Ruth Sawyer

“ If ye are going to marry me ’tis your business to find me.” She freed her hands and started off without a backward glance at him.
“Patsy, Patsy!” he called after her, “wouldn’t you like to know the name of the man you’re going to marry?”
She turned and faced him. Framed in the soft, green fringe of the trees, she seemed to him the very embodiment of young summer—the free, untrammeled spirit of Arden. Ever since the first he had been growing more and more conscious of what she was: a nature vital, beautiful, tender, untouched by the searing things of life—trusting and worthy of trust ”

“ Doctor Brainard jumped as if Peter had struck him; for the instant he seemed to find speech difficult. “Why—why, what do you mean? How dare you—”
“I dare you,” and Peter shot out each word with the directness of a hand-grenade, “I dare you to stand up like a man and tell why Miss O’Leary came here to-night. You sneaked behind her silence three years ago; don’t be a cursed coward and do it again.”
The surgeon laughed a dry, unpleasant laugh. “It’s easy to call another man names—but it doesn’t mean anything. ”

“ For years gossip had been busy with the wife of the Richest Trustee—as the widow she did not relax her hold. What the trustees said that day they only repeated from gossip: the little gray wisp of a woman was a nonentity—nothing more—with the spirit of a mouse. She held no position in society, and what she did with her time or her money no one knew. The trustees smiled inwardly and reckoned silently with themselves; at least they would never need to fear opposition from her on any matter of importance.
The last person of all to enter the boardroom was the Senior Surgeon. ”

“ But a man cannot fight gossipy old ladies or jealous, petty-minded nurses, or a doctor whom he has never met and whose transgressions he cannot swear to. And yet Peter wanted to double up his fists and pitch into the whole community; he felt himself all brute and yearned for wholesale slaughter.
Peter had come to the sanitarium in the beginning to be cured of a temporal malady, only to rise from his bed stricken with an eternal one. He had fallen desperately in love with Sheila O’Leary as only a man of Peter’s sort can fall in love, once and for all time. ”

“ But Marjorie Schuyler stood immovable and deaf to her pleading. Incredulity, bewilderment, pity, and despair swept over Patsy’s face like clouds scudding over the surface of a clear lake. Then scorn settled in her eyes.
“I’m sorry for ye, sorry for any woman that fails the man who loves her. I don’t know this son of old King Midas; I never saw him in my life, and all I know about him is what ye told me this day and scraps of what he had to say for himself; but I believe in him. I know he never forged that check—or used the money for any mean use of his own. ”

“ When the glimpse came, however, she stood mute—tears channeling the old wrinkled face—while the nurse patted her hands and made her laugh through the tears. In fact, Margaret MacLean had been kept so busy doling out cheer and consolation to others that she had had no time to remember her own trouble—not until Saint Margaret's had gone to bed.
She was on her way for a final visit to her ward—the visit she had told Bridget she would make to see if the promise had been kept—when a line from Hauptman's faery play flashed through her mind: "At dawn we are kings; at night we are only beggars." ”

“ When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyes and looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would be there—and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter’s vital presence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearer to her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her hands steady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She never failed a boy “going west.” To the last breath she let him see the radiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love above everything else. ”

“ Patsy leaned against the door and watched him go. “There’s another good lad. I’d like to be finding him again, too, some day.” She pressed her hands over her eyes with a fierce little groan, as if she would blot out the enveloping tragedy along with her surroundings. “Faith! what is the meaning of life, anyway? Until to-day it has seemed such a simple, straight road; I could have drawn a fair map of it myself, marking well the starting-point and tracing it reasonably true to the finish. But to-night—to-night—’tis all a tangle of lanes and byways. ”

“ And the Senior Surgeon growled as he always did when things went against his liking. "You were a case in a thousand—in a lifetime. Because it happened once—here in this hospital—is no reason for believing that it will ever happen again."
"Oh yes, it is!" persisted Margaret MacLean. "There is just as much reason for believing as for not believing. Every one of those children, in the ward now might—yes, they might—be a case in a thousand; and no one has any right to take that thousandth of a chance away from them." ”

“ Doesn’t every lad and lass find it anew for themselves when they take to the long road with naught but love and trust in their hearts—and their hands together? They may find it when they’re young—they may not find it till they’re old—but it will be there, ever beckoning them on—with the purple hills rising toward it. And there’s a miracle in the castle that I’ve never told ye: no matter how old and how worn and how stooped the lad and his lass may have grown, there he sees her only fresh and fair and she sees him only brave and straight and strong. ”

“ But of the puzzle of it one fact stood out grippingly vital to Sheila. No soul must be thrown out of the melting-pot back into the old accustomed order of life and be left to feel unfit or unnecessary. There must be a big, compelling place for every man who came home. Of all the tragedies of war, she could conceive no greater one than to have these men who had put no limit to the price they were willing to pay to make the world safe for democracy sent back useless, to mark time to eternity. ”

“ Those of you who live where you can always look out on pleasant places, or who can travel at will into them, may find it hard to understand how wearisome and stupid it grows to be always in one room with an encompassing sky-line of roof-tops and chimneys, or may fail to sound the full depths of wonder and delight over the ride that Ward C took that memorable day. ”

“ Since they had left the cross-roads church behind Patsy had marked the tinker casting furtive glances along the way they had come; and each time she marked, as well, the flash of a smile that lightened his face for an instant when he saw that the road still remained empty of aught but themselves.
“It’s odd,” she mused; “he hasn’t the look of a knave who might fear a trailing of constables at his heels; and yet—and yet his wits have him pestered about something that lies back of him.” ”

“ Before dawn crept again into the Surgical, the mind of Sheila O’Leary was made up. Peter was suddenly aware that the nurse was close at his bedside, chafing the clenched fingers free. It was that mysterious hour that hangs between the going night and coming day, the most non-resisting time for body and mind, when the human will gives up the struggle if it gives it up at all. And Sheila O’Leary, being well aware of this, rubbed the tense nerves into a comfortable state of relaxation and talked. ”

“ Dearest, the Love-Talker has turned so completely human that he has to say at the outset he's not half good enough for you, But he wants you—he wants you, just the same, to carry back with him to his faery-land. It will be rather a funny little old faery-land, made up of work and poverty—and love; but, you see, the last is so big and strong it can shoulder the other two and never know it's carrying a thing. If you'll only come, dearest, you can make it the finest, most magical faeryland a man ever set up home-making in. ”

“ The tinker put the plate down beside him and folded his arms.
Patsy snorted with exasperation. “Was I ever saying ye could play the king’s son? Faith! ye’ll never play anything but the fool—first and last.” Her voice suddenly took on a more coaxing tone; she was thinking of that good dinner growing cold—spoiled by the man’s ridiculous curiosity. “I’ll tell ye what—if ye’ll agree to begin eating, I’ll agree to begin telling ye about it—and we’ll both agree not to stop till we get to the end. But Holy Saint Martin! who ever heard of a man before letting his conscience in ahead of his hunger!” ”

“ From that instant there was no more helplessness in the feelings of Sheila O’Leary. She felt empowered to move mountains, to make new a mangled heap of boys. As she joined the chief she stopped to see how it was with him. His eyes met hers, and in the flash she read there the same fighting faith that was in her own heart. He patted her shoulder.
“Didn’t think you’d funk. Nothing like team-work when you’re up against it. Keeps you believing in the divinity of man, eh?” ”

“ Pancho lay wound up in his blanket like a giant chrysalis, rolling in silent misery. Sandy was stretched as straight and stiff as if he had been "laid out"; his eyes were closed, and there was a stolid, expressionless set to his features. Margaret MacLean knew that it betokened much internal disturbance. Susan, ex-philosopher, was sobbing aloud, pulling with rebellious fingers at the pieces of iron that kept her head where nature had planned it. The Apostles gripped hands and moaned in unison, while Peter hugged his blanket, seeking thereby some consolation for the dispelled Toby. ”

“ Burgeman sneered.
“More comfortable,” corrected Patsy. “Mind you, I’m not meaning starved, ground-under-the-heel poverty, the kind that breeds anarchists and criminals. God pity them, too! I mean the man who is still too poor to reckon his worth to a community in mere money, who, instead, doles kindness and service to his neighbors. Did you ever see a man richer than the one who comes home at day’s end, after eight hours of good, clean work, and finds the wife and children watching for him, happy-eyed and laughing?” ”

“ The picture of the best nurse at the sanitarium sitting in a little old rocker with the brown atom kicking and crowing on her lap, and looking down the steps with eyes that seemed to grow daily more luminous, came to be an accepted reality to both Peter and the doctor—as much of a reality as the reaching out of the atom’s small tendril-like fingers to curl about one’s thumb or to cling to one’s watch-charm. ”

“ She was ten now and the Senior Surgeon had already reckoned her days.
In the shadow of Bridget's cot was Rosita's crib—Rosita being the youngest, the most sensitive, and the most given to homesickness. This last was undoubtedly due to the fact that she was the only child in the incurable ward blessed in the matter of a home. Her parents were honest-working Italians who adored her, but who were too ignorant and indulgent to keep her alive. They came every Sunday, and sat out the allotted time for visitors beside her crib, while the other children watched in a silent, hungry-eyed fashion. ”

“ The tinker was after her in a twinkling. He reached the foot of the stairs before she was at the top. “Please—please wait a minute,” he pleaded. “If there’s another—lad, a lad you—love, that I have kept you from—then I hate myself as much as you do. All I can say is that I didn’t think—didn’t guess; and I’m no end sorry.”
Patsy leaned over the banisters and looked down at him through eyes unmistakably wet. “What does it matter to ye if he’s the lad I love or not? And can’t a body do a kindness for a lad without loving him?” ”

“ His eyes were closed; his face had gone almost as white as Jamie’s. Patsy was gazing at the ceiling; [Pg 265] the veins on his arms stood out as they had on that first day when he had fainted twice from the pain of his dressing. Down the line of cots the nurse’s eyes traveled, and back again. Every lad was past speaking for another; each lay transfixed with his own personal fear.
The minutes seemed intolerable. The silence grew heavy with so much muffling of despair. Sheila found herself praying that the men would groan, cry out, curse, anything to break the ghastly hush. ”

“ Beside Sandy lay Susan—smart, shrewd, and American, with braced legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days. But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and therefore gives sparingly. ”

“ Faith! that was grand—the bearing of that trouble! And why are the rich hated? Why do they live friendless and die lonely? Not because they hold money, not because they give it away or help others with it. No! But because they use it to crush others, to rob those who have less than they have, to turn their power into a curse. That’s the why!”
Patsy, the fanatic, turned suddenly into Patsy, the human, again. The fist that had been beating the air under his nose dropped and spread itself tenderly on the sick man’s knee. ”

“ Margaret MacLean.
She soon made the discovery that she was not the only child in the ward who felt about it that way. Her discovery was a matter of intuition rather than knowledge; for—as if by silent consent—the topic was carefully avoided in the usual ward conversation. One does not make it a rule to talk about the hobgoblins that lurk in the halls at night, or the gray, creeping shapes that come out of dark corners and closets after one has gone to bed, if one is so pitifully unfortunate as to possess these things in childhood. Instead one just remembers and waits, shivering. ”

“ Moreover, a man counts no more than a woman in their sum total of daily pleasure, and when they choose a comrade it is for human qualities, not sexualities. And because of this, this particular Patsy felt the more intensely the humiliation and challenge of the moment. She hated herself; she hated the man, whoever he might be; she hated the tinker for his share in it all.
Anger loosened her tongue at last. “Who, in the name of Saint Bridget, are ye?” she demanded.
And the man in white flannels threw back his head and laughed. ”

“ But Doctor Fuller had fled.
In spite of his boast of her, the baby specialist saw Sheila O’Leary visibly cringe when she took her first look at Pancho. He lay sprawling on his mother’s bed in a room littered with hastily opened bags and trunks out of which had been pulled clothing of all kinds and hues. He had been relieved of the lace and pink ribbons and was swathed only in shirt and roundabout, his arms and legs projected like licorice sticks; being of the same color and very nearly the same thickness. ”

“ To the children Tir-na-n'Og is the waiting-place for all child-souls until Saint Anthony is ready to gather them up and carry them away with him to the "Blessed Mother"; and Margaret MacLean, having nothing better to tell them, keeps silent. But she has thought of the nicest custom: A new picture is hung in the Home after a child has gone. It bears his name; and it is always something that he liked—birds or flowers or ships or some one from a story. Peter has his chosen already; it is to be—a dog. ”

“ She sprang out of bed with a glad little laugh; the day had a grand beginning, spilling sunshine and bird-song into every corner of her room, and to Patsy’s optimistic soul a good beginning insured a better ending. As she dressed she planned that ending to her own liking and according to the most approved rules of dramatic construction: The tinker should turn out a wandering genius, for in her heart she could not believe the accusations she had hurled against him the night past; when they reached Arden they would come upon the younger Burgeman, contemplating immediate suicide ”

“ It seemed incredible that this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been a veritable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessness and loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and every time Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with all her heart at the thing she had helped to do. ”

“ Just what she would do or say she could not tell; but she must make him understand that he was not the arbiter of his own life, that in spite of what he had found, there were love and trust and disinterested kindness in the world, lots of it. Money might be a curse, but it was a curse that a man could raise for himself; and a little lad who could shovel snow for half a day to earn two white roses for a dead friend was too fine to be lost out of life’s credit-sheet. ”

“ She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly whenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head ominously. She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came at last to remind her of his threatened promise.
"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep? Would you let an old faery doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you would wake up to find happiness—and health—and love—and all the other gifts the godmothers brought?" ”

“ For a long time he stood, brutally kicking one of the fire-dogs and snapping his fingers at his feelings; and then, being a man and requiring food, he went out into the pantry where he had been busily preparing to set forth the hospitality of the house when Patsy had wakened.
But before he ate he found a tray and covered it with the best the pantry afforded. He mounted the stairs with it in rather a lagging fashion, being wholly at sea concerning the temperature of his reception. His conscience finally compromised with his courage, and he put the tray down outside Patsy’s door. ”

“ Hennessy eyed the girl narrowly. “Will ye, then? Why did ye cure him up so fast for, Miss Leerie? Why didn’t ye give the poor man a chance?”
No one but Hennessy would have had sufficient temerity for such a question, but had any one dared to ask it, upon their heads would have fallen the combined anger and bitterness of Sheila’s tongue. For having had occasion once for bitterness, it was not over-hard to waken it when men served as topics. But at Hennessy she smiled tolerantly. ”

“ Patsy pulled a wry little smile. “Is that so? And ye’ve been after making me trade a feather-bed and a good breakfast for—for the best color of lady’s-slippers. Well, if I was Dan instead of myself, standing here, I’d be likely to tell ye to go to the devil—aye, an’ help ye there with my two fists.” Her cheeks were flushed and all the comradeship faded quickly from her eyes.
The tinker said never a word, only his lips parted in a coaxing smile which seemed to say, “Please go on believing in me,” and his eyes still held hers unwaveringly. ”

“ Look here, Leerie, the more happiness we have the more we can spill over into other lives and the brighter you can burn your lamp for the ones in the dark. This old world needs all the happiness it can get now. So?”
Sheila smiled, satisfied. “You always understand. If I ever write out a prescription for love, I shall make understanding one-third of the dose. Let’s go into partnership, Brooks and O’Leary, Distillers and Dispensers of Happiness.” ”

“ Patsy’s face sobered. “Oh, why does money always have to mate with money? Why couldn’t you have married a poor great man—a poet, a painter, a thinker, a dreamer—some one who ought not to be bound down by his heels to the earth for bread-gathering or shelter-building? You could have cut the thongs and sent him soaring—given the world another ‘Prometheus Unbound.’ As for Billy Burgeman—he could have married—me,” and Patsy spread her hands in mock petition.
Marjorie Schuyler laughed. ”