Mrs. Minks Soldier and Other Stories | Page 5

would permit, and grasping her basket she set
bravely forth. The trip alone to the Camp, under the most auspicious
circumstances, would have been a trying ordeal for her, but under the
existing conditions it required nothing less than heroism. The snow had
drifted in places as high as her knees, and again and again she stumbled

and almost lost her footing as she staggered forward against the force
of the icy wind.
Before she had gone half a mile she was ready to collapse with
nervousness and exhaustion.
"Looks like I just can't make it," she whimpered, "and yet I'm going
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.
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