She was not a handsome woman, though none of the boys would ever let her be called homely, for they claimed her smile was so glorious that it gave her precedence in beauty to the greatest belle on earth. There was a real mother lovelight in her eyes now when she looked at Cameron, and she held a cup of steaming hot coffee in her hand, real coffee with sugar and cream and a rich aroma that gave life to his sinking soul.
"Here, son, drink this!" she said, holding the cup to his lips.
He opened his lips eagerly and then remembered and drew back: "No," he said, drawing away, "I forgot, I haven't any money. We're all dead broke!" He tried to pull himself together and look like a man.
But the coffee cup came close to his lips again and the rough motherly hand stole about his shoulders to support him: "That's all right!" she said in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "You don't need money here, son, you've got home, and I'm your mother to-night. Just drink this and then come in there behind those boxes and lie down on my bed and get a wink of sleep. You'll be yourself again in a little while. That's it, son! You've hiked a long way. Now forget it and take comfort."
So she soothed him till he surely must be dreaming again, and wondered which was real, or if perhaps he had a fever and hallucinations. He reached a furtive hand and felt of the pine table, and the chair on which he sat to make sure that he was awake, and then he looked into her kind gray eyes and smiled.
She led him into the little improvised room behind the counter and tucked him up on her cot with a big warm blanket.
"That's all right now, son," she whispered, "don't you stir till you feel like it. I'll look after you and your friend will let you know if there is any call for you. Just you rest."
He thanked her with his eyes, too weary to speak a word, and so he dropped into a blessed sleep.
When he awakened slowly to consciousness again there was a smell in the air of more coffee, delicious coffee. He wondered if it was the same cup, and this only another brief phase of his own peculiar state. Perhaps he had not been asleep at all, but had only closed his eyes and opened them again. But no, it was night, and there were candles lit beyond the barricade of boxes. He could see their flicker through the cracks, and shadows were falling here and there grotesquely on the bit of canvas that formed another wall. There was some other odor on the air, too. He sniffed delightedly like a little child, something sweet and alluring, reminding one of the days when mother took the gingerbread and pies out of the oven. No--doughnuts, that was it! Doughnuts! Not doughnuts just behind the trenches! How could that be?