Walter McAndrew, Attorney-at-Law, was in rather frequent demand in
distant places, when the services of an especially acute lawyer were
in demand. When these “cases,” as Gloria termed them, called him to
locations worth visiting, Mr. McAndrews delighted in taking his wife
and ward with him. The evening preceding the packing-scene in Gloria's
bedroom, he and his good wife had come to the rapid decision that a
trip to the West just now would be good for Gloria--more likely than
anything else to eradicate impressions of unpleasant Pleasant Street.
Gloria's impressions were apt to come and go easily, they reasoned, and
it was important for this one to go.
“You were going away, anyway, and I suppose I can go too, even if it is
hot,” his wife had sighed in gentle renunciation of her own comfort. As
for Gloria--the child was always delighted with variety and change. No
trouble about Gloria!
Ten years earlier, when, close upon the death of his beloved young wife,
Gloria's father had slipped out of life, the orphan of seven years had
been given into Mr. McAndrews' charge, to be loved and petted, while Mr.
McAndrews was given her generous little fortune to husband and watch
over. It had been a beautiful home for Gloria; unquestioningly she had
accepted all its comforts and love. Yet Gloria was not selfish--only
young. Gloria's father had been a keen business man, and the investments
of his money as he earned it had been of the kind that fatten men's
pocketbooks, however lean they may make the bodies of other men.
For the time, Treeless Street, lined with little children, vanished from
Gloria's mind. The journey she began so promptly was a new one to her,
and with the first appearance of daylight the first morning she was
ready to enjoy it. Unlike Aunt Em, she was fresh and vigorous after the
night in the sleeper; she did not even dream of her recent discoveries
in streets. No old-faced little boys in reefed man-trousers appealed to
her sleeping pity.
[Illustration: It would be something interesting to do.]
“Best thing we could have done,” whispered Uncle Em to his wife,
watching the girl's animated face. “But I'm afraid it's going to be
tough on you, my dear.”
“Never mind me,” smiled back his wife cheerfully. She was at that moment
warm and wearied, with a dull headache with which to begin the day. But
Aunt Em was the sort of woman who courts discomforts which to her loved
ones masquerade in the guise of comforts. She had never been given a
daughter of her own to make sacrifices for; she must make the most of
Gloria.
“I wish you liked to travel as well as Gloria and I do, my dear.” His
wife did not like to travel at all; it was a species of torture to her.
“I like to have you and Gloria like it,” she smiled.
* * * * *
A few days after the newness of Cheyenne had worn off a little, Gloria
sat in the window of her hotel room writing a letter. It had come to her
suddenly that she would write to the District Nurse. It would at any
rate be something interesting to do, and if the letter elicited an
answer, how very interesting that would be! What kind of letters did
District Nurses write?
Gloria had gone back, in convenient interstices of her new life in
this strange city, to mild musings on streets where poverty dwelt
undisguised. At this distance, Dinney and little Hunkie were faint
wraiths rather than realities.
Gloria's musings now were tinted with a comfortable impersonality that
robbed them of the power to sting. It was more as if she had recently
read a story full of pathos, whose chief characters were named Hunkie
and Dinney, and whose background was a dreary street. She would tell the
story to the District Nurse and perhaps evoke a sequel to it from her.
“_Dear Miss Winship_: My uncle and aunt spirited me away the next day,
and here I am in this 'Undiscovered Country'! Do you mind if I write
you? You will be too busy to answer. Maybe you won't even have time
to read it! I found out about one of your sick persons that same
day--Dinney's mother. He seemed almost proud that she had consumption,
the poor little boy! He had the baby with him. I never saw such a
perfectly dreadful street. The idea of calling it Pleasant Street!
Somebody ought to climb up and print an 'Un' before it, and even that
wouldn't be bad enough!
“I wish I knew who Rose is. All I do know is that you taught her to be
good to Hunkie--Dinney said so. He said that Rosy lived across the hall,
and that she had eyes like mine!
“Uncle Em has a protracted case here, so we may be here quite a while
longer, but when I get home will you let me go district-visiting
sometime with you? And introduce me to the girl with eyes like mine, and
whose name is Rose--my middle name. It makes me feel queer every time I
think of her--I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it seems a
little as if there were two Rose Abercrombies. Suppose I lived down on
that Un-Pleasant street--across the hall!
“Lovingly yours,
“GLORIA ROSE ABERCROMBIE.”
To Gloria's surprise, she received an answer to her letter, with a
considerable degree of promptness, but it was not postmarked Tilford.
“_My dear Miss Gloria Rose_: Perhaps you didn't know District Nurses
could be prompt in answering letters! But, you see, I am having my two
weeks' vacation up here in this little hilly place. I get two weeks off
every summer--and actually sit down! I'm doing it now--if my writing
joggles now and then it is because I am rocking. I want to make the most
of my opportunities. This is the quietest place to sit and rock I was
ever in.
“Your letter was such a delightful surprise. Of course, I'll take you
with me. I'll do more than introduce you to my assistant Rose. No, I'll
not describe her to you. I will wait and let you see her for yourself.
Well, Dinney's mother is very sick. I could not bear to leave her. What
do you think she said to me the last thing? 'I'll wait'--just those two
words--when waiting will be so cruelly hard. I would not have come now,
but the doctor put his foot down. I suppose I was worn out.
“My dear, if I loved anyone very much I should say to her: 'Never be a
District Nurse!' It's so terribly hard on the heart-strings.
“There is another Dinney on Pleasant Street, but his name is Straps. I
don't know why, unless because of his one suspender, and then it ought
to be _Strap_. He looks like Dinney, but his 'baby' he leads by the
elbow instead of drags in a cart. The baby of Straps is very old and
blind, the shoestrings he sells on the corner are very poor ones, but
when you need shoestrings I wish you would buy those. Din--I mean
Straps--leads him back and forth and loves him. There doesn't seem any
reason in all the world why he should--or could--but he does.
“There, I must stop.
“Lovingly,
“MARY S. WINSHIP,
“District Nurse.”
The letter of the District Nurse reawakened all Gloria's interest in the
street she had “discovered.” She thought about it a great deal while
she and Aunt Em were driven about sightseeing. Her preoccupation was a
source of gentle worriment to Aunt Em, and would have been even more
so had that dear person suspected Gloria's designs against Un-Pleasant
Street. These designs were unbosomed in a second letter to the District
Nurse.