by Helen Wells
Cherry wanted very much to talk about this with Wade. Captain Cooper, for all his lighthearted fooling, had a level head and much experience. For the present, though, she had promised Mrs. Eldredge to guard her confidences.
One morning Cherry found the awaited letter in her mail. It was on rustling, square white paper, written in a fine old-fashioned hand: “Dear Miss Ames, I regret that a severe cold prevents my accepting your kind invitation to luncheon or dinner at your Officers’ Mess. However, Muriel is most eager to come, to meet you and to sit at table with the American nurses. A neighbor, Mrs. Jaynes, will deliver Muriel to your barracks today at eleven-thirty, which should be in adequate time for luncheon. If you will advise Mrs. Jaynes at what hour luncheon is over, she will bring Muriel home then. With thanks, Frances Eldredge (Mrs. Hugh Eldredge).”
Cherry delightedly said to the other nurses, “Today, I’m going to have a guest, aged six years old!”
Promptly at eleven-thirty a knock sounded on Cherry’s door. She answered and found a smiling woman in knickers. A small girl was hiding behind her.
“I’m Mrs. Jaynes,” the woman said. “Muriel and I have cycled up. Muriel? Are you there? Don’t be so shy, dear.”
She drew forward a mite of a girl. Soft, fair hair shadowed the child’s enormous eyes. Her little face was like a serious elf’s.
“Say how-do-you-do to Lieutenant Ames, dear.”
Muriel obediently opened her small pink mouth but no sound came out. She was staring at Cherry with frightened, fascinated eyes.
“Hello, Muriel,” Cherry said smiling. “I’m very glad you came.”
The child dropped her eyelids. Lashes long as a doll’s brushed her pale cheeks. She held on tightly to a miniature, worn leather purse. Cherry saw how worn her little dark blue woolen suit was, too short at the tiny chiseled wrists, and how thin the child was under those garments. The tenseness of the little figure, the pinched face, were pitiful signs that Muriel had spent all her brief life under the strain of war.
The little girl stared at the floor. Then she glanced up fleetingly and put her hand in Cherry’s, and left it there.
“Mrs. Jaynes,” Cherry said, “I’m expecting you to lunch too.”
“Thank you, but no.” The neighbor explained that she had other errands to do, in another village, and would call for Muriel in an hour or two or three.
Muriel unexpectedly spoke up, shyly but clearly. Her English accent was less an accent than a certain primness of inflection. “Please don’t come for me too soon, Mrs. Jaynes.”
Both Cherry and Mrs. Jaynes laughed. They arranged for Cherry to telephone her—“ring her up”—in another village, when it was time for Muriel to leave. The neighbor said good-bye.
“Did you ride on the handle bars?” Cherry asked, leading the little girl into her room. She had already shooed out the other nurses.
Muriel still would not look at her. “No. In the parcel basket behind. Grandmother wishes to be remembered to you.” She fumbled for a long time in her big pocket, and dug out something wrapped in a clean handkerchief. “This is for you, from the fruiterer’s.”
“Why, thank you!” It was an apple, lovingly polished till it shone. Cherry sniffed it, admired it. “We’ll split it. You’ll eat half and I’ll eat half.”
For the first time, a ghost of a smile formed on the pale little face. “After luncheon, of course,” Muriel said solemnly.
“Let’s sit down,” Cherry suggested. The two girls, one big and one little, sat down side by side on one of the beds. Muriel carefully smoothed her skirt. She glanced up at Cherry with those enormous haunted eyes, and gradually she smiled, a real smile this time.
“Why is this place tinted violet? Are there any other children here? I never knew any Americans before, you know. Why did your mother name you Cherry?”
Cherry hastened to keep pace with Muriel’s questions. But Muriel prattled on.
“My mother’s name was Lucia. She’s dead. The Jerries killed her. She’s beautiful in her picture. I have a dog, though. A jolly brown dog named Lilac. My father says Lilac—” The child stopped. Her brows drew together. Cherry wondered whether she were looking so troubled about Lilac or about her father.
“Will we have a sweet at luncheon? I’m frightfully tired of porridge all the time,” the piping voice went on. “You see, Lilac and Grandmother and I, we all eat porridge. Lilac doesn’t like porridge a bit better than I do.”
“I don’t like oatmeal much myself. You shall have dessert at lunch and some chocolate to take home,” Cherry promised.
“Chocolate,” Muriel breathed. “My father brought it to me sometimes. Is luncheon served presently?”
“Immediately! Let’s walk over.”
“Right-o.”
The walk over to Officers’ Mess was virtually a triumphal parade of two. The other nurses oh’d and ah’d when they saw Cherry’s small visitor. The pilots were no less smitten by this grave elf of a girl. At the long table, surrounded by grownups, Muriel was so smothered with attentions that she was bewildered. Gwen, across the table, gave her, her pat of butter and her pickles. Dick Greenberg hunted up a glass of milk with—bliss!—chocolate syrup in it. Wade left his chair on Muriel’s other side and canvassed the room, frankly asking nurses and pilots to contribute some of their cookies. Even Major Thorne came over, plump and beaming, to shake Muriel’s small hand and present her with a package of chewing gum. She was overwhelmed, unable to say anything to anybody beyond whispered thank-you’s.
“Now you must eat,” Cherry said in a low voice. She drew Muriel’s chair closer to her own and cut up her lamb for her. Muriel leaned over to Cherry.
“When may I chew the gum?”
“After lunch. Come now, this is awfully good—”
Muriel automatically opened her mouth, chewed, swallowed hastily, and leaned close again to whisper, “Please, is Captain Cooper your friend? I do like him. Only why do Americans hold their forks in the wrong hand?”
Cherry explained and urged her to eat. After protesting she was not hungry, Muriel settled down and finished her portion, including a nibble off Cherry’s plate, and a taste of Wade’s coffee, and Wade’s, Maggie’s and Gwen’s jello. She looked profoundly happy and sleepy.
“Want to take a nap?” Cherry asked.
“Oh, no! I wouldn’t waste a minute! This is fun no end!”
She trotted along at Cherry’s side, lugging Wade’s cookies, the chewing gum, her purse and a handful of lump sugar “for Lilac.” Bill Mason’s Pacific theater ribbon was pinned conspicuously on her jacket. She and Cherry walked as far as the lounge of Officers’ Mess, when a delegation of nurses met them.
“Halt!” said Gwen, holding up her hand. “Lieutenant Cherry, we have conferred, and decided that Miss Muriel Grainger should not be your guest alone. Our whole squadron would like to invite her to be—ahem!—our mascot! Major Thorne has given his permission.”
The little girl edged closer to Cherry and clung to her jacket.
Cherry bent down and whispered, “Would you like that?”
“What is a mascot?” Muriel whispered back. “What does a mascot have to do?”
Cherry explained this, too. “It’s a great compliment, and lots of fun.”
Muriel whispered, “Please tell them, yes, thank you.”
“Don’t you want to tell them yourself?”
But this was beyond the six-year-old’s courage. As Cherry accepted for her, she stared solemnly at the nurses, a little flush of color in her cheeks.
There was an outburst of applause, there in the foyer. Muriel dodged behind a chair. Her reticent expression said clearly that these hearty Americans were too much for her. But when Cherry fished her out, she was smiling.
Muriel’s shyness gradually wore off on her subsequent visits to the base. Cherry had arranged for the child to come over with Mrs. Jaynes, during the lull between flights. The nurses had, she explained to Mrs. Eldredge in another note, to make their mascot a uniform.
All this took several days, and several thrilled visits on the mascot’s part. Some of the girls were absent now and then on flights, but fortunately, Cherry had received no flight order as yet. At last the tiny uniform was completed, even to the lieutenant’s bar.
Cherry, Ann, little Maggie and Agnes Gray dressed the six-year-old in her blue jacket and slacks. They cocked the trench cap to the right, at the precise angle. In the little shoulder-strap bag, Cherry put peanuts, a handkerchief and two shiny new American dimes. Muriel stood there pale with excitement, and very, very proud.
“Well!” said Cherry, lifting Muriel to the mirror. “It isn’t every six-year-old who enters the Army as a full-fledged lieutenant!”
“What’s more,” Agnes pointed out, “Muriel probably is the first little English girl ever to wear an American flight nurse’s uniform.”
Cherry set Muriel down again. Other nurses in the barracks came filtering in to see the new mascot. Muriel tugged at Cherry’s sleeve. “Please teach me to salute?”
So they taught her to salute. She practiced patiently, until the nurses pronounced her salute “Snappy!”
She sat down happily on Cherry’s lap, beamed, and dangled her legs. She was still too shy to answer all the questions of the nurses. Suddenly she piped up:
“You’re all my aunts! I just figured it out!”
The girls laughed. “Of course, that’s right!” “Muriel’s American aunts!” “Everyone knows a mascot has to have an aunt!”
Muriel fished in her bag and proudly passed around her precious peanuts and chewing gum. Oddly enough, none of the aunts seemed to wish any peanuts or gum at just that moment. Cherry, under Muriel’s pleading, did take one peanut—which they shared.
“Mm, delicious! Now, please, may we go for a walk?” The small-size flight nurse breathed to Cherry, “Maybe to show Captain Wade my uniform!”
They found Wade poking around their grounded C-47. Wade registered amazement at the tiny figure in flight nurse’s slacks, walking so erect and proudly at Cherry’s side.
“Who could this be? A new nurse for our crew? Lieutenant Grainger, my compliments!” Wade came smartly to attention, clicked his heels, and flung out his hand in salute.
Muriel immediately answered with a snappy salute. Then she dimpled. “It’s only I, Captain Wade. Not a real nurse.”
“Well, you certainly had me fooled!” Wade strolled over and hoisted the miniature nurse to his shoulder. “I could do that with you, too, Lieutenant Ames. Want to see the plane, cherub?”
Muriel was rapturous as Wade lifted her into the cockpit and let her finger the controls “that make the plane fly.” She wandered wide-eyed through the big cabin, tried sitting on several bucket seats, and begged Cherry to paint her fingernails red, like the nurses, with the red mercurochrome she spied in the medical kit. Cherry obliged. She was sorry Bunce was not here, too, to enjoy this.
“What goes bang-bang at the Jerries?” the elf in slacks wanted to know, waving her tinted fingers.
“No guns aboard, cherub,” said Wade.
“Oh. Well, then, if Cherry is my aunt, are you my uncle?”
Wade’s laughing brown eyes turned gleefully to Cherry. She felt herself flushing.
“Could be, Lieutenant Grainger, could be. A very smart question. Ask us again from time to time, will you?”
“’Course.”
Cherry sputtered, and then she and Wade burst out laughing.
Little Muriel studied them patiently. “What’s funny? I don’t think it’s funny. It’s nice. Cherry is my favorite aunt.”
Wade, looking at Cherry with softened eyes, assured her, “Cherry is my favorite, too. Now isn’t that a coincidence? Let’s go get you some refreshments. All small fry should be stuffed with refreshments!”
He lifted the small nurse and then helped the grownup nurse down from the open bays to the ground.
“I’m not small fried—I’m not fried at all!” Muriel protested.
“Want a ride in a chair?” Wade motioned to Cherry. They clasped their hands around each other’s wrists, making a chair for the six-year-old. She rode off between her flying “aunt and uncle” wearing an expression of sheer bliss.
That night after lights were out in Nurses’ Barracks C, Cherry could not sleep for thinking about their little mascot—and Mark Grainger. Cherry had lost her heart to this sad-eyed child who had known only war, and Cherry was only a friend. How much more must a parent love her! Then how could Mark Grainger do anything to jeopardize his little girl’s safety, or submit her to cruel gossip among the neighbors? Cherry turned uneasily under the khaki blankets. She tried to recall what Muriel had said about her father. Nothing, so far. The nurses had kept her so busy, the youngster had had no chance to prattle of her own accord. She was too reticent, besides, to confide much to any brand-new friends. Perhaps later . . . perhaps on a visit to Mrs. Eldredge’s house . . . Cherry drifted off to sleep.
The drizzling rains ceased and the mists lifted a little. Cherry and Wade began again to carry the wounded to Prestwick. It was now nearing the end of November, but Cherry waited in vain for snow or crisp cold in England. It was nearing Thanksgiving, too, she thought nostalgically.
She managed to have a little private visit with Bunce on Thanksgiving Day. Nurses, being officers, were not supposed to fraternize with enlisted men, but Cherry—an old Army girl by now—had learned that the American Army is a friendly one. So she and her old friend and sergeant met Thanksgiving morning, after church service, to take a walk down one of the country lanes.
“I’m so homesick,” young Bunce confided, “I could break down and blubber. Gosh, I’d like to see my mother! And our house, and my two kid brothers, and my town. This war, Miss Cherry, is an awful lonesome war.
“It sure is. Well, Bunce, whenever you get so lonesome you can’t stand it, you just come and tell me about it.”
Bunce grinned down at her from his lanky six feet. His candid blue eyes and tousled hair might better have been atop a small boy, than such a tall man. He gave a vigorous chew on his gum, hesitated a moment, and then said earnestly:
“Miss Cherry, ’scuse me for askin’, but what’s on your mind lately? Seems to me you’re thinkin’ awful hard about something. Is it that little girl?”
Cherry glanced up at him, startled. “Well—uh—Don’t take such long strides, Bunce. Yes, I have been worrying about that youngster.”
“War orphan, I guess.”
“In a way.” Cherry let it go at that, and Bunce seemed satisfied. She would have liked to take Bunce into her confidence, for she knew from past experience how helpful he could be. But she knew she must keep the story of Mark Grainger to herself.
“Bunce,” she asked, “did I tell you that Muriel is coming over for dinner today?”
Bunce kicked along some pebbles in the road. “Miss Cherry, ’t’ain’t fair. Why just one little girl? There’re dozens of youngsters in the neighborhood who need us for aunts and uncles too. Why couldn’t we adopt a whole bunch of ’em?”
“That’s an idea! Maybe a Christmas party for all the children for miles around!”
“Aw, shucks, a whole month to wait?”<
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Cherry smiled. “The woman who runs our barracks has two little boys—if you insist on sharing your Thanksgiving dinner!”
The young guests hugely enjoyed their first Thanksgiving dinner. Muriel’s share of turkey and candied sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce impressed her very much. Perched on a chair and three thick books, she absorbed food and the noble story of Thanksgiving with equal seriousness.
Late that afternoon, Cherry and Wade took her home. Cherry and her pilot had the rest of the evening off. Wade bundled “my two girls” into the front seat of a borrowed jeep, tossed a blanket over their laps, and squeezed in behind the wheel. As usual, he drove on two wheels, and sang in a booming baritone:
“One—meat—BALL! Now ain’t that sad—on-ly ONE meat BALL!”
Cherry giggled as much as small Muriel did. “Don’t you know any other song?” she demanded.
“Nope. Don’t need to. One Meat Ball is a fine song. Suits me. You know any songs, cherub?”
Muriel knitted her brows. “I know about Mother Goose. But I guess you heard those. I know one my father taught me, last time he came home.”
She started to sing in a thin, earnest, tuneless chant. The words were in German. Wade glanced at Cherry over the little fair head. Cherry uncomfortably looked straight ahead at the road.
When Muriel finished the song, Wade said that was “real fine,” only he and Cherry couldn’t understand the words. What was the song about?
Muriel said, “My father told me, but I forget. Something about Röslein, roses and a girl. Not English roses, not a girl here in England, though. Anyhow, I like the Meat Ball song better! You know what, Captain Wade?” she prattled along. “You know much better songs than my father. Of course I love my father very very much,” she explained seriously, “more than anyone in the world. Whenever he comes home, we have such fun together. Lilac too.”
Cherry heard this speech with growing uneasiness. She wanted to ask questions, yet in decency she could not question a child. She did not want to discuss the child’s doubtful father before anyone else, either. Wade certainly was looking puzzled and on the alert.