Читать книгу Believe You Me! - Nina Wilcox Putnam - Страница 5

Table of Contents

For hours and hours after Ma got me to bed I just lay there thinking and aching and feeling all hot and ashamed and terribly lonesome, and with my career all ruined because of the Germans—to say nothing of having been obliged to become disengaged to Jim.

And then, just as I was nearly crazy wondering how I was to get my self-respect back, I got a swell idea. I would enlist! Ladies could. I remembered reading a piece in a newspaper some place about yeowomen or something. And as soon as I realized that I could serve Uncle Sam and help get even with that bird, Von Hoffman, and the Kaiser and the alligator, and lose my personal feelings in public service, I got the most wonderfully easy feeling round my heart and dropped right off to sleep. But when I woke up in the morning it was something fierce, the way I felt. Believe you me, it was just like I had ate Welsh rabbit the night before, or something—the weight that was on my chest. At first I couldn't make out just what it was. Then I remembered. I had lost Jim! Of course I hadn't lost him so much as shook him; but it was all the same, or looked that way in the cold gray dawn of ten A. M.

Honest to Gawd, I never knew how fond I was of Jim until I woke up that day and realized he was gone forever! But I wouldn't of phoned him and say I'd changed my mind—not on a bet I wouldn't. And, anyways, I hadn't changed my mind. The evidences begun to pile up against him. I commenced to remember how he had been away on some mysterious trips so many afternoons for the last four or five months; and maybe with some blonde, for all I knew. And then his going to pieces like that over a mere alligator bite, the way he done; and, worst of all, not hitting that German, even though in pain, and crabbing our act by getting bit on the nose.

The more I thought about it, the worser I felt, laying there in retrospect and negligee. And I couldn't see no way of us ever getting together again—even when he called up and apologized; which, of course, I expected he would do any minute. But he didn't; and by the time Ma came in and routed me out of bed I had myself worked up so's I was crying something terrible, and hating Jim as hard as I could, which would of been enough to kill him—only for the pain in my heart for loving him.

While I ate only a light repast of ham and eggs, and a little marmalade, and etc., Ma made me tell her all; which I done the best way I could with crying in between. And then I told her about me having made up my mind to enlist. She was some surprised at that, though not much. Ma, having lived through two circuses and a trapeze act, it is sort of hard to surprise her very much—do you get me? So all Ma says was:

"Well, Mary Gilligan!" says she. "Can ladies enlist? I had a idea," she says, "only gentlemen was permitted."

"No," says I. "I see a piece in the paper where ladies can go in the navy—yeowomen they call them; a fancy name for a stenographer!"

"A whole lot too fancy!" says Ma, very prompt. "And no daughter of mine, a decent, respectable girl, is going sailing off on no battleship with a lot of sailors—not to mention submarines; not if I know it!" says Ma. "So, Mary Gilligan, you may as well put that idea out of your head, let alone you ain't a stenographer and couldn't learn it in a month."

"Well, Ma," I says, "maybe you're right; and I do get seasick awful quick. But—oh, Ma! I got to enlist some place. Can't you see the way I feel?"

Ma could.

"I know!" she says, very sympathetic. "I was the same when your pa missed both the third trapeze and the life net. I would of enlisted when he died if there had been a war. And, of course, you feel like Jim was dead. How about the Red Cross?"

"Won't do for me," I says, prompt. "I don't see myself sitting around in no shop, with a dust cloth tied over my head, selling tickets. I got to do something active or I'll go bugs!"

Then Ma had a real idea.

"How about this here Woman's Automobile Service?" says she. "The one I read you the piece about? You're a woman and you got a auto."

"Ma, you're a wonder!" I says. "Look up the address while I get my hat on! Tell Musette to call for the limousine; and watch me make a trial for my new job!"

So they done like I asked, and I kissed Ma and Musette good-by; also the two fool dogs, for I had a sort of feeling like I was going into battle already.

"When Jim calls up tell him it's no good—he can't see me," says I, the last thing. And then I set off in the limousine.

Well, I'd put on a very simple imported model and a small hat, and only my diamond earrings, and a brooch Jim had give me, when we was first engaged, over my aching heart. I wanted, above all things, to look refined; for, even if the U. S. Army isn't always quite that, still, this was a ladies' branch of it. And you know what women can be—especially in organizations; though I admit I hadn't had much previous experience with them, except the White Kittens, which Ma insisted on me keeping up with and contributing to their annual ball, because of she having always belonged. And—believe you me—the scraps I seen at some of their Execution Committee meetings would make the Battle of the Marne look like a pinochle post-mortem!

Well, as I was saying, I took no chances on appearances of refinement in this case, not knowing exactly what class of ladies would be running the Woman's Automobile Service. And, even when I got to their office, it took me several minutes before I got the right dope on them and their line—do you get me?

In the first place, it wasn't at all like the White Kittens' Headquarters, in the Palatial Hotel ball-room. Instead, it was a shop on a swell side street, with two very plain capable-looking dark-green ambulances standing outside. My limousine had to stop next door on account of them.

Well, I got out and walked across and into that shop. And—believe you me—it was the plainest place you ever saw; not even so much as a flower or a rug to give it a womanly touch. But neat! My Gawd! And there was three young ladies there, all in the snappiest-looking uniforms you ever want to see—dark green, like the ambulances, with gold on the collar, and caps like the Oversea's Army, and the cutest leggings! My!

Maybe you think they looked like a chorus? They did not! They was as business-like as English officers. Over in one corner a frowzy-looking little dame was sitting, reading a book. There wasn't no unnecessary furniture in the place, and 'way at the back was a door marked Captain Worth—Private, which seemed funny.

The minute I come in one of the girls jumped up and says what could she do for me?

I seen at once she was a perfect lady.

"I am Marie La Tour," I says in a very quiet, low-pitched voice, like a drawing-room act.

"Yes?" says she. "And what can I do for you, Miss—er——"

"La Tour!" I says again, as patient as possible.

But it was plain she didn't get me, even the second time, though it's a cinch she heard me all right, all right. But the name simply didn't mean nothing in her young life. Was I surprised? I was! Of course if I had said "I am Mrs. Vernon Castle," and she didn't know who it was, I wouldn't of got such a jolt. But Marie La Tour! Well, there's ignorance even among the educated, and I realized this and didn't try to wise her up any. After all, I was not out for publicity, but for serving my country. Besides, I had heard right along that the army was full of democracy; and, of course, this was some of it.

"Well," I says, "I would like to enlist. My heart is broken, but full of patriotism, and this seemed a good place to come."

"Good!" says this young lady, which I had noticed by this time she had a lieutenant's uniform on her, but not by any means intending she was glad my heart was broken. "Good!" she says. "Sit down and let me tell you about our organization."

"Is it the regular army?" I asked.

"Not yet," says she; "but we hope we will eventually get official recognition. We are already used by the Government for dispatch and ambulance service and as escorts and drivers for officers and members of the various departments; also, as government inspectors. So you see it is a very live work."

"And it's a awfully pretty costume," I says; "so snappy."

"The uniform is only the outward sign of what we are doing," says Miss Lieutenant. "You have a car?"

"Outside," I says; "eight-thousand dollars, and all paid for. You can have it if it's any good to you. Ma always prefers the street car anyways."

"Thank you; that is splendid!" says the lady officer, very pleasant, but not exactly excited over my offer—which was some offer at that.

She took out a slip of paper and begun filling in some blanks on it.

First, the make of the car, and then the answers to the questions she shot at me.

"Can we have it at a moment's notice?" she said. "Yes? Good! Is it new? In good condition? Do you loan or give it?"

"Give!" I says, brief. "I am not going to be a piker to Uncle Sam."

At this the lady lieutenant actually came out of her shell enough to give me a smile.

"That's the spirit!" she says. "We sometimes have as many as twenty offers of cars a day. But, as a rule, they are half-time loans. Can you drive?"

"Drive a horse?" says I.

"No, no," says the kid, serious again, "a car, of course!"

"Why, no," says I, feeling sort of cheap. "Isn't there anything else I can do?"

"Plenty," she says, cheerfully; "but you will have to learn to drive, first of all. You must have a chauffeur's license, a doctor's certificate of health, two letters of recommendation from prominent citizens as to your loyalty and general character, and a graduate's certificate from a technical automobile school."

"Anything else?" I says, sort of faint.

"Well, of course, you will have to take the nursing and first-aid course at St. Timothy's Hospital," she says, "and the regular U. S. Infantry drill. But that's about all."

"Do I have to learn all that stuff before I can come in?" I asked, feeling about as small as when I had my first try-out on the big time circuit.

"Oh, no," says Miss Lieutenant; "you can sign your application right away if you like. Then you can come in immediately and start rookie drill and the first-aid work with the service while you are getting your technical training."

Believe you me, my breath was about taken away by all this stuff. I don't really know now just what I did expect when I first come into that shop, but I guess I had a sort of idea they'd give me a big welcome and I'd get a costume of some sort; and, after that—well, I don't really know. I certainly never expected what they handed me. But I was game.

"When can I commence all this?" I says.

"When do you want to?" says Miss Lieutenant.

"To-day," I says firmly. At this Miss Lieutenant actually smiled again.

"Good!" says she. "The minute you bring me that health certificate and those letters of recommendation I'll sign you up and you can start in at the Automobile Training School. To-morrow morning is the time at St. Timothy's Hospital and to-morrow afternoon is rookie drill."

"And when is the auto school?" I says.

"Every afternoon," she says.

"Then," says I, "I'll get them letters and the certificate here by noon. And if you O. K. them I'll just start in this P. M.—if it's all the same to you."

"Good!" says Miss Lieutenant, evidently not displeased, yet determined to show no emotion.

Then she got up, indicating that our business was over, clicked her heels together like a regular officer, and made a stiff little bow. Oh, wasn't she professional, just!

"Well, I'll be back," I says, and started to go. "I'm sure I can get everything but the technical stuff; and I'll get that if I die of it!"