As Benjy neared his ranch home he saw that a dim light was burning
in his mother’s room. This confirmed his fears that the one he so
loved was really ill. Urging his steed to a gallop, he was soon
dismounting at the corral, where he left his pony. The front door
quietly opened and his brother appeared. He advanced with
outstretched hands.
“Hal,” the young lad said, with a sob, “is our mother ill?”
“I don’t know, Benny Boy,” was the reply. “Mother insists that she
is merely tired and that she is going to remain in bed until she is
rested, and you must pretend that you believe her. It will be hard
for you, fearfully hard, but it must be done. Come. Our mother has
been listening all day. Just now she called to me and said: ‘Son, go
quickly and open the door. My little boy has come home.’ She knows
that you are here and so we must not delay longer or she will think
it strange.”
Never before had the young lad been through so hard an ordeal. He
longed to put his arms about his big, strong brother and sob out his
dread and grief, but instead, he had to choke back his tears and
enter the dimly lighted room with a smile.
“Little Ben,” the woman on the bed called, with infinite love and
tenderness in her voice.
“Mother mine,” the lad replied as he sank on his knees and pressed
his cheek against hers. Tears would come but in the dim light they
were not seen and his voice sounded cheerful.
“Brother tells me that you are taking a week’s rest. I am so glad.
You have needed one for a long time and now Hal and I will show you
what fine daughters we would have been, if we hadn’t been sons.”
Harry, standing at the foot of the bed was proud of his brother.
Benjy had always been so loved and petted, (even he had given in to
the younger lad sometimes when he thought it might be unwise), that
he had feared Benjy might not be strong enough to rise to the
emergency, but he was doing so bravely. In a voice that sounded
natural to his mother, Benjy said: “I’m most starved, Mummie, I hope
your new cook can make pies and things as well as you can.”
The older boy had noted a sudden anxious expression on the dear
face, for the mother was reproaching herself for having remained in
bed when her little Ben was coming home, hungry.
“Indeed, I can,” Hal hastened to say: “You’ll find the larder filled
with the choicest viands.”
Kissing the pale cheek, Benjy left the room, turning at the door to
toss a kiss and send back a bright smile, but it was to his own room
that he went. Throwing himself down on the bed, he sobbed and
sobbed. There Hal found him ten minutes later. “I can’t live without
my mother,” the younger boy said, “I can’t! I can’t!”
Harry put a comforting arm about his brother. “May heaven grant that
we need not for many years to come.”
Then placing a hand on each shoulder, he looked straight into his
brother’s eyes. “Benny boy,” he said, “I’m counting on you. It’s
hard; well do I know how hard, but cheerful courage is all that our
father and mother must see. I have been waiting for your return. Now
I am going to ride to Red Riverton for a doctor. I will be back
tomorrow morning early, if all goes well.”
“Hal!” Benjy exclaimed, “you aren’t going to take that long hard
ride tonight. You know that it isn’t safe to go through Red River
mountain pass alone after dark.”
“Even so, there must not be another moment’s delay. I must go
tonight. I want you to keep your door open. If our mother stirs, go
to her.”
“I won’t try to sleep,” the younger boy replied. “I do not waken
easily. I’ll sit up all night.” Hal grasped his brother’s hand to
show his approval and then he was gone. It was the hardest night
that Benjy Wilson ever lived through, but in it he left his
heedless, selfish boyhood in which he had accepted all that his
mother had done for him, as due, and realized that he, too, must
share the burdens and responsibilities that came every day. When Hal
returned at the grey of the next dawn, one glance at his tired
brother assured him that his confidence in the younger boy had not
been misplaced. Then followed a long half hour filled with anxiety
of waiting while the kindly physician made a thorough examination of
the little woman so loved by these two boys.
“Where’s our father?” Benjy suddenly asked as he looked up from the
fire on the hearth at which he had been thoughtfully gazing since
the kindly physician had entered their mother’s room fifteen minutes
before.
“Father went to visit the North camp last week and he has not yet
returned,” Harry said. “I am glad, for he does not know that our
mother has given up trying to keep about. That of course would worry
him greatly. I hope that she will be much better before he returns.
Dad depends on mother so completely for his comfort and happiness
that I fear he would collapse if he knew the truth, as, of course he
must know it soon.”
Again they were silent and it was still another quarter of an hour
before the door opened. Both boys were on their feet at once eagerly
scanning the face of the physician. His cheerful smile was
encouraging.
“Lads,” he said as he placed a hand on the shoulder of each, “your
mother is not going to die. Mrs. Wilson has unwisely permitted a
condition to exist for a long time which should have been corrected
months ago. There are very few casualties resulting from the
operation which your mother must undergo.”
There was a sudden glad light in the face of the older lad.
“Doctor Warren,” he said, “the hope you are giving us is the
greatest joy that has ever come into my life.”
The elderly physician, gazing at the earnest faces, thought that he
had never met finer boys. Worthy sons of a brave, courageous little
mother.
“Now tell us what we are to do.” The load of dread that had been
crushing Harry’s heart having been lifted, the lad was eager to be
of active service.
“Your mother must remain in bed until we can build up her strength,”
the physician replied. “Perhaps for two weeks, and then we will take
her to the Red Riverton hospital and have the slight operation
performed, but, first of all I must procure a nurse.”
The physician put his hands in his pockets and turning, gazed
thoughtfully at the fire. “There is an epidemic in Red Riverton and
I do not like to engage a nurse from there to care for your mother.”
Then he glanced up at Hal. “Do you know of anyone near here who
would come?”
“I do,” was Benjy’s eager response. “Our good friend Winona will
come, I am sure she will, Doctor Warren. She just received a diploma
as a practical nurse from the Red Cross Hospital on the Hudson.”
“Fine!” the physician replied. “How soon can we have her here? Where
does she live?”
The reply brought a puzzled expression to the face of the doctor.
“An Indian maiden?” he said with a rising inflection. “I have heard
of the Papagoes and that they are a remnant of a very superior tribe
of red men, but I had not supposed that an Indian girl could possess
the qualities required for a nurse. Are you quite sure that it would
be wise to have her?”
Strange things happen, stranger than fiction. Before Hal could
reply, there was the sound of horses’ feet in the yard, and a moment
later a light rapping on the front door.
Hal sprang to open it, and there stood the maiden about whom they
had been talking, with little Red Feather at her side.
“Friend Harry,” she said. “Fleet Foot told me that your mother is
ill. I thought you might need me.”
The lad stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
“We do indeed need you,” he replied, his voice tense with emotion.
Then turning to the older man he added, “Doctor Warren, this is
Nurse Winona.”
The physician was deeply impressed with the quiet dignity of the
really beautiful Indian girl. Like all others, who knew her, the
good man at first could not have told why he thought her beautiful.
Before entering the house, the maid turned and said a few words in
the Papago tongue, then little Red Feather, without a word of
farewell, mounted his small horse and rode away.
Doctor Warren asked to be permitted to speak alone with the young
nurse, and the boys withdrew to prepare a lunch for both the
newcomer and the physician who had a long and hard ride ahead of
him.
After asking about the training which Winona had received at the Red
Cross Hospital, Doctor Warren said:
“Your remuneration will be the same that would be given a nurse from
Red Riverton.”
Then it was that the older man knew why the Indian girl was
beautiful. “It is a service of friendship that I came to offer,” she
quietly replied. “Will you tell me what I am to do?”
An hour later the physician left feeling sure that his directions
would be carried out to the letter. He had learned that an Indian
maiden could not only be a sincere friend but also an intelligent
nurse.
Before Doctor Warren departed he asked Harry to accompany him to the
corral. As they walked together, the physician said: “From the
conversation I have had with your nurse, I believe her to be very
capable, and luckily, just before she left the East, she had the
care of a little woman whose condition was the same as your mother’s
and so we will trust her to use her own judgment whenever she wishes
to do so.”
Mrs. Wilson who had supposed that she had not much longer to be with
the little family she so loved, was overjoyed when she realized that
she would soon be strong again.
She was lying in the darkened room when Harry entered a few moments
after the doctor’s departure. At his side she saw someone dressed in
blue with white cap and apron. She was too weak to wonder from where
the apparition had come, and so she accepted Winona’s presence as a
matter of course believing that she had accompanied the doctor from
Red Riverton. Harry merely said, “Mother, this is your nurse.”
The little woman held out a frail hand and smiled wanly, then she
closed her eyes and rested. She was conscious all that day that she
was being tenderly cared for, and, toward evening when Benjy knelt
at her side, in answer to her anxious query, he told his mother that
the new nurse was also a fine cook. Mrs. Wilson who had wished that
she was up that she might prepare the good things her younger son so
liked, felt a sense of relief that did much toward restoring her
needed strength.
Never once in the two weeks that followed did the little woman
suspect that the slender dark-eyed girl who cared for her was the
Indian maiden of whom she had heard. Winona, with her black hair
coiled under her nurse’s cap in her blue and white gown might easily
have been taken for a French girl.
Harry, wishing his mother to learn to love Winona without prejudice
had asked Benjy to address her merely as “Nurse.”
At the end of a fortnight, Mrs. Wilson was strong enough to sit up.
When Harry believed that his presence was no longer needed at home,
he rode to the northern camp to tell his father what had happened.
He was greatly relieved because he could now honestly say that all
would be well.
This was not hard for the older man to believe, for on their return
they found the little mother seated in the living room and beaming a
welcome when they opened the front door. From that day, she rapidly
regained her strength, and, at the end of the fortnight, she was
driven in a big comfortable car to Red Riverton. It was on that ride
that Mrs. Wilson made a discovery which pleased her greatly. It was
that her son, Harry, really cared for the girl who had nursed her so
tenderly. How she knew this she could not have told, perhaps it was
just a mother’s intuition.
Another two weeks passed and the happy family was once more gathered
in the ranch home. Mrs. Wilson was soon strong enough to walk about
the house, and, the long weeks of anxiety having ended, the members
of the household again went about their tasks in a natural manner.
Benjy returned with his father to the North Camp and Harry asked
Winona if she would like to ride with him to inspect a water-hole
not far away. Mrs. Wilson had urged her to go, saying that for an
hour she could get along nicely alone. It was during that hour that
she learned the real identity of her nurse.