“All the birdswerethereWith yellow feathers instead of hair,And bumblebees—and bumblebees—And bumblebees—and bumblebees—”
“All the birdswerethereWith yellow feathers instead of hair,And bumblebees—and bumblebees—And bumblebees—and bumblebees—”
“All the birdswerethereWith yellow feathers instead of hair,And bumblebees—and bumblebees—And bumblebees—and bumblebees—”
“All the birdswerethere
With yellow feathers instead of hair,
And bumblebees—and bumblebees—
And bumblebees—and bumblebees—”
Frenziedly she began to burrow the back of her head into her father’s shoulder. “And bumblebees—and bumblebees—”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake—‘buzzed in the trees!’” interpolated the Senior Surgeon.
Rigidly from head to foot the little body in his arms stiffened suddenly. As one who saw the supreme achievement of a life-time swept away by some one careless joggle of an infinitesimal part, the Little Girl stared up agonizingly into her father’s face.
“Oh, I don’t think ‘buzzed’ was the word!” she began convulsively. “Oh, I don’t think—”
Startlingly through the twilight the Senior Surgeon felt the White Linen Nurse’s rose-red lips come smack against his ear.
“Darn you! Can’t you say ‘crocheted in the trees’?” sobbed the White Linen Nurse.
Grotesquely for an instant the Senior Surgeon’s eyes and the White Linen Nurse’s eyes glared at each other in rank antagonism. Then suddenly the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing.
“Oh, very well,” he surrendered—“‘crocheted in the trees!’”
The White Linen Nurse sank back on her heels and began to clap her hands.
“Oh, now I will! Now I will!” she cried exultantly.
“Willwhat?” frowned the Senior Surgeon.
The White Linen Nurse stopped clapping her hands and began to wring them nervously in her lap instead.
“Why, will—will,” she confessed demurely.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Senior Surgeon. “Oh!” Then jerkily he began to pucker his eyebrows. “But, for Heaven’s sake, what’s the ‘crocheted in the trees’ got to do with it?” he asked perplexedly.
“Nothingmuch,” mused the White Linen Nurse, very softly. With sudden alertness she turned her curly blonde head toward the road. “There’s somebody coming,” she said. “I hear a team.”
Overcome by a bashfulness that tried to escape in jocosity, the Senior Surgeon gave an odd, choking little chuckle.
“Well, I never thought I should marry a—trained nurse!” he acknowledged with somewhat hectic blitheness.
Impulsively the White Linen Nurse reached for her watch and lifted it close to her twilight-blinded eyes. A sense of ineffable peace crept suddenly over her.
“You won’t, sir,” she said amiably. “It’s twenty minutes of nine now, and the graduation was ateight.”
FORany real adventure except dying, June is certainly a most auspicious month.
Indeed, it was on the very first rain-green, rose-red morning of June that the White Linen Nurse sallied forth upon her extremely hazardous adventure of marrying the Senior Surgeon and his naughty little crippled daughter.
The wedding was at noon in some kind of gray-granite church. The Senior Surgeon was there, of course, and the necessary witnesses; but the Little Crippled Girl never turned up at all, owing, it proved later, to a more than usually violent wrangle with whomever dressed her, concerning the general advisability of sporting turquoise-colored stockings with her brightest little purple dress.
The Senior Surgeon’s stockings, if you really care to know, were gray, and the Senior Surgeon’s suit was gray, and he looked altogether very huge and distinguished, and no more strikingly unhappy than any bridegroom looks in a gray-granite church.
And the White Linen Nurse, no longernow truly a White Linen Nurse, but just an ordinary, every-day silk-and-cloth lady of any color she chose, wore something rather coaty and grand and bluish, and was distractingly pretty, of course, but most essentially unfamiliar, and just a tiny bit awkward and bony-wristed-looking, as even an admiral is apt to be on his first day out of uniform.
Then as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, the bride and groom went to a wonderful green-and-gold café, all built of marble and lined with music, and had a little lunch. What I really mean, of course, is that they had a very large lunch, but didn’t eat any of it.
Then in a taxi-cab, just exactly like any other taxi-cab, the White Linen Nurse drove home alone to the Senior Surgeon’s great, gloomy house, to find her brand-new stepdaughter still screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. And the Senior Surgeon, in a Canadian-bound train, just exactly like any other Canadian-bound train, started off alone, as usual, on his annual June “spree.”
Please don’t think for a moment that it was the Senior Surgeon who was responsible for the general eccentricities of this amazing wedding-day. No, indeed. The Senior Surgeon didn’twantto be married the first day of June. He said he didn’t, he growled he didn’t, he snarled he didn’t, he swore he didn’t; and when he finished saying and growling and snarling and swearing, and looked up at the White Linen Nurse for a confirmation of his opinion, the White Linen Nurse smiled perfectly amiably and said, “Yes, sir.” Then the Senior Surgeon gave a great gasp of relief and announced resonantly: “Well, it’s all settled, then? We’ll be married some time in July, after I get home from Canada?” And when the White Linen Nurse kept right on smiling perfectly amiably and said, “Oh, no, sir, oh, no, thank you, sir; it wouldn’t seem exactly legal to me to be married any other month but June,” the Senior Surgeon went absolutely dumb with rage that this mere chit of a girl, and a trained nurse, too, should dare to thwart his personal and professional convenience. But the White Linen Nurse just drooped her pretty blonde head and blushed and blushed and blushed and said: “I was only marrying you, sir, to—accommodate you, sir, and if June doesn’t accommodate you, I’d rather go to Japan with that monoideic somnambulism case. It’s very interesting, and it sails June 2.” Then, “Oh, hell with the ‘monoideic somnambulism case’!” the Senior Surgeon would protest.
Really it took the Senior Surgeon quite a long while to work out the three special arguments that would best protect him, he thought, from the horridly embarrassing idea of being married in June.
“But you can’t get ready so soon,” he suggested at last with real triumph. “You’ve no idea how long it takes a girl to get ready to be married. There are so many people she has to tell—and everything.”
“There’s never but two that she’s got to tell, or bust,” conceded the White Linen Nurse with perfect candor—“just the woman she loves the most and the woman she hates the worst. I’ll write my mother to-morrow, but I told the Superintendent of Nurses yesterday.”
“The deuce you did!” snapped the Senior Surgeon.
Almost caressingly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “And she looked as sick as a young undertaker. I can’t imagine what ailed her.”
“Eh?” choked the Senior Surgeon. “But the house, now,” he hastened to contend—“the house, now, needs a lot of fixing over; it’s all run down. It’s all—everything. We never in the world could get it into shape by the first of June. For Heaven’s sake, now that we’ve got money enough to make it right, let’s go slow and make it perfectly right.”
A little nervously the White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the pages of her memorandum-book.
“I’vealwayshad money enough to ‘go slow and make things perfectly right,’” she confided a bit wistfully. “Never in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren’t guaranteed or a dress that wouldn’t wash or a hat that wasn’t worth at least three re-pressings. What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I wanted to—so that I could afford to take chances, I mean. Here’s this wall-paper, now,”—tragically she pointed to some figuring in her note-book,—“it’s got peacocks on it, life-size, in a queen’s garden, and I wanted it for the dining-room. Maybe it would fade, maybe we’d get tired of it, maybe it would poison us: slam it on one week, and slash it off the next. I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir. I thought maybe, while you were ’way off in Canada—”
Plates in tint, engraved for THECENTURYby H. C. Merrill and H. Davidson“‘YOU’VE NO BUSINESS TO HURRY ME SO,’ SHE PROTESTED. ‘IT ISN’T FAIR; IT ISN’T KIND’”DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER❏LARGER IMAGE
Plates in tint, engraved for THECENTURYby H. C. Merrill and H. Davidson
“‘YOU’VE NO BUSINESS TO HURRY ME SO,’ SHE PROTESTED. ‘IT ISN’T FAIR; IT ISN’T KIND’”
DRAWN BY HERMAN PFEIFER
❏LARGER IMAGE
Eagerly the Senior Surgeon jerked his chair a little nearer to his fiancée’s.
“Now, my dear girl,” he said, “that’s just what I want to explain—that’s just what I want to explain—just what I want to explain—to—er—explain,” he continued a bit falteringly.
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
Very deliberately the Senior Surgeon removed a fleck of dust from one of his cuffs.
“All this talk of yours about wanting to be married the same day I start off on my—Canadian trip,” he contended, “why, it’s all damned nonsense.”
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
Very conscientiously the Senior Surgeon began to search for a fleck of dust on his other cuff.
“Why, my—my dear girl,” he persisted, “it’s absurd, it’s outrageous! Why, people would—would hoot at us! Why, they’d think—”
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
“Why, my dear girl,” sweated the Senior Surgeon, “even though you and I understand perfectly well the purely formal, businesslike conditions of our marriage, we must at least, for sheer decency’s sake, keep up a certain semblance of marital conventionality before the world. Why, if we were married at noon the first day of June as you suggest, and I should go right off alone as usual on my Canadian trip, and you should come back alone to the house, why, people would think—would think that I didn’t care anything about you.”
“But you don’t,” said the White Linen Nurse, serenely.
“Why, they’d think,” choked the Senior Surgeon—“they’d think you were trying your—darndest to get rid of me.”
“I am,” said the White Linen Nurse, complacently.
With a muttered ejaculation the Senior Surgeon jumped to his feet and stood glaring down at her.
Quite ingenuously the White Linen Nurse met and parried the glare.
“A gentleman, and a red-haired kiddie, and a great walloping house all atonce, it’s too much,” she confided genially. “Thank you just the same, but I’d rather take them gradually. First of all, sir, you see, I’ve got to teach the little kiddie to like me. And then there’s a green-tiled paper with floppity sea-gulls on it that I want to try for the bath-room. And—and—” Ecstatically she clapped her hands together. “Oh, sir, there are such loads and loads of experiments I want to try while you are off on your spree!”
“’S-h-h!” cried the Senior Surgeon. His face was suddenly blanched, his mouth twitching like the mouth of one stricken with almost insupportable pain. “For God’s sake, Miss Malgregor,” he pleaded, “can’t you call it my Canadian trip?”
Wider and wider the White Linen Nurse opened her big blue eyes at him.
“But itisa spree, sir!” she protested resolutely. “And my father says—” Still resolutely her young mouth curved to its original assertion, but from under her heavy-shadowing eyelashes a little smile crept softly out—“when my father’s got a lame trotting-horse, sir, that he’s trying to shuck off his hands,” she faltered, “he doesn’t ever go round mournful-like, with his head hanging, telling folks about his wonderful trotter that’s just ‘the littlest, teeniest, tiniest bit lame.’ Oh, no. What father does is to call up every one he knows within twenty miles and tell ’em: ‘Say, Tom, Bill, Harry, or whatever your name is, what in the deuce do you suppose I’ve got over here in my barn? A lame horse that wants to trot!Lamer than the deuce, you know, but can do a mile in two forty.’” Faintly the little smile quickened again in the White Linen Nurse’s eyes. “And the barn will be full of men in half an hour,” she said. “Somehow nobody wants a trotter that’s lame, but almost anybody seems willing to risk a lame horse that’s plucky enough to trot.”
“What’s the ‘lame trotting-horse’ got to do withme?” snarled the Senior Surgeon, incisively.
Darkly the White Linen Nurse’s lashes fringed down across her cheeks.
“Nothing much,” she said; “only—”
“Only what?” demanded the Senior Surgeon. A little more roughly than he realized he stooped down and took the White Linen Nurse by her shoulders, andjerked her sharply round to the light. “Onlywhat?” he insisted peremptorily.
Almost plaintively she lifted her eyes to his.
“Only my father says,” she confided obediently—“my father says, ‘if you’ve got a worse foot, for Heaven’s sake, put it forward, and get it over with!’
“So I’vegotto call it a spree,” smiled the White Linen Nurse; “’cause when I think of marrying a surgeon that goes off and gets drunk every June, it—it scares me almost to death; but—” Abruptly the red smile faded from her lips, the blue smile from her eyes—“but when I think of marrying a—June drunk that’s got the grit to pull up absolutely straight as a die and be a surgeon all the other ’leven months in the year?” Dartingly she bent down and kissed the Senior Surgeon’s astonished wrist. “Oh, then I think you’re perfectly grand!” she sobbed.
Awkwardly the Senior Surgeon pulled away and began to pace the floor.
“You’re a good little girl, Rae Malgregor,” he mumbled huskily—“a good little girl. I truly believe you’re the kind that will see me through.” Poignantly in his eyes humiliation overwhelmed the mist. Perversely in its turn resentment overtook the humiliation. “But I won’t be married in June,” he reasserted bombastically. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. I tell you I positively refuse to have a lot of damned fools speculating about my private affairs, wondering why I didn’t take you, wondering why I didn’t stay home with you. I tell you I won’t. I surelywon’t.”
“Yes, sir,” whimpered the White Linen Nurse.
With a real gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon stopped his eternal pacing of the floor.
“Bully for you!” he said. “You mean then we’ll be married some time in July after I get back from my—trip?”
“Oh, no, sir,” whimpered the White Linen Nurse.
“But, great Heavens!” shouted the Senior Surgeon.
“Yes, sir,” the White Linen Nurse began all over again. Dreamily planning out her wedding-gown, her lips without the slightest conscious effort on her part were already curving into shape for her alternate “No, sir.”
“You’re an idiot!” snapped the Senior Surgeon.
A little reproachfully the White Linen Nurse came frowning out of her reverie.
“Would it do just as well for traveling, do you think?” she asked, with real concern.
“Eh? What?” said the Senior Surgeon.
“I mean, does Japanspot?” queried the White Linen Nurse. “Would it spot a serge, I mean?”
“Oh, hell with Japan!” jerked out the Senior Surgeon.
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
Now, perhaps you will understand just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon and the White Linen Nurseweremarried on the first day of June, and just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon went off alone as usual on his Canadian trip, and just exactly how it happened that the White Linen Nurse came home alone to the Senior Surgeon’s great, gloomy house, to find her brand-new stepdaughter still screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. Everything now is perfectly comfortably explained except the turquoise-colored stockings. Nobody could explain the turquoise-colored stockings.
But even a little child could explain the ensuing June. Oh, June was perfectly wonderful that year! Bud, blossom, birdsong, breeze, rioting headlong through the land; warm days as sweet and lush as a greenhouse vapor; crisp nights faintly metallic, like the scent of stars; hurdy-gurdies romping tunefully on every street corner; even the ash-man flushing frankly pink across his dusty cheek-bones.
Like two fairies who had sublet a giant’s cave, the White Linen Nurse and the Little Crippled Girl turned themselves loose upon the Senior Surgeon’s gloomy old house.
It certainly was a gloomy old house, but handsome withal, square and brown and substantial, and most generously gardened within high brick walls. Except for dusting the lilac-bushes with the hose, and weeding a few rusty leaves out of the privet hedge, and tacking up three or four scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house? O ye gods! Allday long from morning till night, but most particularly from the back door to the barn, sweating workmen scuttled back and forth till nary a guilty piece of black-walnut furniture had escaped. All day long from morning till night, but most particularly from ceilings to floors, sweltering workmen scurried up and down step-ladders, stripping dingy papers from dingier plasterings.
When the White Linen Nurse wasn’t busy renovating the big house or the little stepdaughter, she was writing to the Senior Surgeon. She wrote twice.
“Dear Dr. Faber,” the first letter said—
Dear Dr. Faber:How do you do? Thank you very much for saying you didn’t care what in thunder I did to the house. It lookssweet. I’ve put white, fluttery muslin curtains ’most everywhere. And you’ve got a new solid-gold-looking bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pinkwaswrong for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out, and now that’s settled for all time.I am very, very, very, very busy. Something strange and new happens every day. Yesterday it was three ladies and a plumber. One of the ladies was just selling soap, but I didn’t buy any. It was horrid soap. The other two were calling ladies, a silk one and a velvet one. The silk one tried to be nasty to me. Right to my face she told me I was more of a lady than she had dared to hope. And I told her I was sorry for that, as you’d had one “lady,” and it didn’t work. Was that all right? But the other lady was nice, and I took her out in the kitchen with me while I was painting the woodwork, and right there in her white kid gloves she laughed and showed me how to mix the paint pearl gray.Shewas nice. It was your sister-in-law.I like being married, Dr. Faber. I like it lots better than I thought I would. It’s fun being the biggest person in the house.Respectfully yours,RAEMALGREGOR,AS WAS.P.S. Oh, I hope it wasn’t wrong, but in your ulster pocket, when I went to put it away, I found a bottle of something that smelled as though it had been forgotten. I threw it out.
Dear Dr. Faber:
How do you do? Thank you very much for saying you didn’t care what in thunder I did to the house. It lookssweet. I’ve put white, fluttery muslin curtains ’most everywhere. And you’ve got a new solid-gold-looking bed in your room. And the Kiddie and I have fixed up the most scrumptious light blue suite for ourselves in the ell. Pinkwaswrong for the front hall, but it cost me only $29.00 to find out, and now that’s settled for all time.
I am very, very, very, very busy. Something strange and new happens every day. Yesterday it was three ladies and a plumber. One of the ladies was just selling soap, but I didn’t buy any. It was horrid soap. The other two were calling ladies, a silk one and a velvet one. The silk one tried to be nasty to me. Right to my face she told me I was more of a lady than she had dared to hope. And I told her I was sorry for that, as you’d had one “lady,” and it didn’t work. Was that all right? But the other lady was nice, and I took her out in the kitchen with me while I was painting the woodwork, and right there in her white kid gloves she laughed and showed me how to mix the paint pearl gray.Shewas nice. It was your sister-in-law.
I like being married, Dr. Faber. I like it lots better than I thought I would. It’s fun being the biggest person in the house.
Respectfully yours,RAEMALGREGOR,AS WAS.
P.S. Oh, I hope it wasn’t wrong, but in your ulster pocket, when I went to put it away, I found a bottle of something that smelled as though it had been forgotten. I threw it out.
It was this letter that drew the only definite message from the itinerant bridegroom.
“Kindly refrain from rummaging in my ulster pockets,” wrote the Senior Surgeon, briefly. “The ‘thing’ you threw out happened to be the cerebellum and medulla of an extremely eminent English theologian.”
“Even so, it was sour,” telegraphed the White Linen Nurse in a perfect agony of remorse and humiliation.
The telegram took an Indian with a birch canoe two days to deliver, and cost the Senior Surgeon twelve dollars. Just impulsively the Senior Surgeon decided to make no further comments on domestic affairs at that particular range.
Very fortunately for this impulse, the White Linen Nurse’s second letter concerned itself almost entirely with matters quite extraneous to the home.
The second letter ran:
Dear Dr. Faber:Somehow I don’t seem to care so much just now about being the biggest person in the house. Something awful has happened: Zillah Forsyth is dead. Really dead, I mean. And she died in great heroism. You remember Zillah Forsyth, don’t you? She was one of my room-mates, not the gooder one, you know, not the swell; that was Helene Churchill. But Zillah? Oh, you know, Zillah was the one you sent out on that fractured-elbow case. It was a Yale student, you remember? And there was some trouble about kissing, and she got sent home? And now everybody’s crying because Zillahcan’tkiss anybody any more. Isn’t everything the limit? Well, it wasn’t a fractured Yale student she got sent out on this time. If it had been, she might have been living yet. What they sent her out on this time was a senile dementia, an old lady more than eighty years old. And they were in a sanatorium or something like that, and there was a fire in the night. And the old lady just up and positively refused to escape, and Zillah had to push her and shove her and yank her and carry her out of the window, along the gutters, round the chimneys. And the old lady bit Zillah right through the hand, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And the old lady tried to drown Zillah under a bursted water tank, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And everybody hollered to Zillah tocut loose and save herself, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And a wall fell, and everything, and, oh, it was awful, but Zillah never let go. And the old lady that wasn’t any good to any one, not even herself, got saved, of course. But Zillah? Oh, Zillah got hurt bad, sir. We saw her at the hospital, Helene and I. She sent for us about something. Oh, it was awful! Not a thing about her that you’d know except just her great solemn eyes mooning out at you through a gob of white cotton, and her red mouth lipping sort of twitchy at the edge of a bandage. Oh, it was awful! But Zillah didn’t seem to care so much. There was a new interne there, a Japanese, and I guess she was sort of taken with him. “But, my God, Zillah,” I said, “yourlife was worth more than that old dame’s!”“Shut your noise!” says Zillah. “It was my job, and there’s no kick coming.” Helene burst right out crying, she did. “Shutyournoise, too!” says Zillah, just as cool as you please. “Bah! There’s other lives and other chances.”“Oh, you believe that now?” cries Helene. “Oh, you do believe that now, what the Bible promises you?” That was when Zillah shrugged her shoulders so funny, the little way she had. Gee! but her eyes were big! “I don’t pretend to know what your old Bible says,” she choked. “It was the Yale feller who was tellin’ me.”That’s all, Dr. Faber. It was her shrugging her shoulders so funny that brought on the hemorrhage, I guess.Oh, we had an awful time, sir, going home in the carriage, Helene and I. We both cried, of course, because Zillah was dead, but after we got through crying for that, Helene kept right on crying because she couldn’t understand why a brave girl like Zillahhadto be dead. Gee! but Helene takes things hard! Ladies do, I guess.I hope you’re having a pleasant spree.Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of the wall-paperers is living here at the house with us just now. We use him so much, it’s truly a good deal more convenient. And he’s a real nice young fellow, and he plays the piano finely, and he comes from up my way. And it seemed more neighborly, anyway. It’s so large in the house at night just now, and so creaky in the garden.With kindest regards, good-by for now, fromRAE.P.S. Don’t tell your guide orany one, but Helene sent Zillah’s mother a check for fifteen hundred dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. And all Zillah asked for that day was just a little blue serge suit. It seems she’d promised her kid sister a little blue serge suit for July, and it sort of worried her.Helene sent the little blue serge suit, too, and a hat. The hat had bluebells on it. Do you think when you come home, if I haven’t spent too much money on wall-papers, that I could have a blue hat with bluebells on it? Excuse me for bothering you, but you forgot to leave me enough money.
Dear Dr. Faber:
Somehow I don’t seem to care so much just now about being the biggest person in the house. Something awful has happened: Zillah Forsyth is dead. Really dead, I mean. And she died in great heroism. You remember Zillah Forsyth, don’t you? She was one of my room-mates, not the gooder one, you know, not the swell; that was Helene Churchill. But Zillah? Oh, you know, Zillah was the one you sent out on that fractured-elbow case. It was a Yale student, you remember? And there was some trouble about kissing, and she got sent home? And now everybody’s crying because Zillahcan’tkiss anybody any more. Isn’t everything the limit? Well, it wasn’t a fractured Yale student she got sent out on this time. If it had been, she might have been living yet. What they sent her out on this time was a senile dementia, an old lady more than eighty years old. And they were in a sanatorium or something like that, and there was a fire in the night. And the old lady just up and positively refused to escape, and Zillah had to push her and shove her and yank her and carry her out of the window, along the gutters, round the chimneys. And the old lady bit Zillah right through the hand, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And the old lady tried to drown Zillah under a bursted water tank, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And everybody hollered to Zillah tocut loose and save herself, but Zillah wouldn’t let go. And a wall fell, and everything, and, oh, it was awful, but Zillah never let go. And the old lady that wasn’t any good to any one, not even herself, got saved, of course. But Zillah? Oh, Zillah got hurt bad, sir. We saw her at the hospital, Helene and I. She sent for us about something. Oh, it was awful! Not a thing about her that you’d know except just her great solemn eyes mooning out at you through a gob of white cotton, and her red mouth lipping sort of twitchy at the edge of a bandage. Oh, it was awful! But Zillah didn’t seem to care so much. There was a new interne there, a Japanese, and I guess she was sort of taken with him. “But, my God, Zillah,” I said, “yourlife was worth more than that old dame’s!”
“Shut your noise!” says Zillah. “It was my job, and there’s no kick coming.” Helene burst right out crying, she did. “Shutyournoise, too!” says Zillah, just as cool as you please. “Bah! There’s other lives and other chances.”
“Oh, you believe that now?” cries Helene. “Oh, you do believe that now, what the Bible promises you?” That was when Zillah shrugged her shoulders so funny, the little way she had. Gee! but her eyes were big! “I don’t pretend to know what your old Bible says,” she choked. “It was the Yale feller who was tellin’ me.”
That’s all, Dr. Faber. It was her shrugging her shoulders so funny that brought on the hemorrhage, I guess.
Oh, we had an awful time, sir, going home in the carriage, Helene and I. We both cried, of course, because Zillah was dead, but after we got through crying for that, Helene kept right on crying because she couldn’t understand why a brave girl like Zillahhadto be dead. Gee! but Helene takes things hard! Ladies do, I guess.
I hope you’re having a pleasant spree.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of the wall-paperers is living here at the house with us just now. We use him so much, it’s truly a good deal more convenient. And he’s a real nice young fellow, and he plays the piano finely, and he comes from up my way. And it seemed more neighborly, anyway. It’s so large in the house at night just now, and so creaky in the garden.
With kindest regards, good-by for now, from
RAE.
P.S. Don’t tell your guide orany one, but Helene sent Zillah’s mother a check for fifteen hundred dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. And all Zillah asked for that day was just a little blue serge suit. It seems she’d promised her kid sister a little blue serge suit for July, and it sort of worried her.
Helene sent the little blue serge suit, too, and a hat. The hat had bluebells on it. Do you think when you come home, if I haven’t spent too much money on wall-papers, that I could have a blue hat with bluebells on it? Excuse me for bothering you, but you forgot to leave me enough money.
It was some indefinite, pleasant time on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of June, that the Senior Surgeon received the second letter. It was Friday, the twenty-sixth of June, exactly at dawn, that the Senior Surgeon started homeward.
(To be concluded)