THE MIRACLE
I
Big Mary was sweeping the ward with a broom muffled in a white bag.In the breeze from the open windows, her blue calico wrapperballooned about her and made ludicrous her frantic thrusts after thebits of fluff that formed eddies under the beds and danced in thespring air.
She finished her sweeping, and, with the joyous scraps captured inher dust-pan, stood in the doorway, critically surveying the ward.It was brilliantly clean and festive; on either side a row of beds,fresh white for the day; on the centre table a vase of Easterlilies, and on the record-table near the door a potted hyacinth. TheNurse herself wore a bunch of violets tucked in her apron-band. Oneof the patients had seen the Junior Medical give them to her. TheEastern sun, shining across the beds, made below them, on thepolished floor, black islands of shadow in a gleaming sea of light.
And scattered here and there, rocking in chairs or standing atwindows, enjoying the Sunday respite from sewing or thebandage-machine, women, grotesque and distorted of figure, inattitudes of weariness and expectancy, with patient eyes awaitedtheir crucifixion. Behind them, in the beds, a dozen perhaps who hadcome up from death and held the miracle in their arms.
The miracles were small and red, and inclined to feeble andineffectual wrigglings. Fists were thrust in the air and broughtdown on smiling, pale mother faces. With tight-closed eyes and openmouths, each miracle squirmed and nuzzled until the mother wouldlook with pleading eyes at the Nurse. And the Nurse would looksevere and say:
"Good gracious, Annie Petowski, surely you don't want to feed thatinfant again! Do you want the child to have a dilated stomach?"
Fear of that horrible and mysterious condition, a dilated stomach,would restrain Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamarafor a time. With the wisdom of the serpent, she would give the childher finger to suck--a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the lastweek that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would takehold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort.Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiethospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then AnniePetowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch theNurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit fromthe ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, closeto Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstaticgurglings--and peace.
In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at therecord-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, ofclean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hoursfor the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodicsearches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast,decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne,too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to thekitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes.
But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Hercrown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and herblue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apronand sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in fora moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman,to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she hadappeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds andput hot-water bottles in it.
The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was"on." Excursions down the corridor by one or another of theblue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news:
"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones,the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "Thedoctor with the red mustache has come"--by which it was known thatthings were going badly, the staff man having been summoned.
Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward,denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usuallyregarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the otherwomen. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young womanwho played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterwardwent from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanyingherself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young womanseated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, andafterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray oflilies-of-the-valley on each bedside stand.
She was escorted around the ward by Elizabeth Miller, known as "Liz"in Our Alley, and rechristened Elizabeth by the Nurse. Elizabethalways read the tracts. She had been there four times, and knew allthe nurses and nearly all the doctors. "Liz" had been known, in ashortage of nurses, to be called into the mysterious room down thehall to assist; and on those occasions, in an all-enveloping whitegown over her wrapper, with her hair under a cap, she outranked thequeen herself in regalness and authority.
The lame mandolin-player stopped at the foot of the empty bed."Shall I put one here?" she asked, fingering a tract.
Liz meditated majestically.
"Well, I guess I would," she said. "Not that it'll do any good."
"Why?"
Liz jerked her head toward the corridor.
"She's not getting on very well," she said; "and, even if she getsthrough, she won't read the tract. She held her fingers in her earslast Sunday while the Bible-reader was here. She's young. Says shehopes she and the kid'll both die."
The mandolin-player was not unversed in the psychology of the ward.
"Then she--isn't married?" she asked, and because she was young, sheflushed painfully.
Liz stared at her, and a faint light of amusement dawned in hereyes.
"Well, no," she admitted; "I guess that's what's worrying her. She'sa fool, she is. She can put the kid in a home. That's what I do.Suppose she married the fellow that got her into trouble? Wouldn'the be always throwing it up to her?"
The mandolin-player looked at Liz, puzzled at this new philosophyof life.
"Have--have you a baby here?" she asked timidly.
"Have I!" said Liz, and, wheeling, led the way to her bed. Sheturned the blanket down with a practised hand, revealing a tiny redatom, so like the others that only mother love could havedistinguished it.
"This is mine," she said airily. "Funny little mutt, isn't he?"
The mandolin-player gazed diffidently at the child.
"He--he's very little," she said.
"Little!" said Liz. "He holds the record here for the last sixmonths--eleven pounds three ounces in his skin, when he arrived. Thelittle devil!"
She put the blanket tenderly back over the little devil's sleepingform. The mandolin-player cast about desperately for the right thingto say.
"Does--does he look like his father?" she asked timidly. Butapparently Liz did not hear. She had moved down the ward. Themandolin-player heard only a snicker from Annie Petowski's bed, and,vaguely uncomfortable, she moved toward the door.
Liz was turning down the cover of the empty bed, and the Nurse, withtired but shining eyes, was wheeling in the operating table.
The mandolin-player stepped aside to let the table pass. From theblankets she had a glimpse of a young face, bloodless and wan--ofhurt, defiant blue eyes. She had never before seen life so naked, sorelentless. She shrank back against the wall, a little sick. Thenshe gathered up her tracts and her mandolin, and limped down thehall.
The door of the mysterious room was open, and from it came a shrill,high wail, a rising and falling note of distress--the voice of a newsoul in protest. She went past with averted face.
Back in the ward Liz leaned over the table and, picking the girl upbodily, deposited her tenderly in the warm bed. Then she stood backand smiled down at her, with her hands on her hips.
"Well," she said kindly, "it's over, and here you are! But it's nopicnic, is it?"
The girl on the bed turned her head away. The coarsening of herfeatures in the last month or two had changed to an almost bloodlessrefinement. With her bright hair, she looked as if she had beenthrough the furnace of pain and had come out pure gold. But her eyeswere hard.
"Go away,"
she said petulantly.
Liz leaned down and pulled the blanket over her shoulders.
"You sleep now," she said soothingly. "When you wake up you can havea cup of tea."
The girl threw the cover off and looked up despairingly into Liz'sface.
"I don't want to sleep," she said. "My God, Liz, it's going to liveand so am I!"
II
Now, the Nurse had been up all night, and at noon, after she hadoiled the new baby and washed out his eyes and given him ateaspoonful of warm water, she placed Liz in charge of the ward, andwent to her room to put on a fresh uniform. The first thing she did,when she got there, was to go to the mirror, with the picture of hermother tucked in its frame, and survey herself. When she saw her capand the untidiness of her hair and her white collar all spotted, shefrowned.
Then she took the violets out of her belt and put them carefully ina glass of water, and feeling rather silly, she leaned over andkissed them. After that she felt better.
She bathed her face in hot water and then in cold, which brought hercolour back, and she put on everything fresh, so that she rustledwith each step, which is proper for trained nurses; and finally shetucked the violets back where they belonged, and put on a new cap,which is also proper for trained nurses on gala occasions.
If she had not gone back to the mirror to see that the generaleffect was as crisp as it should be, things would have beendifferent for Liz, and for the new mother back in the ward. But shedid go back; and there, lying on the floor in front of the bureau,all folded together, was a piece of white paper exactly as if it hasbeen tucked in her belt with the violets.
She opened it rather shakily, and it was a leaf from the wardorder-book, for at the top it said:
Annie Petowski--may sit up for one hour.
And below that:
Goldstein baby--bran baths.
And below that:
I love you. E.J.
"E.J." was the Junior Medical.
So the Nurse went back to the ward, and sat down, palpitating, inthe throne-chair by the table, and spread her crisp skirts, andfound where the page had been torn out of the order-book.
And as the smiles of sovereigns are hailed with delight by theircourts, so the ward brightened until it seemed to gleam that Easterafternoon. And a sort of miracle happened: none of the babies hadcolic, and the mothers mostly slept. Also, one of the ladies of theHouse Committee looked in at the door and said:
"How beautiful you are here, and how peaceful! Your ward is always asort of benediction."
The lady of the House Committee looked across and saw the newmother, with the sunshine on her yellow braids, and her face refinedfrom the furnace of pain.
"What a sweet young mother!" she said, and rustled out, leaving anodor of peau d'Espagne.
The girl lay much as Liz had left her. Except her eyes, there wasnothing in her face to show that despair had given place to wildmutiny. But Liz knew; Liz had gone through it all when "the firstone" came; and so, from the end of the ward, she rocked and watched.
The odor of peau d'Espagne was still in the air, eclipsing theEaster lilies, when Liz got up and sauntered down to the girl's bed.
"How are you now, dearie?" she asked, and, reaching under theblankets, brought out the tiny pearl-handled knife with which thegirl had been wont to clean her finger-nails. The girl eyed hersavagely, but said nothing; nor did she resist when Liz brought outher hands and examined the wrists. The left had a small cut on it.
"Now listen to me," said Liz. "None of that, do you hear? You ain'tthe only one that's laid here and wanted to end it all. And whathappened? Inside of a month they're well and strong again, and theyput the kid somewhere, and the folks that know what's happened getused to it, and the ones that don't know don't need to know. Don'tbe a fool!"
She carried the knife off, but the girl made no protest. There wereother ways.
The Nurse was very tired, for she had been up almost all night. Shesat at the record-table with her Bible open, and, in the intervalsof taking temperatures, she read it. But mostly she read about AnniePetowski being allowed to sit up, and the Goldstein baby having branbaths, and the other thing written below!
At two o'clock came the Junior Medical, in a frock-coat and greytrousers. He expected to sing "The Palms" at the Easter servicedownstairs in the chapel that afternoon, and, according toprecedent, the one who sings "The Palms" on Easter in the chapelmust always wear a frock-coat.
Very conscious, because all the ward was staring at hisgorgeousness, he went over to the bed where the new mother lay. Thenhe came back and stood by the table, looking at a record.
"Have you taken her temperature?" he said, businesslike and erect.
"Ninety-eight."
"Her pulse is strong?"
"Yes; she's resting quietly."
"Good.--And--did you get my note?"
This, much as if he had said, "Did you find my scarf-pin?" oranything merely casual; for Liz was hovering near.
"Yes." The nurse's red lips were trembling, but she smiled up athim. Liz came nearer. She was only wishing him Godspeed with hiswooing, but it made him uncomfortable.
"Watch her closely," he said, "she's pretty weak and despondent."And he looked at Liz.
"Elizabeth," said the Nurse, "won't you sit by Claribel and fanher?"
Claribel was the new mother. Claribel is, of course, no name for amother, but she had been named when she was very small.
Liz went away and sat by the girl's bed, and said a little prayer tothe effect that they were both so damned good to everybody, shehoped they'd hit it off. But perhaps the prayer of the wickedavaileth nothing.
"You know I meant that," he said, from behind a record. "I--I loveyou with all my heart--and if only you----"
The nurse shook down a thermometer and examined it closely. "I loveyou, too!" she said. And, walking shakily to one of the beds, sheput the thermometer upside down in Maggie McNamara's mouth.
The Junior Medical went away with his shoulders erect in hisfrock-coat, and his heavy brown hair, which would never partproperly and had to be persuaded with brilliantine, bristling withhappiness.
And the Nurse-Queen, looking over her kingdom for somebody to lavishher new joy on, saw Claribel lying in bed, looking at the ceilingand reading there all the tragedy of her broken life, all herdespair.
So she rustled out to the baby-room, where the new baby had neverbatted an eye since her bath and was lying on her back with bothfists clenched on her breast, and she did something that no trainednurse is ever supposed to do.
She lifted the baby, asleep and all, and carried her to her mother.
But Claribel's face only darkened when she saw her.
"Take the brat away," she said, and went on reading tragedies on theceiling.
Liz came and proffered her the little mite with every art she knew.She showed her the wrinkled bits of feet, the tiny, ridiculoushands, and how long the hair grew on the back of her head. But whenLiz put the baby on her arm, she shuddered and turned her head away.So finally Liz took it back to the other room, and left it there,still sleeping.
The fine edge of the Nurse's joy was dulled. It is a characteristicof great happiness to wish all to be well with the world; and herebefore her was dry-eyed despair. It was Liz who finally decided her.
"I guess I'll sit up with her to-night," she said, approaching thetable with the peculiar gait engendered of heel-less hospitalcarpet-slippers and Mother Hubbard wrappers. "I don't like the wayshe watches the ceiling."
"What do you mean, Elizabeth?" asked the Nurse.
"Time I had the twins--that's before your time," said Liz--"we hadone like that. She went out the window head first the night afterthe baby came, and took the kid with her."
The Nurse rose with quick decision.
"We must watch her," she said. "Perhaps if I could find--I thinkI'll go to the telephone. Watch the ward carefully, Elizabeth, andif Annie Petowski tries to feed her baby before three o'clock, takeit from her. T
he child's stuffed like a sausage every time I'm outfor five minutes."
Nurses know many strange things: they know how to rub an aching backuntil the ache is changed to a restful thrill, and how to change thebedding and the patient's night-dress without rolling the patientover more than once, which is a high and desirable form ofknowledge. But also they get to know many strange people; theirclean starchiness has a way of rubbing up against the filth of theworld and coming away unsoiled. And so the Nurse went downstairs tothe telephone, leaving Liz to watch for nefarious feeding.
The Nurse called up Rose Davis; and Rosie, who was lying in bed withthe Sunday papers scattered around her and a cigarette in hermanicured fingers, reached out with a yawn and, taking thetelephone, rested it on her laced and ribboned bosom.
"Yes," she said indolently.
The nurse told her who she was, and Rosie's voice took on a warmertinge.
"Oh, yes," she said. "How are you?... Claribel? Yes; what abouther?... What!"
"Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl--seven pounds."
"My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; mycigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right--go ahead."
"She's taking it pretty hard, and I--I thought you might help her.She--she----"
"How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly. She turned inthe bed and eyed the black leather bag on the stand at her elbow."Twenty enough?"
"I don't think it's money," said the Nurse, "although she needs thattoo; she hasn't any clothes for the baby. But--she's awfullydespondent--almost desperate. Have you any idea who the child'sfather is?"
Rosie considered, lighting a new cigarette with one hand andbalancing the telephone with the other.
"She left me a year ago," she said. "Oh, yes; I know now. What timeis it?"
"Two o'clock."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Rosie. "I'll get the fellow onthe wire and see what he's willing to do. Maybe he'll give her adollar or two a week."
"Do you think you could bring him to see her?"
"Say, what do you think I am--a missionary?" The Nurse was wise, soshe kept silent. "Well, I'll tell you what I will do. If I can bringhim, I will. How's that yellow-haired she-devil you've got overthere? I've got that fixed all right. She pulled a razor on mefirst--I've got witnesses. Well, if I can get Al, I'll do it. Solong."
It did not occur to the Nurse to deprecate having used an evilmedium toward a righteous end. She took life much as she found it.And so she tiptoed past the chapel again, where a faint odour ofpeau d'Espagne came stealing out into the hall, and where thechildren from the children's ward, in roller-chairs and on crutches,were singing with all their shrill young voices, earnest eyesuplifted.
The white Easter lilies on the altar sent their fragrance out overthe gathering, over the nurses, young and placid, over the hopelessand the hopeful, over the faces where death had passed and left itsinevitable stamp, over bodies freshly risen on this Easter Sundayto new hope and new life--over the Junior Medical, waiting with themanuscript of "The Palms" rolled in his hand and his heart singing ahymn of happiness.
The Nurse went up to her ward, and put a screen around Claribel,and, with all her woman's art, tidied the immaculate white bed andloosened the uncompromising yellow braids, so that the soft hairfell across Claribel's bloodless forehead and softened the defiancein her blue eyes. She brought the pink hyacinth in its pot, too, andplaced it on the bedside table. Then she stood off and looked at herwork. It was good.
Claribel submitted weakly. She had stopped staring at the wall, andhad taken to watching the open window opposite with strangeintentness. Only when the Nurse gave a final pat to the bedspreadshe spoke.
"Was it a boy--or a girl?" she asked.
"Girl," said the nurse briskly. "A little beauty, perfect in everyway."
"A girl--to grow up and go through this hell!" she muttered, and hereyes wandered back to the window.
But the Nurse was wise with the accumulated wisdom of a sex that hashad to match strength with wile for ages, and she was not yet ready.She went into the little room where eleven miracles lay in elevencribs, and, although they all looked exactly alike, she selectedClaribel's without hesitation, and carried it to the mysterious roomdown the hall--which was no longer a torture-chamber, but aresplendently white place, all glass and tile and sunlight, andwhere she did certain things that are not prescribed in the hospitalrules.
First of all, she opened a cupboard and took out a baby dress oflace and insertion,--and everybody knows that such a dress is usedonly when a hospital infant is baptised,--and she clothed Claribel'sbaby in linen and fine raiment, and because they are very, very redwhen they are so new, she dusted it with a bit of talcum--to breakthe shock, as you may say. It was very probable that Al had neverseen so new a baby, and it was useless to spoil the joy ofparenthood unnecessarily. For it really was a fine child, andeventually it would be white and beautiful.
The baby smelled of violet, for the christening-robe was kept in asachet.
Finally she gave it another teaspoonful of warm water and put itback in its crib. And then she rustled starchily back to thethrone-chair by the record-table, and opened her Bible at the placewhere it said that Annie Petowski might sit up, and the Goldsteinbaby--bran baths, and the other thing written just below.
III
The music poured up the well of the staircase; softened by distance,the shrill childish sopranos and the throaty basses of the medicalstaff merged into a rising and falling harmony of exquisite beauty.
Liz sat on the top step of the stairs, with her baby in her arms;and, as the song went on, Liz's eyes fell to her child and stayedthere.
At three o'clock the elevator-man brought Rosie Davis along thehall--Rosie, whose costume betrayed haste, and whose figure, under agaudy motor-coat, gave more than a suggestion of being unsupportedand wrapper-clad. She carried a clinking silver chatelaine, however,and at the door she opened it and took out a quarter, extending itwith a regal gesture to the elevator-man.
"Here, old sport," she said, "go and blow yourself to a drink. It'sEaster."
Such munificence appalled the ward.
Rosie was not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al.The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on himcurious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from thedoorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm.
"Gee, Rose, I'm not going in there," he said. But Rosie pulled himin and presented him to the Nurse.
Behind the screen, Claribel, shut off from her view of the openwindow, had taken to staring at the ceiling again.
When the singing came up the staircase from the chapel, she hadmoaned and put her fingers in her ears.
"Well, I found him," said Rosie cheerfully. "Had the deuce of a timelocating him." And the Nurse, apprising in one glance his stockyfigure and heavy shoulders, his ill-at-ease arrogance, his weak, andjust now sullen but not bad-tempered face, smiled at him.
"We have a little girl here who will be glad to see you," she said,and took him to the screen. "Just five minutes, and you must do thetalking."
Al hesitated between the visible antagonism of the ward and themystery of the white screen. A vision of Claribel as he had seen herlast, swollen with grief and despair, distorted of figure andaccusing of voice, held him back. A faint titter of derision wentthrough the room. He turned on Rosie's comfortable back a look ofblack hate and fury. Then the Nurse gave him a gentle shove, and hewas looking at Claribel--a white, Madonna-faced Claribel, lying nowwith closed eyes, her long lashes sweeping her cheek.
The girl did not open her eyes at his entrance. He put his hatawkwardly on the foot of the bed, and, tiptoeing around, sat on theedge of the stiff chair.
"Well, how are you, kid?" he asked, with affected ease.
She opened her eyes and stared at him. Then she made a little clutchat her throat, as if she were smothering.
"How did you--how did you know I was here?"
"Saw it in the paper, in the
society column." She winced at that,and some fleeting sense of what was fitting came to his aid. "Howare you?" he asked more gently. He had expected a flood ofreproaches, and he was magnanimous in his relief.
"I've been pretty bad; I'm better."
"Oh, you'll be around soon, and going to dances again. The MaginnisSocial Club's having a dance Saturday night in Mason's Hall."
The girl did not reply. She was wrestling with a problem that is asold as the ages, although she did not know it--why this tragedy ofhers should not be his. She lay with her hands crossed quietly onher breast and one of the loosened yellow braids was near his hand.He picked it up and ran it through his fingers.
"Hasn't hurt your looks any," he said awkwardly. "You're lookingpretty good."
With a jerk of her head she pulled the braid out of his fingers.
"Don't," she said and fell to staring at the ceiling, where she hadwritten her problem.
"How's the--how's the kid?"--after a moment.
"I don't know--or care."
There was nothing strange to Al in this frame of mind. Neither didhe know or care.
"What are you goin' to do with it?"
"Kill it!"
Al considered this a moment. Things were bad enough now, withoutClaribel murdering the child and making things worse.
"I wouldn't do that," he said soothingly. "You can put it somewhere,can't you? Maybe Rosie'll know."
"I don't want it to live."
For the first time he realised her despair. She turned on him hertormented eyes, and he quailed.
"I'll find a place for it, kid," he said. "It's mine, too. I guessI'm it, all right."
"Yours!" She half rose on her elbow, weak as she was. "Yours! Didn'tyou throw me over when you found I was going to have it? Yours! Didyou go through hell for twenty-four hours to bring it into theworld? I tell you, it's mine--mine! And I'll do what I want with it.I'll kill it, and myself too!"
"You don't know what you're saying!"
She had dropped back, white and exhausted.
"Don't I?" she said, and fell silent.
Al felt defrauded, ill-treated. He had done the right thing; he hadcome to see the girl, which wasn't customary in those circles whereAl lived and worked and had his being; he had acknowledged hisresponsibility, and even--why, hang it all----
"Say the word and I'll marry you," he said magnanimously.
"I don't want to marry you."
He drew a breath of relief. Nothing could have been fairer than hisoffer, and she had refused it. He wished Rosie had been there tohear.
And just then Rosie came. She carried the baby, still faintlyodorous of violets, held tight in unaccustomed arms. She lookedawkward and conscious, but her amused smile at herself was halftender.
"Hello, Claribel," she said. "How are you? Just look here, Al! Whatdo you think of this?"
Al got up sheepishly and looked at the child.
"Boy or girl?" he asked politely.
"Girl; but it's the living image of you," said Rose--for Rose andthe Nurse were alike in the wiles of the serpent.
"Looks like me!" Al observed caustically. "Looks like an over-ripetomato!"
But he drew himself up a trifle. Somewhere in his young andhardened soul the germs of parental pride, astutely sowed, had takenquick root.
"Feel how heavy she is," Rose commanded. And Al held out two armsunaccustomed to such tender offices.
"Heavy! She's about as big as a peanut."
"Mind her back," said Rose, remembering instructions.
After her first glance Claribel had not looked at the child. Butnow, in its father's arms, it began to whimper. The mother stirreduneasily, and frowned.
"Take it away!" she ordered. "I told them not to bring it here."
The child cried louder. Its tiny red face, under the powder, turnedpurple. It beat the air with its fists. Al, still holding it in hisoutstretched arms, began vague motions to comfort it, swinging it upand down and across. But it cried on, drawing up its tiny knees inspasms of distress. Claribel put her fingers in her ears.
"You'll have to feed it!" Rose shouted over the din.
The girl comprehended without hearing, and shook her head in sullenobstinacy.
"What do you think of that for noise?" said Al, not without pride."She's like me, all right. When I'm hungry, there's hell to pay ifI'm not fed quick. Here,"--he bent down over Claribel,--"you mightas well have dinner now, and stop the row."
Not ungently, he placed the squirming mass in the baptismal dressbeside the girl on the bed. With the instinct of ages, the babystopped wailing and opened her mouth.
"The little cuss!" cried Al, delighted. "Ain't that me all over?Little angel-face the minute I get to the table!"
Unresisting now, Claribel let Rose uncover her firm white breast.The mother's arm, passively extended by Rose to receive the smallbody, contracted around it unconsciously.
She turned and looked long at the nuzzling, eager mouth, at the redhand lying trustfully open on her breast, at the wrinkled face, theindeterminate nose, the throbbing fontanelle where the little lifewas already beating so hard.
"A girl, Rose!" she said. "My God, what am I going to do with her?"
Rose was not listening. The Junior Medical's turn had come at last.Downstairs in the chapel, he was standing by the organ, his headthrown back, his heavy brown hair (which would never stay partedwithout the persuasion of brilliantine) bristling with earnestness.
"_O'er all the way, green palms and blossoms gay_,"
he sang, and his clear tenor came welling up the staircase to Liz,and past her to the ward, and to the group behind the screen.
"_Are strewn this day in festal preparation, Where Jesus comes to wipe our tears away-- E'en now the throng to welcome Him prepare._"
On the throne-chair by the record-table, the Nurse sat and listened.And because it was Easter and she was very happy and because of thethrill in the tenor voice that came up the stairs to her, andbecause of the page in the order-book about bran baths and the restof it, she cried a little, surreptitiously, and let the tears dropdown on a yellow hospital record.
The song was almost done. Liz, on the stairs, had fed her babytwenty minutes too soon, and now it lay, sleeping and sated, in herlap. Liz sat there, brooding over it, and the last line of the songcame up the staircase.
"_Blessed is He who comes bringing sal-va-a-a-ation!_"
the Junior Medical sang.
The services were over. Downstairs the small crowd dispersed slowly.The minister shook hands with the nurses at the door, and the JuniorMedical rolled up his song and wondered how soon he could makerounds upstairs again.
Liz got up, with her baby in her arms, and padded in to thethrone-chair by the record-table.
"He can sing some, can't he!" she said.
"He has a beautiful voice." The Nurse's eyes were shining.
Liz moved off. Then she turned and came back.
"I--I know you'll tell me I'm a fool," she said; "but I've decidedto keep the kid, this time. I guess I'll make out, somehow."
Behind the screen, Rosie had lighted a cigarette and was smoking,sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltaleclouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, andClaribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they wereon the child.
Al leaned forward and put his lips to the arm that circled the baby.
"I'm sorry, kid," he said. "I guess it was the limit, all right. Doyou hate me?"
She looked at him, and the hardness and defiance died out of hereyes. She shook her head.
"No."
"Do you--still--like me a little?"
"Yes," in a whisper.
"Then what's the matter with you and me and the little mutt gettingmarried and starting all over--eh?"
He leaned over and buried his face with a caressing movement in thehollow of her neck.
Rose extinguished her cigarette on the foot of the bed, and, carefulof appeara
nces, put the butt in her chatelaine.
"I guess you two don't need me any more," she said yawning. "I'mgoing back home to bed."