The Primrose Ring by Ruth Sawyer
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Ruth Sawyer >> The Primrose Ring
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A day came at last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh--a
little foolishly, perhaps--over the child-story; and then, just because
they could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over
again. They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the gifts
the good godmothers brought.
"Let me see," said the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head
thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a
broomstick, carrying grit--plain grit."
"And the next one brought happiness--didn't she?" asked little Margaret
MacLean.
He nodded. "Of course. Then came a little gray-haired faery with a
nosegay of Thoughts-for-other-folks, all dried and ready to put away
like sweet lavender."
"And did the next bring love?"
Again he agreed. "But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady
in a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense."
"And then--then-- Oh, couldn't the one after her bring beauty? Some
one always did in the book stories. I think I wouldn't mind the back
and--other things so much if my face could be nice."
Margaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little
Margaret MacLean had been.
The Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile. "Have
you never looked into a glass, Thumbkin?"
She shook her head.
Children in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they
look, and perhaps it is better that way. Only if it happens--as it
does sometimes--that they spend a good share of their life there, it
seems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with
themselves.
For a moment he patted her hand; after which he said, very solemnly:
"Wait for a year and a day--then look. You will find out then just
what the next faery brought."
Margaret MacLean had obeyed this command to the letter. When the year
and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself
for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness
of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that
she should actually possess something of which she need not be
ashamed--something nice to share with the world. And whenever Margaret
MacLean thought of her looks at all, which was rare, she thought of
them in that way.
She took up the memory again where she had dropped it on the second
flight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with
the story.
They came to the place where Thumbkin was pricked by the wicked faery
with the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the
fashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon
suddenly stopped and looked at her sharply.
"Some day, Thumbkin, I may play the wicked faery and put you to sleep.
What would you say to that?"
She did not say--then.
More months passed, months which brought an ashen, drawn look to the
face of the Old Senior Surgeon, and a tired-out droop to his shoulders
and eyes. She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly
whenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head
ominously. She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came
at last to remind her of his threatened promise.
"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep? Would you let an old faery
doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you
would wake up to find happiness--and health--and love--and all the
other gifts the godmothers brought?"
She tried her best to keep the frightened look out of her eyes. By the
way he watched her, however, she knew some of it must have crept in.
"Operation?" she managed to choke out at last.
Operation was a fairly common word in Ward C, and not an over-hopeful
one.
"It's this way, Thumbkin; and let's make a bargain of it. I think
there's a cure for that back of yours. It hasn't been tried very much;
about often enough to make it worth while for us to take a chance.
I'll be honest with you and tell you the house surgeon doesn't think it
can be done; but that's where the bargain comes in. He thinks he can
mend my trouble, and I don't; and we're both dreadfully greedy to prove
we're right. Now if you will give me my way with you I will give him
his. But you must come first."
"A hundred years is a long time to be asleep," she objected.
"Bless you, it won't be a hundred minutes."
"And does your back need it, too?"
"Not my back; my stomach. It's about the only chance for either of us,
Thumbkin."
"And you won't unless I do?"
The Old Senior Surgeon gave his head a terrific shake; then he caught
her small hands in his great, warm, comforting ones. "Think. It means
a strong back; a pair of sturdy little legs to take you anywhere; and
the whole world before you!"
"And you'll have them, too?"
He smiled convincingly.
"All right. Let's." She gave his hand a hard, trustful squeeze.
She liked to remember that squeeze. She often wondered if it might not
have helped him to do what he had to do.
Her operation was record-making in its success; and after he had seen
her well on the mend he gave himself over to the house surgeon and a
fellow-colleague, according to the bargain. He proved the house
surgeon wrong, for he never rallied. Undoubtedly he knew this would be
the way of it; for he stopped in Ward C before he went up to the
operating-room and said to her:
"I shall be sleeping longer than you did, Thumbkin; but, never fear, I
shall be waking some time, somewhere. And remember this: Never grow so
strong and well that you forget how tiresome a hospital crib can be.
Never be so happy that you grow blind to the heartaches of other
children; and never wander so far away from Saint Margaret's that you
can't come back, sometimes, and make a story for some one else."
She puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but
when they told her the next day, she understood. Probably she grieved
for him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his
own family or profession. For, whereas there are many people in the
world who can give life to others, there are but few who can help
others to possess it.
What childhood she had had she left behind her soon after this, along
with her aching back, her helpless limbs, and the little iron crib in
Ward C.
On the first Trustee Day following her complete recovery she appeared,
at her own request, before the meeting of the board. In a small,
frightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school. She
wanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a nurse.
The trustees consented. Having assumed the responsibility of her
well-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it
now. Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint
Margaret's as a charitable institution, and to themselves as trustees,
that this child whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should
choose this way of showing her gratitude? Verily, the board pruned and
plumed itself well that day.
All this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to
Ward C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory of
this man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the
abnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made it
possible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her
feet upon a joyous mission. For the thousandth time she blessed that
memory.
It had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and
said nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her
fancy-making. She could never get away from the feeling that some of
the sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the
memory. One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put
it into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.
On the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over, between
spiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below. It just happened that
the House Surgeon was standing there, talking with one of the internes.
Margaret MacLean smiled whimsically. "If there is a soul in the wide
world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon." And then she
added, aloud, softly apostrophizing the top of his head, "I think some
day you might grow to be very--very like the Old Senior Surgeon; that
is, if you would only stop trying to be like the present one."
[Illustration: "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it
with, it is the House Surgeon."]
III
WARD C
A welcoming shout went up from Ward C as Margaret MacLean entered. It
was lusty enough to have come from the throats of healthy children, and
it would have sounded happily to the most impartial ears; to the nurse
in charge it was a very pagan of gladness.
"Wish you good morning, good meals, and good manners," laughed Margaret
MacLean; and then she went from crib to crib with a special greeting
for each one. Oh, she firmly believed that a great deal depended on
how the day began.
In the first crib lay Pancho, of South American parentage, partially
paralyzed and wholly captivating. He had been in Saint Margaret's
since babyhood--he was six now--and had never worn anything but a
little hospital shirt.
"Good morning, Brown Baby," she said, kissing his forehead. "It's just
the day for you out on the sun-porch; and you'll hear birds--lots of
them."
"Wobins?"
"Yes, and bluebirds, too. I've heard them already."
Next came Sandy--merry of heart--a humpback laddie from Aberdeen. His
parents had gone down with the steerage of a great ocean liner, and
society had cared for him until the first horror of the tragedy had
passed; then some one fortunately had mentioned Saint Margaret's, and
society was relieved of its burden. In the year he had spent here his
Aberdonian burr had softened somewhat and a number of American
colloquialisms had crept into his speech; but for all that he was "the
braw canny Scot"--as the House Surgeon always termed him--and he
objected to kisses. So the good-morning greeting was a hearty
hand-shake between the two--comrade fashion.
"It wad be a bonnie day i' Aberdeen," he reminded her, blithely. "But
'tis no the robins there 'at wad be singin'."
"Shall I guess?"
"Na, I'll tell ye. Laverocks!"
"Really, Sandy?" And then she suddenly remembered something. "Now you
guess what you're going to have for supper to-night."
"Porridge?"
"No; scones!"
"Bully!" And Sandy clapped his hands ecstatically.
Beside Sandy lay Susan--smart, shrewd, and American, with braced legs
and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days. But
as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and
consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little
face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind
hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and therefore
gives sparingly.
"Guess yer couldn't guess what I dreamt last night, Miss Peggie?"
"About the aunt?" This was a mythical relation of Susan's who lived
somewhere and who was supposed to turn up some day and claim Susan with
open arms. She was the source of many dreams and of much interested
conversation and heated argument in the ward, and the children had her
pictured down to the smallest detail of person and clothes.
"No, 'tain't my aunt this time. I dreamt you was gettin' married, Miss
Peggie." And Susan giggled delightedly.
"An' goin' away?" This was groaned out in chorus from the two cots
following Susan's, wherein lay James and John--fellow-Apostles of
pain--bound closely together in that spiritual brotherhood. They were
sitting up, holding hands and staring at Margaret with wide,
anguish-filled eyes.
"Of course I'm not going away, little brothers; and I'm not going to
get married. Does any one ever get married in Saint Margaret's?"
The Apostles thought very hard about it for a moment; but as it had
never happened before, of course it never would now, and Miss Peggie
was safe.
The whole ward smiled again. But in that moment Margaret MacLean
remembered what the House Surgeon had said, and wondered. Was she
building up for them an ultimate discontent in trying to make life
happy and full for them now? Could not minds like theirs be taught to
walk alone, after all? And then she laughed to herself for worrying.
Why should the children ever have to do without her--unless--unless
something came to them far better--like Susan's mythical aunt? The
children need never leave Saint Margaret's as long as they lived, and
she never should; and she passed on to the next cot, content that all
was well.
As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and
clasped themselves tightly about her neck; a head with a shock of red
curls buried itself in the folds of the gray uniform. This was
Bridget--daughter of the Irish sod, oldest of the ward, general
caretaker and best beloved; although it should be added in justice to
both Bridget and Margaret MacLean that the former had no consciousness
of it, and the latter took great care to hide it.
[Illustration: As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms
flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck.]
It was Bridget who read to the others when no one else could; it was
Bridget who remembered some wonderful story to tell on those days when
Sandy's back was particularly bad or the Apostles grew over-despondent;
and it was Bridget who laughed and sang on the gray days when the sun
refused to be cheery. Undoubtedly it was because of all these things
that her cot was in the center of Ward C.
Concerning Bridget herself, hers was a case of arsenical poisoning,
slowly absorbed while winding daisy-stems for an East Broadway
manufacturer of cheap artificial flowers. She had done this for three
years--since she was five--thereby helping her mother to support
themselves and two younger children. She was ten now and the Senior
Surgeon had already reckoned her days.
In the shadow of Bridget's cot was Rosita's crib--Rosita being the
youngest, the most sensitive, and the most given to homesickness. This
last was undoubtedly due to the fact that she was the only child in the
incurable ward blessed in the matter of a home. Her parents were
honest-working Italians who adored her, but who were too ignorant and
indulgent to keep her alive. They came every Sunday, and sat out the
allotted time for visitors beside her crib, while the other children
watched in a silent, hungry-eyed fashion.
Margaret MacLean passed her with a kiss and went on to
Peter--Peter--seven years old--congenital hip disease--and all boy.
"Hello, you!" he shouted, squirming under the kiss that he would not
have missed for anything.
"Hello, you!" answered back the administering nurse, and then she
asked, solemnly, "How's Toby?"
"He's--he's fine. That soap the House Surgeon give me cured his fleas
all up."
Toby was even more mythical than Susan's aunt; she was based on certain
authentic facts, whereas Toby was solely the creation of a dog-adoring
little brain. But no one was ever inconsiderate enough to hint at his
airy fabrication; and Margaret MacLean always inquired after him every
morning with the same interest that she bestowed on the other occupants
of Ward C.
Last in the ward came Michael, a diminutive Russian exile with valvular
heart trouble and a most atrocious vocabulary. The one seemed as
incurable as the other. Margaret MacLean had wrestled with the
vocabulary on memorable occasions--to no avail; and although she had
long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with
him, it troubled her none the less. And because Michael came the
nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for
him always an unfailing gentleness.
"Good morning, dear," she said, running her fingers through the
perpendicular curls that bristled continuously.
"Goot mornun, tear," he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added,
with an irresistible smile, "Und Got-tam-you."
"Oh, Michael, don't you remember, the next time you were going to say
'God bless you'?"
"Awright--next time."
Margaret MacLean sighed unconsciously. Michael's "next time" was about
as reliable as the South American _manana_; and he seemed as much an
alien now as the day he was brought into the ward. And then, because
she believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the
end, she did the thing Michael loved best.
Ward C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her
assistant were turned into keepers. Together they set about the duties
for the day with great good-humor. Two seals, a wriggling
hippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising
activities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby
elephant were bathed with considerable difficulty and excitement. It
was Sandy who insisted on being the elephant in spite of a heated
argument from the other animals that, having a hump, he ought to be a
camel. They forgave him later, however, when he squirted forth his
tooth-brush water and trumpeted triumphantly, thereby causing the
entire menagerie to squirm about and bellow in great glee.
At this point the head keeper had to turn them all back instantly into
children, and she delivered a firm but gentle lecture on the
inconsiderateness of soaking a freshly changed bed.
Sandy broke into penitent tears; and because tears were never allowed
to dampen the atmosphere of Ward C when they could possibly be dammed,
Margaret MacLean did the "best-of-all-things." She pushed the cribs
and cots all together into a "special" with observation-cars; then,
changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she
swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle. The
bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and
puff, bounding away countryward where spring had come.
Those of you who live where you can always look out on pleasant places,
or who can travel at will into them, may find it hard to understand how
wearisome and stupid it grows to be always in one room with an
encompassing sky-line of roof-tops and chimneys, or may fail to sound
the full depths of wonder and delight over the ride that Ward C took
that memorable day.
The engineer pointed out everything--meadows full of flowers, trees
full of birds, gardens new planted, and corn-fields guarded by
scarecrows. She slowed up at the barnyards that the children might
hear the crowing cocks and clucking hens with their new-hatched broods,
and see the neighboring pastures with their flocks of sheep and tiny
lambs.
"A ken them weel--hoo the wee creepits bleeted hame i' Aberdeen!"
shouted Sandy, bleeting for the whole pastureful.
And when they came to the smallest of mountain brooks the engineer
followed it, down, down, until it had grown into a stream with
cowslipped banks; and on and on until it had grown into a river with
little boats and sandy shore and leaping fish. Here the engineer
stopped the train; and every one who wanted to--and there were none who
did not--went paddling; and some went splashing about just as if they
could swim.
Back in the "special," they climbed a hilltop, slowly, so that the
engineer could point out each farm and pasture and stream in miniature
that they had seen close by.
"That's the wonder of a hilltop," she explained; "you can see
everything neighboring each other." And when they reached the crest
she clapped her hands. "Oh, children dear, wouldn't it be beautiful to
build a house on a hilltop just like this to live in always!"
Afterward they rode into deep woods, where the sunlight came down
through the trees like splashes of gold; and here the engineer
suggested they should have a picnic.
As Margaret MacLean stepped out into the hall to look up the
dinner-trays she met the House Surgeon.
"Dreading it as much as usual?" he asked, in the teasing, big-brother
tone; but he looked at her in quite another way.
She laughed. "I'm hoping it isn't going to be as bad as the time
before--and the time before that--and the time before that." She
pushed back some moist curls that had slipped out from under her
cap--engineering was hard work--and the little-girl look came into her
face. She looked up mischievously at the House Surgeon. "You couldn't
possibly guess what I've been doing all morning."
The House Surgeon wrinkled his forehead in his most professional
manner. "Precautionary disinfecting?"
Margaret MacLean laughed again. "That's an awfully good guess, but
it's wrong. I've been administering antitoxin for trusteria."
In spite of her gay assurance before the House Surgeon, however, it was
rather a sober nurse in charge of Ward C who sat down that afternoon
with a book of faery-tales on her knee open to the story of "The
Steadfast Tin Soldier." As for Ward C, it was supremely happy; its
beloved "Miss Peggie" was on duty for the afternoon with the favorite
book for company; moreover, no one had discovered as yet that this was
Trustee Day and that the trustees themselves were already near at hand.
A shadow fell athwart the threshold that very moment. Margaret MacLean
could feel it without taking her eyes from the book, and, purposefully
unmindful of its presence, she kept reading steadily on:
"'The paper boat was rocking up and down; sometimes it turned round so
quickly that the Tin Soldier trembled; but he remained firm, he did not
move a muscle, and looked straight forward, shouldering his musket.'"
"Ah, Miss MacLean, may I speak with you a moment?" It was the voice of
the Meanest Trustee.
The nurse in charge rose quickly and met him half-way, hoping to keep
him and whatever he might have to say as far from the children as
possible.
The Meanest Trustee continued in a little, short, sharp voice: "The
cook tells me that the patients in this ward have been having extra
food prepared for them of late, such as fruit and jellies and scones
and even ice-cream. I discovered it for myself. I saw some pineapples
in the refrigerator when I was inspecting it this afternoon, and the
cook said it was your orders."
Margaret MacLean smiled her most ingratiating smile. "You see," she
said, eagerly, "the children in this ward get fearfully tired of the
same things to eat; it is not like the other wards where the children
stay only a short time. So I thought it would be nice to have
something different--once in a while; and then the old things would
taste all the better--don't you see? I felt sure the trustees would be
willing."
"Well, they are not. It is an entirely unnecessary expense which I
will not countenance. The regular food is good and wholesome, and the
patients ought to feel grateful for it instead of finding fault."
The nurse looked anxiously toward the cots, then dropped her voice half
an octave lower.
"The children have never found fault; it was just my idea to give them
a treat when they were not expecting it. As for the extra expense,
there has been none; I have paid for everything myself."
The Meanest Trustee readjusted his eye-glasses and looked closer at the
young woman before him. "Do you mean to say you paid for them out of
your own wages?"
The nurse nodded.
"Then all I have to say is that I consider it an extremely idiotic
performance which had better be stopped. Children should not be
indulged."
And he went away muttering something about the poor always remaining
poor with their foolish notions of throwing away money; and Margaret
MacLean went back to the book of faery-tales. But as she was looking
for the place Sandy grunted forth stubbornly:
"A'm no wantin' ony scones the nicht, so ye maun na fetch them."
And Peter piped out, "Trusterday, ain't it, Miss Peggie?"
"Yes, dear. Now shall we go on with the story?"
She had read to where the rat was demanding the passport when she
recognized the President's step outside the door. In another moment he
was standing beside her chair, looking at the book on her knee.
"Humph! faery-tales! Is that not very foolish? Don't you think, Miss
Margaret, it would be more suitable to their condition in life if you
should select--hmm--something like _Pilgrim's Progress_ or _Lives of
the Saints and Martyrs_? Something that would be a preparation--so to
speak--for the future." He stood facing her now, his back to the
children.
"Excuse me"--she was smiling up at him--"but I thought this was a
better preparation."
The President frowned. He was a much-tried man--a man of charitable
parts, who directed or presided over thirty organizations. It took him
nearly thirty days each month--with the help of two private secretaries
and a luxurious office--to properly attend to all the work resulting
therefrom; and the matters in hand were often so trying and perplexing
that he had to go abroad every other year to avoid a nervous breakdown.
"I think we took up this matter at one of the business meetings," he
went on, patiently, "and some arrangement was made for one of the
trustees to come and read the Bible and teach the children their
respective creeds and catechisms."
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