JOHN DEAN FINDS A “FRIEND”
The next half hour was an anxious one. Then Helen appeared. Dean liked
her looks. Things were explained to her. She did not become hysterical,
but gave her attention and thoughts to the comfort of her mother.
“There is nothing to worry over, mother. Ted will soon be well and as
for the things that are burned, at least we are insured. Think of the
many people who could not afford insurance, they are in a much worse
plight than we are.” She certainly was a brave soul, Dean thought.
Dr. Herrick came in a little later. He smiled reassuringly. Turning to
Mrs. Marsh he said:
“There is a little boy in Room 30 that wants to see his mother. Second
door, main hall, to the right. Miss Wells just came. She has a very
busy night before her, don’t you think, Mrs. Marsh?”
“Bless her kind heart! That is just like her,” Mrs. Marsh exclaimed
fervently. “She is an angel, Mr. Dean. A friend of every poor child and
mother in the district. She is a real lady, too; not like the kind of
folks that live on our street, you know--but you have no idea the good
she does nor the comfort she gives.”
The doctor had motioned the cattleman to go with Mrs. Marsh and Helen,
and as they entered Room 30, Mrs. Marsh ran quickly to the side of the
small white bed where the brave little patient lay. For an instant
Ted’s eyes fluttered open, and then shut. A look of contentment passed
over his pain-drawn face.
Facing the window, speaking in a low, soft voice to the nurse,
Dean noticed the young woman Dr. Herrick said would be there. “The
settlement worker,” he said to himself. Then, as the girl turned in the
full light of the window, a gasp of astonishment escaped him.
“Amy Wells! So you are the Miss Wells? Oh, Amy! Amy! I might have
known--” but what John Dean might have known was not said just then,
for the young woman, equally as surprised as he, held up a warning
finger and quickly led him out into the broad hall.
Now what was said between them matters but little, but the poor
people who lived on Ted’s street afterwards told how a fabulously
rich cattleman spent half the night helping Miss Wells find homes for
all those who were made homeless by the fire that destroyed the big
tenement house. They exaggerated and repeated the stories so often
that had big-hearted John Dean heard but half of them, he would have
reddened with embarrassment. Nevertheless, it was true that many of the
poor families had their empty pocket books replenished that night by
the generous stranger.
A week later, more news spread up and down the street, to the effect
that Miss Wells, too, had once lived in the West, where she and John
Dean had been the very, very best of friends, but somehow they became
not-friends, and now they were reconciled, and Miss Wells was going
to leave them all and go back with John Dean to a wonderful new home.
But the news brought much unhappiness to the mothers on that street,
and many a little group stood in the hot, dirty stairways and told how
the pretty settlement worker, whom they all loved, had saved their
babies when they were expected to die, and had watched over their sick
children night after night when the heated city gave no relief to the
fever patients.
And Ted Marsh, to whom the news had slipped in, was unhappiest of all.
“Aren’t we ever going to see Mister Dean and Miss Wells any more after
they leave, mother?” Ted asked the seventh afternoon as he lay in the
hospital. Mrs. Marsh did not speak for a minute. Finally, evading his
question, she answered:
“They will be here to see you this afternoon.” And then, as she heard
footsteps in the hall, “There they are now.”
But the visitor proved to be Dr. Herrick. Walking over to where Ted was
sitting up in bed, he began to examine him thoroughly, after which he
stood back and surveyed him with a good-natured smile.
“Well, lad, you have pulled through pretty well. Hair a little singed,
but that will grow out--hands healing nicely, and lungs in good shape.
I tell you, boy, you are fortunate. A few weeks out in the country
would be all that could be asked to make you sound as a bell.”
“Is that all that is required, Doctor?” asked Mr. Dean, for he and
Miss Wells had stepped into the room, just in time to hear the last
sentence. “Don’t you think I owe Ted a few weeks in the country for
finding Miss Wells for me again, when I hadn’t seen or heard from her
for five years? Ted, you are a regular little mascot.”
At the word “mascot” a sudden idea seized John Dean. Drawing Amy Wells
aside, he began speaking rapidly in a low voice. What he had to say
evidently pleased her very much, but a look of doubt caused her to knit
her pretty eyebrows. Mr. Dean, too, looked more sober, but he turned
and came directly to Mrs. Marsh.
“Mrs. Marsh,” he began without preliminaries, “Ted, here, must go west
with Amy and me. He has the kind of stuff in him that goes to make a
man, and we can’t get too much stock of that sort out in our part of
the country. You owe it to him--we all owe it to him--to get him out of
the life he must face if he goes back to the street and his news-stand.
He needs opportunity, and a chance to live in a place where he can fill
both lungs with clean, fresh, health-giving air. He can’t get it in the
city; he can on the ranch, and I’ll see to it that he gets the best
education that money can obtain. Ted is our mascot. Amy and I can’t
leave him here.”
Ted listened, open-mouthed, to all that was said that afternoon, for
John Dean’s speech brought forth a long and earnest discussion in Room
30. Little Mrs. Marsh’s protests became fainter and fainter, until
finally she reluctantly gave her consent, realizing it was a great
opportunity for Ted.
It was Helen who had really convinced Mrs. Marsh when she said: “We
must let Ted have his chance, mother. We must not be selfish.”
A few days later found Ted Marsh standing, bright eyed, on the
observation platform of a Pullman, watching the country roll behind
him.