FAIRY GODMOTHERS WANTED
The ballroom was crowded but very quiet. The belle of the ball was the
night nurse, deftly accomplishing the many duties that fall to the share
of a night nurse. A letter must be written for a poor Gascon who had
lost his right arm; a Bedouin chief must be watered every five minutes;
a little red-headed Irishman begging for morphine to ease his pain, and
a sad Cockney lad sobbing because he was "'omesick for 'Ammersmith,"
must be comforted.
The beautiful old chateau had been converted into a hospital early in
the war and the _salle de bal_ was given over to the convalescents. The
convalescent male is a very difficult proposition, and the little nurse
sometimes felt her burden was greater than she could bear. There was so
much to do for these sick soldiers besides nurse them. One thing, she
must good-naturedly submit to being made love to in many different
languages. She could stand all but the Bedouin chief.
"He seems so like our darkeys at home," she had whispered to the one
American who was getting well rather faster than he liked to admit.
This American wanted to get well and be back in the trenches, but who
was to make love to the pretty night nurse in good old American when he
left the convalescent ward?
"You promised to do something for me to-night. Don't forget! You must be
almost through with all of these fellows."
"Ready in a minute!" She flitted down between the rows of cots, tucking
in the covers here, plumping up a pillow there. The Bedouin was watered
for the last time that night and finally closed his rolling black eyes.
"Now, what is it?" she asked, sinking down on a stool by the American's
bed, which was placed in an alcove at one end of the great salon. "If it
is writing a letter, thank goodness, it won't have to be in the second
person singular in French. Why do you suppose they teach us such formal
French at school? I can't _tutoyer_ for the life of me."
"Same here! _Je t'aime_'s all I know. But I don't want you to write a
letter for me. I want you to read some. But first I must know your
really truly name. I--I--like you too much just to have to call you
nurse."
"Mary Grubb!"
"No! Not really?"
"Yes! I'd like to know what is the matter with my name. It is a
perfectly good name, I reckon."
"Yes, Mary is beautiful--but--the other! Never mind, you can change it."
"I have no desire to do so, at least not for many a day. I think Grubb
is especially nice. It suggests Sally Lunn and batter bread."
"There now, I would know you are from the South even if your dear little
'reckons' didn't come popping out every now and then. Do you know, I
have a friend who lives in Kentucky, and when the war is over I have
been planning to go see her, but now--but now--I am afraid she won't
want to see me."
"You mean the scars?" and she looked pityingly at the young man and put
her firm little hand on his head. "Why, they will not amount to much.
They will just make you look interesting. Your eyes will be well, I just
know they will. Look at this long scar that has given the most trouble!
It has turned to a pleasing pink and will be almost gone in a few
months. You see you are so healthy."
"It isn't altogether the scars. If you think they are pretty, maybe she
will, too. There is something else. I want to read over all this packet
of letters before I decide something. You had better begin or that big,
black, bounding beggar over there will begin to whine for water again.
After you read the letters, maybe I will tell you the other reason why
my friend in Kentucky might not want to see me."
He took from under his pillow a packet of little blue letters, tightly
tied with a piece of twine.
"Here they are! These letters have meant a lot to me while I was in the
trenches. They still mean a lot to me. They were written by my Fairy
Godmother."
"Oh! Are they love letters?"
"No, indeed! I wouldn't ask a woman to read another woman's love
letters. I wouldn't let anyone but you read these letters, but my eyes
are too punk to read them myself and I have to--to hear them to decide
something, something very important."
"All right! A nurse is a kind of father confessor and what one hears
professionally is sacred."
"But, my dear, I am not thinking of you as a nurse."
"But I am thinking of you as a patient."
She slipped the top letter from the packet and turned it over. "So your
name is Stephen Scott!"
"Didn't you know my name, either? How funny!"
"I only know the names of the patients who have charts, and you are too
well to waste a chart on. We nurses call you the convalescent American.
Sure these are not love letters?"
"Of course!" impatiently. "But if you don't want to read them to me,
just say so. Maybe you are tired. Of course you are. You look pale and
your little hand is trembling."
"No, no! I am not tired! Let me begin."
The _salle de bal_ of the old chateau was very quiet. The wounded
soldiers were dropping off to sleep one by one. Even the Bedouin chief
had stopped rolling his eyes and was softly snoring. In a low clear
voice she read the letters.
MY DEAR GODSON:
It is so wonderful to be a Godmother that I can hardly contain
myself for joy. It is through an advertisement I saw in a New York
paper, headed Fairy Godmothers Wanted, that I happen to have you and
you happen to have me. I consider our introduction quite regular as
it came through the wife of a great general.
I wonder how you like belonging to me? I wonder if you are as alone
in the world and homeless as I am. I wonder if you are big or
little, dark or fair, old or young. I wonder all kinds of things
about you,--after all, it makes no difference, any of these things.
You are my Godson and every day I am going to pray for you and
think about you. I am going to send you presents and write you long
letters and send you newspapers. The only trouble about it is by the
time I get hold of English papers they will be weeks and weeks old.
I wonder if American magazines and papers would appeal to you. I
wonder what kind of presents you would like,--not beaded
antimacassars and not mouchoir cases surely. I will knit you a
sweater maybe, but I am not very fond of knitting.
This business of being a Fairy Godmother is a very serious one, more
serious than being a real mother, I believe. A real mother can at
least do something towards forming the character of her child, but a
Fairy Godmother has her child presented to her and takes it as the
husband used to take his bride in the old English prayer book: "With
all her debts and scandals upon her." The worst of it is that she is
ignorant what those debts and scandals are. I don't even know what
kind of smoke to send you. Are you middle-aged and sedate and do you
smoke a corn-cob pipe? Are you young and giddy and do you live on
cigarettes? A terrible possibility has entered into my mind! Are you
one of those awful persons that uses what our darkeys call "eatin'
tobacco"? If so, I shall begin to train you immediately.
Perhaps you want to know something about me. There is not much to
know. I am an orphan of independent means and character. Being the
first, enables me to be the second, which sounds like a riddle but
isn't. You see I have rafts and oodlums of kin, and if I did not
have an income of my own they would step in and coerce me even more
than they do. I said in the beginning that I was homeless. I am not
really that, but the trouble is I have too many homes. I must spend
the winter with Aunt Sally and the spring with Cousin Kate. Cousin
Maria and Uncle Bruce want me to take White Sulphur by storm with
them as chaperones; and so it is from one year's end to the other,
kind relations planning for me. I am bored to death with it all and
am even now preparing a bomb to throw in this camp of overzealous
kin. But I'll tell you about that later,--that is, if you want to
hear about it. I may be boring you stiff. If I am, it is an easy
matter for you to repudiate me and tell Mrs. Johnson to get you a
more agreeable Godmother.
My numerous family does not at all approve of my being a Godmother.
They think I am too young for the responsibility and have entered
upon it too lightly. I even heard Aunt Sally whisper to Cousin
Maria: "Just like her mother!" That means in their minds that I am
headstrong and difficult. You see my mother was also of independent
means and character. Also (I whisper this) she was not a Southerner.
That is as serious in a Southerner's eyes as not being British is in
yours. They think it is very forward of me to be writing to a man
what has not been properly introduced. Uncle Bruce suggests that you
may not even be born. I tell him soldiers don't have to be born and
that the bravest soldiers that were ever known sprang up from
dragon's teeth.
I am sending you as my first present all kinds of tobacco, even
plug. I must not let my prejudices get away with me. If my dear
Godson likes "eatin' tobacco," he shall have it. If you don't
indulge in it, give it to some soldier less dainty. For my part, I
should think the trenches would be dirty enough without adding to
them.
I want to tell you that I like your name. I think Stephen Scott
sounds very manly and upstanding, somehow. I am hoping for a letter
from you just to give me an inkling of your tastes. Of course I know
one of the duties of a Fairy Godmother is not to worry her charge,
and I don't want to worry you but to help you. I think of you in
those damp, nasty ditches eating all kinds of food, served in all
kinds of ways. (I am sure what should be hot is cold, and what
should be cold is hot.) And when I sit down to batter-bread and
fried chicken I can hardly force it down, I do so want you to have
it instead of me.
Your affectionate Godmother,
POLLY NELSON.
The night nurse quietly folded up the first letter and slipped it back
in its blue envelope. She had a whimsical, amused expression on her
face.
"What are you smiling over? Don't you think that is a nice letter?"
"I didn't say it wasn't."
"But you didn't say it was. I think that is a sweet letter. I tell you
it meant a lot to me. Of course, I am not the homeless Tommy she thought
I was. I fancy I have as many Aunt Sallies and Cousin Marias as she has,
but they happen to be in New England."
"You are not an orphan, then!"
"Oh, yes! I'm an orphan all right enough, but I am related to half of
Massachusetts and all of Boston."
"Did you tell your Fairy Godmother that?"
"No,--that's what makes me feel so bad. I was afraid she would stop
being my Godmother if she found out I was--well, not exactly poor, so
I--I didn't exactly lie----"
"You didn't exactly tell the truth, either," and the night nurse curled
her pretty lip and looked disgusted.
"Oh, please don't be angry with me, too. I know she will be. I have
simply got to tell her the truth about myself. I did let her know I am
an American. I am going to write her a letter just as soon as I can see
to do it. But go on with the next, please. You are sure it is not tiring
you too much?"
"Sure," and the night nurse slipped out another.
MY DEAR GODSON:
It was very nice of you to answer my letter so promptly. I am so
glad you are an American and do not chew tobacco. You must not feel
compelled to answer all my letters because you must be very busy and
I have very little to do, so little that I am becoming very
restless. I have thrown the bomb in the camp of the enemy, my kin.
They are shattered into smithereens. I am going to enter a hospital,
take training, and just as soon as I am capable go to France with
the Red Cross nurses. I should like to go immediately but I want to
be a help not a hindrance, and they say all the untrained persons
who butt in on the war zone are a nuisance. Six months of training
should make me fit, don't you think? But how should you know?
I am very happy at the thought of being of some use. I owe it all to
you, my dear Godson. If I had not been presented with you I should
never have thought of such a thing. Just as soon as I realized that
over in the trenches was a human being who wanted to hear from me
and whom I could help, I began to take a new interest in the war
and all the soldiers, and then I began to feel that maybe I,
insignificant little I, might be of some use to those poor soldiers,
some use besides just knitting foolish caps and mittens and sending
the _Saturday Evening Post_ and cigarettes. I only wish I could go
immediately. My training begins to-morrow. Aunt Sally and Cousin
Maria feel that it is a terrible blot on the family name. They are
sure someone will say that I am doing this because I am not a
success in society, although they say over and over that I am. I
don't know whether I am or not, all I know is that society is not a
success with me. Uncle Bruce is rather nice about it all.
There are so many I's in this letter I am mortified. I believe
writing to a Godson in the trenches is almost like keeping a diary.
I am sending you some cards and poker chips (but you mustn't play
for money). I'd hate to think that my presents exerted a poor moral
influence on my dear Godson. Would you mind just dropping a hint as
to what kind of presents would be most acceptable? I have never been
in the habit of giving presents to men and the kinds of presents
some of my friends give would not be very appropriate, it seems to
me. Silver match boxes and cigarette holders would not be very
useful, nor would silk socks with initials embroidered on them be
much better. Do you like chocolate drops and poetry?
Your affectionate Fairy Godmother,
POLLY NELSON.
The night nurse laughed outright at the close of the letter and Stephen
Scott reached out for the packet from which she was extracting a third
blue envelope.
"If you are going to make fun of them, you can stop."
"I wasn't making fun. I was just thinking what funny presents girls do
give men."
"Well, so they do, but my little Godmother gave me bully
presents,--cigarettes to burn, home-made molasses candy and beaten
biscuit. She had lots of imagination in the presents she sent and the
blessed child never did burden me with a work-box but sent me a gross
of safety-pins that beat all the sewing kits on earth. I don't believe
you like my Godmother much."
"Don't you? Well, I do."
"You should like her because somehow you remind me of her."
"Oh! Have you seen her?"
"Only in my mind's eye. I begged her for a picture of herself but she
has never sent it. She has promised it, though. You see I got to
answering her letters in the same spirit in which she wrote to me, only
I was not quite so frank, I am afraid. She told me everything about
herself while I told her only my thoughts. I never did tell her I was
not a homeless soldier of fortune. She thinks I am absolutely friendless
and dependent on my pay as a private for my living. Sometimes I wish I
didn't have a sou--at least I have felt that way--but now----"
"But now what?"
"But now I don't think it is so bad to have a little tin," and he held
one of the little stained hands in his for a moment.
She gently withdrew it and opened a third letter. This was full of
hospital experiences and so were all that followed. The tone of them
became more intimate and friendly. The desire to serve was ever
uppermost--just to get in the War Zone and help.
"I got awfully stuck on her, somehow," confessed the man. "She was so
sweet and so girlish--I did not say so for fear of scaring her off, but
I used to write her pretty warm ones, I am afraid."
"Why afraid?"
"Don't you know?"
"How should I know?"
"Why, honey, you must see that I am head over heels in love with you. I
oughtn't to be telling it to you when I have written my little Godmother
that as soon as the war is over I am going to find her and tell her the
same thing. But, somehow, I was loving her only on paper and in my mind;
but you--you--I love you with every bit of my heart, soul and body." He
caught her hand and all of the poor little slim blue letters slipped
from the twine and scattered over the floor.
"Oh, the poor little letters!" she cried. "Is that all they mean to
you?"
"Oh, honey, they meant a lot to me and still do, but they are just
letters and you are--you."
"But how about the letters you wrote Miss Polly Nelson? Are they just
letters to her and nothing more? Don't you think it is possible that
she may have treasured your letters, especially the pretty warm ones,
and be looking forward to the end of the war with the same eagerness
that you have felt up to--say----"
"The minute I laid eyes on you. At first I used to dream maybe you were
she, but I began to feel that she must be much--younger--somehow, than
you. You are so capable, so mature in a way. She is little more than a
child and you are a grown woman."
"I am twenty-one--but the war ages one."
"I don't mean you look old--I just mean you seem so sensible."
"And Miss Nelson didn't?"
"I don't mean that, I just mean she seemed immature. But suppose you
read the last letter. And couldn't you do it with one hand and let me
hold the other?"
"Certainly not!" and the night nurse stooped and gathered the scattered
letters. Leaning over may have accounted for the rosy hue that
overspread her countenance.
"You certainly read her writing mighty easily. I had a hard time at
first. I think she writes a rotten fist, although there is plenty of
character in it, dear little Godmother!"
"Humph! Do you think so? I wouldn't tell her that if I were you--I mean
that you think her fist is rotten."
"Of course not, but begin, please, and say--couldn't you manage with one
hand?"
But the night nurse was adamant and drew herself up very primly and
began to read:
MY DEAR GODSON:
I am afraid gratitude has got the better of you. You must not feel
that because a girl in America has written you a pile of foolish
letters and sent you a few little paltry presents, you must send her
such very loverlike letters in return. I am disappointed in you,
Godson. I had an idea that you were steadier. Just suppose I were a
designing female who was going to hold you up and drag you through
the wounded-affections court? There is quite enough in your last two
letters to justify such a proceeding. It may be only your poverty
that will restrain me. In the first place, you don't know me from
Adam or rather Eve. I may be a Fairy Godmother with a crooked back
and a black cat, who prefers a broom-stick to a limousine; I may
have a hare-lip and a mean disposition; I may write vers libre and
believe in dress reform. In fact I am a pig in a poke and you are a
very foolish person to think you want to carry me off without ever
looking at me. I won't say that I don't want to see you and know
you, because I do. I have been very honest with you in my letters
because, as I told you once, it has seemed almost like keeping a
diary to write to you, and I think a person who is not honest in a
diary is as bad as the person who cheats at solitaire. When the war
is over if you want to look me up you will find me in Louisville,
Kentucky. When you do find me, I want you to be nothing but my
Godson. You may not like me a bit and I may find you
unbearable,--somehow, I don't believe I shall, though. I do hope you
will like me, too. One thing I promise--that is, not to fall in love
with anyone else until I have looked you over. And you--I fancy you
see no females to fall in love with.
I never let myself think about your getting killed. As Fairy
Godmother I cast a spell about you to protect you. There are times
when I almost wish you could be safely wounded. Those are the times
when I doubt the efficacy of my prayers and the powers of my fairy
gifts.
And now for the news: I am going to the front! I have worked it by
strategy. A girl I know has had all her papers made out ready to
join the Red Cross nurses, and now at the last minute her young man
has stepped in and persuaded her to marry him instead. I have
cajoled the papers from her and am leaving in a few hours. Aunt
Sally and Cousin Kate, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Maria are half
demented. They don't know how I worked it or I am sure they would
have the law on me for perjury. I am free, white, and twenty-one
now, and they could control me in no other way. Good-by, Godson! I
wonder if we will meet somewhere in France. I will write you when I
can, but I am afraid I shall not be able to send any more presents
for a while.
Your affectionate Godmother.
"Now don't you hate and despise me for telling you what I did just now?
You see she says she will at least not fall in love with anyone else
until she looks me over, and think what I have done! What must I do? I
am going to try not to tell you I love you any more until that other
girl knows what a blackguard I am, but you must understand all the time
that I do."
"I understand nothing, Mr. Stephen Scott. I am simply the night nurse in
the convalescent ward and you have asked me to read some letters to you,
and I have read them; and now it is my duty to forget what is in them,
and I am going to do it,--I have done it. All I can say is that you
might give Miss Polly Nelson the chance to find someone else she likes
better than she does you before you are so quick to take for granted she
will stick to her bargain, too. If there is any jilting going on, we
Southern girls rather prefer to be the jilters than the jiltees."
"Don't say jilting! It isn't fair. Please be good to me! I am so
miserable."
The night nurse smiled in spite of herself and felt his pulse.
"There now! Just as I thought! You have worked yourself up into an
abnormal pulse and I shall have to start a chart on you."
"Abnormal nothing! How is a fellow's pulse to remain normal when you put
your dear little fingers on his wrist? But I forgot! I am not going to
make love to you until I can let my Godmother know. Maybe she has met
some grand English Tommy by this time----" And then he groaned aloud and
cried: "But I don't want her to do that, either!"
"Blessed if I'm not in love with two girls," he thought.
The night nurse sat quietly down to her charts after having gone the
rounds of her ward. All was quiet. The convalescent soldiers were
sleeping peacefully, dreaming of home, she hoped. Scott stirred
restlessly now and then. He could not sleep but watched the busy little
stained hand of the night nurse as it glided rapidly over the charts.
She had no light but that of a guttering candle, carefully shaded from
her patients' eyes, but Scott could see her well-poised head and fine
profile as she bent over her writing. How lovely she was! Would she ever
listen to him? How she stood up for her sex,--and still she did not
exactly repulse him. What a strange name for a girl like that to have!
Grubb! It was preposterous. Indeed, he felt it his duty to make her
change that name as soon as possible. Polly Nelson is a pretty
name--dear little Godmother! Would she despise him, too, like this other
girl? But did this other one despise him?
The night nurse made her rounds again and then left the ward for a
moment. When she returned, she came to the American's bedside.
"A letter has just come for you, Mr. Scott."
"For me? Splendid! Will you read it to me?"
"Yes, if you cannot possibly see to do it yourself."
"I might, but I'd rather not."
"It is in the same rotten fist of those I read you to-night."
"My Fairy Godmother! I--I--believe I can see to read that myself."
She handed him the letter. Her hand was trembling a little and so was
his. She brought the guttering candle and he opened his letter.
_Somewhere in France._
MY DEAR GODSON:
I have always been so frank with you that I feel I must make a
confession. I promised you in my last letter, the one I wrote just
before I left home, that I would not fall in love with anyone until
after the war, when you were to present yourself in Louisville and
we were to view each other for the first time. Dear Godson---- I
have not kept my word. They say a man falls in love with his nurse
often because of the feeling he has for his mother. She makes it
seem as though he were a little child again. I reckon a nurse falls
in love with her patient because he seems so like a little boy. She
loves him first because of the maternal instinct. Be that as it may,
I am in love with one of my patients. I tell you this fearing you
may be wounded and you may fall in the hands of a cap and apron, and
from a feeling of noblesse oblige you may not grasp the happiness
within your reach.
God bless you, my dear Godson!
Always,
YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER.
P. S.--He is an American.
A great tear rolled down the scarred cheek of the young soldier and
splashed on the signature. Then something happened that made him sit up
very straight in his cot and stretch out a shaking hand for the night
nurse. She was by his side in a moment.
"Look! Look! The ink is not dry yet. See where that tear dropped! Dry
ink would not float off like that!" He turned the sheet over. It was a
chart.
"But you--you--little Fairy Godmother! Who is he?"
"There is only one American in my ward."
"But you said your name was Grubb!"
"That's my official name. Mary Grubb was the girl whose place I got with
the Red Cross. Do you know, you hurt my feelings terribly when you said
my fist was rotten?"
And Stephen Scott, holding the little stained and roughened hand in his,
wondered that he ever could have made such a break.
"Thank God, you are just one girl, after all!" he cried.
But the night nurse wished that there were two of her for a while at
least: one to stay by the bedside of the convalescent American and one
to make out the charts that must be got ready for the morning rounds of
the surgeon in charge.