Would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the
30th of April--which is May Eve, as everybody knows?
This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the
story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the
tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one
of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year--reason
enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point
out to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint
Margaret's, found the flower-seller at the corner of the street that
morning with his basket full of primroses. Now primroses are "gentle
flowers," as everybody ought to know--which means that the faeries have
been using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret
MacLean bought the full of her hands that morning.
And this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret's--which fell
on the 30th of April--and to the beginning of the story.
Saint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children does not belong to the
city. It was built by a rich man as a memorial to his son, a little
crippled lad who stayed just long enough to leave behind as a legacy
for his father a great crying hunger to minister to all little ailing
and crippled bodies. There are golden tales concerning those first
years of the hospital--tales passed on by word of mouth alone and so
old as to have gathered a bit of the misty glow of illusion that hangs
over all myths and traditions. They made of Saint Margaret's an
arcadian refuge, where the Founder wandered all day and every day like
a patron saint. Tradition endowed him with all the attributes of all
saints belonging to childhood: the protectiveness of Saint Christopher,
the tenderness of Saint Anthony, the loving comradeship of Saint
Valentine, and the joyfulness of Saint Nicholas.
But that was more than fifty years ago; and institutions can change
marvelously in half a century. Time had buried more than the Founder.
The rich still support Saint Margaret's. Society gives bazars and
costumed balls for it annually; great artists give benefit concerts;
bankers, corporation presidents, and heiresses send liberal checks once
a year--and from this last group are chosen the trustees. They have
made of Saint Margaret's the best-appointed hospital in the city. It
is supplied with everything money and power can obtain; leading
surgeons are listed on its staff; its nurses rank at the head. It has
outspanned the greatest dream of the Founder--professionally. And
twelve times a year--at the end of every month--the trustees hold their
day; which means that all through the late afternoon, until the
business meeting at five-thirty, they wander over the building.
Now it is the business of institutional directors to be thorough, and
the trustees of Saint Margaret's, previous to the 30th of April, never
forgot their business. They looked into corners and behind doors to
see what had not been done; they followed the work-trails of every
employee--from old Cassie, the scrub-woman, to the Superintendent
herself; and if one was a wise employee one blazed conspicuously and
often. They gathered in little groups and discussed methods for
conservation and greater efficiency, being as up to date in their
charities as in everything else. Also, they brought guests and showed
them about; for when one was rich and had put one's money into
collections of sick and crippled children instead of old ivories and
first editions, it did not at all mean that one had not retained the
same pride of exhibiting.
There are a few rare natures who make collections for the sheer love of
the objects they collect, and if they can be persuaded to show them off
at all it is always with so much tenderness and sympathy that even the
feelings of a delicately wrought Buddha could not be bruised. But
there were none of these natures numbered among the trustees of Saint
Margaret's. And because it was purely a matter of charity and pride
with them, and because they never had any time left over from being
thorough and business-like to spend on the children themselves, they
never failed to leave a shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day. The
contagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of
self-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward
and went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until
it reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation. There
was a reason for this--as Margaret MacLean put it once in paraphrase:
"Children come and children go, but we stay on for ever."
Trustee Day was an abiding memory only with the incurables; which meant
that twelve times a year--at the end of every month--Ward C cried
itself to sleep.
Spring could not have begun the day better. She is never the
spendthrift that summer is, but once in a while she plunges recklessly
into her treasure-store and scatters it broadcast. On this last day of
April she was prodigal with her sunshine; out countryward she garnished
every field and wood and hollow with her best. Everywhere were flowers
and pungent herby things in such abundance that even the city folk
could sense them afar off.
Little cajoling breezes scuttled around corners and down
thoroughfares, blowing good humor in and bad humor out. Birds of
passage--song-sparrows, tanagers, bluebirds, and orioles--even a pair
of cardinals--stopped wherever they could find a tree or bush from
which to pipe a friendly greeting. Yes, spring certainly could not
have begun the day better; it was as if everything had said to itself,
"We know this is a very special occasion and we must do our share in
making it fine."
So well did everything succeed that Margaret MacLean was up and out of
Saint Margaret's a full half-hour earlier than usual, her heart singing
antiphonally with the birds outside. Coatless, but capped and in her
gray uniform, she jumped the hospital steps, two at a time, and danced
the length of the street.
Now Margaret MacLean was small and slender, and there was nothing
grotesque in the dancing. It had become a natural means of expressing
the abundant life and joyousness she had felt ever since she had been
free of crutches and wheeled chairs; and an impartial stranger, had he
been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight
that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly
appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in
time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some
old tabby to settle himself and his basket.
"Oh!" she cried in dismay, for the flower-seller was wizened and
unsteady of foot, and she had sent him spinning about in a dizzy
fashion. She put out a steadying hand. "Oh . . . !" This time it was
in ecstasy; she had spied the primroses in the basket just as the
sunshine splashed over the edge of the corner building straight down
upon them. Margaret MacLean dropped to one knee and laid her cheek
against them. "The happy things--you can hear them laugh! I want
all--all I can carry." She looked up quizzically at the flower-seller.
"Now how did you ever happen to think of bringing these--to-day?"
A pair of watery old eyes twinkled, thereby becoming amazingly young in
an instant, and he wagged his head mysteriously while he raised a
significant finger. "Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther
bringin' anythin' else? But the rest that passes--or stops--will see
naught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'." And the
flower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.
"Perhaps not. There are the children--"
"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible
wise."
"I know--I know--but mine aren't. I'm going to take my children back
as many as I can carry." She stretched both hands about a mass of
stems--all they could compass. "See"--she held up a giant bunch--"so
much happiness is worth a great deal. Feel in the pocket of my apron
and you will find--gold for gold. It was the only money I had in my
purse. Keep it all, please." With a nod and a smile she left him,
dancing her way back along the still deserted street.
"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all," chuckled the flower-seller as
he eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called
after the diminishing figure of the nurse: "Hey, there! Mind what ye
do wi' them blossoms. They be's powerful strong magic." And he
chuckled again.
The hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing
brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped
for an interchange of grins and greetings.
"Mornin', Miss Peggie."
"Morning, Patsy."
He was "Patrick" to the rest of Saint Margaret's; no one else seemed to
realize that he was only about one-fifth uniform and the other fifths
were boy--small boy at that.
She eyed his work critically. "That's right--polish them well, Patsy.
They must shine especially bright to-day."
"Why, what's happenin' to-day?"
"Oh--everything, and--nothing at all."
And she passed on through the door with a most mysterious smile,
thereby causing Patsy to mentally comment:
"My, don't she beat all! More'n half the time a feller don't know what
she's kiddin' about; but, gee! don't he like it!"
As it happened the primroses did not get as far as Ward C then.
Margaret MacLean found the door of the board-room ajar, and, glancing
in, looked square into the eyes of the Founder of Saint Margaret's,
where he hung in his great gold frame--silent and questioning.
"If all the tales they tell about you are true, you must wonder what
has happened to Saint Margaret's since you turned it over to a board of
trustees."
She went in and stood close to him, smiling wistfully. "Perhaps you
would like me to leave you the primroses until after the meeting--they
would be sure to cheer you up; and they might--they might--" Laughing,
she went over to the President's desk and put the flowers in the green
Devonshire bowl.
She was sitting in the President's chair, coaxing some of the hoydenish
blossoms into place, when the House Surgeon looked in a moment later.
"Hello! What are you doing? I thought you detested this room." He
spoke in a teasing, big-brother way, while his eyes dwelt pleasurably
on the small gray figure in the President's chair. For, be it said
without partiality or prejudice, Margaret MacLean was beautiful, with a
beauty altogether free from self-appraisement.
"I do--I hate it!" Then she wagged her head and raised a significant
finger in perfect imitation of the flower-seller. "I am dabbling
in--magic. I am starting here a terrible and insidious campaign
against gloom."
The House Surgeon looked amused. "You make me shiver, all right; but I
haven't the smallest guess coming. Would you mind putting it into
scientific American?"
"I'm afraid I couldn't. But I can make a plain statement in
prose--this is Trustee Day."
"Hell!" The House Surgeon walked over to the calendar on the desk to
verify the fact. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Margaret MacLean spread her hands over the primroses, indicatively. "I
told you--magic." She wrinkled up her forehead into a worrisome frown.
"Let me see; I counted them, up last night, and I have had two hundred
and twenty-eight Trustee Days in my life. I have tried about
everything else--philosophy, Christianity, optimism, mental sclerosis,
and missionary fever; but never magic. Don't you think it
sounds--hopeful?"
The House Surgeon laughed. "You are the funniest little person I ever
knew. On duty you're as old as Methuselah and as wise as Hippocrates,
but the rest of the time I believe your feet are eternally treading the
nap off antique wishing-carpets. I wonder how many you've worn out.
As for that head of yours, it bobs like a penny balloon among the
clouds looking for--"
"Faeries?" suggested Margaret MacLean.
"That just about hits it. Will you please tell me how you, of all
people, ever evolved these--ideas--out of Saint Margaret's?"
A grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across
the room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's--the portrait
of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a
person is born with absolutely nothing--nothing of the human things a
human baby is entitled to--she has to evolve something to live in; a
sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all
over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the
things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp--just
skin and feelings."
"And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?"
"Oh dear, no! But I keep believing it's going to be much better. Did
you ever think what it could be like--if the trustees would only make
it something more than--a matter of business? Why, it could be as good
as any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one;
and think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried.
Think--think--and, oh, the fun of it!"
She broke off with a little shivering ache. When the picture became so
alive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop. But
the next moment she was laughing merrily.
"Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with
the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to
myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It
began to sound so real that one day I answered--just as if some one had
said something pleasant."
"Well?" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.
"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those
lorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was
spoken to. I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them
into god-parents."
"Look here," and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a
firm, big-brother grip of her hands, "faery-tales have to have
stepmothers as well as godmothers--think of it that way. And remember
that those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches."
"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them. I want them to
be children--plain, happy, laughing children--with as normal a heritage
as we can scrape together for them. All it needs is the magic of a
little human understanding. That's the most potent magic in the whole
world. Why, it can do anything!"
A little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face. It always did
when she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something
very intensely. It was the hardest kind of a look to resist. She had
often threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it
was her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor
and meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one
could of a spiritual heritage and living thereby.
"And don't you see," she had urged, at least a score of times,
"if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds
run--free-limbed--over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures
would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor
bodies. And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is
learning to walk alone."
Usually the House Surgeon was easily convinced to the Margaret MacLean
side of any argument; but this time, for reasons of his own, he turned
an unsympathetic and stubborn ear. He was coming to believe very
strongly that all this fanciful optimism was so much laughing-gas, with
only a passing power, and when the effect wore off there would be the
Dickens to pay. He did not want to see Margaret MacLean turn into a
bitter-minded woman of the world--stripped of her trust and her dreams.
He--all of them--had need of her as she was. Her belief in the
ultimate good of things and persons, however, was beyond power of human
achievement; and the surest cure for disappointments was to amputate
all expectations. So the House Surgeon hardened his heart and became
as professionally severe as he knew how to be.
"It's absolutely impossible to expect a group of incurable children in
an institution to be made as normal and happy as other children. It
can't be done. Those kiddies are up against a pretty hard proposition,
I know; but the kindest thing you can do for them is to toughen them
into not feeling--"
The nurse in charge of Ward C wrenched away her hands fiercely.
"You're just like the Senior Surgeon. He thinks the whole dependent
world--the sick and the poor and the incompetent--have no business with
ideas or feelings of their own. He's always saying, 'Train it out of
them; train it out of them; and it will make it easier for institutions
to take care of them.' It's for ever the 'right of the strong' with
him. Unless you are able to take care of yourself you are not entitled
to the ordinary privileges of a human being."
"I'm not at all like the Senior Surgeon. I don't mean that, and you
know it. What I am trying to make you understand is that these kiddies
can't keep you always; some time they will have to learn to do without
you. When that happens it will come tough on them. It would come
tough on anybody; and the square thing for you to do is to stop
being--so all-fired adorable." The House Surgeon flung back his head
and marched out of the board-room, slamming the door.
Behind the slammed door Margaret MacLean eyed the primroses
suspiciously. "I wonder--is your magic working all right to-day?
Please--please don't weave any charms against him, little faery people.
He is the only other grown-up person who has ever understood the least
bit; and I couldn't bear to lose him, too."
For the second time that morning she nestled her cheek against the
blossoms. Then the clock on the hospital tower struck eight. She
jumped with a start. "Time to go on duty." Once again her eyes met
the eyes of the Founder and sparkled witchingly. She raised high the
green Devonshire bowl from the President's desk as for a toast.
"Here's to Saint Margaret's--as you founded her; and the children--as
you meant them to be; and here's to the one who first understood!" She
turned from the Founder to the portrait hanging opposite, and bowed
most worshipfully to the Old Senior Surgeon.