PARTING WITH THE CHILD.
Mary Margaret Dillon was about to leave the Institution. She had dressed
her boy with great care, changed the hospital clothes for her own
garments, and came to make a last call at Catharine Lacy’s bed.
“Faix, but it’s goodness all over to see you lying there with the poor
orphan in your arms, motherly as can be, though ye do look like a child
yerself,” she said, seating herself at the foot of her young neighbor’s
bed; “and it’s thriving so, wouldn’t it be a blessed sight to the
mother, who is gone. Poor young mother, if she could only look upon us
now and see the child cuddling down in the bed like a birdie in its
nest?”
The young woman smiled; she was very weak and pallid yet, but the
dimples would come around her mouth whenever she looked down upon the
baby.
“Ye’re mighty fond of it, I can see that with half an eye,” said
Margaret, tossing up her own plump boy with both hands; “but here’s a
shaver that will weigh down two of him, if he isn’t so white and purty.
Did ye ever see a crathur thrive like this little felly. Kiss him now,
plump on the mouth, he’s nate as a pink all over; and I’m going home for
good the morning.”
“Going home!” exclaimed her friend, starting up and holding out her arms
for the child. “Oh! what shall I do after that; it will be terrible
staying here all alone!”
“True, for ye; but I’ll be coming and going, never fear. The old man is
lonesome like, and the childer trouble him, so he wants me to the fore.”
“Oh, if I were only well enough to go out,” sighed the young creature,
whose delicate arms had already drooped under the weight of Mrs.
Dillon’s baby; “but where could I go—where could I go?”
“Now, whist a bit,” answered Mary Margaret, in full sympathy. “When the
time comes, look to the blessed Saviour; but first, ye know, find out
the shanty of Margaret Dillon; it’s on the rocks above Fortieth Street.
Ye’ll know it by a black goat that browses there; to say nothing of two
geese and a duck that paddles in the bit of a pond close by; whenever it
is, ye’ll be welcome as the spring-flowers.”
By this time the young woman was crying, and Margaret felt sympathetic
tears stealing into her eyes.
“Ye’ll be sure to come?”
“Yes; you have been so good to me, Mrs. Dillon, and I don’t know that I
have another friend in the world.”
“Well, now, give the boy another kiss,—for luck, you know,—and I’ll be
going.”
The young woman rose feebly from her pillow and kissed the child; then
she held up her trembling mouth for Margaret’s hearty farewell, and
turning her face to the pillow, began to cry.
Margaret, who had been bundling the child away under her shawl, gave him
another breath of air, and seating herself on the bed again, began to
comfort that poor young creature, who was, in truth, about parting with
her last friend. While she was bending over her in a fit of motherly
compassion, a woman came into the ward accompanied by Jane Kelly and one
of the young doctors, who had charge that day and was scarcely more than
a student.
“Here is the child we were speaking of,” said Jane, coming up to the bed
and turning back the blankets; “all the rest have some one to take care
of them.”
She attempted to take the sleeping babe from the bed; but the young
creature started up like a lioness, her face flushing hotly and her eyes
dilating.
“What are you after—not my child! go away! go away!”
“Come, come, no nonsense. This woman has got her order,” said Jane
Kelly; “give up the child and let’s hear no more of this. She is a
first-class nurse and will be a mother to it.”
“Mother and father both,” sniffed the woman; but the young patient grew
more and more frightened. Seeing no reason for hope in the woman, she
turned to the doctor.
“Oh, doctor, don’t, don’t! it will kill me to part with him.”
Those great blue eyes deepened into the purple of a violet with sharp
apprehension, and she clung to the child on her bosom in passionate
resistance.
“It does not hurt me,” she pleaded; “why, any one can tell you how
strong I am. Only yesterday I sat up in the bed half an hour. He’s doing
so nicely. Ask Mrs. Dillon, who loves him almost as much as I do; poor
little creature, I am sure his mother would ask it, if she only knew.”
“But the woman has her order from headquarters. She’s an experienced
nurse, and the child will be better off with her,” said the young man,
who had been impressed with the opinion that the young woman must be
suffering from her care of the babe; for Jane Kelly was considered as
authority in these things by the students, and usually managed to have
her own way.
“You see how the least thing excites her,” she whispered.
The young man nodded his head, and began to reason with his patient.
“You are not strong enough.”
“Yes I am, very, very strong.”
“But you will go away soon, and then he must be given up.”
The poor thing fell back upon her pillow, broken-hearted. This was the
truth; what could she do with the child, even if it was permitted her to
have it—she, who had no shelter for her own head.
“Ah, sir, let me keep it a little while longer; see what a comfort he is
to me. I can almost make him smile.”
She touched the infant’s cheek with the tip of her finger, and made a
piteous noise with her quivering mouth, at which the child began to
cry,—and so, in fact, did Mary Margaret.
“He does almost laugh, sometimes,” pleaded the patient, sadly
disappointed, and looking up with pathetic earnestness.
“It’s because you are all looking at him. Please go away, I am quite
sure that worn—that lady, will make him cry harder. He seems to know
what she wants, poor little fellow.”
“But the authorities have decided he must be put out to nurse.”
“But not yet, oh! not yet; besides—”
She lifted up her hand, with a gesture that induced the doctor to stoop.
“Besides, she does not look kind,” she whispered, trembling with fear
lest the woman might understand her. “Indeed; indeed, she does not!”
“Look here,” interposed Jane Kelly. “This sort of humbug can’t go on any
longer. Doctor, you may take it on yourself to disobey an order from
headquarters, but I won’t. This woman is authorized to take this very
child, it being an orphan,—and this child she is going to have, if all
the women in the ward go into hysterics.”
Here Mrs. Dillon interfered.
“Let the poor thing be, doctor; one day can do no harm. If the child is
to be put out, give me a chance; no own mother ever took such care of it
as I will.”
Here the young woman started up in bed.
“Yes! yes! let her have it—I won’t say one word, so long as I know it is
with her.”
The doctor looked at Jane.
“Why not?”
“Why not? because this woman has her order, and is going to take that
identical child along with her, and no shirking.”
The young man gave way. He really had no authority to interfere. So with
absolute violence Jane forced the babe from those clinging arms, and
tore it away, leaving that poor creature in an agony of grief. Again
Mary Margaret sat down by the bed, and made an effort to console the
grief she had failed to avert, but she was only answered by heart-broken
sobs, and her protégé fell into a trembling fit that shook the bed.
After a while she seemed more quiet. Then Mary Margaret took up her
child sorrowfully, and went away crying, as if she herself had been
bereaved. That night the poor creature was taken dangerously ill, and
for weeks and weeks scarcely knew a soul that spoke to her.