Chapter III

That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot. The parrot belonged to the Girl; but how did he know it? So many things he should have known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed never to have learned! He did not know, for instance, of Father Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl's loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her. It is one of the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the plate on Old Maggie's bed, and that he shook his fist at her more than once when the Senior was out of the ward.

And he knew of the parrot. That day, then, a short, stout woman with a hard face appeared in the superintendent's office and demanded a parrot.

"Parrot?" said the superintendent blandly.

"Parrot! That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day and stole a parrot--and I want it."

"The Dummy! But what on earth----"

"It was my parrot," said the woman. "It belonged to one of my boarders. She's a burned case up in one of the wards--and she owed me money. I took it for a debt. You call that man and let him look me in the eye while I say parrot to him."

"He cannot speak or hear."

"You call him. He'll understand me!"

They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the stable and haled him into the office. He was very calm--quite impassive. Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head.

"As a matter of fact," said the superintendent, "I don't believe he ever saw the bird; but if he has it we shall find it out and you'll get it again."

They let him go then; and he went to the chapel and looked at a dove above the young John's head. Then he went up to the kitchen and filled his pockets with lettuce leaves. He knew nothing at all of parrots or how to care for them.

Things, you see, were moving right for the Avenue Girl. The stain was coming off--she had been fond of the parrot and now it was close at hand; and Father Feeny's lusty crowd stood ready to come into a hospital ward and shed skin that they generally sacrificed on the football field. But the Avenue Girl had two years to account for--and there was the matter of an alibi.

"I might tell the folks at home anything and they'd believe it because they'd want to believe it," said the Avenue Girl. "But there's the neighbours. I was pretty wild at home. And--there's a fellow who wanted to marry me--he knew how sick I was of the old place and how I wanted my fling. His name was Jerry. We'd have to show Jerry."

The Probationer worried a great deal about this matter of the alibi. It had to be a clean slate for the folks back home, and especially for Jerry. She took her anxieties out walking several times on her off-duty, but nothing seemed to come of it. She walked on the Avenue mostly, because it was near and she could throw a long coat over her blue dress. And so she happened to think of the woman the girl had lived with.

"She got her into all this," thought the Probationer. "She's just got to see her out."

It took three days' off-duty to get her courage up to ringing the doorbell of the house with the bowed shutters, and after she had rung it she wanted very much to run and hide; but she thought of the girl and everything going for nothing for the want of an alibi, and she stuck. The negress opened the door and stared at her.

"She's dead, is she?" she asked.

"No. May I come in? I want to see your mistress."

The negress did not admit her, however. She let her stand in the vestibule and went back to the foot of a staircase.

"One of these heah nurses from the hospital!" she said. "She wants to come in and speak to you."

"Let her in, you fool!" replied a voice from above stairs.

The rest was rather confused. Afterward the Probationer remembered putting the case to the stout woman who had claimed the parrot and finding it difficult to make her understand.

"Don't you see?" she finished desperately. "I want her to go home--to her own folks. She wants it too. But what are we going to say about these last two years?"

The stout woman sat turning over her rings. She was most uncomfortable. After all, what had she done? Had she not warned them again and again about having lighted cigarettes lying round.

"She's in bad shape, is she?"

"She may recover, but she'll be badly scarred--not her face, but her chest and shoulders."

That was another way of looking at it. If the girl was scarred----

"Just what do you want me to do?" she asked. Now that it was down to brass tacks and no talk about home and mother, she was more comfortable.

"If you could just come over to the hospital while her people are there and--and say she'd lived with you all the time----"

"That's the truth all right!"

"And--that she worked for you, sewing--she sews very well, she says. And--oh, you'll know what to say; that she's been--all right, you know; anything to make them comfortable and happy."

Now the stout woman was softening--not that she was really hard, but she had developed a sort of artificial veneer of hardness, and good impulses had a hard time crawling through.

"I guess I could do that much," she conceded. "She nursed me when I was down and out with the grippe and that worthless nigger was drunk in the kitchen. But you folks over there have got a parrot that belongs to me. What about that?"

The Probationer knew about the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it sat on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had smiled benignly. John and the dove--the girl and the parrot!

"I am sorry about the parrot. I--perhaps I could buy him from you."

She got out her shabby little purse, in which she carried her munificent monthly allowance of eight dollars and a little money she had brought from home.

"Twenty dollars takes him. That's what she owed me."

The Probationer had seventeen dollars and eleven cents. She spread it out in her lap and counted it twice.

"I'm afraid that's all," she said. She had hoped the second count would show up better. "I could bring the rest next month."

The Probationer folded the money together and held it out. The stout woman took it eagerly.

"He's yours," she said largely. "Don't bother about the balance. When do you want me?"

"I'll send you word," said the Probationer, and got up. She was almost dizzy with excitement and the feeling of having no money at all in the world and a parrot she did not want. She got out into the air somehow and back to the hospital. She took a bath immediately and put on everything fresh, and felt much better--but very poor. Before she went on duty she said a little prayer about thermometers--that she should not break hers until she had money for a new one.

* * * * *

Father Feeny came and lined up six budding priests outside the door of the ward. He was a fine specimen of manhood and he had asked no questions at all. The Senior thought she had better tell him something, but he put up a white hand.

"What does it matter, sister?" he said cheerfully. "Yesterday is gone and to-day is a new day. Also there is to-morrow"--his Irish eyes twinkled--"and a fine day it will be by the sunset."

Then he turned to his small army.

"Boys," he said, "it's a poor leader who is afraid to take chances with his men. I'm going first"--he said fir-rst. "It's a small thing, as I've told you--a bit of skin and it's over. Go in smiling and come out smiling! Are you ready, sir?" This to the _interne_.

That was a great day in the ward. The inmates watched Father Feeny and the _interne_ go behind the screens, both smiling, and they watched the father come out very soon after, still smiling but a little bleached. And they watched the line patiently waiting outside the door, shortening one by one. After a time the smiles were rather forced, as if waiting was telling on them; but there was no deserter--only one six-foot youth, walking with a swagger to contribute his little half inch or so of cuticle, added a sensation to the general excitement by fainting halfway up the ward; and he remained in blissful unconsciousness until it was all over.

Though the _interne_ had said there was no way back, the first step had really been taken; and he was greatly pleased with himself and with everybody because it had been his idea. The Probationer tried to find a chance to thank him; and, failing that, she sent a grateful little note to his room:

Is Mimi the Austrian to have a baked apple?
[Signed] WARD A.

P.S.--It went through wonderfully! She is so cheerful
since it is over. How can I ever thank you?

The reply came back very quickly:

Baked apple, without milk, for Mimi. WARD A.
[Signed] D.L.S.

P.S.--Can you come up on the roof for a little air?

She hesitated over that for some time. A really honest-to-goodness nurse may break a rule now and then and nothing happen; but a probationer is only on trial and has to be exceedingly careful--though any one might go to the roof and watch the sunset. She decided not to go. Then she pulled her soft hair down over her forehead, where it was most becoming, and fastened it with tiny hairpins, and went up after all--not because she intended to, but because as she came out of her room the elevator was going up--not down. She was on the roof almost before she knew it.

The _interne_ was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and the plot.

The _interne_ stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some day he would mellow and accept life as it is--not as he would have it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to have an alibi!" said the Probationer.

"Oh, of course," very stiffly.

"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done."

"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of course. Only----"

"Please go on."

"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled."

"I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and making her plea--and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney.

"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!"

The _interne_ walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably the Probationer would never speak to him again.

The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had a piece of apple pie in its claw now.

"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the _interne_ crookedly.

The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some instinct of despair had seized him for its own--some conception, perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before it, the _interne's_ wrath gave way to impotency.

"Cold beer!" said the parrot wickedly.