CHAPTER XXIA MODERN MIRACLE
"I don't know. He was here when you came, but I saw him going up the mountain into the woods. But I'll answer for him; I'll take that chance, doctor. She is nearly as dear to me as she is to him, and I know that she is going to die, unless ... unless ..."
"I knew you'd say it. Well, we'll operate, Miss Merriman."
Donald's voice was calm, impersonal again, and his tone had a steely quality, as though his lancet or scalpel had become endowed with a voice, and spoken.
Silently, and with practised hands, the nurse began to unpack his bag and lay out upon a sheet, which she obtained from Rose and spread over the rough table, the many strange instruments, bottles, rolls of bandages and sponges in their sterile packages.
"Have you any baking soda—saleratus, Rose?"
She nodded.
"Good. Put about a teaspoonful in the smaller kettle, and boil these instruments for ten minutes, while we are making the final preparations. I want some hot water, too."
He turned away, and for a moment stood looking up at the calm heavens in which the stars made openings for the white eternity beyond to shine through. Something in the scene bore his thoughts back to that summer evening when the mountain man of God had tried so earnestly to minister to his own disease. Snatches of sentences re-echoed in his memory. Then he stepped back to Smiles' side and his voice was soft, as he said, "I suppose that, whenever a surgeon begins an operation like this one, he has an unformed prayer deep in his heart, though he may not realize to whom he prays. There was never more occasion for one than to-night, Rose. I know that the Great Healer is nearer to you than to me. Ask Him that my hand may not falter."
She nodded again, sweetly serious.
Once more his accustomed bluntness of manner returned, and he snapped, "Oh, why in the devil didn't I have sense enough to bring another assistant?"
"I am here, doctor," answered the girl.
"Yes, yes, I know." He regarded her with the old, searching look. Then, to the nurse, "It's only one of the many chances we have got to take. When you put the patient under the anæsthetic you will show Rose exactly how it is administered, for she will have to keep her unconscious without any further aid from you after I begin to operate. We havegotto trust her, Miss Merriman," he added shortly, as he caught the expression of grave doubt whichthe nurse could not keep from appearing on her countenance. "See that she washes and sterilizes her hands thoroughly. That hot water, Rose. I want a basinful."
She supplied it, then departed to do the rest of his bidding, and for some moments was kept so busy that she did not realize what the other two were doing at the bedside, other than to note that Donald had raised the head of the bed by blocking up the legs with firelogs, and covered it with a rubber sheet such as she had never seen before.
When she did, however, return to the side of the little sufferer, whose face was far whiter than the clean, but coarse, sheet which covered the emaciated body, a low cry of protest and grief was wrung from her lips. Already most of the lovely ringlets of spun gold, which had won for the baby Donald's characterization of "Little Buttercup," gleamed on the rough floor, and the ruthless but necessary sacrifice was being continued.
There were tears on her cheeks as she aided the doctor to scrub the shorn scalp, until the child moaned and turned her head from side to side.
"He is my commanding officer. He told me that I must always remember that, and obey," whispered Rose to herself, as Donald, in his abstraction, began to snap forth his orders in a manner and tone which, for a moment, made her shrink and quiver. His words were often unintelligible to her, until Miss Merriman, silent-footed and efficient, translatedthem into action, as, before the wide eyes of the mountain child, there began to unfold the swift drama of modern surgical science at its pinnacle, amid that fantastic setting.
Strange words, indeed, were those which now fell on her attentive ears, many of them far outside the bounds of her limited vocabulary; yet, stranger still, she soon began to grasp their meaning intuitively, and her quick native perception, keyed high by emergency, led her often to anticipate the physician's wish, and act upon it. More than once she won a look of surprise from the older woman.
Donald's directions to Miss Merriman were curt and incisive; but soon he did not limit his speech to them. Rather he seemed to be uttering his thoughts aloud; the old habit of making a running explanation for the benefit of a clinic or the better understanding of an assistant was subconsciously asserting itself, and it was to Rose as though she were listening to the outpouring of a fountain of knowledge, whose waters engulfed her mind and made it gasp, yet carried her along with them. It was all a dream, a weird, impossible nightmare to her; the familiar room began to assume a strange aspect, and the man's words came to her as do those heard in a sleeping vision—real, yet tinctured with unreality.
"In this case the elastic tourniquet will stop the blood flow as effectively as the Heidenhain backstitch suture method, I think, Miss Merriman, andit will be much simpler. I'm glad I brought it. Have you the saline solution, and the gauze head-covering ready?"
"Yes, doctor."
"Then you may administer the ether—use the drop method, and don't forget to show her just how to regulate it.
"No blood-pressure machine," he muttered. "Oh, well, we've just got to trust to her being able to stand it, and ..."
"And to God," whispered Rose.
He glanced quickly up, as though he had already forgotten her presence, and added, gently, "Of course."
The small pad of gauze, which Miss Merriman laid over the baby's face, grew moist; a strange, pungent odor began to fill the room. As she bent over to watch intently what the nurse was doing, Rose suddenly found herself beginning to get dizzy.
"Stand up, Smiles," came the sharp command. "Here, hold this handkerchief over your mouth and nose. Now, take the bottle yourself ... so ... a drop on the pad ... now. Yes, that's right, just as Miss Merriman has been doing. Little Lou is wholly unconscious, we must keep her so.
"Remember, now your test is beginning, and I expect you not to fail me. A great deal depends on you, Rose. You are a soldier on the firing-line now, and you are going to keep up, whatever happens. It may be for half an hour, but you will keep up,for me, for Lou, whatever happens. Remember!Whatever happens!"
He looked fixedly into the unnaturally big eyes which were turned up to his like two glorious flowers, and she nodded. With a pang of regret he noticed how thin her face was, and how white,—so pale that the color had fled even from the sweet, sensitive lips which smiled ever so faintly at him, and then at the nurse, as the latter made the quiet suggestion that she try to keep her eyes always fixed on the pad of gauze, and not let them be drawn away from it if she could possibly help it.
But at first she could not, and so she saw the pitiful little head, stripped of its golden crown, first covered with a clinging veil of wet cloth, over which, from behind the ears to the top of the forehead, a circular band of rubber tubing was adjusted and drawn tight into the flesh—"to stop the blood, like I did for grandpappy when he cut his arm," she thought. Then the head was gently raised and settled into position on the sand-filled pillow, which cradled it firmly.
Only the gurgling breath of the mercifully unconscious baby, and the crackling of the fire, broke the silence as the surgeon adjusted and posed his patient's head, as an artist would his model's.
A piercing light flashed before the girl's eyes, and she saw that now Miss Merriman held a strange-looking black tube, which shed a circle of concentrated sunshine on the gauze-covered head. It was herfirst experience with a flashlight, and she marvelled at its power.
Now there came another dart of light, thin and fleeting, and she knew that a knife was poised in mid-air. Involuntarily she closed her eyes tight; a shudder ran through her. Donald's voice spoke impersonally, and steadied her.
"I shall expose the third left frontal convolution of the brain through the fronto-parietal bone, and, in making the osteoplastic flap, I intend to leave a wide working margin above the size of the opening which may actually be necessary in order to reach the growth. It has got to be fully exposed at once. I can't afford to delay, under the circumstances."
The gleam of the scalpel held her unwilling gaze with the fascination of horror; she drew her breath with a sound between a shudder and a sigh as it descended....
"Imustkeep my eyes on the ether pad," came the command from her whirling brain.
Many nights thereafter, Rose was to start up from troubled sleep with strange sounds and stranger words echoing in her brain—words like "bevelled trephines," "Hudson forceps," "elevators," "Horsley's wax," "rongeurs," "clips" and "sponges,"—but during the actual operation she was scarcely conscious of them, and her principal feeling was one of dumb rebellion which grew until she found herself almost hatingthisDonald, who could speak with such unconcern and apparent callousness, at sucha time. As well as she could, she willed her swimming gaze to remain fixed on the pad which she must keep moist. The difficulty of the task had suddenly become increased, for the pad seemed to become an animate thing. Now it appeared to retreat into the distance, and again it came floating back until it seemed about to smother her. There was a droning note in her ears; the words spoken by the other two sounded mixed and indistinct.
Of only one sentence, repeated monotonously in Miss Merriman's clear voice, was she really conscious. "Rose, a drop of ether ... a drop of ether ... a drop of ether."
She wanted to speak, to ask them if the room were not frightfully hot; but she could not.
Rose had never fainted in her life, but she had once seen a neighbor swoon, and she realized vaguely that, as the minutes passed, her consciousness was slowly slipping from her. The air was close and heavy with strange smells. She felt as though she were swaying like a pendulum. The old, familiar objects grew grotesquely large and hazy; the deep shadows in the corners multiplied, and began to dance a solemn minuet, advancing, retreating; advancing, retreating....
"Another drop of ether."
She took a fresh mental grasp on herself, and held Duty, like a visible thing, before her eyes.
Again that queer, far-away voice.
"Look, Miss Merriman. Can you see that neoplasmunder the membrane? Ah ... now the flat dissector ... no, the blunter one ..."
The voice trailed away into nothing, and another recalled her failing senses, with the battle cry:
"Rose, another drop of ether."
Then it began again, "Thank heaven, there is no infiltration, the growth is well localized and encapsulated. Steady, steady.... Ah, very pretty."
The word caught her flickering thoughts, and angered her. How could any one use it about anything so awful?
There was another misty moment. Then, "The operation is, in itself, a success, I think.... Now if the child's vitality ... I never did a better one ... another sponge ... excellent ... Are the sutures ready?... Quick, take the ether bottle, Miss Merriman!"
Suddenly the girl felt a painful grasp on her arm. Some one was shaking her roughly.
"Rose," came the same strange voice, "we need some more wood for the fire. Go out to the woodpile, and get some."
CHAPTER XXIIVICARIOUS ATONEMENT
In happy ignorance of the fact that the order had been given merely to get her outside, Smiles stumbled to the door with blind thankfulness, and, as soon as she had closed it behind her, crumpled up in an unconscious heap on the snow.
Within doors, the nurse was saying, "I think she's fainted, doctor. I heard her fall."
"Probably," was the callous response. "Don't worry about her, the cold will bring her around. We've got to get these sutures in. But, say, hasn't she been a brick?"
Donald's prophecy was correct. Rose came to her senses a moment later, and, trembling and sobbing uncontrolledly, stumbled through the darkness to the woodpile, and sat down on it. For a time she was powerless to move, but when, at length, she did re-enter the cabin, with an armful of wood, although her face was drawn and white, her self-control was fully restored.
Already the surgeon and nurse were bathing off the sewn wound with antiseptic fluid, and it was not long before the little injured head was wrapped inthe swathing bandages which covered it completely, down to the deathlike, sunken cheeks.
The period of coming out from under the merciful anæsthesia ended, the drooping flower was restored to its freshly made bed, the evidences of what had occurred removed, and then Smiles turned to her beloved friend with a pleading, unspoken question in her eyes.
"I can't tell you yet, dear. I have ... all of us have done our mortal best and now the issues are in higher hands than ours. I hope ... But come, tell me, Rose, what made you feel so sure that the troublewasa tumor on the brain. Was it merely a guess, based on what I had explained to you?"
"No. I ... I justknewit. I reckon that God told me so," was her reply.
"Well, God was certainly right, then," smiled Donald, glad of any chance to relieve the tension. "Do you want to see the growth? See, it is as large, nearly, as a walnut. Do you wonder that, with this thing pressing more and more into her brain, Lou was robbed of her power to talk and act?"
The girl broke down at last and wept hysterically, which caused Donald to look as uneasy as any mere man is bound to in such a circumstance; but Miss Merriman came to his rescue with comforting arms, and the words, "There, there, dear. Cry all you want to now. It's all over, and Dr. MacDonald will tell you that if she gets well—as we believe that she will—little Lou will be as healthy and happy ababy as she ever was in her life. He's taken out that wicked growth, kernel and all, and it will never come back again. Will it, doctor?"
"Almost certainly not. Rose, we couldn't have done without you to-night. You have been the brave little soldier that I told you to be; but I'm afraid that it has been a terrible strain for you. Of course, it was an exceptional operation, rare and dangerous; but it has given you a pretty vivid idea of what trained nurses have to go through frequently. Has it changed your mind? Do you still think that you want to go ahead and give your life to such work?"
"Would you ask a real soldier if he wanted to quit, or keep on fighting, after he had been in one battle, and seen men killed and wounded? It's got to be done, hasn't it, if the poor sick babies and grown-up people are to be made strong and well again? And I've justgotto help do it, Donald."
He gave Miss Merriman a significant look; but his only response was, "Well, unless you want another job—that of bringing back to life people who have starved to death—you had better get us a bite to eat and some of your strong coffee. My internal anatomy ..."
"Oh, I plumb forgot. You haven't had a thing to eat—nor poor granddaddy, either. I'm so ashamed I coulddie."
Two hours later, after she had finished making the old man as comfortable as possible for the night,Rose rejoined the other two in the main cabin. She came just in time to catch Donald in the act of half-heartedly trying to conceal a deep yawn.
As he, in turn, caught sight of her sympathetic smile, he said, "We have given our patient a mild sleep inducer; and now, Rose, I want you to go up into my loft room right away, and get a long night's sleep yourself. You've been under a mighty heavy strain to-day; there are many other hard days coming, and we can't have another patient on our hands."
The girl nodded, sleepily; but she had not taken one weary step before a different thought struck her, and she turned back to cry, contritely, "But you ... and Miss Merriman. There won't be any place for you to sleep, or for her either. Oh, what can we do?"
"Just forget about us, my child. I shan't undress to-night, anyway, and can roll myself in my big fur coat and camp out in your little room, since Lou must stay out here where it is warmer. And as for Miss Merriman ... if I catch her so much as closing her eyes for one minute, to-night, I'll wring her neck."
The nurse laughed; but Smiles' lips set, purposefully. "I forgot again. Of course some one has got to sit up with little Lou, and I'll do it. Why, Donald, poor Miss Merriman has been traveling and working all day long, and she's just tired to death—she must be. Of course she has got to getsome rest. You go right up into the loft room, dear ..." and she began to push the nurse gently toward the ladder.
"Rose," cut in the doctor, sternly, although his eyes held a pleased twinkle, "you're apparently forgetting one thing—that I'm boss here for the present, and that my nurses must learn to do as they are told, without arguing. I'm sorry for Miss Merriman, too; but she knows just what to do if anything happens, and you don't—yet. Besides, it won't be the first time that she has stayed up twenty-four hours at a stretch, will it?"
"No, indeed—nor forty-eight," answered the nurse, as she smoothed the pillow under the little patient's head. "I shall want you fresh and strong to help me with the 'day shift,' Smiles dear. And, as the doctor says, orders are orders."
The girl's tired eyes suddenly filled again, this time, with hurt, rebellious tears, and a pout, almost like a child's, appeared on her lips as she turned and moved slowly toward the ladder in the far corner. Donald watched her with sympathetic understanding and the thought, "She must think me a brute"; but, before he could speak the word of consolation which was on his tongue, she whirled about, just as she had when sent to bed on the first night of their acquaintance, and running back, threw herself into his arms. As she clung to him passionately, sobbing without restraint from weariness and the break in the tension which had kept her up for so long, shewhispered, "Oh, I love you so, dear Don. You have been so good, so good to me, and I'm so very happy."
"Well, well," answered the man huskily, as he patted her shoulder, "you certainly have a funny way of showing it; but, after all, women are queer creatures. I'm happy, too, dear—happy to be here and to have been able to help you. And now," he concluded, lightly, "my happiness will be complete if you will just let me see that sunny smile on your face, as you obey that order which I have had to give you three times already."
The tired girl, for the moment more child than woman, leaned back in his arms and looked up at him with an expression so transcendently appealing that it was only by the exercise of all his moral force that he was able to restrain the impulse to crush her to him. He saw that the nurse was regarding him with a peculiar expression, and as she, in turn, caught his eye and turned hastily away with a little added color in her cheeks, Donald recovered himself, lightly kissed the forehead so close to his lips, and said, "Now for the fourth, and last, time, 'go to bed.' Good-night, little sister."
This time Rose actually departed, and, after the physician had given Miss Merriman a few final directions, and bidden her call him instantly, if anything appeared to be going wrong, he said good-night to her also, and stepped toward the little room which he was to occupy. On reaching it he paused,for there had come a low, uncertain knock on the cabin door.
Lest it be repeated more loudly, and disturb the quiet into which the room had finally settled, Donald forestalled the nurse's act, hurried softly to the door, and opened it a few inches.
He started. There, leaning dejectedly against one of the pronged cedar posts on the tiny stoop, was a spectre figure, ghastly of countenance—Judd's. The doctor read in it the awful anguish of uncertainty which had driven the mountaineer, against his will, back to the cabin which held for him either hope or blank despair—and the man he hated.
Donald slipped outside, and closed the door softly behind him. He touched the inert form on the shoulder, and said in an undertone, "Come with me away from the house, Judd."
The other followed him, with dragging feet and sagging shoulders, his obedience being like that of a whipped dog. As he reached the rock before the gnarled oak, which, in happier days, had been the target for Big Jerry's first practice shot with the rifle that was later to play a part in the tragedy of Mike's death, Donald stopped and faced the man who had sworn himself his mortal enemy. The sight of the rock had re-awakened bitter memories; but they perished still-born as his gaze turned on the dimly seen figure beside him.
"Judd," he began, almost kindly, "you know why I came here this time?"
The other made an indistinct sound of assent.
"I ... I operated on your little sister's brain, to-night. Wait. It was absolutely necessary, if she were to have even a single chance for life. She was dying, Judd. The operation was a desperate one—a last resort. I can't promise you anything certainly, but she's still alive, and I honestly believe that she is going to live—and get well."
For an instant the listener stood motionless. Then his pent-up emotions broke their bounds in one deep, shuddering breath, and he sank down beside the boulder, flung his tensed arms across it, and buried his face on them.
At last he spoke, hoarsely, and without raising his head. "I done my damnedest ter kill ye, an' now yo' ... yo' saves Lou's life fer me. I reckon I don't know how ter thank ye, er repay ... but ... my life air yourn ter take hit, ef yo' likes."
"Nonsense," was the sharp response. "And as for thanks, why I don't want any. I did it for Smiles' sake."
The kneeling body quivered once; but, when the answer came, it was uttered in even tones. "Yes, I reckoned so. Yo' hev the right ter do things fer her, an' I ... I haint. She ... she warnt fer me ... never. I warnt never worthy uv her."
"She isn't for me, either," said Donald. "And besides, I'm no more worthy of her than you, Judd. I should have told you long ago—I was a fool not to have done so—I'm going to marryanother girl,—a girl at home whom I have known all my life."
"Do Rose know hit?" came the mountaineer's quick, suspicious query.
"Of course she does; she's known it for a year. Judd ..." he seated himself beside the younger man. "I want to tell you that I was altogether to blame for ... for what happened up there last summer. I should have told you then, and ... and I'm sorry."
"No, hit war I who war ter blame."
"Well, let's both try to forget it, now. You owe me nothing for to-night; but you owe Rose a debt of gratitude that you can never hope to pay in full, my boy."
"I knows hit. I kaint never pay even part uv hit."
"I think that you can."
"How kin I?"
"I don't pretend to be much of a preacher, but I can say this as a man, Judd. By trying to live the kind of a life she would have you live. She wants to be your friend."
"I haint fit ter be named friend uv her'n, after what I done," he replied, dully.
"Butwe'regoing to forget all about that, and certainly she won't hold it against you, lad. I heard your Mr. Talmadge talking about ... about religious things, once, and I think that, if he were here now, he would tell you that Smiles and littleLou, together, have made what ... what the Bible calls 'atonement' for what ... for what you did. Smiles' love and your baby sister's suffering have brought us together; each has had a chance to realize and confess that he was wrong and had been wicked; and now the way is clear for us to be ... friends. At least I'm willing, if you are, to shake on that."
Judd sprang to his feet, and his lean hand shot out to grasp the one which Donald held out to him in the darkness. And their firm clasp was a seal to the bond that the quarrel between them was ended for all time.
"Rose will be glad, Judd. I can't let you see Lou to-night; but come to-morrow morning ... come early before I leave, and we'll tell them all about it, and start things all over again. Good-night, my boy," said Donald, heartily.
And there was a new light on the face of each man, as one returned to Jerry's cabin, and the other strode, with restored hope, to his own abode, which had been once so cheerless.
CHAPTER XXIIITWO LETTERS
THE FIRST
Big Jerry's Cabin,
January 15, 1914.
My dear Dr. MacDonald,
Although this is theoretically only my semi-weekly report, made in accordance with your instructions, I feel in the letter-writing mood, for a wonder, so Imayoverstep professional bounds, and become loquacious—if one can do that with pen and ink.
Rose talks about you so continually that I am actually myself beginning to regard you as an intimate friend, instead of an austere and somewhat awe-inspiring "boss." I should probably not be brave enough to say that to your face; but I find that my courage rises in adverse ratio to my nearness to you.
First, however, for my report. The little patient is still convalescing in a highly satisfactory manner, and with a rapidity which speaks volumes both for her own strong constitution and this mountain as a health resort.
The wound remains perfectly healthy and is healing without suppuration or parting—which "speaks volumes" for your skill. I am quite certain that the scar will be merely a thin white line, and not in the least a disfigurement. The silk stitches are ready to be removed and the others nearly dissolved.
Yesterday that funny, countrified doctor, from down in the village, came up to see her—fame of your operationhaving spread. He "reckoned" that the child's recovery was nothing less than a miracle, and that he takes his hat off to you. I told him that most physicians did.
He also "allowed" that, if I wanted him to take out the stitches, he could do it, but I "reckoned" that I could attend to that a little better than he. Was thatlèse majesté?
I did my best to be very humble, and said, "Yes, doctor" constantly, and he tried to appear very professional; but I think he stood a little in awe of me. You don't know how I enjoyed the feeling.
But, to return to our report. Lou is gaining strength rapidly; I let her get up and play about longer each day, and have reduced the bandages to the minimum. It was most affecting when they were removed from her eyes. I forgot that I was a nurse, and cried with Smiles until the child cried, too, without having the slightest idea why. She is such a sweet, merry little imp that I do not wonder that you felt more than mere professional interest in her case. Every one here loves her.
Indeed, I am enchanted with the place and people, and have made up my mind to stay on a week or ten days after I call myself off the case, and take a vacation which I really owe to myself.
Poor Big Jerry is wonderful—so pathetically patient under his suffering, which is now acute. I am afraid that he cannot last many weeks longer, and, more than once, I have had to give him a hypodermic to deaden his pain. Somehow he reminds me of a huge forest tree that has been struck and shattered by a lightning bolt.
Then there is Judd. Rose says that he has been very, very wicked; but that only adds to his fascination in my eyes, and if he should decide some day to snatch me up and carry me off bodily to a cave, I don't think that Ishould struggle or screamveryhard. However, I'm afraid there is no chance of that, as he apparently doesn't know that I exist.
He puts me in mind of a mountain eagle, with those overhanging brows and piercing, coal-black eyes of his; but I must admit that he is disappointingly tame when he looks at Smiles—as he does most of the time, to my furious jealousy. Alas, the eagle then becomes a sucking dove.Sheis apparently oblivious to the obvious fact that he is madly in love with her. Poor Judd!
Last, but by no means least, there is Smiles herself. I wish that I could adequately express my thoughts about her, but I can't. However, I no longer wonder how a mountain child like that could have captivated you so, as I did when you first described her to me.
She is adorable. For the life of me I can't understand how a girl, bred in this wilderness, could have such a fine soul and personality—not to speak of her intellect, which daily startles me more. But, of course, she is of cultured stock—shemustbe—and I have always believed that the forces of heredity are paramount to those of environment. Do I sound like a school-mar'm? Well, that is what I am.
It may surprise you to learn, as much as it does me to realize, that I have turned back to schooldays with an enthusiasm which I never felt when I was going through them, and that I spend more time as a teacher than as a nurse. Smiles simplyabsorbseducation—I never knew anything like it—and I am as confident as she that her dream of going through the "C. H." and becoming a trained nurse, will come to pass. And won't she make a wonderful one? Be warned that when shedoesgo north I intend to dispute with you the right to regard her as a protégé.
I couldn't love her as I do, already, if she were not socompletely human, and it amuses me immensely the way she wheedles the natives and keeps them in good humor by using that comical mountain lingo—although she can speak as grammatically as any one, when she wants to. She just smiles at one of them, and says, "Now haint thet jesttoesweet of ye," and they fall down and worship.
Don't be surprised if you hear me say some day, "Wall, doctor, thet air shor' er powerful preety operation, an' I air plumb obleeged ter ye fer thet yo' let me holp ye with hit." I'm catching it, too.
I hope that you will forgive the liberties which I have taken in writing like this, but I had to do it.
Sincerely yours,
Gertrude Merriman.
P.S. You were right in your conjecture. Since you would not accept the whole, or any part of Smiles' precious savings—and your refusal nearly broke her heart until I made her understand that physicians never chargedmembers of their family—she wanted me to take it.
THE SECOND
Webb's Gap,
Jan. 22, 1914
Dearest Doctor Mac,
My heart is broken. Dear granddaddy died last night. Of course I know that it had to be, and that he is so much happier now in the spirit body, and with Ma Webb (he talked about her all yesterday, and I really think that his soul was speaking with hers); but he was so dear to me that I can hardly bear to think that he has gone away.
Wasn't he a splendid man, Don? I am sure that there could not have been any better, nobler men, even in the city, and I know that you loved him, too.
Before he died he told me all the wonderful things that he had done for me, although I did not deserve it—how he had left me all that money and made you my guardian. I am so glad for that.
He was in terrible pain toward the end, and I don't know what I should have done without dear Miss Merriman who stayed on purpose to help me. I think that God sent her here special. And she has helped me in so many other ways too—especially with my studying. She is sure that I will be able to pass that awful examination, although it frightens me. Oh, if Ican, I can take that hospital training and be a nurse at last, for I am rich now. Just think, dear granddaddy left memore than a thousand dollars—and I have my basket money, besides!
And so, dear Donald, the first part of my great dream is really coming true. It isn't just the way I dreamed it, for I didn't mean for granddaddy to be dead; but I guess things never happen just as we plan. When we look forward to something pleasant, which we want very much to happen, we never think that there may be unhappiness mixed with it—perhaps it is better that way, for if we did we wouldn't work so hard to make it come to pass.
I am afraid that I have not said that very well; but I feel that it is so, now. I am going to Boston; I will be near you, and will learn to do the work I love; but now I realize that I could never, never have done it until granddaddy went away. So that is the shadow on my golden dream.
And last night there came the great sorrow that I have been dreading so many months; and yet I know that he is happier, and I have you and Miss Merriman, and the work I am going to do, to make me forget—not him, but my sorrow—and take the pain from my heart.
Little Lou is almost well again, and both she and Judd are going to stay with Mrs. Andrews the rest ofthe winter. And, oh, Doctor Mac, he has promised me never to make white liquor again.
I have saved the best news for the last.Miss Merriman is going to take me to Boston with her.She says that her family have taken an apartment in the city, and that I may live with them until I get into the hospital. This makes me very happy, and I hope that you will be pleased, too.
I know that everything is going to be very different there in Boston, and that you are so busy that I cannot see you very often, and, besides, when I do get into the hospital I must be careful to remember that you are a very great doctor and I am only one of many probationers (Miss Merriman told me the word). But, although we cannot be chums like we have been, you must never forget that I am always
Your loving foster-sister,
Smiles.
CHAPTER XXIVNEW SCENES, NEW FRIENDS
So another leaf was turned in the Book of Fate, and Smiles' life underwent another metamorphosis as complete as the one fifteen years previous.
There was a sudden severance of all old ties, save that of memory, an abrupt entrance into a new existence, so utterly different from the one that she had known that it could scarcely have seemed stranger to her if she had actually been translated into another sphere.
Yet that same Fate, which had tried her heart in its crucible fires, and found its gold as unalloyed as her smile, now smiled, in turn, and Rose was deeply appreciative of that fact. She knew that in Gertrude Merriman she had found a friend who was a blessed comforter for her in her days of trial; in truth, the nurse was destined to be more than that, a wise counsellor as well. Herself a girl of breeding, a college graduate, and a product of the same mill through which the mountain child had set her heart and fixed her mind upon going, she would be able to smooth many a rough spot from that path which Donald had pictured in his allegory, draw the thorns from many a bramble.
For the first time Rose parted from the friends whom she had known practically all her life, and from the rugged, picturesque mountain which had been home to her, and turned her face toward a new life. Like a child venturing into the fairyland of dreams, she journeyed with her companion through the teeming cities of the East, Miss Merriman so arranging it that they should spend a day in each, for—with wisdom born of experience—she realized that such travel was in itself a broadening education, and that, moreover, in the new wonders and new delights which each hour held, Smiles' grief would find its best assuagement.
There was another reason in Miss Merriman's mind for making the trip a leisurely one. She knew that the girl was as far from being ready to step into the new existence, without material readjustment in her manners, as she was already mentally removed from the old. To be sure, she possessed a natural grace of manner which could not but charm any one who met her; but she was almost as free from external conventions as one of her own wild birds, except for the few which she had unconsciously acquired by her association with the older woman, and with Donald; and, in her love for, and pride in, her protégé, Miss Merriman wanted Rose to be able to fit, without embarrassment, into whatever company she might find herself.
Hers was a comparatively easy task, for Smiles took to "manners" as readily as a chameleon adaptsits exterior to suit the color of its surroundings. In the woods she had learned to mimic the note of the birds or the chattering of the squirrels; in the hotel dining-room she copied the behavior of her companion just as faithfully, and if, on occasion, she found herself perplexed as to the proper use of some strange implement of eating, she frankly, and without a thought of embarrassment, sought information on the subject. People regarded her with open amusement, sometimes; but more often their gaze spelt admiration, and Rose was happily unconscious of both kinds of glances.
Furthermore, in obedience to instructions from Donald, contained in a special delivery letter which reached her just before they started North, and in which he purported to be speaking and acting as the child's guardianipso facto, Miss Merriman fitted her charge out with a simple, but complete, wardrobe, to Smiles' never-failing surprise and delight that so many pretty things should be all her own.
When the two were ready to leave the metropolis—whose size, splendor and feverish bustle left Smiles mentally gasping—the nurse sent a telegram to Donald, and one raw February evening found him impatiently pacing the South Terminal Station, awaiting the arrival of the train from New York.
Six months before, the prospect of some day being Smiles' guardian had seemed vaguely pleasant. Now it was an immediate fact, and the responsibilities engendered, the possible difficulties attendant onit, lay heavily upon his mind. He, too, thanked Heaven for Miss Merriman.
The train gates were opened at last, and Donald hastened down the long platform, his eyes searching eagerly for those whom he sought. They fell first upon the nurse, just descending the steps, then turned and stayed upon the graceful, slender figure which followed her. Was it really Rose? Could that young woman, clad in a simple black traveling dress and long coat which, even to his masculine perception, appeared modishly stylish and amazingly becoming, be the mountain child whom his memory clothed in homemade calico? Her face was unwontedly pale beneath the small, close-fitting black hat, yet it was so utterly sweet that Donald felt his pulses start again with the old strange thrill.
If his mind harbored any idea that she might run into his embrace, it was doomed to disappointment, for, with the habiliments of city civilization, Smiles had acquired its reserve. Her greeting was a very demure and somewhat weary one,—it both pleased and irritated him, somehow. Indeed, she spoke scarcely a word, and it was not until they had finished dinner in the quiet, homelike hotel, whither Donald had taken them, that her new shyness began to yield to his presence. Then the story of the marvels which her eyes had beheld came pouring forth with all the old-time childlike eagerness.
When they were nearly ready to leave, Miss Merriman said, with a half real, half assumed show offirmness, "Now, Doctor MacDonald, since I am off duty I can speak my mind plainly, and I mean to. I know that you are Smiles' guardian; but you can't have her. She's mine, and she's going to live with my family until she enters the hospital. So there."
Donald breathed a mental sigh of relief, and responded, laughingly, "And I, apparently, haven't anything to say about it! Oh, very well. I've lived long enough to learn that there is no use arguing with a woman, so I yield gracefully, although I'm afraid that it is establishing a bad precedent. If I begin to take orders from you like this, it is going to be hard to put you back in your place and to act the rôle of stern superior myself. I warn you, though, that I mean to get even with you on our next case, so prepare yourself to be bullied frightfully.
"You see what a horrible disposition I really have, little sister," he added, smiling at Rose, who informed him that she was not in the least frightened, and to prove it, slipped her hand into his for a moment with the childlike confidence that he loved.
So it was arranged; a taxicab bore them to the homey little apartment in the Fenway, where Smiles was taken to Mrs. Merriman's maternal bosom, and, after humbly begging his ward from them for the next afternoon, when he meant to introduce her to his family, Donald departed, whistling.
Tired, but strangely contented, Rose was at last shown to her dainty pink and white bedroom, with its inviting brass bed, beside which she knelt for along time in thankful prayer. Nor was it strange, perhaps, that her pillow was moist with tears of gratitude and happiness before she fell asleep.
Smiles awoke early. The air in the room was very cold, but during her trip northward she had learned the mysteries of steam radiators, and she sprang up, closed the windows, and turned on the heat with a little silent laugh as her thoughts travelled back to the rude cabin on the mountain. In memory she saw herself crawl shiveringly from her bed, in the cold gray of a Winter daybreak, clad only in a plain nightgown, to build a blaze in the big stone fireplace so that the room might be warm for Big Jerry when he awoke. The smile faded from her lips, and they trembled slightly as she whispered his name. Poor grandpap, he had suffered sadly from the cold during those last few months when he could not keep the circulation up in his massive body by accustomed exercise.
Below her lay the still sleeping city. Snow covered the untenanted portions of the Fens, and hid its ugly nakedness with a soft mantle, which seemed to hold a silken sheen, as the first flush of morning touched it. How strange all her surroundings appeared. Gone was the far sweeping expanse of forest-clad mountain side, stretching off to the sunrise; in its place lay a level space closed in by substantial buildings of marble, granite and brick—the Art Museum, Latin School and clustered hospitals,—their walls changing from ghostly gray to growing rose and gold.She drew a comfortable dressing gown—the gift of her new friend—about her girlish form, and sat down by the window in the familiar posture with her chin on her cupped hands. By Miss Merriman's description of the view which the window gave upon she recognized the creamy brick building of the Children's Hospital, snuggled like a gentle sister by the side of the impressive marble walls of its big brother, the Harvard Medical School, and, as the light grew and gave definition to its outlines, she felt as though it were actually drawing nearer to her. In imagination she went to meet it; she entered its doors and took her place among those who toiled there with loving hearts and skillful hands; and thus Miss Merriman found her, half an hour later, when she, similarly clad, came to bid her little guest good morning. With silent understanding, which is born of true companionship, she drew the girl into her arms.
"I'm not going to let you do a single thing but rest this morning," she said at length. "You look pale and tired still—like a very white rose—and I want you to appear your very sweetest when you go to meet Dr. MacDonald's family this afternoon, dear. Come, let's decide what you shall wear. The black silk that we bought in New York?"
Smiles hesitated. "I think that ... would it be all right if I wore that pretty white woollen one?"
"Why, yes, if you like, but it is very plain and simple."
"And so am I," laughed Rose a bit unsteadily. "I want them to see me just as I am, and ... Oh, how I hope that they will like me!"
"Never fear. They will," answered Miss Merriman, giving her a reassuring kiss.
Nevertheless, it was a very quiet and timid Smiles who sat beside Donald in his coupé at four that afternoon, as he drove to the richly sombre home on Beacon Street, where had dwelt many generations of Thayers. He, too, although he attempted to be jovial, was strangely uneasy.
"You chump!" he said to himself. "You're more disturbed about whether this child will make a good impression, than you would be over performing a major operation. Supposing that Etheldoesn'tgo wild about her, what of it?"
A trim maid ushered them into the drawing room, where softly shaded lights were already burning, for the afternoon was dull and gray, and they gave a mellow homelike appearance to the mahogany furniture, rich tapestries, oriental rugs and costly paintings. Ethel, Mr. MacDonald, Senior, and little Muriel were in the room when Donald entered with the girl's slim hand held tightly in his, for she had slipped it there impulsively, just as he stepped through the broad doorway.
"This," he said simply, "is Smiles."
They all arose, and Ethel stepped quickly forward with outstretched hands. She had told herself that she meant to be very kind to the little savage to whomher brother had taken such an astonishing fancy; but now, something in the slender form and the half-frightened expression in the pale, sweet face caused her to forget everything else except that the stranger was alone and ill at ease. Both her arms went out to Rose with a motherly gesture, and, as she drew her within them, she said, "Why, my dear child."
"Yes, sheisa child," broke in Muriel, eagerly seizing one of Smiles' hands. "I thought that she was a grown-up woman; but see, she wears her hair down on her neck just like a school girl."
Let it be said that Miss Merriman had caught the note struck by Rose that morning, and had arrayed her to appear as young and simple as possible.
"A child? Of course she is," echoed Mr. MacDonald in a hearty voice. "My dear, Donald has told us so much about you that I feel almost as though I had known you all your life. But," he added with little wrinkles forming at the corners of his kindly gray eyes, "I would like to have seen you, as my son did first, in that one-piece calico dress. He described the picture that you made very graphically."
"Oh, look, mother. She's going tosmile. Remember how pretty Uncle Don told us she looked when ..."
Rose's shyly budding smile changed to silvery laughter in which all the rest joined, and with it was sealed the bond of an enduring friendship. Then baby Don was brought down from the nursery for inspection and, before he had been contentedlycurled in the newcomer's arms many minutes, he was actually trying to lisp "Mileth," which Ethel proudly pronounced to be the first articulate word in his vocabulary, if those universal sounds, which doting parents have ever taken to mean Mother and Father, be excepted. He liked it so well that he insisted upon repeating it over and over, with eyes screwed up tight and mouth opened very wide, which gave him so comical an expression that every one laughed, including himself.
Manlike, Donald had planned to get all the meetings over with at once, and had asked his sister to invite Marion in for afternoon tea and to meet his "protégé and prodigy"—as Ethel had phrased it in her invitation. He had, however, purposely refrained from mentioning the fact to Rose, and when Miss Treville entered, stately as a goddess, very beautiful and a trifle condescending in manner, as she extended her white-gloved hand and said, "So this is little Rose," the girl felt a sudden chill succeed the warmth of hospitality which had served to banish all her timid reserve, had brought a glow of happy color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her luminous eyes, and had made her as wholly natural as she would have been at home among her simple neighbors of the mountains.
Donald felt the psychological change, and sensed the reason for it; but although, in a clumsy manner, he did his best to restore the atmosphere of comradeship, he knew that he was failing. Marion alsotried, and tried sincerely, to bring Rose into the conversation; but the girl had become embarrassed and silent, and to her own surprise the society woman vaguely realized that she, too, was embarrassed and not at her best. She tried to shake off the feeling with the thought that it was absurd that one who had been at ease in the presence of royalty should feel so in that of a simple mountain girl; but she could not wholly banish the feeling or the impression that the girl's deep, unusual eyes were looking down beneath the surface, which she knew was perfectly appointed—had she not, for no reason at all she told herself, taken special pains in dressing?—and that, although there was something of awed admiration in her frank gaze, it also held a suggestion of something which was not entirely approval. Donald felt it, too, and it irritated him; so much so that he was frankly glad when his fiancée announced that she must depart to attend a social engagement. Perhaps it was because he was ashamed of such a feeling that he kissed her with unusual warmth, as he handed her into the waiting motor car, and he found himself flushing deeply, without reason, when he returned to the drawing room and saw Rose standing by one of the windows, looking out at the departing limousine with its two liveried attendants.
"She is very beautiful," the girl whispered to him, as he joined her.
There was another guest that afternoon, who came in, unexpectedly—a young man, in appearanceDonald's antithesis, for, although he was of more than medium height, he was slender and almost as graceful as a woman. Wavy light hair crowned a merry, boyish face which, with its remarkably blue eyes, was almost too good looking for a man, although saved from a hint of weakness by a firm, well-rounded chin.
"Called at your office and learned that you were loafing on the job again, and that I might find you up here, visiting a baby—for a change," he ran on, as he entered after the manner of one who feels himself perfectly at home. Then he caught sight of Rose, blushed like a girl himself and stammered, "Oh, I beg pardon. I didn't know that I was ..."
"You're not," laughed Donald, seizing the newcomer's hand with a vicelike grasp. "Come in. I've told you about my little mountain rose, and now is your chance to meet her, for here she is. Smiles, this is my closest friend and associate, Dr. Philip Bentley—the man who steps into my shoes when I am summarily ordered to board the next train for the Cumberland Mountains, or elsewhere."
"Who steps into his practice, perhaps, but not into his shoes, Miss Rose," added the other. "I could not fillthem, figuratively or physically."
"Go ahead, make all the fun of me that you like," answered Donald. "I'm not ashamed of having a broad understanding."
"You would not think Dr. Donald's boots large if you could have seen my Granddaddy's," interposedSmiles, pretending to think that reflection was being cast upon her idol. "I could getbothmy feet inside one of them—really I could."
"I don't wonder," answered Philip with a return to seriousness. And the girl hastily tucked her diminutive shoes underneath her chair, as she saw the man's gaze fastened upon them.
For nearly an hour she lived in unaccustomed delight, as she listened to the merry badinage of this group of educated city dwellers and, although it was something new to her, her quick mind soon realized that Philip was a most entertaining conversationalist, with a wit like a rapier which flashed and touched, but never hurt, and that Donald, in his slower way, possessed a dry humor which she had not suspected. At the end of that time a telephone call came for Donald which sent him forth, pretending to grumble over the lack of consideration of modern children, who insisted upon getting sick at the most inconvenient times, and of their parents, who permitted it.
"Your loss, my gain," chuckled Philip. "I'll be only too pleased to take Miss Rose home."
"Indeed, I'll not allow such a thing," promptly responded Ethel. "Rose stays here for dinner, andyou'renot invited. This is to be strictly a family party."
"'Family?' Is Don going to be a Mormon, then?" challenged Philip.
It was Rose, who—blushing prettily—answered,"I hope not, for he is my brother, too, by blood adoption." And she told the story.
"Then why can'tIbe? I'm ready, nay, anxious, to shed quarts and quarts of blood to attain a like relationship," persisted Philip. And thus the conversation ran on through dinner, for Ethel relented and allowed Dr. Bentley to remain, and, as Donald was again summoned away, it was he who, after all, took Rose to the Merriman apartment.
"Oh," she cried, in telling Gertrude all about it, "I think that it was the happiest evening I ever spent, or itwouldhave been if Big Jerry might only have been there, too."
A slight suggestion of a smile passed over the face of the older woman as she pictured the mountaineer in a Beacon Street drawing room. Rose saw, and interpreted it.
"Grandpap would not have been out of place there, or in a king's palace. Hewasa king, Miss Merriman."
"Yes, dear, he truly was," the other responded seriously.
There was a pause.
"Isn't Dr. Bentley nice," said Smiles, softly. "He must be splendid, for Dr. Donald likes him a lot."
"He likesyoua lot, too! My, aren't we vain?" smiled Gertrude.
"Oh, I didn't think how that was going to sound!"
Rose's distress was real and the other hastened to say, "Yes, Dr. Bentley is splendid. We used tocall them 'David and Jonathan,' for they were always together, and, before Dr. McDonald become engaged, we said that neither would ever marry, since they couldn't marry each other. Now I suppose that Dr. Bentley will be looking around for consolation. Perhaps...."
"Don't be silly," laughed Smiles. But she became suddenly silent again.