ANOTHER week of night work, and then the sunniest of Sundays on the
shore of old Lake Michigan.
I noticed that Mary was in deep disgrace with my wife, who would hardly
speak to her, and I judged therefore that Mr. Will Axworthy had not been
brought to time.
I am not a venturesome boatman, and generally confine my aquatic outings
to the smaller lake, but that Saturday night there was not a breath of
wind, and the water was placidity personified, so I drifted in my small
skiff through the channel that connects the smaller with the larger body
of water. On the sandy point jutting out at the mouth, upon an old
stump, sat a solitary maiden, the picture of woe.
"Hello, Mary!" said I, ignoring the tears; "want to go for a boat ride?"
"I don't care if I do," she replied, seating herself in the stern, which
I turned toward her.
Silently I pulled out into the big lake, where the copper-colored sun
going down in a haze near the horizon bade us beware of a hot day on the
morrow. Out of the lake to the right rose the full moon, failing as yet
to make her gentle influence felt against the radiant glow the sun was
leaving behind him.
"So Axworthy's gone back on you, Mary?"
The fountains played again.
"Yes; and it aint the first time I've got left, neither."
With Mrs. Mason, the Ferguson Family, Lincoln Todd, and young Flaker on
the tablets of my mind, I could truthfully assent to that remark.
"Still, it may be just the making of you in the long run."
"I'm not breakin' my heart over Will Axworthy; didn't care nothing 'tall
'bout him, on'y I'd got used havin' him round, and I'd have married him
if he asked me. I think a sight more of his cousin."
"The boy we saw at the Fair?"
"Yes. He's written me a lovely letter. Would you mind reading it aloud
to me? Some of the big words I couldn't make out, and neither could
Margaret. I wrote him all myself!"
Never before had it fallen to my lot to play father confessor to a lady
in love difficulties, but the editorial mind is equal to any emergency,
so I let my oars slide and adjusted my reading-glasses to peruse Mary's
precious epistle.
When I had read on to the signature. "Your devoted lover 'Tom,'" Mary's
face was radiant.
"Aint he smart? You know he was at the Fair, reporting for a newspaper."
"That explains his glibness. Don't have anything to do with him, Mary.
He's just trying to draw you on. The burnt dog should dread the fire."
"But he admires me, don't he?"
"He says so, but he is much more anxious that you should admire him.
Why, it's part of his business to keep his hand in by being in love, or
rather by having some silly little fool of a girl in love with him.
You'll just get left again if you encourage this young scamp."
April showers once more.
"I think the best thing I can do is to jump overboard here into Lake
Michigan. It don't seem to me I'm wanted anywheres."
"That might do very well, but you're too good a swimmer to drown
easily, and you'd catch on to my boat and upset me. I can't swim a
stroke, and there'd be five--six young Gemmells and a widow and a mother
cast upon the world. No, we'll have to think of something better than
that."
Mary's laughter was always quick an the heels of her tears.
"What do you think I'm good for, anyhow?"
"I can testify that you're not a success as a housekeeper."
"Nor a nursemaid."
"And as a lady's companion you're not all that could be desired, even if
there were a demand for the article in West Michigan."
"As a gentleman's companion I am all right," and the girl showed her
perfect teeth in a smile.
"It's no joking matter, Mary. You're not very happy in our house, and
things will be worse for you next winter, with no Will Axworthy coming
to see you, and no engagement to him in prospect. What do you think
yourself that you're fit for--putting reciting and cornet playing out of
the question?"
The young lady rested her chin on the palm of her hand and composed her
face into a bewitching expression of profound meditation.
"I can't teach, and I can't sew, and I can't cook. I couldn't bear
sitting still all day at a typewriter, and there's no room in the
telephone office. You know quite well that there aint a thing for girls
like me to do but to get married. That's why God made us pretty, so's
we'd have a good chance."
"Don't be flippant, miss. How do you think you'd like to be an hospital
nurse?"
"I dunno; I wouldn't mind trying. I'm generally good to folks--when
they're sick--and I aint a bit scared of dirty nor of dead ones. I laid
out an old woman that died in the Refuge."
"You're not particularly thin-skinned, that's a fact; but it's the
educational qualification I'd be afraid of. There's some sort of an
examination to be passed before you can get into any of these Training
Schools nowadays. I'll write for some forms of application, and we'll
see. If once you were able to support yourself, you'd think very
differently about marrying anybody that turned up, just for the sake of
a home. Ours mayn't be much of a one for you, but marry to get out of
it, and you'll perhaps find yourself out of the frying-pan into the
fire."
"I think it would be just lovely to be a nurse! There was one came down
from Chicago when Mrs. Wade was sick, and the uniform was awfully
pretty. I'm sure it would suit me."
"It would be very becoming, I haven't any doubt of that; and when it's
all settled that you are going to an hospital you can write in reply to
Will Axworthy's last letter."
"He wanted me to keep on writing to him just the same; said he'd like
always to be good friends with me."
"I wouldn't write him but once again, and do it all by yourself. Just
say that the reason you wrote the other letter, asking how you stood
with him, was that you had been thinking of leaving us altogether, but
before taking the decided step of entering an hospital, you had thought
it only fair to him to give him the chance to object, if he really had
the objections he had led you to take for granted."
We heard a shouting and a blowing of tin horns upon the beach at this
juncture. I took the oars and pulled in, seeing Belle and the boys
waving their hats in the bright moonlight. My wife's face expressed the
blankest astonishment when she saw who was my shipmate.
"We thought you must have fallen asleep out there. Didn't know you had
company!"
Mary was still in the black books when I came down the next Saturday.
Belle had a bitter complaint.
"She sat there the whole afternoon yesterday and part of the evening,
writing and rewriting a letter before my very eyes. 'Are you replying to
Will Axworthy?' I asked quite cordially, for I did want to have a hand
in answering that letter--had some cutting sentences all ready for him.
'Yes, mawm,' said she very shortly; 'but I guess I can manage to get
along by myself.'"
I did not dare own up to the advice I had given, but I saw that matters
must be hastened. Having business in Chicago about that time, I visited
almost every hospital in the city, telling Mary's story in my most
dramatic newspaper style. I made it understood that it was very noble
and self-sacrificing of the young woman, when she might live in the lap
of luxury,--for thus did I unblushingly describe my own modest
establishment,--to embrace a nurse's vocation and labor for the good of
humanity, including herself, of course. The education--or the lack of
it--was the drawback everywhere, and also the youth of the applicant,
twenty-five being a more acceptable age than barely twenty-one.
But my perseverance was at last rewarded by finding the superintendent
of a training school who still had some imagination left, and who became
deeply interested in Mary's "tale of woe."
"Make her study her reading, spelling, and arithmetic as hard as she
can for the next few months, and I'll get her in the very first
opening."
The prospect roused Belle's old-time vigor, and she had spelling matches
for Mary's benefit, made the girl read aloud to her, gave her dictation
to write, and heard her the multiplication tables every forenoon--when
she did not forget.
One delightful morning in October I had the honor of taking our
_protégée_ into Chicago and delivering her up to the lady
superintendent. If she could only stand the month of probation, we
flattered ourselves that she would be safe.
Three weeks later I met the Rev. Mr. Armstrong on the street.
"I think it is only right to tell you what people are saying," said he.
"It's my business to know," I replied.
"I mean about your adopted daughter. I have just been told by two
reputable parties, one after the other, that she has been dismissed from
the hospital for flirting, and that you and Mrs. Gemmell are hushing the
matter up as well as you can, but that you don't know at all where she
is."
When I reached home my first question was:
"Have you heard from Mary lately, Belle?"
"Not for a week, and I'm quite worried about her. Before that, she wrote
to me dutifully every two or three days, telling me all about her work.
I've kept on writing to her just the same, making excuses for her to
herself, and never doubting her for a minute; but to tell you the truth,
Dave, I'm getting dreadfully anxious."
Then I told her what I had heard.
"Don't you believe it, David! I never shall till I hear it from
herself. I know now for a certainty that I love that girl! I'll believe
her before all the world! I'll stick by her through thick and thin! I'll
not insult her by writing to the Hospital! What now matters the little
inconveniences of living with her? What have a few clothes and toilet
articles, more or less, to do with it? If she has failed, she shall come
_home_, and we'll begin the three years' fight all over again. I'll sit
down now and write her the nicest letter I can write."
That sounded very brave, but inwardly I knew that my wife suffered
agonies the next few days.
"Perhaps if I had done this," she would say, "or if I had done that--it
seems precisely like a death, and I've killed her."
Tuesday morning, two letters came from Mary. They were hurriedly and
excitedly written.
"My dear good mother, I am accepted! It is the happiest day of my life;
it will be a red letter day for you! I love you. I have tried so hard
for your sake; I have tried to make my life hear one long prayer and the
dear Lord helps me. I did not write because the exam. was delaid, and I
wanted to wait untill I had something _good_ to tell you. I look nice in
the unniform. It is pink and a white cap, apron and cuffs. Oh I am so
contented; this work is so filling. I never get lonely or homesick. _We_
nurses had a party, and we danced and served ice cream, and there was
some lovely doctors here, and the Princippal is so kind to us we have
lots of fun"--and so the letters ran on.
* * * * *
The reaction was too much for Belle. She cried, then she laughed, then
she fell on her knees and thanked God, and she told me she added that,
for pity's sake, He _must_ set His angels to guard Mary, for she was a
poor, frail child, who had got lost in coming this time, and many
persecuted her because she was pretty, and might find a resting place
and get a little of what rightfully (?) belonged to them.
After a while she went down to see Mr. Armstrong, and read him the
letters. He turned very white.
"Oh, the pity of it!" said he.
"I wish I could gather her slanderers into one room and read them these
letters," said Belle.
For days afterward she button-holed people in the street to tell them
about Mary, or to read them scraps of her letters. If they had said she
was vain and idle, and selfish and incompetent, just like the half of
their own daughters, Belle could have forgiven them. It was their
determination to shove her into the gutter which made my wife her
valiant champion.
"Whatever that girl amounts to, Dave, will be born of our faith in her,
and we must never go back on her. She writes me that whenever she has a
hard task, such as attending fits, there I stand at her back and help."
"Just between ourselves, though, you must confess that it is a great
relief to have her away."
"You can't begin to feel that as I do. I live again! I read my own
books, think my own thoughts. I belong to myself. No one says, 'What's
the matter?' 'Where are you going?' 'What makes you grave--or gay?' I
sit and chat with my 'odd-fish.' I go to all kinds of meetings and
discuss all kinds of 'isms, and have no tag-tail constantly asking
'Why?' 'Why?' or 'Tell me!' It's the little things that grind. The next
time I try to help a young girl, I'll not risk losing my influence with
her by taking her into my house. Do you know, Dave, I sometimes feel
that Mary must have been my own child in a previous incarnation, and I
neglected and abused her; that's why she was thrust back upon me this
time, whether I liked it or not."
After Christmas Isabel decided that she must go up to Chicago to see
Mary, and on her return thrilling was the account she gave of her
experiences, which included an attendance at an autopsy--but upon that I
shall not enlarge.
Introducing herself to the Superintendent of the School, she said:
"Can I have Miss Gemmell for two days at my hotel?"
"Indeed, no, madam. We are short of help, and it would be entirely
against the rules."
"Then I'll stay here with her."
The Lady Superintendent looked distressed.
"Don't think us inhospitable, but there is absolutely no provision for
guests in all this great building."
"Oh!" said Belle, unabashed. "I seem to be unfortunate in breaking, or
wanting to break, the rules of this house. Now, will you kindly tell me
what I can do? How can I see the very most of my Mary while I am in
Chicago?"
After some thought the answer came:
"You may have Miss Gemmell to-morrow afternoon, and two hours on
Sunday."
"That will not suit me at all! Now, please forget all that has been
said, and I will tell you that I Mrs. David Gemmell of Lake City,
Michigan, am a poor tired woman, threatened with nervous prostration,
have already chills of apprehension running down my back, coupled with
flushes of expectation to my head." By this time Mary, the Lady
Superintendent, and two other nurses present were all attention, and
Belle added gravely:
"I want one of your best private rooms on Corridor B, where Miss Gemmell
is on duty, and I should like to see the House Surgeon at once."
So Belle was comfortably and luxuriously established in the hospital,
and the only drawback was that she had to be served with her meals in
her room.
"What feasts we had--Mary and I," she said. "What fun! Before I left I
had demoralized that whole hospital staff, and broken every rule in the
institution. It did them all good."
"I hope you haven't been indiscreet," said I.
"Indiscreet?"
"You must remember that Mary braced herself up to go to the hospital
when she was 'out' with you. Now you've gone and made so much of her
that she'll think, whenever things become too hot for her, she has only
to march straight back here again."
"She assures me she _will_ graduate."
"There should never be any question of that."
"David, I've only told you the one side. If that girl were my very own I
should pluck her out of that particular fire. I'd get down on my knees
and beg her pardon for having thrown her into it. It burns up their
youth, their bloom, their originality, their modesty. It thrusts the
girls into a charnel house of sin, sickness, and death. It shatters the
nervous system of nine out of ten, or it leaves them calm, steady,
burnt-out women, who have been behind the scenes of life and are
disillusioned. When that little pink and white thing sat there and told
me of some of the awful situations that she'd been placed in, and over
which she was made responsible, the tears rolled down my face. I forgave
her lots of things."
"Plenty of refined, educated women with a very different bringing up
from Mary's go through the same."
"Well, I advised her to go on and finish the course, if only to show her
friends, and enemies, the stuff she's made of. When I think of those
free wards, and the menial, disgusting offices that frail little girl
has to perform! What did she sow that she should reap this fighting in
the thickest of the fight, so poorly equipped?"
"I dare say there are alleviations."
"Oh, yes! She flirts--says she'd die if she didn't--with every man in
the place, from the elevator boy to the head doctor, and, really, I
excused her. The head nurse in Mary's ward is very harsh with her, but
I let her and everyone in the place understand that Miss Gemmell is no
stray waif without influence to back her. Every day I send out
thought-waves--hypnotism--whatever you like to call it--to compel that
Dean woman to think of something else than the making of trained nurses,
and physical wrecks at the same time. People are greater than
institutions."
"The discipline will be the making of Mary."