“Lois, are you in love with Doctor Squires?” She burst out laughing.
“I’m in love with everybody and everything. Here, lie back there.”
I was to sit up in bed that afternoon, and the following day in a chair.
I had been ill two weeks.
“Now,” said Lois, “I have to go down town on some business, and I’ll be
gone two hours. If you want anything just knock on the wall with this,”
giving me a brush, “and Billy Boyd in the next room will come in, and if
it’s something he can’t do himself, he’ll call Miss Darling.”
She kissed me, and, looking fresh and radiant, she went out.
Billy Boyd roomed with a friend in the next room to Lois. His room-mate
was a clerk in a department store, and Billy was a cable operator. He
worked at night. Reggie would have called these boys “common Yankees.” I
knew how much better, and in every way superior, they were to Reggie,
whose grandfather was a Duke of something or other. These boys would run
errands for Lois if she knocked on their wall for help, and when I was
most sick and helpless Billy even came in and helped Lois when it was
necessary to lift me. Lois treated them as if they were girls, and they
treated her as if she was a boy. It was a revelation to me, as in
Canada, as in Europe, the simple friendship between men and women is not
known as in the United States.
Then there was big Tim O’Leary. He was a bartender in a near-by hotel.
He had a room in the basement of what had once been the dining-room. He
used to knock at the door and ask in his big voice, which sounded for
all the world like a foghorn:
“How’s the little Canadian girl?”
He would send the waiters from the hotel where he worked over with all
sorts of stuff that a sick person was not allowed to eat, big platters
of lobster salads, chicken salads, club sandwiches, wine and beer. Lois
told him I could only have a little broth, and then Tim sent over a big
pitcher of rich soup. Lois tasted it, and then fed a spoonful of it to
the doctor, and they both laughed. Then she went to the boys’ room and
knocked, and they were glad to get the good stuff.
Tim was a man of immense stature, and he would tell us all kinds of
stories of his experiences when he was a coalheaver in New York and the
fights he got into, and the times he was arrested, and always got off
with a light fine. Dr. Squires called him a “rough diamond,” and,
much-sought-after society man as Doctor Squires was, he liked to go off
with Tim O’Leary and have a drink and “chin” together. I did admire the
doctor for that, and I remembered how Reggie had been ashamed and angry
with me because I had spoken to the conductor on the train, who had been
an old schoolmate of mine.
There was a knock at the door, and I called “Come in.” The door was
cautiously and softly opened, and Tim thrust in an inquiring face.
“How’s yourself?” he inquired in a big whisper.
“I’m very well, thank you, Mr. O’Leary,” I said.
“And Miss Barret, how’s herself?”
“Oh, she’s well, too. She had to go out for a couple of hours.”
“Sure then I’ll stay and take care of you mesilf,” said Tim. “I’m dead
tired. Standing behind a bar is hard on the feet; so if you don’t mind,
I’ll be taking off my shoes and stretch mesilf out on the couch for a
rest.”
I assured him I would be very glad to have him do it. The big man
worked sometimes ten and twelve hours at a stretch, and it was so quiet
and peaceful in this room, I felt the rest would do him good, just as it
was doing me.