Ruth Sawyer

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sanitarium waved them off with gladness and satisfaction—all but four unsmiling outsiders. So great a hole can a departing atom sometimes [Pg 114] leave behind that those four who had given him temporary care and guardianship went about for days with sorrow written plainly upon them. Hennessy fed the swans in bitter silence; Peter moped, with a laugh for no one; Doctor Fuller groaned whenever South America was mentioned; while all three knew they could not even fathom the deepness or the bigness of that hole for Sheila.
Peter took her for a twilight ride in his car the first empty night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Death had seemed the only release from an obligation that exhausted and frightened her, and from which neither pleasure nor personal pride could be obtained. But this was another way mercifully held out to her, and she accepted it with gratitude and absolute belief. Eagerly she agreed to the conditions Sheila laid down; the father was to be notified and forced to make a life settlement on the atom; in the mean time she was to remain at the sanitarium, pay all expenses, and interfere in no way with the nurse or the baby. ”