Mrs. Minks Soldier and Other Stories | Page 5

to!"
The honk of an automobile sent her shying into a snowdrift, and when she caught her breath and turned around she saw that the machine had stopped and a hand was beckoning to her from the window.
"May I give you a lift?" asked a girl's high sweet voice and, looking up, she saw a sparkling face smiling down at her over an upturned fur collar.
Without waiting to be urged she climbed into the machine, stumbled over the rug, and sank exhausted on the cushions.
"Give me your basket," commanded the young lady. "Now put your feet on the heater. Sure you have room?"
Miss Mink, still breathless, nodded emphatically.
"It's a shame to ask anyone to ride when I'm so cluttered up," continued the girl gaily. "I'm taking these things out to my sick soldier boys."
Miss Mink, looking down, saw that the floor of the machine was covered with boxes and baskets.
"I'm going to the Hospital, too," she said.
"That's good!" exclaimed the girl. "I can take you all the way. Perhaps you have a son or a grandson out there?"
Miss Mink winced. "No, he ain't any kin to me," she said, "but I been sort of looking after him."
"How sweet of you!" said the pouting red lips with embarrassing ardor. "Just think of your walking out here this awful day at your age. Quite sure you are getting warm?"
Yes, Miss Mink was warm, but she felt suddenly old, old and shrivelled beside this radiant young thing.
"I perfectly adore going to the hospital," said the girl, her blue eyes dancing. "Father's one of the medical directors, Major Chalmers, I expect you've heard of him. I'm Lois Chalmers."
But Miss Mink was scarcely listening. She was comparing the big luscious looking oranges in the crate, with the hard little apples in her own basket.
"Here we are!" cried Lois, as the car plowed through the snow and mud and stopped in front of a long shed-like building. Two orderlies sprang forward with smiling alacrity and began unloading the boxes.
"Aren't you the nicest ever?" cried Lois with a skillful smile that embraced them both. "Those to the medical, those to the surgical, and these to my little fat-faced Mumpsies."
Miss Mink got herself and her basket out unassisted, then stood in doubt as to what she should do next. She wanted to thank Miss Chalmers for her courtesy, but two dapper young officers had joined the group around her making a circle of masculine admirers.
Miss Mink slipped away unnoticed and presented herself at the door marked "Administration Building."
"Can you tell me where the broken-legged soldiers are?" she asked timidly of a man at a desk.
"Who do you want to see?"
"Alexis Bowinski. He come from Russia. He's got curly hair and big sort of sad eyes, and--"
"Bowinski," the man repeated, running his finger down a ledger, "A. Bowinski, Surgical Ward 5-C. Through that door, two corridors to the right midway down the second corridor."
Miss Mink started boldly forth to follow directions, but it was not until she had been ejected from the X-ray Room, the Mess Hall, and the Officers' Quarters, that she succeeded in reaching her destination. By that time her courage was at its lowest ebb. On either side of the long wards were cots, on which lay men in various stages of undress. Now Miss Mink had seen pajamas in shop windows, she had even made a pair once of silk for an ambitious groom, but this was the first time she had ever seen them, as it were, occupied.
So acute was her embarrassment that she might have turned back at the last moment, had her eyes not fallen on the cot nearest the door. There, lying asleep, with his injured leg suspended from a pulley from which depended two heavy weights, lay Bowinski.
Miss Mink slipped into the chair between his cot and the wall. After the first glance at his pale unshaven face and the pain-lined brow, she forgot all about herself. She felt only overwhelming pity for him, and indignation at the treatment to which he was being subjected.
By and by he stirred and opened his eyes.
"Oh you came!" he said, "I mean you not to know I be in hospital. You must have the kindness not to trouble about me."
"Trouble nothing," said Miss Mink, husky with emotion, "I never knew a thing about it until to-day. What have they got you harnessed up like this for?"
Then Alexis with difficulty found the English words to tell her how his leg had not set straight, had been re-broken and was now being forced into proper position.
"It is like hell, Madame," he concluded with a trembling lip, then he drew a sharp breath, "But no, I forget, I am in the army. I beg you excuse my complain."
Miss Mink laid herself out to entertain him. She unpacked