第29章

The girl was singularly adaptable.In a few days it was as though she had been for years in her little ruined house.She was very happy, though there was scarcely a day when her heart was not wrung.Such young-old faces! Such weary men! And such tales of wretchedness!

She got the tales by intuition rather than by words, though she was picking up some French at that.Marie would weep openly, at times.The most frequent story was of no news from the country held by the Germans, of families left with nothing and probably starving.The first inquiry was always for news.Had the American lady any way to make inquiry?

In time Sara Lee began to take notes of names and addresses, and through Mr.Travers, in London, and the Relief Commission, in Belgium, bits of information came back.A certain family was in England at a village in Surrey.Of another a child had died.Here was one that could not be located, and another reported massacred during the invasion.

Later on Sara Lee was to find her little house growing famous, besieged by anxious soldiers who besought her efforts, so that she used enormous numbers of stamps and a great deal of effort.But that was later on.And when that time came she turned to the work as a refuge from her thoughts.For days were coming when Sara Lee did not want to think.

But like all big things the little house made a humble beginning.A mere handful of men, daring the gibes of their comrades, stopped in that first night the door stood open, with its invitation of firelight and candles.But these few went away with a strange story - of a beautiful American, and hot soup, and even a cigarette apiece.That had been Henri's contribution, the cigarettes.And soon the fame of the little house went up and down the trenches, and it was like to die of overpopularity.

It was at night that the little house of mercy bloomed like a flower.During the daytime it was quiet, and it was then, as time went on, that Sara Lee wrote her letters home and to England, and sent her lists of names to be investigated.But from the beginning there was much to do.Vegetableswere to be prepared for the soup, Marie must find and bring in milk for the chocolate, Rene must lay aside his rifle and chop firewood.

One worry, however, disappeared with the days.Henri was proving a clever buyer.The money she sent in secured marvels.Only Jean knew, or ever knew, just how much of Henri's steadily decreasing funds went to that buying.Certainly not Sara Lee.And Jean expostulated only once - to be met by such blazing fury as set him sullen for two days.

"I am doing this," Henri finished, a trifle ashamed of himself, "not for mademoiselle, but for our army.And since when have you felt that the best we can give is too much for such a purpose?"Which was, however lofty, only a part of the truth.

So supplies came in plentifully, and Sara Lee pared vegetables and sang a bit under her breath, and glowed with good will when at night the weary vanguard of a weary little army stopped at her door and scraped the mud off its boots and edged in shyly.

She was very happy, and her soup was growing famous.It is true that the beef she used was not often beef, but she did not know that, and merely complained that the meat was stringy.Now and then there was no beef at all, and she used hares instead.On quiet days, when there was little firing beyond the poplar trees, she went about with a basket through the neglected winter gardens of the town.There were Brussels sprouts, and sometimes she found in a cellar carrots or cabbages.She had potatoes always.

It was at night then, from seven in the evening until one, that the, little house was busiest.Word had gone out through the trenches beyond the poplar trees that slightly wounded men needing rest before walking back to their billets, exhausted and sick men, were welcome to the little house.It was soon necessary to give the officers tickets for the men.Rene took them in at the door, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm, and he was as implacable as a ticket taker at the opera.Never once in all the months of her life there did Sara Lee have an ugly word, an offensive glance.But, though she never knew this, many half articulate and wholly earnest prayers were offered for her in those little churches behind the lines wheresometimes the men slept, and often they prayed.

She was very businesslike.She sent home to the Ladies' Aid Society a weekly record of what had been done: So many bowls of soup; so many cups of chocolate; so many minor injuries dressed.Because, very soon, she found first aid added to her activities.She sickened somewhat at first.Later she allowed to Marie much of the serving of food, and in the little salle manger she had ready on the table basins, water, cotton, iodine and bandages.

Henri explained the method to her.

"It is a matter of cleanliness," he said."First one washes the wound and then there is the iodine.Then cotton, a bandage, and - a surgeon could do little more."Henri and Jean came often.And more than once during the first ten days Jean spent the night rolled in a blanket by the kitchen fire, and Henri disappeared.He was always back in the morning, however, looking dirty and very tired.Sara Lee sewed more than one rent for him, those days, but she was strangely incurious.It was as though, where everything was strange, Henri's erratic comings and goings were but a part with the rest.

Then one night the unexpected happened.The village was shelled.

Sara Lee had received her first letter from Harvey that day.The maid at Morley's had forwarded it to her, and Henri had brought it up.

"I think I have brought you something you wish for very much," he said, looking down at her.

"Mutton?" she inquired anxiously." Better than that.""Sugar?"

"A letter, mademoiselle."

Afterward he could not quite understand the way she had suddenly drawn in her breath.He had no memory, as she had, of Harvey's obstinate anger at her going, his conviction that she was doing a thing criminally wrong and cruel.

"Give it to me, please."