The Red Cross Girl

Chapter 1. the Red Cross Girl

When Spencer Flagg laid the foundation-stone for the new million-dollar wing he was adding to the Flagg Home for Convalescents, on the hills above Greenwich, the New York REPUBLIC sent Sam Ward to cover the story, and with him Redding to take photographs. It was a crisp, beautiful day in October, full of sunshine and the joy of living, and from the great lawn in front of the Home you could see half over Connecticut and across the waters of the Sound to Oyster Bay.

Upon Sam Ward, however, the beauties of Nature were wasted. When, the night previous, he had been given the assignment he had sulked, and he was still sulking. Only a year before he had graduated into New York from a small up-state college and a small up-state newspaper, but already he was a “star” man, and Hewitt, the city editor, humored him.

“What's the matter with the story?” asked the city editor. “With the speeches and lists of names it ought to run to two columns.”

“Suppose it does!” exclaimed Ward; “anybody can collect type-written speeches and lists of names. That's a messenger boy's job. Where's there any heart-interest in a Wall Street broker like Flagg waving a silver trowel and singing, 'See what a good boy am!' and a lot of grownup men in pinafores saying, 'This stone is well and truly laid.' Where's the story in that?”

“When I was a reporter,” declared the city editor, “I used to be glad to get a day in the country.”

“Because you'd never lived in the country,” returned Sam. “If you'd wasted twenty-six years in the backwoods, as I did, you'd know that every minute you spend outside of New York you're robbing yourself.”

“Of what?” demanded the city editor. “There's nothing to New York except cement, iron girders, noise, and zinc garbage cans. You never see the sun in New York; you never see the moon unless you stand in the middle of the street and bend backward. We never see flowers in New York except on the women's hats. We never see the women except in cages in the elevators--they spend their lives shooting up and down elevator shafts in department stores, in apartment houses, in office buildings. And we never see children in New York because the janitors won't let the women who live in elevators have children! Don't talk to me! New York's a Little Nemo nightmare. It's a joke. It's an insult!”

“How curious!” said Sam. “Now I see why they took you off the street and made you a city editor. I don't agree with anything you say. Especially are you wrong about the women. They ought to be caged in elevators, but they're not. Instead, they flash past you in the street; they shine upon you from boxes in the theatre; they frown at you from the tops of buses; they smile at you from the cushions of a taxi, across restaurant tables under red candle shades, when you offer them a seat in the subway. They are the only thing in New York that gives me any trouble.”

The city editor sighed. “How young you are!” he exclaimed. “However, to-morrow you will be free from your only trouble. There will be few women at the celebration, and they will be interested only in convalescents--and you do not look like a convalescent.”

Sam Ward sat at the outer edge of the crowd of overdressed females and overfed men, and, with a sardonic smile, listened to Flagg telling his assembled friends and sycophants how glad he was they were there to see him give away a million dollars.

“Aren't you going to get his speech?”, asked Redding, the staff photographer.

“Get HIS speech!” said Sam. “They have Pinkertons all over the grounds to see that you don't escape with less than three copies. I'm waiting to hear the ritual they always have, and then I'm going to sprint for the first train back to the centre of civilization.”

“There's going to be a fine lunch,” said Redding, “and reporters are expected. I asked the policeman if we were, and he said we were.”

Sam rose, shook his trousers into place, stuck his stick under his armpit and smoothed his yellow gloves. He was very thoughtful of his clothes and always treated them with courtesy.

“You can have my share,” he said. “I cannot forget that I am fifty-five minutes from Broadway. And even if I were starving I would rather have a club sandwich in New York than a Thanksgiving turkey dinner in New Rochelle.”

He nodded and with eager, athletic strides started toward the iron gates; but he did not reach the iron gates, for on the instant trouble barred his way. Trouble came to him wearing the blue cambric uniform of a nursing sister, with a red cross on her arm, with a white collar turned down, white cuffs turned back, and a tiny black velvet bonnet. A bow of white lawn chucked her impudently under the chin. She had hair like golden-rod and eyes as blue as flax, and a complexion of such health and cleanliness and dewiness as blooms only on trained nurses.

She was so lovely that Redding swung his hooded camera at her as swiftly as a cowboy could have covered her with his gun.

Reporters become star reporters because they observe things that other people miss and because they do not let it appear that they have observed them. When the great man who is being interviewed blurts out that which is indiscreet but most important, the cub reporter says: “That's most interesting, sir. I'll make a note of that.” And so warns the great man into silence. But the star reporter receives the indiscreet utterance as though it bored him; and the great man does not know he has blundered until he reads of it the next morning under screaming headlines.

Other men, on being suddenly confronted by Sister Anne, which was the official title of the nursing sister, would have fallen backward, or swooned, or gazed at her with soulful, worshipping eyes; or, were they that sort of beast, would have ogled her with impertinent approval. Now Sam, because he was a star reporter, observed that the lady before him was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen; but no one would have guessed that he observed that--least of all Sister Anne. He stood in her way and lifted his hat, and even looked into the eyes of blue as impersonally and as calmly as though she were his great-aunt--as though his heart was not beating so fast that it choked him.

“I am from the REPUBLIC,” he said. “Everybody is so busy here to-day that I'm not able to get what I need about the Home. It seems a pity,” he added disappointedly, “because it's so well done that people ought to know about it.” He frowned at the big hospital buildings. It was apparent that the ignorance of the public concerning their excellence greatly annoyed him.

When again he looked at Sister Anne she was regarding him in alarm--obviously she was upon the point of instant flight.

“You are a reporter?” she said.

Some people like to place themselves in the hands of a reporter because they hope he will print their names in black letters; a few others--only reporters know how few--would as soon place themselves in the hands of a dentist.

“A reporter from the REPUBLIC,” repeated Sam.

“But why ask ME?” demanded Sister Anne.

Sam could see no reason for her question; in extenuation and explanation he glanced at her uniform.

“I thought you were at work here,” he said simply. “I beg your pardon.”

He stepped aside as though he meant to leave her. In giving that impression he was distinctly dishonest.

“There was no other reason,” persisted Sister Anne. “I mean for speaking to me?”

The reason for speaking to her was so obvious that Sam wondered whether this could be the height of innocence or the most banal coquetry. The hostile look in the eyes of the lady proved it could not be coquetry.

“I am sorry,” said Sam. “I mistook you for one of the nurses here; and, as you didn't seem busy, I thought you might give me some statistics about the Home not really statistics, you know, but local color.”

Sister Anne returned his look with one as steady as his own. Apparently she was weighing his statement. She seemed to disbelieve it. Inwardly he was asking himself what could be the dark secret in the past of this young woman that at the mere approach of a reporter--even of such a nice-looking reporter as himself--she should shake and shudder. “If that's what you really want to know,” said Sister Anne doubtfully, “I'll try and help you; but,” she added, looking at him as one who issues an ultimatum, “you must not say anything about me!”

Sam knew that a woman of the self-advertising, club-organizing class will always say that to a reporter at the time she gives him her card so that he can spell her name correctly; but Sam recognized that this young woman meant it. Besides, what was there that he could write about her? Much as he might like to do so, he could not begin his story with: “The Flagg Home for Convalescents is also the home of the most beautiful of all living women.” No copy editor would let that get by him. So, as there was nothing to say that he would be allowed to say, he promised to say nothing. Sister Anne smiled; and it seemed to Sam that she smiled, not because his promise had set her mind at ease, but because the promise amused her. Sam wondered why.

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