THE GOAL
You cannot, by a bridge of sighs, attain the future's golden years,
But try a bridge of rainbow hopes erected on substantial piers
Of honest work, and you will find it leads you surely to the goal.
'Tis God that gives the dreamer's dreams, as radiant as the morning,
But, if the will to work is weak, they often die a-borning.
If this were a romance, instead of the simple account of the pilgrimage
and development of a girl from childhood to womanhood, it would be
permissible to say, "three years pass by in swift flight," or "drag by
on weary feet," as the case may have been, and then resume the action.
But in everyday life, character is built out of everyday incidents, big
and little, all of which have place in the moulding of it, and, since
the years of Smiles' training within the Children's Hospital were vital
ones for her, it is essential to touch briefly upon some of the
occurrences which filled them.
On the other hand, it is by no means necessary to describe that period
at length. It is doubtful if, in later life, she will herself look back
upon the many days so filled to repletion with exacting, though
interesting, tasks, as other than a dead level, for constant repetition
of a thing, no matter how gripping it may be, produces a monotony. But
there were special incidents--sometimes trivial in comparison with the
importance of her sustained labor--which formed the high lights in the
picture, and the memory of which will endure through all the after
years. By recounting a few of these, and letting our imaginations fill
in the interims, we can accompany Rose on her journey to the goal of her
desires.
* * * * *
The day after Donald had taken her into his confidence regarding his
plans, Rose made up her mind to keep a diary.
"Even though he may be thousands of miles away, I mean to keep myself as
close to him as possible by writing him as I would talk to him, about
_all_ the things which happen in my life, and, unless I set them down as
they happen, I shall forget," she told Miss Merriman, after the seal of
secrecy had been removed from her lips.
"Perhaps _you_ can succeed in keeping one. _I_ never could," laughed her
friend. "Each January First I start a new one, and register a solemn vow
to keep it up longer, at least, than I did the one the previous year. If
I follow that system until I am three hundred and fifty years old, I
will complete just one before I die."
Smiles accepted the implied challenge, and, day by day, with few
omissions, the dated pages bore new testimony to her application in
performing a self-appointed task. The plan bore fruit, too, for Donald,
in his rare replies to her confidential letters, which went to him each
fortnight, was able to praise her as the best of correspondents, writing
once, "You have an exceptional gift for making incidents seem real and
people alive, in your letters, and of realizing that, with us who are so
far away from home, it _is_ the little things which count. Ethel, alas,
is hopeless in this respect. She writes me faithfully; but invariably
says that nothing has happened except the usual occurrences of everyday
life, and thereby utterly misses the great fact that it is just those
very things that the lonely exile most longs to hear about. I would
actually rather have her write that they had baked beans on Saturday
night than that so-and-so had given a charity whist at the Vendome."
Yet many a sentence went into the diary that was never copied or
embellished for Donald's eyes. Some of them had to do with him, or her
thoughts of him; some were too intimate for another to see.
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December 6th, 1915.
"My dear Donald has gone. I think that I have not felt so utterly
lonesome since granddaddy died. And I could not get away to say
good-by to him--I could have cried, only I didn't have time even to
do _that_. It doesn't seem right, when he has been so dear to me,
that I should have had to part from him in the hospital corridor
with others around, so that all I could do was press his hand an
instant and wish him a commonplace, 'Good luck and God-speed.'
Still, it probably wouldn't have been any different if we had been
alone. I couldn't have done what my heart was longing to do,
everything is different now. I don't believe that I enjoy being
'grown-up.' What an unpleasant thing 'convention' is. Why, I
wonder, must we always hide our true feelings under a mask? I
suppose it is lest the world give a wrong meaning to them; but if I
_had_ kissed him, the way I used to, I'm sure that Donald would
have understood. He knows that I love him as dearly as though I
were truly his sister, instead of a make-believe one."
Here the page bears a number of meaningless hieroglyphics, and then the
words, stricken out, "I wonder."
"He looked so manly in his uniform, and so distinguished, although
I suppose that he isn't really _handsome_--at least, not like Dr.
Bentley. _He_ isn't so wonderful as Don; but I think that he is
more understanding. He seemed to realize just how I felt this
morning, and he was as sweet and considerate as a woman when I
bungled things awfully in the operating room. The head nurse gave
me a deserved call down, however, and it was perhaps just as well
that she did, for my mind needed to be 'brought back.' Only my body
was in the hospital, and the _real me_, as Mr. Talmadge said, was
back in the cabin, helping Donald operate on Lou, all over again. I
cried like a little fool--the first time I have done it here--but
my tears weren't for the poor baby on the operating table. They
were memory tears....
"Poor little thing, he had to die, and he was the first one whom I
have seen pass on to the eternal garden of God's flowers since I
have been in the hospital. Oh, it hasn't been a happy day at
all....
"I wonder if Donald could have saved him? My brain answers, 'No.'
Dr. Bentley did all that lies within the power of science, I am
sure. But somehow ..."
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Christmas night.
"If Donald might only have been here in person to-day, it would have been
perfect. I think that he must have been, in spirit, for I 'felt' his
presence quite near me several times; I confided as much to Dr. Bentley
and he made an atrocious pun on the word 'presents.' I wish he wouldn't;
it is the only thing about him that I don't like, but he will make them.
Wasn't Donald thoughtful and dear to have bought a Christmas gift for me
during those overcrowded days before he went away?--a whole set of
books, beautifully bound, but better still, beautiful within. Books are
the same as people, I think. We like to see both attractively clothed,
but in each it is the soul that counts....
"What a lot of presents I received--from Miss Merriman and her mother,
Mrs. Thayer and little Muriel, and, oh, so many of the girls here. I
don't know why they are all so good to me--because I am looked upon as a
lonely little savage, I suppose. And then there was that one from Dr.
Bentley. The idea of a simple mountain girl from Webb's Gap having five
whole pounds of candy at once!
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"The funniest thing happened to-day, and I must not forget to write
Donald all about it. He is sure to remember little red-headed Jimmy, who
has to spend so much of his time in the hospital. Has he imagination
enough, I wonder, to picture him sitting up in bed in the snow-white
ward, with his flaming auburn hair and bright red jacket calling names
at each other? I love the old custom to which the hospital still clings
of putting all the little patients into those red flannel jackets on
cold days, for it makes the wards look so cheerful--like Christmas
fields dotted with bright berries. Jimmy is a dear, and so imaginative
that I believe he _lives_ every story that I tell him of the
Cumberlands--certainly he likes them better than fairy stories. This
afternoon, I had finished telling him about how grandpappy shot the
turkey for Dr. MacDonald, and I found him looking up at me with his big
blue eyes, which can be as serious as a saint's or as mischievous as an
imp's. 'Your face is most always laughing, Miss Webb,' said he. 'I think
I shall have to call you Nurse Smiles.' My roommate, Miss Roberts,
happened to be in the room and heard him, and now it's all over the
hospital. Everybody is calling me it, unless the superintendent or some
of the older doctors are around. How odd it is that he should have
struck on it, and given me my old nickname again....
"Dr. Bentley called me Smiles when he left after his evening visit."
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May 17th, 1916.
"This has been a day of days for me. First I received a long and
wonderful letter from Donald. It seemed like old times, for it was as
kindly and simple, too, as those which he used to write to me at Webb's
Gap. I wonder if he regards me as still a child? I suppose that I really
am one, but somehow I feel very grown up, and much older than many of
the girls who are years older than I. They constantly surprise me by
acting so young when they are off duty ... but I love it in them.
"To-day I entered into the second year of my training. I wish that I had
the power to set down on paper my feelings when I received that first
narrow black band for my cap. I suppose that I had some of the same
'prideful' sensations that dear granddaddy did when he was very young,
and cut the first notch in the stock of his rifle-gun. But how much
better _my_ notch is! It means that I am fast getting able to save
lives, not to take them. I must always remember that--it will give a
deeper meaning to the symbol. And now my room is going to be moved down
a story--I'm so glad that Dorothy Roberts is to be with me still--and I
can move in one table nearer the front wall in the dining room. That
wall sometimes seems to me like a goal that I have got to reach before I
will be safe, just as in a children's game of tag, and, when I get tired
and discouraged--for I do, at times, little diary--it seems as though
there were many, many things stretching out invisible hands to catch me
before I get to it. Donald was right about the path being no road of
roses.... Come, this will never do; I'm supposed to be happy to-night,
and besides, now I've got to live up to my nickname again.
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I wonder how much I really have changed in the year? a good deal, I'm
sure. I remember that at first I used to laugh to myself over the 'class
distinctions,' such as I have just been writing about; that was when I
was fresh from the mountain, where every one called every one else by
his or her first name--and also when I was in the lowest class myself.
Once I was even bold enough to tell Dr. Bentley that I thought they were
foolish, but he reminded me--as Donald had--that we are an army here,
and that in an army a private can't eat and sleep with a captain, or a
captain with a general. Now I don't mind the rules and regulations at
all, for I have learned the lesson of discipline, and I know that, even
if we do have to be strict in our conduct toward the older nurses and
the doctors, we are all--from the senior surgeon down to the lowliest
probationer--really one in a great spiritual fellowship, as the
prayerbook says, and all working together in the same great cause."
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August 19th, 1916.
"Little diary, I have been neglecting you lately, but now you and I must
collect our thoughts, for we have got to write a long, long letter to
Donald and tell him all about the vacation--the first that I ever had.
It was the first time that I was ever really at the seashore, too,
except that one afternoon in June when Dr. Bentley took me down to
Nahant in his car. Weren't the Thayers dear to have me as their guest at
beautiful Manchester-by-the-Sea? Ethel (I wonder if Donald will be
pleased to know that his _real_ sister has asked me to call her by her
first name?) insisted that they did it for my own sake, but I know that
it was really on his account. They were two weeks of wonder for me; but
I wish that he might have been there. How they all miss him--even Dr.
Bentley. I think that there is nothing finer than such a friendship
between two men. Why, he even calls on Donald's family still. He came to
Manchester twice in the fortnight that I was there. Dr. Bentley wants me
to call him 'Philip,' when we are not in the hospital, and I do ...
sometimes. It seems perfectly natural, even though he is much older than
I--he is over thirty; but I suppose that is because at home we called
almost every one by his first name. (We are rambling, little diary. I
don't believe that Donald would be particularly interested in the fact
that I call Dr. Bentley, 'Philip.')
He _will_ be interested to know how the sea impressed me, though, and
again I find myself wholly at a loss for words to express my feelings.
It was so overwhelming in its grandeur and far-stretching expanse; so
beautiful in its never-ending procession of colors; so terrible in its
might, when aroused. I have seen it asleep as peacefully as one of my
babies (all the hospital babies are children of my heart), and I have
seen it in anger, like a brutal giant. I wish that I had not seen its
latter mood, for, when it caught up the little boat that had been torn
from the moorings, and hurled her again and again against the rocks
until there was not a plank of her left unbroken--while the wind
shrieked its horrid glee--my growing love for it was turned to fear. No,
I can never care for the ocean as I do for my mountains. I cannot forget
that it was the waters which stole my dearest treasures from me.
Still, the memory of that storm is nearly lost in the abounding
happiness of those two weeks, and the third one which I spent with my
Gertrude Merriman, who stole it from her many cases to be with me. When
I set down each little incident of them in black and white, as I mean to
in my letter to Don, they will appear commonplace enough, I'm afraid;
but I shall tell him that their story is written on my heart in letters
of gold and many colors.
He pretends to be interested in every foolish little thing that I have
done, but I don't suppose that he would care to read about all the new
dresses I have bought. I never realized before that a girl could get so
much pleasure out of buying pretty things, and I am afraid that he would
scold me if he knew how many leaves I have used out of my checkbook. Not
that they have been all for clothes, little diary. I did not realize how
much I had given to war charities, and I was a little frightened this
morning when I made up my balance.
But I cannot help giving for the poor French and Belgian babies. It
somehow seems as though I were giving the money to Don to spend for me."
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There follow many entries, in the course of which the name of Donald
appears, and many more in which that of Philip, from which one might
reasonably draw the conclusion that the latter was conscientiously
performing his part as _ad interim_ guardian for Rose. There are also
several mentions of impish, lovable Jimmy--he of the red hair,
presumably--and of visits, on her afternoons off, to the cheap and
somewhat squalid apartment where he lived with his thin, tired, but
pitifully optimistic mother, and a stout, florid-faced father, who wore
shabby, but very loud-checked, suits and was apparently a highly
successful business man of big affairs, but frequently "temporarily out
of funds." Indeed, it would seem as though there were times when the
family--which included six other children from one to ten years
old--would actually not have had enough to eat if Rose had not "loaned"
the wherewithal to purchase it to the father of the household.
Under date of May 15th, 1916, appears the following.
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"_Two_ black bands on the little white cap! One round table nearer the
wall! Materia medica, orthopedia, medical analysis, general surgery,
bacteriology, therapeutics and anaesthesia no longer mere words, whose
very sound made me weak with dismay; but terms descriptive of new ways
in which I can help weak and suffering babyhood. It has been hard, but
soul-satisfying, work. I love it all, and have never regretted the
decision made, centuries ago it seems, on the mountain. I have just been
re-reading Donald's first letter to me--the one in which he frankly
warned me of the hardships which would be mine to face, if I should
attempt to carry out my plan. It was, I think, the only time that he was
ever wrong ... no, I had forgotten that afternoon at Judd's still. Work
may be hard, and yet entail no hardship, especially when it brings the
satisfaction of winning against odds. I know that he did not really mean
what he said in that letter. It was written merely as a test of my
resolve; to deter me, if it wasn't strong enough to carry me through.
There have been times when I have myself wondered if it would, but,
thanks to dear old Mr. Talmadge, and his 'sermon on the mount' I have
always been able to find the help that he told us about. I wonder if
Donald has, too? Surely he must have, he has been doing such wonderful
work 'over there.' It is like him to say so little about it in his
letters, but Dr. Roland gave us a talk about what they have been doing
in Toul and Leslie, when he returned from France, and he sang Donald's
praises _fortissimo_. I was so happy, and so proud.
"They all tell me that the coming year is the hardest of all with its
practical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in the
Manhattan Maternity in New York. I have a feeling that I am not going to
enjoy the former. Nursing 'grown-ups' does not appeal to me as the
caring for the little flowers does. But I shall love the other.
Motherhood is sacred and beautiful....
"I shall have to be very economical this year, little diary, and
especially careful when I get to New York. When I paid the final
installment on my tuition fee, I was frightened to find how little
remained of what granddaddy left me, and what I had saved, myself.
Nearly thirteen hundred dollars looked like a huge fortune to me in
those days, but it is nothing at all in a city, where there is so much
poverty, and there are so many appeals to one's heart. I know that
Donald--or Philip--would lend me a little money until the time when I
get to earning it for myself, if I should ask them. But of course I
cannot do that. Perhaps I can earn a little during my afternoons and
evenings off duty. The girls say that I can shampoo and manicure as well
as a professional. Yes, I will try to do that this year."
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January 15th, 1917.
"Thank goodness my worries about finances are almost over!
"The last few months have been simply terrible, and the hardest part of
all, I think, has been my not being able to give anything to the number
of splendid causes which so touch the sympathies these dark days.
Perhaps I gave too much before; but I am not a bit sorry, especially now
that some of the seed which I cast upon the waters is soon to bear
golden fruit for me. I never believe the pessimistic people who say that
those who receive charity are never really grateful, and now I _know_
that they are wrong. Jimmy's father has been so appreciative of my
pitifully small presents to them, that sometimes he has cried over them,
and I knew that he was in earnest when he promised to repay me as soon
as he possibly could. Now the chance has come. I was there yesterday and
he said that he had been thinking about me just before I appeared.
"It seems that he sells stock, and has just obtained a wonderful
position as agent, or whatever they call it, for a new copper mine which
he says is better than the 'Calumet and Hecla.'
"He explained to me all about that one and showed me in the paper how
high it was selling now--for $550 a share. He is the sole representative
for all of New England, and he says that the company is at present
selling its stock only to special friends in order to 'let them in on
the ground floor.' The shares are only ten dollars apiece and are sure
to be worth a hundred, or more, very soon, because of the war. It seems
almost impossible! I told him that I had only about a hundred dollars in
the world, but that, if he really felt that he wanted to do me a favor,
I _might_ 'invest' it (that word sounds quite impressive, doesn't it?)
but that I should have to think it over, first. I remembered what Donald
had told me about asking a man's advice--especially Philip's--in money
matters. Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had done so before.
"I asked him this afternoon if he knew anything about the King Kopper
Kompany, and he said that it was a 'get rich proposition' and that he
had sunk a good deal of his own money into some just like it. I wanted
to ask him more, but we were interrupted. However, I know that he is
very well-to-do, so he must have made money in them and certainly I need
to get rich quick. I'm going to make the investment to-morrow."
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March 11th.
"Stung! I hate slang, but sometimes nothing else is quite so expressive.
I thought that I was getting to be very wise, but, oh, what a little
ignoramus I have been. And to think that I thought I was following
Philip's advice, and did not realize what he really meant until I read
a story about a man who was called 'Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.' Now I'd
rather die than tell him that I have lost practically all of my worldly
goods!"
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Finally, late in May, is an entry, longer than any of its predecessors,
and the last for many a day. Rose made it seated in the soft moonlight
which came through the window of her hospital room, after her roommate
had fallen asleep.
"I am in a strange mood to-night, little diary, and not quite sure
whether I want to laugh or cry--indeed, I think that my heart has
done both to-day. I don't feel like going to sleep, but perhaps I
will be able to if I get the many thoughts out of my mind and down
on paper--now they are like so many little imps beating against my
brain with hammers.
"Surely I _should_ be happy at the thought that to-morrow is to
carry me to my goal at the top of the mountain path which Donald
described. In twelve hours I shall (D. V.) be a graduate nurse;
but, now that the journey is almost an accomplished fact, I
positively shiver when I think of the nerve of that child who was I
five years ago and who, blessed with ignorance, made up her mind to
become one, or 'bust'--that is the way I put it, then. Friends have
sometimes told me that they didn't see how I had the courage to
attempt it; but I tell them, truthfully, that it isn't courage when
one tackles a thing which she--or he--doesn't know is difficult to
do, and that few things are insurmountably difficult which she
tackles with confidence (which is as often the result of ignorance
as of faith in one's own power). So how can I take any credit for
succeeding?
"It _has_ been hard work, of course, and I know that I must have
failed if every one had not been so good to me, and, above all, if
God had not meant me to succeed. I have never forgotten that night
when the 'reverend' opened my eyes to the knowledge that I am His
partner in working out my life. Dear Mr. Talmadge! I am ashamed
that I stopped writing to him, so long ago, yet I know that he is
still my friend, although we do not see each other. That is the
beauty of true friendship--it is a calm and constant star, always
in its place against the time when we want to lift our eyes to seek
its light. I know that it is the same with Donald.
"When I think of him to-night, and realize that he cannot
be near me in my little hour of triumph to-morrow, it is hard for me
to keep back the tears. Dear God, bless him and bring him
happiness--with Miss Treville.
"I cannot help feeling worried about Donald, for, although his
letter makes light of his illness, I have a troublesome
presentiment that he is worse than he will acknowledge. He is the
kind to spend every ounce of his wonderful vitality without thought
of self, and the two and a half years during which he has been
laboring so hard, and so effectively, must have drained even his
great strength. Slight, wiry people are like the willows that bend
easily, but return to normal quickly, after the stress of storm has
ended; but, when big ones--like Donald--break, it is like the fall
of a mighty oak.
"Still, this cloud, like all clouds, has its bright lining. _He is
coming home_, just as soon as he is able to make the trip, so,
although I shall miss him dreadfully to-morrow, it will not be many
weeks before I shall see him again.
"But this is not all that is troubling me, diary, and if I were not
quite sure that no one but I would ever look inside your covers, I
would not confide it even to you.
"I have a present, a wonderful present,--and I do not think that I
ought to keep it. Help me make up my mind. When P. gave it to me
this afternoon, he said that it was just a little remembrance for
my graduation and that he hoped I would accept it as the gift of a
semiofficial guardian, just as I would if Donald himself were
giving it to me. I did take it in that spirit; but, when I found a
moment to steal away and open the wrapper, and beheld a beautiful
morocco case containing a _gold watch_ with my initials engraved on
the case, my heart almost stopped beating. This was his 'little
remembrance.' Of course it is something that I shall need in my
work, for it has a second hand, but he must have guessed that I
would be troubled by such an expensive gift, for he tried to make
light of it by enclosing a foolish little rhyme, which I must copy
so that I shall not forget it.
'When it is _time_ to take _hour_ pulse
You'll find a use for what is in it,[A]
(On _second_ thoughts, I'd like to add
I wish you'd take mine every _minute_.)'
"Conventions are _so_ puzzling, little diary, that I don't know
what I ought to do. Somehow, I feel quite sure that the
Superintendent wouldn't approve, for a doctor should not be making
presents to a pupil nurse; yet P. has been so kind that I hate to
think of hurting his feelings by giving it back. Besides, I love it
... and it is engraved R. W. Then, too, if I should return it, he
might think that I didn't credit him with having done it while
acting in Donald's place as my guardian, and if it was not that
thought which prompted him, why ... Oh, I don't know what to do!
"Worse still, Dorothy Roberts came up unexpectedly and saw the
watch. Of course she wanted to know from whom it came and I
answered, on the impulse, 'From my guardian.' I'm sure that she
believes that it was a present from Donald and therefore perfectly
proper, for I have told her all about his relationship to me, and
it hurts me to think that I have been guilty of a lie. Of course it
wasn't one in actual words, perhaps; but I had the spirit to
deceive, and now I can't confess without involving P. and she might
think that he is in ... Oh, I can't write it, for of course he
isn't. How could he be? No, it was just a natural act of his
generous heart, because he knew that I was without relatives to
give me a graduation gift.
"I hope that I sleep my uncertainties away, for to-morrow must hold
nothing but sunshine and smiles."
[Footnote A: Poetical license--meaning 'what is in the box.']