TWO LETTERS
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THE FIRST
Big Jerry's Cabin,
January 15, 1914.
My dear Dr. MacDonald,
Although this is theoretically only my semi-weekly report, made in
accordance with your instructions, I feel in the letter-writing mood,
for a wonder, so I _may_ overstep professional bounds, and become
loquacious--if one can do that with pen and ink.
Rose talks about you so continually that I am actually myself beginning
to regard you as an intimate friend, instead of an austere and somewhat
awe-inspiring "boss." I should probably not be brave enough to say that
to your face; but I find that my courage rises in adverse ratio to my
nearness to you.
First, however, for my report. The little patient is still convalescing
in a highly satisfactory manner, and with a rapidity which speaks
volumes both for her own strong constitution and this mountain as a
health resort.
The wound remains perfectly healthy and is healing without suppuration
or parting--which "speaks volumes" for your skill. I am quite certain
that the scar will be merely a thin white line, and not in the least a
disfigurement. The silk stitches are ready to be removed and the others
nearly dissolved.
Yesterday that funny, countrified doctor, from down in the village, came
up to see her--fame of your operation having spread. He "reckoned" that
the child's recovery was nothing less than a miracle, and that he takes
his hat off to you. I told him that most physicians did.
He also "allowed" that, if I wanted him to take out the stitches, he
could do it, but I "reckoned" that I could attend to that a little
better than he. Was that _lese majeste_?
I did my best to be very humble, and said, "Yes, doctor" constantly, and
he tried to appear very professional; but I think he stood a little in
awe of me. You don't know how I enjoyed the feeling.
But, to return to our report. Lou is gaining strength rapidly; I let her
get up and play about longer each day, and have reduced the bandages to
the minimum. It was most affecting when they were removed from her eyes.
I forgot that I was a nurse, and cried with Smiles until the child
cried, too, without having the slightest idea why. She is such a sweet,
merry little imp that I do not wonder that you felt more than mere
professional interest in her case. Every one here loves her.
Indeed, I am enchanted with the place and people, and have made up my
mind to stay on a week or ten days after I call myself off the case, and
take a vacation which I really owe to myself.
Poor Big Jerry is wonderful--so pathetically patient under his
suffering, which is now acute. I am afraid that he cannot last many
weeks longer, and, more than once, I have had to give him a hypodermic
to deaden his pain. Somehow he reminds me of a huge forest tree that has
been struck and shattered by a lightning bolt.
Then there is Judd. Rose says that he has been very, very wicked; but
that only adds to his fascination in my eyes, and if he should decide
some day to snatch me up and carry me off bodily to a cave, I don't
think that I should struggle or scream _very_ hard. However, I'm afraid
there is no chance of that, as he apparently doesn't know that I exist.
He puts me in mind of a mountain eagle, with those overhanging brows and
piercing, coal-black eyes of his; but I must admit that he is
disappointingly tame when he looks at Smiles--as he does most of the
time, to my furious jealousy. Alas, the eagle then becomes a sucking
dove. _She_ is apparently oblivious to the obvious fact that he is madly
in love with her. Poor Judd!
Last, but by no means least, there is Smiles herself. I wish that I
could adequately express my thoughts about her, but I can't. However, I
no longer wonder how a mountain child like that could have captivated
you so, as I did when you first described her to me.
She is adorable. For the life of me I can't understand how a girl, bred
in this wilderness, could have such a fine soul and personality--not to
speak of her intellect, which daily startles me more. But, of course,
she is of cultured stock--she _must_ be--and I have always believed that
the forces of heredity are paramount to those of environment. Do I sound
like a school-mar'm? Well, that is what I am.
It may surprise you to learn, as much as it does me to realize, that I
have turned back to schooldays with an enthusiasm which I never felt
when I was going through them, and that I spend more time as a teacher
than as a nurse. Smiles simply _absorbs_ education--I never knew
anything like it--and I am as confident as she that her dream of going
through the "C. H." and becoming a trained nurse, will come to pass. And
won't she make a wonderful one? Be warned that when she _does_ go north
I intend to dispute with you the right to regard her as a protege.
I couldn't love her as I do, already, if she were not so completely
human, and it amuses me immensely the way she wheedles the natives and
keeps them in good humor by using that comical mountain lingo--although
she can speak as grammatically as any one, when she wants to. She just
smiles at one of them, and says, "Now haint thet jest _toe_ sweet of
ye," and they fall down and worship.
Don't be surprised if you hear me say some day, "Wall, doctor, thet air
shor' er powerful preety operation, an' I air plumb obleeged ter ye fer
thet yo' let me holp ye with hit." I'm catching it, too.
I hope that you will forgive the liberties which I have taken in writing
like this, but I had to do it.
Sincerely yours,
Gertrude Merriman.
P.S. You were right in your conjecture. Since you would not accept the
whole, or any part of Smiles' precious savings--and your refusal nearly
broke her heart until I made her understand that physicians never
charged _members of their family_--she wanted me to take it.
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THE SECOND
Webb's Gap,
Jan. 22, 1914
Dearest Doctor Mac,
My heart is broken. Dear granddaddy died last night. Of course I know
that it had to be, and that he is so much happier now in the spirit
body, and with Ma Webb (he talked about her all yesterday, and I really
think that his soul was speaking with hers); but he was so dear to me
that I can hardly bear to think that he has gone away.
Wasn't he a splendid man, Don? I am sure that there could not have been
any better, nobler men, even in the city, and I know that you loved him,
too.
Before he died he told me all the wonderful things that he had done for
me, although I did not deserve it--how he had left me all that money and
made you my guardian. I am so glad for that.
He was in terrible pain toward the end, and I don't know what I should
have done without dear Miss Merriman who stayed on purpose to help me. I
think that God sent her here special. And she has helped me in so many
other ways too--especially with my studying. She is sure that I will be
able to pass that awful examination, although it frightens me. Oh, if I
_can_, I can take that hospital training and be a nurse at last, for I
am rich now. Just think, dear granddaddy left me _more than a thousand
dollars_--and I have my basket money, besides!
And so, dear Donald, the first part of my great dream is really coming
true. It isn't just the way I dreamed it, for I didn't mean for
granddaddy to be dead; but I guess things never happen just as we plan.
When we look forward to something pleasant, which we want very much to
happen, we never think that there may be unhappiness mixed with
it--perhaps it is better that way, for if we did we wouldn't work so
hard to make it come to pass.
I am afraid that I have not said that very well; but I feel that it is
so, now. I am going to Boston; I will be near you, and will learn to do
the work I love; but now I realize that I could never, never have done
it until granddaddy went away. So that is the shadow on my golden dream.
And last night there came the great sorrow that I have been dreading so
many months; and yet I know that he is happier, and I have you and Miss
Merriman, and the work I am going to do, to make me forget--not him, but
my sorrow--and take the pain from my heart.
Little Lou is almost well again, and both she and Judd are going to stay
with Mrs. Andrews the rest of the winter. And, oh, Doctor Mac, he has
promised me never to make white liquor again.
I have saved the best news for the last. _Miss Merriman is going to take
me to Boston with her._ She says that her family have taken an apartment
in the city, and that I may live with them until I get into the
hospital. This makes me very happy, and I hope that you will be pleased,
too.
I know that everything is going to be very different there in Boston,
and that you are so busy that I cannot see you very often, and, besides,
when I do get into the hospital I must be careful to remember that you
are a very great doctor and I am only one of many probationers (Miss
Merriman told me the word). But, although we cannot be chums like we
have been, you must never forget that I am always
Your loving foster-sister,
Smiles.