CHAPTER XXVTHE FIRST MILESTONE
Three months sped by and were gone like a dream.
Day after day, until should come that longed-for, yet dreaded test, Rose studied with a diligence that delighted the private tutor whom Donald, through Miss Merriman, had secured for her—a young woman who found herself astonished by her pupil's avidity in seeking knowledge.
The passing days were not, however, wholly dedicated to the books which held for Smiles the key to the citadel she sought to possess.
Other doors and other hearts were open to her, and, because of her simple charm, Donald's family welcomed her as a visitor whose every advent in the city home seemed to bring a fresh breath from the hills and open spaces. Little Muriel, who had loved her unseen, worshipped her on sight, and Ethel, happy in Donald's betrothal to Marion Treville, would have been glad to have had her with them far more often than she would consent to come.
Long walks she took, too, regardless of weather, swinging freely along on voyages of discovery; losing herself often in Boston's impossible streets, onlyto find her way back home with the instinct for direction of one bred amid forests, trackless, save for infrequent blind and tortuous paths. And soon the historic, homey city cast its strange spell over her heart, and claimed her for its own.
Spring came at last, not the verdant, glorious, festal virgin of the Southland, but the hesitant, bashfully reserved maiden so typical of New England, and Miss Merriman finally reported to Donald that their joint protégé seemed to be fairly prepared for the test which she had come so far to take.
There are no rules, born of reason, which cannot yield to reasonable exceptions, and, although the entrance requirements of the training school were as exacting as its course, and as strict as its standard, a standard which had long since made it the peer of any in all America, some of the purely technical ones were waived upon the request of the idolized chief junior surgeon on the staff, for Donald went personally to the Superintendent and explained the case to her, and she agreed to allow Rose to take a special examination; but she shook her head when he mentioned the girl's age.
"Of course you know what the requirements are in that respect, doctor," she said. "We make exceptions, yes; but, if she enters now, she will be by far the youngest girl in the school. I think that, before I give you my decision, I shall have to see and talk with her."
Accordingly, that afternoon he took the ratherfrightened Smiles to the Superintendent of nurses, and left them closeted together.
"Dr. MacDonald has told me about you, and your ambition, Miss Webb," said the Superintendent kindly. "You have been very courageous; but you are very young, even younger than I thought. Now I want you to tell me frankly just what your life has been, so that I may judge as to your other qualifications, before deciding whether it is wise for you to take the examinations."
Rose began hesitatingly; but, as the other drew her out with judicious questions, she told her story with simple directness, and, before long, the Superintendent had come to a realization that the little mountain girl—whose life had, for so long, been one of unusual responsibilities—had already acquired an uncommon maturity of judgment. Although she was still some eighteen months below the prescribed age for entering, she received the other's hesitating permission to make the essay.
It would be difficult to decide who felt the greater nervousness during the period of Smiles' written examination, and the time which had to elapse before word came as to the result—Rose, Miss Merriman or Donald. It was the last who heard first. The Superintendent invited him into her office, as he was passing through the hospital corridor one day, and said, "I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that Miss Webb has passed her tests with flying colors, doctor."
A warmth of pleasurable relief passed through Donald; but he managed to reply formally, "Iampleased; but I hope that you didn't ease up any because of anything ... er ... on my account."
"No, we didn't," was the response. "I'll admit that both your account of what Miss Webb had done, and the girl herself, appealed to me so that I was prepared to mark a bit leniently, if necessary; but it wasn't. I really don't see how she managed to garner so much education in so short a time."
"'Where there's a will,'" quoted Donald, with inward satisfaction over the fact that his ward had fulfilled his prophecy, and he stole a few minutes out of the busy morning to motor to the Merrimans' apartment to bear the joy-bringing tidings personally to little Rose, whose eyes shone happily and whose lips smiled their thanks, but who—perversely, it seemed to him—gave Miss Merriman the reward which he felt should have been his.
Dreams do come true sometimes, if theyaretrue, and so at last arrived a bright May morning when Smiles folded away her little play uniform forever, and—by right of conquest—donned the striped pink and white gingham dress and bibless apron of a probationer, within the doors of the newly built home of that old and worthy institution which had had its inception, more than sixty years before, in the loving heart of Nursing Sister Margaret.
There Rose entered into a new life, as different from that of the old physical freedom of the hills,and personal freedom from restraint, as could well be imagined, for, as Donald had told her, she was now mustered, as an untrained recruit, into a great modern army; and discipline is the keynote in war, whether the battle be against evil nations or evil forces.
From half after six in the morning until ten at night, when with military precision came "lights out," her life was drawn to pattern. It was not a hardship for her, as with some others, to arise at the early hour; and the brief prayer and singing of the morning hymn, in company with her fifty-odd sister-probationers and pupil nurses, impressed her strongly the first time in which she had part in it, and never failed to strengthen and uplift her for the day's toil. Times were to come aplenty, to be sure, when the old call of untrammelled freedom stirred her senses to mute rebellion; but, as often, her all-absorbed interest in the work silenced it speedily.
Right at the outset Rose experienced the same shock which hundreds of other would-be nurses have had. She, mistress of a home for years, was obliged to learn to clean, to scrub, to make a bed! For two whole months of probationary training she had to labor at the bedside or in the classroom, doing the commonplace, practical tasks which, to many, seemed merely unnecessary drudgery; but, if she occasionally felt that Donald's prophecy was coming true with a vengeance, more often her level little head held a prescient understanding of how importantthis unlovely foundation was to the structure which should some day be built upon it.
And, although the Superintendent said nothing to Smiles, she noted with secret appreciation that her new pupil possessed, in addition to her sustaining enthusiasm, a no less valuable thing—the innate ability to use her hands by instinct and without clumsy conscious effort. Had not this girl, who was scarcely more than a child in years, for a long time been both a homemaker and an ever-ready nurse to all those who became ill within the confines of the scattered mountain settlement?
The second milestone was reached at last. Rose was one day summoned alone into the Superintendent's sanctum, and the door was closed to all others. A little later she came out with tears adding new lustre to her shining eyes, for the talk had been very earnest and heart-searching; but they were tears of happiness, for upon her gleaming curls now sat the square piqué cap which was the visible sign that she had safely traversed the first stretch of the long, hard road. To be sure, she knew well that even this, the so dearly desired cap and pale blue dress which went with it, did not make her fully a pupil nurse, yet that afternoon it seemed that life could never hold for her an honor more precious.
The afternoon on which this momentous event occurred was one of liberty for Rose, and she hastened with the news to her dear Miss Merriman, the precious cap smuggled out under her coat; but, after they hadrejoiced together, and she had admired its reflection in the glass, she suddenly became doleful, and wailed in mock despair, "Oh, doesn't it seem as though I'd never,neverbe a real nurse. Why, now I've got toleave the hospital"—the tragedy in her tone almost caused her friend to break into laughter—"and study all sorts of awful Latin things. She opened a catalogue and read aloud, 'Physiology, bacteriology, chemistry, dietetics,' and goodness knows what else over at Simmons College, forfour whole months. I shall simply die, I just know that I shall!"
Miss Merriman gently explained the necessity for each of them; but wisely refrained from further frightening her by adding that a full year's course was to be crowded into those sixteen weeks.
In due time these, too, were over, the awe-inspiring examination passed, and Smiles was accepted as worthy of a place among the pupil nurses. Like an athlete she had finished her preliminary training, and was ready for the long, gruelling race toward the goal, two and a half years distant.
Hard work though it was, Rose found all her days sunny ones, and only one cloud partly obscured their brightness. Donald she saw on rare occasions only, as the demands upon his time doubled and redoubled, and of course their brief meetings at the hospital demanded strict formality of intercourse. Deeply as he felt for her, he was a physician first, last and all the time, and as uncompromising in his own ethics as he was in his requirements of the nurses.
Yet, if she saw him seldom, there was another whom she saw increasingly often. Dr. Bentley's attitude towards Rose was also strictly professional; but he never failed to bow and speak pleasantly when he met her in the corridors or wards, and she instinctively felt that in him she had found another real friend.
Rose was too much a child of nature to be given to thinking much about men; but there were minutes, just before sleep came at night, when her mind would visualize Donald's strong, kindly face, which seemed to look down at her with an expression almost fatherly, and she would whisper a little prayer that she might help him as she had resolved to, that night on the mountain top. And at such times another face, light, where his was dark, came, not to supplant, but to supplement it.
CHAPTER XXVITHE CALL OF THE RED CROSS
Despite the enthralling interest of her new work and surroundings, it seemed to Rose, during the year after she gained entrance to the temple of her desire, that her life was standing still, while all things else were speeding by her at a breakneck pace.
It had never been so before. Even in the isolation and simplicity of her former home she had felt that she was a part of it all. It had seemed to her, somehow, as though her existence had been patterned after her own turbulent mountain stream, which danced along through sunshine and shade, with here and there a ravine and cataract, here and there a rapid or impeding boulder in its course; but always moving, moving. Then, suddenly, it was as though that swift little river had fallen into a broad, quiet basin, walled in, where it moved forward almost imperceptibly. True, it was daily gaining greater depth and fulness as it gathered to itself the tributary waters of knowledge and experience, and Smiles was not insensible to this fact. But it was difficult to remember it always, for the outer world of events was moving forward so fast.
The very day upon which her probationary period came to an end and, with a smile on her lips, a song in her heart, she placed the cherished cap upon her gold-brown curls, there came, from the heart of the swiftly piled up, lowering clouds, the blinding flash which shattered the peace of the world and started the overwhelming conflagration into the seething, bloody-tongued vortex into which nation after nation was sucked irresistibly. The world had become the plaything of the Gods of Wrath.
Black days passed, shuddering things of horror to Rose, when she had time to allow her mind to dwell upon them, and her keen imagination to picture the atrocities which the fiend was committing upon the helpless babies of Belgium and France.
Then, in answer to the cries and lamentations from overseas, the banner of the Red Cross was shaken forth anew, like a holy standard, and, like crusaders of old, doctors and nurses flocked beneath it for the battle. From her own hospital home went physicians and graduate nurses to dedicate themselves afresh to service. The call reached and wrung the heart of Rose. She could not go as a nurse, she knew; yet the need was so great that it seemed to her that somehow she must answer; but she resolutely closed her ears to it and fixed her eyes the more steadfastly upon the rocky, shut-in path which she had set forth to climb.
It was a raw, bleak evening in late November when she made her final resolve. At noon Donaldhad met her in one of the corridors and stopped to speak with her. His face, she thought afterwards, had appeared unusually serious and determined, even for him, as he said, "This is your afternoon and evening off duty, isn't it, Rose? I want to talk with you, if you haven't made any other plans."
As it chanced, she had been eagerly anticipating a visit to the theatre with Miss Merriman, who was home for a few days between cases; but something about his manner caused her to tell a white lie without hesitation.
"Good," he said. "I'll call for you in my car and take you to Ethel's for dinner. Be ready at six o'clock."
All the rest of the day Donald's presence had been strangely close to her, and she found herself wondering what it portended; but not until the pleasant family meal was over, and he was taking her home, did she learn.
When they came out of the house they found a baby blizzard sending the first snow of the season, as light and dry as tiny particles of down, whirling and eddying through the broad street. As Rose stood in surprise at the top of the brownstone steps, a dry vagrant, left from one of the trees which was tossing its gaunt arms protestingly, came tumbling down to become stem-entangled in her hair. With a laugh, she dashed for the motor car and, when she had sprung inside it, she was panting a little, for the thieving wind had taken advantage of her lipsbeing open in laughter to steal away her breath, so that Donald was sensible of her quickened heart beats as she leaned against him while his big but deft fingers removed the leaf almost tenderly from its imprisoning mesh.
"Doctor Bentley would make a pretty speech about getting caught in my hair," challenged Rose with a teasing pout.
The next instant she drew quickly back, for Donald's arms were almost about her. He as quickly recovered himself, with the words, "But you can't expect pretty speeches from a brother."
"You have been a dear big brother; I don't know why you have been so good to me, Donald. Do you know what this snow reminds me of? That awful night on the mountain when I went down to Fayville to telegraph for you—and you came." For a moment they both sat in silent memories, then Rose added, "Dear little Lou, I wonder how she is getting along now ... and Juddy, too. Isn't it a strange thing, Donald, that one can forget the old things so quickly—no, not forget, either; but have them forced into the background of the mind by new surroundings and new friends. Sometimes, all those years on the mountain seem to me like a dream. I used to see the people there, Grandpap, Mr. Talmadge, Judd and all the rest, every day, they were a part of my life, and now they have been completely withdrawn and who knows if I shall ever see any of them again? They hardly seem real to me."
"Yes, strange, perhaps, but it happens many times in the course of a life." He paused, then added hurriedly, "I suppose that in a few months you will be saying the same thing about me—'I used to see him every day, he was a part of my life, but now he is only in the background of my memory, and doesn't seem real.'"
There was a note almost of bitterness in Donald's voice; but Rose was too stunned by his words to notice or attempt to analyze the manner of their utterance.
"Donald, what ... what do you mean? You're not ..." She gasped, and laid her hand with an impulsive clutch on his arm.
"Look out! Don't interfere with the motorman," he laughed more naturally, as the car swerved almost into the curbing. "Yes, I am. I'm going away ... almost immediately."
"Away? Where?"
"To France."
"Oh, Don, you mustn't; you can't. You're needed here so much."
"They need me over there more, little Smiles. I've realized it, and felt the pull, for days; but it didn't become insistent until yesterday, when I received a letter from a chap whom I have known for years. He's always had a good deal more money than was good for him, and been a sort of social butterfly. I liked him, although I didn't believe that he had a serious thought in his head, didn'tthink that he was capable of one, but ... here, read what he has written me," he concluded abruptly, as a temporary block forced their car to a stop beneath an electric light on Massachusetts Avenue. "The first page doesn't matter; it merely contains a description of how he happened to be caught in Paris by the outbreak of the war, and got mixed up in volunteer rescue work through a spirit of adventure."
Rose turned to the second sheet and, holding the pages close to the glass in the door, through which came enough snow-filtered light to illumine them, read.
"I am beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining, and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I look back on the old, superficial, utterly useless life that I formerly led, I actually thank God for the foolish whim that brought me to Paris in the fall, and the equally whimsical decision that led me to volunteer my services as an auto driver. The work has stirred something inside of me that I didn't know existed, and, if I come through this scrape (we're working in villages pretty close to the front a good deal of the time), I'll come home 'poorer, but wiser.' Yes, they've touched my pocketbook as well as my heart.I suppose the papers give you some idea of conditions here; but no verbal description can begin to do it justice; the need is simply overwhelming and hourly growinggreater. Think of it, old man, there are thousands upon thousands of babies and little kiddies of Belgium and northern France homeless, many of them orphaned, most of them sick and all helpless and with their lives—which have every right to be carefree and happy—filled with sorrow and suffering.France has been glorious in the way she has met the staggering, almost insuperable difficulties which everywhere confront her, but how could she be expected to meet this incidental problem when she was so overburdened with the crushing pressure of the battle for her very existence. It has been a mighty lucky thing for her that the Red Cross was ready to take it off her shoulders, and she has turned tous(How does that sound? Can you imagine me doing anything useful?) with tears of appeal and gratitude. That isn't a figure of speech. I have actually seen the Prefect of this Province, who would rank with the governor of one of our states, and who is a brave, capable man, cry like a woman over the seeming hopelessness of the ghastly problem. I have heard him say that he—that France—was helpless, and beg us in the name of common humanity to do what we could.Believe me, we're doing it, and I'm proud of my countrymen and women who have gone into this thing with the typical Yankee pep; proud of the American Red Cross and just a bit proud of myself. You used to make fun of my vaunted ability to stay up half the night, and be fresh as a daisy the next morning. It's serving me in good stead now. I can't begin to tell you about the work we have done already and are doing; it is a task to overwhelm the courage, but we are 'carrying on,' as the Tommies say.New children, by the scores and hundreds, are brought into the hospital bases daily, and many of them have been living for weeks, and even months, filthy in cellarsof Hun-shattered villages which are almost continually under fire. They are generally sick, naturally, indescribably dirty and, in fact, mere wraiths of childhood. God, Don, it gets me when I imagine my own nephews and nieces in their places!We clean 'em up, give them help and something to live for. We have already established hospitals, schools and nurseries in —— and —— and our ambulances and 'traveling baths' go out daily to give aid to the less needy in the neighborhood. Can you picturemeacting as chauffeur for a magnified bath tub for Belgian babies? That's what I'm doing, now!Get into the game, old man. We need you over here, and the kids of the disgustingly rich at home will be the better for not having a doctor to give them a pill every time their little noses run a bit. Pack up your saws, axes and other trouble-makers in your old kit bag and climb aboard a ship bound for France."
"I am beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining, and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I look back on the old, superficial, utterly useless life that I formerly led, I actually thank God for the foolish whim that brought me to Paris in the fall, and the equally whimsical decision that led me to volunteer my services as an auto driver. The work has stirred something inside of me that I didn't know existed, and, if I come through this scrape (we're working in villages pretty close to the front a good deal of the time), I'll come home 'poorer, but wiser.' Yes, they've touched my pocketbook as well as my heart.
I suppose the papers give you some idea of conditions here; but no verbal description can begin to do it justice; the need is simply overwhelming and hourly growinggreater. Think of it, old man, there are thousands upon thousands of babies and little kiddies of Belgium and northern France homeless, many of them orphaned, most of them sick and all helpless and with their lives—which have every right to be carefree and happy—filled with sorrow and suffering.
France has been glorious in the way she has met the staggering, almost insuperable difficulties which everywhere confront her, but how could she be expected to meet this incidental problem when she was so overburdened with the crushing pressure of the battle for her very existence. It has been a mighty lucky thing for her that the Red Cross was ready to take it off her shoulders, and she has turned tous(How does that sound? Can you imagine me doing anything useful?) with tears of appeal and gratitude. That isn't a figure of speech. I have actually seen the Prefect of this Province, who would rank with the governor of one of our states, and who is a brave, capable man, cry like a woman over the seeming hopelessness of the ghastly problem. I have heard him say that he—that France—was helpless, and beg us in the name of common humanity to do what we could.
Believe me, we're doing it, and I'm proud of my countrymen and women who have gone into this thing with the typical Yankee pep; proud of the American Red Cross and just a bit proud of myself. You used to make fun of my vaunted ability to stay up half the night, and be fresh as a daisy the next morning. It's serving me in good stead now. I can't begin to tell you about the work we have done already and are doing; it is a task to overwhelm the courage, but we are 'carrying on,' as the Tommies say.
New children, by the scores and hundreds, are brought into the hospital bases daily, and many of them have been living for weeks, and even months, filthy in cellarsof Hun-shattered villages which are almost continually under fire. They are generally sick, naturally, indescribably dirty and, in fact, mere wraiths of childhood. God, Don, it gets me when I imagine my own nephews and nieces in their places!
We clean 'em up, give them help and something to live for. We have already established hospitals, schools and nurseries in —— and —— and our ambulances and 'traveling baths' go out daily to give aid to the less needy in the neighborhood. Can you picturemeacting as chauffeur for a magnified bath tub for Belgian babies? That's what I'm doing, now!
Get into the game, old man. We need you over here, and the kids of the disgustingly rich at home will be the better for not having a doctor to give them a pill every time their little noses run a bit. Pack up your saws, axes and other trouble-makers in your old kit bag and climb aboard a ship bound for France."
Donald saw that there were tears in Smiles' deep eyes as she silently folded the pages, and replaced them in their envelope.
"Of course you ought to go," she said simply. "I spoke selfishly. But oh, Don, I don't know what I shall do without you; you're the only 'family' I've got. I don't see you very often; but I know that you are here in Boston, and I guess that I have got the habit of leaning on you in my thoughts. You know I called you a tree, years and years ago."
"Yes, I remember, an 'oak,' wasn't it? I thought that you meant that I was tough," he laughed. "The idea ofyouleaning on any one is funny, Rose." Then he added, with some hesitancy, "I've beenthinking ... Would you like to go over there, too, Rose? I could take you ... that is, I am quite sure that I could arrange for you to do so, not as a Red Cross nurse, of course, for they have to be graduates; but as a volunteer helper in one of those base hospitals. It would be a wonderful experience, and you would be performing the kind of service that you like best. It would not be time wasted, by any means."
She started, and her lips parted eagerly; then the light slowly faded from her eyes and she shook her head slowly.
"I would love it. It would be glorious, Don, and I should be working with you, perhaps, but ... No, I must keep on doing as I have planned. I can't falter or fail now, Don. There is going to be greater need every day, not for helpers, but for trained workers. When this awful war is ended and the weary, weary world turns back to peaceful pursuits, its hope and salvation will lie in its babies. Won't it, Don? I would like to help those babies over in France; sometimes I dream of being a Red Cross nurse and helping the poor, wounded soldiers; but I am sure that it is better for me to keep on making myself ready to serve the coming generations to the best of my fully trained ability. Don't you think so, too, Don?"
Her words had rung firm and true until the last question, when there crept in a note which seemed to his ears to carry an appeal for him to disagree,and argue with her; but the man answered, "Yes, dear. You are dead right, and I felt certain that you would say what you have said. You have got to stay until you are trained; I have got to go, because I am. You see that, don't you?"
"Yes. Oh, I shall miss you awfully, Don; I can't tell you how much. But I want you to go. And I mean to pray for you, and the poor little babies over there, too. I'll write you as often as I can; as often as you want me to."
"That's fine," he answered heartily. "But, as I told you once before, don't feel hurt if I answer only occasionally. I have a suspicion that there will be plenty of work for me to do over there."
"Yes, I'll understand. Besides, you will have to write to ... to Miss Treville more than to me. Are you ... are you going to get married before you go?"
"Married? Good Lord, no ... that is, I hadn't even thought of it," he said with a forced laugh. "Why, I haven't even told her yet that I am going."
"You haven't? You told me, first?"
"Well ... er ... you see I had to tell you, because ... because I ... I hold a position of trust in respect to you, and have got to make arrangements for your future. Big Jerry told me to use my own judgment about your money, and I believe that you are fully competent to take care both of yourself and of it.
"Here," he drew a small package from his sidepocket, "is a bank deposit and check book, for I have already had the account transferred from my name, as trustee, to you individually. Now it is up to you to prove that you are a careful little business woman. With more than a thousand dollars in the bank you may feel quite like an heiress, but I warn you that a big city is a glutton and its avaricious maw is always open for money. Be warned by one who knows. If you need any advice of any nature that a man can give better than Miss Merriman, I want you to promise to call on Phil ... Dr. Bentley, that is, for I mean to put you in his charge. You can trust him just as you do me."
"I know that," answered Rose frankly.
"Well, here we are, little sister. Don't tell any one what I have just told you, for I want to make all my preliminary arrangements before I astound the world with the announcement of what I am going to do."
"You needn't laugh," answered Rose. "I guess that it will dismay plenty of Back Bay families who have babies."
There was a catch in her voice as she bade him good-night, and she was not sorry for an excuse for running into the hospital, offered by the mellow notes of a distant church clock tolling the hour of ten. It was the signal for "lights out" in the bedrooms, and this was appreciated, too, for it made it possible for her to undress in the dark, and the pale moonlight which came in through the window, as the moonplayed hide and seek behind the broken masses of storm clouds—for the blizzard had ended as quickly as it had come on—was reflected on two glistening tear drops on her flushed cheeks. In the darkness her roommate could not see them and be led to ask questions.
The two girls, one the self-educated, unknown child of the southern mountain side, the other the college-bred daughter of one of New England's oldest families, had become fast friends and generally exchanged whispered confidences until the sleep which comes of physical exhaustion speedily claimed them; but to-night Rose was in no mood for conversation.
The last thread which bound the old life to the new was soon to be broken, and she felt lonelier, more nearly homesick, than she had since leaving Webb's Gap.
"Perhaps I shall never see him again," she half whispered. "But I shall never,neverforget him, he has been so good and meant so much to me. And I shall always love him." She saw that her roommate was asleep, softly raised the window-shade to let in the moonlight that she loved, and, clad in her simple nightdress, short sleeved and cut low at the neck, seated herself before the mirror to brush her wavy mass of hair, and, as she leaned forward, and it fell about her face, tear bedewed and made almost childlike again by its frame of tumbling curls, she smiled faintly in recollection. "I look the way I used to in my homemade, one-piece dresses," shebreathed. "Just as I did that afternoon when he first saw me. 'Yo' looked so funny a-fallin' over thet thar dawg, an' a-rollin' on the floor.' What a way to greet a famous physician—only I didn't know it then."
For a moment she sat like this, her thoughts far away from the northern city; then a faint blush mantled her face, and she hastily jumped up and shut out the soft light by pulling down the shade.
CHAPTER XXVIITHE GOAL
You cannot, by a bridge of sighs, attain the future's golden years,But try a bridge of rainbow hopes erected on substantial piersOf honest work, and you will find it leads you surely to the goal.'Tis God that gives the dreamer's dreams, as radiant as the morning,But, if the will to work is weak, they often die a-borning.
If this were a romance, instead of the simple account of the pilgrimage and development of a girl from childhood to womanhood, it would be permissible to say, "three years pass by in swift flight," or "drag by on weary feet," as the case may have been, and then resume the action.
But in everyday life, character is built out of everyday incidents, big and little, all of which have place in the moulding of it, and, since the years of Smiles' training within the Children's Hospital were vital ones for her, it is essential to touch briefly upon some of the occurrences which filled them.
On the other hand, it is by no means necessary to describe that period at length. It is doubtful if, in later life, she will herself look back upon the manydays so filled to repletion with exacting, though interesting, tasks, as other than a dead level, for constant repetition of a thing, no matter how gripping it may be, produces a monotony. But there were special incidents—sometimes trivial in comparison with the importance of her sustained labor—which formed the high lights in the picture, and the memory of which will endure through all the after years. By recounting a few of these, and letting our imaginations fill in the interims, we can accompany Rose on her journey to the goal of her desires.
The day after Donald had taken her into his confidence regarding his plans, Rose made up her mind to keep a diary.
"Even though he may be thousands of miles away, I mean to keep myself as close to him as possible by writing him as I would talk to him, aboutallthe things which happen in my life, and, unless I set them down as they happen, I shall forget," she told Miss Merriman, after the seal of secrecy had been removed from her lips.
"Perhapsyoucan succeed in keeping one.Inever could," laughed her friend. "Each January First I start a new one, and register a solemn vow to keep it up longer, at least, than I did the one the previous year. If I follow that system until I am three hundred and fifty years old, I will complete just one before I die."
Smiles accepted the implied challenge, and, day by day, with few omissions, the dated pages bore new testimony to her application in performing a self-appointed task. The plan bore fruit, too, for Donald, in his rare replies to her confidential letters, which went to him each fortnight, was able to praise her as the best of correspondents, writing once, "You have an exceptional gift for making incidents seem real and people alive, in your letters, and of realizing that, with us who are so far away from home, itisthe little things which count. Ethel, alas, is hopeless in this respect. She writes me faithfully; but invariably says that nothing has happened except the usual occurrences of everyday life, and thereby utterly misses the great fact that it is just those very things that the lonely exile most longs to hear about. I would actually rather have her write that they had baked beans on Saturday night than that so-and-so had given a charity whist at the Vendome."
Yet many a sentence went into the diary that was never copied or embellished for Donald's eyes. Some of them had to do with him, or her thoughts of him; some were too intimate for another to see.
December 6th, 1915."My dear Donald has gone. I think that I have not felt so utterly lonesome since granddaddy died. And I could not get away to say good-by to him—I could have cried, only I didn't have time even to dothat. It doesn't seem right, when he has been so dear to me, that I should have had to part from him in the hospital corridorwith others around, so that all I could do was press his hand an instant and wish him a commonplace, 'Good luck and God-speed.' Still, it probably wouldn't have been any different if we had been alone. I couldn't have done what my heart was longing to do, everything is different now. I don't believe that I enjoy being 'grown-up.' What an unpleasant thing 'convention' is. Why, I wonder, must we always hide our true feelings under a mask? I suppose it is lest the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if Ihadkissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one."
December 6th, 1915.
"My dear Donald has gone. I think that I have not felt so utterly lonesome since granddaddy died. And I could not get away to say good-by to him—I could have cried, only I didn't have time even to dothat. It doesn't seem right, when he has been so dear to me, that I should have had to part from him in the hospital corridorwith others around, so that all I could do was press his hand an instant and wish him a commonplace, 'Good luck and God-speed.' Still, it probably wouldn't have been any different if we had been alone. I couldn't have done what my heart was longing to do, everything is different now. I don't believe that I enjoy being 'grown-up.' What an unpleasant thing 'convention' is. Why, I wonder, must we always hide our true feelings under a mask? I suppose it is lest the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if Ihadkissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one."
Here the page bears a number of meaningless hieroglyphics, and then the words, stricken out, "I wonder."
"He looked so manly in his uniform, and so distinguished, although I suppose that he isn't reallyhandsome—at least, not like Dr. Bentley.Heisn't so wonderful as Don; but I think that he is more understanding. He seemed to realize just how I felt this morning, and he was as sweet and considerate as a woman when I bungled things awfully in the operating room. The head nurse gave me a deserved call down, however, and it was perhaps just as well that she did, for my mind needed to be 'brought back.' Only my body was in the hospital, and thereal me, as Mr. Talmadge said, was back in the cabin, helping Donald operate on Lou, all over again. I cried like a little fool—the first time I have done it here—but my tears weren't for the poor baby on the operating table. They were memory tears...."Poor little thing, he had to die, and he was the first one whom I have seen pass on to the eternal garden ofGod's flowers since I have been in the hospital. Oh, it hasn't been a happy day at all...."I wonder if Donald could have saved him? My brain answers, 'No.' Dr. Bentley did all that lies within the power of science, I am sure. But somehow ..."
"He looked so manly in his uniform, and so distinguished, although I suppose that he isn't reallyhandsome—at least, not like Dr. Bentley.Heisn't so wonderful as Don; but I think that he is more understanding. He seemed to realize just how I felt this morning, and he was as sweet and considerate as a woman when I bungled things awfully in the operating room. The head nurse gave me a deserved call down, however, and it was perhaps just as well that she did, for my mind needed to be 'brought back.' Only my body was in the hospital, and thereal me, as Mr. Talmadge said, was back in the cabin, helping Donald operate on Lou, all over again. I cried like a little fool—the first time I have done it here—but my tears weren't for the poor baby on the operating table. They were memory tears....
"Poor little thing, he had to die, and he was the first one whom I have seen pass on to the eternal garden ofGod's flowers since I have been in the hospital. Oh, it hasn't been a happy day at all....
"I wonder if Donald could have saved him? My brain answers, 'No.' Dr. Bentley did all that lies within the power of science, I am sure. But somehow ..."
Christmas night.
"If Donald might only have been here in person to-day, it would have been perfect. I think that he must have been, in spirit, for I 'felt' his presence quite near me several times; I confided as much to Dr. Bentley and he made an atrocious pun on the word 'presents.' I wish he wouldn't; it is the only thing about him that I don't like, but he will make them. Wasn't Donald thoughtful and dear to have bought a Christmas gift for me during those overcrowded days before he went away?—a whole set of books, beautifully bound, but better still, beautiful within. Books are the same as people, I think. We like to see both attractively clothed, but in each it is the soul that counts....
"What a lot of presents I received—from Miss Merriman and her mother, Mrs. Thayer and little Muriel, and, oh, so many of the girls here. I don't know why they are all so good to me—because I am looked upon as a lonely little savage, I suppose. And then there was that one from Dr. Bentley. The idea of a simple mountain girl from Webb's Gap having five whole pounds of candy at once!
"The funniest thing happened to-day, and I must not forget to write Donald all about it. He is sure to remember little red-headed Jimmy, who has to spend so much of his time in the hospital. Has he imagination enough, I wonder, to picture him sitting up in bedin the snow-white ward, with his flaming auburn hair and bright red jacket calling names at each other? I love the old custom to which the hospital still clings of putting all the little patients into those red flannel jackets on cold days, for it makes the wards look so cheerful—like Christmas fields dotted with bright berries. Jimmy is a dear, and so imaginative that I believe helivesevery story that I tell him of the Cumberlands—certainly he likes them better than fairy stories. This afternoon, I had finished telling him about how grandpappy shot the turkey for Dr. MacDonald, and I found him looking up at me with his big blue eyes, which can be as serious as a saint's or as mischievous as an imp's. 'Your face is most always laughing, Miss Webb,' said he. 'I think I shall have to call you Nurse Smiles.' My roommate, Miss Roberts, happened to be in the room and heard him, and now it's all over the hospital. Everybody is calling me it, unless the superintendent or some of the older doctors are around. How odd it is that he should have struck on it, and given me my old nickname again....
"Dr. Bentley called me Smiles when he left after his evening visit."
May 17th, 1916.
"This has been a day of days for me. First I received a long and wonderful letter from Donald. It seemed like old times, for it was as kindly and simple, too, as those which he used to write to me at Webb's Gap. I wonder if he regards me as still a child? I suppose that I really am one, but somehow I feel very grown up, and much older than many of the girls who are years older than I. They constantly surprise me by acting so young when they are off duty ... but I love it in them.
"To-day I entered into the second year of my training. I wish that I had the power to set down on paper my feelings when I received that first narrow black band for my cap. I suppose that I had some of the same 'prideful' sensations that dear granddaddy did when he was very young, and cut the first notch in the stock of his rifle-gun. But how much bettermynotch is! It means that I am fast getting able to save lives, not to take them. I must always remember that—it will give a deeper meaning to the symbol. And now my room is going to be moved down a story—I'm so glad that Dorothy Roberts is to be with me still—and I can move in one table nearer the front wall in the dining room. That wall sometimes seems to me like a goal that I have got to reach before I will be safe, just as in a children's game of tag, and, when I get tired and discouraged—for I do, at times, little diary—it seems as though there were many, many things stretching out invisible hands to catch me before I get to it. Donald was right about the path being no road of roses.... Come, this will never do; I'm supposed to be happy to-night, and besides, now I've got to live up to my nickname again.
I wonder how much I really have changed in the year? a good deal, I'm sure. I remember that at first I used to laugh to myself over the 'class distinctions,' such as I have just been writing about; that was when I was fresh from the mountain, where every one called every one else by his or her first name—and also when I was in the lowest class myself. Once I was even bold enough to tell Dr. Bentley that I thought they were foolish, but he reminded me—as Donald had—that we are an army here, and that in an army a private can't eat and sleep with a captain, or a captain with a general. Now Idon't mind the rules and regulations at all, for I have learned the lesson of discipline, and I know that, even if we do have to be strict in our conduct toward the older nurses and the doctors, we are all—from the senior surgeon down to the lowliest probationer—really one in a great spiritual fellowship, as the prayerbook says, and all working together in the same great cause."
August 19th, 1916.
"Little diary, I have been neglecting you lately, but now you and I must collect our thoughts, for we have got to write a long, long letter to Donald and tell him all about the vacation—the first that I ever had.
It was the first time that I was ever really at the seashore, too, except that one afternoon in June when Dr. Bentley took me down to Nahant in his car. Weren't the Thayers dear to have me as their guest at beautiful Manchester-by-the-Sea? Ethel (I wonder if Donald will be pleased to know that hisrealsister has asked me to call her by her first name?) insisted that they did it for my own sake, but I know that it was really on his account. They were two weeks of wonder for me; but I wish that he might have been there. How they all miss him—even Dr. Bentley. I think that there is nothing finer than such a friendship between two men. Why, he even calls on Donald's family still. He came to Manchester twice in the fortnight that I was there. Dr. Bentley wants me to call him 'Philip,' when we are not in the hospital, and I do ... sometimes. It seems perfectly natural, even though he is much older than I—he is over thirty; but I suppose that is because at home we called almost every one by his first name. (We are rambling, little diary. I don't believe that Donaldwould be particularly interested in the fact that I call Dr. Bentley, 'Philip.')
Hewillbe interested to know how the sea impressed me, though, and again I find myself wholly at a loss for words to express my feelings. It was so overwhelming in its grandeur and far-stretching expanse; so beautiful in its never-ending procession of colors; so terrible in its might, when aroused. I have seen it asleep as peacefully as one of my babies (all the hospital babies are children of my heart), and I have seen it in anger, like a brutal giant. I wish that I had not seen its latter mood, for, when it caught up the little boat that had been torn from the moorings, and hurled her again and again against the rocks until there was not a plank of her left unbroken—while the wind shrieked its horrid glee—my growing love for it was turned to fear. No, I can never care for the ocean as I do for my mountains. I cannot forget that it was the waters which stole my dearest treasures from me.
Still, the memory of that storm is nearly lost in the abounding happiness of those two weeks, and the third one which I spent with my Gertrude Merriman, who stole it from her many cases to be with me. When I set down each little incident of them in black and white, as I mean to in my letter to Don, they will appear commonplace enough, I'm afraid; but I shall tell him that their story is written on my heart in letters of gold and many colors.
He pretends to be interested in every foolish little thing that I have done, but I don't suppose that he would care to read about all the new dresses I have bought. I never realized before that a girl could get so much pleasure out of buying pretty things, and I am afraid that he would scold me if he knew how many leaves I have used out of my checkbook. Not that they have been all for clothes, little diary. I did not realize how muchI had given to war charities, and I was a little frightened this morning when I made up my balance.
But I cannot help giving for the poor French and Belgian babies. It somehow seems as though I were giving the money to Don to spend for me."
There follow many entries, in the course of which the name of Donald appears, and many more in which that of Philip, from which one might reasonably draw the conclusion that the latter was conscientiously performing his part asad interimguardian for Rose. There are also several mentions of impish, lovable Jimmy—he of the red hair, presumably—and of visits, on her afternoons off, to the cheap and somewhat squalid apartment where he lived with his thin, tired, but pitifully optimistic mother, and a stout, florid-faced father, who wore shabby, but very loud-checked, suits and was apparently a highly successful business man of big affairs, but frequently "temporarily out of funds." Indeed, it would seem as though there were times when the family—which included six other children from one to ten years old—would actually not have had enough to eat if Rose had not "loaned" the wherewithal to purchase it to the father of the household.
Under date of May 15th, 1916, appears the following.
"Twoblack bands on the little white cap! One round table nearer the wall! Materia medica, orthopedia,medical analysis, general surgery, bacteriology, therapeutics and anæsthesia no longer mere words, whose very sound made me weak with dismay; but terms descriptive of new ways in which I can help weak and suffering babyhood. It has been hard, but soul-satisfying, work. I love it all, and have never regretted the decision made, centuries ago it seems, on the mountain. I have just been re-reading Donald's first letter to me—the one in which he frankly warned me of the hardships which would be mine to face, if I should attempt to carry out my plan. It was, I think, the only time that he was ever wrong ... no, I had forgotten that afternoon at Judd's still. Work may be hard, and yet entail no hardship, especially when it brings the satisfaction of winning against odds. I know that he did not really mean what he said in that letter. It was written merely as a test of my resolve; to deter me, if it wasn't strong enough to carry me through. There have been times when I have myself wondered if it would, but, thanks to dear old Mr. Talmadge, and his 'sermon on the mount' I have always been able to find the help that he told us about. I wonder if Donald has, too? Surely he must have, he has been doing such wonderful work 'over there.' It is like him to say so little about it in his letters, but Dr. Roland gave us a talk about what they have been doing in Toul and Leslie, when he returned from France, and he sang Donald's praisesfortissimo. I was so happy, and so proud.
"They all tell me that the coming year is the hardest of all with its practical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in the Manhattan Maternity in New York. I have a feeling that I am not going to enjoy the former. Nursing 'grown-ups' does not appeal to me as the caring for the little flowers does. But I shall love the other. Motherhood is sacred and beautiful....
"I shall have to be very economical this year, little diary,and especially careful when I get to New York. When I paid the final installment on my tuition fee, I was frightened to find how little remained of what granddaddy left me, and what I had saved, myself. Nearly thirteen hundred dollars looked like a huge fortune to me in those days, but it is nothing at all in a city, where there is so much poverty, and there are so many appeals to one's heart. I know that Donald—or Philip—would lend me a little money until the time when I get to earning it for myself, if I should ask them. But of course I cannot do that. Perhaps I can earn a little during my afternoons and evenings off duty. The girls say that I can shampoo and manicure as well as a professional. Yes, I will try to do that this year."
January 15th, 1917.
"Thank goodness my worries about finances are almost over!
"The last few months have been simply terrible, and the hardest part of all, I think, has been my not being able to give anything to the number of splendid causes which so touch the sympathies these dark days. Perhaps I gave too much before; but I am not a bit sorry, especially now that some of the seed which I cast upon the waters is soon to bear golden fruit for me. I never believe the pessimistic people who say that those who receive charity are never really grateful, and now Iknowthat they are wrong. Jimmy's father has been so appreciative of my pitifully small presents to them, that sometimes he has cried over them, and I knew that he was in earnest when he promised to repay me as soon as he possibly could. Now the chance has come. I was there yesterday and he said that he had been thinking about me just before I appeared.
"It seems that he sells stock, and has just obtained a wonderful position as agent, or whatever they call it, for a new copper mine which he says is better than the 'Calumet and Hecla.'
"He explained to me all about that one and showed me in the paper how high it was selling now—for $550 a share. He is the sole representative for all of New England, and he says that the company is at present selling its stock only to special friends in order to 'let them in on the ground floor.' The shares are only ten dollars apiece and are sure to be worth a hundred, or more, very soon, because of the war. It seems almost impossible! I told him that I had only about a hundred dollars in the world, but that, if he really felt that he wanted to do me a favor, Imight'invest' it (that word sounds quite impressive, doesn't it?) but that I should have to think it over, first. I remembered what Donald had told me about asking a man's advice—especially Philip's—in money matters. Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had done so before.
"I asked him this afternoon if he knew anything about the King Kopper Kompany, and he said that it was a 'get rich proposition' and that he had sunk a good deal of his own money into some just like it. I wanted to ask him more, but we were interrupted. However, I know that he is very well-to-do, so he must have made money in them and certainly I need to get rich quick. I'm going to make the investment to-morrow."
March 11th.
"Stung! I hate slang, but sometimes nothing else is quite so expressive. I thought that I was getting to be very wise, but, oh, what a little ignoramus I have been. And to think that I thought I was following Philip'sadvice, and did not realize what he really meant until I read a story about a man who was called 'Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.' Now I'd rather die than tell him that I have lost practically all of my worldly goods!"
Finally, late in May, is an entry, longer than any of its predecessors, and the last for many a day. Rose made it seated in the soft moonlight which came through the window of her hospital room, after her roommate had fallen asleep.