She seated herself comfortably and looked about the room. "You've got a
good day for your operation," she said. "It's a good, sunny day."
The woman's startled eyes sought her face. She had been living so alone
in the hours of the night, that it seemed strange to her that any one
should speak out loud of--"the operation."
Her lips half opened, to speak, and closed again.
Aunt Jane's glance rested on them and she smiled. "Dreading it?" she
asked.
The lips moistened themselves and smiled back. "A little," said the
woman.
Aunt Jane's face grew kinder and rounder and beamed on her; and the
woman's eyes rested on it.
"You never had one, did you?" said Aunt Jane.
The woman shook her head.
"I thought likely not. Folks don't generally dread things that they've
had--not so much as they do those they don't know anything about.... You
won't dread it next time!" She said the words with a slow, encouraging
smile.
The woman's face lighted. "I hope there won't be any next time," she
replied softly.
"More than likely not. Dr. Carmon does his work pretty thorough." Aunt
Jane made a little gesture of approval. "He does the best he knows
how.... You won't mind it a bit, I guess--not half so much as you mind
thinking about minding it."
"Do they carry me out?" asked the woman quickly. All the troubled lines
of her face relaxed as she asked the question.
It was the look Aunt Jane had been waiting for. The blessedness of
talking out was a therapeutic discovery all Aunt Jane's own.
Long before scientists had written of the value of spoken expression as
a curative method--long before "mental therapy" was fashionable--Aunt
Jane had come to know that "a good talk does folks a lot of good."
"Let them kind of spit it out," she said, "get it off the end of their
tongues 'most any way.... It seems to do them a world of good--and it
don't ever hurt me-- Seems to kind of slide off me."
She watched the light break in on the tense look, with a little smile,
and bent toward the bed.
"No, you don't have to be carried--not unless you want to. I guess
you're pretty good and strong; and you've got good courage. I can see
that."
"I'd rather walk," said the woman quickly.
"Yes, I know." Aunt Jane nodded. "I'll go with you--when the time comes.
We just go down the hall here a little way--to the elevator. The
operating-room's on the top floor-- It's a nice, sunny, big room. And
you'll have the ether in the room next to it. There's a lounge there for
you to lie on and a nice comfortable chair for me."
"Shall you go with me?" It was a quick word.
"Yes, I'm going up with you. I go, a good many times, with folks that
want me----"
"Yes, I want you."
The small face had grown relaxed; the eyes were clear and waiting. The
unbleached nightgown, with the bit of coarse edging at neck and wrists,
seemed a comely garment.
Something had taken place in Room 5, for which scientists have not yet
found a name. At ten o'clock Dr. Carmon would perform his difficult
operation on the frail body of Mrs. John Pelton. But the spirit that
would go under the knife was the spirit of Aunt Jane, smiling and
saying placidly:
"There, he's just come. That's his car tooting out here. Now we're ready
to go."