The San Francisco call., 1898-06-05

Ing all tnlS sudden electric tnrlu SnOL through the crowd.
 The o'clock ferry was coming ini We girls all stood at attention" as the Newark swoOped down into the dock. but in the whole crowd that came off the boat at double quick" whoop ing and yelling like Comanches, there was not a single boy in blue"
 Two or three of the advance guard'' came over on the next boat, and we were almost progressively good to them, but il was not until we had stood on our feet waiting for nearly two hours that the sound of a military band on another pier playing Rally Round the Flag" announced that our guests were at hand. Then the policemen ordered spectators out and put up a rope bar rier in front of the wide entrance, and We girls each clutched long-stemmed calla in one hand and handkerchief in the other and-waited.
 An, but wasn't it fine to hear the music coming nearer and nearer, and see the crowds of people outside with their faces all turned in one direction, and hear the policemen ordering them here and there, and feel the air full of something throbbing and surging like the very life of our bodies?
 And then they came, First the band with the crash and blare and shock of brass and tense beaten parchment,  found it's way to our very hearts; and then the men marching in, dusty and travel-worn. tramp, tramp, tramp, until the wide low room was packed with them. and everybody but the sol- diers themselves shouting and cheer ing and waving lilies and handker- chiefs and hats and any old thing that came to hand.
 Perhaps you won't believe it. but
 T couldn't get out another sound and my wrists ached so that I just had to stop waving things. I looked about and saw one of the most 6jgnifled and highly cultured full-blown buds of our set standing up in a chair frantically waving dishcloth in one hand and an iron spoon in the other and screaming like a lunatic, and, to tell the truth, I just wanted to hug her.
 And then we fed them.
 We had great hugger- -mugger boil CTS full of hot stew and hotter coffee, and we ladled the stew out into tin plates and put an eschallot and tin spoon into each one and took a cup Of coffee in the other hand and went out into the crowd and came back again and repeated the performance until everybody was supplied with the first course, and then We took the heavily laden baskets and carried them about and saw that every single soldier had not only what he wanted to eat then and there, but that his pockets and knapsack and even his tin cup were packed with fruit and cake and sand wiches in case Uncle Sam kept him waiting for his lunch.
 Then MT. StetsOn climbed up on a chair and started the cheering. We Red Cross members followed his lead in cheering our guests, squealing shril- ly as women always do when they mean to hurrah, and following the outburst with a tiger" which was a white kitten so far as ferocity went, but was the very best We could do with the voices at our command.
 And then we all cheered together for Dewey and Sampson and the Presi- dent, and then the soldier boys gave a round of cheers for the Red Cross that shook the very wharf and sent me out of the crowd into the deserted storeroom to weep a little weep all by myself as they fell into line again and marched out amid a chorus of good bys and good wishes.
 Someway all I could think of just then was the gladiators' greeting and farewell, "morituri salutemus," and it all came over me with a rush-the bravery and the glory Of it all.
 Just think of it Men taking their lives in their hands and leaving home and friends to fight for us stay-at- homes. not because they must, but be- cause they choose.
 Ah. but it is grand, And when you think of those murdered soldiers on the Maine and the starving Cubans. and Admiral Dewey. and our own California boys going across the ocean. Well, I can't talk about it, can't even bear to think about it-but I can be a Red Cross worker all my life if am needed, and will.