"GOD BLESS BRAVE, BONNY KATHLEEN CAREW!"
So silent! Yet it seems to me
That had you lived, and had I died,
My dead heart must have heard you call,
And, throbbing with new life, replied.
Doctor Beard was an enthusiast in his art, and his fine eyes shone with
eager interest as he realized the delicate and dangerous operation
that lay before him and his colleague, Doctor Miller. Both were
comparatively young, but they had attained eminence already, and if any
physician in Boston was capable of conducting this experiment, it was
one or both of these two.
They gazed anxiously into each other's eyes as they made their hasty
preparations. Would it fail, or would it succeed? Death was so near--so
perilously near! Would the rushing tide of life ever flow through those
numb veins again? Yes, if there were any efficacy in love and prayer;
for the stricken mother knelt, weeping and praying, by her boy's side,
and down-stairs, in the darkened parlor, Helen Fox, waiting in keen
suspense, lifted her heart in earnest petitions that God would spare
the young life trembling in the balance. Within the great house all was
trembling anxiety and suspense, while outside the wild March wind shook
the dead branches of the trees and drove the gusty rain against the
windows with a mournful patter, as though kindly Nature wept for the
bright young life going out into darkness.
When years had fled and gray hairs began to creep into their bonny
brown curls, Doctor Beard and Doctor Miller still loved to tell the
story of that day, and how it ended--of the patient who lay so close,
so awfully close to the portals of death that it did not seem possible
for human art to save him, and of the beautiful, brave young girl who
had prayed them on her knees to take the blood from her round, white
arm and infuse it into the patient's, giving him new life; how they had
hesitated to wound that tender, exquisite flesh, and how she had taken
the initiative, thrusting a jeweled pin from her hair into the blue
vein.
"I tell you it was _grand_!" cried Doctor Beard, with enthusiasm. "I
could hesitate no longer. I was longing to make the experiment from the
first moment the thought entered my head. So we asked the consent of
Miss Fox, the young girl's dearest friend, who had brought her there.
She was willing, and we tried it. Tried it, and--with the grandest
success."
"It was magical the way that the girl's fresh young blood put new life
into him," agreed Doctor Miller. "Why, I give you my word, I had _no_
faith in the operation. The fellow looked like a dead man. I could have
sworn he would never revive again, yet--it was magical, as I said just
now--when we had carefully bound up their arms, that brave, beautiful
girl leaned over him, looked into his face, and cried in accents of
piercing anguish:
"'Oh, Ralph, my darling, come back to Kathleen! You must not die!'"
"And you may believe me or not," said Doctor Beard, taking the thread
of the story again, "but the dead man opened his eyes and met her look.
The color began to come back to his ashen face. He smiled faintly,
whispered her name, 'Kathleen,' turned on his side, and slept calmly as
a weary child."
"That was the proudest moment of my life!" cried Doctor Miller. "God
bless brave, bonny Kathleen Carew!"