idol of his parents, educated and cared for during many years by a loving mother who was uneasy at the very slightest indisposition. a brilliant officer, beloved by his family, having left at home his wife and children. a young soldier who has just left his betrothed and his mother, sisters and old father; there he lies in the mud and in the dust, soaked in his own blood. because of the wound in his head his face has become unrecognizable. he is in agony, he expires in cruel suffering, and his body, black, swollen, hideous, thrown in a shallow grave, is covered with a little lime and earth. the birds of prey will not respect his feet and hands protruding from the muddy ground of the slope which serves him as a tomb. someone will come back, will carry more earth there and, perhaps, will put up a wooden cross above the place where his body rests, and that will be all. the corpses of the austrians, clothed in mud-stained cloaks, torn linen jackets, white tunics stained with blood are strewn by thousands on the hills and plains of medole. clouds of crows fly over the bodies in hopes of having them for prey. by hundreds they are crowded into a great common grave. once out of the line of fire, austrian soldiers, slightly wounded, young first-year recruits, throw themselves on the ground from fatigue and inanition, then weakened by loss of blood, they die miserably from exhaustion and hunger. unhappy mothers in austria, hungary and bohemia, your sorrow will be great when you learn that your children died in the enemy's country, without care, without help, and without consolation! the lot of the austrian prisoners-of-war is very sad. led like simple cattle, they are sent in a crowd, with a strong guard, to brescia, where they at last find repose, if not a kind welcome. some french soldiers wish to do violence to the hungarian captives whom they take for croates, adding furiously that those "glued-pantalooners," as they called them, always killed the wounded. i succeeded in tearing from their hands these unfortunate, trembling captives. on the battle-field many austrians are permitted to keep their swords. they have the same food as the french officers. some troops of the allied army fraternally divide their biscuits with the famished prisoners. some even take the wounded on their backs and carry them to the ambulances. near me the lieutenant of the guard bandages with his white handkerchief the head of a tyrolese which was scarcely covered with old, torn, and dirty linen. during the previous day at the height of the battle, commandant de la rochefoucauld-liancourt, the fearless african hunter, threw himself upon a squad of hungarians; but his horse having been pierced through with balls, he himself was struck by two shots and made prisoner by the hungarians. learning that wounded la rochefoucauld had been captured by the soldiers, the austrian emperor ordered that he be treated with great kindness and given the best care. the commissary continue to pick up the wounded. these, bandaged or not, are carried by mules or wheelbarrows and litters to the field hospitals in the villages and towns near the place where they fell. in these towns, churches, monasteries, houses, parks, courts, streets and promenades are transformed into improvised hospitals. in carpenedolo, castel-goffredo, medole, guidizzolo, volta and neighboring places are arriving many of the wounded. but the greater number are carried to castiglione, where the least mutilated have already succeeded in dragging themselves. behold the long procession of vehicles of the commissary department, loaded with soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers of all grades mixed together; cavalry-men, infantry, artillerymen, bleeding, fatigued, lacerated, covered with dust. each jolt of the wagons which carry them imposing on them new suffering. then the mules come trotting in, their gait drawing, each instant, bitter cries from the throats of the unfortunate wounded whom they are bearing. many die during the transportation. their corpses are put on the sides of the roads. to others is left the duty of burying them. these dead are enscribed, "disappeared." the wounded are sent to castiglione. from there they are carried on to the hospitals in brescia, cremona, bergama, milan, and other cities of lombardy, where they will receive the regular care and will submit to the necessary amputations. but as the means of transportation are very scarce, they are obliged to wait several days in castiglione. this city, where the confusion surpasses all imagination, soon becomes for the french and austrians a vast temporary hospital. on the day of battle the field-hospital of headquarters is established there. chests of lint are unpacked, dressings for wounds and medicate necessities are prepared. the inhabitants give everything that they can get ready--coverings, linens, mattresses and straw. the hospital of castiglione, the monastery, the barracks of san luigi, the church of the capucines, the stations of the police, the churches of maggiore, san giuseppe, santa rosalie, are filled with the wounded lying crowded on the straw. straw is also arranged for them in the courts and in the public parks. plank roofs are quickly put up and linen is stretched to protect them from the hot sun. the private dwellings are soon converted into hospitals. officers and soldiers are there received by the inhabitants. some of these last run through the streets anxiously searching for a physician for their guests. later, others, in consternation, go and come through the city, insistently begging that someone take away from their houses the corpses with which they do not know what to do. a number of french surgeons, having remained in castiglione, aided by young italian physicians and by hospital orderlies, dress and bandage the wounds. but all this is very insufficient. the number of convoys of wounded becomes so great during saturday that the administration, the citizens and the few soldiers left in castiglione are incapable of caring for so much misery. then, melancholy scenes occur. there is water; there is food; and nevertheless the wounded are dying of hunger and thirst. there is much lint, but not enough hands to put it on the wounds! the greater number of the army of physicians must go to cavriana; the hospital orderlies make mistakes, and hands are lacking at this critical moment. a voluntary service, good or bad, must be organized. but this is difficult in the midst of such disorder, to which is added a panic of the castiglionians, which results in aggravating the misery of the wounded. this panic is caused by a very insignificant circumstance. as each corps of the french army had recovered itself, after taking up its position, on the day after the battle, convoys of prisoners were formed who were sent to brescia, through castiglione and montechiaro. the inhabitants took one band of captives coming from cavriana escorted by hussars, for the austrian army returning in force. alarm was given by the frightened peasants, by the assistant conductors of the baggage, by itinerant merchants who follow the troops in a campaign. immediately all the houses are closed, the inhabitants barricading themselves in their homes, burning the tri-color flags which had adorned their windows, hiding themselves in the cellars or the attics. some run into the fields with their wives and children carrying with them their most valuable possessions. others, less frightened and more sagacious, remain at home, but take in the first austrian wounded upon whom they lay their hands and overwhelm them with kindness and care. in the streets, on the roads, blocked by wagonloads of wounded, by convoys of supplies, are rapid transport wagons, horses flying in all directions, amid cries of fear, of anger and of pain. baggage wagons are overturned, bread and biscuits fall into the gutter. the drivers detach the horses, dashing away with hanging bridles on the road to brescia, spreading the alarm as they go. they collide with carts of provisions and convoys of wounded. these latter, trodden under foot and frenzied with terror, beg to be taken with them. in the city some of them deaf to all orders tear away their bandages, go staggering out of the churches, into the streets where they are jostled and bruised and finally fall from exhaustion and pain. * * * * * what agonies! what suffering during the days of june twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh! wounds poisoned by heat, by dust and by lack of water and care, have become intensely painful. suffocating stenches pollute the air in spite of efforts to keep in good condition these local hospitals. every quarter of an hour the convoys sent to castiglione are bringing new loads of wounded. the insufficiency in the number of assistants, of hospital orderlies, of servants is cruelly felt. in spite of the activity of the commissary department, which is organizing transportation to brescia by means of ox-carts; in spite of the spontaneous care of the inhabitants of castiglione, who transport the sick, the departures are much less numerous than the arrivals, and the crowding grows unceasingly greater. on the stone floors of the churches of castiglione are placed, side by side, men of every nation. french, germans, slavs and arabs are temporarily crowded to the most remote part of the chapels. many have no longer the strength to move themselves and cannot move or stir in the narrow space where they are lying. oaths, blasphemies and cries which can be interpreted by no expression, are sounding beneath the arches of the sanctuaries. "ah, sir, how i suffer!" say to me some of these poor fellows. "we are abandoned, left to die miserably, and yet we fought bravely!" they can get no rest, in spite of the nights they have passed in sleeplessness and long-endured fatigue. in their distress they beg for help which is not given. some, in despair, roll in convulsions which will end in tetanus and death. others, believing that the cold water poured on their festered wounds produce worms, which appear in great numbers, refuse to have the bandages moistened. others still, whose wounds were dressed at the improvised hospitals on the battle-fields, are given no further attention during the halt they are obliged to make in castiglione, and as these bandages are very tight, in view of the roughness of the transportation and have not been changed, they are suffering veritable tortures. these, whose faces are black with flies, with which the air is infested and which cling to their wounds, cast on all sides distracted glances. but no one notices. on these, the cloaks, shirts, flesh and blood form a compact mass that cannot be removed. here, lies a soldier totally disfigured; his tongue hanging far out of his broken jaws. he stirs and wishes to rise. i moisten his dried palate and hardened tongue. seizing a handful of lint i soak it in a bucket and squeeze the water from this improvised sponge in the formless opening which is in the place of his mouth. there, is an unfortunate man a part of whose face, the nose, lips and chin have been cut away by the stroke of a sword. incapable of speech, half blind, he makes signs with his hands, and by that heartrending pantomime, accompanied by guttural sounds, draws attention to himself. i give him a drink by dropping gently on his blood-covered face a little pure water. a third, with a cleft head, expires, his blood spreading over the stone floor of the church. he presents a horrible sight. his companions in misfortune push him with their feet, for he incommodes the passage. i protect his last moments and cover with a handkerchief his poor head which he still feebly moves. although every house has become an infirmary, and every family has dedicated itself to nursing the wounded officers, that it has gathered in, nevertheless i succeed by sunday morning in collecting a certain number of women of the people, who assist, as best they can, in the efforts made to help so many thousands of wounded men who are without succor. food must be given, and above all, drink, to the men who literally are dying from hunger and thirst. wounds must be bandaged, blood-stained bodies, covered all over with dirt and vermin, must be washed, and all this must be done in the extremely hot weather, in the midst of the suffocating, nauseating stench, and of groans and cries of pain. nevertheless, a little group of volunteers is formed. i organize, well as i can, aid in the section which seems to be the most without care, and i choose one of the churches of castiglione, called chiesa maggiore. nearly five hundred soldiers are crowded together on the straw, about one hundred others, suffering and groaning, are lying in the public park before the church. in the church the women of lombardy go from one to the other with jars and pitchers full of clear water, which serves to appease the thirst and to bathe the wounds. some of these improvised nurses are good-hearted old women, others are charming young girls. their gentleness, goodness, compassion, and their attentive care restores a little courage to the wounded. the boys of the neighborhood come and go between the church and the nearby springs with buckets, pitchers and jars. the distribution of water is followed by that of bouillon and soup, of which the servants of the commissary department are obliged to cook a marvelous quantity. thick bundles of lint are placed here and there. everyone can use it freely; but bandages, linen and shirts are lacking, and one can hardly procure the most necessary articles. i purchase, however, some new shirts by the aid of those kind-hearted women who have already given all their old linen; and, on monday, early in the morning, i send my coachman to brescia to bring back supplies. he returns after some hours with his cabriolet loaded with sponges, linen, pins, cigars, tobacco, camomile, mallow, sambuca, oranges, sugar and lemons. this makes it possible to give refreshing lemonade, wash the wounds with mallow-water, put on warm compresses and renew the material of the bandages. in the meantime we have gained some recruits, who help us. the first is an old naval officer, then some english tourists, who, desiring to see everything, have entered the church, and whom we keep almost by force. two other englishmen, on the contrary, show themselves desirous to help. they distribute cigars to the austrians. an italian priest, three or four travelers, a swiss merchant from neuchatel, a parisian journalist, who afterwards takes charge of the relief in the adjacent church, and some officers whose company has received orders to remain in castiglione, also aid us. but soon some of those voluntary nurses go away, not being able to bear the sight of this suffering. the priest follows their example, but he reappears, however, with delicate kindness to make us smell aromatic herbs and bottles of salts. a tourist, oppressed at the sight of these living debris, swooned from emotion. the merchant from neuchatel perseveres for two days, bandaging wounds and writing for the dying letters of farewell to their families. we are obliged to quiet the compassionate excitement of a belgian, fearing that he will have an attack of burning fever. some men of the detachment, left to garrison the city, try to help their comrades, but cannot endure the sight which breaks down their courage, striking too keenly upon their imagination. nevertheless, a corporal of the engineer corps, wounded at magenta, almost restored to health and about to return to his battalion, but whose orders leave him a few days of liberty, aids us with courage and perseverance. the french commissary, remaining in castiglione, finally grants, on my insistence, authority to utilize for service in the hospitals, some healthy prisoners, and three or four austrian physicians who aid the efforts of the few surgeons left in castiglione. a german physician remaining voluntarily on the battle-field to care for the soldiers, dedicates himself to the injured of both armies. after three days the commissary sends him back to mantua to rejoin his compatriots. "do not leave me to die," exclaim some of these agonized men seizing my hand in despair, but their death is not long delayed. "ah, sir, if you would write to my father, that he might console my poor mother!" said to me, with tears in his eyes, a corporal named mazuet, scarcely twenty years old. i noted down the address of his parents and a few minutes later he had ceased to live. the parents, who dwelt on rue d'alger, in lyons, and of whom this young man, enlisted as a volunteer, was the only son, received no other information about their child than that which i sent to them. he very probably, like so many others, has been enscribed, "disappeared." an old sergeant, decorated with many chevrons, repeated with profound melancholy and an air of conviction full of bitterness: "if someone had cared for me sooner, i should have lived, whereas, this evening i will die." that evening he died. "i do not want to die! i do not want to die!" cries, with savage energy, a grenadier of the guard, full of strength and health three days before, but who, mortally wounded, and feeling sure that his minutes are irrevocably numbered, fights against this dark certainty. i talk to him, he listens to me, and this man, calmed, soothed, consoled, finally resigns himself to die with the simplicity of a child. in the back of the church, on the steps of an altar, a chasseur d'afrique lies on straw. three balls have struck him, one on the right side, one on the left shoulder, the third remained in the right leg. it is sunday, and he asserts that he has eaten nothing since friday. he is covered with dried mud flecked with blood, his clothing is torn; his shirt is in tatters. after i had washed his wounds, given him a little bouillon and wrapped him in covers, he put my hand to his lips with an expression of unspeakable gratitude. later we were able to send him to a better hospital. at the entrance of the church is a hungarian who cries unceasingly, calling in heartrending tones for a physician. his back and his shoulders, ploughed with grapeshot, appear as if torn by iron hooks and are one mass of quivering, raw flesh. the rest of his body is swollen, green and black--horrible. he can neither lie down nor sit up. i dip some packages of lint in cool water and try to make a cushion for him, but gangrene soon carries him off. a little further on lies a dying zouave who is weeping bitter tears, and we console him as if he were a little child. the preceding fatigue, the lack of food and repose, the intensity of the pain, the fear of dying without help, excites even in these brave soldiers a nervous sensibility which betrays itself by sobs. one of their chief thoughts, when they are not suffering too cruelly, is the memory of their mother, and the fear of the grief she will experience on learning of their fate. on the corpse of a soldier we found, hanging from his neck, a medallion containing the portrait of an aged woman, without doubt his mother, which with his left hand he was pressing on his heart. in the part nearest the great door of the church maggiore lie, now, on straw, enveloped in covers, about a hundred french non-commissioned officers and soldiers. they are ranged in two nearly parallel ranks, between which one can pass. their wounds have been dressed. the distribution of soup has taken place. they are quiet. they follow me with their eyes; all heads turn to the left if i go to the left, to the right when i go to the right. sincere thanks are visible on their astonished faces. "one can easily see that he is a parisian," say some. "no," retort others, "he seems to be a southerner." "truly, sir, are you not from bordeaux?" asks a third, and each wishes that i might be from his city or province. i met afterwards some of these wounded men, who had become crippled invalids. recognizing me, they stopped to express their gratitude because i had nursed them in castiglione. "we called you 'the gentleman in white,'" said one, in his picturesque language, "for you were always dressed entirely in white. it is true the weather did not fail to be hot." the resignation of the poor soldiers was often touching; they suffered without complaint, they died humbly and silently. on the other side of the church, some wounded austrian prisoners fear to receive care which they distrust. they angrily tear off their bandages, opening their bleeding wounds. others remain silent, dejected, impassive. but the greater number are far from being insensible to kindness and their faces express their thanks. one of them, about nineteen years of age, who with forty of his compatriots is pushed into the deep recesses of the church, has been without food for two days. he has lost one eye, he trembles with fever, he is scarcely able to speak or to drink a little bouillon. our nursing revives him; twenty-four hours later when we are able to send him to brescia, he leaves us with sorrow, almost with despair, pressing to his lips the hands of the good-hearted women of castiglione, whom he entreats not to abandon him. another prisoner, a prey to a burning fever, draws attention to himself. he is not yet twenty years of age and his hair is already perfectly white; it became white during the battle, as his wounded comrades near whom he lies assure us. the women of castiglione, seeing that i make no distinction in nationality, imitate my example, showing the same kindness to all these men of such different origin and who are to them all equally strangers. "tutti fratelli," they repeat with compassion. "all are brothers." honor to these compassionate women, to these young girls of castiglione! as devoted as they are modest, they give way neither before fatigue, nor disgust, nor sacrifice; nothing repels, wearies or disheartens them. for the soldier recommencing the everyday life of the campaign, after the fatigue and emotions of a battle like that of solferino, the memories of his family become more strong than ever. that mental state is vividly described by the following lines from an officer writing from volta to his brother in france: "you cannot imagine how the soldiers are moved when they catch sight of the baggage-master who distributes the letters to the army; because he brings to us, understand, news from france, from our native land, from our parents, from our friends. each one listens, watches, and stretches to him eager hands. the happy men, who receive a letter--open it hurriedly and devour it immediately; the rest, deprived of this happiness, depart with heavy heart and isolate themselves in order to think about those so far away. "sometimes a name is called to which there is no response. the men glance at each other, they question among themselves, they wait. 'dead,' murmurs a voice, and the baggage-master files the letter away and returns it unopened to the writer. they had rejoiced when they sent it, and had said to one another. 'he will be happy to receive it!' when they see it returned, their poor hearts will break." the streets of castiglione are quieter; the deaths and the departures have left vacancies. in spite of the arrival of new wagons full of wounded, order, little by little, is established and regular attendance commences. the convoys from castiglione to brescia are more frequent. they consist principally of hospital wagons and heavy carts which, constantly carrying, to the french commissary department, gun supplies, and provisions, go back empty to brescia. they are drawn by oxen, walking slowly under the fierce sun and through the thick dust in which the pedestrian sinks to his ankles. these uncomfortable wagons are covered with branches of trees which very imperfectly protect from the rays of the coming sun. the wounded, piled up, one may say, one upon another. it is difficult to imagine the torments of this long ride. in these wagons some groan, others call for their mother; there are the ravings and delirium of fever, sometimes curses and blasphemies. the least interest shown to these unhappy men, a kind salutation, gives them pleasure and they return it at once with expressions of gratitude. in all the villages along the road leading to brescia, the women sitting before their doors, silently prepare lint. the communal authorities have had prepared, drinks, bread and nourishment. when a convoy arrives the women of the village go to the wagons, wash the wounds, renew the lint compresses, which they moisten with fresh water. they pour spoonfuls of bouillon, wine or lemonade in the mouths of those who have not the strength to raise their heads or extend their arms. in montechiaro, three small hospitals are under the care of the women of the people, who nurse with as much wisdom as kindheartedness. in guidizzolo, about one thousand invalids are placed in a large castle. in volta, some hundreds of austrians are received in an old monastery which has been transformed into barracks. in cavriana, they establish in the church a number of hungarians who had been forty-eight hours without help. in the field-hospital of the headquarters, chloroform is used in operating; this produces, in the austrians, almost immediate insensibility, and in the french nervous contractions, accompanied by exaltation before unconsciousness results. the people of cavriana are entirely without provisions; the soldiers of the guard feed them by sharing with them their rations and their mess; the country has been laid waste, and almost everything edible, cattle, garden produce, etc., has been sold to the austrian troops. the french army has campaign food in abundance, but only with difficulty can it procure the butter, meat and vegetables necessary for the ordinary food of soldiers. the wounded of the sardinian army, who have been transported to desenzano, rivoltella, lonato, and pozzolenzo, are in conditions less disadvantageous than the french and austrians temporarily established in castiglione--desenzano and rivoltella not having been occupied at a few days interval by two different armies. food is still to be found there; the hospitals are better kept and the inhabitants, less troubled, actively support the nursing service. the sick are sent to brescia in good carts provided with thick beds of hay. they are protected from the sun by arches of interlaced foliage which support a strong linen cover. the feeling that one has of his own insufficiency in such solemn circumstances, is an inexpressible suffering. it is extremely painful to feel that you cannot help all those who lie before you, because of their great number, or aid those who appeal to you with supplications. long hours pass before you reach the most unfortunate. you are stopped by one, petitioned by another, all equally worthy of pity. embarrassed at each step by the multitude of miserable sufferers who press about you, who surround you, who beg support and help. then, why turn to the left, while on the right are so many men who will soon die without a word of consolation, without even a single glass of water to appease their burning thirst? the thought of the importance of one human life that one might be able to save; the desire to alleviate the tortures of so many unfortunate and to restore their courage, the forced and unceasing activity which one imposes on himself in such moments, gives a supreme energy, a thirst to carry help to the greatest number possible. one becomes no longer moved by the thousand scenes of this terrible tragedy, one passes, with indifference, before the most hideously disfigured corpses and glances almost coldly at sights, so much more horrible than those already described, that the pen refuses absolutely to depict them; but it happens, sometimes, that the heart suddenly breaks, struck all at once by a poignant sadness at the sight of a single incident, an isolated fact, an unexpected detail, which goes directly to the soul, draws out our sympathy, moves the most impressionable cords of our being and brings a realization of the whole horror of this tragedy. worn out with fatigue, but unable to sleep, i have my little carriage harnessed on the afternoon of monday, the twenty-seventh, and go away about 6 o'clock to breathe in the open air the freshness of the evening and to find a little repose by escaping, for a moment, from the dismal sights which surround me on every side in castiglione. it was a favorable time, for no movement of the troops had been ordered during the day. calm had succeeded the terrible agitation of the previous days. here and there are visible pools of dried blood which redden the battle-field. one meets newly turned earth, white with freshly strewn lime, indicating the place where repose the victims of the twenty-fourth. at solferino, whose square tower has proudly dominated for some centuries that country, where for the third time have just met two of the greatest powers of modern days, one still picks up much debris which covers, even in the cemeteries, the crosses and the bloody stones of the tombs. the ground is strewn with swords, guns, haversacks, cartridge boxes, tin boxes, shakos, helmets and belts. almost everything is twisted, torn and broken. i arrive at cavriana at about 9 o'clock in the evening. the train of war surrounding the headquarters of the emperor of france is an imposing sight. i seek the marshal, duke of magenta, with whom i am personally acquainted. not knowing exactly where his army corps is encamped, i stop my little carriage on the park opposite the house occupied, since friday evening, by the emperor napoleon. i find myself suddenly in the midst of a group of generals, sitting on straw chairs and wooden stools, smoking their cigars and inhaling the fresh air before the improvised palace of the sovereign. while i inquire about the location of marshal macmahon, several generals, very suspicious of my arrival, question the corporal, wounded at magenta, who begged permission to accompany me on this excursion through the armies as his rank would ensure me safe conduct. sitting beside the coachman, he gives me, in a certain degree, official character. the generals desire to know who i am and to discover the object of the mission with which they suppose i am charged, for they cannot imagine that a simple traveler would dare to risk himself alone in the midst of the camps at such a time. the corporal, who knows nothing, remains impenetrable, while he replies respectfully to their questions. their curiosity increases considerably when they see me leave for borghetto where the duke of magenta is. the second corps, commanded by the marshal, has been moved from cavriana to castellaro, which is at a distance of five kilometers; its divisions are encamped on the right and left of the road leading from castellaro to monzambano. the marshal, himself, with his staff, occupies borghetto. although the night has arrived, we continue our way. the fires of the bivouac, fed by whole trees, and the lighted tents of the officers, present a picturesque appearance. the last murmurings of a sleeping, yet watchful, camp soothes a little my excited imagination. under this beautiful star-lit sky, a solemn silence at last takes the place of the noises and emotions of the preceding days. i breathe with delight the pure sweet air of a splendid italian night. having obtained only incomplete information, we mistake our way and follow a road leading to volta. we are about to fall into the army corps of general neil, made marshal three days before, which is encamped on the outskirts of the town. my italian coachman is so frightened at the idea of being very near the austrian lines that, more than once, i am obliged to take the reins from his hands and give them to the corporal seated beside him on the box. the poor man had run away from mantua several days before to save himself from the austrian service, taking refuge in brescia, he hired out as a coachman. his fears grow greater on hearing the discharge of a distant gun, fired by someone who disappears in the underbrush. after the retreat of the austrian army, many of the deserters hid themselves in the cellars of the houses of the villages, abandoned by their owners and partially plundered. in order not to be captured, they, at first, ate and drank in those underground retreats, then, being at the end of their resources and pressed by hunger, but well armed, they ventured out at night. the unhappy and terrified mantuan can no longer guide his horse. he constantly turns his head, he casts affrighted glances at all the thickets along the road, at all the hedges and hovels, fearing, any moment, to see emerge some hidden austrians. his fears increase at every turn of the road and he almost swoons, when, in the silence of the night we are surprised with a shot from a guard, whom we do not see on account of the darkness. his terror knows no limit when we almost collide with a large, wide open umbrella which we vaguely catch sight of at the side of the road near a path leading to volta. that poor umbrella, riddled with bullets and balls was, probably, a part of the baggage of some canteen-woman who had lost it during the storm of the twenty-fourth. we were retracing the road to reach borghetto. it was after 11 o'clock. we were making the horse gallop and our modest vehicle rolled across the space, almost without noise, on to the strato cavallara, when cries of "who goes there? who goes there? who goes there? or i fire," came like a bolt from the mouth of an invisible sentinel. "france," replies immediately a loud voice, which adds, in giving his rank: "corporal in the first engineer corps, company seventh." "go on," is the reply. without this presence of mind of the corporal we would have received a shot almost in the face. finally, at a quarter before twelve we reach, without other adventure, the first houses of borghetto. all is dark and silent. however, a light shines on the ground floor of a house on the principal street, where are at work in a low room the accounting officers. although embarrassed in their work and very much astonished at our appearance at such an hour, they treat us very kindly. a paymaster, signor outrey, gives me a cordial invitation to be his guest. his orderly brings a mattress on which i throw myself, completely dressed, to rest for several hours, after drinking some excellent bouillon, which seems to me the more delicious as i am hungry and for several days have eaten nothing even passable. i can sleep quietly, not being, as in castiglione, suffocated with fetid exhalations and tormented with the flies, which though satiated with corpses, attack also the living. the corporal and the driver settled themselves simply in the carriage, remaining in the street, but the unfortunate mantuan, always in great terror, could not shut his eyes during the whole night and the next day he was more dead than alive. tuesday, the twenty-eighth, at six in the morning i was received most kindly by marshal macmahon. at ten o'clock i was on the way to cavriana. soon after i entered the modest house, since historic, for there was lodged the emperor napoleon. at three o'clock in the afternoon i found myself once more in the midst of the wounded of castiglione, who expressed their joy at seeing me again. the thirtieth of june i was in brescia. this city, so charming and picturesque, is transformed, not into a large temporary shelter for the wounded like castiglione, but into a vast hospital. its two cathedrals, its palaces, its churches, its monasteries, its colleges, its barracks, in a word all its buildings receive the victims of solferino. fifteen thousand beds, of some sort, have been improvised in forty-eight hours. the inhabitants have done more than was ever done before under similar circumstances. in the centre of the city the old basilica, "il duomo recchio," contains a thousand wounded. the people come to them in crowds, women of every class bring them quantities of oranges, jellies, biscuits and delicacies. the humblest widow or the poorest little old woman believes that she must present her tribute of sympathy and her modest offering. similar scenes occur in the new cathedral, a magnificent temple of white marble, where the wounded are taken by the hundreds. it is the same in forty other buildings, churches or hospitals which contain nearly twenty thousand wounded. the municipality of brescia understood the extraordinary duty imposed upon it by such grave circumstances. with a permanent existence it associates with itself the best men of the town, who bring to it eager co-operation. in opening a monastery, a school, a church, the municipality created, in a few hours, as if by magic, hospitals with hundreds of beds, vast kitchens, improvised laundries for linen and everything that would be necessary. these measures were taken with so much courage that, after a few days, one was able to admire the good order and regular management of these hurriedly arranged hospitals. the population of brescia, which was forty thousand, was suddenly almost doubled by the great number of wounded and sick. the physicians, numbering one hundred and forty, displayed great self-devotion during the whole duration of their fatiguing service. they were helped by the medical students and some volunteers. aid committees being organized, a special commission was appointed to receive donations of bedding, linen and provisions of all kinds; another commission administered the depot or central store house. in the large rooms of the hospitals, the officers are ordinarily separated from the soldiers. the austrians are not mixed with the allies. the series of beds are all alike, on the shelf above the bed of each soldier, his uniform and military cap indicate to which branch of the service he belongs. they have commenced to refuse permission for the crowd to enter, it embarrasses and hinders the nurses. at the side of soldiers, with resigned faces, are others who murmur and complain. the idea of an amputation scarcely frightens the french soldier, because of his careless nature, but he is impatient and irritable; the austrian, of a less thoughtless disposition, is more inclined to be melancholy in his isolation. i find in these hospital wards some of our wounded from castiglione. they are better cared for now, but their torments are not ended. here, is one of the heroes of the imperial flying guard, wounded at solferino. shot in the leg, he passed several days at castiglione, where i dressed his wounds for the first time. he is stretched on a straw mattress; the expression of his face denotes profound suffering; his eyes are hollow and shining; his great pallor gives evidence that purulent fever has set in to complicate and increase the gravity of his condition; his lips are dry; his voice trembles; the assurance of the brave man has given place to fear and timidity; care even unnerves him; he is afraid to have any one approach his poor injured leg which the gangrene has already attacked. a french surgeon, who makes the amputations, passes by his bed; the sick man, whose touch is like burning iron, seizes his hand and presses it in his own. "do not hurt me! my suffering is terrible!" he cries. but one must act, and without delay. twenty other wounded must be operated on during the same morning, and one hundred and fifty are waiting for bandages. one has not time to pity a single case nor to await the end of his hesitation. the surgeon, cool and resolute, replies: "let me do it." then he rapidly lifts the covering. the broken leg is swollen double its natural size; from three places flows a quantity of fetid pus, purple stains prove that as an artery has been broken, the sole remedy, if there is one, is amputation. amputation! terrible word for this poor young man, who sees before him no other alternative than an immediate death or the miserable life of a cripple. he has no time to prepare himself for the last decision, and trembling with anguish, he cries out in despair: "oh! what are you going to do?" the surgeon does not reply. "nurse, carry him away, make haste!" he says. but a heartrending cry bursts from that panting breast; the unskilled nurse has seized the motionless, yet sensitive, leg much too near the wound; the broken bones penetrating the flesh, has caused new torments to the soldier whose hanging leg shakes with the jolts of the transportation to the operating room. fearful procession! it seems as if one were leading a victim to death. he lies finally on the operating table. nearby, on another table, a linen covers the instruments. the surgeon, occupied with his work, hears and sees only his operation. a young army doctor holds the arms of the patient, while the nurse seizes the healthy leg and draws the invalid to the edge of the table. at this the frightened man shrieks: "do not let me fall!" and he seizes convulsively in his arms the young physician, ready to support him and who pale from emotion is himself almost equally distressed. the operator, one knee on the floor and his hand armed with the terrible knife, places his arm about the gangrenous limb and cuts the skin all around. a piercing cry sounds through the hospital. the young physician, face to face, with the tormented man can see on his contracted features every detail of his atrocious agony. "courage," he says, in a low tone to the soldier, whose hands he feels gripping his back, "two minutes more and you will be saved." the doctor stands up again; he separates the skin from the muscles which it covers, leaving them bare; as he draws back the skin he cuts away the flesh, then returning to the attack, with a vigorous turn, he cuts away every muscle to the bone; a torrent of blood gushes out of the arteries, just opened, covering the operator and flowing down on to the floor. calm and expressionless, the rough operator does not speak a word; but, suddenly, in the midst of the silence reigning in the room, he turns in anger to the awkward nurse, reproaching him for not knowing how to press on the arteries. this latter, inexperienced, did not know how to prevent the hemorrhage by applying his thumb properly on the bleeding arteries. the wounded man, overcome by suffering, articulates feebly, "oh! it is enough, let me die!" and a cold sweat runs down his face. but he must bear it still another minute,--a minute which seems an eternity. the young physician, ever full of sympathy, counts the seconds as he watches sometimes the operating surgeon, sometimes the patient, whose courage he tries to sustain, saying to him: "only one minute more!" indeed, the moment for the saw has come and already one hears the grinding of the steel as it penetrates the living bone, separating from the body the member half gangrenous. but the pain has been too great for that weak, exhausted body; the groans have ceased, for the sick man has swooned. the surgeon, who is no longer guided by his cries and his groans, fearing that this silence may be that of death, looks at him uneasily to assure himself that he has not expired. the restoratives, held in reserve, succeed, with difficulty, in reviving his dull, half-closed, vacant eyes. the dying man, however, seems to return to life, he is weak and shattered, but at least his greatest sufferings are over. imagine such an operation on an austrian, understanding neither italian nor french and letting himself be led like a sheep or an ox to slaughter without being able to exchange one word with his well-meaning tormentors! the french meet everywhere with sympathy; they are flattered, pampered, encouraged; when one speaks to them about the battle of solferino, they brighten up and discuss it: that memory, full of glory for them; drawing their thoughts elsewhere than on themselves, lessens a little their unhappiness. but the austrians have not this good fortune. in the hospitals where they are crowded, i insist upon seeing them and almost by force enter their rooms. with what gratitude these good men welcome my words of consolation and the gift of a little tobacco! on their resigned faces is depicted a lively gratitude, which they do not know how to express. their looks tell more than any word of thanks. some of them possess two or three paper florins, a small fortune for them, but they cannot change this modest value for coins. the officers particularly show hearty appreciation of the attentions bestowed upon them. in the hospital where he is lodged, prince von isenburg occupies with another german prince, a comfortable little room. during several successive days i distribute, without distinction of nationality, tobacco, pipes and cigars in the churches and hospitals where the odor of the tobacco lessens a little the nauseous stench produced by the crowding of so many patients in suffocating places. besides that, it is a distraction, a means of dispelling the fears of the wounded before the amputation of a member; not a few are operated on with a pipe in the mouth, and some die smoking. finally all the supply of tobacco in brescia is exhausted. it must be brought from milan. an eminent inhabitant of brescia, signor carlo borghetti, takes me in his carriage, from hospital to hospital. he helps me to distribute my modest gifts of tobacco, arranged by the merchants in thousands of little bags that are carried by willing soldiers in very large baskets. everywhere i am well received. only a doctor of lombardy, named calini, will not allow the distribution of cigars in the hospital san luca, which is confided to his care. in other places the physicians, on the contrary, show themselves almost as grateful as their patients. but wishing to try once more at san luca, i visit again that hospital and succeed in making a large distribution of cigars, to the great joy the poor wounded, whom i had innocently made suffer the torments of tantalus. during the course of my investigations i penetrate into a series of rooms forming the second floor of a large monastery, a kind of labyrinth of which the ground and the first floors are full of the sick. i find in one of the upper rooms four or five wounded and feverish patients, in another ten or fifteen, in a third about twenty, all neglected (this is very excusable; there were so many wounded, everywhere), complaining bitterly of not having seen a nurse for several hours and begging insistently that someone bring them bouillon in place of cold water which they have for their only drink. at the end of an interminable corridor, in a little isolated room, is dying absolutely alone, motionless on a mattress, a young corporal attacked with tetanus. although he seems full of life as his eyes are wide open, he hears and understands nothing and remains neglected. many of the soldiers beg me to write to their relatives, some to their captains, who replace in their eyes their absent families. in the hospital of saint clement, a lady of brescia, countess bronna, occupies herself, with saintly self-abnegation, in nursing those who have had limbs amputated. the french soldiers speak of her with enthusiasm, the most repellant details do not stop her. "sono madre!" she says to me with simplicity: "i am a mother!" these words well express her devotion as complete as motherly. in the hospital san gaetano, a franciscan monk, distinguishes himself by his zeal and kindness to the sick. a convalescent piedmontese, speaking french and italian, translates the petitions of the french soldiers to the lombardy physicians. they keep him as interpreter. in a neighboring hospital chloroform is used. some patients are chloroformed with difficulty, accidents result and sometimes it is in vain that they try to revive a man who a few minutes before was speaking. i am stopped many times on the street by kind people who beg me to come to their homes, for a minute, to act as interpreter to the wounded french officers, lodged in their houses, surrounded by the best care, but whose language they do not understand. the invalids, excited and uneasy, are irritated at not being understood, to the great distress of the family whose sympathetic kindness is received with the bad humour that fever and suffering often call forth. one of them, whom an italian physician desires to bleed, imagining that they wish to amputate him, resists with all his strength, overheating himself and doing himself much harm. a few words of explanation in their mother tongue, in the midst of this lamentable confusion, alone succeed in calming and tranquilizing these invalids of solferino. with what patience the inhabitants of brescia devote themselves to these who have sacrificed themselves in order to deliver them from a foreign rule! they feel a real grief when their charge dies. these adopted families religiously follow to the cemetery, accompanying to its last resting place, the coffin of the french officer, their guest of a few days, for whom they weep as for a friend, a relative or a son, but whose name, perhaps, they do not know. during the night the soldiers, who have died in the hospitals, are interred. their names and numbers are noted down, which was rarely done in castiglione. for example, the parents of corporal mazuet, aided by me in the chiesa maggiore and who lived in lyons, 3 rue d'alger, never received other information about their son than that which i sent them. all the cities of lombardy considered it due to their honor to share in the distribution of the wounded. in bergamo and cremona special commisions organized in haste are aided by auxiliary committees of devoted ladies. in one of the hospitals of cremona an italian physician having said: "we keep the good things for our friends of the allied army, but we give to our enemies only what is absolutely necessary, and if they die, so much the worse for them!" a lady, directing one of the hospitals of that city, hastened to disapprove of these barbarous words, saying that she always took the same care of austrians, french and sardinians, not wishing to make any difference between friends and enemies, "for," she said, "our lord jesus christ made no distinction between men when it was a question of doing them good." in cremona, as everywhere else, the french physicians regret their insufficient number. "i cannot, without profound sorrow," said dr. sonrier, "think of a small room of twenty-five beds assigned, in cremona, to the most dangerously wounded austrians. i see again their faces, emaciated and wan, with complexion pallid from exhaustion and blood poisoning, begging with heartrending gestures, accompanied by pitiful cries, for one last favor, the amputation of a limb (which they had hoped to save), to end an intolerable agony of which we are forced to remain powerless spectators." besides the group of courageous and indefatigable surgeons, whose names i would like to be able to cite (for, certainly, if to kill men is a title to glory, to nurse them and cure them, often at the risk of one's own life, merits indeed esteem and gratitude), medical students hasten from bologna, pisa and other italian cities. a canadian surgeon, dr. norman bettun, professor of anatomy in toronto, comes to assist these devoted men. besides the people of lombardy, french, swiss and belgian tourists seek to render themselves useful, but their efforts had to be limited to the distribution of oranges, ices, coffee, lemonade and tobacco. in plaisance, whose three hospitals are administered by private individuals, and by ladies serving as nurses, one of these last, a young lady, supplicated by her family to renounce her intention to pass her days in the hospital, on account of the contagious fevers there, continued her labors so willingly and with such kindness that she was greatly esteemed by all the soldiers. "she enlivens the hospital," they said. how valuable, in the cities of lombardy, would have been some hundreds of voluntary nurses, devoted, experienced and, above all, previously instructed! they would have rallied around themselves the meagre band of assistants and the scattered forces. not only was time lacking to those who were capable of counselling and guiding; but the necessary knowledge and experience was not possessed by the greater number of those who could offer only personal devotion, which was insufficient and often useless. what, indeed, in spite of their good will, could a handful of persons do in such urgent need? after some weeks the compassionate enthusiasm began to cool and the people, as inexperienced as they were injudicious in their kindness, sometimes brought improper food to the wounded, so that it was necessary to deny them entrance to the churches and hospitals. many persons, who would have consented to pass one or two hours a day with the sick, gave up their intention, because a special permission was necessary, which could only be obtained by petitioning the authorities. strangers disposed to help met with all kinds of unexpected hindrances, of a nature to discourage them. but voluntary hospital workers, well chosen and capable, sent by societies with the sanction of the governments and respected because of an agreement between the belligerents, would have surmounted the difficulties and done incomparably more good. during the first eight days after the battle the wounded, of whom the physicians said, in low tones, when passing by their beds and shaking their heads: "there is nothing more to be done," received no more attention and died neglected. and is not this very natural when the scarcity of the nurses is compared with the enormous number of the wounded? an inexorable and cruel logic insists that these unfortunate men should be left to perish without further care and without having given to them the precious time that must be reserved for the soldiers who could be cured. they were numerous, however, and not deaf, those unfortunate men on whom was passed such pitiless judgment! soon they perceive their deserted condition and with a broken and embittered heart gasp out the last breath while no one notices. the death of many a one among them is rendered more sad and bitter by the proximity, on a cot by his side, of a young soldier, slightly wounded, whose foolish jokes leave him neither peace nor tranquillity. on the other side, one of his companions in misery has just died; and, he dying, must see and hear the funeral ceremony, much too rapidly performed, which shows him in advance his own. finally, about to die, he sees men, profiting by his weakness, search his knapsack and steal what they desire. for that dying man there have been, lying in the postoffice for eight days, letters from his family; if he could have had them, they would have been to him a great consolation; he has entreated the nurses to bring them that he may read them before his last hour, but they replied unkindly, that they had not time as there was so much else to do. better would it have been for you, poor martyr, if you had perished, struck dead on the field of butchery, in the midst of the splendid abomination which men call "glory!" your name, at least, would not have been forgotten, if you had fallen near your colonel defending the flag of your regiment. it would almost have been better for you had you been buried alive by the peasants commissioned for that purpose, when you, unconscious, were carried from the hill of the cypresses, from the foot of the tower of solferino or from the plains of medole. your agony would not have been long. now, it is a succession of miseries that you must endure, it is no longer the field of honor that is presented to you, but cold death with all its terrors, and the word "disappeared" for a funeral oration. what has become of the love of glory which electrified this brave soldier at the commencement of the campaign and during that day at solferino, when, risking his own life, he so courageously attempted to take the lives of his fellow-creatures, whose blood he ran, with such light feet, to shed? where is the irresistible allurement? where the contagious enthusiasm, increased by the odor of powder, by the flourish of trumpets and by the sound of military music, by the noise of cannon and the whistling of bullets which hide the view of danger, suffering and death. in these many hospitals of lombardy may be seen at what price is bought that which men so proudly call "glory," and how dearly this glory costs. the battle of solferino is the only one during our century to be compared by the magnitude of its losses with the battles of moscow, leipzig and waterloo. as a consequence of the twenty-fourth of june, 1859, it has been calculated that there were in killed and wounded, in the austrian and franco-sardinian armies, three field-marshals, nine generals, fifteen hundred and sixty-six officers of all grades, of whom six hundred and thirty were austrians and nine hundred and thirty-six allies, and about forty thousand soldiers and non-commissioned officers. besides that, from the fifteenth of june to the thirty-first of august, there were in the hospitals of brescia, according to the official statistics, nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty-five patients with fever and other illnesses, of whom more than nineteen thousand belonged to the franco-sardinian army. on their side, the austrians had at least twenty thousand sick soldiers in venice, beside ten thousand wounded, who, after solferino, were sent to verona, where the overcrowded hospitals were finally attacked by gangrene and typhus fever. consequently, to the forty thousand killed and wounded on the twenty-fourth of june, must be added more than forty thousand sick with fever or dying from illness caused by the excessive fatigue experienced on the day of the battle or during the days which preceded and succeeded it or from the pernicious effects of the tropical temperature of the plains of lombardy, or, finally, from the imprudence of these soldiers themselves. if one does not consider the military point of view, the battle of solferino was then, from the point of humanity a european catastrophe. the transportation of the wounded from brescia to milan, which takes place during the night because of the torrid heat of the day, presents a dramatic sight with its trains loaded with crippled soldiers arriving at the station filled with crowds of people. lighted by the pale flare of the tar torches, the mass of men seems to hold its breath to listen to the groans and the stifled complaints which reach their ears. the austrians, in their retreat, having torn up several places on the railroad between milan and brescia--this road was restored for use by the first days of july, for the transportation of ammunition, of supplies and of food sent to the allied army--the evacuation of the hospitals in brescia was in this way facilitated. at each station, long and narrow sheds have been constructed to receive the wounded. these, when taken from the cars, are placed on mattresses, arranged in a line one after the other. under these sheds are set up tables covered with bread, soup, lemonade, wine, water, lint, linen and bandages. torches, carried by the young men of the place where the convoy stops, light the darkness. the citizens of lombardy hasten to present their tribute of gratitude to the conquerors of solferino; in respectful silence they bandage the wounded whom they have lifted carefully out of the cars to place them on the beds made ready for their use. the women of the country offer refreshing drinks, and food of all kinds, which they distribute on the cars to those who must go on to milan. in this city, where about a thousand wounded have arrived every night for several nights in succession, the martyrs of solferino are received with great kindness. no longer are rose leaves scattered from the flag-ornamented balconies of the luxurious palaces of the milanese aristocracy, on shining epaulets and on striped gold and enameled orders, by beautiful and graceful ladies whom exaltation and enthusiasm rendered still more beautiful. to-day, in their gratitude, they shed tears of compassion which are interpreted by devotion and sacrifice. every family possessing a carriage, goes to the station to transport the wounded. the number of equipages sent by the people of milan probably exceeds five hundred. the finest carriages as well as the most modest carts are sent every evening to porto tosca, where stands the railroad station for venice. the italian ladies consider it an honor to themselves to place in their rich carriages, which they have provided with mattresses, sheets and pillows, the guests assigned to them and who are accompanied by the greatest noblemen of lombardy, aided in this work by their not less considerate servants. the people applaud the passage of these men, famed because of their suffering. they respectfully uncover their heads. they follow the slow march of the convoy with torches illuminating the sad faces of the wounded, who try to smile. they accompany them to the door of the hospitable palace, where awaits them the most devoted care. every family wishes to receive the french wounded and, by all sorts of kindness, try to lessen the sadness caused by distance from home, from parents and from friends. but after a few days the greater number of the inhabitants of milan are obliged to remove to the hospitals the wounded whom they have received in their houses. the administration desires to avoid too great scattering of the nursing and any increase of fatigue for the physicians. before solferino, the hospitals of this city contained about nine thousand wounded from preceding battles. great milanese ladies watch beside the bed of the simple soldier, of whom they become the guardian angels. countess verri, nã©e borromã©o, madame uboldi de capei, madame boselli, madame sala-taverna, countess taverna and many others, forgetting their luxurious habits, pass whole months by these beds of suffering. some of these ladies are mothers, whose mourning garments testify to a recent and sorrowful loss. one of them said: "the war robbed me of my oldest son; he died eight months ago, from a shot received while fighting with the french army at sebastopol. when i knew that the french wounded were coming to milan and that i could nurse them, i felt that god was sending me his first consolation." countess verri-borromã©o, president of the central aid committee, has charge of the great depot for linens and lint. in spite of her advanced age she devotes many hours a day to reading to the sick. all the palaces contain wounded. that of the borromã©o family has received three hundred. the superior of the ursulines, sister marina videmari, has converted her convent into a hospital and serves in it with her companions. this convent-hospital is a model of order and cleanliness. the marchioness pallavicini-trivulzio, who presides over the great turin committee with admirable devotion and self-forgetfulness, collects the donations from different cities and countries; thanks to her activity the depot in milan, situated contrada san paolo, remains always well provided. some weeks later, in the streets of milan, there were seen passing a few companies of convalescent french soldiers sadly returning to france. some have their arms in slings, others are supported by crutches or bear marks of wounds. their uniforms are well worn and torn, but they wear fine linen, which the rich men of lombardy have generously given them in exchange for their blood-stained shirts: "your blood flowed to defend our country," they said, "and we wish to keep these memories of it." these men, not long ago so strong, so robust, now deprived of an arm or a leg or with head bandaged, bear their misfortune with resignation. but, thus incapable of continuing in the army and earning bread for their families, they already with bitterness, behold themselves, after their return to their native land, objects of commiseration and pity, a care to others and to themselves. in one of the hospitals of milan, a sergeant of the zouave guard, with an energetic and proud face, who has had one leg amputated and had borne that operation without a complaint, was seized, some time after, with extreme sadness, although his health was improving and his recovery rapidly taking place. this sadness, increasing daily, was incomprehensible. a sister of charity, perceiving tears in his eyes, questioned so insistently that he at last confessed that he was the sole support of his aged and infirm mother to whom he used to send each month five francs of his pay. he added that, being unable to help her, this poor woman must be in great need of money. the sister of charity, touched with compassion, gave him five francs, the value of which was immediately sent to france. when the directress of the hospital wished to make him another gift, he would not accept it, and said to her thankfully: "keep this money for others who need it more than i; as for my mother, i hope next month to send her her usual allowance, for i count on soon being able to work." a lady of milan, bearing an illustrious name, placed at the disposition of the wounded one of her palaces, with one hundred and fifty beds. among the soldiers, lodged in this magnificent mansion, was a grenadier of the seventieth regiment of the french infantry, who, having undergone an operation, was in danger of death. the lady, trying to console him, spoke to him of his family. he told her that he was the only son of poor peasants in the department of gers, and that he was very sad at leaving his parents in misery, for he alone provided for their maintenance. he added that his greatest consolation would be to kiss his mother before he died. saying nothing to him of her project, the noble lady suddenly decides to leave milan, takes the train, reaches the departments of gers, near the family, whose address she has procured, takes possession of the mother of the wounded man. after having left a large sum of money for the infirm old father, she brings the humble villager with her to milan; and six days after the confession of the grenadier, the son kisses his mother, weeping and blessing his benefactress. but why recall so many pitiful and melancholy scenes and thus arouse such painful emotions? why relate, with complaisance, these lamentable details and dwell upon these distressing pictures? to this very natural question we reply with another question. would it not be possible to establish in every country of europe, aid societies, whose aim would be to provide, during war, volunteer nurses for the wounded, without distinction of nationality? as they wish us to give up the desires and hopes of the societies of the friends of peace, the beautiful dreams of the abbot of saint pierre and of count sellon; as men continue to kill each other without personal enmity, and as the height of glory in war is to exterminate the greatest number possible; as they still dare to say, as did count joseph de maistre, that "war is divine"; as they invent every day with a perseverence worthy of a better aim, instruments of destruction more and more terrible, and as the inventors of these death-dealing engines are encouraged by all the european governments--who arm themselves in emulation one of another--why not profit from a moment of comparative calm and tranquillity in order to settle the question which we have just raised, and which is of such great importance from the double point of view of humanity and christianity. once presented to the consideration of every man, this theme will probably call forth opinions and writings from more competent persons; but, first, must not this idea, presented to the different branches of the great european family, hold the attention and conquer the sympathies of all those who possess an elevated soul and a heart capable of being moved by the suffering of their fellow-men? such is the purpose for which this book has been written. societies of this kind, once created, with a permanent existence, would be found all ready at the time of war. they should obtain the favor of the authorities of countries where they are created, and beg, in case of war, from the sovereigns of the belligerent powers the permission and the facilities necessary to carry out their purpose. these societies should include in their own and each country, as members of the central committee, the most honorable and esteemed men. the moment of the commencement of war, the committee would call on those persons who desire to dedicate themselves, for the time being, to this work, which will consist in helping and nursing, under the guidance of experienced physicians, the wounded, first on the battle-field, then in the field and regular hospitals. spontaneous devotion is not as rare as one might think. many persons, sure of being able to do some good, helped and facilitated by a superior committee, would certainly go, and others, at their own expense, would undertake a task so essentially beneficent. during our selfish century what an attraction for the generous-hearted and for chivalrous characters to brave the same danger as the soldier with an entirely voluntary mission of peace and consolation. history proves that it is in no way chimerical to hope for such self-devotion. two recent facts especially have just confirmed this. they occurred during the war in the east and closely relate to our subject. while sisters of charity were nursing the wounded and sick of the french army in the crimea, into the russian and english armies, there came, from the north and west, two groups of self-devoted women nurses. the grand duchess helen pavlovna, of russia, born, princess charlotte, of wurttemberg, widow of the grand duke michael, having enlisted nearly three hundred ladies of st. petersburg and moscow, to serve as nurses in the russian hospitals of the crimea; she provided them with everything necessary, and these saintly women were blessed by thousands of soldiers. in england, miss florence nightingale, having received a pressing appeal from lord sidney herbert, secretary of war of the british empire, inviting her to go to the aid of the english soldiers in the orient, this lady did not hesitate to expose herself personally by great self-devotion. in november, 1854, she went to constantinople and scutari with thirty-seven english ladies, who, immediately on arrival gave their attention to nursing the great number of men, wounded in the battle of inkerman. in 1855 miss stanley, having come to take part in her labor with fifty new companions, made it possible for miss nightingale to go to balaklava to inspect the hospitals there. the picture of miss florence nightingale, during the night, going through the vast wards of the military hospitals with a small lamp in her hand, noting the condition of each sick man, will never be obliterated from the hearts of the men, who were the objects or the witnesses of her admirable beneficence, and the memory of it will be engraven in history. of the multitude of similar good works, ancient or modern, the greater number of which have remained unknown and without fame, how many have been in vain, because they were isolated and were not supported by a united action, which would have wisely joined them together for a common aim. if voluntary hospital workers could have been found in castiglione on the twenty-fourth, the twenty-fifth, and the twenty-sixth of june, and also in brescia, mantua, and verona, how much good they might have done. how many human beings they might have saved from death during that fatal friday night, when moans and heartrending supplications escaped from the breasts of thousands of the wounded, who were enduring the most acute pains and tormented by the inexpressible suffering of thirst. if prince von isenburg had been rescued sooner, by compassionate hands, from the blood-soaked field on which he was lying unconscious, he would not have been obliged to suffer for several years from wounds aggravated by long neglect; if the sight of his riderless horse had not brought about his discovery among the corpses, he would have perished for lack of help with so many other wounded, who also were creatures of god, and whose death would be equally cruel for their families. those good old women, those beautiful young girls of castiglione could not save the lives of many of those whom they nursed! besides them were needed experienced men, skillful, decided, previously trained to act with order and harmony, the only means of preventing the accidents, which complicate the wounds and make them mortal. if there could have been a sufficient number of assistants to remove the wounded quickly from the plains of medole, from the ravines of san martin, on the slopes of mount fontana, or on the hills of solferino, there would not have been left during long hours of terrible fear that poor bersaglier, that uhlan, or that zouave, who tried to raise himself, in spite of cruel suffering, to gesticulate in vain for someone to send a litter for him. finally, the risk of burying the living with the dead would have been avoided. better means of transportation would have made it possible to avoid in the case of the light infantryman of the guard the terrible amputation which he had to undergo in brescia, because of the lack of proper care during the journey from the battle-field to castiglione. the sight of those young cripples, deprived of an arm, or a leg, returning sadly to their homes, does it not call forth remorse that there was not more effort made before to avert the evil consequences of the wounds, which, often could have been cured by timely aid? would those dead, deserted in the hospitals of castiglione, or in those of brescia, many of whom could not make themselves understood, on account of the difference of language, have gasped out their last breath with curses and blasphemies, if they had had near them some compassionate soul to listen to them and console them? in spite of the official aid, in spite of the zeal of the cities of lombardy, much remained to be done, although in no other war has been seen so great a display of charity; it was nevertheless unequal to the extent of the help that was needed. it is not the paid employee, whom disgust drives away, whom fatigue makes unfeeling, unsympathetic and lazy who can fulfil such a noble task. immediate help is needed, for that which can to-day save the wounded will not save him to-morrow; the loss of time causes gangrene, which leads to death. one must have volunteer nurses, previously trained, accustomed to the work, officially recognized by the commanding officers of the armies, so that they may be facilitated in their mission. these nurses should not only find their place on the battle-field, but also in the hospitals, where the long weeks pass away painfully for the wounded, without family and without friends. during this short italian war, there were soldiers who were attacked with home-sickness to such a degree that, without other illness and without wounds, they died. on the other hand, the italians, and this is comprehensible, showed scarcely any interest in the wounded of the allied army, and still less for the suffering austrians. it is true, courageous women were found in italy, whose patience and perseverance never wearied; but, unfortunately, in the end they could be easily counted; the contagious fevers drove many persons away, and the nurses and servants did not respond for any length of time, to that which might have been expected of them. the personnel of the military hospitals is always insufficient; and, if it were doubled or tripled, it would still be insufficient. we must call on the public, it is not possible, it never will be possible to avoid that. only by this co-operation can one hope to lessen the sufferings of war. an appeal must be made, a petition presented to the men of all countries, of all classes, to the influential of this world, as well as to the most modest artisan, since all can, in one way or another, each in his own sphere, and according to his strength, co-operate in some measure in this good work. this appeal is addressed to women as well as to men, to the queen, to the princess seated on the steps of the throne, as well as to the humble orphaned and charitable maid-servant or the poor widow alone in the world, who desires to consecrate her last strength to the good of others. it is addressed to the general, to the marshal, the minister of war, as well as to the writer and the man of letters, who, by his publications, can plead with ability for the cause, thereby interesting all mankind, each nation, each country, each family even, since no one can say for certain that he is exempt from the dangers of war. if an austrian general and a french general, after having fought one against another at solferino, could, soon afterwards, finding themselves seated side by side at the hospitable table of the king of prussia, converse amicably one with the other, what would have prevented them from considering and discussing a question so worthy of their interest and attention? during the grand manoeuvers at cologne, in 1861, king william of prussia invited to dinner, in benrath castle, near dusseldorf, the officers of the different nations, who were sent there by their governments. before going to the table the king took by the hand general forey and general baumgarten: "now that you are friends," he said to them, smiling, "sit there, beside one another, and chat." forey was the victor of montebello, and baumgarten was his adversary. on extraordinary occasions, such as those which assembled at cologne, at chalons, or elsewhere, eminent men of the military art of different nations, is it not to be desired that they will profit by this kind of congress to formulate some international, sacred, and accepted principle which, once agreed upon and ratified, would serve as the foundation for societies for aid for the wounded in the different countries of europe? it is still more important to agree upon and adopt in advance these measures, because when hostilities have commenced, the belligerents are ill-disposed one towards the other, and will not consider these questions, except from the exclusive point of view of their own interests. are not small congresses called together of scientists, jurists, medical men, agriculturists, statisticians, and economists, who meet expressly in order to consider questions of much less importance? are there not international societies which are occupied with questions of charity and public utility? cannot men, in like manner, meet to solve a problem as important as that of caring for the victims of war? humanity and civilization surely demand the accomplishment of such a work. it is a duty, to the fulfilment of which every good man, and every person possessing any influence owes his assistance. what prince, what ruler, would refuse his support to these societies, and would not be glad to give the soldiers of his army the full assurance that they will be immediately and properly nursed in case they should be wounded? with permanent societies, such as i propose, the chance of waste and the injudicious distribution of money and supplies would often be avoided. during the war in the east an enormous quantity of lint, prepared by russian ladies, was sent from st. petersburg to the crimea; but the packages, instead of reaching the hospitals to which they were sent, arrived at paper mills which used it all for their own industry. by perfecting the means of transportation, by preventing the accidents during the journey from the battle-field to the hospital, many amputations will be avoided, and the burden of the governments, which pension the injured will be proportionately lessened. these societies, by their permanent existence, could also render great service at the time of epidemics, floods, great fires, and other unexpected catastrophes; the humane motive which would have created them would instigate them to act on all occasions in which their labors could be exercised. this work will necessitate the devotion of a certain number of persons, but it will never lack money in time of war. each one will bring his offering or his compassion in response to the appeals which will be made by the committee. a nation will not remain indifferent when its children are fighting for its defense. the difficulty is not there; but the problem rests entirely in the serious preparation, in all countries, of a work of this kind, that is, in the creation of these societies. in order to establish these committees at the head of the societies, all that is necessary is a little good-will on the part of some honorable and persevering persons. the committees, animated by an international spirit of charity, would create corps of nurses in a latent state, a sort of staff. the committees of the different nations, although independent of one another, will know how to understand and correspond with each other, to convene in congress and, in event of war, to act for the good of all. if the terrible instruments of destruction now possessed by the nations seem to shorten wars, will not, on the other hand, the battles be more deadly? and in this century, when the unexpected plays such an important role, may not war bring about the most sudden and unforseen results? are there not, in these considerations alone, more than sufficient reasons for us not to allow ourselves to be taken unawares? transcriber's notes obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired. inconsistent hyphenation fixed. p. 25: monastary -> monastery. p. 71: transportation of ammunitions -> transportation of ammunition. p. 87: manouvers -> manoeuvers. p. 89: catastrophies -> catastrophes. proofreading team. the author's share of the profits arising from the sale of this book will be given to lady lansdowne's fund for the widows and families of officers. with methuen's column on an ambulance train by ernest n. bennett fellow of hertford college, oxford london swan sonnenschein & co., lim. paternoster square 1900 preface. when i returned from south africa i had no intention of adding to the war literature which was certain to be evoked by the present campaign. but i now publish this simple narrative because it was suggested to me by a friend that the sale of such a book might perhaps serve to augment in some measure the fund established by the patriotism and energy of lady lansdowne and her committee. lady lansdowne has cordially approved of the suggestion; so i trust that the profits derived from this little volume may be enough to justify its existence. ernest n. bennett. with methuen's column on an ambulance train. the first view of capetown from the sea is not easily forgotten. we sailed into the bay just as the sun was rising in splendour behind the cliffs of table mountain. the houses of the town which fill the space between the hills and the sea were still more or less in shadow, picked out here and there by twinkling lights. on the summit rested a fleecy cloud which concealed the pointed crags and hung from the edges of the precipice like a border of fine drapery. on the right, groups of buildings stretched onwards to sea point, where the surf was breaking on the rocks within a few feet of the road; on the left were the more picturesque suburbs of rosebank, newlands and claremont nestling amid their woods and orchards; and still further on lay wynberg, with its vast hospital, already become a household word in english homes. the dreary flats of simon's bay, where british war-ships lay at anchor, shut in the view. pleasing as the picture is when seen from the deck of a castle liner, disappointment generally overtakes the voyager who has landed. capetown itself has little to boast of in the way of architecture. except adderley street, which is adorned by the massive buildings of the post office and standard bank, the thoroughfares of the town offer scarcely any attractions. the dutch are not an artistic race, and the fact that natives here live not in "locations" but anywhere they choose has covered some portions of the town's area with ugly and squalid houses. nor, as a matter of fact, does the general tone of thought and feeling in cape colony naturally lend itself to aesthetic considerations. even the churches fail to escape the influence of a spirit which subordinates everything else to practical and utilitarian considerations. can two uglier buildings of their kind be found in the civilised world than the english and dutch cathedrals at capetown? another unpleasant feature of life in capetown is the misfortune, not the fault, of the inhabitants in being frequently exposed to the full fury of the south-east wind. sometimes for whole days together the cape is swept by tremendous blasts, which tear up the sea into white foam and raise clouds of blinding dust along the streets of the town. nevertheless the kindness and generosity of the people are not in any way lessened by these unpleasant features in their surroundings. the warmth of colonial hospitality is acknowledged by all travellers, and may be partly due to that love of the mother country which survives in the hearts of englishmen who have never left south africa, and yet recognise in the visitor a kind of tie, as it were, between themselves and old england. such hospitality blesses him that gives as well as him that takes, and the host listens with deepest interest to his guest's chatter about london, or perhaps the country town or village where he or his forefathers lived in days gone by. any one who is accustomed in england to the conventional "saturday to monday" or the "shooting week" in a country house opens his eyes with wonder when he receives a warm invitation from a colonial to spend a month with him at his house on the karroo. and such invitations, unlike those which the oriental traveller receives, are uttered in earnest and meant to be accepted. capetown is by far the most cosmopolitan of all our colonial capitals. englishmen, dutchmen, jews, kaffirs, "cape boys" and malays bustle about the streets conversing in five or six different languages. there is a delightful freedom from conventionalism in the matter of dress. at one moment you meet a man in a black or white silk hat, at another a grinning kaffir bears down upon you with the costume of a scarecrow; you next pass a couple of dignified malays with long silken robes and the inevitable _tarbush_, volubly chattering in dutch or even arabic. these malays form a particularly interesting section of the population. they are largely the descendants of oriental slaves owned by the dutch, and, of course, preserve their moslem faith, though some of its external observances, _e.g._, the veiling of women, have ceased to be observed. i did my best during a few days' stay at somerset west to witness one of their great festivals called "el khalifa". at this feast some devotees cut themselves with knives until the blood pours from the wounds, and a friend of mine who had witnessed the performance on one occasion seemed to think that in some cases the wounding and bleeding were not really objective facts, but represented to the audience by a species of hypnotic suggestion. as, however, my visit to somerset west took place during the month of ramazan there was no opportunity of witnessing the "khalifa," which would be celebrated during bairam, the month of rejoicing which amongst moslems all the world over succeeds the self-mortifications of ramazan. even if their external observances of the usages of islam seem somewhat lax, the cape moslems, i found, faithfully observe the month of abstinence, and i remember talking to a most intelligent malay boy, who was working hard as a mason in the full glare of the midday heat, and was touching neither food nor drink from sunrise to sunset. all around were signs and tokens of the war. large transports lay gently rolling upon the swell in every direction, and it was said that not less than sixty ships were lying at anchor together in the bay. h.m.s. _niobe_ and _doris_ faced the town, and further off was stationed the _penelope_, which had already received its earlier contingents of boer prisoners. it is very difficult, by the way, to understand how some of these captives contrived later on to escape by swimming to the shore, for, apart from the question of sharks, the distance to the beach was considerable. on land the whole aspect of the streets was changed. every few yards one met men in khaki and putties. this cloth looks fairly smart when it is new and the buttons and badges are burnished; but, after a very few weeks at the front, khaki uniforms become as shabby as possible. no one who is going into the firing line has any wish to draw the enemy's fire by the glint of his buttons or his shoulder-badges, and so these are either removed or left to tarnish. nor does khaki--at any rate the "drill" variety--improve its beauty by being washed. when one has bargained with a kaffir lady to wash one's suit for ninepence it comes back with all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp, anæmic look about it. and when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind the mauser barrels fail to spot mr. atkins as he lies prone behind his stone or anthill. as our lumbering cab drove up adderley street to the hotel a squadron of the newly raised south african light horse rode past. the men looked very jaunty and well set up with their neat uniforms, bandoliers and "smasher" hats with black cocks' feathers. there has never been the slightest difficulty in raising these irregular bodies of mounted infantry. the doors of their office in atkinson's buildings were besieged by a crowd of applicants--very many of them young men who had arrived from england for the purpose of joining. a certain amount of perfectly good-humoured banter was levelled against these brand-new soldiers by their friends, and some fun poked at them about their riding. occasionally, for instance, a few troopers were unhorsed during parade and the riderless steeds trotted along the public road at rosebank. but certainly the tests of horsemanship were severe. many of the horses supplied by government were very wild and sometimes behaved like professional buckjumpers; and it is no easy task to control the eccentric and unexpected gyrations of such a beast when the rider is encumbered with the management of a heavy lee-metford rifle. since the day on which i first saw the squadron in question it has passed through its baptism of fire at colenso. the light horse advanced on the right of colonel long's ill-fated batteries, and was cruelly cut up by a murderous fire from hlangwane hill. capetown is not well furnished with places of amusement. there is, it is true, a roomy theatre, whose manager, mr. de jong, sent an invitation to the staff of the "pink 'un" to dine with him and his friends at pretoria on new year's day! how the boers must have laughed when they read of this cordial invitation! during the few days which elapsed before our ambulance train started for the front we paid a visit to the theatre, but we found the stage tenanted by a "lilliputian company," and it is always tiresome and distressing to watch precocious children of twelve aping their elders. one feels all the time that the whole performance scarcely rises above an exhibition of highly-trained cats or monkeys, and that the poor mites ought all to be in bed long ago. nevertheless, this dreary theatre was, in default of anything better, visited again and again by british officers and others. a friend of mine in the guards told me with a sigh that he had actually watched the performances of these accomplished infants for no less than seven nights. there are several music halls in capetown. i have visited similar entertainments in constantinople, cairo, beyrout and other towns of the east, but i never saw anything to match some of these capetown haunts for out-and-out vulgarity. there was, it is true, a general air of "patriotism" pervading them--but it was frequently the sort of patriotism which consists in getting drunk and singing "soldiers of the queen". on one occasion i remember a curious and typical incident at one of these music halls. standing among a crowd of drunken and half-drunken men was a quiet and respectable-looking man drinking his glass of beer from the counter. one of the _habitués_ of the place suddenly addressed him, and demanded with an oath whether he had ever heard so good a song as the low ditty which had just been screamed out by a painted woman on the stage. the stranger remarked quietly that it "wasn't a bad song, but he had certainly heard better ones," when the bully in front without any warning struck him a violent blow in the face, felling him to the ground. a comrade of mine, a welshman, who was standing near the victim, protested against such cowardly behaviour, and was immediately set upon by some dozen of the audience, who savagely knocked him down and then drove him into the street with kicks and blows. these valiant individuals then returned and were soon busy with a hiccuping chorus of "rule, britannia". how forcibly the whole scene recalled dr. johnson's words: "patriotism, sir, is the last resort of a scoundrel". the uitlander refugees were numerous in capetown, and the principal hotels were full of them. those whom i happened to meet did not seem at all overwhelmed by their recent oppression, and some of them contrived out of their shattered fortunes to drink champagne for dinner at a guinea a bottle. i do not think that the average johannesburg uitlander impresses the englishman very favourably. mining camps are not the best nurseries for good breeding or nobility of character, and one could not help feeling sorry that gallant englishmen were dying by hundreds while some of these german jews wallowed in security and luxury. quite recently an officer overheard a "jew-boy" loudly declaring in a shop that "after all, british soldiers were paid to go out and get shot," etc., and in a fit of righteous indignation the englishman seized the semite and threw him out of the door. english visitors to the cape who, like myself, wished to contribute our humble share towards the work of the campaign had several directions in which to utilise their energies. the prince alfred's field artillery was raising recruits, and on the point of leaving for the front for the defence of de aar. the duke of edinburgh's rifle volunteers enlisted men on thursday, drilled them day and night, and sent them off on the tuesday. this fine corps has, much to its vexation, been almost continuously employed in guarding lines of communication and protecting bridges and culverts from any violence at the hands of colonial rebels. the south african light horse has already been mentioned. for those of us who found it impossible to pledge ourselves for the whole period of the war, owing to duties at home which could not be left indefinitely, and who possessed some knowledge of ambulance work, an excellent opening was found in one of the ambulance corps originated by the red cross society under colonel young's able and energetic management. having volunteered for service on one of the ambulance trains and been accepted, i set off with a corporal to woodstock hospital to secure my uniform and kit. the quartermaster who supplied me was justly annoyed because some mistake had been made about the hour for my appearance, and when he rather savagely demanded what sized boots i wore, i couldn't for the life of me remember and blurted out "nines," whereas my normal "wear" is "sevens". instantly a pair of enormous boots and a correspondingly colossal pair of shoes were hurled at me, while, from various large pigeon-holes in a rack, bootlaces, socks, putties and other things were rained upon me. i couldn't help laughing as i picked them up. here i was equipped from head to foot with two uniform suits of khaki--which mercifully fitted well--shirts, boots, shoes, helmet, field-service cap and other minutiae, and the entire equipment occupied some four minutes all told. what a contrast to the considerable periods of time often consumed at home over the colour of a tie or the shape of a collar! shouldering the waterproof kit-bag containing my brand-new garments, and saluting the irritated officer, i marched off to ambulance train no. 2, where i speedily exchanged my civilian habiliments for her majesty's uniform. the "fall" of my nether garments was not perfect, but on the whole i was rather pleased with the fit of the khaki, relieved on the arm with a red geneva cross. one of the two ambulance trains on the western side is manned entirely by regulars, the other (no. 2) is in charge of an r.a.m.c. officer, but the staff under him is composed almost wholly of volunteers. this staff consists of a civilian doctor from a london hospital attached to the south african field force, two red cross nurses from england, a staff sergeant, two corporals, a couple of cooks and ten "orderlies" in charge of the five wards. introductions to my comrades followed. we were certainly one of the oddest collection of human beings i have ever come across. our pursuits when not in active service were extremely varied--one of our number was an accountant, another a chemist, a third brewed beer in johannesburg, a fourth was an ex-baker, and so on. we were, on the whole, a very harmonious little society, and it was with real regret that i left my comrades when i returned to england. at least four of our number were refugees from johannesburg, and very anxious to return. these unfortunates retailed at intervals doleful news about well-furnished houses being rifled, boer children smashing up porcelain ornaments and playfully cutting out the figures from costly paintings with a pair of scissors, and grand pianos being annexed to adorn the cottages of kaffir labourers. another member of our little society had a very fair voice and good knowledge of music, for in the days of his boyhood he had sung in the choir of a welsh cathedral; since that time he had practised as a medical man and driven a tramcar. the weather was very trying sometimes and j----, our welsh singer, had acquired an almost supernatural skill in leaping from the train when it stopped for a couple of minutes, securing a bottle of bass and then boarding the guard's van when the train was moving off. on one of these successful forays i saw j---send three respectable people sprawling on their backs as he violently collided with them in his desperate efforts to overtake the receding train. the victims slowly got up and some nasty remarks about j---were wafted to us over the veldt. we had a couple of cooks. one of them was an american who had served in the cuban war, the other a big irishman called ben. the american _chef_, being the only man out of uniform on the train, had access to alcoholic refreshments at the stations, which were very properly denied to the troops, and he rejoiced exceedingly to exercise his privilege. he could sleep in almost any position, and generally lay down on the kitchen dresser without any form of pillow, or slept serenely in a sitting posture with his feet elevated far above his head. we steamed away from the capetown station in the afternoon. the regular service had to a large extent been suspended, and here and there sentries with fixed bayonets kept watch over the government trains as they lay on the sidings. if it was thought prudent to guard trains from any injury in capetown itself, one can realise the absolute necessity of employing the colonial volunteers in patrolling the long line of some 600 miles from the sea to modder river. "queen victoria's afternoon tea"--as we called it--was served about five. the two orderlies for the day brought from the kitchen a huge tea-urn, some dozen bowls, and two large loaves. we supplemented this rudimentary fare with a pot of "cape gooseberry" jam, the gift of a generous donor, and improved the quality of the tea with a little condensed milk. fresh from the usages of a more effete civilisation i did not feel after two cups of tea and some butterless bread that "satisfaction of a felt want"--to quote aristotle--which comes, say, after a dinner with the drapers' company in london, and for two nights i tore open and devoured with my ward-companion a tin of salmon which i bought from a jew along the line. but, strange to say, after a few days of this _régime_, which in its chronological sequence of meals and its strange simplicity recalled the memories of early childhood, my internal economy seemed to have adapted itself to the changed environment, and after five o'clock with its tea and bread i no longer wished for more food. exactly the same experience befalls those inexperienced travellers in tropical countries who, at first, are continually imbibing draughts of water, but soon learn the useful lesson of drinking at meal-time only, and before long do not even take the trouble to carry water-bottles with them at all. our destination was supposed to be de aar, but nobody ever knew exactly where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there. during a campaign orders filter through various official channels, and frequently by the time they have reached the officer in charge of a train others of a contradictory purport are racing after them over the wires. this sort of thing is absolutely unavoidable. between the army at the front and the great base at capetown stretched some 700 miles of railway, and over this single line of rails ran an unending succession of trains carrying troops, food, guns, and last, but by no means least, tons upon tons of ammunition. the work of supplying a modern army in the field is stupendous, and the best thanks of the nation are due to the devoted labours of the army service corps. the officers and men of the a.s.c. work night and day, they rarely see any fighting, and are seldom mentioned in the public press or in despatches; yet how much depends upon their zeal and devotion! amateur critics at home have frequently asked why such and such a general has not left strong positions on the flank and advanced into the enemy's country further afield. quite apart from the fearful danger of exposing our lines of communication to attack from a strong force of the enemy, these critics do not seem to possess the most elementary idea of what is involved in the advance of an army. how do they suppose hundreds of heavily laden transport waggons are to be dragged across the uneven veldt, intersected every now and then by rugged "kopjes" and "spruits" and "dongas"? ammunition alone is a serious item to be considered. lyddite shells, _e.g._, are packed two in a case: each case weighs 100 lb., and i have frequently seen a waggon loaded with, say, a ton of these shells, and drawn by eight mules, stuck fast for a time in the open veldt; the passers-by have run up and shoved at the wheels and so at last the lumbering cart has jogged slowly on. this load would probably in action disappear in half an hour; and when one reflects that in one of our recent engagements each battery fired off 200 shells, it is easy to understand the enormous weight of metal which has to follow an army in order to make the artillery efficient, and to realise how unwilling a general is to leave a railway behind him, and attempt to move his transport across the uncertain and devious tracks of an unmapped african veldt. lord kitchener's successful march upon omdurman was only rendered possible by the fact that the army kept continuously to the railway and the nile. the railway journey northwards is full of interest. between capetown and worcester the country is well watered and fields of yellow corn continually meet the eye, interspersed with vines and mealies. yet here and there that lack of enterprise which seems to characterise the dutch farmer is easily noticeable. irrigation is sadly neglected and hundreds of acres which with a little care and outlay would grow excellent crops are still unproductive. soon after leaving worcester the line rises by steep gradients nearly 2,500 feet. right in front the hex river mountains extend like a vast barrier across the line and seem to defy the approaching train. but engineering skill has here contrived to surmount all the obstacles set up by nature. the train goes waltzing round the most striking curves, some of them almost elliptical. tremendous gradients lead through tunnels and over bridges, and the swerving carriages run often in alarming proximity to the edge of precipitous ravines. what a splendid position for defensive purposes! had the present war been declared three weeks earlier de aar would have been quite unable to stand against the boers, and thus the enemy might with his amazing mobility have made a swift descent along the railway and occupied the hex river pass. out of this position not all the queen's horses and all the queen's men would have dislodged him without enormous loss. with the armed support of all the dutch farmers from worcester to the orange river, a boer occupation of this strong position would have been a terrible menace to capetown itself. as it is, shots are occasionally fired at trains as they run northward from worcester, and as a few pounds of dynamite would wreck portions of the hex river line for weeks the government patrols in this locality cannot be too careful. our first passage through the karroo was by night, but during the busy days of service which followed we frequently saw this dreary expanse of desert in daylight. some mysterious charm, hidden from the eyes of the unsympathetic tourist, dwells in the karroo. the country folk who inhabit these vast plains all agree that to live in them is to love them. children speak of the kopjes as if they were living playmates, and farmers grow so deeply attached to their waggons and ox teams that sir owen lanyon's forcible seizure of one in distraint for taxes appeared a kind of sacrilege in the eyes of the boers. at times nothing can be more unlovely than the stony, barren wilderness of the karroo. the sudan desert with its rocky hills and the broad nile between the yellow banks is infinitely more picturesque than this vast south african plain. still, at certain periods of the day and year the karroo becomes less forbidding to the view. sometimes after heavy rain the whole country is covered with a bright green carpet, but in summer, and, indeed, most of the year, the short scrub which here takes the place of grass is sombre in tint. nevertheless cattle devour these apparently withered shrubs with avidity and thrive upon them. again, when the warm tints of the setting sun flood the whole expanse of desert, there is a short-lived beauty in the rugged kopjes with all their fantastic outlines sharply silhouetted against the glowing sky. the farms on the karroo, and, in fact, generally throughout the more northern parts of the colony, are of surprising size. it is quite common to find a dutchman farming some 10,000 acres. arable land in the karroo is of course very rare, and one would think that the "ooms" and the "tantas" and their young hopefuls would have their time fully occupied even in keeping their large herds and flocks within bounds. one continually sees half a dozen ostriches stalking solemnly about a huge piece of the veldt, with no farm-house anywhere in sight, and it is difficult to understand how these people contrive to catch their animals. at the lower extremity of the vast nieuweveld range which shuts in the karroo on the west lies the little township of matjesfontein, a veritable oasis in the desert. here lies the body of the gallant wauchope who perished in the disastrous attack on the magersfontein trenches. the whole line north of this point was patrolled by colonial volunteers, amongst whom i noticed especially the duke of edinburgh's rifles, with gay ribbons round their "smasher" hats. nothing could be less exciting or interesting than their monotonous routine of work. we continually came across a little band of, say, twenty or thirty men and a couple of officers stationed near some culvert or bridge. their tents were pitched on a bit of stony ground, with not a trace of vegetation near it, and here they stayed for months together, half dead from the boredom of their existence. nevertheless such work was quite essential to the success of the campaign, for the attitude of the dutch colonists up-country has been throughout the war an uncertain factor, and if these long lines of communication had been left unprotected it is more than likely that our "tommies'" supplies would not have arrived at the front with unfailing regularity. as it was, shots were occasionally fired at the trains, and at one spot we passed a curious incident occurred in this connection. a patrol suddenly came across a colonist who had climbed up a telegraph post and was busily engaged in cutting the wires. "crack" went a lee-metford and the rebel, shot like a sitting bird, dropped from his perch to the ground. on another occasion we heard a dull explosion not unlike the boom of a heavy gun, and found a little later that a culvert had been blown up a few miles ahead of us not far from graspan. in short, i do not think that the british public fully realised the danger threatened by any serious and extensive revolt of the dutch colonists. had the farmers in that vast triangle bounded by the railway, the coast and the orange river thrown off their allegiance, it would have taken many more than 15,000 colonial volunteers to prevent their mobile commandos from swooping down here and there along this long line of railway, and utterly destroying our western line of communication as well as menacing lord methuen's forces in the rear. whatever may be said or thought of some of mr. schreiner's actions, it is held, and justly held, by level-headed people of both parties at the cape, that the continuance in office of the dutch ministry has contributed more than anything else to preserve the colony from the peril of an internal rebellion. for this we cannot be too thankful! signs of animal life in the karroo are few and far between. there are scarcely any flowers to attract butterflies, and i never saw more than four or five species of birds. there was one handsome bird, however, as big as a crow, with black and white plumage--probably the small bustard (_eupodotis afroides_)--which occasionally rose from among the scrub and after a brief flight sank vertically to the ground in a curious fashion. sometimes too, at nightfall, a large bird would fly with a strong harsh note across the stony veldt to the kopjes in the distance. of the larger fauna i saw only the springbok. a small herd of these graceful little creatures were one evening running about the veldt within 500 yards of the train. on another occasion too, very early in the morning, one of our two red cross nurses was startled by the sudden appearance of a large baboon which crept down a gully near matjesfontein--the only one we ever saw. between matjesfontein and the great camp of de aar there is little to interest or amuse the traveller. the only town which is at all worthy of the name is beaufort west, nestling amid its trees, a bright patch of colour amid the neutral tints of the hills and surrounding country. here reside many patients suffering from phthisis, for the air is dry and warm and the rainfall phenomenally small. but after all what a place to die in! rather a shorter and sweeter life in dear england than a cycle of beaufort west! as we steamed into de aar the sun had set, and all the ways were darkened, so, after a vain attempt to take a walk about the camp after the regulation hour, 9 p.m.--an effort which was checked by the praiseworthy zeal of the australian military police--we returned to the train. here i was greeted to my amazement by the notes of an anthem, "i will lay me down in peace," sung very well by our welsh ex-choir-boy and two other members of the corps, who nevertheless did not lay them down in peace or otherwise till the small hours of the morning. next day we rose early, but found that we should have to spend five or six days at de aar. this news was not at all pleasant. i have been in many dreary and uninteresting spots in the world, _e.g._, aden or atbara camp, but i have never disliked a place as much as i did de aar. the whole plain has been cut up by the incessant movement of guns, transport waggons and troops, and the result is that one is nearly choked and blinded by the dense clouds of dust. huge spiral columns of sand tear across the plain over the tops of the kopjes, carrying with them scraps of paper and rubbish of all sorts. the irritation produced by the absorption of this permeating dust into the system militates to some extent against the rapid recovery of men who suffer from diseases like dysentery or enteric fever. it travels under doors and through window sashes, and a patient is obliged, whether he will or no, to swallow a certain amount of it daily. nevertheless the south african dust does not appear to be so bacillus-laden as, _e.g._, that of atbara camp, which, amongst other evil effects, continually produced ulceration in the mouth and throat. de aar lies in the centre of a large plain, shut in on every side by kopjes. in fact its position is very similar indeed to that of ladysmith. the hills on the east and west were always held by pickets with some field guns belonging to the royal artillery and the prince alfred's artillery volunteers. a much loftier line of kopjes to the north was untenanted by the british, but any approach over the veldt from the north-east was blocked by several rows of shelter trenches and a strongly-constructed redoubt with wire entanglements, ditch, and parapet topped with iron rails. signallers were continually at work, and at night it was quite a pretty sight to watch the twinkling points of the signal lights as they flashed between the tents on the plain and the distant pickets on the tops of the kopjes. boers had been seen to the east and on the west; some at least of the dutch colonists were in open revolt; so officers and men were always prepared at a moment's notice to line the trenches for defence, while the redoubts and the batteries on the hills were permanently garrisoned. everybody loathed de aar. with the exception of some feeble cricket played on some unoccupied patches of dusty ground, and a couple of shabby tennis courts, usually reserved for the "patball" of the local athletes of either sex, there was absolutely nothing to do, and we were too far off modder river to feel that we were at all in the swim of things. the heat was sometimes appalling. on christmas day the temperature was 105° in the shade, and most people took a long siesta after the midday dinner and read such odds and ends of literature as fell into their hands. we train people, of course, read and slumbered in one of the wards, while our comrades under canvas lay with eight heads meeting in the centre of a tent and sixteen legs projecting from it like the spokes of a wheel. mercifully enough scorpions were few and far between at de aar, so one could feel fairly secure from these pests. how different it was in the sudan campaign, especially at some camps like um teref, where batches of soldiers black and white came to be treated for scorpion stings, which in one case were fatal. _a propos_ of reading we were wonderfully well provided with all manner of literature by the kindly forethought of good people in england. the assortment was very curious indeed. one would see lying side by side _the nineteenth century_, _ally sloper's half holiday_, and the _christian world_. this literary syncretism was especially marked in the mission tent at de aar, where the forms were besprinkled with an infinite variety of magazines and pamphlets--to such an extent indeed that in some cases the more vivid pages of a _family herald_ would temporarily seduce the soldier's mind from the calmer pleasures of mr. moody's hymn book, and those who came to pray remained to read. in the evening about 5 o'clock, when the rays of the setting sun were less vertical and the cool of the evening was not yet merged in the chill of the night, we sallied out for a stroll. everybody walked to and fro and interchanged war news--such as we had!--and mutual condolences about the miseries of our forced inaction at de aar. canteens were opened in the various sections of the camp, and long columns of "tommies" stood with mess-tins, three abreast, waiting their turn to be served, for all the world like the crowd at the early door of a london theatre. the natural irritability arising from residence in de aar, added to the sultry heat and one's comparative distance from the canteen counter, frequently caused quarrels and personal assaults in the swaying column. but those who lost their temper generally lost their places too, and the less excitable candidates for liquor closed up their ranks and left the combatants to settle their differences outside. non-commissioned officers enjoyed the privilege of entering a side door in the canteen for their beer, and thus avoided the crush: and one of my comrades cleverly but unscrupulously secured a couple of stripes somehow or other and, masquerading as a corporal, entered the coveted side door, and brought away his liquor in triumph. apart from these liquid comforts, which were, very properly, restricted in quantity, those of us who possessed any ready money could purchase sundry provisions at two stores in de aar. the volunteers were paid at the rate of 5s. a day, which seems a very high rate of pay when one remembers that the british soldier, who ran much greater risk and did more actual fighting, received less than 1s. of course there were volunteers here and there like myself who possessed some means of our own and so thought it right and proper to return our pay to the widows' and orphans' fund, but nevertheless i fail to see why we should be paid at this exorbitant rate. the most glaring instances of over-paid troops were the rimington scouts, who actually received 10s. a day and their rations. one trembles to think of the bill we shall all have to pay at the close of the campaign! the articles most in request at de aar were things like "rose's lime juice cordial," transvaal tobacco, cigarettes, jam, tinned salmon, sardines, etc. now it happened that the entire retail trade of the place was in the hands of two jewish merchants. the more fashionable of the two shops took advantage of our necessities and demanded most exorbitant prices for its goods. "lime juice cordial," _e.g._, which could be got for 1s. 6d. or 1s. 3d. in capetown, was sold for 2s. 6d. and 3s. at de aar, and the other charges were correspondingly high. nemesis, however, overtook the shopman, for the camp commandant hearing of his evil deeds placed a sentry in front of the store and so put it out of bounds. he held out for a couple of days, while his more reasonable if less pretentious rival flourished exceedingly, but a daily loss of £200 is too severe a tax on the pertinacity of a jew, or indeed of anybody, so the rival tariffs were arranged on similar lines, and the sentry sloped rifle and walked off. the mission workers at de aar--some excellent people--dwelt in two railway carriages on a siding. there were, i think, two ladies and a gentleman. they worked exceedingly hard and their mission tent was generally well filled. it is astonishing what keenness is evoked by evangelical services with "gospel hymns". we all sang a hymn like "i _do_ believe, i _will_ believe," with an emphasis which seemed to imply that the effort was considerable, but that nobody, not even a boer commando, could alter our conviction. many of the hymns--poor doggerel from a literary point of view--were sung to pleasing tunes wonderfully well harmonised by the men's voices. then there was a brief address by a young man with a serious and kindly face, and this was succeeded by a series of ejaculatory prayers taken up here and there by the men. it was a strange and impressive spectacle to see a soldier rise to his feet, his beard rough and unkempt, his khaki uniform all soiled and bedraggled, and forthwith proceed to utter a long prayer. such prayers were largely composed of supplications on behalf of wives and families at home, and one forgot the bad grammar, the rough accent and the monotonous repetition in one's sympathy for these honest fellows who were not ashamed to pray. would we churchmen had more enthusiasm and courage in our teaching and our methods! this was the quality that enabled the infant church to emerge from its obscure dwelling in a syrian town and spread all the world over. it is this warmth of conviction which lent fortitude to the martyrs of old time, and at this moment breathes valour into our brave enemies. but where is such vital enthusiasm to be found in the church of england? in one of our cathedrals we read the epitaph of a certain ecclesiastic: "he was noticeable for many virtues, and sternly repressed all forms of religious enthusiasm". history repeats itself, and for manly outspeaking on great questions of social and political importance the laity are learning to look elsewhere than to the pulpit. oh! for one day in our national church of paul and athanasius and luther, men who spoke what they felt, unchecked by thoughts about promotion and popularity and respectability. enthusiastic independence is as unpopular in religion as it is in politics; and the fight against prejudice and unfairness is often exceeding bitter to the man who dares to run his tilt against the opinion of the many. the struggle sometimes robs life of much that renders it sweet; nevertheless it may help to make history and will bring a man peace at the last, for he will have done what he could to leave the world a little better than he found it. these good mission-folk looked after our physical as well as our spiritual necessities. they had annexed a small house and garden just opposite their tent, and here we could buy an excellent cup of tea or lemonade for one penny, as well as a variety of delectable buns, much in request. so pressing was the demand for these light and cheap refreshments that the supply of cups and glasses gave out, and the lemonade was usually served out in old salmon or jam tins. very often, after a couple of hymns and, perhaps, a prayer, we went across and finished up the evening with a couple of buns and a cup of tea. one of my ambulance comrades, an ex-baker from johannesburg, was extremely good in helping on the success of the refreshment bar, and frequently stood for hours together at the receipt of custom. the returns were very large. one day, i remember, they amounted to £22 in pennies: this would mean, i think, on a low estimate, that something like 1,500 soldiers used the temperance canteen on that evening. apart from this enterprising work, private gifts in the way of fruit occasionally arrived on the scene, and i well remember one day when almost every "tommy" one met carried a pine apple in his hands. in addition to such pleasures of realised satisfaction we enjoyed the pleasures of anticipation; for was not her gracious majesty's chocolate _en route_ for south africa? the amount of interest exhibited in the arrival of these chocolate boxes was amazing. men continually discussed them, and a stranger would have thought that chocolate was some essential factor in a soldier's life, from which we had, by the exigencies of camp life, been long deprived! as a matter of fact, portable forms of cocoa are extremely valuable in cases where normal supplies of food are cut off. every soldier on a campaign carries in his haversack a small tin labelled "emergency rations". this cannot be opened unless by order from a commanding officer and any infraction of the rule is severely punished. at one end of the oblong tin are "beef rations," at the other "chocolate rations," enough to sustain a man amid hard and exhausting work for thirty-six hours. the chocolate rations consist of three cubes and can be eaten in the dry state; once, however, i came across a spare emergency tin, and found that with boiling water a single cube made enough liquid chocolate for ten men, a cup each. people make a great fuss in england if they don't get three or four meals a day, but a healthy man can easily fight with much less nourishment than this. i have seen turkish troops during the cretan insurrection live on practically nothing else than a few beans and a little bread, and on this meagre and precarious diet they fought like heroes. in the sudan a few bunches of raisins will keep one going all day. at the same time, these things are to some extent relative to the individual. i have known huge athletic men curl up in no time because they couldn't get three meals a day on a campaign, whereas others, of half their build and muscle, may bear privations infinitely better. it is annoying to find here and there in the newspapers querulous letters from men at the front complaining that plum puddings and sweetmeats haven't reached them, and that their christmas fare was only a bit of bully beef and a pint of beer. these men don't represent the rank and file of the army a bit. the english soldier is better fed and clothed and looked after than any other fighting man in the world, except possibly the american, and the manly soldier is not in the habit of whining after the fashion of these letters because he doesn't get quite as good a dinner on the veldt as he does in the depôt at home. the military authorities at de aar exercised the utmost stringency in refusing permission to unauthorised civilians to stay in the camp or pass through it. these regulations were absolutely necessary. the country round de aar was full of dutchmen, who were, with scarcely an exception, thoroughly in sympathy with the enemy, and throughout the campaign, at modder river, stormberg, the tugela, and even inside ladysmith and mafeking spies have been repeatedly captured and shot. some of the attempts by civilians to get through de aar without adequate authorisation were quite amusing. i remember a particularly nice swedish officer arriving one night, equipped after the most approved fashion of military accoutrements--stohwasser leggings, spurs, gloves, etc., but his papers were not sufficient for his purpose, and charm he never so wisely, the camp commandant politely but firmly compelled him to return to richmond road, which lay just outside the pale of military law. another gentleman, well known in england, failed in his first effort to penetrate the camp on his way northwards, but succeeded finally in reaching de aar by going up as an officer's servant! the run from de aar to belmont is about 100 miles. the ambulance train arrived there on the evening of the battle, and the staff on board found plenty of work ready for them. the wounded men were all placed together in a large goods' shed at the station. they lay as they were taken from the field by the stretcher-bearers. lint and bandages had been applied, but, of course, uniforms, bodies and even the floor were saturated with blood. such spectacles are not pleasing, but nobody ever thinks about the unaesthetic side of the picture when busily engaged in helping the wounded. "the gentleman in khaki," poor fellow, has often precious little khaki left on him by the time he reaches the base hospital. when the femoral artery is shot through one does not waste time by thinking of the integrity of a pair of trousers--a few rips of the knife and away goes a yard or two of khaki. if the cases had not been so sad we should often have laughed at the extraordinary appearance of some of the men. one soldier, for example, was brought into our train with absolutely nothing on him except one sleeve, which he seemed to treasure for the sake of comparative respectability! wounded men frequently lose so much blood before they are found that their clothes become quite stiff, and the best thing to do is to cut the whole uniform off them and wrap them in blankets. perhaps it is worth while writing a few words about the general method pursued in the collection and treatment of our wounded men. in a frontal attack upon a position held in force by the enemy, our men advance in "quarter column," or other close formation, till they get within range of the enemy's fire. they then "extend," _i.e._, every man takes up his position a few paces away from his neighbour, and in all probability lies or stoops down behind whatever he can find, at the same time keeping up an incessant riflefire on the enemy. far behind him, and usually on his right or left, the artillerymen are hard at work sending shell after shell upon the trenches in front. every now and then the infantrymen run or crawl forward fifty or sixty yards, and thus gradually forge ahead till within two hundred yards of the enemy, when with loud cheers and fixed bayonets they leap up and rush forward to finish off the fight with cold steel. even from this skeleton outline it is easy to see that the wounded in a battle like belmont and graspan are all over the place, though the motionless forms grow more numerous the nearer we get to the enemy's lines. now, strictly speaking, stretcher-bearers ought not to move forward to the aid of the wounded _during the battle_. the proper period for this work is two hours after the cessation of hostilities. but in almost every engagement of the present campaign our stretcher-bearers with their officers have gallantly advanced during the progress of the fighting and attended to the wounded under fire. such plucky conduct as this merits the warmest praise. in the non-combatant, who has none of the excitement bred of actual fighting to sustain him, it requires a high decree of courage to kneel or stoop when every one else is lying down, and in this exposed position first to find the tiny bullet puncture, and then bandage the wound satisfactorily. many and many a life has been saved by this conduct on the part of our medical staff, for if an important artery is severed by a bullet or shell-splinter a man may easily bleed to death in ten minutes. i have myself on one occasion in crete seen jets of blood escaping from the femoral artery of a turkish soldier, without being able to render him any assistance. in short, it is believed that quite three-fifths of those who perish on a battle-field die from loss of blood. in some cases a soldier may, by digital pressure or by improvising a rough tourniquet, check the flow of blood from a wound, but the nervous prostration which accompanies a wound inflicted by a bullet travelling nearly 2,000 feet a second is so great, that most men seriously wounded are physically incapable of rendering such assistance to themselves, even if they understand the elementary amount of anatomy requisite for the treatment. at the same time it is only fair to point out that stretcher-bearers who advance during an engagement and render this gallant assistance to the wounded do so entirely at their own risk and must take their chance of getting hit. complaints have been from time to time made, by persons who did not know the circumstances, that our stretcher-bearers have been shot by the boers. if this took place during an action no blame can fairly attach to the enemy, for in repelling an attack they cannot of course be expected to cease fire because stretcher-bearers show themselves in front. the hail of bullets comes whistling along--ispt, ispt, ispt--and everywhere little jets of sand are spurting up. can we wonder if now and then a stretcher-bearer is struck down? to put the case frankly--he is doing a brave work, but he has no business to be where he is. it is easy to see why the usages of war do not permit the presence of ambulance men in the firing line. quite apart from the serious losses incurred by so valuable a corps, advantage might be taken by an unscrupulous enemy to bring up ammunition under cover of the red cross. it is no easy task in the dark or in a fading light to find the khaki-clad figures lying prone upon the brown sand. but when the wounded are discovered the ambulance man finds out as quickly as he can the position and nature of the wound, and a "first aid" bandage or a rough splint is applied. the sufferer is raised carefully upon a stretcher or carried off in an ambulance waggon to a "dressing-station" somewhere in the rear. if there are not enough stretchers, or the wound is merely a slight one, the disabled soldier is borne away on a seat made of the joined hands of two bearers. a second row of ambulance waggons is loaded from the dressing-station--each waggon holds nine--and goes lumbering off to the field hospital. here the men are laid on the ground with perhaps a waterproof sheet under them and a blanket over them. the r.a.m.c. officers come round, select certain cases for operation, and see to the bandaging and dressing of the others. finally one of the ambulance trains arrives, about 120 men are packed in it and it steams off rapidly to some base hospital at orange river, de aar, wynberg or rondebosch. any detailed account of lord methuen's battles lies outside the scope of this little volume, and the british public know already practically all that can be known about the general plan of such engagements as belmont, graspan and modder river. belmont is an insignificant railway station lying in the middle of as dreary a bit of veldt as can well be imagined. a clump of low kopjes run almost parallel to the railway on the right, and to ascend these hills our men had to advance over an absolutely level plain devoid of any cover save an occasional big stone or an anthill (precarious rampart!) or the still feebler shelter of a bush two feet high. in their transverse march our men had to cross the railway, and lost considerably during the delay occasioned by cutting the wire fences on either side to clear a way for themselves and the guns. the boers did not apparently intend to make any serious stand against lord methuen's column at belmont. the fight was little else than an "affair of outposts" on their side and it seems very doubtful if more than 800 of the enemy had been left for the defence of the position. their horses were all ready, as usual, behind the kopjes, and when our gallant men jumped up with a cheer and for the last 100 yards dashed up the rough stony slope in front, very few boers remained. most of them were already in the saddle, galloping off to graspan, their next position. the unwounded boers who did remain remained--nearly all of them--for good; rifle bullets and shrapnel and shell splinters are deadly enough, but deadliest of all is the bayonet thrust. so much tissue is severed by the broad blade of the lee-metford bayonet that the chances of recovery are often very slight. as volunteer recruits know sometimes to their cost, the mere mishandling of a bayonet at the end of a heavy rifle may, even amid the peaceful evolutions of squad drill, inflict a painful wound. when the weapon is used scientifically with the momentum of a heavy man behind it, its effects are terrible. private st. john of the grenadiers thrust at a boer in front of him with such force that he drove not only the bayonet, but the muzzle of the rifle clean through the dutchman. st. john was immediately afterwards shot through the head and lay dead on the top of the kopje, side by side with the man he had killed. when our train, after its journey to capetown, next returned to belmont, few signs of the recent engagement were visible. the strands of wire fencing on either side the line were cut through here and there, and twisted back several yards where our fifteen-pounders had been galloped through to shell the retreating boers. now and again the eye was caught by little heaps of cartridge cases marking the spot where some soldier had lain down. less pleasant reminiscences were furnished by the decomposing bodies of several mules, and four or five vultures wheeling over the plain. some enthusiasts on our train had on the previous journey cut off several hoofs from the dead mules as relics of the fight. our under-cook had secured a more agreeable souvenir of belmont in the shape of a small goat found wandering beside the railway. this animal now struts about a garden in capetown with a collar suitably inscribed around its neck, and the proud owner has refused a £10 note for it. before their abandonment of the position the enemy had hurriedly buried a few of their dead, but it is very difficult to dig amongst the stones and boulders, and the interment was so inadequate that hands and feet were protruding from the soil. in fact several of our men whose patrol-beat covered this ground told me it was terribly trying to walk among these rough and ready graves in the heat of the day. along the whole line from belmont northwards and to some distance southwards the telegraph lines had been cut by the boers. not content with severing the wires here and there, they had cut down every post for miles along the railway. i wondered what the grinning kaffirs thought of such a spectacle; here were the white men, the pioneers of enlightenment, engaged in cutting each other's throats and destroying the outward signs of their civilisation! perhaps it is worth mentioning that native opinion in cape colony has, as far as can be judged from the native journal _imvo_, been decidedly against us in the present war. this is a factor which must be reckoned with as regards the question whether or no blacks shall be armed and permitted to share in the fighting. of course it seems at first sight perfectly fair to give the zulus or basutos the means of defending themselves from cattle-raiding boers, but if you once arm a savage there is a very real danger of his getting out of control, and zulus might make incursions into the free state or basutos into cape colony. from such things may we be preserved! there is an intensely strong feeling amongst colonial englishmen as well as dutchmen--much more intense than anything we feel at home--against the bringing of natives into a quarrel between white men. the train soon traverses the distance between belmont and graspan. none can wish to linger on this journey, for the surrounding region is dreary and forbidding. the everlasting kopje crops up here and there, looking like--what in fact it is--a mere vast heap of boulders and stones from which the earth has been dislodged by the constant attrition of wind and rain. the hillocks in the graspan district are by no means lofty--none of them seemed to get beyond a few hundred feet--but beyond modder river the big kopje on the right which was seamed with boer trenches must be, i should guess, well over six hundred feet from the plain. a large proportion of the kopjes in this part of the country have absolutely flat tops--why, i cannot imagine--and the whole appearance of the country suggests at once the former bed of an ocean. _a propos_ of geology, i once in camp came across a sergeant who was surrounded by a little band of privates, deeply interested in his scientific remarks, which began as follows: "now, some considerable time before the flood, table mountain was at the bottom of the sea, for sea shells are found there at the present day, etc." it is quite a mistake to suppose that the soldier cares for none of these things. as a "tommy" myself i had some unique opportunities of learning what they talked about and how they talked, and certainly the subjects discussed sometimes covered a very big field. i have heard a heated discussion as to the position of the port of hamburg, and was finally called on to decide as arbitrator whether this was a dutch or german town. theological discussions were also by no means infrequent. one of my comrades insisted with a fervour almost amounting to ferocity upon the reality of "conversion," and was opposed by another whose tendencies were more pelagian, and who went so far as to maintain that no one would employ the services of a "converted" man if he could secure one who was "unconverted". the amount of bad language evoked in the course of this theological argument was extraordinary. such acrimonious discussions as these acted, however, as a mere foil to our general harmony, and a common practice on an evening when we had no wounded on our hands was to start a "sing-song". the general tone of these concerts was decidedly patriotic. "god save the queen" and "rule britannia" were thrown in every now and then, but seldom, if ever, i am glad to say, that wearisome doggerel "the absent-minded beggar". it is quite a mistake, by the way, to suppose that mr. kipling's poetry is widely appreciated by the rank and file of the army. from what i have noticed, the less intelligent soldiers know nothing at all about mr. kipling's verses, while the more intelligent of them heartily dislike the manner in which they are represented in his poems--as foul-mouthed, godless and utterly careless of their duties to wives and children. i remember a sergeant exclaiming: "kipling's works, sir! why, we wouldn't have 'em in our depôt library at any price!" of course it would be ridiculous to maintain that many soldiers do not use offensive language, but the habit is largely the outcome of their social surroundings in earlier life and is also very infectious; it requires quite an effort to refrain from swearing when other people about one are continually doing this, and when such behaviour is no longer viewed as a serious social offence. as to mr. atkins' absent-mindedness i shall have a word to say later on. in addition to the national anthem and "rule britannia," we had, of course, "soldiers of the queen," and a variety of other less known ballads which described the superhuman valour of our race, and deplored the folly of any opposition on the part of our enemies even if they outnumbered us by "ten to one". one of our cook's greatest hits was a song entitled "underneath the dear old flag". in order to furnish a touch of realism the singer had secured a small _white_ flag which floated on the top of our train; but he never seemed to realise the incongruity of waving this peaceful emblem over his head as he thundered out his resolve "to conquer or to die". just below graspan station the boers had made one of their many attempts to wreck the line. they had torn up the metals and the sleepers, and a good many bent and twisted rails lay beside the permanent way. but this sort of injury to a railway is very speedily set right. in an hour or two a party of sappers can relay a long stretch of line if no culverts or bridges are destroyed. mishaps to the telegraph are still more easily repaired, and already, side by side with the wreckage of the original wires, the piebald posts of the field telegraph service ran all along the lines of communication. here and there kaffir families sat squatting about their primitive huts, or kept watch over flocks of goats and sheep. ostriches stalked solemnly up to the railway and gazed at the train, and sometimes their curiosity cost them the loss of a few tail feathers if we could get a snatch at them through the wire railings. on one occasion a soldier attempting to take this liberty with an ostrich was turned upon by the indignant bird, and a struggle ensued which might have proved serious to the man; he was, however, lucky enough to get a grip on the creature's neck and succeeded by a great effort in killing it. ordinarily, however, the ostriches, despite an occasional surrender of tail feathers, lived on terms of amity with our men, and at belmont they were to be seen walking about the camp and concealing their curiosity under a great show of dignity. during the fight one of these birds took up its quarters with a battery, and watched the whole battle without taking any food, except that on one occasion when a man lit his pipe the bird suddenly reached out for the box of lucifers and swallowed it with great gusto. it was curious to notice a variety of chalk marks upon some of the ant hills on the battle-field. the boers had carefully measured their ground beforehand, as we did at omdurman, and knew exactly how to adjust their sights as we advanced against their position. the battle of graspan consisted, as at belmont, in a frontal attack upon a line of kopjes held by a much larger force of the enemy than was present at the earlier engagement. lord methuen succeeded in working his way to the foot of the kopjes, and a final rush swept the boers away in headlong flight. his victory would have been much more complete had the cavalry succeeded in cutting off the enemy's retreat, but this was not done. we brought back a load of wounded men from this fight. the corps which suffered most heavily was the naval brigade, composed of 200 marines and 50 bluejackets. it is worth mentioning the numbers here, because i have seen several accounts of this fight in which the gallantry of the "bluejackets" is spoken of in the warmest terms with absolutely no mention of the marines. correspondents, some of them without any previous knowledge of military matters, repeatedly single out certain regiments and corps for special mention, even when these favoured battalions have not taken any leading part in the battle. we have, of course, had the case of the gordons at dargai--who ever hears of any other regiment popularly mentioned in this connection? again, at the battle of magersfontein the gordons were not amongst the highland battalions which bore the full brunt of that awful fusilade, yet various english newspapers singled them out for special mention. i speak in this way not because i am at all lacking in appreciation for the valour and dash of both gordons and "bluejackets," but simply because other regiments who have often done as good or even better work--in special cases--bitterly resent the unfair manner in which their own achievements are sometimes slurred over in the press. needless to say these thoughtless reports are due almost entirely to journalists and would be repudiated by none more keenly than the gallant men of the gordon highlanders and the royal navy. at the battle of graspan the marine brigade left their big 47 guns in the rear and advanced as infantry to the frontal attack. at 600 yards from the boer lines the order was given to fix bayonets: the brigade then pushed forward for fifty yards further, when it was met by a storm of mauser bullets, which had killed and wounded no less than 120 out of the 250 before the survivors reached the foot of the kopjes. it is extremely difficult to clamber up the rough sides of an african kopje. to do it properly one needs india-rubber soles or bare feet, for boots cause one to slip wildly about on the smooth, rough stones. by the time our men had got to the summit of the low ridge the boers had leapt upon their horses and were already nearly 1,000 yards away. our gallant fellows were out of breath with the arduous climb, and as it is almost impossible to do much effective shooting when one is "blown," and the cavalry had not appeared on the scene, the enemy got off nearly scot free. amongst a number of wounded men brought down by our train from modder river was a private of that fine corps, the r.m.l.i., who had, after passing through the perils of graspan, suffered an extraordinary casualty at the modder river fight. he was standing near one of the 47 guns which was firing lyddite shells at the enemy's trenches. suddenly the force of the explosion burst the drum of his right ear and, of course, rendered him stone deaf on that side. he was an excellent fellow, very intelligent and well informed, and i hope by this time the surgeons at simon's bay naval hospital have provided him with an artificial ear-drum. this marine had, as said above, come out of the awful fire at graspan unscathed, but i counted no less than _five_ bullet holes in his uniform; two of them were through his trousers, two had pierced his sleeves, and the other had passed through his coat just to the left of his heart! the kopjes which were ultimately carried by the gallantry of our troops at graspan had been subjected to an awful shell fire before the infantry attack. nevertheless, the enemy was able to meet the advance with a rifle fire which swept our men down by scores. on the right of the naval brigade there was a little group of nineteen men, of these one only remained! the boers exhibited here, as elsewhere, the most marvellous skill in taking advantage of cover. these farmers lay curled up behind their stones and boulders while shrapnel bullets by thousands rained over their position, and common shell threw masses of earth and rock into the air. then at the moment when the artillery fire was compelled to cease, owing to the near approach of our infantry, the crafty sharp-shooters crawled out of their nooks and crannies and used their rifles with deadly precision and rapidity. on this point--the general ineffectiveness of artillery fire when the enemy possesses good cover--the history of modern warfare repeats itself. the russian bombardments of plevna were quite futile, and general todleben acknowledged that it sometimes required a whole day's shell fire to kill a single turkish soldier. at the fight round the malaxa blockhouse in crete, at which i was present, the united squadrons of the european powers in suda bay suddenly opened fire on the hill and the village at its foot. in ten minutes from eighty to one hundred shells came screaming up from the bay and burst amongst the insurgents and their turkish opponents. we all of us--on the hill and in the village--bolted like rabbits and took what cover we could. the total net casualties from these missiles--some of them 6-inch shells--were, i believe, three, all told. some of those amateur critics at home who write indignant letters about the war office labour under a twofold delusion. they frequently ask indignantly how it is that our guns have been outclassed by those of the boers? as a matter of fact in almost every engagement of the present campaign our artillery has been superior to that of the enemy; but, of course, the artillery of a defending force, well posted on rising ground, possesses enormous advantages over that of the assailants, who have frequently to open fire in open and exposed positions easily swept by shrapnel fire from guns, which, hidden amid trenches and rocks, are often well-nigh invisible. another fundamental error in many of the indignant letters about the alleged defects of our artillery arises from a misunderstanding of the real value of guns in attacking a fortified position. the most sanguine officer never expects his shells actually to kill or disable any very large number of the enemy if they are protected by deep and well-constructed earthworks. of course, if a shell falls plump into a trench it is pretty certain to play havoc with the defenders, but, when one considers that the mouth of a trench is some five or six feet wide, it is easy to realise the difficulty of dropping a shell into the narrow opening at a range, say, of 4,000 yards. moreover, some of the more elaborate boer trenches are so cleverly constructed in a waving line like a succession of s's, that even if a shell does succeed in pitching into one bit of the curve it makes things uncomfortable only for the two or three men who occupy that portion of the earthwork. no, the real value of artillery in attack is to shake the enemy and keep down his rifle fire. if shells are accurately fired the tops of trenches may be swept by a constant rain of shrapnel bullets, under which the enemy's riflemen will of necessity suffer when they expose their heads and shoulders to take aim over the parapet. but even in this case the shell fire must be extremely accurate if it is to be of any great use. if shrapnel shells burst well, some thirty yards in front of the enemy, the force of the bullets released by the explosion is terrific; if, on the other hand, the shells burst high up in the air, 150 yards in front, you might almost keep off the bullets with an umbrella; and one sometimes hears of these missiles being actually found in the pockets of combatants. at omdurman our shells played tremendous havoc with the dense masses of the enemy; but here the dervishes advanced to the attack in broad daylight and over a flat plain absolutely devoid of cover, and with its "ranges" well known and marked out beforehand. in one of our southward journeys with a load of wounded men we passed, a little below graspan, through the midst of a swarm of locusts. we pulled up the windows and so kept the wards free from these clumsy insects. at one period they seemed to almost shut out the daylight, and it was easy to realise how unpleasant it would be to meet a flight of locusts when walking or even riding on horseback. some odd stories are told about these creatures. i have heard it gravely stated that occasionally a train is stopped by the accumulated masses which fall on the metals. my informant evidently believed that the engine in these cases was absolutely unable to force its way through the piled up insects, in the same way as trains are sometimes blocked by gigantic snowdrifts! this, of course, is ridiculous; what really happens is that the rails become so greasy from the crushed bodies of the locusts that the wheels can secure no grip on the metals and spin round to no purpose. the attitude of the boers towards the locust is very quaint. if a swarm of these insects settles on a dutchman's land, the owner will not attempt to destroy them because he regards them as a visitation of providence. but i have heard that he does not scruple to modify slightly the schemes of providence by shovelling the unwelcome locusts upon any of his neighbours' fields which may adjoin his own estate! on this same journey we pulled up, as usual, for a brief interval at de aar, and just opposite our train was a carriage containing seventeen boer prisoners, returning to the front. at the battle of graspan a number of boer artillerymen were found with the geneva red cross on their arms, and it seems pretty clear that these men had deliberately slipped the badge on the sleeves in order to avoid capture. they were, of course, at once secured and treated as ordinary prisoners of war. but in the hurry of the moment, and very naturally under the circumstances, some seventeen of the boers who were _bonâ-fide_ ambulance men were arrested on suspicion and despatched with the crafty gunners to capetown. here they were examined, and when the authorities realised that they were genuinely entitled to the protection of the red cross, and were not combatants fraudulently equipped with this protective badge, the seventeen were forthwith sent back to general cronje. as they were returning we met them and had a chat with them. five at least of the number were scotchmen or irishmen; two more of them did not speak, and i rather think from their appearance that they too were of english race, and preferred to remain silent. several of them complained of ill-treatment at our hands, but i must say their complaints appeared to resolve themselves into the fact that on their journeys to and from capetown their meals had not been quite regular. three of us gave them some bread, jam and cigarettes, for which they were extremely grateful. they wore ordinary clothes much the worse for wear, and told me that they left their "sunday" suits at home. on the whole i was most favourably impressed by these fellows, with one exception. the exception was a free-stater who spoke english volubly. he loudly declared that he was sick of the war and intended the moment he secured an opportunity to desert and go home to his farm. i felt rather indignant at this person's remarks, and with an air of moral superiority i said: "we don't think any the better of you for saying that; although you are an enemy you ought to stick to your general, and not sneak away from the front". but the free-stater was not a bit impressed by my rhetoric, and simply said, "oh, skittles!" some of the prisoners were from the transvaal and they seemed to me much more keen and enthusiastic than their free state companions, and evinced no signs whatever of despondency or depression. there was a very pathetic note in the conversation of one of the transvaalers, a mere boy of seventeen. he said to me in broken english, "it is such a causeless war. what are we fighting for, sir?" and i referred him for his answer to three johannesburg uitlanders who were standing by. accursed as war always is, it is thrice accursed when young boys and old men are called upon to fight. at present every man in the republic from sixteen to sixty years of age is at the front. the authorities intend as their losses increase to call out children from twelve to sixteen, and every old man from sixty onwards who can still see to sight a rifle. last and most terrible thought of all, it is an undoubted fact that wives and daughters are everywhere throughout the republic engaged in rifle practice! may god preserve us from having to fight against women! at present entire families are fighting together. i know one dutch lady who has no less than six brothers amongst the burghers who have been fighting round ladysmith, and another who has already lost four sons in the war. in one of our engagements a boer boy of seventeen was struck down by a bullet; the father, a man of sixty, left his cover and went to the succour of his son, when he himself was shot, and the two lay dead, one beside the other. a little to the north of the kopjes which formed the scene of the graspan engagement lies the station of enslin. here one of the pluckiest fights of the campaign took place. two companies of the northamptons occupied a small house and orchard beside the line. they had thrown up a hurried earthwork and placed rails along the top of the parapet. in this position they were suddenly attacked by a force of apparently 500 boers--so it was supposed--with one or two field guns. the small garrison lined their diminutive trenches and succeeded in keeping the enemy off for several hours; but had not some artillery reinforcements come up the line most opportunely to their assistance it might have fared badly with the plucky northamptons. as it was, the boers finally withdrew with some loss. on december 10th we were delayed for some time at enslin by an accident and i had a careful look at the position held by our men in this minor engagement. there was scarcely a twig or leaf in the orchard which was not torn by shrapnel and mauser bullets. the walls of the house were chipped and pierced in every direction, and one corner of the earthwork had been carried off by a shell. yet in the two companies there were only eight casualties! an almost parallel case was furnished by rostall's orchard at modder river, which was held by the boers, and swept for hours by so fearful a fire of shrapnel that the peach-trees were cut down in every direction and scarcely a square foot behind the trenches unmarked by the leaden hail. nevertheless, when the guns had perforce to cease fire on the advance of our infantry, the boers who held the orchard leapt up from behind the earthwork and poured such a murderous fire upon our men that they were forced to withdraw. it was the old story over again--that shell fire, unless it enfilades, does not kill men in trenches. as everybody called the river crossed by the railway the modder, modder let it be. its real name, however, is the riet, of which the modder is a tributary flowing from the north-west and joining the main stream well to the east of the line. as a stream the river does not impress the visitor favourably: its waters were yellow and muddy, and the vegetation on its banks was thin and scrappy. there are no respectable fish in either the modder or the orange river; even if the fish could see a fly on the top of the liquid mud, they haven't the spirit to rise at it. some of our officers, it was said, had managed to land a few specimens of a coarse fish like a barbel which haunts these streams, but i should not think any one, even amid the monotony of camp rations, was very keen about eating his catch, for a good many dead boers had been dragged out of the river. it was, in fact, a rather grisly joke in camp to remark, _à propos_ of our water supply, on the character of "château modder, an excellent vintage with a good deal of body in it"! there was a tap at the station, which by the way is some distance north of the river, but on attempting to fill a bucket i found the tap guarded by a sentry, because, apparently, the water came from the river and was thought to be dangerous. the water question is always a difficult one in exploring or campaigning. one can do a certain amount with alum towards rendering the water less foul. rub the inside of a bucket with a lump of alum, and in ten minutes most of the mud sinks to the bottom, and the water is comparatively clear. but besides producing a nasty flavour in the water, if used in any quantity, the astringent alum tends to produce disagreeable effects internally. of course the only absolute guarantee against the bacilli of enteric fever or other diseases which may be admitted into one's system by drinking, is to boil the waters for five minutes; but it is very provoking, when the thermometer stands at 90° in the shade, to wait until the boiled water cools, and as it is impossible to boil a whole river a few thousand bacilli may quite well get into our food through "washing up". the boers have almost raised trench digging to the level of a fine art, and on every occasion when their commandants have found it necessary to withdraw they have had an entrenched position ready for them at some distance in the rear. at modder river the trenches on either side of the stream were, as far as i saw them, a series of short ditches holding about six riflemen. these small trenches were separated from each other in order possibly to avoid that appearance of continuity which would have rendered their detection more easy to our scouts. in the modder river fight a new factor is noticeable. for the first time in the campaign the boers fought on level ground. hitherto their bullets had come from the summits of the hills, and for this reason had not proved nearly so effective as a sustained fire from rifles raised, say, about four and a half feet from the ground. it is of course very much harder to hit a moving enemy when you aim from above at a considerable angle than when you merely hold your rifle steadily at the level of his chest and fire off mauser cartridges at the rate of twenty a minute. the enemy's fire was very deadly at the modder. as lord methuen said in his despatch, it was quite unsafe to remain on horseback at 2,000 yards' range. the result was that our infantry were compelled to lie prone on the ground, and, without being able to do much by way of retaliation, were exposed for hours to a scathing fusilade from the trenches beside the river. one poor fellow, of whom i saw a good deal, had been through the battle despite the fact that he was suffering great pain from dysentery. he, together with two friends, lay on the veldt for no less than fourteen hours. they had fortunately descried a slight hollow in the ground some 500 yards from the boer trenches, and between them they "loosed off" quite 1,000 rounds of ammunition. "well," i asked him, "did you hit anything?" "i don't think we did," was his reply, "because we never saw a boer the whole day." when the enemy are firing smokeless powder behind their splendidly constructed earthworks they are practically invisible, a fact born witness to by captain congreve, v.c., in his account of the first reverse at the tugela. now of course when you can't see your enemy you can't very well hit him, so when we clear our minds of fairy-stories about lyddite and the universal destruction wrought by concussion, it seems highly probable that there is much more truth in the boers' returns of their casualties than has been believed at home. take, _e.g._, the lurid account sent by one of our correspondents about the awful effects of our shell fire upon general cronje's laager. we were told in graphic language of every space in the laager being torn and rent by the deadly fire of more than fifty field guns, of the trenches being enfiladed and the green fumes of lyddite rising up from the doomed camp. cronje emerges with a casualty roll of 170 men, and the only inconvenience from our bombardment experienced by the ladies was the slight abrasion of a young woman's forefinger! the fact that so many of our generals have been struck by bullets during the campaign would seem to corroborate what i have heard on good authority, _viz._, that some of the best shots in the transvaal forces have been told off for long range shooting, and the picking off of our leaders. one of these fancy shots--a german--was captured in natal and told an officer that he was glad to be a prisoner, as he heartily disliked the task imposed upon him. some little distance north of the modder bridge is a small white house. within this was found a boer lying on a table stone-dead, with a shrapnel bullet in his skull. his mauser, still clutched in his stiffened hands, lay on a tripod rest in front of him and the muzzle pointed through a vertical slit made in the masonry of the cottage. every house in the neighbourhood was more or less injured by shrapnel, and one of them was the scene of a sanguinary conflict which was utterly misrepresented by one of the cape papers. the misrepresentation was to the effect that at the battle of modder river the house in question was occupied by a number of boer wounded from belmont and graspan in charge of several attendants. it was alleged that two of the attendants deliberately fired upon our troops, who forthwith entered the house and bayoneted every occupant, wounded and unwounded alike, the bodies being afterwards weighted, with stones and thrown into the river. this terrible story spread like wildfire through the colony, and lord methuen despatched an official denial of the alleged circumstances to capetown. the boer general never, as far as i am aware, brought any such charge against our troops, but as it undoubtedly gained considerable credence in the colony it is perhaps worth while to mention the real facts of the case. the house in question was occupied as an outpost by thirty-six boers, who fired upon some companies of british troops. about a dozen of our men, chiefly argyll and sutherland highlanders with a lieutenant of the fifth fusiliers--for an extraordinary intermingling of various units took place in this engagement--rushed the house. two of the highlanders were shot down but the rest took a speedy revenge. the thirty-six boers clubbed their rifles and fought pluckily, but they were crowded together and could do little against our bayonets. every man of the thirty-six perished. "i didn't like to see it, sir," said one of the highlanders to me. this is, of course, a very different story from the disgraceful tale alluded to above. none of the boers in the house were wounded before our men appeared on the scene, and it is clear that the boer corpses in the river, with stones tied to their ankles, were put there by their own comrades. fair-minded and thoughtful men who have followed the events of the present campaign must long ago have come to the conclusion that non-official news must frequently be received with great caution. before the war began misrepresentation was rife on both sides, and it has continued ever since. mr. winston churchill may well call south africa a "land of lies". various slanders against ourselves have emanated to some extent from the dutch papers in cape colony and the transvaal, but in a much fuller and more substantial form from the continental papers, notably the parisian press. on the other hand, our own journalists have not been altogether free from this taint. let us take one or two concrete instances, _e.g._, violation of the white flag, firing on ambulances, the use of "explosive" bullets, looting. just after the first reverse at the tugela, a correspondent wired home that the boers were "shooting horses and violating all the usages of civilised warfare". a man who would write such tomfoolery about horses ought to be kept in fleet street, and not sent out as a war correspondent; and as to his sweeping accusations in general, it is worth noticing that he was publicly and severely rebuked by sir redvers buller, who denied his statements, and said that it was dishonourable to malign our brave opponents in this fashion. as to the _vexata quaestio_ of the white flag, it seems clear that in some instances the boers have used this symbol of surrender in an absolutely unjustifiable way. such a misusage of the flag occurred, for example, at belmont.[a] but, as a boer prisoner said to me, there are blackguards in every army, and it is utterly unfair to represent the whole boer army as composed of these treacherous scoundrels--who, by the way, in almost every instance have paid the penalty of their treachery with their lives. moreover, a white flag--which is sometimes merely a handkerchief tied to a rifle--may, in a comparatively undisciplined force like that of our opponents, be easily raised by a combatant on one side of a kopje, without being ordered or being noticed by his officer or the bulk of his comrades. how easily this may happen can be seen from what occurred amongst our own men at nicholson's nek. here the white flag was raised, according to the published letter of an officer present, by a subaltern, without the knowledge and against the wishes of the officer in command. the officer who raised the flag may quite well--we do not know the circumstances accurately--have wished to save the lives of the men immediately round him, or may have been unable to see what was happening elsewhere on the kopje, and so have imagined that he and his men alone were left. something very similar to this appears to have happened at dundee. a body of boers standing together raised a white flag when our men approached and were duly taken prisoners, but the rest of their commando were, according to boer accounts, already engaged in retreating with their guns, and, being either unaware of this unauthorised surrender or completely ignoring it, continued their flight. i have already spoken of the risks incurred by stretcher-bearers and ambulance waggons which approach close to the firing line. wounded men have told me again and again that the boers at magersfontein did not fire wilfully on our ambulance waggons, except when our troops got behind them in their retreat. moreover, excitable people in england, who greedily swallow any story about such alleged occurrences, have probably the vaguest idea of what a modern battle-field looks like, and of the enormous area now covered by military operations. it may be extremely difficult to see a small white or red cross flag a long way off. at ladysmith, _e.g._, one of our guns put a shell clean through a boer ambulance, and sir george white, of course, at once sent an apology for the mistake. if mistakes occur on one side they may occur on the other. reuter's agent at frere camp reports on 4th december:-"after the evacuation of dundee the boers shelled the hospital and the ambulance until the white flag was hoisted, when their firing ceased. captain milner rode with one orderly into the boer camp with a flag of truce, and was told that the boers could not see the red cross flag. this statement he verified by personal observation." as to the use of "explosive" bullets, which makes the "man in the street" so indignant, it is worth mentioning that, as far as i am aware, not a single instance of the employment of such a missile came under the notice of our medical staff with lord methuen's column. i do not for one instant deny that occasionally such bullets may have been fired at our troops, but it is clear that the utmost confusion prevails about the nature of these projectiles. the geneva convention prohibits the use of explosive bullets, _i.e._, hollow bullets charged with an explosive which is fired by a detonating cap on coming in contact with a resisting surface. now it is almost impossible to render a mauser bullet "explosive," owing to its extreme slenderness, so that any explosive bullets which may have been used by the enemy must have come from sporting rifles, which are--as all evidence goes to show--extremely rare in their commandos. expansive bullets are made by cutting off the rounded tip of the bullet, scooping out its point, constructing its "nose" of some softer metal, or simply making transverse cuts across the end. these missiles are not prohibited by the geneva convention: nevertheless their employment against white men is altogether unnecessary and reprehensible. as to looting, we must not forget that all commandeering of goods on the part of the enemy has been so described. but, of course, it is perfectly legitimate according to the usage of modern warfare to seize any property necessary for an army provided receipts are duly handed over to the persons from whom the goods are obtained. the germans invariably acted in this way during the franco-prussian war, and no historian has ever described them as "savages" for this reason. of course the wanton destruction of property which appears to have been perpetrated by the boers in natal is absolutely indefensible. if any one on reading the above thinks the writer "unpatriotic" he can only say that many british soldiers serving their queen and country are "unpatriotic" in the same way. i hold no brief for the boers, and i feel sure that here and there one may find an unmitigated scoundrel in their ranks who would fire on white flags, loot houses and use explosive bullets. on the other hand wounded and captured soldiers have repeatedly testified to the great kindness shown them by the enemy. in short, i have invariably found soldiers more generous and fair towards the enemy, and less disposed to blackguard them recklessly and unjustly, than newspaper writers and readers. men who have faced the boers have learnt to respect their courage and devotion, and i feel sure that british officers and soldiers deprecate much of the atrocity talk anent foemen so worthy of their steel, and however little they may sympathise with some portions of dean kitchin's sermon, they would at any rate desire to support his wish that the "quarrel should be raised to the level of a gentlemen's quarrel".[b] quite recently lord methuen spoke like an honourable and chivalrous british soldier when he declared that he "never wished to meet a braver general than cronje and had never served in a war where less vindictive feelings existed between the two opposing armies than in this." one more word on a kindred topic and we will leave criticism alone! the tone adopted by some sections of the colonial and even british press with respect to the religious feeling of the boers is very painful. some correspondents have described with evident glee how boer prayer-meetings have been broken up by lyddite shells. i feel sure that no british general would think for a moment of deliberately shelling any body of the enemy assembled for prayer, and the vulgarity and wickedness of such paragraphs would certainly not commend itself to the best sentiment of the british army. again and again the boers are described in the press as "canting hypocrites" or their thanksgivings to god as "sanctimonious". what right have we as christians to bring such wholesale charges against our christian enemies? several thousand burghers advanced from jacobsdal to reinforce cronje, and as it marched the entire force sang the old hundredth in unison. there is something splendid and majestic in such a spectacle as this. let us as englishmen fight our best against these men and defeat them thoroughly, but do not let us sneer at their religious enthusiasm! on december 10th, as we were standing on a siding at de aar, a telegram, arrived ordering us to leave for modder river in the morning. we were delighted at the prospect of getting rid of our enforced inaction at de aar. the air was full of rumours about an impending attack on cronje's position, and we fully expected to be in time for the fight and probably to be employed as stretcher-bearers during the battle. alas! our hopes were all in vain. next day, some miles below modder river, our engine with its tender suddenly left the metals. the stoker jumped off, but the engine fortunately kept on the top of the embankment and nobody was hurt. we none of us knew how or why the accident had occurred, but one of the officials suspected very strongly that the rails had been tampered with. at any rate, there we were within a few miles of a big fight, off the metals and quite helpless! we were all perfectly wild with vexation and disappointment. but up flew a wire to modder river for a gang of sappers with screwjacks. pending the arrival of their assistance i climbed up to the top of a neighbouring kopje with a lot of tasmanians. from this point the flashes of the guns above modder river were visible, and the dull boom of lyddite was borne to our ears. methuen's artillery was still doing its best to avenge or retrieve the disaster of the early morning. the sappers at length arrived. we all helped--pushing and digging and lifting--and at length after several hours' delay steamed off to modder river, too late for anything, except to wait for the morning and the wounded. we knew by this time that at 3:30 that morning the highland brigade had made a frontal attack on the magersfontein lines and had been repulsed with terrible loss. the accounts which were vaguely given of the disaster were frightful, but accurate details were still lacking. yes, here we were within four miles of the nearest point of cronje's lines and we did not know half as much about the fight as people in pall mall 7000 miles away! on 12th of december i woke at four. the sun was just beginning to rise and the raw chill of the night had not yet left the air. in the grey light a long string of ambulance waggons was moving slowly towards the camp from the battle-field. parallel to the line of waggons a column of infantry was marching northwards, perhaps to reinforce some of our outlying trenches against a possible boer attack. i shall long remember the sight--the column of dead and wounded coming in, the living column going out, and scarcely a sound to break the silence. the wards of the train were all ready for the wounded, so i went off with a couple of buckets to replenish our water supply. wounded men are generally troubled with thirst, and the washing of their hands and faces always refreshes them greatly. i found the station tap, however, guarded by a sentry; no water was to be drawn for the use of the troops, as the pipes--so it was said--came from modder river, which was contaminated by the boer corpses. we were soon busy with the wounded highlanders and well within an hour we had safely placed some 120 men in our bunks, and some on the floor. i am afraid the poor soldiers often suffered agony when they were lifted in or rolled from the stretchers on to the bunks. it was sometimes impossible to avoid hurting a man with, say, a shattered thigh-bone and a broken arm in thus changing his position. we however did our best and lifted them with the utmost care and gentleness, but they often, poor fellows, groaned and cried out in their cruel pain. at 6 p.m. we saw the funeral of sixty-three highlanders--all buried in one long trench close to the line. no shots were fired over the vast grave, but tears rolled down many a bronzed cheek and the bagpipes played a wild lament. surely there is no music like this for the burial of young and gallant men. the notes seem to express an almost frenzied access of human sorrow! soon after this my old sudan acquaintance, frederick villiers, passed through the train. he did not recognise me in my uniform and i did not make myself known to him as he was with an officer and i was only an orderly. i wonder if he remembers that dreadful night, 31st august, 1898, when we lay side by side in the desert at sururab, soaked to the skin from a tropical downpour, and, to make his misery complete, he was stung in the neck by a large scorpion. we ran down to orange river with our first load of wounded men, and just as we were crossing the sappers' pontoon bridge over the modder a trolly or small waggon broke loose and rushing down the incline in front met our engine and was broken into matchwood. most of our cases on this first run were "severe" or "dangerous". some of the men had no less than three bullet wounds, and several were still living whose heads had been pierced by bullets. during a former journey, after belmont, poor ---of the guards lived for several days with a bullet through his brain; he was apparently unconscious or semi-conscious and struggled so desperately to remove the bandages from his head that it took three orderlies to hold him down. when he died the wounded soldier next him burst into tears. amongst some cases peculiarly interesting from a medical point of view was that of a highlander who had three of his fingers shot off with the result that his arm and side were paralysed; in another case a bullet tore its way through and across the crown of a soldier's head and caused paralysis of the opposite side of the body. another man had, so it was said, been hit on the shoulder; the bullet passed right through his body piercing his lungs and intestines and coming out at the thigh. yet, strange to say, the poor fellow was in excellent spirits and complained only of slight pain in the abdomen. there was one death at magersfontein which seemed especially painful to ourselves. it was that of a young officer in the argyll and sutherland highlanders who, after the fight on the modder, came into our train and had a kindly word for every one of his wounded men; he walked along the wards shaking hands with them and giving them little money presents as he passed. his voice was full of sympathy, and at length he broke down utterly in his compassion for some of their terrible wounds. his tears did him credit, and we heard with genuine sorrow that he had fallen at magersfontein. so good a man was indeed worthy of a longer life and a kindlier fate. almost all the wounds inflicted by the mauser bullets seemed to be quite clean and healthy, with no signs of suppuration. it has been suggested that the satisfactory condition of such wounds is partly due to a species of cauterisation produced by the heat of the bullet. but i hardly think this can be so, for it is extremely doubtful if a bullet ever gets hot enough to cauterise flesh. i once picked up a spent martini bullet which dropped within a yard or two of where i was standing; it was quite warm but not nearly hot enough to hurt my bare hand. a mauser bullet fired at a fairly close range, say, 500 yards, travels at such a tremendous velocity that it generally splinters any bone it meets; on the other hand at long ranges--1,000 yards and upwards--the bullet frequently bores a clean little hole through the opposing bone and thus saves the surgeon a great deal of trouble. the wounds from shell fire were not numerous in our wards. it seems likely that if a one-pounder shell from the maxim-nordenfeldt hits a man it is pretty sure to kill him. some of the wounded men told me how terrible it was to hear the cries of a comrade ripped to pieces by this devilish missile. the condition of the highlanders' legs was terrible. many of the poor fellows lay in the open for hours--some of them from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m.--and the back of their legs was, almost without exception, covered with blisters and large burns from the scorching sun. very many of those who had escaped bullet wounds could not, i should think, have marched ten miles to save their lives. the highland light infantry wore trousers and their legs were all right. how much longer are we going to clothe our highland regiments in kilts on active service? every man i spoke to was dead against their use in a subtropical campaign like the present one. besides, even as it is, our men have to put up with a compromise in the matter of kilts which makes their retention almost ridiculous, _i.e._, in order to screen his gay attire from the keen eyes behind the mauser barrels every highlander wears over the tartan a dingy apron of khaki. the war pictures we occasionally see in illustrated papers of scotch regiments charging with flying sporrans are probably drawn in england. even when the apron is used, the khaki jacket, the tartan kilt and the white legs offer a good mark when the wearer is lying on the ground. at omdurman i stood with the seaforths and camerons in the firing line and i noticed that they appeared to lose more than any other battalion. on arriving at orange river we carried our load of wounded to the base hospital. i wish some of those well-meaning enthusiasts in trafalgar square who clamoured for war could have viewed the interior of these hospital tents and seen the poor twisted forms lying on the ground in every direction. what a stupid and brutal thing war is! certainly the alleged "bringing out of our nobler qualities" is dearly purchased! if a superior national type is the outcome of all this death and pain and misery, war, like nature, seems at any rate utterly "careless of the single life"! the battle of magersfontein has been frequently described in the press and the main outlines of the fight are already well known to the public. the highland brigade, consisting of the black watch, argyll and sutherland highlanders, seaforths and highland light infantry, had dinner on sunday at 12. they then marched from 2 to 7.30 p.m., when they bivouacked. they advanced again at 11 p.m. in quarter column through the darkness, using ropes to keep the direction and formation intact. at 3.30 the order to extend had just been given when a murderous fire was suddenly poured into the brigade from the first line of boer trenches at the foot of a large kopje. our men had already seen two red lanterns burning at either extremity of this entrenched position. all at once the lamp on the left of the line was extinguished, and this seemed to be the signal for the boer riflemen to commence fire. the light was so bad--in fact there was scarcely any light at all--that it was impossible to see the foresight of a rifle clearly. how were the boers able to discern our approaching columns? one very intelligent boy in the black watch told me that he thought the "wild-fire"--the summer lightning which plays over the veldt--showed up the approaching troops. others who were present stated that the kimberley flash-light did the mischief, and a sergeant who marched in the rear of the brigade told me that he could see the whole line of helmets in front of him illumined by these electric flashes. apart from this, it is quite possible that some treacherous signals from dutchmen near modder river camp may have apprised the boers of our approach. be this as it may, the first volleys from the opposing trenches swept through the crowded ranks of the black watch with deadly effect. great confusion ensued, our men could do little by way of retaliation, contradictory orders were given, and the brigade, unable to hold its ground under the murderous fire, fell back. the fusilade was fearfully severe and what added to its severity was its unexpectedness. it is especially the case in war that the unexpected is terrible. this has been exemplified again and again. on one occasion during the siege of paris a body of zouaves had fought splendidly all day in a sortie under a hot fire from the prussians. they were at length ordered to withdraw some distance into a hollow which would shield them effectually from the prussian shells and bullets. the zouaves ensconced themselves in this excellent bit of cover and after their exertions prepared to get a little rest. suddenly, to their astonishment, a prussian shell fell plump into the hollow, and although it hurt nobody the entire company leapt to their feet and never stopped until they found themselves within the ramparts of paris. yet these men had faced a deadly fire all day when they expected it. no troops in the world could have done anything in face of the magersfontein fire: some of the highlanders, however, lay down and maintained their position actually within 200 yards of the boer lines throughout the day. they had scarcely any cover, and if they showed themselves by any movement they were picked off by the enemy's sharp-shooters. several of our wounded told me that they had seen one boer, got up in the most sumptuous manner--polished jackboots, silk neck-cloth and cigar--strolling leisurely about outside the trenches and firing with extraordinary accuracy at the recumbent figures which dotted the ground before him. as the brigade fell back various units were, in the darkness inextricably mixed up, and our losses became more severe as the accuracy of the enemy's fire increased. the booming of our artillery and the rush of our shells upon the boer trenches put fresh heart into our temporarily disheartened troops, and rallying lines were formed in various directions. occasional rushes were made towards the almost invisible enemy over the slope already thickly dotted with the bodies of our dead and wounded, and at the close of the disastrous day several gallant highlanders were found lying dead across the wire entanglements within 150 yards of the boers, riddled with bullets. the 12th lancers dismounted, and at one moment, advanced as infantry right up to the boer trenches. every one i spoke to expressed the warmest admiration for their coolness and pluck. a sergeant in the black watch, when all the officers had apparently been struck down, cried out to the highlanders near him: "charge, men, and prepare to meet your god!" he rushed forward at the head of a few comrades and fell dead with a bullet through his brain within a yard or two of the trenches. there is something truly sublime in this man's devotion to his duty. many and many an individual act of heroism was displayed during those awful moments in the semi-darkness when the enemy opened fire on our crowded battalions. british officers stood upright, utterly regardless of self, doing their best to rally the shaken troops, and then falling beneath the pitiless hail of bullets. later on the hillside was littered with field-glasses. almost 1,000 yards from the line of kopjes three lines of wire had been placed, which were cut during our advance, and other entanglements were stretched just in front of the trenches. several men in each company carried wire-cutters with them, but to stand up and snip through lines of barbed wire when the mauser bullets and the deadly shells of the pom-pom gun are tearing up the soil around is perilous work. some of these entanglements had already been removed after the bombardment on sunday night, for e company of the black watch and a company of the seaforths went forward about 7 p.m. in skirmishing order and pulled up the iron stakes and knocked over three parallel lines of barbed wire. some of the highland brigade very sensibly withdrew towards the right of the boer position with the idea of outflanking and enfilading the enemy. they succeeded for some time and actually captured some prisoners, but were soon afterwards themselves enfiladed and compelled to retire. eight men of the seaforths, however, when the frontal attack failed, retired towards the left instead of the right and suddenly found themselves, to their dismay, well inside the enemy's trenches! the boers took away their rifles but forgot their side-arms, whereupon one of the highlanders drew his bayonet, leapt to his feet and stabbed the sentry who was guarding them in the neck. the whole eight then jumped over the earthwork and decamped, escaping unhurt through the bullets which followed them from the enraged burghers. many of our wounded lay on the ground from early morning till seven or eight in the evening, exposed all day to the scorching rays of an almost tropical sun. some of the men brought away in the ambulances were, in fact, suffering from sunstroke, in addition to their wounds, and, as was said above, the bare legs of the three kilted battalions were terribly burnt. the boers were very kind to our wounded. they came out of the trenches and gave them water. they did not in any case shoot at our wounded men, but frequently shot at any one who came forward during the fight to bandage the wounded. the slightest movement, however, of the _bonâ-fide_ combatants in our ranks drew a hail of bullets from the trenches. a scotch sergeant, gilham by name, a most kindly and courageous man, noticed that a comrade near him had been shot through the abdomen. he raised himself up from his recumbent position and began to bandage the wounded man. "lie down you ---fool," said the friend; "can't you see you are drawing the fire?" as he spoke a bullet passed between gilham's knees and struck the wounded man. soon afterwards an officer called out for a stretcher, so gilham jumped up and put on his best "hundred" pace in a slanting run towards the ambulance waggons. several other wounded men leapt up and joined him. one of them was immediately shot through the shoulder, and the good sergeant again stopped and bandaged him. the boers had been watching him, and as he recommenced his devious course they sent two bullets through a bush two feet in front of him. these small bushes formed very inadequate cover, and the enemy, taking for granted that men were lying concealed behind them, fired repeatedly into the shrubs. in one case no less than eight highlanders were shot behind one bush. i have made no attempt to give a detailed account of the day's fighting. if i did i should naturally speak of the excellent work done by the guards on the right, where the scandinavian contingent was almost annihilated, and, later on in the day, by the gordons, who left their convoy work on the left and advanced gallantly towards the boer position. no praise can be too high for our artillery. it was their excellent shooting that helped our men to rally after the first shock, and which ultimately succeeded in driving the boers from their first line of trenches. these trenches were admirably constructed in long deep parallel lines connected at the ends so that a force could advance or withdraw from any point without being noticed by ourselves. shell fire could do little against troops so splendidly entrenched. the boers, like the turks at plevna, crept under their _épaulements_ while the shells screamed overhead or swept the parapets with shrapnel bullets, and then, when this tyranny was overpast, crept out and poured in one of the most terrific fusilades of the century's warfare. when we returned to modder river with our carriages ready for a fresh load we found all our troops and guns back again in camp. the trenches, however, were manned, and every one on the alert. the armistice to bury the dead expired on the 13th, and a boer commando had been sighted to the west. in a brief interval of leisure i took a short stroll, and i noticed how much more plentiful tobacco was now than a month ago when a mauser rifle was offered for a sixpenny packet of cigarettes. one soldier told me that he had actually paid three shillings for a single cigarette. we loaded up with 120 fresh cases and steamed off for capetown. the armoured train was moving fitfully about as we left, but the poor thing's energies were rather cramped as the line disappeared about 300 yards north of the station. just before we crossed the river we saw the two war-balloons floating above the camp, and our cook informed us with a great show of expert knowledge that these balloons were absolutely proof against bullets or even shells, "for," said he, "if anything hits them it rebounds from them like my fist does from this 'ere pillow". a rather similar story was told me by a wounded highlander. he declared that a pal of his had been struck in the stomach by a shell at the modder river fight. "oh," said i, "there wasn't much of your poor friend left, i suppose?" "he wasn't much hurt," was the reply, "though he did spit blood for a few hours." "great scot! what became of the shell?" "oh," said my informant, "i didn't notice, but it must have bounced off bill's stomach." the soldier quite believed that this marvellous incident had occurred. what had happened was probably this: a shell had passed so close to the man that the concussion of the air had "taken his wind" and ruptured some small blood-vessels. i remember at the capture of malaxa in crete that three insurgents were hurled to the ground by the air pressure of a turkish shell which passed within a yard or two of their heads. several of our cases on this downward journey were interesting. corporal anderson of the black watch lay in our ward, struck deaf and dumb from the bursting of a boer shell, though he was otherwise uninjured by the explosion. wounds through the intestines were to be found here and there. such injuries in the larger intestines, if left to themselves and not operated on, have--when inflicted by the humane mauser bullet--a fairly good chance, and that is all that can be said. one man had been shot through the elbow as he lay at the "present". the bullet had shattered the bone, but there was every prospect of the arm being saved. how different would have been the probable effects, in such a case, of the big martini bullet! one incident which seemed to amuse the men very much was this. during the modder river battle a bullet struck a corporal on the back; it glanced superficially across his shoulder and then piercing his canteen-tin remained inside. the corporal, imagining himself _in extremis_, fell to the ground and called for the ambulance. somebody ran up to the prostrate man, and after a diligent but fruitless search for the wound at length discovered the bullet in the canteen-tin. the apparently moribund corporal, seeing this, instantly recovered, and leaping briskly to his feet told them to countermand the stretcher-bearers and pressed forward to the attack with renewed vigour. just as we left de aar a train full of queensland mounted infantry was entering the station _en route_ for the front. the occupants were in the highest spirits and cheered loudly. "ah!" said some of our poor fellows, "we were like that when we went up!" the contrast between the two trains--there, life and vigour: here, weakness and death--was very striking. so far from being "absent-minded" about their people at home, the wounded soldiers were continually thinking about their sweethearts, wives and families. several soldiers in my ward, _e.g._, had lined their helmets with ostrich feathers. "my eye," said they, "won't the missus look fine in these!" one of the reservists asked me: "do you think i shall lose my thigh? you see, i want to do the best i can for my family, and if i do lose my leg i shall be useless, as i work in the pits in fife." another scotchman, a shoemaker, was full of anxiety about the future support of his wife and children. "if only my wound," he said dejectedly, "had been below my knee instead of above it! because this"--pointing to the wounded spot--"is just the place i use for my work." yes! to mix with the rank and file of an army as one of themselves is a great privilege. one understands them in this way far better than through the medium of books. many little acts of unostentatious heroism are casually spoken of--noble deeds done by humble soldiers who live without a history and often perish without a memorial--as, for instance, the devotion of a private at modder river who applied digital pressure to the severed artery of a comrade for hours under fire and so saved his life. again, the soldier's religion, where it exists, is often very genuine indeed. just after the magersfontein reverse a wounded highlander entreated me to find his rosary for him which was hidden under a pile of accoutrements. on another occasion we picked up on the floor of the train a piece of paper which proved to be the will of a poor private, a roman catholic, who left "all he possessed" to the church. i need not say that this will was forwarded to the proper quarter. the wounded men too were frequently very grateful for any little services one could render them, and made us odd little presents by way of return. one h.l.i. man gave me the badges from his ruined khaki jacket, and an argyll and sutherland highlander bestowed upon me a pair of goggles he had taken from the face of a dead boer. by the time we reached richmond road the usual influx of private offerings for the wounded had, as usual, begun. we always left the front with the ordinary comforts of an ambulance train; by the time we reached capetown we looked like a sort of cross between a green-grocer's stall and a confectioner's shop. we simply didn't know what to do with the masses of fruit and flowers, puddings and jellies, which the people along the line forced upon us. these kindly folk--men, women and children--thrust their various offerings through the windows; then they peeped through themselves, and the women would say "poor dear" to some six-foot guardsman, who smiled his thanks or told them how he got hit. as i say, the train was, by the time we reached wynberg, simply choked with luxuries--some of them quite unsuitable for wounded men--a veritable _embarras de richesses_. we used to begin the journey with moderation and end it with a species of debauch! but it was most kind and thoughtful of these colonists all the same. by the time we reached wynberg on 16th december it was quite dark. a row of ambulance waggons stood ready beyond the platform, and in front of them a line of st. john's ambulance men, fresh from england, looking very spruce and neat. the wounded were speedily conveyed to the waggons and safely lodged in the hospital. on a former occasion one poor fellow died at the moment he was being lifted out of the train. my comrades and myself had had about six hours' sleep in three consecutive nights, and after we had remade the beds and swept the train we slept soundly. next morning we were on duty till twelve, when we were allowed a few hours' leave. a warm bath and a lunch at the royal hotel with a good bottle of wine was very welcome, and we were all in excellent spirits when the whistle sounded and we steamed away once more to the north with 600 miles before us. we halted again at de aar, where we remained till christmas. the weather grew hotter and hotter. the whirling dust, the stony plains, the glaring heat, the evening coolness, the glowing sunsets, the bare rocky hills, how it all recalled the sudan! train after train lumbered by with stores and guns and ammunition for the front, the whole of this enormous traffic being run on a single line of rails. amongst the most troublesome items to deal with were the mules. sometimes a mule would suddenly produce a violent uproar in a waggon by beginning to kick, his hoof against every mule and every mule's hoof against him. even if these beasties were taken out of the waggon to be watered their behaviour was unseemly. a soldier would with infinite patience marshal the mules in line with himself, their halters all tied together. the march would then begin, but within half a dozen yards the mules in the centre would press forward till the whole thing looked like a pyrrhic phalanx. the wearied soldier would then smite the aggressive animals, and, after a few more strides, the centre mules would hang back while the wings would close in, and then, as confusion became worse confounded, some of the restless brutes would commence to roll, and the group finally resembled a sort of mulish "scrum" with the soldier on his back as football. there were, of course, various camp services on christmas day: most of my comrades on the train went to the little episcopal church in de aar. the church of england community in this out-of-the-way village numbers some fifty all told. nevertheless these churchmen had contrived to build a pretty little church and their services were very hearty. officers, men, and two red cross sisters formed the bulk of the congregation and we listened to a delightful sermonette written and delivered in excellent style by the good vicar, an old corpus man at oxford. we sang the old familiar hymns, "while shepherds watched" and "hark, the herald angels sing," which took our thoughts away to distant homes and services in england, 7,000 miles away. at the close of the service came that hymn of prayer, "o god of peace, give peace again;" and as we walked back to the train a sergeant said to me: "if there is a god who will listen to prayer, my prayer for peace went straight to him". i think he spoke for all of us. most people who love war for war's sake are not soldiers. our christmas dinner was a most gorgeous affair. we were determined to do everything in the best possible style, and everybody helped. we first rigged up a trestle table beside the train and stretched a tarpaulin above it to shelter us from the fierce heat. three of our number were then despatched to secure all the green stuff they could for decorative purposes, and as the good people of de aar were quite ready to give us some of their scanty flowers and allow us to dismember their shrubs, our envoys returned with armfuls of material. the outside of the train and the surface of the table were gaily decorated, and two photographs of her majesty which we had cut out of magazines were framed in leaves and flowers and bits of coloured paper, the very best we could do! we had secured an order for some beer and a couple of bottles of whisky, and when these adjuncts had been duly fetched from the canteen we sat down to our christmas dinner. towards the end of it our kind and deservedly popular c.o. captain fleming, r.a.m.c., paid us a visit, with a civilian doctor and the two nurses. the captain made us a little speech and informed us that the queen had sent her best christmas wishes to the troops. we then cheered her majesty, and captain fleming and dr. waters and the nurses, and our visitors left us to enjoy the rest of the evening as we liked. after various toasts--the queen, our general, absent friends and so on--several comrades from other corps dropped in and every one was called upon for a song. it is curious to find the extraordinary popularity amongst soldiers of lugubrious and doleful songs. the majority of our songs at that christmas dinner dealt with graves and the flowers that grew upon them, on the death of soldiers and the grief of parents. one song, i remember, was almost ludicrously sad. it told how a young soldier on active service in the sudan or some other distant region hears, apparently by telepathic means, that his mother--the conventional grey-haired mother--is in some distress. the soldier at once, without any attempt to secure leave of absence, sets out for "home" on foot. he is brought back, and, as the excuse about his mother is very naturally discredited, the deserter is sentenced to be shot. just as his lifeless body falls back riddled with bullets the mother arrives--how, it is not explained--so, as the refrain has it, "the pardon comes too late". there were also several pauses in the conversation for "solos from the band," to wit, a flute and a fiddle. after dismantling the marquee and dinnertable we started through the darkness for modder river. we had thoroughly enjoyed our christmas fare, and k----, a scotchman, attempted with some success to perform a sword-dance on two crossed sticks, and when we pulled up at some station with a dutch name his fervid patriotism broke loose in an attempt to address the people on the platform, whom he apostrophised as "rebels" and threatened with dire vengeance. our cook was equal to the occasion. he dragged k---back and apologised to the aggrieved colonists, explaining--by a pious fraud--that he was k----'s father and so responsible for bringing him out that evening. our gleemen now stepped into the breach with "ye banks and braes," and we left the station amid cheers. another of my friends under the excitement of song and mirth frequently clutched my arm and pointed to imaginary batches of dutchmen standing suspiciously near the line and presumably intent on wrecking the train. these were usually prickly-pear bushes. when we approached modder river he exclaimed that we were now within range of the boer guns, and accordingly pulled up the windows as a sort of protection against shells and bullets. as we steamed into modder river station the 4.7 gun called "joe chamberlain" loosed off a lyddite shell at the magersfontein trenches. some desultory shelling continued on both sides at 7,000 yards, chiefly in the early morning and evening--a kind of "good day" and "good night" exchanged between "joe chamberlain" and "long tom,". during our stay on this occasion some excellent practice was made on both sides. on the 26th a shell from our gun struck a boer water-cask and smashed it to bits; next day a boer shell fell plump into a party of lancers and killed four horses. on another occasion more than fifty shells--so i heard--fell round the 4.7 gun, and although the gunners were compelled to seek cover the gun was absolutely uninjured. apart from this interchange of artillery fire the camp was undisturbed. the trenches were of course manned day and night, but spare time was filled up to some extent by various games. goal posts were visible here and there, and lord methuen had offered a challenge cup for "soccer" football, the ties of which were being keenly contested. we took on board a fresh load of sick and wounded men--chiefly the former--bound for wynberg hospital. just before we left i walked a hundred yards from the line and saw the graves of colonel downman, lieutenant campbell, lieutenant fox, and a swede called, i think, olaf nilsen. the graves were marked by simple wooden crosses: those who were enemies in life lay side by side in the gentle keeping of death, the healer of strife, for so the greeks of old time loved to call him. soon after leaving the modder the sky grew black with clouds, the birds hid themselves from view and the veldt-cricket ceased from his monotonous chirrup. then all at once the storm burst upon us. the lightning played incessantly and sheets of rain blotted out the kopjes and the veldt from view. it was in weather like this that our poor fellows advanced through the darkness upon the magersfontein trenches! at orange river we halted for some time, and somebody suggested a snake hunt in the scrub, but no one seemed very keen about this form of sport. the "ringhals" in the veldt are very deadly. i remember speaking to a kaffir about them and asking him if he had known of any fatal bites. he replied, pathetically enough: "yes, sah, a brudder of me--two hours, he was dead--mudder and sister and me was there". near enslin a most unhappy accident had occurred. a sentry of the shropshire had seen two figures advancing in the evening towards his post, had challenged, and, failing to get the prescribed reply, had fired off seven bullets into the two supposed boers, who turned out to be a sergeant and private of his own regiment. by a miracle both these wounded men ultimately recovered, but while we were at enslin we heard that the poor sentry was absolutely prostrated by grief and horror over the unfortunate affair. at a station lower down a lighter incident took place. a corporal from our train, a johannesburg man, in taking a short stroll came across three uitlander volunteer recruits. they did not for the moment recognise their quondam acquaintance in his uniform, so he called "halt!" the recruits became rigid. "medical inspection," cried the corporal--"tongues out!" three tongues were instantly thrust out. "salute your general," was the next order. this was too much. in the middle of a spasmodic attempt at a salute a dubious look began to spread over the faces of the three victims, which broadened into certainty as with a yell they leapt upon their oppressor and made him stand them a drink. at richmond road we came across a detachment of cape volunteers who were practising the capture of kopjes in the neighbourhood of the line. in condoling with one of them on the dreariness of the place, he remarked that they occasionally shot a hare with a lee-metford bullet. this is pretty good shooting if the hare is moving. i remember hearing a boer say with apparent _bona fides_ that he invariably shot birds on the wing with mauser bullets. some of his birds must have looked ugly on the table. as we passed through the karroo somebody remarked that a cape newspaper had suggested that our yeomen should ultimately settle in the country and continue their pastoral life in the veldt-farms of south africa. evidently the journalist who wrote this article imagines that our gallant yeomen were all tillers of the soil. even if they were, few englishmen will care to exchange the green fields and leafy copses of england for the solitude of these dreary, sun-baked plains. moreover, where is the land to come from for any considerable number of such settlers? practically all the land which is worth cultivating in the colonies of south africa and the two republics is already occupied. even if we confiscate the farms of those colonial rebels actually and legally proved to be such, i doubt very much whether the land thus obtained would provide for more than three or four hundred settlers. enthusiasts in england who write to the papers on this topic seem often to take for granted that the farms of the burghers in the two republics will at the close of the war be presented to any reservist or yeoman who wishes to settle in south africa. but is there any precedent in modern times for the confiscation of the private property of a conquered people? are the burghers who survive the struggle to be evicted from their farms and left with their wives and children to starvation? this would be a bad beginning towards that alleviation of race hatred after the war which all good men of every political party earnestly desire. there is, it is true, a certain amount of land owned by the state in the transvaal, but if we distribute this _gratis_ to a few hundred individuals we shall be depriving ourselves of one of the few sources from which a war-indemnity could accrue to the nation as a whole. nothing, of course, could be more desirable than the planting in south africa of a large body of honest, hard-working english settlers with their wives and families. but there are many difficulties to be overcome before the idyllic picture of the reservist surrounded by the orchards and cornfields of his upland farm can be realised in actual fact. the dutch farmers of south africa are as a rule very poor. they rise up early and take late rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, but their life is one of constant poverty. if we talk of "improvements" we must remember that irrigation in such a country is sometimes difficult and costly, and light railways demand considerable capital. who is to provide the money for these? i doubt very much if many englishmen or australians or new zealanders _who have seen south africa_ will exchange their present homes for the dreary and unproductive routine of an african farm. during the latter part of our run the kindly enthusiasm of the colonists was as much in evidence as ever. offerings of flowers and delicacies were again showered upon the wounded. it was amusing to notice how truculent some of the ladies were. one of them, as she put her welcome basket through the window, remarked _à propos_ of kruger, steyn, etc., "yes, bury them all, bury them all!" after our sick men had been duly conveyed to the hospital we stayed in capetown till the close of the year. a plentiful supply of english newspapers were lying about in the smoking-room of the hotel and it was exceedingly painful to read of the violent criticisms passed upon our generals. if journalists in england wish to criticise the behaviour of our generals, let them do so over their own signature when the war is over and these servants of the government can defend themselves fairly. during the progress of a campaign a general has practically no opportunity of defending himself against newspaper attacks. military success amid the surroundings of a south african campaign is often so difficult: criticism in fleet street is so easy! very frequently the same man who cheers wildly at waterloo and labels the outgoing general's luggage "to pretoria" is the first to vituperate the same officer if amid the vicissitudes of warfare some measure of defeat falls to his lot. military success does not depend entirely on the devotion or capacity of a commander. how cruel were those of the paragraphs which we read directed against our own general, lord methuen--the only british commander who had, if we except elandslaagte, won any successes up to the present. let the public wait before they so freely condemn a general who drove back the enemy in three successive engagements. that magersfontein was a bad reverse is patent to everybody, but the causes of that defeat are not nearly so apparent.[c] it is disgraceful that english newspapers should, during the progress of a campaign, print letters from soldiers at the front which asperse the character and conduct of their commanding officers. publicity of this sort strikes at the root of military discipline and common fairness too, for the public can scarcely expect a british general to reply in the public press to the letter of a private serving under him! the bells of the cathedral tolled mournfully as the old year died. would that its bitter memories could have perished with it! and then from steeple and steamship, locomotive and factory, a babel of sound burst forth as sirens and bells and whistles welcomed the birth of 1900. yet, as the shrill greetings died away, one heard the tramp of infantry through the streets. the capetown highlanders--a volunteer battalion--were under arms all that night, as a rising of the dutch had been anticipated on new year's day. may the new year see the end of this cruel strife, and the sun of righteousness arise upon this unhappy land with healing in his wings! as one sits in the dimly-lit wards while the train tears through the darkness, and nothing breaks the silence save the groan of a wounded man or the cries of some poor fellow racked with rheumatic fever--at times like these one thinks of many things, past, present and future. an ever-deepening gloom of military disaster seemed to be spreading itself around us--magersfontein, stormberg and the latest repulse on the tugela, a veritable [greek: trikumia kakôn]! of course, in the long run, we _shall_ and _must_ win. but what afterwards? will the vanquished dutch submit and live in peace and amity with their conquerors, or will they preserve the memory of their dead from generation to generation, and cherish that unspeakable bitterness which they at present feel for england and her people? verily all these things lie on the knees of the gods! aberdeen university press. footnotes: [a] since these lines were written lord roberts has personally testified to the misuse of the white flag in the paardeberg fighting. [b] cf. _the river war_, by winston spencer churchill, vol. ii., p. 394. "it is the habit of the boa-constrictor to besmear the body of its victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people in england, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that the enemy is utterly and hopelessly vile." [c] _cf._ tacitus, _agricola_, xxvii.: iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est; prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 41097-h.htm or 41097-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41097/41097-h/41097-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41097/41097-h.zip) transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original book have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). the sentence "he had been very lonesome for him.", starting on page 103, may be missing words. mary lee the red cross girl by helen hart illustrated by alice carsey whitman publishing co. racine ·· chicago copyright 1917 by whitman publishing co. racine ·· chicago dedicated to jane r. who makes an ideal red cross girl in the opinion of the author contents chapter page i. spring at the farm 15 ii. welcome guests 21 iii. a merry party 29 iv. first aid 37 v. mary lee writes a letter 43 vi. a picnic 52 vii. visiting the sanitarium 63 viii. preparations for the wedding 69 ix. dr. payson employs mary lee 76 x. aunt madge is married 83 xi. busy days 89 xii. indian jim's lucky strike 100 xiii. a happy red cross group 112 xiv. mary lee meets an old friend 118 xv. mary lee's legacy 125 xvi. a master story teller 132 xvii. aunt madge returns to the city 147 xviii. mary lee makes a decision 155 xix. letty and mary lee sell liberty bonds 162 xx. preparing for red cross work 169 xxi. "what shall we wear?" 175 xxii. working for "liberty" 182 xxiii. back on the farm 190 xxiv. bound for the camp 196 xxv. lost in the woods 204 xxvi. returning home 211 xxvii. another adventure 215 xxviii. "help! help!" 219 xxix. letty's surprise 228 illustrations page mary lee learned quickly and thoroughly (color frontispiece) "the girls miss you so much" 25 mary lee came tripping down the road 39 the sick man dictates a letter 49 bob makes himself useful at the picnic 55 savage was the face of black eagle 137 he made it a point to call on mary lee 151 mary lee writes to bob 185 "have you come to stay?" 188 mary lee, the red cross girl mary lee the red cross girl chapter i spring at the farm "from whom is the letter, mary lee?" asked mrs. quinn as she glanced up from her sewing. "from bobbie, and he says that they will land about the 15th. he wants to come right out here to the country to see our cozy new home. oh, dear, i can hardly wait to see him!" exclaimed mary lee, her eyes sparkling. "does he say that the french doctors have helped him any?" further questioned mrs. quinn. "helped him any?" repeated mary lee, "why, he's cured. he isn't a cripple any more at all. just think, he can walk again, as well as i can. isn't it a lovely world?" and the impetuous child threw her arms about mrs. quinn's neck and gave her a good hug. just then a voice from the outside called: "oh, mary lee, come quick. we've found something to show you." it was eddie quinn, the youngest boy, and mary lee upon hearing his excited voice, lost no time in rushing out to see what new delight was in store for her. mrs. quinn leaned back in her comfortable chair in the sunny south bay window, and as her eyes wandered about the cheerful room and out over the peaceful woodland view, her thoughts flashed back to the past. how different things were now from what they had been when mary lee--the little waif from the orphanage--had first come into their home as a mother's helper! they were then living in the crowded tenement district of new york city. how much sickness they had had! how often her husband had been thrown out of work! if it hadn't been for hopeful little mary lee they all would have lost courage. she put her little shoulder to the wheel with such determination that it seemed as if her efforts had pulled them out of the dreadful rut into which they were gradually sinking. yes, mary lee was always doing something for somebody. how brave she was the day she had saved bob cameron from drowning in central park! he was a little crippled boy who lived in one of the stately mansions on fifth avenue. a strong friendship, encouraged by bob's grateful parents, had sprung up between the two children. it had meant much to mary lee. her narrow little life began to broaden out--and consequently so did that of the quinns. bob's aunt madge had taken a great fancy to mary lee and had made it possible for her to become a campfire girl. then there was dear doctor anderson. he had operated on mrs. quinn when she had been so ill. seeing earnest little mary lee doing her best to help this worthy but unfortunate family along, he too had become interested. it was he who had made it possible for them to move out in the country where they could live on his farm. mr. quinn had shown his gratitude by proving himself a most capable manager the past year. was it any wonder as mrs. quinn sat thinking over all these things that a tear or two trickled down her cheeks? but it was not from sadness--for her heart was filled with the joy of living, and overflowing with love for mary lee, the little girl who had brought good fortune and sunshine into her home. in the meantime, tom and eddie had led mary lee over to a low-branched tree to behold their "surprise." "it's a nest," whispered eddie. "a real nest. see, it's just new!" "so it is," said mary lee. "what a cozy little home! but where do you suppose father bird and mother bird are? did we frighten them away?" "no," said eddie, "it was empty when we first saw it. but let's hide and maybe they will come back." "oh no," said mary lee, "let's go away before they return. if they suspected anyone was around they might move their nest. won't it be fun when we can see the little bird's eggs, and afterwards the little birdies themselves? but you must not tell anyone about this nest, will you? now promise," commanded mary lee. both boys promised. they also agreed not to look at their nest more than once a day. "now, see who wins the race to your father over there in the field," challenged mary lee. "one, two, three, go!" the children were off. tom won the race. "huh," said he, "i wouldn't let any girl beat me." "well, you wait until next time and maybe you will change your mind," answered mary lee. "have you come to help, children?" mr. quinn greeted them. while the boys assisted their father, mary lee returned to the house. as she came to the kitchen door, she thought she heard voices. then as she opened the door and went through the kitchen, she heard mrs. quinn say: "she will be here any moment. won't she be glad to see you both!" mary lee just jumped into the room, for she guessed who the visitors were. "aunt madge and dr. anderson--i'm so happy!" and the girl ran into miss cameron's arms. chapter ii welcome guests "my," said aunt madge, "how you are growing, mary lee. i never knew you to look so well and so pretty. who said country life would not agree with our mary lee?" "not i, for one," replied dr. anderson, as if the question were directed at him. "my own candid opinion is that, no matter what the place might be, if it had any idea of not agreeing with the young lady it would very soon change its mind. things simply cannot help but agree with mary lee!" "surely, it isn't because she's idle," added mrs. quinn. "you never saw anyone so busy and so anxious to do so many things. if i were to let her have her way, miss cameron, i would be sitting in my rocker all day with my arms folded." then mrs. quinn bethought herself of her duties as hostess. "surely, you are counting on staying for supper, such as it is, i hope?" both visitors laughed. "we certainly are, mrs. quinn. we half suspected you would ask us," answered dr. anderson, with a twinkle in his eye. "although i will confess that miss cameron had some scruples about coming at this hour." "yes," said that young lady, "it does look as if we were just forcing ourselves upon you, doesn't it?" "nonsense," replied mrs. quinn decidedly. "if you folks are not welcome here at all times, nobody is. but i had better start supper, if you will excuse me?" "certainly," said the doctor. "in the meantime i shall go down to the field to talk things over with mr. quinn. i suppose you will accept our invitation to go out in the automobile after supper, mary lee? we thought you and mrs. quinn would like a ride." "like it," enthusiastically replied the girl, "i'd love it." "it's nice of you to include me and i shall be glad to go," added mrs. quinn on her way to the kitchen. "i suspect you two have more than a few things to talk about and are waiting for me to follow mrs. quinn's excellent example," said the doctor, making for the door. "indeed we are," replied aunt madge laughingly. "mary lee and i are going to have a perfectly splendid chat." the two friends did visit for many minutes, but mary lee did not seem to be quite at ease. she wanted to stay and talk with aunt madge, yet she felt it was her duty to set the table and help mrs. quinn. aunt madge must have guessed what she was thinking about for she suddenly spoke up. "i know what's on your mind, mary lee, you dear, conscientious child. come, we'll both help set the table, shall we?" "do you really want to do that?" asked mary lee delightedly. "yes, i would like to very much," answered aunt madge. it took but a little while to set the table and complete the rest of the necessary work. it was done with many laughs and much enjoyment. when the two were through they entered the kitchen and insisted on helping mrs. quinn. but that lady shooed them out and would have none of them. "be off with you. you have time for a fifteen minute walk." "shall we?" asked aunt madge. and without waiting for an answer, she was off, mary lee at her side. they could not have wanted the walk very much, for when they sighted the big oak which was but a little way down the road, they made themselves comfortable beneath it. they were really anxious to have a heart to heart talk and this was just the place for it. "well, my dear, you can now ask me all the questions that are stored up in that little mind of yours. i shall try my best to answer them." mary lee needed no second invitation. she fairly swamped aunt madge with her deluge of questions. [illustration: "the girls miss you so much."] "how are the campfire girls, aunt madge? did they tell you when they were coming out here? didn't ruth and edith and letty send any messages with you? have you heard the wonderful news that bobbie and mr. and mrs. cameron are coming home at last? and, aunt madge--" but aunt madge laughed and interrupted the girl at this point. "wait, wait, mary lee. i guess i had better call a halt to your questions else i will not have time to answer them all before supper. yes, the campfire girls asked me to be sure to give you their love and to tell you that they miss you ever so much. letty and ruth and edith are coming out for next saturday and sunday so they did not send any message. in fact, my dear, they thought at first that they would not tell you at all and just surprise you. but they could not keep the secret and so they allowed me to tell you. are you glad?" "glad," replied mary lee, with glistening eyes. "that means they will be here in two days." "yes. and now as to the last question. i do know that the camerons are coming home, although i heard the news only yesterday. isn't it marvelous that bobbie is cured and will be just like other boys?" "now, my dear, i am going to tell you a piece of news which may startle you." aunt madge paused a moment as she felt the telltale blushes mounting to her cheeks. "doctor anderson and i are to be married next september on the eighteenth." mary lee beamed. "my--" was all that she could say. then the two, like silly little school girls, spent a few minutes in embraces, tears and kisses. "i'm so glad, so glad," said mary lee after she had somewhat recovered. "i just know how happy you both are. and, aunt madge, dr. anderson is a dear and i love him almost as much as i love you." "well, don't you ever love him more than you do me." aunt madge pretended to be very stern as she shook her finger warningly at mary lee. "i don't think i could do that," said mary lee, very seriously. "where are you going to live when you are married?" she questioned, still filled with the wonder of the news. "we are building a dear little home and it promises to look wonderfully lovely. my dear, you are to come and stay with us, ever so many times. you will, won't you, mary lee?" "i certainly will," said mary lee, decidedly. "it will be like home to me." aunt madge embraced the girl again. "you are such a comfort, little girl. and now, i think it is almost time to turn back," she suggested, after a silence of many minutes. "i hope we shall not be late for supper." they made their way back to the house. it was not a moment too soon, for as they approached they could hear the vigorous summons of the supper bell which was being sturdily wielded by tom. they ran the last hundred yards and arrived at the house out of breath. chapter iii a merry party dr. anderson and mr. quinn were already in the dining room, having arrived a few minutes earlier. they were still busily talking when aunt madge and mary lee entered. mr. quinn had completed his report of the work that had been done at the farm and was enthusiastic about the prospects for the coming summer and fall. the arrival of the newcomers halted the conversation. the doctor looked toward his fiancee inquiringly, and she nodded gayly to him, whereupon he grinned boyishly at mary lee and she smiled back at him. "well, mary lee, now that you know the secret, we can tell the rest of the folks," and he immediately proceeded to do so. mr. and mrs. quinn were delighted and their good wishes were cordial and sincere. they were very fond of these two friends and they felt they owed much to them. mixed with their gratefulness and appreciation was the glad feeling that this romance had been partly cemented through them and through their mary lee. "madge, dear," said dr. anderson, as they sat at the table partaking of the excellent and well-cooked supper. "mr. quinn has done splendid work here, but i cannot get him to admit that he works too hard." "i hope it will be the means of his making lots of money," replied miss cameron. "i'm glad he shares in the profits due to his labor and good management. dear, you were extremely fortunate to find so good a manager." "that i was," affirmed the doctor. but mrs. quinn couldn't see it that way. "fortunate, you fortunate? why, it's we who have to bless our lucky stars for being here." mr. quinn nodded his head very decidedly in confirmation. "that is the truth, friends," he said. "my wife finds it a real delight to live out here, and you know, work is never hard or arduous when one is in love with it. moreover, it's just the place for the children and for mary lee, too." the doctor turned to the latter. "i suppose you know, young lady, that you are to come to the city this fall and enter high school. both mr. and mrs. quinn know of it and have agreed that it is the thing for you to do." mary lee turned her happy, joyful face first toward dr. anderson and then toward aunt madge and mr. and mrs. quinn. "and if i go," she spoke slowly as if she were realizing what it all meant, "i shall be with ruth and letty and the other girls and i can be at the campfire girls' meetings and see bobbie and, oh, ever so many other things, can't i?" then her face clouded suddenly. "but won't mrs. quinn need me here?" she asked. "oh, i'm sure she will, and it's wicked for me to think of anything else. and anyway, i love it here, so much." "i'll not need you, my dear, except for your smiles and cheerfulness," said mrs. quinn from the kitchen. "you can just make up your mind you are going." and mrs. quinn spoke very decidedly. "you see," added aunt madge, "you really need the schooling. you are getting older and there are things you must learn and which you cannot acquire except in school. you must have an education to get on in the world." "by the way," interrupted the doctor, "has mary lee ever thought of what she is going to be when she grows up?" everyone in the room looked at the girl expectantly. "when i grow up," said mary lee, speaking in a way which showed she had made up her mind long ago, "i am going to be a nurse--a red cross nurse. in the meantime i am going to be a red cross girl." "why, of course," replied the doctor. "i remember now you did say last year that you wanted to be a nurse when you grew older. isn't it fortunate," he continued, "that i can help you because i am a physician. we will certainly give you lots of chances to become a good nurse and in the meantime you can learn much as 'mary lee, our red cross girl.'" "why, that's fine," said aunt madge enthusiastically, while the boys clapped their hands, and mr. and mrs. quinn both smiled proudly. "and," added aunt madge, "what mary lee has learned in the way of first aid to the injured as a campfire girl, will help her materially to be a good and capable red cross girl." mary lee just beamed. she was too happy to speak but her looks expressed her feelings. a very quiet though determined voice now spoke up. "i'm going to be a farmer boy, and when i grow up i'm going to be a farmer-man, just like father." it was eddie, the younger of the two boys. "why, of course," agreed the doctor, after the laugh was over, and looking at mr. quinn, who was smiling with great pride. "and i hope you will make as good a farmer as your father, eddie. and, tom, what are you going to be when you grow up?" tom spoke bashfully but yet none the less decisively. "i'm going to be a real sailor and go all over the world." "that's splendid, tom," said aunt madge. "yes, tom," added the doctor. "there are a lot of sailors-to-be until they reach the age of ten, so you won't be lonely." the merry supper party was now over. aunt madge insisted upon helping to clear the table and to dry the dishes. while the three were busily at work, dr. anderson and mr. quinn went out on the porch, to smoke. for a few moments the men puffed away in silence. then mr. quinn resumed the subject they had been discussing before supper. "you say you are having an investigation made, doctor?" "yes, mr. quinn. mr. cameron left instructions to do so before he went to europe. some day we may know who mary lee's parents were. i feel sure of that." "i hope so," answered the older man. "she has done so much for other folks, i hope we shall be able to do something worth while for her." mr. quinn continued after a pause. "do you know, dr. anderson, the child has absolute faith that some day she and her relations, those that are still alive, will be reunited?" "if that's the case, i think it would not be wise to let mary lee know anything of the search that is being made because something might turn up to shatter her hopes." mr. quinn nodded understandingly. a few minutes later, the ladies came out on the porch. the boys had already gone to their room as was their usual custom. "are we all ready for our ride?" the doctor asked. aunt madge nodded. they invited mr. quinn to join them, but he had some last duties to perform and he wanted to retire early. so he bade the guests good-night. the next minute the machine was gliding down the road. chapter iv first aid high above, the sun beat down relentlessly. not a breath of air stirred. there was the sleepy droning of the everlasting insects, the number of which seemed always magnified at such a time. there had been no rain for many a day. the dust was thick along the roads. now and then a passing automobile left an instant's breeze to be more than paid for in the swirl of dust. a solitary figure was scuffling along wearily. a casual glance marked him as a knight of the road, a tramp. but if you had stopped to observe a little more closely, you would have noted that he was not of that type, unkempt and bedraggled though he appeared. he had stopped at the last house on the road and then, after no little hesitation, had asked for a drink of water. he had rested for a few minutes--then he had gone on. the people in the house had noticed his obvious weariness and had asked him if he did not wish to rest. but the evident and simple kindness of the woman, who was mrs. quinn, had seemingly embarrassed the man. "thank you kindly, ma'am," he had replied huskily, "but i must be on my way." and so he had trudged wearily on. every move on this hot, breezeless day was an ache, as if he were stepping on live and tender nerves. he had been able to make but one half mile in an hour. then nature could do no more--and with a sigh, he had fallen to the ground. the heat had proved his master. along the road from the village which was two miles from the house where he had stopped, came mary lee. for her the heat had no terrors. there was beauty in this day, hot and merciless though it had seemed but a little while before. and, as you traveled with her, you also partook of the joy she received from nature, because, whatever its guise, it was nature nevertheless. [illustration: mary lee came tripping down the road] it was months since dr. anderson and aunt madge had visited her. letty and ruth had come almost every other week after that first spring visit. she had seen bob, too, almost the day after he had arrived from abroad. with him had come his mother and his father. it had been a wonderful summer for mary lee. how her heart rejoiced at the sight of bob, who had gotten out of the auto a little way down the road so that mary lee, who had been his playmate and friend, could see him walk up the road, no longer crippled but like other boys. bob had stayed over for a few days. mr. and mrs. cameron had been greatly pleased with mary lee. they were surprised at the way she had grown and admired the tanned cheeks and the clear eyes. bobbie was to come out again at the end of july and a few days later ruth and edith and letty were to come. and while all of them were at the farm, aunt madge and dr. anderson would drive out. as mary lee came tripping down the road, some of the joy in her was for the days to come. she was not only thinking of the coming of her friends but also of september when she would join these friends in the city and be as one of them. a spirit of gratefulness mingled with her other emotions as she thought of the rapid changes that had taken place in the short time she had been out of the orphanage. "some day," she said very softly, "i am going to make my friends very proud that they are my friends." it never occurred to this simple, lovely little girl, that she had already given them cause for their pride in the mutual friendship. "when bob and the girls come we can visit the sanitarium. if we can only get dr. anderson to go with us he can explain things to us and in that way we can learn so much more. then, too, we can have real campfires and meetings and bobbie can visit us as a boy scout." so her mind planned it all, as she hastened along. there was no need for hurrying, but it was never in the nature of this girl to move slowly. but often she stopped along the road for there were many things that drew her interest. "you poor things," she said to some dry and withered looking ferns along the way. "i shall practice being a real red cross girl with you." she hurried into the woods somewhat farther down the road and from a brooklet brought some water with which to give the ferns new life. this act set her to dreaming of her future when she would be a red cross nurse and of dr. anderson who was to give her the opportunity to gain the necessary experience. it was great work to relieve and cure the sick. then across her line of vision came a blurred form which she could not make out. she hurried forward. as she neared it she saw the body of a man lying prone upon the ground. for one moment there was a scared, helpless feeling within the girl. there was a great sinking in her heart. she seemed very small, very helpless. then from somewhere within her a small voice whispered: "mary lee, you are a red cross girl." chapter v mary lee writes a letter mary lee could never remember how she managed to place the unconscious form of the man against the tree so that the branches would afford some shade and protection from the sun's merciless heat. from the gate at which she was standing and from where she was searching the road for mary lee's return, mrs. quinn saw the girl running. she noticed her excitement and so hurried forward to meet her. "what is it, dear? what has happened?" she questioned anxiously. mary lee told her. from the account, mrs. quinn judged that the man had had an attack of sunstroke. she calmed the excited girl and immediately went about obtaining the necessary ice to use on the stricken man. the girl found good use for a first aid book which had been presented to her at one of the campfire meetings. from it she learned that mustard on the nape of the neck or the forehead would help to bring a person back to consciousness. she immediately went into the kitchen and procured some. mr. quinn was not about and so the two, mrs. quinn with the ice and mary lee with the mustard, hurried to the unconscious man, first sending tom after mr. quinn to bring the carriage to them. they found him still unconscious. mary lee applied the ice and then put a plentiful supply of the mustard upon the nape of the man's neck. then both watched anxiously for signs of a return to consciousness. it seemed hours before there was a flicker of returning life; as a matter of fact, it was less than ten minutes. when mr. quinn arrived with the carriage the man had regained consciousness, but he was obviously quite weak. "i think we had better take him to the sanitarium," said mary lee, "they will know what to do there." mrs. quinn agreed. she returned home, her husband driving toward the sanitarium, mary lee on the rear seat holding the man's head and applying the ice. the drive was over two miles and during almost all of that time, the sick man was either too weak to speak or lacked the inclination to do so. as they turned into the driveway which led to the hospital, he spoke in a low, weak voice: "i'm sorry to give you all this trouble, young lady. it is a misfortune for me as well as for all of you." then he paused for a second either through weakness or as if debating something in his mind. "i wonder if i can impose on your goodness a little more?" he asked as the carriage stopped at the entrance and mr. quinn went inside to speak to the proper authorities. "could you come and see me in the morning? i must have something attended to tomorrow and i suppose," he continued wanly and with the ghost of a smile, "i shall have to stay here at least that long." "i shall be glad to come," answered mary lee. "please do not worry. i am sure that it will be but a day or two before you are up and about again." an interne and two orderlies now came out of the hospital door with a stretcher. they carried the sick man into the emergency ward but would not allow either mr. quinn or mary lee to follow. they were told that they would probably be allowed to visit in the morning. but the man's case was evidently quite serious. mary lee called the next day and was informed that the patient had a high temperature and that it was impossible to permit any visitors. she was not allowed to see him until the fourth day. it worried her because of her promise and the man's evident anxiety to have the "something" attended to at once. on the fourth day, she was informed that the man was still weak but had insisted on seeing her. the nurse who spoke to her warned her not to stay too long. even as she opened the door she felt the surcharged eagerness of the man. he wasted no time in any greetings. "the doctor tells me i cannot hope to leave here for at least another week. he claims it is under-nourishment more than the heat." he rested a moment. "my name is tom marshall," he continued slowly. "i was on my way home from mexico where i have been for many years. about two months ago, i remember the day so well, the home of my mother and father and of my early youth seemed to be calling to me in a way i could not resist. i had been away from it for over fifteen years and not once before that time had i been homesick or felt the desire to go home. but the new feeling was such that a little boy feels--i wanted my mother more than anything else in the world. "my partner and i have a mine down there. we think it is a silver mine, but so far it has been hard to pinch anything out of it and we have found it a difficult matter even to exist. my partner is an indian but he would shame many white men. i have never known a squarer, whiter man. he found the mine. we both feel it is certain to make good some day. "enough of that, except to say that i went to him and told him how i felt. he insisted that i make the trip home. together, we scraped up enough money to bring me back about half the distance. i wrote home, the first letter i had written, i am ashamed to say, in four years. i told mother that i was coming home and to write me to st. louis care of the general delivery." the man paused again. he was watching the girl. he seemed to regain strength. "i suppose you wonder why i tell you all this. you will soon see. at st. louis a letter was waiting for me. it was from my cousin, not from my mother. i learned that father had died three years ago and that my mother was very sick. she had been overjoyed at the news that i was coming. but my cousin advised me to hasten my return, as he considered my mother's condition extremely serious. "i got as far as this by freight train, my money having given out at st. louis. the headway was slow and yet i could not stop to earn the money to travel any other way. i have had very little food, how little i had i never stopped to consider. my one desire has been to get home." [illustration: the sick man dictates a letter] "you see," the man continued in an eager way, "it seems that all the desire to see mother that i should have had all these years is crowded into the present. i had figured on cutting through to the river and stowing myself in one of the boats which would bring me nearer home; but the heat and the lack of food were too much for me, and here i am." the man paused once more. mary lee wondered if she were not staying too long; if the man were not going past his strength. yet he seemed anxious to complete what he had to say. "i have prayed that my mother live till i reach home. i want her to know that i am delayed. will you please write my cousin? tell him that i am very near and that i shall soon be well enough, but that he must not tell mother about my illness, just that i am surely coming. he must also let me know at once how she is. "you see, young lady, i cannot write myself just now, as the doctors think i am still too weak. i wanted this letter written four days ago. i am sure you will write understandingly. will you do it for me?" "i shall be very glad to," answered mary lee. "i am going to ask your cousin to telegraph regarding your mother's condition." the man nodded as if too spent to talk further. he handed mary lee a crumpled slip of paper on which was written the address for the letter. chapter vi a picnic ten days later found tom marshall home. the telegram had come from his cousin stating that the condition of his mother was unchanged. mary lee had told the quinns of the case and mr. quinn had paid a visit to the sick man. he had talked to him for a little while and convinced as to the truth of the man's story, had offered to lend him the money which would take him home. marshall had returned the money with a letter of thanks immediately upon his arrival home. now the end of july had come. letty and ruth and bob all came from the city on the same train. there was a delightful meeting at the town depot, and much happy, excited chattering on the part of the girls. on the way home, mary lee said: "i have planned a picnic lunch for this afternoon. i know a lovely spot and then we can take a long walk afterwards." "i'll tell you what," said bob. "if we could get some steak or chops i would give you the best eating you ever had. father showed me how campers cook." that sounded exciting to the girls. it meant, of course, stopping off at the village general store which in itself was a novelty. mary lee telephoned mrs. quinn and obtained permission to make the purchases. but bob insisted that the buying of the chops was his part of the party and insisted so strongly that he won his point. they drove home and when they passed the spot where mary lee had discovered the unconscious tom marshall she showed the place to her friends and told them the story. "my, but you were brave, mary lee," said letty admiringly. "i would have been so frightened i would have fainted." the guests helped in the preparation for the picnic as did tom and eddie who had also been invited so that bob wouldn't feel it was a girls' affair. besides, mary lee knew how much they would like it. it was after midday before they started on the picnic, and more than a half hour later before they reached their destination. it was truly a pleasant spot. a brook was running nearby and the trees grew so closely together that they formed a regular bower. the girls were so delighted that they immediately decided to use the place for all future meetings and named it campfire nook. in the meantime bob and eddie were hunting for a large flat rock on which to fry the chops, while tom gathered wood. "did you girls bring any matches?" suddenly asked ruth. letty looked at mary lee, who in turn looked blank. "of course, we need matches for a fire," added letty. "i'll warrant you bob forgot all about them too." it struck the girls as a great joke, even though they were beginning to be hungry. they decided that they would not say anything to bob until he had everything ready and realized for himself that there were no matches with which to start the fire. [illustration: bob makes himself useful at the picnic] when eddie and bob returned the girls said nothing about forgetting the matches, but waited to see the fun. but bob fooled them. he brought forth some matches from his pocket and lighted the fire in the approved way. "did you have them all the time?" asked letty, somewhat crestfallen. "why, of course," answered bob as if he could never forget so important a thing, when, as a matter of fact, he had only recalled that he would need matches at the last moment. as soon as the big flat stone eddie found had been cleaned and heated in the fire, the chops were well seasoned and placed upon it. the meat smelled and looked so appetizing that the girls stopped their own preparations to watch it cook. bob turned the chops with a would-be fork which he had made from a small branch, and soon the first supply was ready. "isn't bob clever, to be able to do this?" said mary lee as she ate her chop. "aren't they delicious?" commented letty, while ruth nodded in assent. the boys were even more enthusiastic and everyone took a second helping. it made bob very happy to have his experiment turn out so successfully. in addition to the chops there were delightful sandwiches, and mrs. quinn had furnished some delicious fruit and fresh cake. after lunch was over, the girls sat about anxious to have a talk. bob, eddie and tom thought they would like to investigate the source of the brook and so they were off. "aren't you excited about aunt madge being married, mary lee?" asked letty. "yes," added ruth, "and i know who are to be the bridesmaids." if ruth expected that this information would cause a commotion, she was not a bit disappointed. "you do?" queried letty. "can you tell us?" asked mary lee. ruth pretended she did not hear them, having found something on one of the trees which interested her. letty and mary lee laughingly and excitedly surrounded her, urging her to give them the information. "won't you tell us?" repeated mary lee coaxingly. "oh, it isn't a secret," answered ruth, "and i can tell you." "well," said letty decidedly, "i know that you and mary lee will be two of the bridesmaids." "there are some things you do know, letty," said ruth teasingly. "then there are other things you do not know." "i know i am not to be one of them," remarked mary lee. she meant it, too. there were so many nice girls who would naturally be chosen before her. "but i am sure that letty will be one. i just feel sure of that," she added. "well, there are some things you also know, but there are many things you do not," answered ruth trying hard to be evasive. mary lee and letty sprang up to encircle ruth and compel her to give them the news, but the latter was just as quick in escaping them. mary lee, however, soon caught her and held her so that she could not move. "now, will you tell?" asked letty. "i was dying to tell all the time," replied ruth laughingly. "the bridesmaids will be--" and she paused. "i think i have forgotten." mischief was still in her eyes. letty pretended to be very threatening, while mary lee took a firmer hold. "oh, yes," continued ruth, "now i remember. they are to be edith--and, of course, you sillies, we are the other three." the conversation then changed to what they would wear, for to all of them the coming occasion was one of the most important of their lives. "what will you wear?" asked mary lee. she was excited over what the two friends intended to wear even though she knew that she herself would have to wear her party dress which was a simple little white organdie with a pink sash. she was thankful though she had a leghorn hat with pink streamers. her white canvas slippers with lisle stockings would have to do. "what do you girls think of my wearing my pink crepe-de-chine dress and my new pink hat with those pretty rosebuds and foliage encircling the crown, and pink slippers and stockings?" asked letty. "i know i am not going to be anywhere up to you, letty. i can only wear my white dress over pink china silk and a white hat with a very pale pink bow, and white buckskin slippers with white silk stockings," said ruth. "well, no matter what we may wear," said letty, "mary lee will be the prettiest of us all. tell us your plans, mary lee," she added. "mine are very simple, for it isn't hard to decide when you haven't many things to pick from," was the unembarrassed answer. "i haven't much else than my white organdie party dress." after discussing what they would wear at the wedding the girls next talked over their plans for school the coming fall. "the nicest part of it all is that you are to stay with me," said letty to mary lee. just then there was a shout from the boys who were on the other side of the brook, so the girls hurried forward to meet them. it was now after five o'clock and time to go home. bob and mary lee managed to walk along together. "well, bob," asked the girl, "what are you going to do this fall?" "i'm to go to the academy, father says. he wants me to mingle with other boys. i shall be glad to do so, too." "you and your father are great friends now, aren't you?" questioned mary lee. "we certainly are. dad's great and he teaches me many things," the boy replied. "i tell you, it's wonderful to be like other boys and be able to do what they do. it seems to me i will never cease marveling at it. do you know, mary lee," the boy continued, "both mother and father think just everything of you? father often says that your coming seemed to bring rays of sunshine into our house which have always stayed." the girl blushed. "how kind they are to say such delightful things," she exclaimed. "it is glorious to have such friends," she continued gratefully. letty and ruth joined them at this moment. the house was now but a little way down the road. both bob and mary lee were glad to have had this talk, short though it was. chapter vii visiting the sanitarium aunt madge and dr. anderson were to come out two days later. there was so much to do in these two days, however, that the time flew quickly. mary lee did not neglect her duties but with the help of her friends she was able to get through early so that most of the day was free. the first picnic lunch had been so successful that they had unanimously planned for another. there were, however, so many other things to do that it was put off for the arrival of the newcomers. dr. anderson brought his car and almost in the first moment of his arrival had made plans for a long ride, but mary lee reminded him of her plan to visit the sanitarium. "well, mary lee," he agreed good humoredly. "of course, it will be talking shop for me to take you youngsters through, but if that is what you wish, i will gladly do so." "suppose we take our ride later," suggested bob, who felt more at liberty to suggest than the others because aunt madge was his aunt and dr. anderson would soon be his uncle. "we could stay out late and you could return to town in the morning." aunt madge laughed. "it's not so easily planned as all that, but even then i think we can manage." dr. anderson telephoned the hospital as soon as they reached the house. he obtained permission almost at once to go through with his party. his business with mr. quinn was transacted in half an hour and so it was still quite early in the morning when they reached the hospital. it was a large institution which made a specialty of certain kinds of cases, but it also had an emergency ward. the doctor explained so thoroughly, yet so simply, to his listeners as they went through the operating rooms, etc., that they could not help having a good conception of the necessary treatment of the sick. in the midst of an explanation he saw mary lee's attention centered on a nurse who was taking the temperature of a patient. "yes, mary lee, that is what you will be doing some day. you have made a splendid choice of profession. it will take many years--there is much you must learn. i know," he continued, jestingly, "folks will be glad to get sick just so that they can have dr. anderson treat them and nurse mary lee take care of them." "it isn't going to take as many years as you think," loyally replied bob, taking up the cudgels, "for mary lee has already begun." and he told aunt madge and the doctor of tom marshall. to bob, because he was a boy, the part that had to do with the silver mine in mexico was important and so he dwelt upon it. "tom marshall told mary lee that he has a partner who is an indian and who is a whiter and squarer man than many white men," concluded the boy. for one moment, dr. anderson wondered at this last remark the boy had made. "an indian for a partner, eh?" he remarked. then he laughed at the foolishness of his thought. of course, there could be no connection between jim lee, the indian who had been a servant to mary lee's mother out west, and this indian bob had spoken about. "you didn't say what the indian's name was, did you?" he asked. mary lee answered, "no, i never thought to ask." "well, let's be on," dr. anderson said, casting away all thoughts and conjectures as to the possibilities along this line. "that was a good home remedy you applied to the man, mary lee," he continued, changing the subject by referring to the mustard the girl had applied for the sunstroke. it was long past the time for lunch when they left the hospital. probably mary lee learned more than any one of the others from this visit, for everything had been of such vital interest to her. she remembered much of what the doctor had told them. immediately after the late lunch which mrs. quinn had prepared for them they started out. the girls noticed with astonishment that aunt madge was driving the auto. "oh, yes," she replied in answer to their exclamations, "dr. anderson taught me. i find it easy to drive here in comparison with the city. it isn't hard," she added with all the certainty of one who has already learned. "tell you what, madge, dear, i'll teach one or two of these youngsters. shall i?" "what a fine idea," aunt madge replied, giving up her seat. neither letty nor ruth would attempt it, however. bob already knew, but mary lee welcomed the opportunity of learning. dr. anderson found her an apt pupil and after the first hour he let her drive the car alone, taking the precaution, of course, of keeping his foot on the emergency clutch. at the end of another half hour, the doctor replaced her and put on extra speed. the car whizzed along now. at four o'clock he found a suitable place and stopped. the whole party got out and made themselves comfortable. aunt madge broke the news of the girls' appointment as bridesmaids. "too bad, bob, you are not quite old enough, or i would make you my best man," said the doctor. "at any rate, i'll be there," the boy replied. but the girls were not listening. they were eagerly discussing their plans with aunt madge. the doctor and bob looked at them with much amusement and then walked down past the car and on. it was soon time to return, however. long after seven the party reached the house. neither aunt madge nor dr. anderson could stay over and they began their long trip home. the girls and bob were a tired, happy lot and retired almost at once. chapter viii preparations for the wedding at last september came. mary lee reached the city ready for school and her duties as bridesmaid. she had left the quinn home with mixed feeling; sadness at parting from such good friends and joy at the thought of entering new experiences; it was exhilarating to come to a turning point in life. for the quinns, however, mary lee's departure had brought only sorrow. they tried hard to be unselfish, to be glad for her sake. but they felt intuitively that she had gone for good, that she would never return, and their attempt to appear glad, if the truth must be told, was a sorry failure. mrs. cameron had taken it for granted that when mary lee came to the city, she would make her home with them, and ruth had hopes of having her stay at her house. letty, however, had insistently claimed that mary lee should stay with her. in fact, mary lee had been letty's guest the very first night. considerable debate came up the second day over this question, when mary lee and letty had called for ruth and the three had made a call on mrs. cameron. dr. anderson had been a luncheon guest and was still there when the girls arrived as, of course, was aunt madge. the argument as to where mary lee should stay became quite heated although it was carried on with good nature. each one was insistent about carrying her point. the prospective guest, and aunt madge as well as the doctor had found the discussion amusing and the latter, in particular, man like, poked fun at all of them. "well, mary lee," he remarked, "no one would class you as an undesirable. nor could you be considered in the light of a poor relation." "from the way you folks talk," added aunt madge, "one would never infer that the victim had any rights in the matter nor that there might be a possibility that she would have a preference as to where she would like to stay." nothing could have flustered mary lee more than this. she showed such distress and embarrassment at any likelihood of having to decide the argument, that aunt madge took instant pity upon her. she regretted her interference and came quickly to the relief of the girl. "no," she interposed. "on second thought, we shouldn't let her decide. i'm certain that it would be pleasant for mary lee at any of your homes." "yes," said dr. anderson, "we must keep her out of this important discussion, slave that she is," he added with mock ferocity. everyone laughed but letty. she was so anxious to have the question decided in her favor that she did not even hear what dr. anderson had just said. she had listened with some dismay and misgiving to the first suggestion that mary lee be allowed to choose her own home. the new letty dared not hope that she would be chosen in preference to ruth and mrs. cameron. "i know what we will do," dr. anderson said. "we two, i mean," and he nodded his head toward aunt madge to avoid calling her name. one of the delightful things about him was that he could not overcome the habit, try as he would, of blushing when mentioning his fiancee by name. worst of all, their friends were acquainted with this characteristic. he was annoyed with himself for not being able to overcome it, and, wisely so he thought he had decided to avoid the amused watchfulness of these friends by failing to mention her by name. this time, he was fairly caught. "which two do you mean?" mary lee asked innocently even as aunt madge, mrs. cameron and the girls watched him with laughing eyes. "which two?" the girl repeated. dr. anderson scowled. "why, madge and myself," he replied and then could feel himself turning brick red even though he made every effort to appear unconcerned. and while they all laughed, he continued as if he did not hear them: "madge and i will be the judges as to where mary lee is to stay. you are all to prove prior rights as they do in all claims upon valuable property." neither mrs. cameron nor ruth, however, could bring forth any such proof except that the former had never considered that there could be any question about it. as for ruth, she had just hoped that mary lee would naturally want to stay with her. "well, then," triumphantly declared letty, "mary lee was invited by me long, long ago, when she first moved out to the farm. weren't you, mary lee?" she asked as she pointed an excited finger straight at the girl. she was so much in earnest that it raised another laugh. "i was," answered mary lee, and in her heart there was a great warmth and affection for all these dear friends who were so earnest in their desire to have her stay with them and in particular for this warm-hearted, impetuous letty. "the jury will now retire," said dr. anderson. aunt madge and he went into a far corner and were in earnest discussion for several minutes. finally they returned. "we, the jury, decided that mary lee is to stay with letty. but--" and the doctor paused impressively--"she is to make long visits to the other claimants at reasonable times, and in view of the valuable services of the jury she is to make equally long visits to the jury after a certain very happy event takes place." there was more laughter and general satisfaction on the part of all. before the girls left mrs. cameron called mary lee aside for a moment. "my dear," she said, "i have ordered a party gown for you to wear at the wedding. can't you stay here until tomorrow and try it on?" mary lee was greatly distressed. "oh, i'm so sorry, mrs. cameron, but i can't accept your wonderful gift. you are so kind and it is so very tempting." she paused. "you see," she continued, "i have my pretty white organdie dress which is almost new. i do not wish to become further indebted to any of you; you have all been so kind and i already owe you so much. i just hoped that my simple dress would do. dear mrs. cameron, i hope so to earn enough to pay my way while in the city in order that i can be self-reliant." mrs. cameron thought for a moment. it was a little hard to overcome her disappointment. she had set her heart upon this gift. "you know," continued mary lee, and there were tears in her eyes at the disappointment she was causing, "i appreciate your kindness so much. but i do hope you can see my side of it," she concluded. "you shall have your way, my dear," answered mrs. cameron bravely and wholeheartedly, as she took the girl in her arms and gave her a good, motherly hug. chapter ix dr. payson employs mary lee the week of the wedding arrived. it proved a feverish time for them all. the days flew swiftly. the two preceding weeks had been a mad rush, so they all thought, and they now decided that these last days fittingly capped the climax. for the girls, this last week brought the important--but up to now, neglected--event of school opening strongly to their attention. it was to take place three days after the wedding. there was need to plan and prepare for that as well. it was mary lee who found time to be of help to everyone. the excitement left her untouched. there were things she also had to plan and do, yet she proved a blessing to the harrassed and distracted bride who preferred her help to that of anyone else. the girl also was able to help mrs. cameron whose responsibilities as matron and hostess were great. ruth, too, usually independent, welcomed her help. as for letty, full of the excitement of these days, it required all of mary lee's strength of mind to counteract the desire of the former to stay up night after night to discuss the coming events. mary lee was the necessary balance for such a nature as letty's. with all this, mary lee set to work to carry out certain other plans that had nothing to do with either of the two important events. and, strangely, too, she was able to enlist the services of dr. anderson at this time. that poor man, with each day's nearer approach to the event found himself of less and less importance. there was little opportunity to see his fiancee who was enmeshed in numberless engagements with dressmakers and, so it seemed to him, with everybody in town but himself. mary lee found him in this frame of mind on the morning she called at his office, only three days before the wedding. she had been surprised to find that he would be glad to see her at any time, when she called him on the telephone. "i didn't dare expect that i could see you so soon," she apologized after greetings had been exchanged. "all i could do was to hope for it." the doctor, however, gave no sign of being very busy. on the contrary, he seemed to indicate that he had prepared for a long and pleasant visit with her. "i haven't a thing to do," he remarked. "i turned over my practice for the next two months to dr. stewart on the presumption that i could be fairly useful to _her_ and because, so i thought, of the opportunities i would have to see _her_. then, too, i had a large number of things that required attention. "and," he added with a wry face, "i have found plenty of time to attend to the things that required attention, for, lo and behold, i find _her_ without any time for me and the kind of help i can give _her_, she doesn't need. so you see, mary lee, i have lots of time on my hands and am glad of the chance to see any friends who have time for me." "dr. anderson," the girl came directly to the subject nearest her heart, "i wondered if you would not know someone who perhaps would be in need of the services of a girl like myself for after school hours." the doctor whistled in amazement. "honestly, young lady, you are a creature of surprises. what made you think of that, when there are so many of your friends who would make you more than welcome?" "i know they would," the girl replied, "but i shall never feel content to live on their bounty and i shall only be happy when i am as independent as is possible." "you are right, mary lee," he agreed in hearty approval. "it is the only normal thing to do. well," and he paused in deep thought. he knew that mary lee would be mortified if he should suggest that he employ her, for that would make it seem as if she were bidding for a position in his office in an indirect way. he knew her well enough to be quite certain that it would be best to place her elsewhere. "i shall see some of my friends who are likely to need an able assistant part time. of course, with the training you desire you naturally would prefer a doctor's office." mary lee nodded in assent. after a few inquiries as to the hours the girl would be able to give to the new duties and a friendly warning, which the doctor decided was almost unnecessary as to the demands of employers, the subject was changed and the conversation changed to aunt madge. the girl tried hard to give the doctor an idea of how busy his fiancee was, the many things that needed attention and the tremendous amount of preparations necessary for it. even though he had but a small conception of it all, she felt that she had made him understand a little more closely. at the end of a half hour, she departed after thanking him warmly for his interest. the doctor was prompt in making inquiries. one of his friends, dr. payson, could use mary lee's services after school hours and saturday mornings. but he would also need her at ten o'clock for one hour on two mornings of each week. dr. anderson immediately called her up with the good news. "of course, it does not pay much, but payson will probably find you useful and give you every opportunity to learn. it will be good experience and of great help to you later, when you enter training school. the money it pays is as much as three dollars every week," the doctor added laughingly and apologetically. but if that sum did not seem big to him, it did to mary lee and she told him so. it had been more than she had expected. the only hitch was the question of being free at ten on two school mornings. she consulted letty in reference to this and received the welcome assurance from her that study hours were often arranged so that free time could be obtained. she called on dr. payson with dr. anderson. he proved to be a kindly, middle aged man and from all appearances seemed satisfied as to her possible usefulness to him. mary lee did not know that dr. anderson had given a full account of her sense of responsibility and likable qualities and that it was his enthusiastic recommendation that had persuaded his friend to try mary lee instead of employing an older assistant for full time. "well, mary," he started to say, but dr. anderson interrupted him. "not mary, payson, not mary. this young lady's name is mary lee. be sure to remember the lee. we sometimes think that her mother did not name her lee after a loyal indian, as she would have us believe, but because she wanted her little girl's name to sound as if it were mer-ri-ly. that name fits her." as mary lee blushed, dr. payson remarked laughingly, "i am sure i shall find her very pleasant and agreeable. i shall also be sure to remember that it is mary lee i am to call her, in the future." chapter x aunt madge is married aunt madge had always been a firm believer in simplicity and she made that the predominating tone of the ceremony. she had a fair share of worldly riches and yet she had not, as our readers who have grown to know her must readily realize, ever made use of her wealth for garish display. there was a fine dignity and charm about the ceremony of the marriage that came through the gifted touch of true womanhood. it was at an old church, beautiful, stately and with that atmosphere that brings of itself devoutness, religious fervor and conviction. a wonderful organ played, as down the aisle came ruth and edith, followed by letty and mary lee. the four girls were as fair as the flowers they carried and made a charming picture that brought forth a murmur of admiration. about them, too, as if to fit in with the entire impressiveness, was a sense of quiet and repose that to those who knew them measured the significance and importance of the event for them. mrs. cameron as matron of honor followed, and dr. payson escorted the bride. the bridegroom? he had been waiting with dr. payson, his best man, at the altar throughout the entire ordeal. but we shall speak of him a little later, for our eyes are upon the bride as she goes, slowly and yet in perfect time of music, down the broad aisle to the altar. all brides are beautiful. and yet, margaret cameron made a picture that was to stay in the minds of those present for many a day. one stores away memories and impressions of that kind. we are so built that everything must be symbolized. for as one thinks of green woods, there is sure to come the picture of one certain spot, one certain nook to symbolize it; so, for many of those present, there would, in the same way, come a picture of margaret cameron as she appeared that day, whenever thereafter weddings and brides were spoken about. the fineness of her! she carried a shower bouquet of white roses and lilies of the valley. her head-dress was very becoming--a bridal veil prettily arranged--and her gown was a simple creation of white satin draped gracefully, trimmed with some rare old lace which belonged to her mother, and which had adorned her bridal gown. we wish we could defy the conventional and the expected and say for the groom that he was fully at ease, self-contained, in full command of the situation. poor man, we wish we could say it and remain truthful. we could not do both. never was any man more in need of help. dr. payson had a busy time of it. his whispered instructions fell on deaf ears, the owner of which was too scared to even hear. at the proper time, too, he was almost dragged to the proper place. he did, however, manage to answer, "i will" distinctly. and as if that had been the goal, once he did that, some of his composure came back to him. dr. payson always insisted thereafter that his friend had primed himself for the "i will" and was unequal to anything else. "why, i actually felt sorry for him," he said. "his knees were trembling and knocking against each other. i couldn't make out the thing he was mumbling but i feel certain he was only rehearsing to himself 'i will, i will, i will.'" there was the usual rush of friends after the reverend dr. arthur had tied the knot, and the shower of congratulations. it was the plan of the married couple to leave at once. to the new benedict, it seemed, however, that the number of their friends was unlimited and the time they took to offer their good wishes hours and hours. but all things have an end and so the andersons were off at last. mrs. anderson had found the opportunity for an affectionate leave-taking from her girls and also from bob cameron. she had promised to write to them, too. some of the tenseness of the last few days seemed to go with the couple. mrs. cameron sighed with relief--relief over the fact that there had been no hitch and that the event had gone through so smoothly. belief, too, that the worry and bustle were over. for the girls there came a moment of reaction. just what would take the place of the excitement and planning of the last few weeks? school seemed tame in comparison. even the fact that mary lee had procured a position for some of her spare time had not created the furore that it would have under ordinary circumstances. "it certainly seems strange to think of aunt madge as mrs. anderson, doesn't it?" asked ruth as the party started for the door. "and i suppose that's what we'll have to call her, too, instead of aunt madge," added letty ruefully. "and precious little we shall see of her from now on, i suppose," was edith's contribution. "i declare when i grow up i just won't marry and desert my friends, i just won't." the sense of injury was growing stronger and it was so voiced by letty. the rest of the girls laughed at her. "you'll be the very first one, letty dear," mary lee answered her, as she gave the impetuous letty an affectionate hug. "come, girls, let's plan for school," she added. dr. payson was just entering his car as they came to the street. "don't forget, mary lee," he called to her. "be sure to report on time." "i certainly will," answered mary lee. chapter xi busy days ten days later school was already in full swing. mary lee had been placed in a grade lower than her friends because she had lost so much time while at the orphanage and at the quinns. she had been able to arrange for the necessary spare time and so was able to become dr. payson's "assistant," as he jokingly called her. each of the girls had received a card from the andersons who were now in the adirondacks and who were to remain there for several weeks. mary lee had also received a letter from tom marshall, forwarded to her by mrs. quinn. he was on his way to mexico and he told her that his mother had died, but so peacefully that it had left him no bitterness. his sorrow held only the regret that he had not been more with his mother during the last few years. he thanked mary lee again for her help and voiced the hope that he would see her again some day. pleasant days followed each other. the girl enjoyed her work at dr. payson's office as much as she did school. what time she did not devote to her studies and to the office was spent agreeably with the other girls. it had been decided to hold the campfire meetings on friday nights and the girls were doing fairly well in the absence of their leader, aunt madge. following mary lee's example, they were desirous of being red cross girls. ruth, who was secretary, was instructed to write to the red cross committee volunteering the services of the seven girls. "what can we do?" alice brown, one of the girls, pessimistically asked. "why, we can make bandages, after a few lessons," replied mary lee. "and some of us can sew and knit," added letty. "oh," said alice, as if a light had struck her. "why of course." before they could get a reply to their letter, the president and congress had declared war against germany. this made them doubly eager for their answer and with the idea of preparing ahead of time, at mary lee's suggestion, they immediately invited miss walker, a friend of mrs. anderson, who was a trained nurse, to teach them how to make such bandages as might be needed. miss walker readily consented to give one evening a week to teaching them. the war came somewhat close to mary lee when dr. payson told her that he intended to answer the first call for physicians. "would you like to come along?" he asked her jestingly. the girl took his question seriously and for a moment was not sure. she pictured the wounded and dying with her ready imagination and felt as if she would not be equal to it. then a new and clearer thought came. "if i'm to be a nurse," she said determinedly to herself, "i mustn't think of such things. i mustn't think of myself at all." but dr. payson, who had watched the serious minded girl with considerable amusement, added: "there isn't any need for sudden decision on your part. i'm afraid you couldn't come even if you would. you are somewhat young, for one thing, and i hope there won't ever come a time when they will need anybody so young," he concluded as a serious look came into his eyes. then he changed the subject and went into a detailed explanation of what was to be done with a case that was to come in a little later that day, and how he would expect mary lee to assist him. she listened carefully as she was anxious to get practical experience. "i wish i could have you here all the time," dr. payson remarked a little later. "you are such a help. i tell you this because i feel sure it won't turn your head." the girl flushed with gratification and vowed to herself that she would give her very best to her work always. and although dr. payson did not add it, he had noticed with considerable satisfaction how neat the girl was and how strong a point she made of keeping things in order. in the midst of a number of questions one afternoon, a sudden thought struck her and she stopped short. "i'm sorry, dr. payson, i should not be bothering you with my many questions," she remarked contritely. "i didn't realize before, how many i ask." "you are not bothering me," he answered with decision. "i want you to ask questions; in that way i shall be able to get your best help, so be sure you always do." after that mary lee, taking him at his word, never hesitated. in this way she was learning much and daily growing more efficient. letty, for one, was keenly interested in mary lee's position and at such time when she was free she begged to be allowed to go with her to dr. payson's office. but excepting saturday mornings when dr. payson did not come to the office, mary lee, much as she would have liked to have letty with her, had to reluctantly refuse permission. she felt that the situation was not play and even on the saturday mornings that letty did come she made her help in getting things in order. school events were now in full swing. mary lee became a member of the basket ball team because of her quickness and strength. at the same time letty was made a substitute. at one of the campfire meetings mary lee suggested to the other girls that they start a large junior red cross group at high school. the idea took like wildfire at school and over forty girls made application at the first meeting. the idea had the enthusiastic backing of miss james who was a teacher in english at the school and who had been made the director of the group by the faculty. "suppose," said miss james, "we form a committee on plans. there will be so much to do and so many in the school who will be anxious to join that we should have plans formed." the girls all agreed. besides miss james seven girls were appointed, and mary lee, letty and ruth were three of them. as if to help the committee on plans the answer from the red cross committee came to ruth the next morning. ruth read the letter through breathlessly, and then hurried over to meet letty and mary lee before their departure for school. the two girls were just leaving the house as ruth turned the corner. "mary lee, letty!" she called to them excitedly and waved the letter. passers-by stopped and smiled at the girl and her excitement but she was heedless of the stir she was causing. mary lee and letty turned at the call and hurried to meet her. "i've got the letter! i've got the letter!" she exclaimed. "will they let us do anything? what do they say? let's sit down and read it," letty responded with great eagerness. mary lee, not a bit less excited, turned to see where they could sit down. "let's sit down here," she directed and the three girls seated themselves on the steps of letty's house. mary lee then immediately turned to the letter. it was of considerable length. it told the girls that the help they could give at the time was threefold. while some of it might not at first thought be the red cross work, as they probably had associated their idea of it, it was, as they would realize after a little thought, the best kind of red cross help. the letter closed very nicely, after outlining the things they could do, with an appreciation of their offer which was so opportune and the assurance that their help was greatly needed. "my," said mary lee, "it's like ready made plans for our committee. let's hurry and show it to miss james. we'll be late if we stop and talk it over, there is so much to consider." so the girls hurried to school with a consciousness that the opportunity for service was straight ahead of them and in definite, concrete form. after the first period, the three girls were free and they immediately hastened to see miss james. "it is perfectly splendid, isn't it?" was her comment after reading the letter through. "i wonder how many of the rest of the committee can be excused so that we can go over this letter at once." two of the other girls could come and they did. miss james then read the letter aloud. "you see, girls, they want us to plan along three different lines. first, and this is the plan that we all had--we should turn to making useful things which would be used by our soldiers and our allies. you see, they want us to be very practical about this. "second, they want every member of this group to help in the planting of some vegetable garden. that is a splendid practical idea, not hard to follow and it should prove of great benefit inasmuch as the food supply of the country would be materially increased. "third, they want us to form a division whose work will be to call attention of households to the great need of eliminating luxuries, and being economical and frugal. that, too, is possible for us to do. "of course, young ladies, we by ourselves can do our share. but it helps to know that there are to be other groups like our own formed throughout the country--for that means we shall be a part of a very big thing." "isn't it fine?" mary lee added with great enthusiasm. "president wilson said the other day that help, such as this, is just as necessary and useful as the service the soldier gives." "we'll call a meeting of the group tomorrow afternoon, shall we?" asked miss james. "this afternoon we can get a report into definite shape." "but, miss james," interrupted letty. "if we have our meeting this afternoon, mary lee cannot be present. she is at dr. payson's; nor can she come tomorrow afternoon, or any afternoon." miss james turned to mary lee who nodded her head in confirmation. "you see," she remarked apologetically, "i work afternoons and saturday mornings at dr. payson's office. but please," the girl added, "you have your meeting and i'll help as i can." "well, there's one thing we know--we want mary lee with us, don't we girls?" asked miss james. the girls agreed with decisive unanimity. "so we will have our meetings at seven tonight and tomorrow, if all of you can arrange to have an early dinner. i hope that this is satisfactory. and in the meantime, girls, think about this and about any ideas that are practical and feasible. above everything else, let us prove that we are a very practical, useful group." it was almost time for the next period and so the girls made their way to their classrooms. chapter xii indian jim's lucky strike with the reader's permission we shall turn our attention to tom marshall who was returning to mexico at the time we last heard of him. he had left his indian partner prospecting there, for both of them had hopes in the possibilities of the mine despite its apparent fruitlessness. there was a warm friendship between the two men who had grown to know each other in their solitude. it was the indian who had urged tom to make his trip home and who had insisted that the latter take most of their small capital on hand for his expenses. his return was at best a weary trip. he had left the train at el paso, then had made his way westward and at a lonely point had crossed over into mexico. despite the outlaw bands everywhere he had no trouble on the way, although he had been on the road for over two weeks. he had now quickened his pace for he was on the last lap. his weariness fell from him like a discarded mantle. in his heart was a great eagerness to see his friend and still a hope that he had proved successful. a rather vague hope--for the man's optimism which had always been strong, in the last few years had received some severe jolts. at last he could see their hut. he could make out the figure of the indian carrying water toward it. he hastened his step. the keen ear of the indian must have heard him, for he suddenly stood erect and with his eyes shaded by his left hand he searched the road. then he saw marshall approaching. he watched him for a moment, motionless, without any semblance of feeling. then suddenly he answered the waving, shouting greeting of his partner with a whoop and no less swiftly and eagerly hurried forward to meet him. "hello, tom, i'm glad to see you." "no less than i am, old man. it's good to get back and i certainly missed you." the indian smiled his pleasure. he had associated so long with the white people that he spoke, except at rare moments, after the manner of his white brothers. even his habits, thoughts and manners were no different and to the ordinary observer it would have been impossible to recognize him as an indian, except for his copper-hued complexion. "i'm sorry about your mother, tom, but it was a blessed thing for you to have been home before she passed away." "that is was, partner. but i had some time getting there." and he went into the story of how he made his way, and how sickness had overcome him. "i don't know what i would have done without the help of a little angel of mercy who took me to the hospital, wrote home for me and then saw to it that i got enough money to get home." the indian listened interestedly. "now tell me what has happened here," tom added. "well, i've had some proof that there is silver here. not much proof, but some. i have been waiting for you to come back so that we could rig up another block and tackle and bore and go to it at a certain point that may show results. i think there is some chance of its proving 'pay dirt.'" "i shall be ready at any time," replied tom. "it would be splendid if we could make a strike, wouldn't it?" the indian nodded his head; then as something came to his mind, he added: "barton is coming this way tomorrow and we can get him to bring us some things we need from the states. he'll be back next week." "good," replied marshall. "i will also give him a few letters i want mailed." tom turned to the writing of his letters. one was to his cousin. he wrote a short note to mary lee thanking her for her letter which he received at el paso. he spoke of his partner and of the bare possibility of finding silver in plenty at the mine. the indian smoked his pipe while his partner was writing, watching him with a feeling of contentment. he had been very lonesome for him. he was of the type that become strongly attached to people and the acquaintance of this man now so busily writing was the second of his great friendships. now his mind wandered a little back to the time, more than twelve years before, when he had had other friends. he was brought back to the present with a start. "here is that little girl that did so much for me," marshall, unaware of the flow of his friend's thoughts, interrupted, as he handed the envelope and letter to him. the man looked at the envelope with passing interest. but even as he looked, a strange thrill came over him. he rubbed his eyes and looked again. were his eyes playing tricks with his wandering thoughts? he rubbed them again. then he turned to his partner who was watching him curiously. what was this miracle that brought the past back to him? surely it was naught but a trick, a coincidence! to tom marshall, watching him with increasing interest, the indian turned questioningly, and even as he turned there suddenly came to the white man similarity of names, for his partner was named jim lee. yet, surely the girl was not indian. jim lee's emotion brought his words back to the beauty of indian phrasing. "the great spirit gives strange proof of his greatness. my partner, who is very dear to me, will listen while i tell him the story of what has been. "fifteen years ago and even more, i was up in alaska. a man, a stranger to me, risked his life and saved mine. more than that, he shared the little he had with me, through the long winter, even though he went hungry often. that was brave and it was good. so i, who had no call of bloodfolk, found my call there. stewart and i, we did things, but it brought no returns in white man's gold. then this man returned to where his family was waiting and he was sorrowful that he could bring no wealth. i went with him. could i do more? "a fine man was he. the great spirit called him about three years later and he answered. and even as he passed on to the great beyond, he turned to me and wished that i would do what i could for his loved ones. "it was little enough i could do, but that little i did. gentle and kind was mrs. stewart; and little mary, but two years old, was a great playmate. the days were cheerful and even comfortable. mrs. stewart named mary--mary lee--for two reasons: for me, and because it sounded as if it were merri-ly. and a merry spirit she was. "the little girl was eight years old when the great spirit called again and this time mrs. stewart made answer. a sorry time it was; but sorrier days were to come, for they who plan things decided that jim lee, because he was an indian, was not the proper person to take care of one who was dearer than all life to him. "they took the little girl away even as she cried and would not go. she went east and they would not tell me where. and then i decided that perhaps it was better so. she was young and would forget. perhaps she would be happier. "and now you come and bring back--from out of the past--news of a very dear one. so blame me not, if i am moved. i shall leave you, my brother, for an hour or so, for i would be alone." the indian walked out of the hut. for more than three hours tom marshall was alone. then lee returned, but he offered no comment and the white man respected his wish for silence. "shall i write and tell mary lee that you are here?" tom marshall inquired the next morning. "or, perhaps you would like to write to her yourself?" lee made no answer for a moment and seemed to be debating the question. "no, thank you, i think not. we will wait," he finally decided. barton came the next morning and took the mail and also promised to do the necessary shopping for them. the two men turned to the work in hand. it was not long before they were ready for further drilling and before the month was up they were fairly assured of prospective success. if the vein did not "peter out" their fortune was certain. but they made no mention of their probable success to the one or two stray mexicans who passed. they would not be in possession very long if the news were made public. jim lee had by now received all the information that marshall could give him of mary lee. moreover he had made tom repeat it to him a dozen times at least. on the day when their success was no longer in doubt, tom was painting in glowing colors his plans and what he would do with his share of the mine. the indian, however, gave no inkling of his intentions. tom noticed the fact. "what are you going to do with your share, jim?" he asked. "my share is for mary lee. it could not be otherwise." tom nodded understandingly. he already realized how much the indian's loyalty and faith were wrapped up in the girl. it was because of the debt his partner owed to stewart and because of his added devotion to the girl. "tom," the indian added, "now that the subject is up, i might as well tell you my wishes. if anything happens to me, you will see that my share is turned over to her, will you?" "of course," was the answer. "but nothing is going to happen to you, and if there is going to be any turning over, it will be done by you." the days that followed were eager, eventful days. jim lee was able to make a safe trip over the border and make a deposit of a large supply of the silver without anyone's being the wiser. he informed the president of the bank of the need of secrecy and that gentleman saw to it that no inkling of the source of the silver leaked out. then a week or so later tom came over with another supply which had been stored. in two months there was over fifty thousand dollars to their credit at the bank. then rumors and actual proofs of the approach of the revolutionists came to them. one morning tom spoke of this and wondered how long it would be safe for them to continue carrying the silver across the border without being discovered. "it seems to me," he added thoughtfully, "it might pay us to play safe. what do you think of destroying all evidence of the fact that this mine exists and leaving here for a year or so? things might be safer for us then and we would always have the mine. in the meantime we have this money on deposit to help us along." "i've thought of that," replied jim lee. "we might even be able to sell the mine to people who would be ready to take the risk or who would wait for the safe and settled times." "i hadn't thought of that," was tom's comment. "we probably could sell--it is only a question of whether we wish to." once they had come to a decision they immediately set to work to destroy all clues and made it appear as if the location had been forsaken as worthless. they made good work of it. after they were through they felt that there was small probability of anyone's making any investigation. a few days later they returned to the states. they drew out what money they needed. "we'll go north for a while. first we'll stop at my house, then we'll go to the city and visit mary lee. is that satisfactory, jim?" jim agreed. they reached tom marshall's home, but stayed for a few days only. tom could see how eager his friend was to see the girl and so he hastened their departure. chapter xiii a happy red cross group it was not very long before the red cross group at the high school was busily at work, following the outline suggested by the red cross committee. the group was made up of thirty girls, each of whom gave five hours a week to sewing, knitting and in a smaller measure preparing bandages. another group of about the same number had already prepared gardens for the growth of vegetables and berries. letty and mary lee had planned for a garden of string beans. it was letty's suggestion that each girl specialize in one thing and that all the vegetables were to be brought to the school and sold when ready. with a few slight changes this plan was adopted. ruth had set to work to grow potatoes and corn. miss james had made them all understand that while their gardens would need constant attention, the returns would be rather slow in coming and that only by constant watching would their work prove successful. the third group had set to work to canvass a district which had been assigned to the high school and in twos and threes were already earnestly bringing to the attention of both the thoughtful and thoughtless the need of economizing. "it isn't so much that we ourselves will need it. the president has told us how much the other warring countries wasted at the beginning and that they were now suffering in consequence. it is our duty to help our allies as much as we can and this way will be your share and my share." this was mary lee's best argument and it usually brought promises to do what was possible and also offers of help. on saturday afternoon all the girls were reporting what they had done. when they had finished, mary lee asked miss james if there was anything she wished to tell the girls. "only this," was the response, "what the girls are doing in the way of getting stockings, mittens and shirts is of great value. thanks to the co-operation of all groups such as this, our soldiers will be fairly well supplied. but i really believe that the girls who are visiting families and making them think of economy are doing just as effective and valuable work. and the gardeners are going to get a lot of satisfaction from their work." "before we adjourn, i have one or two suggestions which you may think it worth while to follow," said mary lee. "our red cross group might suggest to the mayor that the parks be made, at least such parts as could be used for such purposes, into small gardens to grow cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, squash and other vegetables. furthermore, a little further out in the suburbs, we might get the consent of the railroad companies to let families use the land that they call their right of way, for planting of vegetables. this would be in line with the work planned for us." "what capital ideas," said miss james while the girls applauded. "i move," said one of the girls, "that miss james and mary lee be appointed a committee to take up both these questions and that we all offer our help should they need it." the motion was seconded and passed unanimously. when mary lee reported for work the following monday, dr. payson was waiting for her. "didn't dr. anderson tell me that you have had some experience in the handling of babies?" he inquired. "i have had," was the girl's answer. "at the orphanage they arranged it so that the older girls attended to the babies and at mrs. quinn's, because she was not well, i had to take almost complete care of the child." "good," was the doctor's answer. "i will have to go to the richardsons' home about five-thirty. i have been there once already this afternoon, but will need some help when i go there again. i know it is past your hour but i hope you can come with me. miss doyle, who is the nurse i called for, is on another case, so i cannot get her." "i shall be glad to go," replied mary lee. "i thought you would," dr. payson remarked. at five-thirty the doctor and mary lee drove off. it was about fifteen minutes' ride to the richardson home. "the child is ailing," the doctor informed her. "it isn't teething and it isn't the ordinary children's ailments. i wanted them to get a specialist in children's diseases, but they insist on having me. it isn't very serious, but you will have to help me and possibly hold the child's attention while i do a little prying." the anxious mother was waiting for them. "is the child any better?" the doctor asked. "he hasn't seemed to be in pain but he has a high temperature," answered mrs. richardson. "well, it isn't anything serious or it would have been apparent by now. so we needn't worry. mary lee will give the child this laxative and if he isn't normal in two hours, please let me know. you needn't send for the specialist now. if you had sent for him earlier, you would have saved some worry, for he probably would have realized that it wasn't serious where i simply made sure." "well, i'd much rather have you make sure than have anyone make a quick guess," answered mrs. richardson, much relieved. in the meantime, thanks to mary lee's soothing and practiced touch, the child had perceptibly calmed and the doctor found his temperature already nearer normal. mrs. richardson thanked mary lee for her help as they left. "of course," said dr. payson, as he took the girl to her home in his car, "every mother should worry; but a child of poor parents would hardly get so much attention." and then dr. payson changed the subject and questioned mary lee as to the red cross work her group was doing. chapter xiv mary lee meets an old friend while plans were being forwarded for the red cross group's effective aid, two of our friends--tom marshall and indian jim--were on their way to new york city. the latter intended to enlist in the army as soon as he had paid a visit to mary lee. it was fun for tom marshall to draw comparisons between their present mode of traveling and that of his previous journey which had been made partly on foot and partly on freight trains. it made the comforts of the pullman in which they were now riding, seem ideal. as they were speeding along, the conversation turned to jim lee's intention of enlisting. "i shall enlist, too," tom remarked, "but i have no desire to serve longer than the war." lee, however, argued against his doing so. he dwelt upon the advisability of his holding off for a time. "one of us will be sufficient for the present, partner. it is your duty to stay behind and negotiate the possible sale of our mine. i should feel uneasy if i thought provision had not been made for its safety and the income turned over to mary lee." "very well," his partner replied. "when we get to the city i shall call upon some people, who will, in all probability, be interested and see if i cannot dispose of it at a fair figure. i guess an immediate sale is the best thing even if we do have to sacrifice a few thousand dollars." "i think so," the indian agreed. "at any rate, i shall be satisfied with your judgment in the matter." two hours later they reached their destination. tom marshall had received mary lee's address in one of her letters and although he had not told her who his partner was, he had given her some idea of the good fortune their mine had brought them. the two men made their way to a hotel. they had purchased some city clothes at the time they entered the states on their return from mexico. now they secured some more ready made and fashionable suits and it would have been difficult to recognize in the trim, well garbed figures, the rough and unkempt prospectors of little more than a month before. each one of them took great pride in appearing at his best before mary lee. tom marshall recollected that mary lee had written him of her afternoon position with dr. payson so the two men decided not to call until evening. to tom, accustomed to his partner's moods and feelings, it was apparent that despite his dispassionate and stolid expression, he was burning with eagerness to see the girl who represented all his earthly ties. and marshall, himself, was anxious to see his young friend, to be able to thank her again, in person, for her kindness at a time when he needed such kindness and help. the hour for calling came at last and the two men started for letty's home. a butler opened the door and they asked to see miss mary lee. they were ushered into the drawing room. two girls entered the room a few minutes later. tom marshall bowed to mary lee. the indian looked intently and eagerly at the two girls, then his face cleared, for he now knew which was mary lee. in the same instant the girl recognized tom marshall. she came toward him impetuously and with welcoming hand. so excited was she, she failed to pay much attention to his companion. "why, this is a surprise! i'm glad to see you. so glad you came. this is miss saunders, mr. marshall, and letty, this is mr. tom marshall. you've heard me speak of him, haven't you?" "indeed, i have. won't you both sit down?" letty invited, not forgetting, in her excitement, the need for hospitality and her duties as hostess. "mother will be here in a moment," she added. while letty had been speaking, mary lee had turned, for the first time really aware of the presence of tom marshall's friend. for a brief second the man's intent gaze disturbed her. only for a second, however, then came the consciousness of having met the man before. but she could not place him in her mind. "this is mr. lee, my partner," interrupted tom marshall, observing the two. "mr. lee?" mary lee questioned, with a swift intake of her breath as dawning realization came. "mr. lee?" she repeated. then a sudden glad light came into her eyes. "why, it's jim lee, my jim! letty, he's indian jim!" and the girl rushed into his arms not knowing whether to laugh or cry and doing both. "there, there, little girl, it's all right. jim's here and jim will take care of you." "jim, i never thought i was going to see you again. and i've missed you all the time, all the time." letty watched her friend with great wonderment. the usually calm and collected mary lee was in a state of great excitement--a thing so unusual as to be worth observing. mrs. saunders came into the room at that moment and the two men were introduced by the excited mary lee who made a haven of that good woman's kindly arms. mrs. saunders was a devoted, indulgent mother. she had developed a great affection for the motherless mary lee. she was also a woman of quick and unusually good judgment. she liked the looks of these two men, which fact was not at all strange for they both showed in open countenance, the honesty and cleanliness of outdoor and right living. mrs. saunders made them feel thoroughly at home. she knew the story of mary lee and so understood who jim lee was. she very naturally realized how delighted the girl must feel at jim lee's coming. for two hours they sat and talked over things, bringing up to the present moment the important events in mary lee's life as well as those of interest in jim lee's. the two men then departed, promising to come again. without mary lee's knowledge, they had arranged with mrs. saunders for a meeting with mr. saunders the following morning. that gentleman had not returned home up to the moment they were leaving. chapter xv mary lee's legacy "you see, mr. saunders, it isn't a question of our wanting any money," said tom marshall. "mr. lee is anxious to make safe provision for mary lee out of the net proceeds of his share of the mine. as for my share, i can wait until such time as the buyers are ready to turn over the proceeds." "the ore is there, all right, but the mine needs capital." jim lee was now speaking. "we want to turn it over to the right hands, that is all. that will benefit us most." mr. saunders was a banker. as a business proposition, he was keenly interested. he very naturally took some precautions, asked many questions, but he seemed fairly well convinced at the end. "i shall be able to arrange a meeting for you and probably find a way that will be best for all concerned, if you will both call again this afternoon." the end of the day found the whole matter closed up. a company was formed in which the two partners received a one-third share. if the mine proved of great value, they were each to receive $100,000 in addition. jim lee's share, by an extra provision, was to be paid out in income to mary lee. he also made provision with mr. saunders to turn over $15,000 of his available cash to the girl. it was finally decided that tom marshall was not to enlist but to stay and manage the mine. that night the two men again called at the saunders home. indian jim told mary lee of his intention to enlist. the girl did not try to dissuade him. then he went into the details, very simply, of what he wanted to do with his money. the girl listened quietly. to her, jim represented family--so closely allied had he been to it--so much was he connected with all her recollections of it. "i don't know what to say, jim," she remarked. "to tell you i don't think you should turn over that money to me is needless, almost. let us put it this way: whatever money there is, i shall gladly count as if it were partly my own; but for you to turn it over entirely to me, isn't fair. let it be for both of us." the indian smiled at her with great affection. he made no answer. he did not tell her he had already made every provision. instead, he told her how much she meant to him, what a big debt he had owed her father. "this," he said, "is but a small way of repaying it." a few days later jim was enrolled in the cavalry. his application had been quickly approved--men like him were needed. but until he joined his company the two men and mary lee, when she was free, and letty, too, spent many happy hours together. tom marshall's time was also well spent and plans for proper equipment were being hurried for an immediate start on the mine. mr. saunders was a quick, able worker and he obtained results immediately. "won't it be fine," said letty one holiday morning, "for you to have all this money! you won't have to work any longer at dr. payson's, will you?" but mary lee laughed. "of course, i'll not give up my work," she asserted. "i'm learning lots. furthermore, i want to become a nurse and dr. payson agrees that it is the best kind of training to begin as i have." "but don't you find it awfully hard to give up your afternoons--in fact, all your time, to work and study?" asked the less serious-minded girl. "letty, dear, i do get so much fun out of my work at dr. payson's. it's delightful--and wouldn't you call it recreation to be able to do the things our red cross group is doing? it is such a wonderful opportunity." "i suppose it is," the other girl answered uncertainly. "hello, there's the mail man," she added as from the window she saw him turn in at their house. "i wonder if he has any mail for you and me?" almost at the same moment ruth was ushered into the room. she saw letty go through the mail and pick out two letters. one, letty gave to mary lee, the other, she quickly opened. "well!" letty exclaimed after reading her letter, "it certainly is time." "won't we be glad to see her?" added mary lee, as she finished her letter. ruth was all excitement. "is aunt madge coming home?" she asked eagerly. "mrs. anderson, if you please, young lady," letty answered reprovingly. "wonder if i have a letter home, too," commented ruth. "i suppose you have, dear," replied mary lee assuringly. "i have news for you, ruth. may i tell her, mary lee?" the girl nodded her assent. these two girls were her best friends. she knew how glad ruth would be because of her good fortune. letty told ruth about the money that jim lee had turned over for mary lee's use. ruth's eyes opened with wonder and pleasure. "isn't that fine! i'm so glad, mary lee, dear." "when does jim lee join the army?" she asked. "i guess the day after tomorrow. he's coming here tonight." "i wonder if we cannot get him to tell us an indian story when he comes," remarked letty. "he may," mary lee replied. "will you come over tonight, ruth?" she asked. "yes, come to dinner," added letty. ruth agreed. "when does mrs. anderson come home, mary lee?" she asked as she started to go. "next saturday afternoon. isn't that fine, for i am free on that afternoon and can go with you and meet her," was the reply. "bob is coming home with them, too." "i didn't know he was with them," ruth said in surprise. "yes, he's been there for a week. it is but a short distance from his school, so he went over." "be sure to come tonight," letty reminded the departing girl. "we'll hear a good story if mr. lee will tell it." "i won't forget," replied ruth. chapter xvi a master story teller jim lee and tom marshall were prompt in their expected call, and they found mary lee and letty as well as ruth waiting to receive them. it was the kind of an evening that is usually associated with the month of march. the rain was coming down in a steady downpour, there was a chill to the wind; altogether it was a night in which folks welcomed the warmth of an open grate fire. letty, all excitement, brought up the subject of a story--a story such as only jim lee could tell--of the indian of long ago. "i'm afraid," remarked the indian, "that the kind of stories i used to tell mary lee would be considered entirely too youthful by you young ladies." "but we'd like to hear one, i'm sure we would," replied ruth. "yes, jim do tell us one. i know we will enjoy it." "very well," was the answer. "i see there's no escape and so i had better make the best of it. "long, long ago, in the land you now know as colorado, there lived a strong tribe--the wah-hi-tis--well known for their ability in war. their name was used by the squaws of the other tribes to frighten the little papooses who were wont to whimper. "when i say it was long, long ago, i do not mean a hundred, or two hundred, or five hundred years ago. i speak of thousands of years before the white man came from across the big waters--the white man who has forced out, who has swallowed up the indian so that we are becoming like the buffalo, a rarity. "there came a chief, black eagle, descendant from many chiefs. he was wise and great and his strength was like that of the buffalo and his swiftness like that of the eagle. with an iron hand he ruled, but he was ever kind and considerate except when anger or rage overcame him. then none was more cruel, more terrible. "wise men of many tribes came to visit him and it is said that great gifts were sent to him from the distant lands of mexico; even from the small seas, they sent him offerings, for it was known that his friendship was a blessing and his enmity a thing of which to be wary. "proud were the young bucks who served under black eagle. in their sojourns they had but to exclaim with fine disdain, 'i am a wah-hi-ti!' and they were immediately offered hospitality and friendship. "black eagle had two wives. swift bear, his father, had mated him to swift water, daughter of a neighboring chief. but then came laughing eyes, young and beautiful, and her--black eagle loved at sight. and since it was permitted that chiefs have more than one mate, black eagle took laughing eyes unto himself. "swift water, his first wife, felt the black rage of hate and envy--and who could blame her? but black eagle had already given proof of his terrible outbursts of wrath and she dared not object. she suffered silently. "thus, many years passed. swift water gave black eagle a son, but only after laughing eyes had given birth to a beautiful babe, also a son, who had been named natawara. swift water's son was named black fox. "both sons grew to sturdy manhood and gradually even swift water and laughing eyes learned to know each other. some of the bitterness left the heart of swift water. yet, her life was sad because natawara was to succeed as chief instead of her own son, black fox. "but sturdy though both sons were, there was a strange difference between the two. could these both be sons of the same father? black fox from early youth loved the tales of combat, liked to hear of the victories of his illustrious fathers; and he would dream of the day when he too would go out and say, 'i am a wah-hi-ti, a son of black eagle.' "natawara, however, was different. he loved to hear the wise men tell of the long ago, and yet it was not of combats that he sought to hear. often he would look to the far west and say: "'i would travel far. over the many mountains i would roam; for the great spirit gives us but a short time and there is much to see.' "'he will be a great man, a great chief,' said the wise men. but in their hearts was a dark doubt which they dared not voice, for the anger of black eagle was a thing of dread. and wherefore should they be the bearers of bad news? "for natawara had laughed at combats. 'wherefore shall i kill?' said he. 'i would rather, far rather, seek the things of the world than death.' "'a coward's speech,' the wise men whispered, one to the other. but word of their whisperings came to black fox. then he showed some of the anger of his father. "'no coward is natawara. who says so? i shall hear and the vengeance of black fox is not light.' "but the whispering grew. it came even to the ears of the black eagle who was then on an expedition to the far wyoming. [illustration: dark and savage was the face of the black eagle] "fearful was his rage and black scorn was in his heart. he who whispered would feel the might and strength of the chief of the wah-hi-ti. "'and as for you, you witch,' he said to the old squaw who had taunted him after his men had razed the camp of the cheyennes, 'you shall die! a fearful death you shall die, for lies are the things you say. no wah-hi-ti is a coward, no wah-hi-ti dare say of natawara that he is a coward, for natawara is the son of a chief; he is to be a chief and he would kill.' "so he returned. and the squaws who came to meet the returning warriors, even the braves who had been left at home, drew away, for dark and savage and fearful was the face of the black eagle. "'where is natawara?' he cried. "only black fox dared to come forward. he had but just returned from a victorious conquest. "'natawara made a trip of three months beside the running brook that leads to the big water.' "'is there one, even more than one, who thinks of natawara as a coward?' the chief cried. "but none, of course, answered. side glances were exchanged. so the news had come to the great chief. "'no coward is my brother,' black fox replied. 'none dare so say, for my arm would gain double its strength if i heard aught of it.' "'speak thou for thyself. cannot natawara make his own fights, answer insults himself?' "'his is a great spirit; to him such taunts are but water even on a duck's back. he loves not combat--rather he would voyage everywhere; but none here holds his strength, none his true courage.' "black fox's eyes flashed. he made a picture that brought fire to his father's eyes. "'so i would have you, my son, speak--even so. but natawara is my son, too. soon i shall join the great spirit and if he is to be chief, he must be like the great chiefs before him. he must not own the soul of a squaw.' "then after three moons, even as black eagle waited, his rage still with him, came natawara home. there came with him a tamed fox, following as does a dog. "'i have brought him to my brother who bears his name.' "but laughing eyes called to him and instead of laughter there was dread in her eyes. "'go to your father who has called and is waiting.' "so natawara went. "what befell there, no one can tell for it shall remain a thing of mystery; but those who saw have said that when natawara came forth his face bore a wondrous light as if the great spirit had touched it. he bade farewell to his mother and was away. "black eagle's heart was crushed; but his stern resolve held and the next day black fox (who courageously announced that his brother natawara should be chief, should he ever return) was proclaimed as the next in line. and truly as he stood there, his black eyes flashing, the fox--gift of his brother natawara--beside him, he made the true figure of a chief." jim lee paused. "i fear," he said, "my story is of too great length." but mary lee breathlessly replied, "please go on. tell us of natawara." "did he come back?" letty demanded. "wasn't his brother splendid?" was ruth's comment. jim lee turned to mrs. saunders who nodded her head to continue. "years passed," jim lee continued, "and with the years came more fame to the name of wah-hi-tis. black eagle joined the great spirit and there was much sorrow everywhere. "and with the years natawara became a name forgotten. forgotten did i say? true, except by his mother, laughing eyes. her name became a misnomer; rather it should have been eyes that held the rain, so sad was she. black fox, loyal heart, also remembered, and after his mother died, he made the mother of natawara even as his mother. "but war, he found a great game. love came, too. white cloud became his wife. a gentle soul was she who loved him and his great strength and her second love went forth to laughing eyes. "in the meantime natawara went everywhere. the sadness left him, for life was before him. no longer was he a wah-hi-ti. he made his home everywhere, learned many things. from the sioux he learned how to use a wondrous thing even like the present ax. elsewhere he found what iron would do. then, too, he learned the use of many medicines. this last art he prized most. and with the years, throughout the land, word went forth of his healing touch, his healing medicines. medicine-men spoke of the healer everywhere. his was a life of love. what would the many tribes have thought had the truth been known--that here was natawara, a wah-hi-ti and son of that great chief, black eagle, and brother even of the black fox! "so then a son was born to black fox--a son who promised to continue the great name of the wah-hi-ti. richer and more powerful had grown this nation and the land it held. "but black clouds appeared. black buffalo, the son, had a strange sickness and the medicine men could not cure, try as they would. it was a time of great sorrow. "the chief medicine man came unto the chief. "'none can help black buffalo but the healer. send you for him; but send not as the great chief, but only as a father who suffers, for the healer knows not the call of chief or slave, as such, but only as a call.' "'i shall go to him myself,' replied black fox, 'as a father whose son ails and whom the medicine men, professedly wise, cannot cure.' "so black fox went forth. seven moons of great haste and he came upon the home of the healer. "a great change had come unto both, so that neither knew the other except that within both of them was a great call which could not be explained. black fox dared not tell his name for the healer had many other calls and his partiality was for the poor and the needy. rather he spoke of the great love he held for his sick son and of the mother at home. "the healer heard the father's call and went forth. to the wah-hi-tis he went, in his heart a great desire to see the land of his youth. even so, he stopped often for the stricken were everywhere. "so they came to the home of the wah-hi-tis, to the old home of natawara. black buffalo was on his couch, but not as the son of a chief, only as a wah-hi-ti. "as the medicine men watched, the healer deftly applied his lotions, applied his touch. "'the boy shall be well within fourteen moons. i shall stay if the chief will send everywhere word that i am here. but who is the chief of the wah-hi-tis?' "'know you not?' replied one of the medicine men who knew the great desire of black fox to keep his and his son's name secret. 'it is black fox.' "a strange look came into the healer's face but he said nothing. "on the third day came laughing eyes to see the patient. "yet as she entered the room, she it was who knew. "'natawara, my son! natawara is here! wonderful is the great spirit.' and she took him in her arms even as she did when he was but a youth. "'it is natawara, natawara, son of black eagle!' "the news traveled fast. black fox came at a great pace. "'the healer is your brother. it is natawara.' a great light was in his eyes. brother and brother clasped hands, for each was filled with a great joy. "'it is good,' said the healer. "'you are our chief,' said black fox. "'not so,' was the reply. 'the leader is here and here lies the leader to come. my kingdom is elsewhere. i would that he who is saved should not feel the call to battle except for the things that are worth the fight.' "'so i shall teach him,' spoke up white cloud, a great resolve in her eyes. "'so it shall be, my brother,' announced black fox. "but when the fourteen moons had come and gone so also had natawara." jim lee paused. there was a silence of many moments. it spoke the appreciation of the three girls. "there's a lesson in the story for today, isn't there?" said mrs. saunders. chapter xvii aunt madge returns to the city jim lee left on thursday to join his regiment. there was a quiet leave-taking between mary lee and the man. neither showed emotion--it was kept within the depths of their hearts. on friday tom marshall left with several men for the mine. mr. saunders was to follow a few days later. mary lee received some disquieting news on the same day. dr. payson informed her that with the return of dr. anderson he intended to join the first assignment of physicians and nurses bound for france. he felt, however, that her services could be used by dr. anderson to good advantage. her experience would be of great help and under dr. anderson she would continue to progress. saturday afternoon found the old campfire group awaiting the train which was late. "won't aunt madge be pleased with our red cross work at the school?" commented grace olcott. "wonder if she'll be displeased at our group's merging with the red cross work?" remarked edith. "of course, she won't," answered ruth. "will she, mary lee?" the girls had an idea that mary lee's opinion and decision on most things was usually sound. "i'm sure she won't. she'll feel that it was a very democratic and sensible thing to do," was mary lee's answer. the train was in at last and the waiting girls stood on tiptoe watching the passengers as they came from the coaches. "i see her, i see her," called letty. "and there's dr. anderson and bob, too." but the other girls were no less quick in seeing the andersons and there was excited gesticulating as well as calls. finally, mrs. anderson saw them. she waved her hand and drew her husband's attention to the girls. the doctor lifted his hat and smiled at them. bob made his way through the throng for he also had espied them. he was the first to get to the gate. "hello girls!" he called. "hello, mary lee, it's good to see you." "i'm glad to see you, too," answered the girl. by that time aunt madge had also arrived and the former had embraced and kissed all the girls. "well, mary lee," she said, when it was her turn, "when i see you i feel i'm at home." "it certainly does seem so," added her husband who was keenly interested in his favorite. "dr. payson has been giving me some good reports of you, young lady." several of the girls had come in cars, so it was an easy matter to take everyone home. mary lee was seated with the andersons. bob was in the car with ruth. as they sped homeward, the conversation between ruth and bob naturally turned to mary lee. "do you know that jim lee and tom marshall were here? and that jim lee joined the army?" bob didn't know a thing about it as mary lee had not written to tell him. ruth was not a bit averse to telling him all about jim lee. "he's so nice and so romantic. and he's turned over his share of the money from his mine to mary lee. and tom marshall has returned to the mine. you'd like them both, bob." "guess i would," replied bob. "wish i could have gone with mr. marshall to the mine. i'm glad mary lee has seen mr. lee and i'm glad he's nice," he added. "isn't it all wonderful?" ruth concluded as they reached the home of the andersons. bob, too, got out at this point for he was going to stay with his aunt as his mother and father were out of town. he, therefore, did not get another chance that afternoon to talk to mary lee. [illustration: he made it a point to call on mary lee] bob, however, made up for lost time the next day for he made it a point to call on mary lee. he was to be in the city for only that day as he was due at school on monday. mary lee greeted him warmly. somehow, the stiffness of their greeting the day before was gone. neither could tell just why they had been so cool and so formally polite upon seeing each other, unless it was due to the fact that so many others were about. "i wish you had been here to see jim and mr. marshall, bob. i told them so much about you and they were very anxious to meet you." "no more than i am to meet them," was the reply of the boy. "tell me something more about everything. ruth told me but i want to hear it first-hand." mary lee went into an account of the meeting and everything that had happened. the boy listened intently. she then gave him an account of the red cross work and what the girls had done. bob was deeply interested. "our boy scouts at school are doing good work too. they are all anxious to spend vacation time on farms. i hope to get permission from mother and father to go to one during the summer. there isn't a boy at school who isn't anxious to help at this time and i wish you could see the big garden we have there. i wonder if jim lee will go to france," the boy added. "he is anxious to go, but of course no one knows what is to be done," replied mary lee. "isn't it great to be part of such a big undertaking? of course, war is terrible, but i've often envied the boys and men who lived during the civil war. now we are living in even bigger times and it's great to help, even if only in a small way." "i noticed yesterday how naturally you walk, bob. no one would ever suspect you had ever been lame." the boy flushed with pride. he was proud of the fact that he was now like other boys. he valued the use of both his limbs, the more, because he had been so long without their use. nothing pleased him so much as to be told he was like other boys. letty came in a little later and the three took a long walk. "isn't bob brave to travel by himself on a sleeper? i'd be scared," said letty. "huh," answered the boy, "that's because you're a girl. at that," he added, "i'll bet mary lee wouldn't be afraid." chapter xviii mary lee makes a decision it need not be thought for an instant that, in the rush of events of the last few days, the work of the red cross group had lessened. on the contrary, the mayor had replied almost at once and had given his permission, including that of the commissioner of parks, for the use of one of the parks in the neighborhood of the high school. in addition he had told them that other groups and clubs in other sections were receiving permission in the same way. monday brought a letter from the president of the railroad company. he told them that no written permission could be given but that any gardening done on their property would be respected by that company. upon receipt of this information miss james had written the newspapers so that proper publicity could be given the fact and people avail themselves of the opportunity to obtain a garden plot. the red cross girls met that night. over one hundred and fifty now belonged. all of them had donated some money at every meeting and the group now sent seventy-five dollars in cash to the red cross committee. at this meeting they were divided into six groups of twenty-five each and each group assigned to certain definite work on the big garden they were to start in the park. this idea had been suggested by one of the men on the park board who had been a visitor at the meeting. but it was a late spring. the weather stayed cold despite the eagerness and desire for warmth and sunshine on the part of the red cross workers. the girls felt that they had done almost everything possible in their gardening, and although a few found their interest abating, the larger number kept pluckily at the duty assigned to each. the days passed swiftly now. mrs. anderson soon made the girls understand that she was still aunt madge to them. she renewed her interest in their doings and was able to help miss james in the organization and planning of the red cross group. throughout the country the realization of war came slowly. somehow it was hard to believe that the country was at war, hard to realize that the german nation, so long on friendly terms with our own land, was now an enemy. it dawned slowly in people's minds. new york city was never so gay. soldiers were everywhere. one felt, however, that beneath the outward gayety and color the city was prepared for whatever might come. a rare treat was given to mary lee and letty who were invited by dr. anderson to accompany mrs. anderson and himself to a point of vantage where they could see general joffre and the ex-premier of france, monsieur viviani. never had the two girls been so impressed as they were by the simple, kindly looking old man in the uniform of france. there was a greatness about him which both girls felt. and mary lee also felt that it was a history-making epoch. she was glad that in the future she would be able to say that she had seen the big man of france. he was a character that one could never forget. in the meantime, dr. payson was making ready to close his office and to turn over his practice to dr. anderson. he had been pledged to secrecy as to sailing so his friends did not know just when he would be on his way to france. mary lee thought of the doctor's departure with many regrets. it had been valuable time that she had spent at his office; and although the girl had felt that he was in earnest as to her possible usefulness to dr. anderson, something aunt madge had said made mary lee decide that she could not accept, even if dr. anderson felt in duty bound to offer her the position. aunt madge and the girl had been shopping one saturday afternoon. the former was evidently still unaware of dr. payson's intention of going to the front. the conversation had turned to mary lee's work at the doctor's office and aunt madge was as interested as was the girl. "you see, dear, i, too, am helping dr. anderson in the same way. he has been so considerate, so kind. he objected to it at first, wanted to get the services of someone, although, as he regretfully said, 'there is only one mary lee.' he felt that it would be too much of a tax for me. he also added some silly, manlike remark about not wanting his wife to be his assistant. but i think he understands now. you see, dear, it is such a fine thing to be able to look forward to doing something worth while, to be able to help my husband. it is useful work, too, and i am learning rapidly." after that, of course, mary lee had no regrets in not offering her services to dr. anderson. at an early opportunity she brought the subject up before dr. payson. "i hope you haven't spoken to dr. anderson as to my going over to his office when you leave, doctor." the doctor looked at her in surprise. "have you decided that it is too hard work, my dear? i know it is and i do not blame you; especially so, since you are to receive a small income through mr. lee's fund. no, i haven't spoken to him as yet," the doctor continued. "i intend to do so within the next two days, however. i'm glad you spoke about it because this is the time to make up your mind." the girl flushed. she was hurt that the doctor should think she would so easily give up her life work. "it isn't that i don't want to do the work. that isn't why i don't want you to talk to dr. anderson." the girl paused uncertainly. she was not quite sure that she wanted to tell the real reason. then her uncertainty vanished--it was the thing to do. "you see, dr. payson, mrs. anderson is helping the doctor, and she loves the work. dr. anderson gave his consent but reluctantly. if you tell him to employ me, he might be even more reluctant about letting aunt madge help him. she loves it. so i thought it best to just let it be known that i can't spare the time. i shall give so much more time to the red cross group, but," and the girl looked squarely into the doctor's eyes, "i don't want you, or any one else, to think that i am undecided as to the profession i am to follow. i couldn't ever be happy and not become a nurse." dr. payson looked at the flushed girl admiringly. "i should have known by this time how you feel about it, mary lee. i shall not speak to dr. anderson about you. and you are right, it will be a very good thing in every way for mrs. anderson to do the work." "i knew you would understand," the girl gratefully acknowledged. a little later her afternoon's work was over and she left the office. the doctor, however, remained. he did not work, but sat silently thinking. an uncertain little smile played about his mouth. a day or two more and he would be off for the war. he welcomed the opportunity as do all true surgeons. but he knew there would often come to him the memory of this bright, serious-minded, unselfish young girl. "she's true blue," he finally commented as he prepared to depart. chapter xix letty and mary lee sell liberty bonds mr. saunders, letty's father, came home early the following evening. he had been down to mexico and had just returned. permission had been given by the mexican government for the furtherance of their plans. tom marshall, so he reported, was already busily at work and the prospects were very bright. mr. saunders spoke enthusiastically about the young man, and his ability. and his respect for jim lee had greatly increased from the accounts he had received from tom marshall and one or two of the men who were located in the neighborhood. both letty and mary lee were, of course, greatly interested, the latter for the best of reasons, although she somehow could not grasp the idea that more wealth was to be hers. she was gratified that letty's father--a careful, shrewd and conservative business man--should have made an exception in behalf of her friends. toward the end of the evening the girls suddenly bethought themselves of a plan they had formulated a few days before the arrival of letty's father. it was letty who opened the campaign. "we feel it our patriotic duty to sell you a liberty bond--or more than one," the girl added as the idea suddenly came to her that one was not very much for her rich father to buy. "oh," her father ejaculated in surprise. "and why, young lady?" and his words sounded so serious and businesslike that neither letty nor mary lee noticed the humor lurking in his eyes. "why should you feel it to be your duty to sell them to me?" "it is not only our duty to sell bonds, but it is the duty of everyone in the country." it was mary lee who answered and even as she spoke a sudden idea came to her mind. it was still a little hazy and so she said nothing more. "how many do you think i should buy?" mr. saunders queried trying hard to maintain a business-like appearance. "how many?" letty repeated. she tried hard to think of a number that would seem consistent. it was apparent to her father that she was flustered. "i think five would be right," and then it occurred to her that five wasn't enough. "i mean ten--or perhaps eight," the girl finally concluded, rather lamely. "well, my dears, it may interest you to know that i have bought not ten, nor eight, but two hundred; and i am to buy some more within the next few days." "my," said letty, in awed tones into which there crept a measure of disappointment. "then we cannot sell you any? not even one?" she added coaxingly, with a sudden renewal of hope. "you see, mr. saunders," mary lee turned to the work in hand with the feeling that her own idea would follow as a matter of course, "we girls in the red cross group have each volunteered to sell at least five liberty bonds. letty and i are to sell to some other people, but we counted on you, too." "and you don't want your count to be in vain, do you?" "no, sir," both girls replied. "all right then, i'll buy ten. is that satisfactory?" letty hugged her father and both girls danced in glee over their first success. mr. saunders looked at them with great pride and satisfaction. mary lee suddenly sobered and became business-like. "mr. saunders," she spoke diffidently. "any other business into which you desire to inveigle me?" he questioned. "yes, sir," the girl replied, while letty looked at her, a little uncertain as to what was coming. the girl continued: "the money that jim left for my use--i was wondering; of course, i don't know if it can be done--if it couldn't buy some liberty bonds." mr. saunders laughed. "of course it could. it wouldn't be so bad an investment either. we'll begin by buying a hundred shares for you." "thank you," mary lee replied, proud that jim's money was to be used in this way. "can we turn the order in?" asked the practical letty. "i suppose you can," her father replied. "that means, letty," mary lee exclaimed in awe, "that we already have one hundred and ten bonds sold. and we must sell some to the andersons and to the camerons. i shall write to tom marshall and ask him to buy some, too." "it may be that i shall have a surprise for you by tomorrow, too," mr. saunders added. he was interested in their success but he also felt that their efforts should not be too easily successful. he decided to call up the andersons and also the camerons who were to return from florida within the next few days and tell them not to be too easy in complying and the reasons for it. the work of getting subscriptions would be so much more worth-while if it did not bring too easy returns. "i suppose you girls know why these bonds are being issued and why they are called liberty bonds." "it is money for the war, and because germany is not a democratic nation the fight against it is called a fight for liberty, isn't it?" mary lee questioned. "there's more to it than that. if the hour were not so late i would give you some of the reasons for issuing these bonds; but mary lee gives the kernel in her explanation. isn't it time for these young ladies to go to bed, mother?" he asked as mrs. saunders came into the room. "that is the reason for my being here at this minute. it is time, my dears. ten o'clock has struck long since." but the girls would not go until they had excitedly explained their success in selling liberty bonds. "i'm disappointed, my dears," mrs. saunders said. "hurt, too. you never thought of asking me." the girls looked at her for the first time in the light of a customer. "and what is more," letty's mother added, taking advantage of the pause on the girls' part due to their surprise, "you can't sell me any tonight for it is too late." "but we surely will tomorrow," letty replied. "so let's be off to bed, mary lee." chapter xx preparing for red cross work mary lee and letty permitted but a small part of the morning to pass before they brought up the subject of mrs. saunders' purchase. "but, my dears, i'm not so sure that i care to buy from people who did not consider me a possible customer. i think i'll buy from someone who will give sufficient and proper importance to my purchase." but the girls could not be put off so easily and it ended by letty's mother laughingly agreeing to buy fifty bonds. the meeting of the red cross group was held that afternoon and both of the girls were elated with the report they were to make. their initial success was but a spur to them for further successes and they were keen to solicit from all the other people they knew. they felt no qualms about it, for it was a patriotic duty. miss james was amazed by the success of the members of the group and was strong in her approval. "altogether," she announced, "the sixty girls who have volunteered to do this work have sold a little less than fifteen hundred bonds. truly, a remarkable showing. it will be interesting to hear some of the accounts. don't you think so?" the girls agreed. mabel strong, one of the girls, was called on for her report. "i sold ten bonds to my father," she announced. "my brother will buy five. however, i have only counted those i have sold." as report followed report, it was found that in most instances those bonds that were sold were to members of families. an exception was the case of pauline antisdale, whose father was a well known surgeon. "my father was one of the first to subscribe," she reported. "i was too late, so he said. i did not know what to do. then i decided to see my father's patients for two days. father thought for a long time before he gave the necessary permission. but," pauline concluded in a quick manner which evidenced her excitement, "i sold fifteen bonds in this way." "good," miss james exclaimed, while the entire group applauded. "that idea was original and worth while." "i'm one of those who had to count on my family," letty explained apologetically. "mary lee and i worked as partners. mary lee, in addition made father buy at least one hundred bonds for her money. and she has written to a mr. marshall in mexico who will be sure to buy some liberty bonds too. and we are certain to bring in some more sales, in a few days." other girls made reports. when quite a number had been made, miss james addressed the girls. "of course, your success is quite wonderful. may i add, however, that such deeds as pauline's and mary lee's stand out. of course, mary lee was able to use some money which was her own but she showed that she did not ask anyone else to do what she was not willing to do herself. pauline and several of the other girls have shown originality. as you all know, it is the desire of the president to have all the people subscribe to the liberty bonds. it would be a simple matter if only those who are specially well-to-do should subscribe. "we will continue the sale of liberty bonds for ten more days. after that we shall have to turn our attention to getting contributions for the red cross work. how much do you think we can pledge our group to collect?" there was a pause of many minutes. finally ruth inquired: "how much do they expect us to collect?" the other girls nodded in approval of the question. "well," miss james answered, "mrs. anderson and i saw the local representative of the red cross committee, as you know. i told them that we had one hundred and twenty girls, some more active than others, some better able to collect subscriptions than others, although all are equally willing. they thought we should be able to collect three hundred dollars. do you think that is too much?" the girls thought for a few minutes. "if each of us collected two dollars and fifty cents, that would mean three hundred dollars, would it not, miss james?" one of the girls asked. miss james nodded her head in assent. "we will be able to do that, of course. let us pledge that much but make a private pledge to ourselves that we get at least five hundred dollars. i so move," said mary lee. "i second that," said ruth excitedly, while many of the other girls showed their approval of the idea. "very well, then," said miss james. "we'll understand, however, that no actual attempts will be made until next week so that it does not interfere with the sale of the bonds. "we are to have mrs. frances billings for a visit next friday evening. the committee on plans will arrange for a reception. mrs. billings, as you all know, is an official of the red cross work and it will be splendid for us to have her visit us. the committee on plans will meet tomorrow. is there anything else?" but nothing else had to be taken up that afternoon and the group adjourned. chapter xxi "what shall we wear?" mrs. anderson's interest in the girls had not abated in the least because of her marriage. she had watched with pride the work they had done as members of the red cross group. one morning each of the former campfire girls received an invitation to dinner at the anderson home. formal dinner invitations did not come often to the girls; they were not old enough as yet. you may be sure that it left them an excited, eager lot. the very next morning aunt madge received eight very formal acceptances. she smiled for she realized that the girls were very much flattered by the dignity of the invitation. she had purposely made it so for that very reason. thursday morning, the day of the party, found two girls greatly excited, on their way to school. "i haven't a thing to wear," said letty, with true feminine consistency. "nonsense," replied mary lee. "you surely can wear your pale blue voile. it goes so well with your pretty new hat. but as for myself, i haven't a fit dress for a formal dinner party." now, mary lee had purchased, with the aid of letty and mrs. saunders, two or three simple gowns, but as this dinner was to be formal, she was afraid none of her dresses would do for the occasion. "silly," replied letty, "if i had that love of a georgette crepe i wouldn't worry a minute." "i guess," remarked mary lee with great truth, "we never have the thing that is altogether satisfactory, it is always something we'd like to have." school was but a half day. it was so near the end of the term that an unusual amount of free time was permitted. the campfire girls were glad to have this leisure. they actually thought they needed it for getting ready. as a matter of fact, none of them really started to dress until five o'clock. at six-thirty letty and mary lee arrived. mrs. anderson was in formal evening dress as was dr. anderson. "i'm sure there are going to be older folks at the dinner," ruth, who had already arrived, whispered to letty. "look," and when the host and hostess were engaged elsewhere she pointed to the formality of their attire. "i don't think so," replied mary lee, who had overheard. "it's going to be our party only and they are treating us as grown-ups, that is all." and so it proved. the girls arrived promptly. the dinner was one of many courses. when it was over, dr. anderson arose and said: "i don't know just where i fit in. i guess i'm just a husband; but mrs. anderson thought i should tell you that we're very proud of our campfire girls and the unselfish work they have done; and since your work was the equal of work done by people who are grown-up, we thought the most fitting occasion would be a very formal dinner. it is on such occasions that older folks usually tell each other how clever and good they are. "but seriously, girls, your unselfish work in this great cause is what makes one happy in belonging to such a country. when the time comes, all of us, young and old, will give the best that is in us for our country. pretty soon my time will come, and i shall not fail to answer the call. but when i go, it will not be i who will do the worth-while thing--it will be my wife, who will see me go, smilingly and bravely, because it's the thing i must do. "it is you girls and you women, you see, who more and more are doing the big thing in a war like this." dr. anderson continued: "i've been very fortunate in knowing you young ladies and learning of your noble work. i can readily understand why my wife thinks so much of you. and, of course," dr. anderson's eyes twinkled, "i can understand why you all think so much of her." the girls laughed as dr. anderson sat down. "one of the reasons," said aunt madge, "i invited you tonight was to extend another invitation. we are leaving for mount hope over decoration day. all of you girls deserve a rest and i think it can be arranged for you to go with us. you can leave wednesday and come back saturday." the girls applauded enthusiastically. "good," said letty. "won't it be heavenly?" said ruth, equally enthusiastic. "it will be different from our thanksgiving party, for at least it is spring--and i love spring," said grace olcott. "you're the one that loved winter, too," said clara. "well, i did," replied grace, not a whit abashed, "i like them all as they come." "if we have half as good a time," said irma, "i'll be satisfied." letty and mary lee said nothing. the memory of that thanksgiving party when letty had tried to make trouble for mary lee was not a pleasant one for letty. mary lee also thought of it. she looked at letty into whose eyes tears began to well. "it's all right," whispered mary lee, as she put her hand over letty's, but in a way that the other people could not see. "we're good friends now. let's forget all of that." letty forced back her tears and gave her friend's hand a loving pat. "of course," said aunt madge, "you will have to receive the necessary permission both at school and at home. i hope you will be successful." "now, girls," mrs. anderson continued, "let's make no plans for our party and instead talk of what we can do in the way of making folks buy more liberty bonds. you see, we want to sell more among the people who would buy but a few shares." the conversation turned to how the red cross girls could further help. many suggestions were made and discussed. "i want to tell you," said mary lee, "that the red cross committee intends to go out for more money as soon as the sale of the liberty bonds closes." "do you think we should wait and do our work for the red cross?" asked edith. "i realize, of course, how well you girls have already done. miss james has given me the amount of subscriptions that the red cross girls have been able to obtain. it's truly wonderful. perhaps we might turn our efforts toward the red cross collections," said aunt madge. "suppose," mary lee suggested, "that we only accept aunt madge's invitation on condition that we get $16,000 worth of liberty bonds sold. that means each of us must sell $2,000 worth." "good idea, mary lee," dr. anderson cried enthusiastically. "we'll do it," said the rest of the girls. a little later the girls departed. it was a most enjoyable party, they all agreed. chapter xxii working for "liberty" a few days later mary lee received a letter from tom marshall. he had replied at once to her letter. he told her that he had instructed mr. saunders to arrange with her to buy his share of liberty bonds. things were going along well and the mine was a great success. he also told her that he had forwarded his name for registration so that he could be conscripted when the time came. "what do you hear of jim lee?" he inquired. lee had written only once to her, as the girl suddenly realized. it was over ten days since she had heard from him. but the afternoon brought a short note in which he announced that he had been transferred to the artillery division. he was going to see more active service, he wrote. when mr. saunders came home both letty and mary lee were waiting for him. "how many bonds did mr. marshall tell you to buy, dad?" asked letty. "why should he tell me to buy any bonds?" her father replied. "why, he wrote mary lee that he had communicated with you; and we must get four thousand dollars' worth sold," she added. "must?" mr. saunders repeated. "otherwise--so we have pledged--we cannot go on the decoration day party with mrs. anderson," mary lee added. "you mean that you have set a mark which you must attain in order to allow yourselves to go?" the girls nodded their heads very vigorously. "well, i call that a fine thing," replied letty's father. "you may put marshall down for fifteen hundred dollars, and i want to add that if you don't make the mark, come to me. i won't buy any more, but i'll see that you get a chance to sell some. now, be off with you, while i dress for dinner," and mr. saunders chuckled to himself. "and they worry about this country, when even the little girls are so serious-minded," he remarked to himself. mary lee, together with letty, called on the camerons the next day. "now," said mary lee, "to business, for that is what we came for." "has mr. cameron bought any liberty bonds? have you? will bob buy any?" "my goodness," replied mrs. cameron, "i don't know whether mr. cameron did or didn't. i know i did not. i never even thought of it. i don't think bob did, either." "well, you should buy some," mary lee advised. "you see, the country needs the money. uncle sam is behind these bonds and he pays three and one-half per cent." "three and one-half per cent?" repeated mrs. cameron. "my bank and my other bonds pay only three per cent." [illustration: mary lee writes to bob] "and better than that," added letty, "you don't have to pay taxes on liberty bonds." "it sounds so attractive," said mrs. cameron. "but i know very little of such things. i'll leave it to mr. cameron. if i buy any, part of them will be bought through you." "thank you," the girls replied. they told her about their pledge. "better write to bob and ask him to telegraph you if he will buy two shares. i think he can buy that many," suggested mrs. cameron. "i'll do it at once," said mary lee, and proceeded to suit action to words. "here comes mr. cameron's car," letty called. mr. cameron came in almost at once and greeted mary lee warmly. "it's good to see you again," he remarked as he removed his gloves. mary lee did not allow much time to elapse before she stated the purpose of their call. "i'm sorry, girls. of course, i've already bought the bonds. they are too good an investment to let pass." "what's more, i've bought some for mrs. cameron, too. however," and he paused, "between us we should be able to buy forty or fifty bonds. don't you think so, mother?" mrs. cameron smiling assented. "will that do?" he asked. "do? do? why, you're a dear," mary lee replied. they stayed for tea and had a pleasant visit. the girls promised to call when they returned from mount hope. "if we go," said letty. "we may not be successful in getting the subscriptions." "we simply must," replied mary lee. "tell you what i'll do," said mary lee. "i feel as if i should go out to see the quinns. i owe them a call. perhaps i can make mr. quinn understand how good these bonds are and if he has any savings he might want to buy some of them." "i'll go with you," letty replied. [illustration: "hello, mary lee, have you come to stay?"] the call on the quinns was made the next day. the girls took the train and walked to the home from the station. mary lee was delighted with the farm; it showed great improvement over the year before. mrs. quinn came to the door, one hand shading her eyes and the other partly lifting the apron which she wore while busy in the kitchen. "well, if it isn't mary lee and miss saunders!" she exclaimed. hearing the exclamation, two sturdy boys rushed past her and were shaking hands with the girls before the mother had a chance. "hello, mary lee," they greeted her joyfully. "have you come to stay?" "no, but i'm glad i'm here." mrs. quinn took mary lee in her arms. "i'm so glad to see you, dear, so glad." "i'm going for father," announced tom. he was off with a rush, the other boy close at his heels. chapter xxiii back on the farm. the girls sat on the porch during the entire afternoon. mr. and mrs. quinn were with them. "it is so comfortable and cheerful out here," mary lee remarked. "it's a wonderful place, isn't it?" added letty as she looked about. "yes, and it will always seem like home to me," mary lee replied. "we had a great summer last year. the farm did very well. this year promises to be much better. i tell you, it's a great place," and mr. quinn beamed. "mr. quinn has been waiting for dr. anderson to come out. he has saved considerable money and he wants dr. anderson to deposit it for him," volunteered mrs. quinn. letty looked at mary lee who in turn looked at her. "that's a queer coincidence," said the girl. "one reason why we came out was to find out if you and mr. quinn didn't want to buy some liberty bonds." mary lee then went on to explain about them and also told about the investments everyone she knew had made. "it pays fairly well, you see." "more than that," replied mr. quinn, "it's for uncle sam. i know something about it, but just hadn't decided that it applied to me. when you get back, mary lee," he continued, "will you get dr. anderson's consent? i have seven hundred dollars i can put into these bonds." "i will ask dr. anderson to write you about this investment," mary lee readily replied. "he'll probably buy yours with his own." the important business completed, the girls reluctantly disturbed their own comfort to follow the boys about the entire farm. the baby, over three years old now, was awake by this time. mary lee was quite disappointed over the fact that the child did not remember her, but she made friends very quickly with both of them. when the girls reached home it was close to eight. the next two days were hurried ones. a telegram came for mary lee monday night. at first she was greatly alarmed. "it's from bob, of course," letty reminded her. "why, to be sure." she tore open the envelope as she spoke. "he is going to buy three bonds," she cried delightedly as she handed the telegram to letty. "that gives us $850 over," mary lee announced after a few seconds' calculation. "some of the other girls may not have enough," letty remarked. "at any rate, we'll know tomorrow whether we go or not." the meeting was in the afternoon. some of the girls had fallen short in the number they sold, but edith, alone, had sold four thousand dollars' worth. the total amount--the girls held their breath while it was being figured--was nineteen thousand. "so we can all go?" asked ruth. "yes, you can go," replied aunt madge. "and to show you how much faith i had in you, i've gotten everything ready. we shall leave tomorrow morning at ten, from the grand central station." "let's not take any more things than we need," said mary lee. "very well," answered letty. "we'll use a steamer trunk for both of us. we simply can't use anything smaller, can we?" "i thought perhaps we could," replied mary lee rather meekly. "but we'll compromise on a small trunk, as you say." the girls were all ready by dinner time. after dinner they visited ruth, who lived close by. "i'm so glad you came, for you can help me decide what to take with me." "well, if you'll take our advice," said mary lee, "you won't take much." "i don't expect to," replied ruth. "you don't?" exclaimed the other two girls in amazement. "look what you already have laid out and i suppose you'll declare that you haven't half your things," said mary lee. "here, let's show you," added letty, who forgot that mary lee had earlier in the day urged her to cut down her own luggage. despite the excited exclamations of ruth over things she insisted she must have, the two other girls determinedly had their way. "now, isn't this better?" asked mary lee, when they were through packing, and her trunk, but half the size of the original, still had room for more things. "you mustn't forget you are only going for a few days." "very well," replied ruth, "i suppose you're right. but please," she begged, "just let me include these shoes--just these." "shall we, letty?" asked mary lee, pretending to be stern, but the least bit undecided. "if it's only these shoes, we will," replied her chum. "thank you," ruth said with mock humility. "thank you very much." chapter xxiv bound for the camp spring was late in the year 1917. the trees were just beginning to show in full foliage and the grass had the freshness and fragrance that only the early mornings of spring can give to it. mary lee, letty and ruth had awakened and dressed at four o'clock that morning. mary lee had suggested the night before that they do this and the two girls had loyally but sleepily carried out the plan. the party bound for mount hope had left on the seven o'clock adirondack express, the night before. when the three girls reached the observation platform, after going through a long line of sleeping coaches, the train was running parallel with champlain and was nearing plattsburg. it was a gorgeous sight and the three stood for several minutes enwrapped in its splendor. the lake, with the woods running close to its shore, presented a picture of crystal-like clearness. on the other side of it, the white and green mountains were beginning to show in more definite outline. the sun, too, began to herald the dawn of the new day, forming a rosy pink in the eastern sky, just over the mountain ranges. "my," said letty. "i'm glad we did get up." "we never really saw the adirondacks before, did we?" added ruth. "if mary lee had ever been up here before," letty further remarked, "i'm sure she never would have missed doing this kind of thing. it _took_ her to get us to do it now; without her, i think we would have come up here again and again and never have summoned sufficient energy to get up so early." on mary lee, the clearing outlines of the towering mountains on both sides of her, the magnificance of the lake, had all made a tremendous impression. never had sunrise meant so much to her. the girl had never, from that first day, when she was brought to the city, ever been further away from it than the farm. the beauty of this new environment dazzled her. her two friends, though not nearly so impressionable, yet found themselves stilled by the majesty of the quiet everywhere. so engrossed were the girls that they did not notice that dr. anderson had stopped just inside the door and was watching them as well as the dawning day. he stood there for ten minutes, then came out and joined them. mary lee gave him a brilliant smile. the three girls looked very pretty and attractive in their blouses. "isn't it perfect?" she offered with a sigh of pure joy in the splendor all about her. the doctor nodded smilingly. "it certainly is that," he answered. a little later the train entered plattsburg. "there's a two hour wait here, girls," dr. anderson informed them. "while the sleepy-heads are getting up, let's go up to see the famous plattsburg camp. shall we?" "splendid," replied letty enthusiastically, "let's." "of course," added the doctor, "we have but little time and so shall not be able to see very much. but even that little should prove interesting. many of our officers for the war will be turned out here and some of our great men have come here for training." as the doctor had remarked there was but little time to spend at the camp. the sergeant on guard showed them all that could be seen at that hour. both dr. anderson and mary lee were specially interested in the first aid equipment. although they had to make a hurried departure they were glad to have had this closer view of a camp destined to make history. it was almost six-thirty when they returned to the train which was scheduled to leave in twenty minutes. they found mrs. anderson and one or two of the girls already awake. "we've had a heavenly morning, aunt madge," said mary lee. "and i suppose you called the rest of us sleepy-heads for not being with you?" aunt madge answered. "i never had any idea it could be so beautiful," mary lee said in reply to a question of mrs. anderson's. "well, dear, you will find it even more so as we climb the adirondacks. we are to do that from now until we reach our point. let's all have breakfast, at least all of us who are awake and ready for it. i suppose you early risers must be starved." the three chums suddenly realized how hungry they were. it had not occurred to them until the subject was mentioned. it was almost nine o'clock when the party reached their station. the anderson camp was twelve miles away and the two automobiles waiting for them took almost an hour to climb to it. mary lee as well as the rest of the girls found the whole trip a panorama of delights. the country was wild and seemed to have escaped civilization. "to think," said one of the girls, "that a place as wild as this should be so near so big a city. it's hard to imagine, isn't it?" the camp picked by dr. anderson was truly in a wonderful spot. far from human habitation it was hidden from the narrow road up which the automobiles had come. it was three-quarters of the way to the top of mount hope. nearby lake ormond, a small body of water was almost hidden by trees and bushes all about it. the girls quickly changed to clothes that were comfortable and suitable. some of them found hammocks, some walked down to the lake. dr. anderson had told them that there were no fixed plans and that each one could do the thing that seemed most desirable. when he went into the house to interview the caretakers, mrs. anderson and several of the girls found a comfortable nook. irma and clara who were not inclined to be as strenuous as the rest of the girls joined her. mrs. anderson was doing some sewing. clara welcomed the opportunity to finish some beautiful tatting and irma was equally anxious to finish a story she had begun on the train. mary lee, letty, ruth and edith had decided on following one of the narrow foot-paths to the top of mt. hope. they stopped for a few minutes and added to the group about aunt madge. "i'm so glad i came," said edith. "there never was such a place." "how did you ever find it?" asked clara, looking up from her yoke. "it must have been a wonderful place for your honeymoon," said the sentimental irma. "yes, we think it rather pleasant," replied the hostess. "it would not have been easy to find, you may be sure. but dr. anderson knows this part of the adirondacks well and he claims that he picked this spot long ago for just such a purpose." "wasn't that lovely?" irma remarked, delighted at any promise of romance. "it's going to be very dear to us, always," aunt madge added. "and if our dear friends get half the fun and joy out of being here that we do we shall indeed think they are having a happy visit." "well, i for my part feel that i've already had an awful lot crowded into my holiday," said mary lee. "all the pleasure that's coming is so much added." "be sure to get back for lunch," aunt madge cautioned the four girls as they started off. "we wouldn't miss it for the world," letty called back. chapter xxv lost in the woods letty and edith were soon considerably ahead of ruth and mary lee who stopped often at the many pretty spots along the way. "isn't it lovely the way the path trails and yet continues ever upward?" said mary lee as the two made their way slowly ahead. "it seems so far from the city and war and liberty bonds," replied ruth dreamily. "but it's our country and it simply adds to our reason for being proud of it," the other girl answered. "but you are right, it is far away from things." at first the voices ahead were clearly distinct but now they were no longer heard. the road, too, in one or two places trailed into the woods and mary lee and ruth found that it was necessary to keep a sharp lookout not to wander off on one of these side trails. "here's how we can tell," the former suddenly called to ruth. "see these trees. someone must have marked them so as to show how to go." "it's what they call a blazed trail, i guess," ruth replied. "i've often heard my brother tell how he and his guide had found it necessary to blaze trails as they go." "i wonder where letty and edith are," mary lee suddenly remarked. "we haven't heard their voices for a long time." the two girls called for their friends. but there was no answer. "let's hurry," said ruth beginning to be alarmed. they hurried out but found no sign of their friends nor any answer to their calls. "i wonder where they can be," said mary lee. "do you suppose they wandered off on one of these trails? i suppose that's what they have done," she added, answering her own question. "let's turn back, mary lee," ruth advised. they did this at once. mary lee felt certain that the two girls could not have gone much further ahead. they came across one or two of the side trails but there was no sign of footprints. at one of these narrow paths they did see the mark of feet but after cutting into the woods for several hundred yards, they decided it was the point where they had found themselves branching off on their way up. they did not cease their calls but were unable to get a response. by this time it was midday and they were far from the camp. they had lost considerable time in zagzaging uncertainly from one point to another in their anxiety to locate their friends. "i wonder, ruth," mary lee questioned her friend, "whether you could find your way back and get help. it's only about two miles from here." "what will you do in the meantime?" ruth replied. "i hate to leave you alone." "i shall try to locate them. but i shall be always coming back to this point, so that you will know where to find me. see, i shall put this branch in the middle of the trail so that you will know." ruth hurried off. mary lee tied her handkerchief on a small branch of another tree so that there would be no mistake. she realized that ruth would not be able to bring help in less than an hour and so decided she was going to study the number of trails within a half mile and follow the one that seemed the most likely. a little further up the mountain she found a path that seemed almost as wide as the main trail and decided to follow it. she had gone but a little way when she noticed that it cut directly to her right and began to go down hill. now she hurried and began to call again. she received no answer but decided to continue on her way. the woods became thicker. the thorns and trailing branches scratched her arms and her face but she was unmindful of this. she made sure, however, of her way back. she had no wish to join the lost. she had cut into the woods about a mile by now and had ceased her calls. the woods were thick about her and almost inaccessible. "i must turn back," she thought dejectedly. "they're not this way." her dress was torn, her hair too, was not in its usual neat order. "letty, oh letty," she called with a last forlorn hope. there was silence for a few seconds. then from a considerable distance, she heard an answering voice. a little uncertain as to the location and inclined to believe that the hail might come from dr. anderson and the rescue party, she called again. the answer was clearer and seemed to come from about a quarter of a mile ahead of her. she hurried forward. soon she heard someone tearing through the brush and finally letty and edith appeared. as soon as the two girls saw mary lee they sat down and began to cry. "aren't we the sillies?" said edith tearfully. "we didn't think of crying until you found us." "we're certainly glad you did find us," letty added. the two girls presented a sorry picture. their faces and arms were scratched even more than mary lee's. their dresses, too, were torn and one of letty's stockings had a big hole in it. the three hurried back to the point mary lee had marked. as well as the two girls could, they explained how they had wandered off on a side trail without being aware of it. then they had suddenly realized they were in the thick of the woods. they had halloaed, but could not hear any answer. dr. anderson and aunt madge were already waiting for them. the girls could hear them calling their names and mary lee shouted in response that she found the two. when the party reached the camp, there were three girls who could not decide whether they were too hungry to be tired or too tired to be hungry. after luncheon had been finished and the girls' scratches dressed, dr. anderson joined his wife. "better not tell those children what a narrow escape they had. it is best for them not to know that there have been people lost in these woods who have starved to death." "i think, too, we had better not let them go off by themselves again," replied mrs. anderson. "they're not all mary lees, you know." so the andersons made light of the fact that letty and edith had strayed off. by the next day, the girls had almost forgotten the incident in the excitement of the pleasures and enjoyment of the vacation. chapter xxvi returning home the stay at mount hope came to a close much too swiftly for the girls, who had never enjoyed any outing so much. bob had come on saturday for the two days and after the first half hour of stiffness and shyness over being in the company of so many girls he found himself thoroughly at home. the boy had grown more manly. mary lee soon found that he preferred the company of boys now. she was glad of that, even though she knew that it took something from their own close friendship. she wanted bob to be a boy's boy and he was certainly proving himself that. he was greatly interested in the success of the girls' "liberty" sale. mary lee told him of the plans for the red cross week which was to begin on june 18th. the boy knew of that for his mother had written to him about it and he told mary lee of the plans his school had made to help during the same week. "i'm one of the committee, too," he told her with great pride. it was a still bright day when the party started for the station in the automobiles after waving a farewell to the caretakers. the train was due at the station at five o'clock. aunt madge had no wish to rush things and so had decided on an early start. bob left them at plattsburg. he was to cross champlain to burlington and from there take a train for the school. it was the idea of the girls that they would stay awake until late in the evening. but ten o'clock found most of them in their berths. at seven o'clock the following morning, the train arrived at the grand central. letty, edith and mary lee still showed traces of the scratches they had received in the woods. but they were not in the least disturbed by this for they carried the pleasantest recollections of a delightful party. if the truth were told, the incident of being lost, now that it was a thing of the past, carried a certain zest. letty had been quite vexed at herself for having cried when mary lee found them. she would have liked to pretend that she had not been at all frightened. edith, however, made an outright admission of how frightened she had been. "and letty," she rebuked the latter, "you know how scared you were. you needn't try to pretend you weren't." "well, _i was_, and so was ruth," mary lee admitted. "i suppose i must admit that i was, too," letty ruefully added. "though i would have liked to pretend that i was brave." "letty," said aunt madge very gravely as she put her arm about her and gave her a hug, "it's the brave people who are scared and frightened. it's people who are able to overcome their fear who are truly brave." the girls gathered together at the station and surrounded the andersons. aunt madge, happy, somewhat embarrassed, was the center of the group and received the evidence of the good time the girls had had with flushed face and genuine pleasure. people passing by stopped to watch the pretty party. "now for school," said edith, as the girls began to separate to get ready for the same. "another month and our real vacation time begins." "yes," replied mary lee, "but we mustn't, in the meantime, forget the things we must plan and do for the red cross before that vacation time comes. remember our promise, don't you, for the week of june 18th?" "we certainly do," replied the other girls enthusiastically. chapter xxvii another adventure "oh, what a long week this is!" cried letty, a few days later as she walked home from school with mary lee and edith. "yes, school is certainly dragging along at a slow pace these last few weeks," added edith. "i suppose it's because our thoughts are more on our coming vacation than on our studies," said mary lee. "we ought to feel bright and perfectly willing to work hard after our delightful outing, but somehow i must confess i don't." "neither do i. the taste of fun we had was so good we want more. i wish some one would invite us to another week-end party or something," said letty. "oh, wouldn't that be great! mother has some friends who are at their lovely country home over on long island. if they would only invite us over," said edith. they had just reached letty's home when they spied the postman coming out. "did you leave a letter for me?" cried letty. "yes, indeed," replied the postman, "a nice big fat one, too." "oh, come on in, girls, till i see if there's anything worth while in it," cried letty bounding up the front steps. the girls were glad to stop in for awhile, for the house was cool and delightful, while the heat outside was intense for a june day. letty tore the letter open hurriedly, and glanced first of all at the signature. "oh, girls, it's from cousin edna! what do you suppose she wants?" "why not read it and see?" asked edith, who was quite consumed with curiosity. letty did. a smile lighted up her face as she turned over the first page. by the time she finished the letter she was ready to dance, she was so excited. "calm yourself, child, calm yourself, till we know what it's all about," cried mary lee. "talk about luck!" exclaimed letty. "just think, cousin edna's camp fire group is off on a camping expedition. she thinks it would be a 'lark' if some of our girls could come over and visit them for a day or so at their camp." "_can_ we?" cried edith, "well, i should say we could. tomorrow is friday, so why not go this week? i'm sure my mother will consent to let me go. whom else shall we ask beside us three?" "nobody," said letty. "we can have a better time if we go by ourselves. cousin edna says they are living in tents about five miles out from the railroad station. of course we shall have to 'hike' all the way over from the station, but won't it be fun? we can wear our khaki suits and carry our blankets strapped around us. the camp is on the beach and we can take our swimming suits along." "and we can sleep on the beach," cried mary lee, "and watch the stars. i've always wanted to do that." "come on home," cried edith to mary lee, "and see what mother has to say. i'm sure she will think it a lovely plan. letty, you find your mother and get her consent." "when shall we start?" cried letty. "tomorrow afternoon, right after school," said mary lee. "we can go by train to port washington and 'hike' over to the camp." "yes," said letty, "i'll have father look up the time-table and see how late a train we can get, so that we can do our walking as the sun is setting. the woods will be so pretty then." "but suppose it gets dark before we reach camp," said edith. "all the more fun. we can take along a flash-light. father has one that gives out a big light. he bought it when he went fishing not long ago. i'll ask him to lend it to us," said letty, "and mother has some regular u. s. army blankets that she takes when we go to the mountains every summer. she'll let us each take one. they will be just the thing if we want to sleep on the beach." chapter xxviii "help! help!" when the three girls started on their expedition the next day, they were the center of attention at the depot. each wore a khaki suit, consisting of a middy blouse and bloomers, heavy leggings and soft felt hat. their blankets were thrown over their shoulders and strapped at the side. inside the rolled blanket each had a sweater, a bathing suit and a cap. one girl carried a camera, one a box of lunch and the other a flash light. "aren't we loaded though?" cried letty as they seated themselves in the train. "i should say so. i feel like tartarin when he started to climb the alps," said edith. "i never heard of tartarin," said mary lee. "who was he?" "didn't you ever read 'tartarin of tarascon,' by alphonse daudet?" asked letty. "no, but i've heard of daudet. he was a celebrated frenchman, wasn't he?" "yes, and tartarin was the dearest old fellow. he started out to climb the alps--loaded himself with rope, woolen clothing, alpine stick, etc. we had to read the book last year in our french class," said letty. "wasn't it the hardest french you ever read?" asked edith. "it seemed to me i had to use my dictionary for every other word. but dear me, why talk about school and studies when we're off on a 'lark'?" "that's what i say," said mary lee. "let's make up a song that we can sing as we trudge along the road." "how about using the tune of 'the bear went over the mountain'?" asked edith. "just the thing," cried letty. "how's this?-"we took our beds on our ba-acks--" "oh, no," said mary lee. "it's better to say 'we took our beds on our shoulders.'" the girls were so busy working on their song that they were surprised when the conductor called "port washington." how the townspeople did stare as the three girls set out down the road! several soldiers, standing on a corner smiled as they whistled the song: "oh here she comes, there she goes all dressed up in her sunday clothes." "don't you feel like a freak?" asked edith, rather sorry now she had worn her bloomer suit. "indeed i don't," answered letty. "these khaki bloomer suits are the latest fad for 'hikers.' i had a letter from my aunt who is at a fashionable summer resort in michigan. she said that there was a party of young people spending the week end at the same hotel and that all the young women of the party wore bloomer suits and looked just too cute for anything. they are university students and had walked all the way from chicago. they were making a study of the sand dunes, lake currents and change of river beds. a professor was with them." "how delightful," said mary lee. "i'd love to join a party like that, only i'd rather study botany." by this time the road led into a deep wood where the setting sun flashed its red light through the verdant foliage. "isn't this ideal?" exclaimed edith. "look at those noble looking trees!" "what kind are they?" asked letty. "i never could tell one tree from another." "those are red oak and those over there are white," explained mary lee. "they look just alike to me," said letty. "how can you tell which is which?" "the red oak has pointed leaves and its acorns ripen every year. but the white oak's leaves are rounded and it takes two years for its acorns to ripen," explained mary lee. "oh, look here," cried edith, bending over a bed of dry leaves. "here's an indian pipe growing. i haven't seen one for years." "why, it's pure white," said letty. "not a bit of green on it. even the root and the stem are white. it is like a regular miniature white clay pipe, isn't it?" "one could almost blow soap bubbles through it," added edith. "but come, girls, we must hurry on. it will be dark before we know it." "who is afraid?" said mary lee, "we have a flash light." "how would you like to have a cup of sassafras tea?" asked edith, examining a small shrub. "where would you get the sassafras?" asked letty. "come over here and help me pull up this baby tree and i'll show you," said edith. all three girls pulled and up came the little tree, roots and all. then edith took her jack knife which hung on a chain from her belt and peeled off bits of the bark down around the roots, and gave each of the girls a taste. "it's sassafras all right," said edith, "but it doesn't look like the kind the women sell on the street corners in town. that's more reddish looking. why is that, i wonder?" "don't ask me," said edith. "i think i'm smart enough in knowing it's sassafras. why worry over its color?" "oh, here's a snail in its shell," said mary lee, picking up a round, brownish shell from the sandy path. "come out here, mr. snail and show yourself," she said, holding the end of a long stick at the opening of the shell. after a few minutes, there was a movement within, and out came a head. "look at its horns," said letty. "aren't they long?" "those aren't horns, those are its eyes at the very end of what appear to be horns. watch, it is crawling entirely out of its shell. isn't it funny looking, as it crawls along, carrying its shell on its back?" said mary lee. "and to think people eat the horrid little things," said letty. "they do?" exclaimed mary lee. "whoever would eat them?" "the french are very fond of them," explained letty. "haven't you ever seen the word 'escargots' on the menu cards?" "i have," said edith, "but i must confess that my french is so limited i never dreamed it meant snails, though." by this time the road led again into the open, with woods on one side and farm lands on the other. the sun had now disappeared and night would soon settle down, so the girls quickened their pace. "do you think we can make it before it's pitch dark?" asked edith, the most timid of the crowd. "it seems to me we have walked about five miles already." "oh, no, we haven't, but i do think we are within two miles or so of our destination. cousin edna and the camp fire guardian are going to walk out and meet us. i suppose they have started by this time," said letty. "i'm glad we don't have to go through any more woods. this road is fine and hard," said edith. it was now quite dark, so mary lee walked ahead and flashed on the light. suddenly they heard a strange noise. "oh, what is that?" cried edith, rushing on ahead, not waiting to find out from which direction the sound came. suddenly there was a dreadful scream from edith, on ahead. "help, help!" she cried. "oh, girls, where am i?" mary lee and letty rushed on ahead, flashing the light. in the middle of the road sat edith and near her was stretched a big cow, half asleep. edith, in trying to run from the mooing cow, had run upon it instead. it had evidently strolled away from a nearby farmhouse. "the big boob," said edith, "to stretch itself out in the middle of the road. it was a dreadful sensation to fall against that big hot animal, and not know what it was," she laughingly said, now beginning to see the funny side of the incident. "listen," said letty, "what's that whistle?" "it's the campfire guardian's whistle," exclaimed mary lee. "they must be near us now." "what a relief," sighed edith, picking herself up, and trudging on after the others. when cousin edna and the camp fire guardian met the girls, there was great rejoicing and before long all five arrived at camp. the "hikers" were pretty tired, so they soon unstrapped their blankets and made ready to sleep. "i'm so glad cousin edna could manage to get us cots to sleep on up here in the tents. i'm too tired to try it on the beach tonight," said letty. "me too," said edith. "falling over that cow in the pitch dark was sensation enough for one night." "perhaps we'll feel more like it tomorrow night. i'd hate to go back to town without sleeping down on the beach one night," said mary lee, unrolling her blanket. "isn't this a scheme to sleep in our bathing suits, so as to be all ready to run down and take a dip at sunrise tomorrow morning!" exclaimed letty. "i should say so. i do so love to take an early morning plunge," said mary lee, jumping into bed. chapter xxix letty's surprise "my! doesn't this bacon taste delicious!" exclaimed mary lee, the next morning as the campfire girls were gathered for breakfast in the mess tent. "and this corn bread and the cantaloupe," added letty. "that early plunge surely gives one a great appetite, doesn't it?" "yes, indeed, but don't eat so slow. remember we have to wash our dishes and clear up our own tents before we can do what we like." "that's so," said mary lee, "see, some of the girls are through already." as each girl finished, she gathered up her own dishes, walked to the end of the big table and washed and rinsed them in the big pans, placed there for that purpose. after breakfast the tents were put in order, and when everything was ready the guardian inspected them all, to see which tent should be awarded first honors for the day. the guardian was about to select the tent in which letty's cousin edna slept when she discovered a hair pin sticking up between the boards in front of the tent. "my, isn't she a strict campfire guardian?" whispered edith to letty. "i should say so! weren't we lucky to have aunt madge for our guardian?" said letty, "instead of one like her?" cousin edna came up just then to tell the girls that she wanted them to come over and meet her friend josephine. "she's the dearest little french girl. her father was killed two years ago over in france. immediately afterwards she and her mother came to this country to raise funds for the french red cross. the mother can't think of anything but the war. she's a regular fanatic on the subject. she gives lectures around at the houses of the 'four hundred' and has made no end of big money for the good cause." "but how did the daughter get to be a campfire girl?" asked edith. "the guardian of our camp met her several times at lectures and felt sorry for her. she seemed to be growing melancholy from so much war talk. she never went anywhere except with her mother, so our guardian took her under her wing, asked her to join our camp and now she's the favorite everywhere. she's getting her color back and is almost jolly at times." "i suppose she can tell blood-curdling stories about the war scenes she saw before coming to this country." "yes, indeed; but we try to get her mind off the war because it has such a depressing effect on her. but she can tell you the most fascinating things about 'gay paree' before the war. her father was a member of president poincaire's cabinet before he enlisted, and she used to attend all the state balls at the elysee palace." "how thrilling!" exclaimed letty. "do introduce us." "isn't she a perfect darling?" whispered edith to mary lee, after the introduction was over. the girls then passed a delightful hour, playing their ukuleles and telling stories. at eleven o'clock all went down to the beach for a swim. what fun they had diving from the spring board and learning the "australian crawl." after dinner they had rest-hour till 2:30. they had to keep pretty quiet, so our three "hikers," cousin edna and the french girl decided to sit outside their tent and read. "but whatever shall we read?" asked letty. "we have some books here," said cousin edna, rummaging around in an empty soap box, which stood on end, and took the place of a wash-stand in the tent. "how are these titles: 'woodland nymphs,' 'oh jerry, be careful,' 'mr. ripling sees it too,' 'the baby and the bachelor'?" "that's the one," cried all the girls in chorus as the last title was called out. the book proved to be an interesting one. in fact, it made them laugh so, that it was not long before the guardian came to hush them up and to remind them that it was "rest hour." "are we going to have our beach supper tonight?" asked cousin edna. "yes, and if you like," replied the guardian, "we can take our blankets and sleep all night on the beach." "lovely," cried all the girls at once. "let's get ready at once, shall we?" soon the picnic basket was packed and off they started to a pretty point two miles down the sandy beach. the first thing they did upon arriving was to gather enough wood to make a fire. then they hunted up a large clean-looking stone and put it in the fire to heat. while this was heating some of the girls gathered long blades of strong grass and wove two mats the size of the top of the stone. as soon as the stone was heated, they pulled it out of the fire and dug a big hole in the sand in which they placed it. around and over it they put hot ashes. they had brought a supply of nice fresh fish already cleaned and seasoned. these they placed between the grass mats and then covered the mats over with more ashes. "do you mean to say that the fish will cook like that?" asked mary lee. "indeed they will," said cousin edna, "and they will be so delicious you will wish you could have them cooked like that all the time." "how long will it take to cook them that way?" asked letty. "about an hour," replied cousin edna. "in the meantime, we can all gather wood for our big fire tonight. we are going to roast corn and toast marshmallows this evening." "we have a lot of wood already," said letty. "see the big pile over there!" "bless you, child, that's nothing. we have to have enough to keep the fire going all night." "all night?" exclaimed edith. "whoever has to sit up and tend it all night? i'd certainly hate that job." "oh, no one has to tend the fire _all_ night. a number of us are chosen and each one has to keep watch an hour at a time," explained cousin edna. "it must be hard to sit up a whole hour; i'm sure i'd go off to sleep," said letty. "you can doze if you like, but you have to keep one eye on the fire. you see, it gets very chilly on the beach before morning and the fire helps a lot. besides, it keeps away the mosquitoes." what a delicious beach supper they had and what a delightful evening they passed afterwards, telling stories, etc. when nine o'clock came each girl put on her sweater and rolled herself in her blanket. "here's where i sleep," said letty, throwing herself down on the beach and piling sand into a heap for a pillow. "good idea," said edith, "let's all make pillows out of sand." the night on the beach proved to be a delightful one, to all but one of the girls. she woke up next morning with a stiff neck from sleeping in a cramped position, and could not go in bathing. thanks, however, to mary lee's training under dr. payson, and her red cross first aid lessons, she knew just how to massage the girl's neck and thus relieved the pain in a short time. after bathing, the girls all walked back to camp, where the cook had prepared a good substantial breakfast for them. they then passed the day quietly as it was sunday. late that afternoon, letty, mary lee and edith said good-bye and started on their homeward journey. "wasn't it a delightful trip?" said mary lee, as they finally reached the railroad station. "just splendid," answered the two other girls in one breath. "i have some good news for you, too," said letty. "oh, don't keep us in suspense," cried edith. "i have invited cousin edna and her little french friend josephine to come and spend a week with us when we go up to our log cabin in the catskills in july," said letty. "mother said i could invite a party of girls for a week, before she begins to fill the house with her company. you see, there will be five of us." "oh, letty, you darling," cried edith, leaning over and giving her a hug. "that's the best plan of any," said mary lee. "i'd love to go if you will let me devote a part of the time to making those 'housewives' that we have to make. you know, uncle sam only provides one housewife for each four soldiers and that is not enough. each soldier must have his own." "indeed he should," said letty. "now that brother ted's number was chosen in the draft, i am going to get right down to serious work and do everything i can to help. we can devote a certain part of each day to our red cross work and in that way set a good example to all the nearby summer colonies. you ought to see the quantity of yarn that mother is laying away to take up there for knitting wristlets and scarves." "it won't be like work up there, either," said mary lee. "i've heard it's just wonderful up in the catskill mountains." "it is," answered letty, "and our cabin is immense. it has a porch screened in on three sides, a wonderful fireplace, and the most fragrant pillows of pine needles. you'll just love it, i know." "here we are at the station, already," cried edith. "after we ferry over, let's take a taxi up home. it's sunday, you know, and i'd hate to meet anyone in these togs." "i don't particularly care about how we look, but a taxi would be just the thing," exclaimed letty. "i'm beginning to feel tired." "the next few weeks of school won't drag a particle," said edith, "now that we have our mountain trip to look forward to." "indeed not, thanks to letty," said mary lee, giving her hand an affectionate squeeze. the red cross girls with the russian army [illustration: barbara presented him with the electric lamp. (_see page 150._)] the red cross girls with the russian army by margaret vandercook author of "the ranch girls series," "stories about camp fire girls series," etc. illustrated the john c. winston company philadelphia copyright, 1916, by the john c. winston co. contents chapter page i. a peasant's hut in russia 7 ii. a former acquaintance 23 iii. general alexis 37 iv. an encounter 53 v. out of the past 67 vi. the arrest 80 vii. a russian church 92 viii. another warning 104 ix. the attack 118 x. mildred's opportunity 134 xi. a russian retreat 148 xii. petrograd 158 xiii. the next step 174 xiv. mildred's return 191 xv. the winter palace 206 xvi. the unexpected happens 217 xvii. the departure 236 xviii. a poem and a conversation 247 xix. the reunion 256 chapter i _a peasant's hut in russia_ in the last volume of the red cross series the four american girls spent six months in tragic little belgium. there, in an american hospital in brussels, devoted to the care, not of wounded soldiers, but of ill belgians, three of the girls lived and worked. but eugenia went alone to dwell in a house in the woods because the cry of the children in belgium made the strongest appeal to her. the house was a lonely one, supposed to be haunted, yet in spite of this eugenia moved in. there the money of the girl whom her friend had once believed "poor as a church mouse" fed and cared for her quickly acquired family. in eugenia's haunted house were other sojourners furnishing the mystery of this story and endangering her liberty, almost her life. they were a belgian officer and his family whom the red cross girl kept in hiding. somehow the officer had managed to return to his own country from the fighting line in belgium. after securing the papers he desired from the enemy, by eugenia's aid, he was enabled to return once more to king albert and the allied armies. thus eugenia was left alone to bear the brunt of the german displeasure after the discovery of her misdeeds. she was imprisoned in brussels, and became dangerously ill. finally, because she was an american, eugenia was made to leave the country, rather than to suffer the punishment which would have been hers had she belonged to another nationality. but the four american red cross girls also had the companionship of dick thornton during their stay in the once lovely capital of belgium. dick had not recovered the use of his arm, but in spite of this had come to brussels to help with the work of the american relief society. here his once friendly relation with barbara meade no longer existed. because of her change of attitude he apparently grew more attached to nona davis. however, at the close of the story, when barbara is taking eugenia back to southern france, she and dick unexpectedly meet aboard a fog-bound ship. and in the darkness the light finally shines when dick and barbara discover at last that their feeling for each other is stronger than friendship. later, near "the pool of truth" not far from the "farmhouse with the blue front door," eugenia peabody again meets captain henri castaigne, the young french officer whom she had once nursed back to health. a short time afterwards he and eugenia are married. later the three other american red cross girls decide to continue their nursing of the wounded soldiers of the allied armies in far-off russia. one cold october afternoon three american girls were standing in the stone courtyard of a great russian fortress near the border line of poland. situated upon a cone-shaped hill, the fort itself had been built like the three sides of a square, with the yard as the center. along the fourth side ran a cement wall with a single iron gate. evidently the three girls were engaged in red cross work, for they wore the familiar service uniforms. one of them had on a heavy coat and cap, but the other two must have just come out of doors for a few moments. indeed, their first words revealed this fact. "i really don't feel that you should be starting upon this expedition alone, nona," mildred thornton argued. she was a tall girl, with heavy, flaxen hair and quiet, steel-gray eyes. she was gazing anxiously about her, for russia was a new and strange world to the three american red cross nurses, who had arrived at their present headquarters only a few weeks before. nearly a year had passed since the four friends separated in belgium. then mildred and nona davis had remained at their posts to care for the homeless belgian children, while barbara meade and eugenia peabody returned to southern france. now at the close of mildred thornton's speech to nona, barbara meade frowned. she was poised on one foot as if expecting to flee at any moment. "i quite agree with you, mildred," she protested. "nona's message was far too mysterious and vague to consider answering. we must not forget that we are now in a country and among a people whom we don't understand in the least. besides, i promised both dick and eugenia that we would be more careful. how i wish one or the other of them were here to advise us!" shivering, barbara, who was the youngest and smallest of the girls, slipped her arm through mildred's. a few yards before them sentries were marching slowly up and down, with their rifles resting on their shoulders, while a double row guarded a single wide gate. every now and then a common soldier passed on his way to the performance of some special duty. gray and colorless, the afternoon had a peculiar dampness as if the wind had blown across acres of melting snow. nevertheless in reply to her friends' objections nona davis shook her head. "yes, i realize you may both be right, and yet so urgent was my message that i feel compelled to do what was asked of me. but don't worry about me, i have the letter with the directions safe in my pocket. good-by." then before either of the other girls could find time to argue the point a second time, the young southern girl had kissed each of them and turned away. later they saw her give the password at the gate and the sentry allow her to pass out. before her lay a stretch of sparsely settled country divided by a wide and much traveled road. several miles further along a wide river crossed the land, but near at hand there were only small farms and meagre clumps of pine woods. after a few more words of disapproval, barbara meade shrugged her shoulders, and then she and mildred re-entered the small curved doorway of the russian fort. the left wing was being used as a hospital for the wounded, while the rest of the great fortification was crowded with officers and soldiers. these men were being held in reserve to await the threatened invasion of the oncoming german hosts. warsaw had fallen and one by one the ancient russian fortifications once deemed invincible had given way before the german guns. but here at grovno, under the command of the great general alexis, the russians were to make a final stand. however, without thinking of anything save personal matters, nona davis first set out along the main traveled road. now and then she was compelled to step aside to let a great ox cart go past; these carts were filled with provisions being brought into the fort. occasionally a covered car rattled past loaded with munitions of war, or a heavy piece of artillery drawn on low trucks. but one would like to have seen a far greater quantity of supplies of all kinds being brought to the old fortress. it was an open secret that the supply of munitions was not what it should be, and yet grovno was expected to withstand all attacks. but the young american girl was not reflecting upon the uncertainties of war during her walk. neither did she feel any nervousness because of the newness of her surroundings, for the country in the rear of the fortifications was chiefly inhabited by russian women and children and a few old men. nona walked on quickly and with a speed and careless grace that covered the ground without apparent effort. she was looking extremely well, but above all other things nona davis appeared supremely interested. for some reason, still unknown to her, she had been more stirred and excited by the coming into russia than any country she had yet seen. she both admired and feared the russian people, with their curious combination of poetry and stupidity, of dullness and passion. before returning to her own land she meant to try and understand them better. for somewhere she had read that the future art of the world was to come forth from russia. it is the slavic temperament and not the anglo-saxon that best expresses itself in music and literature. nona's errand this afternoon was a curious and puzzling one, fraught with unnecessary mystery. four days before, a russian boy about twelve years old had appeared at the gate of the fortress at grovno, bearing a note addressed to miss nona davis. oddly enough, although the note was written in perfect english, it was not signed. in spite of this it requested that the american girl come to a small house about a mile and a half away to see a former friend. but who the friend could be, not one of the three girls could imagine. yet they scarcely talked of anything else. nona had no acquaintances in russia save the people she had met in connection with her work, and there was no one in her past whom she could possibly conceive of having come into russia as a tourist at such a time. therefore it was mildred thornton's and barbara meade's opinion that nona should pay not the slightest heed to such a communication. anonymous letters lead to nothing but evil. but in spite of their objections, here at the first possible opportunity nona was obeying the behest. probably she could not have explained why, for she was too sensible not to appreciate that possible discomfort and even danger might lie ahead of her. perhaps as much as anything she was actuated by a spirit of sheer adventure. so it is little wonder that during her walk nona's thoughts were now and then engaged with her own affairs. yet after a little her attention wandered from the immediate future and she fell to recalling the history of the past years' experiences, her own and her three friends. no wonder barbara was often lonely and homesick for dick thornton. she had become engaged to him on the fog-bound trip she had made with him in getting eugenia safely out of belgium. remembering eugenia's escape, nona said a short prayer of thankfulness. after her hiding of the belgian officer and his family from the german authorities, she would never have been allowed to leave belgium unpunished had she not been an american woman. remembering the fate of the english girl who had committed the same crime, nona appreciated how much they had to be thankful for. and now eugenia was married to captain castaigne, the young french officer. curious that among the four of them who had come from the united states to do red cross work among the allies, eugenia should be the first to marry! she, a new england old maid, disapproving of matrimony and, above all, of international marriages! yet the wedding had taken place in the previous spring at the little french "farmhouse with the blue front door," where the four girls had spent the most cheerful months since their arrival in europe for the war nursing. only once had nona and mildred deserted their posts in belgium, where they had continued eugenia's work of caring for the homeless belgian children. then they had gone to attend her wedding, but had returned to belgium as soon as possible. but eugenia and captain castaigne had taken scarcely more time for their own honeymoon. soon after the ceremony captain castaigne had gone to rejoin his regiment and three days after eugenia had become a member of the staff of a french hospital near her husband's line of trenches. so it turned out that barbara meade was left at the chateau d'amélie, as madame castaigne's friend and companion. dick thornton boarded in the village near by, so that he and barbara had a number of happy months together. but dick had finally decided that he must return to america and had urged barbara and his sister mildred to return with him. of course, nona had been invited to accompany them, but no special pressure had been brought upon her. however, mildred did not feel that her red cross work in europe was finished, while barbara refused to desert her friends. but barbara had another reason for her decision: she desired dick to be alone when he confessed their engagement to his mother and father. barbara had little fear of judge thornton's disapproval, but felt reasonably convinced that mrs. thornton would be both disappointed and aggrieved. certainly she had never hesitated to announce that she expected her son dick to make a brilliant match. how could she then be satisfied with a western girl of no wealth or distinction? it happened that dick thornton also had a private reason for finally agreeing to barbara's wish. his experiences in the past two years had given him a new point of view toward life. no longer was he willing to be known only as his father's son and to continue being supported by him. before dick married he intended making a position for himself, so as to be able to take care of his own wife. nona also recalled that she was really responsible for their coming into russia. it had seemed to her that they must make their red cross work complete by nursing in the largest of the allied countries. however, nona had now to cease her reflections, for she had come to a place in the road where she had been told to turn aside. to make sure the girl opened her note and re-read it for probably the tenth time. yes, here were the three pine trees, green shadows against the autumn sky, and here also was the narrow path that began alongside of them. after another fifteen minutes' walk nona discovered that she was approaching a hut of the poorest character. it was built of logs, with mud roughly filling up a number of cracks. already nona was learning to understand that the russian poor are perhaps the poorest people in the world. this hut was not so poverty-stricken as many others she had seen; at least, there were two windows and a front door. outside a hungry dog prowled about, showing not the slightest interest in the newcomer. yet nona was vaguely frightened. she stopped for a moment to reflect. should she go in or not? the place looked ugly and depressing and she could see no signs of human beings. yet perhaps there was illness inside the house and she had been sent for to give aid. if that were true she must not hesitate. as nona lifted her hand to knock at the door, suddenly it occurred to her as curious that the note she had received had been written upon extremely fine paper and in a handwriting which revealed breeding and education. yet this peasant's hut suggested neither the one nor the other. but nona was more mystified than fearful since her red cross uniform was her protection, and these were not days when one dared think of oneself. she knocked quietly but firmly on the wooden door. the next moment the heavy bar was slipped aside. then nona saw a woman of about thirty-five, dressed in the costume of a russian peasant, standing with both hands outstretched toward her. "my dear," she began in perfect english, "this is better fortune than i dreamed, to find you once again, and in russia, of all countries!" chapter ii _a former acquaintance_ "but," nona began, and then hesitated, feeling extraordinarily puzzled. the face of the woman before her was oddly familiar, although she could not at the instant recall where or when she had known her. yet she remembered the deep blue-gray eyes with their perfectly penciled dark brows and lashes, even the rather sad expression of them. however, she must be mistaken, since she could have no acquaintance in russia! however, she allowed herself to be quietly led inside the hut, where the door was immediately closed behind her. then the girl followed the woman inside a bare chamber, furnished with only a few chairs and a rough table. in an upper corner hung an ikon, the russian image of the christ. the face of the christ was painted in brilliant colors set inside a brass square and this square enclosed in a dark wooden frame. the ikon is to the russian who is a greek catholic what the crucifix is to the roman catholic. no orthodox russian home is ever without one. but after the first glance, nona davis gave no further consideration to her surroundings. before her companion could speak the second time she had suddenly recognized her. "why, lady dorian, what has brought you to russia? you are the last person i expected to see! since our meeting on board the 'philadelphia' and your stay at the sacred heart hospital i have so often wondered what had become of you, and if you were well and happy. you promised to write me." "then you have not forgotten me?" before saying anything more the older woman found a chair for her guest and another for herself. "no, i have not written you, but i have thought of you many times and have followed your history more closely than you dream," she returned quietly, yet with evident earnestness. "i have been well and i suppose as happy as most people. how can any human being be anything but wretched during this tragic war? if only we might have peace!" lady dorian's face became white and drawn and nona felt that she had aged a great deal since their first meeting, and indeed since the months they had spent as fellow workers for the british soldiers at the sacred heart hospital. nevertheless she still felt strangely attracted toward her companion, although mingled with the attraction was a new and uncomfortable feeling of distrust. lady dorian had come to the hospital cleared of the charge made against her on board the "philadelphia" of being a spy. yet she had never given any explanation of her history. then had followed her surprising meeting with the british officer, colonel dalton, and their betrayal of a former acquaintanceship. although the older woman had promised to explain their connection later, she had only said that they had once known each other rather intimately in london. but as they were friends no longer, she preferred not speaking of him again. all this passed swiftly through nona's mind while the older woman was speaking. but the girl devoutly hoped that her face did not betray her thoughts. for here was the most surprising situation of all! lady dorian had seemed to be a woman of wealth at the beginning of their acquaintance and certainly had given a large sum of money to the sacred heart hospital. now to find her dressed as a peasant and living in a peasant's hut in russia! her skirt was of some cheap black material and her bodice of velveteen, laced with black cords over a white cotton waist. she also wore a russian peasant's apron of brighter colors. yet nona recognized the older woman's beauty and distinction in spite of her costume, even while her present circumstances and her eccentricities antagonized her visitor. the woman was sitting with her level brows drawn together looking closely at the younger girl. "i am sorry you don't seem to feel your former faith in me, nona," she began unexpectedly. "not that i blame you, for i do not know myself whether it is wise for me to have intruded into your life again. i would not have done so if there had not been a reason more important than you can appreciate." for a moment the girl's attention had been wandering, engaged by the oddness of her surroundings, but now she tried to conceal her growing discomfort. lady dorian was appearing more mysterious than ever! if she desired to renew their acquaintance because they had formerly liked each other, that was a sufficient reason for her summons. it was scarcely worth while to try to produce other motives. but lady dorian had gotten up and now stood facing her. "what i am going to tell you is extraordinary, nona, although life is too full of strange happenings to make us wonder at anything. in the first place, will you please cease to call me _lady dorian_, for that is not my name. nor is it remarkable for you to discover me living in russia, because i am a russian by birth. i have not always made my home in my own country, but that makes no difference, since my love and sympathy have always been with my own people. here i am only known as 'sonya.' but i do not wish to speak of myself, but of you. i have a strong reason for my interest in you, nona, for although you may find it hard to believe, i once knew your mother." "knew my mother?" the young american girl scarcely understood what was being said. she was so many thousands of miles both in fact and in thought from her own home and her own history. she could not believe that her companion was telling the truth. in any case she was merely mistaking her for some one else. so nona shook her head gravely. "i am sorry, but i don't think that possible," she explained. "my mother was a southern woman, who lived very quietly in an old-fashioned city. i can't see how your lives could ever have touched." until this instant nona had remained seated with her former friend standing before her. she did not realize how much she showed her resentment at this use of her mother's name. now she made an effort to rise from her chair. "i am very happy to have seen you again," she protested in the formal manner which barbara meade sometimes admired and at other times resented. but her companion was not influenced and indeed paid no attention to the younger girl's hauteur. she merely put a restraining hand on her shoulder, adding, "it is not worth while for us to argue that point until you hear what i have to say. the fact is, i know more of your mother, nona, than you do yourself. for one thing, your mother was also a russian. she was older than i, but we were together at one time in the united states. she went to visit in new orleans and there met your father and married. i knew she had a daughter by your name, but curiously when i first met you on board the steamer your name conveyed nothing to me. perhaps the last thing i expected was to find the daughter of your father, general robert davis, serving as a red cross nurse. he was a conservative of the old school, and i supposed would never have allowed you to leave home. but after we came together again and i met you for the second time at the sacred heart hospital, i began to think of what association i had with your name. soon i remembered and then i endeavored to discover your history. there was a chance that the name had no connection with the girl i sought. but it was simple enough to make the discovery." "simple enough to make the discovery!" stupidly nona davis repeated the words aloud, because they puzzled her. then it occurred to her that the woman before her was so associated with mysteries that a family problem must be comparatively simple. doubtless she had been able to discover more of nona's mother's history than she herself had ever found out. but nona was by no means pleased with the thought of an association between her own people and lady dorian, who had just frankly confessed that this name had been an assumed one. nor did she wish to go into the subject of her family connection with so uncomfortable a stranger. first she wished to have time to think the situation over and to try to make it clearer to her own mind. then she wished to discuss it with mildred and barbara. the girl glanced at the old-fashioned watch belonging to her father, which she always wore. in the back it held her mother's picture, but not for worlds would she have revealed this fact at the moment. curious that she should feel this extreme distrust of her companion, when she had been her ardent defender in their earlier acquaintance! but then she had never expected to be drawn into any intimacy with her. besides, russia was an incomprehensible country. the class distinctions which had so impressed her in england were as nothing to the differences in rank here. russia, in truth, seemed a land of princes and paupers! to a girl of nona davis' ideas and training, to find herself associated with the lower orders of russian society was distinctly disagreeable. she had lived so long on the tradition of family that social position seemed of first importance. now her former acquaintance was living in a peasant's house and was dressed like a peasant woman. some strange change must have taken place in her life to reduce her to such a position, when previously she had given the impression of wealth and distinction. nona got up hurriedly, drawing her coat about her. later perhaps she might be willing to hear what the other woman wished to confide, but not today. yet nona felt that she did not wish to look into her companion's eyes. she must try not to think of her any longer as lady dorian, though "sonya" was an exquisite russian name, it certainly gave no clue to her identity. however, she could not fail to see that the other woman's expression revealed surprise and sorrow at her attitude, but was without resentment. it was as if she had grown accustomed to distrust and coldness. "i am sorry you don't wish me to speak of your mother, nona. it is true i can give you no explanation of the change in my surroundings, but the present need not affect the past. i know that your father has kept your mother's story a secret from you. yet there is nothing in it of which you may not be proud, that is, if you have the nature which i have hoped to find in you." embarrassed and yet determined not to listen any further, nona continued obstinately walking toward the door, with sonya quietly following her. "will you wait a moment, please?" the older woman asked. "i have two friends here in the house with me, whom i would like you to meet. when you talk me over with mildred and barbara to find out their opinion of me and of what i have tried to tell you, you can explain to them that i am not alone. i realize that i have always been a mystifying acquaintance and i'm sorry, but it is not possible to tell you my history at present. some day i may be able to explain." sonya's tone was half grave and half gay. moreover, her blue eyes with their curiously dark brows and lashes watched the younger girl with an almost wistful affection. the situation was more than puzzling. yet, although she grew more anxious each minute to be away, nona could only agree to her companion's request. for a moment she was left alone in the crude, bare room. it was cheerless and cold and she grew even more uncomfortable. surely, russia was the strangest land in the world. how could her history as a young american girl have any connection with it? why had she so insisted upon continuing her red cross nursing in russia, when without her urging the other red cross girls would have been content to remain where they were? the next moment a very old woman and a man came into the room with sonya. there was no doubting they were both peasants. with them it was not merely a matter of rough clothes. they were both heavily built, with stupid, sad faces and they mumbled something in broken english when they were introduced to nona, eyeing her with suspicion. it was only when their gaze rested upon sonya that their faces changed. then it was as though a light had shone through darkness. sonya introduced them by name, some queer russian name which nona could not grasp. however, she was trying her best to find something civil to say in return, which they might be able to understand, when an unexpected noise interrupted them. some one had unceremoniously opened the door in the hall and was walking toward them. for an instant nona thought she saw a shade of anxiety cross the faces of her three companions, but the next instant it was gone. nona could scarcely swallow a gasp of surprised admiration when, soon after, the door opened. a young russian soldier entered the room. he wore the uniform of a cossack: the high boots, the fur cap and tunic. to nona davis' american eyes the young man seemed a typical russian of the better classes. he was extremely handsome, more than six feet tall, with dark hair and eyes and a colorless skin. he appeared surprised at nona's presence, but explained that he was stationed at the russian fort where a number of wounded were being cared for. he remembered having seen nona and her two friends. they were the only american nurses in the vicinity, so it was not strange to have noticed them. michael orlaff was the soldier's name. sonya spoke it with distinctness, but gave him no title. yet evidently they knew each other very well. a moment later and nona finally got away. she was late and nervous about returning to the fortifications alone. yet as she hurried on she was thinking over the afternoon until her head ached with the mystery of it. perhaps it might be wise if she could avoid meeting this particular group of people again. chapter iii _general alexis_ all that day mildred thornton had scarcely left the bedside of her patient. for the russian boy was dying, and as there was no hope for him, mildred could only do her best to make him as comfortable as possible. now he seemed half asleep, so with her hands folded in her lap the girl sat near him trying to rest, although unable to keep her mind as quiet as her hands. how strange her surroundings! since her arrival in europe as a red cross nurse she had lived and worked in two other countries and certainly had passed through remarkable experiences, yet none of them were to be compared with these few weeks of nursing in russia. one might have been transferred to another planet instead of another land. as an ordinary american tourist, mildred had been familiar with europe for several years, having spent three summers abroad traveling with her parents. but this was her first vision of the east, for russia is eastern, however she may count herself otherwise. the american girl now lifted her eyes from the figure of the dying boy and let them wander down the length of the room which sheltered them. an immense place, it held rows on rows of other cot beds with white-clad nurses passing about among them. when they spoke or when the patients spoke mildred could rarely guess what was being said, as she knew so few words of russian. yet she had little difficulty with her nursing, for the ways of the ill are universal and she had already seen so much suffering. now the hospital room was in half shadow, but it was never light nor aired as the american nurse felt it should be. the hospital quarters were only a portion of the fortress, a great room, like a barracks which had been hastily turned into a refuge for the wounded. the long stone chamber boasted only four small windows hardly larger than portholes and some distance from the ground. these opened with difficulty and were protected by heavy iron bars. but then in russia in many private houses no window is ever voluntarily opened from autumn until easter, as the cold is so intense and the arrangements for heating so crude. today mildred wondered if the heavy, sick-laden air was giving her extraordinary fancies. she kept seeing dream pictures. for as she stared about the cold chamber of sorrow she beheld with greater distinctness the image of her own rooms at home. this was the hour when the maid came to light her yellow-shaded electric candles; then she would put a fresh log on the fire and stir it to brightness, not because the added warmth was needed in their big steam-heated house, but because of the cheerfulness. then would follow her mother's invitation to drink a cup of tea with her and dick in the library, or would she prefer having it served in her own room? with this thought the girl's eyes clouded for a moment. doubtless dick and her mother would be having tea together this afternoon and dick would in all probability be trying to explain why his sister was not with him. during her work in france and belgium her mother and father had been more than kind, but with this suggestion of coming into russia to continue her nursing both her parents had protested. it is true that they had not actually demanded her presence at home, for she would not have disobeyed a command. but undoubtedly they had urged her homecoming. her father longed for her because of the rare affection between them and the fact that he dreaded the conditions and experiences that might await her and her friends in russia. for these same reasons her mother also desired her return, yet mildred knew that there was another motive actuating her mother. she might be unconscious of the fact, but if her daughter should reappear in new york society at the present time, because of her war experiences she would become an object of unusual interest and attention. at this instant the smile that appeared at the corners of the girl's mouth banished the tired expression it had previously worn. one big thing her war experiences had done for mildred thornton, it had given her a new sense of values. now she _knew_ the things that counted. she had learned to smile at her own failure as a society girl, even to understand and forgive her mother's chagrin at the fact. yet mildred was influenced in a measure to continue her work in europe by these trivial points of view. should she return home and re-enter society as her mother wished, sooner or later she must prove a second disappointment. for she had no social gifts; she could never learn to talk as her friends did. if questions were asked of her she could only reply with facts, not because she was lacking in sympathy or imagination, but because she had not the grace of words. so with neither beauty nor charm, how could she ever even hope to gratify her mother by securing the distinguished husband she so desired for her? but since there was a place in the world for bees as well as butterflies, mildred never meant to allow herself to grow unhappy again. she had a real talent for nursing; her work had received only praise. so here in europe, where there seemed to be the greatest need of her services, she meant to remain as long as possible. this, in spite of the alluring picture of home which would thrust itself before her consciousness. at this instant the boy on the bed moved and sighed and at the same instant the american girl forgot herself. he had opened his eyes and mildred could see that he had become dimly conscious of his own condition and his surroundings. but this boy could never have been more than dimly conscious of most things in his short life, he was so stupid and could neither read nor write; indeed, he had a vocabulary of but a few hundred words. peter had been a laborer on the estates of a polish nobleman when the call came to arms. and so often in the past week while she had been caring for him mildred had been reminded of some farm animal by the way the boy endured pain, he had been so dumb and uncomplaining. even now he made no attempt to speak, but as she leaned over and took his hand mildred realized that the boy could live but a few moments longer. after a little tender smoothing of his cover the girl turned away. the russian peasant is always a devout catholic, so mildred realized that he would wish a priest with him at the end. she had walked only a few feet from the young soldier's bedside when an unaccustomed atmosphere of excitement in the ward arrested her attention. it would not be necessary for her to summon a priest; some one must have anticipated her desire. for the priest was even now approaching. however, he was a familiar figure, passing hourly among the wounded and their attendants; his presence would cause no excitement. the next instant mildred understood the priest was not alone. he was accompanied by one of the most famous men in all europe. although she had never seen him until this instant, mildred thornton had not a moment's doubt of the man's identity. this was the commander of the fortress at grovno, general dmitri alexis, at the present hour the bulwark of many russian hopes. for the past few weeks the germans had been driving the russians farther and farther back beyond the boundaries of poland and near the heart of russia. here at grovno the russian army was expected to make a victorious stand. the faith of the russian people was centered in general dmitri alexis. unlike most russian officers, he had always been devoted to the interests of the common people, although a son of one of russia's noble families. but he was known to be a shy, quiet man with little to say for himself, who had risen to his present rank by sheer ability. to mildred's eyes he seemed almost an old man; in fact, he must have been about fifty. his hair was iron gray, but unlike most russians his eyes were a dark blue. as he wore no beard, the lines about his mouth were so stern as to be almost forbidding. mildred knew that he was an intimate personal friend of the czar and realized just to what extent he must feel the weight of his present responsibilities. therefore she was the more surprised at his appearance in the hospital ward. except for a courtly inclination of his head the great man paid no attention to the greetings that were offered him by the nurses and doctors. walking down the center of the room he had eyes only for the wounded men who lined the two walls. then his sternness relaxed and his smile became a curious compound of pity and regret. mildred found herself staring without regard to good manners or breeding. why should this man create such an atmosphere of trust and respect? she had seen other great generals in the armies of the allies before today, but never one who had made such an impression. general alexis and the priest paused by the bedside of the russian boy who was mildred's patient. there the great man's face softened until it became almost womanish in its sympathy. slowly and reverently the dying boy attempted to raise his general's hand to his lips. general alexis said a few words in russian which the young soldier understood, but mildred could not. for he attempted to shake his head, to whisper a denial, then smiling dropped his arms down by his sides. mildred made no effort to move forward to assist him, for she did not feel that she had a place in the little group at this moment. she merely watched and waited, trying to see clearly through the mist in her eyes. the boy's broad chest, strong once as a young giant's, but now with a scarcely beating heart beneath it, quivered with what seemed a final emotion. the same instant general alexis leaned down and pinned against the white cotton of his rough shirt the iron cross of all the russias. afterwards he kissed him as simply as a woman might have done. that was all! so natural and so quiet it was, mildred thornton herself was hardly aware of the significance of the little scene she had just witnessed. here in a country where the gulf between the rich and the poor, the humble and the great was well nigh impassable, a single act of courage had bridged it. what act of valor peter had performed mildred never knew. she only knew that it had called from his duties one of the greatest men in europe, that he might by his presence and with his own hands show homage to the humblest of soldiers. when the simple ceremony was over the boy lay quite still, scarcely noticing that his general knelt down beside his bed. for his eyes were almost closing. neither did mildred dare move or speak. against the walls the other nurses and doctors stood quiet as wooden figures, while the wounded were hushed to unaccustomed silences. then the russian priest began to intone in words which the american girl could not understand, but in a voice the most wonderful she had ever heard. his tones were those of an organ deep and beautiful, of great volume but without noise. ceasing, he lifted an ikon before the young soldier's dimming eyes, and pronounced what must have been a benediction. the next moment the great stillness had entered the hospital chamber and the russian boy with the iron cross above his heart lay in his final sleep. all at once mildred thornton felt extraordinarily weary. backward and forward she could see the big room rise and recede as though it had been an immense wave. the dim light was turning to darkness, when instinctively reaching out her hand touched the back of a chair. with this she steadied herself for the moment. until now she had not known how tired she was from her vigil, nor how she had been moved by the scene she had just witnessed. after a little she would go to her own room and perhaps nona or barbara would be there. but she must wait until general alexis and the priest had gone away. the next moment she realized that the great man had risen and was approaching toward her. mildred looked wholly unlike a russian woman. her heavy flaxen hair, simply braided and twisted about her head, showed a few strands underneath her nurse's cap. her face was almost colorless, yet her pallor was unlike the russian, which is of a strange olive tone. now and then in her nurse's costume mildred thornton became almost beautiful, through her air of strength and refinement and the unusual sweetness of her expression. the eyes that were turned toward general alexis were a clear blue-gray, but there were deep circles under them, and the girl swayed a little in spite of her effort to stand perfectly still. for several seconds the great man regarded her in silence. then he stretched forth his hand. "you are an american red cross nurse, i believe. may i have the honor of shaking your hand. i have been told that three young american women are here at our fortress at grovno helping to care for our wounded. you have traveled many miles for a noble cause. in the name of my emperor and his people may i thank you." the little speech was made in perfect english and with such simplicity that mildred did not feel awed or surprised. however, she was not certain how she replied or if she replied at all. she only felt her cold fingers held in a hand like steel and the next moment the great general had gone out of the room. immediately after mildred found herself surrounded by a group of russian nurses. the russians are amazing linguists and several of the nurses could speak english. evidently they were overwhelmed by the honor the american girl had just had bestowed upon her. it had almost overshadowed for the time the greater glory of the young soldier. an american red cross nurse had been individually thanked by one of the greatest commanders in europe for her service and the services of her friends to his soldiers and his country. but there was another personal side to the situation which the russian hospital staff appeared to find more amazing. general dmitri alexis was supposed never to speak to a woman. he was an old bachelor and was said to greatly despise the frivolities of russian society women. incredible as it may seem, there is gossip even inside a great fortress in time of war. but mildred's russian companions had neither time nor opportunity to reveal much to her at present. as soon as it was possible she begged that she might be allowed to go to her own room. although she shared it with nona and barbara, neither one of them was there at the time. but instead of lying down at once mildred wrote a few lines to her mother. she knew that she would be greatly pleased by the attention that had just been paid her. of course mildred realized that the general's thanks were not bestowed upon her as an individual, but as a representative of the united states, whose sympathy and friendliness russia so greatly appreciated. chapter iv _an encounter_ barbara had been writing a letter to dick thornton. she was seated on the side of her cot bed in a tiny room high up in a tower, with only one small window overlooking the courtyard below. although it was well into the twentieth century, this room was just such an one as might have concealed the hapless amy robsart in the days of lord leicester and kenilworth castle. but although barbara had not to suffer the thought of a faithless lover, at the present moment she was feeling extremely sorry for herself. russia had no charms for her as it appeared to have for mildred thornton and nona davis. she disliked its bleakness, its barbarity and the strange, moody people it contained. of course she realized that there was another side to russian life, before the present war its society was one of the gayest in the world. but these days, when the germans were driving the russian army backward and even further backward behind their own frontiers, were days for work and silence, not social amusements. moreover, barbara knew that she could never expect to have any part in russian social life when her mission lay among the wounded. so far she had met only other red cross nurses, a few physicians and the soldiers who required her care. but really barbara was not so foolish as to resent these conditions; she was merely homesick and anxious to see dick thornton, and if not dick, then eugenia. france had not seemed so far away from the united states and she had loved france and its brave, gay people. she had understood them and their life. almost she had envied eugenia her future possession of the old chateau and the little "farmhouse with the blue front door." but then eugenia had seemed to find france as strange and uncongenial as barbara now considered russia. even after her marriage to captain castaigne, eugenia had confessed to the younger girl how she dreaded her own inability to become a frenchwoman. she still feared that she would never be equal to the things captain castaigne had a right to expect of her, once the war was over. eugenia had merely cared too much to be willing to give him up, but was too wise to expect that her problems would end with marriage. so with this thought barbara meade finally removed a tear from the end of her nose. it had trickled quite comfortably out of her eyes, but as her nose was somewhat retroussé, it had hesitated there. after all, an american marriage was best for an american girl! barbara tried to convince herself that she should be rejoicing instead of lamenting. certainly dick was the most agreeable and to be desired person in the entire world. but then there was another side to this! had he not been, perhaps she would not at this moment be missing him so terribly and at all the moments. letters were so infrequent! mrs. thornton might positively refuse to allow her son to marry so insignificant a person, and dick forget all about her! but in the midst of this last and most harrowing thought, fortunately nona davis came into the room. she looked excited, but on catching sight of her friend's face her expression changed. "good heavens, barbara!" she began. then the next moment she walked over and tilted the other girl's chin with her hand. "you are just homesick, aren't you, and longing for some one who shall be nameless? you frightened me at first; i feared you had heard dreadful news. come, get your coat and have a walk with me. we have both nearly two hours of freedom and i've permission to go outside the fortifications." the other girl shook her head and shivered. "it is too cold, nona dear, and besides, i'm afraid. i know the russians are said to be holding the line of fortifications beyond us, but then the germans may break through at any time. goodness knows, i don't see what you and mildred find so fascinating in russia! i am afraid i am not brave enough to have come with you." while barbara was arguing nona had taken her coat from its hook on the wall and was putting it about her friend. "yes, i know all that, but just the same you are coming for a walk. as long as you are here you must keep strong enough to do your work. but there, i can't scold half so well as eugenia. i suppose if dick belonged to me i should be as wretched as you are without him. you are a dear to have stuck by mildred and me during this russian work. but do come, i've something really interesting to tell you. perhaps you may feel a tiny bit less lonely afterwards." in the meantime nona had put on her own coat and cap and the two girls started. they had to walk down a narrow stone corridor and then a long flight of winding stone steps to reach the courtyard below. to the right the soldiers were drilling. one could hear the harsh clatter of their heavy boots and the crash of their rifles when they touched the frozen earth. it had turned unexpectedly cold, and yet without a spoken word both girls stopped and stared about them as soon as they reached the outdoors. certainly the scene formed an extraordinary setting for two young american girls! the sky was gray, and although it was only early autumn, there were occasional flurries of snow. behind them stood a long, low line of stone and iron fortifications with enormous guns mounted at intervals along the walls. at one end was an observation tower, where one could see miles on miles of trenches stretching in a kind of semicircle before the fortifications. should the enemy destroy the trenches the russian soldiers could then mass behind the fort and afterwards, if necessary, accomplish their retreat. for a small force could delay the enemy through the strength of their position and the use of their big guns. sheltered behind breastworks of earth, barbed wire entanglements and a natural protection of trees, the girls could barely discern the aerodrome. in this place were situated the machine shops for building and repairing aeroplanes, and also from here their flights and returns could be made. yet in spite of these signs of active warfare, the place was curiously silent. barbara felt puzzled. only the endless tramp, tramp of the soldiers at drill and an occasional guttural command. the noises from the inside of the fort never penetrated to the outside. but then these russians were a quiet people. within a few moments the two girls showed their order to the sentry and were allowed to pass beyond the gate. they then started on their walk along the same road which nona had traveled alone several days before. but actually this was the first chance the girls had for talking over nona's experiences together. true, they shared the same bedroom, so that on her return nona had given a brief report. but really they had been too tired at night to grasp the situation. now naturally barbara thought her companion meant to talk of her recent experience. neither one of them attempted conversation at the beginning of their walk, for the main road was as filled with supplies of every kind that were being hauled to the great fort, as it had been on the day of nona's solitary excursion. but indeed this was a daily occurrence. so, as soon as possible, the girls got away from the road into a lane that was lined with peasants' huts. this lay in an opposite direction from the path nona had previously taken. she had no desire to meet her former acquaintance again until she had made up her mind as to her own attitude toward her. neither barbara nor mildred had so far been able to give her any definite advice. mildred really refused to consider that the older woman could have known nona's mother years before in their own country. her story was too incredible to be believed. barbara had not taken this same point of view. at the present moment she was going over the situation in retrospection. in the first place, it was absurd to think that any train of circumstances could be impossible in such a surprising world. the woman, whom they had once known as lady dorian and whom they now were to think of by another name, had evidently once been a woman of wealth and culture, no matter what her present condition of poverty. she seemed to have traveled everywhere and she may of course have met nona davis' family. there was actually no reason why she should not have known them, barbara concluded in her sensible western fashion. doubtless when nona allowed the older woman to explain the situation it would not be half so mysterious as it now appeared. the really remarkable thing was, not that the other woman should be familiar with nona's mother's history, but that her own daughter should be so in ignorance. for her part she intended to advise nona to listen to whatever their former friend wished to tell her. but just as barbara opened her lips to offer this advice, her companion spoke. "barbara, you have been in such a study you haven't asked for the piece of news i have to give you. do you remember almost quarreling with me because i did not wish to write a note to the english fellow we once knew when we were in brussels, after you discovered him in prison there?" barbara nodded, her mind immediately distracted from her former train of thought. "lieutenant hume? why, do you know what has become of him?" she inquired. in reply nona took a letter out of her pocket. "i had a note from him today. you see, after your lecture i continued writing him in prison every now and then during the year we spent in belgium. just occasionally he was allowed to send me a few lines in reply. then a long time passed and i had almost forgotten him. now he writes to say that by an extraordinary freak of fortune he has been returned home. it seems that he became very ill, so when the germans decided to agree on an exchange of prisoners, he and our little blind frenchman, monsieur bebé, were both sent back to their own lands. lieutenant hume does not say what is the matter with him. his letter isn't about himself. he is really tremendously anxious to hear news of us. he has just learned of eugenia's marriage to henri castaigne, and he thinks we are pretty foolhardy to have offered our services for nursing in russia." instinctively barbara held her companion's arm in a closer grasp. "far be it from me to disagree with him!" she murmured. for her attention had just been arrested by the noise of a horse's hoofs approaching. both girls looked up to see a young cossack soldier riding toward them. he sat his horse as though he were a part of it, his feet swinging in long stirrups and his hands barely touching the reins. both girls felt a stirring sense of admiration. but to their surprise, as the horse drew near the young soldier pulled up and slid quietly to the ground. the next instant he came up toward nona. "you will pardon me," he said, speaking english, although with a noticeable accent, "but it will not be wise for you to continue to walk any further along this road. it is growing late and there are stragglers coming in from several villages where a german raid is feared." he had taken off his pointed cossack cap of lamb's wool and held it in his hand as though he had been a young american meeting a group of friends upon an ordinary thoroughfare. barbara was struck by the incongruity of his appearance and his behavior. he looked like a half-civilized warrior of centuries ago, and yet his manner was the conventional one of today. however, it would not be wise to expect him to remain conventional under unusual conditions. barbara could see that the young russian officer was a son of the east, not the west. he had a peculiar oriental pallor and long, slanting dark eyes, and his small black moustache scarcely concealed the thin red lines of his lips. nona was frowning at him in a puzzled fashion. but the next instant she bowed with an expression of recognition. "thank you, we will do as you suggest. it is odd to see you so soon again after our unexpected meeting the other afternoon. lieutenant orlaff, this is my friend, miss meade." barbara inclined her head, too surprised to do more. but as the russian officer continued to walk beside them with his horse following, she soon understood where he and nona had met each other. "yes, she is an old friend, sonya valesky. i knew her years ago and then she went away into other countries." the young russian hesitated. barbara and nona were both watching his face closely, so that they could see the cloud of doubt, even of struggle, that swept over it. "you are strangers in my country, but you have come here to help us in our need," he protested, almost as if he were thinking aloud. "i would not have you doubt my friend. i cannot explain to you, and yet i wish to warn you. do not be too intimate with sonya valesky. russia is not like other countries in times of war or peace. she has many problems, tragedies of her own to overcome which the foreigner cannot understand. forgive me if i should not have spoken." then before either girl could fully grasp what the young man's confused speech could mean, he had bowed, mounted his horse and ridden off. chapter v _out of the past_ but circumstances afterwards made it impossible for nona davis to follow the young russian officer's advice. a week went by at the hospital without a decision on the girl's part and without another word from her former friend. sonya valesky she must remember was her russian name. a beautiful name and somehow it seemed to fit the personality of the woman whom nona at once admired and distrusted. for the name carried with it its own suggestion of beauty and of melancholy. what secret could sonya valesky be concealing that forced even her friends to warn others against her? of course there could be no answer in her own consciousness to this puzzle, yet nona kept the problem at the back of her mind during the following week of strenuous work. nursing inside the bleak fortress at grovno was of a more difficult character than any work the three american red cross girls had yet undertaken. the surroundings were so uncomfortable, the nursing supplies so limited. worse than anything else, an atmosphere of almost tragic suspense hung like a palpable cloud over every inmate of the fort. authentic news was difficult to obtain, yet refugees were constantly pouring in with stories of fresh german conquests in poland. for it chanced that the months after the arrival of the three american girls in russia were among the darkest in russia's history during the great war. military strategists might be able to understand why the grand duke nicholas and his army were giving way before almost every furious german onslaught. they could explain that he was endeavoring to lead the enemy deeper and deeper into a foreign land, so as to cut them off from their base of supplies. yet it was hard for the ordinary man and woman or the common soldier to conceive of anything except fresh danger and disaster in each defeat. so day after day, night after night the business of strengthening the line of fortifications at grovno went on. the work was done with the silence and the industry of some enormous horde of ants. shut off in the left wing of the fort with the ill and wounded soldiers, the red cross nurses had only occasional glimpses of the warlike preparations that were being made. once when there was a review of the troops in the courtyard behind the fortifications mildred thornton summoned nona and barbara. she had already told them of her experience with the commanding officer of the fort, but she wished the other two girls to have a look at him. it was difficult to get a vivid impression of a personality from a bird's-eye view out of a small upper window. yet the figure of general alexis could never be anything but dominating. there was a hush of admiration from every man or woman inside the fortifications whenever their leader's name was mentioned. if he could not hold the german avalanche in check, then the world must weep for russia. so mildred became a kind of heroine among the nurses because she had received a few moments of the great man's praise and attention. finally, at the end of a week nona davis had a second letter from sonya valesky. it was sent by a messenger, as the other had been, and nona was presented with it when she first went on duty on one saturday morning. this communication was not merely a note, however, for the envelope was sealed and had a bulky appearance. yet nona did not open it all that day or the morning of the next as she had a premonition that the letter was not an ordinary one. either madame valesky was confiding her own history, or she was insisting upon proving to the american girl that she had at one time been a friend of her mother's. really, it was this information that nona both expected and feared. so as she had a particularly difficult case on hand she decided to wait for more leisure before trying to solve the mystery. the opportunity came when she was allowed two hours rest on sunday afternoon. nona was glad that both mildred and barbara were busy at the time, because she preferred to be alone. after her letter had been read and considered then she could decide on the degree of her confidences. but after all, barbara's prediction came true. the story that sonya valesky had to tell of her acquaintance with nona's mother was not half so strange as the fact that the mother's history had been concealed from her daughter. the story was unique but comparatively simple. the only curious fact was the accidental meeting between the russian woman and the american girl. but then just such comings together of persons with a common bond of interest or affection is an hourly occurrence in the world. behind such apparent accidents is some law of nature, a like calling unto like. the older woman explained that she had known nona's mother many years ago when they were both children in russia, although she was a number of years younger. there was as little as possible of sonya valesky's own history in the letter. she stated without proof or comment that her father had once been russian ambassador to the united states. here anna orlaff, nona's mother, had made her a visit and had then gone away south to new orleans and soon afterwards married. for many years the younger girl had not seen her friend again. she had received letters from her, however, and learned that her marriage was not a success. sonya valesky did her best to explain the situation to nona. but how was she to know how much or how little an american girl understands of life and conditions in russia? was nona aware that there were many girls and young men, oftentimes members of noble families, who believed in a new and different russia? had nona ever read of a great writer named tolstoi, who wrote and preached of the real brotherhood of man? he insisted that the words of christ should be interpreted literally and desired that russia, and indeed the world, should have no rich and poor, no czar and slave, but that all men and all women were to be truly equal. nona's mother had been a follower of tolstoi's principles; therefore, her people had sent her away from her own country because they feared if she continued to live in russia with these ideas she might be condemned to siberia. so anna orlaff had gladly left her own country, believing that in the united states she would find the spirit of true equality. naturally her marriage had been a disappointment. at this point in sonya valesky's letter, nona davis began to have a faint appreciation of the situation. she remembered the narrow, conservative life of the old south and that her father had lived largely upon traditions of wealth and family, teaching her little else. what did it matter to him that there were no titles in america, no more slaves to do his bidding, when he continued to believe in the domination of one class over another. dimly at first, more vividly afterwards, nona davis could see the picture of the young russian girl, a socialist and dreamer, married into such an environment. how disappointed and unhappy she must have been in the conservative old city of charleston, south carolina! no wonder people had never mentioned her name to her daughter, and that her father had been so silent! a russian socialist was little less than a criminal. nona was seated in a hard wooden chair in a small, cell-like room many thousands of miles away from her own old home. certainly something stronger than her own wish must have drawn her to russia, for here she must learn to understand the story of her mother's life and to find her own place in it. at this point in the narrative nona let her letter fall idly in her lap. the girl's hands were clasped tightly together, for now her imagination could tell her more than any words of another's. her father had been devoted to her, but he had not been fair, neither had his friends nor her own. why had they always led her to believe by their silences that there was something to be ashamed of in her mother's story? it was odd, of course, to be different from other people, but there was no sin in being a dreamer. nona could see the picture of her mother in the white muslin dress and the blue sash there in their old drawing room in charleston. she had been only a girl of about her age when she remembered her. but then what had become of her mother? why had she gone away? again the girl picked up her letter, for the last few sheets must explain. this portion was hardest of the story to understand, but sonya valesky had tried to make it clear. nona's father had insisted that his young wife give up her views of life. she was to read no books, write no letters, have nothing to do with any human being who thought as she did. above all, she was to make him a written and sacred promise that she would never reveal her ideas of life to her daughter. this nona's mother had refused to do and so had gone away, expecting to come back some day when her husband relented. within a year she had died. but here sonya valesky's letter ended, for she enclosed another written by nona's mother to her friend. if nona had needed proof of the truth of the other woman's statement she could find it here. the letter was yellow with age and very short. it merely asked that if sonya valesky should ever find it possible to know her daughter, nona davis, would she be her friend? then sonya had also enclosed another proof, if proof were needed. this was a small picture of nona's mother which was exactly like the one the girl had found concealed in the back of her father's watch. it was the same watch with the same picture that she now wore always inside her dress. then for nearly an hour the young american girl sat dreaming almost without a movement of her body. little by little she recalled stray memories in her life which made her mother's history appear not so impossible as she had at first conceived. always she had thought of her as foreign. she had only believed her to be french because she spoke french so perfectly and had married in new orleans. but then she herself was beginning to learn that educated russians are among the most accomplished linguists in the world. what else was she to find out about this strange country before her work as a nurse was over? could she ever feel so entirely an american again? all at once nona davis jumped hastily to her feet. there were hundreds of questions she yearned to ask. fortunately for her she was near the one person who might be able to answer them. sonya valesky had never said why she had not sought to find her friend's daughter until their accidental meeting on shipboard. even then she had not recognized nona's connection with the past. was it because she was too engrossed in her own life and her own mysterious mission? although she was at this instant engaged in putting on her coat and cap to go to her, nona again hesitated. how little the russian woman had said of herself! what was she doing here near the russian line of fortifications, living like a peasant with only two old peasants in attendance upon her? and why should the young russian officer have warned her against his own friend? "michael orlaff." automatically nona davis repeated the name of her new acquaintance. "orlaff." the name was the same as her mother's. was there a chance that the young russian lieutenant might be a possible connection? however, the girl recognized that she was stupid to continue to ask herself questions. moreover, she had now made up her mind that she must not distrust sonya valesky unless she had a more definite cause. doubtless sonya shared the same views of life that her mother had cherished! but in any case it was wonderful to have found a woman who had been her mother's friend and who might still be hers. nona had walked across her small room to the door, when she heard some one knocking. a summons had been sent for her to return to her nursing, as the two hours of her recreation were over. how stupid she had been! actually nona had forgotten what had called her to russia, even the war tragedy that was raging about her. of course she could not leave the hospital! it might be several days or more before she could hope to receive permission to revisit sonya. chapter vi _the arrest_ five days later nona davis went again to the little wooden house, where, to her surprise, she had previously discovered a former acquaintance. but on this occasion sonya valesky did not open the door. instead it was opened by the old peasant man whom nona had seen before. today he looked more wretched than stupid. his little black eyes were red rimmed, his sallow skin more wrinkled than ever. when nona inquired for sonya he shook his head disconsolately and then motioned her toward the same room she had formerly entered. there was now a cot in the room and on this cot lay the russian woman. at once nona forgot herself and her desire to ask questions. she remembered only her profession, yes, and one other thing. she recalled the words that the old french peasant, françois, had once spoken to her and to barbara. "have you pity only for wounded soldiers? do girls and women never care to help one another? this war has made wounds deeper than any bullets can create." immediately nona had seen that sonya valesky was very ill. now, no matter who she was, or what she had done, she must be restored to health. first and last nona must put her own emotions aside, for the sake of her mission as a red cross nurse. yet what was she to do? her services belonged to the soldiers in the russian fortress. as quietly and quickly as possible nona gave her orders. she could not be sure, but sonya's appearance indicated that she was suffering from the terrible scourge of typhus. this disease had been one of the most terrible results of the war. because of a greater lack of sanitation and cleanliness the fever had been more widespread in servia and in russia than in any other countries. personally nona had never nursed a case before, yet she had heard the disease discussed and believed she recognized the symptoms. first she made a thorough examination of the little house. it was cleaner than most of the peasants' huts, so far sonya must have prevailed, but still its conditions left much to be desired. without being able to speak more than a few words of their language, nona yet managed to give her directions. she was beginning to guess that the old peasant couple, who at first had seemed mysterious companions for the beautiful russian woman, were probably old servants. if sonya was a follower of tolstoi as her mother had been, she must have refused to recognize any difference between them. but this was not their feeling. the american girl could see that in spirit old katja and nika were the devoted slaves of the younger woman. sonya was not at first conscious of the seriousness of her illness. she wore a dressing gown of some rough homespun, a curious shade of russian blue, the color of her own eyes. her hair, which had turned far whiter in the past year, was partly concealed under a small lace cap such as the russian peasant woman often wears. then, although she did not seem able to talk, she knew nona and thanked her for coming and for the advice she was giving the two old people. but when nona had finished with her orders she came and sat down near sonya. "i have read your letter and i have not been able to answer it until now. it seems like a miracle that i should have found out about my own mother here in a strange land. but perhaps i was meant to take care of you. you must promise to do what i tell you. i must go away now, but i'll come back in a little while." nona was getting up when sonya took hold of her skirt. her face was flushed and her dark blue eyes shining. "you must not stay in this house, not for long at a time," she pleaded. "i cannot explain to you why not, but perhaps when i am strong again i can tell you enough to have you guess the rest. now you must go." sonya took nona's cool hands in her hot ones and held them close for a moment. the next moment the american girl had gone. at the hospital inside the fortress she explained the situation, at least so far as it could be explained. a russian woman, who had once been her friend, lay seriously ill at one of the nearby huts. would one of the hospital physicians come and see her? also would it be possible for her to be spared from caring for the soldiers to look after her woman friend? certainly a russian doctor would attend the case; moreover, after certain formalities nona was allowed a leave of absence from the hospital demands. then began an experience for the young american girl that nothing in her past two or more years of nursing had equaled. she was living and working in a new world, amid surroundings which she could not understand and of which she was afraid. the little hut was crude and lonely. the two old peasants could speak no english, but went about their tasks day after day mute and dolorous. sonya was too ill to recognize her nurse, and nona could not allow barbara or mildred to come near her, since her patient's illness was of the most contagious nature. naturally barbara and mildred wholly disapproved of the risk nona was running and she had not time nor strength to make them see her side of the situation. she had written them that sonya valesky had proved herself to have been an old friend of her mother's. for that reason and for several others she felt it her duty to care for her. but strangest of all nona's experiences were the fragments of conversation which she heard from the lips of her ill friend. sonya sometimes spoke of her girlhood and then again of her life in the united states and in england. once or twice she even called the name of captain dalton. nona supposed that she must be recalling her meeting with captain dalton at the sacred heart hospital. then she remembered that sonya had spoken of knowing the english officer years before. but although her patient betrayed many facts of her past life to her nurse, never once did sonya explain why she was living in such an out-of-the-way place. neither did she give any clue to the kind of work that must have engaged her time and energy. surely sonya valesky must have been upon some secret mission in the days of their first meeting on board the "philadelphia!" even then she had papers in her possession which she would allow no one to see. however, sonya was too desperately ill to permit her nurse much opportunity for surmising. nona would never have left her alone for a moment except that she knew it was her duty to keep up her own strength. every afternoon she went for a short walk. and because no one but the russian physician was allowed to enter the house, now and then the young russian lieutenant would join nona along the road. this could only occur when he was able to get leave, yet nona began to hope for his coming. she was so depressed and lonely. once she asked him if he had ever heard of a member of his family named "anna orlaff." of course she gave no reason for her question. but it made no difference, because the young soldier could recall no such person. in the course of one of their talks, however, he confided to nona that he was a younger brother, but that his family were members of the russian nobility. never once, however, did the young man betray any fact connected with sonya valesky's history. he explained that their families had long known each other and that he had always been fond of her, nothing more. so for this reason as well as others nona found herself attracted by the young russian officer. he seemed very simple, much younger than an american of the same age. at this time michael orlaff must have been about twenty-three. but nona was wise enough to discover that he was not so simple and direct as she had first believed him. a russian does not readily betray either his deeper thoughts or his deeper feelings. the young russian lieutenant would not even speak of the war nor his own part in it. yet nona guessed from her own observation and from certain unconscious information that he was one of the favorite younger officers of the russian general in command of the grovno fortifications. so a number of weeks passed, until now and then nona davis almost forgot the war and her original reasons for being in her present strange position. no one brought her papers; barbara's and mildred's letters contained little war news. the truth was possibly being concealed from them, or else there was no way of their discovering it. so nona was at least spared the anxiety of knowing that the victorious german hosts were drawing nearer and nearer the fortress of grovno. like stone houses built by children the other ancient russian forts had fallen before his "excellenz von beseler," the victor of antwerp, who was known as the german battering ram. even when sonya opened her eyes, after weeks of an almost fatal illness, and asked for news of the war, nona was unable to tell her. then as the days of sonya's convalescence went by she would not let her talk of it. always war is a more terrible thing to girls and women than it is to boys and men. but ever since their first acquaintance nona had realized that the horror of it went deeper into sonya's consciousness than any person she had yet seen. it must be the war that had aged her so in the past year. so the russian woman and the american girl spoke of everything else. sonya told of her own life and of nona's mother when they were little girls. they had both been allowed to go away to college. it was in school that they imbibed their revolutionary ideas. no wonder that their families never forgave them! sonya was dressed and sitting in her chair the day when the summons finally came for her arrest. it was nona davis in her nurse's red cross costume who opened the door for the two men in uniform. they were not dressed like soldiers, and as she could not understand what they said, she did not dream of their errand. but sonya's peasant servants must have understood, for at the sight of the strangers they dropped on their knees and held out imploring hands. sonya herself finally made things clear. the men were two police officers who had been sent to bring her to petrograd. she had been in hiding here near grovno for several months and had hoped to escape their vigilance. evidently sonya had been arrested by the russian authorities. in spite of nona's insistence that her patient was not well enough to be moved, sonya agreed to go with them at once. and only at the moment of parting did she bestow any confidence upon the younger girl. then she looked deep into nona's golden brown eyes with her own strangely glowing blue ones, and whispered: "i have done nothing of which i am ashamed, nona, or i should never have asked for your friendship. it may be that i can make the russian people understand, but i do not feel sure. this war has made men blinder than ever. i have only tried to be a follower of the 'prince of peace.'" then after she had walked away a few steps she came back again. "go back to your united states as soon as you can, nona," she urged. "russia is no place for you or your friends." because nona davis dared not trust herself to speak, sonya afterwards went away without a word of faith or farewell from her. chapter vii _a russian church_ one afternoon, after nona had been nursing her friend, sonya valesky, for some time, mildred thornton went alone into a little russian church. the church was situated behind the line of the fortifications at grovno. many years before it had been erected, and now it did not occur to the russian officers that it stood in especial peril. yet the church had the golden dome of all russian churches, glittering like a ball of fire in the sun. certainly it afforded an easy target for the enemy's guns, and more than this would aid german aeroplanists in making observations of the geography of the surrounding neighborhood. but since grovno was deemed invincible, apparently no one considered the possibility of the other side to this question. high cement walls guarded and mounted with cannon encircled the countryside for many miles, while running out from the fortress itself were numerous secret passages and cells, at present stored with ammunition. on this afternoon of mildred's visit to the church she stood outside for a few moments looking upward. at first she was merely admiring the beauty of the little church. the gold of the dome seemed to be the one appealing spot of color in all the surrounding landscape. then she opened the bronze doors and stole quietly inside. always the church was left open for prayer, but today on entering mildred thornton found it empty. a russian church is unlike all others except the greek, for it is filled with brilliant colors. instead of images such as the roman catholics use, the russians have paintings dealing with the life of christ, almost obscuring the ceiling and the walls. there are no pews such as we find in our own churches, for the russian remains standing during his ceremony and kneels upon the stone floor in time of prayer. so one finds only a few chairs scattered about for old persons and ill ones. mildred secured a stool and sat down in the shadow, gazing up toward the high altar. she was an episcopalian, therefore the russian church and its services did not seem so unusual to her as they did to barbara meade. really she had been deeply impressed by the few services she had seen. there was no organ and no music save the intoning of the voices of the priests, and the words of the service she could not understand. nevertheless the russians were a deeply religious people and perhaps their reverence had influenced the american girl. this afternoon, although alone, mildred felt strangely at peace. indeed, her eyes were cast down and her hands clasped in prayer, when the noise of some one else entering the church disturbed her reverie. to the girl's surprise the figure was that of a man whom the next instant she recognized as general alexis. he had come into the church without a member of his staff, so that evidently he too desired to be alone for prayer. what should she do? mildred was too confused to decide immediately. feeling herself an intruder, yet she did not wish to create a stir and draw attention to herself by hastily leaving. general alexis had evidently not seen her, too intent upon his own devotions. for he had at once approached the altar and knelt reverently before it. mildred kept silent, hardly conscious of her own absorption and forgetting her meditations in her interest in the kneeling soldier. in these days of little faith, small wonder that it struck mildred as inspiring to see this man of many burdens and responsibilities at the foot of the altar. from a western window the afternoon sun shone down upon him, revealing the weary lines in the great soldier's face. he did not look stern or forbidding to mildred this afternoon, only deeply careworn and depressed. however much his soldiers and the russian people might trust in his power to bring them safely through an attack at grovno, evidently there were hours when the distinguished general suffered like lesser people. mildred thornton understood enough of human nature to realize what general alexis must at this moment be enduring. the fate of a people, of a nation, almost of half the world, in a measure rested in his hands. how inadequate any mortal must feel in the face of such a task! by and by mildred's eyes dropped their lids. she felt that she was seeing too deeply into the holy of holies of the man before her. this would not be just to any human being, unaware of her presence. if only she could get away without disturbing him! doubtless on discovering her general alexis would be angered, or at any rate annoyed, perhaps he might even consider her behavior as characteristic american intrusion. once mildred started to her feet, but she did not try to move again, for at almost the same instant the russian general rose from his knees. his face had become a little less careworn than at the moment of his entrance; his blue eyes, which were remarkable with his other russian coloring, were less sombre. since he did not appear to observe her, mildred was glad for this last glance at her companion. since their one meeting for some reason he had haunted her thoughts more than she could explain. this was partly due to the fact that he was so much talked of at the fortress and so idolized by his soldiers. he was said to be without fear, or any human weakness, but after today mildred thornton knew better than this. unconsciously the girl must have moved or made a sound of some kind at this instant, for general alexis, who had almost reached the door, turned quickly around. at the same time his right hand grasped his pistol. was there a spy or an assassin lurking in his church to destroy him? there were many men of other lands who would gladly give their lives for his. but general alexis' hand dropped to his side again, as soon as it had touched the metal of his pistol. to his surprise he had discovered a pair of blue-gray eyes staring at him earnestly, with almost wistful sympathy. general alexis came back to where mildred stood. "you were here in church with me and i did not see you," he said as simply and naturally as an ordinary person, "i hope i did not disturb you." "_disturb me!_" mildred stuttered a little in her surprise at his words. "oh, i beg your pardon, it was i who should not have been here when you came. but i did not know, that is i did not dream you ever left the fort, while i like to steal in here during the hours i have for rest. i will not come again." general alexis shook his head. "i should be very sorry. rather than that this should happen i would stay away during those hours. but is there not room enough here and peace enough for us both?" without replying mildred inclined her head and began walking toward the door, general alexis keeping beside her. "if you are returning to the fortress and will permit me, i should like to go back with you?" he asked. and again mildred could only stammer a confused acquiescence. in the little court before the russian church general alexis' guard of soldiers was awaiting him. however, at an inclination of his head they fell in at once, marching at a respectful distance behind their general and his companion. "i remember our having a short conversation a few weeks ago," the russian officer continued gravely, after they had gone on a few yards. mildred had been vainly endeavoring to make up her mind whether she should be the one to speak. if so, what on earth should she say? she was glad to be spared having to make up her mind. "you were very kind," the girl returned. "i did not imagine you would know me again, but perhaps it is because i am an american." just as if he had been a young man and an everyday one, general alexis smiled, and mildred was no longer afraid of him. "oh, i may remember you, miss thornton, for other reasons. but to be truthful it is because you are an american that i am taking this opportunity to talk to you again." this time the russian officer hesitated. "you will not mention what i am going to say to any persons except your two american friends," he added, not as a request, but as a command. "miss thornton, as soon as it is possible for convenient arrangements to be made for you i want you to know that i intend having you sent back to petrograd. you must of course have a safe escort or i should have seen to the matter sooner." ordinarily mildred thornton possessed unusual self-control, but the surprise, indeed, the shock of the speech, took her unawares. she had not dreamed that she and barbara and nona had been such complete failures in their red cross work. why, after their several years of war experience they had felt themselves of perhaps unusual value in the russian nursing. so far as she knew there had been no complaints of their work, only praise. but in any case how could their failures have reached general dmitri alexis' ears? it seemed incredible that he should ever be annoyed with such trifling concerns. "just as you wish," mildred answered quietly, yet with greater personal dignity than any one of the other american red cross girls could have summoned. "we have done our best to help with the nursing. if we have failed it is, of course, wisest that we should return to petrograd. afterwards we can go home to the united states." "failed in your nursing? and it is for that reason you believe i wish to have you sent away from my fortress?" actually general alexis stopped in his walk and faced his companion, since mildred was, of course, obliged to stop also. "that is folly. i know nothing of your nursing. but from your face, from a something, a serenity and strength that your presence suggests, i feel that you must understand and love your profession." general alexis was now studying mildred thornton with surprising intentness, as though he were trying in this moment of their acquaintance to pierce beneath the surface of the girl before him. this was characteristic of the man. no human being was ever too small or too unimportant for his consideration. he was a strange combination: a great soldier and yet one of the gentlest of men. "i want you to go back to petrograd because i fear for your safety and the safety of your friends should you remain much longer at grovno," he continued. "it is of this fact you are not to speak. i have reason to know that at almost any hour in the next few days we may expect the german attack. grovno will resist to the uttermost. but it may be that the old fortifications are not so invincible as we once thought them to be. a new war has brought a new world and the old order changeth." once again mildred saw beneath the outer surface of the man, but almost at once he was again the soldier. "you understand that i do not expect this. if i decide it may be wiser to retreat, it will only be to form a conjunction with another part of grand duke nicholas' army. but in any case i should prefer to have you three american nurses away from all possible danger. the russian nurses will share the fate of their own soldiers. be prepared to leave within a few days. when the necessary arrangements are made you will receive instructions." then before mildred could protest, and she had scarcely the courage for this, they had reached the gate of the fortress. here general alexis bowed and waited for his guard to come up with him. mildred could feel the surprise even of the sentries at the gate and the few soldiers who chanced to be near at their unexpected appearance. truly it was amazing that the great commander should be concerned with the fate of three unimportant american girls, and even more amazing that he should actually show his consideration and friendliness to one of them! chapter viii _another warning_ two hours after sonya valesky had been taken away by the russian police nona davis started back for the russian fortress. only a few moments were required to pack her own belongings, since the little house and everything inside it had been fumigated as soon as sonya reached a state of convalescence. nona's time had been spent in trying to comfort sonya's servants, old katja and nika, and also in trying to acquire some information from them. in neither effort was she successful. either the old man and woman knew nothing of sonya's actions, or else they were too grief-stricken to confide their knowledge. there was also the third possibility that sonya had warned them against betraying her to any human being. whatever the reason, they were dumb, except for their half-broken russian prayers and stories of sonya as a little girl. if she had not long ago been fully aware of the fact, nona was now assured that the two peasants had been former servants of the russian woman. it was sonya who would not recognize the distinctions of maid and mistress, who called herself by no title and would allow her servants to call her by none. therefore it was almost night when nona left the little hut, old nika carrying her bag and plodding behind her. the girl felt that she must return to her two american friends to receive their aid and sympathy. surely something could be done for sonya, it was horrible to think of her being carried off to a russian prison, concerning which one had read such dreadful stories. she was too ill and she seemed so utterly without friends or relatives. yet nona herself was utterly powerless, knowing no one with any influence in russia. nevertheless she felt a strange bond, which had come to her out of the past, between herself and sonya valesky. one person, however, might be willing to give her advice, though she doubted his help. in returning to the fort, nona meant as soon as possible to request an interview with the young russian officer, michael orlaff. she was not frightened during her walk through the dismal russian country. wearing her red cross uniform she felt a sufficient protection, besides old nika's presence. but the real truth is she was too absorbed in considering sonya's history and fate to be aware of anything else. she was therefore more annoyed than frightened when a figure appeared before her at the crossing of the road by the three pines. the voice that straightway called out to them held a quality of command that made nika drop at once on his knees. nona was not in the least frightened, but then she had seen the outline of the young officer's figure and the glistening of his sword hilt. "i am nona davis, an american red cross nurse on my way back to the fortress, lieutenant orlaff," the girl explained. "i am glad to have met you, as perhaps you will tell me what i must do when i reach the gate." the russian officer saluted as though nona had been a superior officer. "i was on my way at the present moment to sonya valesky's home to inquire for her. this is the first hour of freedom i have been able to command all day. but tell me what brings you back to the fortress at this time? has sonya grown worse or is she better?" here was her opportunity. nona felt that fate must have sent it to her by a special dispensation. now there need be no delay in her confidence. lieutenant orlaff came of a noble family, he must have powerful connections, if he could only be persuaded to use them in sonya's behalf. certainly he had appeared to be her friend, although disapproving of her behavior and views of life. as sympathetically and as quickly as possible nona told of the coming of the russian police. then she laid great stress on the fact that sonya was too ill to have been taken away at such a time. yet she had gone without resistance, making no plea for herself and asking for no aid. what must _they_ do? the situation was unendurable. intentionally nona used the pronoun "they," including lieutenant orlaff with herself in their interest in sonya. yet except for his first muttered exclamation the russian officer had made no comment. in the darkness nona gazed at him resentfully. the russians were a cruel people, sometimes all fire and then again all ice. she would like to have told him what an american man would have attempted for a friend, who was a woman and in such a tragic position, no matter what her crime or mistake. but nona was sure by this time that sonya valesky had committed no crime. she had come to know her too well, her exquisite gentleness, so oddly combined with a blind determination that took no thought of self. besides she recalled her friend's final words, "a follower of the prince of peace." surely there were but few such followers in the european world today! awaiting his answer, nona continued to look at her companion. the young russian might have stood for the figure of "mars," the young god of war, as he strode along beside her. he was six feet in height, splendidly made, and tonight in the semi-darkness his face showed hard and unmoved. "i am grieved but not surprised at what you tell me," he returned the next moment. "not a hundred, but a thousand times i have warned sonya that she must give up her mad ideas. there was sufficient danger in them when the world was at peace. now in time of war to preach that men are brothers, that there should be no such thing as patriotism, that all men are kin, no matter what their country, there never was such folly. it is hard to feel pity or patience." "then you will do nothing to help?" nona inquired, trying to hide the anger she felt. "of course i understand that from your point of view and from the view of nearly all the world sonya valesky is hopelessly wrong. but i can't see why she should be punished because she has a higher ideal than other people?" if nona had only thought for a moment she would have realized that the world has always thus rewarded its visionaries. "but sonya is not content to think in this way alone. she has spent her life in trying to persuade other persons to her view, and has many followers. once she was a very rich woman and traveled in many lands preaching her universal brotherhood," the young officer ended his speech with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders, which is the oriental fashion of announcing that fate is stronger than one's will. "to have continued advocating such a doctrine in a time of war was worse than madness. i have done what i could, i have even risked my own honor and safety in remaining sonya's friend. now retribution has come," he concluded, as though the subject was not to be resumed. and nona did not reply at once. so the young russian officer and the american girl walked on toward the fortress through darkness that was each moment growing more dense. there were no lights save the stars, since the fortress was only dimly lighted in the interior; outside lights would too plainly have exposed their position to the enemy. "what then do you think will become of sonya? what punishment will she have to suffer?" nona inquired when she felt that she had gotten her voice under control. "siberia," lieutenant orlaff returned briefly. then feeling that his companion desired him to say more, he went on: "in many cases a man or woman who has done what sonya valesky has would be hung as a traitor. she has been preaching peace, which means she has been urging men not to fight. that is treason to russia. but i believe that sonya will be lightly dealt with because she comes of a family that once served the czar and his father. besides, sonya is a woman and a beautiful one and it would not do to make a martyr of her." "then you think siberia a light punishment?" nona questioned, no longer trying to keep the bitterness out of her tones. "well, surely you accept a friend's misfortune easily! i have not your philosophy. i do not think i can do much, as i have no friends in russia and no money, but as soon as i receive permission i shall go to petrograd to be of whatever service i can." lieutenant orlaff stared at the girl beside him. it was impossible to see anything but the outline of her face, yet he could observe its pallor and the sheen of her hair under the nurse's cap. besides, he felt the contempt she had not allowed herself to express, for the russian is singularly proud and sensitive. "i repeat that i am very sorry," the young officer added. "you are wrong in thinking i take sonya valesky's fate lightly. her family and mine, as i once told you, have been friends for many years. after the death of her parents my father was for a little time her guardian until she came of age. i will do what i can; i will write letters to her relatives and to people who were once her friends. but i warn you to expect nothing. long ago they became weary of her wild theories and have had nothing to do with her for years." "then all the more reason why i should do what i can. even if i accomplish nothing, at least sonya will have the comfort of knowing that a friend is near her during her trial," the girl said aloud, although really not addressing her companion. during the latter part of his speech she had been thinking very rapidly. first of all, she must ask for a leave of absence from her red cross nursing and explain that it was necessary for her to return to petrograd for a time. but where was she to obtain the money for her expenses? she had nothing of her own except the few roubles which she was paid for her work and which she had forfeited when she undertook to care for sonya valesky. in all probability when mildred thornton knew her mission she could borrow the money from her. but then this would mean a delay so long that she might be of no service to sonya. for mildred kept only a small amount of extra money with her and would be compelled to write her father for any large sum. weeks would pass before judge thornton could receive his daughter's request and then there would be more time required for the transmission of the check. however, besides mildred there was eugenia who could be appealed to for aid. there was no doubt of eugenia's assistance, once she learned sonya valesky's story and realized why she had seemed a suspicious character to all of them in the days of their meeting on board the "philadelphia." but eugenia was away off somewhere in france nursing in a red cross hospital near her husband's line of trenches. it would also take time to reach eugenia. nevertheless she was the best person to whom to make a request. "but what connection have you with sonya valesky? why should you not be willing to leave her to her fate?" lieutenant orlaff had to ask the second time before nona heard him. "you have done what you could in nursing her through a dangerous illness; friendship could expect nothing more. besides, you are an american girl and can have only a slight acquaintance with sonya." again nona davis did not reply immediately. how much or how little should she take the russian officer into her confidence? however, it did not seem to her of much importance then. "you are mistaken. i am not simply an american girl," nona explained quietly. "my father was an american, but my mother was a russian. she and sonya valesky knew each other as girls, although my mother was the older. there is a stronger tie between us than you imagine. and i have reason to believe that my mother once thought as sonya does about many things." "your mother, impossible!" michael orlaff exclaimed, with more consternation and regret in his voice than was reasonable. "but you, surely you cherish no such ideas?" the american girl shook her head, although she seemed to be pondering over her companion's question before replying. "no," she returned at last. "i have no such ideas and i believe never will have them. even though my mother was a russian, i am an american in all my feelings and instincts and training. russia fascinates me, but it frightens me at the same time. besides, it is not necessary in our country that we should teach peace and equality, because it is in those two principles that the american people most believe. if sonya is released i mean to try and take her back to the united states with me to remain until the war is over." "but sonya will not be released, i have tried to make you understand," lieutenant orlaff added doggedly. "what is one woman more or less in times like these? go to petrograd if you will, miss davis. i have told you it is not wise for you and your friends to remain at grovno. but when you reach petrograd have nothing to do with sonya valesky. i have known you only a short time, yet i am your friend and i warn you. cannot you see that i care very much what becomes of you? you are a guest in my country; you have come to do us a service. it would be a poor return if trouble overtook you." nona and lieutenant orlaff with old nika hobbling behind them had by this time about reached the entrance to the fortress. nona was truly grateful. she was very tired and depressed from the day's experiences. moreover, she did not understand the manner or the words of the young officer beside her. at one moment he seemed extraordinarily hard and at the next unnecessarily concerned. nothing could happen to her in petrograd of a serious character, but in any case her experiences could not interest lieutenant orlaff. as soon as possible nona said good-by to him. later, in recalling their conversation, she often thought of a phrase he used: "what is one woman more or less in times like these?" chapter ix _the attack_ there was a great deal more for the three american red cross girls to confide to one another than they could find time for, soon after nona davis' return to the fortress. but two evenings later it chanced that the three girls were all on day duty and therefore had the same evening and night free. in the left wing of the fortress, near the hospital quarters, was the single, small bedroom which the three american nurses shared. once before nona had discovered barbara meade rereading one of dick thornton's letters and giving way to the blues in their small, cold chamber. this evening she made the discovery a second time. it chanced that barbara had gotten away from her nursing first and hurried off to the only privacy that was possible under the circumstances. because she was looking forward to a long and serious conversation with her two friends she made ready to meet the situation as comfortably as possible. this means that barbara slipped out of her nursing uniform and into the pretty kimono that mildred had presented her with long ago in paris. then, while she waited for the others, she read dick's and eugenia's latest letters once again. at last dick had arrived in new york city and was writing from the lovely home barbara remembered so well. he had only been there a little while when this letter had been written, but already dick had confided the news of his engagement to his mother and father. barbara could read between the lines in a characteristic feminine fashion. dick declared that his father was delighted to hear of his happiness and that he had not forgotten that they probably owed their son's life to the girl to whom he was now engaged. but judge thornton agreed with his son--a man should be able to support his wife before he married. therefore he meant to do all that he could to get dick started in the right way, so that he might go ahead as quickly as possible. dick did not seem to feel that it would take very long to accomplish this delectable result, but to barbara, away off in russia, a land she both disliked and feared, the situation looked pretty indefinite. moreover, dick had said nothing about the way in which his mother had received the news of a prospective daughter-in-law. this was not an oversight on dick's part; barbara understood him too well to be deceived into any such impression. he and his mother were too intimate and devoted for him not to care intensely about her attitude toward the girl he wished to marry. never could he have forgotten to mention his mother's position! no, it was merely what she had always expected. mrs. thornton thoroughly disapproved of her son's engagement and dick would not wound the girl he loved by writing her this fact. later there was a chance that his mother might be persuaded to change her mind. but in any case it would be easier to explain by word of mouth than coldly to set down the present situation. moreover, if barbara had required further proof, she would have had it in the fact that mrs. thornton had not written her a single line to say either that she was glad or sorry that the daughter of her husband's old friend had become engaged to her only son. if she had spoken of the matter to mildred, mildred had never referred to it, proving again that any comment from mrs. thornton must have been unfavorable. while she made these reflections following the rereading of her fiancé's letter, barbara was lying on her cot-bed with an army blanket drawn close up under her chin. now she buried her curly head deeper in her pillow and turned from dick's to eugenia's letter. it was difficult to think of eugenia peabody as madame castaigne, indeed as the countess castaigne, only neither she nor her husband would ever be induced to use their titles. the old countess might always remain in safe possession of hers. barbara wondered if eugenia was happier than she was. then she felt ashamed of herself. eugenia's husband was every instant in danger of losing his life, while dick had only returned to the united states, where he was now safe in his own home. yet eugenia's letter made no complaints. she mentioned having seen captain castaigne once in the past month, when he had received a leave of absence of twenty-four hours and had hurried to her. no, eugenia's letter was chiefly devoted, as all her previous letters had been, to her interest and concern in the three american red cross girls. she wished them to return immediately to france and to the old chateau, where the countess castaigne would be only too happy to shelter them. later, if they wished, they could find other red cross work to do in france. but russia was not a country where the girls should have gone at this time, and certainly not without her to look after them. moreover, the news from the russian lines grew more and more alarming. everywhere the germans seemed to be conquering. it was disheartening after the russian triumphs at the beginning of the war. the letter closed with a final plea: would barbara do her best to persuade nona and mildred that they should as soon as possible come back to france. there would be no cowardice or desertion of duty in leaving russia at present, only discretion and good sense. and upon this point of view barbara was reflecting when nona found her. personally barbara agreed with eugenia and wished that nona and mildred would join her in withdrawing from russia whenever they could best be spared. but she could not decide whether she ought to thrust her point of view upon her friends since she was uncertain whether her judgment or her desire most swayed her. france would be so much nearer new york and therefore dick's letters could be so much more frequent. then there was the countess castaigne, to whom she could pour out all her heartburnings. moreover, there was the chance of every now and then seeing her beloved eugenia. but barbara also remembered that she had always been the least brave and determined of the four american nurses ever since their arrival in europe. should she reveal herself in the selfsame light again? at this instant nona snuggled under the blanket beside the younger girl. the russian winter was fast approaching and frequently it was bitterly cold. besides, there were no chairs in the red cross girls' bedroom, only the three beds and some stools, so it was simpler to lie down than be seated. "i have a long story to tell you, bab, and i want your advice, only i think we had best wait for mildred, so you may not have to hear everything twice," nona began. "you mean about sonya valesky?" barbara queried. of course nona had told her two friends of sonya's arrest, but had not been able to go into the details of the story, nor had she mentioned her own intentions. very possibly both the girls would disapprove, as lieutenant orlaff had done, of her becoming more closely involved with sonya valesky's history. fortunately mildred appeared at the door without further delay. but when she entered the room, both of her companions could see that she also had something of importance upon her mind which she wished to discuss at once. instead of lying down, mildred immediately seated herself upon the edge of her cot, facing her friends. then she drew her own blanket up around her shoulders. "girls," she began, "i don't usually do the talking, but i want both of you to listen to me for a few moments tonight. i have been trying to speak of this for several days, and if i don't tell you now the order may come when you are wholly unprepared. we are to be sent back to petrograd as soon as a safe escort can be found for us." "sent back to petrograd! thank fate for even so much!" barbara whispered under the cover. "petrograd might be the beginning of a return journey to france." then she drew her chin up, endeavoring to appear deeply wounded. "do you mean, mildred, that our services as red cross nurses are not considered valuable?" she demanded. "why, only today one of the russian surgeons declared that it was difficult to decide which one of us did the best work. of course, i think mildred at present deserves the prize, nona has been off duty so long in taking care of sonya valesky." mildred thornton glanced from one girl's face to the other. in spite of barbara's effort to conceal her pleasure, it was evident that she was secretly rejoicing. but mildred understood barbara's position; it was natural that she should feel as she did under the circumstances. then barbara had never put forth any claims to being a martyr. what really surprised mildred thornton was nona davis' expression of relief, almost of pleasure, at her news. why, nona had been more enthusiastic than any one of them over the red cross nursing in russia! she it was who had originally planned their coming into russia and had been most deeply interested since their arrival. "but why are we to be sent back to petrograd?" nona also demanded, frowning a little in her effort to grasp the situation. "what reason was given; have we failed in any duty or service since our arrival at grovno?" nona went on, sitting up, while two spots of color appeared in her cheeks. "please, mildred, don't be mysterious. tell us where you received your information and why we are to be sent away so ignominiously?" mildred thornton shook her head in quiet reproach. she was not so impatient nor so unreasonable as the other two girls. "i am waiting to tell you," she returned. "the other afternoon i was sitting alone in the little russian church when general dmitri alexis came in. on leaving he chanced to discover me and asked me to walk with him for a few moments. you know i told you i had met him the day he came into my hospital ward to decorate the dying soldier?" mildred added. this time her companions only nodded, not wishing to interrupt. "well, it was general alexis himself who said that he wished us to go back to petrograd. it was not that he felt the fortress at grovno would not be able to hold out against the german attacks, but that a soldier should be prepared for any emergency. in case grovno should fall, or general alexis decide it wiser to retreat and join another portion of grand duke nicholas' army, he does not wish us at grovno. he says that the russian red cross nurses have the right to remain with their own soldiers, but that we are americans and with us the circumstances are different. he does not intend that harm shall befall us. so i am afraid we have no choice in the matter. as soon as the order comes from general alexis we must be ready to leave at once. one can scarcely dare disobey the commander in chief," mildred concluded, with regret in her tones. "certainly not," barbara added with emphasis. then for another moment nona davis continued gazing thoughtfully at mildred. "i suppose i ought to tell you, mildred, you and barbara both, that i am not sorry we are to go to petrograd; indeed, i am truly glad. because i had intended to try to get permission to return there alone. you know i told you of sonya's arrest, but i did not tell you that i intend to do all that i possibly can to befriend her. she seems to have no one who cares what becomes of her so far as i can find out, except her two old servants, katja and nika. i may not be able to do much, but i have written eugenia, asking her to lend me some money and to forward it to the american ambassador at petrograd as soon as possible. i would like to leave almost at once. you see, i don't know what has become of sonya, nor when her trial may take place." "and for my part i hope you may never know," barbara protested, sitting up with her cheeks suddenly crimson and her hair much tousled. "see here, girls, i know neither of you think much of my advice, and very probably you don't consider me especially brave. i'm not disputing the last point. but i am more sensible than either of you and i can see both sides of a situation better. mildred is an idealist, and nona, you are a dreamer. you think you are not, but i expect you have more of your mother's blood in you than you realize. i am desperately sorry for sonya valesky. i think she is an exquisite and much-wronged woman with the courage and devotion necessary to a martyr. but i don't see that you are particularly fitted to follow her example, nona. that is all that would happen if you attempt to mix yourself up with sonya valesky's political fortunes in petrograd. you have no important friends and could do absolutely nothing for her, but you might manage to get yourself and us, because we care for you, into a great deal of hot water." mildred began to undress. "i think bab is right, nona, though i understand just how you feel. it does seem too cruel to desert a friend in a time of such extremity. when we get to petrograd perhaps we can talk sonya valesky's case over with our ambassador and he may help us with his advice. let's get to sleep now; we can judge more wisely in the morning." it was too cold for a leisurely disrobing, so in a very short time the three girls were ready for the night. soon after they were asleep. for many hours, lasting all through the darkness, the fortress at grovno appeared wrapped in a profound silence. this in spite of the presence of many thousands of men without and within its gates. now and then there may have been the faint noise of a sentry changing his watch, or a scout arriving with a report for headquarters. it was just at dawn when the german attack began. but the russian general had been warned and was awaiting it. never in all the grim history of war was there ever a more sudden or more terrific cannonading. the three american girls were at first stunned by the unexpected noises of the explosions. shell after shell shrieked over the walls of the fortress, cannon after cannon repeated an unceasing bombardment. neither were the russian guns slow in replying. except for the location of the sounds it was impossible to tell which were the russian cannon and which those of the enemy. for some time no one of the three american girls attempted to speak. it would have been impossible to have heard one another. but by and by barbara crawled out of her cot and put her arm about mildred thornton. "i am frightened, mildred. i wish your general's order had come sooner and we were safely away from grovno. i think perhaps because of dick i don't want anything dreadful to happen. i want to be happy." there was a sob in barbara's voice which mildred heard, if not with her ears, at least with her heart. "it is going to be all right, little sister," she returned. "i can't explain exactly why, but i have perfect faith in general alexis." chapter x _mildred's opportunity_ for five days and nights the firing continued almost without cessation. in a measure the occupants of the russian fortress grew accustomed to the noises, unless one explosion seemed a little more terrific than the others. actually the red cross nurses went about their work inside the hospital wing of the fort as though the germans were not attacking. there was one fact, however, that could not be overlooked: more and more wounded were constantly being brought in, until not only the cots but most of the floor space of the wards were covered with stricken soldiers. there was no definite news. no one could say whether the germans had been seriously depleted by the russian gun fire, or whether the grovno fort would be able to continue its resistance. a few of the outer defenses had already fallen. the russian soldiers in the trenches behind the first line of barricades had sought safety inside the fortress. but these signs meant nothing of moment, and no one dared ask questions of the russian officers, who alone might know the purpose of their commander. then on the morning of the seventh day, at dawn, mildred thornton, who chanced to be gazing out of a small window which overlooked the courtyard of the fort, made a discovery. she had not been asleep all night, as there was so much work to be done, but on the way to her room had stopped for a single breath of fresh air, after the fever and confusion of the hospital. what she saw were enormous cannon being lifted on low motor trucks and these trucks being driven as swiftly as possible outside the grovno gate and along the russian highway. there were a few soldiers accompanying them. almost with the flash of an intuition the idea came to mildred: general alexis was contemplating a retreat. he must have decided that, alone and with only a limited number of regiments at his command, he would be unable to hold out against the enemy for an unlimited time. therefore it might be wiser to draw them further into russia and away from their own supplies. general alexis could join grand duke nicholas beyond the styr river and there be better prepared to meet the invaders. mildred knew that the country on the other side of the river covered miles of swamps. if the bridges over the river were destroyed, the germans would find great difficulty in pursuit. therefore the cannon and other heavy guns, with whatever munitions could be spared, were first to be taken to places of safety. later on general alexis would probably give orders for a more general retreat. but when grovno fell the germans would find none of the spoils of war left behind for the victors. all this mildred thought out slowly and carefully as she stood for a few moments beside the tiny window. then she went into her room, changed her uniform for a fresher one and returned to her work. not a word of her idea did she breathe to any one. she had no foundation for her impression, and at first it was an impression, nothing more. yet barbara or nona might have been frightened by the suggestion. however, as the dawn passed and the hours of the day followed, other persons beside mildred thornton began dimly to appreciate the possible conditions. more and more of the munitions of war were hauled away, and surely this did not look as if the fight were to be persisted in at grovno. finally, just before twilight the order came that the wounded, with their nurses and surgeons, were to be moved at nightfall. whatever preparations were necessary must be made at once. silently small groups of soldiers were already being marched away. oh, of course the old guns of the famous fortress continued to belch forth destruction, and there was no lessening of the front ranks of soldiers, who were directly attacking the enemy. general alexis was merely drawing off the men whom he did not actually need for defense. grovno could be protected by a comparatively small number of soldiers without the enemy appreciating any depreciation in their numbers. for all the firing was done behind a barricade of walls. so far the germans were about a mile away. there would be no hand-to-hand combats until the fortress was finally demolished. even under such dangerous conditions the american red cross girls were relieved to hear that they were to be sent from grovno. they were also told that they were not to follow the army. as soon as they reached a railroad, the wounded and their nurses were to be removed to petrograd. there they would find hospitals ready for their accommodation. so it was to be petrograd after all! the three girls were not seriously frightened; indeed, they were less so than at the time of the french retreat. it was so evident that general alexis was providing for the safety of the wounded before the danger time. they would find all the roads open to them now, while the germans were being held on the farther side of the ancient stone walls. just after dusk the hospital staff and their patients were ready for departure. parties of ten, consisting of seven wounded soldiers, two nurses and a physician, gathered quietly in the stone courtyard enclosed by the wings of the fortress. they were then placed in low carts, drawn by gaunt horses and driven by a russian moujik, wearing a long blouse, high boots and a cap with the peculiar russian peak. there were no such facilities for transportation in russia as the american red cross girls had found in france. the motor cars and ambulances owned by the russian army were few in number and inadequate to their needs. these could only be employed in cases where swiftness was a pressing necessity. the three american girls were standing together just outside a stone doorway leading into the yard and awaiting orders. as a matter of course they wore their red cross uniforms: the long circular cape and the small close-fitting bonnet. but barbara had also put on nearly everything else she possessed. they would be traveling all night under extremely uncomfortable conditions and through a bitterly cold country. in fact, barbara looked rather like a little "mother bunch" with her squirrel fur coat on top of her sweater and her cape over them both, and carrying her army blanket. mildred was also prepared for the cold with a heavy coat under her uniform cape. unfortunately, nona owned nothing to make her more comfortable, except that mildred had insisted upon lending her her sweater. but both girls had their blankets over their arms and small bags in their hands. there would be no room for other luggage. "we are going to have a wonderful night, i think," barbara murmured. "of course it will be hard and we may have to suffer discomfort and see others suffering far worse things. but a retreat through this strange country, with its odd inhabitants, as unlike as if they belonged in different planets, will be an experience none of us will ever wish to forget." it was curious that barbara should almost whisper her little speech, as if her voice could be heard above the uproar of the cannonading. yet in the pauses between the firing lasting a few moments the silence seemed almost unearthly. at present there was just such a silence, so that the american girls could even hear the creaking of the old wagon wheels as the ambulance carts rolled out of the fortress yard. now and then there was a faint groan from a wounded man that could not be repressed. the wagons had no springs, but were made as comfortable as possible by layers of hay covering the wagon floors. almost the moment that barbara's speech was finished, some one suddenly stepped out of the door, near which the three girls were standing. looking up they discovered a colonel in the russian army, on the personal staff of general alexis. no one of the three girls knew the officer's name; his rank they recognized from the uniform he wore. moreover, they had observed him always accompanying the russian commander as one of his chief aides. his appearance in the courtyard at this moment was surprising, but in all probability he wished to issue a direct order concerning the plan of retreat. yet the officer did not at once move forward to where groups of soldiers were also making preparations to be on the march. instead he stood for a few moments just outside the door, gazing searchingly about him. no one of the red cross girls spoke. they were too awed by the gravity of the situation to make trivial remarks. moreover, the big russian officer was an impressive figure. it was more interesting to watch him until they were summoned to take their places in the wagons that were now leaving the fortress at intervals of about ten minutes apart. by chance mildred thornton made a movement and immediately the russian colonel directed his glance toward her. he stared at her for a moment in silence and then, stepping forward, touched her upon the arm. "i should like to speak to you a moment alone, nurse," he announced in low tones, although barbara and nona both heard this part of his speech. instantly mildred complied, and the girl and man moved a few feet away, where they could talk without being overheard. under the circumstances neither barbara nor nona had the temerity to follow them. but this did not mean that they were not both extraordinarily curious. at least they strained their ears as much as possible in order to try and catch a stray word spoken either by mildred or her companion. but they heard nothing except the low murmur of the two voices, the officer asking questions and mildred making replies. "what on earth do you suppose he can be saying to mill?" barbara finally whispered. nona only shook her head. any guessing would be a pure waste of energy, since mildred would return in a few moments to explain. she did come back almost immediately, but with her first words her friends realized that something unusual had occurred. ordinarily mildred was calm and self possessed. now her voice shook and indeed she seemed to be shivering either from cold or excitement. "i can't go with you to petrograd, girls," she said quietly enough, however. "listen, please, so i can make matters plain to you, for you may be ordered to leave at any moment. barbara, i want you to write my father and mother and try and make them see i had no choice in this decision. but you must not speak of the circumstances to any one else. it would be dangerous for me and for us all if you betray this confidence. the officer who talked with me just then is colonel feodorovitch. he is very near general alexis and tells me that general alexis has been wounded. the wound is not considered serious and he refuses to give up his command or to leave the fort until the final moment for retreat. neither must his soldiers learn of what has taken place. his own surgeon is with him now and will remain with him. but there is a chance that they will also require a nurse. colonel feodorovitch came to find one before we all got away. by accident he saw me first and requested me to remain behind. i could not refuse." "mildred!" nona and barbara exclaimed in unison, with no attempt to conceal their dismay, almost their horror. "but you can't accept, mildred," barbara expostulated. "if you do i shall not leave you. why, what would your mother and father and dick think of my deserting you at such a time? besides, don't you remember that general alexis himself wanted us safe in petrograd before the retreat. he would be bitterly opposed to your being chosen to remain behind. didn't you speak of this to colonel feodorovitch?" "i couldn't, barbara," mildred insisted. "it would have been such a long story and colonel feodorovitch knows about as much english as i do russian. it would only have looked as though i were shirking a most important duty. general alexis will not recall ever having thought or spoken to me, at a time when the russian army, perhaps the whole russian nation, is dependent on his failure or success. if i can do even the least thing to help him at such a crisis, why, how could i refuse? please try and see this as i do, barbara, you and nona. there may be nothing for me to do. general alexis' wound is not serious or he could not retain his command. i must leave you now; i am wanted at once. i'll join you in petrograd as soon as it is humanly possible." but barbara had clutched mildred's coat. "you shall not stay alone. i am almost your sister and i won't allow it." quietly mildred unclasped the younger girl's hand. "for my own sake i would give a great deal to have you stay, bab, but we have no choice. remember, we are under discipline like soldiers. we must do as we are commanded." with this mildred returned inside the fortress. at the same instant nona davis and barbara meade heard their names being called. at once they moved forward and were assisted inside the wagon, which soon after passed out of the gate and moved creakingly along the main road in the direction of the styr river. they were to cross one of its bridges, as the main army was now doing. the last of the regiments at grovno would see that the bridges were destroyed before the german soldiers could come up to them. chapter xi _a russian retreat_ for many hours the ambulance wagon in which nona and barbara were riding jogged on, forming one of a procession of similar wagons. the girls grew cold and cramped. now and then they tried to move in order to make their patients more comfortable or at least to give water to the wounded men. but the wagons were so crowded that the slightest stirring was well nigh impossible. nevertheless, as barbara meade had predicted, the long night was one neither she nor nona would ever be willing to forget. at first they rode along, passing the wooden huts of the peasants that once had lined both sides of the main road leading to the middle bridge across the river styr. but many of these shacks had suffered from the stray shells of the germans, which, having passed beyond the fortress, had brought desolation to the country side. these little wooden houses in many places were mere heaps of burnt-out ashes. others were half burned, or else collapsed, as if they had been houses built by children, who had afterwards kicked them down. everywhere, from the little homes that were unhurt, as well as from the ruined ones, the peasants were fleeing. with the passing of the first russian regiment _away_ from grovno they had guessed what must inevitably follow. there were bent-over old women and men carrying packs on their backs like beasts of burden, and in truth the russian peasant has been nothing more for many centuries. the children, who ran along beside them, were incredibly thin and dirty and hungry. one member of each little group would carry a lighted pine torch, pointing the way with fitful shadows. but wherever it was possible they followed in the wake of the wagons. at first the night was dark and the american girls could hear their driver muttering strange russian imprecations as his horses stumbled and felt their way along. finally barbara presented him with the electric lamp, which had been dick thornton's farewell present to her on the day of her sailing from new york city. she had used it many times since then, but never for a queerer purpose. however, before they reached the river the moon had risen and both nona and barbara were grateful for the added light. yet the scene they next witnessed was lighted by many camp fires. the russian infantry, who had been first to begin the retreat from grovno, had camped on this side the river for a few hours rest. a confused murmur of sounds arose. in little knots before the fires men squatted on their knees in oriental fashion, waiting for the copper pots to boil. for at all hours of the day and night the russian drinks tea, now more than ever, since by command of the czar the soldier is forbidden to touch alcohol. the girls could observe that the men had curiously unlike faces. it was difficult to understand how they could all be russians. never before had they seen so many of the soldiers at one time. some of them had flat faces and high cheek bones, with eyes like the chinese. it was very strange! yet nona whispered that they must remember some of these russian soldiers had come from asia, from beyond the caspian sea. perhaps their ancestors had been members of the great mongolian horde that had once invaded europe under genghis khan. in their interest nona and barbara began discussing the possible history of these soldiers aloud. by and by, one of the wounded men, who chanced to be a russian university graduate, smiled to himself over the interest and excitement of the two american nurses. he had been suffering intensely from the jolting and was glad for anything that would distract his mind from his suffering. "the soldiers you are discussing are called 'turcomen,'" he remarked aloud. nona and barbara were startled by the voice out of the darkness, but they murmured confused thanks. "perhaps we had best not discuss our surroundings so openly," nona suggested, and barbara agreed with a silent motion of her head. by this time they had reached the central bridge. it was built of steel and stretched like a long line of silver across the dark river. over the bridge, like enormous over-burdened ants, the american girls could see other ambulance wagons moving slowly on. for the horses had become weary of their heavy loads and yet were to have no rest of any length until daylight. on the farther side of the river there were other small encampments. but by and by barbara meade fell asleep with her head pressed against nona's shoulder. occasionally nona drowsed, but not often. she was torn between two worries. what would become of mildred thornton, left behind with strangers in a besieged fortress that might fall at any hour? surely her situation was more fraught with danger than any in which the red cross girls had found themselves since their arrival in europe. nona wished that she had taken sides with barbara more decisively and refused to leave grovno unless mildred accompanied them. but mildred had disappeared so quickly. then the order had come for their departure almost at the same instant. there had been so little time to protest or even to think what was best. certainly mildred herself should have refused to accept such a dangerous responsibility. but at the same moment that nona condemned her friend, she realized that she would have done exactly the same thing in her place. in coming to assist with the red cross nursing they had promised to put the thought of duty first. mildred could not shirk the most important task that had yet been asked of her. perhaps no harm would befall her. certainly nona appreciated that everything possible would be done to insure mildred's safety. her life and honor would be the first charge of the soldiers surrounding her. moreover, general alexis would certainly leave the fortress before there was a chance of his being taken prisoner. he was too valuable a commander to have his services lost and the germans would regard him as too important a capture. so nona's attention wandered from mildred to her other friend, sonya valesky. what had become of sonya and how was she ever to find her in the great and unknown city of petrograd? if she only had a friend to consult, but she had even been compelled to leave grovno without seeing lieutenant orlaff again. he had promised to write a few letters in sonya's behalf, although assured that they would do no good. yet in some way nona was determined to discover the russian woman. perhaps the czar himself might be brought to pardon sonya if he heard that she would leave for the united states and never return to russia again. then nona smiled and sighed at the same time over her own simplicity. the czar was at the head of his troops, with the fate of his crown and his country at stake. "what did one woman more or less count in times like these?" before daylight nona must have also slept, because she was finally awakened by the stopping of their ambulance wagon. when she opened her eyes she was surprised to see a rose flush in the sky and to hear the slow puffing of an engine. the wagons had arrived at a small railroad station, connecting with the main road leading into petrograd. word of the approach of the ambulances must have been sent ahead, for a train of more than a dozen coaches was even now in waiting. as quickly as possible nona and barbara crawled out of their wagon, stamping their feet on the frozen ground and waving their arms in order to start their circulation. then they began to assist in transferring the wounded soldiers from the wagons to the cars. the men were wonderfully patient and plucky, for they must have suffered tortures. they had first to be lifted on to an ambulance cot and then transferred to another cot inside the train. a few of the soldiers fainted and for them nona and barbara were relieved. at least they were spared the added pain. yet by and by, when the long line of cars started for petrograd, the occupants of the coaches were amazingly cheerful. tea and bread had been served all of the travelers and cigarettes given to the men. some of the soldiers sang, others told jokes, those who were most dangerously ill only lay still and smiled. they were on their way to petrograd! this meant home and friends to some of them. to others it meant only the name of their greatest city and the palace of their czar. but to all of them petrograd promised comfort and quiet, away from the horrible, deafening noises of exploding bullets and shells. naturally nona and barbara were affected by the greater cheerfulness about them. "if only mildred were with us, how relieved i would be. really, i don't know how we are to bear the suspense of not knowing what has become of her," barbara said not once, but a dozen times in the course of the day. but night brought them into the famous russian capital. chapter xii _petrograd_ on their arrival barbara and nona went with the wounded soldiers to a red cross hospital in petrograd. there, to her consternation, a few days later nona davis became ill. the illness was only an attack of malarial fever, which nona had been subject to ever since her childhood; nevertheless, the disease had never chosen a more unpropitious time for its reappearance. for a few days she seemed dangerously ill, then her convalescence left her weak and exhausted. she was totally unfit for work and only a burden instead of an aid to the hospital staff. poor barbara had a busy, unhappy time of it. she did her best to look after nona in spare moments from her regular nursing, and she also tried not to lose courage when no word came from mildred. neither from newspapers nor inquiries in all possible directions could she even learn whether grovno had fallen. she was unable to read the newspapers for herself and so was compelled to wait until one of the other nurses could find time to laboriously translate the information into english. evidently at the present time the russian papers did not desire the russian people to learn the fate of the fortress and its commander. for all news on the subject was carefully withheld. under the strain barbara might have broken down herself except for a piece of good fortune that at length came to nona and to her. an american woman, married to a russian, the countess sergius, learning of the presence of the two american red cross nurses in the russian hospital, called at once to see if she could do anything for their comfort. discovering nona ill and barbara on the verge of a breakdown, the american woman insisted that the girls be her guests. they were not able to be of special assistance at the hospital under the present circumstances, while a week or so of rest and change might do wonders for them both. in answer to nona's protest that she was not well enough to be an agreeable visitor and could not bear the ordeal of meeting strangers, the older woman announced that the girls could live as quietly as they liked. she would let them have a private apartment in her house and they need see no one except the servants who would look after them. as the american countess was undoubtedly extremely wealthy and most anxious to be of service, barbara and nona gratefully accepted her invitation. so about ten days after their arrival in petrograd they were living in one of the handsomest houses along the famous nevski prospect. this is the fifth avenue of petrograd, a wide avenue three miles in length. nothing is small in russia or in the russian people. the girls were delightfully comfortable. one-half the third floor of the great house had been given up to them, consisting of two bedrooms, a bath, and a sitting room where their meals were served. indeed, the girls soon discovered that although the countess meant to be hospitable and kind, she was sincerely glad that they wished to be left alone. she was an extremely busy woman, one of the important hostesses of petrograd in times of peace. but now, like most society women in the allied countries, she was devoting all her energies to relief work. there were charity bazaars and concerts and russian ballet performances, for the benefit of the soldiers, that must be managed day and night. after three days of luxury and idleness nona davis felt strong again. perhaps more than the other red cross girls she deserved credit for her devotion to her nursing. for nona had the southern temperament which loves beauty and ease, and there were times in her life when she had deliberately to shut her eyes to these enticements. but now, with the thought of sonya valesky ever on her mind, she could not allow herself to relax an hour longer than necessary. contrary to barbara meade's judgment, nona decided to ask the advice of their hostess as to how she should begin the search for her russian friend. instantly the american woman became less cordial. but when nona had told as much of the other woman's story as she dared, the countess frankly discussed the situation with her. if nona would be guided by an older woman she would give up the quest for sonya valesky. certainly sonya's fate was an unhappy one, but she was wholly responsible for it herself. if she had been content to take life as she found it she would now have been occupying a brilliant position. the countess evidently had no use for reformers or persons who break away from recognized conditions. she confessed to nona that her own position in russian society had been difficult to attain. not for worlds would she be suspected of having anything to do with a socialist, or an anarchist, or whatever dreadful character nona's friend might be! the countess was perfectly polite, but nona thoroughly understood that if she insisted upon discovering the unfortunate sonya, her presence as a guest in the countess' home would no longer be desired. since there was nothing else to do, nona decided that she must wait until help came from some unexpected direction. she had no idea of giving up the search for sonya. but in the meantime she could enjoy a brief rest and see petrograd. in the winter time petrograd is the most beautifully quiet city in the world. and now in war times it was scarcely less so, for the ground was covered with many inches of snow. there was a muffled sound even to the tread of the soldiers' feet, marching through the frozen streets. neither was there a single wagon or carriage to be heard, since everybody went about in sleighs and everything was hauled in the same way. but now, because all the best horses were at the front, one often saw great oxen drawing sledges through the once gay and fashionable city. the countess sergius had retained only a single pair of horses for her own use and that of her big household, nevertheless, she now and then loaned her sleigh for an afternoon to her two american girl guests. sight-seeing was the only amusement which kept nona and barbara from a morbid dwelling on their worries. barbara had written to judge and mrs. thornton in the way that mildred had directed. but she could not feel that either of mildred's parents would feel any the less wretched and uneasy because their daughter believed that she was only "doing her duty." since the original letter barbara had never been able to write them again. what could she say, except that no word of any kind had since been received from mildred? there would be small consolation in this news, and of course barbara wrote dick every few days. one afternoon barbara and nona left the countess' house at about three o'clock and drove down the entire length of the nevski prospect toward the winter palace of the czar. there were scudding gray clouds overhead and a light snow falling. no one could have failed to be interested. the russian streets are ordinarily paved with sharp-edged stones, but the ice made them smooth as glass. over the windows of the shops the girls could see painted pictures of what the shopkeepers had to sell inside. this is common in russia, since so many of her poorer people are unable to read. most of the buildings in petrograd are of stucco, and indeed, except for her churches and a few other buildings, the russian capital resembles a poor imitation of paris. peter the great, who constructed the city upon the swamp lands surrounding the river neva, was determined to force russia into the western world instead of the east. for this reason he brought all his artists from france and italy, so that he might model his new city upon their older ones. the winter palace itself the girls discovered to be a renaissance building, with one side facing the river and the other a broad square. their sleigh stopped by the tall monolith column commemorating alexander the first, which stands almost directly in front of the palace. leading from the palace to the hermitage, once the palace of the great catherine, is a covered archway. the hermitage is one of the greatest art museums in the world and contains one of the finest collections of paintings in europe. although the two red cross girls had now been in petrograd several weeks, neither of them had yet been inside the famous gallery. "suppose we go in now and see the pictures," barbara proposed. "we might as well take advantage of our opportunities, even if we are miserable," she added with the characteristic wrinkling of her small nose. "besides, i'm frozen, and you must be more so, nona. how i have adored my squirrel coat and cap ever since we came to this arctic zone! thank fortune, our countess has loaned you some furs, nona! do you know, i really am not so surprised that your mother was a russian noble woman. you look like my idea of a russian princess, with your pale gold hair showing against that brown fur. who knows, maybe you'll turn into a russian princess some day! but shall i tell our driver to stop?" nona davis shook her head, smiling and yet rather pathetic, in spite of her lovely appearance in borrowed finery. "i don't want to be a russian princess, bab, or a russian anything, i am afraid, in spite of my heritage. i think it a good deal nicer to be engaged to an american like dick thornton. if you don't mind, let's don't try to see the pictures today. i am tired and we ought to be fresh for such an experience. if you are cold, suppose we go back into the center of the town and walk about for a while. then we can send the sleigh home to the countess. i don't feel that we should keep it for our use the entire afternoon, and if we stop to look at the pictures it would take the rest of the day. there are some queer side streets that join the nevski prospect i should like to see." the countess sergius lived about two miles away from the winter palace. when the girls were within a quarter of a mile of the house where they were guests, they finally got out of the sleigh. their driver was an old man with a long beard and not the character of servant the american countess would have employed under ordinary conditions. but her former young men servants were in the army, and like other wealthy families in russia at this time, she was glad to employ any one possible. however, nona undertook to make the man understand that they would not need his services again that afternoon. she had more of a gift for languages than the western girl and her knowledge of french was always useful. so after a little hesitation, the big sleigh at last drove away. and actually for the first time since their arrival in petrograd nona and barbara found themselves alone in the russian streets. there could be no danger of getting lost, for they had only to come to this central thoroughfare and the countess' house lay straight ahead. so the two girls turned into the side street that lay nearest them. after a five minutes walk they found themselves in another world. on the nevski prospect they were in europe; here they were in asia. it was curious, but even the smells were different. these were asiatic odors, if the girls had only known, queer smells of musk and attar of roses and other less pleasant things. the russian women and children were crowding the narrow streets, while inside the little shops the wares were displayed on big tables. in the summer time these goods were sold on open stalls in the streets. "let us go into one of the shops and buy a few trinkets," barbara suggested. "i would like to own one of those embroidered russian aprons." then she stopped, her attention caught, as nona's had been, by a sudden rustling in the air above them. a moment later a flock of gray and white pigeons was crowding about their feet. these also were the pigeons that haunt the thoroughfares of the east. personally nona davis would have preferred remaining outside in the fresh air. she was cold, but she objected to the squalid atmosphere of the interior of so many russian houses. however, she could not refuse to agree to every request barbara made of her all that afternoon. a moment later and she was almost as interested as the younger girl in making purchases. there were odd pieces of beautiful, gayly colored embroideries that, according to american ideas, appeared incredibly cheap. then there were bits of russian brass, that seemed to interest barbara particularly, as it is probable that she had a sudden rush of the housekeeper's ardor. here were interesting things that might be purchased for her own and dick's apartment in new york almost for nothing! whatever the cause, nona, after fifteen or twenty minutes, found her own pleasure cooling. moreover, she had very little money to spend on frivolities, and so found a stool in a corner and sat down to wait for barbara and to watch the crowd. there were numbers of people in the shop, although few of them seemed to be making purchases. now and then a big soldier, crowned by his peaked fur cap, would stalk proudly in to purchase a trinket, possibly for the girl of his heart. the russians are ardent lovers, and as the soldier was only at home on a short leave, he had to make the best of his opportunity. most of the women who were not wearing furs had heavy shawls drawn over their heads and shoulders. nona could not see their faces very well, and only received flitting impressions of dark eyes and large, heavy features, with almost always the curiously pale and yet sallow skin peculiar to the russian peasant. it is only among the better classes that one finds other types. suddenly nona gave a cry of alarm, which she quickly hushed. to her surprise some one had quietly come up back of her and laid a hand on her shoulder. it was one of these same peasant women, wearing a heavy, dark shawl. she was trying to say something which nona could not at once understand. yet it was plain enough that the woman was imploring her to make no disturbance that would attract attention. the next moment nona had recognized the woman. it was old katja, sonya valesky's servant, whom she had left with nika in her little hut. what had brought the old woman to petrograd? in reality nona knew without asking the question. it was katja's devotion to sonya. the old woman was speaking a queer jumble of languages, russian and the few words of english she had learned while the american girl was living in the same house. what nona finally learned was, that katja was imploring her to meet her somewhere the next day, where they could talk without being observed. nona knew of no place except the one that was always open to rich and poor alike in russia. and she had to think quickly. yet the churches had always been their refuge ever since the arrival of the four red cross girls in europe. at the same moment nona could only recall the most celebrated russian church in petrograd. she must lose no time, for even barbara must not learn of her mission, and barbara might turn and come back to join her at any moment. "in the cathedral of st. isaac, toward the left and in the rear of the church at three o'clock tomorrow," nona murmured. and katja must have understood, for she went away at once. it was just as well, because at almost the same moment barbara returned to join nona, her arms full of queer-shaped packages, and looking happier than she had since their arrival in the russian city. chapter xiii _the next step_ the following afternoon it seemed to nona davis that all petrograd was a-glitter with onion-shaped domes. the russian priests explained that these domes were really shaped like folded rosebuds, symbolizing the church on earth that was to blossom in heaven. but to see them in this fashion required a russian imagination. however, the effect was very beautiful, and nona was glad to have her attention diverted, as she started out to find the cathedral of st. isaac. some of the domes were of blue, set with stars to represent the canopy of the sky. but nona knew that the central dome of st. isaac's was an enormous copper ball covered with gold and that its radiance could be seen at a great distance. she had had great difficulty in fulfilling her engagement with katja. at first she had tried to deceive barbara in regard to her intention, being fully determined to continue her search for sonya until she had discovered her; nevertheless, it did not seem worth while to trouble barbara while she had no actual information to go upon. but barbara would not be deceived. nona suggested that she wished to walk for several hours and feared the younger girl might become fatigued. in reply barbara assured her that there was nothing she herself so much desired as exercise, and as for growing tired, nona would the sooner be worn out, since she was the one who had been ill. afterwards, while there were other excuses for her departure which nona struggled to invent, all were equally useless. from the first barbara had guessed her plan. although she had seen nothing and knew nothing of nona's meeting with katja the day before, she had immediately guessed that nona's desire for a solitary excursion was in some way connected with her effort to find sonya valesky. and this effort the younger girl continued to oppose. so nona had finally departed, leaving barbara in tears over her obstinacy and foolhardiness. she was very unhappy, but what else was possible for her to do? had barbara been in the same need that sonya now was, surely no one could have persuaded her to turn her back upon barbara. katja was waiting and fortunately there were but a few other persons in the cathedral at the same hour. as quickly and as intelligently as she knew how, the old woman explained that sonya was in a civil prison in petrograd and was to be tried for treason within another week. katja had not seen her child, but had received a few lines in reply to a dozen letters which a friend had written for her. katja herself could neither read nor write. although nona could speak only a few words of russian, she had learned to read a little of the language with difficulty. now she managed to translate her friend's ideas, if not her exact words. sonya did not wish katja to try to see her nor to attempt to appear at the prison at the hour of her trial. nothing could be done for her release and katja would only be made the more miserable. neither was katja to let nona know anything of her whereabouts until after sentence was passed. then if katja could find the american girl she was to say farewell for sonya valesky. she was also to thank nona for her kindness and add that the acquaintance with her friend's daughter had brought sonya much happiness. standing with the crumpled sheet of paper in her hand, written by the woman who so soon expected to say farewell to the things that make life worth living, nona davis felt her own cheeks flush and her eyes fill with tears. how little had she really deserved the russian woman's affection, for how much she had distrusted her! well, nona again determined to do all that was possible now to prove her allegiance. as soon as she could get away from katja, nona secured a sleigh and drove at once to the house of the american ambassador. because her card represented her as an american red cross nurse she felt assured that she would be treated with every courtesy. this was perfectly true, although obliged to wait half an hour; finally one of the secretaries of the ambassador invited the american girl into a small office. she could not, of course, see the ambassador without a special engagement, but the secretary would be pleased to do whatever was possible. nona was both pleased and relieved. the secretary proved to be a southerner, a young fellow from georgia, who could not have been more than twenty-five years old. certainly it was far easier to tell the story of sonya valesky to him than to an older man or to one whose time was more valuable. nevertheless, when she had finished, although there was no doubt of the secretary's attention and interest, nona found him equally as discouraging as everybody else had been concerning sonya valesky's fate and any part which she might have hoped to play in it. there could be little doubt that sonya would be condemned to siberia. she was a political prisoner and would not be tried by a military court. her offense was spoken of as sedition, or as an infringement of the "defense of the realm" act. for sonya had been endeavoring to induce the russian soldiers to join her peace societies rather than to fight for their country. the young american secretary did his best to make the situation plain to nona davis. in england or france, under the same circumstances, sonya valesky might have escaped with only a short term of imprisonment or a fine. but this would not be true in russia. besides, it appeared that sonya was an old offender and that her socialist ideas were well known. it would be impossible for the american ambassador or any member of his staff to make the smallest effort in sonya's behalf. such an effort would represent an act of discourtesy on the part of the united states government, as if she were attempting to interfere with russia's treatment of her own subjects. there was one thing only which the young secretary could undertake in nona's cause. he would make an effort to have her allowed to visit her friend. if sonya's trial was not to take place for a week, it was just possible that the american girl might be permitted to see her. so nona was compelled to go away with only this small consolation. however, before leaving she secured the address of an american family in petrograd who might be willing to take her as a boarder. for nona realized that with her present plan she could not longer remain as a guest in the countess' house. then barbara had again to be reckoned with. it was early dusk when nona davis finally reached their apartment in the splendid russian house. barbara had just finished tea, but the tea things had not been sent away. because nona was evidently so tired and discouraged the younger girl comforted her with tea and cakes before beginning to ask questions. afterwards barbara insisted upon being told the entire account of the afternoon's experiences. nona must begin with her meeting with katja, her interview in the cathedral, then her visit to the house of the united states ambassador and finally the description of the place where she had engaged board before returning to her temporary home. although barbara was ordinarily much given to conversation and frequent interruptions of other people's anecdotes, she listened without comment until the other girl had finished. "we are both too tired to pack up our few possessions tonight, nona," she answered in conclusion; "but we can attend to them in the morning and then say good-by to the countess." nona was lying upon a divan with her yellow head sunk among a number of brown cushions, but she got half way up at barbara's words. "but i don't expect _you_ to leave here, barbara dear, to go with me," she protested. "i didn't engage board for anyone else. the house where i am to stay is shabby and not especially comfortable. i wouldn't have you leave this lovely home for worlds! i am sorry, you may be a little lonely without me. but i am hoping we may hear from mildred at almost any hour and then i'm sure the countess would be only too happy to have her take my place here. i expect mildred will be a distinguished character after having been chosen to nurse the great general alexis." "don't talk nonsense," barbara protested, in answer to the first part of her friend's speech. "of course, i am not going to let you wander off and live in a strange family by yourself." then barbara sighed. she was sitting on a small stool beside nona's couch, resting her chin on her hand and looking very childish and homesick. "of course, i know you have to do whatever you can for sonya valesky, nona," she agreed unexpectedly. "in your position i hope i would have the courage to behave in the same way. i have only made a fuss about things because i was worried for you, but i have always known you would not pay any attention to me. nobody ever does." although nona laughed and attempted to argue this point, barbara remained unconvinced. "oh, well, possibly dick or eugenia can sometimes be persuaded into doing what i ask, but never you or mildred," she concluded, and then sighed again. "if we could hear just a single word from mildred!" the next day the two girls moved to their new lodgings. their hostess was gracious enough, but made no protest when nona explained that she expected to be permitted to visit the russian prisoner within the next few days. the order to see sonya came sooner than nona expected. indeed, the two girls had only been in their new quarters for about thirty-six hours when the young secretary from the embassy called upon them. with him he brought the permit from the russian government. nona was to be allowed to visit the prison near the troitska bridge on the following day and to spend ten minutes with her friend. she must understand that a guard would listen to whatever conversation was held. also she must take with her nothing of any kind to present to sonya valesky. their interview would be closely watched. naturally barbara meade insisted upon accompanying nona. she knew, of course, that she would not be allowed to see the prisoner, nor had she the least wish to see her. but she could wait in some antechamber until the ten minutes passed and then bring nona safely back to their lodging place. for certainly the experience ahead of her friend would be a painful one, and although nona did her best to conceal her nervousness from the younger girl, barbara again was not deluded. when the two girls set out for the prison the next afternoon it would have been difficult to decide which one most dreaded the ordeal. but in truth the ordeal was in a way a mutual one. while she waited, doubtless barbara's imagination would paint as tragic a scene as nona might be obliged to go through with. it seemed to nona davis, after leaving barbara, that she walked down a mile or more of corridor. the corridor might have been an underground sewer, so dark and unwholesome were its sights and smells. it led past dozens of small iron doors with locks and chains fastened on the outside. finally nona's guard paused before one of these doors and then opened it. inside was an iron grating with bars placed at intervals of about six inches apart. the room it barricaded was six feet square and contained a bed and stool. there was one small window overhead, not much larger than a single pane of glass in an average old-fashioned window. but the light from the window fell directly upon the head of the woman who was seated beneath it. sonya valesky had not been told that she was to receive a visitor. so perhaps nona did appear like a sudden vision of a fra angelico angel, standing unexpectedly in the dark corridor with her hair as golden as a shaft of sunlight. sonya only stared at the girl without speaking. but nona saw that her friend's dark hair, which had been a little streaked with gray at their first meeting more than two years before, was now almost pure white. however, sonya did not look particularly ill or unhappy; her blue eyes were still serene. whatever faith in life she may have lost, she had not lost faith in the cause for which she must suffer. "don't you know me, sonya?" nona asked almost timidly, as if she were talking to a stranger. then the russian woman came forward with all her former dignity and grace. she was wearing a black dress of some rough material, but it seemed to nona davis that she had never seen a more beautiful woman. sonya was like a white lily found growing in some underground dungeon. she put her hands through the bars and took hold of nona's cold ones. "this is wonderfully kind of you, nona?" she said with the simplicity of manner that had always distinguished her. "i have wanted to know what had become of you and your friends. somehow information sifts even inside a prison in war times, and i have learned that general alexis gave up trying to hold grovno. you are on your way back home, i trust." nona could scarcely reply. it seemed so strange that sonya could be talking in such an everyday fashion, as if her visit were being made under ordinary circumstances. not a word did she say of her own sorrow or the tragedy that lay ahead of her. nona could only fight back the tears. "we are returning to france as soon as mildred thornton joins us in petrograd," she answered, and then explained that mildred had stayed behind at grovno. "but isn't there anything i can do for you, sonya?" nona added. "i shall certainly not leave petrograd until after your trial, and then if you are released you must come away with me." the older woman only shook her head. "i shall not be released, nona, so don't make yourself unhappy with false hopes. this is not my first offense against the government of russia. i have never believed in the things in which they believe, not since i was a little girl. i suppose i am a troublesome character. but after all, in going to siberia i am only following the footsteps of greater men and women than i can hope to resemble." sonya let go nona's hands and stepped back into her little room. from under her pillow she drew a small folded paper. "in going to siberia i forfeit all my estates, nona," sonya valesky explained when she came back. "but i have a small amount of money in the united states, as well as in my own country. perhaps the government may be willing to allow me to dispose of my property, although of course i can't tell. but i have made a will and had it witnessed here in the prison. if it is possible i want you to have half of the little i have left and katja and nika the rest. there would be no chance to leave it to the cause of peace in these days." nona received the little paper. "you won't be in siberia all your life, sonya, that i won't believe," she protested. "some day when this war is over the czar will pardon you. please remember that i shall never forget you and never stop trying to do what i can for your release. if i am allowed to have it, i will take care of your money until you are able to come to me." hearing a guttural noise behind her, nona davis now turned around. her guard was signaling that the time allotted for her visit was over. she was not able to kiss the older woman good-by, only to hold both her hands close for another moment and then to go away with her eyes so blinded with tears that she could not see. yet she never forgot the picture that sonya valesky made when she had a final glance at her. four days later a few lines appeared in the russian daily papers, stating that sonya valesky, a woman of noble birth, but at present a russian nihilist, had been condemned to penal servitude in siberia for life. she had been proved guilty of treason to the imperial government. chapter xiv _mildred's return_ on the same afternoon that nona and barbara read the news of sonya valesky's sentence, mildred thornton came to petrograd. her return was characteristic of mildred. it was a little past twilight and nona and barbara were in their shabby sitting room; they now shared the same bedroom in the new lodgings. nona had been crying, and in order to try and make her forget, barbara was reading aloud. she had received a package of books and magazines from dick thornton earlier in the day, but this was her first chance to look them over. although endeavoring to listen, in reality nona's attention was only pretence. her thoughts were with the russian woman whose life had been so strangely associated with her own. it seemed to nona that she had not realized how much she cared for sonya valesky until these last few weeks. she had become like an exquisite older sister whom she might possibly have had as a companion and friend. never had nona been more conscious of her own loneliness. it is true that she had been more or less lonely all her life, but this she had taken as a matter of course. now in these last few hours she had suddenly been overwhelmed by the thought. apparently their work as red cross nurses in europe was nearly over. at least, when mildred finally joined them, the three girls intended returning to france to spend a little time with madame castaigne and eugenia. then barbara and mildred would doubtless go back to their homes in the united states. barbara would be married in a short time and mildred would not wish to remain longer away from her mother and father. but nona had no home and no people to whom she might return. the girl was glad at this moment that there were no lights in their sitting room save the two candles which were directly behind barbara's book. she did not wish the younger girl to guess the extent of her depression. yet it was nona who first heard the knock at their sitting room door. quickly as possible she got up and walked forward to open it, not even attempting to smooth her hair or to wipe the traces of tears from her face. barbara did not glance from the page of her book, both girls were so convinced that it was only the woman who usually brought them their dinner at this hour. when nona opened the door, mildred took her by both shoulders and quietly kissed her. "mildred!" it was nona's exclamation that finally aroused barbara meade. but even then, although barbara rose to her feet, dropping her book on the floor, she did not move forward. she let mildred come and put her arms around her and kiss her on both cheeks. then mildred stood still in the center of the room and smiled at her two friends. "won't either one of you say she is glad to see me?" she asked, with a mixture of gayety and wistfulness. by this time barbara and nona were both embracing the newcomer at once, and at the same time attempting to remove her wraps. under her nursing coat mildred was wearing a long sable coat, suitable for a princess, but neither of the girls noticed it in the excitement of her arrival. "where did you come from? oh, mildred, what have you been doing all this time? i have nearly died of anxiety." barbara protested. "surely you could have gotten us some word, if only to say you were alive." mildred shook her head. "i couldn't, dear. i have come back to you the very first moment it was possible. but it is a long story. i can't tell you all at once. may i sit down?" at last nona and barbara had the grace to observe that mildred looked white and tired. "i arrived in petrograd about half an hour ago with general alexis and his staff and the russian maid who has been with us ever since we were left behind at grovno," she explained, when her friends had thrust her unceremoniously into their only comfortable chair. "i told general alexis that i must find you at once, so we drove to the united states embassy and they gave us your address. then they left me here. i am dreadfully hungry; can't we have something to eat before i finish my story?" "certainly not," barbara insisted, "or not until you have answered two or three more questions. for i am much more apt to die of curiosity than you are to perish of starvation. how long did you remain at grovno, and did the germans ever capture you? i suppose your general didn't die, if he escorted you to our humble door. but if he wasn't desperately ill, why did he have you stay so long in a position of such danger?" and barbara ceased to ask more questions simply because her breath had given out. at the same instant nona signaled a warning glance. mildred was almost fainting with exhaustion. in these last few weeks she must have passed through difficult experiences and naturally she could not tell them everything at once. "please go downstairs and ask that dinner be sent up, barbara," nona demanded. "and get soup or milk or something special; if not i'll make some beef tea for mildred on the alcohol lamp. mildred, suppose you put on my wrapper and lie down until after you have eaten, then we can talk as long as you have strength for." and the girls did talk until nearly midnight in spite of mildred's fatigue. she was perfectly well, only tired, she insisted, and greatly excited at seeing nona and barbara again. she had passed through events in these past few weeks such as few women have ever known. but of course mildred related what had taken place in a simple, almost matter of fact fashion. she was so little given to heroics, or to thinking of herself as a conspicuous personage. "yes, they had stayed on at grovno until almost the hour when the germans entered the old fortress. general alexis had been wounded, but had not considered his wound serious and would not desert his post until he had finally accomplished his purpose. for the last hour virtually only six persons had kept the german army from entering the fortifications: general alexis, colonel feodorovitch, two lieutenants and two private soldiers, although the russian physician, who had remained with his commander, had turned soldier toward the last." "but you don't mean that you continued inside the fort to the very end?" barbara demanded almost angrily. "i suppose you were forgotten." "i think i was at the last," mildred returned. "you see, at first when general alexis discovered that i was the red cross nurse who had been chosen to stay behind, he was angry and insisted that i leave at once. but by the time he learned of my presence, it was too late to find me an escort. besides, the doctor did not wish me to go. there was a russian woman, a kind of servant, who was also with us, and did the cooking, i believe, if we ever ate. anyhow, she stayed with me and looked after me when she could, so that i was never actually alone." "but mildred," nona asked, guessing at many details that her friend did not mention, "how did you finally get away at last? and have you come directly here from grovno? surely the fort did not hold out all these weeks." "no, we have been away from grovno nearly two weeks, i can't remember the exact passage of time very well," mildred explained, lifting her hands to let down the long braids of her heavy flaxen hair, and allowing the hairpins to drop girl fashion, carelessly into her lap. she was wearing nona's kimono, and it is always easier to talk confidentially with one's hair down, if one happens to have the mass that mildred had. the very weight of it was oppressive when she was tired. "yes, it was terribly interesting toward the last," she went on, "although i don't believe even then we were in great danger. general alexis is too wise to have permitted that. everything was in readiness; all the plans were made days beforehand for our getting away. the different regiments of private soldiers with their officers continued to march away from grovno, and so much ammunition was moved that i think almost no stores of any value were left. then the moment finally came for our own retreat." to barbara's intense irritation, mildred actually paused for an instant at this point in her story. but she continued almost immediately. "there was an underground passage outside the fort, leading all the way to the river. the seven of us at last left the fort together. by this time general alexis had almost to be carried, the pain from his wound had grown so intense. then every once in a while, as we went on, one of the soldiers would place a bomb in such a position that it would explode after we had gone. in this way the underground passage was wrecked, so there never was any possibility of the germans being able to follow us. when we reached the bridge over the river two motor cars were waiting for us. colonel feodorovitch, one of the lieutenants and the two private soldiers stayed to see that the last bridge over the styr was blown up. the other five, general alexis, his physician, and one officer and we two women started west in an effort to join the retreating regiments, who were to come up with a portion of the grand duke's army." "goodness, mildred thornton, what an experience you have been through!" nona ejaculated. "yet you talk as quietly as if it were almost an ordinary occurrence!" mildred shook her head. "it is not because i feel it an ordinary experience, nona, but because so much has happened i am overpowered by the bigness of it. really, when we got safely away from the fort, the battle, or at least my share in it, was only about to begin. we had gone a few miles into the country, when general alexis became desperately ill. unless he could have immediate attention his physician said there was no possible hope for his life." barbara had by this time slipped out of her chair and was sitting on the floor with her hands clasped over her knees, looking all eyes, and rocking herself slowly back and forward as a relief for her excitement. "but you brought your general back with you, mildred thornton, or you said you did. how on earth did you manage about him?" she interrupted. "that is just what i am going to tell you, because that explains where i have been and why i have not been able to let you hear from me. our russian doctor ordered our motor car stopped and we entered a russian house some distance from any main road. we purposely chose a house that had been deserted, and there we have been for two weeks, struggling to save the life of general alexis. of course, his wound had been more serious than he would admit. the wonder is that he is still alive!" "but he has recovered?" barbara inquired with her usual unsatisfied curiosity. "goodness, mill, what a heroine you will be, to have nursed one of the most famous generals in the allied armies and to have restored him to health. won't your mother be charmed!" naturally mildred smiled. the thought of her mother's pleasure in her distinction _had_ occurred to her several times in the last two weeks. "oh, of course i am glad to have had the honor, bab, because i too think general alexis a great man. he is perhaps the simplest man i have ever known, except my father, and i like him very much. only he has not recovered and i have not restored him to health. if general alexis had recovered he would never have come to petrograd, he would have rejoined his troops. but he was well enough to be moved and petrograd seemed the safest place for him at present. besides, i believe he wished to have an audience with the czar." barbara again rocked back and forth. "you say 'czar,' mill, just as if you were speaking of an everyday person. really, i believe you are the best bred girl i ever saw. position, wealth, no distinctions seem to excite you. you just take people for exactly what they are," barbara murmured, in reality speaking to herself. but nona overheard her. "you are quite right, bab," she agreed. "mildred does not know it, but she has taught me many a lesson on that subject since we came to europe. it would be a nicer world if everybody thought and acted as mildred does. but what has become of your general, mill? are you to go on nursing him or to see him again?" "no, to the first question, nona dear, and yes, to the second. now i am so tired i simply must go to bed. i told the doctor and general alexis that since he was better, i wanted to come to you. besides, i was sure that here in petrograd there would be so many cleverer nurses than i can ever hope to be. and i didn't want to stay at the winter palace with you girls here." "you mean," nona asked quietly, "that you were invited to be a guest at the czar's own palace and you declined?" mildred clasped her hands behind her head. "oh, i thought i told you. general alexis is to be at the winter palace while he is in petrograd. he is very close to the czar, i believe. as his nurse, of course i was asked to stay there with him; he is to have his physician and his aides as well as his servants in attendance. there was nothing personal in my being permitted inside the palace. some other nurse will take my place." "but the point is, mildred thornton, that you refused to stay under the same roof with the czar of all the russias. never so long as you live will your mother forgive you." the other girl flushed and laughed. "i hadn't thought of that, bab dear. please don't tell on me. but we are to be under the same roof with the czar some day for a few moments, all of us. general alexis said that he wished to have us presented to the czar and czarina, if it were possible to arrange. he seems to feel grateful to me for the little i was able to do. but please, bab, don't say that i refused to continue to nurse general alexis. i only asked that they get some one to take my place, who would be wiser." "did general alexis agree to a new nurse for that reason, mildred?" barbara demanded in her driest manner. but mildred was too tired for further conversation. "oh, he was kind enough to say that i needed a rest more than he required my services. am i to have a bed or the cot in this sitting room?" "you may have them _all_, mildred thornton!" barbara returned, getting up on her feet and then bowing until her forehead almost touched the floor. "any human being who is going to allow me to enter the presence of the czar and czarina, has got to be treated like royalty for the rest of her life." nevertheless, barbara kissed mildred good night. mildred whispered, "don't be a goose," and then at last was permitted to retire. chapter xv _the winter palace_ the next day nona found opportunity for confiding to mildred the fate of sonya valesky. she found mildred more deeply concerned than barbara had been. this was true because mildred had a different nature; it was easier for her to understand a temperament that would sacrifice everything to its dream, than for the more practical and sensible barbara. moreover, barbara was so much in love these days that she found it difficult to give a great deal of thought to other people. she struggled against the tendency, but it is ever the vice of lovers. finally, on thursday, mildred thornton received a note from general alexis inviting her and her two friends to come that afternoon at four o'clock to the winter palace. and although the three girls were americans, they understood that such an invitation was not in reality an invitation, but a command. for the czar and czarina had announced that they would be pleased to meet the three american red cross nurses. the meeting was to be informal, as these were war times and there were no court levees. indeed, the czar was only staying for a brief time at his palace before going to take command of his own troops. owing to the frequent russian defeats in the past few months, the czar had concluded that he must command his men in person in order to give them greater courage and steadfastness. the munitions of war, of which they had been sadly in need for several months, were now pouring in from japan and the united states. of course, in the excitement and nervousness due to such an important and unexpected occasion, the three red cross girls had the same problem to settle that attacks all women at critical moments: "what on earth should they wear to the presentation?" fortunately, under the circumstances there was but one answer to this question. they were invited to the palace as red cross nurses, they must therefore wear their red cross uniforms. since the three girls had almost nothing else left in their wardrobes, this was just as well. constant moving from place to place, with little opportunity for transportation, had reduced their luggage to the most limited amounts. yet assuredly they were as handsome and far more dignified on the afternoon of their appearance at the winter palace in the costumes of american red cross nurses, than if they had been appareled in the court trains and feathers of more gala occasions. mildred always looked especially well in her uniform. she was less pretty than the other two girls. but for this very reason her dignity and the sense of serenity that her personality suggested showed to best advantage in the simple toilette of white with the red cross insignia on the arm. however, over her uniform mildred wore the magnificent sable coat in which she had appeared at her friends' lodgings in petrograd. this afternoon, in spite of her excitement over what lay ahead of them, barbara did not allow the coat to pass unnoticed a second time. "for goodness' sake, mildred, where did you get that magnificent garment?" she demanded, just as they were about to go downstairs to get into their sleigh. "you owned a very nice coat when we left you behind in grovno, but some fairy wand must have changed it. this is the most wonderful sable i ever saw." mildred flushed and then laid her cheek against the beautiful, soft brown warmth of her furs. "it is time you and nona were speaking of my grandeur," she declared. "you see, in getting away from the fort at the last i stupidly left my own furs behind; indeed, i don't know what became of them. general alexis noticed that i was cold almost immediately. somehow, after he began to get stronger, he managed to have this coat brought to the country house where we were staying. then just before we started to petrograd he presented it to me. of course, i did not feel that i ought to accept it and insisted i could not. but general alexis said that he had received so much kindness from me, he thought it very ungenerous of me to make him altogether my debtor. i didn't know what to do. do you think it wrong to accept it, bab? somehow i did not know how to continue to refuse." as barbara was just going into her bedroom at this moment, she made no reply. nona was more reassuring. "of course it was all right, mildred, or at least i suppose it was if general alexis insisted, and you had done a great deal for him." then nona followed barbara. barbara was standing perfectly still in the center of the room and apparently thinking with all the concentration possible. "i wonder if this general alexis is more fond of mildred than he would be of any nurse who might have cared for him?" barbara murmured. then she shook her head. "that was an absurd suggestion on my part and mildred would not like it. i am sorry," she said. at the door of the winter palace, after the girls had passed beyond the servants and the detectives who watch every human being permitted to approach their imperial majesties, the three american girls were ushered into a reception room. except for the fact that there were more paintings on the walls, the room resembled other similar chambers now left on exhibition at versailles or the louvre in paris. however, the girls had little time for investigation, for almost at once general alexis entered the room to greet them. he was accompanied by a lieutenant who was his aide. to nona davis' surprise, the young man proved to be lieutenant michael orlaff, whom she had not seen since the afternoon when she had walked to the fortress with him and confided the news of sonya valesky's arrest. after a few moments of general conversation a man servant, wearing an elaborate uniform, announced that general alexis and his guests might walk into the czar's private sitting room. naturally this was a very unusual proceeding, but war times had changed the manners of courts as well as other places. moreover, general alexis was a personal friend of the czar's, so far as a czar may ever have a friend. in any case, he was one of his most trusted generals. this reception to the american red cross girls was entirely due to the fact that general alexis had declared mildred thornton's courage and devotion had saved his life. but of this she was not yet aware. the czar and czarina were not decorating gilded thrones as one sees them in portraits or paints them in one's own imagination. indeed, they were seated in chairs, but rose as any other host and hostess might when their guests came into the room. they were not alone, however, for beside the guards stationed outside their door, two of them kept always within a short distance of the czar himself. the czarina was a beautiful woman, tall and dark, but looking infinitely sad. the girls could not but remember having heard how frequently she suffered from a melancholia so severe that it was almost akin to an unbalanced mind. she now murmured a few words to the three girls and then reseated herself. barbara hoped profoundly that the distinguished audience would soon be over. of course, this meeting of the czar and czarina was perhaps the most extraordinary honor that had yet been paid to any american red cross nurses in europe. but like other honors, it carried its discomfort. for barbara had not the faintest idea what she should do or say, when she should stand up and when sit down. she had never imagined herself a large person before, but now she felt so awkward that she might have been a giant. yet really there was but one thing for her to do: she must merely keep still and watch what was taking place. actually the czar, nicholas ii, was talking pleasantly with mildred thornton, and mildred was answering with her usual quiet dignity. the czar looked older than barbara would have supposed from his pictures. but then the war may have aged him. his close-cropped brown beard with the tiny point was turning gray. and he had large, full and, barbara thought, not particularly intelligent eyes. at this moment he moved toward a small table and picked up what appeared like a medal. barbara eyed it curiously. she could not hear what the czar was saying. but she saw mildred turn suddenly white and appear to protest. then the two men, general alexis and the czar, actually smiled at her. the next moment the czar pinned a cross on mildred's white dress. without realizing what she was doing, barbara pressed closer until she stood in front of nona and lieutenant orlaff. this time she distinctly heard the czar say: "i take pleasure in presenting you, miss thornton, with the cross of st. george, which is only awarded for special bravery. only one other woman has been presented with the cross of st. george since the outbreak of this war. she is madame kokavtseva, a colonel of the sixth ural cossack regiment, who has twice been wounded while leading her men. she is called our 'russian joan of arc.' but there is a courage as great as leading troops to battle. this valor, it seems to me, you showed in remaining to the last at the ancient fortress of grovno to care for a great soldier who was not even your countryman. in my own name and in the name of my country, i wish to thank you for your service to general alexis." then barbara observed mildred flush a beautiful, warm crimson, and stammer something in response. almost immediately after they were again standing outside in the big antechamber. afterwards general alexis and lieutenant orlaff and several of the palace servants showed the three girls over certain portions of the palace that could be exhibited to visitors. on the desk in the hall was an ikon, carefully preserved under glass, which was said to have been painted by st. luke. however, in spite of their honors, as soon as possible the three girls were glad to return to their lodgings. yet mildred promised that they would allow general alexis to send his sleigh to them the following day. the great general looked haggard and worn, but appeared to be quickly recovering his strength. indeed, barbara afterwards assured mildred that she considered him extremely good looking and not half so old as she had supposed. chapter xvi _the unexpected happens_ one afternoon a short time after the visit to the winter palace, general alexis and lieutenant orlaff came to the girls' lodgings to have a drive in the sleigh with them. it was a cold, brilliant afternoon, and they were to undertake a more interesting excursion than usual. nevertheless, barbara meade refused to go. there were letters which she must write, she pleaded. however, this was not barbara's real reason: that fact she kept in her own head. both mildred and nona she assisted to get ready, insisting that they both dress as warmly as possible, no matter how stuffy they might feel before starting. "you are both blondes and a blonde is never so homely as when she is cold," she added sententiously, "for her face is much more apt to get blue than red, except the end of her nose." mildred had purchased a lovely fur hat to match her sable coat. and in spite of her poverty nona had been unable to resist a set of black fox. furs were so much cheaper in russia than in the united states that it really almost seemed one's duty to buy them. when general alexis' sleigh arrived, barbara would not even go downstairs to see the others start. but she managed by pressing her nose against the window to observe that the arrangements for the drive were satisfactory. the sleigh was a beautiful one, built of mahogany, and the pair of horses wore real silver mountings on their harness. a driver, in the imperial livery, sat upon the front seat with a man beside him, who acted as a private guard for general alexis, although he wore citizen's clothes. there was far less danger of anarchy in russia during war times; nevertheless, men in public positions in russia were always watchful of trouble from fanatics. therefore, general alexis and mildred were together in the middle seat, while nona and lieutenant orlaff occupied the one back of them. then the sleigh started off so quickly that it had disappeared before barbara realized it. afterwards, with feminine inconsistency, she turned back into their small sitting room, frowning and sighing. "i do wish i had gone along, after all. there wasn't any place for me, except to sit either between mildred and general alexis, or nona and her russian lieutenant. then nobody would have had a good time. still, perhaps i should have stuck close to mildred; she is almost my sister. and though mrs. thornton might be pleased, judge thornton and dick would be wretched. russia is so far away and so cold." then barbara made no further explanation, even to herself, of her enigmatic state of mind, but fell to writing letters as she had planned. some thought she devoted to what she should write dick about his sister's friend, the distinguished russian general. but whatever she planned sounded either too pointed or else had no point at all. so she merely closed her letter by explaining that the others had gone for a ride and that general alexis appeared extremely grateful to mildred for her care of him in his illness. she also mentioned that she personally liked the distinguished soldier very much and that he was not nearly so foreign as one might expect. this was not a sensible statement, for general alexis could scarcely have been more of a russian than he was. a foreigner, of course, simply is an individual who belongs to another country than one's own. presumably an american is equally a foreigner to a european. what barbara actually meant was that general alexis was not unlike the men to whom she had been accustomed in the united states. he had the courtesy and quiet dignity of the most distinguished of her own countrymen. there was nothing particularly oriental about him or his attitude to women. the truth is that barbara did not appreciate the fact that general alexis was too cosmopolitan to show many of the peculiarities of his race. he had seen too much of the world and studied and thought too deeply. besides, he was a man of real gentleness and simplicity. as mildred rode beside him, she too was wondering why she felt so at ease with so great a person. why, at home, in new york society, she had always been awkward and tongue-tied with the most ordinary young man worthy of no thought. now she was telling general alexis the entire story of sonya valesky as she might have told it to her own father. and she felt equally sure of his sympathy and understanding. general alexis would, of course, have no political sympathy with sonya's ideas. he was a soldier devoted to his czar and his country, while in his opinion sonya could only be regarded as mistaken and dangerous. but mildred knew that he would be sorry for sonya, the woman, and sorry for them as her friends. so she described their original meeting on board the "philadelphia," and the suspicion, then wrongfully directed against sonya, who was at that time using the name of lady dorian. afterwards she told of sonya's appearance at the sacred heart hospital and her work there. last of all, of their unexpected coming together in russia and of the peculiar bond between nona davis and the russian woman. at the beginning of her conversation with general alexis, mildred had no idea in mind, except to tell the story that had been weighing heavily upon her since nona's confidence. ever since she had seen the picture of sonya, as nona had last seen her, the beautiful woman with her too-soon white hair and the haunting beauty of her tragic blue eyes. she, a woman of rare refinement and not yet forty, to spend the rest of her life working among the convicts in siberia. it was as if she were buried alive! suddenly it occurred to mildred that she might ask the advice of general alexis. she did not believe it possible that anything could be done for sonya valesky now, after her sentence had been passed. but still it would be well to feel they had tried all that was possible. "you don't think, general, that there is anything that could be done to have sonya valesky pardoned, do you?" she inquired, with unconscious wistfulness. "you see, my friend, nona davis, wants so much to take madame valesky back to the united states with her. then neither she nor her ideas would be of any more danger to russia. nona says madame valesky is much broken by her illness and confinement. she had a terrible attack of fever only a short time before. probably she won't live very long, if she is taken to siberia." then, to hide her tears from her companion, mildred turned her head aside. general alexis seemed to be staring at her very steadfastly. but fortunately the beauty of the landscape surrounding them gave her an excuse for the movement. they had crossed the nicholas bridge and were driving out among the parks and estates that cover the small islands, set like jewels among the white fastness of the river neva. here and there the river was solid ice, in other places the thin ice was decorated with a light coating of snow. the handsome private homes of petrograd are situated in these island suburbs. beautiful trees and lawns come down to the water's edge. but today they too were snow sprinkled and most of the homes were closed. mildred attempted to pretend that her attention had been attracted by one of these houses, built like a glorified swiss chalet. but general alexis continued to gaze at the side of her cheek and mildred was painfully conscious that the tears might at any moment slide out of her eyes. "you care very much about this woman, this sonya valesky, miss thornton?" general alexis inquired. "you say that she is a friend of yours and that it will bring you great distress if she must suffer the penalty of her mistakes? i do not wish you to leave russia in unhappiness." mildred slowly shook her head. had she been almost any other girl, she would have seen nothing to deny in her companion's last speech. but mildred had the spirit of entire truthfulness that belongs to only a few natures. "no, i cannot say that madame valesky is exactly _my_ friend," she answered slowly. "i do not know her very well, but i think i should care for her a great deal if we could know each other better. perhaps she was altogether wrong; anyhow, i do not think she should have attempted to persuade the russians not to fight for their country at a time like this. yet when one has seen the horrible, the almost useless suffering that i have seen in these few years i have been acting as a red cross nurse, well, one can hardly condemn a human being who believes in peace. still, madame valesky is in reality more nona's friend than mine." pausing abruptly, mildred again turned her face to look at the soldier beside her. she had been tactless as usual in thus expressing her feelings about peace to a man who was a great warrior. but general alexis did not appear angry. indeed, there was no disagreement in the expression of his eyes, it was almost as if he too felt as mildred did. besides, his next words were: "i too appreciate what you feel, miss thornton, and i too am sorry for this sonya valesky. war is a great, a terrible evil, and there was never a time when the world so realized it as it does now. it is my hourly prayer that, after this vast bloodshed, war shall vanish from the face of the earth. but this will not happen if we give up the fight while we are in the thick of it. so madame valesky was wrong, so wrong that i might think she deserved her fate, if i did not feel her more mistaken than wicked." general alexis paused and his face grew suddenly lined and thoughtful, as mildred had seen it in those days at grovno. of what he was thinking the girl did not dream, but neither would she wish to have intruded upon his train of thought. so she sat quite still with her hands folded under the heavy fur rug and her gray-blue eyes fastened on the snow-covered landscape. mildred had grown handsomer since her coming to europe. she would never be beautiful in the ordinary acceptance of the term. but she was the type of girl who becomes handsomer as she grows older, when character which makes the real beauty of a woman's face had a chance to reveal itself. already a great deal of her awkwardness and angularity had disappeared with the self-confidence, or rather more the self-forgetfulness which her work had given her. her eyes had a deeper, less unsatisfied expression and her always handsome mouth more humor. for her own experiences and the friendship with the three other american red cross nurses had taught her to see many things in truer proportion. "miss thornton," mildred's attention was again aroused by her companion, "i want to tell you something, but i want you to promise me you will not have too much hope in consequence. i have been thinking of this sonya valesky. i believe i can remember her father, or if not her father himself, at least i knew him by reputation. he did not share his daughter's views, but was the faithful servant of the present czar's father. moreover, the czar is my friend, so i mean to tell him the story of sonya valesky and see if he will pardon her. she must, of course, leave russia, perhaps never to return." general alexis had been in a measure thinking aloud. but now mildred's sudden exclamation of happiness made his eyes soften into a look of kindliness that again reminded the girl of her father. "but, my child, you must not hope too much," he remonstrated. "the czar may not feel as i do about your friend. after your service to me there is little you could desire which i would not wish to give you." one would never have thought of general alexis as a great soldier at this moment. the heavy lines of his face had gone. there was no sternness about his mouth. his eyes, which were so surprisingly blue because of his other dark coloring, gazed at mildred's until for an instant she dropped the lids over her own, feeling embarrassed without exactly knowing why. the next moment she looked directly at the man, whom she felt sure was her friend, in spite of the differences in their ages, their rank and their countries. "general alexis, i am going to ask you to do me a favor--no, i don't mean about sonya this time. i shall be more grateful than i can even try to say for that kindness. but this is something which does not concern anyone except just you and me. will you never in the future speak or think of the service which you are good enough to say i have rendered you." actually, mildred was now twisting her hands together in the old nervous fashion which she thought she had overcome. "it is difficult for me to say things," she went on, "but i want you to know that the greatest honor i shall ever have in my life was the privilege of nursing you. if i did help make you well, why i am so happy and proud the favor is on my side and not yours." and mildred ended with a slight gasp, feeling her cheeks burning in spite of the cold, so unaccustomed was she to making long speeches or to revealing her emotions. "miss thornton," general alexis returned. then instead of finishing his sentence he leaned over and touched his coachman. "stop the sleigh for a moment. we are growing cold. it will be better for us to walk for ten or fifteen minutes and then come back to the sleigh." again he spoke to mildred. "you will come with me for a little?" he asked. "it will be wiser for you not to grow stiff with sitting still." afterwards he said something to lieutenant orlaff, to which he and nona agreed. five minutes later mildred was walking across the snow toward the river, with her hand resting on general alexis' arm. she was colder than she had imagined and it was difficult to walk over the icy and unfamiliar ground. but suddenly she stopped and gave an exclamation of surprise and delight which was almost one of awe. she and general alexis were alone. nona and lieutenant orlaff had walked off in an opposite direction. but mildred now beheld the sun setting upon the russian capital. beneath, the world was pure white, and above, the sky a glory of orange and purple and rose. between the two, suspended like giant fairy balls, were the great domes of petrograd's many churches. "i shall never, never forget that picture so long as i live. it will stay with me as my vision of petrograd long after i have gone home to my own country," mildred said simply. then she stopped in her walk and held out her hand. "thank you for this afternoon." general alexis did not release the girl's hand. instead he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, although the hand was covered with a heavy glove. then he smiled at mildred almost boyishly. "i want to say something to you, miss thornton, which i suppose a woman does not really mind hearing, no matter to what country she belongs or what her answer may be. in these weeks i have known you i have come to care for you very deeply. i am old enough perhaps to be your father. i have said this to myself a hundred times and that it ought to make my feeling impossible. it has not. naturally i understand that my age may make it impossible for you to return my affection, but it has not made the difference with me. i love you, mildred. i have known many women, but have never met one so fine and sweet as you. it is the custom of your country when a man cares for a woman to tell her so, is it not, or perhaps i should have written first to your father?" general alexis' manner was so naïve, almost as if he had been a boy instead of one of the most distinguished men in europe. mildred could almost have smiled if she had not been so overwhelmed by his speech. was general alexis actually saying that he was in love with her? no one had ever proposed to her in her life and she had never expected that any one would care sufficiently. but that the words should come from the man whom she felt to be a genius and a hero! no wonder mildred was speechless for a moment. "general alexis, i have never dreamed of anything like this. i only hoped at the most that you were my friend," she answered a little later. "really, i don't know--i can't say how i feel. i appreciate the honor, but russia is so far away, and my father----" "yes, i know," general alexis interrupted. "do you not suppose i have thought over all those things? until this war is past i shall not even ask you to become my wife. my life belongs to my country and i would not have you alone here in a foreign land. all i ask is that i may write you and some day in happier times may i come to see my american friend?" mildred could only nod and let general alexis keep tight hold of her hand, while a sense of the warmth and sweetness of the affection of a big nature slowly enveloped her. then, as they walked back to the sleigh in silence and continued in silence almost all the way back to the lodgings, mildred could only keep thinking how much her father would like general alexis. once she smiled, because her next thought was how immensely pleased and impressed her mother would be. it seemed impossible that the plain and unattractive mildred could have captured so distinguished an admirer. late that night, as she lay awake, nona davis' voice suddenly broke the stillness. the two girls were in the single bedroom, barbara occupying a lounge in the sitting room. "there is something i want to tell you, mildred. the strangest thing happened to me this afternoon. lieutenant orlaff proposed to me. why, i scarcely know him at all, but he says that is not necessary when a foreigner meets an american girl," nona confided. "you--why, nona!" mildred faltered, too surprised for the moment to answer intelligently, because her friend's speech so oddly fitted into her own thoughts. "did you accept him?" it was dark in the room, and yet mildred could see that nona had risen half way up in bed. "my gracious, no!" she ejaculated. "in the first place, i don't care for him at all, and in the second, i just want to get hold of my dear sonya and return home to the united states. if your general does have her pardoned i shall say prayers for him every night of my life. funny, but i believe i am afraid of russia, even though i am half russian. still, my mother did prefer to come to america to live. i simply couldn't bear living in russia always, could you, mildred?" nona ended, as she again dropped back on her pillow. but mildred only answered, "i don't know," which was not in the least conclusive. chapter xvii _the departure_ four days later the three american girls left petrograd. this was sooner than they had expected to leave, but a desirable opportunity arose for them to get safely across the continent and into france. the journey was a long and tiresome one, as they had to cross the northern countries of finland, sweden and norway until finally they were able to reach holland, and thence journey to england and france. but it was not possible to make the trip in any other way, since all of southern europe was engaged in active fighting. however, the red cross girls did not travel alone. sonya valesky went with them. at general alexis' request the czar had pardoned her, but she was an exile from russia forever, never to return at any future time. fortunately for the imprisoned woman, her reprieve had come before her sentence had time to be carried out. she was brought directly from the prison, where nona had once visited her, to the lodgings where the american girls were making ready to depart. if sonya regretted the terms of her pardon, she showed no signs of sorrow. but she was strangely quiet then and during the long, cold trip across the continent. in a measure she seemed to have been crushed by the weeks of solitary confinement in the russian jail with the prospect of siberia ever before her. often she would sit for hours with her hands crossed in her lap and her eyes staring out the window, without seeming to see anything in the landscape. one could scarcely imagine her as a woman who had devoted her life to traveling from one land to another, trying to persuade men and women to believe in universal peace. yet she was sincerely grateful and appreciative of any attention of affection from the three american girls who were her companions. and after a short time barbara and mildred were almost as completely under the spell of this grave woman's charm, as nona had grown to be. moreover, the girls felt that she had not yet recovered from her illness, because of the hardships following it. after a few weeks or months in the beloved "farmhouse with the blue front door" perhaps she would become more cheerful. for it was toward the chateau country of france that the three american girls were again traveling. the little house where they had once lived for a winter had been captain castaigne's wedding gift to eugenia. since eugenia was away nursing in a hospital she had offered her home to her friends. madame castaigne had also insisted that they come to her at the chateau; nevertheless, the girls had chosen the farmhouse. the countess was no longer young, and still had no servants save old françois. the work of entertaining four guests, and one of them a stranger, would have put too great a tax upon her. moreover, eugenia would undoubtedly come back for a while to be with her friends and would naturally stay with her mother-in-law. the girls also hoped that captain castaigne might be spared for a short leave of absence. however, in order that the countess amélie should not be wounded, or feel that the girls no longer cared to be with her, barbara had written to say that she would stay at the chateau whenever the countess wished her society. certainly the trip from russia into france during war times was a difficult one. the girls believed that they could not have made it, except that now and then they stopped for a day or more to rest. on these days barbara and nona used to spend at least a few hours in sightseeing, no matter what their fatigue. now and then mildred would go with them, but never sonya. occasionally nona would urge her, saying that the exercise and change of atmosphere would be good for her. but sonya used always to plead fatigue or a lack of interest. finally she confessed frankly that she had seen most of these cities and countries before, and in some of them was fairly well known. therefore it might be safer and happier for all of them if she remained quietly in whatever hotel they happened to be staying. yet sonya appeared almost as anxious as her three companions to reach france and the "farmhouse with the blue front door." this, of course, was because the three girls had talked of it so continuously and the longed for meeting with eugenia again. for somehow, although the farmhouse was in a war-stained country, its name suggested quiet and a brooding peace. nevertheless, several times, after mentioning eugenia's name, nona had observed sonya's face flush and the expression of her eyes become almost apologetic. at first she was unable to understand this and then she remembered. in the early days eugenia had not liked their friendship with the woman who was then calling herself lady dorian. indeed, in eugenia fashion she had frankly stated this fact to the older woman. now how much less might she care for their intimacy with the exiled russian. yet sonya was going as an uninvited guest to eugenia's home. there had been no time to ask permission. it was true barbara had written the entire story to eugenia as soon as sonya valesky was released from prison. but one could not tell whether the letter would reach france as soon as the four travelers. nona felt that she would have given a great deal to have assured sonya of eugenia's welcome, but she was nervous over the situation herself. of course, eugenia would be kind to the exiled woman and offer her hospitality and care. but eugenia had rigid views of life and was not given to concealing them. it was more than possible that she might let sonya know of her disapproval. moreover, she might object to nona's own championship of sonya and to her purpose to return with her to the united states and there make their future home together. of course, no views of eugenia's would interfere with this intention of nona's. but the younger girl would be sorry of eugenia's disapproval, since she too had learned to have the greatest affection and admiration for the oldest of the four american red cross girls. however, there was nothing to do except to wait and meet the situation when the time came. actually it was a month between the day of leaving petrograd and the day when the four travelers arrived in southern france in the neighborhood of the chateau d'amélie. but this was because the girls and sonya had spent some little time in london before attempting to cross the channel. london was a delightful experience for the three american red cross girls. in some fashion the story of their varied service to the allied cause had reached the london newspapers. for several days there were columns devoted to their praise. later, invitations poured in upon them from every direction. mildred was most conspicuous, since the story of her presentation by the czar with the cross of st. george was copied from the russian newspapers into the english, and must have ultimately reached the united states press. but the girls were not thinking of themselves or their work. they simply gave themselves up to the pleasure of meeting delightful english people and being entertained by them. sonya would not go about with them, but appeared stronger and more content, so there was no point in worrying over her. one of the english women, who was again gracious to the three american girls, was the countess of sussex, at whose home they had spent a week-end on their first arrival in england several years before. once more she invited them to her country home, but this time it was impossible for the girls to accept her invitation. however, nona recalled her meeting in the old rose garden near the gardener's cottage with lieutenant robert hume. she also thought of lieutenant hume's last letter telling her that he had been sent back to england as an exchanged prisoner because of his health. but when nona inquired for the young english lieutenant, the countess' expression checked further curiosity. suddenly she appeared very unhappy and distressed. "robert is not in england," she said hastily. "he has been sent away to try to recover, but we do not dare hope too much." at the moment nona did not feel that she had the courage to ask where the young man had gone nor from what he was trying to recover. actually it was one afternoon in late february, when the three red cross girls and sonya came at last to the village of le pretre, near the forest of the same name. there they found old françois awaiting them in a carriage that must have belonged to the second empire. it was toward twilight and on a february afternoon, yet after the cold of the northern countries where the girls had been for the past winter, the atmosphere had the appeal of spring. it was not warm, yet there was a gentleness in the air and a suggestion of green on the bare branches of the trees. françois drove them in state to the little "farmhouse with the blue front door." but this afternoon the door was standing open and on the threshold was madame, the countess, with both white hands extended in welcome. she wore the same black dress and the same point of lace over her white hair. and by her side stood monsieur le duc, more solemn and splendid than ever and as gravely welcoming of his guests as the countess herself. madame explained that eugenia had been unable to leave the hospital to be at home to greet her friends, but hoped to see them in a few days. in the meantime they were to feel more than welcome in the farmhouse and in the old chateau, when they cared to come to her there. then the countess said good-by and allowed françois to take her home. she knew that her guests were weary and her courtesy was too perfect to permit herself the privilege of a longer conversation, no matter how much she might be yearning for companionship. the little house itself was warm and light with welcome. there was a fire in the living room and the four beds upstairs smelled of lavender and roses. the girls took their old rooms, except that sonya was allotted the bedroom that had once been eugenia's. chapter xviii _a poem and a conversation_ not the next day, but the one following, barbara and mildred walked over to the old chateau together. nona did not go with them, as sonya did not appear to be well and she did not wish to leave her. so she sent a message of explanation to the countess amélie, saying that she hoped to be able to call upon her very soon. it chanced that sonya did not know of nona's decision. she was lying down when the girls went away and believed she had the little house to herself. really she was not ill, only tired and perhaps happier than she had been in a long time. it is true that she had confessed herself defeated and that there was no longer any illusion in her own mind. perhaps so long as she lived, war and not peace would flourish upon the earth. but the world learns its lessons in strange and dreadful ways and perchance peace might be born in the end from the horror and waste of bloodshed. by and by, when she felt more rested, sonya got up and went down into the old dining room of the farmhouse, which the girls had made into their living room. there was a possibility that the fire might be dying out and it would be wise to replenish it. to her surprise sonya discovered nona curled up in a chair by the window, reading. the older woman no longer wore black; it had become too depressing in a continent where more than half of the women were in mourning. she had on a simple frock of a curious russian blue, made almost like a monk's cowl, with a heavy blue cord knotted about her waist. nona stared at her friend for a moment in silence. it was curious that whatever costume sonya valesky wore seemed to have been created for her. nona recalled the beauty of her clothes in their first meeting on shipboard, yet they held no greater distinction than this simple dress. well, perhaps personality is the strongest force in the world and sonya valesky's distinction, whatever her mistakes, lay in this. she now walked across the room and put a few of françois' precious pine logs on the fire. at this nona stirred. "don't trouble to do that, sonya; i meant to in another minute. i thought you were ill upstairs." sonya shook her head. "i am not in the least ill and you are please to stop worrying about me, nona. i thought you had gone with your friends to the chateau. what has kept you at home?" the younger girl answered vaguely, not caring to confess her real motive, since her companion would have been distressed by it. "if you are all right, sonya, suppose you stay down here in the living room with me. i have just found a wonderful poem in an american magazine which i meant to save to read to you. somehow i think it may comfort you. for it shows that there is a big design in this old universe, which works itself out somehow, in spite of all the tragedies and failures of human beings." in a big chair in the half shadow sonya sat down, folding her hands together loosely in her lap. it was a fashion which had come to be almost a habit with her recently. curious that it should express a kind of resignation! nona began reading at once. "the poem is called 'at the last' and is by george sterling, a californian, i believe. "now steel-hoofed war is loosened on the world, with rapine and destruction, as the smoke from ashen farm and city soils the sky. earth reeks. the camp is where the vineyard was. the flocks are gone. the rains are on the hearth, and trampled europe knows the winter near. orchards go down. home and cathedral fall in ruin, and the blackened provinces reach on to drear horizons. soon the snow shall cover all, and soon be stained with red, a quagmire and a shambles, and ere long shall cold and hunger dice for helpless lives. so man gone mad, despoils the gentle earth and wages war on beauty and on good. "and yet i know how brief the reign shall be of desolation. but a little while, and time shall heal the desecrated lands, the quenchless fire of life shall take its own, the waters of renewal spring again. quiet shall come, a flood of verdure clothe the fields misused. the vine and tree once more shall bloom beside the trench, and humble roofs cover again the cradle and the bed. yea! life shall have her way with us, until the past is dim with legend, and the days that now in nightmare brood upon the world shall fold themselves in purples of romance, the peace shall come, so sure as ripples end and crystalline tranquillity returns above a pebble cast into a pool." when nona had finished neither she nor her companion made any comment for a moment. yet when the girl looked across at the older woman for her opinion, she discovered that sonya's cheeks had flushed and that her eyes were shining. "thank you, nona; i shall not forget that," she then said, repeating to herself, "'the peace shall come, so sure as ripples end.' i suppose the trouble is we have not faith and patience enough to believe that love and peace must triumph before god's plan can be worked out." then sonya got up. "come, nona," she suggested. "don't you think it would be more agreeable to take a walk. it is really a lovely afternoon and i've some things i wish to talk to you about. besides, i want to see the woods you girls have told me of." it was delicious outdoors and nona and sonya both forgot their serious mood of a little while before. one could not be always serious even in war times in so lovely a land as southern france. no wonder the french nation is gay; it is their method of showing their gratitude for the country that gave them birth. finally the woman and girl reached the pool in the woods which nona had once named "the pool of melisande," and eugenia had afterwards called "the pool of truth." however, since in maeterlinck's play melisande was seeking the light in the depth of the water, perhaps after all the two titles had almost a similar meaning. anyhow, by the pool sonya chose to make a confession. "do you remember, nona, once long ago, or perhaps it just seems a long time to me, you and i met a colonel dalton, an officer in the british army whom i had known before. i think i promised then to tell you of my previous acquaintance with him. i had almost forgotten." nona slipped her arm through her companion's. "don't tell me if you had rather not. we will both have a great deal to learn of each other when we go back to the united states to live together." sonya smiled. "there is no use waiting. i have never even told you, nona, whether or not i am married. you see, i am often called madame valesky in russia, but that is only a courtesy title. i have never married. the fact is, i once lived in england for some time and was engaged to colonel dalton. i think we cared a good deal for each other, but he was a soldier and we did not approve of each other's views of life. so by and by our engagement was broken off, which was probably the best thing for us both." "has colonel dalton ever married?" nona inquired inconsequentially. her companion shook her head. "really, i don't know. suppose we walk on now to the hut where your little french girl nicolete once lived." when the two friends reached the hut, nona davis exclaimed in amazement: "what on earth has happened? why, our hut isn't a hut any longer; it is a charming little house with some one living in it. i am going to knock and see who it can be. french people are so courteous, i am sure they won't mind telling me." nona knocked and the next moment the door was opened by a young french woman. for an instant they stared at each other, then kissed in a bewilderingly friendly fashion. "why, nicolete, i can't believe my own eyes!" nona protested. "what are you doing back here in your own little house, only it is so changed that i would scarcely have recognized it." nicolete's dark eyes shone and the vivid color flooded her face. "i am married," she explained. "you remember monsieur renay, whom mademoiselle barbara named 'monsieur bebé?' well," nicolete laughed bewitchingly, "he is my husband." "and is he----" nona asked and hesitated. nicolete shook her head. "he can tell the light from the darkness, and now and then can see me moving in the shadow. some day, the doctors say, his sight may be fully restored. he has seen the best specialists. madame eugenié sent us both to paris. she it was who made us a home here in the woods out of the old hut, so that my husband might have the fresh air and grow strong to aid his recovery." "madame eugenié," it was a pretty title and one that eugenia would probably always have in this french country, which had so long known the old countess as madame castaigne. when barbara and mildred returned from the chateau nona sincerely hoped they would bring news of eugenia's arrival, since she was growing more than anxious to see her again. chapter xix _the reunion_ in truth, barbara and mildred were having a delightful afternoon at the chateau d'amélie. when they arrived, solemnly françois invited them into the old french drawing room they so well remembered. but here, instead of the slender, tiny figure of the old countess appearing to greet them, a tall, dark young woman came forward, whose hair was wound about her head like a coronet. "eugenia!" barbara exclaimed, and straightway shed several tears, while eugenia and mildred laughed at her. then the three girls went over and sat down on the same louis xiv sofa that two of them had once occupied with young captain castaigne, on their first visit to the chateau. this time eugenia took the place of honor in the center, while each hand clasped one of her companions. "henri and i arrived just an hour ago," she explained. "he found he could get a three days leave to come with me. of course, i wished to rush off to the farmhouse before i even got my traveling things off. but since i am a much managed woman these days, i was made to wait until you came here. i have been expecting you every minute. now tell me about nona and madame valesky." this time it was barbara who laughed. the idea of eugenia's being managed instead of managing other people was amusing. besides, it was unlike her to talk so fast and ask so many questions without giving one time to reply. so barbara only held closer to her friend's hand and looked at her, leaving mildred the opportunity for answering. it was still early in the afternoon and the sunshine flooded the beautiful drawing room. it was strange to see how at home eugenia seemed to look and feel in it, when a little more than a year before she and the old room had been so antagonistic. eugenia had changed. in the first place, she wore this afternoon a lovely costume of violet crepe, trimmed in old gold brocade. it was a costume that must have been specially designed for eugenia, so perfectly did it suit her rather stately beauty and dark, clear coloring. this turned out to be true, since eugenia a short time before had discovered a little french dressmaker, whom the war had rendered penniless, and given her work to do. now, even while mildred was talking of nona and sonya, the drawing room door opened and captain castaigne and his mother came in. monsieur le duc accompanied them, but promptly deserted his former master and mistress and padded over to eugenia, placing his great silver head on her lap and gazing at her with adoration. captain castaigne and his mother followed to greet their guests. in his hand the young officer carried a number of letters which he gave at once to barbara and mildred. "these just arrived at the chateau for you; they are american letters and so i am sure you will be pleased." mildred's were from her mother and father and barbara had received three from dick in this same mail, and another which looked as if it might be the long-expected letter from mrs. thornton. after ten minutes of conversation, it was captain castaigne who proposed that their guests might be allowed to read their letters without waiting to return home. it was not difficult to guess at their impatience, since it must have been a long time since they had heard from home. then he and eugenia crossed over to the other side of the room and stood by the fireplace. le duc went with them and eugenia kept one hand on the dog's head. now and then she smiled over something captain castaigne said to her, then again she looked at him with the anxious gravity that was a part of eugenia's character. the war had made the young french officer older, love and marriage had apparently taken ten years from eugenia's age. plainly a beautiful understanding existed between the husband and wife, in spite of the differences in their natures, which would survive to the end. for when captain castaigne suddenly lifted his wife's hand and kissed it, it was like eugenia to blush and whisper a protest, at which the young officer only laughed. over by the window barbara and mildred were really too busy with their letters to notice what was taking place. madame castaigne had gone out of the room for the instant to speak to françois. of course, barbara had read dick's letters first. she could only read them hastily, for dick had written to say that he had a fine position with a big real estate office in new york city, and enough salary for two persons to live upon, in a tiny apartment on the west side. barbara was to come home at once, else dick would probably lose his job by deserting to fetch her. also the letter from mrs. thornton was cheering. whatever it may have been, something had occurred to change that lady's state of mind. perhaps it was her anxiety about mildred in the days when she knew nothing of her daughter's fate except that mildred had stayed behind at grovno until the hour of the final surrender of the russian fort. for mrs. thornton had written to barbara to say that she would be most happy to welcome her as dick's wife, and the dearest wish of her heart was to have her two daughters safe at home in new york city as soon as they were able to return. mildred's letters were much of the same character, and the two girls had only barely finished them when françois appeared bearing coffee and cakes. then the little party talked on until nearly dusk. at last, when barbara and mildred felt compelled to leave, eugenia proposed that she and captain castaigne walk over to the farmhouse with them. she did not feel that she could wait for another day before seeing nona. nona and sonya had just been in a few moments and taken off their wraps when the others arrived. and nona need have felt no nervousness over eugenia's attitude toward sonya. many things had happened to broaden eugenia's point of view since her arrival in europe to act as a red cross nurse. besides, few persons could fail to feel anything but sympathy and admiration for the beautiful russian woman, whose life had come so near closing in tragedy. there was not a great deal of food at the farmhouse, nevertheless eugenia and captain castaigne remained to dinner. barbara and mildred retired to act as cooks, while eugenia and sonya fell to talking together, and nona and captain castaigne. in the course of their talk nona remembered to inquire for lieutenant hume, who was captain castaigne's friend. at last she might be able to hear real news of the young british officer. by good fortune captain castaigne had received a letter written by him in the same post that had brought barbara's and mildred's letters. "lieutenant hume had gone to the united states and was living at the present time in florida. he had appeared to have contracted a fatal illness during his imprisonment, but his letter had said he was feeling ever so much better. "i can't say how glad i am," captain castaigne continued. "there was never a braver fellow in the world than robert hume. and besides, if he should happen to die just now, it would be particularly hard on his family. you see, hume's older brother, the one with the title, has just been killed in the dardanelles. robert hume is lord hume now, i believe, and the english think more of titles than we do in republican france," the french officer concluded. "but i thought," nona commented stupidly, "that lieutenant hume was a gardener's son and had been educated by friends who were interested in him." then nona stopped, because captain castaigne was half smiling and half frowning over her information. moreover, nona suddenly remembered that what she was saying was founded partly on information and the rest on her own fancy. "lieutenant hume told me he was the gardener's son," she protested, "or at least he called the gardener's wife 'mother susan.'" eugenia had suddenly spoken her husband's name and captain castaigne had gotten up to go over to her. however, he stopped long enough to expostulate. "that was an extraordinary idea of yours, miss davis. hume was only talking of his old nurse. his mother died when he was a baby and she brought him up. i have heard him speak of 'mother susan' myself. the countess you visited in surrey is a cousin of hume's, i think, and the old nurse and her husband live there. hume was having mother susan nurse him when you met, i expect. hope you two may see each other some day in the united states and laugh over that impression of yours, miss davis," captain castaigne concluded, as he walked over to his wife's side. at midnight captain castaigne and eugenia went back to the chateau, walking hand-in-hand like children through the woods. there was no fighting these days in this particular portion of southern france and in the peace of the night one could almost forget that the world was at war. "you will miss your friends when they return to their own country, eugenia," captain castaigne suggested. eugenia nodded. "yes, they will be gone, i believe, in another month. but we will go over ourselves some day, henri, and perhaps you may learn to care for my country as i do for yours." "yes, and think of the service i shall owe her for the work the american red cross has done for france!" the young officer concluded, and in the darkness lifted his cap for a moment. "whatever lafayette did for you in the cause of freedom, your land has now fully repaid." the end books by margaret vandercook the ranch girls series the ranch girls at rainbow lodge the ranch girls' pot of gold the ranch girls at boarding school the ranch girls in europe the ranch girls at home again the ranch girls and their great adventure the red cross girls series the red cross girls in the british trenches the red cross girls on the french firing line the red cross girls in belgium the red cross girls with the russian army the red cross girls with the italian army the red cross girls under the stars and stripes stories about camp fire girls the camp fire girls at sunrise hill the camp fire girls amid the snows the camp fire girls in the outside world the camp fire girls across the sea the camp fire girls' careers the camp fire girls in after years the camp fire girls in the desert the camp fire girls at the end of the trail the girls of central high aiding the red cross or amateur theatricals for a worthy cause by gertrude w. morrison contents chapter i the oddest thing that ever happened ii the red cross girl iii odd! iv the mystery man v sand in the gears vi the bank-note vii something exciting viii the forefront of trouble ix the ice carnival x but who is he? xi a rehearsal xii bubble, bubble xiii mother wit has an idea xiv chains on his wheels xv pie and poetry xvi ember night xvii a startling announcement xviii where was purt? xix laura listens xx two things about hester xxi and a third thing xxii the case for and against purt xxiii the last rehearsal xxiv mr. nemo, of nowhere xxv it is all rounded up chapter i the oddest thing that ever happened "well, if that isn't the oddest thing that ever happened!" murmured laura belding, sitting straight up on the stool before the high desk in her father's glass-enclosed office, from which elevation she could look down the long aisles of his jewelry store and out into market street, centerport's main business thoroughfare. but laura was not looking down the vista of the electrically lighted shop and into the icy street. instead, she gave her attention to that which lay right under her eyes upon the desk top. she looked first at the neat figures she had written upon the page of the day ledger, after carefully proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of coin on the desk at her right hand. "it is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in answer to her own first declaration. it was saturday evening, and it was always laura's duty to straighten out her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high school girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she could give the books proper attention weekly. laura had taken a course in bookkeeping and she was quite familiar with the business of keeping a simple set of books like these. she never let the day ledger and the cash get far apart. it was her custom to strike a balance weekly, and this she was doing at this time. or she was trying to! but there seemed to be something entirely wrong with the cash itself. she knew that the figures on the ledger were correct. she had asked her father, and even chet, her brother, who was helping in the store this evening, if either of them had taken out any cash without setting the sum down in the proper record. "it is an even fifty dollars--neither more nor less," she had told them, with a puzzled little frown corrugating her pretty forehead. they had both denied any such act--chet, of course, vigorously. "what kind of hardware are you trying to hang on me, mother wit?" he demanded of his sister. "i know christmas will soon be on top of us, and a fellow needs all the money there is in the world to buy even one girl a decent present. but i assure you i haven't taken to nicking papa's cash drawer." "i don't know but mother is right," laura sighed. "your language is becoming something to listen to with fear and trembling. and i am not accusing you, chetwood. i'm only asking you!" "and i'm only answering you--emphatically," chuckled her brother. "it is no laughing matter when you cannot find fifty dollars," she told him. "you'd better stir your wits a little, then, sis," he advised. "you know jess and lance will be along soon and we were all going shopping together, and skating afterward. lance and i want to practice our grapevine whirl." but being advised to hurry did not help. for half an hour since chet had last spoken the girl had sat in a web of mystery that fairly made her head spin! her ledger figures were proved over and over again. but the cash! then once more she bent to her task. the piles of coin were all right she finally decided. she counted them over and over again, and they came to the same penny exactly. so she pushed the coin aside. then she slowly and carefully counted again the bank-notes, turning them one by one face down from left to right. the amount, added to the sum of the coins, was equal to the figures on the ledger. then she did what she had already done ten or a dozen times. she recounted the bills, turning them from right to left. she was fifty dollars short! christmas was approaching, and the belding jewelry store was, of course, rather busier than at other seasons. that was why chet belding was helping out behind the counters. out there, he kept a closer watch on the front door than laura, with her financial trouble, could. suddenly he darted down the long room to welcome a group of young people who pushed open the jewelry-store door. they burst in with a hail of merry voices and a clatter of tongues that drowned every other sound in the store for a minute, although there were but four of them. "easy! easy!" begged mr. belding, who was giving his attention to a customer near the front of the store. "take your friends back to laura's coop, chetwood." hushed for the moment, the party drifted back toward laura's desk. the young girl was still too deeply engaged with the ledger and cash to look up at first. "what is the matter, mother wit?" demanded the taller of the two girls who had just come in--a most attractive-looking maiden, whom chet had at once taken on his arm. "engine trouble," chuckled laura's brother. "the old thing just won't budge! isn't that it, laura?" the tall youth--dark and delightfully romantic-looking, any girl would have told you--went around into the little office and looked over laura's shoulder. "what's gone wrong, laura?" he asked, with sympathy in his voice and manner. "you want to get a move on, mother wit!" cried the youngest girl of the troop, saucy looking, and with ruddy cheeks and flyaway curls. this was clara hargrew, whom her friends called bobby, and whose father kept the big grocery store just a block away from the belding jewelry store. "everybody will have picked over the presents in all the stores and got the best of everything before we get there." "that's right," said the last member of the group; and this was a short and sturdy boy who had the same mischievous twinkle in his eye that bobby hargrew displayed. his name was long, and because he was short, everybody at central high (save the teachers, of course) called him "short and long." he and bobby hargrew were what hopeless grown folk called "a team!" when they were not hatching up some ridiculous trick together, they were separately in mischief. "but you say short and long has done some of his christmas shopping already," jess morse, the tall visitor, said. "just think, laura! he has sent purt sweet his annual present." "so soon?" said laura belding, but with her mind scarcely on what her friends were saying. "and thanksgiving is only just passed!" "i thought i'd better be early," said short and long, with solemn countenance. "i wrote 'not to be opened till christmas' upon the package." bobby and jess and lance burst into giggles. "let's have the joke!" demanded chet. "what did you send the poor fish, short?" "you guessed it! you guessed it, chet belding!" cried bobby. "aren't you a clever lad?" "what do you mean?" asked laura, now becoming more seriously interested. "why," jess morse said, "he got a codfish down at the market and wrapped it up in a lot of paper and put it in a long, beautifully decorated christmas box. if purt sweet keeps that box without opening it until christmas, i am afraid the board of health will be making inquiries about the sweet premises." "you scamp!" exclaimed laura sternly, to short and long. "he's all right!" declared bobby warmly. "you know just how mean and stingy purt sweet is--and his mother has more money than anybody else in centerport. last christmas, d'you know what purt did?" "something silly, of course," laura said. "i don't know what you call silly. i call it mean," declared the smaller girl. "purt got it noised abroad that he was going to give a present to every fellow in his class--didn't he, short?" "that's what he did," said billy long, taking up the story. "and the day before christmas he got us all over to his house and offered each of us a drink of ice-water! and some of the kids had been foolish enough to buy him things--and give 'em to him ahead of time, too!" "serves you right for being so piggish," commented chet. "it was a mean trick," agreed laura, "for some of the boys in purt's grade are much younger than he is. but this idea of giving christmas presents because you expect something in return----" "is pretty small potatoes," finished lance darby, the dark youth. "but what's the matter here, laura?" he added. "i've counted these bills and they are just exactly right by those figures you have set down there." "you turned them from left to right as you counted, lance," cried laura. "sure! i counted the face of each bill," was the answer. "now count them the other way!" exclaimed laura in despair. her friends gathered around while laura did this. even chet gave some attention to his sister's trouble now. from right to left the packet of bank-notes came to fifty dollars less than the sum accredited to them on the ledger. "well, what do you know about that?" breathed lance. "that's the strangest thing!" declared jess morse. "why," said bobby of the quick mind, "must be some of the bills are not printed right." "nonsense!" ejaculated chet. "who ever heard of such a thing as a banknote being printed wrong unless it was a counterfeit?" demanded laura. mr. belding, having finished with his customer, came back to the little office and heard this. "i am quite sure we have taken in no counterfeits--eh, chet?" he said, smiling. "and there's only one big bill--this hundred," said chet, who had taken the package of bills and was flirting them through his fingers. "i took that in myself when i sold that lavallière to the man i told you about, father. you remember? he was a stranger, and he said he wanted to give it to a young girl. i------" "let's see that bill, chet!" exclaimed bobby hargrew suddenly. chet slipped the hundred-dollar note out of the packet and handed it to the grocer's daughter. but she immediately cried: "i want to see the hundred-dollar bill, chet. not this one." "why, that's the hundred------" "this is a fifty," interrupted bobby. "can't you see?" she displayed the face of a fifty-dollar bank-note to their wondering eyes. their exclamations drowned mr. belding's voice, and he had to speak twice before bobby heard him. "turn it over!" the grocer's daughter did so. the other side of the bill was the face of a hundred-dollar bank-note! at this there certainly was a hullabaloo in and around the office. mr. belding could scarcely make himself heard again. he was annoyed. "what is the matter with that bank-note? whether it is counterfeit or not, you took it in over the counter, chetwood," he said coldly. "this very day," admitted his oldest son. "then, my boy, it is up to you," said the jeweler grimly. "what----just what do you mean?" asked chet, somewhat troubled by his father's sternness. "in a jewelry store," said mr. belding seriously, "as i have often told you, a clerk must keep his eyes open. you admit taking in this bill. if the treasury department says it is worth only fifty dollars, i shall expect you to make good the other fifty." the young people stared at each other in awed silence as the jeweler turned away. they could feel how annoyed he was. "gee!" gasped chet, "if i'm nicked fifty dollars, how shall i ever be able to buy christmas presents, or even give anything for the red cross drive?" "oh, i'm sorry, chet!" jess morse murmured. "looks as if hard times had camped on your trail, old boy," declared lance. "but maybe it is a hundred-dollar bill," laura said. "it's tough," short and long muttered. "try to pass it on somebody else," chuckled bobby, who was not very sympathetic at that moment. "got it all locked up, laura?" jess asked. "well, let us go then. you can't make that bill right by looking at it, chet." "i--i wish i could get hold of the man who passed it on me," murmured the big fellow. "would you know him again?" lance asked. "sure," returned his chum, getting his own coat and hat while his sister put on her outdoor clothing. "all ready? we're going, pa." "remember what i said about that bill, chetwood," mr. belding admonished him. "you will learn after this, i guess, to look at both sides of a hundred-dollar bill--or any other--when it is offered to you." "aw, it's a good hundred, i bet," grumbled chet. "if it is, i'll add an extra fifty to my red cross subscription," rejoined his father with some tartness. "well, that's something!" bobby hargrew said quickly. "we want to boost the fund all we can. and what do you think?" "my brain has stopped functioning entirely since i got so bothered by that bank-note," declared laura belding, shaking her head. "i can't think." "mr. sharp and the rest of the faculty have agreed that we shall give a show for the red cross," declared bobby, with enthusiasm. "just what we wanted them to do!" "oh, joy!" cried jess, clasping her hands in delight. "miss josephine morse, leading lady, impressarioess, and so forth," laughed lance darby, "will surely be in on the theatricals." "maybe they will let you write the play, jess," said chet admiringly. they reached the door and stepped into the street. there had been rain and a freeze. the sidewalks, as well as the highway itself, were slippery. bobby suddenly screamed: "see there! oh! he'll be killed!" a rapidly-driven automobile turned the corner by the belding store. a man was crossing market street, coming toward the group of young people. the careless driver had not put on his chains. the car skidded. the next instant the pedestrian was knocked down, and at least one wheel ran over his prostrate body. instead of stopping, the car went into high speed and dashed up the street and was quickly out of sight. the young people ran to the prostrate man. nobody for the moment thought of the automobile driver who was responsible for the affair. the victim had blood on his face from a cut high up on his crown. he was unconscious. it was chet belding who stood up and spoke, first of all. "i thought so! i thought so!" he gasped. "do you know who this is?" "who?" asked jess, clinging to his arm as the crowd gathered. "this is the man who passed that phony hundred-dollar bill on me. the very one!" "is he dead?" whispered bobby hargrew, looking under chefs elbow down at the crimson-streaked face of the unfortunate man. chapter ii the red cross girl market street was well lighted, but it was not well policed. that last fact could not be denied, or the recklessly driven automobile that had knocked down the stranger would never have got away so easily. people from both sides of the street and from the stores near by ran to the spot; but no policeman appeared until long after the automobile was out of sight. the exciting statement that chet belding had made so interested and surprised his friends that for a few moments they gave the victim of the injury little of their attention. meanwhile a figure glided into the group and knelt beside the injured man who lay upon the ice-covered street. it was a girl, not older than laura and jess, but one who was dressed in the veil and cloak of the red cross. she was not the only red cross worker on market street that saturday evening, for the drive for the big red cross fund had begun, and many workers were collecting. this girl, however seemed to have a practical knowledge of first-aid work. she drew forth a small case, wiped the blood away from the man's face with cotton, and then began to bandage the wound as his head rested against her knee. "somebody send for the ambulance," she commanded, in a clear and pleasant voice. "i think he has a fractured leg, and he may be hurt otherwise." her request brought the three girls of central high to their senses. bobby darted away to telephone to the hospital from her father's store. the older girls offered the red cross worker their aid. for a year and a half the girls of central high had been interested in the girls' branch league athletics; and with their training under mrs. case, the athletic instructor, they had all learned something about first-aid work. the girls of centerport had changed in character without a doubt since the three high schools of the city had become interested so deeply in girls' athletics. with the high schools of keyport and lumberport, an association of league units had been formed, and the girls of the five educational institutions were rivals to a proper degree in many games and sports. how all this had begun and how laura belding by her individual efforts had made possible the central high's beautiful gymnasium and athletic field, is told in the first volume of this series, entitled: "the girls of central high; or, rivals for all honors." this story served to introduce this party of young people who have met in the jewelry store, as well as a number of other characters, to the reader. in "the girls of central high on lake luna; or, the crew that won," the enthusiasm in sports among the girls of the five high schools reaches a high point. as the three cities in the league are all situated upon the beautiful lake named above, aquatic games hold a high place in the estimation of the rival associations in the league. fun and sports fill this second volume. "the girls of central high at basket ball; or, the great gymnasium mystery," the third book, tells of several very exciting games in which the basket-ball team of central high takes part, and the reader learns, as well, a good deal more about the individual characters of the girls themselves and of some very exciting adventures they have. "the girls of central high on the stage; or, the play that took the prize," the fourth volume in the series, is really jess morse's story, although laura and their other close friends have much to do in the book and take part in the play which jess wrote, and which was acted in the school auditorium. it was proved that jess morse had considerable talent for play writing, and the professional production of her school play aided the girl and her mother over a most trying financial experience. the fifth volume, "the girls of central high on track and field; or, the champions of the school league," is an all around athletic story in which rivalries for place in school athletics, excitement and interest of plot, and stories of character building are woven into a tale calculated to hold the attention of any reader interested in high school doings. during the summer previous to the opening of the present story in the series, these friends spent a most enjoyable time camping on acorn island, and the sixth tale, "the girls of central high in camp; or, the old professor's secret," is as full of mystery, adventure, and fun as it can be. since the end of the long vacation the girls of central high, as well as the boys who are their friends, had settled down to hard work both in studies and athletics. ice had come early this year and already lake luna was frozen near the shore and most of the steamboat traffic between the lake cities had ceased. the great pre-holiday red cross drive had now enthralled the girls of central high, as well as the bulk of centerport's population. everybody wanted to put the city "over the top" with more than its quota subscribed to the fund. in the first place, the boys' and girls' athletic associations of central high were planning an ice carnival to raise funds for the cause, and it was because of that exhibition that chet belding and lance darby wished to get down to the ice that evening and try their own particular turn, after the shopping expedition that also had been planned. as it happened, however, neither the shopping nor the skating was done on this particular saturday night. as bobby hargrew ran to telephone to the hospital, short and long had grabbed the wrists of his two older and taller boy friends and led them out of the crowd in a very mysterious way. "did you get a good look at that car?" he whispered to chet and lance. "of course i didn't," said the latter. "it went up the street like the wind. didn't it, chet?" "that rascal was going some when he turned the corner of rapidan street. i wonder he did not skid again and smash his car to pieces against the hydrant. served him right if he had," chet said. "there were no chains on his wheels," said short and long, in the same mysterious way. "you said it," agreed lance. "what then?" "there are not many cars in centerport right now without chains on. the streets have been icy for more than twenty-four hours." "your statement is irrefutable," said chet, grinning. "get it off your chest, short and long," begged lance. "what do you mean?" "i mean," said the earnest lad, "that i know a car that was out this afternoon without chains, and it was a seven-seater perriton car--just as this one that knocked down chet's friend was." "it was a perriton, i believe," murmured lance. but chetwood belding said: "i don't know whether that poor fellow is a friend of mine or not. if i have to give pa fifty dollars--whew!" "but the car?" urged lance darby. "who has a perriton car, short and long?" "and without chains?" added chet, waking up to the main topic. "come along, fellows," said the younger lad. "i won't tell you. but i'll take you to where you can see the car i mean. if it still is without chains on the wheels, and has just been used--well, we can talk about it then!" "all right," said chet. "we can't do any good here. here comes the ambulance. that poor fellow is going to be in the hospital for some time, i bet." there was such a crowd around the spot where the victim of the accident lay that the boys could not see the central high girls, save bobby hargrew, who came running back from her father's store just as the clanging of the ambulance gong warned the crowd that the hospital had responded in its usual prompt fashion. the boys hailed the smaller girl and told her they were off to hunt for the car that had knocked down the victim. then the three hurried away. meanwhile, in the center of the crowd laura belding and jess morse had been aiding the girl in the red cross uniform as best they could to care for the man who was hurt. the latter had not opened his eyes when the ambulance worked its way into the crowd and halted beside the three girls on their knees in the street. "what have you there?" asked the young doctor, who swung himself off the rear of the truck. laura and jess told him. the third girl, the one who had done the most for the unfortunate man, did not at first say a word. the driver brought the rolled stretcher and blanket. he laid it down beside the victim. when the doctor had finished his brief notes he helped his aid lift the man to the stretcher. they picked it up and shoved it carefully into the ambulance. "i know you, miss belding," said the doctor. "and this is miss morse, isn't it? do you mind giving me your name and address?" he asked the third girl. was there a moment's hesitation on the part of the red cross girl? laura thought there was; yet almost instantly the stranger replied: "my name is janet steele." "ah! your address?" repeated the doctor. this time there was no doubt that the girl flushed, and more than a few seconds passed before she made answer: "thirty-seven whiffle street." at the same moment somebody exclaimed: "here comes fatty morehead, the cop. better late than never," and a general laugh went up from the crowd. jess seized laura's wrist, exclaiming: "oh, laura! he will want to take down our names and addresses, too. let's get away." the red cross girl uttered an ejaculation of chagrin. she began pushing her way out of the press, and in an opposite direction from that in which the portly policeman was coming. jess whispered swiftly in laura's ear: "come on! let's follow her! i'm awfully interested in that red cross girl, laura!" "why should you be?" asked her chum. "although she looks like a nice girl, i never saw her before." "neither did i," said jess. "but did you hear the address she gave? that is the poor end of whiffle street, as you very well know, and mother and i used to live right across the street from that house. i did not know anybody lived in the old eaton place. it has been empty for a long, long time." chapter iii odd! bobby hargrew met laura and jess on the edge of the crowd, for she had been unable to worm herself into the middle of it again, and told them swiftly of the boys' departure to hunt for the car that had done the damage. "and that's just like the boys!" exclaimed jess morse, with some exasperation. "to run away and desert us!" "i don't know but i'm glad," said laura. "i don't feel much like shopping after seeing that poor man hurt." "or skating, either," complained jess. presently the three overtook the strange girl. bobby, whom chet had said was "just as friendly with strangers as a pup with a waggy tail," immediately got into conversation with her. "say! was he hurt badly?" she asked. "i think his right leg was broken," the red cross girl replied. "and his head was badly hurt. your friends, here, could see that." "he bled dreadfully," sighed laura. "but you had the bandage on so nicely that the doctor did not even disturb it, my dear." "thank you," said the red cross girl. she hesitated on the corner of the side street. "i fear i must leave you here. i am going home." "oh," cried jess, who was enormously curious, "we can go your way just as well as not, miss steele! we live at the other end of whiffle street--up on the hill, you know." "all but me," put in bobby. "but i can run right through laura's yard to my house." she indicated laura as she spoke. the red cross girl looked at mother wit with some expectancy. jess came to the rescue. "let's get acquainted," she said. "why not? we'll never meet again under more thrilling circumstances," and she laughed. "this is miss laura belding, miss steele. on your other hand is miss hargrew--miss clara hargrew. i am josephine morse. i used to live across the street from the old eaton place where you live now." "you are a stranger in town, are you not?" laura asked, taking the new girl's hand. "yes, miss belding. we have only been here four weeks. but i have worked in the red cross before--and one must do something, you know." "do something!" burst forth bobby. "if you went to central high and had gee gee for one of your teachers, you'd have plenty to do." "we are all three central high girls," said laura gently. "have you finished school, miss steele?" "i have not been able to attend school regularly for two years," admitted the new girl. "i am afraid," and she smiled apologetically, "that you are all much further advanced in your education than i am. you see, my mother is an invalid and i must give her a great deal of my time. it does not interfere, however, with my doing a little for the red cross." "i am sorry your mother is ill," said laura. "we were advised to come up here for her sake," said janet steele hastily. "we have been living in a coast town. the doctors thought an inland climate--a drier climate--would be beneficial." "i hope it will prove so," said laura. "it seems a shame you can't get out with the other girls," jess added. "and come to school and let gee gee get after you," joined in bobby grimly. "is she such a very strict disciplinarian?" asked miss steele, smiling down at the irrepressible one as they walked through the side street toward whiffle. "she's the limit," declared bobby. "oh," said laura mildly, "i think miss carrington is nowhere near so strict as she used to be. margit salgo really has made her quite human, you know." "say!" grumbled bobby, "she can hand out demerits just as easy as ever. and she had her sense of humor extracted years ago." "has that fault cropped up lately, my dear?" asked laura, laughing. "it must be so. what happened, bobby?" the younger girl, who was a sophomore, whereas laura and jess were juniors, came directly under miss carrington's attention in several classes. bobby was forever getting into trouble with the strict teacher. "why, look, now," said bobby, warmly, "just what happened yesterday! english class. you know, that's nuts for gee gee. i was bothered enough, i can tell you, trying to correct a paper she had handed back to me, and she kept right on talking and asking questions, and the recitation period was almost ended. i didn't want to hang around there to correct that paper--" "you know very well you should have taken it home to correct," laura put in. "oh, don't tell me that! i take so much extra work home as it is, that father tom hargrew asks me if i don't do anything at all in school. and, anyway, i didn't think gee gee saw me. but, of course, she did." "and then what?" jess asked. "why, she shot a question at me, and i didn't get it at first. 'miss hargrew! pay attention!' she went on. of course, that brought me up standing. 'what is a pseudonym?' she wanted to know. how silly! you know the trouble we've been having with that car father tom bought. 'i don't know what it is, miss carrington,' i told her. 'but if it is something that belongs to an automobile, father will have to buy a new one pretty soon, i'm sure.'" "and she docked you for that!" exclaimed jess, as though wildly amazed. "how cruel!" "really, i am afraid we are sometimes cruel to our dear teachers," laughed laura. "but if they are too serious they are such a temptation to us witty ones." "now, don't be sarcastic, mother wit," said jess, shaking her chum a little by the elbow. "you know very well you enjoy nagging the teachers a bit yourself, now and then. and professor dimp!" "oh! oh! oh!" gasped bobby suddenly. "did you hear the latest about old dimple?" "now, girls," said laura, quite sternly, "i refuse to hear of professor dimp being made a goose of." "gander, dear! gander!" exclaimed jess, _sotto voce_. "he's an old dear," declared laura, quite as earnestly. "we found that out, i am sure, when we went camping on acorn island last summer." "true! true!" admitted her chum. "oh, nobody wants to hurt the old fellow," chuckled bobby. "but one day this week there was a bunch of the boys down at the post-office, and professor dimp came in to mail a letter. you know he is always reading on the street when he walks; never sees anybody, and goes stumbling about blindly with a book under his nose. he got into the revolving door and short and long declares old dimple went around ten times before he knew enough to come out--and then he was on the street again and had failed to mail the letter." "oh, bobby!" cried jess, while miss steele was quite convulsed by the statement. "he's so absent-minded," said laura sympathetically. "why didn't short and long tell him he was in the revolving door?" "humph!" chuckled bobby, "i guess short thought the old fellow needed the exercise." just then the girls came to the corner of whiffle street the street was narrow and crooked in an elbow here. the houses were mostly small, and were out of repair. it was, indeed, the poor end of whiffle street. on the hill end were some of the best residences in centerport. "there's the eaton place across the street," said jess briskly. "i see there is a light, miss steele." "that is mother's room on the first floor--right off the piazza. you know, we could not begin to use all the house," the girl added frankly. "there are only mother and i and aunt jinny." "oh! your aunt?" asked jess. "she is mother's old nurse. she has come with us--to help do the housework, you know," miss steele said frankly, yet again flushing a little. "i--i guess i have never lived just as you girls do. we have moved around a great deal. i have got such education as i have by fits and starts, you see. i suppose you three girls have a perfectly delightful time at your central high?" "especially when gee gee gets after us with a sharp stick," grumbled bobby. "don't mind bobby," said laura, laughing. "she is dreadfully slangy, and sometimes quite impossible. we do have fine times at central high. especially in our games and athletic work." "miss steele must be sure and come to our ice carnival next week," said jess. "'ice carnival'?" cried the red cross girl. "and i just love to skate!" there came a sudden tapping on the window of the lighted room in the old eaton house. the girls had crossed the street and were standing at the gate. janet steele wheeled quickly and waved her hand. a sitting figure was dimly outlined at the long, french window. "oh!" janet said. "mother wants us to come in. she doesn't see many people--and she enjoys young folk. won't you come in? it will be a pleasure for us both." jess and bobby looked at laura. they allowed mother wit to decide the question, and she was but a few seconds in doing so. "why, of course! it's not late," she said. "we shall stay but a minute this time, miss steele." "call me janet," whispered the red cross girl, squeezing laura's arm as they went through the sagging gate. the quartette climbed the steep steps to the piazza. that the eaton house was in bad repair was proved by the broken boards in steps and piazza floor and the dilapidated condition of the railing. even the lock of the front door was broken. janet turned the knob and ushered them into the dimly-lit hall. this was neatly if sparsely furnished. and everything seemed scrupulously clean. their young hostess opened the door into her mother's room, which was that originally intended for the parlor. the eager and curious girls of central high saw first of all the figure of the woman in the wheel chair by the window. she had pulled down the shade now and dropped the curtains into place. the whole room was warm and well lighted. there was a gas chandelier lighted to the full and an open grate heaped with red coals. there was a good rug, comfortable chairs, and a canopied bed set in a corner. a tea-table with furnishings was drawn up near the fireplace. if one was obliged to spend one's time in a single room, this apartment seemed amply furnished for such a condition. mrs. steele herself was no wan and hopeless-looking invalid. she was as buxom as janet, and janet was as well built a girl, even, as laura belding. the invalid had shrunken none in body or limbs. she owned, too, a very attractive smile, and she held out both hands to greet her young visitors. "i am delighted!" she said in a strong, quick voice, which matched her smile and bright glance perfectly. "why, janey, you may go out every evening, if you will only bring back with you such a bevy of fresh, sweet faces. introduce me--do!" the introductions were made amid considerable gaiety. mother wit took the lead in telling mrs. steele who they were. later janet related the accident on market street, which had led to her acquaintance with the three girls of central high. laura's keen eyes were not alone fixed upon mrs. steele while they talked. she took into consideration everything in the house. there was no mark of poverty; yet the steeles lived in a house in a poor neighborhood and one that was positively out of repair, and they occupied only a small part of it. when the three girls came out again and janet had gone in and closed the door, laura was in a brown study. "wake up, mother wit!" commanded jess. "what do you think of the steeles--and all?" all laura belding could say in comment, was: "odd!" chapter iv the mystery man the three boys who had set off to find the car that had knocked down the stranger on the icy street were as mysterious the next day as they could be. at least, so their girl friends declared. being sunday, there was no general gathering of the central high girls and boys, but laura, naturally, saw her brother early. he was coming from his shower in bathrobe and slippers when laura looked out of her own door. "what sort of fox-and-goose chase did short and long take you and lance away on?" she demanded. "oh, i don't know that he was altogether foolish," said chet doubtfully. "then did you really find some trace of the car?" cried laura, eagerly. "well, we found a car. yes." "'goodness to gracious!' as poor lizzie bean says. you are noncommunicative, chetwood belding. what do you mean--you found a car?" "laura," said her brother, "i don't know--nor does lance, or short and long--whether the fellow we suspect had anything to do with that accident or not." "oh!" "and we don't want to get him in wrong." "who is it?" demanded his sister, bluntly. "no. we won't tell anybody who it is we suspect until we make further investigations." "i declare, you are as mysterious as a regular detective! and suppose the police do make inquiries?" "they will, of course," "and what will you boys tell them?" "pooh!" returned chet, going on to his room to dress, "they won't ask us because they don't know we know anything about it." "i guess you don't know much!" shouted laura after him before he closed his door. it was the same when jess morse met lance darby on the way to sunday school. "ho, launcelot!" she cried. "tell us all the news--that is a good child. who was that awful person who ran down the man last night? i hear from dr. agnew that they had to patch the poor victim up a good deal at the hospital. did you boys find the guilty party?" "i don't know that we did," said darby. "you see, nobody seemed to see the license number of the automobile." "but didn't short and long have suspicions?" "well, what are suspicions?" demanded the boy. "we all agreed to say nothing about it unless we have proof. and we haven't any proof--as yet." "why, i believe you are 'holding out' on your friends, lance," declared jess, in surprise. "for shame!" "aw, ask chet--if you must know!" exclaimed lance, hurrying away. as it chanced it was bobby hargrew who attempted to play inquisitor with short and long, meeting the boy with the youngest long, tommy, on the slippery hill of nugent street tommy was so bundled up in a "teddy bear" costume that he could scarcely trudge along, and he held tightly to his brother's hand. "for goodness' sake!" exclaimed bobby, when she saw tommy slipping all over the icy sidewalk, "what is the matter with that boy?" "he hasn't got his sea-legs on," grinned short and long. "you mean to tell me he is nearly five years old and can walk no better than _that?_" exclaimed bobby teasingly. "why, we have a little dog at home that isn't even a year old yet, and he can ran right over this ice. he can walk twice as good as tommy does." "hoh!" exclaimed that youngster defensively. "that dog's got twice as many legs as i have." "right you are, kid!" chuckled his brother. "he got you there, clara." "and did you boys get that man who ran the poor fellow down on market street last night?" demanded bobby, with interest. "did you have him arrested?" "no. what do you suppose? we're not going around snitching to the police," growled short and long. "but if that man at the hospital is seriously hurt----" "oh, we're not sure it's the right car," said the boy, and evidently did not wish to talk about it. "billy long!" exclaimed the girl. "are you boys trying to defend the guilty person?" "aw----" "suppose that man at the hospital dies?" "pshaw! he wasn't hurt as bad as all that." "how do you know?" "because i've been to the hospital to find out he's got a broken leg and a broken head----" "is he conscious yet?" demanded bobby hargrew quickly. "no-o. they say he doesn't know anybody--and nobody knows who he is." "now you see!" cried the girl "maybe he will die! and you boys will let the man who did it get away." "oh, he won't get away," grumbled short and long. "we know where to find him when we want to." "you'd better let the police know where to find him," said bobby tartly. "you're not the police, bobby hargrew!" returned short and long, grinning and going on with tommy. the girls, of course, got together and compared notes and decided that the boys were "real mean, so now!" to pay chet and lance and billy long for being so secretive about the person they suspected of having caused the injury to the stranger saturday evening, the three girls went alone that sunday afternoon to the hospital to inquire after the injured man. and there they met janet steele again. the red cross girl had been making inquiries, too, about the same case. "it really is a very serious matter," janet said to her new friends. "the man who knocked him down should be found. although the doctors think he has no internal injuries after all, there is a compound fracture which will keep him in bed for a long time, and in addition he seems unable to give any satisfactory explanation of who he is or where he comes from." "goodness!" exclaimed jess morse. "do you mean he has lost his mind?" "merely mislaid it," said janet with a smile. "or, at least, he cannot remember his name and address." "didn't he have any papers about him that explain those points?" asked laura. "that seems to be odd, too," said janet "no. not a mark on his clothing, either. but he was plentifully supplied with money, and all the bills were brand new." "oh!" exclaimed laura. "that reminds me. that funny bill he passed on chet was brand new, too. i wonder if all his money is queer?" "what do you mean?" asked janet, wonderingly. "is the man a criminal, do you think?" laura and jess explained about the peculiarly printed bill, which had given the first named so much trouble in making up her father's accounts the evening before. "but that may be all explained in time," said janet. "all right," grumbled bobby hargrew. "but suppose poor chet has to lose fifty dollars?" "father is going to take the bill to the bank to-morrow to see if they can explain the mystery," laura said. "but that will not explain the mystery of the stranger." said jess. "why, he is a regular 'man of mystery,' isn't he?" "humph!" said bobby. "and so is the fellow the boys think ran him down. he is a man of mystery as well." chapter v sand in the gears since the whole school had taken such a tremendous interest in "the profession" at the time central high blossomed forth in jess morse's play, the m.o.r.s had given several playlets, and mrs. case, the physical instructor, had staged folk dances and tableaux in the big hall. for the red cross the association of girls connected with the girls branch athletic league that had carried forward these smaller affairs, had determined to stage "a real play." nellie agnew, the doctor's daughter, and secretary of the club, had sent to a publisher for copies of plays that could be put on by amateurs, and interest in the affair waxed high already. the principal point of decision was the identity of the play they were to produce. mr. sharp and the other members of the school faculty had agreed to let the girls act, and the big hall, or auditorium, could be used for the production. at noon on monday the girls interested in the performance met in the principals office to decide upon the play. "and of course," grumbled bobby hargrew to the lockwood twins, dora and dorothy, "all the teachers have got to come and interfere. we can't do a sol-i-ta-ry thing without gee gee, or miss black, or some of them, poking their noses into it." "you can't say that professor dimp pokes his nose into our affairs," laughed dora. "no, indeed," said her twin. "outside of his latin and physics he doesn't seem to have a single idea." "doesn't he?" scoffed bobby. "the boys say he's gone into the dressmaking business, or something." "what is that?" asked dora, smiling. "what do they mean?" "why, the professor's niece is living with him now. he is not much used to having a woman in his sitting-room, i guess. she sits and sews with him in the evening while he reads or corrects our futile work," said bobby, grinning. "the other night ellie lingard--that's his niece--lost her scissors and she said they hunted all over the room for them. the next morning in one of the physics classes the professor opened his book, and there were the lost scissors, which he had tucked into it for a bookmark while he helped ellie lingard hunt for her lost property." "oh, oh!" laughed the twins. "the worst of it was," continued bobby, with an elfish grin, "old dimple grabbed them up and said right out loud: 'oh, here they are, ellie!' the boys just hooted, and poor old dimp was as mad as a hatter." "the poor old man," said dorothy commiseratingly. it was a fact that, although professor dimp did not interfere in this play business, most of the other teachers desired to have their opinions considered. the girls would not have minded mr. sharp. indeed, they courted his advice. but when miss grace gee carrington stood up to speak, some of them audibly groaned. miss carrington was mr. sharp's assistant and almost in complete control of the girls of the school. at least, the girls came in contact with her much more than they did with mr. sharp himself. she was a very stiff and precise woman, with an acrid temper and a sharp tongue. she had been teaching unruly girls for so many years that she was to a degree quite soured upon the world--especially that world of school which she had so much to do with. of late, however, miss carrington had become interested "quite in a human way," her girls said, in a person who had first appeared to the ken of the girls of central high as a gypsy girl. margit salgo's father, a hungarian gypsy musician, had married miss carrington's sister, much against the desire of miss grace gee carrington herself. when the orphaned margit found her way to centerport she made such an impression upon her aunt's heart that the latter finally took the girl into her own home and adopted her as "margaret carrington." that, however, could not change miss carrington's nature. she was severe and (in the opinion of fly-away bobby hargrew) she was much inclined to interfere in the girls' affairs. on this occasion the girls were not disappointed when miss carrington "said her little say." "i approve of any acceptable attempt to raise funds for such a worthy object as this we have in mind," said miss carrington. "an exhibition which will interest the school in general and our parents and friends likewise, meets, i am sure, with the approval of us all. some of our young ladies, i feel quite sure, show some talent for playing, and much interest therein. without meaning to pun, i would add that i wish they showed as great talent for work as for play." "she could not help giving us that dig, if she were to be martyred for it," nellie agnew whispered to laura. "sh! she'll see your lips move," warned dora lockwood, on the other side of the doctor's daughter. "i believe she has learned lip reading." miss carrington went on quite calmly: "the first consideration, however, it seems to me, is the selection of the play. i should not wish to see the standard of central high lowered by the acting of a play that would cater only to the amusement-loving crowd. it should be educational. we should achieve in a small way what the greek players tried to teach--a love of beauty, of form, of some great truth that can be inculcated in this way on the public mind." "but, miss carrington!" cried bess yeager, one of the seniors, almost interrupting the staid teacher, "we want to make money for the red cross. we could not get a room full with a greek play." "i beg miss yeager's pardon," said miss carrington stiffly. "we have our standard of education to uphold first of all." "i hope you will excuse me, miss carrington," said laura, likewise rising to object. "our first object is to give the people something that will amuse them so that they will crowd the auditorium. otherwise our object will not have been achieved. this is a purely money-making scheme," added the jeweler's daughter with her low, sweet laugh. "i am amazed to hear you say so!" exclaimed the instructor, quick for argument at any time. "have you young ladies no higher desire than to make the rabble laugh?" "i want you to know," muttered jess morse, "that my mother is coming, and she isn't 'rabble.'" perhaps it was fortunate that miss carrington did not hear this comment. but she could not fail to hear some of the others made by the girls. there was earnest protest in all parts of the room. mr. sharp brought them to order. "miss carrington has, under ordinary circumstances, made an excellent point, and i want you all to notice it," said the principal. "we are an educational institution here on the hill. if we were giving a class play, or anything like that, i should vote for miss carrington's idea. at such a time something primarily educational should be in order. "but as i understand it, you young ladies are going to act for the benefit of the red cross fund, and what will benefit that fund the most is the drawing together of a well-paying crowd to see you act. "i am afraid we shall have to set aside our own desires, miss carrington," he continued, smiling at his assistant. "we must let the actors choose their own play--as long as it is a proper one--and abide for once by the decision of those of our friends who wish to be amused rather than educated." "he's half backing her up!" complained dora. "well, he has to pour oil on the troubled waters," whispered laura. "huh!" grumbled bobby hargrew. "but gee gee is determined to throw sand in the gears, not oil on the waters. she always does." really, miss carrington seemed in an interfering mood that day. nellie had a collection of plays from which they were supposed to choose that very session the one to be acted. there was but brief time to learn the parts and the acting directions. but mr. mann, who had directed them in other plays, said he thought he would be able to whip the girls into shape for a performance in two weeks. although they were amateurs, they had all had some experience. when the girls themselves got a chance to talk it was shown that their desires were all for a parlor comedy with bright lines, some farcical turns to the plot, but a play of sufficient weight to gain the approval of sober-minded people. it was, however, far from being classic. "such a play is preposterous!" ejaculated miss carrington, breaking out again. "don't you think so yourself, mr. sharp?" the principal had the book in his hand and was skimming through some of the dialogue. if the truth was told he was on a broad grin. "i don't know about that, miss carrington. it--it is really very funny." "'funny!'" gasped his assistant, with all the emphasis she dared show in the presence of the principal. "as though to make fun should be our target!" "what would you like to have us play?" asked bobby, daringly. "julius caesar? if we do, i want to play old julius. he dies in the first act. the rest of us would be killed lingeringly by the audience, i know, before the last." "miss hargrew!" snapped the teacher. then she remembered that this was not a recitation and she could not easily punish the girl. she shook her head and looked offended during the remainder of the discussion. "but you know very well," snapped lily pendleton, a rather overdressed girl, as they all crowded out of the schoolhouse after the meeting, "that gee gee will do her wickedest to spoil it all." "oh, no!" cried laura. "not when it is for the red cross!" "it wouldn't matter what the object was," said jess morosely. "she always does try to crab the game." "goodness, josephine!" gasped her chum, "you are positively as slangy as chet." "i guess i catch it from him," admitted jess morse. "and she is a crab!" "now girls!" called nellie, a regular martha for trouble at the present moment. "now girls, remember the 'sides' will be here day after tomorrow, and mr. mann will look us over and give out the parts that afternoon in the small hall. nobody must be absent. we want this show to be the biggest success that ever was." "it won't be if gee gee can help it," growled bobby hargrew, shaking her curls. chapter vi the bank-note "there's one sure thing about it," lance darby said to laura when she told him of the way in which miss carrington had tried to interfere with the girls' choice of the play, "she cannot butt into the ice carnival arrangements. nobody but your mrs. case and our mr. haskins has anything to say about the carnival committee's arrangements." "oh! indeed?" laughed laura. "there you are mistaken about the far-reaching influence of our miss carrington." "what do you mean?" "you forget that our share of the carnival is under the jurisdiction of the girls branch league, and in the constitution and by-laws of that association it is stated that none of us girls can take part in any exhibition without the consent of our teachers, and without, indeed, having a certain standing in all branches of study. miss carrington can get her word in right there." "wow, wow! that's so, i presume," admitted lance. "but we have gone so far now," said laura complacently, "that i don't think even bobby will be refused permission to join in the festivities--and bobby is a splendid little skater, lance." "bobby is all right," agreed the youth. "but here comes old chet--and his face is as long as the moral law. he is still worried about that fifty dollars he may have to dig down into his jeans for--if your father sticks to what he said he'd do." chetwood had a cheerful word, however, despite his serious aspect. "have you seen the ice, lance?" he demanded, brightening up. "not to-day, old boy." "it's scrumptious--just!" exclaimed the big fellow. "they have been shaving it, and have got it all roped off." "better have somebody watch it, too, or the kids from downtown will get in there and cut it all up. just like 'em," growled lance. "don't fret. old godey is on guard. trust him to keep the kids off the track," said chet. "is father at home, laura?" "he's just come in," said his sister. "has he found out about that bank-note yet?" "that is what i wanted to know," said the worried chet. "i've been over to the hospital this afternoon--before i went down to the lake shore. that, chap who was hurt is off his nanny----" "chet! don't let mother hear you," begged laura, yet laughing. "i wouldn't want the mater to be shocked," admitted chet. "but that is exactly what is the trouble with that man who gave me the phony bill. the doctor told me the crack he got on the head had injured his brain." "the poor man!" sighed his sister. "what about 'poor me'?" demanded chet indignantly. "and they say he carried a roll of brand new bills big enough to choke a cow! the doctor says he thinks the money is good, too. but he passed that hundred-dollar note on me----" "if it is a hundred," interjected lance. "now you said a forkful," grumbled chet, shaking his head. "let's go in and see what father has to say about it. he was going to see mr. monroe at the first national. they say mr. monroe knows all about money--knew the fellow who invented it, personally, i guess." the young folks found mr. belding in the library, and he welcomed them with his customary smile when the three came in. "the bank-note?" he repeated. "i left it for mr. monroe to look at. he was out of town. but he will tell me when he returns--if he knows about it. it is a curious thing. and i hope it will teach you a lesson, chetwood." "sure!" grumbled chet, "of course, there is nothing so important in this world as learning lessons. little thing about me being nicked fifty dollars isn't considered." his father laughed at his rueful countenance. "well, son, i can't offer you much sympathy. perhaps the treasury department will make it right. and how about that man who gave it to you? he can't get far with a broken leg." "he's gone far enough already," declared chet. "they say he has lost his memory." "what's that?" cried mr. belding. "looks fishy, doesn't it?" said lance. "lots of folks who owe money lose their memories." "no," said chet, shaking his head. "this chap really got a hard bang on the head, and the doctors say he may never remember who he is." "lost his identity?" demanded mr. belding. "completely. at least, he doesn't know his name or where he came from. he remembers a part of his life, they say, for he seems to think he has been in alaska. asked the nurse, in fact, how long sitka had had such a hospital as this. thought he was in sitka, you see." "why, isn't it strange?" laura said. "the poor fellow!" "he's not poor, i tell you," said the literal chet. "he's got a lot of money. but not a card, or a mark about him--not even on his clothes--to tell who he is." "how about his hat?" questioned lance. "and his suit? the labels, i mean." "the hat was brand new," said chet, "and was bought right here in centerport. oh, the hospital folks have been trying through the police to find out something about him. nothing doing, they say." "why," said mr. belding thoughtfully, "there must be some way of discovering who the unfortunate is, even if he cannot remember himself." "who do you mean, pa, by 'the unfortunate'?" demanded his son. "i should think i was the unfortunate. especially if that bank-note is phony." "but you did not get a broken leg--and a broken head--out of it," his father said dryly. "that's all right," muttered chet "but i am likely to have a broken pocketbook, all right all right!" chapter vii something exciting mr. belding was not unmindful of his son's anxiety regarding the odd bank-note that chet had taken over the counter in the jewelry store. besides, laura sat herself upon the arm of his big morris chair after dinner that monday evening, and said: "you know, dear pa, chet is a pretty good boy. and fifty dollars is much more money than he can afford to lose--all in one bunch." "indeed?" said her father indignantly. "and how about me? with my expensive family, do you think i can afford to lose fifty dollars? and the boy is careless." "i deny it," said laura briskly. "chet! not careless?" "only thoughtless." "what is the difference?" "academic, or moral?" demanded mother wit, looking at him slyly. "oh, well, it doesn't pay to split hairs with you," declared her father, pinching a warm cheek until it was rosier than ever. "but what's the big idea, as chet himself would say?" "why, now, pa belding----" "out with it! what do you want me to do?" "i--i thought if you'd make chet pay only half of the fifty dollars, that perhaps you lost----" "well?" he growled, in apparent indignation still. "why, i would pay the other twenty-five!" burst out laura hurriedly. "only you must promise not to tell chet." "what do you mean? to pay half his fine?" "well, you don't need to halloo so about it, pa dear," she pouted. "i wouldn't let you!" "oh, yes you would. you know it is going to be awfully hard on chet to take that money out of the bank to pay you." "there, there!" said mr. belding gruffly. "we won't talk about it--yet. perhaps we'll find the bank-note is all right." but he said afterward to his wife that evening: "what are we going to do with such children, mother? you can't punish one without hurting the other right to the quick." "we have been blessed in our children, henry," said mrs. belding proudly. "and--really--chet should not be too much blamed." "there, there!" exclaimed her husband in a disgusted tone of voice. "you're every whit as bad as laura." mr. monroe did not return to the bank for several days; and meanwhile other important and interesting things were happening. the three boys who seemed to have secret knowledge about the accident on market street refused to answer the questions of their girl friends as to the identity of the car that had run the victim down. "you are just the meanest boys!" flared out bobby hargrew, as they all trooped down to lake luna to take almost the last look at the roped-off arena before the carnival would twinkle its lights that evening at six o'clock. "i don't know, bobby," drawled chet. "i believe we really could be meaner if we tried." "no you couldn't!" snapped clara hargrew with finality. "oh, girls!" gasped laura suddenly, "tell me what this is coming up the hill? or am i seeing something that you folks don't?" "gee!" exclaimed the slangy bobby, forgetting her indignation with chet and the other boys. "is it? can it be?" "pretty sweet!" ejaculated jess, beginning to laugh. "and he is in his forest green hunting suit. _i_ call it his 'robin ridinghood' suit." "it just matches him, all right," said lance. "he's verdant green and so is the suit. and look how he is carrying that gun, will you?" the gun was in its case, but the boy in question was carrying the shotgun in a most awkward manner. without a doubt he was half afraid of it. "and i bet he hasn't had a charge in it all the time he's been out. who did he go with?" asked chet. "some of the east siders. they cater to him a lot, and you know," said lance, with disgust, "tight as purt is with money, if you flatter him you can pull his leg." "dear me!" murmured laura, "it is not in your province to use such slang, lance. leave that to chet and bobby." "hey, pretty!" chet shouted to the very dandified lad, as he crossed the street toward them. "what luck, old top?" although when they had first seen him, prettyman sweet was undoubtedly footsore, he began to strut now and pride "fairly exuded from his countenance," as jess whispered to her chum. "did you get any cottontails?" demanded lance. "oh, a few--a few, muh boy," declared pretty sweet airily. then they saw that he had a game bag slung over his shoulder in true sportsman style. "i did not suppose you would go out to shoot the poor, innocent little rabbits, mr. sweet," said laura, with sober face but dancing eyes. "they have never done you any harm." "i bet a real bad rabbit would make purt run," muttered bobby. "oh, miss belding!" said the school dandy. "you know i'm awf'ly keen on sport--awf'ly keen, doncher know. i just _have_ to get a day now and then in the woods, when game is in season." "he's as keen on it as the two irishmen were, who went hunting for the first time," broke in bobby. "when they sighted a bird sitting on a bush meehan took very careful aim and prepared to fire. said his friend, grabbing him by the arm: "'don't fire, meehan! shure an' yez haven't loaded yer gun.' "'that's as it may be, me lad,' retorted meehan, 'but fire i must. the bur-rd won't wait!'" prettyman sweet was used to being laughed at, yet he flushed at the gibe. "never mind," he said. "i bring home the game, just the same." "you 'bring home the bacon,' in other words," said chet, approaching him. "let's see the bunnies?" nothing loath, the overdressed boy opened the bag and displayed his plunder. he brought two big hares out of the bag by their ears and held them up with pride. "bet they were trapped," said bobby in an undertone. "they were not trapped!" cried purt sweet sharply. "see! that is where one was shot! and there is the other--see?" "jinks!" said lance. "both through the head. _you_ never did it, purt?" "i did so!" cried the huntsman angrily. "i shot them both." chet was looking them over closely. he shook his head. "they have been shot all right," he said. "and you shot them over there on cavern island?" "i can prove it," said purt haughtily. "that's all right," said chet thoughtfully. "you may have shot them--and on cavern island. but whose rabbits were they before you bought them?" "what? i--oh!" bobby and jess began to giggle. chet grinned as he added: "those are belgian hares, not rabbits, pretty. somebody has put something over on you. belgian hares don't run wild in the woods of cavern island--that is sure." "bet he shot them hanging up on a fence," snapped short and long, who thus far had said never a word to prettyman sweet. "and i know the market to-day is full of belgian hares," chuckled chet. "oh, purt! you never could pull off anything like that on us in a hundred years." "i don't care--i--i--" the angry purt snatched up his game bag and marched away. "that he's been caught in the trick puts a crimp in him," chuckled chet belding. "and that isn't all that ought to happen to him," muttered short and long, who seemed to have become suddenly very bitter against the dandified sweet. "can it, billy, can it," advised lance. "give a calf rope enough and he will hang himself." "and maybe that fellow ought to be hung," was short and long's further comment. "why, billy!" exclaimed laura, "what ever do you mean?" "yes, short and long," said jess. "why the 'orrid hobservation about poor purt?" perhaps billy long would have blurted out something, had not another incident taken place which so excited all the young people that they forgot purt sweet and his foibles. the group had reached lakeside avenue, which overlooked many shore estates and some private docks. this was the residential end of centerport, and the vicinity in summer was lovely. now the outlook on lake luna's sparkling surface--frozen in a sheen of ice to the shore of cavern island in the middle of the lake--was wonderfully attractive. at the foot of nugent street, which they now reached, the girls and boys from central high heard suddenly a great shouting and peals of laughter from up the hill. some snow still lay on the side of nugent street; and the hill was a glare of ice. down the steep descent were coming three or four heavy sleds loaded with young folks. many of them were girls and boys of central high. "some coasting!" exclaimed chet. "i had no idea it was so good. we ought to get our bob out, lance." "oh, see, laura!" murmured jess. "there comes janet steele. she must have been canvassing for red cross members away over here. i wish we had time to do some of that work." the red cross girl appeared from around a turn in the avenue, and the instant she spied her new friends she waved her gloved hand. "is that the girl who gave first-aid to the man on market street saturday night?" asked chet. "some little queen, isn't she?" rejoined lance, with twinkling eyes. "oh," said laura placidly, "you needn't think that you can get us girls jealous about janet steele. she is an awfully sweet girl." "and she isn't little at all," put in jess, tossing her head. "she is as husky as eve sitz." before they could say more, or further hail the red cross girl, there was a crash and terrific rattling around the turn of the avenue. the next instant a horse appeared, madly galloping along the roadway, and drawing the shattered remains of a grocery wagon after him. the maddened beast would, so it seemed, cross the foot of nugent street just as the bobsleds shot down to that point. across the avenue was a steep bank against which the sleds were easily halted. but they could not be stopped before they crossed lakeside avenue! chapter viii the forefront of trouble the three boys drew laura and her girl friends into the gateway of a residence that faced the lake. the red cross girl was on the other side of nugent street, and the runaway horse was coming along the avenue behind her. chet would have leaped away to her assistance had not jess grabbed him by the arm and screamed. the sleds were almost at the crossing, and surely chet belding would have been knocked down. janet steele proved to be perfectly able to look out for herself. and on this occasion she could even do more than that. she whirled and saw the horse coming with the wrecked wagon. she could not see up the hill of nugent street, for the corner house barred her vision in that direction. but without doubt she had heard the eager shouts of the coasters and understood what was ahead of them. the runaway would cross the foot of the hill just in time, perhaps, to collide with one or more of the bobsleds. almost opposite the foot of nugent street and right beside the steep bank against which the coasters had been wont to stop their sleds, was a narrow lane pitching toward the lakeshore. this lane was near janet steele. chet saw it and realized how the horse might be turned. but the boy was too far away. even as he shook off jess morse's frenzied hold on his arm, the runaway was upon janet steele. the latter had whipped off the red cross veil she wore. seizing it by both extremes she allowed the veil to float out on the brisk winter breeze, darting with it into the street. the runaway's glaring eyes caught sight of the flapping folds of the veil, and he swerved, his hoofs sliding on the slippery drive. the eyes of a horse magnify objects tremendously, and the girl's figure and her flowing veil probably looked to the frightened animal like some awful and threatening bogey. scrambling and snorting, he swerved to the side of the road, saw the open lane, and the next moment thundered into it, the broken wagon skidding across the lane and smashing into a gatepost. it was at the same instant that the head sled came sweeping down nugent street, crossed the avenue, and stood almost on end against the bank, stopping abruptly in the snow bank. the other sleds poured down and stopped; but none had been in so much danger as that first one. laura and chet and their friends started on the run for the spot--and for janet steele. "oh! _oh! oh!_" shrieked in crescendo one girl who had ridden on the first bobsled. "we might have been killed!" some of the boys ran after the horse. the rest of the young people surrounded janet steele. "how brave you were," murmured jess morse admiringly. "you've got a head on you, sure enough!" exclaimed bobby hargrew, while the red cross girl, blushing and with downcast eyes, began hastily to adjust her veil again. "oh, it was nothing," murmured janet. "tell it to lily. here comes lily pendleton," said jess, smiling again. "she won't think it was nothing." the girl who had shrieked so loudly came up quickly to the group of central high girls. "did you turn that horse?" she demanded of janet steele. "you are a regular duck! we might have all been killed! i never will ride down a hill with freddy brubach again! there should have been somebody down here to signal that we were coming!" "guess the horse would not have paid much attention to signals, lil," laughed laura. "only the kind that miss steele waved," added bobby. "is that your name?" lily pendleton asked the red cross girl. "i'm awfully glad to know you." "and much gladder that she was right on the job here when the horse came along, aren't you, lil?" chuckled bobby. "she ought to have a medal," declared one of the other girls. "let's write to mr. carnegie about her," proposed jess, but good-naturedly, and hugged janet now that she had rearranged her veil. "oh, dear me!" gasped janet steele, "please don't make so much over so little. i shall almost be sorry that i turned the horse into the lane. and it was a little thing. i am not afraid of horses." "a mere medal is nothing to miss steele, i bet," said bobby, the emphatic. "i expect she has a trunk full of 'em. like the german army officer who had his chest covered with iron crosses and medals and the like. somebody asked him how he came to get them all. "'vell,' he said, pointing to the biggest and shiniest medal, 'i got dot py meestake; undt dey gif me de odders pecause i got dot one!'" "oh, you and your jokes, bobby!" said lily pendleton, with some scorn. "this was a serious business. and there is another very serious matter, girls, that i have to call to your attention," she added, turning to laura and jess. "what has gone wrong? nothing about the play, i hope!" cried jess. "it is worse, because it is right at hand," said lily, shaking her head. "what do you suppose miss carrington has done?" "oh, gee gee!" groaned bobby, in despair. "i knew she would break out in a fresh spot." "do tell us what it is," begged jess morse. "it is about hessie," said lily. "hester grimes?" demanded laura, with a rather grim expression. "what has happened to her now?" "why!" cried lily, rather sharply, "you speak as though hessie was always getting into trouble." "you cannot deny but that she has frequently made a _faux pas,_ as it were," said jess, smiling. "and what she does wrong," added laura, with some bitterness, "usually affects the rest of us." "she did not do a thing wrong!" cried lily stormily. "you girls are just too mean!" "oh, come on, lil," said bobby. "tell us the worst. we're prepared for murder, even." "you are very rude, clara hargrew," declared lily pendleton. "hessie is not to blame. she failed in rhetoric, and when miss carrington tried to put a lot of home work on her she refused to take it." "what?" gasped jess. "oh! she did refuse, did she?" snapped bobby. "and a fat lot that would help her!" "well, i don't care!" cried lily. "gee gee is just as mean----" "granted!" agreed bobby, with emphasis. "but tell us how much hessie has been set back?" "of course miss carrington has punished her if she was impudent," said laura decidedly. "she has punished us all!" cried lily. "she refuses to allow hessie to skate to-night. she's out of it." "out of the carnival?" cried several of her listeners in chorus. "and hester," cried bobby, "is in the dress parade. what did i tell you? gee gee was just hoping to queer us." "it is hester grimes who has queered us," laura said, much more sternly than she usually spoke. "and we were all warned to be so careful!" "now, don't blame hessie!" cried hester's chum angrily. "i'd like to know who we are to blame, then?" demanded jess morse, with disgust, "knowing that gee gee is what she is, why couldn't hester keep her own temper?" "well! i just guess--" but after all it was mother wit who, though greatly offended, became peacemaker. "there, there!" she said. "enough is done already. we shall miss hester. but we mustn't get angry with each other and therefore spoil the whole dress parade. that masquerade should be the most spectacular number on the program." "but who will take grimes' place?" demanded bobby. laura stood beside janet steele, whose eyes were wide open, her cheeks glowing, and even her lips ajar with excitement. laura had a very keen mind, and already she had apprehended that janet was more deeply interested in this discussion, and the subject of it, than a stranger naturally would be. she turned now to stare into the red cross girl's face. "oh, miss steele!" she said, "didn't you tell us that you loved to skate?" "ye-es," admitted janet. "and she's as big as hessie grimes!" exclaimed jess on the other side, and catching her chum's idea. "would you take hester's part in the masquerade?" asked laura pointblank. "but she doesn't belong to central high!" wailed lily pendleton. "nonsense!" exclaimed jess. "what does it matter? this is all for a show. it is no competition with other members of the league." "right-o, jess!" crowed bobby hargrew. "we-ell!" murmured lily doubtfully. "come, miss steele--janet," said laura, pleadingly. "i know you can help us. hester, being the biggest girl, was to lead in certain figures on the ice. you could easily learn them. and you can wear her costume, i know." "why--i----" "you don't know anything of the kind, laura belding," snapped lily, interrupting janet. "i don't believe hessie would let any other girl wear her masquerade suit." "sure she wouldn't!" exclaimed bobby, with disgust. "she'll crab the whole game if she can. hester grimes always was a nuisance." but laura suddenly clapped her hands in real joy. "oh, no!" she cried. "we won't ask janet to wear any other girl's costume. i know what would be fine." "let's hear it, laura dear," said jess, eagerly. "of course, you would have a bright idea. you always do." "why," said the pleased laura, "if janet will come and skate with us, she need only wear the very cloak and veil she has on now. what could be more fitting for a leader of our costume parade? the whole carnival is for the red cross, and with a red cross girl to lead the procession, and chet in his uncle sam suit to lead the boys--why! it will be the best ever." "hooray!" shouted bobby, wild with enthusiasm. "it is splendid!" agreed jess. everybody in hearing agreed, save, perhaps, lily pendleton. laura turned to janet again and clasped her gloved hands over the new girl's arm. "will you, dear? will you help us out?" she asked. chapter ix the ice carnival "oh, miss laura! do you really mean it?" murmured janet steele, her full pink cheeks actually becoming white she was so much in earnest. "of course we mean it," jess morse said practically. "and glad to have you." "i don't know--" janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced lily pendleton. jess immediately pulled that young girl forward. "why, lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared jess, laughing. "this is our very particular friend, janet steele, lil. you've got to treat her nicely. if you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go camping with us girls again as you did last summer. you and your hester grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves." really, lily pendleton had improved a good deal since the time jess mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at once. "well, of course," she said, offering janet her hand, "i did not mean it just that way. you know how cranky hessie is when she does get mad. but laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. miss steele as a red cross girl and chet as uncle sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates." so it was decided, and they hurried janet down to the girls' boathouse, which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where mr. godey, the watchman, stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening skates. laura found a pair of skates for the red cross girl, and for an hour the latter practiced with the girls of central high the steps and figures of the masquerade parade, which laura and her friends already had worked out to perfection. "don't worry a bit about to-night, janet," laura told her, when they all hurried away from the lakeshore about dusk. "we'll push you through the figures. jess and i will be on either side of you, except when we pair off with the boys. and then you will be with my brother chet. and if he isn't nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor. "oh, but laura!" whispered jess morse, as they separated from janet, "chet mustn't be too nice to her. for janet steele is an awfully pretty girl." "now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient jealousy." with only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. that hester grimes had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by gee gee troubled the girls of central high less than they might have been troubled had it been almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited. for, to tell the truth, hester grimes was not well loved. the daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, hester had in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. with such rather shallow schoolmates as lily pendleton, hester was successful. lily toadied to her, to use bobby hargrew's expression; nor was lily alone in this. upon those whom hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money lavishly. she was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. yet she lacked magnetism and the popularity that little bobby hargrew, for instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits hester possessed. hester antagonized almost everybody--teachers and students alike. even placid, peace-loving mother wit, found hester incompatible. and because laura belding was a natural leader and was very popular in the school, hester disliked her and showed in every way possible that she would not follow in laura's train. yet there had been a time when hester had felt under obligation to laura. laura was secretly glad to see lily pendleton weaned slowly away from the butcher's daughter. the last summer had started lily in the right direction, and although the overdressed girl had still some weaknesses of character to overcome, she had greatly improved, as this incident of the afternoon revealed. lily was not alone in complaining about miss carrington's harshness, however. it was the principal topic of conversation when the girls gathered in the boathouse rooms to prepare for the races and the features that were to precede the principal attraction of the carnival--the masquerade grand march. "sh! she's right here now," whispered bobby hargrew sepulchrally, coming into the dressing-room. "she's on watch at the door." "who?" asked jess morse. "not hester?" cried lily. "she told me she wouldn't come down here!" "gee gee," shot back bobby, with pursed lips. "she is going to be sure that hester doesn't appear." "mean thing!" nellie agnew said. and when the doctor's gentle daughter made such a statement she had to be fully aroused. "she thinks she has spoiled the whole act!" "i believe you," bessie yeager said. "i wonder if miss carrington really sleeps at night?" "why not, bess?" cried dora lockwood. "i think she lies awake thinking up mean things to do to us." "oh, oh!" murmured nellie. "i bet you!" exclaimed the slangy bobby. "careful, girls. if she hears you!" warned laura. "then you would be 'perspicuous au grautin,' as the fellow said," chuckled bobby. "there! the whistle has sounded." "the fête has begun," sighed jess. "i do hope everything will go off right." "the boys are taking in money all right," laura said with satisfaction. "i believe we shall make a thousand dollars for the red cross." "i hope so," said her chum. "come on, girls! it's first the fancy skating before the ice arena is all cut up." the effort to make the ice carnival of the central high a success was aided by a perfect evening and perfect ice. the latter had been shaved and smoothed over every gnarly place. there was not a single crack in which a skate could be caught to throw the wearer. the arena roped off from the spectators was as smooth as a ballroom floor. it was about two acres in extent. around three sides of the roped-off space there was a roped-off alley with boards laid upon the ice upon which the spectators could stand. uprights held the strings of colored lights which were supplied with electricity from the city lighting company; for this was not the first exhibition of the kind that had been staged upon lake luna. around the alley allotted to the audience, each member of which had to pay a half dollar for a ticket, was a guarded space so that those who did not pay entrance fee could not get near enough to enjoy the spectacle. the short-distance races, following the figure skating, were all within the oval of the principal arena. then the ropes were taken down at one end and the long-distance races came off, a mile track having been marked with staffs upon the ice, staffs which now held the clusters of colored lanterns. for two hours the company was so well amused that few were driven away by the cold--and it was an intensely cold night the ringing of the skates on the almost adamantine ice revealed the fact that jack frost had a tight clutch on the waters of lake luna. "i wish my mother could have seen this," janet steele murmured to laura belding. "i think it is like fairyland." "isn't it pretty? now comes the torchlight procession. the boys arranged this their own selves. see if it isn't pretty!" the short end of the oval had been closed again after the long-distance races, and now there dashed into the arena from the boys' lane to the dressing-rooms a long line of figures in dominos, each bearing a colored light. they were the boys that could skate the best--the most sure-footed. back and forth, around and around, in and out and across! the swift movement of the figures was well nigh bewildering; while the intermingling of colored lights, their weaving in and out, made a brilliant pattern that brought applause again and again from the spectators. then the boys divided, taking stations some distance apart, and the torches were tossed from hand to hand, as indian clubs are tossed in gymnasium exercises. the effect was spectacular and seemed a much more difficult exercise than it really was. meanwhile the girls selected for the masquerade were dressing in the boathouse. their masquerade costumes were as diverse and elaborate as though it were a ball they were attending. there was no dress as simple as janet steele's red cross uniform; yet with her glowing face and sparkling eyes and white teeth there were few more effective figures in the party. she had proved herself to be a fine and strong skater. laura and jess, who sponsored her, were delighted with the new girl's appearance on the ice. she had learned, too, her part quite perfectly. when the girls first came out and the boys darted back to get into their fancy costumes, the summary of the figures the girls wove on the ice were already known to janet. she fulfilled her part. then returned the boys, "all rigged out," bobby said, and the masquerade parade began. the crowd standing about the arena cheered and shouted. it really was a most attractive grand march, and there chanced, better still, to be no accident. smoothly the young people wended their way about the ice, their skates ringing, their supple bodies swaying in time to the music, led by those two masks of uncle sam and the red cross girl. "it is lovely," mrs. belding said to her husband. "what a fine skater our chetwood is, henry. and it is so near christmas! i hope that bank-note will turn out to be a good one so that he will not lose the money," she finished wistfully. "there, there!" said the jeweler. "i'll go to see monroe to-morrow. he's at home again." chapter x but who is he? "well, mr. monroe," the jeweler said, when he was ushered into the banker's office the following forenoon by the bank watchman, "i presume that bill is a counterfeit of some kind?" "my dear belding," said the banker, who was a portly and jolly man, who shook a good deal when he chuckled, and who shook now, "i thought you were old enough, and experienced enough, to discover the counterfeit from the real." "my son took the bill in over the counter," said the jeweler, rather chagrined. "but haven't you examined it?" said mr. monroe, taking the strange bank-note from a drawer of his desk. "well--yes," was the admission, made grudgingly. "and are you not yet assured?" "neither one way nor the other," frankly confessed the jeweler. "it was taken by chet for a hundred-dollar bill. and it is that on one side!" "it certainly looks to be," chuckled mr. monroe. "but who ever heard of such a thing?" demanded the exasperated customer of the bank. "a hundred printed on one side and a fifty on the other! the printers of bank-notes do not make such mistakes." "hold on! nobody is infallible in this world--not even a bank-note printer," said the banker, reaching into another drawer and bringing forth a large indexed scrapbook. "here's a case that happened some years ago. i am a scrapbook fiend, belding," chuckled mr. monroe. "there were once two bills issued for a kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. only this note that we have here was printed for the drovers' levee bank of osage, ohio, as you can easily see. this note went through that bank, was signed by bedford knox, cashier, and peyton j. weld, president, as you can see, and its peculiar printing was not discovered. "ah, here we have it!" added mr. monroe, fluttering the stiff leaves of the scrapbook and finally coming to the article in question. "listen here: 'it was found on communication with washington that a record was held there of the bill, and the department was anxious to recall it. with another bill it had been printed for a bank in kansas, and the mistake had been made by the printer who had turned the sheet upside down in printing the reverse side. the first plate bore the obverse of a fifty-dollar bill at the top and of a hundred-dollar bill at the bottom, while the other plate held the reverse of both sides. by turning the sheet around for the reverse printing, the fifty-dollar impression had been made on the back of the hundred-dollar bill.' "do you see, now?" laughed the banker. "quite an easy and simple mistake, and one that might often be made, only the printers are very careful men." oddly enough, mr. belding, although relieved by the probability that the department at washington would make the strange bill right for him, was suddenly attracted by another fact. "i wonder," he said, "if that man came from osage, ohio?" "what man? the one who passed the bank-note on your son?" "yes. you know, he was injured and is now in the hospital." "i don't know. go on." mr. belding related the story of the accident and the unfortunate mental condition of the injured man. "they tell me all the money he had with him was new money--fresh from the treasury." "he probably did not make it himself," chuckled the jolly banker. "poor chap! don't the doctors think he will recover his memory?" "that i cannot say," the jeweler said, rising. "then you think i may relieve chet's mind?" "oh, yes. i will give you another hundred for this bill, if you want me to. i will send this to washington, where they probably already have a record of it. bills of this denomination are printed by twos, and the other has probably turned up--as in the case of the kansas bank-note." aside from the satisfaction this interview of his father's with mr. monroe accorded chet belding, further interest on the part of all the young people was aroused in the case of the injured stranger. oddly enough, when laura and jess went to the hospital to inquire about the man, they found janet steele, the red cross girl, there on the same errand. since the ice carnival, that had proved such a money-making affair for the red cross, the central high girls had considered janet almost one of themselves. although nobody seemed to know who or what the steeles were, and they certainly lived very oddly in the old house at the lower end of whiffle street, janet was so likable, and her invalid mother was evidently so much of a gentlewoman, that laura and her chum had vouched for janet and declared her to be "all right." the matron of the hospital was the person whom the girls interviewed on this occasion. mrs. langworth had some interest in each patient besides the doctor's professional concern. she was sympathetic. "we do not know what to call him," she explained. "he laughs rather grimly about it and tells us to call him 'john.' but that, i am sure, is not his name. he merely wishes us to have a 'handle' for him. and you cannot tell me," added the matron, shaking her head, "that he is one of those rough miners right out of alaska!" "does he say he is?" asked janet, with increased interest. "he remembers of being in alaska, he says. he was coming out, he tells us, when something happened to him. and that is the last he can remember. he believes he 'made his pile,' as he expresses it. oh, he uses mining expressions, and may have lived roughly and in the open, as miners do, at some time in his life. but not recently, i am sure." "and not a thing about him to identify him?" asked laura. "not a thing. plenty of money. not much jewelry----" "oh! the lavallière my brother sold him!" cried laura. "he said it was for 'a nice little girl he knew.' it was only a ten dollar one--one of those french novelties, you know, that we sell so many of at this time of year." "he had that in an envelope in his pocket," said mrs. langworth. "then he had not made the presentation of it to 'the nice little girl,'" murmured laura, thoughtfully. "it almost proves he is a stranger in town, does it not?" asked jess. "he bought the chain in the morning, and he was not hurt until evening. do you know if he had any lodging in centerport?" "the police have searched the hotels, i believe," said the matron, "and described the poor fellow to the clerks and managers. nobody seems to know him." "do--do you suppose we might see him?" laura asked hesitatingly. "oh, laura! would you want to?" jess murmured. "why not?" said the matron, smiling. "not just now, perhaps. but the next time you come--in the afternoon, of course. he will be glad to see young faces, i have no doubt i will speak to dr. agnew when he comes in," for nellie's father was of importance at the centerport hospital. "but who is he, do you suppose?" jess morse demanded, when the three girls left the hospital and walked uptown again. "he can't be any person who has friends in centerport, or they would look him up." "that seems to be sure enough," admitted her chum. then: "shall we walk along with janet?" "of course," said jess. "are you going home, miss steele?" "yes," said the girl in the red cross uniform. "i have been on duty at the central chapter; but mother expects me now." "how is your mother, dear?" asked laura, with sympathy. "she is as well as can be expected," said janet gravely. "if she had nothing to worry her mind she would be better in health," and she sighed. janet did not explain what this worry was, and even jess, blunt-spoken as she often was, could not ask pointblank what serious trouble mrs. steele had on her mind. again the central high girls went in to see the invalid upon janet's invitation. they found bobby hargrew there before them. harum-scarum as bobby was, nobody could accuse her of lack of sympathy; and she had already learned that her fun and frolic pleased the invalid. bobby did not mind playing the jester for her friends. of course, the strange man at the hospital was the pivot on which the conversation turned. "were you there, too, to inquire about him?" asked mrs. steele of janet. laura noticed a certain wistfulness in the invalid's tone and look; but she did not understand it. merely, mother wit noted and pigeonholed the remark. janet said practically: "i can't help feeling an interest in him, as i helped him that evening he was hurt." "but have they learned nothing about him?" "only that the hundred-dollar bill he gave chet is probably all right," laughed jess morse. "they say he had a big money roll," said bobby. "not a poor man, of course," laura agreed. "and mrs. langworth says she is sure he has been in alaska," jess added. laura noted the swift glance that passed between the invalid and her daughter. "oh, my dear!" exclaimed mrs. steele, "you did not tell me that" "no," said janet, shaking her head, "but lots of men go to alaska, mamma." "ye-es," admitted mrs. steele. "and come back with plenty of money," put in bobby, smiling. "this poor man's money doesn't help him much, does it? he doesn't seem to have any friends here in centerport. he is just as much a stranger as the man they tell about who came back to his old home town after a great many years and found a lot of changes. as he rode uptown his taxicab stopped to let a funeral go by. "'who's dead?' asked the returned wanderer of the taxicab driver. "'dan jones,' said the driver. "'not dan jones that kept the hotel!' cried the man. 'why, i knew him well. can it be possible that dan is dead?' "'i reckon he's dead, mister,' said the chauffeur, as the hearse went by. 'what d'you think they're doin'--rehearsin' with him?'" "how very lonely the poor man must feel," said mrs. steele, after laughing at bobby's story. "we're going in to see him the next time," jess said. mrs. steele looked again swiftly at her daughter. "you will see him, too, won't you, janet?" she murmured. her daughter seemed not to like the idea; but jess said quickly: "we will take janet with us, mrs. steele. and bobby, too. if mrs. langworth approves, i mean. 'the more the merrier.' really, i'm awfully interested in him myself." laura, said nothing; but she wondered why the invalid showed so much interest in the injured man. chapter xi a rehearsal the copies of the play chosen for production by the girls of the central high players club had arrived, and mr. mann, who was to direct the production, called the members of the club together in the small hall which was just off mr. sharp's office. "and thank goodness!" murmured bobby hargrew, "gee gee cannot break into this session. what do you suppose she has suggested?" "mercy! how do you expect us to guess the vagaries of the carrington mind?" returned lily pendleton. "something foolish, i'll be bound." "sh! remember mr. mann is an instructor, too," said nellie agnew. "that is all right, doctress," giggled lily. "mr. mann is a good fellow and will not peach." "tell us the awful truth, bobby," drawled jess. "what is gee gee's latest?" "i understand," said the younger girl, "that she has been to mr. sharp and begged him to exercise his authority and make us act 'pyramus and thisbe' instead of 'the rose garden.'" "goodness! that old thing?" flung out dora lockwood. "there is a burlesque on 'pyramus and thisbe' that we might give," chuckled jess. "and it's all in doggerel. let's!" "reckless ones! would you spoil all our chances?" demanded laura. "aw--well----" "remember, we are working for a worthy cause," dorothy lockwood mouthed, in imitation of the scorned miss carrington. "you are right, dory," laura said soberly. "the red cross is worth suffering for." "right-o, my dear girl," declared jess morse with conviction. "let us put aside gee gee and listen to what mr. mann has to say." they had already talked over the characters of the play. none of them was beyond the capabilities of the girls of central high. but what delighted some of them was that there were boys' parts--and girls would fill them! of course, bobby hargrew had been cast for one of the male parts. bobby's father had always said she should have been a boy, and was wont to call her "my eldest son." she had assumed mannish ways--sometimes when the assumption was not particularly in good taste. "but short and long," she growled in her very "basest" voice, "says i can't walk like a boy. says anybody will know i'm a girl. i have a mind to get my hair cut short." "don't you dare, clara hargrew!" laura commanded. "you'd be sorry afterward--and so would your father." bobby would never do anything to hurt "father tom," as she always called mr. hargrew, so her enthusiasm for this suggested prank subsided. but she growled: "anyway, it's a sailor suit i am going to wear, and i guess i can walk like a sailor, just as well as short and long." "better," declared nellie soothingly. "and then, those wide-legged trousers sailors wear are quite modest." at this all the girls laughed. knickers in their gymnasium and field work had become second nature to them. "but think of me," cried jess, "in what chet calls 'the soup to nuts!' really the dress-suit of mankind is awfully silly, after all." "and uncomfortable!" declared dora. "attention, young ladies!" exclaimed mr. mann at that moment. he was a rotund, beaming little man, with vast enthusiasm and the patience--so nellie declared--of an angel. "not a full-sized angel," bobby had denied seriously. "he is more the size of a cherub--one of those you see pictured leaning their elbows on clouds." but, of course, neither of the girls made this comment within mr. mann's hearing. the final decisions regarding the choice of parts were now made. the copies of the play were distributed. mr. mann even read aloud the first two acts, instructing and advising as he went along, so that the girls could gain some general idea of what was expected of them. before they were finished another point came up. there was a single character in the play that had not been accorded to any girl. it was not a speaking part; but it was an important part, for the other characters talked about it, and the silent character was supposed to appear on several occasions in "the rose garden." "we need a tall, dark girl," said mr. mann. "one who walks particularly well and who win not be overlooked by the audience even when she merely crosses the stage. who----?" "margit salgo!" exclaimed jess, who had every bit of the new play and its needs very close to her heart. "of course!" cried laura and the lockwood twins. "margit is just the one," mother wit added. "oh!" said mr. mann at last. "you mean margaret carrington?" "and she walks like a queen," sighed lily pendleton. "i wish i could learn to walk as she does." "you know what mrs. case says," put in bobby, in an undertone. "she says your feet, lil, have been bound like a chinese woman's of the old regime." "oh, you!" "margit went barefoot and lived in the open for years," said laura. "she was 'near to nature's heart,'" laughed jess. "of course, she never tried to squeeze a number six foot into narrow twos." "never mind the size of her feet," said mr. mann good-naturedly. "if she can take the part, she will be just the one for it i remember that miss carrington's niece does have a queenly walk. and that is just what we need. but do you think we can get her?" "she has never joined our club," said jess thoughtfully. "i am not sure that she has ever been invited," laura said. "but she is always busy----" "gee gee pretty near works her to death," growled bobby. "i shouldn't wonder if margit flew the coop some day." "i am not sure, miss hargrew," said mr. mann, without a smile, "that i ought not to take you to task for your language. it really is inexcusable." "oh, dear me, mr. mann, don't you begin!" begged the culprit "if i am academic in school in my speech, let me be relieved out of sessions, i pray." "but about margit salgo?" queried laura. "do you suppose she will be able to help us? i know she will be willing to, if we ask her." "gee gee will object, you bet," growled bobby under her breath. that was not to be known, however, without asking. laura said she would speak to margaret about it, while mr. mann intimated that he would mention to miss carrington, the elder, that her niece was almost necessary to the success of the play. margit salgo was not so straightly kept by miss carrington as she was engaged from morning to night in her studies. having been utterly neglected as far as mental development went for several years, the half-gypsy girl was much behind others of her age at central high. miss grace gee carrington was pushing her protégé on as fast as possible. she was not yet in the classes of those, girls of her age whom she knew at central high; but she was fast forging ahead and she took much pride in her own advancement. therefore she did not see miss carrington's sternness as bobby, for instance, saw it. she found her aunt kind and considerate, if very firm. and the girl who had been half wild when laura belding first found her, as has been related in "the girls of central high on track and field," was settling into a very sedate and industrious young woman. what girl, however, does not love to "dress up and act?" margit salgo was delighted when laura explained their need to her. "just as sure as auntie will let me, i'll act," declared the dark beauty, flushing brilliantly and her black eyes aflame with interest. "you are a dear, laura belding, to think of me," and she hugged mother wit heartily. two days passed, and then came the first rehearsal. this, of course, could be little more than a reading of the parts before mr. mann, with the latter to advise them as to elocution and stage business. but bobby declared she had been practicing walking like a boy and had succeeded in copying short and long almost exactly. "why me?" demanded billy sharply, whose usual sweet temper seemed to have become dreadfully soured of late. "well, why not?" demanded bobby. "should i copy pretty sweet's strut?" "aw--him!" snorted billy long, turning away in vexation. "now, tell me," said the quick-minded bobby hargrew to laura and jess, with whom she chanced to be walking at the moment, "why it is that billy has taken such a violent dislike to poor purt of late? why, he doesn't feel kindly enough toward him to send him another dead fish!" they were going to the rehearsal, which was in the small hall of the school. of course, there was a sight of bustle and talking. every girl was greatly excited over her part. some were "sure they couldn't do it," while there were those who "could not possibly remember cues." "and i know i shall laugh just at the wrong place," said lily pendleton. "i always do." "if you do," growled bobby, "i'll do something to you that will make you feel far from laughing, i assure you." "how savagely you talk!" sighed nellie agnew. "that boy's part you are to fill is already affecting you, clara." "'sailor bob' is going to be terrifically rough, i suppose," jess said, laughing. mr. mann called them to order, and the girls finally rustled into seats and prepared to go through "the rose garden" for the first time. everybody knew her first speeches, and as mr. mann accentuated the cues and advised about the business the girls did very well during the first act. but with the opening of the second act there was a halt. here was where "the dark lady" should come in. her first appearance marked a flourishing period by jess, who strode about the stage as the hero of the piece. "and margit's not here!" cried dora lockwood. "shouldn't she be, mr. mann? really, her entrance gives me my cue, not adrian's speech." adrian was jess morse. she nodded her head vigorously. "of course, margit ought to be here to rehearse with us." "i am afraid," said mr. mann, with pursed lips, "that we shall have to give up the idea of having miss carrington--the younger--for the part." "oh, oh, oh!" chorused some of the girls. "can't margit play?" "isn't that just like gee gee?" demanded bobby furiously. "she wanted to, i am sure," laura said. "it is not margit's fault." "of course it isn't," snapped jess. "that old--" fortunately she got no farther. the door opened at that instant and miss grace gee carrington entered. she was a very tall woman with grayish hair, eyeglasses, and a sallow complexion. her dignity of carriage and stern manner were quite overpowering. "young ladies!" she said sharply, having come into the room and closed the door, "i have a word to say. i told mr. mann i would come here and explain why my niece cannot take part in any such foolish and inconsequential exhibition as this that you have determined on." she glared around, and the girls' faces assumed various expressions of disturbance. some, even, were frightened, for miss carrington had always reigned by power of fear. "i would not allow margaret to lower herself by appearing in such a play. i disapprove greatly of girls taking boys' parts. the object of the play itself is merely to amuse. there is nothing worth while or educational about it." again silence, and the girls only glanced fearfully at each other. "i have a proposition to make to you," said the stern teacher. "it is not too late to change your plans. i have mr. sharp's permission to make the suggestion. he will agree to your changing the play and will be--er--satisfied, i am sure, if you accept my advice and put on the play which i first suggested. this is an old greek play with real value to it we gave it once in my own college days, and it truly made a sensation. i should be quite willing for margaret to appear in that play, and i should, in fact, be willing to give mr. mann the benefit of my own experience in rehearsing the piece." mr. mann actually looked frightened. the stern instructor overpowered him exactly as she did many of the girls. chapter xii bubble, bubble "toot! toot! toot-te-toot! back water!" muttered bobby hargrew. "wouldn't i cut a shine acting in a greek play? oh, my!" her imprudence--and impudence--was fortunately drowned by the general murmur of objection that went up from the girls of the club. that miss carrington's suggestion met with general objection was so plain that even the stern woman herself must have realized it. "of course," she said, really "cattish," "you girls would prefer something silly." "perhaps, miss carrington," said laura with more boldness than most of her mates possessed, "we prefer something more simple. 'the rose garden' does not call for more than we can give to it. i am afraid the play you suggest would take too much study." "ha!" snapped the tall teacher. then she went on: "i want you all to understand that your recitations must be up to the average while you put in your time on such a mediocre performance as this you are determined upon. of course, if the play was of an educational nature we might relax our school rules a little--" "oh! oh! bribery!" whispered jess to nellie. "it seems," mr. mann finally found voice to say, "that the desire of the young ladies is for the piece selected. it is too late, as miss belding says, to make a change now." "then margaret cannot act!" exclaimed miss carrington, and, turning angrily, she left the hall in a way that had she been one of the girls, it would have been said, "she flounced out." the rehearsal continued; but most of the girls were in a sober state of mind. there was a general desire among them to stand high in all their studies. they had learned when first they entered upon the athletic contests and exercises of the girls branch league that they must keep up in studies and in deportment or they could not get into the good times of the league. it was so with the secret society, the m. o. r.'s, and likewise in this acting club. "fun" was merely a reward for good work in school. not alone was miss carrington stiff on this point, the principal and the rest of the faculty were quite as determined that no outside adventures or activities should lower the standard of the girls of central high. at the present time the members of the club had a serious fact to contemplate. a girl to fill the part of the "dark lady" in the garden must be found. as it was not a speaking part, the person filling the character must more particularly look as she was described in the play. "we want a type," said mr. mann. "tall, graceful, brunette, and with queenly carriage. you must find her before the next rehearsal. i must have plenty of time to train her, for her appearance is of grave importance--as you young ladies can yourselves see." "oh, dear me!" groaned nellie agnew, when the rehearsal was finished. "and margit salgo would have been just the one!" "and the poor girl certainly would have enjoyed being one of us," laura said. "take it from me," said bobby gruffly, "she's just the meanest--" "margit?" cried jess. "gee gee! i'm good and disgusted with her." but bobby, for once in her life, was very circumspect during recitations that week. she felt that gee gee was watching for a chance to demerit her, and the girl did not intend to give the teacher occasion for doing so. "for once i am going to be so good, and have my lessons so perfect, that she cannot find fault." "but trust miss carrington to find fault if she felt like it!" grumbled the girl a day or so later. "miss hargrew, do not stride so. and keep your elbows in. why! you walk like a grenadier. and don't sprawl in your seat that way. are you not a lady?" ah, but it was hard for saucy bobby to keep her tongue back of her teeth! "have you lost your tongue?" nagged miss carrington. bobby's eyes flashed a reply. but her lips "ran o'er with honey," as jess morse quoted, _sotto voce_. "no, miss carrington. i am merely holding it," said the girl softly. miss carrington flushed. she knew she was unfair; and bobby's unexpected reply pilloried the teacher before the whole class. there was a bustle in the room and a not-entirely-smothered snicker. had there been any way of punishing the girl miss carrington would certainly have done it. she was neither just nor merciful, but she was exact. she could see no crevice in bobby's armor. the incident had to pass, and the girl remained unpunished. however, it did seem as though miss carrington were more watchful each day of the girls who belonged to the players club. she was evidently expecting those who had parts to learn to show some falling off in recitation, or the like. her sharp tongue lashed those who faltered unmercifully. the girls began to show the strain. they became nervous. "i really feel as though i must scream sometimes!" said nellie agnew, almost in tears, one afternoon as the particular chums of central high left the building for home. "i know my lessons just as well as ever, but gee gee has got me so worked up that i expect to fail every time i come up to recite to her." "she is too old to teach, anyway," snapped jess. "my mother says so. she ought to have been put on the shelf by the board of education long ago." "oh, oh!" gasped dora lockwood. "what bliss if she were!" "she is not so awfully old," said laura thoughtfully. "but she is awful!" sniffed jess. "she acts like a spoiled child," nellie said. "if she cannot have her own way in everything she gets mad and becomes disagreeable." this was pretty strong language from the doctor's daughter. at the moment bobby hargrew appeared, whistling, and with her hands in her coat pockets. she was evidently practicing her manly stride. but she did not grin when she saw the juniors approaching. instead, in a most dolorous voice she sang out, quoting the witches' chant: "'double, double; toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.' "everything's stewing, girls, and it is bound to be some brew. do you know the latest?" "couldn't guess," said jess morse. "but it is something bad, i warrant." "everything's going wrong, girls!" wailed nellie. "i just saw mr. mann and lil. couldn't help overhearing what she was giving him. what do you suppose she wants to do?" "play the lead instead of laura," snapped jess. "that would not be so strange," dora lockwood observed. "would it, dorothy?" "not at all. lil pendleton--" "wait a minute," proposed laura belding. "let us hear her crime before we sentence her to death." "that's right," agreed bobby. "oh, she surely has put her foot in it! she told mr. mann that hessie is just the girl to act 'the dark lady' in our play. what do you know about that?" "ow! ow! that hurts!" squealed dora. "she never _did_?" gasped her twin. "hope to die!" exclaimed bobby recklessly. "that is exactly the game she is trying to work." "hester grimes! of all persons!" groaned nellie. "lil hasn't said a word about it to me," jess morse declared. "no, she is going to get mr. mann himself to propose hester--" "but hessie isn't a member of the club!" cried nellie. "we have set a precedent there," said laura thoughtfully. "we took janet steele into the ice carnival, and she was not a member of the school." "that was an entirely different thing!" snapped jess. "why, hester grimes is no more fit to play that part than i am fit for the professional stage!" nellie agnew said. "what can lil mean?" "i bet a cooky," bobby growled, "that hester put lil up to it. you know, hess is crazy to get her finger into every pie; but she would never come straight out and ask to join our club." "she'd be blackballed," said dora tartly. "i believe she would," agreed her twin. bobby chuckled. "there would be two black beans against her, and no mistake." "what did you say to lil, clara?" demanded laura thoughtfully. "not a word." "how was that?" jess asked. "you didn't have a sudden attack of lockjaw, did you?" "don't fret, jess," said bobby sharply. "i know when to keep my mouth shut on occasion. i came right away from there to find you girls. something must be done about it." "oh, dear me!" groaned nellie. "if margit salgo had only been allowed to take the part!" "what did i tell you?" almost snarled bobby. "gee gee has managed to queer the whole business. this play is going to be a failure." chapter xiii mother wit has an idea the ice carnival had been such a success in a spectacular as well as a monetary way that many of the friends of the central high girls and boys declared they would like to have it repeated. more than a thousand dollars--to be exact, one thousand and twenty dollars--had been made for the red cross. centerport was doing its very best to gather its quota for the great institution that was doing so much good in the world. janet steele confessed to laura that she had gained more than one hundred dollar memberships, and that nearly all of these had given something in addition to their membership fee. "i wish we girls could help," said laura wistfully. "and you having done so much already!" cried janet. "why, you've already done more than your share! and doing a play, too!" "i am afraid the play will not be a great success," mother wit sighed, but more to herself than to the other girl. those who wished to repeat the ice carnival success had to give the idea up, for before the end of the week there swept down over the north woods and across frozen lake luna such a blizzard as the surrounding country had not seen for several years. the street cars stopped running, traffic of all sorts was tied up, and even the electricity for lighting purposes was put out of commission for twenty-four hours. of course, it did not keep many of the girls and boys of central high at home. snow piled up in the streets did not daunt them at all. but when the amateur actors undertook to rehearse they had to do so by the light of candles and kerosene lamps. the rehearsal did not go very well, either. the girls were "snippy" to each other--at least, jess said they were, and bobby declared she was one of the very "snippiest--so there!" "girls! girls!" begged laura, "when there are so many other people to fight, let us not fight each other. 'little birds should in their nests agree,' and so forth." "oh, poodle soup!" ejaculated bobby, under her breath. "don't anybody dare spring old saws and sayings on me in my present mood." "i believe you'd bite, bobby," whispered nellie agnew. a cry went up for lily pendleton, and then it was found that she was not present. "the only girl who is made of either sugar or salt," declared josephine morse. "of course, the snow would keep her away!" "but where is her friend, miss grimes?" asked mr. mann, rather tartly. "i shall have my work cut out for me in training her, i fear." "you will, indeed," moaned laura. "now, mr. mann!" cried bobby boldly, "you are not really going to let that hester grimes act in this play, are you? she is perfectly horrid!" "miss hargrew," was the somewhat sharp answer, "i hope you will not let personal dislikes enter into this play. it does not matter who or what miss grimes may be, if she can take the part--" "but she'll never be able to do it in the world!" "that is to be seen," said mr. mann firmly. "remember, we are working for the benefit of the red cross." "hear! hear!" murmured laura. "perhaps hester will do very well." "and perhaps she won't!" snapped bobby. "why, she can't possibly _act!"_ jess morse said hopelessly. "you will let me be the judge of that, miss morse, if you please," said mr. mann, speaking rather tartly. "mercy, everybody to-day is as crisp as pie-crust--no two ways about it!" whispered bobby to jess. the girls plowed home through the deep snow, most of them in no mood for amusement. even laura belding had a long face when she entered the house. "how was the funeral?" asked chet, who was buried in one of the deep library chairs with a book. "what?" she asked before she caught his meaning. "you must have buried somebody by the way you look," declared her brother. "don't nag, chettie," sighed his sister. "we are having terrible times." "i judged so," chet said dryly. "don't you always have sich when you girls go in for acting?" "now--" "i am sympathetic, laura--i swear i am!" her brother cried, putting up his hands for pardon. "don't shoot. but of course things always will go wrong. who is it--bobby? or jess? or lil?" "it is hester grimes." "wow!" exclaimed chet. "i didn't know she was in it at all." laura told him of the emergency that had arisen and how hester grimes seemed certain to be drawn into the affair. "why, that big chunk can't act," said chet quite impolitely. "she looks enough like her father to put on his apron and stand behind one of his butcher blocks." "oh, that is awful!" laura objected. "but i know she will spoil our play." "humph! why didn't you, laura, suggest somebody else for the part, as long as margit couldn't take it?" "i didn't know of anybody." "i thought they called you 'mother wit,'" scoffed chet. "you're not even a little bit bright." "no, i guess you are right. i have lost all my brightness," sighed laura. "it has been rubbed off." "then you admit it was merely plate," laughed chet. "but say! why didn't you think of the girl who helped you out before?" "who? what girl?" "that red cross girl. what's her name?" "janet steele!" "that's the one. some pippin," said chet with enthusiasm. "i saw her this afternoon and helped her plow home--" "chetwood belding! wait till jess morse hears about it." "aw--" "jess will spark, old boy; you see if she doesn't" "jess is the best girl in the world; and she's got too much sense to object to my helping another girl home through the snow." "all right," chuckled laura, in a much more cheerful mood. "but don't make the mistake of praising janet to jess. that is where the crime comes in." "oh! well, i won't," her brother declared thoughtfully. "and where did you beau janet from?" laura asked. "the hospital." "were you there to see that poor man?" "rich man, you mean," grinned her brother. "i took him some books and a lot of papers. he is able to sit up and read." "but he doesn't know who he is?" "he declares his name is john _something_, and that he ought to be in alaska right now. says the last he knew he was in sitka. something happened to him there. whatever it was, his brain must have been affected at that time. for he cannot remember anything about the first part of his life." "but, chetwood!" exclaimed laura earnestly, "that man is not a miner. he is not tanned. his hands are not rough. he was as well groomed, the matron says, as any gentleman who ever was brought to the centerport hospital." "but he was in alaska. you should hear him tell about it." "he has lived two lives, then," said laura thoughtfully. "and must be beginning his third now," put in chet. "what do you know about that? and him with a roll of more than two thousand dollars--every bill brand-new." "oh, chet!" "well, what is it?" her brother asked, looking curiously into laura's suddenly glowing face. "does he know he has so much money?" "why, yes. i've been telling him to-day all about that funny bill he passed on me. he says he is glad he has so fat a purse, as he will be obliged to remain in bed long with that leg in a cast." "but, chet! has he got the money himself?" "it is in the hospital safe." "i wonder! i wonder!" the girl murmured. "what is it now?" asked chet "i wonder if any other bills in his roll are like that hundred-fifty note father swapped with mr. monroe for you." "huh?" ejaculated her brother, quite puzzled. "it was on the drovers' levee bank, of osage, ohio. i wrote it down, and the names of the cashier and president of the bank. do find out, chet, if there are any more of those new bills issued by that bank in his roll." "what for?" demanded chet. that laura would not tell him, only made him promise to do as she asked. mother wit had an idea; but she would not explain it to anybody yet. chapter xiv chains on his wheels "how came you to meet janet?" asked laura belding, remembering what her brother had first told her about the red cross girl. "she was coming my way, of course." "coming your way?" laura repeated, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "oh! i see! you met her at the hospital." "you said a forkful," declared the slangy youth. "dear me, chet," laura observed soberly. "i think your slang is becoming atrocious. so janet was down there!" "she had been calling on our friend with the broken leg, too," said chet. "she does seem interested in him, doesn't she?" laura said thoughtfully. "i wonder why?" "because her mother's half-brother went to alaska years ago and they never heard of him again," said chet. "she told me." "oh!" "nothing wonderful about that," the brother declared. "it is interesting." "to them, i suppose," said chet "but why don't you ask miss steele to join you girls in the play you are getting up?" "i never thought of it," confessed laura. "your thought-works are out of kilter, sis," declared chet, laughing again. "i'd certainly play miss steele off against the menace of hester grimes." there was something besides mere sound in chet belding's advice, and his sister appreciated the fact. but she did not go bluntly to the other girls and suggest the red cross girl for the part of "the dark lady." she realized that, if the new girl could act, she would amply fill the part in the play. but hester was supposed to have it now, and the very next day mr. mann gave that candidate an hour's training in the part hester was supposed to fill. when they all came together for rehearsal again the second day, hester grimes was present and she showed the effect of mr. mann's personal help. yet her work was so stiffly done, and she was so awkward, that it seemed to most of the girls that she was bound to hurt and hinder rather than help in the production. "she'd put a crimp in anything," declared bobby hargrew, as the hill girls went home that afternoon. the streets in this residential section had been pretty well cleared of snow, and people had their automobiles out once more. "say, jess!" exclaimed bobby. "say it," urged josephine morse. "i promise not to bite you." "if hester plays that part, what are they going to do with her hands and feet?" asked the unkind bobby. "oh, hush!" exclaimed laura. "well, when she's supposed to pick the rose and hold it up to the light, and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown lobster--and just as red." "girls, we must not!" begged laura. "somebody will surely tell hester what we say, and then--" "she'll refuse to play," said jess. "oh, fine, _fine_!" murmured one of the lockwood twins. "if we get her mad it will do no good," nellie agnew said. "maybe then she will insist on being 'the dark lady.'" the boys were on the corner of nugent street waiting for the girls to come along. "how goes the battle, laura?" asked lance darby. "have you learned your part yet?" "i thought i had," sighed laura. "but when i come to take cues and try to remember the business of the piece, i forget my lines." "this being leading lady is pretty tough on mother wit," laughed chet. "oh, my!" exclaimed bobby hargrew suddenly. "here comes pretty sweet in his car. why! he's got lil with him. i thought that was all over." they gaily hailed the driver of the automobile and his companion as the vehicle passed. short and long, with gloomy face, watched the car out of sight. "well," he growled, "he's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right." "chains on his wheels, billy?" asked bobby. "what do you mean? doesn't he always have them on in winter?" "humph! he forgot 'em once, anyway." "hey, billy!" exclaimed chet belding, "you are skidding yourself, aren't you?" "aw----" "least said soonest mended," added lance, likewise giving the smaller boy a quick, stern look. "oh, i see!" muttered bobby, searching the flushed face of short and long. "say, billy----" but short and long started on a quick trot for home, and left his friends to stare after him. it was bobby who did most of the staring, however. she said to jess and laura, after they had parted from the other boys: "what do you know about that boy? i'm just wise to him. i believe i know what is the matter with short and long." "do you mean," asked laura, "what makes him act so to purt?" "you have guessed my meaning, mother wit." "what is the trouble between them?" demanded jess. "although billy never was much in love with purt sweet." "don't you two girls remember the saturday night that man was hurt on market street?" "i should say i do remember it!" laura agreed. "he is in the hospital yet, and he doesn't know who he is or where he came from." "oh, it's nothing to do with his identity," bobby hastened to say. "it is about the car that ran him down. you know the police never have found the guilty driver." "goodness!" gasped jess. "you surely don't mean----" "i mean that the car had no chains on its rear wheels. that is all that was noticed about it nobody got the number. but i heard short and long say he knew somebody who had been driving a car that day without chains. and the boys left us, didn't they, to look up the car?" "what has that to do with purt sweet?" demanded laura. "why, you heard what billy just said about him and his chains!" cried bobby. "'he's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' didn't you hear him? and he's had a grouch against pretty sweet ever since the time--about--that the man was hurt." "oh, purt wouldn't have done such a thing. he might have run the man down; but he would never have run off and left him in the street!" "i don't know," jess said. "he'd be frightened half to death, of course, if he did knock the man down." "i do not believe prettyman sweet is heartless," declared laura warmly. "the boys are making a mistake. i'm going to tell chet so." but when she took her brother to task about this matter she could not get chet to admit a thing. he refused to say anything illuminating about the car that had run down the stranger at the hospital, or if the boys suspected anybody in particular. "if we think we know anything, i can't tell you," chet declared "billy? why, he's always sore at purt sweet. you can't tell anything by him!" just the same it was evident that the boys were hiding much from their girl chums; and, of course, that being the case, the girls were made all the more curious. chapter xv pie and poetry laura's sleeves were rolled up to her plump elbows and she had an enveloping apron on that covered her dress from neck to toe. there was flour on her arms, on one cheek, and even on the tip of her nose. out-of-doors old boreas, jess said, held sway. shutters flapped, the branches of the hard maple creaked against the clapboarded ell of the house, and there was an occasional throaty rattle in the chimney that made one think that the spirit of the wind was dying there. "you certainly are poetic," drawled bobby, who had come into the beldings' big kitchen, too, and was comfortably seated on the end of the table at which laura had been rolling out piecrust. "now, if that crust is only crisp!" murmured mother wit. "if it isn't," chuckled chet, stamping the snow off his shoes, "we'll make you eat it all." "i'm willing to take the contract of eating it, sight unseen, if laura made the pie," interjected lance darby, opening the door suddenly. "come in! come in!" cried jess. "want to freeze us all?" "you would better not be so reckless, lance," laura said, smiling. "these are mock cherry pies; and i never do know whether i get sugar enough in them until they are done. some cranberries are sourer than others, you know." "m-m! ah!" sighed chet ecstatically. "if there is one thing i like----" lance began to sing-song: "'there was a young woman named hooker, who wasn't so much of a looker; but she could build a pie that would knock out your eye! so along came a fellow and took 'er!'" "oh! oh! we're all running to poetry," groaned chet. "this will never do." "'poetry,' indeed!" scoffed jess morse. "i want to know how lance dares trespass upon bobby's domain of limericks?" "and i wish to know," laura added haughtily, "how he dares intimate that i am not 'a good looker'?" "'_peccavi!_"' groaned lance. "i have sinned! but, anyway, bobby is off the limerick business. aren't you, bobby?" "she hasn't sprung a good one for an age," declared chet. "a shortage," sighed laura. "gee gee says the lowest form of wit is the pun, and the most execrable form of rhyme is the limerick," declared jess soberly. "just for that," snapped bobby, "i'll give you a bunch of them. only these must be written down to be appreciated." she produced a long slip of paper from her pocket, uncrumpled it, and began to read: "'there was a fine lady named cholmondely, in person and manner so colmondely that the people in town from noble to clown did nothing but gaze at her, dolmondely.' now, isn't that refined and beautiful?" "it is--not!" said chet. "that is only a play upon pronunciation." "carping critics!" exclaimed lance. "go ahead, bobby. let's hear the others." as bobby had been saving them up for just such an opportunity as this, she proceeded to read: "'there lived in the city of worcester a lively political borcester, who would sit on his gate when his own candidate was passing, and crow like a rorcester!" "help! help!" moaned chet, falling into the cook's rocking chair and making it creak tremendously. "don't break up the furniture," his sister advised him, as she took a peep at the pies in the oven. "'pies and poetry'!" exclaimed jess. "go ahead, bobby. relieve your constitution of those sad, sad doggerels." nothing loath, the younger girl, and with twinkling eyes, sing-songed the following: "'there was a young sailor of gloucester, who had a sweetheart, but he loucest'er. she bade him good-day, so some people say, because he too frequently boucest'er.' take notice all you 'bossy' youths." "isn't english the funny language?" demanded chet, sitting up again. "and spelling! my! do you wonder foreigners find english so difficult? here's one that i found in an almanac at the drug store," and he fished out a clipping and read it to them: "'a lady once purchased some myrrh of a druggist who said unto hyrrh: "for a dose, my dear miss, put a few drops of this in a glass with some water, and styrrh."'" "do, do stop!" begged laura. "i promise not to offend again," said lance. "besides, i hope to taste some of the pie, and a pie-taster should not be a poetaster." "oh! oh! awful!" jess cried. "i've run out of limericks myself," confessed chet. "but one more!" bobby hastened to say. then dramatically she mouthed, with her black eyes fastened on chet: "'said chetwood to young short and long, "just list to my warning in song: if you know of the crime, for both reason and rhyme betray it--and so ring the gong!"'" the other girls burst out laughing at the expression on the boys' faces. chet and lance looked much disturbed, and chet finally scowled upon the teasing bobby and shook his head. "what do you know about that?" whispered lance to his chum. "you are altogether too smart, bobby," declared chet. "what do you mean?" "we know you and short and long are trying to hide something from us," said jess quickly. "you might as well tell us all about it," laura put in quietly. "what has billy really got against purt sweet?" "i don't admit he has anything against purt," said chet quickly. "nothing but suspicion," muttered lance, likewise shaking his head. "then there is something in it?" laura said quickly. "can it be possible that purt sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself before this?" "there you've said it, laura!" cried lance. "that is what i tell both chet and billy. if pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never dare go out again in his car." "oh! oh!" cried bobby with dancing eyes. "then my rhyme is a true bill?" "aw, lance would have to give it away!" growled chet. "boys are as clannish as they can be!" said jess severely. "we are just as much interested as you are, chet. what made billy believe pretty sweet ran the man down?" "oh, well," sighed chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, i suppose." "besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and lance will want to sample them." "go on. tell 'em, chet," said lance. "why, billy had been riding that day in the sweets' car. you know purt is too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put 'em on. billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening, for he passed the sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage with the radiator blanketed. "well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man down--the alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains on them, and that it was a perriton car like purt's." "yes, it was a perriton," said his sister. "so we fellows hiked up there to sweets'. purt was out with the car. he came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. we tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn't tell. we had to almost muzzle billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. and billy has been savage over it ever since." "really then," said laura, "there is nothing sure about it." "well, it is sure the car was a perriton. and since then we have found out that purt's is the only perriton in town that isn't out of commission for the winter. you can talk as you please about it: if the police only knew what we know, sure thing purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!" chapter xvi ember night the three girls of central high and their boy friends had not come together on this stormy saturday morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry." the ice carnival had made them so much money that laura and her friends desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal. they wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the red cross from day to day. fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like janet steele were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being tried. and so mother wit had evolved what she called "ember night," and the young people who helped carry the thing through were delighted with the idea. to tell the truth, the idea had been suggested to laura belding during the big storm when the lighting plant of the city was put out of order for one night. she and her friends laid the plans for the novel fête on this saturday after laura's pie baking and after they had discussed the possibility of prettyman sweet being the guilty person whose car had run down the strange man now at the centerport hospital. they put pies and poetry, and even purt sweet, aside, to discuss laura's idea. each member of the informal committee meeting in the beldings' kitchen was given his or her part to do. laura herself was to see colonel swayne, who was the president of the light and power company and who was likewise mother wit's very good friend. jess agreed to interview the local chief of the salvation army. chet would see the chief of police to get his permission. each one had his or her work cut put. "every cat must catch mice," said mother wit. plans for ember night were swiftly made, and it was arranged to hold the fête the next tuesday evening, providing the weather was clear. jess, whose mother held a position on the centerport _clarion_, wrote a piece about this street carnival for the sunday paper, and the idea was popular with nearly every one. exchange place was the heart of the city--a wide square on which fronted the city hall, the court house, the railroad station, and several other of the more important buildings of the place. in the center of the square a red cross booth was built and trimmed with christmas greens, which had just come into market. members of the several city chapters appeared in uniform to take part in the fête. there was a platform for speakers, and a bandstand, and before eight o'clock on tuesday evening a great crowd had assembled to take part in the exercises. that one of the central high school girls had suggested and really planned the affair, made it all the more popular. "what won't laura belding think of next?" asked those who knew her. but laura did not put herself forward in the affair. she presided over one of the red pots borrowed from the salvation army that were slung from their tripods at each intersecting corner of the streets radiating from exchange place, and for a half mile on all sides of the square. under each pot was a bundle of resinous and oil-soaked wood that would burn brightly for an hour. at the booth in exchange place fuel for a much larger bonfire was laid. the crowd gathered more densely as nine o'clock drew near. the mayor himself stepped upon the speaker's platform. the police had roped off lanes through the crowd from the red cross booth to the nearest corners. janet steele came late and she chanced to pass laura's corner, which was in sight of the speaker's stand and the booth. she halted to speak with laura a moment. "isn't it just fine?" she said. "i wish mother could see this crowd." "i imagine you would like to have her see lots of things," returned laura. "our friend at the hospital, for instance." "who--who do you mean?" gasped janet, evidently disturbed. "the man who was hurt, i mean." "oh! he is quite interesting," said the other girl and slipped away. laura's suggestion had seemingly startled her. the band played, and then the mayor stepped forward to make his speech. at just this moment a motor car moved quietly in beside the curb near which laura belding stood guarding her red pot. somebody called her name in a low tone, and laura turned to greet prettyman sweet's mother with a smile. mrs. sweet was alone in the tonneau of her car, which purt himself was driving. the school exquisite, who was so often the butt of the boys' jokes, but was just now an object of suspicion, admired laura belding immensely. he got out of the car to come and stand with her on the corner. "got your nonskid-chains on, purt?" asked laura. "on the rear wheels? surely," said sweet, eyeing the girl in some surprise, because of her question. "my dear laura!" cried mrs. sweet "won't you come and talk to me while we are waiting?" "can't now, mrs. sweet. i am on duty," laughed laura. they could not hear what the mayor said, for they were two blocks away. but they had an excellent view of the stand and the red cross booth, and the crowd that pressed close to the police ropes. suddenly the mayor threw up his hand in command, and almost instantly--as though he had himself switched off the light--all the street lamps in the business section of centerport went out the arc light over the spot where laura stood blinked, glowed for a moment, and then subsided. mrs. sweet cried out in alarm. "this is all right," laura called to her. "now watch." the mayor, in the half-darkness, stepped down from the platform and threw into the heart of the big bonfire the combustibles that set it off. the flames leaped up, spreading rapidly. the crowd cheered as eight boys, dressed in the knee-length dominos they had worn on the night of the ice carnival, dashed into the ring with resinous torches. they thrust the torches into the flames and the instant the torches were alight, they wheeled and dashed away through the lanes the police had kept open. the red flames dancing before the red cross booth, and the sparking, flaming torches which the boys swung above their heads as they ran through the crowd to the various corners where the red pots hung, made an inspiring picture in the unwonted gloom of the streets. "see how the red cross spreads!" cried laura. "there's nellie's fire going." they could see the spark of new fire under the pot a block away. a short figure with flaming torch was approaching laura's corner at high speed. "here comes short and long, i do believe," drawled prettyman sweet. "my pot will soon be boiling," laughed laura. "what are you going to throw in, purt? and you, mrs. sweet? give all you can--and as often as you can." "oh, i'll start you off, laura," declared purt, pulling out a handful of coins that rang the next moment in the bottom of the iron pot. "here's my purse, prettyman!" called his mother, leaning from the car. "you put in my offering." the few bystanders around laura's corner began laughingly to contribute before the torch reached the spot. but short and long arrived the next moment. he stooped, thrust the blazing torch into the middle of the fuel under laura's pot, and wheeled to run to his next comer. the flames crackled, springing up ravenously. the boy's cotton gown flapped across the fire and before he could leap away the flames had seized upon the domino! "oh, billy!" shrieked laura belding. "you are on fire!" the short boy leaped away; but he could not leave the flames behind him. he threw down the torch and tried to tear off the domino. in a moment he was a pillar of flame! "a blanket! a robe! quick, purt!" cried laura, and started toward the victim of the accident, bare-handed. for once purt sweet did as he was told, and did it quickly. he ran with the robe from the front seat of the automobile. laura grabbed one end and together they wrapped their schoolmate in the heavy folds. short and long was cast to the street and they rolled him in the blanket. the fire was smothered, but what injury had it done to the boy? he was unconscious; for in falling he had struck his head, and the wound was bleeding. mrs. sweet was crying and wringing her hands. "oh, it's awful! purt! purt! take me home!" she sobbed. "no, purt!" exclaimed laura. "take him to the hospital" "of course we will," gasped the youth. "help me lift him, laura. oh, the poor kid!" only the few people near by had seen the accident. not even a policeman came. laura and purt staggered to the car with the wrapped-up body of the smaller lad. his face was horribly blackened, but that might be nothing but smoke. just how badly billy long was injured they could not guess. mrs. sweet shrank back into the corner of the tonneau seat and begged laura to get in with the injured boy. "i can't! i can't touch him!" wailed the woman. "it's awful! suppose he should be dead?" "he's not dead," declared purt. "we won't let him die--the poor kid! here, mother, you hold his head and we'll lay him down on the seat. let his head and shoulders lie right in your lap." "oh, laura! do come!" cried the woman. "i can't, mrs. sweet!" returned laura, sobbing. "i've got to stay and watch my pot boil. do be quick, purt!" she stepped out of the car. purt slammed the tonneau door and leaped to the steering wheel. in a moment the self-starter sputtered, and then the car wheels began to roll. mrs. sweet was actually forced to do something that she had never done before--personally help somebody in trouble. perhaps the experience would do her good, laura thought. in tears the latter returned to the corner. the fire was brightly blazing underneath her swinging pot. there was already quite a collection of coins and a few bills in the bottom of the receptacle. but although laura stuck to the post of duty, her heart was no longer in the ceremonies of ember night. she wished heartily that she had never suggested the entertainment, even if it did benefit the red cross. chapter xvii a startling announcement it did really prove to be one of the most successful forms of money-raising for the red cross that had been attempted in centerport. and later they tried ember night in lumberport and keyport. laura belding was not proud of her success, however, for poor short and long had been badly burned. fortunately his face was only blackened, and the doctors decided that he had not inhaled any of the scorching flame. laura and purt had wrapped him in the blanket so quickly that the fire was smothered almost at once. yet there were bad burns on his arms and body--burns that would leave ineffaceable scars. the girls of central high had two interests now to take them to the hospital. the stranger who did not know his name and short and long both came in for a lot of attention. the latter had never known before how popular with his schoolmates he was. fruit, flowers, candy and the nicest confections from the hill kitchens found their way in profusion to billy's bedside. after a day or two the doctors let him see whoever came, and he could talk all right. it made him forget the smart of his burns. of course his sister alice came frequently, and she had to bring tommy, the irrepressible, along. tommy was more interested in the good things to eat at his brother's bedside, however, than he was in billy's bodily condition. there was so much jelly, and blanc-mange, and other goodies that the invalid could not possibly consume all. tommy sat and ate, and ate, until the nurse said: "tommy, don't you know that you are distending your stomach with all those sweets? it is not good for you." when tommy learned that "distending" meant that his stomach was being stretched, he was delighted. "gimme some more, allie," he begged his sister. "please do, allie dear. i want to stwetch my 'tomach. it's never been big 'nough to hold all i want to eat." the interest of laura and her close friends in the strange man with the broken leg did not lag. he talked freely with his visitors; but mostly about alaska and his adventures in the gold mines. as near as he could guess, he must have come out of the mines with his "pile," as he expressed it, almost ten years before. "what under the canopy i have been doing since, i don't know. but if i've got down to two thousand dollars capital, i must have been having an awfully good time spending money; for i know i had a poke full of gold dust when i struck the coast and went over to sitka." "more likely he was robbed," said chet. "he looks about as much like a miner as pa belding," laura declared. there was too much going on just then, however, for mother wit to try out the thought that had come to her mind regarding this man. all these interests had to be sidetracked for school and lessons. and just at this time recitations seemed to be particularly hard. with rehearsals for the play, and all, mere knowledge was very difficult to acquire. "i know i'm not half prepared in physics," wailed nellie agnew, as she and other juniors trooped into school one day, two weeks before christmas. "and i," said jess morse, "know about as much regarding this political economy as i do about sweeping up the milky way with a star brush." "how poetic!" cried laura, laughing. "i wonder if we all are as well prepared?" "they expect too much of us," declared dora lockwood. "much too much!" echoed her sister. "i wonder," said laura, "if we don't expect too much of the teachers?" in the physics recitation nellie agnew, as she prophesied, came to grief. miss carrington seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of whom to call on at such times. she seemed aware that nellie had not prepared her lesson properly. it might be that the wary teacher read her pupils' faces. nellie's was so woebegone that it was scarcely possible to overlook the fact that she probably felt her shortcomings in the task at hand. miss carrington called on the doctor's daughter almost the first one in physics. to say "unprepared!" to miss carrington was to bring upon one's head the shattered vials of her wrath. there was no excuse for not trying, that strict instructor considered. so nellie tried. she stumbled along in her first answer "like a blind man in a blind alley," so jess morse declared. it was pitiful, and all the class sympathized. the gentle nellie was led to make the most ridiculous statements by the silky-voiced teacher. "and you are a physician's daughter!" miss carrington burst out at last. "for shame!" "if i were nell," said dora lockwood to her twin, "i'd cut pills altogether after this. i'd rather take math with mr. sharp himself." miss grace g. carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. she nagged and browbeat poor nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. by that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation was bound to go badly. when jess was called on she rose with blazing cheeks and angry eyes to face their tormentor. miss carrington saw antagonism writ large upon jess morse's face. "i presume, miss morse, you think i cannot puzzle you?" said miss carrington in her very nastiest way. "you can doubtless puzzle me," said jess sharply. "but you cannot make me cry, miss carrington." "sit down!" ejaculated the angry teacher. "that goes for a demerit." "and it is about as fair as your demerits usually are," cried jess. "two, miss morse," said the teacher. "one more and you will not act in that play next week." "if i'd been born dumb," sighed jess afterward, "it would have been money in my pocket. i almost had to bite the tip of my tongue off to keep from saying something more." "and so ruin the whole play?" said laura softly. "huh! i guess hester grimes will do that," declared jess. "she moves about the stage like an automaton. she is going to get us a big laugh, but in the wrong place. now, you see." the girls rehearsed every afternoon, and the athletic work was neglected. mrs. case excused those who were engaged in producing the play. "the rose garden" was not such an easily acted play as they had at first supposed. mr. mann was patient with them; but in hester grimes' case he could not help the feeling of annoyance that took possession of him. hester grimes took offence so easily. "every rehearsal i look for her to cut up rusty," jess cried. "and somebody has got to play the part of the dark lady! it is not a part that can be cut out of the cast, although it is not a speaking part." hester had begun to complain, too, because she had no lines. she considered that she was being deprived of her rights, and was of less importance than the other girls, because she was dumb on the stage. "why! even bobby hargrew," she complained, "with her silly sailor part, has lines to repeat, besides that sailor's hornpipe in the first act. of course, you girls would wish the least important part onto me." "what nonsense, hester!" cried jess. "if you really understood the play and the significance of your part, you would not say such a thing. and do, do be less like a wooden image." "humph! i guess i know my part, jess morse," snapped hester. "it doesn't matter at all what i do on the stage." "what did i tell you?" groaned bobby. "'double! double!' and-so-forth. there is trouble brewing. if we all had measles or chicken-pox, and so couldn't give the play, we'd be in luck, i verily believe." "oh, don't, bobby!" begged dora lockwood. "you are so reckless." "just the same, i feel it in my bones that hester is going to kick over the traces," said bobby grimly. "if only margit salgo had been allowed to have the part," groaned dorothy. "it's gee gee's fault if the play is a failure," snapped bobby. never had the disagreeable teacher at central high been so little liked as at this time. they blamed miss carrington more than they did hester. as the party of troubled girls left the school-house on this particular afternoon, lily pendleton ran after them. "what do you think has happened?" she cried. "it's something bad, of course," groaned nellie agnew. "who is hurt?" asked laura. "it isn't that," said lily. "but poor purt sweet!" "now what has he done?" asked jess. "it is what they say he has done, not what he really has done," wailed lily. "the police have been to his house. and what do you think?" "i bet his mother's had a fit!" exclaimed bobby, in an undertone. "the police accuse purt of running down that man on market street the other saturday night," said lily warmly. "and purt doesn't know anything more about it than a baby! isn't it awful, girls?" chapter xviii where was purt? the police examination of purt sweet was no light matter. two of centerport's detective force had been working on the case ever since the stranger had been knocked down on market street, and, like chet belding and his friends, the detectives finally had come to the conclusion that prettyman sweet's automobile was the only perriton car in the city that had not been in storage on that night. the detectives' visit to the sweet residence, and purt's later call upon the chief of police at his command, were dreadfully shocking to the boy's mother. purt had to reassure her and insist that he was not going to be arrested and sent to jail at once; so he had not much time to be frightened himself. indeed, he came out in rather good colors on this particular occasion. the boy's father had long since died. purt had been indulged by his mother to a ridiculous degree, and as a usual thing purt's conversation and his activities were ridiculed by his schoolmates. "this disgrace will kill me, prettyman!" wailed mrs. sweet. "where does the disgrace come in," pleaded poor purt, "when i haven't really done anything?" "but they say you have!" "i can't help what they say." "you were out that evening with the car. i remember it very well," his mother declared. "what of it? i wasn't on market street the whole evening," grumbled the boy. "where were you then?" she demanded. it seemed as though everybody else asked purt sweet that question, from the chief of police down; and it was the one question the boy would not answer. he grew red, and sputtered, and begged the question, every time anybody sought to discover just where he was with the automobile on that saturday evening after dinner. even when chief donovan threatened him with arrest, purt said: "if i should tell you it wouldn't do any good. it would not relieve me of suspicion and would maybe only make trouble for other people. i was out with our car, and that is all there is to it. but i did not run that man down. i was not on market street." he stuck to this. and his honest manner impressed the head of the police force. besides, mrs. sweet was very wealthy, and if purt was arrested she would immediately bail him and would engage the best counsel in the county to defend her son. it is one thing to accuse a person of a fault. as chief donovan very well knew, it is an entirely different matter to prove such accusation. the news of purt's trouble was not long in getting to short and long in the hospital. chet and lance really thought the smaller boy would express some satisfaction over purt's trouble. but to their surprise billy took up cudgels for the dandy as soon as he was told that the police suspected him of the offense. "what's the matter with you, short?" demanded the big fellow. "you've been sure purt was guilty all the time." "i don't care!" declared billy. "he's one of us fellows, isn't he?" "admitted he goes to central high," chet said. "but he isn't one of our gang," lance added. "i don't care! the police are always too fresh," said billy, who had reason for believing that the centerport police sometimes made serious mistakes. billy had had his own experience, as related in "the girls of central high on lake luna." "then you don't believe purt did it?" demanded lance. "no, i don't. i was mistaken," declared short and long. "purt's all right" "wow! wow!" murmured chet. "see how he brought me here in his car when i was hurt. and look at the stuff purt's given me while i've been here," said billy excitedly. "he'd never have hurt that man and run away without seeing what he'd done. no, sir!" "crackey, billy!" said chet, "you've turned square around." "i know i have. and i ought to be ashamed of myself for ever distrusting purt," said the invalid vigorously. "then why won't purt tell where he was?" demanded lance doubtfully. "i don't care where he was," said billy. "if he says he didn't hit the man, he didn't. that's all. and we've got to prove it, boys." "some job you suggest," said chet slowly. "it looks to me as though pretty sweet was in a bad hole, and no mistake." even the most charitable of his schoolmates took this view of purt sweet's trouble. his denial of guilt did not establish the fact of his innocence. his inability, or refusal, to explain where he was at the time of the accident on market street in front of mr. belding's jewelry store made the situation very difficult indeed. "if he could only put forward an alibi," lance darby said, when the hill crowd of central high boys and girls discussed the matter. "but he won't say a word!" cried nellie. "i believe he is innocent." "then why doesn't he tell where he was at the time?" demanded laura sternly. "is he scared to tell the truth?" asked jess. "i don't think he is," chet observed thoughtfully. "somehow he acts differently from usual." "you're right," bobby declared, with frank approval of one of whom she had never approved before. "i believe there's a big change in old purt." "well, it's strange," laura remarked. "he never showed such obstinacy before." "he's never shown any particular courage before, either," said her brother. "that's what gets me!" "where does the courage come in?" demanded lance. "i believe chet is right," jess said. "purt is trying to shield somebody." "from what?" and "who?" were the chorused demands. "i don't know," jess told them. "there is somebody else mixed up in this trouble. it stands to reason purt would not be so obstinate if he had nothing to hide. and we are pretty much of the opinion--all of us--that he really did not run that man down. therefore, if he is not shielding some other person, what is he about?" "i've asked him frankly," chet said, "and all i could get out of him was that he 'couldn't tell.' no sense to that," growled the big fellow. it seemed that purt sweet had pretty well succeeded in puzzling his friends as well as the police. the latter were evidently waiting to get something provable on poor purt. then a warrant would be issued for his arrest. by this time the stranger who had been the start of all the trouble and mystery--the man from alaska, as the hospital force called him--was able to be up and wheeled in a chair, although his leg was not yet out of plaster. billy long heard of this, and he grew very anxious to see the man whose accident was the beginning of purt's trouble. billy had quickly become a favorite with both the nurses and doctors of the centerport hospital. he was brave in bearing pain, and he was as generous as he could be with the goodies and fruit and flowers that were brought to him. he divided these with the other patients in his ward, and cheered his mates with his lively chatter. at first, however, there had been an hour or so every other day when a screen was placed about billy's bed and the doctor and nurse had a very bad time, indeed, dressing the dreadful burns the boy had sustained. short and long could not help screaming at times, and when he did not really scream the others in the ward could hear his half-stifled moans and sobs. these experiences were hard to bear. when the dressings were over and his courage was restored the screen was removed from about billy's cot and he would grin ruefully enough at his nearer neighbors. "i'm an awful baby. too tender-hearted--that's me all over," he said once. "i never could stand seeing anybody hurt--and i can see just what they are doing to me all the time!" billy knew that the man from alaska was being wheeled up and down the corridor, and he begged so hard to speak with him that the nurse went out and asked the orderly to wheel the chair in to billy's cot. "so you are the brave boy i've heard about, are you?" said the stranger, smiling at the bandaged boy from central high. "i know how brave you've heard me," said billy soberly. "i do a lot of hollering when they are plastering me up." the man laughed and said: "just the same i am glad to know you. my name seems to have got away from me for the time being. my mind's slipped a cog, as you might say. what do they call you, son?" billy told him his name. "and," he added, "i was right there in front of chet belding's father's jewelry store when that automobile knocked you down." "you don't mean it?" "yes, sir. i saw the machine. it was a perriton car all right. it might even have been pretty sweet's car. but it wasn't pretty sweet driving it, i am sure." the boy's earnestness caught the man's full attention. "i guess this sweet boy they tell about is a friend of yours, son?" he said. "he is a friend all right, all right," said billy long. "and i never knew it till right here when i got hurt. purt--that's what we call him--is a good fellow. and i am sure he wouldn't do such a thing as to knock you down and then run away without finding out if he had hurt you." "i don't know how that may be," said the man seriously. "but whoever it was that ran me down did me a bad turn. i can't find my name--or who i am--or where i belong. i tell you what it is, billy long, that is a serious condition for anybody to be in." "i guess that's so," admitted the boy. "and you got your leg broken, too, in two places." "i don't mind much about the broken leg," said the man who had lost his name. "what i am sore about, billy long, is not having any name to use. it--it is awfully embarrassing." "yes, sir, i guess it is." "so, you see, i don't feel very kindly toward this sweet boy, if he was the one who knocked me down." "oh, but i'm sure he isn't the one." "why are you so sure?" "because he wouldn't be so mean about it, and lie, and all, if he had done it. you see, a boy who has been so nice to me as he has, couldn't really be so mean as all that to anybody else." "not conclusive," said the man. "you only make a statement. you don't offer proof." "but i--well!" ejaculated billy, "i'd do most anything to make you see that purt _couldn't_ be guilty of knocking you down." "i'll tell you," said the man without a name, smiling again, "i haven't any particular hard feelings against your friend. or i wouldn't have if i could get my name and memory back. so you find out some way of helping me recover my memory--you and your young friends, billy long--and i'll forgive the sweet boy, whether he hurt me or not." "suppose the cops arrest him?" asked billy worriedly. "i'll do all i can to keep them from annoying sweet if you boys and girls can find out who i am and where i belong," declared the man, laughing somewhat ruefully. and billy shook hands on that to his mind the task was not impossible. chapter xix laura listens laura belding had evolved an idea regarding "mr. nemo of nowhere," as bobby dubbed the stranger at the hospital. in fact, she had two ideas which were entwined in her thought. but up to this point she had found no time to work out either. she had taken nobody into her confidence; for mother wit was not one to "tell all she knew in a minute." on both points laura desired to consider her way with caution. she went shopping with her mother to several stores on market street one afternoon, skipping the rehearsal of "the rose garden" for this purpose. the christmas crowds were greater than she had ever seen them before. but the enthusiasm for the red cross drive had by no means faltered in spite of the season. ember night had gathered nearly five thousand dollars for the cause. laura treasured a very nicely worded letter of appreciation from the mayor's secretary, thanking the central high girl for her suggestion, which had proved so efficacious in money-raising. laura was not exhibiting this letter to very many people, but she was secretly proud of it. in every store she entered laura saw a red cross booth, while collectors with padlocked boxes were weaving in and out among the shoppers. "give again! warranted not to hurt you!" was the slogan. wearing a red cross button did not absolve one from being solicited. and she saw that the people were giving with a smile. centerport was still enthusiastic over the drive. laura seriously considered what she and her central high girl friends were trying to do for the fund. would the play be a success? if they only gave one performance and the audience was not enthusiastic enough to warrant a second, and then a third, she would consider that they had failed. all of a sudden, while she was thinking of this very serious fact, laura came face to face with janet steele. "you are just the girl i wished most to see, janet!" cried the central high girl. "i always want to see you, laura belding," declared the red cross girl, who was evidently off duty and homeward bound. "thank you, dear," laura said. "you must prove that. i want you to do me a favor." "what can i possibly do for you?" laughed janet. "hurry and tell me." "you may not be so willing after you hear what it is." "you doubt my willingness to prove my friendship?" demanded janet soberly. "not a bit of it! but, listen here." she told janet swiftly what she desired, and from the sparkle in her eyes and the rising flush in her face it was easily seen that laura had not asked a favor that janet would not willingly give. "oh, but my dear!" she cried, "i shall have to ask mother." "i presume you will," said laura, smiling. "shall i go along with you and see what she says?" "can you?" "i have done all my mother's errands--look at these bundles," said laura. "we might as well have this matter settled at once. your mother won't mind my coming in this way, will she?" "you may come in any way you wish, and any time you wish, my dear," said janet warmly. "mother very much approves of you." "it is sweet of you to say so," returned the girl of central high. "i shall be quite sure she approves of me if she lets you do what i want in this case, janet," and she laughed again as they turned off the busy main street into a quieter one. the invalid was at the long window, and beckoned to laura to come in before she saw that that was the visitor's intention. "i cannot begin to tell you how delighted we are to have you girls call," mrs. steele said, when she had greeted both her daughter and laura with a kiss. "it would be so nice if janet could go to school; then she might bring home a crowd of young folks every afternoon," and the invalid laughed. "but, you see, miss belding, i am so trying in the morning. it does seem that it is all aunt jinny and janet can do to get me out of my bed, and dressed, and fed, and seated here on my throne for the day." "it seems too bad that the weather is not so you can go out," laura said. "oh, i almost never go out," mrs. steele replied. "though i tell janet that when spring comes, if we can only get the agent to repair that porch, she can wheel me back and forth on it in my chair." "better than that, dear mrs. steele," laura promised, "we will come with our car and take you for a ride all over centerport, and along the lakeside drive. it is beautiful in the spring." "how nice of you!" cried the invalid. "but that, of course, depends upon whether we are in centerport when the pleasant weather comes," said mrs. steele sadly. "oh, my dear!" exclaimed laura, "do you mean that you think of going away?" "now, mother!" murmured janet, as though the thought was repugnant to her, too. "how can we tell?" cried the invalid, just a little excitedly. "you know, janet, if we should hear of your uncle----" "oh, mother!" sighed the girl, "i do wish you would give up hope of uncle jack's ever turning up again." "don't talk that way," said her mother sharply. "you do not know jack as i do. he was only my half brother, but the very nicest boy who ever lived. why, he gave up all his share of the income from my father's estate to me, and went off to the wilds to seek his own fortune. "how was he to know that some of the investments poor father made would turn out badly, and that our income would be reduced to a mere pittance? for i tell you, miss belding," added the invalid less vehemently, "that we have almost nothing, divided by three, to live on. that is, an income for one must support us three. aunt jinny is one of us, you know." "now, mother!" begged janet "sha'n't i get tea for us?" "of course! what am i thinking of?" returned her mother. "tell aunt jinny to make it in the flowered teapot i fancy the flowered teapot to-day--and the blue-striped cups and saucers. "do you know, miss belding, what the complete delight of wealth is? it is an ability to see variety about one in the home. you need not use the same old cups and saucers every day! if i were rich i would have the furniture changed in my room every few days. sameness is my _bête noire_." "it must be very hard for you, shut in so much," said laura quietly. "and poor janet is shut in a good deal of the time with me, and suffers because of my crotchets. ah, if we could only find jack weld--my half brother, you know, miss belding. he went away to make his fortune, and i believe he made it. he has probably settled down somewhere, in good health and with plenty, and without an idea as to our situation. he never was a letter writer. and he had every reason to suppose that we were well fixed for life. then, we have moved about so much----" janet came back with the tea things. mrs. steele left the subject of her brother, and laura found opportunity of broaching the matter on which she had come. what she wished janet to do pleased the latter's mother immensely. she was, in fact, delighted. "how nice of you to suggest it, miss belding," said mrs. steele. "i know janet will be glad to do it. will you not, janet?" "i--i'll try," said her daughter, flushed and excited at the prospect laura's suggestion opened before her. chapter xx two things about hester scarcely was bobby hargrew of a happier disposition and of more volatile temperament than the lockwood twins. dora and dorothy, while still chubby denizens of the nursery, saw that the world was bound to be full of fun for them if they attacked it in the right spirit. dora and dorothy's mother had died when they were very small, and the twins had been left to the mercy of relatives and servants, some of whom did not understand the needs of the growing girls as their mother would have done. much of this is told in "the girls of central high on lake luna." almost as soon as the twins could stagger about in infant explorations of the house and grounds, they were wont to exchange the red and blue ribbons tied on their dimpled wrists by their nurse to tell them apart. for never were two creatures so entirely alike as dora and dorothy lockwood. and they had grown to maidenhood with, seemingly, the same features, the same voices, the same tastes, and with an unbounded love for and confidence in each other. as they always dressed alike nobody could be sure which was dora and which dorothy. now that they were well along in high school, the twins had been put on their honor not to recite for each other or to help each other in any unfair way. there really was a very close tie between them--almost an uncanny chord of harmony. indeed, if one was punished the other wept! the teachers of central high were fond of the twins--all save miss carrington. her attitude of considering the pupils her deadly enemies extended to the happy-go-lucky sisters. she did not believe there was such a thing as "school-girl honor." that is why she had such a hard time with her pupils. in the play the girls of central high were rehearsing, dora and dorothy played two distinct characters. makeup and costume made this possible. but at the first dress rehearsal the twins pretty nearly broke up the scene in which they both appeared on the stage, by reciting each other's parts. dora was an old, old woman--a village witch with a cane--while dorothy was a frisky young matron from the city. when they met by the rustic well in the rose garden, haunted by that "dark lady" who was giving mr. mann so much trouble, dora uttered the sprightly lines of her blooming sister, while the latter mouthed the old hag's prophecies. it was ridiculous, of course, and the girls could not go on with the rehearsal for some minutes because of their laughter. but mr. mann was not so well pleased. dora and dorothy promised not to do it again. "if i'd done anything like that, you'd all have jumped on me," hester grimes declared with a sniff. "it wouldn't have been considered funny at all." "and it wouldn't have been," murmured jess to laura. "there is one thing about you, hessie," said bobby, in her most honeyed tone, "that 'precludes,' as gee gee would say, your doing such a thing." "what's that, miss smarty?" "you are not twins," declared bobby, with gravity. "so you could not very well play that trick." "oh, my!" murmured nellie, "what would we do if hester were twins?" "don't mention it!" begged jess. "the thought is terrifying." but there proved to be a second thing about hester which came out prominently within the week. this was something that not many of the girls of central high had suspected before the moment of revelation. the first performance of "the rose garden" was set for friday night. there would follow a matinee and evening performance on saturday--provided, of course, the first performance encouraged the managers to go on with the production. "it all depends," sighed jess, bearing a deal of the responsibility for the success of the piece on her young shoulders. "if we are punk, then nobody will come back to see the show a second time, or advise other folks to see it. and if we don't make a heap of money for the red cross, after all the advertising we've had, what will folks think of us?" they were really all worried by the fear of failure. all but hester. she did not appear to care. and it did seem as though every time she rehearsed she made the "dark lady" of the rose garden more wooden and impossible than before. at length mr. mann had given her up as hopeless. it seemed impossible to make hester act like a human being even, let alone like a graceful lady. "so you see, now that he lets me alone, i do very well," asserted hester, with vast assurance and a characteristic toss of her head. "i knew i was right all the time. now, finally, mr. mann admits it." when she said this to lily, even lily had her doubts. when bobby heard her say it, she fairly hooted her scorn. of course, hester instantly flew into a rage with bobby. this was only two days before the fateful friday and before recitations in the morning. the girls had gathered in the main lower corridor of central high. the bell for classes had not yet rung. "i'll show you how smart you are, clara hargrew!" hester almost screamed. "i've a good mind to slap you!" "that might make me smart, hess," drawled the smaller girl coolly. "but it would not change the facts in the case at all. you are spoiling the whole play--the most effective scenes in it, too--by your obstinacy. mr. mann has given you up as a bad egg, that's all. if the play is a failure, it will be your fault." and for once laura belding did not interfere to stop bobby's tart tongue. perhaps the bell for assembly rang too quickly for mother wit to interfere. at any rate, before hester could make any rejoinder, they were hurrying in to their seats. but the big girl was in a towering rage. she was fairly pale, she was so angry. her teeth were clenched. her eyes sparkled wrathfully. she was in no mood to face miss grace g. harrington, who chanced to have the juniors before her for mediæval history during the first period on this wednesday morning. naturally, with the first performance of the play but two days away, those girls who were to act in it could not give their undivided attention to recitations. but miss carrington had determined to make no concessions. she was firmly convinced that central high should support no such farcical production as "the rose garden." anything classical--especially if it were beyond the acting ability of the girls--would have pleased the obstinate woman. "something," as nellie said, "in which we would all be draped in greek style, in sheets, and wear sandals and flesh colored hose, covered from neck to instep, and with long speeches in blank verse to mouth. that is the sort of a performance to satisfy miss carrington." "amen!" agreed bobby. "wait till she sees bobby's knickers," chuckled dora lockwood. "you know gee gee always looks as though she wanted to put on blinders when she comes into the girls' gym." of course, these remarks were not passed in history class. but dora was somehow inattentive just the same on this morning. she sat on one side of hester grimes and dorothy on the other. the angry girl between the twins looked like a vengeful high priestess of trouble--and trouble appeared. miss carrington asked dora a direct question, speaking her name as she always did, and glaring at the twin in question near-sightedly, in an endeavor to see the girl's lips move when she answered. she was sure of dora's seat; but, of course, she could not be sure whether dora or dorothy was sitting in it. her refusal to accept the fact that the twins were on their honor kept miss carrington in doubt. "relate some incident, with date, in the life of saladin, dora," the teacher commanded. dora hesitated. this was a "jump question," as the pupils called it. miss carrington, as she frequently did, had gone back several lessons for this query, and dora was hazy about saladin. "come, dora!" ejaculated the teacher harshly. "have you no answer?" dorothy leaned forward to look across hester's desk at her sister. she was anxious that dora should not fail. she would have imparted, could she have done so, her knowledge of saladin to her twin. but there was only nervous anxiety in her look and manner. the moment dora's lips opened and she began her reply, hester turned sharply and stared at dorothy. it was a despicable trick--a mean and contemptible attempt to get the twins into trouble. and hester did it deliberately. she knew that miss carrington was much more near-sighted than she was willing to acknowledge. seeing hester look at dorothy caused the teacher to believe that dorothy was answering for her sister. "stop!" commanded miss carrington, rising quickly from her seat on the platform. dora, who had begun very well at last, halted in her answer and looked surprised. miss carrington was glaring now at dorothy. "how dare you, dorothy lockwood?" she demanded, her face quite red with anger. "there is no trusting any of you girls. cheat!" there was a sudden intake of breath all over the room. some of the girls looked positively horror-stricken. for the teacher to use such an expression shocked laura, and jess, and nellie for an instant, as though the word had been addressed to them personally. "oh!" gasped jess. the teacher flashed her a glance. "silence, miss morse!" dorothy had risen slowly to her feet. "what--what do you mean, miss carrington?" she whispered. "do you say i--i have _cheated?"_ "cheat!" repeated the teacher, with an index finger pointing dorothy down. "i saw you. i heard you. you started to answer for your sister." "i did not!" cried the accused girl. "she certainly did not, miss carrington!" repeated dora, rising likewise. "silence!" exclaimed miss carrington. "i would not believe either of you. you are both disgracing your classmates and central high." a sibilant hiss rose in the back of the room. the girls were more angry at this outburst of the teacher than all of them dared show. dorothy burst into a fit of weeping. she covered her face with her hands and ran out of the room. dora, defying miss carrington, muttered: "ugly, mean thing!" then she ran after her sister. the room was in tense excitement. miss carrington saw suddenly that she positively had nobody on her side. she began to question the girls immediately surrounding the twins' seats. "you saw her answer for her sister, miss morse?" "i did not," declared jess icily. "were you not looking at dorothy, laura?" asked the teacher. "no, miss carrington. i was looking at dora." "and dora answered!" cried the usually gentle and retiring nellie agnew. "why----miss grimes!" exclaimed the disturbed teacher. "you know that dorothy was answering for her sister?" "oh, no, miss carrington," denied hester. "but you looked at her?" "yes." "what for?" snapped the teacher. "why," drawled hester, "that pin dorothy wears in her blouse was on crooked and it attracted my attention." that was the second thing about hester grimes. she was not alone a dunce when it came to acting, she was a prevaricator as well. chapter xxi and a third thing what might have happened following this explosion of bad temper and ill-feeling, had mr. sharp himself not entered the room, nobody will ever know. miss carrington had been led into a most unjust and unkind criticism of the lockwood twins. she had been deliberately led into it by hester grimes. she knew hester had done this. the other girls knew it, too; and they all, the young folks, believed that the teacher had been most cruel and unfair. mr. sharp could not have failed to appreciate the fact that there was a tense feeling in the room that never arose from an ordinary recitation in mediæval history. but he smilingly overlooked anything of the kind. "pardon me, miss carrington--and you, young ladies," he said, bowing and smiling. "i have been in the senior classes, and now i am here to make the same statement i made there, and that i shall make to the sophomores later. may i speak to your class, miss carrington?" miss carrington could not find her voice, but she bowed her permission for the principal to go on. "several of you young ladies," said mr. sharp, "are to take part in the play on friday evening. your work, in school, i fear, is being scamped a bit. do the best you can; give your interest and attention as well as you may to the recitations. "but i wish to announce that, until after this week, we teachers will excuse such failures as you may make in your work; only, of course, all faults will have to be made up after the holidays. we want you to give the play in a way to bring honor upon the school as a whole. "i have enjoyed your last two rehearsals, and feel confident that, with a few raw spots smoothed over, you will produce 'the rose garden' in a way to please your friends and satisfy your critics. the faculty as a whole feel as i do about it. go in and win!" the little speech cleared the atmosphere of the class-room immediately. it did not please miss carrington, of course; but the girls felt that they could even forgive her after what mr. sharp had said. dora and dorothy lockwood had been insulted and maligned. they did not appear again at that recitation. "but do you think old gee gee would say that she was wrong, and beg their pardon?" demanded bobby, at recess. "not on your life!" "i don't know that a teacher in her situation could publicly acknowledge she was utterly in the wrong," laura observed thoughtfully. "i would like to know why not?" demanded jess morse. "why, you see, the fault really lies upon the conscience of one of us girls," said laura, looking significantly at hester. the latter turned furiously, as though she had been waiting for and expecting just this criticism. but surely she had not expected it from this source. all the girls were amazed to hear laura speak so harshly. "oh, laura!" murmured jess. "now you have done it! she's going to blow up!" "and she'll leave us flat on the play business," groaned bobby. hester came across the reception room to laura with flashing eyes and her face mottled with rage. "what is that you say, laura belding?" she demanded. "i will repeat it," said laura firmly. "the whole trouble is on your conscience. you deliberately led miss carrington astray." "oh! i did, did i?" "you most certainly did. miss carrington was both cruel to dora and dorothy and unfair. but you knew her failing, and you led her to believe that dorothy was answering the question she put to dora. no wonder miss carrington was angered." "is that so?" sneered hester. "and who are you, to tell me when i'm wrong?" "somebody has to tell you, hester," said jess sweetly, for she was bound to take up cudgels for her chum. "and you can mind your business, too, jess morse!" snarled hester. "dear, dear!" nellie begged. "let us not quarrel." yet for once mother wit seemed determined upon making trouble. usually acting as peacemaker, the girls around her were amazed to hear her say: "you are quite in the wrong, hester. and you know it. you should beg miss carrington's pardon; and you should ask pardon of all of us, as well as of dora and dorothy, for disgracing the class." "what do you mean?" screamed hester grimes. "do you suppose i would tell old gee gee that it was my fault?" "you deliberately prevaricated--to her and to us," said laura calmly. "call me a story-teller, do you?" cried the butcher's daughter. "how dare you! i'll get even with you, laura belding!" "it is the truth," laura said, slowly and firmly. "i'll fix you for this, laura belding!" pursued hester, trembling with rage. she turned to sweep them all with her angry glance. "i'll fix you all! i won't have anything to do with any of you out of school--so there! and i won't act in your hateful old play!" she ran out of the room as she said this and left the girls--at least, most of them--in a state of blank despair. the bell rang for the next session before anybody could speak. laura seemed quite calm and unruffled. the others got through their recitations as best they could until lunch hour. jess and bobby caught up with laura on the street when the latter went out for her customary walk. "oh, laura! what shall we do?" almost wept jess. "only two days! nobody can learn that part--not even as good as hester knew it--before friday night." at that moment chet belding appeared from around the corner. he was red and almost breathless--in a high state of excitement, and no mistake. "what do you think, girls?" he cried, "we got a line on purt sweet's automobile and why he has been hiding about where it was that saturday night the man from alaska was hurt." "what is it? tell us?" asked laura. "i met dan smith. he goes to the east high, you know, and he lives across the street from the grimes' place. you know?" "hester grimes?" cried jess. "yes. your dear friend. well, dan was up all night that night with a raging toothache. he said the grimes' had a party. purt was there with his car. dan knows the car was taken away from the house and was gone more than an hour that evening, and that purt did not go with the car. "see? he's shielding somebody--the poor fish!" added chet. "that is what short and long has been saying. now, what do you know about that?" chapter xxii the case for and against purt the news chet had divulged was so exciting that the girls quite forgot for the time being the wreck that hester grimes seemed to have made of the forthcoming performance of "the rose garden." their chattering tongues mentioned hester more than once, however, as they discussed chet's news. whether purt sweet's car had run down the man from alaska or not, what did hester know about it? "can it be possible that purt is shielding hester in this matter?" laura queried gravely. "oh, it couldn't be! she wasn't in that car that knocked down mr. nemo of nowhere," bobby declared emphatically. "he has always favored hester and lil," jess "pooh!" again put in the irrepressible. "that's only because pretty sweet thinks there is nothing in this world so good or great as money; and both the grimes and the pendleton families have got oodles of it." "i don't know about that," chet said quite as thoughtfully as his sister. "it may not be their folks' money that attracts purt to those two girls." "what then?" demanded bobby. "they flatter him. he can lap that up like our cat laps cream." "that is true," agreed jess morse. "certainly we don't flatter, him," bobby said bluntly. "it may be that we have never given purt a fair deal," laura observed. "hester and lil do not make fun of him." "and is he paying hester back by shouldering something for her?" jess asked. "oh, she never was in that car when it was taken away from where purt had it parked before the grimes' house," chet hastened to declare with assurance. "i got all the facts from dan smith. he'd swear to them." "let us hear the particulars," begged laura. "why, dan says he was up at his window on the third floor of their house watching the lights in the grimes' house. it was a big party. dancing on the lower floor, and a crowd of folks. he saw two men--or maybe boys--run out of the side door and down to the gate, as though they were sneaking away from some of the others, you know." "well?" his sister responded. "go on." "dan didn't know the fellows. fact was, he couldn't see their faces very well, and so he could not be sure of their identity in any case." "the street is pretty wide there, it's a fact," murmured bobby. "those two fellows looked back as though they expected to be spied upon. but they went to the car, found it was all right (purt had the radiator blanketed) and got in. the starter worked, and she got into action as slick as a whistle, dan said. he thought it was all right or he would have raised the window and halloaed at 'em. there were no girls with them. the two fellows went off alone in the car." "there were two men in the car that struck mr. nemo of nowhere," murmured bobby. "purt appeared, dan says, after a little while and looked for the car. he got quite excited. asked everybody that came along if they had seen it. he was in a stew for fair. and while he was running up and down, popping off like an engine exhaust, back came the car with only one of the fellows in it." "ha! the mystery deepens," said jess, in mock tragic tones. "what became of the other villain?" "you answer that question," grinned chet. "you asked it!" "but what happened then?" asked laura interestedly. "there was a row between purt and the fellow who brought back the car. purt pointed to the mudguard on the off side, as though it had been bent, or scraped in some way----" "that's what struck the man as he fell on market street," interrupted bobby with confidence. "i saw it hit him." "it was blood on the guard," said laura. "oh, my!" gasped jess. "do you suppose so?" "like enough," chet agreed. "but it was too far away for dan to see. and finally purt drove off without returning to the house with the other fellow." "but who was he?" jess asked. "who?" "the fellow purt quarreled with for taking the car." "give it up," said chet, shaking his head. "and what became of the other man?" laura queried. "there were two in the car when it hit the man from alaska," jess declared. "gee!" ejaculated bobby. "there's the nine-ten express west" "who----what do you mean, young one?" demanded chet. "'young one' yourself!" snapped clara hargrew, immediately on her dignity. "there are no medals on you for age, chet belding." "or whiskers, either," laughed laura, slyly eyeing her brother, for she was aware that he had a safety razor hidden away in his bureau drawer. "come, come!" said jess, "what about this nine-ten express bobby spoke of?" "why," said the younger girl, "i noticed mr. belding's clock--the big chronometer in the show window--as we came out of the store that saturday evening. it was just nine o'clock when we stood there and saw mr. nemo of nowhere run down by the car. anybody driving that car could have made the railroad station just about in time for the ten minutes' past nine express--the cannon ball, don't they call it?" "that is the train," admitted laura. "but why----" "just wait a minute. give me time," advised bobby. "that car that did the damage was headed for the station." "true," murmured jess. "at least, it was going in that direction." "and when purt's car came back to the grimes' house after those two fellows dan smith saw run away with it, there was only one person in the car. the second individual had been dropped." "at the station!" exclaimed chet, catching the idea. "that is why they stole purt's car." "i declare," laura said. "your idea sounds very reasonable, bobby." "bobby is right there with the brainworks," said chet, with admiration. "oh," said bobby, "i'm not altogether 'non compos mend-us,' as the fellow said." chet was very serious, after all. "i tell you what," he blurted out, "if purt won't help himself with the police, maybe we can get him out of the muss in spite of all." "why does he want to act the donkey?" demanded jess. "are you sure he is?" asked laura thoughtfully. "i tell you," said the excited chet, "we can find out who had to leave hester grimes' party to catch that express. it ought to be a good lead. what do you think, laura?" "i am wondering," said mother wit, "if we have always been fair to prettyman sweet? of course, he is silly in some ways, and dresses ridiculously, and is not much of a sport. but if he is keeping still about this matter so as not to make trouble for hester, or any of her folks, there is something fine in his action, don't you think?" "well--yes," admitted jess. "it would seem so." "i never thought of poor purt as a chivalrous knight," said bobby. "maybe laura is right," remarked chet, rather grudgingly. "he is much more of a gentleman, perhaps, than we have given him credit for being," laura concluded. "i hope it is proved so in the end." chapter xxiii the last rehearsal that afternoon, when the girls gathered for rehearsal, hester, nor anybody else, appeared to play "the dark lady of the roses." mr. mann made no comment upon this fact, but he looked very serious, indeed. the play was acted from the first entrance to the final curtain. the other characters had to speak of, and even to, the important and missing character, and it was plain to all as the play progressed that the absence of "the dark lady" was going to be a fatal hindrance to the success of the piece. even lily pendleton, hester's last lingering friend, showed a good deal of spleen at hester's action. "i never will forgive hessie," lily said, almost in tears. and the other girls had to urge her over and over again to be sure and come herself on thursday for the last dress rehearsal. "if the piece is wrecked, let us be castaways together," begged jess. "don't anybody else fail. promise, girls!" they promised sadly. mr. mann had hurried away as soon as the last words were said. "too disgusted to even speak to us," nellie said sadly. "i am real sorry for him, girls. he has tried so hard." "he deserves a leather medal," said bobby emphatically. "and what do we deserve?" demanded one of the twins. "i know what hester grimes deserves," said bobby darkly. it was not likely, however, that hester grimes would get her deserts. they were all agreed on that point, if on no other. that wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping spirits--all but laura belding, at least. perhaps it was because she always had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers. at least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. she carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to billy long's ward. the active billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital by now. he was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear on his spirits. "gee, laura belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this side of eternity. have they changed the hours? aren't they twice as long as they used to be?" "no, indeed, my poor boy," laura said. "there are only sixty minutes in each. i wish i could shorten the time for you." "take it from me," growled short and long, having hard work to keep back the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. don't let anybody tell you different." but laura caught his attention the next moment with purt sweet's trouble. what chet had found out from dan smith, hester grimes' neighbor, interested the quick mind of billy long immensely. "gee! i knew it must be something like that. sure! purt is shielding somebody for hester. that's it!" "have you no idea who it can be? the man who drove the car, i mean, or the one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? hester has no brothers----" "say!" exclaimed billy, "there is somebody who will know. if purt was there at the party, so was lil pendleton." "lily!" exclaimed laura. "i never thought of her." "and if she is likely to be sore on hester now, as you say you all are," billy continued, "she won't be for shielding hester or any of her friends or relatives. let me tell you that!" "i believe she must have been at the party. hester invites her to everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the other girls of central high." "go to it!" urged the patient "ask lil pendleton. i'd like to have purt cleared of this. i told that man from alaska so. but, gee, laura! i wish we could find some way of giving him the right steer." "you mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?" "yep. he says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. he's bad off, he is!" "i am going to see him now. i have an idea, billy." "you're always full of ideas, laura," the boy said admiringly. "i've been raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer of an idea how to help him. he says if we can show him how to find his memory, he'll do all he can for purt," billy added wistfully. "you are very anxious to help prettyman sweet, aren't you, billy?" suggested the girl of central high as she rose to go. "you bet i am." "why? you boys never thought much of him before, you know." billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "i tell you," he said, "we never gave purt a fair deal, i guess. he's all right. he isn't like chet, or lance, or reddy butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts to purt." "you think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?" "you bet!" said billy vigorously. "he's been mighty nice to me; and i always was playing jokes on him, and--aw! when a fellow lies like i do in bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy gruffly. "sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after all." "i am going to see your friend, the alaskan miner, now," the girl said, squeezing the boy's hand understandingly. "if you find out some way of jogging his memory, i'd like to be in on it," billy cried. "you shall," promised laura, as she tripped away. by this time laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now established with his particular nurse. he hailed the girl's appearance almost as gladly as billy long had done. "your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of course--as welcome as can be," he said. "i'd like to do something when i get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. but if i can't get a grip on what and who i am----" "i have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected laura. "you know, you must have been doing something all these years since you won your fortune in alaska." "surely! but what became of my wealth? that is a hard question." "perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. then you will gradually remember it all. have you those bank-notes they say you carried in your pocket when you were brought in?" "why, they are in the hospital safe. i haven't had to use much of my money yet," he said, puzzled. "i want to look at that money--all of it," said laura. "it is too late to-night, but to-morrow afternoon i will come with my brother, and i wish you would have those bank-notes here. i have an idea." "i'll do just as you say, miss laura," said the man. "but i don't understand----" "you will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away. there was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that night--and laura belding was partly at fault. she retained all her usual placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their prophecies of ill. this was the day of the last rehearsal. mr. mann had told them that he wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public performance of "the rose garden" on the following evening. "i just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed jess, before mr. mann called the rise of the curtain. everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. the curtain was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit. the girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly to miss carrington's disapproval. since her "run-in" with the lockwood twins, as bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting, although quite as stern-looking as ever. dora and dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement over the incident in history class, and were so much interested in their parts in the play now that they forgot all about gee gee's ill treatment. indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state of excitement. although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant. bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done credit to any "garby" in the navy. jess, as the swashbuckling hero, swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as the author intended the part to be played. then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "adrian" turned to point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs. jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander. with incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than jess could possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as she lightly trod the fictitious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience. it was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or jess morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her amazement. chapter xxiv mr. nemo, of nowhere "who is it?" "can it be margit salgo?" "how very, very wonderful!" these were some of the ejaculations of the girls behind the scenes. at just the right moment the figure of the dark lady had glided from the dressing-rooms to the wings and gone on at the cue. her acting gave just the needed touch to the pretty scene. her appearance had been most charming. and, above all, the surprise had been "such a relief!" "i'm so glad hester got mad with us and refused to act," sighed bessie yeager. "whoever this girl is, she is fine." "is it a professional mr. mann has engaged?" somebody wanted to know. "laura belding! laura belding!" cried dora. "what do you know about it?" "i warrant laura knows all about it," said jess, recovered from her amazement. "it is just like mother wit to have saved us. and i believe i recognize that very charming lady mystery--do i not?" "isn't she splendid?" cried laura, enthusiastically, "i knew she could do it. and mr. mann has been giving her an hour's training every day for a week." "goodness!" drawled lily pendleton, "how did you know hester would cut up so mean?" "doesn't she always do something to queer us if she can?" snapped bobby. "laura, you are a wonder!" "it is janet steele," declared jess. "of course! i should have thought of her myself. she is all right--just the one we needed." and it took some courage on jess' part for her to say this, for she knew that chet belding had expressed very warm admiration indeed of janet steele. the rehearsal went off splendidly after that. everybody was encouraged. the rotund little mr. mann beamed--"more than ever like a cherub," bobby declared. they came to the final curtain with tremendous applause from the back benches where some of the faculty sat in the dark. "and i do believe," said nellie agnew, in almost a scared voice, "that gee gee applauded! can it be possible, girls? do you suppose that for once she gives us credit for knowing a little something?" "if she applauded, her hands slipped by mistake!" grumbled bobby. "you know very well that nothing would change gee gee's opinion. not even an earthquake." it was late when the rehearsal was over, and laura knew that chet would be waiting outside with their car. she hurried jess and bobby, and even janet, into their outer wraps as quickly as possible. "for you might as well go along with us, janet," laura said to the new girl "we're going to the hospital first, but we'll drop you at your home coming back." just what they were to do at the hospital nobody knew save laura and chet, and they refused to explain. when they arrived at the institution they went directly to the private room now occupied by mr. nemo of nowhere. billy long, up in a chair for the first time, was present to greet the girls of central high. and the man from alaska seemed particularly glad to see them. "here is the money, miss laura," he said, producing a packet of crisp bank-notes. "i'd give it all to know just who i am. i seem to be right on the verge of discovering it to-day; yet something balks me." "oh, look at all that money!" crowed billy, as laura accepted the bills, while chet, with the help of the interested nurse, arranged the bed-table and gave the man a pad and a fountain pen. the head surgeon, who had taken a great interest in the case and with whom laura had already conferred, tiptoed into the room and stood to look on. "you bankers," said laura, laughing, and speaking to the patient, "are always so much better off than ordinary folks. you pass out any old kind of money to your customers; but you never see a banker with anything but new bank-notes in his pocket." the man listened to her sharply. a sudden quickened interest appeared in his countenance. the others heard mother wit's speech with growing excitement. "see," said the girl of central high, extracting one of the bank-notes from the packet "here is another bill on the drovers' levee bank, of osage, ohio. did you notice that? doesn't it sound familiar to you?" she repeated the name of the bank and its locality slowly. "you have more bills of that same bank. but none like the one you gave chet when you bought that lavallière for 'the nice little girl' you told him you expected to give it to." the man stared at her. he seemed enthralled by what she said. laura proceeded in her quiet way: "just write this name, please: 'bedford knox.' thanks. now write it again. he is cashier of your bank in osage, ohio." jess barely stifled a cry with her handkerchief. but everybody else was silent, watching the man laboriously writing the name as requested by laura. it was a disappointment. no doubt of that the man did not write the name as though he were familiar with it at all. but laura was still smiling when he looked up at her, almost childishly, for further directions. "now try this other, please," said the girl firmly. "two men always sign bank-notes to make them legal tender. the cashier and the president the president of the drovers' levee bank, of osage, ohio, is----" she hesitated. the man poised his pen over the paper expectantly. said laura, briskly: "write 'peyton j. weld.'" at her words janet steele uttered a startled exclamation. the man did not notice this. he wrote the name as laura requested. chet, looking over his shoulder and with one of the osage bank-notes in his hand for comparison, watched the signature dashed off in almost perfect imitation of that upon the bank-note. "you guessed it, mother wit!" the big boy cried. "write it again, mr. weld. that is your name as sure as you live!" the surgeon stepped quickly to the bedside and his sharp eyes darted from the bank-note in the boy's hand to the signature his patient had written. the man looked wonderingly about the room, his puzzled gaze drifting from one to another of his visitors until it finally fastened upon the pale countenance of janet steele. catching his eye, the girl stepped forward impulsively, her hands clasped. "uncle jack!" she breathed. "you--you look quite like your mother used to, my dear," the man in bed said in rather a strange voice. the surgeon eased him back upon the pillows, and at a nod the nurse sent the visitors out of the room. in the corridor they all stood amazed, staring at janet. chapter xxv it is all rounded up "of course," lily pendleton confessed, "i was at hester's party," "and purt sweet was there?" queried laura earnestly. "mr. sweet certainly was present, too," said the other girl. "you girls need not be so jealous if we are the only two from central high that got invited." "you can have my share and welcome," said bobby. "and mine, too," confessed jess. "these interrogations are not inspired by jealousy," laughed mother wit. it was on friday as the girls gathered for recitations that this conversation occurred. lily pendleton was inclined to object to having her intimacy with hester grimes inquired into. "do you remember what night that party was held, lily?" asked laura. "why, no. on a saturday night, i believe." "quite so. and on a particular saturday night," said laura. "you said it!" murmured bobby. "i don't know what you mean!" cried lily pendleton. "but you will before i get through with you," said laura. "now, listen! you know about that man who had his leg broken on market street?" "the one the police say purt ran down with his car?" "the same." "of course i do," lily cried. "and purt is as innocent as you are!" "granted," said laura. "therefore you will help us explain the mystery, and so relieve purt sweet of suspicion. for he refuses to say anything himself to the police." "why--why----what do i know about it?" demanded lily. "do you know that the party was held the very saturday night the man was hurt?" "no! was it?" "it was. and purt had his car up there at the grimes' house." "did he? i didn't know. he went away early, i believe." "and earlier still a couple of boys, or men, borrowed purt's car without his knowing it--until afterward," laura declared earnestly. "one of those fellows had to catch a train." "why, that was hester's cousin, jeff rounds! he lives at norridge. don't you know?" "who was the other fellow?" asked laura sharply. "why--i----oh! it must have been tom langley. he lives next door to hester. do you know," said lily, preening a little, "i think tom is kind of sweet on hessie." "good night!" moaned bobby. "what is the matter with him? is he blind?" "he must have had very bad eyesight or he would not have run down that poor mr. weld on market street!" exclaimed jess tartly. "what do you mean?" gasped lily. "tom langley has gone away for the winter anyway. he went suddenly----" "right after that party, i bet a cooky," cried bobby. "well--ye-es," admitted lily. "scared!" exclaimed jess. "the coward!" cried laura. "and left poor purt to face the music," bobby observed. "well, old purt is better than we ever gave him credit for. now we'll make him square himself with the police." it was mr. nemo of nowhere, now mr. peyton j. weld, who had the most to do with settling the police end of purt sweet's trouble. it was some weeks before he could do this, for the shock of his mental recovery racked the man greatly. for some days the surgeon would not let the young folk see their friend whose mind had been so twisted. "i don't know but we did more harm than good, laura," chet belding said anxiously, when they discussed mr. weld's condition. "i don't believe so," his sister said. "at any rate, we revealed him as janet's uncle jack, and the discovery has done mrs. steele a world of good already." that the man who, for a time, had forgotten who he was and had forgotten a number of years of his life, finally recovered completely, can safely be stated. his very first outing from the hospital was in purt sweet's car, and the boy drove him first of all to the office of the chief of police. purt had refused utterly to make trouble for either hester grimes' cousin jeff or for tom langley. mr. weld assured the chief of police that, although it was purt's car that had struck him down on the icy street, purt had not been in the car at the time. nor did the boy of central high have anything to do with the accident. his car had been borrowed without permission by "parties unknown," as far as mr. weld was concerned, and to this day the police of centerport are rather hazy as to just who it was that stole purt sweet's car and committed the assault. "and i feel sort of hazy myself," jess morse said, when they were all talking it over at one time. "mostly hazy about this man from nowhere. how did he so suddenly become janet steele's uncle jack?" "and his name 'peyton'?" added nellie agnew. "why, his middle name was john--they always called him by it at home," explained laura belding. "and, of course, janet and her mother knew nothing about the name written on those osage bank bills. i didn't suspect the relationship myself. "but i began to be quite sure that he must have had something to do with the bank for which those bills were issued. and it seemed probable that, as he had so much money with him when he landed in centerport, that he must be somebody in osage of wealth and prominence. i wrote secretly to the postmaster at osage and learned that the president of the drovers' levee bank had gone east on a vacation--presumably to hunt up some relatives that he had not seen for some time." "sly mother wit!" cried jess. "not such a wonderful thing to do," laughed laura. "not half so wonderful," put in the irrepressible bobby hargrew, "as it seemed to the countryman who came to town and stood gazing up at the tall steeple of the cathedral. as he gazed the bell began to toll the hick stopped a passer-by and said: "'tell me, why does the bell ring at this time of day?' "the other man studied the hick for a moment and then said: 'that's easy. there's somebody pulling on the rope.'" "well," said nellie, when the laugh had subsided, "i guess janet and her mother are glad our laura had such a bright idea." "of course! they are going back to osage with mr. weld when he has fully recovered. and so we shall lose an awfully nice girl friend," laura declared. "gee!" sighed chet. "and such a pretty girl!" jess said not a word. * * * * * of course, all twisted threads must be straightened out at the end of the story; but our tale really ends with the performance of "the rose garden." that on friday night was most enthusiastically received by the friends and parents of the girls of central high. it was a worthy production, and the girls deserved all the applause they received. it encouraged them to give two further performances, and altogether the three netted a large sum for the red cross. the play, in fact, was the means of raising more money for the fund than any other single method used for that object in centerport. the city "went over the top" in its quota of both memberships and funds, and that before christmas. the girls of central high could rest on their laurels over the holidays, knowing that they had done well. "but wait till gee gee gets after us after new year's," prophesied bobby. "don't be so pessimistic," said jess. "maybe she won't." "why won't she?" demanded dora lockwood. "nothing will change her," sighed dora's twin. "say!" gasped bobby, stricken with a sudden thought, "maybe she'll get the pip, or something, and not be able to teach. that is our only hope!" "suppose we turn over a new leaf, as miss carrington won't," suggested laura in her placid way. "what's that?" demanded bobby suspiciously. "suppose we agree not to annoy her any more than we can help for the rest of the school year?" "there! isn't that just like you, laura belding?" demanded jess. "suggesting the impossible." this was said in the wings of the school stage during the last performance of "the rose garden." the curtain went up on the last act and the girls became quiet they watched janet steele, as the dark lady of the roses, move again across the stage. she was very graceful and very pretty. the boys out front applauded her enthusiastically. laura pinched jess's arm. "janet certainly has made a hit," she whispered. "well," admitted jess, "she deserves their applause. and she just about saved our play, laura. there is no getting around that." the end courtesy of the digital library@villanova university (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) books by margaret vandercook the ranch girls series the ranch girls at rainbow lodge the ranch girls' pot of gold the ranch girls at boarding school the ranch girls in europe the ranch girls at home again the ranch girls and their great adventure the red cross girls series the red cross girls in the british trenches the red cross girls on the french firing line the red cross girls in belgium the red cross girls with the russian army the red cross girls with the italian army the red cross girls under the stars and stripes stories about camp fire girls the camp fire girls at sunrise hill the camp fire girls amid the snows the camp fire girls in the outside world the camp fire girls across the sea the camp fire girls' careers the camp fire girls in after years the camp fire girls in the desert the camp fire girls at the end of the trail the red cross girls in belgium [illustration: "lieutenant hume!" (_see page 117._)] the red cross girls in belgium by margaret vandercook author of "the ranch girls series," "stories about camp fire girls series," etc. illustrated the john c. winston company philadelphia copyright, 1916, by the john c. winston co. contents chapter page i. under other skies 7 ii. a modern knight errant 23 iii. a secret mission 35 iv. plans for the future 47 v. st. gudula 58 vi. the locked door 69 vii. a triangle 83 viii. a prison and a prisoner 97 ix. a second acquaintance 110 x. a discussion, not an argument 121 xi. monsieur bebé 131 xii. the ghost 144 xiii. an arrest 157 xiv. a month later 174 xv. powerless 185 xvi. louvain 200 xvii. "sisters under the skin" 215 xviii. difficulties 227 xix. en route 241 xx. noel 258 the red cross girls in belgium chapter i _under other skies_ after six months of nursing in the british trenches the four american red cross girls were inspired to offer their services to the french soldiers. an autumn and a winter they spent together in southern france, keeping house in the little french "farmhouse with the blue front door." here the girls were so interested and so happy that for a little time they almost forgot the tragedies near at hand. during the first months there had come a lull in the fighting along the borders of alsace-lorraine, where the american girls were now stationed. so they had opportunity for enjoying the fragrant woods, "the pool of melisande" and the romantic atmosphere of the french country. their farmhouse was close upon the borders of an old chateau and belonged to its owner, the countess castaigne. after a slight misunderstanding a friendship develops between the old countess and three out of the four american girls. and here in the dignified old louis xiv drawing room they meet for the second time young captain henri castaigne, whom in paris they had seen decorated with the cross of the legion of honor. but between eugenia peabody, the new england girl who confesses herself to have been born an "old maid," and the gifted young frenchman, there seems to be an immediate antagonism. nevertheless, when the germans finally surprise the french by an unexpected attack during the french retreat, it is eugenia who alone rescued and cared for the wounded young officer. the other girls, with the countess amélie, join the french army in their new position. later, when the french retake their old trenches, they return to the former neighborhood. but for weeks eugenia has devoted herself to concealing captain castaigne from the germans and to nursing him back to health. naturally at the end of this time a change in their relations has taken place. captain castaigne has developed a deep affection for eugenia. but it is difficult to understand her attitude toward him. in any case, she makes up her mind that it is wiser for the four american red cross girls again to change their field of labor. so at the close of the story of "the red cross girls on the french firing line," they have decided to leave for belgium. "we simply must get into brussels some time this afternoon," barbara meade declared. she was wearing her nurse's uniform and her manner and expression were more than ordinarily professional. about ten days before the four american red cross girls had arrived in belgium. they were now seated on piles of loose brick and stone looking out toward a brilliant sunset. before them the land lay bleak and desolate, while a half-burned house formed their background. nevertheless, as it was early summer time, tiny blades of green were peeping up from the dry stubble. on the single apple tree that had been left standing in a once comfortable orchard, a few apples at the top were slowly ripening. except for this there were few other signs of summer's fulfilment. in response to barbara's speech eugenia peabody now shook her head with her usual decision. "sorry, but i can't go with you," she answered abruptly. "i have something more important to do. tell them at the headquarters i'll try and come another day." then without glancing at any one, eugenia rose and stalked away. she walked toward a small one-room cottage at some distance behind the ruined house. there she stood with her hands clasped before her. the place was utterly still and deserted. yet it was difficult to tell whether eugenia was listening for some unusual sound, or whether she was thinking upon a subject hundreds of miles from the present scene. the girls were living in a big house a few miles outside of brussels. this was only a temporary arrangement, as they had not yet received their orders for work from the belgian red cross headquarters. barbara at this moment dug her shoe reflectively into the soft earth, in the meanwhile staring after her friend. "do you know, girls, eugenia peabody has become a mystery to me lately? when we started off on our expedition to europe together, i thought i understood her character better than either of you. now i simply don't see through her at all!" barbara frowned meditatively. "here she has been an heiress all this time, much richer even than mildred thornton, when we believed her as poor as a church mouse! but how could any human being have suspected eugenia of riches when she wore such dreadful clothes?" so plaintively did barbara conclude her speech that her two companions laughed. since arriving in tragic little belgium they had not been able to laugh frequently. but being only girls they welcomed every opportunity. nona nodded agreement with her friend's point of view. the next moment she turned from one to the other of them. her expression had grown more serious. "we were hurt with eugenia for not taking us into her confidence sooner, weren't we?" she remarked, not so much in the manner of asking a question as of making a statement. if there had not been a rose-colored light on her face from the sunset nona would seem to have flushed at this instant. "i was wounded," she went on, "even though eugenia explained that she had not meant to deceive us. she grew up very poor and when an old bachelor uncle left her a fortune she never learned how to spend her money because of her frugal new england training." "well, she is learning to spend it on other people now," mildred thornton interrupted. "it seems tremendously kind for eugenia to have brought the little french girl, nicolete, over to belgium with us. she really shocks eugenia every five minutes in the day, but i suppose gene is trying to turn the child into a puritan. really, she had no reason in the world for being interested in nicolete except that she was helpful when captain castaigne was ill. then i presume eugenia felt she might get into trouble with no one to look after her, as she would spend her time amusing the french soldiers." "mildred!" barbara meade whispered, "do be more careful. you know we promised to say nothing of nicolete's french origin. she would never have been allowed to come into belgium if her nationality had been known. and eugenia is dreadfully nervous for fear the child may be suspected as a spy. no one is too young to escape suspicion these days!" barbara made this speech in hushed tones all the time looking carefully about her. the countryside was for the time being deserted, but at any moment a group of german soldiers might pass by on the way to their barracks. a well-traveled road ran along in front of the place where the red cross girls were seated. about an hour before they had come out together for a walk before dinner and were now resting on their journey back to their new belgian headquarters. at this moment nona davis got up and stood facing her other two friends. "i have something to tell you," she began, "and i expect i had best not put it off any longer. i had it in mind when i spoke of eugenia's secrecy, for you see we have all grown so intimate that we are almost like sisters. i--i too have a confession to make. i tried to tell you when we were crossing on the steamer together. then it seemed to me i had no right to think you would be interested, and probably you won't be interested now." barbara was leaning her rounded chin on her hand. mildred's lips were parted and her breath coming a little quicker by reason of her interest. for she and barbara both recalled nona davis' previous hesitation when talking of herself. they only knew a few facts concerning her history. she had been brought up by her father, an old southern soldier, in the city of charleston, south carolina. she had led a very lonely, secluded life. these were all their facts. but since nona was still hesitating barbara smiled at her, wrinkling up her small nose in the absurd fashion she had when particularly in earnest. "go on, nona, tell us at once. are you a princess in disguise? i am quite prepared to believe it. to tell you the honest truth, it would not surprise me half so much as eugenia's turning into an heiress. alas, that i am what i am, a maid without a mystery!" however, nona was not in the humor to be diverted by her friend's nonsense. "i am sorry my story is not in the least like that. so i am afraid it won't be of interest to you. perhaps i am foolish to speak of this, since i have never, never talked of it to any one before." nona's brown eyes were clear and straightforward, although her chin quivered sensitively. "i know nothing about my mother," she went on speaking quickly, now that she had made up her mind to the confidence. "of course, i remember her when i was a very little girl in our old house in charleston. but after she went away my father would never talk of her nor answer any of my questions. i do know, however, that she was a great deal younger than he, and i think she was french and came from new orleans. there must have been something strange about my mother or her family; i never could decide and no one would ever tell me. even after i grew up and asked questions of my father's old friends there was always the same silence. this was one of the reasons why i made up my mind to come away from charleston," nona finished quietly. she had not been tragic or dramatic in the telling of her story, and yet neither of her two girl friends knew exactly what to answer. but since the silence must somehow be broken, mildred thornton murmured, "how very odd; perhaps you are mistaken, nona!" then she realized that she had made an absurd speech. barbara was even more visibly embarrassed. "possibly your mother was a princess or something!" she ejaculated vaguely. "i always insisted that you were one of the most aristocratic persons i ever knew, both in your appearance and manner, nona," her friend continued, desiring to be comforting and yet appreciating that her remarks were also rather ridiculous. nona, however, was not to be turned aside in her confession. "i have only spoken of this because i wanted you girls to know the facts in my life that are important. of course, i realize this problem of mine cannot mean a great deal to you. but it has puzzled me all my life. you see, i don't even know whether my mother is living or dead. i have supposed that she was dead, and my father always talked as if she were; but i really am not sure of even that." nona then extended a hand to each of her friends. "please let us never speak of this again," she asked. "of course, i mean to tell eugenia, for it was because we were hurt by her lack of confidence in us that i nerved myself for my confession." nona then sat down again as if the entire subject were closed forever. so, although the other girls had dozens of questions at the tips of their tongues, they remained politely silent. in order to conceal her embarrassment mildred thornton glanced around to try to find eugenia. she discovered that the older girl had at last been disturbed from her reverie. indeed, she had risen and was walking toward the road. for a noise with which they had grown familiar in the past fifteen months was drawing nearer and nearer. it was the tramping of soldiers' feet. but this time there was a sound accompanying it which was even more disturbing. the other girls heard the same sound and almost at the same time jumped up from their seats. they went a few paces forward and then stopped and stared. a number of german soldiers were driving a group of belgian people before them like so many sheep. there were two old men and two middle-aged women with several small children. running further forward, barbara slipped her arm inside eugenia's. "what does this mean?" she queried, her eyes suddenly blurring with tears. yet she realized that the prisoners had probably been disloyal to their conquerors. they may have refused to obey the rules imposed by the german military commander of their district; they may have stolen food, or been insolent to the soldiers. although she appreciated their possible offences, barbara felt deeply sympathetic. for the past year and more she had been witnessing the suffering of the wounded soldiers in the british and french lines. she had thought that nothing else could ever touch her so deeply. yet in the last ten days she had been stirred in a different way. the soldiers were fighting for the cause nearest their hearts and enjoyed the enthusiasm and the glory of the soldier's life. but in belgium so many of the people appeared both helpless and hopeless; these were the old men, the women and the children. barbara was thinking of this now as she watched the pitiful little company before her. she had not even noticed that eugenia had made her no answer. now she was startled because the older girl had broken loose from her and was stalking out into the road. barbara was next amazed to see eugenia deliberately plant herself in front of the german officer in command. she spoke excellent german, knowing more of the language than any one of the four red cross girls. now barbara could only guess what eugenia was saying. but whatever it was, the german sergeant had stopped and was apparently listening respectfully. there must have been something impressive in her voice and manner. three minutes afterwards the other three girls were the more surprised to observe eugenia returning toward them. because in her arms she was carrying a tiny, black-eyed baby, while a small boy and a small girl clung to either side of her skirt. the boy was about nine or ten years old and was lame. "why, what does this mean, eugenia?" nona demanded, dropping on her knees to take the boy's small, cold hand in her own warm one. but the boy seemed to prefer eugenia, for he crept closer to her. "oh, it was nothing of any importance," eugenia began explaining quietly. "the sergeant told me he had orders to take the men and women into brussels. they are suspected of something or other and are to be put into prison. he said he had brought the children along because there was nothing else to do with them, so i offered to look after them." "but, but," mildred thornton faltered. "i know it is a painful situation, eugenia dear, but what _can_ you do with three babies? our house is already so full----" eugenia nodded. "yes, i understand, but i have already decided what to do. i'll stay here in the little one-room house with the children tonight. i looked it over the other day. there isn't any furniture, but we must manage for the night. you girls bring me over whatever covers you can spare and ask nicolete to bring all the food she can get hold of." "but you don't mean to stay here alone with these children in this perfectly forsaken place," barbara expostulated, dimly conscious that eugenia was becoming more of a puzzle than ever. do old maids now and then represent the real mother spirit? "i'll stay with you, eugenia," she added faintly, not altogether enjoying the prospect. but the older girl shook her head. "you have your own work to do, bab. only one of us can be spared. what possible danger could come to these little kiddies and me?" looking backward a few moments later, the three girls discovered that eugenia and the children had already disappeared inside the little house. chapter ii _a modern knight errant_ "i can't understand why you and nona are behaving so strangely, mildred. you have been whispering together all day. i am sure you are acting more like foolish school-girls than grown women," barbara commented in an annoyed tone. she was walking alongside her two taller friends with her head held as high as possible to make up for her lack of dignity in stature. two spots of angry color decorated her cheeks. for neither mildred nor nona had condescended to pay any attention to her remark. moreover, their whispering continued. the three girls were walking abreast along one of the suburban roads that lead into the city of brussels. it was a long walk, yet horses and motor cars were only used by the powerful in these days, except in cases of especial urgency. so as the three red cross girls were merely going into town to report at the red cross headquarters, there was no real reason why they should ride instead of walk. they had not objected to the walk; indeed, had been glad of the opportunity. but as barbara had found herself entirely left out of the conversation along the way, naturally she was beginning to find the road a tiresome one. brussels has always been thought to be a miniature paris. indeed, the belgian capital has been modeled on the larger city. but beside its art, nature has given it the same gayety of spirit and a portion of the same natural beauty. so it does not seem unreasonable that the two cities shed their tears together during the great war. yet the american girls had witnessed no such gloom in paris as they found in brussels. in paris one was at least able to talk freely against the enemy, to gesticulate with the abandon characteristic of the latin peoples. here in the belgian city one must be dumb, as well as hungry and sick at heart. to speak one's mind was to offend against his majesty, the kaiser, since everywhere in belgium the germans were now in command. therefore, as the girls reached the city they too became affected by the subdued atmosphere. of course, the people engaged in certain necessary occupations were about, but trading was very slight. in some of the cafés there were a few german soldiers. but not many of them were quartered in brussels, only a sufficient number to preserve peace and to enforce a surface loyalty to their conquerors. barbara and nona were in deep sympathy with the belgians. barbara because she was always enlisted on the side of the weak against the strong. nona, possibly because as a south carolina girl, she belonged to a country that had once been overrun by greater numbers. but mildred thornton and eugenia insisted that they intended to preserve neutral attitudes. they were red cross nurses, not soldiers, and there is always another side to every story. as nona's attention was so engaged by mildred, even after the three girls arrived in brussels, barbara had little to do except make observations. this was not their first trip to the red cross headquarters, but they did not yet know the city sufficiently well not to enter it as strangers. only in one place could barbara discover a crowd and that was wherever a church stood. women and children and an occasional elderly man were always entering and leaving the catholic churches. suddenly barbara thought of eugenia. why had she not come with them this afternoon? they had been told to report to the red cross headquarters in order to be assigned to their work. usually it was eugenia who rigidly insisted upon obedience to orders. what could she have in mind this afternoon of greater importance? barbara had paid a visit to eugenia and the three children earlier in the day. she had found them contentedly playing at housekeeping in the one-room shack, which must once have been a small storehouse. by one of the many miracles of war this little place had escaped destruction when the larger house was burned. eugenia, who was by nature a commander-in-chief, had set the children various tasks. bibo, the lame boy, was gathering chips from the charred, half-burned apple trees as cheerfully as a small grasshopper transformed into a thrifty ant. the girl, louise, was assisting nicolete to spread their scanty covering upon a freshly washed floor, sedate as a model chambermaid. barbara had watched them in some amusement before attempting to join eugenia. it seemed difficult to remember the scarlet poppy of a girl whom she had first seen dancing for the french soldiers, in the present nicolete. for one thing, eugenia had demanded that the french girl wear sober and conventional clothes. so gone was her scarlet skirt and cap! nicolete now wore an ordinary shirtwaist and skirt and a blue gingham apron. the clothes had once belonged to mildred thornton and nona had kindly altered them to fit. because the three girls had absolutely refused to allow eugenia to put her little french protégé into any of her ancient new england toilets. there were limits to the things an artistic nature could endure, barbara had protested. but why, after all, had nicolete decided to come away with them from her own beloved land? it was equally as mysterious to the three other girls as eugenia's adoption of the child. neither of them had discussed their reasons. as captain castaigne soon after his recovery had been ordered north with his regiment, he was not able to offer an explanation. the three american red cross girls were simply told that nicolete had no people of her own and did not wish to go back to the family who had formerly cared for her. but after barbara's survey of the cottage she had returned to the yard for a talk with eugenia. she had found her with the little belgian baby in her arms walking about the ruined house. even here in the streets of brussels, with so many other objects to absorb her attention, barbara again found herself wondering at the change in eugenia. she did not seem to care to be in their society as she had in the earlier part of their acquaintance. nevertheless, she was no longer so stern and dictatorial. today she had asked barbara's advice quite humbly about a number of things. yet she had refused point-blank to tell what she intended doing on this same afternoon. but barbara's reflections were suddenly ended by their arrival in front of a handsome house in brussels. it was a private mansion that had been given over to the relief work by general von bissing, the german military governor of belgium. they found the place crowded. in the hall there was a long line of belgians waiting assistance. yet the girls felt almost at home, there were so many of their own country people about. however, they were invited to wait in a small reception room until the superintendent could find time for them. the buildings in brussels have so far remained uninjured by the war. for although fighting had taken place all around the city, the surrender came before its destruction. the girls were ushered into what had once been an attractive sitting room. at one side there was a small sofa and here nona and mildred straightway seated themselves without regarding their friend. so once more barbara felt hurt and left out of things. by chance there was no chair near the sofa, but by this time she was far too much wounded to try to force herself into the conversation. however, barbara at least felt privileged to use her eyes. for some mysterious reason both mildred and nona were looking unusually cheerful. this was certainly odd in view of the fact that everything they had seen since coming into belgium was more than depressing. yet barbara decided that nona was uncommonly gay and excited. her eyes were a darker brown than usual and her cheeks had more color. there could be little doubt that she was exceptionally pretty most of the time and even prettier than usual today. moreover, mildred had lost her serious expression. her fine white teeth flashed every moment into a smile. animation was what mildred most needed and she had her full share today. "shall we tell barbara now?" distinctly barbara overheard mildred thornton whisper these few words. yet in return nona shook her head so decisively that mildred evidently changed her mind. when the door to their sitting room opened barbara had again fallen into a reverie. she heard some one enter the room, but supposing the man a messenger did not glance up. barbara's exclamation of surprise was due to the surprising behavior of her two companions. for mildred and nona at once jumped to their feet, and actually mildred ran forward a few steps with her arms outstretched. in amazement barbara at this moment turned her gaze upon the newcomer. immediately her face flushed and the tears started to her eyes, yet she would rather have perished than let either effect be discovered. however, she had only seen a young american fellow of about twenty-two or three years of age, dressed in a dark-blue serge suit. he looked extremely well and handsome, except for the fact that his left arm was apparently paralyzed. by this time mildred had thrown her arms about his neck and they were kissing each other with devoted affection. "i can't say how happy i am to see you, dick. it is the most beautiful thing that ever happened to have you here in belgium with us! i have scarcely been able to wait until today, and then i was so afraid you would not arrive in time." all this from the usually quiet mildred! however, dick thornton had finally ceased greeting his sister and turned to nona davis. nona seemed as glad to see him as mildred. she held his hand for some time and kept insisting upon her pleasure in meeting him again. nevertheless, after nona's greeting had occupied as long a time as possible, barbara meade made not the slightest effort to step forward and welcome her former friend. certainly his arrival explained mildred's and nona's mysterious behavior. yet what reason could there have been for not telling her they expected richard thornton's appearance in brussels on this particular afternoon? she had not offended against any one of the three of them, that she should have been so ignored! it was a very stiff barbara whom dick finally walked across the room to greet: eugenia at her best could never have appeared more uncomprising. with his hand extended dick involuntarily paused, while a curious expression showed on his face. "aren't you pleased to see me, barbara--miss meade?" he corrected himself. "i have not recovered, but i've found out that i can be of some little use with the relief work here in brussels with one arm. but besides wishing to be useful, i have four attractions to bring me to belgium." dick spoke in his old light-hearted fashion, although barbara could see that a part of it was pretense. "of course, i am glad to see you," she returned slowly. "but since i have been left out of the secret of your coming, you must understand that i am more surprised than anything else at present." "oh, certainly," dick answered, letting his arm drop to his side. for barbara had apparently not seen his extended hand. "dick was uncertain whether he could be of service and so asked us not to speak of his coming until he was positive," mildred apologized. "i wanted to tell you, barbara, but nona felt it best not to. she had the last letter with instructions from dick." barbara glanced toward nona and then at dick. assuredly there was an understanding between them. well, she must learn not to mind the feeling of being ignored since it would probably continue for some time to come. chapter iii _a secret mission_ on the same afternoon of dick thornton's coming into belgium eugenia started out alone on her unexplained errand. she left her recently acquired family in charge of the little french girl, nicolete. nicolete seemed happier with the children than she had been since her removal from france. indeed, the three american girls had sometimes wondered over her unfriendliness toward them and her unusual quiet. at their first meeting she had appeared such a gay, gypsy-like person. but eugenia did not walk to her engagement. by making a tremendous effort she had managed to hire an old horse and buggy. then, after she felt sure the other three red cross girls had departed on the road toward brussels, she set out. inside the wagon she carefully hid out of sight her bag of red cross supplies, although she did not wear her nurse's uniform. earlier in the day barbara had brought down her suitcase, so that she could appear in an ordinary street dress. driving along the road eugenia hoped to suggest that she was only off on an ordinary errand which could not interest any one who chanced to observe her. she was looking rather plain and tired and was unusually nervous, but this it would have been difficult to guess from her quiet manner. the country through which she passed was one of queer contrasts. there were many houses that had been destroyed by fire, but others that had not even been touched. in these places people were evidently making an effort to lead an ordinary, everyday existence. but they were all listless and discouraged. eugenia thought that the children must have forgotten how to play in this last year, when their land had suffered such sorrow. she wished that she might gather them all together in one great circle that should extend all over belgium and set them to laughing and playing once more. however, eugenia soon left the populated part of the neighborhood. she and her old horse wound their way along a stream and then came to a gate. there was no house in sight from the gate, but just as if she had been there before, eugenia got down and opened it. then she tied her horse behind a clump of trees inside the woods and with her bag of nursing supplies in her hand crept along on foot up a narrow path. every once and a while she would stop and glance cautiously about her. but no one was in sight to be interested in her proceedings. moreover, where could she be going? she seemed to have some end in view, and yet there was no place or person in the vicinity. any one familiar with the neighborhood could have explained that eugenia must be bent upon an utterly ridiculous errand. there was an old house about half a mile farther along, but it had been deserted long before the germans had ever set foot on conquered belgium. a tragedy had occurred in the house ten or fifteen years before, and ever afterwards the place had been supposed to be haunted. no one believed such nonsense, of course, since intelligent persons do not believe in ghosts. but the house was too far from the village, and was in too bad a state of repair to be a desirable residence. indeed, there were dozens of reasons why, after its owners moved, no one else cared to rent it. moreover, the house had also escaped the interest of the german invaders of the land. so why in the world should it be of so great interest to eugenia that she was making this lonely pilgrimage, without taking any one of the three red cross girls into her confidence? the house was of brick and a large one. every outside shutter was closed in front and the vines had so grown over them that they were half covered. there was a porch also in front, but the boards of the steps had long since rotted away. at first only a large toad appeared to greet eugenia. he eyed her distrustfully for a second, his round eyes bulging and his body rigid with suspicion. then he hopped behind his stone fortress, which chanced to be a large stone at the end of the path before the house. however, eugenia did not see him. neither did she attempt to go up the rickety steps. how absurd it would have been anyhow to have battered at the door of a mansion that had been uninhabited for years! instead she marched deliberately around the house and knocked at a door at the side. a few seconds after, this door was opened by a woman of middle age. she looked very worn and unhappy, but her face brightened at the sight of her guest. "i was so afraid you wouldn't, couldn't get here," she said. "i suppose you know you are taking a risk." eugenia nodded in her usual matter of fact fashion. "i promised your friend i would do my best," she returned. "will you please take me up to the room. you must make up your mind to get more air into this house. i don't think you need fear you will be suspected, if you managed to arrive here without being detected." "i _am_ afraid," the older woman answered. she was leading the way up a pair of back stairs that were in almost total darkness. "you see, i know i have been accused of sending information to my husband who is supposed to be at the front with the belgian army. i was about to be arrested and tried by a military court. i should have been sent to prison and i could not be separated from my family at such a time!" the last few words were whispered. because at this moment the woman's hand had touched a door knob which she was gently turning. the next she and eugenia were entering a large room at the back of the apparently deserted house. a window had been opened and an attempt made to clean this room. on the bed, with a single scanty cover over them, two persons were lying. one of them was a young boy and the other a man. both of them were extremely ill. eugenia realized this at a glance, but paid little attention to the man at first. for she suddenly had a complete understanding of madame carton's last words. the boy was such an exquisite little fellow of about ten years old. he had straight golden hair and gray eyes with darker lashes. there was the same high-bred, delicate look that one remembers in the picture of "the two little princes in the tower." through a peculiar source eugenia had already learned a portion of madame carton's story. she was a belgian woman whose home was one of the handsomest in the city of brussels. but after the city had been forced to surrender to the germans, madame carton had refused to give up her home unless the authorities expelled her by force. this for some reason they had appeared unwilling to do. however, a short time after the german occupancy of brussels, reports accusing madame carton of treason and rebellion began to be circulated. it was said that she was sending secret information to her husband, who was a colonel in the belgian army and on the personal staff of king albert. finally madame carton learned that her arrest was only a matter of a few hours. then it was that she had managed to escape to this deserted house with her family. so far it looked as if her whereabouts had remained undiscovered. one hour after eugenia's arrival she and madame carton were once more at the foot of the stairs. they had opened the side door to let in a tiny streak of light and air. "but, madame carton, i don't think it is possible," eugenia announced with her usual directness. "i am willing to do whatever i can to help nurse your little boy and the other patient, but i can come to you very seldom without being discovered. you see, i may be ordered to nurse in any part of belgium and i must do what i am told. is there any one here to assist you?" madame carton nodded. she had once been a very beautiful woman with the gray eyes and fair hair of her son. but the last year of witnessing the desolation of her people and her country had whitened her hair and made many lines in her face. "yes, i have an old family servant with me. i should never have been able to make the journey without her help. she and my little girl, who is six years old, are in hiding in another room in the attic of this house. years ago when i was a child i used to come here to play with friends who then owned this place. i suppose that is why i thought of our hiding here when the crisis came," madame carton explained quietly. "now if i return to brussels perhaps paul may be cared for. but you know what else would happen. it would be inevitable! even if i were not shot i must go to prison. can't you help me? can't you think of some way to save us _all_?" the older woman took hold of eugenia's hands and clung to them despairingly. "i know i am asking what looks like an impossible thing of you, and you a complete stranger! yet you look so strong and fine," madame carton's voice broke, but eugenia's touch was reassuring. "if only a doctor could come to us, perhaps with your advice i might manage the nursing myself," she continued. eugenia shook her head. "when dr. le page asked me to see you and gave me the directions, he said it was only because he dared not visit you himself," eugenia explained kindly, but with her usual avoidance of anything but the truth. "he insists that, although he is an american, he is suspected of feeling too much sympathy for the belgians. after warning you to escape he was questioned and believes he is still being watched. that is why he confided you to me, asking me to do the little i can to aid you. so if he should attempt to reach you out here, it would mean his arrest as well as yours. i am sorry," the girl ended. her words were simple enough in the face of so great a calamity. yet there was no mistaking their sympathy. madame carton appeared to surrender her judgment and her problem to eugenia for solution. "tell me, miss peabody, what do you think i should do?" she asked. "it is not worth while for me to say that i care little what becomes of me. shall i return to brussels and give us all up to the authorities?" eugenia did not answer immediately. when she spoke again she offered no explanation of her own meaning. "please wait a while, madame carton, if possible, until i can see you again?" she asked. "in case you are not discovered before then i may have a plan to suggest that will help you. but i cannot be sure. good-by and a good courage." then eugenia marched deliberately back to the place where her old horse was in waiting. she then drove unmolested to the tiny house that was sheltering nicolete and the three stray children. but on her way she was repeating to herself a phrase she had learned years before as a girl at the high school: "quorum omnium fortissimi sunt belgae," said cæsar nearly twenty centuries ago. "the bravest of all these are the belgians." eugenia thought the same thing today and for the same reason cæsar did. "because they are nearest to the germans, who dwell across the rhine, with whom they do continually wage war." chapter iv _plans for the future_ the moon shone down upon belgium as serenely as upon any unconquered land. two girls were walking slowly arm in arm along a stretch of country road. there was no one else in sight at the time, yet they seemed entirely unafraid. a quarter of a mile beyond them, however, a dim light burned in the window of a small frame house. near it was a tumbled mass of brick and stone. "we received our orders for work this afternoon, eugenia dear," barbara remarked. "they were sorry you were not with us. but you are to come in to headquarters as soon as possible, when arrangements will be made for you." unconsciously barbara sighed and although it was too dark in the moonlight to distinguish the expression on her face, her companion paused for a moment. "are you disappointed in what they wish you to do, barbara, child?" eugenia inquired more gently than she usually spoke. "you sound rather forlorn and 'wee' as the scotch sometimes say. of course, i know you are tired from the long trip into brussels and coming here to spend the night with me. it is lovely to have you for this quiet walk, but i'm afraid you'll find a bed on the floor a pretty hard resting place even for war times." "oh, i shan't mind. besides, i brought over some more bed-clothes," the younger girl answered, although her attention was not really fixed upon her reply. eugenia had guessed correctly in thinking barbara was tired. her face was very small and white, so that her eyes appeared almost unnaturally large and blue. her only color was in her lips, which drooped like a weary child's. "oh, yes, the work is all right. one can't expect an easy time of it these days. besides, i hope some day to prove to you, eugenia, that i did not come to europe to nurse in the red cross just for the sake of an adventure. of course, i shall never dare hope to do anything to compare with what you have done, or to be anything like you, but----" barbara's speech was interrupted by her friend's hand being laid firmly across her lips. "i prefer your not saying things like that," she answered in a tone that the other girl felt obliged to respect. it was not that eugenia was unduly modest. only that she had never appeared to desire to talk about her final experience in france. indeed, the other three girls had been provoked before this by her reticence. it was all very well for eugenia not to discuss before strangers her rescue and care of captain castaigne under such extraordinary difficulties. but it was tiresome of her never to be willing to relate the details of her experience to her most intimate companions. personally, barbara meade intended to hear the whole thing some day from beginning to end. then she would be able to tell the story to the countess amelie, who had become her own and nona's devoted friend. for captain castaigne had given only a brief account of the circumstances to his mother. actually he had been as reticent in the matter as eugenia. however, barbara was not in the mood tonight to demand other people's confessions. "if you are tired, suppose we sit down for a while," eugenia suggested. the two girls found a tree near by that had been uprooted by an underground explosion and lay face down upon the earth with its arms outspread, like a defeated giant. unconsciously they both sighed with relief and then smiled half humorously at each other. "we are all to work at the same hospital in brussels," barbara went on. "at least, mildred and nona and i have been chosen for the same place. i don't know about you. thank goodness, it is an american hospital and supported by our money!" "don't be prejudiced," eugenia remonstrated. but barbara shook her head impatiently. "how can one help being? you are only pretending to yourself that you are neutral. if the germans had been conquered, perhaps i should feel equally sorry for them. but to me belgium is like a gallant boy who went out with his head up and his lips smiling to do battle with a giant. the courage of it is like a song!" in silence eugenia agreed. then barbara leaned her curly brown head on her companion's arm. "i have a piece of news for you, gene," she added. "really, i came to you tonight to be the first to tell you. who do you think arrived in brussels today to help with the american relief work?" barbara did not wait for an answer to her question. "dick thornton!" she finished with a sudden indrawing of her breath. the older girl did not glance toward her companion. her attention seemed to be fixed upon a particularly effective june moon which was just emerging from a cloud-like veil. "that is tremendously good news, isn't it? and it is great of dick to insist on being useful in spite of his misfortune! but perhaps i am not so surprised as you think i ought to be, barbara. nona half confessed the possibility of his turning up to me several days ago. she told me i was not to speak of this, however, to you, because dick might not be able to come and he did not wish--" eugenia hesitated a second--"he did not wish _mildred_ to be disappointed. now i am particularly glad you are all to be in brussels. perhaps you may have a chance to see dick _nearly_ as often as you like." "yes, it will be awfully nice for mildred and nona and i am delighted for them," barbara interrupted, moving several feet away from her friend. "but i do hope you will be with us, eugenia, to associate with me! i hate to be in the way. and i am afraid i will be, under the circumstances." the younger girl had lowered her voice to the purest confidential tone. then, although they were quite alone, she looked carefully around before going on. "perhaps i haven't any right to say so, but i am almost sure there is a bond between nona davis and dick. i didn't dream of this when we were in paris together. but i know they have been writing each other constantly ever since. besides, if you had seen their meeting today!" she ceased talking, for eugenia was shaking her head in doubt. "but isn't nona one of the prettiest girls you ever saw and the most charming?" barbara demanded argumentatively the next instant. she seemed almost angry at the older girl's silent disagreement. this time eugenia inclined her head. "i have no idea of disputing nona's beauty or charm, or dick thornton's either. he is a splendid american fellow. and if one of you red cross girls must fall in love, certainly i should prefer you to fall in love with dick. however, at present i simply don't believe there is an affair between dick and nona." "but you'll see in time," barbara persisted. "yes, i'll see in time," eugenia concluded. then barbara crept closer again. "the moonlight, or something, makes me feel dismal," she confided. "i don't know why, but the moon gives me the blues far more than it ever makes me romantic. sometimes i wonder if we will ever get back home safely, all of us, without any illness or sorrow or anything," barbara ended vaguely. eugenia could be a remarkably comforting person when she liked. she made no reply at the moment, only drew the younger girl toward her. "now i have something to tell _you_, barbara. it is good of you to wish me to be in brussels with you, but i'm really not much good as a companion. you girls are ever so much happier without me, i feel sure, or i wouldn't desert you." "desert us?" barbara stiffened at once, forgetting the other subject of their conversation. "you don't mean, eugenia peabody, that you have decided to give up the red cross work and go back home? you, of all of us! i simply won't believe it. why, i thought you were the most devoted, the most----" eugenia laughed half-heartedly. "i didn't say i was going home, barbara," she protested. "but you are right in thinking i mean to give up my red cross work, at least if i am allowed to resign. i don't know why, but recently i don't seem to feel the same fondness for nursing. i kind of dread a great many things about it." barbara laid her hand caressingly upon eugenia's knee. really eugenia was growing so surprisingly human these days that one could scarcely recall the old eugenia. "oh, that is just because you are tired. i know you have always denied this, but you have never been exactly the same since your siege with captain castaigne. the responsibility and the work were too much for you. i don't think he was ever half grateful enough! the idea of his joining his regiment without coming to say good-by to you--just writing a letter! promise me you will go quietly away somewhere and rest for a few weeks, eugenia. then i know you'll feel like getting back into harness again. really, i need you to be with us. i haven't any backbone unless you are around to make me afraid of you." eugenia shook her head. "perhaps i shall not be very far away and we may be able to see each other now and then. i have been thinking of a scheme for several days, almost ever since we came into belgium. you remember i told you i had a good deal of money, but did not always know just how to spend it. well, i have found a way here. i am going to get a big house and i am going to fill it full to overflowing with the belgian babies and all the children who need an old maid mother to look after them. and i think i found the very house i need today. it is an old place that is supposed to be haunted and is far away from everything else. but it is big and has an old veranda. perhaps i'll still be doing red cross work if i take care of well babies as well as sick ones. do you think i'll make a great failure as a mother, bab?" she ended. without replying barbara's answer was yet sufficiently reassuring. at the same time she was wondering if these past few months had changed eugenia as much as she appeared to be changed. but perchance she had always been mistaken in her view of her. then both girls started suddenly to their feet. for the little french girl, nicolete, had come upon them unawares. she gave barbara a glance revealing but little affection. then beckoning eugenia mysteriously aside she soon ran off again like a sprite in the moonlight. chapter v _st. gudula_ several weeks later barbara meade walked down the steps of a house in brussels out into one of the streets near the palais de la nation. the house had once been a private residence, but since the coming of war into the heart of belgium had been turned into a relief hospital by the american red cross society. barbara walked slowly, looking at all the objects of interest along the way. she wore a dark-blue taffeta suit and white blouse and a small blue hat with a single white wing in it. evidently she was not in a hurry. indeed, she behaved more like an ordinary tourist than an overworked nurse. yet a glance into barbara's face would have suggested that she was dreadfully fagged and anxious to get away from the beaten track for a few hours. it chanced to be her one afternoon of leisure in the week, so for the time she had discarded her nurse's uniform. she was also trying to forget the trouble surrounding her and to appreciate the beauty and charm of brussels. yet barbara found it difficult to get into a mood of real enjoyment. these past few weeks represented the hardest work she had yet done, for the funds for the belgian relief work were getting painfully low. therefore, as there were still so many demands, the workers could only try to do double duty. finally barbara entered the church of st. gudula, which happened to be near at hand. it was a beautiful gothic building, dedicated to the patron saint of brussels. once inside, the girl strolled quietly about, feeling herself already rested and calmed from the simple beauty of the interior. the tall rounded pillars and sixteenth century stained glass represented a new world of color and beauty. although she was not a catholic, barbara could not refrain from saying a short prayer in the "chapel of notre-dame-de-deliverance" for the safety of the belgian people and their gallant king and queen. barbara was too loyal an american to believe that kings and queens were any longer useful as the heads of governments. nevertheless, as a noble man and woman, king albert and queen elizabeth of belgium, commanded her admiration and sympathy. since the outbreak of the war neither of them seem to have given thought to their royalty, remembering only their common humanity with the people of their land. already comforted by the few minutes of quiet, finally barbara slipped out of one of the side doors that chanced to be open. afterwards she stood looking about her in order to find out just where she was. the side street was almost entirely free from passers by. therefore, as barbara desired to inquire her way to the nearest tram line, she waited for a moment. at some distance down the street she could see the figure of a man walking in her direction. she did not look very closely or she might have discovered something familiar in the quick stride and the graceful carriage of the head and shoulders. the men of brussels are rather more french than flemish in their appearance, yet this man did not resemble a foreigner. indeed, he walked so much more rapidly than barbara expected that she was extremely startled when a voice said close beside her: "why, barbara, this is good luck. to think i have not seen you since the first afternoon of my arrival! i'm sorry you have been so tremendously busy every time i have had a chance to run into the hospital for a few moments. but mildred and nona have given me news of you." dick thornton had taken barbara's hand and was looking searchingly into her face. but after her first recognition of him she had dropped her lids, so it was not possible to see her eyes. "i have just been up to your hospital now, but could not get hold of either mildred or nona. i am sorry. nona had promised me, if she could be spared, to spend the afternoon seeing sights. i have investigated thirty destitute belgian families since eight o'clock this morning and reported their cases, so i feel rather in the need of being cheered." barbara's chin quivered a little, although it was not perceptible to her companion. "i am dreadfully sorry too," she answered the next instant. "certainly you are deserving of nona's society for a reward. and if i had only known your plan you might have carried it out. it is my afternoon of freedom, but i would very cheerfully have changed my time with nona." "you are awfully kind, i am sure," dick returned. but he scarcely showed the gratitude at barbara's suggestion that she expected. he glanced up at the beautiful gothic tower of the church near them, remarking irritably, "i expect you are quite as much in need of a rest as any one else. really, barbara, it is all very well to do the best one can to help these unfortunate people, but there is no especial point in killing yourself. you look wretchedly. you are not trying to play at being the patron saint of brussels, are you? is that why you haunt the church of saint gudula?" barbara smiled. "i am the farthest person from a saint in this world," she replied, wrinkling up her small nose with a faint return to her old self. "nona and mildred and i have decided recently that we haven't but one saint among us. and she is the last person i should ever have awarded the crown at our first meeting. moreover, i wouldn't dare present it to her now, if she could see or hear me in the act. she would probably destroy me utterly, because my saint is very human and sometimes has a dreadful temper, besides a desire to boss everybody else. i wonder if real saints ever had such traits of character? of course, you know i mean eugenia! i am on my way now to her hotel des enfants, if i can ever find the right street car. she already is taking care of twelve children, and i have never seen her nor her house since we separated. gene has promised to send some one to meet me at the end of the car line. her house is a deserted old place where a ghost is supposed to hold forth. but i am assured the ghost has not turned up recently. it is nice to have met you. good-by." and barbara was compelled to stop talking for lack of breath after her long speech, as she held out her hand. dick ignored the outstretched hand. his face had assumed a charming, boyish expression of pleading. barbara was reminded of the first days of their meeting in new york city. "i say, barbara, why can't i go along with you?" he demanded. "of course, i realize that for some reason or other you are down upon me. i am not such a chump as not to understand you could have seen me for a few minutes in these last few weeks if you had tried. but eugenia is friendly enough. i haven't seen her, but i had a stunning note from her. besides, as i sent her five of her twelve belgian babies, i think i've the right to find out if she is being good to them. i am a kind of a godfather to the bunch. let's stop by a shop and get some stuffed dolls and whistles and sugar plums. some of the belgian children i have discovered seemed to be forgetting how to play." barbara had not answered. indeed, dick had not intended to give her a chance. nevertheless, her expression had changed to a measure of its former brightness. it would be good fun to have dick on the afternoon's excursion! she had rather dreaded the journey alone into a strange part of the countryside, one might so easily get lost. beside, barbara knew in her heart of hearts that she had absolutely no right for her unfriendly attitude toward dick thornton. if he had chosen to treat her with less intimacy than in the beginning of their acquaintance, that was his own affair. if he now preferred nona to her--well, he only showed a better judgment in desiring the finer girl. barbara now put her hand in a friendly fashion on dick's sleeve. "i am awfully glad to have you come along and i am sure gene will be," she answered happily. "lead on, sir knight, to the nearest street car." after an hour's ride into the country, through one of belgium's suburbs, dick and barbara arrived at a tumble-down shed. eugenia had carefully described this shed as their first destination. not far off they found bibo waiting for them with a rickety old wagon and an ancient horse. money and eugenia's determined character had secured the forlorn equipage. for it was difficult to buy any kind of horse or wagon in these war days. however, the small driver, who was the boy eugenia had rescued some weeks before, drove with all the pomp of the king's coachman. that is, he allowed the old horse to pick her way along a grass-grown path for about a mile. then he invited his two passengers to get down, as there was no road up to the old house that a horse and wagon could travel. so dick and barbara found themselves for the first time in their acquaintance wandering along a country lane together. their position was not very romantic, however. barbara led the way along the same narrow avenue that eugenia had followed on the day of her first visit to the supposedly deserted place. yet although barbara almost ran along in her eagerness to arrive, dick noticed that she looked very thin. she was not the barbara of his first acquaintance; something had changed her. well, one could hardly go through the experiences of this war without changing, even if one were only an outsider. and dick thornton glanced at his own useless arm with a tightening of his lips. he probably owed his life to the little girl ahead of him. eugenia did not at first see her guests approaching until they had discovered her. she was in the front yard and the grass had been cut, so that there was a broad cleared space. moreover, every window of the supposedly haunted house was thrown wide open, so that the sun and air poured in. it was as little like either a deserted or a haunted house as one could humanly imagine. for there were eight or ten children at this moment in the yard with eugenia. she held a baby in her arms and a small boy stood close beside her. barbara saw the little fellow at the same moment she recognized her friend. instantly she decided that he was the most exquisite child she had ever seen in her life. the boy was like a small prince, although he wore only the blue cotton overalls and light shirt such as the other boys wore. but he must have said something to eugenia, for she glanced up and then ran forward to meet her guests. the baby she dumped hastily into her discarded chair. "but i thought i was to be your guest of honor, gene?" barbara protested a few moments later. "never should i have allowed dick to come if i had dreamed he was to put me in the shade so completely." eugenia laughed. her new responsibilities did not appear to have overburdened her. "come and meet my family," she insisted. "there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, who had so many children she didn't know what to do." chapter vi _the locked door_ "but she seems to me a very unusual person to be a servant, gene," barbara remarked argumentatively. "of course, i know she was wearing a maid's apron and cap so that her hair was completely hidden, and her dark glasses concealed her eyes. still, i could see very plainly the woman you call 'louise' is not an everyday servant. she spoke to dick and me with perfect self-possession, although she did seem nervous. but it is ridiculous to think one can hide a personality under such a slight disguise." barbara spoke pettishly. she and eugenia were wandering about the big house together. they were looking over the arrangements eugenia had made for her recently acquired family. these were, of course, of the most primitive kind. there were about eighteen army cots in the bedrooms, some light coverings, and a few wooden chairs. in the big front room downstairs long planks had been laid across wooden supports. this formed a large and informal dining room table. yet by accident this same room contained a magnificent flemish oak sideboard that had been left in the house by the former owners of the place. however, barbara and eugenia were in eugenia's own bedroom when the present conversation started. they had already seen the lower floor of the house, where barbara had been introduced to eugenia's cook, who was a plain flemish woman. but it was the history of the housemaid, a woman of between forty and fifty, whose identity barbara was questioning. in reply eugenia gazed at her friend earnestly for a few moments and then slowly shook her head. "these are war times, bab. i thought you and i had agreed long ago to ask no unnecessary questions." eugenia had seated herself on the side of her cot bed, barbara was on a high wooden box, which served as a chair, near the window. she did not reply at first, but this was merely because she was thinking, not because she intended to consider eugenia's suggestion. she had one foot crossed under her, while the other swung in the air. her brow was wrinkled into a painfully heavy frown for so miniature a person. unconsciously barbara pulled meditatively at a brown curl that had escaped from the knot at the back of her head. during her long study eugenia smiled at her guest. she too could not grow accustomed to considering barbara as responsible a person as the rest of the red cross girls. this was only because of her appearance, for she had learned to have faith in her. all of a sudden barbara began talking again, just where she had left off. "it is all very well to preach, gene, about not asking unnecessary questions because we are living and working in war times. but you know very well we never expected that point of view to apply to asking questions of each other. we came abroad as strangers, except that mildred and i knew each other slightly, but since then we have become friends. at least, we care a great deal about each other's interests. now i don't think for a minute we have the right to keep secrets from one another. that is, unless they happen to be of a kind one simply can't bear to tell." and at this barbara hesitated for an instant. "but about this woman, this 'louise', we were discussing. eugenia, you know perfectly well she isn't a real servant. i am dreadfully afraid you are hiding some one and it may get you into serious trouble," the younger girl continued, making no effort to hide her anxiety. "really, you ought to be careful, gene. you came to europe to act as a red cross nurse, not to interfere with questions of government. if you do, you may be put into prison, or something else dreadful. do you know i thought all along it was funny your deciding so suddenly to give up your red cross work and then knowing exactly where to find a house. well, i might as well tell you," barbara now got off her stool and came over and put a hand on either of her friend's shoulders, "i mean to find out what you are trying to hide if i possibly can," she concluded. eugenia did not stir. but she let her own dark eyes rest gravely upon bab's blue ones. "please don't," she asked. "i suppose i might have guessed that you would have discovered there is something unusual about my family. but, bab, i want you to promise me on your honor that you will not mention your suspicion to any one--not to nona, or mildred, or dick thornton. i am trying in a fashion to help some one who is in deep trouble. as you have guessed, she is a woman, and that was her little boy, jan, whom you saw standing by me when you arrived. but if questions are asked of you, barbara, you know absolutely nothing of this. i prefer to manage my own affairs." eugenia made this announcement in her haughtiest fashion. however, her companion was not deceived. eugenia simply meant that if disaster followed her attempt to shield a prisoner, she alone must bear the penalty. quietly for another moment, still with her hands on the older girl's shoulders, barbara continued to consider the situation. "i won't make you any promises, gene," she answered at last. "i must decide what to do later. but i won't tell nona, or mildred, or dick, as i can't see any special point in confiding in them at present. however, i am not willing to stand aside and let you run deliberately into danger. it was all very well your taking care of captain castaigne. he was desperately ill. your finding him wounded on the battlefield was so romantic. but this is quite a different affair. we were under certain obligations to the countess amelie, while this 'louise' and her 'jan' are utter strangers. i think i'll go this instant and tell the woman she has no right to make you undergo such risks." again eugenia did not stir, but this time neither did barbara. "you will do no such thing, my dear; you must let me manage my life for myself," she declared quietly instead. "of course, i am not going to take any more chances than i must. come now, let us go downstairs and have tea. you and dick were angels to have come on such a long journey and you must be nearly famished. i have managed to get a few supplies in brussels and i have sent to boston for a great many more. so when you girls are able to visit me, we can at least regale ourselves with a boston tea party." eugenia put an arm across barbara's shoulder as they moved toward the door. a few feet further on the younger girl stopped. "are you very rich, eugenia peabody?" she demanded. "unless you are, it is perfectly mad for you to have undertaken the expenses of this household. most of these children have not had anything to eat for a year and must be nearly famished." eugenia nodded. "i suppose i am fairly wealthy, although i find it hard to realize it, as i grew up such a poor girl." "then why--why, eugenia (i have been simply dying to ask you this ever since you told us you were rich)--why did you wear such old-fashioned--if you will excuse me--such perfectly awful clothes?" barbara fairly shuddered, recalling how she and nona and mildred had suffered over eugenia's ancient alpine hat. but eugenia only laughed. she had been sensitive enough over the other girls' attitude toward her appearance when they first knew one another. but barbara's way of expressing things was too absurd. "i told you i had been so poor i didn't know how to spend money," she explained. "besides, i have always been so plain it never occurred to me that clothes could make much difference in my appearance." "goose!" barbara looked up at eugenia searchingly. "if ever this wretched war is over, i mean to go with you to paris and make you spend heaps and heaps of money on clothes. nona and i have decided that we could make you look quite stunning if we had the money to spend. then i should insist that you pay a visit to the chateau d'amelie. the countess insisted you never could look like anything but a new england old maid, no matter what exquisite toilets you wore." then the younger girl's cheeks grew so hot that she could actually feel the tears being forced into her eyes. "i wonder if i shall ever learn what to say and what not to say, gene?" she asked wretchedly. "oh, don't tell me you don't mind what i say. that is not the point. the trouble is i can't learn when to hold my tongue. i only wish the countess could have seen you when dick and i arrived today." eugenia was not wearing her nurse's uniform. instead, she had fished an old gray crepon dress out of her trunk. but in order to make it more attractive for her little guests, she wore a white fichu about her neck. then her hair was wound in two heavy braids around her head. "there isn't any particular reason why i should deny being an old maid," she returned. "only i am sorry that you girls discussed my appearance with a stranger." again barbara flushed. "the countess isn't a stranger to us, gene," she apologized, "and i don't think you should feel that way toward her since you and captain castaigne have grown to be good friends. i don't see how you can still consider him unattractive. but you are terribly prejudiced, eugenia." the two girls had left eugenia's bedroom and were now walking toward the back stairs. all of a sudden, when eugenia chanced to be unconscious of her companion, barbara moved away. she at once placed her hand on the knob of a door leading into a room at the back of the house. "whose room is this, eugenia? may i go inside and see?" she queried. her hand was upon the knob, but, of course, she made no effort to enter the room, awaiting the other girl's reply. she was interested merely because this seemed to be about the only room that eugenia had not exhibited. but eugenia immediately looked unaccountably angry. yet she had kept her temper perfectly through all barbara's annoying speeches! "please don't attempt to go in that room, barbara!" she ordered sharply, quite in the manner and temper of the former eugenia. "if i had desired you to see the room i should have taken you into it myself." "oh, i beg your pardon," barbara replied, angry with herself for the sudden lump that had risen in her throat. "i suppose this room is bluebeard's chamber, or the place where you keep your ghost locked up. i did not mean to interfere." "the room is not locked and is entirely empty," eugenia replied. however, she must have parted with her new england conscience at the moment of making this statement. for barbara had distinctly heard some one moving about inside the room. and quite by accident, as her hand turned the knob, she realized that the door _was_ locked. in the yard the two girls found dick thornton playing with the children. he had discovered some ivy growing on one side of the old house. therefore, each girl and boy had been decorated with an ivy leaf, as if it were a badge of honor. moreover, dick also wore a leaf in his buttonhole. "louise" soon brought the tea, which dick drank with satisfaction. barbara tried to pretend that she enjoyed hers, but it was extremely difficult. not that she was angry with eugenia, for her discomfort went deeper than that. the fact is she was frightened for her. some one more important than "louise" was being guarded by eugenia. who on earth the man or woman could be, barbara could not even hazard a guess. yet it must be some one whose safety her friend considered of great importance, for had she not deliberately lied to her? certainly eugenia was facing a grave situation! at present no one suspected her of treason. she was simply regarded as an eccentric american woman, who desired to spend her money in caring for the destitute belgian children. no outsider had yet visited her "hotel des enfants." but, of course, once the news that something unusual was going on in her establishment reached the german authorities, eugenia could not hope to escape their vigilance a second time. on the trip back into brussels dick thornton found his companion unusually quiet. he was under the impression that it was because of the change in her once friendly attitude toward him. he was sorry, because he very much wanted to talk to her about a personal matter, but never found a sufficiently intimate moment. only once did she arouse herself in the effort to make conversation. "why do you happen to be wearing that spray of ivy so proudly, dick?" she inquired carelessly. "i was amused at your decorating all the belgian children with leaves." dick glanced carefully about, but the tram car was almost empty. "don't you understand what the ivy means?" he asked. "i expect it _was_ pretty absurd of me. but the other day the german commandant ordered that no belgian should wear his national colors. indeed, they were not to be displayed anywhere. well, the result is, that almost everybody one meets upon the street has been wearing a leaf of ivy lately." dick took the ivy spray from his coat and handed it to his companion. "do you know what ivy stands for?" he asked. "it means attachment, faithful unto death. won't you wear this?" but although barbara took the shaded, dark green leaf into her hand and looked at it for a moment, she slowly shook her head. "there is something charming and pathetic in the idea, dick. remember to tell the story to mildred and nona. and give the ivy to nona; i am sure she would love to have it," barbara finished, as she gave the leaf back to her companion. chapter vii _a triangle_ a curious division had developed between the four american red cross girls since their arrival in belgium. perhaps this was due to the arrangement of their work, perhaps to spiritual conditions which are not always easy to see or define. eugenia, for reasons of her own, had given up the regular red cross nursing, preferring to devote herself to the children whom the war had made homeless. after barbara's first visit to her and the discussion that had arisen between them, she had not urged the younger girl to come to see her often. barbara had been several times without invitation, but had not referred to their past difference. indeed, she hoped that eugenia would believe the idea had completely vanished from her mind. nevertheless, she watched affairs at the old house more closely than her friend dreamed. there were other suspicious circumstances that barbara kept tabulated. later on, if she considered eugenia in danger, she meant to fight for her and with her when the occasion arose. however, barbara had her own life and labor to occupy her time and was apparently busier than ever before. for although she and nona and mildred were working at the same hospital, they saw very little of one another. the american red cross hospitals in brussels were not given up entirely to the care of the wounded soldiers. the germans looked after their own men and their prisoners as well. but there were many ill and friendless belgians, unable to leave their country, who must have died without the help of the american red cross. fifty thousand belgian babies were born during the first year of the present war. their fathers had either been killed in defence of their country or were away at the front fighting with their king. so there were fifty thousand mothers as well as babies who must be looked after. barbara's work was among the women and children in the american hospital, while mildred and nona were engaged in general nursing. the hospital was not a large one; indeed, it had been a private home before the coming of the germans. but the red cross societies of the united states had outfitted the hospital and only american doctors and nurses were taking part in the relief work. so both from choice and opportunity mildred and nona were frequently together. they shared the same bedroom and grew daily more intimate. this had not been true at first. indeed, barbara had appeared as the favorite of both girls, until a new bond had developed between them. always mildred thornton had been peculiarly devoted to her brother, dick. even in his selfish, indolent days in new york city she had been unable to see his faults. in her heart she had resented barbara meade's criticism of him. now it was charming to find that nona was as enthusiastic about dick as she was. whenever the opportunity came, the three of them used to go upon long excursions about brussels. they visited the royal museums, the palais des beaux arts, the parks, the palais de justice, which is the largest and most beautiful modern building in the world. and these parties did each member of the expedition a great deal of good. no one of them ever neglected work for pleasure, but the occasional happy times kept them cheerful and well. it might have been better for barbara had she shared these amusements. but after inviting her three or four times, finding that she always refused, the others made no further efforts to persuade her. for they seemed to be extremely content to be three, in spite of the old adage. indeed, mildred cherished the unexpressed hope that dick might be falling in love with nona. so whenever it was possible she used to leave the two of them together. but she was wise enough never to have made this conspicuous. neither had she intimated any such idea either to her friend or brother. but it was fairly simple to find one self interested in a picture at one end of a gallery when her two companions were strolling in the opposite direction. also one could grow suddenly weary just as the others had expressed the desire to investigate some remote picture or scene. certainly it is not usual for a devoted sister to wish her only brother to marry. but then, mildred thornton was an exceptional girl. selfishness had never been one of her characteristics, and, moreover, she was deeply devoted to nona. besides this, she felt that the best possible thing that could happen to dick was to marry an attractive girl. for ever since the loss of the use of his arm mildred had feared that he might become morose and unhappy. indeed, he had seemed both of these things during their stay in paris. it was only since coming into brussels that he had regained a portion of his old debonair spirit. so naturally mildred believed nona to have been largely responsible for this. there were few people in their senses who would have cared at the present time to dispute nona davis' charm and beauty. she had always been a pretty girl, but the past year in europe had given her a delicate loveliness that made persons stop to gaze at her as she passed them on the street. a great deal of her former shyness had passed away. in spite of the hard work and the sight of so much undeserved suffering, she had grown stronger physically. for before coming to europe nona had led too shut-in and conservative a life. she had almost no friends of her own age and her poverty was not a pretence like eugenia's, but a very certain and to her a very distasteful thing. nona wanted to see the world and to occupy an important place in it. in spite of her real talent for her work and her unusual courage under danger, she had no thought of being a hospital nurse all her life. nona's father was an old man at her birth. he had once belonged to a family of wealth and prominence. but after the civil war had destroyed his fortune he had made little effort to rise superior to circumstances. yet he had spent a great many hours talking to nona about the true position which she _should_ occupy and telling her long stories of her family's past. charleston, south carolina, is one of the most beautiful and at the same time one of the most old-fashioned cities in the world. the tide of the new american life and spirit has in a measure swept past it. at least the new americanism had never entered the doors of nona's home during her father's lifetime. the old gentleman would have perished had he dreamed of his daughter's becoming a trained nurse. however, after his death nona had felt a strong impulse toward the profession and so far had never regretted the step. but it was true that she had been greatly influenced by the possible romance and adventure in her decision to help with the red cross work in europe. this did not mean that nona was not tremendously in earnest. but she was a girl who had read a great deal and dreamed many dreams. all her life poetry and passion would appeal to her more than cold arrangements of facts. there was no fault in this, it was merely a matter of temperament. perhaps it was partly responsible for the soft light in nona's brown eyes with their curiously golden iris. also she had a fashion of opening her lips slightly when she was specially interested in a subject, as if she wished to breathe in the essence of the idea. a part of nona's dreaming was due to the fact that she had never known her mother after she was a small girl. more than this, she had been brought up in such curious ignorance of her mother's history. any child in the world must have dreamed strange dreams under like circumstances. often nona used to have a vision of her mother coming to stand at her bedside. always she appeared dressed in the white muslin and blue ribbons, in which she remembered seeing her on a special sunday afternoon. moreover, there was always the question of her mother's family to be pondered over. naturally nona believed that her mother must have been a great lady. her imagination even went so far as to conceive of her as a foreign princess, who for reasons of state had been suddenly carried off to her own land. until she grew old enough to laugh at herself, nona often sat with her delicate little nose pressed against the window pane in the drawing room of her old charleston home. if questions were asked she could invent many reasons to explain her presence. she was actually waiting for a splendid coach and four to drive up to the door and bear her away. the coach was always decorated with a splendid coat of arms, and for some absurd childish reason the coachman and footmen were dressed in pumpkin-colored satin and wore tall black top hats. as a matter of fact, as nona davis grew older these ridiculous fancies faded; nevertheless, a few of her old dreams remained. for one thing, she retained the impression that her mother had probably been a foreigner. yet she never could understand why, even after her father's death, his few old friends continued to decline to give her any information. surely one of them must know something of her mother. it was all too mysterious and disheartening. on coming to europe, nona had made up her mind to put the trying mystery back of her and to forget it as completely as she could. in a measure she had succeeded, but since her confession to the red cross girls the old haunting desire had come back to her. she _must_ find out whether her mother was dead or living and in either case why she had been told nothing of her. then suddenly one day, without knowing why, she chose dick thornton for a confidant. more than this, she asked for his advice. whatever the mystery, it was her right to be told the exact truth, she insisted, and dick agreed with her. this was on one of the occasions when they were walking together out from brussels in the direction of the sea. they were not allowed to travel very far, since the roads were all patrolled by german soldiers in command of the fortifications along the way. mildred had chosen to rest for a few moments, so that dick and nona were alone. not that mildred's presence would have interfered; this was simply an accident. dick listened with unusual gravity to nona's history. perhaps it struck him as even queerer than it did the girl herself. she had always been accustomed to the mystery. really, the entire story sounded like a fabrication. mysteries were out of fashion in these modern days in the united states. although, of course, there was nothing too mad or too inconceivable that was not taking place in europe at the present time. nothing was more antagonistic to dick thornton's nature than concealment of any kind. yet he felt profoundly touched by nona's confession. the girl herself was so attractive! she was still wearing the black silk dress and hat she had bought in paris the autumn before. her face had flushed, partly from embarrassment and partly from the emotion she always felt at any mention of her mother. her eyes were luminous and brown and her features as exquisitely carved as a greek statue's. dick also had no other idea except that nona's mother must have been a woman of grace and breeding. the daughter was entirely aristocratic to the tips of her slender fingers. for half a moment dick thought of suggesting that he or mildred write to their own mother for advice. in reality mrs. thornton would have enjoyed tremendously the unveiling of an _agreeable_ mystery. but only if she should discover in the end that nona was the heir to a fortune or a great name. if the conclusion of the mystery were disagreeable mrs. thornton would be profoundly bored. therefore he naturally hesitated. "i don't know exactly what to advise, nona," he confessed, since they were by this time calling each other by their first names. "the sensible thing is to write to your lawyer and demand to be told all that can be found out. if there are any letters or papers, you must be twenty-one, so they are legally yours. then perhaps with something to go on, you can find out the truth later for yourself. only please don't consider my advice too seriously." here dick's manner and voice both changed. he had grown accustomed to relying upon his own strength and decision in the past year. yet every once in a while he remembered that not many months before he had seldom given a serious thought to any subject except deciding what girl he should invite to the theater or a dance. "it was awfully kind of you to have thought my judgment worth while," he concluded. then his sudden turning of the subject of conversation surprised nona. "i have a secret of my own which i may some day tell you, because i hope to have the benefit of your advice," he added. "at present i am not sure whether it would be wise to speak of it. for so far there is nothing to be done with my secret but smile and bear it like a man." then dick smiled. "do you know, i have been thinking lately that perhaps it is the women who smile and bear their burdens. a man is rather apt to want to make a noise when he is hurt." nona glanced down at dick's sleeve. "i don't think you have a right to accuse yourself of that fault," she said gently. but dick shook his head. "i was not thinking of my arm; i am learning to get on fairly comfortably with one arm these days." chapter viii _a prison and a prisoner_ one afternoon one of the young doctors in the american hospital invited barbara to go with him to visit one of the german prisons. these prisons sheltered a number of wounded british and french soldiers. there were scarcely a sufficient number of hospitals to take care of the german wounded alone. dr. mason, the young american surgeon, was about twenty-five years old. he had been sent into belgium by the red cross societies in his own village in minnesota. so, although his home and barbara meade's were many miles apart, at least they were both westerners. on this score they had claimed a fellow feeling for each other. the truth was dr. mason felt sorry for barbara. she seemed so young and so much alone in the unhappy country they had come to serve. she did not seem to wish to be intimate with the other american nurses at their hospital and her two former friends evidently neglected her. so only with the thought of being kind, dr. mason had issued his invitation. he was not attracted by barbara. she seemed rather an insignificant little thing except for her big blue eyes. this was partly because barbara so seldom laughed these days. there was little in belgium that one could consider amusing. just now and then she did manage to bubble over inside when no one was noticing. for there is no world so sad or so dull that it does not offer an occasional opportunity for laughter. certainly an excursion to a prison could scarcely be considered an amusing expedition. nevertheless, barbara accepted the invitation with alacrity, although she had previously declined far pleasanter suggestions from dick thornton and the two girls. but she had several reasons for her present decision. she liked dr. mason and she was interested to see the inside of a german prison. moreover, it was not unpleasant to have her friends find out that other persons found her agreeable. have you ever been in the ridiculous state of mind of secretly yearning to be intimate with an old friend and yet refusing the opportunity when it is offered you? it is a common enough state of mind and usually comes from a curious combination of wounded pride and affection. yet it is a difficult mood to get the better of and often one must wait for time to bring the adjustment. if barbara had not been a red cross nurse she would never have been allowed to accompany the american surgeon to the german prison. but as he might need some one to assist him in cases of severe illness among the prisoners, barbara's presence would not be resented. the prison was a short distance out from the city of brussels. it had formerly been used for persons committing civil offenses, but was now a military prison. the building was of rough stone and was situated in the center of a large court yard. it was built around an enclosed square, where the prisoners were sometimes allowed to enjoy air and exercise. but conditions were not so unpleasant here as in many other places, although the discipline was fairly severe. for the germans were making their prisoners useful. in the early spring crops had been planted by the imprisoned men upon many of the waste spaces of conquered belgium. now the prisoners were employed in reaping some of the harvests. only a small proportion of the food would ever fall to their consumption, yet the work in the fields was far better for the health and spirits of the captured men than idleness. it left them less time for thinking of home and for fretting over the cruel fortunes of war. barbara and dr. mason drove out to the german prison in one of the automobiles connected with their hospital. on the outside frame of the car was the red cross sign with their motto: "humanity and neutrality." the german commandant of the prison was a big, blond fellow, disposed to be friendly. straightway he invited the two americans to investigate the prison, declaring that the germans had nothing to conceal in the treatment of their captives. dr. mason, however, was a strictly business-like person. he insisted upon seeing the sick men first. after doing what he could to relieve them, if there were time, they would then be pleased to inspect the prison. so barbara and the young physician were shown into a big room on the top floor of the building. a sentry sat on a stool outside the door. inside there were a dozen cots, but not another article of furniture. the room was fairly clean, but was lighted only by two small windows near the ceiling and crossed with heavy iron bars. on the cots were half a dozen french and as many english soldiers. several of them were evidently very ill, the others were merely weak and languid. a heavy-footed german woman, more stupid than unkind, was the solitary nurse. once again barbara had a return of her half whimsical, half sorrowful outlook upon life. this excursion with dr. mason was in no sense a pleasant one. for no sooner had she entered the sick room than she moved with her peculiar light swiftness toward the bed of a young soldier. his arms were thrown up over his head, as if even the faint light in the room tortured him. barbara pulled his arms gently down. as she did this he made no effort to resist, but murmured something in french which she could not comprehend. yet at the same moment she discovered that the boy's eyes were bandaged and that he had a quantity of yellow hair, curling all over his head in ringlets like a baby's. the german nurse strode over beside them. "he is blind; no hope!" she announced bluntly. at the same instant barbara's arms went around the boy soldier. for hours he must have been fighting this terrible nightmare alone. now to hear his own worst fears confirmed in such a cold, unfeeling fashion swept the last vestige of his courage away. barbara literally held the young fellow in her arms while he shook as if with ague. then he sobbed as if the crying tore at his throat. barbara made no effort not to cry with him. she kept murmuring little broken french phrases of endearment which she had learned from her year's work in france, all the time patting the boy's shoulder. he was a splendidly built young fellow with a broad chest and strong young arms. even his injury and the confinement had not broken his physical strength. this made the thought of his affliction even harder to bear, to think that so much fine vigor must be lost from the world's work. "i don't believe it is true that you are going to be blind forever," barbara whispered, as soon as she could find her voice. she had no real reason for her statement, except that the boy must be comforted for the moment. but he had covered up his eyes as though the light hurt them, and if he were totally blind neither light nor darkness would matter. dr. mason had at once crossed the room to talk to another patient. but at the sound of sobbing, he had turned to find his companion. certainly barbara was entirely unconscious of the charming picture she made. she was so tiny, and yet it was her strength and her sympathy at this moment that were actually supporting the young soldier. never before had the young american physician looked closely at barbara. now he wondered how he could ever have believed her anything but pretty. her white forehead was wrinkled with almost motherly sympathy. then even while her eyes overflowed, her red lips took a determined line. with a glance over her shoulder she summoned the physician. "please tell this boy you will do everything in your power to see that his eyes are looked after before it is too late," she pleaded. then she stood up, still with her hand on the young frenchman's shoulder. "i am a red cross nurse. this is dr. mason, one of the surgeons who is giving his services to the american hospital in brussels," she explained to the boy, who had by this time managed to regain control of himself. "miss winifred holt is coming over from new york just to look after the soldiers whose eyes have been injured in this war," barbara continued. "besides, i know there are eye specialists here who must be able to do something for you." barbara's tone each instant grew more reassuring. "i am sure dr. mason and i will both persuade the prison officers to let you have the best of care. they are sure to be willing to have us do all that is possible for you." by this time the young fellow had straightened himself up and taken hold of barbara's other hand. "you are more than kind," he answered, speaking with the peculiar courtesy of the french, "but it is useless! a shell exploded too near my face. no matter, it is all in the day's business! i was only thinking of my mother and our little farmhouse in provence and of the french girl, nicolete, who used to dance before our soldiers." suddenly barbara smelt the odor of pinks and mignonette. for odors are more intimately associated with one's memories than any other of the senses. then the next moment barbara saw eugenia and herself standing near the opening of a trench in southern france. as usual, they were arguing. but they were interrupted by a french soldier boy, who stood beside them holding out a small bunch of flowers. he had light hair and big blue eyes and rosy cheeks like a girl's. "monsieur bebé," barbara whispered. relieved that dr. mason and the german nurse had both been called to attend to another patient, barbara now climbed up on the cot and sat beside the french boy. "i want to tell you something that no one else must hear," she went on, lowering her voice until it was as mysterious as possible. "you do not know it, but you and i are old friends. at least, we have met before, and that is enough to make us friends in war times. besides, you once gave me a bouquet. do you remember two red cross nurses to whom you gave some flowers that you and the other soldiers had made grow in the mouth of your trench? then afterwards we both watched nicolete dance and you threw her a spray of mignonette?" "yes, yes," the boy answered, clutching now at barbara's skirt as if she were a real link with his own beloved land. "it is the good god who has sent you here to help me. you will write my mother and say things are well with me. it will be time enough for her to hear the truth if i ever go home." "you are going to get well, but if you don't you shall at least go home," barbara returned resolutely. "the germans are exchanging prisoners, you know. but i have another secret to tell you if you will promise not to tell." the boy, who had been crying like a cruelly hurt child the moment before, was now smiling almost happily. barbara could be a little witch when she chose. she put her own curly brown head in its white nurse's cap down close beside the boy's blond one. "what would you give to have that same little french girl, nicolete, talk to you some day not very far off?" she whispered. then she told the story of nicolete's coming into belgium with eugenia and of her living not far away in the house which eugenia had taken. but she also made the boy promise not to breathe to any one the fact of nicolete's identity. she was not supposed to be a french girl, but a little belgian maid under the protection of a wealthy but eccentric american red cross nurse. by the time barbara had finished this conversation she was compelled to hurry away. but she promised to come again to the prison as soon as she was allowed. dr. mason needed her help. there was far more work to be done than he expected. for the next two hours barbara assisted in putting on bandages, in washing ugly places with antiseptic dressings, in doing a dozen difficult tasks. nevertheless, whenever dr. mason had a chance to glance toward his assistant she managed to smile back at him. it was a trick barbara had when nursing. it was never a silly or an unsympathetic smile. it merely expressed her own readiness to meet the situation as cheerfully as possible. but before the afternoon's work was over the young american doctor had become convinced that she was the pluckiest little girl he had ever worked with. what was more, she was one of the prettiest. however, though the nurse and doctor were both worn out when their service for the day was over, they were not to be allowed to return to the hospital at once. the german officer in command still insisted that they be shown about the prison building and yard. chapter ix _a second acquaintance_ barbara did not enjoy the thought of being shown over the prison. for one thing, she was tired; another, she feared she would find the imprisoned soldiers terribly downcast. she had nursed among them so long she felt a deep sympathy for their misfortunes. yet she discovered that the imprisoned soldiers go through about the same variety of moods as men and women engaged in ordinary occupations. they have their sad days and their cheerful days. there are times when the confinement and depression seem unendurable, and others when a letter comes from home with good news. then one is immediately buoyed up. it was now between four and five o'clock on a summer's afternoon. barbara and dr. mason went through the prison hastily. there was nothing interesting in the sight of the ugly, over-crowded rooms; but fortunately at this hour most of the men were out of doors. so, as soon as they were allowed, the two americans gladly followed the german commandant out into the fresh air. they had not been permitted to talk to the prisoners and dr. mason had made no such effort. it was merely through the courtesy of the german commandant that the american physician and nurse were given the privilege of visiting the ill prisoners. therefore, dr. mason considered it a part of his duty not to break any of the prison rules. but barbara, being a woman, had no such proper respect for authority. whenever the others were not looking she had frequently managed to speak a few words. but she breathed better when they were again outdoors. it had been hot and sultry inside the prison, but now a breeze was blowing, stirring the leaves of the solitary tree in the prison yard to a gentle murmuring. underneath this tree was a group of a dozen or more soldiers. some of them were smoking cherished pipes, while others were reading letters, yellow and dirty from frequent handling. the international red cross had done its best to secure humane treatment for all the war prisoners in europe. for this purpose there is a bureau of prisoners, having its headquarters in geneva, switzerland. they have sent forth a petition to the various governments at war, asking among other things that prisoners be allowed to receive money, letters and packages from their friends. these last must of course be carefully censored, and yet they keep life from growing unendurably dull. think of long weeks and months going past with never a line from the outside world! barbara studied the faces of the imprisoned men closely. with all her experiences as a war nurse it chanced she had never before seen any number of prisoners. now and then a few of them had passed her, being marched along the belgian roads to the measure of the german goose step. now she managed to bow to the men resting under the tree and they returned her greeting in the friendliest fashion. every red cross nurse is a soldier's friend. yet in the character of an ordinary girl barbara would have been almost as cordially received. she looked so natural and so human. somehow one recalled once again the vision of "the girl one had left behind." but barbara was not to linger inside the prison yard. as the day was nearing its close the men who had been working in the fields were to return. the german commandant wished dr. mason to see how well his prisoners looked. surrounding the prison was a high stone wall. in the rear of this yard was a wide gate which could be swung back on hinges, allowing a half dozen men to be herded through at the same time. so dr. mason and barbara were escorted outside the prison wall and given chairs to await the marching past of the soldiers. barbara sat down gratefully enough. but when five or ten minutes passed and nothing happened she found herself growing bored. dr. mason could not talk to her. the german officer was discoursing so earnestly in his own language that it was plain the american physician had to devote all his energies to the effort to understand him. so by and by, when neither of the men was observing her, barbara got up and strolled a few paces away. there was little to see except the stretch of much-traveled road. the fields where the prisoners were at work were more than a mile away. but the girl's attention was arrested by an unmistakable sound. it was the noise of the imprisoned soldiers being marched back to their jail. the tread was slow and dead, without animation or life. it was as if the men had been engaged in tasks in which they had little concern and were being returned to a place they hated. barbara stood close to the edge of the road along which the men must pass. she was naturally not thinking of herself. so it had not occurred to her that the soldiers might be surprised by her unexpected appearance. she was frowning and her blue eyes were wide open with excitement. she had left her nurse's coat thrown over the back of her chair. so she wore her american red cross uniform, whose white and crimson made a spot of bright color in the late afternoon's light. a young french soldier in the first line of prisoners chanced to catch barbara's eye. she smiled at him, half wistful and half friendly. instantly the young fellow's hand went up to his cap, as he offered her the salute a soldier pays his superior officer. then the prisoners were all seized with the same idea at the same time. for as each line of soldiers, with their guards on either side, passed the spot where barbara was standing, every hand rose in salute. the girl was deeply touched. but she was not alone in this feeling. the american physician had a husky sensation in his throat and his glasses became suddenly blurred. the german commandant of the prison said "a-hum, a-hum," in an unnecessarily loud tone. there was nothing in the spectacle of the girl herself being thus honored by the imprisoned men that was particularly affecting. the truth was it was not barbara who was being saluted, but the uniform she wore, the white ground with its cross of crimson. in a world of hate and confusion and sometimes of despair the red cross still commands universal respect. barbara could not see distinctly the faces of the soldiers. she recognized them to be both french and english and of various ages and ranks. but there were too many of them and they moved too rapidly to study the individual faces. however, as the men finally entered the prison gate the line halted a moment. then something must have occurred to delay them still more. six or eight rows of men were compelled to stand at attention. one of the guards near barbara moved ahead to find out what caused the obstruction. this was barbara's chance to get a good look at the soldiers. so she began with the one in the line directly opposite her. the young man was undeniably an englishman. he was about six feet tall and as lean as possible without illness. he wore no hat and his hair was tawny as the hay he had just been cutting. moreover, his eyes were the almost startling blue that one only sees with a bronzed skin. he did not look unhappy or bored, but extremely wide awake and "fit," as the english say. besides this, he seemed enormously interested in barbara. obviously the young soldier was a gentleman, and yet equally obvious was the fact that he was staring. all at once barbara moved forward a few steps until she was nearer the prisoner than she should have been. this was because she had seen him somewhere before but could not for the moment recall his name. "lieutenant hume!" barbara exclaimed suddenly under her breath. "i am sorry; i did not know you were a prisoner!" the young soldier did not move a muscle in his face, yet his eyes answered the girl with sufficient eloquence. there was not a second to be lost. barbara knew the prisoner was not allowed to speak to her. also she was not expected to speak to him. but she had an unlooked-for chance to say a few words, and what feminine person would have failed to seize the opportunity! "we are nursing here in brussels, all of us," she went on rapidly, keeping as careful a lookout as possible. "the other girls will be grieved to hear of your bad luck. if possible, would you like one of us to write you?" for half a second lieutenant hume's rigidity relaxed. yet once again his answer was in the look he flashed at the girl. then next the order came. the soldiers were marched inside the prison and the gate swung to. immediately after barbara and dr. mason started back to the hospital. really, barbara felt ashamed of herself, she was such an extraordinarily dull companion during the return journey. but she was both tired and excited. what an extraordinary experience to have spent a few hours at a german prison and to have discovered two acquaintances. true, poor monsieur bebé was scarcely an acquaintance, yet she had seen and spoken to him before. as for lieutenant hume, he was almost a friend. at least, he had been a friend of nona's. she would be grieved to hear of his misfortune and no doubt would try to be kind to him if it were possible. as for barbara, she meant to devote her energies to doing what she could for the young frenchman. if he were totally blind, surely the german authorities might be persuaded to exchange him for one of their own men, should proper interest be shown in his case. as soon as possible barbara decided she would go and consult eugenia. she would be sure to have some intelligent suggestion to make. barbara and dr. mason said farewell to each other outside the hospital front door, as the man had other work before him. just as he was leaving the girl slipped her small hand inside his. "i have had a more interesting afternoon than you realize," she insisted, "and thank you for taking me with you. i am sorry that i have been such a tiresome companion on our way home." the young man smiled down upon the tired little nurse. the fact that she was a nurse struck him as an absurdity, as it did almost every one else. "you have been a perfect trump, miss meade, and if anybody is to blame it is i, for taking you upon such a fatiguing expedition. will you go with me upon a more cheerful excursion some day?" barbara nodded. dr. mason was looking at her with the frankest admiration and friendship. it was good to be admired and liked. then she turned and disappeared inside the big hospital door. dr. mason continued to think of her until he reached the house of his next patient. chapter x _a discussion, not an argument_ "but very probably you were mistaken in thinking it was lieutenant hume," nona announced. "i am sure he had not been taken prisoner when we left france." barbara raised herself on one elbow in her small bed and answered irritably: "i most certainly was not mistaken, nona davis. i ought to know robert hume perfectly well after our meeting in paris and his visit at the chateau. besides, though he dared not speak, he showed that he recognized me. i even promised him that you would write him a note to the prison if it were possible." then barbara relaxed and sank down on her pillow again. she and nona and mildred were in her small room at the hospital. it was time for them all to have been in bed and asleep, since they chanced not to be engaged in night nursing. but barbara had retired early, as she was extremely tired. then, some time after, nona and mildred had crept in to find out what had become of her. they had missed her during the afternoon, but had not known of her expedition with dr. mason. now nona looked annoyed. "what an extraordinary thing, barbara, for you to promise! i am sure i see no reason in the world why i should write lieutenant hume. we are only acquaintances. of course, i am sorry to know he is in hard luck. but for me to begin writing him under the circumstances would look as if we were intimate friends." barbara slipped her arms up over her head, making a kind of oval frame for her face. nona and mildred were seated on either side the foot of her bed. "i think you are absurd, nona," she commented, in the frank fashion which was not always either advisable or pleasant. "i really don't believe i did say you would write, only that one of us would. naturally, i thought as you knew lieutenant hume best you would prefer it. i don't consider he would think you were being _too_ friendly with him. he is too much of a gentleman. he would understand that you were sorry for his hard luck and pitied his loneliness. i wonder if it was because you were brought up in the south that you are so conventional? you don't seem to be so all the time, only when it suits you. i am sure i will write the note to lieutenant hume with pleasure if i find he is allowed to receive letters except from his family." evidently barbara was in a mood when it made but little difference to her whether or not she made nona davis angry. yet she and nona had once seemed to be devoted to each other and appeared to be friendly now. nona, however, was not given to quarreling. so, although she flushed uncomfortably, she made no immediate answer. mildred, however, broke into the conversation hastily. "well, you did have an extraordinarily interesting afternoon, barbara, though it must have been a trying one. i confess nona and dick and i were all hurt when we found you had gone out without even speaking of your intention. we have asked you to go with us any number of times. dick said he did not suppose you knew any one in the hospital well enough to have accepted an invitation." at this barbara rose up to a half-sitting position, still with her arm-encircled head leaning against her pile of pillows. "was dick here this afternoon?" she inquired, wondering within herself why she felt pleased over dick's hearing of her departure. "oh, he only stopped by for a moment to bring nona a book," mildred added. "i just chanced to see them as i was passing by in the hall. but you look very tired, barbara. would you like nona and me to leave you? you can tell us more of your experiences another time. but i advise you to ask dick if he can make any suggestions about the poor little frenchman. monsieur bebé sounds so pathetic. you know dick may have something worth while to propose. he is doing such splendid work with the relief committee." barbara patted mildred's hand gently and, it must be confessed, a little condescendingly. "you are apt to think dick does everything well, mill, aren't you," she announced, "whether it is looking after the starving belgians or leading a dance in a ball room? still, i don't think i shall trouble him. i have a plan of my own in mind for the boy and i am going out to see eugenia to ask if she thinks it feasible. then if she thinks it is, i shall go ahead and see what can be accomplished." "and leave all of us completely in the dark," nona added. "i must confess, barbara, i don't think it kind of you to speak to mildred about dick in such a superior, almost scornful, fashion. in the last few weeks we have both been aware that you did not care to be intimate with us. but whatever we may have done, i can't see how dick thornton can have merited your disapproval. i don't believe you have even seen him alone." barbara's cheeks flared. "and i wonder how you formed that opinion, nona? however, it strikes me as none of your business." the instant barbara had made this speech she was sorry. one was always at a disadvantage in a quarrel with nona davis. for nona never for a moment forgot her dignity or breeding. she was white now, while barbara was crimson. her lips were curling a little scornfully, but she answered quietly, "i am sorry to have made you angry; that was not my intention." however, in spite of her apology, the younger girl remained absurdly aggrieved. yet she had the grace to turn to mildred. "i am sure you understand, mildred, that i never intended to be disagreeable about dick. you must know that i admire him very much." mildred leaned over and deliberately pinched barbara's flushed cheeks. "i know you are a little goose," she asserted, "to be quarreling with nona as though you were two badly brought up children." but barbara was not to be appeased. she made no answer, and the next moment nona slipped off the bed and knelt on the floor beside her. "what is the matter, bab? what is it that has been making you feel and behave so differently toward me lately? if i have been to blame in any way i apologize with all my heart. i confess i was absurd about lieutenant hume. i liked him very much the few times we met. i might at least be willing to do the poor fellow a kindness when he is in hard luck. but you see, he does not belong to a very good family in england. though he behaves like a gentleman, after all he is only a gardener's son." it was not barbara who interrupted this time, but mildred thornton. "that is nonsense, nona," she protested. "i have heard you say something of that kind two or three times. anyone who has traveled in the least knows that no gardener's son in england is educated as lieutenant hume is, nor has such perfectly self-possessed manners. besides, he is a lieutenant." nona shook her head. "yes, i know it does sound impossible," she returned. "but lieutenant hume told me himself that he was the son of the gardener when i first met him in surrey. he was at home then, recovering from a wound in the leg and was lying asleep near the gardener's cottage. it has often struck me as queer since, but i have worked it all out. lieutenant hume must have been educated by some one who considered him unusual. and commissions have been given in the british army in this war for merit as well as for family reasons." but nona was evidently weary of the subject of the young english lieutenant. she had remained kneeling on the floor and she now took hold of barbara's somewhat limp hand in a very sweet fashion. "but you haven't said what the trouble is between us, bab, or whether you are willing to forgive me?" she continued. "i should feel very unhappy if anything serious interrupted our friendship. eugenia seems so far away these days and i don't believe she is anxious to have us come to see her often." "oh, eugenia is busy," barbara answered carelessly. "but it is all right, nona; of course i am not angry with you. i was vexed for a moment, but i expect that was because i am tired. it is ridiculous to suggest that there could be any serious trouble between us." to the best of her ability barbara tried to speak with sincerity. nona looked exquisitely pretty and appealing as she knelt beside her. one would have forgiven her almost any offense. yet barbara could not truthfully convince herself that nona had committed an offense against her. nevertheless, she did not feel a return of her affection, although she struggled to have her manner at least appear unchanged. but nona was conscious of the difference, for she rose immediately to her feet. "i am sorry we disturbed you tonight when you were so tired," she said, holding her chin just a little higher than usual. there was no change in the soft inflections of her voice. "good night." then nona left the room without looking back. but mildred stopped to kiss barbara. "you haven't been any too nice to me either, mistress barbara," she asserted. "if you don't reform i shall tell dick and make him find out the reason why." of course mildred made this speech without in the least meaning it. nevertheless, after both girls had left the room and she should have been asleep, barbara remembered. she sincerely hoped that mildred would not be so tiresome as to tell dick of their personal differences. but what was the root of the trouble between her and her two former friends? for the life of her barbara could not decide. or, if at the depth of her heart she knew, she was not brave enough to confess the truth to herself. chapter xi _monsieur bebé_ one sultry august afternoon barbara went again to see eugenia. this time she went alone. according to his usual custom bibo met her at the end of the car line with his ancient horse. owing to his lameness perhaps, he was head coachman to eugenia's establishment, which barbara still insisted upon calling "l'hotel des enfants." bibo was looking extremely well. he had on long trousers of blue cotton and a blue cotton smock with a round collar. he had lost the frightened, starved look which barbara remembered seeing on the evening of his rescue. the boy's face was round, there was a dimple in one corner of his brown cheek. his eyes were serene save for his sense of responsibility as barbara's escort. it is true that bibo's mother was still held a prisoner in brussels because of an act of disrespect to a german officer. but children's memories do not harass them so long as they are happy. "how are things going, bibo?" barbara asked in french, as soon as she was seated beside her driver. fortunately, french was the language of eugenia's belgium family rather than flemish. bibo first flapped his reins and then nodded enthusiastically. words at the moment appeared to fail him, although he was usually voluble. "then gene is well?" barbara continued. for after many difficulties eugenia had acquired this informal title. in the beginning the children had struggled nobly with her name, but miss peabody was too much for them. then "miss eugenia" was equally difficult for little belgian tongues, so it became madame gene. later, since eugenia did not enjoy being called madame, nor was she more fond of mademoiselle, her name attained its simplest form among the younger children. but eugenia was bibo's altar saint and he was not inclined to take liberties. saint gene she had been to him in truth! "she is well," he answered briefly. then he allowed his round eyes to leave his horse and turn ecstatically toward barbara. "in a few days my mother is to be with us. she wrote that she need stay no longer in prison and that she wished to see me, but alas, there was no place for us to go! our home near louvain was burned and my father--" the tones of the boy's voice expressed his uncertainty of his father's fate. "but my friend has written that my mother may come to our home; she will help us look after the other children. all will be well!" bibo's tone was so grown-up and he was so evidently quoting eugenia that his companion smiled. but the smile was because bibo could not possibly understand how one _could_ cry over good news. how big was eugenia's house and her sympathy these days? certainly she seemed to wish it to include all who needed her help. "and monsieur bebé?" barbara next queried. "does he appear more cheerful since i left him with you a week ago?" the boy hesitated a little. "he laughed twice this morning and he sits all day in the sun and smiles now and then when nicolete is beside him. but no one can be cheerful and blind." this was spoken with conviction. of his own affliction bibo seldom thought, but indeed his lameness troubled him very little now. he could run and walk almost as well as the other boys. it had been hard at first, for until the day when their house had burned and they had been forced to escape, he had been exactly like other boys. but he had been stupid then and fallen. there had been no time to heal the hurt in his leg, so bibo must hobble as best he might through an indifferent world. but barbara seemed extraordinarily well pleased by her companion's information. poor monsieur bebé had been so far from smiling even once during his weeks in the prison hospital. and barbara felt that she could claim some of the credit along with eugenia for his release and better fortune. soon after her visit to the prison she had secured a prominent surgeon to go and look at the young frenchman's eyes. the man could offer him little comfort. there was every chance that monsieur bebé, whose name was reney, must continue blind. a little hope he might have, but hope was not encouragement. in the depression that followed this announcement barbara did her best to help the boy. but it was plain to his fellow prisoners and to the prison officers that the news had broken his health and spirit. he had no wish to live. he would not eat and after a time made no effort to get out of bed. he would lie all day without speaking, but rarely uttering a complaint. everybody was sorry for him, the big german nurse, the german guards, even the commandant of the prison. it was one thing to kill an enemy in the passion of battle, but another to see a boy, who had done one no personal harm, slowly passing away in darkness. so when barbara came to the german commandant with her plea for his prisoner's parole, he was willing to listen to her. "what possible harm could be done if monsieur bebé, in reality albert reney, be transferred to eugenia's home in the woods? she had offered the french boy shelter and care. he would make no effort to escape, but even if he should, a blind man could never again fight for his country. moreover, germany was arranging with the allies for an exchange of blind prisoners. it was possible that monsieur reney might later on be sent home." eugenia was waiting this time near the place where barbara was compelled to descend from bibo's wagon. she had only one of her children with her, which was unusual, since she ordinarily went about with five or six. but jan and bibo were her two shadows. they were marked contrasts, since bibo was so plainly a little son of the belgian soil, the child and grandchild of farmers. jan came of the men and women who have lived among pictures and books and helped make the history of his now tragic land. the boy jan was so instinctively a gentleman that, although he was not ten years old, he immediately upon barbara's arrival slipped behind the two friends. for his happiness' sake he wished to keep his eyes fastened upon his gene, but he must not be close enough to overhear conversation that would not be intended for him. eugenia took barbara's face between her beautiful, firm hands and gazed at her closely. although in the first instant she saw that the girl wore the same look of the past few weeks, she said nothing. only she put her arm about her as they walked toward the house. barbara did not feel like talking at first. she had been coming every week recently to the house in the woods and the visits always rested her. it did not seem possible that a few months could make so great a change as they had in eugenia. one could scarcely have recognized her as the same girl who set sail from new york city a little more than a year before. but she was also changed from the girl who had crossed over from france earlier in the summer. in spite of her responsibilities eugenia had grown ever so much larger; all the angular curves were gone, her chin was softly rounded. beneath her pallor there was now a soft glow of pink, and best of all, the severe lines about her mouth had almost completely vanished. they could return if she were displeased, but the children rarely saw them. "something very worth while has come to you, gene," barbara whispered. "i wish you felt you could tell me what it is. is it because you enjoy looking after the belgian children?" eugenia nodded. "it is that and something else, but i don't feel that i can ever explain to any one." then barbara and eugenia were interrupted by two persons coming toward them from the opposite direction. one was a splendid, big blond fellow whose eyes were bandaged. he was being led by a girl of about sixteen with jet-black hair which she wore short to her shoulders. she had dark eyes and crimson lips. nicolete's costume and manner had both changed since her departure from france. but it was not possible to change the vivid coloring of her face. both the girl and boy were chattering rapidly, and both of them seemed happier than barbara had lately seen them. "the truth is all french people are homesick outside of their beloved france," barbara thought to herself. "so it must be a consolation to have a fellow countryman for a companion." but monsieur bebé was tremendously pleased to hear barbara's voice. he asked her to take his hand and lead him back to his chair in the garden before the once deserted house. there, as a small chair chanced to be beside his, barbara sat down. then nicolete and eugenia went away to prepare tea. monsieur bebé did his best to express his thanks to barbara and he had the frenchman's grace and choice of words. he was of course still desperately sad over his affliction, but meant if possible to meet it like a man. he had been willing to die for his country, but perhaps it took more courage to go on living for her. miss peabody had promised that as soon as possible he should begin to learn a trade. after a quarter of an hour's talk barbara felt in better spirits than she had on her arrival. perhaps this was the secret with eugenia. she was feeling that she was being useful to some one. it might help heal another kind of hurt. certainly barbara could feel that her interest in the young frenchman had been worth while. the two friends saw little of each other during the rest of the afternoon. but this was the usual thing and barbara did not mind. she continued to stay out in the yard, sometimes watching the children play and at other times leading the games herself. eugenia came and went, now and then stopping for a few words of conversation. "louise," the maid, rarely appeared. in all barbara's visits she and "louise" had not exchanged a dozen sentences. indeed, it was self-evident that the woman did not wish to be noticed. barbara respected her desire. however, she understood perfectly by this time that "louise" was not a servant, but some one who was living in eugenia's house in order to conceal herself and her children. jan had forgotten instructions and several times spoken to "louise" as mother. there was also a little girl who was with her the greater part of the time. but barbara asked no more questions. so far no trouble had come from eugenia's kindness. perhaps this "louise" was a person of no especial importance, whom the german authorities would not take the trouble to seek. of the person behind the locked door, nothing more had been seen or heard. only barbara had never been allowed to go into that particular room. none of these things were troubling her this afternoon. possibly she might try and talk them over with eugenia later, although she really did not expect to. but she meant to stay all night and eugenia had promised to spend an hour or so before bedtime alone with her. it was a marvelous august night with the most perfect moon of the year. the day had been hot, but the coolness came, as it nearly always does, toward evening. nevertheless, eugenia and barbara decided to leave the house for a short walk. there was little chance for privacy indoors, as every room was now occupied and eugenia had been compelled to take nicolete in with her. so at about nine o'clock, when most of the members of the household had retired, eugenia and her guest started out. eugenia wore a dark red sweater and cap and barbara white ones, which she kept in the country for the purpose. neither girl intended to go far from home. eugenia's house was in a comparatively deserted part of the countryside. there were no other places near. but for that very reason in case of difficulty there would be no one to offer aid. to the left of eugenia's was a big, uncultivated field. on the other side was the woods with the path which connected with her yard. the children often played in the woods near by, but in taking a walk persons were compelled to follow the traveled path. if one wandered away for any distance there was danger of getting lost. not that the woods were particularly thick, but because they had been neglected and underbrush had grown up between the trees. therefore, as soon as the two girls walked the length of their yard they turned into the usual path. the woods were in reality only another portion of the abandoned estate. the moonlight was so bright that the path looked like a strip of white ribbon ahead. then, though the foliage of the trees made beautiful, dense shadows, one could see distinctly in between them. chapter xii _the ghost_ the girls had been talking over certain details in connection with the management of eugenia's establishment. she found it extremely difficult to buy provisions. but neither one of them was giving thought to what she said. it was eugenia, however, who offered the interruption. "please let's don't talk about things that are of no importance, bab, when i see you so seldom," she protested. "tell me, please, about dick thornton and mildred and nona. dick and nona were out here a few moments the other day, but i had no chance to have any conversation with them. i thought they both looked extraordinarily well to be working so hard. i never believed nona as strong as you, barbara, so why do you seem so used up? is your work at the hospital more difficult than hers?" "certainly not," the other girl answered. "really, eugenia, i don't think it kind of you, or of other people, to keep on telling me i don't look well. i have assured you a dozen times i am all right. if you continue suggesting the other thing i shall probably fall ill. but nona and dick do seem well and cheerful, and so is mildred for that matter. i think it is because they are all very happy over something. no one has spoken of it to me so i am only guessing. but it is true, isn't it, eugenia, that if one is happy oneself, it is not hard to bear the sufferings of other people? yet it seems to me that belgium is scarcely the place to make one cheerful." instead of replying eugenia laughed. the cynicism in barbara's tone was so unlike her. yet one could realize that she did not mean to be disagreeable. really she was confused and needed information. "oh, i suppose one's own happiness is of chief importance," eugenia finally returned. "it isn't human to expect people to be utterly wretched over others' sorrows. one can be sympathetic, of course, and depressed now and then, but that is about all." then they walked on a few yards in silence before the older girl added: "are you speaking of the same thing, bab, that we discussed one night in the moonlight a good many weeks ago? i believe it was the first evening after dick thornton arrived in brussels? because if you are, i still don't agree with you. of course, i have been separated from the rest of you most of the time lately, yet i don't think i am mistaken. what makes you believe as you do, barbara?" the older girl put this question in as careless a tone as possible. then, although she and her companion were walking arm in arm, she did not glance toward her. she did not even try to get an impression of her expression in the moonlight. barbara shrugged her shoulders. "there are many signs, eugenia, and they cannot always be defined. but i don't think _you_ would ever see or understand them." the slighting emphasis upon the pronoun was unmistakable; nevertheless, eugenia only smiled. once barbara's point of view might have hurt her, but tonight she was not thinking of herself. she had something else upon her mind, but was uncertain whether it would be wise to discuss the subject, or leave it still in darkness. "well, perhaps you are right, barbara," she admitted. "i had a note from nona yesterday, but she made no reference to dick. she wanted me to ask you a question for her, which perhaps neither of us has the right to ask. i don't know, it has worried me a good deal----" she stopped because barbara had turned in the path and was facing her half belligerently and half affectionately. "don't be a goose, eugenia, ask me anything you like. certainly i have bored you enough recently with my bad tempers and complaints to have you say whatever you wish to me. it's funny, eugenia, but when we started for europe i was sure i was going to like you less than any one of the girls. now you are the only one i care very much about." with this barbara laughed, pretending that she was not altogether in earnest. but there was no humor in her laughter. eugenia received her information gravely. "that may be good of you, dear, but i don't believe you," she returned. "still i am glad you made the remark just at this minute. it helps me with what i wish to say to you. nona wanted me to find out what it was that had changed your feeling for her. she says she has done her best to discover for herself and has asked you to tell her, but without success. she seems much distressed and is anxious to make amends if she has injured you." the older girl had to cease talking because barbara had pulled away and was walking on ahead without pretending to answer. she was being rude and was aware of it. but it was better to be rude than to have any human being discover how crimson her face had become and how her lips were trembling. eugenia's question had taken her so by surprise. several weeks before she had gone through much the same kind of conversation with nona and mildred. but the subject had never been mentioned again and she hoped was happily over. it was too stupid to have nona go on dwelling upon the matter in this way and utterly pointless. she had told her that she had nothing in the world against her. surely one had the right to one's likes and dislikes! quietly eugenia continued after her guest. she made no effort to stop her, although she realized that they were walking farther than they had intended. finally barbara must have appreciated the fact, because she stopped and turned around. "let's go back home, i am dead tired," she murmured. of course eugenia complied, and they continued in single file on the return journey. walking alone, barbara once or twice thought that she heard some one tramping about in the underbrush not far away. but although she glanced over in that direction she saw no one. after five minutes more of silence barbara caught up with eugenia, who was in the lead on the way home. "can we stop a minute somewhere, gene, before we get back to the house? i have something i want to tell you. i believe i'll feel relieved once i have made a plain statement of a fact to myself as well as to you. and it will be easier to say it out here in the moonlight than in the light of day." this time it was the older girl who hesitated. "you said you were tired, bab, and it is getting late. besides, i am not sure it is wise for us to be so far from the house alone." she turned her head uneasily toward the left side of the woods. it was on the same side that barbara had believed she heard a noise. but at present she was paying no attention. "please do as i ask you; a few minutes more cannot make any difference." then, just as they had two months before, the girls found a fallen tree and seated themselves on the trunk. but barbara turned around so that she could look directly at her companion. a shaft of light shone straight across her face. eugenia could see that the characteristic little frown was there as well as the slight wrinkling of the short, straight nose. also that barbara's eyes were serious, although the expression of her mouth was partly humorous. she looked very young and charming. perhaps she was not so beautiful as many other girls. yet she had a kind of mocking grace, an evanescent, will o' the wisp quality that was more fascinating than ordinary beauty. then beside this, she was so thoroughly human. "yes, i have a grievance against nona, a perfectly dreadful one. when i told her i didn't have, i just lied," she began directly. "fact of the matter is, i can't forgive nona for being more attractive than i am. i can't tell her this to her face though, can i, eugenia? nor can i see exactly how i can let _you_ tell her." barbara clasped her hands together. they felt very warm, although the evening was cool. but then her cheeks were even hotter. nevertheless, a smile at herself, perhaps the best smile there is in the world, flickered around the corners of barbara's mouth. "i know perfectly well what you are thinking, eugenia. nona has not changed recently. if i cannot like her now because she is prettier and more charming than i am, then why did i like her at the beginning of our acquaintance? she was both those things then. but the fact is, i didn't care then, because, because--oh, why is it so hard to get it out, gene? i don't see why girls need always be ashamed of caring for people who don't care for them? i didn't know at first how much dick thornton was going to be interested in nona davis, nor how much i cared for dick. there, the worst is out and i am glad of it!" then barbara dropped her chin into her hands and sat staring at the moon up over the top of the trees, waiting for her companion to answer. eugenia remained silent. "are you disgusted with me, gene?" the younger girl asked the next moment. "goodness knows, i have been with myself, though i never confessed the truth to any one, not even to barbara meade, until this second. i haven't any right in the world to like dick except as a friend. he has always been only ordinarily nice and polite to me. i really never thought of him seriously until after we left paris. then when i found out he was writing to nona and never to me, i was terribly hurt. i had believed we were better friends than he and nona. at first i didn't see why i should mind so much, then by degrees i suppose i began to find out. anyhow, the only reason i have for not liking nona at present is jealousy. it is about the ugliest fault there is, so i'm not very proud of myself. but as i intend to make a clean breast of the subject tonight and then never mention it again, you might as well hear the rest. i don't like mildred so much as i used to, because she evidently prefers to have nona for dick's friend than to have me. and there are times when i'd like to pinch her." it was so absurd of barbara to end her confession with this anti-climax. yet the older girl was not deceived. because she endeavored to make fun of herself and of the situation, she was no less in earnest. "why don't you say something, gene?" she pleaded the next instant. "what shall i do? am i ever going to be sensible again?" perhaps it was because eugenia had been devoting herself to caring for children for the past two months, or perhaps it was because she had so strongly the mother feeling. for at this moment she wanted to take barbara in her arms. really, there was not very much for her to say under the circumstances. should she insist that dick was not in love with nona when she knew absolutely nothing about it? this would, only make things harder for the other girl in the end. barbara was not a foolish, sentimental person; she was usually clear-sighted, with sound common sense. of course, she would stop caring for dick thornton after a time if he felt no affection for her. but how convince her of this at the present moment? "i had been fearing something like this, barbara," eugenia said finally. "i don't mean in connection with nona. i never dreamed of her entering into the situation. dick is a splendid fellow, but after all he has only one arm. besides, i don't think judge thornton is really wealthy. they spend a great deal of money. i know from all i have heard that judge thornton makes a great deal, but that mrs. thornton is very extravagant and very ambitious." barbara got up. "let's go to bed, gene dear. of course, nothing you can say will make any difference. but i promise to turn over a new leaf. away with all human weakness!" barbara started to wave her hand, but instead clutched at eugenia's arm frantically. "great heavens, who was that, gene?" she whispered. "i am sure i saw some one sliding along between the trees. he was crouched over as if he feared we might see him." eugenia took the younger girl's arm. "it was no one, my dear. but remember, this is a haunted house and a ghost is supposed to wander all over the estate. keep hold of my hand and we'll run to the house. perhaps we may get there before the ghost does." chapter xiii _an arrest_ "i want you to know that i understand who the ghost was last night, eugenia," barbara said unexpectedly next morning. eugenia was just about to leave her bedroom, nicolete having gone downstairs half an hour before. at these words the older girl turned and stood straight and severe with her shoulders braced against the wall as if for support. "what do you mean?" she inquired slowly. barbara had not finished dressing. indeed, she was in the undignified attitude of sitting on one side of the bed putting on her stockings. nevertheless, she gazed at eugenia squarely. "i mean just what i said," she answered. "that is, of course, i don't know the name or the age or the identity of the man i saw by accident in the woods last night. but i realize that he must be the same person you have been concealing ever since you took this house. naturally he must grow weary of the long confinement and be obliged to go outdoors now and then at night." eugenia had not replied, so barbara went on thinking aloud. "or else some one may have been coming to the house with a message for the person in hiding. of course, i don't know whether your refugee is a man or woman. but whoever he or she may be, goodness knows, i'll be grateful enough when the escape is over and this house left behind!" eugenia's face whitened at the younger girl's words. nevertheless, she again turned as if she meant to leave the room without an answer. barbara was too quick for her. she took hold of both her shoulders and pulled her gently around. "i would rather you would say something, gene. i have been doing all the talking ever since i arrived. one minute i can't decide whether i ought to try and find out who this person is you have in hiding, or what your reason is. then i wonder if it is best i should leave you alone? but please, please don't run any risks. you know that if you are defying the german authorities and are found out, what your punishment may be. what could _i_ possibly do to help you? i feel so powerless. i can't tell you how i have longed to confide my suspicion to dick thornton or the girls and ask their advice. but i have kept absolutely silent." "thank you," eugenia said, and then waited another moment. "sit down, please, barbara," she added. "i suppose it is only fair that i offer you some explanation. you have been so good." barbara did as she was requested. but eugenia continued to stand. her level, dark brows were drawn close together and her face was pale. otherwise she looked entirely self-possessed, sure of herself and her position. "i am not going to tell you that i have any one in hiding here, barbara. if questions are ever asked of you, you are to know absolutely nothing. but i want you to understand that i appreciate perfectly the danger of what i have undertaken and have done it with my eyes open. if i am punished, well, at least i have always faced the possibility. but after today, dear, if things go as we hope, you need no longer worry over me. so far i feel pretty sure the germans in command of this part of the country have not suspected our house in the woods of being anything more than a shelter for defenseless belgian children. and really that has been my chief motive in all that i have done." barbara sighed. "god keep us through the day," she murmured, quoting a childish prayer. then eugenia went downstairs to her work and a short time later the younger girl followed her. barbara was to remain until after lunch. but at her friend's request she spent most of the time in the yard with the children and monsieur bebé. whatever went on inside the house neither she nor any of the others were to be allowed to know. as a special pleasure the children were to be permitted to eat their luncheon under an old tree in the one-time garden. this garden now held no flowers except two or three old rosebushes and overgrown shrubs. the heat of yesterday had returned and with it even more sultriness. there were heavy clouds overhead, but no immediate sign of rain. it was one of those days that are always peculiarly hard to endure. the air was heavy and languid with a kind of brooding stillness that comes before the storm. the nerves of everybody seemed to be on edge. monsieur bebé had lost his courage of yesterday and sat silent in his chair with his head resting in his hand. was he dreaming of provence before france was driven into war? or was he hearing again the cracking of rifles, the booming of cannon, all the noises of the past year of life in a trench? several times barbara did her best to distract his attention, but the french boy could do nothing more than try to be polite. it was evident that he hardly heard what she said to him. nicolete was too engaged with her duties in the house to offer companionship. nevertheless, she came back and forth into the yard. now and then she would stop for a moment to speak to monsieur reney, who was monsieur bebé only to barbara, who had so named him. nicolete was busy in arranging the outdoor luncheon for the children. for she it was who brought out the dishes and the chairs. only once did she have any assistance and then the maid from the kitchen helped her with the luncheon table. neither eugenia nor the woman whom they called "louise" was seen all morning. so to barbara fell the entire task of looking after the children. perhaps it was the weather, perhaps they too were vaguely conscious that something unusual was going on about them, for they were extremely difficult. not once, but half a dozen times, each child insisted upon going into the house to search for eugenia. she could not be busy for so long a time that she could not come out to them, they protested. this had never happened before. jan and bibo were particularly sulky, nevertheless barbara continued firm. jan had been made her especial charge. whatever happened he must be kept away from all knowledge of what was transpiring in the big house only a few yards off. this world is ever a double mask with the face of tragedy painted upon one side and of comedy upon the other. so often barbara thought of this during the long hours of the morning. sometimes she was whirling about with the children in a ring, singing at the top of her voice to keep their attention engaged. yet at the same moment her thoughts were all concentrated upon what was going on in the house with eugenia. whom had she in hiding all these weeks, risking her own liberty for his or her safety? and how was it possible that any human being could escape from belgium whom the germans wished to detain? yet not a carriage nor a human being approached the house from the front. of this barbara was absolutely certain. always when it was possible she had kept a watchful lookout. besides, there was jan who had appointed himself sentinel. the boy could not consciously have been expecting disaster. not a human being had given him a hint of what was to take place. yet he simply refused to play when the other children invited him. when barbara explained that eugenia insisted he remain out of the house, he made no effort toward disobedience. he merely took up a position as far away as possible, but one where he could still see the house and at the same time keep a lookout ahead. for his quiet gray eyes would study the landscape beyond him sometimes for five minutes, then he would turn his head and gaze toward the house. satisfied that he could discover nothing wrong there, he would again begin his former scrutiny. he was an interesting figure; barbara studied him whenever she had a chance. here was a child whom the war had not so far injured physically. although ill some weeks before he had since recovered. yet he would bear the scars that the war had made upon his spirit so long as he should live. bibo's lameness was as nothing to this boy's hurt. there was a look of abnormal gravity in his eyes, of an understanding of sorrows that a child of ten should know nothing of. he was fearful and frightened and yet there was something indomitable in the child's watching. he recalled the gallant army of children crusaders who, led by stephen of france, went forth to wrest jerusalem from the infidels. so their little sentinels must have waited wide-eyed and courageous, yet sick with dread, for the ravenous hosts to overpower them. another possibility worried barbara and the children all morning. there was a prospect that rain might come and so spoil their luncheon party. suppose they should be compelled to scamper for shelter just at the critical moment in eugenia's plans? the rain did not come. it must have been just a little after twelve o'clock when eugenia finally walked down the front steps into the yard. she did not look toward barbara, but her appearance was enough. whatever she had wished to accomplish was now over. although at the moment she was engaged in learning a new belgian game, barbara had to suggest that she be allowed to sit down for a time. eugenia might be able to look as calm as an inland lake, but she felt uncomfortably agitated. first eugenia spoke to monsieur bebé. then she walked down to where jan was standing. she said nothing to the boy, but put her arm on his shoulder. afterwards they walked back together toward the other children. but jan's expression had entirely changed. he was smiling now and his cheeks were happily flushed, yet he kept his hand tightly clutched in his friend's. soon after nicolete came out of the house with a great tray of sandwiches. there was real ham between some of them and peanut butter between the others. moreover, there was an enormous dish of baked potatoes and another of beans. for some reason the children did not understand, for it was neither sunday nor a saint's day, they were to have a feast. the table, which had been easy enough to arrange, since it was only a couple of boards laid upon carpenter's horses, was set in the middle of the garden, partly shaded by an old elm tree. the garden was just a few yards to the left of the house and in plain view of any one approaching. naturally eugenia took her place at the head of the table, with nicolete at the other end. barbara was on eugenia's right, with her eyes on the scene ahead. she could see the edge of the woods with the path that connected the house with the outside world. jan was next her with the same outlook upon the surroundings. it was jan who saw the two german officers approaching with a guard of eight soldiers behind them a few moments later. the boy had just lifted a sandwich to his lips when something in his rigid attitude first attracted barbara's attention. she then let her knife drop onto the table. the noise startled eugenia, for she too looked up. instantly barbara explained what was happening. "don't stir and please don't appear to be frightened before the children," eugenia ordered. "i must go and meet the officers, but i'll wait until they are nearer." so the german soldiers had a clear vision of eugenia and the children as they approached. the rough board table had no cover, but in the center was a bunch of wild flowers that the children had gathered in the neglected fields. in order to keep them from seeing too soon what must inevitably happen, eugenia started the singing of a belgian translation of the russian "prayer for peace." it was perhaps the song that came most from her heart at the moment, although she and her little companions had been trying to learn it for several weeks past. "god the all righteous one! man hath defied thee, yet to eternity sure standeth thy word; falsehood and wrong shall not tarry beside thee, give to us peace in our time, o lord!" then when the german officers were within a few yards of her, eugenia got up and walked quietly forward. she did not go alone though, because jan held on to her skirts so tightly that there was no possibility of tearing him loose. "will you wait a moment, please, until the children can be taken to another part of the yard?" eugenia asked quietly. "some of them are very young and will only be terrified and confused by our conversation. i think most of them are afraid of soldiers." there was no reproach in the girl's tone as she said this. but the sting was inevitably there. however, the older of the two officers bowed his head and nicolete led the reluctant children away. by this time barbara had placed herself at one side her friend next to little jan. and poor monsieur bebé, hearing the voices, had crept blindly forward to within a few feet of the little company. in the meantime the soldiers had divided: two of them stood before the front door and two had retired to the rear of the house. the other four guarded either side. "you are under arrest, fraulein," the german officer began. he was stern, but rigidly polite. "very well," eugenia answered. "in five minutes i can be ready to go with you. but tell me, please, of what i am accused." "you are accused of harboring a belgian spy, a colonel carton, who got back through the lines, disguised as a german soldier and into his wife's home in brussels. his effort was to obtain certain papers and information and then return to king albert and the british allies. we have reason to believe colonel carton is still in your house." the officer at this instant drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. naturally eugenia flinched, yet she held out her hands. "your intention is to search my house. you will, of course, do what you wish. but remember that i am an american citizen and under the protection of the united states flag." then one of the officers remained in the yard while the other led his soldiers into the house. ten, fifteen minutes passed. eugenia talked quietly to barbara. she begged her to ask permission of the hospital authorities to allow her to stay with the children. she told her where she might obtain the money for keeping up their expenses. some time before she had written a letter giving barbara her power of attorney. almost every detail had been arranged. of course, eugenia was frightened. she was not unlike other people, only that she had a stronger will and sometimes a finer determination. finally the german officer and his soldiers returned. "we can find no trace of colonel carton or his wife," the younger officer reported. "however, a servant from their household in brussels is here and i have reason to believe the two children of madame and colonel carton." still jan, who had never let go his hold on eugenia, did not flinch. not once did he even glance up toward one of the german soldiers, nor give a sign that might betray him or his protector. "i am sorry, but you must go with us until the circumstances can be more thoroughly investigated," the older officer commanded. a short time afterwards eugenia went quietly away. one of the soldiers carried her suitcase. since she marched between them and showed no intention of giving trouble, the officer had taken off the handcuffs. evidently he meant to be as courteous as possible under the circumstances. moreover, eugenia's dignity was impressive. all through the interview barbara had felt her knees trembling so beneath her that she felt unable to stand. her hands were like ice and her cheeks on fire; moreover, there was a lump in her throat which made her totally unable to speak. nevertheless, she did speak whenever a question was asked of her, nor did she shed a tear until eugenia had gone. it was curious, but no one broke down, not even jan. he merely kept his hold on eugenia's skirt until she started to leave. then eugenia herself unloosed his hands. he had been on his knees before and he made no effort to get up afterwards. finally, when barbara lifted the boy in her arms she found it was because he was too weak to stand. chapter xiv _a month later_ dick thornton had taken lodgings in an old house in brussels in a once fashionable quarter of the city. he had a big reception room and a small room adjoining. recently nona and mildred had been coming in to have tea with him on their afternoons of leisure. they even dropped in occasionally in their daily walks. for in order to keep their health and spirits each red cross nurse, following the familiar rule, was given two hours off duty every afternoon. but barbara meade had never seen the quarters where dick lived. always she had pleaded some kind of an excuse in answer to his invitations, until finally he had proffered them no more. then for the past month she had been taking eugenia's place in her house in the woods. but this afternoon barbara had made an appointment to meet nona and mildred at dick's at four o'clock. half an hour before the time, dick came into the house with his arms full of flowers which he had purchased from a little old woman at the corner. she had become a great friend of his, for the flower business was a poor one in a city where people had no money even for food. so today dick had purchased bunches of wall flowers and others of columbine and larkspur. for the flowers grew in the old woman's own garden within a sheltered suburb of brussels. she must have grown them and sold them in order that she might still continue to sit in the same place. for so far as one could know she had no other reason for her industry. she appeared to be entirely alone and friendless. dick's sitting room was enormous, yet almost empty. the house had been deserted by its owners early in the war. they had then removed most of their belongings to london for safe keeping, soon after hostilities broke out. but dick opened wide a pair of french windows until the atmosphere of the room had grown cool and sweet. he then arranged his own flowers and set out his own tea table in a somewhat clumsy fashion, drawing four chairs conveniently near. they were the only four chairs in the room and very different in character. two of them were enormous armchairs upholstered in brussels tapestry, the other were two small wooden ones which had probably served for the servant's dining room. but dick was fairly well satisfied with the appearance of things, since empty grandeur is much more satisfying than tawdry quantity. afterwards dick disappeared to make an afternoon toilet. it had been such ages since he had worn anything but the most workaday clothes. now and then when he came in tired at night and discouraged with life from the sight of so much unnecessary sorrow, he used to slip into a smoking jacket for an hour or so. usually several american fellows dropped in later, young doctors or other men assisting with the belgian relief work. but today dick felt the occasion to be a more important one. barbara was coming on an errand of grave importance. yet one might as well meet the situation as cheerfully as possible. nothing was ever to be gained by unnecessary gloom. it still remained a task for dick to dress himself with one of his arms almost useless. at first it had been impossible and he had employed a man to help him. but men were needed for more strenuous labors these days than being another fellow's valet. so he had come to taking care of himself in a somewhat awkward fashion. the collar was his supreme difficulty, just as it frequently is with a man with two perfectly good arms. today, of course, because dick was in a hurry, his collar behaved in a worse manner than usual. the collar button had to be searched for under the bed for nearly five minutes, and then it did not seem to fit the button-hole of the shirt. finally dick sat down and began to smoke in an effort to soothe his nerves. mildred had promised to come along ahead of time to do whatever was needed. as there was nothing more, except to adjust his tiresome neckwear, he might as well wait in peace. but in the meantime dick read over the note from barbara in which she asked that the four of them might meet at his apartment. it was the one place where it was possible that their conversation be absolutely private. and what they had to discuss was a matter for gravest secrecy. although dick had previously arranged his hair with much care, while reading the note he thrust his hand through it until his locks rose in brown, byronic confusion. so when the first knock came at his sitting room door, convinced of his sister's arrival, dick strode to it, dangling his collar in his hand. his appearance was not strictly conventional. the girl at the door looked a little startled, then smiled and walked into the room without invitation. "i suppose i am first. i didn't mean to be," she explained. "but dr. mason came out to see one of the children and brought me back to town in the hospital motor car. so i got here sooner than i expected." "i am sorry. i thought you were mildred. i mean, i hoped you were mildred." dick laughed. "sounds polite, doesn't it, what i am trying to say? but the fact is, if you'll just take off your hat or your wrap, or your gloves, why, i'll disappear for half a minute and come back with a collar on." barbara nodded and her reluctant host disappeared. she was glad of a few moments to look around. it was almost homelike here in dick's quarters, and not since leaving the little "farmhouse with the blue front door" had she enjoyed the sensation of home. she certainly did not enjoy it at eugenia's big house, although she was now in full charge of the establishment. for there was always the sense of eugenia's loss and of the privations which she was enduring. barbara did throw her hat to one side and her coat and gloves. the freedom was pleasanter. then, since small persons have a penchant for large chairs and large persons for small ones, barbara seated herself in the most imposing chair in the room. not thinking of where she was, nor of what she was doing, she slipped one small foot under her, leaned her head against the upholstery and gazed critically around. they were going to have tea and she was glad of it. then she loved the presence of so many simple outdoor flowers. probably they had been purchased for nona's delectation, yet one could enjoy them just the same. besides, barbara was by this time convinced that she had entirely recovered from any jealousy where nona and dick were concerned. she had seen them very seldom in the past month. but this was not because she had any more feeling in regard to the situation. it was merely because she had more important matters to engage her attention. her talk with eugenia seemed to have cleared the emotional situation so far as she was concerned. now her interest in dick and nona was purely impersonal and friendly. yet barbara got up and strolled over to the tall french mantel. yes, there was a picture of nona on it. she had not been mistaken. certainly nona took an extremely pretty picture. her features were so regular and delicate. it was rather different if one chanced to be afflicted with a retroussé nose. still studying nona's photograph, barbara heard a slight noise behind her. there was dick with his collar yet dangling from his hand. "i say, which would you prefer, to talk to a man without a collar or to help him put one on? i am not going to lose all the chance i may have for seeing you in struggling with this dog-taked thing." the girl looked demure. then she indicated that dick might seat himself upon the lowest stool. the next moment he was entirely ship-shape, as barbara had also assisted in adjusting a new dark-red tie. it was of a flowing character, because dick wore the same black velvet coat in which he had appeared before barbara in new york city some eighteen months before. the coat was therefore not new. but dick may have had a suspicion that it was becoming, although men are not supposed to be interested in any such trivial concerns. however, barbara was aware of the becomingness and was sincerely glad to discover how well her former friend looked. certainly he had taken his share of the war's misfortunes in a courageous spirit. once she had not believed him capable of any ideal save a social one. barbara had returned to her tall chair and dick sat across from her on one of the wooden ones. the tea service stood between them, but of course they were waiting for the coming of the other two girls. although she had wished for her tea, barbara did not feel impatient over the delay at present. she was trying to make up her mind whether it would be wise to tell dick how glad she was of his cheerfulness before she began to speak of her own mission. for then there would be little opportunity for cheerfulness unless one of the others had better news to report than she had. so instead of beginning a conversation barbara sat in entire quiet, although gazing at her companion in an extremely friendly fashion. in the pause dick thornton suddenly thrust out his right hand and placed it lightly over barbara's hand, which chanced to be carelessly lying on the table. "i have something i'd like to tell you, barbara, before nona and mildred get here," he began. "it is a secret so far and perhaps i have no right to be so happy until things are settled. but i've every right----" the moment had come! the news that dick had to tell her she had been expecting. yet she had believed the announcement would first be made by nona. it was kind of dick to remember their former friendliness and to wish her to share his happiness so soon. but at this instant mildred and nona, without waiting to knock, opened the sitting room door and dick's confession was never made. chapter xv _powerless_ "but it is too dreadful for us to be able to do _nothing_," barbara commented. she looked dispirited and blinked resolutely at a small pocket handkerchief which lay folded in her lap. however, she had made up her mind not to cry, no matter what happened. after all, she was a woman and not a child, and eugenia would consider tears a most ineffective method of assistance. she had come to dick's apartment with every idea of being brave and had started off in that spirit. then dick's interrupted confession had been a trifle upsetting. moreover, she had hoped that dick or one of the girls would have good news to tell about eugenia, or at least be able to make a comforting suggestion. while she was thinking this, nona davis got up and began walking up and down the length of the room. "the situation is abominable!" she exclaimed. "to think of a splendid person like eugenia, who is so needed, shut up in a german prison! besides, she is an american girl! it simply makes my blood boil. i wish for a short time i were a man." nona's cheeks were a deep rose and her golden brown eyes were almost black from emotion. barbara thought she looked charming. but dick smiled upon the excited girl rather condescendingly. "do come and sit down, please, nona. i know it is your southern blood that makes you long to fight. but this isn't the time for it. after all, i am a man and i haven't been able to rescue eugenia. of course, you would be a more effective man than i can ever hope to be. but today let us try to face the situation quietly. it is the only way we can hope to accomplish anything." in order to take the edge off his words dick smiled. also he thrust a chair nearer his guest. barbara thought the other girl sat down somewhat meekly. never could she have taken a snubbing so gracefully. but then there was no disputing that nona had the sweeter disposition. then dick reseated himself by the tea table. after taking several papers out of his pocket he again looked over toward barbara. "i wish you would repeat to me, word for word, as nearly as you can, just what statement eugenia made to you when you were allowed to see her in prison," he demanded. his matter-of-fact tone and present cold manner entirely drove away barbara's weak leaning toward tears. "it was some time ago, but i'll try and repeat what gene said exactly as possible. she said we were not to be angry or embittered over her imprisonment, because she had defied the german authorities. she declared they had a perfect right to arrest her. for she _had_ been hiding a belgian soldier who would have been shot as a spy if he had been discovered. it was almost a miracle how he managed to escape. but they had been warned by a friend in brussels a few days before, that their house was at last suspected. actually madame carton and colonel carton both got away on the very day the german officers came for them. eugenia would not tell how they managed their escape. she said that wasn't my business, nor any one else's." as she repeated this speech, barbara looked so surprisingly firm that dick had to swallow a smile. unconsciously barbara was behaving like a phonograph record in reproducing the exact tones of the original speaker. "but if eugenia understood what she would have to face, whatever made her do such a mad thing? this colonel carton was absolutely nothing to her. when he returned to brussels he took his own risk. it is natural that the germans in command here in belgium should be enraged. he probably carried back much valuable information to the allies. goodness only knows how he ever succeeded in getting here, much less getting away!" dick protested, speaking as much to himself as his audience. then he pounded the table with his one good hand in his agitation. "eugenia was out of her senses. what excuse did she have for saving the man and his family? she is an american and is a guest of the country. she had no right to aid germany's enemies. besides, you girls always said that eugenia was the one of you who insisted that you remain absolutely neutral." with this final statement dick gazed reproachfully from one to the other of his audience. every day since eugenia's arrest he had gone about brussels seeking assistance and advice. he had seen the american minister, the american consul and nearly every member of the belgian relief committee. but in each case his answer had been the same. whatever was possible would be done to effect eugenia's release. but without doubt her behavior had placed her in a difficult position. but dick had not been alone in his pilgrimages. mildred, nona and barbara had been equally energetic. there was no person in authority in brussels possible to see whom they had not interviewed. but eugenia was still in prison and liable to remain there. however, she had not yet appeared for trial before the german military court. her friends were doing their best to have her set free before this time came. for once her sentence was declared, it would be more difficult to secure her pardon. eugenia insisted that there was nothing to do but plead guilty. and this might mean months or years of imprisonment! the three girls became more unhappy under dick's reasoning. it was so perfectly true that there seemed nothing for them to say. nevertheless, barbara flushed indignantly. dick always inspired her with a desire for argument. moreover, when it came to a point of defending eugenia, she would perish gladly in her cause. "i realize that eugenia's conduct does seem foolish. perhaps it was worse than that; perhaps she was wicked to do as she did," barbara added, no longer looking down at her handkerchief, but directly at dick thornton. eugenia, she appreciated, would not require to be absolved before the other girls. "just the same, i think there was something beautiful and inspiring in gene's act. she hasn't asked us to worry over her. she has declared all along that she was willing to take what was coming to her," barbara murmured, falling into slang with entire good faith. "her only defense is that both colonel carton and jan were desperately ill when madame carton made the appeal to her. if she had not gone to the house in the woods to take care of them, they must have been found out. then without a doubt colonel carton and perhaps madame carton would have been hung as spies." an uncomfortable lump was beginning to form in barbara's throat. for at the instant it seemed to her that dick thornton represented the whole tribunal of masculine wisdom and justice arrayed against a woman's sentiment. how was she to make him see eugenia's point of view? in spite of her best efforts barbara's eyes were filling with tears and her voice shaking. "gene says she never thought things out in detail, although she fully realized the risk she was running. all she decided was that jan and his little sister should not be made orphans if she could help it. she says that ever since she put her foot in belgium the cry of the children has been ringing in her ears. what had _they_ to do with this war and its horrors? if she could aid them in the smallest possible way, this was her work and her mission. 'inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have done it unto me,'" barbara whispered, and then was unable to continue. but mildred had risen and was standing by her side as if she were a new witness for the defense. "i have written father the whole story, everything eugenia has done in connection with this entire case," mildred explained quietly. "and i have asked him to go to washington and see the secretary of state and the president if he thinks necessary. as soon as my letter arrived he answered it immediately, promising to do what i asked. then he told me to see eugenia and if it were possible to present his regards to her and to tell her to be of good courage. of course, he could not write all he meant, as his letter might be censored, but i think i understood father's point of view pretty well." because mildred thornton did not talk a great deal, what she said was usually respected. even dick looked somewhat subdued. "what do you suppose father really did mean, then, mill?" he queried. "i confess i am so troubled and so harassed over this business of eugenia that i am of little account. i keep regretting that she ever got herself and all of us into such unnecessary sorrow." mildred went over and laid her hands on dick's hair, which had again become rumpled through his agitation. "i don't believe father thinks eugenia's action was entirely unnecessary, dick, even if we must all suffer with her," mildred argued. "perhaps eugenia only did what any one of us would have done under the same circumstances, if we had possessed her courage and good sense. the belgians were perfectly innocent of offense in this war. colonel carton was risking his life and his honor. if eugenia could help him or his family----" "be quiet." it was nona's voice that spoke, although under her breath. at the same instant she held up a warning finger. there were persons passing in the hall outside their door. one could hear their footsteps distinctly. almost at once nona got up and approached the tea table. "let us have tea, won't you, please, dick?" she begged. "we are all tired and hungry and thirsty. besides, we are discouraged." she said this even more softly, although the sounds in the hall had ceased. doubtless the passersby were only other dwellers in the house. dick sighed with relief and gratitude. "what a satisfying person you are, nona! it would have been better, however, if you had made this suggestion half an hour ago." then he turned again toward mildred and barbara. "please don't think i can't see that there was something fine and quixotic in eugenia's conduct, even if i wish she had chosen differently," he added. "truth is, i have taken the situation more seriously than ever today because i have had bad news." nona davis had lifted the teapot in her hand to pour out the tea, but at these words she set it down hastily. mildred merely took a firmer hold on barbara's shoulder. "what is it, dick?" she demanded. this time dick got up and floundered about impatiently. "oh, it may be nothing and perhaps i should not have spoken of it. but the truth is, eugenia is ill. one of the physicians at the prison was considerate enough to let me know. he does not think the trouble serious and says eugenia insists she will be all right in a few days. just the same, eugenia has been through a lot. i don't want to be a croaker, but there was the strain of the long nursing of captain castaigne and then this business. one of you girls must go to her as soon as i can get you permission, if i ever can get it. which one of you shall it be?" from the depth of her big chair barbara answered in a somewhat weary but steadfast voice: "there is no question; eugenia and i have meant everything to each other lately, and----" "there is a question, barbara, and you must be sensible. in looking after eugenia's house you are doing everything you have strength for. i am sure you can't weigh a hundred pounds these days! ever since we came to belgium, it seems to me you have been growing tinier. after a while you may blow away," mildred declared. then she marched over and, removing the teapot from nona's hand, began pouring out the tea in a quiet and comforting fashion. "of course, eugenia is not well after a month of being in prison. why should any one of us expect her to be?" she announced. "here, dick, please pass this cup to barbara and your muffins. the poor child looks utterly fagged! we ought to have thought that she has come all the way in from the country and has probably been up since daylight. she is a very little woman to live in a shoe." gratefully and without further protest barbara drank her tea. she was more tired than she had dreamed and glad to be taken care of for even a short a time. how happy she was to have gotten over her former antagonism toward her friends. what right had she to be jealous and miserable because a beautiful experience had come to nona and dick? they were both her good friends. at this moment dick was whispering something to nona, while she smiled up toward him. there was no mistaking the expression in her eyes, barbara felt convinced. later on she would congratulate them, but not this afternoon; she was too tired. perhaps nona became conscious of the other girl's gaze, for she drew away from her companion. "by the way, barbara," she exclaimed, "there is something i have wished to tell you for several days! weeks ago when you told me you had discovered lieutenant hume a prisoner in brussels, i wrote him a note. it must have taken ages for my letter to get to him. anyhow, i received three or four lines from him the other day. i suppose it was all he was permitted to write. but he thanked me and said he was getting on pretty comfortably. certainly i could not but admire his courage." dick thornton frowned. "you don't mean, nona, that you wrote a letter to lieutenant hume in prison without his asking you. i didn't suppose you knew him sufficiently well." but before barbara could confess that the suggestion had come from her, mildred thornton interposed. "don't be absurd, dick. you are taking everything in a gloomy fashion this afternoon. i should have written lieutenant hume myself if nona had not. he is in hard luck, when a single line from the outside world is cheering. we must go now. please do your best to get me permission to visit eugenia. in the meantime i shall see what i can do. sorry we had to have such a dismal party tea. hope for better news next time." chapter xvi _louvain_ recently nona davis had begun to confess to herself that she might some day be able to like dick thornton more than an ordinary acquaintance. without doubt this idea had come to her gradually, for during their early acquaintance he had simply represented mildred's brother and barbara's especial friend. when she thought of him at all it had been chiefly in his relation to the other two girls. dick was good looking and agreeable, these were obvious facts. moreover, he had shown splendid grit and courage in his work for the poor and wounded in the present war. however, it was not until after their holiday visit together in paris that nona had reason to believe dick desired her intimate friendship. she had already left paris and was living at the little farmhouse in southern france when he wrote begging her to tell him the details of their life together which his sister, mildred, might forget. the request had struck nona as surprising. why had he not made the suggestion to barbara meade rather than to her? he and barbara had quarreled now and then before the trip to paris and while there, but in spite of this seemed to find each other's society more than ordinarily agreeable. moreover, dick probably owed his life to barbara. had she not rescued him from the bursting shell near their base hospital, or dick must have carried more than a useless arm as a record of his adventure. nevertheless, if dick and barbara had chosen for reasons of their own to be less intimate, nona could scarcely ask questions. neither did she see how she could refuse to write to dick thornton if he really wished it, since her letters were merely to keep him in closer touch with the four american red cross girls. dick wrote delightful letters and so did nona. besides, these were days when, in spite of its tragedies, life was brimming over with interests. the letters grew more frequent, more intimate, and finally dick spoke of his coming to belgium. but he proposed that his coming be kept a secret until the last moment, for there might be circumstances that would interfere. since his arrival nona had been frequently in his society. the fact that mildred was partly responsible for this, she did not realize. she only knew that barbara had persistently refused to join them in leisure hours. therefore she and dick and mildred were of necessity more often together; eugenia was entirely out of the situation. the fact that mildred purposely left her alone in her brother's society, nona never considered. whenever this had occurred, she simply regarded the circumstance as an accident. but nona naturally felt a closer bond between herself and dick since her confession of her own problem. moreover, she had taken his advice and sent a letter to her family lawyer in charleston. in this letter she demanded to be told everything that was known or could be found out in connection with her mother's history. but although a number of weeks had passed her letter had remained unanswered. three days after the interview in regard to eugenia in dick's apartment, nona received a hurried note. the note explained that dick thornton had been ordered to louvain to make an especial investigation for the belgian relief committee. he asked if nona could manage to make the trip with him. they would start early the next morning and return the same day. if it were possible for nona to be excused from her hospital work, he was particularly anxious to have her join him. ten minutes after the note arrived, nona was busy making the necessary plans. at the hospital there were no objections offered to her being given the day's holiday. for nona explained that she was convinced that it would be a wonderfully interesting experience to visit the ruined city and university of louvain. more than the other girls she had enjoyed their journeys from place to place in europe, when they were obliged to change their fields of work. even when these trips had not been taken under the pleasantest conditions her enthusiasm had been able to rise above the difficulties. when the war was over nona hoped before going home that it might be possible for her to travel over the continent. now and then she and mildred thornton had even spoken of this as a possibility in an idle fashion. for with nona such a discussion could be nothing but idle, as she had scarcely a dollar beyond what she was able to earn as a nurse. at ten o'clock on the chosen day dick called for her. as soon as she joined him in the hall of the hospital, nona recognized that dick had seldom looked so well. besides, he seemed somehow more vigorous and happier. in honor of the occasion he wore what appeared to be a new suit, although it had been purchased in london soon after his arrival a number of months before. after her first sensation of admiration nona suffered a tiny pang of envy. how satisfying it must be to have as much money as dick and mildred seemed to have! they were not extravagant and yet they never had to worry over small matters. more than this, it must be a great help through life to have so distinguished a father as judge thornton. whenever his name was mentioned abroad people had heard of him as a great international lawyer. sometimes nona wondered why mildred and dick should care for her friendship. the distinguished members of her family had belonged to generations that were now dead. but today, for many reasons, nona would particularly have liked to wear a different costume. for assuredly dick must be as tired of the one she had on as she was herself. it was the same black dress that she had bought in paris last spring and been compelled to use for best ever since. true, nona had managed to run out the evening before to one of brussels' millinery shops, where she purchased a small black turban. before the coming of the german military hosts to belgium, brussels was regarded as the small sister of paris in matters of fashion. since then, of course, the city had but little heart for frivolity. however, nona felt fairly well satisfied with her purchase. moreover, she was pleased to discern that dick thornton's eyes rested upon it with immediate satisfaction. it is true that a man more often observes a woman's hat than any part of her costume. in walking on the street you may make this discovery for yourself. a man or boy looks first at a girl's face, then if this pleases him he slowly studies her costume and figure. frequently a woman or girl glances first at the toilette, and then if displeased never cares to look beyond for the personality. however, nona had but little reason for being dissatisfied with her own appearance. she was one of the few fortunate persons who have a grace and beauty of coloring that is not dependent upon clothes. clothes help, of course, under all circumstances, yet she could manage to be beautiful in shabby ones. moreover, the black dress was only slightly worn and her white crepe waist had been freshly washed and pressed. before she arrived at the station du nord with her companion, nona had the good sense to cease to consider her apparel. for since belgium was a land of mourning, poverty was the most fitting dress. the land between brussels and louvain was once an agricultural district. since belgium had been conquered and possessed by the germans, they had made every effort to resow and harvest many of the fields. but the neighborhood of louvain was still a place of desolation. as their train carried them farther along on their journey, nona decided that she had never seen anything like the countryside in all her experience as a war nurse. in certain parts of france wide areas had been destroyed, but not far away one would often find other districts untouched by fire or sword. dick and nona talked in a desultory fashion as they journeyed toward the famous old university town. one felt as if louvain was already a city of the past. within its suburbs there were many small ruined homes, looking as if a giant had ruthlessly pushed over whole rows of dolls' houses. for louvain was formerly one of the lace-making centers of belgium, and in these small houses dark-eyed women and girls once worked long hours at their trade. before their arrival dick decided that he must first attend to his business in louvain. afterwards they would feel freer to prowl about and investigate the ruins of the university. it would not be necessary to hurry then, as there would be no reason to return to brussels until after dark. dick's pilgrimage to louvain had been inspired by the desire to discover a family of belgians supposedly starving in one of the city's wrecked homes. the father was known to have been killed at the sacking of louvain. yet in some amazing fashion the mother and children had continued to exist for nearly a year without money and almost without food. the american relief committee, learning their need, had despatched dick to see what could be done for them. just what the character of the place he was to seek, nor the conditions surrounding it, the young man did not know. therefore, he considered it wiser for nona to wait for him. so he led her into the interior of the ancient church of st. pierre, where she was to remain until his return. the church had been only slightly injured by the burning of the city. as a matter of fact, nona was glad to be allowed to rest there peacefully for a time. although she was an excellent nurse, she was not so successful in making friends with unfortunate people as the other three red cross girls. so she feared that dick might consider her more of a drawback than a help to him in his work. the girl was frank enough to confess to herself that she wished to make a good impression. an old church is ever a citadel of dreams. yet nona had not the faintest intention of letting her imagination wander into unbounded realms when she first found a seat in the semi-darkness. simply from curiosity she had gone into one of the chapels behind the high altar. here she discovered five paintings, depicting the life and death of the blessed margaret of louvain, the patron saint of domestic servants. at first nona was simply amused and interested, for it had not occurred to her that domestic servants had a saint of their own. then without realizing it she fell to thinking of her own old home in charleston, south carolina, and of the southern "mammy," who had been more than her own mother to her. it was strange that her lawyer in charleston had not yet answered her letter. perhaps she would ask dick his opinion again. however, nona felt a curious shrinking from this idea. for if dick was beginning to feel interested in her, surely the mystery of her mother's history must influence him against her. at the same instant the girl's cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. then she deliberately struggled to discover a different train of thought. but for some reason, no matter along what road her thoughts set out, they had a curious fashion of including dick before the end was reached. so at last nona gave up and let her imagination have its will. when he came back an hour after their usual luncheon time, dick found her not in the least impatient. she insisted that she had enjoyed herself, and her face and manner gave proof of it. but dick was tired and not so cheerful as he had been earlier in the day. his work was over temporarily, but he had found a most depressing state of things among his poor people. moreover, dick was hungry, when a masculine person is always difficult. they discovered a little restaurant existing in a half-hearted fashion near the university. after a leisurely meal, it must have been past three o'clock when finally the two friends made their way into the university grounds. the buildings were not all entirely destroyed by the german bombardment, as the newspapers gave us to understand after the fall of liege. possibly many of them can be restored when the present war is over. up and down the rue de namur the young americans wandered, first investigating the ruins of the handsome gothic halles. the library is perhaps the most complete wreck, and it was one of the most valuable libraries in europe. for it contained many priceless manuscripts gathered together by the old monks, who were once teachers in this most famous catholic university in europe. the university of louvain was founded in the fifteenth century by pope martin v, and only a little over a year ago sheltered eighteen hundred students. but they have disappeared even as the bricks and mortar of the centuries have been brought to confusion. finally after nearly two hours of sightseeing dick and nona confessed to each other that they were too weary to feel any further interest in their surroundings. moreover, they were obliged to rest before returning to the railroad station. nothing could be more romantic than the spot they chose. with a half tumbled down wall for a background and a tall tree for a screen, a small green bench lingered serenely. it was as comfortable and undisturbed as though no destruction had raged about it. with a sigh of relief dick dropped down beside his companion. "if you don't mind, i'd rather not speak for five entire minutes," he suggested. "afterwards perhaps i may tell you something about which i have been thinking more or less all day. but i am not yet convinced that i ought to mention it to you, though with all my heart i wish to know what you think and feel upon the subject." in reply nona only nodded agreement. then she folded her hands in her lap and sat gazing quietly at the unique scene about them. in a little while twilight would fall. the atmosphere was already a pale violet and over the massed ruins of the ancient buildings the sun was declining peacefully. except for the girl and her companion the neighborhood was deserted, not a man, woman or child, not even a dog could be discovered in the nearby streets. chapter xvii "_sisters under the skin_" after a little while the silence between the girl and man grew self conscious. both of them seemed to recognize this at the same moment, and dick turned apologetically toward his companion. "i am sorry to continue so stupid," he explained, "but i have been thinking something over for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time." in spite of the coolness of the october afternoon dick now took off his hat and in a boyish fashion ran his fingers through his hair. immediately the curly pompadour he so detested arose, while under his dark skin the color was rushing in warm waves. "i say, nona," he began in an awkward fashion, his charming manners entirely deserting him, "has it ever struck you that i have had something very much at heart for the past few months, something i have not been able to mention? it has seemed to me as if the whole world must know of it, although i have never spoken a word. yet even mildred has appeared totally blind. of course there was a reason once why i should keep my dream to myself, but lately that reason no longer exists." then dick laughed unexpectedly. "here i am talking like a school-boy who does not know his lesson! i don't suppose you have the faintest idea of what i am trying to say? wonder if you have ever guessed my secret, nona?" dick had swung himself around on the bench so that he might be able to gaze more directly at his companion. but nona davis' head was for the instant in profile. just then she preferred not to catch dick's glance. her own cheeks were delicately flushed and indeed the world had acquired a new fragrance. yet oddly nona wished to hug her emotion to herself. there is a moment when the spirit of romance appears to every girl in some lovely guise. now nona davis felt that no moment and no scene could be more picturesque than her own. dick thornton was ideally handsome; moreover, the fact that one of his arms was now useless only added to his value. for was not dick a soldier of peace rather than of war, yet one who had made the same sacrifice? and he had given himself for a cause that was not his own. "no, i have not guessed, dick," nona replied an instant later. "how could i? if you have a secret you have certainly not betrayed yourself. besides, if i had been able to discover what you had in mind, i should not have allowed myself to know. no one has the right to interpret another person's thoughts." nona made this speech with entire innocence, but she was to recall the last phrase within a few moments. "well, i'll start off with a piece of news i am sure you will be pleased to hear," dick began. "i wanted to tell barbara first, but we were interrupted the other afternoon. it is only that i think i am to have better luck with this lame arm of mine than i deserve. when i was in paris the surgeons told me to leave it alone, that i stood a chance of being able to use it later on. so i tried to forget the whole matter. then one day several weeks ago without thinking i discovered that i could use my arm the least bit. of course, it is by no means well, but each day the arm grows stronger----" with this news nona stretched out her hand toward her companion. but dick did not see her, as he chanced to be gazing at his afflicted arm in the half tender, half apologetic fashion in which one surveys a backward child. "the doctors i have seen since i made the discovery say my arm will be as good as new in another few months," dick went on. "i have only to have it massaged daily and wait for the vigor to come back. so i may be able to amount to a little something in the world after all. perhaps a man with a lot of brains may manage to get along with no arms, but i'm afraid _i_ require the full amount." by nature nona davis was inclined to be serious. therefore she could never understand the fashion in which barbara and dick were able to jest over their deeper emotions. her yellow-brown eyes were serious now. "i am sure _i_ have never doubted your future for a moment, dick. it sounds ridiculous to hear you make a speech like that. i am sure your father is a distinguished man, yet i feel sure you will be a greater one some day." for half a moment dick smiled upon his companion. "you are an optimist, nona, but just the same i am tremendously grateful to you." then in a surprising fashion his gay spirits suddenly deserted him. for he frowned moodily toward the purple and rose colored sky on the far western side of the horizon. the sun was by this time about to retire and the colors in the evening sky were merely the garments she had cast off in passing. "i wish you could persuade barbara meade to share that idea of yours, nona?" dick continued a moment later. "if you could you would be doing me an immense service." "barbara?" nona repeated her friend's name dully. she was so far away from any thought of her at the time that it was difficult to readjust her point of view. "what is it you wish me to persuade barbara to believe?" she demanded the next instant. for in her surprise she had forgotten her own remark. "oh, that i am worthy of bearing my father's name and that there is a chance i may not turn out a hopeless good-for-nothing," dick went on, with a scarcely concealed bitterness in his voice. "two years ago when i first met barbara i suppose i was only a society fellow, but really i was not so bad as i painted myself. fact is, i rather enjoyed arousing mildred's little western friend in the early days. well, i accomplished my purpose with a vengeance, for barbara has never had an ounce of respect for me. even if you and mildred have never guessed how much i care for her, the fact has been plain enough to barbara. what other reason could she have, except to spare me humiliation, for refusing to have anything to do with me since i came to brussels? but you have understood the situation better than you confess, nona. be sure that i appreciate your kindness immensely." still nona made no reply. however, as dick had been holding his emotions in check for many weeks, he was glad now to have a chance to let them overflow. "i appreciated that you understood when i first asked you to write me, after you left paris," the young man continued. "your letters meant so much to me, for they used to tell me so many things of barbara and your life together in the little french farmhouse." interrupting himself, dick glanced at his watch and then at his companion. "you look tired, nona, and i am sorry, but i expect we must hurry if we are to get to the station in time for the six o'clock train to brussels. you have been wonderfully patient with me this afternoon and i hope not too bored. perhaps i should have kept all this to myself, but at last it has overflowed. i shall never refer to the matter again and shall be grateful if you do not mention it." dick held out his right hand to help his companion arise. but for another instant nona did not stir. neither did she glance upward. her eyes had dropped to her lap and were evidently fastened upon her slender hands, which she held lightly clasped together. possibly she had become a shade paler, but not by a flicker of an eyelash did she betray that her house of cards had suddenly fallen. the next moment she gave her hand to dick and got up. "i am not tired, so let us walk on quickly if you think best. i am going to be honest and tell you, dick, that i have never dreamed you were seriously interested in barbara until this hour. i knew you were friends at one time and that barbara had done a beautiful thing for you. but i thought you had probably quarreled, or that you did not find each other so interesting as you had at first." the girl was walking along swiftly as she talked. her delicate chin was lifted a little higher than usual and because of her pallor her lips showed a deeper crimson. she was a lovely height and slender and graceful, but beyond everything else she had the air of perfect breeding. dick's own train of thought was diverted for a moment by a glance at her. "after all, it is not an impossibility, nona davis' mother may turn out a foreign princess," he thought, and then smiled. for dick was a typical american man and to him a mystery in one's family was ridiculous when it was not unpleasant. on the train returning to brussels neither he nor his companion cared to talk a great deal. indeed, nona frankly explained that there was something she wished to think about, and if dick did not mind, would he please leave her alone. so he was satisfied to continue sympathetically silent. he had unloosed certain thoughts of his own which were not so easy to chain up again. however, they still had a half hour before their arrival in brussels when nona unexpectedly returned to their former subject of conversation. "you asked me never to refer to your confession, dick, and i won't again after today. but first i must tell you something. then if you'll forgive me i want to offer you a piece of advice. i know it is an ungrateful present, but you'll listen, won't you?" nona pleaded. dick's brown eyes were very friendly. "i'll listen to whatever you wish to tell me forever and ever," he insisted. "for there was never quite so kind an audience as you have been to me!" the girl was glad of the flickering lights in the railroad carriage, when she spoke again. "it is only that i have been thinking of you and barbara ever since we left louvain," she added. "i told you i was surprised at the news. but now i think it was stupid of me. what i want is to ask you to tell barbara what you have confided to me this afternoon. i understand that when you were uncertain about your arm, you may have felt that a drawback. now you have every right to believe in your recovery and"--nona hesitated and smiled directly into dick's somber brown eyes--"oh, well, it is only fair that barbara be allowed the same information that i have received under the circumstances!" at this moment it was dick who would not be humorous. "i suppose you think i ought to give barbara the satisfaction of telling me what she really thinks of me. but i am afraid i am not willing to amuse her to that extent." nona shook her head. "that wasn't worthy of you, dick; i know you did not mean it. i am not going to give up. i want you to promise me that whenever the chance comes you will let barbara have some idea of your feeling for her." this time nona held both her hands tight together. "i can't explain to you, dick, so please don't ask me why," she continued. "but i have been thinking that there may be another reason why barbara has seemed less friendly with you since your arrival in brussels. girls sometimes get strange ideas in their minds. but there we are coming into brussels. thank you for my day in louvain, i shall not forget it!" chapter xviii _difficulties_ perhaps it was due to nona davis' advice, or perhaps to dick thornton's own judgment, that he decided to make his position clear to barbara. he had no thought of her returning his liking; nevertheless, a confession appeared the more manly and straightforward. but beginning the next day's events moved ahead so swiftly that there was never a chance for dick to carry out his intention. by noon a message was sent him by his sister mildred. she explained that soon after breakfast she had been summoned to the german prison for a consultation in regard to eugenia peabody. she found the prison officers both embarrassed and annoyed. for the young american woman whom they had been compelled to arrest had become dangerously ill. they had not been prepared for such a contingency. she had been locked up in what had formerly served as an ordinary jail in brussels and there were no accommodations for seriously ill persons. they could not determine what should be done. it was extremely awkward to have their prison doctor declare the prisoner a victim of typhoid fever, and to have the physician sent from the american relief committee confirm his opinion. suppose this miss peabody should be so inconsiderate as to die? the fact might arouse international complications and would certainly precipitate unpleasant discussion. the young woman had been kept a prisoner for something over a month without a trial, but even in this time important pressure had been exerted for her release. because she had been an american red cross nurse, naturally all red cross societies were interested. moreover, she was said to be a member of an old and prominent new england family, who would make themselves heard in her behalf. then as this miss peabody was herself wealthy and had been using her money for the benefit of the belgian children, what might not be said in her defense? there was a chance that the german government would be accused of resenting her care of the belgian children. in order to show their good feeling, mildred had been permitted to visit eugenia. she found her friend in a small room like a cell. it was of stone with only one window, a stool and a cot bed. but whatever eugenia must have suffered for her breach of faith, she was now past being disturbed by mental unhappiness. for an hour mildred sat beside her friend trying to arouse her. but eugenia gave no sign of recognition. she did not seem to be enduring pain, but was in a stupor from fever. mildred felt unhappy and helpless. there was but little chance of her friend's recovery if she remained without the right care. moreover, the american red cross girls owed it to one another to keep together through good and evil fortunes. "what would eugenia have done for one of them under the same circumstances?" mildred tried her best to decide. she implored the prison authorities to allow her to remain and care for her friend. but they refused. it was not that they were unwilling for their prisoner to be properly looked after. it was that there were no arrangements whereby it was practical for mildred thornton to continue at the prison. she could come each day and stay for a time with her friend. and this was, of course, a surprising concession. so after mildred returned to her own quarters she had sent a note of explanation to her brother. then began the most anxious week that the american red cross girls had endured since their arrival in europe. before now anxiety had harassed one or two of them at a time. now they were all equally concerned. eugenia did not grow better. from day to day the report of her condition became worse. mildred thornton was the only one of the three girls ever allowed to enter eugenia's room at the prison. however, nona and barbara hovered about the neighborhood like restless ghosts. indeed, they now appeared as deeply attached to each other as in the early days of their acquaintance. nor was dick thornton much less anxious. he had always liked and admired eugenia. although he disapproved her action in regard to colonel carton, it was not possible wholly to object to it. one had to have a sneaking sense of appreciation for a girl or man who would risk so much for an entire stranger. however, interest in eugenia's condition was not confined to her few friends. in a little while her case became the most talked of in brussels among the americans and their acquaintances. then the news of eugenia's arrest and the reason for it appeared in the american daily papers together with the account of her critical illness. afterwards these facts were copied in the newspapers of england, france and russia. eugenia became an international figure. now and then barbara tried to smile, thinking how eugenia would have resented her notoriety had she been aware of it. but the idea did not create much mirth. it was so far from amusing to picture one's friend at the point of death, shut up in a tiny room, with only such crude care as the prison physician and nurse could give her. the situation was unendurable; nevertheless, like a great many other situations about which one says this _same_ thing, it had to be endured. the german officials in command of the city of brussels assuredly grew weary of visits from white-faced american girls and their friends, all bent upon the same quest. was it not possible that eugenia be removed to a hospital or to her own home until she recovered? the answer remained the same. much as the situation was to be deplored, one could not surrender a prisoner because of ill health. discipline must be enforced. then a day came when mildred and dick thornton were granted an unexpected interview with the american minister in brussels. they had seen him several times before, but on this occasion it was the minister who sent for them. he had previously been kind and interested in eugenia's case, but so far his good will had not availed in her behalf. he could only offer his good will, because it was not possible to demand the prisoner's liberation when she had frankly confessed her offense against the german administration. yet as soon as they were permitted to enter the study where the minister was seated at his desk, mildred thornton had her first moment of hopefulness. for mr. whitlock had become her friend since this trouble began and his expression indicated good news. "there was no use going into particulars," he declared, "but some days before he had received certain letters from washington. it appeared that judge thornton had been to washington in eugenia's behalf, according to his daughter's request, where he must have interviewed persons of importance." whatever took place the american minister now announced that he had placed judge thornton's communications before the proper german officials. whether they were influenced by these letters, or whether they concluded that there was more to be lost than gained by detaining their prisoner under the present conditions, it is impossible to say. the important fact was that eugenia might at last be moved to her own house. there she was to be allowed to stay under guard until such time as she could safely leave the country. she would then be conducted to the border line of holland and allowed to depart. but eugenia peabody was never again to set foot within a german country during the course of the present war. if she should enter it she would immediately become liable to arrest. so in spite of the possible danger eugenia was immediately removed to her own house in the woods, the house supposedly inhabited by a ghost. but instead of ghosts it was now haunted by the other three red cross girls, all of whom insisted upon sharing the labor of caring for eugenia and looking after her home. yet after all it was on barbara meade that the largest share of the burden fell. for the children had grown accustomed to her since their first friend's departure. then by a freak of chance eugenia seemed to wish barbara near her the greater part of the time. she was not conscious, so her desire was only an eccentricity of illness. nevertheless, barbara naturally tried to be with her friend whenever it was humanly possible. so it is easy to see why dick thornton found no opportunity to confide to barbara the dream that lay so near his heart. he saw her now and then, of course, in his own frequent visits to the household, but seldom alone. occasionally, when for a moment he had a chance for a quiet word with her, dick was not willing to intrude his own desires. barbara looked so worn and fragile these days. the roundness had gone from her cheeks as well as their color, her eyes and lips rarely smiled. it would only trouble her further to have him cast his burden upon her. for barbara would, of course, be sorry to cause him unhappiness. so dick decided to wait until serener times. one afternoon, however, the opportunity for entrusting one of his secrets arrived. for the past three days eugenia had been growing continuously weaker. the crisis of her disease had passed and her fever was not so high. but her weakness had become a more dangerous symptom. about four o'clock dick drove out to the house in the woods with dr. mason, who was one of the physicians devoting himself to eugenia's case. he did not go indoors, but asked that one of the three american red cross girls be sent out to speak to him. it was a cold afternoon, yet the sun was shining and dick felt that the fresh air would be of benefit. no matter which of the three girls was free to join him, they could walk up and down in the yard for a few minutes. the suspense of waiting for dr. mason's verdict would be less severe outdoors than shut up inside. but although dick walked up and down the front porch for quite ten minutes, no one appeared. either dr. mason had forgotten to deliver his message or else the girls were too busy or too nervous to leave the house. dick finally grew weary of the veranda as a place for a promenade. a little later some one would be sure to come out to him, and in the meantime he would walk a short distance into the woods. a few yards along the path the young man stumbled across barbara. she was wearing her gray blue nursing cape and was sitting upon a log. she looked so tiny and was huddled so close that dick somehow thought of a little gray squirrel. barbara was too engrossed in her thoughts to hear him until he was almost upon her. then dick grew frightened, because instead of speaking she jumped to her feet and put up her hand to her throat as if she were choking. it did not occur to dick that she was terrified. he did not dream that she had run away from the house because she dared not wait to hear dr. mason's decision in regard to eugenia. now, of course, she thought him sent to her with a message. and the worst of it was dick did not say a word. he simply stared at her, mute and sorrowful, because gay little bab had become such a pathetic figure on this november afternoon. dick's silence could mean but one thing to the girl. she made a little fluttering sound, wavered, and the next moment dick was holding her upright on her feet with both his arms. at this same instant barbara forgot both eugenia and herself. she had felt the world growing dark before her eyes a moment before. now a miracle brought her back to her senses. she drew herself away at once and stood upright. then placed both her hands on dick thornton's two arms. "dick," she said in an awed tone, "didn't you use _both_ your arms just now, when you kept me from falling?" her companion nodded. "i have been meaning to tell you, barbara, but you have been too busy with other things. my arm has been growing stronger each day, but i didn't know myself until this minute that i could use the lame one as easily as the good. i suppose because i was frightened about you, i forgot my own weakness." then while barbara was gazing at her friend in silence, but with her eyes expressing her joy in his news, mildred thornton came running along the path toward them. "dr. mason says eugenia is much better this afternoon. he has the greatest hopes of her," she cried, while still several yards away. "gene recognized nona and asked for something to eat. nona says she even objected to the way in which she gave her medicine, so i suppose we have the old gene back again. come with me, barbara dear, dr. mason says we may both speak to her. afterwards she is to be left alone to go to sleep and i shall have to try to keep the children quiet. you must see if you can get jan away from her door. the boy has not moved from there since six o'clock this morning." then mildred condescended to recognize her brother. but after kissing him hurriedly, she put her arm about barbara's waist and both girls fled back to the house. later, dick returned to town without seeing either one of them again that afternoon. chapter xix _en route_ barbara meade was chosen as the suitable one of the three girls to accompany eugenia out of belgium. there were a number of reasons for this decision, but the most important was that her friends agreed she was most in need of a change. another point was that eugenia appeared to prefer to have her. but the journey could not be expected to be an altogether pleasant one. eugenia was still ill enough to be a responsibility, and, moreover, the german authorities did not hesitate to express their wish to be rid of her as soon as possible. it was for this reason that the trip was planned as soon as it was in the least feasible. toward the middle of december the preparations for departure were finally concluded. it was arranged that nona davis and mildred thornton should remain in charge of eugenia's house in the woods for a time. for the children must continue being cared for. therefore, the american hospital in brussels had agreed temporarily to dispense with their services. later on perhaps it might be possible to make a more definite arrangement. but at present nona and mildred were both pleased to have a change in their work. besides, this change afforded them the chance to stay on with their friends until the actual time of their leave-taking. neither of the four girls ever forgot the final moment of farewell. since daylight they had talked about everything else under the sun except the fact that they might not meet again for many months. for under the circumstances naturally their future plans were indefinite. barbara and eugenia had been informed that they would be escorted to the frontiers of holland. once within the neutral state no further observation would be made of them and they could go where they chose. they had determined to cross at once to england and then, lingering only long enough for eugenia to rest, to travel by slow stages to southern france. once there, they were once more to take refuge in the little "farmhouse with the blue front door." for in the midst of eugenia's illness a letter had arrived from madame castaigne. in it she had demanded that miss peabody be removed at once from a country at present overrun by barbarians. in her opinion, the american red cross girls should never have departed from the protection of her beloved france. whenever it was possible the farmhouse was at their disposal. moreover, madame castaigne suffered for their companionship. for she and françois had been entirely alone for months. captain castaigne was away in another part of the country with his regiment. so it had been both eugenia's and barbara's fancy to go back for a time to the little house they had both loved. when eugenia had entirely recovered her health, they could then decide on the next step. at eugenia's request no one of their many friends in brussels came out to say good-bye on the last day. for her own sake and the happiness of the children she wished her departure to be as quiet as possible. she and barbara were therefore ready and waiting by noon, when the german officer arrived who was to take them to the border line. neither of the girls had been informed who this man might be, nor what his character and rank. personally, barbara felt a considerable anxiety. so much of the comfort of the first of their journey would depend on his courtesy. then there was the chance that eugenia might be less strong than they hoped and fall ill again along the way. yet eugenia herself seemed to have no qualms upon the subject. her one desire appeared to be to get away, to return to the country she had wilfully turned her back upon. for it had been chiefly due to eugenia's influence that the american red cross girls had left france to begin a new service in belgium. finally, when the german officer arrived, nona, mildred and barbara were equally discouraged by his manner and appearance. in the first place, he was a man of a rough and surly exterior. he was only a sergeant, with an overbearing and insolent method of speaking. indeed, he made no pretence of treating eugenia in any way except as an intruder who had come dangerously near being a traitor to his government. therefore, he had nothing but scorn and dislike of her. he would have chosen to travel with his prisoner in handcuffs, but since this had been forbidden she should be allowed no other consideration. so nona and mildred had to kiss their friends good-bye with the german sergeant staring at them disdainfully. then before they realized what was taking place they beheld eugenia and barbara being marched down the path toward a car which was to take them to their train. eugenia could scarcely keep up with the rapid pace demanded of her. she looked very ill and fragile and barbara very tiny to have her clinging for support to her arm. neither mildred nor nona could see distinctly at the last. afterwards they remembered that eugenia and bab had both waved their hands just as the motor car plunged ahead down the narrow path through the woods. they had promised to write as soon as it was possible to get a letter through the lines. but there was a chance that their mail must first be sent to the united states and then have to recross the ocean. naturally the two girls who had been left behind were deeply depressed. yet they had little time for reflection. for eugenia had asked that the children be given a feast as soon as she was safely out of the way. moreover, there was nicolete dissolved in tears! she had wished to accompany her friend, but on account of monsieur bebé's helplessness had been persuaded to remain behind. work is ever the solace of sorrow, as mildred and nona both discovered ten minutes after their parting from the other two red cross girls. but eugenia and barbara had no such immediate consolation. half a dozen times in the next few hours barbara greatly desired to start a war on her own account. yet in spite of her somewhat fiery temperament she could say and do nothing. it was not on her own account that she was so angry, but for the sake of her friend. for notwithstanding her apparent weakness, eugenia was forced to travel in a train so crowded that she started upon her journey standing up. barbara's protest against this as an impossibility availed nothing. but a few moments later a belgian woman took compassion upon them. she was old but sturdy and determined and eugenia's refusal to occupy her place she would not consider. moreover, the girl had by this time reached such a condition that she must either sit down or fall. though desiring her to be as wretched as possible, even her guard appreciated this fact. afterwards barbara decided that she had never gone through more trying hours than those she endured on their way into holland. eugenia scarcely spoke a dozen words. indeed, she appeared happily unconscious of a great deal of the insolence leveled at her. but barbara missed nothing. the sergeant's every glance at eugenia was an insult, whenever he spoke to her it was with a growl. perhaps his task of driving an american girl out of a once friendly country was such a disagreeable one that no one except a bear would have wished to undertake it. however, both barbara and eugenia were willing exiles. the moment when the girls realized that their feet were upon dutch soil was the happiest they had spent in many weeks. for here at last their guard said good-bye to them. at least, though he used no words, his behavior had the effect of a good-bye. what he actually did was to deposit them upon the platform of a railroad station, then with a grunt of disfavor turn and stride away. but the girls both knew that the next train on which they were to travel would run through the peaceful dutch country. by night they arrived at a dutch port. in spite of the peril of floating mines and submarines the holland passenger boats were still making their nightly journeys to the english coast. naturally there were but few passengers aboard, as no one was crossing for pleasure. but tonight there were a small number of business men and a few women. at eight o'clock in the evening their boat sailed, and immediately after barbara and eugenia went to bed. food was brought to their stateroom, but they were too weary and too excited to eat, so it was scarcely nine o'clock when they were both sound asleep. of course they appreciated the possible danger of their crossing. but as a matter of fact neither barbara nor eugenia gave the idea five minutes' thought. when one has lived in the midst of war's tragedies and terrors, one no longer worries over _possible_ misfortunes. there is time enough when the blow falls. therefore, at midnight the two friends were peacefully sleeping, when they were awakened by an extraordinary sensation and then a tumultuous noise. suddenly their little steamer had come to an abrupt halt in mid-sea. there was no warning, no gradual slowing down. one moment they had been traveling at full speed, the next they were at a complete standstill. then there began a tremendous rushing about on the deck above the floor where the two american red cross girls had their berths. soon after a heavy splash followed as if something had been dropped into the sea. although they were both awakened with the first reversal of the boat's engines, neither of the girls spoke until after the noise subsided. then it was eugenia. "something extraordinary has happened, bab dear," she said quietly. "i think you had best go and see what it is. i have a feeling that perhaps our boat is going to sink. but there has been no explosion so far!" eugenia was extraordinarily calm, almost passive. one may not believe this state of mind to be possible, but wait until you have had just such a personal experience with danger. barbara's answer was to scramble quickly out of the upper berth. she chanced to be wearing a warm blue wrapper which served as a gown. so now she only needed to slip her fur coat over it and pull down her gray squirrel cap over her brown curls. "be getting dressed, eugenia, while i find out what has happened. i'll come back in a moment," she advised. but once outside her stateroom, barbara discovered only a mild excitement. a few passengers were running up and down the narrow hallway, clinging to scanty costumes. one of them explained the situation to barbara. "nothing's much amiss, we are all getting too nervous these days," he commented. "our ship has just run up against a solid bank of fog. as we can't see an inch ahead of us, our captain has too good sense to go on in the darkness. we may have to stay here an hour, or twenty-four, there is no telling. hope a submarine won't come along and pick us off." and with this parting pleasantry barbara's new acquaintance departed. the next instant barbara returned and opened her stateroom door. "go back to sleep, gene dear, everything is serene," she said reassuringly; "there is only a heavy fog at sea. i want to go up on deck and investigate, so please don't worry about me." a few moments later barbara was groping her way about on deck until she discovered an empty steamer chair. this she crawled into, tucking her feet up under her and snuggling down close in the darkness. she could still hear the sailors rushing about on deck. now and then she could even catch the dim outline of a figure, but nothing else was discernible. the very lights suspended from the ship's side were pale and flickering. yet it was all immensely interesting. outside the ship both sky and water had apparently ceased to exist. one could see only a solid mass of gray-black fog like a wet and heavy veil overspreading the world. barbara had recovered from her fatigue with her few hours of sleep. never had she felt more wide awake or more excited. if only it were possible to see more. suddenly she jumped up from her chair. it is true the decks were wet and slippery and since she could not see her way about, nor be seen, she might be in danger of falling. nevertheless, barbara decided to risk the danger. a tumble more or less need not be serious and she was freezing from sitting still. and yet she had not the faintest intention or desire of going back to her stateroom. the fog might last for many hours, but then there was the chance that it might lift at any moment. barbara greatly desired to see the spectacle of a familiar world emerging from darkness into light. fortunately her side of the deck appeared to be entirely deserted. she rose and walked a few steps up and down, compelled to go slowly, for the fog lay like a damp weight upon her chest, pressing her backward with its dim, invisible hands. but after a little time, growing bolder when the desire to gaze down into the water swept over her, she turned and walked blindly forward. within a few paces she reached out to grasp the ship's rails. but instead her hands touched something warm and human. immediately she gave a smothered cry of embarrassment and fright. "i am so sorry," she murmured apologetically, then with a characteristic laugh. "but really i don't know whether i have run into you or you into me. will you please move to the right and i'll go to the left. then we need never meet again." "barbara," began a familiar voice. for the second time the girl's hands stretched forward, but this time they clung to the coat of the young fellow standing within a few feet of her. "dick thornton, can it be possible this is you, when you are in brussels?" she protested. "but then how can it be any one except you, although i have not seen you. if it is only your ghost i am holding on to, at least it is a very substantial one, and i never was so glad to meet any other ghost in my life." in answer dick thornton laughed out loud. "did anyone in the world ever talk in such a ridiculous fashion as barbara, and yet was there ever anyone so delightful?" he slipped his arm through the girl's. "let us walk up and down for a few moments while i explain the reality of my presence," he suggested, quietly taking his companion's consent for granted. "personally, i think it would be the more surprising if i were not here. did you think for an instant i would allow you and eugenia to go on this long trip alone, when eugenia has been so ill? i did not mention the subject to you girls, since i did not intend to have a discussion. but whether you allow it or not i shall be your faithful follower until you reach the little french farmhouse." barbara's eyes were swimming with unexpected tears. "you are the kindest person in the world always, dick," she answered. "and i can't tell you how glad i am to have you with us! i did dread the responsibility of gene more than i would confess. besides, i want you to see our 'house with the blue front door.' but i wonder if it is fair to mildred and nona to have you leave them for even a short time? your place is with them rather than any one else, isn't it?" "my place is beside you, barbara, whenever you are willing to have me," dick returned in such a matter-of-fact fashion that his companion did not at once understand the meaning of his words. "your place beside me?" she repeated slowly. "why, how is that possible when mildred is your sister and nona----" but dick was drawing her toward the side of the ship and now they were both leaning against the railing looking down at the glossy darkness beneath them. "yes, mildred is my sister and nona my friend," dick continued, "yet neither one of them can mean to me what the girl i would choose above all others to be my wife means. don't answer me for a moment, barbara. i have no delusion about your feeling for me, but that makes no difference. i want you to know that ever since those first days in new york you have filled the greater portion of my world. no matter what may happen to divide us, nor how far your life may lead away from mine, i shall not change." the girl and man were standing within only a few feet of each other. now barbara moved closer and laid her hand on her companion's coat sleeve. "i am not very anxious for anything to divide us, nor for my life to lead far away from yours," she whispered. at this moment the bank of fog rolled up as if it were a stage curtain being raised in answer to the prompter's bell, when for the first time that evening dick and barbara caught the vision of each other's faces. chapter xx _noel_ it was christmas morning in southern france. for several hours a light snow had been falling, but had not stayed upon the ground. yet it clothed the branches of the trees with white lace and filled the air with jewels. walking alone a slender girl with dark hair and eyes lifted her face to let the snow melt upon her cheeks. she looked fragile, as if she were just recovering from an illness, nor did her expression betray any special interest in christmas. "these woods are as lovely as i remember them," she said aloud. "it is true, i never could find a place in belgium i liked half so well." then she stopped a moment and glanced around her. "i do hope barbara and dick won't discover i have run away. i feel as much a truant as if i were a small girl. but they surely won't be tramping through my woods at present, when they assured me they would spend several hours at the chateau. so i can't be found out till it is too late. i feel i must see nicolete's little log house and nona's 'pool of melisande.'" ten minutes after eugenia arrived at the desired place. the lake of clear water which she had once described as the "pool of truth" was today covered with a thin coating of ice at its edges. the center was as untroubled as it had always been. above it tall evergreen trees leaned so close to one another that their summits almost touched. eugenia breathed deeply of the fragrance of the snow and the pine. the day was an unusually cold one for this part of the country, but the winter was being everywhere severe. it was as if nature would make no easier the task of her children's destruction of each other. but eugenia was not thinking of warlike things at this hour. she was merely feeling a physical pleasure in her own returning strength. yet just as she was congratulating herself on having been able to walk so far without tiring, the girl experienced a sudden, overpowering sensation of fatigue. for several moments she stood upright fighting her weakness; she even turned and started back toward home. then recognizing her own folly, eugenia looked for a place to rest. but she did not look very far nor in but one direction. yes, the log was there in the same place it had been six months before. with a half smile at herself eugenia sat down. she was not deceived, for she understood perfectly why she had wished to come back to this neighborhood and why today she had wanted to walk alone into these woods. but there could be no wrong in what she was doing, since no one would ever guess her reason. eugenia was sincerely pleased over barbara's and dick's happiness. but she would never confess herself so completely surprised as barbara demanded that she be. she merely announced that if one of the girls felt compelled to marry (and she supposed they could not all hope to escape the temptation of their nursing experiences in europe), at least she was grateful that barbara had chosen to bestow her affection upon an american. personally, she felt convinced that no foreign marriage could be a success. yet here sat eugenia in an extremely sentimental attitude with the light snow falling about her. more than this, she was in an equally sentimental state of mind. but then nothing of this kind matters when one chances to be entirely alone. dreams are one's own possession. then the girl heard a sound that entirely accorded with her train of thought. it was a slow velvet-like tread moving in her direction. in another moment duke had approached and laid his great head in her lap. he did not move again; there was no foolish wagging of his tail. these expressions of emotion were meant for lesser beasts; duke revealed his joy and his affection in a beautiful, almost a thrilling silence. eugenia had not seen her old friend since her arrival at the farmhouse a few days before. for some reason he had not called there with françois and she had not been outside the house until today. their trip had been a long and tiring one and she was more exhausted than she had expected to be. but this was a far more satisfactory reunion and eugenia was sincerely moved. she put her own thin cheek down on duke's silver head and remained as still as he was. truly _he_ had not forgotten! captain castaigne found them like this when he appeared within the next few seconds. he made no pretence of a greeting. instead he frowned upon his one-time friend as severely as she might have upon him had their positions been reversed. "it is not possible that you are in the woods in this snowstorm, eugenie! miss meade told me that i should find you at the little farmhouse. take my arm and we will return as quickly as possible." with entire meekness eugenia did as she was told. she did not even remember to be amused at this young frenchman's amazing fashion of ordering her about. but she was surprised into speechlessness at his unexpected appearance. "only yesterday your mother assured us you were in northern france with your regiment," eugenia murmured as she was being escorted along the path toward home. "she insisted that there was no possible prospect of your returning to this neighborhood in many months." captain castaigne smiled. "is that american frankness, eugenie? we french people prefer to leave certain things to the imagination. of course, i understand that you would never have come to the farmhouse had you dreamed of my being nearby. however, i am here for the purpose of seeing you. my mother did not intend to deceive you; i had not told her of my intention. but we will not talk of these things until we arrive at home. you are too weary to speak." this was so manifestly true that eugenia made no attempt at argument. she was fatigued, and yet there was something else keeping her silent. how splendidly well captain castaigne looked! his face was less boyish than she remembered it. but then she had not understood him at the beginning of their acquaintance. it had been stupid of her too, because no soldier receives the cross of the legion of honor who has not put aside boyish things. because it was christmas day, noel as the french term it, the living room at the farmhouse was gay with evergreens. but better than this, a real fire burned in the fireplace. eugenia let her companion take off her long nursing cloak and she herself removed her cap. then she stood revealed a different eugenia, because of barbara's taste and determination. instead of her uniform or her usual shabby, ill-made dress, she wore an exquisite pale gray crepe de chine, which made a beauty of her slenderness. about her throat there were folds of white and in her belt a dull, rose-velvet rose. this costume had been purchased in paris as the girls passed through and eugenia wore it today in honor of christmas. without a doubt eugenia looked pale and ill, but her hair was twisted about her head like a dull brown coronet and the shadows about her eyes revealed their new depth and sweetness. when she sat down again, drawing near the fire with a little shiver, captain castaigne came and knelt beside her. no american could have done this without awkwardness and self-consciousness. yet there was no hint of either in the young french officer's attitude. seeing him, eugenia forgot her past narrowness and the critical misunderstanding of a nature that cannot appreciate temperaments and circumstances unlike their own. she was reminded of the picture of a young french knight, the st. louis of france, whom she had seen among the frescoes of the pantheon in paris. very gravely captain castaigne raised eugenia's hand to his lips. "i care for you more than i did when i told you of my love and you would not believe. i shall go on caring. how long must i serve before you return my affection?" eugenia shook her head fretfully like a child. "but it isn't a question of my caring. i told you that there were a thousand other things that stood between us, henri." then she drew her hand away and laid it lightly upon the young man's head. "this house has many memories for me. perhaps when i am an old woman you will let me come back here and live a part of each year. may i buy the house from your mother? ask her as a favor to me?" eugenia was trying her best to return to her old half maternal treatment of the young officer. this had been the attitude which she had used in the months of his illness in the little "farmhouse with the blue front door." but this time their positions were reversed. "we will talk of that another time," he returned. "now you must be fair with me. i will not accept such an answer as you gave me before. i must be told the truth." captain castaigne had gotten up and stood looking down upon eugenia. "i return to my regiment tomorrow. you must tell me today." in reply the girl let her hands fall gently into her lap and gazed directly into the handsome, clear-cut face above her own. "why should i try to deceive you? it would be only sheer pretence. you are the only man i have ever cared for or ever shall. but i'll never marry you under any possible circumstances. i am too old and too unattractive and too--oh, a hundred other things." but captain castaigne was smiling in entire serenity. "we will marry at the little 'farmhouse with the blue front door' during my next leave of absence." but barbara and dick were at this moment entering the blue front door. half an hour later, when they had finished christmas dinner, dick thornton drew a magazine from his pocket, which had on its cover the sign of the red cross. "here is a poem some one in america has written called 'she of the red cross.' will you listen while i read it to you? to me the poem, of course, means barbara and to captain castaigne, eugenia." "she fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman, because she stands valiant, in the presence of pestilence, and faces woe unafraid, and binds up the wounds made by the wars of men. she fights to defeat pain, and to conquer torture, and to cheat death of his untimely prey. and her combat is for neither glory nor gain, but, with charity and mercy and compassion as her weapons, she storms incessantly the ramparts of grief. there thrills through her life never the sharp, sudden thunder of the charge, never the swift and ardent rush of the short, decisive conflict--the tumult of applauding nations does not reach her ears--and the courage that holds her heart high comes from the voice of her invincible soul. she fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman because, reared to await the homage of man and to receive his service, she becomes when the war trumps sound, the servitor of the world. and because whenever men have gone into battle, women have borne the real burden of the fray, and because since the beginning of time, man when he is hurt or maimed turns to her and finds, in her tenderness, the consolation and comfort which she alone can give. thus she of the red cross stands today, as woman has stood always, the most courageous and the most merciful figure in all history. she is the valor of the world." * * * * * * the fourth volume in the american red cross girls series will be called "the red cross girls with the russian army." in this volume the four girls will return to the scene of actual fighting. they will be with the russian army in their retreat. moreover, certain characters introduced in the first book will reappear in the fourth, so increasing the excitement and interest of the plot. a new romance differing from the others plays an unexpected part in the life of one of the girls. the story may safely promise to have more important developments than any of the past volumes. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustration. see 33990-h.htm or 33990-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33990/33990-h/33990-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33990/33990-h.zip) the red cross girls with pershing to victory [illustration: nona] the red cross girls with pershing to victory by margaret vandercook author of "the ranch girls series," "stories about camp fire girls series," etc. illustrated the john c. winston company philadelphia copyright, 1919, by the john c. winston co. contents chapter page i. with the american army in france 7 ii. a late recruit 24 iii. toward germany 33 iv. luxemburg 55 v. shoals 66 vi. the ride 77 vii. an unexpected situation 85 viii. the countess's story 98 ix. "life's little ironies" 110 x. the talk with sonya 123 xi. the journey to coblenz 132 xii. new year's eve in coblenz 142 xiii. a walk along the river bank 158 xiv. major james hersey 169 xv. a re-entrance 183 xvi. a growing friendship 195 xvii. faith and unfaith 212 xviii. reconciliation 228 xix. a warning 237 xx. nora jamison explains 245 xxi. the rainbow bridge 256 the red cross girls with pershing to victory chapter i _with the american army in france_ it was a bright winter day near the middle of november, the ground hard with frost and light flurries of snow in the air. over the sloping french countryside thousands of brown tents arose like innumerable, giant anthills, while curling above certain portions of the camp were long columns of smoke. american soldiers were walking about in a leisurely fashion, or standing in groups talking. some of them were engaged in cleaning their guns or other military accoutrements, a number were investigating their kits. near one of the camp fires a private was singing to the accompaniment of a guitar and a banjo played by two other soldiers, with a fairly large crowd surrounding them. "johnny get your gun, we've the hun on the run." over the entire american camp there was an atmosphere of relaxation, of cheerfulness, of duty accomplished. the eleventh of november having passed, with the armistice signed, the american soldiers in france were now awaiting orders either to return home to the united states or else to march toward the rhine. in this particular neighborhood of château-thierry no word had yet been received as to what units were to form a part of the american army of occupation, only the information that the units were to be chosen with regard to their military accomplishments since their arrival in france. therefore the heroes of château-thierry and of belleau woods, of st. mihiel and the argonne forest were ready to accept whatever fate sent, "home," or "the watch on the rhine." finally ending his song the singer stood up; he was wearing the uniform of the united states marines. "i say don't stop singing, navara. what's a fellow to do these days without your music, when we have no longer the noise of the cannon or the shrieking of guns overhead as a substitute?" one of the group of soldiers exclaimed. "the quiet has come so suddenly it is almost as hard to grow accustomed to it, as it once was to the infernal racket." "oh, navara is expecting visitors, feminine visitors. some people have all the luck!" corporal donald hackett protested, placing his banjo in its case and also rising. he spoke with a slight southern drawl and was a tall, fair young fellow with brilliant blue eyes, and both his hair and skin burned red by exposure to the outdoors. "come along then and be introduced to my friends; a good many of you fellows know them already," carlo navara answered. "mrs. david clark and six red cross nurses are motoring over from the red cross hospital. i suppose you have been told that sometime this afternoon half a dozen of our men are to be cited. an officer is coming from headquarters to represent the commander in chief, and present the medals. in a short time we must be ready for inspection." moving off together the two men formed an interesting contrast. carlo navara was dark, a little below medium height, with closely cut brown hair, rather extraordinary black eyes and an olive skin. the young singer, an american of italian ancestry, had first fought among the snow-clad hills of italy. wounded, he had afterwards returned to the united states, where a great career as a singer was opening before him. then the desire to fight in france had driven him to surrender his art and to serve as a volunteer in the marine corps. a moment later the two men disappeared within their tents. an automobile with the red cross insignia soon after drove up before one of the entrances to the camp where a sentry stood guard. stepping out of it first came a woman, youthful of face and form, but whose hair was nearly white, her eyes a deep blue with dark lashes, and her color a bright crimson from her drive through the winter air. following her immediately was a young girl, scarcely eighteen years old, who was small and fair with pale blonde hair and surprisingly dark brown eyes. both the woman and girl were wearing heavy fur coats and small hats fitting close down over their hair. the older woman was mrs. david clark, the wife of the chief surgeon of the red cross hospital which was situated a few miles from the present camp. before her marriage which had taken place only a little more than six months before, she had been sonya valesky. the young girl was her ward, bianca zoli. "i declare, sonya, i don't see how you always manage to get ahead of the rest of us considering your advanced years," another girl exclaimed, jumping out of the car and slipping on the icy ground until her older friend caught firm hold of her. "do be careful, nona davis, and don't be humorous until you are more sure of your footing," sonya clark replied. "you know when you return to new york i want captain martin to find you as well as when you said goodby to him. but have you dr. clark's note to the officer of the day? i'll ask the sentry to take it in to him." during the few moments mrs. clark and nona davis were talking, four other red cross nurses had followed their example and were out of the automobile. they were now walking up and down on the frozen road for warmth and exercise. they were mildred thornton and her sister-in-law, barbara thornton, who had been doing red cross nursing in nearly every one of the allied countries since the outbreak of the great war. the other two girls had been nursing in france only for the past year. one of them, ruth carroll, was taller than any of her companions and strongly built, with dusky hair and grey eyes set wide apart. her companion was tiny, with bright red hair, rather nondescript features and a few freckles, in spite of the season of the year, upon her upturned nose. yet theodosia thompson, with her full red lips, her small, even white teeth and her dancing light blue eyes under a fringe of reddish brown lashes, was by no means plain. "aren't you praying every moment, ruth, that we may be ordered forward with the army of occupation into germany? personally i shall not be happy until i see with my own eyes the germans actually tasting the bitterness of defeat. i made a vow to myself that i would not go back home until general pershing had led our troops to victory, and a real victory means the stars and stripes floating over a portion of the german country." the older and larger of the two american girls smiled a slow, gentle smile characteristic of her personality and in sharp contrast with her companion's impetuous speech and action. both girls were kentuckians and had been friends for years before sailing to do red cross work in france. "well, i have never been so fierce a character as you, thea! to me victory will seem assured the day peace is signed. yet if any of the divisions of soldiers among whom we have been nursing are ordered to germany, certainly i hope our red cross unit may accompany them. i presume not nearly so many nurses will be needed as in the fighting days, however." in the interval, while this conversation was taking place, mrs. clark's note had been dispatched to the officer of the day. at this moment major hersey appeared. major james hersey, confidentially known among his battalion as "jimmie" had the distinction of being one of the youngest majors in the united states army, and to his own regret was not only less than twenty-five years old but looked even younger. "i am so awfully glad to see you, mrs. clark," he began, blushing furiously without apparent reason, as he spoke, which was an uncomfortable habit. "i want you to congratulate me. we have just had a telephone message from headquarters saying that we are to form a part of the first big unit of the american army occupational force. we are to begin to move toward germany at half past five o'clock sunday morning, and i am tremendously pleased. our orders are to march two days and rest three and our troops will move on a front of fifty miles for two weeks when we expect to reach the rhine. but forgive my enthusiasm, mrs. clark. you are the first person to whom i have told the good news. even the men don't know yet. you'll say hurrah with me." major hersey ended boyishly, forgetting military etiquette in his enthusiasm. he had a round, youthful face, curly light brown hair and eyes of nearly the same shade. later, when sonya had offered her congratulations, insisting, however, that she was not surprised by the news if military accomplishment had been considered, she and major hersey led the way into the american camp in the neighborhood of château-thierry followed by the six american girls. half an hour afterwards the same information had been disseminated throughout the camp. lieutenant-colonel townsend had also arrived to award the citations and the distinguished service crosses to the officers and soldiers who had merited the distinction. never were sonya clark and the six red cross nurses to forget this, their last picture of an american camp in france before the great movement of the victorious army toward the rhine. the clouds of the earlier afternoon had grown heavier and more snow was falling in larger flakes, so that the earth was covered with a thin white carpet. a cold wind was blowing across the winter fields. the american soldiers stood in long, even lines, erect, rugged and efficient. sonya and her group of red cross nurses managed to protect themselves a little from the cold by standing behind a group of officers and near one of the officer's tents, not far from lieutenant-colonel townsend and major hersey. they were the only women in the camp at the present time. therefore the only feminine applause emanated from them when the first young officer came forward to receive his citation from the hands of the commanding officer. first lieutenant leon de funiak was a young french officer who had been attached to a division of the united states marines. in the name of the president he was presented with the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism in action near st. mihiel on september 12 when with excellent courage he had captured a machine gun which he turned upon an adjoining trench forcing the enemy occupants to surrender. the second award was made to corporal donald hackett, a friend of carlo navara's and an acquaintance of the red cross girls. later, two citations were given to privates with whom they had no acquaintance. the afternoon sun was disappearing and the wind growing colder. bianca zoli, who stood between her guardian and nona davis, shivered. unconscious of what she was doing she also gave a little sigh due to fatigue and cold. younger than her companions she was also more fragile in appearance. her guardian now turned toward her. "i am sorry, bianca, you are worn out. i am afraid you should not have come with us. yet it is impossible to leave now until the citations are over." at this same moment, another name was being announced by the commanding officer. instantly bianca zoli's manner and appearance changed. her cheeks became a warm crimson, her dark eyes glowed, her lips even trembled slightly although she held the lower one firm with her small white teeth. the name called was private carlo navara. the distinguished service cross was his award. early in the previous july he had crossed as a spy into the enemy's lines and there secured information which had proved of extraordinary value to the commander in chief of the allied armies. half an hour later, returning to the red cross hospital, which lay a few miles behind the american camp, bianca zoli sat wrapped in a rug for further warmth, yet her expression had continued radiant. with her pale fair hair blowing from underneath her fur cap, her eyes deep and dark and happy underneath a little fringe of snow which had fallen and clung to her long lashes, she looked oddly pretty. "do you think, sonya, that carlo knew he was to be cited this afternoon?" she demanded. "he has always said that his own share in the expedition into the german lines last summer was a failure and that the success was entirely due lieutenant wainwright, mildred thornton's fiancé. has carlo spoken to you on the subject recently? had he been told he was to be decorated?" a little absently the older woman nodded, at the present moment she was thinking of other matters even more absorbing than carlo navara's recent honor, proud as she felt of her friend. earlier in the day her husband, dr. david clark, the surgeon in charge of the red cross hospital, had confided in her that a unit of his nurses and physicians were to follow the american army to the frontiers of germany. dr. clark had also asked his wife's advice with regard to the nurses who had best accompany them. therefore, all the afternoon, with her subconscious mind sonya had been endeavoring to meet and unravel this personal problem, at the same time she shared in the interest of the military ceremony to which she had been a witness. "yes, i believe carlo did know what he might expect bianca," she answered finally. "at least he told me a day or so ago he had received some word that there was to be some public recognition of his deed. i suppose carlo did not like to discuss the matter generally as he is a more modest soldier than he is an artist." the younger girl flushed. "just the same i should think carlo might also have confided in me. i wonder if he will ever realize that you are not the best friend he has in the world, even if he does continue to think so." the older woman smiled without replying. sonya knew that some day bianca would recover from her childish jealous relation between herself and carlo navara. of late carlo, himself, had grown entirely sensible, appreciating the fact that her marriage had ended forever his mistaken romantic attachment for a woman so much older than himself, to whose kindness in caring for him during his illness in italy he believed he owed so much. moreover, sonya's attention was soon engaged in watching the storm. during the past two hours the snow fall had been growing heavier until now it lay thick along the road and was blown into drifts by the roadside. the wind was swirling in fierce gusts and forming whirlwinds of snow in unexpected places. save for the lights in their motor car the way was nearly dark, as daylight had almost completely disappeared. cautiously, although driving his car at a fairly rapid pace, the chauffeur was speeding toward the hospital. then suddenly without warning he stopped his car so abruptly that its occupants were thrown forward out of their seats. "what is it, what has happened?" sonya clark asked, as soon as she had recovered sufficient breath, then opening the door of the closed car she peered out into the snow-covered road. a little beyond she was able to see an object lying in the road only a few feet beyond their car. in the semi-darkness and at the distance, with the snow forming a thick veil between, it was impossible to tell just what the object might be. partly covered with snow and showing no sign of movement it was probably an animal that had gone astray and been frozen in the november storm. quickly sonya got out of the car followed by mildred thornton and ruth carroll, the other girls remaining in the automobile at her request. the chauffeur joined them. the next moment the four of them were bending over the figure of a young girl, who was wearing a close fitting cap and a long dark blue coat, and sewed on her sleeve a small red cross. yet when sonya spoke to her, she showed no sign of being able to reply and made no movement, not even to the raising of her lashes. when the chauffeur lifted and placed her inside the car she still seemed unconscious. "i think we had best go on to the hospital at once," sonya commanded. "we are not more than a few moments' journey and whatever should be done for this girl can be better accomplished there." chapter ii _a late recruit_ a little before noon the following day, mrs. david clark, the wife of the surgeon in command of the red cross hospital near château-thierry, entered a small room in one of the towers of the old french château, which had been serving as a hospital for the american wounded. the room was in the portion of the building set apart for the use of the red cross nurses. opening the door quietly and without knocking, sonya stood for a moment in silence upon the threshold, staring in polite amazement at the figure she beheld sitting upright in the small hospital bed. the figure was that of a young girl with straight brown hair cut short and parted at one side, a rather thin white face with a pointed chin and large hazel eyes. there was a boyish, or perhaps more of a sprite-like quality in her appearance. as sonya looked straightway she saw a fleeting picture of peter pan, before the girl turned and spoke to her. "you are mrs. clark aren't you? you are very kind to come to ask about me. i am sorry i gave you so much trouble yesterday; another mile or more and i should have arrived safely at the hospital and been none the worse for my long walk. you won't mind if i go on eating a moment longer, will you? i am dreadfully hungry and i have just succeeded in persuading the charming little girl who is taking care of me that there is nothing in the world the matter with me today, except the need for food. i really feel no worse from yesterday's experience, although it is nice to be so deliciously warm after one has come fairly near being frozen." as the girl talked, the older woman came and took a little chair beside the bed. the newcomer to the hospital, who had been rescued from the snow storm the afternoon before, sonya now discovered was not so young as she had originally believed. on closer observation there were tiny lines about the girl's eyes, a little droop at the corners of her mouth, which might, however, be due partly to fatigue and exposure. "when you feel inclined and if you are strong enough, i wonder if you will not tell me something about yourself and where you were trying to go when we picked you up yesterday? red cross nurses have been in many unexpected places since the beginning of the war, yet one scarcely looks to find one lost in the snow in such a picturesque fashion," sonya suggested half smiling and half serious. in answer to sonya's speech, the girl pushed the tray of food which by this time she had finished eating, to the bottom of her bed and sat resting her chin in the palms of her hands. she was leaning forward with her shoulders lifted and wearing a little white flannel dressing sacque which bianca zoli must have loaned to her. "i want very much to explain to you, mrs. clark, and i am entirely all right again, only perhaps a little tired from my adventure. i do not seem even to have taken cold. first of all my name is nora jamison and i have traveled all the way from california to france, across a country and across an ocean. was it my good fortune or my ill fortune that i landed in paris just three days before the armistice was signed to begin my red cross nursing? i have been looking forward to the opportunity it seems to me for years. oh, i have done war nursing, but near one of the california camps." the girl turned her eyes at this moment to glance out the small window cut into the wall just beside her bed. they were remarkable eyes, sonya had already observed, sometimes a light brown in shade, then flecked with green and grey tones. not in any sense was the rest of the face beautiful, although oddly interesting, the nose long and delicate, the lips thin with slightly irregular white teeth. "i want to see what this french country is like, mrs. clark, see it until i shall never forget its desolation as compared to the fruitfulness and tranquility of our own. some day when i return home i mean to make some of my own country people share my impression with me." then without further explanation of her meaning she turned again to her companion. "i wonder if you are going to be willing to do me a great favor? strange, i know, to be asking a favor of some one who has never seen one and knows nothing of one, save that i am already in your debt! i want you to take me with you as one of your red cross nurses to work with the army of occupation on the rhine. please don't refuse me yet. "when i arrived in paris three days before the signing of the armistice i was kept waiting there until the day after the celebration. then i was told that if i preferred i could stay on in paris a week or more and go back home, since now that the war was over, there would be less need for red cross nurses. yet somehow i managed to plead my cause and the morning after the armistice i was ordered to report to dr. clark at his hospital near château-thierry. probably there would be nurses who were tired and would now wish to be discharged and sent home. i was told that a letter had been written dr. clark to expect me. there was a very especial reason why i wished to come to this neighborhood which i would like to tell you later. well, i had a fairly difficult journey from paris. i was alone and know almost no french. but there was no one to send with me and even the red cross organization relaxed just a little with the prospect of peace. nevertheless nothing happened to me of any importance until i reached the station where i was told some one would be waiting to drive me to the hospital. there was no one. but the mistake was mine, because i thought an old frenchman told me the red cross hospital was only five miles away. at present, knowing my own failure to understand french i think that he probably said fifteen miles. however, i feel i must have walked nearer fifty, if i may exaggerate the actual facts. i kept asking in my best french to be told the proper direction and thinking i understood and then getting lost. when i started out from the little french station it was early in the morning and really not very cold; you must not think i am altogether without judgment. but now that i am safely here, you will take me with you to germany? just think how far i have traveled for this chance! your other nurses have had their opportunity." two bright spots of color were at this moment glowing on the girl's cheeks, her lips and eyes were eager as a child. nevertheless sonya shook her head. "i am sorry, miss jamison, but i'm afraid i can't promise anything. in the first place, my husband has already made the choice of the red cross nurses who are to form his unit. he selected his staff of nurses and physicians last night. there is no time for delay. the division of troops we are to serve leaves before dawn sunday morning. the red cross units will bring up the rear. we will probably move later on the same morning. don't think i am not sympathetic; why you must feel like the last of our american troops who reached château-thierry the morning of the armistice. major hersey told me it was difficult to keep them from fighting, armistice, or no armistice. but you will be able to remain here at the hospital for a time. we still have a number of the wounded to be cared for and more than half the staff will stay behind." the new nurse covered her eyes for a moment with her hands, they were beautiful nurse's hands, with long slender, firm fingers. "mrs. clark, i haven't any immediate family, the one person i cared for and to whom i was engaged was killed here in the neighborhood of château-thierry at one of the first engagements of the united states troops. we had planned to do wonderful things with our life together after the war was past and he was safely home. now, i haven't the courage, not for a time anyhow, to go on with what we hoped to do. i must have work, change, movement. i am very strong, see how quickly i have recovered from yesterday. to stay here at the hospital and work now that the war is over would of course be better than going home at once. but the hospital will be sure to close in a little time and the men sent nearer the coast so as to be ready to sail as soon as they are able. may i at least talk to dr. clark? will you ask him to give me a few moments? i shall be dressed in a little while and can come to his office." sonya rose up from her chair and stood hesitating a moment. there was something in the girl's story, something in her face which was oddly wistful and appealing. more than an ordinary loss lay behind her quickly told tragedy. "why, yes, i'll speak to dr. clark if you desire it and in any case he will wish to know you have recovered. yet i am afraid i cannot truthfully hold out much hope to you. as a matter of fact i have not personally the least influence with my husband in professional matters. if i had, well i should like to take you with our red cross unit to the rhine," and sonya stooped, obeying an unusual impulse and kissed the new girl lightly on the forehead before leaving her. chapter iii _toward germany_ "happy is he who takes the open road, from rosy sunburst till the stars ascend. light is his heart, though heavy be his load, if love but waits him at his journey's end." the two red cross nurses, theodosia thompson and ruth carroll were standing together at the edge of a bleak field in the dawn of a mid-november morning. their companion was a young american physician. "what an extraordinary quotation under the present circumstances, thea! but then, since you are a bundle of contradictions, i presume you suggest that love will await us at our journey's end when you really mean hate. i wonder to what extent the germans will hate us and how difficult life will be among them when we occupy their cities on the rhine." ruth carroll, who had begun her speech as an answer to the other girl, now concluded it by turning her gaze upon dr. hugh raymond, who made no effort at the moment to answer so unanswerable a question. "oh, i was not thinking of the entrance of our american troops into germany, but into belgium and the little devastated french villages which have not seen a friendly face in over four years," theodosia thompson replied. "our soldiers must first pass through the rescued towns. but actually, ruth, i was not thinking deeply at all. with the knowledge that we were soon to take the open road, the verse came into my mind. please don't always be so matter of fact." possibly the two girls were talking because it is so difficult for girls to remain silent for any length of time even under the most amazing conditions. at this moment, peering steadfastly through the grey light of the approaching day, with dr. raymond beside them, they were beholding one of the greatest spectacles in human history, the first movement of the american army of occupation toward the rhine. in line with the vision of the three watchers at this instant khaki-clad figures were marching slowly forward with their faces turned toward the east. behind them down the long road ammunition and supply trains were lumbering; cannons and big guns were groaning their way onward as in time of war. but although it was not war, but the vanguard of peace, nevertheless the american soldiers were prepared for war, should the armistice be ended at any moment. overhead observation balloons were floating, which were to move more rapidly than the army and form a part of the advance guard. "we are scheduled to enter virton some time tomorrow, miss thompson. virton is the first town across the belgian border, then briey and longwy and then the little duchy of luxemburg. it is a great trek and i am glad to be allowed to join it. yet somehow i wish we were sending our nurses in dirigibles so as to make the journey more quickly and safely. we have suffered so much from german treachery in the past that i can't quite trust them on this march. yet personally i wish i could have gone with the soldiers." the young american doctor spoke slowly and solemnly. he was a tall slender fellow with sandy hair and a rather finely cut face, a little roman in type. his manner was also slightly dictatorial, as if he were a much older and wiser person than his feminine audience, although he was scarcely twenty-five. theodosia thompson paid no attention to his remarks although he seemed to be addressing her; however ruth carroll listened as interestedly as any one could have desired. dr. raymond had not been as friendly with the red cross nurses at the château-thierry hospital as one might naturally have expected, considering the fact that they had worked and dreamed and prayed under the same roof during the last thrilling months before the close of the war. but he was supposed not to care for women or girls, either because he was too shy, or because he suffered from an undue sense of superiority. notwithstanding, he apparently made a mild exception in favor of ruth carroll, although for her intimate friend and companion, thea thompson, ordinarily he had to make an effort to conceal his dislike. over the french country this morning the snow of a few days before had hardened and been beaten down into a frost covered layer of mud, yet the wind had become a little quieter and not so piercingly cold. "don't you think we had best go back to the hospital in a few moments, thea?" ruth at this instant inquired. "there are still preparations for us to make before our red cross unit takes its place in the line of march. as a matter of fact i don't think i slept three hours last night, and neither dr. clark nor mrs. clark made a pretence of going to bed." thea linked her arm in ruth's. the young physician who was their companion wore a curious, rapt expression. he was still gazing after the moving army, and seemed not to have heard. "goodby, dr. raymond." thea made a little curtsey that was unexpectedly graceful. "thank you for suggesting to ruth that she see the first breaking of camp of the american army of occupation. i know you had not intended that i accompany you, yet thank you just the same. never so long as i live shall i forget this daybreak in france! why, it is as if an old world had ended on the eleventh of november and a new one was beginning today! besides who knows what experiences may lie ahead, or _romances_, dr. raymond. you see now the war has ended, perhaps even you may wake up to other interesting facts in life beside professional ones." with an odd, challenging expression, thea thompson watched the young doctor's face, expecting him at least to change color or show some sign of annoyance. however, as he was a good deal taller than she, he merely looked over her head and toward ruth carroll. "if you will forgive me, miss carroll, i won't return with you just this minute. i have nothing very special to look after and i want to see as much of this first movement of our army as possible. afterwards our red cross motors and ambulances will probably have to keep in the rear." then the two girls moved away toward the red cross hospital choosing their route along a path near the edge of the road, so as not to be in the way of the oncoming trucks. "i do wish you would try not to talk personalities on a morning like this, thea dear," ruth urged gently, "and particularly not to dr. raymond. i have told you it makes him uncomfortable. he is really not aware that there is a woman or a girl in the world in any personal fashion. i am sure the very word _romance_ irritates him. i presume that is why you used it. don't get into mischief now that the war is over, thea, because you may have less hard work when you have been so good all the past year. i feel it specially because i know you did not naturally care for nursing and only began it at first in order to come to france with me. still you have been very successful and perhaps may wish to keep on with nursing as a profession after we return home?" a little sound that was neither assent nor refusal followed. then thea thompson shook her head. "let's don't discuss either the past or the future just now, ruth. thank heaven the present is sufficient! i've an idea that once our soldiers reach the rhine and settle down they will be needing entertainment as much as they will need nursing. personally i intend to have a little relief from this long strain and have as good a time as possible. oh, don't look so shocked, ruth. i don't intend to do anything especially wicked, play a little perhaps and be a little frivolous. you and i are certainly contrasts as kentucky girls! you know there may be a chance we may run across a little princess somewhere in hiding and that she may fall in love with one of our american soldiers. american soldiers are greater than kings these days, and princesses are in need of protection. so perhaps i may be a looker-on at some one else's romance and not have one of my own. i have been a looker-on at many things i have wished for myself before today, ruth, as you know. but please let us hurry. i promised mrs. clark we would not stay away from the hospital but a short time and i wish to keep my word. she does not like me particularly, or at least i seem to puzzle her." ruth carroll shook her head. the girl beside her had not had a happy childhood or young girlhood, so perhaps it was natural that she should wish, as she expressed it, "just to have a good time." "you puzzle a good many people, thea, including me and sometimes you even puzzle yourself. but you know i have always believed the good would win in the end. don't spoil your nursing record. we are very fortunate to have been chosen to form a part of the red cross unit to follow the army." at this moment the grey november clouds parted and a pale rose appeared in the sky. the two girls were reaching the neighborhood of their red cross hospital. drawn up nearby were half a dozen red cross ambulances, an equal number of closed cars and several large trucks for carrying medical supplies. moving about and directing the hospital orderlies was dr. david clark, the surgeon in command of the hospital. he had been ordered to take charge of the red cross unit, who were to follow the division of american troops from the neighborhood of château-thierry to the rhine to assist in policing germany. with him at the moment, and aiding in a hundred small ways, was his wife, sonya clark. as the two nurses approached and dr. clark caught sight of them, he frowned with disapproval and surprise. at the instant it seemed impossible to guess what two of his nurses could be doing off duty at daybreak on this morning of all mornings. sonya understood and nodded sympathetically. "you have been to see our troops break camp and start for germany? i remember you asked permission. i envy you girls the experience, although we shall probably see many extraordinary sights before this day is over. we shall leave in a few hours; naturally it will not take long for us in motor cars, to catch up with the soldiers who are traveling afoot. you will be ready. i hope the sky at present is a good omen of the future." and sonya pointed to the rose light overhead. later in the day, the red cross unit from the hospital in the neighborhood of château-thierry took its place in the rear of the line of march of the american army of occupation toward germany. by this time the sun was shining and the roads had become comparatively clear. hospital supplies had been sent on ahead with a group of hospital orderlies, dr. clark and a corps of his physicians following soon after. in a later automobile mrs. clark had with her half a dozen red cross nurses, and in a second miss blackstone, the former superintendent of the hospital, an equal number. also there was a third automobile filled with physicians and orderlies who were to keep as close to the two other cars as circumstances allowed. across no man's land on this november morning, from the northern end of france to the southern, were passing the victorious allied armies, three hundred thousand american troops led by pershing to victory, and an equal or greater number of french and british. in the car with sonya the american girls had but little to say to one another during the first part of their journey. not only was the land before them desolate beyond description, but filled with tragic memories. early in the afternoon, reaching the edge of a little french town, the red cross automobiles stopped. the occupants were in no great hurry to move forward. in advance the cavalry had swept on to prepare the way, but the infantry was going ahead slowly and would encamp for the night. this division of the red cross intended keeping in the background so that in case the men became ill, they could drop out and be overtaken by nurses and physicians. the girls were glad of the rest and also extraordinarily hungry, having spent the greater part of the night and every moment since daylight in preparation for the advance. their three cars had stopped in front of a small farmhouse on the outskirts of the town. approaching the house, sonya and dr. raymond believed it to be empty. the blinds were closed, the pathway to the front door untrodden. yet it had once been a gay little house of french grey with bright blue shutters. a knock at the door and both sonya and the young physician thought they heard scurrying noises inside. yet knocking again there was no reply. "shall i try pushing the little front door open, mrs. clark? it is pretty cold eating outside. i can't quite understand the situation. the french people know we are their friends; they have been told to expect nothing but kindness and consideration from us. do look, already the french civilians are coming out from the village to welcome us. our little house is surely uninhabited or it would not be so inhospitable." following dr. raymond's suggestion, sonya turned. standing not far away in a group were the six red cross nurses for whom she felt especially responsible, nona davis and mildred thornton, the two girls who were her intimate and devoted friends and who had made exceptional sacrifices to remain in europe now that the war was ended. there were also the two comparatively new nurses, ruth carroll and theodosia thompson, and bianca zoli. the sixth girl was the red cross nurse, nora jamison, who had arrived so late at the hospital. nevertheless she had been chosen by dr. clark to form a member of his red cross unit who were to follow the army of occupation. beyond them was another group of nurses and physicians. to sonya's surprise she saw approaching at this moment from the little french town close by between fifty and a hundred persons. some of them were old men and women hobbling along on sticks, their faces gaunt and haggard with past suffering, but shining now with happiness. a dozen or more little french girls were marching abreast, one of them carrying a small american flag, another a french. both flags were evidently home made and must have been carefully hidden from the germans during their long occupancy of the french village. with them were five or six american soldiers who had been taken prisoners by the germans and were now being allowed to rejoin their own comrades. "we haven't a great deal of food, i know," sonya began impulsively. "but don't you think, dr. raymond, we might ask the friends who have come to welcome us and who seem hungriest to share our food? a great quantity of supplies are to follow us and we will probably wait for a few days somewhere along the line of march. dr. clark told me he wanted us to be prepared to care for the wounded american soldiers we meet along the way, soldiers who have been imprisoned in germany and must have suffered untold tortures from improper treatment. then, if any of our own soldiers are taken ill along the route of march, dr. clark is to see they are left in a comfortable hospital with the necessary supplies and it may be we shall be delayed to look after them." forgetting her effort to enter the little house, sonya at this instant moved away from dr. raymond to rejoin the other red cross nurses. in french fashion some of the old peasants were kissing the hands of their allies. miss blackstone and a physician had already unwound a dirty bandage from the arm of an american soldier and were examining his wound. sonya had no desire to be left out of the little crowd of french and american friends. within fifteen minutes, however, she had again returned to the little house. this time she was accompanied by an old french peasant woman to whom she had explained the situation, inquiring if the farmhouse was in truth uninhabited. at present it was the french woman who hammered, not gently but with the utmost firmness upon the closed door. "it may not be possible, madame, that we enter in at the front door," she explained. "it is my impression that la petite louisa has never once unfastened this door since she opened it to the german soldiers who afterwards took away her mother and older sister. she has been here ever since all alone, as her father and brother were of course with the army. la petite louisa has since that time been distrait, not you understand exactly in her right senses, but harmless. it is not that her french neighbors have neglected her. i have myself tried to take her home to be with me, but always she comes back to the little grey house." the old peasant shrugged her shoulders, as she continued banging on the door and talking at the same time. "there have been so many things to endure. one more forsaken, half starved child! what would you do? her family was not well known in our village; they had moved here from paris a short time before the war and were said to have been wealthy people who had fallen into misfortune. so after a time, it may not seem kind, but life has been too hard some of the days even for kindness, so finally we left the little girl alone. neighbors have given her food when there was food to give. even a few of the enemy soldiers have sometimes tried to make friends and persuade her to eat, but always she would rush away from them with the great fear." not altogether sure of what the old french peasant was trying to make plain to her, yet convinced enough of the tragedy of the story, sonya laid her hand on the old woman's arm. "don't you think we had best not frighten the little girl then by trying to enter her house. some one else in the village i feel sure will offer us hospitality. and yet something should be done for the little girl, now the war is past she must be made to understand she need not be afraid," sonya expostulated. however, the french woman continued knocking. she also had been calling out in french, reassuring the little girl inside, pleading with her. "la petite louisa." and now sonya heard footsteps drawing near the closed door. the next moment the door partly opened, disclosing the most pathetic child's figure she had ever seen. the little girl was perhaps twelve years old and did not look like the usual french child, for though her hair was coal black, her eyes were a violet blue, fringed by the blackest lashes, her skin almost an unearthly pallor. in spite of her look of hunger she was clean and not only scrupulously, but exquisitely dressed in a little silk and serge frock made with care and taste. the child's eyes were what held sonya, however, they were at once so terrified and so sad. looking past the two women at the crowd outside, she would have fallen except that sonya's arm went swiftly around her while she tried to explain that they were friends. afterwards sonya and the red cross nurses discovered that the little house was furnished very differently from the ordinary french farmhouse, with possessions which must have come from some handsomer home. in the dining room they ate their luncheon on a french oak table with beautiful carved feet and found that the sideboard and chairs were also of handsome french oak. the little room soon became crowded, not only with the red cross girls and physicians, but with a number of the french people who came in to assist in the celebration. beyond gifts of chocolate and bread, they refused to accept other food, explaining that the portion of the american army which had passed through their village earlier in the day had given them supplies. yet the little french girl in whose home the celebration was taking place would neither eat nor speak to her french acquaintances or to the strange americans. sonya and miss blackstone confided to each other their impression that the little girl was probably unable to speak, fright and exhaustion having oftentimes this effect upon highly nervous temperaments. however, in the midst of the luncheon, suddenly the little french girl slipped over beside the new red cross nurse, nora jamison, and took tight hold of her hand. she even allowed her to tempt her into eating small morsels of food. by accident the new nurse was sitting next sonya clark and sonya turned to her, mystified by the little french girl's impetuous action. "i wonder how you managed that, miss jamison?" she inquired. "i have been trying to make friends with our little french hostess ever since my meeting with her and she would have nothing to do with me. you seem not to have noticed her and she has given her confidence to you." still holding the little french girl's hand nora jamison nodded. "you will find i am a kind of pied piper, mrs. clark. i had always nursed children before i began war work and am especially fond of them." sonya shook her head. "it is peter pan i thought of when i first saw you. i wonder if you are one of the lucky persons who never grow up? i've an idea you will be a great help to us when we finally reach germany. we don't want the german children to think of us as ogres and one wonders what stories their parents may now be telling them of our american soldiers." then so many things distracted sonya clark's attention that she thought no more of the little deserted french girl until she and bianca looked for her to say goodby and found that the child had disappeared. chapter iv _luxemburg_ in the afternoon, traveling in the direction of belgium, there was an unexpected movement under the broad seat of the red cross car which startled its occupants. the first exclamation came from bianca zoli who happened to be sitting just over a space where a large box of provisions originally had been stored. the box had been removed, however, and the food eaten at luncheon. "i am absurd!" bianca exclaimed, clutching at nora jamison's hand, as she was sitting beside her. "but i thought i felt something stir. i wonder if the excitement of our journey is having a strange influence upon me?" "i don't think so," the older girl returned, "i have been conscious of life, a movement of some kind underneath us ever since we left the little french farmhouse. i say i have been conscious, no, i have not been exactly that, only puzzled and uncomfortable." leaning over, nora at this instant lifted the curtain, and bianca bending forward at the same time, they both became aware of the figure of the little french girl who had vanished a few moments before their departure from her home. "sonya!" bianca called. this was scarcely necessary, since by this time every occupant of the car knew equally well what had happened and curiously enough, without discussion, understood the explanation for the child's action. the little girl had believed that this group of women and girls, wearing the red cross of service, were her friends and if possible would protect her from what she feared most in all the world, the grey uniformed german soldiers. also they were leaving the neighborhood where she had lived under a burden of terror. her one desire was to escape from the captured town where the germans had been in authority so many weary months. as nora jamison and bianca both struggled to assist the child, they found she could scarcely help herself, so stiff had she become from her uncomfortable position. yet she managed with their aid to climb up and sit crowded close between bianca and nora jamison. "what are you going to do with this child, sonya?" bianca demanded, more sympathetic than she cared to reveal, remembering her own childhood, which had been more lonely and difficult than any one had ever realized. not even sonya, who had come to her rescue in those past days in italy, more from a combination of circumstance than from any great affection for her, had ever understood. in response sonya bit her lips and frowned. there was something about the little french girl which had attracted her strongly at the first sight of her, an attraction she could not have explained, unless it were compassion, and yet she had seen many pathetic, forsaken children during her war work in france. "i am sure i don't know, bianca," she replied finally. "i suppose we can leave the child with some french family along our route. however, most of them have responsibilities enough of their own, without our adding a child whose last name we do not even know and who appears unable to tell us anything about herself." "we cannot take the child back to her own home, even if we could turn back, which is of course out of the question. i would not have the courage to leave the little girl alone there, when she has showed so plainly her wish to escape. oh, well, life is full enough of problems and some one will surely take the child off our hands! people in adversity are wonderfully kind to one another; our life in france during the war has taught us that much." both sonya and bianca were speaking english so that the little interloper would not be able to understand what they were saying. "i wonder why we cannot take 'la petite louisa' along with us, sonya? after all one little girl more or less won't matter and we may need her for our mascot in the new work that lies before us. i don't know why i feel the red cross nursing with the army of occupation will have new difficulties our former nursing did not have. perhaps because the soldiers will probably not be seriously ill and are likely to be a great deal more bored," mildred thornton urged. sonya shook her head. "mildred, it is a little embarrassing to have to speak of it, but please remember my husband is something of a martinet in matters of red cross discipline. i am afraid he will not think we have the right to add a little girl to our responsibilities. however, the child is with us now not by our choice, and we must make her as comfortable as possible until we have some inspiration concerning her. miss jamison, you will look after her, won't you, since she seems to prefer you?" but already nora jamison had assumed that the care of the little french girl had been entrusted to her as a matter of course. later, the journey through france and into belgium and thence into luxemburg became, not only for the american army but for the red cross units which accompanied it, a triumphant procession. in every little village along their route bells were rung, schools closed while the children and the citizens gathered in the streets to shout their welcome. through the country at each crossroads groups of men, women and young people were found waiting to express their thankfulness either with smiles or tears. thirty-six hours after leaving their hospital near château-thierry, mrs. clark and her red cross workers crossed the frontier of belgium and entered the little town of virton. in virton, at the red cross headquarters, awaiting them they found orders from dr. david clark. as promptly as possible they were to proceed to the capital of luxemburg and there establish a temporary red cross hospital. dr. hugh raymond was to take charge with miss blackstone as superintendent, the red cross nurses assuming their usual duties. before their arrival arrangements for their reception would have been made and a house secured for their temporary hospital. this was necessary since along the route of march numbers of soldiers were being attacked by influenza and must be cared for. ordinary hospitals were already overcrowded with wounded american soldiers who had been prisoners in germany. therefore, obeying orders, this particular red cross unit entered luxemburg a few hours before the arrival of general pershing at the head of his victorious troops. it was early morning when the red cross girls drove into the little duchy, which has occasioned europe trouble out of all proportion to its size. actually the duchy of luxemburg is only nine hundred and ninety-nine square miles and has a population of three hundred thousand persons. just as surely as germany tore up her treaty with belgium as a "scrap of paper," when at the outbreak of the war it suited her convenience, as surely had she marched her army across luxemburg in spite of the protest of its young grand duchess marie adelaide. however, when germany continued to use luxemburg as an occupied province, the grand duchess was supposed to have changed her policy and to have become a german ally. on the morning when the american red cross entered her capital, the grey swarm of german soldiers was hurrying rapidly homeward, broken and defeated, while the american army under general pershing was hourly expected. to make way for the more important reception and to give as little trouble as possible, the american red cross drove directly to the house which had been set apart for their use. the house proved to be a large, old fashioned place with wide windows and a broad veranda, and on the principal street of the city not far from the grand ducal palace. after a few hours of intensive work toward transforming a one-time private residence into a temporary hospital, the entire staff deserted their labors to gather on the broad veranda. the news had reached them that general pershing had entered the capital city of luxemburg and would pass their headquarters on his way to the grand ducal palace for his formal reception by the grand duchess. later a portion of the american army itself marched by. from their balcony the american girls could see the stars and stripes mingling with the red, white and blue of the small principality. never in their past experience had they seen a welcome to equal the welcome given by the citizens of luxemburg to the troops which general pershing had led to victory. if the grand ducal family had been won over to the german cause, how deeply the people of luxemburg had sympathized with the allies was proved by this single day's greeting. together with the people in the streets the red cross workers found they were shouting themselves hoarse. yet the shouts were barely heard amid the blowing of whistles, the ringing of bells. in the hearts of the inhabitants of the tiny duchy apparently there was a great love for the soldiers of the greatest democracy in the world. from every window along their route of march flowers rained down upon the soldiers, children crowding close presented each american doughboy with a bunch of chrysanthemums; one of them carried a banner on which was inscribed, "the day of glory has arrived." turning to speak to mildred thornton who stood beside her, nona davis found to her surprise that her cheeks were wet with tears. she had not been conscious of them until this instant. "it pays almost, doesn't it, mildred, for all the suffering we have witnessed in europe in the past four years to see the rejoicing of the little nations of europe over the victory of democracy? even if the little grand duchess is pro-german in sentiment, it is plain enough that her people must have loathed the german occupation of their country. i would not be surprised if the passing of our soldiers may not mean a change of government in luxemburg. under the circumstances i wonder how long our red cross unit may remain?" mildred thornton shook her head. "impossible to guess of course, nona. and yet i am glad of the opportunity. we shall have nursed in one more country in europe and perhaps even little luxemburg will offer us new experiences and new friends." chapter v _shoals_ during the thirty odd years of her life, sonya valesky, now mrs. david clark, had been through many and varied adventures; some of them, in her young womanhood in russia, had been tragic, others merely difficult. but after a few days in luxemburg, amid the effort to establish the temporary red cross hospital, sonya believed that she had rarely suffered a more trying interlude. it was not the actual work of the hospital arrangements or the care of the sick. of the first miss blackstone took charge and she was eminently capable; for the second dr. hugh raymond was responsible. both of them had able assistants. the upper part of the house was set apart for the care of the officers and soldiers suffering from influenza, and there were about twenty cases; the second floor was reserved as sleeping quarters for the staff with a few extra rooms for patients who were ill and in need of attention from other causes so they should not be exposed to contagion. on the lower floor was a reception room, dining room and kitchen, with the drawing room for convalescents. but as usual sonya clark's task was looking after the red cross nurses, seeing not only that they were in good health, but as happy and contented as possible, giving their best service and in little danger of breakers ahead. nevertheless, within forty-eight hours after the passing of the american troops through luxemburg, it appeared to sonya that some unexpected change had taken place in her group of red cross nurses. what they were actually ordered to do they did in a fairly dutiful fashion, but the old enthusiasm, the old passionate desire for service had vanished. among the entire group of nurses a relaxation of discipline had taken place. the excitement of their journey, the knowledge that the war had ended in the allied victory, a natural desire for pleasure after so long a strain, apparently possessed them alike, except nora jamison who was comparatively new to the work, and seemed in every way an unusual girl. frankly bianca zoli confessed to sonya, not long after their arrival in luxemburg, that she was weary of the endless waiting upon the nurses and patients and needed a short rest. and sonya agreed that this was true. bianca was younger than any member of their red cross unit and had been faithful and untiring in her devotion for many months during the final allied struggle for victory. moreover, bianca also appeared slightly depressed and sonya wisely guessed this was partly due to the long separation from carlo navara, which bianca must see was inevitable. with his regiment carlo was moving toward the rhine and nothing was apt to be less in his mind for the time being than his friendship for the young girl whom he undoubtedly regarded only in a semi-brotherly spirit composed of indifference and affection. since the greater part of the nursing at the temporary hospital in luxemburg was the care of the soldiers who were ill with influenza, and feeling that bianca was not altogether in the right state of health to battle with the contagion, sonya requested miss blackstone to permit her to have a half holiday, doing no work that was not voluntary. but with nona davis and mildred thornton, the two red cross nurses who had given the most valuable personal service, since the outbreak of the war, the situation was more serious and far more difficult to meet. they did not neglect their duties, this would have been impossible to either of them, and yet in a way it was plain that they were no longer wholly absorbed by them and to use an old expression, their hearts were no longer in what they were doing. yet sonya understood; both girls were engaged to be married to young american officers who were at present in the united states. with the signing of the armistice they had hoped to return home. it was possible they had made a mistake in agreeing to dr. clark's request that they remain for a time longer in europe, forming a part of his red cross unit, who were to care for the soldiers of the american army of occupation. with mildred thornton the engagement was comparatively recent. during the latter part of july she had nursed through a dangerous illness, following a wound, an american lieutenant[a] who, together with carlo navara, had crossed into the german lines, securing important secret information, afterwards invaluable to marshal foch. of longer standing was nona davis's romance, which had not been of such plain sailing. in the early months after the entry of the united states into the world war, in an american camp in france, she had met and renewed an acquaintance with lieutenant john martin which had begun as children years before in the old city of charleston, south carolina. soon after lieutenant martin had declared his affection, but believing him arrogant and domineering, nona had not at that time returned his love. later, meeting again upon a united states hospital ship, coming back from france, nona had discovered lieutenant martin, now captain martin, blinded through a gallant action on the battlefields of france. it was then that their former positions were reversed, for captain martin would not accept a devotion which he believed born of pity and declined marrying nona unless his sight were restored. a short time before a letter from new york announced that after an operation, captain martin had the right to believe his sight would be fully regained. therefore would nona marry him as soon as it could be arranged? and nona's answer had been to cable, "yes."[b] however, both mildred thornton and nona davis having already sacrificed so much to their four years of red cross service in europe, had decided to make this ultimate sacrifice in the postponing of their happiness. yet here during the temporary pause of their red cross unit in luxemburg, sonya was able to see that the two girls were finding their self-surrender harder to accept bravely than they had anticipated. whenever it was possible without neglecting their duties they were apt to wander off for mutual sympathy and confidences. even sonya found herself often ignored or forgotten. sometimes she feared that they might harbor a slight resentment, because it was her husband, dr. david clark, who had asked the personal sacrifice. with two other of her red cross nurses sonya had neither much sympathy nor understanding. ruth carroll had never interested her particularly; she was a large, quiet girl, ordinarily a dutiful and fairly reliable nurse, but without special gifts, although as a matter of fact, dr. clark had not shared in his wife's disparaging opinion. however, sonya knew herself to be prejudiced and not so much by ruth herself as by reason of her close friendship with theodosia thompson and the younger girl's undoubted influence upon her. thea had been right in her supposition that mrs. clark neither liked nor trusted her particularly, although sonya herself had scarcely been aware of her own point of view until after the beginning of the journey of her red cross unit toward germany. since then sonya was not at all sure that thea might not prove an uncomfortable if not an actually mischievous influence. one of dr. clark's old students at a prominent new york medical university and afterwards his assistant, dr. hugh raymond, was a young physician in whom the older man had extraordinary confidence and for whom he hoped great things. in the red cross hospital near château-thierry he had done splendid and untiring work. but both sonya and her husband had often smiled over the young doctor's apparent dislike of women and girls. not even with sonya herself had he been willing to be more than coldly friendly. yet since the movement of their unit toward the rhine, sonya had noticed an odd change in him. at first it had appeared as if thea's attempts to make him show an interest in her had simply annoyed him. later she seemed to provoke him. recently sonya believed thea was having a marked effect upon him, sometimes aggravating and at other times pleasing him. and although sonya believed she understood human nature, she also realized that nothing would irritate her husband more profoundly than to discover any kind of personal feeling existing between his nurses and physicians. during all the red cross work in europe from this complication they had been singularly free. moreover, sonya did not consider that theodosia thompson was seriously interested in dr. raymond. it was her personal opinion that thea simply desired admiration and attention, because her nature was restless and dissatisfied. and it was with the two nurses, ruth carroll and theodosia thompson, that sonya had her first real grievance since the beginning of her red cross work. among the patients who had been brought to the temporary luxemburg hospital was major james hersey, who had been in command of a battalion near château-thierry and had been taken ill with influenza along the route of the march toward germany. perhaps major jimmie had been longing too ardently to accompany his picked troops to the left bank of the rhine; however, he was at present pretty seriously ill. all day sonya had been caring for him and at about four o'clock in the afternoon she was beginning to feel that she was growing too tired to be left alone. major hersey was delirious and already it was long past the hour when theodosia thompson had been expected to relieve her. yet she continued to wait patiently, not daring to leave her charge even for a moment. four o'clock passed and then five and no one entered the sick room, not even one of the red cross physicians, and sonya had been expecting a call from dr. raymond some time during the afternoon. at a little after five, miss blackstone stepped in unannounced. she was the superintendent of the hospital and sonya discovered her looking both worried and worn. she was a large, plain, middle-aged woman who had worked with dr. clark for a number of years before his marriage to sonya, and although she and sonya had not liked each other in the early days of their acquaintance, they had become far more friendly since. "i am more sorry than i can say, mrs. clark, not to have sent some one in to help you, but the most amazing thing has happened. just after lunch miss thompson and miss carroll asked permission to take a short motor ride with dr. raymond and dr. mendel. dr. raymond assured me himself that they would not be gone over an hour. it has been much nearer three hours and i hardly know what to do. some accident must have occurred. what do you think we should do?" sonya shrugged her shoulders. "do? why nothing but wait. i have an idea nothing has happened beyond the fact that they have forgotten their responsibilities." footnotes: [footnote a: see red cross girls with united states marines.] [footnote b: see red cross girls afloat with the flag.] chapter vi _the ride_ it was true, as miss blackstone had said, that the little party of four, the two red cross nurses and two physicians, had started out with the intention of taking only a short drive and returning to the hospital in plenty of time for their duties. and in spite of the fact that sonya might be cherishing an unreasonable prejudice, the drive had been proposed by dr. raymond first to theodosia thompson with the suggestion that she ask ruth carroll to accompany them and that he invite dr. leon mendel who was also one of the red cross staff. early in the morning of the same day a note had been sent to the hospital and a motor car offered to the american red cross unit during their stay in luxemburg. as the note had been delivered to dr. raymond he had considered it only courtesy to accept the kindness. he had also been quite selfishly interested in seeing the capital city of luxemburg and the neighboring country and in enjoying a short respite from his continuous work of establishing the temporary hospital. if sonya was annoyed by the young doctor's attitude toward thea thompson, assuredly he was more so. certainly he was not at present under the impression that he actually liked her, only that she had somehow made him realize that he must have always appeared too self-centered and too serious, and that he needed waking up. and certainly thea was stimulating and now and then amusing. this afternoon as he was feeling tired he proposed that she occupy the front seat of the little motor car with him, ruth and dr. mendel sitting in the rear. following no guide except their own impressions they drove through the city, first past the grand ducal palace then the handsome residences of the nobility and finally to the open country on the outskirts of the city. to all four of the occupants of the car it seemed to have had wings, so short a time did their drive absorb. nevertheless thea and dr. raymond had not enjoyed each other particularly. they were both tired and thea was having one of the attacks of depression from which she often suffered. she looked both homely and pale, and even her eyes were less blue beneath their straight, red-brown lashes. only her red hair breaking into irrepressible little waves under her small hat was full of life and charm. reaching the end of the main road from which two country lanes branched off into less inhabited portions of the countryside, dr. raymond turned to speak to ruth carroll and dr. mendel. "i am sorry, it seems to me our ride has scarcely begun, and yet i feel we had best turn back here. we might allow ourselves a little more time but i am afraid if we try one of these unexplored roads we may lose ourselves somewhere." ruth made a little nod of agreement even though her expression revealed disappointment. dr. mendel made no reply. but unexpectedly dr. raymond felt a hand laid lightly on his coat sleeve. "please do go a little further," thea begged. "i wonder if you know that although i am a country girl i have ridden in automobiles only a few times in my life before coming to france." hesitating the young doctor slowed down his car as if expecting to turn around. "i am not in the habit of neglecting my duty for any reason whatsoever, miss thompson. i have just explained that i dared not attempt a strange country road for fear we might go astray and our return to the hospital be seriously delayed." undoubtedly the young red cross doctor's manner was self-righteous and precise, but in answer thea laughed. it was an odd laugh which made him flush uncomfortably. "oh, please do go back then at once!" she said. "nothing would make me ask you to disregard your duty. really dr. raymond, it is a wonderful experience to know any one who so perfectly answers all the requirements of a model character. besides i know you would never do anything because i asked you, although as a matter of fact, we all have the right to our usual two hours off duty this afternoon and less than half of that time has gone by." there was a little sting of bad temper in thea thompson's manner and words which undoubtedly were her heritage along with her brilliant red-gold hair. instead of replying dr. raymond drove his car, not backward toward the hospital as he had announced his intention of doing, but into one of the country roads leading into an entirely unknown locality. it would have been difficult for him to have explained his impetuous action. half an hour later, at the end of a road which led apparently nowhere, dr. raymond stopped his car. "i think i have already managed to lose the way, thanks to you, miss thompson," he announced irritably, "however, i suppose we can simply turn around and go back. certainly this part of the country is entirely uninteresting without a house or an individual in sight. i was very foolish to agree to your request and shall certainly reproach myself if any one has been in special need of me at the hospital. i only trust we may be able to return as quickly as we have made the trip." however, thea made no reply to this reproachful speech except to jump to her feet. "look!" she cried dramatically. "what a perfectly charming picture in that field over there! i told you i was from kentucky and yet i never saw any one ride so beautifully!" naturally thea's companions followed her suggestion. just beyond the end of their road was a wide open field thick with winter stubble. in the centre was a tall hurdle intended for jumping. riding toward this hurdle at a swift pace was a young girl; she was wearing a close fitting, scarlet riding habit, a little dark hat of some kind and high riding boots. her horse was almost equally slim and beautiful, and horse and rider had the suggestion of oneness which is the attribute of perfect riding. there was no other human being in sight. the girl was making straight for the hurdle. evidently she and her horse were both in the habit of jumping for neither showed the least sign of nervousness. breathless with admiration and interest the two american girls and their companions watched. the horse rose in the air, his head a little forward, the rider holding the bridle with just the right degree of freedom and firmness. she was sitting perfectly still, her body in entire accord with the movement of her horse. no one beholding her would have dreamed of an accident. yet when the horse had actually cleared the hurdle without difficulty and had reached the ground on the further side, the girl must have released her hold. in any event she fell forward over the horse's head, one of the front hoofs striking her. first out of the car was thea thompson followed by dr. raymond, then ruth and the other red cross physician. the girl they found to be unconscious from a wound in her forehead. "i don't see why we seem to be in the habit of rescuing people nearly every time i go out in a motor car," said thea. "certainly i never saw so pretty a girl as this one, i hope she is not seriously hurt." dr. raymond wore his most professional air. "it is impossible to say at present," he returned severely. chapter vii _an unexpected situation_ "but i don't wish to leave the hospital, i am comfortable here and mrs. clark says they are pleased to have me. besides i could not possibly be moved just now, i am sure i could not endure it." the young girl who was talking lay surrounded by pillows in a wide, old-fashioned bed in the american red cross hospital in luxemburg. partly from excitement and also because it was characteristic, a brilliant color flamed the girl's cheeks. at present there was a little frown between her dark, finely lined brows. "you must be glad not to have me at home for a time, knowing how we disagree on every important question. and, as for my absence from the palace, i am sure it can only be a relief. you know just how popular i am there at present in the midst of--" the woman who was standing beside the bed, leaning over at this instant placed her fingers on the girl's lips. "don't talk nonsense and under no circumstances speak of so serious a matter where we may be overheard by strangers, my dear child. please realize that the americans are unknown people to us and if there are reasons why it is best we should be cordial, there is an even more important reason why, at present, we should keep our own council. a girl's opinions on matters of state are really not vital, unless the girl chances to be the grand duchess marie adelaide. as her cousin you perhaps take yourself too seriously. but i am not offering you advice, merely telling you that your father desires that you be moved to your own home as soon as your physicians think it advisable. the court physician will call on you at the hospital this afternoon. both your father and i are at a loss to understand how you managed to fall from your horse when ordinarily you are so skilful a rider." the speaker was a severe, elderly person, rather massive, and dressed in a heavy black silk gown, with her white hair piled high under an imposing bonnet and her thin lips drawn into an annoyed line. nevertheless, she managed to keep the tones of her voice fairly even. "naturally enough i realize, charlotta, that you would refuse to be influenced by me, although for that matter you have never been influenced by any one from the time you were a child." the girl bit her lips. "i am afraid i am not well enough to argue at present and my unfortunate disposition, tante, is rather a time-worn subject between us. i shall do no harm here, only rest and have a little peace from our everlasting discussions. besides, you do not seem to consider the fact that i happen to be rather seriously hurt. no one knows how seriously at present, a broken arm and a cut on one's head are not comfortable afflictions, even if they are not dangerous. but the physicians at the american red cross hospital who were good enough to rescue and bring me here seem to believe there may be other complications and that i had best stay where i am for the present. please be as gracious as possible, i have asked mrs. clark to come in this afternoon and be introduced to you. her husband is a prominent american surgeon who has gone on with general pershing toward germany. she is here with a few other red cross nurses caring for a number of american soldiers until they are well enough to be moved. i think we owe her special courtesy as a guest in our country." "i am apt to forget the fact charlotta, or what is required of me, even though i do regard it as unfortunate that the american army should have left us a special reminder of their visit, once having passed through our country." there was an iciness in the manner of the countess scherin which gave one the right to believe that she had no enthusiasm for the american army, whatever personal reasons of state might compel her to courtesy. before replying the young countess charlotta scherin dropped back on her pillows. "if you don't mind, tante, would you mind ringing the bell? i am sure you would prefer seeing mrs. clark in the drawing-room and i am suffering a good deal just at this moment and would like to be quiet. after all you know this house is mine and this bed on which i am at present lying was once my own mother's. if for reasons of state i was allowed to offer my house to the american red cross during their stay in luxemburg, it seems to me like fate that i should be brought here after my accident. but please don't mention to mrs. clark that this is my house. it was offered to the american red cross in the name of the city." a moment later bianca zoli appeared to escort their distinguished visitor downstairs. about to leave the room she beheld an imploring glance in the dark eyes of the girl on the bed and going closer heard her whisper: "do please come back as soon as you can, i don't really need anything except that i am lonely." returning fifteen minutes later, it was then after five o'clock and dusk was gathering in the fine, old-fashioned chamber, so bianca zoli quietly sat down without speaking in the chair which had just been vacated by the elderly countess. the girl upon the bed appeared to be asleep at the moment, but as bianca had no other duty to occupy her it struck her that it might be entertaining to sit in the big, strange room watching her companion and thinking of her story, or at least of its brief outline which was all she knew at present. having witnessed the girl's accident and finding her unconscious and therefore unable to explain her name or identity, it had appeared to both the young american physicians and nurses that the best solution would be to bring her as swiftly as possible to their own hospital. after she had received the necessary attention there would be time and opportunity to discover her family and friends. a few hours afterwards, when the girl herself returned to consciousness, she explained that she was the young countess charlotta scherin and lived with her father and aunt on their estate at a short distance from the city. the greater part of her time, however, she spent at the grand palace with her cousins, the grand duchess marie adelaide and her five younger sisters. she seemed to be in a great deal of pain and yet not particularly unhappy over her accident, only asking that her father be informed that she was in safe hands. and if it were possible and not too much trouble could she remain at the american red cross hospital until her recovery? yet bianca had only considered her companion for a few moments when she became aware that the other girl had opened her eyes and was looking with the deepest interest at her. "i am so glad to have the chance to know american girls," she began. "it may strike you as odd but i have wanted to know them all my life and now through my accident i am to have the opportunity. but you look very young and fragile to have undertaken red cross work during the war. i believe it is the courage, the way in which you go ahead and do what you wish and face the consequences afterwards, that i so much admire." bianca shook her head. "it is odd your saying this to me of all persons, because i used to feel a good deal as you do. you see i am not altogether an american girl; my mother was an italian and my father an american, but i have been living in the united states and i confess i have tried to make myself as like one as possible. but do you think you ought to talk? i'll talk to you if you like, although i am not very interesting; i'm afraid you must be suffering a great deal." bianca made this final remark because her companion was evidently struggling to keep back the tears which had suddenly filled her eyes. "yes, do please talk to me, i am suffering, but i think it is more because i am worried and unhappy than because i am in such pain that i lose my self-control. i have always prided myself on being able to endure physical pain. what are you thinking about?" bianca's large dark eyes which were her only southern inheritance had unexpectedly assumed a questioning expression, although her lips had framed no question. "why, i was merely thinking of how odd life is and how few persons, even young girls are particularly happy. a moment ago i was sitting here envying you because your life seemed so wonderful to me. you have been brought up amid wealth and have a title of your own and live a part of the time in a palace with real duchesses. i suppose my speech does not sound very democratic, yet i think you might find a good many american girls who would envy you for these same reasons." "then they would be extremely stupid," the other girl answered, "because freedom is sometimes the most important thing in the world to an individual as it may be to a state. "suppose, oh, leaving me out of the question altogether, but just suppose that any girl's mother had died when the girl was a baby only one year old. then suppose the child had been brought up by her father and aunt both of whom were twice the age of the girl's own mother. then remember her mother was french and the girl always loved only the things which concerned her mother, had learned to speak her language and had written letters to all her family, but had never been allowed to visit them because the girl's father and aunt believed only in german ideals and in german customs and wished to separate her wholly from her mother's country and people. moreover, they had neither of them ever been able to forgive her because she had not been a boy and so been trained for the army, the german army if possible. then suppose the girl had loved only the outdoors and horses and dogs as if she had been a boy, but because she was a girl had to be trained in all the german ways. as for living in a palace, it is hard sometimes to do and say the proper thing all the time, when you feel they don't believe in the things you believe. oh, i am not saying the fault is not mine--" the girl stopped an instant. "but i was not supposed to be talking about myself, still you must have guessed." "i should not have guessed unless you wished me to guess," bianca replied in the prim little fashion of her childhood which she had never lost from her manner and which amused and pleased her friends. "no, you would not have guessed, you are a dear," the countess charlotta answered with an impulsiveness which was an entire contrast to bianca's nature. "but what i wanted to explain to you is that you were envying what you thought were my circumstances. you were not really thinking of me at all. you see one might be a princess and be very unhappy and one might be a very humble person and just the opposite. then i think we ought to realize that a princess may be very horrid and a beggar maid most wonderful." the young countess hesitated. "i thought that what i have just said is what americans believed. don't they think that human beings are equal and that it all depends on what they do with their own lives, what they are able to make of themselves?" bianca shook her head. "i don't know, you had better talk to some one else on this question instead of to me. i am not at all clever, even my best friends, sonya clark and carlo navara, do not think i am clever. but there is one thing i understand at present. you have told me a great many interesting facts about yourself, but there is something else on your mind which you have not confided to me. it is something which makes you wish you were an american girl because you believe in that case you could do what you like. i think you wish to confide in some one, but can't quite decide. if i were in your place i would try not to worry until you are better, then if you want some one to talk to, don't choose me. i should never be able to give you any worthwhile advice. but talk to mrs. clark, sonya clark. she has had a very unusual life and is one of the most wonderful friends in the world!" the older girl was by this time lying back on her pillows and gazing at bianca with an odd smile. "you know," she said finally, "i would not be surprised if your friends are mistaken in thinking you are not clever. perhaps i shall take your advice. i suppose i had best try now to go to sleep, i am afraid i have already talked too much." chapter viii _the countess's story_ a few days later it had become unnecessary for the little countess charlotta to confide her secret to bianca zoli, or sonya, or to any one else at the temporary red cross hospital in the capital city of luxemburg. already her history had been openly discussed by visitors to the hospital, even by the servants who were assisting with the household work. it was a well-known fact, apparently, that marriage was being arranged for the youthful countess by her father and aunt to an elderly german nobleman. nor was the little countess's opposition to the match, her refusal to consider it as a possibility any more of a secret than the knowledge that no attention was being paid her protests. inquiring the name of the girl who might be regarded as the prettiest and the most wilful among the daughters of the noble families of luxemburg, one undoubtedly would have been told, charlotta scherin. during the past four years perhaps her mixture of german and french blood had been a disturbing inheritance. shortly after the passing of a portion of the american army of occupation through the little country, many were the rumors and talks of political changes and readjustments which would probably take place, but to these the small american red cross unit decided to give little heed. one thing they were obliged to hear, the grand duchess marie adelaide had not pleased all her subjects by her surrender to german ideas and designs during the recent years when the german army had used her kingdom as a passageway to france. in spite of her verbal protest against the breaking of the treaty which declared her country neutral, once the germans had entered her duchy the grand duchess had appeared to sympathize with the invaders. now, whether it was the world talk of democracy, the victory of the allies, or the old love of the little duchy of luxemburg for france, the people of the small kingdom were assuredly considering a change of government. yet this problem did not trouble or affect the affairs of the red cross hospital. nor did the little countess charlotta appear deeply interested, insisting that her family would make the same effort to compel her marriage without regard to political reforms. certainly the young luxemburg countess, whatever her upbringing, was not a reserved character. instead she seemed to love nothing so well as to discuss her own past, present and future with the group of american girls and to have them tell her as much as they would of their own histories. one way or another apparently the countess charlotta was in the habit of managing to do what she liked. the thing she wished at present was to remain as long as possible at the american red cross hospital. it was true at first the two red cross physicians who had been her rescuers advised against her removal from the hospital. influenced by them, or perhaps sharing their view, her own physician had given the same opinion. but now a number of days having passed without fresh complications, undoubtedly the countess charlotta might have returned home had she so desired. yet since she did not so desire and declined to stir from her bed, naturally sonya felt obliged to insist upon her remaining until she had completely recovered. the old house in which the red cross was now established sonya had since learned was the property of the girl who was in a sense an accidental patient. the countess charlotta was not a troublesome invalid, sonya's chief difficulty being that the red cross girls so enjoyed the newcomer's society it was difficult to keep them out of her room during any of their spare moments. certainly she was brave and made as little as possible of her physical suffering, and then her insatiate curiosity about american girls was a charm in itself. as a matter of fact it was charlotta who soon knew more of the history of the present group of red cross girls than any one of their number had ever formerly known. both mildred thornton and nona davis told her of their own engagements, perhaps unwisely sympathizing with the difference in their own futures and hers. bianca zoli spared nothing of her past save the betrayal of her country's secrets by her italian mother, a fact to which she never alluded. sonya even discovered herself relating anecdotes of her own somewhat long and checkered career for the benefit of the newcomer who was at once the guest of the hospital and its hostess. she even spoke of her recent marriage to dr. david clark and the fact that his red cross unit would establish a hospital in one of the old castles on the rhine as soon as the american army of occupation were in possession of coblenz. ruth carroll reported that she had not so interesting a story to tell as she knew the little countess would have liked to hear. her life had been fairly prosaic; her father was a country doctor in a little kentucky town and she had never left home until the interest in the war led her to study nursing and later to join the red cross service in france. regardless of charlotta's openly expressed unbelief, ruth insisted that never in her life, not even as a little girl, had she possessed a real admirer. in compensation ruth could only declare that if theodosia thompson cared to tell of her past it would form a contrast to her own humdrum tale. it chanced that bianca zoli was also in the little countess's room when one evening after supper theodosia dropped in to rest and talk before going upstairs to bed. her duties were over for the day and it seemed to both the other girls that she appeared tired and cross. yet the work at the hospital at present was not severe. most of the american soldiers, who had suffered attacks of influenza on their eastward march, were now nearly well, while a few of them had already left the hospital at luxemburg for one of the convalescent hospitals in southern france. in their brief acquaintance bianca and charlotta had become intimate friends, for one reason because bianca had more time to devote to her than the regular red cross nurses. but there was another strange bond in the difference in their temperaments, since concealment of her emotions was the habit of bianca's life, while charlotta apparently never concealed anything. yet bianca was talking of carlo navara and their friendship when theodosia interrupted her unconscious revelation of her affection for the young american soldier and singer. "perhaps you would rather i did not come in," theodosia protested, standing a moment on the threshold and frowning. then, when both girls had insisted on her entrance, she came and sat down in a large chair with her small feet thrust under her. bianca was sitting on the edge of charlotta's bed, both of them having been examining a box of jewelry which the young countess had demanded sent from her home earlier in the day. the big room was very comfortable with a few pieces of old furniture which had not been removed from this chamber to give place to the regular hospital accommodations. a shaded electric light was on a table near the bed throwing its warm lights on bianca zoli's fair hair and on the countess charlotta's black curls which she had tied with a band of bright blue velvet. "you children look very young and very fortunate," theodosia began, her tone a little envious. "it must be agreeable, countess charlotta, not to be a miss nobody of nowhere, even if you have difficulties of your own to contend with." theodosia made a queer little face, wrinkling her small nose, the dark light appearing in the centres of her large, pale blue eyes. "i don't think i could make up my mind even in my present condition to marry a german nobleman, but a nobleman of another variety i think i would accept regardless of his age and the democratic ideas which are supposed to possess my country. as a matter of fact, i don't suppose any girls in the world ever wanted to marry into the nobility more than american girls before the war. i rather wonder if we have altogether changed. but at any rate i have nothing to offer to anybody, neither beauty, nor brains, nor money, nor family." then observing that both her companions appeared shocked by her pessimism theodosia laughed, her expression changing with extraordinary swiftness. "i wonder if you girls would like to hear a little of my history. i hope you won't be bored. after all it is only fair that we should know something of each other before we can form fair judgments. i wish i had the courage to confide in mrs. clark, but i don't think she likes me. "i might as well tell the worst or the best of myself first. my mother was a dancer. i don't know much about her except that she was ill and came to a little kentucky town to try to recover. my father was a boy, younger than she, and fell desperately in love. he married her without a cent and against the will of his older brother, a small farmer. well, my mother died and my father died soon after when i was a few years old. afterwards i was brought up by a very unpleasant old uncle of the story book variety, who disliked me and everything about me. "i never had any friends except ruth carroll, who is an angel and has always been good to me. people in little towns are still suspicious of an ancestry like mine. i want to be a dancer myself, but i have never had the opportunity. so i studied nursing because ruth was studying and because i wanted to help in the war and most of all, to get away from cloverport, kentucky. "there is my history in a nutshell, but what is really interesting in life isn't the chapters one has already read, it is the chapters to come. i hope we may soon go on to coblenz. i am sure we will have an interesting time there. only of course i am sorry, countess charlotta, that you will not be with us." older than her companions, theodosia's dramatic irish instinct was somewhat overwhelming. even the little luxemburg countess felt her own story of less interest and importance by comparison. fortunately theodosia had also an irish sense of humor and observing the awestruck expressions of her companions, suddenly she laughed a gay little laugh which was one of the attractions of her odd and not always pleasing personality. "oh, you must not take what i have just told you too seriously. ruth carroll, who understands me better than any one else, says i get more pleasure than sorrow out of my queer history. as for the dancing i only wish to do folk dancing and mrs. clark tells me the soldiers are beginning to be interested in folk dancing as one of the methods of amusing themselves. i told her how much i was interested and she told me there might be a chance to help entertain the soldiers as well as nurse them, after the army of occupation settles down for a long watch upon the rhine. goodnight," and even more quickly than she had appeared, thea, as her friends called her, slipped out of the big chair and disappeared. a few minutes later bianca went her way to bed. she was wearing a small pin which the countess charlotta had given her, not only as a mark of her friendship, but for a secret reason which only the two girls were to know. so it chanced that the group of red cross girls and the little luxemburg countess became fairly well acquainted with each other's past histories because of the natural fondness of girls for confiding in one another. only nora jamison never talked of herself, and though appearing perfectly friendly, seemed to devote all her spare time to the companionship of the little french girl, louisa. chapter ix "_life's little ironies_" one afternoon the countess charlotta was alone in her room walking up and down in a restless fashion for a girl who had been so recently injured. her forehead was still bandaged and her arm in a plaster cast, but otherwise she was apparently well. nevertheless, she showed the results of the strain of her accident and perhaps of her personal problem. she looked older than one would have supposed from her half-joking and half-serious conversations with bianca zoli and the other red cross girls. in spite of her natural gayety and the warmth and color of her nature, which she had inherited from her french ancestry, the girl faced a difficult future. all her life it seemed to her she had been in opposition to her surroundings, throwing herself powerlessly against ideas and conditions she could not alter. everything that belonged to the old german order of existence she had always hated. from the time of her babyhood her father had appeared to her as a narrow tyrant insisting that she should spend her days in a routine which pleased him, without consulting either her wishes or her talents. as a matter of fact, the small countess had a will of her own and resented dictation. never would the little charlotta even in her earliest youth do what might naturally have been expected of her! from the first her wilfulness, her entire lack of interest in ladylike pursuits had been a source of trouble and anxiety to her governesses. one characteristic of the small charlotta was that she never seemed able to remain still long enough to learn the things which were required of her. her one desire was to be outdoors riding on horseback over the fields, or playing with the children in the village, or in the small cottages on her father's estate. the dignity and importance of her own social position never seemed to enter charlotta's mind, even after her family had devoted long hours to bringing the fact before her attention. reaching sixteen it had become her duty to play a small part in the little court of her cousin, the grand duchess. but although the court life was simple and far less formal than in countries of greater wealth and size than the little duchy of luxemburg, nevertheless charlotta found even the mild formalism irksome. the real difficulty lay in the fact that the members of the grand duchess's court were germans in thought, in ancestry and in their ideals. now the little countess charlotta faced a life when she must always remain surrounded with these same influences; influences that she hated and that had always repelled and antagonized her. what matter if the germans had failed in their war against freedom, if her own freedom was still denied her? moreover, since the german failure her father appeared more than ever determined to force her marriage. if the german nobility were in disgrace, if the men surrounding the kaiser had fallen with their master from their high estate, at least the count scherin of luxemburg was faithful to old principles. luxemburg was a neutral state and there could be no interference with his personal ideas and designs. moreover, a few moments before the countess charlotta had received her father's ultimatum and had just concluded the reading of his note which demanded that she return home within the next thirty-six hours. well, she would be more sorry to say farewell to her friends than they would ever appreciate. besides, she must go away from the red cross hospital without the inspiration and the aid she had hoped to receive from her contact with a group of american girls. how much she had hoped to learn from the example of their courage. surely some of them must have broken away from family traditions in coming from their own homes into foreign lands to nurse the wounded! and she had dreamed she might learn to follow their example. but how quiet the house seemed at present. it was strange to recall that her accident had brought her to this house where her mother had lived as a girl, a house which had been a part of her inheritance from her mother, although she had rarely been inside it. if only one of the red cross girls would come and talk with her. there was so little time left when this would be possible and she so dreaded her own society. what would she do when she returned to the old narrowness of her past existence with the eternal disagreements? never except when she was outdoors could charlotta endure being alone. for the first time since her accident the little countess was almost completely dressed in a brown costume which bianca had with great difficulty adjusted over her injured arm. walking to her door charlotta opened it, glancing out into the wide hall. if she had thought to mention it to mrs. clark, she would surely have gained permission to wander over this floor of her mother's former home. as a matter of fact, she had not been inside the place for a number of years, as the property she had inherited from her mother was in the hands of a business agent. stepping out into the wide hall charlotta started toward the front window which overlooked the grounds. in a moment, however, she saw that the space before the window was occupied by a wheeled chair and that an american officer was seated there letting the sunlight stream over him. undismayed charlotta walked forward. "you have been ill and are better, i am glad," she said simply. she had a curious lack of self-consciousness and a friendliness which was very charming. the young officer attempted to rise. "why, yes, i am better, thank you. i have been stupidly ill from an attack of influenza just as my men were on the march toward germany and i should have given anything in the world to have been able to go along with them. however, i must not grumble. i am right again so you need not be afraid of me. we have been kept pretty well isolated from you. but won't you have this chair?" the girl shook her head. "you are very kind and you can be quite certain i am not afraid of you. sit down again, i know you will refuse to confess it, but you do look pretty weak still. and there is nothing the matter with me. oh, i have a few bruises and a broken arm, but after all they are not serious. i wonder now what i was actually trying to do when i flung myself off my horse. have you ever been desperate enough not to care what happened to you?" "but you don't mean, countess charlotta--" "how do you know my name?" the girl answered quickly, as if wishing to forget what she had just confessed. "are you not major james hersey, one of the youngest majors in the united states overseas service? i think i have been hearing a good deal of you from bianca zoli and the other red cross girls." major jimmie hersey colored through his pallor, according to his annoying boyish habit. "well, countess charlotta, surely _you_ have not counted on remaining a mystery--not to the american soldiers who have been ill here in your house, your guests in a fashion. we have seldom had so romantic an experience as having a countess as a patient along with the american doughboys and in the selfsame hospital. but i really can't sit here and talk to you while you stand. at least you will let me bring you a chair?" with a good deal of satisfaction charlotta nodded her head, her hair showing even duskier in contrast with the white bandage over her forehead. talking to american girls she had found extraordinarily entertaining, but to talk to a young american officer might be even more agreeable. it certainly would be a novelty, as this youthful major was the first american man with whom she had ever exchanged a word, save the two young american red cross physicians. "i want to congratulate you on your victory," charlotta added, when the chair had been secured and she had seated herself upon it in an entirely friendly and informal attitude. "always my sympathies have been with the allies from the very first. you see my mother was french and i suppose i am like her. i believe french people have the love of freedom in their blood just as you americans have." "i say, i thought there was something unusual about you," major jimmie answered impetuously. "i really can't imagine your being even half german. but that is not very polite of me and anyhow your country is not german. i have been reading about luxemburg. you were once a part of france and after the french revolution became one of the ten departments, known as the department of forests, the forest canton. except for your grand ducal family you have never been german in sentiment." the countess charlotta hummed the line of a popular version of the national anthem of luxemburg at the present time. "prussians will we not become." then as she could not help being confidential she added: "but suppose, suppose you were going to be forced into a german marriage, what, what would you do? i hate it, hate it, and yet--" "well, nothing on earth would induce me to consider it," major jimmie answered, his brown eyes shining and his face a deeper crimson. "you must forgive me, but you know i can't see anything straight about germany yet and the thought of a girl like you marrying one of the brutes,--but perhaps i ought not to say anything as we are strangers and i might be tempted into saying too much." "you could not say too much," charlotta returned encouragingly. "i wish you would give me your advice. if i had been a boy i would have run away and fought against germany and been killed, or if i had not been killed perhaps my family would have cast me off. i am thinking of running away anyhow, only i don't know just where to go. do you think i could get to america without being discovered? perhaps i might dress as a soldier. you see i can speak english and french and german. i had to learn languages as a child even when i hated studying and now i'm glad. then you know i can ride and shoot pretty well. i don't know why my father ever consented to have me taught, save that it amused him a little to have me show the tastes he would have liked in a son." major hersey felt himself growing a little confused, as if he were losing his sense of proportion. he was not much given to reading, but he remembered two delightful romances, one "a lady of quality," the other "the prisoner of zenda." here he was finding the two stories melting into one in the person of the girl beside him. well the situation was surprising even a little thrilling! yet major jimmie knew what his own ideals required of him. "i am sorry, i am afraid i don't dare offer you advice. haven't you some woman who is your friend to whom you could appeal? there is mrs. clark; i have been knowing her some time when i was in camp not far from her red cross hospital near château-thierry. why not talk to her? still, if i were you i would not try running away, certainly not to the united states. it is pretty far and you could never make it. excuse me, but you know it is amusing to hear you talk of dressing as a soldier. i am afraid you would not get away with the disguise five minutes. wonder if you have half an idea what a soldier has to undergo before he can get aboard a transport for home." the young american officer laughed and then his expression grew serious. "please don't say a thing like that again, even in jest and please don't even think it. i know a girl who has been brought up as you have been thinks she knows something about the world, when in reality she knows nothing, anyhow, nothing that is ugly or real. i say, here comes mrs. clark now, why not ask her to help you?" at this moment sonya clark was advancing down the hall to escort her patient, major james hersey, back to his own room. a little surprised on discovering the intimacy of the conversation, which was undoubtedly taking place between the young officer and the girl who had certainly not known each other half an hour before, sonya stopped and looked toward them. then she smiled at the little picture they made together and came forward to join them. chapter x _the talk with sonya_ "but, my dear child, surely you must see my position! the red cross unit of which i am a member has asked the hospitality of your country in order that we may care for a number of our ill soldiers until they are sufficiently recovered to be sent away. i am deeply sorry and troubled for you. but how can i show my appreciation of the courtesy--and i know our continued presence in luxemburg has been an embarrassment--by a betrayal of confidence? it would be a betrayal if i were to aid you in getting away from your home and country without your father's knowledge. in a way it would not only be a personal discourtesy and deceit, there might even be international difficulties. you are related to the grand ducal family while i, well, very unimportant persons can make important difficulties these days! so i am afraid i must refuse what you ask. but surely if you speak plainly to your father and make him understand your feeling in the matter, he will not demand a sacrifice of your youth and happiness. of course i don't know the laws or the customs of your country, but an enforced marriage these days appears as an impossibility." "it is not a question of law or custom, mrs. clark; only in reigning families are marriages actually arranged," the countess charlotta answered. "of course you know, however, that in germany the consent of the parents to a marriage is almost essential, and my father is german born and was brought up in germany, coming to luxemburg when he was near middle age. but i am not trying to pretend to you that i am actually being forced into this marriage, since in the end in spite of my pretence of bravery it will be my own cowardice which will condemn me to it. i simply do not feel i can go on living at home with my father and aunt if i refuse my consent. all my life i have been a disappointment to them and the atmosphere of our existence has been one long disagreement with antagonism between us on every possible subject. you see i have a good deal of money in my own right and the man my father wishes me to marry is an old friend of his, who has lost his fortune through the war. my father is very bitter over the result of the war, even if he may be forced to pretend otherwise. i think he wishes to give my fortune to his friend as much as he wishes to see me a proper german wife. but don't worry about me, mrs. clark, i _do_ see your point of view and am sorry to have troubled you." it was past the usual hour of bed-time in the red cross hospital and sonya had come in to talk to the young luxemburg countess on her way to her own room. she got up now and began walking up and down, feeling worried and uncertain. the young countess's situation, her beauty and charm, made a deep appeal and yet she was powerless to do what she asked and help her to escape from her uncongenial environment. the girl's suggestion had been singularly childlike. she wished to be allowed to go away from luxemburg with the red cross girls secretly and to remain in hiding with them. "i am not a useful person at present," she had pleaded, "i think because i have never wished to be, but as soon as my arm is well i am sure you will find, mrs. clark, that i can do a good many things that might be worth while. it would not be red cross work perhaps, but i could help with the translating, i suppose there may be a good deal of confusion of tongues when the army of occupation reaches the rhine." sonya was thinking of this speech now as she watched the shadows in the old room, lighted only by a single lamp. a curious freak of circumstance that this same room had once been the countess charlotta's mother's. "do you think i might talk to your father? would it do the least good? i suppose he would only think me extraordinarily impertinent?" sonya queried. in the years of her work with the red cross since the beginning of the war perhaps she had had a singular experience. instead of finding as most women had, that she had given herself wholly and entirely to the needs of the soldiers, it seemed to sonya that the greatest and most important demands upon her had been made by the red cross girls. always it was young girls who came to her with their problems, their disappointments and difficulties. and sometimes the difficulties were associated with their work, but more often with their emotions. but then it seemed that love and war had always gone hand in hand, and at least the girls she had cared for had kept themselves free from unfortunate entanglements. the soldiers they had chosen for their friends were fine and generous. but with the little luxemburg countess, sonya felt it might be difficult to guess what her future might hold. she was wilful, beautiful and unhappy, with perhaps but few congenial friends among her former associates. at this instant the countess charlotta shook her head, smiling. "no, i don't think it would do any good for you to talk to my father, mrs. clark. as a matter of fact, it would make things more difficult for me to have him discover i have discussed my private affairs with a comparative stranger. i shall probably say goodby to you tomorrow and go back home, but i want you to realize, mrs. clark, how much i have appreciated everybody's kindness to me here and how much i like and admire american girls. indeed, i would not have added to your work if i had not been so anxious for their acquaintance. you will soon be going away from luxemburg to join the american army of occupation on the rhine. may i wish you all good fortune?" the little countess held out her hand and sonya took it in her own for a moment and then leaned over and kissed her. "may i write you after we go away and tell you where we are to be stationed? surely there could be no objection to this. and, my dear, some day i may be able to prove myself your friend, even if i am forced to seem unfriendly now. goodnight." and sonya went away, curiously depressed. in a few days the temporary red cross hospital in luxemburg would close and she would probably never see the little countess charlotta again. the soldiers who had been ill were now sufficiently recovered either to rejoin their regiments, by this time approaching the german frontier, or else to return to convalescent hospitals in france. the reigning family of the little duchy of luxemburg had been courteous but none too friendly, and personally sonya was anxious to rejoin her husband and the remainder of their red cross unit and to find themselves established with the american army of occupation. gossip in luxemburg at the present time insisted that the grand duchess marie adelaide would probably be deposed and her sister invited to reign in her place. sonya was hoping to be away from the duchy before this occurred, and as this did not actually take place until early in january and it was now december, the american red cross unit had not to meet this political change. left to herself the little countess charlotta did not go immediately to bed, although bianca zoli had helped her to undress some time before and she now wore only her rose-colored velvet dressing gown over her night gown. until it was midnight and the big house had grown quiet she sat alone. her future was at present no clearer before her than upon the day when in a spirit of utter recklessness and foolhardiness she had deliberately flung herself from her horse. yet at least she would never be so stupid again or perhaps so wicked! finally getting up she lighted a candle and wandered first about the old room and then out into the wide hall. she had an idea of going to bianca zoli's room and of asking bianca if it were possible that she could make her a gift, an unusual gift perhaps. the little countess desired one of bianca's cast-off red cross uniforms. but then bianca did not sleep alone and would certainly be startled by such an extraordinary request. moreover, charlotta would have no reasonable explanation to offer for her request not being entirely clear in her own mind as to why she desired this possession. later she tiptoed back into her own room and climbed into bed. next day probably she would make her singular demand. if she had no such opportunity at some time, when the american red cross had departed from luxemburg, she would come back to her own house, since there she might find what she wished. if it became necessary and she did finally decide to leave home she would require some disguise which her friends might unwittingly leave behind them. chapter xi _the journey to coblenz_ "i want a doughboy and not an officer to be first across that bridge." this command from an american officer was issued one morning in december, just as the sun broke through the grey mist. a little later, the american army of occupation, which had been led to victory by general pershing, crossed the moselle river. beyond lay germany. there was no loud cheering, no blare of bands, or signs of the conquering hero, when the american soldiers set foot on the land they had crossed the ocean to conquer, only before their eyes floating in the morning breeze were the stars and stripes. the advanced guard continued the ascent over winding roads and past villages onward toward the rhine. first marched the infantry, then followed the artillery, engineers, signal battalions and last the hospital units. and accompanying one of the final units was sonya clark and her red cross group. never were any of them to forget their journey into the city of coblenz, which, situated midway between mayence and cologne, just where the moselle flows into the rhine, was to form the chief city for the american army of occupation. as a matter of fact sonya and her red cross unit had not dreamed of being able to form a part of the army on their first approach to the rhine, believing that the time spent by them in luxemburg would delay them too seriously. but, because the german army was slower in accomplishing its retreat than had been anticipated, the third american army did not draw near the city of coblenz until the close of the second week of december. it was sunday when they started their victorious march from the french country, it was sunday when they entered the valley of the rhine. every acre of the valley appeared to be under cultivation; there were fields of winter wheat and walled vineyards lining the roads. beyond, the hills were covered with dense forests, farther on were the tall summits of the ancient castles of the rhine. varying impressions the journey into germany made upon this particular group of american girls. "i declare it is unendurable to me to see how prosperous and peaceful the german county appears in comparison with the french!" nona davis exclaimed, staring out of the window of their red cross automobile, as their car drove through one of the small towns not far from the larger city. not many grown persons were in sight, but children were swarming everywhere and blonde heads were sticking out of the windows of nearly all the little houses along the road. "i don't think the children look nearly as hungry as we had been led to expect," she added with a bitterness of tone unlike nona's usual attitude of mind. but then she had been nursing in europe for four years, since the very outbreak of the war and had been an eyewitness to untold suffering and privation. "i don't think i would be resentful about the german children, miss davis," nora jamison argued unexpectedly, as she rarely took part in any general conversation among the red cross girls. nona glanced in her direction. sitting next nora was the little french girl, louisa, who had been in her care ever since their withdrawal from france. there had been no one along the way to whom they could entrust the child. in the little french girl's expression at the moment there was something which seemed to nona to justify her point of view. her face was white and her lips trembling as she too gazed out at the little german village. at the instant she had beheld a former german soldier walking along one of the streets. on his head was a round civilian cap and he had on a pair of civilian trousers, the rest of his costume was an old german uniform. and it was the sight of the uniform which had brought the terror to the child's face. sonya saw the look and understood it at the same moment. in order that there might be no further argument she said gently: "girls, i don't often preach, but perhaps i shall make the effort now. we are going into an extraordinary new experience for which i sometimes wonder if we are either mentally or spiritually prepared. during the past four years we have felt an intense bitterness against everything german; they represented for us all the forces of evil against which we were fighting. now we are going to live among them and i suppose must not feel the same degree of hatred. yet it will be difficult to change, impossible at first. i think it may be a number of years before we can learn to accept them as our friends. and yet i do not wish any of us to stir up fresh antagonism. one has always heard that the soldiers who have done the actual fighting have never the same hatred toward each other as the noncombatants, and perhaps we red cross workers stand somewhere in between the two. and yet germany has only herself to thank that she has earned the distrust of the civilized world!" as no one replied, after remaining silent a moment, sonya went on: "you know our soldiers have been given the order that they are to be as polite as possible and not to make trouble, but also they are not to fraternize with the germans, even if living in their homes. i think the same order holds good with us." at this instant bianca zoli who had appeared to be almost asleep opened her eyes and yawned. "but i thought fraternizing meant becoming like brothers," she remarked irritably. "i don't see how there is any danger of our becoming too brotherly with the germans, sonya." the laugh at bianca's speech, although annoying to her, helped to clear the atmosphere. in truth at the time the red cross girls were weary and anxious to reach the end of their journey, in order that they might establish their red cross headquarters. bianca was in a particularly discouraged frame of mind. she was distinctly grieved at saying goodby to the little luxemburg countess, whom she happened to have liked more than any girl she had ever known; she also cherished a grievance against sonya clark, because sonya had refused to consent to bring charlotta away with them secretly. moreover, bianca was anxious to have some word of carlo navara. not a line, no news of any kind had she been able to receive since carlo's regiment began its march toward the rhine. and bianca had never a very comfortable sense of carlo's enduring friendship. it was only when she had been able to help carlo in the past that he had seemed especially fond of her. she did not blame him particularly; he was a good deal older than she was, and his gift of a wonderful voice made other people spoil him, beside adding to his own vanity. he had once thought he would always care more for sonya clark than any one in the world, but bianca had seen in the last weeks they were together in the hospital near château-thierry that carlo was becoming far more reasonable upon this subject. sonya's marriage had of course made all the difference, although in his absurd fashion carlo had protested that it could never alter his affection. with a little sigh, bianca now made an effort to go to sleep again. she was not in the least interested in continuing to stare out the car window as the other girls were. she had been doing nothing else for days. whether she slept or not, bianca did not realize. but suddenly she heard sonya murmur. "don't go to sleep again, bianca dear. we are just about to enter coblenz and i want you to remember it all your life. see it is a splendid, prosperous city along the bank of the rhine." but bianca would not rouse herself until their automobile had entered the centre of the city and gone by the coblenzhof, one of the finest hotels in the city, and then past the mammoth statue of wilhelm i the grandfather of the deposed kaiser. then bianca decided to display a mild interest in her surroundings. coblenz is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the german defeat had dimmed none of its outward glory. finally the red cross automobile drove to the outskirts of the city and entered a large court yard. on a hill beyond the courtyard rose an old castle which was to be the new american red cross hospital. the building itself was grim and forbidding with its square, serrated towers and heavy, dark stone walls. bianca gave an instinctive shiver. "the castle looks more like a dungeon than a hospital," she whispered to sonya, "i wish they had given us a more cheerful place for our headquarters. perhaps our soldiers will not mind, but i should hate to be ill in such a dismal place. yes, i know the outlook over the rhine is magnificent but just the same it depresses me." then bianca's manner and expression changed. standing in the yard before the castle were a group of their friends waiting to receive them. dr. clark had arrived in coblenz a number of hours before his wife and had already taken command of the new red cross hospital for american soldiers. he and his wife had not seen each other in nearly a month, as they had made the journey to the rhine with different portions of the army. with dr. clark were other members of his red cross staff and several representatives of the german red cross, who were to turn over certain supplies. unexpectedly a private soldier formed one of the group, who must have received permission from his superior officer to share in the welcome to his friends. the young man was carlo navara. bianca extended her hand like a child for carlo to assist her out of the car. "i was never so glad to see you before," she announced. "i don't care what the other red cross girls may say, but i have found the journey to the rhine since we left luxemburg extremely tiresome." chapter xii _new year's eve in coblenz_ there was no great difficulty in establishing the american red cross hospital at coblenz. dr. clark had a large and efficient staff who were accustomed to working with him and naturally the demands were not so severe as in time of war. indeed dr. clark had no idea of asking the same degree of energy and devotion which the last six months of fighting had required of every human being in any way engaged in the great struggle in europe. a reasonable amount of work and of discipline was as necessary for the hospital staff as for the soldiers and officers of the american army of occupation engaged in their new duty of policing the rhine. yet whenever it was possible opportunity was given for freedom and pleasure. there were but few of the expected difficulties between the americans and the germans which the people of both nations had feared. a certain friction of course and suspicion and gossip about secret plots, but no open quarreling or dissension. the new red cross hospital occupied an old castle which had formerly been used as a german hospital, although the last german wounded had been removed before the arrival of the american army. the castle itself stood on a hill with a drop of a hundred feet to the bank of the rhine, a path led down the hill to the river's edge. crowning the summit were two old roman towers which commanded a wonderful view; through the windows one could see many miles up and down the historic stream and on either side other castles famous in ancient legends long before the foundation of the modern german empire. within view of the american red cross hospital was the famous german fortress of ehrenbreitstein across the river from coblenz. the fortress was set on a rocky promontory four hundred feet above the river and surrounded by a hundred acres of land. from its flagstaff, where for a hundred years the german standard had waved, now floated the stars and stripes. on new year's day at about four o'clock in the afternoon sonya clark stood waiting just outside the hospital for the appearance of her husband. it had become their custom for the past two weeks, whenever there was no real reason to prevent, to take a walk every afternoon at about the same hour. however, on this afternoon, sonya and dr. clark had a definite destination. a new year's eve entertainment for the amusement of the soldiers was to take place at the red cross headquarters about a mile from the hospital and both sonya and her husband had promised to be present. as a matter of fact as many of their red cross nurses as miss blackstone had been able to release from their duties had been spending the afternoon at the headquarters and an equal number of the hospital staff of physicians and orderlies. a light snow was falling when sonya and dr. clark set out. the court yard in front of their hospital sloped gradually to the road, so that the steep incline was only in the rear. to her husband at least sonya looked very young and handsome in her long fur coat and hat, which had been one of his gifts since reaching europe. their walk was to lead through a number of quiet streets and then along one of the main thoroughfares of the german city. at first sonya and dr. clark spoke of nothing of any importance and then finally walked on for several moments in silence. at the end of this time, sonya glanced toward her husband and smiled. "what is it you wish to talk to me about?" she inquired. "i don't know why, but i always seem able to feel a something in the atmosphere when you have a problem on your mind which you can't quite decide to discuss with me." dr. clark laughed. "well, you see, sonya, when i married you i was under the impression that you were unsuited to red cross work and that so far as possible, since you would insist upon working with me, you must be saved from as many difficulties as possible. at present, although i have not yet quite reached the state of advising with you upon my professional responsibilities, when my problems are human, you are the only person to whom i can turn. miss blackstone is an admirable superintendent of a hospital along the same lines that i have been a fairly successful physician and surgeon, but when we have to deal with personal equations we are both hopelessly unfit." "and all this long speech, which may or may not be complimentary, leads up to just what human equation at present?" sonya queried. "can't you guess and tell me first, sonya?" dr. clark demanded. "i always feel so much better satisfied if you have noticed certain situations yourself before i speak to you of them. then i am convinced that i have not made a mistake in my own sometimes faulty observations." "i suppose at this instant you are considering the problem of hugh raymond and thea thompson, aren't you, if problem there is in which any outside human being has a right to interfere? no, don't interrupt me until i finish," sonya protested. "i realize that you are very seriously opposed to the least personal relation existing between any of your red cross nurses and physicians and so far we have been remarkably successful. but it has been more luck i think than my distinguished husband's objection to the possibility. one can't arrange, when young persons are more or less intimately associated with each other and living under the same roof, that they always maintain a friendly and yet highly impersonal attitude. of course i also understand that you have great hopes for hugh raymond's future, and that as he is extremely poor you would dislike to see him marry a poor girl before his position is more assured. i also understand that neither you nor i especially like thea thompson. she has rather a curious history and is not herself an ordinary person. one thing i have noticed. at the beginning of their acquaintance it was thea who made an effort to interest hugh, since then i don't think she has been particularly interested in him. the interest has been on his side. it is to me rather unfortunate because ruth carroll might have liked hugh, and, oh well, i must not speak of this! all i wished to say was that whatever our personal feeling in the matter it will be wiser, my dear husband, for you to say nothing to hugh at present and for me to say nothing to thea, which is what you rather had in mind to suggest. moreover, nothing has so far developed between them for which you need have cause to worry! thea told me the other day that she was happy here in coblenz because she has been able to have a relief from the constant strain of the hospital work, which she confesses was becoming a little hard to endure, by dancing with the soldiers at the red cross headquarters in her free hours. she has been helping one of the red cross managers, a mrs. adams, to teach some of the soldiers folk dancing. i believe she has a gift for it and the soldiers are getting a good deal of amusement out of their own efforts to learn. a good thing for all of them! we must remember our years and realize that young people need all kinds of relaxation." "thanks, sonya, for including me along with your youthful self, even if we are in a class apart," dr. clark returned. "i wonder if you will be as severe with me concerning my other complaint. as a matter of fact i am ashamed of this myself and do not honestly consider it gravely. but you know we are in a curious position here in coblenz. on the outside apparently everything is going well. as comfortable a relation as one could expect has been established between our former enemy and ourselves. yet coblenz is full of rumors. there is a very strong pro-kaiser element in the city, which means there is a party deeply in opposition to all american thought and feeling and to the establishment of any new form of government in germany which shall not include the kaiser. "the point of all this is that i insist there be no display even of conventional friendliness between any member of our red cross unit and a single german resident of coblenz. the information has been brought to me that nora jamison, one of our own nurses, has been making friends with a group of german children. they meet her and the little french girl, louisa, in one of the city parks every afternoon and there they play together. of course, this appears innocent, but knowing the children in a too friendly fashion may mean knowing their families later. the army officers tell me there has been this same problem among our soldiers. no one seems to have been able to prevent their getting on intimate terms with every little hans and gretel who makes their acquaintance. but i do wish you would protest mildly to miss jamison. it is true that we know little of her history except that her credentials must have been satisfactory to the red cross. i confess i agreed to have her form a part of our red cross unit rather on an impulse, when i learned barbara thornton was forced to return home. besides, miss jamison herself attracted me. she has some unusual characteristic which i cannot exactly explain, but which nevertheless--" "ah, well, you need not try to explain it, david, because the thing is 'charm,' which i believe no one has successfully explained so far," sonya answered. "i presume this same charm is what endears her to the german children; it has kept the little french louisa close beside her since we left france. the little girl is getting all right too, talking and behaving like a normal person. but of course i'll ask miss jamison to be careful that her friendship with the german children does not lead to any intimacy in their homes. she told me that she was a kind of pied piper of hamlin. do you remember how the pied piper led the german children away into some undiscovered country when their parents refused to pay him his just dues? but i think the girl is peter pan instead and has some childish quality which we cannot understand but which children recognize and love in her. you see the young soldier to whom she was engaged was killed in the fighting near château-thierry and apparently children are her one consolation. she is friendly with all our red cross unit, but not intimate with one of us." when sonya and her husband finally reached the red cross headquarters, already the large building was lighted, as the darkness fell early in the winter afternoons. going unannounced into the big reception room they found it fairly crowded. the room must have been fifty feet in length and nearly equally wide and extended from the front of the building to the rear. in one end was a giant christmas tree, left over from the christmas celebration for the soldiers which in honor of new year's eve was again lighted with a hundred white candles according to a german custom. there were few other lights in the room. up against the walls were double rows of chairs in which a number of persons were seated. others were dancing in the centre of the floor. immediately mrs. arthur adams, who was in charge of the red cross headquarters, came forward to speak to dr. and mrs. clark. she was accompanied by major james hersey, who had entirely recovered from his attack of influenza and was now in command of his battalion in coblenz. a little later, after they had secured chairs, bianca zoli and dr. raymond joined them. nona davis was dancing with sergeant donald hackett, thea thompson with carlo navara. sonya noticed no one else at the moment whom she knew particularly well. yes, there standing up against the wall was nora jamison, with the little french girl's hand in hers and a line of children on either side. nona davis changing partners, sergeant donald hackett went over evidently to ask nora jamison to dance with him, but she must have declined as he continued standing beside her, laughing and talking. "have you been dancing, bianca?" sonya inquired. "you usually enjoy it so much." leaning over, bianca whispered. "please don't discuss the question aloud, sonya. no one has asked me recently, only major hersey and dr. raymond earlier in the afternoon. dr. raymond dances abominably." "not carlo?" sonya demanded. and bianca shook her head. something of their whispered conversation hugh raymond must have guessed. "we are not to have any more of the ordinary dancing just at present, mrs. clark. miss thompson and carlo navara are to do a folk dance together." just as he was speaking, suddenly the music ceased and the dancers crowded into places along the wall. a few moments later, standing in the centre of the floor and alone, were thea thompson and carlo navara. this afternoon thea did not look plain; she had on a simple black dress of some thin material, a bright sash and black slippers and stockings. her red hair formed a brilliant spot of color. carlo was in uniform. their dance was probably an irish folk dance, although it was comparatively simple yet the effect was charming. sonya believed she had never seen two more graceful persons than thea and carlo as they advanced toward each other and receded, later forming an arch with their hands above their heads and circling slowly in and out. sonya had known nothing of carlo as more than an ordinary dancer, but evidently he and thea must have been practicing together for the afternoon's entertainment. naturally, carlo's musical gifts would make him a more successful dancer than anyone without a sense of rhythm and time. in any case the effect was charming and the applause at the close enthusiastic. as soon as the dance was ended, carlo came directly over to where sonya and her husband were seated. bianca and dr. raymond were standing close beside them. "carlo, you have not asked bianca to dance, you won't forget, will you?" sonya murmured as soon as she had the opportunity without being overheard. "i am afraid you have hurt her, but please don't let her guess i have spoken to you." carlo flushed slightly. "i am sorry my dear lady," he returned, which had been one of his old time titles for sonya. "i am afraid i have neglected bianca. miss thompson is such a wonderful dancer, she is apt to make one forget any other partner." but although sonya smiled upon carlo and forgave him, declining the honor of dancing herself, bianca was not to be appeased. "i suppose sonya asked you to invite me to dance, since you waited until she arrived before you thought of me. thank you just the same but i'd rather not," bianca said later in answer to his invitation. afterwards, although carlo pleaded for her favor and returned several times with a fresh request, nevertheless bianca continued firm. then, a few moments before going back to the hospital with sonya and dr. clark, she waltzed for a short time with dr. raymond, in spite of the fact that she had been right in declaring that he was a conspicuously poor dancer. chapter xiii _a walk along the river bank_ some time later bianca and carlo navara, not having seen each other alone since new year's eve, left the hospital early in the afternoon for a walk together. as a matter of fact carlo's conscience had not been altogether easy concerning his neglect of bianca since their days together at château-thierry. and certainly before those days he had reason to be grateful to bianca and fond of her as well! moreover, a little private talk with sonya on this same subject, when sonya had not spared his vanity, had quickened his resolution. curious, sonya had said, that the artist so seldom considers loyalty an essential trait of his own character when he demands so much loyalty from others! and yet one knows that without loyalty no human character has any real value! yet carlo was not thinking of these ideas in detail when he and bianca started out. it was a february day with the faintest suggestion of spring in the damp, cold air. nevertheless, bianca herself had chosen that they walk along the river bank, following a path until they reached the promenade which extended along a portion of the rhine at coblenz like the famous board walk of atlantic city. holding tight to carlo's hand, they slipped down the hill from behind the hospital until reaching this path. but once on fairly level ground, bianca deliberately removed her hand from her companion's and began walking sedately beside him several feet away. "why not walk as we have many times with my hand in your's to keep you from slipping, bianca?" carlo inquired with a teasing inflection in his voice and manner. "i thought you and i were kind of brother and sister. i don't want you sliding off into the water." as bianca made no answer, carlo turned from her to look out over the river. today the water was dark and muddy with a strong current flowing. "bianca," carlo asked, "have you ever read the story of the rheingold in the ring of the nibelung? one has had a horror of germany for so long that one has preferred to forget german music. yet since we arrived in germany i have been reading the legends of the rheingold and they seem to me to predict germany's overthrow because of her materialism. "since to me gold is the only god, and gold alone the idol that i worship, from all worlds will i drive out all love and loving-kindness that to all other men there be no other god but gold, and gold alone shall all men serve." carlo sang these few lines softly, forgetting his companion for the moment. then he added half talking to her and half thinking aloud. "i wonder if some day, i, the son of italian parents, shall ever sing german music, if my hatred of germany and antagonism to everything else that is german will allow me even to be willing to sing it. and yet i suppose there is no great tenor who has not at some time in his life longed to take the part of siegfried, 'the curse can touch him not for he is pure, love shineth on him and he knows not fear.'" carlo ceased speaking at last and in response bianca gave a little sigh and then murmured. "i wonder, carlo, if you will ever learn to think or talk of any one except yourself?" bianca's reply was so unexpected that carlo started and then stared at her, aggrieved and slightly irritated. "but, bianca, i thought that we were such intimate friends that i could talk to you about myself, and certainly of my musical ambitions. i am sorry my vanity has bored you." the young girl shook her head. "all persons possessed of any genius are supposed to be vain, aren't they, carlo? i have known no other than you. but as for our being intimate friends, why, i do not feel that we are intimate friends any longer. after all, carlo, i cannot give all the affection and it seems to me that is what you expect. when we first knew each other and i wanted to help you because i understood that you cared for sonya in a way which she could not return, and afterwards when you were wounded and i tried to find you in château-thierry, i did not think or care, besides sonya was sonya! but now things are different." for a few seconds carlo studied the little cold, pure profile of the girl beside him. one had a habit of forgetting that bianca was approaching eighteen, and then suddenly in some unexpected fashion she reminded you that she was by no means a child. "i suppose you are referring to my friendship with miss thompson since our arrival in coblenz, bianca, or if not to our friendship at least to the fact that we have been dancing together nearly every afternoon when we both have leave. can't you understand, bianca, that it is sometimes pretty dull for one here in coblenz now the excitement and thrill of the struggle for the allied victory is past? and now and then it seems to me i can scarcely endure waiting to return to the united states and begin to work again on my music. and yet one must prove as good a soldier at one time as another. yet what is the harm in my amusing myself? i have thought sonya also appeared disapproving of late. miss thompson is not only an extraordinary dancer, but she is most agreeable and----" at this instant, having come to the end of the muddy path, carlo and bianca had reached the wide board walk which extended for some distance along the river. this afternoon it was as crowded with people as if coblenz were enjoying a holiday instead of being a city occupied by a conquering army. observing his commanding officer, major james hersey, approaching, accompanied by sergeant donald hackett, carlo saluted and stood at attention. when they had gone past he turned once more to bianca, his slight attack of bad temper having vanished. "not jealous, are you, bee? you must realize that whatever friendships i may make, i shall always be fond of you." if carlo had been noticing his companion at this moment, he would have seen that bianca flushed warmly at his condescension, and that she was extremely angry, and few people ever saw bianca angry, not perhaps because she did not feel the emotion of anger, but because she possessed a rather remarkable self control. "i don't think we will discuss the question of my being jealous, carlo, you have scarcely the right to believe that i care for you enough for any such absurdity. i don't like miss thompson very much and neither does sonya. oh, there is no real reason for disliking her! but if you are under the impression that she likes you specially, carlo, i think you are mistaken. she just likes to amuse herself too, and of course there is no harm in it." bianca's speech sounded perfectly childlike and yet perhaps she had a good deal of instinctive cleverness. in any case carlo felt annoyed. "but suppose we don't talk personalities any more, carlo," bianca apologized almost immediately. "naturally we can't always like the same people. i have never been able to get over my disappointment because the countess charlotta was not allowed to come with us to coblenz. sonya and i have nearly quarreled about her half a dozen times. and i suppose it is not alone that i am sorry for the countess charlotta, but because i do need a girl friend so dreadfully, carlo. it seems strange doesn't it, and i am almost ashamed to speak of it, but i have never had a really intimate girl friend in my life. i suppose this may be partly due to the queer circumstances of my life. you see with my father dead and my mother an italian peasant, who wished to make my life so different from her own that i was not allowed to associate even with her very closely, and then being brought up by a foster mother who did not encourage other girls to make friends with me, because she might have to tell them of my peculiar history, i suppose i did not have much of a chance for friendships with the kind of girls i would like to have known! then i realize that i have not a very attractive disposition." bianca's little unconscious confession of loneliness had its instantaneous effect upon her companion. "don't be a goose, bianca mia," carlo answered, using an italian phrase which he sometimes employed, recalling the bond of their first meeting in italy several years before. "but who is this countess charlotta whom you desire to have with you here in coblenz in order that you may continue your friendship?" just an instant bianca appeared troubled and then her expression cleared. "perhaps i should not have spoken of the countess charlotta, not even to you, carlo, only of course i know i can trust you. she was a young girl who was ill in our temporary hospital in luxemburg. i thought of course she would write me, as she promised to write when we said goodby. but i have never had a line from her and neither has sonya although sonya and i have both written her since our arrival in coblenz. i am afraid something must have occurred to prevent her writing and so i have been uneasy." bianca's speech was not especially clear, nevertheless carlo listened sympathetically and asked no embarrassing questions. a little time after they entered the famous coblenzhof where bianca had been invited to have tea. it was crowded with people and looked like sherry's on a saturday afternoon. both carlo and bianca gazed around them in amazement. the people were all comfortably, some of them almost handsomely dressed, even if with little taste, but this was usual in germany. they were drinking coffee and eating little oatmeal cakes and appeared contented and serene, even without their famous "deutsche kuchen." "i sometimes wonder, carlo," bianca whispered, when they were seated at a small table in a corner, "if some of these people are not glad after all that the kaiser has been defeated and that they are to have a new form of government and more personal freedom? they certainly seem to be glad the fighting is over. i suppose they had grown deadly tired of it and of being deceived by their leaders." carlo shook his head warningly. "be careful, bianca. in spite of what you think there are still thousands of people in coblenz faithful both to the kaiser and his principles. some of them may seem friendly to us, but the greater number are sullen and suspicious, regardless of the order that they are to appear as friendly as possible to our american troops. yet somehow one can't help feeling as if there were plots against us of which we know nothing, just as there was in every allied country before the beginning of the war." carlo smiled. "here i am saying the very character of thing i asked you not to speak of, bianca! by the way, do you suppose we know any people here? let us look around and see." chapter xiv _major james hersey_ arrangements had been made in coblenz for the quartering of the officers of the american army of occupation in certain german homes, payment being made in an ordinary business fashion. on arriving in coblenz, after his illness in luxemburg, major jimmie hersey discovered that especially comfortable accommodations had been prepared for him. also he was to have as his companion, a personal friend, sergeant donald hackett an exception being made to the sergeant's living in the same house with his commanding officer. the household in which the two young americans were located was one of the many households at this time in germany whose state of mind it would have been difficult for any outsider to have understood or explained. the head of the family, colonel otto liedermann, was an old man, now past seventy, who had once been a member of the kaiser's own guard. his son, captain ludwig liedermann had been seriously wounded six months before the close of the war, and, although at present in his own home, was still said to be too ill to leave his apartment. there was one grown daughter, hedwig, who must have been a little over twenty years of age. the second wife, frau liedermann, was much younger than her husband, and her children were two charming little girls, freia and gretchen, who were but six and eight years old. outwardly the german family was apparently hospitably disposed to their enemy guests, although they made no pretence of too great friendliness. they saw that the americans were cared for, that their food was well cooked and served. yet only the two little girls, freia and gretchen, possessed of no bitter memories, were disposed to be really friendly. and in boyish, american fashion, the two young officers, who were slightly embarrassed by living among a family with whom they had so lately been at war, returned the attitude of admiration and cordiality of the little german maids. freia was a slender, grave little girl with sunshiny hair and large, soft blue eyes, and gretchen like her, only smaller and stouter with two little yellow pigtails, and dimples, in her pink cheeks. one afternoon major jimmie hersey was sitting alone in a small parlor devoted to his private use and staring at a picture on the mantel. his work for the day was over, the drill hour was past and the soldiers, save those on special leave, had returned to their barracks. one could scarcely have said that the young american officer was homesick, for there is something really more desolate than this misfortune. he was without a home anywhere in the world for which he could be lonely. an only son, his mother had died when he had been six months in france. it was true that he had a sister to whom he was warmly attached, but she had married since her brother's departure for europe, and for this reason he did not feel as if she belonged to him in the old fashion of the past. at the moment he was looking at his mother's photograph and thinking of their happy times together when he was a boy. in spite of his present youthful appearance major james hersey regarded himself as extremely elderly, what with the experiences of the past years of war in france and his own personal loss, and the fact that he was approaching twenty-five. then from thinking of his mother, jimmie, whose title never concerned him save when he was commanding his men, suddenly bethought himself of the young countess charlotta. it was odd how often he recalled a mental picture of her, when they had met but once. he had seen her again, however, on the morning when she had left the hospital at luxemburg. then he had watched from a window the carriage which drove her away. somehow the young countess charlotta in spite of her different surroundings, had struck him as being as lonely as he was. then major jimmie smiled, realizing that he was growing sentimental. yet the girl's story had been a romantic one and she had confided in him so frankly. after all, one does enjoy being sorry for oneself now and then! the young officer at this instant was disturbed in his meditations by hearing a little sound beside him. glancing around he beheld gretchen, the youngest daughter of the german house. this was the first time since his arrival in her home that he had ever seen the small girl without freia, her two years older and wiser sister. plainly enough by her expression gretchen showed that she resented this misfortune. there were tears in her large light eyes and her little button of a nose was noticeably pink. "what is it, baby?" the young officer demanded, his sympathy immediately aroused and glad also to be diverted from his own train of thought. "it is that freia has been allowed to go to play this afternoon with the lady from the red cross and the little french girl and that i must stay at home," the little girl lamented, speaking in german that her listener could readily understand. major hersey had studied german at school as a boy and during the last few weeks of residence in germany had been surprised by recalling more of his german vocabulary than he had dreamed of knowing. "freia would like to bring fraulein jamisen home with her only she will not come." gretchen sighed, although beginning already to feel more comfortable. it was warmer in her major's room than in any portion of their large house; a small wood fire was burning in his grate. the little girl grew disposed toward further confidences. "people come to our home all the time to see my brother, but freia and i are never allowed in the room, only my father. then they whisper together so we may not hear." major hersey smiled; gretchen was a born gossip, even in her babyhood, already he had observed that she deeply enjoyed recounting the histories of her family and friends, more especially what gretchen unconsciously must have regarded as their weaknesses. "but your brother, captain liedermann, is ill, perhaps it is natural that he does not wish a little chatterbox about him all the time. if i had been confined to my bed for as many months as he has, why i should have turned into a great bear. one day you would have come in to speak to me, gretchen, and then you would have heard a low growl and two arms would have gone around you and hugged you like this," and major hersey suited his action to his words. after a little squeak half of delight and half of fear, gretchen settled herself more comfortably in her companion's lap. however, she was not to be deterred from continuing her own line of conversation. in the years to come, major jimmie had a vision of this same little german girl, grown older and stouter, her yellow pigtails bound round her wide head, sitting beside just such a fireside as his own and talking on and on of her own little interests and concerns, forever contented if her hearer would only pretend to listen. for the sake of the listener of the future jimmie hoped that the small gretchen would continue to have the same soothing effect that she was at present producing upon him. "my brother is not always in bed," gretchen protested. "now and then when he thinks he is alone, and i am only peeping in at the door, he climbs out of bed and walks about his room. one day one of his friends was in the room with him and when he got up and stamped about they both laughed." "oh, well, any fellow would laugh if he was growing strong again after a long illness," major hersey answered a little sleepily, realizing that gretchen really required no comment on his part. "besides, you must be mistaken, your mother told me that captain liedermann had not been so well of late, nothing serious, a little infection in a wound he had believed healed. as for guests who come frequently to your brother's room, why i never knew so quiet a household as your's, _kleines madchen_! during the many hours i am here in this sitting-room, no one ever rings the front door bell or passes my door." as a matter of fact major hersey's sitting-room was upon the first floor of the house and near its entrance. formerly his room must have been either a small study or reception room, as the large drawing-rooms were across the hall. but these were never in use at the present time and kept always darkened, as a household symbol that all gayety and pleasure had vanished from the homes of germany. it occurred to jimmie hersey at this instant to wonder if hedwig liedermann had no friends. she was a handsome girl with light brown hair and eyes and a gentle manner. surely there must be some young german officer in coblenz who regarded her with favor! but if this were true he had never appeared at her home at any hour when major hersey had caught sight of him. it would not be difficult to recognize a german officer, even if he should be wearing civilian clothes. besides why did fraulein liedermann not entertain her girl friends in the drawing-rooms of her home? these rooms must have been used for social purposes before the war, as the position of colonel liedermann's family in coblenz was of almost equal importance with the german nobility. "oh, no one comes to call upon us at the front door any longer," gretchen added amiably. "you see you are an american officer and use this door and our friends do not wish to see you. they do not seem to like you." "they--they don't," major hersey thought other things to himself, although naturally, in view of his audience, saying nothing unpleasant aloud. how stupid he was not to have guessed what the smallest daughter of the house had just related! after all one could understand, the german viewpoint since in spite of having been told to love our enemies, how few of us have accomplished it? it could not be agreeable to the defeated officers and soldiers of the conquered german army to enter the homes of their friends and find them occupied by the victors. "better run away now, gretchen, it must be getting near your tea-time," the american officer suggested, the little girl having occasioned an unpleasant train of thought by her final chatter. but before gretchen, who was not disposed to hurry, had departed, they were both startled by the sudden ringing of the front door bell, the bell whose silence they had been discussing, then they heard the noise of people outside. a little later, one of the maids having opened the door, gretchen and major hersey recognized familiar voices in the hall. the same instant gretchen escaped. then followed a cry from frau liedermann, and sergeant hackett's voice and another voice replying. major hersey, unable to guess what had taken place, and anxious, joined the little group outside his door. in his arms sergeant hackett was carrying freia. it was apparent that the little girl must have fallen and hurt herself, yet evidently her injury was not serious. they were accompanied by nora jamison and the little french girl, louisa. "i am so sorry, frau liedermann, a number of children were playing in the park and freia must have fallen among some stones. she was so frightened i thought it best to come home with her and we had the good fortune to meet sergeant hackett along the way. i don't think you will find there is anything serious the matter; i am sorry if we have alarmed you. i must return now to the hospital." at this moment unexpectedly frau liedermann began to weep. she was a little like a grown-up gretchen, and one felt instinctively that she was out of place in her husband's household. he was a stern and gloomy old man, possibly too proud to reveal to strangers how bitterly angered he was by the german defeat and the disgrace of his former emperor. but freia, whose name came to her from the legendary german goddess, who represented "life and light and laughter and love," was the adored child of the family and particularly of the little mother to whom she was "her wonder child." "but you will stay and see if freia is seriously hurt? you are a red cross nurse and must know better than i," frau liedermann pleaded. "freia has so often said that she wished to have us meet, but you would not come to our home and i could not go to you at your american red cross hospital. can the war not be over among us women at least? i have relatives, brothers and sisters in america from whom i have not heard in four years. yet my husband thinks i am not a true german because i wish to be happy and make friends again with our former foes." just for a fraction of a second nora jamison's eyelids were lowered and her face changed color. was it possible that she did not desire to forgive and forget as the little german frau appeared to wish? was there not a grave near château-thierry and a memory which must forever divide them? and yet of course one did not wish to be unkind. "please stay just a minute," freia pleaded. the following moment major hersey watched the little procession climbing the stairs to the second floor of the house where the family were living at present. first frau liedermann led the way, then freia walking, but holding close to miss jamison's hand, gretchen and louisa just behind them. afterwards major hersey was glad to have been a witness to this first introduction of nora jamison, into the german household. chapter xv _a re-entrance_ on this same evening major hersey and sergeant hackett were sitting before the same fire, shortly after dinner. they were talking in an idle fashion, neither of them particularly interested. both would be pleased when the evening was over and they were in bed. major hersey had given his orders to his sergeant for the following day and then had suggested that he sit with him for a time longer. the days were not difficult in coblenz where one had many duties and interests, besides the association with one's fellow soldiers and a few other friends. but unless one went constantly to the german restaurants and theatres and movies, one could not find sufficient entertainment in the various y. m. c. a. and red cross headquarters to occupy every evening of the week. it was a brilliant winter night and the young men had left the curtains of the window open and the blinds unclosed so that the early moonlight shone into the room. therefore both of them noticed a soldier-messenger march down the street from the corner and enter the front yard of the house where they were living. in answer to a command from his superior officer, sergeant hackett met the messenger at the front door. the soldier bore a note which was addressed to major hersey. the note requested that major hersey come at once to the headquarters of his colonel. there was no explanation as to why his presence had become suddenly necessary. however, without any particular emotion either of interest or curiosity, major hersey at once set out. the streets were fairly deserted. the citizens of coblenz were living under military law and, although the laws were not severe, two demands were made upon them, one that no arms or ammunition of any kind remain in the possession of any german, the second that they be inside their own homes at a certain hour each night. this hour had not arrived and yet there were not many persons about, a few groups of american soldiers on leave, but scarcely any germans. the house of colonel winfield was at no great distance away. "most extraordinary thing, hersey!" the colonel was soon explaining, "you might guess for a dozen years why i have sent for you and never hit the correct answer. don't look so mystified over my words. i have not sent for you to give you any military command, or to ask your advice on military matters, as i have now and then in spite of your being too youthful for the title you have been lucky enough to earn. i have sent for you because tonight you and i may regard ourselves as characters in a play. in a short time i hope to introduce the heroine." colonel winfield was an elderly man a good deal past fifty, with closely cropped grey hair, small twinkling blue eyes under heavy brows and a mouth which could be extremely stern when the occasion demanded and equally humorous under opposite conditions. tonight he was seated in a large, handsome room, a little too elaborately furnished after german ideas of luxury, and before a wide table covered with books and old american newspapers and magazines. major hersey could only stare at him in amazement, and with a total lack of comprehension. "i might as well explain to you your part in the drama, hersey. you haven't at present a very fortunate role, although i cannot tell how it may develop. the facts are that two women, or i should say one woman and a girl, arrived in coblenz this afternoon without satisfactory passports. they were detained by one of our officers and because of something or other in their story, perhaps because of their appearance and manner, the circumstances were reported to me. i believe the young woman knew my name and requested that she be allowed to speak to me. i was busy and only saw her and her companion a few moments ago. then she asked that i send for you and for mrs. david clark, saying you would both be able to identify her. most extraordinary story she related, i find it difficult either to believe or disbelieve!" and colonel winfield leaned back in his chair studying the younger officer's face. if he expected to find any clue to his puzzle in major jimmie's expression at this instant he was disappointed. the younger man was nonplused. a woman and a girl who had arrived in coblenz insisting that he could identify them! why, he knew no woman or girl in the world who would be apt to make so unexpected an appearance! and yet for a few seconds the names of several girls he had known in the united states in the past who might possibly have come to coblenz to work among the soldiers flashed before his mental vision. "suppose you see the two strangers at once, jimmie, i don't feel that i have been polite in forcing them to wait here for me as long as they have waited, but i was unavoidably detained. they are in a little reception room across the way. i'll ask them to come here and speak to you as this room is larger and more agreeable." "don't you think, colonel, we might postpone the interview until the arrival of mrs. david clark? surely the women would find it more agreeable to explain their situation to her," major hersey protested. the older man shook his head. "i have sent for mrs. clark, but remember she is living at some distance from here and may not be able to come to us tonight. in a moment it will all be over, james. if you do not know the young woman who says she knows you, you have only to say so briefly. i have an idea, however, that almost any young man might wish to know her. yet if there is any uncertainty about her story, we must see that she and her companion are made comfortable for the night somewhere and then that she starts for home in the morning. i have an idea from what she confided to me that she must be sent home in any case." a few moments later, colonel winfield re-entered the library with two companions. one of them was a thin, angular woman with a large nose and a highly colored skin. she was wearing a black dress and coat and a black feather boa. the other was a girl of about twenty in an odd costume. a portion of it was an american red cross uniform, worn and shabby, a dark blue coat and cap with the red cross insignia. the girl's skirt was of some other dark cloth, yet on her arm she carried a splendid sable coat. underneath her cap her cheeks were brilliantly red and her eyes glowing. "countess charlotta!" major hersey stammered. "what brings you to coblenz? you have relatives here whom you are intending to visit?" the girl turned toward the older american officer. "there! major hersey does remember me and i was so afraid he might have forgotten! we met but once in the red cross hospital in luxemburg where we were both patients at the same time. at least until mrs. clark arrives he may persuade you, colonel winfield, that i am not a spy or in any way a dangerous character." then the girl turned again to major jimmie. "i don't know what mrs. clark will say or do when she sees me. she told me positively i was not to embarrass the american red cross by taking refuge with them. and i tried my best to be brave and endure my existence. i even gave up to my father's wishes, but i found i could not keep my word. so i confided in miss pringle. she is english and was my governess when i was a little girl. she had continued living in luxemburg after the war began, and yet perhaps because she was english she understood me better than other people. anyhow we came away together. it was not so difficult to accomplish as you may imagine. most of the people in luxemburg at present dislike the germans as thoroughly as i do. i told a few acquaintances that i was going away because i could not endure being forced into a german marriage. miss pringle was with me and i said i was going to join some american friends. besides, luxemburg is not very large you know and it does not take long to reach the frontier. if mrs. clark is not willing to receive us at the red cross hospital, surely we can find a place to shelter us for awhile. miss pringle says she will be glad to go with me to the united states, as she has long wished to travel. i suppose, colonel winfield, that you could arrange for us to go to the united states?" plainly the young countess's words and manner both amused and annoyed the colonel. "nonsense, young woman, girls who run away from their homes no matter from what motive, must be sent back to their parents. mrs. clark will doubtless see that you and miss pringle are made comfortable for a few days. but i think i understand how you managed to reach coblenz and why you were permitted to have an interview with me. the colonel of an american regiment of the army of occupation is not in the habit of having young women whose credentials and passports are not what they should be, take up his spare time. where, child, had you ever heard my name?" "oh, i often heard mrs. clark and the american red cross nurses speak of you when they referred to their winter at the red cross hospital near château-thierry. they said too they were delighted that you were to be in coblenz because they liked you so very much," the countess charlotta concluded in the frank fashion which was entirely natural to her. nevertheless the colonel looked slightly mollified. "you will sit down, won't you, and wait until we hear whether mrs. clark will be able to join us tonight?" the colonel pushed a large leather chair toward the fire, which the little countess dropped into gratefully. miss pringle was already seated in a chair which major hersey had provided for her during the countess charlotta's recital. "i am sorry, extremely sorry, you were forced to wait so long to see me," colonel winfield protested. "it would have been pleasanter if arrangements could have been made for you earlier in the day." "oh, you need not worry," the countess charlotta returned graciously, "i am not in the least unhappy myself. getting away from luxemburg was so much simpler than i ever dreamed it could be, that nothing ahead seems so important. i wrote my father saying that i intended to sail for the united states as soon as it could be arranged. as for sending me back home," the little countess stretched her two hands before the fire so that they grew rose pink from the warmth, then she sighed, but with no deep show of emotion, "it would be very useless and very unkind to send me back to my father after what i have done? neither my father nor aunt will wish to see me again. even though they know miss pringle has been with me every minute and that i have done nothing in the least wrong, they would never forgive my disobedience. and they would not wish me to live with them because they should always consider that i had disobeyed them and that i would be an unfortunate influence upon other girls in luxemburg." at this instant there was a knock at the door and a few moments later sonya, dr. clark and bianca entered the large room. if there was no especial enthusiasm in sonya's greeting of the countess charlotta, still there was no question of their acquaintance and bianca's welcome revealed all the pleasure which sonya's lacked. nevertheless, sonya offered to take charge of miss pringle and the young countess at the red cross hospital for the night until better arrangements could be made. they had several spare rooms in the old castle. it was too late at present for any definite point of view in regard to the unexpected intruders. chapter xvi _a growing friendship_ a few weeks passed and it was march in coblenz. the days continued cold and oftentimes dreary, but the american army of occupation was growing more accustomed and more reconciled to their new way of life. then there were occasional spring days when the winds blew from the south bringing with them scents and fragrances of gentler lands. at the american red cross hospital high up on the hill overlooking the rhine the conditions were reflected from the army. the red cross staff also became more contented and more amenable to discipline than in the early weeks succeeding the close of the war. there were a good many patients constantly being cared for at the hospital, but they were simply suffering from ordinary illnesses. only now and then a wounded american prisoner, only partially recovered, would come wandering in from some german hospital in the interior, preferring to be looked after by his own people until he was well enough to be sent back home. therefore, although there was sufficient work for the entire corps of physicians, nurses and helpers, there was no undue strain. however, one member of dr. clark's former staff was freed from all red cross responsibility. even before her arrival in coblenz, bianca zoli had showed the effects of the nervous strain of the last months of her war work. moreover, sonya had always considered that bianca was too young and too frail for what she had undertaken and had wished to leave the young girl at school in new york until her own and her husband's return from europe. but as bianca had been so determined and as sonya had dreaded leaving her alone in the united states, she had finally reluctantly consented. and bianca had done her full duty. never once in the terrible months before the close of the war had she flinched or asked to be spared in any possible way. nor was it by bianca's own request that she was idle at the present time. it was sonya who first had noticed the young girl's listlessness, her occasional hours of exhaustion and sometimes of depression. and it was sonya who had called her husband's attention to bianca's condition, although afterwards it was dr. clark who had ordered that bianca have a complete rest. during the first weeks in coblenz, bianca had been bored and sometimes a little rebellious over this new state of her existence. she had no friends of her own age in coblenz, the red cross nurses at the hospital were too much engaged with their work and in their leisure with other interests in which bianca had no share, to give her a great deal either of their time or thought. sonya naturally wished to be with her husband whenever it was possible, although she never for a moment neglected, or failed to look after bianca's health and happiness in every fashion she could arrange. but what bianca really needed was entertainment and friendships near her own age and these under the present circumstances of their life, sonya was not able to provide. so far as bianca was concerned, carlo navara had really ceased to count in any measure of importance. he so seldom made the effort to see bianca and appeared wholly absorbed by his soldier life and such entertainment as he found outside. from his superior officer he had secured permission to take singing lessons from an old music master in coblenz, and was finding an immense satisfaction and help in this. but with the coming of the young countess charlotta to coblenz, life assumed a new and far more agreeable aspect for bianca. charlotta had spoken with the wisdom of a knowledge of human nature in announcing that neither her father nor aunt would desire her return to luxemburg once they learned of her act of rebellion. immediately after her unexpected arrival, sonya clark had written to the count scherin advising him of charlotta's action, saying that she was entirely well and carefully chaperoned by miss pringle. but sonya also inquired what the count scherin's wishes might be concerning his daughter. in reply she had received a tart letter from the count stating that in future charlotta might do what she liked, as it was apparent that she had no idea of doing anything else. in a comparatively short time she would reach the age of twenty-one and would then inherit an estate from her mother, but until then count scherin would arrange that charlotta should receive a modest sum of money each month sufficient for her own expenses and that of her governess. it was true that the elderly man also added that he would be grateful to mrs. clark if she consent to become his daughter's friend, although from his own experience he could promise but little appreciation from charlotta in return. upon receipt of this letter sonya had showed it to the young girl and charlotta had made no comment. a day or so later, she suggested that she and miss pringle remain for a time in coblenz boarding as near as possible to the american red cross if this were in accord with mrs. clark's judgment. and since sonya had no better suggestion to offer at the time, after a few days' stay at the red cross hospital, the young luxemburg countess and her former governess found a home with a quiet german family, who, impoverished by the war, were glad to receive them. the house was not half a mile from the hospital, and so far as bianca was concerned, sonya was glad the young countess had chosen to stay for a time in their neighborhood under a kind of imposed chaperonage on her part. she had not desired to have charlotta added to her responsibilities. but the young girl apparently was anxious to be as little trouble and to incite as little censure as possible after her one act of self-assertion. sonya could not blame her altogether, although disapproving of charlotta's method of retaining her freedom. moreover, the young countess seemed to possess many of the characteristics which might be a good influence for bianca, perhaps because of their very contrast. if charlotta was too frank in her attitude to strangers and her habit of taking them immediately into her confidence, bianca was altogether too reserved. if the one girl was a little too curious and too much interested in the histories of every human being with whom she came in contact, bianca was too little interested in them. moreover, charlotta, in spite of her occasional moments of depression was naturally gay and sweet tempered, while bianca had a little streak of melancholy, sometimes of hidden obstinacy due to her strange childhood. but best of all in its present effect upon bianca, in sonya clark's opinion, was charlotta's love of the outdoors. fresh air, exercise and cheerfulness were the only medicines dr. clark had considered bianca required. never in her life had bianca been out of doors as much as was good for her, her childhood in italy having been spent largely among older people. moreover, her peasant mother had considered that bianca must be sheltered and nurtured like a hot-house flower in order to preserve the little girl's shell-like beauty and to make her as little like other children as possible. now with charlotta's companionship she and bianca spent the greater part of each day outdoors, sometimes accompanied by miss pringle, who as an englishwoman was an indefatigable walker. but now and then the two girls were alone. this was scarcely a satisfactory arrangement since coblenz was filled with soldiers and sonya was by no means content. she could only insist that the two girls be extremely careful and never go any distance by themselves, and also that charlotta remember that as bianca was not well, they must never undertake any excursion which would demand too much of bianca's strength. at first sonya was surprised by charlotta's consideration of the younger girl, it having been reasonable to presume from their brief acquaintance that charlotta was selfish and self-willed. yet she seemed really devoted to bianca and more than willing to sacrifice her own wishes for her friend. it was one afternoon in the latter part of march soon after luncheon that miss pringle, charlotta and bianca started out together for an afternoon walk. the day was the warmest day of the early spring and they decided to walk away from the city toward a woods which was probably only about a mile and a half from the neighborhood of the red cross hospital. nevertheless, it was cold enough for bianca to be wearing the simple grey squirrel coat which sonya had presented to her some time before, while charlotta wore the sable coat which was too handsome for her present position and needs. but miss pringle was attired in her usual shabby black dress and the everlasting black feather boa. the two girls talked continuously so that miss pringle rarely paid any especial attention to what they were saying. she was extremely fond of the countess charlotta, but the young girl's enthusiasms sometimes tired her. moreover, miss pringle was honestly fond of the country as only a few persons are and able to amuse herself indefinitely by studying the surrounding scenery. this afternoon bianca and charlotta walked arm in arm along a road leading toward the woods beyond, miss pringle walking sedately about a foot behind her two charges. the road was hard and dry as there was a high march wind, although not at present a cold one. "are you sure you will not become tired, bianca, and the distance is not too much for you?" charlotta inquired, when they had gone about two-thirds of the way toward the woods. smiling, bianca shook her head. "don't be tiresome, charlotta. i am feeling better since you came to coblenz than i ever remember before, and not only physically better but so much happier." bianca flushed a little since it was difficult for her to make even this revelation of her emotions. it was true, however, that since charlotta's arrival she had found the girl friend she so greatly needed. indeed, charlotta had made her almost forget the little soreness which carlo navara's failure to return her friendship had left in her. a few moments later charlotta stopped and turned around. "we are not walking faster than you like, miss pringle?" she inquired. then she added unexpectedly. "dear susan pringle, you are nearly frozen. why look, bianca, her lips and cheeks are blue! what on earth made you come for a walk without any warmer clothes? it is that old english prejudice which makes you think heavy garments are never necessary. you must go back home at once. you are positively shivering." and it was true that as the two girls and the older woman stood together in a little group for a moment, miss pringle could scarcely keep her teeth from chattering. "i am just a little cold," she confessed, "however, girls, i do not wish to rob you of your walk." charlotta smiled back at her serenely. "oh, you need not worry, susan dear! your returning home for something warmer to wear need not interfere with our plans. we will just walk on slowly toward the woods and when we reach there start back. if you do not overtake us, we will meet you on our way home." this suggestion was not wholly approved of by miss pringle and yet at the moment, being a little frozen mentally as well as physically, she made no serious objection to it. she believed she could walk home rapidly and be with the two girls again in a short time. moreover, it was one of her serious weaknesses of character that she seldom objected to any positive wish of the young countess's. in the brilliant march sunshine the path through the woods appeared like a path of gold. there were no leaves on the tall trees so that the light shone through the bare branches. "let us go on just a little further, charlotta, and then we must go back to meet miss pringle," bianca proposed. but here the path grew narrow so that charlotta led the way, bianca following at first close behind her. the air was like magic, the old magic of youth, "of love and life and light and laughter." charlotta sang along the way. "wheresoe'er the sun doth journey in his chariot, i have sought for that which shall outweigh the love of woman. on earth, in air, in water, many things fair have i found, the seed of song in man, the seed of flowers in the earth, but over all, and fairer far and greater, is the seed of love. when love hath flown, who shall endure?" "queer song for me to sing, isn't it, bianca?" charlotta called back over her shoulder. "yet perhaps after all it is because i intend to try to live always as true as i can to my ideals that i have done what my father and aunt and perhaps mrs. clark do not approve. i ought to remember that i am a good deal older than you are in years and far, far older in experience. yet i do so love the old german lieder, even if they are sentimental." as bianca made no reply to this speech continuing on her way, charlotta began walking faster than she realized. until this afternoon she had never felt so thoroughly happy over her freedom from the future which for nearly a year had stretched before her like a dark cloud. since leaving luxemburg, although she had not actually regretted her own action, at least she had been harassed with the sense of her father's anger and disappointment. but today she was happy in forgetting everything save her love of the fresh air, of the blue sky, of the dark rim of hills on the further side of the rhine, of walking deeper and deeper into the spring woods. "don't you think we had better go back, charlotta?" bianca called, not once, but several times, and if charlotta had only been less self-absorbed she must have understood that bianca's voice each time sounded a little further away and fainter. but finally, hearing an unexpected sound, charlotta swung swiftly around. about half a dozen yards from her, bianca had fallen and was making no effort to rise. "bianca dear, i am so sorry," she cried out at once with the impulsive sweetness characteristic of her. "i am afraid you are tired out and i am a wretch not to have remembered! mrs. clark will be angry with me. come, let me help you up. i wish i could carry you, but at least you can take my arm. oh dear, what an impossibly selfish person i am! poor miss pringle is probably dreadfully worried to discover what has become of us. i fear my aunt is right when she says i never think of other people until it is too late to be of value to them." but although bianca did get up, charlotta was frightened to discover that every bit of color had disappeared from her face and that she looked utterly worn out. "i was stupid not to have gone back without you, charlotta, or not to have made you understand i was too tired to walk so far," bianca protested, not willing to allow the other girl to bear all of the responsibility. "besides, it is stupid of me to be so good-for-nothing these days. i wish i had half your energy." "an energy which does nothing for other people isn't worth much as a possession, bianca," the older girl returned. "but don't try to talk, and let us walk slowly as you wish. the blame is all mine and i will bear the full burden of it on our return. i am only afraid mrs. clark will not encourage our being together again." at the edge of the woods near the place where they had entered bianca had to sit down for a little time to rest. "wait here and i will run ahead for a short distance. perhaps i may find miss pringle still searching for us, little as i deserve her kindness, or perhaps i can find some kind of vehicle, bianca. if not i will ask some one who will go back to coblenz and get a car for us. i really do not think you can manage to walk the rest of the way. don't be frightened, i won't be long." charlotta was not long. a quarter of a mile away, major james hersey, who was having his usual afternoon exercise on one of the army horses, heard his name called unexpectedly by a voice which he recognized at once. the next moment the countess charlotta had explained the situation. in a short time bianca was seated on horseback with her arms about charlotta while major hersey walked beside them into coblenz. as bianca did not know how to ride, she preferred that charlotta should ride in front. chapter xvii _faith and unfaith_ within the next weeks major jimmie hersey found himself much less lonely than during the earlier part of his stay in the occupied city of coblenz. of late a pleasant friendship had been developing between the young countess charlotta and himself. after her too lengthy walk, bianca zoli had been ill and not able to spend as much time with her new friend as she formerly had. at first charlotta had been inconsolable, blaming herself for bianca's breakdown and refusing to amuse herself in any of her accustomed ways. but with the arrival of spring it became impossible for her to remain indoors, especially as she was only permitted to see bianca for a few moments each day. it was not that dr. and mrs. clark particularly blamed charlotta, bianca being entirely responsible for her own actions. moreover, dr. clark did not believe that any one exhausting experience had been the cause of bianca's illness but an accumulating number of them, especially her presence in château-thierry under such strange conditions during one of the final battles of the war. yet it was bianca's breakdown which was the beginning of a relation approaching friendship between the young united states officer and the countess charlotta scherin. as bianca had been in a nearly fainting condition when she was brought finally to the american red cross hospital, naturally major hersey called there the next day to inquire for her. by chance, as charlotta had haunted the hospital all day, she and miss pringle were leaving the moment major hersey arrived. as his inquiry occupied only a short time, he was able to overtake the young girl and her chaperon before they had gotten any distance away. "i don't know what we should have done if you had not been riding horseback yesterday, major hersey," charlotta declared. "i don't believe bianca could possibly have walked back, or waited very long while we tried to find a vehicle. i'm afraid too that i actually enjoyed my own ride even under such circumstances. you cannot realize how much i have missed riding in these last weeks. i think until my accident, or whatever one may choose to call it, i had been on horseback every day of life from the time i was five years old. i am envious of you. do you suppose it would be possible for me to get hold of a horse in coblenz which i could use? any kind of horse will be better than none." ordinarily, jimmie hersey was shy, finding it difficult to talk to young women or girls without embarrassment. yet one could scarcely be shy with the countess charlotta, she was so frank and direct herself and so free from any affectation. "i don't know, i expect it would be hard work to find a woman's riding horse in coblenz these days. the horses that were any good were requisitioned for the german cavalry. but there is just a chance that i may be able to borrow one of our own american horses for you occasionally. i can't promise of course, but it would be jolly if you could ride with me." "i should love it," the countess charlotta answered. "but i suppose we ought to have some one else with us; it won't do under the circumstances for us to ride alone," major hersey added. during this speech the young officer colored slightly, since it was not among his usual duties to chaperon a girl. however, he knew what was fitting and intended that the conventions should be obeyed. glancing toward him, the little countess was about to demur, insisting that, although of course it might be advisable to have an escort, nevertheless, she did not wish to be deprived of opportunities to ride for such a reason. however, observing major jimmie's expression rather surprisingly she remained silent. in spite of his boyish appearance, his gentle brown eyes and sometimes almost diffident manner, there was a firmness in his mouth and chin which few persons ever misunderstood. it was during one of their afternoon rides together, about ten days later, when they were accompanied by sergeant donald hackett and nora jamison, that unexpectedly charlotta turned to her escort. "you don't approve of my having come away from home in the way that i did, do you, major hersey? oh, i know you have never said anything of course, since you do not consider that we know each other sufficiently well to discuss personalities, yet just the same you do disapprove of me." jimmie hersey shook his head. "certainly i do not disapprove of you." then he flushed and laughed. "may i say instead that i approve of you highly. you don't mind my being a little complimentary?" "oh, if you mean to be flattering me, you need not think i am not pleased. but what i meant was that you do not approve of my action. please answer me truthfully. i shall not be offended. after all, you see i am asking you the question, so you cannot be blamed for telling me the truth." still the young american officer hesitated. "well, countess charlotta, you must always remember that i am a soldier, and that in so far as possible i try to live up to a soldier's ideals. one of them is to face the music, never to run away. but there, that seems an extremely impolite thing for me to have said! you know how glad i am personally that you did come to coblenz." to the latter part of major hersey's remark, charlotta apparently paid no attention. she dropped her chin for a moment and stared straight ahead of her. this afternoon she was wearing a brown corduroy riding habit and brown leather boots and a close fitting corduroy riding hat. her father had not been so obdurate that he had not sent charlotta a large trunk of her clothes soon after he learned of her safe arrival in coblenz. "you mean to say as kindly as possible that you think i am a coward," she returned finally. "that is what mrs. clark thinks also, only she has not said so, i suppose because i have never asked her. sometimes, i have wondered since my arrival in coblenz, if i should go back home and ask my father's forgiveness, making him understand that i shall never marry any one for whom i do not care. but my problem is, would he accept an apology which did not include obedience? you see that is what my new american friends cannot understand in my father's and my attitude to each other. besides, i do so want to go to the united states when mrs. clark and bianca and several of her red cross nurses return home. mrs. clark tells me that she and dr. clark only intend remaining in coblenz until after the germans have signed the treaty of peace. dr. clark then feels that he must go back to his new york city practice and be relieved by a younger man. three or four of the american red cross nurses will be sailing at the same time. you simply cannot guess how i long to travel. think of being as restless a person as i am and shut up in a tiny country like luxemburg! i have never been anywhere else except just into germany in all my life." "hard luck of course, and you would enjoy the united states! you are just the kind of girl to appreciate it. you must do what you think is right yourself since after all another fellow's judgment is not worth much," major hersey replied, not altogether pleased with the idea of his new friends vanishing from coblenz when his own duties might keep him there an indefinite time. later that afternoon, at about dusk, on his way toward home, major james hersey was considering a number of matters somewhat seriously. he was a united states officer with nothing to live upon save his pay. up to the present his one desire had been to continue to serve his country. in germany at this time there was a good deal of intensely bitter feeling. with the delay in the presentation of the peace terms a less friendly attitude toward america and the americans was developing than during the weeks first following the german defeat. in the interior the poorer people were said to be hungry, war weary and anxious to resume their normal business life. in coblenz there was especial dissatisfaction with the present german government, coblenz having been a centre of pan-germanism and pro-kaiserism. carefully concealed as such ideas were supposed to be from the members of the american army of occupation, there were united states officers who appreciated that there were groups of prominent germans at this time desiring the return of the kaiser and some form of monarchial control. it was not known in march that the kaiser might be tried by an international court. quietly major hersey had been informed that the united states secret service was endeavoring to discover the men who had been the kaiser's closest friends in coblenz before his inglorious departure into holland. there were still, major jimmie reflected, many interesting ways to serve one's country, even if the great war were past. this afternoon it struck him that this might become more of a sacrifice than he had anticipated, but notwithstanding his country must always remain first! at the threshold of his own door he stopped, slightly puzzled. some one was already in his sitting-room, which was unusual at this hour. his rooms were cleaned in the morning and he was seldom interrupted afterwards either by a servant or any member of the household. but probably a fellow officer had dropped in to see him and was awaiting his return. suddenly, with this idea in mind, major hersey thrust his door open. then he stood stock still in a slightly apologetic attitude. his room was occupied and by the head of the german household in which he was at present living, colonel liedermann. major hersey had not come into contact with him but once since his own arrival in coblenz several months before. the old german colonel, wearing civilian clothes, was standing examining an american rifle, which the young american army officer had carelessly left propped up against the wall in one corner of his room. the older man wheeled sharply at the younger one's entrance. colonel liedermann had the typical german face, broad, with heavy, overhanging brows, small, stern blue eyes, and drooping jaws. his face reddened at the present moment, but he said courteously: "i owe you an apology for entering your room when you were not present. i came to ask you if you would do me the favor of permitting me to look over some of your american newspapers. germany is not being informed of all that is taking place in the world these days and i should like very much to know. but it is not for myself alone that i make this request. i am an old man and may not live long enough to see the new germany if it is ever possible for germany to arise out of the ashes of the past. but my son, as you know, has never recovered from his last and most serious wound. to lie always in bed after so active a life, grows exceedingly irksome. i find it difficult to keep him even fairly content. it was for him i was asking the loan of your newspapers. i presume the fact that we have so recently been enemies will not preclude your doing me this kindness. if so, i regret my intrusion." a little overcome by the old german officer's haughty manner and set speech, major jimmie only murmured that he would be very glad of course to permit his american newspapers to be read, if colonel liedermann and his son did not feel that they would too greatly resent the american point of view. as he made this statement, although not pleased by the german officer's request, major hersey was searching diligently for the latest bundle of american papers which he had received. as he handed them to the former german colonel, the old officer said, speaking in a more human fashion, "i was interested in looking at this american rifle of yours. naturally as an old soldier i remain interested in firearms, although i shall not live to see another war, however little i believe in a permanent world peace. clever piece of mechanism! i am told the american rifle is the finest in the world!" not feeling called upon to reply to this speech and anxious that the old officer should depart, major hersey made no response. a little later, when he had finally gone, with an unusual expression upon his boyish countenance, major jimmie hersey sank down into his arm chair. was it singular that one could not recover from the sensation of acute distrust in the presence of a german? among them there must be certain individuals who were truthful and straightforward. yet after a century of training that the end justified the means, among german army officers one could not expect to find any other standard, than the standard which regarded the treaty of belgium as a "scrap of paper." betray any friend, any cause, any country to accomplish one's purpose. and tonight, although a member of colonel liedermann's household, major jimmie hersey knew he would always remain their foe, no matter with what appearance of courtesy he might be treated. it was an actual fact that never since his casual conversation with little gretchen, the baby of the family, had he the same sense of untroubled serenity in the midst of this german military home. was it true that captain ludwig liedermann was still unable to move from his bed? if so why had little gretchen told so ingenious a falsehood? one would scarcely expect a little girl of six to make up so useless a story. but if captain liedermann were well why should he continue to make a pretence of illness? there were no penalties attached to the fact that he had been a german officer. could it be possible that he so intensely disliked the idea of coming into contact with the troops general pershing had led to victory, that he preferred invalidism to this other form of martyrdom? there was just one point upon which major jimmie hersey was able to make up his mind during this one evening's meditation. he would suggest to miss jamison that she make no more visits to the liedermann home. he had been surprised to find her returning not once but several times of late. she must understand that the red cross nurses were not supposed to make friends with the families of germans until after peace was declared. the little freia had not been seriously hurt, having entirely recovered from her fright and injury by the next day. nevertheless, miss jamison had made not one, but four or five other calls since her introduction to frau liedermann. of course, as he knew miss jamison but slightly, advice from him might prove embarrassing. she was in reality more hackett's friend than his, although sergeant hackett would deny this fact. he had tried being friendly with nora jamison as she attracted him, but she did not seem to care for other interests than her red cross nursing and the children who surrounded her like tiny golden bees about a honey pot. her ride this afternoon had been her one concession; however, after reaching the red cross hospital, she had said it would be impossible for her to ride again, although she had greatly enjoyed it. in the future nursing and other work she had recently undertaken would occupy all her time. it might be difficult to see nora jamison alone in order to warn her against any too great intimacy with the liedermann family. yet as a fellow american major hersey intended making the effort. he would watch and if she came again to the liedermann house, join her on her way back to the american red cross hospital. chapter xviii _reconciliation_ "i am so sorry you have been ill, bianca." carlo navara had come into bianca's room a few moments before with mrs. clark and now sonya had gone out again leaving them for a few moments alone. it was a fairly warm spring day and yet there was a little fire in bianca's room, for the rooms in the old rhine castle were big and bare and cold, with stone floors. bianca wore a little tea-gown of a warm blue woolen material and had a tea table with a tray upon it just in front of her. she was pouring tea for her guest at the moment he made his last speech. "oh, there has been nothing serious the matter with me, carlo," she returned. "i was simply tired and have been having a delightful rest. i believe when i arrived i said that i should hate to be ill in this dreary old building, but since things so seldom turn out as one expects i have really enjoyed it. besides, i have promised sonya that as soon as it is possible i shall go back to the united states and to school. the red cross experience in europe has been a wonderful one, but now, as i am no longer useful here i must take up the duty, i turned my back upon. it is not going to be easy, carlo, to settle down to a school girl's life after the excitement of war work in europe. yet i have the consolation of realizing that i am only going to do what many of our soldiers will do. lots of the younger men have told me that if their families can afford to send them to college on their return they feel the need of education as they never felt it before coming abroad." bianca extended a tea cup to her visitor. "is this the way you like your tea, carlo? perhaps your taste has changed, but i remember this is the way you liked it in the past." "but my tastes don't change, bianca. it is your mistake to believe they do, neither my tastes in tea nor in friends ever alter." at this carlo and bianca both laughed, although with a slight embarrassment. "i am going back home too, bee, very soon," the young man added. "this is one of the many things i wanted to tell you this afternoon, besides finding out that you were all right again. i talked things over with colonel winfield weeks ago and told him i was getting pretty restless and anxious to return to my work in the united states. i explained to him that a singer can't wait for his career as well as other men, since a voice does not always last a long time. however, i think this argument did not make much of an impression upon the old colonel, but something or other must have, because he asked for an honorable discharge for me and i'm to go home when it arrives. i think the colonel's chief reason was that i am not much good as a soldier here in coblenz. he needs men like major hersey and sergeant hackett. hackett is soon to be a first lieutenant, he should have been one long ago." "i don't see why you have not also been given a commission, carlo," bianca replied, a little jealous for her friend. carlo laughed. "i haven't the stuff in me for an officer, bee. no one knows this better than i do. i am a fair soldier when there is something doing, but a poor one in routine. that is the real test. don't mind, bianca, and don't look aggrieved. i have simply tried to do my military duty like millions of other better men, but now i am going back to the thing i am made for. i was only a soldier for the time i felt myself needed. "by the way i have been learning to sing "siegfried," bianca, studying with my old german singing master. he says i sing the music very poorly, but it has been fun trying to learn. "i know one who lies fast in slumber deep sleeping age long sleep, waiting for thy waking." carlo's voice sounded clear and beautiful in the big room. "if your hair were unbound and you were older you might look like brunhilde some day, bianca." "you are singing better than ever, carlo, i am so glad!" bianca murmured, forgetful of herself. she looked a little paler and more fragile after her illness, yet with her light yellow hair, her delicate features and large dark eyes prettier perhaps than her companion ever remembered seeing her. "and the dancing, bee, i gave that up soon after our talk. i did not need it for diversion after i began my music lessons. besides, miss thompson has taught so many of the soldiers folk dancing and some of them are now so good at it that she no longer wishes me for her partner." bianca colored. "i am sorry i told you i did not like thea thompson, carlo. it is foolish to be prejudiced against people, isn't it? she has been extremely kind to me during my illness and both sonya and i have learned to understand her better. besides, i was prejudiced perhaps because of you," bianca ended frankly. but carlo made no comment. never did it fail to interest him bianca's strange combination of childishness and womanhood. but today she seemed almost altogether childlike. at this instant getting up carlo walked over to the mantel where he put down his tea cup and then stood looking down on bianca. "then we are friends, aren't we, bee? and i hope we may never misunderstand each other again. i have been worried over your being ill and our not being fond of each other in the old way. you may have to forgive me many things and perhaps i may have other friends in the future of whom you may not approve, but you must not think they will make me forget my loyalty to you." bianca was about to reply, but before this was possible sonya clark had opened the door and re-entered the room. she glanced at carlo navara with a slight frown and then walked over and laid her hand on bianca's fair hair. "bee is looking better than you expected to find her, isn't she, carlo, and more like a little girl? i for one am glad her illness has turned her young again. the war in france has made most of us older than we were intended to be, but all the pain and struggle of it was especially hard upon a girl young as bianca. i am going to take her back to new york as soon as dr. clark is able to return and after a year at school i mean to bring her out into new york society as my grown-up daughter. i have always wanted a real one and bianca will be a lovely substitute. don't you think she will probably have many admirers, carlo?" carlo looked a little annoyed. "i thought you had finer ideals for bianca, sonya, than to turn her into a society woman!" he answered with a slight change of manner. "but of course she will be charming. she is that already. and no doubt so many people will admire her that she will learn the pleasant art of forgetting her old friends. i shall probably be in new york only a part of each year. yet somehow, bianca, i hope you will always remain the bianca i have known for the past three years. the war has made the time seem ever so much longer." again bianca was about to reply, but sonya glanced up at a little clock on the mantel. "i am sorry, carlo, but bianca is not allowed to see any one but a half hour at a time. i know she regrets having to say farewell to you, but we are under orders. as for my ideals for bianca, you need not fear. i mean to do all i can to help make her a gracious and lovely woman. and no one is ever to take bianca for granted, carlo, not even you. i think it may be good for her to know that there will be many persons who will think her attractive, as she has too humble an opinion of herself. besides, every girl has a right to a few years of society and a little admiration. i am sure you agree with me?" and carlo was obliged to acquiesce. going back to his quarters, after saying goodby to bianca, he realized what sonya's words and manner must have meant. she considered that he had been too careless of bianca and perhaps thought her affection something which he could possess or lay aside at his own convenience. but if carlo were angered at this idea, he also realized that there was a certain truth in sonya's impression. however, in the future he meant to be more appreciative of bianca's affection, and kinder to the young girl for whom he felt a brotherly affection. chapter xix _a warning_ sooner than he had hoped major hersey had an opportunity for a talk alone with nora jamison. the passing days had wrought no change in his impression that there was something of a suspicious nature taking place in the german household in which he was billeted, a something which was extremely disquieting. nevertheless, so far he really had no tangible evidence which made it possible for him to go to one of his superior officers. unless he had some foundation in fact for his suspicion, it would scarcely be fair or just to involve the members of the liedermann family in unnecessary notoriety and espionage. he must therefore watch and wait until he had discovered some justification for what at present was merely a vague idea. however, there was nothing to prevent his suggesting to a girl, particularly one who was an american red cross nurse, that she try to avoid any appearance of intimacy or even friendliness with a german family, who might later be involved in a serious difficulty with the united states military forces in command of the occupied city of coblenz. three days after reaching this decision, major james hersey was leaving the liedermann house one afternoon just as nora jamison was in the act of entering it. their meeting took place as major hersey was about to open the tall iron gate which led into the yard. indeed he stood aside in order to allow nora jamison to enter. their acquaintance was a slight one, so that it is possible nora jamison may have been surprised to hear the young officer say to her in a hurried and confused fashion. "miss jamison, i must speak to you for a few moments. will you meet me in an hour under the big linden tree in the park where freia and gretchen tell me you are in the habit of playing with them? i am sorry to trouble you but i have what seems to me an important reason for wishing to talk to you." in return, after studying the young officer's face for a moment with her large grey eyes, nora jamison quietly acquiesced. the next instant she disappeared inside the liedermann house, the door being opened for her almost instantly by frau liedermann herself. it was possible that the german lady may have observed their brief conversation, yet jimmie hersey had no suspicion of frau liedermann, who struck him as being an outsider in the family of her husband. an hour later, when major hersey sought the place he had chosen for their appointment, he discovered nora jamison was there before him. she was sitting on a small bench under a great tree filled with tiny flowering blossoms which scented the air with a delicious fragrance. evidently she was thinking deeply. nora jamison's exceptional appearance did not attract the young officer, although she did interest and puzzle him. her short hair, her slender, almost boyish figure, the queer elfin look in her face, which made one wonder what she was _really_ thinking even at the time she was talking in a perfectly natural fashion, had a tantalizing rather than a pleasant effect upon some persons. yet once seated beside her major jimmie felt less embarrassment than he had anticipated. one had to believe in any human being for whom children cared as they did for this american girl. "freia and gretchen talk about you always," he began a little awkwardly. "i thought at the beginning of our acquaintance that i was to be their favored friend, but soon found you had completely won their allegiance. but where is your usual companion, the little french girl?" "i left her at the hospital today, major hersey; for a special reason i wished to make a call upon frau liedermann alone. but please do not let us talk about freia and gretchen at present though they are dear little girls. you have something you specially want to say to me and i must be back at my work at the hospital in another half hour." major hersey was a soldier and nora's directness pleased him. "yes, it is absurd of me to waste your time," he returned. "the fact is simply this. as i am billeted in their house for the present i cannot very well have failed to notice that you are developing what looks like a personal intimacy with the liedermann family. i presume you know that the americans in coblenz, who have anything to do with the united states army, are not supposed to fraternize with the germans. you may regard it as impertinent of me to recall this fact to your attention. i presume you consider that this advice should come from some one in more direct authority over you, but i assure you i only mean to be friendly. i have no real evidence for my statement, but i am under the impression that certain members of colonel liedermann's family are still extremely hostile to their conquerors. moreover, you yourself realize that as the terms of peace are delayed there is not merely a sense of irritation and discontent with the present german government, but attempts are being made both secretly and openly to overthrow it. i have mentioned my suspicion to no one except you, miss jamison, which of course shows my confidence in you, but it has occurred to me as a possibility that colonel liedermann, or his invalid son, may be less reconciled to existing conditions in germany than they prefer to pretend. later, if a discovery of this character should be made, i would regret to have any one of our american red cross nurses drawn into such an uncomfortable situation." annoyed with his own confused method of stating a situation, major jimmie hersey paused, coloring in his usual annoying fashion, as if he were a tongue-tied boy. yet his companion was looking at him without any suggestion of offense, and rather as if she too were pondering some important matter. "thank you for your advice, major hersey," she replied the next moment. "now i am going to ask you to trust me. i have a reason for going to the liedermann house and i must go there perhaps several times within the next few days. afterwards i may be able to explain to you my reason. will you trust me and not report my actions to any one for the present?" with nora jamison's eyes facing his directly, although against his own judgment, there was nothing the young officer felt able to do but agree to her request. yet it was out of order and it appeared to him that nora jamison was being vague and mysterious. it were wiser if she attended strictly to her red cross nursing. surely some one of the other red cross nurses had told him that this miss jamison was not inclined to be especially intimate with any of them. that same afternoon after several hours of indoor work, making out a report for his superior officer, major james hersey felt that he was rewarded for the day's duties by an afternoon ride with the countess charlotta. as they had no other chaperon for their ride, miss susan pringle had consented to accompany them, rather to major jimmie's consternation. he feared that she was taking an incredible risk with her own health and safety in order that her adored young countess should not be disappointed. yet it was soon evident that the middle-aged english spinster was an accomplished horsewoman. along the rhine that afternoon in the late april sunshine the water shone like rusty gold. high on the opposite hills the old feudal castles looked to major jimmie like the castles he had read of in the fairy stories of his childhood. moreover, it was easy even for a prosaic soldier, such as major james hersey considered himself to be, to think of the little countess charlotta scherin as the heroine of almost any romance, even of one's own romance. chapter xx _nora jamison explains_ it was toward the end of the same week that a note arrived for major james hersey from sonya clark. she asked him to make an appointment with colonel winfield in order that he might see her and one of her red cross nurses as soon as possible. would major hersey also try to be present? there was a reason, which he would understand, why his presence might be necessary. colonel winfield and sonya clark were great friends, as the colonel had been one of the commanders of a regiment stationed near the red cross hospital in the neighborhood of château-thierry for many months before the close of the war. the colonel, however, was not in his library at the moment of major hersey's arrival. sonya clark and nora jamison were there awaiting his appearance. "we are a few moments early; i suppose the colonel will be here directly," sonya remarked. "you may not approve of our having come first to the colonel's quarters instead of seeing one of the heads of our secret service," she continued, "but since neither miss jamison nor i knew exactly what we should do, we decided to make a report directly to you. then you will know what should be done. secrecy seemed to us of first importance." during sonya's speech colonel winfield had come into his room and now apologized for his delay. nora jamison had never met the distinguished officer before, and therefore looked a little frightened, but a glance at major jimmie's interested face reassured her. after all he was the one person who would substantiate the story she had to tell, for even if he had no positive evidence at least his suspicions would coincide with her knowledge. "you are sure there is no one who may overhear us, colonel winfield?" she asked a little timidly. "i think when i tell you what i am about to that you will understand why one still has reason to suspect almost any one in germany, although the good of course must suffer with the evil." colonel winfield nodded. "i understood from mrs. clark that you wished to talk to me on a private matter and i have one of my orderlies stationed at the door. there is no chance of being overheard. as for continuing to feel suspicion of the enemy, while the american army is policing the rhine it is our business to take every precaution against treachery. at present i wish i could be more certain that the state of mind among the inhabitants of coblenz is what it appears upon the surface. tell me what information you have and how you have acquired it. there is a possibility that i may not be so much in the dark as you at present suspect, miss jamison." "if you don't mind, may i take off my hat while i talk?" nora jamison asked. "it is boyish of me, i suspect, but i can talk better with my hat off. do you happen to know, colonel winfield, that there are persons in germany who are friendly to the kaiser in spite of all that he has made them endure? actually they do not seem to realize that he is chiefly responsible for the tragedy of their country and her present position as an outcast among the nations." "yes, i quite understand that fact," colonel winfield returned drily. "then do you also know, colonel, that there are men and women in germany today who are anxious to rescue the kaiser from his fate. they would make any possible sacrifice to save him from being tried by an international court in case the allies decide upon this course. but perhaps i had best tell my story from the beginning and you must forgive me if some of it appears confused." at this instant, clasping her hands together in her lap, nora jamison sat staring straight ahead, but looking at nothing in the room, rather at some mental picture. "when i came to europe i hoped to be of service as a red cross nurse, but by the time i arrived the war was over and the armistice about to be signed. still i hoped i had not come altogether in vain and persuaded dr. clark to bring me with him as a member of his red cross staff who were to serve with the american army of occupation in coblenz. "i felt a good deal of bitterness in coming into germany. the young man to whom i was engaged was killed by the germans near château-thierry. i know it was wrong and yet i felt as if i would like to revenge myself upon them for all i have suffered. i must apologize for telling you this, but you will see that it does bear upon my story. "well, after i came to germany, although i discovered that i did dislike and distrust the german people, yet i could not make up my mind not to feel affection for the little german kinder, who after all were in no way responsible for the war. i always nursed children before i joined the red cross and have a special fondness for them. the little french louisa and i, who are always together except when i am at work, made friends with a number of the german children. among them were two little girls, whom major hersey will tell you are especially attractive. but if i seemed to single out these two children and especially the older one, freia, it was not because she so greatly attracted me. early in our acquaintance the little girl told me an anecdote which struck me as extraordinary and almost immediately aroused my suspicion. please don't think i found out at once what i am trying to tell you, i at first had to piece things together. "freia told me that her brother, captain ludwig liedermann, who had been wounded, had recovered, but would not leave his room and did not wish any one to know he was well. freia received the impression that he did not wish to be seen by any of the american officers or soldiers in coblenz. he once told little freia that he hated to meet the men who had defeated their emperor and driven him into exile." the colonel nodded. "yes, well, that strikes me as if alone it might be a sufficient reason. i would not be surprised if there were other german officers and soldiers hiding from us with this same excuse. however, we shall remain on duty in germany until both the military and the civilians find it wiser not to seek cover in order to escape the consequences of their past." "yes, i know, but this did not seem to me all there was in freia's story," nora continued. "so i confess i made friends with the little girl largely in order to gain her further confidence. she afterwards told me other things that were puzzling. i knew that the germans in coblenz were not allowed to hold secret meetings, but freia insisted that officers who had been old friends of her brother's came constantly to their house and that her sister hedwig opened a side door for them, so they would not disturb major hersey. then they talked together a long time and no one else was allowed to enter her brother's room, save her father. she also spoke of her sister hedwig's hatred of the americans. it seems that fraulein liedermann and i have at least one experience in common. the german captain to whom she was engaged was also killed in the war. hedwig was angry because her little german half-sisters were willing to make friends with major hersey and me. but i must not take so long to come to my point. i also made friends with frau liedermann. often i went to her house, although always i was afraid that the fact would be reported. if i was found to be fraternizing with the germans i would have been forced to end my acquaintance with the liedermanns, as you know. "i can't tell you near all the details, but the important fact i discovered is this: captain liedermann, the colonel his father, and a number of other german officers have for weeks been making a secret effort to have the kaiser spirited away from holland. their plan is to conceal him in some spot where the allies will be unable to discover him. then, when the resentment against him dies down the kaiser will be rescued and brought back to germany. captain liedermann has been trying for a long time to get out of coblenz. but i cannot tell you anything more than this bare outline of the german plan." breathless and shaking a little from fatigue and excitement, nora jamison now paused. "you mean to tell me that you have made this extraordinary discovery during your occasional visits to the liedermann home, when i who have been billeted there for months have learned nothing?" major hersey demanded, coloring in his habitual fashion, but this time partly from admiration of the girl beside him and partly from annoyance with himself. "yes, but our positions have been entirely different, major hersey," nora explained. "every precaution was taken to see that you found out nothing. indeed you were apparently welcomed into the liedermann household so that your presence there might be a blind. what i found out was owing to my intimacy with the two little girls and later with frau liedermann. i hope for her sake it may never be discovered just how much she did confide to me. i sometimes think she almost wanted me to report what i knew, she is so weary of war and intrigue and deception, and is almost as much of a child as her two little girls. i think this is all i have to tell at present. if our intelligence department should wish to ask me questions later, why i may be able to answer them." colonel winfield rose and walked over to nora. "you have given me extraordinarily valuable information, miss jamison. i shall see that it reaches the war department at once. i have always insisted that women make the best members of the secret service. but under the circumstances i feel that i have the right to tell you this. we did know something of this plot you have just unveiled. what we did not know was where to find the centre of the conspiracy in coblenz. i think you need have no uneasiness, the kaiser will never be saved from the consequences of his acts while the allied armies are policing the rhine. however, miss jamison i am glad to have had you in coblenz and think you have justified your coming to germany. may i congratulate a red cross girl for another variety of service to her country. now you are tired, shall i not send you back to the hospital in my car?" but sonya clark shook her head. "no, thank you, colonel winfield. dr. clark is to have one of the red cross automobiles come for us, which is probably now waiting around the corner. we wished our visit to you to be known to as few persons as possible. major hersey will see us to the car. goodby." chapter xxi _the rainbow bridge_ one afternoon in may, sonya clark was entertaining a number of friends among the american officers and soldiers in coblenz in the garden back of the american red cross hospital. during the early spring the red cross girls had devoted many leisure hours to digging and planting flower seed on the level space just behind the old building and overlooking the banks of the rhine. this afternoon this spot was gay with spring flowers, also there were old rose vines climbing high on the grey stone walls, now a delicate green but promising a rich bloom in june. these were troubled days in germany, the most troubled since the arrival of the american army of occupation. a short time before the allied peace terms had been presented to the german delegates in versailles; since then all germany had been crying aloud protests against a just retribution. germany was in official mourning. yet the americans in coblenz, soldiers and civilians alike, were undisturbed, knowing germany would sign the terms when the final moment arrived. today something of greater importance was taking place among sonya clark's and dr. david clark's friends. this little reception was their farewell. in a short time they were returning to new york taking with them a number of their staff of red cross nurses. several days before a new unit of red cross workers had arrived in coblenz, relieving former members who desired to return home. the afternoon was a lovely one, now and then occasional light clouds showed in the sky, but away off on the opposite bank of the rhine there were lines of blue hills, then purple, fading at last to a dim grey. sonya and dr. clark were standing among a little group of friends. nona davis and mildred thornton were beside them. both of the original red cross girls were wearing decorations which they had lately received from the french government and the united states government in recognition of their four years of war nursing among the allied armies of europe. they were leaving with sonya and dr. clark for the united states and were expecting to be married soon after their arrival. colonel winfield, who was an old friend, was congratulating them and at the same time lamenting their departure from coblenz. "i wonder if you will tell me just what members of dr. clark's staff are going with him?" he inquired. "i fear i shall feel a stranger and an outsider at the american red cross hospital when so many of you sail for home who were with me in the neighborhood of château-thierry, caring for our wounded american boys. may your married life be as happy as you deserve." slipping one hand through the elderly colonel's arm, nona davis suggested to him and to mildred thornton: "suppose we take a little walk; no one is noticing us with sonya and dr. clark the centre of attention. whatever i may dislike about germany, i shall never forget the fascination of many of the views along the rhine during this winter and spring in coblenz. "as for the members of dr. clark's staff who are going home with him, there are no nurses who will not remain except a miss thompson. bianca zoli, mrs. clark's ward, is leaving with her of course. then i suppose you know that the little luxemburg countess charlotta scherin and her governess are to accompany us, i believe with the consent of her father." as the little group moved away in the direction of the river bank, mildred smiled. "see, colonel, there are the three girls we have been discussing! the little countess charlotta and your pet officer, major hersey, are probably saying farewell. further on is theodosia thompson and dr. hugh raymond. dr. raymond is to be in charge of our american red cross hospital in coblenz after dr. clark's departure. it is a good deal of responsibility for so young a physician, but dr. clark seems to think he is equal to it. and there perched up in the branches of that old tree is bianca zoli. how pretty she looks in her delicate blue dress against such a background!" "and who is that romantic young soldier standing beneath her?" the colonel demanded. "oh, yes, i remember now, he is the soldier-singer, who i believe is also going back to the states, as i secured an honorable discharge for him a short time ago. odd name his for an american, what is it?" "carlo navara," nona replied, "and an old friend of ours." then they continued on their walk. at the same moment theodosia thompson and dr. raymond were slipping out of sight of the guests along a little path which ended in a group of shrubs a few yards down the hill. "i can't see why you wish to renew what we were discussing a few days ago, dr. raymond," thea argued a little plaintively, her red hair shining in the warm light, her pale cheeks showing two spots of bright color. "i think i said to you then all i could say. i do appreciate the honor of your believing that you care for me, although i think you will soon find out your mistake. you will see then as plainly as i do now that we are not suited to each other. i told you i did not wish to marry any one. i know it seems ridiculous and perhaps wicked to you that i should prefer to learn folk dancing as a profession rather than to continue as a nurse. but people cannot always understand each other's dreams and desires and i only undertook the red cross nursing because i wanted to help nurse our soldiers, not because i wanted to be a nurse always. but ruth carroll believes as you do and never intends giving up her work, not unless she marries which i hope she may some day. she is so splendid and restful, just the kind of girl i should think an ambitious man would care for. she would be such a pillar of strength. alas, that i shall never be to any one, not even to myself i am afraid!" thea ended. then she put out her hand. "don't let us argue on this lovely day, dr. raymond, just shake hands with me, and let us wish each other good luck." under the circumstances, since there was nothing else to do and also because he was partly convinced of the truth of thea's speech, dr. raymond agreed with her request. a few moments later, climbing up the hill, they rejoined the other guests. from the ground, smiling up at her in a teasing fashion usual in their relation to each other, carlo at the same time was saying to bianca zoli: "sure you are not especially glad to be going home, bianca, chiefly because i am so soon to follow you? i've an idea you would be very unhappy if we were parting for any length of time. nicht war?" bianca shook her head, smiling and at the same time frowning. "under those circumstances, i should simply have tried to bear my departure bravely, carlo, as one who has been through a good many experiences as a red cross girl in time of war. but don't speak german even in fun. some day i may learn to dislike the language less, but not at present. moreover, i do not look forward to seeing a great deal of mr. carlo navara even if we are both again to be in the united states. you will be very busy with your career and will probably soon be a more famous person than you were before you entered the united states army, while i, well i shall work hard in my way, although i shall continue to remain an obscure person." "i don't know, bianca, suppose some day you condescended to marry me. wouldn't you like to share my fame?" bianca shook her head. "i think not, carlo. besides, you must not say things of that kind to me. you know sonya would be angry." carlo looked a little annoyed, then laughed. since her illness it seemed to him that bianca had changed in some subtle fashion. one was no longer so sure of getting the best of her in an argument. besides, after all, would it be so unpleasant to share one's future with bianca? she looked oddly pretty and ethereal high up in the branches of the tree where he had lifted her a few moments before. but at this moment there could be no further discussion between them, a message arriving from sonya saying that she wished bianca to come and assist her in pouring tea. after he helped her down to the ground, carlo made bianca pause for a moment while he pointed across the river. "see that curious effect, bianca! there is a rainbow over the rhine. it comes sometimes in the late afternoon light even when there has been no storm. let us hope the world will find peace at the end of the rainbow, and more especially germany. i won't come with you now, as i hate having to serve tea. ask some of your soldier friends who are cleverer at it than i. i want to watch the sunset on the rhine." and carlo and bianca parted for a short time, yet thereafter many experiences and a number of years were to roll between them before carlo and bianca at last found happiness in each other. at the same time major hersey and charlotta were observing the curious effect of light over the river. they had gone together to the edge of one of the cliffs and were gazing across at the great fortress of ehrenbreitstein from whose tower the stars and stripes were floating. to them the rainbow seemed to dip down into the depth of this ancient fortress and lose itself in the shadows. "whenever i am homesick to return to my own country, countess charlotta, i simply stare across at the flag on that old german fortress and think what it represents," major hersey declared. "then i am content to remain in germany for as long as i am needed. a little thing, isn't it, to give a few months, or a few years, or whatever length of time may be necessary to teach germany her lesson, when so many other men have given their lives that our flag be the flag of victory and a just peace!" the young girl's face softened. "i think you are a good soldier, major hersey. there is something i want to confide to you. i did write my father as you suggested and told him i would come home if he wished, only he must allow me to keep my freedom. his answer was what i expected. he does not desire to see me at present and says i am free to travel in the united states if i like. only he adds that when i have seen more of the world perhaps i shall be more content to do my duty to my father. not very clear, but i think i understand. my father really wishes to become reconciled with me, only not to seem to give in too readily. so i shall return home in a few months perhaps. then if you are still in coblenz and i write you, won't you come to luxemburg? we have been such good friends and i hate saying goodby forever to people i like." major jimmie hersey shook his head, his brown eyes were steady and although the old boyish color had diffused his face, there was the firm line about his mouth and chin which his soldiers knew and respected. "no, countess charlotta, i shall not come to see you in luxemburg or elsewhere and this must be our goodby. i have no idea of leaving the united states army so long as i am allowed to remain in it. this means i will have nothing to offer you in the future, save what i have now, i believe you understand." the countess charlotta nodded. "yes, i understand. goodby, yet nevertheless i shall look forward to our meeting again." * * * * * transcriber's note: obvious punctuation errors were corrected. page 35, "amunition" changed to "ammunition" (long road ammunition) page 76, "occured" changed to "occurred" (must have occurred) page 88, "sherin" changed to "scherin" (scherin dropped back) page 138, "that" changed to "than" (older than she was) page 143, "windoes" changed to "windows" (windows one could) page 151, "refuse" changed to "refused" (parents refused to pay) page 153, "her's" changed to "hers" (hand in hers) page 153, "hacket" changed to "hackett" (donald hackett went over) page 166, "goodbye" changed to "goodby" to match rest of usage (when we said goodby) page 167, "embarassing" changed to "embarrassaing" (asked no embarrassing) page 173, "noticably" changed to "noticeably" (noticeably pink) page 174, "faulein" changed to "fraulein" (to bring fraulein jamison) page 179, "aggreeable" changed to "agreeable" (could not be agreeable) page 190, "embarass" changed to "embarrass" (embarrass the american) page 196, "prefering" changed to "preferring" (the interior, preferring) page 199, "sherin's" changed to "scherin's" (what the count scherin's) page 258, "thronton" changed to "thornton" (and to mildred thornton) page 260, "states" changed to "states" (back to the states) aunt jane's nieces in the red cross by edith van dyne author of "aunt jane's nieces series," "flying girl series," etc. the reilly & britton co. chicago 1915 [illustration] foreword this is the story of how three brave american girls sacrificed the comforts and luxuries of home to go abroad and nurse the wounded soldiers of a foreign war. i wish i might have depicted more gently the scenes in hospital and on battlefield, but it is well that my girl readers should realize something of the horrors of war, that they may unite with heart and soul in earnest appeal for universal, lasting peace and the future abolition of all deadly strife. except to locate the scenes of my heroines' labors, no attempt has been made to describe technically or historically any phase of the great european war. the character of doctor gys is not greatly exaggerated but had its counterpart in real life. as for the little belgian who had no room for scruples in his active brain, his story was related to me by an american war correspondent who vouched for its truth. the other persona in the story are known to those who have followed their adventures in other books of the "aunt jane's nieces" series. edith van dyne contents chapter page i the arrival of the boy 9 ii the arrival of the girl 25 iii the decision of doctor gys 37 iv the hospital ship 48 v nearing the fray 58 vi little maurie 75 vii on the firing line 86 viii the coward 96 ix courage, or philosophy? 108 x the war's victims 121 xi patsy is defiant 135 xii the other side 146 xiii tardy justice 160 xiv found at last 182 xv dr. gys surprises himself 189 xvi clarette 197 xvii perplexing problems 204 xviii a question of loyalty 217 xix the capture 225 xx the dunes 244 chapter i the arrival of the boy "what's the news, uncle?" asked miss patricia doyle, as she entered the cosy breakfast room of a suite of apartments in willing square. even as she spoke she pecked a little kiss on the forehead of the chubby man addressed as "uncle"--none other, if you please, than the famous and eccentric multi-millionaire known in wall street as john merrick--and sat down to pour the coffee. there was energy in her method of doing this simple duty, an indication of suppressed vitality that conveyed the idea that here was a girl accustomed to action. and she fitted well into the homely scene: short and somewhat "squatty" of form, red-haired, freckle-faced and pug-nosed. wholesome rather than beautiful was patsy doyle, but if you caught a glimpse of her dancing blue eyes you straightway forgot her lesser charms. quite different was the girl who entered the room a few minutes later. hers was a dark olive complexion, face of exquisite contour, great brown eyes with a wealth of hair to match them and the flush of a rose in her rounded cheeks. the poise of her girlish figure was gracious and dignified as the bearing of a queen. "morning, cousin beth," said patsy cheerily. "good morning, my dear," and then, with a trace of anxiety in her tone: "what is the news, uncle john?" the little man had ignored patsy's first question, but now he answered absently, his eyes still fixed upon the newspaper: "why, they're going to build another huge skyscraper on broadway, at eleventh, and i see the political pot is beginning to bubble all through the bronx, although--" "stuff and nonsense, uncle!" exclaimed patsy. "beth asked for news, not for gossip." "the news of the war, uncle john," added beth, buttering her toast. "oh; the war, of course," he said, turning over the page of the morning paper. "it ought to be the allies' day, for the germans won yesterday. no--by cracky, beth--the germans triumph again; they've captured maubeuge. what do you think of that?" patsy gave a little laugh. "not knowing where maubeuge is," she remarked, "my only thought is that something is wrong with the london press bureau. perhaps the cables got crossed--or short circuited or something. they don't usually allow the germans to win two days in succession." "don't interrupt, please," said beth, earnestly. "this is too important a matter to be treated lightly. read us the article, uncle. i was afraid maubeuge would be taken." patsy accepted her cousin's rebuke with her accustomed good nature. indeed, she listened as intently as beth to the thrilling account of the destruction of maubeuge, and her blue eyes became quite as serious as the brown ones of her cousin when the tale of dead and wounded was recounted. "isn't it dreadful!" cried beth, clasping her hands together impulsively. "yes," nodded her uncle, "the horror of it destroys the interest we naturally feel in any manly struggle for supremacy." "this great war is no manly struggle," observed patsy with a toss of her head. "it is merely wholesale murder by a band of selfish diplomats." "tut-tut!" warned mr. merrick; "we americans are supposed to be neutral, my dear. we must not criticize." "that does not prevent our sympathizing with the innocent sufferers, however," said beth quietly. "my heart goes out, uncle, to those poor victims of the war's cruelty, the wounded and dying. i wish i could do something to help them!" uncle john moved uneasily in his chair. then he laid down his paper and applied himself to his breakfast. but his usual merry expression had faded into one of thoughtfulness. "the wounded haunt me by day and night," went on beth. "there are thousands upon thousands of them, left to suffer terrible pain--perhaps to die--on the spot where they fell, and each one is dear to some poor woman who is ignorant of her loved one's fate and can do nothing but moan and pray at home." "that's the hard part of it," said patsy, her cousin. "i think the mothers and wives and sweethearts are as much to be pitied as the fallen soldiers. the men _know_ what has happened, but the women don't. it isn't so bad when they're killed outright; the family gets a medal to indicate that their hero has died for his country. but the wounded are lost sight of and must suffer in silence, with no loving hands to soothe their agony." "my dears!" pleaded uncle john, plaintively, "why do you insist upon flavoring our breakfast with these horrors? i--i--there! take it away; i can't eat." the conversation halted abruptly. the girls were likewise unnerved by the mental pictures evolved by their remarks and it was now too late to restore cheerfulness to the morning meal. they sat in pensive silence for a while and were glad when mr. merrick pushed back his chair and rose from the table. as beth and patsy followed their uncle into the cosy library where he was accustomed to smoke his morning cigar, the little man remarked: "let's see; this is the seventh of september." "quite right, uncle," said patsy. "isn't this the day maud stanton is due to arrive?" "no," replied beth; "she will come to-morrow morning. it's a good four days' trip from california to new york, you know." "i wonder why she is coming here at this time of year," said patsy reflectively, "and i wonder if her aunt jane or her sister flo are with her." "she did not mention them in her telegram," answered beth. "all she said was to expect her wednesday morning. it seems quite mysterious, that telegram, for i had no idea maud thought of coming east." "well, we will know all about it when she arrives," observed uncle john. "i will be glad to see maud again, for she is one of my especial favorites." "she's a very dear girl!" exclaimed patsy, with emphasis. "it will be simply glorious to--" the doorbell rang sharply. there was a moment's questioning pause, for it was too early for visitors. the pattering feet of the little maid, mary, approached the door and next moment a boyish voice demanded: "is mr. merrick at home, or the young ladies, or--" "why, it's ajo!" shouted patsy, springing to her feet and making a dive for the hallway. "jones?" said mr. merrick, looking incredulous. "it must be," declared beth, for now patsy's voice was blended with that of the boy in a rapid interchange of question and answer. then in she came, dragging him joyously by the arm. "this is certainly a surprise!" said mr. merrick, shaking the tall, slender youth by the hand with evident pleasure. "when did you get to town?" asked beth, greeting the boy cordially. "and why didn't you let us know you were on the way from far-off los angeles?" "well," said jones, seating himself facing them and softly rubbing his lean hands together to indicate his satisfaction at this warm reception, "it's a long, long story and i may as well tell it methodically or you'll never appreciate the adventurous spirit that led me again to new york--the one place i heartily detest." "oh, ajo!" protested patsy. "is this the way to retain the friendship of new yorkers?" "isn't honesty appreciated here?" he wanted to know. "go ahead with your story," said uncle john. "we left you some months ago at the harbor of los angeles, wondering what you were going to do with that big ship of yours that lay anchored in the pacific. if i remember aright, you were considering whether you dared board it to return to that mysterious island home of yours at--at--" "sangoa," said patsy. "thank you for giving me a starting-point," returned the boy, with a smile. "you may remember that when i landed in your country from sangoa i was a miserable invalid. the voyage had ruined my stomach and wrecked my constitution. i crossed the continent to new york and consulted the best specialists--and they nearly put an end to me. i returned to the pacific coast to die as near home as possible, and--and there i met you." "and patsy saved your life," added beth. "she did. first, however, maud stanton saved me from drowning. then patsy doyle doctored me and made me well and strong. and now--" "and now you look like a modern hercules," asserted patsy, gazing with some pride at the bronzed cheeks and clear eyes of the former invalid and ignoring his slight proportions. "whatever have you been doing with yourself since then?" "taking a sea voyage," he affirmed. "really?" "an absolute fact. for months i dared not board the _arabella_, my sea yacht, for fear of a return of my old malady; but after you deserted me and came to this--this artificial, dreary, bewildering--" "never mind insulting my birthplace, sir!" "oh! were you born here, patsy? then i'll give the town credit. so, after you deserted me at los angeles--" "you still had mrs. montrose and her nieces, maud and flo stanton." "i know, and i love them all. but they became so tremendously busy that i scarcely saw them, and finally i began to feel lonely. those stanton girls are chock full of business energy and they hadn't the time to devote to me that you people did. so i stood on the shore and looked at the _arabella_ until i mustered up courage to go aboard. surviving that, i made captain carg steam slowly along the coast for a few miles. nothing dreadful happened. so i made a day's voyage, and still ate my three squares a day. that was encouraging." "i knew all the time it wasn't the voyage that wrecked your stomach," said patsy confidently. "what was it, then?" "ptomaine poisoning, or something like that." "well, anyhow, i found i could stand ocean travel again, so i determined on a voyage. the panama canal was just opened and i passed through it, came up the atlantic coast, and--the _arabella_ is at this moment safely anchored in the north river!" "and how do you feel?" inquired uncle john. "glorious--magnificent! the trip has sealed my recovery for good." "but why didn't you go home, to your island of sangoa?" asked beth. he looked at her reproachfully. "_you_ were not there, beth; nor was patsy, or uncle john. on the other hand, there is no one in sangoa who cares a rap whether i come home or not. i'm the last of the joneses of sangoa, and while it is still my island and the entire population is in my employ, the life there flows on just as smoothly without me as if i were present." "but don't they need the ship--the _arabella_?" questioned beth. "not now. i sent a cargo of supplies by captain carg when he made his last voyage to the island, and there will not be enough pearls found in the fisheries for four or five months to come to warrant my shipping them to market. even then, they would keep. so i'm a free lance at present and i had an idea that if i once managed to get the boat around here you folks might find a use for it." "in what way?" inquired patsy, with interest. "we might all make a trip to barbadoes, bermuda and cuba. brazil is said to be an interesting country. i'd prefer europe, were it not for the war." "oh, ajo, isn't this war terrible?" "no other word expresses it. yet it all seems like a fairy tale to me, for i've never been in any other country than the united states since i made my first voyage here from sangoa--the island where my eyes first opened to the world." "it isn't a fairy tale," said beth with a shudder. "it's more like a horrible nightmare." "i can't bear to read about it any more," he returned, musingly. "in fact, i've only been able to catch rumors of the progress of the war in the various ports at which i've touched, and i came right here from my ship. but i've no sympathy with either side. the whole thing annoys me, somehow--the utter uselessness and folly of it all." "maubeuge has fallen," said beth, and went on to give him the latest tidings. finding that the war was the absorbing topic in this little household, the boy developed new interest in it and the morning passed quickly away. jones stayed to lunch and then mr. merrick's automobile took them all to the river to visit the beautiful yacht _arabella_, which was already, they found, attracting a good deal of attention in the harbor, where beautiful yachts are no rarity. the _arabella_ was intended by her builders for deep sea transit and as patsy admiringly declared, "looked like a baby liner." while she was yacht-built in all her lines and fittings, she was far from being merely a pleasure craft, but had been designed by the elder jones, the boy's father, to afford communication between the island of sangoa, in the lower south seas, and the continent of america. sangoa is noted for its remarkable pearl fisheries, which were now owned and controlled entirely by this youth; but his father, an experienced man of affairs, had so thoroughly established the business of production and sale that little remained for his only son and heir to do, more than to invest the profits that steadily accrued and to care for the great fortune left him. whether he was doing this wisely or not no one--not even his closest friends--could tell. but he was frank and friendly about everything else. they went aboard the _arabella_ and were received by that grim and grizzled old salt, captain carg, with the same wooden indifference he always exhibited. but patsy detected a slight twinkle in the shrewd gray eyes that made her feel they were welcome. carg, a seaman of vast experience, was wholly devoted to his young master. indeed, the girls suspected that young jones was a veritable autocrat in his island, as well as aboard his ship. everyone of the sangoans seemed to accept his dictation, however imperative it might be, as a matter of course, and the gray old captain--who had seen much of the world--was not the least subservient to his young master. on the other hand, jones was a gentle and considerate autocrat, unconsciously imitating his lately deceased father in his kindly interest in the welfare of all his dependents. these had formerly been free-born americans, for when the island of sangoa was purchased it had no inhabitants. this fortunate--or perhaps unfortunate--youth had never been blessed with a given name, more than the simple initial "a." the failure of his mother and father to agree upon a baptismal name for their only child had resulted in a deadlock; and, as the family claimed a direct descent from the famous john paul jones, the proud father declared that to be "a jones" was sufficient honor for any boy; hence he should be known merely as "a. jones." the mother called her child by the usual endearing pet names until her death, after which the islanders dubbed the master's son--then toddling around in his first trousers--"ajo," and the name had stuck to him ever since for want of a better one. with the bohemian indifference to household routine so characteristic of new yorkers, the party decided to dine at a down-town restaurant before returning to willing square, and it was during this entertainment that young jones first learned of the expected arrival of maud stanton on the following morning. but he was no wiser than the others as to what mission could have brought the girl to new york so suddenly that a telegram was required to announce her coming. "you see, i left los angeles weeks ago," the boy explained, "and at that time mrs. montrose and her nieces were busy as bees and much too occupied to pay attention to a drone like me. there was no hint then of their coming east, but of course many things may have happened in the meantime." the young fellow was so congenial a companion and the girls were so well aware of his loneliness, through lack of acquaintances, that they carried him home with them to spend the evening. when he finally left them, at a late hour, it was with the promise to be at the station next morning to meet maud stanton on her arrival. chapter ii the arrival of the girl a sweet-faced girl, very attractive but with a sad and anxious expression, descended from the pullman and brightened as she found her friends standing with outstretched arms to greet her. "oh, maud!" cried patsy, usurping the first hug, "how glad i am to see you again!" beth looked in maud stanton's face and forbore to speak as she embraced her friend. then jones shook both hands of the new arrival and uncle john kissed her with the same tenderness he showed his own nieces. this reception seemed to cheer maud stanton immensely. she even smiled during the drive to willing square--a winning, gracious smile that would have caused her to be instantly recognized in almost any community of our vast country; for this beautiful young girl was a famous motion picture actress, possessing qualities that had endeared her to every patron of the better class photo-dramas. at first she had been forced to adopt this occupation by the stern necessity of earning a livelihood, and under the careful guidance of her aunt--mrs. jane montrose, a widow who had at one time been a favorite in new york social circles--maud and her sister florence had applied themselves so intelligently to their art that their compensation had become liberal enough to enable them to save a modest competence. one cause of surprise at maud's sudden journey east was the fact that her services were in eager demand by the managers of the best producing companies on the pacific coast, where nearly all the american pictures are now made. another cause for surprise was that she came alone, leaving her aunt jane and her sister flo--usually her inseparable companion--in los angeles. but they did not question her until the cosy home at willing square was reached, luncheon served and maud installed in the "guest room." then the three girls had "a good, long talk" and presently came trooping into the library to enlighten uncle john and ajo. "oh, uncle! what do you think?" cried patsy. "maud is going to the war!" "the war!" echoed mr. merrick in a bewildered voice. "what on earth can--" "she is going to be a nurse," explained beth, a soft glow of enthusiasm mantling her pretty face. "isn't it splendid, uncle!" "h-m," said uncle john, regarding the girl with wonder. "it is certainly a--a--surprising venture." "but--see here, maud--it's mighty dangerous," protested young jones. "it's a tremendous undertaking, and--what can one girl do in the midst of all those horrors?" maud seated herself quietly between them. her face was grave and thoughtful. "i have had to answer many such arguments before now, as you may suspect," she began in even tones, "but the fact that i am here, well on my journey, is proof that i have convinced my aunt, my sister and all my western friends that i am at least determined on my mission, whether it be wise or foolish. i do not think i shall incur danger by caring for the wounded; the red cross is highly respected everywhere, these days." "the red cross?" quoth uncle john. "yes; i shall wear the red cross," she continued. "you know that i am a trained nurse; it was part of my education before--before--" "i had not known that until now," said mr. merrick, "but i am glad you have had that training. beth began a course at the school here, but i took her away to europe before she graduated. however, i wish more girls could be trained for nursing, as it is a more useful and admirable accomplishment than most of them now acquire." "fox-trots and bunny-hugs, for instance," said patricia with fine disdain. "patsy is a splendid nurse," declared ajo, with a grateful look toward that chubby miss. "but untrained," she answered laughingly. "it was just common sense that enabled me to cure your malady, ajo. i couldn't bandage a cut or a bullet wound to save me." "fortunately," said maud, "i have a diploma which will gain for me the endorsement of the american red cross society. i am counting on that to enable me to get an appointment at the seat of war, where i can be of most use." "where will you go?" asked the boy. "to germany, austria, russia, belgium, or--" "i shall go to france," she replied. "i speak french, but understand little of german, although once i studied the language." "are you fully resolved upon this course, maud?" asked mr. merrick in a tone of regret. "fully decided, sir. i am going to washington to-morrow, to get my credentials, and then i shall take the first steamer to europe." there was no use arguing with maud stanton when she assumed that tone. it was neither obstinate nor defiant, yet it conveyed a quiet resolve that was unanswerable. for a time they sat in silence, musing on the many phases of this curious project; then beth came to mr. merrick's side and asked pleadingly: "may i go with her, uncle?" "great scott!" he exclaimed, with a nervous jump. "_you_, beth?" "yes, uncle. i so long to be of help to those poor fellows who are being so cruelly sacrificed; and i know i can soothe much suffering, if i have the opportunity." he stared at her, not knowing what to reply. this quaint little man was so erratic himself, in his sudden resolves and eccentric actions, that he could scarcely quarrel with his niece for imitating an example he had frequently set. still, he was shrewd enough to comprehend the reckless daring of the proposition. "two unprotected girls in the midst of war and carnage, surrounded by foreigners, inspired to noble sacrifice through ignorance and inexperience, and hardly old enough to travel alone from hoboken to brooklyn! why, the thing's absurd," he said. "quite impractical," added ajo, nodding wisely. "you're both too pretty, my dears, to undertake such an adventure. why, the wounded men would all fall in love with their nurses and follow you back to america in a flock; and that might put a stop to the war for lack of men to fight it." "don't be silly, ajo," said patsy, severely. "i've decided to go with maud and beth, and you know very well that the sight of my freckled face would certainly chill any romance that might arise." "that's nonsense, patsy!" "then you consider me beautiful, uncle john?" "i mean it's nonsense about your going with maud and beth. i won't allow it." "oh, uncle! you know i can twine you around my little finger, if i choose. so don't, for goodness' sake, start a rumpus by trying to set your will against mine." "then side with me, dear. i'm quite right, i assure you." "you're always right, nunkie, dear," she cried, giving him a resounding smack of a kiss on his chubby cheek as she sat on the arm of his chair, "but i'm going with the girls, just the same, and you may as well make up your mind to it." uncle john coughed. he left his chair and trotted up and down the room a moment. then he carefully adjusted his spectacles, took a long look at patsy's face, and heaved a deep sigh of resignation. "thank goodness, that's settled," said patsy cheerfully. uncle john turned to the boy, saying dismally: "i've done everything in my power for these girls, and now they defy me. they've declared a thousand times they love me, and yet they'd trot off to bandage a lot of unknown foreigners and leave me alone to worry my heart out." "why don't you go along?" asked jones. "i'm going." "you!" "of course. i've a suspicion our girls have the right instinct, sir--the tender, womanly instinct that makes us love them. at any rate, i'm going to stand by them. it strikes me as the noblest and grandest idea a girl ever conceived, and if anything could draw me closer to these three young ladies, who had me pretty well snared before, it is this very proposition." "i don't see why," muttered uncle john, wavering. "i'll tell you why, sir. for themselves, they have all the good things of life at their command. they could bask in luxury to the end of their days, if they so desired. yet their wonderful womanly sympathy goes out to the helpless and suffering--the victims of the cruellest war the world has ever known--and they promptly propose to sacrifice their ease and brave whatever dangers may befall, that they may relieve to some extent the pain and agony of those wounded and dying fellow creatures." "foreigners," said uncle john weakly. "human beings," said the boy. patsy marched over to ajo and gave him a sturdy whack upon the back that nearly knocked him over. "the spirit of john paul jones still goes marching on!" she cried. "my boy, you're the right stuff, and i'm glad i doctored you." he smiled, looking from one to another of the three girls questioningly. "then i'm to go along?" he asked. "we shall be grateful," answered maud, after a moment's hesitation. "this is all very sudden to me, for i had planned to go alone." "that wouldn't do at all," asserted uncle john briskly. "i'm astonished and--and grieved--that my nieces should want to go with you, but perhaps the trip will prove interesting. tell me what steamer you want to catch, maud, and i'll reserve rooms for our entire party." "no," said jones, "don't do it, sir." "why not?" "there's the _arabella_. let's use her." "to cross the ocean?" "she has done that before. it will assist our enterprise, i'm sure, to have our own boat. these are troublous times on the high seas." patsy clapped her hands gleefully. "that's it; a hospital ship!" she exclaimed. they regarded her with various expressions: startled, doubtful, admiring, approving. presently, with added thought on the matter, the approval became unanimous. "it's an amazing suggestion," said maud, her eyes sparkling. "think how greatly it will extend our usefulness," said beth. uncle john was again trotting up and down the room, this time in a state of barely repressed excitement. "the very thing!" he cried. "clever, practical, and--eh--eh--tremendously interesting. now, then, listen carefully--all of you! it's up to you, jones, to accompany maud on the night express to washington. get the red cross society to back our scheme and supply us with proper credentials. the _arabella_ must be rated as a hospital ship and our party endorsed as a distinct private branch of the red cross--what they call a 'unit.' i'll give you a letter to our senator and he will look after our passports and all necessary papers. i--i helped elect him, you know. and while you're gone it shall be my business to fit the ship with all the supplies we shall need to promote our mission of mercy." "i'll share the expense," proposed the boy. "no, you won't. you've done enough in furnishing the ship and crew. i'll attend to the rest." "and beth and i will be uncle john's assistants," said patsy. "we shall want heaps of lint and bandages, drugs and liniments and--" "and, above all, a doctor," advised ajo. "one of the mates on my yacht, kelsey by name, is a half-way physician, having studied medicine in his youth and practiced it on the crew for the last dozen years; but what we really need on a hospital ship is a bang-up surgeon." "this promises to become an expensive undertaking," remarked maud, with a sigh. "perhaps it will be better to let me go alone, as i originally expected to do. but, if we take along the hospital ship, do not be extravagant, mr. merrick, in equipping it. i feel that i have been the innocent cause of drawing you all into this venture and i do not want it to prove a hardship to my friends." "all right, maud," returned uncle john, with a cheerful grin, "i'll try to economize, now that you've warned me." ajo smiled and patsy doyle laughed outright. they knew it would not inconvenience the little rich man, in the slightest degree, to fit out a dozen hospital ships. chapter iii the decision of doctor gys uncle john was up bright and early next morning, and directly after breakfast he called upon his old friend and physician, dr. barlow. after explaining the undertaking on which he had embarked, mr. merrick added: "you see, we need a surgeon with us; a clever, keen chap who understands his business thoroughly, a sawbones with all the modern scientific discoveries saturating him to his finger-tips. tell me where to get him." dr. barlow, recovering somewhat from his astonishment, smiled deprecatingly. "the sort of man you describe," said he, "would cost you a fortune, for you would oblige him to abandon a large and lucrative practice in order to accompany you. i doubt, indeed, if any price would tempt him to abandon his patients." "isn't there some young fellow with these requirements?" "mr. merrick, you need a physician and surgeon combined. wounds lead to fever and other serious ailments, which need skillful handling. you might secure a young man, fresh from his clinics, who would prove a good surgeon, but to master the science of medicine, experience and long practice are absolutely necessary." "we've got a half-way medicine man on the ship now--a fellow who has doctored the crew for years and kept 'em pretty healthy. so i guess a surgeon will about fill our bill." "h-m, i know these ship's doctors, mr. merrick, and i wouldn't care to have you and your nieces trust your lives to one, in case you become ill. believe me, a good physician is as necessary to you as a good surgeon. do you know that disease will kill as many of those soldiers as bullets?" "no." "it is true; else the history of wars has taught us nothing. we haven't heard much of plagues and epidemics yet, in the carefully censored reports from london, but it won't be long before disease will devastate whole armies." uncle john frowned. the thing was growing complicated. "do you consider this a wild goose chase, doctor?" he asked. "not with your fortune, your girls and your fine ship to back it. i think miss stanton's idea of venturing abroad unattended, to nurse the wounded, was quixotic in the extreme. some american women are doing it, i know, but i don't approve of it. on the other hand, your present plan is worthy of admiration and applause, for it is eminently practical if properly handled." dr. barlow drummed upon the table with his fingers, musingly. then he looked up. "i wonder," said he, "if gys would go. if you could win him over, he would fill the bill." "who is gys?" inquired uncle john. "an eccentric; a character. but clever and competent. he has just returned from yucatan, where he accompanied an expedition of exploration sent out by the geographical society--and, by the way, nearly lost his life in the venture. before that, he made a trip to the frozen north with a rescue party. between times, he works in the hospitals, or acts as consulting surgeon with men of greater fame than he has won; but gys is a rolling stone, erratic and whimsical, and with all his talent can never settle down to a steady practice." "seems like the very man i want," said uncle john, much interested. "where can i find him?" "i've no idea. but i'll call up collins and inquire." he took up the telephone receiver and got his number. "collins? say, i'm anxious to find gys. have you any idea--eh? sitting with you now? how lucky. ask him if he will come to my office at once; it's important." uncle john's face was beaming with satisfaction. the doctor waited, the receiver at his ear. "what's that, collins?... he won't come?... why not?... absurd!... i've a fine proposition for him.... eh? he isn't interested in propositions? what in thunder _is_ he interested in?... pshaw! hold the phone a minute." turning to mr. merrick, he said: "gys wants to go on a fishing trip. he plans to start to-night for the maine woods. but i've an idea if you could get him face to face you might convince him." "see if he'll stay where he is till i can get there." the doctor turned to the telephone and asked the question. there was a long pause. gys wanted to know who it was that proposed to visit him. john merrick, the retired millionaire? all right; gys would wait in collins' office for twenty minutes. uncle john lost no time in rushing to his motor car, where he ordered the driver to hasten to the address dr. barlow had given him. the offices of dr. collins were impressive. mr. merrick entered a luxurious reception room and gave his name to a businesslike young woman who advanced to meet him. he had called to see dr. gys. the young woman smothered a smile that crept to her lips, and led uncle john through an examination room and an operating room--both vacant just now--and so into a laboratory that was calculated to give a well person the shivers. here was but one individual, a man in his shirt-sleeves who was smoking a corncob pipe and bending over a test tube. uncle john coughed to announce his presence, for the woman had slipped away as she closed the door. the man's back was turned partially toward his visitor. he did not alter his position as he said: "sit down. there's a chair in the southwest corner." uncle john found the chair. he waited patiently a few moments and then his choler began to rise. "if you're in such a blamed hurry to go fishing, why don't you get rid of me now?" he asked. the shoulders shook gently and there was a chuckling laugh. the man laid down his test tube and swung around on his stool. for a moment mr. merrick recoiled. the face was seared with livid scars, the nose crushed to one side, the mouth crooked and set in a sneering grin. one eye was nearly closed and the other round and wide open. a more forbidding and ghastly countenance mr. merrick had never beheld and in his surprise he muttered a low exclamation. "exactly," said gys, his voice quiet and pleasant. "i don't blame you and i'm not offended. do you wonder i hesitate to meet strangers?" "i--i was not--prepared," stammered uncle john. "that was barlow's fault. he knows me and should have told you. and now i'll tell you why i consented to see you. no! never mind your own proposition, whatever it is. listen to mine first. i want to go fishing, and i haven't the money. none of my brother physicians will lend me another sou, for i owe them all. you are john merrick, to whom money is of little consequence. may i venture to ask you for an advance of a couple of hundred for a few weeks? when i return i'll take up your proposition, whatever it may be, and recompense you in services." he refilled and relighted the corncob while mr. merrick stared at him in thoughtful silence. as a matter of fact, uncle john was pleased with the fellow. a whimsical, irrational, unconventional appeal of this sort went straight to his heart, for the queer little man hated the commonplace most cordially. "i'll give you the money on one condition," he said. "i object to the condition," said gys firmly. "conditions are dangerous." "my proposition," went on uncle john, "won't wait for weeks. when you hear it, if you are not anxious to take it up, i don't want you. indeed, i'm not sure i want you, anyhow." "ah; you're frightened by my features. most people with propositions are. i'm an unlucky dog, sir. they say it's good luck to touch a hunchback; to touch me is the reverse. way up north in a frozen sea a poor fellow went overboard. i didn't get him and he drowned; but i got caught between two cakes of floating ice that jammed my nose out of its former perfect contour. in yucatan i tumbled into a hedge of poisoned cactus and had to operate on myself--quickly, too--to save my life. wild with pain, i slashed my face to get the poisoned tips of thorn out of the flesh. parts of my body are like my face, but fortunately i can cover them. it was bad surgery. on another i could have operated without leaving a scar, but i was frantic with pain. don't stare at that big eye, sir; it's glass. i lost that optic in pernambuco and couldn't find a glass substitute to fit my face. indeed, this was the only one in town, made for a fat spanish lady who turned it down because it was not exactly the right color." "you certainly have been--eh--unfortunate," murmured uncle john. "see here," said gys, taking a leather book from an inside pocket of the coat that hung on a peg beside him, and proceeding to open it. "here is a photograph of me, taken before i embarked upon my adventures." uncle john put on his glasses and examined the photograph curiously. it was a fine face, clean-cut, manly and expressive. the eyes were especially frank and winning. "how old were you then?" he asked. "twenty-four." "and now?" "thirty-eight. a good deal happened in that fourteen years, as you may guess. and now," reaching for the photograph and putting it carefully back in the book, "state your proposition and i'll listen to it, because you have listened so patiently to me." mr. merrick in simple words explained the plan to take a hospital ship to europe, relating the incidents that led up to the enterprise and urging the need of prompt action. his voice dwelt tenderly on his girls and the loyal support of young jones. dr. gys smoked and listened silently. then he picked up the telephone and called a number. "tell hawkins i've abandoned that fishing trip," he said. "i've got another job." then he faced mr. merrick. his smile was not pretty, but it was a smile. "that's my answer, sir." "but we haven't talked salary yet." "bother the salary. i'm not mercenary." "and i'm not sure--" "yes, you are. i'm going with you. do you know why?" "it's a novel project, very appealing from a humanitarian standpoint and--" "i hadn't thought of that. i'm going because you're headed for the biggest war the world has ever known; because i foresee danger ahead, for all of us; but mainly because--" "well?" "because i'm a coward--a natural born coward--and i can have a lot of fun forcing myself to face the shell and shrapnel. that's the truth; i'm not a liar. and for a long time i've been wondering--wondering--" his voice died away in a murmur. "well, sir?" dr. gys roused himself. "oh; do you want a full confession? for a long time, then, i've been wondering what's the easiest way for a man to die. no, i'm not morbid. i'm simply ruined, physically, for the practice of a profession i love, a profession i have fully mastered, and--i'll be happier when i can shake off this horrible envelope of disfigurement." chapter iv the hospital ship the energy of doctor gys was marvelous. he knew exactly what supplies would be needed to fit the _arabella_ thoroughly for her important mission, and with unlimited funds at his command to foot the bills, he quickly converted the handsome yacht into a model hospital ship. gys from the first developed a liking for kelsey, the mate, whom he found a valuable assistant, and the two came to understand each other perfectly. kelsey was a quiet man, more thoughtful than experienced in medical matters, but his common sense often guided him aright when his technical knowledge was at fault. captain carg accepted the novel conditions thrust upon him, without a word of protest. he might secretly resent the uses to which his ship was being put, but his young master's commands were law and his duty was to obey. the same feeling prevailed among the other members of the crew, all of whom were sangoans. in three days jones and maud stanton returned from washington. they were jubilant over their success. "we've secured everything we wanted," the boy told uncle john, beth and patsy, with evident enthusiasm. "not only have we the full sanction of the american red cross society, but i have letters to the different branches in the war zone, asking for us every consideration. not only that, but your senator proved himself a brick. what do you think? here's a letter from our secretary of state--another from the french charge d'affairs--half a dozen from prominent ambassadors of other countries! we've a free field in all europe, practically, that will enable us to work to the best advantage." "it's wonderful!" cried patsy. "mr. merrick is so well known as a philanthropist that his name was a magic talisman for us," said maud. "moreover, our enterprise commands the sympathy of everyone. we had numerous offers of financial assistance, too." "i hope you didn't accept them," said uncle john nervously. "no," answered the boy, "i claimed this expedition to be our private and individual property. we can now do as we please, being under no obligations to any but ourselves." "that's right," said uncle john. "we don't want to be hampered by the necessity of advising with others." "by the way, have you found a doctor?" "yes." "a good one?" asked maud quickly. "highly recommended, but homely as a rail fence," continued patsy, as her uncle hesitated. "that's nothing," said ajo lightly. "nothing, eh? well, wait till you see him," she replied. "you'll never look doctor gys in the face more than once, i assure you. after that, you'll be glad to keep your eyes on his vest buttons." "i like him immensely, though," said beth. "he is clever, honest and earnest. the poor man can't help his mutilations, which are the result of many unfortunate adventures." "sounds like just the man we wanted," declared ajo, and afterward he had no reason to recall that assertion. a week is a small time in which to equip a big ship, but money and energy can accomplish much and the news from the seat of war was so eventful that they felt every moment to be precious and so they worked with feverish haste. the tide of german success had turned and their great army, from paris to vitry, was now in full retreat, fighting every inch of the way and leaving thousands of dead and wounded in its wake. "how long will it take us to reach calais?" they asked captain carg eagerly. "eight or nine days," said he. "we are not as fast as the big passenger steamers," explained young jones, "but with good weather the _arabella_ may be depended upon to make the trip in good shape and fair time." on the nineteenth of september, fully equipped and with her papers in order, the beautiful yacht left her anchorage and began her voyage. the weather proved exceptionally favorable. during the voyage the girls busied themselves preparing their modest uniforms and pumping dr. gys for all sorts of information, from scratches to amputations. he gave them much practical and therefore valuable advice to guide them in whatever emergencies might arise, and this was conveyed in the whimsical, half humorous manner that seemed characteristic of him. at first gys had shrunk involuntarily from facing this bevy of young girls, but they had so frankly ignored his physical blemishes and exhibited so true a comradeship to all concerned in the expedition, that the doctor soon felt perfectly at ease in their society. during the evenings he gave them practical demonstrations of the application of tourniquets, bandages and the like, while uncle john and ajo by turns posed as wounded soldiers. gys was extraordinarily deft in all his manipulations and although maud stanton was a graduate nurse--with little experience, however--and beth de graf had studied the art for a year or more, it was patsy doyle who showed the most dexterity in assisting the doctor on these occasions. "i don't know whether i'll faint at the sight of real blood," she said, "but i shall know pretty well what to do if i can keep my nerve." the application of anaesthetics was another thing fully explained by gys, but this could not be demonstrated. patsy, however, was taught the use of the hypodermic needle, which maud and beth quite understood. "we've a big stock of morphia, in its various forms," said the doctor, "and i expect it to prove of tremendous value in comforting our patients." "i'm not sure i approve the use of that drug," remarked uncle john. "but think of the suffering we can allay by its use," exclaimed maud. "if ever morphia is justifiable, it is in war, where it can save many a life by conquering unendurable pain. i believe the discovery of morphine was the greatest blessing that humanity has ever enjoyed. don't you, doctor gys?" the one good eye of gys had a queer way of twinkling when he was amused. it twinkled as the girl asked this question. "morphine," he replied, "has destroyed more people than it has saved. you play with fire when you feed it to anyone, under any circumstances. nevertheless, i believe in its value on an expedition of this sort, and that is why i loaded up on the stuff. let me advise you never to tell a patient that we are administering morphine. the result is all that he is concerned with and it is better he should not know what has relieved him." on a sunny day when the sea was calm they slung a scaffold over the bow and painted a big red cross on either side of the white ship. everyone aboard wore the red cross emblem on an arm band, even the sailors being so decorated. uncle john was very proud of the insignia and loved to watch his girls moving around the deck in their sober uniforms and white caps. jones endured the voyage splendidly and by this time had convinced himself that he was not again to be subject to the mal-de-mer of his first ocean trip. as they drew near to their destination an atmosphere of subdued excitement pervaded the _arabella_, for even the sailors had caught the infection of the girls' eagerness and were anxious to get into action at the earliest moment. it was now that uncle john began to busy himself with his especial prize, a huge motor ambulance he had purchased in new york and which had been fully equipped for the requirements of war. indeed, an enterprising manufacturer had prepared it with the expectation that some of the belligerent governments would purchase it, and mr. merrick considered himself fortunate in securing it. it would accommodate six seriously wounded, on swinging beds, and twelve others, slightly wounded, who might be able to sit upon cushioned seats. the motor was very powerful and the driver was protected from stray bullets by an armored hood. in addition to this splendid machine, mr. merrick had secured a smaller ambulance that had not the advantage of the swinging beds but could be rushed more swiftly to any desired location. both ambulances were decorated on all sides with the emblem of the red cross and would be invaluable in bringing the wounded to the _arabella_. the ship carried a couple of small motor launches for connecting the shore with her anchorage. they had purposely brought no chauffeurs with them, as uncle john believed foreign drivers, who were thoroughly acquainted with the country, would prove more useful than the american variety, and from experience he knew that a french chauffeur is the king of his profession. during the last days of the voyage mr. merrick busied himself in carefully inspecting every detail of his precious vehicles and explaining their operation to everyone on board. even the girls would be able to run an ambulance on occasion, and the boy developed quite a mechanical talent in mastering the machines. "i feel," said young jones, "that i have had a rather insignificant part in preparing this expedition, for all i have furnished--aside from the boat itself--consists of two lots of luxuries that may or may not be needed." "and what may they be?" asked dr. gys, who was standing in the group beside him. "thermos flasks and cigarettes." "cigarettes!" exclaimed beth, in horror. the doctor nodded approvingly. "capital!" said he. "next to our anodynes and anaesthetics, nothing will prove so comforting to the wounded as cigarettes. they are supplied by nurses in all the hospitals in europe. how many did you bring?" "ten cases of about twenty-five thousand each." "a quarter of a million cigarettes!" gasped beth. "too few," asserted the doctor in a tone of raillery, "but we'll make them go as far as possible. and the thermos cases are also valuable. cool water to parched lips means a glimpse of heaven. hot coffee will save many from exhaustion. you've done well, my boy." chapter v nearing the fray on september twenty-eighth they entered the english channel and were promptly signalled by a british warship, so they were obliged to lay to while a party of officers came aboard. the _arabella_ was flying the american flag and the red cross flag, but the english officer courteously but firmly persisted in searching the ship. what he found seemed to interest him, as did the papers and credentials presented for his perusal. "and which side have you come to assist?" he asked. "no side at all, sir," replied jones, as master of the _arabella_. "the wounded, the sick and helpless, whatever uniform they chance to wear, will receive our best attention. but we are bound for calais and intend to follow the french army." the officer nodded gravely. "of course," said he, "you are aware that the channel is full of mines and that progress is dangerous unless you have our maps to guide you. i will furnish your pilot with a diagram, provided you agree to keep our secret and deliver the diagram to the english officer you will meet at calais." they agreed to this and after the formalities were concluded the officer prepared to depart. "i must congratulate you," he remarked on leaving, "on having the best equipped hospital ship it has been my fortune to see. there are many in the service, as you know, but the boats are often mere tubs and the fittings of the simplest description. the wounded who come under your care will indeed be fortunate. it is wonderful to realize that you have come all the way from america, and at so great an expense, to help the victims of this sad war. for the allies i thank you, and--good-bye!" they remembered this kindly officer long afterward, for he proved more generous than many of the english they met. captain carg now steamed ahead, watching his chart carefully to avoid the fields of mines, but within two hours he was again hailed, this time by an armored cruiser. the first officer having vised the ship's papers, they were spared the delay of another search and after a brief examination were allowed to proceed. they found the channel well patrolled by war craft and no sooner had they lost sight of one, than another quickly appeared. at cherbourg a french dreadnaught halted them and an officer came aboard to give them a new chart of the mine fields between there and calais and full instructions how to proceed safely. this officer, who spoke excellent english, asked a thousand questions and seemed grateful for their charitable assistance to his countrymen. "you have chosen a dangerous post," said he, "but the red cross is respected everywhere--even by the germans. have you heard the latest news? we have driven them back to the aisne and are holding the enemy well in check. antwerp is under siege, to be sure, but it can hold out indefinitely. the fighting will be all in belgium soon, and then in germany. our watchword is 'on to berlin!'" "perhaps we ought to proceed directly to ostend," said uncle john. "the germans still hold it, monsieur. in a few days, perhaps, when belgium is free of the invaders, you will find work enough to occupy you at ostend; but i advise you not to attempt to go there now." in spite of the friendly attitude of this officer and of the authorities at cherbourg, they were detained at this port for several days before finally receiving permission to proceed. the delay was galling but had to be endured until the infinite maze of red tape was at an end. they reached calais in the early evening and just managed to secure an anchorage among the fleet of warships in the harbor. again they were obliged to show their papers and passports, now vised by representatives of both the english and french navies, but this formality being over they were given a cordial welcome. uncle john and ajo decided to go ashore for the latest news and arrived in the city between nine and ten o'clock that same evening. they found calais in a state of intense excitement. the streets were filled with british and french soldiery, with whom were mingled groups of citizens, all eagerly discussing the war and casting uneasy glances at the black sky overhead for signs of the dreaded german zeppelins. "how about antwerp?" jones asked an englishman they found in the lobby of one of the overcrowded hotels. the man turned to stare at him; he looked his questioner up and down with such insolence that the boy's fists involuntarily doubled; then he turned his back and walked away. a bystander laughed with amusement. he also was an englishman, but wore the uniform of a subaltern. "what can you expect, without a formal introduction?" he asked young jones. "but i'll answer your question, sir; antwerp is doomed." "oh; do you really think so?" inquired uncle john uneasily. "it's a certainty, although i hate to admit it. we at the rear are not very well posted on what is taking place over in belgium, but it's said the bombardment of antwerp began yesterday and it's impossible for the place to hold out for long. perhaps even now the city has fallen under the terrific bombardment." there was something thrilling in the suggestion. "and then?" asked jones, almost breathlessly. the man gave a typical british shrug. "then we fellows will find work to do," he replied. "but it is better to fight than to eat our hearts out by watching and waiting. we're the reserves, you know, and we've hardly smelled powder yet." after conversing with several of the soldiers and civilians--the latter being mostly too unnerved to talk coherently--the americans made their way back to the quay with heavy hearts. they threaded lanes filled with sobbing women, many of whom had frightened children clinging to their skirts, passed groups of old men and boys who were visibly trembling with trepidation and stood aside for ranks of brisk soldiery who marched with an alertness that was in strong contrast with the terrified attitude of the citizens. there was war in the air--fierce, relentless war in every word and action they encountered--and it had the effect of depressing the newcomers. that night an earnest conference was held aboard the _arabella_. "as i understand it, here is the gist of the situation," began ajo. "the line of battle along the aisne is stationary--for the present, at least. both sides are firmly entrenched and it's going to be a long, hard fight. antwerp is being bombarded, and although it's a powerful fortress, the general opinion is that it can't hold out for long. if it falls, there will be a rush of germans down this coast, first to capture dunkirk, a few miles above here, and then calais itself." "in other words," continued uncle john, "this is likely to be the most important battleground for the next few weeks. now, the question to decide is this: shall we disembark our ambulances and run them across to arras, beginning our work behind the french trenches, or go on to dunkirk, where we are likely to plunge into the thickest of the war? we're not fighters, you know, but noncombatants, bent on an errand of mercy. there are wounded everywhere." they considered this for a long time without reaching a decision, for there were some in the party to argue on either side of the question. uncle john continued to favor the trenches, as the safest position for his girls to work; but the girls themselves, realizing little of the dangers to be encountered, preferred to follow the fortunes of the belgians. "they've been so brave and noble, these people of belgium," said beth, "that i would take more pleasure in helping them than any other branch of the allied armies." "but, my dear, there's a mere handful of them left," protested her uncle. "i'm told that at dunkirk there is still a remnant of the belgian army--very badly equipped--but most of the remaining force is with king albert in antwerp. if the place falls they will either be made prisoners by the germans or they may escape into holland, where their fighting days will be ended for the rest of the war. however, there is no need to decide this important question to-night. to-morrow i am to see the french commandant and i will get his advice." the interview with the french commandant of calais, which was readily accorded the americans, proved very unsatisfactory. the general had just received reports that antwerp was in flames and the greater part of the city already demolished by the huge forty-two-centimetre guns of the germans. the fate of king albert's army was worrying him exceedingly and he was therefore in little mood for conversation. the american consul could do little to assist them. after the matter was explained to him, he said: "i advise you to wait a few days for your decision. perhaps a day--an hour--will change the whole angle of the war. strange portents are in the air; no one knows what will happen next. come to me, from time to time, and i will give you all the information i secure." dr. gys had accompanied jones and mr. merrick into calais to-day, and while he had little to say during the various interviews his observations were shrewd and comprehensive. when they returned to the deck of the _arabella_, gys said to the girls: "there is nothing worth while for us to do here. the only wounded i saw were a few frenchmen parading their bandaged heads and hands for the admiration of the women. the hospitals are well organized and quite full, it is true, but i'm told that no more wounded are being sent here. the sisters of mercy and the regular french red cross force seem very competent to handle the situation, and there are two government hospital ships already anchored in this port. we would only be butting in to offer our services. but down the line, from arras south, there is real war in the trenches and many are falling every day. arras is less than fifty miles from here--a two or three hours' run for our ambulances--and we could bring the wounded here and care for them as we originally intended." "fifty miles is a long distance for a wounded man to travel," objected maud. "true," said the doctor, "but the roads are excellent." "remember those swinging cots," said ajo. "we might try it," said patsy, anxious to be doing something. "couldn't we start to-morrow for arras, uncle?" "it occurs to me that we must first find a chauffeur," answered mr. merrick, "and from my impressions of the inhabitants of calais, that will prove a difficult task." "why?" "every man jack of 'em is scared stiff," said ajo, with a laugh. "but we might ask the commandant to recommend someone. the old boy seems friendly enough." the next day, however, brought important news from antwerp. the city had surrendered, the belgian army had made good its escape and was now retreating toward ostend, closely followed by the enemy. this news was related by a young orderly who met them as they entered the hotel de ville. they were also told that the commandant was very busy but would try to see them presently. this young frenchman spoke english perfectly and was much excited by the morning's dispatches. "this means that the war is headed our way at last!" he cried enthusiastically. "the germans will make a dash to capture both dunkirk and calais, and already large bodies of reinforcements are on the way to defend these cities." "english, or french?" asked uncle john. "this is french territory," was the embarrassed reply, "but we are glad to have our allies, the english, to support us. their general french is now at dunkirk, and it is probable the english will join the french and belgians at that point." "they didn't do much good at antwerp, it seems," remarked ajo. "ah, they were naval reserves, monsieur, and not much could be expected of them. but do not misunderstand me; i admire the english private--the fighting man--exceedingly. were the officers as clever as their soldiers are brave, the english would be irresistible." as this seemed a difficult subject to discuss, uncle john asked the orderly if he knew of a good chauffeur to drive their ambulance--an able, careful man who might be depended upon in emergencies. the orderly reflected. "we have already impressed the best drivers," he said, "but it may be the general will consent to spare you one of them. your work is so important that we must take good care of you." but when they were admitted to the general they found him in a more impatient mood than before. he really could not undertake to direct red cross workers or advise them. they were needed everywhere; everywhere they would be welcome. and now, he regretted to state that he was very busy; if they had other business with the department, captain meroux would act as its representative. before accepting this dismissal uncle john ventured to ask about a chauffeur. rather brusquely the general stated that they could ill afford to spare one from the service. a desperate situation now faced the allies in flanders. captain meroux must take care of the americans; doubtless he could find a driver for their ambulance--perhaps a belgian. but in the outer office the orderly smiled doubtfully. a driver? to be sure; but such as he could furnish would not be of the slightest use to them. all the good chauffeurs had been impressed and the general was not disposed to let them have one. "he mentioned a belgian," suggested uncle john. "i know; but the belgians in calais are all fugitives, terror-stricken and unmanned." he grew thoughtful a moment and then continued: "my advice would be to take your ship to dunkirk. it is only a little way, through a good channel, and you will be as safe there as at calais. for, if dunkirk falls, calais will fall with it. from there, moreover, the roads are better to arras and peronne, and it is there you stand the best chance of getting a clever belgian chauffeur. if you wish--" he hesitated, looking at them keenly. "well, sir?" "if you are really anxious to get to the firing line and do the most good, dunkirk is your logical station. if you are merely seeking the notoriety of being charitably inclined, remain here." they left the young man, reflecting upon his advice and gravely considering its value. they next visited one of the hospitals, where an overworked but friendly english surgeon volunteered a similar suggestion. dunkirk, he declared, would give them better opportunities than calais. the remainder of the day they spent in getting whatever news had filtered into the city and vainly seeking a competent man for chauffeur. on the morning of october eleventh they left calais and proceeded slowly along the buoyed channel that is the only means of approaching the port of dunkirk by water. the coast line is too shallow to allow ships to enter from the open sea. on their arrival at the flemish city--twelve miles nearer the front than calais--they found an entirely different atmosphere. no excitement, no terror was visible anywhere. the people quietly pursued their accustomed avocations and the city was as orderly as in normal times. the town was full of belgians, however, both soldiers and civilians, while french and british troops were arriving hourly in regiments and battalions. general french, the english commander in chief, had located his headquarters at a prominent hotel, and a brisk and businesslike air pervaded the place, with an entire lack of confusion. most of the belgians were reservists who were waiting to secure uniforms and arms. they crowded all the hotels, cafã©s and inns and seemed as merry and light-hearted as if no news of their king's defeat and precipitate retreat had arrived. not until questioned would they discuss the war at all, yet every man was on the _qui vive_, expecting hourly to hear the roar of guns announcing the arrival of the fragment of the belgian army that had escaped from antwerp. to-day the girls came ashore with the men of their party, all three wearing their red cross uniforms and caps, and it was almost pathetic to note the deference with which all those warriors--both bronzed and fair--removed their caps until the "angels of mercy" had passed them by. they made the rounds of the hospitals, which were already crowded with wounded, and gys stopped at one long enough to assist the french doctor in a delicate operation. patsy stood by to watch this surgery, her face white and drawn, for this was her first experience of the sort; but maud and beth volunteered their services and were so calm and deft that doctor gys was well pleased with them. chapter vi little maurie it was nearly evening when the americans finally returned to the quay, close to which the _arabella_ was moored. as they neared the place a great military automobile came tearing along, scattering pedestrians right and left, made a sudden swerve, caught a man who was not agile enough to escape and sent him spinning along the dock until he fell headlong, a crumpled heap. "ah, here is work for us!" exclaimed doctor gys, running forward to raise the man and examine his condition. the military car had not paused in its career and was well out of sight, but a throng of indignant civilians gathered around. "there are no severe injuries, but he seems unconscious," reported gys. "let us get him aboard the ship." the launch was waiting for them, and with the assistance of jones, the doctor placed the injured man in the boat and he was taken to the ship and placed in one of the hospital berths. "our first patient is not a soldier, after all," remarked patsy, a little disappointed. "i shall let beth and maud look after him." "well, he is wounded, all right," answered ajo, "and without your kind permission beth and maud are already below, looking after him. i'm afraid he won't require their services long, poor fellow." "why didn't he get out of the way?" inquired patsy with a shudder. "can't say. preoccupied, perhaps. there wasn't much time to jump, anyhow. i suppose that car carried a messenger with important news, for it isn't like those officers to be reckless of the lives of citizens." "no; they seem in perfect sympathy with the people," she returned. "i wonder what the news can be, ajo." for answer a wild whistling sounded overhead; a cry came from those ashore and the next instant there was a loud explosion. everyone rushed to the side, where captain carg was standing, staring at the sky. "what was it, captain?" gasped patsy. carg stroked his grizzled beard. "a german bomb, miss patsy; but i think it did no damage." "a bomb! then the germans are on us?" "not exactly. an aeroplane dropped the thing." "oh. where is it?" "the aeroplane? pretty high up, i reckon," answered the captain. "i had a glimpse of it, for a moment; then it disappeared in the clouds." "we must get our ambulances ashore," said jones. "no hurry, sir; plenty of time," asserted the captain. "i think i saw the airship floating north, so it isn't likely to bother us again just now." "what place is north of us?" inquired the girl, trembling a little in spite of her efforts at control. "i think it is nieuport--or perhaps dixmude," answered carg. "i visited belgium once, when i was a young man, but i cannot remember it very well. we're pretty close to the belgian border, at dunkirk." "there's another!" cried ajo, as a second whistling shriek sounded above them. this time the bomb fell into the sea and raised a small water-spout, some half mile distant. they could now see plainly a second huge aircraft circling above them; but this also took flight toward the north and presently disappeared. uncle john came hurrying on deck with an anxious face and together the group of americans listened for more bombs; but that was all that came their way that night. "well," said patsy, when she had recovered her equanimity, "we're at the front at last, uncle. how do you like it?" "i hadn't thought of bombs," he replied. "but we're in for it, and i suppose we'll have to take whatever comes." now came the doctor, supporting the injured man on one side while maud stanton held his opposite arm. gys was smiling broadly--a rather ghastly expression. "no bones broken, sir," he reported to mr. merrick. "only a good shake-up and plenty of bruises. he can't be induced to stay in bed." "bed, when the germans come?" exclaimed the invalid, scornfully, speaking in fair english. "it is absurd! we can sleep when we have driven them back to their dirty faderland--we can sleep, then, and rest. now, it is a crime to rest." they looked at him curiously. he was a small man--almost a tiny man--lean and sinewy and with cheeks the color of bronze and eyes the hue of the sky. his head was quite bald at the top; his face wrinkled; he had a bushy mustache and a half-grown beard. his clothing was soiled, torn and neglected; but perhaps his accident accounted for much of its condition. his age might be anywhere from thirty to forty years. he looked alert and shrewd. "you are belgian?" said uncle john. he leaned against the rail, shaking off the doctor's support, as he replied: "yes, monsieur. belgian born and american trained." there was a touch of pride in his voice. "it was in america that i made my fortune." "indeed." "it is true. i was waiter in a new york restaurant for five years. then i retired. i came back to belgium. i married my wife. i bought land. it is near ghent. i am, as you have guessed, a person of great importance." "ah; an officer, perhaps. civil, or military?" inquired ajo with mock deference. "of better rank than either. i am a citizen." "now, i like that spirit," said uncle john approvingly. "what is your name, my good man?" "maurie, monsieur; jakob maurie. perhaps you have met me--in new york." "i do not remember it. but if you live in ghent, why are you in dunkirk?" he cast an indignant glance at his questioner, but uncle john's serene expression disarmed him. "monsieur is not here long?" "we have just arrived." "you cannot see belgium from here. if you are there--in my country--you will find that the german is everywhere. i have my home at brussels crushed by a shell which killed my baby girl. my land is devastate--my crop is taken to feed german horse and german thief. there is no home left. so my wife and my boy and girl i take away; i take them to ostend, where i hope to get ship to england. at ostend i am arrested by germans. not my wife and children; only myself. i am put in prison. for three weeks they keep me, and then i am put out. they push me into the street. no one apologize. i ask for my family. they laugh and turn away. i search everywhere for my wife. a friend whom i meet thinks she has gone to ypres, for now no belgian can take ship from ostend to england. so i go to ypres. the wandering people have all been sent to nieuport and dunkirk. still i search. my wife is not in nieuport. i come here, three days ago; i cannot find her in dunkirk; she has vanished. perhaps--but i will not trouble you with that. this is my story, ladies and gentlemen. behold in me--a wealthy landowner of liege--the outcast from home and country!" "it is dreadful!" cried patsy. "it is fierce," said the man. "only an american can understand the horror of that word." "your fate is surely a cruel one, maurie," declared mr. merrick. "perhaps," ventured beth, "we may help you to find your wife and children." the belgian seemed pleased with these expressions of sympathy. he straightened up, threw out his chest and bowed very low. "that is my story," he repeated; "but you must know it is also the story of thousands of belgians. always i meet men searching for wives. always i meet wives searching for husbands. well! it is our fate--the fate of conquered belgium." maud brought him a deck chair and made him sit down. "you will stay here to-night," she said. "that's right," said dr. gys. "he can't resume his search until morning, that's certain. such a tumble as he had would have killed an ordinary man; but the fellow seems made of iron." "to be a waiter--a good waiter--develops the muscles," said maurie. ajo gave him a cigarette, which he accepted eagerly. after a few puffs he said: "i heard the german bombs. that means the enemy grows insolent. first they try to frighten us with bombs, then they attack." "how far away do you think the germans are?" asked beth. "nieuport les bains. but they will get no nearer." "no?" "surely not, mamselle. our soldiers are there, awaiting them. our soldiers, and the french." "and you think the enemy cannot capture dunkirk?" inquired jones. "dunkirk! the germans capture dunkirk? it is impossible." "why impossible?" "dunkirk is fortified; it is the entrance to calais, to dover and london. look you, m'sieur; we cannot afford to lose this place. we cannot afford to lose even nieuport, which is our last stand on belgian soil. therefore, the germans cannot take it, for there are still too many of us to kill before kitchener comes to save us." he spoke thoughtfully, between puffs of his cigarette, and added: "but of course, if the great english army does not come, and they kill us all, then it will not matter in the least what becomes of our country." maurie's assertion did not wholly reassure them. the little belgian was too bombastic to win their confidence in his judgment. yet jones declared that maurie doubtless knew the country better than anyone they had yet met and the doctor likewise defended his patient. indeed, gys seemed to have taken quite a fancy to the little man and long after the others had retired for the night he sat on deck talking with the belgian and getting his views of the war. "you say you had land at ghent?" he once asked. "it is true, doctor." "but afterward you said brussels." maurie was not at all confused. "ah; i may have done so. you see, i traded my property." "and, if i am not mistaken, you spoke of a home at liege." maurie looked at him reproachfully. "is there not much land in belgium?" he demanded; "and is a rich man confined to one home? liege was my summer home; in the winter i removed to antwerp." "you said ghent." "ghent it was, doctor. misfortune has dulled my brain. i am not the man i was," he added with a sigh. "nevertheless," said gys, "you still possess the qualities of a good waiter. whatever happens here, maurie, you can always go back to america." chapter vii on the firing line next morning they were all wakened at an early hour by the roar of artillery, dimly heard in the distance. the party aboard the _arabella_ quickly assembled on deck, where little maurie was found leaning over the rail. "they're at it," he remarked, wagging his head. "the germans are at nieuport, now, and some of them are over against pervyse. i hear sounds from dixmude, too; the rattle of machine guns. it will be a grand battle, this! i wonder if our albert is there." "who is he?" asked patsy. "the king. they told me yesterday he had escaped." "we must get the ambulances out at once," said beth. "i'll attend to that," replied uncle john, partaking of the general excitement. "warp up to the dock, captain carg, and i'll get some of those men to help us swing the cars over the side." "how about a chauffeur?" asked dr. gys, who was already bringing out bandages and supplies for the ambulances. "if we can't find a man, i'll drive you myself," declared ajo. "but you don't know the country." gys turned to the little belgian. "can't you find us a driver?" he asked. "we want a steady, competent man to run our ambulance." "where are you going?" asked maurie. "to the firing line." "good. i will drive you myself." "you? do you understand a car?" "i am an expert, monsieur." "a waiter in a restaurant?" "pah! that was five years ago. i will show you. i can drive any car ever made--and i know every inch of the way." "then you're our man," exclaimed mr. merrick, much relieved. as the yacht swung slowly alongside the dock the belgian said: "while you get ready, i will go ashore for news. when i come back--very quick--then i will know everything." before he ran down the ladder patsy clasped around his arm a band bearing the insignia of the red cross. he watched her approvingly, with little amused chuckles, and then quickly disappeared in the direction of the town. "he doesn't seem injured in the least by his accident," said the girl, looking after him as he darted along. "no," returned gys; "he is one of those fellows who must be ripped to pieces before they can feel anything. but let us thank heaven he can drive a car." mr. merrick had no difficulty in getting all the assistance required to lower the two ambulances to the dock. they had already been set up and put in order, so the moment they were landed they were ready for use. a few surgical supplies were added by dr. gys and then they looked around for the belgian. although scarce an hour had elapsed since he departed, he came running back just as he was needed, puffing a little through haste, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. "albert is there!" he cried. "the king and his army are at nieuport. they will open the dykes and flood all the country but the main road, and then we can hold the enemy in check. they will fight, those germans, but they cannot advance, for we will defend the road and the sand dunes." "aren't they fighting now?" asked jones. "oh, yes, some of the big guns are spitting, but what is that? a few will fall, but we have yet thousands to face the german horde." "let us start at once," pleaded maud. maurie began to examine the big ambulance. he was spry as a cat. in ten minutes he knew all that was under the hood, had tested the levers, looked at the oil and gasoline supply and started the motor. "i'll sit beside you to help in case of emergency," said ajo, taking his place. dr. gys, dr. kelsey and the three girls sat inside. patsy had implored uncle john not to go on this preliminary expedition and he had hesitated until the last moment; but the temptation was too strong to resist and even as the wheels started to revolve he sprang in and closed the door behind him. "you are my girls," he said, "and wherever you go, i'll tag along." maurie drove straight into the city and to the north gate, jones clanging the bell as they swept along. every vehicle gave them the right of way and now and then a cheer greeted the glittering new red cross ambulance, which bore above its radiator a tiny, fluttering american flag. they were not stopped at the gate, for although strict orders had been issued to allow no one to leave dunkirk, the officer in charge realized the sacred mission of the americans and merely doffed his cap in salutation as the car flashed by. the road to furnes was fairly clear, but as they entered that town they found the streets cluttered with troops, military automobiles, supply wagons, artillery, ammunition trucks and bicycles. the boy clanged his bell continuously and as if by magic the way opened before the red cross and cheers followed them on their way. the eyes of the little belgian were sparkling like jewels; his hands on the steering wheel were steady as a rock; he drove with skill and judgment. just now the road demanded skill, for a stream of refugees was coming toward them from nieuport and a stream of military motors, bicycles and wagons, with now and then a horseman, flowed toward the front. a mile or two beyond furnes they came upon a wounded soldier, one leg bandaged and stained with blood while he hobbled along leaning upon the shoulder of a comrade whose left arm hung helpless. maurie drew up sharply and beth sprang out and approached the soldiers. "get inside," she said in french. "no," replied one, smiling; "we are doing nicely, thank you. hurry forward, for they need you there." "who dressed your wounds?" she inquired. "the red cross. there are many there, hard at work; but more are needed. hurry forward, for some of our boys did not get off as lightly as we." she jumped into the ambulance and away it dashed, but progress became slower presently. the road was broad and high; great hillocks of sand--the dunes--lay between it and the ocean; on the other side the water from the opened dykes was already turning the fields into an inland sea. in some places it lapped the edges of the embankment that formed the roadway. approaching nieuport, they discovered the dunes to be full of soldiers, who had dug pits behind the sandy hillocks for protection, and in them planted the dog-artillery and one or two large machine guns. these were trained on the distant line of germans, who were also entrenching themselves. all along the edge of the village the big guns were in action and there was a constant interchange of shot and shell from both sides. as maurie dodged among the houses with the big car a shell descended some two hundred yards to the left of them, exploded with a crash and sent a shower of brick and splinters high into the air. a little way farther on the ruins of a house completely blocked the street and they were obliged to turn back and seek another passage. thus partially skirting the town they at last left the houses behind them and approached the firing line, halting scarcely a quarter of a mile distant from the actual conflict. as far as the eye could reach, from nieuport to the sea at the left, and on toward ypres at the right of them, the line of belgians, french and british steadily faced the foe. close to where they halted the ambulance stood a detachment that had lately retired from the line, their places having been taken by reserves. one of the officers told mr. merrick that they had been facing bullets since daybreak and the men seemed almost exhausted. their faces were blackened by dust and powder and their uniforms torn and disordered; many stood without caps or coats despite the chill in the air. and yet these fellows were laughing together and chatting as pleasantly as children just released from school. even those who had wounds made light of their hurts. clouds of smoke hovered low in the air; the firing was incessant. our girls were thrilled by this spectacle as they had never been thrilled before--perhaps never might be again. while they still kept their seats, maurie started with a sudden jerk, made a sharp turn and ran the ambulance across a ridge of solid earth that seemed to be the only one of such character amongst all that waste of sand. it brought them somewhat closer to the line but their driver drew up behind a great dune that afforded them considerable protection. fifty yards away was another ambulance with its wheels buried to the hubs in the loose sand. red cross nurses and men wearing the emblem on their arms and caps were passing here and there, assisting the injured with "first aid," temporarily bandaging heads, arms and legs or carrying to the rear upon a stretcher a more seriously injured man. most of this corps were french; a few were english; some were belgian. our friends were the only americans on the field. uncle john's face was very grave as he alighted in the wake of his girls, who paid no attention to the fighting but at once ran to assist some of the wounded who came staggering toward the ambulance, some even creeping painfully on hands and knees. in all mr. merrick's conceptions of the important mission they had undertaken, nothing like the nature of this desperate conflict had even dawned upon him. he had known that the red cross was respected by all belligerents, and that knowledge had led him to feel that his girls would be fairly safe; but never had he counted on spent bullets, stray shells or the mad rush of a charge. "very good!" cried maurie briskly. "here we see what no one else can see. the red cross is a fine passport to the grand stand of war." "come with me--quick!" shouted ajo, his voice sounding shrill through the din. "i saw a fellow knocked out--there--over yonder!" as he spoke he grabbed a stretcher and ran forward, maurie following at his heels. uncle john saw the smoke swallow them up, saw beth and maud each busy with lint, plasters and bandages, saw patsy supporting a tall, grizzled warrior who came limping toward the car. then he turned and saw doctor gys, crouching low against the protecting sand, his disfigured face working convulsively and every limb trembling as with an ague. chapter viii the coward "great heavens!" gasped mr. merrick, running toward the doctor. "are you hit?" gys looked up at him appealingly and nodded. "where did it strike you? was it a bullet--or what?" the doctor wrung his hands, moaning pitifully. uncle john bent over him. "tell me," he said. "tell me, gys!" "i--i'm scared, sir--s-s-scared stiff. it's that yellow s-s-s-streak in me; i--i--can't help it, sir." then he collapsed, crouching lifelessly close to the sand. uncle john was amazed. he drew back with such an expression of scorn that gys, lying with face upward, rolled over to hide his own features in the sand. but his form continued to twist and shake convulsively. patsy came up with her soldier, whose gaudy uniform proclaimed him an officer. he had a rugged, worn face, gray hair and mustache, stern eyes. his left side was torn and bleeding where a piece of shell had raked him from shoulder to knee. no moan did he utter as mr. merrick and the girl assisted him to one of the swinging beds, and then patsy, with white, set face but steady hands, began at once to cut away the clothing and get at the wound. this was her first practical experience and she meant to prove her mettle or perish in the attempt. uncle john skipped over to the sand bank and clutched gys savagely by the collar. "get up!" he commanded. "here's a man desperately wounded, who needs your best skill--and at once." gys pulled himself free and sat up, seeming dazed for the moment. then he rubbed his head briskly with both hands, collected his nerve and slowly rose to his feet. he cast fearful glances at the firing line, but the demand for his surgical skill was a talisman that for a time enabled him to conquer his terror. with frightened backward glances he ran to the ambulance and made a dive into it as if a pack of wolves was at his heels. safely inside, one glance at the wounded man caused gys to stiffen suddenly. he became steady and alert and noting that patsy had now bared a portion of the gaping wound the doctor seized a thermos flask of hot water and in a moment was removing the clotted blood in a deft and intelligent manner. now came jones and maurie bearing the man they had picked up. as they set the stretcher down, uncle john came over. "shall we put him inside?" asked mr. merrick. "no use, i think," panted the belgian. "where's the doctor?" asked ajo. kelsey, who had been busy elsewhere, now approached and looked at the soldier on the stretcher. "the man is dead," he said. "he doesn't need us now." "off with him, then!" cried maurie, and they laid the poor fellow upon the sand and covered him with a cloth. "come, then," urged the little chauffeur, excitedly, "lots more out there are still alive. we get one quick." they left in a run in one direction while kelsey, who had come to the ambulance for supplies, went another way. mr. merrick looked around for the other two girls. only maud stanton was visible through the smoky haze. uncle john approached her just as a shell dropped into the sand not fifty feet away. it did not explode but plowed a deep furrow and sent a shower of sand in every direction. maud had just finished dressing a bullet wound in the arm of a young soldier who smiled as he watched her. then, as she finished the work, he bowed low, muttered his thanks, and catching up his gun rushed back into the fray. it was a flesh wound and until it grew more painful he could still fight. "where are the germans?" asked uncle john. "i haven't seen one yet." as he spoke a great cheer rose from a thousand throats. the line before them wavered an instant and then rushed forward and disappeared in the smoke of battle. "is it a charge, do you think?" asked maud, as they stood peering into the haze. "i--i don't know," he stammered. "this is so--so bewildering--that it all seems like a dream. where's beth?" "i don't know." "are you looking for a young lady--a nurse?" asked a voice beside them. "she's over yonder," he swung one arm toward the distant sand dunes. the other was in a sling. "she has just given me first aid and sent me to the rear--god bless her!" then he trailed on, a british tommy atkins, while with one accord maud and uncle john moved in the direction he had indicated. "she mustn't be so reckless," said beth's uncle, nervously. "it's bad enough back here, but every step nearer the firing line doubles the danger." "i do not agree with you, sir," answered maud quietly. "a man was killed not two paces from me, a little while ago." he shuddered and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, but made no reply. they climbed another line of dunes and in the hollow beyond came upon several fallen soldiers, one of whom was moaning with pain. maud ran to kneel beside him and in a twinkling had her hypodermic needle in his arm. "bear it bravely," she said in french. "the pain will stop in a few minutes and then i'll come and look after you." he nodded gratefully, still moaning, and she hurried to rejoin mr. merrick. "beth must be in the next hollow," said uncle john as she overtook him, and his voice betrayed his nervous tension. "i do wish you girls would not be so reckless." yes; they found her in the next hollow, where several men were grouped about her. she was dressing the shattered hand of a soldier, while two or three others were patiently awaiting her services. just beside her a sweet-faced sister of mercy was bending over a dying man, comforting him with her prayers. over the ridge of sand could be heard the "ping" of small arms mingled with the hoarse roar of machine guns. another great shout--long and enthusiastic--was borne to their ears. "that is good," said a tall man standing in the group about beth; "i think, from the sound, we have captured their guns." "i'm sure of it, your majesty," replied the one whom beth was attending. "there; that will do for the present. i thank you. and now, let us get forward." as they ran toward the firing uncle john exclaimed: "his majesty! i wonder who they are?" "that," said a private soldier, an accent of pride in his voice, "is our albert." "the king?" "yes, monsieur; he is the tall one. the other is general mays. i'm sure we have driven the germans back, and that is lucky, for before our charge they had come too close for comfort." "the king gave me a ring," said beth, displaying it. "he seemed glad i was here to help his soldiers, but warned me to keep further away from the line. king albert speaks english perfectly and told me he loves america better than any other country except his own." "he has traveled in your country," explained the soldier. "but then, our albert has traveled everywhere--before he was king." betwixt them maud and beth quickly applied first aid to the others in the group and then uncle john said: "let us take the king's advice and get back to the ambulance. we left only patsy and dr. gys there and i'm sure you girls will be needed." on their return they came upon a man sitting in a hollow and calmly leaning against a bank of sand, smoking a cigarette. he wore a gray uniform. "ah, a german!" exclaimed maud. she ran up to him and asked: "are you hurt?" he glanced at her uniform, nodded, and pointed to his left foot. it had nearly all been torn away below the ankle. a handkerchief was twisted about the leg, forming a rude tourniquet just above the wound, and this had served to stay the flow of blood. "run quickly for the stretcher," said maud to uncle john. "i will stay with him until your return." without a word he hurried away, beth following. they found, on reaching the ambulance, that maurie and jones had been busy. five of the swinging beds were already occupied. "save the other one," said beth. "maud has found a german." then she hurried to assist patsy, as the two doctors had their hands full. jones and maurie started away with the stretcher, uncle john guiding them to the dunes where maud was waiting, and presently they had the wounded german comfortably laid in the last bed. "now, then, back to the ship," said gys. "we have in our care two lives, at least, that can only be saved by prompt operations." maurie got into the driver's seat. "careful, now!" cautioned jones, beside him. "of course," replied the belgian, starting the motor; "there are many sores inside. but if they get a jolt, now and then, it will serve to remind them that they are suffering for their country." he began to back up, for the sand ahead was too deep for a turn, and the way he managed the huge car along that narrow ridge aroused the admiration of ajo, who alone was able to witness the marvelous performance. slowly, with many turns, they backed to the road, where maurie swung the ambulance around and then stopped with a jerk that drew several groans from the interior of the car. "what's wrong?" asked mr. merrick, sticking his head from a window. "we nearly ran over a man," answered jones, climbing down from his seat. "our front wheels are right against him, but maurie stopped in time." lying flat upon his face, diagonally across the roadway, was the form of a man in the blue-and-red uniform of the belgian army. maurie backed the ambulance a yard or so as maud sprang out and knelt beside the prostrate form. the firing, which had lulled for a few minutes, suddenly redoubled in fury. there rose a wild, exultant shout, gradually drawing nearer. "quick!" shouted gys, trembling and wringing his hands. "the germans are charging. drive on, man--drive on!" but maurie never moved. "the germans are charging, sure enough," he answered, as the line of retreating belgians became visible. "but they must stop here, for we've blocked the road." all eyes but those of maud were now turned upon the fray, which was practically a hand to hand conflict. nearer and nearer came the confused mass of warriors and then, scarce a hundred yards away, it halted and the belgians stood firm. "he isn't dead," said maud, coming to the car. "help me to put him inside." "there is no room," protested gys. the girl looked at him scornfully. "we will make room," she replied. a bullet shattered a pane of glass just beside the crouching doctor, but passed on through an open window without injuring anyone. in fact, bullets were singing around them with a freedom that made others than dr. gys nervous. it was chubby little uncle john who helped jones carry the wounded man to the ambulance, where they managed to stretch him upon the floor. this arrangement sent patsy to the front seat outside, with maurie and ajo, although her uncle strongly protested that she had no right to expose her precious life so wantonly. there was little time for argument, however. even as the girl was climbing to her seat the line of belgians broke and came pouring toward them. maurie was prompt in starting the car and the next moment the ambulance was rolling swiftly along the smooth highway in the direction of dunkirk and the sounds of fray grew faint behind them. chapter ix courage, or philosophy? "i never realized," said maud, delightedly, "what a strictly modern, professional hospital ship uncle john has made of this, until we put it to practical use. i am sure it is better than those makeshifts we observed at calais, and more comfortable than those crowded hospitals on land. every convenience is at our disposal and if our patients do not recover rapidly it will be because their condition is desperate." she had just come on deck after a long and trying session in assisting doctors gys and kelsey to care for the injured, a session during which beth and patsy had also stood nobly to their gruesome task. there were eleven wounded, altogether, in their care, and although some of these were in a critical condition the doctors had insisted that the nurses needed rest. "it is dr. gys who deserves credit for fitting the ship," replied mr. merrick, modestly, to maud's enthusiastic comment, "and ajo is responsible for the ship itself, which seems admirably suited to our purpose. by the way, how is gys behaving now? is he still shaking with fear?" "no, he seems to have recovered his nerve. isn't it a terrible affliction?" "cowardice? well, my dear, it is certainly an unusual affliction in this country and in these times. i have been amazed to-day at the courage i have witnessed. these belgians are certainly a brave lot." "but no braver than the german we brought with us," replied maud thoughtfully. "one would almost think he had no sensation, yet he must be suffering terribly. the doctor will amputate the remnants of his foot in an hour or so, but the man positively refuses to take an anaesthetic." "does he speak english or french?" "no; only german. but captain carg understands german and so he has been acting as our interpreter." "how about the belgian we picked up on the road?" "he hasn't recovered consciousness yet. he is wounded in the back and in trying to get to the rear became insensible from loss of blood." "from what i saw i wouldn't suppose any belgian could be wounded in the back," remarked uncle john doubtfully. "it was a shell," she said, "and perhaps exploded behind him. it's a bad wound, dr. gys says, but if he regains strength he may recover." during this conversation patsy doyle was lying in her stateroom below and crying bitterly, while her cousin beth strove to soothe her. all unused to such horrors as she had witnessed that day, the girl had managed to retain her nerve by sheer force of will until the red cross party had returned to the ship and extended first aid to the wounded; but the moment dr. gys dismissed her she broke down completely. beth was no more accustomed to bloodshed than her cousin, but she had anticipated such scenes as they had witnessed, inasmuch as her year of training as nurse had prepared her for them. she had also been a close student of the daily press and from her reading had gleaned a knowledge of the terrible havoc wrought by this great war. had patsy not given way, perhaps beth might have done so herself, and really it was maud stanton who bore the ordeal with the most composure. after a half hour on deck maud returned to the hospital section quite refreshed, and proceeded to care for the patients. she alone assisted gys and kelsey to amputate the german's foot, an operation the man bore splendidly, quite unaware, however, that they had applied local anaesthetics to dull the pain. dr. gys was a remarkably skillful surgeon and he gave himself no rest until every one of the eleven had received such attention as his wounds demanded. even kelsey felt the strain by that time and as maud expressed her intention of remaining to minister to the wants of the crippled soldiers, the two doctors went on deck for a smoke and a brief relaxation. by this time beth had quieted patsy, mainly by letting her have her cry out, and now brought her on deck to join the others and get the fresh air. so quickly had events followed one another on this fateful day that it was now only four o'clock in the afternoon. none of them had thought of luncheon, so the ship's steward now brought tea and sandwiches to those congregated on deck. as they sat together in a group, drinking tea and discussing the exciting events of the day, little maurie came sauntering toward them and removed his cap. "your pardon," said he, "but--are the wounded all cared for?" "as well as we are able to care for them at present," answered beth. "and let me thank you, jakob maurie--let us all thank you--for the noble work you did for us to-day." "pah! it was nothing," said he, shifting from one foot to another. "i enjoyed it, mamselle. it was such fun to dive into the battle and pull out the wounded. it helped them, you see, and it gave us a grand excitement. otherwise, had i not gone with you, i would be as ignorant as all in dunkirk still are, for the poor people do not yet know what has happened at the front." "we hardly know ourselves what has happened," said uncle john. "we can hear the boom of guns yet, even at this distance, and we left the battle line flowing back and forth like the waves of the ocean. have a cup of tea, maurie?" the man hesitated. "i do not like to disturb anyone," he said slowly, "but if one of the young ladies is disengaged i would be grateful if she looks at my arm." "your arm!" exclaimed beth, regarding him wonderingly as he stood before her. maurie smiled. "it is hardly worth mentioning, mamselle, but a bullet--" "take off your coat," she commanded, rising from her seat to assist him. maurie complied. his shirt was stained with blood. beth drew out her scissors and cut away the sleeve of his left arm. a bullet had passed directly through the flesh, but without harming bone or muscle. "why didn't you tell us before?" she asked reproachfully. "it amounted to so little, beside the other hurts you had to attend," he answered. "i am shamed, mamselle, that i came to you at all. a little water and a cloth will make it all right." patsy had already gone for the water and in a few minutes beth was deftly cleansing the wound. "how did it happen, maurie?" asked jones. "i was with you most of the time and noticed nothing wrong. besides, you said nothing about it." "it was on the road, just as we picked up that fallen soldier with the hole in his back. the fight jumped toward us pretty quick, you remember, and while i sat at the wheel the bullet came. i knew when it hit me, but i also knew i could move my arm, so what did it matter? i told myself to wait till we got to the ship. had we stayed there longer, we might all have stopped bullets--and some bullets might have stopped us." he grinned, as if the aphorism amused him, and added: "to know when to run is the perfection of courage." "does it hurt?" asked uncle john, as beth applied the lint and began winding the bandage. "it reminds me it is there, monsieur; but i will be ready for another trip to-morrow. thank you, mamselle. instead of the tea, i would like a little brandy." "give him some in the tea," suggested gys, noting that maurie swayed a little. "sit down, man, and be comfortable. that's it. i'd give a million dollars for your nerve." "have you so much money?" asked maurie. "no." "then i cannot see that you lack nerve," said the little belgian thoughtfully. "i was watching you to-day, m'sieur doctor, and i believe what you lack is courage." gys stared so hard at him with the one good eye that even maurie became embarrassed and turned away his head. sipping his tea and brandy he presently resumed, in a casual tone: "never have i indulged in work of more interest than this. we go into the thick of the fight, yet are we safe from harm. we do good to both sides, because the men who do the fighting are not to blame for the war, at all. the leaders of politics say to the generals: 'we have declared war; go and fight.' the generals say to the soldiers: 'we are told to fight, so come on. we do not know why, but it is our duty, because it is our profession. so go and die, or get shot to pieces, or lose some arms and legs, as it may happen.' the business of the soldiers is to obey; they must back up the policies of their country, right or wrong. but do those who send them into danger ever get hurt? not to the naked eye." "why, you're quite a philosopher, maurie," said patsy. "it is true," agreed the belgian. "but philosophy is like courage--easy to assume. we strut and talk big; we call the politicians sharks, the soldiers fools; but does it do any good? the war will go on; the enemy will destroy our homes, separate our families, take away our bread and leave us to starve; but we have the privilege to philosophize, if we like. for myself, i thank them for nothing!" "i suppose you grieve continually for your wife," said patsy. "not so much that, mamselle, but i know she is grieving for me," he replied. "as soon as we find time," continued the girl, "we intend to search for your wife and children. i am sure we can find them for you." maurie moved uneasily in his chair. "i beg you to take no trouble on my account," said he. "with the red cross you have great work to accomplish. what is the despair of one poor walloon to you?" "it is a great deal to us, maurie," returned the girl, earnestly. "you have been a friend in need; without you we could not have made our dash to the front to-day. we shall try to repay you by finding your wife." he was silent, but his troubled look told of busy thoughts. "what does she look like?" inquired beth. "have you her photograph?" "no; she would not make a good picture, mamselle," he answered with a sigh. "clarette is large; she is fat; she has a way of scowling when one does not bring in more wood than the fire can eat up; and she is very religious." "with that description i am sure we can find her," cried patsy enthusiastically. he seemed disturbed. "if you please," said he plaintively, "clarette is quite able to take care of herself. she has a strong will." "but if you know she is safe it will relieve your anxiety," suggested beth. "you told us yesterday you had been searching everywhere for her." "if i said everywhere, i was wrong, for poor clarette must be somewhere. and since yesterday i have been thinking with more deliberation, and i have decided," he added, his tone becoming confidential, "that it is better i do not find clarette just now. it might destroy my usefulness to the red cross." "but your children!" protested patsy. "surely you cannot rest at ease with your two dear children wandering about, in constant danger." "to be frank, mamselle," said he, "they are not my children. i had a baby, but it was killed, as i told you. the boy and girl i have mentioned were born when clarette was the wife of another man--a blacksmith at dinant--who had a sad habit of beating her." "but you love the little ones, i am sure." he shook his head. "they have somewhat the temper of their father, the blacksmith. i took them when i took clarette--just as i took the silver spoons and the checkered tablespread she brought with her--but now that a cruel fate has separated me from the children, perhaps it is all for the best." the doctor gave a snort of disgust, while ajo smiled. the girls were too astonished to pursue the conversation, but now realized that maurie's private affairs did not require their good offices to untangle. uncle john was quite amused at the belgian's confession and was the only one to reply. "fate often seems cruel when she is in her happiest mood," said he. "perhaps, maurie, your clarette will come to you without your seeking her, for all belgium seems headed toward france just now. what do you think? will the germans capture dunkirk?" the man brightened visibly at this turn in the conversation. "not to-day, sir; not for days to come," he replied. "the french cannot afford to lose dunkirk, and by to-morrow they will pour an irresistible horde against the german invader. if we stay here, we are sure to remain in the rear of the firing line." chapter x the war's victims while the others were conversing on deck maud stanton was ministering to the maimed victims of the war's cruelty, who tossed and moaned below. the main cabin and its accompanying staterooms had been fitted with all the conveniences of a modern hospital. twenty-two could easily be accommodated in the rooms and a dozen more in the cabin, so that the eleven now in their charge were easily cared for. of these, only three had been seriously injured. one was the german, who, however, was now sleeping soundly under the influence of the soothing potion that followed his operation. the man's calmness and iron nerve indicated that he would make a rapid recovery. another was the young belgian soldier picked up in the roadway near the firing line, who had been shot in the back and had not yet recovered consciousness. dr. gys had removed several bits of exploded shell and dressed the wound, shaking his head discouragingly. but since the young man was still breathing, with a fairly regular respiration, no attempt was made to restore him to his senses. the third seriously injured was a french sergeant whose body was literally riddled with shrapnel. a brief examination had convinced gys that the case was hopeless. "he may live until morning," was the doctor's report as he calmly looked down upon the moaning sergeant, "but no longer. meanwhile, we must prevent his suffering." this he accomplished by means of powerful drugs. the soldier soon lay in a stupor, awaiting the end, and nothing more could be done for him. of the others, two belgians with bandaged heads were playing a quiet game of ã©cartã© in a corner of the cabin, while another with a slight wound in his leg was stretched upon a couch, reading a book. a young french officer who had lost three fingers of his hand was cheerfully conversing with a comrade whose scalp had been torn by a bullet and who declared that in two days he would return to the front. the others maud found asleep in their berths or lying quietly to ease their pain. it was remarkable, however, how little suffering was caused these men by flesh wounds, once they were properly dressed and the patients made comfortable with food and warmth and the assurance of proper care. so it was that maud found her duties not at all arduous this evening. indeed, the sympathy she felt for these brave men was so strong that it wearied her more than the actual work of nursing them. a sip of water here, a cold compress there, the administration of medicines to keep down or prevent fever, little attentions of this character were all that were required. speaking french fluently, she was able to converse with all those under her charge and all seemed eager to relate to their beautiful nurse their experiences, hopes and griefs. soon she realized she was beginning to learn more of the true nature of war than she had ever gleaned from the correspondents of the newspapers. when dinner was served in the forward cabin beth relieved maud and after the evening meal dr. gys made another inspection of his patients. all seemed doing well except the young belgian. the condition of the french sergeant was still unchanged. some of those with minor injuries were ordered on deck for a breath of fresh air. patsy relieved beth at midnight and maud came on duty again at six o'clock, having had several hours of refreshing sleep. she found patsy trembling with nervousness, for the sergeant had passed away an hour previous and the horror of the event had quite upset the girl. "oh, it is all so unnecessary!" she wailed as she threw herself into maud's arms. "we must steel ourselves to such things, dear," said maud, soothing her, "for they will be of frequent occurrence, i fear. and we must be grateful and glad that we were able to relieve the poor man's anguish and secure for him a peaceful end." "i know," answered patsy with a little sob, "but it's so dreadful. oh, what a cruel, hateful thing war is!" from papers found on the sergeant uncle john was able to notify his relatives of his fate. his home was in a little village not fifty miles away and during the day a brother arrived to take charge of the remains and convey them to their last resting place. the following morning captain carg was notified by the authorities to withdraw the _arabella_ to an anchorage farther out in the bay, and thereafter it became necessary to use the two launches for intercourse between the ship and the city. continuous cannonading could be heard from the direction of nieuport, dixmude and ypres, and it was evident that the battle had doubled in intensity at all points, owing to heavy reinforcements being added to both sides. but, as maurie had predicted, the allies were able to hold the foe at bay and keep them from advancing a step farther. uncle john had not been at all satisfied with that first day's experience at the front. he firmly believed it was unwise, to the verge of rashness, to allow the girls to place themselves in so dangerous a position. during a serious consultation with jones, kelsey, captain carg and dr. gys, the men agreed upon a better plan of procedure. "the three nurses have plenty to do in attending to the patients in our hospital," said gys, "and when the ship has its full quota of wounded they will need assistance or they will break down under the strain. our young ladies are different from the professional nurses; they are so keenly sensitive that they suffer from sympathy with every patient that comes under their care." "i do not favor their leaving the ship," remarked dr. kelsey, the mate. "there seems to be plenty of field workers at the front, supplied by the governments whose troops are fighting." "therefore," added jones, "we men must assume the duty of driving the ambulances and bringing back the wounded we are able to pick up. as maurie is too stiff from his wound to drive to-day, i shall undertake the job myself. i know the way, now, and am confident i shall get along nicely. who will go with me?" "i will, of course," replied kelsey quietly. "doctor gys will be needed on the ship," asserted uncle john. "yes, it will be best to leave me here," said gys. "i'm too great a coward to go near the firing line again. it destroys my usefulness, and kelsey can administer first aid as well as i." "in that case, i think i shall take the small ambulance to-day," decided ajo. "with dr. kelsey and one of the sailors we shall manage very well." a launch took them ashore, where the ambulances stood upon the dock. maurie had admitted his inability to drive, but asked to be allowed to go into the town. so he left the ship with the others and disappeared for the day. ajo took the same route he had covered before, in the direction of nieuport, but could not get within five miles of the town, which was now held by the germans. from furnes to the front the roads were packed with reinforcements and wagon trains bearing ammunition and supplies, and further progress with the ambulance was impossible. however, a constant stream of wounded flowed to the rear, some with first aid bandages covering their injuries, others as yet uncared for. kelsey chose those whom he considered most in need of surgical care or skillful nursing, and by noon the ambulance was filled to overflowing. it was jones who advised taking none of the fatally injured, as the army surgeons paid especial attention to these. the americans could be of most practical use, the boy considered, by taking in charge such as had a chance to recover. so nine more patients were added to the ship's colony on this occasion, all being delivered to the care of dr. gys without accident or delay--a fact that rendered ajo quite proud of his skillful driving. while the ambulance was away the girls quietly passed from berth to berth, encouraging and caring for their wounded. it was surprising how interested they became in the personality of these soldiers, for each man was distinctive either in individuality or the character of his injury, and most of them were eager to chat with their nurses and anxious for news of the battle. during the morning the young belgian who had lain until now in a stupor, recovered consciousness. he had moaned once or twice, drawing maud to his side, but hearing a different sound from him she approached the berth where he lay, to find his eyes wide open. gradually he turned them upon his nurse, as if feeling her presence, and after a moment of observation he sighed and then smiled wanly. "still on earth?" he said in french. "i am so glad," she replied. "you have been in dreamland a long time." he tried to move and it brought a moan to his lips. "don't stir," she counseled warningly; "you are badly wounded." he was silent for a time, staring at the ceiling. she held some water to his lips and he drank eagerly. finally he said in a faint voice: "i remember, now. i had turned to reload and it hit me in the back. a bullet, mademoiselle?" "part of a shell." "ah, i understand.... i tried to get to the rear. the pain was terrible. no one seemed to notice me. at last i fell, and--then i slept. i thought it was the end." she bathed his forehead, saying: "you must not talk any more at present. here comes the doctor to see you." gys, busy in the cabin, had heard their voices and now came to look at his most interesting patient. the soldier seemed about twenty years of age; he was rather handsome, with expressive eyes and features bearing the stamp of culture. already they knew his name, by means of an identification card found upon him, as well as a small packet of letters carefully pinned in an inner pocket of his coat. these last were all addressed in the same handwriting, which was undoubtedly feminine, to andrew denton. the card stated that andrew denton, private, was formerly an insurance agent at antwerp. doctor gys had rather impatiently awaited the young man's return to consciousness that he might complete his examination. he now devoted the next half hour to a careful diagnosis of denton's injuries. by this time the patient was suffering intense pain and a hypodermic injection of morphine was required to relieve him. when at last he was quietly drowsing the doctor called maud aside to give her instructions. "watch him carefully," said he, "and don't let him suffer. keep up the morphine." "there is no hope, then?" she asked. "not the slightest. he may linger for days--even weeks, if we sustain his strength--but recovery is impossible. that bit of shell tore a horrible hole in the poor fellow and all we can do is keep him comfortable until the end. without the morphine he would not live twelve hours." "shall i let him talk?" "if he wishes to. his lungs are not involved, so it can do him no harm." but andrew denton did not care to talk any more that day. he wanted to think, and lay quietly until beth came on duty. to her he gave a smile and a word of thanks and again lapsed into thoughtful silence. when ajo brought the new consignment of wounded to the ship the doctors and nurses found themselves pretty busy for a time. with wounds to dress and one or two slight operations to perform, the afternoon passed swiftly away. the old patients must not be neglected, either, so captain carg said he would sit with the german and look after him, as he was able to converse with the patient in his own tongue. the german was resting easily to-day but proved as glum and uncommunicative as ever. that did not worry the captain, who gave the man a cigarette and, when it was nonchalantly accepted, lighted his own pipe. together they sat in silence and smoked, the german occupying an easy chair and resting his leg upon a stool, for he had refused to lie in a berth. through the open window the dull boom of artillery could constantly be heard. after an hour or so: "a long fight," remarked the captain in german. the other merely looked at him, contemplatively. carg stared for five minutes at the bandaged foot. finally: "hard luck," said he. this time the german nodded, looking at the foot also. "in america," resumed the captain, puffing slowly, "they make fine artificial feet. walk all right. look natural." "vienna," said the german. "yes, i suppose so." another pause. "name?" asked the german, with startling abruptness. but the other never winked. "carg. i'm a sailor. captain of this ship. live in sangoa, when ashore." "sangoa?" "island in south seas." the wounded man reached for another cigarette and lighted it. "carg," he repeated, musingly. "german?" "why, my folks were, i believe. i've relations in germany, yet. munich. visited them once, when a boy. mother's name was elbl. the cargs lived next door to the elbls. but they've lost track of me, and i of them. nothing in common, you see." the german finished his cigarette, looking at the captain at times reflectively. carg, feeling his biography had not been appreciated, had lapsed into silence. at length the wounded man began feeling in his breast pocket--an awkward operation because the least action disturbed the swathed limb--and presently drew out a leather card case. with much deliberation he abstracted a card and handed it to the captain, who put on his spectacles and read: "otto elbl. 12th uhlans" "oh," he said, looking up to examine the german anew. "otto elbl of munich?" "yes." "h-m. number 121 friedrichstrasse?" "yes." "i didn't see you when i visited your family. they said you were at college. your father was william elbl, my mother's brother." the german stretched out his hand and gripped the fist of the captain. "cousins," he said. carg nodded, meditating. "to be sure," he presently returned; "cousins. have another cigarette." chapter xi patsy is defiant that evening the captain joined dr. gys on deck. "that german, lieutenant elbl," he began. "oh, is that his name?" asked gys. "yes. will he get well?" "certainly. what is a foot, to a man like him? but his soldiering days are past." "perhaps that's fortunate," returned the captain, ruminatively. "when i was a boy, his father was burgomaster--mayor--in munich. people said he was well-to-do. the germans are thrifty, so i suppose there's still money in the elbl family." "money will do much to help reconcile the man to the loss of his foot," declared the doctor. "will he suffer much pain, while it is getting well?" "not if i can help it. the fellow bears pain with wonderful fortitude. when i was in yucatan, and had to slash my face to get out the poisoned darts of the cactus, i screamed till you could have heard me a mile. and i had no anaesthetic to soothe me. your lieutenant never whimpered or cringed with his mangled foot and he refused morphine when i operated on it. but i fooled him. i hate to see a brave man suffer. i stuck a needle just above the wound when he wasn't looking, and i've doped his medicine ever since." "thank you," said carg; "he's my cousin." in the small hours of the next morning, while patsy was on duty in the hospital section, the young belgian became wakeful and restless. she promptly administered a sedative and sat by his bedside. after a little his pain was eased and he became quiet, but he lay there with wide open eyes. "can i do anything more for you?" she asked. "if you would be so kind," replied andrew denton. "well?" "please read to me some letters you will find in my pocket. i cannot read them myself, and--they will comfort me." patsy found the packet of letters. "the top one first," he said eagerly. "read them all!" she opened the letter reluctantly. it was addressed in a dainty, female hand and the girl had the uncomfortable feeling that she was about to pry into personal relations of a delicate character. "your sweetheart?" she asked gently. "yes, indeed; my sweetheart and my wife." "oh, i see. and have you been married long?" he seemed a mere boy. "five months, but for the last two i have not seen her." the letters were dated at charleroi and each one began: "my darling husband." patsy read the packet through, from first to last, her eyes filling with tears at times as she noted the rare devotion and passionate longing of the poor young wife and realized that the boyish husband was even now dying, a martyr to his country's cause. the letters were signed "elizabeth." in one was a small photograph of a sweet, dark-eyed girl whom she instantly knew to be the bereaved wife. "and does she still live at charleroi?" patsy asked. "i hope so, mademoiselle; with her mother. the germans now occupy the town, but you will notice the last letter states that all citizens are treated courteously and with much consideration, so i do not fear for her." the reading of the letters, in conjunction with the opiate, seemed to comfort him, for presently he fell asleep. with a heavy heart the girl left him to attend to her other patients and at three o'clock ajo came in and joined her, to relieve the tedium of the next three hours. the boy knew nothing of nursing, but he could help patsy administer potions and change compresses and his presence was a distinct relief to her. the girl was supposed to sleep from six o'clock--at which time she was relieved from duty--until one in the afternoon, but the next morning at eight she walked into the forward salon, where her friends were at breakfast, and sat down beside uncle john. "i could not sleep," said she, "because i am so worried over andrew denton." "that is foolish, my dear," answered mr. merrick, affectionately patting the hand she laid in his. "the doctor says poor denton cannot recover. if you're going to take to heart all the sad incidents we encounter on this hospital ship, it will not only ruin your usefulness but destroy your happiness." "exactly so," agreed gys, coming into the salon in time to overhear this remark. "a nurse should be sympathetic, but impersonally so." "denton has been married but five months," said patsy. "i have seen his wife's picture--she's a dear little girl!--and her letters to him are full of love and longing. she doesn't know, of course, of his--his accident--or that he--he--" her voice broke with a sob she could not repress. "m-m," purred uncle john; "where does she live, this young wife?" "at charleroi." "well; the germans are there." "yes, uncle. but don't you suppose they would let her come to see her dying husband?" "a young girl, unprotected? would it be--safe?" "the germans," remarked captain carg from his end of the table, "are very decent people." "ahem!" said uncle john. "some of them, i've no doubt, are quite respectable," observed ajo; "but from all reports the rank and file, in war time, are--rather unpleasant to meet." "precisely," agreed uncle john. "i think, patsy dear, it will be best to leave this belgian girl in ignorance of her husband's fate." "i, myself, have a wife," quoth little maurie, with smug assurance, "but she is not worrying about me, wherever she may be; nor do i feel especial anxiety for clarette. a woman takes what comes--especially if she is obliged to." patsy regarded him indignantly. "there are many kinds of women," she began. "thank heaven!" exclaimed maurie, and then she realized how futile it was to argue with him. a little later she walked on deck with uncle john and pleaded her cause earnestly. it was said by those who knew him well that the kindly little gentleman was never able to refuse patsy anything for long, and he was himself so well aware of this weakness that he made a supreme effort to resist her on this occasion. "you and i," said she, "would have no trouble in passing the german lines. we are strictly neutral, you know, we americans, and our passports and the red cross will take us anywhere in safety." "it won't do, my dear," he replied. "you've already been in danger enough for one war. i shudder even now as i think of those bullets and shells at nieuport." "but we can pass through at some place where they are not fighting." "show me such a place!" "and distances are very small in this part of the continent. we could get to charleroi in a day, and return the next day with mrs. denton." "impossible." "the doctor says he may live for several days, but it may be only for hours. if you could see his face light up when he speaks of her, you would realize what a comfort her presence would be to him." "i understand that, patsy. but can't you see, my dear, that we're not able to do everything for those poor wounded soldiers? you have twenty in your charge now, and by to-night there may be possibly a dozen more. many of them have wives at home, but--" "but all are not dying, uncle--and after only five months of married life, three of which they passed together. here, at least, is one brave heart we may comfort, one poor woman who will be ever grateful for our generous kindness." mr. merrick coughed. he wiped his eyes and blew his nose on his pink bordered handkerchief. but he made no promise. patsy left him and went to ajo. "see here," she said; "i'm going to charleroi in an hour." "it's a day's journey, patsy." "i mean i'm going to start in an hour. will you go with me?" "what does uncle john say?" he inquired cautiously. "i don't care what he says. i'm going!" she persisted, her eyes blazing with determination. the boy whistled softly, studying her face. then he walked across the deck to mr. merrick. "patsy is rampant, sir," said he. "she won't be denied. go and argue with her, please." "i _have_ argued," returned uncle john weakly. "well, argue again." the little man cast a half frightened, half reproachful glance at his niece. "let's go and consult the doctor," he exclaimed, and together uncle john and ajo went below. to their surprise, gys supported patsy's plea. "he's a fine fellow, this denton," said he, "and rather above the average soldier. moreover, his case is a pitiful one. i'll agree to keep him alive until his wife comes." uncle john looked appealingly at ajo. "how on earth can we manage to cross the lines?" he asked. "take one of our launches," said the boy. "skim the coast to ostend, and you'll avoid danger altogether." "that's the idea!" exclaimed the doctor approvingly. "why, it's the easiest thing in the world, sir." uncle john began to feel slightly reassured. "who will run the launch?" he inquired. "i'll give you the captain and one of the men," said the boy. "carg's an old traveler and knows more than he appears to. besides, he speaks german. we can't spare very many, you understand, and the ambulances will keep maurie and me pretty busy. patsy will be missed, too, from the hospital ward, so you must hurry back." "two days ought to accomplish our object," said uncle john. "easily," agreed gys. "i've arranged for a couple of girls from the town to come and help us to-day, for i must save the strength of my expert nurses as much as possible, and i'll keep them with us until you return. the french girls are not experienced in nursing, but i'll take miss patsy's watch myself, so we shall get along all right." mr. merrick and jones returned to the deck. "well?" demanded patsy. "get ready," said uncle john; "we leave in an hour." "for charleroi?" "of course; unless you've changed your mind." patsy flew to her stateroom. chapter xii the other side the launch in which they embarked bore the red cross on its sides, and an american flag floated from the bow and a red cross flag from the stern. its four occupants wore the red cross uniforms. yet three miles out of dunkirk a shot came singing across their prow and they were obliged to lay to until a british man-of-war could lower a boat to investigate their errand. the coast is very shallow in this section, which permits boats of only the lightest draught to navigate in-shore, but the launch was able to skim over the surface at twelve miles an hour. "this is pleasant!" grumbled uncle john, as they awaited the approach of the warship's boat. "our very appearance ought to insure us safe conduct, but i suppose that in these times every craft is regarded with suspicion." the boat came alongside. "where are you going?" demanded an officer, gruffly. "to ostend." "on what business?" "our own," replied mr. merrick. "be respectful, sir, or i'll arrest your entire outfit," warned the officer. "you'll do nothing of the sort," declared mr. merrick. "you'll examine our papers, apologize for your interference and row back to your ship. we have the authority of the red cross to go wherever our duty calls us, and moreover we're american citizens. permit me to add that we're in a hurry." the officer turned first white and then red, but he appreciated the force of the argument. "your papers!" he commanded. uncle john produced them and waited patiently for their inspection, which was very deliberate. finally the officer returned them and gave the order to his men to row back to the ship. "one moment!" called uncle john. "you haven't made the apology." there was no answer. the boat moved swiftly away and at a gesture from captain carg the sailor started the launch again. "i wonder why it is," mused mr. merrick, "that there is always this raspy feeling when the english meet americans. on the surface we're friendly enough and our governments always express in diplomatic relations the most cordial good will; but i've always noticed in the english individual an undercurrent of antipathy for americans that cannot be disguised. as a race the english hate us, i'm positive, and i wonder why?" "i believe you're wrong, uncle," remarked patsy. "a few of the british may individually dislike us, but i'm sure the two nations are not antagonistic. why should they be?" "yorktown," muttered the captain. "i don't believe it," declared the girl. "they're too good sportsmen to bear grudges." "all the same," persisted uncle john, "the english have never favored us as the french have, or even the russians." from dunkirk to ostend, by the coast line, is only some twenty-five miles, yet although they started at a little after eleven o'clock it was three in the afternoon before they finally landed at the belgian seaport. interruptions were numerous, and although they were treated courteously, in the main, it was only after rigid questioning and a thorough examination that they were permitted to proceed. a full hour was consumed at the harbor at ostend before they could even land. as they stepped upon the wharf a group of german soldiers met them and now captain carg became the spokesman of the party. the young officer in command removed his helmet to bow deferentially to patsy and then turned to ask their business at ostend. "he says we must go before the military governor," said carg, translating. "there, if our papers are regular, permits will be issued for us to proceed to charleroi." they left the sailor in charge of the launch, which was well provisioned and contained a convertible bunk, and followed the officer into the town. ostend is a large city, fortified, and was formerly one of the most important ports on the north sea, as well as a summer resort of prominence. the city now being occupied by the germans, our friends found few citizens on the streets of ostend and these hurried nervously on their way. the streets swarmed with german soldiery. arriving at headquarters they found that the commandant was too busy to attend to the red cross americans. he ordered them taken before colonel grau for examination. "but why examine us at all?" protested mr. merrick. "doesn't our sacred mission protect us from such annoying details?" the young officer regretted that it did not. they would find colonel grau in one of the upper rooms. it would be a formal examination, of course, and brief. but busy spies had even assumed the insignia of the red cross to mask their nefarious work and an examination was therefore necessary as a protective measure. so they ascended a broad staircase and proceeded along a corridor to the colonel's office. grau was at the head of the detective service at ostend and invested with the task of ferreting out the numerous spies in the service of the allies and dealing with them in a summary manner. he was a very stout man, and not very tall. his eyes were light blue and his grizzled mustache was a poor imitation of that affected by the kaiser. when grau looked up, on their entrance, patsy decided that their appearance had startled him, but presently she realized that the odd expression was permanent. in a chair beside the colonel's desk sat, or rather lounged, another officer, encased in a uniform so brilliant that it arrested the eye before one could discover its contents. these were a wizened, weather-beaten man of advanced age, yet rugged as hickory. his eyes had a periodical squint; his brows wore a persistent frown. there was a broad scar on his left cheek and another across his forehead. a warrior who had seen service, probably, but whose surly physiognomy was somewhat disconcerting. the two officers had been in earnest conversation, but when mr. merrick's party was ushered in, the elder man leaned back in his chair, squinting and scowling, and regarded them silently. "huh!" exclaimed the colonel, in a brusque growl. "what is it, von holtz?" the young officer explained that the party had just arrived from dunkirk in a launch; the commandant had asked colonel grau kindly to examine them. uncle john proceeded to state the case, captain carg interpreting. they operated a red cross hospital ship at dunkirk, and one of their patients, a young belgian, was dying of his wounds. they had come to find his young wife and take her back with them to dunkirk in their launch, that she might comfort the last moments of her husband. the americans asked for safe conduct to charleroi, and permission to take mrs. denton with them to dunkirk. then he presented his papers, including the authority of the american red cross society, the letter from the secretary of state and the recommendation of the german ambassador at washington. the colonel looked them all over. he uttered little guttural exclamations and tapped the desk with his finger-tips as he read, and all the time his face wore that perplexing expression of surprise. finally he asked: "which is mr. merrick?" hearing his name, uncle john bowed. "huh! but the description does not fit you." captain carg translated this. "why not?" demanded uncle john. "it says you are short, stout, blue-eyed, bald, forty-five years of age." "of course." "you are not short; i think you are as tall as i am. your eyes are not blue; they are olive green. you are not bald, for there is still hair over your ears. huh! how do you explain that?" "it's nonsense," said uncle john scornfully. carg was more cautious in interpreting the remark. he assured the colonel, in german, that the description of mr. merrick was considered close enough for all practical purposes. but grau was not satisfied. he went over the papers again and then turned to face the other officer. "what do you think, general?" he asked, hesitatingly. "suspicious!" was the reply. "i think so, myself," said the colonel. "mark you: here's a man who claims to come from sangoa, a place no one has ever heard of; and the other has endorsements purporting to come from the highest officials in america. huh! what does it mean?" "papers may be forged, or stolen from their proper owners," suggested the squinting general. "this excuse of coming here to get the wife of a hurt belgian seems absurd. if they are really red cross workers, they are not attending to their proper business." when the captain interpreted this speech patsy said angrily: "the general is an old fool." "an idiot, i'll call him," added uncle john. "i wish i could tell him so." "you _have_ told him," said the general in good english, squinting now more rapidly than ever, "and your manner of speech proves you to be impostors. i have never known a respectable red cross nurse, of any country, who called a distinguished officer a fool--and to his face." "i didn't know you understood english," she said. "that is no excuse!" "but i _did_ know," she added, "that i had judged you correctly. no one with a spark of intelligence could doubt the evidence of these papers." "the papers are all right. where did you get them?" "from the proper authorities." he turned to speak rapidly in german to colonel grau, who had been uneasy during the conversation in english, because he failed to understand it. his expression of piquant surprise was intensified as he now turned to the americans. "you may as well confess your imposture," said he. "it will make your punishment lighter. however, if on further examination you prove to be spies, your fate is beyond my power to mitigate." "see here," said uncle john, when this was translated to him, "if you dare to interfere with us, or cause us annoyance, i shall insist on your being courtmartialed. you are responsible to your superiors, i suppose, and they dare not tolerate an insult to the red cross, nor to an american citizen. you may have the sense to consider that if these papers and letters are genuine, as i declare they are, i have friends powerful enough to bring this matter before the kaiser himself, in which case someone will suffer a penalty, even if he is a general or a colonel." as he spoke he glared defiantly at the older officer, who calmly proceeded to translate the speech to the colonel. carg reported that it was translated verbatim. then the general sat back and squinted at his companion, who seemed fairly bewildered by the threat. patsy caught the young officer smothering a smile, but neither of them interrupted the silence that followed. once again the colonel picked up the papers and gave them a rigid examination, especially that of the german ambassador, which was written in his own language. "i cannot understand," he muttered, "how one insignificant american citizen could secure such powerful endorsements. it has never happened before in my experience." "it is extraordinary," said the general. "mr. merrick," said patsy to him, "is a very important man in america. he is so important that any indignity to him will be promptly resented." "i will investigate your case further," decided colonel grau, after another sotto voce conference with the general. "spies are getting to be very clever, these days, and we cannot take chances. however, i assure you there is no disposition to worry you and until your standing is determined you will be treated with every consideration." "do you mean that we are prisoners?" asked uncle john, trying to control his indignation. "no, indeed. you will be detained, of course, but you are not prisoners--as yet. i will keep your papers and submit them to the general staff. it will be for that august body to decide." uncle john protested vigorously; patsy faced the old general and told him this action was an outrage that would be condemned by the entire civilized world; captain carg gravely assured both officers that they were making a serious mistake. but nothing could move the stolid germans. the general, indeed, smiled grimly and told them in english that he was in no way responsible, whatever happened. this was colonel grau's affair, but he believed, nevertheless, that the colonel was acting wisely. the young officer, who had stood like a statue during the entire interview, was ordered to accompany the americans to a hotel, where they must be kept under surveillance but might follow, to an extent, their own devices. they were not to mail letters nor send telegrams. the officer asked who should guard the suspects. "why not yourself, lieutenant? you are on detached duty, i believe?" "at the port, colonel." "there are too many officers at the port; it is a sinecure. i will appoint you to guard the americans. you speak their language, i believe?" the young man bowed. "very well; i shall hold you responsible for their safety." they were then dismissed and compelled to follow their guard from the room. patsy was now wild with rage and uncle john speechless. even carg was evidently uneasy. "do not mind," said the young lieutenant consolingly. "it is merely a temporary inconvenience, you know, for your release will come very soon. and since you are placed in my care i beg you to accept this delay with good grace and be happy as possible. ostend is full of life and i am conducting you to an excellent hotel." chapter xiii tardy justice the courtesy of lieutenant von holtz was beyond criticism. he obtained for his charges a comfortable suite of rooms in an overcrowded hotel, obliging the landlord to turn away other guests that mr. merrick's party might be accommodated. the dinner that was served in their cosy sitting room proved excellent, having been ordered by von holtz after he had requested that privilege. when the young officer appeared to see that it was properly served, patsy invited him to join them at the table and he laughingly consented. "you are one of our party, by force of circumstances," said the girl, "and since we've found you good-natured and polite, and believe you are not to blame for our troubles, we may as well be friendly while we are together." the young man was evidently well pleased. "however evil your fortune may be," said he, "i cannot fail to be impressed by my own good luck. perhaps you may guess what a relief this pleasant commission is to one who for days has been compelled to patrol those vile smelling docks, watching for spies and enduring all sorts of weather." "to think," said uncle john gloomily, "that _we_ are accused of being spies!" "it is not for me," returned von holtz, "to criticize the acts of my superiors. i may say, however, that were it my province to decide the question, you would now be free. colonel grau has an excellent record for efficiency and seldom makes a mistake, but i suspect his judgment was influenced by the general, whose son was once jilted by an american girl." "we're going to get even with them both, before this affair is ended," declared patsy, vindictively; "but although you are our actual jailer i promise that you will escape our vengeance." "my instructions are quite elastic, as you heard," said the lieutenant. "i am merely ordered to keep you in ostend, under my eye, until your case has been passed upon by the commandant or the general staff. since you have money, you may enjoy every luxury save that of travel, and i ask you to command my services in all ways consistent with my duty." "what worries me," said patsy to uncle john, "is the delay. if we are kept here for long, poor denton will die before we can find his wife and take her to him." "how long are we liable to be detained?" uncle john asked the officer. "i cannot say. perhaps the council of the general staff will meet to-morrow morning; perhaps not for several days," was the indefinite reply. patsy wiped away the tears that began to well into her eyes. she had so fondly set her heart on reuniting the dentons that her disappointment was very great. von holtz noticed the girl's mood and became thoughtful. captain carg had remained glum and solemn ever since they had left the colonel's office. uncle john sat in silent indignation, wondering what could be done to influence these stupid germans. presently the lieutenant remarked: "that sailor whom you left with the launch seemed an intelligent fellow." patsy gave a start; uncle john looked at the young man expectantly; the captain nodded his head as he slowly replied: "henderson is one of the picked men i brought from sangoa. he is both intelligent and loyal." "curiously enough," said von holtz, "i neglected to place the man under arrest. i even forgot to report him. he is free." "ah!" exclaimed patsy, her eyes lighting. "i know a civilian here--a bright young belgian--who is my friend and will do anything i ask of him," resumed von holtz, still musingly. "i had the good fortune to protect his mother when our troops entered the city, and he is grateful." patsy was thinking very fast now. "could henderson get to charleroi, do you imagine?" she asked. "he has a passport." "we do not consider passports of much value," said the officer; "but a red cross appointment--" "oh, he has that, too; all our men carry them." "in that case, with my friend rondel to guide him, i believe henderson could accomplish your errand." "let us send for him at once!" exclaimed uncle john. carg scribbled on a card. "he wouldn't leave the launch without orders, unless forced by the germans," asserted the captain, and handed the card to von holtz. the young lieutenant took his cap, bowed profoundly and left the room. in ten minutes he returned, saying: "i am not so fortunate as i had thought. all our troops are on the move, headed for the yser. there will be fighting, presently, and--i must remain here," he added despondently. "it won't be your last chance, i'm sure," said patsy. "will that dreadful colonel grau go, too?" "no; he is to remain. but all regiments quartered here are now marching out and to-morrow a fresh brigade will enter ostend." they were silent a time, until someone rapped upon the door. von holtz admitted a slim, good-looking young belgian who grasped his hand and said eagerly in french: "you sent for me?" "yes. you may speak english here, monsieur rondel." then he presented his friend to the americans, who approved him on sight. henderson came a few minutes later and listened respectfully to the plan miss doyle unfolded. he was to go with monsieur rondel to charleroi, find mrs. denton, explain that her husband was very ill, and bring her back with him to ostend. he would report promptly on his return and they would tell him what to do next. the man accepted the mission without a word of protest. charleroi was in central belgium, but that did not mean many miles away and rondel assured him they would meet with no difficulties. the trains were reserved for soldiers, but the belgian had an automobile and a german permit to drive it. the roads were excellent. "now, remember," said patsy, "the lady you are going for is mrs. albert denton. she lives with her mother, or did, the last we heard of her." "and her mother's name and address?" inquired henderson. "we are ignorant of either," she confessed; "but it's not a very big town and i'm sure you'll easily find her." "i know the place well," said rondel, "and i have friends residing there who will give me information." uncle john supplied them liberally with money, impressed upon them the necessity of haste, and sent them away. rondel declared the night time was best for the trip and promised to be on the way within the hour, and in charleroi by next morning. notwithstanding the fact that they had succeeded in promoting by proxy the mission which had brought them to belgium, the americans found the next day an exceedingly irksome one. in the company of lieutenant von holtz they were permitted to walk about the city, but they found little pleasure in that, owing to the bustle of outgoing troops and the arrival of others to replace them. nor did they care to stray far from their quarters, for fear the council would meet and they might be sent for. however, no sign from colonel grau was received that day. patsy went to bed with a nervous headache and left uncle john and the captain to smoke more than was good for them. both the men had now come to regard their situation as serious and as the american consul was at this time absent in brussels they could think of no way to secure their freedom. no one knew when the consul would return; mr. merrick had been refused the privilege of using the telegraph or mails. during one of their strolls they had met the correspondent of an american newspaper, but when the man learned they were suspects he got away from them as soon as possible. he did not know mr. merrick and his own liberty was too precarious for him to argue with colonel grau. "i'm beginning to think," said uncle john, "that we're up against a hard proposition. letters and endorsements from prominent americans seem to have no weight with these germans. i'd no idea our identity could ever be disputed." "we must admit, sir," returned the captain, reflectively, "that the spy system in this war is something remarkable. spies are everywhere; clever ones, too, who adopt every sort of subterfuge to escape detection. i do not blame grau so much for caution as for lack of judgment." "he's a blockhead!" cried mr. merrick testily. "he is. i'm astonished they should place so much power in the hands of one so slow witted." "he has insulted us," continued uncle john. "he has dared to arrest three free-born americans." "who came into a troubled country, occupied by a conquering army, without being invited." "well--that's true," sighed the little millionaire, "but what are we going to do about it?" "wait," counseled the captain. the next day dawned dark and rainy and the weather had a depressing effect upon the prisoners. it was too damp to stir out of doors and the confinement of the hotel rooms became especially irksome. not only were they anxious about their own fate but it was far past the time when they should have heard from henderson and rondel. patsy's nerves were getting beyond her control; uncle john stumped around with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and a frown wrinkling his forehead; the captain smoked innumerable pipes of tobacco and said not a word. von holtz, noting the uneasiness of his charges, discreetly forbore conversation and retired to a far corner where he hid behind a book. it was nearing evening when a commotion was heard on the stairs, followed by the heavy tramp of feet in the corridor. a sharp rap sounded on the door of their sitting room. uncle john stepped forward to open it, when in stalked a group of german officers, their swords and spurs clanking and their cloaks glistening with rain-drops. at sight of the young girl off came cap and helmet and with one accord they bowed low. the leader was a tall, thin man with a leathern face, hooked nose and piercing gray eyes. his breast glittered with orders. it was von kargenbrut, the military governor. "pardon our intrusion," he said in english, his harsh voice having a guttural accent. "which gentleman is mr. john merrick?" "i am john merrick." the eagle eyes swept over him with a swift glance. "we owe you our apology," continued the governor, speaking as fiercely as if he were ordering uncle john beheaded. "i have been too busy to take up your case before to-day, when i discover that we have treated you discourteously. you will consider our fault due to these troubled times, when mistakes occur in spite of our watchfulness. is it not so?" "your error has caused us great inconvenience," responded mr. merrick stiffly. the governor whirled around. "colonel grau!" he called, and from the rear of the group the colonel stepped forward. his face still wore the expression of comical surprise. "return to mr. merrick his papers and credentials." the colonel drew the packet of papers from his breast pocket and handed it to uncle john. then he glanced hesitatingly at his superior, who glared at him. "he cannot speak the english," said the governor to mr. merrick, "but he owes you reparation." "grau's stupidity has been very annoying, to say the least," was the ungracious reply. "we came here on important business, and presented our papers--all in proper order--on demand. we had the right to expect decent treatment, as respectable american citizens engaged in humanitarian work; yet this--this--man," pointing an accusing finger at the colonel, "ordered us detained--arrested!--and kept our papers." the governor listened coldly and at the end of the speech inclined his head. "colonel grau," said he, "has been relieved of his duties here and transferred to another station. to you i have personally apologized. you will find my endorsement on your papers and, in addition, an order that will grant you safe conduct wherever you may wish to go. if that is not enough, make your demands and i will consider them." "why, that is all i can expect, your excellency, under the circumstances," replied mr. merrick. "i suppose i ought to thank you for your present act of justice." "no; it is your due. good evening, mr. merrick." he swung around on his heel and every officer of the group turned with him, like so many automatons, all facing the door. but mr. merrick touched the governor upon the arm. "one moment, your excellency. this young officer, lieutenant von holtz, has treated us kindly and courteously. i want you to know that one of your men, at least, has performed his duty in a way to merit our thanks--and yours." the governor scowled at lieutenant von holtz, who stood like a statue, with lowered eyes. "lieutenant, you are commissioned to guide mr. merrick as long as he remains within our lines. you will guard his safety and that of his party. when he departs, come to me personally with your report." the young officer bowed; the governor tramped to the door and went out, followed by his staff. grau left the room last, with hang-dog look, and patsy slammed the door in the hope of bumping his wooden head. "so we're free?" she said, turning to von holtz. "not only that, fraulein, but you are highly favored," he replied. "all german territory is now open to you." "it's about time they came to their senses," remarked uncle john, with a return to his accustomed cheerfulness. "and, best of all," said patsy exultantly, "they've fired that awful colonel!" the captain thoughtfully filled and lighted his pipe. "i wonder," said he, "how that happened. was it the council, do you think, lieutenant?" von holtz shook his head. "i think it was the governor," he replied. "he is a just man, and had you been able to see him personally on your arrival you would have been spared any annoyance." "perhaps," said patsy doubtfully. "but your governor's a regular bear." "i believe that is merely his way," asserted uncle john. "i didn't mind the man's tone when i found his words and deeds were all right. but he--" another rap at the door. patsy opened it and admitted henderson. he saluted the captain, bowed to the others and said: "we've got her, sir." "mrs. denton?" cried patsy, delightedly. henderson nodded. "yes, miss doyle; mrs. denton and the children." "the children! why, there aren't any." "i beg your pardon, miss; there are two." "two children!" she exclaimed in dismay. "there must be some mistake. the young people have only been married five months." henderson stood stiff as a poker, refusing to argue the point. "a governess, maybe," suggested the captain. "more likely," said uncle john, "young denton married a widow, with--eh--eh--incumbrances." "that's it, sir," said henderson earnestly. "what's it?" "the incumbrances, sir. no other word could describe 'em." patsy's heart sank; she was greatly disappointed. "and she so young and pretty!" she murmured. henderson started to smile, but quickly suppressed it. "shall i show them up, miss?" he inquired. "of course," answered uncle john, as the girl hesitated. "you should have brought her to us at once. where is that belgian--rondel?" "he is guarding the woman, sir." "guarding her!" "she's a little difficult to manage, sir, at times. she left charleroi willingly enough, but she's tricky, and it is our duty to deliver her to you safely." "get her at once, henderson," exclaimed patsy, recovering her wits; "and the dear children, too." presently there was a sound of shuffling on the stairs and through the corridor. the door opened to admit the arrivals from charleroi. henderson first pushed in a big woman dressed in a faded blue-checked gown, belted around the waist in a manner that made her look like a sack tied in the middle. her head was bare, her hair awry, her face sullen and hard; she was undeniably "fleshy" and not altogether clean. she resisted henderson at every step and glared around her with shrewd and shifting eyes. following her came monsieur rondel leading a boy and a girl, the latter being a small replica of the woman. the boy was viciously struggling to bite the hand of the belgian, who held him fast. "ah, well," said rondel, first sighing and then turning with a smile to face the lieutenant, "we have performed our mission. but heaven guard us from another like it!" patsy stared hard at the woman. "this cannot be mrs. denton," she gasped, bewildered. "indeed?" answered rondel in english. "she declares that is her name. question her in french or flemish, miss doyle." patsy addressed the woman in french but could elicit no reply. she stood impassive and silent. "how did you make the mistake?" asked the girl, looking reproachfully first at henderson and then at rondel, both of whom were evidently astonished to find themselves at fault. "i have seen a photograph of mrs. andrew denton, taken recently, and she is young and pretty and--and--rather small." monsieur rondel cleared his throat to answer: "it happened in this way, mademoiselle: we searched one whole day in charleroi for mrs. denton but could not find her. my friends, on whom i had relied for assistance, had unfortunately moved away or joined the army. the townspeople were suspicious of monsieur henderson, who is a foreigner. we could get no information whatever. i appealed to the burgomaster and he said he would try to find mrs. denton for us the next day. in the morning came to us this woman, who said she was the person we sought. if we promised her safe conduct to dunkirk, she would go with us. she had wanted to go to dunkirk for some weeks, but the germans would not let her pass the lines. we suspected nothing wrong, for she admitted she was aware that her husband is in dunkirk, and she wanted to get to him. so we brought her to you." patsy faced the woman resolutely and said in french: "why did you wish to get to dunkirk?" "he has said it. to find my husband," replied the woman in a surly tone. "what is your name?" no reply. "answer me!" the woman eyed her obstinately and remained silent. "very well. release those children, monsieur rondel. madam, you have imposed upon us; you have tricked us in order to get to ostend at our expense. now go, and take your children with you." she pointed dramatically at the door, but the woman retained her position, only moving to cuff the boy, who was kicking henderson on his shins. then, setting her hands on her hips she said defiantly: "they promised me passage to dunkirk, and they must take me there." "who promised you?" "those men," pointing to them, "and the burgomaster." "yes," admitted henderson, "we agreed with the burgomaster to take her out of the country. we signed a paper to that effect." "but she is a belgian. and she is not the person she claimed to be." to this neither rondel nor henderson had an answer. "see here," said uncle john, "i'll untangle this matter in a jiffy. here is money; give it to the woman and tell her to get out--or we'll eject her by force." the woman grabbed the money eagerly, but after placing it in an ample pocket she said: "i will go no place but dunkirk. i will not leave you until you take me there." but here the lieutenant interfered. he suddenly faced the woman, who had not noticed his presence before, and she shrank back in fear at sight of his uniform. the boy and girl both began to cry. "i know you," said von holtz sternly. "you are the wife of a spy who has been condemned to death by both the belgians and the germans, since he betrayed them both. the last time you came to ostend to annoy us you were driven out of the city. there is still an edict against you. will you leave this room peaceably, or shall i order you under arrest?" "dog of a german!" she hissed, "the day is coming when i will help to drive you out of belgium, even as you now drive me. brave soldiers are you, to make war on women and children. guh! i would kill you where you stand--if i dared." with venomous hate she spat upon the floor, then seized her wailing children, shook them and waddled out of the room. there was a general sigh of relief. "you may return to the launch, henderson," said the captain. "monsieur rondel," said uncle john, grasping the young belgian's hand, "we are grateful to you for your kindness. the failure of your mission was not your fault. we thank you. the governor has given us our liberty and permission to travel where we please, so to-morrow we will go to charleroi ourselves to search for mrs. denton." "my motor car is at your disposal, sir, and my services." "to-morrow? oh, let us go to-night, uncle!" cried patsy. mr. merrick looked inquiringly at the belgian. "i am ready now," said rondel with a bow. "then," said patsy, "we will start in half an hour. you see, we have wasted two whole days--two precious days! i hope dr. gys will keep his promise, and that we shall find poor denton alive on our return." chapter xiv found at last the pretty city of charleroi had suffered little damage from the german invasion, yet many of the townspeople had gone away since the occupation and those who remained kept well within their houses or huddled in anxious groups upon the streets. the civic affairs were still administered by the belgian burgomaster, but the martial law of the germans prevailed over all. when patsy doyle, escorted by uncle john and accompanied by captain carg, lieutenant von holtz and monsieur rondel, arrived in the early morning, the streets were comparatively deserted. the hotel royal received them hospitably and the landlord and his daughters prepared them an excellent breakfast. while eating, patsy chatted with the belgian girls, who were neat, modest and intelligent. she found that henderson and rondel had not stopped at this hotel while in charleroi, but at a smaller inn at the other end of the town. the girls remembered hearing of their visit and of their inquiries for a mrs. denton, but did not know whether they had succeeded in their quest or not. "we have lived here all our lives," said the eldest of the landlord's three daughters, "but we have not known, during that time, any family of dentons in charleroi." patsy reflected. "they were married only five months ago, these dentons," said she, "and the young man may have come from some other town. do you remember that any of your young girls were married about five months ago?" yes; there was hildegarde bentel, but she had married anthony mattison, who was not a soldier. could the american mamselle remember what the girl's first name was? "oh, yes!" exclaimed patsy. "she signed her letters 'elizabeth.'" they shook their heads. "my name is also elizabeth," said one. "we have many elizabeths in charleroi, but none has lately married." "and her husband told me that she was now living here with her mother." "ah, let us see, then," responded another. "could she have been a lady of rank, think you?" "i--i do not know." "is her husband an officer?" "no; a private, i believe." "then we are on the wrong scent," laughed the girl. "i had in mind the daughter of the countess voig, whose name chances to be elizabeth. she was educated at a convent in antwerp, and the countess has lived in that city for several years, in order to be nearer her daughter. there was some gossip here that the young lady had married in antwerp, just after leaving the convent; but we know little of the life of the voigs because they are very reserved. two or three months ago they returned to their castle, which is four miles to the north of charleroi, and there they are still living in retirement. every day the old steward drives into town to visit the post office, but we have not seen the countess nor her daughter since they came back." patsy related this news to uncle john, who did not understand french. "let us drive over to castle voig the first thing," she said. "but, my dear, it's unreasonable," he objected. "do you suppose a high-born young lady would marry a common soldier? in america, where we have no caste, it would be quite probable, but here--" "he wasn't a soldier five months ago," said patsy. "he's just a volunteer, who joined the army when his country needed him, as many of the wealthy and aristocratic belgians did. he may be high-born himself, for all we know. at any rate i mean to visit that castle. tell rondel to bring around the automobile." they had no trouble in passing the guards, owing to the presence of von holtz, and in half an hour they were rolling through a charming, peaceful country that as yet had suffered no blemish through the german conquest. at castle voig they were received by an aged retainer who was visibly nervous at their arrival. he eyed the uniform of young von holtz with ill-concealed terror and hurried away to carry their cards to the countess. after a long wait they learned that the countess would receive the americans, but it was a full half hour after that when they were ushered into a reception room where a lady sat in solitary state. under other circumstances patsy could have spent a day in admiring the quaint, old-fashioned furniture and pictures and the wonderful carvings of the beamed ceiling, but now she was so excited that she looked only at the countess. the lady was not very imposing in form or dress but her features were calm and dignified and she met her guests with a grave courtesy that was impressive if rather chilly. before patsy had summoned courage to explain her errand a younger woman--almost a girl--hurriedly entered the room and took a position beside the other. "oh, it's elizabeth--it really is!" cried patsy, clapping her hands together joyfully. mother and daughter regarded the american girl wonderingly and somewhat haughtily, but patsy was not in the least dismayed. "isn't this mrs. denton?" she asked, stepping forward to lay a hand upon the other girl's arm. "yes," was the quiet reply. patsy's great eyes regarded her a moment with so sad and sympathetic a look that mrs. denton shrank away. then she noticed for the first time the red cross uniform, and her hand went swiftly to her heart as she faltered: "you--you have brought bad news of andrew--of my husband?" "yes, i am sorry to admit that it is bad news," answered patsy soberly. "he has been wounded and is now lying ill in our hospital ship at dunkirk. we came here to find you, and to take you to him." mrs. denton turned to her mother, a passionate appeal in her eyes. but it was some moments before the hard, set look on the face of the countess softened. it did soften at last, however, and she turned to patsy and said simply: "we will prepare for the journey at once. pray excuse us; niklas will serve refreshments. we will not detain you long." as they turned to leave the room elizabeth denton suddenly seized patsy's hand. "he will live?" she whispered. "tell me he will live!" patsy's heart sank, but she summoned her wits by an effort. "i am not a surgeon, my dear, and do not know how serious the wound may be," she answered, "but i assure you it will gladden his heart to see you again. he thinks and speaks only of you." the girl-wife studied her face a moment and then dropped her hand and hurried after her mother. "i fibbed, uncle," said patsy despondently. "i fibbed willfully. but--how could i help it when she looked at me that way?" chapter xv dr. gys surprises himself henderson was waiting with the launch at the ostend docks. lieutenant von holtz was earnestly thanked by patsy and uncle john for his kindness and in return he exacted a promise from them to hunt him up in germany some day, when the war was ended. the countess and mrs. denton, sad and black-robed, had been made comfortable in the stern seats of the boat and the captain was just about to order henderson to start the engine when up to them rushed the fat belgian woman and her two children. without an instant's hesitation the two youngsters leaped aboard like cats and their mother would have followed but for the restraining hand of captain carg. "what does this mean?" cried mr. merrick angrily. the woman jabbered volubly in french. "she says," interpreted patsy, "that we promised to take her to dunkirk, so she may find her husband." "let her walk!" said uncle john. "the germans won't allow her to cross the lines. what does it matter, uncle? we have plenty of room. in three hours we can be rid of them, and doubtless the poor thing is really anxious to find her lost husband, who was last seen in dunkirk." "he is a spy, and a traitor to both sides, according to report." "that isn't our affair, is it? and i suppose even people of that class have hearts and affections." "well, let her come aboard, captain," decided uncle john. "we can't waste time in arguing." they stowed her away in the bow, under henderson's care, and threatened the children with dire punishment if they moved from under her shadow. then the launch sped out into the bay and away toward dunkirk. three days had brought many changes to the hospital ship _arabella_. of the original batch of patients only lieutenant elbl, the german, and andrew denton now remained. all the others had been sent home, transferred to the government hospitals or gone back to the front, according to the character of their injuries. this was necessary because their places were needed by the newly wounded who were brought each day from the front. little maurie was driving the ambulance again and, with ajo beside him and dr. kelsey and a sailor for assistants, the belgian would make a dash to ypres or dixmude or furnes and return with a full load of wounded soldiers. these were the days of the severest fighting in flanders, fighting so severe that it could not keep up for long. there would come a lull presently, when the overworked nurses and surgeons could get a bit of sleep and draw a long breath again. gys had elected to remain aboard the ship, where with maud and beth he was kept busy night and day. two french girls--young women of good birth and intelligence--had been selected by dr. gys from a number of applicants as assistant nurses, and although they were inexperienced, their patriotic zeal rendered them valuable. they now wore the red cross uniforms and it was decided to retain them as long as the ship's hospital remained crowded. there was plenty of work for all and the worry and long hours might have broken down the health and strength of beth and maud had not the doctor instituted regular periods of duty for each member of the force and insisted on the schedule being carried out. this hospital ship was by no means so gloomy a place as the reader may imagine. the soldiers were prone to regard their hurts lightly, as "a bit of hard luck," and since many had slight injuries it was customary for them to gather in groups upon the deck, where they would laugh and chat together, play cards for amusement or smoke quantities of cigarettes. they were mainly kind-hearted and grateful fellows and openly rejoiced that the misfortunes of war had cast their lot on this floating hospital. under the probe of the surgeon to-day, a fortnight hence back on the firing line, was not very unusual with these brave men. the ambulances had gathered in a few german soldiers, who would become prisoners of war on their recovery, and while these were inclined to be despondent and unsociable they were treated courteously by all, the americans showing no preference for any nation. the large majority of the patients, however, came from the ranks of the allies--french, english and belgian--and these were men who could smile and be merry with bandaged heads, arms a-sling, legs in splints, bullet holes here and there, such afflictions being regarded by their victims with a certain degree of pride. dr. gys was in his element, for now he had ample opportunity to display his skill and his patients were unable to "jump to another doctor" in case his ugly features revolted them. his main interest, however, lay in the desperately wounded belgian private, andrew denton, whom he had agreed to keep alive until the return of miss doyle and her uncle. in making this promise gys had figured on a possible delay of several days, but on the second day following patsy's departure the sudden sinking of his patient aroused a defiant streak in the surgeon and he decided to adopt drastic measures in order to prevent denton from passing away before his wife's arrival. "i want you to assist me in a serious operation," he said to maud stanton. "by all the rules and precedents of human flesh, that fellow denton ought to succumb to his wound within the next three hours. the shell played havoc with his interior and i have never dared, until now, to attempt to patch things up; but if we're going to keep him alive until morning, or until your cousin's return, we must accomplish the impossible." "what is that?" she inquired. "remove his vital organs, tinker them up and put them back so they will work properly." "can that be done, doctor?" "i think not. but i'm going to try it. i am positive that if we leave him alone he has less than three hours of life remaining; so, if we fail, miss stanton, as it is reasonable to expect, poor denton will merely be spared a couple of hours of pain. get the anaesthetics, please." with all her training and experience as a nurse, maud was half terrified at the ordeal before her. but she realized the logic of the doctor's conclusion and steeled her nerves to do her part. an hour later she stood looking down upon the patient. he was still upon the operating table but breathing quietly and as strongly as at any time since he had received his wound. "this shows," dr. gys said to her, his voice keen with elation, "what fools we are to take any human condition for granted. man is a machine. smash his mechanism and it cannot work; make the proper repairs before it is too late and--there he goes, ticking away as before. not as good a machine as it was prior to the break, but with care and caution it will run a long time." "he will live, then, you think?" she asked softly, marveling that after what she had witnessed the man was still able to breathe. gys leaned down and put his ear to the heart of the patient. for two minutes he remained motionless. then he straightened up and a smile spread over his disfigured features. "i confidently believe, miss stanton, we have turned the trick! luck, let us call it, for no sensible surgeon would have attempted the thing. rest assured that andrew denton will live for the next ten days. more than that, with no serious set-back he may fully recover and live for many years to come." he was so pleased that tears stood in his one good eye and he wiped them away sheepishly. the girl took his hand and pressed it in both her own. "you are wonderful--wonderful!" she said. "don't, please--don't look in my face," he pleaded. "i won't," she returned, dropping her eyes; "i will think only of the clever brain, the skillful hand and the stout heart." "not even that," he said. "think of the girl wife--of elizabeth. it was she who steadied my hand to-day. indeed, miss stanton, it was elizabeth's influence that saved him. but for her we would have let him die." chapter xvi clarette so it was toward evening of the fourth day that the launch finally sighted the ship _arabella_. delays and difficulties had been encountered in spite of government credentials and _laissez-passer_ and patsy had begun to fear they would not reach the harbor of dunkirk before dark. all through the journey the belgian woman and her children had sat sullenly in the bow, the youngsters kept from mischief by the stern eye of henderson. in the stern seats, however, the original frigid silence had been thawed by patsy doyle's bright chatter. she began by telling the countess and elizabeth all about herself and beth and maud and uncle john, relating how they had come to embark upon this unusual mission of nursing the wounded of a foreign war, and how they had secured the services of the clever but disfigured surgeon, dr. gys. she gave the ladies a clear picture of the hospital ship and told how the girls had made their dash to the firing line during the battle of nieuport and brought back an ambulance full of wounded--including andrew denton. patsy did not answer very fully elizabeth denton's eager questions concerning the nature of her husband's injuries, but she tried to prepare the poor young wife for the knowledge that the wound would prove fatal. this was a most delicate and difficult thing to do and patsy blundered and floundered until her very ambiguity aroused alarm. "tell me the worst!" begged elizabeth denton, her face pale and tensely drawn. "why, i cannot do that, you see," replied patsy, "because the worst hasn't happened yet; nor can i tell you the best, because a wound is such an uncertain thing. it was a shell, you know, that exploded behind him, and dr. gys thought it made a rather serious wound. mr. denton was unconscious a long time, and when he came to himself we eased his pain, so he would not suffer." "you came to get me because you thought he would die?" "i came because he asked me to read to him your letters, and i found they comforted him so much that your presence would, i knew, comfort him more." there was a long silence. presently the countess asked in her soft, even voice: "will he be alive when we get there?" patsy thought of the days that had been wasted, because of their detention at ostend through colonel grau's stupidity. "i hope so, madam," was all she could reply. conversation lagged after this episode. elizabeth was weeping quietly on her mother's shoulder. patsy felt relief in the knowledge that she had prepared them, as well as she could, for whatever might wait upon their arrival. the launch made directly for the ship and as she came alongside to the ladder the rail was lined with faces curious to discover if the errand had been successful. doctor gys was there to receive them, smiling horribly as he greeted the two women in black. maud, seeing that they recoiled from the doctor's appearance, took his place and said cheerfully: "mr. denton is asleep, just now, but by the time you have bathed and had a cup of tea i am quite sure he will be ready to receive you." "tell me; how is he? are you his nurse?" asked the young wife with trembling lips. "i am his nurse, and i assure you he is doing very well," answered maud with her pleasant, winning smile. "when he finds you by his side i am sure his recovery will be rapid. no nurse can take the place of a wife, you know." patsy looked at her reproachfully, thinking she was misleading the poor young wife, but maud led the ladies away to a stateroom and it was dr. gys who explained the wonderful improvement in the patient. "well," remarked uncle john, "if we'd known he had a chance, we wouldn't have worried so because we were held up. in fact, if we'd known he would get well, we needn't have gone at all." "oh, uncle john!" cried patsy reprovingly. "it was your going that saved him," declared the doctor. "i promised to keep him alive, for that little wife of his, and when he took a turn for the worse i had to assume desperate chances--which won out." meantime the big belgian woman and her children had been helped up the ladder by henderson, who stood respectfully by, awaiting orders for their disposal. the mother had her eye on the shore and was scowling steadily upon it when little maurie came on deck and strolled toward mr. merrick to greet him on his return. indeed, he had approached to within a dozen feet of the group when the woman at the rail suddenly turned and saw him. "aha--mon henri!" she cried and made a dash toward him with outstretched arms. "clarette!" maurie stopped short; he grew pallid; he trembled. but he did not await her coming. with a howl that would have shamed a wild indian he leaped upon the rail and made a dive into the water below. even as her engulfing arms closed around the spot where he had stood, there was a splash and splutter that drew everyone to the side to watch the little belgian swim frantically to the docks. the woman grabbed a child with either arm and held them up. "see!" she cried. "there is your father--the coward--the traitor--the deserter of his loving family. he thinks to escape; but we shall capture him yet, and when we do--" "hurry, father," screamed the little girl, "or she'll get you." a slap on the mouth silenced her and set the boy wailing dismally. the boy was accustomed to howl without provocation. he kicked his mother until she let him down. by this time they could discern only maurie's head bobbing in the distant water. presently he clambered up the dock and ran dripping toward the city, disappearing among the buildings. "madam," said uncle john, sternly, "you have cost us the best chauffeur we ever had." she did not understand english, but she shook her fist in mr. merrick's face and danced around in an elephantine fashion and jabbered a stream of french. "what does she say?" he asked patsy, who was laughing merrily at the absurd scene. "she demands to be put ashore at once. but shall we do that, and put poor maurie in peril of being overtaken?" "self preservation is the first law of nature, my dear," replied uncle john. "i'm sorry for maurie, but he alone is responsible. henderson," he added, turning to the sailor, "put this woman ashore as soon as possible. we've had enough of her." chapter xvii perplexing problems although the famous battle of nieuport had come to an end, the fighting in west flanders was by no means over. all along the line fierce and relentless war waged without interruption and if neither side could claim victory, neither side suffered defeat. day after day hundreds of combatants fell; hundreds of disabled limped to the rear; hundreds were made prisoners. and always a stream of reinforcements came to take the places of the missing ones. towns were occupied to-day by the germans, to-morrow by the allies; from nieuport on past dixmude and beyond ypres the dykes had been opened and the low country was one vast lake. the only approaches from french territory were half a dozen roads built high above the water line, which rendered them capable of stubborn defence. dunkirk was thronged with reserves--english, belgian and french. the turcos and east indians were employed by the british in this section and were as much dreaded by the civilians as the enemy. uncle john noticed that military discipline was not so strict in dunkirk as at ostend; but the germans had but one people to control while the french town was host to many nations and races. strange as it may appear, the war was growing monotonous to those who were able to view it closely, perhaps because nothing important resulted from all the desperate, continuous fighting. the people were pursuing their accustomed vocations while shells burst and bullets whizzed around them. they must manage to live, whatever the outcome of this struggle of nations might be. aboard the american hospital ship there was as yet no sense of monotony. the three girls who had conceived and carried out this remarkable philanthropy were as busy as bees during all their waking hours and the spirit of helpful charity so strongly possessed them that all their thoughts were centered on their work. no two cases were exactly alike and it was interesting, to the verge of fascination, to watch the results of various treatments of divers wounds and afflictions. the girls often congratulated themselves on having secured so efficient a surgeon as doctor gys, who gloried in his work, and whose judgment, based on practical experience, was comprehensive and unfailing. the man's horribly contorted features had now become so familiar to the girls that they seldom noticed them--unless a cry of fear from some newly arrived and unnerved patient reminded them that the doctor was exceedingly repulsive to strangers. no one recognized this grotesque hideousness more than doctor gys himself. when one poor frenchman died under the operating knife, staring with horror into the uncanny face the surgeon bent over him, beth was almost sure the fright had hastened his end. she said to gys that evening, when they met on deck, "wouldn't it be wise for you to wear a mask in the operating room?" he considered the suggestion a moment, a deep flush spreading over his face; then he nodded gravely. "it may be an excellent idea," he agreed. "once, a couple of years ago, i proposed wearing a mask wherever i went, but my friends assured me the effect would be so marked that it would attract to me an embarrassing amount of attention. i have trained myself to bear the repulsion involuntarily exhibited by all i meet and have taught myself to take a philosophic, if somewhat cynical, view of my facial blemishes; yet in this work i can see how a mask might be merciful to my patients. i will experiment a bit along this line, if you will help me, and we'll see what we can accomplish." "you must not think," she said quietly, for she detected a little bitterness in his tone, "that you are in any way repulsive to those who know you well. we all admire you as a man and are grieved at the misfortunes that marred your features. after all, doctor, people of intelligence seldom judge one by appearances." "however they may judge me," said he, "i'm a failure. you say you admire me as a man, but you don't. it's just a bit of diplomatic flattery. i'm a good doctor and surgeon, i'll admit, but my face is no more repellent than my cowardly nature. miss beth, i hate myself for my cowardice far more than i detest my ghastly countenance. yet i am powerless to remedy either defect." "i believe that what you term your cowardice is merely a physical weakness," declared the girl. "it must have been caused by the suffering you endured at the time of your various injuries. i have noticed that suffering frequently unnerves one, and that a person who has once been badly hurt lives in nervous terror of being hurt again." "you are very kind to try to excuse my fault," said he, "but the truth is i have always been a coward--from boyhood up." "yet you embarked on all those dangerous expeditions." "yes, just to have fun with myself; to sneer at the coward flesh, so to speak. i used to long for dangers, and when they came upon me i would jeer at and revile the quaking i could not repress. i pushed my shrinking body into peril and exulted in the punishment it received." beth looked at him wonderingly. "you are a strange man, indeed," said she. "really, i cannot understand your mental attitude at all." he chuckled and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "i can," he returned, "for i know what causes it." and then he went away and left her, still seeming highly amused at her bewilderment. in the operating room the next day gys appeared with a rubber mask drawn across his features. the girls decided that it certainly improved his appearance, odd as the masked face might appear to strangers. it hid the dreadful nose and the scars and to an extent evened the size of the eyes, for the holes through which he peered were made alike. gys was himself pleased with the device, for after that he wore the mask almost constantly, only laying it aside during the evenings when he sat on deck. it was three days after the arrival of mrs. denton and her mother--whose advent had accomplished much toward promoting the young belgian's convalescence--when little maurie suddenly reappeared on the deck of the _arabella_. "oh," said patsy, finding him there when she came up from breakfast, "where is clarette?" he shook his head sadly. "we do not live together, just now," said he. "clarette is by nature temperamental, you know; she is highly sensitive, and i, alas! do not always please her." "did she find you in dunkirk?" asked the girl. "almost, mamselle, but not quite. it was this way: i knew if i permitted her to follow me she would finally succeed in her quest, for she and the dear children have six eyes among them, while i have but two; so i reposed within an ash-barrel until they had passed on, and then i followed them, keeping well out of their sight. in that way i managed to escape. but it proved a hard task, for my clarette is very persistent, as you may have noticed. so i decided i would be more safe upon the ship than upon the shore. she is not likely to seek me here, and in any event she floats better than she swims." patsy regarded the little man curiously. "did you not tell us, when first we met you, that you were heart-broken over the separation from your wife and children?" she inquired in severe tones. "yes, of course, mamselle; it was a good way to arouse your sympathy," he admitted with an air of pride. "i needed sympathy at that time, and my only fear was that you would find clarette, as you threatened to do. well," with a deep sigh, "you did find her. it was an unfriendly act, mamselle." "they told us in ostend that the husband of clarette is a condemned spy, one who served both sides and proved false to each. the husband of clarette is doomed to suffer death at the hands of the germans or the belgians, if either is able to discover him." maurie removed his cap and scratched the hair over his left ear reflectively. "ah, yes, the blacksmith!" said he. "i suspected that blacksmith fellow was not reliable." "how many husbands has clarette?" "with the blacksmith, there are two of us," answered maurie, brightly. "doubtless there would be more if anything happened to me, for clarette is very fascinating. when she divorced the blacksmith he was disconsolate, and threatened vengeance; so her life is quite occupied in avoiding her first husband and keeping track of her second, who is too kind-hearted to threaten her as the blacksmith did. i really admire clarette--at a distance. she is positively charming when her mind is free from worry--and the children are asleep." "then you think," said ajo, who was standing by and listening to maurie's labored explanations, "that it is the blacksmith who is condemned as a spy, and not yourself?" "i am quite sure of it. am i not here, driving your ambulance and going boldly among the officers? if it is jakob maurie they wish, he is at hand to be arrested." "but you are not jakob maurie." the belgian gave a start, but instantly recovering he answered with a smile: "then i must have mistaken my identity, monsieur. perhaps you will tell me who i am?" "your wife called you 'henri,'" said patsy. "ah, yes; a pet name. i believe the blacksmith is named henri, and poor clarette is so accustomed to it that she calls me henri when she wishes to be affectionate." patsy realized the folly of arguing with him. "maurie," said she, "or whatever your name may be, you have been faithful in your duty to us and we have no cause for complaint. but i believe you do not speak the truth, and that you are shifty and artful. i fear you will come to a bad end." "sometimes, mamselle," he replied, "i fear so myself. but, _peste_! why should we care? if it is the end, what matter whether it is good or bad?" watching their faces closely, he saw frank disapproval of his sentiments written thereon. it disturbed him somewhat that they did not choose to continue the conversation, so he said meekly: "with your kind permission, i will now go below for a cup of coffee," and left them with a bow and a flourish of his cap. when he had gone patsy said to ajo: "i don't believe there is any such person as the blacksmith." "nor i," was the boy's reply. "both those children are living images of maurie, who claims the blacksmith was their father. he's a crafty little fellow, that chauffeur of ours, and we must look out for him." "if he is really a spy," continued the girl, after a brief period of thought, "i am amazed that he dared join our party and go directly to the front, where he is at any time likely to be recognized." "yes, that is certainly puzzling," returned ajo. "and he's a brave little man, too, fearless of danger and reckless in exposing himself to shot and shell. indeed, our maurie is something of a mystery and the only thing i fully understand is his objection to clarette's society." at "le revue matin," as the girls called the first inspection of the morning, eight of their patients were found sufficiently recovered to be discharged. some of these returned to their regiments and others were sent to their homes to await complete recovery. the hospital ship could accommodate ten more patients, so it was decided to make a trip to dixmude, where an artillery engagement was raging, with the larger ambulance. "i think i shall go to-day," announced gys, who was wearing his mask. "dr. kelsey can look after the patients and it will do me good to get off the ship." uncle john looked at the doctor seriously. "there is hard fighting, they say, in the dixmude district. the germans carried the british trenches yesterday, and to-day the allies will try to retake them." "i don't mind," returned the doctor, but he shuddered, nevertheless. "why don't you avoid the--the danger line?" suggested mr. merrick. "a man can't run away from himself, sir; and perhaps you can understand the fascination i find in taunting the craven spirit within me." "no, i can't understand it. but suit yourself." "i shall drive," announced maurie. "you may be recognized," said patsy warningly. "clarette will not be at the front, and on the way i shall be driving. have you noticed how people scatter at the sound of our gong?" "the authorities are watching for spies," asserted ajo. maurie's face became solemn. "yes; of course. but--the blacksmith is not here, and," he added with assurance, "the badge of the red cross protects us from false accusations." when they had gone uncle john said thoughtfully to the girls: "that remark about the red cross impressed me. if that fellow maurie is really in danger of being arrested and shot, he has cleverly placed himself in the safest service in the world. he knows that none of our party is liable to be suspected of evil." chapter xviii a question of loyalty during the morning they were visited by a french official who came aboard in a government boat and asked to see mr. merrick. the ship had been inspected several times by the commander of the port and the civil authorities, and its fame as a model hospital had spread over all flanders. some attempt had been made to place with the americans the most important of the wounded--officers of high rank or those of social prominence and wealth--but mr. merrick and his aids were determined to show no partiality. they received the lowly and humble as well as the high and mighty and the only requisite for admission was an injury that demanded the care of good nurses and the skill of competent surgeons. uncle john knew the french general and greeted him warmly, for he appreciated his generous co-operation. but beth had to be called in to interpret because her uncle knew so little of the native language. first they paid a visit to the hospital section, where the patients were inspected. then the register and records were carefully gone over and notes taken by the general's secretary. finally they returned to the after-deck to review the convalescents who were lounging there in their cushioned deck-chairs. "where is the german, lieutenant elbl?" inquired the general, looking around with sudden suspicion. "in the captain's room," replied beth. "would you like to see him?" "if you please." the group moved forward to the room occupied by captain carg. the door and windows stood open and reclining upon a couch inside was the maimed german, with carg sitting beside him. both were solemnly smoking their pipes. the captain rose as the general entered, while elbl gave his visitor a military salute. "so you are better?" asked the frenchman. beth repeated this in english to carg, who repeated it in german to elbl. yes, the wounded man was doing very well. "will you keep him here much longer?" was the next question, directed to mr. merrick. "i think so," was the reply. "he is still quite weak, although the wound is healing nicely. being a military prisoner, there is no other place open to him where the man can be as comfortable as here." "you will be responsible for his person? you will guarantee that he will not escape?" mr. merrick hesitated. "must we promise that?" he inquired. "otherwise i shall be obliged to remove him to a government hospital." "i don't like that. not that your hospitals are not good enough for a prisoner, but elbl happens to be a cousin of our captain, which puts a different face on the matter. what do you say, captain carg? shall we guarantee that your cousin will not try to escape?" "why should he, sir? he can never rejoin the army, that's certain," replied carg. "true," said the general, when this was conveyed to him by beth. "nevertheless, he is a prisoner of war, and must not be allowed to escape to his own people." beth answered the frenchman herself, looking him straight in the face. "that strikes me as unfair, sir," said she. "the german must henceforth be a noncombatant. he has been unable, since he was wounded and brought here, to learn any of your military secrets and at the best he will lie a helpless invalid for weeks to come. therefore, instead of making him a prisoner, it would be more humane to permit him to return to his home and family in germany." the general smiled indulgently. "it might be more humane, mademoiselle, but unfortunately it is against the military code. did i understand that your captain will guarantee the german's safety?" "of course," said carg. "if he escapes, i will surrender myself in his place." "ah; but we moderns cannot accept pythias if damon runs away," laughed the general. "but, there; it will be simpler to send a parole for him to sign, when he may be left in your charge until he is sufficiently recovered to bear the confinement of a prison. is that satisfactory?" "certainly, sir," replied the captain. elbl had remained silent during this conversation, appearing not to understand the french and english spoken. indeed, since his arrival he had only spoken the german language, and that mostly in his intercourse with carg. but after the french officer had gone away beth began to reflect upon this reticence. "isn't it queer," she remarked to uncle john, "that an educated german--one who has been through college, as captain carg says elbl has--should be unable to understand either french or english? i have always been told the german colleges are very thorough and you know that while at ostend we found nearly all the german officers spoke good english." "it is rather strange, come to think of it," answered uncle john. "i believe the study of languages is a part of the german military education. but i regret that the french are determined to keep the poor fellow a prisoner. such a precaution is absurd, to my mind." "i think i can understand the french position," said the girl, reflectively. "these germans are very obstinate, and much as i admire lieutenant elbl i feel sure that were he able he would fight the french again to-morrow. after his recovery he might even get one of those mechanical feet and be back on the firing line." "he's a uhlan." "then he could ride a horse. i believe, uncle, the french are justified in retaining him as a prisoner until the war is over." meantime, in the captain's room the two men were quietly conversing. "he wants you to sign a parole," said carg. "not i." "you may as well. i'm responsible for your safety." "i deny anyone's right to be responsible for me. if you have made a promise to that effect, withdraw it," said the german. "if i do, they'll put you in prison." "not at present. i am still an invalid. in reality. i am weak and suffering. yet i am already planning my escape, and that is why i insist that you withdraw any promise you have made. otherwise--" "otherwise?" "instead of escaping by water, as i had intended, to ostend, i must go to the prison and escape from there. it will be more difficult. the water route is best." "of course," agreed the captain, smiling calmly. "one of your launches would carry me to ostend and return here between dark and daylight." "easily enough," said carg. it was five minutes before he resumed his speech. then he said with quiet deliberation: "cousin, i am an american, and americans are neutral in this war." "you are sangoan." "my ship is chartered by americans, which obliges the captain of the ship to be loyal to its masters. i will do nothing to conflict with the interests of the americans, not even to favor my cousin." "quite right," said elbl. "if you have any plan of escape in mind, do not tell me of it," continued the captain. "i shall order the launches guarded carefully. i shall do all in my power to prevent your getting away from this ship." "thank you," said the german. "you have my respect, cousin. pass the tobacco." chapter xix the capture there was considerable excitement when the ambulance returned. part of the roof had been torn away, the doors were gone, the interior wrecked and not a pane of glass remained in the sides; yet ajo drove it to the dock, the motor working as smoothly as ever, and half a dozen wounded were helped out and put into the launch to be taken aboard the hospital ship. when all were on deck, young jones briefly explained what had happened. a shell had struck the ambulance, which had been left in the rear, but without injuring the motor in any way. fortunately no one was near at the time. when they returned they cleared away the rubbish to make room for a few wounded men and then started back to the city. doctor gys, hatless and coatless, his hair awry and the mask making him look more hideous than ever, returned with the party and came creeping up the ship's ladder in so nervous a condition that his trembling knees fairly knocked together. the group around ajo watched him silently. "what do you think that fool did?" asked the boy, as gys slunk away to his room. "tell us," pleaded patsy, who was one of the curious group surrounding him. "we had gone near to where a machine gun was planted, to pick up a fallen soldier, when without warning the germans charged the gun. maurie and i made a run for life, but gys stood stock still, facing the enemy. a man at the gun reeled and fell, just then, and with a hail of bullets flying around him the doctor coolly walked up and bent over him. the sight so amazed the germans that they actually stopped fighting and waited for him. perhaps it was the red cross on the doctor's arm that influenced them, but imagine a body of soldiers in the heat of a charge suddenly stopping because of one man!" "well, what happened?" asked mr. merrick. "i couldn't see very well, for a battery that supported the charge was shelling the retreating allies and just then our ambulance was hit. but maurie says he watched the scene and that when gys attempted to lift the wounded man up he suddenly turned weak as water. the germans had captured the gun, by this time, and their officer himself hoisted the injured man upon the doctor's shoulders and attended him to our ambulance. when i saw the fight was over i hastened to help gys, who staggered so weakly that he would have dropped his man a dozen times on the way had not the germans held him up. they were laughing, as if the whole thing was a joke, when crack! came a volley of bullets and with a great shout back rushed the french and belgians in a counter-charge. i admit i ducked, crawling under the ambulance, and the germans were so surprised that they beat a quick retreat. "and now it was that gys made a fool of himself. he tore off his cap and coat, which bore the red cross emblem, and leaped right between the two lines. here were the germans, firing as they retreated, and the allies firing as they charged, and right in the center of the fray stood gys. the man ought to have been shot to pieces, but nothing touched him until a frenchman knocked him over because he was in the way of the rush. it was the most reckless, suicidal act i ever heard of!" uncle john looked worried. he had never told any of them of dr. gys' strange remark during their first interview, but he had not forgotten it. "i'll be happier when i can shake off this horrible envelope of disfigurement," the doctor had declared, and in view of this the report of that day's adventure gave the kind-hearted gentleman a severe shock. he walked the deck thoughtfully while the girls hurried below to look after the new patients who had been brought, not too comfortably, in the damaged ambulance. "it was a bad fight," ajo had reported, "and the wounded were thick, but we could only bring a few of them. before we left the field, however, an english ambulance and two french ones arrived, and that gave us an opportunity to get away. indeed, i was so unnerved by the dangers we had miraculously escaped that i was glad to be out of it." uncle john tried hard to understand doctor gys, but the man's strange, abnormal nature was incomprehensible. when, half an hour later, mr. merrick went below, he found the doctor in the operating room, cool and steady of nerve and dressing wounds in his best professional manner. upon examination the next morning the large ambulance was found to be so badly damaged that it had to be taken to a repair shop in the city to undergo reconstruction. it would take several weeks to put it in shape, declared the french mechanics, so the americans would be forced to get along with the smaller vehicle. jones and dr. kelsey made regular trips with this, but the fighting had suddenly lulled and for several days no new patients were brought to the ship, although many were given first aid in the trenches for slight wounds. so the colony aboard the _arabella_ grew gradually less, until on the twenty-sixth of november the girls found they had but two patients to care for--elbl and andrew denton. neither required much nursing, and denton's young wife insisted on taking full charge of him. but while the hospital ship was not in demand at this time there were casualties day by day in the trenches, where the armies faced each other doggedly and watchfully and shots were frequently interchanged when a soldier carelessly exposed his person to the enemy. so the girls took turns going with the ambulance, and uncle john made no protest because so little danger attended these journeys. each day, while one of the american girls rode to the front, the other two would visit the city hospitals and render whatever assistance they could to the regular nurses. gys sometimes accompanied them and sometimes went to the front with the ambulance; but he never caused his friends anxiety on these trips, because he could not endanger his life, owing to the cessation of fighting. the only incident that enlivened this period of stagnation was the capture of maurie. no; the authorities didn't get him, but clarette did. ajo and patsy had gone into the city one afternoon and on their return to the docks, where their launch was moored, they found a street urchin awaiting them with a soiled scrap of paper clenched fast in his fist. he surrendered it for a coin and patsy found the following words scrawled in english: "she has me fast. help! be quick. i cannot save myself so you must save me. it is your maurie who is in distress." they laughed a little at first and then began to realize that the loss of their chauffeur would prove a hardship when fighting was resumed. maurie might not be a good husband, and he might be afraid of a woman, but was valuable when bullets were flying. patsy asked the boy: "can you lead us to the man who gave you this paper?" "oui, mamselle." "then hurry, and you shall have five centimes more." the injunction was unnecessary, for the urchin made them hasten to keep up with him. he made many turns and twists through narrow alleys and back streets until finally he brought them to a row of cheap, plastered huts built against the old city wall. there was no mistaking the place, for in the doorway of one of the poorest dwellings stood clarette, her ample figure fairly filling the opening, her hands planted firmly on her broad hips. "good evening," said patsy pleasantly. "is maurie within?" "henri is within," answered clarette with a fierce scowl, "and he is going to stay within." "but we have need of his services," said ajo sternly, "and the man is in our employ and under contract to obey us." "i also need his services," retorted clarette, "and i made a contract with him before you did, as my marriage papers will prove." the little boy and girl had now crowded into the doorway on either side of their mother, clinging to her skirts while they "made faces" at the americans. clarette turned to drive the children away and in the act allowed patsy and ajo to glance past her into the hut. there stood little maurie, sleeves rolled above his elbows, bending over a battered dishpan where he was washing a mess of cracked and broken pottery. he met their gaze with a despairing countenance and a gesture of appeal that scattered a spray of suds from big wet fingers. next moment clarette had filled the doorway again. "you may as well go away," said the woman harshly. patsy stood irresolute. "have you money to pay the rent and to provide food and clothing?" she presently asked. "i have found a few francs in henri's pockets," was the surly reply. "and when they are gone?" clarette gave a shrug. "when they are gone we shall not starve," she said. "there is plenty of charity for the belgians these days. one has but to ask, and someone gives." "then you will not let us have maurie?" "no, mademoiselle." then she unbent a little and added: "if my husband goes to you, they will be sure to catch him some day, and when they catch him they will shoot him." "why?" "don't you know?" "no." clarette smiled grimly. "when henri escapes me, he always gets himself into trouble. he is not so very bad, but he is careless--and foolish. he tries to help the germans and the french at the same time, to be accommodating, and so both have conceived a desire to shoot him. well; when they shoot him he can no longer earn money to support me and his children." "are they really his children?" inquired young jones. "who else may claim them, monsieur?" "i thought they were the children of your first husband, the blacksmith." clarette glared at him, with lowering brow. "blacksmith? pah! i have no husband but henri, and heaven forsook me when i married him." "come, patsy," said ajo to his companion, "our errand here is hopeless. and--perhaps clarette is right." they made their way back to the launch in silence. patsy was quite disappointed in maurie. he had so many admirable qualities that it was a shame he could be so untruthful and unreliable. as time passed on the monotony that followed their first exciting experiences grew upon them and became oppressive. december weather in flanders brought cutting winds from off the north sea and often there were flurries of snow in the air. they had steam heat inside the ship but the deck was no longer a practical lounging place. toward the last of the month lieutenant elbl was so fully recovered that he was able to hobble about on crutches. the friendship between the two cousins continued and elbl was often found in the captain's room. no more had been said about a parole, but the french officials were evidently keeping an eye on the german, for one morning an order came to mr. merrick to deliver elbl to the warden of the military prison at dunkirk on or before ten o'clock the following day. while the german received this notification with his accustomed stolid air of indifference, his american friends were all grieved at his transfer. they knew the prison would be very uncomfortable for the invalid and feared he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to bear the new conditions imposed upon him. there was no thought of protesting the order, however, for they appreciated the fact that the commandant had been especially lenient in leaving the prisoner so long in their care. the americans were all sitting together in the cabin that evening after dinner, when to their astonishment little maurie came aboard in a skiff, bearing an order from the french commandant to captain carg, requesting him to appear at once at military headquarters. not only was carg puzzled by this strange summons but none of the others could understand it. the belgian, when questioned, merely shook his head. he was not the general's confidant, but his fee as messenger would enable him to buy bread for his family and he had been chosen because he knew the way to the hospital ship. as there was nothing to do but obey, the captain went ashore in one of the launches, which towed the skiff in which maurie had come. when he had gone, lieutenant elbl, who had been sitting in the cabin, bade the others good night and retired to his room. most of the others retired early, but patsy, uncle john and doctor gys decided to sit up and await the return of the captain. it was an exceptionally cool evening and the warmth of the forward cabin was very agreeable. midnight had arrived when the captain's launch finally drew up to the side and carg came hastening into the cabin. his agitated manner was so unusual that the three watchers with one accord sprang to their feet with inquiring looks. "where's elbl?" asked the captain sharply. "gone to bed," said uncle john. "when?" "hours ago. i think he missed your society and was rather broken up over the necessity of leaving us to-morrow." without hesitation carg turned on his heel and hastened aft. they followed him in a wondering group. reaching the german's stateroom the captain threw open the door and found it vacant. "humph!" he exclaimed. "i suspected the truth when i found our launch was gone." "which launch?" asked uncle john, bewildered. "the one i left with the ship. on my return, just now, i discovered it was not at its moorings. someone has stolen it." they stared at him in amazement. "wasn't the deck patrolled?" asked patsy, the first to recover. "we don't set a watch till ten-thirty. it wasn't considered necessary. but i had no suspicion of the trick elbl has played on me to-night," he added with a groan. their voices had aroused others. ajo came out of his room, enveloped in a heavy bathrobe, and soon after maud and beth joined them. "what's up?" demanded the boy. "the german has tricked us and made his escape," quietly answered dr. gys. "for my part, i'm glad of it." "it was a conspiracy," growled the captain. "that rascal, maurie--" "oh, was maurie in it?" "of course. he was the decoy; perhaps he arranged the whole thing." "didn't the general want you, then?" carg was so enraged that he fairly snorted. "want me? of course he didn't want me! that treacherous little belgian led me into the waiting room and said the general would see me in a minute. then he walked away and i sat there like a bump on a log and waited. finally i began to wonder how maurie, who was always shy of facing the authorities, had happened to be the general's messenger. it looked queer. officers and civilians were passing back and forth but no one paid any attention to me; so after an hour or so i asked an officer who entered from an inner room, when i could see the general. he said the general was not there evenings but would be in his office to-morrow morning. then i showed him my order and he glanced at it and said it was forged; wasn't the general's signature and wasn't in proper form, anyhow. when i started to go he wouldn't let me; said the affair was suspicious and needed investigation. so he took me to a room full of officers and they asked me a thousand fool questions. said they had no record of a belgian named maurie and had never heard of him before. i couldn't figure the thing out, and they couldn't; so finally they let me come back to the ship." "strange," mused uncle john; "very strange!" "i was so stupid," continued carg, "that i never thought of elbl being at the bottom of the affair until i got back and found our launch missing. then i remembered that elbl was to have been turned over to the prison authorities to-morrow and like a flash i saw through the whole thing." "i'm blamed if _i_ do," declared mr. merrick. the others likewise shook their heads. "he got me out of the way, stole the launch, and is half way to ostend by this time." "alone? and wounded--still an invalid?" "doubtless maurie is with him. the rascal can run an automobile; so i suppose he can run a launch." "what puzzles me," remarked patsy, "is how lieutenant elbl ever got hold of maurie, and induced him to assist him, without our knowing anything about it." "i used to notice them talking together a good bit," said jones. "but clarette has kept maurie a prisoner. she wouldn't let him come back to the ship." "he was certainly at liberty to-night," answered beth. "isn't this escape liable to be rather embarrassing to us, uncle john?" "i'm afraid so," was the reply. "we agreed to keep him safely until the authorities demanded we give him up; and now, at the last minute, we've allowed him to get away." anxiety was written on every countenance as they considered the serious nature of this affair. only gys seemed composed and unworried. "is it too late to go in chase of the launch?" asked ajo, breaking a long pause. "they're headed for ostend, without a doubt, and there's a chance that they may run into a sand-bank in the dark, or break down, or meet with some other accident to delay them." "i believe it's worth our while, sir," answered carg. "the launch we have is the faster, and the trip will show our good faith, if nothing more." "then make ready to start at once," said ajo, "and i'll dress and go along." carg hurried away to give orders and the boy ran to his stateroom. five minutes later they were away, with four sailors to assist in the capture of the fugitives in case they were overtaken. it was a fruitless journey, however. at daybreak, as they neared ostend, they met their stolen launch coming back, in charge of a sleepy belgian who had been hired to return it. the man frankly stated that he had undertaken the task in order to get to dunkirk, where he had friends, and he had been liberally paid by a german on crutches, who had one foot missing, and a little belgian whom he had never seen before, but who, from the description given, could be none other than maurie. they carried the man back with them to the _arabella_, where further questioning added nothing to their information. they now had proof, however, that elbl was safe with his countrymen at ostend and that maurie had been his accomplice. "i would not believe," said patsy, when she heard the story, "that a belgian could be so disloyal to his country." "every nation has its quota of black sheep," replied uncle john, "and from what we have learned of maurie's character he is not at all particular which side he serves." chapter xx the dunes the escape of a prisoner of war from the american hospital ship was made the subject of a rigid inquiry by the officials and proved extremely humiliating to all on board the _arabella_. the commandant showed his irritation by severely reprimanding mr. merrick for carelessness, while captain carg had to endure a personal examination before a board of inquiry. he was able to prove that he had been at headquarters during the evening of the escape, but that did not wholly satisfy his inquisitors. finally an order was issued forbidding the americans to take any more wounded germans or austrians aboard their ship, and that seemed to end the unpleasant affair. however, a certain friction was engendered that was later evidenced on both sides. the american ambulance was no longer favored on its trips to the front, pointed preference being given the english and french red cross emergency corps. this resulted in few wounded being taken to the _arabella_, as the americans confined their work largely to assisting the injured on the field of battle. the girls were not to be daunted in their determined efforts to aid the unfortunate and every day one of them visited the trenches to assist the two doctors in rendering first aid to the wounded. the work was no longer arduous, for often entire days would pass without a single casualty demanding their attention. the cold weather resulted in much sickness among the soldiers, however, and gys found during this period of military inactivity that his medicine chest was more in demand than his case of surgical instruments. a slight diversion was created by clarette, who came to the ship to demand her husband from the americans. it seemed almost impossible to convince her that maurie was not hidden somewhere aboard, but at last they made the woman understand he had escaped with the german to ostend. they learned from her that maurie--or henri, as she insisted he was named--had several times escaped from her house at night, while she was asleep, and returned at daybreak in the morning, and this information led them to suspect he had managed to have several secret conferences with lieutenant elbl previous to their flight. clarette announced her determination to follow her husband to ostend, and perhaps she did so, as they did not see her again. it was on sunday, the twentieth of december, that the battle of the dunes began and the flames of war burst out afresh. the dunes lay between the north sea and the yser river in west flanders and consisted of a stretch of sandy hillocks reaching from coxyde to nieuport les bains. the belgians had entrenched these dunes in an elaborate and clever manner, shoveling the sand into a series of high lateral ridges, with alternate hollows, which reached for miles along the coast. the hollows were from six to eight feet deep, affording protection to the soldiers, who could nevertheless fire upon the enemy by creeping up the sloping embankments until their heads projected sufficiently to allow them to aim, when they could drop back to safety. in order to connect the hollows one with another, that an advance or retreat might be made under cover, narrow trenches had been cut at intervals diagonally through the raised mounds of sand. military experts considered this series of novel fortifications to be practically impregnable, for should the enemy defile through one of the cross passages into a hollow where the allies were gathered, they could be picked off one by one, as they appeared, and be absolutely annihilated. realizing this, the germans had not risked an attack, but after long study of the defences had decided that by means of artillery they might shell the belgians, who held the dunes, and destroy them as they lay in the hollows. so a heavy battery had been planted along the german lines for this work, while in defence the belgians confronted them with their own famous dog artillery, consisting of the deadly machine guns. the battle of december twentieth therefore began with an artillery duel, resulting in so many casualties that the red cross workers found themselves fully occupied. beth went with the ambulance the first day, worked in the hollows of the dunes, and returned to the ship at night completely worn out by the demands upon her services. it was patsy's turn next, and she took with her the second day one of the french girls as assistant. when the ambulance reached the edge of the dunes, where it was driven by ajo, the battle was raging with even more vigor than the previous day. the germans were dropping shells promiscuously into the various hollows, hoping to locate the hidden belgian infantry, while the belgian artillery strove to destroy the german gunners. both succeeded at times, and both sides were equally persistent. as it was impossible to take the ambulance into the dunes, it was left in the rear in charge of jones, while the others threaded their way in and out the devious passages toward the front. they had covered fully a mile in this laborious fashion before they came upon a detachment of belgian infantry which was lying in wait for a call to action. beyond this trench the doctors and nurses were forbidden to go, and the officer in command warned the americans to beware of stray shells. under these circumstances they contented themselves by occupying some of the rear hollows, to which the wounded would retreat to secure their services. dr. kelsey and nanette, the french girl, established themselves in one hollow at the right, while dr. gys and patsy took their position in another hollow further to the left. there they opened their cases of lint, plaster and bandages, spreading them out upon the sand, and were soon engaged in administering aid to an occasional victim of the battle. one man who came to patsy with a slight wound on his shoulder told her that a shell had exploded in a forward hollow and killed outright fifteen of his comrades. his own escape from death was miraculous and the poor fellow was so unnerved that he cried like a baby. they directed him to the rear, where he would find the ambulance, and awaited the appearance of more patients. gys crawled up the mound of sand in front of them and cautiously raised his head above the ridge. next instant he ducked to escape a rain of bullets that scattered the sand about them like a mist. "that was foolish," said patsy reprovingly. "you might have been killed." "no such luck," he muttered in reply, but the girl could see that he trembled slightly with nervousness. neither realized at the time the fatal folly of the act, for they were unaware that the germans were seeking just such a clew to direct them where to drop their shells. "it's getting rather lonely here, and there are a couple of vacant hollows in front of us," remarked the doctor. "suppose we move over to one of those, a little nearer the soldiers?" patsy approved the proposition, so they gathered up their supplies and moved along the hollow to where a passage had been cut through. they had gone barely a hundred yards when a screech, like a buzz-saw when it strikes a nail, sounded overhead. looking up they saw a black disk hurtling through the air, to drop almost where they had been standing a moment before. there was a terrific explosion that sent debris to their very feet. "after this we'll be careful how we expose ourselves," said the doctor gravely. "they have got our range in a hurry. here comes another; we'd better get away quickly." they progressed perhaps half a mile, without coming upon any soldiers, when at the brow of a hill slightly higher than the rest, they became aware of unwonted activity. a trench had been dug along the ridge, with great pits here and there to serve as bomb-proof shelters. every time a head projected above the ridge, a storm of bullets showed that the enemy was well within rifle range. in fact, it was to dislodge the germans that the present intrenchments were being made; machine guns would be mounted as soon as positions had been prepared. the german bullets had already taken their toll. in the little valley a poor belgian pressed his hand against a bad wound in his side, while another was nursing an arm roughly bandaged by his fellows in the trenches. first aid made the two comfortable for the time being at least and the men were directed toward the ambulance. as they left, the man with the wounded arm pointed down the narrow valley to where a deep ravine cut through. "we were driven from there," he said. "the big guns dropped shells on us and killed many; there are many wounded beyond--but you cannot cross the ravine. we lost ten in doing it." nevertheless, the doctor and patsy strode off. just within the shelter of the ridge they found another belgian, desperately wounded, and the doctor stopped to ease his pain with the hypodermic needle. patsy looked across the narrow defile; it was a bare fifty feet, and seemed safe enough. her red cross uniform would protect her, she reasoned, and boldly enough she stepped out into the open. a cry from a wounded soldier ahead hastened her footsteps. without heeding the warning shout of doctor gys she calmly stooped over the man who had called to her. and then there was a sudden rending, blinding, terrifying crash that sent the world into a thousand shrieking echoes. a huge shell had fallen not fifty feet away, plowing its way through the earthworks above. its explosion sent timbers, abandoned gun-carriages, everything, flying through the air. and one great piece of wood caught patsy a glancing blow on the back of her head as she crouched over the wounded belgian. with a weak cry she toppled over, not unconscious, but unable to raise herself. another shell crashed down a hundred yards away, and then one closer that sent the sand spouting high in a blinding cloud. she raised herself slowly and glanced back toward doctor gys. he stood, his face ashen with fear, hiding behind the shelter of the other hill. he looked up as she stirred; a cry of relief came to his lips. "wait!" he called, bracing up suddenly. "wait and i will get you." bending his head low he sprang across the unprotected space. he stopped with a sudden jerk and then came on. "you were hit!" cried patsy as he bent over her. "it is nothing," he answered brusquely. "hold tight around my neck." "now--" another shell scattered sand over them--"we must get away from here." breathing thickly, he staggered across the open, dropping her with a great groan behind the protection of the ridge. "the man you were helping," he gasped. "i must bring him in." "but you are wounded--" patsy cried. he straightened up--his hand clutched his side--there came across his disfigured features a queer twisted smile--he sighed softly and slowly sank in a crumpled heap. a clean little puncture in the breast of his coat told the whole story. patsy felt herself slipping.... all grew dark. * * * * * it was ajo who found her and carried her back to the ambulance, where dr. kelsey and nanette were presently able to restore her to consciousness. then they returned to the _arabella_, grave and silent, and patsy was put to bed. before morning beth and maud were anxiously nursing her, for she had developed a high fever and was delirious. the days that succeed were anxious ones, for patsy's nerves had given away completely. it was many weeks later that the rest of them met on deck. "it's the first of february," said uncle john. "don't you suppose patsy could start for home pretty soon?" "perhaps so," answered maud. "she is sitting up to-day, and seems brighter and more like herself. have we decided, then, to return to america?" "i believe so," was the reply. "we can't keep ajo's ship forever, you know, and without doctor gys we could never make it useful as a hospital ship again." "that is true," said the girl, thoughtfully. "now that andrew denton, with his wife and the countess, have gone to charleroi, our ship seems quite lonely." "you see," said ajo, taking part in the discussion, "we've never been able to overcome the suspicious coldness of these frenchmen, caused by elbl's unfortunate escape. we are not trusted fully, and never will be again, so i'm convinced our career of usefulness here is ended." "aside from that," returned uncle john, "you three girls have endured a long period of hard work and nervous strain, and you need a rest. i'm awfully proud of you all; proud of your noble determination and courage as well as the ability you have demonstrated as nurses. you have unselfishly devoted your lives for three strenuous months to the injured soldiers of a foreign war, and i hope you're satisfied that you've done your full duty." "well," returned maud with a smile, "i wouldn't think of retreating if i felt that our services were really needed, but there are so many women coming here for red cross work--english, french, swiss, dutch and italian--that they seem able to cover the field thoroughly." "true," said beth, joining the group. "let's go home, uncle. the voyage will put our patsy in fine shape again. when can we start, ajo?" "ask uncle john." "ask captain carg." "if you really mean it," said the captain, "i'll hoist anchor to-morrow morning." +transcriber's notes+ 1. typographical errors have been silently corrected. 2. variations of spelling and hyphenation are as in the original. 3. the text version is coded for italics and the like mark-ups i.e., (a) italics are indicated thus _italic_; (b) small-caps are indicated thus caps; (c) images in the book are indicated as [illustration:] at the respective place, between paragraphs. * * * * * [illustration: "is the twenty-eighth going over this week?"] captain lucy and lieutenant bob by aline havard author of captain lucy in france [illustration] _illustrated by_ ralph p. coleman philadelphia the penn publishing company 1920 copyright 1918 by the penn publishing company [illustration:logo] captain lucy and lieutenant bob introduction some of the girls who read this first story of lucy gordon's army life have spent their lives on army posts as well as she, and perhaps have even lived on governor's island. a good many others, though, have only visited posts, and have never felt that they knew much about the life of army girls, except that it was full of sudden changes. but in this last year the american army has grown very real and absorbing to every girl in america. not one of them but has become an army girl in spirit, with some strong tie to bind her to our posts, to our training camps, or to our fighters on the western front. the war is as yet only beginning for lucy gordon, and the old, pleasant times are just ending, but, like every other girl in america, she is trying hard to find the courage and cheerfulness which have never yet been wanting in our service and which are going to help america to win. in "captain lucy in france" she sees the perilous "front" for herself, and has a small part in some great events. aline havard. contents i. marian arrives 9 ii. parade 23 iii. the mystery of the twenty-eighth 39 iv. lieutenant bob 59 v. "my orders have come" 79 vi. good-byes 92 vii. a tough job 107 viii. over the trenches 122 ix. behind the enemy's lines 141 x. a gust of wind 164 xi. first aid 184 xii. locked doors 205 xiii. "come in, comrade!" 226 xiv. a letter from london 248 xv. one chance out of fifty 267 xvi. the flying man 285 xvii. over the frontier 302 xviii. captain lucy 322 illustrations page "is the twenty-eighth going over this week?" _frontispiece_ "my orders have come" 86 "you may help the allies to victory" 135 "letter, please", said a timid voice 196 "i did not know where i should land" 291 captain lucy and lieutenant bob chapter i marian arrives "the major's glasses, if you please, miss lucy," said sergeant cameron, pausing in the doorway with a bow. lucy, who had run down-stairs on hearing the bell, smiled a good-morning to the tall, soldierly figure that blocked the sunlit entrance, and went into major gordon's study for the forgotten glasses. "i was to tell mrs. gordon for the major," sergeant cameron added when lucy returned to the door, "that the guests expected to-day will come over on the twelve o'clock boat. the major had a telephone message at his office, from the city." "oh, all right, sergeant. i'll tell mother," said lucy, whereupon the non-commissioned officer turned smartly on his heel and made off in the direction of the headquarters building. it was a beautiful july morning on governor's island, and beyond the tree-dotted lawns between the rows of officers' quarters, the parade ground was alive with marching men;--companies of infantry which had drilled there for hours, a little part of the mammoth war activity that pervaded the post, the headquarters of the army's eastern department. a faint breeze blew from across new york harbor, fluttering the flag on the ramparts, but the air was very hot. lucy ran up-stairs again to her room and dropped down in front of her mirror to tie the ribbon at the back of her smoothly brushed hair, while she called out to the maid who was mounting the stairs after her, "oh, elizabeth, father just sent word that the leslies will be here for lunch,--on the twelve o'clock boat." "yes, miss lucy," answered elizabeth's pleasant, guttural voice. "you tell your mother, will you?" "oh, yes, i'm going right away." lucy gave a last tug at the ribbon, a doubtful glance at her mop of fair hair, which with the best of efforts never stayed smooth very long, and rose to her feet. she was not tall for fourteen years, and her dresses were still short, but since her last birthday she had begun to take a little more pains with her appearance, as was shown just now by her returning to tidy up again after feeding the squirrels. the face reflected in the glass was a very attractive one, with its frank, bright hazel eyes and lips ever ready to smile. but lucy never spent much time in wondering whether she looked "nice" or not. there was more than that to do just now on governor's island. she ran down-stairs two steps at a time and, shooing out an inquiring squirrel which was coming in by the screen door william had left open, went out on the piazza. on the steps sat a curly-headed five-year-old boy, the baby of the gordon family. "come on, william! come with me?" asked lucy, holding out a hand to the little boy, who jumped off the steps and trotted along beside her. "where you going, lucy?" he inquired as they followed the brick walk along the line of quarters called "general's row," because the general's house heads it, toward the path crossing over to the other officers' line or "colonel's row." "over to see mother about something," said lucy, continuing her way around the foot of colonel's row to where, after five minutes' walk, the water of the harbor gleamed through the trees and the officers' club showed by the tennis courts at the end of the parade. in one of the second floor rooms of the big, yellow brick building the red cross had its headquarters, and here lucy and william were bound as they entered the wide archway and followed the stairs leading to the ballroom and upper floor. a buzz of ladies' voices came from the doorway, beyond which twenty or thirty officers' wives and daughters were hard at work over tables piled with gauze and muslin. mrs. gordon looked up from folding a long three-yard roll and smiled a welcome as lucy entered with william close behind. "are you looking for me, daughter?" she asked, while julia houston, lucy's best friend on the post, ran over, scissors in hand, to say: "do stay, lucy, won't you, and we can work together." "i'm afraid i can't this morning, julia. i came only to tell mother about the leslies." "when are they coming? did father hear from them?" asked mrs. gordon, pausing in her work. "yes, he sent word we were to expect them on the noon boat, and, oh, mother, what do you suppose marian will be like?" demanded lucy, giving her mother's arm a squeeze in her eager curiosity. "you'll know before long, dear, and no doubt you'll like her very much," said mrs. gordon, speaking without any great conviction in her voice, as she went on with her folding. "is your cousin going to stay with you all summer?" asked julia, who had taken yards of selvage cuttings from about her shoulders, and was showing william how to wind them into neat little balls. "yes, marian is going to stay until her father comes back from california. cousin henry has to look after his lumber camps out there. the government wants his wood for ships, so he has to leave in a hurry." "haven't you ever seen her, lucy? don't you know what she's like?" asked julia curiously, tossing back her dark braids, as she looked up from william's laborious winding. "oh, yes, i saw her once about three years ago, when we were both twelve. she has always been delicate, and can't do a great deal, though father says she is much better now. but she is awfully pretty," lucy added, with a sudden enthusiasm her first words had lacked. "i think she'll like it here, don't you, julia?" "of course," said julia, who was sure any one would like army life. "come, lucy, we had better go. we won't have more than time to meet the boat," said mrs. gordon, putting away her work. "will you tie up the rest of these rolls, mrs. andrews?" she asked of the lady beside her, who agreed with a smile and added with a glance at lucy: "you'd better bring your cousin to parade to-morrow afternoon, lucy. the whole regiment is to march." mrs. andrews was the wife of the colonel of the island's infantry regiment. "oh, i will, mrs. andrews," said lucy, leaning down to free william from the yards of strips he had got wound about his arms and hands in the course of his work. "william--why do you always get so tied up with everything? come, hurry! mother's waiting. good-bye, julia." once outside the club, mrs. gordon said to her daughter, "we have fifteen minutes, so there's no need to walk fast in this heat. we can keep under the trees by the edge of the parade as far as the top of the hill." lucy was hardly listening. her eyes were bent on the ground but suddenly she raised them to her mother and asked eagerly, "how do you honestly think we'll get along with marian, mother? i can't help wondering, because she's been so used to everything she wants. perhaps she'll hate it here, and won't stay." "don't borrow trouble, dear," advised mrs. gordon, raising her parasol as they left the shade to cross the wide grassy space from colonel's to general's row. "cousin henry is so good himself, i am sure his little girl must have a great deal that is nice about her, and if she is a little selfish and trying, remember she has been ill a long time. cousin henry has been a good friend to you children; you know he got bob his appointment to west point, and father is devoted to him. we are only too glad to do a little for him now in return." they had reached the general's house at the head of the little slope leading to the dock, and new york harbor, gleaming in the morning sunlight, lay below them. "there's the boat, just coming in," said lucy, starting down the hill as the army ferry _general hancock_ drew slowly inshore, while a soldier on the dock let down the chains that held the gangway. there were few passengers at this hour, most of the hundreds having government business coming earlier in the day, and only half a dozen people from the officers' cabin stepped ashore where lucy and her mother and william stood waiting. the last to land was a tall, thin gentleman in a cool-looking pongee suit, with one arm around the shoulders of a slender girl about lucy's size and dressed all in white. "there they are, mother. hello, cousin henry! hello, marian!" cried lucy, all her doubts forgotten at sight of mr. leslie's cheerful smile and marian's pretty face. mrs. gordon made haste to give them a cordial welcome, and as she bent to kiss marian she asked hopefully, "you'll like it here with us, won't you, dear? we're so glad to have you." marian gave a faint little smile as she answered, "yes, cousin sally," and held out her hand to lucy, while mr. leslie exclaimed with the friendly heartiness that made everybody like him: "why, sally, lucy, william! i never was so glad to see any one in my life! i wish i could stay here with marian. this post must be a great place to see things, these days, and if i'm not mistaken, here's the major himself coming to meet us." he pointed toward the slope of the hill, down which a tall figure in summer olive-drab service uniform was swinging at a rapid walk. "why, so it is father," said lucy. "he didn't expect to be able to leave headquarters in time to come, but he's managed it somehow." major gordon, acting chief quartermaster of the post, had, since the declaration of war, had so much work to do that his leisure moments were exceedingly scarce, and his spare, bronzed face wore a look of fatigue. but he was well used to long and hard service, and his voice sounded hearty and cheerful as he greeted his cousin and looked with kindly questioning into marian's face, with its pale-rose-leaf cheeks, wide violet eyes, and somewhat tremulous lips which looked as though pouting were not altogether a forgotten art to them. "well, little marian, we're going to make an army girl of you before we get through--make you hate to leave us," he promised, giving a gentle pull to one of marian's curls, which, tied with a ribbon behind her neck in a lovely mass of gold, lucy had been admiring in silence while the others exchanged their greetings. major gordon led the way on up the little slope with mrs. gordon and mr. leslie, leaving the children to follow, which they did very quietly, as marian did not volunteer any remarks, and lucy did not feel like beginning to ask questions yet. william, running along beside his sister, fixed a wide-eyed stare on his new cousin which made lucy want to laugh as she began pointing out places of interest on the post, when they had reached the top of the slope. "this is general's row, marian, where we live, and across the grass there is colonel's row, that other line of houses. all the officers on the general's staff live on this side of the island, and beyond the parade you can see the officers' quarters of the infantry regiment stationed here. those big sheds, way over beyond the houses, have just been put up for the recruits there is no room for. that big grassy stretch is the parade. the men have gone in to dinner now, but you'll see them drilling again this afternoon. they are all working terribly hard getting the new men into shape before they get orders for the front." lucy stopped, feeling she had never made such a long speech in her life, as marian did not encourage her by asking any questions, but merely said, after a second's pause, "yes, i suppose so," with a glance around her which lucy felt sure was more one of politeness than real interest. in another minute they had reached the gordons' house in the line of square, yellow, pleasant looking officers' quarters, and entered the screened-in piazza. mr. leslie stopped in the doorway to poke his cane in the direction of an inquiring squirrel which was frisking about his feet with all the impudent tameness of a privileged pet. "isn't he a cunning little fellow, marian?" he asked his daughter, who had come up and slipped her arm through his, with a little more life in her face as she returned her father's smile. "yes, he is," she nodded, laughing faintly, as the squirrel ran over her white shoe, leaving dusty little tracks across the toe. "luncheon is ready," announced mrs. gordon, coming out of the house. "we have it at half-past twelve on account of james. he has to get back so early to the office." in spite of the warm day every one came in and sat down to eat very willingly, though lucy watched marian, wondering how their somewhat simplified war-time fare would please her pampered taste. evidently it was not very successful, for marian hardly touched anything, and answered mrs. gordon's anxious inquiries by saying politely that she was not very hungry to-day. mrs. gordon was not at all satisfied to see her little guest make her lunch from a few string beans and half a dozen strawberries when her delicate cheeks and thin, little hands showed her decided need of nourishment, but she said nothing more for the present. mr. leslie, whose management of his ailing, motherless little daughter consisted in either coaxing her to obey him or letting her do what she liked, added a mild suggestion that she drink the glass of milk mrs. gordon provided, but did not gain his point. william drank the milk afterward, on top of a hearty meal. after lunch major gordon took mr. leslie for a short tour of the post, which was to end at his office, from which mr. leslie would return to the house. mrs. gordon persuaded marian to come up-stairs and lie down until her father's return, so as not to be too tired on her first day at governor's island. marian was willing enough to rest for a while, as she was in the habit of doing. lucy closed the door of the darkened room, from which marian could hear the sharp commands of the company captains, once more drilling their men on the parade, and ran down-stairs, secretly wondering how any one could want to go to sleep at this hour on a beautiful day, at a new army post she had had no chance to explore. through the doorway she caught sight of julia houston running across the grass with black braids flying, and went swiftly out to meet her. "did they come?" were julia's first words, and lucy plunged into an account of the new cousins, which, however, grew pretty meagre and evasive so far as marian was concerned. "of course i don't really know her yet, though, julia," she explained for her lack of enthusiasm. "she's lying down now, but you will see her later." "oh, poor little thing,--she's still ill, then?" asked warm-hearted julia, ready to make allowances. "yes, i don't know just how much," said lucy doubtfully. "well, listen to me a minute, lucy." julia took her friend's arm and drew her down on the steps of the gordon house. "what i really came to ask you about was this." her voice dropped a little. "have you heard your father say anything about the twenty-eighth sailing for france this week, or that those drills they keep at every second of the day are their last on this side? of course your father would know, when he has charge of the supplies,--and i'm sure it's so," ended julia, her eyes bright and earnest. "oh, julia, you know how father is about secrets,--especially lately. i wouldn't know one thing if everybody on the post were leaving to-night," said lucy, her lips wavering to a smile, though her face was thoughtful. "how i wish i knew, though," she added, looking off toward the moving lines of men, dust-brown against the green. "where did you hear it, anyway?" "i didn't hear it, i just guessed it, because the infantry officers are so queer and silent now, when you ask them questions. mr. alling was at our house last night, and he would hardly speak of the latest infantry orders, and when they don't know what to expect themselves they talk and surmise, about it as much as anybody. besides, they are working so terribly hard,--in the regiment, i mean, not among the recruits. and hasn't your father been rushed to death, lately, without giving any particular reason?" lucy was silent, pondering, her father's tired face before her eyes. "i don't know, julia," she said at last. "i wish we did. i'll ask father to tell me,--wouldn't any secret be safe with us? but he won't." julia got up, staring over the parade with frowning brows. the mysterious secrecy of these first sailings of american troops for the far-off battle front, lest the watchful submarines learn more accurate news of their coming than they already picked up by unknown means, was to the eager, loyal children of the post a very thrilling problem of uncertainty. twice already had a regiment, newly arrived at the island for an uncertain stay, slipped away in the darkness or the dawn to its transports, and each time, thanks to the silent tongues and the battle-ships waiting to convoy them, they had reached the other side in safety. and now was the home regiment to follow? "i suppose we might just as well stop racking our brains," julia said at last, putting aside her perplexed thoughts with her usual impulsiveness. "come to the red cross to-morrow morning, lucy? we can do that much, anyhow." "yes, i'll come," responded lucy, still thoughtful. then she added with sudden earnestness, "but i'm not going to let the twenty-eighth disappear as the others did! if that regiment sails this week, julia, i'm going to be there to see it off." chapter ii parade the red cross rooms were crowded, but lucy and julia had managed to find a corner at mrs. houston's table. "twenty-three, twenty-four," counted lucy, turning over the neat little piles of gauze squares on the table. "oh, julia, how can you do them so fast? i've worked my head off and only made twenty, and now i have to go home before i can brace up and beat you." julia laughed, and mrs. houston, who sat across from the two girls, said critically, "i think yours are done the better of the two, lucy, so don't be too discouraged. julia always puts speed ahead of everything." "well, that's the most important thing in this red cross work," said julia in self-defense. "all the doctors tell you that plenty of dressings pretty well done are more useful after a battle than a few of them made to perfection. i tell you what, lucy, bring the rest of your pile of gauze along and come home to lunch with me. i still have this much left, too, and we can finish it right afterward." julia held up a thin pile of pieces, but lucy shook her head regretfully. "can't, julia. i must go back to marian. she's a little homesick, i think. she seemed so after her father left yesterday, though she didn't say much." "oh, then, can't you play tennis this afternoon, either?" demanded julia, feeling that her friend was making unnecessary sacrifices. "no, i'll stay with her and see you at parade. i don't mind. think how we'd feel, julia, if we were dropped down into some strange city, where nobody knew or cared anything about the army." julia laughed, but she said thoughtfully, "we'll have to make her like it here, lucy. i know we can. well, be sure to come out later." "oh, yes," nodded lucy, putting on her hat over her tumbled hair. "may i take these home to finish, mrs. houston? i'll bring them back to-morrow. good-bye." leaning all the morning over a work-table seemed to make lucy hungrier than even outdoor exercise, and at luncheon, to which they sat down promptly when major gordon came in, she was too preoccupied to notice marian very much. mrs. gordon had been helping marian arrange things in her room and unpack her clothes, and having had quite a pleasant little talk with her, and decided that she was not terribly homesick, was disappointed to see her take hardly any more interest in her food than she had the day before. "don't you like shepherd's pie?" she asked as marian refused the dish passed to her. "why don't you try a little?" marian silently obeyed by taking a spoonful, which lay quite untasted on her plate while she munched a little bread and butter. "but you aren't eating it, dear," insisted mrs. gordon. "don't you find it good?" "oh, yes, cousin sally," answered marian politely. "it's very nice indeed, but i'm not hungry." marian's careful bringing up by a french governess, surrounded with every advantage of foreign travel and good associations, had given her an outward semblance of good manners, which had, however, no real obedience or docility behind them. mrs. gordon said nothing more for the moment, and changed the subject by asking william where he had been on his walk around the island with elizabeth, after they had taken some papers and magazines to the soldiers in the post hospital. but after luncheon when lucy and marian had gone out on the piazza and sat down at a table to finish the pile of gauze, mrs. gordon took out her sewing and seated herself near them. "it isn't very hard, marian," lucy began, responding promptly to a faint suggestion made by marian before luncheon that she would like to learn to make dressings, and spreading out a piece of gauze after a critical glance at her fingers. "take this silver knife,--i brought out two,--to pat it smooth with. now fold it over, so, and fold it the other way,--twice. then smooth it flat and it's all done. i'll show you again." "marian," said mrs. gordon, looking at her little cousin's delicate profile that looked so pretty as she bent over her work, "i am going to speak to you right now about the way you sit at our table and eat nothing. why, my child, i can't let you spend the summer here and make no better meals than you have been doing. you need your food as much as lucy does,--more, because you have your health to build up." marian had turned her head to listen, and as mrs. gordon paused she said, doubtfully, "why, i'm not very hungry, cousin sally, except once in a while." "that's because your appetite has got used to being coaxed and encouraged while you were ill. i dare say there are a few things that you particularly like and are willing to eat. but i mean you must learn to help it along for yourself by trying to eat what a girl your age ought to. i'm sure you want to do everything you can to get well soon, don't you?" "oh, yes, i do," said marian quickly, while her brows met in an uncertain frown, as though her ill-health were a tiresome burden which she would gladly be rid of, but to which she had grown so accustomed that it now seemed impossible to throw it aside. "i know a little exercise would make you hungrier," mrs. gordon went on, "and while riding would be too violent on our army horses, even if the airplanes didn't frighten them too much to make it safe, i think a little tennis wouldn't hurt. oh, marian, how beautifully you've done that!" lucy had held out for her mother's inspection a smooth, almost perfect little square which marian had just added to the pile. mrs. gordon, always more willing to praise than to find fault, was delighted at her success in the delicate art of making neat compresses, and said so, enthusiastically. marian smiled with pleasure, and bent over her work again, her bright hair falling about her shoulders and her thin, little fingers busy, while lucy, glancing up, thought to herself as she patted and poked, "she _is_ pretty, and if i could just shake her and wake her up, and get her acting like a regular girl, i'd like her." "lucy," said mrs. gordon, looking at her daughter's completed pile, "i want you to walk over to headquarters now, and bring back a letter father wants to show me." "all right, mother. will you come, marian?" asked lucy, getting up with a jump from her prolonged quiet. "no, i guess not," marian answered, hesitating for a second over her refusal, but deciding in favor of what required least effort. "i'll take william," said lucy, going out on the grass, where the little boy was sitting cross-legged, carefully shelling peanuts for an impatient squirrel who would much rather have done it for himself. "o-oh, lucy, isn't he a pig!" asked william, catching sight of his sister as he began ruefully sucking his thumb where the greedy squirrel had nipped it, and ungratefully darted off over his shoulder with a flirt of his big tail in william's face. "you ought to let him have it whole. he can shell harder things than we can. come on, hurry," said lucy, holding out her hand. "we're going over to father's office a minute." they cut across the grass, and in five minutes reached the long, yellow brick building near the head of the slope above the dock, william's little bare legs twinkling along as fast as he could work them beside his sister's swift pace, for lucy always seemed to be making up for lost time. entering the building, she opened a door off the corridor into a room where a soldier sat over a desk covered with papers. "good-afternoon, sergeant cameron," she said, as the "non-com" sprang up and stood at attention, except for the friendly smile on his face. "is father in his office?" the sergeant opened the door of the inner room and ushered them through. "the major has gone into colonel horton's office for a moment, but he will be back directly. take a seat, miss lucy. no, i can't play now, little major." this was added in an undertone to william, whose resemblance to his father had earned him this title, and who could not understand why his friend the sergeant was so severe at work when he was so very friendly at other times. lucy dropped into the revolving chair in front of her father's desk and glanced idly at the papers spread out before her. they were long columns of figures at one side of the sheet, with before them lists of articles of every description for the food and equipment of uncle sam's soldiers, into the hundreds of thousands of barrels and boxes and dozens and hundredweights. half guiltily, lucy turned away her eyes, for her quick fancy brought before her on the instant the companies of marching men in close-ranked files that those supplies were meant to accompany. julia's eager questions came back with a rush of swift conviction. "the twenty-eighth is going this week, surely," she thought to herself, and struggled with her conscience whether to look again to see if the papers gave any definite names or dates, when the door opened and a young infantry officer came in, with a letter in his hand, and said, with a quick jolly smile: "hello, lucy, how are you? your father sent me to bring you this letter. he had it with him, and he can't come back right away. at least, he told me to give it to sergeant cameron, but i thought i'd like to see how you and william were." "oh, thank you, mr. harding," said lucy, taking the letter from his hand, the eager questions which she had been asking herself a moment before now trembling on her lips. the lieutenant was a great friend of the gordon family, and lucy felt emboldened to try her luck. "mr. harding," she burst out, "do you,--you don't think i am a chatterbox,--i mean that i tell everything i know,--do you?" the young officer laughed, though he looked his surprise, and his brown eyes twinkled as he said, "why, not quite so bad as that, lucy. i never said so, anyway, so why the row with me?" "oh, i know you didn't say so," lucy assured him hastily. "i'm only asking you if you don't think i can keep a secret; because i know i can." then before mr. harding could answer she persisted, "is the twenty-eighth going over this week? won't you tell me?" mr. harding smiled at the flushed and eager face lifted to his, but the smile was a thoughtful one as he answered, "you must think the colonel takes me into his confidence. what put that idea into your head?" "oh,--lots of things," said lucy impatiently. "you won't tell me, will you?" "supposing that i knew something to tell, and the orders were secret--would you expect me to?" lucy's eyes lighted up and she smiled at her friend with a sudden satisfaction. "no, i wouldn't, and i'm a silly goose to bother you, but i wanted dreadfully to know, and no news will ever be spread through me or julia." "well, i don't see any news to spread," remarked mr. harding, opening the door, "except that i shall have a warm reception from the major if i stay palavering with you and william any longer." "thanks for coming," said lucy as they passed through the outer room, where sergeant cameron stood rigidly at attention, only this time with no smile on his immovable face, as the young officer passed him to bid good-bye to the gordons at the door. "it's funny," lucy thought on the way home, when william had run on ahead, finding his sister too quiet to be good company. "we want so much to do a lot to help, and we can do so little. now i know they are surely going, for mr. harding would have denied it otherwise,--but i don't know just when." an airplane from the aviation field at the far end of the island passed noisily overhead, and lucy watched it wistfully, as it flew off toward sandy hook through the clear sky, with that mysterious longing to share in great adventures that sometimes stirs every normal fourteen-year-old heart. at last she gave a sigh and came down to earth, having bumped rather hard into some of the bushes by the general's gate-post, and made that gentleman smile curiously at her as he came out of his door. "i'll go home and see how marian is," she said, forgetting her puzzled thoughts and starting to run. "i guess that's all i'm good for." back at the house, lucy found the piazza deserted and went inside and out to the kitchen, where the cook, who was elizabeth's husband, karl, told her that mrs. gordon had gone to take some jelly to sergeant cameron's wife, who had been ill several days. "the little sick girl is up-stairs, i think, miss lucy. she not go with your mother, i know." lucy ran up-stairs and through her own room into marian's. "oh, here you are," she panted, breathless. "i've been wondering where you were. aren't you coming out to parade?" "yes, i'm getting dressed now," said marian, who was tying her curls with a blue ribbon as she stood before the glass in her petticoat. "will you button my dress for me, lucy? i was waiting for elizabeth to come down from her room." "of course i will," said lucy, taking the fine white frock laid on the bed and slipping it carefully over marian's thin little shoulders. "oh, marian, you do look lovely!" she could not help exclaiming when she had finished the row of tiny buttons. "what a perfectly darling dress that is." "oh, no," said marian, laughing at her cousin's burst of enthusiasm, for she was too used to having numberless pretty clothes, which her father bought to coax her into an interest in going about, to think much of them. but lucy, wandering over to the closet where a dozen more dresses hung, suddenly became painfully aware of her own mussed-looking middy blouse and skirt, and of the hair blown about her face. "i'll get dressed myself in a jiffy, marian," she said, darting into her own room, where she performed the sometimes neglected function of dressing for the afternoon with more than usual care. when she came out ten minutes later and joined marian down-stairs, her soft fair hair was smoothly brushed and tied, and she wore a fresh summer dress free from the ravages made by squirrels' feet. "now, we'll go," she said, leading the way outdoors, as from the parade behind colonel's row the band of the twenty-eighth struck up a lively march. over the broad expanse of green, as lucy and marian drew near, twelve companies were marching in close-ranked lines, for the whole regiment was on parade, and a crowd of people were gathered about the iron benches behind the reviewing officer. the women of the twenty-eighth, as well as many of the general staff officers with their families, were watching the khaki-colored ranks of well-drilled men as they swung about in response to the orders heard clearly above the music, and formed into a long, double line facing the colonel. as the music stopped, lucy's eyes turned from the regiment to the faces of the people about her, and in their quiet voices and serious eyes she felt that she read her own and julia's thoughts, of the few days left for the twenty-eighth to remain in peaceful america. julia had found lucy and marian at once, and in a minute the three were joined by general matthews' daughter, anne, who was just home from a visit and so glad to be back that her jolly, rosy-cheeked face was aglow with smiles and she gave marian's little hand a hearty shake of welcome. julia had seen but a glimpse of lucy's cousin the day before, and now she was prepared to make a thorough acquaintance. "i'm so glad you feel better, marian," she said in a friendly way. "there's such a lot to see here now, i know you want to be able to do everything." no one could look at marian's lovely face, framed in its pale gold curls, and at her delicate, dainty little self without a touch of pity and liking, and julia decided in her impulsive mind that if lucy's cousin was to remain at the gordons' all summer, the only thing to do was to let her share in all their plans and treat her as a friend. "did lucy tell you what we think, marian?" she asked when the three were standing again by themselves, marian's wide eyes fixed on the lines of soldiers with a keener interest than she had yet shown. "we think," julia lowered her voice, "the twenty-eighth is going before this week is over." "where?" asked marian quickly, a sudden look of animation in her face, as she turned at julia's words. as though in answer to her question the band burst into life and the regiment began to march. "over there... over there..." the words sang themselves into the music as the lines swung again into companies before the colonel's silent watching figure. "for the yanks are coming... the yanks are coming... and we won't come back 'til it's over,--over there!" marian's lips formed the stirring words and her eyes, expressive and intelligent enough when her interest was aroused, sparkled with swift understanding. "but, lucy," she asked with a new wonder, "why aren't you sure? is it a secret to every one outside of the regiment?" "not quite,--some of the staff officers have to know. but to us it is, or rather supposed to be, for i'm just as sure of it as though colonel andrews had turned around and told me his orders had come." lucy spoke with serious face and lowered voice. "not even the enlisted men know the exact day until within twenty-four hours of it," added julia. "the officers only tell them to get ready. of course, there's nothing like safety first, but who is there on this post to be afraid of? not many enemies, i'm sure." "why, the gordons have two germans right in their house," said marian, looking at lucy. "elizabeth and karl?" asked lucy, astonished. "why,--of course they _are_ germans by birth, but they've lived years in this country. karl has been father's servant since the spanish war, marian, and elizabeth thinks we are her own children sometimes, i believe. no matter if they leave us when we move to a new post they always turn up again and come back. oh, i know they're all right." "we can't suspect every german we know," agreed julia. "look at the schneiders, who keep the store on the dock. they were so afraid of being told to go when war was declared, but general matthews decided they might stay. mrs. schneider cried on mother's shoulder when she heard it, and said she didn't know what would have become of them if their business had been ruined." "we must go home," said lucy, as the last of the regiment marched away and the crowd of people began to disperse. "mother told me not to keep marian out long, and the sun is setting as fast as it can. to-morrow is the first of august. just think, julia, how soon bob graduates! a whole year earlier than he ought." lucy bit her lip a second and turned to meet her friend's bright, understanding eyes. "i can't feel very glad about it. it's bob i think of when we watch the twenty-eighth get ready for 'over there.'" chapter iii the mystery of the twenty-eighth lucy and julia were sitting on the gordons' piazza floor filling comfort kits, while marian and william sorted out pencils and shoe-laces and writing paper and safety-pins. all four had stopped working just now to speak to mr. harding, who came out of the house and sat down by them while he waited for major gordon, who had returned from his office only to start out again. "who are these for?" asked the young officer, looking at the neat little cloth bags, half-filled with soldiers' luxuries. "i don't know exactly, but the red cross does," said lucy, tossing back her ruffled hair. "i think all we have sent lately are for the new york troops who join the rainbow division." "they look pretty nice," commented mr. harding. "if i had a sister nearer than the philippines i suppose she'd make me one. i might go across before long myself." "oh, of course you can have one!" cried lucy delighted. "let's keep out that last one, julia, and make it up separately." "how soon do you want it?" asked wily julia, hoping to hear some news. mr. harding laughed and glanced at the watch on his wrist. "it's half-past four now,--i'll give you till six o'clock." "want chocolate in yours?" asked william, looking affectionately at the shiny brown packages waiting to be distributed among the kits. "don't i though! sort of like to join the army yourself, wouldn't you?" inquired mr. harding, picking up the little boy and swinging him over his shoulders until he squealed with excitement. "look out for your feet, now. there wouldn't be much left of your cousin if you came down on top of her," cautioned the young man, setting william down at a safe distance from marian's golden head. "i wouldn't hurt her,--she's sick," said william with kindly superiority, catching his breath after his rapid flight through the air. "i'm not," said marian quickly, her blue eyes lighting up, but at sight of william's funny little air of condescension her lips wavered to a smile, and for a moment she forgot herself and joined in the others' laughter. "marian's almost well now, william," said lucy, to smooth things over, and mr. harding, getting up at sound of a footstep inside the hall, asked: "can you believe bob will come home an officer in two weeks, lucy? i can't--he seems such a kid." "doesn't he?" said lucy, pausing thoughtfully in her work, her brother's tall figure and boyish face before her eyes. "well, i wish i were an officer." "lucy," said mr. harding, "i think we'll have to make you captain by courtesy of the twenty-eighth. would you like that?" "would i!" exclaimed lucy, her eyes shining. "oh, you are joking." "never more serious in my life," said mr. harding, his eyes twinkling, as he came to a stiff salute. "captain lucy!" and lucy, a little breathless and self-conscious, returned it amid the pleased exclamations of the two girls and william. "here's the major, so good-bye." mr. harding waved his cap with a smile and turned to join the older officer who came out of the house, papers in hand. "all good little war workers, aren't you?" remarked major gordon, feeling for his glasses. "come along, harding," and the two set off briskly down the walk. lucy, aglow with the realization of the honor which had just been conferred upon her, scrambled over to pick up the kit reserved for her friend, when through the window opening on the piazza appeared karl's bushy, black head and heated face. "your mother not back yet from town, miss lucy?" he inquired. "no, she isn't, karl. what's the matter?" "i not disturb the major," explained karl volubly, "but without an order i can nothing from the dispensary get, and elizabeth feel very bad." "oh, does her tooth ache again? i'm awfully sorry," cried lucy, jumping to her feet. "i'll go and speak to her, karl." lucy ran indoors and up to the little dormer-windowed rooms on the third floor. elizabeth lay on her bed, her aching cheek buried in the pillow and a heavy down-quilt spread over her, notwithstanding the day's sultry heat. in spite of her pain she managed a faint smile and a murmur of welcome as lucy dropped to her knees beside her. "it's too bad, elizabeth! just tell me what to get, and i'll go right over to the dispensary. perhaps i'd better ask the steward there what is best for a toothache. he'll know. but first, i'll bring you mother's hot-water bottle." "oh, miss lucy, it is good so!" sighed poor elizabeth gratefully, when the hot bag was pressed against her burning face. "i never have such an ache,--never." "well, stay right there while i go after something for it," said lucy hopefully, and she made for the stairs, down which she ran at headlong speed. "is elizabeth very sick, lucy?" asked william, running anxiously up when his sister reappeared on the piazza. the kind, affectionate german woman was a friend to all the gordon household. "no, william, but i'm going over to the dispensary after something for her. i'll be right back, julia," she added, turning to the two girls who were tying up the last of the comfort kits. "all right. don't rush around so fast, lucy. you'll blow up some day," remarked julia, peaceably fastening a tape. "i have to go home anyhow." ten minutes later lucy returned armed with a little bottle and a camel's-hair brush, and met her mother in front of the steps. "oh, i'm so glad you are back, mother. do come up and see elizabeth when you get your things off, won't you?" and lucy drew her mother into the house, relieved at the arrival of efficient help and advice. mrs. gordon managed before long to make elizabeth as comfortable as an aching tooth would allow, and sent lucy down to fill some of the gaps in the housekeeping arrangements. "i'll finish with mr. harding's kit in a few minutes," lucy said to marian while she was giving william his supper, "and mat can take it over to the bachelor's quarters." mat was the gordons' good-conduct or "parole" man, one of whom is allotted to the service of each officer, from the military prison on the post, that they may earn a little money before their term expires. "i'm going to put some postal cards in the kit, addressed to me," lucy added, speaking a little doubtfully. "perhaps he'll laugh, but we're all so anxious to hear news after they go, and it will be easy enough for him to mail one." "i think it's a fine idea," said marian, leaning her elbows on the dining-room table while she listened with more animation in her pretty face than was often seen there. "wouldn't it be queer to have them come back to you from nobody knows where?" "you could tell by the postmark," remarked william practically, between spoonfuls of crackers and milk. lucy laughed, but she whispered to marian, "let's not talk about it any more, now," remembering william's gaping ears and her own assurance to mr. harding that her surmises about their departure would go no further. mrs. gordon stayed for some time longer with elizabeth, and when she did come down she heard lucy moving about inside her room, and stopped at the door. "here's a letter i had from bob, lucy. i know you wish to read it. i met the postman on the boat." "oh, thanks, mother," said lucy, letting her hair, which she held ready to tie, fall back over her shoulders as she took the envelope eagerly from mrs. gordon's hand. she snatched out the letter and sank down on her sofa by the window to read in comfort. "of course you're all coming up for graduation," bob wrote. "don't forget how soon it is,--i can't remember it myself. if you don't hear from me before then it's only because we have so much to do that no day is half long enough. in these few months since war was declared they have been trying to put most of next year's work into our heads, as well as some of the new things the allies have learned about fighting. besides all that, i have helped edit this year's 'howitzer.' we've combined the real class of '17 and our own class into one book, with their consent,--since we graduate only four months after they do. it's going to be a corker, too. i had my picture taken last week for it, and will send you one, if lucy won't still say my hair looks like a scrubbing-brush. "i'm awfully glad to get your letters, even if i don't write, and i'm crazy to see you all again. we spend most of the time we have, which isn't much, wondering what we'll do after graduation, and every one has his own little idea of what will happen to him,--nothing dull for any of us, i expect. only we don't know anything for certain except the good news that we graduate in two weeks, so we're feeling like the fellow in the song who says, 'oh, joy! oh, boy! where do we go from here?' "i know this much, anyway, that i'm coming to governor's island before i go anywhere else, and see everybody and take it mighty easy for a day or two, if i never can again. we are working here, believe me! i was going to say working like dogs, but the only dog around barracks lies in the sun all day and catches flies while we're wearing ourselves to skin and bone. we call him general. don't take that about the work seriously, mother. i never felt better in my life. tell lucy there's plenty of time for another box of fudge to get here before we leave. yes, i noticed what she said about her commission in the twenty-eighth. tell her she can't boss me, though. "write me just when to expect you up, and everybody come,--you and dad and lucy and william, and marian whether she wants to or not. "good-bye and lots of love from "bob." lucy read the letter through twice, and then sat thoughtfully motionless with it in her hand, while from the parade came the sound of music as some of the companies drilling late marched back to barracks. this home-coming of bob's, so brief and uncertain, to last perhaps twenty-four hours,--a week at most, her father thought,--how different it was from the graduation leave she and bob had planned together. the one that would have come next summer and given him three long months to spend at home before he joined his regiment. lucy loved to make plans, and she had looked forward to her brother's graduation leave since his second class furlough a year ago. she had decided that she would be old enough to go nearly everywhere bob went, by that time, for she would be fifteen the same month that bob would be twenty-one. and now how far off all those things seemed, and how different from reality. where would bob be, anyway, a year from now, if the war still went on? she sat up from among the pillows and folded the letter carefully. not to borrow trouble is a motto often needed in a soldier's household, and none of the gordons indulged for long in gloomy ponderings. it was growing dark, too, and major gordon was coming up the walk, so dinner would soon be ready. lucy did not shake off her thoughtfulness, though, all the evening, even while she discussed the coming trip to west point cheerfully enough with the rest of the family, and persuaded marian that she would enjoy herself enough to make up for being tired by the unusual effort. but after she and marian were in bed she lay long awake, until taps sounded sweet and clear from the parade and all the house was quiet. then she did fall gradually asleep, and off into long dreams that lasted until a step outside in the hall made her start suddenly awake. the footsteps turned toward the upper stairs and lucy, wide awake now, jumped up and ran to the door. "is it you, elizabeth?" she asked softly, peering into the darkness. "what's the matter? are you worse?" a dim little figure in a flannel wrapper approached her and elizabeth's voice whispered, "no, no, miss lucy, much better, but i go down for little hot water. i feel good so, with the warm poultice on my face." "can't i do anything? i'd like to," lucy offered, but elizabeth whispered: "no, thank you. it was too bad i wake you up. go back to bed now." she gave her a little push inside the door, and lucy got into bed, feeling terribly sleepy. but as she turned over the pillow and closed her eyes, all at once she raised her head and stopped breathing to listen. outside, somewhere--what was happening, anyway? something more than the measured tread of the sentry walking slowly along the line. the dim, vague sound was like hundreds of footsteps, muffled and uneven, but moving steadily along. with fast-beating heart lucy got up once more, and, raising a screen, put her head out of the window to listen. beyond the lighted walk the shadowy trees stirred a little in the night air, but nothing else took shape to form the substance of those footsteps that, still swelling in numbers, sounded faintly but unmistakably on lucy's ears. "they're behind the headquarters building--on the road to the dock," she guessed, wildly trying to collect her thoughts. then with a sudden decision she quietly lowered the screen and, running softly across the room, began to dress herself hurriedly in the darkness. mrs. gordon's room was at the other end of the hall, and all lucy's care had been not to wake marian, for the door between their two rooms was wide open. but as she struggled with refractory shoe-strings she remembered marian's eager interest of the last few days, and her questions which, while their ignorance of army matters had made lucy and julia laugh, were still a welcome change from her weary indifference. "i don't care if she is delicate," thought lucy, defiantly. "i don't believe it will hurt her one bit, and i can't be so mean as not to tell her." with one shoe on she tiptoed into marian's room and dropped down on the bed beside her. "marian!" she whispered, giving her cousin's slender little shoulder a vigorous shake that made her start upright in bed with a frightened gasp. "oh, who is it? lucy, is it you?" "yes, and the twenty-eighth is leaving! right now,--i hear them marching by. i'm going down to see them off, and you can come if you like,--only i don't think you'd better." lucy's caution came rather late to be of much use. marian was out of bed in a second, and getting into her clothes with a remarkable disregard for convenience and comfort. "just tie your hair with a ribbon;--i did," urged lucy, finishing her shoes, "and hurry, marian! what if we should miss them!" "i am hurrying," said marian. lucy felt suddenly enraged at her calmness, and almost wished she had let her sleep on undisturbed. but very soon marian joined her fully dressed, and as the clock below struck three, the two girls tiptoed down-stairs and out by the unlocked front door. an army post at night is unlike any other place in the feeling of complete security it gives. this feeling leads the officers to leave their doors and windows always unfastened, and to allow their children to wander freely about on summer evenings. the post is a little world carefully administered, where every inhabitant is known and has his place, and the soldiers are the time-honored friends of the army children. lucy looked over toward the houstons' as she and marian hurried along, wishing with all her might that julia were awake. there was no moon, but the sky was bright with stars and the air clear and warm, though marian shivered with nervous excitement, and her arm shook against the one lucy had thrust through hers. at the head of the slope above the dock the two stopped, panting, with a murmur of voices and the never-ending sound of moving feet still in their ears, and stared motionless at the scene revealed dimly below. the whole regiment was assembled on the dock in the starlight; a moving mass of men, at work over piles of bags and boxes, or standing at ease by their rifles, their outlines bulky with the burden of their field equipment, while alongside the dock three big government tugs were waiting with steam up. for a moment the two girls stood looking down at the men who were going away in darkness and silence to their duty, with no inspiring music for them, nor wives and children to wave them good-bye, for the women of the twenty-eighth had obeyed colonel andrew's request that the partings be at home, to let the regiment get off quickly and in greater safety. but in another minute lucy pulled marian after her down the walk, until they were on the fringe of the great crowd of soldiers. one or two looked around at them in surprise, but lucy hardly saw or heeded them. her heart was swelling with generous emotion, and her throat ached intolerably with longing to do something,--anything,--for the aid and comfort, or at least the encouragement of these men of the twenty-eighth, so soon to share in the allies' pain and glory. but already the gangways were laid and the men filing down them, while others jumped from the wharf upon the decks. they moved without loud commands, as they had marched from barracks, and only a few low voices broke the stillness of the early morning, that sleepy time when even the harbor is almost clear of shipping, and the big city nearly dark. suddenly lucy caught sight of a tall figure standing at the bow of the nearest boat, and without a word she made a rush in its direction, marian following blindly. already curious glances were peering at the two children out of the dimness, and lucy's heart beat with fear that they might be obliged to go before she could bid even this friend good-bye. she stole up cautiously and laid a timid hand on the young officer's arm. "mr. harding," she faltered, "haven't you time to tell us good-bye?" "why, captain lucy, what on earth,--well, i might have known you'd guess it somehow!" exclaimed the young man, startled but laughing softly as he gave lucy's hand a hearty clasp. "and marian got up too? well, you're a couple of imps, but all the same i can't help being glad to see you. and many, many thanks for the comfort kit. i never thought you'd really get it there in time." "i put in some postal cards addressed to me," lucy whispered. "won't you please send back one when you get over there?" "of course i will, lucy," he promised, glancing round at the boat, which was now filled to overflowing with men and equipment, and ready to put off. "i have to go now, but you'll never know how good it seemed to have some 'family' here at the last minute, and i won't forget to write." he put one arm about lucy's shoulders and gave her an affectionate hug, while lucy, feeling the burden of the war descending heavily upon her, swallowed hard and trusted to the darkness to hide the tears in her eyes. "i'll take care of bob when he comes," he said in her ear. he gave her a salute, then with a laugh waved his cap for a last good-bye, and jumped on board at the heels of the battalion. when the boats had moved off through the shadows lucy and marian stole quickly home and crept back into the house like timid burglars. once up-stairs, lucy, suddenly grown anxious and remorseful about marian, helped her cousin to undress and get back to bed, devoutly hoping that no harm would result from her impulsive act. marian was very silent, but when lucy turned at last to leave her she whispered from the pillow, "lucy, i'm glad you waked me," and lucy, stopping to answer her, felt it a plentiful return for her own kindness to know that marian had forgotten everything else just then but the wonderful scene they had watched together. in spite of heavy and conflicting thoughts and fears lucy soon went to sleep and only woke in bright sunlight as the clock was striking seven. she sat up and rubbed her sleepy eyes, with a sudden weight on her conscience and a desire to get rid of it as quickly as possible. her kimono and slippers were within reach, and she put them on and ran down the hall into her mother's room. "why, good-morning, lucy; you're an early bird. i was just going to get up myself," said mrs. gordon, propping her head up on her elbow as lucy plumped down beside her on the bed and gave her a good-morning kiss. "well, i have something to tell you, and i thought the sooner the better," explained lucy. "perhaps you won't like it much, mother, but i hope you won't mind." "why, what in the world is it?" asked mrs. gordon, looking puzzled. "the twenty-eighth sailed last night," said lucy, talking very fast. "you know father wouldn't tell us a word, but we guessed it somehow. and last night elizabeth woke me up walking around, and while i was awake i heard the men marching and i woke marian, and we went down to the dock and saw them off." "lucy,--the twenty-eighth gone! and you went down in the night?" cried mrs. gordon, astonished. "i know, mother, i ought to have asked you, but i was so awfully afraid they would get away before you or father could decide to let me go." "but marian--you took her too?" "it didn't hurt her one bit, mother. she is sound asleep now,--i just looked at her on my way out. and she wanted so to see them go. we had talked about it--she and julia and i. poor julia didn't see them after all, so i thought marian might. and, mother, we were the only ones to guess,--outside of the people in the regiment, i mean,--and we saw mr. harding and told him good-bye." "why, lucy, i'm so surprised i don't know whether i am angry or not. i know you didn't mean any harm, but i don't like your stealing out like that. to think that the twenty-eighth has gone so soon! your father didn't say a word about it." "i'll promise not to go again without telling you, so won't you forgive me this time?" lucy pleaded. "and, mother, mr. harding said he would write us from the other side, and he promised that when bob goes over he will take care of him." "if he only could," sighed mrs. gordon, her thoughts too full for further reproof of her independent little daughter. "dick harding was here only yesterday,--i'm glad you did see him to tell him good-bye. he must have wondered how you got there." "hardly anybody saw us. we were there only a little while, and they were all so busy. i just had to see them go, mother, and you would have felt the same way if you had heard them marching in the night." "well, dear, i do know how you felt, and i forgive you, but let's pray it doesn't do marian any harm. now let me get up, for i want to see how elizabeth is this morning. there must be many on the post who didn't sleep much last night!" lucy got off the bed, and standing thoughtfully by the window, looked over toward the infantry quarters beyond the parade and watched an early airplane skimming over them. marian did not come down to breakfast, and at the table nothing was said about the departure of the regiment, for major gordon discouraged any war talk or discussion of army matters at meal time. but afterward mrs. gordon followed her husband into his study, while lucy was speaking to elizabeth. "james, to think i never knew of the twenty-eighth leaving," she said reproachfully. major gordon stopped lighting his pipe to ask in surprise, "what, have you heard it already?" "earlier than this. do you know lucy and marian went down to the dock to see them off? they heard them marching by and guessed who it was." "great caesar!" exclaimed major gordon, who was a stickler for regular hours and undisturbed sleep for children, and who was more annoyed by lucy's escapade than appreciative of her patriotism. "what's got into that child, anyway?" "oh, she just wanted to see them," said mrs. gordon smiling. "i don't think there was any great harm done. but of course she ought to have asked me." "she took marian along, you say? are you sure she's none the worse for it?" "it didn't hurt her a speck, father," said lucy, who had stolen in and up to her father's side. "please don't be angry, because mother has forgiven me and it was such a wonderful thing to see. marian is sleeping like a top. i'm going to wake her up in a minute." major gordon blew some short puffs of smoke from his pipe and shook his head at lucy, but he ended by laying a hand on her shoulder and saying relentingly, "well, we'll have to let it go this time, because i must be off, and if your mother and you don't tell me now what time you will be able to start for west point next week i'll be too late in telegraphing the hotel." chapter iv lieutenant bob it didn't seem possible to lucy that bob's graduation was but a few days off, and the long four-year course, that had seemed never ending, shortened to three years and already over. and before she had got used to thinking about it the day before graduation had come and they were on their way. the island had seemed almost deserted without the men of the twenty-eighth, though some companies of infantry from fort slocum had already arrived to replace them, together with a new lot of recruits in such great numbers that the temporary barracks on the new land were filled to overflowing. but still the regiment was sadly missed, even among these new activities, by many besides the families belonging to it, and the war once more was brought nearer home to the people of the post. west point, in the whirl of graduation week, was brimming with activity and alive with visitors from every part of the country. hardly a first classman but had some member of his family come to see him receive his diploma, and many had a little crowd made up of parents and young brothers and sisters, full of eager pride and interest in their son's and brother's new honors. all over the broad parades and along the shady paths by the river cadets were walking with their friends from home, or friends from near at hand, enjoying their day or two of comparative leisure after the hard laborious grind of their daily lives. officers, visiting officials, women and girls in their brightest summer finery, mingled with the ever-present gray, brass-buttoned coat and white trousered uniform of the corps, but in the midst of the life and gayety of a lot of young people gathered together many minds this year were thoughtful, and many hearts anxious and heavy. bob gordon, in four months risen from second classman to first classman and now to second lieutenant, was too enormously interested in all these changes, with their strange and wonderful possibilities, to feel serious all the time, especially with his long three years at west point over, graduation so suddenly come and his family there to see it and to hear the hundred things he had not had time to write about. "it's great to see you all here," he said twenty times a day. it was true that when the hour for graduation exercises came, when he and his classmates received their diplomas from the hands of the secretary of war, who in april had presented theirs to the real class of 1917 with the same simple ceremony, most of bob's fellow graduates paused to think how many of that class had already followed general pershing to the battle-field. the secretary's address, always direct and brief, this year became suddenly true and real and vivid as he spoke, summoning the old ideals of the corps, and listening, bob saw the heights of patriotism and sacrifice no longer dimly splendid but close at hand, and that hour near when every ounce of valor and endurance would be sorely needed which the twenty-year-old lieutenant could summon to his service. even "benny havens'" familiar words were changed to the singers and quickened into life. "may we find a soldier's resting-place, beneath a soldier's blow, with room enough beside our grave for benny havens, oh!" but after it was over, bob's gay smile chased away the shadow from his parents' eyes in the moment he came to shake hands and be congratulated before he hurried off to say a hundred good-byes. they were all to leave west point by the noon train on graduation day, and lucy could hardly wait with reasonable patience to get bob safely home. "i'm afraid something or other might change their minds about your leave," she explained apologetically. "though i suppose they could do it just as well after you get home." "just exactly," said bob laughing. lucy made no secret of her devotion to her brother, and neither did he of returning it. lucy was young for her age, and part of the reason was that bob had always made a pet of his little sister, but lucy, on the other hand, had got him out of scrapes and begged off punishments for him from the time she was four and could just manage to make her father understand her pleadings when bob's ten-year-old naughtiness had come to grief. though they were six years apart they had grown up companionably together, and had hardly known a parting until bob became a west pointer. and now lucy dreaded and tried not to think of the parting to come. in her ears as in her mother's, the secretary of war's stirring words had struck more heavily than on those of the boys themselves. duty--honor--country,--this is the shield of west point, and it must often be borne by others than those who have grown to manhood within its walls. one thing distracted lucy from her absorption in bob and his affairs. during the two days the gordons spent at the military academy, marian walked farther than she had done since coming to governor's island. mrs. gordon had tried in vain there to induce her to take a little daily exercise which could be gradually increased until she became as strong and active as other children. marian could not be forced to do what she did not want to by anything short of real brutality, and she had steadily refused to make the effort mrs. gordon urged, though her manner of refusal always kept the ghost of politeness even in her most disobedient moments. but once her interest was aroused, as lucy had already found out, her weariness could be resolutely overcome, and bob, expecting to see a little invalid, had been agreeably surprised to find his cousin as keen to see everything he had to show as were any of the family, as well as very ornamental and charming in her lovely frocks and with the new-found animation in her face. she did not talk much, but then she did not often have a chance, with bob and lucy always chattering. william, like herself, was nearly speechless, and had trotted along beside the others with eyes and ears wide open, thrilled and happy, and missing nothing around him. they were all together on the train as far as new york for the homeward journey, but there bob left them for some parting class festivities. the whole of 1918 had dinner and went to a play together, and afterward said good-bye again. then bob caught the last boat to governor's island, and almost fell asleep while his mother was tucking him in bed. it was after ten next morning when lucy, tiptoeing past bob's door, heard footsteps inside. the door opened and a tall, touzle-headed figure in a gray bathrobe came out indulging in a prolonged stretch. "hello, lucy! what time is it? gee, but i had a great sleep." "oh, it's late, but we wanted you to sleep a lot. hurry up now, though, won't you, bob, and put on your uniform?" urged lucy, dying with curiosity to see bob a lieutenant. "i'll see that your breakfast's all ready," she added as an inducement to speed. "all right,--have plenty of it," suggested bob, moving off in the direction of the tub. "oh, elizabeth, come look who's here!" called lucy over the bannister as she heard footsteps on the stairs. "mr. bob!" cried elizabeth with beaming face, as she hurried up the stairs, broom in hand, and almost fell on bob's neck in her excitement. "oh, it was fine to have you home again!" "it's pretty nice for me, too," grinned bob, giving her hand a warm, friendly shake. "karl make any more of those fluffy muffins now, elizabeth?" "so soon i hear how you came last night, i tell him we will have muffins for breakfast," said elizabeth, nodding her head with calm satisfaction at her own forethought. "there's plenty left, so get dressed, mr. bob. william would like to wake you up since seven o'clock." "all right, i won't be a jiffy," promised bob, disappearing around the corner. an officer's olive-drab service uniform is not very brilliant or striking, and bob had seen lots of them all his life, but when he walked into the dining-room wearing one, not all the ohs and exclamations from lucy, marian, william, elizabeth and finally his mother when she came into the room seemed a bit unnecessary or out of place. even karl, at the doorway for a greeting and scanning bob with keen, intelligent eyes, gave a quick nod of approval, and karl's praise was not to be despised, for he had seen plenty of soldiering in his youth. if major gordon had been there, no doubt he would have been just as proud of that uniform, though he never missed an opportunity to take off his own and change into "cits" when he left the post. bob sat down finally and began to eat his breakfast with a naturally good appetite which had been sharpened by years of early rising and hard work. it was encouraged, too, by every one around him with such suggestions as: "here's some raspberry jam, bob. put it on the muffins." "a little more bacon, i guess, now, mr. bob? and a poached egg?" "look here," bob remarked at last in self-defense, "if i eat like this for a week i'll have to buy new uniforms, and i can't afford to." "oh, pooh, it wouldn't hurt you to gain a few pounds," scoffed lucy, looking at bob's long legs sprawled under the table in their close-fitting breeches and shining leather leggings. the war department granted to the graduates of the class of 1918 a week's leave, but reserved the privilege of curtailing it by further orders. this reservation took away a good share of lucy's pleasure in bob's company, and kept her from planning anything with real enjoyment. it made bob feel, as he described it, like a train on a time-table marked, "subject to change without notice." bob lingered over his breakfast, enjoying to the full the right to get up when he pleased and decide leisurely what he wanted to do. but presently the whir of an airplane passing over the house made him jump nimbly up and run outdoors. "that's where i'm going this morning," he declared, following the diminishing speck with eager eyes. "i want to see the aviation school. it's on the new land beyond the infantry quarters, isn't it, lucy?" "yes, over by the sea-wall. but don't go and get crazy about aviation, bob, the way all the young officers do," frowned lucy, who shared the popular delusion that aviation is the most dangerous arm of the service in war. bob had followed his father and chosen infantry. he had graduated fairly high and might have had coast or field artillery, but a general impression that infantry was most wanted in france had led to a sudden rush for it by the two classes graduated in 1917. "i won't ask to be transferred to-day, anyhow," said bob, looking down from the clouds. "but there's not much harm in watching them fly, do you think, lucy? want to come, william?" "yes!" said william, so delighted at the prospect of going around with his brother that he turned a somersault on the grass while he waited to start. "we'll walk over with you,--shall we, marian? we're not supposed to go on the field, but we can go as far as the edge of it and bring william back." marian looked doubtful and asked, "how far is it?" without much enthusiasm, but bob said decisively: "oh, come along, marian! nothing could be far on this little island. you look as though lucy were starting you on a voyage of discovery. come on, don't sit home and mope,--no wonder you don't eat anything." marian laughed and went slowly in for her hat, while william, overcome with impatience, tugged at his brother's hand and called them all dreadful slowpokes. the aviation field was of course no great distance away, as the whole of governor's island, including the reclaimed land, measures hardly three miles around. a walk across the wide parade to the infantry quarters on brick row brought them within sight of it, and, turning to the left with quickening footsteps as bob's interest grew keener, they came in a moment to the long stretch of level, grassy ground that borders the sea-wall. all the way across the parade, bob had made lucy and marian laugh at his stories of the cadets' desperate efforts to put variety into their hard-working lives. bob had done his best to help his classmates enjoy life, in lawful as well as unlawful ways, and had written a play to be acted for the amusement of the camp which had been a wonderful success even if it had cost him a good many hours of study. the jokes which he repeated from it were all pure west point fun, most of them true occurrences and rather unintelligible to an outsider, but lucy had been up there enough to understand them pretty well, and marian guessed a good deal, with a sharpness no one gave her credit for. but as soon as they neared the aviation field bob grew silent and had no eyes for anything but the big shelter sheds at one end, and the group of men gathered about a machine they had just rolled out of one of them. he took leave of his companions with quite unflattering haste, saying, "well, good-bye, and thanks for coming with me. i'll be back before lunch." he waved his cap and walked on, while lucy grabbed william's unwilling hand as he started to follow and explained, "you know you mayn't go there. you're not an officer. be good, william, please!" "well, i'm not a girl!" shouted william indignantly, then forgot his anger at sight of a big biplane that came swooping down upon the field and ran swiftly on its little wheels to the open mouth of the hangar. "oh, what a beauty!" said lucy with shining eyes. "i don't wonder bob loves them. come on, marian, we might as well get julia and go to the red cross a little while." at lunch-time, bob reappeared, terribly hungry and in fine spirits. "i found captain evans out there, father," he said as they sat down to the table. "he came yesterday to join that new battalion from fort slocum. and captain brent is here too, isn't he? i didn't know he'd gone in for aviation. i remember him at fort leavenworth when he used to play with us kids just after he graduated. he's a fine fellow. give me some bread, please, karl. i sure am hungry." after luncheon, when they were all gathered on the piazza for the few minutes before major gordon returned to his office, marian said suddenly to bob, "karl looks at you as if he wished he had on a uniform himself." "perhaps he does," said bob grinning. "oh, he's as german as the kaiser, but what cream-puffs he can make!" bob had just eaten three of them. "think they have softened his heart, bob,--is that the idea?" asked major gordon, lighting his pipe. "no,--but they have softened mine toward him. before i went to west point i used to hate his self-satisfied ways, but whenever i ate one of his cream-puffs i didn't so much blame him." "i don't think i ever remember your eating _one_," remarked lucy thoughtfully. bob laughed, then said as his father rose, "i'm going to walk to headquarters with you, father. then i'm going to play a round of golf with lucy, though she didn't know it until now, and after that i'm going over to see captain brent a little while. i want to ask him about a million things." toward four o'clock of that afternoon, when the squad of recruits drilling on the hot parade began to look longingly toward the descending sun and listen eagerly for the bugler sounding recall, bob walked home at a slow and thoughtful pace. william and teddy matthews were playing on the grass by the piazza and rushed to welcome him back, but when he left them and entered the house he found it quite deserted. lucy and her mother were out giving some of the invitations for a party in bob's honor to include julia and the girls and boys lucy's age as well as the older girls and young officers. marian was taking a nap up-stairs, honestly tired out. bob went into the kitchen and found elizabeth's little figure bending over the oven. "how are you, elizabeth? did the dentist hurt much?" he asked, perching on the kitchen table and carefully removing a handkerchief wrapped about his thumb. "oh, not so much, mr. bob," said elizabeth, straightening up with a quick smile. "but what was wrong with your hand?" she inquired, the smile fading as she caught sight of bob's bruised and swollen thumb. "i squeezed it,--in a door," explained bob, trying to wiggle it and stopping short. "ouch, it's stiff. suppose you could do anything to keep me from losing the nail, elizabeth? what a bother!" "sure could i," said elizabeth, whose english grew worse when she was excited, taking the injured hand in hers and examining it closely. "stay here until i cold water bring." she ran for a bowl of water, into which she slipped a piece of ice. "now,--put your hand in, so. i will see what i can get up-stairs." bob sat with his thumb in the ice-water, and felt the ache gradually lessen until elizabeth came down again with witch-hazel and a strip of bandage. "now i will wrap you up good. it is a little better, yes? oh, it will not be so bad." "you're a brick, elizabeth. what should i have done without you?" said bob gratefully, looking at the little german woman's eager, sympathetic face and feeling her nimble, gentle hands as they wrapped up his sore thumb in a cool, wet covering. elizabeth laughed, fastening the tail of the bandage about his wrist. "oh, mr. bob, how you used to get mad at me when i tell you to wash your hands! you remember?" "don't i, though? wasn't i a bad little kid! william is a lot better." "you were not bad at all," said elizabeth quickly. "your mother has not one bad child got, but boys are always plenty of trouble. i not forget, though, when i was so long sick at leavenworth, how you came and sat with me, and stayed in from your play when i was all alone, while i told you little stories of old germany." she looked up at bob with eyes full of affection, as though she still saw in the tall young officer before her the kind little boy she had known. "did i, elizabeth?" asked bob, smiling. "thanks ever so much for fixing me up," he added as he examined the neat bandage with approving eyes. "i declare, it feels nearly all right again." bob went back to the dining-room. then, hearing voices from his father's study, he went there and found karl bowing and departing after a conversation with major gordon. "hello, dad, i didn't know you were here," he said, sitting down near his father's desk. "i came in just a few minutes ago. i was rather anxious to hear about you. well, did they let you fly?" "you bet they did. captain brent was as nice as possible about it. he took me up as his passenger. we flew all around the island and over the statue of liberty. dad, it's great!" "what happened to your hand?" inquired the major, without any great enthusiasm in his face. "oh, just stupid of me. i was so busy watching the plane rolled out that i got my thumb caught in the shed door. i didn't feel it much then, but it swelled afterward, and elizabeth just tied it up for me." "well, don't go up again just now, bob, will you? and we needn't mention it to your mother." "all right, dad. but what i really wanted to ask you is this. how do you feel about karl living here since we are at war? of course he's not a reservist and past the age for military service, but i'm blessed if he looks like anything but a german to me, even if he has been so long with us. don't you think they could use him for something in the spy line?" "no doubt they could," returned major gordon, "although i don't think karl's brains are of the acute order to make a valuable spy. but i've thought the situation over for some time, and i feel about the way you do. in fact, karl and i were talking things over just before you came in, and he quite sensibly said he had decided that he and his wife would be more comfortable for the duration of the war if they went to a neutral country." "there aren't very many he can get to. does he mean mexico?" "probably. i didn't question him about it very closely. but wait until i have to tell your mother and the children that elizabeth is going, too. she doesn't know it yet herself, but of course she won't leave karl." "where's bob?" called lucy's voice from the hall, with the sudden sound of footsteps. "oh, here you are!" she answered for herself, entering the study flushed and warm after their sunny walk about the post. "why, what's happened to your thumb, bob?" asked mrs. gordon from the doorway, coming forward as she caught sight of bob's bandaged hand. "nothing much, mother," bob reassured her. "i squeezed it in the door of the aviation shed and it hurt a little, so elizabeth tied it up." "are you sure it doesn't hurt now?" insisted lucy, touching it gingerly. "not a bit." "i must go out and speak to karl about our little party," said mrs. gordon, picking up her parasol and turning toward the door. "were you at the aviation field again this afternoon?" asked lucy, curiously. "i thought you were at the bachelor's quarters with mr. brent." "i met him there," explained bob, "but we went out afterward." "and went to the aviation field?" lucy's eyes were fixed so hard on her brother's face that he wanted to laugh as she went on with deliberate certainty, "i know--now. you went to fly. why wouldn't you tell me?" "sh-h! i would have told you, but dad thought mother might worry about it," said bob, smiling at lucy's big, reproachful eyes and the little, worried frown between her brows. "there wasn't any danger, anyway, was there, dad? they go up here every day, and there has been only one serious accident since the school commenced." "oh, bob, wasn't it great?" cried lucy, forgetting her fears in her own longings to share one of the many flights she had watched. "were you in the one that flew over the harbor an hour ago?" "i guess so. we were up at about that time. it didn't seem a minute that we were flying." bob's face grew bright again at the thrilling remembrance, and he turned eagerly to his father. "how can any one say, dad, that this war hasn't the chances for heroism that other wars had? when you can be an airman--well, you know what i mean,--you can do anything." major gordon tapped his pencil thoughtfully against his palm. "if you have that particular kind of grit and steady endurance. otherwise, you can serve your country much better on the ground." "dad, you're a regular wet-blanket," said bob with a grin. "i guess i'd better make a good infantryman first,--is that it?" lucy had slipped her arm through bob's and stood looking at him in anxious silence. two days of leave were over, and it seemed such a little bit of a while remaining before bob joined his regiment at fort totten. and that regiment, as everybody knew, was in fine trim and daily awaiting orders for the other side. lucy scorned to wish bob transferred to any other, but now she vaguely wondered whether a change to aviation would keep him longer from the battle-front, and what the difference in his life would be. "come on, captain lucy. let's go find mother," said bob, rousing his sister with a soft tweak of her hair as she rubbed her head thoughtfully against his sleeve. "oh, i must go and tell marian about the party. she must be awake," said lucy, hearing footsteps on the floor above and feeling that a glimpse of her cousin's care-free prettiness might cheer her from her sudden gloom. "there's recall," said major gordon, taking up his cap as the bugle sounded. "i want to see evans when he comes off duty." outside on the grass elizabeth was helping william pick up his playthings, ending by doing most of it herself while he climbed onto her back and wound his arms around her neck. major gordon looked after them with a regretful sigh as elizabeth finished by picking william up, playthings and all, and running with him into the house. chapter v "my orders have come" "it isn't as though they were strangers, or we'd known them only a little while," lucy protested, unconvinced. "they've both been with us so long, i'm sure they are more american than anything else. in the three years we've been stationed here they've hardly left governor's island." "well, i think your father and bob are right, just the same," said marian, rubbing her eyes. "perhaps they are," sighed lucy, fiddling with the pillow-case on marian's bed with restless fingers, "but it seems somehow as though everybody was going at once. the twenty-eighth and now bob, and we can't even have elizabeth left. we'll never find any one to like us all the way she does, and take care of us. i don't so much mind losing karl,--he is obstinate and queer, and i don't think he's always very kind to elizabeth, though he's served father so faithfully. but it's just a shame they have to go now when mother has so much to bother her anyway." lucy's usually cheerful face was heavily clouded. she was sitting on the floor by marian's bed the morning after bob's party, her kodak, which she had run up-stairs to get for him, beside her, while she poured her trouble into marian's sympathetic if sleepy ears. marian had grown fond enough of lucy to feel an interest in all she cared about. indeed, her companionship with her cousin, the first she had ever had with a girl her own age, was the strongest influence so far in awakening her from her dull and fretful indifference. lucy had known nothing of her father's decision in regard to karl and elizabeth until this morning. mrs. gordon had talked matters over with her husband the evening before, but lucy had been too much occupied in getting out dance records and making sure that every one was coming to give heed to anything else. with the arrival of the battalion from fort slocum many new officers with their families were on the post. so she enjoyed bob's party as much as he did, though no one liked a gay crowd and a dance better than bob, even when the crowd was only a little group of officers' sons and young lieutenants, with a dozen girls from his own age down to lucy's, and the dance no more than rugs pushed back in two rooms, and a phonograph which mrs. gordon tended all the evening. marian had danced without a sign of weariness and with a color in her pale cheeks at the unusual exertion that made mrs. gordon resolve to urge her again to take part in outdoor games with lucy and the others. at eleven she had gone up to bed, tired out, but mrs. gordon was satisfied that she had enjoyed herself, and let her sleep the clock around. the clock on her mantel was striking now, and she sat up with a little less than her usual morning listlessness. "i'm going to get up, lucy. what's the kodak for?" she asked, reaching for her slippers. "bob wants it," explained lucy; "he's going to take pictures of the family to carry with him when he goes. hurry up and be taken with us. i'd better go down now, i guess. he must think i'm lost," she added, rising from the floor with a little of her serenity restored. through the open door as she ran down-stairs lucy saw bob seated on the front steps engaged in conversation with sergeant cameron. so she stopped to put a film in the kodak at her leisure before going out into the brilliant sunlight. sergeant cameron was standing at ease with one foot on the lowest step, his bright blue eyes fixed upon bob's face as the two exchanged a fire of interested questions. "the lieutenant expects to see service on the other side very shortly?" he surmised, when bob had told him the regiment to which he was assigned and the week's leave allowed him. "yes, i'm pretty sure to," bob agreed. "and how do you feel about that?" persisted the sergeant, his eyes brightening at the words. "oh, i shan't mind it," said bob briefly, meeting the non-commissioned officer's glance with the understanding of old and well-tried friends. bob's feeling of respect and warm liking for this faithful veteran, a true type of the old "non-com" who forms so valuable and efficient a part of our service, a very tower of strength for his superiors to rely on, was oddly mixed with a secret boyish satisfaction at hearing himself called "the lieutenant," in a respectful tone, by the old soldier who had taught him to ride bareback on the western plains, and scolded him unmercifully if he did not come up to service standards of horsemanship, when he was a long-legged youngster of thirteen at fort leavenworth. sergeant cameron had not received enough early education to join the ranks of those younger non-coms who were eagerly working to pass the examination for a commission which the shortage of officers had caused the government to offer them after the declaration of war. he was not, anyway, ambitious in that direction, preferring to fill the place in which he satisfied himself and others, with a comfortable knowledge that the service needed him and more men like him. if he had fallen under bob gordon's command, as bob was sincerely wishing he had, the young lieutenant's orders would have been carried out by him in the face of every hazard, with an unshakable faith and allegiance, though not with any dog-like submission. for he was a man of independent mind, whose honest thoughts, shining through his eyes, would have told bob with every glance what heights of devotion to duty he expected of the major's son. "well, good luck to you, sergeant, and good-bye, if i don't see you before i go," said bob at last, getting up and holding out his hand. "we may meet again, you know, before we expect it." sergeant cameron took bob's hand in a quick, hard grasp, and murmured something no less hearty for being almost inaudible. then he saluted stiffly and turned away in a rapid walk toward headquarters. lucy came out, screwing up the film in the rather refractory camera, as bob turned to go indoors. "here i am, bob; don't be discouraged. marian's coming in a minute, too." "all right. mother! come and be taken," bob called through the window, bringing out mrs. gordon and william in obliging haste. "now you and captain lucy and corporal william all stand there on the grass and look cheerful. remember i'm going to carry these pictures nobody knows where," cautioned bob, in words hardly calculated to make the faces before him brighten very much, though they tried to do their best. "here's marian," said lucy, turning her head after the camera had safely clicked. "take her with me, bob, will you? i want one for myself." "and i'll send one to father to show him how fat i've grown," said marian, who felt very dutiful lately after making several weak attempts to eat when she did not feel like it. mrs. gordon smiled thoughtfully at the two girls as they stood with arms linked together, lucy, sun-tanned and bright-eyed, filled with the energy which so often overdid itself in tumblings and breakings, and marian, delicate and fair as a little flower in her fresh blue muslin dress, with new-brushed curls gleaming in the sun, but both grown pretty good friends in spite of so many differences. "now, marian, i wish you would take one of all my children for me," asked mrs. gordon when the film was turned again. "i will stand off here and tell them how to look." "all right; come on, bob," said lucy. "you stand here, me next and william last, so we'll look like a nice little flight of steps." "bob takes up most of the room," commented marian, peering into the finder, "but i suppose he ought to." "of course," said bob seriously, while william nodded such a solemn agreement that everybody laughed, and marian lost her range and had to start over. with this the film was used up and the family went indoors and sat down to lunch, after a telephone message had come informing them that major gordon had been called away to fort totten until night. "i'll develop these beautiful things after lunch," said bob as he laid down the camera. "by that time it won't be quite so hot for tennis." "every time i see a post-card i expect to find my writing on it," remarked lucy, glancing toward the mail which elizabeth had just brought in after the postman's ring. "mr. harding promised to write, and here it is the second of september, and we know the ships are safely there." "just one for me and the rest are bob's," said mrs. gordon. "play tennis early then, bob, and get back in time to look over your things with me," she suggested, opening her letter. "i want to see what you need before i go to town to-morrow." "i can't play tennis," said bob suddenly, in a voice that sounded excited, as he held out to his mother the sheet of paper he had taken from its long envelope. "my orders have come." "bob!" cried lucy and her mother in a breath, as lucy sprang from her place to read over her mother's shoulder the few typewritten lines. war department adjutant general's office _washington, d. c., september 1, 1917._ so much of the leave of absence granted second lieutenant robert lee gordon, 136th regiment of infantry, by paragraph 6, special orders no. 82, as remains unexpired on the 3d instant is cancelled. lieutenant gordon will proceed to fort totten and report for duty not later than twelve o'clock noon of the 3d instant. by order of the adjutant general, h. c. mcnair. "oh, bob," said lucy from the depths of her bitter disappointment; "they might have let you have three days!" mrs. gordon let fall the paper on the table and took bob's hand in hers, while elizabeth's eager, troubled eyes watched her closely. "will you go now,--this second?" asked william, standing puzzled and anxious by his mother's chair, unnoticed in the general confusion. [illustration: "my orders have come"] "no, not till to-morrow morning," said bob, his surprise over and a hundred questions flitting through his brain. "come, mother, never mind! what's a day or two, anyway? i have to go, so let's be cheerful about it. buck up, captain lucy! you be a sport." "i will," said lucy, smiling through the tears that trembled on her lashes. "look at marian, mother. she's worried to death about us." for at sight of mrs. gordon's white face marian had risen from her place overcome with sympathy, roused for the moment from herself and vainly trying to summon words of courage for another instead of asking them for her own need. mrs. gordon looked around at them all and smiled, the color coming slowly back to her pale cheeks. "it was so sudden, bob,--i couldn't realize it at first," she said, patting bob's shoulder as he bent anxiously over her. "but of course i ought to have known your orders might come at any moment. your father told me so. but you get so many long envelopes marked official business that i never thought when i saw that one. now we'll have to get to work in earnest. we'll finish our lunch, children, and go up-stairs and pack." "i have all the rest of the day and to-night," said bob cheeringly, smiling at lucy, who was setting a good example by eating her dessert as calmly as she could with so many feelings struggling for utterance and her heart racing hard with painful excitement. "i want just my steamer trunk and bag," said bob, falling back on details as the easiest thing to talk about at the moment. "we'll get that all done and shan't have anything to bother about to-night. do you mind calling up julia and mr. lewis, marian, and telling them we can't play with them this afternoon?" the sun was sinking when the boat from fort totten drew in to the governor's island wharf and major gordon, stepping ashore, walked rapidly homeward. inside his own door he found bob coming down-stairs and accosted him with, "well, any news for you, bob?" "yes, dad, my orders have come," bob returned, springing down to his father's side. major gordon nodded his head, his eyes on his son. "i thought so." he lowered his voice a little as the two moved off into the study. "i was sent for to-day to inspect the supplies for your regiment at totten. three transports sail this week under convoy of the cruisers in the river. what time do you report?" "to-morrow noon." "well, son, how do you feel about it?" major gordon's voice was not so calm itself as he put the question, one hand upon bob's shoulder. "i'm sorry on mother's account,--awfully--but i want to go," said bob, gripping his father's arm. up-stairs elizabeth had been helping mrs. gordon in bob's room, and now she led william away, reluctant to go, though he was tired out with running from trunk to closet and tagging close at his big brother's active heels. "we'll sit down in your room here and have a story, shall we?" she proposed, drawing up a low rocking-chair by william's bed and lifting the sleepy little boy upon her lap. "what shall i tell?" she asked, when william leaned comfortably back against her, his unwillingness to leave the others forgotten. "tell about the goose princess," murmured william against her arm. "but that you have so often heard," protested elizabeth, but faintly, knowing she would have to yield. as william only grunted in reply she plunged patiently into the little old story that was william's favorite, and very easy to tell indeed, for william prompted her at every few words. "now the frog comes hopping in, doesn't he?" he raised his head presently to ask. "yes," elizabeth nodded, "and up he came before the little princess to stand, but she was so frightened she ran back to the chimney corner." "and the stork,--what did he say?" put in william. "the stork look very cross, poking out by the chimney his long neck, and he said, 'only for good childrens will the frog answer your questions.' then the stork flap his large wings against the chimney and fly up out of sight. and while the little princess look up after him she see the sky through the chimney-top----" "and the house was all gone, wasn't it?" "the little house was all gone, and in her old blue dress the princess was on the hillside sitting, and her geese were making a fine noise around her." "and next day," prompted william, when elizabeth stopped to take a breath, then settled back comfortably once more to listen as she went on. william was always quiet and contented in elizabeth's company. there was no end to the tales she could tell, all about elves and gnomes and strange, wise animals, and good and bad children who played among them. her stories came from elizabeth's childhood in a country of simple-hearted, fanciful people, the kindly soul of old germany, with its love of music and children and of tranquil happiness;--that germany which is bound up with the kaiser and his junkers in their mad and pitiless thirst for conquest only by the blind obedience that comes from their simplicity. "and where did it all happen, elizabeth?" william wanted to know when at last the story had come to a satisfactory end and the frog and the princess had reached an understanding. "oh, that happen far away from here, william. over where i come from, in my old country," elizabeth explained, untangling william's legs from her apron. "could i go over there and see it, do you think?" asked the little boy, smothering a yawn as he put the question. elizabeth gave a heavy sigh which sounded so different from her usual cheerful self that william looked quickly around into her face and saw it for a moment set in sad, tired lines. but almost at once she smiled at him again and said briskly, "well, maybe you go some time there. but now we must go quick to bed." chapter vi good-byes "i'll develop those pictures and send them to you, bob," lucy promised. "i'll send them to fort totten and they'll be forwarded,--if you shouldn't be there." she evaded just then the subject that was uppermost in her mind. they were on their way to the dock the morning of bob's departure, and he had just said good-bye to karl and elizabeth, who were in fact still standing on the piazza steps, elizabeth waving for the last time as they turned the corner by the general's house. major gordon had ordered the government boat to fort totten with additional supplies, and bob was to accompany his father on it, as well as mrs. gordon, who, for the privilege of seeing bob a few hours longer, had hastily decided to spend the day with a friend at the fort, and return with her husband in the evening. bob had only to say good-bye to lucy, marian and william, which he found quite enough at the moment when they reached the dock and the _general meigs_ whistled a warning signal. "you'll write--i mean often, every day, won't you?" lucy begged, looking up at bob's erect, soldierly figure and at the jolly boyish face that was so thoughtful just now, with a feeling like desperate homesickness in her heart. "oh, you bet i will, captain lucy. i'll tell you everything. and perhaps i'll be able to see you all again before we sail," bob suggested hopefully, wishing that lucy were coming on the boat with his mother, to delay the parting a little longer. but lucy hated good-byes as much as he, and she knew how bob hated them, and in past days they had always agreed to get them over as quickly as possible. so when mrs. gordon called from the edge of the dock, "hurry, bob dear! father says to come," lucy managed to put on the brightest kind of smile as bob took leave of william and marian. when he turned to her she said cheerfully, "good luck, bob, old boy, and we'll never stop thinking of you!" brother and sister exchanged a bear hug that knocked lucy's hat off onto the dock and then bob, seizing his bag and raincoat, jumped down on the _general meigs'_ deck by his mother's side. bob looked back at the three faces watching him as the boat pulled out, of which william's was by far the most solemn, and waved his cap and called out a last good-bye. lucy, gazing after him, saw his face blur as her eyes filled up with sudden tears, but she winked them angrily away and turned to marian, when the boat's white wake and stern were all that they could see. "let's go home, marian. i hate seeing people go, don't you?" were the inadequate words that came to her lips. "yes, i do," said marian, who looked as though she could understand, and putting her hand through lucy's arm she led the way back up the hill. once in the house again lucy dropped down on the first resting-place at hand, which happened to be the piano-stool, and sat with hands clasped about one knee, staring idly before her. for a moment she could not take up the round of duties her mother had left her, nor look sensibly ahead to what came next. it was too strange and hard to realize that bob was gone. that his brief leave was cut short and ended, and with it all the pleasant things she had planned for the time they should be together. "bob's gone," she repeated to herself, and could not seem to go beyond the thought. what roused her was marian's coming suddenly over to take a seat beside her with a face so set with determination that lucy looked at her in astonishment. "there's no use sitting here and doing nothing, lucy," marian said decidedly. "it will only make you feel worse. let's develop those pictures right away so that bob will surely get them. i'll help if you will show me how, and william can watch us." lucy could hardly help laughing, far as she was from feeling jolly, at marian's sudden assumption of authority. the change was almost startling from the self-absorbed passiveness out of which she could so seldom be roused, unless some one tried to make her do what she did not like. but in consequence her words had more effect now in distracting lucy from her gloomy thoughts. "all right, marian, i will," she smiled, giving a lazy stretch of her arms above her head. the family had risen early that morning, for the _general meigs_ left at eight o'clock. "i have to do some telephoning for mother first, but that won't take very long." "lucy! are you here?" called a voice from the piazza, and julia houston poked her head through a window. "oh, hello, i'll climb in," she added, getting over the sill with her usual swiftness of action. "i was just wishing you'd come, julia," said lucy, rushing to meet her friend. "oh! isn't he sweet! where did you get him?" for julia was clutching with both arms a fat, yellow newfoundland puppy that wanted awfully to get on its own feet. "somebody gave father two of them," explained julia, dropping her wriggling burden on to the floor with a sigh of relief. "and father says we may keep only one, and for me to give the other away, so i thought i'd let you have first chance. i know you need cheering up to-day, and they are the cunningest, funniest little ducks. i have been playing with them ever since i woke up." "i'd simply love to have him," exclaimed lucy, shouting to be heard over william's sudden squeals of delight as he came running in and saw the puppy. "oh, let's have him, let's keep him,--mayn't we, lucy?" he begged from the floor, where he and the puppy were already a tangle of legs and paws, as the puppy delightedly recognized something near his own size to play with. "i don't know until we ask father," said lucy, smiling. "but i guess he won't mind." "they're just alike. we'll have to label them to tell them apart," said julia. "father wanted to name them something german, because they're so yellow, but i certainly won't. i've named ours macdougal after the canadian officer who gave them to us, and i'll call him mac." "well, we shall simply have to keep this one. he's too sweet," said lucy, trying to push her fingers into the puppy's thick furry coat while he rolled over in every direction. "let's name him something to remind us of our own men over in france," suggested marian vaguely, her mind still filled with the recent departures for the front. "call him american expeditionary force," laughed julia. "he won't come when he's called, so a long name does just as well." "you two think of a nice one," said lucy, getting up from the floor, "while i do my telephoning and speak to elizabeth. then we're going to develop some pictures, julia, and you can help. william will take care of,--you name him now." with the help of julia's lively company the morning was not very long in passing. by the time lucy's tasks were done and the roll of films had been developed, dried, and printed in the sun on the piazza steps, her spirits had recovered their usual brightness, and whatever lack of real cheer lay beneath she managed to keep to herself. by luncheon time william had become so attached to the puppy, who was still unchristened, with a choice of about twenty names of all sorts offered him, that julia went home without him, leaving william beaming with delight. "he may have some milk right on the table by my plate, mayn't he, lucy?" he suggested, carrying the new pet into the dining-room with him. "no, he may not," said lucy decidedly. "but he may have it on the floor while you eat. i'm a sight!" she added, looking frowningly at her dress as she tucked back a wisp of hair. "i never noticed how awfully i looked after all that work, but it's too late to change now." lucy was feeling heavy-hearted again, at sight of the empty places at the table, and did not care much about eating. she had a funny moment though when marian, noticing how indifferent she seemed to the good food before her, said coaxingly, "go on and eat, lucy, won't you? you'll feel much better if you do." "it seems like alice through the looking-glass," lucy thought to herself, her lips twitching with amusement. "everything is turned around to-day. suppose you eat something yourself, for a change," she countered, glancing at marian's empty plate. after lunch she went up-stairs to change her dress, with a look at the fresh white one marian had found time to put on when the pictures were finished. she was soberly brushing her hair with hard slaps of the brush, before the glass, when elizabeth passed by the door and stopped at sight of her. "i fasten your dress, miss lucy, shall i?" she asked, hesitating in the doorway. "yes, please do," said lucy, feeling suddenly very much like hearing elizabeth's quiet, pleasant voice. "sit down and wait until i finish my hair and then you may help me." "so you are not too long, i wait," consented elizabeth, coming in the room and commencing to hang up clothes and put away shoes instead of sitting down as lucy had suggested. "oh, elizabeth, i hated so to have bob go," lucy could not help saying, the thoughts she had kept back all day clamoring for utterance. "it was so hard to have him here only two days,--and, oh, i wish to goodness you weren't going too!" elizabeth paused in her work, her hand on the closet door, and regarded lucy with sad face and wistful eyes. "it is not that i wish to go, miss lucy," she protested, shaking her head slowly and twisting nervous fingers in her big apron. "it is very hard for me to leave you all so dear to me and go to a strange country." "where are you going?" asked lucy, tying her hair ribbon in a hasty bow as she crossed the room to elizabeth's side. "i not know," elizabeth responded uncertainly. "karl did not tell me. he only say, we must leave america. they do not want us here." "oh, but we do want you, elizabeth!" exclaimed lucy, fixing pleading eyes on the little german woman's face, as though in despair of making her understand. "war is a terrible thing! it has to come on all the people, whether they deserve it or not, but you didn't want it any more than i did, and it's not your fault." "i never think my old country fight with america, miss lucy!" cried elizabeth, tears standing now in her eyes as she faltered out the words. "so long our kaiser keeps peace at home for us! i wonder now how he have to go to war." lucy did not quite know what to say to this, so she only put a comforting hand on elizabeth's shoulder. "i hope, though, maybe the war end before mr. bob get to the battle-field," elizabeth suggested hopefully after a moment's thoughtful silence, her habitual cheerfulness asserting itself even now above her melancholy. "perhaps," said lucy doubtfully, her mind turned once more to her brother, with a glimpse of the closer meaning the war now held for all the gordon family. "well, i must go down, miss lucy," sighed elizabeth, but she smiled at the same time and wiped away her tears with a corner of her apron. "wait a second. i have something for you," said lucy, opening the closet door and fumbling in the pocket of the blouse elizabeth had just hung up. "i printed a picture on purpose for you. it's of bob and william and me. i thought you'd like it." she drew out the little snap-shot that marian had taken the day before and gave it to elizabeth with a glance at the little group,--bob's straight, soldierly figure, her own beside him, and william peeking around at his brother from the end of the line. bob's boots were especially in evidence, but it was a good likeness of all three. "oh, thank you, dear miss lucy," cried elizabeth, beaming with pleasure at the gift, and even more at the feeling of still being friends with the gordon children which the little talk had given her. "i keep it always with me, and i often look at it and think of you." she tucked the picture in the pocket of her apron and went off down-stairs, while lucy, with a sudden return of the lump in her throat, sat down at her desk to mail a set of the pictures to bob. when mrs. gordon came home late that afternoon with her husband, in great need of being cheered and comforted, for the activity at fort totten spoke plainly of the regiment's departure, lucy and marian met her at the door with welcoming faces. lucy had overcome her low spirits at last, with the satisfaction of angrily calling herself unpatriotic names, and she was firmly entrenched now behind her resolution of courageous cheerfulness. no one had more courage than mrs. gordon, and her trouble did not show itself long, but lucy's sympathetic heart could guess it, even out of sight. mrs. gordon was used enough to seeing men called away to hazardous service. she had seen her husband go off to the spanish war as a young lieutenant, to china at the time of the boxer uprising, and to the mexican border only a year ago. she knew that bob must take his chosen place, but he seemed so young to go. this year, that would have made him a first classman at west point, found him still a boy in his mother's eyes, not grown to the measure of man's trials and hardships. it had to be, and bob's mother knew it and submitted, but it was hard. major gordon was tired with a long day's tedious work, and the family sat out on the cool piazza, where william ate his supper, while mrs. gordon told the little news she had of bob's fellow officers and surroundings. william played on the floor with his new pet, from whom he refused to be separated, the puppy's big, awkward paws flopping in every direction and his furry body squirming with excitement when william pretended to be another dog and jumped at him. nobody could help smiling at the jolly little beast, or at william's delight in him, and lucy said: "the puppy is the happiest person here. i think we need him, father. anyway, if you don't let us have him i think william will go over and live at the houstons'." "oh, keep him if you wish to," said major gordon, poking a boot at the puppy, who at once grabbed it in his little teeth and rolled over and over. "only don't let him get to chewing up my clothes, william, or out he goes. what's his name?" "you said he was happy, lucy, let's call him that," suggested william, grabbing his pet with both hands. "well, we've been trying to give him some grand name all day," said lucy, "but i suppose we might as well come down to that and be done with it." "i like it," said william. "your name's happy, do you hear?" he told the puppy, who cheerfully wagged his tail, cocking one alert ear at his little master, while mrs. gordon drew william over to her side. the two days following bob's departure brought other changes in the gordon household, for on the third day karl and elizabeth took their leave. the parting between william and elizabeth was almost a tragedy, as lucy remarked, sinking into a piazza chair that afternoon, feeling, as she announced to marian, "dead beat." she began sorting the mail which had just arrived, her hands moving listlessly, her thoughts filled with the sailing of the one hundred and thirty-sixth, which had taken place, to the best of major gordon's knowledge, early that morning. mrs. gordon came out after showing the kitchen to the newly arrived cook, their only servant for the time being, and looked over lucy's shoulder. together they seized the post-card bob had mailed from fort totten the night before, and read the few words scribbled on it: "good-bye, and love from bob." in spite of major gordon's announcement of the intended sailing this short message seemed to mean more to them, somehow, than any official tidings. bob never said good-bye until the last moment. lucy looked down among the neglected letters and papers again to hide her tear-dimmed eyes, but a moment later she held up a second card, exclaiming: "look here! something nice has actually happened! it's one of my post-cards back from mr. harding!" "oh, lucy, let me see!" cried marian, rushing to her side in unusual excitement. "i never really thought you'd get one back again." "i did," said lucy confidently, and read aloud the lines written with indelible pencil: "dear captain lucy: "here i am, and i haven't forgotten my promise. we'll soon be in the thick of it; but i can't say any more, only i think of you often. send me any news of bob's coming. r. h." "william was wrong, after all, when he said we could tell where it came from by the postmark," said marian, turning the card over with gentle fingers, "for there isn't any postmark, except new york." that evening, when the two girls were getting ready for bed, lucy said to marian, with relief and thankfulness in her voice, "anyway, there is no one else left to go just now." but she was not quite right. sergeant cameron's wife had been ill a long time, and in spite of every care she died a few days after bob's departure. the sergeant was devoted to her, and soon he found his lonely little house unbearable, and his quiet round of duties grown suddenly distasteful. so one morning he summoned up courage to ask major gordon to have him transferred from his staff detail back to the regiment. very reluctantly major gordon consented, for sergeant cameron's loss was a heavy one with the quartermaster's department swamped with work, and he had few such tried and capable assistants. "i can't refuse you, sergeant," he said at last. "i've put in the application for you, and i think it will be approved. our regiment is still at plattsburg barracks, but there is talk of its soon seeing foreign service." major gordon thought of his own staff detail as he spoke, but whatever hopes or wishes he had in sympathy with the sergeant's, he gave no voice to them. "i'm very grateful to the major," said sergeant cameron, saluting. "and i'm sorry to leave--i am indeed, sir." so it was that in that short, eventful summer lucy saw her friends go one by one, in such sudden changes as even army life had never known before. and in their places came others who were not always found to be such strangers either, for an army girl has friends from east to west, and must learn to bear partings bravely and make the most of those who are near at hand. chapter vii a tough job it was the first week in november, and a chilly wind was blowing across governor's island, shaking down the last leaves from the bare branches of the trees and tossing those on the ground into swirling heaps. the sentry walking past the gordons' house wore an overcoat now, and quartermaster's men were putting up storm doors and windows all along general's row. lucy and marian were hurrying home from the matthews', for it was almost lunch time. for a month and a half anne matthews' governess had been giving lessons every morning to anne, julia, lucy and marian, and she made them work hard enough to be hungry by twelve o'clock. mrs. gordon had half intended sending lucy to boarding-school this year, but just now she did not feel like losing her from home, and lucy's interest in the plan had also faded. she might have gone over to the city to school, but her mother would not consent to this for marian, and had been very glad on the whole to accept mrs. matthews' proposal. the four girls got along companionably together under miss ellis, and marian had surprised them all by her quickness in catching up in spite of her handicap of lost schooling. "it's really cold, but it can't be winter yet," said lucy, thrusting her bare hands into her sweater pocket and looking reproachfully at the sun, which did not feel so warm as it used to. "there's only a month and a half till christmas, though," marian reminded her. "when we began tying up the soldiers' christmas packages last week it seemed awfully like winter, but julia says maybe we'll have indian summer yet." "i never could make out when indian summer comes. it's always coming soon and then the first thing you know there's a snow-storm," remarked lucy, running up the piazza steps as she caught sight of her mother sitting inside the window. mrs. gordon was reading a letter in the sitting-room, still wearing the hat and coat in which she had come from the red cross, and lucy exclaimed as she entered the room: "oh, mother, did you--is it from bob?" "yes, sit down and we'll read it together," said mrs. gordon, looking up for a second from the closely-written sheets. bob's letters, arriving very erratically from france, sometimes two and three at a time and often weeks apart, were precious things these days, and lucy needed no second bidding. marian, too, pulled off her blue velvet tam and sank down on the floor by lucy's side while mrs. gordon recommenced the letter aloud. "dear mother and all of you: "no news from home for a week, because i haven't been where i could get any, but hope to by to-morrow, when i shall have a chance to stop at my headquarters. i'll mail this then, too, if somebody doesn't turn up to take it in the meantime. "it's three weeks to-day since i was transferred to the aviation section of the signal corps, and i am just about beginning to realize how little i know, though it seems as if i had never worked so hard in my life. behind the lines here--there's no use in my being more definite, for they wouldn't pass my letter--we beginners are kept at it, as long as there is daylight to work by, overhauling the airplanes after every flight, and learning their construction from end to end. i have been up twice as observer, both times with benton--he's a wonder in the air. they are awfully short of observers here, and i draw pretty well, and know how to take pictures. but that is as far as i have got yet, and it seems very little when there is such a monstrous lot of work waiting to be done. "we get plenty to eat, mother, and if we didn't there's a little village right behind us where they sell you food for almost nothing,--they'd give it to us if we hadn't the money to pay. i think these are the kindest, friendliest people in the world. they can't do enough to welcome us here, and it's funny how much friendship can be expressed without knowing each other's language. my french, as you know, is rather weak, but it's better than the enlisted men's,--still they seem to get what they want. "well, i must tell you the best piece of news i have. i met dick harding on the road day before yesterday, while i was marching a detachment from our squadron back to camp after an exercising hike. he was riding on reconnoitering duty with some other officers, so of course there wasn't much time. but when he saw me he pulled up and jumped off his horse, and i halted my men while we shook hands and grinned at each other and tried to get everything we wanted to say into about three minutes. i sure was glad to see him. he asked about you all and what i was doing and tried to arrange a meeting when we should be off duty, though that's always too uncertain to count on. "he looks well, though a little thin. of course i hadn't seen him since my furlough. he says his regiment--you know which it is--will go into the first line trenches this week. it has been declared in first-class condition and training, and mentioned already in home despatches. he is awfully proud about it, of course, and wants to show what they can do. it made me more than ever anxious to get somewhere in aviation. they need every one of us right now. he had to mount again almost at once to overtake the others, and i don't know when we can find each other, for we are ten miles apart even while he's behind the firing line. "father's regiment is somewhere in this sector, he told me." "oh, lucy, wasn't it fine for bob to see him!" mrs. gordon stopped reading to exclaim. "wasn't it?" said lucy with shining eyes. "i've been hoping so they would meet. but go on, mother, won't you?" "there isn't much more," said mrs. gordon, turning to the last page. "don't worry about whether you are sending me the right things for christmas. if i get some of lucy's fudge i shall be thankful. we appreciate things so much more over here that it ought to be easier to choose them than when we were at home. compared with the french we have so much just now. i hope the people back home won't forget that there are few families in this part of france who have any money left to buy presents for their own soldiers. but anyway, we'll share what we have with them. nobody could help doing that. "i have to get into my oiling togs now and go over a machine that has just come in. it's benton's, and he has been flying over the german trenches. he came to the door of my place just then to say he was nearly frozen and was going to take a run to warm up. our shacks are getting cold at night, too, but some of the men are out to-day cutting fire-wood. "good-bye, if i don't find time to write any more to-day. i'm almost too sleepy at night to put anything like a sentence together. but i always think of you a lot. "with much love, "bob." "he never said whether our fruit cake came or not, lucy," cried marian, disappointed. "but perhaps it's waiting where the rest of his mail is," she reflected, tossing back her bright hair to look up inquiringly into mrs. gordon's face. "yes, probably it is, dear," mrs. gordon agreed, putting bob's letter carefully back into its envelope. "i'm glad they have plenty to eat," she added with a smothered little sigh. "lucy, call in william and we'll have lunch. here comes father now. he has to hurry off to-day to inspect supplies for these new recruits." the post had seen a good many changes in the two months since bob's regiment sailed. many women of the twenty-eighth had packed up and gone away to their old homes or elsewhere. the new infantry battalion had already been succeeded by another, and of the recruits of the early summer many were already overseas and all were trained men scattered to various regiments. those drilling on the post now were not so numerous since the national army camps had opened, though several hundred still remained in training, destined to fill vacancies among the regulars. in october another regiment had camped overnight on governor's island to slip away to their transports at dawn. but this one had not been so fortunate as the twenty-eighth, and had sent back word of an uneasy passage made among attacking submarines in the midst of a heavy storm which almost drove the transports from their convoy. mr. leslie was straining every nerve to supply his lumber for ship-building as fast as the government asked for it, and he wrote feelingly of the great difficulties in the way of transportation, but also of brave and patriotic efforts in the west to get the utmost accomplished. he wrote much, too, rather anxiously, about his prolonged absence, though he had been a good deal cheered by marian's letters, which showed an increasing interest in her cousins and in the life of the post. marion had taken it on herself to help lucy a little in the tasks that fell to her share while margaret was their only servant, and after luncheon they went out together on the piazza to put it in order after william's playing circus there with the puppy most of the morning. william tried to help by picking up his blocks, but did not make much of a success of it and ended by sitting on the steps and holding happy in his arms, while the puppy wriggled with wild curiosity to get down and find out what a squirrel on the grass was burying with its quick little paws at the foot of a tree. "no, you can't bother him. he has to get his meals buried for the winter," william scolded, struggling with the fat little beast, which was almost as strong as he was. "oh, let him go, william," said lucy. "you know he's afraid of the squirrels when he gets near them. he just wants to prance around and bark at them." "all right, then," said william, opening his arms and letting happy go with a wild rush and scamper down the steps, which finished as usual in his backing hastily away from the angry, chattering squirrel before him, to stand furiously barking for a minute, then stopping short to wag his tail in the most friendly way as though peace had been declared. "he's a fake," said lucy laughing. "he can't expect to scare them after that." marian went indoors, when they had cleared things up, to take her daily nap, and lucy followed her mother up-stairs and into her room. "what are you going to do, mother?" she asked uncertainly. "well, i think i'll mend some of william's clothes first," said mrs. gordon, sitting down beside her work-table. "why, lucy?" "i just wanted to talk to you a few minutes," lucy began, her face grown serious as she sat down and clasped her hands about one knee. "mother, i feel like an awful good-for-nothing saying this, but i can't help it. i just have the blues terribly, and somehow it seems as though we were all waiting for dreadful things to happen, and nothing seems worth doing--at least nothing that i can do." lucy's burst of unhappiness did not seem to surprise her mother very much, though she laid down her work a moment and looked rather anxiously at her daughter as she answered. "i know, lucy. i'm afraid we all feel a little bit that way just now. it's a serious, worrying time for almost everybody, and the uncertainty of what lies before us is the hardest of all to bear. but you know, dear, if we give up being cheerful and brave we shan't get any work done and we'll feel worse than ever. besides that, our letters to bob will be anything but a comfort to him. we have got to find courage just as the women and girls of france and england did. and if you want useful work to do this winter besides our red cross, i will tell you of some right now." "oh, what, mother? i'd like to pitch right in and do something with all my might!" cried lucy from the depths of her eager, restless soul. "you won't think much of it when you hear what it is," said mrs. gordon smiling. "there isn't any glory in it, but i mean it when i say that it is something worth while. i want you to give up your time and thoughts to making marian a healthy, happy girl before her father comes home." "oh, mother," said lucy, disappointed. "i know it doesn't sound very inspiring, but take my word for it your reward will come if you do what lies in your way, and, lucy, you never had a better chance to do something worth doing." lucy sat motionless, staring at the floor, like a statue in a blue serge sailor-suit. her mother picked up her work again and began sewing a rip in william's rompers, while lucy moved a little, unclasped her hands about her knee and took a turn in staring at the ceiling. her face was not exactly gay, though no one could accuse her of sulkiness. she looked like a person thinking out a sum in arithmetic. at last she spoke. "well, mother, i'll try. are you quite sure about that reward?" she asked, smiling now as she turned to her mother with a rather mocking twinkle in her hazel eyes. "quite sure," said mrs. gordon, undismayed. "one way or another it will come." she smiled back at her daughter, well pleased with lucy's answer, for she knew it to be as good as a promise, and its accomplishment would mean something gained not only for marian but for lucy as well. "i'm not surprised that you took a minute to think it over," she continued seriously. "i know it won't be easy." "well, i said i wanted a tough job to tackle," said lucy, rising from her chair with a faint sigh. "don't expect any startling results," she warned her mother, breaking into another smile as she looked back at her. "i'll get marian now and go over to the red cross for a while. i promised julia." half an hour later, when the three girls were at work over a table of gauze in the red cross rooms, lucy began wondering to herself, even while she talked of other things, how she was going to accomplish what she had undertaken. she glanced at marian, whose golden head was industriously bent over her work, wishing rather helplessly for a wand which, with one quick wave, would transform marian into a strong, active girl, with no nerves to bother about. any one spending the day at the gordon house now would probably have seen little to find fault with in marian and much that was attractive. nobody gave her more credit than lucy for the change in her during the past few months, which had turned lucy's feeling for her cousin from pity to warm liking and even admiration. but the improvement had only begun, and it only persisted as long as marian was amused or interested or her sympathy aroused. there were still times of sulky indifference, of listless weariness, and most of all of obstinate refusal to help herself or exert her will to exercise or to eat her meals when she did not happen to feel like it. these were the hurdles in lucy's way if she was to make marian well and happy as every fourteen-year-old girl ought to be, and the obstacles loomed rather large just now, even with marian before her in her brightest mood, and looking so pretty as she laughed and talked while her fingers worked that no one would have credited her with a single pout. unconsciously lucy commenced the best way, for as she listened to marian telling julia the story of happy's complete destruction of her best hat, lucy summed up two great qualities in marian's favor, and began to feel a wider understanding and sympathy with her cousin for thinking of them. marian was extremely generous. she loved to give things away, and the loss of any of her own possessions worried her very little, or if as in this case it was a disappointment, she bore it good-humoredly. she even gave the puppy a forgiving pat with the poppies torn from her hat still clenched in his wicked jaws. here lucy skipped to the second point in her catalogue of virtues. marian was certainly not vain or even conscious of her beauty. beyond a careful regard for her appearance which had been taught her since babyhood, she gave little thought to herself and laughed in honest amusement if lucy grew enthusiastic sometimes when her pretty little cousin put on something especially becoming. occupied with these thoughts, lucy did not get so much work done as the others, besides being rather silent, and provokingly failing to answer several times when she was spoken to. "lucy gordon, you've only made fifteen compresses, and you have been quiet enough to work, goodness knows," said julia at last, looking at her friend with accusing eyes. "of course if you're thinking out how to end the war or something really important to the country we won't disturb you, but you might think aloud. i'd like to hear it." lucy laughed. "my ideas would be almost as valuable as our parole man's. he is always telling margaret what he thinks of the war. the other day i was out in the kitchen making fudge for bob----oh, dear," she interrupted herself, "it will be so stale when he gets it if he only goes for his mail every week or two!" "but what were you going to say?" insisted julia, as lucy seemed to have subsided. "oh, only that i listened to mat talking to margaret in the pantry. he said, 'you see, it's this way. either the eye-talians will be able to stay where they are, or they will have to retreat.' i felt like telling him that maybe margaret could have thought that out for herself, but she seemed quite impressed by it." "is she nice? do you like her?" asked julia. "i don't see her often the way i used to elizabeth." "oh, she's nice," said lucy. "she's kind of poky, and of course father thinks karl is the only person in the world who makes good coffee, but margaret almost suits him. we do miss elizabeth awfully, though. william simply can't get used to having her gone. he asked me yesterday if i thought elizabeth would like happy when she came back. he doesn't seem to get it through his head that she isn't coming back." "she might, though, lucy, when the war is over," suggested marian. "yes--when," said lucy without much enthusiasm, thinking of bob. "have you any idea where they are now?" asked julia, beginning to pile up her finished work. "no, not a bit. elizabeth said something to me the day she left about going to sweden, but i don't really think she knew. karl told father they might go to mexico. she sent william a post-card from boston a few days after they left here." "let's stop now and go outdoors," proposed julia, pushing back her chair. "i'm so tired of sitting still i'm getting fidgety." "let's go out and teach marian to play golf," said lucy, taking her bull by the horns. "yes! will you come, marian?" urged julia. "we'll only play a little while until it gets dark. i know you'll like it." "i'll come along and watch you, anyway," hedged marian, reaching for her hat and not looking especially eager for a new effort. "but it's no fun watching, and you'd love it so if you only once got interested," insisted lucy, as the three got up and found their hats and sweaters. "i wish bob had stayed long enough to teach you! he said he would and maybe you'd have let him. come on, so we can write and tell him how much you've done--won't you?" they had reached the foot of the stairs to the first floor by the time lucy finished her appeal, and as they stepped outdoors marian demanded with a sudden, fleeting smile: "if i play this once, lucy, will you let me alone afterward?" "i promise," said lucy promptly, with unshaken confidence in her favorite game. "it's you who won't let me alone then." chapter viii over the trenches while lucy's thoughts were so much with bob across the seas he was wrapped up heart and soul in the work in which he longed to excel. not but that an hour came every day when he thought of home and longed for those who waited for him, but the hour was a short one, for he needed all the time he could spare for sleep, to keep his brain alert and clear as an aviator's must be who does not court disaster. not that bob was an aviator yet, after eight weeks of training, but he began to be called upon pretty frequently by captain benton to accompany him in his flights. bob's duty as observer was to sit in front of the pilot, with a map fastened on a board laid across his knees, and keep a close watch of the country over which they flew, usually as nearly adjacent to the enemy's lines as possible, noting every change in the german positions which might be of value, such as new trenches, roads, railways, hidden artillery or machine-gun emplacements. with powerful field-glasses he scrutinized the earth below, hastily sketching in on his map any alterations observable, as well as keeping a sharp lookout for exploding shrapnel aimed too accurately in their direction. bob was an excellent draughtsman, the second in his class at west point, and for the honor of accompanying benton he practised his sketching at every random opportunity. together the two flew repeatedly over the german lines, sometimes retiring swiftly before pursuing guns, sometimes getting just the information they wanted and returning triumphant. bob was becoming an expert mechanic, and he looked forward with boundless eagerness to the time when he should be a fearless pilot like benton, for he had learned with joy in the past month that the "grit and steady endurance" his father had spoken of were really his. meanwhile in benton's two-seated biplane he scouted over numberless french villages, and grew to have a knowledge of the battle-front stamped on his mind with the geometrical exactness of a map of the earth seen from thousands of feet in the air. benton was known not only to his friends but to the germans as well, where his reputation was firmly established as an enemy worthy of respect. his airplane was watched for, and its easy, graceful evolutions marked out at once by anti-aircraft gunners. but benton was not fond of bravado, and he took few unnecessary risks. his dangerous flights were made in safety, and bob's confidence in the air daily increased. all during november he and benton worked together outside of bob's hours of practice and study, and the last of the month found them firm friends and pretty constant companions. it was on november 24th, at about seven in the morning, that an orderly brought word to bob, at breakfast in the mess shack, that captain benton wished to see him. bob swallowed his coffee, went out and found benton standing in the field by his airplane, looking carefully over the wire supports. "sorry to hurry you, gordon," he said pleasantly as bob came up, "but i want to get off at once if you can manage it. they just telephoned us that the germans have fortified the village of petit-bois, up the valley there, for their expected retreat, and information is wanted of their defenses as soon as possible." "i'm ready," said bob. "five minutes to get my camera plates and stuff." he was dressed for flying, in fur-lined service coat, and it only remained to fetch gloves and fur helmet from his shack. the morning was dull and cloudy, with a raw coldness in the air. to bob one of the delights of an early start was to fly up into the rays of the morning sun. but to-day when, ten minutes later, they mounted toward the east, the cold, gray clouds seemed endlessly banked above them, and bob picked up the speaking tube to say, doubtfully: "not much photography to-day, benton. did you expect it?" "no," benton replied. "we shan't be able to get within range for that unless they are all asleep." at eight thousand feet an airplane is almost safe from rifle or machine-gun fire. but at this height no photographs of any value can be taken. to fly at four or five hundred feet over the enemy would be ideal for observing and photography, but would mean almost certain death to pilot and observer. so an unsatisfactory middle course of two to four thousand feet is usually adopted. benton did not hesitate to fly low where he could gain valuable information, but he was usually prudent. bob's map was spread across his knees, and as they neared the german lines he scrutinized with his glasses the outskirts of the village they approached. nothing new seemed to require closer attention here. benton circled and flew behind the village, rising a hundred feet higher as black, white and yellow puffs of smoke appearing from below indicated enemy guns aimed at the tiny target the biplane offered. suddenly bob stiffened. "ah! here we have it!" he cried exultantly. "a nice new line of concrete block-houses, benton, right behind the village--their second line of defense. fly a little lower, can't you?" "no," called back the pilot with his usual calmness, "but we'll go a bit further north, so you can find out the extent of the line. those gunners don't seem very clever yet, but they're getting closer." bob sketched for dear life while the machine floated and hovered. below in a narrow strip of woodland beyond the village he could distinguish plainly the tiny bald spots that marked the hastily constructed fortifications. "good, we're losing them," remarked benton, glancing down. "the clouds have hidden us, i think." below them a swirling fog bank sheltered the airplane a moment from the gunners, but it also began to cut off bob's view, and benton had to dodge and circle for openings in the misty curtain. "why, we're above the village--there are the trenches," said bob presently. "cut back south--it's clearer now. blessed if we haven't got the best bit of information this month," he added joyfully. "can't get everything in one trip, but this is enough to help if the boches retreat this week, and it looks to every one as though they meant to." bob's enthusiastic fingers pressed too hard and the lead of his pencil snapped. he felt in his pocket for another, thinking oddly of lucy as he did so, for she had always come to him when he was at home to sharpen her pencils. it usually took lucy several pencils to get through an arithmetic lesson. he rubbed his bare hand against the pocket lining, for the air was nipping cold. "huh!" said benton suddenly. bob could not hear him, but he felt the airplane sharply veer. he seized the speaking tube and shouted, "what's the matter?" for a second he thought benton had been hit, for shrapnel was again bursting near them at intervals, and he glanced quickly toward the steering gear. by means of the dual control the observer, in case of accident to the pilot, can bring the airplane safely to ground. "don't know," said benton sharply, "but we're not getting enough gas. you pick out a landing-place for us in double-quick time, if you don't want to land in those tree-tops." his cool voice was shaken with furious disgust--the steady, swift race of the engine had grown jerky and uneven. bob heard it and understood. with frenzied haste he searched the landscape with his glasses, growing suddenly cold beneath his clothes at thought of the dizzy depth below. "there's a meadow just to the left," he said at last, "north of the village--see it? it's the only decent place in sight--but, benton--it's behind the german lines." "don't i know it?" said benton gruffly. "then here goes." he cut off the spark, and the airplane began to fall. bob had snatched his map from the board and folded it closely. he drew now from a box at his feet a pearly white carrier pigeon and, fastening the map to her leg by a rubber band, stroked her once and tossed her high in the air. no matter what happened to them his morning's observations would safely reach the squadron's camp. they were barely four hundred feet above the earth now, and the continued firing of the german guns behind them seemed to indicate that in the misty atmosphere the enemy had not seen their descent and was still searching for them in the heights. "all right, pretty good place--down we go," said benton, peering out ahead. in another moment the machine touched the grass of the meadow and coasted along it to the shelter of a little grove of firs near the farther end. "somewhere in france," remarked benton grimly, taking off his goggles and staring around him. "only it begins to look more like somewhere in germany." "there's nobody in sight," said bob, stepping out on to the grass. "i should think we were several miles north of the village." "not more than two," declared benton, taking off his gloves and turning up the ear flaps of his helmet preparatory to bending over the engine. he took another swift glance around, frowning. "they may have seen us come down and they may not, but we'll have to take it for granted that they didn't, and do our work with that idea. if the trouble is in the feed pipe, as i think it is, we ought to make repairs in an hour or two. it isn't but ten o'clock now." he looked up at the sun, which was dimly visible through the heavy clouds. "if it will only stay thick and hazy we'll have a fair chance of escaping notice in case any one happens along in this field." "there's a house behind those trees," said bob doubtfully, nodding toward the woods on their right. "it looks like a farmer's cottage. you can't see it now, but i caught sight of the chimney while we were making our landing." "well, it can't be helped," said benton coolly. "our only chance is to fix up and get away before they see us." he had his tools out and was ready to engross himself in the task before him. not for nothing had this famous pilot been brought up on a wyoming cattle ranch, where calm thought and quick action had saved his life more than once in his boy-hood. with a strong probability of never finishing his repairs he set to work with as matter-of-fact thoroughness as though he were in his own air-drome. "come on, gordon--unscrew these unions for me," he ordered, tossing a tool in bob's direction. bob was feeling, to say the least of it, rather excited. during his three months of service abroad he had not yet come face to face with a german soldier otherwise than disarmed and a prisoner. he had encountered plenty of shell and rifle fire in his flights over the enemy trenches, but that was his nearest approach to the battle-field. now, as he peered around the meadow, over which the mist still lingered, he half expected to see a crowd of armed prussians bursting at him from among the trees, and his heart beat a most unhero-like tattoo as he turned to the airplane and began unscrewing with nervous haste. in half an hour benton had found the trouble and set about remedying it as best he could, but he growled now over his work, and searched his box of spare parts dejectedly. "it will just do," he told bob as they toiled on with all the speed allowable for a good job. "it ought to get us back to camp safe enough, but unfortunately we can't fly like the crow--not by daylight." "how do you mean?" asked bob, straightening his bent back a moment. he was beginning to feel more hopeful, for the work was nearly done, even if not altogether satisfactory, and they were still quite unmolested. "i mean that we can't start now, as i'd like to, and fly back to camp. they're on the lookout for us, you may be sure. we'd have to dodge and cut around their guns, and you see we can't. i wouldn't risk a single loop with that engine, though for just the straight distance we can chance it. what i mean is this--we've got to wait for darkness, or near it, and then cut back directly over the trenches." "i see," said bob, with marked lack of enthusiasm. benton grinned. "doesn't sound very promising to you, does it? cheer up; if only we can hide here until dark we'll get home safe enough. when this job is done we'll push her further in under the trees. the place seems to be quite deserted. probably the cow that was pastured here has gone into german stomachs long ago." bob nodded agreement, since showing his doubts of their safety would not help matters. he guessed, too, that benton knew them as well as he. in another hour the engine was repaired to the best of their ability, the airplane pushed under a sheltering fir, and benton seated on the ground beside it, lighting his pipe. bob sat down, too, and wiped the oil from his hands with a wisp of grass. he felt a sudden keen longing for action to put out of his mind the long hours they must spend in hiding, with the expectation every moment of being surprised. he was not blessed with benton's calm patience. to be in the thick of a fight or engaged on a hazardous piece of work was something he could tackle bravely, but waiting for the unknown was getting on his nerves. "benton, i want to take a look around," he said, rising to his feet after a moment. "i'll keep among the trees right near you." "well, if you must," benton acquiesced. "don't go far. i suppose if the boches are looking for us they'll find us just the same, hiding or not." "i won't be gone half an hour," promised bob, edging his way among the tree-trunks, his face turned toward the north end of the meadow. the mist still hung about the woodland, and the bark of the trees he touched was wet and clammy. he walked on for about five hundred yards, then stopped to listen. distant firing was the only sound that broke the silence except for the occasional drip of water from the bare branches of the oaks or the green boughs of the fir trees. he went on a little further, then stopped again, irresolute. there was nothing to be gained by wandering further, and he might lose his way if the mist closed in again. he certainly could not risk having to shout to benton for guidance. but he thought disgustedly of the feeble ending to their morning's expedition, with the best to be hoped for a scared retreat to camp after nightfall. the map was safely there by now, but bob would have given almost anything at that moment to be able to add to the information it contained by some discovery near at hand. the attack of nerves he had suffered after their landing had cleared his mind of its weakness, and now his heart was beating normally and his courage was good. bob was far from having an envious nature, but his admiration for benton's exploits had kindled his own ambition, and the chance nearness to the german second-line positions made him fairly ache with longing to do his corps some brilliant service. yet rack his brains as he might he could not discover any way toward the accomplishment of his desire. while he stood wishing, a footstep sounded close beside him. bob stopped breathing, frozen to the spot. then he began slowly backing away, but the unknown's feet had passed from the soft moss to a crackling stick very near at hand and only a shaggy fir tree separated him from bob's view. bob was keyed up at that moment to expect no less than von hindenburg himself, and the relief was almost overwhelming when a little old man in a blue peasant's blouse stepped into sight, carrying a pail of water. he nearly dropped it when he came face to face with bob, and stopped mouth open and eyes staring. bob was almost as much overcome himself at the encounter with even this simple old countryman, and it was the latter who brought his pail carefully to the ground and first spoke. "_anglais?_" he asked, his voice quavering with astonishment, and his eyes wandering all over bob as though puzzled beyond words at his presence. bob shook his head, regaining his composure a little, "_americain._" "ah!" cried the little frenchman, his face lighting up in answer to the word, "_americain_!" then in a sudden burst of joyful enthusiasm he cried with a smile that brought out a hundred wrinkles in his thin old face, "_soyez le bienvenu!_" "_merci!_" responded bob, warming to the friendly greeting, and he held out his hand to the old man, who shook it timidly. then he burst into a sudden volley of words, gesticulating wildly with his arms as he spoke and, so far as bob could understand, inquiring how on earth he had got there, since evidently the germans still held their positions firmly. [illustration: "you may help the allies to victory"] bob heartily wished he had taken his west point french more seriously as he strained his ears, unused to any such fluency. but he summoned his wits and managed to understand somehow and to answer at least intelligibly. "i and my fellow-officer were forced to come down behind the german lines," he explained. "we are hiding until dark, when we can get away." as he struggled with his french bob felt uneasy enough at having revealed himself, though looking at the peasant's honest open face beaming with friendliness he could not feel that he had exposed himself and benton to any imminent danger of betrayal. but while he talked another thought occurred to him. "have you seen the new forts beyond the village?" he asked. "will you tell me how far they go? perhaps you may help the allies to victory." the old man scratched his cheek thoughtfully and finally shook his head. "i can tell only what i have guessed, monsieur, for i do not go near the fortifications, nor even to the village, often. i feel safer here," he added, nodding his head toward the cottage that bob had noticed buried in the trees. "it is almost a ruin now," he said sadly, "but the boches seldom come there." "well, what have you guessed?" urged bob eagerly. "that the forts run far above the town. they have set guards all through the woods to the north to keep the townfolk from wandering there. beyond that," he shrugged his old shoulders dejectedly, "i do not know." bob's brain began to seethe with a sudden determination. before he had stopped to think whether it had wisdom in it--and not having lucy on hand to urge caution--he said impulsively: "i want to see them if i can. could you--will you lend me those clothes you wear while i go quickly into the village and return? i will pay you well for them." as he spoke he drew from the pocket inside his coat some pieces of silver. the old peasant stared again, then his blue eyes softened. "i will lend them to you gladly," he said, drawing back from the offering with a friendly smile. "i know," urged bob, following him, "but i have money and you have none. take this for friendship's sake, at least," he said, as nearly as his french could frame the words. the old man hesitated no longer, but took the money with a grateful look and a sigh of wonder at the few franc pieces in his hand. "many thanks, monsieur l'americain," he nodded. "will you wait here until i bring the clothes, or will you come with me to my house?" bob thought swiftly of benton, with whom he must certainly have a word before he started out on what the older man would be likely to call a wild goose chase. again he felt the risk of so implicitly trusting a simple old fellow who might presumably be frightened into a betrayal, but his confidence somehow remained unshaken. the man must not be led into his danger either. he thought hard. "i'll meet you near your house, so you need not come back so far. can you think of a place?" "yes," said the old man after a moment; "my little shed where i cut wood is at the edge of the thicket. you have only to walk on a quarter of a mile from here to come to it." "but how about the boches? could they not see me?" "no--no. there are none near here. they have little reason for coming. you are safe enough. but," he added, a sudden alarm springing into his mild eyes, "when you put on these clothes," he touched his faded blouse, "you are a spy, monsieur. have you forgotten that?" "no," said bob calmly, although to tell the truth he disliked to hear the word. "i'll risk that. no one knows me here. say in a quarter of an hour, then, i'll meet you at your wood-shed." he smiled good-bye to the little figure stooping again over the pail, and turned back through the trees with a great excitement quickening his pulses, though his determination had been so calmly taken. benton was still sitting beside his airplane, only now he leaned forward in an attitude of expectancy when bob's cautious footstep sounded in the wood. at sight of him he settled back again, inquiring with mild mockery, "well, did you persuade the germans to confide anything to you? wish you'd ask them where that new road is they've camouflaged out of sight. tell 'em we've spent a week looking for it." "didn't see any," said bob, refusing to be teased. "look here, benton, what i did see was a french peasant who was no end friendly, and whose clothes i borrowed to go on a little tour of inspection in the village." "what! in the village--in the fellow's clothes?" exclaimed benton, staring. "you must be just plain ass, gordon." bob laughed. "no, i'm not. would you think so if i learned what we want to know about the block-houses before it's dark enough to start? all this worry and danger would have amounted to something then. i sure want to find out a little of their scheme." benton frowned at the big tree in front of him. "you know what you'll get if you are caught--out of uniform?" "but i'm not exactly well-known in that village. i'm no familiar figure like yourself. there haven't been any pictures of me in the papers. besides, i won't be gone more than an hour or two. i can't see any great risk in it, and, benton, think of what i may learn!" "i know it, and i wouldn't thank any man who kept me from doing a smart bit of work. but look here, even if you are not suspected you might be detained as being of military age. how would you like to be sent into germany as a factory hand?" "i can easily pass for seventeen--the class france had not called out when petit-bois was taken. there are lots of those fellows around, and it isn't likely they'd choose me to kidnap during a single hour." "well, go ahead, gordon, but not with my approval. it's a nasty business." "i feel sure i'll come out all right," said bob, a courageous confidence growing in him as he spoke. "just wish me luck and i'll bet we'll meet again before it's time to go." "i wish you the best of luck, old man," said benton, rising to his feet and shaking bob warmly by the hand. "i'll wait for you until dark. i can't stay longer." "that's long enough," said bob, and with a final hand-clasp he retraced his venturesome steps into the wood. chapter ix behind the enemy's lines in the village of petit-bois, on the street leading to the church, lived a grocer named adler, a german by birth, who had plied his trade there for almost ten years before the war forced him to leave french territory. he was not kept away for long, however, for within a few weeks his countrymen had overrun belgium and enough of northern france to include petit-bois, so herr adler came back and resumed business, with more germans than french now for customers. he was a widower and lived alone until his uncle and aunt had come to petit-bois a month ago to keep him company. the grocery had become prosperous of late, since the victorious army had trebled the population of the village, and the grocer was glad of help in the time his uncle could spare from his work as company cook in an infantry regiment. he was pleased also at having for lodger a relative in the army. adler's aunt sat mostly in her room over the grocery knitting socks, except when she was called to wait upon customers in the shop. she was seated there now in the early winter afternoon, the needles moving swiftly in her nimble fingers, though her eyes were not on her work but turned toward the window through which bare branches showed, and low, red roofs beneath the sullen, cloudy sky. elizabeth was paler and thinner than she had been when the gordons last saw her, and her face was serious and sad as she looked off into the distance. it was not her journeyings since leaving america that had wearied her--the journey into mexico, the long sea voyage from santa cruz to copenhagen, and again the tedious way from denmark into germany. it was the weeks passed in her native land which had done most to sadden her cheerful spirit. the month she had spent in germany had been strangely hard, and lately she had stayed more and more at work by herself, absorbed in perplexing and anxious thoughts. the grief and suffering she saw daily about her, without power to alleviate it, hurt her kind heart, and the great war seemed further than ever from her simple understanding. she saw karl filling once more a humble place in germany's mighty army, with a steadily growing pride in the victorious onslaught of which he had become a part. she heard the name of germany and of german conquest on every tongue, or saw a silent witness of it in the vanquished people around her, and still her heart did not feel that overpowering thrill at her country's greatness that in karl had been so quickly awakened. elizabeth went among the germans of the village and spoke with them in her native tongue. she worked willingly at warm garments for the soldiers and helped her nephew at every opportunity, but with a quiet sadness and reserve that any one who had known the old elizabeth would have quickly wondered at. the neighbors often asked her about her life in america, usually with bitter words and marveling at her safe return. "how fortunate you were, frau mã¼ller, to get off so easily! i suppose our poor countrymen are suffering much at the hands of the yankees now. did you contrive long for your escape?" elizabeth had smiled the first time such questions were put to her, and had told frankly of the freedom with which she and karl had left america. but later she did not go into such details, for she saw that she was not fully believed and that, moreover, her story lost interest since it contained no accusations against america. she had heard before in germany words of suspicion and dislike expressed against england, and she had not been familiar enough with england or english people to resent or disbelieve them. but she had spent a good part of the last twenty years in america, and had known too much happiness and kind companionship there to feel indifferent when malicious lies were told about its people. she had lived, too, much of that time, in the army, and knew enough of its officers and soldiers and their families not to be deceived into believing them greedy, money-mad or bloodthirsty, according to the imagination of her informer. this sort of stupid abuse made elizabeth acutely unhappy, and hurt her confidence in her native land, for which she had long had the tenderest affection. so rather than engage in arguments with strangers she remained alone a good part of the time and worked peacefully at her sewing and knitting, hoping, with as much cheerfulness as she could summon, for better days to come. she was pondering again over these troubling thoughts as she sat by the window, deeply wishing that she could go back to her native town in bavaria and talk to the old pastor she had known in her youth. he had never outgrown for her the wisdom she had seen in him when he had married her to karl, with much kind and shrewd advice for both of them. she smiled at the thought of it as she bent over the heel of her sock. suddenly heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened. elizabeth looked up in surprise. "is it you, karl, home so early?" she asked as her husband came quickly in and crossed the room to her side. he wore the german private's gray uniform as cook to an infantry company, and his rather stout figure had trimmed down wonderfully since he put it on. he looked almost young and soldierly. but his face just now was red and hot, and his black eyes blazed with excitement. "whom do you think i have seen?" he shouted, pointing a shaking finger at his wife as though to assure her earnest attention. "i have seen a spy from the american army across there with the french, and whom do you think it was? it was bob gordon!" elizabeth turned deathly pale. her knitting slipped unnoticed from her hands and she stared at karl speechlessly until he shook her by the shoulder, crying: "come! don't be so stupid! i want that picture you have of him. where is it? i must show it to my captain, so he will be convinced it is the right man when we have taken him. he was wandering about the border of the village, just entering it. he has got across the lines somehow, in a farmer's old clothes. pretty smart! but not so smart that i didn't recognize him--our fine young officer! he won't get back so easily, for i have sent warnings to all the pickets beyond the wood." karl was fairly quivering with eagerness. he saw glory awaiting him around the corner--the precious words of praise from his superior, the possible decoration, which are life itself to the zealous german soldier, and which he puts before every impulse of humanity or independence. "hurry!" he urged angrily, astonished at elizabeth's white-faced silence. "i want to take him on the road by the fortifications. think what it means to us who were half accused of being friendly to america! could there be better proof than this of our loyalty?" elizabeth's pale lips could hardly form the words she tried to utter. her throat choked her, but desperately she strove against the horror that seized her and pleaded tremblingly, "oh, karl, not a spy--not a spy!" karl frowned, staring at her with hard eyes, but she faltered, "you won't give him up, karl? not mr. bob, our old friend!" "what else would i do?" karl demanded, thrusting out both arms in an excited gesture. "would you have me betray the fatherland?" elizabeth found her tongue at last and rose to face her husband. her thin face was flushed and her eyes shining. "karl, it is not only you who love germany," she said earnestly. "i would not betray her to our enemies, but, karl, you know well that there is nothing here for mr. bob to learn. only the fortifications are secret, and he will never be allowed near them by the guard. you know they would shoot him before he reached them, as they shot that poor, deaf old man the other day. tell him to go, karl. tell him never, on his word, to spy again, as the price of his safety. no, wait," she begged, as karl showed impatient signs of interrupting her. "do it for the debt we owe america. have you forgotten the long, happy years we spent there? often i think of my kind mistress and of mr. bob when he was a little child. do you remember the day long ago when he fell off his horse, how you picked him up and carried him in the house? you were pale that day yourself, and when he opened his eyes you said, 'thank god.' you were very ill ten years ago, when the major had you cared for like his friend and your life was saved. don't we owe them anything, karl, that you are so ready to harm them?" karl's brows had unbent a little as he listened to elizabeth's plea, and when he answered it was less arrogantly, though his voice was still hard and self-assured. "yes, wife, i know. but you reason stupidly. i cannot make you see beyond your finger-tips. our service in america was good, and we were friends with the major's family. i served him faithfully. but now we are at war, and germany's enemies are ours. i am now a soldier and mr. bob is a soldier, too. that is an end to all talk of friendship. keep your pity for our own people, and forget all gratitude to those who are against us. america and the sons of america are less than nothing to you now." karl's face was set, and his eyes gleamed at thought of the praise and honor awaiting him with bob's capture. no persuasion on earth could have turned him aside from his purpose, and to his excited mind it lost all trace of selfish ambition and became the loftiest patriotism. elizabeth closed her lips despairingly and looked at him with sad eyes. but his forbearance was now quite at an end. "give me the picture!" he cried, shaking her thin shoulder. "must i treat you roughly to get it? where is your obedience?" elizabeth made no more protests. she walked with heavy steps to the old bureau and pulled open a drawer. from the depths of a worn leather pocketbook she drew out the little photograph and, without one glance at it, handed it to her husband. karl snatched it eagerly from her hand, and looked at it closely, holding it to the light. he started to tear off the figures of lucy and william, but reflecting that it would be better to show the picture unmutilated, he thrust it quickly inside his blouse and went out of the room. elizabeth stood by the bureau motionless for a moment, then mechanically she straightened the crocheted cover where karl had brushed against it. she had crocheted it herself two years ago at governor's island, while lucy was recovering from the measles, sitting beside her in the darkened room. she went slowly over to the window, staring out unseeingly. in her painful bewilderment she prayed for help and guidance to know what she should do, and as her lips moved she felt her mind made up beyond any faltering. she turned to the wall where a woolen shawl hung, and, hesitating no longer, took it down and wrapped it about her head and shoulders. her face was calm and quiet now with the strength of her resolution. she descended to the shop and found herr adler seated there, casting up his accounts, for it was saturday afternoon. "good-day, aunt," he nodded, raising his blond head at sight of her. "will you stay here for a while and attend to the customers while i do my figuring? my uncle has gone off somewhere in a great hurry." "first i must go out and see frau bauer," said elizabeth, smiling pleasantly at her nephew. "i promised to come before the week is out. in half an hour i will be back and help you gladly." she replaced a few potatoes which had fallen from the basket and walked out into the street. once outside she quickened her pace a little and turned off in the direction of the fortified road behind the village. * * * * * bob had lingered in the woods a while after putting on the peasant's clothes, trying to feel at home in them before he showed himself in the village. but the disguise was complete enough to any one unfamiliar with his face, and sure to escape notice by its very commonplaceness. "if they see that you are a stranger they will take you for a marketer from the countryside," the old frenchman had assured him. "they come from a day's journey off now, because the land is untilled beneath the shell-fire, north and south of us." bob entered petit-bois about noon, skirting the edge of it until he could get enough idea of its streets to seem passably familiar with the ones leading to the farther end of the village. his cap was pulled down over his eyes, and his clumsy shoes no longer impeded his steps as they had done at first. he bent his shoulders forward too, with a suggestion of physical unfitness. thrusting his hands into his pockets he walked along at a good rate on a pretty, tree-bordered street, until he reached the center of the village with its shops and red-roofed houses, one or two of them damaged by shell-fire, beyond which the little, spired church showed against the gray sky. not many people were on the streets and the few were mostly german soldiers off duty, wearing an air of self-importance which contrasted strongly with the hasty and anxious looks of the french women, children and occasional men who went about such business as they had. what might have marked bob out for notice was his fresh color and the clear eyes shaded beneath his cap, for terror and privation had taken the healthy bloom from the french country-folk, and even the children wore a serious, apprehensive look as they hurried by, wrapped in their scanty shawls against the biting air. bob did not linger, having no desire to remain in a crowd, and possessed by one idea--to see all he could and get away as soon as possible. he went on up the street, passed the church, and turning into a lane found himself presently at the eastern end of the village. along its outskirts a road ran at right angles to the principal street, and as bob reached it he saw, to his discomfort, a german sentry walking guard. beyond the little grove of oaks just back of the road bob's fancy pictured with eager certainty one of the concrete block-houses, or machine-gun emplacements that formed the projected second line of defense. he stepped out on to the road and immediately received a threatening gesture of the sentry's bayonet, eloquent enough, though the man was some distance from him, accompanied by a thumb pointed vigorously back in the direction of the village. bob turned unwillingly into the lane again, frowning at the oak grove before he strolled slowly away from it. "fine chance i have of seeing anything," he thought, fuming, as he shuffled along. "i don't make a very dangerous spy." he returned to the church, found a second by-way and made for another part of the forbidden road. this way was not so deserted as the lane he had left, and as he passed a dozen people he quickened his pace a little, thinking his idle wandering might look suspicious. he was the less conspicuous, though, as many of the villagers were wandering about themselves with little object. their livelihood gone, their hearts wrung with grief or anxiety, they seemed to have little purpose in their actions, and those who met bob's eyes looked at him with dull indifference, or at most with a mild curiosity. the german soldiers left them unmolested, so far as bob could see. even the most brutal, he guessed, had seen enough of abusing an unarmed and helpless population. once an officer passed quickly by, having the whole road to himself by unanimous consent of the other pedestrians. he was a tall, powerful-looking man, a captain, as bob saw by a glance at his shoulder. it went severely against the grain to salute him, but bob could not risk being brought into notice by a reprimand and he raised his hand briskly with the others. the officer did not condescend to return the salute, but his eyes passed over bob's shabby figure indifferently, which was all bob wanted. as he neared the road again he peered across it as well as he could before coming under the sentry's gaze, and to his delight he saw plainly a square, white spot rising slightly from the ground in the moss among the tree-trunks. he hastily calculated the distance between this lane and the other and decided that the block-houses were at least a hundred yards apart. his sketches made from the airplane were fairly accurate, and would be of great service when the looked-for retreat commenced from the hard-pressed german lines before the village. he was consumed with a desire to get nearer the road, but the few houses along the lane had already ended, and it was empty except for himself. he felt that it would be going too far to show himself again to the sentry appearing from a second deserted road. to the left he heard the sound of drums and caught sight of a big farmhouse not far off, which, to judge from the crowd of soldiers gathering about its yard, had been turned into a barracks. it was, of course, something to have verified his observations of the morning, and he had a pretty good idea of what protection the houses of the village would afford an army defending the second line, but bob was far from satisfied as he once more neared the church. he glanced up at the spire, wondering if by hook or by crook, or by any of those marvelous schemes that seem easy enough when you read about them, he could get up inside the belfry and use the glasses carefully hidden under his blouse. while he gazed up, blinking at the mist-covered sun, a hand laid quickly on his arm made him jump in spite of all his self-control. he turned, expecting he knew not what, to see a thin, little woman with a shawl drawn like a hood over her face. a house close by them had been partly shattered by shell-fire, and a gaping hole still showed in the wall. "come in here," she whispered, and drew bob inside the wrecked door out of sight of passers-by. "mr. bob," said elizabeth, pushing back her shawl and showing her haggard, frightened face. "oh, mr. bob, why did you come here? go quickly away, i beg you--for your mother's sake!" "elizabeth!" said bob, staring unbelievingly at the troubled face before him. then as the shock of her recognition of him outweighed his curiosity he asked, bewildered, "who knows i am here? have you told any one?" "karl saw you," said elizabeth, wringing her hands in her helpless terror. "he will give you up, mr. bob, but i could not stay and nothing do after he told me. your mother's eyes came sorrowfully before me, and i must help you if i can. but, oh, mr. bob, if without your uniform they take you! get back while yet there is time, if some way you know!" "karl--here? what a chance!" bob muttered, his brain on fire now with the impulse of his desperate need. "it is not chance, mr. bob," said elizabeth heavily. "his regiment was here sent when the americans joined the french across the line. karl could choose this or one other regiment, but here he came because my nephew asked him. you will believe me?" her face was beseeching in its tearful earnestness, lest bob should not take her warning with instant seriousness. "oh, i believe you, elizabeth--it isn't that!" bob assured her, darting a glance into the street. "thank you a thousand times," he stammered, clasping her hands with more fervent gratitude than his hurried words could speak. "good-bye!" elizabeth held him back for an instant. "oh, mr. bob, nothing try against the german army!" she entreated. "they are too strong. now go, and god go with you." the street was almost empty. bob reached it unnoticed and crossed swiftly to the lane from which he had caught a glimpse of the german barracks a quarter of an hour before. he had observed that it ran through the length of the village obliquely parallel with the principal street. at a guess it should come out nearer by half a mile to the north end of the meadow than the way by which he had entered. he began walking down it swiftly, but fear urged him on until his feet would no longer keep the ground. he darted furtive looks around him and saw no passers-by. the scattered houses were closed, too, against the raw, misty air. he broke into a gentle run and reached the village outskirts in ten minutes. where the lane ended the meadows began, and for a moment bob paused, uncertain, looking about him at the brown fields and the trees with sombre, bare branches against the gloomy sky. the woods stretched beyond, and to these bob raised his eyes and saw a splotch of green among the winter bareness. it was the little wood of firs among which benton lay hid. bob sprang forward and crossing the first field at a leisurely walk, in case curious eyes were at any of the windows behind him, he descended a little knoll and then, stretching his long legs, broke into a run that would have won him trophies on any athletic field. for a mile and a half he ran on, over fields and through thickets, steering wide from any signs of habitation, until his breath began to fail and his legs to ache and stumble. but on he went, until the woods closed in and, close at hand, he saw the little thatched shed whose safe haven meant more than anything in the world to him just then--refuge from certain death. he darted in the narrow doorway and dropped, gasping, on the earthy floor. but only for a moment. the next he was tearing off the shabby, old garments he wore and searching in the dim corner for his precious discarded uniform. five minutes later--never did he think he could have dressed so quickly--he stood up, once more an american officer. discovery he felt to be inevitable, for karl must have been hot upon his trail when elizabeth warned him--and he was barely half a mile from benton's hiding-place. the search would be complete, but by getting further off he would lessen the chance of giving away his comrade with him, and making him the victim of his own rashness. he went out, stepping cautiously, and seeing all clear, walked quickly into the woods toward the german line. he had got no further in his plan than this--to be taken far off to the right, beyond the grove of firs. but as he walked wearily on, he tried vainly to think of some way out, some place of concealment that german sagacity could not fathom. he thought vaguely, too, of home, and wished that he were back there. the words of an old song came into his mind: "do they miss me at home, do they miss me, when the shadows darkly fall?" he shook his head, trying hard to think to some purpose. the sound of the guns was nearer now, and the detonations distracted him as he tried to locate them. he thought he was within five miles of the german trenches. he listened intently, trying to find his direction, when crackle--crash! sounded the breaking twigs and brushwood back of him. he wheeled around and met the barrel of a german rifle with a stocky infantryman behind it. bob felt almost calm now that it had actually happened. he nodded to the soldier and, at a sharp signal, turned his back, raising his arms above his head. his pistol was jerked from his belt, his pockets quickly searched, then the soldier gave an order, motioning him to go on. he led the way, and the two soon emerged from the wood and began skirting the meadow. bob had a part to play in the eyes of this silent and stolid teuton. he represented america, and she was going to be represented worthily, whatever despondency and dread might in reality clutch at the heart of her son. about half a mile down the field an officer was seated on a rock with a little group of soldiers about him. bob guessed that this was the main base of the searching party karl had instituted. karl was evidently taking part in the hunt, for he was not in sight, but as he drew nearer another figure brought bob's heart into his mouth. almost a groan escaped him. benton was a prisoner like himself, and lost, with all his matchless skill, to the american flying corps. bob cast one remorseful look at him, which was returned by an undaunted nod and twinkle from the plucky westerner, then the officer got up from the rock and strolled in bob's direction. as he inspected the insignia on bob's uniform he made a slight, stiff bow, which bob returned. the german was a lieutenant like himself, a slender, fair man with keen, blue eyes and set lips. "you are my prisoner, lieutenant," he said in good english. bob made a sign of assent. "you admit having come down by accident with captain benton this morning?" "yes," said bob briefly. "you were seen near the village and taken while walking in the woods. did you expect to get away if nobody appeared to be in sight?" "we hoped to get back across the lines after dark," said bob, wishing he could talk to benton. "you will be taken into the town for examination directly. have you any request to make?" "no, thank you," said bob. the officer turned away, and bob was led by the guard to a place beside the rock, where he sidled along in the course of a few minutes until he could mumble a word near benton's ear. the pilot spoke over his shoulder. "awfully sorry, gordon, to have got you into this." "why, it's my fault," said bob. "no, it isn't. they saw us come down. they've been trying to locate our descent all day. they got me about an hour after you left, and before this search began. don't know what started that." the guard pushed in between the two, shutting off any further communication, and the little group formed in double lines, the prisoners in the center, for the march to the village. bob caught sight of karl now, standing a short way off in excited conversation with a non-commissioned officer. he felt a sudden, unreasoning anger at sight of the familiar face and unfamiliar gray-uniformed figure of the man he had so long regarded as a harmless and friendly dependent. but recognizing the hard fortunes of war he turned his eyes resolutely away. karl, indeed, was quite willing to keep out of bob's vicinity. not all his pride and self-importance could make him look forward to such a meeting with any enjoyment. just now he was fully taken up by the argument with his superior. "you say when you saw him at the outskirts of the village he was dressed in peasant's clothes, mã¼ller?" inquired the feldwebel or sergeant, dubiously. "the man is certainly in uniform now. the mist befogged your eyes. that muddy colored cloth they wear may look like anything at a distance." the sergeant was milder than he might ordinarily have been at karl's mistake because he belonged to the company karl cooked for, and had enjoyed better meals lately than for a year past. karl hesitated, longing to insist, but not wishing to presume too far. he had won praise already for revealing the presence of another man after benton was taken. "we searched the village from end to end at your direction," the sergeant continued. "he was not in it, naturally, as he was in these woods. that'll do, mã¼ller. the squad is ready to move." in an hour the two prisoners were in the house requisitioned in the village by the regimental commander. there they were separated. bob was asked a few perfunctory questions by several officers in turn, relating to his rank, his corps, and his intention in making the morning's flight. he managed to reply with enough vagueness to give no information, and they stopped short of questions which he must refuse to answer. before long they withdrew and left him alone. he stood forlornly by the window, watching the winter twilight close in and lights spring up through the village, when the door opened, and, to his delight, benton came toward him. "i have only a minute," he said quickly. "they told me i could say good-bye, but to cut it short." "good-bye?" echoed bob, feeling his heavy heart sink still lower. "they aren't going to separate us, benton?" "yes." benton frowned, all the bitter and helpless disappointment at his capture distorting for an instant his calm face. "they are going to send me up to the divisional commander. whether to present me with the iron cross or to show me to a firing squad i haven't yet made out," he muttered. "but anyway you're to be sent on alone, with some french prisoners taken yesterday." "oh, benton, that's tough," sighed bob, his brave heart quailing for a moment at thought of the lonely captivity before him. benton brought back a feeble smile at sight of bob's black depression. he held out a big hand. "cheer up! things might be worse, bob. here's hoping for the best." bob gave the friendly hand a warm clasp, and took a long, parting look into his comrade's frank, honest face. he thought of the memorable days of work they had spent so companionably together, but more than all, as he let go benton's hand he seemed to sever the last link that bound him to freedom and america. then benton went out, and on his heels came a soldier, holding open the door for the fair-haired young officer, who said curtly: "follow me, lieutenant. you will leave the village in half an hour." chapter x a gust of wind winter came down very early this year on governor's island, before the close of november. autumn did not linger pleasantly as usual, and lucy's outdoor project, in which she was so sure she could interest marian, had ended almost before it was begun. the two games of golf they had found time to play, before frost hardened the ground and the flags were taken in, did not awaken in marian any great enthusiasm. lucy lamented to julia one day that they had begun the experiment so late in the season. "i ought to have tried to make her do outdoor things while it was warmer," she said regretfully. "then she wouldn't have been willing to stop doing them. she hates cold weather and she isn't used to it. her father has always taken her away somewhere for winter. of course bowling is fun, but it isn't out-of-doors." lucy and julia and anne matthews liked to get strenuous exercise in the bowling-alley at the officers' club, which they were allowed to use at certain hours while the officers were on duty. they were trying to teach marian the game, and her few shots had not been bad, but for the most part she liked better to watch the others play, and was quite ready to set up the pins every time rather than make the effort needed to roll the ball. "exercise isn't everything, though, lucy," julia objected. "we aren't trying to make a prize-fighter out of her. she's a lot stronger than she was, except for getting tired so easily. what i think she needs is company." "that's what i think," agreed lucy, warmly. "she ought to go with a crowd of girls who would persuade her into doing as they did. but you haven't any idea how hard it is to make her go out on these cold days, or take the trouble to go to see any one. i simply have to drag her out for the little walks we take, and you know how short they are. if i took her around the whole post i think we'd have to stop at the hospital. the other day i brought her in after a 'long walk'--at least she was pretty tired--and we had walked so slowly i had to run around and around the house to warm up, after she had gone in." "she does poke along," said julia laughing. "but, lucy, somehow i can't help being interested in her, and wanting to get her well." "that's just it," said lucy quickly. "i'm so glad you feel that way too. no matter how mad and provoked she makes me, i like her and i like being with her. now that she talks and feels at home with us i'm never dull with her. she can tell no end about queer things and places she's seen, and whatever you talk about she's sure to understand." "anne matthews likes her, i know," said julia thoughtfully. "there's certainly nothing slow about marian when it comes to learning lessons. if she waked up as much to other things we'd have a hard time keeping up with her." lucy was thinking over this conversation on a cold, sunny afternoon a week before thanksgiving, when the three girls had gone out on the sea-wall for their walk, to look at the deep blue water, which had already begun to form into thin ice along the base of the rocks. marian loved the changing waves, with which two voyages across the ocean had made her very familiar, and the easiest way to coax her out-of-doors after school on blustery days was to suggest a glimpse at the white-capped breakers, where the new land lately added to the island had led the sea-wall far out into the bay. marian was warmly dressed in a soft, fur-trimmed coat, with a blue, woolly cap pulled down over her ears. her delicate cheeks were bright pink and her hair, tossed about by the keen wind, blew in gleaming curls across her face. she looked filled with health and good spirits as she laughed and pushed her hair out of the way, her bright, untroubled eyes roaming over the foamy, blue water. lucy looked at her with critical admiration, deciding on another effort to help along her cousin's growing willingness to take part in other girls' pleasures. "i have an idea, julia and marian," she began, sure of julia's support. "you know your mother, julia, wants us to get as many girls as we can, to-morrow afternoon, to come to the red cross and finish up those clothes for the french orphans. what do you say to my inviting them all to our house afterward, to play games and have ice-cream? margaret loves to make it and we wouldn't have cake--just cookies or something. it might help to get the girls together." "it's a fine idea," said julia, with a vigorous nod. "there are about a dozen girls, i think, if you ask all on the post from sixteen down to twelve. what do you think of it, marian?" "all right," agreed marian, mildly interested. "i'll make some oatmeal cookies for you, lucy," offered julia. "i love to make them." "will you? thanks!" said lucy, rubbing her red cheek with a wool-gloved hand. "suppose we go back now, before marian gets frozen stiff and can't be moved." "i'm nearly that already," remarked marian, stamping her feet. "we must have been out an hour by now, lucy." "oh, yes, almost. the wind will be behind us going this way, so you won't mind it," lucy called back, leading the single file along the sea-wall. once back from the exposed point of the island the wind died down, and as the girls left the sea-wall for the grass and neared the infantry quarters on brick row, skirting the aviation field, marian raised her chin from where it was snuggled down into her neck, and straightened her shoulders a little. "phew! what a cold place!" she breathed. "bob said in the letter we got yesterday," said lucy, glancing toward the aviation sheds, "that it was cold there, too, though the weather had been good otherwise. he said the poor french people were awfully hard up for clothes. that's what made me wish to see if we can't get more things done for them." "you don't know just where he is, do you, lucy?" asked julia. "no, though father thinks he can figure it out pretty well. he's not far from the base headquarters of our army." "he got our fruit-cake at last, anyhow," said marian with satisfaction. "i hate not knowing if things get there after you've sent them." she still shivered a little, though the brisk walk across the parade had now quite warmed the others. "there goes the postman into your house with a big package, lucy," said julia as they crossed the grass from colonel's to general's row. "perhaps it's the present your father is going to send you for thanksgiving, marian," suggested lucy. "maybe it is," agreed marian, quickening her steps a little as they neared the house. "o-oh!" she breathed, once safely inside the gordons' front door, "isn't it nice to be where it's warm!" "why, it's not so very cold," said julia, laughing. "you are a regular pussy-cat, marian." "except that she doesn't like cream--mother tries to make her," remarked lucy, examining the package the postman had left on the hall table. "it is for you, marian. here you are! come on up-stairs, julia, while we take off our things, and we will see what's inside. can't we, marian?" "of course," said marian, pulling off her warm cap with one hand and picking up her box. "i wonder where mother is. i want to ask her about the party." "your mother went out with william, miss lucy," answered margaret, who was passing through the hall. "she said she wouldn't be gone long." "all right, thanks," said lucy, leading the way up to her room. seated on lucy's bed marian let her cousin untie all the knots in the string fastening her box, and only took a hand herself when it was time to raise the lid and lift out sheets of crinkly tissue-paper. "it's a dress," cried lucy, much more excited than the present's owner. "oh, marian, it's too lovely!" mr. leslie, who never found enough to do for his lonely little daughter, had telegraphed to a new york shop for the prettiest dress they had, suitable to a fourteen-year-old girl. marian's measurements were already on hand, and some clever person in the shop, where marian was quite well known, had picked out the frock that met lucy's admiring eyes. it was a soft rose taffeta silk, with black velvet ribbon girdle and wide organdy collar, the skirt puffed out into countless little ruffles that caught the light with a silvery sheen. even marian was charmed she lifted it out, smoothing the soft silk with her hand and wishing her father were near enough for her to thank him. "it _is_ pretty, isn't it?" she asked, to which lucy and julia gave an enthusiastic assent. "please try it on right now. won't you?" begged julia, beginning to unhook the dress marian wore, without further delay. "oh--well," marian agreed, holding up the new beauty and studying its fastenings. "now, slip this off and in you go," said julia, twitching off marian's school frock with one hand and putting the new dress over her head with the other. the two girls hooked and snapped and patted and poked with eager hands for a minute, until marian stood revealed in all the rose-frilled loveliness, a little untidy about her hair, which was a picturesque heap since she pulled off her cap, but otherwise all that could be desired. there was no doubt that the rose dress was tremendously becoming. "only those tan shoes spoil it," said artistic julia, frowning at marian's feet. "here's mother!" said lucy, springing up from the floor as steps sounded on the stairs. "come in quick, mother, and see marian's present." mrs. gordon came, and added her praise to the chorus. "what a perfectly lovely present, marian. i do think you have the best father! that dress fits you perfectly, too. turn around and let me see the back." "undo it, cousin sally, won't you? i'd like to sit down and take a rest," remarked marian, tired of being exhibited. "i'll wear it on thanksgiving day." "i should think so," sighed lucy. "that's something to be thankful for." marian cast a glance of more affection than she usually bestowed on her clothes at the little dress, as mrs. gordon laid it carefully back in the box. "mother, we have something else to talk about," said lucy, as mrs. gordon took out her hat-pins and folded up her veil. "we want to get all the girls we can together, to-morrow afternoon, to work for mrs. houston, and afterward have them here to play games and give them ice-cream and cookies. how about it?" "why, yes, i think so," agreed mrs. gordon thoughtfully. "i don't see why you shouldn't. but the new maid i've engaged won't be here, so if you invite all the girls near your age you had better go down to sergeant wyatt's some time to-day and ask rosie to come and help margaret. there will be a good many to wait on." "i'm going to bring some cookies, mrs. gordon," put in julia. "i can make awfully good ones. the puppy found some of the last ones i made," she added regretfully. "i know they're good, julia, and that's very kind of you. you really needn't." "oh, i'd like to, mrs. gordon. i simply must go now," julia declared, getting hastily up from her seat on the floor. "i'll come down with you," said lucy, rising too. "i may as well go and speak to rosie now," she added, at the foot of the stairs. "just wait a second, julia, till i get my coat." once outside julia said good-night and started across the green, for lucy's way led to the left. "good-bye till to-morrow. i'll telephone every one this evening," lucy called after her. lucy found rosie wyatt willing enough to come and help. rosie was a girl about lucy's own age, the sergeant's oldest daughter. she was always glad to earn a little money to help along her father's big family, and with mrs. gordon's instruction was becoming a very good little waitress. when it came to telephoning the girls, lucy managed to get fifteen, including herself and marian, and she obtained each one's promise to go to the red cross next day to work from lunch time until half-past three. the following afternoon saw a string of girls entering the club in twos and threes, armed with thimble and scissors, until quite a little crowd was assembled at one end of the red cross room. "this was a splendid idea of yours, lucy," said mrs. houston, looking with real satisfaction at the hands held out toward her for their share of sewing. "these little dresses and wrappers are all stitched together, girls, just the way they are to go. i am sure you can all sew well enough to turn up the hems and put on the collars. if any one can't, she may sew on the buttons." "then i guess i'll have to sew on the buttons," said marian, looking a little shamefacedly at the busy workers. "i certainly couldn't put on a collar that any orphan could wear." "all right, marian," said mrs. houston, smiling. "there are lots of buttons to go on, so you will have plenty to do. only be sure to sew them tight enough. there won't be any one over there to put them on again." "i just want to tell you, mrs. houston," said hilda lee, looking up, "that anne matthews and i were coming here to work this afternoon anyway, so we aren't such slackers as you may think." "oh, you girls are pretty good about coming, i think," said mrs. houston seriously. "i know it's more fun to stay outdoors after school than to sit over a table here. part of saturday is really the most we can expect of you in school-time." "especially if you work as hard as marian and i do," put in julia, laughing. their marks for the month had come out unexpectedly a little higher than anne's and lucy's. marian looked pleased but said nothing. in fact she was having rather a hard time with the buttons, and lucy secretly took the work away from her more than once to straighten out a snarl of cotton. "just think of never having even sewed on a button for yourself," lucy thought as she bent again over her own hemming. with the reflection she understood a little better a certain helplessness about marian that cropped out at inconvenient moments, when lucy in the midst of some occupation needed a helping hand. it was not that marian was clumsy or lacked quickness--she learned anything with amazing readiness--it was only that she had never done little useful things and had to learn what most girls know. the two hours of work passed pleasantly and quickly, with every one sewing as hard as she could and talking still harder. when the clock struck half-past three a pile of finished garments had been stacked upon the table. "oh, isn't this nice?" said mrs. houston, folding the little flannel dresses with approving hands. "you've done more than i ever thought you could, girls, and you've certainly earned a rest." "we liked doing it," said mabel philips, putting down her last piece of work. "we'll come any time you want us, if we can." every one hurried into her hat and coat and ran down-stairs. outdoors a cold wind was blowing from sandy hook which flung capes and coats about in clinging folds, and made the sentry's ears red, as he walked in front of the club, shifting his gun occasionally from one shoulder to the other. "gracious!" said marian, snuggling promptly down into her fur collar. "i'm glad lucy can't take me for a walk to-day. this is the sort of weather she likes to go around the island just where the wind is strongest." "isn't she cruel?" said anne matthews, laughing. she did not add that marian's rosier cheeks and growing endurance were a pretty good defense of lucy's persevering methods. back at the gordons', after the wraps were put aside, lucy said to her guests: "i thought it would be fun to play games for a while. what do you think? you aren't any of you too old to like blind man's buff and stage-coach and winks, are you?" the three reverend sixteen-year-olds expressed their perfect willingness to play anything, and proposed stage-coach to begin with. every one was eager to move about after sitting still so long and in a few moments the house was in a joyous uproar, as though having worked so hard made the girls more able to enjoy themselves. stage-coach was followed by winks and going to jerusalem--played with the help of the victrola, and finally a calm ensued for twenty questions. then came charades, acted in lucy's and marian's rooms, with one room for the actors and one for the audience. these were so popular that they lasted until lucy whispered to marian, who happened to be on the audience side at the moment: "would you mind going down and telling margaret and rosie that we're ready now? it's nearly five o'clock." marian ran down-stairs to the dining-room and gave rosie lucy's message. mrs. gordon had put a pretty, embroidered cloth on the table and a big fern in the center. everything was ready on it except for margaret to bring things up from the kitchen, and for the candles to be lighted, for five o'clock meant nearly darkness now. "shall i light the candles?" asked rosie, looking very trim and nice in her little white apron. "did miss lucy say they'd be right down?" "yes, they are coming in just a minute," said marian, drawing up another chair to the table, and counting to see if there were enough. suddenly a gust of wind from the harbor blew open the big glass door opening from the dining-room on the back piazza. marian rushed toward it in a panic as the table-cloth billowed and fluttered and the pictures on the wall rocked back and forth. she seized the door and closed it, and as she struggled with the fastening she heard something fall behind her and heard rosie scream. the lighted candle had tipped over on the table and rosie, wildly snatching at the fallen candlestick and at the second one, ready to fall, had set fire to her fluttering apron. the flame sprang quickly to life in the air still quivering from the gust of wind, and curled dangerously against her muslin dress as rosie's trembling hands tried vainly to untie the strings. "get some water!" she stammered, white with terror, and remembering only one of the counsels taught her--to stand still. the water-pitcher was across the room from marian, and one good drenching would have put out the flame, but marian stood rooted to the spot with horror, literally unable to move, her staring eyes fixed on rosie's apron, and on the girl's terrified, white face as she still tugged at the strings behind her waist. but rosie found her voice now, and she burst into such screams that margaret came running breathless from below, and the whole party, abandoning charades, rushed down-stairs with headlong speed. one look at rosie and margaret seized the pitcher of water and poured it over her blazing apron and already kindling skirt; then, laying the child on the floor, she rolled her tightly in a rug till the last spark was extinguished. by the time the girls and mrs. gordon were on the scene the danger was over, and except for being pale and trembling, rosie was unharmed. "what on earth happened? is she hurt?" "good gracious, did she catch fire?" "i heard those awful screams, and----" came in a babel of voices. some one dressed as a gypsy, to judge by a quantity of shawls and curtains, shouted excitedly to a sort of daniel boone, in major gordon's boots and william's leather cap. the charaders had not waited to change their clothes. the room was crowded to the doors, for the sentry had run into the house, gun in hand, at rosie's shrieks, to be re-enforced by two soldiers from the quartermaster's who were doing carpentry in the basement. mrs. gordon had little time to devote to rosie, once assured that she was safe, for marian, after that awful second of paralyzed horror, had sunk down almost fainting on a chair, oblivious to all around her. lucy ran for water and patted her forehead with a moistened handkerchief, while the girls gathered about, alarmed and sympathetic, offering each one a different suggestion in excited whispers. marian's failure to rise to the occasion of rosie's need was kindly attributed to her being almost an invalid, and only exclamations of pity followed her, when at last she was able to be helped to her feet and up-stairs with mrs. gordon's arm about her shoulders. rosie was too shaken to stay, besides being dripping wet, so two of the guests volunteered to walk home with her, as sergeant wyatt's house was only a short way off. "we won't be gone more than ten minutes, lucy," they assured their hostess, who began to feel doubtful about her little party ever taking place. mrs. gordon came back from marian's room to urge every one to sit down at the table. "marian is all right," she said, "and margaret is waiting to bring things in. sit down, all of you, and i will just see that rosie has enough warm clothes on to go home." rosie was standing by the front door with lucy and several of the girls still surrounding her, when down the stairs came marian, looking pretty pale and holding on to the banister, but carrying under one arm a huge cardboard box. lucy looked at her in astonishment and saw that her face was as quiet and determined as it had been on the day of bob's departure. marian went straight up to rosie and held out the big box to her, saying, "please take this, rosie. it's a present, because i'm sorry your dress is spoiled. if i had had any sense it wouldn't have been." in a hushed silence rosie took hold of the box with uncertain fingers. but as she fumbled with the lid and, opening it, half revealed the glories within, she flushed red with pleasure and sinking down on the floor lifted out the lovely rose-colored dress with a sigh of wondering delight. she was almost marian's size, and no normal girl could have resisted that dress, especially one who had so few pretty things come her way as the sergeant's little daughter. "oh, thank you!" she breathed, her eyes raised to marian as to a fairy godsister as she put back the dress and struggled, in a fluttering shower of tissue-paper, to her feet. the burst of enthusiasm which greeted this generous act was echoed with unbounded rejoicing in lucy's heart. she could hardly wait until rosie was gone and the others had started back toward the dining-room to catch her cousin by the arm and whisper, "oh, marian, you're a brick." all during the last half hour, since marian had stood weakly helpless in the face of rosie's danger, lucy had been struggling with her feelings, vainly trying to excuse her cousin's cowardice and only succeeding in feeling unsympathetic and disappointed. but all in a moment now lucy saw that marian had been as little satisfied with her conduct as she herself, and had taken prompt and heroic measures to redeem it. no one who had seen marian trying on that taffeta dress would have doubted that it took a generous effort to give it away before she had even worn it. she might have given any one of a dozen dresses as good as new, and far better than rosie's little muslin, but she chose the only one she really cared to keep. marian had flushed at lucy's praise, and her face wore a happy smile as the guests sat down to a belated feast of hot chocolate, brown bread sand-wiches, ice-cream and cookies. in a moment tongues were loosed, and the excitement made more to talk about now that it was safely over. marian came in for a good share of comment, both aloud and whispered, and not one of lucy's friends but gave her the credit she deserved for making the best atonement in her power. when the girls had eaten all they could and finally taken their leave, julia lingered a moment, ostensibly to ask mrs. gordon about the first-aid class which mrs. matthews was beginning the next day for anne and her friends, but really more than anything to have a friendly word with marian and let her know that an honest effort at self-improvement did not go unnoticed. marian was quick enough at guessing the feelings of others. she felt the atmosphere of appreciation about her, and the faint color returned to her pale cheeks and a cheerful light to her eyes. she had suffered a few moments of real shame in her room alone after mrs. gordon had left her, and nothing less than this would have restored her peace of mind. that night lucy sat on the sofa by her window with the moonlight shining in on her, and thought with a glow of satisfaction of her own hard work in marian's behalf and of the returns it had already brought, small and scattered though they were. her mother had not felt quite so pleased as the others at marian's giving away her father's present, but she had nevertheless appreciated the sacrifice which lay behind it. lucy felt a warm friendship for her cousin now, in spite of her trying moments, but another small problem loomed up, which must be solved on the next day. "i'll ask mother to decide it," she thought, for sleep was getting the best of her reflective mood. lucy raised the window and looked up at the full moon, gleaming clear and bright in the starry sky. "that moon is looking down on bob somewhere in france. i wonder if he's watching it too." then the cold air came blowing in and, with a last look at the man in the moon's cheerful face, she ran to get into bed. chapter xi first aid next morning lucy began the day, as she often liked to do, by going into her mother's room for a talk before breakfast. mrs. gordon was standing in front of the dressing-table and lucy sat down near her in her favorite position, her hands clasped about one knee. "well, what is it this morning, daughter?" asked mrs. gordon, smiling at lucy's thoughtful face, and with an approving glance at her smoothly brushed hair and the fresh white collar on her serge dress. "what a pity you cannot stay as tidy as that all day," she added, for occasionally lucy appeared after a busy hour with a wild look to her hair and clothes which disturbed her mother extremely. "yes, isn't it?" said lucy, smiling back. "i am a little neater lately though, mother, you said so yourself. but here's what i want to know. our first-aid class begins to-day--you haven't forgotten it? and after marian's almost fainting yesterday, even though she did act so bully afterward, what do you think about her joining? i'm going to be worried half the time about her." mrs. gordon turned from the dressing-table to look at lucy as she answered, "i want her to join. never mind whether you feel nervous about it or not. you know i told you it was not going to be an easy task to make marian so well and strong as you are, but you have succeeded far better than i hoped. i shall be very much disappointed if marian doesn't take part in that class. there is everything in it she needs--companionship, work, competition--and you know how quick she is to learn. i don't feel at all afraid that it will be too hard for her. she is able to do a lot if she is interested." "yes," nodded lucy, "i knew you'd say that, mother, so i didn't bother deciding it for myself." "she wants to join, doesn't she?" "yes, rather. i can make her like it, once we get started." "of course, it would be easier, lucy, to let marian alone, to do things or not as she happens to like," mrs. gordon went on, "but that wouldn't be doing her any service, or cousin henry either. he wasn't satisfied to see marian a frail, listless little shadow of a girl. it has made him thin and anxious himself in the years since her mother died, but i think he hated forcing her to do anything she did not want to." "i think he did, too," said lucy, looking up with a responsive nod. "it's a lot of help to talk things over with you, mother. i do get muddled sometimes. i don't see what any girl does without a mother to go to, even if her father is as kind as cousin henry." "what's this?" asked major gordon's voice from the door. "something hard about a father? this one would like his breakfast in about two minutes, if the conversation is over." marian's consent to join the first aid and home nursing class had only got as far as saying she would try it once, but that was all lucy wanted for the present. the class was to meet at the matthews' the first time and then at the house of each member in turn every saturday morning. mrs. matthews had engaged a nurse from the new york hospital to give the course, after the repeated begging of anne and the other girls for her to follow up the suggestion she had made a month before. some of lucy's guests of the previous day were too young to take the course, but the class numbered eight members, ranging in age from fourteen to sixteen. when lucy and marian reached the matthews' at nine o'clock, most of them were already there, seated in the small room to the left of the hall, with miss thomas ready to address them. she was a slim, athletic looking young woman with curly red hair and a bright twinkle in her eyes. when her whole class was before her she began to speak without preamble. "instead of giving you the whole course in first aid and then the home nursing, i am going to devote half of the morning to each," she said, laying down a little pile of books on the table before her. "i warn you, girls, there is a little studying to be done in connection with this course, but it isn't very tedious, and i know you are here to do things in earnest. the first half of the morning while you are all fresh and feel restless we will have our nursing, and then i think you will be more ready to sit still for my talk on first aid. so if you will show me to a bedroom, miss matthews, we will begin at once." anne led the way up-stairs to her own room, where miss thomas, with an energetic quickness that won lucy's instant approval, began pulling the neatly made bed to pieces. "now, let's see you make that up comfortably for an invalid," she directed, nodding to julia. "you, miss matthews, prepare a bedside table, with water, spoon, medicine glass, thermometer, and whatever will be wanted for the doctor's visit. this is, of course, just experimenting to see how much you all know of the elements of nursing. now, i want a patient. you, please," she decided, pointing after a swift glance around at marian, who shrank back quite visibly at the command. "oh, you mustn't mind anything," miss thomas reproached her, with a pleasant, reassuring smile. "i expect every girl to be ready and eager to do her part. sit down on that chair, please, miss--leslie, while this young lady here takes your pulse. you," she nodded in lucy's direction, "please bring the thermometer and take her temperature. we want to find out all we can about her condition before the doctor comes, and if she has any fever she must wait for his arrival in bed." marian sat down, looking rather doubtful about the whole proceeding, though lucy whispered in her ear as she stuck the thermometer under her tongue, "don't mind--we'll all have to do it." playing invalid was not yet much of a joke to marian, whose ill-health had been until lately the most important thing in life, and, for a moment, her thoughts returned to the old, trying days of her illness as she held the thermometer in her mouth while hilda lee felt her pulse with great intentness, her eyes glued on the second hand of miss thomas' watch and her lips rapidly moving. "good gracious," she exclaimed suddenly, letting fall marian's hand and rising excitedly to her feet, "miss thomas, her pulse is a hundred and ten!" "really?" asked miss thomas, smiling quite serenely. "what is her temperature, miss gordon?" lucy was at the window, trying to find the elusive red streak on the thermometer, and now she declared with an air of relief after hilda's announcement, "it's normal. just at the little arrow." "but what's the matter with her pulse, miss thomas?" hilda insisted. "it should be around eighty, shouldn't it?" marian was looking alarmed herself, and still sat anxiously on her chair, as though her strength might fail her. miss thomas laughed and went over to her side. "it's nothing but a little excitement, because she knew her pulse was being taken," she explained. "you're quite all right, miss leslie, and you did very well. now, miss houston, suppose we say that you are a patient who has been ill several weeks. just slip off your pumps and lie down on the bed. let's see if miss gordon can raise you comfortably to give you a drink and help you to turn over. act very helpless and do nothing for yourself." julia obeyed and lucy, putting a strong arm behind her shoulders, raised her vigorously to a sitting position. "oh, you are a little too energetic," said miss thomas. "that would hurt any sore muscles outrageously. try again. raise her firmly but more slowly." this time lucy lifted julia as tenderly as a basket of eggs, and breathed a sigh of relief when it was done, for julia made herself as heavy as possible, and looked the most helpless invalid out of a hospital. "you try it now," said miss thomas, nodding to mabel philips, "and this time arrange her pillows with your other hand before letting her lie back." marian was standing by the bedside, her uneasiness about herself forgotten as she watched julia, and miss thomas reached out a steady hand and felt her pulse. "it's all right now," she nodded to marian with a smile. "not more than eighty-two. you mustn't let it fool you that way. it's possible to become quite ill if we think we are. when you're in doubt as to how you feel, decide right away that you are quite well, and more than likely you will be." "what, can you really feel ill because you think you're going to?" asked marian incredulously. "some people can, especially those who have had trying illnesses. the best thing for every one in the world is to obey the laws of health and then think no more about feelings." "yes, you can often help yourself to get better by just not giving in," remarked mabel. "not when you have a toothache. you can't forget that," said anne thoughtfully, at which every one laughed. one toothache was the only sickness anne had ever suffered from since her whooping-cough days. the whole class was listening to miss thomas, who spoke so particularly to marian, because her keen eyes had seen and understood much of the little invalid's life history in the short while that she had watched marian's pretty, sensitive face, where the delicate color came and went with such quick changes at the least disturbance. "we haven't accomplished very much this morning," she said at last, turning back to the others, "because i was only trying to see where we were and how i had better start. we will go through the regular nurse's program next week. now, if you will come down-stairs, i will give you a little talk and assign you lessons in the first-aid manual." "go on, you husky invalid," said lucy to julia, giving her former patient a jog in the back as they filed out of the room. "you nearly broke my arm." "well, you always say you like hard things to do," responded julia laughing, "so i thought i'd give you the chance. i like being the sick person," she added. "i hope she chooses me again." "i know something about bandaging, when we come to that," said lucy. "elizabeth taught me. you sit with me, julia. marian is with anne, so she is all right." lucy glanced along the row of girls and saw with pleasure that marian showed a great deal of interest in the talk which followed. when the lesson had been given out at the end and the girls rose to go, marian took her book from miss thomas with a friendly smile such as she seldom accorded to strangers. the three girls walked home together as far as the gordons' and julia said, as they discussed the morning's work: "isn't she a nice, jolly person? i don't mind doing anything she asks me to do." "yes, isn't she nice?" agreed marian. "she'd make you feel better as soon as she came in the room to nurse you. i think i'll like it as soon as i get it through my head a little," she added, doubtfully. "i don't know even as much about it as the rest of you." "you must know precious little," said julia. "i can hardly wait to see what the lesson is. i bet it's hard, from what she said." they had neared the gordons' house and julia turned to cross the grass. "i'm too hungry to go any further with you. good-bye, till this afternoon!" at lunch lucy and marian gave an interested account of the morning's doings, and marian eagerly described the extraordinary conduct of her pulse and miss thomas' words, which she had taken very thoughtfully. mrs. gordon listened with a little of her attention diverted to the new house-maid who had arrived only the night before and seemed not very certain where to find the plates and spoons as they were wanted. but she felt a very real satisfaction that marian had liked the class and was anxious to continue it, and she watched her comfortably eating chicken hash and rice with the feeling that health and the pleasures belonging to it were nearer to the motherless girl than they had ever been before. "we're going to have a snow-storm before night, children," remarked major gordon, as they rose from the table, "so don't wander far out on the prairies this afternoon." the major had spent much of his home service in the west, and the restricted limits of this island post were always a subject of mild amusement to him. "i have to wander over my latin lesson before i do anything else," said lucy, resignedly. "let's go up-stairs and get it done, marian. i keep my school papers safely out of reach since happy chewed up my french composition. yes, he did, william, so you needn't look offended." "but he's only chewed your things once, lucy. most of the things he's eaten were mine," protested william, putting up a defense which made everybody laugh. "all right. i didn't mind much," said lucy. "i like him just the same." when marian and lucy had left the room, major gordon came back from the hall, cap in hand, to say to his wife, "sally, have you noticed a change in marian lately--how much livelier she seems?" mrs. gordon laughed. "have i noticed it, james! lucy and i have been doing our best to bring it about for the past two months. she actually enjoys going around with other girls now, and the effort has been a good thing for lucy, too. you know, marian has the making of a very fine and accomplished girl under her drawback of ill-health. don't you think she has grown to be a very pleasant little guest?" "not only that, but she looks so much stronger, and she has some color in her cheeks. i hated to see her as thin and white as she looked in the summer. i didn't wonder henry was afraid to leave her. she's gained at least ten pounds, i'm certain--though she hasn't had many luxuries here." "i don't know," said mrs. gordon thoughtfully. "it's luxury to have a home and friends her own age, after having lived principally in hotels and on shipboard for so long. i don't think she has known what home is since her mother died. when she gets back her health--you remember what a bright, jolly little thing she was years ago, james?--i know marian will want to open up that big long island house and live there. she is the only one left to make a home for her father, and with a little more self-confidence she is quite smart enough to do it." "aren't you rushing things a little?" inquired major gordon genially. "henry would be a bit surprised at the idea." "i hope he will be more surprised when he sees her," said mrs. gordon, smiling. "don't stay too long at headquarters," she added, as her husband moved toward the door. "it's saturday, you know." the major jerked his head in the direction of the parade, where squads of recruits were tirelessly drilling in the cold wind. "it's also war time," he remarked, stopping to tickle happy's ears as he came racing up the steps. lucy and marian had gone up-stairs and plunged into their latin, so as to finish with it as soon as possible. it was not a popular study with either of them, and translation, of which miss ellis seemed especially fond, was lucy's bugbear. "how far have you gone, marian?" she asked after twenty minutes' silence. "'the queen will fight?' i don't believe she will, anyway--why should she? aren't these the silliest sentences?" "she has to fight because we know so few verbs," said marian, laying down her pen to stretch, "unless you want to make her dance or sing." lucy sighed and went on to the next line: "'the slaves were wounded with spears and arrows.' i guess it wasn't a pacifist who wrote this book." "letter, please," said a timid voice at the door, and the new maid handed an envelope to marian, whose "thank you" sounded so pleased that lucy decided the letter was from her father. lucy's eyes left her book again to follow the little maid out of the room with a friendly interest. she was a belgian girl, whom mrs. gordon had engaged in new york, where she had just landed from england. she had spent the last two years in london and learned there to speak english pretty well, but before leaving her own country she had undergone danger and privations which still lingered vividly in her memory. margaret had already confided to lucy that she had spent most of the evening before in listening to marie's story. "it's enough to give you bad dreams to hear her, [illustration: "letter, please", said a timid voice] "miss lucy," she said feelingly. "sorry as i am for the poor girl." no trace of marie's memory of the war showed in her face, but a certain quiet gentleness in her manner made her seem older than her years. she was a quick, neat-handed little thing who could sweep and dust to mrs. gordon's liking, and had already won william's respect by the number of games she knew how to play, most of them involving as much running and skipping as he liked. lucy was forgetting her latin to wonder how it would feel to be driven brutally from her own country, leaving it invaded and ruined, and if she could have faced it with little marie's quiet courage. a sudden joyful exclamation from marian interrupted her. "lucy, what do you think? father is going to montreal, and will come here right afterward. he leaves for canada next week, so he will probably be home before the first of january. a month isn't so awfully long, is it? and it may be less." marian was sincerely devoted to her father, and the joy in her face was pleasant to see. "oh, i'm so glad, marian," cried lucy warmly, "but i don't want you to go away a bit--will you have to?" "i don't know. father says he may have to go back west. i don't want to leave here, either, lucy. it's just that i will be so glad to see him again." she turned back eagerly to the letter. "i must see what else he says." mr. leslie had written of the overwhelming rush of work in the lumber camps and of the necessity for his making a trip to canada to unite his interests with those of some owners of canadian forest land. the british commission had brought valuable suggestions to the government ship-building scheme, and he wished to make his supplies useful to the utmost possible extent. marian's father had a world-wide experience in other beside business ventures. his frank and attractive personality had won him friends in many countries and, with a keen mind and a large fortune at his command, he had grown to be a man of wide influence in public life. marian knew that her father had friends among the allied commissions and was not surprised at his accompanying the britishers into canada. he was never willing to do his work except most thoroughly, and no distance was too great for him to travel if his purpose could better be served by going. "i must show this to cousin sally," said marian, when she had finished the letter. "just one more sentence and i'll be done." she went back to her latin, and in another few moments put down her pen and gathered up her papers. "how nearly through are you, lucy? i'll go down and find cousin sally." "just a minute," murmured lucy, searching for an elusive verb. "oh, i see it now. take your things down with you, marian. we're going out, aren't we?" "all right," called marian from her room. "i'll bet it's cold," she added with sudden foreboding. left alone, lucy scrambled through the last of her lesson and slammed the book shut with relief. "no more of that till monday," she thought, pushing the book out of sight under a sofa pillow and going to the closet for her coat and tam-o'-shanter. remembering her mother's early morning remarks, she stopped in front of the glass to put on her tam, and pushed some stray locks of hair up under it instead of pulling it on her head as she went out of the room. she left the closet door open and the ink-bottle uncorked, but then she was preoccupied in thinking of mr. leslie's return and hoping he would be delayed for another month, until marian's growing activity had brought her still nearer to health. down-stairs she found her mother rejoicing with marian over the good news and reading the letter aloud. "oh, i wish he could get here for christmas, cousin sally," marian exclaimed, when mrs. gordon had finished. "he is always so nice about giving things that i've never even asked for." christmas this year seemed far more interesting than it had ever been before marian had cousins to share it with, and the presents she had accepted heretofore with listless thanks and little appreciation held great possibilities for pleasure this year, if the gordons could enjoy them too. christmas for lucy and her mother did not seem very merry, and marian's words wakened more sad thoughts than bright ones for the moment in their hearts. it would be the first christmas in lucy's lifetime that bob had not been home. even in his plebe year at west point he had worked hard enough to get two days off and had come home in a blinding snow-storm. it seemed dreadful to lucy to celebrate gayly without him, and only her mother's reminder that william ought not to be so disappointed had made her look forward to christmas with any real interest. the part she had most enjoyed was getting a big box sent to bob a week ago, with every good thing in it that she could remember he liked, or that bore any reasonable chance of reaching there in eatable condition. she had made five pounds of fudge, standing over the stove until margaret exclaimed in alarm at her hot, flushed cheeks, and came to take the spoon out of her hand. but the fudge was good, and so was everything else that went in the box, and if only lucy could have taken it over to france herself and handed it safely to bob she would have been satisfied. she was on the point of saying now, "i wonder if bob will get that box all right," but she checked herself abruptly and said, instead, "come on, marian, if we wait any longer it will be cold and horrid outdoors. let's go now." "i wouldn't go far; it really looks like snow," remarked mrs. gordon, drawing aside the curtain. "we won't, mother. perhaps we'll only go as far as julia's," said lucy, winding a muffler about her neck. marian was already wrapped in cloth and fur, and the two girls went outdoors and crossed the grass toward the houstons', where the rising wind whipped at their clothes and almost lifted marian off her feet, while she shrieked and clung to lucy, alternating between fear and laughter. "i guess we won't go out on the sea-wall to-day, said lucy; "unless you especially wish to?" she added with a funny look. "br-r-r!" said marian, shivering at the thought. "why doesn't every one live in the south, i wonder? what's the use in having cold ears and a frozen face, and being nearly blown off your feet? i'm sorry for that sentry." "why, this isn't really winter yet--it's only cold for november," said lucy, encouragingly. "oh, governor's island is a nice, sheltered spot in mid-winter. it's not so cold as fort russell. there it's nearly always below zero. the only warm post we've ever been was at fort mcpherson, georgia, and i was so little then i didn't appreciate it. let's go right in. i can't wait while they answer the bell," she declared on the houstons' door-step. "julia won't mind." once the three girls were sitting comfortably in julia's room nothing could tempt marian outdoors again for a walk, and there they stayed until it grew dark and lucy reminded her that the only way to get home was the way they had come. julia loved cold weather, and was always amused at marian's aversion to it. "somehow it makes me feel lively and jolly. i can do twice as much now as when it's hot," she said to marian, as she helped her on with her coat. "well, i hate it, and the most you can expect of me is to go out in it. you can't expect me to like it, for i just don't and won't," said marian decidedly. "thanks, julia, i can do the rest myself," she added, smiling at her own earnestness, for she was learning from lucy the great art of laughing at herself. "well, i hope you make the long, perilous journey safely," said julia, taking her guests down to the door and looking across the grass at the lights of the gordons' house. "i seem to see a light in the distance, so have courage." "good-night," said lucy, laughing as she closed the door. they were blown most of the way home, so it was not much effort to walk, as marian remarked from the depths of her fur collar. the snow that major gordon had predicted was falling in scattered flakes, but the wind had risen to a gale and blew with piercing cold on their faces. it was a hard night for the sentries on duty along the sea-wall on the windward side of the post, where the blast beat with full force upon them and the waves lashed the rocks below. captain evans came in to the gordons' after dinner. he was officer of the guard and had just made his nine o'clock tour of inspection, the last until one in the morning. he told of his wind-blown walk about the island, after which he had ordered the sentries frequently relieved during the night. lucy usually rather liked these wild autumn and winter storms, and had enjoyed going to sleep with the windows rattling and the wind whistling around the house, but at bedtime she said soberly to her mother, when mrs. gordon came into her room to say good-night: "i hope bob has a stove or something. i know they probably aren't having a storm over there, but i hate to get into nice, warm covers and not be sure he has enough." her words, and the anxious affection prompting them, were the echo of her mother's inmost thoughts, but mrs. gordon could not say anything just then in answer. she only tucked her daughter carefully in bed, and kissed her good-night. chapter xii locked doors a night and a day spent in a bare freight car, with cold wind blowing through the cracks, is uncomfortable traveling, but bob and his companions would have thought little of that had circumstances been different. it was the knowledge of where they were going--as much as they guessed of it--that made the cold and the monotonous jogging along the rails almost unbearable. bob could have had the adjoining empty car all to himself, in consideration of his rank, instead of sharing this one with a dozen french soldiers and non-commissioned officers. but he had not the least desire for his own company just then, and the friendly faces of the captured poilus were the only bright spot in the dreary darkness of his prison. at the other end of the car were four german soldiers and a sergeant. only one of these at a time paid any especial attention to the prisoners, and he merely sat stolidly on guard beside his rifle. the sliding doors were closed and bolted, and there was no possible chance of escape. all night bob had lain on the hard, jolting floor trying to sleep, hoping for dreams of something else beside the bitter reality. sleep would not come, so he tried to lie still and think of nothing but the jogging wheels and the creaking timbers, until a light, gleaming through the cracks from outside, or a sigh from one of his fellow prisoners brought him wide awake again with a sharp pang of misery. his thoughts would not keep long away from the dismal future, and look ahead as he might with desperate search, he could see nothing to bring any comfort. all his hopes and eager ambition to give good service to america in the coming struggle had in one wretched day been shattered. he was disarmed, captured and helpless in german hands, and nothing that he had heard or read in the past three years gave a reassuring sound to the words, or could make his fate other than a hard one, without prospect of change or betterment. how long would the war last? no one could have told him that, and it was the only knowledge that held any hope of freedom or happiness. as the long hours wore by, bob went over in his restless mind all the past year and what it had brought him. in the ordinary course of events he would have been a first classman now, taking part in the routine of west point life, and looking forward to christmas leave. when the german army had crossed the belgian border during his plebe summer, in all the excited discussion of it at west point he had never dreamed that the fourth year of the war would find him inside a german prison. at last the cold and discomfort of his position dulled his thoughts, and changed them to a weary longing for warmth and food. at dawn the slow train jerked itself to a standstill and the guard pushed open one of the wide doors. a faint light came in from the leaden morning sky, and showed a town half a mile beyond the tracks, and a small wooden signal-house or watering station close at hand. the guard brought bread and water from the house and distributed it among the prisoners, in rather meagre quantities, but it was eagerly welcomed by the tired, hungry men. the soldier who gave bob his portion offered him water from a tin cup instead of from the pail given to the others. almost at once the door was closed again and the train went on. the guard retired to their end of the car to munch their bread, but one of them said something to the prisoners in german as he passed, accompanied by a warning shake of the head. nobody understood him, and a general inquiry arose among them as to what he meant, giving a spark of interest for the moment to the dreary journey. bob thought he guessed the man's meaning and, summoning his french, said to the little group near him: "i think he means we must keep some of this bread for dinner." a dozen faces were turned in his direction, and nearly as many voices answered, "_merci, mon officier_," with smiles of acknowledgment. bob's notice and help seemed to be received by these forlorn and dispirited frenchmen with the liveliest pleasure, and evidently they were glad enough of a superior to question, for after a few moments of whispered conversation, one of them approached bob and, squatting down beside him, said respectfully: "may i make an inquiry, _mon officier_?" bob nodded, looking into the man's tired face and at the dirty bandage wound about his throat. "can you tell us where we are going?" asked the soldier doubtfully. "is it to germany?" "i don't know which part, but it is certainly germany," bob responded. "after these long hours we must be well inside the german border. i suppose we shall be taken to the nearest prison camp." the soldier gave a nod of agreement, rising to rejoin his comrades with a murmur of thanks, but bob held him back. "what is the matter there?" he asked, pointing to the man's throat. "only a slight wound. it is not very painful," said the frenchman, smiling and touching the bandage cautiously as he spoke. "are any of the others wounded?" inquired bob, getting up from the floor. "yes, _mon lieutenant_, several of us have small wounds. that fellow with the empty sleeve has his arm in a sling, and one other had a bullet through his leg. they received first dressing at petit-bois after we were taken." "we may be on this train all day," said bob, speaking careful french to make his meaning clear. "let me look at the wounds, and perhaps i can make you more comfortable." no one made any objection when this was explained. the man with the empty sleeve was pale and suffering from the exposure of his wounded arm to the cold, but he offered himself to bob's unskilled ministrations without a murmur. before unwrapping the bandages bob walked over to where the german guard sat or leaned against the side of the car. at his approach the sergeant on duty stood up with visible reluctance. "have you any dressings--bandages--i could use for the wounded prisoners?" asked bob, speaking as distinctly as he could. the man shook his head uncomprehendingly. then, as bob struggled to recall the little german he had picked up from karl and elizabeth, the sergeant spoke to a soldier who was sitting on the floor near by and motioned to him. the soldier got up and, approaching bob, said to him: "speak english. i can understand you, herr lieutenant." bob repeated his request. the man shook his head, looking toward the frenchmen with little interest in his face. "we have nothing," he said at last. "what time shall we reach our destination?" bob inquired. "how soon do we stop?" he altered the question, as the man looked blankly at him. "ach, to-night, i think." bob nodded and went back to his fellow prisoners. he did the best he could for the wounded men, with the help of a little water, his handkerchief, and some strips torn from his shirt. the first-aid packets carried by the french soldiers had been used for their dressings at petit-bois, and bob's had been retained by his german captor there, as had everything else in his possession except his money, which was carefully hidden in his coat lining. after an hour's hard work, not unaccompanied by a good deal of pain on the part of the willing patients, he felt that he had done what he could toward improving their condition. with the realization of how little considerate treatment was to be expected by prisoners in german hands, he thanked his stars that he was at least whole and unwounded, with strength to face the worst. when he had finished his task he sat down again by the car wall and went off into another dismal revery, broken only by pangs of hunger which brought to mind with tantalizing vividness the hearty satisfying food he had enjoyed such a short time before. he thought of benton, too, and wondered what had become of him, and whether the germans' respect for his prowess would bring him better or worse treatment at their hands. one thing he was sure of, they would do their utmost to extract from him some of the priceless information he had gathered in the past six months. equally certain it was that they would learn nothing. it was sunday, bob suddenly remembered. at home, on governor's island, his people would about now be starting peacefully to st. cornelius' chapel for the morning service. their thoughts and prayers would be with him, he knew, but they would think of him as in the squadron's camp in the midst of friends and allies. he began calculating how long it would take for news of his disappearance to reach home. taking into account the inquiries made along a portion of the french and british fronts to ascertain if he and benton had come down anywhere behind their own lines, he thought it might be several days before word was ordered cabled to america. as long again, perhaps, before the cable reached there. he rather hoped for a delay. what good would it do them to know that he was lost? they would think the worst, though it was hard to realize just then that there was a worse fate which could have befallen him. "perhaps i can get word home that i am alive and a prisoner," he encouraged himself, though with no great confidence in any means of communication which might come his way. "it will spoil their christmas, whichever they hear," he thought, with a sudden boyish longing at the word for a sight of home, made ready for christmas, trimmed with holly, the big fir tree in the dining-room and each one of the family planning to add something to the day's celebration. the gordons always managed to have a good time at christmas, and their house was usually full of visitors on christmas day. last year there had been a heavy snow-storm, and bob had taken william out on his new sled until william's cheeks were so red and white elizabeth thought they were frost-bitten and would not let him go near the fire when they came in. cold seemed jolly and different when there was a warm house to go back to. bob shivered at this thought, and shifted his back from a wide chink in the boards, but elizabeth's name brought with it a rush of gratitude as he remembered his hour of deadly peril at karl's hands. at about dusk that evening the train stopped and the guards flung open the doors. they were in the yard of a large railway station, and on the tracks beside the car appeared a couple of officials and half a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets. a little more bread was distributed among the prisoners, after which they were ordered to get out and form in double file, bob to bring up the rear. any movement was welcome to the men's cramped and chilled limbs, and even the weakest got up and willingly clambered down to the ground. the officials exchanged a few words with the sergeant in charge of the prisoners, who then gave the order to march. the escort of soldiers from the station fell in with the others in a double line about the prisoners and the party marched briskly out of the yard and through the station, where a scant number of travelers looked curiously after them, and on into the dimly lighted streets of the town. bob could not distinguish much through the dusk, except that the place appeared to be fairly large, with cobbled streets and crowds of people, all hurrying homeward at this hour, talking rapid german and exclaiming at sight of the prisoners as they passed, though bob thought they must be a fairly familiar sight by this time. american prisoners would be a novelty, but they could not know him to be one. he looked longingly at the shop windows in search of something more to eat, but he saw nothing, and could not have stopped to buy it if he had. in a few minutes they turned off into a side street, which soon became a road leading into the open country. half an hour's quick march through the thickening darkness brought into sight a group of one-storied, barrack-like buildings from which scattered lights glimmered. the prisoners were led through a wooden gateway, along passages made by enclosing the space with wire fencing, and finally to one of the low buildings, where the sentry on guard at that point threw open a door at a word from the sergeant in command. they entered a good-sized room, which was lighted by a lamp, and looked like a guard or orderly room. there was no furniture in it but a table and two chairs. from here the french soldiers were marched off immediately to their quarters, while bob, after a moment's delay while the sergeant went out and evidently consulted some one, was once more led outdoors and along the barrack front to another angle of the building. the room to which the sergeant now admitted him was small and bare, so far as bob could see in the darkness. it was also very cold, and the wind whistled against the pane of the one window in the opposite wall. at the right was a mud and brick chimney, as he saw by the light of a lamp which a soldier now brought in and stood upon a rough little table near the center of the room. there was a cot bed, too, he discovered, with a gray blanket thrown over it, and by the table a three-legged stool. the soldier threw down an armful of wood he carried and began building a small fire, to bob's enormous relief. the sergeant had already gone out, closing the door after him. he evidently felt no further responsibility, now that his prisoner's safe arrival was assured, as bob could well understand, recalling the number of armed and watchful sentries he had passed in the outskirts of the prison camp. he sat down on the stool and watched the soldier dully, as he laid the sticks, blew the flame into life with puffs of breath that turned to vapor in the chilly air, and finally rose from the earthen floor, leaving the other sticks beside the hearth. he put a swift question to bob, glancing doubtfully toward the fire. bob had not the least idea what he said, but he nodded and the man went out, locking the door with a brisk rattle of keys. bob went to the fire and crouched in front of it, warming his cold hands. then with a sudden thought he rose and pulled the cot over in front of the hearth. the two gray blankets looked flimsy enough and were the only bedding above the canvas strips that made the mattress. taking stock of his fuel he carefully banked up the burning sticks, adding one more to the fire. then, after a look at the little nailed-down window, whose chinks, he decided, with the gusty draft down the chimney would give him air enough to breathe, he put out the lamp, pulled off his boots, and lay down on his cot before the meagre fire. for a second he watched the flame before his eyes closed. he had thought so much in the last twenty-four hours, in every mood from revery to ungovernable despair, that it seemed to him he would go crazy if his mind worked any longer. with a desperate desire for rest in all his aching and weary limbs, he cast his cares on heaven, and wrapping the thin blankets closely about him quickly fell asleep. when he awoke it was daylight, and outside and around him sounded heavy footsteps and now and then voices shouting orders. bob sat up, feeling wonderfully refreshed by his sleep, though his mind was clear enough about the happenings of the night before and he frowned, weighed down with a black depression. his fire was almost out and the room was freezing. he got up and rekindled the blaze with what was left of the wood, then walked around the little room trying to warm himself. by his wrist-watch it was a quarter to seven, and the sun had not yet risen. through the window he could see only wire netting with a pacing sentry behind it, and beyond that a field and a piece of woodland. he had not the remotest idea what part of germany he was in. the north, he imagined by the increased cold, but he was not familiar enough with the climate to make a good guess. he felt ravenously hungry, and as he walked aimlessly about the little space he tried to guess by the sounds what was happening around him, and what chance he had of getting some sort of breakfast before long. the chimney side of the room, to judge by the noise beyond it, adjoined a guard room or some occupied part of the barracks, but from the left side came no sounds except an occasional light footstep, and once the rasping of a chair or table over the clay floor. bob wondered who his quiet neighbors were on this side, his thoughts going also to the wounded men among his late companions, and hoping that his bungling work had been supplemented before this by proper dressings. presently he heard steps outside on the gravel and in a moment his door was unlocked and opened. a german sergeant, with a red face and bristling eyebrows, came in with a slight bow, which bob silently returned. he had been recalling as many german words as he could, in the last half hour, seeing how much he would need them, and now he addressed the sergeant with a kind of doubtful determination: "i want food, please, and a fire." the grammar and accent were remarkable, he knew, but he thought the words made sense. the sergeant looked keenly at him, seeming to understand, for he glanced at the hearth, then back at bob, drew his lips close together, nodded and went out. he left the door unlocked, so bob opened it and looked out, for the sun had risen and he thought the cold outer air would be pleasanter than the chilly dampness of his prison. the sentry beyond the wire netting looked sharply at him, but continued his walk. on the other side of the wire fence was a square yard, on which opened another low wooden building, with smoke rising from its chimney. bob guessed this to be the kitchen, for now he heard the tramp of many feet on his left, and along the inclosed lane in the netting came a long line of prisoners, carrying tin cups and basins, and marching toward the open space. some of them were talking in a tongue that was absolutely strange to him. they grew silent as they neared the sentries and then bob saw by the blouses of their worn and faded uniforms that they were russians. they must number five hundred, he thought, and they were followed by perhaps two hundred french infantrymen, many with bandaged arms or hands, and some walking with difficulty, by the aid of a cane or a comrade's supporting shoulder. at about the time the first of them reached the other building, a soldier neared bob's door carrying a pail in one hand and a smoking dish in the other. bob's mouth watered at sight of it, and he quickly made way for the man, who deposited the basin of what appeared to be coffee on the table, the pail of water on the floor, and drew from under his arm a brown loaf of bread, which he put down beside the coffee. "_zwei tage_," he remarked, pointing to it with a serious air. _zwei_ bob knew, but two what? he could not think what _tage_ was. he remembered the fire though, and said hastily to the soldier, who had already turned to go, "more wood." the man looked uncertain, bowed, and went out. bob sat down to his breakfast, drinking the odd-tasting substitute for coffee without criticism. it was at least hot and comforting, and a big piece wrenched from one end of the loaf made him feel another man. suddenly, the meaning of _tage_ came to him. of course--days--"two days." that was what the soldier had said. he had pointed to the bread, which was evidently supposed to last for that length of time. the thought was not very cheering unless the rest of his diet was forthcoming. he had observed a very marked difference in his treatment as an officer from that accorded to the enlisted men who were prisoners. this distinction, bob surmised, was made more for the benefit of the german soldiery, whose respect for an officer must be maintained at any cost, than for a more generous reason. but he was evidently to be treated with outward marks of civility, though his comforts, he foresaw, would be scarce enough, unless he could open communication with some outside means of supply. he could easily have eaten half the loaf of bread then and there, but the soldier's words had made an impression, and he got up without taking another bite. his door was still unlocked and he stood on the threshold, trying to get some warmth from the rays of the sun, for his fire had not been replenished. the wire fence, fully ten feet high and barbed at the top, ran along the front of the barrack at a distance of about a dozen steps from it, the only break being the wire lane extending to the open yard in the center. down this lane a sentry walked, commanding a fine view of both sides of the yard. a short distance to the left another sentry's beat began, in front of the adjoining barrack. at about a hundred feet to the right and left of bob's door the wire curved suddenly in to the barrack wall, leaving only that length for a walk, and enclosing about five doors, so far as he could see down the line. one of these doors opened into the room next his, where he had heard the subdued sounds of the early morning, and as he stood there shivering, fastening his coat before trying a walk up the little inclosure in the biting wind, he became aware that his neighbor was also standing on his own threshold. the french soldiers were just returning from across the yard with their ration, hurrying back to shelter with the steaming bowls, and bob could see that the man was watching them, absorbed and motionless. before he caught more than a glimpse of the tall figure he had gone back into his room. bob returned likewise for his helmet, thinking unpleasant things of the soldier who was leaving him to freeze for want of a little wood, when a footstep caused him to turn expectantly. instead of the stolid german orderly, he saw an erect, distinguished looking man in the faded blue uniform of a french infantry captain. he stood just outside the door, and as bob turned he bowed and extended his hand, a bright smile lighting up his pale, thin face. "i am your neighbor, monsieur the lieutenant," he said, in correct if rather painstaking english. bob stepped out and shook his hand warmly. how eagerly he welcomed the company of this unfortunate frenchman was told by his face and the grip of his fingers before he said, "i'm very glad to see you. can't you come in?" the frenchman's eyes looked pleased at the warmth of his welcome by the american, whose frank young face he was scanning with both liking and pity, but he cast a look at the sentry before he answered, "i think he will not object. we can at least wait until he does." they entered bob's room, where bob drew forward the stool, reserving for himself the low table, which was solidly built of timber. "i am philippe bertrand, captain of french infantry," said his guest, seating himself and removing his cap from his black hair as he spoke. "may i ask your name and where you were taken?" bob willingly responded to the friendly inquiry, and for every word he spoke he had an interested listener. he told the frenchman where he came from and the length of his service, finally asking, "can you give me any idea of where we are, captain?" bertrand pronounced a german name which meant nothing to bob. the added information that the place was situated in prussia made things a little clearer. "how long have you been here, captain?" he asked with an inward shudder. "six months," replied bertrand, a shadow coming over his thin face. "before that i was fighting since 1914 near the northern end of the british line in flanders. that is how i learned english." "but are you the only officer imprisoned here?" asked bob. "there seem to be a great number of other prisoners." "there are no other french or british officers here now. they have been transferred elsewhere. there were russian officers next to me until last week, but they have been taken away. there was some rumor of an armistice signed between russia and our enemies." he frowned, looking anxiously at bob. "you have heard nothing of it?" bob had heard little of an actual armistice signed, but he told all he knew of the troubled state of things in russia. then, in answer to bertrand's eager questions, he told all the war news that the last six months could recall to his mind, ending by an account of america's great preparations, the story of his own service overseas and his capture inside the german lines. bertrand listened with rapt attention, for little news had filtered into the prison, and that little cut to a german pattern. at some of bob's words he looked sadly downcast, but at everything relating to the preparations of america for the combat, he brightened perceptibly. at last he rose and again held out his hand. "our doors will be locked in a moment," he explained for his sudden departure. "this is the hour of exercise, though lately i cannot much avail myself of it." "you mean we may walk in that little space in front at this time?" inquired bob, disgustedly. "won't they let us go anywhere else?" "sometimes they will. i myself am not sure, so you must ask," the frenchman responded. "i am no longer able to walk far, and the little promenade before my door does well enough." "you mean you are ill?" asked bob, looking with sinking heart at the pale face of his companion. "i have a sort of fever, i think. it comes and goes, but it is rather irksome. thank you very kindly for your talk. it has given me food for new thoughts." bob held him back a second. "when may i see you again, captain? i have such a lot to ask you about. you don't know how much it means having you here beside me." "this evening, perhaps," was the rather doubtful answer. "my guard sometimes leaves the door unlocked at supper-time since i am alone here. it is to save himself trouble, i think. it was he who told me of the arrival of an american officer." he bowed again, as he turned to go, with a bright smile that showed two rows of white, even teeth, and when his eyes lighted up bob realized that he was a young man, in spite of the sobering effects of fever and privation. the guard reappeared with a belated armful of wood, as bob reã«ntered his room after his new friend's departure. he carried his keys, too, with which, after building up the cold hearth, he prepared to lock the door, but was prevented by a shout from the nearest sentry. some one was crossing the yard preceded by a sergeant at rigid attention. the guard quickly opened the door again, flattening himself against it as he hastily announced to bob, "the herr major!" chapter xiii "come in, comrade!" bob had not seen any commissioned german officers since his arrival at the prison camp, but this one he guessed to be the commandant, by the dignified importance of his gait, and the effect he produced upon the guard and sentry. the officer approached bob's doorway with deliberate step and clanking sword, looking keenly along the barrack front as though for anything needing his attention. he was a short, stocky, middle-aged man, with flaxen hair and a fair skin, his chin slightly raised as he shifted his bright, intelligent glance from one point to another. when he reached bob's door and caught sight of the prisoner, he gave him a long look, then a quick nod by way of salutation. bob returned the nod, standing silently by his table when the officer entered, followed by the sergeant with much clatter of boots. as bob saw his face plainly he found little in it to like. the prim, set lips and cold, light-gray eyes told of a rigid and ungenerous nature; of the sort of man who prefers rules to justice. bob had no time to make any more reflections before the major seated himself on the stool brought quickly forward by the sergeant, and, fixing his eyes on the prisoner, began a long question in rapid german, accompanied by waves of the hand to emphasize his words. bob silently shook his head and said in english, as soon as there was a pause in the flow of words, "i cannot speak german, herr major." the great man frowned angrily, his face growing red with the quick temper that is aroused by trifles and as easily calmed. he stared at bob for a moment, as though trying to discover whether or not he was speaking the truth, then evidently deciding that he was, he puckered his brows and began irritably in english. "to me at once your name, your rank, your corps and their position tell. and the event of how you at our hands were taken." he stopped rather suddenly, his labored english apparently failing him. bob began promptly, and repeated what he had already told the officers at petit-bois. he had managed to satisfy them without giving any definite information, and he had little trouble now in being sufficiently vague to make his answers valueless, for his questioner did not know enough of the american positions to contradict him. the inquiry was ended sooner than it might have been by the evident unwillingness felt by the german to struggle on in english. bob suspected that half his rapid answers had not been understood. when a pause finally ensued he took the questioning boldly into his own hands and said: "herr major, as a prisoner of war, i should like to make a request." "what is it?" snapped the officer in german, roused from his thoughts and staring with an irritable unfriendliness at the american prisoner. "i should like more room for exercise, and sufficient food and fire." bob thought he might as well speak his mind at once. he did not see what harm could come of his demands, which were quite within his rights, even if they should be unheeded. the major seemed little impressed by them. he got up, nodding shortly in acknowledgment, but the only reply he vouchsafed was the inquiry, in english, "you some money perhaps have?" bob was surprised but he answered truthfully, "yes, a little." "a canteen there is." the major jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen building. "there you more food can sometimes buy. we cannot feed our prisoners as you live in america!" this was said with a flash of spiteful fury not lost upon bob, who saw in that moment how little, beyond the most grudging sustenance, he or his countrymen could expect at german hands. the major went out without any further words, accompanied by a shout from the sergeant to the sentries to present arms, and a great display of military stiffness on the part of bob's guard, who seemed to be lingering about the premises for the privilege of saluting a second time. bob drew a sigh of relief when the major's sword had clanked itself out of ear-shot along the barracks, devoutly hoping he would not make long visits in the quarters of the humbler prisoners. he felt sure they would agree with him that the less seen of the herr major the better. he dropped down on the stool, now restored to his own use, and sat wondering drearily how on earth he could pass the time in any degree of cheerfulness. he regretted now not having gone outdoors while he had the chance, and decided that he must adopt indoor exercises at once if his health was not to suffer from the unnatural confinement. getting up an appetite, though, was certainly a thing to be avoided. bob's thoughts of the future were dim and purposeless, and he did his best just now to keep them so. he greatly hoped he would not realize the depth of his misfortune, and that the half incredulous state of mind that made him live on from moment to moment, as though his imprisonment were something strange and passing, might last a little longer. one ray of comfort he had, and he clung to it when despair seemed very near him. solitude was the thing he most dreaded, and captain bertrand's friendly presence had been like a ray of light out of utter darkness. bob had always had an affectionate family or cheerful friends around him. he did not know how to live alone and could hardly have risen above the utter depression of it. in thinking of the young frenchman's brave calmness he found more courage to face things than he had thought he possessed. the guard had locked his door, and bob particularly wanted to find out about the canteen the hospitable commandant had spoken of. he took out his money from the inside pocket lining of his blouse where it was hidden, and counted it carefully. he had just forty francs. the ten he had given to the old peasant would have been welcome now, but he did not regret them. as the morning wore on, and the door remained locked, bob's active body demanded movement of some kind. he tried a balancing performance with the stool, vaulted over the low table, went through the manual of arms without a gun, and had a fencing bout with an imaginary sword and opponent. then, his invention failing him, he dropped down on his stool again and resumed his principal occupation of the past two days--wondering. he wondered what time dinner was, and if it would be more substantial than breakfast. anyway he had the promise of food at the canteen to look forward to. he wondered if writing materials could be bought there, too, and, if so, whether a letter from here would ever reach the outside world through the commandant's hands. he remembered that he had not asked bertrand in what part of prussia they were. the name of some near-by city might be more familiar to him than the town outside the camp. he could not understand why bertrand had been kept there when the other officers were transferred, but he was very thankful for his own sake that it had been so. after a long while the door was unlocked, to the accompanying sounds of the prisoners forming in ranks outside the barrack, and his guard appeared with the same steaming basin that had held the acorn coffee at breakfast. as he put it down on the table and turned to leave, bob plunged into german. "i go," he began, pointing emphatically across the yard, the word canteen not being at his command, "get bread." the soldier looked puzzled, curious, and finally a light broke over his heavy countenance. he nodded and went out, saying something in reply which bob did not understand, but in which the word "sergeant" occurred. becoming resigned by now to patient waiting, bob sat down to find what he had for dinner. so far as he could make out with the help of the metal spoon, the bowl held a kind of cabbage soup, with a few shreds of vegetables lurking near the bottom. it did not look inviting, but he was much too hungry to be critical, and he emptied the bowl in five minutes, finding the soup not bad, with another chunk of black bread to accompany it. the chief trouble was there was not enough of it. he could have eaten a whole dinner afterward without any trouble. at thought of the people at home who would so gladly send him money and supplies if only they could reach him, he resolved to try hard to get them some news of his whereabouts. soon after he finished eating, the sergeant with the bristling eyebrows appeared, announcing that he had come to conduct the lieutenant to the canteen. bob got up with alacrity, put on his helmet and heavy coat, and followed his guide out into the cold air, along the wire lane past the watchful sentry, who turned and followed in their wake. bob was mildly amused at the idea of his attempting to escape. he had about as much chance as if he were a wild animal in an iron cage, and would have received just as cordial a welcome throughout prussia. whichever way he turned his eyes met lines of high wire fencing, or the glistening bayonets of the sentries patrolling the camp in every direction. the canteen was no more than a room just off the kitchen, fitted with shelves stocked with goods. a corporal in charge was seated behind a table. he rose at sight of a customer and made the usual slight bow, after a glance at bob's shoulder-straps. bob saw but a scant display of eatables on the shelves, but after a careful inspection he selected two cans of herring, a small loaf of black bread to supplement his two days' ration, and a jar of strange looking yellow marmalade. for these luxuries he paid three francs and felt that his captors had got the best of it. the bargain concluded, the sergeant led him promptly back across the yard, where several hundred prisoners had gathered, carrying picks and shovels, and evidently starting out for an afternoon's work. bob almost wished he might join them as he looked keenly around, trying to see if the companions of his journey from petit-bois were there. two big russians, looking about them with mild, patient eyes as they leaned upon their tools, stood close by the wire netting, and, as bob passed by, a frenchman pushed his head in between their shoulders with a friendly smile in his direction and a nod of recognition. bob longed to stop and ask him how the wounded men were faring, and what sort of treatment they were receiving, but the inexorable sentry dogged his steps, and a nod and smile in return was all the communication possible. there were no writing materials on sale at the canteen, so bob demanded some of the sergeant. in answer he merely promised to obtain them from the commandant, and bob foresaw another delay. after this short diversion he paced his floor restlessly until dark, which brought with it the guard, carrying another bowl of coffee, and a welcome armful of wood. the soldier lighted the lamp and went out, leaving the door open. in a second bob swallowed the decoction in the bowl, hurriedly made his way out and approached his neighbor's door. it was closed, but yielded to his touch, and saying softly, "may i come in, captain?" he put his head through the crack. the room was dimly lighted and looked much the same as bob's own. the cot was pulled like his before the feeble fire, and on it lay the french officer, who raised his head at sight of bob to say warmly, though with little strength in his voice, "come in, comrade!" bob closed the door behind him, overcome with pity and a dreadful feeling of helplessness at sight of bertrand's long, thin figure shivering beneath the flimsy blankets. "you are ill, captain? what can i do?" he stammered. then, realizing that bertrand was in the clutches of a chill, and in no state to answer questions, he steadied his nerves and took things into his own hands with energy. "you've eaten nothing," he said, looking at the bowl of coffee which the guard had placed on the stool beside the cot. "this is hot, at least." he broke a few crumbs of bread from the loaf on the stool into the steaming bowl and, raising bertrand's shivering shoulders, put a spoonful to his lips. "take it anyway, it will warm you," he urged, finally persuading the sick man to swallow a few spoonfuls, after which he tucked the blankets about him and built up the flickering fire. "wait a minute," he said presently, rising and darting to the door again. in a moment he was back, bringing one of his own blankets, which he wrapped around bertrand's shaking body with anxious thoroughness. "your blanket?" faltered bertrand, as his fit of shivering slowly lessened. "you must not give me that! this will pass in a few moments. it always comes before the fever." "i have enough," said bob, raising a spoonful of coffee again to bertrand's lips. "drink all this now, can't you? i've heated it at the fire, and it will help keep you warm. i am going to find a doctor for you, if it's humanly possible." "he comes now and then," said bertrand, raising himself to drink the hot liquid obediently, though his breath came quick and hard as he spoke. "it was he who would not have me moved the day the other french officers were transferred. you had better go now, comrade. the guard will not leave the door unlocked again if the sergeant discovers it." bob nodded, looking with anxious eyes at bertrand's face, now losing its pallor for a flush, as no longer trembling, he lay wearily motionless. bob renewed the fire again as well as he could, and readjusted the blankets, took an unwilling leave, only consoled at seeing that the chill had passed and that bertrand seemed inclined to sleep. at his own door he encountered the guard who, by the light of the lantern he held, looked sullenly at his enterprising american prisoner and rattled the keys suggestively. bob gave him no time to voice his displeasure, but on entering the room said in such german as he could muster: "where is the doctor? when can he come here?" the soldier looked dubious, and muttered that he did not know. bob's anger was swiftly rising at this brutal neglect of poor bertrand. he turned savagely on the guard. "go and find out!" he shouted, in execrable german, but in a voice that roused the echo of obedience to authority in the soldier's dull mind. he went out more quickly than bob had ever seen him move before. in a moment he was back again, and the sergeant with him. bob repeated his demand, but got no more satisfaction than the assurance that, "the herr doctor will certainly be here to-morrow." "if he isn't, you will take me to the commandant," he declared in a burst of righteous indignation. "and now," he added, a cold blast from the door reminding him of his own need, "i want another blanket. i gave one of mine to captain bertrand." not all of this speech was comprehensible to the sergeant, for bob's german was very strange indeed, and all the words he did not know were supplemented by french or english terms. but the blanket request he did understand and seemed highly doubtful about being able to grant. "i will try, herr lieutenant," was the most he would say, and a moment later bob was left alone. he went to bed in his overcoat, wrapped in his single blanket, for he had no hope of receiving a second one that night. the little fire that blew hither and thither, in the wind that rushed down the chimney, could not keep him from shivering, but after a while he went to sleep. when morning dawned bob got up to the sound of hundreds of clattering boots, and throwing off his overcoat, went through some brisk exercises for half an hour until his chilled blood ran warm again. while he did it he came to a resolution in behalf of the unfortunate frenchman lying sick and solitary next door, and although he had little hope of gaining any favors from the commandant or his subordinates, he resolved to make the effort. defiance was his only weapon, a poor enough one since he was helpless in his captors' hands, but it had already achieved more with his guard than had politeness. anyway, he felt that his angry feelings must find expression somehow. he struggled to make the fire burn until the soldier entered with his coffee. no more bread was yet forthcoming, though thanks to his visit to the canteen, bob still had a little. he turned to the guard, getting up from his seat on the cot before the fire. "where is my blanket?" he demanded. the man muttered something about the matter having been referred to the commandant. "rats!" ejaculated bob, thrusting his hands deep in his trousers pockets and staring disgustedly at the guard's heavy red face. the soldier's little blue eyes lighted up with a vague alarm. he evidently felt the american to be an unknown quantity, of whom anything might be expected. bob had already noticed furtive glances cast at him, as though sudden violence on his part was not unlikely. he felt decidedly like realizing the guard's suspicions now. "go get the sergeant," he said at last, speaking more calmly. when the man had gone bob took the opportunity to visit bertrand, whom he found asleep with his untasted breakfast beside him, the blankets tossed about his cot bearing witness to a troubled night. bob touched his hand and felt it hot and dry. he went softly out and found the sergeant awaiting him. "where is the doctor?" was bob's first inquiry. "he will come," the sergeant assured him, with such certainty that bob felt there was some reason to believe him. he pointed across to the canteen, saying firmly, "i will buy a blanket now." no objection was raised to this, and he decided that it was probably just what was expected of him. at the canteen he found a small stock of thin, gray blankets, one of which he bought, reluctantly paying for it twelve francs out of his remaining thirty-seven. he bought, also, for seven more francs, a cotton shirt, a razor, and another loaf of bread. as they recrossed the yard twenty minutes later, through the midst of a crowd of russians, bob saw an officer coming out of bertrand's room. he quickened his steps on the sergeant's informing him that this was the herr doctor who had come as promised. bob met him in the narrow space before the barrack and spoke eagerly, after a quick bow of salutation, which the other gravely returned. "captain bertrand--do you think he is any better?" the military doctor surrendered the leather case he carried to an orderly who followed him and looked attentively at bob, seeming more struck by his atrocious german than by what he had said. he was a gray-haired, shrewd-looking man, with a quiet, self-contained manner. in a moment he said in english: "i can speak english a little. what would you say?" bob answered, with great relief at the loosening of his tongue, "i wish to ask you about captain bertrand. he seems very ill. is there nothing that can be done for him? he has no care at all--i don't understand it." bob's indignation got a little the better of him. his face flushed and his voice hardened. the doctor nodded. "he should be transferred to a hospital. but with present difficulties it may two or three weeks take." "well, have you left him anything? any quinine? i could give it to him in whatever doses you prescribe." the doctor glanced keenly at the eager young american. his face seemed to say that bob spoke without knowing all the facts. "i have left a little--yes," he assented. "enough is not to be had." bob struggled with his feelings, uncertain whether the doctor's calmness was callous indifference or if he were simply doing his best with inadequate supplies and help. he thought he detected a little regret and human interest in his voice, in speaking of bertrand's sad case, but the german was not disposed to be communicative. he seemed ready to move away now, but bob took a sudden resolution. "at least, doctor, you can obtain permission for me to sleep in captain bertrand's room and look after him until the fever goes. it is cruel to leave him alone with no help or companionship. let me take care of him until you can arrange for his transfer." the doctor thought silently for a moment. "i can see no objection to that," he said at last. "i will do it, if possible it is." he nodded in a not unfriendly way, and walked quickly off, leaving bob saying to himself in doubtful irritation, "will you really do it, or just say you will do it, like the others?" he had somewhat more confidence in this man than in the other germans about him, for he felt that a doctor's fellow-feeling extends with his profession beyond the borders of his own country, though he judged only by the french and british and american doctors he had seen among the enemy's wounded. when he reached the door of his room the sergeant was standing by his table, and at sight of him bob's spirits gave a sudden bound. on the table were laid some sheets of paper, envelopes, half a dozen post-cards, a few stamps and a pencil. the sergeant took note of the amount on his fingers and after a hasty calculation said, "two francs, herr lieutenant." bob produced them, desperately eager for the chance to write, however hopeless such an attempt might be. but first he took advantage of the remaining free moments to visit bertrand's room. the frenchman was sitting on his cot, looking spent and weary, but at sight of bob he smiled and held out his hand. "my friend, you must take back your blanket," he said earnestly, as bob approached the cot and sat down beside him. "i did not think last night when you so generously left it." bob reassured him on that score, and hastily told of his interview with the doctor, and of the hope he felt of being allowed to sleep in bertrand's room. this seemed to afford the sick man great comfort. he silently shook bob's hand with a grateful look that told more than words of the lonely misery he had suffered. his fever had gone down, though his thin face was still flushed and his eyes over-bright. bob heated over the fire the coffee left from breakfast and made him drink it, though he could not be persuaded to eat the hard bread. bob's own stores of herring and pumpkin-seed marmalade were alike useless. he resolved to ransack the canteen again for something palatable, for bertrand was rapidly losing strength on his meagre diet. bob did not dare lead him to count on having his company at night until permission was assured. but he felt, when he left him, that even the hope had brought a little cheerfulness into the unfortunate officer's long day, which he must pass lying spent with fever in his lonely prison. bob wanted to ask him if his letters had been answered, and what chance there was of receiving news from home or of sending it there, but he was afraid of awakening unhappy thoughts, and decided to postpone his questions until bertrand's fever should have entirely gone. he sat down at his own table, after the doors were locked again, and slowly took up the indelible pencil lying on the paper before him, with a sad look coming over his face. longings for home and freedom wrenched his heart now as he thought of what to write, and the hopelessness of trying to say anything, since all must pass under the eyes of the commandant, made him lay down his pencil almost in despair. but to assure his family that he was alive and well was his greatest wish, and he felt a reasonable hope of having this much sent on. at last he chose the post-cards, and writing the brief news that he was well, a prisoner in germany, and sent his love to all at home, he addressed three of them to his mother, his father and to lucy, hoping that one of the three might find its way in time to governor's island. considering the difficult and roundabout means of transportation, coupled with little willingness on the part of his captors to fulfil the prisoners' wishes, he saw, as he thought it over again, that the chances were slim. as he wrote lucy's name her face came before him, as she had looked when he said good-bye to her three months before. her eyes were bright with tears, but she was bravely smiling, and he could hear her voice again, gay and cheerful, but with a world of tender affection behind it as she said, "we'll never stop thinking of you!" he knew she never had, and the constant thoughts of those who waited for him were the source of more courage than they knew, now that bob in his loneliness had such need of courage. but he felt, just then, he would give anything on earth for the sight of one familiar face among the strangers about him, of whom only bertrand and the french soldier prisoner had given him the grateful tribute of a friendly glance. few wishes were granted in that prison camp, but at this time of strange happenings bob's wish was nearer fulfilment than he dreamed. dinner was no more substantial than yesterday's, but bob helped it out with a pickled herring. while he was eating it without enthusiasm, a vision of karl's cream-puffs, as they had so often come, at bob's special request, puffy, round and inviting, to the gordons' table, made him smile with a touch of irony. it would be hard work persuading karl to make him any now, supposing the two met again. in the afternoon, the sergeant brought him the welcome news that he would be permitted to sleep in bertrand's room. eager to make sure of the privilege, bob asked to have his cot moved immediately, and two soldiers carried it into the next room at the sergeant's orders. bob stood in his doorway while this was going on, looking curiously at a little group of what he guessed, from the numerous guards about them, to be newly-arrived prisoners, though they were too far off to be distinguished. he asked his guard who they were, without expecting a satisfactory answer, for the soldier was always non-committal, whether from natural sullenness or in obedience to orders, bob could not decide. but this time his eyes brightened at the question, and after glancing down toward the further barracks which the men had entered, he gave bob a queer look and said, "american prisoners." "what!" bob's self-control was gone for a moment. he stared at the man in blank amazement. the guard nodded, adding with a kind of triumph in his voice, "eleven were brought in this morning." that was the extent of his information, but bob pondered it most of the night, while he kept alive the fire and tended his feverish companion, whose greatest comfort it seemed was to know bob's friendly presence close at hand. in the morning he went out the moment the door was unlocked, leaving his wretched coffee untasted. a light snow had fallen during the night, and the air was cold and sparkling, with the sun just risen. this was the hour when all the prisoners crossed the yard for breakfast. he searched hundreds of faces, french and russian, before at last a little knot of downcast united states infantrymen came by, soup basins in hand. some of them were wounded. bob's heart beat hard and his eyes filled with hot tears of sympathy and comradeship. he could hardly see their faces, but all at once a hand was thrust through the wire netting beside him, and a voice trembling with excitement cried, "bob gordon!" bob stared through the netting with misty, unbelieving eyes. "lieutenant, i meant to say," stammered sergeant cameron, as bob, too overcome at the sight of him to answer, clasped his outstretched hand. "we won, though," the sergeant said in his ear, in the instant before his hand was withdrawn to resume the march across the yard, and those words echoed in bob's ears above the noisy orders of the german guards ordering on the men, who, one and all, had paused to watch the meeting between the two americans with friendly, understanding eyes. the prisoners were from his father's regiment. this was the thought uppermost in bob's mind. but they had won the fight! chapter xiv a letter from london marie had taken william and happy over beyond the infantry quarters to watch the afternoon drill. the sight of those hard-working young recruits, treading so resolutely the snow-packed ground, seemed to have a fascination for the belgian girl. she would watch them for long moments, with serious, earnest eyes, as though in the strength and readiness of america's growing army she saw the distant promise of freedom for her native land. the drill was a good one, and the soldiers marched with the trained precision of seasoned troops. they had done well in the weeks past. lucy saw a staff colonel, walking by, give a quick nod of approval in their direction. the four girls who studied and played together had come from the officers' club, after a hard game of bowls, to join the little crowd which had gathered to watch the drill with the intentness that came of knowing how sorely every trained man was needed now. marian was talking eagerly to anne about the first-aid class. it was friday and the next morning's lesson would be the third in the course, and already the girls felt that they began to know something about nursing. marian had lost all fear of miss thomas and her demands, and at the last lesson had willingly been wrapped in bandages of every sort, to demonstrate the neat work of her teacher's skilful fingers. "it's lots more interesting making red cross dressings when you know how they are used," she said to anne. "the nursing is much the hardest part for me. i still get awfully mixed sometimes." "that's the part i like best," said lucy, her eyes still following the marching men, who were executing a difficult turn. "i like taking care of sick people anyway." "too bad you aren't old enough to be a nurse," remarked julia. she was looking apprehensively at her puppy as william came toward them. "then maybe you'd have patients more graceful than i am." she laughed at the recollection of some of lucy's energetic treatments. "i spilled the water down your neck only once," objected lucy indignantly; "you know we got along beautifully last time." "i know it," admitted julia. "i can't do it nearly so well as you, myself. oh, look at that little beast!" happy came careering up, as william and marie started for home, and began a friendly tussle with his brother, who had a quieter disposition and had stayed obediently at julia's side. "oh, behave, happy!" cried lucy, making an ineffectual grab in his direction. "you certainly picked out the bad one to give us, julia, or else william brings him up badly. two mittens and a glove of father's have gone this week." "i'll take him, lucy," said william, rushing to the rescue, in terror as usual when the puppies were together, of getting them mixed up beyond recognition, since they grew too fast to make the wearing of collars possible. "this one's mine," he declared, seizing his puppy and carrying him off, a squirming, indignant armful. "poor little mac always gets the worst of it," said julia laughing. "he isn't the fighting kind. let's let william get ahead a little before we go, so as to keep the peace." "you and anne come to our house and we'll go over the first-aid lesson for to-morrow now. it's much easier when we do it together," suggested lucy, as they walked back across the parade. "all right, we will," said julia. "stop with me, anne, while i get my book, and then we'll come right over. i bet marian is in a hurry to get home out of the cold." marian laughed, but she willingly joined lucy in running over to general's row, when they came within sight of the gordons' house. "cousin james came home early to-day," she said, as they went up the steps, for she had spied major gordon's tall figure walking quickly from headquarters as they crossed the parade. "did he?" asked lucy, opening the door. "i hope he doesn't have to go off somewhere to-night." then, as she entered the sitting-room, her heart gave a dreadful throb, and she stood speechless on the threshold. her mother was standing by the window. her face was ashy pale, and tears were running down her cheeks, while she listened with motionless intensity to her husband's words. major gordon, still wearing his overcoat, was speaking low and earnestly. his face was turned from the door, but his head was bent and one of his hands gripped hard on the chair behind him. "mother! father! what is it? is it bob?" cried lucy, all her courage forgotten and a dreadful fear clutching at her heart that made her voice break and her strength almost fail her. she seized her father's arm and looked with terrified questioning into his face. "yes, little daughter, it is," said her father gently. his face was white, too, and he looked tired and worn. "tell me, what is it?" lucy whispered. "we don't know. all they have heard at washington is that he never returned from his last scouting expedition. i telegraphed for any more details they could give me, but the adjutant general has sent back word that he knows nothing more. we must hope for the best." lucy drew her hand away, and turning, threw her arms around her mother's neck, vainly trying to check the sobs that choked her and the tears that blinded her eyes. she could not speak a word of comfort, but perhaps her mother felt, as she held her, what she would have said, if words had not been quite beyond her. marian stole out to meet julia and anne before they reached the door. her eyes were wet, too, and her heart throbbed with a sympathy that took her far from herself to a new depth of understanding. at last lucy raised her head, dashing the tears from her hot cheeks. "mr. harding could find out something!" she cried, her voice trembling with a bitter rebellion against this dreadful uncertainty. "he was so near to bob, surely he will send us word of whatever he knows!" major gordon shook his head with a sad sternness. "don't blame him, little daughter. the same dispatches that brought this news reported dick wounded and missing, after a german raid on our first line trenches." lucy could stand there no longer. she ran blindly out and up to her own room, where she sank down on her little sofa and buried her face among the pillows. in the dark days which followed, marian was lucy's greatest comfort. lucy would not say all she feared or even all she hoped to her mother, who had enough to bear without any bursts of unhappiness or groundless hopefulness on lucy's part. but marian listened with quiet and helpful sympathy in the hours when lucy's patience and courage utterly gave way, and sleep refused to come. the whole garrison shared the gordons' trouble, and in the friendly spirit of comradeship which unites our army, all the people tried to show their heartfelt sympathy. mrs. houston brought her red cross work to mrs. gordon's, and the two women sat for long hours together, making whole boxes of slings and dressings, for work was more bearable than idleness. major gordon found it so, too, for he kept at his duties until late at night, and seemed to find nothing else worth doing. lucy and marian went as usual to school, though lucy could not learn her lessons and miss ellis did not reproach her. she was thankful, though, to be among other girls for a while, and away from the misery of her own thoughts. in the fortnight that had gone by since bob was reported missing lucy seemed to have passed through a year of her life, and, grown strangely quiet and purposeless, she followed marian's suggestions without a murmur. she took the change in her cousin with no more than a vague surprise at her independence. she and her mother only felt that marian's cheerful presence was a comfort, and her affectionate understanding of lucy's grief promised to make of the two girls firm and devoted friends for ever after. one day at noon lucy came into the house with marian to find her mother and father again together. only this time her mother's face, lately so pale and sad, was touched with a gleam of her old brightness. almost a smile hovered over her lips, and at sight of it lucy sprang forward, crying, "what is it, mother? oh, tell me quick!" major gordon did not look altogether cheerful as he turned to her, but his face was brave and hopeful. "don't expect too much," he said slowly, but mrs. gordon put a hand on lucy's shoulders with a smile that brought a flood of joy to her heart. "he's alive and unhurt, lucy," she said, her voice trembling. "read this." a letter had lain on the table, and now lucy snatched it from her mother's hand. with her heart pounding in her throat she dropped down on the floor, oblivious to all about her. the writing was strange, and, stranger still, the letter was postmarked london. with shaky fingers lucy drew out two sheets of ruled paper, covered with a neat, legible writing. she turned quickly to the signature. it was: john enright, _corporal ninth lancashires_, by nurse everitt. amazed, lucy found the beginning and read: st. anthony's hospital, london _december 5th._ mrs. james gordon, _dear madam_: no doubt you are wondering what i can have to say to you, as we are strangers to each other, so perhaps the best way for me to begin is by explaining just how i came to write. i may say that i am a corporal in the ninth lancashire regiment of foot, and, up to my being wounded and sent home from france last week, i have fought at a point where our lines touch with the french and americans. i would tell you the exact spot, but this is not allowed. there was an advance made here a short time ago, in which we reã«nforced them, resulting in the capture of a french village which the germans had fortified with no end of care. it appears that some aviator managed to send back news of their new line by carrier pigeon, and this information helped us considerably. anyway, we occupied the place, and, to make it short, i was stopped with a bullet in my leg just before the germans fell back. in the house where some women of the village helped the doctors care for the wounded, i was nursed by a woman who spoke english almost as well as anybody. she was german, she said, but in spite of that she was a good sort, and she sat all night with me when i was pretty near wild with a broken knee. next day but one i was recommended to be sent home, but before i left the village she asked me to do something for her as soon as i got back to england. of course i was glad to pay for some of her kindness, if i could. she asked me to write to america, to mrs. james gordon, whose name and address she gave me on a paper, and tell her that her son was alive and not wounded, but a prisoner in germany. being willing to do a good turn for a friend, and ally, as well as to pay the german woman for her care of me, i am writing at first opportunity. that is as much as i can remember that she said, for i was feeling too badly to think much, except to wonder at her, a german, asking me this. so hoping you will excuse the liberty, and with best wishes, i remain, yours truly, john enright, _corporal ninth lancashires_, by nurse everitt. lucy did not read the last sentences of the kindly englishman's letter. warm tears were pouring down her cheeks, tears of relief and thankfulness, that, however hard the burden left to bear, they knew that bob's life was spared. she repeated elizabeth's name with wondering gratitude, for elizabeth it must have been who had given the soldier such a charge. for a moment joy was the only feeling in her heart, and the thought of german imprisonment did not bring the fear and dread that came afterward. there was only quiet rejoicing in the gordon household, for bob's fate seemed yet darkly uncertain, but hope there was plentiful room for, and with it came returning strength and courage to face the inevitable. mrs. gordon could not wait to write her gratitude to the british soldier, who even in the midst of his own suffering had not failed to do a kindness. to elizabeth she could only speak her thanks unheard, for the faithful affection which had given back at last far more than she owed her mistress for years of happy companionship. the extent of her debt to elizabeth, mrs. gordon did not know, but for as much as she did, it was hard indeed not to be able to make an acknowledgment. that afternoon when william was sitting on his mother's lap, listening with wide-eyed astonishment to her story of his brother, mrs. gordon turned a little anxiously at sight of marian, who had come to her side to bring back the wonderful letter over which she had in turn been poring. "marian," she said, "i don't think we've taken very good care of you lately. i am afraid you must feel we haven't thought much about you." she searched her little cousin's face with self-reproachful eyes, but found it, to her relief, well and rosy. marian laughed, and sitting down on the arm of mrs. gordon's chair, gave her an affectionate kiss. "you needn't worry about me, cousin sally. i don't need half the looking after i used to. anyway, father will be along some day soon." mrs. gordon looked thoughtfully at marian, as she had not looked at her in the past two weeks, feeling a touch of pleasure in the midst of her heavy anxiety. marian's dress had been carefully let out across the shoulders, but even now it was none too big for her. the look of discontent and indecision had left her face. her once pale cheeks had a warm color, and her smiling lips had lost their babyish suggestion of a pout. she had tied back her hair well out of the way before school, and her manner, though diffident still and far from boisterous, had caught more than a little of lucy's alertness and energy. her prettiness had changed its pathetic wistfulness for a wide-awake look far more attractive, and mrs. gordon saw plainly now that the friendship between marian and lucy, at which she had sometimes wondered a little, was very likely to endure. lucy was up-stairs talking to marie, who was putting william's room in order. both margaret and marie, in spite of their never having seen bob, had shown a warm-hearted sympathy with the gordons' trouble. but marie had a far greater understanding of it, having known what the war meant by actual experience, and lucy had found her one day standing in front of bob's picture in the sitting-room, with a sad look in her serious, dark eyes. marie had helped wonderfully during those hard days. she had kept william happy and occupied when nobody else had spirits enough to play with him, and had done a hundred little things without being told, which took away the burden of them from her mistress' shoulders. lucy had lost no time in telling her of the good news in the soldier's letter, confident that she would sincerely share in their rejoicing. it seemed to lucy, though, that the thought of a german prison kept the belgian girl from feeling much enthusiasm in her relief at bob's safety. perhaps her own misgivings made her fearful, but she questioned marie anxiously. "he's safe there, marie, don't you think so? it's dreadfully hard--but i do hope we'll be able to send him things." "oh, yes, he is safe, miss lucy," marie assured her hastily. she was a truthful girl, but lucy's pleading face would not let her speak otherwise just now. "he's away from the battle-field. it seems as if the greatest danger had been left behind. if we could only find out where he is! i'm sure he can write us before long." "i think so, yes," said marie hopefully, her troubled conscience reminding her as she spoke of friends and neighbors from her home whose fate in germany no one had ever learned. "lots of prisoners come back, even during the war--wounded ones i mean," lucy went on. "i suppose being a prisoner of war isn't really the worst thing that can happen to you." somehow, marie's hopeful words did not cheer her as they were intended to. "yes, many have come back," marie responded briefly. her invention failed her here, for once she had seen a train filled with french and belgian prisoners returned after a year's captivity, as it passed the swiss frontier. the sight of those haggard and weary faces had never left her memory. at last she offered lucy the only solution that seemed possible to her. "miss lucy, if only america get ready quick and go to help fight. that is how we will have the war over. nobody will have a free country while germany is strong." "i know it," lucy sighed, feeling for the moment weighed down by a burden beyond her strength. the night of the twenty-eighth's departure came suddenly back to her. "poor mr. harding," she thought, struck with sharp remorse at the little time she had found to lament her friend's misfortune. "but he may be safe as well as bob--oh, how i wish we knew." marie finished her work and turned to lucy, with a sudden smile lighting up her quiet face. "you must hope all is right with your brother. it is no use to fear. good news may come." "i wish it would hurry, then," lucy murmured, getting up from her seat on william's bed. "i'm thankful for what we've heard, but if only we weren't so far away. the belgians haven't an ocean between them and germany. it is only as if their brothers were taken prisoners into connecticut--supposing they lived in new york." "yes, but the germans they have there on top of them," said marie quickly. "they would be very glad to have that ocean." as never before lucy realized how much of the war's meaning marie knew. she felt that the quiet belgian girl could tell her more of bob's captors than could many about her, but somehow she was not eager to ask questions. she knew that marie would have told her all that was pleasant to hear without asking. her thoughts were interrupted by marian, who came to the door with her tam-o'-shanter on, and her coat half buttoned. "aren't you coming out a little while, lucy? let's go over to the houstons'. i need my exercise," she added, with a mischievous curve to her lips, as she recalled lucy's often repeated words of persuasion during the past months. "i'm glad you really think so," said lucy, smiling. "because you're getting to be more than i can manage. you're not the sweet little delicate thing you were." as she went into her own room for her hat and coat, lucy could not help echoing her own words with a faint glow of satisfaction. she had never admitted to her mother, though mrs. gordon's keen eyes guessed it, how very hard she had often found it to stick to her resolution in marian's behalf. all during the autumn she had steadfastly cut short the things she and julia liked best to do in favor of the things marian could be persuaded to take part in. she had spent all her playtime with her cousin, helping her to feel at home with other girls and to learn independence, with no other reward for her patience than the knowledge that the work she had wanted was here for the asking, and as hard and discouraging as she could wish. the satisfaction of seeing marian daily grow stronger, gayer and more companionable had not come until lately, but it was no less a very real one, and lucy longed now to tell her mother how glad she felt to have accepted the unwelcome task. in the past weeks marian had begun generously to return her cousin's kindness and lucy would never look back at those dark days without a warm remembrance of marian's never-failing sympathy. "i'm ready," she called, after a moment. marian answered from down-stairs, and lucy following her, the two girls went outdoors and crossed the snow to the houstons'. julia's mother had already heard the story of the letter, but both she and julia wanted to hear it again. nothing else was talked of while lucy and marian stayed, and as little else was in lucy's mind, she was very willing to talk about it with these old friends. "don't you wish you could thank that dear old elizabeth?" cried julia with shining eyes. "marian, do you remember saying that she and karl were dangerous to have around? here they've done the gordons the best turn in the world." "bob said he thought they'd get back to germany somehow," said lucy thoughtfully. "elizabeth must have been right near the battle-front to see that english soldier." "perhaps karl has gone into the army," suggested marian. "oh, he's too old to fight," lucy objected. "he's past fifty. what i like best to think of," she went on, brightening a little, "is that captain benton, whom bob liked so much, was with him when they started. he was taken prisoner, too, most likely, so bob won't be alone." at last the visitors rose to go, for outside a bugler was sounding supper-call, and it was already dark. "i never saw that dress before, marian," said julia, looking at the pretty red challis as she held marian's heavy coat for her. "has your father sent you any more new ones?" she asked teasingly. "no," said marian, biting her lip, though her eyes twinkled. "he promised to bring me something when he comes, though--i wish he'd hurry." "you're a spoiled child," said julia, pulling marian's curls out from under her coat collar. "you ought to stay here with me and lucy and get used to things--like the boy in 'captains courageous.'" "learn to be untidy and leave doors open and forget to wash the ink off your hands, like me," said lucy, laughing. "i could teach you to rush at things, and then wish you hadn't. that's what i'm best at," said julia, entering into the joke. "all the same, i wish you were going to stay until next summer, and perhaps you can," said lucy, tugging at her overshoes. "i'll come back, you know, lucy, any time you ask me," declared marian, grown serious. "oh, i'll ask you now--for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year," said lucy promptly. "come on, marian, i'm roasting in these things." back at their own house, lucy heard voices from her father's study and stopped for a second, puzzled. but marian, behind her, at the first sound of that voice was in doubt no longer. with a wild rush she flung the door wide open and ran into the room. "father! i knew it!" she cried, in a burst of overwhelming delight, and as mr. leslie sprang from his chair she flung her arms about his neck. "why, marian, it's really you--safe and sound," he said, joyfully hugging her, and he pulled the tam from her tumbled hair and looked long into her smiling happy face. chapter xv one chance out of fifty before mr. leslie went to bed that night he had heard all the gordons could tell him about bob, and of the fear that lay heavy at their hearts, even since the coming of elizabeth's message. no one could resist the power of mr. leslie's generous and overflowing sympathy. he could not put into words his sorrow and deep concern at bob's misfortune, but his face, as responsive to his thoughts as marian's own, showed all he felt, and the gordons spoke to him as they had spoken to no one else. all his happiness in marian's improvement did not lift the shadow from his mood that night, even while he talked hopefully, describing the vast ship-building scheme which might bring the war to an earlier end than now seemed possible. but here major gordon was too well up in facts and figures to be deceived, and he could not be comforted by false hopes. "a year at the least, henry. you know it as well as i. our first draft is not yet fit for service, and a strong army from this side is needed to force a decision." mr. leslie attempted no contradiction, but after a moment's pause, he said, "nevertheless, the control of the seas by our merchant fleet will be a triumph. think what it would mean to defeat the submarine blockade of england." "you place your hopes on the sea," declared major gordon. "good transportation is indispensable, and worth straining every nerve to gain, but it cannot do everything. the war must be won on land; mile by mile and man by man until the enemy is broken." "i think you take the brave part of a soldier in preparing for the worst," mr. leslie persisted. "i still look for some unforeseen event which will fight for us, as russia's unfortunate confusion fought for germany." "well, i haven't much imagination," remarked major gordon soberly. "i'll be precious glad to see it, though, if it comes." marian was almost asleep by her father's chair, her heavy eyelids drooping for the past ten minutes in spite of every effort, and lucy, though her ears were open to every word, was beginning to blink herself. "you children must go to bed," said mrs. gordon, rousing herself from her thoughts. "it always makes you sleepy to be out in the cold. go ahead, lucy." marian demurred a little, but she rose in a moment and bade her father an affectionate good-night. it was easy to see how glad these two were to be together again, in spite of all mr. leslie's pre-occupation at the gordons' trouble. he looked with a smile of the keenest satisfaction after marian now, as the two girls went out of the room, leaving their elders together. nobody was sleepier than marian when she was really tired, and she said no more than to murmur a vague content at her father's arrival while she and lucy got ready for bed. lucy was not anxious to talk, for her thoughts were busy with the conversation she had just heard between her father and mr. leslie, but, ponder it as she would, it did not contain much hope or encouragement for the near future. she tried to find comfort in mr. leslie's words, but the momentary cheerfulness she summoned died away before the hard truths of the war's endless persistence and bob's imprisonment. tossed to and fro between unanswerable questions, as she listened to the murmur of voices below, at last she fell asleep. before the sun was fairly up next morning, and while she was only half awake, lucy heard footsteps at her bedside. she turned over and, to her surprise, saw marian, wrapped in a blue kimono, with her curly bright hair loose about her smiling face. "are you wondering what on earth got me up at this hour?" she asked at lucy's look of astonishment. "i couldn't sleep any longer, thinking of father's being here. won't you get up, lucy, so we can take him for a walk around the post before school? he always gets up early, and margaret will give us some breakfast." "very well," said lucy, amused. she sat up and stretched her arms above her head, not very rested after her long, uneasy thoughts of the night before. "what a lovely day!" she exclaimed, turning toward the window, through which the rising sun was streaming. "we'll take cousin henry out on the sea-wall and inside the fort." the girls dressed quickly, but mr. leslie, true to marian's words, was down-stairs almost as soon as they were. "we're going to take you for a walk," said lucy, smiling at his cheerful morning greeting. "but we'll have something to eat first, shan't we? because marian is such a walker now, there's no knowing when we'll get back." mr. leslie expressed himself heartily as being willing to go anywhere and see anything, and the breakfast which margaret sent up did not long delay them. it was a clear, cold morning, and all three, once outdoors, started off at a brisk walk, and crossed the parade toward the new land beyond brick row, where already companies were forming for drill. mr. leslie could not keep his eyes from marian, even to look at all the things she pointed out. the vigor of her movements and the lively interest which she called on him to share were alike incredible to him. the delicate, fretful little daughter he had left behind, with such qualms for her safety, had become a lovely, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl. she laughed at the delight in his face as she said: "you're surprised, aren't you, father, to see me so fat and strong? you know, i'm surprised myself. it's all lucy's fault--you must ask her all the things she made me do." marian turned a bright, friendly glance on her cousin, who answered, undisturbed, "i didn't treat her very badly, cousin henry. does she look as if i had?" "oh, father," marian interrupted, serious now, "she had the most awful time with me! i know it, lucy, so there's no use in your laughing. i wouldn't go out or do anything she or cousin sally wanted. i sat and moped until they almost gave me up as a bad job. but lucy just decided it would be doing her bit, i guess, to make me act like other people, because she kept on, and the first thing i knew i began to like going around with other girls myself." marian had never expressed herself like this before, and lucy, pleased in her heart at having her hard efforts appreciated, thought with surprise, as she had already done more than once, that marian was keener than any one gave her credit for. "lucy, i suppose you don't wish me to thank you," began mr. leslie, speaking so much more in earnest than lucy had expected that she exclaimed hastily: "oh, mercy, no, cousin henry! what on earth for? we must turn off across the grass here, if you want to walk on the sea-wall. if we go out there first the men will all be at drill when we get back, and then we can go inside the fort." mr. leslie watched lucy's face as she spoke, with a sudden, sharp contraction of his kind heart. the fresh color in her cheeks, which he had once envied for marian, had paled during the last few weeks. the twinkling, hazel eyes, which he remembered so full of life and merriment were serious and sad as she raised them to his, and in every look and gesture he saw and understood the weight of anxiety that pressed upon her. she was cheerful enough, and most people might have seen little difference, but mr. leslie had observing eyes. "poor little girl," he thought pityingly. "poor old bob, too,--hard luck." "father, you aren't looking at anything," said marian reproachfully. "here's the aviation field--see it? we get to the sea-wall right here. it's not quite so cold to-day, do you think so, lucy?" "not while we're in the sun. we come out here in all sorts of weather, cousin henry, and sometimes marian feels as though life on governor's island were a sort of arctic expedition." "except that she got back from it in fairly good shape," said mr. leslie, throwing back his head to laugh in a jolly way he had. "i can believe it took a good bit of coaxing to get her out here at first." "you bet it did," agreed marian, shivering reminiscently. "it does still, when the wind blows. we came out here once when julia had to hold her puppy for fear he'd be blown off, and i rebelled and said i wouldn't stay." "yes, we didn't always have our own way with her," said lucy. "she has been bossing me herself a good deal lately, though," she added, with a grateful remembrance of marian's thoughtfulness during the past weeks, as she looked out over the blue waters of the harbor. it was quarter to nine by the time they had come in from the sea-wall and crossed the island, past the companies at drill, to old fort jay, where they entered the sally-port in the ramparts, while mr. leslie inspected the barracks and quadrangle. marian, who was decidedly more punctual than lucy, hurried their steps to get back to the matthews' in time for school. "are you going to new york, father?" she asked. mr. leslie's plans were as yet unsettled, and his stay at the post uncertain. marian was anxious to learn what he intended to do as soon as possible. "yes, i must go over some time this morning. i can't tell whether another trip west this month is necessary until i have seen a fellow from the shipping board, who has come up from washington." "well, promise to come back for dinner," begged marian, as they neared the gordons' house. "yes, i promise. but i probably shall be gone all day. here's your father, lucy, wondering where we have flown to." major gordon was standing on the steps, cap in hand, as they came up, and he exclaimed in surprise at their early start, glancing at the watch on his wrist. "i thought you'd taken the girls off to play hooky, henry. i was almost starting after you." "we're not late," said lucy, running up the steps. "i'll get our books, marian, and come right out. there's julia crossing from her house now." "good-bye; don't stay long," marian called back to her father when she and lucy started off. lucy liked school better lately than she ever had before, because it occupied her mind and kept it from straying into what were often unhappy directions. the hours the four girls spent with miss ellis were very pleasant ones, and the mornings usually ended soon enough for everybody. lucy did object to the latin days, for it took her a whole hour of the afternoon before to prepare her lesson. to-day miss ellis gave out a whole page of sentences, and lucy said emphatically to julia, as the girls were walking home: "you have simply got to come over after lunch and help me with that latin. i'll show you about the arm-bandaging for next week, if you will." julia was willing to do almost anything for her friend these days, and she answered, glad of the opportunity, "of course i'll help you. we'll do it together. i can come over early." languages were julia's strong point. she could speak french almost as well as marian, and when the three girls got together that afternoon the lesson did not take long. as marian folded up her paper she said thoughtfully: "i suppose you've always gone to school and had to do your lessons. it's funny. i thought you worked dreadfully hard when i began studying here in september. i kept on only because i was ashamed not to be able to do as much as the rest of you." "why, you've always had a governess, marian, haven't you?" asked lucy, surprised. "oh, yes. but she didn't dare make me work hard. once she did and i got sick and scared her and father almost to death. it was at lucerne, two years ago, and the whole rest of the year i just fooled along. if she tried to begin real lessons i looked doubtful about it and she gave right in." "that was easy," said julia, laughing. "i wish i'd been brought up that way. but you seem to know a good deal, in spite of it." "that's just from traveling and reading, or what father has told me." marian called this back from her own room, where she had gone to take off her school dress. "i never really worked at anything unless i wanted to." "you're not so awfully spoiled, considering," said lucy, leaning back in her chair and watching marian lazily, as she came in, slipping over her head the dress she had brought from her room. "have i seen that one? i don't think so," said julia, turning to look with critical interest at the plaid serge that marian had changed to. "clothes may come and clothes may go, but yours go on forever," she remarked, putting down her pen. "come here, marian, and i'll fasten it for you." "i suppose i'd better put on something decent, too, before cousin henry gets back," said lucy, looking with disfavor at her tan shoes, which were decidedly in want of a polish. "you seem to dress by clockwork, marian. it's always a wrench for me to remember it." marian laughed, rising from the arm of julia's chair to stand before lucy's glass to straighten her collar and arrange the ribbons on her hair. "still, it's easier for you to look neat, having that sort of hair that curls right around where it belongs," lucy went on. "mine goes in every direction it shouldn't." she gave a vigorous tug to her hair-ribbon, and pulled her soft, fair hair down about her shoulders. "well, i can't wait while you fix all that," said julia, getting up and collecting her book and papers. "i promised to help mother at the red cross." "i'll go over with you," said marian quickly; "i'm all dressed and i'd like to." "all right--fine," said julia, as marian went into her room for her coat and hat. lucy went to the stairs with them and called good-bye over the banisters; then she returned to change her shoes and dress and put up her hair. none of this took her long, and in fifteen minutes she was ready and stood undecided by her closet door, wondering whether or not to go out and join the others. she heard the door open down-stairs and footsteps below, and had made up her mind to go down and find her mother, if she had come home, when some one knocked sharply at her door. "come in," she said, thinking it was marie, but to her surprise mr. leslie's voice said, as he opened the door, "hello, lucy! may i come and see you?" "of course, cousin henry! when did you get back?" said lucy, going to meet him with a smile of welcome. "is every one out? i was just coming down." "your mother is at home. she has some visitors down-stairs. but i want to talk to you a few minutes, if you've no objections." "not a bit," said lucy, rather mystified, as she drew forward a chair for mr. leslie and sank down herself on her little sofa. mr. leslie's checks were still ruddy from the cold air, and he rubbed his hands together a second before he began, with a quick glance at lucy's wondering face: "when i tried to tell you the other day how grateful i felt for what you have done for marian you changed the subject as soon as possible. i didn't blame you," he added with a sudden smile. "it isn't much fun being thanked. you'd rather i'd feel it and keep it to myself." "oh--honestly, i didn't do much," stammered lucy, blushing and acutely uncomfortable. she liked to be appreciated as much as any one, but this was going rather far. "you did just this," mr. leslie persisted. "you brought back marian's health--the one thing in the world i wanted that i hadn't it in my power to get." the keen, blue eyes were shining as he looked intently into lucy's shy and troubled face. "whatever you say, lucy, you have done me a service that i can never forget as long as i live, and gratitude would be an empty boast if i didn't want to do you a favor in return. i know there is only one thing in the world you want just now." lucy looked at him, startled beyond all embarrassment, as he went on, "i can't tell whether that thing is within my power to give you--i won't know for many long days--but i am going to do my best. i have good friends in switzerland, at our embassy at berne. i am going to cross this week and see what they can do toward having bob exchanged." lucy sprang from the sofa to kneel by mr. leslie's chair and look into his face. "oh, cousin henry--do you m-mean it?" she faltered, her throat painfully choking and her sight dimmed by the tears that filled and overflowed her eyes. "it isn't likely i'd say it if i didn't," responded mr. leslie's big reassuring voice, as he patted his little cousin's shoulder with a tender hand. "i don't say i shall succeed, lucy--but i'm going to try." "but what will you do, cousin henry? what _can_ you do, if the germans don't want to let him go?" cried lucy, the sudden radiance of her hope dying down at thought of the real obstacles in the way of bob's release. she dashed the tears from her eyes to look eagerly into mr. leslie's face for signs of confidence in his undertaking. his face, though, was more determined than confident as he answered, "it isn't exactly a favor we shall ask of germany. exchanges are of mutual benefit, for in bob's place a german prisoner, whom some one over there is anxious to see released, will be restored to his friends. this is done all the time, as you know, but it is subject, of course, to certain conditions." the principal one of the conditions he had in mind was that the prisoner to be exchanged must be badly wounded, but he did not mention this just then. mr. leslie was not so foolishly optimistic as to be blind to the difficulties in his way, but he considered a reasonable hope as ground enough on which to proceed. "the way these exchanges are managed," he went on, "is through the mediation of our minister in switzerland with the diplomat who has charge of our affairs in berlin. in this way ambassador gerard, who had charge of british affairs in germany from the outbreak of the war, obtained the release of many british prisoners, or, when this was impossible, at least managed to better their condition. the spanish ambassador, who looks after the united states now in germany, is my very old friend, whose house we rented in cadiz, the winter marian's mother died. i know he will do his best for me--though what that best amounts to only time can tell. but it's enough to cheer up a little on--isn't it, lucy?" "oh, yes, it is, cousin henry!" cried lucy, with light in her eyes and a new life in her voice as she stood up by mr. leslie's side. "do father and mother know?" "your father does. he's coming in now," said mr. leslie, looking from the window. "i'll go down and speak to him and to your mother, if those people have gone." "i'm coming, too," exclaimed lucy, wiping her eyes and tucking back her hair, after a hasty glance in the mirror. "i know all about it, so i may hear what you say to them, mayn't i?" "i don't see why not," said mr. leslie cheerfully, as he led the way down-stairs to the study, where major and mrs. gordon were looking over the afternoon mail. the talk which followed was a long one, and lucy's joy was tempered by a few troubled and remorseful moments. mrs. gordon, overcome with gratitude as lucy had been, still found thought for marian, and hesitated to permit the journey mr. leslie meant to undertake in their behalf. major gordon, too, looking anxious and care-worn, made an attempt to dissuade him. "it's one chance out of fifty that you'll succeed, henry," he said soberly, "and the risk to yourself amounts to something. it's more than we can reasonably ask of you." "you didn't ask it," responded mr. leslie, calmly. "i told lucy i intended doing something for her, to repay what she has done for my little girl, and i mean to stick to it. i saw about my passports to-day." lucy was sitting on the floor by her mother's side, and at this she felt the unruly tears rising again to her eyes, as she leaned against her mother's knee while mrs. gordon's arm stole about her shoulders. "more than that," mr. leslie continued, "i'm doing it for my own satisfaction. having friends whose help will give me a reasonable chance of success i can't rest content without an effort to get bob out. maybe i'll only be able to find out where he is and open communication with him. that will at least be something. i've known and loved the boy for twenty years. he certainly deserves this much from me." lucy's eyes met his, as he spoke these earnest words, with instant and heartfelt understanding. she knew what mr. leslie meant when he said he could not rest without doing his utmost to win bob's freedom. that longing, helpless on her part, to do something--even the least thing--in bob's behalf, had been with her many days, and she keenly understood mr. leslie's restless discontent, and guessed at his eager desire to get nearer by three thousand miles to bob's prison, and strike a blow at the battle-front itself toward his release. before any one had time to say more, marian came in, returning from the red cross. mr. leslie rose and went to meet her. "i want to talk to you, marian--just for a minute," he said. "let's go up to your room." up-stairs he unfolded his plan, making it sound as hopeful and promising as he could, nor dwelling on any possible danger to himself, but if he had looked for a scene at the news of his departure he was agreeably disappointed. marian did cry, "oh, father, you're not going over--now!" and tears of disappointment shone in her eyes, but she sat down and listened quietly to what he said, and did not refuse to understand. she was not by any means indifferent to bob's misfortune, and her sympathetic nature made her share of the gordons' trouble a very real one. bob's jolly, friendly presence had won her instant liking, in the few days she had known him, and the thought of what her father's going might achieve for him made the parting far easier to bear. as for the dangers of the voyage, once mr. leslie had pooh-poohed the idea and promised that his absence should be a short one, marian ceased to fear. she had the most unbounded confidence in her father's word, and she had often seen him go great distances in safety, and had accompanied him half-way around the world herself. this was not the only talk that occurred in the three days which followed. many were the plans discussed, suggestions offered and apprehensions felt by the different members of the family. but mr. leslie had nothing but cheerful words, now that his course was definitely settled, and his happiness in marian's recovery was heightened by the hope and comfort he saw he had brought to lucy's heart. he stuck to his original plan and sailed from "an american port" on christmas eve. chapter xvi the flying man marian missed her father, and felt keenly the disappointment of losing him so soon again, but she looked eagerly forward, with the gordons, to the success of his mission. christmas week passed slowly, but on new year's day came the welcome news by cable of his arrival on the other side. it was a new year's greeting that meant more than any good wishes could to those who received it; the knowledge that mr. leslie had safely started on his difficult undertaking. lucy and marian had been kept busy during the holidays, for miss thomas gave her class three lessons a week during that time, and her pupils had learned enough now to be really interested. she lost no opportunity to make them feel the real importance of their work. "you don't know how useful you may be before the war is over," she told the girls one day just after the new year. "every one who can do the least thing well is needed now. the smallest help is that much done, which is not left for some one else to do. experienced nurses are scarce already, and will be fewer still. even to know how to keep oneself in good health is worth much. some of you, young as you are, i feel confident could be of very real help if you were called upon. there is work to be done among children in our hospitals, for instance, for which trained nurses cannot always be spared. some of you are nearly old enough for such work, if the time comes. among the younger ones, lucy gordon strikes me as a very promising little nurse." she smiled in lucy's direction, with a pleasant, direct way she had of giving praise wherever it was due. this was the first time she had picked out lucy, who was rather overcome for a moment, though tremendously pleased nevertheless. she could not resist a triumphant glance at julia, which that good-natured young person returned with a broad grin of comprehension. "good for you, lucy! we'll be proud of you yet," whispered anne. "perhaps taking care of marian was good practice for you," she added slyly, for lucy's energetic perseverance with marian had often aroused her amusement. "yes, she was my first attempt," said lucy, smiling. "she lived through it, anyhow. come on, we're going down now." miss thomas was distributing gauze and muslin bandaging for the first-aid demonstration which followed the nursing class. lucy was so encouraged by her teacher's praise that she felt equal to anything. she wrapped the bandage about julia's supposedly injured collar-bone with cheerful ardor, until julia, cautiously wriggling her shoulder, remarked, "i wish she'd waited until we got through to tell you that. i think you've stopped the circulation. loosen it up a little." lucy burst out laughing, and undid the bandage to suit her exacting patient. "it's you who deserve all the credit," she said candidly. "any one would have to be a good nurse who had you to fix. marian lets me tie her up in knots and just grins and bears it until i let her out." "well, it's easier sometimes than arguing with you," declared julia, stretching her arm again with a sigh of relief. "i still think i was right about that sunstroke." at the last lesson lucy and julia had had a hot discussion as to whether the sunstruck person's head should be raised or lowered, which ended in lucy's spilling all the ice for her patient's head compress over julia's face as she lay on the sofa. even after that lucy refused to give in, and the book, by an annoying confusion of terms, seemed to give neither side satisfaction. lucy smiled at the remembrance. there had lots of funny things happened during the course, though such hard and effective work lay behind them, and lucy thanked miss thomas sincerely in her heart for the hours of distraction from worry that the lessons had brought. it was a lovely clear day, and after luncheon lucy offered to take william out on his sled, feeling like having a little strenuous exercise. william seemed quite willing to help her get it, for he asked: "do you mind pulling happy, too, lucy? he gets awfully deep in the snow if he has to walk." "how about me?" lucy demanded. "all right, i'll see how heavy you are." she selected the parade, which had been firmly packed down by the marching men, and drew william and happy past colonel's row and across it. then, as they came to brick row, the sparkling water tempting her, she pulled the sled over the new land toward the sea-wall, a hard tug of half a mile that made her sink down by william's side as they neared the water, with hot cheeks and panting breath. "gracious, what a pair of fat lazybones!" she exclaimed, looking at her passengers with unconcealed scorn. "why don't you get out and stretch your legs? that puppy needs some exercise." "all right," agreed william, peaceably. "you said you wanted to pull me. happy would rather walk, anyway," he added in defense of his pet, whom he had been holding on the sled with great difficulty all the way over. "it's lovely out here in the sun," said lucy, calming down. an airplane had risen from the aviation field on their left and was flying at a leisurely rate in their direction. william leaned back on the sled to watch it as it flew over them and on toward fort jay. "i guess he's cold," he remarked. "that's what makes him go so slowly." "isn't the water pretty, william?" asked lucy, looking toward the sea-wall, a hundred yards distant. "yes. he's coming back now," said william, still watching the aviator, who had circled about fort jay and was flying low over the parade at the edge of the new land, seeming to avoid the parade itself, where a few companies were marching out to drill. lucy turned from the water to follow the airplane's flight as it swooped down, barely a hundred feet above the earth, its white wings gleaming in the sunlight against the bright blue sky. suddenly she stiffened. "why, he's going to land, i do believe, and i think he'll come down on top of us!" she seized the sled rope and pulled william and happy off nearer to the sea-wall, while above them the airplane descended in a series of crooked dives to the ground. she could see the aviator pulling madly at his steering gear, as with a final glide the machine came to earth about two hundred yards from the sea-wall. "hoo-h!" breathed william, jumping up and down in his excitement. the pilot stepped out with deliberation, and at sight of his slow walk lucy recognized him, though his uniform was almost covered by a big sheepskin coat. it was the french aviator, captain jourdin, who, though discharged from active service for wounds, had taught since the declaration of war in the american aviation schools. he was a familiar figure on governor's island, where he spent a part of the time he divided among half a dozen places. his ankle was held in an iron brace, and he limped heavily in walking, but his general activity was not much impaired in spite of it. as he approached the children now, his keen dark eyes were fixed on them with a touch of anxiety. "i beg a thousand pardons," were his first words as he neared the sled from which lucy came forward to meet him. "i frightened you, i fear?" he looked from lucy's face to william's for signs of alarm, while lucy answered: "oh, no, you didn't--honestly. i got out of the way because i wasn't sure where you were coming down." she had never seen the famous young veteran so near before, and she scanned his face with eager interest. [illustration: "i did not know where i should land"] "i did not know where i should land myself," he declared, shaking his head and glancing at the airplane behind him. "it is an old one that they have repaired to use for practice flights. i took it out to see if it would do, but--it will not," he ended in a tone of conviction. "the steering gear was a bit too much for me." he gave a rueful look at his right hand, which he had wrenched in trying to bring the airplane safely to earth. it was already swollen about the wrist. all lucy's interest in nursing, fostered by what she had lately learned, sprang into life at sight of the ugly sprain. she was a little shy of the french officer, but she put aside her diffidence and spoke boldly. "please let me tie it up for you! i can keep it from swelling any more, and it would be half an hour before you could get to the hospital." the frenchman shook his head with a smile, as though about to refuse, but perhaps the eager look in lucy's face changed his mind. his smile broadened, and he held out his injured hand, saying, "many thanks, miss. you are more than kind. may i sit down on the little brother's sled?" william nodded vigorously, not finding words to reply, and the aviator seated himself, stretching his stiff leg out in front of him. lucy's thoughts had not been a second idle. "elevate the joint if possible and apply heat or cold. cold may be applied in the form of snow or crushed ice in a cloth." nothing could be easier to follow than those directions. she took a clean handkerchief from her coat pocket, but at sight of it captain jourdin dived with his left hand inside his coat and produced his own. "this is a trifle larger," he suggested, handing it to lucy with a twinkle in his eyes. lucy was too much in earnest to give more than a nod in return. she took her own handkerchief and filled it with clean snow, scraped from below the surface. then laying the cold compress carefully about the officer's swollen wrist, she fastened it firmly in place with his handkerchief. the result had a bulky look, but it gave the aching wrist a good deal of comfort, for her patient's voice sounded sincere when he exclaimed: "that's good! that was just the right thing for it. you seem to be a very wise young lady." he smiled at her as he fingered the snow bandage critically. "might i ask your name?" he added, as lucy, feeling shy again after her bold attempt at assistance, flicked the snow from her bare hands with her glove. "lucy gordon," she said, looking up at this; "and my brother's name is william." "so is mine," declared the frenchman, with a friendly glance in william's direction, "only i don't say it quite that way. your father is an officer on the post?" he inquired. "yes; a major on the staff," explained lucy; then, feeling expansive in the presence of a listener who could so well understand her, she added, "my older brother is an aviator. he went to france in the summer and now he is a prisoner in germany." "no! a prisoner?" was the quick and sympathetic response, as the dark eyes lighted up with a look of keen interest. "ah, that is hard!" he said softly; "but your brother did his best for his country, and still his life is spared. we can only hope that soon the war may be won, and our friends come back to us." lucy nodded, her eyes sad and wistful for a moment as she said, "he loved flying. he came from west point only last august, but he was transferred to the aviation corps right away. look, captain jourdin--they must be coming after you." a little group of men had started over from the aviation field, evidently to find out the cause of the aviator's protracted stop, and at sight of them captain jourdin rose at once to his feet, signaling with his left arm to reassure them. "i shall need a mechanic before that machine rises again," he remarked, "so i must go forward and explain to captain brent." he turned back to lucy and held out his unbandaged hand. "you will excuse me," he said, smiling, "if i do not offer you the other. good-bye and many thanks, miss lucie. i shall hope to meet that brother of yours, the aviator, before many long months. my very good wishes for his near and safe return." he held up his bandaged wrist, adding, "it is you i have to thank that this is no longer painful." "i'm so glad," faltered lucy, longing, as she shook hands, to ask more about bob, and what chance mr. leslie might have of success. the frenchman gave a friendly salute to william, who returned it promptly with his red-mittened paw, and limped slowly off over the snow to meet the advancing officer. "i wonder if he could have told me anything," lucy asked herself, wishing she had got up courage to question him further while she had time. "he's had no end of adventures since the war began. perhaps he's been in a german prison, too." "come on, lucy, let's go. what are you standing there for?" demanded william, stamping his cold feet and looking impatiently at his sister, who seemed lost in watching the departing frenchman. "i wonder what he's been through since 1914," lucy murmured; then, turning back to william and the sled, she picked up the rope, saying, "all right, come on. suppose you walk until you get warm and then i'll pull you the rest of the way. happy can do whichever he likes." "he'd rather walk until i get on," said william, starting along. "let's stop and look at the airplane first. it can't fly, you know." all the way home lucy was preoccupied, thinking of her hurried first-aid dressing, and of whether she had really helped the sprain, then forgetting that, to wish again that she had tried to learn something of bob's probable whereabouts and chances of liberty. "if only i may see him again, i'll ask him," she thought, but not very hopefully, for the foreign instructors remained principally on the aviation field, and the officers' children were seldom allowed there. lucy could hardly wait, when she got home, to tell her mother and marian all about it, though she stopped in the middle of her story to look up sprains in her tattered first-aid manual, to see if she had forgotten anything that could have been carried out on the spot. relieved about that she went on talking, and as she described the french aviator mrs. gordon said: "that's the man captain brent speaks so much of. he can't say enough in his praise. he was telling your father the other night about some of his wonderful exploits." "oh, i wish i might hear about them! i'll ask captain brent," exclaimed lucy, eagerly. "that's what i get for staying at home," remarked marian, who was sitting beside mrs. gordon's sewing-table, absently twisting a curl about her finger. "of course you had to have an adventure, lucy, when i wasn't there. interesting things always seem to happen on the coldest days." "it was my fault this time," said mrs. gordon. "i didn't want you to go out again in the cold." she looked at marian's pretty, regretful face with a smile that had behind it a clear, searching glance. she had feared that mr. leslie's departure might prove a trying disappointment, and lead marian to mope again, but though it was evident that she missed her father, and that he was constantly in her thoughts, marian's health was now too firmly re-established to suffer seriously. her father's delight, too, at the change in her, was enough to keep up her interest in her own improvement. mrs. gordon looked with satisfaction at the worn skirt of marian's serge dress, where she had knelt on william's sled, and had crawled over the floor while following miss thomas' directions in regard to escaping from a burning house. her dresses never had known such marks before, but had been given away as good as new at the end of the season. mrs. gordon welcomed, in marian's case, a few of the tears and worn places with which her own children furnished her almost too plentifully. "i'm going to change it in a minute, cousin sally," said marian, following mrs. gordon's glance to her knees. "but i think i'll go and write to father first; though, from what he said about his address," she added doubtfully, "it's about as definite as writing to santa claus." "not quite so bad as that," said mrs. gordon, smiling, "because he'll get your letters--sooner or later." she was serious again before she finished speaking, and lucy, guessing her thoughts, knew that she was longing for the day when word from bob should come, and messages from home could at least reach his prison. unable to offer any encouragement worth hearing, lucy rose from the floor with a smothered sigh, saying, "i need to dress, too. come on, marian. that pesky hair of yours looks just as nice as it did at breakfast." in the evening, to lucy's delight, captain brent came to call, anxious to hear about the progress of mr. leslie's journey in bob's behalf. lucy could scarcely wait for a chance to ask him about captain jourdin. when the opportunity came she demanded, breathlessly, "was he badly wounded? did he do wonderful things first, captain brent? was he ever taken prisoner?" "one at a time, captain lucy," said the officer, laughing. "i know why you're so interested, though. he told me about the excellent treatment his sprained wrist received as soon as the beastly machine came down. i asked who tied it up for him, as he evidently couldn't have done it alone, and he said he had no idea american girls were so accomplished." "but what did the doctor say who saw the bandage?" inquired major gordon, amused. "i don't know, but it looked pretty good to me. the swelling didn't get any worse, which was what jourdin wanted," declared captain brent, leaning down to play with happy, who was growling at one of his boots. "won't you tell some of the things he's done?" begged lucy, afraid it would be bedtime before she heard anything. "why, it would take a week to tell all of them," said captain brent, straightening up again and speaking thoughtfully. "i heard about his service in france from a british officer who was over on long island last month. jourdin would never tell anything. he thinks he made a mess of things--getting out of the fight so early." "how long was he in the war?" asked mrs. gordon. "two years, just about. the information he brought back from the german lines was instrumental in winning the battle of the somme, according to this englishman. there is nothing jourdin would not undertake to do, if the object were worth gaining. his last flight before his discharge was made over enemy territory after he received two bullets in his leg and another through the shoulder. he wouldn't go back until he learned what he was told to find out. but the bones of his ankle were injured beyond repair." "was he ever taken prisoner?" lucy could not help repeating. "no, never--though he had several narrow escapes when he was forced to go down behind the german lines. his brother, an infantry colonel, is in a german prison now." "does he hear from him? can he get letters?" lucy questioned eagerly. "i don't know. i'll ask him if you like. we've never got on that subject." lucy's knitting had fallen, forgotten, at her feet, and only happy's excitement as he grabbed the ball and rolled over on it made her stoop to rescue the sock, while marian snatched up the puppy from the tangle of yarn. major gordon had begun talking to captain brent, and lucy felt she had asked her share of questions, but she longed to find out more about the frenchman and obtain captain brent's promise to learn from him whatever he knew about german prisons. captain brent would be glad enough himself, she was sure, to learn something about bob's fortunes, and he saw the aviator almost every day. however, just then she had to be patient, for mrs. gordon drew her attention to the clock, and she and marian got up and said good-night. "i wonder if your father has got to switzerland yet, marian, or if he has talked to any one about bob," lucy asked when they were up-stairs, as she had done nearly every evening since mr. leslie's arrival on the other side. she followed marian into her room and watched her cousin with admiring eyes as she brushed out her golden curls and braided them into two pigtails for the night. "i don't know, but we'll hear before very long," was marian's sensible answer, which was not very satisfying to lucy, though she nodded a faint agreement. "i never could bear waiting," she remarked, turning to go back to her own room. "neither can bob. we'd both rather do anything than expect things that don't happen." "perhaps you won't have to wait much longer. i can't help thinking that father will send good news soon," said marian, with a hopeful look that cheered lucy in spite of herself. marian put on a blue silk kimono and dived into the closet for her slippers while lucy still stood uncertainly in the doorway. "the only thing is," she muttered, frowning a little at the thought, "i know father won't stay here much longer if we don't hear any news. mother told me this morning that he intends asking for foreign service." "but can he leave here?" asked marian, astonished. "he has one year more on this staff detail, but he thinks they will let him go. they are short of q. m. officers on the other side. he will go when his detail ends, anyhow--if the war isn't over." "but perhaps it will be," suggested marian, looking like a cheerful little prophet wrapped in blue silk. "perhaps," said lucy, smiling faintly at her. "anyhow, i'd better go to bed." chapter xvii over the frontier six weeks of imprisonment had brought few changes to bob, and those few were not of a pleasant sort. the only bright spot in the dark monotony of his life was sergeant cameron's companionship, for repeated requests had finally obtained it for him, in a qualified degree. his captors had no objection to the sergeant's waiting on the american officer in place of a german orderly, so after the usual hesitation and delay, sergeant cameron was allowed to visit bob and attend to his simple wants in the short periods during which the doors remained unlocked. bob still shared bertrand's room, and most of sergeant cameron's ministrations were by now directed, together with bob's, to making the unfortunate officer as comfortable as possible. the two or three weeks which were to elapse before his transfer to better quarters had lengthened to five, and still the fever came and went, each time leaving the patient sufferer thinner, weaker, and less able to fight for his life. as bob knelt beside his cot one cold, dark morning, with a bowl of coffee in his hands, he turned a weary, anxious face to sergeant cameron, who was trying to blow the few sticks on the hearth into a lively blaze. "it's no use, sergeant," he said, sombrely. "i can't make him take anything. he won't be roused at all. confound that doctor! he hasn't been near us in three days." "he's off at another camp, sir, so i heard from the guard," said the sergeant, pausing in his work to look at captain bertrand's flushed and unconscious face as he lay heavily breathing. "i think he'll be along to-day. he has more to do than he can manage, but he seems a pretty good sort, for a boche." bob gave a grunt of angry helplessness. "then why doesn't he get this poor fellow moved? can't he see that he's dying on his hands? i don't care if their hospitals are jammed with wounded--one frenchman is worth a dozen of them!" bob spoke with a bitterness that was new to him, and his frowning brows did not unknit themselves as he rose from the floor, carefully drawing the blanket over bertrand's shoulders. sergeant cameron finished mending the fire in thoughtful silence. the old soldier had suffered heavy disappointment in being captured and removed from the fighting line so early in the struggle, during a trifling raid on a bit of exposed german trench. since then, too, he had known hard privation in the prison camp, but at least half of the anxiety and depression that had paled his ruddy face was for the son of his old major, whose every word and gesture showed the strain of indignation, hunger, and rigid confinement unwillingly borne. he could not do much to alleviate bob's misery, but stories of major gordon's old regiment, which had been honored by an early place in the first line trenches, were always welcome to bob's ears, and even a little talk would sometimes cheer him, for he was too young to be gloomy all the time. "they say there's been a big british advance, lieutenant," he began, rubbing his blackened fingers against each other as he turned from the hearth. "there's a new lot of prisoners come in early this morning. they're in the next barrack to me, so i'll have a word with them if possible at dinner-time." "what did you hear? where was the push made?" bob asked, his eager interest smoothing out the wrinkles in his forehead and giving him back his boyish look. he was standing by the table, stirring a bit of bread in his bowl of acorn coffee. "it was near a place the french call cam-berray, or something like that," said the sergeant, diffidently. "the advance was led by general byng. i got that much last night through a knot-hole in the wall, from a frenchman who's chummy with me and speaks a bit of english." "cambrai, i guess," exclaimed bob, forgetting his breakfast as he stared into space with thoughtful eyes. "i wonder how much it means!" "don't know, sir, but i'll find out all i can," promised the sergeant, relieved to see the look of bitter depression gone for the moment from bob's face. "they can't prevent the men talking together a good bit--we're so crowded up like, in our barrack." the last two weeks had brought a crowd of french and british prisoners to the camp until it was filled to overflowing. but with every new arrival, rumor stole about that the germans on the western front had paid a deadly price for each man captured, and that a far greater number of soldiers from the german lines were in the hands of the allies. but this was as much good news as bob and sergeant cameron could summon to cheer them. no letters had reached them, nor any news that their own had been sent on. they might have been on a desert island for all the communication they could obtain with america. the little money bob had hoarded was spent at last, and he suffered greatly from the monotonous and meagre diet. his repeated requests for advances of money from the commandant had met with no reply, and he had long since ceased to expect any. sergeant cameron at first had put a cheerful interpretation on this indifference and neglect of the prisoners. "it's plain they are hard up, lieutenant," he said hopefully, "for they can't spare us a word or a thought. they have to keep the war going at all costs." "i think they just don't care what becomes of us," returned bob, in one of his hopeless moments. he had nerved himself to endure his captivity bravely, but the everlasting monotony and privation were harder for his active nature to bear than the fiercest battle. a letter from home, telling him that they knew where he was and trusted to his pluck and endurance would have done wonders for him, but none took the trouble to forward a letter into the heart of prussia, to a prisoner from the nation that germany now hated even beyond her hate for england--because it had foiled her imagined victory. however, no one who is in reasonable health and not suffering keenly can be miserable all day long. at any rate bob could not, and the fits of brooding that worried sergeant cameron did not last more than an hour or two. after breakfast bob went outside and took a walk along his wired-in alley in the not very cheerful company of a british colonel who had recently been captured and couldn't get over the exasperating annoyance of being taken away just when he was most needed. he occupied bob's old room and met his advances with friendliness, but had not recovered spirits enough to do more than talk about the beastly bad luck of his having managed to run right against that boche patrol. bob told him the rumors of general byng's advance and awakened a spark of real interest in the britisher, as well as another burst of anger at his own impotence. "to think i might have been there!" exclaimed the captive colonel with longing eyes, a flush coming over his lean, weather-worn cheek. "we're out of luck, young fellow, and that's the truth--but i had some of it, at any rate." "yes," sighed bob, vague thoughts of some desperate attempt at escape floating through his mind, to be impatiently dismissed at sight of the endless sentries patrolling their lengths of wire alleys. "a kangaroo with a machine gun might get away," he thought idly, "but i certainly can't." the sun had not appeared for the past two days, hiding behind thick, gray clouds which gave a melancholy tone to the dreary winter landscape. bob felt inclined to blame it as being a prussian sun and unsympathetic to shivering young americans whose fire-wood was not furnished in sufficient quantities. but it peeped out, mistily, an hour later when bob went back to bertrand, hoping for a change in his comrade's heavy, feverish stupor. the sick man still lay with closed eyes, breathing fast and hard, but as bob approached him, his lids flickered open and his bright eyes fixed themselves upon bob's face. "a little water, comrade," he murmured, the ghost of his old graciousness of manner lingering in his feeble voice. bob rejoiced at his words, his first sensible utterance in many hours, and hastened to obey his request. as he bent over the bed, raising the frenchman's thin frame with one arm to hold the water to his hot lips, bertrand whispered, "you have been a friend, _mon garã§on_,--many thanks, while i have breath to say it!" he panted as he spoke, but his bright eyes turned to bob's with a glance of affectionate gratitude, and their intelligence was for the moment unclouded. "if i must die in prison--in an enemy's country--it is something, comrade, to have your friendly face so near at hand. we are true allies,--france and america." he fell back gasping, while bob, his own eyes blurred with quick tears of pity and understanding, dipped a handkerchief in the cold water and laid it over bertrand's burning forehead. "you're not going to die," he said, doggedly, though his voice was choked as he spoke and his grim face belied his hopeful words. "i'm going to get that doctor now, if i have to storm the commandant in his own den." this he announced with a determination that took no thought as yet of ways and means. he rose from beside the cot, where bertrand lay exhausted after his battle for breath to speak with, and strode toward the door. outside he could hear the prisoners marching toward the kitchen and the german guard was unlocking the officers' rooms for dinner. bob waited for his own door to open, his purpose unwavering to demand attention for bertrand's desperate need, no matter what retribution any violence might bring upon himself. he did not intend to wait for a word with sergeant cameron, but rapidly pieced together his german to address the guard as soon as the door opened. but when it did open, bob's set face wavered almost to a smile with the quick relief of it. he would not have to engage just then, anxious and hungry as he was, on the doubtful struggle with the powers above him, for behind the guard stood the short, alert figure of the doctor, wrapped in a gray uniform overcoat, his face reddened by the frosty air. bob felt almost as though the german were a friend as he stepped eagerly forward, fearful lest he should somehow escape him, saying, "doctor, thank heaven you've come! captain bertrand is very ill. why haven't you had him taken away?" the touch of indignation in his last words was acknowledged by the german with a slight shrug of the shoulders as he stepped inside the room and laid his medicine case on the table. "i cannot perform the impossible," he said shortly, giving a keen glance in bertrand's direction. "he is not the only sick man in germany." bob checked his resentment at this cool retort, and gave all his attention to helping the doctor make the sick man more comfortable. it was evident to both of them that there was little to be done, for the medicine case was not able to furnish the doctor with what he wanted, and bertrand, sunk again into feverish slumber, gave no answer to the questions put to him. at last the german put on his gloves and prepared to take leave, but before doing so he forestalled bob's obvious intention of protesting against bertrand's remaining any longer in the prison by saying irritably: "yes, yes! he shall be moved. soon, too--he has been here far too long already." he glanced at bob with a look of angry dissatisfaction, whether at the young american himself, the sick man, or the german medical staff's mismanagement, bob did not know; but after a curt nod he departed, leaving bob in a state of painful uncertainty during the few moments he passed alone with bertrand before sergeant cameron brought in his meagre noonday meal. just what the doctor meant to do bob was far from feeling sure, and sergeant cameron had little to say, after his five weeks' experience with german promises which lacked the merit of ever being performed. at five o'clock that afternoon bob heard the guard at his door, and rising from a dreary revery by bertrand's side, he went to meet him. sergeant cameron was due with his supper and bob was anxious for a word with him. their patient was still just lingering on the borderland of unconsciousness. sergeant cameron was not yet there, but behind the guard came four soldiers, stretcher-bearers, who advanced stolidly into the little room with their unwieldy burden. bob's heart gave a sudden strange pang. the longed-for relief had come, but it was not so easy now to see his comrade of the long weeks just passed go out among strangers, too ill to wish him even a word of farewell. almost dazed he stood aside, while the doctor followed in the stretcher-bearers' wake, and ordered the french officer lifted from the cot. then bob sprang forward and helped with gentle hands that shook a little as he adjusted the blankets for the last time over his friend's thin shoulders. he said huskily to the doctor, "you'll do your best for him, won't you, herr doctor?" the german gave a nod of assent, but said nothing more. he gave bob an odd glance once or twice, and seemed more than ordinarily severe and constrained, giving the soldiers short, sharp orders which they made haste to obey. bob said no more to him, and in another moment bertrand had been carried out, and he was left alone. he sat down, looking at the empty cot, and mumbled angrily to himself, in the midst of his black depression, "don't be an ass. buck up! what a slacker you are, anyway--can't you grin and bear it, as other fellows do?" and all the while he was wondering painfully at his own weakness, and despising it, yet utterly unable to rise above it, or to take his imprisonment courageously as only one of the many evil chances of war. when sergeant cameron came in at last he was still struggling with himself, and not even the sergeant's cheerful words of thankfulness that poor bertrand was at last to be placed in competent hands--or so they hoped--could bring a ray of brightness to bob's weary brain. he drank some of his bitter coffee and went to bed--free for the first time in weeks to sleep the night through without rising to see if bertrand slept--but this night he lay awake and wished for even the sick man's companionship. when the first streaks of dawn stole through the little window bob sat up and looked curiously at the ashes on the hearth. his fire was out--that was the curious part of it, because he was not cold, though the window pane was covered with frost and his breath puffed into vapor. "i'm hot--hot as anything," he muttered, rubbing one hand over his aching forehead. "funny, for i was cold enough all night." he lay down again to ponder it. when sergeant cameron came with his breakfast bob was still lying on the cot. the sergeant laid down the bowl of coffee and the armful of wood he carried to look keenly at the young officer's flushed checks, as he lay blanketless in the cold room. "don't feel well, lieutenant?" he faltered, trying to speak naturally, but reaching for bob's hand as he spoke and starting at the burning dryness of it. "queer," said bob, trying to emerge from the dim, feverish phantoms that obscured his thoughts, "but i'll be better after a while." he spoke more cheerfully than he had done the night before. all present worries had suddenly faded from his mind. he could not seem to think of anything but what was very vague and far away. the next few days, during which bob grew steadily worse, were hard almost beyond endurance to sergeant cameron's anxious and devoted spirit. he stayed tirelessly by bob's bedside, until the german guards grew weary of ordering him away and let him be. never did a sick man receive more faithful care or more earnest watching, and the doctor, at his rare visits, looked curiously more than once at the pale, unshaven, eager face of the old "non-com," as though he wondered at such persistent faithfulness. bob was not suffering just then. for the first time in many weeks he was free, and his hot aching body, lying on the narrow cot, did not much trouble the real self that was back again on the firing line, hovering over the german trenches in benton's biplane, or swooping back to safety from pursuing guns. in quiet moments, when sergeant cameron fell into a doze by his bedside, bob dreamed he was back in his barrack room at west point, planning his graduation leave. then lucy's face would come before him and her voice sound in his ears. his mother's eyes would smile at him, with their old cheerfulness, and the war seemed very dreadful, but very dim and far away. once, after a long time during which he had lain still, not even dreaming, too weary and weak to do more than lie dully half-asleep, bob opened his eyes with a sudden clearing of his senses. voices were close beside him, and he wanted to hear what they said, but he could not understand them. then he realized they were speaking german, and felt a light-headed sort of joy at his own cleverness in discovering it. he looked up from the knees of the man who stood beside his cot, and found his face with a difficult, slow gaze. it was the doctor, and bob's troubled eyes fell from his face, for it was stern and frowning. he met another glance, as a second man bent over him, and this face arrested his attention by its difference from the doctor's light hair and fair skin. the stranger had black smooth hair, dark, sparkling eyes, and an olive complexion. bob could see his face plainly, for it was near him as the unknown bent over him from his short height. he wanted to ask, "who are you?" but the effort seemed too great to make, and before he had summoned strength for it, the two had left his side and their boots were clumping off across the room. half an hour later, in the office of the commandant, the secretary of the spanish embassy at berlin urged his case strongly. he had an ally more powerful than his arguments in the fever itself, which was bringing a look of worn anxiety to the doctor's face. he had not time nor medicine enough for the few patients the camps now held, and the prospect of a wide-spread epidemic was horrible to his harassed and order-loving soul. the conference was a short one, but the spanish secretary went back to berlin with a signed recommendation for bob's removal in his pocket, and a strong confidence that success awaited his ambassador, in his friendly prosecution of mr. leslie's demand. of all this neither sergeant cameron nor bob knew anything, but on the same day bob's faithful nurse had cause for more tempered rejoicing. one of the lulls in the fever, during which captain bertrand had been used to go about with languid footsteps, came to bob's relief. to his bodily relief, for his mind felt almost as though he would rather have stayed in the delirium when he awoke again to the dingy darkness of his prison. but for the time he was much better, and the joy on sergeant cameron's face told plainly what his desperate anxiety had been. bob's stammered thanks were quite inadequate, but without words a new bond of friendship had been forged between the two, which they knew could never break. bob ate a little bread, soaked in water, and wondered at the weakness that would hardly let him lift his hand to feed himself. "i'm pretty worthless, aren't i?" he asked, with a faint smile, then, with a sudden recollection of his ministrations to poor bertrand he added, "i wonder what they've done to bertrand! how i'd like to know." "you haven't had any letters from home, sergeant? nothing for me?" was another repeated question. the sergeant's reluctant denial cast bob's spirits down heavily, but in spite of all he convalesced--only, as both he and sergeant cameron knew, he would succumb again as bertrand had done unless his youth and health could fight more strongly for him. "funny dreams i had," he said one day to sergeant cameron, as he sat over his meagre breakfast. "i used to think i was at home, then i'd be fighting again--i never got back to prison, there was some comfort in that. one time i thought i saw a man here with the doctor--a stranger with dark hair and eyes. he looked so different from these germans--not like a frenchman either. i wonder what i was dreaming of?" "have a little of the bread, sir," suggested sergeant cameron. he was rather non-committal that morning. a new british prisoner had just whispered to him of general byng's forced retreat from a part of his hard-won gains, and the old soldier was torn with longing to get back on to the field. "i might have done more if i'd stayed with the major on governor's island," he thought bitterly, then remembering bob's need with a quick rush of generosity he took back his own words. but bob was more fortunate in his illness than he or sergeant cameron could guess. before long it was made plain to them. a german officer visited bob's room and told him with brief phrases in uncertain english of the negotiations for his exchange. it was almost too much joy for one so weak and ill as bob, and in the midst of his rejoicing his thoughts turned sadly to his faithful companion. "oh, sergeant," he said the night the good news came, "i can't bear to have all the luck! it isn't fair." "never mind that, my lad," answered the brave old veteran, forgetting all titles of respect in the earnestness of the moment. "i'll do well enough here, but you'd not have stayed with me long. thank god you can get out in time." * * * * * ten days later, on a bright frosty morning, mr. leslie stood waiting at a little railway station on the swiss frontier. he took little heed at first of the crowd around him, whose voices, high and low pitched, stern, anxious, hopeful or merry, as they spoke for busy government officials, red cross workers, or for the mothers, wives or children of returning prisoners, sounded in his ears. in a babel of french, german, flemish and english they were giving voice to their impatient hopes and lingering fears, until mr. leslie's tumultuous thoughts seemed to become a part of theirs, and he turned to look at the picturesque waiting groups with an understanding sympathy in his kind eyes. his face was rather weary, and his ready smile a little slower than when he had left america such a short while before. even in peaceful switzerland some of the great war's tragedy had been vividly unrolled before him. his search for bob, through the spanish embassy at berlin, had been a short one, for american prisoners were few and easily identified, but after that had come hopeless days of waiting in which he had looked failure in the face. the german government showed no inclination to set bob free, and mr. leslie would have gone home unsuccessful if the prisoner he sought had not become a trial and menace to the prison camp that harbored him. mr. leslie blessed the fever as he waited for the train that was bringing bob to the frontier. this realization of his highest hopes brought a warm flood of joy to his heart as he thought of the message that was even then winging its way across the sea. suddenly a little commotion rose among the crowd of people. they cried out and pointed around the bend of track, among the trees. at mr. leslie's side a little girl begged to be raised to her mother's shoulders, and the woman, as she lifted her, had tears streaming down her pale young face. the puff of smoke around the bend thickened, the engine whistled, and slowly the long train came into view. a wild cheer went up from men's and women's throats along the platform. mr. leslie swallowed hard and winked the mist from his eyes. his heart was beating faster than was comfortable as he went forward, as near as the watchful guards allowed, to meet the slowing train. inside, stretchers were made ready for those prisoners--and they were many--who could not walk from their places; others, who had lain on their stretchers on stationary racks along the car, were lifted out by willing and tender hands. but all who by any exertion of courage and strength could walk out unassisted made shift to do so, and with these bob gordon stood up wearily and tried his legs to make sure they would hold him. "no, i'm all right--i don't need you, _merci_," he told a waiting attendant, not caring whether he spoke french or english. he was only afraid that his head would burst with the rush of joy that came at sight of that little station, with the far-off mountains behind it, that spot outside of germany which told him he was free. he saw his feelings reflected in the worn faces about him--no pain had power to check it for that moment--and with a sudden return of some of his old agile strength, bob walked from the car and stepped down upon the platform. mr. leslie saw him before he reached the ground. through the crowd of sad and joyful welcomers he made a swift way to his side. he had not seen the boy for a year or more--not since furlough--he told himself, desperately forcing back the shock of pity and distress that smote him at sight of that thin, white young face and slow-moving figure. was this bob, who had never been able to move quickly enough? "the boy's had a fever, of course," mr. leslie muttered, though his heart refused to think it a quite satisfactory explanation. but just then bob saw and recognized him, and the old merry smile came swiftly to his lips. he raised his cap and waved it in a weak hurrah. all mr. leslie's conflicting emotions vanished in the swift rush of one thought--whatever he had been through, bob was free! "hello! hello!" he shouted, hardly knowing what he said. "you, cousin henry! how on earth----" cried bob, thrilling between astonishment and utter happiness as mr. leslie, carefully avoiding a wounded french soldier's toddling little son, reached past the guards to grasp bob's outstretched hand. chapter xviii captain lucy the soldier at the telegraph office on governor's island has a busy time of it--especially since the outbreak of war. cablegrams are nothing uncommon to him--he is prepared for anything. but that did not prevent his rising from his place in a burst of excitement one cold morning toward the end of january, with a yellow paper in his hand. "what do you think?" he demanded of the man who had just come in to relieve him. "listen to this: 'to major james gordon: exchanged; all well; signed, leslie.'" "what? bob gordon?" exclaimed the other, somewhat disrespectfully but with great heartiness. "say, isn't that fine? you'd better tell the major in double-quick." the outgoing operator took his advice and sat down before the telephone. in a moment he had major gordon on the wire. "cablegram, sir. shall i proceed?" "yes--yes--go ahead." major gordon's voice was not very steady. the soldier promptly gave the message, in the cheerful tone of a good-hearted fellow who knew he was communicating the best of news. he and his mate had seen bob on furlough and graduation leave--he seemed still more a west point cadet than an officer. they had a very friendly feeling for him. "thanks!" came major gordon's voice as he hung up, and the word sounded as though he meant it. "must have been in a bad way if the germans let him go," commented the relief, sitting down to work. "he'll get back to the fight again, though--mark my words," was the other man's thoughtful prophecy. major gordon had just come home from a long afternoon's inspection of q. m. stores when the telephone rang. he had looked and felt both tired and sad but in two minutes all was changed. when he turned away after taking that short message his eyes had regained their old brightness, his lips parted in a smile as merry as bob's own, the little stoop to his shoulders straightened, as with a quick, eager stride he reached the foot of the stairs and shouted for the whole house to hear, "sally! lucy! bob's exchanged!" in an hour the whole post knew of it, and half the garrison was at the gordons' door with joyful greetings. but for a little while lucy could not go down to welcome them, and marian took her place when julia and anne came to rejoice with her over the long awaited message. lucy had not cried in many days, and her courage had stood by her until marian marveled at her calm cheerfulness, but now she could be brave no longer. she sank down among the pillows of her little sofa and did not try to restrain the tears of joy and gratitude that poured down her cheeks. it seemed too good to be true--beyond belief--and more than once in that brief half hour lucy raised her head and looked with tear-wet eyes from the window at the familiar landmarks of the post, to reassure herself that she was not in a happy dream. "bob's safe--he's out of prison," she said over and over, to hear how the words sounded, and what finally led her to dry her eyes and leave her refuge on the sofa was the eager desire to show marian the gratitude she could not yet give mr. leslie for his generous devotion. next to her longing to hear from bob by his own hand, lucy wished to see her friend captain jourdin and tell him of bob's freedom. she had seen real sympathy and interest in the frenchman's bright, dark eyes, and she thought he might be able to tell her more about bob's release than they had guessed from the few words of mr. leslie's cable. dispatches from washington, following shortly after, told no more than the bare fact of the exchange, and it seemed unlikely that they could learn anything else for several days. "it all depends on their reason for letting him go," said captain brent at the gordons' that night. "they were either very anxious to get an aviator of their own back again--or else he was released for some other reason." captain brent evaded the probable "other reason," as mr. leslie had done in lucy's hearing. he guessed, as major gordon did, that bob was either ill or wounded, but major gordon felt confident, from the "all well" of mr. leslie's message, that there was no ground for heavy anxiety in his behalf. "but do you think he'll go back to fight? how i wish we could see him and find out everything!" cried lucy, with longing in her eyes. "you may be sure he'll go back as soon as possible," declared captain brent. "but i think they might give him a month's leave to come home--they probably will." "oh, don't you suppose captain jourdin would come to see us if you asked him?" lucy begged. "you see he's an aviator and so is bob and i know he's interested. i want so much to talk to him again. he'd come if you asked him, wouldn't he, captain brent?" "why, perhaps he would, lucy. you see he's awfully busy, and besides that he hates going about, because every one wants to make a hero of him, and he doesn't feel like one. but i think he'll come if your mother asks me to bring him. i don't know much about how exchanges are being managed in this war myself. he might tell us something." as a result of this talk captain jourdin did come to the gordons' one evening soon after, and though he could only guess at the circumstances of bob's release he told lucy one bit of welcome news about her brother. "the dispatches say that the american flying squadron released von arnheim for lieutenant gordon. the squadron must think highly of your son's ability, madame," he said to mrs. gordon, with a light in his brown eyes, "for they have given up a famous man to secure his freedom. i met von arnheim once--over rheims. i thought he had me for a while. i still have a bullet he gave me somewhere in my shoulder-bone." "how did you get away?" asked lucy, breathlessly, forgetting captain brent's caution not to ask the pilot about his exploits. "oh, i flew away," said captain jourdin, laughing. "i just turned tail and, as they say here, 'beat it.'" "do you think bob will go back to the war?" asked marian, shyly. "why not, miss? of course he will--though perhaps he may need rest for a time," captain jourdin added, with a flicker of meaning in his eyes. "perhaps they will give him a furlough at home. in that case we can fly together here. i shall meet him with much pleasure." he rose a moment later to take leave, and captain brent, lingering a few moments after him, said, "do you know what he's hoping for? he's no end cheerful lately. some doctor in new york is doing wonders for his ankle. he even promises jourdin that he can get back into the service. the french surgeons will give him every chance to pass." "well, i should think so!" cried lucy with enthusiasm. "wouldn't that be great? i suppose he'll do all those wonderful feats over again. it must be fun thinking about the great things you've done, even if you don't want to talk them over." "you bet it must be!" said captain brent, smiling. "you'll see bob wearing no end of medals and crosses yet. he's got the true aviator's spirit. i must get back to my quarters and go to bed," he added, as lucy gave him a delighted smile at this praise of her brother. "we are out on parade to-morrow. every airplane that can wriggle its propeller is to fly, so i'll have to be on the field early." no part of the post's war activity was so absorbing to marian as the aviation school. at captain brent's words her eyes brightened with eager interest, as she inquired of him the hours for which the trial flights were scheduled. "we'll go, lucy," she said, and lucy laughed agreement. "don't leave any machines around loose, captain brent," she cautioned, "or you'll find marian curled up in the observer's seat in disguise. if bob comes home i know she means to persuade him somehow to take her up." marian was still rather timid about sudden dangers or emergencies, but the smooth, swift flight of an airplane seemed utterly delightful to her, and as far back as september, in the midst of her shy reserve, she had understood bob's longing for a place in this splendid new arm of the service. she and lucy were early among the crowd that thronged the borders of the aviation field on the following afternoon, and as one machine after the other was rolled out and, gliding down the field on its little wheels, rose toward the clear sunny sky, marian watched them with sparkling eyes. captain jourdin was in one of them, and lucy picked his machine out at every swerve and loop, by the swift, easy evolutions he performed, so far above their heads that sometimes airplane and pilot looked a gyrating speck among the clouds. "marian, i think my neck will break in a minute!" she exclaimed at last, recalling her thoughts from visions of bob's future as captain brent had so generously predicted it, while she closed her eyes for a second against the blue, dazzling heavens, across which the airplanes swooped and darted. "there's julia," she said a moment later. "i'm going over to speak to her." lucy walked back from the field a little to join her friend. other inspections were in progress on the parade, where a battalion of infantry was marching in review. over the music of the band as it played one of harry lauder's stirring airs that made the soldiers' feet move faster, lucy said to julia: "they're fine, aren't they? but don't you still miss the old twenty-eighth? it doesn't seem as though any troops look as they did." the music stopped, and julia answered, looking at the little reviewing party advancing toward the companies, "i think one reason all the men here have done so well is because the old regiment gave them such a splendid example. they were first in the trenches--think what that means." "bob said mr. harding was so proud," said lucy, softly. "oh, i wish we could hear something about him! when i think of the night he said good-bye so cheerfully at the dock, i can't realize that he may never come back. i feel ashamed to have been thinking all the time of bob." "goodness, you needn't," said julia, giving lucy's arm a friendly squeeze. "but after bob's wonderful good fortune i can't help feeling more hopeful about other people. it seems as if there were a big chance for everybody." "you and marian are a nice little pair of optimists," remarked lucy, musingly. "still, i sort of think you're right." "let's get marian and go home," julia suggested, digging her cold hands into her pockets. "the flights are almost over." lucy reã«ntered the house with red cheeks and out of breath, having run most of the way home across the snow. "isn't it cold?" said marian, shivering. "still, i wouldn't have missed it for anything." lucy did not answer, for her eyes were fixed on a postal which the mailman had dropped, as he always did whatever he brought, on the post at the foot of the stairs. it was addressed to her, but--and this made lucy stare at it with bated breath--it was addressed in her own writing. incredulous, she pulled off her glove and picked it up. the writing on the other side was strange--far neater and smaller than dick harding's, but at the bottom was the familiar r. h. "marian!" she burst out, in a rush of bewildered joy, "it's from him! mr. harding! oh, i can't wait!" she dropped down on the lowest step of the stairs and marian collapsed into an eager heap beside her, as she bent over the card and read: "dear captain lucy: are you surprised, or did the dispatches saying i'm not 'missing' any longer get ahead of this? i cabled my family in the islands to-day, and in my old coat i found this card and remembered my promise. i am pretty well knocked up still, but nothing to worry over. i was picked up wounded after the rumpus, by some women, and taken to a french farmhouse. nobody knew where i was, until i got better and told the good people who took care of me to send word to our lines. before that happened the country around was heavily bombarded, and no one dared stir from the house that sheltered me. i am in a big hospital now, being fed and petted like a pussy-cat. my nurse says there's no more room to write, so good-bye. best wishes for bob's luck in the flying corps. r. h." "oh, lucy, how wonderful!" cried marian, her blue eyes shining, and her cheeks pink with excitement and delight. "to think he should have remembered you right off, and let you know he was safe!" lucy's heart was beating joyfully and hard, and for a moment she could scarcely speak, but when she did it was to say with sober earnestness: "if i ever get down-hearted again, marian, just remind me of this. i never thought i'd see or hear from him again!" pride in her old friend's constancy was not the greatest part of her happiness just then, but it did have a share in it when major gordon came in a few hours later with official confirmation of mr. harding's safety. "news doesn't get from washington very fast, cousin james," said marian, as the family received major gordon's announcement with cheerful calm. "lucy has heard already from the front." after those endless days which the gordons would never forget, when they waited hour after hour and day after day, for the news that never came, it seemed all at once as though good things were coming, almost before they were expected. the house was a different place in this last week, and more than once lucy saw the old, bright smile linger on her mother's face. "isn't it lots nicer since bob made the germans let him go?" william asked his sister one day after a moment's thoughtful silence. "rather," was lucy's short answer, but it seemed as though she said much more than that. at last bob's letter came, and with the reading of it, some at least of the darkness that had encircled him was cleared away. he could not tell all his adventures of the past two months, but through the lines the quick, sympathetic hearts of those at home guessed, as he had known they would, of the loneliness and misery that had so nearly overcome his brave spirit. "you never could guess what one letter would have meant to me," he said, when his cautious reserve, lest they should think him almost done for, was for the moment forgotten. "if ever i have prisoners to guard--boches, or i don't care whom--i'll give them their letters from home. it doesn't help win the war to keep them back, and it gives the prisoner a bitter feeling toward his captors that he'll never forget as long as he lives. "but i'm all right now," he wrote cheerfully. "cousin henry and i are in a snug little french village near the coast, where a lot of convalescent officers and men are put up for a month or so. it's just perfect to me--the freedom and the feeling of being among friends again. having plenty to eat is pretty comfortable, too. once or twice i've caught cousin henry looking curiously at me, as though he thought i was never going to stop. i've tried to thank him for getting me out, and i've written the spanish ambassador at berlin (by way of spain), but there's no use trying to tell them all i feel. you have to be in prison to know how it feels to get out. i only hope that sergeant cameron has got at least one of the packages i've sent him through switzerland. just let's pray our army gets over here quickly by the million, and the beastly war comes to an end before 1918 is over. "they say i can have leave to go home, but if i keep on getting well here at this rate, honestly, i don't see how i can ask it. that's for the doctor to decide anyway, so i won't bother. but when you're on this side and see all that's waiting to be done! i don't wonder father feels the way he does about coming over, but if there is nobody behind us at home to send on the men and the supplies, where will we be? "my captain sent me congratulations on my exchange. they had tried to negotiate one before, to see if they could find out what had become of us--especially benton. but it fell through, and they couldn't discover anything. it was only the fever that let me out. the german they exchanged me for is a first rate pilot. i've seen him fly, and it makes me wild to think of his getting back to work before i can do my bit again. it's that makes a leave seem impossible, if i can get well here. if everybody sticks it out and does what he can to help win, before very long we'll all be home for good. "cousin henry sails next week, so pretty soon you'll know all he has to tell about me. i'll never forget how good it looked to see his face when that train drew up beside the swiss frontier. at first he looked worried, but not long, for i got well so fast. he thinks i'm all right now. "it's only the first lap of the race that's over, but i came out of it with such luck, i'm not afraid to face the next." lucy and marian had taken the letter up-stairs to read a second time, and when it was finished marian looked at her cousin anxiously, for lucy had fallen into a revery, and sat with sober, thoughtful eyes, and close-set lips. marian thought she knew what the doubt of bob's home-coming must mean to her. "but, lucy, he seems so well and happy," she said at last, uncertainly. "he wants so awfully to get back and fly." lucy raised her eyes and smiled, her chin cupped in her hand. "i'm not worrying about him, marian. it's just that there's a lot to think about." in the long, hard days of bob's imprisonment lucy had found the courage to endure which bob himself had sought so often. and once found she meant to cling to it. "only the first lap of the race," bob had said, but to lucy it seemed as though the race were half won, for never, never, she told herself, would she again give way to hopeless fears--no matter what dark days were ahead--since out of the deadly danger of battle-field and prison camp bob had once come safely back. the stories in this series are: captain lucy and lieutenant bob captain lucy in france captain lucy's flying ace (_in press_) file was made using scans of public domain works put online by harvard university library's open collections program, women working 1800 1930) transcriber's notes certain typographical features of the original cannot be reproduced illustrations cannot be reproduced in this version of the text. they are indicated in the text, in their approximate positions, as: [illustration: <caption>]. autograph letters, signatures, and similar documents which were presented as images in the original, but have been transcribed here, in lieu of captions. italic fonts are rendered using delimiting underscores, as _italic_. the 'oe' ligature is spelled with separate characters. words in all small capital letters, including those which employ mixed case, are shifted to uppercase. footnotes, which appeared at the bottom of the page, are positioned at logical breaks following their references. they have been assigned unique letters, beginning with 'a', and appear as: [a] text of footnote. the lists of illustrations and contents have several anomalous, though accurate, entries. for example, the section on the re-incorporation of the red cross, beginning on page 94, appears in the contents between sections on p. 184 and p. 197, for no apparent reason. the reference has been placed in its proper position in the contents. please note that the entries in the contents do not always refer to formal sections of the text. they sometimes direct one to a change of topic otherwise unmarked in the text itself. several of the photographs associated with the spanish american war, which were included at the end of the volume on pp. 675 and 676, are listed in the illustrations where their subjects would appear. the opening of the section on general history is labeled "chapter i", the only use of that designation in the volume. [frontispiece: clara barton. _from a portrait taken about 1875._] the red cross in peace and war [illustration] by clara barton american historical press 1906 copyright 1898, by clara barton from the president of the united states in his message to congress december 6, 1898. it is a pleasure for me to mention in terms of cordial appreciation the timely and useful work of the american national red cross, both in relief measures preparatory to the campaigns, in sanitary assistance at several of the camps of assemblage, and, later, under the able and experienced leadership of the president of the society, miss clara barton, on the fields of battle and in the hospitals at the front in cuba. working in conjunction with the governmental authorities and under their sanction and approval, and with the enthusiastic co-operation of many patriotic women and societies in the various states, the red cross has fully maintained its already high reputation for intense earnestness and ability to exercise the noble purposes of its international organization, thus justifying the confidence and support which it has received at the hands of the american people. to the members and officers and all who aided them in their philanthropic work, the sincere and lasting gratitude of the soldiers and the public is due and freely accorded. in tracing these events we are constantly reminded of our obligations to the divine master for his watchful care over us and his safe guidance, for which the nation makes reverent acknowledgment and offers humble prayers for the continuance of his favors. [illustration: william mckinley] illustrations. page. clara barton, from a portrait taken about 1875 frontispiece. the international committee of the red cross, geneva, switzerland opp. 16 clara barton, taken about 1885 opp. 17 the first red cross warehouse, washington, d.c. 21 national red cross headquarters in washington, from 1892 to 1897 22 some of the first members of the american national red cross 43 a group of american national red cross members 44 a group of american national red cross members 55 suburban headquarters, american national red cross 56 some red cross decorations presented to clara barton 83 chronological historic tree 84 clara barton, taken about 1884 113 "josh v. throop" 114 camp perry 143 red cross headquarters 144 johnstown, pa., before the flood of 1889 155 red cross hotel, locust street, johnstown, pa. 156 red cross furniture room, johnstown, pa. 163 typical scene after the flood at johnstown, pa., may 30, 1889 164 in memoriam 174 typhus fever patients in the russian famine, 1891-92 181 count lyoff tolstoi 182 women cutting potatoes for planting--sea island relief, s.c., february, 1894 199 a windfall for st. helena 200 testimonial from russian workmen for american help and sympathy in the famine of 1892 217 a russian peasant village 218 receiving room for clothing, s.c. island relief, 1893-94 235 south carolina sea island relief 236 the island district from savannah to beaufort 251 sick with the famine fever 253 hunger-stricken 254 miss barton's room 271 in the old schloss of baden 272 red cross headquarters, constantinople 281 view from red cross headquarters, constantinople 282 turkish cemetery 282 chief of the dersin kourds and his three sub-chiefs 291 chief of the dersin kourds 292 decoration of the royal order of melusine 300 tower of christ, constantinople 301 w.w. peet, esq. 302 rev. henry o. dwight, d.d. 302 rev. joseph k. greene, d.d. 302 rev. george washburn, d.d. 302 signature of the sultan 303 turkish dispatches 306, 307 map of the country traversed by the red cross expeditions carrying american relief to the victims of the armenian massacres in 1896 309 interior of gregorian church at oorfa 308 american college buildings, aintab 311 american and armenian quarters, harpoot 311 marash 312 red cross caravan 312 a bit of palou 318 rev. c.f. gates, d.d., harpoot 321 miss caroline e. bush, harpoot 321 first expedition embarking on ferryboat, euphrates river 321 a turkish teskere or passport 322 diarbeker, vilayet of diarbeker 331 ruins of an old gateway at farkin 332 some methods of work 340 salemlik 341 pera bridge, constantinople 341 turkish coffee house 342 hamalls--showing manner of carrying heavy burdens 342 red cross expeditions passing through the valley of catch beard 348 a turkish procession in arabkir 349 judge alexander w. terrell, united states minister to constantinople during the armenian troubles 351 armenian and turkish decorations 352 group of armenian teachers and pupils, harpoot american missionary college 357 clara barton, taken in 1897 358 a part of the american national red cross fleet in the spanish-american war of 1898 371 officers of the executive committee american national red cross 372 admiral william t. sampson 381 governor-general's palace, havana 382 entrance to harbor of havana--punta park 391 john d. long, secretary of navy 392 on san juan hill, santiago 407 spanish guerillas 409 a mounted advance, reconnoitring 410 united states steamship "oregon" 413 "almirante oquendo," after the engagement 419 united states warships before the entrance to santiago harbor 421 "marie teresa" after the engagement 424 chickamauga camp 427 camp thomas, headquarters american national red cross 428 fortifications of manila 440 red cross dining room for convalescents, fort mcpherson, ga. 445 dining tent attached to red cross kitchen, at camp hobson, ga. 446 panorama of manila 451 in the trenches before santiago 453 a soldier funeral 463 mccalla camp--early morning attack 454 a typical cuban camp 464 a cuban "block house," garrisoned 481 a view of eastern cuba 482 a part of the red cross corps 499 "i am with the wounded."--clara barton's cable message from havana 500 wreck of the battleship "maine," havana harbor 517 the prado--principal street in havana 518 havana harbor 535 captain c.d. sigsbee 536 street in cavite 539 citizens of jaruco presenting a memorial for the victims of the "maine" 553 little convalescents in hospital 554 location of shore batteries, santiago 556 july fifth in rifle pits 558 scenes on the "state of texas" and in siboney 570 the physicians and nurses of the orphanage and clinic in havana 571 a cuban thatch hut 581 a battery of cuban artillery 582 a group of red cross sisters 591 diploma of gratitude for miss clara barton from the red cross of spain 592 view of santiago de cuba from the harbor 675 view of morro castle, santiago de cuba 676 the burning of siboney 597 annie e. wheeler 609 the youngest red cross nurse 610 scenes in siboney 627 scenes in santiago 628 refugees from santiago 636 santiago refugees at el caney 639 establishing headquarters ashore 640 starving in the plaza 647 los fosos 648 bringing in the wounded 657 clearing for a cross road 658 contents. page to the people 13 introduction 17 the red cross. general history 23 organization and methods of work 27 occupation in times of peace 29 services in time of war 30 neutral countries in time of peace 34 international correspondence. m. moynier's first letter 36 american association of the red cross. constitution and original incorporation 46-47 first international conference 48 the treaty of the red cross 57 governments adopting the treaty 58 address by clara barton 60 action of the united states government 72 the "additional articles" concerning the navy 74 international bulletin, extract from 77 accession of the united states to the treaty and "additional articles" 80 proclamation of president arthur 85 international bulletin. concerning adhesion of the united states 87 international committee. letter acknowledging notice of adhesion by united states 90 international committee. fiftieth circular announcing adoption of treaty by united states 91 the reincorporation of the american national red cross 94 significance of "red cross" in its relation to philanthropy. address by clara barton 97 michigan forest fires 107 mississippi and ohio river floods 111 mississippi and louisiana cyclone 112 ohio river flood 115 down the mississippi 121 "the little six" 130 texas famine 136 the mount vernon cyclone 145 yellow fever epidemic in florida 147 the macclenny nurses 150 the johnstown flood 157 arrival at johnstown 158 appointment of committees 160 the work of relief 161 farewell to miss barton 169 "the dread conemaugh" 170 in memoriam 174 the russian famine 175 count tolstoi on the character of the peasants 176 beginning of american relief 177 appreciation of american sympathy 180 dr. hubbell's report 184 sea islands hurricane 197 coast of south carolina 197 admiral beardslee's description of the hurricane 203 relief work south of broad river 211 report by john mcdonald 211 hiltonhead district clothing department. report by mrs. macdonald 220 medical department. report by dr. e.w. egan 222-228 relief methods in field. dr. hubbell's report 232 on the charleston group. report by h.l. bailey 244 the clothing department. mrs. gardner's report 252 the sewing circles 257 a christmas carol 261 mrs. reed's report 263 leaving the field 268 letter to charleston _news and courier_ 268 circular to clergymen and committees 273 armenia 275 distance and difficulties of travel and transportation 305 funds 307 committees 310 to the press of the united states 313 to contributors 313 to the government at washington 314 to our legation in constantinople 314 to the ambassadors of other nations 315 commendatory 315 "marmora." poem by clara barton 319 report of financial secretary 324 general field agent's report 334 medical report 350 the spanish-american war 360 home camps and american waters 361 the central cuban relief committee, appointment of 362 the red cross requested to administer relief in cuba 365 taking command of the "state of texas" 368 relief work at tampa and key west 368 feeding spanish prisoners of war 369 correspondence with admiral sampson 370 appointment of the executive committee of the red cross and the relief committee of new york 375 communication from secretary of state acknowledging official status of the american national red cross 377 the modus vivendi with spain 384-394 services of the red cross accepted by the government 395 appointment of red cross field agents for the camps 395 camp alger, washington, d.c. 397 camp thomas, chickamauga park 408 jacksonville and miami, florida 414 fort mcpherson, atlanta, ga. 420 camp hobson, lithia, ga. 422 st. paul red cross 425 montauk point, long island 426 pacific coast 431 the red cross of california 433 the red cross of oregon 441 the red cross, seattle, wash. 452 porto rico 460 report of horace f. barnes 460 shipments by united states transports 470 relief committee of new york, report by 473 women's auxiliaries of the red cross 491 "women who went to the field." poem by clara barton 509 cuba and the cuban campaign 514 havana 520 los fosos 521 the orphanage 522 destruction of the "maine" 524 jaruco 527 matanzas 531 senator redfield proctor's speech in united states senate 534 artemisa 540 sagua la grande 542 cienfuegos 544 back to havana 545 leaving havana 549 on board the "state of texas" 550 tampa 552 arrival at santiago 555 siboney 557 hospital work at siboney 560 relief work at the front 566 entering the harbor of santiago 576 unloading the "state of texas" 577 feeding the refugees 577 relief work in santiago 578 departure of the "state of texas" 580 the transport "clinton" at the disposition of the red cross 583 leaving santiago for havana 584 departure from havana 585 reports. report of dr. a. monae lesser 587 report of financial secretary, mr. c.h.h. cottrell 600 the schooner "mary e. morse." distribution of ice 624 letter of santiago committee 637 medical report by e.w. egan, m.d. 642 clothing department. report by miss annie m. fowler 656 the red cross of other nations 662 to the congress of the united states. address by clara barton 666 to the committees on the red cross 674 to the auxiliaries of the red cross and the nurses who went to the war 677 unwritten thanks 680 a word of explanation 680 conclusion 681 notes 683 to the people. in recounting the experience of the red cross in the cuban campaign, i have endeavored to tell the story of the events as they succeeded each other, recording simply the facts connected with the work of the war relief, and refraining from criticism of men and methods. there were unpleasant incidents to relate, and unfortunate conditions to describe, but i have neither said nor written that any particular person, or persons, were to blame. it is not my duty, nor is it within my power, to analyze and criticise all the intricate workings of a government and its armies in the field. the conditions that existed during the campaign and the suffering that had to be endured, were by no means peculiar to the spanish-american war. suffering, sickness, confusion, and death--these are inseparable from every armed conflict. they have always existed under such circumstances; they are a part of war itself, against which no human foresight can wholly provide. every civilized government is financially able to provide for its armies, but the great and seemingly insuperable difficulty is, to always have what is wanted at the place where it is most needed. it is a part of the strategy of war, that an enemy seeks battle at a time and place when his opponent is least prepared for it. occasionally, too, an attacking commander is deceived. where he expects only slight resistance, he encounters an overwhelming force and a battle of unforeseen proportions, with unexpected casualties, occurs. this is the universal testimony of nations. if it were not so, all needs could be provided for and every move planned at the outset. it was for these reasons that a body of gentlemen, now known as the international committee of geneva, aided by national associations in each country, planned, urged and finally succeeded in securing the adoption of the treaty of the red cross. for these reasons the treaty of geneva and the national committees of the red cross exist to-day. it is through the national committees of the red cross in each treaty nation, that the people seek to assist the government in times of great emergency, in war or other calamity. it is only by favoring the organization of this auxiliary relief in times of peace, encouraging its development to the highest state of efficiency, preparing to utilize not only all the ordinary resources, but also the generous support of the people, through the red cross, that a government may hope to avoid much of the needless suffering, sickness and death in war. in carrying out its mission, to assist in the prevention and relief of suffering, the red cross has neither the desire nor the intention to be censorious, and is actuated neither by political opinion nor motives of interference. it is but the outward and practical expression of that universal sympathy that goes out from the millions of homes and firesides, from the great heart of the nation, to humanity in distress, to the soldier on the march, in the bivouac and on the field of battle. through all the past years, during which the red cross has sought recognition, protection and co-operation, it was but for one purpose--to be ready. our only regret is that, during the late war, we were not able to render greater service. even the little that was accomplished, could not have been done without the ever ready assistance of the president and the secretary of war. before us now lie the problems of the future, and the question is: how shall we meet them? as friends of humanity, while there is still a possibility of war or calamity, it behooves us to prepare. in america perhaps, we are apt to undervalue careful preparation and depend too much upon our impulses. certainly in no other country have the people so often risen from a state of unreadiness and accomplished such wonderful results--at such a great sacrifice. the first american war since the adoption of the treaty of geneva, has brought the red cross home to the people; they have come to understand its meaning and desire to become a permanent part of it. now that the appropriate time has come, it is the purpose of the red cross, relying upon the active sympathy of the government and the generous support of the people, to continue its work of preparation, until in its councils and in its ranks the whole country shall be represented, standing together, ready for any great emergency, inspired by the love of humanity and the world-wide motto of the red cross: "in time of peace and prosperity, prepare for war and calamity." [illustration: clara barton.] [illustration: the international committee of the red cross, geneva, switzerland _dr. appia died, succeeded by m.e. jouard neville. recent additions to the committee are, n. adolphe moynier and m. paul des goulles, secretary to the president._] [illustration: clara barton. _taken about 1885._] introduction. to be called to tell in a few brief weeks the whole story of the red cross from its origin to the present time seems a labor scarcely less than to have lived it. it is a task that, however unworthily it may now be performed, is, in itself, not unworthy the genius of george eliot or macaulay. it is a story illustrating the rapid rise of the humane sentiment in the latter half of the nineteenth century. on its european side, it tells of the first timid and cautious putting forth of the sentiment of humanity in war, amid the rattling swords and guns of solferino, its deaths and wounds and its subsequent awful silence. it tells of its later fertilization on the red fields of gravelotte and sedan beneath my own personal observation. it was from such surroundings as these that the red cross has become the means by which philanthropy has been grafted onto the wild and savage stem of war. from the first filaments spun in the heart of a solitary traveler have been drawn onward stronger and larger strands, until now more than forty of the principal nations of the earth are bound together by bonds of the highest international law, that must make war in the future less barbarous than it has been in the past. it gives hope that "the very torrent, tempest and whirlwind" of war itself may some day at last, far off, perhaps, give way to the sunny and pleasant days of perpetual and universal peace. when a proposition for an absolute and common disarmament of nations, made by the strongest of the rulers of europe, will not be met by cynical sneers and suggestions of machiavelian craft. on its american side it is a story of such immense success on the part of the american national red cross in some of its greatest and most difficult fields of labor, that no financial report of them has ever been made, because the story would have been altogether incredible. the universal opinion of ordinary business people would have been that these results could not have been obtained on the means stated, and therefore something must be wrong or hidden, and to save ourselves from painful suspicion, it was decided, rightly or wrongly, that the story must remain substantially untold till its work in other fields had prepared the public mind to accept the literal truth. but the time has come at last when the facts may properly be set forth without fear that they will be discredited or undervalued. it will relate some of the experiences, the labors, the successes and triumphs of the american national red cross in times of peace, by which it had prepared itself to enter upon the cuban contest as its first independent work in time of war. the red cross has done its part in that contest in the same spirit in which it has heretofore done all the work which has been committed to its care. it has done it unobtrusively, faithfully and successfully. it may not altogether have escaped censure in the rather wild cyclone of criticism that has swept over the country, but we remember not so much the faultfinding that may have occasionally been poured out upon the red cross, as the blessings and benedictions from all sides for work well and nobly done that have fallen even upon its humblest ministers and assistants. it has been truthfully said that "so great has been the pressure to share the difficulties and dangers of this service with only transportation and subsistence for pay, that the red cross could on these terms have had as many volunteers as there were enlisted men, if their services could have been utilized and made important." indeed, it seems to have become the milder romance of war, and is gradually winning its way into the very heart of the pomp and circumstance of "glorious" war itself. the red cross has therefore come to be so loved and trusted, its principles and insignia have been so deeply set into the substance of international law and the life of many great nations, that people everywhere are beginning to ask with enthusiasm about its origin and history; about the principles on which it acts. they ask for some statement of its experiences, its hardships and its perils, and for some account of those who have been most prominent in its operations. it is partially to answer these and many similar inquiries that this book has been prepared. it is in part a compilation and revision of various statements necessarily incomplete and unsatisfactory, made from time to time to meet emergencies. in part it has been wholly rewritten. a great portion of the story of the red cross has been told in other languages than english, because it was of work done by other than english people. much of this literature has never been translated or placed within the reach of the english-speaking public. although the gradual growth of the idea of something like humanity in war, stimulated by the ignorant and insane horrors of india and the crimea, and soothed and instructed by the sensible and practical work of florence nightingale, had slowly but surely led up to the conditions which made such a movement possible, it was not until the remarkable campaign of napoleon iii. in northern italy again woke the slumbering sympathies of the world that any definite steps revealed themselves. in compiling this book i have been compelled to make use of much of the material contained in a previous history written by myself in 1883, which in turn was based upon the records and the literature of the international committee, and the official correspondence connected with the treaty. [illustration: clara barton.] [illustration: copyright, 1893, by clara barton. the first red cross warehouse, washington, d.c.] [illustration: national red cross headquarters in washington, from 1892 to 1897. _formerly headquarters of general grant from which he entered the white house as president._] the red cross. chapter i on june 24, 1859, occurred the memorable battle of solferino, in which the french and sardinians were arrayed against the austrians. the battle raged over a wide reach of country and continued for sixteen hours; at the end of which sixteen thousand french and sardinian soldiers and twenty thousand austrians lay dead or were wounded and disabled on that field. the old and ever-recurring fact reappeared: the medical staff was wholly inadequate to the immense task suddenly cast upon them. for days after the battle the dead in part remained unburied, and the wounded where they fell, or crawled away as they could for shelter and help. a swiss gentleman, henri dunant by name, was then traveling near that battlefield, and was deeply impressed by the scenes there presented to him. he joined in the work of relief, but the inadequacy of preparation and the consequent suffering of the wounded haunted him afterwards and impelled him to write a book entitled "a souvenir of solferino," in which he strongly advocated more humane and extensive appliances of aid to wounded soldiers. he lectured about them before the "society of public utility" of geneva. m. gustav moynier, a gentleman of independent fortune, was then president of that society. dr. louis appia, a philanthropic physician, and adolph ador, a counsellor of repute in geneva, became interested in his views. they drew the attention of dufour, the general of the swiss army, to the subject, and enlisted his hearty co-operation. a meeting of this society was called to consider "a proposition relative to the formation of permanent societies for the relief of wounded soldiers." this meeting took place on the ninth of february, 1863. the matter was laid fully before the society. it was heartily received and acted upon and a committee was appointed with m. moynier at its head to examine into methods by which the desired results might be obtained. so fully did this committee realize its responsibility and the magnitude, grandeur and labor of the undertaking, that the first steps were made even with timidity. but overcoming all obstacles, it decided upon a plan which seemed possible, and announced for the twenty-sixth of the following october a reunion to which were invited from many countries men sympathizing with its views or able to assist in its discussions. this international conference was held at the appointed time, and continued its sessions four days. at this meeting it was decided to call an international convention to be held at geneva during the autumn of the following year (1864). at this convention was brought out the geneva treaty, and a permanent international committee with headquarters at geneva was formed, and the fundamental plan of the national permanent relief societies adopted. one of the first objects necessary and desired by the international committee for the successful prosecution of its work was the co-operation by some of the more important states of europe in a treaty which should recognize the neutrality of the hospitals established, of the sick and wounded, and of all persons and effects connected with the relief service; also the adoption of a uniform protective sign or badge. it inquired with care into the disposition of the several governments, and was met with active sympathy and moral support. it first secured the co-operation of the swiss federal council and the emperor of france. it shortly after procured the signatures of ten other governments, which were given at its room in the city hall of geneva, august 22, 1864, and was called the convention of geneva. its sign or badge was also agreed upon, namely, a red cross on a white ground, which was to be worn on the arm by all persons acting with or in the service of the committees enrolled under the convention. the treaty provides for the neutrality of all sanitary supplies, ambulances, surgeons, nurses, attendants, and sick or wounded men, and their safe conduct when they bear the sign of the organization, viz: the red cross. although the convention which originated the organization was necessarily international, the relief societies themselves are entirely national and independent; each one governing itself and making its own laws, according to the genius of its nationality and needs. it was necessary for recognition and safety, and for carrying out the general provisions of the treaty, that a uniform badge should be agreed upon. the red cross was chosen out of compliment to the swiss republic, where the first convention was held, and in which the central committee has its headquarters. the swiss colors being a white cross on a red ground, the badge chosen was these colors reversed. there are no "members of the red cross," but only members of societies whose _sign_ it is. there is no "_order of the red cross_." the relief societies use, each according to its convenience, whatever methods seem best suited to prepare in times of peace for the necessities of sanitary service in times of war. they gather and store gifts of money and supplies; arrange hospitals, ambulances, methods of transportation of wounded men, bureaus of information, correspondence, etc. all that the most ingenious philanthropy could devise and execute has been attempted in this direction. in the franco-prussian war this was abundantly tested. that prussia acknowledged its beneficence is proven by the fact that the emperor affixed the red cross to the iron cross of merit. the number of governments adhering to the treaty was shortly after increased to twenty-two and at the present date there are forty-two. the german-austria war of 1866, though not fully developing the advantages of this international law, was yet the means of discovering its imperfections. consequently, in 1867 the relief societies of paris considered it necessary that the treaty should be revised, modified and completed. requests were issued for modification. the international committee transmitted them to the various governments, and in 1868 a second diplomatic conference was convened at geneva at which were voted additional articles, improving the treaty by completing its design and extending its beneficial action to maritime warfare. during the war of 1866 no decisive trial of the new principles involved in the treaty could be made, for austria at that time had not adopted it. but in 1870-71 it was otherwise. the belligerents, both france and germany, had accepted the treaty. thus it became possible to show to the world the immense service and beneficent results which the treaty, through the relief societies, might accomplish. the dullest apprehension can partially appreciate the responsibility incurred by relief societies in time of war. the thoughtful mind will readily perceive that these responsibilities involve constant vigilance and effort during periods of peace. it is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. we do not wait till battles are upon us to provide efficient soldiery and munitions of war. everything that foresight and caution can devise to insure success is made ready and kept ready against the time of need. it is equally necessary to hold ourselves in readiness for effective service in the mitigation of evils consequent upon war, if humane work is to be undertaken for that purpose. permanent armies are organized, drilled and supported for the actual service in war. it is no less incumbent if we would do efficient work in alleviating the sufferings caused by the barbarisms of war, that we should organize philanthropic efforts and be ready with whatever is necessary, to be on the field at the sound of the first gun. an understanding of this truth led the conference of 1863 to embody in its articles as one of its first cardinal characteristics the following: "in time of peace the committee will occupy itself with means to render genuine assistance in time of war." the international committee assumed that there should be a relief association in every country which endorsed the treaty, and so generally was the idea accepted that at the end of the year 1864, when only ten governments had been added to the convention, twenty-five committees had been formed, under each of which relief societies were organized. it was, however, only after the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 that the movement began really to be popular. these conflicts brought not only contestants, but neutral powers so to appreciate the horrors of war, that they were quite ready to acknowledge the beneficence and wisdom of the geneva treaty. many who approved the humane idea and expressed a hearty sympathy for the object to be obtained, had heretofore regarded it as utopian, a thing desirable but not attainable, an amiable and fanatical illusion which would ever elude the practical grasp. nevertheless, the work accomplished during the wars referred to won over not only such cavillers, but persons actually hostile to the movement, to regard it as a practical and most beneficent undertaking. the crowned heads of europe were quick to perceive the benign uses of the associations, and bestowed upon the central committees of their countries money, credit and personal approbation. the families of sovereigns contributed their sympathy and material support. the list of princes and princesses who came forward with personal aid and assumed direction of the work, was by no means small, thus proving correct the augury of the conference of 1863, that "the governments would accord their high protection to the committees in their organization." from one of the bulletins of the international committee we make the following hopeful extract: "the whole of europe is marshaled under the banner of the red cross. to its powerful and peaceful sign the committee hopes to bring all the civilized nations of the earth. wherever men fight and tear each other in pieces, wherever the glare and roar of war are heard, they aim to plant the white banner that bears the blessed sign of relief. already they have carried it into asia. their ensign waves in siberia, on the chinese frontier, and in turkestan, and, through the african committee, in algeria and egypt. oceanica has a committee at batavia. japan accepted the treaty of geneva in 1886, and on the breaking out of hostilities between japan and china, the minister of war issued a notification to the japanese army, september 22, 1894, calling their attention to the substance of the treaty." organization and methods of work. one of the things considered indispensable, and therefore adopted as a resolution by the conference of 1863, was the centralization of the work in each country separately by itself. while the treaty must be universally acknowledged and its badge accepted as a universal sign, it was equally essential that the societies of the different countries should be simply national and in no respect international. it was therefore ordained by the conference that all local committees or organizations desirous of working with the red cross, should do so under the auspices of the central committee of their own nation, which is recognized by its government and also recognized by the international committee from which the sign of the red cross emanates. singularly enough, the international committee has had considerable difficulty in making this fully understood, and frequently has been obliged to suggest to local committees the necessity for their subordination to the central or national committee. once in three months the international committee publishes an official list of all central committees recognized by it as national. in this way it is able to exercise a certain control, and to repress entanglements and abuses which would become consequent on irresponsible or counterfeit organizations. to recapitulate: the commission of geneva, of which m. moynier is president, is the only international committee. all other committees are simply national or subordinate to national committees. the conference of 1863 foresaw that national differences would prevent a universal code of management, and that to make the societies international would destroy them, so far as efficiency was concerned. they therefore adopted a resolution that "central committees should organize in such a manner as seemed the most useful and convenient to themselves." every committee being its own judge, has its own constitution and laws. to be efficient, it must have the recognition of its own government, must bear the stamp of national individuality and be constructed according to the spirit, habits and needs of the country it represents. no hierarchy unites the national societies; they are independent of each other, but they have each an individual responsibility to the treaty, under the ensign of which they work, and they labor in a common cause. it is desirable that they should all be known by one name, namely, the society of the red cross. the functions of the international committee, whose headquarters are at geneva, were also determined by the conference of 1863. it is to serve provisionally as an intermediate agent between national committees, and to facilitate their communications with each other. it occupies itself with the general interests of the red cross in correspondence, and the study of theoretical and practical methods of amelioration and relief. the national committees are charged with the direction and responsibility for the work in their own countries. they must provide resources to be utilized in time of need, take active measures to secure adherents, establish local societies, and have an efficient working force always in readiness for action, and in time of war to dispatch and distribute safely and wisely all accumulations of material and supplies, nurses and assistants, to their proper destination, and, in short, whatever may be gathered from the patriotism and philanthropy of the country. they must always remember that central committees without abundant sectional branches would be of little use. in most countries the co-operation of women has been eagerly sought. it is needless to say it has been as eagerly given. in some countries the central committees are mixed, both sexes working together; in others, sub-committees are formed by women, and in others, such as the grand duchy of baden, woman leads. as a last detail of organization, the conference of 1863 recommended to the central committees to put themselves _en rapport_ with their respective governments, in order that their offers of service should be accepted when required. this makes it incumbent upon national societies to obtain and hold government recognition, by which they are endowed with the immunities and privileges of legally constituted bodies and with recognition from other nations in time of war, not otherwise possible to them. occupations of relief societies in times of peace. organization, recognition and communication are by no means all that is necessary to insure the fulfillment of the objects of these associations. a thing most important to be borne in mind is that if money be necessary for war, it is also an indispensable agent in relief of the miseries occasioned by war. self-devotion alone will not answer. the relief societies need funds and other resources to carry on their work. they not only require means for current expenses, but, most of all, for possible emergencies. to obtain and prudently conserve these resources is an important work. the russian society set a good example of activity in this direction. from the beginning of its organization in 1867 it systematically collected money over the whole empire and neglected nothing that tended to success. it put boxes in churches, convents, armories, railroad depots, steamboats, in every place frequented by the public. beside the collection of funds, the conference of 1863 recommended that peace periods should be occupied in gathering necessary material for service. in 1868 there were in geneva alone five depots where were accumulated one thousand two hundred and twenty-eight shirts, besides hosiery, bandages, lint, etc., for over one thousand wounded. there were also large collections in the provinces, and now, thirty years later, these accumulations have probably greatly increased. in other countries the supplies remaining after wars were gathered in depots and were added to abundantly. thus, in 1868, the berlin committee was in possession of supplies worth over twenty-five thousand dollars. especial care is taken to acquire familiarity with the use of all sanitary material, to eliminate as far as possible whatever may be prejudicial to sick or wounded men, to improve both sanitary system and all supplies to be used under it, to have everything of the very best, as surgical instruments, medicine chests, bandages, stretchers, wagons, tents and field hospitals. we would refer to the effort made in the national exhibitions of the various countries, where the societies of the red cross have displayed their practical improvements and inventions in competitive fields, taxing to the utmost human ingenuity and skill. some countries have taken grand prizes. an exposition at the hague was held in 1867 exclusively for the work of the red cross. permanent museums have been established where all sorts of sanitary material for relief are exhibited, as may be seen in stockholm, carlsruhe, st. petersburg, moscow and paris. the museum of paris is the most important of all, and is international, other countries having participated in its foundation. another method is the publication of works bearing upon this subject, some of which are scientific and very valuable. not less important is the sanitary personnel. of all aid, efficient nurses are the most difficult to obtain. there are numbers of men and women who have the will and devotion necessary to lead them into hospitals or to battlefields, but very few of them are capable of performing well the duties of nurses. therefore, but a small portion of the volunteers are available. the relief societies soon found that women were by nature much better fitted for this duty than men can be, and to enable them to fulfill to the best advantage the mission for which they are so well adapted, it was decided to afford them the best possible professional instruction. for this purpose, during peace training schools were established from which were graduated great numbers of women who are ready at a moment's notice to go upon the battlefield or into hospitals. these professional nurses find no difficulty during times of peace in securing remunerative employment. indeed, they are eagerly sought for by the community to take positions at the bedside of the sick, with the proviso that they are to be allowed to obey the pledge of their society at the first tocsin of war. there are schools for this purpose in england, germany, sweden, holland, russia and other european countries, and nothing has been neglected to make them thorough and to place them on a strong and solid basis. services in time of war. notwithstanding the readiness with which most persons will perceive the beneficent uses of relief societies in war, it may not be amiss to particularize some of the work accomplished by the societies of the red cross. not to mention civil disturbances and lesser conflicts, they participated in not less than five great wars in the first ten years, commencing with schleswig-holstein, and ending with the franco-german. russia and turkey have followed, with many others since that time, in all of which these societies have signally proved their power to ameliorate the horrors of war. the earlier of these, while affording great opportunity for the beneficent work of the societies, were also grand fields of instruction and discipline to the committee, enabling them to store up vast funds of practical knowledge which were to be of great service. the sanitary commission of the united states also served as an excellent example in many respects to the relief societies of europe, and from it they took many valuable lessons. thus in 1866 europe was much better prepared than ever before for the care of those who suffered from the barbarisms of war. she was now ready with some degree of ability to oppose the arms of charity to the arms of violence, and make a kind of war on war itself. still however there was a lack of centralization. the provincial committees worked separately, and consequently lost force. notwithstanding these drawbacks, large amounts of money were gathered, and munificent supplies of material brought into store. the austrian committee alone collected 2,170,000 francs, and a great supply of all things needed in hospital service. the central committee was of great use in facilitating correspondence between the different peoples comprising the austrian empire, the bureau maintaining correspondence in eleven different languages. italy was not backward in the performance of her duty. she used her abundant resources in the most effectual way. not only were her provincial societies of relief united for common action, but they received external aid from france and switzerland. here was exhibited the first beautiful example of neutral powers interfering in the cause of charity in time of war--instead of joining in the work of destruction, lending their aid to repair its damages. the provincial committees banded together under the central committee of milan. four squads, comprising well-trained nurses and assistants, were organized and furnished with all necessary material to follow the military ambulances or field hospitals, whose wagons were placed at their disposal. thus the committee not only reinforced the sanitary _personnel_ of the army, but greatly increased its supplies. it provided entirely the sanitary material for the tyrolese volunteers, and afforded relief to the navy, and when the war was over it remained among the wounded. in addition to the supplies this committee afforded, it expended in money not less than 199,064 francs. but after all it was germany standing between the two armies which distinguished herself. since the conference of 1863 she had been acting on the rule of preparation, and now found herself in readiness for all emergencies. the central committee of berlin was flooded with contributions from the provincial committees. in the eight provinces of prussia 4,000,000 of thalers were collected, and the other states of germany were not behind. so munificently did the people bestow their aid, that large storehouses were provided in berlin and in the provinces for its reception, and at the central depot in berlin two hundred paid persons, besides a large number of volunteers, and nearly three hundred ladies and misses were employed in classifying, parceling, packing up, and dispatching the goods. special railroad trains carried material to the points of need. in one train were twenty-six cars laden with 1800 to 2000 cwt. of supplies. never had private charity, however carefully directed, been able to accomplish such prodigies of benevolence. it was now that the beneficence of the treaty and the excellence of the organization were manifested. but the committee did not confine itself to sending supplies for the wounded to the seat of war. it established and provisioned refreshment stations for the trains, to which those unable to proceed on the trains to the great hospitals without danger to life, were admitted, nursed and cared for with the tenderest solicitude until they were sufficiently recovered to be removed, or death took them. at the station of pardubitz from six hundred to eight hundred were cared for daily for two months, and lodging provided for three hundred at night. this example suffices to show the extraordinary results of well-organized plans and concerted action. during the war, the relief societies had also to contend with the terrible scourge of cholera. there can be no estimate of the misery assuaged and deaths prevented by the unselfish zeal and devotion of the wearers of the red cross. in the interval between the wars of 1866 and 1867, and that of 1870-71, the time had been improved by the societies existing under the geneva treaty, in adding to their resources in every possible manner. improvements were made in all articles of sanitary service; excellent treatises regarding the hygiene of the camp and hospital were widely circulated; the press had greatly interested itself in the promulgation of information regarding all matters of interest or instruction pertaining to sanitary effort, and almost universally lent its powerful influence to build up the societies. ten new societies were formed during this time. in germany the work of the red cross was so thoroughly organized, that at the first signal from berlin, committees arrived as if by magic at all required points, forming a chain which extended over the whole country, and numbered over two thousand persons. this is more remarkable since germany was a neutral power. constant communication was kept up between these committees and the central bureau, and the most perfect order and discipline were maintained. relief was sent from one or another of these stations as was needed. the state afforded free transport, and the voluntary contributions of the people kept up the supplies of sanitary material, so that there was never any lack or danger of failure. with the government transports, whether by land or water, there went always the agents of the red cross, protected by their badges and flag, to wait on the invoices, hasten their progress, see to their being kept in good order, and properly delivered at their destination. depots of supplies were moved from place to place as exigencies demanded. the greatest care was taken to prevent disorder or confusion, and the best military circumspection and regularity prevailed. the great central depot at berlin comprised seven sections, viz: camp material; clothing; dressing, for wounds; surgical apparatus; medicines and disinfectants; food and tobacco; and hospital furnishings. did space allow, it would be desirable to give statistics of the contributions in money and supplies to this service. suffice it to say, the humanity of peoples is far beyond that of governments. governments appropriate immense sums to carry on destructive conflicts, but the work of relief societies the world over, and especially during the war of 1870-71, has shown that the philanthropy of the people equals their patriotism. the sums given to assuage the miseries of the franco-prussian war were simply fabulous. in 1863, fears were expressed that there would be difficulty in collecting needful funds and supplies to carry out the designs of the treaty. these misgivings proved groundless. after the war of 1870-71, notwithstanding nothing had been withheld in the way of relief, the societies settled their accounts with large balances in their treasuries. in france not nearly so much had been previously done to provide for the exigencies which fell upon them, but the committee worked with such vigor and so wrought upon the philanthropy of individuals, that active measures of relief were instantly taken. gold and supplies poured into the hands of the committee at paris. one month sufficed to organize and provide seventeen campaign ambulances or field hospitals, which immediately joined the army and accompanied it through the first period of the war, or until the battle of sedan. in paris ambulances were stationed at the railroad depots to pick up the wounded, and a bureau of information was created for soldiers' families. when the siege of paris was about to take place, the committee threw, without delay, a commission into brussels charged with the direction and help of flying hospitals. nine committees were established in the provinces, with power to act for the central committee and to invite the people to help. meanwhile the committee in paris did its utmost to mitigate the distress that reigned there, and to prepare for the result of the siege. history has recorded the sufferings, the horrors of misery that accompanied and followed that siege; but history can never relate what wretchedness was averted, what agonies were alleviated, what multitudes of lives were saved, by the presence and effort of the relief societies! what the state of france must have been without the merciful help of the red cross societies the imagination dare not picture. after the armistice was signed there were removed from paris, under the auspices of the relief societies, ten thousand wounded men, who otherwise must have lingered in agony, or died from want of care; and there were brought back by them to french soil nine thousand men who had been cared for in german hospitals. help from neutral countries. neutral countries also during this war were ready and bountiful with help; and those working under the treaty did most effectual service. england contributed 7,500,000 francs, besides large gifts of sanitary supplies; in one hundred and eighty-eight days' time she sent to the seat of war twelve thousand boxes of supplies through the agents of the red cross. to give an idea of the readiness and efficacy with which the committees worked even in neutral countries, one instance will suffice. from pont-a-mousson a telegram was sent to london for two hundred and fifty iron beds for the wounded, and in forty-eight hours they arrived in answer to the request. england kept also at the seat of war agents to inform the committee at home of whatever was most needed in supplies. the neutral countries sent also surgeons, physicians and nurses, and in many other ways gave practical testimony to the benign efficacy of the geneva treaty. as will be seen by the foregoing pages, the objects and provisions of the geneva convention and the societies acting under it, are designed for, and applicable to, the exigencies of war only. the close contact of the nations hitherto signing this treaty, renders them far more liable to the recurrence of war among them than our own, which by its geographical position and distance from neighboring nations, entertains a feeling of security which justifies the hope that we may seldom, if ever again, have occasion to provide for the exigencies of war in our land. this leads the american red cross to perceive the great wisdom, foresight and breadth of the resolution adopted by the convention of 1863, which provides that "committees shall organize in the manner which shall seem most useful and convenient to themselves;" also in their article on the organization of societies in these pages occurs the following: "to be efficient, societies must have government recognition, must bear the stamp of their national individuality, and be constructed according to the spirit, habits, and needs of the country they represent. this is essential to success." as no work can retain its vitality without constant action, so in a country like ours, with a people of so active a temperament, an essential element in endearing to them a work, is to keep constantly before them its usefulness. with this view the question of meeting the want heretofore felt on all occasions of public calamity, of sufficient extent to be deemed of national importance, has received attention at the hands of this association. for this purpose the necessary steps have been inaugurated to organize auxiliary societies, prepared to co-operate with the central association in all plans for prompt relief; whilst the volunteers who shall render personal aid will be expected to hold themselves in the same readiness as in the case of an international call. it must, however, be distinctly understood that these additional functions for local purposes shall in no manner impair the international obligation of the association; but on the contrary it is believed will render them more effective in time of need. it may appear singular that a movement so humane in its purposes, so wise and well considered in its regulations, so universal in its application, and every way so unexceptional, should have been so long in finding its way to the knowledge and consideration of the people of the united states. this fact appears to have been the result of circumstances rather than intention. while eminently a reading people, we are almost exclusively confined to the english language. the literature of the red cross is entirely in other languages, largely french, and thus has failed to meet the eye of the reading public. it will be observed that the first convention was called during our war; no delegates were especially sent by the united states, but our minister plenipotentiary to switzerland, acting as delegate, sent a copy of the doings of the convention to our government for recognition. in the midst of civil war as we were at the time the subject was very naturally and properly declined. [illustration: first letter from m. gustav moynier to the president of the united states, urging the adoption of the treaty of geneva.] it was again most fittingly presented in 1866 through rev. dr. henry w. bellows, and by this eminent gentleman and philanthropist a society of the red cross was actually formed; but for some cause it failed, and the convention was not recognized. the international committee became in a manner discouraged in its efforts with the united states, but finally it was decided to present it again through miss clara barton, and accordingly the following letter was addressed to president hayes during the first year of his administration: international committee for the relief of wounded soldiers, geneva, _august 19, 1877_. _to the president of the united states, at washington_: mr. president: the international committee of the red cross desires most earnestly that the united states should be associated with them in their work, and they take the liberty of addressing themselves to you, with the hope that you will second their efforts. in order that the functions of the national society of the red cross be faithfully performed, it is indispensable that it should have the sympathy and protection of the government. it would be irrational to establish an association upon the principles of the convention of geneva, without the association having the assurance that the army of its own country, of which it should be an auxiliary, would be guided, should the case occur, by the same principles. it would consequently be useless for us to appeal to the people of the country, inasmuch as the united states, as a government, has made no declaration of adhering officially to the principles laid down by the convention of the twenty-second august, 1864. such is then, mr. president, the principal object of the present request. we do not doubt but this will meet with a favorable reception from you, for the united states is in advance of europe upon the subject of war, and the celebrated "instructions of the american army" are a monument which does honor to the united states. you are aware, mr. president, that the government of the united states was officially represented at the convention of geneva, in 1864, by two delegates, and this mark of approbation given to the work which was being accomplished was then considered by every one as a precursor of a legal ratification. until the present time, however, this confirmation has not taken place, and we think that this formality, which would have no other bearing than to express publicly the acquiescence of the united states in those humanitarian principles now admitted by all civilized people, has only been retarded because the occasion has not offered itself. we flatter ourselves with the hope that, appealing directly to your generous sentiments, will determine you to take the necessary measures to put an end to a situation so much to be regretted. we only wait such good news, mr. president, in order to urge the founding of an american society of the red cross. we have already an able and devoted assistant in miss clara barton, to whom we confide the care of handing to you this present request. it would be very desirable that the projected asseveration should be under your distinguished patronage, and we hope that you will not refuse us this favor. receive, mr. president, the assurance of our highest consideration. for the international committee: g. moynier, _president_. [illustration: autograph endorsement by president garfield. executive mansion, washington. will the secy of state please hear miss barton on the subject herein referred to j.a. garfield march 30, 1881.] this letter was sent to miss barton, who, having labored with committees of the red cross during the franco-prussian war, thus becoming familiar with its methods, was very naturally selected as the bearer of the letter, and the exponent of the cause. moreover, foreign nations had secured her promise to present it to the government on her return to her country and endeavor to make its principles understood among the people. accordingly the letter was presented by miss barton to president hayes and by him referred to his secretary of state, but as no action was taken, and no promise of any action given, it was not deemed advisable to proceed to the organization of societies formed with special reference to acting under the regulations of a governmental treaty having no present existence, and no guaranty of any in the future. thus it remained until the incoming of the administration of president garfield when a copy of the letter of mr. moynier was presented by miss barton to president garfield, very cordially received by him, and endorsed to secretary blaine; from whom after full consideration of the subject the following letter was received: department of state, washington, _may 20, 1881_. miss clara barton, _american representative of the red cross, etc., washington_: dear madam: i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the letter addressed by mr. moynier, president of the red cross international convention, to the president of the united states, bearing the date of the nineteenth august, 1877, and referred by president garfield on the thirtieth march, 1881, to this department. it appears, from a careful perusal of the letter, that mr. moynier is anxious that the government of the united states should join with other governments of the world in this international convention. will you be pleased to say to mr. moynier, in reply to his letter, that the president of the united states, and the officers of this government, are in full sympathy with any wise measures tending toward the amelioration of the suffering incident to warfare. the constitution of the united states has, however, lodged the entire war-making power in the congress of the united states; and, as the participation of the united states in an international convention of this character is consequent upon and auxiliary to the war-making power of the nation, legislation by congress is needful to accomplish the humane end that your society has in view. it gives me, however, great pleasure to state that i shall be happy to give any measures which you may propose careful attention and consideration, and should the president, as i doubt not he will, approve of the matter, the administration will recommend to congress the adoption of the international treaty which you desire. i am, madam, with very great respect, your obedient servant, james g. blaine. on the twenty-fifth of june the following letter from mr. moynier, president of the international committee of geneva, in reply to the preceding letter of secretary blaine, was received by miss barton, and duly presented at the state department: geneva, _june 13, 1881_. to the honorable secretary of state, james g. blaine, _washington_: sir: miss clara barton has just communicated to me the letter which she has had the honor to receive from you, bearing date of may 20, 1881, and i hasten to express to you how much satisfaction i have experienced from it. i do not doubt now, thanks to your favorable consideration and that of president garfield, that the united states may soon be counted among the number of signers of the geneva convention, since you have been kind enough to allow me to hope that the proposition for it will be made to congress by the administration. i thank you, as well as president garfield, for having been willing to take into serious consideration the wish contained in my letter of august 19, 1877, assuredly a very natural wish, since it tended to unite your country with a work of humanity and civilization for which it is one of the best qualified. since my letter of 1877 was written, several new governmental adhesions have been given to the geneva convention, and i think that these precedents will be much more encouraging to the united states from the fact that they have been given by america. it was under the influence of events of the recent war of the pacific that bolivia signed the treaty the 16th of october, 1879, chili on the 15th of november, 1879, argentine republic on the 25th of november, 1879, and peru on the 22d of april, 1881. this argument in favor of the adhesion of your country is the only one i can add to my request, and to the printed documents that miss barton has placed in your hands, to aid your judgment and that of congress. i now await with full confidence the final result of your sympathetic efforts, and i beg you to accept, sir, the assurance of my high consideration. g. moynier, _president_. [illustration: some of the first members of the american national red cross.] [illustration: a group of american national red cross members.] the very cordial and frank expressions of sympathy contained in secretary blaine's letter gave assurance of the acceptance of the terms of the treaty by the government at no distant day, and warranted the formation of societies. accordingly a meeting was held in washington, d.c., may 21, 1881, which resulted in the formation of an association to be known as the american [national] association of the red cross. a constitution was adopted, a copy of which follows: constitution. _name, location._ article 1. this association shall be known as the american association of the red cross, with its office located at washington, d.c., and shall consist of the subscribers hereunto, and such other persons as shall hereafter be elected to membership; and it shall constitute a central national association with power to organize state and territorial associations auxiliary to itself. _objects of association._ art. 2. the objects of the national association are, _first_, to secure the adoption by the government of the united states of the treaty of august 22, 1864. _second_, to obtain recognition by the government of the united states, and to hold itself in readiness for communicating therewith at all times, to the end that its purposes may be more widely and effectually carried out. _third_, to organize a system of national relief and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by war, pestilence, famine and other calamities. _fourth_, to collect and diffuse information touching the progress of mercy, the organization of national relief, the advancement of sanitary science and hospital service, and their application. _fifth_, to co-operate with all other national societies, for the furtherance of the articles herein set forth, in such ways as are provided by the regulations governing such co-operation. _duties._ art. 3. this association shall hold itself in readiness in the event of war or any calamity great enough to be considered national, to inaugurate such practical measures, in mitigation of the suffering and for the protection and relief of sick and wounded, as may be consistent with the objects of the association as indicated in article 2. _officers._ art. 4. the officers of this association shall consist of a president; first vice-president; other vice-presidents, not to exceed one from each state, territory, and the district of columbia; a secretary; treasurer; an executive board; a board for consultation, which shall consist of the following officers of the united states government, viz: the president and his cabinet: general of the army; surgeon general; adjutant general, and judge advocate general, and such other officers as may hereafter be deemed necessary. the american association of the red cross. original incorporation. the undersigned, all of whom are citizens of the united states of america, and a majority of whom are citizens of the district of columbia, desirous of forming an association for benevolent and charitable purposes to co-operate with the comitã�â© international de secours aux militaires blessã�â©s of geneva, switzerland, do, in pursuance of sections 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550 and 551 of the revised statutes of the united states, relating to the district of columbia, make, sign and acknowledge these: articles of incorporation. 1. the name of this association shall be the american association of the red cross. 2. the term of its existence shall be for twenty (20) years. 3. the objects of this association shall be: 1st. to secure by the united states the adoption of the treaty of august 22, 1864, between italy, baden, belgium, denmark, holland, spain, portugal, france, prussia, saxony, wurtemberg, and the federal council of switzerland. 2d. to obtain recognition by the government of the united states, and to hold itself in readiness for communicating therewith at all times, to the end that its purposes may be more wisely and effectually carried out. 3d. to organize a system of national relief and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by war, pestilence, famine and other calamities. 4th. to collect and diffuse information touching the progress of mercy, the organization of national relief, the advancement of sanitary science, and their application. 5th. to co-operate with all other similar national societies for the furtherance of the articles herein set forth, in such ways as are provided by the regulations governing such co-operation. 4. the number of this association, to be styled the "executive board," for the first year of its existence, shall be eleven (11). in witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals at the city of washington this first day of july, a.d. 1881. the first international conference. _the proceedings of this conference and what led up to it we learn chiefly from the historical report of the conference by mr. gustav moynier and dr. louis appia, of the international committee of the red cross. it was the work of this conference that laid the foundation for the treaty of geneva, adopted in the following year._ in the year 1864, europe was covered, as if by enchantment, with a network of committees for the relief of wounded soldiers; and this phenomenon would have led the least discerning persons to suspect that this special work was entering on a new phase. several of these committees had already begun to exercise their functions in the schleswig-holstein war, yet all unanimously proclaimed that they would constitute themselves as permanent institutions, and, in a great measure, they seemed to obey one watch-word. all, in fact, declared in their charter of establishment, that they would conform to the resolutions of the geneva conference. what, then, was this conference, whose magic wand had, so to speak, electrified all nations? it seems too important an historical fact to be passed over in silence, because we feel certain that an inquiry into its nature, and how it arose, will prove highly interesting. 1. it originated with the sociã�â©tã�â© genevoise d'utilitã�â© publique, which had undertaken to contribute toward the progress of philanthropy. at its sitting of the ninth of february, 1863, it discussed the question, in accordance with the proposition of one of its members, m. henri dunant, whether means might not be found to form, during a time of peace and tranquillity, relief societies, whose aim should be to help the wounded in time of war by means of volunteers, zealous, devoted and well qualified for such work. although it had no very clear idea of what should be done, in order to obtain the result which seemed desirable, the society took the matter under its patronage, and entrusted the examination of it to a special commission, with full power to act. the course to be pursued was long debated in this little committee, the members of which finally agreed to submit the question to more competent judges. it was, in fact, necessary, before encouraging the formation of societies of volunteers, to know whether any need for them had been felt, and whether they would not be regarded with a jealous eye by the administrative or military authorities. it was also necessary to determine what should be the nature of their action under various social and political forms of government. in order not to venture recklessly on a road bristling with obstacles, it was therefore evident that they ought to take as guides experienced men, versed in the practice of war, and belonging to different nationalities. an international conference appeared to be indispensable to the work, as a basis or starting point. if, after this ordeal, the first idea, upon which the most divergent opinions were even then professed, should be recognized as impracticable, its partisans would at least possess the consolation of having done their best. we shall have, said one of them, the approval of our consciences, and the feeling that we have done that which it is right men should do who love their neighbor. if, on the contrary, the thing were pronounced to be good, useful and acceptable, what encouragement such a decision would afford them to launch out upon their course! what moral force they who should first put themselves in the breach would receive! it was not a time to hesitate. the circular convoking the meeting was issued on the first of september, 1863. nothing was neglected that could give the greatest publicity to this appeal. it was brought specially to the notice of the international statistical congress, sitting at berlin, in the month of september, 1863, which expressed an opinion entirely favorable to the project. at length the day fixed for the opening of the conference arrived. on the morning of the twenty-sixth of october, in the rooms of the athenã�â¦um at geneva, might be seen an assembly composed of eighteen official delegates, representing fourteen governments, six delegates of different associations, seven unaccredited visitors, with five members of the geneva committee. it was sufficient to glance over the list of the thirty-six members of the conference, to understand that the expectation of its promoters was attained, and even surpassed, and that their initiative had already found its reward in the meeting of such a body. it was impossible that a deliberation among men so eminently qualified should not throw the fullest light on the question submitted to them. the committee tells us that the eagerness with which the invitation was responded to soon justified the propriety of the step it had taken. it became convinced that, in drawing public attention to the insufficiency of the official sanitary service, it had touched a sensitive chord, and had responded to a universal wish. it was also convinced that it was not pursuing a chimerical object. if, for a moment, it had feared that its project would only attract mere dreamers and utopians, it was reassured on seeing that it had to deal with men in earnest, with medical and military magnates. it also received much encouragement from persons who were prevented from taking part in the debates, but who testified to the lively interest they took in them. it was then, with the most happy auspices that general dufour opened the conference, which lasted four days, under the presidency of m. moynier, president of the genevoise society of public utility, and the vice-presidency of his highness prince henry xiii., of reuss, the delegate of the order of st. john of jerusalem. every one seemed animated by the best motives, and desirous not to lose so good an opportunity to open a new arena for the cause of charity. it was interesting to witness the general unanimity, as new as it was spontaneous, on a question of humanity instantaneously developed into one of philanthropic urgency. dr. landa, delegate of the spanish government, well expressed the sentiment of the assembly when he exclaimed, "oh, that we may be so happy as to discover the basis which shall render the the useful institution we aspire to found durable and effectual!" the magnitude of the result which may be obtained, and the tears which may be wiped away, demand that we should devote all our efforts to attain it; and if this work be realized, it will be an event which all friends of humanity will be able to hail with the greatest joy. we feel, said the president of the conference, that a great duty is imposed upon us, and we shall not rest until we have found means to lessen for our fellow-creatures the privations, the sufferings and the evils of all kinds which are the inevitable consequences of an armed contest. so much good-will was not superfluous, in order to accomplish the arduous task of the conference. for what, indeed, was it laboring? for nothing less than to reconcile two opposites--charity and war. the propriety of voluntary aid being admitted, it was necessary to leave it sufficiently free, in order that zeal might not be cooled by unreasonable conditions; yet, at the same time, to subject it to a certain discipline, so that it might have access to the army without being an encumbrance to it. here was the real problem to be solved. here was a link to be established between the civil and the military, which, though opposed, are not necessarily incompatible, and should be encouraged to live fraternally side by side. the experience of modern wars seemed to justify this inquiry, for it was averred that here the administration of voluntary offerings had been defective. besides, the question presented itself in a new character, owing to the fact that a staff of volunteers occupied an important place in it. if this view of the case was to take precedence of all others, nothing less than a complete revolution was intended, and its importance being acknowledged, it would have been wrong to engage in it otherwise than earnestly. it was for discussion to reveal the opinion that was entertained of it. independently of all that was difficult in the very nature of the subject with which the conference was to occupy itself, it met with another obstacle, in the consideration which it was obliged to give to the different forms of government under which civilized nations dwell. it is certain that a relief committee would be bound to modify its conduct, and its hands would be more or less free, according to the political or social circle in which it would have its existence. for example, where individual initiative is highly developed, as in switzerland and america, there will be found liberty for the efforts of free societies which would not be tolerated to the same degree in france or austria. the consequence of this situation was, that, called to draw up a code of military philanthropy for the use of all nations, the conference could only advocate general principles, so that its decisions might be everywhere acceptable. here it took its stand, and following the advice of its president, it left to each society the duty of regulating minute details as it might judge expedient. it wisely confined its ambition to the construction of a solid foundation for the monument which it wished to erect, and which was perhaps destined to become one of the glories of our century. let us now give heed to the voice of the conference, and let us cast our eyes over the resolutions, placed side by side with the _propositions_ presented by the geneva committee, under the title of _projet de concordat_. it is evident, indeed, from a comparison of these two documents that the first ideas were true, since they have only been slightly modified. the authors of this project, however, offer it as the eminently perfectible fruit of their first meditations, and as a basis which they deemed it right to furnish to the conference, in order to guide it in its labors. general provisions. article 1. there shall be, in each of the contracting countries, a national committee, whose duty shall consist in remedying, by all the means in its power, the inadequacy of the official sanitary service of the armies in active service. this committee shall organize itself in the manner which may appear to it the most useful and expedient. art. 2. sections, unlimited in number, shall be founded, in order to second the national committee. these shall be necessarily subordinate to the committee, to which alone shall belong the supreme direction. art. 3. every national committee shall place itself in communication with the government of its own country, and shall ascertain that its efforts of service will be accepted in case of war. art. 4. in time of peace, the committees and their sections shall occupy themselves with improvements to be introduced in the military sanitary service, in the establishment of ambulances and hospitals, in the means of transports for the wounded, etc., and in pursuing the realization of these objects. art. 5. the committees and sections of the different countries shall reassemble in international congresses, in order to communicate the result of their experience, and to concert together on the measures to be taken in the interests of the work. art. 6. in the month of january every year, the national committees shall present a report of their labors during the past year, adding to it such communications as they may consider useful to be brought to the knowledge of the committees of other countries. the exchange of these communications and reports shall be managed through the medium of the geneva committee, to whom they shall be addressed. special provisions in case of war. art. 7. in case of war, the committees of the belligerent nations shall furnish the necessary aid to their respective armies, and, in particular, shall provide for the formation and organization of corps of volunteer nurses. they shall solicit the support of the committees belonging to neutral nations. art. 8. the volunteer nurses shall bind themselves to serve during a limited time, and not in any way to meddle in the operations of the war. they shall be employed, according to their wish, in field service or in that of the hospitals. females will necessarily be assigned to the latter. art. 9. the volunteer nurses shall wear a uniform in all countries, or an identical distinctive badge. their person shall be sacred, and military chiefs shall afford them protection. at the commencement of a campaign, the soldiers of both armies shall be informed of the existence of these corps, and of their exclusively benevolent character. resolutions of the conference. the international conference, desirous to give aid to the wounded soldiers in all cases where the military medical service shall be inadequate, has adopted the following resolutions: article 1. there shall be in every country a committee whose duty it will be to co-operate in time of war by all the means in its power, with the sanitary service of the army. this committee shall organize itself in the manner which may appear to it as the most useful and expedient. art. 2. sections, unlimited in number, shall be formed, in order to second the committee, to which the general direction will belong. art. 3. every committee shall place itself in communication with the government of its own country, in order that its offers of assistance, in case of need, may be accepted. art. 4. in time of peace the committees and sections shall be occupied with the means to make themselves really useful in time of war, especially in preparing material aid of every kind, and in endeavoring to train and instruct volunteer nurses. art. 5. in the event of war, the committees of the belligerent nations shall furnish relief to their respective armies in proportion to their resources; in particular, they shall organize and place the volunteer nurses on an active footing, and, in conjunction with the military authority, they shall arrange places for the reception of the wounded. they shall solicit the assistance of the committees belonging to neutral nations. art. 6. on the demand, or with the concurrence, of the military authority, the committees shall send volunteer nurses to the field of battle. they shall there place them under the direction of the military chiefs. art. 7. the volunteer nurses employed with armies shall be provided, by their respective committees, with everything necessary for their maintenance. art. 8. they shall wear, in all countries, a white band around the arm with a red cross upon it, as a distinctive and uniform badge. art. 9. the committees and sections of the different countries shall meet in international conference, in order to communicate to each other the results of their experience, and to decide on the measures to be adopted for the advancement of the work. art. 10. the exchange of communications between the committees of the different nations shall be made provisionally through the medium of the committee of geneva. independently of the above resolutions, the conference expressed the following wishes: a. that the governments should grant protection to the national committees which may be formed, and should, as far as possible, facilitate the accomplishment of their task. b. that, in time of war, neutrality should be proclaimed by the belligerent nations for the field and stationary hospitals, and that it may also be accorded, in the most complete manner, to all officials employed in sanitary work, to volunteer nurses, to the inhabitants of the country who shall assist the wounded, and to the wounded themselves. that an incidental distinctive sign be adopted for the medical corps of all armies, or, at least, for all persons attached to this service in the same army. that an identical flag be also adopted for the field and stationary hospitals of all armies. the innovation which is most striking, in reading these documents, is the pre-existence of the committees for war, and their creation and maintenance in times of peace. if those societies which have hitherto labored had only conformed to this arrangement, they would have been spared much trouble, and would have been able to give to their resources a more judicious direction. if each of them had been enlightened by the experience of its predecessors; if each had known before hand that which it would have to do in such and such an emergency; if it had anticipated obstacles in order to remove them; and if it had been provided with money and material, it would have been able to render much greater services, and would not, to the same extent, have been a victim either to its inexperience or to its precipitation. the preliminary study of ways and means would have left traces of something more systematic and would have prevented much waste and many false calculations. voluntary action will be so much more efficacious when it shall have preorganized. at a meeting of the different german relief committees held at berlin, on the tenth of july, 1864, baron tinti, of vienna, strongly insisted on this truth, and the committee of schwerin did the same in its report of 1865. when our generosity shall be less ignorant, it will know where and in what way it can be useful; we shall economize our means; we shall multiply our gifts by the good employment that we shall make of them, and by the direction that will be given to the public desire. _bis dat, qui cito dat._ he who gives opportunely gives twice. [illustration: a group of national red cross members.] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. suburban headquarters, american national red cross.] the international red cross treaty. convention of geneva. _for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies at the field, august 22, 1864._ the sovereigns of the following countries, to wit: baden, belgium, denmark, holland, spain, portugal, france, prussia, saxony, wã�â¼rtemberg, and the federal council of switzerland, animated by a common desire of mitigating, as far as in their power, the evils inseparable from war, of suppressing needless severities and of ameliorating the condition of soldiers wounded on fields of battle, having concluded to determine a treaty for this purpose, these plenipotentiaries, after the due interchange of their powers, found to be in good and proper form, have agreed upon the following articles, to wit: article 1. ambulances (field hospitals) and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral, and as such shall be protected and respected by belligerents, so long as any sick or wounded may be therein. such neutrality shall cease, if the ambulances or hospitals should be held by a military force. art. 2. persons employed in hospitals and ambulances, comprising the staff for superintendence, medical service, administration, transport of wounded, as well as chaplains, shall participate in the benefit of neutrality whilst so employed, and so long as there remain any to bring in or to succor. art. 3. the persons designated in the preceding article may, even after occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties in the hospital or ambulance which they may have, or may withdraw in order to regain the corps to which they belong. under such circumstances, when the persons shall cease from their functions, they shall be delivered by the occupying army to the outposts of the enemy. they shall have specially the right of sending a representative to the headquarters of their respective armies. art. 4. as the equipment of military hospitals remains subject to the laws of war, persons attached to such hospitals cannot, on withdrawing, carry away any articles but such as are their private property. under the same circumstances an ambulance shall, on the contrary, retain its equipment. art. 5. inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the wounded shall be respected and shall remain free. the generals of the belligerent powers shall make it their care to inform the inhabitants of the appeal addressed to their humanity, and of the neutrality which will be the consequence of it. any wounded man entertained and taken care of in a house shall be considered as a protection thereto. any inhabitant who shall have entertained wounded men in his house shall be exempted from the quartering of troops, as well as from a part of the contributions of war which may be imposed. art. 6. wounded or sick soldiers shall be entertained and taken care of, to whatever nation they may belong. commanders-in-chief shall have the power to deliver immediately to the outposts of the enemy, soldiers who have been wounded in an engagement, when circumstances permit this to be done, and with the consent of both parties. those who are recognized after they are healed as incapable of serving, shall be sent back to their country. the others may also be sent back on the condition of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the war. evacuations, together with the persons under whose directions they take place, shall be protected by an absolute neutrality. art. 7. a distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hospitals, ambulances, and evacuations. it must on every occasion be accompanied by the national flag. an arm badge (brassard) shall also be allowed for individuals neutralized, but the delivery thereof shall be left to military authority. the flag and arm badge shall bear a red cross on a white ground. art. 8. the details of execution of the present convention shall be regulated by the commanders-in-chief of belligerent armies, according to the instructions of their respective governments, and in conformity with the general principles laid down in this convention. art. 9. the high contracting powers have agreed to communicate the present convention to those governments which have not found it convenient to send plenipotentiaries to the international convention at geneva, with an invitation to accede thereto; the protocol is, for that purpose, left open. art. 10. the present convention shall be ratified and the ratification shall be exchanged at berne, in four months, or sooner, if possible. in witness thereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and have affixed thereto the seal of their arms. done at geneva, the twenty-third day of august, 1864. governments adopting the treaty. list in chronological order of the governments which have adopted the articles of the convention of geneva, of the twenty-second of august, 1864: france september 22, 1864. switzerland october 1, 1864. belgium october 14, 1864. netherlands november 29, 1864. italy december 4, 1864. sweden and norway december 13, 1864. denmark december 15, 1864. spain december 15, 1864. baden december 16, 1864. greece january 17, 1865. great britain february 18, 1865. mecklenburg-schwerin march 9, 1865. prussia june 22, 1865. turkey july 5, 1865. wã�â¼rtemberg june 2, 1866. hesse darmstadt june 22, 1866. bavaria june 30, 1866. austria july 21, 1866. portugal august 9, 1866. saxony october 25, 1866. russia may 22, 1867. pontifical states may 9, 1868. roumania november 30, 1874. persia december 5, 1874. san salvador december 30, 1874. montenegro november 29, 1875. servia march 24, 1876. bolivia october 16, 1879. chili november 15, 1879. argentine republic november 25, 1879. peru april 22, 1880. united states march 1, 1882. bulgaria march 1, 1884. japan june 5, 1886. luxemburg october 5, 1888. hungary --- congo free state december 27, 1888. venezuela 1894. siam june 29, 1895. south african republic september 30, 1896. honduras may 16, 1898. nicaragua may 16, 1898. the following public address, written in 1881, is inserted because of its historical character, showing as it does, quite as well as anything that could now be written, the general apathy in america concerning the treaty, and the many obstacles that had to be overcome by years of struggle and weary waiting: address by clara barton. _to the president, congress, and people of the united states:_ a brief statement of how i became acquainted with the red cross may serve to explain at once its principles and methods, as well as the present attitude of our government in regard to it. the practical beneficence of the sanitary and christian commissions of the united states attracted the attention of the civilized world. i had borne some part in the operations of field hospitals in actual service in the battles of the civil war, and some public notice had been taken of that work. but, broken in health, i was directed by my physicians to go to europe prepared to remain three years. in september, 1869, i arrived at geneva, switzerland. in october i was visited by the president and members of the "international committee for the relief of the wounded in war." they wished to learn if possible why the united states had declined to sign the treaty. our position was incomprehensible to them. if the treaty had originated with a monarchial government they could see some ground for hesitancy. but it originated in a republic older than our own. to what did america object, and how could these objections be overcome? they had twice formally presented it to the government at washington, once in 1864, through our minister plenipotentiary at berne, who was present at the convention; again in 1868, through rev. dr. henry w. bellows, the great head of war relief in america. they had failed in both instances. no satisfactory nor adequate reason had ever been given by the nation for the course pursued. they had thought the people of america, with their grand sanitary record, would be the first to appreciate and accept it. i listened in silent wonder to all this recital, and when i did reply it was to say that i had never in america heard of the convention of geneva nor of the treaty, and was sure that as a country america did not know she had declined; that she would be the last to withhold recognition of a humane movement; that it had doubtless been referred to and declined by some one department of the government, or some one official, and had never been submitted to the people; and as its literature was in languages foreign to our english-speaking population, it had no way of reaching us. you will naturally infer that i examined it. i became all the time more deeply impressed with the wisdom of its principles, the good practical sense of its details, and its extreme usefulness in practice. humane intelligence had devised its provisions and peculiarly adapted it to win popular favor. the absurdity of our own position in relation to it was simply marvelous. as i counted up its roll of twenty-two nations--not a civilized people in the world but ourselves missing, and saw greece, spain, and turkey there, i began to fear that in the eyes of the "rest of mankind" we could not be far from barbarians. this reflection did not furnish a stimulating food for national pride. i grew more and more ashamed. but the winter wore on as winters do with invalids abroad. the summer found me at berne in quest of strength among its mountain views and baths. on the fifteenth of july, 1870, france declared war against prussia. within three days a band of agents from the "international committee of geneva," headed by dr. louis appia (one of the prime movers of the convention), equipped for work and _en route_ for the seat of war, stood at the door of my villa inviting me to go with them and take such part as i had taken in our own war. i had not strength to trust for that, and declined with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way, and i did follow within a week. no shot had then been fired--no man had fallen--yet this organized, powerful commission was on its way, with its skilled agents, ready to receive, direct and dispense the charities and accumulations which the generous sympathies of twenty-two nations, if applied to, might place at its disposal. these men had treaty power to go directly on to any field, and work unmolested in full co-operation with the military and commanders-in-chief; their supplies held sacred and their efforts recognized and seconded in every direction by either belligerent army. not a man could lie uncared for nor unfed. i thought of the peninsula in mcclellan's campaign--of pittsburg landing, cedar mountain and second bull run, antietam, old fredericksburg with its acres of snow-covered and gun-covered _glacee_, and its fourth-day flag of truce; of its dead, and starving wounded, frozen to the ground, and our commissions and their supplies in washington, with no effective organization to go beyond; of the petersburg mine, with its four thousand dead and wounded and no flag of truce, the wounded broiling in a july sun--died and rotted where they fell. i remembered our prisons, crowded with starving men whom all the powers and pities of the world could not reach even with a bit of bread. i thought of the widows' weeds still fresh and dark through all the land, north and south, from the pine to the palm; the shadows on the hearths and hearts over all my country. sore, broken hearts, ruined, desolate homes! was this people to decline a humanity in war? was this a country to reject a treaty for the help of wounded soldiers? were these the women and men to stand aloof and consider? i believed if these people knew that the last cloud of war had forever passed from their horizon, the tender, painful, deathless memories of what had been would bring them in with a force no power could resist. they needed only to know. as i journeyed on and saw the work of these red cross societies in the field, accomplishing in four months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it--no mistakes, no needless suffering, no starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness and comfort wherever that little flag made its way--a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the red cross--as i saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that i said to myself "if i live to return to my country i will try to make my people understand the red cross and that treaty." but i did more than resolve, i promised other nations i would do it, and other reasons pressed me to remember my promise. the franco-prussian war and the war of the commune were both enormous in the extent of their operations and in the suffering of individuals. this great modern international impulse of charity went out everywhere to meet and alleviate its miseries. the small, poor countries gave of their poverty and the rich nations poured out abundantly of their vast resources. the contributions of those under the red cross went quietly, promptly through international responsible channels, were thoughtfully and carefully distributed through well-known agents, returns, accurate to a franc, were made and duly published to the credit of the contributing nations, and _the object aimed at was accomplished_. america, filled with german and french people, with people humane and universal in their instincts of citizenship and brotherhood, freighted ships with supplies and contributions in money prodigal and vast. they arrived in europe, but they were not under the treaty regulations. no sign of the red cross authorized any one to receive and distribute them. the poor baffled agents, honest, well meaning and indefatigable, did all that individuals without system or organization could do. but for the most part the magnificent charity of america was misapplied and went as unsystematized charity always tends to go, to ruin and to utter waste. _the object aimed at was not accomplished._ at the end of the report of the international organization of the red cross occurs something like this: "it is said that the united states of america also contributed something for the sick and wounded, but what, or how much, or to whom, or when or where, it is impossible to tell." in the autumn of 1873, i returned to america more broken in health than when i left in 1869. then followed years of suffering in which i forgot how to walk, but i remembered my resolve and my promise. after almost five years i was able to go to washington with a letter from monsieur moynier, president of the international committee of geneva, to the president of the united states, asking once more that our government accede to the articles of the convention. having been made the official bearer of this letter, i presented it in 1877 to president hayes, who received it kindly, referring it to his secretary of state, mr. evarts, who in his turn referred it to his assistant secretary as the person who would know all about it, examine and report for decision. i then saw how it was made to depend not alone upon one department, but one man, who had been the assistant secretary of state in 1864 and also in 1868, when the treaty had been on the two previous occasions presented to our government. it was a settled thing. there was nothing to hope for from that administration. the matter had been officially referred and would be decided accordingly. it would be declined because it had been declined. if i pressed it to a decision, it would only weigh it down with a third refusal. i waited. my next thought was to refer it to congress. that step would be irregular, and discourteous to the administration. i did not like to take it, still i attempted it, but could not get it considered, for it promised neither political influence, patronage, nor votes. the next year i returned to washington to try congress again. i published a little pamphlet of two leaves addressed to the members and senators, to be laid upon their desks in the hope they would take the trouble to read so little as that, and be by so much the better prepared to consider and act upon a bill if i could get one before them. my strength failed before i could get that bill presented, and i went home again in midwinter. there then remained but a portion of the term of that administration, and i determined, if possible, to outlive it, hoping another would be more responsive. meanwhile i wrote, talked, and did whatever i could to spread the idea among the people, and march, 1881, when the administration of president garfield came in, i went again to washington. the subject was very cordially received by the president and carefully referred by him to secretary blaine, who considered it himself, conferred fully with me, and finally laid it before the president and the cabinet. perhaps the most satisfactory account of that transaction will be found in the letter of mr. blaine addressed to me, (see page 41), which gives the assurance that president garfield would recommend the adoption of the treaty in his message to congress. what were the provisions of that treaty which had been so conspicuously and persistently neglected and apparently rejected by this whole government, whose people are as humane as any people in the world, and as ready to adopt plain and common sense provisions against evils sure to come upon themselves and those whom they hold most dear? it was merely the proposed adoption of a treaty by this government with other nations for the purpose of ameliorating the conditions incident to warfare, humanizing its regulations, softening its barbarities, and so far as possible, lessening the sufferings of the wounded and sick who fall by it. this treaty consists of a code of ten articles, formed and adopted by the international convention of geneva, switzerland, held august 22, 1864, which convention was composed of delegates, two or more from each of the civilized nations of the world, and was called at the instance of the members of the society of public utility of switzerland. the sittings of the convention occupied four days, and resulted, as before stated, in a code of ten articles, to be taken by the delegates there present, back to the governments of their respective countries for ratification. four months were allowed for consideration and decision by the governments, and all acceding within that time were held as having signed at the convention. at the close of this period, it was found that twelve nations had endorsed the terms of the treaty and signed its articles. the protocol was left open for such as should follow. the articles of this treaty provide, as its first and most important feature, for the entire and strict neutrality of all material and supplies contributed by any nation for the use of the sick and wounded in war; also that persons engaged in the distribution of them, shall not be subject to capture; that all hospitals, general or field, shall be neutral, respected and protected by all belligerents; that all persons comprising the medical service, surgeons, chaplains, superintendents, shall be neutral, continuing their work after the occupation of a field or post the same as before, and when no longer needed be free to retire; that they may send a representative to their own headquarters if needful; that field hospitals shall retain their own equipments; that inhabitants of a country who entertain and care for the wounded of either side, in their houses, shall be protected; that the generals of an army shall so inform the people; that commanders-in-chief shall have the power to deliver immediately to the outposts of the enemy soldiers who have been wounded in an engagement, both parties consenting to the same; that the wounded, incapable of serving, shall be returned when healed; that all transports of wounded and all evacuations of posts or towns shall be protected by absolute neutrality. that the sick and wounded shall be entertained regardless of nationality; and that commanders-in-chief shall act in accordance with the instructions of their respective governments, and in conformity to the treaty. in order that all may understand, and no mistake be possible, it also provides that one uniform international flag shall mark all hospitals, all posts of sick and wounded, and one uniform badge or sign shall mark all hospital material, and be worn by all persons properly engaged in the hospital service of any nation included within the treaty; that this international flag and sign shall be a red cross on a white ground, and that the nations within the compact shall not cease their endeavors until every other nation capable of making war shall have signed this treaty, and thus acceded to the general principles of humanity in warfare recognized by other peoples. thirty-one governments have already signed this treaty, thirty-one nations are in this humane compact. the united states of america is not in it, and the work to which your attention is called, and which has occupied me for the last several years, is to induce her to place herself there. this is what the red cross means, not an order of knighthood, not a commandery, not a secret society, not a society at all by itself, but the powerful, peaceful sign and the reducing to practical usefulness of one of the broadest and most needed humanities the world has ever known. these articles, it will be observed, constitute at once a treaty governing our relations with foreign nations, and additional articles of war governing the conduct of our military forces in the field. as a treaty under the constitution, the president and senate are competent to deal with them; as additional articles of war, congress must sanction and adopt them before they can become effective and binding upon the government and the people. for this reason i have appealed to congress as well as to the executive department. on the breaking up of the original convention at geneva, the practical work of organizing its principles into form and making them understood and adopted by the people, devolved upon seven men, mainly those who had been instrumental in calling it. these men were peculiarly fitted for this work by special training, enlarged views, and a comprehensive charity, no less than by practical insight, knowledge of the facts and needs of the situation, and a brave trust in the humane instincts of human nature. they are known to-day the world over as "the international committee of geneva for the relief of the sick and wounded in war." this committee is international, and is the one medium through which all nations within the treaty transact business and carry on correspondence. the first act of each nation subsequent to the treaty has been to establish a central society of its own, which of course is national, and which has general charge and direction of the work of its own country. under these comes the establishment of local societies. it will be perceived that their system, aside from its international feature, is very nearly what our own war relief societies would have been had they retained permanent organizations. indeed, it is believed that we furnished for their admirable system some very valuable ideas. the success of the red cross associations consists in their making their societies permanent, holding their organizations firm and intact, guarding their supplies, saving their property from waste, destruction and pillage, and making the persons in charge of the gifts of the people as strictly responsible for straightforward conduct and honest returns, as they would be for the personal property of an individual, a business firm, or a bank. in attempting to present to the people of this country the plan of the red cross societies, it is proper to explain that originally and as operating in other countries they recognize only the miseries arising from war. their humanities, although immense, are confined to this war centre. the treaty does not cover more than this, but the resolutions for the establishment of societies under the treaty, permit them to organize in accordance with the spirit and needs of their nationalities. by our geographical position and isolation we are far less liable to the disturbances of war than the nations of europe, which are so frequently called upon that they do well to keep in readiness for the exigencies of war alone. but no country is more liable than our own to great overmastering calamities, various, widespread and terrible. seldom a year passes that the nation from sea to sea is not, by the shock of some sudden, unforeseen disaster, brought to utter consternation, and stands shivering like a ship in a gale, powerless, horrified, and despairing. plagues, cholera, fires, flood, famine, all bear upon us with terrible force. like war these events are entirely out of the common course of woes and necessities. like death they are sure to come in some form and at some time, and like it no mortal knows where, how or when. what have we in readiness to meet these emergencies save the good heart of our people and their impulsive, generous gifts? certainly no organized system for collection, reception nor distribution; no agents, nurses nor material, and, worst of all, no funds; nowhere any resources in _reserve_ for use in such an hour of peril and national woe; every movement crude, confused and unsystematized, every thing as unprepared as if we had never known a calamity before and had no reason to expect one again. meanwhile the suffering victims wait! true, in the shock we bestow most generously, lavishly even. men "on change" plunge their hands into their pockets and throw their gold to strangers, who may have neither preparation nor fitness for the work they undertake, and often no guaranty for honesty. women, in the terror and excitement of the moment and in their eagerness to aid, beg in the streets and rush into fairs, working day and night, to the neglect of other duties in the present, and at the peril of all health in the future--often an enormous outlay for very meagre returns. thus our gifts fall far short of their best, being hastily bestowed, irresponsibly received and wastefully applied. we should not, even if to some degree we might, depend upon our ordinary charitable and church societies to meet these great catastrophes; they are always overtaxed. our communities abound in charitable societies, but each has its specific object to which its resources are and must be applied; consequently they cannot be relied upon for prompt and abundant aid in a great and sudden emergency. this must necessarily be the case with all societies which organize to work for a specific charity. and this is as it should be; it is enough that they do constantly bestow. charity bears an open palm, to give is her mission. but i have never classed these red cross societies with charities, i have rather considered them as a wise national provision which seeks to garner and store up something against an hour of sudden need. in all our land we have not one organization of this nature and which acts upon the system of conserved resources. our people have been more wise and thoughtful in the establishment of means for preventing and arresting the destruction of property than the destruction of human life and the lessening of consequent suffering. they have provided and maintain at an immense cost, in the aggregate, a system of fire departments with their expensive buildings and apparatus, with their fine horses and strong men kept constantly in readiness to dash to the rescue at the first dread clang of the fire bell. still, while the electric current may flash upon us at any moment its ill tidings of some great human distress, we have no means of relief in readiness such as these red cross societies would furnish. i beg you will not feel that in the presentation of this plan of action i seek to add to the labors of the people. on the contrary, i am striving to lessen them by making previous, calm preparation do away with the strain and confusion of unexpected necessities and haste. i am providing not weariness, but rest. and, again, i would not be understood as suggesting the raising of more moneys for charitable purposes; rather i am trying to save the people's means, to economize their charities, to make their gifts do more by the prevention of needless waste and extravagance. if i thought that the formation of these societies would add a burden to our people i would be the last to advocate it. i would not, however, yield the fact of the treaty. for patriotism, for national honor, i would stand by that at all cost. my first and greatest endeavor has been to wipe from the scroll of my country's fame the stain of imputed lack of common humanity, to take her out of the roll of barbarism. i said that in 1869 there were twenty-two nations in the compact. there are now thirty-one, for since that date have been added roumania, persia, san salvador, montenegro, servia, bolivia, chili, argentine republic and peru. if the united states of america is fortunate and diligent she may, perhaps, come to stand no. 32 in the roll of civilization and humanity. if not, she will remain where she at present stands, among the barbarians and the heathen. in considering this condition of things it seemed desirable to so extend the original design of the red cross societies operating in other lands as to include not only suffering by war, but by pestilence, famine, fires or floods--in short, any unlooked-for calamity so great as to place it beyond the means of ordinary local charity, and which by public opinion would be pronounced a national calamity; but that this addition should in no way impair the original functions of the society, and that for their own well being they should be held firm by the distinguishing feature of the international constitution, which provides that local societies shall not act except upon orders from the national association, which is charged with the duty of being so fully informed upon all such subjects, both at home and abroad, as to constitute it the most competent judge of the magnitude and gravity of any catastrophe. during all these years no societies under the true banner of the red cross of geneva were or could be organized, for the government had not yet ratified the treaty and no department of the government had then intimated that it ever would be ratified. it could not be a responsible or quite an honest movement on my part to proceed to the formation of societies to act under and in conformity to a treaty of special character so long as our government recognized no such treaty and i could get no assurance that it ever would or indeed could recognize it. but this delay in the formation of societies, however embarrassing, was in no manner able to interfere with the general plan, or the working details for its operations, which had been arranged and decided upon before the presentation of the subject to the government in 1877, and published in pamphlet form in 1878, making it to cover, as it now does, the entire field of national relief for great national woes and calamities in time of peace, no less than in war. the wise provisions, careful preparations and thorough system which had been found so efficient in the permanent societies of the red cross in other countries, could not fail, i thought, to constitute both a useful and powerful system of relief in any class of disasters. i therefore ventured so far upon the generous spirit of their original resolutions in the plan of our societies as, mechanically speaking, to attach to this vast motor power the extra and hitherto dead weight of our great national calamities, in order that the same force should apply to all and serve to lighten i hoped, so far as possible, not only the woes of those directly called to suffer, but the burdens on the hearts and hands of those called to sympathize with their sufferings. the time allowed for the practical test of this experiment has been short. scarcely three months in which to organize and act, but the brave societies of the red cross of western new york, at this moment standing so nobly among their flame-stricken neighbors of michigan--so generously responding to their calls for help, are quite sufficient i believe to show what the action and results of this combined system will be when recognized and inaugurated. it may be said that this treaty jeopardizes our traditional policy, which jealously guards against entangling alliances abroad; that as we are exempt by our geographical position from occasions for war this treaty must bring us not benefits but only burdens from other people's calamities and wars--calamities and wars which we do not create and of which we may properly reap the incidental advantages. but this treaty binds none to bear burdens, but only to refrain from cruelties; it binds not to give but to allow others to give wisely and to work humanely if they will, while all shall guarantee to them undisturbed activity in deeds of charity. there is then in the red cross no "entangling alliance" that any but a barbarian at war can feel as a restraint. this inculcated wariness of foreign influences, wonderfully freshened by the conduct of foreign rulers and writers during the rebellion and deepened by the crimes and the craft directed primarily at mexico and ultimately at us, made the people of america in 1864 and 1868 devoutly thankful for the friendly and stormy sea that rolled between them and the european states. and it is not perhaps altogether strange that american statesmen, inspired by such a public opinion, should then have been but little inclined to look with favor upon any new international obligations however specious in appearance or humane in fact. but the award of geneva surely opened the way for the red cross of geneva. time and success have made plain the nation's path. the postal treaty since made among all nations and entered into heartily by this has proved salutary to all. it has removed every valid state reason for opposition to the harmless, humane and peaceful provisions of the treaty of the red cross. but in the midst of the rugged facts of war come sentimental objections and objectors. for, deplore it as we may, war _is the great fact_ of all history and its most pitiable feature is not after all so much the great numbers slain, wounded and captured in battle, as their cruel after treatment as wounded and prisoners, no adequate provision being made for their necessities, no humane care even permitted, except at the risk of death or imprisonment as spies, of those moved by wise pity or a simple religious zeal. among these hard facts appears a conscientious theorist and asks, is not war a great sin and wrong? ought we to provide for it, to make it easy, to lessen its horrors, to mitigate its sufferings? shall we not in this way encourage rulers and peoples to engage in war for slight and fancied grievances? we provide for the victims of the great wrong and sin of intemperance. these are for the most part voluntary victims, each in a measure the arbiter of his own fate. the soldier has generally no part, no voice, in creating the war in which he fights. he simply obeys as he must his superiors and the laws of his country. yes, it is a great wrong and sin, and for that reason i would provide not only for, but against it. but here comes the speculative theorist! isn't it encouraging a bad principle; wouldn't it be better to do away with all war? wouldn't peace societies be better? oh, yes, my friend, as much better as the millennium would be better than this, but it is not here. hard facts are here; war is here; war is the outgrowth, indicator and relic of barbarism. civilization alone will do away with it, and scarcely a quarter of the earth is yet civilized, and that quarter not beyond the possibilities of war. it is a long step yet to permanent peace. we cannot cross a stream until we reach it. the sober truth is, we are called to deal with facts, not theories; we must practice if we would teach. and be assured, my friends, there is not a peace society on the face of the earth to-day, nor ever will be, so potent, so effectual against war as the red cross of geneva. the sooner the world learns that the halo of glory which surrounds a field of battle and its tortured, thirsting, starving, pain-racked, dying victims exists only in imagination; that it is all sentiment, delusion, falsehood, given for effect; that soldiers do not die painless deaths; that the sum of all human agony finds its equivalent on the battlefield, in the hospital, by the weary wayside and in the prison; that, deck it as you will, it is agony; the sooner and more thoroughly the people of the earth are brought to realize and appreciate these facts, the more slow and considerate they will be about rushing into hasty and needless wars, and the less popular war will become. death by the bullet painless! what did this nation do during eighty agonizing and memorable days but to watch the effects of one bullet wound? was it painless? painless either to the victim or the nation? though canopied by a fortitude, patience, faith and courage scarce exceeded in the annals of history, still was it agony. and when in his delirious dreams the dying president murmured, "the great heart of the nation will not let the soldier die," i prayed god to hasten the time when every wounded soldier would be sustained by this sweet assurance; that in the combined sympathies, wisdom, enlightenment and power of the nations, he should indeed feel that the great heart of the people would not let the soldier die. friends, was it accident, or was it providence which made it one of the last acts of james a. garfield in health to pledge himself to urge upon the representatives of his people in congress assembled, this great national step for the relief and care of wounded men? living or dying it was his act and his wish, and no member in that honored, considerate and humane body but will feel himself in some manner holden to see it carried out. action of the government of the united states. the president of the american red cross, clara barton, in november, 1881, laid before president arthur the matter of the treaty of geneva, and the unfulfilled desire of president garfield that the united states should give its adhesion to that international compact. to this president arthur gave a cordial and favorable response, and made good his words by the following paragraph in his first annual message, sent to the forty-seventh congress: at its last extra session the senate called for the text of the geneva convention for the relief of the wounded in war. i trust that this action foreshadows such interest in the subject as will result in the adhesion of the united states to that humane and commendable engagement. this part of the message was immediately taken up in the senate and referred to the committee on foreign relations, consisting of the following named gentlemen, to wit: william windom, minnesota; george f. edmunds, vermont; john t. miller, california; thomas w. ferry, michigan; elbridge g. lapham, new york; john w. johnston, virginia; j.t. morgan, alabama; george h. pendleton, ohio; benjamin h. hill, georgia. during the consideration of the subject an invitation was extended to the president of the american association, its counsel and other associate members to meet the above named senate committee at the capitol, for conference, and for an explanation of such points as still remained obscure, to aid their deliberations, and to facilitate investigations. on the seventeenth of may, 1881, hon. omar d. conger submitted to the united states senate the following resolution, which was considered by unanimous consent and agreed to: _resolved_, that the secretary of state be requested to furnish to the senate copies (translations) of articles of convention signed at geneva, switzerland, august 22, 1864, touching the treatment of those wounded in war, together with the forms of ratification employed by the several governments, parties thereto. on the twelfth of december, 1881, in response to the above resolution, president arthur addressed to the senate a message transmitting a report of the secretary of state, with accompanying papers, touching the geneva convention for the relief of the wounded in war, which message, report and accompanying papers were as follows: (senate ex. doc. no. 6, 47th congress, 1st session.) message from the president of the united states, transmitting in response to senate resolution of may 17th, 1881, a report of the secretary of state, with accompanying papers, touching the geneva convention for the relief of the wounded in war. december 12, 1881.--referred to the committee on foreign relations and ordered to be printed. _to senate of the united states:_ i transmit herewith, in response to the resolution of the senate of the seventeenth of may last, a report of the secretary of state, with accompanying papers, touching the geneva convention for the relief of the wounded in war. chester a. arthur, executive mansion, washington, _december 12, 1881_. _to the president:_ the secretary of state, to whom was addressed a resolution of the senate, dated the seventeenth of may, 1881, requesting him "to furnish to the senate copies (translations) of articles of convention signed at geneva, switzerland, august 22, 1864, touching the treatment of those wounded in war, together with the forms of ratification employed by the several governments, parties thereto," has the honor to lay before the president the papers called for by the resolution. in view of the reference made, in the annual message of the president, to the geneva convention, the secretary of state deems it unnecessary now to enlarge upon the advisability of the adhesion of the united states to an international compact at once so humane in its character and so universal in its application as to commend itself to the adoption of nearly all the civilized powers. james g. blaine. department of state, washington, _december 10, 1881_. the "additional articles" concerning the red cross for the navy. the governments of north germany, austria, baden, bavaria, belgium, denmark, france, great britain, italy, the netherlands, sweden and norway, switzerland, turkey and wã�â¼rtemberg, desiring to extend to armies on the sea the advantages of the convention concluded at geneva the twenty-second of august, 1864, for the amelioration of the condition of wounded soldiers in armies in the field, and to further particularize some of the stipulations of the said convention, proposed and signed the following additional articles: additional articles to the convention of geneva of the twenty-second august, 1864, signed at geneva the twentieth of october, 1868. article i. the persons designated in article ii. of the convention shall, after the occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties, according to their wants, to the sick and wounded in the ambulance or the hospital which they serve. when they request to withdraw, the commander of the occupying troops shall fix the time of departure, which he shall only be allowed to delay for a short time in case of military necessity. art. ii. arrangements will have to be made by the belligerent powers to ensure to the neutralized person, fallen into the hands of the army of the enemy, the entire enjoyment of his salary. art. iii. under the conditions provided for in articles i. and iv. of the convention, the name "ambulance" applies to field hospitals and other temporary establishments, which follow the troops on the field of battle to receive the sick and wounded. art. iv. in conformity with the spirit of article v. of the convention, and to the reservations contained in the protocol of 1864, it is explained that for the appointment of the charges relative to the quartering of troops and of the contributions of war, account only shall be taken in an equitable manner of the charitable zeal displayed by the inhabitants. art. v. in addition to article vi. of the convention, it is stipulated that, with the reservation of officers whose detention might be important to the fate of arms, and within the limits fixed by the second paragraph of that article, the wounded fallen into the hands of the enemy shall be sent back to their country, after they are cured, or sooner if possible, on condition, nevertheless, of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the war. art. vi. the boats which, at their own risk and peril, during and after an engagement pick up the shipwrecked or wounded, or which, having picked them up, convey them on board a neutral, or hospital ship, shall enjoy, until the accomplishment of their mission, the character of neutrality, as far as the circumstances of the engagement and the position of the ships engaged will permit. the appreciation of these circumstances is entrusted to the humanity of all the combatants. the wrecked and wounded thus picked up and saved must not serve again during the continuance of the war. art. vii. the religious, medical and hospital staff of any captured vessel are declared neutral, and, on leaving the ship, may remove the articles and surgical instruments which are their private property. art. viii. the staff designated in the preceding article must continue to fulfill their functions in the captured ship, assisting in the removal of wounded made by the victorious party; they will then be at liberty to return to their country, in conformity with the second paragraph of the first additional article. the stipulations of the second additional article are applicable to the pay and allowance of the staff. art. ix. the military hospital ships remain under martial law in all that concerns their stores; they become the property of the captor, but the latter must not divert them from their special appropriation during the continuance of the war. the vessels not equipped for fighting, which during peace the government shall have officially declared to be intended to serve as floating hospital ships, shall, however, enjoy during the war complete neutrality, both as regards stores, and also as regards their staff, provided their equipment is exclusively appropriated to the special service on which they are employed. art. x. any merchantman, to whatever nation she may belong, charged exclusively with removal of sick and wounded, is protected by neutrality, but the mere fact, noted on the ship's books, of the vessel having been visited by an enemy's cruiser, renders the sick and wounded incapable of serving during the continuance of the war. the cruiser shall even have the right of putting on board an officer in order to accompany the convoy, and thus verify the good faith of the operation. if the merchant ship also carries a cargo, her neutrality will still protect it, provided that such cargo is not of a nature to be confiscated by the belligerents. the belligerents retain the right to interdict neutralized vessels from all communication, and from any course which they may deem prejudicial to the secrecy of their operations. in urgent cases, special conventions may be entered into between commanders-in-chief, in order to neutralize temporarily and in a special manner the vessels intended for the removal of the sick and wounded. art. xi. wounded or sick sailors and soldiers, when embarked, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be protected and taken care of by their captors. their return to their own country is subject to the provisions of article vi. of the convention, and of the additional article v. art. xii. the distinctive flag to be used with the national flag, in order to indicate any vessel or boat which may claim the benefits of neutrality, in virtue of the principles of this convention, is a white flag with a red cross. the belligerents may exercise in this respect any mode of verification which they may deem necessary. military hospital ships shall be distinguished by being painted white outside, with green strake. art. xiii. the hospital ships which are equipped at the expense of the aid societies, recognized by the governments signing this convention, and which are furnished with a commission emanating from the sovereign, who shall have given express authority for their being fitted out, and with a certificate from the proper naval authority that they have been placed under his control during their fitting out and on their final departure, and that they were then appropriated solely to the purpose of their mission, shall be considered neutral, as well as the whole of their staff. they shall be recognized and protected by the belligerents. they shall make themselves known by hoisting, together with their national flag, the white flag with a red cross. the distinctive mark of their staff, while performing their duties, shall be an armlet of the same colors. the outer painting of these hospital ships shall be white, with red strake. these ships shall bear aid and assistance to the wounded and wrecked belligerents, without distinction of nationality. they must take care not to interfere in any way with the movements of the combatants. during and after the battle they must do their duty at their own risk and peril. the belligerents shall have the right of controlling and visiting them; they will be at liberty to refuse their assistance, to order them to depart, and to detain them if the exigencies of the case require such a step. the wounded and wrecked picked up by these ships cannot be reclaimed by either of the combatants, and they will be required not to serve during the continuance of the war. art. xiv. in naval wars any strong presumption that either belligerent takes advantage of the benefits of neutrality, with any other view than the interest of the sick and wounded, gives to the other belligerent, until proof to the contrary, the right of suspending the convention treaty, as regards such belligerent. should this presumption become a certainty, notice may be given to such belligerent that the convention is suspended with regard to him during the whole continuance of the war. art. xv. the present act shall be drawn up in a single original copy, which shall be deposited in the archives of the swiss confederation. an authentic copy of this act shall be delivered, with an invitation to adhere to it, to each of the signatory powers of the convention of the twenty-second of august, 1864, as well as to those that have successively acceded to it. in faith whereof, the undersigned commissaries have drawn up the present project of additional articles and have affixed thereunto the seals of their arms: von roeder, f. lã�â¶ffler, kã�â¶hler, dr. mundy, steiner, dr. dompierre, visschers, j.b.g. galiffe, d. felice baroffio, paalo cottrau, h.a. van karnebeck, westenberg, f.n. staaff, g.h. dufour, g. moynier, a. coupvent des bois, h. de prã�â©val, john saville lumley, h.r. yelverton, dr. s. lehmann, husny, dr. c. hahn, dr. fichte. [_international bulletin, january, 1882._] the geneva convention in the united states. the friends of the red cross are not ignorant that the list of states which have signed the geneva convention presents a grave and lamentable lack. one of the most civilized nations of the world, and consequently one of the best prepared to subscribe to the principles of this treaty, that is to say, the united states of america, does not appear there. their absence is so much the more surprising because the proceedings of the geneva convention have only been, in some respects, the partial reproduction of the celebrated "instructions of the american army," edited by the late dr. lieber, and adopted by president lincoln (april 24, 1863), and put in practice by the armies of the north during the war of secession. more than this, it is remembered that the government at washington had been represented at the diplomatic conference of geneva in 1864 by two delegates at the debates relative to the geneva convention, but without being furnished with sufficient power to sign it. [protocol of the session of august 9, 1864.] these were messrs. george j. fogg, united states minister at berne, and charles s.p. bowles, european agent of the american sanitary commission. it was expected, then, that the adhesion of the united states would soon follow, but nothing came of it. nevertheless, in the hope that this result would not be too long delayed, an aid society was formed at new york in 1866, when the civil war had come to an end, to gather in some way the heritage of the sanitary commission, which had just filled with much brilliancy, and during several years, the rã�â´le of a veritable red cross society. one might have thought that the berlin conference in 1869 would be a determining circumstance which would induce the united states to enter into the european concert. the invitation to assist at the conference at berlin in 1869 was addressed to the government of the united states, which declined it with thanks, as not having taken part in the convention of geneva. the society of which we have just spoken was in like manner invited, but it also was not represented. this double absence called out a proposition from m. hepke, privy counsellor of the legation, a proposition, supported by the signatures of thirty-eight other delegates present, and adopted unanimously by the members of the conference. the text of it was as follows: "the conference having arrived at the end of their labors, express a lively regret at having been deprived of the precious assistance of the delegates from the united states of north america, convinced that the great and noble nation which, one of the first in the world, has rendered eminent services to the great humanitarian work, will welcome with sympathy the results of their labors, the conference desires that the protocols of these sessions shall be addressed by their president to the government of the united states of north america, and to the different aid committees which exist in that country." that step unfortunately remained without results. the society which had its seat at new york, comprehending that its existence would be unnatural and its position false so long as the government refused to sign the convention, finished by dissolving towards the end of 1872. since then, the international committee, which would not despair of success, made upon its part several new attempts, which invariably met with absolute non-attention. happily the history of the red cross was there to prove that the most tenacious resistance is not indefinite, and that sooner or later the sentiments of the most recalcitrant governments are modified under the control of circumstances. how many we have seen who at first believed their adhesion useless, or even dangerous, and who have been led to repentance on the occurrence of wars in which their armies were to be, or had been, engaged, because they comprehended at that moment only to what point their fears were chimerical or their indifference injurious to those depending upon them for protection. in the united states time has done its work as elsewhere, though peace has long reigned there. the change of sentiment which has been produced in regard to the red cross has revealed itself recently on the sixth of december, 1881, in the message of president arthur at the opening of the fourth session of the forty-seventh congress. we read there the following paragraph: "at its last extra session the senate demanded the text of the geneva convention for aiding the wounded in time of war. i hope that this fact proves the interest which the senate feels in this question, and that there will result from it, the adhesion of the united states to this humane and commendable treaty." it seems, then, that we touch the port; the matter is seriously considered, and it will be with lively satisfaction that we shall register the result which has been so long the end of our desires. we will not terminate these retrospective considerations, without telling what we know of the causes which have recently led to decisive steps in the question. it is, above all, to a woman that this result is owing, and the name of that woman is not unknown to our readers. we spoke to them several years ago of miss clara barton, one of the heroines of the american war, where she reproduced the charitable exploits of miss nightingale; she was honored at the conclusion of the war with a national recompense.[a] [a] this statement is not exact; indeed, it does some injustice as well to miss barton as to the american congress, and was doubtless derived from misstatements promulgated in the united states, the result of a general misunderstanding of the facts, and an error, of course, unknown to a foreign writer. precisely what the thirty-seventh congress did was to pass the following joint resolution of both houses, and in accordance with the same to pay over to miss barton the sum mentioned in it for the uses and purposes therein set forth: march 10, 1866. _a resolution providing for expenses incurred in searching for missing soldiers of the army of the united states, and for further prosecution of the same._ _whereas_, miss clara barton has, during the late war of the rebellion, expended from her own resources large sums of money in endeavoring to discover missing soldiers of the armies of the united states, and in communicating intelligence to their relatives; therefore, _resolved by the senate and house of representatives of the united states of america in congress assembled_, that the sum of fifteen thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to reimburse miss clara barton for the amount so expended by her, and to aid in the further prosecution of the search for missing soldiers, and the printing necessary to the furtherance of the said object shall hereafter be done by the public printer. approved march 10, 1866. [14 vol. u.s. statutes at large, p. 350.] this, therefore, was not recompense for services; it was reimbursement for money expended; it was money expended by a private citizen for public uses, and this, mainly, after the close of the war. the government recognized its value to the people, and refunded the money, and that without solicitation on miss barton's part. this work was a fitting, even necessary, result of her four years' voluntary and unpaid services on the field, not as an ordinary nurse, but as a sort of independent sanitary commission, whom the government, the soldiers, and the people came at last to implicitly trust, for they never found their trust betrayed nor themselves disappointed by any want of discretion, sagacity, or energy on her part. it cannot be set forth here, it can only be alluded to most briefly. in its details it must form a chapter in the story of a life singularly original, successful, and beneficent. --[report of the american (national) association of the red cross of 1883.] then, being in europe at the time of the french and german war, she again flew to the battlefield. returning at last to her own country with enfeebled health, she determined to give what strength remained to her to the service of the red cross, and took for her task to plead its cause with the influential men of the american government. quitting her home at dansville, she passed long months at washington to carry conviction to the minds of the president, of his ministers, of members of congress, writing for the journals, publishing pamphlets to spread the ideas the triumph of which she had at heart. she had need of much perseverance and energy to avoid renouncing her plan, for she waited long before finding a favorable opportunity. it was not until the accession of president garfield that she could catch a glimpse of success. she then found in the chief magistrate of the nation a man who warmly espoused her cause, and in the secretary of state, mr. blaine, an auxiliary as zealous as he was devoted. we have seen by the quotation which we have borrowed from the last presidential message that mr. arthur shares the sentiments and ideas of his predecessor on the subject of the geneva convention, and it is hardly probable that he will encounter upon this point opposition from congress. the name of miss barton will probably not figure in the official documents which will be the fruit of her labors, but here, where we have entire liberty to render homage to her devotion, we are happy to be able to proclaim her imperishable title to the gratitude of the red cross. to the name of miss barton we should join that of m. edouard seve, who, after having rendered important service to the red cross in south america, where he represented belgium to chili, has continued to use his activity in favor of the same cause in the united states since he has been called to the position of consul-general at philadelphia. his efforts have certainly contributed to render the government at washington favorable to the geneva convention. the preceding article was already printed when we received from the indefatigable miss barton a new pamphlet upon the red cross and the geneva convention. this little work is destined to initiate the americans into the origin and history of the work, with which they are as yet but imperfectly acquainted, and for which it is the aspiration of the author to awaken their interest; in particular, we find there the confirmation of the steps of which we have spoken above, and especially the text of the two letters addressed by the international committee, one on the ninth of august, 1877, to president hayes, the other on the thirteenth of june, to secretary of state blaine. the pamphlet which we have announced has been published by the american national society of the red cross, with which we have not yet had occasion to make our readers acquainted. this society, recently established at the suggestion of miss barton, and of which she has been made president, is only waiting for the official adhesion of the united states to the geneva convention to put itself in relation with the societies of other countries. we will wait until then to speak of it and to give the details of its organization. accession of the united states to the treaty of geneva and to the additional articles. on the first day of march, 1882, the president, by his signature, gave the accession of the united states to the treaty of geneva of august 22, 1864, and also to that of october 20, 1868, and transmitted to the senate the following message, declaration, and proposed adoption of the same: _message from the president of the united states, transmitting an accession of the united states to the convention concluded at geneva on the twenty-second august, 1864, between various powers, for the amelioration of the wounded of armies in the field, and to the additional articles thereto, signed at geneva on the twentieth october, 1868._ march 3, 1882.--read; accession read the first time referred to the committee on foreign relations, and, together with the message, ordered to be printed in confidence, for the use of the senate. march 16, 1882.--ratified and injunction of secrecy removed therefrom. _to the senate of the united states:_ i transmit to the senate for its action thereon, the accession of the united states to the convention concluded at geneva on the twenty-second august, 1864, between various powers, for the amelioration of the wounded of armies in the field, and to the additional articles thereto, signed at geneva on the twentieth of october, 1868. chester a. arthur. washington, _march 3, 1882_. _whereas_, on the twenty-second day of august, 1864, a convention was concluded at geneva, in switzerland, between the grand duchy of baden and the swiss confederation, the kingdom of belgium, the kingdom of denmark, the kingdom of spain, the french empire, the grand duchy of hesse, the kingdom of italy, the kingdom of the netherlands; the kingdom of portugal, the kingdom of prussia, and the kingdom of wã�â¼rtemberg, for the amelioration of the wounded in armies in the field, the tenor of which convention is as follows: (see treaty and additional articles, already inserted.) now, therefore, the president of the united states of america, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, hereby declares that the united states accede to the said convention of the twenty-second august, 1864, and also accede to the said convention of october 20, 1868. done at washington this first day of march in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and of the independence of the united states the one hundred and sixth. (seal.) chester a. arthur. by the president. fred'k t. frelinghuysen, _secretary of state_. the same day the president of the american association sent by cablegram to president moynier, of the international committee at geneva, the glad tidings that the united states had at last joined in the great humane work of the world by ratifying the treaties of the red cross; and on the twenty-fourth of the same month, president moynier replied as follows: comite international de secours aux militaires blesses, geneva, _march 24, 1882_. miss clara barton, _president of the american society of the red cross, washington_: mademoiselle: at last, on the seventeenth instant, i received your glorious telegram. i delayed replying to it in order to communicate its contents to my colleagues of the international committee, so as to be able to thank you in the name of all of us and to tell you of the joy it gives us. you must feel happy too, and proud to have at last attained your object, thanks to a perseverance and a zeal which surmounted every obstacle. please, if opportunity offers, to be our interpreter to president arthur and present him our warmest congratulations. i suppose your government will now notify the swiss federal council of its decision in the matter, and the latter will then inform the other powers which have signed the red cross treaty. only after this formality shall have been complied with can we occupy ourselves with fixing the official international status of your american society. we have, however, already considered the circular which we intend to address to all the societies of the red cross, and with regard thereto we have found that it will be necessary for us as a preliminary measure to be furnished with a document certifying that the american society has attained the second of its objects, _i.e._, that it has been (officially) recognized by the american government. it is important that we be able to certify that your government is prepared to accept your services in case of war; that it will readily enter into co-operation with you, and will encourage the centralization under your direction of all the voluntary aid. we have no doubt that you will readily obtain from the competent authorities an official declaration to that effect, and we believe that this matter will be merely a formality, _but we attach the greatest importance to the fact in order to cover our responsibility, especially in view of the pretensions of rival societies which might claim to be acknowledged by us_. it is your society alone and none other that we will recognize, because it inspires us with confidence, and _we would be placed in a false position if you failed to obtain for it a privileged position by a formal recognition by the government_. we hope that you will appreciate the motives of caution which guide us in this matter, and that you may soon enable us to act in the premises. wishing to testify to you its gratitude for the services you have already rendered to the red cross, the committee decided to offer to you one of the medals which a german engraver caused to be struck off in 1870 in honor of the red cross. it will be sent to you in a few days. it is of very small intrinsic value indeed, but, such as it is, we have no other means of recompensing the most meritorious of our assistants. please to regard it only as a simple memorial, and as a proof of the esteem and gratitude we feel for you. accept, mademoiselle, the assurance of my most distinguished sentiments. g. moynier, _president_. [illustration: copyright 1898, by clara barton. some red cross decorations presented to clara barton. _the iron cross of merit presented by emperor william i. and empress augusta, in recognition of services in the franco-german war of 1870-71. the german medal of honor presented by the comitã�â© international in recognition of services in securing the adhesion of the united states to the treaty of the red cross. the servian red cross presented by queen natali of servia._] [illustration: copyright 1898, by clara barton. chronological historic tree. _showing the development of the red cross during the first twenty-five years of its existence. the city of geneva, its origin. the central branch represents the work of the comitã�â© international. the right branch the formation of the national societies or committees. the left branch the date of adhesion to the treaty by the various nations._] the requirements contained in the foregoing letter, in regard to the recognition of the american association of the red cross, were fully and generously complied with by the various branches of the government of the united states, and the documents conveying the official recognition were transmitted by the honorable secretary of state to the american consul at geneva, with instructions to deliver them to the international committee. the following is the proclamation by president arthur announcing to the people the adoption by the united states of the treaty of geneva, and the additional articles concerning the navy: by the president of the united states of america: a proclamation. _whereas_, on the twenty-second day of august, 1864, a convention was concluded at geneva, in switzerland, between the grand duchy of baden and the swiss confederation, the kingdom of belgium, the kingdom of denmark, the kingdom of spain, the french empire, the grand duchy of hesse, the kingdom of italy, the kingdom of the netherlands, the kingdom of portugal, the kingdom of prussia, and the kingdom of wã�â¼rtemberg, for the amelioration of the wounded in armies in the field, the tenor of which convention is hereinafter subjoined: _and whereas_, the several contracting parties to the said convention exchanged the ratification thereof at geneva on the twenty-second day of june, 1865; _and whereas_, the several states hereinafter named have adhered to the said convention in virtue of article ix. thereof, to wit: sweden, december 13, 1864; greece, january 5-17, 1865; great britain, february 18, 1865; mecklenburg-schwerin, march 9, 1865; turkey, july 5, 1865; wã�â¼rtemberg, june 22, 1866; hesse, june 2, 1866; bavaria, june 30, 1866; austria, july 21, 1866; persia, december 5, 1874; salvador, december 30, 1874; montenegro, november 17-29, 1875; servia, march 24, 1876; bolivia, october 16, 1879; chili, november 15, 1879; argentine republic, november 25, 1879; peru, april 22, 1880. _and whereas_, the swiss confederation, in virtue of the said article ix. of said convention, has invited the united states of america to accede thereto; _and whereas_, on the twentieth october, 1868, the following additional articles were proposed and signed at geneva, on behalf of great britain, austria, baden, bavaria, belgium, denmark, france, italy, netherlands, north germany, sweden and norway, switzerland, turkey and wã�â¼rtemberg, the tenor of which additional articles is hereinafter subjoined (see page 74); _and whereas_, the president of the united states of america, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, did, on the first day of march, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, declare that the united states accede to the said convention of the twenty-second of august, 1864, and also accede to the said convention of october 20, 1868; _and whereas_, on the ninth day of june, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, the federal council of the swiss confederation, in virtue of the final provision of a certain minute of the exchange of the ratifications of the said convention at berne, december 22, 1864, did, by a formal declaration, accept the said adhesion of the united states of america, as well in the name of the swiss confederation as in that of the other contracting states; _and whereas_, furthermore, the government of the swiss confederation has informed the government of the united states that the exchange of the ratifications of the aforesaid additional articles of the twentieth october, 1868, to which the united states of america have, in like manner, adhered as aforesaid, has not yet taken place between the contracting parties, and that these articles cannot be regarded as a treaty in full force and effect; now, therefore, be it known that i, chester a. arthur, president of the united states of america, have caused the said convention treaty of august 22, 1864, to be made public, to the end that the same and every article and clause thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the united states and the citizens thereof; reserving, however, the promulgation of the hereinbefore mentioned additional articles of october 20, 1868, notwithstanding the accession of the united states of america thereto, until the exchange of the ratifications thereof between the several contracting states shall have been effected, and the said additional articles shall have acquired full force and effect as an international treaty. in witness whereof i have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the united states to be affixed. done at the city of washington, this twenty-sixth day of july, in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and of the independence of the united states the one hundred and seventh. (l.s.) chester a. arthur. by the president, fred'k t. frelinghuysen, _secretary of state_. _united states of america, department of state, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting_: i certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in the department of state. in testimony whereof i, john davis, acting secretary of state of the united states, have hereunto subscribed my name and caused the seal of the department of state to be affixed. done at the city of washington, this ninth day of august, a.d. 1882, and of the independence of the united states of america the one hundred and seventh. (l.s.) john davis. thus was the american branch of the red cross welcomed into the fellowship of kindred associations in thirty-one other nations, the most prosperous and civilized on the globe, its position assured, and its future course made simple, direct and untroubled. the official bulletin of the international committee also hailed the accession of the united states to the treaty, in an article of characteristic caution and of great significance. in that article, which is quoted in full hereafter, the distinction was carefully pointed out between that which had already been fully agreed to, and had become invested with all the force and solemnity of international treaties, and the proposed amendment which had been drawn up and considered with a view to ultimate adoption. this proposed amendment had received the sanction and signatures of the international committee at geneva, without ever having been formally adopted by any nation. the united states had, at the same moment adopted both, thus becoming the thirty-second nation to adhere to the treaty of august 22, 1864, and the _first_ to adopt the proposed amendment of october 20, 1868. [_international bulletin for april, 1882._] adhesion of the united states to the convention of geneva. referring to the article inserted in our preceding bulletin, p. 42, we are happy to be able to announce that the act of adhesion which we presented was signed at washington the sixteenth of march, in pursuance of a vote by which the members of the senate gave their approval with unanimity. our readers will doubtless be surprised, as we are, that after the long and systematic resistance of the government of the united states against rallying to the convention of geneva, there cannot be found in the american legislature a single representative of the opposition. so complete a reversal of opinion cannot be explained, unless we admit that the chief officers of the nation had cherished, up to the present time, prejudices in regard to the convention of geneva--prejudices which vanished as soon as they fully comprehended what was expected of them, and recognized that there was nothing compromising in it to the political condition of their country. with the zeal of new converts, they have even gone beyond the mark, inasmuch as they have voted their adhesion not only to the convention of the twenty-second of august, 1864, but also to the plan of additional articles of the twentieth of october, 1868, which was not the matter in question, since they had never had the force of law; we give this news only under every reserve, because we have received contradictory information on the subject. if this defect in form is found in the official document which will be sent to the swiss federal council one could fear it might retard the so much desired conclusion of this important affair, but it need not be too much regretted, since it will enable us to understand the opinion of the great transatlantic republic upon maritime questions as they relate to the red cross. the action of the united states, mentioned in this article, was perhaps somewhat characteristic. it seemed to give itself to the movement of the red cross with a gracious earnestness seldom seen in the cautious forms of diplomatic action, and it certainty was in very decided contrast with its former hesitancy. no doubt could now rest in any mind that the adhesion of the united states was, at last, hearty and sincere, and calculated to allay any distrust which its former isolation and declination of the treaty might have anywhere engendered. this action of the government of the united states also rendered the position of the national association exceptionally satisfactory, and introduced it to the international committee at geneva and all the affiliated societies under circumstances calculated to promote in the greatest degree its usefulness and harmony, and to add to the gratification of all who personally have any part in the operations of the american association. for all this it is indebted to the judicious and thoughtful care and exalted statesmanship of the president of the united states, his cabinet and advisers, and the members of the forty-seventh congress, who, without one breath of criticism, or one moment of delay, after they came to fully understand the subject and comprehend its purposes and object, granted all that was then asked of them, in the adhesion to the treaties, in the recognition of the national association, and the provisions for printing and disseminating a knowledge of its principles and practical work. perhaps no act of this age or country has reflected more credit abroad upon those specially active in it, than this simple and beneficent measure. it must, in its great and humane principles, its far-reaching philanthropy, its innovations upon the long established and accepted customs and rules of barbaric cruelty, its wise practical charity, stand forever next to the immortal proclamation of freedom to the slaves that crowns the name of abraham lincoln. special thanks are peculiarly due to those who have been its active, wise and unwavering friends, who have planned its course so truly, and set forth its purposes so clearly, that it will hereafter be misunderstood only by those who are unwilling to learn, or who are actively hostile to its beneficent aims. perhaps at the risk of seeming invidious--for we would by no means ignore, and have no less gratitude for the legion of generous helpers we cannot name--we might state that among those who have been foremost to aid and encourage us have been the hon. omar d. conger, of michigan, who, first in the house, and afterward in the senate, has been conspicuous for persistent and courageous work; also, hon. william windom, of minnesota, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, who was first to investigate and take the matter up as a member of president garfield's cabinet; senator e.p. lapham, of new york, who has spared neither time nor thought, patience nor labor, in his legal investigations of the whole matter; and probably no person has done more than he to throw light upon obscure parts and point out the true and proper course to be pursued in the accomplishment of the work, and the acceptance of the treaty. senators morgan, of alabama; edmunds, of vermont; hawley, of connecticut; anthony, of rhode island; hoar, of massachusetts, all accorded to it their willing interest and aid. indeed, all sections and parties have seemed eager to help the red cross; a result that might, perhaps, have been anticipated, since it asks only an opportunity to faithfully work according to methods approved by thoughtful experience, and toward ends that all humane persons must approve. to the american newspaper press, and perhaps to the new york _herald_ more than to any other newspaper, through its international character, wonderful enterprise, and far-reaching circulation, the red cross is indebted for timely aid and noble furtherance of its objects and aims. it has been quick to discern their substantial character, and generous and full in commending them. still, the same difficulty confronts us in regard to publications as persons--where all have been so willing it is difficult to distinguish. not less than three hundred periodicals and papers have, within the last two years, laid upon our desk their graceful tribute of encouraging and fitly spoken words, and it has been given as an estimate of an experienced city editor, gathered through his exchanges, that over five hundred editorial notices were given of our little red cross book of last year, and these, invariably, so far as met our eyes, kindly approving and encouraging. the capacity of the red cross to carry on most wisely and well its beneficent work must in the future, as it has done in the past, depend largely upon the active and cordial co-operation of the newspaper press; and we do not doubt that it will continue to receive the same prompt and efficient assistance so long as it shall continue to deserve it. by the combined assistance of all these powerful friends of the red cross, the country has at last been rescued from the position in which it had been standing for the last seventeen years--a puzzling wonder to its admiring friends, a baffling enigma to all, treating its enemies subdued with romantic generosity, and its enemies taken captive in war with all the tenderness of friends, and yet, clinging, apparently with intense fierceness, to an unsocial isolation, to savage rules and regulations of war that only barbarians would ever wish to practice, pouring out its beneficence in astonishing prodigality, and in untold volume, variety and value upon strangers, and yet seemingly hesitating only when it was proposed by international law and system to use and not waste its magnificent voluntary offerings, but to entrust them all to responsible agents, trained in the very torrent and tempest of battle, to wisely apply this generosity to the great and awful needs of war--agents held to business rules, with calm accountability amid distraction and panic, trained to protect material, to give and take receipts, and at last to account faithfully for everything entrusted to them, like the officers of a well-regulated bank. the final adhesion of the united states to the treaty of the red cross has created a lively sense of satisfaction in all its affiliated societies wherever, throughout the world, its beneficent work is carried on; particularly, by the international committee of geneva, has this wise and simple act of beneficence and common sense and common humanity been regarded with sentiments of gratitude and renewed hope. the american national association has received the following expression of the sentiments of the noble and philanthropic president of the international committee, written upon the receipt from the united states of the official documents of recognition: comite international de secours aux militaires blesses, geneva, _september 6, 1882_. miss clara barton, _washington, d.c._: mademoiselle: i come to thank and congratulate you cordially upon your new success. i have read your letters of the 11th and 14th with the most lively interest, and i have also received, through the medium of the united states consul at geneva, all the official documents which you have announced to me. the position of your society is now entirely (_tout ã�â¡ fait_) correct, and nothing more opposes itself; so that by a circular we can now make it known to the societies of other countries. i am already occupied in the preparation of this document, but i am obliged to leave for turin, where i go to attend the reunion of the international institute of law, and it will not be until my return, say about the twentieth of september, that i can press the printing of the circular. in any case, it will be ready before the end of the month. accept, mademoiselle, the assurance of my distinguished sentiments. g. moynier, _president_. the circular alluded to in this letter of m. moynier announces the adhesion of the united states to the great international compact of the red cross, and authenticates and opens the way for the voluntary action of the people and the government in international humanitarian action, through the medium of the american association of the red cross, and is in the following terms: international circular. international committee. foundation of the american society of the red cross. fiftieth circular to the presidents and members of the national central committees. geneva, _september 2, 1882_. gentlemen: when on the twenty-third of august, 1876, we announced to you by our thirty-fourth circular, that the american society for aid to the wounded had had only an ephemeral existence, and had finished by dissolution, we still entertained the hope of seeing it revive, and we asked the friends of the red cross to labor with us for its resuscitation. to-day we have the great satisfaction of being able to tell you that this appeal has been heard, and that the united states is again linked anew to the chain of our societies. nevertheless it is not the old association which has returned to life. that which we present to you at this time has a special origin upon which we ought to give you some details. its whole history is associated with a name already known to you, that of miss clara barton. without the energy and perseverance of this remarkable woman we should probably not for a long time have had the pleasure of seeing the red cross revived in the united states. we will not repeat here what we have said elsewhere of the claims of miss barton to our gratitude, and we will confine ourselves to mentioning what she has done to reconstruct a red cross society in north america. after having prepared the ground by divers publications, she called together a great meeting at washington on the twenty-first of may, 1881; then a second, on the ninth of june, at which the existence of the society was solemnly set forth. on the same day president garfield nominated miss barton as president of this institution. the international committee would have desired from that time to have given notice of the event to all the central committees, but certain scruples restrained it. remembering that the first american society had been rendered powerless by the distinct refusal of the cabinet at washington to adhere to the geneva convention, it took precaution and declared it would wait, before recognizing the young society, until the government should have regularly signed the treaty of 1864. miss barton, understanding the special propriety of this requirement, redoubled her efforts to attain this end, and we know that on the first of march she gained a complete victory upon this point. there remained another question with respect to which the international committee did not feel itself sufficiently informed. just how far was the american government disposed to accept the services of this society? we have often said, and we repeat it, that a society which would be exposed, for the want of a previous understanding, to find itself forbidden access to its own army in case of war, would be at fault fundamentally, and would not be qualified to take its place in the international concert. further upon this point miss barton and the members of the american central committee, sought to enter into our views. they conferred with the competent authorities. the desired recognition was very difficult to obtain, for it was contrary to american customs and traditions. it was, nevertheless, accomplished after considerable discussion. on this point miss barton has stated to us that the government, in acquiescing in the decision which had been expressed, was entering upon a path altogether new, and that the official recognition of the red cross society was for the latter a very exceptional honor. certain documents resulted therefrom which have been communicated to us directly by the secretary of state, at washington, showing: 1st. that the american association of the red cross has been legally constituted by an act of congress. 2d. that president arthur has declared himself in full sympathy with the work, and very willingly has accepted the presidency of the board of consultation. 3d. that the principal members of the cabinet have consented to become members of a board of trustees, empowered to receive subscriptions and to hold the funds for the society. 4th. finally, that congress unanimously, without discussion or opposition, has voted a sum of one thousand dollars, to be expended by the government in printed matter, designed to inform the people of the united states of the organization of the red cross. the initiation of this last measure was not the work of the society but of the committee on foreign relations of the senate; consequently it bears witness to the spontaneous impulse with which the houses of congress came into accord with the views of miss barton. we must add that the international committee attaches so much the more importance to the fact that this society took an official position, because there was created, at nearly the same time in the united states, two other institutions, claiming to pursue a similar object, but of which the committee of geneva is absolutely ignorant. one, called "the woman's national relief association," which concerns itself with all public calamities, among other things with the calamities of war, but more especially with shipwrecks, and has for its distinctive emblem a blue anchor; the other has taken the name of "the order of the red cross." dr. james saunders is the president of it, with the title "supreme commander." this order proposes to organize more or less in a military way and appears desirous of imitating the orders of chivalry in ancient times. the american central committee of the red cross has its seat at washington, but has already founded branches in other localities, at dansville, rochester, syracuse, etc. soon, doubtless, cities of the first class will also take their turn. we will give in our next bulletin the complete text of the constitution and by-laws of the american society, which, as will be seen, has not believed it ought to limit its program to assistance in case of war, but has comprised within it, in conformity with a suggestion of the conference at berlin, the other great calamities which might befall the country and its inhabitants. as for ourselves, we have greeted with joy the addition of the united states to the countries already enrolled under the red cross; it is for our work an important and long desired reinforcement, and we doubt not our impressions in this regard will be shared by the twenty-eight central committees to which we address these lines. we also hope that next year some representatives of the american society will cross the atlantic in order to fraternize with the delegates of the other nations, who will certainly be happy to meet them at the conference at vienna. receive, gentlemen, the assurances of our distinguished consideration. for the international committee of the red cross. president: g. moynier. secretary: g. ador. the foregoing pages deal only with the official history of the red cross and its inauguration in this country, closing with the accession of the united states to the treaty and its promulgation in 1882. the original formation of the red cross was had previous to the adoption of the treaty by the government, and, indeed, primarily for that very purpose. that was the corner-stone upon which rested the entire structure of the red cross in america at that date, and constituted almost entirely the work undertaken by it to perform. during the first ten years of the existence of the organization it had accomplished all that had been promised, and a great deal more; and had proved the utility of its work on almost continuous fields of national calamity of the character defined in the "american amendment" to the treaty. but the american government had not given the red cross the official recognition that it desired and was entitled to; and it could not take its appropriate place by the government of which it was so eminently a part. as long as government provides for war, so long must it recognize its adopted twin sister of peace, the red cross; as long as it finds it necessary to deliberately mutilate men, so long should it take part in healing them. in order to strengthen the organization, and make its influence more widely felt, the members decided to adopt a plan that would enable them to work on a somewhat broader basis; accordingly, on april 17, 1893, the red cross was reincorporated and has continued its labors up to the present time under the provisions of the instrument a copy of which follows: the re-incorporation of the american national red cross. certificate of incorporation of the american national red cross. know all men by these presents, that we, clara barton, julian b. hubbell, stephen e. barton, peter v. degraw and george kennan, all being persons of full age, citizens of the united states, and a majority residents of the district of columbia, being desirous of forming an association to carry on the benevolent and humane work of "the red cross" in accordance with the articles of the international treaty of geneva, switzerland, entered into on the twenty-second day of august, 1864, and adopted by the government of the united states on the first day of march, 1882, and also in accordance with the broader scope given to the humane work of said treaty by "the american association of the red cross," and known as "the american amendment," whereby the suffering incident to great floods, famines, epidemics, conflagrations, cyclones, or other disasters of national magnitude, may be ameliorated by the administering of necessary relief; and being desirous of continuing the noble work heretofore performed by "the american association of the red cross," incorporated in the district of columbia for the purpose of securing the adoption of the said treaty of geneva by the united states, for benevolent and charitable purposes, and to co-operate with the comite international de secours aux militaires blesses. now, therefore, for the purpose of creating ourselves, our associates and successors, a body politic and corporate in name and in fact, we do hereby associate ourselves together under and by virtue of sections 545, 546, 547, 548, 549 and 550 of the revised statutes of the united states relating to the district of columbia, as amended and in force at this time; and do make, sign and acknowledge this certificate of incorporation, as follows, to wit: _first._--the name by which this association shall be known in law is: "the american national red cross." _second._--the principal office of the association shall be in the city of washington, district of columbia. _third._--the term of its existence shall be fifty years from the date of this certificate. _fourth._--the objects of this association shall be, in addition to the purposes set forth in the above preamble, as follows, to wit: 1. to garner the store materials, articles, supplies, moneys, or property of whatsoever name or nature, and to maintain a system of national relief and administer the same in the mitigation of human suffering incident to war, pestilence, famine, flood, or other calamities. 2. to hold itself in readiness for communicating and co-operating with the government of the united states, or any department thereof, or with the "comite international de secours aux militaires blesses," of geneva, switzerland, to the end that the merciful provisions of the said "international treaty of geneva" may be more wisely and effectually carried out. 3. to collect and diffuse information concerning the progress and application of mercy, the organization of national relief, the advancement of sanitary science and the training and preparation of nurses or others necessary in the application of such work. 4. to carry on and transact any business, consistent with law, that may be necessary or desirable in the fulfillment of any or all of the objects and purposes hereinbefore set forth. 5. the affairs and funds of the corporation shall be controlled and managed by a board of directors, and the number of the directors for the first year of the corporation's existence, and until their successors are lawfully elected and qualified, is five, and their names and addresses are as follows, to wit: clara barton, washington, d.c.; peter v. degraw, washington, d.c.; dr. julian b. hubbell, washington, d.c.; dr. joseph gardner, bedford, ind., and stephen e. barton, newtonville, mass. the names and addresses of the full membership of the association, who shall be designated as charter members, are as follows, to wit: clara barton, washington, d.c.; hon. william lawrence, bellefontaine, ohio; peter v. degraw, washington, d.c.; george kennan, washington, d.c.; dr. julian b. hubbell, washington, d.c.; colonel richard j. hinton, washington, d.c.; mrs. henry v. boynton, washington, d.c.; rev. rush r. shippen, washington, d.c.; rev. alexander kent, washington, d.c.; rev. william merritt ferguson, washington, d.c.; general edward w. whitaker, washington, d.c.; joseph e. holmes, washington, d.c.; mrs. peter v. degraw, washington, d.c.; mrs. george kennan, washington, d.c.; mrs. r. delavan mussey, washington, d.c.; mrs. omar d. conger, washington, d.c.; a.s. solomons, washington, d.c.; walter p. phillips; new york, n.y.; joseph sheldon, new haven, conn.; john h. van wormer, new york, n.y.; albert c. phillips, new york, n.y.; mrs. walter p. phillips, new york, n.y.; mrs. joseph gardner, bedford, ind.; dr. joseph gardner, bedford, ind.; miss mary e. almon, newport, r.i.; dr. lucy hall-brown, brooklyn, n.y.; john h. morlan, bedford, ind., and stephen e. barton, newtonville, mass. but the corporation shall have power to increase its membership in accordance with by-laws to be adopted. in witness whereof, we have hereto subscribed our names and affixed our seals in triplicate, at the city of washington, district of columbia, this seventeenth day of april, a.d. 1893. witness: stephen e. barton, george kennan, } clara barton, s.g. hopkins, } (seal.) julian b. hubbell, f.h. smith, } p.v. degraw, } i, s.g. hopkins, a notary public in and for the said district of columbia, do hereby certify that clara barton, julian b. hubbell, stephen e. barton, p.v. degraw and george kennan, whose names are signed to the foregoing and annexed "certificate of incorporation of the american national red cross" bearing date of april 17, a.d. 1893, personally appeared before me, in the said district of columbia, the said clara barton, julian b. hubbell, stephen e. barton, p.v. degraw and george kennan, being personally well known to me as the persons who executed the said certificate, and each and all acknowledged the same to be his, her and their act and deed for the purpose therein mentioned. given under my hand and official seal, this seventeenth day of april, a.d. 1893. (signed.) s.g. hopkins, _notary public_. immediately following our accession to the treaty of geneva, march 1, 1882, the president of the red cross was asked by the committee on foreign relations of the senate, to prepare a history of the red cross for publication by them through the government printing office. this was done, and a book of two hundred and twenty-seven pages was issued, giving an account of the origin of the organization, the steps by which it became a treaty, of our own initiation, and not only the exact text by which our accession was made, but that of every other nation within the treaty up to that time, 1882. a bill for a reprint by congress of fifty thousand copies of this book was lost in the session of 1898 through lack of time. no consecutive book has been published by us since that date, but the history has been perhaps even more fully told, and that scores of times, in public addresses which its president and assistants have been called to make before great assemblies, selections from some of which will appear in this volume, as the fullest information given in the most compact manner that we can render in the short space of time allotted us. the very title of the organization, viz.: "relief in war," has been a misnomer, and through all the early years especially was very generally misunderstood by the public. i have not unfrequently been invited and innocently urged to attend peace meetings and large charity gatherings for the poor and afflicted on the ground of needing instruction myself; inasmuch as i "was engaged in advocating war, wouldn't it be well to hear something on the other side?" and i have been invited to become party to a discussion in which the merits of peace and war should be compared. large organizations of women, the best in the country, and, i believe, the best in the world, have faithfully labored with me to merge the red cross into their society as a part of woman's work; without the smallest conception or realization of its scope, its international character, its treaty obligations, and the official ground it was liable at any time to be called to occupy. many charming invitations, from ladies even more charming, to address their convention or meeting, have still contained some well chosen word which might imply a question, if indeed the red cross really were the humane and philanthropic institution it claimed to be; naturally the address usually dealt with the question as it was put. i name these facts as mere relics of the past, amusing now, but instructive to you of the present day (when no child even questions the motives of the red cross), as showing what it had to meet and live through in order to live at all. in order to show the enthusiastic devotees of the present year how questionable the beneficence of the red cross appeared to the best people only a few years ago, i introduce the following address, read, by request, before a congress of women, 1895 or 1896, hoping that the charitably disposed reader will understand and appreciate the state of mind engendered by the title of the request made, and forgive any seeming acerbity: address. what is the significance of the red cross in its relation to philanthropy? i am asked to say something upon the "significance of the red cross in its relation to philanthropy." i am not sure that i understand precisely what is desired. if a morning paper should announce that three or four of the greatest political bosses or greatest railroad kings in the country had quietly met somewhere, and sat with closed doors till long after midnight, and then silently departed, people would ask, "what is the significance of that? what mischief have they been devising in secret?" in that sense of the word, _significance_--which is a very common one--the red cross has none that i ever heard of. it has no rich offices to bestow, no favorites to reward, no enemies to punish. it has no secrets to keep, no mystic word or sign. its proceedings would, and do, make a valuable library, accessible to all men and all women from norway to new zealand. i will not say that it is so simple and common in character that he who runs may read, but surely she who desires information can sit down, read and obtain it. the red cross has been quietly doing its work for thirty years and is now established in forty independent nations. no other institution on earth, not even christianity, has a public recognition so nearly universal. none has ever adhered more closely to its one single purpose of alleviating human suffering. has that any significance or any connection with philanthropy? let us see. an institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. i suppose it is a philanthropic movement to try to reverse the process. christianity, temperance and sanitary regulations in general are examples. great evils die hard; and all that has yet been done is to keep them within as narrow limits as possible. of these great evils, war is one. war is in its very nature cruel--the very embodiment of cruelty in its effects--not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants. baron macaulay thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil, that men of tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up and kill each other. but men do not go to war to save life. they might save life by keeping the peace and staying at home. they go solely with intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he will yield to their terms. all their powers to hurt are focused upon him. in a moving army the elements of destruction, armed men and munitions of war, have the right of way; and the means of preserving and sustaining even their own lives are left to bring up the rear as they best can. hence, when the shock and crash of battle is over, and troops are advancing or retreating and all roads are blocked, and the medical staff trying to force its way through with supplies, prompt and adequate relief can scarcely ever reach the wounded. the darkness of night comes down upon them like a funeral pall, as they lie in their blood, tortured with thirst and traumatic fever. the memory of such scenes set a kindly swiss gentleman to thinking of ways and means for alleviating their horrors. in time, and by efforts whose history must be familiar to many of you, there resulted the geneva convention for the relief of the sick and wounded of armies. i shall not trace its history, as it seems to be more to the present purpose to explain briefly what it proposed to do, and how it proceeded to do it. the convention found two prime evils to consider. first, the existence of war itself; second, the vast amount of needless cruelty it inflicted upon its victims. for the first of these, with the world full of standing armies, every boundary line of nations fixed and held by the sword, and the traditions of four thousand years behind its customs, the framers of the convention, however earnest and devoted, could scarcely hope to find an immediate, if indeed, a perceptible mitigation. only time, prolonged effort, national economics, universal progress and the pressure of public opinion could ever hope to grapple with this monster evil of the ages. but the second--if it were not possible to dispense with the needless cruelties heretofore inflicted upon the victims of war, thus relieving human misery to that extent, seemed to the framers of the convention a reasonable question to be considered. this is what it proposed to do. a few sentences will explain how it proceeded to do it. a convention was called at geneva, switzerland, for the fourth of august, 1864, to be composed of delegates accredited by the heads of the governments of the world, who should discuss the practices of war and ascertain to what extent the restraints of the established military code in its dealing with the sick and wounded of armies were needful for the benefit of the service; and to what extent they were needless, of benefit to no one, causing only suffering, of no strength to the service, and might be done away with; and to what extent war-making powers could agree to enter into a legal compact to that end. the consideration, discussion and concessions of two weeks produced a proposed agreement which took the form of a compound treaty, viz: a treaty of one government with many governments--the first ever made--a compact known as the treaty of geneva, for the relief of the sick and wounded in war. its basis was neutrality. it made neutral all sick, wounded, or disabled soldiers at a field; all persons, as surgeons, nurses and attendants, who cared for them; all supplies of medicine or food for their use; all field and military hospitals with their equipments; all gifts from neutral nations for the use of the sick and wounded of any army; all houses near a battlefield that would receive and nurse wounded men: none of these should be subject to capture. it provided for the sending of wounded men to their homes, rather than to prison; that friend and foe should be nursed together and alike in all military hospitals; and, most of all, that the people who had always been forcibly restrained from approaching any field of action for purposes of relief, however needed (with the single exception of our sanitary commission, and that under great difficulties and often under protest) should not only be allowed this privilege, but should arm and equip themselves with relief of all kinds, with the right to enter the lines for the helpless; thus relieving not alone the wounded and dying, but the armies of their care. it provided a universal sign by which all this relief, both of persons and material, should be designated and known. a greek red cross on a field of white should tell any soldier of any country within the treaty that the wearer was his friend and could be trusted; and to any officer of any army that he was legitimately there and not subject to capture. some forty nations are in that treaty, and from every military hospital in every one of these nations floats the same flag; and every active soldier in all their armies knows that he can neither capture nor harm the shelter beneath it, though it be but a little "a" tent in the enemy's lines, and every disabled man knows it is his rescue and his home. it may be interesting to know the formula of this compact. it recognizes one head, the international committee of geneva, switzerland, through which all communications are made. one national head in each country which receives such communications, transmitting them to its government. the ratifying power of the treaty is the congress of berne. the organization in each nation receives from its government its high moral sanction and recognition, but is in no way supported or materially aided by it. _the red cross means not national aid for the needs of the people, but the people's aid for the needs of the nation._ the awakening patriotism of the last few years should, i think, make this feature more readily apprehended. as the foreign nations furnish the only illustrations of the value and material aid of the red cross in war, let us glance at what it has accomplished. the first important war after the birth of the treaty of geneva, was between germany, italy and austria. austria had not, at that time, entered the treaty, and yet its objects were understood and its spirit found a responsive chord in the hearts of the people. over $400,000, beside a great amount of material, were collected by that country, and made use of for the relief of the combatants. italy was fairly well organized and rendered excellent service, furnishing much substantial assistance. germany, which was in the vanguard of the treaty nations, was thoroughly organized and equipped. she was the first to demonstrate the true idea of the red cross--people's aid for national, for military, necessity. great storehouses had been provided at central points, where vast supplies were collected. in an incredibly short time, between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 were raised for relief purposes, and large numbers of volunteers came to help the already organized corps of workers. great trains of supplies were sent to the front. the wounded enemy was tenderly cared for, and everything was accomplished so well and so systematically, that it proved the incalculable value of organized, authorized, civil aid. french and swiss red cross workers also rendered great assistance, this being the first instance of neutrals taking an active part. in the franco-prussian war the german red cross performed even better service, it having learned many valuable lessons in the german-austrian conflict, and through their efforts an infinite amount of good was accomplished and great suffering averted. not only were the wounded and sick soldiers tenderly cared for, but the unprovided families of soldiers were also supplied. the french red cross at the breaking out of the war was poorly organized and penniless. within one month, however, hospitals had been established, ambulances and a large amount of field supplies were at the front, with a considerable relief force to care for the sick and wounded. the french association, not including the branches in the provinces, spent over $2,000,000 and assisted 110,000 wounded. many neutral red cross nations assisted in rendering aid and relief in this great war. england alone sent a million and a half dollars, besides twelve hundred cases of stores. eighty-five thousand sick, wounded and famishing french soldiers entered switzerland, and were cared for by the central committee at berne. the international committee at geneva, in one instance, asked for and obtained 2500 seriously wounded french soldiers, supplied their wants, and sent them to their own country. in the great russo-turkish war, the red cross of russia, splendidly equipped, with ample means and royal patronage, was, at the beginning of hostilities, greatly hampered by the jealousy of the military. the relief organizations were assigned places well in the rear; but ere many months had passed the military surgeons gladly accepted the red cross aid, and colossal work did it perform. over $13,000,000 were raised, and all that was necessary spent in supplying relief. the neutral red cross countries furnished valuable assistance in this war also. in the recent war between japan and china, you undoubtedly read of the wonderful work performed by the japanese red cross. this society followed the precedent of germany, in tenderly caring for the wounded enemy, even though fighting against a nation not in the treaty. japan had a cruel, merciless enemy to fight, and yet her soldiers were instructed to have respect even for a dead enemy. it is needless to give further illustrations; history records the wonderful achievements of this greatest of relief organizations, though it cannot record the untold suffering which has been averted by it. is the red cross a humanitarian organization? what is the significance of the red cross? i leave these two questions for you to answer. but war, although the most tragic, is not the only evil that assails humanity. war has occurred in the united states four times in one hundred and twenty years. four times its men have armed and marched, and its women waited and wept. that is on an average of one war every thirty years. it is now a little over thirty years since the last hostile gun was fired; we fondly hope it may be many years before there is another. a machine, even a human machine, called into active service only once in thirty years is liable to get out of working order; hence to keep it in condition for use, no less than for the possible good it might do, the american society of the red cross asked to have included in its charter the privilege of rendering such aid as it could in great public calamities, as fires, floods, cyclones, famines and pestilence. in a time of profound peace that has been the only possible field of activity. it is not for me to say whether that field has been successfully cultivated, but a few of the facts will determine whether the innovation upon the treaty will commend itself to your judgment, as it has to those of the older societies of europe. naturally it required not only diplomacy but arguments to obtain a privilege never before officially considered in the unbroken customs of an international treaty. they must be submitted to a foreign congress. the same argument pertained fifteen years ago that pertains to-day, namely, that in all our vast territory, subject to incalculable disasters, with all our charitable, humane and benevolent associations, there was not one which had for its object and duty to hold itself in preparation and training to meet and relieve the woes of these overmastering disasters. all would gladly aid, but there were none to lead. everybody's business was nobody's business, and the stricken victims perished. we asked that under the red cross constitution of the united states its national organization should be permitted to act in the capacity of red cross relief agents, treating a national disaster like a field of battle, proceed to it at once with experienced help, equipped with all the needful supplies and means to commence relief, overlook and learn the needs of the field, make immediate statements of the true condition and wants to the people of the country, who, knowing the presence of the red cross there, could, if desirable, make it the medium of their contributions for relief either in money or material. to relieve the necessities in every way possible, keep the people at large in possession of reliable information, hold the field until relief has been given, and retire when all needed aid has been rendered. this privilege was graciously granted by the ratifying congress at berne, and is known as the "american amendment" of the red cross. nations since that date, on becoming signatory to the treaty, have included that amendment in their charters. this is the principle upon which we have acted. the affording of relief to the victims of great disasters anywhere in the united states, is what the national red cross has proceeded to do, and it has confined itself strictly to its privileges, acting only in disasters so great as to be national. it never asks aid; never makes an appeal; it simply makes statements of the real condition of the sufferers, leaving the people free to exercise their own humanity through any medium they may prefer. in the thirteen years of relief work by the red cross in the united states, every dollar and every pound that has been received and distributed by it, has been the free-will offering of the people, given for humanity without solicitation, and dispensed without reward. it has received nothing from the government. no fund has been created for it. no contributions have been made except those to be distributed as relief at its fields. its officers serve without pay. there is not, nor ever was, a salaried officer in it, and even its headquarters meets its own costs. among the various appropriations made by congress for relief of calamities in the past years, as in great river floods, not a dollar so appropriated has ever been applied through the red cross, although working on the same field. i name these facts, not by way of complaint, or even comment, but to correct popular errors of belief, which i know you would prefer to have corrected. true to its method, this is simply a statement of the real condition of things, and left to the choice of the people--the red cross itself is theirs, created for them, and it is peculiarly their privilege to deal with it as they will. the following list of calamities with the approximate value of material furnished, as well as money, will give you some appreciation of the services rendered in the cause of humanity by the american national red cross. limit of time and space forbids even an attempt at description of its various fields. i can only name the most important, with estimated values distributed on each: michigan forest fires, 1881, material and money $ 80,000 mississippi floods, 1882, money and seeds 8,000 mississippi floods, 1883, material and seeds 18,500 mississippi cyclone, 1883, money 1,000 balkan war, 1883, money 500 ohio and mississippi floods, 1884, feed for stock and people, clothing, tools, house furnishings 175,000 texas famine, 1885, appropriations and contributions on statements made upon personal investigation 120,000 charleston earthquake, 1886, money 500 mt vernon, ill., cyclone, 1888, money and supplies 85,000 florida yellow fever, 1888, physicians and nurses 15,000 johnstown disaster, 1889, money and all kinds of material, buildings and furnishings 250,000 russian famine, 1891-92, mainly food 125,000 pomeroy, iowa, cyclone, 1893, money and nurses 2,700 south carolina islands, 1893-94, money and all kinds of supplies and materials, tools, seeds, lumber, etc 65,000 ------- $946,200 only about one-eighth of the above estimates represent cash; the balance represents material. in each of these emergencies something has been added to the sum of human happiness, something subtracted from the sum of human woe; the naked have been clothed, the hungry fed, new homes have sprung up from the desolated ruins, crops revived, and activities and business relations resumed. in a neighboring state and its adjacent islands scarcely two hundred miles distant from this, could to-day be found several thousand human beings, living in their homes, enjoying their family lives, following their ordinary avocations, cultivating the ground, who, if asked, would unhesitatingly tell you that but for the help of the red cross, they would two years ago have been under the ground they now cultivate. if the alleviation of human miseries, the saving of life, and the bringing of helplessness and dependence back to methods of self-sustenance and independence are counted among the philanthropic movements of the day, then to us, who have seen so much and worked so long and so hard among it, it would seem that the red cross movement has some "significance" in connection with philanthropy. there remains but one question more. to whom is this movement due? who instituted it? in what minds did it originate? i wish i could say it was all woman's work; but the truth compels the fact that this great, humane idea originated with men; the movement was instituted by them. they thought it out, and they wrought it out, and it was only meet and proper that they should, for the terrible evil that made it necessary was theirs as well. women as a rule are not war-makers. for centuries the caprices of men have plunged the world in strife, covered the earth's surface with armies, and enriched its soil with the best blood that ever flowed in human veins. it is only right that at length, in the cycle of ages, something should touch man's heart and set him humbly down to find out some way of mending as much of his mischief as he could. perhaps he "builded better than he knew," for in that one effort he touched the spring that sooner or later will mend it all. no grander or truer prophecy has ever been made than uttered in that first convention: "_the red cross shall teach war to make war upon itself._" it is the most practical and effective peace-maker and civilizer in the known world. it reaches where nothing else can. if proof of this be wanting, study the action of japan in its late war. but is man doing this work alone? no--gladly, no! scarcely had he made his first move, when the jeweled hands of royal woman glistened beside him, and right royally have they borne their part. glance at the galaxy--the great leader and exemplar of them all, empress augusta of germany, her illustrious daughter, the grand duchess of baden, eugenia, empress frederick, victoria and princess louise of england, margherita of italy, natalia of servia and the entire court of russia, and to-day the present empress of germany, and the hard-working empress of japan, with her faithful, weary court, even now busy in the hospitals of convalescing chinese. the various auxiliary societies of women of all the principal red cross nations are a pride and a glory to humanity. these nations have all two important features in their movement, which, thus far, have not been accorded to us. their governments have instituted laws protecting the insignia and name of the red cross from misuse and abuse as trademarks by unscrupulous venders, and appropriation by false societies for dishonest purposes. this lack, and this alone, has thus far rendered general organization in the united states impracticable and unsafe. for seven years the most strenuous efforts at protection have failed; the loss has been to the people in general. the second advantage of other nations is that citizens, the men of wealth in those countries, have created a red cross fund for its use, varying in amounts from a hundred thousand to several millions of dollars. russia, i believe, has a fund of some three millions. it seems never to have occurred to our wealth-burdened men that possibly a little satisfaction might be gained, some good accomplished, and some credit done the nation by a step in that direction. it will dawn upon them some day, not, perhaps, in mine, but in some of yours, and then, ladies, you can well join hands with them, and discern more clearly than now the "significance of the red cross as related to philanthropy." the michigan forest fires. it may be necessary to recall to the mind of the person reading these pages hastily, the fact that the national red cross of america was formed nearly a year before the accession to the treaty. this was done by the advice of president garfield, in order to aid as far as possible the accession. "accordingly a meeting was held in washington, d.c., may 21, 1881, which resulted in the formation of an association to be known as the american national association of the red cross." several years of previous illness on the part of its president had resulted in fixing her country home at dansville, n.y., the seat of the great jackson and austin sanitarium and the acknowledged foundation of the hundreds of health institutions of that kind which bless the country to-day. the establishment of the national red cross in washington had attracted the attention of persons outside, who, of course, knew very little of it; but among others, the people of dansville, the home of the president, felt that if she were engaged in some public movement, they too might at least offer to aid. accordingly, on her return to them in midsummer, they waited upon her with a request to that effect, which resulted in the formation of a society of the red cross, this being the first body in aid of the national association formed in the united states. it is possible i cannot make that more clear than by giving an extract from their report of that date, which was as follows: in reply to your request, given through the secretary of your association, that we make report to you concerning the inauguration of our society, its subsequent proceedings and present condition, the committee has the honor to submit the following statement: dansville, livingston county, n.y., being the country residence of miss clara barton, president of the american association of the red cross, its citizens, desirous of paying a compliment to her, and at the same time of doing an honor to themselves, conceived the idea of organizing in their town the first local society of the red cross in the united states. to this end, a general preliminary meeting was held in the presbyterian church, when the principles of the treaty of geneva and the nature of its societies were defined in a clear and practical manner by miss barton, who had been invited to address the meeting. shortly after, on the twenty-second of august, 1881, a second meeting, for the purpose of organization, held in the lutheran church and presided over by the pastor, rev. dr. strobel, was attended by the citizens generally, including nearly all the religious denominations of the town, with their respective pastors. the purpose of the meeting was explained by your president, a constitution was presented and very largely signed, and officers were elected. thus we are able to announce that on the eighteenth anniversary of the treaty of geneva, in switzerland, august 22, 1864, was formed the first local society of the red cross in the united states of america. almost immediately following this occurred the memorable forest fires of michigan, which raged for days, sweeping everything before them--man, beast, forests, farms--every living thing, until in one report made of it we find this sentence: "so sweeping has been the destruction that there is not food left in its track for a rabbit to eat, and, indeed, no rabbit to eat it, if there were." here occurred the first opportunity for work that the young society had found, and again i give without further note their report: before a month had passed, before a thought of practical application to business had arisen, we were forcibly and sadly taught again the old lesson that we need but to build the altar, god will himself provide the sacrifice. if we did not hear the crackling of the flames, our skies grew murky and dark and our atmosphere bitter with the drifting smoke that rolled over from the blazing fields of our neighbors of michigan, whose living thousands fled in terror, whose dying hundreds writhed in the embers, and whose dead blackened in the ashes of their hard-earned homes. instantly we felt the help and strength of our organization, young and untried as it was. we were grateful that in this first ordeal your sympathetic president was with us. we were deeply grateful for your prompt call to action, given through her, which rallied us to our work. our relief rooms were instantly secured and our white banner, with its bright scarlet cross, which has never been furled since that hour, was thrown to the breeze, telling to every looker-on what we were there to do, and pointing to every generous heart an outlet for its sympathy. we had not mistaken the spirit of our people; our scarce-opened doorway was filled with men, women and children bearing their gifts of pity and love. tables and shelves were piled, our working committee of ladies took every article under inspection, their faithful hands made all garments whole and strong; lastly, each article received the stamp of the society and of the red cross, and all were carefully and quickly consigned to the firm packing cases awaiting them. eight large boxes were shipped at first, others followed directly, and so continued until notified by the relief committee of michigan that no more were needed. meanwhile the hands of our treasurer were not left empty, some hundreds of dollars were deposited with him. a most competent agent, our esteemed townsman and county clerk of livingston county, major mark j. bunnell, was dispatched with the first invoice of funds and charged with the duty of the reception of the supplies, their proper distribution and of making direct report of the condition and needs of the sufferers. the good practical judgment of the people and society led them to consider the near approach of winter and the unsheltered condition of the victims, bereft of every earthly possession, and warm clothing and bedding were sent in great abundance. our cases were all marked with the red cross and consigned to senator omar d. conger, of port huron, who led the call of the michigan committee and to whom, as well as to his kindhearted and practical wife, we are indebted for many timely suggestions and words of grateful appreciation. in a spirit of gratitude and hope we submit this partial report of our first work under the red cross, which can be but partial, as our rooms are still open and our work is in progress awaiting such further calls as may come to us. we are grateful that we are called, grateful that your honored president, with the acquired skill of the humane labors of many years in many lands, was with us to counsel and instruct. we are glad to have learned from this early object lesson the value of organized effort and the value of our own organization. we hope our report may be satisfactory to you, and that our beautiful little valley town, quietly nestling among the green slopes of the genesee valley, after having offered the first fruits of the red cross to its own countrymen, may always be as prompt and generous in any call of yours for suffering humanity. the neighboring city of rochester, forty miles to the north of dansville, hearing of the activity of its smaller neighbor in the great disaster that was paralyzing all, desired also to unite in the work and knowing much less even than dansville of what the red cross might mean, still desired to act with it, if possible; and appended herewith will be found their report, which will best tell their story. influential citizens of rochester, monroe county, n.y., having become interested in the subject of the treaty of geneva and the red cross work going on in dansville, sent a request through the mayor of the city to miss clara barton to address them in a public meeting. miss barton met an audience of thinking, philanthropic men and women, to whom it was a pleasure to unfold her theme. the result was a proposition to organize a society before adjournment. accordingly names were pledged, and, the second evening after, a constitution was adopted and officers were elected, edward m. moore, m.d., president.... steps were immediately taken for reducing to practice the theory of their newly formed society, and in three days from the commencement of its existence its agent, professor j.b. hubbell, was on the burnt fields of michigan with instructions to examine into the condition of the people and report their necessities to the society from actual observation. these duties were faithfully and judiciously performed, and on the day following his report of the special need of money the sum of $2500 in cash was forwarded as a first installment. at last reports the sum raised amounted to $3807.28 and the society numbered 250 members. it is evident that no full report can be made concerning a movement of which only the first steps are taken, and which is still in active operation, but it is believed that the instances are rare when, with no distress of its own as an incentive, but from the simple motive of benevolence, a people has accomplished so much, both in organization and practical results, in so brief a space of time. following close on the organization in rochester, the citizens of the sister city of syracuse and vicinity, in onondaga county, n.y., met at the board of trade rooms and perfected their organization under the above name. rev. dr. richmond fiske, a widely known philanthropist, prominently connected with the principal charities of the city, assisted by professor g.f. comfort, of the syracuse university, led the movement. the constitution, embracing in admirable form the principles of the geneva convention, was signed by a large number present and officers were appointed representing the names of the leading people of the city. these were the first steps of the american national association of the red cross in relief work and in the organization of auxiliary societies. the completion of this work, which may have seemed premature and preliminary, left the association free to continue its efforts with the government of the united states on behalf of its accession to the treaty. mississippi and ohio river floods--1882. the spring rise of the waters of the mississippi brought great devastation and a cry went over the country in regard to the sufferings of the inhabitants of the mississippi valley. for hundreds of miles the great river was out of its bed and raging madly over the country, sweeping in its course not only the homes but often the people, the animals, and many times the land itself. this constituted a work of the relief clearly within the bounds of the civil part of our treaty, and again we prepared for work. again our infant organization sent its field agent, dr. hubbell, to the scene of disaster, where millions of acres of the richest valley, cotton and sugar lands of america, and thousands upon thousands of homes under the waters of the mightiest of rivers--where the swift rising floods overtook alike man and beast in their flight of terror, sweeping them ruthlessly to the gulf beyond, or leaving them clinging in famishing despair to some trembling roof or swaying tree top till relief could reach and rescue them. the national association, with no general fund, sent of its personal resources what it was able to do, and so acceptable did these prove and so convincing were the beneficences of the work that the cities of memphis, vicksburg and new orleans desired to be permitted to form associate societies and work under the national association. this was permitted, and those societies have remained until the present time, new orleans organizing for the entire state of louisiana. the city of rochester, proud and grateful of its success in the disaster a few months before, again came to the front and again rendered excellent service. it was a singular fact that on the first day of march, 1882, while the national association was in session busily engaged in devising ways and means for extending the relief which to them seemed so needed and so slender, a messenger came from the senate of the united states to announce to them that the vote had been taken and that the united states had acceded to the treaty of geneva without a dissenting voice. this closed a meeting joyfully which had opened with many misgivings. fresh courage and hope were taken and every energy called into action for the furtherance of the work which seemed then fairly commenced. in the spring of 1883 occurred the first great rise of the _ohio_ river; 1000 miles in extent. this river, although smaller than the mississippi, is more rapid in its course, and its valleys hold the richest grain lands, the most cultivated farms and representing, in fact, the best farming interests of america. the destruction of property was even greater here than in the cotton and cane lands of the mississippi. again our field agent was dispatched and did excellent work. the entire country was aroused, and so liberal were the contributions to the various committees of relief that when dr. hubbell retired from the field, having completed the work, he had still unexpended funds in hand. but they were soon needed. mississippi and louisiana cyclone in less than a month occurred the fearful cyclone of louisiana and mississippi, which cut a swath clear of all standing objects for thirty miles in width and several hundred miles in length, running southeast from the mississippi river to the gulf of mexico. our special agent for the south, colonel f.r. southmayd, took charge of the red cross relief in this disaster, and so efficient was his work that societies struggled for organization under him and the red cross was hailed as a benediction wherever he passed. this was in may, 1883. our association now enjoyed for eight months a respite from active work. it was surely needed. it was the longest rest we had yet known, and afforded some small opportunity to gather up its records of past labors, organize some societies and compile a history of the red cross, so much needed for the information of our people and so earnestly asked for by them as well as by the united states senate. from this history the preceding pages of this book have been extracted. [illustration: clara barton. taken about 1884.] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. "josh v. throop." _the first steamer used in the united states by the american red cross, 1884._] the ohio river floods. but the respite was all too short for our purposes. the rapidly melting snows of february, 1884, brought the one thousand miles of the ohio river again out of its bed. a wild cry went out all over the country for help. the government, through congress, took immediate action and appropriated several hundred thousand dollars for relief, to be applied through the war department. the red cross agents must again repair to the field, its societies be again notified. but its president felt that if she were to be called every year to direct the relief work of the association in these inundations it was incumbent upon her to visit the scene in person, to see for herself what floods were like, to learn the necessities and be able to direct with the wisdom born of actual knowledge of the subject; and accordingly, with ten hours' preparation, she joined dr. hubbell on his way and proceeded to pittsburg, the head of the ohio river. there the societies were telegraphed that cincinnati would be headquarters and that money and supplies should be sent there. this done, we proceeded to cincinnati by rail. any description of this city upon our entrance would fall so far short of the reality as to render it useless. the surging river had climbed up the bluffs like a devouring monster and possessed the town; large steamers could have plied along its business streets; ordinary avocations were abandoned. bankers and merchants stood in its relief houses and fed the hungry populace, and men and women were out in boats passing baskets of food to pale, trembling hands stretched out to reach it from third story windows of the stately blocks and warehouses of that beautiful city. sometimes the water soaked away the foundations and the structure fell with a crash and was lost in the floods below; in one instance seven lives went out with the falling building; and this was one city, and probably the best protected and provided locality in a thousand miles of thickly populated country. it had not been my intention to remain at the scene of disaster, but rather to see, investigate, establish an agency and return to national headquarters at washington, which in the haste of departure had been left imperfectly cared for. but i might almost say, in military parlance, that i was "surprised and captured." i had made no call beyond the red cross societies--expected no supplies from other sources--but scarcely had news of our arrival at cincinnati found its way to the public press when telegrams of money and checks, from all sides and sources, commenced to come in, with letters announcing the sending of material. the express office and freight depots began filling up until within two weeks we were compelled to open large supply rooms, which were generously tendered to the use of the red cross. a description could no more do justice to our flood of supplies than to the flood of waters which had made them necessary--cases, barrels and bales of clothing, food, household supplies, new and old; all that intelligent awakened sympathy could suggest was there in such profusion that, so far from thinking of leaving it one must call all available help for its care and distribution. the government would supply the destitute people with food, tents and army blankets, and had placed its military boats upon the river to rescue the people and issue rations until the first great need should be supplied. the work of the red cross is supplemental and it sought for the special wants likely to be overlooked in this great general supply and the necessities _outside_ the limits of governmental aid. the search was not difficult. the government provided neither fuel nor clothing. it was but little past midwinter. a cyclone struck the lower half of the river with the water at its greatest height and whole villages were swept away in a night. the inhabitants escaped in boats, naked and homeless. hail fell to the depth of several inches and the entire country was encased in sleet and ice. the water had filled the coal mines so abundant in that vicinity until no fuel could be obtained. the people were more likely to freeze than starve and against this there was no provision. we quickly removed our headquarters from cincinnati to evansville, three hundred miles below and at the head of the recent scene of disaster. a new staunch steamer of four hundred tons burden was immediately chartered and laden to the water's edge with clothing and coal; good assistants, both men and women were taken on board; the red cross flag was hoisted and as night was setting in, after a day of intense cold--amid surging waters and crashing ice, the floating wrecks of towns and villages, great uprooted giants of the forest plunging madly to the sea, the suddenly unhoused people wandering about the river banks, or huddled in strange houses with fireless hearths--the clear-toned bell and shrill whistle of the "josh v. throop" announced to the generous inhabitants of a noble city that from the wharves of evansville was putting out the first red cross relief boat that ever floated on american waters. the destroyed villages and hamlets lay thick on either bank, and the steamer wove its course diagonally from side to side calling the people to the boat, finding a committee to receive and distribute, and learning as nearly as possible the number of destitute persons, put off the requisite quantity of clothing and coal, and steamed away quickly and quietly leaving sometimes an astonished _few_, sometimes a _multitude_ to gaze after and wonder who she was, whence she came, what that strange flag meant, and most of all, to thank god with tears and prayers for what she brought. in this manner the red cross proceeded to cairo, a distance of four hundred miles, where the ohio joins the mississippi river, which latter at that time had not risen and was exciting no apprehension. returning, we revisited and resupplied the destitute points. the government boats running over the same track were genial and friendly with us, and faithful and efficient in their work. it should be said that, notwithstanding all the material we had shipped and distributed, so abundant had been the liberality of the people that on our return to evansville we found our supply greater than at any previous time. at this moment, and most unexpectedly, commenced the great rise of the mississippi river, and a _second_ cry went out to the government and the people for instant help. the strongest levees were giving way under the sudden pressure, and even the inundation of the city of new orleans was threatened. again the government appropriated money, and the war department sent out its rescue and ration boats, and again the red cross prepared for its supplemental work. in an overflow of the mississippi, owing to the level face of the country and the immense body of water, the valley is inundated at times thirty miles in width, thus rendering it impossible to get animals to a place of safety. great numbers drown and the remainder, in a prolonged overflow, have largely starved, the government having never included the domestic animals in its work of relief. this seemed an omission of vital importance, both humanely and economically considered, and the red cross prepared to go to the relief of the starving animals of the mississippi valley. it would also supply clothing to the destitute people whom the government would feed. the navigation of the mississippi river calls for its own style of boats and pilotage, the latter being both difficult and dangerous, especially with the changed channels and yawning crevasses of a flood. the steamer "throop" was left at evansville and the "mattie bell" chartered at st. louis and laden with corn, oats, hay, meal and salt for cattle; clothing and cooking utensils for the destitute people; tea, coffee, rice, sugar and medicines for the sick: and as quickly as possible followed the government steamers leaving the same port with rations of meat and meal. these latter boats kindly burdened themselves with large quantities of our forage which _our_ overladen boat could not contain. we soon found that our judgment in regard to the condition of the animals had been correct. horses, mules, cows, sheep and pigs had been hastily gotten upon floating rafts and platforms of logs raised above the water, or had taken refuge, as many as could, on the narrow strips of land, known as broken levees, say eight to twelve feet in width, just peering above the water; and here they stood often crowded beyond the possibility of lying down, with no morsel of food save the wee green leaves and tips of the willow branches and gray moss which their pitying owners, largely poor negroes, could gather in skiffs and bring to them. day by day they stood and wasted, starved, and their bodies floated down the stream, food for the birds of prey hovering above. week after week hour after hour the mighty river, pouring through its monster crevasses, spread wider and wider every hour. we left our steamer at times and were rowed out in little boats for miles alongside of the levees, and went among the cattle. some waded out into the water to their backs to reach after the green scum which gathered and swam delusively upon the surface. some, unable to stand, lay stretched at length with head and horns dabbling in the mud, fearlessly turning great pitiful eyes upon us as we approached. others, reeling, followed us tamely about, as if beseeching us to feed them. i need not add that they were fed. committees of both white and colored persons were formed and the requisite quantity of food for the animals and clothing for the people were left with these committees at every needy point. our steamer was reladen, or our supplies replenished at each available port, and in this manner we passed to new orleans, and returning, resupplied our committees. the necessity for a change of boat on the ohio and mississippi has been mentioned; that the "throop" was discharged at evansville and the red cross body passed over to st. louis. perhaps some reference to the journals of that date would best illustrate the necessity for these movements, as well as the spirit of the people and of the times. from an editorial in the chicago _inter-ocean_ of march 31, 1884, the following extract is taken: the day is not far distant--if it has not already come--when the american people will recognize the red cross as one of the wisest and best systems of philanthropic work in modern times. its mission is not accomplished when it has carried the generous offerings of the people to their brethren who have met with sudden calamity. it does not stop with the alleviation of bodily suffering and the clothing of the destitute--blessed as that work is, when wisely done, so as not to break down the manly spirit of self-help. the red cross has become a grand educator, embodying the best principles of social science, and that true spirit of charity which counts it a sacred privilege to serve one's fellowmen in time of trouble. the supplying of material wants--of food, raiment and shelter is only a small part of its ministry. in its work among suffering humanity, when fire or flood or pestilence has caused widespread desolation, the red cross seeks to carry to people's hearts that message which speaks of a universal brotherhood. it is all the time and everywhere sowing the seed of brotherly kindness and goodwill, which is destined in time to yield the fruits of world-wide peace. once let the love of doing good unto others become deeply rooted and practiced as an international custom, and arsenals and ironclad navies will give way to the spirit of equity. war will cease as a relic of barbarism, and peace will shed its benedictions over all nations. from the evansville _journal_ of april 3, the following: the president of the red cross left for st. louis last night, where she will take charge of a steamer which has been chartered under her direction for relief service in the lower mississippi.... the mission of the red cross, which has done such wonderful and effective work in the ohio valley, is not yet completed. the lower mississippi cries for aid. the destruction of property below the mouth of the ohio is, if possible, greater than was experienced on the ohio. life has not been in such desperate peril, but property has been swept away by oceans of water, and the landowner, with corn and cotton fields, has been reduced to pauperism.... this year the overflow has been of such a character that neither crop, mortgage, nor advance are safe, and the renter and half-share farmer must suffer. the red cross comes to the rescue. miss barton will be accompanied by several ladies from this city and will be joined by many gentlemen and ladies from st. louis. from the st. louis _democrat_, april 4, the following: miss clara barton arrived at the "southern" yesterday morning. miss barton is accompanied by mrs. de bruler and miss enola lee, of evansville, ind., dr. j. b. hubbell, field agent, and mr. john hitz, of washington, d.c. the members of the party were busily engaged yesterday in superintending the loading of the steamer "mattie bell," which leaves for the inundated districts of the lower mississippi this morning. miss octavia dix, secretary of the st. louis branch of the red cross, will accompany the expedition. the brave men of the fifth corps in the cuban war of 1898, endured hunger and thirst and other conditions better remembered than described. some of them partook of the gracious offerings of hot gruel, malted milk, boiled rice, apple wine, and prune cordial at the hands of mrs. dr. gardner. it will perhaps interest them to know that she is the same who, as miss enola lee, was one of the company of the "mattie bell" in 1884. some of the men of the war of 1861 may remember the officer who had charge of the commissary department at washington. i shall never forget the man who, despite all rank and position, stood many an hour of many a day beside my army wagons loading at his headquarters, and who wisely directed the selection of material best suited to and most needed at the proposed terminus of the dark and weary journey i was about to undertake--it was then colonel, now general beckwith of the regular army. he was in 1884, holding the position of commissary at st. louis. in the same old time spirit and in the old time way he came upon the deck of our little steamer, and directed the placing of the supplies of the "mattie bell." one will never forget the terror depicted on his fine face when he saw the bales of hay taken on board. "great heavens, you are not going to risk that! think of it--you in the middle of that great, rushing river, no land in sight, and your ship on fire!" still, the risk was taken, and both the ship and the stock were saved. a few hours previous to the sailing of the "mattie bell" from st. louis a stranger came on board and asked to be permitted to go with us. there was nothing very remarkable in his appearance, either for or against; but on general principles we objected to taking on a stranger without some good reason for it. his quiet persistence, however, won, and perhaps through lack of active measures on the part of some one he went. he was a silent man--walked by himself, or stood alone on some unfrequented corner of the deck. as we got lower down and more tributaries were pouring their contributions into the mighty volume that rolled and seethed about and beneath us, the danger became more imminent. running after dark was out of the question, and timely orders were given one afternoon to tie up for the night; but our captain, anxious to make a headland a few miles further on, begged permission to run a little later, sure he could reach it before dark. his request was rather reluctantly granted, and as we steamed on a fog and mist came up and night set in with us still afloat. in less than a half hour the stranger rushed to me with: "we are in a crevasse! we must pull out or we are lost! i have warned the engineer and captain." the forward rush of the boat ceased; she stood still, pulled first one way then the other, shivered and struggled amid the shrieks of the reversed engine, while we waited, thoroughly aware of the situation and the doom awaiting us all, depending on the power and strength of one mute body of steel and one firm man at the helm. at length the struggling ceased; the engines had triumphed over the current. we commenced to move slowly backward, and with a grateful awe in our hearts that no words could express we found a place of safety for the night. daylight revealed to us a crevasse opened the day before where the river had broken through to a width of thirty rods, with the water pouring down a depth of twelve or fifteen feet in a perfect torrent into the current below, and rolling off in a self-made track to some other stream or to the gulf of mexico. i have no way of accounting for this incident, but the reader will perhaps not be "too hard" on me, if i say with the father of "little breeches," "i have believed in god and the angels ever since one night last spring." down the mississippi. down the mississippi all was changed. two worlds could scarcely differ more. the ofttimes shoreless waste of waters; the roaring crevasse through the broken levees; the anxious ebony faces and the hungry animals that "looked up and were not fed," among whom and which we floated, could not fail to carry our thoughts back at times to the history of the deluge and the ark. the simile, however, had this important difference; we were by no means so good as to be preserved, nor they so bad as to be destroyed. any bare description of this voyage constitutes only the woody framework of the structure. you will readily imagine that, when it should be clothed with its ever recurring incidents it would become a very different edifice. never a day that did not bring us incidents to be remembered, sometimes sad and touching, sometimes laughable or ridiculous. the rough, tattered and uncouth garb of the ohio river farmer and woodsman was offset by his quick wit and sterling sense, and the rude dialect of the southern negro was buried out of sight by his simple faith. but the most touching of all was the honest gratitude which poured out on every side. these people adopted the red cross and those who bore it, and we, in turn, have held to them. we selected helpers from among them, banded them together, gave them responsibility and thus made them mutual helps to each other and to us as well, in case of subsequent disaster. one day as we were near the left bank of the river we saw a small herd of cattle wading out far into the water for what they could reach. a few cabins stood back of them. steaming as near as we could we made fast to the body of a small fig tree and called the negroes, men and women, to us in their skiff. it proved to be a little neighborhood of negroes with no white "boss," as they say, but had their own mules and cows and were farming independently. but the food and feed were gone. the government boats had passed without seeing them, and no help had come to them. their mules and cows were starving; they had no one to apply to. they had their little church; and their elder, a good, honest-faced man, who led them onto the boat, told the story of their sufferings and danger. we selected two men and two women, formed them into a committee of distribution and wrote out formal directions and authority for them. but before presenting it to them to sign, i asked them seriously if we left these supplies with them if they thought they could share them honestly with each other and not quarrel over them. they were silent a moment. then the tallest of the women rose up, and with commanding gesture said: "miss, dese tings is from de lord; dey is not from you, caze you is from him. he sent you to bring dem. we would not dare to quarrel ober dem things; we would not dare not to be honest wid 'em." i presented the paper with no further pledge. it was signed with one name and three marks. the supplies were put off on the only little spot of land that could be reached. the negroes left the boat and stood beside the pile, which seemed a little mountain in the level space of waters. we raised steam and prepared to put off, expecting as we did so some demonstration, some shout of farewell from our newfound friends on shore and held our handkerchiefs ready to wave in reply--not a sound--and as we "rounded to" and looked back, the entire group had knelt beside the bags of grain and food and not a head or hand was raised to bid us speed. a greater than we had possessed them, and in tearful silence we bowed our heads as well and went our way. after the first rush of danger was over and repairs commenced among the business men, it was not always easy to find faithful willing agents to distribute supplies among those who had nothing left to repair but their stomachs, and no material for this. at point coupee the mississippi sends out a false branch of thirty miles in length, forming an island, and again joining the main river at hermitage. these are known as false river and island. the government boats had not entered false river, and there was great want among both people and cattle. all the way down we were besought to hold something back for this point. at hermitage we found the one business man, owner of the boat which plied the thirty miles of river, its warehouse and all. he, of course, was the only man who could take charge of and distribute relief around the island; and captain trudeau was sought. he was a young, active man, full of business, just pulling out of his own disaster, and did not know how to attend to it. "guessed the trouble was most over up there; hadn't heard much about it lately." we knew better and felt discouraged that persons could not be found of sufficient humanity to distribute relief when brought to them. i was sitting heart sore and perplexed in my stateroom trying to think out a way when two rather young women of prepossessing appearance entered with a bouquet of early flowers for me, introducing themselves as mrs. and miss trudeau, wife and sister of the captain. i scarcely felt gracious, but those fair womanly faces were strong to win, and i entered into conversation asking mrs. trudeau what she thought of the condition of the people of the island. her face grew sad as she said in touching tones, "indeed, i cannot say, miss barton; my husband's boat runs around twice a week and i tried to go on it for a while, but the sight of such destitution and those starving cattle, mules, cows, horses and sheep were beyond my endurance. i had nothing to give them, and i could not see it, and so left off going." "would you ladies take the agency of the red cross to deliver supplies to these people?" i shall not forget the appropriate and womanly manner in which this delicate lady received the abrupt proposition--no hesitation, no surprise, no self-depreciation, no simpering, but the straightforward reply, "we would, most willingly and gladly, and do our best. our warehouse could store them, our boat take and we distribute them." the customary official document was at once drawn up and signed. an hour later the busy captain rushed in to see how much was really expected of him. "captain," i said, "i have found agents to distribute our relief, and very satisfactorily, i think, and shall be able to release you from all responsibility." his fine face fell; he had not expected this and in spite of all did not relish being quite relieved from duty. i went on: "you will have some share in it, captain. for instance, you will supply storage in your warehouse; your boat will take supplies on any day when demanded. your men will handle and load all material. you will, in short, provide all accommodations, do all the work, meet all the cost, obey orders implicitly, but have none of the credit! mrs. and miss trudeau are my agents." the good fellow fairly threw up his hat. "good! that's just what i'm used to. it shall be done." and it was done; but how well it was done i could not describe to you--not only wisely and well, but elegantly. the captain's warehouse had little empty space after our cargo of supplies had gone into it the next day but one would be the day appointed for governor mcennery, of louisiana, to make at point coupee his re-election speech, which would call all the people of the island who could reach it to that point to see and hear the popular governor. the little steamer "governor wiltz" was laden with supplies, and under direction of madame trudeau proceeded to point coupee in order to meet the people, learn the needs, and inform everyone that supplies and relief were at hand. the gallant governor addressed the crowd from the deck of the "governor wiltz" under the red cross flag, and took passage on her down the river. we resupplied these agents on our return. we did this all the way among both white and black. and from that time the red cross has had faithful, willing agents along all the uncertain track of the lower mississippi. months later, in january, 1885, when a sea voyage, foreign travel, the cares of an international conference of military men, the splendor of foreign courts, much of weariness and illness had passed between, and i had thought all those little days of river work gone from memory, i found myself in the upper gallery of the new orleans exposition, and stepping in at a restaurant at the end of the hall was met by colonel lewis, the noted colored caterer of the south. he had been on the relief committee of new orleans appointed to meet our steamer at the time of our visit in may. he came with cordial recognition, seated me and was telling me of his success in the restaurant when all his waiters, men and women, seemed to forget their work and stood gazing at us. the colonel smiled and said, "they have caught sight of the red cross brooch at your neck and recognize you by it. they will come to themselves in a few minutes." next day i went in again for my lunch, when colonel lewis brought to me a little, thin, white-haired mulatto man of seventy-three years, but still able to take charge of and direct the help at the tables, saying, "this, miss barton, is uncle amos, whom i promised yesterday to introduce to you when you came again. uncle amos is my most true and faithful man." i reached out for the withered, hard, dark bony hand he gave me as he said: "yes, miss barton, i wants to see and speak to you, to tell you in de name of our people how grateful dey is for what your society has done for dem. dat is never forgot. you come to us when we had nothing. you saved what was never saved befo' in a flood, our cattle, so dey could go on and help derselves to raise something to eat. dey has all heard of it; all talk about it in de churches and de meetings. our people is singular in some tings; dey never forgets a kindness. dey hab notions. dey hab a way of nailing up a hoss-shoe ober de do' for luck. i want to tell you dat in a thousand little cabins all up and down dis river dey has put up a little red cross ober de do' and every night before dey goes to bed dey names your name and prays god to bless you and de red cross dat he sent to dem in time of trouble and distress." uncle amos looked straight in my face the while. colonel lewis wiped his eyes, and i got away as fast as i could. it would scarcely be faithful to the subject of this relief if some mention were not made of the third trip, namely, that of the voyage up the ohio after the fall of the waters and the attempted return of the people to their former homes. from an editorial of the evansville _journal_, may 28, 1884, headed "good by red cross," we make an extract or two which has reference to the voyage and its purposes: the red cross, having concluded its labors on the ohio river below this point, will start to-day for the upper ohio and go as far as pittsburg, relieving the meritorious cases on the way.... the "josh v. throop," which has been rechartered for this trip, was loaded last saturday. a part of the load was distributed between this point and cave-in-rock, and the room made vacant by the lower river distribution was filled with additional stores yesterday which will be distributed up the river. the load consists of what the people in the overflowed country will want and most need. there is clothing in immense quantities, over a hundred plows, large quantities of rakes, hoes, scythes, spades, shovels, groceries, flour, meat, meal, corn, bedsteads, chairs, buckets, tubs, tables, queensware, tinware, pots, kettles, skillets, etc. this trip was arranged in general at cincinnati, when miss barton first came west. at that time her policy took definite shape and it has never changed. she saw that the government was providing for all the immediate necessities of the sufferers and looked forward to the time when the unfortunate people would come almost hopelessly back to ruined homes--come back to find houses, furniture, tools, food, everything gone--and although aid would have been extended during the calamity by the government and benevolent institutions, the ruined people would have but a poor chance to proceed in the business of life. this was the anticipated opportunity of the red cross; this was the time miss barton foresaw would be pregnant with possibilities for doing large good, and the event has fully justified her prophetic view of the situation. the load now on the "throop" will not only provide for the house, it will do much for the farm. it would be difficult to imagine a voyage more replete with live interest than this beautiful may passage from evansville to pittsburg. the banks were dotted with the marks of torn and washed-out homes; and occasionally one found the family, from father and mother to the wee little ones, gathered about the bare spot that once was home, trying in vain to find enough of the buried timbers to recommence a framework for another house, if ever they could build it, with all the hunger and need for daily food staring them in the face. picture, if possible, this scene: a strange ship, with two flags, steaming up the river; it halts, turns from its course, and draws up to the nearest landing. some persons disembark and speak a few minutes with the family; then a half dozen strong mechanics man a small boat laden with all material for constructing a one-room house, take it to the spot and commence putting it up. directly here is a structure with floor, roof, doors, windows and walls; the boat returns for furniture. within three hours the strange ship sails away leaving a bewildered family in a new and clean house, with a bed, bedding, table, chairs, clothing, dishes, candles, a well-made little cooking stove, with blazing fire, with all the common quota of cooking utensils, meat, meal, groceries, a plow, rake, axe, hoe, shovel, spade, hammer, hatchet and nails, etc. we ask few questions, they none; but often it proves that the little, bare, boyhood feet of that desolated father had once skipped through the dewy grass of the green hills of new england, the brave old parent of states, where great riches are slow to come, and famishing hunger never enters. again, referring to the evansville _journal_ of may 28 we find the following: a band of little folks in chicago, called the "busy bees," were organized in a plan to extend succor to the suffering and collected a large box of goods which they sent to miss barton, with the request that it might be put where it would do the most good. she was some time in finding a place where she could put it with the greatest satisfaction to the givers and the donees. she found the opportunity she had been looking for yesterday. on her last voyage a gentleman at cave-in-rock told her that a poor, but worthy, family was in that vicinity, and on becoming acquainted with the family miss barton gave them some supplies and left fifteen dollars with the gentleman aforesaid, to either give to the family or spend for them as he might think best. he concluded that it would be judiciously expended by the people for whom it was intended and accordingly turned it over to them. the woman of the family came some days afterward to the gentleman, bringing with her another woman who was very destitute, and said: "this is my neighbor, and i have come to ask you if you think miss barton would care if i divided my fifteen dollars with her." "most certainly not," was the reply; and then, out of her penury did this poor woman give. she retained ten dollars and gave five. yesterday miss barton divided the contents of the store the "busy bees" had gathered among these two families, consisting of eight and five persons respectively. when she was delivering the goods to the poor woman who had generously shared with her neighbor, miss barton gave her back her five dollars, and said: "you have read where it is said, _he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the lord_, and he has sent it back already." on february 11, 1884, congress, in response to appeals from ohio, kentucky and west virginia, appropriated $300,000 for the relief of the people who had lost their homes and other property by the ohio river floods. on february 15, the first appropriation having been considered hardly sufficient to meet the demands, $200,000 more were appropriated for the same purpose, making $500,000 in all to be expended under the direction of the war department. a boat load of supplies was sent down the river from pittsburg; two boats left cincinnati, one going up the river and the other down; one boat went down the river from louisville and a fifth boat was sent down the river from evansville. afterward some additional boats were sent out from other places. between february 15 and march 15, 536,000 rations were distributed by the government at a cost of $350,000. the remaining $150,000 were transferred to the mississippi flood relief. in the official report of the relief furnished to the ohio river flood sufferers, written by r.p.m. ames, assistant surgeon u.s. marine hospital service, evansville, ind., he speaks as follows of the part taken by the red cross in this work: at this time also the red cross association came actively to the front for now had the time arrived when this association, of all others, could do the most good.... through its instrumentality much suffering and destitution has been relieved throughout the ohio valley which it would have been almost impossible to reach but for this organization. with miss clara barton at the head, and a large corps of active and intelligent assistants, the relief work performed by this association has been most thorough and efficacious. contributions of money and clothing have been sent to all points in the inundated districts of the ohio valley where such assistance was needed, while a thorough and careful investigation by members of the association of the flooded territory has rendered the aid most beneficial. as soon as it became apparent that the suffering from the high water would necessitate the various relief movements, miss barton removed her headquarters from washington, d.c., to cincinnati, o., where she carefully and intelligently superintended the distribution of a large amount of supplies donated from all parts of the country, consisting of money, food, clothing and fuel. as the water receded then came the time for the relief proffered by this association to be given. after remaining several days in cincinnati and relieving all the suffering so far as it was met with, miss barton, on march 3, removed her headquarters to evansville, ind., where arrangements were at once commenced to reach and aid the sufferers between this point and cairo, ill. captain j.v. throop kindly placed his steamer, the "josh v. throop," at the disposal of the red cross without any expense except the actual running cost of the boat. the steamer was at once loaded with an immense quantity of boxes, barrels, bales and bundles of clothing, being donations from various private parties and relief organizations throughout the country which had been accumulating here for some time, together with a large amount of bedding and fuel, and started on its mission of mercy down the river in charge of miss clara barton, saturday, march 8, 1884. miss barton was accompanied and assisted on this trip by dr. j.b. hubbell, of washington, d. c, the field agent of the association; rev. e.j. galvin, agent of the chicago red cross association; miss hamilton, of st. louis, with mrs. de bruler and several other evansville ladies. relief was given to all the sufferers needing it below evansville and wickliff, ky., below cairo. the party reached cairo march 15, and after proceeding down the river to wickliff, ky., turned back, arriving at evansville march 20. in addition to the supplies mentioned, the rev. e.j. galvin, of chicago, had placed at his disposal $25,000, from which checks were drawn and left with any party needing financial assistance. miss barton and her corps of assistants remained in evansville after their return until april 2, when the relief transactions throughout the ohio valley having been practically finished, she removed her headquarters to st. louis, mo., where a relief boat was at once fitted out and similar assistance tendered to the sufferers in the inundated districts of the lower mississippi. miss barton was further aided on this trip by mr. john hitz, of washington, d.c. on may 25th miss barton made a second trip down the ohio with the steamer "josh v. throop" under charter with household supplies and farming implements for the recent sufferers. the boat went as far as elizabethtown, or possibly a few miles below, and then turning back, proceeded up stream to wheeling or pittsburgh till the supplies were exhausted. "the little six." it is possible that some readers may recall the story of the "little six," which was locally published at the time, but which i venture to reproduce, as an extract from the erie _dispatch_, of monday march 24, 1884: _dispatch_ readers doubtless recollect its account some weeks ago of the manner in which six children of waterford gave a public entertainment for the benefit of the ohio flood sufferers; how they themselves suggested it; how their efforts were crowned with success; and how they brought the entire proceeds, $51.25, raised by their unpaid efforts, to the editor of the _dispatch_ with the request that the latter forward it "where it would do the most good." the _dispatch_ complied by forwarding it to miss clara barton, president of the american red cross association. the following letter tells the story of the disposition of the money. the names of the noble little band, of which any town in the nation ought to be proud of, are: reed white, florence howe, lloyd barton, joe farrar, mary barton, bertie ensworth. the oldest is twelve years of age. * * * * * miss barton's letter a touching incident very touchingly related. red cross relief steamer, "josh v. throop," off shawneetown, illinois, ohio river, _march 18, 1884_, mr. m.e. camp, editor of the erie _dispatch_: at length, i have the happiness to inform you that i have placed the contribution of the brave little six to my own satisfaction, and, as i believe, to the satisfaction of the little donors and the friends interested in them as well. your letter inclosing the touching article describing their pretty thought and act, and the check for the sum donated by them to the sufferers from the floods, came during the early days of hurry and confused activity. the entire matter was too beautiful and withal unique, to meet only a common fate in its results. i could not, for a moment, think to mingle the gift of the little dramatists with the common fund for general distribution, and sought through all these weeks for a fitting disposition to make of it, where it would all go in some special manner to relieve some special necessity. i wanted it to benefit some children who had "wept on the banks" of the river which in its madness had devoured their home. i watched carefully all the way down on this trip, and tried, last sunday, at smithland on our return to make a little "foundation" for a children's help and instruction at that town which had suffered so terribly; but i could not satisfy myself, and after telling the pretty story to the best people of the town assembled on our boat, i still declined to leave the appropriation, waiting in confidence for the real opportunity to present and which we have met in the last hour. as we neared that picturesque spot on the illinois side of the ohio, known as "cave-in-rock," we were hailed by a woman and her young daughter. the boat "rounded to" and made the landing and they came on board--a tall, thin worn woman in a tattered suit, with a good, but inexpressibly sad face, who wished to tell us that a package which we had left for her at the town on our way down had never reached her. she was a widow--mrs. plew--whose husband, a good river pilot, had died from overwork on a hard trip to new orleans in the floods of the mississippi two years before, leaving her with six children dependent upon her, the eldest a lad in his "teens," the youngest a little baby girl. they owned their home, just on the brink of the river, a little "farm" of two or three acres, two horses, three cows, thirty hogs and a half hundred fowls, and in spite of the bereavement they had gone on bravely, winning the esteem and commendation of all who knew them for thrift and honest endeavor. last year the floods came heavily upon them, driving them from their home, and the two horses were lost. next the cholera came among the hogs and all but three died. still they worked on and held the home. this spring came the third flood. the water climbed up the bank, crept in at the door and filled the lower story of the house. they had nowhere to remove their household goods, and stored them in the garret carefully packed and went out to find a shelter in an old log house near by, used for a corn crib. day by day they watched the house, hailed passing boats for the news of the rise and fall of the water above, always trusting the house would stand--"and it would," the mother said "(for it was a good, strong house), but for the storm." the wind came and the terrible gale that swept the valley like a tornado, with the water at its height, leveling whole towns, descended and beat upon that house and it fell. in the morning there was no house there and the waves in their fury rushed madly on. then these little children "stood and wept on the banks of the river," and the desolation and fear in the careful mother's heart, none but herself and her god can know. they lived in the corn-crib, and it was from it they came to hail us as we passed to-day. something had been told us of them on our downward trip, and a package had been left them at "cave-in-rock," which they had not received. we went over shoe-tops in mud to their rude home, to find it one room of logs, an old stone chimney, with a cheerful fire of drift-wood and a clean hearth, two wrecks of beds, a table, and two chairs, which some kind neighbor had loaned. the government boats had left them rations. there was an air of thrift, even in their desolation, a plank walk was laid about the door, the floor was cleanly swept, and the twenty-five surviving hens, for an equal number was lost in the storm, clucked and craiked comfortably about the door, and there were two and a half dozen fresh eggs to sell us at a higher rate than paid in town. we stood, as we had done so many scores of times during the last few weeks, and looked this pitiful scene in the face. there was misfortune, poverty, sorrow, want, loneliness, dread of future, but fortitude, courage, integrity and honest thrift. "would she like to return to the childhood home in indiana?" we asked the mother, for we would help them go. "no," she said tenderly. "my husband lived and died here. he was buried here, and i would not like to go away and leave him alone. it won't be very long, and it is a comfort to the children to be able to visit his grave. no, i reckon we will stay here, and out of the wreck of the old house which sticks up out of the mud, we will put another little hut, higher up in the bank out of the way of the floods, and if it is only a hut, it will be a home for us and we will get into it." there were no dry eyes, but very still hearts, while we listened to this sorrowful but brave little speech, made with a voice full of tears. our thoughtful field agent, dr. hubbell, was the first to speak. "here are six children," he said with an inquiring glance at me. no response was needed. the thing was done. we told the mother the story of the "little six" of waterford, and asked her if that money with enough more to make up one hundred dollars would help her to get up her house? it was her turn to be speechless. at length with a struggling, choking voice she managed to say--"god knows how much it would be to me. yes, with my good boys i can do it, and do it well." we put in her hands a check for this sum, and directed from the boat clean boxes of clothing and bedding, to help restore the household, when the house shall have been completed. before we left her, we asked if she would name her house when it would be done. she thought a second and caught the idea. "yes," she replied quickly, with a really winsome smile on that worn and weary face, "yes, i shall name it 'the little six.'" and so, dear mr. camp, will you kindly tell those brave little philanthropic dramatists, that they are to have a house down on the banks of the great rolling river, and that one day, i think, will come a letter to tell them that another six children are nightly praying god to bless them for the home that will shelter them from the floods and the storms. sincerely and cordially yours, clara barton. in reply the following letters were received: waterford, pa., _march 25, 1884_. m.e. camp, editor of erie _dispatch_: dear sir: the "little six" met yesterday and wrote the accompanying letter, which they would like to have you forward to miss clara barton. they wish me to thank you for sending them copies of your paper containing miss barton's beautiful letter to them. if you or miss barton ever had any doubts in regard to a child's appreciation of favors shown, i wish you could have seen those bright, happy faces as they gave three cheers for "ye editor" and three times three for miss clara barton and the "home of the little six" on the banks of the ohio. mrs. loyd benson, committee. waterford, _march 24, 1884_. dear miss barton: we read your nice letter in the _dispatch_, and we would like very much to see that house called "the little six," and we are so glad we little six helped six other little children, and we thank you for going to so much trouble in putting our money just where we would have put it ourselves. sometime again when you want money to help you in your good work, call on the "little six." joe farrar, twelve years old. florence howe, eleven years old. mary barton, eleven years old. reed white, eleven years old. bertie ensworth, ten years old. lloyd barton, seven years old. it could not fail to have been a satisfaction to me to know that i had done my work as they would have "done it themselves." as long as we remained on the river this family was occasionally visited by our boat. on one occasion a strong flagstaff twenty feet in length was taken and firmly set upon the bank near where they would place their house. its well-lettered cross board at the top showed "little six red cross landing," and this point has remained a landing on the ohio river probably unto this day. during this trip on the upper ohio, which was even yet scarcely safe for running at night, we had, after a hard day's work, found a cove and tied our boat for the night. it was a rather sequestered spot, and the appearance of a full-size river steamer, halting for the night on one of its banks, attracted the attention of the few people residing there, and at dusk a body of five or six men came to the boat to ask if we were in trouble that we stopped there, and if there were anything they could do for us. we quieted their kindly apprehensions and invited them on board. the lights revealed a condition of personal poverty which should have more naturally asked help than offered it. on the entire trip with its thousands of miles, among white and black, we had never seen such evidences of destitution. they scarcely could have decently gone among civilized people, and yet as they spoke, there was no lack of sense. on the contrary, they seemed in many ways to be men of the world. their language, while provincial, had nothing uncommon in it, and altogether they were a study to us. we gave them some supper, and while eating, learned the facts of their lives. either by blood or marriage, they were all relatives, consisting of six families, making in all about thirty people. they all lived together--such living as it was--and there seemed to be among them a perfectly good understanding. they had always lived on the river banks, probably more on the river than off of it. they were not farmers, never planted or raised anything, subsisting mainly upon fish and the floating drift to be picked up. thus, they clung to the river like the muskrat and beaver, and were washed out with every flood. sixteen of them at that time were living under some slanting boards. after supper our men quietly invited them to the clothing department on the stern of the ship, and exchanged their garments. thus we got hold of these people, clothed, fed, encouraged and advised them, got them into houses, furnished them, formed them into a little colony, put up a landing named, at their own request, "red cross big six," and took care of the women and children. every man foreswore his drink, his cards and his betting, and went to work for the first time in his life. we found a faithful merchant to stand by, advise them and report to us. from year to year we have helped to keep them clothed. the children immediately went to school, and the next year for the first time they planted land and raised their own food; and the growing thrift and strange prosperity of this body of heretofore vagrants began after a time to excite the envy of its neighbors, who thought they were getting on better than themselves, and their merchant friend had to repel it. only one or two of them could write a little, but they made good use of their accomplishment as far as possessed. one day i received a letter from one of their _savants_, charley hunter, out of which among much that was encouraging, with considerable labor, i deciphered the following: "we are all doing well. we don't drink or play cards no more. i got the flannel undershirts and drawers and the medicine you sent me. my rhumatis is better. i know now i have got two friends; one is you and the other is god." i was sorry he named me first; i do not think he intended it. i might add that two years later these people had united with the church; that the children were all in school, and that one daughter was being educated for a teacher. on the lower ohio one of the villages most wrecked by the waters and the cyclone was smithland, an old aristocratic borough on the kentucky side. they had no coal, and we supplied them as we went down. on our return we lowered steam and threw out our landing prow opposite the town. the whistle of the "throop" was as welcome to their ears as the flag to their eyes. it was a bright, clear, spring morning and sunday. in an hour the entire little hamlet of people stood on our decks; only four, they said, were left at home, and these sick and infirm. they had selected their lawyer to speak their thanks, and they had chosen well. no words will ever do justice to the volume of native eloquence which seemed to roll unbidden from his lips. we listened in mute surprise until he finished with these sentences: at noon on that day we were in the blackness of despair. the whole village in the power of the demon of waters, hemmed in by sleet and ice, without fire enough to cook its little food. when the bell struck nine that night, there were seventy-five families on their knees before their blazing grates, thanking god for fire and light, and praying blessings on the phantom ship with the unknown device that had come as silently as the snow, they knew not whence, and gone, they knew not whither. a few days later we finished the voyage of relief, having covered the ohio river from cincinnati to cairo and back twice, and the mississippi from st. louis to new orleans and return, occupying four months' time on the rivers, in our own chartered boats, finishing at pittsburg and taking rail for washington on the first of july, having traveled over eight thousand miles, and distributed in relief, of money and estimated material, $175,000. the government had expended an appropriation from the treasury on the same waters of $150,000 in money, and distributed it well. the difference was that ours was not appropriated; we gathered it as we used it. the texas famine. occasional rumors reached us in the years 1885 and 1886 about a drouth in texas and consequent suffering, but they were so contradictory and widely at variance that the public took little or no heed of them. during the year of 1886 the rev. john brown, a north presbyterian minister, located at albany, shackelford county, texas, began making appeals by circular and oral address to the people of the northern states, in which he asserted that there were a hundred thousand families in northwestern texas who were utterly destitute and on the verge of starvation. he stated that since the close of the war a large number of poor families had been constantly crowding into texas from the southern states principally, induced thither by land agents and others, who gave glowing representations of the character of the soil for farming purposes. these poor people, by hard labor and industry, had been generally able to make a living and nothing more. the last fall they had planted wheat and other grain quite extensively, but the rains came not and everything perished; and in the following spring and summer, too, everything put into the ground was blasted by the hot winds, so that not a thing was raised for man or beast. for fifteen months no rain had fallen, and the condition of the people was pitiable and called aloud to the charitable throughout the land for relief. they must be carried through to the next summer or they would perish. at a meeting of the citizens of albany, texas, they decided that the task of relieving the sufferers was greater than the well-to-do people of the state were able to undertake, and that an appeal should be made to the good-hearted people of the north for immediate aid. the governor of texas also published an appeal to the people of the whole land, asking for food for these people. but as there was no concerted action, and so many denials of the stories of suffering, little or nothing in the way of relief work was accomplished for some time. spasmodic attempts were made, and some food for man and beast was contributed, but not enough to relieve a hundredth part of the needy. the rev. dr. brown went to the state capital and endeavored to interest the legislature in the matter, but there were seemingly so much misunderstanding and unbelief, and so many conflicting interests to reconcile, that he failed to receive any substantial assurances and left the place in disgust. when the citizens of texas could not agree as to the necessities of their own people it was not to be expected that the citizens of the country would take much interest in them, hence the relief movement languished from inanition. about the middle of january, 1887, dr. brown came to washington and, as solicitor and receiving agent for the committee which had issued an appeal to the country, appealed to me, as president of the american national red cross, asking our organization to come to the relief of the people, who were in a deplorable state, greatly needing food and clothing. i immediately shipped to texas all the stores that were then in our warehouse, but they were no great quantity. an appeal direct to the red cross required immediate attention, and i at once sought a conference with president cleveland, who was greatly worried over the contradictory stories that were constantly printed, and was anxious to learn the truth about the matter. when i said that i should go to texas and see for myself, he was greatly pleased, and requested me to report to him the exact situation just as soon as i had satisfied myself by personal investigation. dr. hubbell and i proceeded directly to albany, texas, where we arrived near the end of january. we were met by the leading citizens and most heartily welcomed and accorded every privilege and attention. we began our investigations at once in a systematic way, carefully noting everything we heard and saw; and in the course of a two weeks' trip over the afflicted region, we learned the extent of the need and formulated plans for its relief. making albany our object point, we traveled by private conveyance over such territory as we thought sufficient to give a correct knowledge of the condition of the country and the people. we met large numbers of the residents, both collectively and at their homes, and learned from them personally and by actual observation their condition and what they had to depend upon during the next few months. it will be borne in mind that when we entered upon this investigation little or no relief had come from the state, and none was positively assured. almost no rain had fallen during a period of eighteen months; two planted crops had perished in the ground, and the seed wheat sown the previous fall gave no signs of life. the dust was rolling over the great wind-swept fields, where the people had hidden their last little forlorn hope of borrowed seed, and literally a heaven of brass looked down upon an earth of iron. here were twenty to forty counties of a size commensurate with texan dimensions occupied by new settlers, making their first efforts in the pioneer work of developing home life in an untried country, soil and climate. they had put their all into the new home and the little stock they could afford for its use. they had toiled faithfully, planted two and three times, as long as there was anything to plant or sow, and in most instances failed to get back their seed. many had grown discouraged and left the country. the people were not actually starving, but they were in the direst want for many of the necessities of life, and it was only a matter of days when they would have reached the condition of the reconcentrados as we later found them in cuba. hundreds of thousands of cattle had died for the want of food and water, and their drying carcasses and bleaching bones could be seen in every direction as the eye wandered over the parched surface of the plains. i at once saw that in the vastness of its territory and varying interests the real need of these suffering communities was not understood by the texas people--it had not come home to them--but that once comprehending, it would be their wish to have it known and cared for by themselves and not by others outside of the state. assuring these poor people that their actual condition should be made known to their own people, through the authoritative means of the red cross, and that they should be speedily cared for, we bade them farewell and hurried away to dallas, where we intended to send out a statement to the people of the state. arriving there, we sought an interview with colonel belo of the dallas _news_ and laid before him the result of our observations. he placed the columns of his paper at our disposal, and through them we enlightened the people of the true status of affairs in their own state. the response was as quick as it was gratifying, and thence onward there was no further necessity for appealing to anyone outside of the state limits. indeed, that act in the first place was the greatest mistake, as to the average texan, feeling a genuine pride in the state's wealth and resources, it savored of frauds and imposition, and prejudiced him against the brother who would pass him by and appeal to outsiders. the texas legislature appropriated one hundred thousand dollars for food, and in the meantime rain began to fall and the entire aspect of affairs began to change for the better. but there were still many needs unprovided for--clothing, fuel, seeds for gardens and fields, live stock and many other things--and it was necessary to place these needs before the people. this the _news_ took upon itself to do; and upon my suggestion it opened a popular subscription and announced that it would receive contributions of seed or cash and would publish the same from day to day and turn them over to the constituted authorities appointed to disburse them. in order to encourage the movement i inaugurated it with the first subscription, and from that time until now i do not believe any one has heard of any need in texas that has not been taken care of by her own people. congress had appropriated ten thousand dollars for seed to be given the texas drouth sufferers; but president cleveland promptly vetoed the act and thereby laid himself open to a great deal of unkind criticism. he was right, however, and by his resolute action saved the nation's money and the state's pride. i know that it must have been an unpleasant duty for the president to feel compelled to apply his pruning knife to that tender shoot, for he was one of the first to respond with his own personal check to the call for aid for the drouth sufferers; and the subject had always held his kindly interest. the services of the red cross, beyond those given by its president and field agent in making their investigation, were not required in this emergency; and as we had performed the duty most needed, viz.: to unravel the misunderstanding and rightly inform the people of the true condition of affairs in the stricken district, we concluded that our task was ended and that we could return to our home. on our return to washington the following report was made to the president: _february 19, 1889._ _to the president of the united states_: mr. president--i have not been unmindful of your distinguished permission to write you concerning the condition of the people of texas suffering from the drouth. desiring to spare your time and labor so far as possible, i delayed my communication until the investigations should be completed, and my opinions in regard to the extent of their necessities, and the sources from which relief should properly emanate, could be satisfactorily settled in my own mind. the prime reason for my going in person, to texas was my entire inability to solve the mystery of why texas was not equal to the care of its own poor and the meeting of its own calamities. i could not comprehend how a couple of seasons of drouth in one sparsely settled corner of an old state of six millions of acres, with a treasury out of debt, should throw the people of that state upon the charity of the other states, or upon the support of the general government. my investigations brought to light the following perplexed conditions: she had contending interests between her original cattlemen who wanted the lands left open, and the farmers who came in to settle them up; the former placing every obstacle, like the cutting of fences and driving off stock, in the way of the little immigrant! a second conflicting interest arose between these same original lords of the soil--the free ranchmen--and those, who, through railroad grants or purchase, had become actual owners of land which they desired to sell, and for this purpose, and to this end, held out unwarranted inducements, clothed in glowing descriptions, both false and dangerous, to encourage immigration, for which no preparation against the failure of crops from any cause, or toward the opening of industries of any other kind had been made--not even the taking care to leave a small sum at the discretion of the governor in case any harm might befall these newly invited citizens. the immigrants, on their part, coming, as they had been instructed to believe, into a semi-tropical climate, with exhaustless soil covered with almost perpetual verdure, made no provisions beyond the wants of the hour. one looked long and generally in vain for some trace of a cellar, or storehouse, or barn, or even the marks of some former hayrick, which might betoken some thought of provision for the future on the part of these so-called farmers. pioneer like, they had wasted what they could not at the moment use. in this condition the drouth struck this section of the country. fearing the effect of these conflicting interests, the mistake was made of their coming out of the state to solicit aid, in the place of turning bravely and confidently to the people of her rich southern sections for help among themselves. again, the mistake of overstatement was made, and a population of thousands represented as "starving," when in reality no one had starved nor was expected to. they were in far too great want, but not "starving." these statements served to mortify and incense the people, and to turn the strength of nearly the entire press of the state against the statements of those representing the distress, and literally to kill all help from both without and within. added to this, the courtesy of the railroads entering the state, and which at the first call for help had generously offered free freight on all gifts for the drouth sufferers, had most unfortunately been abused, and the occasion used by dealers to send goods in free to their customers for sale. this had the effect in ten days to shut off all free railroad transportation into the state, and thus it remains to-day, and the freight on a carload of gift oats from the grain centres of the northwest would exceed their value when there. these were a part of the perplexing conditions which confronted me upon my arrival in albany, january, 1887. the legislature was occupied in electing a senator, and so continued during two weeks, paying no attention to the relief bill before it. meanwhile, i occupied myself in traveling by private conveyance among the people, learning their conditions from themselves. they suffered every necessity but _homelessness_, and this was the worst feature in the case. lacking this, they would have felt justified in going away and seeking plenty in the homes of others; but how to pick up their unfed children and travel out, leaving their few cattle to the cowboys and the farm to the tax collector. i attempted to write the real state of things to you; but of what use? i might as well have sent you a tangled skein of silk to pick out for the winding. it was clearly no case for a great call for charity from the people at large, neither for governmental aid. texas was a thousand times equal to it herself, when once she looked it clearly in the face and set about the work. this she at length commenced by an appropriation of $100,000 for food. as good fortune would have it, rains commenced, the wheat was apparently saved, and hope revived. there was still need for staple grains at once to plant and sow the fields. these must come from the people within the state, as they had closed all avenues from without, and it was proper they should furnish them. but it could only be accomplished by the aid of the press, which was still pointing its horns at john brown, who persisted in declaring that "a million of dollars must come from congress or the people of the north." there was no way but to reach the press, and turn its powers in the true direction. the arrangement was not difficult for us to make. the columns of both the dallas and galveston _news_ are open for a "seed fund" from the state, pledged to close them only when the need is met. i left that night, feeling that the skein was unraveled, and _our_ part of the work done. i thank you with all my heart, mr. president, for the encouragement given me at the commencement, and the privilege of writing you. i have done this little bit of work faithfully, and hope it may meet your approval. i am home, with scarcely strength to leave my bed, but i trust we have heard the _last of "texas drouth_." i have the honor to be, most respectfully, clara barton. [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. camp perry. _the northern florida yellow fever quarantine station of the u.s. marine hospital, during the epidemic of 1888, for refugees coming north._] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. red cross headquarters. parlors. vestibule and lower hall. first office. second office and breakfast room.] the mount vernon cyclone. illinois. sunday, february 19, 1888, will ever be a memorable day in the annals of the little town of mount vernon, ill.--a day of supreme horrors, destruction and death. there had been thunder and lightning during the afternoon, followed by rain and hail, which had given away to an ominous stillness. the sky was covered with a wierd light, and the air was strangely oppressive. the clouds rapidly changed color, rolling and whirling, and dropping nearer to the earth, until suddenly they assumed the dreaded shape of a huge funnel or inverted cone, which came whirling along with an awful roar, and within three minutes after the fury of the storm had struck the town, thirty people had been killed and scores of others injured, and an immense amount of property destroyed. mount vernon is the county seat of jefferson county, and contained four thousand inhabitants. it was a pretty and prosperous place; its business centre surrounded a public square, whose four sides were lined with stores, and the middle ground occupied by the county court house, a fine three-story building; its broad streets were bordered with shade trees and lighted by electricity. the cyclone cut a broad swath through the eastern half of the town, destroying everything in its path, tearing down brick houses, uprooting trees, and picking up small wooden houses and carrying them along as if they were made of cardboard, and finally dashing them to pieces against more substantial obstacles. in a very few minutes after the storm had passed, the sun shone out brightly, but on what a scene! the air was filled with cries of anguish coming from the maimed sufferers crushed under the ruins, and with the wailings for the dead and missing. to add to the horrors already wrought, fire broke out in a dozen places. those who were uninjured quickly came to the rescue, quenching the flames and exerting themselves to relieve the unfortunate victims, who were, in most cases, pinned down under the wreckage of their houses. all night long these brave men and women worked, and when morning came the few houses that remained standing were filled with the dead and injured. appeals for assistance were sent out to the people of the country, but through an improper statement of the situation, the public was misled, and not realizing the pressing needs of the stricken community, failed to take up the matter in a business-like manner, and the town was left to suffer for a little of the great abundance that was around them. in their extremity the despairing citizens appealed to the red cross for aid, which responded at once. a most deplorable situation was presented: the people were homeless and helpless, neglected, and in a state of mind bordering on insanity. after a somewhat hasty examination of the situation, the following simple message was sent to both the associated and the united press: the pitiless snow is falling on the heads of three thousand people who are without homes, without food or clothing and without money. clara barton. with only this little word to explain the needs, our generous american people responded promptly and liberally, as they always do when they fully understand what is needed. it was unnecessary to remain longer than two weeks with these people, who, as soon as they recovered from the first shock of their great misfortune, and when they felt that kind friends were by their side, lending them moral and substantial support, manfully commenced to bring order out of chaos, to rebuild their town and resume their usual avocations. large quantities of relief supplies of all kinds quickly came to hand, and when we were ready to leave them, the citizens' committee had in its treasury a cash balance of ninety thousand dollars. and thus, with their blessings ringing in our ears, we left them. we were scarcely home from mount vernon when the yellow fever of florida broke out in the summer and autumn of 1888. yellow fever epidemic in florida. during the month of august, 1888, yellow fever broke out in jacksonville, and in september it was declared to be epidemic, the usual alarm and exodus of citizens taking place. on september eighth heroic measures to depopulate the city were taken. every person that was still well and could leave was requested to go; very little urging was necessary. camps were established outside of the city, where those who had not the means to go further and get better quarters were enabled to live under medical surveillance, and away from the seat of infection. the mayor of jacksonville had made an appeal for doctors and nurses, which had been quickly responded to, and they were doing everything possible to attend to the rapidly increasing number of patients. on the formation of the red cross society of new orleans in 1893, it had been carefully and wisely arranged that in case of yellow fever becoming epidemic in any place, no unacclimated persons, or those not immune, should be sent as assistants by the red cross. new orleans was the home of the famous "old howard association," that had won its reputation and worn its grateful renown from the horrors of memphis to the present time. this body freely united with the red cross of new orleans, and it was arranged that the southern states, through this society, should provide all red cross nurses for yellow fever, and that the northern portion of the country should raise the money to pay and provide them. we felt this to be a security, and an immediate provision which the country had never before known. fearing that this might not, at its first inception, be fully understood, i called at once on dr. hamilton, then in charge of the marine hospital, explaining it to him, and offering all the nurses that could be required, even to hundreds, all experienced and organized for immediate action. perhaps it was not strange that a provision so new and so unknown in the sad history of plagues and epidemics, should have seemed eutopian, and as such been brushed aside as not only useless, but self-seeking and obtrusive. like the entire organization of which it was a part, it had to wait and win its way against custom or even prejudice, by honest worth and stern necessity. it was the "old, old story." the world takes reform hard and slow. as it was, however, we did what we could. headquarters were established at the riggs house in washington. the good hearted people of the north who felt that they must go to florida, had by some means gotten the idea that they must have a pass from the central committee of the red cross in order to go. they came to us in hundreds and were mercifully held back from a scourge for which they would have been both food and fuel. whilst the entire people of the country in pity and horror at the reports received, were holding meetings, raising money, and pouring funds like water into the doomed city of jacksonville, where the scourge had centered, and to which every effort was made to confine it. not realizing the opposition there might prove to be to our nurses, we called upon their old time leader, colonel f.r. southmayd, the efficient secretary of the red cross society of new orleans, instructing him to enlist a body of nurses and take them at once to the fever district. he enlisted thirty, both men and women, white and colored, took a part with him, the remainder following next day. colonel southmayd, southern born and bred, was a man of quick impulse and intense feelings; his heart was warm with the love of humanity and the sense of justice. he had been identified with the old howard association almost from its inception, and had worked through every epidemic of fever or other disease that had afflicted the south since the war; and he knew full well the value of the services of his chosen nurses. he strongly resented the injustice that he felt they were receiving, and naturally became involved in an unfortunate altercation with his superiors. in order to restore peace and remove an impediment to effective work, i withdrew the colonel, requesting him to come to washington and assist the central committee. he came in obedience to the call, but burning with a sense of indignity and injustice to himself and the faithful suffering nurses he had brought--even with the lack of the good right arm which had swung his sword for the confederate cause till it dropped from the shoulder, he was not an easy man to hold; but duty to the red cross, which he loved, and loyalty to its officers, whom he honored, held him quiet. he would never return to new orleans, but at length retired to some northern city, where, after a few years he died, beloved and respected by those who knew his proud high soul, sterling worth and devotion to humanity. his was one of the strong hearts that carried the impress of its memories and griefs to the grave, and we always felt that somewhere on that heart that had ceased to beat could have been found a spot still bruised and sore on which was written jacksonville. refugees who had fled from jacksonville, carried the plague to several smaller places in the surrounding country, where in some instances it acquired quite a foothold; but owing to their obscurity and the lack of communication with the outside world, they were left alone to fight the disease as best they could. among these places was the little town of macclenny, where as soon as it became known that there was a case of fever within its limits, all trains were ordered to rush through without stopping, and an armed quarantine was placed around it with orders to shoot anyone attempting to leave the town. thus left to their fate, without doctors, nurses or food, in any quantity, their situation was pitiable. there were a number of volunteers who had made attempts to get into macclenny, but owing to the unreasoning panic existing, they were not permitted to enter the place. colonel southmayd had heard of these neglected people, and he succeeded while en route to jacksonville in dropping off ten nurses so much needed at macclenny. how he did this, i have told in a little brochure entitled "the macclenny nurses," that was issued at the close of the year 1888 as a holiday greeting, and intended as a public acknowledgment of the appreciation in which the red cross held those noble men and women who braved everything that they might serve their stricken brethren. following is the story: "the macclenny nurses." a holiday tribute to red cross workers, in _warm appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the faithful hands that toiled, and the generous hearts that gave._ by clara barton, _president of the american association of the red cross._ "the macclenny nurses." during the fourth week in november a dispatch to national headquarters announced that the last band of red cross nurses, known as the macclenny nurses, had finished their work at enterprise, and would come into camp perry to wait their ten days' quarantine and go home to new orleans for thanksgiving. seventy-nine days ago that would mean that their little company of eighteen, mainly women, steaming on to jacksonville, under guidance of their old-time trusted leader, southmayd, of new orleans, listened to his announcement that the town of macclenny, thirty-eight miles from jacksonville, florida, and through which they would soon pass, was in a fearful state of distress; a comparatively new town, of a few thousand, largely northern and western people, suddenly stricken down in scores; poor, helpless, physicians all ill, and no nurses; quarantined on all sides, no food, medicine, nor comforts for sick or well. "nurses, shall i leave a part of you there; the train cannot stop in, nor near the town, but if i can manage to get it slowed up somewhere, will you jump?" "we will do anything you say, colonel; we are here in god's name and service to help his people; for him, for you, and for the red cross, we will do our best and our all." "conductor, you had a hot box a few miles back; don't you think it should be looked to after passing macclenny?" "i will slow up and have it seen to, colonel, although it may cost me my official head." and it did. one mile beyond town, the rain pouring in torrents, the ground soaked, slippery, and caving, out into pitchy darkness, leaped three men and seven women from a puffing, unsteady train, no physician with them, and no instructions save the charge of their leader as the last leap was made, and the train pushed on. "nurses, you know what to do; go and do your best, and god help you." hand to hand, that none go astray in the darkness, they hobbled back over a mile of slippery cross-ties to the stricken town. shelter was found, the wet clothes dried, and at midnight the sick had been parceled out, each nurse had his or her quota of patients, and were in for the issue, be it life or death. those past all help must be seen through, and lost, all that could be must be saved. the next day a dispatch from southmayd went back to new orleans for dr. gill, a norwegian by birth, tall, straight, honest, and true as the pines of his native land, to come and take charge of the sick and the nurses at macclenny. it was done, and under his wise direction they found again a leader. their labors and successes are matters for later and more extended record. it is to be borne in mind that these nurses found no general table, no table at all but such as they could provide, find the food for, and cook for themselves, for the sick, the children, and the old and helpless who had escaped the fever and must be cared for. no patient could be left till the crisis was passed, and many are their records of seventy-two hours without change or sleep or sitting down. as the disease gradually succumbed to their watchful care, experience and skill, they reached out to other freshly attacked towns and hamlets. sanderson and glen st. mary's became their charge, and return their blessings for life preserved. on november first it was thought they could safely leave and go into camp for quarantine; but no regular train would be permitted to take them. the red cross secured and paid a special train for them, and, as if in bold relief against the manner of their entry seven weeks before, the entire town, saving its invalids, was assembled at the station at seven o'clock in the morning to bid them good-by and god-speed. but their fame had gone before them, and "enterprise," a hundred miles below, just stricken down among its flowers and fruits, reached out its hand for aid, and with one accord after two days in camp, all turned back from the coveted home and needed rest and added another month of toil to their already weary record. at length this was ended, and word came again to us that they would go into quarantine. their unselfish, faithful, and successful record demanded something more than the mere sending of money. it deserved the thanks of the red cross organization in the best and highest manner in which they could be bestowed; it was decided that its president, in person, should most fittingly do this, and accordingly left washington on the morning of november twenty-second in company with dr. hubbell, field agent, for camp perry, the quarantine station of florida. two days and one night by rail, a few miles across country by wagon, where trains were forbidden to stop, and another mile or so over the trestles of st. mary's on a dirt car with the workmen, brought us into camp as the evening fires were lighted and the bugle sounded supper. the genial surgeon in charge, dr. hutton, who carried a knapsack and musket in an illinois regiment in '62, met us cordially and extended every possible hospitality. soon there filed past us to supper the tall doctor and his little flock; some light and fair-skinned, with the easy step of a well-bred lady, others dark and bony-handed, but the strong kind faces below the turbans told at a glance that you could trust your life there and find it again. they were not disturbed that night, and no certain information of our arrival got among them. it was cold and windy, and the evening short, as nine o'clock brought taps and lights out. in spite of all caution the news of our coming had spread over the surrounding country, and telegrams bringing both thanks for what had been received and the needs for more, came from all sides, and the good mayor of macclenny made his troubled way to reach and greet us in person, and take again the faithful hands that had served and saved his people. surgeon hutton's headquarter tent was politely tendered for the first meeting, and as one could never, while memory lasts, forget this scene, so no words can ever adequately describe it. the ample tent was filled. here on the right the mayor, broad shouldered, kind faced and efficient, officers of camp, and many visitors, wondering what it all meant; in the centre the tall doctor and his faithful band. eliza lanier, lena seymour (mother and daughter), elizabeth eastman, harriet schmidt, lizzie louis, rebecca vidal, annie evans, arthur duteil, frederick wilson and edward holyland. i give these names because they are worthy a place in the history of any epidemic; but no country, race, nor creed could claim them as a body: four americans, one german, one french, one irish, three africans, part protestant, and part catholic, but all from new orleans, of grand old _howard_ stock, from memphis down, nursing in every epidemic from the bayous of the mississippi to tampa bay; and hereafter we will know them as the "_old guard_." here, in the winds of approaching winter they stand in the light garb of early september in new orleans, thin, worn, longing for home, but patient, grateful and glad. some trifling "nubia" or turban about the head, but only one distinguishing feature in common. a pitiful little misshapen red cross, made by their own hands, of two bits of scarlet ribbon, soiled, fringed, and tattered, pinned closely upon the left breast of each, strove in mute appeal to say who they were, and what they served. a friendly recognition and some words of thanks from their president, opened the way for those anxious to follow. the rich, warm eloquence of mayor watkins plainly told from how near his heart the stream of gratitude was flowing, and his manly voice trembled as he reverted to the condition of his stricken people, on that pitiless night, when this little band of pilgrim strangers strayed back to them in the rain and darkness. "i fear they often worked in hunger," he said, "for then, as now, we had little for ourselves, our sick, or our well; but they brought us to our feet, and the blessing of every man, woman and child in macclenny is on them." it was with a kind of paternal pride that dr. gill advanced and placed before us his matchless record of cases attended, and life preserved. "this is the record of our work," he said. "i am proud of it, and glad that i have been able to make it, but without the best efforts of these faithful nurses i could not have done it; they have stood firm through everything; not a word of complaint from, nor of, one of them, in all these trying months, and i thank you, our president, for this opportunity to testify to their merits in your presence." the full cups overflowed, and as we took each brown calloused hand in ours, and felt the warm tears dropping over them, we realized how far from calloused were the hearts behind them. the silence that followed was a season of prayer. then came opportunity for some conversation, questions and explanations. "we wish to introduce to our president our chief nurse, whom colonel southmayd placed in charge of us when we left the car, and directed us to obey him; he is younger than any of us, ed. holyland." a slight young man with clear, olive complexion, and dark browed, earnest eyes that looked you straight in the face, came forward; his apparent youthfulness gave rise to the first remark: "how old are you, mr. holyland?" "twenty-nine, madam." "and you have taken charge of these nurses?" "i have done what i could for their comfort; i think that was what the colonel desired; he knew they would need only care and advice, they would do their best of themselves. during the few days that colonel southmayd remained in jacksonville," he continued, "he was able to send us some such comforts as we needed for the sick, and some nourishing food for ourselves; but this was only a few days, you know, and after that we got on as well as we could without. i know that after he left the nurses gave to the sick, the children, the old and the helpless, what they needed for their own strength." "but you did not tell us this, mr. holyland." "no, we were dazed and frightened by the things we heard. we felt that your organization was having enough to bear. we knew we must look to you for our pay, and we thought, under the circumstances, that would be your share. but permit me, please, to call your attention to mr. wilson (a stout colored man advanced), who took charge of a little hospital of six cases, and carried them all through day and night without an hour's relief from any person, and saved every case." "and permit me," chimed in the clear-toned irish voice of lizzie louis, "to tell of mr. holyland himself, who found a neglected italian family a mile or more outside of the town. he went and nursed them alone, and when the young son, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years died, knowing there was no one to bury him there, he wrapped him in a blanket and brought him into town on his back, for burial." holyland's face grew sad, and his eyes modestly sought the floor, as he listened to this unexpected revelation. "i wish to speak of something else," added one of the men, "which we were held back from doing, and for which we are now very glad. we should not have thought of it ourselves. it is customary," he continued, "when a patient dies in an epidemic, to give the nurse ten dollars for preparing the body for burial; this was done in our first case, but mr. holyland had the gift promptly returned with thanks, and the explanation that we were employed by an organization which fully rewarded its nurses, and was too high and too correct to accept tribute for misfortune; it was enough that the patient was lost." by this time poor black annie evans, the "mammy" of the group, could hold quiet no longer, and broke silence with, "missus president! whar is de colonel? colonel southmayd; dey tells me all de time he's gone away from new orleans, and i can't b'l'eve 'em. he can't go away; he can't lib anywhar else, he was always dar. i'se nursed in yellow fever and cholera more'n twenty-five year, and i neber went for nobody but him; it arn't no new orleans for us widout him dar. i doesn't know de name of dat place dey say he's gone to, and i doesn't want to; he'll be in new orleans when we gets dar." there were pitying glances among the group, at this little burst of feeling, for in some way it was an echo of their own; and lena seymour added tenderly: "we have been trying for these two months to convince "mammy" about this, but she is firm in her faith and sometimes refuses to hear us." but the subject changed with "how many cases did you lose in this epidemic, mammy?" "i didn't lose no cases! lor' bless you, honey, i doesn't lose cases if dey hasn't been killed afore dey gets to me; folks needn't die of yellow fever." we didn't suppose that "mammy" intended any reflection upon the medical fraternity. "but now, friends, we must turn to our settlement, which cannot be difficult. three dollars a day for each nurse, for seventy-nine days, till you are home on thanksgiving morning. but here are only ten. there are eighteen on our list who left with you and colonel southmayd; where are your comrades?" some eyes flashed and some moistened, as they answered, "we do not know." "they remained in the car that night, and went on to jacksonville." swift, dark glances swept from one to another among them. instinctively they drew closer to each other, and over knitted brows and firmly set teeth, a silence fell dark and ominous like a pall, which the future alone can lift. the bugle sounded dinner, and this ended our little camp-meeting, than which, few camp-meetings we believe, ever came nearer to the heart of him who offered his life a ransom, and went about doing good. the winds blew cold across the camp; the fires shot out long angry tongues of flame and drifts of smoke to every passer-by. the norther was upon us. night came down, and all were glad of shelter and sleep. the morning, quiet, crisp, and white with frost, revealed the blessing which had fallen upon a stricken land. thanksgiving was there before its time. the hard rules relaxed. one day more, and the quarantine was at an end. the north-bound train halted below the camp, and all together, president and agent, tall doctor and happy nurses, took places on it. the first for headquarters at washington, the last for new orleans, and home for thanksgiving morning, full of the joys of a duty well done, rich in well-paid labor in the love of those they had befriended and the approval of a whole people south and north when once their work should be known to them. to the last they clung to their little home-made red crosses as if they had been gold and diamonds; and when at length, the tracks diverged and the parting must be made, it was with few words, low and softly spoken, but meaning much; with a finger touch upon the little cross, "when you want us, we are there." the fever spread during the fall to several points in georgia, alabama and mississippi, and resulted in the usual panic and flight from many places; but happily the disease got no great headway before the frost put an end to its career. it was late in november when we closed this work; worn and disheartened as we were by both the needful and the needless hardships of the campaign, we were glad of the two or three months in which no call for action was made upon us. [illustration: johnstown, pa., before the flood of 1889.] [illustration: red cross hotel, locust street, johnstown, pa.] the johnstown flood. on the thirty-first of may the knell of disaster rang over the entire world, and we were sharply reminded that the need of the red cross is ever present, and that its members must hold themselves in readiness to move at a moment's notice. the news of the awful calamity of johnstown, pa., with all its horrors, appalled us; and so frightful and improbable were the reports, that it required twenty-four hours to satisfy ourselves that it was not a canard. in order to get an intelligent idea of this disaster and the terrible damage wrought by the irresistible waters, it may be well to give a short sketch of the city of johnstown and its adjacent surroundings. before the flood there were thirty thousand people in this busy community, which embraced the city of johnstown proper and numerous suburbs. the city is situated at the junction of stony creek and the little conemaugh, forming the conemaugh river. these streams are liable to sudden overflows, and owing to the contraction of the waterway in the lower part of the city by the dumping of cinders and slag from the large iron works on the banks of the stream, and also encroachments by riparian owners, the upper portion of the city is liable to inundations. about nine miles above the city a dam had been thrown across the little conemaugh river many years ago for commercial purposes, but had been abandoned and the site with much surrounding property had been subsequently purchased by a sporting club, whose membership embraced some of the wealthiest citizens of pennsylvania. these gentlemen were attracted by the picturesque scenery, and the hunting and fishing of the vicinity, and they spent thousands of dollars in improving and beautifying their holdings. the dam was raised to a height of over seventy feet and held an immense body of water covering many acres. this large mass of water was a constant source of fear to the inhabitants of the lower valleys, who were aware of the danger that threatened them; and many protests were made against the continuance of the danger, but owing to the prominence of the owners of the dam, and the strong social and political influence they exerted, they remained unmolested in the possession of the monster that was to break its bounds and carry death and destruction in its pitiless pathway. a steady rainfall for several days in the latter part of may caused overflows in all the streams in western pennsylvania, and much of the city of johnstown was already under water to a depth of from two to ten feet, when suddenly the dam over the little conemaugh gave way, and its flood, resembling a moving mountain of water thirty feet high, was precipitated upon the doomed city. numbers of the inhabitants, who had carried the fear of this disaster in their minds for years, had become so alarmed by the long continued rains, and the floods that were already upon them, took their families and fled to the high grounds on the hillsides. but the great majority of the people, who, though fully aware of the danger, had lived with it so long that they had become careless and indifferent, took no precautions whatever. these were overwhelmed by the tide almost without warning, and before they could seek safety were swept away. the number of lives lost will never be accurately known; but in all probability it reached in the entire valley nearly five thousand. it is said that property to the amount of twelve millions of dollars was absolutely lost. it was at the moment of supreme affliction when we arrived at johnstown. the waters had subsided, and those of the inhabitants who had escaped the fate of their fellows, were gazing over the scene of destruction and trying to arouse themselves from the lethargy that had taken hold of them when they were stunned by the realization of all the woe that had been visited upon them. how nobly they responded to the call of duty! how much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed! no idle murmurings of fate, but true to the godlike instincts of manhood and fraternal love, they quickly banded together to do the best that the wisest among them could suggest. for five weary months it was our portion to live amid these scenes of destruction, desolation, poverty, want and woe; sometimes in tents, sometimes without; in rain and mud, and a lack of the commonest comforts, until we could build houses to shelter ourselves and those around us. without a safe, and with a dry goods box for a desk, we conducted financial affairs in money and material to the extent of nearly half a million dollars. i shall never lose the memory of my first walk on the day of our arrival--the wading in mud, the climbing over broken engines, cars, heaps of iron rollers, broken timbers, wrecks of houses; bent railway tracks tangled with piles of iron wire; among bands of workmen, squads of military, and getting around the bodies of dead animals, and often people being borne away;--the smouldering fires and drizzling rain--all for the purpose of officially announcing to the commanding general (for the place was under martial law) that the red cross had arrived on the field. i could not have puzzled general hastings more if i had addressed him in chinese; and if ours had been truly an oriental mission, the gallant soldier could not have been more courteous and kind. he immediately set about devising means for making as comfortable as possible a "poor, lone woman," helpless, of course, upon such a field! it was with considerable difficulty that he could be convinced that the red cross had a way of taking care of itself at least, and was not likely to suffer from neglect. i don't believe he quite got over his mistrust until a week later, when carloads of lumber from iowa and illinois began to come in consigned to the president of the red cross. as this was the only lumber that had come, the military were constrained to "borrow" from us in order to erect quarters in which to entertain the governor of the state on the occasion of his first visit. our first duty was to study the situation and take up the line of relief as necessities developed and opportunities presented. western pennsylvania and ohio had been "instant in season." pittsburg had mainly provided for the survivors who were injured. ohio had sent its troops under its efficient adjutant-general axline; and food, the first necessity, was literally pouring in from every available source. but the wherewithal to put and keep clothes upon this denuded city full of people, and something to sleep on at night was a problem; and shelter for them, a present impossibility. the _possible_ must be attempted. the first days brought in dispatches and letters to the amount of about a hundred a day, tendering sympathy, offering help, and giving notice of material and money sent. we were then living in tents and working literally night and day, some of us at work _all_ the time. from one mammoth tent, which served as a warehouse, food and clothing were given out to the waiting people through the hands of such volunteer agents, both women and men, as i scarcely dare hope ever to see gathered together in one work again. the great cry which had gone out had aroused the entire country, and our old-time helpers, full of rich experience and still richer love for the work, faithful to the cross of humanity as the devotee to the cross of the master, came up from every point--the floods, the cyclones, the battlefields--and kneeling before the shrine, pledged heart and service anew to the work. fair hands laying aside their diamonds, and business men their cares, left homes of elegance and luxury to open rough boxes and barrels, handle second-hand clothing, eat coarse food at rough board tables, sleep on boxes under a dripping canvas tent, all for the love of humanity symbolized in the little flag that floated above them. clergymen left their pulpits, and laymen their charge to tramp over the hillsides from house to house, find who needed and suffered, and to carry to them from our tents on their shoulders, like beasts of burden, the huge bundles of relief, where no beast of burden could reach. let it not be supposed that all this was accomplished without perplexity to someone. goods came in from many sources of transport, five entries by freight and express requiring to be constantly watched; for, strange to say, there is no work in which people grow more reckless, selfish and jealous, than in the distribution of charities. persons outside grew anxious that the receipt of goods was not acknowledged before they were received; that checks were not drawn and returned before the bank safes were out of the mud; and that houses were not built and the people living in them before it was possible to find a cleared spot for a little tent in which a workman could sleep at night. we finally found space, however, for the erection of a pine warehouse, fifty by one hundred and fifty feet in dimensions in the centre of the old town. the building was put up in four days, and, still in the rain, our accumulation of supplies was removed to it on the first of july. we had been early requested by official resolution of the finance committee of the city of johnstown to aid them in the erection of houses. we accepted the invitation, and at the same time proposed to aid in furnishing the nucleus of a household for the homes which should in any way be made up. this aid seemed imperative, as nothing was left for them to commence living with, neither beds, chairs, tables, nor cooking utensils of any kind; and there were few if any stores open, and no furniture in town. it now became possible to more fully systematize the work; and a committee of johnstown ladies of every denomination was formed, at our request, to receive the people and ascertain their greatest wants, which were carefully noted on printed blanks to be returned to us. these wants we undertook to fill without further trouble to the people themselves. the result of this committee's work was the written requests of three thousand families, aggregating eighteen thousand persons, to be served, in addition to two thousand others whom we had previously promised to help. the great manufacturers of the country, and the heavy contributing agents, on learning our intentions, sent, without a hint from us, many of their articles, as for instance, new bedford, mass., sent mattresses and bedding; sheboygan, wis., sent furniture and enameled ironware; titusville, pa., with a population of ten thousand, sent ten thousand dollars' worth of its well-made bedsteads, springs, extension tables, chairs, stands and rockers; and the well-known new york newspaper, _the mail and express_, sent car loads of mattresses, feather pillows, bed-clothing,--sheets, and pillow slips by the thousand, and cooking utensils by the ten thousands. six large teams were in constant service delivering these goods. when the contributions slackened or ceased, and more material was needed, we purchased of the same firms which had contributed, keeping our stock good until all applications were filled. the record on our books showed that over twenty-five thousand persons had been directly served by us. they had received our help independently and without begging. no child has learned to beg at the doors of the red cross. meanwhile our building contracts were not neglected. it is to be borne in mind that the fury of the deluge had swept almost entirely the homes of the wealthy, the elegant, the cultured leaders of society, and the fathers of the town. this class who were spared, were more painfully homeless than the poor, who could still huddle in together. they could not go away, for the suffering and demoralized town needed their care and oversight more than ever before. there was no home for them, nowhere to get a meal of food or to sleep. still they must work on, and the stranger coming to town on business must go unfed, and return to cresson at night, if he would sleep, or, indeed, escape being picked up by the military guard. to meet these necessities, and being apprehensive that some good lives might go out under the existing lack of accommodations, it was decided to erect a building similar to our warehouse. the use of the former site of the episcopal church was generously tendered us by the bishop early in june, for any purpose we might desire. this house, which was soon erected, was known as the "locust street red cross hotel;" it stood some fifty yards from our warehouse, and was fifty by one hundred and sixteen feet in dimensions, two stories in height, with lantern roof, built of hemlock, single siding, papered inside with heavy building paper, and heated by natural gas, as all our buildings were. it consisted of thirty-four rooms, besides kitchen, laundry, bath rooms with hot and cold water, and one main dining-hall and sitting room through the centre, sixteen feet in width by one hundred in length with second floor gallery. it was fully furnished with excellent beds, bedding, bureaus, tables, chairs and all needful housekeeping furniture. a competent landlady, who like the rest, had a few weeks before floated down over that same ground on the roof of her house in thirty feet of water five miles below the city, rescued in a tree top, was placed in charge, with instructions to keep a good house, make what she could, rent free, but charging no johnstown person over twenty-five cents for a meal of food. this was the first attempt at social life after that terrible separation, and its success was something that i am very glad of. the house was full of townspeople from the first day, and strangers no longer looked in vain for accommodations. the conception of the need of this house, and the method of selecting its inmates and the manner of inducting them into their new home, were somewhat unique and may be of interest to the reader. we had noticed among the brave and true men, who were working in the mud and rain, many refined looking gentlemen, who were, before this great misfortune carried away most of their worldly belongings, the wealthiest and most influential citizens. never having had to struggle amid such hardships and deprivations, their sufferings were more acute than those of the poorer and more hardy people; and it did not require any great foresight to know that they were physically incapable of such labor if prolonged, nor to predict their early sickness and death if they were not properly housed and fed. as the salvation of the town depended in a great measure upon the efforts of these men, it was vitally necessary that their lives should be preserved. realizing all this, it occurred to us that the most important thing to do, next to feeding the hungry, was to provide proper shelter for these men and their families. the idea once conceived was soon put in the way of realization. [illustration: red cross furniture room, johnstown.] [illustration: typical scene after the flood at johnstown, pa., may 30, 1889.] it was decided that we should erect the house as quickly as possible, furnish it completely, and when ready, invite the citizens to a reception within its hospitable walls. this arrangement was carried out, and a printed invitation was issued, of which the following is a facsimile: [illustration: a five o'clock tea is to be given at the new red cross house, locust street, johnstown, saturday, july 27, 1889. your presence will be esteemed a favor. clara barton, prest. nat. red cross of america. j.b. hubbell, general field agent.] on the afternoon of july 27, hundreds of citizens called on us and congratulations and good wishes were the order of the day. as the members of each family whom we had selected to occupy apartments in the house arrived, they were quietly taken aside and requested to remain and have dinner with us. after all the guests were departed except those who had been requested to remain, dinner was announced, and the party was seated by the members of the red cross. beside the plate of each head of the family were laid the keys to an apartment, with a card inviting the family to take possession at once, and remain as long as they chose. i cannot describe the scene that followed; there were tears and broken voices; suffice to say, the members of that household were made happy and comfortable for many long months; and i venture to assert that those now living recall those days with the fondest recollections. this revealed a want so great, that a second house of the same dimensions and qualities was erected just across the river, known as the "kernville red cross hotel." another competent landlady was installed in charge, who had not only lost her home, but her beautiful daughter of twenty years. this house was also filled; and a fourth house of forty by one hundred feet was next built in the form of a block, the families living separately, for the accommodation of the working people of woodvale, where no house was left. this was known as the "red cross block," or "woodvale house." there was no rent to pay for accommodations in this house, the only cost to the tenant being for fire, lights and living. johnstown had neither a hospital nor an almshouse--never had, its poor being taken to ebensville, twenty miles distant. under ordinary circumstances this might do, but with the scant, poor homes of this winter we felt it to be unsafe, and saw that better provision should be made. accordingly the use of some half-dozen unset portable houses, known as the "oklahomas," was asked of the flood commission, and erected adjoining our warehouse, as separate wards connected by a covered way, and provided with an adjoining house of eighteen by thirty feet, two stories high, for kitchen, dining, store, sleeping and living rooms for the use of the wards and attendants. these were all fully equipped and warmed for the accommodation of thirty patients, with the best of new outfit, and the hospital was known as the "johnstown infirmary." these things accomplished, there remained but one more danger to be guarded against. the citizens still had no organization of their own for the relief of their needy people through the coming winter, and no protection against any alarming report which might be sprung upon them. any sensational writer could still, if he chose to, report two hundred cases of typhoid fever in johnstown, alarming the whole country, with not a case of genuine typhoid there, and there were none to say him nay; or that its people were freezing or starving, with nowhere the authority to correct the misstatement. this protection was needed, not alone for johnstown, but the people at large as well. a few well-timed suggestions were sufficient. the meetings were held in our house and some of the leading men and women of the city effected a permanent organization to be incorporated under the name of the "benevolent union of conemaugh valley." this completed, we had only to turn over to their hands, as the leaders of the town, our warehouse with its entire remaining stock, amounting to some thousands of dollars; the care of the infirmary; one of our trained clerks, with all papers and accounts of our relief work from the day of its inception; one of our experienced working men to handle transportation--to fit up for them large, warm rooms for winter use; give them our blessing; accept theirs in fullest measure; say good bye to them and to our faithful helpers, with heavy hearts and choking voices, and return to our home, bearing the record of a few months of faithful endeavor among a people as patient and brave as people are made, as noble and grateful as falls to the lot of human nature to be. enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new johnstown, phoenix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and woe. god bless her, and god bless all who helped save her! we had employed during our sojourn in johnstown a working force of fifty men and women, whom we had housed, fed and paid, with the exception of the volunteers who worked for the good they could do and would accept nothing. the means which we so largely handled came from everywhere; accounts were rendered for everything, and no word of business complication ever came to us. there never has in all our work. there was much to do in johnstown after we left; buildings to remove and property to care for when it had served its purpose and the ground became needed. but there is always a right time for any benevolent work to cease; a time when the community is ready to resume its own burdens, and when an offered charity is an insult to the honest and independent, and a degradation to the careless and improvident, tending to pauperize and make them an added burden on their better-minded fellow citizens. and then, the moment the tradesman is able to re-establish himself, he looks with jealous eyes on any agency that diverts possible business from his channels. thus it is not only wise but just to all concerned to withdraw all gratuities from a people the instant they are able to gain even a meagre self-support. a rather curious circumstance, somewhat on the line of this reflection, fell to our lot after leaving johnstown. the houses that we had built and furnished were indispensable to the tenants during the winter, when there were no other houses to be had; but in the spring the city, rejuvenated, began to build up again, and we were notified that the land on which our large houses were standing was needed by the owners, who wished to use it for their own purposes, and they requested the red cross to remove its buildings. we promptly sent an agent to attend to the matter, and he began the work of vacating the premises. there was no hardship involved in this, as all the tenants were by this time in condition to pay rent, the relief fund of $1,600,000 having been distributed among them in proportion to their losses, and there were houses that they could get; in a few days our houses were empty. then a new factor entered into the situation. when it became generally known that the red cross must remove these immense houses, and that a large quantity of lumber and house furnishings were to be disposed of, the self-interests of the dealers in those commodities were at once aroused, and they strongly protested against the gratuitous distribution of those articles among the people of johnstown, asserting that the inhabitants were now prospering and had the means to buy everything they needed, and that a gift from us of any of these things would be an injustice to the honest traders who were trying to re-establish themselves. we saw the justice of their objection and gave assurances that no injury should be done them, still to have fully conformed to their idea and transported the entire material to some other point, would have put the red cross to an amount of trouble and cost unjust to itself. i am not prepared to say that our quiet field agent in charge of the work did not find resting places for very much of this material in still needy homes, where it did no harm to any one and for which no one but the pitiful recipients were the wiser. notwithstanding the fact that we took away from johnstown as little material and furniture as was possible, after quietly disposing of the greater part of it, and this at an expense and inconvenience to ourselves which we could ill afford, there were those, who could not understand why we should take _anything_ away; and their unkind misconstruction and criticisms have scarcely ceased echoing even to this late day. the paths of charity are over roadways of ashes; and he who would tread them must be prepared to meet opposition, misconstruction, jealousy and calumny. let his work be that of angels, still it will not satisfy all. there is always an aftermath of attempted relief where none is needed; and more or less criticism of any work, for it is always so much easier to say how a thing ought to be done than it is to do it. these little unpleasantnesses, however, cannot deprive us of the thousand memories of gratitude, appreciation, and kindnesses exchanged, which were mutually needful and helpful; nor of the many lifelong friendships formed that will bless us all our days. i may perhaps be pardoned for quoting a few lines from the official report of the johnstown flood finance committee, appointed by governor beaver, as showing how these gentlemen, the foremost men in the community, regarded our efforts to give them a helping hand: in this matter of sheltering the people, as in others of like importance, miss clara barton, president of the red cross association, was most helpful. at a time when there was a doubt if the flood commission could furnish houses of suitable character and with the requisite promptness, she offered to assume charge, and she erected with the funds of the association three large apartment houses which afforded comfortable lodgings for many houseless people. she was among the first to arrive on the scene of calamity, bringing with her dr. hubbell, the field officer of the red cross association, and a staff of skilled assistants. she made her own organization for relief work in every form disposing of the large resources under her control with such wisdom and tenderness that the charity of the red cross had no sting, and its recipients are not miss barton's dependents, but her friends. she was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of her labors, and she left her apartment houses for use during the winter, and turned over her warehouse, with its store of furniture, bedding and clothing and a well-equipped infirmary, to the union benevolent association of the conemaugh valley, the organization of which she advised and helped to form; and its lady visitors have so well performed their work that the dreaded winter has no terrors, mendicancy has been repressed, and not a single case of unrelieved suffering is known to have occurred in all the flooded district. the johnstown _daily tribune_ was one of the enterprising and reliable papers of the unfortunate city, which, though drowned out, would not stay dead, and insisted on "pulling itself together," and cheering the people along in their efforts to re-establish their homes and their fortunes. on the eve of our departure the _tribune_ published an editorial which we are fain to believe reflected the feelings of the people, and which was as follows: farewell to miss barton. how shall we thank miss clara barton and the red cross for the help they have given us? it cannot be done; and if it could, miss barton does not want our thanks. she has simply done her duty as she saw it and received her pay--the consciousness of a duty performed to the best of her ability. to see us upon our feet, struggling forward, helping ourselves, caring for the sick and infirm and impoverished--that is enough for miss barton. her idea has been fully worked out, all her plans accomplished. what more could such a woman wish? we cannot thank miss barton in words. hunt the dictionaries of all languages through and you will not find the signs to express our appreciation of her and her work. try to describe the sunshine. try to describe the starlight. words fail, and in dumbness and silence we bow to the idea which brought her here. god and humanity! never were they more closely linked than in stricken johnstown. men are brothers! yes, and sisters, too, if miss barton pleases. the first to come, the last to go, she has indeed been an elder sister to us--nursing, soothing, tending, caring for the stricken ones through a season of distress such as no other people ever knew--such as, god grant, no other people may ever know. the idea crystallized, put into practice. "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." "even as ye have done it unto the least of these, so also have ye done it unto me!" christianity applied, nature appeased and satisfied. this has been miss barton's work, and nobly has she done it. picture the sunlight or the starlight, and then try to say good-bye to miss barton. as well try to escape from yourself by running to the mountains. "i go, but i return" is as true of her as of him who said it. there is really no parting. she is with us, she will be with us always--the spirit of her work even after she has passed away. but we can say god bless you, and we do say it, miss barton, from the bottom of our hearts, one and all. some bard, whose name i do not know, but whose sad, lovely words frequently recur to me, has commemorated the disaster of the conemaugh in the following beautiful poem, which, i think, is worthy of preservation: "the dread conemaugh." i tarried in conemaugh valley one beautiful morning in spring, and loveliness mantled the mountains, the meadows and everything. the breezes were laden with odor akin to the blossoming rose, and happiness brightened the faces of people refreshed by repose. but death, the remorseless destroyer, looked down on the valley, so green, beheld the quaint homes on the hillsides, the towns nestled snugly between, and, hungry for awful disaster, for grief, lamentation and tears, death paused where a lake in the mountains had shimmered untroubled for years. the water grew dark in his presence, grew dark in the presence of death, and shrank from the terrible visage, away from his poisonous breath. a tempest came forth in its fury and soon with an ominous flow the overcharged lake in the mountains plunged into the valley below. a rumble, a roar, and destruction came down with the pitiless flood to stifle the cry of the wicked to silence the prayer of the good; like straws in a bubbling cauldron these homes in the valley were tossed away on the hurrying waters, along with the dying and lost. there brother was taken from brother, the false were destroyed with the true. there lovers were torn from each other with never a parting adieu. confusion wrought havoc so wanton that mercy grew deaf for a while, and beings, half demon, made merry on conemaugh's funeral pile. but heaven will surely remember the names of the noble who died to rescue their perishing brothers from death in that horrible tide. for some of the noblest heroes that ever calamity saw, repose uninterred in the valley where wanders the dread conemaugh. the incidents attending a field of relief--some pathetic and sorrowful, others laughable and ludicrous--so loom up in the memory when the subject is opened, as almost to encumber the pen as one writes. referring to our landlady at locust street hotel, mrs. henrie, one recalls her wonderful experience during the night of the flood. by some means, entirely alone, she floated down the stream, not only through johnstown, but miles below in the darkness of the night, until some time next day perhaps she managed to stay herself in a tree-top, where she clung among the branches, her clothing torn from her in shreds during her struggle for life, until discovered and taken away. the family of mr. john tittle, one of the oldest, most respected and beloved in the town, floated clinging to the top of their house, without knowing that they were moving, but thought others were moving as they passed them; until at length, fearing that mrs. tittle's strength and courage would fail, her husband joined hands with her firmly over the ridge-pole, and thus they hung on opposite sides of the roof through the long night. the courage and strength did often fail, and her pleading went out to her husband: "oh, let us let go and end it, john! we cannot escape! i cannot endure it longer!" to be answered by his words of hope and cheer and a tightened grasp on the aching wrists. at length, near morning, having reached the vicinity of kernville, the house struck the bridge and remained stationary. one by one the inmates slid onto the bridge and gained the land on the kernville side. they had left within the house, unable to be gotten out, the old, decrepit black mammy of a lifetime, the great silky-haired setter, "rob," and the poll-parrot hanging in her cage. all had been transferred, as the water rose, to the topmost peak of the attic, where they were left to their fate. the great bread-wagons of pittsburg, with their sturdy policemen, were already there; the dead and the living were being picked up together as they floated down. some consciousness began to return to the dazed survivors, and at length it was thought safe to attempt an entrance to the tittle mansion, still floating at the bridge. on gaining the attic, this picture as described at the time, presented itself: the water had never quite reached it; poor, old mammy sat in the highest corner, with hands clasped, her chin resting on her knees, and her lips muttering her woes and her prayers; long-eared, silky-haired "rob," no longer a "setter" at least, bounding and roaring a welcome that required physical strength to resist; and "poll," her cage topsy-turvy, striding about the floor, with an air of offended dignity, hungry and cross, said "she had had a devil of a time." during one of the early days mr. k., a citizen of the town, came into my tent, bringing with him another man--tall, firmly knit, dark visaged, with hair tangled and matted, and still the bearing of a man if not a gentleman. on introducing his companion, mr. k. said that he had been exceedingly unfortunate, and he had brought him to me to see if anything could be done for him. "i hoped so," and turned to inquire what was most needed. "had he a family; did they want food, or clothing? had he little children?" his face grew darker still and his frown deeper, as at length, in a tone approaching contempt, he replied: "no; i don't want anything _you_ can give; you have nothing for me." i had still the courage to persevere, and added, "what would you have me do, if i could do it?" again a silence and a mental struggle that shook his whole frame, as he half hissed between clenched teeth, "let me look on the face of one dead child;" and rushing from the tent, he disappeared from me forever. he had had five motherless children, for whom he toiled early and late in the great cambria iron mills. the flood swept his little home before he could reach it, and every child was lost. he had wandered about the river banks, watched the receding waters, dug in the sands for the little bodies hidden beneath, until reason had given way--till even god seemed cruel and mankind weak idiots. [illustration: _executed and presented to clara barton by one of the johnstown sufferers._ a pen memorial to clara barton by one of the johnstown flood sufferers, mr. j.f. drury.] the russian famine, 1891-1892. to properly understand the russian famine of 1891-92, and the relief work of the red cross connected therewith, one needs to keep in mind the ordinary moral and economic condition of the russian peasantry. they were, many of them, not long ago serfs attached to the land in a condition but little better than american slaves. though the liberation of the serfs made their legal condition better, it left them in condition scarcely less discouraging than before. they were subject to all the disabilities of hard bargains on every side, from the exactions of taxes levied in one way or another, and payable in services or goods, all of which called for an ever increasing sacrifice. they were subject to onerous military service, and penal exactions for violations of the law. these conditions surrounded them with an atmosphere of depressing poverty, fear and hopeless endurance, if not of despair. they have not felt the stimulating habitual influence of hope, of courage, of enterprise. they are not educated to surmount discouragements by overcoming them. difficulties do not down easily before them; they go down before difficulties and disasters in something like apathetic despondency, or live in an amazing light-hearted, careless recklessness that easily turns to drink, to idleness, weakness, disease and early death. fear is with them always, as if fate was over and against them. the climate of russia is cold in winter, and the means of cooking and artificial warmth are scanty, and not easily procured at any time; thus, when the famine really came upon them, observers were divided in opinion whether the famine, or fear of famine, or of something worse, destroyed or paralyzed these people the more. the harvest yields of 1889 and 1890 had been much less than an average, and at the beginning of 1891 but little of the old supplies of grain was left over. the harvest of 1891 was nearly a total failure throughout a vast region in central russia extending from moscow, roughly speaking, say, three hundred miles in a northeasterly direction over a plain eight hundred to a thousand miles in width, beyond the ural mountains, and some distance into siberia in asiatic russia--a district of nearly a million square miles. ordinarily this is the most productive part of the empire, upon which the remainder of the country had been accustomed to draw for food supplies in the frequent cases of deficiency elsewhere. the appearance of the country is similar to our prairie states in the early days before the growth of the planted trees; and the soil is a rich, black loam that usually produces good harvests. it was estimated by those best qualified to judge that from thirty to thirty-five millions of people were sufferers by the famine of 1891. count tolstoi on the character of the peasants. count tolstoi gave up his whole time to mitigating the suffering caused by this great disaster, and to understanding the situation broadly. he went into the homes of the people, and studied their needs sympathetically; he placed himself by their side, and with his dramatic instinct understood them, ascertained where the hurt was felt, and how it could be cured, if it could be cured at all. at that time the count wrote of these poor, unfortunates: "i asked them what sort of a harvest they had had, and how they were getting along; and they replied in a blithe, off-hand manner: 'oh, right enough, god be praised!' and yet these people who reside in the most distressed districts of the government of toula, cannot possibly live through the winter, _unless they bestir themselves in time_. they are bound to die of hunger, or some disease engendered by hunger, as surely as a hive of bees left to face the rigors of a northern winter, without honey or sweets, must perish miserably before the advent of spring. the all-important question, therefore, is this: will they exert themselves while yet they possess the strength, if, indeed, it be not already wholly exhausted? everything that i saw or heard pointed with terrible distinctness to a negative reply. one of these farmers had sold out the meagre possessions which he could call his own, and had left for moscow to work or beg. the others stayed on and waited with naive curiosity watching for what would happen next, like children, who, having fallen into a hole in the ice, or lost their way in a dense forest and not realizing at first the terrible danger of their situation, heartily laugh at its unwontedness." "unless they bestir themselves in time"--what a text is this! they are all the time overborne by the apathy of fear, of unused powers, of suppression and depression. courage, hope, enterprise to bestir themselves, where will they come from? not, surely, from fear, and more discouragement. the beginning of the american relief. the work of the american national red cross in the russian famine of 1891-92 was comparatively less than in some others of the conspicuous fields in which it had done its work. the impulse to help in the work of that relief sprang up simultaneously in many american hearts and homes, in new york, in philadelphia, in minnesota and iowa. in iowa it took the form of a veritable crusade for a most holy cause; beginning in the fervid and indomitable spirit of miss alice french--the "octave thanet" of literature--it quickly enlisted mr. b.f. tillinghast, editor of the _davenport democrat_, who became its director-in-chief and organizing force, everywhere organizing it, and promoting it in every direction and in every form. the movement was taken up by the women of iowa, and governor boies became a prime mover, till the whole state at last joined in a triumphal march bearing corn, god's best gift to man, to the atlantic coast in a procession of two hundred and twenty-five carloads, exceeding five hundred bushels in each car. the corn was consigned to clara barton in new york and reached her agents there without accident or delay. the american national red cross had authentic intelligence of the famine in russia before it had attracted general attention; it had placed itself in communication with the secretary of state, the honorable james g. blaine, and the russian charge d'affairs at washington, mr. alexander gregor, and had ascertained that russia would gladly receive any donations of relief that the people of america might send to her famine stricken people. not only would they receive supplies, but would send their ships for them, and provide inland transportation from russian ports to the destitute people for whom these benefactions were intended. america declined to allow her suffering sister nation to cross the seas to get this food, and quickly arranged to carry it to her. all the american agencies concerned in this movement met it in the noblest spirit; railroad companies gave free transportation, telegraph companies the free use of wires, brokers and steamship agents declined their usual commissions, and some insurance companies even gave premiums for the safe delivery of the precious cargo into the hands of the starving people. congress had been appealed to for ocean transportation, and the senate had voted a liberal appropriation, but the bill was defeated in the house of representatives. then the citizens of washington took up the matter and were joined by the society of elks, one of the noblest of our benevolent orders, ever ready to join in any good cause for humanity; and funds to charter a steamship to carry the cargo to russia were soon raised and placed in the hands of the red cross. the sentiment that roused and sustained this great movement on the part of the people of america was a mingled one of sympathy for starving russian peasants, and gratitude for timely moral help of the russian navy in years gone by. was it accident or design that chose the british steamship "tynehead" to carry this material expression of american sympathy and gratitude and enabled the president of the american national red cross, on the deck of a british vessel, in presence of the american people, to say that, "these tributes of america to russia in her hour of temporary distress were not to be counted as gifts, for they had been richly earned; not even accounted as loans, for they had been anticipated a hundred-fold in an hour of our own peril--far greater, god grant, than russia may ever know. they were not even the principal of a great national debt; but a tithe of the interest long due, and joyously acknowledged--acknowledged there under the triple shadow of the three great flags floating above, blending now in their mighty folds the finest, purest attributes of god's holy gifts to man, peace, love and charity." mr. tillinghast, in describing the scene of the departure of the "tynehead" from new york, at which the above quoted words were spoken, said: "captain carr, a brave man and a briton, who had been tossed by the waves from the indian ocean to the bay of fundy, was for a moment speechless. the hardy sailors about him bowed, and their eyes moistened. there was not a man on that ship who had ever before been charged with the delivery of such a cargo." a tug hauled the ship out into the river at high tide. she was greeted by saluting whistles of passing ferries, yachts and steamers, by waving flags and cheers from thousands. the "tynehead" was headed for the long voyage to the gulf of riga in the baltic on the shores of russia. dr. hubbell, representative of the red cross to the international conference of the red cross to be held at rome, and authorized to proceed to riga and receive and distribute with the russian red cross this gift of iowa, was already on his ocean voyage and ready to do his part in this beautiful blending of international courtesies and services that it is the mission of the red cross to devise and to carry out where-ever it can make or find the fitting opportunity. dr. hubbell arrived on time at riga and will further on state the facts about the distribution of the cargo. it must not be thought that the russian government or people were indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow countrymen during this great misfortune, or that they made no sufficient effort to meet their needs or relieve their sufferings. the question has often been asked: "while america was so active in this charity, what was the government of russia doing for its unfortunates?" perhaps this query is best answered by quoting from the official report of the american ambassador at st. petersburg, the hon. charles emory smith, to his government, which was written at that time, and says: in the presence of this national disaster the russian government has not been passive. without reviewing the administrative system, it must be said that it has sought to grapple in liberal measures with the tremendous problem. before the first of march, 1892, it had appropriated one hundred and fifty million rubles or seventy-five million dollars for this purpose, and the direct outlay by june can hardly be less than two hundred million rubles. besides this, taxes have been remitted, and work has been furnished where practicable. vast quantities of grain have been bought and brought from the rich fields of the caucasus, though, with the limited means of communication and the loss of horses, it has been difficult to convey it to the regions remote from the railroads. large public works, employing hundreds of thousands of men, have been undertaken. the forests of the imperial domain have been opened to the peasants for fuel. the proprietary class have, as a rule, in this emergency, proved worthy of their positions and responsibilities. there are single families taking care of as many as twenty thousand people. the women, especially, have come forward with a consecration and self-sacrifice which commands admiration. if it were not invidious or indelicate many cases might be cited of ladies of gentle birth who have left their homes, braved the dangers of disease, faced the hardships of an unaccustomed and trying life, and given up weeks and months to the feeding of the hungry and ministering to the sick. one thing ought in fairness to be said. the emperor has been published abroad as indifferent. it is only just to remark that this peculiar kind of indifference has been manifested not merely in a vigorous direction of the later governmental operations of relief, even to the summary dismissal of inefficient agents; but in gifts from his private purse, which, if the belief of st. petersburg can be accepted, amount to fifteen or twenty times all the contributions of all the world outside of russia. ambassador smith estimates that the american donations supported more than seven hundred thousand people for a month. this may be accepted as the result of their practical work for humanity. from the above report it will be seen that the distress was so excessive and widespread that even the available resources of so great an empire as russia were sorely taxed in the endeavor to succor its famishing people; and that its people of all classes rose nobly to the work of the occasion. appreciation of american sympathy. that the substantial sympathy of the american people was fully appreciated by the russian people may be gathered from what follows. the mayor of st. petersburg, in an address on behalf of that city to american donors, declared: the russian people know how to be grateful. if up to this day these two great countries, russia and the united states, have not only never quarreled, but on the contrary, wished each other prosperity and strength always, these feelings of sympathy shall grow only stronger in the future--both countries being conscious that, in the season of trial for either it will find in the other cordial succor and support. and when can true friendship be tested if not in the hour of misfortune? a peasant of samara sent to a russian editor, together with three colored eggs, a letter which he asked to have forwarded to america. it appeared in the _century magazine_. here is an extract: christ is risen! to the merciful benefactors, the protectors of the poor, the feeders of the starving, the guardians of the orphans--christ is risen! north americans! may the lord grant you a peaceful and long life and prosperity in your land, and may your fields give abundant harvests--christ is risen. your mercifulness gives us a helping hand. through your charity you have satisfied the starving. and for your magnificent alms accept from me this humble gift which i send to the entire american people for your great beneficence, from all the hearts of the poor, filled with feelings of joy. count bobrinskoy, writing officially to the secretary of the iowa russian famine relief commission, used these words: it gives me very great pleasure indeed to express to you the sincere appreciation that the russian people entertain toward the splendid work organized in america for the relief of the sufferers in our famine-stricken districts. i can assure that the same deep gratitude is felt, not only by the poor who have received the generous american contributions, but also by us all, who, having worked for this relief, know how much it was needed. i know by dr. hubbell how great was the activity of your peoples as well as that of miss clara barton in sending us the "tynehead," and how much you have done in the interests of our people. the names of "indiana," "missouri," "conemaugh," "tynehead" and "leo" will always remind us of the most beautiful example of international charity and fraternal love that history has perhaps ever mentioned. [illustration: typhus fever patients in the russian famine, 1891-92.] [illustration: count lyof nikolayevitch tolstoy] on the first anniversary of the arrival of the iowa ship, "tynehead," at riga, there was a significant event in philadelphia. the russian man-of-war, the "dimitre donskoi," the flagship of the north atlantic squadron, anchored in the delaware river. the vessel was decorated with flags and the officer of the day was the grand duke alexander. by special invitation of this representative of the czar, dr. hubbell and the nine other american commissioners, who went to russia in behalf of the donors were present on board. they were received with the most impressive honors. the czar had sent gifts by his officer, and the presentations were made in the name of his majesty, under the imperial flags. a large open trunk contained ten boxes of polished wood, and each of these was inscribed: "in remembrance of your visit to russia." accompanying each was a letter expressive of his majesty's gratitude. the tokens were all magnificent specimens of russian art work in silver. the department of state at washington, under date of january 11, 1894, issued the following information: on november 7, 1893, the united states minister at st. petersburg received from the nobility of that city, through their marshal, count alexis bobrinskoy, an address to the people of the united states. this address, which is in the english language, embodies, in terms fitly chosen, the thanks of the russian people to the american for the aid sent to their country from our own during the famine periods of the past two years; it is beautifully engrossed and its illumination embraces water-color drawings, which render it a most attractive work of art. the document, which is superbly bound and enclosed in a fine case, was duly forwarded to this city by minister white, and will be given a conspicuous place in the library of this department. the following is the text of the testimonial from the nobility of saint petersburg to the people of the united states: in the annals of russia for 1892, painful though the memory be, history will point out many a bright and joyous page scattered throughout the empire, on which will be written in letters of gold the beautiful story of brotherly love as exemplified by the good people of the united states of america. hardly had human voices been heard calling for bread in certain governments of russia, that had suffered from drought, hail, and untimely frost, ere that friendly people across the atlantic, moved by an earnest desire to help the afflicted and to feed the hungry, collected from every state in the union, as if by one accord, shipload after shipload of corn, and dispatched them, one after the other, on their errand of mercy and relief. deeply grateful for such evident signs of evangelical feeling and interest, the assembly of nobles of the government of st. petersburg, as representatives of the intellectual class in russia, has resolved to express their warm and heartfelt gratitude to those friendly people who form the great nation of the united states of america. may the lord bless and keep all those kind-hearted americans, men, women and children, who took part in that great and good work of charity, and may the hand that giveth unto us all, reward them bountifully, and ever keep them from a like misfortune. (signed.) the marshal of the nobility of st. petersburg, count alexis bobrinskoy. previous to receiving this beautiful tribute, on the arrival of the s.s. "indiana" from philadelphia while not connected with the red cross work, a similar artistic tribute to american donors was presented by the workmen of libeau to represent the sentiment of the workmen of russia, we introduce it as an additional illustration of the universal sentiment of tender sympathy and gratitude of the russian people. dr. hubbell's report. arrived in st. petersburg. it would be a week or ten days before we could expect the arrival of the "tynehead," with its cargo for the famine sufferers; but we had a copy of her manifest and knew what she would bring. there was something of anxiety, amounting even to consternation, among those who would have to do with the reception of the ship, for reports from the united states had been circulated that persons were on board the vessel who were objectionable, if not avowed enemies to the russian government, and such could not be recognized nor received. this concern could not easily be dispelled until it was made clear that no one was aboard the "tynehead" save its own officers and crew. elaborate ceremonies had been held on the arrival of the other relief ships and were contemplated for the "tynehead." this we did not want, and took occasion to express the feelings of the red cross and of american donors in a letter acknowledging courtesies extended from the president of the russian red cross affording opportunities to visit its various institutions, and particularly the regular working departments, in its clinics, dispensaries, hospitals and training for active service in civil as well as military field work. st. petersburg, may 8/20, 1892. to his excellency, general de kauffmann, _president of the red cross of russia_: honored president:--i desire to express my thanks for the courtesies and the privilege of becoming acquainted with the every day practical work of the red cross of russia as shown by the kindness of your secretaries. nowhere have i seen more complete, comfortable and generous provision for the general care of the sick poor than here in the institutions of the red cross and under its work. and there can be no doubt that the practical experience that the workers are receiving daily will greatly increase their efficiency for service in time of war. it will be a source of pleasure to make a report to the american red cross of the practical work of the russian society in time of peace. regarding the arrival of the cargo of the ship "tynehead," i trust your excellency has already understood by our charge d'affairs, mr. wurts, that no public demonstrations have been nor are desired. this cargo is largely from the people of an agricultural state, many of whom have suffered from failure of crops in their own country, and thus keenly appreciate similar conditions that others may suffer when such a vast territory as the interior of the russian empire is denied rain season after season in succession; and they have simply taken this method of expressing their sympathy, for it is their custom to give in like manner in their own country whenever occasions of calamity or suffering of any kind require the aid of outside help. at this particular time they feel that perhaps the same rains that had been withheld from their brothers in russia had given the increase to their own crops, which have been unusually abundant the past year; and thus added duty to desire. moreover, there is a deep brotherly feeling throughout the nation; for our people never forget that russia has always been the friend of america. and further, the arrangements of your various committees in the matter of distribution leave nothing to be desired, and that the final reports will afford great pleasure and satisfaction to those who have them to make, there is every reason to believe. with great respect, j.b. hubbell, _general field agent american red cross in charge cargo "tynehead_." the following is general kauffmann's answer: st. petersburg, may 11/23, 1892. j.b. hubbell, m.d., _general field agent, american red cross_: much honored sir:--i am eager to express to you herewith my most sincere thankfulness for the sympathetic account of the activity of the russian red cross society, which you have been so kind to give in your letter of the eighth may current. you have had the occasion to persuade yourself of the common direction between the russian and american societies of the red cross, by which the help to our fellow creatures is not restricted to the relief of suffering in time of war, but is extended to all the calls of national calamities, from the gratuitous medical treatment of the poor to the large help afforded in time of epidemic disease, famine and other calamities. it is to me a great pleasure to see the sympathy of the american people to the russian, the proof of which has been in the last years so evident. as you are instructed by the american red cross to express this feeling of sympathy to our society, i beg you to believe the heartfelt expressions of the like feeling from our side, which i pray to present in our name to your society and to the people of the united states. the gift brought by the "tynehead" will be accepted with deep gratitude and distributed among the needy people, according to the wish of the givers, through the offices of the beneficent committee under the august presidency of his imperial majesty the heir to the crown. i avail myself of the present occasion to pray you to accept the assurance of my perfect consideration. the president of the russian red cross society, m. de kauffmann. through the help of mr. wurts of our legation; our consul-general, dr. crawford; count bobrinskoy, representing the russian red cross, and the government, as well as the czarowitch committee; and through the active help of mr. w.h. hilton, an englishman at the head of the large linseed oil works, deacon in the anglo-american church, whose thirty years' business acquaintance over eastern russia and his sympathy with a people in distress, particularly fitting him for the work; with these agencies the assignment of the cargo was arranged to be sent to eighty-two famine centres for distribution. it was to be consigned to persons of unquestioned integrity and fitness for the work. these people had been communicated with, and their acceptance of the charge assured, and the number of carloads that each should receive made known to each, that he might make the necessary provision for its reception and distribution. count bobrinskoy had ordered 320 freight cars to be in readiness at riga to receive and transport the cargo free of cost to whatever point might be desired. when these preliminary arrangements had been completed and the "tynehead" sighted from the signal station, we started in company with count bobrinskoy for riga, the port that had been previously selected by the russian ambassador in washington as being free from ice and most favorable for transporting the cargo to the interior. the "tynehead" was a big ship, one of the largest ocean freighters, and came too heavily loaded to enter the harbor until her cargo had been partly discharged by lighters, and she anchored eight miles from the port. the governor's ship, having on board his excellency, m. znovief; count bobrinskoy, representative of the czarovitch committee; n. von cramer, representing the red cross of russia; r. kerkovius, president of the exchange of riga; von richer, chief of police; von keldermann, chief of customs; von nagel, captain of the port; n.p. bornholdt, united states consul, and j.b. hubbell steamed an hour down the river to welcome the "tynehead," which had all flags and streamers flying and by the activity of our consul, mr. bornholdt, the lighters already lying alongside to take in the grain. after an hour on board the captain was brought back in the governor's ship on which we lunched, and later dined at the governor's palace, where the captain was presented with a beautiful tea service of russian enamel inlaid work as a present from the czar. it was arranged that two lines of cars be kept on the dock, into which the grain should be carried direct from the ship, which lay alongside the wharf. as soon as a car was filled it was shifted, weighed and sealed, and when enough were filled they were made into trains and sent to their destinations with right of way over every other traffic on the road, not excepting express and passenger trains; and at their destination no person presumed to break the seal save the one to whom it was consigned. when we reached riga, we learned that two hundred and forty peasants had been waiting on the dock two days, waiting and waiting for the ship from america. not waiting for food, for riga was not in a famine province, but waiting that they might not miss the opportunity and the honor of unloading the american ship that had brought food to their unfortunate brothers in the interior. as soon as they could get into the hold of the ship, one hundred and forty of them began the unloading. they worked night and day, without rest, determined to unload the entire cargo themselves without help. but on the third night our consul, mr. bornholdt, insisted on their having a relief of twelve hours, and when the twelve hours were up they were all in their places again, and remained until the cargo was out, declining to take any pay for their labor. twelve women worked along with them, in the same spirit, in the ship and on the dock, with needles, sewing up the rents in the bags to prevent waste in handling. only a part of the "tynehead's" cargo was in bags; hence for convenience and economy in handling and the final distribution, we purchased in st. petersburg and riga 43,000 additional bags to sack the rest of the cargo, which in all amounted to nearly 117,000 bushels of shelled corn, 11,033 bags of flour and meal, besides small amounts of wheat, rye, bacon, canned goods, drugs, etc., requiring 307 russian freight cars for its transportation. some of this was reshipped on steamboats sent up the headwaters of the volga, reshipped again on cars nearly to the foot of the ural mountains, a distance of 3,000 miles from riga. notwithstanding our declaration while in st. petersburg that neither the red cross nor the american people desired any public ceremonies in the way of acknowledgments: dinners, excursions and public demonstrations and illuminations were planned, which we felt ourselves obliged to decline on the ground we had first taken, that any effort and any money proposed to be used in this manner would be most acceptable to all americans if turned into food for the hungry, whom we had come to help. at our hotel the russian and american colors were crossed over the entrance; in the shop windows were the american colors, and in other places, where it seemed that these were not easily procured, title-pages of american sheet-music were displayed--such as "america," "hail columbia," "yankee doodle," "star-spangled banner," etc, and little boys in the streets carried american flags of their own make. one little fellow had made the russian flag on one side and the american on the other side of his device. the telephone office was kept open all night, to be ready for any possible want, and the locomotive with steam up for any possible service. the custom house floated on its main staff only the american flag during the entire time of the unloading of the "tynehead," from saturday morning until tuesday noon--three days and a-half. when all was finished at riga, the last train on its way, all had been so well planned, so well done in every particular that we felt there was not the least necessity for any further attention on our part in looking after this charge. but to the donors at home russia was a long way off; they had no personal knowledge of the people they were trying to help, and some critics had circulated misgivings about the gifts reaching their intended destination. hence, that we might be prepared to give a report from personal observation for the satisfaction and the gratification of the people at home, who had contributed these stores, it was decided to see how some of the final distributions were made. our first objective point in the famine district was the province of nijni novgorod. but we must go by moscow, where by the courtesy of count bobrinskoy a telegram was received, stating that his brother would pass through the city to the famine district, and his company could be made available, if desired. such an opportunity was not to be lost, and our course is changed to the south, first by rail to bogorodizk, thence by droschky to michailovskoi, to the house of shestoparoff, manager of the beet sugar mills of the bobrinskoys. here the home taste and appearance of everything inside make one feel as if he were in his own new england home, although not a word of english is heard. after breakfast the next morning we go to the distributing station, which is supported by the bobrinskoy family in one of the sugar mill buildings. here we find the doctor, the baker, the soupmaker, several of the first ladies of the place, great cauldrons of excellent soup, tea, milk, nestle's food, rye and corn bread--the tea and milk are for the sick and for the children--and the doctor, who is familiar with every family, directs who shall receive and what. the bread and the soup are served on regular account, the houses and families all having been visited and the condition of each carefully recorded. as soon as one is able in part to care for himself the bread is sold at a moderate price. a number of villages are supplied from this bakery and kitchen, and this is but one of nine carried on by this family entirely at their own expense. in the afternoon we visit different villages, some twenty houses or more. we find two red cross nurses from moscow, who are at work and have their home with the peasants. in four months one has lost but four cases; the other but two; and the average number of sick in the past four months by the doctor's report is three hundred. the peasants say they would rather do without the doctor than be without the nurses in the village. the peasants' home consists of one or two square rooms, built of logs, stone, or mud bricks, with floor of earth, and furniture of boards. one quarter of the room is given up to the brick oven, which is so constructed that it serves not only for a stove, oven, cupboard, and bed in cold weather, but the chickens and small animals find protection from the cold underneath during the severe cold weather. usually a large horizontal pipe of terra cotta passes overhead and out through a thatched roof of straw, which is often two feet thick. the fuel may be wood, straw, or dry dung; fuel is scarce. a deep cellar, well covered, outside, may hold potatoes, roots, etc. the cattle and other animals find shelter in a room adjoining the family. at bogorodizk another royal family, in addition to work similar to the above named, supplied the peasants with raw material for spinning, weaving and making of native goods and garments both for themselves and for the market, which the countess found either at home or by sending them to the larger cities. through letters of introduction we had the good fortune to find count tolstoi on his estate at yasnia polonia. when the count was asked his opinion of the cause of the existing conditions, he said the government might not like to have him say that the peasants should have more land and own it themselves--that now they have only enough in the best seasons to give barely food for their support, and when a year of scarcity comes, they cannot help being destitute. when asked if there had been improvement in their conditions since the emancipation, he said if that meant in the way of property, financially, no, but mentally there had been progress and development. one of the first questions count tolstoi asked was, "what do you think of most? i would excuse him for such a question; but he always liked to get into sympathy with the person he was talking with and to know how to understand him. what subjects occupied my mind most when going to sleep?" etc. at night i slept in the library surrounded by english and american books and magazines. when asked about the demoralizing effect of giving free help to the peasants, as said by many, he thought that an excuse of those who did not want to help. the peasant was never so unhappy as when out of work and had nothing to do. even a day's idleness was tiresome to him, and he did not think that a people who had been worked to their full endurance for a generation were going to be demoralized by giving them soup when they were hungry. peasants were coming at all hours of the day to see the count. at dinner time two had been waiting several hours. the count let the dinner go on, and stopped to read a long paper they had brought; read it through carefully; had a long talk with them; unfolded the paper again to look over passages more carefully; after further talk he read again, and told me after they were gone, for i remained with him, that they were having a law suit and had come to him for advice, and so far as he could judge, the peasants were in the right. when i bade him good-bye he said, from what he had heard of miss barton, he felt that she must be a very near relation, and wished me to give her his love. starting again for nijni novgorod we meet at moscow mr. frank g. carpenter, the writer and lecturer, who accompanied us through the volga and southern districts. leaving moscow in the evening by the fast express, we reached nijni the next forenoon at ten. here we were entertained by the governor. the city of nijni novgorod has a population of about sixty thousand ten months of the year; during the other two months its population is increased to six hundred thousand. this extra population from the twenty-seventh of july to about the fifteenth of august inhabit the "dead city" in which not a single family lives the rest of the year. yet it contains one of the largest and finest buildings in russia, and not a match nor a cigar can be lighted at any time under penalty of twenty-five rubles. the "dead city" is built at the junction of the oka river with the volga, so that it is yearly inundated to the ceiling of the first stories, when the spring rise of forty feet or more comes with the melting of the snow. here, too, is located one of the largest churches of nijni, and on the volga side the siberian wharves. in the living city is the residence of the governor on a clay bluff four hundred and seventy feet above the river, with the business part at the foot of the bluff adjoining the river. nijni being in direct line of free river transportation as well as railway connection between st. petersburg, siberia, china, and the caspian districts, the caucasus, the oil region of southern russia, with its wine, grain and fruit districts, make this city a great commercial centre. and the pulse of famine or plenty is probably felt here as soon as in any part of the empire. in the two months named, traders from nearly every european and asiatic country gather here with every variety of goods and product that can be carried by rail, water, or caravan: grains, hides, leather, teas, metals, precious stones, fish, meats, cloths, silks, peasants' works and weavings; and the great sandbar in the river oka of several hundred acres is covered with siberian iron. electricity furnishes light where needed, for it will be remembered that it is light enough in this latitude to read at midnight in summer time. here are also royal quarters for the governor and state officials, whose social and executive residences are in the "dead city" during the entire time of the fair, in which time the governor is an absolute czar in power. to give briefly a russian view of the famine and how it was felt in a single province and the russian manner of dealing with it i give the following abridged account: nijni claims to have been the first provincial government of russia to take active measures to relieve the sufferers by famine. the first news came to the governor from reports of dry weather in his province in may, 1891, for the crops of the three preceding years had been short, and at this time the peasants had begun to ask for bread, having already sold a part of their horses and tools; and only two of the eleven districts had sufficient bread for their people. without waiting to consult the general government, in order to save time, the governor took the responsibility upon himself of immediately purchasing one hundred and twenty-five thousand poods (a pud is about forty pounds), or twenty-two hundred tons of grain, and sent this in the early part of june to the districts most affected by the drouth. he used his influence to stop speculation in grain, nijni being a great grain centre, and formed a commission from all the districts to carry out relief measures. it was after this that the department of the interior appropriated one million rubles ($550,000) to buy bread. it has been a custom in russia that when a loan is made to the _poor peasants_ that the _rich_ peasants of the community are held equally responsible for the payment; hence _they_ have fallen into the habit of claiming an equal apportionment whenever loans have been made for relief measures in times past. thus the zemstvo (the elective magistrates of the village) have the power in themselves to say that they had not ordered nor asked for the grain, and refuse to receive it for those really needing it. hence the governor of nijni ordered that only those receiving should be charged with the loan. the whole loan here received was 6,350,000 rubles, all of which except 150,000 rubles had been distributed when we visited the district. in the nine needy districts of nijni novgorod province there were 587,000 persons needing assistance that were excluded from the government loan as being between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five--"therefore able-bodied and able to work." the nijni governor followed his judgment rather than the instructions of the minister of the interior, and seeing that this amount was insufficient and that no provision had been made for cattle and horses, he tried to get permission to begin public works in order to furnish labor and pay to those needing it; but this was not secured until december, when 3,000,000 rubles were appropriated for roads, 420,000 rubles for town improvements, 40,000 for schools and churches. from eight to ten thousand men were given work in the woods at fifty kopeks, 27 cents, per day, and one ruble and fifty kopeks, about 77 cents, per team. to secure a general interest of the people the governor made every public commission (boards of directors, trustees, etc.), take an active part in the relief work. he created commissions among the nobility to superintend relief work, combining the red cross, the churches and other individual organizations all into one committee, so that when the crown prince's committee was formed on the twenty-eighth of december 341,550 rubles had been received and distributed besides 52,020 poods, 2,080,800 pounds, of bread which had been given to those who had no right to the governmental loan. by contributions three hundred and thirty-one kitchens were established in villages, giving meals for one-half to two kopeks per meal. nijni, with a living population of sixty thousand, contributed one hundred and ninety thousand rubles. places were established in nijni where twenty kitchen meal tickets may be purchased for one ruble. the citizens buy these and give to such as they desire to help. from nijni we take steamer down the volga, and through the kindness of mr. zeveke, owner of the american steamboat line, so called because american names are given to all of his twelve large steamboats, we are allowed time to visit each town on the volga, as we pass down the river. at each place the grain has been received and being used. at samara we find mr. bezant, one of our consignees, just recovering from the typhus which was contracted in his relief work. and we get direct reports from count tolstoi, junior, whose work is in this province farther to the east, and prince dolgoruhow, another consignee in the district of burulich; these have ten carloads of the "tynehead's" corn, and are saving the lives of many. at this time the province of samara alone had lost five hundred thousand cattle, as many horses and 1,500,000 sheep from the famine. at volsk we saw many people around the church. the bells in a dozen different towers all ringing; from another church a large procession of a thousand people were coming, bearing on high poles crosses and banners and icons. they are joined by the people from the first church, with their crosses and banners which are not raised till the first procession is joined, and all march in their variegated red and yellow and bright colored dresses, with bare feet and uncovered heads in the broiling sun, miles away to the open fields to pray for rain, which has still been withheld from this section of saratoff province. the town of saratoff has a population of 125,000, contains many germans, from having been one of the german colonies founded by queen catherine during her reign, to encourage agricultural industries. here as in volsk we found the people in the fields praying for rain, and in the evening it came. here we met mr. golden, an englishman, who has been the active agent in the saratoff district, and mr. muhler, a german, who has been the active worker on the east side of the volga in samara province. both these gentlemen, together with a catholic bishop, say that the american help, both in material and money, came so timely that it saved thousands of lives that otherwise must have been lost. it came when they could get nothing from other sources, and their thanks to america are unbounded. the relief was "as if the lord had ordered it." of the "tynehead's" cargo, saratoff received fifty-three carloads and the province of samara one hundred and four cars. there was a small quantity of the corn that got wet when put into the ship during a rain in new york, and had begun to heat when unloaded. this was sent to saratoff with a suggestion that they use it for their cattle, but when we reached that place the peasants had washed the corn and dried it, and said it made very good bread. as a typical incident and as an expression of the universal feeling throughout russia:--when we reached the platform of the station at saratoff to start westward, a russian gentleman who could speak a little english, and another one and his wife who could not, came to the train, with an attendant bearing champagne and glasses, and made a speech of thanks, expressing the gratitude of the people of russia to america for the heartfelt sympathy she had so beautifully expressed. the help she had brought to their people in a time of distress made every russian feel to want to personally express his thanks. wishing every success to its representatives, they drank to america and bon voyage. to see some of the smaller consignments, on our way eastward from saratoff we stopped at an inland station and went into the country some miles near tambof, where two carloads of corn had been consigned. here it was being ground in the wind-mills and made into the old-fashioned new england rye and indian loaves and baked in great, brick ovens, just as we had found in other places. referring back to riga. after the last car had been sealed and the way-bills sent, we were speaking of the harmony and unity that existed in all the different branches of this relief work, and it incidentally came out that the count and his family were carrying on an extensive system of relief among the peasants in the famine district, supplying some thirty villages with rye and corn bread, obtaining their corn from southern russia, with soup, broth and tea for the sick and nestle's food for the babies--the latter an experiment of his own. it was suggested that in such an extensive work as this he should have had some of the american corn, but he replied they could get on very well without it; that his family had taken that work upon themselves to do at the beginning, and would continue to do it until next august and did not need other help. i expressed a desire to see this work, which i later found was a fair sample of what is being so quietly done all over russia that its extent is unknown until one comes upon it. and it was at michailoviski that we had the pleasure of seeing some of this work. everywhere we found people of all classes giving their time to the work of relief to supplement the governmental help; and this does not mean simply directing, superintending, or planning work for others to execute, but i found men giving up their own business, the attention of their estates, to see personally to the detail as well as the general work. i found cultivated, intelligent, refined women making their homes in the huts of the peasants, where they could be nearer their work. i found countesses working in the huts of the typhus hospitals, or taking the sick into their own homes, giving up social enjoyments and personal comforts, their own plans, in order to make their work of relief more effective. if the official side of russia is subject to criticism, as sometimes claimed, surely the quiet, personal work and self-sacrifice of its people in this calamity is an example for any christian land. sitting at the hotel table count george told how his conscience would protest against a good dinner after he had returned from his investigating tours in the famine district to learn the situation, as a member of the grand duke's committee, for, "the ruble spent for wine and coffee would keep a peasant child or mother a whole month." but he says when he got back to st. petersburg a few days away from the distressing scenes, his mind occupied with other business, it did not trouble him at all to eat a good full meal just as he had done before. on another hand to show how suffering continues in any place from lack of competent oversight this incident will show. when going over the ground to see how the relief work had been done for his committee, he came to a village that was in a very bad condition. many sick and dying for want of food, he asked the zemstov if a kitchen could not be established. the reply was no; there was no one to manage it. "but," he said, "you have a school here; the teacher can take charge of the kitchen." "no; he is not capable; he is too slow and of no account, and we intend to get rid of him as soon as we can get someone to take his place. there is not a person in the village that could conduct a kitchen." the count in his rounds came to the school house and found, as he had been told, that the school-master did look miserable enough in an old, worn and even ragged coat, and learned that he had not received his wages for some months; there was no money to pay him. his roll showed a list of sixty pupils; there were but fifteen present. when asked where the others were, he replied that it was so near the holiday time--only ten days--that he had let them go home. the count turned to one of the boys and asked if he had had anything to eat to-day, expecting him to say no; but he said yes; "he had a warm soup this morning." the same question to the second boy, with the same reply; and so on with all the fifteen. when asked where they got their soup, they said the master had given it to them, and had been doing so for some weeks. the master stood in the corner with his face very red, looking very much ashamed. it was then learned that when the school-master found his pupils coming to school without food, he began to use the savings he had laid by, to feed them, until his purse would not allow him to continue with so large a number; and he had let all but the fifteen go, and he was feeding and teaching them from the savings of other years. the count said he could not pay him his wages due, but he furnished the village with the means for a soup kitchen, and the master was put in charge and conducted it in such a manner that no one thought of his being an incompetent manager. the shipping of the cargo of corn in the "tynehead" to the baltic in a voyage of twenty-eight days and its distribution through russia answers a number of questions that were raised when the proposition to send corn to russia was contemplated. these questionings came from business men, shippers, boards of trade, the produce exchange and philanthropists, and by some it was stoutly asserted that corn could not bear ocean transportation that distance without spoiling. and if it should pass without spoiling, it was affirmed they had no mills to grind it in russia, that the peasant knew nothing about corn, that they could not change their habit of living, and therefore would be unable to make use of it, if received. one of the leading business men of the country went so far as to write that we might as well ship a cargo of pebbles as a cargo of unground corn. hence there was a degree of satisfaction to see the entire cargo, with the exception of a small quantity referred to loaded in the rain, come out of the ship in as good condition as when it was put in the hold, and to find in our journey in the interior that the peasants even needed no suggestion about grinding it in their windmills, which were amply sufficient. but when the little corn that had heated was sent to samara with the suggestion that it be used to feed the cattle, with four additional days in the hot state in the cars, and this was still used by the peasants and called _good_, it removed any doubt that might be forced into one's mind that a starving peasant would die rather than eat a food that he was not accustomed to. referring back to st. petersburg, after our list had been made up for the general distribution of the cargo, mr. hilton carefully went over it and said, from his personal knowledge of the people to whom the consignments were to be made, he would be willing to personally guarantee that 80 per cent of everything sent according to the list would be honestly and faithfully distributed, just as the donors wished, and he further believed that the remaining 20 per cent would be as faithfully handled. my trip to the various places of distribution, widely separated and at unexpected times, confirmed mr. hilton's belief that the entire cargo could not have gone through better hands in any land. to be able, after such observations and inquiries, to give this report is a satisfaction that repays for all the anxious care and responsibility naturally felt with such a charge. to add to this, the deep gratitude expressed by nobleman and peasant alike, in capital or in far-away, unfrequented interior village, always the same, even the humblest peasant refusing compensation for any service rendered an american, manifests a genuine gratitude and friendliness to america and americans which has characterized russia during many years. the sea islands hurricane. coast of south carolina. it is probable that there are few instances on record where a movement toward relief of such magnitude, commenced under circumstances so new, so unexpected, so unprepared and so adverse, was ever carried on for such a length of time and closed with results so entirely satisfactory to both those served and those serving, as this disaster, which, if remembered at all at the present day, is designated as the "hurricane and tidal wave of the sea islands off the coast of south carolina." the descriptions of this fearful catastrophe i shall leave to the reports of those who saw, shared its dangers and lived within its tide of death. they will tell how from 3,000 to 5,000 human beings (for no one knew the number) went down in a night; how in the blackness of despair they clung to the swaying tree tops till the roots gave way, and together they were covered in the sands or washed out to the reckless billows of the great mad ocean that had sent for them; of the want, woe and nothingness that the ensuing days revealed when the winds were hushed, the waters stilled and the frightened survivors began to look for the lost home and the loved ones, and hunger presaged the gaunt figure of famine that silently drew near and stared them in the face. how, with all vegetable growth destroyed, all animals, even to fowls, swept away, all fresh water turned to salt--not even a sweet well remaining--not one little house in five hundred left upright, if left at all; the victims with the clothing torn and washed off them, till they were more nearly naked than clothed--how these 30,000 people patiently stood and faced this silent second messenger of death threatening them hour by hour. largely ignorant, knowing nothing of the world, with no real dependencies upon any section of its people, they could only wait its charity, its pity, its rescue and its care--wait and pray--does anyone who knows the negro characteristics and attributes doubt this latter? surely, if angels do listen, they heard pleading enough in those hours of agony to save even the last man and woman and the helpless babe. something saved them, for there is no record of one who died of starvation or perished through lack of care. i have promised to leave these descriptions to those who saw. i will also leave the descriptions of the work of relief done at the field to those who so faithfully performed it, the members of my working staff and the volunteer workers of other fields who came to their assistance on this. i place here the more important of the reports made to me at the time, but which have until now remained under seal, no general report of that field having been made. the main interest of these reports will consist in showing the methods of work adopted, not only to preserve so many people in life with so small means as we had at hand, but to preserve them as well from habits of begging and conditions of pauperism; to teach them self-dependence, economy, thrift; how to provide for themselves and against future want, and help to fit them for the citizenship which, wisely or unwisely, we had endowed them with. i will then, with the reader's kind permission, simply show the open doorway through which we were called to enter that field and introduce the nationally renowned advocates and escorts who personally conducted us and placed its work in our hands. about the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of august, 1893, the press commenced to give notice, such as it could get over wrecked roads and broken wires, of a fearful storm coming up from the west indies that had struck our coast in the region of south carolina, sweeping entirely over its adjacent range of islands, known as the old port royal group, covering them from the sea to a depth of sixteen feet, with the wind at a rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour--that its destructive power was so great that it had not only swept the islands, but had extended several miles onto the mainland of the state. [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. women cutting potatoes for planting--sea island relief, s.c., february, 1894.] [illustration: copyright, 1894, by charles scribner's sons. a windfall for st. helena.--wreck of the "city of savannah."] i chanced to be familiar with the geography and topography of that group of islands, having lived on them in the capacity of war relief many months during the siege of charleston in 1863-64. knowing that they scarcely averaged four feet rise above the sea level, with no mountains, not even hills that could be called such, that the soft, sandy soil could not be trusted to hold its tree roots firm, that the habitations were only huts, to be washed away like little piles of boards--i thought i saw no escape for the inhabitants and that _all_ must have perished; and so replied to all inquiries at first made as to whether this were not a disaster for the red cross to relieve, "no, there was nothing left to relieve." later and more reliable news brought the astonishing fact that it was estimated that from thirty to forty thousand had survived and were in the direst need. was not this a call for the red cross? still more emphatically, "no; if that is the case, it is beyond the red cross. only the state of south carolina or the general government can cope with that;" and again we closed our ears and proceeded with our work. but the first week of september brought pitiful paragraphs from various southern sources--one i recall from the governor of the state, in which he proclaimed his perplexity and great distress at the condition of these poor people, needing everything, and who, at that season of the year, with crops all destroyed, would continue to need; and closed by wondering "if the red cross could perhaps do anything for them." it would not do to close our ears or eyes against this suggestion, and i at once sought our congressional neighbor, general m.c. butler, of south carolina, then in the senate, now on the cuban commission, asking his views. the response was such as would not have been looked for in that busy, hard-worked senator, surrounded by a network of political wires, some of them only too likely to be "live;" he dropped all business, telegraphed at once to governor tillman at columbia to learn the conditions and urgently requested us to go, and he would even leave his seat and go with us as soon as we could be ready. time is never a question with the red cross, and the next night, in a dark cheerless september mist, with only two assistants, i closed a door behind me for ten months, went to the station to meet general butler, prompt and kind, and proceeded on our way. at columbia we were joyfully surprised at meeting governor tillman, prepared to accompany us, with a member of his staff, and thus powerfully reinforced we made our entrance into beaufort. the work of relief had been wisely placed at first in the hands of committees from both beaufort and charleston, comprising the best business men of each city--its lawyers, merchants, bankers, all men of prominence and known practical ability. they had done and were doing all possible for them to do, with hearts full of pity, hands full of work, themselves large losers by the storm, business nearly wrecked, and needing every remaining energy for the repairing of their own damages and those of the citizens about them. the governor, at whose request they had formed, realizing the necessities of the case, sought to release them, calling them together in each city and successively relieving them, placing the red cross in full charge of the relief. with the little knowledge we had of the conditions and surroundings, it would have been madness to accept, at least until both more knowledge and more numerical force were gained, and the refusal was as prompt as the proffer had been. we however promised to remain in beaufort, meet with the committee each day, advise with them, study the situation and report our conclusions when we could safely arrive at them. thus we remained until the first day of october, when, realizing that the relief coming in from outside would soon diminish, as the excitement should wear away, that the sum in hand was painfully small, that the number of destitute was steadily increasing, that the winter was approaching and they must be carried through in some manner till the next year's crops could grow; and that, in order to do this a fixed system of relief must be adopted, a rigid economy enforced and every person who could do so must be made to work for his food and receive food and raiment only in return for labor; that this could only come from persons who had no interests but these to subserve and with the light of all experience that could be called to the task. even then a successful result was questionable; but there was no question of the fatal result of any other course, and after a thoughtful council of our official board (which had meanwhile become nearly filled) on the night of september thirtieth it was decided that the red cross would accept the appointment of the governor and enter upon its duties the following day. accordingly, at the meeting of the next day, october 1, 4 p. m., the beaufort relief commission, as appointed by the governor, was formally released as a committee and immediately re-elected by the red cross as its "advisory board," to meet and advise with us as we had done with them. through all these years the tenderness springs to my heart and gathers in my eyes as i recall the kindly and affectionate intercourse of months, without one break, that grew up between us. and although some have been called to higher service and greener fields, i am confident that none of us will ever seek on this side a better, more trusted, kindlier association than were found in these. i desire to supplement the foregoing allusions to the storm by the full and ably rendered account of commodore, now admiral, beardslee, then in command of the naval forces of that section, with headquarters at paris island. the admiral and his charming wife were our neighbors, and most efficient helpers through all our work: admiral beardslee's description of the hurricane. mrs. beardslee and i were participators in the events and shared the dangers brought to the inhabitants of the sea islands of south carolina by the terrific west india hurricane, with accompanying tidal wave, which desolated those unfortunate islands in august, 1893. since our recent return and while on the journey, and at new york, friends whom we have met, and new acquaintances, have almost universally exhibited much interest in the description of the situation of affairs on those islands, before, during and after the storm, and to many the simple details which were to us but household words, brought the first realizing sense of the magnitude of the calamity. * * * * * miss clara barton, the president of the american branch of the international organization of the red cross, who has the management of contributions and of the dispensing of aid among the sea islands now, and had occupied a similar position at johnstown, made us her agents to dispense on one of the islands, where weekly we feed over four hundred persons, and i know we are but doing as she would wish, in continuing so to act, during our brief respite from our work. therefore i most cheerfully comply with the request, and trust that my efforts to interest and revive interest will not be in vain. geography of the coast. i will premise with a bit of geography: the coast of south carolina is bordered for over a hundred and fifty miles by an archipelago consisting of hundreds of islands and islets from a hundred square miles to as many yards in area. these are nearly all well wooded with pine, oak, magnolia and gum trees. many of them consist largely of arable land, which, before the war of the rebellion, was divided by hedges into great plantations, whereon the rich planters, aided by their hundreds of slaves, cultivated, besides vegetables of all kinds, the famous long staple "sea island cotton." the islands are separated from each other and from the main land by arms of the sea, here called rivers, or creeks, according to their width and depth, some, as beaufort, broad and coosaw rivers, from one to three miles in width and thirty feet in depth, and others, which, at low tide, are but marshes, with a thread of water. after the war. after the war the large plantations were subdivided into five, ten and twenty-acre farms, which were by the government distributed among the "heads of families," generally of the slaves who were left on them, and these negroes, with their descendants, still occupy these farms, living in comfortable cabins, each plantation having its own hamlet or colony. after the first shock of change was over, these negroes developed into orderly, industrious, thriving christian communities. each farm was thoroughly cultivated, and there was produced every year good crops of potatoes, sweet and irish, peas, corn, melons and one or two bales of cotton, which, mortgaged to the local storekeeper, generally a white man, furnished them with groceries. all raised and owned horses, mules, hogs, cattle, turkeys, domestic fowls and ducks. all were owners of one or more buggies, carts, plows and other agricultural implements, and those who lived near the sea owned one or more boats, with outfit of nets and fishing gear, and from spring until winter the sea yielded abundant harvest of good fish, turtles, crabs, shrimps, prawns, clams and oysters, and the marshes furnished terrapin, which sold at very remunerative figures, as i well know, for the storm took from me nearly three hundred of them. every cabin was comfortable, from their point of view, furnished, and in many were sewing machines, house organs and melodeons, and for every member of the family, however slightly attired on week days, a fine, often gorgeous, suit of sunday clothes--and they are all church-goers. the great barn-like structures that they build for churches are presided over by preachers of their own race--"reverence doctor" is the title--and are crowded. they have also smaller places of worship, called "praise houses," where they assemble once or twice a week in the evening to indulge in "shouting" a mingled prayer, responding, singing, and when "spirit dun come pow'ful," a wild, waltzing sort of a dance, such as i have seen in africa. they have schools which troops of well-dressed children attend daily. there are lots of children, and but a very small portion of those under twenty have not quite a fair common school education. said an old aunty to a lady friend of mine: "has yer children, honey?" "yes, aunty, i have three boys and one girl." "is dat all?" "yes, isn't it enough?" "dat's as the lord wills, honey; to some he sends little litters and to some big ones. i'se got thirteen head and i'se dun loss four head." the disastrous storm. the climate is perfect, very little labor produces good results, and i think that without going more into detail you will all admit that the sea islanders were a happy, contented, very comfortably fixed set of people. so it was at the going down of the sun on the twenty-seventh day of august, 1893. when the sun rose the next morning, hundreds of those cabins had been swept from the earth, with all they contained. over thirty thousand of those people were homeless, clotheless, foodless, with no resources. over eight hundred were dead (the figures are from actual census). a hurricane on its way from the gulf of mexico to the north had swerved somewhat from the usual course of these storms, its centre, instead of following the gulf stream, had come in over the land, and the great uprising of the surface of the sea, which always occurs at the calm centre of these storms, caused by the low atmospheric pressure, as shown by low barometer, had, instead of dissipating itself on the surrounding ocean, inundated our islands to depths varying from one to ten feet according to the height of the land, the average height of the tidal wave, above high water, being about seven feet. thus the surface of each island was a sea, and driven by the tremendous force of the wind over a hundred miles per hour, as recorded at charleston, north of us, and at savannah, south, into death-dealing waves. the houses, all built on posts two to four feet above ground, came down like card houses. some collapsed and crushed their inmates on the spot; others went drifting off with men, women and children clinging to them, until falling to pieces they dropped their living freight into eternity. some escaped by seeking shelter amid the branches of the giant pines and oaks; some were so saved, but others had but found death traps, for yielding to the force of the wind, many were thrashed to death by the whipping branches, or knocked off into the raging sea below. and among the thousands of these trees which were uprooted, or twisted off, were many on whose branches people were clinging. i knew nothing of what was occurring on other islands than the one we were dwelling on, paris island, where i am in command of the naval station; for, deprived of every means of communication with the outer world by the destruction of all railroads and steamers that connected with us, telegraph and telephone lines down, and all of my boats either sunk or wrecked, our own affairs had my entire time and attention. a work of rescue. i have been a sailor for forty-five years, and as such have battled with many tempests, but on my own ship, with plenty of sea room, i have known what to do to increase safety and lessen danger. but in this case i was nearly helpless. fortunately i alone knew this, for i was now surrounded by those who looked to me for help. i was forced to "keep a stiff upper lip," but the task was not a slight one. my house is a two-story frame, built on brick piers, about sixty rods from the beach. between it and the water were six negro cabins and two quite large houses. shortly after sunset the weaker of them succumbed, but the tide was not yet so high but that my men succeeded in saving from the wrecks the women and children, all of whom were carried first to the largest of the two houses. about 11 p.m. the tide was at its height, and there came driving onto my lawn and under my house great timbers, wrecks of houses, wharves, and boats, and fortunately a large flat boat, called a lighter. some of the braver of my men captured this boat by plunging in up to their necks and pushed and pulled it to the house where the refugees had gathered, at which the screams told us there was trouble. they got there just in time to rescue about fifty and brought them to my house. during all this time the rain was falling in torrents and every person was soaked through, and as the wind was from the northeast, the rain was cold, and they were chilled through. an attempt to get up a fire in my kitchen stove disclosed the fact that my woodshed was gone and there was no wood. some empty packing boxes in the garret were utilized; then a big pot was put on to make coffee. we then found that excepting in a few pitchers there was no fresh water. my cistern had been overflowed by the sea. fifty men were put to bailing and pumping, and weather boards from my shed and servants' quarters were quickly extemporized into gutters and pipes--then the rain proved a blessing, and we were saved from water famine. but there were chances of a food famine. my storerooms and those of my only white neighbor, the civil engineer of the station, held all of the food on the island, and there were hundreds to feed. fortunately it was sunday. saturday is our marketing day, and we had a week's supply under ordinary circumstances, but with such a lot of boarders we had to handle it very sparingly. the next day. by daylight the storm had modified and the sea subsided. then came work. first of all my mules and carts were started with search parties for drowned people. before night there were nine such laid out in my coal shed. to those we gave christian burial, but to twelve others found during the next forty-eight hours, guided by the buzzards that had begun their feasts, we for sanitary reasons had to treat them as we did the many carcasses of animals, bury them at once where we found them. on the second day i captured a passing sailboat, one of the very few left, and obtained from port royal a big load of provisions, with which i started a store, paying the big gang of laborers that i had employed with checks on the store, where food was furnished at cost. red cross to the rescue. on the fifth there came to us a great blessing. the red cross association had been appealed to and had responded. miss barton, its president with her staff of physicians, nurses and other trained people, came, investigated and took charge of us, and under their systematic, business-like methods, taught them by much experience in many great calamities, are now keeping, and will keep, as long as the good people of the country will furnish the means, starvation away from this miserable mass of humanity. it may be that in this favored part of the country, where cyclones and earthquakes do not occur, many of your readers know little of this organization. i will tell them a little and close. during our war, in 1863, a congress composed of representatives of the leading nations of europe met at geneva, switzerland, its object being to make such international rules as would tend to lessen the horrors of war and alleviate the suffering. the united states was invited to participate, and miss clara barton, a woman even then well known for her career of charitable deeds, and for her abilities, was afterward selected to bring in the united states to the treaty. miss barton secured for the united states the privilege of adding to its war relief that of sufferings from storms, earthquakes, floods and other calamities due to natural causes. this addition is known as the american amendment. an american branch was formed, of which miss barton was elected president. she has a large and able corps of experienced assistants scattered throughout the union, ready to respond at once to her call and hurry to place their services, free of cost, at her disposal. this corps of helpers take nothing for granted; they investigate for themselves and learn accurately just who need help, and how much, and what kind. books are kept, and every penny or penny's worth accounted for. the red cross does not, as a body, give charity--it dispenses intelligently that of others. the body is your and my agent to see that what we choose to give shall be honestly and intelligently put where it will do the most good. its members, from principle, do not beg. it is their business to present facts to the public and let every man, woman and child act on his or her unbiased judgment. she has done me the honor to accept my service as an amateur. i am not quite so strictly bound by the rules as are the members, therefore if anyone detects a little tendency to beg in this article it is my fault, not that of the red cross. present headquarters. at this present time miss barton has her headquarters in beaufort, where she has chartered a large warehouse, over which she and her staff camp out, living, although i am told she is well off, in the plainest of styles. her desk is a dry goods box, with a home-made drawer; her bed, a cot. her agents are distributed on the various islands, living in negro cabins and tents. the red cross flag floats in their midst, and the food, clothing and other articles are served to the crowds of negroes, and trained nurses and physicians are caring for the sick and wounded. hundreds of men are laboring digging drains to get clear of the brackish swamp water left by the mingling of sea water and rain, building houses and boats for the helpless, and the colored women, made beggars by the storm, have been organized into sewing societies, which repair all ragged garments sent, turn ticking into mattress covers, homespun into garments. detail of the work. there is now being served out, once a week, the following rations, which is all that her stock of stores allows: to a family of seven persons for one week, one peck of hominy, one pound of pork. to those who work for the community, double the above. to sick people, a small portion of tea or coffee, sugar and bread. she would gladly double or quadruple this allowance, but she has not the material. thus it stands. there are 30,000 american citizens who must be almost entirely supported by charity until they get a spring crop in april or may. unless they are furnished with food they will starve, without bedding they will die from exposure; without medicines, of fever. everything not perishable is needed, especially money to buy lumber, nails, bricks and hardware to rebuild the houses, cast-off and warm clothing, cooking utensils, pans, pots, spoons, etc. most of the express companies send free all articles directed to: miss clara barton, _president red cross association, beaufort, s.c._ for storm sufferers. white sufferers. in response to further inquiries admiral beardslee furnishes us the following: there is a very small population of whites living on the sea islands, and of them the greater number are storekeepers, supplying the negroes and taking mortgages on their growing crops, principally the cotton. as nearly all of the crops, including the cotton, which was nearly ready for picking, were ruined, these storekeepers, in addition to great direct loss by the flood, which swept away their storehouses, have lost largely by unrecoverable debts, thus they are not able to do much toward the relief of the sufferers. * * * among the sufferers there are a few white families, generally descendants of the old-time planters, who, having recovered by purchase small portions of their family property, have made their living by hard work as farmers and truck growers. they are, in some cases, reduced to abject poverty. the merchants of the city of beaufort lost heavily. most of the principal stores were on bay street, their storehouses stretching out on the wharf. all of these with the back buildings on them were swept away, and the merchants are not in position to give much help. nearly all of the old southern families were impoverished by the war and can do little, and that little is to a great extent very naturally bestowed upon the negroes and their descendants, who were at one time their slaves. what is needed. the state of south carolina is poor, one of its greatest sources of revenue, the phosphate business, which paid in royalties nearly $600 per day into its treasury, and expended thousands of dollars weekly, in payment of labor, was badly crippled and temporarily, at least, ruined. all of the dredges, lighters and most of the tugs and many of the "mines," the great establishments where the phosphate rock is dried, crushed and prepared for export, were destroyed. * * * * while anything or everything eatable, wearable or usable in any shape will do good, i would suggest as most valuable, money with which to buy lumber and hardware to rebuild houses, and food, hard bread, hominy, pork and cheap groceries, warm cast-off clothing, thick underclothing, cooking utensils, such as frying pans, tea kettles, pots, pans, etc., second hand as good as any, and children's clothing, of which but a limited supply has been received. there will be no necessity to mend up clothing, the sewing societies will do that and prepare for use bedticking, homespun and cloth of all kinds. relief work south of broad river. next to the account of admiral beardslee, i desire to place that of mr. john macdonald, who, from having faced death in the rigging of the ill-fated "savannah" for three days, enduring every privation and danger that could be endured, still lived to come to us, and to generously volunteer his services to the red cross as one knowing how to feel for those with whom he had suffered in common. after a visit to the northern end of the islands, and a full verbal report to us of their conditions and needs, he went in a like capacity to the southern end, and finding less likelihood of other assistance there, decided to take this as his field and accordingly made headquarters at hilton head, where he did most efficient and praiseworthy work, drawing from the supplies at beaufort such as could be spared from the needs of the other hundreds of distributing points. the work of mr. macdonald and his capable wife (for he married while there miss ida battell, a charming trained nurse from milwaukee) was intelligent and comprehensive to an uncommon degree, not only relieving the colored population of the entire island, but raising them to a higher degree of industrial intelligence and self-help than they had ever dreamed of. i desire to tender in behalf of friendless humanity my grateful tribute of thanks to mr. and mrs. macdonald for faithful and efficient service. report by mr. mcdonald. on the night of august 27, 1893, while en route from boston to savannah on the steamer "city of savannah," the terrible devastating cyclone, which swept over the sea island coast of south carolina, was experienced by me in all its awfulness, terminating in the wreck and complete break up of that magnificent ship, and the terrible suffering and endurance of three days lashed to the rigging, without food or water and facing and hourly expecting death. where could help come from? all the boats and ships in these waters had probably met the same fate as ours. all hope of help from nearby was abandoned, and our eyes were fastened on the north with anxious watchfulness. on the third night, when all hope had died out, in the darkness shot up a bright signal light--the last we had on board--and in a few moments another light shot out into the sky about two miles away; our cry for help was answered! out of the north came help to us, and after the perilous work of rowing from one ship to the other, trip after trip, through breakers and high-running seas, we were saved and carried into port. on arriving in savannah and seeing from the papers, as the reports slowly came in, the awful wreckage which had been wrought on the islands, my sympathies were naturally aroused, for who could better know what these people must have passed through? when, a few days later, the call was issued for the red cross to assume control of the relief work, i abandoned the plans which had brought me south and joined miss barton's forces. a first inspection of the devastated district was appalling, and even as the scenes of distress, sickness and destitution became more familiar, its sadness did not wear away. here were pretty islands, where, a few days before, cotton had been in its full luxuriance, corn almost ready for harvesting waving in the breeze, a bounteous harvest smiling in the faces of a contented people, their little homes intact and comfortable and each one congratulating himself and each other on a prosperous season as the fruits of their labors. yes, prosperous, for to these colored people, whose needs are small, whose ambition receives no stimulus, fifty or sixty bushels of corn is a bounteous harvest. but the storm came! in a few hours neat cottages were a heap of ruins, scattered perhaps miles away; giant trees lay across the roads, twisted and knotted into almost impossible shapes; corn and cotton gone, and human beings--missing. roads flooded with water, almost impassable, but still alive with people--here a mother looking for her children, a husband for his wife, children for their parents. there in the marsh, a dark object is seen lying prostrate. onward they push, waist deep in water and mud, till they grasp the inanimate object, and after a moment's silence a piercing wail announces another loved one found, dead. go with them as they carry their dead home. home! where is it? gone! a few boards or branches of trees have been put together, tent fashion, covered with corn stalks and mud, and into this the family crowd, wet (for it rained incessantly nearly two weeks after the storm), hungry, sick, ragged and helpless, unable to think or act for themselves, dazed by the calamity which had befallen them; they looked around for some hand to lead them out of their pitiable condition, but everywhere the same wreckage and destitution faced them. but where should they look? as we on the wreck amidst the breakers looked northward, so these people cast their eyes thither and sent out a plea for help. hoping against hope, they lingered on, until, when everything seemed darkest, a gleam of light shot out of the northern sky and help came quickly; they were saved from starvation. they grasped at the finger of help extended to them, as a drowning man at a straw, and with a supreme effort dragged themselves out of a listless, apathetic condition and endeavored out of chaos to bring order. with such a vast territory, and so many thousands of destitute people to care for, the task of systematizing the work was a heavy one. it was, however, divided into districts, and each willing helper entered on his labor with very little to encourage him, but with obstacles innumerable. how to get from island to island--boats all wrecked; how to get supplies to them; how to pick out the most needy cases to serve first when all were needy and the supplies scanty. the steam launch from the united states navy-yard was placed at my service and provisioned for a week. i started out to the district assigned me, comprising the following named islands: hilton head, pinkney, harry young, savage, hunting, bull's, spring, barataria and dawfuskie, with bluffton on the mainland south of broad river, a treacherous stream, four miles wide, which received the full fury of the atlantic and renders navigation by small craft hazardous. to prevent as far as possible any imposition on the part of applicants for relief, who were not in absolute necessity, i made my inspection from house to house, going into their corn cribs and estimating from their supply on hand how long they could _exist_ without assistance. the condition of their houses, clothing and sickness in their families was also carefully noted. the stagnant water lying on the land, with no outlet, the hot sun, beating down on decaying animal and vegetable matter, the drinking water all polluted, had caused malaria in its worst form to be general amongst the people. with my medicine case constantly with me, scantily provided with quinine and other simple remedies, i relieved the cases as i met them, sending the worst cases to beaufort, where they could be attended to by one of the doctors on the staff of the red cross located at headquarters. after examining some three hundred families on hilton head island, after driving from one end of the island to the other--fifteen miles--and being met on every hand with appeals for aid of every description, from young and old, from strong, healthy, able-bodied men to weak, tottering old uncles and aunties, i concluded that issuance of relief, without requiring some work from those able to work, would be demoralizing, and act as an incentive to people outside to flock to the islands, claiming assistance. what work should be organized was the next question. there were no ditches on the islands. those which had been dug in ante-bellum times had become filled up. had there been any outlet or drainage of any description, so that the waters could have run off the land, the loss of crops consequent on the heavy rains which followed the storm would not have been so serious. i therefore put those who were able to work digging ditches, those refusing to work i refused assistance. the result of this was that a total length of about thirty-seven miles of ditches, varying from two to four feet wide and from two to six feet deep, were dug. the benefit of this work was apparent during the summer and fall following, which was an unusually wet season, and in the bottom lands, but for these ditches, the crops would have been inundated. as it was, exceptionally good crops were produced, the health of the island was improved and a large area of otherwise waste land was reclaimed and rendered tillable. after visiting my district i concluded to make hilton head my headquarters. there was no building available so tents had to be brought over for our use as storage, hospital, sewing and living accommodations. what willing hands to help make our camp comfortable! some making cupboards, desks, stools, benches, bedsteads, out of old packing boxes, some gathering moss to lay on the floor as a carpet, and finally unfurling the red cross flag to the breeze and we were established. to simplify the work of issuing supplies weekly, i gave each family a card. on this i marked everything to be issued and each issue was crossed off, preventing it being presented twice in one week. it also enabled the old and sick to send by children or any one else, and receive the supplies without coming themselves. how shall i describe our daily work? no regular hours, no routine, no system apparently, and yet everything went along in the twenty-four hours of duty as smoothly as possible. no regular hours? no; unless from sunrise to sunrise may be counted regular. no routine--no system? no; unless attending to everything as soon as it presented itself may be called system. at daylight the applicants would be around the tents waiting to see "mr. red cross," and from then on a steady stream of people, some sick, wanting medicine; some hungry, wanting food; some ragged, wanting clothes; some loafers, wanting anything they could get. as soon as this stream could be stemmed, and a little breakfast eaten hastily, came visits to the sick who were unable to come to us; and in all sorts and conditions of vehicles, from a shaky cart with an ox as motive power, to a roadcart behind a mule, we went wherever we were called. on returning to camp, deputations of applicants from other islands would be in waiting, and while eating dinner, these would be attended to. after this the men working on the ditches would be visited. when it became dark and everyone had gone home, we would visit our hospital tents, make patients comfortable for the night, and retire to our own tents, hoping to sleep, hoping against hope, for "the poor ye have always with you:" and this case was no exception, for at all hours of the night we were called out to go anywhere from one to six or seven miles, to attend someone who was sick or dying. in the midst of this work visits had to be paid periodically to the other islands in my district (where i had local committees to look after the distribution of supplies) often taking up two or three days. and what a scene of bustle our camp presented every friday when the supplies came! thirty or forty carts in line at the landing--the boat arrives--all hands help unload, and then load the carts, the number of sacks or boxes in each cart being marked down against the driver, and away they go to the camp, three miles away. as soon as they arrive, the crowd of waiting recipients hand in their cards, and as they are called in one by one, their bags ready opened, the "weekly ration" is quickly measured, dropped in, the card returned marked, and away they go. while all this is being done, a flotilla of small boats from the other islands in the district, is at the landing, and as each "captain" presents his order issued by me, my storekeeper gives him the supply for his island, and away he goes home, to enact the same scene with cards and empty bags and hungry people. nor was this all. houses must be built, lumber and nails measured and distributed (tents being provided for the houseless temporarily). those whose houses were not damaged were required to help others rebuild. their clothing had to be brought over, repaired and distributed. how this was done is shown in mrs. macdonald's report. this seems very simple to write about now after a year's lapse of time, but it does not convey to the mind of the reader the constant anxiety resting on the mind of the red cross officer, with, as i had, 2,554 people in absolute need of all the necessaries of life; separated from beaufort, the source from which i had to draw all my supplies, by broad river, with the majority of the boats in this district rendered helpless by the storm--it was a matter of constant anxiety how i should get my weekly supplies for this large number of people, scattered over so large a territory, with so many rivers to cross. if the supplies were not here on time, think of these people having to tramp home empty-handed to hungry children, who could not understand that "it was too rough to cross broad river." with this difficulty constantly before me, it is a satisfaction now to put on record the self-sacrificing zeal of one colored man on hilton head island--ben green--who placed his boat and the services of himself and men at my disposal and, without fee or reward of any kind, for several months, during good and bad weather, brought over the large amount of supplies required for this district. another anxiety was, whether, when the boat went to beaufort, sufficient supplies would be on hand to satisfy the demands of all the districts, or whether i should be put on "half rations." amid all this anxiety, there were occasional gleams of sunshine to cheer us in our arduous work, as, when i received from miss sarah s. monroe, of 13 w. ninth street, new york, two boxes of delicacies for the sick, and, after mrs. macdonald had cooked beef tea, corn starch, etc., and sent it round by little girls to the old and sick, how they would "tank de good lawd fer sendin' de buckra to look after us po' cull'd folks;" how the name of "miss cla' ba'ton" was on everybody's tongue, the infant girls named clara barton and the boys "red cross." the self-appointed "red cross deacons," with an enormous red cross stitched on a piece of white cotton and worn on the left arm, were conspicuous in showing their gratitude for the bounty received. then, when planting time came and seeds of every description and in large quantities were distributed to them, how eagerly they worked in their gardens, planting garden "yarbs" (herbs) and then their corn, cotton, etc. our thanks are due to the j.c. vaughan seed store of new york and chicago (through mr. burt eddy, their southern agent), for a large supply of potatoes and other seeds sent direct to me. a brief summary of food supplies issued in my district shows: meat 7,440 lbs. grits 16,410 pecks. beef 395 lbs. } milk 192 cans } for the sick. coffee 143 lbs. } sugar 120 lbs. } [illustration: testimonial from russian workmen for american help and sympathy in the famine of 1892.] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. a russian peasant village _scene taken during the famine_] there were 454 cases of sickness treated at the camp and 75 visits made to the sick at home. in may, with the vegetables and wild fruits in good supply and marketable, their crops all growing well, i asked the people, "can you manage to get along now without further help?" they answered "yes; we are thankful for what has been done for us, and will try to pull through till harvest, alone." on the twentieth of may i issued a month's supply to each family, took down the red cross flag and closed the relief work for this district. a year has passed since then. i am now a permanent resident on hilton head island. i watched the crops grow, saw a good harvest gathered in, the people resumed their old-time cheerful tone, and the storm became a memory. with the exception of a very few old people who are hardly able to totter, and have no one to plant or work for them, the people of this island are again prosperous and happy. occasionally some kind friend enables me still to make some old uncle or auntie happy with a little help, and so they totter down to "where the storms shall cease to roll." clothing branch, hilton head district. report by mrs. macdonald. accustomed as i had been, in chicago and other large cities, to see a miscellaneous assortment of rags worn under the name of clothing, i was little prepared for the sight of the almost nude condition of the great mass of people, which came to my notice on first entering on the relief work of the sea island sufferers. after a couple of days and nights spent in the clothing room in beaufort, packing barrels and boxes for the hilton head district, we proceeded there and amid loud exclamations of "closen" had the freight hauled to our camp. before an hour had passed we were besieged with applicants, but as our present supply was limited, we could only attend to a few of the worst cases, and these were told to come at ten o'clock the next morning. having already procured the information regarding the families--ages, sex and number of children--we spent the time in putting into bundles suitable clothing for such as had been told to come. fearful of being late, they began to assemble by daylight, and as each man or woman was seen emerging, "toting" the bundle, a hum of voices would assail the lucky one with "bress de lawd; what ye done get?" the experience with this first installment showed that some work must be expended on the clothing before distribution, to make it more serviceable. as the men were put to work in the ditches, so the women who were able to leave their families were called on for a week's work each in the sewing tents; a sewing machine was borrowed from one, and miss mary clark (who was put in charge) assorted the garments, giving to some patching to do, to others buttons to sew on, to others apparently useless garments to make into children's clothing. when all got steadily to work, one would commence a patter song, the rest would quickly join in, and, to the accompanying rattle of the sewing machine, work and music blended. to hear them sing, one would hardly think they had just passed through a great calamity; but it was the calm which follows the storm--they knew their troubles were over, and they were going to get "kiverin" for the "chilluns." how they worked! garment after garment was quickly mended, examined by miss clark for faults, and then placed in its proper barrel, ready for giving away. when all the clothing had been repaired, the list of needy ones was examined, and, as before, the _most needy_ told to come the next day. but the "most needy" generally included half the island, for telegrams never flew faster than did the news that clothes were going to be issued. then, when the last garment had been issued, some happy, some dejected, they would go away to await the next issue. so week by week, a constant stream of barrels, boxes and bundles would be received, mended and given away to those who, many of them, hardly knew what a whole garment was. occasionally one, more crafty than the rest, would try to excite extra sympathy by producing a goodly array of "motherless chilluns," borrowed for the occasion, in the hope of getting an extra supply, not knowing that we already knew the full number and ages of each family. the system adopted by the red cross of first quietly getting its information complete, and then going to work, knowing what to do and how to do it, showed its value in preventing imposition, which must always be met with to some extent, in all charitable work. in this way 3,400 garments were repaired and given away in this district, besides shoes, hats, etc. while the sewing was in progress in one tent, i helped attend the cases in the hospital tents, and made daily calls when necessary on patients who were unable to come to me. my experience in hahnemann hospital, chicago, fitted me for this part of the work. in all this work the lack of suitable supplies had to be overcome. as soon as our busiest season had passed and the sickness had abated, i opened a free school in one room of our house, expecting to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to ten pupils. the attendance rose almost immediately to forty and we gave up another room to the use of the school, and i had one of the older pupils assist me with the younger ones. to mr. proudfit, of morristown, n.j., are due our thanks for his generous contributions, enabling us to purchase slates, books and other school supplies. warehouse and shipping department. in introducing the dual reports of dr. e.w. egan, i imagine that i realize something of the feeling of the queen of sheba when she proclaimed that the half had not been told. the practical, unswerving and unique method of procedure pursued by dr. egan with these thousands of ignorant, hungry wards and waifs would constitute an interesting study for the most advanced philanthropist. the problem, as he tersely states it, of how to make thirty thousand dollars feed and shelter thirty thousand people a year, was not easily solved; and yet, largely under his original calculation and undeviating faithfulness to his own plans, it was solved, and how successfully, all the years from that time to this have testified. the medical aid which he established among these poor, deluded sufferers was as if an advanced clinic from his _alma mater_, jefferson college, or the university of pennsylvania, had been suddenly opened in their midst. the old dislocated joints, broken bones, tumors, internal diseases, carried about and dragged on through years of pain, disappeared; they literally took up their beds and walked. their faithful hearts, like their eyes, followed him in admiring confidence, as with hurried step and quick glance he passed among the distributers of the warehouse; and if he told them that a pound of meat and a peck of grits was enough for a week--all they could have and must be supplemented either by work, if obtainable, or fish or game, if it could be caught--there was no complaint, no demur: "the doctor said so, and it was all right." it is a comfort to me as i write to know that his skillful hand is now on the keys that have for such weary months locked in the untold agonies of the terrible dens in western cuba, designated, for the lack of some more appropriate term, as "hospitals." report by e. winfield egan, m.d. the first official word of the port royal relief field, ambiguously called the sea island relief field, came to dr. j.b. hubbell, the general field agent of the american national red cross, with whom it was my privilege to be at indianapolis, attending the annual reunion of the grand army, where, for the first time in the history of that organization, the red cross of geneva took its place upon the arms of the surgeons, the ambulances and the tents which were regularly distributed along the line of march. twenty-four hours found us en route to beaufort, s.c., which was to be the headquarters of the american national red cross, through its year of effort to take care of 30,000 human beings living upon the islands, known as the "sea island" or old port royal group, as they were called during the war, lying off the coast of south carolina, between charleston and savannah, and which had been devastated by that memorable cyclone of august 27, 1893. i reported to the president, at headquarters, for duty the twenty-eighth day of september, 1893. upon arrival i found the president and field secretary quartered in an unused club house, using parts of billiard tables for dining purposes, desks made of dry goods boxes, crude furniture made in a day and nicely upholstered with manila paper--in short, it was camping out indoors. the local relief committee was still in charge, miss barton and her staff meeting with them by invitation as an advisory board. the red cross headquarters was the scene of busy census takers; men from every part of the field were constantly coming and going, bringing reports of the number of people, their condition, the condition of their homes and their needs. their reports were being carefully indexed and entered upon one great book for future reference, a record of the greatest relief field america has ever known. october 2, came my "marching orders" which were, "take charge of the warehouse and stores, make an inventory of them, disperse these men and rid this city of the demoralizing influence of idle people." the doors were closed and preparations for an inventory begun. the manner of distribution previous to november 2, though performed by willing workers, was not, could not be, that systematic distribution which comes only after years of experience. the warehouse had to be cleaned, partitioned, shelved and made ready for the repacking, separating heavy from light goods, and getting ready for receiving and shipping. the inventory showed not enough food to keep ten families two weeks. on november 9, the doors of all the departments at headquarters were opened. the question of remuneration for workmen's services must be determined upon and a standard adopted. there were at headquarters twenty-five workmen in-doors--white and colored--beside the cartmen and out-door laborers. a standard of fifty cents in value was adopted for a day's work and was given in flour, meal, grits, pork, or whatever there was in the storeroom at the end of each day, and the next day an entirely new set of men was employed, and this daily change lasted over a month, thus distributing to over a thousand people something beside the _regular weekly_ distribution. women were engaged to sew sacks and other light work (just as necessary as heavier), and they were paid in the same manner and at the same rate as men. will some of my readers think that these women, some with large families to support, and all having some one depending upon them, should receive less than the men, because they were women? shovels, spades and axes came in a few days in response to an order from our president, and men were put upon the public roads to clear and improve their condition and repair the damage which the storm had done. the tools were all marked before they left headquarters with a greek cross--on the steel or iron part they were stamped with a steel die and the wood handles were burned with an iron die. this marking served many purposes. there was an indescribable respect for the red cross among the people it served and its insignia was its representative which meant a great deal for them. it removed a temptation; they were instructed that those implements were only loaned and must not see idle days, and were to be passed on to the next workmen when their labors were finished. the marking made them undesirable property and none were lost, though hundreds were at work all the time. many were broken, and the pieces were returned to headquarters, mended and put into circulation again. other sets of workmen were those who opened old drains and made new ones through the low farming portions of the islands. these men generally worked one week in relays of twelve. (a more detailed account of these drains will be found in the general field agent's report.) six months later, when the high water came, a few who had refused to go into these relays of workmen and open the drains, lost much of their crop--could a rebuke have been more eloquent? all the workmen were paid from headquarters through their overseer, who received the clothing, grits and meat, and proportioned it to each man. in all cases where a man worked, he received the regular weekly allowance of one peck of grits and one pound of meat, in addition to what he received for his work. the spirit shown by these people, after they had been instructed in the demoralizing effect of free and plenteous distribution, was remarkable: they did not beg for food, they asked for work, and the red cross made work for them. the relief supply was received at three points: the railroad station, about one and a quarter miles from headquarters, the steamer "pilot boy," bringing goods from charleston, and the "alpha," bringing a few goods from savannah. freight was brought to headquarters in small carts drawn by horses or cattle of any kind, and it was always an interesting sight to the stranger: the animals were driven with a bit, with ropes for harness, and in most instances the bend of a tree had been sawed out and used as saddles, on which were ropes or wire holding up the shafts, with burlap or crudely made cushions to protect the animal's back--all indications of the primitive condition of a people who were to be the wards of the red cross for a year, but who were also to be given an object lesson in practical life which was more to them, more to the country, than the little allowance of grits and meat to which they must add something more to support their families. "they must not eat the bread of idleness," said our president. "we must not leave a race of beggars, but teach them the manliness of self-support, and methods of self-dependence." the distributing was done through sub-committee men, representing anywhere from five people into the hundreds. they were the appointees of the local relief committee and retained to the end of the field, with but few exceptions. they came weekly, tri-monthly and monthly; those who came thirty and forty miles in crude boats were given supplies enough to last a month, for it was a long and sometimes difficult journey. each sub-committee man presented himself at headquarters and was referred, in his turn, to the main office, where an order was issued for whatever the notes of the investigating committee called for--grits, meat, nails, hatchets, saws, lumber and clothing the most frequent. these orders were brought to the shipping room, where they were filled, marked with name of sub-committee man, his address and a red greek cross, the insignia which would entitle it to protection and many times free transport to its destination. a complete record of this was made in the shipping room. a most important step was the uniform issue to each person on the red cross books. how was it to be done? what could be done? all important questions were as familiar to each officer as his own department questions. the president would call her staff together (and many times it was in the small hours of the morning) and present the question for consideration. it was at one of these meetings the fact had been presented that the prime problem was "how to feed 30,000 people with $30,000 for one year?" it was evident that they must be provided with a way to produce something themselves, and to this end all assistance was given. one peck of grits and one pound of pork to a family of seven for one week was the regular red cross supply, and this was given to all who needed assistance, and the laboring men received one peck and one pound for their work. the description given us of the negro on our arrival was not flattering. "he cannot be trusted!" "he'll steal anything he can get!" "you can't make him work!" and similar expressions came from all sides. but miss barton had seen the negro before and knew the best way to lift him up, and her wisdom was manifest all through that field, as the splendid gardens (producing more than the people could eat or sell), the mended condition of the clothing, the division of cottages into rooms, the carefully selected, bottled and labeled seeds for next year's planting, and the general elevation of their habits proved beyond argument. they were treated like gentlemen and they felt the responsibility. they were trusted and told so, and they lived up to the trust. they were shown the necessity of work, and they worked like men and women. no race of people could have borne their affliction better, more cheerfully (they are pre-eminently a cheerful, happy people) and with less record of crime than did these 30,000 people, the vast majority of whom were negroes. one important and erroneous impression among some of the less intelligent was that seeds were of little account which they raised in their own garden, and the proper procedure was to buy each year from the merchants "new and good seeds," and that practice was common. one day one of the sub-committee men brought in a very large, magnificent onion, and with some pride presented it as a result of his work, and said, "miss barton, if i could git some ob dat y'ar seed, i reckon i could raise onyun 'nough to pay fo a critter nex' year." "well," said miss barton, "do you think you could not raise seeds enough from those onions?" "oh, bress you, no marm. you see dem ain' good what we raise; we has to buy de seed." then followed a long explanation and agricultural logic such as jack owen (for that is his name) had never heard before, and when he left he said: "to tink dat i could'n know befo' dat a good onyun mus' bring good seed, and dat good seed mus' bring good onyun. i sabe my seed now, sho." when he returned to his plantation, he called his neighbors together and gave them as many of the instructive points as he could remember, and they now plant seeds of their own raising and have established, in a very crude way, an exchange of seeds from "up country" and neighboring islands. an early crop was of great importance to the wards of the red cross, and our president began to look around for white potatoes, knowing their early productiveness. the merchants said the soil would not raise them; the negro would not take care of them; they did not know what they were, and if they did raise them, they would not eat them. inquiry showed them to cost $5.00 per barrel, and was it any wonder they did not eat them? in the face of all this opposition miss barton ordered over one thousand bushels of white potatoes for planting. these were brought to headquarters and cut into small pieces (each having an eye or sprout)--a novel sight, the forty women cutting potatoes for seed. these were distributed from headquarters and from the two red cross sub-stations--wadmalaw island and hilton head island--representing respectively the northern and southern end of the district. it is almost needless to add that the potatoes were planted, from which a fine crop was raised and eaten, and the people were grateful. corn for planting was another important distribution; 2200 bushels of corn were distributed, and a second crop raised by many who had never asked mother earth for more than one crop. there were many doubts among the people as to the possibility of a second crop, so a second planting was urged to get the fodder for their cattle, and the full corn in the ear rewarded their second planting. medical and sanitary report. by e. winfield egan, m.d. the storm had left the sanitary condition of the islands in a very unhealthy state, and it became necessary to establish a medical and surgical department at headquarters. dr. magruder of the united states marine hospital service had done very efficient work in the vicinity of beaufort, but many of the wells refilled with a brackish red-colored water and there were many cases of illness, two-thirds of which were fever, which, in the healthiest times, exists upon the islands. it required many emptyings of the wells to get good water and many wells had to be abandoned, as good water could not be brought into them. a clinic and dispensary was opened from 12 till 2 daily, at headquarters, and patients were required to see a local physician before they applied to the red cross, and if they could not get medical aid from any other source they were admitted and treated. this precaution was taken to protect the local physicians, who were themselves heavy losers by the cyclone and could not afford to do as much as they wished to. there were some noble-hearted men among them who counted no sacrifice too great to relieve their fellow beings. it is always the policy of the red cross to protect the merchants and people who have goods to sell, and giving in the way it does, it not only protects, but improves their business after the first effects of the calamity have passed off--say two or three months (according to the field) and it is conceded at every field where the red cross has worked, that it has left the locality more prosperous than even before its calamity. the average number of patients treated daily between november ninth and april 2d at this clinic was seventy-three. nights were devoted to seeing those patients who were unable to leave their beds, and this "out-patient" service was only made possible by the tireless, faithful and competent nurses who had volunteered their services to the cause of humanity and had been assigned to the medical department by miss barton. patients came from all parts of the field, and as there was no hospital, they were placed in families who were on the supply list, and something additional given for the care of the sick. sunday was given wholly to surgical cases and the operating room was often opened at daylight and not closed till dark; operations varying from a simple incised wound to a laperotomy were performed and the crude appliances often made the surgeon wish for a moderately well equipped operating room in one of our hospitals. it would be difficult to write a very clear medical history of the majority of cases from a subjective examination, and i insert one as an example: "i got a lump in de stomach here, sir" (pointing just above the pubic bone), "and he jump up in de t'roat and den i gits swingness in de head. dat lump he done gone all over sometime; i fine him here and den he go way down in de leg." april 2. a telegram from our president (who was in washington, d.c.), ordered me to the northern end of the district, with headquarters on james island, and on april 4 the scarlet banner of humanity waved over a hastily arranged office where for two weeks from forty to fifty patients were seen every day, when it became evident the trouble was in their drinking water. a tour of the island showed wells only twelve inches deep and draining the surface for rods around. these were curbed, cleaned, dug deeper and in many instances filled up and new ones dug. three barrels were generally sunk for curbing. this labor was performed without a promise to pay, willingly and well, and it was not long before the daily number of applicants for medical aid on james island was reduced to ten or twelve. medicines and surgical dressings were provided for the work in this district by mr. e.m. wister, of philadelphia, mr. john wright, of greenfield, mass., and others. these gentlemen not only contributed, but came personally to the field to lend their aid, the former spending a week at a time in the cumbahee river district, in a small crude boat, among the unhealthiest parts of the islands. many rough places were smoothed by mr. w.g. hinson, of james island, who did much to lighten the work of the red cross representatives in his locality, and it is always a pleasure to look back upon his efforts to help the people in their affliction. one of the great evils existing upon the islands is the charlatanism practiced upon the ignorant. "traveling doctors," who never saw a materia medica, infest the country and sell every imaginable cure, as well as cures which are not imaginable. removing lizards, toads and various other things from various parts of the body is one form and perhaps the highest type of medical fraud. the "doctor" will declare the patient "conjured," and at once contract to remove the offending spirit, the usual fee being five dollars; in 90 per cent of such cases, he takes a lien on a cow, horse, or pig, and finally, by foreclosure, gets the animal, for by the present unjust system of trial justices, almost any verdict may be rendered. i was asked to see a case one evening which was described to be a sore arm. it was four miles distant, but the husband of the patient had driven over for me because "de pain is powerful bad, sir." i found the woman sitting in a chair, her right arm resting on a barrel that had been rolled in for the occasion, an immense poultice of bread, meal, feathers and numerous other ingredients wrapped around the arm, the whole weighing about three pounds. as i lifted the cloth i found a mass of the ordinary ground worms dead upon the surface. with a cry of pleasure, the couple said, "dat 'em! dat 'em! he tole us dat arm full of worm and sho' 'nuf he come out." could anything appeal more piteously; could it be more pathetic? think, at our very doors exists such barbarity, while each year thousands upon thousands of dollars go as many miles to help a people far beyond some of the people of our own country. i removed the poultice, washed the arm, and found a compound communicated fracture of both bones of the forearm. who could stand by such a picture with an unmoved heart or an unmoistened eye! tell her the error? no; only asked her not to let strangers treat her when she was ill and advised her to go to some doctor she knew in the future. dried green peas coated with sugar was one of the staple drugs, and others as useless, but not as harmless. i found there a grateful people. they would bring eggs, chickens, berries and all kinds of gifts, including money, and when told that the red cross never received pay for its work, it was hard for them to understand; but as weeks passed, they learned it and tried to help each other as they had been helped. on the first of june the medical distributing department of the american national red cross was closed and all the officers were ordered to headquarters, where the field was closed and the president and staff left for charleston, to repack and ship to the northern district, june 7, 1894. then came a few weeks at the charleston headquarters. through the courtesy of mr. kaufman, his long warehouse (150 feet by 40 feet) was at the disposal of the red cross from the time it received the charleston committee to the close of its field, with privilege of occupying it as long as they wished. tents were pitched in this room and miss barton and her staff lived there until june 30, when the field was officially closed. miss barton and her party went to washington, leaving dr. hubbell, the general field agent and myself. crops of vegetables and corn, building and ditching were in progress and instruction was necessary, and this instruction was given as follows: each day we would meet from fifty to three or four hundred people and give them a good practical talk, with about these headings for notes: "owe no man anything." how to keep out of debt. don't sell cotton before it is picked. plant more vegetables, and why. divide cottages into rooms. don't mortgage, which was a continuation of the instruction given daily from the beginning of the field. these talks were of much help and the islanders would drive miles to get the advice which they knew was given unselfishly. relief methods in the field. however brilliant may be the scintillations lighting up the descriptions of the worker who sees a field for the first or the first few times, it is always to the steady-burning flame of the veteran of all the fields from the earliest to the latest, that we look for the steady light, by which we shall see the calm facts, and so far as possible, the machinery that moves the whole. it will be remembered that dr. hubbell was the agent of the red cross in the michigan fires of the north in 1881. we saw him in the snows of russia, and now find him at the islands. the doctor's reports are always an unknown quantity. they may be but a few sentences; they may be many pages, but never too much. i will ask of him that he give his report independently, and not to me. the various topics which he will touch, render this preferable: dr. hubbell's report. on this field there were many _first_ things to be done. among these were the feeding of the people, rebuilding the houses, cleaning out the wells, draining the land of salt water, clothing and placing the people in ways to help themselves; half a million feet of lumber to be rafted down to accessible points, from the mills on the rivers which emptied into the waters of these island inlets. while this was being floated down, the well men and women were instructed in different kinds of work: to take care of the helpless, rebuild their homes, and to provide shelter and food for themselves. while the people of these islands, in great measure, own their little tracts of land, they retain the old plantation name for their home. these plantations usually contain from twenty to forty families. the inhabitants of each plantation were directed to select a representative from their own number who should be the representative and committeeman for that plantation, whose duty it should be to communicate with the red cross, receive and distribute supplies for his people, and be the director of the various kinds of work that should be carried on among his people. these committeemen from all over the islands would come to headquarters to receive their instruction--food, seeds, tools, clothing, and learn the methods of work. these committeemen were received at headquarters by miss barton personally as well as by her officers, and careful explanations given to them that the supplies and the help that we were to give were in no way from the government, as many supposed from their memory of the old "freedmen bureau" days, but that they were the contributions very largely of poor people from over the country, who themselves had little to give, for the times were hard, but these had heard of the pitiable condition of the storm sufferers, and were willing and glad to divide the little they had to help them into their homes again. the funds we had in hand, they were made to understand, were very small, far less than we could wish, not likely to be much increased, and we should depend upon them to help us to use them to the very best advantage, and we would do our best in the same way to help them. among the early contributions were a quantity of garden seeds. more were sent for, particularly of those vegetables that would grow there profitably during the late autumn and winter. it may not be generally known that it was not the custom of these people to plant anything but cotton, corn, sweet potatoes and rice. hence they knew almost nothing about the raising of other field or garden products. these committeemen were carefully instructed and directed how to prepare the ground and plant the various kinds of new seeds which were put up in packages for families, which he would take home and in turn instruct his people what to do with them; in this way lettuce, onions, and garden peas were planted, and in a few weeks these plantings began to supply them with a vegetable food to go along with their grits and meat. from among those who could handle tools, building committees were formed whose duty it was to repair and rebuild the houses, first, of widows and the infirm, and afterward, their own. these committees were furnished with nails, lumber, and the necessary hardware; tools were purchased, marked with the insignia, and loaned until their work should be finished, when they would be returned and another committee would take these same tools and begin work on another plantation. at the same time a foreman for ditching would be elected from a plantation, who would select his force of men, clean out the wells and ditch the lands of his plantation, working jointly with adjoining plantations, so that the ditching of one piece of land should not flood his neighbor. spades, shovels, axes, hoes, mattocks, were furnished these men, who, when their work was finished, would return the tools to headquarters for others to take and work with in the same way. men acquainted with the building of flood gates, or "trunks," as they are called, and dams, built and put these in to protect the openings of the ditches from the incoming tides. through their committees each man was instructed to split out palings from the fallen timber and fence in a large garden, so that it should be secure from his chickens and pigs. nails and tools were likewise furnished for this work, frows, crosscut saws, axes, hatchets, hammers, etc. as the season advanced, in february, the planting time, seedmen of new york and philadelphia, as well as other cities, hearing of the success of these amateur gardeners through the winter season, sent generously from their stores, and the congressmen of several districts joined them in directing the seeds in the agricultural department apportioned for their distribution to be sent direct to the red cross for the sea islanders. again these committeemen, as formerly, were called and instructed in the manner of preparing the ground and planting _each kind_ of seed, with instructions to communicate what he had learned to his neighbors, as before. as these people had never before made gardens, even the leading business men and merchants laughed at the idea of attempting to "make truck gardeners out of these people." notwithstanding this, miss barton bought nine hundred bushels of early rose potatoes. women were set at work carefully cutting these into one or two eyes each for planting. this provision also removed any possible temptation, with their scant provisions, to use them at once for food. the seed corn, like everything else in all this vicinity, had been destroyed by the storm. again miss barton sent to the ohio valley for two carloads of seed corn. this was distributed over the entire storm-swept section, and many of these people at harvest time said that if the storm had brought them nothing but this new variety of seed corn, it would have been a blessing, for their crop was double what it had ever been before. in order to preserve the quality of the famed "sea island cotton," which is a special variety, with long, silky fibre, used for making thread, the furnishing of this seed was given to the care of the local cotton merchants, who were directly interested in preserving its high standard and market value. [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. receiving room for clothing, s.c. island relief, 1893-94.] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. south carolina sea island relief. _distributing day for st. helena and ladies' island at massey's ferry opposite beaufort. beaufort in the distance at the right._] in the feeding and "rationing" of these people they were as carefully instructed in the principles of economy and care as in other lines of work. where a fisherman could be found, he was furnished with a boat or net to supply his people with fish to help out with the living, and this was a great aid. the living ration for a family of seven was half a peck of grits a week and a pound of pork, simply as an insurance against starvation for those not having work. those who were at organized work under a regular foreman received double that amount, _i.e._, two pecks of grits or meal and two pounds of pork a week for each man. at all times these people were cautioned about going into debt for any purpose, and so faithfully did they follow these suggestions that when we questioned them in their churches when their corn was ready to use, no more than one in thirty had contracted debts for food or living supplies,--a matter of special interest in view of the fact that it has always been the custom of the country, to go into debt for food supplies until the crop should be ready for market. true, on some of these islands additional help was received from other sources, notably on st. helena, ladies and port royal, through the influence of some of the resident merchants and other friends--local merchants rebuilding their stores and warehouses gave employment to some, shipping to others, and later, a partial reopening of the phosphate industry brought labor to others. it will be remembered that these people were constantly receiving lessons in practical economy, and suggestions in improvising and turning to best account what they might have at hand. these instructions, coming from miss barton direct made a deep impression on the minds of these people, and they were faithfully followed up by her representatives, who had received their lessons beforehand in practical, common sense economy. i recall an incident. after showing a number of the committeemen through the office and living apartments at headquarters, where they saw desks, working tables, book shelves, washstands, wardrobes, commodes, all neatly covered with manila paper or hung with tasty calico curtains or draperies, with neat and attractive effect--and then when shown the constructions they were amazed to find that nearly every piece of furniture before them was made from various sizes of dry goods boxes (that are usually broken up for kindlings) with shelves inside or on top, as occasion required. one of these committeemen made the practical remark that this half-hour observation and instruction was worth just seventy-five dollars to him, for it showed him how for the present he could save that amount of debt, which he considered necessary to make his house furnishing comfortable for his family. careful reports of tools borrowed and returned, of work done each week, as the basis of additional food support, encouraged accuracy, system and responsibility. i hope it may not prove too tedious if a few average reports of committees are here given from different sections of the field and a sample "labor sheet" to more clearly show some of the kinds of work done, and the character and spirit of the people. the labor sheet is intended to be a record of the tools given out and returned, the number of men at work, the kind of work done--whether ditches, bridges, roads, dams, repairing wrecked houses, or building new ones, digging wells, building chimneys, fencing gardens, splitting boards or shingles, etc., and also the record of the condition as observed by the visitor or inspector of the work. the following sample is the work of committeeman jackson gillison, of stuart point, port royal island, being one of the first who began work: labor on port royal island. committee, jack gillison. stuart's point, place. building and repairing. tools taken tools number out. returned. number. of men. description. ------------------------ 1893 dec. sandy brown's house, 12 x 18, rebuilt. 1 15 12 abby hamilton's " 12 x 15, " shalcot mack's " 10 x 15, " thomas devoe's " 10 x 15, " robert marshall's " 15 x 15, " august dunkin's " 12 x 18, " storm jackson's " shingled. sanford howard's " all except shingles. thomas williams' " " " " tissey small's " rebuilt. sibby robinson's " moved 200 feet on hill and blocked up. april alfred davis' " finished to the shingles. 27 12 24 dick bright's " finished after frame has been put up. ditching. 1894 feb. width. depth. length. 16 24 24 1 dike 15 3 400 1 " 15 4 700 1 " 6 4 500-1600 feet dikes. 1 ditch 2 3 1500 1 " 2 3 700 1 " 3 2 800 1 " 3 2 600 1 " 2 1 400 1 " 2 2 700 1 " 2 3 500 1 " 2 2 400 1 " 3 2 400 1 " 2 3 600 1 " 2 1 300 1 " 3 2 200 2 ditches 3 2 600 2 " 2 3 800 2 " 2 2 150-8650 ditches. april 1 trunk (tide gate), repaired 27 24 24 2 trunks (" " ), made 3 trunks. on ladies island george barnwell, foreman for eustis place and hazel farm, reports four houses built, ten repaired, 87,870 feet of ditching, fifty feet of dam, three miles of road across the island, thirty feet wide, cleared up and repaired; this latter required seventy-five men at work three weeks cutting out fallen trees, rebuilding bridges, and filling in washed places. barnwell says, in closing his report: the improvement of the land that is redeemed and put in good order for the farmers on eustice place, including the houses, is worth about three thousand dollars. july 20th, 1894. at that time we endorsed on this report the following: august 4th we inspected this work and found all well done, but we found several buildings that barnwell had begun were not mentioned in his report because they were _not finished_ when he made it. houses and ditches give evidence of good practical work. from two plantations on st. helena's island rev. d.e. washington's report shows 32,331 feet of ditching, two houses built, four repaired. the close of his report has this: to the red cross officers: we, the undersigned sufferers, return a vote of thanks to you for the goodness you have done for us by giving us ditches to save our crops. the value to us is $2000. d.e. washington, _agent of the mary ann chaplin, tom fripp and village plantations_. i find this observation on the back of this report, after a visit to look at his work and to speak to his people: august 13th, 1894, went over this work in part. the ditches are doing excellent service and have been of great value to the plantations during the wet season. it may be that the width of the ditches is hardly sufficient in all places, but the condition of the people is most gratifying, and the work of reverend washington has been markedly unselfish. on reaching his place we learned for the first time that his own house, a large plantation building of former years, had been burned just before the storm, and he has since been living in his stable. this personal loss he has never mentioned to the red cross people, although his duties as committeeman brought him in contact with them every week for nearly a year. from the mainland rev. wade hampton, in returning his tools, after making nearly one mile of canal and ditches, and 330 feet of causeway, says: we, the committee on said places (chaplin, fripp, toomer, and tom rhodes), return our sincere thanks to you for the rations and the tools to work with, for it was just the same as if you had given us a hundred dollars apiece. this is to the red cross, by your committee. most respectfully, wade hampton, _agent chaplin plantation_. from another section of the mainland, william grant, of pocotaligo, reports nearly two miles of canal eight feet wide, and about the same amount of ditches, and the building of four houses. jack snipe, a young man, almost a boy, after building 5 chimneys, getting out over 4000 shingles and clapboards, and repairing 11 houses, began and made 2000 feet of ditches, and we find this endorsement on his paper. "july 27, i went over part of jack snipe's work to-day. he was a hard working, conscientious man, but not very strong physically. after his work of building and repairing as the leader of his men, he took charge of the ditching; got sick from working in the water, and died soon after. mrs. barker, one of our volunteer trained nurses, worked faithfully during all his illness to save him, but in vain." ben watkins, on baker place, shows 19,562 feet of ditches, 1 house built, 2 repaired, 3 large gardens fenced, 7 wells dug. "july 24, 1894, inspected this work, both buildings and ditches, and found the work well done, the ditches being new and important, carrying the water from three large ponds. one main ditch is from four to seven feet deep, equally wide at the top. the crops are in excellent and promising condition, and watkins' work is more than he has claimed for it, besides being practical and well done. the gregorys and browns on baker place have attractive homes, neat and orderly, with appearances of thrift and industry." these quotations taken at random from a list of a hundred reports serve to give an idea of the kind and quality of the work done over the entire field, as well done in one district as another from charleston to savannah, a distance of 150 miles, including a large area of the mainland as well. while these people are in large measure cut off from the advantages that come from travel and contact with the outside world, they have a peculiar style of expression, and a musical sweetness of voice that is unusually attractive. they are of different origin and type from the virginia or "upland people;" many are good scholars, due largely to the schools of miss batoum and miss murray on st. helena, and others established soon after the war. nearly all read and write. still, there are some that retain the old-time style of expression, as in the following: "we's de bes garden i eber seen sence i was a man grown." "all de squash, de tomaty and de watermillion seed gone died, but de lo'd's will must be done." "all de house (houses) is done ractified." "i couldn't tell a lie, for i'z deacon in de chuch. i has to be respectable." another says: "i'v ben dar from de fust upstartment, and dar ain't ben de fust rag gin to dose people." another: a man who had seen the red cross staff getting on the boat to go to charleston said: "i tell you, doctor, when i see miss barton gettin' on the boat to go away i just _felt_ so, my eyes couldn't help leakin' water, for you all have saved us people." after the general relief had closed, and the body of the red cross staff had left, dr. egan remained with me to help finish the distribution of a remnant of supplies and tools that could be kept in use, and to encourage the continuance of the general improvements so well begun. considerable attention was given to visiting the work, and the people on the different islands in their churches, where practical suggestions were made on the line of the instructions they had received from headquarters at first. these talks were always preceded by an inspection of the fields, gardens, buildings and work which had been done on the place, for the purpose of better judging what kind of suggestions would be of most profit to the people; but the subjects usually taken up would be headlined thus: prosperity. keep out of debt. debt is a burden and a hindrance to prosperity, the cause of much trouble and bad feeling. "owe no man anything." how to keep out of debt. keep the garden producing something to live on the entire year. the climate here will allow this to be done. then a list of vegetables suitable for the soil and the climate that experience has shown can be raised with success. on the farm keep some kind of profitable crop growing the entire year, both for profit and for feed for the stock. follow the regular corn crop with a second one for fodder, or with some of the root crops, as turnips, beets, rutabagas, cabbage or collards. plant such things as the fowls will injure inside the garden fence. fruits; figs and grapes grow from cuttings, and are easily raised, if only protected from the pigs, the goats, or the cattle. pears, peaches, apples, oranges, pomegranates, pecans, walnuts, grow with a little care. (fine samples of vegetables and fruits raised on the islands, often by their own people, were shown in evidence.) let each one raise and preserve his own meat, or have a neighbor who has been successful, put it up for him until he learns how for himself. this point was particularly made, because the general custom of the country is to sell hogs for three or four cents a pound and pay twelve to sixteen cents a pound for pork. homes:--make them neat, light, attractive; have trees, flowers and the simple conveniences, any and all of which can be had by a little thought, labor and interest. in the line of health, use less pork, more vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, and pure water. good wells are necessary, ditches are necessary for health as well as for agricultural development. if all the plantations are well drained, it will in large measure banish fevers from the islands. observe among your people which one succeeds best in any undertaking, whether it is in the raising of a particular kind of crop, or the saving of it, the successful curing of his meat, the raising of fruit, the breeding of good stock, or having attractive home--go to _that one_ for that particular kind of information or instruction that you want. strive to improve the moral standing, which is necessary for physical as well as social advancement. no one who has been with these people, worked with them as we have, but must be pleased to observe their gratitude, their gentle manner of expressing it, their desire to improve and their attention to instruction or suggestion, their cheerful disposition and their faith in god and the red cross. on the charleston group. among those who lived the storm and later brought their experience and quickened sympathy to us for such help as they could give to their still suffering companions in danger and woe, was our tireless and faithful assistant, mr. h.l. bailey, of charleston. it has never been my good fortune to find one who--entirely new to the work and to its conception--has grasped more readily the field of labor presented to him. the success attending his work and the satisfaction attested by his beneficiaries are rich stores of memory for a lifetime. the red cross could not have asked for better service. report of mr. h.l. bailey. in order to make the following narrative more complete i deem it not amiss to preface it with a short account of my own experience in the great cyclone of 1893, and a few incidents relating thereto. in august, 1893, i was doing business on that part of edisto island, known as "little edisto," and spending the nights at a small place "just across the creek" called "brick house," said place taking its name from an old and substantial brick house which had been built on that spot, at a time ante-dating the revolutionary war, and much honored in that locality on account of its antiquity and the good material of which it was built, the bricks, etc., having been imported from holland. on saturday morning, august 30th, i went to my business on "little edisto" as usual, and on arriving i remarked to mr. whaley (my employer) how promising the crops were looking, and the bright prospects of a fine harvest. his answer was "yes; but i am afraid a storm is brewing, and one of unusual severity, too, because the signs of the last few days have been ominous of such, and i feel very uneasy." i, being young and skeptical, of course took no heed of his prophetic words, and alas, only a few hours more convinced me that something of unusual magnitude was upon us. i retired that night, and on awaking next morning (sunday) took breakfast, and parted from mr. w. to spend the day at "brick house," promising him to return that evening and remain all night. but circumstances intervened (which prevented me from doing so for several days later) so appalling that even as i write them now, a cold shudder comes over me, and all the horrors of that awful time come back. sunday morning dawned dull and hazy with a stiff breeze blowing from the east and in crossing the creek, i remarked to my companion that we would have bad weather, and on reaching "brick house" we all began speculating on the approaching storm (no one ever dreaming such a storm was coming), etc., etc., and so the day wore on, the wind rising higher and higher every moment, and towards afternoon the trees began to bend and sway in a terrible manner, branches and limbs flying in all directions. by sunset we were all thoroughly alarmed and moved over to the previously mentioned "brick house," deeming that the safest place to pass the night, and in a few hours' time the whole population of the village was gathered under its protecting roof, all feeling thankful a safe shelter was provided for us. how we passed that night of terror, only god knows, for the winds blew, the rain fell, and the tide rose, until towards midnight it seemed as if everything was lost; but the old house stood and carried us through until dawn of another day, and then what a sight met our anxious eyes. what had been a smiling pretty village, was nothing but a pile of wreckage and a mass of ruins, some houses having been washed away completely, and those that remained, so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable. to make matters worse even our food had been swept away, and there we were, cut off from the island on this point of land, wrecked, desolate and hungry, some of us with only the clothing on our backs, all the balance gone; and as far as the eye could reach there was nothing to see but water, and those spots from which the tide had receded, covered with portions of houses, trunks of clothing broken open and scattered, drowned poultry, and every crop ruined and prostrated. after a little while we found some grist that had been saved by a colored man, and cooking this with some saltwater and "drowned" chicken, we subsisted till evening, when help came in the shape of water and food. by wednesday i returned to "little edisto" and mr. whaley, who i had been so anxious about during the storm. i found the brave old man "holding the fort," and trying to save, by drying out, etc., what the storm had left; but oh! how different everything looked. what had been of so much promise and beauty had been literally swept from the face of the earth, nothing remaining but ruin, desolation and death for those whose all had been taken from them if help did not come quickly. it is hard for those who were not there to realize such a condition of things; but just imagine a whole island completely covered with water (and a raging sea, at that) from three to six feet in depth. can you wonder that so many poor creatures were drowned or that anything was saved at all? fortunately mr. whaley had saved some provisions which were stored in his house out of the reach of the tide, and gathering up all else we could find, we began issuing food to the poor hungry negroes around us, who had been entirely bereft of their all. and there i stayed on that little island for some time after the cyclone, giving out each day of our own little store, food, medicine and comfort to those who came, trusting that when that supply was exhausted, other means would be provided to carry on the good work, thus so nobly begun; for it must be understood that those who had, freely gave to those who had not, and the men of that section worked hand to hand and heart to heart to help those of their colored brethren, who otherwise must have died of hunger, sickness and exposure. such then, was the condition of affairs when news was received that the red cross would take the field, and a sigh of relief, and a prayer to god went up from thousands of homeless, hungry, helpless and demoralized people, who had gone through so much, it seemed a miracle they were still alive. i then went to charleston and immediately wrote to miss barton offering her my services, telling her of my knowledge of the people and the islands, and how glad i would be to help her in any way to relieve the necessities of the thousands that were begging for help. my offer was accepted; a telegram summoning me to beaufort, the red cross headquarters, and there i made the acquaintance of the noble lady who had come to our stricken people with her valued corps of assistants, to perform a task that was gigantic in its contemplation. i was retained by miss barton in beaufort three weeks, and by practical teaching was soon able to grasp intelligently the true intents and purposes of the red cross, and able then to undertake any duty assigned me. i was then sent to take charge of the district composed of edisto, wadmalaw, john's and kiawah islands, the first three named being very large islands, with a combined population of nearly 10,000 souls. kiawah being directly on the sea was almost entirely submerged by tidewater, and on the other islands, those portions which were directly exposed to the sea and the tributary streams suffered in like manner. cotton, the main dependence of the people, was almost totally destroyed, and only in some localities were any potatoes and corn saved, and these badly damaged. i found _many_ people hungry, destitute, without suitable habitation or sufficient clothing and badly demoralized. such, then, was the condition of things when i took charge, and how to meet the various problems that arose, and to cover this territory in the most intelligent and speedy way of course became my first object. after planning a little i soon arrived at a happy solution, and proceeded to organize the territory into working condition. rockville, on wadmalaw island, had been selected as the most central point to work from, and making this my headquarters and basis of supplies, i secured a house and was soon comfortably fixed, with sufficient supplies on hand to meet the immediate wants of the people. to reach all these people quickly and often was the next point to be settled (scattered as they were over an area of vast dimensions, divided in many places by streams, at times dangerous to navigate). this difficulty was overcome by thoroughly canvassing each island, and establishing one or more sub-stations at the most central location, and from these stations i would each week make my distribution of rations, receive reports, arrange work for the coming week and transact other business. all this time petitions of various kinds had been coming in, and my time was fully occupied in seeking out those who were in immediate want, among the old people and children especially, and i soon got that settled sufficiently to give me a chance to start all able-bodied men, that needed help, in ditching, house-building, bridge-building and any other work i could find that would benefit the general community; and soon i had large forces at work on each island. a school for children was established at rockville, which was successfully conducted for some time, and a wharf built, which is as unique as it is substantial, having been built by native workmen with raw materials cut and hewn out of the woods, the piles being driven by a pile driver of our own construction. this wharf stands to-day, a monument of strength and an object lesson to those who were doubtful of its completion. on the several islands much good work was done; new dams being thrown up; bridges rebuilt and abandoned lands reclaimed. i occupied this field for over eight months, and during that time visited every district one day of each week and personally distributed all rations given out, thus being certain that nothing was misappropriated. from monday until saturday i would travel by team and boat, on an average of twenty miles a day, never allowing rain, wind or anything else to keep me from going, as some of these poor people had to walk miles to reach the point of distribution, and i could not disappoint them and cause them to go back empty handed. the distribution of seeds, as they came in season, was started from the beginning, and soon gardens of various dimensions began to spring up in all directions, thus making another valuable food supply which was practically inexhaustible, as long as no frosts interfered. happily the season was propitious, and the people by these little gardens were well supplied with vegetables of all kinds. corn, bean and irish potato seed were also supplied. knowing these people as well as i did (having been amongst them from childhood), i had a peculiar sympathy for them, and in every possible way so conducted my affairs as to benefit and instruct them in the highest possible manner, the results obtained fully repaying me for all my exertions in their behalf. i never at any time found them anything but kind, respectful and extremely grateful for what was bestowed upon them, and the evidences shown to-day, amply testify to the good that was done by red cross methods and teachings. of course troubles and trials would arise, but these were soon overcome, and things would go on smoothly again. the methods adopted by miss barton, and through me carried out, gave universal satisfaction, and all able-bodied men were willing and anxious to work for their rations. the clothing (a large quantity), with the exception of that given by me in exchange for labor, was distributed through the sewing societies formed by miss barton. this field was taken in december, 1893, and held till august, 1894, when i left there, feeling satisfied that all danger from want and privation was over. vegetables had been abundant, still coming in, the rivers furnishing their portion in abundance of fish, etc.; all crops promising a good harvest, the people in the meantime having been brought safely through the most trying period of their lives. many incidents could be mentioned of the trials and sufferings endured by these people, and when the whole story is told, those who bestowed their charity in this, the most appalling disaster that has ever visited our coast, will not feel that it was injudiciously expended, or their kindness misplaced. too much cannot be said in praise of miss barton, that great and wise general, on this most peculiar and difficult field, for there never was a man or woman who labored more zealously or untiringly in a work so varied in its character or harder to perform. enough has been said to tell the arduous duties to be performed, and the cares and anxieties attendant upon a work of this kind, but after a hard day's work, the consciousness of having made so many poor souls happy would take away all feeling of fatigue, and long in the night would we be packing and unpacking goods and clothing, and sometimes all day sunday, thus showing that no amount of time or effort was spared in behalf of those dependent upon us. in regard to the good accomplished by the red cross (a question so often asked), can more be said than this? that human life was saved from death by starvation; the homeless were housed, and the naked were clothed, and by our words of counsel and cheer we were enabled to give new hope and life to a people who were in a most pitiable condition. some _who were not_ on that hard fought field have been so bold as to criticise us, but we who were there with these people in their hour of need, and worked with them heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder, know what we did and the everlasting good accomplished. i kept a complete record of all goods received and everything given out, from a pint of grits to a barrel of clothing. committees composed of the most intelligent men and women were formed to investigate and report for each plantation, and as each new applicant appeared, their home was immediately visited, and relief extended according to their needs. in justice to all who came, i can truly say that in very few instances was i imposed upon, as they very seldom stated other than the truth in regard to their condition. this narrative could be extended indefinitely, there is so much to write about, but fear i must come to a close, as my patient readers must be tired by this time. sincerely trusting that these lines will convey their true meaning to those interested, i will subscribe myself as a sincere admirer of miss barton and that grand institution she so fittingly represents. eight thousand one hundred and nine souls were in the wards of the red cross in this district, in the following proportions on each island: edisto 1,812 wadmalaw 2,123 south john's 1,650 north john's 2,469 kiawah 55 ---- 8,109 upwards of 200 packages of clothing (barrels, boxes and cases) were given out, besides blankets, comforters, etc., special attention being given to those who were sick, old or helpless. food stuff was distributed in the following amount: grits 1,527 bushels. meal 163 bushels. rice 672 pounds. wheat flour 23,980 pounds. bacon 7,000 pounds. and other sundries, such as tea, sugar, canned beef, etc. seeds were supplied, such as peas, tomatoes, okra, melon, bean, corn, etc., of the following amounts: corn 140 bushels. bean 60 bushels. irish potato 75 bushels. assorted seed 30 bushels. assorted seed 3 crates. garden seed 3 boxes. statement of work done on each island. wadmalaw island. twenty miles of ditching. one-half mile of road work. one house repaired and others rebuilt. three chimneys repaired and others rebuilt. five hundred shingles cut and split. six thousand feet of planking and timber hewn and cut. wharf built at rockville of the following dimensions: one hundred and ten feet long. ten feet wide with a bulkhead twenty by thirty feet. a school started and carried on for several months. edisto island. two hundred and eleven and one-half miles of ditching. one thousand four hundred and seventy feet of causeway, twelve by two feet, built. two hundred feet of timber cut and hewn. one bridge eighty feet long and twelve feet wide rebuilt. kiawah island one bridge thirty-four feet long and ten feet wide rebuilt and put in order. one bridge fifty feet long and ten feet wide rebuilt and put in order. lumber to do same cut and hewn out of woods. nine hundred feet of causeway repaired and put in good order. the above account does not include the hundreds of little things which would come up from day to day, and the many cares that were upon us at all times, requiring immediate attention. [illustration: the island district from savannah to beaufort.] the clothing department. whilst food for the nourishment of these thousands of human bodies was of the first and highest importance, it was followed so closely by the necessity of something to cover them, that the two seemed well nigh inseparable; and while our men stood over the boxes of meats and the bags of grain, by the carload and the trainload, it was no less imperative, that some one stand by the boxes and barrels of clothing sent from, everywhere--sent by the great, warm, pitying hearts of our blessed, generous countrywomen, from the church, with its towering steeple and the soft-toned bell that calls to prayer, the blazing bazaar, with its galaxies of beauty, animate and inanimate, the dimly lighted, one little room of the woman who has toiled out all day and returns weary and heavy laden to the waiting family of little ones, who, in the midst of their own hard life and the need of much, still bless god for a fate better than those they hear of--from all of these alike come the gifts of dorcas. in tons they come, and some one must, "stand and deliver," as hour by hour goes out the appeal: "closen marm--please give me some closen. i's lost all i had!" how literally true this was may be judged by the fact that here as at johnstown, there were those who came out of that terrific strife for life with no thread left on the body but the shirt band about the neck, which a strong, well-sewed button had served to hold. again, as always, we turned to our "mistress of the robes," mrs. dr. gardner, whose quick and clear judgment seems to double the value of all she handles. she goes to every field, helps to organize, and remains as long as the strength in her slender, wiry body permits. she left her unpretending report as far as she was able to do, or to make it: [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. sick with the famine fever.] [illustration: hunger stricken.] mrs. gardner's report. on the first day of october, 1893, the american national red cross took charge of the relief work of the sea islands of south carolina. during the month before this and just after the storm, the clothing department had been in the hands of a very efficient local committee composed of some of the most prominent ladies and gentlemen of the section around beaufort. in the first days after a disaster of this kind, the necessity of relief work is so great, that it is impossible to keep a correct record of supplies that pour in from every part of the country, and this was no exception, with both hearts, and hands full, distributing to the thousands of destitute who were imploring them on every hand for help, this committee had nothing to tell of what had been received. after we took charge, a faithful record was kept, and when there was a mark of any kind to show us where the goods came from, an acknowledgment was sent at once. many, many things came without a sign of any directions to tell where they were from. in these cases close watch was kept for any writing inside to give some clew. i have even taken the newspaper the box, barrel or parcel was lined with, and tried in that way to reach the donors. the people of the united states are a most generous people, and yet so modest with it, that they very often miss the verification of the saying that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." could they stand, as do the members of the national red cross, and look into the glad, grateful faces of the relieved ones, there would be no need of our president sending out circulars and letters all over the country, praying that articles for the relief be plainly marked. would it be out of place for me to urge the good people who read this report to remember this when sending to the next field? the distribution of the clothing had to be systematically planned. here was a territory 150 miles long by 50 miles wide, not on the main land, but on islands, surrounded by water, with the most treacherous channels, and many impossible to even get into. the people to be helped, kind and industrious, but they had been dependent from their cradles, and were in such a dazed condition, they hardly knew what had overtaken them. the clothing, plenty of it, but all for adults. what was to become of the little waifs of the wind, rain and high tide? evidently these goods had to be fashioned into little garments. bedding, comparatively none, and every few minutes the plea, "please miss, just a little bedding to keep the chilluns warm at night." i have stood at my table from 7 a.m. until way into the night, opening boxes, barrels and parcels, and not one piece of bedding to come to my hands. the people on half rations, thinly clothed and nothing to keep them warm of a night. this, as well as all other puzzling questions, were referred to our most honored president, and i have asked her to tell how she came to the rescue, and by her wise forethought not only assisted her own workers, but placed a responsibility upon the people that made them help each other, and gave them a self-respect that they would have gained in no other way. the sewing circles. there are many points in the administration of relief that will never present themselves until forced upon the mind by the absolute necessities of the case. it was not long until we were confronted with a condition of things that called for ingenious methods and diplomatic action. all _foods_ sent or purchased were always of good quality and in readiness for immediate distribution and use--these could be given to the committeeman, who in turn sent them out as veritable rations a specified quantity to each. there was no question, no judgment required, no opportunity for favoritism, no chance for reserve. but with the clothing all these conditions changed and securities vanished. the committeeman who came for the rations of food, took also the boxes of clothing, and naturally claimed the privilege of distribution. the clothing sent was very largely, as is always the case, for women and children. this rough negro, however well versed in corn meal, hominy and bacon, was not likely to prove a skillful manipulator of women's wardrobes. jealousies would arise and criminations follow. again the clothing was almost entirely secondhand, sent hastily, and usually so out of repair as to be nearly useless for actual wear until overlooked, mended, strengthened and put into proper condition. how was this to be done? thirty thousand people to clothe, winter at hand, little shelter, and almost no bedding--surely _we_ could not undertake this labor. that a poor, untaught negro laboring women, would never of herself mend a hole, or sew on a button, even if she had a button, a needle, and thread, and a place to do it in. how to formulate some system by which this could be done, how to get them under intelligent direction, to get the women interested and into the work and the men out of it, for the committeemen were fast gaining in importance and influence among the other men by reason of patronage, a kind of "political pull," one might say. i struggled with this problem some days, until finally--it might have been the spirit of the widow bedott that come to my assistance--for suddenly there flits through my perplexed mind the idea of "sewing societies." no amendment was required, and the resolution was put and motion carried in far less time than it had taken to evolve the idea. word went out at once that the president of the red cross, accompanied by her staff, of ladies especially, would be pleased to meet the women of one of the most important islands; that the meeting would be held in the interest of the women; that they might consider it _their_ meeting--but men were not forbidden--would they kindly appoint a day, and place of meeting, and the hour most convenient for themselves. the church which had been repaired was selected, and its clergyman notified us. it was a sunny autumn day when our party crossed over the ferry and landed on the sandy beach of coosaw, and took our pathways through the clumps of shrubs and trees, basking in the sunshine, but ripening and reddening with the dying year. soon groups of women commenced to appear from the by paths and the little trails on either side, dressed in the best we had given them, and traveled on with cheery faces, full of expectation. after a journey of perhaps two miles, the little "ractified" church came in sight, or rather would have come in sight but for the crowd of people gathered about it. the entrance was politely held clear for us. the little edifice, which would seat with its gallery perhaps two hundred persons, was packed with a waiting audience. the platform and desk had been reserved for the "extinguished visitors," and we took our places. the entire space filled and echoed with the sweet, plaintive melody that the negro voice alone can give. this was followed by earnest prayer by the pastor; then a little speech of welcome by the elder, and we were introduced to our audience. and, who could ask a more attentive or sympathetic audience than this! the president, who has addressed some bodies of people, never stood before one that she enjoyed or honored more. here was the simplicity of nature, the earnestness of truth, the innate trust in the love and care of the living god of heaven that even its winds and waves could not shake, and the glorious spirit of resignation that could suffer and be glad, if not strong. but to business. the situation was fully explained to them, and they were told that in spite of all we had for them, they alone could comfortably clothe themselves through the winter. then the plan of a well arranged sewing society, with its constitution, laws, officers and regulations was explained, and their approval and co-operation asked. on a unanimous assent, they were required to select twenty-five women from among them, who should retire for twenty minutes and discuss the subject among themselves, selecting their chief officers, and so far as possible, give us the points of their organization. in the body of women that rose and retired for consultation one saw good ground for hope of success. a part were the strong, matronly women, whose childhood and youth had been passed in the service of the hospitable home of the master in the old days of elegant luxury "'fo de wa'," and who needed no one to teach them courtesy or what belonged to a family household; others were sewing girls, some of whom had partially learned trades, and a few were teachers, for the great majority of the children of ten years and upwards on these islands had been taught to read. these women needed only the proper instruction, encouragement, the way opened for them, the suitable material distributed, and the liberty of action and conscience, with no patronage or politics invading their premises. the system formulated for one society became the system for all; each district which received rations of food had its regularly organized sewing society for the clothing sent to them on requisition. first some room was found, with a fire, shelves arranged for garments and tables for work. of the twenty-five official women, each should give one week of her time in every month, but changing regularly in order that at no time should there be more than one-fourth of the number new to the work in hand. four women should visit and inspect applicants for assistance, and two should attend entirely to the wants of the feeble and old and the sick, to see that they were in no way neglected. of those in the sewing room, a part cut over garments for children, as there are never enough of these; others repaired and mended. as the barrels and boxes went in from the committeemen, they were received and opened on one side of the room; when repaired they were placed on the shelves on the opposite side and given out from there on the recommendation of the visiting inspectors. along with the clothing went thread, needles, pins, thimbles, wax, shears, knives and pieces for mending. for the bedding, besides two thousand heavy wool blankets which were donated, as many more purchased; cotton batting and calico, or muslin, by the ton were bought, and the societies instructed in tying "comforts," which in many instances served as both cover and bed. there was never any complaint with these women about the time given to, or the labor performed, in this service for the common weal, and seldom any difficulty arose between them. if so, a few words set it right, and the offending individual was discovered, pointed out, and put out of the society, with the usual explanatory remark: "she want too much rule; she done always do make trouble." but whatever trials the day might bring to them, they were solaced and forgotten in the nice afternoon lunch, and the steaming cups of tea and coffee prepared by one of the members from the rations so wisely planned and faithfully sent by mrs. gardner. next to the absolute necessity for the distribution of food supplies, and the great essentials of life itself, i regard the sewing societies as perhaps the most important feature of the field. from these they learned not alone the lesson of self-help, but of mutual help, which they had never known before. it had never occurred to them to look about and see who was in need, and find a way to help it; and it was a glad satisfaction to hear their voluntary pledges when we left them, never to give up the custom of these societies, and the habit of caring for their poor. appended to mrs. gardner's report are long, tiresome lists of names of recipients, which, however necessary and business like in their time and place, we may well spare the reader in these belated years; but one little list appeals to me with such loving interest, that i am constrained to ask the privilege of inserting it. it is a partial roll of the presidents of the sewing societies, of whose tireless, faithful work no adequate description could be given. and when we read among them the name of mrs. admiral beardslee, and that missionary of scholarship and teaching on st. helena, miss ellen murray, the lovable and accomplished late wife of robert small, and mrs. john macdonald, who humbly and magnanimously placed themselves side by side with poor, unlettered, but honest and faithful patty frazier, and her kind, the reader will feel with me that it is indeed a roll of honor: _society._ _president._ coosaw works mrs. mary chaplain beaufort mrs. general small hilton head mrs. john macdonald wadmalaw mrs. frank whaley ladies' island mrs. sam green st. helena miss ellen murray coosaw island maria rivers bennet's point c.c. richardson musselboro mrs. phillips hutchinson, bolders,} w. rivers beef, warren } rockville h.l. bailey edisto amanda brown tommy johns mary jenkins johns island mrs. chas. wilson big state plantation jackson field jericho, rhetts f.c. garrett dixonville general saunders paris island mrs. beardslee tommy rhodes patty frazier christmas, which two months before had seemed but a veil of future blackness, opened bright and cheerful. most of the churches had been in some way reopened, and christmas eve brought again its melody, its prayer and its praise. there was in all this a christian spirit, so sweet, so much to be commended, that i could not refrain from passing in my little contribution of a christmas carol, for which they at once found a tune and sang it with a will. light-hearted, happy race. a christmas carol. for my 30,000 sea island friends. _a loving greeting and merry christmas._--clara barton. lo! the christmas morn is breaking, bring the angels bright array, for the christian world is waking, and the lord is born to-day. shout then, brothers; shout and pray, for the blessed lord is born to-day. no more tears and pain and sorrow, hark! i hear the angels say blessed be the bright to-morrow, for the lord is born to-day. shout then, sisters; shout and pray, for the blessed lord is born to-day. forget your night of sad disaster, cast your burdens all away, wait the coming of the master, for the lord is born to-day. shout then, children; shout and pray, for the blessed lord is born to-day. in the sunlight, soft and golden, round the babe the angels play; list, their notes so grand and olden, lo! the lord is born to-day. shout, all people; shout and pray. for the blessed lord is born to-day. clothing department--continued. as the work dropped from the weary hand of mrs. gardner, another, stronger, more fresh and new in the work, took it up. mrs. harriette l. reed, of boston, who, while never permanently with us, seldom allows a field to escape her. we regard it as a loss to any field where her genial presence, clear perception and sound judgment take no part. mrs. reed, like our beloved and brilliant countrywoman, mrs. logan, went to the civil war of 1861, a bride. her gallant young husband, captain j. sewall reed, took the first detachment of volunteer cavalry from california, known as the "california one hundred." he fell in an ambuscade, in the army of the potomac, 1864. his brave young wife was always with him at the front, and received his dead body when brought in. thus early bereft, she took up the march of life alone, and faithfully and tirelessly has she made it, with a cheering word and an outstretched hand to every weary comrade in the tedious march of more than three decades, and still she serves, and still they call her blessed. her graceful report, which has lain in my portfolio since 1893, now comes to light with its waiting companions: mrs. reed's report. the preceding account of the distribution of clothing, relates to the early part of the work covering a period of several months, and was under the charge of mrs. dr. gardner, of bedford, ind., who was called home. coming upon the scene about this time, i was more than glad to take up her work to a small extent, and for three months it was my privilege to labor in this field of the red cross work, bringing so often to my mind the words of the master, "for i was naked and ye clothed me." and what a strange, unusual and extraordinary field of labor it was and how unlike anything i had ever seen before. let me briefly picture a few of the regular types of "sufferers" besieging headquarters, the old, decrepit uncle of the days "befo' the wah" with white head and bent shoulders; the little one, toddling along behind the young mother, hiding in her tattered garments, with great black eyes peering through the rags; the strong young man, barefoot or with pieces of shoes tied on with strings, coat and pants that looked like relics of a bygone time and a conspicuous absence of under garments; the old-time "mammy" shivering with cold and begging for a little "closen" to keep her warm, all these and more were our daily, hourly visitors, imploring our aid and needing it oh, how sorely! and what heartrending tales of loss and sorrow and fearful destitution were brought to us by these messengers from a stricken people! many of them, before the cyclone, had comfortable little homes and clothing sufficient for their simple needs; occasionally a sewing machine was owned, and sometimes, in more favored homes, an organ. now, there was absolutely nothing of all this. parents, children, friends were gone--not a vestige left of the home; horses, mules, cows, hens swept away, and scarcely clothing enough left to cover part of the family. it was not an infrequent tale that fell upon our ears, that the little band that had left the home were all that could find sufficient clothing to come in and the rest were left nearly naked in consequence. very early in the morning a motley crowd gathered in the street, in the vicinity of headquarters, and all day long they were coming and going and it was far into the evening before the last one had departed. and, what a good-natured, patient, orderly crowd it was! seldom was there any loud talking, screaming, quarreling such as is ordinarily heard in a like gathering, in scenes with which i had been more familiar. the shadow of the terrible calamity that had befallen them had in no wise departed from them, and not yet had the dawn of the new day restored the happy, careless, cheery manner that seems to be natural to them. when they were admitted to the office, singly or in small groups, as was necessary, for our quarters were limited, how quietly, respectfully, they made their entrance! no crowding nor jostling to get the best places or be served first, but patiently waiting their turn, entering with a low bow or deep courtesy, they received the slip of paper that meant so much to them and, with words and tears of gratitude, withdrew as quietly as they came. it is simply impossible within the limits of this report, and indeed words are inadequate, to convey even a faint idea of the immensity of the labor required in this department. kind hearts all over our land had been stirred by the appeals that had been made for those needy ones, and boxes, barrels, bundles, all sorts and descriptions of these came pouring in upon us. all of these must be unpacked and sorted and again repacked before they could reach those for whom they were intended. think of this, careful housekeepers, as you sort over and pack away your family wardrobe and household goods. think what it would mean to sort over and pack away clothing for the use of thirty thousand people. * * * * * as i think it will not be without interest to our readers, to give a little closer view of the people among whom we worked; for this purpose i shall make a few extracts from various letters received at red cross headquarters. the first is a plea for help and is a fair sample of these papers, i copy words and spelling with no attempt at correction: miss clara barton the queen of the red cross society. we ar now, making a plead before you mam. we are the suffers of the storm. we beg you mam to helph we to som clothing. mam we ar all naked. mam, there is som old people is there mam can not helph thom self some motherlis children is there can not helph them self waiting for som clothing if you please mam. thanks you mam for the rashon (rations) we get it mam but no clothing we get we is the committee of the clothing. this is signed by the three women of the committee. as pleas for help came by mail, so also did letters of thanks and a few of these will tell their own story much better than any description of mine could possibly hope to do. here is one: we the people of this plantation have sen much thank to you dear madam for the closing (clothing) what you have send for ous the very children sen there thanks to you for the shoes an closing that you have sent for them an we the people pray day and night that the god of heaven will keep you an gard you an when this short life is pass heaven will be your home nothing more to say at present. signed by one member of the committee, a woman. as an instance of the desire of many of the committees in charge of the distribution of clothing, to be honest and fair, i copy another letter: miss barton: dear madam: mrs. diana williams president of sewing society no. 1 say she coming over for clothing on monday i dont think eny clothing need not right away i would like to see on my section how many needy person are not serve in clothing yet and plese dont send over no clothing before for it will take me some time. when clothing are need to go over i will let you now (know) for further information i can explain it something i like to say to you before eny more clothing go over. i have thus far mentioned the more pleasant features of this work, but no one will be surprised if i touch lightly upon some of its trials. life was not always "one long, bright, sunny day" in the sea islands, any more than it is in the more favored sections of our land. this great work of relief had its reverse side; the usual trials, disappointments and discouragements attending most lines of philanthropic work were not lacking here. not all were entirely content with the necessary restrictions and methods; not all were wholly satisfied with such things as could be found for them just at that time; not all committees worked in absolute peace and harmony, and the common faults of humanity in general were not wholly absent. i well remember one instance which will illustrate these conditions. two rival committees presented themselves before our president, both anxious to establish their rights and claims, and with great earnestness and vehemence related their grievances. with her usual wisdom and patience, sitting in their midst like a judge in his court, she pronounced the sentence which was that no more clothing should be issued to _either_ side for the present. this will explain the following letter: hon. miss barton: dear madam: we the people of this island give you grate thanks, for what you are doing for us. as the cormittee we have put before us, are doing all in their power and knowdge (knowledge) we believe, and dear madam the committee of the cloth (clothes) who went before you with the corruption we dont recunize (recognize) them in that for we the people of this island are very happy for all that you are doing for us. now dear madam we ask you, as we lern that the close are stop on account of the fust (fuss) that the cormittee made among themselves this we nows nothing about this nether the cormittee we put before us these don't no anything about it this is signed by twenty-two men of the island. scenes of this sort were not of frequent occurrence and were the exception to the rule of general satisfaction which prevailed everywhere. as the months went by, smiles returned to their faces and hope to their hearts, and by every method in their power, they evinced a most sincere desire to do something for their benefactors. delegations of men and women came from long distances, sailing in their boats days and nights, oftentimes to express their gratitude and thanks. with the coming of spring, they brought us early vegetables from their gardens, seeds having been furnished them by the red cross; they searched the woods and the fields for the beautiful wild flowers so abundant there, till our rooms were filled with beauty and fragrance and our hearts gladdened by their brightness. i have tried in this very imperfect report to give a little idea of our life at the sea islands and the manner of our work. its great magnitude, its far-reaching results must be imagined, for they cannot be told. the history of philanthropy has few brighter pages to record and its pleasant memories will gladden our hearts long after its weary hours are forgotten. leaving the field. if it be desirable to understand when to commence a work of relief, to know if the objects presented are actually such as to be benefited by the assistance which would be rendered, it is no less desirable and indispensable that one knows when to end such relief, in order to avoid, first, the weakening of effort and powers for self-sustenance; second, the encouragement of a tendency to beggary and pauperism, by dependence upon others which should be assumed by the persons themselves. it has always been the practice of the red cross to watch this matter closely and leave a field at the suitable moment when it could do so without injury or unnecessary suffering, thus leaving a wholesome stimulus on the part of the beneficiaries to help not only themselves individually, but each other. seldom a field, or any considerable work of relief which may have attracted public notice, comes to a close that there does not some person or body of persons arise and propose to continue the work under some new form, but using the former well established sources of supplies; to put out new appeals to old patrons, detailing great need, newly discovered, and thus keep the sympathetic public forever on the anxious seats of never-ending pity and help. we have been compelled to guard against this at the close of every long-continued field, notably johnstown, where it became necessary for the citizens to organize a "home relief" to keep sensational strangers off the ground, and their well arranged "benevolent union" of to-day is the result. the sea islands were no exception, and at the last moment of our stay a well-drawn petition was discovered (for it was to be kept concealed until we were gone), and was checked only by the vigorous aid of the charleston _news and courier_, of june 25, 1894, always our stay and friend in time of trouble. i append a letter to that journal which followed a visit from their able correspondent. the last weeks of our stay in that place were passed in charleston, hence the letter dates from there: _to the editor of the "news and courier," charleston, s.c._: if no other service called for my pen this morning it would be sufficient motive that it comes to thank you for the graceful, manly and cordial note of yesterday, which will always hold its place among my treasures of elegant literature, asking for a personal audience for your correspondent for some facts concerning the work which has recently been brought to a close. * * * it is little to say that, without the strong, honest support given in notes of no uncertain sound, bearing in every line the courage of its convictions, of the charleston _news and courier_, no work of relief of this great disaster could have lived and been carried on to any success. * * * the rations issued have been as follows: st. helena, 5,724 persons; ladies' island, including coosaw, corn, morgan and adjoining smaller islands, 3,500; hilton head, including the twelve islands in the group and adjoining mainland, including bluffton, 2,875; paris island, 597; port royal island, 2,666; kean's neck, situated on the mainland, including coosaw and pacific phosphate districts, 1,437; hutchinson island district, including bennett's and musselboro points, fenwick, seabrook, baird's, sampson and other smaller islands, 3,238; edisto, wadmalaw, john's and adjacent islands, 8,000. the above figures do not include the special issue on the mainland of 34,000 in number nor the regular labor rations of 6,500, which is a double ration. i say i was more than willing to leave all this needful detail to other hands, inasmuch as the subject which i desired to present is of a different nature, concerning the general points of welfare, and, may i say, reputation of south carolina, and addressed to the people of all this grand and goodly state of old renown. proud and chivalrous, all the world knows that it must be hard and distasteful for her to accept help under any conditions, and it is only in the fury of an elemental rage, as when the earth crumbles under her, or the seas roll over her, that anyone essays to attempt it; and it was for this reason, if no other had been needed, that i came personally to stand among my workers, and see to it that the red cross, at least, bear in all it did a demeanor of delicacy and respect, where it must extend its aid. i believe it has done this. it cannot be necessary to repeat at this late day that i was asked by your governor to accept the charge of the relief of the sufferers of the sea islands, of whom it was said there were thirty thousand who would need aid until they could raise something to subsist upon themselves. this was accepted with great hesitancy, and only in view of the fact that no other body of persons in all the land appeared to assume the responsibility, and with the cordial, unselfish and generous support of the advisory committee of charleston and beaufort, to whom our earnest thanks are due, the work has been carried on to a successful conclusion. it later developed that an equal number of persons, both white and colored, residing on the seagirt coast of the state, now known as the "mainland," were nearly as destitute as the islanders, and many of them equally storm swept. finding these people appealing to us, and well knowing that, in the depressed financial condition of the entire united states, we could not safely take on this double charge, we memorialized the south carolina legislature in november; the people, also under our advice, petitioned for a little aid to get them through the winter. the governor also recommended the suggestion. for some reason, which we never knew, no response was given. we never questioned this, but redoubled our exertions to meet the wants as they came by single rations issued upon application, until our books show an issue up to june 1 of over 34,000 to the needy white and colored on the mainland of the state, from charleston to savannah. no applicant, unless detected in absolute imposition, and this after having been repeatedly served with all he needed for the time, has ever been declined. our thirty thousand sea islanders have received their weekly rations of food, they have been taught to distribute their own clothing, making official report, and have done it well. they are a well clothed people, and over 20,000 garments have gone to the mainland. thousands of little homes have been rebuilt or repaired, and are occupied. over 245 miles of ditches have been made, reclaiming and improving many thousands of acres of land; nearly five tons of garden seeds, producing all varieties of vegetables in their well-fenced gardens of from a quarter of an acre to one acre and more for each family, with 800 bushels of peas and beans, have been provided. these seeds have been distributed on the islands and to every applicant from the mainland; 1,000 bushels of irish potato seed, 400 bushels of which went to the mainland; 1,800 bushels of seed corn, 800 bushels of this distributed on the mainland. those provisions, together with a revival of the phosphate industries, the fish in the rivers and their boats in repair, have served to make the 30,000 sea islanders, whom we were asked to take charge of nine months ago, a prosperous and self-helping people. they know this and realize that they can take care of themselves, and we cannot but regard any attempt at throwing them again upon the charities of the outside world as demoralizing, misleading and fatal to them, as a self-supporting and independent class of industrial people, and a matter which should concern the state whose wards they are. * * * * * clara barton. _charleston, s. c., june 24, 1894._ [illustration: miss barton's room. _sleeping apartments, on living floor, charleston red cross headquarters and warehouse._] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. in the old schloss of baden. _a group of the fourth international red cross conference held at the court of carlsruhe, baden, 1887._] [letterhead] _february 26, 1895._ _copy of circular letter sent to each clergyman and committeeman of our sea island relief work the season after we came away from the islands._ although the claims upon our time are more than we can meet by working all the day and much of the night, the memory and the interest of our faithful sea island friends with whom we worked last year, through the months that followed the great storm, still claim much of our thoughts. another planting season is approaching, and we are hoping that your people have been doing the preparatory work of ditching for the raising of good crops. if any have not begun this work, will you see those who would take an active interest in the public good, like yourself, and get them to start the work again at once, so that there may be as great an advance over last year's improvements as last year was over previous years. get the neighbors to join together and clean out the old ditches, make all the new main ditches and canals that they can, and then make the smaller ones to connect with them; this will help to give them better health, less fever, larger crops and better ones. we hope they will give particular attention to their gardens and have even better ones this year than they did last, improving each season by experience and by learning from one another, particularly from those who have been most successful. dr. hubbell has made a list of seeds profitable to plant, in two groups, as follows: for early planting. early purple-top strap-leaf turnip, early cabbage, lettuce, rutabaga turnips. in a hot-bed or in a protected place, where they can be covered at night when it is cold, the cabbage plants and tomato plants should be started at once, to be ready for transplanting when the ground is warm. for planting when the time for frost is past. early rose potatoes, onions (sets and seed), early turnip, blood beet, early corn, english peas, snap or wax beans, bush lima or sevier beans, early squash, okra, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, collards, late cabbage, taniers, and large sugar beet for stock. (some of these may be planted in the field.) in the field (with corn or cotton) pumpkins and large squashes, cantaloupes and watermelons may be planted. the garden should be well fertilized and no weeds or grass allowed to grow. the weeds take the nourishment from the plants, use up and waste the fertilizers. there should be a good fence to keep the chickens out; then the garden, with the chickens and their eggs, will furnish most of a good living for a family until the regular crops can be harvested and save from debt. a good garden and a variety of crops are as necessary for the prosperity of a farmer as they are for his health. every sea islander should plant now a few fig cuttings and a few grape cuttings, and such fruit trees as he may be able to get; peaches, pears, pecans. in a few years these plantings (if protected from the goats, pigs and cattle) will give plentiful fruit through the "dry season" (particularly the fig), and the grapes and other fruit will be a luxury and profit in their season, besides keeping the people in health. with good ditches everywhere, with plenty of vegetables from the gardens, figs and grapes, there should be almost no sickness on those prosperous islands, and every one should be happy. regarding the other crops, as cotton, corn, rice, sweet potatoes, peanuts and cow peas, the people should be encouraged to get and save the best seed. select from the earliest and best of their own or their neighbor's raising. fertilize as much as possible with those fertilizers that they can get by their own labor, such as marsh-grass, sea mud, stable compost, fish, oyster shell lime, ashes, etc. (and some commercial fertilizer). they should strive to raise the best of everything. the best yields the most for the same labor, and brings the highest price, gives the greatest satisfaction to him who grows it and him who buys it. that means prosperity, which we wish for you all in largest measure. enjoin the people to keep out of debt, to "owe no man anything;" this course will make the road of honesty and integrity easier and shorten the way to plenty and prosperity; speak no evil of thy neighbor, then all will work together happily in their public work of ditches, bridges, roads, wells, etc., and live happy in their homes. the people should not forget the fact that water from wells not thoroughly cleaned will breed fever and other sickness, and that good pure water will in a large degree keep the fever off. to encourage the general continuance of this work of improvement your people so readily took up at our request and carried on of yourselves to our gratification and to the astonishment of your old-time neighbors, i will have copies of this letter sent to other leading sea island citizens, thus all may be at work at the same time and all will receive the benefits of your united labors by lessened sickness and increased crops. may the good lord bless the efforts of a faithful people is the wish of your friend, clara barton, _president of the american red cross_. armenia. in november, 1895, the press commenced to warn us of a possible call for the relief of the terrible sufferings of armenia, which were engaging the attention of the civilized world. these warnings were followed later by a letter from rev. judson smith, d.d., of boston, secretary of the american board of commissioners for foreign missions, referring his suggestion back to rev. henry o. dwight, d.d., of the american board of foreign missions at constantinople. the american red cross was requested by these representative gentlemen, to undertake the distribution of relief funds among the sufferers of armenia. owing to the disturbed condition of the country and of its strict laws, combined as they were with existing racial and religious differences, it was found almost impossible at the moment to distribute the relief needed. the faithful but distressed resident missionaries were themselves helpless sufferers to a great extent and practically prisoners in their own houses. these had not always been spared to them in the wild excitement which reigned for several months previous, otherwise they would have been the normal channels for distributing aid. this written request from dr. smith was nearly identical with a similar one from mr. spencer trask, of new york, who, with others, was about to form a national armenian relief committee, to be established in that city. following their letters, both of these gentlemen, dr. smith and mr. trask, came to washington to personally urge our compliance with the request that we accept the charge of this distribution of relief funds. accustomed to the trials, responsibilities and hardships of field relief labor, this proposition seemed something to be shrunk from rather than accepted and we naturally hesitated. the idea, however, became public, and a general importunity on the part of the people became prevalent. the necessity for immediate action was urged; human beings were starving and could not be reached, hundreds of towns and villages had not been heard from since the fire and sword went over them, and no one else was so well prepared for the work of field relief, it was said, as ourselves. it was urged that we had a trained force of field workers, and as turkey was one of the signatory powers to the red cross treaty of geneva, having given its adhesion as long ago as july, 1865, it must consequently be familiar with its methods and humanitarian ideas. thus it was hoped that she would the more readily accept its presence than that of a more strange body of workers. these are only a shadowing of the reasons urged on behalf of our acceptance. under this pressure, coupled with our strong sympathies, the subject was taken into serious consideration with the simple demand on our part of two positive assurances: first, we must be assured by the committees that we were the choice of the people of the entire country, that there was no opposition to us, and that there was perfect unanimity between themselves; there must be nowhere any discord; the task would be difficult enough under the best conditions. second, that they had the funds to distribute. assured on both these points, our promise was given that we would go and do our best to make the desired distribution in the interior of asia minor. with this ray of hope that something might be done, the pent-up sympathies of the people burst forth. public meetings were held, addresses made, armenian conditions estimated, horrors reproduced, responsibilities placed, causes canvassed, and opinions expressed; honest, humane, and entirely natural, precisely the course to rouse public sentiment and indignation, if that were the only or the main object in view. in consideration, however, of the relief effort, it was of questionable wisdom perhaps, when it is borne in mind that we had yet to ask the opening of a door hitherto closed against the world, when we needed permission to enter, in order to reach the starving sufferers with the relief that was planning for them. in the enthusiasm of the hour, this fact seemed to be entirely lost sight of. it also seemed to be forgotten that if this difficult and delicate task were to be assigned to the red cross and its officers, that the making of their mission or of themselves personally, prominent or laudatory features of public gatherings where ottoman officials or representatives were always listeners, could not fail to render the post more difficult, and prospects of success more doubtful. the international and neutral character of the red cross, as a medium of relief in mitigation of war or overwhelming calamity, appeared to be overlooked or wholly misunderstood. it was not recognized that only by abstaining from discordant opinions could we be in a position to perform our work. by the obligations of the geneva treaty, all national controversies, racial distinctions, and differences in creed must be held in abeyance and only the needs of humanity considered. in this spirit alone can the red cross meet its obligations as the representative of the nations and governments of the world acting under it. but american enthusiasm is boundless, and its expression limitless; and the same breath that crushed the ottoman empire, scattered it to the winds or sunk it in the lowest depths, elevated the red cross and its proposed relief out of sight among the clouds. precautionary remonstrance from us was in vain, but it was not until after we had publicly given our consent, made all arrangements and appointed our aids, that the fruits of these ardent demonstrations became visible in a pronunciamento through the turkish minister resident at washington, prohibiting the red cross from entering turkey. i found this decision on the part of the bey and his government very natural and politically justifiable--our own government and people would probably have done the same or even more under similar conditions, provided similar conditions could have existed among them. i was ready to abide by the decision and remain at home. this, neither people nor committees, would consent to. of course our selected force of more than a score of trained and experienced field workers, each a specialist, must be given up. if any relief were now attempted it could only be individual, with two or three officers from headquarters as indispensable aids. previous to the announcement of the turkish minister prohibiting the red cross from entering turkey, the promise had been gained from us to leave by the steamship "new york" on the twenty-second of january, and notwithstanding the reply to a cablegram from the department of state to constantinople, asking if the prohibition against the entrance of the red cross was really official and from the government itself, or but semi-official, had not been received, our promise was kept and we sailed with this uncertainty resting over us. the picture of that scene is still vivid in my memory. crowded piers, wild with hurrahs, white with parting salutes, hearts beating with exultation and expectation--a little shorn band of five, prohibited, unsustained either by government or other authority, destined to a port five thousand miles away, from approach to which even the powers of the world had shrunk. what was it expected to do or how to do it? visions of don quixote and his windmills loomed up, as i turned away and wondered. a week at sea, to be met at midnight at southampton, by messenger down from london, to say that the prohibition was sustained, the red cross was forbidden, but that such persons as our minister, mr. terrell, would appoint, would be received. here was another delicate uncertainty which could not be committed to ottoman telegraph, and dr. hubbell was dispatched alone to constantinople (while we waited in london) to learn from mr. terrell his attitude toward ourselves and our mission. under favorable responses we proceeded, and reached constantinople on february 15; met a most cordial reception from all our own government officials, and located _pro tem._ at pera palace hotel; it being so recently after the stamboul massacres that no less public place was deemed safe. the following day we received in a body the members of the missionary board in constantinople, including its treasurer, w.w. peet, esq., and dr. washburn, president of robert college, and here commenced that friendly intercourse which continued without interruption, strengthening as the days wore on through the half year that followed, till moistened eyes and warm hand-grasp at parting told more plainly than words how fraught with confidence that intercourse had been. if one would look for peers of this accomplished christian body of our countrymen, they would only be found in the noble band of women, who, as wives, mothers and teachers, aid their labors and share their hardships, privations and dangers. i shall always feel it a privilege and an honor to have been called, even in a small way, to assist the efforts of this chosen body of our countrymen and women, whose faithful and devoted lives are made sacred to the service of god and their fellow men. the first step was to procure an introduction to the government which had in one sense refused me; and accompanied by minister terrell and his premier interpreter, gargiulo, perhaps the longest serving and one of the most experienced diplomatic officers in constantinople, i called by appointment upon tewfik pasha, the turkish minister of foreign affairs or minister of state. to those conversant with the personages connected with turkish affairs, i need not say that tewfik pasha is probably the foremost man of the government; a manly man, with a kind, fine face, and genial, polished manners. educated abroad, with advanced views on general subjects, he impresses one as a man who would sanction no wrong it was in his power to avert. we were received at the department of state in an uninterrupted interview lasting over an hour. as this was the main interview and the base of all our work, it is perhaps proper that i give it somewhat in detail. mr. terrell's introduction was most appropriate and well expressed, bearing with strong emphasis upon the suffering condition of the people of the interior in consequence of the massacres, and the great sympathy of the people of america, their intense desire to help them, the heartfelt interest in their missionaries whose burdens were greater than they ought to bear, and the desire to aid them, and that for all these reasons we had been asked to come; that our objects were purely humanitarian, having neither political, racial, nor religious bearing; that as the head of the organization thus represented i _could_ have no other ideas, and it was the privilege of putting these ideas into practice and the protection required meanwhile that the people of america, through him and through me, were asking. the pasha listened most attentively to the speech of mr. terrell, thanked him, and replied that this was well understood; that they knew the red cross and its president, and, turning to me, repeated: "we know you, miss barton; have long known you and your work. we would like to hear your plans for relief and what you desire." i proceeded to state them, bearing fully upon the fact that the condition to which the people of the interior of asia minor had been reduced by recent events had aroused the sympathy of the entire american people until they asked, almost to the extent of a demand, that assistance from them should be allowed to go directly to these sufferers, hundreds of whom had friends and relatives in america--a fact which naturally strengthened both the interest and the demand; that it was at the request of our people, _en masse_, that i and a few assistants had come; that our object would be to use the funds ourselves among the people needing them wherever they were found, in helping them to resume their former positions and avocations, thus relieving them from continued distress, the state from the burden of providing for them, and other nations and people from a torrent of sympathy which was both, hard to endure and unwholesome in its effects; that i had brought skilled agents, practical and experienced farmers whose first efforts would be to get the people back to their deserted fields and provide them with farming implements and material wherewith to put in summer crops and thus enable them to feed themselves. these would embrace plows, hoes, spades, seed-corn, wheat, and later, sickles, scythes, etc., for harvesting, with which to save the miles of autumn grain which we had heard of as growing on the great plains already in the ground before the trouble; also to provide for them such cattle and other animals as it would be possible to purchase or to get back; that if some such thing were not done before another winter, unless we had been greatly misinformed, the suffering there would shock the entire civilized world. none of us knew from personal observations, as yet, the full need of assistance, but had reason to believe it very great. that if my agents were permitted to go, such need as they found they would be prompt to relieve. on the other hand, if they did not find the need existing there, none would leave the field so gladly as they. there would be no respecting of persons; humanity alone would be their guide. "we have," i added, "brought only ourselves, no correspondent has accompanied us, and we shall have none, and shall not go home to write a book on turkey. we are not here for that. nothing shall be done in any concealed manner. all dispatches which we send will go openly through your own telegraph, and i should be glad if all that we shall write could be seen by your government. i cannot, of course, say what its character will be, but can vouch for its truth, fairness and integrity, and for the conduct of every leading man who shall be sent. i shall never counsel nor permit a sly or underhand action with your government, and you will pardon me, pasha, if i say that i shall expect the same treatment in return--such as i give i shall expect to receive." almost without a breath he replied--"and you shall have it. we honor your position and your wishes will be respected. such aid and protection as we are able to, we shall render." i then asked if it were necessary for me to see other officials. "no," he replied, "i speak for my government;" and with cordial good wishes, our interview closed. i never spoke personally with this gentleman again; all further business being officially transacted through the officers of our legation. yet i can truly say, as i have said of my first meeting with our matchless band of missionary workers, that here commenced an acquaintance which proved invaluable, and here were given pledges of mutual faith of which not a word was ever broken or invalidated on either side, and to which i owe what we were able to do through all asia minor. it is to the strong escorts ordered from the sublime porte for our expeditions and men, that i owe the fact that they all came back to me, and that i bring them home to you, tired and worn, but saved and useful still. dr. hubbell, and the leaders of the five expeditions tell us that they were never, even for a portion of a day, without an escort for protection, and this at the expense of the turkish government, and that without this protection they must not and could not have proceeded. [illustration: red cross headquarters, constantinople.] [illustration: view from red cross headquarters, constantinople.] [illustration: turkish cemetery.] this interview with tewfik pasha was equal to a permit. both minister terrell and myself cabled it to america as such. dr. hubbell, as general field agent, commenced at once to fit himself for a passage by the black sea, through sivas to harpoot. he had engaged a dragoman and assistants, and with ernest mason, who went with us as oriental linguist, was prepared to ship next day, when at sã�â©lamlik i was officially waited upon by a court chamberlain who informed me that although greatly regretting it, they were compelled to ask me to delay my expedition, in order to give the government time to translate and read some of the immense quantities of newspaper matter which was being thrown in upon them from america, and which from its context appeared to be official, representing all our state governors as engaged in a general move against turkey, and that the chief seat of operations was the national capitol. the chamberlain tried by motions to show me that there were bushels of papers, and that it was impossible for them to translate them at once; that if they prove to be official as appeared by the great names connected with them, it was imperative that the government consider them; but if it proved to be mere newspaper talk it was of no consequence, and i was begged to delay until they could investigate. having received some specimens myself, i did not wonder at this request, i only wondered at the kindly courtesy with which it was made. i will take the liberty of inserting one of the clippings which i had received as a sample of what turkey had to consider. this is only one among scores, which had led me to consider how, with these representations, we were ever to get any further: pro-armenian alliance. its work to be extended to the remotest sections of the united states--governors of states will aid. [special dispatch to the sunday _herald_.] washington, d.c., _february 8, 1896_. the pro-armenian alliance, with headquarters in this city, says the _evening news_, which is working hand in glove with miss clara barton and the red cross society for the relief of the armenians, is rapidly completing arrangements for extending its work to the remotest sections of the united states. the permanent organization of the alliance was perfected in this city a little over a week ago, when the following officers were elected: president, r.s. tharin; vice-presidents, b. sunderland, d.d., and i.e. gilbert, d.d.; secretary, h. l. sargent; treasurer, f.a. stier. within a few days the broadest promulgation of a pamphlet prepared by the alliance will begin. on the title page of the little book will appear these unique mottoes: "god against allah, christ against mohammed, bible against koran, heaven against hell!" it is proposed to proceed at once with the organization of local alliances throughout the union, any person connected with a christian organization or society, regardless of denomination, being eligible to membership. * * * * * the headquarters of the alliance at the national hotel are open from ten to twelve o'clock. it is intended to send out about two million of the pamphlets explaining the purposes of the alliance, in lots of two hundred thousand or more. the delegates to the national convention will be selected by the different local clubs. well knowing, however, that investigation would show no trace of government or other official authority, we decided to lose no time, but to prepare ourselves for work at the earliest moment; and taking up the rã�â´le of merchants, went into stamboul, and purchased from the great wholesale houses, immense quantities of such material as could not fail of being useful and needed, to be later taken by caravans into the interior. just at this interval, a request was brought to me by dr. washburn, of robert college, from sir philip currie, english ambassador, asking if i could not be "persuaded" to turn my expedition through the mediterranean, rather than the black sea, in order to reach marash and zeitoun, where the foreign consuls were at the moment convened. they had gotten word to him that ten thousand people in those two cities were down with four distinct epidemics--typhoid and typhus fevers, dysentery and smallpox--that the victims were dying in overwhelming numbers and that there was not a physician among them, all being either sick or dead, with no medicines and little food. this was not a case for "persuasion," but of heartfelt thanks from us all that sir philip had remembered to call us whom he had never met. but here was a hindrance. the only means of conveyance from constantinople to alexandretta were coasting boats, belonging to different nationalities, and which left only once in two weeks and irregularly at that. transport for our goods was secured on the first boat to leave, the goods taken to the wharf at galata, and at the latest moment in order to give time, a request was made to the government for _teskeres_ or traveling permits for dr. hubbell and assistants. to our surprise they were granted instantly, but by some delay on the part of the messenger sent for them, they reached a moment too late; the boat left a little more than promptly, taking with it our relief goods, and leaving the men on the dock to receive their permits only when the boat was beyond recall. it was really the fault of no one. with the least possible delay the doctor secured passage by the first boat to smyrna, and a fortunate chance boat from there, took him to alexandretta, via beyrout and tripoli, syria. the goods arrived in safety and two other of our assistants, whom we had called by cable from america, messrs. edward m. wistar and charles king wood, were also passed over to the same point with more goods. there caravans were fitted out to leave over the, to them, unknown track to aintab, as a first base. from this point the reports of each of these gentlemen made to me and compiled with this, will be living witnesses. i leave them to tell their own modest tales of exposure, severe travel, hard work and hardship, of which no word of complaint has ever passed their lips. there has been only gratitude and joy that they could do something in a cause at once so great and so terrible. these little changes and accidents of travel, of not the slightest importance or concern to any one but ourselves, were naturally picked up and cabled to america as "news." the naming of the mere facts, with neither explanations nor reasons assigned, could not be understood and only created confusion in the minds of the readers. they must, nevertheless, be accepted by our reporters, circulated and discussed by our anxious people and perplexed committees. the transcript of a paragraph from a letter received from america, march 25, will serve to recall, at this late date, something of the state of feeling at the moment prevailing in america: great doubt and dissatisfaction is felt here at the changeable course you seem to pursue--why you should propose to go first to the black sea, then to the mediterranean, then not at all. why to smyrna, then to alexandretta, points where nothing is the matter and no help needed? they feel that you do not understand your own course, or are being deceived--will never get into the country--a fact which, it is said, is clearly seen here. to further elucidate the intense feeling in our sympathetic country we give a few sentences from other letters received at that time: what are those folks doing over there? first we hear they are going to harpoot by the black sea, next they have gone to smyrna; there is nothing the matter at smyrna; next to alexandretta; what have they gone there for? that is no place to go; any one can go to alexandretta. they don't seem to know what they _are_ about. they will never get into the country; we said so when they went; they ought to have known better themselves; we knew the sultan would forbid them, as he has; they are only being duped. unpleasant and somewhat ludicrous as these criticisms were they served a purpose in coming back to us, as by them we were able to understand more fully the cables which had preceded them. "give us news in full of your doings, it is important that we know." every cable was answered with all the news we could send by that costly method. i had asked permission and escort for two caravans from alexandretta, but had learned later from them that they would unite and go together to aintab, in company with the rev. dr. fuller, of that city, who requires no introduction to the missionary or religious world. at this junction mr. gargiulo, of the legation, came to me in great haste (he having been sent for by the sublime porte) to know where our expeditions were. they had provided for two and could only get trace of one; where was the other? please get definite information and let them know at once. i had served on too many battlefields not to understand what this meant. i knew our men were in danger somewhere and some one was trying to protect them, and sent back the fullest information that there was but one expedition out, and waited. two days later came the news of the massacre at killis by the circassians. killis lay directly in their track, unknown to them, and the turkish troops had unexpectedly come up and taken them on. i can perhaps, at this distant date, give no more correct note of this, and the condition of things as found, than by an extract from a letter written by me at the time to our world's friend and mine, frances willard. we were at this moment securing the medical expedition for marash and zeitoun: dear frances willard: ... may i also send a message by you to our people, to your people and my people; in the name of your god and my god, ask them not to be discouraged in the good work they have undertaken. my heart would grow faint and words fail, were i to attempt to tell them the woes and the needs of these christian martyrs. but what need to tell? they already know what words can say--alone, bereft, forsaken, sick and heartbroken, without food, raiment or shelter, on the snow-piled mountain sides and along the smoking valleys they wander and linger and perish. what more should i say to our people, but to show them the picture of what they themselves have already done. the scores of holy men and women sustained by them, with prayers in their hearts, tears in their voices, hovering like angels and toiling like slaves, along all these borders of misery and woe, counting peril as gain and death as naught, so it is in his name. but here another picture rises; as if common woe were not enough, the angel of disease flaps his black wings like a pall, and in once bright zeitoun and marash contagion reigns. by scores, by hundreds, they die; no help, no medicine, no skill, little food, and the last yard of cotton gone to cover the sick and dying. to whom came the cry, "help or we perish! send us physicians!" the contributed gifts of america open the doors of classic beyrout, and ira harris, with his band of doctors, speeds his way. in eskandaroon sleep the waiting caravans. the order comes, "arise and go! henceforth your way is clear." camels heavy laden, not with ivory and jewels, gold in the ingot and silk in the bales, but food and raiment for the starving, the sick, and the dying. onward they sweep toward dread killis--the wild tribe's knives before, the moslem troops behind--"go on! we protect;" till at length the spires of aintab rise in view. weary the camels and weary the men--hubbell, fuller, wistar, wood, mason--names that should live in story for the brave deeds of that march but just begun. the quick, glad cry of welcome of a city that had known but terror, sorrow and neglect for months--a little rest, help given, and over the mountains deep in snow, weary and worn their caravans go, toiling on toward fever and death. let us leave them to their task. this is the work of america's people abroad. my message, through you, to her people at home--not to her small and poor, but to her rich and powerful people, is, remember this picture and be not weary in well doing. clara barton. while the first and second expeditions were fitting out from alexandretta, the terrible state of things at zeitoun and marash was confirmed by the leading missionaries there, and we were asked to assume the expense of physicians, druggists, medicines and medical relief in general. this we were only too glad to do. negotiations had already been opened by them with dr. george e. post, of beyrout, the glorious outcome of which was the going out of dr. ira harris, of tripoli, syria, with his corps of local physicians, and the marvelous results achieved. for some cause the doctor took the route via adana, rather than by alexandretta, and found himself in the midst of an unsafe country with insufficient escort. after a delay of two or three days, he got a dispatch to us at constantinople. this dispatch was immediately sent through our legation to the porte, and directly returned to me with the written assurance that the proper steps had been instantly taken. on the same day dr. harris left adana with a military escort that took his expedition through, leaving it only when safe in marash. dr. hubbell had arrived some days previous, but following instructions left immediately on the arrival of dr. harris, to pursue his investigations in the villages, and supply the general need of the people wherever found. this formed really the fourth expedition in the field at that early date, as the separate charges later so efficiently assumed by messrs. wistar and wood, who were on the ground previous to the medical expedition, became known as the second and third expeditions. it will be inferred that the assignment, furnishing and direction of these several expeditions, nearly a thousand miles distant, four weeks by personal travel, six weeks to write a letter and get reply, from two days to almost any time by telegraph, according to the condition of the wires, and in any language from turkish and greek to arabic, with all other duties immediately surrounding, could not leave large leisure for home correspondence. while conscious of a restlessness on this score, we began to be mystified by the nature and text of dispatches from committees at home: "contributors object to turkish distribution." what could it mean? we could only reply: "do not understand your dispatch. please explain." these were followed by others of a similar character from other sources; finally letters expressing great regret at the means to which i had been compelled to resort in order to accomplish my distribution, and the disastrous effect it could not fail to have upon the raising of funds. "well, it was probably the only way to do, they had expected it, in fact, foretold it all the time."--what had i done? the mystery deepened. finally, through the waste of waters and the lapse of time it got to me.--a little four-line cablegram from constantinople as follows: the council of ministers has decided that miss clara barton can work only in conjunction with the turkish commission in the distribution of relief, and can only use their lists of destitute armenians. an irade to that effect is expected. no one had thought to inquire if this statement were _true_, no one had referred it to me, and as well as i ought to be known by our people, the question if i would be _likely_ to take such a step, seems not to have been raised. it had been taken for granted through all america, england, and even the missionary boards of turkey, that i had pledged myself and signed papers, to distribute the funds entrusted to me, under turkish inspection and from lists furnished by turkish officials. myself and my officers appeared to be the only persons who had never heard of it. astonished and pained beyond measure it was plainly and emphatically denied. our press books of that date are marvels of denial. sir philip currie and the turkish government itself, came to the rescue, declaring that no such course was ever intended. secretary olney was cabled to try "to make the people of america understand that the turkish government did not interfere with their distribution." in spite of all this, it went on until people and committees were discouraged; the latter cabling that in the present state of feeling little or nothing more could be expected, and gently suggesting the propriety of sending the balance in hand to other parties for distribution. my own national red cross officers in america, hurt and disgusted at the unjust form affairs were taking, in sympathy, advised the leaving of the field and returning home. here was a singular condition of affairs. a great international work of relief, every department of which was succeeding beyond all expectation, wherein no mistakes had been made, letters of gratitude and blessing pouring in from every field of labor, finances carefully handled and no pressure for funds. on the other hand a whole nation in a panic, strong committees going to pieces, and brave faithful officers driven through pity to despair and contempt, and the cause about to be abandoned and given up to the lasting harm of all humanity. so desperate a case called for quick and heroic measures. realizing the position of the committees from their own sad reports, i at once cabled relieving them from further contributions: "_we will finish the field without further aid._" to my red cross officers i dictated the following letter, which i believe was used somewhat by the harassed committees in struggling on to their feet again: ayaz-pacha, taxim, constantinople, _april 18, 1896_. p.v. degraw, esq., _corresponding secretary_, _american national red cross, washington, d.c., u.s.a._: dear. mr. degraw: i received both your and stephen e. barton's heavy-hearted and friendly letters, and they fell on soil about as heavy. i could not understand how it could be, for i knew we had done our best, and i _believed_ the best that could have been done under the circumstances and conditions. i knew we held a great, well organized relief that would be needed as nothing else could be. that, besides us, there was no one to handle the terrible scourge that was settling down--no one here, no one to come, who could touch it. i knew i was _not_ interfered with; that no "restrictions" nor propositions had been imposed or even offered; that the government was considerate and accorded all i asked. but what had stirred america up and set it, apparently, against us? the relief societies going to pieces, and turning sad glances here? we could not understand it. i did not wonder that you thought we "had best come home," still i knew we would not; indeed, we could not. i have a body of relief on these fields, hundreds of miles away in the mountains, a thousand miles from me, that i could not draw off in six weeks, and if we were to, it would be to abandon thousands of poor, sick, suffering wretches to a fate that ought to shock the entire world. sick, foodless, naked, and not one doctor and no medicine among them; whole cities scourged and left to their fate, to die without a hand raised to help excepting the three or four resolute missionaries, tired, worn, god-serving, at their posts until they drop. the civilized world running over with skilful physicians, and not one there; no one to arrange to get them there; to pay expenses, take special charge and thus make it possible for them to go. and we, seeing that state of things, holding in our grasp the relief we had been weeks preparing and organizing in anticipation of this, to turn back, draw off our helpers, send back the doctors already started, give all up because somebody had said something, the press had circulated it, the world had believed it, our disappointed committees had lost heart and grown sore struggling with an occupation rather new to them, and the people had taken alarm and failed to sustain them. was this all there was of us? no purpose of our own? "on change," like the price of wheat on the market? in the name of god and humanity this field must be carried, these people must be rescued; skill, care, medicines and food for the sick must reach them. and it is a glad sight to my soul to think of turkish troops taking these bands of doctors on to marash. they have done it, and are at this very hour marching on with them to their field of labor. what does one care for criticism, disapproval or approval, under circumstances like these. don't be troubled--we can carry it. we are fair financiers, not dismayed, and god helping, can save our hospitals. it remains to be said that the remedy was effective. the panic settled away and it is to be hoped that there are few people in any country to-day who do not understand that america's fund was distributed by its own agents, without molestation or advices from the turkish or any other government. i have named this incident, not so much as a direct feature of the work of distribution, nor to elicit sympathy, as to point a characteristic of our people and the customs of the times in which we are living, in the hope that reflection may draw from it some lessons for the future. one cannot fail to see how nearly a misguided enthusiasm, desire for sensational news, vital action without thought or reflection, came to the overthrowing of their entire object, the destruction of all that had been or has since been accomplished for humanity, and the burial of their grand work and hopes in a defeated and disgraceful grave, which, in their confusion, they would never have realized that they had dug for themselves. they are to-day justly proud of their work and the world is proud of them. [illustration: chief of the dersin kourds and his three sub-chiefs. (north of harpoot.)] [illustration: chief of the dersin kourds.] our very limited number of assistants made it necessary that each take a separate charge as soon as possible; and the division at aintab and the hastening of the first division, under dr. hubbell, northeastward to marash, left the northwestern route through oorfa and diarbekir, to messrs. wistar and wood; the objective point for all being harpoot, where they planned to meet at a certain date. nothing gave me greater joy than to know they would meet our brave and world-honored countrywoman, miss shattuck, isolated, surrounded by want and misery, holding her fort alone, and that something from our hands could go to strengthen hers, emptied by the needs of thousands every day. if they might have still gone to van, and reached our other heroic, capable and accomplished countrywoman, dr. grace kimball, it would have been an added joy. but the way was long, almost to ararat; the mountains high and the snows deep; and more than all it seemed that the superb management of her own grand work made help there less needed than at many other less fortunate points. it seemed remarkable that the two expeditions separating at aintab, on the sixth day of april, with no trace of each other between, should have met at harpoot on april 29, within three hours of each other; and that when the city turned out _en masse_, with its missionaries in the lead, to meet and welcome dr. hubbell and the red cross, that far away in the rear, through masses of people from housetop to street, modestly waited the expedition from oorfa. this expedition containing as it did two leading men, again divided, taking between them, as their separate reports show, charges of the relief of two hundred villages of the harpoot vilayet, and later on diarbekir, and that by their active provision and distribution of farming implements and cattle and the raising of the hopes and courage of the people, they succeeded in securing the harvest and saving the grain crops of those magnificent valleys. while this was in progress, a dispatch came to me at constantinople, from dr. shepard, of aintab, whose tireless hands had done the work of a score of men, saying that fevers, both typhoid and typhus, of a most virulent nature, had broken out in arabkir, two or three days north of harpoot; could i send doctors and help? passing the word on to dr. hubbell, at harpoot, the prompt and courageous action was taken by him which his report will name, but never fully show. it is something to say that from a rising pestilence with a score of deaths daily, in five weeks, himself and his assistants left the city in a normally healthful condition, in which it remained at last accounts, the mortality ceasing at once under their care and treatment. during this time the medical relief for the cities of zeitoun and marash was in charge of dr. harris, who reached there march 18. the report of the consuls had placed the daily number of deaths from the four contagious diseases at one hundred. this would be quite probable when it is considered that ten thousand were smitten with the prevailing diseases, and that added to this were the crowded conditions of the patients, by the thousands of homeless refugees who had flocked from their forsaken villages; the lack of all comforts, of air, cleanliness, and a state of prolonged starvation. dr. harris' first report to me was that he was obliged to set the soup kettles boiling, and feed his patients before medicine could be retained. my reply was a draft for two hundred liras, with the added dispatch: "keep the pot boiling; let us know your wants." the further reports show from this time an astonishingly small number of deaths. the utmost care was taken by all our expeditions to prevent the spread of the contagion and there is no record of its ever having been carried out of the cities, where it was found, either at zeitoun, marash, or arabkir. lacking this precaution, it might well have spread throughout all asia minor, as was greatly feared by the anxious people. on the twenty-fourth of may dr. harris reported the disease as overcome. his stay being no longer needed, he returned to his great charge in tripoli with the record of a medical work and success behind him never surpassed if ever equaled. the lives he had saved were enough to gain heaven's choicest diadem. never has america cause to be so justly proud and grateful as when its sons and daughters in foreign lands perform deeds of worth like that. the appalling conditions at zeitoun and marash on the arrival of dr. harris, naturally led him to call for more physicians, and the most strenuous efforts were made to procure them, but the conditions of the field were not tempting to medical men. dr. post had already sent the last recruit from beyrout, still he manfully continued his efforts. smyrna was canvassed through the efforts of our prompt and efficient consul, colonel madden, on whom i felt free to make heavy drafts, remembering tenderly as we both did, when we stood together in the red cross relief of the ohio floods of 1884. failing there, i turned my efforts upon constantinople. naturally, we must seek nationalities outside of armenians. we succeeded in finding four greek physicians, who were contracted with, and sailed may 11, through perplexing delays of shipping, taking with them large and useful medical supplies and delicacies for the sick, as well as several large disinfecting machines which were loaned to us by the turkish government, dr. zavitziano, a greek physician, who kindly assisted us in many ways, conducting the negotiations. through unavoidable delays they were able to reach alexandretta only on may 25. by this time the fevers had been so far overcome that it was not deemed absolutely necessary for them to proceed to marash; and after conferring with dr. harris, they returned to constantinople, still remaining under kindly contract without remuneration to go at once if called upon by us even to the facing of cholera, if it gained a foothold in asia minor. we should not hesitate to call for the services of these gentlemen even at this distance if they became necessary. this was known as the fifth expedition, which, although performing less service, was by far the most difficult to obtain, and the most firmly and legally organized of any. the closing of the medical fields threw our entire force into the general relief of the vilayet of harpoot, which the relieving missionaries had well named their "bottomless pit," and where we had already placed almost the entire funds of the boston and worcester committees. one will need to read largely between the lines of the modest skeleton reports of our agents in order to comprehend only approximately the work performed by them and set in motion for others to perform. the apathy to which the state of utter nothingness, together with their grief and fear, had reduced the inhabitants was by no means the smallest difficulty to be overcome; and here was realized the great danger felt by all--that of continued almsgiving, lest they settle down into a condition of pauperism, and thus, finally starve from the inability of the world at large to feed them. the presence of a strange body of friendly working people coming thousands of miles to help them, awakened a hope and stimulated the desire to help themselves. it was a new experience that these strangers _dared_ to come to them. although the aforetime home lay a heap of stone and sand, and nothing belonging to it remained, still the land was there and when seed to plant the ground and the farming utensils and cattle were brought to work it with, the faint spirit revived, the weak, hopeless hands unclasped, and the farmer stood on his feet again; and when the cities could no longer provide the spades, hoes, plows, picks, and shovels, and the crude iron and steel to make them was taken to them, the blacksmith found again his fire and forge and traveled weary miles with his bellows on his back. the carpenter again swung his hammer and drew his saw. the broken and scattered spinning wheels and looms from under the storms and debris of winter, again took form and motion, and the fresh bundles of wool, cotton, flax, and hemp, in the waiting widow's hand brought hopeful visions of the revival of industries which should not only clothe but feed. at length, in early june, the great grain fields of diarbekir, farkin and harpoot valleys, planted the year before, grew golden and bowed their heavy spear-crowned heads in waiting for the sickle. but no sickles were there, no scythes, not even knives, and it was a new and sorry sight for our full-handed american farming men, to see those poor, hard, asiatic hands, trying by main strength to break the tough straw or pull it by the roots. this state of things could not continue, and their sorrow and pity gave place to joy when they were able to drain the cities of harpoot and diarbekir of harvest tools, and turned the work of all the village blacksmiths on to the manufacture of sickles and scythes, and of the flint workers upon the rude threshing machines. they have told me since their return that the pleasantest memories left to them were of those great valleys of golden grain, bending and falling before the harvesters, men and women, each with the new sharp sickle or scythe--the crude threshing planks, the cattle trampling out the grain, and the gleaners in the rear as in the days of abraham and moab. god grant that somewhere among them was a kind-hearted king of the harvest who gave orders to let some sheaves fall. even while this saving process was going on, another condition no less imperative arose. these fields must be replanted for the coming year, or starvation had been simply delayed. only the strength of their old time teams of oxen could break up the hard sod and prepare for the fall sowing. not an animal--ox, cow, horse, goat or sheep--had been left. all had been driven to the kourdish mountains. when mr. wood's telegram came, calling for a thousand oxen for the hundreds of villages, some of which were very large, i thought of our not rapidly swelling bank account, and all that was needed everywhere else, and replied accordingly. but when, in return, came the telegram from the rev. dr. gates, president of harpoot college, the live, active, practical man of affairs, whose judgment no one could question, saying that the need of oxen was imperative, that unless the ground could be ploughed before it dried and hardened, it could not be done at all, and the next harvest would be lost, and that "mr. wood's estimate was moderate," i loosened my grasp on the bank account and directed the financial secretary to send a draft for 5,000 liras ($22,000) to care of rev. dr. gates, harpoot, to be divided among the three expeditions for the purchase of cattle and the progress of the harvest of 1897. this draft left something less than $3,000 with us to finish up the field in all other directions. as the sum sent would be immediately applied, the active services of the men would be no longer required, and directions went with the remittance to report in person at constantinople. unheard of toil, care, hard riding day and night, with risk of life, were all involved in the carrying out of that order. among the uncivilized and robber bands of kourds, the cattle that had been stolen and driven off must be picked up, purchased and brought back to the waiting farmer's field. there were routes so dangerous that a brigand chief was selected by those understanding the situation as the safest escort for our men. perhaps the greatest danger encountered was in the region of farkin, beyond diarbekir, where the official escort had not been waited for, and the leveled musket of the faithless guide told the difference. at length the task was accomplished. one by one the expeditions closed and withdrew, returning by sivas and samsoun and coming out by the black sea. by that time it is probable that no one questioned the propriety of their route or longer wondered or cared why they went to smyrna or alexandretta, sivas or samsoun. the perplexed frowns of our anxious committees and sympathetic people had long given way to smiles of confidence and approval, and glad hands would have reached far over the waters to meet ours as warmly extended to them. with the return of the expeditions we closed the field, but contributors would be glad to know that subsequent to this, before leaving constantinople, funds from both the new york and boston committees came to us amounting to some $15,000. this was happily placed with mr. peet, treasurer of the board of foreign missions at stamboul, to be used subject to our order, and with our concurrence it is now being employed in the building of little houses in the interior as a winter shelter and protection where all had been destroyed. the appearance of our men on their arrival at constantinople confirmed the impression that they had not been recalled too soon. they had gone out through the snows and ice of winter and without change or rest had come back through the scorching suns of midsummer--five months of rough, uncivilized life, faring and sharing with their beasts of burden, well nigh out of communication with the civilized world, but never out of danger, it seemed but just to themselves and to others who might yet need them that change and rest be given them. since our entrance upon turkish soil no general disturbance had taken place. one heard only the low rumbling of the thunder after the storm, the clouds were drifting southward and settling over crete and macedonia, and we felt that we might take at least some steps towards home. it was only when this movement commenced that we began to truly realize how deep the roots of friendship, comradeship, confidence, and love had struck back among our newly found friends and countrymen; how much a part of ourselves--educational, humanitarian and official--their work and interest had become, and surely from them we learned anew the lesson of reciprocity. some days of physical rest were needful for the men of the expeditions after reaching constantinople before commencing another journey of thousands of miles, worn as they were by exposure, hardship and incessant labor, both physical and mental. this interval of time was, however, mainly employed by them in the preparation of the reports submitted with this, and in attention to the letters which followed them from their various fields, telling of further need, but more largely overflowing with gratitude and blessing for what had been done. for our financial secretary and myself there could be neither rest nor respite while we remained at a disbursing post so well known as ours. indeed there never had been. from the time of our arrival in february to our embarkation in august there were but two days not strictly devoted to business, the fourth of july and the fifth of august--the last a farewell to our friends. for both of these occasions we were indebted to the hospitality of treasurer and mrs. w.w. peet, and although held in the open air, on the crowning point of proti, one of the princes' islands, with the marmora, bosporus and golden horn in full view, the spires and minarets of constantinople and scutari telling us of a land we knew little of, with peoples and customs strange and incomprehensible to us, still there was no lack of the emblem that makes every american at home, and its wavy folds of red, white and blue shaded the tables and flecked the tasteful viands around which sat the renowned leaders of the american missionary element of asia minor. henry o. dwight, d.d., the accomplished gentleman and diplomatic head, who was the first to suggest an appeal to the red cross, and i am glad to feel he has never repented him of his decision. one fact in regard to dr. dwight may be of interest to some hundreds of thousands of our people: on first meeting him i was not quite sure of the title by which to address him, if reverend or doctor, and took the courage to ask him. he turned a glance full of amused meaning upon me as he replied: "that is of little consequence; the title i prize most is _captain_ dwight." "of what?" i asked. "company d, twentieth ohio volunteers, in our late war." the recognition which followed can well be imagined by the comrades for whose interest i have named the incident. rev. joseph k. greene, d.d., and his amiable wife, to whom so much is due towards the well being of the missionary work of constantinople. i regret that i am not able to reproduce the eloquent and patriotic remarks of dr. greene on both these occasions, so true to our country, our government and our laws. rev. george p. knapp, formerly of bitlis, whose courage no one questions. mrs. lee of marash, and mrs. dr. george washburn of robert college, the worthy and efficient daughters of rev. dr. cyrus hamlin, the veteran missionary and founder of robert college, living in lexington, mass. a half-score of teachers, whose grand lives will one day grace the pages of religious history. and last, though by no means least, our host, the man of few words and much work, who bears the burden of monetary relief for the woes and wants of asia minor, w.w. peet, esq. it was a great satisfaction that most of our field agents were able to be present at the last of these beautiful occasions and personally render an account of their stewardship to those who had watched their course with such interest. the pleasure of these two days of recreation will ever remain a golden light in our memories. as the first official act of the relief work after our arrival in constantinople was my formal presentation to the sublime porte by the american minister, honorable a.w. terrell, diplomatic courtesy demanded that i take proper occasion to notify the turkish government of our departure and return thanks for its assistance, which was done formally at "selamlic," a religious ceremony held on the turkish sabbath, which corresponds to our friday. the court chamberlain delivered my message to the palace. it was received and responded to through the same medium and i took my departure, having finished my diplomatic work with that government which had from first to last treated me with respect, assisted my work and protected my workers. to correct certain impressions and expressions which have been circulating more or less extensively in this country, and for the correct information of the people who through their loyal interest deserve to know the facts, i make known my entire social relations while residing in turkey. personally i did not go beyond constantinople. the proper conduct of our work demanded the continuous presence of both our financial secretary and myself at headquarters. i never saw, to personally communicate with, any member of the turkish government excepting its minister of foreign affairs, tewfik pasha, as named previously. i never spoke with the sultan and have never seen him excepting in his carriage on the way to his mosque. on being informed through our legation that the turkish minister at washington, mavroyeni bey, had been recalled and that his successor was about to leave for his new position, i felt that national courtesy required that i call upon him and, attended by a member of our legation, my secretary and myself crossed the bosporus to a magnificent estate on the asiatic shore, the palatial home of moustapha tahsin bey, a gentleman of culture, who had resided in new york in some legal capacity and who, i feel certain, will be socially and officially acceptable to our government. i have received a decoration, officially described as follows: brevet of chevalier of the royal order of melusine, founded in 1186, by sibylle, queen and spouse of king guy of jerusalem, and reinstituted several years since by marie, princess of lusignan. the order is conferred for humanitarian, scientific and other services of distinction, but especially when such services are rendered to the house of lusignan, and particularly to the armenian nation. the order is worn by a number of reigning sovereigns, and is highly prized by the recipients because of its rare bestowal and its beauty. this decoration is bestowed by his royal highness, guy of lusignan, prince of jerusalem, cyprus and armenia. some months after returning home i received through our state department at washington the sultan's decoration of shefaket and its accompanying diploma in turkish, a reproduction and translation of which is here given: [illustration: ordre des chevaliers de mã�â�lusine] [illustration: tower of christ, constantinople] [illustration: w.w. peet, esq.] [illustration: rev. henry o. dwight, d.d.] [illustration: rev. jos. k. greene, d.d.] [illustration: rev. geo. washburn, d.d.] [illustration: turkish diploma accompanying decoration. as miss barton, american citizen, possesses many great and distinguished qualities and as recompense is due to her, i am pleased therefore to accord to her the second class of my decorations of shefaket.--[translation.]] the first notice of this honor came to me through our own smithsonian institute, as indicating its scientific character. on the ninth of august we took passage on board the steamship "meteor," a roumanian steamer plying between constantinople and the ports of the black sea, our objective point being costanza, at the mouth of the danube river. this was our first step toward home, and the leaving of a people on whom, in common with the civilized world, our whole heart interest had been centred for more than half a year; having no thought, however, until the hour of parting revealed it, of the degree of interest that had been centred on us. on the spacious deck of the steamer were assembled our entire american representation at constantinople, prepared to accompany us through the bosporus, their boats having been sent forward to take them off near the entrance of the black sea. the magnificent new quay in either direction was crowded with people without distinction of nationality, the strange costumes and colors commingling in such variety as only an oriental city can produce, patiently waiting the long hour of preparation. when at length the hoarse whistle sounded and the boat swayed from its moorings, the dense crowd swayed with it and the subdued tones pealed out in tongues many and strange; but all had one meaning--thanks, blessings and god speed. we received these manifestations reverently, for while they meant kindliness to us and our work, they meant far more of homage and honor for the nation and people we represented. and not only in constantinople but the shores of the bosporous as we proceeded presented similar tokens of recognition--the wavy stars and stripes from robert college, rebek, and hissar, told more strongly than words how loyal to their own free land were the hearts and hands toiling so faithfully in others. touching at budapest for a glimpse at its millenial exposition; at vienna to pay respects to our worthy minister, hon. bartlett tripp; we hastened to meet the royal greeting of the grand duke and grand duchess of baden, at their beautiful island of minau in lake constance--the wedding gift of the grand duke to his young princess bride forty-three years ago. it was a great pleasure to be able to bring our hard-worked men into personal contact with these active royal personages, who know so well in their own philanthropic lives how to appreciate such labor in others. lest some may not recall directly the lines of royal succession, our readers will pardon me if i say that the grand duchess of baden is the only daughter of the old emperor william and empress augusta, the sister of germany's "fritz," the aunt of the present emperor, the mother of the crown princess of sweden, and the granddaughter of the beloved queen louise, whom she is said to very much resemble. one day was given to strasburg--another labor field of the franco-german war, of longer duration than armenia--reaching london on the twenty-fourth day of august. our passage was engaged on the "servia," to sail september 1, when the news of the terrible troubles in constantinople reached us. we were shocked and distressed beyond words. the streets where we had passed, the people who had served us, the ottoman bank where we had transacted business almost daily for nearly a half a year, all in jeopardy if not destroyed. our men of the interior feared a general uprising there, in which case we might be able to help. our sense of duty did not permit us to proceed until the facts were better known. we cancelled or rather transferred our passage by the "servia," telegraphed to constantinople and cabled to america, expressing our willingness to return to the field if our services were in any way needed. kindly advices from both directions, together with a more quiet condition of things, decided us to continue our journey, and engaging passage by the "umbria" for the fifth, we arrived in new york on the twelfth of september, eight months lacking ten days from the time of our departure on the twenty-second of january. distances and difficulties of travel, transportation and communications. for the convenience of the closely occupied who have not time to study as they read, i have thought it well to condense the information above referred to in a paragraph, which can be taken in at a glance, in connection with the map. the one great port of asia minor is constantinople. to reach the centre, known as anatolia or armenia, there are two routes from constantinople. one by way of the mediterranean sea to alexandretta, the southern port or gateway; the other by the black sea, to reach the northern ports of samsoun and trebizond, lying along the southern coast of the black sea. there is no land route, but a "pony post," like the overland days of california, takes important dispatches for the government, or money. the way is infested by brigands. there are no regular passenger boats, but russia, austria, france and greece have dispatch--in reality, coasting boats--one of which aims to leave constantinople each week, although at first we found it at least two weeks between the times of sailing and irregular at that. the time from constantinople to alexandretta is eight to ten days. from constantinople to samsoun, two days. from either of these ports the interior must be reached by land. from alexandretta to harpoot is fifteen (15) days, " " " marash is five (5) days. " " " zeitoun is seven (7) days. " " " oorfa is six (6) days. " " " diarbekir is twelve (12) days. on the north from samsoun to harpoot is fifteen (15) days. these journeys were made by horse, mule or donkey, over mountain paths, rocks and precipices. only in comparatively a few places are there roads allowing the passing of a wheeled vehicle of any kind, even the passing of a horse along the steep declivities is sometimes dangerous. communications. as will be seen, the sending of a letter from constantinople to the interior, requires at the best six weeks, or forty-six days with no delays. only the large and more important towns have telegraphic communication. this requires two, three, four days of a week, according to circumstances. these dispatches are all sent and must be answered in turkish. [illustration: head of turkish telegraph blank.] [translation of above telegram.] arabker, may 17, 1896. miss barton: since three days we are attending with our doctors and their attendants to one hundred sick per day. the contagious fever (typhus) is diminishing. miss bush and all the party are distributing clothing and bedding. lemme is giving implements and seed to the farmers. the needs here are extreme. wistar's party are at pyre. wood with his party are working in the district of palou. hubbell. the larger towns have mails usually leaving once a week, carried on horses with a military guard. no newspaper is published in asia minor. the missionary stations, with but two or three exceptions, are not near the seacoast, but from three to fifteen days' travel from either the mediterranean or the black sea, or three to twenty-five days to the nearest mediterranean port. as will be seen by reference to the map the following stations are on the seaboard: trebizond on the black sea; smyrna and a small station near merisine on the mediterranean, and constantinople on the bosporus. the following are inland and during several months in the winter and spring must be nearly, if not quite, inaccessible to outside approach: adabazar, bardezag, brousa, cesarea, marsovan, hadjin, tarsus, adana, mardin, aintab, marash, sivas, harpoot, oorfa, erzingan, erzroom, van, bitlis. funds. it should be distinctly understood by contributors that neither their letters, nor any individual contributions came to us; these were received by the committees or parties raising the funds in america. the letters were doubtless faithfully acknowledged, and the various sums of money placed in the general fund forwarded to us by them. all contributions received by us directly at constantinople are acknowledged in our report. [illustration: interior of gregorian church at oorfa, where many hundreds of women and children were massacred.] although an account of the disposition of all funds is rendered in the report of the financial secretary, which, after verification, i signed jointly with him, i will, however, at the risk of repetition, take the liberty of adding the following remarks on the subject: it is to be borne always in mind that the _amount_ of money to be distributed was never made a concern of ours, provided they were actually "_funds to distribute_." to the question so frequently and kindly asked of us, "did you have money enough, or were you embarrassed in your operations by want of funds?" i beg to have this reply intelligently understood: that we had always money enough in hand for the work in hand. we were never embarrassed in our operations by lack of funds, holding, as i always have, that charitable relief in order to be safe and efficient, should be conducted on the same reasonable basis as business, and that a good business man, unless by accident on the part of other persons, or of circumstances, will never find himself embarrassed, as he will never undertake more than he has the means to successfully accomplish. we were never embarrassed in our operations by lack of funds, and our committees will testify that no intimation of that kind ever came to them from us. this would have been both unwise and unjust. according to the universal system of charitable relief, all was being done that could be done; but if asked if we had enough for the _needs of the people_, enough to relieve the distress through desolated asia minor, enough to make those people comfortable again, then a very tender chord has been touched. no hearts in america are more sore than ours; its richest mine might drain in that attempt. our men in the interior have seen and lived among what others vainly strive to picture; they are men of work, not words, and under heaven have labored to do what they could with what they had. it is their stewardship they are trying to render to a great-hearted, sympathetic and perplexed people, racked by various emotions, seeking light through every channel, and conclusively solving and settling in a score of ways, every day, problems and questions which have unsettled a considerable portion of the world for centuries. [illustration: map showing the country traversed by the red cross expeditions carrying american relief to the victims of the armenian massacres in asia minor in 1896. _the shaded district indicates the territory in which personal work was done._] the committees. on behalf of the wretchedness and suffering met through asia minor, we return heartfelt thanks to the committees who labored with such untiring zeal toward their relief. we were never unmindful of the difficulties which they were constantly called to encounter and to overcome. not having in hand the funds desired or even guaranteed, they must raise them, and this largely from persons whose sympathies outran their generosity, if not their means. this naturally opened the door for excuses for withholding, until it could be seen that "something was actually being accomplished;" then the doubt if anything "could be accomplished;" next the certainty that it "could not be," and so on through whole chapters of dark prophecies and discouragements sufficient to dishearten the most hopeful natures, and weaken at times the best efforts that could be put forth. against volumes, nay, oceans of these discouragements, our committees must have struggled, with more or less of success, and again for their efforts on behalf of such suffering as even they never witnessed, we return with reverence our sincerest gratitude. their efforts have been herculean, their obstructions scarcely less. [illustration: american college buildings, aintab.] [illustration: american and armenian quarters, harpoot.] [illustration: marash] [illustration: red cross caravan.] the cause of these difficulties lay in the customary conception and methods of charitable relief which they were naturally compelled to adopt and follow. until the world comes to recognize that charity is not beggary, and should not be made to depend upon it, that a legitimate and ready fund to draw from in order to facilitate and validate its transactions is as necessary as in other movements, the difficulties of our tireless and noble committees will be everywhere met. it is with these views that the red cross has never solicited means in aid of its work of relief. heretofore on all its fields, the people have been left free to contribute what they desired, and through whom they desired, and it is we believe, a well understood fact, that the use of the name of the red cross in the raising of funds for the late armenian relief, was simply incidental, one of the methods naturally resorted to in order to secure the end, and by no concurrence of ours, as has been previously and fully explained. to the press of the united states. among the dark hours that came to us in the hopeless waste of work and woe on every side, the strong sustaining power has been the press of the united states. while naturally compelled to give circulation to unauthorized reports from other sources, it has evidently done it with regret, and hastened by strong editorials, in words of no uncertain sound, to set right before its readers any errors that may have crept in. the american press has always been loyal to the red cross and to its work, and once more it is our privilege to tender to it our meed of grateful praise. to the contributors of the united states, whose sympathy, god-like pity and mercy prompted them to the grand work of relief for the half million suffering and dying in a land they had never seen, whose purses were opened, whose own desires were repressed that they might give, not of their abundance, but of their scantiness ofttimes, whose confidence made us their almoners, whose whole-hearted trust has strengthened us, whose hearts have been with us, whose prayers have followed us, whose hopes have sustained us, and whose beckoning hands were held out in tenderness to welcome us back to them, what can be said, what can be done, but to bow our heads in grateful recognition of the words of unexpected commendation which nearly overwhelm us, and pray the gracious god that he bless our work, to the measure of the praise bestowed. to our government at washington; to its cordial sympathy so warmly expressed through its honored secretaries of state and navy, and through whose ready access we were at all times able to reach the public, our earnest and respectful thanks are rendered, begging our warm-hearted people to bear in mind that our rulers are a part of, and like themselves; that the security of the government lies largely in the fact that responsibility tends to conservatism--not necessarily less sympathetic, but less free, more responsible and more thoughtful. to our legation in constantinople. our thanks are due to our genial minister, hon. a.w. terrell, his accomplished secretary, and _chargã�â© d'affairs_, j.w. riddle, his interpreter and dragoman, gargiulo; our consul general, luther short, esq.; the consular interpreter, demetriades, from every one of whom we received unremitting care and attention during all the months of our residence at constantinople, and without which aid we could not have succeeded in our work. there was not an hour that their free service was not placed at our command. through them all governmental business was transacted. the day was never too long nor the night too short for any active help they could render; i only hope that our diplomatic service at all courts is as faithfully and cheerfully rendered as at constantinople. in this connection i desire to make special mention of the assistance of united states consul, dr. milo a. jewett, at sivas, and consular agent, daniel walker, at alexandretta. both personally and officially i believe the record of minister terrell will sustain him. while firm and direct of speech he is a man of uncommon courtesy, abounding in the old time hospitality of his native state, virginia. if at the close of his official term, he shall be able to report that through all the months--nay, years--of unheard-of troubles, dangers and deaths in the country to which he was assigned, while some hundreds of his fellow citizens were constantly and peculiarly exposed to these dangers, that with no direct governmental aid or authority, without even a ship of his own country in port, that no life in his charge has been lost, and that only such dangers, hardships and losses as were incident to the terrible transactions about them had been inflicted upon them, we will, i trust, look calmly at the results, and decide that if this were not diplomacy, it was a very good substitute. to the ambassadors of other nations at constantinople. to these high and honorable gentlemen our thanks are due. to sir philip currie of england, there seemed to come no difference in sentiment between our people and his own; a tower of strength where-ever he took hold. germany and russia were cordial and ready to aid, as also our english consul, r.a. fontana, at harpoot, and c.m. hallward, at diarbekir; and following these, may i also name the ready help of reuter's express and the united and associated presses of both constantinople and london. commendatory. here is a phase of our work which should not be entirely passed by, and yet, if only partially taken up would overrun our entire report. only one or two excerpts must suffice to show what the others might mean. from rev. dr. h.o. dwight, one word among the many so generously spoken: miss barton has done a splendid work, sensibly and economically managed. wherever her agents have been, the missionaries have expressed the strongest approval of their methods and efficiency. the work done has been of great and permanent importance. from rev. joseph k. greene, d.d., to the new york "_independent_": after some six months of service, miss clara barton and her five able assistants have left constantinople on their return to america. it was only on the earnest solicitation of the missionaries, the officers of the american board and many other friends of the suffering armenians that miss barton undertook the relief in this land. the difficulties of the work, arising from the suspicions of the turkish authorities, the distance from the capital to the sufferers, the perils and discomforts in communicating with them, and from unfamiliarity with the languages and customs of the people of the land, would surely have appalled a less courageous heart. under such circumstances it is only just and fair that the american public should be apprised of the substantial success of this mission of the red cross. in the first place, miss barton has shown a rare faculty in getting on well with everybody. to facilitate her work she, and the assistants whom she loves to call "my men," laid aside all the insignia of the red cross and appeared everywhere simply as private individuals. she clearly understood that she could accomplish her mission only by securing the confidence and good will of the authorities, and this she did by her patience and repeated explanations, and by the assistance of the american legation. when the _iradã�â©_, or imperial decree sanctioning her mission, was delayed, she sent forward her assistants with only a traveling permit for a part of the way, trusting, and not in vain, that the local authorities, instructed from headquarters, would facilitate their way. as a matter of fact, while mr. pullman, her secretary and treasurer, remained at constantinople with miss barton, her distributing agents, namely, dr. hubbell and mr. mason, mr. wistar and mr. wood, either together or in two parties, traveled inland from alexandretta to killis, aintab, marash, zeitoun, birejik, oorfa, diarbekir, farkin, harpoot, palou, malatia, arabkir, egin, sivas, tokat, samsoun and back to constantinople without interruption or molestation. they were readily and constantly supplied with guards, and could not with safety have made their perilous four months' journey without them. demands are said to have been made that the distribution of aid be made under the supervision of government officials, but in fact, miss barton's agents knew how to make their distributions in every place, after careful consultation and examination, without any interference on the part of the authorities. miss barton received in all about $116,000, and an unexpended balance of $15,400 was committed to mr. peet, the treasurer of the american missions in turkey, to be held as an emergency fund, subject to miss barton's orders. no expense has been incurred for miss barton or her agents save for traveling expenses and the wages of interpreters, and with this exception the entire sum expended has gone to the actual relief of the sufferers. while the fund committed to the anglo-american committee, of which mr. peet is a member--a sum four to five times the amount committed to miss barton--has been expended through the missionaries, largely to save the hungry from starvation, the relief through the agents of the red cross has for the most part been wisely devoted to the putting of the poor sufferers on their feet again, and thus helping them to help themselves. some 500 liras (a lira is $4.40 of _good_ money) were given for the cure and care of the sick in marash, zeitoun and elsewhere, and some 2,000 liras' worth of cloths, thread, pins and needles were sent inland; but many times this amount was expended in providing material for poor widows, seeds, agricultural implements and oxen for farmers; tools for blacksmiths and carpenters, and looms for weavers. in some places miss barton's agents had the pleasure of seeing vegetable gardens coming forward from seed furnished by the red cross, and village farmers reaping the grain with sickles which the red cross had given. the great want now--a want which the funds of the red cross agents did not permit them to any large extent to meet--is aid to the poor villagers to help them rebuild their burned and ruined houses, and thus provide for themselves shelter against the rigors of the coming winter. the red cross agents have, however, gathered a great stock of information; and passing by the horrors of the massacres and the awful abuse of girls and women, as unimpeachable witnesses they can bear testimony to the frightful sufferings and needs of the people. we most sincerely hope and pray that miss barton and the agents and friends of the red cross will not esteem their work in turkey done, but knowing now so well just what remains to be done, and what can be done, will bend every effort to secure further relief for the widows and orphans of the more than sixty thousand murdered men--mostly between the ages of eighteen and fifty--whose lives no earthly arm was outstretched to save. while we gratefully bear witness to the wise and indefatigable efforts of miss barton's _agents_, permit us to add that during her more than six months' stay in constantinople miss barton gave _herself_ unremittingly to the work of her mission. she seems to have had no time for sight-seeing, and not a few of her friends are disposed to complain that she had no time to accept the invitations of those who would have been glad to entertain her. the only relaxation she seems to have given herself was on two occasions--the first, a fourth of july picnic with a few american friends, on one of the princes' islands, and the second, another picnic on the same island, on wednesday, august 5, when, with three of her "men," she met some twenty american lady teachers and missionaries, in order to bid them a courteous farewell. the first occasion she unqualifiedly declared to have been the happiest fourth of july she had ever had; and inspired by the occasion, she penned some verses which she kindly read to her friends on the second gathering, and which we very much wish she would permit the editor of the _independent_ to publish. on the second occasion, at miss barton's request, the financial secretary read his report and dr. hubbell and mr. wood presented reports of the work of distribution. we gratefully acknowledged the honor done us in permitting us to hear these reports; and, remembering our concern for miss barton while preparing for the work of distribution six months ago, we gladly expressed our joy and congratulations now on the happy return of her faithful and efficient agents, of whom it may be truly said that they went and saw and conquered. we rejoiced that these new friends had come to know so well the american missionaries in turkey, and were truly thankful for a mutually happy acquaintance. we wished miss barton and her "men" a hearty welcome on their arrival, and, now, with all our hearts, we wish them god-speed on their return home. _constantinople, turkey._ the little "verses" so kindly referred to by dr. greene, were not even written, but were a simple train of thought that took rhythmic form as we crossed over the sea of marmora, on our way to an island celebration of the fourth of july. later i found time to put them on paper and read them to the guests at our farewell meeting, presenting them to our host, mr. w.w. peet. they appear to have gained a favor far beyond their merit, and by request of many friends they are given place in the report as a "part of its history." [illustration: an ancient mosque in killis.] marmora. it was twenty and a hundred years, oh blue and rolling sea, a thousand in the onward march of human liberty, since on its sunlit bosom, wind-tossed and sails unfurled, atlantic's mighty billows bore a message to the world. it thunders down its rocky coast, and stirs its frugal homes; the saxon hears it as he toils, the indian as he roams; the buffalo upon the plains, the panther in his lair, and the eagle hails the kindred note, and screams it through the air. "make way for liberty," it roared, "here let the oppressed go free, break loose your bands of tyrant hands, this land is not for thee. the old world in its crusted grasp grinds out the souls of men, here plant their feet in freedom's soil, this land was made for them." the mother slept in her island home, but the children heard the call, and ere the western sun went down, had answered, one and all; for britain's thirteen colonies had vanished in a day, and six and half a hundred men had signed their lives away. and brows were dark, and words were few, the steps were quick and strong, and firm the lips as ever his who treasures up a wrong; and stern the tone that offered up the prayer beside the bed, and many a molly stark that night wept silent tears of dread. the bugles call, and swords are out, and armies march abreast, and the old world casts a wondering glance to the strange light in the west; lo, from its lurid lightnings play, free tossing in the wind, bursts forth the star-gemmed flag that wraps the hopes of all mankind. and weary eyes grew brighter then, and fainting hearts grew strong, and hope was mingled in the cry, "how long, oh lord, how long?" the seething millions turn and stir and struggle toward the light; the free flag streams, and morning gleams where erst was hopeless night. and grim atlantic thunders still adown its rocky shores, and still the eagle screams his note, as aloft he sails and soars; and hope is born, that even thou, in some far day to come, o blue and rolling marmora, shalt bear the message home. dedicated to w.w. peet, esq. clara barton. _constantinople, july 4, 1896._ reports are always tedious. if some reader, having persevered thus far, if such there be, shall find himself or herself saying with a little thrill of disappointment, "but this does not give the information expected, it does not recommend any specific course to be pursued, whether emigration for the armenians, and if so, where, and how; or autonomy, and if so, how to be secured, and assured; if more ships should be sent, and what they should do when there; if greater pressure of the powers should be demanded by us, or what course, as a nation, we ought to pursue. we had expected some light on these questions." appreciating and regretting this disappointment, we must remind our anxious readers and friends--for such they are--that we have never been required to do this; that all conclusions to that effect are simply inferential, and all such expectations were born of anxious hope. but that which we feel _does_ immediately concern us, and comes directly within our province, is, to state that notwithstanding all that has been done through all sources, infinitely more remains to be done by some one; and while speculation upon the moral duty of nations, the rights or wrongs of governments, the problem of whether one ruler or another shall sit upon a throne for the next six months; what expressions of individual principle in regard to certain actions should be given; the proper stand for a people to take and maintain on high moral and religious questions--all important subjects--none value them more than i--all marking the high tone and progressive spirit of the most advanced stage of human thought and culture the world has yet known, it would seem that each and all of these, imperative and important as they are, admit of at least a little moment of time for consideration, and will probably take it whether admitted or not. but the facts are, that between the archipelago and the caspian seas, the black and the mediterranean, are to-day living a million and a half of people of the armenian race, existing under the ordinances of, at least, semi-civilization, and professing the religion of jesus christ; that according to the stated estimate of intelligent and impartial observers of various countries and concurred in by our own agents, whose observations have been unrestricted, from 100,000 to 200,000 of these persons, men, women and children, are destitute of shelter, raiment, fire, food, medicines, the comforts that tend to make human life preservable, or any means of obtaining them, save through the charitable beneficence of the world. [illustration: rev. c.f. gates, d.d. harpoot.] [illustration: miss caroline e. bush harpoot.] [illustration: first expedition embarking on ferry boat, euphrates river.] the same estimates concur in the statement, that without such outside support, at least 50,000 of these persons will have died of starvation or perished through accumulated hardship, before the first of may, 1897. [illustration: a turkish teskere or passport.] that even now it is cold in their mountain recesses, the frosts are whitening the rocky crests, trodden by their wandering feet, and long before christmas the friendly snow will have commenced to cover their graves. these facts, bare and grim, are what i have to present to the american people; and if it should be proposed to make any use of them there is not much time for consideration. we have hastened, without loss of a day, to bring them plainly and truthfully before the public as a subject pertaining peculiarly to it. i would like to add that this great work of human relief should not fall _wholly_ upon the people of our own country--by no means without its own suffering poor--neither would it. the people of most enlightened nations should unite in this relief, and i believe, properly conferred with, would do so. none of us have found any better medium for the dispensation of charitable relief than the faithful missionaries already on the ground, and our government officers, whose present course bespeaks their active interest. clara barton. [illustration: a bit of palou.] report of the financial secretary. the following financial report, of necessity, has to deal with the currencies of five different countries, viz.: american, english, french, austrian and turkish, but as nearly all except expenses of travel and maintenance are in turkish money, and as american, english, french and other moneys received were naturally reduced to the coin of the ottoman empire, we were obliged to make our accounts to correspond. as the report is made on the gold basis of 100 piasters to a lira, our friends may easily find the value in american money by multiplying the number of piasters by 4.4, as a gold lira (100 piasters) is approximately worth four and four-tenths dollars. owing to the difference in values between gold and silver coin, the wide range of values between the same coin in different cities, also the singular variation of the purchasing power of the same coin in the same cities for various commodities, complicated and curious mathematical problems have constantly confronted us, and for the correctness and accuracy of our report we are under many obligations to w.w. peet, esq., treasurer of the american board of foreign missions; the officers of the imperial ottoman and credit lyonnais banks; as well as george kã�â¼nzel, esq., expert accountant of the administration de la dette publique ottomane. our grateful acknowledgments are also due and heartily given to rev. dr. h.o. dwight, the executive head of the missionary board at constantinople, and rev. dr. george washburn, president of robert college, for many valuable suggestions. to give a single illustration of the acrobatic acquirements of the sprightly piaster, the ignus fatuus characteristics of the mejidieh (nom. 20 piasters), and the illusive proclivities of the lira, we will outline a transaction connected with our first medical expedition, under dr. ira harris, of tripoli, syria. we had sent four hundred liras to dr. george e. post, of beyrout, who was fitting out the expedition for us, and presumed we would receive a receipt for that amount, or for 40,000 piasters, its equivalent. the acknowledgment came, and we were somewhat nonplussed to note that we had been credited with a sum far exceeding that amount. a letter of inquiry was sent, as we supposed our good doctor had made an error. we quote a paragraph or two in his letter of reply: "i am not surprised that you do not quite understand the intricacies of turkish finance. after thirty-three years of residence, i am still trying to get some idea of what a piaster is. * * * in beyrout it is worth one piaster and five paras, with variations; a mejidieh is worth from nineteen piasters to almost anything. every town has its rate. * * * the nominal value changes daily. thus if i credit you to-day with 123.20 piasters on the lira, next week i may be out of pocket, or vice versa. * * * internally, it is well nigh impossible to keep accounts. * * * the only way our college books are kept is by giving the rate as it is when the account is entered, and as it appears in all receipts and other vouchers." we were much gratified with this assurance, for if a college president, after thirty-three years' study, had not solved the piaster puzzle, there was some excuse for us. hundreds of accounts and bills have been received, audited and paid, and scarcely any two correspond in piaster equivalents. therefore, although the money unit is the gold piaster, and the monetary standard the gold lira, the frequent changes in valuation is very bewildering to foreigners, and necessitates frequent conference with persons who, after long years of residence, have reached an equitable basis by which monetary equivalents can be ascertained. a glance at our column of receipts shows a considerable variation in rates of exchange, and also the selling price of british gold (most of our drafts and cabled credits were in english sovereigns). we sold the greater part of our gold at a rate exceeding 110, which is the commercial rate in business transactions. in all credits received, the values are of course given according to the rate on the day of sale. many of our accounts, receipts and vouchers are curiosities, as they are in various languages, arabic, kourdish, turkish, armenian, greek, italian, etc. they were interesting but at the same time exceedingly perplexing to us, though our expert accountant found no difficulty with any of them, and right here we desire to make special acknowledgment to mr. kã�â¼nzel for his excellent but unpaid services. in our column of expenses will be found an exceedingly rare red cross item, namely, "wages account." all the native or local doctors and apothecaries with one exception, had to be paid "contagious disease rates," as they called it. the exception was dr. ira harris, of tripoli, syria, that brave and self-sacrificing american, whose great medical ability and splendid surgical skill accomplished so much in curing the sick in the terribly distressed cities of marash and zeitoun, with their many surrounding villages. we are glad to make this public acknowledgment in full appreciation of his heroic services. besides the doctors, there were interpreters and dragomen for the various expeditions in the field to whom wages were paid. no adverse reflection is designed in the making of this statement, as the conditions surrounding life and service in that region of operation made such remuneration an equitable necessity. it is, we think, a well understood fact that the red cross officers neither receive nor ask any remuneration for their services, but away from our own country we did not find the splendid volunteer aids we have had on former fields. but few could be found, and these we have had with us both in constantinople and asia minor, and very efficient helpers they have been; to these our thanks are due and cordially given. after our expeditions had entered the field, and begun work, the first remittances to our chief officers were sent in a manner which for slowness and seeming insecurity would have appalled american business men. the _modus operandi_ was as follows: a check for the amount desired was drawn and taken to the bank; after half an hour or more the gold would be weighed out and handed over--our bankers would have performed the same service in two minutes. the coin was then put into a piece of stout canvas cloth, done up in a round ball, securely tied and taken to the imperial turkish postoffice, where it was placed in a piece of sheepskin, all the ends brought together very evenly, cut off square and covered with sealing wax, the strong cords binding the package in a peculiar manner were woven in so that the ends could be passed through a small wooden box like a pill box; this box was filled with wax. after the imperial post and our seals were attached, bakshish given, and the package insured in an english company, the only thing remaining after the three or four hours' work and delay was to go home and, with fear and trembling, wait some twenty-five or thirty days until the pony express arrived at its destination and acknowledgment by telegraph of the receipt of the money relieved the nervous strain as far as _that_ package was concerned. this trying business was kept up until it became possible to use drafts in the interior. we are happy to report that, though the money had to be taken through a country infested with robbers, outlaws and brigands, we never lost a lira. bakshish is another custom of the country, infinitely more exasperating than our "tip" system, which is bad enough. this is trying to most people, but peculiarly irritating to a financial secretary. bakshish is a gift of money which an oriental expects and demands for the most trifling service. beggars, by instinct, seem to know a financial secretary and swarm around in the most appalling manner. to make any headway with this horde at least two turkish words must be mastered the first day, namely, "_yok_," no, and "_hidã�â©-git_," "be off with you." these expressions are sometimes efficacious with beggars, but the bakshish fiend must be paid something. as long columns of figures have no interest to the great majority of people, and detailed accounts of receipts and expenses are never read, as it is of no possible importance what moneys were received at certain times, or what goods were purchased on specific days for the field work, or gold or drafts sent into the interior, we give our statement in as condensed a form as possible. the committees have received their respective reports, with all vouchers and other detail. we believe the account of our stewardship will be approved by our countrymen; we know that the people whom we came to assist, are grateful and thoroughly appreciative, as numberless letters of gratitude, testimonials and personal statements abundantly prove. to the $116,326.01, at least a third if not a half more should be added, as in all kinds of industrial business we have made the money do double duty. for instance: we purchased iron and steel and gave to the blacksmiths to make tools. that started their work. they paid us for the iron and steel in tools; these we gave to other artisans to start their various trades. in like manner spinning, weaving and garment-making avocations were commenced. speaking of values, the consensus of opinion of our countrymen in the interior is, that putting a price on our work, the people of anatolia have gained twice or thrice the actual money spent, and that the moral support given was far beyond any valuation. (at such a money valuation then, the aggregate value of the chief distribution will be nearly $350,000.) a few words of explanation in regard to the table of expenditures: "cash sent to the interior" includes all moneys sent by pony express or draft, and of this amount something over seven thousand liras are in the hands of w.w. peet, esq.; rev. c.f. gates, at harpoot; c.m. hallward, esq., british consul, at diarbekir; rev. e.h. perry, at sivas, and other equally responsible representatives, for an emergency fund, to be used, on order, as occasion requires. "relief expeditions, general and medical," represents largely the goods purchased and shipped with the four expeditions from constantinople and beyrout for relief purposes. a portion of this supply is still held at different stations awaiting the proper time for its distribution to the best advantage. "general expense account" represents freights, postage, bakshish, hammals, car fares, carriages, etc. "donations for relief of orphan children" represents sums of money given to the armenian and german hospitals for armenian refugee children. the other items we think explain themselves. it will be observed that the special red cross fund, as noted in our tabulation of debits and credits, more than covers expenses of "red cross headquarters, field," "travel and maintenance," "general expense and wages accounts," and "general and medical relief expeditions accounts," all of which items were of direct benefit to the field as all were necessary to the successful conduct of our work. we only mention this to show that, besides the work we have been able to successfully perform, the red cross has also materially contributed monetarily to the field. and it will not be out of place to note that in the total of cash expended ($116,326.01) there is shown to be an administrative cost amounting to $7,526.37, as covered by such items as "telegrams and cables," "wages account," "general expense," "headquarters, field," "stationery and printing," and "travel and maintenance." this cost was but a fraction over 6 per cent on the cash total. if the estimated money value in field results be taken at three times the cash received and paid, for relief material, food, etc., as stated, it will be found that the cost of administration is only about 2 per cent. in either account or estimate the result is gratifying though not surprising to the officers of the red cross, since the methods pursued are the fruits of a wide experience that evaded no responsibility and learned only to spend wisely for the trust imposed and accepted. it is also satisfactory to know that such expenditures came direct from the "special funds" of the red cross itself. an examination of the balance sheets accompanying this report shows that of funds expended, the red cross is credited with $24,641.93, which leaves an excess for relief over the cost of administration of $17,115.56. perhaps this brief financial review of the work achieved may be properly closed by a reference to the sincere enthusiasm and earnestness with which the efforts to raise funds in the united states were animated. the incidents herein mentioned may also illustrate how the wisdom of experience accepts the earnestness and yet discounts without criticism the over confident calculations, to which a noble zeal may run. it would appear that the collection of funds for the purpose of relieving a christian people in danger of starvation and violent death by knife or bullet--of aiding a historic race in the throes of dissolution from massacre, and dispersion in winter by storm and famine, would be a very easy thing to accomplish. a good many of our countrymen, unaccustomed to great relief work, found the collection of the means needed, a task more than difficult. a single illustration will prove how misleading is the conception. it must be borne in mind always that the red cross never solicits funds. it sees its field of benefit work and having fully examined the needs, states them through the press and all other public avenues, to the american people, leaving the response direct to their judgment and generosity. when it is asked to accept the administration of relief funds and material, in fields like this that awaited it in asia minor, the trust is surely met, but the red cross does not ask for the means and money. others do that, stating that the work will be under its charge. when it is once accepted there is no retreat, no matter how far the exertions may fall short of reaching the hoped-for results. last november (1895), after many petitions had been received and carefully considered, representatives of the great armenian relief committees came to washington for the purpose of supplementing such earnest petitions by personal appeals. a conditional consent having been obtained, the subject of funds was brought up by the following question: "miss barton, how much do you think it will cost to relieve the armenians?" the question was answered by another: "gentlemen, you are connected with the various missionary boards, with banks and other great institutions and enterprises. what amount do you consider necessary?" after deliberation, $5,000,000 was suggested as the proper sum and the question was asked if the red cross concurred. miss barton, with the faintest suggestion of a smile, replied that she thought $5,000,000 would be sufficient. as the difficulties of raising money became more apparent to the committees, numerous meetings were held and various other amounts suggested, miss barton agreeing each time. from $5,000,000 to $500,000, with a guarantee for the balance; then $100,000 cash, with $400,000 guaranteed, and so on, until $50,000 was named to start the work with, such sum to be available on the arrival of the red cross in constantinople. the president and a few officers of the red cross arrived there on february 15, 1896, but it was late in the following april before the $50,000 was received. these facts as given are intended solely to show the difficulties the committees had to contend with in raising the amount they did. for general information it will, perhaps, not be inappropriate to state that all relief work is governed and conducted on military lines to preclude the possibility of confusion, as the red cross on fields of disaster is the only organized body in a disorganized community. thus, wherever the organization has control, miss barton has personal supervision of all departments: the financial, receiving and disposing of all funds; the correspondence, opening all letters and directing replies; the field, assigning workers to attend to such duties as are best suited to their various abilities, who report daily, if possible, and receive instructions for the prosecution of the work, the supplies, receiving accurate reports of all material and giving directions as to its disposition. george h. pullman. _constantinople, august 1, 1896._ [illustration: diarbeker, vilayet of diarbeker. _in the field of mr. woods' work._] [illustration: ruins of an old gateway at farkin. _in the field of mr. woods' work._] financial balance sheet of the relief funds and service of 1896 in asia minor. _the american national red cross, in account with the relief field of asia minor_. dr. to the national relief committee [b]ltq. 14,784 51 the new england relief committee " 5,667 25 the worcester relief committee " 402 18 the ladies' relief committee, of chicago " 922 50 the friends of philadelphia, through asa s. wing " 481 69 citizens of newark, through c.h. stout, esq. " 674 65 citizens of milton, north dakota " 4 66 st. george's church s.s. through c.h. stout, esq. " 40 06 ransom post, g.a.r., wales, minn. " 2 95 the davenport, iowa, relief committee " 54 78 american ladies in geneva, switzerland " 5 85 miss phillips, mission school, balisori, india " 13 20 mrs. dr. galbraith, tarentum, pa. " 3 30 "sailors' rest," genoa, italy " 2 33 a citizen of chester, n.j. " 02 miss mayham winter, philadelphia, pa. " 1 14 the american national red cross (special) " 3,376 66 --------- total " 26,437 73 cr. by telegrams and cables ltq. 245 12 cash sent to interior " 18,965 70 relief expeditions, general " 2,917 81 relief expeditions, medical " 543 68 wages account " 421 20 general expense account " 138 02 red cross headquarters, field " 235 05 stationery and printing " 128 79 expense account, travel and maintenance " 542 36 donations for relief of orphan children " 100 00 emergency fund, deposited with w.w. peet " 2,200 00 --------- total " 26,437 73 i have carefully examined the books, accounts and vouchers of the american national red cross, in its relief work in asia minor, and find everything correct and accurate. (signed.) george kunzel, _accountant, administration ottoman public debt_. constantinople, _august 1, 1896_. [b] ltq. 2,223.78 of this sum was special red cross funds drawn from brown brothers & company. ltq.--turkish lira about $4.40. ltq. 26,437.73 $116,326.01. general field agent's report. anatolia, asia minor. to miss clara barton, _president_: in speaking of the relief work in asia minor, may i be allowed to begin at constantinople, at which place, while waiting for the necessary official papers for our work, we were all busy selecting and purchasing relief supplies, camping outfit, cooking utensils, and making other preparations for interior travel; and also securing competent interpreters and dragomans. although the _irade_ of the sultan granting permission to enter asia minor had not yet been received, we were naturally anxious to follow the first shipment of supplies purchased and sent by steamer to the port of alexandretta as the safest route, to be forwarded again by camels under guard to different places in the interior; and with our own men to accompany and attend the work of distribution. accordingly, accompanied by interpreter mason, i left constantinople on the tenth of march, touching at smyrna, latakea, mersina and tripoli, reaching alexandretta on the eighteenth, and by the kind help of our consular agent, mr. daniel walker, and mr. john falanga, began making up the caravans for shipment to aintab, as a central point for the southern field. by the time the caravans were ready and horses for travel selected, mr. wistar and mr. wood, with dragomans, arrived by steamer from constantinople. rev. dr. fuller, president of the aintab (american) college, had also just come through with friends from aintab to take steamer, himself to return again immediately, and together we all set out under soldier escort the next morning. alexandretta was in a state of fear while we were there, notwithstanding the fact that the warships of england, france, turkey, and the united states lay in her harbor. kirk khan, the first stopping place on our journey inland, was threatened with plunder and destruction on the night before our arrival there. at killis we found the town in a state of fear from the recent massacres. here, with dr. fuller, we visited the wounded who were under the good care of a young physician just from the college at aintab, but without medicine, surgical dressings and appliances. these with other needed things we arranged to send back to him from the supplies that had gone ahead. aintab, with its american school, college, seminary and hospital buildings standing out in relief and contrast from the native buildings, was a welcome reminder of home; and the greeting of the hundreds of pupils as they came hurrying down the road to welcome back their own loved president, became a welcome for the red cross. we were most cordially offered the hospitality of dr. fuller's house and home, but as we were still strangers in a strange land, it seemed best to place ourselves in a khan, where we could have better opportunity to make an acquaintance with the people to obtain the varied information necessary to accomplish best results in the disposition of our relief. here we remained long enough to learn the needs of the place and surrounding country, to obtain carefully prepared lists of those artisans needing tools and implements for their various trades and callings. supplies were left, clothing, new goods for working up, thread, needles, thimbles, medicines, and surgical stores. aintab is favored with its mission hospital; with its surgeon and physician, dr. shepard and dr. hamilton, and a strong american colony of missionary teachers, besides the franciscan brothers, who are doing excellent select work. the father superior was killed near zeitoun. supplies were selected and made up for oorfa, aintab, marash and other points, while a quantity of supplies, by the kindness of dr. fuller, was left in storage in the college building to be forwarded as our inquiries should discover the need. to oorfa, where the industrial work had been so successfully established by miss shattuck, we sent material and implements for working, needles, thread, thimbles, cotton and woolen goods for making up. to marash and zeitoun, ready-made goods in addition to new, with surgical appliances and medicines. from aintab, mr. wood and mr. wistar started by way of the most distressed points needing help eastward, and then north to harpoot; and because of your telegram of the report of typhus and dysentery at marash and zeitoun, we started in that direction, with rev. l.o. lee, who was returning home. after facing rain, snow and mud for three days we came to marash. here we remained until our caravan of goods came on. typhus, dysentery and smallpox were spreading as a result of the crowded state of the city; marash had been filled with refugees since the november massacres, notwithstanding a large part of its own dwelling houses had been burned and plundered. the surrounding country had also been pillaged, people killed and villages destroyed, and the frightened remnant of people had crowded in here for protection, and up to this time had feared to return. with insufficient drainage and warm weather coming on, typhus, dysentery and smallpox already in the prisons, an epidemic was becoming general. true, the preachers _requested mothers not to bring children with smallpox_ to church, nevertheless the typhus and smallpox spread, and rendered medical supervision a necessity. by the efforts of mrs. lee and mrs. macallum, wives of the missionaries of the marash station, a hospital had been established with plenty of patients, but they had no funds for physicians or medicines. medicines were left and funds furnished for a native doctor educated in america (who himself had just recovered from typhus) and was placed in charge of the hospital and out-of-door service, and was doing efficient work before we left marash. arrangements were made with rev. mr. macallum to have tools and implements made and distributed to artisans and villagers; and we left with him to begin this work the sum which you had sent for our own use 500 lire--$23,000. by this time dr. ira harris, whom you had called from tripoli, syria, with his assistants, arrived for the zeitoun field. dr. harris had his well-filled medical chests and surgical supplies in a mule caravan, and being more needed at other places, we left immediately for adioman via besnia, passing through bazarjik and kumaklejercle, a three days' mountain journey. our officer kindly told us, when we stopped at a kourdish village for the night, to "order what we want and not pay if we do not want to." but we made it clear to him, that while we are not extravagant in our wants, _we_ always pay for what we take. it is customary in this country for villages to entertain soldiers free of charge. at bazarjik when we inquired concerning the health of the place, an official said they had no sickness _except a few cases of smallpox, and this was confined to children_--that his little girl had it, and she was brought in as a proof. besnia was saved from pillage and massacre by the efforts of pasha youcab, osman zade, mahund bey, and several other turkish beys, but the surrounding villages were attacked and suffered more or less severely. some of the women escaped and found protection in besnia, where they were still living. we did some medical work here and left, in good hands, a moderate sum for emergencies. our reception by the officials at besnia, as indeed at every place we have been, large or small, was most cordial and friendly. with only an exception or two, no more considerate treatment could have been expected or asked from any people. before reaching the city we had heard that there was a feudal war in progress ahead of us, and when the military commander learned that we were intending to go to adioman, he interposed, saying he could take no responsibility in sending us there; that he had just sent a hundred soldiers out on that road to quell a riot; that it was dangerous, but he would give us a good officer and soldiers for another road to malatia. this we accepted and four days more of mountain travel, via paverly, soorgoo, and guzena, brought us to the fruit and garden city of malatia, which formerly had a population of 45,000. it is reported that about 1500 houses were plundered and 375 were burned, and some thousands of persons killed. the people of all classes were still in fear. a sum of money from friends in america had been sent by the missionaries, but its distribution had been delayed several weeks through some formality in the post-office, and was but just being made the day we arrived. we left here a sum for special cases and typhus patients, and with a promise to return, pressed on to our objective point, two days' journey more across the euphrates at isli to harpoot, when the limit of our time would be out for meeting the second expedition which arrived only two hours ahead of us. here the people turned out _en masse_ to welcome the red cross; the road was lined, the streets and windows filled, and house roofs covered, and all had words of welcome on their lips. we were told by the rev. dr. wheeler, the founder of the mission and american college of central turkey, that we were the second party of americans, not missionaries, that they had seen in harpoot in forty years. we were most cordially met by the mission people. although they, too, had been plundered, and most of their buildings and their homes had gone in the flames, we were offered, most kindly, the shelter of the remaining roofs and seats at their table as long as we would stay. we felt at home again, though startled, too, when we stopped to think we were 8000 miles away and fifteen days by horseback to the nearest steamer that might start us on a homeward trip or that could carry a letter for us to the outside world. we had been told from the first that harpoot was suffering more than any other part of the interior, and here we prepared to begin systematic work; mr. wistar taking the char-sanjak with peri as a centre, the harpoot plain, and later the aghan villages. mr. wood took the palou district with two hundred villages, and silouan in the vilayet of diarbekir with one hundred and sixty villages, with the town of palou and the city of farkin as centers. while making these arrangements we received your telegram of may 1st: "typhus and dysentery raging at arabkir. can you send doctors with medicines from harpoot? please investigate." upon inquiry we found reported one thousand sick and many dying. this naturally would be my field. after telegraphing to the various centres for additional medical help without success, we found a native physician, educated in america, dr. hintlian, at harpoot, who was ready to go. miss caroline bush and miss seymour of the mission, with unassumed bravery, volunteered to accompany the expedition. as only one could leave, the choice fell upon miss bush. when one reflects that this was a slight little body, never coming up to the majesty of a hundred pounds, with sensitive nature, delicate organization, educated and refined conditions of early life, fears might well be felt for the weight of the lot assumed; but every day's contact convinced us that the springs were of the best of steel, tempered by the glowing fires of experience, thus teaching us how far mind may be superior to matter. on our first night out, as is frequently the custom in this country, we slept in the stable with our horses--and _smaller animals_. on the second day in crossing the euphrates at gabin madin, the big wooden scoop-shovel ferryboat struck a rock in the swift current mid-stream, and came very near capsizing with its load of luggage, horses and human beings. the boatmen lost their chance of making the opposite shore, and we were in the swift current fast making for the gorge and rapids below. i looked as unconcerned as i could at miss bush, only to see that she was as calm as if this was an every-day occurrence or that she had been from childhood accustomed to such experiences. we knew she had not, only she had lived long enough in the interior not to be frightened at anything that might happen. however, another rock was reached near the bluff and we unloaded. each leading his horse and the pack animals following, we climbed up over the edge of a precipice, over loose stones, slippery earth and ragged rocks, back to the landing we should have made had we gone directly across. our next day's travel was through a cold, pouring rain, into the ruined city of arabkir, but notwithstanding the rain, hundreds of people stood in the streets as we passed to make their "salaams" and to say their word of welcome to those who had come to bring the gifts of another land to the suffering, the sick and needy of their own. passing through the rain, we arrived at the native pastor's house, which had been saved by a turkish military officer and cleared of refugees and typhus patients for our installation. nearly the entire city of arabkir was in ruins, only heaps of stones where houses had been. out of eighteen hundred homes but few remained; the markets as well as the dwellings were destroyed, and the people, plundered and destitute, were crowded into the few remaining houses, down with the typhus. we were told that six hundred had already died of the disease, and the people's physician, the only one in that part of the country, was in prison. later we were told that the arrival of help changed the character of the disease the moment it was known that we had come. miss bush went with us directly into the sick rooms, and the presence of a woman gave cheer and strength. a hundred patients were seen daily. after the first wants of the typhus patients had been met the long neglected surgical cases were looked after, and many lives and limbs were saved. the medical and surgical efforts gave gratifying results, of which dr. hintlian will make a special report from his daily record. immediately upon our arrival the gregorian church and school buildings, which escaped destruction, were offered for our use as a hospital. these rooms were admirably adapted for this purpose but by selecting and employing persons already in need of help as assistants and nurses we found that we could better care for the sick in their own quarters than to attempt to remove them to a hospital, where the congregation of sick would only be increased. to give employment was the one thing needed for the well, therefore we made no hospitals, but employed competent, healthy women in need, instructed and put them to care for sick families also in need, but of another kind. the piaster a woman earned for a day's work gave food for herself and for her own family, and gave the sick family the services necessary to save their lives. the necessary beds for the patients were furnished. a sheep or a goat given where there was a helpless babe or mother would give food for both, and be a permanent property that would grow by the increase of its own young. a small sum for fowls would be a gift that would furnish more than its value in eggs for food for present use. it would prove a small investment that must multiply in kind and value as chicks were hatched. while medical work was going on other forms of relief were also in progress. a supply of tools had been ordered from harpoot, directly upon our arrival, for blacksmiths, carpenters, tinkers, masons, stone workers, etc. the blacksmiths were set to work making sickles for cutting grass and reaping grain; shovels, plows and other implements for farmers. others were put at making spinning-wheels for the destitute women, who with these could earn their own living; others made weaving looms. out of the twelve hundred hand looms formerly in the city it was said only forty remained. arabkir was the chief manufacturing centre for native cotton cloth, and if a man had a loom which would cost three medjidieh (about $2.50) he could earn his own family's living. field and garden seeds were bought in quantity and distributed. [illustration: some methods of work.] for the villages which had no cattle we gave oxen for plowing the fields. sometimes with the oxen, cows were given, with instructions that in this stress of need the cows should be made to work with the oxen, even while they were giving milk for the family. thus they would secure a double service for one outlay. melkon miranshahian, the druggist, kindly offered his services, and we arranged with him to take up special cases and to continue to care for them after we would no longer be able to remain on the field. then, feeling that we might safely leave this work in the hands of dr. hintlian, we went to egin to arrange for distribution in the aghan villages, miss bush accompanying. [illustration: salemlik.] [illustration: pera bridge, constantinople.] [illustration: turkish coffee house.] [illustration: hamalls, showing manner of carrying heavy burdens.] the inquiry will naturally be made as to how relief was received. the gratitude of the people was almost overwhelming at times. if you could only have heard the blessings that were poured out upon clara barton, the red cross, and the good people everywhere who have aided, you would realize that deep as the need, so fervent and sincere have been the thankful prayers and blessings that the unfortunate people who survive the massacre could alone render to all who help them. to you and your name especially were they responsive. of all this, i would say we often had most gratifying evidence and expression on the lonely roads, in the stricken homes, and through personal letters from many sources. when we were some six miles out on the road to egin, we met the leading men of the village of shepik coming to town; they had heard that we were going away soon, and the villagers had sent this committee to arabkir to express their gratitude for what they had received and for all that had been done for them. this was five or six weeks after we had made a distribution of seeds, and as we came in sight of their village we saw gardens green with onions, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, melons, squash, pumpkins, etc., from the seeds we had given. here, too, the women were in the fields cutting the grass and grain with the sickles which, the blacksmith had made from the iron and steel we had furnished. the men were plowing with the plows and oxen we had supplied and, notwithstanding they had been plundered of every movable thing and their houses burned or destroyed, there was an air of prosperity in the fields that banished thoughts of want or suffering. we rode on past the little room where the school was kept and every child rose to his feet and made a most profound, though youthful bow to our passing company. egin is an old, strangely beautiful city, inhabited by the descendants of the noble families of mosul (nineveh) who fled to this mountain stronghold on the euphrates during the persian invasion, many years ago, and they are still a royal and gentle people. at egin the officials declared it unsafe for us to go to the villages as we had proposed. accordingly we made purchases in this market and sent them to the needy points. egin had bought the kourds off with 1500 lire, and consequently it had remained up to the date of our arrival unharmed through all the destruction about it. we also left a sum of money with a responsible committee for eight unfortunate villages, and did what medical work we could in our short stay. we then returned to harpoot. on our road back, miss bush had with her a young girl whom we were taking to harpoot for safety (we had frequent charges of this kind), and she wanted me to stop at her favorite beautiful village of biervan, for a pleasant picture to carry back in memory to america. we had a long day's journey at best to reach our village, and had met with delays; four hours in the morning waiting for a zaptieh. our muleteer left us at the ferry some twelve miles back, in order to stop over night at his own village; and the second zaptieh was two hours late, but having started we must keep on through the mountain pass, and it was ten o'clock at night when we reached the village. our zaptieh took us to the house of the "villageman" (each village is provided with such a personage whose duty it is to see that shelter is provided for travelers). we rode up together and the zaptieh pounded on the door. the dog on the roof barked viciously, then all the dogs in the village barked. a woman on another roof above this one raised herself and talked, then shouted down the chimney-hole (the roof is the sleeping place in warm weather), after a time she pointed with her hand and the zaptieh started off in the direction indicated; the moon had gone down and it was too dark to see anything distinctly. he came to a small pile, poked it with his foot, punched it with his gun, kicked it. after a time a part of the pile raised itself in a sort of surprised astonishment, mystified, uncertain, complicated attitude--evidently looking at the "poker." then the pile expressed itself emphatically, the zaptieh did the same more emphatically, each in turn louder and louder, all with necessary and unnecessary gesticulation. then the pile got up and began on our servants for having the pack mules and animals on his roof. after these had been led off the house, he wanted to know what we came there for anyway, at that time of night, to wake him up when there were six other villages we could have gone to; why didn't we go to one of them? then our zaptieh changed his tone and attitude and in the most polite, persuasive, pleading voice and manner, tried to explain that he himself was not to blame for all this trouble, he was under orders and had to come with these people; he couldn't help doing his duty. but this made no impression, and we were told there was no place for us. none could be found at this time of night; besides there was no barley for the horses, and nothing was to be done unless it was to go on and try another village. our zaptieh seemed to have exhausted his resources and said no more. other villagers had come and were standing around the "villageman," who still insisted that he could do nothing. miss bush quietly suggested "_argentum_." we got down from our horse, went around carelessly, and slipped a "cherek" (a five piaster piece) into his fingers. he took and felt of it, and then went away without a word. after about ten minutes he returned with a light, a door was opened close beside us, and we unloaded our animals, put them all in, took in the luggage, went in ourselves, got our supper, spread our blankets, drove away our audience of villagers, fastened the stable door and announced to ourselves that we were one hour into the "next day," and went to sleep. we were off again the next morning before the sun was up. this is a sample incident of what happened in frequent variation during interior travel. at harpoot we arranged for supplying tools and cattle to the remaining villages which we failed to reach from egin. here, too, we found mr. wistar busy supplying harvesting and threshing implements, and cattle for plowing in the harpoot plain and villages. in this vilayet there are upwards of two hundred villages either plundered or wholly destroyed, and from these many persons of all classes came for medical or surgical help. preparations were made to work in malatia, where, some weeks before, we had ordered supplies and medicines sent to be ready for our arrival, but owing to the unsettled conditions there, no such work could be done to advantage. the time for our return to constantinople was drawing near and on the twenty-seventh of june we were ready to start for the black sea. we called to pay our respects to the governor of harpoot and found him as cordial as he had always been. inquiries were made and explanations given, so that he might more thoroughly understand the character and purposes of the red cross. his excellency remarked that it gave to those engaged in the work great opportunities to become acquainted with different countries, and that we must have found turkey the most difficult of them all to work in. he regretted that he himself had been of so little assistance to our efforts, etc., but we took pleasure in saying that he had done at all times all that we had asked and ofttimes more. speaking for those associated with our work i could safely say that all the recollections of our personal relations with the vali of harpoot will remain with us as pleasant and satisfactory. the principal food and the main crop of the interior is wheat, and this year's growth wherever we have been is reported to be unusually good. if the wheat can be distributed where the destitution will be this coming winter, many lives may be saved; if not, many must inevitably be lost for want of food. when we left the harpoot valley harvesting had well begun, and was even more briskly going on as we neared the euphrates, which we crossed for the last time at isli on the twenty-ninth of june. the usual euphrates ferry-boat is twenty-four to thirty feet long, eight feet wide, and two feet high at one end and eight at the other where a rudder, or sweep, forty feet long is hung. an american frequently sees methods of work and management that lead him sometimes, when first traveling, to make suggestions. after seeing the ferrymen upon many occasions putting loaded wagons on the boat, lifting them by main force some two or three feet with much awkwardness over the edge of the craft, we ventured to suggest that two planks laid on the bank and end of the boat so as to roll the wagons in or out would save much trouble and time and extra help and labor. we were met with this unanswerable reply: "who would pay for them?" to malatia we carried money to the people from their relatives in america which had been entrusted to dr. barnum at harpoot. we also left in the hands of a responsible committee a fund for artisans' tools, and a smaller sum for food and supplies in special needy cases. the feeling of security among the people in malatia was entirely absent. they had seen terrible slaughter. they were possessed with fear to such an extent that we could meet very few of them; and had we not known, that it was doctor gates' plan to visit the place soon with assistants and means from harpoot it would have pained us still more to leave them in their terrible condition, for we could not remain to carry on the work, and an unwise or untimely effort often fails of its end or only aggravates the conditions it seeks to relieve. the sun is extremely hot during the summer in the interior, hence when the moon was favorable we traveled by night, leaving the saddle long enough to sleep in the "araba" (a sort of small, springless, covered wagon used where there are roads) so as to have the day to work in while our horses rested. when we could do so in our journey we left funds for specified purposes, but frequently the sufferers felt safer without such assistance and declined to receive it. at sivas we gave a fund for farmers' tools. here the grain crop was later than in the valleys further south. we also left here with the rev. messrs. perry and hubbard, a horse, in order to facilitate their relief work. from malatia several families and individuals placed themselves under the protection of the red cross and its guards in order to go in safety to the coast. a portion of this road is infested with brigands and a strong guard is necessary, in fact it is needed throughout the whole region. the government took particular care of us by giving us a brigand as a special guard through the dangerous part of the road, saying that we should be safer with him than with the regular military guard. a few weeks before a rich caravan was robbed on this road, and when we passed we had the interesting pleasure of taking tea and journeying for a while with the chief of these brigands who had two days before been enlisted in government service. with the ample government protection we have at all times had, we seldom felt concern for our personal safety, notwithstanding that in places where we visited there was often a great deal of anxiety and fear on the part of the people for their own safety and that of their friends, or their property if they had any. tokat and amasia were on our homeward route--the latter place being the site of the ancient castle of mithridates, king of pontus. at samsoun we had two saddle horses to dispose of, and our consular agent, mr. stephapopale, having a stable, kindly offered to sell them to the best profit for us, and to see that the proceeds were used in aiding the refugees who crowd to the coast in the hope of getting farther on, but only find themselves stranded and unable to return, becoming thereby veritable sufferers. on the sixteenth of july we reached the bosphorus, four months and six days from the time we started out from constantinople for the interior, glad of the privilege and power we have enjoyed as messengers to carry some of the gifts that have been entrusted to your care by the people of america for the innocent, unfortunate sufferers of anatolia. wherever we have met the missionaries, protestant or catholic, we have found them devoting most, if not all, of their time to the work of relieving the suffering about them, regardless of sect or nationality; but in all cases their fields of work have been greater than their strength or their means. with them we have worked always harmoniously and without consciousness of difference of place or creed; and to them and to many others we are indebted for courtesies and for hospitalities that will always be remembered with gratitude. the real work of the relief expedition was greatly aided by the hearty co-operation of every european and american resident with whom we came in contact. each did all in his power for our aid, and we regret that space forbids our telling how each gave his support and help. at egin we will ever remember the generous hospitality during our short stay with the families of nicoghos agha jangochyan and alexander effendi kasabyan, noblemen, who by their energy and liberality saved the city and people from destruction, while the country round about was being plundered and burned, and who gave us great assistance in furnishing tools and implements to this section of the country. not long after leaving egin we learned the sad news that these gentlemen with nearly a thousand others had been killed. these families were the centre of a large community of the most charming and cultivated people we had met. [illustration: red cross expeditions passing through the valley of catch beard.] to the turkish officials everywhere we are grateful for their careful supervision of our personal safety, and for the general personal freedom allowed ourselves wherever we worked. to the officers and guards who always accompanied us in our journeys through cold and heat, on the road by night or day, over desolate plain or mountain trail, for bringing us safely through from sea to sea without a scratch or harm of any kind, for all this we are most assuredly grateful, and oft recall the cheerful vigilant service and special courtesies we enjoyed at their hands, which could only be prompted by the most friendly feelings and consideration. but we do not forget, dear miss barton, that the success of this expedition is due to your careful and constant oversight and direction of all our movements, from the seat of government at constantinople, from first to last, and to the conviction which you had impressed upon the sublime porte of your own and your officers' honesty, integrity and singleness of purpose. hence for your statesmanship and generalship and constant oversight, we would express our warmest gratitude. we are grateful for the gratitude of the people we tried to relieve. it was universal and sincere. the kindness with which we were everywhere welcomed, and the assistance so cordially rendered by all the noble men and women, with whom it has been my good fortune to become personally acquainted. surrounded as they were with desolation, dangers and misery, they will be remembered for their worth and devotion to duty. _constantinople, august 1, 1896._ j.b. hubbell. [illustration: a turkish wedding procession in arabkir.] medical report. dr. ira harris, resident american physician at tripoli, syria, a gentleman of high attainments, christian character, scholarship and service, who directs a large private hospital and practice of his own, honored the red cross and contributed largely to the beneficence of his and our own people's efforts to relieve and rebuild the people of asia minor, by accepting a commission to command an expedition for the relief of the fever-stricken thousands, residents and refugees, crowded into the cities of marash and zeitoun. the reports received from consuls and missionaries presented a terrible condition of affairs, threatening the lives of thousands by pestilence and hunger, more rapidly than the circassian knife and the kourdish spear and bullet had done. our own special agents were all in charge of difficult and distant fields, and none could be spared to this section. after various disappointments, aided by the rev. dr. post at beyrout, dr. ira harris was reached and asked to aid in organizing and forming a relief expedition at once. besides himself as director, six other physicians and two pharmacists were required. dr. harris, though burdened with hospital patients and promised operations, finally decided to proceed to beyrout and meet dr. post, taking with him his own assistant and pharmacist. dr. hubbell had already been dr. harris' guest and this fact aided the latter's acceptance. at beyrout time was spent in examining medical applicants, most of whom withdrew however on learning of the dangers before them. two protestant doctors were secured on the second day, and so with half the needed medical force at hand, the supplies and stores were quickly purchased and packed for travel. arrangements at tripoli for the care of dr. harris' own patients were then made, and upon the third of april our fourth expedition was under way. a route was chosen via mersene and adana. at the latter city some delay was occasioned by the rumors of incursions of bandit tribes to neighboring towns and villages and an insufficient military escort available. after trying in vain two or three days, to influence the local authorities dr. harris telegraphed to red cross headquarters for assistance. the matter was immediately brought to the attention of the porte, through the united states legation, and within an hour an imperial order was sent to the governor of adana. as fine a mounted turkish soldier guard as ever escorted an expedition was at once found, and dr. harris with his corps of assistants, hastened on to marash, where he was welcomed by dr. hubbell of our first expedition, on the eighteenth of april, after five days of severe travel. dr. harris' report was embodied in a letter. after enumerating the trials at adana, from which he was so quickly freed by the order from the porte, the doctor in his communication says: we found that the medical work was being cared for by native physicians, and the missionaries and their wives were caring for the other relief work, one feature of which seemed to me very valuable indeed, _i.e._, the making of clothing by poor women from the material sent by you from constantinople or purchased by dr. hubbell in marash. i wish the dear people in america who gave of their means, could see with their own eyes the condition of thousands in these districts alone. the hundreds of women, almost destitute of covering, and that a mass of rags. it does not require much thought to realize the value of good clothing at such a time. [illustration: judge alexander w. terrell, _united states minister to constantinople during the armenian troubles._] [illustration: armenian and turkish decorations.] a consultation was held and our party decided to proceed to zeitoun, just as soon as our weary bodies were rested. unfortunately the day after we arrived i had a severe chill and fever which prostrated me for several days. as the symptoms seemed to resemble typhus fever the doctors remained with me until a clear diagnosis was made by the fever leaving me on thursday. the next day the party went to zeitoun with mr. macallum, i following three days later. i have witnessed scenes of suffering, both in the united states and the orient, but never, to my dying day, will i be able to dismiss from my mind the horror of the pinched, haggard faces and forms that gathered about me that first day. before we left the tent one of the doctors said: "we will now see the place is full of walking skeletons." this expressed fully their condition. just imagine a place having a normal population of 12,500 living all told in 1403 houses, you can see there is not much cubic space to spare; then imagine 7000 or more refugees to be provided for in the town also. some of the zeitounes gave shelter to a small number, but the greater majority lived on the street, under the houses, in many instances too vile to be of use to its owner; in cow and donkey stables with the animals; in spaces in close proximity to water-closets; in fact not a place that even suggested shelter was unoccupied. the smell and presence of human excrement were everywhere, and this, added to divers other odors, made the air a fit place for the culture of disease germs. so much for the hygienic conditions of the place. diseases.--i regret that i am unable to give the exact number of those afflicted with each individual disease; to ascertain this would have taken too much valuable time. we found it a difficult task even to make a true estimate of the number ill with acute diseases. our first estimate sent you, viz., 1400 dysentery and diarrhoea, 600 typhus fever, afterwards proved nearly correct, _i.e._, if we take about three hundred from the typhus and add to the dysentery. these were acute cases. of the refugees, ninety-eight per cent complained and were treated for diseases such as chronic dysentery, diarrhoea, dropsy (usually those recovering from typhus), rheumatism, bronchitis, dyspepsia, malaria; all were suffering from anã�â¦mia and debility. causes.--overcrowding and bad air; but that condition bordering on starvation was the principal cause of all the sickness. i should add, many of the cases of diarrhoea were caused from eating a soup made from grass, weeds, buds and leaves of shrubs and trees. in fact anything green that could be gathered in the fields was boiled in water to which a small quantity of flour was added. this diet was especially dangerous to children. treatment.--we were soon convinced that if we expected to gain the upper hand of all this sickness and save even a remnant of the refugees, we must first feed the sick, and then when they were well--to give the former every possible chance to get well, and to prevent the well from becoming ill. second, we must try in every way in our power to get the refugees to return to their homes, or at all events to camp out in the fields. the first day we filled the hospital opened by consul barnum with cases off the street, and from that time on we increased hospital facilities as fast as possible. we engaged two men and one woman to care for the hospital; four interpreters and one assistant for the pharmacist. we then divided the town into districts so as to systematically get at every sick person. then we hired (for we could get nothing without a system of bargaining as to price) two large copper kettles used to make grape molasses, and purchased two hundred pounds of beef and made a strong, rich soup. we then strained every nerve to get a soup ticket into the possession of every sick person. we did not waste time by trying to cull out the impostors; in fact there were very few of this class, all the refugees were needy and hungry. the second day we added three kettles, and to supply the number we served at ten o'clock clear meat broth; at four o'clock thick soup of beef and rice. by the end of the third day every sick person was receiving food. then all complaints of vomiting the medicine ceased. the problem then to be met was--how to get the people to go outside the town. we suggested that if they would, we would place a soup kettle out in the open fields to the south, north and east, and in addition to the soup we would give them flour. this had a very decided effect, for one thousand went the first day. the moving continued until every person living on the streets and in cow stables had built for himself shelters of twigs and leaves. now the butchers saw a chance of applying the plan of putting up the price of meat from seven to fourteen piasters per oke (2ã�â¾ pounds). but we had anticipated this and sent men to a friendly moslem village to purchase cattle. so their scheme failed. by the end of the second week there were no hungry people in zeitoun. results.--the typhus cases began to recover, the new cases took on a mild form, the same could be said of dysentery. the new cases of both became less and less until they almost disappeared. the most marked improvement was the rapidity which the daily funerals in the three burying grounds decreased. i watched these places with deep interest, for they were a thermometer to gauge the success of our work, and it was with deep gratitude to god that we saw the daily burials reduced from fifteen to none. so much for the acute cases. the first week the chronic cases took the entire time of one doctor, each taking our regular turn. tonic treatment and food so reduced the number that sixty became the daily average at the end of the second week. at the end of the third week, fell to ten. our pharmacist, shickri fakhuri, proved, as he always has, a jewel. his hands were full to prepare the prescriptions of three doctors. at first it was necessary for one of us to give him assistance of an hour or so daily. on the twentieth of may we felt we could leave the town free of acute typhus and dysentery. we gave to the committee selected by mr. macallum, funds enough to keep the soup kettles going for one week, and 200 liras ($880) worth of flour, which would suffice for at least six weeks, and by that time it was hoped that all the refugees would have departed for their homes. on our return to marash we remained four days superintending the work of relief of the native doctors, and performing surgical operations. we then started for the coast. we chose a shorter and less expensive route than that by which we came. we were able in several places on the road to give needed relief, although to a limited amount. the lessons learned by our experience have been many: 1. the value of keeping well, for obviously, success depends upon this. it is evident to us the way to reduce the danger of infection to a minimum for medical men, is to eat and sleep outside the infected town. this plan may present difficulties, but if possible, it is best. the dreadful mortality among doctors and nurses in the epidemics of typhus fever is well known. the query is, could not this mortality be reduced by the plan suggested? it proved so in our case at least. 2. the food supply is of first importance, especially for epidemics caused by _lack_ of food. 3. the utter worthlessness of medication without it. 4. pure air. it is much better for people to risk possible exposure out in the open air, than risk contagion in vile, unwholesome shelter in an overcrowded town. lastly, i am more than ever convinced that small doses of medicine oft repeated give better results in typhus and dysentery than those usually recommended in text-books. i, at least, had ample opportunity to test this to my satisfaction. in conclusion, i wish to express my hearty approval of the methods pursued by yourself and associates, especially as applied to the giving relief to the suffering people. the distribution of your forces was admirable, and the way they grasped the situation and the needs of the people of each particular place should excite the admiration of all who have the relief of this afflicted people at heart. instead of scattering the money here and there in an aimless way, food, medical and surgical supplies, clothing, seed, cattle, farming utensils, simple cooking vessels, were systematically distributed, thus putting all in the way of providing for themselves in the future and becoming independent again. it is very easy to pauperize the people of the orient, but your methods prevent this. again, the non-sectarian aspect of your work has made a favorable impression. it eliminates all religious prejudices from the minds of all, especially the religious heads. therefore no ungenerous remarks as to the ulterior motives of your relief. on the contrary we heard nothing but words of commendation. no one but yourself and your associates and those who have lived in turkey for a number of years, can appreciate the difficulties and perplexities under which you have labored from the very first. i am sorry that this report ends my official relations with you, but believe me, dear miss barton, my wife and i shall hold yourself and your associates always in interested remembrance. truly and sincerely yours, ira harris. _tula, mt. lebanon, august 15, 1896._ equally interesting reports are in hand of the work of our special field agents, e.m. wistar, of philadelphia, and charles king wood, whose labors extended to different fields of harpoot; chimiskezek peri diarbekir; palou silouan farkin, feeding and clothing the people, furnishing tools, cattle, seeds, grain for harvesting the crops, and planting the fields for future provision. we regret that space will not allow their introduction here in full. so faithful and competent agents deserve their own recitation of a work so well done. returning from the field when called, dr. hubbell and assistants arrived in constantinople july 16, mr. wistar and mr. wood on the twentieth of the same month. i need not attempt to say with what gratitude i welcomed back these weary, brown-faced men and officers from a field at once so difficult and so perilous, and none the less did the gratitude of my heart go out to my faithful and capable secretary, who had toiled early and late, never leaving for a day, till the face grew thin and the eyes hollow, striving with tender heart that all should go well, and "the children might be fed." and when the first greetings were over, and the first meal partaken, the full chorus of manly voices: "home again," "sweet land of liberty," "nearer my god to thee," that rolled out through the open windows of the red cross headquarters in constantinople, fell on the listening ears of christian and moslem alike, and though the tones were new and strange all felt that to some one, somewhere, they meant more than mere notes of music. [illustration: group of armenian teachers and pupils, harpoot american missionary college.] [illustration: clara barton. _taken in 1897._] the red cross flag. "when the smoke of the cannon cleared away we saw the red cross flying over the hospital." the shot sped out from our serried ships, like the sob of a strong man crying; the sun was veiled as with sudden eclipse, when the shot sped out from our serried ships, and england's flag was flying. up from the shore the answer came, the cry of the wounded and dying; a burst of thunder, a flash of flame- up from the shore an answer came, where the prophet's flag was flying. so we dealt destruction the livelong day, in war's wild pastime vying; through the smoke and thunder and dashing spray, we dealt destruction the livelong day, and the hostile flags were flying. but far through the rolling battle smoke- ah, god! 'mid the groans and the crying- a sudden gleam on our vision broke; afar through the rolling battle smoke, and the red cross flag was flying. o'er the house of mercy with plain, white walls, where they carried the wounded and dying, unharmed by our cannon, unfearing our balls; o'er that house of mercy with plain, white walls, the red cross flag was flying. as the sign of the son of man in the heaven for a world of warring and sighing we hailed it; and cheered, for the promise given by the sign of the son of man in the heaven- the red cross banner flying. for we know that wherever the battle was waged, with its wounded and dead and dying- where the wrath of pagan or christian raged- like the mercy of god, where the battle was waged, the red cross flag was flying. * * * * * let the angry legions meet in the fight, with the noise of captains crying; yet the arm of christ outstretched in its might, where the angry legions meet in the fight, keeps the red cross banner flying. and it surely will come that war will cease, with its madness and pain in crying, lo! the blood-red cross is the prophet of peace- of the blessed time when war will cease- and the red cross flag is flying. john t. napier, in the moravian. the spanish-american war. in the subsequent chapters is traced the history of the operations of the american national red cross during the past year, including the distribution of relief among the "reconcentrados" in cuba, and the auxiliary field and hospital service in the spanish-american war. being called away to cuba in the midst of the preparations for war relief, with much of the preliminary work unfinished, it seemed proper to leave at home, for a time, a personal representative familiar with the obligations of the national red cross, to relieve the overburdened committee in new york of some of the details which fell more particularly within my own province, and to which i had planned to give personal attention. accordingly, mr. d.l. cobb, of my staff, was detached for this service. being familiar with the work which was done in my absence, and in which he has faithfully and efficiently served with an interest second only to my own, i have asked him to tell the story of the relations of the national committee with the government, the formation of the committees and the auxiliary societies, through whose guidance and administrations all the great work of relief in the camps and elsewhere was carried on. this he has done in the following chapter, under the title, "home camps and american waters." home camps and american waters. d.l. cobb. during the summer of 1897 there began to appear reports of great suffering among the unfortunate people of cuba, since familiarly known as the "reconcentrados." they were the non-combatants, men, women and children, ordered from their homes and plantations in the interior and concentrated in the seacoast towns under control of the spanish arms. thousands were dying, hundreds of thousands were in want; the terrible story of their misery and awful distress was re-echoed throughout the country, and everywhere the cries for relief and the appeals to humanity were heard. congress, too, had taken the matter up and were discussing plans for cuban relief. the time had arrived when something must be done. finally the president opened the way by issuing the following appeal to the people on the twenty-fourth of december: department of state, washington, d.c. by direction of the president the public is informed that, in deference to the earnest desire of the government of the united states to contribute, by effective action, toward the relief of the suffering people in the island of cuba, arrangements have been perfected by which charitable contributions, in money or in kind, can be sent to the island by the benevolently disposed people of the united states. money, provisions, clothing and like articles of prime necessity can be forwarded to general fitzhugh lee, the consul-general of the united states at havana, and all articles now dutiable by law, so consigned, will be admitted into cuba free of duty. the consul-general has been instructed to receive the same and to co-operate with the local authorities and the charitable boards, for the distribution of such relief among the destitute and needy people of cuba. the president is confident that the people of the united states, who have on many occasions in the past responded most generously to the cry for bread from peoples stricken by famine or sore calamity, and who have beheld no less generous action on the part of foreign communities when our own countrymen have suffered from fire or flood, will heed the appeal for aid that comes from the destitute at their own threshold, and especially at this season of good will and rejoicing give of their abundance to this humane end. john sherman, _secretary_. this appeal was sent out through the associated press and distributed through the mails, and met with a most generous response from the public. it soon became apparent, however, that to inaugurate a thorough system of relief, to concentrate and administer the varied contributions of the people, a central committee would be required who should be charged with the duties of organization, collection and shipment. a conference was held at washington, between president mckinley, the secretary of state and the american national red cross, the result of which appears in the following communications: department of state, _january 1, 1898_. miss clara barton, _president, american national red cross_: dear madam: after my conference with you yesterday, i saw the president again, who expressed his great pleasure that the red cross will so cheerfully respond to the initiative which the president has taken toward the relief of the suffering people of cuba. no less could have been expected by him in view of the good work which the red cross has done in the past when called upon to fulfill its humane mission of relieving suffering, either at home or in foreign countries, and acting as the medium for the effective application of the charitable gifts of our citizens. with the president's approval, i have the pleasure to suggest to you the way in which it is deemed that the co-operation of the red cross in this humane endeavor can be most practically accomplished. the first necessity is the organization, in new york city as the most convenient centre of operations, of a committee whose functions it will be to appeal to the kindly sentiments of the american people in behalf of the sufferers in cuba; to receive contributions in money or in kind, and to forward the same to havana, consigned to the consul-general of the united states, he having been placed by the president, in sole charge of the receipt and application of the relief in the island; the committee, as a whole, to act under the supervision and direction of the secretary of state, with whom it may correspond on all matters of business arising and requiring direction in the name of the government of the united states. in view of the generous and cordial offer of mr. louis klopsch, of the _christian herald_, the president desires that, if agreeable to you, he shall be a member of the committee and, in concert with a third member to be designated by the chamber of commerce of new york, co-operating with the representative of the red cross to make effective the effort which is now being put forth. the representation of the red cross on the proposed relief committee, is left to you. while the president would be most gratified were you in person to act as the second member, he recognizes that the duties and labors of the office might more conveniently fall upon a representative of the red cross in new york city, and will cheerfully accept your suggestion that mr. stephen e. barton, second vice-president of the american national red cross, serve in that capacity. mr. barton will be furnished with letters to mr. louis klopsch and to mr. alexander e. orr, president of the new york chamber of commerce, explaining the circumstances under which their co-operation toward the formation of the proposed committee is solicited. it is trusted that speedy action may be had, so that the organization of the central cuban relief committee may be announced to the people of the united states by the secretary of state at the earliest possible day. i am, my dear madam, very respectfully yours, alvey a. adee, _second assistant secretary_. letters of notification were then sent by the secretary of state to mr. stephen e. barton, mr. louis klopsch and mr. alexander e. orr. mr. barton being appointed, mr. klopsch having accepted the invitation to serve, mr. charles a. schieren was selected to represent the new york chamber of commerce, and thus was formed what is still known as the central cuban relief committee. the committee met early in january of this year and organized, mr. barton being elected as chairman, mr. schieren treasurer. this committee began active work by sending a telegraphic appeal to the governors of all the states and territories, announcing the object of the committee's existence, and asking their co-operation and active support, in order to carry out the president's policy in the administration of relief to the starving people in cuba. all responses received were favorable, many committees were appointed, and the supplies and funds began to come in. it was at this point that the secretary of state issued the second public appeal by the government, on january the eighth, again urging the people, the municipal authorities and the great corporations to assist in the work. the first shipment of supplies to cuba by the central cuban relief committee was made on january 4, and the second on january 12, the first consisting of 160 cases of condensed milk, and the second of about forty tons of food, clothing and medicines. these supplies were consigned to consul-general lee at havana, and were transported by the ward line of steamships free of charge. in the meantime the committee issued its own circular appeal to all local authorities, business houses, boards of trade, religious institutions, charitable corporations, social and business clubs, organizations and societies generally in every state of the union. the question of transportation and its cost now became one of vital importance. if full freight charges were to be paid on all consignments to the committee to the atlantic coast, the expense of shipment might in many cases equal the value of the supplies, and in any event would be a serious burden upon the treasury. accordingly, negotiations were carried on with the principal railway and steamship transportation lines, and with the joint traffic association of new york, one result of which was that the association shortly afterward issued its general circular of instructions, the substance of which was: that, responsive to the request of the central cuban relief committee, appointed by the president of the united states and acting under the direction of the department of state, it shall be permissible for the railway companies, parties to the joint traffic association, to forward free of transportation charges, from points subject to its jurisdiction to or from new york, new orleans, mobile, montgomery and tampa, shipments of food, clothing and medicines, and other necessary supplies intended for the use and relief of the inhabitants of the island of cuba who are suffering from sickness and famine. through this generous action on the part of the joint traffic association, comprising the principal railroads east of chicago, with branch lines extending north and south, all contributions were carried to the atlantic and gulf ports free. the ward line from new york, and the plant system of railways and steamships had already taken similar action, then the great trunk lines of the west, the new england companies, the southern railways, and all the coastwise steamship companies and the munson line united in furnishing free transportation to the ports of cuba. of the steamship lines whose kind assistance did so much to further the work of relief, special mention is due to messrs. james e. ward & co., of new york, owners of the ward line, whose steamers running to havana, santiago, cienfuegos and ports along the southern shore of cuba, not only carried the larger amount of provisions, but unloaded it and delivered it on shore without charge. no single agency did greater service than the press. by the daily and widespread dissemination of news concerning the actual conditions in cuba, by the reports of their own representatives in the famine-stricken districts, and by the persistent reiteration of appeals the great heart of the american people was reached, and the response was prompt and abundant. operating over such a large territory, communication by mail would have often been too slow to be effective, and it was constantly necessary to resort to the telegraph, and the cost of such service would have ordinarily been very great. but the postal telegraph company and the western union telegraph and cable company, in order to assist the work, extended unusual privileges, the first company transmitting all messages free, and the second accepting messages at the government rates. the central cuban relief committee in their report to the president, extend their thanks to many other companies, and individuals, for whose kindly assistance they are indebted, and special mention is made of the valuable service rendered by the united states dispatch agent, mr. i.p. roosa, in the receipt and storage, the purchase and shipment of relief supplies. in the latter part of march a conference was held at washington, between the secretary of state and the central cuban relief committee, which resulted in bringing the committee into relationship with the american national red cross, and the designation of the red cross as the distributing agent in cuba, acting for the state department and the committee. as told elsewhere, the work of distribution in cuba was scarcely begun when friendly relations between the united states and spain were suspended, and upon the advice of the consul-general at havana, the red cross retired when the president called all americans home. in the meantime the committee, upon the advice of the department of state, had chartered the steamship "state of texas" of the mallory line, and, loading her with a general cargo of food, clothing, medicines and hospital supplies, dispatched her, under the flag of the red cross, to key west. the purpose for which this good ship was dispatched, and the conditions under which she was sent, are best explained by the correspondence exchanged at that time by the departments of state and navy, the american national red cross, the central cuban relief committee and the naval commanders: the central cuban relief committee, appointed by the president of the united states and acting under the direction of the department of state. new york, _april 20, 1898._ miss clara barton, _president, american national red cross, washington, d.c._: dear miss barton: in confirmation of the verbal request by the chairman and treasurer of the central cuban relief committee, in conjunction with the hon. wm. r. day, assistant secretary of state, that you proceed to the island of cuba, there to carry on the work of distribution and relief to the suffering people in behalf of this committee and in co-operation with the united states consuls, i beg to inform you that at a special meeting of this committee, held on thirteenth of april, 1898, the following action was taken: whereas, the department of state having extended the authority of this committee to the supervision of the distribution of relief supplies, and the carrying out of all necessary relief measures, in co-operation with the american consuls in cuba; and this committee, having verbally joined with the department of state in asking the american national red cross, miss clara barton, president, to proceed at once to cuba as the representative of this committee, and to perform, in behalf of the committee, all necessary work of relief; therefore be it _resolved_, that the chairman be authorized to write suitable letters to miss clara barton, consul-general lee and the other american consuls in cuba, notifying them of this action. as you are aware, this committee at request of the department of state, has determined to send the steamship "state of texas," with relief supplies from new york city to key west, florida, there to await orders and instructions from the united states government. by instructions from the department of state, the committee have to send the steamship under the red cross flag and the provisions of the geneva convention, turning the vessel over to the american national red cross upon leaving new york. i, therefore, beg to say to you that in all probability the vessel will be loaded and made ready to sail on saturday the twenty-third inst., and you are expected to have such of your representatives--as you desire shall accompany and take charge of the ship from new york to key west--in readiness to go aboard saturday forenoon. the arrival of the vessel at key west should be reported to this committee by telegraph immediately, when instructions will be given by the government at washington for proceeding further. if hostilities shall have begun between the united states and spain, it will be your duty to call upon the united states government for the necessary naval consort--as provided by the geneva convention. this program has been proposed by the assistant secretary of state, who will immediately issue the necessary orders upon hearing from us. before your departure from key west for cuba, this committee will give you further information as to its desires and recommendation concerning the distribution of supplies from the different ports in cuba. this committee stands ready to furnish you with the funds necessary to carry on this work of relief to the extent of its ability, and it is expected that you will render to the treasurer a detailed account of your expenditures in the work entrusted to your organization. you are requested to make requisition by letter or telegraph from time to time, as you need further funds. we will thank you for your official acknowledgment of this communication in writing. very truly yours, stephen e. barton, _chairman_. navy department, washington, _april 25, 1898_. sir: miss clara barton, the representative of the american national red cross society, is about to proceed to key west to take charge of the distribution of the supplies now aboard the steamship "state of texas," and which supplies it is proposed to distribute among the starving reconcentrados of cuba. there are enclosed herewith copies of letters from the department of state to the department of the navy and from the secretary of the navy to the commander-in-chief of the north atlantic station which contain the terms upon which this trust is undertaken, and the department's instructions in relation thereto. the department desires that you will afford every assistance within your power to miss barton and her associates, while they are in key west. the departure of the "state of texas" from key west and its destination are, of course, matters coming entirely under the jurisdiction of the commander-in-chief of the north atlantic station. very respectfully, john d. long, _secretary_, commandant, naval station, key west, fla. navy department, washington, _april 25, 1898_. sir: there is forwarded enclosed a copy of a letter received this day from the department of state, which fully states the conditions under which miss clara barton, as the representative of the american national red cross society, proceeds to key west. you will afford miss barton every facility that shall become feasible for the distribution of the supplies now on board the steamship "state of texas" to the starving reconcentrados, but it is, of course, necessary that none of these supplies shall come into the possession of the spanish army, as this would result in defeating the purposes for which the blockade has been established. it is believed that you will fully appreciate the wishes of the departments of state and the navy in this matter, and all the details are necessarily left to your discretion. very respectfully, commander-in-chief, u.s. naval force, john d. long, north atlantic station. _secretary_. department of state, washington, _april 25, 1898_. _the honorable the secretary of the navy_: sir: the central cuban relief committee of new york, organized by direction and under the authority of the president, for the collection and transmission to cuba of supplies for the relief of the suffering and destitute in that island, has, after consultation with this department and with full approval of its course, chartered and dispatched from new york the steamer "state of texas" laden with supplies and sailing under the ensign of the national red cross. the only passengers she carries are officers and employes of the red cross for the purpose of assisting in the distribution of this charitable relief. as at present contemplated, the destination of the "state of texas" is either matanzas or cardenas, or perhaps, if circumstances favor, both; but the point of landing will largely be determined by circumstances of which the admiral commanding the blockading force on the north coast of cuba will necessarily be the best judge. miss clara barton, president of the american national red cross, is about to proceed to tampa and key west at which latter point she will go aboard the "state of texas" upon its arrival there. upon reaching key west miss barton, as the person in charge of the relief expedition, will report to such naval officer as you may designate and take from him directions as to the movements of the "state of texas" from that point on. i have the honor to commend miss barton to the kind attentions of your department in order that she may receive, before leaving washington, such instructions as you may deem it necessary and proper to give her. respectfully yours, john sherman, _secretary_. with these credentials, the president and staff of the american national red cross immediately proceeded to key west, and, after reporting to the commandant of the naval station and to the representative of admiral sampson, the party boarded the "state of texas" and awaited an opportunity to carry out the mission of the red cross. during the year prior to the outbreak of hostilities between the united states and spain, cuban families were fleeing from the island, and this exodus continued until war began. the refugees, numbering several thousand, took up their abode at tampa, key west and other atlantic and gulf ports. they had been obliged to leave their native country hastily, leaving nearly all their personal property behind them, and in a short time after their arrival in america were actually without food and with no means wherewith to purchase it. committees and agents of the red cross were established in both tampa and key west, and acting as the distributing agencies for the supplies forwarded by the central cuban relief committee, the refugees were cared for. in key west the number supplied with food from the warehouse and kitchen of the red cross were over seventeen hundred people, and the distribution still continues. key west has been one of the most important distributing stations, and from the beginning has been under the efficient direction of mr. george w. hyatt, for whose continuous and faithful service the red cross is much indebted. the distributing station was kept constantly supplied by the central cuban relief committee, and when the stock began to run low in the latter part of july, the committee dispatched the schooner "nokomis" from new york with 125 tons of assorted provisions to replenish the storehouse. before the "state of texas" arrived at key west, war had been declared between the united states and spain, and soon after the prize ships, schooners, steamers and fishing smacks, captured off the cuban coast began to come in, in tow, or in charge of prize crews. the navy worked rapidly and brought in their prizes so quickly that the government officials were not prepared to feed the prisoners of war. on the ninth of may the united states marshal for the southern district of florida made the following appeal: miss clara barton, _president, american national red cross_: dear miss barton: on board the captured vessels we find quite a number of aliens among the crews, mostly cubans, and some american citizens, and their detention here and inability to get away for want of funds has exhausted their supply of food, and some of them will soon be entirely out. as there is no appropriation available from which food could be purchased, would you kindly provide for them until i can get definite instructions from the department at washington? very respectfully, john f. horr, _u.s. marshal_. attached to this letter was an official list of the spanish prizes whose crews were in need of food. the boats of the "state of texas" were quickly loaded with a supply of assorted provisions and, being taken in tow by the steam-launch of the transport "panther," the work of distribution began. all the ships in need were supplied with food and medicines for ten days, and their supply renewed every ten days for some weeks until government rations were regularly issued and auxiliary assistance was no longer necessary. the supplies on the "state of texas" being intended for the reconcentrados in cuba, her cargo was drawn upon to the smallest possible extent. many of the prizes had on board cargoes of bananas and plantains, and the wells of the "viveros" were filled with live fish. after some negotiating, arrangements were made to secure these cargoes at a trifling cost, and they were distributed among the crews of the vessels that carried nothing eatable. tasajo, or jerked meat, was also bought and given out in the same way, and from one of the prizes loaded with dried meat from the argentine, which was afterward sold at auction in key west, forty tons were purchased and stored in the warehouse to supply the refugees, and to replace that portion of the cargo of the "state of texas" which had been distributed to the prisoners of war. while waiting for an opportunity to get into cuba, the reports which reached us showed that the distress among the reconcentrados was daily increasing, and it was determined to make an attempt to land with the "state of texas," or at least to show the willingness of the red cross to do so, if permitted. as the ship was under the direction of the navy department, the following letter was addressed to the admiral in command of the blockading fleet: s.s. "state of texas," _may 2, 1898_. admiral william t. sampson, u.s.n., _commanding fleet before havana_: admiral: but for the introduction kindly proffered by our mutual acquaintance, captain harrington, i should scarcely presume to address you. he will have made known to you the subject which i desire to bring to your gracious consideration. papers forwarded by direction of our government will have shown the charge entrusted to me, viz: to get food to the starving people of cuba. i have with me a cargo of fourteen hundred tons, under the flag of the red cross, the one international emblem of neutrality and humanity known to civilization. spain knows and regards it. fourteen months ago, the entire spanish government at madrid cabled me permission to take to, and distribute food to the suffering people in cuba. this official permission was broadly published; if read by our people, no response was made, no action taken until two months ago, when under the humane and gracious call of our honored president, i did go, and distributed food unmolested anywhere on the island, until arrangements were made by our government for all american citizens to leave cuba. persons must now be dying there by the hundreds if not thousands daily, for the want of the food we are shutting out. will not the world hold us accountable? will history write us blameless? will it not be said of us that we completed the scheme of extermination commenced by weyler? i fear the mutterings are already in the air. fortunately, i know the spanish authorities in cuba, captain-general blanco and his assistants. we parted with perfect friendliness. they do not regard me as an american merely, but as the national representative of an international treaty to which themselves are signatory and under which they act. i believe they would receive and confer with me, if such a thing were made possible. i would like to ask spanish permission and protection to land and distribute the food now on the "state of texas." could i be permitted to ask to see them under flag of truce? if we make the effort and are refused, the blame rests with them; if we fail to make it, it rests with us. i hold it good statesmanship to at least divide the responsibility. i am told that some days must elapse before our troops can be in position to reach and feed this starving people. our food and our force are here, ready to commence at once. with assurances of highest regard, i am, admiral, very respectfully yours, clara barton. [illustration: a part of the american national red cross fleet in the spanish-american war of 1898. yacht "red cross."--failed to reach cuba in time for service, and was used for transporting sick between military camps and new york. s.s. "san antonio."--carried assorted cargo and hospital supplies to matanzas and cardenas for distribution to the interior towns. s.s. "state of texas."--loaded before the declaration of war, with 1400 tons of food and hospital supplies and clothing for cuban hungry. carried red cross president and working staff and nurses. used cargo for both u.s. army and cubans at guantanamo, siboney, the front and santiago. schooner "mary e morse."--carried 800 tons of ice to santiago, used on transports carrying returned soldiers and sick men. afterward carried transferred cargo of "port victor" to baracoa and jibarra for distribution among cuban hungry. schooner "nocomis."--carried 700 tons of ice to porto rico.] [illustration: officers of the executive committee american national red cross.] on the same day, admiral sampson, in his reply, pointed out why, as commander of the blockading squadron, his instructions would not permit him to admit food into cuba at that time. u.s. flagship "new york," first rate. key west, florida, _may 2, 1898_. miss clara barton, _president, american national red cross, key west, fla._: dear madam: i have received, through the senior naval officer present, a copy of a letter from the state department to the secretary of the navy, a copy of a letter of the secretary of the navy to the commander-in-chief of the naval force on this station, and also a copy of a letter from the secretary of the navy to the commandant of the naval station at key west. 2. from these communications it appears that the destination of the steamship "state of texas," loaded with supplies for the starving reconcentrados in cuba, is left, in a measure, to my judgment. 3. at present i am acting under instructions from the navy department to blockade the coast of cuba for the purpose of preventing, among other things, any food supply from reaching the spanish forces in cuba. under these circumstances it seems to me unwise to let a ship-load of such supplies be sent to the reconcentrados, for, in my opinion, they would be distributed to the spanish army. until some point be occupied in cuba by our forces, from which such distribution may be made to those for whom the supplies are intended, i am unwilling that they should be landed on cuban soil. yours, very respectfully, w.t. sampson, _rear admiral, u.s. navy_, _commander-in-chief u.s. naval force, north atlantic station_. the red cross had been requested to hasten south to take food into cuba, but the admiral had been instructed to keep it out. nothing remained to do but to inform the government at washington, and the committee in new york, regarding the situation as developed by this correspondence, and await farther instructions, which was done by cablegram addressed to the chairman of the central cuban relief committee in new york: key west, fla., _may 3, 1898_. herewith i transmit copies of letters passed between admiral sampson and myself. i think it important that you should immediately present this correspondence personally to the government, as it will place before them the exact situation here. the utmost cordiality exists between admiral sampson and myself. the admiral feels it his duty, as chief of the blockading squadron to keep food out of cuba, and recognizes that from my standpoint my duty is to try to get food into cuba and this correspondence is transmitted with his cordial consent. if i insist, admiral sampson will try to open communication under a flag of truce, but his letter expresses his opinion regarding the best method. advices from the government would enable us to reach a decision. unless there is objection at washington, you are at liberty to publish this correspondence if you wish. clara barton. in a few days the following cablegram was received in reply: washington, _may 6, 1898_. clara barton, _key west_: submitted your message to president and cabinet, and it was read with moistened eyes. considered serious and pathetic. admiral sampson's views regarded as wisest at present. hope to land you soon. president, long and moore send highest regards. barton. (s.e.) we too hoped to land soon, but the opportunity never came, and the "state of texas" whose finely assorted cargo was primarily intended for the starving reconcentrados, did not get to cuba until she went with the transports conveying the invading army, and, after doing good service in the relief of the sick and wounded at el caney and siboney, she entered the harbor of santiago, the first american ship to reach the city. while these things were transpiring, preparations were being made by the red cross, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of geneva, to render auxiliary medical and hospital service during the war. upon the declaration of war, a special committee was appointed, composed of dr. j.b. hubbell, mr. john hitz and mr. stephen e. barton, to wait upon the president of the united states, the secretaries of state, war and navy, and the surgeon general, to give oral notice of the intention of the red cross to be ready to furnish any supplemental aid that might be required by the armies in the field. following the usual custom, the american national red cross was about to issue a statement to the american people for funds and materials to support its ministrations to the sick and wounded, when a resolution was passed by the board of directors of the new york red cross hospital, of which institution mr. william t. wardwell is president, proposing the formation of a relief committee. the purpose of this committee was to raise funds and supplies, in the name of the red cross, and to act as a national auxiliary in the capacity of trustees and temporary custodians of the contributions of the people in support of the work to be done by the american national red cross. the tender of the proposed relief committee, thus voluntarily formed, was provisionally accepted by mr. stephen e. barton, subject to the official acceptance by the american national red cross. upon this provisional acceptance the relief committee proceeded to organize, and its membership was enlarged by the addition of men well known in social and financial circles of the city and state of new york. the name adopted by the committee: "the american national red cross relief committee," was perhaps unfortunate, in some respects, inasmuch as it created a certain confusion in the minds of the people, who were often unable to distinguish between the parent organization, the american national red cross, and the relief committee of new york. the committee having completed its organization, the tender of its services during the war was made and accepted in the following terms: new york, _may 3, 1898_. gentlemen: we have before us the official communication in which your secretary, mr. john p. faure, transmits to us for action thereon, the following resolution from your executive committee: _resolved_, that the secretary be and he hereby is instructed to officially notify the american national red cross of the fact of the organization of this committee, requesting official acknowledgment and acceptance by the american national red cross, of the tender of financial co-operation and support offered by this committee. in reply we would say that it gives us great pleasure to accept your generous offer of financial co-operation and support. in carrying out the object of your offer, you are authorized to make such a public appeal, in the name of the american national red cross, as you may think best. for the purpose of unifying all effort, and concentrating all financial and material support to the american national red cross, we also confidently entrust to you, in consultation with our own executive committee, the work of inviting, through your committee, the co-operation of all red cross relief committees throughout the united states. very truly yours, the american national red cross, clara barton, president, geo. kennan, vice-president, stephen e. barton, second vice-president. the acceptance of this offer made necessary the formation of an executive committee of the american national red cross, with headquarters in the city of new york, whose function it would be to represent the red cross in its official dealings with the government at washington, the american people and the relief committee, and to devise ways and means for the administration of the contributions of the people, through the appointment and direction of official representatives of the red cross in the camps. the executive committee was at once appointed and consisted of the following members: stephen e. barton, charles a. schieren, hon. joseph sheldon, george w. boldt and william b. howland, and organized with mr. barton as chairman and mr. schieren as treasurer. * * * * * on the fourteenth day of may the relief committee addressed the following letter to the president of the united states, reciting the formal offer of the american national red cross to supplement the field and hospital service of the army and navy, and reiterating their tender of co-operation and financial support: new york, _may 20, 1898_. _to the president_: sir: in accordance with the request made by you to the special committee appointed by the american national red cross relief committee, during its recent visit to you, the undersigned members of said special committee beg leave to submit the following statements for your consideration: the american national red cross relief committee of new york, organized with an unlimited number of co-operating and auxiliary bodies throughout the country, for the purpose of providing financial and material sustenance to the work of the american national red cross, miss clara barton, president, begs leave to represent to the government of the united states as follows, viz: _first._--that the american national red cross is the duly incorporated committee representing the work of the red cross in its civil capacity, and is recognized as such by the government of the united states, the governments of other countries and the international committee at geneva. _second._--that we are informed that the said american national red cross has given formal notice to the departments of state, war and navy and the surgeons-general of the army and navy of its readiness to respond to any calls for civil aid to supplement the hospital work of the army and navy, in accordance with the provisions of the resolutions of the geneva conference of 1863 and the geneva convention of 1864, and their amendments. _third._--that, in order to guarantee the fullest effectiveness of the aid thus offered by the civil red cross, this committee hereby gives you official notice that it stands ready, together with other co-operating committees, to furnish all necessary money and material to support the work of the said american national red cross, as hereinbefore outlined. we beg to request, mr. president, that you take the necessary action to have the several departments of the government duly notified of this financial guarantee of the assistance tendered by the american national red cross, to the end that the fullest reliance may be placed upon its offer, should the extent of the present war over tax the preparations of the medical departments of the army and navy. please favor us with a prompt acknowledgment of this letter and information as to your action thereon. respectfully, levi p. morton, henry c. potter, d.d., ll.d., william t. wardwell, george f. shrady, m.d., a. monae lesser, m.d. on may 24, the above communication was transmitted by the secretary of state to the department of war, in the following letter in which he explains the position of the american national red cross and its national and international status: department of state. _the honorable the secretary of war_: sir: i have the honor to transmit to you copy of a letter addressed to the president under date of the twentieth inst., by messrs. levi p. morton, henry c. potter, d.d., william t. wardwell, george f. shrady, m.d., and a. monae lesser, m.d., a special committee appointed by the american national red cross relief committee, in regard to the work proposed to be undertaken by that organization for the purpose of providing financial and material support to the work of the american national red cross, of which latter miss clara barton is president. the proposal has the president's cordial approbation in view of the distinctive position of the american national red cross as the sole central organization in the united states in affiliation with the international committee of berne, and through it with the central red cross committees which have been formed in every country which has adhered to the geneva convention of 1864. it is to be remembered that the geneva convention itself is largely the outgrowth of american initiative. the american sanitary commission, organized during the first years of the war of the rebellion, proved the efficacy of uniform and concentrated effort to bring into play the benevolent influences of the people to aid the military authorities in caring for the sick and wounded in war, and its conspicuous success attracted attention abroad to such a degree that, in obedience to a very general desire in european countries, the swiss government, in 1863, invited an international conference to formulate and adopt a general plan for the amelioration of the suffering of the sick and wounded in war. as a result of that conference arrangements were perfected for the organization of central civil committees in the several countries to supplement the work done by the military service of the armies in the field, thus creating in nearly all the continental states organizations similar to the american sanitary commission. the following year another conference was held at geneva, under the auspices of the international committee, which resulted in the signing of the geneva convention of 1864, to which the united states is a party. still another conference in 1868 resulted in the additional articles extending the principles of the geneva convention to naval operations, which have been adopted by this government and spain as a _modus vivendi_ during the present war. besides these truly international conventions, conferences held at geneva in 1867 and in 1869 still further perfected the organization and operation of the international committee of berne and its relations to the several civil central red cross committees in the adhering states, to the end that the latter might not alone cooperate with the governments of their respective nations in time of war, but should perform analogous relief work in each state in time of pestilence, famine or other national calamity. the american national red cross, incorporated under the laws of the united states for the district of columbia, constitutes the sole legitimate and recognized local branch in this country of the great international association, of which the international committee of berne is the head. of its conspicuous peaceful services in time of national suffering at home and abroad, it is superfluous to speak. its relation to the military and naval hospital service in time of war is now under consideration. under the terms of the geneva conventions, its aid may be powerfully given to the military and naval armies, with the added prestige which belongs to it as the american branch of the international red cross. by the terms of the geneva convention of 1864, the participation of its agents in the active ambulance and hospital service of the armies and naval forces of the united states is effected through the express neutralization of its individual workers by the military and naval authorities and the issuance to them of the stipulated armlet bearing the sign of the red cross. its assistance, however, is not limited to this individual employment of its agents in the field; it stands ready to co-operate in the equipment and supply of ambulances and medical stores, drawing for its resources on the benevolence of the community and systematizing effort and aid throughout the country by the various local committees it has organized. by article ii of the protocol of the geneva conference of 1863, which created the international committee of berne and its associated national committees, each national central committee is to enter into relations with the government of its country so that its services may be accepted if occasion should present itself, and by article iii, on being called upon, or with the assent of the military authorities, the respective central committee is to send volunteer nurses to the field of battle, there to be placed under the orders of the commanding officer. these articles sufficiently show the character of the aid to be rendered in time of war by the widespread organization of which the international committee of berne is the head. there is pending in congress at the present time an act to legitimize the national status of the american national red cross and to protect its exclusive use of the insignia of the red cross for the work it was organized to perform, and its early passage is expected. indeed, it would probably have become a law before now but for a need of a slight amendment which this department has advised. the purpose of that act has the president's cordial approval. in referring to me the annexed letter from the special committee of the american national red cross relief committee the president has requested me to take such steps as may be necessary and effective to recognize the american national red cross as the proper and sole representative in the united states of the international committee, and, as such, corresponding to the central committees which have been constituted in the several states which have adhered to the geneva convention. so far as international correspondence with the swiss government in relation to the deliberations of the geneva conference is concerned, this government has uniformly recognized the american national red cross as the only civil body in the united states which is regularly affiliated with the international committee of berne for the purpose of carrying out the arrangements elaborated by the various conferences held at geneva, and the representatives of the american national red cross at those conferences have uniformly attended with the sanction of the united states government. no additional recognition or sanction is needed in that quarter. i have therefore the honor to inform you, by direction of the president, that this government recognizes, for any appropriate co-operative purposes, the american national red cross as the civil central american committee in correspondence with the international committee for the relief of the wounded in war and to invite similar recognition of its status by your department with a view to taking advantage of its proffered aid during the present war so far as may be available. respectfully yours, william r. day, _secretary of state_. the foregoing letter from the secretary of state defines the position of the american national red cross, as uniformly recognized by the government of the united states, and by the international committee representing all the treaty nations. the treaty contemplates that there shall be in each country one national organization of the red cross, with power to organize an unlimited number of subordinate branches, or auxiliaries, all directly tributary to the national body. as the personnel and equipment of the red cross are expressly neutralized and protected by the treaty, it was essential to the security of all, that the civil power and responsibility should be concentrated. it was for this reason that the president of the international committee, in his letter of march 24, 1882, urged that: it is important that we be able to certify that your government is prepared to accept your services in case of war; that it will readily enter into co-operation with you and will encourage the centralization, under your direction, of all voluntary aid. we have no doubt that you will readily obtain, from the competent authorities, an official declaration to that effect, and we believe this matter will be merely a formality; but we attach the greatest importance to the fact, in order to cover our responsibility, especially in view of the pretensions of rival societies which might claim to be acknowledged by us. it is your society and none other that we will recognize. it will be seen that, in the opinion of the international committee, not recognition alone, but cordial co-operation on the part of the government is of vital importance. in each country, the national red cross, or national committee as it is sometimes called, is the only civil medium contemplated by the treaty, through which the people of the respective countries may lawfully communicate with the armies in the field, for the purpose of rendering such auxiliary medical and hospital service, and other relief, as may be required. it must be constantly born in mind, in order to clearly understand the operations of the red cross, that our government and the people are bound, not only by the solemn provisions of the treaty, but also by the resolutions of the international conferences, composed of delegates authorized by their respective governments. thus, the secretary of state in his letter says: the american national red cross constitutes the sole legitimate and recognized local branch, in this country, of the great international association, of which the international committee at berne is the head. this government has uniformly recognized the american national red cross as the only civil body in the united states which is regularly affiliated with the international committee of berne, for the purpose of carrying out the arrangements elaborated by the various conferences held at geneva, and the representatives of the american national red cross at those conferences have uniformly attended with the sanction of the united states government. no additional recognition or sanction is needed in that quarter. [illustration: admiral william t. sampson.] [illustration: governor general's palace, havana.] the american national red cross is, consequently, the recognized source from which is derived all civil authority to use the official insignia and to work under the red cross as auxiliary to the army and navy. the national red cross, in each country, is responsible to its own government and, through the international committee, to all the nations of the treaty, for the integrity of its branches. auxiliaries of the red cross must therefore receive their charters or certificates of authority from the parent organization, which, in turn, is held to a strict observance of all its treaty obligations. hence the use of the name or of the insignia of the red cross by civil societies, in relief work, without the sanction of the national organization, is an imposition and a violation of the treaty. without such official permission or charter, no auxiliary can have any rightful existence, as a branch of the american national red cross. after having secured for the people by treaty the right, through their own national organizations of the red cross, to contribute to the relief of the sick and wounded in war, the delegates to the international conventions at geneva continued their labors until there was added to the functions of the red cross, the power to administer relief, in times of peace, on fields of national disaster. out of compliment to the president of the american national red cross, who advocated this extension, the addition to the treaty is known as "the american amendment." referring to it, the secretary of state in his letter continues: conferences held at geneva in 1867 and 1869, still further perfected the organization and operation of the international committee of berne, and its relations to the several civil central red cross committees in the adhering states, to the end that the latter might not alone co-operate with the governments of their respective nations in time of war, but should perform analogous relief work in each state in time of pestilence, famine or other national calamity. of the american national red cross, and its conspicuous peaceful services in time of national suffering at home and abroad, it is superfluous to speak. thus is clearly explained why, on such great fields of suffering and disaster as the ohio floods, the russian famine, the sea islands hurricane, in armenia and in cuba, the american national red cross is found endeavoring to carry out the benign intentions of the treaty of geneva. for the first time in the history of warfare, it was now proposed to fit out, and maintain at sea, hospital ships for the relief of sick and wounded. the treaty of geneva, however, only provided for the recognition and protection of the hospital service of the army in its operations upon the land. an amendment to the treaty was proposed by the convention which met at geneva on october 20, 1868, extending the treaty to include hospital service at sea. this amendment, concerning naval hospital service, was known as the "additional articles," and, although the government of the united states in acceding to the treaty of geneva included the proposed amendment, president arthur in his proclamation of august 9, 1882, reserved the promulgation of the additional articles until after the exchange of ratifications by the signatory powers. the additional articles were never ratified by the other treaty nations, and, at the beginning of the spanish-american war, they were not in force as a part of the treaty. spain was therefore under no treaty obligation to respect the flag of the red cross upon the ocean. although the additional articles had not yet been formally ratified, the swiss government, acting as an intermediary, and with a view to securing their observance by both belligerents during the war, opened a diplomatic correspondence between the governments of the united states and spain, proposing the adoption of a temporary agreement, or _modus vivendi_, during the continuance of hostilities. the official correspondence on the subject between the secretary of state and the swiss minister will be of interest, as showing the method by which the temporary agreement between the two countries was secured, the modifications made and the interpretation placed upon some of the doubtful clauses: swiss legation, washington, _april 23, 1898_. mr. secretary of state: war having been now unhappily declared between the united states and spain, my government, in its capacity as the intermediary organ between the signatory states of the convention of geneva, has decided to propose to the cabinets of washington and madrid to recognize and carry into execution, as a _modus vivendi_, during the whole duration of hostilities, the additional articles, proposed by the international conference which met at geneva on october 20, 1868, to the convention of geneva of august 22, 1864, which (additional articles) extend the effects of that convention to naval wars. although it has as yet been impossible to convert the said draft of additional articles into a treaty, still, in 1870, germany and france, at the suggestion of the swiss federal council, consented to apply the additional articles as a _modus vivendi_, during the whole duration of hostilities. the federal council proposes the additional articles as they have been amended at the request of france and construed by that power and great britain. my government, while instructing me to make this proposition to your excellency, recalls the fact that, on march 1, 1882, the president of the united states declared that he acceded, not only to the geneva convention of august 22, 1864, but also to the additional articles of october 20, 1868. the spanish government, likewise, in 1872, declared itself ready to adhere to these articles. the federal council, therefore, hopes that the two governments will agree to adopt the measure, the object of which is to secure the application on the seas of the humane principles laid down in the geneva convention. with the confident expectation of a favorable reply from the united states government to this proposal, i avail myself, etc., j.b. pioda. department of state, washington, _april 25, 1898_. sir: i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the twenty-third instant, whereby, in view of the condition of war existing between the united states and spain, you communicate the purpose of your government to propose to the cabinets of washington and madrid that they recognize and carry into execution, as a _modus vivendi_, during the whole duration of hostilities, the additional articles proposed by the international conference of geneva, under date of october 20, 1868, for the purpose of extending to naval wars the effects of the convention of geneva of august 22, 1864, for the succor of the wounded in armies in the field. as you note in the communication to which i have the honor to reply, the united states, through the act of the president, did on the first day of march, 1882, accede to the said additional articles of october 20, 1868, at the same time that it acceded to the original convention of geneva of august 22, 1864; but, as is recited in the president's proclamation of july 26, 1882, a copy of which i enclose herewith, the exchange of the ratifications of the aforesaid additional articles of october 20, 1868, had not then (nor has since) taken place between the contracting parties, so that the promulgation of the accession of the united states to the said additional articles was (and still remains) reserved until the exchange of the ratifications thereof between the several contracting states shall have been effected and the said additional articles shall have acquired full force and effect as an international treaty. i find, upon examination of the published correspondence which took place in 1870 at the time of the war between france and north germany (british and foreign state papers, vol. 60, pp. 945-946), that upon the initiative of the prussian minister at berne, followed by the proposal made by the government of the swiss confederation to the french and north german governments, the then belligerents severally notified to the government of switzerland their willingness to accept provisionally and at once to establish as a _modus vivendi_ applicable to the war then in progress, both by sea and land, all the additional articles to the convention of geneva of october 20, 1868, together with the subsequent interpretations of the ninth and tenth articles thereof agreed upon and proposed by england and france. i understand from your note that, although those articles have not as yet become a matter of international convention, it is desired that the united states and spain accede to the same, together with the same amendments and construction as above stated. i entertain no doubt that the united states will readily lend its support and approval to the general purpose of those articles and be in favor of adopting them as a _modus vivendi_; it has ever been in favor of proper regulations for the mitigation of the hardships of war. but before it can accede to them as a matter of fact, in the present instance, it must first fully understand the nature and text of the amendments and construction placed upon the articles by france and england as stated by you. i would respectfully suggest, therefore, that there be furnished to this government either the text or a clear exposition of the articles, with the amendments and constructions referred to, in order that the understanding may be complete. a certain pamphlet, written by lieutenant colonel poland in 1886, is said to contain these amendments and constructions, but there is not now accessible to the department of state a copy of such pamphlet or other reliable means of information on the subject. i shall await with pleasure fuller and exact information from you of the terms to which we are asked to accede. accept, etc. john sherman. swiss legation, washington, d.c., _may 4, 1898_. mr. secretary of state: i have had the honor to receive the note which your honorable predecessor did me the favor of addressing to me under the date of the twenty-fifth of april, in reply to mine of the twenty-third of the same month, upon the subject of the proposition of my government to the cabinets of washington and madrid to adopt as a _modus vivendi_ pending the entire duration of the war, the articles of the twentieth of october, 1868, additional to those of the convention of geneva of the twenty-second of august, 1864. the documents which, in the aforesaid note of your predecessor, were desired and which, as i have had the opportunity of telling you verbally, my government had sent at the same time that it instructed me by cable to make the overtures on the subject, have just arrived, and i enclose them herein in duplicate copies. they confirm the text of the additional articles, the modification of article ix proposed by france and the notes exchanged between england and france concerning the import of article x. the spanish government having, by note of its legation of the seventh of september, 1872, also declared that it was ready to adhere to the articles in question, the federal council hopes that the governments of america and spain, appreciating the sentiments which have guided it in its course, will be of accord in adopting as a _modus vivendi_ a measure which has for its purpose the securing of the application upon the sea of the humanitarian principles consecrated by the geneva convention. awaiting your communication to me of the decision which the government of the united states shall see fit to take in regard to this proposition, i offer you, mr. secretary of state, the expression of my very highest consideration. j.b. pioda. department of state, washington, _may 9, 1898_. sir: upon receiving your note of the fourth instant, in reply to mine of the twenty-fifth of april, concerning the proposition of the government of the swiss confederation that the united states and spain adopt as a _modus vivendi_, pending the entire duration of the war, the articles of october 20, 1868, additional to those of the convention of geneva on august 22, 1864, i communicated all the papers in the case to the secretary of the navy, calling his attention to the form of the _modus vivendi_ adopted during the franco-german war, which your government was pleased to suggest as a precedent to be followed during the existing war. the printed paper you enclose, besides giving the text of the original additional articles of october 20, 1868, contains the correspondence had in 1868 and 1869 concerning the interpretation of articles ix and x of the said additional convention and thus establishes the precise nature of the understanding to which france and the north german states respectively acceded. as so expressed, the government of the united states finds no difficulty in acceding to the suggestion of the government of switzerland. it had, in fact, anticipated it, so far as concerns its own conduct of hostilities and its own purpose to observe the humane dictates of modern civilization in the prosecution of warfare upon the sea as well as upon land by fitting out and equipping a special ambulance ship, the "solace," in conformity with the terms of the additional convention aforesaid, thus confirming emphatically its adhesion to the principles of that beneficient arrangement without regard to the absence of its formal ratification by the various signatories. i am happy, therefore, to advise you, and through you the government of the swiss confederation, that the government of the united states will for its part, and so long as the present war between this country and spain shall last, treat as an effective _modus vivendi_ the fourteen additional articles of october 20, 1868, with the interpretations of the ninth and tenth articles thereof appearing in the publication you communicate to me. while it is proper to adopt this course on its own account, and without reference to such action as spain may take, this government would nevertheless be glad to hear that the representations made by your government to that of spain had met with a favorable response in order that the two parties to the present contest may stand pledged to the same humane and enlightened conduct of naval operations as respects the sick and wounded as was recognized and adopted by the respective parties to the franco-prussian war. should the government of spain likewise accede to the swiss proposition, i should be much gratified to be apprised of the fact, and also that the spanish accession contemplates acceptance of the interpretations of articles ix and x which were adopted by france and the north german states and which are embraced in the proposition of your government. accept, etc., william r. day. swiss legation, washington, d.c., _may 9, 1898_. mr. secretary of state: as i had the honor verbally to inform the assistant secretary of state this morning, my government has charged me to bring to the knowledge of your excellency that the spanish government has accepted the proposition of the federal council concerning the additional articles of the geneva convention. i doubt not that your excellency will be pleased very soon to enable me to announce to the federal council that the government of the union also adheres for its part to the proposed _modus vivendi_, and in this expectation i offer to your excellency the expression of my very high consideration. j.b. pioda. department of state, washington, _may 10, 1898_. sir: i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of may 9, formally notifying me that the spanish government has accepted the proposition of the federal council concerning the additional articles of the geneva convention, and expressing the hope that you would be soon enabled to inform your government that the united states government adheres for its part to the proposed _modus vivendi_. as you were advised in the verbal interview with the second assistant secretary of state, to which you refer in your note of the ninth, i have already had the pleasure of informing you, by my official note of that date, that the united states government would for its part treat as an effective _modus vivendi_ the additional articles of 1868, with the amendments and interpretations of articles ix and x thereof appearing in the publication communicated to me by you. i trust that that note, which apparently had not reached your hands at the time of your note to me of the same date, has now been received by you and its contents transmitted to the federal council. be pleased to accept, etc., william r. day. the additional articles concerning the maritime hospital service in war, as modified by the _modus vivendi_, forming articles vi to xv of the treaty of geneva when formally ratified, are: art. vi. the boats which, at their own risk and peril, during and after an engagement pick up the shipwrecked or wounded, or which, having picked them up, convey them on board a neutral or hospital ship, shall enjoy, until the accomplishment of their mission, the character of neutrality, as far as the circumstances of the engagement and the position of the ships engaged will permit. the appreciation of these circumstances is entrusted to the humanity of all the combatants. the wrecked and wounded thus picked up and saved must not serve again during the continuance of the war. art. vii. the religious, medical and hospital staff of any captured vessel are declared neutral, and, on leaving the ship, may remove the articles and surgical instruments which are their private property. art. viii. the staff designated in the preceding article must continue to fulfill their functions in the captured ship, assisting in the removal of the wounded made by the victorious party; they will then be at liberty to return to their country, in conformity with the second paragraph of the first additional article.[c] the stipulations of the second additional article[d] are applicable to the pay and allowance of the staff. art. ix. the military hospital ships remain under martial law in all that concerns their stores; they become the property of the captor, but the latter must not divert them from their special appropriation during the continuance of the war. [the vessels not equipped for fighting, which during peace, the government shall have officially declared to be intended to serve as floating hospital ships, shall however, enjoy during the war complete neutrality, both as regards stores, and also as regards their staff, provided their equipment is exclusively appropriated to the special service on which they are employed.] art. x. any merchantman, to whatever nation she may belong, charged exclusively with removal of sick and wounded, is protected by neutrality, but the mere fact, noted on the ship's books, of the vessel having been visited by an enemy's cruiser, renders the sick and wounded incapable of serving during the continuance of the war. the cruiser shall even have the right of putting on board an officer in order to accompany the convoy, and thus verify the good faith of the operation. if the merchant ship also carries a cargo, her neutrality will still protect it, provided that such cargo is not of a nature to be confiscated by the belligerent. the belligerents retain the right to interdict neutralized vessels from all communication, and from any course which they might deem prejudicial to the secrecy of their operations. in urgent cases special conventions may be entered into between commanders in chief, in order to neutralize temporarily and in a special manner the vessels intended for the removal of the sick and wounded. art. xi. wounded or sick sailors and soldiers, when embarked, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be protected and taken care of by their captors. their return to their own country is subject to the provisions of article vi of the convention and of the additional article v.[e] art. xii. the distinctive flag to be used with the national flag, in order to indicate any vessel or boat which may claim the benefits of neutrality, in virtue of the principles of this convention, is a white flag with a red cross. the belligerents may exercise in this respect any mode of verification which they may deem necessary. military hospital ships shall be distinguished by being painted white outside with green strake. art. xiii. the hospital ships which are equipped at the expense of the aid societies, recognized by the governments signing this convention, and which are furnished with a commission emanating from the sovereign, who shall have given express authority for their being fitted out, and with a certificate from the proper naval authority that they have been placed under his control during their fitting out and on their final departure, and that they were then appropriated solely to the purpose of their mission, shall be considered neutral, as well as the whole of their staff. they shall be recognized and protected by the belligerents. they shall make themselves known by hoisting together with their national flag, the white flag with a red cross. the distinctive mark of their staff, while performing their duties, shall be an armlet of the same colors. the outer painting of these hospital ships shall be white, with red strake. these ships shall bear aid and assistance to the wounded and wrecked belligerents, without distinction of nationality. they must take care not to interfere in any way with the movements of the combatants. during and after the battle they must do their duty at their own risk and peril. the belligerents shall have the right of controlling and visiting them; they will be at liberty to refuse their assistance, to order them to depart, and to detain them if the exigencies of the case require such a step. the wounded and wrecked picked up by these ships cannot be reclaimed by either of the combatants, and they will be required not to serve during the continuance of the war. art. xiv. in naval wars any strong presumption that either belligerent takes advantage of the benefits of neutrality, with any other view than the interest of the sick and wounded, gives to the other belligerent, until proof to the contrary, the right of suspending the convention as regards such belligerent. should this presumption become a certainty, notice may be given to such belligerent that the convention is suspended with regard to him during the whole continuance of the war. art. xv. the present act shall be drawn up in a single original copy, which shall be deposited in the archives of the swiss confederation. an authentic copy of this act shall be delivered, with an invitation to adhere to it, to each of the signatory powers of the convention of the twenty-second of august, 1864, as well as to those that have successively acceded to it. in faith whereof, the undersigned commissaries have drawn up the present project of additional articles and have apposed thereunto the seals of their arms. [done at geneva, the twentieth day of the month of october, of the year one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-eight.] [c] article i. the persons designated in article ii of the convention shall, after the occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties, according to their wants, to the sick and wounded in the ambulance or the hospital which they serve. when they request to withdraw, the commander of the occupying troops shall fix the time of departure, which he shall only be allowed to delay for a short time in case of military necessity. [d] art. ii. arrangements will have to be made by the belligerent powers to insure to the neutralized person fallen into the hands of the army of the enemy, the entire enjoyment of his salary. [e] art. v. in addition to article vi of the convention, it is stipulated that, with the reservation of officers whose detention might be important to the fate of arms and within the limits fixed by the second paragraph of that article, the wounded fallen into the hands of the enemy shall be sent back to their country after they are cured, or sooner if possible, on condition, nevertheless, of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the war. the following note shows the special amendment and the interpretation of certain clauses of the articles, as agreed by the governments of the united states and spain: [illustration: entrance to harbor of havana--punta park.] [illustration: secretary of the navy long.] note. (_a_) the amendment proposed by france is contained in brackets after article ix. (_b_) the interpretation placed upon article x by england and france is to the following effect: the question being raised as to whether under article x a vessel might not avail herself of the carrying of sick or wounded to engage with impunity in traffic otherwise hazardous under the rules of war, it was agreed that there was no purpose in the articles to modify in any particular the generally admitted principles concerning the rights of belligerents; that the performance of such services of humanity could not be used as a cover either for contraband of war or for enemy merchandise; and that every boat which or whose cargo would, under ordinary circumstances, be subject to confiscation, can not be relieved therefrom by the sole fact of carrying sick and wounded. question being raised as to whether, under article x an absolute right was afforded to a blockaded party to freely remove its sick and wounded from the blockaded town, it was agreed that such removal or evacuation of sick and wounded was entirely subject to the consent of the blockading party. it should be permitted for humanity's sake where the superior exigencies of war may not intervene to prevent, but the besieging party might refuse permission entirely. the full text of the french interpretation of article x is subjoined. the second paragraph of the additional article x reads thus: "if the merchant ship also carries a cargo, her neutrality will still protect it, provided that such cargo is not of a nature to be confiscated by the belligerent." the words "of a nature to be confiscated by the belligerent" apply equally to the nationality of the merchandise and to its quality. thus, according to the latest international conventions, merchandise of a nature to be confiscated by a cruiser are: _first._ contraband of war, under whatever flag. _second._ enemy merchandise under enemy flag. the cruiser need not recognize the neutrality of the vessel carrying wounded if any part of its cargo shall, under international law, be comprised in either of these two categories of goods. the faculty given by the paragraph in question to leave on board of vessels carrying wounded a portion of the cargo is to be considered as a facility for the carriage of freight, as well as a valuable privilege in favor of the navigability of merchant vessels if they be bad sailors when only in ballast; but this faculty can in no wise prejudice the right of confiscation of the cargo within the limits fixed by international law. every ship the cargo of which would be subject to confiscation by the cruiser under ordinary circumstances is not susceptible of being covered by neutrality by the sole fact of carrying in addition sick or wounded men. the ship and the cargo would then come under the common law of war, which has not been modified by the convention except in favor of the vessel exclusively laden with wounded men, or the cargo of which would not be subject to confiscation in any case. thus, for example, the merchant ship of a belligerent laden with neutral merchandise and at the same time carrying sick and wounded is covered by neutrality. the merchant ship of a belligerent carrying, besides wounded and sick men, goods of the enemy of the cruiser's nation or contraband of war is not neutral, and the ship, as well as the cargo, comes under the common law of war. a neutral ship carrying, in addition to wounded and sick men of the belligerent, contraband of war also is subject to the common law of war. a neutral ship carrying goods of any nationality, but not contraband of war, lends its own neutrality to the wounded and sick which it may carry. in so far as concerns the usage which expressly prohibits a cartel ship from engaging in any commerce whatsoever at the point of arrival, it is deemed that there is no occasion to specially subject to that inhibition vessels carrying wounded men, because the second paragraph of article x imposes upon the belligerents, equally as upon neutrals, the exclusion of the transportation of merchandise subject to confiscation. moreover, if one of the belligerents should abuse the privilege which is accorded to him, and under the pretext of transporting the wounded should neutralize under its flag an important commercial intercourse which might in a notorious manner influence the chances or the duration of the war, article xiv of the convention could justly be invoked by the other belligerent. as for the second point of the note of the british government, relative to the privilege of effectively removing from a city, besieged and blockaded by sea, under the cover of neutrality, vessels bearing wounded and sick men, in such a way as to prolong the resistance of the besieged, the convention does not authorize this privilege. in according the benefits of a neutral status of a specifically limited neutrality to vessels carrying wounded, the convention could not give them rights superior to those of other neutrals who can not pass an effective blockade without special authorization. humanity, however, in such a case, does not lose all its rights, and, if circumstances permit the besieging party to relax the rigorous rights of the blockade, the besieged party may make propositions to that end in virtue of the fourth paragraph of article x. it was under this _modus vivendi_ that the steam launch "moynier" received from the government of the united states her commission as a little hospital ship of the red cross. for this little vessel, presented by mr. william b. howland, the editor of the _outlook_, as the gift of the readers of that popular periodical, the red cross is gratefully indebted. on june 6, 1898, the tender of the services of the american national red cross to act as an auxiliary to the medical and hospital service of the army and navy, in accordance with the treaty, was formally accepted by the departments of war and navy: war department, washington, _june 6, 1898_. clara barton, _president of the american national red cross, washington, d.c._: the tender of the services of the american national red cross, made to this department through the department of state under date of may 25, 1898, for medical and hospital work as auxiliary to the hospital service of the army of the united states, is accepted; all representatives and employes of said organization to be subject to orders according to the rules and discipline of war, as provided by the 63d article of war. very respectfully, r.a. alger, _secretary of war_. * * * * * navy department, washington, _june 6, 1898_. clara barton, _president of the american national red cross, washington, d.c._: the tender of the services of the american national red cross, made to this department through the department of state under date of may 25, 1898, for medical and hospital work as auxiliary to the hospital service of the navy of the united states, is accepted; all representatives and employes of said organization to be subject to orders according to the rules and discipline of war. very respectfully, chas. h. allen, _acting secretary_. in the meantime, war was officially proclaimed, and the president had issued his call for volunteers. as the troops responded to the call, they were assembled in camps in various sections of the country, principally in washington, chickamauga park, georgia, jacksonville, tampa and port tampa in florida. soon after the formation of the camps it became evident that the auxiliary service of the red cross would be necessary in caring for the men, and a formal tender of such service was made to the government by mr. george kennan, first vice-president of the american national red cross, to which the following reply was received: * * * * * war department, _june 8, 1898_. dear sir: i have, by your reference, the letter of this date from mr. george kennan, of the american national red cross, and see no objection whatsoever to their establishing a station in every military camp for the purpose indicated in their letter. instructions have been issued by me to-day to the surgeon general, who will communicate this information to the chief surgeons of the camps. very truly yours, r.a. alger, _secretary of war_. hon. john addison porter, _secretary to the president._ acting upon this acceptance, the executive committee, of which mr. stephen e. barton was the chairman, appointed and sent to each camp an agent, to represent the red cross in the field. these representatives were instructed to report to the respective medical officers of the army in charge, to make, personally, a formal tender of assistance, and to ascertain if the red cross could be of service, by furnishing quickly any medical and hospital supplies of which the camps might be in need. it is perhaps proper to state here, as a matter of history, that while these field agents were always most courteously received, in many instances the auxiliary services of the red cross were not at first welcomed by the medical officers of the army. indeed it often happened that the assistance, of which the hospital service of the army was apparently in need, was not accepted until after its efficiency was seriously diminished by reason of delay. the reluctance to permit the people, through the red cross, to assist in ministering to the comforts of the men, did not generally seem to arise from personal objection on the part of the medical officers at the camps, but from an apparent fear, whether well founded or not, that immediate acceptance of assistance would result in official censure and disapproval. camp alger. among the first of the red cross field agents appointed was mr. b.h. warner, of washington, to whose special charge was assigned the field known as "camp alger." mr. warner makes the following report of the work done by himself and the committee of which he was chairman: * * * * * on june 10, 1898, i was notified by letter of george kennan, esq., first vice-president of american national red cross, that i had been appointed as its representative, at camp alger, virginia, and was requested to report to chief surgeon girard, regarding the establishment of a station at that camp; to ascertain if anything in the form of hospital supplies were needed, and to advise the executive committee. it was suggested that, as the work to be established at camp alger was the first step of the red cross in the field in connection with the spanish war, that prudence and tact should be used in maintaining friendly and harmonious relations with the military authorities, especially with the surgeons. in accordance with my appointment, i visited the war department, and obtained a special letter of introduction from secretary alger to major-general graham, commanding at fort alger, asking him to give me every facility possible in connection with the work to be undertaken. general graham introduced me to colonel girard, with whom i had a long conference, the result of which was the establishment of headquarters of the red cross in the camp, and the settlement of some details as to work which was to be done in accordance with the advice and authority of the surgeon in charge. i found colonel girard exceedingly busy, and apparently very sanguine as to the ability of the government to meet all demands that might be made by every department of the army. he seemed, however, willing that the red cross should furnish extra comforts for the men at the camp. i was impressed with the fact that he considered men who had received a regular army education thoroughly competent to meet the situation, and that all supplies could be had as soon as needed; that he did not want too many comforts for sick men, so as to unfit them for the hardships of war when they should go nearer to the scene of active operations. on the twenty-first of june, in accordance with a call issued by me, quite a large number of citizens met at the arlington hotel, and i was formally elected chairman of an executive committee, mrs. j. ellen foster, vice-chairman; c.j. bell, treasurer, george c. lewis, secretary. power was given to add to this committee which, as finally constituted, consisted of the following named persons: e.h. warner, simon wolf, william f. mattingly, mrs. j. ellen foster, mrs. thomas calver, president of the legion of loyal women; mrs. james tanner, national president of the ladies' union veteran legion; mrs. sarah a. spencer, mrs. j.a.t. hull, wife of representative hull, mrs. ellen s. mussey, one of the counsel to the red cross, and mrs. m.m. north. quite a number of prominent citizens were present at the first meeting, including rev. t.s. hamlin, d.d., and rev. byron sunderland, d.d. mrs. spencer was compelled by other engagements to retire from the work of the executive committee early in its history, but still remains as a member of the general committee. i want to say for the ladies, who served on the executive committee, that i never saw more devoted, energetic and efficient service on any committee or under any conditions with which i have been familiar, than that rendered by them. they were all constantly active, both at camp alger, fort myer, and all along the line, at all hours, day and night, whenever and wherever their presence was required. they were exceptionally competent to direct, possessed of a high order of ability and intelligence, and deserve, not only the thanks of the national organization, but also of all who are friendly to the thousands of soldiers who were benefited by their administration. the executive committee met every tuesday and more frequently when required. mrs. j. ellen foster began service at the commencement of war, and was very active in and around washington in camp, hospital, and the railway relief work. she also visited camp wikoff, camp black, camp mcpherson, camp thomas, chickamauga, camp at huntsville, ala., and the hospitals in new york and boston, where sick soldiers were quartered. her experience gave her opportunities of suggesting improvement in many departments of work, and the administration of relief, not only by the red cross, but by other organizations as well. captain george c. lewis, on the twenty-first of june, was elected secretary of the committee. he had been an officer in the civil war, and had large experience among soldiers, both in camp and hospital. his first visit to camp alger was made on that date, and from that time, until the camp was discontinued, he was constantly on duty there, seeing that supplies were furnished, and all possible relief extended. his headquarters were in a large hospital tent, from which the flag of the red cross was flying. the principal office of the executive committee being in washington, at no. 1310 g street, which was tendered free of charge by dr. and mrs. j. ford thompson, and which the committee has retained much longer than originally anticipated. experienced nurses seemed to be needed at camp alger. patients were not receiving the necessary care and attention. the committee supplied mattresses, sheets, pillows and slips, mosquito bars, lemons, and a large quantity of medicine, pajamas, underclothing, night-shirts, handkerchiefs, groceries, delicacies, etc. the surgeons at the hospitals were timid about asking the government for supplies. as stated, the surgeon-in-chief at camp alger seemed to think that the soldiers who were taken sick should be treated in such a manner as would inure them to the hardships of camp, and the life of a soldier. when spoken to on this subject he said, "these men must understand that war is not play." one of the assistant surgeons said, "it is much easier to ask the red cross for supplies, and they can be obtained sooner than by asking the government, as there is so much red tape and it takes so long to get everything." when the kitchens at camp alger were inspected the food did not appear to be of the right kind, and was not properly cooked. point sheridan, va., was visited by mrs. mussey on july 29, and sixteen men were found sick. they seemed to be suffering for supplies, especially medicine, which had been ordered on june 27, but had not been received. the red cross delivered them proper medicine within twenty-four hours. it was found that each camp hospital must have its regular visitors, and different members of the committee were appointed. articles needed were supplied from headquarters in washington, and large shipments were also sent direct from new york to various points. on several occasions underclothing and pajamas were supplied by the hundred within twenty-four hours. early in august, the washington barracks were made a post hospital, and the red cross aid was gladly accepted by major adair, surgeon in charge. for a long time our committee supplied this point with 800 pounds of ice, 5 gallons of chicken soup, 30 gallons of milk, 20 pounds of butter daily, as well as 2 crates of eggs weekly. we also furnished 1200 suits of underwear, several hundred suits of pajamas, 500 towels, several hundred pairs of slippers, socks and medicines, antiseptic dressings, and numerous small articles. the work at this point was closed up october 8, with expressions of mutual satisfaction. the secretary of war gave authority for the establishment of diet kitchens in the camps near washington, and mrs. mussey, who had taken a special interest in this work from the beginning, was given general charge of the establishment of the kitchens. a diet kitchen was established at camp bristow, and two competent male colored cooks placed in charge. major weaver, the chief surgeon, and his staff of five surgeons, were both devoted and competent in their service, and the sick soldiers were loud in their praise. we found it was unnecessary to establish one at the hospital at the washington barracks as arrangements there were so good, and it only seemed necessary to furnish fresh soups daily, and the committee made a contract for five gallons per day at cost for material only. the committee authorized mrs. e.s. mussey and mrs. j.a.t. hull to establish a diet kitchen at fort myer. major davis, surgeon in charge, yielded his own wishes to the secretary of war. as no building was furnished, the committee made a contract for one of a temporary character, which was put up at a cost, when completed with range, plumbing, etc., of about $350.00. dr. mary e. green, president of the national household economical association, was secured as superintendent, and in not more than ten days from the time of its commencement the building was completed, furnished and orders being filled. it has been a great assistance, not only in furnishing properly cooked food, but invaluable as an object lesson in neatness and skilled cooking. the government has voluntarily paid all the bills for meat, chickens and milk, leaving the committee to pay for groceries, and wages of employes. dr. green has rendered such efficient service that she has been employed by the government to establish diet kitchens at other points. at fort myer nearly four hundred patients were suffering with typhoid and no provision existed for preparing a special diet. canned soup was heated up and served to those just leaving a strictly milk diet, and the so-called chicken broth, which was served wholly unsatisfactorily to both physicians and nurses. when the diet kitchen was completed, beef, mutton and chicken broth, made fresh daily in the manner best calculated to bring out the nutritive value of the meat, were prepared. mutton broth was made from hind quarters only, and beef broth from solid meat, with no waste. albumen, so necessary to repair the waste of the system by fevers, was supplied in the palatable form of rich custards, as ice cream and blanc mange--gelatine made into jellies with port and sherry wines--and albumen jelly, all nourishing to the irritated linings. during the month of september from the seventh instant, 55c orders, averaging fifteen portions each, or 8250 portions, were filled in the diet kitchen. physicians, nurses and patients unite in saying the aid they secured from this work is of inestimable value, not only in saving lives, but in hastening the recovery of all. major davis, as the surgeon in charge, has expressed his high appreciation of the good results obtained by establishing the kitchen, and the methods pursued in conducting it. in response to suggestions from the general committee in new york, a special committee was sent to fortress monroe to meet the first wounded, who came up from the battlefields of el caney, san juan and guasimas. the surgeon in charge, dr. dewitt, stated their immediate needs, and supplies were sent one day after they were called for, consisting in part of 500 pairs of pajamas, twenty-five pairs of crutches, 200 pairs of slippers, 350 yards of rubber sheeting, large quantities of antiseptic dressings, five dozen gallons of whiskey and brandy, 200 cans of soup, granite-ware basins, pitchers, dishes, etc. several other visits were made to this point, resulting in the employment of additional trained nurses, with proper provision for their maintenance. arrangements were also made on behalf of the general committee for supplying ice for the use of troops on board the transports going south, and also for the sick on their journey northward. mr. bickford was afterward designated to take charge of the work of the red cross at this point, so further work on the part of our committee was unnecessary. the branch of the work, which has been really one of the most difficult to conduct, was the looking after soldiers, who passed through the city mostly from southern to northern camps, and those who were going home. there was such a general demand on the part of the men for coffee, bread and other supplies, and it was so hard to limit our service to the sick soldiers alone, that we soon determined to feed not only the convalescent, but all who were hungry. soldiers from the following organizations were fed and supplied, the well men receiving bread and butter sandwiches: parts of the 5th and 6th artillery, 25th infantry, two troops of 1st cavalry, 12th, 16th and 17th infantry, portions of the 8th, 9th and 10th cavalry, all united states troops, and the following volunteer forces: 22d kansas, 3d and 4th missouri, 1st maine, 2d tennessee, 7th illinois, 1st, 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 17th pennsylvania, 1st connecticut, 5th maryland, 2d, 3d, 8th, 9th, 14th and 65th new york, 1st and 2d new jersey, two brigades of united states signal corps, and detachments from a number of other regiments, in all about 40,000 men. very frequently the committee furnished handkerchiefs and soap, as well as reading matter. the sick were given soup and milk packed in ice, fruit, medicines, etc. forty-five were removed from the trains and taken to the hospitals in washington. we used, in this connection, not only the services of trained nurses in the employ of the red cross, but dr. bayne was detailed by the war department, and rendered most efficient service, as he was always ready and willing to do everything in his power, day or night, for the relief of the sick. the war department ordered for the use of the committee the erection of two tents in close proximity to our rooms, which were at 915 maryland avenue. one of these tents was filled with fully equipped cots, on which the invalids were placed while waiting the arrival of ambulances, and the other was used as a general depot for supplies. the war department paid for the bread we used in this work, and, also, for 4346 loaves furnished to the pension office relief committee, which was engaged in the same kind of work. many donations of food and material were received, and as stated, nearly forty thousand men were fed, and how some of them did eat not only as if they were making up for the fasts of the past, but for any which might occur in the future. mrs. james tanner had charge of this work, which was very exacting, and she had been appointed a committee to secure reading matter for the different camps, before the red cross committee was organized, and collected several wagon loads of books, magazines, and other periodicals, which were sent to camp alger, fort myer, point sheridan, fort washington, chickamauga, tampa and santiago. distribution of this reading matter was also made at the red cross quarters at 915 maryland avenue and handed to the soldiers who passed through the city on trains. all bills for ice furnished to point sheridan, va., washington barracks, and to the diet kitchen at fort myer have been paid by the red cross ice plant auxiliary of new york, which also furnished the large ice chests for the latter point. the legion of loyal women, of which mrs. thomas w. calver, a member of our committee, was president, acted as an auxiliary for the red cross committee, and made a large number of mosquito nets, flannel bandages, wash cloths, and pajamas. besides this, they collected many supplies, consisting of boxes of oranges, lemons, tea, coffee, jelly, condensed milk, crackers, yeast powder, cocoa, stamps, writing paper, tobacco, fruit, soap, socks, handkerchiefs, towels, nightshirts, underclothes, pajamas, quinine and other medicine, which were sent to the various camps. generous donations of clothing, jellies, cordials and money were also received from various auxiliaries of the ladies' of the union veteran legion. the red cross committee assisted in the establishment of a temporary home in this city for the returning volunteers. the existence of this home was limited to two months. the time will expire november 10, when it will be broken up. it has cared for a daily average of sixty soldiers. the red cross assisted by furnishing cots and furniture. mrs. calver, of our committee, is in charge, and it is conducted without expense to the red cross. the total amount expended in the railway relief work, in feeding men as they passed through the city, was $2637.13. arrangements were also made after this work closed to look after all the sick soldiers, who came in at the several railroad stations. the treasurer, c.j. bell, will transmit a full report, with vouchers for all expenditures which have been up to this date, $7560, and with outstanding bills amounting to about $1000 more. a large number of ladies rendered excellent service in making sheets, pillow-cases, mosquito nets, pajamas, bandages and articles too numerous to mention. many volunteer nurses were anxious to go where they could render service to the sick and wounded. it is gratifying to be able to state that whatever view the surgeons and other officers may have had as to the need of the red cross at the beginning of the war, at the close they joined with the private soldiers in testifying to its wonderful and efficient work. among the principal donations were those from the lutheran church society, hagerstown, md., consisting of 50 pajamas, 50 suits of underclothing, 50 nightshirts, 40 sheets, 250 pairs of socks, 100 towels, 200 handkerchiefs, 75 rolls of bandages, delicacies and sundry articles. there were also daily contributions of different supplies, demonstrating the general interest taken in our work. there were distributed by this committee, in part, 800 sheets, 500 pillow-cases, 800 suits of pajamas, 1500 suits of underclothing, 1600 abdominal bandages, 800 pairs of socks, 750 nightshirts, 350 mosquito bars, 100 rubber sheets, 400 pairs of slippers, 2000 palm leaf fans, 75 large boxes of soap, 150 cots, 250 mattresses, 100 pairs of blankets, 275 pillows, $1000 worth of groceries, $300 malted milk, $850 soups and bouillons, $725 medicines and surgical supplies, $250 wines and liquors, and $1050 milk, a great variety and quantity of smaller articles and supplies. the following supplies were received from the general new york committee: 50 boxes of ivory soap, 50 rubber sheets, 400 suits of underwear, 250 sheets, 250 pillow-cases, 250 nightshirts, 200 pairs of slippers, 500 suits of pajamas, $200 worth of malted milk, beef extract and mellin's food, $700 worth of canned soups and bouillons and $6000 cash. in closing, permit me to thank vice-president barton and the executive committee for prompt and liberal responses to every request made for aid of any character, and for immediately recognizing the fact that the committee at this point had a work placed upon it very extensive and unique in character, and requiring a large outlay of money and service. i desire to call to your special attention the great service rendered by mrs. e.s. mussey, who, during the absence of mrs. foster and myself from the city, acted as chairman of the committee, and for two months gave nearly all of her time to its service, visiting different camps and hospitals, and in the work devolving upon her she was untiring and unusually efficient. much complaint has been made as to the location of camp alger, because of the prevalence of typhoid and malarial fever, and the absence of water supply both for drinking and bathing purposes. a personal knowledge of this section of virginia, extending over many years, enables me to state that it has been regarded as unusually healthy, and a most desirable section for homes, the growth and development of which would have been very rapid had there been an additional bridge giving greater facilities for crossing the potomac. the water there has been considered pure and healthy, and used by many families without bad results. falls church, near this camp, has been regarded as one of the healthiest and most desirable suburbs of the national capital. the topography of the ground and the presence of a large amount of shade were very suitable for the purposes of camp life. it was, however, evident, even to the inexperienced eye of a layman, that good, practical daily scavenger service aided by the effective use of disinfectants was sadly needed both for the comfort and health of the men; that the presence of numerous booths, stands and peddlers engaged in selling soft drinks, fruits, cakes, candy, etc., tended to further demoralize the already interrupted digestion of the soldiers. no matter what the general orders were they could not be made effective without the earnest and intelligent co-operation of regimental officers and soldiers. could this be secured within two or three months from men not experienced in war? a feeling of individual responsibility appeared to be lacking. one of the most useful officers who can be detailed for camp duty is an inspector, one who will not only inspect daily, but insist that the men take care of themselves, and co-operate to prevent disease, especially in keeping the camp in proper sanitary condition by constant attention to sinks and the water supply. the red cross entered upon its great work at the beginning of the war under many difficulties. instead of being aided and encouraged in an undertaking that comprehended the generous spirit of the nation, its mission was oftimes interrupted and hindered by officers of prominence and rank. it is proper to say, however, that the president and secretary of war were at all times deeply interested in our work, and did all in their power to expedite our plans. there appeared to be a jealous apprehension in some quarters that the red cross would interfere with established institutions. what it has accomplished is a matter of history, daily recorded in the public press, it has not been aggressive, nor has it dominated any legitimate authority. it has sought to be the servant and not the master. as one general particularly friendly to the organization remarked, "the red cross has not been the foe, but the friend of every one, even of red tape." if we had any criticism to make it would be in favor of more practical common sense dealing with all matters especially those pertaining to the camp and hospital, and of the necessity of fixing individual responsibility so as to be certain of results as well as orders. many high-minded and patriotic officers have been blamed where they ought to have been praised; one distinguished professional man dying from the effects of undeserved fault finding. if another war should ever come to us as a nation, we trust the lessons of that which has just closed will not be forgotten. many of the very best and most conscientious surgeons are not business men. men who have not had business experience in time of peace cannot be expected to learn at once new methods in time of war so as to perfect or harmonize a great system. should not the executive officer in every large hospital be selected somewhat with reference to his business capacity? good surgeons and physicians have enough to occupy them in attending to their professional duties. they had too much to attend to in most instances during the spanish war, and the number of deaths in comparison to the number of sick and wounded has been surprisingly small. i want to place upon record the generous kindness of dr. and mrs. j. ford thompson in tendering to the committee the use of house no. 1310 g street for headquarters; w.b. moses & sons for furniture loaned for our use; springman & sons for free transportation of goods; to the railroads for reduction of fare; to the falls church electric railroad, and washington and norfolk steamship company for free transportation; to the chesapeake and potomac telephone company for telephone, and to all who generously worked and contributed for the success of the committee. the army and navy embodied the power of the government in the spanish war, but the red cross in a large degree represented the affectionate regard of the american people, for those who went out to defend the flag of the union, and their great desire to mitigate in every possible way the sufferings resulting from exposure, disease and conflict, as well as to relieve distress wherever it existed. courage and charity go hand in hand, and when the smoke of battle has rolled away, and the tattoo and reveille are memories of the past; when the white tents of the camps are folded; the equipment of war is exchanged for the implements of peace the appreciation of the citizen soldier for the red cross will grow in volume as he sits by his fireside and tells how its ministries gave relief and aid to his comrades and himself in the camp, the hospital, at siboney, santiago, porto rico and elsewhere, and how it extended succor even to his enemies when the conflict ceased. the red cross of peace will outlive the red flag of war, even as charity shall survive the force of arms. let us hope that the former ensign may soon float by the side of the flags of all the nations and peoples of the world, as an evidence of the advance of civilization, and the universal desire that there be no more war; that men everywhere are ready to extend a helping hand to all who suffer from disaster or disease. when this glad day comes war will be no more. arbitration will be the supreme power. and may i say, in closing, that no one during the past quarter of a century has in a larger degree aided in the cultivation of peace and good will among men and the promotion of a spirit of fraternity among the peoples of the earth than the president of the american national red cross, who, during the spanish war, has rendered such valuable and indefatigable service in the cause of humanity. [illustration: on san juan hill, santiago.] camp thomas. the agent first appointed for chickamauga park, was dr. charles r. gill. shortly afterwards, however, dr. gill expressed a desire to go to cuba, and he was relieved, mr. e.c. smith being placed in charge of this field, which proved eventually to be one of the most important stations of the red cross. as the demands of the camp increased, mr. a.m. smith was sent to assist his brother in the work. their services have been eminently satisfactory to all concerned, and many voluntary expressions of appreciation have been received. all requisitions for assistance were promptly filled by the executive committee in new york, and in addition to the large amount of supplies sent, about $16,000 in cash were expended at the camp. mr. smith, in his report on the work done at this camp, says: the headquarters of the american national red cross, at camp thomas, chickamauga park, ga., was located alongside the historic brotherton house, which was in the thickest of the fight in 1863. no array of mere numerals written to express dollars, or tables of figures standing for quantities, could in comprehensive sense tell the story of red cross work at chickamauga, in 1898. the record is written indelibly in the hearts of thousands of soldiers who were stricken with disease on this battlefield, and the story has been told at quiet home firesides in every state of the union. all those who have labored in the work of mercy have been repaid a thousandfold in words of thankfulness and appreciation from fevered lips, and the praise of christian men and women throughout the country. in answer to the petitions of anxious wives, mothers and fathers, and the tender prayers of prattling infants, god put strength in the arms of the noble women who wore the badge of the red cross, and made them heroic in an hour of great trial. [illustration: spanish guerillas.] [illustration: a mounted advance, reconnoitring.] it has been testified by the gallant survivors of santiago, and other sanguinary engagements, that the chief terror was carried to the hearts of our gallant men through the awful silence of the enemy's bullets, and the mystery which enshrouded their position because of the use of smokeless powder, leaving no mark for retaliation. here in chickamauga, men fell from the ranks day after day, who seemed to have been singled out as the most robust and hardy of all, and were carried helpless to the regimental, division, corps, and general hospitals, stricken by an unseen foe. the danger lurked in the air that all breathed, and the apparently pure, limpid water, god's greatest gift to man, became his deadliest enemy. when the plague descended on the camp, and a full realization of present and impending horrors was forced upon all intelligent minds, frantic efforts were made to stay the progress of the destroyer, but the seeds had been sown, and the epidemic was fated to run its course. it seemed incongruous that such a spot should be so afflicted; in all the wide continent there is no fairer place. the valley stretching between lookout mountain and missionary ridge is one of the most beautiful of all the fertile valleys of the world; sunshine and shade here mingle to satisfy every sense. our boys entered the park joyfully, and all who should have known of the requirements of a camp, pronounced it an ideal spot. there was no adequate preparation for the unexpected, which some say "always happens." the action of the red cross redeemed the situation. stephen e. barton, chairman of the executive committee, promptly authorized measures to alleviate suffering, to quote the language of the authorization, "without stint." elias charles smith, the field agent of the red cross, acting at once on the orders of his superior, proceeded to find ways, the means being furnished. milk and ice were the chief requisites. all the farming country surrounding the camp was called upon to supply the milk, some of it coming from as far as biltmore, n.c., from the celebrated dairy of a millionaire. the ice came from chattanooga, and both ice and milk were supplied without delay, with no red tape, no halting, "without stint," to the sick. requisitions for carloads of delicacies were sent by telegraph, and when the needs were urgent the goods came, not by freight but by express. soups, wines, fruit, and in fact every conceivable article that could contribute to the comfort and recovery of the sick was sent for, dispatched, received and distributed. there were no "middle men" to question or quibble about the advisability of things being done, no halting and haggling about how things should be done. the field agent of the red cross ascertained the urgent necessities of the sick, through the best official sources, and--presto!--the necessities were on the ground and in use. the problem of nursing was coincident. men in the division and other hospitals were willing, no doubt, but there was "lack of woman's nursing." there was no "dearth of woman's tears,"--at home. the red cross auxiliary no. 3 of new york, through the agency of miss maud cromlein in the field, took up this work. at one time there were 140 young women graduate nurses in the service of the red cross in this camp, mainly at sternberg hospital. how to care for this large number of refined young women, unused to the hardships of camp life, was a serious problem. dormitories were built to shelter them, and furnished for their comfort. a contract was made with a steam laundry at chattanooga to wash their clothing and everything possible was done to make their stay at least endurable. some fell sick, of course, and were tenderly cared for or furloughed and sent to their homes. under the direction of miss maxwell a perfect system was established in all the work, which commanded the respect and approbation of the medical officers. diet kitchens were introduced, and the sick were furnished with every necessary delicacy. it is now a matter of history that this first organized experiment of using women in large numbers as nurses in a field hospital has been an unqualified success. it has the official approval of the medical officers of the government from surgeon-general sternberg to the smallest, humblest subaltern. the red cross did not confine its efforts to the help of nurses wearing the red cross. at the old third division first corps hospital, afterward called sanger, sisters of charity and sisters of mercy ministered to the sick. the same attention was given to them; all requisitions for milk and ice and delicacies were promptly filled. one of these noble women, sister stella boyle, wrote, "we are overwhelmed with your kindness--what should we have done without the red cross!" leiter hospital received the same help; milk and ice and delicacies were furnished "promptly and without stint." that was the watchword. and so with the regimental hospitals; the surgeons in charge made requisition for necessary supplies and they were forthcoming, even to the day of the departure of the last troops from the camp, the hospital trains being supplied as well. thus the red cross followed the sick to the doors of their own homes. the christian women of chattanooga belonging to the epworth league and the churches of that city, did a greatly needed work in establishing hospitals for the care of sick soldiers enroute. they were amazed and delighted when they learned they could make requisition on the red cross for necessary supplies. field agent e.c. smith, frail of body but stout of soul, was stricken at his post of duty with typhoid september 12, but is convalescent and rapidly gaining strength. when miss cromlein and miss maxwell retired about the same date, they were succeeded by miss gladwin and miss lounsbury, who have ably managed the affairs of the red cross at sternberg. under my direction miss gladwin recently visited anniston, ala., and found the service of the red cross greatly needed at camp shipp. miss gladwin has established a diet kitchen at that camp and has done much to better the condition of the soldiers in the camp hospitals. there are still 200 sick at sternberg and 50 at leiter, but these will soon i hope be furloughed and returned to their homes. all who have represented the red cross at chickamauga have worked with the greatest self-denial and enthusiasm with full appreciation of the lofty aims of the society and with personal pride. when the roll of honor is made up, i know of no name that should be omitted. [illustration: u.s.s. "oregon."] jacksonville, fla. at jacksonville, fla., the work at the camp was under the direction of the rev. alexander kent, of washington, d.c., who has been a member of the american national red cross for many years. he began his duties about the middle of june and, assisted by his son, continued until the order for the abandonment of the camp was issued. the territory covered by this agency included also the camps at miami and fernandina. the affairs of the red cross in this field were most efficiently conducted and with great credit to dr. kent and his assistant. in addition to the medical and hospital supplies and delicacies, which were furnished in great quantities, over thirteen thousand dollars were spent in adding to the comforts of the sick and convalescent. dr. kent makes the following interesting report: on june 16 i arrived in jacksonville, in company with miss clara barton, then on her way to key west and santiago. we visited camp cuba libre in the afternoon, when i enjoyed the great advantage of being presented by miss barton to several of the officials as the representative of the red cross at this point. on the following morning i visited the hospital--that of the second division, the first being at miami and the third not formed--where i found what appeared to me to be very distressing and unhealthful conditions. the number of patients at that time was small, but, few as they were, no adequate provision had been made for their comfort. most of them, indeed, were on cots, but few had either sheets or nightshirts to cover their nakedness. they were either lying in soiled underclothing, sweltering in the heat under army blankets, or destitute of any clothing whatever. i lost no time in ordering one hundred sheets, with the same number of pillow-cases and ticks, having assurance from one of the surgeons that the latter could be readily filled with moss and pine needles, making a comfort-giving and healthful pillow. by the time this need was met i learned that the sick were destitute of suitable food, so i made it my next business to provide a sufficiency of this. no sooner had i begun this work than i had to face the fact that the hospital had no proper facilities for cooking this food and no place in which to care for it and keep it cool and sweet when prepared. so i purchased a large blue flame oil stove and a no. 6 alaska ice chest. i soon discovered that the patients were suffering from want of ice and made haste to secure an adequate supply of this. but in all these things adequate provision for one week was no adequate provision for the next. patients came into the hospital in ever-increasing numbers; cots, sheets, pillows and pillow-cases had to be doubled and trebled and quadrupled as the weeks went by. the government provided many sheets, many cots and many pillows, but the demand ever outran the supply, and the red cross was called on continually to make up the lack. in the matter of ice, milk, eggs, lemons, malted milk, peptonoids, clam bouillon, beef extract, calfsfoot jelly, gelatine, cornstarch, tapioca, condensed milk, rice, barley, sugar, butter, and delicacies of all kinds, the government made no provision, neither did the hospital from its ration fund. all supplies of this kind were furnished by the red cross or by other charitable or beneficent agencies. so far as i have been able to learn, and i questioned those in charge of the division hospitals, no use was made of the ration fund in the jacksonville hospitals in the way of procuring delicacies for patients. the sole reliance for these things was the red cross and similar agencies of individual and organized beneficence. of individual beneficence the most marked examples were mrs. marshall, proprietor of the carleton hotel; mrs. moulton, wife of colonel moulton, of the second illinois, and mrs. rich, a quiet, modest lady of this city. these gave their whole time to the work of devising ways and means for promoting the comfort and health of the sick. they made chicken broth, ice cream, wine jellies and a variety of delicacies grateful to the palates of the sick soldiers. other jacksonville ladies did much in this direction, but these ladies were constant and untiring in their efforts. though mrs. marshall had many of the soldiers cared for free of charge at her own hotel, never for a day was she absent from the camp. she was a veritable ministering angel, and the red cross is greatly indebted to her for much of the information that helped us to give wisely and when most needed. through mrs. moulton many of the good people of chicago bestowed their benefactions. five days out of every week found mrs. rich at one of the division hospitals, making her ice cream for the boys and giving them a taste of her delicious wine jellies. when the red cross learned of her excellent work it took pains to keep her supplied with all needed material, beside furnishing a twenty-five quart ice cream freezer with which to do her work. all of these women deserve a more extended and a worthier tribute than we can pay them in this report. with the growth of the hospital there came ever-increasing demands for ice and milk, for delicacies of every sort, and for all the comforts and conveniences that tend to make hospital work pleasant and effective. early in the history of the second division hospital, the red cross paid the bills for a bath house and a kitchen. it furnished also the large circular wall tent for convalescents. it gave over a hundred cots and mattresses, and nearly a thousand pillows. of sheets and pillow-cases, nightshirts and pajamas, it gave many thousands. we not only distributed a large number sent from new york; boxes were sent us from st. augustine, from augusta, ga., from connecticut, pennsylvania and the district of columbia. few people have any conception of the quantity of such articles required to keep a hospital with five hundred to seven hundred patients in good running order. so often are these things soiled that there must be at least three or four sets to every cot. when there are three or four hospitals, with an aggregate sick list ranging from fifteen hundred to two thousand, the number of sheets and pillow-cases, nightshirts and pajamas necessary to keep the beds and the patients presentable is surprisingly large. of course the government has supplied the greater number of sheets and pillow-cases, but the red cross has furnished probably the greater number of pillows, nightshirts and pajamas. in none of these things has the supply ever quite equaled the demand. even at the present time the cry of need is almost as loud as ever. when the recuperating hospital was established at pablo beach, the red cross, at the request of the chief-surgeon, supplied two hundred and fifty sets of dishes with a complete outfit of pitchers, trays, buckets and many other things. even the business of the chief-surgeon's office and that of the surgeon at pablo beach is transacted on desks furnished by the red cross at the request of these parties. it has contributed to furnish the diet kitchens with stoves, utensils and dishes, and has supplied the hospitals themselves with many articles of convenience and comfort. it provided four dozen large clothes hampers, printed many thousands of patient records and other papers. it had fifty large ice chests manufactured and placed one in each ward of the principal hospitals. it gave over seven hundred buckets for the carrying of offal, and furnished screens for the use of the nurses. it gave bed-pans and urinals in large numbers, over a thousand tumblers, medicine glasses, graduated glasses, a sterilizing apparatus, hypodermic syringes and needles. of the latter we learned that there was not a single whole one in the hospital at the time we were called on. scores of men had been obliged to receive their hypodermic injections from a broken point, suffering greatly from the operation and subsequent results. the red cross has furnished over one thousand dollars worth of medicines not on the government list, besides malted milk, peptonoids, pepto mangan, peptogenic milk powder, maltine and a large shipment of medicines sent from new york. it has given over a thousand bath and surgical sponges and towels in immense quantities. in short, with the exception of tents, cots, blankets, and, to a considerable extent, sheets, furnished by the government, the red cross, up to september 1st, furnished the greater part of the hospital equipment. as the several heads of divisions have said to me again and again. "the hospitals never could have equipped themselves from their ration fund. they would have broken down utterly without the aid of the red cross." we have spent here over thirteen thousand dollars in cash for hospital equipment and supplies of various kinds, including ice and milk, in addition to the large quantities of goods sent from new york the cost of which we do not know. and with all this, the need has not been met as fully or as promptly as it should have been. the number of the sick increased so greatly beyond the expectations of the officers in charge that the supply has never, for any considerable time, been equal to the demand. even now, when the government has allowed sixty cents a day for each patient in the hospital, and has recently so extended the order as to include regimental as well as division hospitals, there is still continuous appeal to the red cross for a variety of things, which those in charge of the hospital fund do not feel warranted in buying, and as yet few of the regiments have gotten their hospitals into shape to ask for anything. as they move to savannah in a few days, they will not be in condition to draw any money for weeks to come. it is very fortunate therefore, that your committee has seen fit to grant our last requisition, for the goods you have shipped will be of great benefit to the soldiers on their way to cuba. i have omitted to state that a most important part of the work of the red cross has been the supplying of ice for the purpose of cooling the drinking water of the camps. our ice bills for camp and hospitals, at an average of thirty-five cents per hundred pounds have been over six thousand dollars, the second division hospital alone often consuming from four to five tons a day. our milk bills were also large, averaging for some time over five hundred dollars a week, at a cost of forty cents a gallon. our relations with both army and medical officials have been, on the whole, harmonious and pleasant. perhaps the best evidence of this is the fact that the government teams and men have always been at our service whether to haul the goods from the wharf to the store or from the store to the camp. some little feeling arose over my attitude in regard to the necessity for female nurses, but as the outcome has abundantly shown the soundness of my contention, that has pretty much passed away. our hospitals have been far from ideal but i believe they are generally regarded as the best in the country, and perhaps none have realized their shortcomings and defects more than the men charged with their administration. it is not an easy matter to select, even from an american army, a sufficient number of capable and reliable men for so large and complex an institution, and incapacity or infidelity at any point is liable not only to bring most serious results, but to throw discredit upon the entire management. doubtless many things have been done that should never have been permitted, and many left undone that constitute a record of what ought to be criminal neglect, yet these things can be wholly avoided only by men of the highest ability and largest experience, working with trained subordinates, and with every facility for successful endeavor. it has not been possible to secure such conditions in any of the hospitals. the men in charge have been obliged to use such material as they could get, and often the commanding officers of regiments, when asked for a detail for hospital work, have given the very poorest material they had. i am disposed, therefore, to have pretty large charity always for the surgeon-in-charge. he has a most difficult task, and at the very best, can only hope for moderate success. ideal results he can never secure. i have said nothing of our work at miami or fernandina, for there is little to say. the troops were moved from miami so soon after we were made acquainted with their needs, that we did little more than supply the hospital with ice, during the weeks in which the sick were convalescing. we were not permitted to do even this at fernandina. those in charge of the hospitals, division and regimental, disclaimed all need of aid. the government supplied them with all that they required. we have had many testimonies from officers and privates, showing the profound appreciation everywhere felt for the work of the red cross. perhaps no other part of its work was so highly prized by the soldiers at large as that which furnished them cool drinking water. had the chief-surgeon, colonel maus, not been so deeply prejudiced against female nurses in general, and red cross nurses in particular, we might have done a much greater work in the hospitals than was permitted to us. while the second division hospital was still young, the red cross offered its nurses freely and gratuitously. it offered to shelter and feed them at its own expense, but the offer was spurned indignantly and with scarcely disguised contempt. we were told that female nurses were not needed, that the hospital had already more skilled nurses that it could use, and that the female nurses were a nuisance round a camp anyway. most of them, the chief-surgeon affirmed, were drawn to the work by a morbid sentimentality or by motives of even a more questionable character. he would have none of them. but the time came when even this officer had to change his attitude if not his opinions, and women nurses were sought for and welcomed to the hospital by hundreds. that they have proven a great blessing to the boys, no one now questions; many most pronounced in their opposition are now loudest in their praise, and the red cross rejoices that the good work is being done, though itself denied the privilege of doing. [illustration: "almirante oquendo" after the engagement.] fort mcpherson, ga. early in august mr. d.l. cobb, on a tour of inspection, arrived at fort mcpherson, georgia, to see if any assistance was required at the post, and if an agency could be established. it was found that mrs. anna e. nave, wife of rev. orville j. nave, chaplain of the post, and their daughter, miss hermione nave, had established a small dietary kitchen and were supporting a table for convalescents. the object of the kitchen was to provide light and nutritive diet for the soldiers in the barracks who were suffering from stomach troubles, dysentery and kindred digestive disorders, and to care for the convalescents from typhoid fever and other serious sickness, until they were sufficiently recovered to be again returned to the company mess. as this kitchen was performing an important part in the care of the men, and the demands upon it were daily increasing, it was proposed that it be continued, and its work extended as the demands increased, and that the red cross would pay all expenses and furnish all the supplies required. rev. orville j. nave was accordingly appointed as the field agent at fort mcpherson, the kitchen remaining under the immediate care and supervision of mrs. nave and her daughter, assisted by a committee of representative women of the city of atlanta, including mrs. governor atkinson, miss mary l. gordon-huntley, mrs. loulie m. gordon, miss junia mckinley, mrs. e.h. barnes, and others. under the auspices of the red cross the capacity of the kitchen was soon doubled, and the table was maintained until the first of october, when assistance was no longer necessary. at the table about 20,000 meals were served. by this means doubtless many lives were saved, for the percentage of relapses among the typhoid fever cases, ordinarily quite large, was very small at this post. in addition to the supplies of food, medicines and clothing sent to this field, in response to the requisitions, some $1400 in cash were expended in support of the table and in furnishing those things which were at times needed quickly, and which could be purchased in the local markets at atlanta. a stenographer was also furnished, so that dr. nave might be able to answer the many inquiries from parents and relatives of men in the hospitals, and attend to the ordinary correspondence connected with the work. seven nurses were supplied to assist in the hospital work. dr. nave in his report says: the importance of this work, as a supplement to that done by the government for the relief of the sick, cannot be overstated. an institution, such as an army hospital, deals with the sick by masses. much must be left to subordinates, many of whom have little or no experience in caring for the sick. the system is devised for the many. but, where many are sick, a percentage of the patients cannot regain health without special care. the work done by the red cross at fort mcpherson was that which could not be done effectually by institutional methods. furthermore, those who assisted in the work were actuated solely by philanthropic motives. they therefore brought elements to their work that employes too often lack, elements of gentleness and love. two thousand soldiers in as many homes, nursed back to health, live to love and honor the red cross in memory of the helping hand sent to them and administered through the hospital at fort mcpherson. the total cash expenditures, including the cost of maintaining the kitchen, was $2242. to dr. nave, his wife and daughter, and to the atlanta committee of the red cross, great credit is due for the efficient manner in which the auxiliary work at this point was carried on. acting with discretion, and with loyalty to the principles of the red cross, they have carried their work to a successful conclusion without a complaint from any source. [illustration: u.s. war ships before the entrance to santiago harbor.] camp hobson, ga. at camp hobson, lithia springs, ga., a diet kitchen was also maintained, under the direction of miss junia mckinley, assisted by the atlanta committee of the red cross, of which the following account is received: the diet kitchen was opened here on monday, august 9, and remained in operation three weeks, at the expiration of which time the camp broke up. during the first week after the kitchen was established, when detachments from the sixth, seventh, eighth, twenty-first and twenty-fifth regiments were in camp, 1176 meals were served. the next week orders were received for the removal of the eighth and part of the other regiments to montauk point, consequently the number of convalescents was reduced, but during the second and third week 2066 meals were served, making a total of 3242 meals served at the table and in the hospital during the time the kitchen was in operation. the meals were furnished to convalescents in the hospital, men relieved from duty but not sick enough to be in the hospital, and to the hospital corps. the table meals consisted of the following: for breakfast, cereals, coffee, tea, fresh milk, eggs, toast, bread and butter. for dinner, soups, bouillons, rice and milk, eggs, crackers, bread and fresh milk, coffee, california fruits (canned), wine, jelly or simple dessert. supper was the same as breakfast, with the addition of stewed fruit. to patients in hospital, beef tea (made from fresh beef as well as extracts), soft-boiled eggs, cream toast and fresh milk was served at regular hours. the only paid help were two men and one woman, the latter lived near the camp and reported for duty at first meal call and remained until dining tent and kitchen were in order. the other work in kitchen was gratuitously done by atlanta members of red cross society, assisted by mrs. edward h. barnes, miss loulie gordon roper (niece of general j.b. gordon), miss emmie mcdonnell, miss estelle whelan, mrs. george boykin saunders, all of atlanta, and the ladies from sweetwater park hotel, who came over daily from the hotel, about half a mile distant from camp, and assisted in serving table meals, also in carrying delicacies to hospitals and distributed flowers among the patients. it affords us pleasure to acknowledge the uniform courtesy of the army officials, especially the commandant, major thomas wilhelm, chief surgeon major e.l. swift, assistant surgeons street, bak and johnson and lieutenant norman, quartermaster. major wilhelm had our kitchen built and fly tent for dining hall put up in a few hours after our arrival, detailed men to help whenever needed in kitchen, and with finest courtesy assured us of his appreciation of what was being done to add to the comfort of his sick and convalescent men. besides the regular kitchen work at camp hobson, the red cross furnished for a short time to the hospitals one special nurse (miss mckinley) and one trained nurse (miss mclain), who remained until our last patients were sent to fort mcpherson general hospital and went with them in the hospital train, ministering to their wants until they were transferred to their respective wards there. in this connection we think proper to state that many of our camp hobson patients now in fort mcpherson hospital, one of the best equipped and best managed hospitals in the country, assure us that they can never forget the unfailing kindness of chief surgeon swift and assistants, the faithful care of their red cross nurses, nor the delicacies furnished by the diet kitchen at camp hobson. the red cross having authorized miss mckinley to furnish anything necessary for the sick, medicines, fine whiskey and hospital supplies were ordered by telephone from atlanta, as there was some delay in shipment of government supplies, the orders were promptly filled and proved important factors in improving hospital wards. clothing was furnished to some of the camp hobson men who were left behind and could not draw needed articles of clothing as their "descriptive lists" had not been furnished. when the twenty-first regiment left for the north coffee was served on the train to the entire regiment in second section. most of the ice used after the diet kitchen was established was furnished through mr. percy r. pyne, of new york, who kindly supplied what was needed. thanks are due g.f. matthews & co., of new york, who wrote that they would furnish all the tea needed in the kitchen, but as the camp was about to break up, their kind offer was not accepted. special thanks are due to h.w. blake, manager of sweetwater park hotel at lithia springs, for many courtesies extended, when our milkman was late, or our groceries (ordered from atlanta) were delayed, he furnished fresh milk and eggs for the patients until our supplies arrived. mrs. blake sent daily from the beautiful hotel gardens, flowers for hospitals and dining table, also for distribution in hospital trains before leaving camp hobson. in conclusion, we can venture to assure you that while the time of our work at camp hobson was short, great good was accomplished, the improvement of convalescents who took meals at the kitchen was very rapid, owing to the well prepared and nourishing food furnished them. the surgeons, as well as hospital stewards, were much gratified at marked improvement in hospital wards after the arrival of red cross nurses. upon the departure of every hospital train, we served iced milk to fever patients, milk toast to those not restricted to liquid diet, and supplied milk and stimulants for their journey. we thank the red cross for the privilege of assisting in their relief work for our soldiers at camp hobson, whose appreciation for all that was done for them was unbounded and their gratitude a delight for those who ministered to their wants. [illustration: "marie teresa" after the engagement.] st. paul, minn. the story of the red cross of st. paul, minn., is briefly told in the report by miss caroline m. beaumont, the recording secretary: the st. paul red cross aid society was organized on the ninth of may, 1898, shortly after the beginning of the war, pursuant to a general call for aid, with mr. a.s. tallmadge as president, and a full board of officers. it was at first intended to form a regular auxiliary of the red cross, directly tributary to the national organization, and distribute supplies through headquarters only. but the fact that the state volunteer regiments were actually in need of immediate aid to equip them to leave for points of mobilization, induced the society to turn their attention to local needs first. the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth minnesota volunteers were first furnished with hospital supplies, delicacies for the sick, and all those necessary articles which the government does not supply, or furnishes only in meagre quantities. working headquarters were established, requests for donations were published which met with immediate response, which testified to the generosity of the citizens of st. paul and surrounding towns. successful entertainments were also given, sewing and packing committees were appointed, and women from all over the city gave freely of their means, their time and their efforts, as they thought of a husband, a son or a dear one in far away cuba or manila. the patriotism and loyalty of the men of minnesota was shared and often inspired by the women who gave so freely. the women of st. paul with willing hands and loving hearts, have shared in the glories of the war, and the sorrows of personal loss has been mitigated by pride of race, and the love of a country that has borne such soldiers and sailors as our brave boys. not in minnesota alone, but in all the states, the willing hands and loving hearts of the women of america have been among the foremost in affording relief to the sick and wounded. at home in the auxiliaries, in the hospitals, on the transports and at the front, wherever sickness and suffering called. early in the campaign they seemed to awaken to the true meaning and the great mission of the red cross, and, setting before them the standard, they have followed it from one field of suffering to another. true soldiers of humanity, they have labored earnestly and incessantly, and have proven themselves worthy to wear the emblem of their loving, faithful service--the red cross of geneva. montauk point, l.i. at the request of the new york relief committee, the executive committee of the red cross appointed mr. howard townsend as the field agent at montauk point, long island, under whose supervision the work of the red cross at this important station was admirably conducted. mr. townsend in his report says: the red cross appeared on the ground on sunday, august 7, 1898, and its representative remained there permanently after august 10. the first, and in some respects the most important work, was the delivery of a daily supply of pure water to the government officials at the camp. for the first ten days the most serious problem was how to obtain good water, and until the great well was dug, the hospitals were supplied by the red cross. ten thousand gallons of hygeia water were delivered at the camp, and four tank cars brought daily from jamaica sufficient spring water to prevent a water famine. there was important work to be done also in connection with the general hospital, furnishing to it such supplies as were rendered necessary by the hurry and confusion of the first two weeks of the camp's existence. cots, clothing, bed-clothing, household appliances and cooking utensils, refrigerators and other articles, in short a large part of the things necessary for a hospital. all of these things were promptly supplied, through the quick communication established with the red cross supply depot in new york city, and the system of placing orders by telegraph, by which supplies most needed were often on hand within a few hours after the need was discovered. delicacies, fruits and milk were furnished to the hospitals until the government itself was able to meet the demand in this direction. although the quarantine regulations prevented the red cross from being in constant attendance at the detention hospital, yet we kept it abundantly supplied with delicacies, and quite often with necessities. many tons of supplies were furnished, including food, clothing and stimulants. [illustration: chickamauga camp.] [illustration: camp thomas, headquarters american national red cross.] the necessity arising for trained nurses at the general hospital, the services of twenty trained women nurses were offered about august 16, their salaries and all expenses to be paid by the red cross. the secretary of war promptly directed the acceptance of the offer, although insisting that the government should pay all expenses. since that time there have been as many as one hundred and forty nurses in the hospital at one time, in addition to about one hundred and ten sisters of charity. these women nurses uniformly conducted themselves with decorum in the camp, and their services undoubtedly saved the lives of many patients. all the nurses, except the sisters of charity, were furnished through the instrumentality of the red cross. the division hospitals were established later in the history of the camp, and these were also supplied with suitable provisions, delicacies, medical stores and instruments, and red cross nurses. the red cross yacht arrived at camp wyckoff on the eleventh of august with the first load of supplies. the boat was furnished for the use of the red cross by the relief committee of the red cross in new york. this vessel is admirably fitted for carrying a small number of sick people, and was offered to the government by the relief committee, and has been in steady use as a hospital ship, conveying fifteen invalids at a time to the various hospitals along the connecticut coast and in new york city. after the first confusion incident to the establishment of the camp, the red cross extended its field to include a visit to the regimental hospitals, which were discovered to be in great need of food and equipment suitable for sick, particularly in the hospitals of the infantry divisions. the assistant agent, dr. brewer, and mr. samuel parrish, of southampton, n.y., devoted themselves particularly to daily visits to the regiments, and were able to materially help the regimental surgeons in their discouraging work, hampered as they were by lack of medical stores and equipment. the auxiliary for the maintenance of trained nurses sent to the camp mrs. willard, a dietary expert, who, in conjunction with the massachusetts volunteer aid association, and with the assistance of dr. prescott, established diet kitchens in the various hospitals, and supplied the patients with such satisfactory diet that the government agreed to pay the expense of this part of the work. another branch of work was carried on by the red cross and which appealed particularly to the sick, which was an attempt made to answer, each day, inquiries from all parts of the country concerning men from whom their relatives and friends had heard nothing perhaps since the army left cuba. another division of the work was that concerning the feeding of the sick and hungry men arriving on the transports. dr. magruder, the chief quarantine officer, gave much of his time to this part of the service, carrying continually in his boats stores of red cross provisions and delicacies with which he supplied those ships that were in quarantine and suffering most from lack of food. at the quarantine dock, where the sick men were landed, captain guilfoyle of the ninth cavalry rendered most efficient service in helping the sick, while at the same time enforcing the quarantine regulations. at the railroad dock an important part of this work was carried on. there dr. and mrs. valentine mott were stationed day after day as the transports unloaded their men. captain edwards, of the first united states cavalry, had already volunteered to aid and, by order of major-general young, he was permitted to have his men assist. every regiment that landed stacked arms, and in single file passed by a tent, erected by the military officials, where each man was given a glass of milk, or a cup of beef tea, and in some instances the men volunteered the statement that they were too weak to have marched to the hospital, and could have gone no further but for this friendly help at the dock. in the meantime, at the railway station, the men going on sick furlough frequently collapsed just before the departure of the train, or became faint through want of food. here the red cross arranged that every sick man should be supplied with milk, and, where it was necessary, given a few ounces of whiskey, so as to enable him to continue his journey. the increasing number of furloughed men required the establishment of an emergency hospital near the railway station, and this was installed in two tents erected for the red cross by the army officers. these tents at times sheltered for the night as many as twenty sick men who were unable to catch the train, and who would otherwise have been obliged to sit up in the station until morning. this work, and the emergency hospital, were under the charge of miss martha draper. owing to the cheerful recognition given to the red cross, when the camp was first opened, due to the courtesy of major-general young, the red cross was able to enter into a far broader sphere of usefulness than would otherwise have been possible. we are also particularly indebted to captain chase, of the third cavalry, captain guilfoyle, of the ninth cavalry, and captain fuller, of the first cavalry, for their constant endeavors to aid the representatives of the red cross in carrying out their work of supplementing the efforts of the government, to relieve the suffering and in ministering to the comfort of the men and officers of the fifth army corps. the pacific coast. the states of the pacific coast, washington, oregon, california, nevada and others, have taken a very prominent part in the relief work during the war, under the red cross. it is yet too soon to write the story of the great service they have rendered, for the work still continues and only partial reports are at hand. in the latter part of june the following letter was received by the chairman of the executive committee of the red cross, from mrs. l.l. dunbar, secretary of the red cross of san francisco: dear sir:--referring to my letter of a few days since, i enclose herewith summary of the red cross work in california to date, which i trust will prove of interest to you. you will note that there has been a generous response by the citizens of california to the call for funds with which to establish the work of the red cross. this society seems to have sprung into life fully equipped for any emergency. committees have been formed. ten to twelve thousand dollars on hand available for further use; soldiers welcomed on arrival with friendly words and good cheer; none have left the port of entry for their long march to the camping ground without a good breakfast furnished by the red cross; further comforts provided while in camp, and physical welfare carefully looked after. without working on constitutional lines, not having to this date received details of the plan of operation as carried out under the rules or regulations of the american national red cross, we have adopted common sense methods as seem proper in war times, or as would suggest themselves in case of any great public calamity, not standing on the order of doing, but doing as occasion seems to require. the primary movement toward organization was the result of a desire to equip our national guard to a war footing, it having been pointed out to a few leaders in charitable and patriotic work after the first call for troops that the need existed for medical supplies and surgical appliances in the national guard to properly outfit them to meet all contingencies. at that time they were not aware that the spaniards were so poor at target practice as they proved to be at manila. while it is the province of the state to supply above needs, the legislature was not in session, time was limited, ships for manila were soon to sail, therefore it seemed proper not to wait on uncertain legislation, and it was resolved and immediately made effective to supply above needs which was done, involving the expenditure of three thousand dollars. referring to the minutes of the red cross society of san francisco, we find a communication was forwarded to washington, placing all resources at the service of the government. the supplies for the national guard, mentioned above, were purchased under the direction of surgeon-general hopkins, national guard of california. as the movement enlarged and we learned the intention to concentrate large bodies of troops from all over the united states, our work expanded. the government was inadequately prepared to take care of so many troops on the coast and for some time after their arrival, to prevent positive suffering, the red cross society by and with the consent of the united states commanding officers, supplied any and everything that seemed to be needed by the soldiers for their health and comfort. all of the ladies connected with the society vied with each other in giving their whole time and attention to the work, and the number of letters that have since been received by the society from the soldiers is the best evidence of the appreciation of the manner in which this work has been done. we erected a red cross hospital tent, supplied trained nurses, medical supplies, etc., and from that day to this the tent has been occupied by those in need of medical attention. the matter of sending an expedition to the philippines was discussed, but as we got along in our work we found to do effective work in this connection it was necessary to have the authority of the government through the american national red cross, and my previous letter upon this subject explains in detail our views in regard to this expedition. this will remain in statu quo until we hear further from you. we furnished twenty thousand bandages to the troops, made after patterns given to us by the army officers. we arranged with several of the hospitals here to receive and care for very sick men, and they have been generous in this respect. the french hospital has been very kind. that you may see the scope of our work, we have the following committees at work harmoniously under the intelligent direction of a most efficient chairman, aided by the noble work on the part of their assistants: hospital committee, finance committee, nursing committee, subscription committee, society badge committee, identification medal committee, printing, entertainments, hospitality, press, information, auditing, stores, ambulance, schools, clubs. from this you will see that the field has been very comprehensively covered, and as a sample of the work of each committee, i enclose herewith the report of the nursing committee, from which you can judge the nature of the work and how it is conducted by each committee, and i trust that this will give you the information required to judge what has been done here, and we would be glad to receive such suggestions from you in reference to this matter as you, from your large experience, may find necessary to make. we hope that your representative will visit san francisco to confer with the state association. it seems to us necessary. in response to this appeal it was decided to send a representative of the american national red cross to confer with the proposed societies of the pacific coast, to acquaint them with the rules governing the red cross in time of war, to explain the relationship that exists between such societies and the national body, and to accord to them official recognition, so that they might proceed as regular auxiliaries of the red cross. the red cross of california. the red cross of california has, perhaps, been the most prominent in war relief on the coast, and in the islands of the pacific. to add to the comforts of the men, and to assist in the care of the sick and wounded, the people of the state of california have contributed, and expended through their own auxiliaries of the red cross, over one hundred thousand dollars. i here insert, as an example of the work done by the people of the pacific coast, the report of one of the leading central state organizations, the california red cross: the beginning of red cross organization and work in california can best be told in the reports of the san francisco, oakland, berkeley and other societies, as they existed some little time before the state association was formed. in less than one month after the organization of the san francisco red cross, the necessity for a central organization through which the many societies forming throughout the state could work intelligently, became apparent. all were desirous of doing something to aid the "boys in blue," and realizing the truth of the old statement, "in union there is strength," it was decided to form a state organization, which all red cross societies would be invited to join. an advisory council met on may 16, in the occidental hotel, and the question of a state organization was thoroughly discussed. on may 25 the council again met and final steps were taken toward organizing a state association. it was resolved that the governing body of the association should be an executive board, consisting of fifteen members, six of whom should be from san francisco, four from alameda county and five from the state at large, and that the headquarters should be in san francisco. pursuant to this resolution the following were elected an executive board: mrs. w.b. harrington, mrs. w.r. smedberg, mrs. j. f. merrill, mrs. e.r. dimond, mrs. l.l. dunbar, of san francisco; mrs. j.m. griffith, of los angelã�â©s; mrs. granville abbott and mr. f.b. ginn, of oakland; mrs. g.w. haight, of berkeley; mrs. s.a. o'neill, of alameda; mrs. a. elkuss, of sacramento, and mrs. w. baker, of marin county; leaving two vacancies, which were later filled by mrs. s.f. lieb, of san jose, and mrs. d.h. webster, of fresno. several changes have occurred in the board since its formation. mrs. merrill, having been elected president of the san francisco society, resigned from the state board, and mr. adolph mack was elected to fill the vacancy thus caused. mrs. granville abbott and mr. ginn, of the oakland society, resigned, their successors being mrs. o. f. long and mrs. j.g. lemmon. mrs. haight, of the berkeley society, was succeeded by mrs. warring wilkinson, and mrs. louis weinman was elected to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of mrs. e.r. dimond. the officers of the board are mrs. w.b. harrington, president; mrs. j.m. griffith, vice-president; mrs. l.l. dunbar, secretary; william e. brown, treasurer, and mrs. e.r. dimond, assistant treasurer. later the positions of second and third vice-presidents were created and mrs. long was elected second vice-president and mrs. elkus third vice-president. mrs. louis weinman was elected corresponding secretary. mrs. dimond, who had been in the work since its inception, was compelled to resign on account of ill health, early in september, her positions both as a member of the board and as assistant treasurer, the vacancies being filled by the election of mrs. weinman, miss miriam k. wallis being elected corresponding secretary in place of mrs. weinman. it was with sincere regret that mrs. dimond's resignation was received, her work, both as assistant treasurer and as a member of the board, having been most satisfactory. shortly after the formation of the state association, through the kindness of mrs. p.a. hearst, two rooms were given us rent free in the examiner building for headquarters. we owe a very large debt of gratitude to mrs. hearst, and take this occasion to thank her most sincerely for her kindness. since its organization the executive board has held twenty-three meetings, besides these there have been two meetings of the association. one of the first steps taken by the board was to open a correspondence with the american national red cross, with a view to becoming an auxiliary to the parent organization, and also to gain official information in regard to the work of the red cross. while awaiting a reply to our communication a constitution was framed and adopted. a circular letter was prepared, giving information in regard to the formation of auxiliary societies, the conditions of membership in the state association and other matters of detail. this circular letter, the constitutions of the state association and the san francisco red cross, and a form of constitution for local societies were printed in pamphlet form and sent to all red cross societies throughout the state, also to societies in nevada, oregon, idaho, dakota, nebraska, kansas and iowa. applications for membership were rapidly received until we had enrolled 101 auxiliary societies. besides these there are a number of red cross societies not enrolled which have aided us with both money and supplies. a copy of the pamphlet, together with a detailed statement of the work of the red cross of california, was sent to mr. stephen e. barton, vice-president of the american national red cross, and soon after a response was received, expressing pleasure at what had been done and promising that a delegate should be sent to inspect our work and advise in organizing. judge joseph sheldon, the promised delegate, arrived about the middle of july; he informed himself fully as to what had been done; expressed his surprise that without definite knowledge of the work of the american national red cross, we had planned our work so closely on its lines. being satisfied with the work, judge sheldon recognized california red cross state association as an auxiliary to the american national red cross. leaving each auxiliary to tell its own story of the work it has done, we shall give an account of our own stewardship. with the first expedition, two finely trained nurses, messrs. waage and lewis, were sent by the san francisco red cross to manila. the splendid work of these men, who gave up lucrative positions, and volunteered their services, has been told over and over again in letters received from both officers and men. following the formation of the state association, it was decided that it should take charge of the nurses, and mrs. wendell easton, chairman of the committee on nurses, transferred her work to the state society. through the efforts of mrs. easton, aided by dr. beverly cole, a course of lectures and clinics was arranged. fifty or sixty enthusiastic men and women were in daily attendance on these lectures. drs. cole, kugeler, mccone, rixford, stafford, somers and weill gave much of their valuable time to this work, and aided mrs. easton greatly. the sincere thanks of the society are again extended to them. it was not until the fourth expedition was ordered to manila that an opportunity was given us to send more nurses. mrs. easton reported four good men available, dr. f.j. hart, leon crowther, eugene rosenthal and o.h.j. schlott, all of whom were engaged at once. it being deemed advisable, and strongly urged by army surgeons, it was decided to establish on the arrival of this expedition at manila a field hospital. a financial agent, and a steward who would take charge of the bulk of the supplies for such a hospital, and such funds as the society should see fit to place at his disposal, being a necessity, mr. schlott was selected to fill the position. there being four transport ships, dr. hart was assigned to duty on the "puebla," mr. crowther on the "peru," mr. rosenthal on the "pennsylvania," and mr. schlott on the "rio janeiro." with each of the ships, supplies were sent in charge of our nurses for the use of the sick men en route. in mr. schlott's care was also sent the greater portion of an equipment for a field hospital of 125 beds, and supplies sufficient for five or six months' use. the balance of the equipment was sent on the "scandia," as there was not sufficient room on the "rio janeiro." five hundred dollars was placed in the hong-kong and shanghai bank to be drawn upon by mr. schlott. we have received letters telling of the excellent work done by our nurses on the ships. all have arrived in manila and our field hospital has been established. a cablegram signed by majors mccarthy and woodruff, surgeons, was received recently apprising us of the success of the work. the state association had now sent six nurses to the front. not nearly enough considering the reports of sickness among the troops; it was therefore decided, if possible, to send more. the great desire of the board was to send women nurses as well as men. in the earlier stages of our work, it was decided to take initiatory steps toward securing a hospital ship for the pacific coast, but in response to telegrams sent to the president, and secretaries of war and navy, we were assured that such a ship would be furnished by the government, and the matter was dropped. in august, the ships "scandia" and "arizona" were purchased by the government, to be used for transportating troops and government hospital supplies to manila and to return as hospital ships. we were notified that we could send nurses on these ships and steps were taken at once to secure them. shortly after, the office was thrown into a commotion by the announcement from general merriam that a limited number of women nurses would be sent. mrs. easton had a long list of names of nurses who had offered their services and were ready to go at a moment's notice. eight of these were: misses garlick, smythe, ralph, elsifer, laswell, shaefer, mrs. palm, and mrs. leman. the men selected were: drs. ross, caldwell, dwight, and messrs leonard, durst, kibbel, heyl, and tanner. four were sent on the "scandia," the remaining twelve on the "arizona." we were rejoiced at being able to send the women nurses and feel sure they will do excellent work. as many of the nurses as are needed will remain on duty at the field hospital, the others will return with the ships, caring for the sick men being sent back. we have not as yet had time to receive reports from our agent mr. schlott, but feel assured that the work is in good hands and that our field hospital at manila will prove a blessing to many a sick boy. no provision having been made by the government, for the care of convalescent soldiers, who upon leaving the hospital went back to their tents and in their weakened condition in many instances contracted cold or suffered relapses that perhaps resulted in death, it was decided to secure a home where convalescent men could have better care. an effort was made to secure a suitable house in the neighborhood of the presidio. this being impossible, upon consultation with the military authorities, it was decided to build a house at the presidio. general miller looked over the ground and selected the most eligible spot. the idea of erecting the home was taken up most enthusiastically by the auxiliaries, and the money required was soon in the treasury. messrs newsom and meyers kindly donated plans and in three weeks from the day of starting, it was finished. it is a one story building, containing a large ward, four small rooms, dining and sitting room combined, kitchen, office, storerooms, two bath rooms, etc. the large ward accommodates twenty beds, the fourth room is used by the nurses. requests came quickly from both private individuals and auxiliaries to be allowed to completely furnish one or more beds, so that by the time the building was finished the furnishings were ready. fourteen patients were admitted the day of opening and within a few days every bed was occupied. it is a most inviting and homelike place, exquisitely neat, with health-giving sunlight pouring in all day. trained nurses are in attendance night and day and everything possible is done to bring back health and strength. the happiness of the boys is unbounded, and their expressions of joy are pathetic. "it's most like heaven" was one boy's sentiment. it is talked of in the division hospital and is the goal to which the sick men look forward. miss mckinstry who has been superintendent since the opening, has done splendid work. she received no compensation whatever, other than the gratitude of her charges and the high commendation of the surgeons. the sincere thanks of the executive board are extended to miss mckinstry, and it is with deep regret that her resignation, which she was compelled to send in because of illness in her family, was accepted. sixty-three men have been cared for in the home, and thirty-seven discharged. they are under the care of major surgeon matthews, of the division hospital, who regulates their coming and going. he expresses himself in most unqualified terms of praise of miss mckinstry's work, and also of the benefit the home has been to the boys. all of the troops leaving for manila have been supplied with identification medals by the state society, irrespective of the states from which they came. in several instances the money expended for these has been refunded by either the governor of the state, or red cross societies. the executive board desires to express its sincere appreciation of the aid it has received from its auxiliaries. all have responded promptly and royally to our calls for aid, which have only been made when absolutely necessary. it has been our endeavor to expend all money sent to us as carefully and judiciously as possible, considering the trust placed in us as sacred. our treasurer's report will show how the money has been expended. not a dollar has been paid for the services of our women since the organization of the association. we have been in the office from 9 a.m. until 5 and 6 p.m., gladly giving our time and strength for the cause. we have endeavored in all our work not to transgress army regulations. to that end our president has held many conferences with generals merritt and merriam, as well as the surgeons in charge. they have aided us courteously and kindly in our work, and have granted us all the privileges possible, for which we are most grateful. we have also kept in touch with the american national red cross, and have reported our work fully. the parent organization has shown its confidence in us by delegating the work in the philippines to our association. mr. barton, the chairman of the executive board and vice-president of the american national red cross, has referred all societies in the west to us, advising them to work through the california red cross. we have in our membership a society in pocatello, idaho; one in almo, idaho; one in corvallis, oregon; and one in beatrice, nebraska. the elko (nevada) red cross has withdrawn to become an auxiliary of their own state organization. two societies have disbanded, their members were only summer residents, who have returned to their city homes. it is our earnest desire that our auxiliary societies will not disband, feeling that the war is over. we have assumed certain obligations in establishing the field hospital at manila, as well as the convalescent home at the presido, and our work cannot cease at this time. we sincerely hope the auxiliaries will stand loyally by us as they have done in the past. a short time since, an appeal was made for a regular monthly contribution, no matter how small, from each auxiliary. many of the societies have responded, and we hope soon to hear from others. we have certain and sure expenses to meet and a variable income is rather a source of uneasiness. the thanks of the executive board are extended to the pacific telephone and telegraph company for the free use of the telephones; to the western union telegraph company for the free use of their wires in the state; to wells, fargo & co., and the southern pacific railroad company for free transportation of supplies. our demands upon them have been heavy, and were generously granted. to the press of san francisco we are most deeply indebted for the generous and courteous treatment we have received, and we extend our sincere thanks. to the 20,000 people of california, wearing the little badge of membership in the red cross, we extend cordial greetings and thanks for their kind interest in our work. we have been helped more than we can tell by the kind words and expression of confidence from our auxiliaries. how well we have done our work, we leave you to judge. consolidated financial statement of the red cross of california. while this statement is incomplete, inasmuch as reports from all the local auxiliaries have not yet been received, it illustrates how universal was the organization of the red cross in one of the states of the far west: place. receipts. expenses. balance. california red cross state $22,119.74 $10,472.63 $11,647.11 association, cal. red cross society, san francisco, cal. 55,408.83 33,434.18 21,974.65 " " " san jose, cal. 2,274.66 1,465.03 809.63 " " " lompoc, cal. 234.70 124.35 110.35 " " " palo alto, cal. 222.90 153.15 69.75 " " " ventura, cal. 193.40 179.95 13.45 " " " san leandro, cal. 73.50 69.65 3.85 " " " centerville, cal. 165.90 133.55 2.35 " " " suisun, cal. 405.80 154.65 251.15 " " " tulare, cal. 55.70 53.45 2.25 " " " sacramento, cal. 6,373.43 2,749.75 3,623.68 " " " mendocino, cal. 105.10 102.29 2.81 " " " grass valley, cal. 787.10 571.09 216.01 " " " berkeley, cal. 1,092.91 485.37 607.54 " " " sausalito, cal. 612.30 322.20 290.10 " " " redwood city, cal. 335.55 222.63 112.92 " " " galt, cal. 67.75 59.04 8.71 " " " auburn, cal. 257.67 200.77 56.90 " " " santa cruz, cal. 493.45 393.60 99.85 " " " san diego, cal. 410.25 257.39 152.86 " " " fresno, cal. 326.00 292.30 33.70 " " " los angeles, cal. 2,586.28 1,397.92 1,188.36 " " " walnut creek, cal. 171.75 142.28 29.47 " " " belvedere, cal. 310.00 192.35 117.65 " " " martinez, cal. 233.31 199.80 33.51 " " " monterey, cal. 312.38 177.95 134.43 " " " stockton, cal. 316.10 176.00 140.10 " " " san rafael, cal. 1,416.55 750.10 666.45 " " " colfax, cal. 116.13 50.00 66.13 " " " nevada city, cal. 365.05 342.77 22.28 " " " vacaville, cal. 211.85 141.26 70.59 " " " calistoga, cal. 168.80 135.53 33.27 " " " downieville, cal. 43.00 25.16 17.84 " " " willow glen, cal. 97.35 52.40 44.95 " " " hopeland, cal. 58.00 50.05 7.95 " " " new almaden, cal. 45.00 10.10 34.90 " " " marysville, cal. 527.04 400.56 126.48 " " " st. helena, cal. 229.05 173.25 55.80 " " " dixon, cal. 152.30 124.17 28.13 " " " point arena, cal. 48.00 35.00 13.00 " " " pasadena, cal. 382.14 298.58 83.56 --------- -------- -------- $99,806.72 $56,772.25 $43,034.47 [illustration: fortifications of manila.] the red cross of oregon. from the red cross of oregon, comes the following report, forwarded by mrs. levi young. in transmitting the report mrs. young says: "while it may be longer than desired, still we feel that the eyes of our country have been more particularly turned toward cuba and the relief work done by the eastern branches, while the pacific coast has been doing a work second to none. conditions here make it difficult to raise the necessary funds, and every dollar expended represents untiring devotion to the cause:" the call "to arms" was still ringing through the land, when a band of patriotic women responding to an appeal for assistance assembled at the armory in portland, oregon, on the morning of april 26, to offer their services to the military board of the state in providing material, aid and comfort for the second regiment oregon volunteers. colonel o. summers was present and briefly explained the object of the appeal. he suggested that as speedily as possible a society be formed to take up that branch of work which belongs alone to women in time of war and consists in providing the requisites for a soldier's welfare not laid down in army regulations. temporary offices were chosen, and twelve committees were appointed. each committee consisted of six members, the chairman selecting those she desired as helpers. the duty of each committee was the personal supervision of one company alphabetically assigned to it. final organization was perfected april 27, when the following permanent officers were elected: mrs. henry e. jones, president; mrs. w.a. buchanan, vice-president; mrs. f.e. lounsbury, recording secretary; mrs. martin winch, treasurer. the executive committee, mrs. o. summers, mrs. a. meier, mrs. levi white, mrs. w.t. gardner, mrs. b.e. miller, mrs. j.e. wright, mrs. e.c. protzman, mrs. r.s. greenleaf, mrs. g.t. telfer and mrs. j.m. ordway. the name, "oregon emergency corps," was adopted and mrs. w.a. buchanan, mrs. levi young appointed to draft a constitution. this was presented at the next regular meeting and after a slight revision, unanimously adopted. preamble to constitution. "the oregon emergency corps realizing that its aims and objects are far-reaching, will remain a permanent organization to aid not only the brave oregon volunteers upon land or sea, but assist in the welfare of the wives and children, many of whom may need care and support while their loved ones are absent." in compliance with the provisions of the constitution, the following standing committees were appointed: _finance committee._--mrs. charles f. beebe, mrs. ben selling, mrs. h.w. goddard. _auditing committee._--mrs. h.w. wallace, mrs. james jackson, mrs. j. frank watson. _purchasing committee._--mrs. h.h. northrup, mrs. adolph dekum, mrs. b. blumauer. _sewing committee._--mrs. wm. patterson, mrs. w.c. alvord, mrs. a.e. rockey, mrs. e. nollain, miss t. rose goodman. _press committee._--mrs. levi young, mrs. h.l. pittock, miss ida loewenberg. _naval committee._--mrs. john cran, miss nina adams, miss zerlina loewenberg, miss carrie flanders, miss lena brickel. a suitable badge was adopted and a membership list opened, affording all patriotic women an opportunity to enroll their names and become active workers of the corps. regular meetings were held at the armory once a week, the executive committee meeting at the call of the president as often as the business of the society required. being now in readiness for work, the question arose as to what should be done and the most practical way of doing it. to this end the military board was consulted and valuable suggestions received from general charles f. beebe, colonel james jackson, colonel b.b. tuttle and major daniel j. moore, brigade commissary, o.n.g., each advising that a regimental fund for the second regiment oregon volunteers be raised; also the making and purchasing of such articles for a soldier's knapsack as army quartermasters do not keep in stock. a room on first street was placed at the disposal of the society by mr. adolph dekum, and here the oregon emergency corps' headquarters opened may 5, 1898. captain r.s. greenleaf, of battery a, kindly detailed members of the company to decorate and make attractive the room, loaning for this purpose the historic centennial flag which, for the first time in over twenty years, passed from the custody of the company. members of the battery reported for duty each morning, thus assisting the committee of ladies in charge in many ways. a telephone was put in by the oregon telephone company, electric lights supplied by the general electric company, chairs, tables and other furnishings provided by the business houses of the city. the singer machine company sent sewing machines for the use of the supply committee and work began in earnest. women from every part of the community representing church, club and society organizations, enrolled their names and offered their services in the emergency call, showing more plainly than words can describe the broadening influence of these organizations upon the mother heart of the land. laying aside prejudices, creeds and personal affiliations, they became a unit in this patriotic work. day after day with aching hearts but smiling faces they toiled--the membership grew into the hundreds--subscriptions came pouring in, the sums ranging from $100 to the dimes, nickels and pennies of the children. word was received that the volunteers of oregon were to be mobilized at portland and on april 27, brigadier-general charles f. beebe, o.n.g., issued special orders for the preparation of a suitable camp within the city limits. the site selected was the irvington race track, and april 29 one hundred and sixty-one tents were pitched, the name, camp mckinley, adopted and on the morning of april 30, 1898, the first company arrived and active camp life began. members of the different committees of the emergency corps visited the camp daily, consulting with the commanding officers as to the health, comfort and needs of the soldiers in their charge. open house was kept at headquarters for the volunteers when in the city and everything human ingenuity could suggest and loving hearts contribute to smooth the pathway from comfortable civil life to the hardship and discipline of camp life was done. this was not planned nor worked out by _one_ person but by united effort on the part of _all_, whose kindly ministrations grew out of a desire to cheer and encourage these brave oregon volunteers--the flower of the state--who had given up home and position, offering their lives to their country in the noble work of liberating an oppressed and outraged people. meantime circular letters had been sent to the cities and towns throughout the state urging the patriotic women to form auxiliaries for the purpose of raising money to swell the regimental fund and also help in the purchasing of a flag to be presented to the volunteers by the women of the state. hood river was the first to respond with roseburg, pendleton, corvallis, hillsboro, lafayette, lagrande, hubbard, weston, woodburn, astoria and the dalles, quickly falling into line. faithfully have these auxiliaries assisted in every line of work that it has been found necessary to take up--contributions of money and supplies have been given, while in their respective localities a fund has been raised to assist the families of the volunteers. hospital supplies of caps, fever belts and cordials are constantly forwarded, and daily, letters are received asking for instructions. on sunday, may 8, a patriotic and sacred concert was given at camp mckinley to increase the regimental fund that the emergency corps were raising and the proceeds netted the creditable sum of $1399.35. the attendance of over ten thousand people was an evidence of their zeal and desire to contribute their mite toward the object. the program was furnished by the first regiment band, miss rose bloch and madame norelli. it was a scene never to be forgotten by that vast audience when, at the close of the evening drill, the stars and stripes were slowly lowered at the booming of the sunset gun, and the long lines of volunteers, motionless as statues, listened as the inspiring strains of the star spangled banner floated upon the summer air, while the setting sun, kissing the peak of the distant snow-crowned mountain, shed its departing rays like a heavenly benediction upon these sons of valor. may 11, 1898, the first battalion consisting of companies a, b, c, d, second regiment oregon volunteers, under command of major c. h. gantenbein, by order of the war department, left for san francisco and one week later, may 16, companies e, f, g, h, i, k, l and m, under command of colonel o. summers, broke camp and proceeded to join the others at the presidio to await transportation to manila. to the captains of these respective companies, the oregon emergency corps gave one hundred dollars in gold coin as an emergency fund. to major m.h. ellis, commanding regimental surgeon in charge of the hospital corps, was given one hundred dollars, also eight hundred yards of flannel for bandages. in addition to this, contributions from other sources made the available amount fully two thousand dollars. [illustration: red cross dining room for convalescents, fort mcpherson, ga.] [illustration: dining tent attached to red cross kitchen, at camp hobson, ga.] after the departure of the volunteers for san francisco the headquarters were transferred from first street to the armory which the military board turned over to the emergency corps for their use. here meetings were held, a bureau of information established with a committee in charge, and all other business transacted. on may 14 an offer was made by the firm of lipman, wolfe & co., to turn over their department store to the emergency corps upon any date they might select. the entire charge of this establishment was to be assumed by the organization for one day--ten per cent of all sales to go to the regimental fund. to this generous offer was added the privilege of serving a mid-day lunch and introducing other suitable features that would help to swell the treasury. this offer was unanimously accepted and on may 17 the most novel scene ever witnessed in portland's business history, was presented. women, prominent in charitable and philanthropic work, leaders of society, sedate and stately matrons, assumed control of the various departments of this large business house, acting as superintendent, assistant superintendent, cashier and floor managers, while a hundred or more of portland's fair daughters from early morning till late at night stood behind the counters serving customers. the store was gaily decorated with flags, bunting and roses; music was furnished by the kinross orchestra and columbia mandolin quartette. thousands of purchasers who had waited for this day surged back and forth through the aisles, crowded stairways and elevators in their haste to give their ten per cent to the soldiers' fund. the east indian department which was transformed into a most enticing restaurant proved inadequate to the demand, as hundreds whom it was impossible to serve, were turned away. the result proved the success of the venture, one thousand dollars being added to the treasury of the society while the remark made by the senior member of the firm that it had "been the happiest day in a business career of over thirty-five years," left no other conclusion than that a twofold blessing follows such generous deeds. after the departure of the second regiment for san francisco the emergency corps continued the work of its supply department in meeting the wants of the soldiers--not only oregon volunteers but all or any needing assistance. may 23 an appeal was received from a member of the red cross society in san francisco for fever belts and sleeping caps as it was impossible to meet the needs for these articles then existing. the following telegram was at once sent: red cross society, san francisco, cal. greeting:--count on us; will send one thousand caps and one thousand fever belts. oregon emergency corps. work was at once begun and in a few days the supplies were shipped to 16 post street. the sewing committee has continued its labors, hundreds of articles being made and furnished to the second regiment engineer corps oregon recruits and washington volunteers, etc. it has been the privilege of the oregon emergency corps to entertain all troops passing through portland en route to different stations on the coast. this was at first done at the union depot, where the soldiers were met by committees and served a substantial lunch, consisting of coffee, sandwiches, cake, fruit, etc. in this branch of work the flower mission, composed of twenty or more young women, have rendered valuable assistance in serving refreshments and decorating the trains. tons of flowers have been donated for this purpose and the departing soldier has been given a bouquet of oregon roses in addition to his box of lunch. frequently has a letter accompanied by a box of flowers been sent at the request of husbands, brothers and sons to their distant homes, and replies received from many have made sweeter the saying, "small service is true service while it lasts." after the use of the armory was tendered the corps by the state military board, the soldiers were met on their arrival at the depot and escorted to military headquarters and lunch served in the spacious drill hall. the freedom of the building was extended, the gymnasium, bowling alley, reading room, etc., affording rest and recreation for all. in july the work was found to be increasing so rapidly that it was necessary to enlarge the executive staff. to this end the president made the following appointments: first assistant, mrs. levi young; second assistant, mrs. h.w. wallace; assistant to treasurer, mrs. wm. patterson; assistant for correspondence, mrs. edmund nollain; assistant for recording, mrs. lischen miller. headquarters were again established at 137 first street, to meet the request of business men and others who wished to contribute to the society and found the armory at an inconvenient distance. an honorary membership list was opened with the fee fixed at one dollar. this list at present numbers over 300, and among the named recorded are those of captain c.e. clark, of the battleship "oregon," hon. edward everett hale, general longstreet, hon. jos. e. sheldon and mrs. james shafter. the total membership of the society is 1557. of this number 553 are members of auxiliary corps, leaving 1004 members for the portland organization. the membership of the various auxiliaries is as follows: weston 27 astoria 69 hillsboro 69 pendleton 38 lafayette 33 corvallis 51 la grande 39 hood river 21 hubbard 10 roseburg 100 woodburn 23 the dalles 80 valuable service has been rendered the state of oregon by a member of the corps, madame a. de fonfride smith, who has compiled an "official roster" of the enlisted men for 1898. this has been entirely her own work and contains a careful history sketch of each member of the state military board, officers of the second regiment and the name of every volunteer. this little book is tastefully bound and illustrated with views of camp mckinley and photographs of the officers of each company. the author has visited nearly every town in the state from which volunteers were recruited circulating the work, while a copy has been kept for every man whose name is recorded on its pages. several thousand copies have been sold and the net proceeds are to be a contribution to the treasury of the emergency corps. in work of this kind oregon stands alone, being the only state that is the fortunate possessor of so concise and comprehensive history of its brave sons. up to the time of the departure of the oregon recruits for san francisco, there had been an ample field for the labors of the oregon emergency corps in its local work, but it became evident that in order to carry out the promises of continued care and attention to the volunteers while in the service of their country; to assist in the relief work of furnishing supplies for the hospital ships or sending nurses to care for the sick at manila it was now necessary to have governmental protection. this could only be obtained through the agency of the red cross society and the question of expediency in this direction was considered. on july 23, judge joseph sheldon visited portland in the interests of the american national red cross. in an address before the emergency corps he presented the advantages resulting to the relief societies of the different states through co-operation with this national body, advising affiliation as soon as possible. action was deferred on the part of the society till the next regular meeting in order that members might be given an opportunity to investigate for themselves. meanwhile, the executive board held several conferences with judge sheldon relative to their power to continue local work, and their obligations as an organization to the national committee. at a regular meeting july 30th the subject was resumed, and after a presentation of both sides of the question a unanimous vote in favor of affiliation resulted. the name of the organization was changed to the oregon emergency corps and red cross society and an application made to the national committee for proper recognition. the wisdom of the step was demonstrated a few weeks later when transportation was given by the government for two nurses, dr. frances woods and miss lena killiam for manila. these nurses were outfitted and furnished funds by the portland society and sent forward on the "arizona" as oregon's representatives in the relief work of caring for her sick or suffering volunteers. reports having been received of the sickness and general discomfort of the oregon recruits at camp merritt, the society, at a meeting held august 6, voted to send the president, mrs. h.e. jones, and mrs. levi young to visit the recruits and inquire into the matter. they proceeded at once to san francisco, spending two weeks in investigating conditions and doing whatever their judgment advised to make more comfortable their unpleasant surroundings. these recruits, whom it was expected would be sent at once to their officers and regiment, turned out veritable military orphans stranded at camp merritt and left for weeks to the care of young officers from other regiments. happily this condition is changed, as on the twentieth of august they were turned over to the command of an able and experienced officer, major goodale, of the twenty-third u.s. infantry. they have since been moved to the presidio, where surroundings are pleasanter, pending orders for their transportation to their own regiment at manila or return to their homes. during their stay in san francisco the representatives of the oregon emergency corps and red cross society were enabled to look into the various lines of relief work of the california society. many courtesies were extended by the officers of the state and local associations, valuable suggestions were received, and it was also their privilege to attend the meeting of the state association, held in golden gate hall, and listen to judge sheldon's able address upon the american national red cross. it gives us pleasure to publicly acknowledge the unbounded gratitude of the emergency corps of portland for the many kindnesses bestowed by the women of the california red cross upon the soldiers from oregon. first, for their attention to the second regiment volunteers, who, though with them but a few weeks, were the recipients of many comforts; but more particularly to the sick or afflicted ones of the oregon recruits for whom they have cared, supplying both medicines and delicacies and in other ways providing for their necessities. in the space of this article it is impossible to mention in detail the many contributions from patriotic citizens throughout the state of oregon. gifts from corporations, business houses, independent leagues and individuals bear testimony to the interest all feel in this great relief work, and their confidence in the red cross society, through which their offerings are dispensed. the press has been our staunch and valued friend, freely giving editorials and space to further the cause. there are no salaried officers, men and women having generously given their time from the first day of organization to the present. it has been the aim of the officers to faithfully and conscientiously discharge their duties, realizing the great responsibility and confidence reposed in them. each month a carefully prepared report of the proceedings, receipts and disbursements of the society has been given the public, and the treasurer's report here appended is in full from april 26 to november 5. the work of the organization will be carried on in future, as in the past, along every line which best serves the interest of those for whose benefit it was begun. the treasurer's report shows: receipts, $7,526.03; disbursements, $6,389.54; balance on hand, $1,136.49. [illustration: panorama of manila.] the red cross of washington state. extract from the official report. the tocsin of war started in each community, from which went out the brave defenders, a desire to benefit and make soldier life more comfortable. as emergency corps, relief corps, or without name, the women went to work to do something for the soldiers. the red cross was a name to most known only in an indefinite way, until reports began to come in of grand work done. not knowing how to proceed, groping in the dark, feeling our own way instinctively, we organized in tacoma and seattle. the seattle red cross, desiring a state organization, called a convention for august 16, to meet at seattle, and successfully launched the red cross of washington. of the work done much of it has not been reported to the state association, and even the reports represent only a small part of the work done throughout the state. had all reported to a common centre washington would have made a magnificent showing. as it was, all contributions have been sent directly to the company each city was directly interested in. thus much relief given the soldiers materially or financially by the state of washington cannot be stated here, as many of the emergency corps and other relief societies have disbanded since the cessation of hostilities. however, the red cross of washington is effecting auxiliary red cross societies all over the state, and in the future all relief work in this state will be under the insignia of the red cross. the red cross of washington was organized on august 16, at seattle. the officers are: mrs. john b. allen, president, seattle. mrs. chauncy griggs, vice-president, tacoma. mrs. j.c. haines, vice-president, seattle. miss birdie beals, vice-president, la conner. mrs. lester s. wilson, vice-president, walla walla. mrs. virginia k. haywood, vice-president, spokane. mrs. john c. evans, vice-president, new whatcom. mrs. francis rotch, corresponding 1512 thirteenth ave., secretary, seattle. miss helen j. cowie, assistant corresponding secretary, seattle. miss sadie maynard, treasurer, 807 north j st., tacoma. miss jessie seymour, assistant treasurer, tacoma. miss marie hewitt, recording secretary, 501 north fourth st., tacoma. mrs. everett griggs, assistant recording secretary, tacoma. [illustration: in the trenches before santiago--just before surrender.] [illustration: mccalla camp--early morning attack] seattle red cross. in answer to a call issued by mrs. j.c. haines through the daily press to all loyal women of seattle, there were gathered in elks hall, june 20, 1898, nearly one hundred women, anxious to organize on definite lines; the universal sentiment prevailing, that organization under the red cross banner would result in the most effective work. the present officers are: mrs. j.c. haines, president. mrs. h.e. holmes, vice-president. mrs. mary m. miller, second vice-president. mrs. c.d. simson, treasurer. mrs. w.p. giddings, recording secretary. mrs. h.c. colver, corresponding secretary. an executive committee was elected, composed of twelve members, with the officers ex-officio members of the same. the constitution and by-laws were drafted and copies mailed to all local red cross societies of washington. through the various committees much work has been accomplished, the same spirit which pervaded the organization in its infancy having increased until the membership now shows two hundred and fifty active members. it afforded the seattle society great satisfaction to be able to send to the national society a check for $500. to the captains of companies b and d, washington volunteers, at san francisco, was sent $350 to be used in cases of illness and other emergencies, and to the independent battalion, washington volunteers, at vancouver barracks, was sent $100 for similar purposes. in many instances the relief committee has drawn upon the emergency fund for the relief of soldiers' families. upon a half day's notice fifty-one lunches were put up by the members for a company of volunteers on their way to san francisco, and to a call from major l.r. dawson, for funds to purchase food and milk for hospital patients at the presidio, the society responded with $100. to the sufferers from the new westminster fire was disbursed over $400, collected by the seattle red cross women, and $50 was donated by the society itself. carloads of food, cots and needful clothing were sent and distributed by a committee chosen by the society. the chairman of the sewing committee has expended $401.43 for material for red cross work and much besides has been donated by seattle merchants. from this material have been made 232 denim pillow cases, 843 flannel bandages, 408 eider-down caps and 248 housewives (the latter filled with necessaries and comforts), besides hospital night shirts, handkerchiefs and a variety of different bandages. to dr. l.r. dawson, surgeon of the first washington volunteers, was sent a dozen boxes of hospital supplies and delicacies to be shipped on the transport "ohio" with that portion of our troops, and the society has also decided to take charge of a christmas box to be sent to the washington volunteers at manila. tacoma red cross. _the tacoma red cross_ was the first red cross organization in the state of washington, and has done most effective work. the officers are: mrs. chauncy griggs, president; mrs. a.b. bull, first vice-president; mrs. g.s. holmes, second vice-president; mrs. lincoln gault, third vice-president; mr. chester thorne, treasurer; mrs. w.c. wheeler, assistant treasurer; mrs. frank sharpe, recording secretary; mrs. h.m. thomas, corresponding secretary. the tacoma red cross has 400 members. receipts, $684.82. disbursements, $592.08. walla walla red cross. in june, 1898, a temporary organization was effected at walla walla, known as the red cross aid, with mrs. j.h. stockwell as chairman. this aid society cared for and entertained 229 soldiers passing through, and forwarded to company i, several boxes of bandages, towels, handkerchiefs, etc. on september 21, 1898, the red cross aid became a permanent organization under the name of the walla walla red cross and the following officers were elected: mrs. lester s. wilson, president. mrs. thomas h. brents, vice-president. mrs. d.t. kyger, vice-president. miss grace o. isaaca, recording secretary. mrs. eugene boyer, corresponding secretary. mrs. george whitehouse, treasurer. upon notice that company i was to start for manila, the red cross of walla walla forwarded money and delicacies to the value of $100. since permanent organization, the membership has more than doubled, and now numbers about one hundred and fifty. receipts, $1,408.00. disbursements, $1,058.00. spokane red cross. a meeting for the organization of a red cross auxiliary was called in spokane, washington, on july 11, 1898. two days later the final organization was completed and officers elected to serve until the annual meeting in october: the work of the society has been largely along the lines of raising funds for supplies, and to aid the families of the two companies of volunteers, company o and l, both of which have gone to manila. supplies of underclothing, socks, towels, soap, combs, sleeping caps, fever bands and other necessary articles have been sent. five hundred pounds of jellies were sent to manila. christmas packages have been sent to every man in the two companies. the sewing committee is steadily at work on hospital supplies. the membership is 173. the present officers are: mrs. virginia k. hayward, president. mrs. george turner, honorable vice-president. mrs. f.f. emery, first vice-president. mrs. h. salmorason, second vice-president. mrs. a.j. shaw, corresponding secretary. mrs. l.j. birdseye, recording secretary. mrs. n.w. durham, treasurer. receipts $951.78 disbursements 355.07 ------- cash on hand $596.71 to miss birdie beals belongs the credit of organizing the la conner auxiliary, and also the bellingham bay auxiliary at new whatcom. the la conner auxiliary was most active to respond to the call of the red cross. they sent large boxes of fruits and jellies to the hospital of the first regiment washington volunteers, made caps and bandages, etc., and contributed towards the outfit for the first regiment washington volunteers. the bellingham red cross was organized by miss birdie beals, president of the la conner auxiliary. they have adopted the constitution and by-laws, selected officers and are ready to do active work. the officers are: mrs. john a. evans, president; mrs. e.s. mccord, vice-president; mrs. s.j. craft, recording secretary; mrs. t.j. kershaw, corresponding secretary; mrs. e.w. purdy, treasurer. the report from the emergency corps throughout the state is very incomplete, as many corps who have done good work have sent directly to the company of soldiers raised in that particular town, and not reported to the red cross at all. the following is an extract from the report of the emergency corps: the emergency corps of the state of washington, having accomplished, as far as lay within its power, the work for which it organized, has, through its officers and executive board and with the consent of its members as represented at the meeting of october 11, decided to disband. at the time of its organization the corps pledged its undivided effort to the service of the volunteers of the state of washington during the war between the united states and spain. that emergency having happily ended in victory and peace, the society feels that its special work is over. to those of its members who can still devote time and strength to patriotic and humane effort, the president and the executive board cordially suggest that they enroll themselves as members of the tacoma red cross society organized for permanent effort in the broad field of the nation's and the world's need, and when the aid and support that they can give will result in practical benefit to any cause to which it is applied. in closing the work of this organization the officers and executive board wish to make a public report of what has been accomplished during the four months of its existence. in absolute harmony the society has worked together, members and officers alike. the following record, taken from the secretary's last report, speaks for itself in proof of the patriotic energy which has inspired its labors. since june 1 the emergency corps of the state of washington has distributed for the use of state volunteers: flannel abdominal bandages, towels, suits of pajamas, night shirts, suits balbriggan underwear, hospital pads and shirts, hospital pillow cases, and linen handkerchiefs. in closing the work of the organization the officers and executive board desire to express their appreciation of the aid and sympathy extended them by the public and especially by the merchants of tacoma, whose donations of money and material assisted so largely in what has been accomplished. to the tacoma chamber of commerce they are greatly indebted for the use of a room for headquarters and for work and storage rooms. to the northern pacific express company, and to the northern pacific steamship company, they owe many thanks for aid and courtesy. it is impossible in this short summary to enumerate every instance of cordial sympathy and support which has cheered and aided the emergency corps in its labors; from all sides encouragement came and substantial help. in dissolving the bond between officers and members now remains in each heart a cordial memory of mutual interest and sympathy, respect and confidence. to the press of tacoma the emergency corps acknowledges its many obligations. to the press and citizens of the state at large it is also indebted for much of its power of usefulness and would express an earnest appreciation and gratitude. the following letter was received from captain sturges, of company c, stationed at the presidio, san francisco: _to the ladies of the washington emergency corps, tacoma, washington_: it is with a feeling of almost inexpressible gratitude that the officers and members of company c, first washington volunteer infantry, try to express to you their warmest and most lasting thanks for your kind and very useful donations and your expressions of sympathy and interest. the many kindnesses of their emergency corps have done much to help the soldiers more easily to bear their many hardships and to more enjoy their few comforts, knowing that kind hearts are interested in their welfare. we unite in wishing you all the reward that your noble work so justly merits. very thankfully yours, e.c. sturges, _captain commanding_. porto rico. the labors of the executive committee of the red cross in new york were not confined to the work in the camps. upon them devolved the larger share of the responsibility for the administration of relief everywhere, including the vast correspondence and the myriad details that arise in connection with the systematic management of a work so far-reaching and varied as the auxiliary relief by the red cross in time of war. outside of the united states, the relief of the sick and wounded in war was not confined to cuba and the philippines, but was extended to porto rico. horace f. barnes, of boston, mass., was appointed by the committee as the field agent of the red cross in porto rico, and taking with him a large assortment of supplies, sailed on the transport "concho" for ponce on the thirteenth of august. later, general w. t. bennett, of philadelphia, pa., was appointed to assist mr. barnes. all requisitions from porto rico were promptly filled by the committee and the relief continued so long as any necessity for it remained. of the field work in porto rico the following report is made: report by horace f. barnes. red cross relief work for porto rico began with the arrival of a detachment of female nurses before the american and spanish armies had ceased hostilities. these nurses, however, were ordered back to the states at once as attendants for returning sick and wounded soldiers. on the tenth of august the executive committee commissioned me as the red cross field agent for porto rico, and put me in charge of a cargo of relief supplies then on the steamship "concho," which sailed from new york on august 13. with the aid of a good military map of the island, and of information obtained before sailing as to the location of the different divisions of the army, during the voyage the line of red cross work was determined. the army was in three divisions. the eastern, under general brooke, was above guayama; the central, under general wilson, was at ponce and vicinity; the western, under general schwan, was in mayaguez and the neighboring region. it seemed to be the natural course to visit these divisions as soon as possible, ascertain their sanitary condition, give supplies as needed for the sick, wounded and convalescent, and then, after supplying the american forces, to visit the spanish camps and hospitals and provide for them. afterwards headquarters for stores and operations should be fixed at the most central convenient port for receiving goods from new york and distributing them with least cost and difficulty to all army stations. the plan outlined was closely followed, circumstances making it easily possible to do so. the "concho" arrived at ponce on august 20. two days afterward the ship with the cargo of red cross stores still unbroken on board, started for arroyo, the port of guayama, about thirty miles east of ponce, where general brooke's command had its base of operations. there a large selection of relief supplies was left in charge of chief surgeon huidekoper, of the division hospital at guayama. nothing could have been more auspicious as the beginning of red cross work in porto rico than this quick and free transportation of supplies to a distant command, with the minimum of labor and delay, at a period of most urgent need. returning, the "concho" reached ponce again on the twenty-fifth. the same night, on ascertaining that the steamship "alamo" was to proceed the next day to mayaguez and arecibo, i arranged for lighters to put a cargo on board, to be divided between these two ports, intending the first for general schwan's command, and the second for the sixth massachusetts, at utuado, the latter to be landed at arecibo. the surgeon of the sixth massachusetts was accordingly notified by wire to have wagons sent up to arecibo to meet the "alamo" on her arrival. every thing worked admirably. the "alamo" reached mayaguez august 27, and ample supplies for the hospital of general schwan's command were landed at mayaguez, and delivered to dr. bailey k. ashford, surgeon in charge, who expressed most cordial and grateful appreciation. thence the "alamo" proceeded, august 29, to arecibo, which port was reached on the same day. there the wagons of the sixth massachusetts from utuado were found in readiness to receive the consignment of goods brought for them, which were put in charge of assistant surgeon of the sixth massachusetts, dr. f.a. washburn. at arecibo was a strong force of spanish troops, having a military and a red cross hospital. the spanish military commander, the captain of the port, and the chief surgeon of the red cross hospital, personally gave the kindest attentions, conducting me to all the military quarters and hospitals, yet while expressing thanks for the offer of goods from the american red cross, they declared they were not in need, as was evidently the case. on the same day, august 29, my visit and departure having been wired to the spanish governor general macias at san juan, i took train thither, reaching the capital in the evening. the next day with an interpreter i visited general macias at his headquarters, and was most cordially received, given the freedom of the city, especially including all the forts, barracks and hospitals, and on inquiry allowed if i chose to make any photographs of the military works, concerning which he said it did not matter as they would be so soon in the hands of the americans. five days were spent in san juan. the forts, barracks and hospitals of the spaniards were visited, but all need of american red cross supplies was courteously disavowed, evidently with truthfulness, for signs of want were nowhere apparent. general macias kindly gave me a pass through all the spanish military guards and civil jurisdictions under his command throughout the island of porto rico. with this pass i started from san juan september 2 by coach for ponce. at caguas i was politely invited by the german consul general of porto rico, herr adolph rauschenplat, who had been traveling alone in his coach behind me from san juan, to join him in his carriage, and send mine back to san juan. the invitation was heartily accepted. we dined together at cayey. on reaching aibonito while our relay of horses was being harnessed, and we had been surrounded by the spanish soldiers and townspeople, engaging in pleasant chat with them, suddenly the captain of the spanish troops with a guard appeared and marched us unceremoniously to the guardhouse. there we were challenged, and a parley ensued, until i showed my pass from general macias. the change of front was spectacular, apologies were profuse, but i ended the affair by insisting successfully that the officer sign his name to my pass which was already rather heavily overloaded with the names of military and civil magnates, both spanish and american. [illustration: a soldier funeral. _this team shows the manner of yoking the cattle by the head and horns._] [illustration: a typical cuban camp.] this trip was memorable not only for the enjoyment of a ride over one of the best long roads in the world, amid the displays of all tropical fruits and flora, views of many characteristic people, habitations, customs, and cultivated sections of the island, but for the intelligent and charming exposition of everything, together with discussion of the social, political, military and commercial interests and problems of porto rico, at the present stage of affairs, by herr rauschenplat, whose english speech scarcely betrays his german vernacular or his customary spanish. arriving at ponce on the evening of september 2, on the following day storage for red cross goods was secured in the custom house at the playa, or port of ponce, which continued our only headquarters during work in porto rico. the distribution of goods commenced on sunday, september 4. the goods at first distributed in ponce were the remainder of the cargo brought on the "concho," but left in charge of and lightered off of the "concho," and carefully stored by kind agreement in the custom house, when i was obliged to depart on the "alamo" for mayaguez and arecibo or lose a most valuable opportunity for distributing stores where urgently needed. every applicant not seeking for himself alone was interrogated as to the number of sick or convalescents for whom the goods were desired, and informed that our provisions were specifically for these classes. the amount bestowed was in view of the number of sick thus reported. then on a sheet of paper headed by the date of application all articles were recorded, checked off when taken, and the signature of the officer applying was affixed. then my official stamp as field agent was affixed, and the paper put on file as a voucher. all goods received by steamer came into the office under my personal supervision, and with very few necessary exceptions none went out without it. on september 4 the office work of the red cross in porto rico was inaugurated with five representative issues of stores, which became matter of record. as the later files show, the number rapidly multiplied and the office work was increased by a constant procession of single applicants for small things. a dose of medicine, a pencil, an abdominal band, a comfort bag, something to read, a pair of stockings, a handkerchief, a towel--a little stationery--such applications alone made work enough for one man, and one had to be secured, corporal patrick syron, who was detailed from the first engineers, and whose help was invaluable. as the work was increasing very rapidly, and appeals pouring in from all the camps and hospitals, the executive committee sent as my assistant general w.t. bennett, who arrived september 7 on the "seneca," which also brought a fresh and valuable cargo of stores. having like myself had army experience in the civil war, general bennett easily grasped the situation, and while i attended specially to the distribution of goods at the office, he gave efficient help in managing the outside relations of the work, made doubly exacting by the necessity of lightering off all goods from ships, and transferring them by native porters to the headquarters, amidst piles of army stores, and a horde of omnipresent and vigilant thieves. any lull in the office work was improved in visiting hospitals and camps, and noting how goods were received and distributed. by frequent consultation of the official figures, at the chief surgeon's office, of the sick rate at all military stations on the island, it was possible to judge correctly concerning the neediest places for sending relief, and also to judge the merits of applications. the extraordinary amount of typhoid fever and intestinal diseases among the troops was the object of thoughtful attention. several native physicians and army surgeons were solicited to write their diagnosis and treatment of these diseases, in the hope that their combined testimony may furnish valuable data for guidance of physicians and surgeons who may have charge of our troops here in the future. on october 6, mr. monroe scott, arrived from new york on the steamship "chester," to be second assistant in our work. he was desirous of giving personal service to the sick, as he had just came from such work in the northern army hospitals. but the needs at the various hospitals in porto rico were being so fully met that he gave his attention to the varied demands at the office, where his courteous manner and efficiency in detail were highly appreciated. two ambulances were sent to ponce in september. they proved of great value in emergency cases requiring quick transportation to and from the hospitals, and in conveying our goods for short distances. it must be admitted, however, that they proved also a delicate responsibility, as everybody seemed to regard them as free pleasure coaches in which the red cross was eager to take the town to ride. a daily care was to note all incoming steamers, to board them to inquire for red cross supplies, also to note all departing steamers and provide that all sick and convalescents had red cross goods enough to insure their comfort for the homeward voyage. the chief surgeons were appealed to and asked not to allow any detachment of sick men to go home without previously notifying us, so that we might provide for their nutriment in supplement to that provided by the government. it is proper to add that the surgeons going home in charge of the sick on ships were all attentive to their duty in securing red cross supplies for their patients. twelve shipments were made for transports carrying home the sick. one of the duties of the office was to give first aid to the sick and injured. hardly a day passed without our giving many prescriptions of medicine to soldiers for intestinal troubles, or first dressing to men injured on the pier or on shipboard. we carefully gave antiseptic dressing and bound up gashed heads and limbs, and tenderly conveyed the unfortunates to the proper hospitals or to their homes or ships. in september on order from new york, we began to furnish ice to hospitals not already supplied. we purchased machine-made ice at the heavy cost of forty pesos a ton, and had arranged with the hospitals of coamo and guayama, the only ones not supplied, to send wagons weekly for a load. for this work we were about to establish an ice-storage plant, when a large cargo furnished by the government arrived, and although about one hundred tons soon after came from new york, consigned to the red cross, it was not needed, nor an ice-house for storage, as the government supply was freely furnished to all in need, and was so large as to last till the red cross ice, though carefully stored in a covered lighter, had entirely melted. had the government not made this provision, a free grant of site, lumber and labor for an ice plant already secured, would have been utilized. the same cablegram authorizing an ice supply also authorized the supply of milk as needed. on inquiry it was found that all of the hospitals were already well provided with this article. in case of the hospital for the first engineers, however, the ingenious surgeon, dr. proben, had opened negotiations for a cow, and we promptly insisted on paying for it, but were allowed to pledge only one-half its cost, which we most cheerfully did. twelve hospital tents, 14x14 feet each, were furnished by the red cross, of which one was loaned to the engineers' hospital, one to the sixth massachusetts hospital, and ten were located, under medical supervision, beneath a row of cocoanut trees, for the accommodation of convalescents awaiting transportation. a suitable trench was dug, flooring put in all the tents by the engineers, and straw was furnished for bedding by the quartermaster. this camp was named "camp barton." some of the incidental work of the red cross was to answer letters of inquiry concerning missing soldiers; to guide numerous strangers arriving at the port; to get stragglers of the army into their proper quarters; to help soldiers in various conditions of distress; always to be ready with a kind look and friendly hand, as proper representatives of a generous public, desiring to show full appreciation of these who upheld the nation's honor with the offering of their lives. every man on the staff of the red cross in porto rico, could he have embodied his real preferences, would have spent his whole time personally with the boys in their tents or hospitals. it was a real regret to us all that from early morning until dark we had to be hard at work, with few exceptions, in dealing out stores and attending to duties at headquarters. but as we were serving, not a campaigning army, but garrisons after hostilities had ceased, and the supply of surgeons and nurses was ample, there was no need of personal field service on our part. a tribute of respect and praise is demanded in honor of the army officials of porto rico, especially those of the southern district, so wisely administered by general guy v. henry, now governor of porto rico. the different departments were ably conducted. their relations were entirely cordial. the difficult problems presenting themselves were handled in a manful way. the red cross carefully avoided the role of critic or censor, and sought to conform to the wishes of commanders and surgeons, while watchfully providing for the needs of the sick, as ascertained by independent investigation. it never had occasion to make a protest, nor acted as a meddler, but attended strictly to its own business, and kept in its own place as an army auxiliary, and servant of the sick. hence from the first of its work the military, naval, surgical, medical, commissary and quartermaster's departments treated it as a part of their own common fraternity, freely granting all its requests, subjecting it to no restrictions, and cordially accepting and forwarding its beneficent operations. we received every advantage gratuitously. not in a single instance were our requests denied. by this cordial understanding many hundreds of dollars of expense were saved to the red cross. indications of the heavy sick rate in the army of porto rico may be found in the following data, gathered at the time from official sources: in august the surgeon in charge at mayaguez reported that fully 7.5 per cent of the troops stationed there were sick in hospitals, or in quarters, or unfit for duty. september 10 there were in the district of ponce over 1400 sick, including 350 typhoid cases, 600 malarial, 350 intestinal diseases. september 20 the official report shows 750 sick in ponce, 799 in coamo, 336 in mayaguez, 264 in utuado, 22 in guanica, and 328 in guayama. september 28th the sixteenth pennsylvania infantry, at coamo, reported 625 sick. one company had no officers on duty, all being sick. october 3 there were 125 sick in ponce, 60 in guayama, 65 in utuado, 40 in mayaguez, and 491 at coamo. total in these places, 781. this great reduction in the number of reported sick was due to large shipments of patients to the states. october 20 there were 747 sick in the general hospital in ponce, 120 in that at mayaguez, and 125 in that at guayama. on november 10, 603 men were reported sick in the district of ponce. the data above given will best be understood if it is remembered that they comprise for the most part only hospital inmates. the sick in quarters were not generally reported, though they fully equaled in number those in hospitals. again it should be remembered that those unfit for duty equaled in number both of the other two classes. in brief, during september, october and november, not more than one-half of the army was available for duty. in september a captain of engineers informed me that in the morning he had only four men report for duty. several obvious causes operated to produce the great sick rate. the effects of exposures and hardships before reaching porto rico, the nature of the food, malarious influences, native fruits, the heavy rains, and the excessive heat, were potent factors in producing the general illness. there was no invigoration in the atmosphere, its heat and humidity being very depressing, and not allowing rapid recovery after prostration. almost every man lost heavily in weight, the amounts varying from twenty-five to one hundred pounds. this was true even of those who were extremely careful of their diet and habits. during september and october a register of temperatures, kept by dr. charles i. proben, surgeon of the first engineers, showed an average daily temperature of 82.52ã�â° fahrenheit, and in october 80.136ã�â° fahrenheit. these figures give little suggestion of what the soldiers had to endure, as for instance, september 20 the mercury stood 96ã�â° in the shade at midday, and 113ã�â° in the sun. october 3 the mercury stood at 92ã�â° at midday. these health conditions made every american in porto rico a fitting subject for relief, but red cross supplies were limited as far as practicable to the sick and convalescent. the extent and direction of our red cross work are indicated below: number of issues to twenty-four army hospitals 150 number of issues to united states transports returning north with sick 12 number of issues to infantry, regiments and detachments 101 number of issues to artillery batteries 24 number of issues to cavalry troops 6 number of issues to officers' messes 8 number of issues to miscellaneous parties 61 --- total issues 362 these issues were all recorded, and vouchers filed. the number of issues to single applicants for their own immediate use, mostly private soldiers, were over 1200. prescriptions of medicine to sick soldiers, applying at the office, about 300. wounds dressed at office, in first aid to wounded men, about 30. sick carried in ambulances of red cross, 50. the camps and hospitals served by the red cross were scattered all over the island, some accessible only through difficult mountain passes, bad roads, or by long sea voyages, necessitating weekly consultation of the chief surgeons, sick reports from all military stations, and careful study of the best routes and means of transportation. three months' experience lead one to say that if a man knows how to keep a hotel, run a restaurant, and a refreshment stand; if he be a good grocer, dry goodsman, apothecary, financier, accountant, doctor, and linguist; if he have the strength of a samson, the patience of a job, and the cheerfulness of the morning lark; if he have the power to see much and say little, to sweat and not swear, to behold limitless suffering and be fair to all; if he is pachydermous to the shafts of criticism, diplomat enough to secure universal favor, and worthy to hold it by solid merit, let him try a field agency of the red cross with confidence, for in such service he will need all of these qualities in abundance. and yet, in the midst of it all, he will daily hear the sweetest words of gratitude, and feel that he is doing the most self-rewarding work of his whole life. shipments by transports. by the courtesy of the war department, the executive committee were enabled to make several shipments, both to cuba and to porto rico, on the united states transports. with the exception of the first cargo by the "port victor," the larger part of these supplies which should properly have been consigned to the red cross at the front, were sent direct to the commanding officers, or to the officers of the medical department of the army, upon request. the consignment of the "port victor," although received by the red cross and forwarded to gibra for distribution, was afterward taken by an officer of the u.s. army without permission. among the shipments were: "port victor," july 10, to santiago, 800 tons general provisions and medical supplies. "new hampshire," july 15, to santiago, 25 tons groceries and hospital supplies. "olivette," july 18, to santiago, clothing and delicacies. "resolute," july 19, to santiago, general supplies and clothing. value, $2000. "missouri," july 19, to santiago, clothing, laundry plant, ice plant, cots and delicacies. "seneca," july 21, to santiago, clothing for 50 men. "kanawa," july 22, to santiago, 10 cases of supplies. "concho," august 1, to santiago, supplies for 200 men. "breakwater," august 6, to santiago, 10 cases general supplies. "harvard," august 5, to santiago, 16 cases groceries and clothes. "altai," august 5, to santiago, 96 cases delicacies and clothing. "seguranca," august 20, to santiago, 113 cases provisions and soups. "port victor," october 7, to santiago, 115 tons of ice, 50 equipped cots. "concho," august 13, to porto rico, 900 cases general provisions and 50 equipped cots. "yucatan," september 7, to porto rico, 545 cases general provisions and medical supplies. "obdam," september 14, to porto rico, 387 cases assorted provisions and 2 ambulances. "chester," september 27, to porto rico, 406 cases assorted supplies. "missouri," september 19, to porto rico, 60 cases general supplies. "berlin," september 20, to porto rico, 20 barrels ginger ale. "port victor," october 7, to porto rico, 115 tons of ice and 50 equipped cots, duplicate of shipment to santiago. "panama," october 12, to porto rico, 300 cases of groceries and clothing, 50 equipped cots and 101 cases medicine for general wood at santiago. since their appointment by the president of the united states, the central cuban relief committee have been busily engaged in carrying on the great work entrusted to them by the government. in addition to the smaller consignments of materials sent for distribution to the relief stations in cuba and on the florida coast, they have expended in the purchase and forwarding of larger shipments of relief, over two hundred thousand dollars, and have collected in money and supplies nearly half a million. the latest important shipment was sent by the steamer "city of san antonio," consisting of an assorted cargo of about 700 tons, which was landed at the port of matanzas, and distributed by the representatives of the red cross in charge of the vessel. the american national red cross relief committee of new york. the origin of this great volunteer emergency committee has already been explained in these pages. but the story of their wonderful work can never be fully told. with their co-operation much suffering has been prevented or relieved, and many lives have been saved; through the ministrations made possible by their efforts, the humblest private in the ranks now realizes that "the great heart of the nation will not let the soldier die." no words can express the gratitude of the red cross for their powerful assistance. faithful, earnest and efficient, they have labored incessantly through the campaign, and now at the close they make the following short but eloquent report: report of the relief committee. _organized may 3, 1898._ _officers._--rt. rev. henry c. potter, d.d., chairman; alexander e. orr, vice-chairman; william t. wardwell, vice-chairman; john p. faure, secretary; frederick d. tappen, treasurer; samuel woolverton, assistant treasurer. _members._--dr. felix adler, bishop edward g. andrews, august belmont, joseph h. choate, william p. clyde, john d. crimmins, chauncey m. depew, cleveland h. dodge, john p. faure, edwin gould, clement a. griscom, jr., john s. huyler, morris k. jesup, edwin langdon, dr. a.m. lesser, william g. low, rev. sylvester malone, j. pierpont morgan, levi p. morton, alexander e. orr, rt. rev. henry c. potter, d.d., ll.d., percy r. pyne, douglas robinson, john d. rockefeller, jacob h. schiff, gustav h. schwab, charles stewart smith, dr. george f. shrady, james speyer, william r. stewart, a.s. solomons, frederick d. tappen, howard townsend, dr. t. gaillard thomas, william t. wardwell. _executive committee._--william t. wardwell, chairman; john p. faure, secretary; levi p. morton, frederick d. tappen, george f. shrady, m.d., william g. low, gustav h. schwab, cleveland h. dodge, a.s. solomons, douglas robinson, howard townsend, a. monae lesser, m.d.; rt. rev. henry c. potter, d.d., ll.d., ex-officio; alexander e. orr, ex-officio. _finance committee._--j. pierpont morgan, chairman; frederick d. tappen, vice-chairman; august belmont, james speyer, gustav h. schwab, edwin langdon, levi p. morton. _committee on yacht "red cross."_--william t. wardwell, gustav h. schwab, alexander e. orr. _supply committee._--cleveland h. dodge, chairman; mrs. w.s. cowles, mrs. john lyon gardiner, john s. huyler, percy r. pyne, george f. shrady, m.d., a.s. solomons, howard townsend; miss helen fidelia hoffman, secretary; f.c. garmany, purchasing agent. _medical advisory board._--wm. h. draper, m.d., chairman; andrew j. mccosh, m.d., secretary; francis p. kinnicutt, m.d., francis delafield, m.d., john s. billings, m.d., edward g. janeway, m.d., charles mcburney, m.d., richard h. derby, m.d. treasurer's report _and analysis of expenditures, may 9 to december 1, 1898._ total receipts $305,229 66 office supplies $ 5,117 89 food supplies, groceries, milk, fruit, etc. 46,067 95 cots and equipments 24,946 09 medical supplies, wines, liquors, etc. 11,357 33 clothing and dry goods 1,413 61 miscellaneous supplies 16,051 14 account nurses 17,718 24 ambulances and mules 7,782 56 ice 27,666 14 yacht "red cross" and maintenance 54,057 16 cash to general committee, account of camps 59,913 02 laundry plant 1,230 10 freight, express charges, towing, transportation, etc. 4,283 05 277,604 28 ------- --------- balance on hand $27,625 38 _woman's committee on auxiliaries._--mrs. john lyon gardiner, chairman; mrs. paul dana, secretary; miss martha l. draper, treasurer; mrs. butler duncan, mrs. james w. gerard, mrs. bettina hofker lesser, mrs. j. pierpont morgan, dr. lucy hall brown, mrs. w.s. cowles, mrs. winthrop cowdin, mrs. levi p. morton, mrs. henry c. potter, mrs. g.f. shrady. by a resolution of the executive committee the above ladies were appointed a woman's committee on auxiliaries, charged with the duty of organizing auxiliary committees throughout the united states, to assist in red cross work. this committee met for the first time on may 12, and it was decided to interest, by personal effort and correspondence, the people of the country in serving the sick and wounded soldiers and sailors during the war without regard to nationality, in accordance with the rules of the conference of geneva. from its inaugural meeting on may 12 until the present date the woman's committee has authorized the organization of ninety-two auxiliaries, many of these with numerous sub-auxiliaries, thus spreading the work throughout the country from maine to the rocky mountains, the western limit of the work of the relief committee. the following auxiliaries were organized: no. of no. name. place. president. sub-aux. 1 first n.y. ambulance equip. society new york mrs. w.s. cowles 3 2 women's confer. soc. " " mrs. henry ollesheimer. of ethical culture 3 maintenance of trained nurses " " mrs. james speyer. 15 4 yonkers, n.y. mrs. william sharman. 5 metcalf-bliss hospital mrs. william 16 cot equipment new york metcalf-bliss. 6 columbia university " " mrs. seth low. 7 n.y. city ch. d.a.r. " " mrs. donald mclean. 8 council of jewish " " mrs. cyrus l. sulzberger. women 9 hartford wom. aux. hartford, conn mrs. f.w. cheney. 9 10 ice plant auxiliary new york miss julia l. delafield. 11 norwalk, conn. mrs. jennings. 12 soldiers' field new york miss e.c. hebert. hosp. 13 mohegan ch. d.a.r. sing sing, n.y. mrs. annie van 8 rensselaer wells. 14 morristown, n.j. miss louisa e. keasby. 7 15 green twigs aux. flushing, l.i. miss helen a. colgate. 16 litchfield, conn. mrs. george m. woodruff. 17 first penn. red pittsburg, pa. mr. john b. jackson. 74 cross auxiliary 18 miscellaneous aux. new york miss helen dominick. 19 laundry plant aux. " " miss alice b. babcock. 20 westchester co. mt. kisco, n.y. mrs. henry marquand. 14 aux. 21 hazleton, pa. mrs. w.c. gailey. 22 land and sea aux. pelham manor mrs. frank k. hunter. 5 23 staten island aux. new brighton mrs. george beers. 24 princeton, n.j. mrs. james p. morgan. 3 25 hackensack, n.j. mrs. james romeyn. 26 sewickley, pa. rev. b.a. benton. 27 the farmers' aux. jennerstown, pa. miss f.e. coffin. 28 fort stanwix aux. rome, n.y. mrs. louise m. duffy. 29 fairfield, conn. mrs. henry s. glover. 30 norwich, kan. mrs. sarah a. king. 31 beaver county aux. new brighton, pa. mrs. mary c. kennedy. 32 grace par. laun. new york mrs. butler duncan. aux. 33 athens, pa. mrs. l.m. park. 34 canandaigua mrs. c.c. wilcox. 35 eau claire, wis. mrs. francis p. ide. 36 mount vernon, n.y. mrs. william wilson. 1 37 elmhurst, n.y. mrs. a.c. green. 38 dublin, n.h. mrs. lewis b. monroe. 39 larkinsville, ala. miss anna l. morris. 40 western reserve cleveland, ohio mrs. andrew squire. 163 ch. d.a.r. 41 new canaan, conn. mrs. willard parker. 42 flatbush, brooklyn mrs. cornelius l. wells. 43 colorado springs mrs. e.s. cohen. 44 north shore, l.i., glen cove, l.i. mrs. john e. leech. au. 45 " " mrs. w. zabriskie. 46 far rockaway. mrs. alexander stevens. 47 first r.i. providence mrs. charles mason. auxiliary. 48 nassau co., l.i., roslyn, l.i. mrs. valentine mott. aux. 49 kinderhook, n.y. mrs. p.s.v. pruyn. 50 tobacco auxiliary newport, r.i. mrs. schuyler van rensselaer. 51 central falls, " " mrs. arthur rogers. r.i., au. 52 rhode island aux. providence mrs. mary frost evans. 53 westmoreland co., pa., auxiliary greensburg, pa. miss louise brunot. 3 54 pottstown, pa. mrs. e.s. cook. 55 emporia, kan. miss sabia e. whitley. 56 scott schley, of frederick, md. mrs. henry williams. 57 lenox, mass. mrs. john e. alexandre. 58 caldwell, n.j. mrs. f.h. wing. 59 upper red hook mrs. theodore cookingham. 60 saugerties-on-hudson mrs. george f. shrady. 61 hokendauqua, pa. miss bessie thomas. 62 bridgeport, conn. mrs. charles b. read. 63 suffolk co., n.y., greenport l.i. miss bessie clark. aux. 64 staatsburgh, n.y. miss madeleine dinsmore. 65 otsego co., n.y., springfield centre mrs. h.w. wardwell. aux. 66 plymouth church au. worcester, mass. mr. arthur reed taft. 1 67 oyster bay, l.i. mrs. thomas s. young, jr. 68 cranford, n.j. mrs. f.r. bourne. 69 loyal friends aux. new york mrs. f.p.p. miller. 70 london, ohio mrs. george lincoln. 71 shortsville, n.y. mrs. o.s. titus. 72 richmond hill mrs. walter p. long. 73 south orange, n.j. mrs. f. arnold. 74 telegraph signal corps auxiliary brooklyn, n.y. miss mary a. tomlinson. 75 platteville, wis. mrs. e.g. buck. 76 walden, n.y. mrs. phoebe saxe. 77 first west va. aux. wheeling, w. va. mrs. william f. butler. 78 toledo, ohio mrs. s.s. knabenshue. 79 lovington, ill. mr. s.s. boggs. 80 new brunswick, n.j. mrs. nicholas g. rutgers. 81 colored women's au. kansas city, kan. mrs. katie minor. 82 sons and daughters red cross aux. north berwick, me. chester a. hayes. 83 orange, n.j. miss rosamond howard. 84 hammond, ind. dr. mary e. jackson. 85 holdredge, neb. mrs. reeves. 86 girls' towel aux. glen cove, l.i. miss alice o. draper. 87 brattleboro, vt. miss mary e. cabot. 88 evanston, ill. mrs. n. gill kirk. 89 montclair, n.j. mrs. benjamin strong. 90 lyons, n.y. miss eudora a. lewis. 91 dobbs ferry, n.y. mrs. walston hill browne. 92 marshall, mich. mrs. w.h. porter. supplies contributed by auxiliaries through supply committee. cots 3,601 sheets 13,623 draw sheets 994 rubber sheets 226 pillowcases 13,858 blankets 586 towels 36,821 wash cloths 10,473 nightshirts 12,388 pajamas 14,264 wrappers 53 handkerchiefs 40,268 socks 8,484 slippers 2,342 abdominal bands 18,557 negligee shirts 5,097 undershirts 6,937 under drawers 6,937 comfort bags 1,188 palm-leaf fans 6 cs. cot pads 1,006 mosquito netting 32 pcs. nurses' caps 271 nurses' aprons 100 brassards 90 old linen 10 cs. napkins 466 stationery 2 cs. delicacies 900 cs. tobacco 20 cs. pipes 5,000 literature 120 cs. miscellaneous articles 13,394 red cross flags 70 estimated value, $80,000. special work done by auxiliaries. auxiliary no. 1 provided eleven equipped ambulances with forty mules. for hospital ship "missouri": two hundred electric fans, telephones, six rubber beds, disinfecting plant, carbonating plant, twenty-eight foot steam launch, thirty-seven foot steam launch, sent to chief surgeon havard at santiago. supplies of clothing and delicacies sent to colonel wood at santiago. auxiliary no. 2 opened a work shop on madison avenue and fifty-ninth street. there women, members of the families of enlisted men, were employed to make the garments supplied by this auxiliary. employment was given to these women both at their homes and at the shop. those who took work home were paid by the piece. in all, 142 women were employed, many having steady work for over five months. up to december 1, 20,842 articles were made by this auxiliary. auxiliary no. 3 has perhaps brought more comfort to the sick and wounded soldiers than any of the others. it was organized for the special work of providing funds for the maintenance of trained nurses, and as will be seen by the following list of nurses sent out by this auxiliary, no opportunity to relieve the suffering of the sick was ever passed by. railway transportation was furnished for nearly four hundred nurses sent out from the new york office. the number of nurses employed may be divided approximately into four classes: (1) those employed, maintained and paid by the auxiliary. (2) those whose salaries and maintenance were borne partly by the government, and partly by the auxiliary. (3) those who signed the government contract and were paid and supplied with army rations by the government, but received additional supplies from the auxiliary. (4) those who were paid by the auxiliary and maintained by local aid. _class i._ at fort wadsworth 41 nurses. " charleston 20 " " leiter hospital 10 " " governor's island 6 " " tampa 5 " " atlantic highlands 5 nurses, 1 surgeon. " convalescent home for nurses 1 nurse. " hospital cars 4 nurses. _class ii._ at camp black 42 nurses. " fort hamilton 23 " " fortress monroe 43 " on hospital ship "missouri" 14 nurses (men). at bedloe's island 1 nurse. " portsmouth 6 nurses (men). _class iii._ general hospital, montauk 125 nurses. sternberg hospital, chickamauga 64 " _class iv._ l.i. city relief station 29 nurses, 2 surgeons. relief tents, montauk station 1 " nassau hospital, hempstead 20 " home for convalescent soldiers at sag harbor 6 " convalescent home of 8th reg't, hunter's island 2 " u.s. transport "lampasas" 29 nurses(of these many were volunteers). the salaries of some and maintenance of all were borne by the auxiliary. nurses were also supplied on emergency calls to the eighth and ninth regiment armories. auxiliary no. 5 sent equipped cots to the different camps in the united states, cuba and porto rico, supplying in all 3766. auxiliary no. 10 undertook to send ice to cuba and porto rico, the blockading fleet, and the different camps. this auxiliary also furnished the ice plant on the hospital ship "missouri," and expended in all for ice $27,802.20. the work of this auxiliary appealed especially to every one during the hot weather, and donations poured in upon it, not the least of which was a steady income from the "nathalie schenck ice chain," which produced a revenue of $24,000 in three months. auxiliary no. 17, enrolled seventy-four sub-auxiliaries, with a total membership of 6173. to the supply committee this auxiliary sent in the largest quantity of supplies. auxiliary no. 19 raised funds for a laundry plant, and put same on hospital ship "missouri." auxiliary no. 22 had five sub-auxiliaries, with a total membership of 1018. 14,144 garments, 850 cases and packages of food, and 12,583 books and magazines were sent to the supply depot. in september the auxiliary took as its particular work the supplying of clothing to destitute soldiers applying for same, with properly signed orders, at 554 broadway. nearly 800 men were given underwear, blue flannel shirts, socks, handkerchiefs, night shirts, etc., etc. auxiliary no. 40.--the war emergency relief board of cleveland became an auxiliary to the red cross in june, with 163 sub-auxiliaries. ten thousand dollars in money, and between thirty and forty thousand dollars worth of supplies, were sent to the front. two thousand dollars were spent in fitting up unfurnished wards in cleveland hospitals, where 533 soldiers were cared for. the wives and families of soldiers and sailors were also cared for. five thousand four hundred and fifty hot breakfasts and dinners were served at the union depot to soldiers passing through cleveland. four hundred cases of clothing and delicacies were shipped by this auxiliary. [illustration: a cuban "block house," garrisoned.] [illustration: a view of eastern cuba.] requisitions filled by supply committee. _june 22 to december 1._ total number, 427. to santiago shipments, 26 " porto rico " 10 " camp wikoff " 53 " " thomas " 34 " " alger " 7 " " black " 5 " " townsend " 1 " " hobson " 1 " jacksonville " 17 " tampa " 9 miami " 2 " governor's island " 14 " bedloe's island " 3 " seavey's island " 3 " fort wadsworth " 20 to fortress monroe " 5 " fort riley " 1 " fort hamilton " 18 " fort mcpherson " 4 " quarantine " 5 " bellevue hospital " 6 " roosevelt hospital " 2 " brooklyn hospital " 3 " st. peter's hospital " 6 " st. francis' hospital " 2 " st. catherine's hospital " 2 " st. joseph's hospital " 4 " yonkers hospital " 4 " mount vernon hospital " 4 " new rochelle hospital " 4 " jamaica hospital " 1 " nassau hospital " 4 " long island college hospital " 6 " long island red cross emergency hospital " 22 " stapleton marine hospital " 1 " u.s.s. "st paul" " 1 " " "new hampshire" " 1 " " "nahant" " 1 " " "harvard" " 1 " " "kanawha" " 1 " " "elfrida" " 1 " " "vigilancia" " 1 " " "supply" " 1 " hospital ship "missouri" " 4 " " " "relief" " 2 " "red cross" yacht " 2 " 9th regiment armory " 7 " 8th " " " 4 " 71st " " " 1 " 13th " " " 2 " convalescent homes " 43 " soldiers' comfort committees " 25 " distribution to soldiers at supply depot " 13 " stephen e. barton " 2 " dr. b.b. lanier, u.s.a. " 1 " major henry page, u.s.v. " 1 " mrs. l. hutton, athens, ga. " 1 " mrs. g.m. moulton, savannah " 1 " mrs. f.m. armstrong, hampton, va. " 1 --- total 427 extracts of reports from camps. jacksonville, fla. field agent, rev. alexander kent. headquarters opened june 16, 1898. the hospital was found in a very distressing and unhealthful condition. most of the patients were indeed on cots, but few had either sheets or night shirts to cover them! it was also found that the sick had no suitable food, and when the suitable food was provided it was found that there was no provision for preparing it! the government provided many sheets, many cots, many pillows, but the demand ever outran the supply, and the red cross was called on continually to supply the lack. the government made no provision for ice, milk, eggs, lemons, malted milk, peptonoids, clam bouillon, beef extracts and delicacies of all kinds until after the first of september, when each patient was allowed sixty cents a day. all supplies of this sort were furnished by the red cross, or by the beneficient agencies. at the second division hospital the red cross paid for a bath house, kitchen and large circular tent for convalescents--100 cots, mattresses and 1000 pillows. sheets, pillow cases, night shirts, pajamas and towels were sent by the thousand. the red cross furnished over $1000 worth of medicines not on the government list, over 1000 bath and surgical sponges, 50 ice chests, over 700 buckets, tumblers by the barrel, medicine glasses, ice bags, hypodermic syringes, etc. over $1300 was spent for hospital equipment and supplies of various kinds; in addition to this, large shipments were received from new york. an important part of the work in this camp was the supplying of ice for the purpose of cooling the drinking water. the cost of this ice, $6000, was met by auxiliary no. 10. the milk bills averaged $500 a week. when the recuperating hospital was opened at pablo beach, the red cross, at the request of the chief surgeon, supplied 250 sets of dishes, with a complete outfit of pitchers, trays, buckets, etc. the several heads of divisional hospitals have said to the agent again and again, "the hospitals never could have equipped themselves. they would have broken down utterly without the aid of the red cross." camp thomas, chickamauga, ga. field agent, e.c. smith. "no array of mere numerals written to express dollars, or tables of figures standing for quantities, could, in comprehensive sense, tell the story of the red cross work at chickamauga in 1898. the record is written indelibly in the hearts of thousands of soldiers who were stricken with disease on this battlefield, and the story has been told at quiet firesides in every state of the union." here in chickamauga men fell from the ranks day after day, and were carried helpless to the regimental, division, corps and general hospitals, stricken by an unseen foe. it was at these hospitals that the red cross sent supplies of all kinds, medical and surgical, clothing, bedding, delicacies, etc. the agent, mr. smith, was told to supply everything needed, regardless of cost. milk and ice were the chief requisites, and all the surrounding farming country was called upon to supply the milk, some of it coming as far as biltmore, n.c. the agent ascertained the necessities of the sick through the best official sources, and without delay the necessities were supplied. mr. smith was stricken at his post with typhoid, but is now convalescent. washington, d.c. headquarters for camp alger, point sheridan, va., washington barracks post hospital, camp bristow, fort meyer, fortress monroe. b.h. warner, agent and chairman executive committee of red cross at washington. by this branch of the red cross a large part of the work in camps was undertaken. a meeting was called on june 21, at which a large number of citizens met, and an executive committee was formed to carry on the relief work at these different posts. captain george c. lewis was the representative of the committee at camp alger. he was constantly on duty there, seeing that supplies were furnished and all possible relief extended--mattresses, pillows, sheets, pillow cases, mosquito bars, night shirts, pajamas, handkerchiefs, underclothing, medicines, groceries and delicacies were supplied in large quantities to this camp. point sheridan was visited by mrs. mussey, a member of the committee. it was found that they were suffering for supplies of all kinds, but especially for medicines, which had been ordered a month before, but had not been received. proper medicines were delivered by the red cross within twenty-four hours, and other necessities were supplied, large shipments being also sent from new york. when the washington barracks was made a post hospital, the red cross supplied daily 800 pounds of ice, 5 gallons chicken soup, 30 gallons of milk, 20 pounds of butter and 2 crates of eggs weekly. also furnished 1200 suits underwear, several hundred suits of pajamas, several hundred pairs socks, and slippers, 500 towels, medicines, antiseptic dressings, etc. the work at this point closed october 8. the secretary of war gave authority for the establishment of diet kitchens, in the camps near washington, and mrs. mussey was given general charge of this special work. a diet kitchen was established at camp bristow, one at the hospital at the washington barracks and at fort meyer. the government had voluntarily paid for meat, chicken and milk, leaving the committee only bills for groceries and wages of employees. dr. green rendered such efficient service that she has been employed by the government to establish diet kitchens at other points. "physicians, nurses and patients unite in saying the aid they secured from the work was of inestimable value." to fortress monroe supplies were sent one day after they were called for, consisting in part of 500 suits pajamas, 25 pairs crutches, 200 pairs slippers, 350 yards rubber sheeting, large quantities antiseptic dressings, 60 gallons whiskey and brandy, 200 cans soups, basins, pitchers, dishes, etc. arrangements were also made at this point for supplying ice for the use of the troops on board the transports going south, and also for the sick on their journey north. the branch of work undertaken by this committee, which was the most difficult to conduct, was in looking after the sick soldiers who passed through the city. soldiers from almost forty different regiments were fed and cared for when ill. in all, about 40,000 men. the war department paid for the bread used in this branch of the work. all bills for ice, and ice chests provided by this committee, were paid for by auxiliary no. 10. "it is gratifying to be able to state that whatever view the surgeons and other officers may have had as to the need of the red cross at the beginning of the war, at the close they joined with the private soldier in testifying to its wonderful and efficient work." yacht "red cross." the yacht "red cross" was bought by the relief committee, to be used by miss barton as headquarters during her stay in cuba. the yacht sailed from new york for key west on june 30, laden with twenty-five tons of surgical and medical supplies, and with five doctors, arriving at key west on july 10. from key west the yacht sailed for santiago on july 16. she ran into a storm, and was so badly damaged she had to put back to key west for repairs. it was found impossible to repair her there, so the medical supplies were transferred to a transport sailing for cuba, and the "red cross" returned to new york, arriving august 4. in three or four days she was in order again, and took on board a cargo of supplies for camp wikoff. she was then offered to the government to transfer patients from the general hospitals at camp wikoff to the hospitals in new york, new haven, and adjacent cities, where the soldiers could receive better shelter and care. the yacht was comfortably fitted out, and made twenty-eight trips, carrying in all 449 sick men. during these trips she carried a doctor and three trained nurses to care for the sick, and often the relatives and friends of the soldiers were allowed to accompany those whom they had been to find at camp wikoff. camp wikoff, montauk point, l.i. field agent, mr. howard townsend. it is difficult indeed, in giving extracts of this report, to present any idea of the great work accomplished here. mr. townsend visited the camp on august 8, and, after returning to new york to report to the relief committee, went to montauk on the 10th to open "headquarters." the first, and in some respects the most important work was the delivery of a daily supply of water for the troops. ten thousand gallons of hygeia water were delivered to the government, and four tank cars were brought daily from jamaica with fresh spring water. this work ceased when the great well was finished. to the general hospital such supplies were furnished as were rendered necessary by the confusion and hurry of the first weeks, indeed a large part of the articles necessary for a hospital were placed in the wards a few hours after the need was discovered. we supplied but few delicacies to the hospital after it was in running order. oranges and lemons, were, however, supplied at the rate of 1000 a day, and 200 gallons of milk were furnished, until, by order of secretary alger, the government furnished 2000 gallons of milk a day to the hospitals and troops. the detention hospital we also kept abundantly supplied with delicacies, and often with necessities. the regimental hospitals were found to be in great need of equipment and food suitable for the sick, and to this part of the work dr. geo. e. brewer and mr. samuel parrish devoted themselves, making daily visits to the regiments, and assisting the regimental surgeons in their discouraging work. auxiliary no. 3 sent a dietary expert, mrs. willard, to the camp to establish diet kitchens, and with the aid of mr. prescott, of the massachusetts volunteer aid society they were established in connection with the various hospitals, and such satisfactory results were worked out that the government agreed to pay all the expenses. the feeding of all the sick and half-starved men who arrived from cuba on the transports was undertaken by dr. and mrs. valentine mott, while dr. magruder, chief quarantine officer, exerted himself admirably in red cross work, carrying continually stores of red cross delicacies to those ships which were in quarantine and suffering for lack of food. at the railroad station, the men leaving on sick furlough frequently collapsed, and here the government erected two tents for the red cross, and miss martha l. draper was asked to take charge. the men were fed with milk, and when necessary given a few ounces of whiskey to enable them to continue their journey. those who were unable to take the train were kept in the tents over night, which sheltered at times as many as twenty sick men! a great effort was made to answer all the inquiries from relatives of the missing soldiers. few can realize the number of letters and telegrams received each day from all parts of the country. "owing to the recognition given to the red cross agent by major-general young when the camp was first begun, the red cross was able to enter into a far broader sphere of usefulness than would otherwise have been possible." the following list is given of articles furnished by the red cross, to show in what quantities the supplies were used: equipped cots 1,523 suits underwear 4,948 pairs of socks 4,322 night shirts 4,322 pajamas 4,733 comfort bags 1,511 sheets 2,471 pillow cases 2,536 handkerchiefs 10,946 pairs of slippers 2,423 towels 6,554 pillows 800 blankets 929 cocoa 1,440 soups (cans) 10,344 lactated food (bottles) 3,456 beef extract 1,224 in all, 178 different articles were furnished, and many of them in as large, some in even larger numbers than these given. red cross relief station, long island city. mrs. hammond in charge. the red cross relief station was opened on august 29th. the building which was directly opposite the railroad station, and in every way most admirably adapted to the work, was offered to the society by patrick j. gleason, ex-mayor of long island city. on the second and third floors of this building, cots were erected, diet kitchens were started, a corps of servants employed, and in a day or two everything was in readiness. all the trains arriving from montauk were met and the men assisted to the red cross relief station, where they were all fed. many men were too ill to continue on their journey and were kept at the "emergency hospital," or sent to hospitals in new york and brooklyn. the work, in a day or two, assumed such large proportions that cots were erected on the first floor, and the information and business offices were in a tent in front of the building. even this proved inadequate, and fifteen tents were erected, each holding six cots. competent trained nurses were on duty, supplied by auxiliary no. 3. two ambulances were supplied by auxiliary no 1. clothing and delicacies of all kinds were dispensed in large quantities. over fourteen thousand men were fed, and about $7000 was spent in carrying on this work. from the reports of the physicians in charge we can safely say that for the first two weeks 75 per cent of all that came in were sick, needing care and medical attention, the third week about 50 per cent, and the fourth week about 25 per cent. it was due to the untiring enthusiasm of the women interested in the relief work that the society was able to carry it on so successfully. the woman's auxiliaries of the red cross. by special authority from the american national red cross, these auxiliaries were organized under the auspices of the relief committee in new york, acting in conjunction with the executive committee of the red cross. therefore, full reports of what they have accomplished have not been sent direct to the national headquarters. among the woman's auxiliaries it was the custom for each to organize for some special work, and devote their entire attention to it. it is a pleasure to be able to insert here, as an example of the manner in which these loyal women did their part in the work of war relief, the following from the report of auxiliary no. 3, organized for the maintenance of trained nurses: from the report of red cross auxiliary no. 3. at the request of the women's committee on auxiliaries, this auxiliary was organized on may 18, 1898, to provide funds for the maintenance of trained nurses. it was the original intention that these nurses should be placed on a hospital ship to be furnished by the national relief committee. it was not long, however, before this plan of specialized work was abandoned by the relief committee, and the executive committee of the auxiliary adapted itself to the change, by using its funds and devoting its energies in supplying and maintaining trained nurses in army hospitals, where, owing to the suddenness and greatness of the emergency, the supply and maintenance of an adequate number of nurses were not in the government's power. this form of work was begun early in july, and on the 19th of that month was, with the concurrence of the relief committee, finally adopted as the chief purpose of the auxiliary. it is hoped that some estimate of the success achieved may be gained from this report. immediately on its organization, the important work of raising money was undertaken, systematic efforts were made to reach subscribers, associate members were enlisted, circulars were sent out, and personal appeals were made. from paris alone, by the generosity of french and american friends, more than $21,000 was received. suburban branches were also established, which, under the direction of separate committees, labored earnestly and contributed largely, both in money and in supplies. the chief of these branches were at seabright, elberon, navesink, orange, new hamburg, tuxedo, tarrytown, northern westchester county, riverdale, rye and harrison, white plains, lake george, st. hubert's inn, lenox, wakefield and narragansett and bar harbor. the executive committee met frequently to consider this question of ways and means, and the assistant treasurer, mrs. edmund l. baylies, was soon able to report a generous response. as shown by her account, the sum of $107,785.12 has in all been collected, of which $72,101.64 has already been expended. without this hearty support from the friends of the cause, the good accomplished by the auxiliary would have been sadly restricted. indeed, when the critical time of arranging coã�â¶peration with the government came, we might never have felt justified in undertaking such a responsibility, had our actual contributions not been so large, and the assurance of further financial support so definite. on june 30 the first call for nurses came in the shape of a telegraphic dispatch from santiago, sent by dr. a. monae lesser, chief surgeon of the american national red cross society. two days later, in compliance with this dispatch, a party consisting of twelve trained nurses, one immune nurse, and one assistant, was sent from new york to tampa in charge of miss laura d. gill, with orders to proceed to santiago at the first opportunity. this party was reinforced by a second, consisting of three physicians and eleven nurses, who left new york on july 4 in charge of miss isabel rutty. a third party of two physicians, thirty-two nurses, and six orderlies was sent forward the same week, and reached tampa on the evening of july 9. the first available steamer for santiago was the u.s. transport "lampasas," which was taking out col. black and his engineering corps, and through the kindness of general coppinger and col. edmond rice, five physicians, twenty-nine nurses, and two orderlies were given transportation upon that ship. the "lampasas" reached santiago just after its surrender, but owing to the recent outbreak of yellow fever in the city, a strict quarantine had been established, and none but immunes were permitted to go ashore. the steamer thereupon proceeded to porto rico, and on reaching the harbor of guanica was converted into a hospital ship. the plan of landing the nurses was abandoned, and they immediately devoted themselves to the care of the 112 soldiers, most of them typhoid fever patients, for whom accommodation was provided on the vessel. two of these patients died at guanica, two at ponce, and four on the homeward voyage. the remaining 104 were safely landed at fort monroe early in august. miss mary e. gladwin, who was with the party, spoke for all the nurses when she said that this "lampasas" trip was the opportunity of a lifetime, and that the two weeks of absorbing work "were worth years of ordinary living." in the meantime the rest of our party at tampa had embarked on another government transport, the "nueces," also bound for santiago. but within a few hours after the "lampasas" left the dock at tampa, and before the "nueces" could get away, a telegram was received telling of the outbreak of yellow fever in cuba. by direction of the government, all of our party, except one trained nurse and four assistants, were thereupon removed from the "nueces," and left in tampa to await further developments. the five excepted members of the party proceeded to cuba, and some time afterwards returned to new york in attendance upon the patients who were brought home on the steamer "concho." it was in tampa, while these nurses were impatiently awaiting transportation to the front, that the sudden outbreak of typhoid fever in the camp there gave the first important occasion for their services. four nurses, under the charge of mrs. e.b. freer, were assigned to the division hospital at picnic island, and continued their work until about july 27, when the sick men were removed and the island abandoned as a camp. the services of mrs. freer's party were then desired by colonel o'reilly, chief surgeon of the fourth army corps, and she was asked on saturday, july 30, to superintend the opening of a new military hospital in west tampa. authority and funds were, on application to the auxiliary in new york, telegraphed her accordingly, and the effectiveness of the compliance with the chief surgeon's request will appear when it is said that by evening of the next day (sunday) a three-story brick building was selected for the hospital, thoroughly cleaned, equipped with cots and other necessary hospital appliances, and the cots themselves occupied by fifty soldiers suffering from typhoid and malarial fevers. the spirit of this auspicious beginning guided the conduct of the hospital until its last patient had been discharged on october 14. five hundred soldiers, chiefly typhoid patients, were treated during those ten weeks, and only eleven deaths occurred. even a modern city hospital might be proud of such a record. meanwhile the constant efforts of the auxiliary to send nurses to cuba were thwarted by the appearance of yellow fever in santiago. notwithstanding our repeated offers, the government adhered to its determination to permit none but immune nurses at the front, and the extension of the auxiliary's work seemed to be hopelessly checked. the situation with which we were confronted was most serious. we had sought and collected over $60,000 in money, and notwithstanding the great amount of suffering, and our conviction that if only permitted to do so we might relieve so much of it, we were nearly helpless. happily, a speedy and most gratifying solution of the problem was found in the following manner: the executive board of the relief committee decided to send a committee representing itself and this auxiliary to washington, to reach some positive understanding with the president and the surgeon-general of the army regarding the regular employment of our nurses. on the evening of july 15, this committee, consisting of mr. howard townsend, mrs. whitelaw reid and mrs. winthrop cowdin, was accorded a private interview at the white house by president mckinley, who listened with kindly attention to a brief explanation of the aims and purposes of the auxiliary, and expressed himself as entirely in sympathy with them. at his request, a conference at the white house between the committee, the secretary of war and the surgeon-general was arranged for the following morning. that same evening the committee called also upon the adjutant-general, and was assured of his co-operation in their efforts. owing doubtless to the limited time at the disposal of the surgeon-general, who was on his way to meet the hospital ship "olivette" on its first journey north with a load of wounded from santiago, no definite results were reached at the conference the next morning. the secretary of war, however, said he would aid us to the extent of his power, and the surgeon-general promised another interview with the same committee at mrs. reid's house in new york, sunday afternoon, july 17. the result of this interview is thus stated in a letter from general sternberg to mrs. reid: i take pleasure in confirming by letter the arrangements made at our interview in new york on the 17th instant. i am quite willing to employ female nurses vouched for by yourself as secretary of the red cross society for maintenance of trained nurses. i had previously made very satisfactory arrangements for the employment of trained female nurses through a committee of the daughters of the american revolution. as i said to you during our interview, i recognize the value of trained female nurses in general hospitals, and we expect to make use of their services to such an extent as seems to be desirable. but i do not approve of sending female nurses with troops in the field or to camps of instruction. it is the intention to transfer the seriously sick men from our field hospitals to the general hospitals as soon as practicable; and we wish our enlisted men of the hospital corps to take care of the sick in the division field hospitals and in camps of instruction, so that they may be fully prepared to perform the same duties when the troops are in active operations. among these privates of the hospital corps who constitute the red cross organization of the regular military service, and who are non-combatants in accordance with the terms of the geneva convention, we have many medical students and even graduates in medicine. i have made an exception with reference to sending female nurses to cuba in view of the outbreak of yellow fever in santiago, and am now sending immune nurses, both male and female, for duty at the yellow fever hospitals. in accordance with our agreement, you are authorized to send ten female trained nurses, selected by yourself, to the leiter hospital at camp thomas, ga.; ten to the u.s. general hospital at fort monroe, va.; and two to the hospital at fort wadsworth, n.y., the understanding being that those at fort monroe and at fort wadsworth shall be boarded and lodged outside of the hospital. thanking you very sincerely for your earnest efforts in behalf of our sick and wounded soldiers, i am, etc. this letter was accompanied by an order for twenty nurses to be sent at once to the hospitals in the city of charleston. as a result of this permission of the government, three men nurses were sent on july 21 to the marine hospital at staten island, and miss marjorie henshall went with three women nurses to the post hospital at fort wadsworth, where a number of sick and wounded officers had just been landed from the "olivette." an example of the immediate benefit resulting from the increased powers of the auxiliary may be found in the case of one of the lieutenants in the regular army, who had been ill with fever for weeks in santiago without proper care, and who had reached new york in an almost dying condition. the surgeons in charge attributed his recovery to the timely arrival of the nurses under miss henshall. in further accordance with the surgeon-general's permission, the nurses who were on waiting orders at tampa were sent to the leiter hospital near chattanooga, where ten were immediately placed on duty by the chief surgeon, major carter; and as they could not be provided for in the hospital building, miss gill went to chattanooga to arrange for their maintenance in quarters near by. the service at the leiter hospital was peculiarly hard, and one of the nurses, miss phinney, died there as a result of the great mental and physical strain to which she was subjected. ten nurses were sent on july 22 to the general hospital, fort monroe, in charge of miss lida g. starr. as this hospital consisted largely of tents, it was necessary for the nurses to be maintained in hotels, in the neighborhood. later, other nurses came, and soon the entire force, with two exceptions, had signed contracts with the government, but were maintained at the expense of the auxiliary. the total number of nurses maintained by the auxiliary in service at this place was at times as large as forty-five. ten other nurses, maintained by the woman's war relief association, shared in the work there. in all seventeen hundred patients were treated at this hospital, of whom only thirty-four died. to miss starr is due much credit for the admirable management of the funds intrusted to her by the auxiliary, and for the sedulous care she bestowed upon the welfare of the nurses. only this, as they themselves realized, made it possible for them to perform so remarkable a work,--a work of which major de witt, the surgeon in charge, said: "i am satisfied that whatever success we may have had in the treatment of our sick and wounded has been in great measure due to the skill and devotion of the female nurses." our labor at charleston involved somewhat different necessities. the city hospitals were crowded with soldiers who had been taken ill on their way from the camps to the transports. additional nurses were thus greatly needed, and on july 24 twenty, in charge of miss martha l. draper, were sent to meet the emergency. that their services were valuable and appreciated is shown by the testimonials granted them by the board of commissioners of the city hospital of charleston. when, in early august, the steamship "missouri" was bought by the government for a hospital ship, mrs. reid offered women nurses to the officer in charge, major arthur. as the construction of the ship did not afford accommodations which permitted the presence of women on board, this offer was changed. the department had allowed major arthur ten male nurses, but the government salary did not command the quality of service which the special work of superintendence required. it was therefore proposed to choose, under the advice of dr. fisher, of the presbyterian hospital, a small supplementary corps of exceptionally able nurses, who could assume the responsibility of the wards. when these men had been chosen, they impressed major arthur so favorably that he decided to dispense with the ten nurses allowed him by the government, take these selected men under contract, pay them the regulation salary, and leave upon the auxiliary the expense only of the additional salary necessary to command this superior nursing ability. the men retained the position of red cross nurses, and wore the special uniform provided by the auxiliary. ten men made the trip to santiago, but for the second and third trips the staff was increased to fourteen. the spirit and capacity of these men were severely tested on the first voyage by the unprepared state in which the emergency required that the "missouri" be sent south, but they met their labors and hardships in a way which brought forth major arthur's warmest praise. forty-two nurses have in the course of the summer been sent to fort wadsworth, staten island, where, under the able management of miss marjorie henshall, effective service has been rendered, giving absolute satisfaction to the surgeons in charge. at governor's island miss alice marie wyckoff and miss barker have represented the auxiliary. early in july they were occupied on swinburn island in caring for the many patients who arrived on the "concho;" and when those patients were transferred to governor's island, major kimball, the surgeon in charge, asked that the nurses be sent there to assist his hospital corps. this request was granted, and additional nurses have since been supplied. he speaks in high terms of what these nurses have done to aid him, and of their conspicuous success in rousing apathetic patients to assist in their own recovery. the situation of these two harbor hospitals, and of the hospital at fort hamilton, was especially favorable for the treatment of the very sick patients received from the transports directly from santiago, or from the general hospital at camp wikoff. the remarkably small death-rate is directly attributable to the skill and devotion of the surgeons and nurses, to the carefully prepared food, and to the sea air blowing through the tents. "it has been most wonderful," remarked miss ellen m. wood, who was in charge of the nurses at fort hamilton, "to watch the soldiers grow young again" amid such surroundings. the part which miss wood and her assistants played in this beneficial change may be indicated by a quotation from a recent letter to the acting president of the auxiliary from major and brigade surgeon rafferty, commanding the general hospital at fort hamilton: miss e.m. wood, with five nurses, will report to you on saturday, october 15, 1898. they have been on duty with me in the camp and wards of the united states general hospital at this place for the past six or eight weeks, and have rendered me noble, efficient and conscientious work. i wish you would express to your auxiliary for me my great appreciation of their efforts to ameliorate the suffering and sickness of our soldiers returning from the seat of war. were i to choose the most worthy and successful body of workers from among all the generous people who have been rendering such beautiful aid to our sick and wounded, i should unhesitatingly point to your auxiliary for the maintenance of trained nurses. much has been accomplished by the mission of the special committee to the surgeon-general in july; but later in the month it became increasingly apparent that some simpler routine of co-operation with the government must be established in order to secure the more rapid placing of the nurses. under the existing conditions, all nurses ordered to army hospitals were selected by the daughters of the american revolution hospital corps, consisting of dr. anita newcomb mcgee, director; miss mary desha and mrs. francis g. nash, assistant directors; and mrs. amos g. draper, treasurer. this hospital corps did noble work for the cause, and its co-operation was highly appreciated by the auxiliary. dr. mcgee, on whose advice in these matters the surgeon-general greatly relied, was indefatigable in her efforts, working day and night and month after month. but since congress had provided no special fund for the transportation of nurses, considerable delay had always occurred before the nurses could reach the army hospitals; and as these hospitals were rapidly filling up with patients in consequence of the outbreak of typhoid and malarial fevers in the different camps, the effects of such delay became daily more dangerous. the acting president went again to washington, and after conference with dr. mcgee and other members of this hospital corps, placed a fund of five hundred dollars in the hands of mrs. draper, as acting treasurer, to meet transportation expenses originating at washington. this fund was most efficiently managed by mrs. draper, and was replenished from time to time until september 6, when $5425.80 had been so disbursed. thereafter the government assumed the entire expense of transportation. [illustration: copyright 1898, by clara barton. a part of the red cross corps _that was working with the reconcentrados in cuba before the declaration of war, waiting at tampa, florida, for the red cross relief ship "state of texas," to carry them back to cuba to resume their work._] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by _the christian herald_. "i am with the wounded."--_clara barton's cable message from havana._ "i am with the wounded," flashed along the wire from the isle of cuba, swept with sword and fire. angel sweet of mercy, may your cross of red cheer the wounded living; bless the wounded dead. "i am with the starving," let the message run from this stricken island, when this task is done; food and money plenty wait at your command. give in generous measure; fill each outstretched hand. "i am with the happy," this we long to hear from the isle of cuba, trembling now in fear. may the great disaster touch the hearts of men, and, in god's great mercy, bring back peace again. --james clarence harvey.] this general subject of transportation was one regarding which the auxiliary was able to render substantial service, and merits a few descriptive words. the pressure upon the quartermaster's department at washington during the summer made it impossible to be certain of immediate transportation for nurses to their posts of duty. even after orders were received, the nurses might be delayed several days for the necessary transportation pass. under ordinary circumstances this might have seemed comparatively unimportant; but when a new hospital is opened and scores of patients lie waiting for the care which can be given only by the expected nurses, it is a matter of vital importance whether they come in twelve hours or a week. when the auxiliary acceded to the suggestion from washington, and undertook to relieve this pressure by paying the transportation of nurses who could not otherwise be put into immediate service, quite a change in plan was made. a number of nurses were ordered to new york by dr. mcgee, and were held in readiness to respond to requests from any part of the country. these nurses, added to the numbers being constantly enlisted here, made a substantial reserve for sudden calls. in a few hours after a telegram asking for a given number of nurses was received, the nurses could meet at the railway station, find an agent of the auxiliary there, who would distribute the tickets and sleeping-car accommodations that had already been secured, check their trunks, provide for the payment of the incidental expenses of the journey, and see the party off for its destination. it is believed that the money, labor and thought expended in this way brought a rich return. as the responsibilities of the auxiliary developed, the need of a permanent office became apparent. in the absence of the president and first and second vice-presidents, mrs. cowdin became acting-president, and from july 28 to september 20 headquarters for the auxiliary were maintained at her residence, no. 15 west eleventh street. since september 20 the office of the auxiliary has been at mrs. reid's residence, no. 451 madison avenue. the scope and interest of the work increased daily, and its details required the entire attention of the executive officer, her assistants, miss gill and miss wadley, a stenographer and a bookkeeper. in addition, mrs. w. bayard cutting, mrs. w. lanman bull and mrs. geo. f. shrady, jr., of the executive committee, though compelled to be out of town, were in frequent communication with the new york office, and, in town and out, labored constantly to render the auxiliary more effective. on august 10, miss gill, who from the beginning gave herself completely to the work, and whose services were of inestimable value, went to washington to clear up several points relative to the enlistment of nurses. aside from the adjustment of some details, two important results were obtained. one of these was the appointment by the surgeon-general of the acting president of the auxiliary as direct superintendent of the nurses at fort wadsworth, fort hamilton and governor's island, with full power to appoint, transfer and recall them; the other, to which fuller reference will be hereafter made, was permission for miss maxwell, of the presbyterian hospital, new york, to go to chickamauga with a party of nurses chosen by her. the red cross hospital in new york, from which the nurses had theretofore been enlisted, being temporarily closed, miss maxwell offered her office at the presbyterian hospital for the registration of nurses sent out by the auxiliary; and at her urgent request, miss k.m. pierce, superintendent of the samaritan hospital at troy, who was then in new york, devoted her vacation to making arrangements for the registration and transportation of the large number of nurses called into the city. after september 1 this work devolved upon miss wadley, and was transferred to a separate bureau at no. 6 east forty-second street, where, under her direction, it has reached a high degree of efficiency. one of the largest fields of the auxiliary's activity was at chickamauga. the typhoid epidemic which broke out in all the camps of instruction where our troops were stationed severely taxed the resources of the division hospitals. the surgeons had to rely mainly on the services of untrained men, and while the great need for the services of women was apparent, their employment in military camps had not then been attempted. nowhere were the conditions more threatening than at chickamauga; and toward the end of july, miss maud cromelien, an agent of the auxiliary, visited the division hospitals at camp thomas. the need for prompt relief there manifested was imperative; and, acting under authority from new york, she made the following offer on behalf of the auxiliary to lieutenant-colonel hoff, surgeon-in-chief at the camp, namely: to supply at least one division hospital with nurses; to meet all expenses of maintaining the nurses; and to erect, equip, and supply tents for their occupation; to supply a competent supervising nurse, and to make the entire party subject to the orders of the chief surgeon. this offer was reported to the surgeon-general at washington, and by his direction accepted. through the kindness of the managers of the presbyterian hospital, the auxiliary had the great good fortune to secure the consent of the superintendent of their training school, miss maxwell, to take charge of this relief party. miss maxwell at once threw herself into the arduous task, and having obtained twenty most capable nurses, with promises of many more to follow, selected miss frances a. stone as assistant superintendent, and started from new york with the party august 7. in the meantime, under the supervision of miss cromelien, dormitories and other accommodations had been provided at camp thomas, not only for this party, but for the large number of additional nurses that were expected. upon reaching the camp, miss maxwell inspected the division hospitals, and then, by arrangement with the government authorities, took charge of the nursing at the sternberg united states field hospital, which had just been opened to receive the overflow of patients from the crowded division hospitals. the suffering of the patients, and the pitiable lack of almost everything necessary to their proper care, are described by miss maxwell as among the saddest sights in her long experience. yet out of all this misery and chaos much alleviation of pain and admirable order were soon brought. beginning with 136 patients, 900 were received during the four weeks of miss maxwell's superintendence. of these 470 were furloughed and 68 died. in all the auxiliary expended at chickamauga, for buildings, equipment, nurses, supplies and maintenance, more than $9000. in concluding her report of the work to the managers of the presbyterian hospital, miss maxwell wrote among other things: i cannot say enough in praise of the liberality and thoughtfulness of the auxiliary of the red cross in supplying us with eight dormitories, a bath-house, store-rooms, kitchen, dining-room, house-keeper, servants, and not only the necessities, but many of the luxuries of life. this proposition of organizing a large field hospital with women nurses was at first generally looked upon as impracticable. it was urged that it had never been done, that women could not endure the hardships of field life, and that they would be an embarrassment in the camps, and so it was altogether as an experiment that the nurses were allowed to begin their work at the sternberg hospital. something of the success of the experiment in changing the attitude of the surgeons toward the idea of women nurses in the field is shown by the following letter from lieutenant-colonel hoff to miss cromelien, in which he says: i desire to express my sense of obligation to you and the society you represent for the generous offer made on the 2d of august to supply sternberg hospital with trained nurses and meet all their natural wants, which offer, with the approval of the surgeon-general of the army, i accepted on the 3d instant. a very short time after this you established a nursing service in this field hospital, which i venture to say is not surpassed in any hospital, and is equaled in few,--a service which already has brought to our sick soldiers untold comfort, and is aiding materially in their restoration to health and strength. certainly no nobler undertaking could be inaugurated and carried out by the women of our country, and none deserving of greater appreciation. the following tribute from major giffen, the surgeon in command at the sternberg hospital, is equally significant: the red cross society for the maintenance of trained nurses can truly say, _veni, vidi, vici_, for without their helping hand i would have been unable to have stayed the dread disease that has been raging in our camp. their helping hand came in the hour of need, and the history of the future shall record each and every member of the red cross society as the guardian angels of the sternberg hospital. my experience of years of hospital work has enabled me to judge of the abilities of nurses, and i am proud to say that this corps of nurses, under the excellent supervision of miss maxwell, has never before been equaled. about the first of august the arrival of the transports from santiago, and the opening of camp wikoff, at montauk point, afforded another great opportunity. the call, however, was sudden, and no chance was given to the auxiliary to provide tents specially fitted for the comfort of the nurses, as was done at the sternberg hospital. by special arrangement with the surgeon-general, the nurses ordered by him to montauk reported to the acting president of the auxiliary and were sent forward immediately, or, as the occasion demanded, were cared for over night. much has been said in criticism of the hospital conditions at montauk, and too little of the fine service of the surgeons and nurses, who, under trying conditions, worked day and night to save the lives of their patients. under the efficient management of mrs. l.w. quintard, of st. luke's hospital, the nurses took up their labors with enthusiasm and with a determination to make the best of existing circumstances. by personal visits to the camp the acting president was enabled to ameliorate in many ways the hard conditions under which the nurses were so bravely working. supplies of all sorts were sent down with the least possible delay. in the detention hospital, at camp wikoff, the fifty nurses to whose special needs miss virginia c. young devoted herself on behalf of the auxiliary, cared for nearly eighteen hundred seriously ill soldiers, many of whom had had yellow fever in cuba, and were suffering, when brought to the hospital, from typhoid fever, pernicious malarial fever and dysentery. a few had measles or diphtheria. sixty-two, or rather less than 4 per cent, of these patients died, a result which is believed to bear striking testimony to the quality and success of the care they received. in a graphic account of her experience at this hospital miss young writes: i wish i could make the women of the auxiliary fully understand what their splendid generosity meant to us who had the joy of ministering in their name. for the fifty women who fought day by day that grim battle with disease and death could but have wrung their hands in hopeless impotence had it not been for the hundreds of other women by whose aid we were able to carry on our work. one could have no more eloquent testimony to this than that furnished by a walk through one of the fever wards of detention hospital, where the men lay on red cross cots, in red cross pajamas, covered by red cross sheets and blankets, and taking their red cross medicines or broth or delicacies from red cross cups and glasses at the hands of red cross nurses. through the energy of mrs. m.h. willard, agent for the auxiliary, and with the permission of colonel forwood, a diet kitchen was opened at the general hospital, at camp wikoff, for the sick and convalescent soldiers. the expense of maintaining this kitchen was shortly afterwards entirely assumed by the government and by the massachusetts volunteer aid association. so successful was its operation under mrs. willard's administration that four additional kitchens were opened. it is estimated that more than twenty thousand specially prepared meals for the sick and the convalescent have been served from these five kitchens. when the rooms of the long island city relief station were opened, near the railroad station, this auxiliary offered to supply the services of a physician and nurses, and continued to do so until, by reason of the removal of the troops, the need for the relief station ceased. one does not soon forget the first days when the soldiers began to arrive, the kindly interest felt by every one in and about the railroad station, the eagerness of the small newsboy to show the soldiers where the "red cross" was. to the soldier himself, weakened by illness and the fatigue of the journey, the place seemed a veritable haven of rest. arrangements were made by the ladies in charge to send the very sick men immediately to the hospitals in brooklyn and new york. the others were given proper food and cared for until morning, or for the several days that sometimes elapsed until the soldier was able to continue his journey. through the efforts of mrs. whitelaw reid, and by the kindness of the president of the wagner car company, the cars "franconia" and "wayne" were placed at the service of the auxiliary, and under its direction were fitted up and maintained as hospital cars. surgeons and nurses accompanied these cars on the trips from montauk, and ministered to those among the returning soldiers who needed special care. at montauk itself the tents erected by the red cross relief committee at the railway station, a distance of two or three miles from the hospital and camp, were supplied with nurses by the auxiliary. some excellent emergency work was accomplished by the auxiliary at the time of the outbreak of typhoid fever at camp black. twelve nurses were selected, and at the urgent request of the acting president, miss irene sutliffe of the new york hospital, consented to take them to the camp on september 4, and organize a hospital under conditions which would have daunted the courage of most women. nothing but tents and beds were provided for the reception of the one hundred and fifty patients, most of whom were very ill. supplies of all kinds, including a complete diet kitchen outfit, were sent to the camp by the auxiliary. additional nurses were furnished, and every effort was made to aid miss sutliffe and her staff in their arduous labors. it is gratifying to learn that in this way much suffering, and perhaps loss of life, was averted. on september 20 the patients then remaining were transferred to the nassau hospital, hempstead. the destruction of admiral cervera's fleet, and the landing of the spanish prisoners at seavey's island, portsmouth, n.h., gave the auxiliary another opportunity for service. learning that it was impossible for the government surgeons to obtain nurses in the neighborhood of portsmouth, the acting president made a personal request to the surgeon-general of the navy to authorize the sending of six men nurses. this application was granted. in the two pavilions temporarily erected for the patients the nurses went to work with enthusiasm. they found the patients easily managed and always grateful for what was done for them. the nurses were able to excite feelings of such trust and confidence that these same patients, when placed upon the "city of rome" for their homeward journey, asked that the red cross nurses should go with them to spain. this request was granted, and mr. brayman, who was in charge of the party, reports that the nurses were treated with much courtesy and cordiality, and that the voyage was accomplished without the loss of a single patient. it will be remembered that at the time of the sailing of the "city of rome" many of the spanish prisoners were not expected to live to reach their native land. at santander the nurses were warmly welcomed by the spanish representatives of the red cross society. mr. brayman speaks of meeting one of his former patients in the streets of santander, still wearing the united states uniform. on inquiry, the man replied, "this blouse was given me with three stripes and two stars. i shall wear them all." at bilboa the nurses received an especially cordial reception, and the american and spanish representatives of the society which bears for its emblem, "neutrality, humanity," exchanged brassards. mr. brayman afterward sent the brassard which was received by such exchange to a representative of the auxiliary in new york, with a letter from which the following extract is taken: "it gives me great pleasure to tell you that i do not believe any country can boast of a truer or nobler son than the young spanish gentleman who formerly wore this emblem. his mother expressed a wish that one of the nurses might become ill there, that she might show how an american would be cared for by her." nurses were also sent by the auxiliary to the eighth regiment home at hunter's island, and to the home for soldiers opened by the citizens of sag harbor, long island. supplementing these various branches of hospital service, two homes for convalescent soldiers were established under the direction of the auxiliary. one of these, eunice home of chapel hill, beautifully situated at atlantic highlands, n.j., was offered to the auxiliary by the trustees of the chapel hill fresh air mission. miss m.e. melville and dr. g.r. winder were placed in charge, with a staff of nurses and servants, and several hundred soldiers have been cared for. through the liberality of the church of the incarnation, our other home, the summer home rest at peekskill, was opened september 19, and has, aided by the untiring efforts of mrs. w. lanman bull, cared for forty-two convalescent men. every effort has been made in these homes to make the men happy, and they have returned to their regiments greatly improved in health, and in many cases quite recovered. but it was not the soldiers alone who demanded the aid of the auxiliary. the nurses themselves have also been objects of anxious care. unless their capacity for efficient service had been maintained, all our efforts would have been paralyzed. while in new york awaiting orders, they were placed in excellent boarding houses, through a satisfactory arrangement made by the auxiliary with the home bureau of no. 15 west forty-second street. at every camp and hospital where they were stationed we undertook to supply them with pure water and milk, with nourishing food, and such other comforts as would increase their efficiency and remind them of the support and sympathy they were receiving at home. when any nurse has succumbed to the strain and fallen ill, every effort has been made to relieve her suffering and to restore her speedily to health. and to aid that happy result, a home for convalescent nurses, through the generosity of mrs. alice dean ward, was opened early in november at rowayton, conn. the women who went to the field. the following poem is here inserted because of its prophetic application to those women who, during the spanish-american war, went bravely to field and camp to minister to the sick and the wounded. the poem was read by clara barton at the farewell reception and banquet by the ladies of the potomac corps, at willard's hotel, washington, d.c., friday evening, november 18, 1892, in response to the toast: "the women who went to the field." the women who went to the field, you say, the _women_ who went to the field; and pray what did they go for?--just to be in the way? they'd not know the difference betwixt work and play. and what did they know about _war_, anyway? what could they _do_?--of what _use_ could they be? they would scream at the sight of a gun, don't you see? just fancy them round where the bugle-notes play, and the long roll is bidding us on to the fray. imagine their skirts 'mong artillery wheels, and watch for their flutter as they flee 'cross the fields when the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot; they never will wait for the answering shot they would faint at the first drop of blood in their sight. what fun for us boys,--(ere we enter the fight); they might pick some lint, and tear up some sheets, and make us some jellies, and send on their sweets, and knit some soft socks for uncle's sam's shoes. and write us some letters, and tell us the news. and thus it was settled, by common consent, that husbands, or brothers, or whoever went, that the place for the women was in their own homes, there to patiently wait until victory comes. but later it chanced--just how, no one knew- that the lines slipped a bit, and some 'gan to crowd through; and they went,--where did they go?--ah! where did they not? show us the battle,--the field,--or the spot where the groans of the wounded rang out on the air that her ear caught it not, and her hand was not there; who wiped the death sweat from the cold, clammy brow, and sent home the message:--"'tis well with him now;" who watched in the tents whilst the fever fires burned, and the pain-tossing limbs in agony turned, and wet the parched tongue, calmed delirium's strife till the dying lips murmured, "my mother" "my wife?" and who were they all?--they were many, my men; their records were kept by no tabular pen; they exist in traditions from father to son, who recalls, in dim memory, now here and there one. a few names were writ, and by chance live to-day; but 's perishing record, fast fading away. of those we recall, there are scarcely a score, dix, dame, bickerdyke,--edson, harvey and moore, fales, wittemeyer, gilson, safford and lee, and poor cutter dead in the sands of the sea; and francis d. gage, our "aunt fanny" of old, whose voice rang for freedom when freedom was sold. and husband, and etheridge, and harlan and case, livermore, alcott, hancock and chase, and turner, and hawley, and potter and hall. ah! the list grows apace, as they come at the call: did these women quail at the sight of a gun? will some soldier tell us of one he saw run? will he glance at the boats on the great western flood, at pittsburg and shiloh, did they faint at the blood? and the brave wife of grant stood there with them then, and her calm stately presence gave strength to his men. and _marie of logan_; she went with them too; a bride, scarcely more than a sweetheart, 'tis true. her young cheek grows pale when the bold troopers ride. where the "black eagle" soars, she is close at his side, she staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath, and the wave of her hand stays the angel of death; she nurses him back, and restores once again to both army and state the great leader of men. she has smoothed his black plumes and laid them to sleep whilst the angels above them their high vigils keep; and she sits here _alone_, with the snow on her brow- your cheers for her, comrades! three cheers for her now. [at this point, as by one impulse, every man in the room sprang to his feet and, led by general w.w. dudley, gave three rousing cheers, while mrs. logan, with her beautiful white head bent low, vainly sought to staunch the fast-falling tears; the air was white with the sympathetic 'kerchiefs of the ladies, and the imposing figure of clara barton standing with uplifted arm, as if in signal for the cheers, so grandly given, completed the historic and never-to-be-forgotten scene.] and these were the women who went to the war: the women of question; what _did_ they go for? because in their hearts god had planted the seed of pity for woe, and help for its need; they saw, in high purpose, a duty to do, and the armor of right broke the barriers through. uninvited, unaided, unsanctioned ofttimes, with pass, or without it, they pressed on the lines; they pressed, they implored, 'till they ran the lines through, and _that_ was the "running" the men saw them do. 'twas a hampered work, its worth largely lost; 'twas hindrance, and pain, and effort, and cost: but through these came knowledge,- knowledge is power,- and never again in the deadliest hour of war or of peace shall we be so beset to accomplish the purpose our spirits have met. and what would they do if war came again? the _scarlet cross floats_ where all was blank then. they would bind on their "_brassards_"[f] and march to the fray. and the man liveth not who could say to them nay; they would stand with you now, as they stood with you then,- the nurses, consolers, and saviors of men. [f] the insignia and arm-band of the red cross worn on the field. note.--returning home from a journey, miss barton was notified in the afternoon that she would be expected to attend the banquet and respond to the toast, "the women who went to the field." as there was little or no time for preparation, the foregoing poem was hastily written, and may almost be considered as impromptu. cuba and the cuban campaign. we had scarcely returned from armenia when paragraphs began to appear in the press from all sections of the country, connecting the red cross with some undefined method of relief for cuba. these intimations were both ominous and portentous for the future, something from which we instinctively shrunk and remained perfectly quiet. "the murmurs grew to clamors loud," and, i regret to say, not always quite kind. there were evidently two richmonds in the field, the one ardently craving food alone, simply food for the dying. the other wanting food and arms. they might have properly been classed under two distinct heads. the one, merely the friends of humanity in its simple sense; the other, friends of humanity also, but what seemed to them a broader and deeper sense, far more complex. they sought to remove a cause as well as an effect, and the muffled cry of "cuba libre" became their watchword. naturally, any general movement by the people in favor of the former must have the effect to diminish the contributions of the latter, too small at best for their purpose, and must be wisely discouraged. thus, whenever an unsuspecting movement was set on foot by some good-hearted, unsophisticated body of people, and began to gain favor with the public and the press, immediately would appear most convincing counter paragraphs to the effect that it would be useless to send relief, especially by the red cross: first, it would not be permitted to land. next, whatever it took would be either seized outright, or "wheedled" out of hand by the spanish authorities in havana. that the spaniards would be only too glad to have the united states send food and money for the use of havana. again, that the red cross being international, would affiliate with spain, and ignore the "cuban red cross" already working there and here. as if poor cuba, with no national government or treaty-making power, could have a legitimate red cross that other nations could recognize or work with. that doubtless the american red cross, flushed with victory in armenia, would be only too glad to enter on another campaign, direct another field, and handle its donations. tired, heart-sore and needing rest, we were compelled to read columns of such reports, and understanding that it was not without its political side and might increase to proportions dangerous to the good name of the red cross, we felt compelled to take steps in self-protection. accordingly through the proper official authorities of both nations, we addressed to the government of spain at madrid a request for royal permission for the american red cross to enter cuba and distribute, unmolested, among its starving reconcentrado population such relief as the people of america desired to send. this communication brought back from spain perhaps the most courteous assent and permission ever vouchsafed by a proud government to an individual request, especially when that request was in its very nature a rebuke to the methods of the government receiving it. not only was permission granted by the crown, the government, the captain-general at cuba, and the queen regent, but to the assent of the latter were added her majesty's gracious thanks for the kindly thought. this cablegram was published broadcast through the associated and united presses in its exact text, with all official signatures duly appended, and over my signature the statement that the american red cross was ready to enter upon the relief of the starving cubans whenever the people of the united states should place at its disposal a sum in money or material sufficient to warrant a commencement of the work. strange to say, so sensational had the tone of our press become, so warped the judgment, so vitiated the taste of its readers, that in the hurried scramble between headlines and the waste basket they failed to discriminate between this announcement of clear, true official relations on the part of a government, with a body which it held sufficiently responsible to deal with officially, and the sensational guess of some representative of the press. it will seem a little singular to any one who should ever take the time to coolly read this account (if such there be), that in response to this announcement not one dollar or one pound ever came or was offered, and the cry for "starving cuba" still went on as if no door had been opened. had the nation gone mad, or what _had_ happened to it? societies of women were formed to raise money; among these the most notable, influential and worthy ladies in american society. they labored, instant in season and out of season, with small results; perfectly unable to comprehend their want of success. i think that dear mrs. thurston, one of their most ardent members, came to comprehend it a little by the strong, prophetic words she spoke to me as months later in havana our carriages rattled and thundered over rocky streets from one hospital of death to another. and this only comparatively a few hours before the cruel, restless sea surged out of that worn, frail body the soul that glowed with the flame of humanity, justice and pity to the last. this state of things continued through the year of 1897, but as the present year of '98 opened the reports of suffering that came were not to be borne quietly, and i decided to confer with our government and learn if it had objections to the red cross taking steps of its own in direct touch with the people of the country, and proposing their co-operation in the work of relief. i beg pardon for the personality of the statement which follows, but it is history i am asked to write: deciding to refer my inquiry to the secretary of state, i called at his department to see him, but learned that he was with the president. this suiting my purpose, i followed to the executive mansion, was kindly informed that the president and secretary were engaged on a very important matter and had given orders not to be interrupted. as i turned to leave i was recalled with, "wait a moment, miss barton, and let me present your card." returning immediately, i entered the president's room to find these two men in a perplexed study over the very matter which had called me. distressed by the reports of the terrible condition of things so near to us, they were seeking some remedy, and producing their notes just taken revealed the fact that they had decided to call me into conference. the conference was then held. it was decided to form a committee in new york, to ask money and material of the people at large to be shipped to cuba for the relief of the reconcentrados on that island. the call would be made in the name of the president, and the committee naturally known as the "president's committee for cuban relief." i was courteously asked if i would go to new york and assume the oversight of that committee. i declined in favor of mr. stephen e. barton, second vice-president of the national red cross, who, on being immediately called, accepted; and with mr. charles schieren as treasurer and mr. louis klopsch, of the _christian herald_, as the third member, the committee was at once established; since known as the central cuban relief committee. [illustration: wreck of the battleship "maine," havana harbor.] [illustration: the prado--principal street in havana.] the committee was to solicit aid in money and material for the suffering reconcentrados in cuba, and forward the same to the consul-general at havana for distribution. my consent was then asked by all parties to go to cuba and aid in the distribution of the shipments of food as they should arrive. after all i had so long offered, i could not decline, and hoping my going would not be misunderstood by our authorities there, who would regard me simply as a willing assistant, i accepted. the consul-general had asked the new york committee to send to him an assistant to take charge of the warehouse and supplies in havana. this request was also referred to me, and recommending mr. j.k. elwell, nephew of general j.j. elwell, of cleveland, ohio, a gentleman who had resided six years in santiago in connection with its large shipping interests, a fine business man and speaking spanish, i decided to accompany him, taking no member of my own staff, but going simply in the capacity of an individual helper in a work already assigned. on saturday, february 6, we left washington for cuba via jacksonville, tampa and key west. thus, with that simple beginning, with no thought on the part of any person but to do unobtrusively the little that could be done for the lessening of the woes of a small island of people, whom adverse circumstances, racial differences, the inevitable results of a struggle for freedom, the fate of war, and the terrible features of a system of subjugation of a people, which, if true, is too dark to name, was commenced the relief movement of 1898 which has spread not alone over the entire united states of america from maine to california, from vancouver to the gulf of mexico, but from the indias on the west, to the indias on the east, and uniting in its free-will offerings the gifts of one-third of the best nations in the world. havana. "we reached havana february 9, five weeks ago, and in all the newness of a strange country, with oriental customs, commenced our work." the above entry i find in my diary. in speaking of conditions as found, let me pray that no word shall be taken as a criticism upon any person or people. dreadful as these conditions were, and rife as hunger, starvation and death were on every hand, we were constantly amazed at the continued charities as manifested in the cities, and small, poor villages of a people so over-run with numbers, want and woe for months, running into years; with all business, all remuneration, all income stopped, killed as dead as the poor, stark forms around them, it was wonderful that they still kept up their organizations, municipal and religious, and gave not of their abundance, but of their penury; that still a little ration of food went out to the dens of woe. that the wardrobe was again and again parceled out; that the famishing mother divided her little morsel with another mother's hungry child; that two men sat down to one crust, and that the spanish soldier shared, as often seen, the loaf--his own half ration--with the eager-eyed skeleton reconcentrado, watching him as he ate. in another instance the recognition might have been less kind it is true, for war is war, and all humanity are not humane. the work was commenced in earnest. i still turn the pages of the diary, which says: "we were called on deck to look at morro castle, which, grim and dark in the bright morning sunlight, skirts the bay like a frowning ogre." we were met at the dock and driven to hotel inglaterra, where letters of welcome awaited us. after paying our official respects, our first business was to meet the committees appointed for the distribution of food. we found them pleasant gentlemen. we were notified of the arrival of the steamship "vigilancia," with fifty tons of supplies, sent by the new york committee; took carriage and drove to the dock. it was a glad sight to see her anchors dropping down into the soil of that starved spot of the earth. we boarded her, met the gentlemanly officers, and saw the goods being put on the lighters. this was the largest quantity of supplies that had yet arrived by any one steamship. in returning to land, we threaded our way through the transports and yachts--among the latter the "new york journal," that had just taken julian hawthorne across from key west--and grandest of all, the polished, shining battleship "maine." she towered above them like a monarch, or rather like an elegant visitor whom all the household felt bound to respect. on landing, we resumed our carriage and drove to los fosos, a large, long building filled with reconcentrados,--over four hundred women and children in the most pitiable condition possible for human beings to be in, and live; and they did not live, for the death record counted them out a dozen or more every twenty-four hours, and the grim, terrible pile of rude black coffins that confronted one at the very doorway, told to each famishing applicant on her entrance what her exit was likely to be. we went from room to room, each filled to repletion--not a dozen _beds_ in all. some of the inmates could walk, as many could not,--lying on the floors in their filth--some mere skeletons; others swollen out of all human shape. death-pallid mothers, lying with glazing eyes, and a famishing babe clutching at a milkless breast. let me attempt no further description. the massacres of armenia seemed merciful in comparison. we went our rounds, and sought the open air; drove to another building of like character, but in a little better condition--one hundred and fifty-six inmates. these persons had been recommended by someone, who paid a little for each, and thus kept them from daily starvation. from here to the third building (the casino), of about an equal number, still a little better off. from here to the fourth building (la yocabo)--two hundred and fifty persons, the best of the reconcentrados. the sisters of charity had recently taken hold of these, and cleanliness and order commenced to appear. the children had books, were being taught, and rooms were fitted out for some kind of industrial training. this place seemed like heaven in comparison. from here to the fifth building, a distributing house, where american rations were given out on sundays to great crowds of people who thronged the streets. this finished, we drove to our warehouse, the san jose, where our supplies were stored. here was what remained of the several shipments which had preceeded us, the result of the tireless and well directed efforts of the new york committee, only so recently established, and so new in its work. possibly three hundred tons of flour, meal, rice, potatoes, canned meat, fruit, bacon, lard, condensed and malted milk, quinine, some of which had come by the first shipment, showing how difficult the distribution had been found to be; and it was not strange that a "warehouse man" had been asked for by the consul general. surely mr. elwell had not a sinecure. somehow the report got abroad that we had brought money for distribution, and a thousand people thronged the hotel. we found among our supplies large quantities of flour, and the people had no way of cooking it. there are no ovens in these oriental countries except those of the baker. consequently only he could make bread of flour. we found a baker with whom we arranged to take our flour and return bread in its place at a fair percentage. "the consul general has named a desire to have an orphanage created, and asked of me to find a building, and establish such an institution. i commence a search among the apparently suitable buildings of the town, but regretting always that i have not his knowledge of the city and its belongings. up to this time the search, although vigilant, has been fruitless. still there are only three days of it all since our arrival, and to-morrow will be sunday." this hopeful entry ended the first half week of life in cuban relief. up to this moment no american food had ever entered los fosos, as the institution was under spanish military and municipal direction. how to get our distributors into proper and peaceful aid there, if not into control, was a politic question. the diary continues: "that sunday morning, fine, clear and warm, brought three matters of interest to our attention: "first. an interview with a householder concerning the orphanage--unsuccessful. "second. the visiting of all the various points, some nine in number, where american food would be distributed for the coming week to the waiting thousands and-"third. a bull fight." one would feel something of the same dread in attempting to describe these gathering moving masses of starving humanity as in picturing the "still life" of los fosos. the children of three and four years old often could not walk and the mother was too weak to carry the burden, and they fell in a heap among the crowd. the food was distributed by tickets, suited to the family and put up in paper bags, for few had any vessel to get it in. at the first place of distribution there were 1000 fed; at the second, 1300; at the third, 2200, and so on--some larger, some less. at one of the larger distributions, when about half served, it was announced that there was no more food and the people were directed to disperse. we inquired the cause and were told there were no more american supplies in havana--that they had been so informed. we could not persuade them that they had been misinformed, that there was plenty of food in the warehouse, but we did succeed in having the disappointed, hungry hundreds called back and told to come again next day and get their food. we never knew how the mistake occurred, but were more than ever convinced that some systematic work must be instituted among the constantly arriving supplies at the warehouse. the task had all along been too great. the next morning took us with proper assistants to san jose, when a systematic inventory of stock as per each shipment was instituted. at 3.30 p.m. our work was interrupted. a cordial invitation from captain sigsbee to visit the "maine" that afternoon had been received. his launch courteously came for us; his officers received us; his crew, strong, ruddy and bright, went through their drill for our entertainment, and the lunch at those polished tables, off glittering china and cut glass, with the social guests around, will remain ever in my memory as a vision of the "last supper." the next day took us again to the warehouse. i cannot refrain from taking the liberty of mentioning my most distinguished volunteer assistant, general ross, a general in our civil war and the uncle of commissioner ross, of washington, d.c. being in havana on a passing tour, and perceiving the need, he volunteered freely to do the work which he had once commanded his under officers to direct their private soldiers to do. it was most intelligent help. while passing quickly among the rows of barrels, with dress pinned back, a letter of introduction from the consul-general was handed to me by a manly, polished-mannered gentleman, on whose playful features there mingled a look of amused surprise, with a tinge of well-covered roguishness and complacency, that bespoke the cultured man of the world. the note, addressed to my hotel, said that the consul took pleasure in introducing to me mr. william willard howard, of new york. although never having met we were by no means strangers. he had worked on the eastern fields of armenia in the hard province of van, while i was in constantinople, and our expeditions in the great centre districts of harpoot and diarbeker. he evidently felt that the surroundings were a little rough and unexpected for a first meeting, but collecting himself, at once rallied me with the grand opportunity i was affording him for a sensational letter to the states, with a cartoon of the president of the american national red cross in a cuban warehouse, with dress pinned back, "opening boxes." he admitted that the latter stroke of the picture was a little stretch of imagination, but he hoped it might realize, as he really wanted it for his cartoon. after a few moments of pleasant badinage he left, under pretext of not hindering me in my favorite occupation of "opening boxes." the next day i was detained at home by an accumulation of clerical work and heavy mails to be gotten off (i had as yet no clerk), but on the return of the men at night they reported a marvelous day's work. that mr. howard had come early in the morning, thrown off his coat, and, calling for a box opener, had opened boxes all day. they had never seen a better day's work. a messenger was immediately dispatched to his hotel, inviting mr. howard to come and dine with us. from that time on, during his stay, he continued to dine with us. we compared methods of relief work with the experiences we had gained, and when we separated it was with the feeling on my part that any work of relief would be a gainer that could enlist men of such views, experience and capacity as mr. howard in its ranks. the heavy clerical work of that fifteenth day of february held not only myself but mr. elwell as well, busy at our writing tables until late at night. the house had grown still; the noises on the streets were dying away, when suddenly the table shook from under our hands, the great glass door opening onto the veranda, facing the sea, flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place--the deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like huge spectres flying in all directions. then it faded away. the bells rang; the whistles blew, and voices in the street were heard for a moment; then all was quiet again. i supposed it to be the bursting of some mammoth mortar, or explosion of some magazine. a few hours later came the terrible news of the "maine." mr. elwell was early among the wreckage, and returned to give me news. the diary goes on. "she is destroyed. there is no room for comment, only who is lost, who has escaped, and what can be done for them? they tell us that most of the officers were dining out, and thus saved; that captain sigsbee is saved. it is thought that 250 men are lost, that one hundred are wounded, but still living, some in hospital, some on small boats as picked up. the chief engineer, a quiet, resolute man, and the second officer met me as i passed out of the hotel for the hospital. the latter stopped me saying, 'miss barton, do you remember you told me on board the "maine" that the red cross was at our service; for whenever anything took place with that ship, either in naval action or otherwise, _someone_ would be hurt; that she was not of a structure to take misfortune lightly?' i recalled the conversation and the impression which led to it,--such strength would never go out easily. "we proceeded to the spanish hospital san ambrosia, to find thirty to forty wounded--bruised, cut, burned; they had been crushed by timbers, cut by iron, scorched by fire, and blown sometimes high in the air, sometimes driven down through the red hot furnace room and out into the water, senseless, to be picked up by some boat and gotten ashore. their wounds are all over them--heads and faces terribly cut, internal wounds, arms, legs, feet and hands burned to the live flesh. the hair and beards are singed, showing that the burns were from fire and not steam; besides further evidence shows that the burns are where the parts were uncovered. if burned by steam, the clothing would have held the steam and burned all the deeper. as it is, it protected from the heat and the fire and saved their limbs, whilst the faces, hands, and arms are terribly burned. both men and officers are very reticent in regard to the cause, but all declare it could not have been the result of an internal explosion. that the boilers were at the two ends of the ship, and these were the places from which all escaped, who did escape. the trouble was evidently from the center of the ship, where no explosive machinery was located. "i thought to take the names as i passed among them, and drawing near to the first in the long line, i asked his name. he gave it with his address; then peering out from among the bandages and cotton about his breast and face, he looked earnestly at me and asked: 'isn't this miss barton?' 'yes.' 'i thought it must be. i knew you were here, and thought you would come to us. i am so thankful for us all.' "i asked if he wanted anything. 'yes. there is a lady to whom i was to be married. the time is up. she will be frantic if she hears of this accident and nothing more. could you telegraph her?' 'certainly!' the dispatch went at once: 'wounded, but saved.' alas, it was only for a little; two days later, and it was all over. "i passed on from one to another, till twelve had been spoken to and the names taken. there were only two of the number who did not recognize me. their expressions of grateful thanks, spoken under such conditions, were too much. i passed the pencil to another hand and stepped aside." i am glad to say that every kindness was extended to them. miss mary wilberforce had been at once installed as nurse, and faithful work she performed. the spanish hospital attendants were tireless in their attentions. still, there was boundless room for luxuries and comforts, delicate foods, grapes, oranges, wines, cordials, anything that could soothe or interest; and no opportunity was lost, nor cost nor pains spared, and when two days later the streets filled with hearses bearing reverently the bodies of martyred heroes; and the crape and the flowers mingled in their tributes of tenderness and beauty, and the muffled drums and tolling bells spoke all that inanimate substance could speak of sorrow and respect; and the silent, marching tread of armies fell upon the listening ear,--the heart grew sick in the midst of all this pageant, and the thoughts turned away to the far land, smitten with horror, and the homes wailing in bitter grief for these, so lone, so lost; and one saw only the: nodding plumes over their bier to wave, and god's own hand in that lonely land to lay them in their grave. we were still in hotel--excellent of course--but a home should be made for the body of assistants it was by this time proposed to send for. i remembered the visit of a lady--one among the hundreds who called the day before--and who impressed me as being no ordinary person. she had the air of genuine nobility and high birth. i had retained her card: senora j.s. jorrin, 528 del cerro. it would be certain i thought that this lady knew something of suitable homes; and we drove to her residence next day, to find one of the loveliest villas in the city, surrounded by gardens, fountains, flowers, baths, a little river rushing through the garden, palms, bananas, cocoanuts, all growing luxuriantly. this was the home of senora jorrin, given her as a wedding gift many years before by her husband, a man of great power in the island, and who had three times represented cuba in the senate of madrid. three months before he had died on a visit to new york. la senora was alone with her retinue of servants, and waiting to make some suitable disposition of her mansion, in order to join her only daughter residing in america. the desired disposition was quickly made, and in the next day or two we were safely installed in our new home, with senora as honorary hostess, to the delight and advantage of all. this pleasant arrangement has never been interrupted, and is the origin of the charming red cross headquarters at cerro, that all our friends and visitors recall with such admiration. i might be pardoned for adding that senora jorrin, who was early called to washington by the sudden death of her beautiful and only daughter, has remained with her grandchildren, and we have continued such loving care as we were able to extend over her palatial home from that time to the present. the diary now makes the following notes, which i remember to have once copied in a letter to some periodical which perhaps published it. i never knew; but will venture to reproduce it here, as the description of the first visit made to any point of the country outside of havana. we were overborne by requests to visit towns and villages filled with suffering and death. the notes run: jaruco. it was a clear warm day. i had retired early to be ready for a five o'clock start for the town of jaruco, some twenty miles away. it was as dark as night when we stepped into the carriage to go to the ferry and the train--damp, heavy, just a morning for chills. some members of the committee joined us at the train, and as daylight and sunrise came, the sight, in spite of neglect and devastation, was magnificently lovely. the stately groves of royal palms looked benignly down on the less pretentious banana and cocoanut, each doing its best to provide for and keep life in a starving, dying people. nine o'clock brought us to the town, where we were met and right royally welcomed by its leading people. the mayor took us in his carriage to the church, followed by a crowd of people that filled its centre. the plain, simple services told in repeated sentences the heart gratitude of a stricken people to god for what he had put into the hearts of america to do. she had remembered them when all was gone, when hunger, pain and death alone remained to them; and when that assemblage of pale, hollow faces and attenuated forms knelt on the rough stone floor in praise to the great giver, one felt if this was not acceptable, no worship might ever hope to be. from the church to the house of the mayor, the judge, the doctor and other principal men of the town. it now remained to see what we had "gone for to see." two hours' wandering about in the hot sunshine from hovel to hovel dark and damp, thatched roof and ground floor, no furniture, sometimes a broken bench, a few rags of clothing; some of the people could walk about, some could not, but all had something to eat. thank god, if not _all_ their lean bodies might crave, still _something_, and while they showed their skeleton bodies and feet swollen to bursting, they still blessed the people of the country that had remembered them with food. the line of march was long and weary, and ended with the "hospital." what shall i say of it? if only a sense of decency were consulted one would say nothing; but truth and facts demand a record. we tried to enter, to reach a poor, wretched looking human being on a low cot on the far side of the room, but were driven back by the stench that met us, not alone the smell one might expect in such a place of neglect, but the dead had evidently lain there unremoved until putrefaction had taken place. there were perhaps four wrecks of men in the various rooms, doubtless left there to die. like a body of retreating soldiers, driven but not defeated, we went a few rods out and rallied, and calling for volunteers and picked men for service, determined to "storm the works." jaruco is one of the great points of devastation; it is said that more people have died there than the entire town numbers in time of peace; it is still almost a city of reconcentrados. naturally, the inhabitants who survive have given all they had many times over in these terrible months. everything is scarce and dear; even water has to be bought. this was the first point of attack. twenty good soldiers, with only dirt and filth as enemies, can make some progress. water by the dray load, lime by the barrel, brushes, brooms, blue for whitewash, hatchets, buckets and things most needful, made up the equipment; and late in the afternoon, when mr. elwell, who might well be termed the "vigilant," returned to look after the work, preparatory to leaving for home, he found the four poor patients in clean clothes, on clean beds, in the sunshine, eating crackers and milk, the house cleaned, scrubbed, limed, and being whitewashed from ceiling to floor. it will be finished to-morrow. sunday and to-day (monday), we ship cots, blankets, sheets, pillow-slips, all the first utensils needed to make a plain hospital for twenty-five, to be increased to fifty--the food to go regularly. the sick, lying utterly helpless in the hovels, to be selected with care and sent to the hospital, a nurse placed with them, the doctor already there in jaruco to attend them, and send frequent reports of condition and needs. in two weeks time we may hope to see, not only a hospital that may bear the name, but progress of its patients that may be noted. i am writing this at length, because it is the first of hundreds that should follow throughout the island, and a type of what we shall endeavor to accomplish. it will naturally be asked if we expect the spanish authorities to permit us to do this. judging from to-day, we have reason to expect every co-operation. the commandant of the town was one of the men who welcomed us; and so far as they had the materials desired, offered them for our use; it was very well, as there were some we could get in no other way. the crowd that followed us was bewildering--the little children in pitiful proportions. we had prepared ourselves for this by a large invoice of five-cent scrip. an intimation of our desire to the priest arranged the matter quickly. all under, perhaps, six to seven years old, were sent into the church to come out at a side door, with mr. elwell and myself on each side as doorkeepers. every pale passing hand took its scrip, and the gladness that beamed in their little wan faces was good for angels' eyes. they rushed into the street, romping and tumbling like actual live children, which they had no longer seemed to be. there was but one more feature to mark this memorable day. after leaving the hospital we were told that a deputation of ladies desired to call on us. we were in the house of a naturalized american citizen, and prepared to receive them. they entered slowly and reverently, the leader bearing a deep plate of choice flowers. as she handed them to me, i perceived in the center a large envelope with a half-inch border of black, and a black ribbon with a tied bow encircling it. the envelope was addressed to me. the first sentence, with tender, trembling voice, told the purport of it all: "for the dead of the maine." the crowd, full of hope and blessing, followed us to the train, and as we passed on, gentle, tender-eyed women came down the banks from their cottages with little baskets of flowers to be passed into the carriage--and ever the black-bordered tribute: "to the dead of the maine." [ black border ] it was long after dark when we reached our new home, and we were weary enough to find it welcome; but glad of our day's work, as a type of many more which we confidently expect will follow. in our banking operations i learned the full address of our excellent hostess, which she had been too modest to name to me: "senora serafina moliner de jorrin." titles: "eccelentisima." "ilustrisima." we have always had occasion to feel those titles to be well deserved. indeed, in groping our way among the poor and helpless, we have found that cuba is not without its diamonds of worth, nobleness and culture. we were still searching diligently for a suitable location for the orphanage which i had been requested to open. through the social relations of senora we were immediately put into communication with senor josã�â© almagro on tulipan street, who placed at our disposal his own private residence, a charming house with large gardens, stables, swimming baths, fruit and flowers. members of the staff, drs. hubbell and egan, together with dr. and mrs. lesser, had meanwhile arrived by steamship from new york. the diary goes on to say in regard to the orphanage, its location and surroundings: "it seems to lack nothing. large, commodious, healthful, easy of access, beautiful to elegance, with tropical gardens, royal palms, swimming baths, and capable of caring for two hundred children, either well or sick,--and for all this the modest, little rent of one hundred and two dollars per month. attention was first directed to this piece of property on saturday, february 27. at night the contract was made and signed. on sunday--"tell it not in gath"--oh, christian world, be gentle in your judgment, if a few men, rather than stand about the streets, hunger-stricken, waiting for the crust that came not, earned a few welcome dollars on its frescoed walls, stained glass windows and marble floors. "on monday seventy-five new cots, blankets, pillows and sheets adorned its spacious rooms. on tuesday, march 1, mrs. dr. lesser, our practical "sister bettina," who had taken the superintendence, made the necessary outfit,--food and medicine from the warehouse; and from los fosos, that terrible den of suffering, the pale lifeless, helpless, starved little creatures to fill the waiting cots--a few good nurses to lift the heads that could not lift themselves and fill the mouths that had scarcely ever before been filled." this, then, was the orphanage. may i be pardoned for saying reverently, we looked on our work and found it good, and felt that we might now leave the little, tired creatures to rest in the faithful hands that had so lovingly and intelligently taken them up, while we turned away to other fields. matanzas. among the welcome, notable persons who from time to time visited us, led by their interest in the great suffering reported through the press, were senator redfield proctor and his friend, hon. m.m. parker, of washington, d.c. they had come imbued with the desire, not only to see the condition of the island and the people, but to try to find as well, what could be done for them,--to gain some practical knowledge which could be used for their benefit. there seemed to be no more certain way of their gaining this information than by inviting them to accompany us on the various tours of investigation which we would be now able to make outside of havana. reports of great suffering had come from matanzas, and it was decided that _that_ should be our next point of inspection. the once-a-day run of the trains made early rising a necessity; and half-past four in the morning, dark and chilly, found us on the way to the train for matanzas. our own small party was joined at the ferry by our washington friends, and together, as the train speeded on, we watched the gorgeous sunrise spread itself over these strangely deserted lands. matanzas has some fifty thousand of its own inhabitants, greatly increased by the reconcentrado element, which had gathered there to exist hopelessly in enforced idleness for nearly two years. it is needless to say that all the diseases incident to exposure, physical want and mental woe, from gaunt, lingering hunger down to actual starvation and death, had developed among them. for some reason--possibly a sense of pity--our consul seemed to dread to show us their worst, which were evidently their hospitals, and hesitatingly led the way to other centres of the town. but there was no hesitancy on the part of the governor, senor francisco de armas--a royal cuban and a new appointee of captain-general blanco--with warm heart and polished manner, in welcoming us to his elegant mansion, and in bringing his wife, his mother and sister, to assist in receiving and to bid us welcome to all they had to offer or that we could desire. the half-hour's seance in that polished marble salon, with its spacious elegance, the deep feelings of the governor, the still deeper sympathy of the ladies, whose daily time is given to the poor sufferers around them, was a scene not to be forgotten. in all that was said, not a word of crimination, nor a disrespectful allusion to any person, or nation, or government; but the glistening eyes and trembling lips when the word _americano_ was spoken, told how deep a root the course of our people had taken in the thrice harrowed soil of these poor broken hearts. but the worst must be seen, and as we drove out of the town we halted for a short call at the municipal hospital, generally attended by sisters of charity, scantily provided it is true, but well cared for; a little is paid per week, either by, or, for each patient in this institution, which helps to keep up the general fund. our welcome by the sisters was most cordial, and we were grateful for every faint smile that passed over each pallid face. a mile further on we came to the four hospitals where nothing was paid, and apparently nothing had. there were between one hundred and two hundred men, women and children, in all stages of hunger and disease. there were empty beds for as many more that could have been thrice filled from the huts outside; but the hospital authorities feared to take more in, lest they die through their inability to feed them. it is not my purpose to detail woe, nor picture horrors; i leave that to others, if more of it must be had; let my few words tell how they were met and how the comfort that could be given, was given, or at least attempted. the purses and the pockets of our entire party were emptied, and as the cold, thin fingers closed feebly over the coin so strange to the touch, the murmured prayer for america fell from every lip. our visit had been one of inspection, returning to havana by the afternoon train. the hospital committee and surgeons had been organized to work under our charge, and begging that one of our red cross men be temporarily assigned to them for their distribution, we turned our steps toward havana, with a thankfulness unspoken in our hearts for the great head of our country who had asked for this food, the great-hearted people who had given it, and the efficient and tireless committee which had organized and sent it. the train of next day took out supplies of cereal foods, condensed milk, malted milk, meal, rice, flour, crackers, meat, fish, farina, tomatoes, canned vegetables and fruits--more than enough to hold those four hospitals comfortable till the promised shipment by the "bergen" from new york, direct to matanzas, should arrive. it was from information gathered by the party on this trip that senator proctor afterward made his speech in the u.s. senate upon the condition of the reconcentrados. [from a speech by senator redfield proctor, of vermont, in the u.s. senate, march 17, 1898.] there are six provinces in cuba, each, with the exception of matanzas, extending the whole width of the island, and having about an equal sea front on the north and south borders. matanzas touches the caribbean sea only at its southwest corner, being separated from it elsewhere by a narrow peninsula of santa clara province. the provinces are named, beginning at the west, pinar del rio, havana, matanzas, santa clara, puerto principe and santiago de cuba. my observations were confined to the four western provinces, which constitute about one-half the island. the two eastern ones are practically in the hands of the insurgents, except a few fortified towns. these two large provinces are spoken of to-day as "cuba libre." havana, the great city and capital of the island, is, in the eyes of the spaniards and many cubans, all cuba, as much as paris in france. but having visited it in more peaceful times and seen its sights, the tomb of columbus, the forts of cabanas and morro castle, etc., i did not care to repeat this, preferring trips in the country. everything seems to go on much as usual in havana. quiet prevails and except for the frequent squads of soldiers marching to guard and police duty and their abounding presence in all public places, one sees little signs of war. outside havana all is changed. it is not peace, nor is it war. it is desolation and distress, misery and starvation. every town and village is surrounded by a trocha (trench) a sort of rifle pit, but constructed on a plan new to me, the dirt being thrown up on the inside and a barbed wire fence on the outer side of the trench. these trochas have at every corner, and at frequent intervals along the sides, what are there called forts, but which are really small block-houses, many of them more like a large sentry box, loop-holed for musketry, and with a guard of from two to ten soldiers in each. the purpose of these trochas is to keep reconcentrados in as well as to keep the insurgents out. from all the surrounding country the people have been driven into these fortified towns and held there to subsist as they can. they are virtually prison yards and not unlike one in general appearance, except that the walls are not so high and strong, but they suffice, where every point is in range of a soldier's rifle, to keep in the poor reconcentrado women and children. every railroad station is within one of these trochas and has an armed guard. every train has an armored freight car, loop-holed for musketry, and filled with soldiers and with, as i observed usually, and was informed is always the case, a pilot engine a mile or so in advance. there are frequent block-houses enclosed by a trocha and with a guard along the railroad track. with this exception there is no human life or habitation between these fortified towns and villages throughout the whole of the four western provinces, except to a very limited extent among the hills, where the spaniards have not been able to go and drive the people to the towns and burn their dwellings. [illustration: havana harbor.] [illustration: captain c.d. sigsbee.] i saw no house or hut in the 400 miles of railroad rides from pinar del rio province in the west across the full width of havana and matanzas provinces, and to sagua la grando on the north shore and to cienfuegos on the south shore of santa clara, except within the spanish trochas. there are no domestic animals or crops on the rich fields and pastures except such as are under guard in the immediate vicinity of the towns. in other words, the spaniards hold in these four western provinces just what their army sits on. every man, woman and child and every domestic animal, wherever their columns have reached, is under guard and within their so-called fortifications. to describe one place is to describe all. to repeat, it is neither peace nor war. it is concentration and desolation. this is the "pacified" condition of the four western provinces. all the country people in the four western provinces, about 400,000 in number, remaining outside the fortified towns when weyler's order was made, were driven into these towns, and these are the reconcentrados. they were the peasantry, many of them farmers, some land-owners, others renting lands and owning more or less stock, others working on estates and cultivating small patches, and even a small patch in that fruitful clime will support a family. it is but fair to say that the normal condition of these people was very different from that which prevails in this country. their standard of comfort and prosperity was not high, measured by our own, but according to their standards and requirements, their conditions of life were satisfactory. they lived mostly in cabins made of palm or in wooden houses. some of them had houses of stone, the blackened walls of which are all that remains to show that the country was ever inhabited. the first clause of weyler's order reads as follows: "i order and command: "first--all the inhabitants of the country now outside of the line of fortifications of the towns shall within the period of eight days concentrate themselves in the town so occupied by the troops. any individual who after the expiration of this period is found in the uninhabited parts will be considered a rebel and tried as such." the other three sections forbid the transportation of provisions from one town to another without permission of the military authority, direct the owners of cattle to bring them into the towns, prescribe that the eight days shall be counted from the publication of the proclamation to the head town of the municipal districts, and state that if news is furnished of the enemy which can be made use of it will serve as a "recommendation." many doubtless did not learn of this order. others failed to grasp its terrible meaning. its execution was left largely to the guerillas to drive in all that had not obeyed, and i was informed that in many cases a torch was applied to their homes with no notice, and the inmates fled with such clothing as they might have on, their stock and their belongings being appropriated by the guerillas. when they reached the town they were allowed to build huts of palm leaves in the suburbs and vacant places within the trochas, and were left to live if they could. their huts are about ten by fifteen feet in size, and for want of space are usually crowded together very closely. they have no floor but the ground, and no furniture, and after a year's wear but little clothing, except such stray substitutes as they can extemporize. with large families or with more than one in this little space, the commonest sanitary provisions are impossible. conditions are unmentionable in this respect. torn from their homes, with foul earth, foul air, foul water and foul food, or none, what wonder that one-half have died and that one-quarter of the living are so diseased that they cannot be saved. a form of dropsy is a common disorder resulting from these conditions. little children are still walking about with arms and chests terribly emaciated, eyes swollen and abdomen bloated to three times the natural size. the physicians say these cases are hopeless. deaths in the streets have not been uncommon. i was told by one of our consuls that people have been found dead about the markets in the morning where they had crawled hoping to get some stray bits of food from the early hucksters, and that there had been cases where they had dropped dead inside the market, surrounded by food. these people were independent and self-supporting before weyler's order. they are not beggars even now. there are plenty of professional beggars in every town among the regular residents, but these country people, the reconcentrados, have not learned the art. rarely is a hand held out to you for alms when going among their huts, but the sight of them makes an appeal stronger than words. the hospitals--of these i need not speak; others have described their condition far better than i can. it is not within the narrow limits of my vocabulary to portray it. i went to cuba with a strong conviction that the picture had been overdrawn; that a few cases of starvation and suffering had inspired and stimulated the press correspondents, and that they had given free play to a strong, natural and highly cultivated imagination. i could not believe that out of a population of one million six hundred thousand, 200,000 had died within these spanish forts, practically prison walls, within a few months past, from actual starvation and disease caused by insufficient and improper food. my inquiries were entirely outside of sensational sources. they were made by our medical officers, of our consuls, of city alcaldes (mayors), of relief committees, of leading merchants and bankers, physicians and lawyers. several of my informants were spanish born, but every time came the answer that the case had not been overstated. what i saw i cannot tell so that others can see it. it must be seen with one's own eyes to be realized. the los fosos hospital, in havana, has been recently described by one of my colleagues, senator gallinger, and i cannot say that his picture was overdrawn, for even his fertile pen could not do more. he visited it after dr. lesser, one of miss barton's very able and efficient assistants, had renovated it and put in cots. i saw it when 400 women and children were lying on the stone floors in an indescribable state of emaciation and disease, many with the scantiest covering of rags, and such rags! and sick children, naked as they came into the world. and the conditions in the other cities are even worse. miss barton and her work need no indorsement from me. i had known and esteemed her for many years, but had not half appreciated her capability and devotion to her work. i especially looked into her business methods, fearing there would be the greatest danger of mistake, that there might be want of system, waste and extravagance, but found she could teach me on these points. in short, i saw nothing to criticise, but everything to commend. the american people may be assured that the bounty will reach the sufferers with the least possible cost and in the best manner, in every respect. and if our people could see a small fraction of the need, they would pour more "freely from their liberal store" than ever before for any cause. when will the need for this help end? not until peace comes and the reconcentrados can go back to their country, rebuild their homes, reclaim their tillage plots, which quickly run up to brush in that wonderful soil and clime, and until they can be free from danger of molestation in so doing. until then the american people must in the main care for them. it is true that the alcaldes, other authorities and relief committees are now trying to do something, and desire, i believe, to do the best they can. but the problem is beyond their means and capacity and the work is one to which they are not accustomed. general blanco's order of november 13 last somewhat modifies the weyler order, but it is of little or no practical benefit. its application is limited to farms "properly defended," and the owners are obliged to build "centres of defense." [illustration: street in cavite showing general aguinaldo's headquarters.] artemisa. whilst these various provisions and improvements in and around havana, in the little orphanage and los fosos were going on, food was going out from the great warehouse upon requisition, to thirty or forty towns and villages in number, which no one had yet had the time to visit; and their first distribution must be made on trust. from many sources we had heard of the needs of artemisa, several miles to the east by rail. as usual, there was but one train daily from havana, and that, like the road we had traveled to jaruco and matanzas on the west, left at six o'clock in the morning, and also meant rising at half-past four, a carriage ride of three-quarters of an hour in the dark. our party again formed, including mr. elwell, drs. hubbell and egan, senator proctor, colonel parker and a few other attendants. the day was clear and fine, affording an excellent opportunity to observe the condition of the country as we passed through. there was entire lack of cultivation; the tall palm threw its stately shadow over miles of desolated, rolling and meadow land; no people in sight save in the little thatched hovels; no cattle, no tools, the rank, wild grass swarding the soil where the richest of crops belong; and we bringing food grown on the sterile fields of north america, among the gravel and rocks, with a quarter of the year under snow, nearly one-half under frost, to a country like this, where the verdure is perpetual and three crops possible, where the rain and the sun never fail, where land is abundant and yet where millions of hands want acres and millions of acres want hands. heavenly father, what is the matter with this beautiful earth that thou hast made! "and, what is man that thou art mindful of him!" eight o'clock in the bright morning sunshine found us at artemisa. a brief examination by carriage served to show us where its defences had once been, now practically abandoned and the field of military activity drawn to other points. we found here a most practical mayor, with two thousand to three thousand people about him almost entirely without food. since november 24, until some three months ago, the spanish government had issued small rations to these people, but these grew less and less, and finally stopped altogether. this small help from the government had saved the people thus far, but they were now beginning to be dangerously hungry. what gladness it was to feel that our provisions would fall in just in time to save, we hoped, the greater portion of those remaining. the district of artemisa had originally 10,000, and the town 2000 inhabitants. into this small number 10,000 reconcentrados had been sent. three thousand of these had died; some had strayed away to other places in the hope of more food and fewer persons to eat it; 5000 still remained. in august 770 persons died--now the death rate is 5 to 6 persons per day, or about 175 per month. we found only one hospital and this for smallpox, far out in the fields, with forty patients. there were three physicians who would be more than glad to make up a hospital--if there were anything to provide it with--attend to it personally, and find women who would care for the sick, as nurses. they were directed to do this at once, and suitable hospital food would be sent to them as soon as their hospital was reported ready for it. they were also directed to gather all the sick in the outlying hovels and bring them into hospitals. one of our physicians would go directly with the food and assist in the establishment of the institution. we remained over night; the distribution of food which had been sent them took place at seven the next morning. their system of tickets was excellent; a better system of relief we had not seen. the mayor himself would visit every family and the physicians the same, until the sick would be all in hospitals. it was a welcome sight at eight o'clock that morning, when the crowd of waiting thousands stood around the mayor, to see the tight hand grasp on the bag of rations, like a godsend from heaven when hope was lost. the mayor had a thousand acres of land lying within the military lines of fortifications, which he offered free for the use of the people, if they could get permission, and if the people could help to cultivate it. in three months, he said, under their own cultivation it would feed them all. our work at artemisa closed at noon and we returned to havana. sagua la grande. referring again to the diary i find the following record: sagua la grande and cienfuegos yet remain within our limits to be reached at once. we have not a day to lose, and again leave at six o'clock for sagua la grande. this means the usual morning ride in the dark, the ferry and the beautiful opening of the day speeding on through a strange land of waste and desolation. our same company assembled, and as we neared sagua we were met by our friend, consul barker, and later on the mayor, senor machado. carriages were taken and inspection made of the reconcentrados, their condition and needs, the land, etc. while there is evidently great want here, there is still an atmosphere of care and effort on the part of the best people and the officials which fills one with an earnest desire to help them on. the best place possible for the poor had been provided by the mayor, and as he passed among them, pointing out to us especial cases and conditions, their eyes followed him with a look of grateful devotion. while sympathizing with all, his deepest care seemed to be for the young girls; to find some occupation for them, and some protection. the plan most feasible to him was the starting of a cigarette factory where the hundreds might be employed, with suitable time for instruction, earn their living, and be kept out of danger. i am glad to know that he is partially succeeding in this, and also that he had, and i think still has, the earnest co-operation of our good consul at sagua, mr. barker. the day had been very fully occupied, and we must remain until morning to witness the operation of the kitchens established by the consul and the mayor, where the poor are fed with well-cooked rice, beans and such vegetables as can be obtained. these people are desperately poor, and need all the help that can be given them, and yet they are not in the condition of the people of matanzas. their doctors are caring for the sick, and the ladies of the town giving every assistance in their power. the mayor again reverts to his great interest in the young girls; "here is the greatest danger of all. can you not help me out with this?" his earnestness made such an impression upon me that i finally asked if he had young daughters of his own. he hesitated a moment, and then with a look of confidence, as if he were about to entrust a secret to me, he replied: "we have an adopted daughter, who is very, very dear to us. she is the sister of miss cisneros, but does not know it, and we have not the courage to tell her. she is some fourteen or fifteen years of age, has read everything regarding miss cisneros, and admires her intensely, but never mistrusts the relationship." "will you not tell her?" i asked. "oh yes; some day," he replied, "and it must be before long; but the relationships are so sweet that my wife and i both dread to break them. of course, some day we must tell her, but we put it off as long as we can." he then explained that the father had been an active patriot and fell under political censure; in his imprisonment the family was broken up, and this little girl, then a mere babe, had been adopted by the mayor and his wife, who were intimate friends of the family. i hope i have not betrayed a trust; but there was a little touch of romance in this--something so sweet and paternal in the relationship--and something altogether so interesting in the thought of this bright young girl reading and admiring the courage and successful exploits of her own sister, without ever dreaming that it was anything to her--it seems really too good a point to keep dark. i trust that the good mayor, if he ever learns that i have betrayed his trust, will forgive me. cienfuegos. although a rather early train on the next day would take us to cienfuegos, the visit to the kitchens with their great, steaming cauldrons of food must not be passed by. although it was simply beans, rice, such other dry vegetables as could be obtained, and the little meat or lard that came with the ration, slowly and thoroughly cooked, it was still a food that any good appetite could appreciate--wholesome, clean and as abundant as the circumstances would permit. it was a pleasure to see the children and the mothers come up with the little pails and buckets and receive the one large ladle of food, steaming hot from the cauldron, and bear it cheerfully away for the coming meal. there was a degree of order and systematic thought in this rarely met under occasions so grave. it will remain ever a happy memory with consul barker and the good mayor of sagua, that under their wise direction this system was instituted and carried out. the courtesies of the railroad were cheerfully extended to us, and without incident worth relating the night found us at cienfuegos. the country round about cienfuegos is favorable to cultivation; the troubles there had been of a less grave nature, consequently the suffering has been less. judging from the report of the consul, there had been very little; but to our stranger eyes, upon personal observation, there were traces of something not compatible with thrift, prosperity and happiness. we were sure that some help might be comfortably given there, and made our preparations accordingly. this also was a visit of investigation, and being tuesday, the next day's boat from havana to the states must take our good friends from us, and an early start, over a long, jolting road, took us from cienfuegos back to havana. back to havana. our journey through the three or four districts had shown us the worst of human suffering, the greatest of desolation, and a degree of discouragement as hard perhaps to rally the people from as the absolute physical conditions under which they existed. we had arranged for food for all. the ships with their various consignments were already on the way, the "fern" to matanzas, a shipment from the philadelphia red cross on the "bergen," also bound for matanzas, from both of which supplies could go forward to artemisa and sagua, for the railroads were generous in giving free transportation; and we were informed that a shipment was also en route for cienfuegos. remembering our own generous shipment of food to matanzas of the third instant, we felt that we might give the time of a day or two to the institutions we were founding and supporting in havana. the little hospital was growing finely, increasing in numbers, and the numbers increasing in strength. the frail, pale creatures were commencing to sit up in bed and hold the playthings that generous friends had brought them by the basketful; some even walked about and tried to play. their heavenly godmother, "sister bettina," was providing everything for their comfort, also for their nurses and the little household that made up a pattern hospital. dr. lesser had established a clinic on the grounds, and under the shade of the great, beautiful garden trees the poor invalids of the town assembled by the hundred each afternoon with the various maladies that misfortune, poverty and neglect had brought them. the gratitude which their strange tongues spoke in evident blessing upon him who had thought to come to their relief, and the great brown eyes that followed him as he turned quickly and gently from one to another, were pictures not to be forgotten. los fosos, on the other hand, was fast losing its terrors. a regular distribution of american food had gone into it, and even rooms were partitioned off for a dispensary, fairly well provided with medicines, and another for clothing and bedding fast filling up from our warehouse were all in grateful operation. all had beds, the floors and stairs were strengthened, and the food went regularly through twice a day among all the waiting inmates. m. sr. j. palacios y airoso, the consul of bolivia, and a member of our committee, had volunteered to take personal charge, and his fine, manly form seen day by day among these poor, suffering creatures, watching and providing their wants, was like a benediction from heaven. and sister bettina, with her band of faithful nurses, soon carried strong traces of order and cleanliness where it had once seemed impossible. the morning that saw our first welcome party of american visitors, senator proctor and friends, leave us, brought another party still larger, among whom were senator and dear mrs. thurston, senator money and nieces, senator gallinger, mr. cummings, mr. smith, and others. it was not only comforting, but hopeful, to see such interest manifested in these dreadful conditions by the highest prestige in our country and those who had it in their power to make these conditions better. we welcomed them with an earnestness they could scarcely comprehend. there was in all these surroundings a feeling akin to horror, an isolation from the world it seemed, and it is not difficult to understand the welcome we gave in our hearts to those who came to us. our new guests visited havana, its institutions, the little orphanage, and the los fosos of that day--a terror to them, but a comfort to us, as we saw it daily growing better and better. matanzas must of course be visited, and another early morning train found our large party en route for that city and the sights that had so distressed us ten days before. although realizing how terrible the state of things must seem to our party of american visitors, we still rejoiced during the entire journey that they were not to see those hospitals in the condition in which we had first found them. our supplies, so promptly and generously sent, we were sure had dulled the keen edge of hunger, and could not fail to show an improvement there. our guests, then, would not see all the terrors of unfed famine that had so shocked us, and we knew that by that time the ships from the north must have arrived. the breakfast at the hotel and a second visit to our hospitable governor brought with them no apprehension of what was to meet us a little later. we drove to the hospitals, to learn that no food had been distributed or received. those whom we had seen dying there on our first visit were gone; others had taken their places, and it was only a repetition of the first visit, with the addition of ten days more of hunger. astonished and shocked beyond description, we drove at once to the railway station, to find in its freight house our four tons of provisions sent from havana ten days before. although every notice had been given by us that the goods would be sent--again that they were sent--and the authorities asked to look out for them, our consul appeared to have no intimation that they were there. the hospital authorities, of course, had none, and it only remained for us to order out the provisions and get something to the patients as quickly as possible, leaving dr. hubbell to see that at last they had a supper. it is not strange that from this event went out the cry of "starving matanzas," although at that moment, in addition to our four tons of goods previously sent, the "fern" lay in the harbor under the american flag, with fifty tons of american supplies, and fifty rods away lay the "bergen," under the same colors, bearing a cargo of fifty-two tons from the philadelphia red cross, faithfully sent through the new york committee, by request. so uncontrollable a thing is human excitement that these facts could not be taken in, and the charities of our whole country were called afresh to arms over "starving matanzas," which was at that moment by far the best provided city in cuba. the result of this was an entire train of supplies from kansas, which, remaining there after the blockade, not being consigned to the red cross, was, we were informed, distributed among the spanish soldiery by the spanish officials. goods bearing the mark of the red cross were everywhere respected, and we have no record of any of _our_ goods having been appropriated by the spanish authorities. the third member of the cuban relief committee of new york, mr. louis klopsch, having arrived, it was perhaps natural and proper that the work of relief and distribution under the consul-general should pass to his direction. accordingly, by request of mr. klopsch, no more visits were made to other cities, and by his direction mr. elwell gave his entire attention to the warehouse, and i continued the very hopeful negotiations i had commenced with the spanish authorities for the privilege of unmolested cultivation by the reconcentrados of the broad glades of land lying within the trochas. in some instances, as around sagua, hundreds of acres lay thus unoccupied by either cubans or spanish, and only the fear of the spanish soldiery from their own side of the trochas prevented the cultivation of this land by the reconcentrados gathered in the towns. in some long and earnest interviews with general blanco i laid this matter before him, and begged his interference and commands on behalf of the safety of the poor people who might desire to cultivate this land. the captain-general said they had the matter already under consideration, and desired me to meet his board of education, who would be glad to co-operate. i met this body of gentlemen--middle-aged, thoughtful, intelligent men. they had already taken some important steps, but were perplexed on both sides; first by the spanish soldiery, liable to attack the workers, likewise the cuban guerillas, who were equally as dangerous. and yet, despite all this, some important steps had really been taken and some little commencement made. i need not say that the exciting news which followed in less than a month put to an end all thoughts of steps in that direction. a new enemy would appear and the ground was likely to be plowed by shells from the monster ships that would line the bay. i met the spanish authorities, not merely as a bearer of relief, but as the president of the american national red cross, with all the principles of neutrality which that implied, and received in return the unfailing courtesy which the conditions demanded. from our first interview to the last sad day when we decided that it was better to withdraw, giving up all efforts at relief, and leave those thousands of poor, dying wretches to their fate, there was never any change in the attitude of the spanish authorities, general blanco or his staff, toward myself or any member of my staff. one of my last visits before the blockade was to the palace. the same kindly spirit prevailed; i was begged not to leave the island through fear of them; every protection in their power would be given, but there was no guarantee for what might occur in the exigencies of war. i recall an incident of that day: general blanco led me to the large salon, the walls of which are covered with the portraits of the spanish officials for generations past, and pointing to the spanish authorities under date of 1776, said, with a look of sadness, "when your country was in trouble, spain was the friend of america. now spain is in trouble, america is her enemy." i knew no answer for this but silence, and we passed out through the corridor of guards, he handing me to my carriage with a farewell and a blessing. i could but recall my experience with the turkish officials and government, where i entered with such apprehension and left with such marks of cordiality. during this interval of time important business had called me to washington, and i only returned to cuba some time during the second week of april, when the diary commences with, "strong talk of war." leaving havana. it is needless to say that the strong talk went on--well or ill, wise or unwise, welcome or unwelcome--it went on. evidently the blockade was near at hand and a declaration of war liable to follow. what should one do but to ask counsel of all within reach? i have given the result of my interview with the spanish authorities; cabling to american authorities brings the answer, "the consul should know best. take no chances." reference to the consul brings the kindly reply, "i am going myself." the order was for all american citizens to leave havana, and the order was obeyed, but not without having laid the matter formally in counsel before my staff of assistants and taking their opinion and advice, which was to the effect that while personally they would prefer to remain for the chance of the little good that might be accomplished, in view of the distress which we should give our friends at home, and, in fact, the whole country, when it should be known that we were inside that wall of fire that would confront us, with no way of extricating or reaching us, it seemed both wiser and more humane to leave. and the ninth of april saw us again on shipboard, a party of twenty, bound for tampa. we would not, however, go beyond, but made headquarters there, remaining within easy call of any need there might be for us. here follow the few weeks of impending war. do we need to live them over? do we even want to recall them? days when the elder men of thought and memory pondered deeply and questioned much! when the mother, patriot though she were, uttered her sentiments through choking voice and tender, trembling words, and the young men, caring nothing, fearing nothing, rushed gallantly on to doom and to death! to how many households, alas, these days recall themselves in tones never to be forgotten! notwithstanding all this excitement and confusion and all the pressure that weighed upon him, our good president still remembered the suffering, dying reconcentrados, and requested that a ship be provided as quickly as possible loaded from the warerooms of the indefatigable cuban relief committee in new york, and be sent for the relief of the sufferers in cuba whenever they could be reached. one need not say with what promptness this committee acted, and i was informed that the "state of texas" laden with fourteen hundred tons of food would shortly leave new york en route for key west, and it was the desire of that committee and the government that i take command of the ship, and with my staff and such assistants as i would select, undertake the getting of that food to its destination. some members of the staff were in new york, and with dr. hubbell in charge sailed from that port on saturday, the twenty-third of april. a hasty trip from washington, gathering up the waiting staff at tampa, and pushing on by the earliest train brought us to key west in time to meet the "state of texas" as she arrived, board her and take charge of the snug little ship that was henceforth to take its place in american history. she was well built, but by no means new, nor handsome. her dull black hull could in no way compare with the snow white, green and red striped hospital ships, those heralds of relief that afterwards graced the waters of that bay. still she was firm, sound, heavy-laden, and gave promise of some good to someone at some future day, that day being only when the great war monsters should have pealed out to the world that an entrance was made on the coast of cuba, and we would be invited to follow. by the authorities at washington, the "state of texas" had been consigned to the protection of the navy, and accordingly we must report our arrival. this was done to the senior officer, representing admiral sampson, in the port, captain harrington, of the monitor "puritan." this brought at once a personal call from the captain with an invitation to our entire staff to visit his beautiful ship the following day. the launch of the "puritan" was sent to take us, and not only was the ship inspected, but the dainties of his elegant tea table as well. when all was over the graceful launch returned us safely to our ship, with grateful memories on the part of the younger members of our company, who had never chanced to form an intimate acquaintance with a piece of shipping at once so beautiful and so terrible, as that death-dealing engine of destruction. i record this visit and courtesy on the part of captain harrington as the first of an unfailing series of kindnesses extended by the navy to the red cross from first to last. there was no favor too great, no courtesy too high to be cheerfully rendered on every occasion. the memories of pitiful cuba would not leave us, and, knowing that under our decks were fourteen hundred tons of food, for the want of which its people were dying, the impulse to reach them grew very strong, and a letter was addressed to admiral sampson. this brought immediately the launch of the "new york" to the side of our ship, and captain chadwick, the gallant officer whom no one forgets, stepped lightly on board to deliver the written message from the admiral, or rather to take me to the "new york." nothing could have exceeded the courtesy of the admiral, but we were acting from entirely opposite standpoints. i had been requested to take a ship, and by every means in my power get food into cuba. he, on the other hand, had been commanded to take a fleet, and by every means in his power keep food out of cuba. when one compared the two ships lying side by side and thought of a contest of effort between them, the situation was ludicrous, and yet the admiral did not absolutely refuse to give me a flag of truce and attempt an entrance into havana; but he disapproved it, feared the results for me and acting in accordance with _his_ highest wisdom and best judgment, i felt it to be my place to wait. by the concurrence of the admiral our letters were both given to the public, and appear elsewhere in these pages, and we remained, as we had been, neighbors and friends. these days of waiting were by no means lost time. the accidents constantly occurring in a harbor filled with transports, kept the surgeons of the red cross constantly in active duty, while the twenty or thirty spanish ships which had been and were being captured as prizes, lay a few miles out, unprovided either by themselves or their captors. they had been picked up whilst out at sea, some of them having no knowledge of the existence of a war and supposing themselves as safe as in the balmiest days of peace. most of them were provided with a little open well in the bottom of the ship where live fish were kept. but for this provision, it is by no means certain that deaths from starvation would not have occurred. the ships were mainly little spanish vessels--their crews honest working men, who knew their ships and the hills and harbors of spain and cuba, and little else--could speak no word of any language but their own--our people, unused to privateering or to the treatment of captives, forgot to provide them, and thus they waited, living on the few fish in their holds, with neither meat, lard, butter, nor oil for their cooking, nor vegetables, nor bread as accompaniments. our men learned this state of things, and naturally attended to it. it is enough for me to say that recently the thanks of all spain, through its red cross, has come back to us for the kindnesses rendered her captive seamen. the days waxed and waned; the summer sun poured its burning rays down on the glistening waters of the bay; the reveille and tattoo warned us that we were in camp, with the little difference between land and sea--waiting for some onward movement. tampa. tampa became the gathering point of the army. its camps filled like magic, first with regulars, then volunteers, as if the fiery torch of duncraigen had spread over the hills and prairies of america; the great ships gathered in the waters; the monitors, grim and terrible, seemed striving to hide their heads among the surging waves; the transports, with decks dark with human life, passed in and out, and the great monarchs of the sea held ever their commanding sway. it seemed a strange thing, this gathering for war. thirty years of peace had made it strange to all save the veterans, with their gray beards, and the silver-haired matrons of the days of the old war, long passed into history. could it be possible that we were to learn this anew? were men again to fall, and women weep? were the youth of this generation to gain that experience their fathers had gained, to live the war lives they had lived, and die the deaths they had died? here was abundant food for reflection, while one waited through the days and watched the passing events. at length the fleet moved on, and we prepared to move with, or rather after, it. the quest on which it had gone and the route it had taken bordered something on the mystery shrouding the days when sherman marched to the sea. where were the spanish fleets? and what would be the result when found and met? and where were we to break that cuban wall and let us in? always present in our minds were the food we carried, the willing hands that waited, and the perishing thousands that needed. we knew the great hospital ships were fitting for the care of the men of both army and navy. surely they could have no need of us, and the knowledge that our cargo was not adapted to army hospital use brought no regret to us. [illustration: citizens of jaruco presenting a memorial for the victims of the "maine."] [illustration: copyright, 1898, by _the christian herald_. little convalescents in hospital.] these days of quiet waiting were like the lull that precedes the storm. the time seemed long regarded only from that standpoint, but when it is remembered that these few days were all that had been allowed for a great nation with thirty years of peace to rouse up and plunge itself into a war, the time seems comparatively short. we had taken possession of our ship at key west on the twenty-ninth of april; it was now the twentieth of june, and the great national records of two countries at least will always give the history of those days. it is our part to keep as clearly, truthfully and kindly as possible the record of the little that fell to us to perform in this great drama. our arrangements for putting out to sea were quickly made. such supplies and such persons as were not to go with us must be landed and left. among the latter, to our deep and lasting regret, was our charming friend, mrs. j. addison porter, who had kindly passed the last weeks with us, leaving us as she did, however, with the comforting promise to return if she should find it possible. all preliminaries arranged, at ten o'clock, the twentieth of june we weighed anchor at key west and steamed for the open sea, having first taken the official advice of commodore remie, commanding the navy at that point, to find admiral sampson and report to him. the twenty-fifth gave us our first view of the water of santiago. our transports and battleships were gathered there, and the advice of admiral sampson was that we proceed to guantanamo, where the marines had made a landing and were camped on the shore. there had been some fighting at guantanamo. the "solace" was there. its harbor was fine, and the run of forty miles was made by noon of that day. whoever has enjoyed the quiet, sheltered harbor of guantanamo will not require to be reminded of it--protected on three sides by beautifully wooded hills. at six o'clock our anchors sunk in the deep still waters, and we had time to look about us and see for the first time the beginning of the war. the marines were camped diagonally along the brow of a beautiful hill. on our right a camp of cubans, and all about us the great monsters with their protruding guns which told of forthcoming trouble. captain mccalla, who was in command of guantanamo, had sent compliments and a launch pointing out our place of anchorage. the courtesies of the navy, so early commenced at key west, were promptly continued. at eight o'clock we received a visit from commander dunlap of the "solace" which, after a long and cordial interview, closed by his proposing to send his launch at ten o'clock the following day to take our entire company for a visit to the "solace" and its fifty wounded men. if that beautiful ship or its management had left room on the records of our country's mead of gratitude for more words of appreciative praise, i should be glad to speak them. only those familiar with the earliest history of the red cross in our country and the methods by which our navy alone of all the red cross nations had gained even an approximately legal place, can judge what the sight of that first naval relief ship on our american waters was to me. it brought back so vividly the memory of the day when president arthur called me to him to carefully explain the conditions of the treaty which he had just signed in 1881, and that congress, having generously included the navy in its treaty for war, he would provide to hold it carefully until the probable widening of the original treaty would include the _navies_ of the world as well as the armies. i was thankful for the _modus vivendi_, which i knew was as welcome to spain as to ourselves, that had made it possible to pick up these poor wounded sailors and given them kindly care among their own, that there were not to be left uncared for, or thrown into land hospitals where everything would be strange to them. my twenty or thirty assistants glided about the polished decks of the magnificent ship, with a kindly greeting for every poor, wounded fellow, and delighted with everything they saw. for me, i had few words, prayerful gratitude, and many memories of the long years of patient waiting that had brought the american red cross even up to the point it had attained. [illustration: location of shore batteries, santiago.] before the day closed news came to us of a more serious character than we had before learned. the daring rough riders had been hardly dealt by; hamilton fish and capron had been killed, and the wounded needed help. wherever they might be, it must be possible to reach them, and it was decided that no time be lost. our men commenced work in the hold of the ship to get at medical supplies and dressings, and the captain took his orders. i find in my diary at the close of that day the following paragraph: "it is the rough riders we go to, and the relief may be also rough; but it will be _ready_. a better body of helpers could scarcely be gotten together." nine o'clock of the same night, june 26, found us in siboney and anchored in its waters, which can scarcely be called a harbor. it seems to be rather an indenture in the coast. shall i be pardoned if i again revert to the diary which, by some means, i found time to hastily pencil: siboney, cuba, _june 27, 1898_. we were wakened at daybreak to see the soldiers filing up over the hill in heavy marching order, forming in lines by ones and twos, winding up, in and out among the hills, higher and higher, like a great anaconda. as we watched them through a glass, they were a moving line trailing on toward the clouds, till lost in the mist, and we can only think as we look at them, on how many or on which is set the mark of death, he knows no more than we, poor fellow, and unthinkingly, perhaps, with his swinging, careless gait, toils up and up and waits for--he knows not what. the hospitals, both american and cuban, are located on the shore just to the right of us, and have been visited by our men during the night. some of their surgeons called on us; all seemed interested in the red cross, but none thought that a woman nurse would be in place in a soldier's hospital; indeed, very much out of place. i suggested that that decision was hard for me, for i had spent a great deal of time there myself. they appeared to understand that perfectly, or were so polite as not to criticise it, but there seemed to be a _later_ line which could not be crossed. the cubans, who had just come into camp, were less conventional and expressed a great desire for any assistance we could give them. "sister bettina" and her four trained "sisters," drs. egan and hubbell went ashore to the hospitals. this had been proposed the evening before at general garcia's headquarters; but they were begged to wait just one day until their hospital could be in a little better order. these "sisters" were not the persons to grant that day of preparation. on the contrary, we were told that as soon as they were fairly in the wards they commenced putting things into order and cleanliness, and worked through the day without interruption, coming home only after dark, tired it must be, but fresh and happy, full of the conviction of a work well done. long before that day's work was ended our own american hospitals alongside commenced to be jealous of the cubans, and believed that they had spoken first. be that as it might, we were equally forgetful, and from that time no distinction between the hospitals was known. dr. lesser, mr. kennan and mr. elwell tramped, for there was no other mode of conveyance, to our advance line within three miles of santiago. they found the artillery up and things nearly ready for attack, which it was thought would be on the following wednesday. [illustration: july fifth in rifle pits.] the sea grew wild and rough; the water was too deep for firm anchorage, and we rocked at such a fearful rate that in pity for the pale faces about me, i begged the captain to draw as near the shore as possible and let, at least, a portion of them onto the land. let them have, if only a few minutes, the solid ground under their feet. he drew up to within two or three hundred feet of the cliff which runs around like a firm sea wall, and succeeded in anchoring; took a boat and tried to land some of our people, but there were no wharves; the poor little seven by nine bench, designated as a wharf, running out into the sea, against which the boats swung and crashed as they tried to land supplies, was all there was, except the narrow beach with a heavy surf. our people declined the landing, and headsick, heartsick and seasick returned to the ship. we had been long without news from the united states; but the next day brought the following dispatch from the new york cuban relief committee: cobb sails wednesday with red cross supply boat. all articles requested by her will be shipped. the launch will be towed from jacksonville. do you want additional nurses? five hundred tons provisions and clothing, also three ambulances complete, shipped to key west warehouse this week from new york. send "state of texas" to new york as soon as can be spared. cobb with red cross boat expects to reach guantanamo july 5 to 10. massachusetts relief ship cannot sail before middle of july. will dispatch schooner with ice within a fortnight. make your requisitions specific in kind and quantity. this was only one of the scores of dispatches reaching us within the few following weeks, and i repeat it here, not as having any special significance, excepting to show the uncertainty and utter instability of all human calculations. analyzing this kind-hearted and well-meant dispatch in the light of the future, we find that neither the red cross supply boat, the steam launch, the massachusetts relief ship, nor the additional nurses ever reached us. the ice schooner proved to be the "mary e. morse," of which mention is made elsewhere. the five hundred tons of provisions shipped to the key west warehouse were distributed there. i name this, not in any spirit of complaint--far from it, indeed--but simply to show still further and make more apparent, if possible, the difficulties attendant upon all work at a field of war. those who have seen only this one war will find these uncertainties and shortcomings very strange, and unaccountable; to me, who had seen other wars, they seemed natural, probably largely inevitable, and quite the thing to be expected, the fatal results of which misfortunes i had spent half my lifetime in instituting measures to prevent or lessen. we were honored next day by a call from an officer of the "olivette," with his assistant. it is not singular, in the light of the great, elegant, newly-fitted ship at his command, that it was difficult for him to realize the use or the necessity of an unpretending little black boat like the "state of texas," or of what service it could be expected to be to an army. we labored to impress upon him the fact that this ship did not come for the war, but was loaded and dispatched weeks before there was any war, and simply waited an opportunity to deliver its cargo to the hungry and naked reconcentrados for whom they were designed. this explanation we hoped would make it apparent to the gentleman, how it was, that our supplies of clothing would not be likely to contain the articles of which he said his ship was in want; it probably never having entered into the minds of our sympathetic generous lady donors of america to provide _pajamas_ for cuban women. anything we _had_ was freely at his service. if we made any attempt at _conversion_ (which i do not now recall), it was simply on the line of a better understanding of red cross methods and principles as connected with his profession, and _not_ a change of heart. with the constant reminders of the sufferings of the people on shore and our inability to reach them, it was a welcome errand brought by a dispatch boat that afternoon from captain mccalla, that if we could get five thousand rations to him before the next thursday morning, he could find a way to deliver them to the refugee families of insurgents and others lying out in the hills and woods beyond his camp at guantanamo, where they had fled for safety. we steamed at once to guantanamo and landed the rations next morning, returning to siboney the same afternoon. the next day our working force was busy all day getting off material to refugees coming in from the mountains. general garcia detailed a detachment to repair pontoons for the purpose of landing the supplies. captain mccalla cabled for twenty thousand rations for refugees, to be delivered at guantanamo by sunday. our red cross sisters and surgeons were all busy at the cuban hospital, when the following letter from major le garde was received: to miss clara barton, _president american national red cross_: i have the honor to request your assistance in caring for the patients in a so-called hospital near the landing at this point. the orders are to the effect that all patients now under treatment on the shore shall be transferred to the "iroquois" and "olivette," but the facilities for carrying out this order are apparently inadequate. in order that the divisional hospital may remain unhampered for the care of the wounded in the engagement about to take place, it is necessary for me to request this favor of you, and i trust that you may find it possible to comply with said request. your obedient servant, louis a. le garde, _major and surgeon, u.s.a., commanding hospital_. to this the following reply was immediately returned: steamship "state of texas," siboney, santiago de cuba, _june 30, 1898_. dr. louis a. le garde, _major and surgeon, u.s.a., commanding hospital_: major:--permit me, i pray you, to express the great pleasure given me by your cordial letter inviting the assistance of the persons here under my direction in the care of the sick and wounded of the engagement about to take place. although not here as a hospital ship by any means, nor legitimately fitted for the work, still we have some hospital supplies, a few intelligent workers, skill, intrepidity, experience, the willingness to serve, the readiness to obey, and i believe, the true spirit of the red cross, that seeks to help humanity wherever its needs exist. i send them to you in the hope that they may be of service. with grateful appreciation, i am, doctor, most cordially yours, clara barton, _president american national red cross_. in the afternoon of this day some members from our ship went ashore and visited the cuban hospital and general garcia's headquarters, which that general, on leaving siboney had graciously ordered to be placed "at miss barton's disposal as headquarters for herself and her staff." it was found, however, that the building would be required by the military, and the matter was given no further consideration. on the first of july dr. and mrs. lesser with their assistants went early ashore to work in the hospitals, both united states and cuban. the transport "harvard" arriving with troops, demanded our anchorage, and on coming out of the harbor to give place to her, we saw that a bombardment of aguadores, five miles to the west, was taking place. a battleship, perhaps the "oregon," the flagship "new york" and a little cruiser were standing in near the shore, the latter keeping up a rapid fire, which was responded to by the batteries on both sides of a ravine which the railroad crossed. we ran down as close as safety permitted and watched the engagement from the bridge of our own ship. the two large ships then drew in and shelled the ravine, apparently silencing the batteries. when we returned to siboney we learned that our troops had been fighting all day, and that large numbers of wounded were walking or being brought in for treatment. the red cross had been requested to take entire charge of a fever hospital of united states troops, which it did. dr. and mrs. lesser and two of the sisters were assisting in the operating tent. all of us worked nearly through the night--the nurses and physicians as above stated; the others taking out supplies for wounded--one hundred cots, bedding, hospital utensils, medicine, food, etc. the reports were that we had taken and held all the commanding positions around santiago, but that it had cost us four hundred men. the diary of july 2 says: the day opened cool and fresh, and although having worked steadily until three o'clock the night previous, when they had been brought back to the ship for a little rest, the sisters were ready for work at half-past six. sisters anna and isabell had been on duty all night, and must now be relieved. dr. egan and mr. kennan made ready for the front, the former to have a field hospital. with a portion of my assistants i go ashore to visit the hospitals in the early part of the day, to learn if anything further can be done for them. we find the wounded coming in rapidly, long rows of hospital tents being filled with them, and many waiting their turn on the operating tables. we learned that the officers had suffered very severely, having been picked off by spanish sharpshooters. a note came by messenger from mr. kennan at the front, saying that by order from general shafter's headquarters "miss barton was directed to seize any empty wagons coming in and send by them hospital supplies, medical stores, which were badly needed at the front." this direction would of course be filled as far as possible; the supplies would be gotten out and sent, and it was decided that myself and as many of our assistants as could be spared go with them the next day. these were anxious, trying days throughout the whole country. all america was astir, once more in the dreaded throes of war. another dispatch from our committee at new york reveals this state of feeling: new york, _july 2, 1898_. barton, _santiago de cuba_: government transport "port victor" sailing new york, wednesday via tampa takes all our supplies to santiago. look out for arrival. twenty-five nurses go there tuesday; more follow; order them forward if needed. report your actions. people anxious. to which the following reply is returned: dispatch received. lesser's force attending wounded here constantly coming in. elwell and force landing supplies in the surf at night, without dock, under great difficulties and dangers. an urgent appeal from the front for medicines and food. none there. will try to get two four-mule wagons full to them to-night and go ourselves. have reported all we could. no telegraph here till to-day. no dispatch boats. no post-office. we also anxious. july 3 opened clear and bright, the commencement of a hard and busy day, to be long remembered. our shippers had been landing supplies all night and keeping such guard over them on the sandy beach as was possible. the daily record of our movements kept always up and open, like the log of the ship, must now fall to the hands of our faithful stenographer, miss lucy graves, and taking up her duties bravely that day, she commences with this paragraph: "miss barton, with dr. and mrs. gardner, dr. hubbell and mr. mcdowell, leave for the front to-day, taking two six-mule wagon loads of hospital supplies." to the young writer it was a simple note in the records of the day, having no special significance. as my eye glanced over it it seemed very strange--passing strange, that after all this more than a quarter of a century i should be again taking supplies to the front of an army in the united states of america; that after all these years of red cross instruction and endeavor, it was still necessary to promiscuously seize an army wagon to get food to wounded men. i hope in some way it may be made apparent to any one who follows these notes how difficult a thing it was to get this food from our ship to the shore. in a surf which after ten o'clock in the morning allowed no small boat to touch even the bit of a pier that was run out without breaking either the one or the other, and nothing in the form of a lighter save two dilapidated flat boat scows which had been broken and cast away by the engineer corps, picked up by ourselves, mended by the cubans, and gotten in condition to float alongside our ship and receive perhaps three or four tons of material. this must then be rowed or floated out to the shore, run on to the sands as far as possible, the men jumping into the water from knee to waist deep, pulling the scow up from the surf, and getting the material on land. this was what was meant by loading the "seized wagons from the front" and getting food to the wounded. after ten o'clock in the day even this was impossible, and we must wait until the calm of the next morning, three or four o'clock, to commence work again and go through the same struggle in order to get something to load the wagons for that day. our supplies had been gotten out, all that could be sent that day for the heavy surf, and among the last, rocking and tossing in our little boat, went ourselves, landing on the pier, which by that time was breaking in two, escaping a surf which every other moment threatened to envelop one from feet to head, we reached the land. our wagons were there already loaded with our best hospital material,--meal, flour, condensed milk, malted milk, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruits, canned fruits, canned meats, and such other things as we had been able to get out in the haste of packing--entirely filling the two wagons. an ambulance had been spoken of, but could not be had. we walked out a little way to wait for it. dr. hubbell left our party and went again in search of an ambulance, notwithstanding the assurance that an army wagon would answer our purpose quite as well. these were going line by line up to the front, mainly with ammunition. we waited a little by the roadside; the doctor did not return; our own wagons had gone on, and stopping another loaded with bales of hay, we begged a ride of the driver, and all took our seats among the hay and made our way once more to the front. the road was simply terrific--clayey, muddy, wet and cut to the hub. a ride of about four hours brought us to the first division hospital of the fifth army corps, general shafter's headquarters. this was properly the second day after the fight. two fearful nights had passed. the sight that greeted us on going into the so-called hospital grounds was something indescribable. the land was perfectly level--no drainage whatever, covered with long, tangled grass, skirted by trees, brush and shrubbery--a few little dog tents, not much larger than would have been made of an ordinary tablecloth thrown over a short rail, and under these lay huddled together the men fresh from the field or from the operating tables, with no covering over them save such as had clung to them through their troubles, and in the majority of cases no blanket under them. those who had come from the tables, having been compelled to leave all the clothing they had, as having been too wet, muddy and bloody to be retained by them, were entirely nude, lying on the stubble grass, the sun fitfully dealing with them, sometimes clouding over, and again streaming out in a blaze above them. as we passed, we drew our hats over our eyes, turning our faces away as much as possible for the delicacy of the poor fellows who lay there with no shelter either from the elements or the eyes of the passers-by. getting past them as quickly as possible, and seeing a smoke ahead of us, and relying upon the old adage that where there is smoke there must be fire, we went to it. a half-dozen bricks had been laid about a yard apart, a couple of pieces of wagon-tire laid across these, so low and so near the ground that no fire of any strength or benefit could be made, the bits of wet wood put under crosswise, with the smoke streaming a foot out on each side, and two kettles of coffee or soup and a small frying-pan with some meat in it, appeared to be the cook-house for these men. they told us there were about eight hundred men under the tents and lying in the grass, and more constantly coming in. i looked at the men who had constructed and who had charge of that "fireplace," and saw how young and inexperienced the faces were, and how little they _could_ know of the making up of a camp, and how unsatisfactory it must all be to themselves, and was filled with a sense of pity for them as well as the poor sufferers they were trying to serve. i looked around for the faces of some old veterans of the wars before, who could bring a little knowledge gained from practice. there were none there, but here was our own mcdowell, with a record of four years and twenty-six battles in the old civil war, and after a few moments' consultation as to the best method to be pursued, we, too, gathered stones and bricks and constructed a longer, higher fireplace, got more wagon-tires, found the water, and soon our great agate kettles of seven and ten gallons were filled. but the wood! it was green, not resinous as the wood of some islands. in corsica, for instance, one may take the green, wet wood and make a blazing fire. the wood of cuba is beautiful in quality, but hard and slow to burn. the rain, that had been drizzling more or less all day, increased. our supplies were taken from the wagon, a piece of tarpaulin found to protect them, and as the fire began to blaze and the water to heat mrs. gardner and i found the way into the bags and boxes of flour, salt, milk and meal, and got material for the first gallons of gruel. i had not thought to ever make gruel again over a camp-fire; i cannot say how far it carried me back in the lapse of time, or really where or who i felt that i was. it did not seem to be me, and still i seemed to know how to do it, and when the bubbling contents of our kettles thickened and grew white with the condensed milk, and we began to give it out, putting it in the hands of the men detailed as nurses and of our own to take it around to the poor sufferers shivering and naked in the rain, i felt again that perhaps it was not in vain that history had reproduced itself. and when the nurses came back and told us of the surprise with which it was received and the tears that rolled down the sun-burned, often bloody, face into the cup as the poor fellow drank his hot gruel and asked where it came from, who sent it, and said it was the first food he had tasted in three, sometimes in four, days (for they had gone into the fight hungry), i felt it was again the same old story, and wondered what gain there had been in the last thirty years. had anything been worse than this? but still, as we moralized, the fires burned and the gruel steamed and boiled and bucket after bucket went out, until those eight hundred men had each his cup of gruel and knew that he could have another and as many as he wanted. the day waned and the darkness came and still the men were unsheltered, uncovered, naked and wet--scarcely a groan, no word of complaint; no man said he was not well treated. the operating tables were full of the wounded. man after man was taken off and brought on his litter and laid beside other men and something given him to keep the little life in his body that seemed fast oozing out. all night it went on. it grew cold--for naked men, bitter cold before morning. we had no blankets, nothing to cover them, only as we tore off from a cut of cotton cloth, which by some means had gotten on with us, strips six or seven feet long, and giving them to our men, asked them to go and give to each uncovered man a piece that should shield his nakedness. this made it possible for him to permit us to pass by him if we needed to go in that direction. early in the morning ambulances started, and such as could be loaded in were taken to be carried back over that rough, pitiless road down to siboney to the hospitals there, that we had done the best we could toward fitting up--where our hundred cots and our hundred and fifty blankets had gone, and our cups and spoons and the delicacies that would help to strengthen these poor fainting men if once they could get there, and where also were the sisters under dr. lesser and dr. le garde to attend them. they brought out man after man, stretcher after stretcher, to the waiting ambulances, and they took out seventeen who had died in the night--unattended, save by the nurse--uncomplaining, no last word, no dying message, quiet and speechless life had ceased and the soul had fled. by this time dr. hubbell had returned for he had missed our wagons the day before and gone at night for more supplies. this time came large tarpaulins, more utensils, more food, more things to make it a little comfortable--another contribution from the surf of siboney. we removed our first kitchens across the road, up alongside the headquarter tent of major wood in charge of the camp. the major is a regular army officer, brusque, thickset, abrupt, but so full of kind-hearted generosity that words cannot do justice to him. he strove in every way to do all that could be done. he had given us the night before a little officer's tent into which we had huddled from the pouring rain for a few hours in the middle of the night. the next day, although no tent so spacious as that could be had, a little baby tent it seemed, of about seven feet, was found, pitched alongside of the other, the tarpaulins put over, a new fireplace made near us, magnificent in its dimensions, shelter given for the boxes, bags and barrels of supplies that by this time had accumulated about us. there was even something that looked like tables on which mrs. gardner prepared her delicacies. the gruel still remained the staple, but malted milk, chocolate and rice had come in, and tea, and little by little various things were added by which our _mã�â©nage_ became something quite resembling a hotel. the wounded were still being taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit in a barrel. those which would bear transportation were taken away, the others left where they were. the numbers grew a little less that day. i ought not neglect mentioning the favorite and notable drinks which were prepared, for it will seem to the poor, feverish men who partook of them that they ought to be mentioned--they will never forget them. they have not even yet ceased to tell through the hospitals that they fall into later of the drink that was prepared for them at the fifth corps hospital. we had found a large box of dried apples, and remembering how refreshing it would be, we had washed a quantity, put it in a large kettle, filled it with water and let it soak. it happened to be a fine tart apple, and the juice was nearly as good as wine. perhaps no wine had ever seemed so good to those men as a cup of that apple water, and when they tasted it tears again ran down their faces. to their poor, dry, feverish mouths it was something so refreshing that it seemed heaven-sent. the next day a box of prunes was discovered, and the same thing was done with that; a richer, darker juice was obtained, and this also took its place among the drinks prepared at the fifth corps hospital. the apple and prune juice will remain, i suspect, a memorial for that poor neglected spot. by the third day our patients seemed strong enough that we might risk food as solid as rice, and the great kettles were filled with that, cooked soft, mixed with condensed and malted milk, and their cups were filled with this. it was gratifying to hear the nurses come up and say: "i have sixteen men in my ward. so many of them would like rice; so many would like malted milk; so many would like gruel; so many would like chocolate, and a few would like a cup of tea; and another, who is feverish, would like only some apple or prune juice,"--and taking for each what he called for, go back to his patients as if he had given his order to the waiter at a hotel; and the food that he took was as well cooked, as delicate and as nice as he could have gotten there. the numbers were now getting considerably less--perhaps not over three hundred--and better care could be taken of them. a dispatch on thursday afternoon informed me that mrs. j. addison porter would be on the hospital ship "relief" coming into siboney that day. i would of course go to meet her. it was a great joy to know that she would return to us. we at once decided that an army wagon should be asked for from headquarters and a party of us go to siboney, both for mrs. porter and more supplies. the roads were getting even worse--so bad, in fact, that i dared not risk an ambulance, an army wagon being the only vehicle strong enough to travel over it. we had blankets and pillows and the ride was fairly comfortable; but it was late, nine o'clock, before we reached siboney. the "state of texas," which in the last three days had made a trip to port antonio for ice, we thought must be back by that time, and on reaching siboney, found that she had arrived that evening at five o'clock and was lying at her old anchorage. but there was no way of communicating with her in order that a boat might be sent for us. everything was tried. we had no signals; there was no system of signaling on the shore by which we could reach her or, in fact, any other boat. there was no way but to remain where we were until morning. it was proposed that i go to the rooms assigned for the hospital assistants. i decidedly refused this, for every reason. i knew the buildings were not to be trusted, and persons nursing day and night among all kinds of patients were not the people to room with. i asked to be allowed to remain in my army wagon. this was not thought proper. i suggested that it might be drawn out anywhere, the mules taken off, and i be left with the blankets and pillows. i thought it, in fact, a good place for any one to sleep, and ventured to recommend it as an old-time method--a refuge which once would have been palatial for me on the war-swept fields of old virginia, or in the drifting sands of morris island--what would that have been the night after antietam or old fredericksburg, chantilly or the wilderness? but the newer generation could not see it so; a building must be had somewhere, and as i refused the hospital appendage in toto, it was proposed that i enter the post-office, a room there being offered to me. the postmaster and deputy postmaster, who felt themselves under obligation to us, came out to our men and insisted that i occupy a room in that building. such a courtesy could not be gainsaid, and against all feeling of acquiescence, and with a terrible dread, as if there were something so wrong about it, i allowed myself to be helped out of the wagon and entered the house. the postmaster sat down and talked with me a little while. i thought he seemed ill. it appeared to be an effort for him to talk. i had never met him before, but my heart went out in sympathy for him. i feared i was taking his room, as was indeed the case, although he did not admit it. i was shown into a large room with one cot, one table, cheerless, bare, with an outside door, and a candle without a stick burning upon the table. the men went outside and laid down upon the steps for the night. i laid down upon the stretcher. it was impossible for me to remain there. something constantly warned me to leave it. i got up, went to the outside door, looked out upon the night and darkness and waited for the gray of the morning. i went out and stood upon the beach beside the sea and waited more and more, until finally some of the men appeared and i went with them down to the water. i might as well say here, as i will not refer to it again, that six days after, when i returned, they told me that the rightful occupant of the cot--the postmaster who had seemed so ill--had died of a fever raging here that they called "yellow fever." i had occupied his cot and he had gone to heaven. i wondered who it was that so continually warned me that night to keep away from that room, away from the cot, away from all connected with it, when i had not the slightest suspicion of anything wrong. "yellow fever" was then not talked of. did some one tell me? i do not know, but something told me. while standing at the dock, dr. smith, of the "olivette," who had taken a ride with us to the front a day or two before, approached, and kindly asked if he could place his boat at my service, and if i would go to the "olivette" with him. i replied that i would go to the "relief," if he would be so kind as to take me there, for a friend whom i had on board. he did so, and as we drew around the side of the elegant white and green striped boat in full navy regulation, the men in white duck appeared on the decks above and below, a half dozen ladies' faces showing among them, but most notably the good, substantial, matronly looking lady who had left us a few days before--mrs. porter. it occurred to me that she had possibly come by invitation to remain on the "relief" and aid in the charge of the nurses, and would make this explanation to me, but was agreeably surprised when i saw a satchel and a package or two coming down the steps immediately followed by mrs. porter herself. i could scarcely believe that she was leaving that elegant boat to come over to the obscure "state of texas." but so it was, and, taking her seat in the boat, we rowed around to the "olivette," where dr. smith left us, and was replaced by a major-surgeon, who would escort us over to the "texas," only some rods distant. i did not at once recall him, but among his first remarks were, "you have been at the front?" "yes, major." "i should think you would find it very unpleasant there." "such scenes are not supposed to be pleasant." "what do you go for?" i scarcely know what reply was made to this abrupt question, but the significance was that possibly we could be useful there. "there is no need of your going there--it is no place for women. i consider women very much out of place in a field hospital." "then i must have been out of place a good deal of my lifetime, doctor, for i have been there a great deal." "that doesn't change my opinion, and if i had my way, i would send you home." "fortunately for me, if for no one else, doctor, you have not your way." "i know it, but again that doesn't change my opinion. i would send you home." by this time we were rowing pretty near our own boat, and it was admissible for me to maintain the silence that i felt dignity called for. i made no other remark to him beyond "good morning, major," as we separated for our respective ships. this is a foolish little episode to enter in one's diary, not worth the time of writing, especially in days like these, only as it will serve as a landmark, a kind of future milestone noting the progress of humane sentiment, and the hopeful advancement of the civilization and enlightenment of the world. only a few years ago the good major would have actually possessed the power of which this advancement has relieved him. finding an accumulation of work at our ship, large mails from the north having arrived, it was monday before we could return to the front, mrs. porter accompanying us. this journey was also made in an army wagon, and a wretched, miserable wagon it was. we found the camp in perfect running order. mrs. gardner had stood like a rock through it all, neglecting nothing, quiet, calm, peaceful, faithful, busy--how well she had done, i have no words to express. everybody grateful to her, everybody loving her. the camp had now from one hundred to two hundred men. there began to be strong talk of yellow fever, not only at siboney but at the front as well. [illustration: the physicians and nurses of the orphanage and clinic in havana.] [illustration: clara barton and george kennan. a conference on deck--state of texas. cuban soldiers marching to front from siboney. dr. gardner. state of texas. dr. hubbell--state of texas. children of our cuban hostess siboney. dr. egan. state of texas.] the negotiations between general shafter and the spanish army at santiago were still going on. the flag of truce that threatened every day to come down still floated. the spanish soldiers had been led by their officers to believe that every man who surrendered (and the people as well), would be butchered instantly the city should fall and the american troops should come in. but when general shafter commenced to send back convoys of captured spanish officers, their wounds faithfully dressed and carefully placed on stretchers and borne under flags of truce to the spanish lines at santiago and set down at the feet of the general as a tender gift back to him, and when in astonishment he learned the object of the flag of truce and sent companies of soldiers to form in line and present arms while the cortege of wounded were borne through by american troops, a lesson was learned that went far toward the surrender of that city. i happened to know that it was not without some very natural home criticism that general shafter persisted in his course in the face of the time-honored custom of "hostages." one can readily understand that the voluntary giving up of prisoners, officers at that, in view of an impending battle might seem in the light of old-time army usages a waste, to characterize it by no harder term. it is possible that none of the officers on that field had ever read the articles of the treaty of geneva or fully realized that that treaty had become a law or that their commander, possibly without fully realizing it himself, was acting in full accord with its wise and humane principles. the main talk of the camp was now "yellow fever." on monday night occurred one of the most fearful storms which i have ever seen--rain, thunder and lightning. our tent had been well protected and deeply ditched, but the water rolled around it in the ditches like rivers. the thunder shook the ground; the lightning blazed like a fire. as i have said, the camp was as level as a floor. no water could really run off. during the most of that night the men in the tents laid in five to six inches of water. before daybreak the rain had ceased, some water had run away--some soaked in--and the ground was passable. the next day followed another rain. it was now discovered by the medical authorities that from there having been at first one case of fever, there were now one hundred and sixteen; that a fever camp would probably be made there and the wounded gotten away. it was advisable then that we return to our ship and attempt, as far as possible, to hold that free from contagion. i was earnestly solicited to do this in view of what was expected of our ship and of what was expected of us--that we not only protect ourselves, but our cargo and ship from all contamination and even suspicion. i faithfully promised this, and again we called for an army wagon, leaving all supplies that were useful for the men here, sending to caney what was most needed there and taking only our personal effects, we again placed ourselves in an army wagon with a tarpaulan over us and started for siboney. in less than twenty minutes the rain was pouring on us and for two hours it fell as from buckets. the water was from a foot and a half to two feet deep in the road as we passed along. at one time our wagon careened, the mules were held up, and we waited to see whether it should go over or could be brought out--the water a few inches only from the top of the lower side. it was scarcely possible for us to stir, hemmed in as we were, but the men from the other wagons sprang to our wheels, hanging in the air on the upper side, and we were simply saved by an inch. the mud and water was at least two and one-half feet deep where we should have gone down. but like other things, this cleared away. we came into siboney about three o'clock, in a bright glare of sunshine, to find the town utterly burned, all buildings gone or smoking, dr. and mrs. lesser and the faithful sisters as well, in a "yellow fever" hospital a mile and a half out of the city, reached by rail. all customary work was suspended. the atmosphere was thick and blue with smoke. men ran about the grounds smutted and bareheaded like children. my medical knowledge was not sufficient to allow me to judge if everybody there had the yellow fever, but general observation would go far toward convincing a very ordinary mind that everybody had gone crazy. all effort was made to hold our ship free from suspicion. the process of reasoning leading to the conclusion that a solid cargo, packed in tight boxes in the hold of a ship, anchored at sea, could become infected in a day from the land or a passing individual, is indeed, an intricate process; but we had some experience in this direction, as, for instance, captain mccalla in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around guantanamo had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could bring them to him soon, he could get them to the thousands starving in the woods. we lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the night. on reaching guantanamo we were met at a distance out and called to, asking if anyone on our ship had been on shore at siboney within four days, if so, our supplies could not be received, and we took them away, leaving the starving to perish. on friday morning the constantly recurring news of the surrender of santiago was so well established that we drew anchor and came up to the flagship and the following letter was addressed to admiral sampson: "state of texas," _july 16, 1898_. admiral sampson, _commanding united states fleet off santiago, flagship "new york"_: admiral:--it is not necessary for me to explain to you my errand, nor its necessity; both your good head and heart divine it more clearly than any words of mine can represent. i send this to you by one of our men, who can tell you all you will wish to know. mr. elwell has resided and done mercantile and shipping business in santiago for the last seven years; is favorably known to all its people; has in his possession the keys to the best warehouses and residences in the city, to which he is bidden welcome by the owners. he is the person appointed four months ago to help distribute this food, and did so with me until the blockade. there seems to be nothing in the way of our getting this 1400 tons of food into a santiago warehouse and giving it intelligently to the thousands who _need_ and _own_ it. i have twenty good helpers with me. the new york committee is clamoring for the discharge of the "state of texas," which has been raised in price to $400 a day. if there is still more explanation needed, i pray you, admiral, let me see you. respectfully and cordially, (signed) clara barton. this was immediately responded to by captain chadwick, who came on board, assuring me that our place was at santiago--as quickly as we could be gotten there. on saturday, the sixteenth, feeling that it might still be possible to take the supplies to guantanamo, requested by captain mccalla, a letter was addressed as follows: steamship "state of texas," _july 16, 1898_. captain chadwick, _flagship "new york" off santiago_: captain:--if there is a possibility of going into santiago before to-morrow morning, please let me know, and we will hold just where we are and wait. if there is _no_ possibility of this, we could run down to guantanamo and land captain mccalla's 100,000 rations in the evening and be back here to-morrow morning. will you please direct me. yours faithfully, clara barton. reply to the above: u.s. flagship "new york," 1st rate, off santiago de cuba, _july 17, 1898_. dear miss barton:--we are now engaged in taking up mines, just so soon as it is safe to go in your ship will go. if you wish, you can anchor in near us, and send anything up by boats, or, if we could get lighters, drawing less than eight feet, food may be sent by the lighters, but it is not yet possible for the ship to go in. there are four "contact" mines, and four what are known as "observation" mines, still down. yours very truly, (signed) f.e. chadwick it was after this that we turned back again and steamed to guantanamo to unload our supplies at night and return the next morning. these were anxious days. while the world outside was making up war history, we thought of little beyond the terrible needs about us--if santiago had any people left, they must be in sore distress, and el caney--terrible el caney--with its thirty thousand homeless, perishing sufferers, how could they be reached? the diary at this point says: on returning from our fruitless journey to guantanamo we stopped at siboney only long enough to get our dispatches, then ran down directly in front of santiago and lay with the fleet. a personal call from admiral schley, captain cook and other officers served to show the interest and good will of those about us. between three and four o'clock in the afternoon a small spanish steamer--which had been among the captures of santiago--ran alongside and informed us that an officer wished to come aboard. it proved to be lieutenant capehart, of the flagship, who brought word from admiral sampson that if we would come alongside the "new york," he would put a pilot on board. this was done and we moved on through waters we had never traversed--past morro castle, long, low, silent and grim--past the spanish wrecks on the right--past the "merrimac" in the channel, which hobson had left. we began to realize that we were alone, of all the ships about the harbor there were none with us. the stillness of the sabbath was over all. the gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us. the lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on either side, and tinged the waters calm and still. the silence grew oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. we saw on the right as the only moving thing a long slim boat or yacht dart out from among the bushes and steal its way up half hidden in the shadows. suddenly it was overtaken by either message or messenger, and like a collared hound glided back as if it had never been. leaning on the rail half lost in reverie over the strange quiet beauty of the scene, the thought suddenly burst upon me: are we really going into santiago--and alone? are we not to be run out and wait aside and salute with dipping colors while the great battleships come up with music and banners and lead the way? as far as the eye could reach no ship was in sight. was this to remain so? could it be possible that the commander who had captured a city declined to be the first to enter--that he would hold back his flagship and himself and send forward and first a cargo of food on a plain ship, under direction of a woman? did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? it must be true--for the spires of santiago rise before us, and turning to the score of companions beside me i asked, "is there any one here who will lead the doxology?" in an instant the full rich voice of enola gardner rang out: "praise god, from whom all blessings flow." by that time the chorus was full, and the tears on many a face told more plainly than words how genuine was that praise, and when in response to a second suggestion "my country, 'tis of thee" swelled out on the evening air in the farewell rays of the setting sun, the "state of texas" was nearing the dock, and quietly dropping her anchors she lay there in undisputed possession of the city of santiago. it has been remarked that mr. elwell had been a resident of santiago and connected with its shipping for several years. it was only the work of an hour after landing to find his old-time help. a hundred and twenty-five stevedores were engaged to be on the dock at six o'clock next morning, to work for pay in rations. the dock had its track and trucks running to its open warehouses. as we had entered we saw it bare of every movable or living thing. want had swept it of all that could be carried away, and the remaining people dared not approach us. six o'clock next morning changed the scene. the silence was no longer oppressive. the boxes, barrels and bales pitched out of that ship, thrown onto the trucks and wheeled away told the story of better days to come; and it was something to see that lank, brawny little army of stevedores take their first breakfast in line alongside of the ship. the city was literally without food. in order to clear it for defence, its inhabitants had been ordered out, ten days before, to el caney, a small town of some five hundred people, where it was said thirty thousand persons were gathered, without food, shelter, or place of rest. among these were the old-time residents--the wealthy and the best people of santiago. its british consul, mr. ramsden, and his family were of them, and the care and hardship of that terrible camp cost his life. a message from the headquarters of general shafter, telegraphed to us even after leaving siboney, said: "the death rate at el caney is terrible. can you send food?" word went back to send the thirty thousand refugees of el caney at once back to santiago;--we were there and could feed them--that the "state of texas" had still on board twelve hundred tons of supplies for the reconcentrados. that day poured in upon us all that had strength to make the journey, of the thirty thousand starving wrecks of el caney. if there were any at night who had not received food, no one knew it. the fires were rekindled in the great steam soup kitchens of mr. h. michaelsen--that name should be carved in marble and lettered in gold in santiago--that had run uninterrupted for nearly two years, until within a few weeks of the surrender, when there was no more food for its kettles. ten thousand persons had hot soup there the first day, and it was estimated that ten thousand more had dry food of crackers, meat and meal. to the sick were distributed condensed and malted milk as fast as it could be gotten to them. of the districting of the city, the formation of committees for the distribution of food, the care, the justice, and the success with which it was done, i leave to the reports of my experienced staff officers and assistants and to the committee of santiago, which nobly volunteered its aid. these persons performed this work--they were a part of it--and no one can describe it so well as they. i refer the reader to the reports of dr. hubbell, dr. egan, mr. cottrell, miss fowler, now the wife of baron van schelle of belgium, and the committee of santiago composed of h. michaelsen, vice-consul for germany, robert mason, chinese consul and vice-consul for england, and wm. ramsden, son of the late frederick ramsden, british consul. with these latter gentlemen, together with twenty of the leading ladies of santiago, was left, one month later, the supplies remaining in our warehouses, and the oversight of the poor of the city, over whom their care had extended so tenderly and so wisely in the past, and on whom as helping them back into citizenship it must largely devolve in the future. returning to our first day in santiago, it is remembered that this narration has thus far left the navy, its flagship and commander at the entrance of the harbor in obscurity. it would seem but just that it reproduce them. until ten o'clock on monday the eighteenth we saw no sign of life on the waters of the bay--neither sail, steam nor boat--but suddenly word passed down from the watch on deck that a ship was sighted. slowly it came in view--large, fine, full masted--and orders went to salute when it should pass. at length here was something to which we could pay deference. the whistles were held, the flag was ready for action, ropes straight and without a tangle--all stood breathless--but she does not pass, and seems to be standing in. in a minute more a stout sailor voice calls out: "throw us a rope," and here, without salute, whistle or bell, came and fastened to the stern of our boat this glittering and masted steamship from whose decks below admirals sampson and schley and their respective staffs shouted up their familiar greetings to us. the view from their ship enfiladed, to speak in military parlance, our entire dock. there was every opportunity to see how our work was done and if we were equal to unloading our ship. the day was spent with us till four o'clock in the afternoon; and when about to leave and the admiral was asked what orders or directions he had for us, the reply was, "you need no directions from me, but if anyone troubles you, let me know." many months have passed since that day, and i write this without ever having seen again the face of the commander who had been so courteous and kind, and so helpful in the work i went to do. under date of july 23 is found the following entry in the diary which sums up the entire matter of facts, dates and figures in few words: "the discharge of the cargo of the 'state of texas' of over twelve hundred tons, commenced at six o'clock monday, july 18. one hundred and twenty-five stevedores were employed and paid in food issued as rations. "on thursday, the twenty-first, at six o'clock p.m. the discharge was completed, and the following morning, friday, july 22, the ship left for new york. "during that time the people had returned to santiago, numbering thirty thousand, and all were fed--ten thousand a day from the soup kitchen of mr. michaelsen, the others with bread, meat and milk. "the present general committee was formed, the city districted into sections, with a commissioner for each district, selected by the people themselves living there. "every family or person residing in the city is supplied by the commissioner of that district. all transient persons are fed at the kitchen, the food being provided by the red cross. "although the army has entered the city during the latter part of that time, there has been no confusion, no groups of disorderly persons seen, no hunger in the city more than in ordinary times. we wait the repairs of the railroads to enable us to get food and clothing to the villages enclosed within the lines of the surrender." we had done all that could be done to advantage at that time in santiago. the united states troops had mainly left; the spanish soldiers were coming in to their waiting ships, bringing with them all the diseases that unprovided and uncleanly camps would be expected to hold in store. five weeks before we had brought into santiago all the cargo of fourteen hundred tons of the "state of texas," excepting the light hospital supplies which had been used the month previous among our own troops at siboney, general shafter's front and el caney during the days of fighting. to any one accustomed to apportioning food, it would be at once apparent that these twelve hundred tons of heavy supplies, of meal, meat, beans and flour, etc., were too much for distribution at one time for a little town of thirty thousand, which naturally partly fed itself. but it must all be stored. the "state of texas" discharged her cargo and left for new york on the fifth day, leaving us without a particle of transportation, and in the pressure and confusion none could be obtained. let those who tried it testify. the two railroads leading out of the town were destroyed. the ports were not open, and the country portions of the province reached only by pack mules. later, forty large, fine healthy mules were shipped to us, but the half score of fully equipped ambulances, harnesses and between four hundred and five hundred bushels of oats were on the transports which brought them, could not be lightered off, and up to the time of our departure were never seen. the schooner "morse," which, following the behest of an angelic thought of some lovely committee of home ladies, had come in laden with a thousand tons of ice. the tug "triton," which towed her all the way from kennebec, and was to have been held for our use, was at once seized by the government. santiago had neither an ice house nor a pile of dry sawdust, and the ice remained on the "morse" till discharged order by order among the transports of sick, wounded and convalescing as they sailed one after another with their freight of human woe. slowly, painfully waiting, but gladly, piece by piece, the ice went out, filling to repletion the box of every transport sailing north, and something glistened on the weather-beaten bronzed cheek of more than one of those long-serving, faithful, north atlantic captains, as he tried to say what it would be to the poor fever-burnt sufferers he must take. _visions_, of the schooner "morse" when she should be unloaded constituted our only transportation up to the day we left santiago. i cannot say that other visions did not obtrude at times. in our perplexity, memory pictured, as in another life, the hundreds of strong-built, luxuriantly-furnished, swift-running steam tugs, yachts and house boats of the restful "thousand islands," and the health and pleasure-giving resorts of the lovely jersey coast; but they were only visions, quickly put aside for the stern realities of the inevitable surroundings. the "morse" did well its blessed work, but never came to us. [illustration: a cuban thatch hut.] [illustration: a battery of cuban artillery.] neither for love nor money could transportation be gotten. i did, however, near the last, obtain the use of a leaky lighter for two hours to get off some mules, but i might specify that it was on neither of the above considerations. some reporter is responsible for the statement that a large ship seen floating near the dock that morning had been seized. while it might not be possible to verify this statement by actual facts, it was not so very far out of the way in theory. these were the last days of general shafter in santiago, who was, as he had at all times been, the kind and courteous officer and gentleman. general wood, alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the general good of all, toiled day and night. the government warehouses were so filled with supplies that there seemed no room for more. the harbor filling with merchant ships for the trade, would soon come to regard with a jealous eye any body of persons who dispensed anything without price to even the poorest and most destitute. but all this did not stay the marching stride of the native fever, so persistent in its grasp as scarcely to merit the appellation of intermittent. day by day i watched my little band ever growing less; out of twenty which the good "state of texas" brought, seven were on their feet; twelve had sickened, been nursed and gotten off home, and one had gone to heaven. of our own band of the national red cross workers, none had actually gone down; of those who had joined us as assistants, few remained. at this juncture news came that havana was open. in all the country i knew but one person who had the power to order one of those waiting transports to take myself, staff and some supplies to havana, and my dispatch went to president mckinley, with the suggestion kindly and thoughtfully made by major osgood who had just come in on the "clinton," that in order to economize time and labor, possibly the president might furnish a ship already loaded with government supplies, and let us repay from our supplies on shore. this dispatch brought the following prompt reply from the secretary of war. it was a glad reminder of the kindly courtesy and friendship of many years. i give the text of both the dispatch of the secretary and my reply, in order to set right a misunderstanding on the part of the public, which i have observed with pain: washington, _august 18, 1898_. miss clara barton, _santiago de cuba_: "clinton" cannot be used until unloaded. stores aboard were sent on special request and are necessary for the comfort of officers and men at santiago. the government will send as soon as ship can be loaded at port tampa two thousand tons of supplies for relief of destitute. this accomplishes same result and in shorter time. will not this meet your wishes even better than recommended in your cablegram yesterday? would it be asking too much for you to go to havana to superintend the distribution of these stores under the law? only the destitute and those in immediate danger of perishing can receive these supplies. r.a. alger, _secretary of war_. santiago de cuba, _august 18, 1898_. pierson, _war department, washington_: tell secretary alger i appreciate to the greatest possible extent his responsive and practical sympathy. his suggestions are better than i had asked, and are promptly accepted. if the "clinton" is unloaded in time, i will leave here saturday morning. will take forty mules from here. need ten additional wagons and harness for all my mules. please give me some horsefeed from here. clara barton. the reloading was quickly accomplished, the direction of our remaining affairs placed in proper hands, and on the twenty-first of august, just five weeks to an hour since entering the harbor, we retraced the waters we had sailed over coming from siboney to santiago. the same golden sunshine rested on the hills and tinged the still waters of the bay, but we were no longer the only ship. the transports to take our soldiers home lay there; the great spanish liners to take the spanish soldiers to spain; the hospital ships with their fevered weight of glad woe "going home," dotted the sea and skirted the shore. all who understood our movement saluted, and with tearful glances back to the little spot of earth which had given so much pain, made so many homes in both lands desolate, we ordered on full steam and glided away. five days of continuous sunshine and scarcely wind to fill a sail brought us to havana. i had cabled the spanish authorities on our departure from santiago and notified them of our arrival, and was courteously referred to the civil governor of havana, on whom i called and received in return a most cordial visit, with the added respect of bringing his entire staff with him. no supplies from port tampa having arrived we spent the second day in matanzas, receiving from the good governor and his amiable household such a welcome as one might expect from those they had known longest and loved most. we then hoped to go there at once and leave the supplies they so badly needed. next day there came into harbor the steamship "comal," from port tampa, laden with sixteen hundred tons of government supplies for distribution. we exchanged visits with her gentlemanly and sensible officers, who had governmental instructions to take their cargo to havana and distribute it, but no instructions to act in conjunction with us or with any one; and we, on the other hand, received no intimation that her supplies were in any way intended for our use. both ships alike met the restriction of the customs duties, and while i felt that it might be well for a governmental cargo to test its position with the law of nations, under the circumstances, it was by no means the course for the red cross to take--an organization which never leads, but follows, in all military matters. no commissioners had arrived, and feeling that we might become a source of irritation to them by remaining, and being unable to distribute our supplies, we decided to withdraw. our captain, having been trained in the merchant service and being unaccustomed to military shipping, had neglected some little formality on leaving santiago, which admitted, or perhaps called for, a fine of five hundred dollars. this we promptly paid, and with the best understanding with all parties, spanish, cuban and our own, no coercion on the part of any one, impelled by nothing but our own sense of the situation, we decided our course. in fact, strenuous efforts were made by the spanish officials, notably the secretary of state, to open the way for us; and while they could not override the law and positively remit a duty, they offered in this case to pay the duty themselves, and take part in the distribution. we appreciated the courtesy, but still felt that we might in some way become a hindrance to the pending negotiations by remaining, and after careful consideration, decided to draw anchor and steam for port tampa, leaving the "comal" with its full cargo and efficient officers to meet the situation in the good governmental way, we were sure they would do. this explanation is given to set right the general impression that the "comal" was a red cross ship. there was no connection whatever between the "comal" and ourselves, excepting through good will and good fellowship; and again the impression that we were mistreated by the spanish government at havana, subjected to discourtesy or requested to leave is a mistaken one. the facts are quite the contrary. we entered under the supposition that havana was open, as santiago was open; but it was not an open port. we were in spanish waters, subject to spanish laws and customs, and so regarded them, as we should have expected to do in any country, remembering experimentally that our own country is not too much inclined to easily remit its custom duties. dividing the time of our cuban campaign into sections, the incoming days fall exclusively to santiago. days of an army in one sense inactive, in another rushed and crowded beyond its powers to meet or control. days when everything is needed and nothing can be gotten at. no one knows where anything is--must have a formal order to obtain it when it is found, and cannot get the order. officers clamor for their needy men, the sick list increases, complaints are rife, patience gives place to desperation, and a time of general confusion follows. again i would say that to those taking the first lessons in army life, all these things seem incomprehensible, to say the least, and "who's to blame?" seems to be floating in the very atmosphere about them. deplore such a state of things as we will, it is still a part of army life. it belongs to war, and the grey-haired military chief, whom all would recognize were i to name him, was correct when he once said to me: "strange as it may seem, the days of 'rest' at an active field are its hardest days." the ofttimes perplexed officers at santiago will neither exclaim nor disclaim against this little statement, if it should ever meet their eyes. they will realize, however, that there were others, near them having no power, or scarcely place, who could yet comprehend their perplexities, and sympathize with the distressing conditions surrounding them. they will also recall that from this source no unreasonable request was ever made of them, no impatient word spoken--only thanks for needed facilities that could be granted, for those withheld, respectful acquiesence. to every officer on that first conquered field of cuba, who extended to the organization i had there the honor to represent, or to myself personally, the smallest recognition or kindness, if it were only a mere courtesy, i tender in behalf of the red cross, honoring gratitude and heartfelt thanks. as soldiers, they performed their duty; as men, they sustained their own manly self-respect. knowing that several of my aides have kept their own notes during the entire campaign, especially as pertaining to the department occupied by each, i have for the sake of accuracy and perspicuity, invited them to contribute, from their notes, reports to this hastily written volume. these reports must perforce so completely cover the time of this rather uneventful period, until we should again enter upon some more active operations, i decide to leave this space to them, referring the reader, if he have the interest to follow, to these reports, and especially to the letter from our santiago committee, composed of the leading men of the city, whose faithful service, wisdom and care for the interests of their community, lends a halo of grateful remembrance to the very mention of their names. report of dr. a. monae lesser. in response to a call from the president of the american national red cross, i left this city with mrs. lesser for key west on june 15. on my trip south, a train of recruits commanded by first lieutenant heavey, first infantry, joined us on their way to tampa. there were a number of sick on this train; i offered my services to the lieutenant, which he accepted, and i attended the sick. most of them had bowel troubles; either diarrhoea or constipation; several had fever, and some sore throats. one private was very ill, and lay on a short bench in a southern railroad coach. his temperature was high, and his condition somewhat alarming. i engaged a section in a sleeping car, saw that he was made comfortable, gave him medicine, and mrs. lesser nursed him until we arrived in tampa. the lighter cases as well as the one special case were much improved when we arrived at tampa, still i mentioned that the patient be taken in an ambulance which the lieutenant ordered by telegraph before we reached tampa. we then proceeded to the steamer "mascot," bound for key west. on board were a number of marines of the united states navy, several of them suffering from the same troubles as lieutenant heavey's recruits. among them was one case of erysipelas, due to improper care of a vaccinated pox. we attended him, and left him and all the others comparatively well in key west, where mrs. lesser and myself joined miss barton and staff on the steamship "state of texas." the following morning, june 20, we started for cuba, reaching santiago after a six days' journey. on june 26, mr. george kennan, vice-president of the american national red cross, interviewed admiral sampson for instructions, and the steamship "state of texas" was directed to guantanamo, where we remained over night. the following morning, june 27, a correspondent of a new york paper boarded the "texas" and informed miss barton that a battle had been fought at the front, and that there were a number of sick and wounded at siboney. miss barton gave orders for the ship to return immediately to siboney (a little village between santiago and guantanamo), at which place we arrived at 9.20 p.m. work in the field. upon arriving at siboney, although it was late in the evening, i was directed by miss barton to go ashore to inquire into the needs of the hospital, and if any, to present her compliments, and to make the following offer:--although the "state of texas" was sent to feed the refugees and starving cubans, it carried some persons and articles that might serve for hospital purposes, and that the red cross considers its first duty to be to help those who are nearest. there was a large barn to which i was directed when i asked for the hospital. i introduced myself and staff to the physician, extended the compliments of the president of the red cross offering the services of her staff, as well as needed supplies. the physician in charge very courteously answered that he had been ordered to go to the front the following morning, and not needing anything, thanked the red cross for its offer. westward from the landing place was a pond of stagnant water. upon a little hill across a railroad track stood a number of wooden cottages. the first large one, which seemed to have been some kind of a store, and a barn westward from it was pointed out to me as another hospital. (it was the same house which later was used as a post-office, in which postmaster brewer contracted yellow fever, but which was never used by the red cross.) there were a number of sick soldiers lying around on the floor, surgeon-major havard being in command. i made the same offer to the major as i had made in the first place, and the condition of affairs being apparent, i tendered him the services of the sisters, as well as cots and blankets for his sick; for which he thanked me, adding that he would accept the cots and blankets, but that he did not require nurses. i invited him to the steamship "state of texas" to see miss barton, so that he might select such articles or service as he desired. from there i went with the staff to dr. virano, surgeon-in-chief of the cuban hospital, making the same statement and offers to him. he introduced us to general garcia and his staff, and thankfully accepted the offer of the red cross. his patients were lying on cots and on the floor, little care apparently having been given to put the house in fit and proper condition. this ended our duty of the evening, and we returned to the ship. the next morning, june 28, major surgeon havard visited miss barton on the "texas," as also did a cuban delegation; the former made a request for cots, and the latter for the assistance of nurses, and food for the sick. sister isabel, sister minnie, sister annie and sister blanch under the direction of mrs. lesser went to the cuban hospital, taking with them proper nourishment for the sick, and utensils for preparing the same. the work of relief then began at the cuban hospital, and beds and blankets were sent on shore for major havard. the same morning miss barton directed me to go to the front and find out if anything was needed at the camps, and accompanied by mr. george kennan and mr. elwell i started about 10.00 a.m. a large detachment of infantry which the night before had camped along the shore of siboney, had gone on the road up the hill about a thousand feet in height, while another detachment of infantry and artillery took the lower road in the valley, being the only road for vehicles which leads from siboney to santiago. the men looked well, although the heat prostrated a number of them on the march. we walked along the latter road as far as the camp of rough riders, which on that day was the furthest in front, a distance of eight miles from siboney. it was several days after the battle between the rough riders and the spaniards. the next day, june 29th, i returned to the shore with the sisters, whose work and value had been observed by others. siboney with a large water supply and a sea breeze was selected for the reserve divisional hospital of the fifth corps. surgeon-major la garde, of the regular army service, was the chief of the department. his supply was small, and conveniences still smaller, which he said was owing to the fact that through military necessity medical and hospital supplies of the army were still on the transports, with no means of unloading. there were but few hospital tents, and the cots in them were occupied by a number of patients, in whom dr. fauntleroy took great interest. i offered the services of the red cross, as directed by the president. the major, a man with humane ideas, unable to get such supplies as were needed, accepted any reasonable aid that he could receive. our offer came at a moment when we could be of help. surgeon-major havard with his staff had been ordered to the front and was unable to place the cots we had landed. his patients, who were suffering from typhoid fever, measles and other diseases, were transferred to major la garde's camp. battle was expected every day, and the major in order to be as well prepared as possible, accepted the offer of assistance made by the red cross, and placed a house at our disposal to serve as a hospital. he addressed a formal letter to miss barton, who answered at once in kind words and deeds. we also immediately sent word to miss barton, describing the requirements. the sisters cleaned the muddy house, then disinfected it; miss barton sent from the "state of texas" cots and bedding; food, stoves and utensils to prepare the same. in a few hours our house was disinfected and in order, and about thirty-nine patients were carried to it; most of them had typhoid fever and a few had measles. the night of july 1, however, our work had to be changed. the major called for all assistance possible to attend the wounded who were arriving from the battlefield of santiago. large numbers of the wounded were brought down, many of whom walked miles. men with bullet wounds through their lungs walked and crept for hours to get to the hospital. there were hospitals nearer to the front, but all seemed to have been overcrowded by the work of that day, and many soldiers had lost their way in the undergrowth and wandered about until they found the nearest road to a hospital. many walked because they complained that the rough roads and heavy wagons increased their pains with every jolt. surgeon-major la garde's management can never be too highly praised. the wounded men that came down in the wagons were examined by him and laid somewhere to be comfortable until they could have attendance. by "comfortable" i mean as far as the situation would permit. every surgeon and nurse was put to work. mrs. lesser and the sisters were called to assist at an operating table, and sister annie mccue and mrs. trumbull white were left in charge of the hospital building. at first i had the pleasure of assisting a very able army surgeon, dr. fauntleroy, but the same evening a table was assigned to me by major la garde. there were six tables in the tent, which were in charge of the following surgeons: drs. fauntleroy, ireland, nancrede, munson, parker, howard and myself, some coming later than others. the work continued all night, each operator having one assistant and one of the sisters at his table, continuing all of the following day. as the wounded came down in numbers, and there were not cots for them, they had to be left in any position around the ground. major la garde and chaplain gavitt were at all times kept busy having long flies put up to protect them in case it should rain. [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. a group of red cross sisters the four sisters of the new york red cross hospital of dr. and mrs. a. monae lesser, who nursed sick reconcentrados and their orphans in havana, and afterward assisted the surgeons on the ships and in the hospitals of siboney in dressing the wounds of cuban, spanish and american soldiers and sailors, until they fell victims of the fever and went into hospital themselves.] [illustration: diploma of gratitude for miss clara barton from the red cross of spain. [translation of text.] the supreme assembly of the red cross of spain grateful for the powerful co-operation which you have given, contributing to the patriotic and humanitarian ends of the institution, has resolved to manifest its recognition thereof, by issuing to you the present diploma in the city of the court of madrid on the 31st day of october in the year m.d.c.c.c.x.c.v.i.i.i. (1898). the president, the secretary general, marquis of paloma. juan p.c. domingues.] every moment news of another battle was expected; the experience of the first, with no better means as yet at hand, was a matter of great concern and worry to all present. suggestions were made and discussed. finally it was agreed to request more red cross aid by telegraph. a call for one hundred sisters was suggested, and mrs. lesser was consulted in the matter. we had fifty trained nurses and assistants on our lists, also women to act as matrons to distribute nourishment; we promised to send for that number immediately, as we had sent for twenty-five already. that morning miss barton, with mr. kennan and several of her staff, had gone to the front, and before leaving, miss barton instructed her secretary, mr. c.h.h. cottrell, that, at our request, he should cable in her name for such persons and material as should be needed in the hospital department. we cabled for fifty nurses, ten assistants, a number of immune physicians, complete hospital equipment, and a quantity of surgical material, sufficient to make at least five hundred patients comfortable. the work was performed almost without intermission, every surgeon employing all his energies. the feeling in the hospital among the members of the surgical staff was an excellent one. the night of the third we expected to be able to rest a few hours, but during the day the fleet had fought its battle, and a number of spanish wounded prisoners were taken off by the various ships. dr. lewis, chief surgeon of the "harvard," who assisted in attending the wounded at the hospital at siboney, invited dr. parker, myself and the sisters to help him in attending the wounded spaniards, to which we gladly responded and spent the night on the "harvard." the wounded continued to arrive for four days, many of them telling that they had been shot on the first day of the battle, july 1, and as yet had received no care except from some comrade who had with him the little emergency package. permit me to say here that i believe the little emergency package has saved many a man from death through bleeding. most notable and commendable was the desire of the surgical staff to save limbs when at all possible; and i have seen and often joined drs. fauntleroy, nancrede, ireland and parker in the work, spending an hour for resection of the part in order to prevent amputation. of course all endeavored to do the same, and out of the total number of 1415 wounded treated in the siboney hospital after the battle, there were but three amputations of the thigh, two of the leg and one of the forearm, that i observed in the camp. the death rate was also very small, as most of the shots made clean wounds, and only when they affected most vital parts did they cause death. the dressing of wounds and the operating upon the wounded, however, were not all the service required by the injured. shelter, comfortable cots and blankets were needed, very few of which had been landed. still, as the wounded came, and the needs became greater, i saw surgeon-major la garde, most ably assisted by chaplain gavitt, hunt about for canvas or anything that would act as cover for a tent, and have it put up along the tents and flies. their work was unceasing. in those days every officer and member of the medical staff gave up his cot and tent that the wounded might find some kind of shelter and proper resting place; but in spite of that they were inadequate. the largest number of wounded lay on the ground, some on blankets, others on canvas, or if very severely wounded, on a litter. the steamship "state of texas" had a number of cots (i believe 350) which were originally meant for cuban relief, many of which we used in the red cross hospital at siboney; when i informed miss barton of the condition of affairs, all cots that were in the ship were unloaded and sent to the hospital, and the most seriously wounded received comfortable resting places. the gauze, particularly the iodoform gauze, and bandages soon gave out. the "state of texas" carried a quantity of surgical dressings. all that was necessary was to ask miss barton for them, who immediately sent on land any article needed if in her possession. among our patients were several cases of gunshot wound through the skull and brain near the eyes; the eyes were inflamed, and ice had to be applied continuously to relieve excruciating pain. dr. fauntleroy suggested that the cases be sent to the red cross hospital, we had there the only ice in the field at that time; it also came from the "state of texas," from which we received a daily supply. the eye cases were carefully attended by mrs. white, the wife of dr. trumbull white, of the chicago _record_, who deserves much praise for the constant attention which she gave them. it was necessary to make continuous application of ice every few minutes, which she did with constant and unceasing care. mrs. white is not a trained nurse, but a gentle, wise woman. i agree with the remarks of dr. fauntleroy when he said that her attention and the ice relieved much suffering and saved quite a few from blindness. captain mills, who was one of the wounded in that manner, may tell of his own experience. most of the cases of gunshot wounds gave very little work to the surgeons, as the bullet entered at one place and made its exit at another, thus leaving a clean wound. even through vital parts of the body, such as the brain and abdomen, bullets passed without apparently giving the patient any great distress. the simple cases did not need much attention; cleanliness and a cushioned dressing well protected was all they usually required. in fact, many of the smaller wounds came to us bandaged with a little emergency pad, progressing in healing. these were always shots from the mauser bullet. many of the men that i saw were shot in the shoulder, the bullets making exits through the back. some gunshot wounds had two places of exit and entrance in their course. for instance, i had cases in which the bullet had gone into the upper and lateral part of the cranium, come out behind the ear, went into the shoulder and came out behind and below the shoulder blade; or had made its course through the left arm, again entering the right chest and coming out at the back. it would perhaps be out of place to enumerate or describe in this report the many courses which the bullets have taken, but as stated, most of them required little attention. there were, however, some serious wounds, such as compound comminuted fractures, in the treatment of which great skill was shown by the various surgeons in the hospital. those were the cases which in former years would have resulted in amputation, but drainage and cleanliness, plainly speaking, have given the patients the advantage of keeping their limbs. in the simple cases one could work alone, with the assistance of a sister or a hospital steward, but in the more difficult cases good surgical skill was required, and it was often a source of great gratification to see two eminent surgeons, of equally good reputation, assisting each other in a difficult case; one advising, the other acting; thus the greatest harmony existed among the members of the staff. the sisters being required in the operating tents as also the stewards there were no nurses in the tents to care for the wounded. no food had been prepared for the large number of wounded lying on the cots or on the ground on blankets or canvas; a great many of them were too helpless even to turn. surgeon-major la garde did me the honor of consulting me in regard to the nursing, and i suggested that some of the sisters leave the operating tables, which were by that time supplied with other assistants. the major then sent for mrs. lesser, who suggested that the worst cases be brought into one or two rows of tents, as the small staff of sisters brought into cuba was not sufficient to take charge of all and do them justice. the rows of tents were then placed in her charge, and she portioned the work of caring for them among the sisters assisted by hospital corps men. the soldiers were nearly famished; some had not received a morsel of food for two days. oatmeal gruel, coffee and quantities of prune juice and other articles of relish were at once prepared at the red cross hospital in big cans which had come from the "state of texas," and with the assistance of the ever active indefatigable chaplain gavitt, and several newspaper correspondents, the wounded soldiers received such food as their conditions allowed. unfortunately the surgeons lost track of the greater number of their cases. the patient marked for redressing was placed on any table, and the surgeon in charge of that table redressed the wound; thus it was hard to say what result one or the other had obtained, with the exception of a few cases, which by special request one was allowed to continue to observe. some of the patients came down with their wounds dressed in some hospital at the front, and i may here mention that i saw excellent work coming from the hospital in command of dr. woods. when the rush was over, i was called to the camp where the spanish prisoners were located. i prescribed for their ailments, while the sisters supplied their food. in addition, i answered the calls which came from cuban families in siboney. some spanish prisoners were wounded and others suffered from fevers. those who were wounded had their wounds dressed at the scene of battle, and although some of the dressings were temporary, they feared to have any person touch them, until assured that they would be treated as gently as possible. the patients had now all been operated upon and attended; only some of the wounds needed redressing. they were taken to the transport hospital ships as soon as their condition permitted. it was about that time the hospital ship relief arrived, bringing more food for invalids and more equipped cots. dr. guiteras, who visited all the hospitals daily, informed me one afternoon that he had found a case of yellow fever in camp (not in our hospital), developed in a place near siboney. there were two or more suspicious cases which he had watched, and he believed that yellow fever would develop very rapidly. i called the sisters together, presented the situation to them, that they might decide whether to stay in the field or return to the "state of texas." their unanimous decision to stay and face the consequences made them continue their work without any hesitation. the red cross hospital building became crowded, one room was set aside for doubtful cases, while the other rooms were occupied with typhoid patients. the porch in front of the house, shaded with canvas, and a little isolated room to the right, sheltered the wounded. my work at the red cross hospital became continuous, as a large number of patients came from the various camps to receive attention, and still a larger number from our camp came for consultation and treatment. the number of such consultations i discontinued to write down after three hundred were attended, americans, spanish and cubans together. [illustration: the burning of siboney--red cross hospital in the foreground.] every case of typhoid fever and other disease which was placed in our charge from the day we opened the hospital, has recovered. the last of them were brought home well on the "concho;" those that came later were on the way to recovery when i left for the fever hospital. among our patients were two who had measles, complicated with pneumonia, and there was a large number of patient suffering with cuban malarial fever. i also wish to state that not one patient in our hospital became infected with yellow fever; the cases that had it came there with the disease, but were closely observed, and as soon as the first positive sign was noticed, they were isolated and brought to the fever hospital. the total number of sick permanent and transient thus attended was 234. most of the medicines we had brought with us, but received some from army stores. when the "state of texas" left for jamaica to get ice, in order to save time we took a dwelling in one of the houses at siboney, which was believed by experts not to be infected. the family living in it was very clean, and it appeared that the house would serve as well, and perhaps better than any other. our tents, in which we should have preferred to live, had not arrived, nor did we have any cots, all having been given to the sick and wounded. when the houses at siboney were ordered to be burned down, we left for the yellow fever camp. before leaving i requested dr. senn to operate upon two spanish prisoners whom i had not seen for several days. on the seventh day after our arrival at the camp we were able to return to siboney. our ailments, although not prevented, had been made light by prophylactic methods, and our recovery was consequently rapid. after our return to siboney i again offered to serve. in the meantime word from assistant surgeon-general greenleaf was received at siboney, stating that forty-five red cross nurses, surgeons and other assistants, had arrived at guantanamo, waiting to come to us, and as we returned the same day from the fever camp, surgeon-major la garde telegraphed and telephoned repeatedly for them to come, but he received no reply. feeling that under the existing circumstances and exhausted from work and illness we could not continue to work without more assistance, i applied for our return. surgeon-major la garde upon this placed me in charge of the steamship "concho" which left for the north on july 23, of which voyage a special report has been presented. before my departure from siboney, surgeon-major la garde handed me a document, a copy of which i herewith present: reserve divisional hospital, fifth corps, siboney, cuba, _july 23, 1898_. this is to certify that dr. a. monae lesser, surgeon-in-chief of the american national red cross, offered his services to the medical department of the army on the twenty-ninth day of june. from the latter date to the present day dr. lesser has been connected with this hospital as a surgeon and patient. when the wounded commenced to arrive on july 1, and during the rush of work which lasted four days in the care of the wounded, dr. lesser was assigned one of the six tables in the operating room. his work was skillful and most continuous. his suggestions to me on more than one occasion, concerning administration details, were of the highest value. after the rush of work in the operating room dr. lesser continued to take charge of a hospital, a building which was pronounced free from infection, in which he treated wounded and sick soldiers. his work was the admiration of every one who had the good fortune to be under the watchful care of himself and the sisters under him. unfortunately the building--in which they lived--soon showed signs of yellow fever infection. dr. lesser, his wife and four of the sisters--his entire staff--were taken one by one with the fever. they were removed to our yellow fever hospital. they are now convalescing, though weak; they leave us for the north to-day for a much needed rest. i have no words at my command which could in any way express my appreciation of the work of dr. lesser and his heroic staff. had it not been for their assistance and the quantities of supplies furnished by the "state of texas," the sufferings of the hundreds of wounded would have been magnified more than i can now venture to express. in commenting on our lack of supplies, attendants, etc., i desire to state that our unprepared condition to meet the rush of work which came with such surprising rapidity was due to those military conditions which often transpire in war when blood, suffering and death seem to be inevitable, or beyond the scope of man to anticipate. may god's blessing be with him and his. louis a. la garde, _major and surgeon, u.s.a., commanding hospital._ relief work in cuba. report of c.h.h. cottrell, financial secretary. early in february, 1898, after the president of the united states had called clara barton to several conferences on the question of relieving the sufferings of the cuban reconcentrados; and the central cuban relief committee had been formed to take charge of the funds and supplies which it was known that the generous american people were anxious to donate for this purpose, it was decided that miss barton should go to cuba at once to assist in the prompt and efficient distribution of the succor which was so near at hand. it is her habit to act quickly when her plans have been matured, and not a moment's time was lost in preparing for her journey to havana. on her arrival at havana miss barton communicated with the american consul general, the spanish officials, and some of the best known and benevolently disposed citizens; and after freely conferring with them, and learning the existing conditions, the city was divided into distribution districts, and a committee of citizens, who were fully acquainted with the people and their wants, was appointed to take charge of each district. abundant space in a very large warehouse had already been secured by the consul general, which was, with the use of its employes, given free of charge to the red cross. several of the villages near havana and as far east as matanzas were then visited and arrangements similar to those made in havana were perfected for the distribution of food and clothing; and these communities were supplied as quickly as possible. shortly after miss barton's arrival in havana the deplorable "maine" disaster occured, killing, drowning and injuring so many of our brave sailors and marines. as soon as she heard of this awful calamity she visited the hospital where the victims who were not killed outright were lying, and arranged to have them provided with every possible attention, and the best of everything needed that money and sympathy could procure. as the situation developed and the needs of the country became known, it was found to be necessary to largely increase the working force of the red cross, and arrangements were accordingly made to have some of the oldest and most experienced workers of that organization, with some new recruits, come to havana. a large house for their accommodation was secured in the suburb of cerro, about three miles from the business centre of the city, where they were pleasantly and comfortably established. the party when completed consisted of the following named ladies and gentlemen: miss clara barton, mr. j.k. elwell, dr. j.b. hubbell, dr. e. winfield egan, dr. a. monae lesser, mrs. a. monae lesser, known as "sister bettina," misses annie mccue, minnie rogall, blanche mccorresten and isabelle olm, red cross nurses or "sisters;" mr. j. a. mcdowell and mr. c.h.h. cottrell. many of the best citizens of havana, ladies and gentlemen, spaniards and cubans, gave us a most hearty welcome and every encouragement, many of them volunteering their services in any capacity in which they could be made useful, and we were thus enabled to secure a number of doctors and nurses, who gave excellent service, and who received the well-deserved thanks of the red cross. relief distribution from the san josã�â� warehouse. mr. elwell was put in charge of the warehouse with an able corps of assistants, and his work there was all that could be desired, as it was something that he was perfectly familiar with from long experience; he had the great advantage of knowing the spanish language and the character of the people with whom he was dealing. many hundred tons of the finest supplies, including everything that a generous and sympathetic public could think of that would be suitable for a famishing people, were given out as fast as orders were issued for them; but in every instance the utmost care was exercised that nothing should go out that might reach the hands of irresponsible persons; and every possible safeguard of check and receipt was adopted and successfully used. opening a hospital and orphanage. the large number of orphan children that had been left unprovided for appealed to the sympathies of some worthy people for whom consul-general lee was the spokesman, and miss barton was asked by them to provide a hospital and home for these waifs. she therefore rented and furnished a large private residence on tulipan street in cerro, near the red cross residence, which was opened and named the "lee orphanage." the house was completely arranged and had a capacity for seventy-five inmates, besides the attendants, and it was soon filled. dr. and mrs. lesser were placed in charge of the orphanage, assisted by several cuban doctors and nurses. the greater part of the children who were brought there were in an extreme state of exhaustion from lack of nourishment, many being unable to sit up, and the greatest care and watchfulness had to be observed to save their lives. a few of them died after they reached the hospital; but by careful and unremitting attention the larger part of them were gradually brought back to health, and it is to be hoped that some of them will eventually find homes in good families. los fosos, the horrible! an old ramshackle building long before abandoned as unsafe and undesirable was owned by the city and known as los fosos. being worthless and unwatched, it had become the lodging place of a horde of beggars and tramps, and when the unfortunate reconcentrados were driven into the city from their homes in the country hundreds of them flocked to this miserable place. miss barton found there men, women and children crowded together in a most pitiable and disgusting mass; and suffering from disease and exhaustion and in such a state of filth that her party was unable to endure the stench and had to get out after a very short stay. these poor victims of cruel war were lying on the bare floor in their dirty rags, and entirely helpless except for such poor aid as they could render each other. many of them died daily and their corpses would lie for hours before being removed. altogether it was one of the most horrible pictures imaginable. permission was obtained by the red cross to repair the building and make a hospital of it, and carpenters were put to work to strengthen the swaying floors and batten up the sides and make the roof rainproof. three rooms were partitioned off for a dispensary, store room and kitchen. scrub women were put to work and a plentiful supply of soap, water and disinfectants soon made a great change for the better. when the place had been cleansed, new cots were brought in and clean bedding put on them. up to the time of their forced departure those devoted nurses worked faithfully from early morn till late in the day to keep the place decently clean and instill habits of neatness into those miserable beings. deprived of the pride and care of those trained women, it is easy to believe that within a week after they left, los fosos had resumed its former reputation as the most unsavory spot in all havana. during the time that los fosos was under the care of the red cross the best medical skill obtainable was given to the inmates, and the untiring care and attention of as faithful a body of trained nurses as the world has ever known was freely given them, and the best of nourishing food and delicacies were abundantly supplied; and if fate had willed that this body of self-sacrificing men and women should remain, there is no doubt that, in the course of time, this old pesthouse would have become a famous hospital with a reputation second to none. relief work discontinued. one of the most comprehensive systems of charitable work had been thus inaugurated and was doing incalculable good, and was receiving praise and gratitude from all classes, when it was announced that the official relations between spain and the united states, which had been strained for some time, were about to be broken. the american consul-general announced that he did not think that it was safe for american citizens to remain in cuba while the excited state of feeling existed, and that he should leave on a certain day, and he advised all americans in cuba who wished to go to the states that he would provide transportation for them. the time given for settling affairs and preparing to leave was less than a week, and accordingly there was much excitement and great sacrifices had to be made, which in many cases meant ruin and beggary. quite a number of the refugees afterward became entirely dependent upon the bounty of the red cross at key west and tampa, florida. when it thus became necessary to decide whether the red cross should abandon its work in cuba, miss barton called her staff around her (as is her invariable custom in deciding all important matters), and asked for their individual opinions as to the advisability of their leaving, and a full discussion of all the points involved ensued, and a unanimous decision was arrived at. all spanish officials, national and municipal, had never failed to show the utmost courtesy to all our members, and time after time they had shown their sincerity by repeated acts of kindness, and none of us believed that they were likely to change their attitude toward us. but when it was considered that war was almost inevitable, and that if we remained in cuba we should be shut up in an enemy's country and unable to communicate with our friends and relatives, who would be daily harrowed by sensational stories, it was decided that we should withdraw when the consul-general was ready to leave. when it became known that we were about to leave miss barton received some very hearty assurances of regard and protection from high spanish officials, and many spanish and cuban ladies and gentlemen called on her and assured her of their high regard and deep gratitude for all she had done for their suffering people. archbishop of havana blesses lee orphanage. the day before we were to leave cuba the archbishop of havana came to the lee orphanage, where quite a number of the best people of the city had assembled, and gave his blessing to the little institution; which was, with those catholic people, an augury equivalent to a guaranty that the success and protection of the undertaking was fully assured; and, indeed, we learned several months after the war had begun that the spanish authorities had not only taken the most scrupulous care of this hospital, and all its abundance of provisions with which the cuban relief committee had supplied it, but they had also placed a guard around miss barton's residence and had kept it inviolate from all predatorily disposed persons. after the war some of our party visited the residence and the orphanage, and found provisions which had been left at both places were still on hand. of course it was to be expected that the hospital, being deprived of the example of the trained red cross nurse, with her habits of order and neatness, would naturally retrograde in many ways, and our party therefore was prepared for the many evidences of neglect and disorder that met their eyes on their return visit. the central cuban relief committee, of new york, which had been appointed by the president of the united states, had abundant means to maintain this work that had been so successfully inaugurated, and it is greatly deplored that the unfortunate declaration of war prevented the carrying out of all the plans that had been so carefully matured, and which would have saved the lives of thousands of men, women and children who now lie under the sod. having made the best possible arrangement for the maintenance of the institutions we had brought into being and had fostered in havana; and with the saddest regrets that we should have to abandon a work so well begun, we boarded the ship "olivette" on april 11, and started for the united states. after a great deal of discomfort, caused by the overcrowding of passengers and the heavy seas, we reached tampa, fla., on april 13. after a day or two of rest, miss barton proceeded to washington with drs. hubbell and egan, the remainder of the party stopping in tampa. there were at that time probably about fifteen hundred cuban refugees in tampa and eight or nine hundred in key west, who were entirely dependent. the red cross took upon itself the task of maintaining these poor people, and for a period of seven months its agents provided for them. it should be said, however, that the citizens of both these cities appointed committees and did all they could to relieve the necessities of these large bodies of indigent people. early in april it had been decided to charter a steamer in new york and to load her with supplies and send her to different ports in cuba, where her cargo could be unloaded in such quantities as might be required. accordingly, the steamer "state of texas," of about eighteen hundred tons burden, was chartered from messrs. mallory & co., of new york, and notwithstanding the fact that our party had been obliged to leave havana, and that subsequently war had been declared, the preparations for sailing were kept up, and the steamer was loaded with a cargo of fourteen hundred tons, which embraced a fine assortment of substantials and delicacies, and many household articles, medicines and hospital stores. when she was finally loaded in the latter part of april, the "texas" sailed for key west in charge of dr. j.b. hubbell, with captain frank young as sailing master, arriving there on the twenty-eighth of that month. reception at tampa. in the meantime, dr. jos. gardner and wife, of bedford, ind., had joined our party at tampa; and soon after miss barton, dr. egan, mr. d.l. cobb and miss lucy m. graves came along, and it was arranged that the entire party was to leave tampa on the evening of april 28, to go aboard the steamer "state of texas," at key west, and remain on her until the army had made a landing in cuba, when it was expected that we should be able to resume our work there. the day of the evening we were to leave tampa, mrs. j.m. towne, the lady at whose house our party was stopping, gave a reception in honor of miss barton, to which general wade and the army officers who were then stationed there, and many ladies and gentlemen of that fine little city, were invited. it was a most brilliant and enjoyable occasion, the uniforms of the officers and the lovely toilets of the ladies making a picture that will long remain in the memories of those who saw it. the relief party returns to key west. on our arrival at key west, on the afternoon of april 29, we were met by dr. hubbell and mr. c.c. bangs, who had been sent by the new york committee to assist in our work; and mr. a. butler duncan, a well-known gentleman of new york, and were taken aboard the steamer "state of texas," where we were welcomed by captain young, and where we subsequently passed many pleasant weeks together. a few days later we were joined by mr. geo. kennan, first vice-president of the american national red cross, and his wife. key west at that time was a very busy place, the harbor being filled with naval vessels which came in there daily from the cuban blockading squadron for coal and provisions. miss barton immediately paid her respects to captain harrington, of the monitor "puritan," who was the senior commander of the port, and presented her credentials from the state and navy departments. subsequently she placed herself in communication with commodore sampson, and stated her desire to reach cuba at the earliest possible moment. many naval officers and citizens of key west called on miss barton daily, and this attention, combined with her enormous correspondence, kept her time fully occupied till late in the night. there was scarcely a day that some accident of more or less severity did not happen to some of the sailors or workmen on the many auxiliary craft that were in the harbor; and the red cross doctors were at all times in demand. in order to keep every one in the best preparation for possible contingencies of any kind, everybody on the ship was instructed and drilled in the various phases of his or her particular kind of work; and thus all were kept happily and busily engaged. the doctors inaugurated a series of lectures for the benefits of the nurses and others, and clinics were of frequent occurrence, and every member of the party benefited by the practical knowledge thus attained in bandaging and taking care of various kinds of injuries. doctor e. winfield egan, of boston, one of the foremost of our surgeons, effected some wonderful operations here and at port tampa, and won the warm friendship of many a poor fellow, who, but for his skillful ministrations would have fared badly. some of the injured men were so badly hurt that days and weeks elapsed before they were fully recovered, and during the time of their convalescence, they were carefully attended and watched by the red cross nurses; and at all times of the day the red cross boat, with its well-known flag floating, could be seen going from one transport to another on its errands of mercy. feeding spanish prisoners. while we were lying at key west there was scarcely a day passed that some of our vigilant blockading squadron did not bring in from one to three captured prizes; sometimes large steamships, and from that class through the various grades of shipping down to fishing smacks; and in the course of a couple of weeks there were between thirty and forty of these boats lying at anchor in the harbor, with their crews aboard under guard. somehow it was forgotten that these poor foreigners must eat to live; or else perhaps somebody thought that somebody else was responsible for this very important matter; be that as it may, they were unprovided for. the boats, of course, had a small amount of provisions aboard when they were captured, and while that lasted all went well; but in a few days their supply was exhausted and calls were made on the united states marshal, in whose charge the prisoners were, for food. that officer, having no contingent fund on which to draw, was in despair, and came to miss barton, who at once reassured him by saying that she would attend to the matter and would provide for all the prisoners until such time as he could get his petition through the departments at washington. accordingly several boatloads of provisions were hastily gotten together and taken in tow by a steam launch which landed them alongside of each prize. miss barton personally visited these boats, and with the aid of an interpreter she learned the needs of the crews, and not only supplied them with food, but she arranged to take letters from all who wished to communicate with friends and relatives in spain and elsewhere, and forwarded the letters to their destination. all governmental relations between spain and the united states having been broken by the declaration of war, it was necessary, where letters were to go to spain, to send them to the red cross of portugal, which organization kindly acted as the intermediary friend all through the war. and here i may say that the red cross adopted this method wherever there were spanish prisoners, and through its kind offices thousands of anxious hearts received news of their absent ones who were "held by the enemy." new york red cross relief committee. about the middle of may the friends of the red cross in new york city, conceived the idea of forming a relief committee for the collection of money and supplies to be used in aiding the soldiers in camp and field. the committee was formed, with some of the richest and most prominent people of the country on its list, and it became necessary for miss barton to go to new york to empower the committee with authority to act in the name of the red cross. accordingly the steamer "state of texas" left key west and proceeded to port tampa, where miss barton took train for the north, leaving the remainder of the party on the steamer. emergency relief at port tampa. at this time there were several camps at tampa and port tampa, and several thousand troops were preparing for the invasion of cuba; transports were daily arriving at port tampa and were being placed in readiness to carry this vast host to the "pearl of the antilles." those were busy days for everybody, and the red cross doctors and nurses were called upon hourly to render service to many victims of injury and disease. [illustration: _in charge of red cross nurses at nautical club hospital, santiago de cuba._] [illustration: the youngest red cross nurse, 4 years old.] while we were waiting at port tampa we were joined by miss janet jennings, of washington, and mrs. trumbull white, of chicago, both of whom afterward did excellent work in the hospitals at siboney. miss barton rejoined our party on june 16, being accompanied by mrs. j. addison porter, the wife of the secretary to president mckinley, who went with us on the "state of texas." miss barton had been the recipient of such assurances on her recent trip to washington from the heads of the various government departments, that she believed that the red cross would receive the most cordial recognition from the army and navy as an auxiliary aid, and would be able to co-operate with them in the utmost harmony. although the mission of the steamer "state of texas" was to render relief to the cuban reconcentrados, it was tacitly understood and believed by all that every possible aid would be extended to the army and navy forces whenever it was necessary or called for. all of the government transports carrying general shafter's army had sailed from port tampa, bound for cuba, when, on june 17, the "state of texas" weighed her anchor and started for key west, where we arrived on the following afternoon. it was learned at key west that the cargo of a captured ship, consisting of south american "tasajo," or jerked beef, was about to be sold by the united states marshal; and as we knew this was a favorite food of the cubans, and that we could get all that we needed at a very low figure, miss barton decided to take aboard twenty tons of it. a telegram had been sent from port tampa to the secretary of the navy, under whose authority the "state of texas" was then sailing, notifying him that we were going to key west, where he could communicate with us, and thence on to cuba, if orders to the contrary were not received. sailing for cuba. on june 20, everything being in readiness, and no orders having been received from the secretary of the navy, it was decided to sail and find sampson's fleet near santiago de cuba, where it was generally believed that general shafter would try to effect a landing; so at 10.15 a.m. we started, taking the westerly course around cape antonio. just as we were about to leave, mr. w.s. warner joined our party and afterwards became one of our most useful and valued workers. after a pleasant but uneventful voyage on the morning of june 25 we arrived off morro castle, at the entrance of the bay of santiago. the spanish flag was flying over the land fortifications and sampson's fleet was stationed in the adjacent waters. miss barton sent a representative aboard the flagship "new york," who presented her compliments to admiral sampson and asked for orders, or an expression of his wishes regarding the position to be taken by the red cross ship. the admiral sent back word saying that general shafter's army had disembarked at daiquiri, a point about twelve miles east of morro castle, and he advised miss barton to take her ship to guantanamo bay, where she would find good anchorage and calm water; and where she would be able to learn more of what was taking place on land, as there was constant communication from there with the invading army. accordingly we drew away and arrived that evening at playa del este, which is about forty miles from santiago, and situated just inside the mouth of guantanamo bay. captain mccalla, the naval commander of the port, with several other naval officers came aboard the "texas" that evening, and warmly welcomed miss barton. among these officers were the captain and medical staff of the united states naval hospital ship "solace" which was lying at anchor near us, and they extended an invitation to all the members of our party to visit their ship on the following morning. the invitation was accepted, and the next day the launches of the "solace" came for us, and we passed a couple of very enjoyable hours looking over one of the most complete and handsome ships we had ever seen. departure for siboney. after our return to the "state of texas" two representatives of new york papers called on miss barton, informing her that they had just come in from siboney, where there was great need of supplies and medical aid. they said that the men who were wounded in the fight between the rough riders and the spaniards on the previous friday had just been brought in and that they were suffering from the lack of everything in the way of comforts and conveniences. our steamer was at once headed westward and started within a few minutes for the scene of suffering. a two months' sojourn in tropical waters had enabled the busy little cirripeds to attach themselves in millions to the bottom of our ship, and, in nautical parlance, she was very "foul," and consequently our speed was reduced from a normal of about ten knots an hour to between seven and eight knots, so we did not reach siboney until after eight o'clock that night. soon after our ship was anchored a boat was lowered and a party of our doctors started for the shore. as the night was dark and there was no wharf nor other landing place, save one small bit of sandy beach which was bounded on each side by precipitous rocky ledges, and no lights other than those of the ships which were anchored safely away from the shore, and the uncertain and misleading flare of an occasional camp fire some distance away from the beach, the landing was a matter of some difficulty and anxiety. a heavy ground swell was running quite high and dashed itself against the rocks with a roar that deafened us; however the officer who was in charge of the boat was an old sailor, who was used to landing in strange places, and by constant "ahoying" to every sign of life on ship or shore, we managed to strike the one soft spot in that vicinity and soon had our boat drawn up on the sand. by inquiring of several sentinels, we found our way to the army hospital, which was a rough wooden building that had evidently been used for a store or warehouse in more peaceful times. on a veranda in front of the hospital a group of officers was standing, and on our asking for the surgeon in charge, major havard stepped forward. drs. gardner and lesser introduced themselves and the other members of the party to major havard and formally offered him, in the name of clara barton and the red cross, the personal services of all our doctors and nurses, and any of our supplies that might be needed. major havard very courteously thanked them for their offers and said that he fully appreciated the value of such services, but he thought that he and his assistants would be able to take care of all the sick and wounded that were there at that time; and as for supplies, he knew there was an abundance of them _on the transports_, and he hoped they would be landed the next day. during these speeches our members were looking through the miserable place that bore the name of hospital, and the sights that met us brought tears to our eyes. there were half a dozen cots in a building where there were, perhaps, fifty or sixty patients, the greater number of whom were lying on the floor, some with a blanket under them, but a great many were lying on the bare boards. sheets, pillows and bedclothes were unknown, and those poor fellows who were not dressed in their uniforms were lying almost naked. there were some wounded men, and others who were sick with fever; and in the dim light of a few lanterns we could see them turning from side to side in their discomfort and agony and hear their moans, and in some cases imprecations against a government that would so illy provide for such a contingency. one of the nurses(?), a young fellow who sat out on the veranda in his shirt sleeves complacently smoking a cigarette, told us that he couldn't do very much for the boys, as he didn't have anything to do with; besides one nurse couldn't do very much for forty men, all wanting him at the same time, and he thought there ought to be more help. i couldn't help contrasting this good natured but rather indolent chap, who was performing his duty in such a careless and perfunctory manner, with the brave, clean, intelligent and energetic young women whom i knew, who, when on duty, never took a minute's rest, but were constantly busy, and who anticipated every want of a patient; and who by their bright faces and cheerful voices drove away all feelings of despondency and homesickness among the sufferers, and in this way helped them quite as far on the road to recovery as the medicine that the doctors might prescribe. cubans gladly accept assistance. with saddened hearts we turned away and entered the cuban army hospital near by. this house was better furnished with beds and bedding and other hospital appliances than the place we had just left, as it had been a regular army hospital when the spaniards were in possession of the place, and they in their quick retreat had left nearly everything intact. so that these patients were in a much better condition. but how dirty it was! and how badly it smelled! the surgeon in charge of the cuban hospital was a very intelligent cuban who spoke good english, and he welcomed us warmly, and insisted on taking us to see general calixto garcia, whose headquarters were near by. that fine old warrior, with his gentlemanly and courtly manners, received us with the greatest cordiality, introducing us to the members of his staff who were present, and in every way made us feel that we were more than welcome. he had no hesitation in accepting any aid we had to offer; said that his men had suffered so terribly during the past three years that he welcomed our coming as a perfect godsend. so it was arranged that the red cross should take hold of the cuban hospital the next day and do what it could to make it healthier and pleasanter; although the surgeons in charge begged that the ladies, _i.e._, the nurses, should not come until the place had been cleaned. but red cross nurses are trained in a school that makes the annihilation of dirt its first principle; and early the following morning they appeared with pails, scrubbing brushes, soap, whitewash and disinfectants, and the way in which they went to work elicited the admiration and astonishment of all who saw them. after thoroughly washing and disinfecting the floors, walls and furniture, they took the beds and put them through the same process, and afterwards put new mattresses, pillows and bedding on them. then the patients were taken in hand, and carefully bathed and put in clean clothing, and then into clean, sweet-smelling beds. the looks and words of gratitude that were given to those little women in blue will always remain a happy recollection to them. this grand transformation of the dirty cuban hospital was watched with great interest by the american officers and men, and when it was finally finished it presented such a noticeable contrast of peace, cleanliness and comfort to the united states army hospital, where everything was the very opposite, in all its hideousness of neglect, squalor and suffering, that there was a universal grumble in the camp, and men were heard to mutter: "what kind of people are these red cross folks that come down here and give the best of everything to the cubans, and pass by our own boys, who are dying for the want of these very attentions?" when it was explained to them that the red cross had first gone to our own hospital and offered all it had to our own army surgeons, and that they had declined assistance, there was an immediate and widespread inquiry, "why?" and as no answer that would satisfy could be given, and the grumble was becoming more general and forcible all the time, a little later the army surgeons thought best to allay further irritation by a general acceptance of whatever was needed from the red cross stores, and any personal assistance that might be offered. as a result of this change of mind everything that was needful to make the american hospital the equal of the cuban hospital was gladly given by the red cross, and from that time on to the end of the war the army surgeons and the red cross worked in perfect harmony and with mutual respect and admiration. a red cross hospital was opened at siboney and immediately filled to its capacity with american soldiers and government employes; and the red cross surgeons were given operating tables in the army hospital and on the field, and with the aid of red cross nurses rendered splendid service in the bloody days that soon followed. urgent call for help at the front. as general shafter pressed forward with his troops, the fighting became more severe, and his chief surgeon, colonel pope, sent word to miss barton asking for aid to be sent out to the front. she responded immediately and personally led a party consisting of mr. george kennan, mrs. j. addison porter, dr. and mrs. gardner, dr. e. winfield egan, dr. j.b. hubbell, and mr. j.a. mcdowell, going forward in army wagons and on foot over a road whose badness could not be exceeded anywhere; and they soon had their tents up and their kettles boiling, and for several days they devoted all their time to relieving the sufferings of the wounded men on the field. they made gruels and soups, and all the delicacies that could be prepared with the facilities at hand, and distributed fruits and cooling drinks. these poor wounded soldiers were lying on the field where they were left after their wounds had been dressed; and as there was no food for them to eat except the regular army ration of salt meat, hardtack and coffee, which many of them were unable to swallow, in some instances they had not taken any nourishment for three days, and were nearly starved. the "rainy season" had just set in and these "martyrs to the cause of cuban liberty," who were helpless and in many cases without clothing of any kind, were left without protection, except such as could be had from small bushes and trees; and they were subjected daily to alternate "sunshine and shower;" and when it is said that those words are not to be taken in a poetical sense, but that they mean intense heat and deluging rains, the suffering that ensued can be understood. and it may be well to say that in that locality at that time of the year, when the sun sets the cold air from the mountains drops down into the valleys and the nights become uncomfortably chilly before morning. that the statement of the sufferings of these men may not be thought overdrawn, i shall introduce here an extract from the testimony of major william duffield bell, an army surgeon, as given on this point in his report for the war department: the first division of the fifth army corps hospital was the only one in the field. the surgical force in this hospital was insufficient to meet the demands upon it, and numbers of the wounded lay unattended for twelve and even twenty-four hours on the bare ground before their turn came. there was an insufficient supply of proper food for invalids, due to lack of transportation, though there was no lack of surgical supplies at the hospital, thanks to the energy and business like efforts of major wood, chief surgeon of the division hospital. another great want was the scarcity of clothing and blankets. in many cases soldiers were soaked with rain and stiffened with mud from the trenches, so that their clothes had to be removed before an operation or dressing, and could not be put on again. men were often taken from the operating table and of necessity in many cases were laid upon the wet ground without shelter, and in the majority of cases without even a blanket, and with little or no nourishment for two awful days until the red cross society, under miss barton, appeared on the scene. with no intention to place the blame for the condition of things existing, it is only just to state that had some officers of the commissary and quartermaster's departments displayed the same zeal and enthusiasm as did major wood and his officers and men, such things need not have happened, and the poor sick and wounded sufferers would not have had to feel, as many did, that they were almost forgotten by god and man. a yellow fever scare. it is not to be wondered at that in such conditions our soldiers began to fall victims to calentura, a prevalent fever from which very few people there escape, even though surrounded by the best sanitary conditions. the yellow fever scare had taken hold of a part of our soldiers before they left the states; and as there were a great many contract surgeons in the army, who were inexperienced in diagnosing tropical fevers, it was not long before it was reported that the yellow fever had broken out, and considerable demoralization ensued. the red cross party which was at the front was requested to return to the steamer; and all the buildings at siboney, including the hospital, were ordered to be burned "to stop the spread of the fever." dr. and mrs. lesser and sister minnie rogal had already fallen victims to the fever, and were at that time lying in the red cross hospital at siboney. a temporary fever camp had been started in the hills at the back of siboney, and they were taken there, accompanied by sisters isabelle and annie both of whom afterward had the fever. right here let me say that a dr. gray connected with the medical department of the army has been quoted in the papers as saying that the red cross was to blame for the outbreak of the yellow fever in siboney, inasmuch as that organization had opened a hospital in a building that had been condemned, before any army hospital had been opened. it is only necessary to say that the red cross hospital was not opened until over a week after the american and cuban army hospitals had been opened in buildings _that had been previously condemned by army officers_. referring to this subject, major louis a. la garde, surgeon u.s.a., has given this testimony: the cubans deceived dr. pope, as they had deceived dr. guiteras, by telling him that there had been no yellow fever in siboney. dr. guiteras believed this. on one occasion he told me that siboney didn't look like a yellow fever locality, as the place was hilly and well drained, except in a small section to the northeast of the town, where there was a stream. dr. guiteras advised that hospitals be established in houses in siboney, and he thought there was no danger of infection because of such action. as i write this report the war investigating commission is holding its sessions, and the country is impatiently awaiting its decision as to where the blame rests for the many shortcomings that were developed during the santiago campaign, i have just been reading the testimony of dr. frank donaldson, assistant surgeon of roosevelt's rough riders, in which he remarks: "my experience is that the reason the rough riders fared so well was because we hustled for ourselves." when dr. donaldson arrived in siboney he immediately came aboard the red cross steamer and announced that he was about to join the rough riders, and would like some supplies to take out with him. he was given everything that he wanted that we had in our stores; and the next day he came with two more members of his regiment, and after having breakfast with us, made another requisition for an increased amount of good things. these were cheerfully given and, in addition, shoes and underclothing from the private wardrobes of the members of the red cross were added, to meet the required needs that could not be filled otherwise, owing to the fact that these things were not in the steamer's cargo. i esteem it a privilege to be able to testify to the exactness of the doctor's testimony as to his ability and success as a "hustler," and still more to be able to show _where_ he "hustled," which appears to have escaped his memory. a few days previous to the fever scare our supply of ice, coffee, fruit and other needful articles running short, the steamer "state of texas" was ordered to go to jamaica to replenish her stores. while in kingston we met many refugees from santiago, among them mr. louis brooks and mr. robt. douglas, sr. both these gentlemen placed their residences in santiago at the disposal of miss barton; she accepted that of mr. douglas, and we afterwards spent several very happy and comfortable weeks within its hospitable walls. mr. douglas also offered the red cross the use of his warehouses in santiago which was accepted, and we are indebted to these gentlemen for many other favors and their kindness is remembered with gratitude and pleasure. relief for cubans, guantanamo bay. commander mccalla of guantanamo bay had already made calls upon the red cross for relief supplies for the cubans in that vicinity, and the "state of texas" had made two trips there, leaving five thousand rations at one time and ten thousand at another. the commander then called for fifty thousand rations, and we started at once to deliver them. on our arrival at playa del este the commander met us in his steam launch as we were coming into the harbor, and before we had cast anchor he demanded to know if we had come from siboney, and if any of our members had been ashore there recently. being answered in the affirmative, he said that he could not expose the men of his fleet to the risk of taking yellow fever from us, and ordered our ship to turn about and leave at once. while we were lying at siboney messrs. elwell and warner were kept busy with a crew of from fifty to seventy-five cuban soldiers, in landing supplies from the steamer; and the work they did and the success they achieved calls for the highest praise, for it was accomplished under the most adverse conditions and with most inadequate facilities. at the near-by village of firmeza were thousands of cuban refugees and residents, who were in abject need and many were sick and dying. through the energetic efforts of the above named gentlemen and dr. j.b. hubbell all these people were fed and clothed, in addition to many more who came into siboney. exodus from santiago. during the siege of santiago general shafter sent word to general toral, the spanish commander, that unless the city was surrendered within twenty-four hours, he should bombard it. notice was given to the citizens of that place, and the surrender was refused. an exodus of non-combatants, men, women and children, hurriedly took place; it was said there were thirty thousand of them, and they fled to the country to the north and east, some twenty thousand crowding into the little village of el caney which normally has not over five hundred inhabitants. the city of santiago at that time was in a destitute condition, several people having already starved to death, and there was consequently little or no provisions for the people to take away. so this vast horde of hungry wretches overwhelmed the little country places that they come to, and the suffering that ensued was something frightful. the officers at general shafter's headquarters notified miss barton of the conditions at el caney, and she immediately sent mr. elwell there to form a citizens' committee to assist in distributing the food that was to follow as quickly as we could get transportation to carry it. every horse, mule, vehicle of any kind that could be borrowed, begged or hired, was impressed into the service, and tons of supplies were taken there at the earliest possible moment. for about two weeks the red cross force worked night and day in relieving this place. mr. c. c. bangs, an elderly gentleman from brooklyn, n.y., who had been sent to the red cross by the new york cuban relief committee, was given charge of the relief supplies at el caney, and he remained there until the surrender of santiago, when the city people returned to their homes, faithfully working as cook and dispenser from sixteen to eighteen hours a day. the hard work, lack of sleep, and poor sanitary conditions, were too hard a strain on him and he came to us at santiago sick and very much broken. he was attacked by the calentura and removed to a hospital where in a few days he died. he was buried by the red cross in the santiago cemetery, his funeral being attended by the members of that body. the relief expedition enters santiago. the surrender of santiago having been arranged to take place at ten o'clock on the morning of july 17, and miss barton being anxious to get to that city at the earliest moment, knowing full well the terrible conditions that existed there, the steamer "state of texas" steamed down from siboney that day to the entrance of santiago bay. miss barton sent word to admiral sampson that she was ready to go in to the city whenever he was ready to have her; and he answered that he would send her a pilot to take her ship in as soon as the channel was made safe by the removal of torpedos that had been planted by the spaniards. accordingly about 4.30 in the afternoon a cuban pilot came aboard the "texas" from the flagship "new york" and we were soon on our way to santiago, where we arrived just before sundown. we came to anchor just off the main wharf and messrs. elwell and warner went ashore to make arrangements for warehouse room and to engage men to unload the ship on the morrow. early the next morning the "texas" was drawn up beside the principal wharf and one hundred cuban stevedores began the work of discharging her. these poor fellows were a sorry looking crowd of undersized and half starved men, the effects of their long fast being plainly visible in their hollow cheeks and thin arms and legs. many women and children were on the wharf ready to sweep up any stray bits of meal or beans that might escape from leaky sacks or boxes. as the stores came from the ship they were loaded on hand cars and rolled to the land end of the wharf, where they were placed under a large shed and a guard of soldiers was placed over them to keep back the hungry people and dogs who hung around like a pack of famished wolves. the same plan of distribution that we had so successfully pursued in havana was adopted in santiago, and with the aid of such splendid men as mr. william ramsden, son of the english consul; mr. robert mason, chinese consul and vice british consul; and mr. michelson, german vice consul, we were soon possessed of full knowledge of the place and in perfect touch with its best people. general mckibben, the military governor of the city, and many other army officers and citizens called on miss barton, giving her a warm welcome and offering their assistance in any way they could be of service to her. a central committee of citizens was appointed, to whom was deputed the duty of dividing the city into districts, and of appointing sub-committees of responsible persons to distribute the supplies to the needy. all applications for relief from the sub-committees had to be approved by the general committee, and then brought to the red cross warehouse, where they were filled in bulk and sent back to the district committees for distribution. in this way all confusion was avoided, and our headquarters kept comparatively free from crowding. by steady work and long hours the cargo of the "state of texas" was discharged, and she left on her return trip to new york on the fifth day after her arrival; and we were thus left without any means of transportation that we could depend upon in any direction, the railroads being broken, and there being none but government ships in the harbor. the government not having many delicacies for its sick men, and such as it had being so hard to get that those in quest of them could hardly get their orders filled until their patients had died or recovered, it was only natural that they should come to the red cross when they needed anything of that kind, where it was only necessary to state the need and write a requisition to be supplied with anything that we had in stock. that this privilege was appreciated can be attested by hundreds of chaplains, surgeons and officers; and if it was abused in rare instances, there is little to complain of when it is remembered how many lives were thus saved, and how many poor fellows were made comfortable and happy. while we were at santiago we were joined by mrs. fanny b. ward of washington, d.c.; miss annie m. fowler of springfield, ill., and miss annie wheeler, of alabama, a daughter of general joe wheeler, the celebrated and much-liked cavalry leader. all of these ladies did splendid work in their several fields, and hundreds of soldiers will gratefully remember their kindly ministrations. general shafter, general wheeler, general mckibben, general wood, general bates and colonel roosevelt; admiral sampson, admiral schley, captain chadwick, and in fact, almost every military and naval officer with whom we had any business relations, did everything they could for the red cross, and it is our proud satisfaction to feel that we met their wishes to the extent of our ability, and that the most perfect reciprocity of good feeling and mutual regard existed. spanish hospitals cared for. miss barton visited all the spanish hospitals in santiago and made a thorough inspection and inquiry into their needs; and subsequently furnished them with everything required that we had in our stores. the spanish red cross had no active workers with the spanish army in cuba that we could find, and whatever was done for their soldiers by that organization must have been done through the officials of the army. it was said that spain was well furnished with army hospitals at home, all of which were carried on by the red cross; and that it was the custom, previous to the breaking out of the spanish-american war, to send all invalid soldiers back to spain to recover. municipal hospital and free dispensaries. the municipal hospitals of santiago were also visited and their inmates made happy by a plentiful supply of good food and clean clothing. the red cross opened a free dispensary where drs. gills, carbonel, solloso and zuniga attended many hundred of the sick poor and dispensed medicine and delicacies to all needing them. these faithful doctors also visited the sick in their homes wherever they could find them, and did a great deal of good work. an expedition was sent inland some seventy miles to holguin, and the needs of all the intervening communities were carefully investigated. miss barton and several members of her staff also went to san luis, and made arrangements with some of the most prominent citizens of that place to take charge of a large quantity of stores; and word was sent to all the adjacent country for forty miles on each side, notifying the people that all who were in need of help could receive supplies by coming to san luis. dr. hubbell went to baracoa and sagua de tanamo before the spanish soldiers and the inhabitants of those places had learned of general toral's surrender; and he was obliged to go in under a flag of truce and was not generally believed when he told the people that the province was then under the domination of the americans. but they were in such straits of sickness and hunger that they gladly accepted the medicine and food that he proffered them. there was at both siboney and santiago a great congestion of government steamers, causing much confusion and consequent delay in getting commissary and quartermaster stores ashore. the government, of course, had charge of everything, including wharves and lighters; and as we were unable to command these facilities several shipments of goods sent to the red cross at santiago were never allowed to land there and were returned to the united states. they were not needed, however, as we had an ample supply for all the demands that were then made upon us. at the suggestion of mr. d. l. cobb of the red cross, a large schooner was chartered and loaded with kennebec ice and sent to santiago in tow, by the "ice auxiliary" of new york. certainly no other of the many methods of relief that had been suggested, was more welcome or acceptable to the suffering heroes of santiago. no single article that was sent to the soldiers gave one quarter the satisfaction to them that was given by this cooling and comforting necessity. owing to the lack of facilities for landing, as stated above, we were unable to get the ice ashore to deliver to the hospitals; but as transports, loaded with sick and wounded soldiers were leaving almost daily for the states, we notified the captains of all those steamers that they could have all the ice they might need, and as they could easily run alongside the schooner and take it aboard they all availed themselves of the privilege until the cargo was exhausted. when the schooner that had brought the ice to cuba was discharged, she was towed alongside the transport "port victor," that had on board some seven hundred tons of red cross supplies, which it was impossible to land, and they were taken aboard the schooner and subsequently sent to gibara on the northern coast. distribution of the ice. the following is summary of orders (for ice) upon which the cargo of the "mary e. morse" was delivered: tons. august 1, captain j.h. dizer, s.s. "berkshire" 7 2, captain p.h. hanlon, s.s. "grand duchess" 30 1, captain j.f. lewis, s.s. "mattewan" 8 1, captain downs, s.s. "orizaba" 10 1, captain googins, s.s. "gate city" 15 3, captain ----, s.s. "fanita" 5 2, captain j.h. byrne, s.s. "mexico" 20 3, swift & co.'s representative 50 5, captain ----, s.s. "olivette" 20 4, mr. douglass 2 5, captain ----, s.s. "mattewan" 6 1, captain mcintosh, s.s. "vigilancia" 15 5, captain ----, s.s. "tarpon" 10 6, captain brickley, s.s. "port victor" 50 10, captain brickley, s.s. "port victor" 100 8, captain paul konow, s.s. "arnrum" 1 9, captain ----, s.s. "grand duchess" 50 8, captain genis (spanish), s.s. "alicante" 7 9, captain a.t. anderson, s.s. "marie" 1 9, captain j. hanlon, s.s. "mortero" 6 9, captain j.h. dizer, s.s. "berkshire" 3 5, captain a.s. johnston, s.s. "san juan" 5 9, captain ----, s.s. "olivette" 20 9, captain charles a. furlong, s.s. "catinia" 15 11, captain s. layland, s.s. "mobile" 25 11, captain ----, s.s. "vigilancia" 50 12, captain ----, s.s. "arcadia" 15 2, captain john evans, s.s. "specialist" 7 13, captain ----, s.s. "city of macon" 10 8, swift & co.'s representative 40 1, captain kimball, s.s. "louisiana" 12 10, captain antonio, "alemani," "isla luzon" 7 13, "olivette" 10 10, captain peters, transport "miller" 20 16, captain aldamis, s.s. "m.d. villarverde" 5 16, captain mir, s.s. "montevideo" 10 14, captain antonia jascia, s.s. "isle pinay" 5 10, commander jacobsen, german man-of-war, "geier" 5 16, captain ----, s.s. "berkshire" 10 15, captain bie, s.s. "sewanne" 5 14, captain tomaso, s.s. "latrusgui" 12 15, captain of s.s. "burton" indefinite quantity 3, master steam lighter "bessie" 1 piece 3, to "miami" 2 boat loads 6, representative swift & co. 2 cakes 5, government boat "sewanne" 1 ton 5, s.s. "olivette" 1,000 pounds ---- 10 cargo of "mary e. morse" contained 792 delivery as per above schedule 722 --- charged to melting, etc. 70 after a five weeks stay in santiago it became apparent that the distribution of further general relief was unnecessary and inadvisable, as the more pressing wants had been supplied, and the presence of the army, and the returning commercial and industrial prosperity had given employment to all the available laborers, who were now amply able to provide for themselves and their families. in these circumstances, it was decided to restrict the distribution henceforth to such people as might be vouched for by the various members of the committee as having no means of support. immense stores in santiago. the red cross had at that time in its warehouse at santiago about eight hundred tons of stores, and the new york committee was sending more all the time. the government warehouses and wharves were overcrowded with quartermaster and commissary stores, although the troops, both sick and well, were being sent north as fast as steamers could be secured to carry them. general wood, the military governor, was devoting all of his time to the betterment of the general condition of the people; and in addition to cleaning the streets and yards and disinfecting all foul spots, he was exercising a general oversight for the moral and physical welfare of the community. with all this great abundance of provisions and clothing, and the small number of needy people that were within reach, and the perfect arrangements that had been made that no one needing relief should be overlooked, a longer stay of the full red cross staff seemed unwise and useless; so it was decided that we should go to some other field where our services could be utilized to better advantage. as a further precaution, that there might be no possibility of any needy person being overlooked, miss barton appointed a committee of ladies, who should by house to house inspection discover and report to the general committee any cases of suffering that might escape notice otherwise. [illustration: siboney mrs. lesser sister bettina in yard of fever hospital. "discharged cured" from red cross hospital red cross hospital. ambulance unloading at surgical hospital. street scene in front of hospital. surgical hospital.] [illustration: santiago view from the miss barton's room orphan asylum on the hill. santiago bay at the right. court and fountain in american red cross nurses- santiago. stone stairway to rear of old market place which is on high walled terrace. back yard of mr douglas's hoouse. miss barton's home in santiago.] president mckinley furnishes transportation. having heard that the port of havana was open, it was natural that our party should be eager to return there and take up the work that we had been compelled to relinquish during the previous spring. the only means of transportation that was at our disposal to use in reaching havana was the schooner "mary e. morse," and as she had been already destined for another port, and was withal so slow that she would not have served our requirements, we had no other recourse than to appeal to the government. miss barton accordingly telegraphed president mckinley, asking for the use of a transport, and he promptly placed at her disposal the morgan line steamer "clinton," which was then in the government service. within the following four days we loaded the "clinton" with thirty-four mules that had been sent to us by one of the red cross auxiliary committees of new york, and about three hundred tons of general stores, which we hoped would serve as a starter in the distribution at havana, other supplies having been promised to meet us at that place. we sailed away from santiago on the afternoon of august 21, and after a pleasant voyage we arrived at havana on the morning of the twenty-fifth. we learned on entering the harbor that we were as much in spanish waters as we had been during our previous sojourn in havana, and that there was no marked change in anything. the same customs' officers whom we had known before the war boarded our boat, and we were treated with the old-time courtesy, but there was no let up in the rigid enforcement of all the requirements of the law; the necessary clearance papers, manifests, etc., being demanded. as we were on a government transport, and carrying a cargo intended for charitable distribution, we expected to be admitted without hindrance or ceremony, but we were disappointed. we were informed that we should have to pay full duties on our cargo, which amounted to as much as the original cost of the goods; and that as we had failed to make a specific manifest of every article we had on board we must pay a fine of five hundred dollars before we should be allowed to land our cargo or to leave the harbor. miss barton called upon the governor of havana, who received her with great urbanity, but when she told him the nature of her visit he insisted that there was no need of aid in that city, that there was no suffering, that the people were all well fed and had been all through the blockade. this call was very courteously returned by the general and staff. no possible endeavor was omitted that gave any hope of enabling us to land our cargo, and we brought every influence to bear that we could command. after a couple of days had elapsed one of the government officials came aboard our ship and told miss barton that the colonial council had held a meeting, and that its members had voted to take the amount of money needed from some special fund that was available and pay the duties on the cargo of her ship, _provided she would turn it over to their agents to distribute_. finding that there was no likelihood of any better terms being offered miss barton decided that it was useless to remain longer. then again, the american evacuation commissioners were expected to arrive in a few days, and it was thought that the presence of this boatload of cuban relief might be an embarrassment to them in dealing with the spanish commission, and that we had better pay our fine and quietly withdraw until such time as we might return without hindrance. during our stay in havana hundreds of the best people of that city, including spaniards and cubans, came aboard the "clinton" and assured miss barton of their warmest friendship and heartiest welcome, and it is believed that they did their utmost to persuade the officials to allow miss barton to resume her work in havana. they told the most harrowing stories of the suffering in and about the city, and they said that with the exception of some "soup houses," which the government was ostentatiously supporting, and which gave out to the poor, miserable sufferers who called for it a small quantity of an alleged soup, in which there was not enough nourishment to keep a chicken alive, there was no other distribution of food, and that people were daily dying in the streets. we knew that this was true, as we all had seen scores of these people every time we had gone ashore. on september first we paid our fine of five hundred dollars and arranged all other matters, so that we were ready to sail at seven o'clock that evening, and with many regrets, we started for egmont key, florida, where we knew we would have to go into quarantine, before entering the united states. as our ship's charter would expire on september 7 and she ought to be in new orleans, where she belonged, on that date, it was decided to unload her cargo of goods at egmont key, and have it transferred from there to tampa. the mules were to be left aboard, and taken to new orleans, where they had been purchased. captain wertsch and the entire crew of the steamer "clinton," having exerted themselves to make all of our party comfortable and happy, and having succeeded in an eminent degree, miss barton was pleased to make acknowledgment of their courtesy in a letter, a copy of which follows. on board steamer "clinton," en route havana to egmont key, _september 1, 1898_. capt. p.c. wertsch, _steamer "clinton_:" dear sir:--as we draw near the end of our voyage on the steamer "clinton," i cannot refrain from giving expression to the feeling of satisfaction and gratitude that all the members of the red cross party entertain for you and your crew. if you have any influence with the gods of wind and wave, you must certainly have exerted it, for verily we have been "sailing o'er summer seas" during the past weeks, and a pleasanter time than we have had could not well be imagined. it gives me great pleasure to say to you that the uniform courtesy and consideration that have been shown our people and the general comfort of the "clinton" are highly appreciated. we congratulate the morgan line on having such a ship and such a crew. in saying good-bye, permit me to thank you most heartily for your many kindnesses and your unfailing courtesy, and to wish you and all the members of your crew a long life and the best of everything in it. sincerely yours, clara barton. captain wertsch replied in the happy manner following: on board steamer "clinton," _september 2, 1898_. miss clara barton, _president american national red cross_: dear madam:--your very kind note, in which you commend my ship and crew, is received, and i have to return my most grateful thanks. a commander's duties not only embrace the safe navigation of his craft, but the comfort and happiness of his passengers and crew, and it is a great pleasure to know that my efforts in that direction, combined with the propitious conditions of the elements, have met with your approval, and i shall always treasure your approbation as one of the bright spots in my rather monotonous calling. i esteem it one of the greatest honors to have as passenger and friend one who has so distinguished and endeared herself to all the civilized world by her many years of faithful and never-ceasing devotion to suffering humanity, and it is my sincere hope that god may grant you many years more in which to continue your work of love, and that every success may crown your efforts. i have the honor to subscribe myself, your devoted friend, p.c. wertsch, _captain_. we arrived at egmont key on the morning of september 3, and the party went into camp for a five days' quarantine, which, barring the heat and mosquitoes, was rather a pleasant rest after the worry and suspense of the past week. dr. geddings, of the marine hospital service, the surgeon in charge of the quarantine station, did everything in his power to make our stay agreeable, and he succeeded far better than we had anticipated. as our party was about to break up, after a pleasant union of seven months, in which we had become like one family, and had conceived a mutual esteem and regard for each other, it seemed fitting that some little expression of good feeling should be manifested in a way that would be lasting and memorable. the following address to miss barton was accordingly drawn up, signed by all the members present and read to her: to miss clara barton. now that our work has ceased for a time, and our party which has labored so long and so harmoniously together, is returning home, we, the members of the cuban relief expedition, desire to express to you, our leader, as delicately and fittingly as may be, our unbounded confidence and admiration, and our sincere and heartfelt gratitude and love. as we look back over the past few months, and recall the many scenes of suffering and death that we have witnessed, and remember how ceaselessly, faithfully and tirelessly you have worked, and how much you have accomplished under the most unpromising circumstances, our wonder grows and we cannot help but reverence and admire your wisdom, patience and industry. no more trying position than you have occupied during the past seven months, could well be imagined, and no one not possessed of nerves of steel and of ripest wisdom and the rarest judgment, combined with a purpose as fixed as the stars could have made the great success that you have made of the work we had in hand. when it is remembered how many thousands of brave soldiers have been saved from suffering and death through your efforts, and how many starving and sick people have been brought back to health and happiness, and all with so little cost of actual money, our warmest admiration is excited, and we cannot withhold that praise which you so justly deserve. personally each of us wishes to express his or her acknowledgment of your unfailing kindness and interest in our comfort and general welfare, and we have to thank you for thousands of those little considerations of word and look that go so far to brighten one's thoughts and make life a pleasure. we all have the greatest satisfaction in knowing that all the work we were permitted to do has been done with thoroughness and economy, and we are vain enough to think that no one could have done more under the conditions that existed. we shall soon separate and go our several ways, and it will be with the deepest sorrow and regret that we shall say good by to our leader; but throughout life it will always be a pleasure to call to mind her image and remember all the happy moments we have passed with her. so in parting, it will no doubt be a satisfaction to you to have the assurance that you hold our warmest love and good will, and that at any time each and all of us will be ready to serve you in any way that lies within our power. a. von schelle, _membre du comitã�â© directeur de la croix rouge de belgique, membre de l'association nationale de la croix rouge des etats unis l'amerique_. j.b. hubbell, _general field agent of the american national red cross_. e. winfield egan, _surgeon american national red cross_. c.h.h. cottrell, _financial secretary_. lucy m. graves, j.a. mcdowell, chas. r. gill, m.d., c.d. cottrell, annie m. fowler, j.k. elwell, geo. j. hassett. at the conclusion of this kind and just tribute to our beloved leader there was a moment of profound silence, our feelings being too deep for utterance. at length, when miss barton had subdued her emotions sufficiently to speak clearly, she responded in most graceful terms, expressing her warm and sincere appreciation of the work performed, and the loyal support that had ever been accorded her; that no words could fully express the gratitude she felt for this thoughtful little memento of our comradeship, and she should prize it quite as much as any badge or decoration she had ever received. farewells were said, and the party separated, going to their several homes; and so ended our first cuban expedition. financial. it is a very hard matter to express in dollars and cents the value of the relief distributed, as it was all donated in either material or money which was turned into material; and the kinds were so varied, the market value so fluctuating, and the data so scattered, that only an approximation can be ventured. it is probably underestimating the amount of relief stores that have been sent to cuba by the central cuban relief committee and the american national red cross to place it at six thousand tons, approximating in value half a million dollars in new york. had these same goods been bought in cuba, their cost would easily have been doubled. in estimating the cost of distribution great difficulties present themselves, as large numbers of laborers, sometimes as many as two hundred per day were paid in food taken from the stores; but such labor can only be paid in that way while the need is extreme; and the moment the direst wants are satisfied money is demanded for every service. we found a considerable number of people who had once been wealthy, but who were utterly helpless after being despoiled of their riches, and gave up in despair, and would have died without making any adequate effort to save themselves, had not relief been brought to them. there were, however, many sterling families who had cast their fortunes with the revolution; had sacrificed everything for "cuba libre," and were willing to give life itself, if necessary; these people accepted relief reluctantly and sparingly, and with warmest gratitude. for nearly two months after our arrival in havana the entire expenses of the relief work were borne by miss barton from her private purse. it is but just to state that when this fact was discovered, by the committee the money was refunded. then the central cuban relief committee began to furnish her with means which came thereafter in abundance, and nothing that was needed that money could procure was ever omitted. volunteers for work were plentiful, but they were generally without experience and therefore not available. for this reason, and considering the magnitude of the work to be attempted and the celerity with which it must be carried on in order to be effective, it was necessary to override a time-honored precedent of the red cross, and pay salaries to certain grades of professional workers who could not be obtained otherwise. it should be stated though, that all these people who were engaged required no more money than was sufficient to meet the necessities of those who were dependent on them; and the few salaries that were paid were very low considering the high grade of ability that was secured. the first funds sent for our use were in drafts payable in spanish gold at havana. gold was then held at a premium of about thirty-five per cent over spanish silver, with which the greater part of the ordinary business of the country was carried on. on entering santiago we found both american and spanish money in circulation, and consequently considerable confusion resulted on account of the fluctuation in values, there being no established standard. the military governor made an arbitrary ruling that there should be a premium of one hundred per cent on american money over spanish silver, or, in other words, that one dollar in american money should be worth two dollars in spanish silver. spanish gold and american gold were on a par in ordinary transactions of limited amounts, but in large amounts american gold was worth a small percentage more than the spanish. while we were in santiago our supply of condensed milk ran short, owing to the large amount that was used in the hospitals. fortunately there was at that time in the harbor a merchant ship loaded with groceries which could not be disposed of satisfactorily, and we were able to purchase at a very reasonable figure quite a large amount of that greatly needed delicacy, and continue filling all requisitions. the following is a statement of our accounts at the end of the expedition: financial statement. central cuban relief committee, cash $11,296.55 contributions 172.93 exchange 236.83 household expenses $1,521.41 general expenses 2,040.92 cuban relief expenses 3,699.79 traveling expenses 968.22 telegrams 105.02 office expenses, stationery, etc 22.45 salaries 2,541.24 american national red cross relief committee army expenses 807.26 --------------------- $11,706.31 $11,706.31 the expense accounts will generally explain themselves by their titles, with a few exceptions which will be noted. "cuban relief expenses" covered all charges for labor outside of that performed by our own party, and for supplies, etc., that were purchased outside of those we had brought from new york. "american red cross expenses" included expenses of nurses and hospitals on account of army work, as distinct from cuban relief work; also the maintenance of forty mules that had been sent us by that organization. "household expenses" covered house rent, servant hire, and maintenance of the entire party, which numbered as high as thirty people at times, and averaged twenty most of the time, making an average of less than $2.50 expense per week for each person. "general expenses" included work on hospitals and other buildings necessary to make them habitable and comfortable, and all other expenses not properly chargeable to any other account. on an estimated distribution of relief supplies, valued at half a million dollars, the cost of distribution, covering a period of seven months, exclusive of the charter price for the steamer "state of texas," amounts to less than three per cent of the value of the goods distributed. [illustration: refugees from santiago.] letter of santiago committee. miss clara barton, _president of the american national red cross, santiago de cuba_: madam:--the undersigned, who have had the honor to form your committee to assist you in the distribution of relief to this city during the permanence in it of the red cross, desire on the eve of your departure to "give an account of their stewardship," presenting at same time in a condensed form an idea of the work that has been done. it would probably be difficult to cite an instance in which a relief vessel has arrived so opportunely anywhere as the steamship "state of texas" arrived in santiago de cuba. after a rigorous blockade of two months, during which stocks of provisions had run very low, the greatest part of the inhabitants of the city, under stress of threatened bombardment, had abandoned their homes and taken refuge in the neighboring villages. on their return, after the occupation of the city by the american troops, many of the citizens found that during their absence their homes had been looted and the small store of provisions which they counted upon had disappeared. the same fate had overtaken many shops, and the establishments which had escaped, and which anyhow had hardly anything left to dispose of, remained closed for many days. it may therefore safely be said that the immense majority of the inhabitants of this city had nothing to eat, and it was at this moment that you most providentially arrived with the "state of texas." the organizing of a system of relief, and the discharge of the vessel were started simultaneously and with such success that on the twentieth of july a ration of cooked food was distributed by means of the local "cocina economica," 6000 persons being relieved on that day, and 9000 the next, the whole gratis distribution of rations by that institution exceeding, in the three weeks such distribution lasted, 200,000. by advice of your committee, in order to proceed to the distribution of uncooked food, a number of commissioners were appointed, each of whom presented a detailed list of the families that he agreed to distribute among, some of these lists embracing over one thousand persons. by this means the pressure of great crowds round the red cross deposits, which would have rendered impossible a prompt and efficacious distribution, was avoided, and to the limited number of commissioners, who had agreed to distribute among the great number of the needy, a large amount daily was supplied. we consider it a duty and take a special pleasure in manifesting our appreciation of the efficiency displayed by your whole staff in these days, and of the energy with which they discharged the vessel, carted and stored the cargo; and proceeded with its distribution; and can only congratulate them on the result of their labors and yourself on being at the head of such a well-organized corporation. in the very important items of directing the relief to be given into proper channels and keeping it out of improper ones, your committee had at the commencement an easy task, for the reasons already explained, the whole city being in want, by simply giving to all that applied, and in the first days that was what was done, so much so that three-fourths, more or less, of the entire community received some assistance. but after the first ten days it began to be evident that the strain was removing. cargoes of provisions for sale had arrived and were being retailed. the government were employing quite a number of workmen on and around the wharves at high wages, and some few workmen were moving out to the country. it behooved then the committee to be more conservative in admitting lists of applicants for rations, and this necessity was accentuated by complaints which began to arise of the difficulty of getting people to work, complaints which became general extending from the governor of the city who could not find workmen even at good wages, to clean the streets of the city, to the heads of households who found no one to cook, serve or wash, while such important minor industries, as the supplying of the city with charcoal or even firewood, were almost wholly abandoned. [illustration: santiago refugees at el caney, _where it is estimated that twelve thousand people were fed with red cross supplies before the surrender of santiago._] [illustration: establishing headquarters ashore.] finally the moment arrived when the end of the necessity of the permanence of the red cross was in sight, and, coinciding with the raising of the blockade of havana and other large cities where want and sickness had necessarily to be more accentuated than here, made it a question of the greatest good to the greatest number, made its removal to the west end of the island a necessity. there necessarily remained some poverty, some sickness, and some misery, but the public, and more especially the military government, had taken efficacious measures to cope with these evils, and while in one sense deploring your departure, your committee could only coincide with your views on the subject, and offer their conscientious opinion that the present state of affairs in santiago de cuba fully justified the departure of the red cross to districts where its presence was much more urgently required. in conclusion, your committee beg to express their gratitude for the confidence which you have so kindly bestowed on them, and to deplore that owing to sickness and extreme press of work, they have not been able so fully to assist in your benevolent undertaking as would have been their ardent desire. (signed) robert mason, h. michaelsen, wm. ramsden. _santiago de cuba._ report of e. winfield egan, m.d. when the red cross was asked by the department of state, and the central cuban relief committee, to go to cuba in charge of the relief work among the reconcentrados, the members of miss barton's personal staff, who had worked on other fields, were called to join the expedition. on the twentieth of february, while in my office in boston, a telegram arrived containing the usual call to service in the field. six days later, i reported at headquarters in the city of havana. already the preliminary work was in progress. committees were in the process of formation. a working census was being rapidly taken and information collected concerning the conditions in havana and the cities and towns of the interior, upon which to base a plan of operations. one of the first things essential to a systematic prosecution of the work was a commodious and convenient warehouse. this privilege was secured from the proprietors of the almacen de san josã�â©, one of the largest bonded warehouses in havana. here the red cross supplies were carefully stored and classified, and from thence shipped upon requisitions to all points reached in the relief work. but the feeding of the hungry was not the only work of the red cross. aside from the distribution of food and clothing, hospitals and asylums were necessary for the care of the sick, and for the orphan children. one of the first asylums established was located in the cerro, a suburban ward of havana, and was known as the _asilo de niã�â±os_. here, in addition to the usual work in the hospital department, outpatient clinics were instituted, including medical, surgical, gynecological, and, lastly, an eye and ear clinic. as the building selected for the asylum was originally built for a family residence, it was difficult to adapt it to all the needs of both an asylum and a hospital. for the last named clinic a dark room was of course needed, and for this reason this department was open during the evenings, from 8 to 11 p.m., when, with nature's kind co-operation, the necessary obscurity was always assured. the nightly attendance averaged about seventy. among these patients, the diseases of the eye were generally traceable to starvation; the proportion of cases for "refraction" were comparatively few. these clinics continued at the asylum until the united states government, through the consul-general, advised all american citizens to leave the island. on march 2, the leading physicians of havana were called in council, and methods of caring for the sick of the city were discussed, especially with reference to the best plan for avoiding the creation of a pauper element, through the abuse of the out-patient clinics. the plans formulated at the council were adopted and adhered to in the prosecution of the hospital work. with the work in havana still in progress, it was decided to make a trip to the interior. a special train was placed at the disposal of the red cross staff, and a visit was made to the principal towns in the provinces of havana, matanzas and santa clara. it was from the information gained by personal observation upon this trip, that senator proctor compiled his famous speech, delivered in the united states senate, upon the starvation and distress among the reconcentrados in the western provinces of cuba. at matanzas, sagua la grande and cienfuegos, well-conducted dispensaries were already in existence, but were almost destitute of means. supplies sufficient for two months were immediately ordered forward from the storehouse in havana, and these institutions were left in good condition. after doing what relief work was possible at the time, the party returned to havana. on arrival at the headquarters, miss barton called the staff together to consider what action should be taken upon the consul-general's recommendation that all americans should return home. the entire staff expressed their willingness to remain, but it was decided to confer with captain-general blanco. the captain-general stated that he would be glad to have the red cross remain, and that so far as concerned the regulars of the spanish army, the staff and equipment would be entirely safe, but that, owing to the irregular and unruly element in the army, the volunteers, whose actions could not be controlled, he considered it best that the red cross should retire before hostilities began. general blanco, however, offered to be personally responsible for the safety of miss barton so long as she remained. on the ninth of april the red cross retired, arriving at port tampa on the "olivette" three days later, and miss barton and staff took up temporary quarters at tampa, awaiting the time when the work in cuba might be again taken up. during the stay in tampa the nurses were daily instructed in emergency field work. all the appliances usually considered indispensable were left at the headquarters, and they were compelled to depend upon such conveniences as might be improvised on the spot. stretchers and splints were made from the limbs of trees; bindings and bandages were made from the long grass, which was pliable and easily woven. these exercises were accompanied by lectures on discipline in the field. on may 1, the entire party again arrived at key west and joined the steamship "state of texas," where the active work of relief began, our attention being first directed to the refugees in key west, and afterward to the spanish prisoners of war on the vessels captured by the blockading squadron. the crews of these vessels were, in many instances, short of provisions, and in some cases had had nothing whatever to eat, except fish, for fifteen days or more. the government appropriation was not yet available, and several weeks must elapse before government rations could be obtained for them. at the request of the united states marshal, the prisoners were supplied by the "state of texas," and were cared for medically by the surgeons of the red cross staff. a number of surgical operations were performed. not only were the prisoners fed, clothed and cared for, but by an arrangement made with the united states court and the naval authorities the men were permitted to write to their homes and friends, the letters being left open and certified by the red cross, and afterward forwarded to their destinations, those for spain being transmitted through the red cross of portugal, which had kindly offered to act as intermediary for the transmission of such communications. thus the prisoners were not only enabled to write to their parents and friends, but the red cross was able, by this means, to show to the spanish people in spain and cuba, through the letters from the captives themselves, what manner of treatment they were receiving as prisoners of war. this, it was hoped, would not fail to have its effect if in the course of the hostilities men of our own army or navy should be captured. in the latter part of may, miss barton having occasion to return to washington, the "state of texas" left key west and proceeded to port tampa. there we lived among the transports until the fleet sailed for cuba. there is hardly space to tell in detail all the work done on shore and in the harbor. the impression that the "state of texas," with the insignia of the red cross on either bow and on the smokestacks, was a hospital ship had become general among the troops, though she was really loaded with medicines, clothing and general supplies for the reconcentrados of cuba. as this impression prevailed, and the red cross was desirous of assisting our own men whenever necessary and adding in every possible way to their comfort, the spacious smoking room on board the ship was fitted up as an operating room, and the purser's room converted into a dispensary. no hospital staff in any of our great institutions could have been more proud than this little band of workers with their emergency hospital equipment, and its outfit of instruments and appliances--unsurpassed by the equipment of many a first-class hospital. many of the cases treated were of a character that required rest, quiet and watchful care, and these patients were given rooms on board the ship, and nurses were assigned to regular duty. the following is a summary of the cases treated: cynovitis of knee joint, 5; necrosis of bones of leg, 12; scalds and burns, 29; ear affections (including one case of removal of the bones of the ear. this patient was chief engineer of transport no. 7, "the comal"), 14; eye injuries, 19; tumors removed, 11; miscellaneous, sickness and minor injuries, 197. on june 17, following instructions from the navy department, the "state of texas" again weighed anchor and proceeded to key west, and after a stay of two days continued her voyage to cuba, and anchored in the bay of guantanamo, on the south shore of the island, in the province of santiago, at sunset july 25. a quantity of jerked beef and other supplies were left at guantanamo, in charge of captain mccalla, for distribution among the reconcentrados in the country. leaving guantanamo the next day we proceeded with the "state of texas" to siboney, reaching that place the evening of the same day. a severe engagement was fought at aguadores, where the spaniards were strongly entrenched and guarding one of the roads leading to santiago. our warships shelled the fortifications and silenced the batteries; and our troops made a gallant charge, but were repulsed with heavy loss, and had to fall back. the wounded began to arrive, some in ambulances, in army wagons and on litters. those who were able walked into siboney, in order to allow their more seriously wounded comrades to ride. major la garde, who was in charge of the army hospital at siboney, welcomed the red cross surgeons and gave them quarters and opportunity for working side by side with the hospital staff of the army, and extended every courtesy within his power. previously, the services of the nurses of the red cross were tendered to the surgeon in charge of the american hospital, but the offer was courteously declined. the aid of the red cross nurses was then offered to the cuban hospital, and gratefully accepted by general garcia. under their direction the insurgent hospital was thoroughly cleaned, disinfected and put into excellent order. their good work attracted the attention of the american wounded, who inquired why the red cross "had deserted them and gone to the cuban army." that evening, however, the nurses were called to the operating tents to assist in the care of the american wounded, and remained constantly on duty till all the injured were cared for. immediately after the first battle, fought on july 1, a red cross hospital was opened, and rapidly filled with american troops. in this hospital the nurses worked incessantly until, one by one, worn out by overwork, with reduced vitality, they could no longer stand the terrible strain, and were obliged to succumb and pay the debt which an exhausted nature demanded. these young women were the first volunteer nurses or "sisters" of the red cross who served in the war, and too much cannot be said in praise of their untiring devotion. faithfully and constantly they worked. nobly and unselfishly they labored, and their greatest reward was the gratitude of those they helped to save, and the satisfaction of a duty faithfully performed. the names of these nurses were, sister-in-chief "bettina," sisters minnie rogal, anna mccue, blanche mccorristen and isabel olm, assisted by mrs. trumbull white, of chicago. at daylight on the morning of july 2 everything was in readiness for messengers of the red cross to proceed to the front, and in company with mr. george kennan, preceded by the cuban guides, furnished by general garcia, we set out for the firing line. we reached the first division hospital of the fifth army corps about four in the afternoon, over a rough, miry road, fording extensive lakes of deep mud, but the hearty welcome extended by major wood repaid us for the hard journey. the first division hospital was established some distance ahead of the firing lines, and it was several hours before the lines were moved beyond the hospital. major wood assigned an operating table to the red cross. not a light was permitted to be shown the night of the second of july, lest it should attract the fire of the enemy, particularly of the guerrilla sharpshooters who were stationed in the trees about us. the operating tables were moved out into the open, and the operations were performed by the light of the moon. all through the night the scattering fire continued around us; generally the sharp crack of the mauser, occasionally the louder report of the springfield, and sometimes a heavier explosion, as of a shell or the firing of light artillery. at daylight, the firing had ceased. [illustration: copyright, 1898, by clara barton. starving in the plaza.] [illustration: los fosos.] no pen can describe the horrors of that night and the silent suffering of the wounded. long rows of them, nearly a thousand, lying in pools of water and on the damp ground, for the heavy rains had fallen every day. then, at night, the tropical dew fell like rain, adding to the general discomfort. in the morning, the great burning sun came out and the mists began to rise. hotter and hotter it grew, until almost unbearable. to shelter the wounded, palm leaves and branches of leafy trees were placed over them. the bravery and determined resignation manifested by the men waiting for treatment, and in the hospitals under operation, was worthy of comment. many times, as the surgeon or nurse was proffering attention to a wounded man, or offering him water or nourishment, he would say, "oh, give it to tom first, he's worse off than i am." this spirit of kindness and grim courtesy was noticeable all through the campaign. on our arrival there was no food for the wounded, no tents, no blankets. the men were without change of clothing, and in some cases what little they had required to be cut off on account of the character of the wound. a message explaining the condition of things at the front was sent back to siboney, from general shafter's headquarters, and immediately army wagons were loaded with supplies by the red cross, and the next morning they rolled into the hospital lines, with miss barton and some of her staff, accompanied by private hassett, who had been detailed from the thirty-fourth michigan, all seated on top of the wagons, which carried food enough for the patients in the hospitals for several days. they, too, had to come over miry roads that lead from the coast; of the wheels no spokes could be seen, nothing but one circular, solid mass of mud, like great massive car-wheels. there was many a moist eye and many shouts of welcome and surprise as the train came into camp. "there's a woman!" "it's the red cross!" "my god, boys, it's clara barton!" "now we'll get something to eat!" and they did. miss barton, mrs. gardner and others prepared condensed milk, malted milk and other delicacies, and within an hour every man was served with hot gruel, milk and fresh soda biscuits. later in the evening well-boiled and seasoned rice, fruit, canned meats and other things, including beef tea, were passed around. as the patients from the hospitals became convalescent, they were sent to the transports bound for home. on july 5, dr. gardner and i, after securing an ambulance and loading it with canned meats, crackers, pilot bread, milk, rice and other foods and delicacies, walked beside the loaded wagon, drawn by army mules, until we reached el caney. we arrived just as the refugees were coming in from santiago, from which city they had fled, fearing the bombardment that was threatened by the american forces around the place and the ships of the north atlantic squadron, lying off the mouth of the harbor. at el caney there was not even water to drink, food was very scarce. hundreds of hungry refugees were coming in. there were poor women with children in their arms, and there were men with hands full of gold which they offered for the food they could not purchase. a distributing committee was formed at once, including mr. william ramsden, son of the english consul at santiago, the french consul, two cuban officers, and other gentlemen whose names i do not now recall, and the relief of the refugees began. following close behind this first ambulance of supplies for the refugees at el caney, came a well-loaded army wagon in charge of mr. c.c. bangs of the red cross staff, who worked here, as he always had, with great vigor. he finished his work at el caney, superintending the relief of the refugees until they could return to their homes, and then joined the red cross party at the first division hospital. mr. bangs was always a hard and enthusiastic worker, but he could not withstand the climate and the constant fatigue. he was at last taken ill and never rallied. he died and was buried on the field, faithful to the cause to which he had pledged his service. on the evening of the twelfth of july major wood announced his intention of breaking camp and moving nearer to santiago. miss barton and staff then returned to siboney, reaching that place after dark the following day. the signal corps were unable to communicate with the ships in the harbor, and so there was no way in which we could join the "state of texas" that night. miss barton slept in a room tendered her by postmaster brewer, who subsequently died at the red cross hospital of what the doctors said was yellow fever. dr. hubbell and i lay on the floor outside, and enjoyed the sleep we could get, when we were not troubled by a species of shell fish called "land crabs," which are perfectly harmless, but have a body about four inches wide, six inches long and three inches thick, with legs ten inches long, and, standing erect on their legs, they go up and down stairs at leisure. they always take the shortest road, never go around anything, but hobble over every obstruction. mr. kennan rolled himself up at right angles with sir alfred paget on the floor of the veranda. we were all up at break of day. a call from captain mccalla for 50,000 rations for guantanamo met with an immediate response. the "state of texas" was dispatched, but on arriving there the surgeon in charge of the fleet asked if any of the relief party had been on shore, and on being answered in the affirmative, he refused to allow the goods to be landed, being afraid, as he said, of infection. the vessel returned to siboney and there continued to land and store what was needed at that place, preparatory to leaving for santiago. on july 17, the "state of texas" while lying off morro castle, santiago, at the entrance to the harbor, was boarded by admiral sampson, commodore schley and captain cook, who came to pay their compliments to _our commander_. never was there an action more gallant and graceful than the voluntary offer of these commanders to allow miss barton and her staff, with the "state of texas" to enter the harbor of santiago first, as the red cross and the relief ship represented the principle for which the war was waged--humanity. those on board will never forget the experience of that afternoon as the good ship steamed in, past the "merrimac," past the sunken ships of the once proud navy of spain, on to relieve the hungry and despairing people who crowded to the wharves to look at the ship with the insignia of good will flying from her masthead. as the vessel steamed slowly in, from her forward deck floated the strains of the "doxology" and "my country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty." the cargo of the "state of texas" was quickly unloaded and stored in spacious warehouses, under the supervision of mr. warner, and the good ship, under command of her captain, f.a. young, who had grown to be a red cross man at heart, accompanied by mrs. j. addison porter and sister blanche mccorristen, steamed away to new york. for the warehouses the red cross is indebted to dr. douglass, who also placed at our disposition his residence and corps of clerks to assist in the work. a distributing committee was at once formed by miss barton and staff, consisting of mr. mason, mr. michaelsen, mr. wm. ramsden, jr., who was also on the committee at el caney. mr. ramsden, as chairman of the committee, gave his entire time to the work, and his courtesy and executive ability did much to prevent confusion and misunderstandings, and thus kept the way smooth for effective work. through the co-operation of this committee, nearly 40,000 people were fed and made comfortable in four days. the army were unable to get their provisions, owing to the inability of the commissary department to fill the orders. two men were kept constantly employed in the warehouse of the red cross issuing foods, medicines and delicacies to fill requisitions from the officers of the army. to the soldiers themselves a large quantity of food of all description was given, sometimes singly, but where it was practical they were given as much as they had transportation for, to provide for the sick in their locality. a dispensary was opened in santiago by the red cross, where some 400 patients were prescribed for daily. this dispensary was in charge of dr. j.b. sollosso, the assistant surgeon of the red cross on the cuban field, assisted by five others. their work brought comfort to many a sick soldier and was a great credit to all connected with it. at the red cross headquarters, an out-patient department was established and placed in charge of dr. gill. this department developed so rapidly that local doctors were brought into the work, and all applicants reported to headquarters, requiring medicine or medical aid, were at once referred to one of the visiting staff. medicines and instruments for all were furnished by the surgeon placed in charge of the supply department. in this department were treated many american soldiers who had been stationed away from their regiments and who consequently could not get to their regimental surgeons. when the red cross staff left on the transport "clinton," bound for havana, the remainder of the supplies were left in charge of mr. warner. on august 27 we arrived in the harbor of havana. the following day the civil governor and his staff came on board the "clinton" to pay their respects to miss barton, and expressed their gratitude for the work of the red cross among the reconcentrados. the weather was very warm, and with forty mules between decks the situation was not all that could be desired for a protracted stay in a harbor like havana. an effort was made to land the cargo of supplies, but we were met with a refusal to allow the goods to enter without payment of duties, and, because of some technical oversight in clearing the vessel from santiago, a fine of $500 was imposed. the fine was promptly paid, and with no hope of being able to land soon, the "clinton" was ordered by miss barton to weigh anchor and proceed to egmont key, where we would go into quarantine before proceeding north. the stay of five days in quarantine at the key would not have been unpleasant, except for the gnats, mosquitoes, sand fleas, snakes and the daily storms, which made it necessary to call all hands at all hours to hold down the tents. the general cargo of the "clinton" was unloaded at egmont key, and as the charter of the vessel expired in a few days, she was hurried away to new orleans, carrying the forty red cross mules in charge of mr. c.h.h. cottrell, financial secretary. accompanied by dr. hubbell, i then proceeded to tampa to arrange for the shipment of the general cargo of the "clinton" to that port, where much of it could be used for the cuban refugees at that place who are being cared for by the red cross. the supplies were delivered to dr. s.s. partello, field agent at that point, whose efficient service among the cubans, and in the auxiliary relief work in the army hospitals, has elicited many words of satisfaction and praise. a few days later miss barton and staff, accompanied by general von schell, of the belgium red cross, left tampa for washington. not long after our arrival, word came that the steamer "city of san antonio" was loading in new york with relief supplies. mr. j.k. elwell was assigned by miss barton to go to cuba with this ship in charge of its cargo and i in charge of the medical and hospital supplies. on the arrival of the ship at matanzas, the large warehouse owned by brinkerhoff & co., was placed at the disposition of the red cross. with the large lighters, of which there are many at this port, the vessel was quickly discharged and released. the governor of matanzas, senor eduardo diaz, a man pre-eminently fitted for the position of responsibility which he held under the spanish government, contributed much of his time and means in furthering the work of relief. day and night he went about investigating the condition of the people, placed at our disposal every facility, and furnished special trains when needed. he was not only an able and just administrator of public affairs, but a humanitarian as well. taking him all in all, he was a man among the men of his country. in matanzas women and children walked the streets day and night begging. i suggested to the governor that it would be well to have all these poor people collected in institutions where they could be clothed, fed and cared for until they were able to care for themselves. in twenty-four hours after the governor's order was issued, these people were all housed and being fed from the stores of the "san antonio." at matanzas we found a dispensary conducted by the firemen's association. it was a model institution, and here 300 to 400 little children were fed every day, but their scanty store of provisions was running out, and so we left with them general food and delicacies and medicines sufficient for three months. all places in the western provinces were handled after the manner of matanzas. twenty-two institutions, including hospitals and asylums, were opened, and the sick, the women and the children, for the first time in many months, were sheltered and made comfortable. the regeneration of the hospital at jovellanos will serve as an example of the work that had to be done in many of the interior towns. the building itself manifested signs of former prosperity and cleanliness. it was a stately edifice, after the doric style. the pillars were crumbling and broken, the patio was a pool of mud, the yard in the rear was a laboratory of infectious germs, and all in a filthy condition. a chinaman lay in what was called the "dead house." he had died of starvation; so they said. the three coffins which had been repeatedly used to carry the dead to the grave, stood up against the wall. it was a perfect picture of poverty and filth. the chinaman lay on a slightly inclined board, with no clothing, covered only by an old blanket. removing the blanket from his body revealed the fact that the man was not dead, but still breathing. he was at once bathed, removed to a clean bed and given light nutriment at intervals, and the next day was sitting up smiling his appreciation, for he could not speak english at all, and but little spanish. the following day the coffins that had done service for seven years, formed the basis of a large bonfire, to which was added all the decayed wood flooring, garbage, old clothing and bedding--the accumulation of years. a band of workers, about sixty in number, carpenters, masons, painters, cabinet-makers and representatives of other trades, were put to work renovating and rebuilding. with only rations for pay, these men deemed it a privilege to be permitted to assist. these men were in a few days relayed by others, so that both the work and the food might be divided. great quantities of lime and paint were used, the building was raised in some places, and in others completely rebuilt, and ventilators put in. a marsh which had existed near the hospital and extending into the yard, was drained and the dense vegetation removed. the land around the building is now dry and clear, and is used for laundry purposes and for sunning the bedding and drying the clothing. after the building was repaired, painted, whitewashed and disinfected, even below the foundation, new cots were placed in the "salons" and the wards arranged. the patients were brought in until the hospital was filled, the women and children being first cared for. thus the streets were cleared of all mendicants. the institution was then provided by the red cross with medicines and general provisions for three months, and a good supply of clothing and bedding furnished. dr. mena, the city physician, was appointed to take charge with a corps of select assistants, and the hospital was left under the supervision of the alcalde, or mayor, and we passed on to other places where assistance was badly needed. after opening all the institutions which our stock of supplies from the "city of san antonio" permitted, we returned to havana. shortly afterward, in company with mr. d.l. cobb, of the red cross, a final tour of inspection was made, and all the institutions left in good running order. through the efforts of mr. cobb, assisted by dr. sollosso and others, permission was obtained from the spanish authorities in havana to open a hospital at mariano, a suburb some seven miles from the capital. a central committee was formed in havana, and the women of the city interested in the work. a large amount of money and supplies were contributed, and the hospital at mariano is now one of the most complete and practical in all the western provinces. in addition to the usual wards, there are administration offices, a fine dispensary fully stocked, a modern kitchen, bath rooms, operating room, a steam laundry plant and storerooms. the sanitary arrangements are as perfect as could be attained under the circumstances, and everything is neat, clean and orderly. the institution was established especially for the sick, wounded and enfeebled men who had served in the insurgent army, many of whom had been without proper medical attention for months, with their old wounds still open and in bad condition. over five hundred have been treated at this hospital, out of which number but twenty-six have died, a remarkably good showing considering the terrible condition in which the patients were brought from the interior. all the members of the american evacuation commission were always courteous and kind; they were helpful in their advice and otherwise assisted the work in many ways. to mr. s.m. jarvis, vice-president of the north american trust company, the fiscal agents of the united states government in havana, the red cross is indebted for valuable suggestions and material aid. the tour of inspection being completed, i returned to havana with mr. cobb, and, in response to instructions by cable from headquarters, we left for washington on the "mascotte" sailing november 30. clothing department. report of miss annie m. fowler.[g] on july 26, in the large back room on the ground floor, and opening out upon the flagged courtyard of the warehouse, casa buena santiago, was undertaken, under the direction of mrs. gardner, the work of the department of clothing, to sort out the garments as to kind and quality, and to re-pack them for distribution among the people of santiago, and the outlying districts and towns. on august 1, mrs. gardner returned to the states, and the responsibility of carrying out the work so ably directed by her, fell upon me. during the twenty days since, until our departure for havana on the twenty-first of august, the work of examining boxes, barrels, trunks and sacks of clothing, and keeping a minute record of each case, where it came from, by whom sent, its contents and condition, etc., has gone steadily on, taking out the various provisions ranging from canned meats, soups, vegetables, fruits and condensed milk; flour, corn meal, beans and various preparations of cereals, sugar, tea, chocolate and coffee; hams, bacon, salt pork, dried beef and codfish; dried fruits, even to roasts of once fresh meat, potatoes and eggs packed in february and march; in varying conditions of preservation according to the dual factors of kind and mode of packing. that nothing should be lost, such packages of meals and grains as had been broken in transportation and had become mixed in the box's contents, were put into barrels to be sent to the public soup kitchen, that worthy benevolence of one public-spirited citizen of santiago. in the process of its repacking for wholesale distribution from the various centers, the department was able to give much individual aid in clothing to those cases whose needs were made known to it. not among the fewest of these were the soldiers whose privations and forlorn condition would have to be actually seen to be fully appreciated. the officers, being unable to procure the necessary articles of clothing, food and medicine for themselves, their men and their sick, the red cross had the privilege of lending a hand to these brave men who so uncomplainingly suffered danger, hardship, exposure, sickness and death for their country's sake, and who so gratefully appreciated the least office done for them. as one man said to me: "the red cross has been a fairy godmother to us men." [g] now baroness von schelle of belgium. [illustration: bringing in the wounded.] [illustration: clearing for a cross road.] could the story of these sufferers be individually told there would not be wanting subject matter of much interest; in many cases the thrilling, tender, or romantic element stands forth. perhaps one of the most romantic instances is that of a young american. a fine specimen of manhood as he stood before me and quietly told me his story, led on by my interest and questioning: tall, erect, well-knit and seasoned to meet emergencies; a refined, open, strong face, a well poised head; one felt the real courage in the man. over three years ago, led by high hopes inspired by the cause of suffering cuba, as set forth in our land of free press agency, and fanned to a holy flame by the pen of a ready writer, he set out with the zeal of a crusader to plant the ensign of true liberty. a handful of comrades they were with hopes high, burning to do a righteous deed. landed upon cuban soil at evening, this little body of men was embraced by the natives; on the morrow these new-found friends had looted even the luggage of their would-be helpers. the life of frontier warfare began; in combat the americans were always given the exposed positions of danger, and were accordingly picked off one by one. over a year ago, the friend of this young hero was dangerously wounded in the hip. a cuban operation was performed; finally a piece of bone has worked itself out from the injured hip. the condition of the injured man becoming serious; food, medicines and clothing growing less; no possibility of carrying the injured man to find help, the case became desperate, and for his comrade's sake, the young warrior started overland to santiago, a distance of some three hundred miles, in quest of aid. he, a young french captain and two servants made up the little caravan for this journey. any one who has experienced cuban roads in the rainy season can imagine what such a journey means through woods and marsh, over mountains and across burning plains. that he was not to be daunted he proved by safely reaching santiago. horses had to be discarded and the journey over the mountains made on foot. tales of destitution and suffering he brought from all the country through which he came. people were so scantily clad that they could not come out to offer a glass of water. lands laid waste where the guerilla force had swept by like a swarm of locusts and had left nothing but desolation behind. it was, indeed, a pleasure to give of our stores such as the young officer could venture to carry upon that hazardous return journey, unarmed, for even his weapons had been stolen, and his recital in santiago of his experiences had caused scowling looks from under drawn brows. his hope was to get his wounded comrade home, or at least where surgical aid may be had before it is too late. one of the thrilling tales is that of marco sancho, a cuban warrior, who was brought in to be clothed. he had been in the country whither he had deserted from the spanish ranks to join the cubans. while one of the red cross staff had been making an overland tour of this province he had discovered the man and had told him to come to santiago for medical treatment. he came with a companion. there his former captain, a spaniard, discovered him, had him arrested, threatened him with death when he was returned to spain. fortunately the cuban bethought himself of the red cross physician and sent word to him of this peril. at the jail the prisoner was brought out between two guardsmen. a needless precaution one would think to see the diminutive form of the man. the spanish captain was over-confident of his right to punish his soldier. the thought was suggested that he, a prisoner himself, had no right to punish a man, who by birth a cuban, had served in his country's cause. pompously he could not see it until by the persuasion of general wood's order to liberate the man at once, he became servilely humble. marco sancho was so rejoiced at his escape from horrors untried, that his agile little framework expressed his entire satisfaction in the situation by turning a complete somersault. the tender side to hard soldier life is not wanting. a young lieutenant, refined yet every inch a soldier and a gentleman, with a something indefinably fine above the common lot of man, brought in a little cuban lad of eight years. he had lost his mother five years ago, and in the encounter in july his father had been killed. three officers had adopted the boy, and were about to take him north when they returned. the difficulty of introducing a cuban lad into our civilization habilitated after the fashion and condition of his native land faced them, when they bethought themselves of the resources of the red cross. the boy himself was a pitiful object; he had had the fever, the results of which had left him with a partial paralysis in the hips; he seemed out of physical proportion; his bright, intelligent eyes, and that peculiar pathetic soprano of the voices of many of the children in cuba made him a strangely picturesque figure. but the manly tenderness of the young officer as he did the little offices of the toilet for the lad, the unconsciously gentle tone of his voice as he spoke, the kindly gleam of his eye as it lighted upon the boy, made a picture not to be forgotten. as they rolled away in one of the quaintly primitive-looking cuban carriages, the front seat stacked with gifts, the little fellow delightfully spick and span, and confidingly trustful of his future in the hands of his youthful protector who sat beside him, one felt a quickening at the heart-strings to know what the adopted son of the regiment would become, how it would all turn out. surely, so far as the boy is concerned, unusual opportunities have opened. contrasts stand ever quietly side by side, telling their story to him who will read, perhaps nowhere else more markedly than here in cuba, where the conditions of life are most abnormal. these few snap-shots at history, as it is making in these stirring times, show that even behind the closed doors of a wareroom, where the overlooking, assorting and repacking of cases of garments, which the kind hearts of people at home have prompted them to send, is not without its human, vital interest. meanwhile the work goes steadily on; as each case is repacked, it is nailed up. a red cross label is pasted on, below the label its contents are duly noted in blue pencil, and the box is neatly piled, with like cases and barrels, ready to be sent out to the commissioners, the hospitals, orphanages, medical clinic, outlying towns whenever the call may come. fifty-eight barrels and fifty cases of clothing were put on the "clinton" to be taken to havana. a hundred and eight cases and barrels have been distributed. about six hundred cases are left in the warerooms of casa buena, there to be distributed by the commission of ladies who have consented to give out this clothing to the needy. three hundred and ninety-eight cases were opened, sorted and repacked, making a total of about 800 cases, mainly from the cargo of the "state of texas." the red cross of other nations. their sympathy and active co-operation. it is with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction that i record the fact that the red cross of the united states is, in its relations with all the foreign branches of the international society, on terms of mutual confidence and esteem; and that the utmost cordiality is maintained through a constant interchange of correspondence. during many years, before our organization received the attention and official recognition in this country that it was entitled to, coming as it did with the prestige of a splendid record in europe, and the patronage of the elite of the old world, i was encouraged and strengthened by those friends of many nations, but of one humanity, to hold to the good work until the united states should place itself in the van of enlightenment and civilization, and catch step in the grand march onward to universal peace. many times discouragement and despair battled with me; and but for the never-ending kindly words that bade me strive on, i fear i should have been inclined to give up the fight. the american people are ever so active and full of the work of the present, that it is a hard matter to interest them in anything that may be of remote utility or even mercy. certainly, no other people have quicker instincts or more generous impulses than they; and none respond with more alacrity and abundance with the need is present. it was almost an impossibility to make the average american believe that his country would ever go to war again; therefore, why should he trouble himself about war cares or appliances; there would be time enough to think about those things when war was threatened. surely no one wanted to fight us. we, as a nation, attended to our own business, and didn't interfere in the affairs of other nations; and thus were in no danger of getting into serious trouble with any one. of course, the history of the world was all against any such optimistic reasoning; but, then, it was said, america was a new country, and laid on peaceable lines; its intentions were good and honorable and would be respected; besides, it was so powerful and so remote from other nations that it was in no danger of attack under any circumstances. that was the kind of argument one met, when vouchsafed an opportunity to speak in behalf of the red cross. fortunately, though, there were a few more thoughtful and reflecting people who could look ahead and see the dangers; who knew that, however carefully navigated, there were winds and tides that might veer from her course the good ship of state, and wreck or damage her on the rocks of discord. these few friends rallied to the support of the red cross, and stood by it through all the dark days; and now that it has received its "baptism of fire," and the gracious acknowledgment of gratitude from the president of the united states, and the blessings of thousands upon thousands of the citizens and soldiers who have felt its beneficence, they feel, with its president, that there is at least some truth in the old saying that "all things come to him who waits." the alarm of war was all that was needed to bring the american people quickly to a realization of the necessity for the services of the red cross; and that necessity once recognized, they gave an unstinted support of themselves and their means. had there been need for them, the red cross could easily have recruited an army of twenty-five thousand from the flower of american womanhood. rich and poor alike gave their money freely; and doctors and nurses from every part of the country offered their services for no greater compensation than the privilege to serve suffering humanity. to our friends of the red cross in europe and in asia--nearly all of the nations of which contributed liberally to our needs during the late war--we have no words that will adequately express our appreciation and gratitude for their timely aid; and if i fail to make proper acknowledgment it is because i am unable to say all that wells up to my heart for utterance. let it suffice for me to say that the americans are enthusiastic, affectionate, and appreciative; and a kindness once shown is never forgotten. god grant that other nations may not have to settle their differences by an appeal to arms; but should such an unhappy fate attend them, i can say with certainty, that the red cross of america will be only too happy to reciprocate the many kindnesses that have been equally shown to us and to our late opponents. to the red cross of spain we extend our loving hand, with the hope that our two nations shall never more be anything but the warmest friends. we know how our sister society suffered in this last struggle; and we, who labored under the banner of "humanity and neutrality"--we, who could harbor no animosity for a brave people struggling, as they were, for what they believed to be their rights--lent our assistance to its countrymen wherever we found them, on the fields, or in the prisons and hospitals; and it is our proud privilege to say that the red cross of spain has officially recognized in a most graceful and welcome manner its high appreciation and gratitude for the good offices we were able to render in the line of our duty to its sick and wounded countrymen during the late war. remembering with heartfelt gratitude the munificence of great britain, germany, austria, russia, italy, switzerland, denmark, belgium, holland, sweden, norway, greece, turkey and india, i trust it will not appear invidious for me to especially commend two of their sister countries. the red cross of france, acting in strict accordance with the principle of neutrality, gave generously and equally to the red cross societies of spain and the united states for the benefit of the sick and wounded; while many of its private societies and citizens sent us substantial remembrances of the long-continued friendship that binds together the two countries. to all these we say: "god bless you; we shall not forget." soon after the united states had declared war against spain i received a letter from the duke of palmella, the president of the portuguese red cross society, in which he tendered the services of his society to act as a friendly intermediary between the societies of the belligerent powers. the geographical position of portugal, being on the border of spain, and the well-known neutrality of her people, made her the natural agency for this purpose; and as all mail facilities between spain and the united states had ceased, we gladly availed ourselves of this opportunity to communicate with "our friend, the enemy." of course, the same offer was tendered to spain and accepted by that country. the prime reason for the duke's suggestion was his desire to open a way for the prisoners of war of both countries to inform their relatives and friends of their condition and whereabouts. the arrangement worked perfectly, and many anxious hearts were saved from the rack of uncertainty; while others were informed of the sad fate that had befallen their loved ones. how well satisfied our portuguese friends are with the service that was rendered is best told in the following copy of a letter received some time since: lisbon, _october 22, 1898_. _the american national red cross, washington, d.c._: dear mr. secretary:--we beg to acknowledge receipt of your esteemed favor of the first october, enclosing three more letters, the last to be returned to spain. our work being now arrived at a close, we take advantage of this opportunity for presenting to the american national red cross and your worthy president our earnest thanks for their kind support in the accomplishment of the task we have undertaken in behalf of spanish prisoners in the united states and their relatives and friends in spain. again, we have true pleasure in acknowledging, in the name of hundreds of mothers and wives, whose sorrow and anxiety were extreme, the invaluable services you and your government have rendered to them, in order to assure correspondence between the prisoners and their families--a fact quite new in the annals of war--the benefits of which are certainly to be valued and cherished by every sensible heart. for we must not conceal that when we were determined to ask the assent of the american and spanish governments for such a work, through your kind mediation and that of our friends in madrid, most people shook their heads incredulously, and while admiring the spirit that animated our good wishes, feared that our efforts would be in vain, and that the red cross would find itself hopelessly out of place in the unusual position it was about to fill. it is a consolation--indeed, amidst such gloom it is a transient happiness--to know that such was not the case; and we feel happy in proclaiming that the most efficient part of that work was, undoubtedly, yours. please accept, dear sir, my sincere regard and distinguished consideration. sincerely yours, duke of palmella to the congress of the united states the following address was prepared to be read before a special meeting of members of congress as early as the summer of 1888. the news of the death of general sheridan prevented the meeting, and no other opportunity having ever presented, the remarks have waited all the intervening years. what were the facts then are none the less true now, either for the congress or the people, and i adopt the usual custom in such cases, and ask "leave to print." gentlemen:--while proceeding to lay before you the various measures to which i have taken the liberty of inviting your honored consideration, it may be well to refresh your memories in regard to the principles involved in the subject of the red cross; to recall how, under the treaty, it stands related to our government, and how, through the same feature, it relates us to other governments. the code of ten articles, forming the international compact or treaty of geneva, pledges each nation which unites with it to certain methods of neutral action and humanity never before formally admitted by nations at war, and it removes, to the greatest possible extent, all needless severities hitherto practiced under their usages. this treaty, said to be the first compound treaty ever formed, came into existence at geneva, switzerland, in 1864. it now includes some thirty governments. the first efforts towards our own adhesion were made with the executive department; but as it was thought that the text of the treaty called for some changes in the "articles of war," it was submitted to congress, by which body the adhesion was made in february, 1882. it ever remains an undisputed fact, that the medical department of an army never is, nor can be, made adequate to the needs of the sick and wounded of its battles. hence the inevitable suffering of the men, the terrible anxiety and agony of friends at home, and the loss of countless lives. the red cross creates an organized, neutral volunteer force, from the people, supplied by the people, but still subject to the regulations of the military in the field, recognized by and working in full accord with it, bringing all needed aid in the form of intelligent, disciplined assistants, and abundant supplies to the direct help and use of the medical department of an army, and with which department it works, as if belonging to it. it created, with great care, an insignia to be the one known and recognized sign of neutrality in the relief of the sick and wounded of armies, and in the protection of the military hospital service, the world over. this insignia, which has given its name to the treaty, has become universally known and respected. there is no other military hospital flag, and no other sign marks the relief designed for the succor of the wounded soldier, nor protects from capture or harm, either himself or the non-combatant who goes to administer. it is probable that no sign nor figure in the secular world is sacred to so many eyes as the red cross of geneva. this treaty takes its powers from the common consent of the united governments of the civilized world. their rulers sign it. its ratifications are officially made by the congress of berne, switzerland. it recognizes no other features than the relief of the victims, and the mitigation of the horrors of war. in its short life of twenty-five years it has assumed the conduct of the entire auxiliary relief work of the armies of the world. it has given rise to more valuable inventions, and under its humane impulses sanitary science has made rapid growth. by common consent of the powers, at the formation of the treaty, the worthy body of genevese gentlemen, who called and conducted the convention, was formed into an international committee, through which only medium the various nations within the treaty communicate, and which holds the direction of all international relief in time of war. each nation, upon its accession to the treaty, is requested to form a national committee, which committee shall constitute the medium by which the other governments, through the international committee, may communicate with its government. these national committees are usually presided over by officers very near the crown or high in authority; as, for instance, the national president of the red cross of germany is count otto de stolberg, who recently crowned young emperor william. of france, marshal mcmahon; of england, lord lindsay; of belgium, the king himself. their patrons are always of the crown or royal families, as empress augusta of germany, victoria of england, dagmar of russia, marguerite of italy, and the royal grand duchess of baden. although the object of the organization is people's help for national necessities, its national branches receive strong governmental recognition, and encouragement. every facility which can be is afforded them, and the patronage of the crown or government in _monarchical_ countries, unlike our own, _means substantial aid_, which is afforded in many ways. each nation is left free to form its national committee in accordance with the spirit and needs of its nationality. in the formation of our own, it was thought possible to include other relief than that of war, and as you already know, america organized for the relief, first of war then of other great national calamities, such as the government is liable to be called upon to aid through its public treasury. we were accepted by the ratifying powers at berne, with this digression, and although novel, it has won great approval and is known abroad as the "american amendment." under this civil feature the american red cross has aided in twelve great calamities: one forest fire, five floods, three cyclones, one earthquake, one famine and one pestilence. it has brought to the aid of the victims of these disasters, in money and material, many hundred thousands of dollars, acting as a systematized and organized medium of conveyance and distribution for the relief which the people desired to contribute. it has never yet solicited aid, it has scarcely suggested the raising of relief, but has endeavored to administer the relief which was raised wisely and faithfully. [h]since our adhesion to the treaty two international conferences have been held: the one at geneva, by the international committee, in 1884; the other at carlsruhe, by the grand duke and grand duchess of baden, in 1887. as president of the american national red cross the honor has been accorded me to represent the government in each of these conferences. some of the questions therein discussed, being of both national and international importance, will be later submitted for the consideration of your honorable legislative body. the foregoing explanations made, i will, with your kind permission, gentlemen, venture to name to you some of the more personal features, of our _own_ national branch of this world-wide organization, touching its conditions, positions, relations and requirements, inviting your thoughtful consideration to the same. i must do this, not only as its chief executive officer, but as the person who has been wholly responsible for our ever having had any connection with it. i alone brought this subject before the government, as the official representative of the international committee, asking its adoption as a treaty, if found desirable; and was shown the exceptional courtesy of a unanimous accord in a most unfamiliar subject, by the largest, and, as i hold, the highest legislative body in the world. [h] since, then, however, the international conferences have numbered six and the relief fields twenty. during the intervening seven years, i have done my best and my utmost to properly test the value of the obligation taken, and to learn, from actual and practical experience, if the results would warrant a continuance of effort on the part of the national committee, and to some extent the encouragement and active co-operation of our government, without which the objects of the treaty would be misapplied, and its results practically lost. these efforts have been made in the face of the open world. no action has been covered, none exaggerated. on its own fair merits, the american branch of the red cross stands before the government and the people it has served for their judgment. if it has been an idle body? if a parasite, drawing sustenance from others? if it has promised and not performed? if its work has been actual, or merely appeared upon paper? if it has found favor with the people it has gone to aid? if it has gained or lost in public estimation? if in any way it has disappointed the expectations of the country or the people? if it has given cause to the government to regret its admission? if it has sustained its national standing in good repute with the affiliating nations of the world? if it has been a costly adjunct to the government? like a gleaner it brings in its sheaves at the end of its seven years of faithful trial, and asks that its work be judged. if for any cause, the organization be looked upon as _not_ meriting or justifying encouragement and co-operation of the government, which its peculiar relations to it demand, and it is thought wisest or best to withhold them, it will be a simple and perhaps welcome thing to let go and rest. unless one is actually going down hill with a load, it is always easier to stop than to go on. in this case vastly so. it is now thirteen years ago, during the administration of president hayes, that i first brought this matter to the attention of our government, believing it to be, perhaps, the work of a month. from that day to this, i have found time for nothing else. i learned that its broad humanities were the belt that spanned the world. dependent, as it is, upon the co-operation of the government, being substantially a link between it and the people at large, i should not have been justified in proceeding to organize great bodies of persons under its regulations, until i was assured what position the government would take in regard to it. i could not _ask_ this decision of the government until actual results had proven to it, and to myself as well, that the position required was one worthy to _be_ taken. thus the trial has been made single handed. not a penny of tax nor dues has ever been asked for the expenses of the national red cross. the general impression prevails that it is actively a branch of the government, and of course, provided for by it. this impression has, pecuniarily, been heavily against us, as it enters no philanthropic mind to extend a generosity to the red cross, any more than to the war, or state, or navy departments, or any other branch of protected government service. no freight bill on shipments has ever been remitted, nor agent ever passed free over a road up to this time; and no bequest has ever been made to it. postage is not even paid. the government is supposed to do all these things, and it is generally believed that its officers have large salaries. in one way this impression has been helpful. it has doubtless given prestige; but it is a costly luxury, and not to be _forever_ afforded. the actual expenses of the government since the first, have been as follows: an appropriation in 1883 of one thousand dollars, expended in government printing of a little pamphlet history of the red cross, written by me, at the request of the senate committee, for circulation after the adoption of the treaty--two thousand copies. as neither frank nor postage were provided for the mailing, the transmission of each copy cost some ten cents. the issue is exhausted. appropriations of $1000 and $2000 respectively for expenses of governmental delegates to the international conferences of 1884 and 1887, held at geneva and carlsruhe, the delegates giving their time and services, and meeting all costs, excepting those actually incurred en route, and provable by vouchers. thus making an aggregate of six thousand dollars in eight years expended in its own behalf, with as much in value, in each instance, added by the committee, as otherwise appropriated. these are the only demands ever made upon the government. this balances our accounts to date. we now reach a point where i may name some directions in which the government might properly extend its protecting and its helping hand. the international committee of geneva makes the national committee of america the recognized medium of communication with our government. it sends its official communications to the president of the american national red cross, with directions that this officer present the same to our government, and duly transact the required business. but unfortunately, there is opened no legalized medium through which the red cross is expected to confer with the government, through either its executive or its legislative branches. "what is everybody's business is nobody's business." the entire system has each time to be explained to busy men, precedents to be found, and, however willing and anxious, no one can be quite certain if he is right. the naming of two or three gentlemen from your own honorable body to act permanently as a committee on the affairs of the red cross would remedy all this, and render simple and efficient what is now complicated and awkward. it would then be _some_body's business. the subject would be understood, the needs comprehended, suitable advantages taken, mistakes avoided, time saved, prestige given both at home and abroad, and the unavoidable communications between the committee and government officials come to be regarded as legitimate business, and not as favors personally sought and graciously listened to. i regard the appointment of this committee as a most important step, if _any_ steps are to be taken--perhaps indispensable, in view of certain measures which must come officially before congress. at the last two international conferences resolutions were passed requesting that each government within the treaty take firm measures for the protection of the international insignia of the red cross, from misuse and abuse by unauthorized persons and parties, as methods of popular advertising for speculation and gain. the patent office is besieged by applicants demanding the red cross for trademarks. it becomes our duty on behalf of these conferences to present these resolutions to the government, together with the statements of the various countries through their delegates, and to ask its consideration, and its official action, in common with that of other nations. our duty to the government demands this as well. the great query which confronts us, and often with a tinge of seeming reproach, is: "why is so little known of your organization? why is it not written up, and circulated among the people for general information? even the army knows nothing of it. where shall we find something published about it?" and these inquiries come from the officers of the regular army, the national guard, the grand army, and the medical fraternity in general, not to mention the people at large. there is probably no one in the land who would more gladly see these questions favorably met, and the information go out, than the parties supposed to be responsible for this dereliction. it has sometimes occurred to me that a little "dangerous surplus" might be safely disposed of in that way without compromising any leading issues. governmental bureaus, with full powers, have been commenced requiring less of actual labor, method, skill, clerical ability, and official expenses than are expected and provided yearly at the private headquarters of the american national red cross, and with less of general demand for them, and smaller visible results. fortunately its president has been always able to furnish space for the red cross headquarters in her home, and as it was her child, she has naturally and willingly provided for it. but, gentlemen, children grow! in no other country does the organization of the red cross stand as an ordinary benevolent society. in all others its relation to the government is defined, pronounced, and its prestige assured. this is wise and just, and only this can make it of greatest service to the government and to the people. it is a peculiar institution, without nationality, race, creed or sect, embracing the entire world in its humanizing bond of brotherhood, without arbitrary laws or rules, and yet stronger than armies, and higher than thrones. i desire to have it better comprehended and more fittingly appointed in our great and advancing country. i would like to see for it a headquarters which, in point of activity, would be a national honor to us. the red cross of america should successfully undertake some difficult problems. hospital and emergency work naturally fall to it. it has come to be the first thought of by any community suddenly overtaken by disaster. with all our misdirected, criminal and incendiary immigration, which nothing seems to hinder, with our dangerous foreign leaders and teachers, our strikes, mobs and dynamite, who can foresee the moment when the united states flag shall be called to make peace and hold it? and wherever that symbol goes, the red cross must follow, and only one step in the rear. the first man who falls must see it on the arm that raises him, and the last must know it has not left him. the national red cross of america is not without possibilities for occupation, and these neither theoretical nor sentimental. gentlemen, there are some points in reference to which i desire to guard against misapprehension on your part. of all things, i would not have you get the impression that i desire to foist the red cross upon the government for support. that, because i say it is liable to equal a government bureau in point of work and care, i desire to have it made a government bureau. nothing is more impossible. i would not have you feel that we have carried it to a certain extent, and now want the government to take it up. these things could not be; it would at once defeat the very objects of the organization, which mean _people's help for national needs_, _not_ national help for people's necessities. still, there is a certain fitting and customary connection between the two, which it is proper to recognize. certain protection of the rights and welfare of the organization, which it is suitable and for the interest of the government to maintain, as, for instance, the protection of the insignia. its acts of incorporation--some aid in the circulation of information respecting it, its charters, etc., through its official printing bureaus, and some direct channel of communication, and advice opened between the government and the organization, as customary in other countries, and without which i think we cannot reasonably hope to stand upon a respectable basis in their estimation. if germany can place count stolberg, one of its highest official dignitaries and officers, at the _active_ head of its red cross, we can scarcely do less than to permit a small advisory committee of our legislature to at least _confer_ with ours. these are all very small and inexpensive demands upon a government like ours, and from their apparent unimportance, likely to remain unconsidered. still, they _are_ important to the work that seeks them. with these assured, the national committee can safely permit the people to take their place in the work, and if the time never comes when the country has need of the help for which they organize, it will be only a too fortunate land. the part which i have thus far been privileged to take in this work has but one merit. it has been faithful, and i believe, unselfish. with better judgment, greater strength, wealth, power and prestige, or the ready help of those who had, i might have accomplished more. i have nothing to gain from it, and never have had. i have no ambitions to serve, and certainly no purposes. i regret only the years which have gone by in feeble, unaided effort, which, i feel, with stronger help, might have been more serviceable. all i am worth to it to-day is the experience i have gained. i have no more time for trials, nor proof, and of these, no more are needed. the facts are established. i have stated what is needed of the government, before it can go on, and i ask your kind consideration of the same. to the committees of the red cross. an acknowledgment. to our tireless executive committee, and to the great and energetic red cross relief committee of new york, who undertook the concentration of the war relief and the administration of the generous gifts of the people, and who have so faithfully stood by me in the work during all these months, no words can adequately express my gratitude and the appreciation of the national committee. for them no task was too great; no requisition was ever refused. to their zealous labors is due, in a great measure, whatever success may have attended the red cross in its mission for the relief of the sick and the wounded. [illustration: by courtesy of general lawton. view of morro castle, santiago de cuba, as seen on entering the harbor.] [illustration: by courtesy of general lawton. view of santiago de cuba from the harbor.] to the auxiliaries of the red cross and the nurses who went to the war. to the army of women, brave, generous and true, who either as auxiliaries at home, or as nurses at the field, who made up that magnificent array of womanhood, ready for sacrifice on the altar of humanity and their country--no words of mine can do justice. the monument deserved and traced in that glowing pen picture of the melting tribute of another pen, i beg to place here with my tears of acquiescence, to sanction every line. a tribute to the red cross nurses. by franklin b. hussey, of chicago. * * * * * the war is over. now let us rejoice. now erect your tablets and monuments to the heroes of the war--the living and the dead. write their names on the long roll of honor: dewey, schley, hobson and wainwright, roosevelt, lee, wheeler and all the rest, and alongside their names write those of the private soldier and the "man behind the guns." they "remembered the maine." and while we rear our symbols of marble and of bronze to commemorate their brave deeds, there is one we must not, we cannot, forget. when our brave boys left home and marched proudly down to war they did not go alone, for the gentle presence of woman walked beside them, to assuage with her soft touch the grim horrors of carnage. a few days ago the busy thoroughfares of our city resounded with the music and fanfares of a great jubilee. i saw the towering fronts of the thronging palaces of trade put off their accustomed garb of work-a-day gray and drab and bedeck themselves in carnival attire, while stretched across from roof to roof for miles hung festoons of glittering lights, banners and flags in a bewildering chaos of red, white and blue. i saw triumphal arches spanning the streets, adorned with the portraits and names of patriots, but i saw not hers of whom i speak. under those arches, attended by all the pomp and splendor of the trappings of war, keeping step to the glad music of victory, marched ten thousand men, at their head the chief executive of the nation. i saw senators and judges, diplomatic representatives and statesmen, generals and heroes of the army and navy, veterans and volunteer soldiers pass in glittering procession, while a million voices shouted loud huzzas that told of a nation's tribute of gratitude to all those who had contributed to the great victory; but for her i looked in vain. at night i saw a great feast spread, honored by the presence of the nation's leader and all those who had ridden in the grand pageant. the toasts went round and the glasses clinked, but never a word of her of whom i speak. not that she was forgotten; not but that cheers would have rung out at the mention of her name; but because she went about her duty of self-sacrifice so simply, so modestly, without even a thought or expectation that any one would ever know or care whether she lived to come back from the death-laden fever swamp, or not, her part in the great victory had been, for the time being, overlooked; and while gifted tongues are paying their tributes of burning eloquence to our heroes, without seeking to detract one whit from their glory and fame, which they so richly deserve, may i draw nigh, with uncovered head, and cast a flower at _her_ feet? she asks no recognition. she seeks no praise; but on some sunny slope of one of our wooded parks i want to see a simple shaft uplifted in memory of the girl with a red cross on her arm. she went forth to war with no blare of trumpets or beat of drums; the first to go, the last to return; she carried neither sword nor musket, but only the gentle ministrations of a woman's hand and heart; not to make wounds, but to heal them. if you seek fitting words in which to embody her record, go ask those whose fevered brows her cooling palms have pressed, whose bloody wounds her hands have stanched, but the lips that could best tell her noblest deeds lie cold and still, wrapped in the sleep that heeds no bugle call. she carried balm and healing not only to broken and bleeding bodies, but to broken and bleeding hearts as well, and stood through long pestilential nights, like a ministering angel of heaven, beside the weary pillow of pain, and when all that human hands could do had been done, and the dying soldier murmured last words to mother, wife or sweetheart, hers the ear that caught the last faint whisper, hers the fingers that penned the last letter home, hers the voice that read from the thumb-worn page, "the lord is my shepherd, i shall not want.... yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death"--while with his hand clasped in hers, his soul passed on through the "valley" and the "shadow" up to "the sandals of god." yes, raise aloft her statue in the streaming sunlight. let some great sculptor, catching aright the inspiration of his theme, outline that slender form--that woman's form, with melting heart and nerves of steel, against the soft blue of the summer sky, with her lint and bandages in one hand and her bible in the other, the sign of the cross upon her sleeve, and the glory of the countenance of the "son of man" reflected on her face, and underneath let these words be traced: to the nurses of the red cross--those angels of the battlefield--who ministered to our soldiers and sailors, the thanks of a grateful nation; for "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." * * * * * as the sun went down. two soldiers lay on the battlefield at night when the sun went down, one held a lock of thin, gray hair and one held a lock of brown. one thought of his sweetheart back at home, happy and young and gay, and one of his mother left alone, feeble and old and gray. each in the thought that a woman cared, murmured a prayer to god, lifting his gaze to the blue above there on the battle sod. each in the joy of a woman's love, smiled through the pain of death, murmured the sound of a woman's name, tho' with his parting breath. pale grew the dying lips of each, then, as the sun went down, one kist a lock of thin, gray hair, and one kist a lock of brown. anon., in _town talk_. unwritten thanks. dear readers, i pray you accept this last word from me: "poor even in thanks"--the thanks with which the heart is burdened but cannot speak. the acts of kindness shown during these waiting, and oft weary years, that crowd and clamor for expression, would duplicate this volume many times, and the cherished names that the hand struggles to write, would turn these pages into a biographical dictionary. let me pray, then, that every person who takes up this volume and recalls a kind act done me, or a friendly, encouraging word spoken in all the years of the busy period which it covers, shall read between the lines, the cherished memory, the thanks, and the blessing so richly deserved and so fully given. a word of explanation. may this book before quite leaving the hands of its author be permitted this word of explanation. its subject took its rise in, and derived its existence from, war. without war it had no existence. the watchword, indeed one might almost say, the "war cry" of our country and of our people was "_peace_." war was obsolete--out of date--out of taste--in fact, out of the question: hence there existed no need for providing relief for it; and thus the red cross has stood, unrecognized in the shadows of obscurity all the eighteen years of its existence among us, waiting for the sure, alas, too sure, touch of war, to light up its dark figure, and set in motion the springs of action. a few believed, and like disciples, waited with it. if at any time, during that period, one had presumed to offer to the american public a book treating exclusively upon the red cross, the production would have found neither publishers nor readers; but now that the stroke of war has fallen and the interest comes home to ourselves, neither can wait for the book to be properly written, hence the unfinished and unsatisfactory condition in which it must present itself. conclusion. in the foregoing pages is outlined the history of the american national red cross in peace and in war. we have seen it grow year by year, from the persistent, almost unaccountable rejection of the treaty of geneva by our government for eighteen years. we have seen it beginning in the cordial recognition of blaine, and garfield, and arthur, gradually increasing in the amount and scope of its labors, growing, in the slowly gained influence and support of public confidence, to its present condition of general recognition in all parts of our own country, and in the warm appreciation of all the nations that have acceded to the treaty of the red cross. there is, we are happy to believe and to assure our readers everywhere, a warmth and an enthusiastic appreciation of the red cross that brings added honor to the country, and that everywhere recommends the principles and the practices for which the sacred symbol stands. no american citizen will hereafter travel in foreign lands any less securely since the american national red cross has been before him in russia, and in armenia, and in the high conferences where the treaty nations by their representatives from time to time assemble. it is founded in the soundest and noblest principles, in the deep needs of human nature, and in the enduring instincts and feelings of mankind. it has come to quicken into fresh, new growth the best things in human life. like the banyan tree, wherever an auxiliary branch of the red cross exists, it will so drop roots into human character and life, that it will make it a parent trunk in turn to send out influences that shall bring other affiliating branches, so that it shall at last cover the earth with its grateful shade, beneath which the tramp of armed men shall cease, and the battle flags be furled. then, although the original purpose and object of the red cross was indeed to heal the wounds and sickness incident to warfare, there will remain the work under the "american amendment," in which the red cross goes forth to heal other great ills of life. the future of the red cross then will be worthy of the labors and sacrifices in which it originated, worthy of the care and tender solicitude with which its growth and progress has been watched and tended. into the hands of the coming generations it will be given as the best legacy that the all father has at any time given to his children--the spirit and the power symbolized and consecrated forever by the red cross of geneva. notes. american national red cross. the red cross is often referred to by the press and by many of our friends in correspondence, as a "society." from this practice, it appears that a misapprehension exists regarding the official title of the national organization in this country, and a few words of explanation seem necessary. as contemplated by the treaty of the red cross, and provided by the regulations of the international committee, there is formed in each of the countries adopting the treaty of geneva, one central national committee of the red cross, with headquarters at the seat of government. in this national committee of each country, authorized by the international committee and recognized by its own government, is centred the power of organization and direction of all matters connected with the administration of relief contributed by the people in the name of the red cross. this authority includes the sole right to form innumerable branches, subject to the direction of the national committee. these branches, created by the national organization, may be known as auxiliary societies of the red cross, or by any other appropriate name, but the central national organization is not a society; it is a national committee. therefore, in referring to or addressing the parent organization, it is improper to use the term "society." it should be remembered that the central national committee of the red cross for the united states of america, has, for sake of convenience, been incorporated under the title: the american national red cross. relief of wounded in war. the central national committee of the red cross in each country, being duly accredited by the international committee and officially recognized by its own government, is the lawful means of communication between the people and the armies in the field, acting as the administrator of the contributions of the people for the relief of the sick and wounded in war. correspondence in time of war. when hostilities are in progress, and the usual means of communication between the belligerent countries are suspended, prisoners of war are enabled to communicate with their homes through the medium of the red cross of neutral nations. thus, for example, during the late spanish-american war the prisoners on board the prize ships at key west were, by an arrangement made with the authorities of the united states government, permitted to write to their friends and relatives. the letters were, of course, first visã�â©d and certified by the american national red cross, and those addressed to persons within the spanish lines were forwarded through the red cross of portugal. wounded as prisoners of war. formerly a wounded man, as such, had no particular rights which any one was pledged to respect. now, however, the treaty of geneva provides that the wounded immediately become neutral and are entitled to the care and consideration of their captors. there is also preserved to them the right to send messages through the lines, informing their friends of their whereabouts and condition. the red cross and local charity. the national committee of the red cross and its branches, not being a local benevolent institution, the red cross takes no part in the distribution of local charity, when the distress is such that it is within the power of the community itself to relieve. therefore, members of auxiliary societies when engaged in the usual charities of a local nature, should not act as the representatives of the red cross. the red cross in times of peace can only be called into action when a disaster occurs which is of such magnitude as to be considered national in its character, and beyond the control of the immediate community. no reflection upon the government. by their adhesion to the treaty of geneva, and by their recognition of the national committees in each country, the nations of the world have declared that, no matter how extensive the preparations, nor how complete may be the organization of the medical department of an army, it is beyond human possibility to provide for all contingencies. for this reason the national committees of the red cross were created. the necessity for auxiliary aid by the people, through the red cross, existing as it does in all the treaty countries, is in no wise a reflection upon the medical department of the army, nor upon the ability and faithfulness of its officers. hence, the timely acceptance of this auxiliary aid, the necessity for which all nations have publicly acknowledged, brings with it no discredit; it is only its rejection that opens the door to censure. membership in the red cross. in the past many applications have been received for membership in the american national red cross, to all of which it has been necessary to make the same reply. the central organization being a national committee, membership thereon is only conferred by election and appointment, not by application. membership in the red cross may, however, be obtained through the auxiliary societies. during the spanish-american war many auxiliaries were formed for temporary work, but have not yet been received and accredited as permanent societies of the red cross. it is hoped, however, that the time may soon come when the local branches of the red cross may be found everywhere, and when any one who is acceptable may become a member by joining the nearest auxiliary. index. a. page. address by clara barton to the president, congress, and people of u.s. 60 address by clara barton: "what is significance of red cross in its relation to philanthropy?" 97 address by clara barton to congress 666 accession of u.s. to treaty of geneva and additional articles of navy 80 adhesion of u.s., translation from international bulletin, april, 1882 87 articles of red cross treaty, or the convention of geneva 57 articles, additional, of oct. 20, 1863 74 american amendment of red cross 383, 668, 681 appia, dr. louis 23, 48, 61 aguadores, shelling of 561, 645 americans advised to leave havana, april 9 549, 603 amputations few 593 army surgeons accept red cross help 560, 562, 588, 589, 590, 615, 616, 645, 647 "as the sun went down" (poem) 679 auxiliaries 474-480 austrian committee 31 armenian relief field, 1895-96: red cross requested to take charge of relief 275 armenia, conditions in 276, 279, 320 turkey, signatory power to red cross convention of 1864 276 public gatherings in the united states, effect of 276 obligations of neutrality imposed upon the representatives and workers under geneva treaty 277, 279, 280 red cross forbidden to enter turkey by turkish minister in washington 277, 278 turkish minister's action politically justifiable 277 red cross pledged to go to turkey 277 red cross sails from new york, jan. 22, 1896 277 dr. hubbell dispatched to constantinople 278 conference with missionary board at constantinople 278 u.s. minister a.w. terrell 278, 279, 299, 314 conference with turkish minister of foreign affairs, tewfik pasha 278 plan of relief outlined to turkish minister 279 permission to work and protection of turkish government assured 280 preparations for dispatching agents begin 283 relief delayed by denunciatory utterances in the u.s.; sample; "pro-armenian alliance" 283 currie, sir phillip, suggests southern route 284, 288 expeditions start via alexandretta (iskanderun) 285 doubts and discouragements from home 285 massacre at killis, turkish government anxious 286 letter to frances willard 286 zeitoun and marash epidemics 287, 335, 350, 353, 354 harris, dr. ira, expedition of, and report 287, 294, 336, 350 perplexing cablegrams from u.s. 288 cabled american committee that red cross will finish field alone 289 letter to red cross officer, p.v. de graw, in u.s. 289 course of expeditions 290 shattuck, miss corinna, at oorfa 293, 335 kimball, dr. grace, bitlis 293 expeditions reach harpoot 293 typhoid and typhus in arabkir 293, 337, 338 fifth expedition 294 harpoot 293, 295, 337 diarbekir 295 farkin 295 furnishing tools for building and harvesting 295 wood, chas. king 296, 297, 334, 335, 337, 356 wistar, e.m. 334, 335, 345, 356 gates, rev. c.f., d.d. 296 cattle for plowing and planting 296 return of expeditions from asia minor 297, 298 balance of funds placed with w.w. peet, treasurer 297 peet, w.w. 297, 298, 299, 324 hardships endured by our men 297 dwight, h.o., d.d. 298, 315, 324 green, jos. k., d.d. 298 hamblin, dr. cyrus 299 washburn, geo., d.d. 278, 299, 324 selamlic 299 time spent socially in constantinople 299 respects paid to new turkish minister to u.s., moustapha tehsin bey, 299 decoration and diploma, armenian and turkish 300, 303 returning home 304 grand duke and grand duchess of baden, visit to 304 constantinople massacres renewed, and red cross proposed to return, if needed 305 distances and difficulties of travel, transportation and communication in turkey 305 turkish telegram 307 funds, never embarrassed for 307 methods of work, general 310 difficulties of relief committees at home, and causes 310, 313 the press and contributors 313 (to the) government at washington, and to the u.s. legation at constantinople 313 ambassadors and representatives of other nations 315 commendatory 315 "the independent," report 315 "marmora," poem 319 conditions in armenia, summary of 320 financial secretary's report, armenia: turkish money, intricacies of, and varying values 324 post, dr. geo. e., letter of 324 para, copper coin, value, one-tenth cent 325 piaster, equal forty para, about, 4ã�â½ cents 325 lira, gold 325 volunteer aid 326 money, banking, express 326 bakshish 326 method and manner of distribution 327, 328 raising of funds, popular impression and actual experience in 329 balance sheet 333 general field agent's report: preparations for interior travel 334 fuller, rev. dr., aintab 334, 335 killis 334 aintab 335 red cross methods 328, 329, 335, 336, 339, 345, 355 marash filled with refugees and epidemics prevailing 335 marash, mrs. lee and mrs. macallum 336 surrounding country pillaged, people killed 335 trail route, marash to harpoot 336 marash without foods or medicines 336 arabkir epidemic 294, 337 hintlian, dr. hagop 338, 339 bush, miss caroline e. 338, 339 arabkir, welcome to 338 egin city and aghan villages 343, 344 gratitude of people 343 barnum, rev. h.n. 346 post, dr. geo. 350 tribute to red cross non-sectarian methods, by dr. harris 355 returning expeditions 356 b. barton, clara, letters and correspondence: autograph translation of mr. moynier's letter to president of u.s., on adoption of treaty 37 to e.m. camp, ed. "erie dispatch" (the little six) 130 to ed. "charleston news and courier," subject, sea island relief 268 to sea island committeemen, planting 273 to frances willard, armenian relief 286 to p.v. de graw, armenian relief 289 to admiral w.t. sampson, cuban relief, entering havana 370 to cuban relief committee, new york cuban relief 374 to surgeon-major louis a. le garde, siboney hospital 560 to s.e. barton (cable), siboney 562 to admiral sampson, entering santiago 574 to capt. chadwick, flagship "new york," entering santiago 575 to r.a. alger, secretary of war, transportation, santiago to havana 584 to capt. s.c. wertsch, s.s. "clinton," thanks 631 from j.g. blaine, secretary of state 41 from mr. moynier, pres. comitã�â© international 81 from "the little six" 132 from a.a. adee, secretary of state, cuban relief 362 from s.e. barton, cuban relief 365 from john f. hoar, u.s. marshal, key west, spanish prisoners 369 from admiral w.t. sampson, cuban relief, entering havana 373 from r.a. alger, secretary of war, red cross treaty 395 from c.h. allen, secretary of navy, red cross treaty 395 from surgeon-major le garde, hospital work 560 from s.e. barton, transportation and nurses 562 from capt. chadwick, flagship "new york," entering santiago 575 from r.a. alger, secretary of war, transportation, santiago to havana 584 from capt. p.c. wertsch, acknowledgment 631 from members of red cross field staff on separating 632 from santiago relief committee 639 from duke of palmella, red cross intermediary 665 from spanish red cross barton, clara, reimbursed by congress 78 barton, clara, starts to cuba feb. 6, 1898 519 bangs, c.c., work at el caney and death at santiago 620, 650 baracoa and sagua de tanamo 623 battleship "maine," visit to 523 battleship "maine," blowing up of 524, 600 battleship "maine's" dead 526 beckwith, general a. 120 bell, major wm. duffield, statement of conditions at front hospital, santiago 616 bellows, henry w. (effort to bring u.s. into treaty) 36 blaine, secretary james g. (letter to clara barton acknowledging mr. moynier's) 42 blaine, secretary, transmits articles geneva convention to president 73 blanco, general, courtesy of, and co-operation 547, 643 bulletin, international 27 c. camps and camp work, extracts from reports of 484 atlanta district: camp fort mcpherson, ga., rev. orville g. nave, agent 420 atlanta committee of red cross 421 red cross work, observation on 421 camp hobson, ga., lythia springs 422 diet kitchen, miss junia mckinley 422 chattanooga district: camp thomas, chickamauga, e.c. smith, agent 408 typhoid fever in camp 411, 502 hospital "sternberg" 412 hospitals "sanger" and "leiter" 412 nurses, great lack of, at first 411 nurses, 140 women graduate at one time 412 camp "shipp," anniston, ala. 413 hunters island, 507 jacksonville, fla., district, rev. alex. kent, agent 414 camp fernandina 418 camp hospitals, conditions to be expected in 418 camp miami 418 hospital, recuperating, pablo beach 416 long island and new york district: long island relief station, mrs. a.g. hammond, superintendent 489, 490, 505 camp wyckoff, montauk point, l.i., howard townsend, agent, dr. brewer, assistant 426 bureau of inquiry and correspondence 429 diet kitchens 429, 505 first work supplying water 426 hospital, railway emergency 430 quarantine officer, dr. magruder 429 troops arriving on transports (feeding of) 429 nurses, 140 red cross 429 supplies, promptness in ordering and receiving 426 camp black, nurses at 506 porto rico field work, horace f. barnes, agent, general w.t. bennett, assistant 460 camp barton 467 field agent, qualifications necessary for (barnes) 470 method of work 468 sick, large percentage of, in porto rico 468, 469 sickness, some of causes 469 tampa district, dr. s.s. partello, agent 493 washington, d.c., districts: camp alger, washington, b.h. warner, field agent 397 camp bristow diet kitchen 400 camp point sheridan visited, mrs. mussey 399 fort meyer diet kitchen, dr. mary e. green 400 post hospital, washington barracks 399 camps and camp regulations, suggestions 405 common sense criticism 405 green, dr. mary e. 400 ice plant auxiliary of new york 402 legion loyal women 403 medicine and supplies furnished promptly by red cross 399 nurses, experienced, needed 399, 401 president and secretary of war always interested in efforts of red cross 405 red tape hinders needed supplies 399 returning troops at fortress monroe, meeting of 401 troops en route, sick and well, care of 401 testimony of officers, surgeons and soldiers to work of red cross 403 tribute to the red cross 406 sag harbor home 507 carolina sea islands hurricane and relief 197 hurricane, description of 197 hurricane, admiral beardslee's description 203 sea islands, geography, people, conditions, religion 203, 205, 209 first local aid 202 red cross called by the governor of south carolina 201 sea islands hurricane, needs and methods of relief 208, 210 relief work in sea islands hurricane, district report of j. macdonald, hilton head 211, 219 report of mrs. macdonald, clothing 220 report of warehouse and shipping department, dr. e.w. egan 222 medical and sanitary, dr. e.w. egan 228 report beaufort district, dr. j.b. hubbell 232 report charleston district, h.l. bailey 244 report of clothing department, mrs. jos. gardner and mrs. h.l. reed 252-263 sewing circles 257 "christmas carol," poem 261 summary of work done 268 leaving the field 268 circular letter to committeemen the year following, feb., 1895 273 cobb, d.l. 360, 361, 420, 624, 655 cuba and cuban relief: casino, havana 521 cuban central relief committee, formation of 362, 363, 634 cuban relief, first efforts fail from political and other influences 516 cuban relief, numerous obstructions, political and sensational 514 spain addressed, requesting permission to distribute in cuba 515 spain's courteous and generous response, a courtesy carelessly overlooked by americans 515 conference with president and secretary of state on cuban relief 516 cuba, conditions of country and people (senator proctor) 534 cuban congressional committee 546 cienfuegos 544, 643 cisneros, miss 543 co-operation of cuban physicians 643 cuban refugees, relief, tampa and key west 368 spanish-american war 360 cuba and the cuban campaign 514 cuban hospital, siboney 557, 614 cargo for north coast of cuba, mary e. morse 624 chadwick, capt., battleship "new york," correspondence 575 clinics while waiting 551, 644, 645 clothing report, miss fowler 656 "clinton," steamer furnished by government for red cross transportation 583, 629 "clinton" leaves havana, sept. 1 1898, 585, 630, 652 "comal," steamer arrives havana 585 committees, central or national 27, 28 charities, difficulties in administering 166 conference of 1863, preliminary to the convention of geneva, of aug. 22, 1864 23, 24, 28, 35, 36, 38, 51, 52, 53 conference, second, oct. 20, 1868 74 congress votes $1,000 for printing 92 convention of geneva, red cross, aug. 22, 1864 24, 57 conclusion 681 correspondence in time of war 608, 644, 683 "crevasse," escape from a 121 cyclone of mississippi and louisiana 112 cyclone of mount vernon, ill., feb. 19, 1888 143 d. death rate from wounds, small 593 diet kitchens 400, 402, 429, 505 distribution places, havana 522, 600, 601 douglas, robert, house and warehouse for red cross, santiago 619 dufour, general 23, 50 dunant, henri (swiss) 23, 48 distribution, a criminal neglect in, the occasion of great disturbance in the united states 547 e. egan, dr. e.w. and geo. kennan, to the front, santiago 646 egan, dr. e.w., report 642 el caney and firmeza refugees, supplies for 577, 619, 620, 649 emergency package, good results 593 explanatory note to readers 680 f. federal council of switzerland 24 fields of work from 1881 to 1894 104 field drill 643 financial secretary, cuban work, report 600 financial statement, cuban relief 635 first relief committee for cuban help not successful 515 flood of mississippi river, 1884 119 floods of ohio and mississippi, 1882 and 1883 104, 111, 112 floods, ohio and mississippi, 1884, government account of red cross work 128 food and supplies for sick soldiers, scarcity in cuban campaign 595 food and hospital supplies, scarcity of, at front 616, 649 franco-prussian war 25 forest fires of michigan, 1881 108 french, alice (octave thanet) 177 french red cross 33, 664 g. garcia, general calixto 560, 561, 614, 645, 646 geneva convention treaty in united states (translation from international bulletin) 77 german-austrian war 25 german red cross 32 government relationship to the red cross 377, 378, 379, 380, 383, 384, 395 guantanamo, june 25th 560, 610, 619, 645 guantanamo, captain mccalla asks for 100,000 rations for cubans 574 guantanamo supplies for cubans declined for fear of yellow fever contagion 574, 619 governments that have adopted treaty, list 58 governmental recognition of the red cross 28, 80, 85, 91, 92, 377, 378, 379, 380, 383, 395 geddings, surgeon (egmont key, fla.) 632 h. havana, arrived at, august 25th 584, 629 harbor clinics 606, 644, 645 havana custom duties, excessive, prevent unloading supplies 585, 629, 652 havana citizens, cordial co-operation in relief work 601 havana harbor, fine of $500 imposed 585, 627 havana, "maine" victims at san ambrosia hospital 525 havana, red cross headquarters 528 del cerro 526, 601 havana understood to be open port 583, 626 history of red cross, preparation of, in 1883 96 home camps and american waters 362-513 homes of hunter's island and sag harbor 507 hospital, charleston city, nurses sent 496 hospital, siboney, cuba 557, 561, 590, 614 hospital, fort hamilton, nurses at 497 hospital, fort monroe, nurses sent 496 hospitals, fort wadsworth, staten island, nurses sent to 497, 502 hospital, governor's island, nurses at 497, 502 hospital, "leiter" 495 hospital at siboney, opened july 2d 561, 590, 615 hospital ship "solace," captain dunlap 555, 610 hospital supplies from "state of texas" 595 hospital supplies at santiago 562, 651 i. ice schooner "mary e. morse" 559, 580, 624 incidents of workroom 659-661 incorporation of american red cross 47, 94 intermediary offices of red cross 664, 665, 684 intermediaries in spanish-american war: switzerland 384, 386 portugal 608, 644, 664, 665, 683 france 664 international committee 27, 28, 667, 682 international committee, circular announcing formation of the american national red cross 91 international committee, medal of honor to clara barton 82, 83 international conferences, representation in 668 international communications, made through the international committee 667, 682 international committee, twenty-five years' record (illustration) 84 international relations of national committees 28 iron cross of prussia presented to clara barton 83 italian red cross 31 j. jaruco, condition, relief (cuba) 527 jaruco's tribute to the dead of the "maine" 530 johnstown flood, pa., 1889 157 benevolent union of conemaugh valley 164 johnstown flood, incidents 171-173 johnstown flood, "in memoriam" 174 five o'clock tea 163 johnstown finance committee, extract from report, sheltering people 169 johnstown contributions, general fund, $1,600,000 168 johnstown's farewell to miss barton 169 red cross houses, warehouse and infirmary 164 johnstown houses, removal of 167 johnstown infirmary 164 poem, "the dread conemaugh" 170 jorrin, senora j.s. 526, 530 jovellanos (cuba) 654 k. kennan, george 395, 587, 646 klopsch, louis, assumes charge of distribution in cuba 547 l. la yocabo, havana 521 landing supplies, difficulties, siboney 563 late in siboney, we cannot reach our ship 568, 650 le garde, major-surgeon louis a., request for red cross help, 560, 589, 618, 645 le garde, surgeon-major, testimonial to red cross physicians and nurses 599 lesser, dr. a. monae (report of) 587 lesser, mrs. a. monae (sister bettina) 531, 545 liabilities to war in united states less than in other countries 35 liberality of transportation companies 364 los fosos, havana 521, 522, 545, 546, 602 m. macclenny nurses, story of 147, 148 matanzas (cuba) 546, 547, 653 matanzas, condition of hospitals and people 531 matanzas, governor of, francisco de armas 532, 546, 547 "mattie bell," steamer on mississippi 118 marianao hospital 655 mason, robert 578, 621, 651 maxwell, miss 502, 503 mccalla, captain 560, 610, 619, 645 mckibben, general (military governor, santiago) 621 membership in red cross 684 methods of relief 310, 328, 329, 370, 421, 426, 438, 484, 498, 579, 601, 607, 608, 615, 621, 626, 642, 643, 644, 654, 661, 683 method of collecting supplies for reconcentrados 363 method of sending nurses quickly 498 michaelson, h. 578, 579, 621, 651 military and medical preparations never adequate in battle 666, 683 mines, submarine, santiago 575 mississippi and louisiana cyclone 112 modus vivendi between spain and united states 384-394 moynier, president gustave 23, 50 moynier, president gustave, letter to miss barton on adhesion of united states to treaty and status of american red cross committee 81 moynier, president gustave, letter of (autograph translation by clara barton) 37 moynier, president gustave, letter of thanks to clara barton on receipt of official documents of treaty 90 moynier's letter to mr. blaine 42 moynier, president, letter (garfield's indorsement) 40 moynier, president gustave (letter to president of united states) 36, 41 "moynier," steam launch, 394 n. national committees, character of 668, 682 national committees, relations of 28 navy, articles for 74 navy, courtesies of, to the red cross 367, 550, 555, 576, 578, 606, 610, 651 neutral countries, 34 neutrality in red cross principles recognized 547 neutrality in war pledged 666 neutrality of wounded 683 neutrality of supplies and personnel 24 notes on the red cross 682 nurses, 28, 30, 399, 401, 411, 412, 429, 435, 436, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 502, 506, 590, 595, 596, 646, 663 nurses and assistants, more telegraphed for 590 nurses, lack of, at first 399, 411, 595, 646 nurses of the red cross, tribute to, by hussey 677 nurses in operating tents 646 nurses for siboney carried to porto rico 492 o. objections to red cross answered 26 official instructions to officers, land and naval, concerning steamship "state of texas" 367 officers in the field, kindness of 664 ohio river floods, 1884 115 ohio river flood, "josh. v. throop," red cross steamer on ohio river, 1884 114, 124 "olivette," united states hospital ship 559 opinions of a major surgeon about women on the field 569 organization and methods of work (see methods) 27 orphanage in havana 531, 545, 602, 642 p. packing supplies for shipping, suggestions 656 palmella, duke of (president portuguese red cross) 664, 665 partello, dr. s.s. (field agent at tampa) 653 phinney, miss, death of 495 pinar del rio, artimesa 540 plans for self-help formulated with co-operation of general blanco 547 poem, "the women who went to the field" 509 proctor, senator redfield 531, 533, 534 porter, mrs. j. addison 567, 569, 570, 643 portuguese red cross, intermediary between united states and spain, 608, 644, 664, 665, 683 postmaster brewer at siboney 568, 650 preparations for war 25 press, the support of 364 president arthur, declaration of the articles of navy 80, 385 president arthur explaining articles of navy 555 president arthur recommends treaty in message, december, 1881 72 president arthur, special message giving adhesion of united states to treaty and additional articles 80, 385 president arthur transmits treaty papers to senate 73 president arthur's proclamation of treaty of red cross 85 president garfield (moynier's letter presented to) 41 president hayes (moynier's letter presented to) 41 president's cabinet the board of consultation for national red cross 92 president mckinley's call for reconcentrado relief 361, 516 president mckinley requests red cross to return to cuba with supplies for reconcentrados 549 president mckinley asked for transportation, reply 583, 629 _projet de concordat_, propositions and resolutions 51 r. ratifying power for red cross treaties--the congress of berne-switzerland 667 reincorporation of american national red cross 94 relief of wounded soldiers, first proposition for 23 red cross accepted by government 395 red cross american amendment 383, 668, 681, 683 red cross constitution 46, 94 red cross, first in united states 36 red cross history, 1882 96 red cross, introduction into united states 668 red cross incorporation, original 47 red cross insignia 24, 58, 75, 76, 390, 667 red cross insignia, protection of 671, 673 red cross international conferences 176, 668 red cross international committee 667, 682 red cross intermediary offices 664, 683 red cross in sanitary science 667 red cross in floods of ohio, chicago "interocean" 117, 119 red cross, congressional committee needed 671-673 red cross not branch of government 670 red cross national committees, of other countries 667 red cross national committees 668, 682 red cross, objections to, answered 26 red cross, peculiar institution, definition 25, 666, 672, 682, 683 red cross of other nations--their co-operation in spanish-american war, relief 662, 663 red cross prestige in other countries 673 red cross, relationship to government 378, 379, 380, 383, 384, 395 red cross, recognition in united states tardy 61 red cross should not be government bureau 672 red cross, when government aid should be given 673 red cross work no reflection on military medical departments 683 red cross service accepted by secretary of navy 395 red cross relief, ohio river, reference to, in government report 128 red cross "farewell," evansville journal, may 28, 1884 126 red cross "society" 682 red cross of dansville, n.y., first local society in united states 107 red cross society of rochester, n.y. 109 "red cross work," evansville journal, extract 119 red cross membership 684 railway companies, courtesies and co-operation (cuban) 643 ramsden, fredk 577, 578, 621, 650 reception at tampa 606 reconcentrados 360, 361, 528, 534, 537 reconcentrado relief, first shipments to cuba 363 reconcentrado hospitals and clinics 531, 532, 642 reconcentrado relief, red cross called to 365 red cross of other nations, co-operation in cuban war 384, 386, 662, 664, 665, 683 red cross services accepted by cuban surgeons, santiago 588 red cross staff 601, 606, 609, 622, 623, 646 red cross president arrives havana, february 9, 1898, general conditions described 520, 600 refugees at key west and tampa 603, 605, 608, 644, 653 reid, mrs. whitelaw 506 report of dr. e.w. egan 642 report of miss annie fowler. clothing 656 rough riders' battle, the first news of 557, 610 "red cross flag is flying," poem 359 red cross relief committee of new york for the spanish-american war: officers, members and subcommittees 473 treasurer's report, may to december 1, 1898 474 auxiliaries, women's committee on 474 auxiliaries, supplies contributed through supply committee, $80,000 477 supplies shipped by transports 470 auxiliaries, special work 478 auxiliary no. 1, ambulances, mules, launches, disinfectants, etc. 475, 478, 489 auxiliary no. 2, workrooms for families of enlisted men 475, 478 auxiliary no. 3, maintenance of trained nurses, 412, 426, 429, 475, 478, 488, 489, 491 auxiliary no. 3, report 491 nurses sent to santiago and porto rico 492 hospital ship "lampasas" 492 nurses' work in tampa 493 president and secretary of war, committee's conference with 494 auxiliary no. 5, equipped cots 475, 479 auxiliary no. 10, ice and ice plants 402, 475, 479, 486 auxiliary no. 17, supplies 475, 479 auxiliary no. 19, laundry 475, 480 auxiliary no. 22, garments, food, reading 475, 480 auxiliary no. 40, emergency hospital furnishings, soldiers' families 475, 480 california red cross: mrs. willard b. harrington, president 431 letter of secretary, mrs. l.l. dunbar 431 early work, supplementing government necessities 431 executive board 433 organization 434 red cross delegate to pacific coast, judge sheldon 435 manila, nurses sent to 435 transports, nurses and agents with 435, 436 field hospital to manila 436 soldiers' home built at presidio 437 manner of work 438 identification medals 438 financial statement, consolidated, california red cross societies 439 red cross of oregon: mrs. henry e. jones, president; mrs. f.e. lounsbury, secretary 441 auxiliaries of oregon 449 emergency funds 444 novel contribution of lipman, wolf & company 447 red cross of st. paul, minn.: a.s. talmadge, president; miss caroline m. beaumont, secretary 425 red cross of washington state: mrs. john b. allen, president; miss marie hewitt, secretary 452 state of washington emergency corps, extract from report 458 seattle red cross: mrs. j.c. haines, president; mrs. h.c. colver, secretary 455 tacoma red cross: mrs. chauncey griggs, president; mrs. h.m. thomas, secretary 456 walla walla red cross: mrs. lester s. wilson, president; mrs. eugene boyer, secretary 456 spokane red cross: mrs. virginia k. hayward, president; mrs. a.j. shaw, secretary 457 russian famine: russian famine, extent of 176, 189, 192 russian climate, 175 russian peasant, customs and religion 175, 176, 189, 193 russian famine, numbers affected 30,000,000 176 russian-american relief, beginning of 177 tillinghast, b. f. 177 corn from iowa, 225 carloads 177 united states congress, action regarding russian famine 177 the "elks" 177 russian and american friendship 178 "tynehead" steamship 178, 180, 186, 187, 195 international conference of 1892 at rome 178 russian government, activity in famine 179, 191, 192 russian people, activity in famine 179, 191, 194 russian famine, official report, honorable chas. emory smith 179 russian appreciation of american help 180, 181, 187, 193, 196 bobrinskoi, count alexander 180, 181 "dimitri donskoi," royal naval flagship, at philadelphia, anniversary of "tynehead" in russia 180 gifts from the czar to american commissioners 181 testimony from peasants of libeau 217 testimonial from nobility of st. petersburg 181 hubbell, dr. j.b., report 182 russian red cross, letter to president, general kauffmann, with reply 182, 185 "tynehead," arrival and unloading at riga, 307 carloads 185, 186 nijni novgorod 190 russian schoolmaster, incident 195 corn, questions of ocean transportation answered 195 american distribution in russia most satisfactory 196 s. cuba and cuban campaign: sagua la grande 542, 643 salaries 634 sampson, admiral 367, 370, 373, 555, 574, 576, 610, 621 sampson, admiral, letter concerning entrance to havana 370 sampson, admiral, letter to, concerning entrance to santiago 574 sampson, admiral, red cross reports to, off santiago, june 25th 555, 574, 576, 610, 621 san luis and holguin districts visited 623 santa clara, sagua la grande 542, 643 santiago front, division hospital, major wood 563, 564, 616, 646 santiago, to the front of 563, 616 santiago, concerning entrance to, july 17, 1898 574, 575, 576, 578, 651, 652 santiago, conditions in 577, 639 santiago general relief committee 639, 651 santiago hospitals, clinic and dispensary 623, 651, 652 santiago fed 579, 621, 626 santiago, committee of women appointed 626 santiago, sailed from, august 21, 1898 574, 629 schley, admiral 576, 578, 651 secretary of navy, instructions concerning "state of texas" 367 secretary of navy accepts red cross service 395 secretary of state, letter, reconcentrado relief 361, 362 secretary of state 361, 362, 377, 385, 386, 388, 516 secretary of war 395, 396, 494 secretary of war, instructions concerning establishment of red cross camps 395 secretary of war arranged 2,000 tons relief supplies for havana, requests red cross to distribute 584 shafter, general wm., returns spanish wounded prisoners to their friends (article xi) 570 siboney, american surgeons decline woman's help, but cubans accept 557, 588, 613 siboney, opening of red cross hospital 561, 590, 615 siboney, kennan, lesser, elwell, go to front 558, 589 siboney burned 574 "sisters," red cross 560, 588, 645, 646 "solace," the first hospital ship under the treaty (see article xi, articles for navy) 591 sollosso, dr. j.b. 652 spanish-american war 360 spanish authorities co-operate in cuban relief 529, 547 spanish protection to red cross property 604 spanish prisoners, relief for, on captured vessels 551, 591, 607, 644 spanish hospitals at santiago 622 spanish naval prisoners on transport "harvard" 591 spanish prisoners treated and fed 596 spanish authorities, havana, propose paying custom duties and distributing our goods 629 spanish prisoners, portsmouth, n.h., and steamships, nurses to 506 spanish reception of red cross nurses in spain 507 spanish money 634 spain, to the red cross of 663 steamship "state of texas," arrangements for sending 365 steamship "state of texas," correspondence relating to sending of 365 "state of texas" sails from new york, april 23, 1898 550, 605 "state of texas" reports to admiral sampson off key west 606 "state of texas" leaves key west for santiago, june 20th 555, 609 "state of texas" under protection of navy 550, 606 "state of texas" goes to jamaica for ice 618 "state of texas," discharged july 22d 580, 622 steamer "san antonio," cuban relief 653 supply committee, requisitions filled, from june 22d to december 1, 1898 480 supplies american-cuban, 6,000 tons 634 surgeon-general, letter of, accepting services of women nurses 494 surgeons cannot get their supplies from transports (santiago) 589 surgeons work by moonlight as precaution against sharpshooters 646 swiss government as intermediary 384, 386 sanitary commission of united states 31 services in time of war 30 services in time of peace 29 servian red cross, decoration 83 sick and wounded, improvements for 30 sign of neutrality 24, 58 society of public utility of switzerland 23, 48, 50 solferino 23 southmayd, colonel f.r., and new orleans red cross 148 syracuse red cross 110 swiss federal council 24 "six, the little," story 130 "six, the big" 134 t. tampa during preparations for war 555, 643, 644 tasajo (jerked beef) 609 telegraph companies' assistance 365 texas drought, 1887 134 texas drought, action of congress vetoed 137 texas drought, report to president cleveland 137 texas drought, state appropriation, $100,000 139 tolstoi on peasants and famine 174, 187, 188 thurston, senator and mrs. 546 to the auxiliaries of the red cross 677 to the committees of the red cross 676 to miss barton, by her assistants, on dispersing 633 to the nurses of the red cross, tribute (hussey) 677 to the red cross of spain 663 to the people, "a word" 13 to the reader 681 treaty in u.s., persons who gave effective help in securing 89 treaty of the red cross, accession to, by u.s. 80, 85, 87, 385 treaty of geneva: ambulances and hospitals par. i, 57 arms, incapacity to bear " vi, 58 brassard, regulation concerning " vii, 58 enemy, occupation by " iii, 57 equipment of hospitals " iv, 57 evacuations, participants protected " vi, 58 flag, distinct and uniform " vii, 58 hospitals and equipments " iv, 57 houses sheltering wounded " v, 57 inhabitants assisting wounded " v, 57 property, personal, of staff " iv, 57 sick and wounded, care of " vi, 57 staff, medical and hospital " ii, 57 wounded, delivery to outposts " vi, 57 the "additional articles": ambulances, definition of " iii, 74 boats, assisting wounded and wrecked " vi, 74 cargo, neutrality of " x, 75 flag, distinctive, regulations " xii, 75 hospital ships " ix, 75 auxiliary red cross vessels, regulations " xiii, 76 military, how distinguished " xii, 75 merchant ships " x, 75 neutrality of vessels " ix, 75 neutrality of cargo " x, 75 officers, wounded, detention of " v, 75 property of staff " vii, 74 quartering troops " iv, 75 red cross, auxiliary hospital ships " xiii, 76 sailors and soldiers, wounded " xi, 75 salary of neutral persons " ii, 74 search, right of " x, 75 ships, hospital " ix, 75 auxiliary red cross " xiii, 76 military " xii, 75 staff, hospital and religious " vii, 75 on captured ships " viii, 75 staff, withdrawal of " i, 74 suspension of treaty, rights of " xiv, 76 troops, quartering of " iv, 74 vessels, neutral " ix, 75 wounded, detention and delivering of " v, 74 picked up by boats " vi, 75 sailors and soldiers protected " xi, 75 transportation of corn by water? answered 193 transportation companies, generous assistance 364 transportation, difficulties in all kinds of 583 tribute to the red cross, by b.h. warner 406 trocha 534 tug "triton" 580 typhoid epidemic, chickamauga 502 u. united states, action with the treaty, and additional articles 72, 80, 85, 385, 393 united states accession to treaty of the red cross, march 1, 1882 80 united states, tardiness in giving adhesion to treaty 36, 663 united states senate, first action towards adhesion of treaty, may, 1881, 73 united states, thirty-second nation to adopt treaty, and first to adopt the articles of navy 86, 87 w. warehouse, san jose, havana 521, 600, 642 wertsch, captain p.c., letter and reply 631 women's auxiliaries of the red cross relief committee, report 491 women nurses 28, 30, 401, 411, 412, 429, 435, 436, 492, 493, 494, 590, 595, 596, 646 women nurses, testimony of army surgeons 403, 504 women nurses accepted by surgeon-general 494 women's work in foreign countries 28, 30 wounded, all available assistance requested 593 wood, general leonard, military sanitary work 626 wood, surgeon-major, red cross surgeon 646 wounds, character of 593, 594, 595 wounds heal rapidly 593, 594 wounded of the "maine" in hospital 525, 600 wounded, working among, at the front 564, 590, 616, 646, 649 y. yacht "red cross" 429, 559 yellow fever in florida, 1888 147 yellow fever nurses, howard association of new orleans 147 yellow fever nurses declined by superintending surgeon 147 yellow fever in cuba 574, 650 yellow fever, first appearance at siboney 596 yellow fever talk at the front and siboney 573, 574, 617 yellow fever scare prevents landing supplies for cubans at guantanamo 576, 619 young, miss, concerning red cross nurses 505 transcriber's notes inconsistencies in punctuation, especially in the index and tables, have been corrected silently. despite the presence of copious quoted material which may or may not reproduce errors in the originals, minor typographic and spelling errors likely due to printer's errors, have been corrected. when a lapse of spelling or grammar seems to be the author's, it is noted and retained. an attempt is made to make consistent the spelling of the many proper names in this text, where it is clear that each reference is to a single person. as an example, the name 'de graw' appears both with and without a space. in the contents, the town of jaruco appears as ã¢â�â�jarucaã¢â�â� and has been corrected. on p. 186, the word 'czarovitch' is also spelled 'czarowitch'. both are retained as printed. on p. 457, the name "grace o. isaaca" most likely should be "grace g. isaacs". a woman of that name was active in community life in walla walla, wa and would have been 33 at the time indicated. on p. 513, the footnote for "brassards" is missing its symbol, which has been added. on p. 530, a heavy black border underlining the inscription "to the dead of the maine" is indicated as [ black border ] on p. 593, the name "mancrede" is most likely a reference to a dr. nancrede, mentioned in the same list of surgeons on p. 590. the name has been changed to "nancrede". in the index, on p. 688, the reference to a letter from the spanish red cross does not have a page reference. it may be an incomplete reference to the diploma of gratitude from the red cross of spain on p. 592. it is left blank here as well. in the index and the text, mention of the "duke of parmella should have been "duke of palmella", which appears correctly elsewhere. both have been corrected. no systematic attempt was made to verify the accuracy of page references as printed in the index or table of contents. however, one error has been corrected. the final reference in the contents to the section on 'notes' was printed as p. 683. that section begins on p. 682, and has been corrected. other issues are noted below and their resolutions described below. p. 18 upon its humblest ministers and assistants[.] added. p. 37 the treaty of geneva.[.] removed from caption. p. 50 shall render the [the] useful institution removed. p. 53 com[m]mit[t]ees of the different nations removed/added. p. 60 monarchial government _sic._ p. 64 rec[c]ommend removed. p. 68 less[o/e]n corrected. p. 79 p[o]eople removed. p. 80 theref[or/ro]m transposed. p. 88 senator e. [p.] lapham, _sic._ the reference is to elbridge g. lapham. p. 100 th[o]roughly added. p. 110 organ[i]zation added. p. 131 the mother said ["(/("]for it was a good, strong house) transposed. p. 139 a grea[l/t] deal of unkind criticism corrected. p. 141 in the case[.] lacking this added. p. 145 w[ie]rd _sic._ p. 176 'oh, right enough, god be praised!["\'] corrected. p. 192 from nijni we take steamer _sic._ p. 220 servic[e[able added. p. 222 distributers _sic._ p. 229 laperotomy _sic._ he go way down in de leg.["] added. p. 230 it[s] was hard for them removed. p. 238 stuart's point, place[,/.] corrected. p. 241 ["]july 24, 1894, inspected this work opening quote is missing. probable start. p. 257 c[h/l]othing corrected. wom[e/a]n corrected. that [come] to my assistance _sic._ p. 278 accompa[in/ni]ed transposed. p. 293 mag[n]ificent added. p. 300 crossed the bosporus[ ]to a magnificent added. p. 304 assem[p/b]led corrected. p. 306 alexa[n]dretta added. p. 308 freq[n/u]ently corrected. p. 336 our own[,] use 500 lire--$23,000[.] comma removed. period added. p. 389 ad[d]itional added. in case of military necessity[,/.] corrected. p. 425 loyal[i]ty removed. p. 432 statu quo _sic._ p. 436 transport[at]ing _sic._ p. 438 presido _sic._ p. 455 p[er/re]vailing transposed. p[er/re]vaded transposed. san francis[c]o added. p. 479 vol[un]teers added. p. 480 suppl[i]es added. p. 491 executive commit[i/t]ee corrected. p. 496 physic[i]al removed. p. 515 happened [to] it? added. p. 537 sagua la grando _sic._ p. 538 coll[e]agues added. p. 545 m. sr. j. palacios [z/y] airoso corrected. p. 574 the surrender of santi[a]go added. p. 583 a large [c/s]hip was seen corrected. p. 596 dou[b]tful added. p. 600 occur[r]ed added. p. 619 s[ei/ie]ge transposed. p. 634 this fact was discovered[,] by the committee removed. p. 651 accompa[in/ni]ed transposed. mr. micha[e]lsen added. p. 656 responsibil[i]ty added. p. 664 duke of pa[r/l]mella corrected. p. 666 us[u]ages removed. p. 703 chic[k]amauga added.