 CHAPTER 4 LIKE A TRAIN TRAVELER COMING OUT OF A LONG SMOKY SMOTHERY TUNNEL INTO THE CLEAN TASTING LIGHT. The white linen nurse came out of the prudish smelling hospital, into the riotous, mud-and-posey promise of the young April afternoon. The God of Hysteria had certainly not deserted her. In all the full effervescent reaction of her brainstorm, fairly bubbling with dimples, fairly foaming with curls, light-footed, light-hearted, most ecstatically light-headed, she tripped down into the sunshine as though the great, harsh granite steps that marked her descent were nothing more nor less than a gigantic, old, horny-fingered hand, passing her blithely out to some deliciously unknown lily-putty in adventure. As she pranced across the soggy April sidewalk to what she supposed was a senior surgeon's perfectly empty automobile, she became conscious suddenly that the rear seat of the car was already occupied. Out from an unseasonable snuggle of sable furs and flaming red hair, a small, peevish face peered forth at her with frank curiosity. Why, hello! beamed the white linen nurse. Who are you? With unmistakable hostility the haughty little face retreated into its furs and its red hair. Hush! commanded a shrill, childish voice. Hush, I say! I'm a cripple and very bad temper. Don't speak to me. O my glory! gasped the white linen nurse. O my glory, glory, glory! Without any warning whatsoever she felt suddenly like nothing at all rigged out in an exceedingly shabby old ulster and an excessively homely black slouch hat. In a desperate attempt at tangible, tomboyish nonchalance she tossed her head and thrust her hands down deep into her big ulster pockets. That the bleak hat reflected no decent, featherish consciousness of being tossed, that the big thread-bear pockets had no bottoms to them merely completed her startled sense of having been in some way blotted right out of existence. At her back the senior surgeon's huge fur-coated approach dawned blissfully like the thud of a rescue-party. But if the senior surgeon's blunt, wholesome invitation to ride had been perfectly sweet when he prescribed it for her in the superintendent's office, the invitation had certainly soured most amazingly in the succeeding ten minutes. Uproptly now, without any greeting, he reached out and opened the rear door of the car and nodded curtly for her to enter there. Instantly across the face of the little crippled girl already enscounced in the tonneau a single flash of light went zigzagging crookedly from brow to chin and was gone again. "'Hello, fat father!' piped the shrill little voice. "'Hello, fat father!' Yet so subtly was the phrase mouthed, to save your soul you could not have proved just where the greeting ended and the taunt began. There was nothing subtle, however, about the way in which the senior surgeon's hand shot out and slammed the tonneau door bang-bang again on its original passenger. His face was crimson with anger. Brusquely he pointed to the front seat. "'You may sit in there with me, Miss Malgreger.' He thundered. "'Yes, sir,' crooned the white linen nurse. Meek as an oiled machine she scuttled to her appointed place. Once more in smothered giggle and unprotesting acquiescence she sensed the resumption of eternal discipline. Already in just this thrice of time she felt her rampant young mouth resettle tamely into lines of smug, determinant, serenity. Already across her idle lap she felt her clasped fingers begin to frost and tingle again, like a cheerfully non-concerned bunch of live wires waiting the one authoritative signal to connect somebody, anybody with this world or the next. Already the facile tip of her tongue seemed fairly loaded and cocked, like a revolver, with all the approximate yes-sirs, no-sirs, that she thought she should probably need. But the only immediate remarks that the senior surgeon addressed to anyone were addressed distinctly to the crank of his automobile. "'Damn having a chauffeur who gets drunk the one day of the year when you need him most,' he muttered under his breath, as with the same exquisitely sensitive fingers that could have dissected, like a caress, the nervous system of a hummingbird, or reset unbrusingly the broken wing of a butterfly, he hurled his hundred and eighty pounds of infuriated brute strength against the calm, chronic, mechanical stubbornness of that auto-crank. "'Damn,' he swore in the upward pull. "'Damn!' he gasped on the downward push. "'Damn!' he cursed and sputtered and spluttered. Purple with effort, bulging eyed with strain, reeking with sweat, his friends it outburst would have terrorized the entire hospital staff. With an odd little twinge of homesickness the white-lidden nurse slid cautiously out to the edge of her seat so that she might watch the struggle better. For thus, with dripping foreheads and knotted neck muscles and breaking backs and rankly tempestuous language, did the untutored men folk of her own beloved homeland hurl their great strength against bulls and boulders and refractory forest trees. Pretty startlingly as she watched, a brand-new thought went zigzagging through her consciousness. Was it possible, was it even so much as remotely possible, that the great senior surgeon, the great wonderful altogether formidable, altogether unapproachable senior surgeon, was just a, was just a. Stripped ruthlessly of all his social superiority, of all his professional halo, of all his scientific achievement, the senior surgeon stood suddenly forth before her, a mere man, just like other men. Just exactly like other men, like the sick drug clerk, like the newborn millionaire baby, like the doddering old Dutch gaffer. The very delicacy of such a thought drove the blood panic-stricken from her face. It was the indelicacy of the thought that brought the blood surging back again to brow, to cheeks, to lips even to the tips of her ears. Glancing up casually from the roar and rumble of his abruptly repentant engine, the senior surgeon swore once more under his breath to think that any female sitting perfectly idle and non-concerned in a seven-thousand-dollar car should have the nerve to flaunt such a furiously strenuous color. Even with resentment and mink furs, he strode around the fender and stumbled with increasing irritation across the white linen nurse's knees to his seat. Just for an instant his famous fingers seemed to flash with apparent inconsequence towards one bit of mechanism and another. Then like a huge pretentious pill floated on smoothest syrup, the car slid down the yawning street into the congested city. Even monotonously in terms of pain and dirt and drug and disease, the city wafted itself in and out of the white linen nurse's well-grooved consciousness. From every filthy street corner, sudden age or starved babyhood reached out its fluttering pulse to her. Then suddenly, sweet as a draught, through a fever-tainted room, the squalid city freshened into jacquant, luxuriant suburbs, with rollicking tennis-courts and flaming yellow fours-sithia blossoms and green velvet lawns prematurely posed with pale, exotic hyacinths and great scarlet splotches of lusty tulips. Beyond this hectic horticultural outburst, the leisurely spraying faded out again into April's naturally, sallow colors. And black as an endless top-rider ribbon, the narrow, tense state road seemed to wind itself everlastingly in and in and in on some hidden spool of the car's mysterious mechanism. Clickety-click-click-clack, faster than any human mind could think, faster than any human hand could finger, hurtling up hazardous hills of thought, sliding down facile valleys of fancy, roaring with emphasis, shrieking with punctuation, the great car yielded itself perforce to fate's dictation. Robbed successively of the city's humanitarian pang, of the suburb's aesthetic pleasure, the white linen nurse found herself precipitated suddenly into a mere blur of sight, a mere chaos of sound. In whizzing speed and crashing breeze, houses, fences, meadows, people, slapped across her eyeballs like pictures on a fan. On and on, and on through kaleidoscopic yellows and rushing grays, the great car sped a purely mechanical factor in a purely mechanical landscape. Alongside with concentration the senior surgeon stared like a dead man into the intrepid oncoming road. Intermittently from her green plushy lap robes, the little crippled girl struggled to her feet, and sprawling clumsily across whosoever's shoulders suited her best, raised a brazenly innocent voice, deliberately flattered, in a shrill and maddeningly repetitive chant of her own making. To the effect that all the birds were there with the yellow feathers instead of hair, and bumblebees crocheted in the trees, and bumblebees crocheted in the trees, and all the birds were there, and, and. Intermittently from the front seat the senior surgeon's wooden face relaxed to the extent of a grim mouth twisting distractedly sideways in one furious bellow. Will you stop your noise and go back to your seat? Nothing else happened at all until at last, out of unbroken stretches of winter-stailed stubble, a high formal hemlock hedge, and a neat pebble driveway proclaimed the senior surgeon's ultimate destination. Cautiously now, with an almost tender skill, the big car circled a tiny venturesome clump of highway violets, and crept through a prancing, leaping fluff of yellow collie-dogs to the door of the big stone house. Instantly from inestimable resources a liveried serving man appeared to help the surgeon from his car, another to take the surgeon's coat, another to carry his bag. Linkering for an instant to stretch his muscles and shake his great shoulders, the senior surgeon breathed into his cramped lungs a friendly impulse as well as a scent of budding cherry trees. You may come in with me if you want to, Miss Malgreger. He conceded. It's an extraordinary case. You will hardly see another one like it. Palpably he lowered his already almost indistinguishable voice. The boy is young. He confided, about your age I should guess, a college football hero, the most superbly perfect specimen of young manhood it has ever been my privilege to behold. It will be a long case. They have two nurses already, but would like another. The work ought not to be hard. Now, if they should happen to, fancy you. In speechless expressiveness his eyes swept estimatingly over sun parlours, stables, garages, Italian gardens, rapturous blue shadowed mountain views, every last intimate detail of the mansion's wonderful equipment. Like a drowning man feeling his last floating spar wrenched away from him, the white linen nurse dug her fingernails frantically into every reachable wrinkle and crevice of the heavily upholstered seat. Oh, but, sir, I don't want to go in. She protested passionately. I tell you, sir, I'm quite done with all that sort of thing. It would break my heart. It would. Oh, sir, these worrying about people for whom you've got no affection. It's like sledding without any snow. It grits right down on your naked nerves. It— Before the senior surgeon's glowering and credulous stare, her heart began to plunge and pound again. But it plunged and pounded no harder, she realized, suddenly, than when in the calm white hospital precincts she was obliged to pass his terrifying presence in the corridor and murmur an inaudible good morning or good evening. After all, he's nothing but a man, nothing but a man, nothing but a mere ordinary two-legged man. She reasoned over and over to herself. With a really desperate effort she smoothed her frightened face into an expression of utter guillessness and peace and smiled unflinchingly right into the senior surgeon's rousing anger, as she had once seen an animal trainer smile into the snarl of a crouching tiger. The—Thank you very much, she said. But I think I won't go in, sir. Thank you. My—my face is still pretty tired. Idiot! snapped the senior surgeon as he turned on his heel and started up the steps. From the green plushy robes on the back seat the white linen nurse could have sworn that she heard a sharply ejaculated, maliciously joyful, ha! piped out. But when both she and the senior surgeon turned sharply round to make sure the little crippled girl in apparently complete absorption set amably extracting, tuft after tuft of fur from the thumb of one big sable glove to the rumbling, sing-song monotone of, he loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not. Bristling with an utterable contempt for all femininity, the senior surgeon proceeded up the steps between two solemn-faced lackeys. Father! wailed a feeble little voice. Father! There was no shrillness in the tone now, nor malice, nor any mischievous thing, just desolation, the impulsive panic-stricken desolation of a little child left suddenly alone with a stranger. Father! the frightened voice ventured forth a tiny bit louder, but the unheating senior surgeon had already reached the piazza. Fat Father! screamed the little voice, barbed now like a shark-hook, the phrase ripped through the senior surgeon's dormant sensibilities, as one fairly yanked out of his thoughts he whirled around in his tracks. What do you want? he thundered. Helplessly the little girl set staring from a lackey's ill-concealed grin to her father's smoldering fury. Quite palpably she began to swallow with considerable difficulty. Then quick as a flash, a diminutively crafty smile crooked across one corner of her mouth. Father! she improvised dulcetly. Father! may I sit in the white linen nurse's lap? Just for an instant the senior surgeon's narrowing eyes probed mercilessly into the reekingly false little smile. Then altogether brutally he shrugged his shoulders. I don't care where in blazes you sit! he muttered and went on into the house. With an air of unalterable finality the massive oak door closed after him. In the resonant click of its latch the great wrought iron lock seemed to smack its lips with ineffable satisfaction. Ringing suddenly around with a wish of starched skirts the white linen nurse knelt up in her seat and grinned at the little crippled girl. Hi yourself! she said. Against all possible expectancy the little crippled girl burst out laughing. The laugh was wild, ecstatic, extravagantly boisterous, yet awkward withal, and indescribably bumpy like the first flight of a cage-cramped bird. Quite abruptly the white linen nurse sat down again and commenced nervously with the wrist of her chamois glove to polish the slightly tarnished brass lamp at her elbow. Equally abruptly after a minute she stopped polishing and looked back at the little crippled girl. Would you like to sit in my lap? she queried conscientiously. Insolent with astonishment the little girl parried the question. Why in blazes should I want to sit on your lap? She quizzed harshly. Every accent of her voice, every remotest intonation, was like the senior surgeons at his worst. The suddenly forked eyebrow, the snarling twitch of the upper lip turned the whole delicate little face into a grotesque but desperately unconscious caricature of the grim-jawed father. As though the father himself had snubbed her for some unimaginable familiarity, the white linen nurse winced back in hopeless confusion. Just for sheer shock, short-circuited with fatigue, a big tear rolled slowly down one pink cheek. Instantly to the edge of her seat the little girl jerked herself forward. Don't cry, pretty. She whispered. Don't cry. It's my legs. I've got fat iron braces on my legs, and people don't like to hold me. Half the professional smile came flashing back to the white linen nurse's mouth. Oh, I just adore holding people with iron braces on their legs. She affirmed, and leaning over the back of the seat proceeded with absolutely perfect mechanical tenderness to gather the poor, puny, surprised little body into her own strong, shapely arms. Then dutifully snuggling her shoulder to meet the stubborn little shoulder that refused to snuggle to it, and dutifully easing her knees to suit the stubborn little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down resignedly in her seat again to await the return of the senior surgeon. There, there, there, she began quite instinctively to croon and pat. Don't say there, there, wailed the little girl peevishly. Her body was suddenly stiff as a ramrod. Don't say there, there. If you've got to make any noise at all, say here, here. Here, here. Droned the white linen nurse. Here, here, here, here. On and on, and interminably on. Here, here, here, here. At the end of about the 347th here, the little girl's body relaxed, and she reached up two fragile fingers to close the white linen nurse's mouth. There, that will do. She sighed contentedly. I feel better now. Father does tire me so. Father tires you? Gasped the white linen nurse. The giggle that followed the gasp was not in the remotest degree professional. Father tires you? She repeated accusingly. Why, you silly little girl, can't you see it's you that makes father so everlastingly tired? Impulsively, with her one free hand, she turned the little girl's listless face to the light. What makes you call your nice father fat father? She asked, with real curiosity. What makes you? He isn't fat at all. He's just big. Why, whatever possesses you to call him fat father, I say. Can't you see how mad it makes him? Why, of course, it made him mad! Said the little girl with plainly reviving interest. Thrilled with astonishment at the white linen nurse's apparent stupidity, she straightened up percally with inordinately sparkling eyes. Why, of course, it makes him mad! She explained briskly. That's why I do it. Why, my papa, never even looks at me unless I make him mad. Sh! said the white linen nurse. Why, you mustn't ever say a thing like that. Why, your mama wouldn't like you to say a thing like that. Jerking bumbly back against the white linen nurse's unprepared shoulder, the little girl prodded a pallet fingertip into the white linen nurse's vivid cheek. Silly pink and white nursey, she chuckled. Don't you know there isn't any mama? Cackling with delight over her own superior knowledge, she folded her little arms and began to rock herself convulsively to and fro. Why, stop! cry the white linen nurse. Now you stop! Why, you wicked little creature laughing like that about your poor dead mother! Why, just think how bad it would make your poor papa feel! With instant sobriety the little girl stopped rocking and stared perplexedly into the white linen nurse's shocked eyes. Her own little face was all wrinkled up with earnestness. But the papa didn't like the mama. She explained painstakingly. The papa never liked the mama. That's why it isn't like me. I heard cook telling the icemen once when I wasn't more than ten minutes old. Desperately, with one straining hand the white linen nurse stretched her fingers across the little girl's babbling mouth. Equally desperately, with the other hand she sought to divert the little girl's mind by pushing the fur cap back from her frizzily red hair and loosening her sumptuous coat and jerking down vainly across two painfully obtrusive white ruffles the awkwardly short, hideously bright little purple dress. I think your cap is too hot. She began casually and then proceeded with increasing vivacity and conviction to the objects that worried her most. And those, those ruffles, she protested, they don't look a bit nice being so long. Resentfully she rubbed an edge of the purple dress between her fingers. And a little girl like you, with such bright red hair, oughtn't to wear purple. She admonished with real concern. Now, whites and blues and little soft pussycat grays, mumblingly through her finger-muzzled mouth the little girl burst into explanations again. Oh, but when I wear gray, she persisted, the papa never sees me. But when I wear purple, he cares. He cares most awfully. She boasted with a bitter sort of triumph. Why, when I wear purple and frizz my hair hard enough, no matter who's there or anything, he'll stop right off short in the middle of whatever he's doing and rear right up so perfectly beautiful and mad and glorious, and haul her right out. For heaven's sake, take that colored Sunday supplement away. Your father's nervous, suggested the white linen nurse. Almost tenderly the little girl reached up and drew the white linen nurse's ear close down to her own snuggling lips. Damned nervous. She confided leconically. Quite against all intention, the white linen nurse giggled. Floundering to recover her dignity, she plunged into a new error. Poor little dev, she began. Yes, sighed the little girl complacently. That's just what the papa calls me. Fervently she clasped her little hands together. Yes, if I can only make him mad enough day-times, she asserted. Then at night, when he thinks I'm all asleep, he comes and stands by my creepy house, like a great black shadow bear, and shakes his most beautiful head and says, Poor little devil, poor little devil. Oh, if I can only make him mad enough day-times, she cried out ecstatically. Why, you naughty little thing! Scalded the white linen nurse with an unmistakable catch in her voice. Why, you naughty, naughty little thing! Like the brush of a butterfly's wing, the child's hand grazed the white linen nurse's cheek. I'm a lonely little thing. She confided wistfully. Oh, I'm an awfully lonely little thing. With a really shocking abruptness, the old malicious smile came twittering back to her mouth. But I'll get even with a papayette. She threatened joyously, reaching out with pliant fingers to count the buttons on the white linen nurse's dress. Oh, I'll get even with a papayette. In the midst of the passionate assertion, her rigid little mouth relaxed in a most mild and innocent yawn. Oh, of course, she yawned. On wash days and ironing days, and every other work day in the week, he has to be away cutting up people, because that's his lawful business. But Sundays, when he doesn't really need to, at all, he goes off to some kind of a green grassy club all day long and plays golf. Very palpably her eyelids began to droop. Where was I? she asked sharply. Oh, yes, the green grassy club. Well, when I die, she faltered. I'm going to die specially on some Sunday when there's a big golf game, so he'll just naturally have to give it up and stay home and amuse me, and help arrange the flowers. The papa's crazy about flowers. So am I. She added broodingly. I raced almost a geranium once, but the papa threw it out. It was a good geranium, too. All it did was just drip the tiniest, tiniest bit over a book and a writing, and somebody's brains in a dish. He threw it at a cat. It was a good cat, too. All it did was, too. A little jerkily, her drooping head bobbed forward and then back again. Her heavy eyes were almost tight shut by this time, and after a moment's silence her lips began moving dumbly, like one at silent devotions. I'm making a little poem now. She confided at last. It's about you and me. It's a sort of a little prayer. Very, very softly she began to repeat. Now I sit me down to nap, all curled up in a nurse's lap. If she should die before I wake. Abruptly she stopped and stared up suspiciously into the white linen nurse's eyes. Ha! she mocked. You thought I was going to say if I should die before I wake, didn't you? Well, I'm not. It would have been more generous. Acknowledged the white linen nurse. Very stiffly the little girl purrised her lips. It's plenty generous enough when it's all done. She said severely. And I'll thank you, Miss Mel Gregor, not to interrupt me again. Re-excessive deliberateness, she went back to the first line of her poem and began all over again. Now I sit me down to nap. I'll curled up in a nurse's lap. If she should die before I wake. Give her. Give her ten cents for Jesus' sake. Why, that's a cunning little prayer. Yawned the white linen nurse. Most certainly, of course, she would have smiled if the yawn hadn't caught her first. But now in the middle of the yawn it was a great deal easier to repeat the very cunning than to force her lips into any new expression. Very cunning. Very cunning. She kept crooning conscientiously. Modestly, like some other successful authors, the little girl flapped her eyelids languidly open and shut for three or four times before she acknowledged the compliment. Oh, cunning as any of them! she admitted offhandishly. Only once again did she open either mouth or eyes, and this time it was merely one eye and half a mouth. Do my fat iron braces hurt you? she mumbled drowsily. Yes, a little, conceded the white linen nurse. Ha! they hurt me all the time! jibbed the little girl. Five minutes later the child who didn't particularly care about being held and the girl who didn't particularly care about holding her were fast asleep in each other's arms. A naughty nagging, restive little hornet all hushed up in a dream in the heart of a pink wild rose. Stalking out of the house in his own due time, the senior surgeon reared back aghast at the sight. Well, I'll be hanged. He muttered. Most everlasting hanged. Wonder what they think this is? A somnolent kindergarten show? Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Awkwardly on the top step he struggled alone into his cumbersome coat. Every tingling nerve in his body, every shuddering sensibility, was wracked to its utmost capacity over the distressing scenes he had left behind him in the big house. Back in that luxuriant sick room, youth incarnate, lay stripped, root, branch, leaf, but blossom, fruit of all its manhood's promise. Back in that erudite library, culture personified, robbed of all its fine philosophy, sat babbling illiterate street curses into its quivering hands. Back in that exquisite pink and gold boudoir, blonded fashion ravished for once of all its artistry, ran stumbling round and round in interminable circles like a disheveled hag. In shrill crescendos and discordant bases, with heart-piercing jaggedness, with blood-curdling raspishness, each one, boy, father, mother, meddlesome relative, competent or incompetence-assistant, indiscriminate servant, filing his separate sorrow into the senior surgeon's tortured ears. With one of those sudden revolutions to materialism which is liable to overwhelm any man who delves too long at a time in the brutally unconventional issues of life and death, the senior surgeon stepped down into the subtle, highest-synth-scented sunshine, with every latent human greed in his body clamoring for expression, before it too should be hurtled into oblivion. Eat, you fool, and drink, you fool, and be merry, you fool, for tomorrow even you, Lendicott, our favor, may have to die, brawled and rebrawled through his mind like a rebald phonograph tune. At the edge of the bottom step, a precipitous lilac branch that must have budded and bloomed in a single hour smote him stingingly across his cheek, laggard, taunted the lilac branch. With the first crunching grit of gravel under his feet, something transcendently naked and unashamed that was neither brazen sorrow nor brazen pain thrilled across his startled consciousness. Over the rolling marshy meadow, beyond the succulent willow hedge that hid the winding river, up from some fluent slim canoe, out from a chorus of viral young tenor voices, a little passionate love song, divinely tender, most incomparatively innocent, came stealing palpitantly forth into that inflammable spring world without a single vestige of accompaniment on it. Kiss me, sweet, the spring is here, and love is Lord of you and me. There's no bird in break or prayer, but to his little maid sings he. Kiss me, sweet, the spring is here, and love is Lord of you and me. Wrenched like a sob out of his own lost youth, the senior surgeon's faltering college memories took up the older frayne. As I go singing to my dear, kiss me, sweet, the spring is here, and love is Lord of you and me. Kiss me, sweet, the spring is here. Just for an instant a dozen long-forgotten pictures lanced themselves poignantly into his brain. Dingey, uncontrovertible old recitation rooms where young ideas flashed bright and futile as parade swords, elm-shaded slopes where little young bodies lulled on green velvet grasses to expound their harshest cynicisms. Book history, book science, book economics, book love, all the paper passion of all the paper poets swaggering imperiously on boyish lips that would have died a thousand bashful deaths before the threatening eminence of a real girl's kiss. Magic days when youth, the one glittering, positive treasure on the tree of life and woman still a mystery. Woman a mystery. Harshly the phrase ripped through the senior surgeon's brain. Croakingly in that instant all the grim-gray scientific years re-overtook him, swamped him, strangled him. Woman a mystery. O ye gods, and youth, bach, youth a mere tinsel on a rotten Christmas tree. Furiously, with renewed venom, he turned and threw his weight again upon the stubbornly resistant crank of his automobile. Vaguely disturbed by the noise and vibration, the white linen nurse opened her big drowsy blue eyes upon him. Don't jerk it so! she admonished hazily. You awake, the little girl! Well, what about my convenience I'd like to know? snapped the senior surgeon in some astonishment. Heavily the white linen nurse's lashes shadowed down again across her sleep-flushed cheeks. Oh, never mind about that! she mumbled nonconcernedly. Oh, for heaven's sake, wake up there! bellowed the senior surgeon above the sudden roar of his engine. Adroitly for a man of his bulk, he ran around the radiator and jumped into his seat. Jogled unmercifully into wakefulness, the little girl greeted his return with a generous if distinctly non-tactful demonstration of affection. Grabbing the unwitting fingers of his momentarily free hand, she tapped them proudly against the white linen nurse's plump pink cheek. See, I call her peach! she boistered joyously with all the triumphant air of one who felt assured that mental discrimination such as this could not possibly fail to impress even a person so naturally obtuse as a father. Don't be foolish! snarled the senior surgeon. Who me? gasped the white linen nurse in a perfect agony of confusion. Yes, you! snapped the senior surgeon explosively half an hour later, after interminable miles of absolute silence and dingy yellow field stubble and bare brown elder bushes. Truly out of the ascetic habit of his daily life where no rain was as the Bible would put it, it did seem to him distinctly foolish not to say careless, not to say out and out incendiary for any girl to go blushing her way like a firebrand through a world so palpably populated by young men whose heads were tau and hearts indisputably tender rather than tender. Yes, you! he reasserted vehemently at the end of another silent mile. Then plainly begrudging the second inexcusable interruption of his most vital musings concerning spinal meningitis he scowled his way savagely back again into his own grimly established trend of thought. Excited by so much perfectly good silence that nobody seemed to be using, the little crippled girl ventured gallantly forth once more into the hazardous conversational land of grown-ups. Father? She experimented cautiously with most commendable discretion. Fathom's deep in abstraction the senior surgeon stared on heeding into the whizzing black road. Pulses and temperatures and blood pressures were seething in his mind and sharp sticks and jagged stones and the general possibilities of a puncture and murmurs of the heart and rallies of the lungs and the most unaccountable knock-knock-knocking in the engine and the probable relation of middle-ear disease and the perfectly positive symptoms of optic neuritis and a damned funny squeak in the steering gear. Father? The little girl persisted valiantly. To add to his original concentration the senior surgeon's linen collar began to chafe him maddeningly under his chin. The annoyance added two scowls to his already blackly furrowed face and at least ten miles an hour to his running time but nothing whatsoever to his conversational ability. Father? The little girl whimpered with faltering courage. Then panic stricken as wiser people have been before her over the dreadful, spookish remoteness of a perfectly normal human being who refuses either to answer or even to notice your wildest efforts at communication. She raised her waspish voice in its shrillest, harshest war cry. Fat Father! Fat Father! Fat Father! She screeched out friends idly at the top of her lungs. The gunshot agony of a wounded rabbit was in the cry, the last gurgling gasp of strangulation under a murderer's reeking fingers, catastrophe unspeakable, disaster now irrevocable. Clamping down his brakes with a wrench that almost tore the insides out of his engine, the senior surgeon brought the great car to a staggering standstill. What is it? he cried in real terror. What is it? Limply the little girl stretched down from the white linen nurse's lap till she could nick her toe against the shiniest woodwork in sight. Altogether aimlessly her small chin began to burrow deeper and deeper into her big fur collar. For heaven's sake, what do you want? demanded the senior surgeon. Even yet along his spine the little nerves crinkled with shock and apprehension. For heaven's sake, what do you want? Helplessly the child lifted her turbid eyes to his. With unmistakable appeal her tiny hand went clutching out at one of the big buttons on his coat. Desperately, for an instant, she rummaged through her brain for some remotely adequate answer to this most thunderous question and then retreated precipitously as usual to the sacristy of her own imagination. All the birds were there, father. She confided guilessly. All the birds were there, with yellow feathers instead of hair and bumblebees crocheted on the trees. And short of complete annihilation there was no satisfying vengeance whatsoever, that the senior surgeon's exploding passion could rack upon his offspring. Complete annihilation, being unfeasible at the moment, he merely climbed laboriously out of the car, recranked the engine, climbed laboriously back into his place, and started on his way once more. All the red blustering rage was stripped completely from him. Startlingly rigid, startlingly white, his face was like the death mask of a pirate. Pleasantly excited by she didn't know exactly what, the little girl resumed her beloved falsetto chant, rhythmically all the while with her puny, iron-braced legs beating the tune into the white linen nurse's tender flesh. All the birds were there, with yellow feathers instead of hair, and bumblebees crocheted on the trees, and all the birds were there, with yellow feathers instead of hair, and— Friendsedly, as a runaway horse trying to escape from its own pursuing harness and carriage, the senior surgeon poured increasing speed into both his own pace and the pace of his tormentor. Up hill, down dale, screeching through rocky echoes, swishing through blue-green spruce lands, dodging indomitable boulders, grazing lax, treacherous embankments, the great car scuttled homeward. Huddled behind his steering wheel like a warrior behind his shield, everybody muscle-taught with strain, every facial muscle diabolically calm, the senior surgeon met and paired successively each fresh onslaught of yard-rod-mile. Then suddenly, in the first precipitous descent of a mighty hill, the whole earth seemed to drop out from under the car. Down, down, down, with incredible swiftness and smoothness, the great machine went diving towards abysmal space. Up, up, up, with incredible bumps and bouncings, trees, bushes, stone walls went rushing to the sky. Gasping surprisingly towards the senior surgeon, the white linen nurse saw his green mouth yank around abruptly in her direction, as it yanked sometimes in the operating room with some sharp incisive order of life or death. Instinctively, she leaned forward for the message. Not over-loud, but strangely distinct, the words slapped back into her straining ears. If it will rest your face any to look scared by all means do so, I've lost control of the machine! called the senior surgeon sardonyically across the roar of the wind. The phrase excited the white linen nurse, but it did not remotely frighten her. She was not in the habit of seeing the senior surgeon lose control of any situation. Merely intoxicated with speed, delirious with ozone, she snatched up the little girl close to her breast. We're flying! she cried. We're dropping from a parachute! We're— Swoopingly, like a sled-striking glare, level eyes, the great cars were from the bottom of the hill into a soft rolling meadow. Instantly, from every conceivable direction, like foes in ambush, trees, stumps, rocks reared up in threatening defiance. Tighter and tighter, the white linen nurse crushed the little girl to her breast. Louder and louder, she called in the little girl's ear. Scream! she shouted. There might be a bump! Scream louder than a bump! Scream! Scream! Scream! That first overwhelming, nerve-numbing, hard-crunching terror of his whole life as the great car tilted up against a stone, plowed down into the mushy edge of a marsh, and skitted completely round, a crash bang into a tree. It was the last sound that the senior surgeon heard—the sound of a woman and child screeching their lungs out in diapolical exultancy. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Of The White Linen Nurse This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The White Linen Nurse by Illinois Hallowell Abbott Chapter 5 When the White Linen Nurse found anything again, she found herself lying perfectly flat on her back, in a reasonably comfortable nest of grass and leaves. Staring inquisitively up into the sky, she thought she noticed a slight black and blue discoloration towards the west, but more than that, much to her relief, the firmament did not seem to be seriously injured. The earth she feared had not escaped so easily. Even way off somewhere near the tip of her fingers, the ground was as sore, as sore as could be under her touch. Impulsively, to her dizzy eyes the hot tear started to think that now, tired as she was, she should have to jump right up in another minute or two and attend to the poor earth. Fortunately for any really strenuous emergency that might arise, there seemed to be nothing about her own body that hurt at all, except a queer, persistent little pain in her cheek. Not until the little crippled girl's dirt-smooched face intervened between her own staring eyes and the sky did she realize that the pain in her cheek was a pinch. Wake up! Wake up! scolded the little crippled girl shrielly. Naughty, pink and white nursey, I want to hear the bump! You screamed so loud I couldn't hear the bump! With excessive caution the white linen nurse struggled up at last to a sitting posture and gazed perplexedly around her. It seemed to be a perfectly pleasant field, acres and acres of mild old grass, tottering, pulsedly down to watch some skittish young violets and bluets frolic in and out of a giggling brook. Up the field! Up the field! Haisley, the white linen nurse, ground her knuckles into her incredulous eyes. Up the field, just beyond them, the great empty automobile stood amably at rest. From the general appearance of the stone wall at the top of the little grassy slope, it was palpably evident that the car had attempted certain vain acrobatic feats before its failing momentum had forced it into the humiliating ranks of the backsliders. Still grinding her knuckles into her eyes, the white linen nurse turned back to the little girl. Under the torn twisted sable cap, one little eye was hidden completely, but the other eye loomed up rakeish and bruised as a prize fighters. One sable sleeve was wrenched disastrously from its armhole, and along the edge of the vivid little purple skirt the ill-favored white ruffles seemed to have ravelled out into hopeless yards and yards and yards of hamburger embroidery. A trifle self-consciously, the little girl began to gather herself together. We seemed to have fallen out of something. She confided with the air of one who halves a most precious secret. Yes, I know, said the white linen nurse. But what has become of your father? Warrantly, for an instant, the little girl set scanning the remotest corners of the field. Then abruptly, with a gasp of real relief, she began to explore with cautious fingers the geographical outline of her black eye. I'll never mind about father, she asserted cheerfully. I guess, I guess he got mad and went home. Yes, I know, mused the white linen nurse, but it doesn't seem probable. Probable? mocked the little girl most disagreeably. Then suddenly, her little hand went shooting out towards the stranded automobile. Why, there he is! She screamed. Under the car! Oh, look! Look! Lucky! Laboriously, the white linen nurse scrambled her knees. Desperately, she tried to ram her fingers like a clog into the whirling dissonance around her temples. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What's the dose for anybody under a car? She babbled idiotically. Then, with a really herculean effort, both mental and physical, she staggered to her feet and started for the automobile. But her knees gave out, and wilting down to the grass, she tried to crawl along on all fours, till straining wrists sent her back to her feet again. Whenever she tried to walk, the little girl walked. Whenever she tried to crawl, the little girl crawled. Isn't it fun? The shrill, childish voice piped persistently. Isn't it just like playing shipwreck? When they reached the car, both women and child were too utterly exhausted with breathlessness to do anything except just sit down on the ground and stare. Sure enough, under that monstrous, immovable-looking machine, the senior surgeon's body lay rammed face down deep, deep into the grass. It was the little girl who recovered her breath first. I think he's dead. She volunteered, sagely. His legs look awfully dead to me. Only excitement was in the statement. It took a second or two for her little mind to make any particularly personal application of such excitement. I hadn't exactly planned on having him dead! She began with imperious resentment. A threat of complete emotional collapse zigzagged suddenly across her face. I won't have him dead! I won't! I won't! She screamed out stormily. In the amazing silence that ensued, the white linen nurse gathered her trembling knees up into the circle of her arms and sat there staring at the senior surgeon's prostrate body and rocking herself feebly to and fro in a futile effort to collect her scattered senses. Oh, if someone would only tell me what to do! I know I could do it! Oh, I know I could do it! If someone would only tell me what to do! She kept repeating helplessly. Cautiously the little girl crapped forward on her hands and knees to the edge of the car and peered speculatively through the great yellow wheel spokes. Father! She faltered in almost inaudible gentleness. Father! She pleaded in perfectly impotent whisper. Impetuously the white linen nurse scrambled on her own hands and knees and jostled the little girl aside. Fat Father! screamed the white linen nurse. Fat Father! Fat Father! Fat Father! She jibed and taunted with the one call she knew that had never yet failed to rouse him. Perceptibly across the senior surgeon's horridly quiet shoulders a little twitch wrinkled and was gone. Oh, his heart! gasped the white linen nurse. I must find his heart! Throwing herself prone upon the cool meadowy ground and frantically reaching out under the running board of the car to her full arms length, she began to rummage awkwardly hither and yon beneath the heavy weight of the man in the desperate hope of feeling a heartbeat. Ouch! You tickle me! spluttered the senior surgeon weakly. Rolling back quickly with frightened relief the white linen nurse burst forth into one maddening cackle of hysterical laughter. She giggled. Perplexedly at first, but with increasing abandon the little girl's voice took up the same idiotic refrain. She choked, and with an agonizing jerk of his neck the senior surgeon rooted his mud-gagged mouth a half inch farther towards free and spontaneous speech. Very laboriously, very painstakingly, he spat out one by one two stones in a wisp of ground pine and a brackish prickly tickle of stale golden rod. Blankety blank blank blank. He announced in due time, blankety blank blank blank blank. Maybe when you two blankety blank vessels have got through your blankety blank cackling you'll have the blankety blank decency to save my my blankety blank blank blank blank blank life. Persisted the poor helpless white linen nurse with a tear streaming down her cheeks snickered the poor little girl through her hiccups. Feeling hopelessly crushed under two tons and a half of car the senior surgeon closed his eyes for death no man of his weight he felt quite sure could reasonably expect to survive many minutes longer the apoplectic blood red rage that pounded in his eardrums there is tight closed eyelids very very slowly a red glow seemed to permeate he thought it was the fires of hell opening his eyes to meet his fate like a man he found himself staring impudently close instead into the white linen nurses furiously flushed face that lay cuddled on one plump cheek staring impudently close at him why why get out gasped the senior surgeon very modestly the white linen nurses face retreated a little further into its blushes yes i know she protested but i'm all through giggling now i'm sorry i'm in sheer apprehensiveness the senior surgeon's features crinkled wincingly from brow to chin as though struggling vainly to retreat from the appalling proximity of the girl's face your eyelashes are too long he complained quarrelously eh jerked the white linen nurses face is it your brain that's hurt oh sir do you think it's your brain that's hurt it's my stomach snap the senior surgeon i tell you i'm not hurt i'm just squashed i'm paralyzed if i can't get this car off me yes that's just it beamed the white linen nurses face that's just what i crawled in here to find out how to get the car off you that's just what i want to find out i could run for help of course only i couldn't run because my knees are so wobbly it would take hours and the car might start or burn up or something while i was gone but you don't seem to be caught anywhere in the machinery she added more brightly it only seems to be sitting on you so if i could only get the car off you but it's so heavy i had no idea it would be so heavy could i take it apart do you think is there any one place where i could begin at the beginning and take it all apart take it apart oh hell grown the senior surgeon a little twitch of defiance flickered across the white linen nurses face all the same she asserted stubbornly if someone would only tell me what to do i know i could do it horribly from some unlocatable corridor of the engine an alarming little tremor quickened suddenly and was hushed again get out of here quick stormed the senior surgeon's ghastly face i won't said the white linen nurses face until you tell me what to do brutally for an instant the ingenious blue eyes and the cynical gray eyes battled each other can can you do what you're told faltered the senior surgeon oh yes said the white linen nurse i mean can you do exactly what you're told gasped the senior surgeon can you follow directions i mean can you follow them explicitly or are you one of those people who listens only to her own judgment oh but i haven't got any judgment protested the white linen nurse palpably in the senior surgeon's bloodshot eyes the leisurely seeming diagnosis leapt to precipitous conclusions then get out of here quick for god's sake and get to work he ordered cautiously the white linen nurse jerked herself back into freedom and crawled around and stared at the senior surgeon through the wheel spokes again like one worrying out some intricate mathematical problem his mental strain was pulsing visibly through his closed eyelids yes sir prodded the white linen nurse keep still snapped the senior surgeon i've got to think he said i've got to work it out all in a moment you've got to learn to run the car all in a moment it's awful oh i don't mind sir affirmed the white linen nurse serenely frenziedly the senior surgeon rooted one cheek into the mud again you don't mind he groaned you don't mind why you've got to learn everything everything from the very beginning oh that's all right sir crooned the white linen nurse ominously from somewhere a hoared sound creaked again the senior surgeon did not stop to argue any further now come here ordered the senior surgeon i'm going to i'm going to startlingly his voice weakened trailed off into nothingness and rallied suddenly with exaggerated brusqueness look here now for heaven's sake use your brains i'm going to dictate to you very slowly one thing at a time just what to do quite astonishingly the white linen nurse sank down on her knees and began to grin at him oh no sir she said i couldn't do it that way not one thing at a time oh no indeed sir no absolute finality was in her voice the inviolable stubbornness of the perfectly good-natured person you'll do it the way i tell you to roared the senior surgeon struggling vainly to ease one shoulder or stretch one knee joint oh no sir beamed the white linen nurse not one thing at a time oh no i couldn't do it that way oh no sir i won't do it that way one thing at a time she persisted hurriedly why you might find a way or something might happen right in the middle of it right between one direction and another and i wouldn't know at all what to turn on or off next it might take off one of your legs you know or an arm oh no not one thing at a time goodbye then croaked the senior surgeon i'm as good as dead now a single shutter went through him a last futile effort to stretch himself goodbye said the white linen nurse goodbye sir i'd heaps rather have you die perfectly whole like that of your own accord then have me run the risk of starting the car full tilt and chopping you up so or dragging you off so that you didn't find it convenient to tell me how to stop the car you're a a a spluttered the senior surgeon indistinguishably crinkle crackle went that mysterious horrid sound from somewhere in the machinery oh my god surrendered the senior surgeon do it your own damned way only only his voice cracked raspingly steady steady there so the white linen nurse except for a sudden odd pucker at the end of her nose her expression was still perfectly serene now begin at the beginning she begged quick tell me everything just the way i must do it quick quick quick twice a senior surgeon's lips opened and shot with a vain effort to comply with her request but you can't do it he began all over again it isn't possible you haven't got the mind maybe i haven't said the white linen nurse but i've got the memory hurry Greek said the funny little something in the machinery Greek drip bubble oh get in there quick surrender the senior surgeon sit down behind the wheel he shouted after her flying footsteps are you there for god's sake are you there do you see those two little levers where your right hand comes for god's sake don't you know what a lever is quick now do just what i tell you a little jerkily then but very clearly very concisely the senior surgeon called out to the white linen nurse just how every lever every pedal should be manipulated to start the car absolutely accurately absolutely indelibly the white linen nurse visualized each separate detail in her abnormally retentive mind but you can't possibly remember it groaned the senior surgeon you can't possibly and probably the damned cars bust and won't start anyway and abruptly the speech ended in a guttural snarl of despair don't be a blight screamed the white linen nurse i've never forgotten anything yet sir very tensely she straightened up suddenly in her seat her expression was no longer even remotely pleasant along her sensitive fluctuent nostrils the casual crinkle of distaste and suspicion had deepened suddenly into sheer dilating terror left foot pressed down hard left pedal she began to sing song to herself no right foot right foot corrected the little girl blunderingly from somewhere close in the grass inside lever pull way back persisted the white linen nurse resolutely as she switched on the current no outside lever outside outside contradicted the little girl shut your darn mouth screeched the white linen nurse her hand on the throttle she tried the self-starter bruised as he was wretched desperately endangered there under the car the senior surgeon could almost have grinned at the girl's terse unconscious mimicry of his own most venomous tones then with all the 48 lusty ebullient years of his life snatched from his lips like an untasted cup and one single noxious death flavored second urged forced crammed down his choking throat he felt the great car quicken and start god said the senior surgeon just god the god of mud he meant the god of brackish grass the god of a man lying still hopeful under more than two tons weight of an unaccountable mechanism with a novice in full command up in her crimson leather cushions free lunged free limbed the white linen nurse heard the smothered cry clear above the whir of wheels the whiz of clogs the one word sizzled like a red hot poker across her chattering consciousness tingling through the gasp of her fingers on the vibrating wheel stinging through the sole of her foot that hovered over the throbbing clutch she sensed the agonized appeal short lever spark long lever gas she persisted resolutely it must be right it must jerkily then and blatantly unskillfully with the riotous puffs and spinning of wheels the great car started faltered bulked a bit then dragged crushingly across the senior surgeon's flattened body and with a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the brook rods away clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket like the smash of a machine shop the white linen nurse jumped out into the brook and with one wild terrified glance behind her staggered back up the long grassy slope to the senior surgeon mechanically through her wooden feeling lips she forced the greeting that sounded almost cheerful to her it's not much fun sir running an auto she gasped i don't believe i'd like it half propped up on one elbow still dizzy with mental chaos still paralyzed with physical inertia the senior surgeon lay staring blankly all around him indifferently for an instant he stare included the white linen nurse then glowering suddenly at something way beyond her his face went perfectly livid good god the the car's on fire he mumbled yes sir said the white linen nurse why didn't you know it sir end of chapter five chapter six of the white linen nurse this is a lipper vox recording all lipper vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit lipper vox.org the white linen nurse by illinor hallowell abbot chapter six had long the senior surgeon pitched over on the grass his last vestige of self-control stripped from him horror unspeakable racking him sobbingly from head to toe whimperingly the little girl came crawling to him and settling down close at his feet began with her tiny lace handkerchief to make futile dabs at the mud stains on his gray silk stockings never mind father she coaxed we'll get you clean sometime nervously the white linen nurse we thought her of the brook oh wait a minute sir and i'll get you drink of water she pleaded brusically the senior surgeon's hand jerked out and grabbed at her skirt don't leave me he begged for god's sake don't leave me weekly he struggled up again and sat staring piteously at the blazing car his unreliquished clutch on the white linen nurse's skirt brought her sinking softly down beside him like a collapsed balloon together they sat and watched the gaseous yellow flames shoot up into the sky it's pretty isn't it piped the little girl hey hey groaned the senior surgeon father persisted the shrill little voice father do people ever burn up hey gasped the senior surgeon brutally the harsh shuddering sobs began to rack and tear again through his great chest there there crooned the white linen nurse struggling desperately turnies let me get everybody a drink of water again the senior surgeon's unreliquished clutch on her skirt jerked her back to the place beside him i said not to leave me he snapped out as roughly as he jerked before the affrighted look in the white linen nurse's face a sheepish mirthless grin flickered across one corner of his mouth lord but i'm shaken he apologized me of all people painfully the red blood mounted to his cheeks me of all people bluntly he forced the white linen nurse's reluctant gaze to meet his own only yesterday he persisted i did a laparotomy on a man who had only one chance in a hundred of pulling through and i i scolded him for fighting off his ether cone scolded him i tell you yes i know soothed the white linen nurse but but nothing growled the senior surgeon the fear of death bah all my life have scoffed at it die yes of course when you have to but with no kick coming why i've been wrecked in a typhoon in the gulf of mexico and i didn't care i've lain for nine days more dead than alive in an asiatic cholera camp and i didn't care and i've been locked into my office three hours with a raving maniac in a dynamite bomb and i didn't care and twice in a peninsular mine disaster i've been the first man down the shaft and i didn't care and i've been shot i tell you and i've been horse trampled and i've been wolf bitten and i've never cared but today today pitiously all the pride and vigor wilted from his great shoulders leaving him all huddled up like a woman with his head on his knees but today i've got mine he acknowledged brokenly once again the white linen nurse tried to rise oh please sir let me get you a drink of water she suggested helplessly i said not to leave me jerked the senior surgeon perplexedly with big staring eyes the little crippled girl glanced up at this strange fatherish person who sounded so suddenly small and scared like herself jealous instantly of her own prerogatives she dropped her futile labors on the mud-stained silk stockings and scrambled precipitously for the white linen nurse's lab where she nestled down finally after many gyrations and sat glowering forth at all possible interlopers don't leave any of us she ordered with a peremptoriness not unmixed with supplication surely someone will see the fire and come and get us conceded the senior surgeon yes surely mused the white linen nurse just at that moment she was mostly concerned with adjusting the curve of her shoulder to the curve of the little girl's head i could sit more comfortably she suggested to the senior surgeon if you'd let go my skirt let go of your skirt who's touching your skirt gasped the senior surgeon incredibly once again the blood mounted darkly to his face i think i'll get up and walk around a bit he confided coldly do sir said the white linen nurse ouchily with a tweak of pain through his sprained back the senior surgeon sat suddenly down again i shan't get up till i'm good and ready he attested i wouldn't sir said the white linen nurse very slowly very complacently all the while she kept right on renovating the little girl's personal appearance smoothing a wrinkled stocking tucking up obstreperous white ruffles tugging down parsimonous purple hems loosening a pinchy hook tightening a wobbly button very slowly very complacently the little girl drowsed off to sleep with her weasened little iron cased legs stretched stiffly out before her poor little legs poor little legs poor little legs crew and the white linen nurse i don't know as you need to make a song about it winced the senior surgeon it's just about the crudest case of complete muscular atrophy that i've ever seen blandly the white linen nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his it wasn't her complete muscular atrophy that i was thinking about she said it's her panties that are so unbecoming a jumped the senior surgeon poor little legs poor little legs poor little legs resumed the white linen nurse droningly very slowly very complacently all around them april kept right on being april very slowly very complacently all around them the grass kept on growing and the trees kept right on budding very slowly very complacently all around them the blue sky kept right on fading into its early evening dove colors nothing brisk nothing breathless nothing even remotely hurried was there in all the landscape except just the brook and the flash of a bird and the blaze of the crackling automobile the white linen nurses nostrils were smooth and calm with a lovely sapu scent of rabbit nibbled maple bark and mud wet arbitus buds the white linen nurses mind was full of sumptuous succulent marsh marigolds and fluffy white shad bush blossoms the senior surgeons nostrils were all puckered up with a stench of burning varnish the senior surgeon's mind was full of the horrid thought that he had forgotten to renew his automobile fire insurance and that he had a sprained back and that his rival colleague had told him he didn't know how to run an auto anyway and that the cook had given notice that morning and that he had a sprained back and that the moths had gnawed the knees out of his new dress suit and that the superintendent of nurses had had the audacity to send him a bunch of pink roses for his birthday and that the boiler in the kitchen leaked and that he had to go to Philadelphia the next day to read a paper on surgical methods at the Battle of Waterloo and he hadn't even begun the paper yet and that he had a sprained back and that the wallpaper in his library hung in shreds and tatters waiting for him to decide between a french fresco effect and an early english paneling and that his little daughter was growing up in wanton ugliness under the care of course in different hirelings and that the laundry rubbed him weakly of at least five socks and that it would cost him fully seven thousand dollars to replace this car and that he had a sprained back it's restful isn't it coot the white linen nurse isn't what restful glowered the senior surgeon sitting down said the white linen nurse contemptuously the senior surgeon's mind ignored the interruption and reverted precipitously to its own immediate problem concerning the gloomy black walnut shadowed entrance hall of his great house and how many yards of imported linoleum at three dollars and forty five cents a yard it would take to recarpet the damned hole and how it would have seemed anyway if if he hadn't gone home as usual to the horrid black walnut shadows that night but been carried home instead feet first and quite dead dead mind you with a red necktie on and even the cook was out and they wouldn't even know where to lay him but might put him by mistake in that in that in his dead wife's dead bed altogether unconsciously a little fluttering sigh of ineffable contentment escaped the white linen nurse i don't care how long we have to sit here and wait for help she announced cheerfully because tomorrow of course i'll have to get up and begin all over again and go to Nova Scotia go where lurched the senior surgeon i think you kindly sir not to jerk my skirt quite so hard said the white linen nurse just a trifle stiffly incredulously once more the senior surgeon withdrew his detaining hand i'm not even touching your skirt he denied desperately nothing but denial and reiterated denial seemed to ease his office team for instant why for heaven's sake should i want to hold on to your skirt he demanded preemptorily what the deuce he began blusteringly why in then abruptly he stopped and shot an odd puzzled glance at the white linen nurse and right there before her startled eyes she saw every vestige of human expression fade out of his face as it faded out sometimes in the operating room within the midst of some ghastly unforeseen emergency that left all his assistants blinking helplessly around them his whole wonderful scientific mind seemed to break up like some chemical compound into all its meek component parts only to reorganize itself suddenly with some amazing explosive action that fairly knocked the breath out of all onlookers but was pretty apt to knock the breath into the body of the person most concerned when the senior surgeon's scientific mind had reorganized itself to meet this emergency he found himself infinitely more surprised at the particular type of explosion that had taken place than any other person could possibly have been miss mal greger he gasped speaking of preferring domestic service as you call it speaking of preferring domestic service to nursing how would you like to consider to consider a position of well call it a position of general hard work for a family of two myself and the little girl here being the two as you understand he added briskly why i think it would be grand beamed the white liners a trifle mockingly the senior surgeon about his appreciation your frank and immediate enthusiasm he murmured is more perhaps than i had dared to expect but it would be grand said the white liners before the odd little smile in the senior surgeon's eyes her white forehead puckered all up with perplexity then with her mind still thoroughly unawakened her heart began suddenly to pitch and lurch like a frightened horse whose rider has not even remotely sensed as yet the approach of an unwanted footfall what did you say she repeated wordly just exactly what was it that you said i guess maybe i didn't understand just exactly what it was that you said the smile in the senior surgeon's eyes deepened a little i asked you he said how you would like to consider a position of general hard work in a family of two myself and the little girl here being the two hard work was what i said yes hard work not housework hard work faltered the white linen nurse hard work i don't know what she means sir like two falling rose petals her eyelids fluttered down across her affrighted eyes oh when i shut my eyes sir and just hear your voice i know of course sir that it's some sort of a joke but when i look right at you i i don't know what it is open your eyes and keep them open then until you do find out suggested the senior surgeon bluntly definitely once again the blue eyes and the gray eyes challenged each other hard work was what i said persisted the senior surgeon palpably his narrowing eyes shut out all meaning but one definite one the white linen nurse's face went almost as blanched as her dress you're you're not asking me to marry you sir she stammered i suppose i am acknowledged the senior surgeon not to marry you cried the white linen nurse distress was in her voice distaste unmitigable shock as though the high gods themselves had fallen at her feet and splintered off into mere candy fragments oh not marry you sir she kept right on protesting not being engaged you mean oh not being engaged in everything well why not snapped the senior surgeon like a smitten flower the girl's whole body seemed to wilt down into incalculable weariness oh no no i couldn't she protested oh no really appealingly she looked at her great blue eyes to his and the blueness was all blurred with tears i've i've been engaged once you know she explained falteringly why i was engaged sir almost as soon as i was born and i stayed engaged till two years ago that's almost 20 years that's a long time sir you don't get over it easy very very gravely she began to shake her head oh no sir no thank you very much but i i just simply can't begin at the beginning and go all through it again i haven't got the heart for it i haven't got the spirit carbon your initials on trees and and getting around to all the sunday school picnics brutally like a boy the senior surgeon threw back his head in one wild hoot of joy infinitely more cautiously as the agonizing pain in his shoulder lulled down again he proceeded to argue the matter but the grin in his face was even yet faintly traceable frankly miss malgregor he affirmed i'm infinitely more addicted to carving people than to carving trees and as the sunday school picnics well really now i hardly believe that you'd find my demands in that direction excessive perplexedly the white linen nurse tried to stare her way through his bantering smile to his real meaning furiously as she stared the red blood came flushing back into her face you don't mean for a second that you that you love me she asked incredulously no i don't suppose i do i acknowledged the senior surgeon with equal bluntness but my little kitty here loves you he hastened somewhat nervously to affirm oh i'm almost sure that my little kitty here loves you she needs you anyway let it go that call it that we both need you what do you mean is corrected the white linen nurse that needing somebody very badly you've just suddenly decided that that somebody might as well be me well if you choose to put it like that said the senior surgeon a bit sulkily and if there hadn't been an auto accident argued the white linen nurse just out of sheer inquisitiveness if there hadn't been just this particular kind of an auto accident at this particular hour of this particular day of this particular month with marigolds and everything you probably never would have realized that you didn't need anybody maybe not admitted the senior surgeon hmm so the white linen nurse and if you'd happen to take one of the other girls today instead of me why then i suppose you'd have felt that she was the one you really needed and if you'd taken the superintendent of nurses instead of any of us girls you might even have felt that she was the one you most needed with surprising agility for a man with a sprained back the senior surgeon wrenched himself around until he faced her quite squarely now see here greger he growled for heaven's sake listen to sense even if you can't talk it here am i a plain professional man making you a plain professional offer why in thunder should you try to fuss me all up because my offer isn't couched in all the foolish romantic lace paper sort of flub dubbery that you think such an offer ought to be couched in a fuss you all up sir protested the white linen nurse with real anxiety yes fuss me all up snarled the senior surgeon with increasing venom i'm no story writer i'm not trying to make up what might have happened a year from next february in a chinese junk off the coast of nova zambla to a methodist preacher and a and a militant suffragette what i'm trying to size up is just what's happened to you and me today for the fact remains that it is today and it is you and i and there has been an accident and out of that accident and everything that's gone with it i have come out thinking of something that i never thought of before and there were marigolds he added unexpected whimsicality you see i don't deny even the marigolds yes sir said the white linen nurse yes what jerked the senior surgeon softly the white linen nurse's chin burrowed down a little closer against the sleeping child's tangled hair why yes thank you very much but i shall never love again she said quite definitely love gasped the senior surgeon why i'm not asking you to love me his face was suddenly crimson why i'd hate it if you loved me why i'd oh mumble the white linen nurse in new embarrassment then suddenly and surprisingly her chin came tilting bravely up again what do you want she asked helplessly the senior surgeon throughout his hands my goodness he said what do you suppose i want i want someone to take care of us gently the white linen nurse shifted her shoulder to accommodate the shifting little sleepyhead on her breast you can hire someone for that she suggested with real relief i was trying to hire you said the senior surgeon quite tersely hire me gasped the white linen nurse why why a droidly she slipped both hands under the sleeping child and delivered the little frail flashed heavily ironed body into the senior surgeon's astonished arms i i don't want to hold her he protested she isn't mine argued the white linen nurse but i can't talk while i'm holding her insisted the senior surgeon i can't listen while i'm holding her persisted the white linen nurse freely now though cross-legged like a Turk she jerked herself forward on the grass and sat probing up into the senior surgeon's face like an excited puppy trying to solve whether the gift in your upraised hand is a lump of sugar or a live coal you're trying to hire me she prompted him nudgingly with her voice hire me for money oh my lord no said the senior surgeon there are plenty of people i can hire for money but they won't stay he explained roughly hang it all they won't stay above his little girl's wide pinched face his own ruddy continents furrowed suddenly with unspeakable anxiety why just this last year he complained we've had nine different housekeepers and thirteen nursery governesses skillfully as a surgeon but awkwardly as a father he bent to readjust the weight of the little iron leg braces but i tell you no one will stay with us he finished hotly there's there's something the matter with us i don't seem to have money enough in the world to make anybody stay with us very riley very reluctantly at one corner of his mouth his sense of humor ignited in a feeble grin so you see what i'm trying to do to you miss mel greger is to hire you with something that will just naturally compel you to stay if the grin round his mouth strengthened a trifle so did the anxiety in his eyes for heaven's sake miss mel greger he pleaded here's a man in a house and a child all going to rack and ruin if you're really and truly tired of nursing and are looking for a new job what's the matter with tackling us it would be a job admitted the white linen nurse demurely why it would be a diss of a job confided the senior surgeon with no demureness whatsoever end of chapter six