Chapter VII: Introduction: BY (7)

“I’m not making any promises,” the congressman said, finally. “Congressmen haven’t a pocketful of blanks to fill out whenever they see a bright boy. I’ll see what I can do.”

When, by the rules of the navy, Franklin was supposed to be sound asleep that night, he was wide awake, building air-castles. How long would he have to wait before he heard from the congressman? Would he ever hear?

The statesman did not appear again aboard the cruiser for many days. In the meantime, a new cadet, with his stripe fresh on his arm, came to the cruiser. It was none other than Franklin’s own cousin, Edward. When they met at drill there was no look of recognition in Edward’s face. Later, in one of the intervals of the day which the forecastle may call its own, the officer came aft and in a patronizing manner asked the apprentice how he was getting on. When Franklin told him very well, Edward said it was awkward for an officer to have a cousin in the forecastle, and walked away. Franklin flushed at the remark, and repeated under his breath his father’s advice, as the soldier of the old, superstitious days repeated his talisman.

The next day Franklin had shore leave. On his way back to the quay he saw his fellow apprentice, Charley, in bad company. He forgot all else except his friend’s plight and his horror over it. When, finally, he had separated Charley from the lounger who wanted to show the sailor boy the town, the cruiser’s launch had gone. They had to hire a native to row them out in a banka, which crept at a snail’s pace in the gathering darkness.

For the first time in his life Franklin was among the accused who stood at the mast the next morning to hear their sentences from the captain, who acts as judge, and with the captain was the congressman. Franklin saw his look of surprise as their eyes met. The captain spoke of his own grief in delivering sentence of suspension from leave privilege for six months.

Franklin’s head swam, and his cheeks were aflame. He could only reply with a hoarse “Yes, sir.”

As he turned to go he heard the congressman say sarcastically that he did not think “that boy was so very anxious to go to Annapolis.”

Franklin was the only one of the ship’s company who did not brighten when they received the electric thrill of an order, which broke their weary vigil in the famous bay by sending the cruiser to patrol duty among the southern islands. But when they were under way Franklin found that the congressman was still aboard, and his hopes revived a little. For a week of coasting from port to port he looked in vain for some event which would set him right.

Then came an order transferring him. He was assigned to the _Marietta_, a tiny gunboat no bigger than a harbor tugboat and with but half the draft. He had only time to get his belongings together, which does not take a sailor long. He found that his cousin had also been transferred, and was to be commander of the cockle-shell.

The _Marietta’s_ first assignment was to take none other than the congressman up a river to the capital of a province where he had a son, an officer of the army, in command of the garrison. There Franklin would definitely see the last of him. They had no thought of meeting with any delay on their run of the five miles of winding stream, but it is when they are least expected that guerrillas appear.

The congressman was sitting in the bow admiring the scenery, the little engine was “chugging” earnestly, the screw was whirling vigorously through the muddy water, when out of the soft green foliage of the right bank cracked a volley. The congressman, a veteran himself, dropped on the deck and looked about him for a rifle, his old eyes flashing.

The cadet had never been under fire before. He dodged and fell on the deck with the others. Franklin was at the wheel and remained erect, frightened but not forgetting his duty. There had not been a tremor of the rudder.

“Steer for that bank, sharp, sharp!” Edward called, and Franklin obeyed. “I don’t want to—to endanger your life,” he panted to the congressman, his sentence broken by the ring of a bullet against the hull, and whistle of other bullets over their heads.

“Seems to me I’d put a few shots back at ’em in the meanwhile,” said the congressman. “What’s that for?” He nodded toward a rapid-fire gun in the bow. “And that?” toward a one-pounder in the stern.

Edward could not fail to take the hint. He sprang up with trembling limbs and ran to the rapid-fire gun, calling for the other to be manned. A bullet struck its support before he could put it in action. That made him forget all his training. He aimed wildly, and jammed the delicate machine almost instantly. Then, in his desperation, he ran toward the wheel.

“Steer in closer, closer!”

“It’s too shallow, sir,” Franklin replied.

“No, it’s not.” The ensign could hear the triumphant shouts of the insurgents, who increased their fire. He was wild with exasperation. “It’s not!” he repeated, and seized the wheel in his own hands and turned it hard alee. The bow veered sharply. For an instant the boat flew forward, then grounded.

As if they had been waiting on this for a signal, a fire broke out from some bushes which rose above the level of the grassy bank on the left side.

“Both sides!” gasped the ensign. He sprang overboard, as much to avoid the fire as anything. “Push her off!”

Everybody leaped into the water. When the insurgents on the left bank saw the predicament of the Americans, they broke out of their cover with a yell, and came running toward them. Meanwhile, the _Marietta_ was still in range of the fire from the other side. It was a question only of minutes, yes, of seconds, before they would be prisoners.

The current swung the _Marietta_ partially round and drove her fast into the soft mud, and the misdirected efforts of her crew to free her were as unavailing as if she were a battle-ship.

“Can’t somebody fire that gun? Can’t somebody fire?” the congressman called, putting the strength of his sixty years against the hull, and feeling his shoes sinking in the soft ooze beneath them.

At this juncture, in face of the fire, Franklin sprang on deck, and ran aft to the jammed instrument of their hope. He felt as cool as his father’s son ought to feel under such circumstances. The parts of the mechanism were not a jumble to him as they were to the excited cadet, and he saw the difficulty and how simple it was. His study, his questions, had not been in vain.

“Man the one-pounder! Get the rifles, everybody!” he called, with the instinct of command.

As they tumbled aboard the crew heard the rat-tat-tat of the gun under Franklin’s hand, sweeping the field of white-shirted figures pressing forward, and soon a little shell from the one-pounder threw up dirt at their feet. The insurgents were too near their prize to be stopped yet.

“Keep cool, everybody, keep cool!” said the congressman, himself firing with the nice calculation of a man at a range.

The Americans did not realize that shots were still coming from the rear. They knew that the insurgents on the other side of the stream could not cross it, and that was enough. If the gun should jam again, all would be lost.

But it did not jam; and soon the insurgents, no longer able to stand the persistent accuracy of the machine, began to fall back, and finally ran in pell-mell flight, leaving their wounded behind.

Promptly Franklin whirled his gun round and began firing upon the first attacking party, which withdrew when it saw that it was unsupported by the other side.

When excitement no longer made their efforts futile, and one was not pushing against another, and with the screw properly directed to their assistance, the crew was very soon able to force the stranded _Marietta_ back into the stream.

After the congressman had emptied the water out of his shoes and was once more seated, with nothing to do but to enjoy the scenery, he said to Franklin, in beaming gratitude:

“Well, young man, you’re quite a general!”

Franklin blushed. The remark did not make him think of his ambition. It gave him speech for another cause.

“O sir, I want you not to believe that those charges were true. They weren’t. I wouldn’t have overstayed leave if it hadn’t been—but—but you ask Charley the rest.”

“I don’t believe them. To prove it, all you’ve got to do is to pass the examination to Annapolis. I’ll see that you get the appointment.”

Franklin’s manner and his eyes spoke his gratitude better than his tongue. Edward, who had overheard, looked proudly at his cousin, and then said to the congressman:

“I thank you, too, sir! I sha’n’t be happy till he wears the uniform his father wore. He saved us all to-day.”

His little speech saved Edward from a court of inquiry. He became Franklin’s best friend, and if ever he goes into action again there is no doubt that he will behave like a veteran.

ON A TIGHT ROPE

By Albert W. Tolman

“My highest ambition at seventeen,” said the linotype operator, “was to become a professional acrobat. I then lived with my parents on a farm near the manufacturing town of N. All my spare time was spent in vaulting, jumping, turning handsprings, and practising other feats of strength and agility.

“On the Fourth of July a travelling tight-rope performer, Signor Lupini of Verona, as the posters called him, was to display his skill on a rope above the river that flowed through the town. He arrived with two assistants on the afternoon of July 3d, and a crowd of boys, myself among them, met him at the railroad station. We saw a spare, wiry man, above the ordinary height, light-complexioned, with steely-blue eyes. He looked us over inquiringly.

“‘Boys,’ said he, ‘I need some young fellow to help me to-morrow. Who wants to be wheeled across the rope in a barrow?’

“The others hung back; but I jumped at the chance. ‘I do!’ I exclaimed, quickly. He seemed pleased as he ran his eyes over me. I was of medium height, with good muscles.

“‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come to the hotel at seven, and I’ll tell you what’s wanted.’

“At the stroke of the hour I was on hand, and he explained my duties. Then he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket.

“‘That’s yours at nine to-morrow night if you do your work well,’ he said. ‘Now go home and sleep soundly.’

“My parents were spending the Fourth with cousins in a neighboring town, so I was alone in the house. I went to bed early, but until long after midnight excitement kept me from getting a single wink.

“The next day I was on hand bright and early. I helped stretch the rope between two mill roofs, ran errands, and made myself generally useful. When not busy I hung about, watching my employer. He certainly was an artist in his line, a man without bravado, either all nerves or none at all. I could not help thinking, too, that for an Italian he spoke English remarkably well.

“At half past two a carriage took us from the hotel to the western mill. We dressed in the loft. The signor donned his tinsel-spangled tights. I figured as clown in an old stovepipe hat and white cotton suit, liberally besprinkled with stars of red and green. The same colors streaked my face. As we clambered through the scuttle, the crowds lining the bridges and banks set up a shout, and the town band on the other mill began playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’

“Sharp at three o’clock the music stopped. The assistant on our roof advanced to the edge, fired six blank cartridges from a self-cocking revolver, and shouted this magniloquent announcement through a megaphone:

“‘Ladies and gentlemen, the celebrated Signor Lupini will now illustrate his art, assisted by Rinaldo Nobisco, the famous clown, recently secured from the London hippodrome, ladies and gentlemen, at great trouble and expense.’

“Whistles and catcalls from the boys below greeted this absurd reference to me, and I felt rather foolish. Signor Lupini stepped briskly forward, bowed to his audience and was soon promenading along the spidery line between the two cornices. Aided by a long balancing-pole, he stood on one foot, knelt, lay down, walked across blindfold, and performed many other marvelous feats. His perfect control of nerve and muscle fascinated me. I did not realize that his facility came from years of toilsome practice.

“Here was the calling for me. I resolved to stretch a rope the very next day between the beams over the haymow.

“During the signor’s exhibition the crowd was very quiet, and the band did not play. It was only when he was once more safe upon the roof that their long-restrained applause broke forth, and the band struck up ‘Hail to the Chief.’ He rested a few minutes, and then motioned to me to make ready.

“Among our paraphernalia was a strong, light wheelbarrow with a tire grooved to fit the rope. I began to feel a little shaky; but there was no time to indulge this emotion, for my employer exclaimed: ‘All aboard, my boy, and remember, a stiff upper lip!’

“I seated myself, facing forward, my feet dangling on each side of the wheel. Signor Lupini, stooping, gripped the handles.

“‘Sit steady,’ he said. ‘Don’t wink one eye unless you wink the other at the same time.’

“He ran me a few turns round the graveled surface, then flicked the wheel dexterously up on the rope and headed straight for the edge.

“‘Keep perfectly still,’ he adjured me, ‘and you’re as safe as you’d be on the street.’

“For all my assumption of coolness, I was frightened half out of my wits. I shut my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them we were fairly out on the tremulous hemp.

“‘Don’t look down,’ cautioned the signor. ‘Face straight forward. Sit tight.’

“Hardly daring to breathe, I stiffened myself as if I were in a plaster cast. I could see the narrow line just ahead buckle slightly at the approach of the wheel. How long that two hundred feet seemed!

“Slowly, surely, we drew near the roof. The tire jolted against the cornice. In two or three seconds we were safely on the gravel. Then the band blared out and the crowds set off explosives. My fright was over, and I felt proud as a peacock.

“On the trip back my employer made me sit facing him, and I had a good chance to admire the easy, effortless play of his wiry muscles. He was a thorough gymnast, a man of steel and india-rubber. After several other trips, during which I occupied different positions on the barrow, we went back to the hotel.

“Promptly at eight we emerged again through the scuttle. A crowd bigger than that of the afternoon had gathered, and a roar of applause greeted us. I say ‘us,’ for by this time I felt myself to be almost as important as Signor Lupini. My head was completely turned.

“The evening performance possessed certain novel features. Tin pans of red fire stood on each cornice, and along the bridge-rails had been stationed a half-dozen boys liberally supplied with rockets and Roman candles.

“The master of ceremonies fired an introductory volley with his revolver.

“‘Light up, Jimmy!’ he shouted to his associate across the river, at the same time touching a match to the pan beside him. Jimmy obeyed. A deep red glow illuminated the scene, flashing from the mill windows, and revealing the human clusters on bridges and banks.

“As in the afternoon, Signor Lupini began with a few feats performed alone, the blaze of fireworks making his spangled tights glitter. I waited impatiently for our dual performance, thirsting for some of the applause. Finally my turn came, and the signor wheeled me back and forth several times. So great was my confidence in him that I had forgotten my nervousness.

“At last nine o’clock was near.

“‘Now, my boy,’ said my employer, ‘we’ll wind up with something I don’t try very often. I see you have good grit.’

“He screwed to the barrow sides a light, strong chair of steel, its seat a yard in air. After helping me into this, he passed me a long-handled pan of red fire. We were to close in a blaze of glory. ‘Keep cool,’ said he, ‘and we’ll give ’em something to look at.’

“He trundled me up to the cornice, his assistant dropped a lighted lucifer into the pan, and we moved out on the rope amid the crimson glare and the whizzing of rockets. The crowd yelled, and one of the boys setting off fireworks from the lower bridge lost his head.

“_Whi-s-s-sh!_ A badly aimed rocket shot not five feet over our heads, showering us with sparks. A little lower, and it would have dashed us from the rope. Signor Lupini drew a quick breath. I cringed in my steel chair, but still kept tight hold of the pan handle. The sudden fright set my teeth chattering. My employer noticed my trepidation.

“‘Keep quiet, my boy, and we’ll get over all right,’ said he, reassuringly, cool as a cucumber.

“On we rolled, smoothly and steadily. We were about half-way across when the unlucky rocketeer on the lower bridge outdid his previous blunder. A warning shriek blended with the swish of a projectile. I dared not turn my head, but a sidelong glance revealed a fiery comet heading straight toward us. Signor Lupini saw it, too, and could not repress a cry of alarm. The next second it was upon us. I shut my eyes, convinced that we were lost. A whir, a rushing of flame, a slight shock! The apparition had passed, and we were still on the rope.

“I was hardly daring to congratulate myself when my heart was chilled by a low groan behind me. The barrow wabbled. The signor was trembling violently, swaying, reeling like a drunken man; every throb of his body came to me through the tight-clutched handles. Something fearful must have happened. I clung to the chair arms in sheer paralysis of horror. An accident would hurl us down seventy-five feet into the river, where drowning or maiming worse than death awaited us.

“We moved a few feet farther, then stopped. The barrow swayed, as if about to overturn. Another groan from the signor. I would have questioned him, but the words died in my throat. Perhaps he had been pierced by the rocket, and might at any instant fall unconscious.

“Cries of horror rose from the spectators. The rockets and Roman candles ceased. The entertainment threatened to become a tragedy.

“Again we started, moving intermittently. Now a few quick steps would fill me with the dread of being flung off; now we almost stopped, and I feared we should never go on. Before and behind us fizzed the red fire. Signor Lupini’s feet shuffled on the rope, his breath came hard. Not a word in explanation, but always those terrible groans. My hair bristled.

“With straining eyes I stared ahead into the red glare on the approaching mill. How slowly the distance lessened! On the roof stood Jimmy, gazing at us, pale and open-mouthed. The speechless horror on his face reflected our peril.

“The cornice was only ten feet off. Signor Lupini thrust the barrow suddenly forward. A second later the wheel grated on the gravel; it was none too soon. As a long sigh of relief rose from the spellbound crowds, the gymnast collapsed into a writhing heap. It took three men to get him down through the scuttle and into the carriage that conveyed him to his hotel.

“The rocket had struck his right calf a glancing blow. His skill had enabled him to withstand a shock that would have overthrown a clumsier man; but his muscles, steeled to resist, had cramped violently, and we had been in deadly peril all the way across. Two lives had hung on his ability to resist the agonizing pains and preserve his poise.

“That last hundred feet decided me that I didn’t care to be a professional acrobat. The tight rope was never stretched between the beams of the haymow.”

DOWN THE INCLINE

By Charles Newton Hood

“All that I had to do to earn my one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week salary was, four times each week-day, to climb to the top of a high tower, mount a bicycle, ride it down a long, narrow incline, pitched at an angle of about forty-five degrees, then up a few feet and out through the air, across a gap of thirty feet to another platform, and so to the ground.”

It was John Manser who was speaking, formerly one of the most daring performers in what is called the carnival business.

“No, I am not doing that sort of an act now.

“My mother had been writing to me, begging me to stop, but I was looking forward to getting married, and that one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week was making the nest-egg grow.

“I was one of the ‘feature’ acts furnished by the Ferari Brothers to street fairs, carnivals and the like, and had stepped from construction boss to performer one day by taking the place of an indisposed athlete at an hour’s notice, and leaping the gap successfully on his bicycle without any previous rehearsal. I was at once put on as a regular performer with the company.

“My work did not seem so very terrible to me. With the bands playing and with the thousands of happy spectators looking on, it was rather pleasant than otherwise to climb to the top of the high platform, dressed in my gay costume, and at the word, come hurtling down the steep run, and then up and out through the air like a bird.

“All that seemed to be required was to be absolutely sure that the apparatus was put up strong and perfectly true, and that the gap was of exactly the correct width. Mine was precisely twenty-eight feet and four inches. I always superintended the erection of everything myself, and trued every part up with the utmost care.

“In the act itself, it required only strong hands and arms to keep the bicycle steady and straight down the run, and to lean back a little and give a strong up pull on the handle-bar when we ‘took off’ for the jump, so that the machine would surely strike on the rear wheel on the other side, to prevent the shock which would throw me headlong if the front wheel should strike first, or even at the same instant.

“All summer long I had enjoyed the work, and I often wondered that they should pay me so much for such a simple thing. Even when the performer who ‘looped-the-loop’ on a bicycle in another part of the grounds fell and was crippled for life, I ascribed it to the fact that his health was not very good, and that he sometimes resorted to stimulants to help him through his act; and his misfortune did not render me at all nervous regarding my own work.

“It was the last day of the carnival at Grand Creek. We had had a most successful week, and on the closing night it was estimated that not less than fifteen thousand people crowded the grounds. The last of my four rides for the day was scheduled for eleven o’clock at night, and was to be the closing feature.

“Promptly at five minutes of eleven I climbed to the platform, and my bicycle was sent up to me by rope and pulley. It was a heavy, dark night, but the thousands of electric lights made the grounds almost as light as day. Little lamps were strung thickly all down the run, and the skeleton framework of my tower and trestles was outlined with them.

“A fitful, eddying wind had come up, which roared dismally through the timbers. It swayed the big framework somewhat, but not enough to trouble me.

“The people had come crowding to my portion of the grounds, and as I gazed down at their upturned faces, massed so thickly together below me, the sight was a weird one under the electric lights.

“Straight ahead of me lay the narrow run, with its broad stripe of white down the center, to aid me in steering, then the ‘saucer,’ as it was called, at the bottom, where the run turned up toward the ‘take-off,’ then the wide gap and the farther platform, with its even wider guiding stripe of white.

“I gave the bicycle a quick examination, stood up straight and made the little posing flourish which is expected of all athletes, fixed my bicycle on the run, and seated myself firmly. The official announcer below raised his hand. The band stopped playing, and there was that breathless hush of apprehension and expectation which is so carefully worked up for sensational acts.

“‘All ready?’ shouted the announcer.

“‘Right!’ I responded.

“‘Go!’

“The snare-drummer of the band struck into the long roll with which he always accompanied my flights. Instantly I removed the restraining foot which I had kept upon the platform, placed it upon the locked pedal, and shot rapidly down the incline.

“At that instant every electric light in the city of Grand Creek went out!

“It was a darkness doubly dense and awful after the brilliancy of the moment before. Perfectly helpless, I was plunging down a steep, narrow incline toward probable death. If the wheel swerved but a little to the right or left, I should sweep over the edge and be dashed to pieces on the ground below.

“My bicycle, rushing down the incline, travelled at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Sometimes now I awake at night with a gasp of horror from having lived over those awful moments, but at the time my thoughts were cool and collected.

“‘It all depends on you, Jack, my boy,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t be smashed any harder for keeping your head.’

“I knew that the wheel was absolutely straight for the jump when I started, and grasping the handles, I bent every effort toward keeping the wheel perfectly rigid. Down I rushed through the darkness, and so strange was the sensation that it almost seemed as if the wheel had left the run, and was sailing through the air. The speed seemed doubly terrific. Even if I kept the run, could I hold the wheel for the jump and what then?

“The saucer came almost before I expected it. In spite of myself I must have given a spasmodic twist to the handles, for the wheel twisted in my hands and swerved. I threw myself frantically to one side and lost consciousness!

“Yes, I’m alive yet. Entirely uninjured except for the thump which put me to sleep when I struck the platform.

“The great momentum swept both the wheel and myself from the edge of the take-off and hurled us against the yielding bodies of those in the front row of the crowd, backed by the thousands of other spectators, as against a carefully prepared and cushioned buffer. It was learned that not less than eighteen persons received the impact of the wheel and myself at the same instant, and so scattered was the blow that nobody was injured in the slightest.

“One very fat man, who had been standing with his handsome top-hat held behind him, told me that he sat down with fearful suddenness after receiving my head in his stomach, and he showed me his hat; but he wasn’t hurt.

“The next day the Ferari Brothers Carnival Company went to Battle Rapids, but my ticket read East Putney, Vermont.”

THE COST OF LOVING

By Frederick Orin Bartlett

With a slight lift of his heavy shoulders, Dr. Schriftman brought to a close his final lecture of the year to the senior medical class. For a moment he faced these young men aggressively. With his shaggy white beard, his wiry gray hair, his bulky body, he looked more like some good-natured Santa Claus than a surgeon who was famous on two continents for his stoicism as well as his skill. It was tradition that he should say what he was about to say to each graduating class.

“Shentlemen,” he began in his rough guttural, which still retained the trace of an accent. “Shentlemen, you are about to enter a brofession which will be very jealous of you. It demands all—everything. You will be tempted by many false gods—by women, by gold. Peware! Let your work be your religion, your wife, and your reward. So you will be goot surgeons. Shentlemen, I wish you success.”

As he turned to leave the platform, he was greeted with noisy and hearty cheering.

“Raus mit der ladies!” shouted some one.

The cry was taken up with a will, but when another voice broke through with: “Hoch Schriftman!” the one hundred throats strained themselves to the utmost in a final effort to give expression to their genuine appreciation of the man.

But Schriftman, indifferent alike to their jests and plaudits, had already jammed his silk hat on the back of his head and was hurrying down stairs to where his machine waited to whisk him to the hospital.

He timed his day as by a stop watch. He rose at seven, gave himself until eight to finish his solitary breakfast, and, hurrying off to the medical school, remained there until eleven. He was at the hospital from eleven-thirty until three. From three-ten until five he kept his office hours. He generally dined alone in his apartments after this and gave up his evenings to consultations, to the preparation of papers, and to study. It was a long evening, for he seldom retired until two. More often than not he was called to the hospital after this and finished his sleep there. The doctors’ quarters were as much home to him as the three book-cluttered rooms which led from his office. And yet there were men—young men, too—who envied Schriftman, and when tempted by bright eyes and warm cheeks quoted to themselves his famous epigram:

“It costs too much to love.”

As his machine drew up before the big gray building, a young interne hurried out, opened the door, and then fell back respectfully to give to his senior the place of honor by Schriftman’s side. In answer to questions which went to their mark like arrows, Burrell covered the progress of every case since the day before and turned to the new patient in Ward 27.

“Female, age eight. Mother an actress, died of pneumonia; father a bicycle rider, killed in an accident. Family history negative.”

And so with a dozen other medical details Burrell led up to the result of his preliminary examination and to the laboratory report. He made no diagnosis except in connection with her weak heart. But to Schriftman it was not the faulty heart but the chronic pain in the back which was significant. As he removed his hat and gloves before going to the ward, he pressed his cross-examination deeper. It was evident to Dr. Burrell that it was to be the rare good fortune of this female, age eight, to prove an interesting case to Schriftman.

In the meanwhile the lass in question lay stretched out on her back, watching with hectic interest the hurried movements of the head nurse. There wasn’t very much of Gretzel left; just a shriveled body, a thin mouth, a straight, sensitive nose, a pair of blue eyes, and a wealth of light hair. But the eyes were quite perfect. So deep and clear, so timid and yet so wise were these that as they peered out of the haggardness of their surroundings they gave the effect of a maid within a maid. It was as though some other soul, unrelated to this pain-racked body, were peering through the mask of her gaunt features. The eyes were younger and fresher and stronger than the rest of her. At present they were unusually alert.

In contrast to the isolated boarding-house room from which they had brought her, life here fairly buzzed. The plaints and groanings of her fellow patients, the shadow-like movements of the nurses, the constant coming and going of the young doctors on their unknown errands, the catlike tread of life through the night, the undercurrent of suspense, and her own helplessness in the midst of it kept her on guard. The nurses, drawn to her at once, tried to reassure her, but to little purpose, because Gretzel believed nothing of what they whispered. People had lied to her all her life. When her father had told her she would soon be well and that then he would take her far out into the country, he had lied. When her father was killed, her mother had lied to her, saying that daddy had only gone away for a little while to prepare a home for them both. Then her mother had died and every one had lied about that. They said that she had gone to join daddy and that some day she would send for Gretzel. Finally the landlady had lied when she had been hurried off into the ambulance. This woman had assured Gretzel that she might possibly find her mother at the hospital. She hadn’t found her mother—the nurses had never heard of her mother. So now, with her thin lips tight together, she listened, believing nothing, but kept her eyes wide open ready for what might happen next.

Nearer and nearer to her came Fate in the person of Schriftman—Schriftman the silent, who could skirt with his knife the fringe of the soul itself. His progress through the ward was accompanied with more awe than that of a sovereign through his court. To the huddled group of internes at his back he stood for the highest goal in their profession; to those patients who knew him he stood as the literal arbiter of life and death. When those clear eyes—as brilliantly hard as glacial ice—were upon them, when those quick, mobile fingers fluttered over their bruised bodies, they breathed slowly and prayed. For they knew it was given to him to do things possible to no other man. But though many an eye warmed at sight of him, though many an arm pleaded toward him, though many lips trembled gratitude at his approach, he rigidly preserved his impersonality. He had neither smile nor jest. His eyes never warmed; they only lighted.

Gretzel saw him as he entered the ward opposite her. She shrank beneath the clothes with only her eyes showing and studied the man. She liked his size first of all. She had a weakling’s reverence for physical strength. The broad shoulders, the long, heavy arms appealed to her at once. Then she liked his whiskers. They reminded her of pictures of Santa Claus. Finally, she liked his deep bass voice. It seemed to her that a man with a voice like that must tell the truth. She wasn’t sure of this, but the longer she listened to it and the nearer it came, the less afraid she grew. She ventured the tip of her nose above the bedclothes, then her mouth, and finally her chin. By the time the group reached her side she was facing them all, in the open.

For a moment Schriftman stood over her and met her gaze. He had never felt his soul so searched as it was during the next few seconds. And yet the silent questions asked of him were simple. Gretzel sought only to know if he were a man to tell the truth and if she could trust him with her tender, sensitive body. She had fought the boarding-house doctor tooth and nail from the beginning. Not only had he lied to her but he had hurt her brutally. Now she wished to know if she must be on her guard with this other. So for a moment her excited big eyes rested on his, which were like candles burning in a frosty room. Then quite simply and unafraid she shoved down the bedclothes and, turning over on her face, exposed her throbbing back.

Dr. Burrell caught the nurse’s eye. The latter gave a gulpy sort of smile and turned away. With a grunt Schriftman bent over the thin frame. His fingers, which at times seemed endowed with five senses, played up and down her spine, to the right, to the left, then back again up and down. Though at times he stopped to probe deep, he did not hurt her much. It seemed to her that some of the strength of his broad back ran out of his finger tips and for a moment checked the biting ache which had gnawed at her for a twelvemonth. Once, at a certain spot, he made her cringe, but she understood that this was not done intentionally.

Schriftman, his brow knitted, called for Burrell’s stethoscope. He placed it over Gretzel’s wobbly heart and listened. One of his big hands lay on the coverlet. Suddenly he felt his thumb in the clutch of a warm, tight grip. He found it difficult to listen after this, for the sturdy pound of his own heart became curiously intermingled with this other jerky beat. Extricating his thumb, he glared at Burrell.

“Transfer this patient to a private ward,” he ordered.

In the luxurious seclusion of a room to herself, with everything to eat that her fickle palate craved, with bright-colored German picture books to look at, with a nurse whose sole duty it was to attend to her alone, Gretzel felt like an invalid princess. But all these things were as nothing compared with the joy of the frequent visits of the big doctor himself. Had it not been for him Gretzel would have looked with suspicion on the whole arrangement; she would have lain awake all night worrying about what might grow out of this. She had learned that every sweet was only a mask of something bitter—like her pills. Whenever anyone had been especially nice to her at home, it was sure to be followed by something terrible. When her father died, her mother had brought her a doll, and when her mother died the landlady had brought her an apple.

But this was different. When she felt Schriftman’s hand close over hers she knew that now no more harm could come to her. He was big enough to take quick revenge on anyone who should hurt her. The consequent relaxation of her tense nerves brought even some surcease of pain, so that at night she frequently slept two or three hours at a time. But the best thing about these naps was the excitement of waking up and finding this shaggy-bearded Santa Claus by the side of her bed. It might be eleven at night or two in the morning or four in the morning that he came, but always he came between the dusk and the dawn. Always his greeting was the same:

“How it goes, kleine mädchen?”

Always she answered:

“I’m partickly comfy, Mister Santy.”

Then he would seat himself by the bed, she would take a tight grip on his thumb, and they were off in a jiffy to some glorious German fairyland.

The wonder was where the Herr Doctor found these stories. They certainly were not in any of his scientific treatises and he had read nothing else for forty years.

If he made them up as he went along, then he must have had more imagination than anyone ever suspected. It was to be noted, however, that in these stories the heroine could trace her beauty, her charm, as well as the success of all her adventures, to the fact that she was very particular to eat as much as possible of whatever was brought to her.

“Und so,” as he informed her one night, “if you would be a princess, you must eat und you must sleep. Ach—so you will become gr-ross und r-rosy und peautiful.”

“Me?” Gretzel questioned doubtfully.

She had never been ambitious in that direction.

“You are peautiful already inside,” answered Schriftman. “It does not need much after that to be peautiful outside—choost some fat und some proteids.”

“Sum fat an’ sum protydids,” murmured Gretzel, as though committing it to memory.

This was a new idea to her—this possibility of being beautiful. For herself she didn’t care, but if Santy wished it, then it was worth trying for. She became a little bit jealous of these German princesses. But a new thought disturbed her.

“It’s so hard to be beau-ti-ful when your back aches you,” she sighed.

“Ach,” replied the doctor with a frown, “dot iss true. But when we are gr-ross und are r-rosy—so perhaps the ache will go.”

Gretzel quickly searched his eyes. She had been told before that this ache might go. It had always been a lie. Now Santy himself had told her. On the whole, she was sorry he had told her this. With all her confidence in him she could not believe that such a thing was possible. And if it were not possible, then—he must be like the others.

He had risen to go, and was bending over her as tenderly as a mother. She reached up a thin hand and drew down his shaggy head until her lips rested against his ear.

“I’m partickly comfy,” she assured him anxiously. “Let the ache be.”

He kissed her lips.

“Mein kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Ach, mein kleine mädchen.”

It was three o’clock in the morning when he left her, but he routed Burrell out of bed and made him sit up until half-past four, while he discussed everything under the face of the sun except that which was disturbing him. Burrell, dog-tired, listened patiently, but when Schriftman finally explained himself, he gave a start.

“Dot case in Ward A,” Schriftman blurted out, dropping into a broad dialect, as he always did when deeply moved. “I t’ink Richards iss der man to do dot—hein?”

“To do Gretzel?” exclaimed Burrell.

Schriftman nodded, looking up at Burrell from beneath his wiry eyebrows.

“Why, doctor,” cried Burrell, “there’s just one man in the world to do that operation—and that’s you!”

Schriftman’s head sank.

“Richards is a great operator,” admitted Burrell, “but he hasn’t your nerve. And, good Lord, it’s going to take a man of iron to do that operation without ether.”

Schriftman winced. Burrell ran on excitedly.

“Why, you yourself said she didn’t have a chance in ten, but without you—why, it wouldn’t be a chance in a hundred.”

Burrell was pleading. He was pleading with his heart in the plea, for he was pleading for Gretzel’s life. The operation had been the talk of the hospital for three weeks. The girl’s heart was too weak to stand an anesthetic, and even with the local application of cocaine the operation was bound to be brutal. Everyone knew there was just one Schriftman—just one man with the brains, the hand, and the nerve to do it. This wasn’t a task for an ordinary surgeon; it was a task for a surgical machine. Burrell had been waking up lately in a cold sweat trying to find out how he could avoid assisting. Without ether—good heavens! there was only one Schriftman; only one man who could keep his hand steady with Gretzel’s poor body quivering beneath it.

Moreover, there wasn’t another man who had the skill to give the lass even a show for her suffering. Speed is what would count, and there was no such nimble fingers in the world as Schriftman’s.

Burrell was on his feet.

“Gretzel’s life is literally in your hands, doctor,” he exclaimed impulsively. “God give her strength to bear the ordeal.”

“Amen,” muttered Schriftman.

During the next few weeks Gretzel seemed actually to grow slightly plump and rosy, but almost in the same proportion Schriftman grew wan and pale.

He realized that Burrell had told the truth; if the child was to have a fighting chance for life, then he must do the operation. But was it possible to make the kleine mädchen understand that what he did he did for her own dear sake? Could he make her realize that the hand she grasped so confidently would not willingly cause her brutal pain? Ach—the honest trust of those blue eyes!

There came a morning when Gretzel was given no breakfast. She protested to the head nurse.

“Santy will be very mad on me if I don’t eat my egg,” she declared.

“I think he will forgive you this time, dear,” answered the nurse.

“Why?” Gretzel asked pointedly.

“Because—because—”

“I ain’t beau-ti-ful yet,” Gretzel interrupted with a glance at her thin arm.

The nurse threw herself on her knees by the side of the girl. She kissed that thin arm again and again.

“Yes, you are beautiful and wonderful,” she half sobbed. “Don’t ask me questions, Gretzel. _Please_ don’t ask me questions.”

Gretzel placed her hand on the nurse’s head. She didn’t like to see anyone worried. And because, here, she herself seemed always to be the cause of worry she answered reassuringly the only comforting thing she could think of:

“I’m partickly comfy.”

Whereupon the nurse rose swiftly and hurried out of the room.

Santy favored Gretzel with an unexpected visit this same morning. He came in shortly after the nurse had left, and Gretzel explained to him at once that she had not had her egg.

“So?” Schriftman answered nervously.

He seated himself on the edge of the bed. He placed his hand firmly on her shoulder.

“Kleine mädchen,” he faltered, “if you were mein own kleine mädchen I could not loff you more.”

She put her arms around his neck.

“Dear, dear Santy,” she cooed.

“So,” he said, “so you must neffer forget dot.”

He drew a little away from her. What he had to say he said looking fair into her blue eyes.

“To-day,” he said, “we must make der ache go—poof—foreffer!”

He snapped his fingers.

“The ache,” she questioned anxiously.

“Foreffer,” he assured her. “Und if it hurts you when it iss going—”

She smiled up into his face. She grasped his thumb.

“I ain’t skeered of bein’ hurted with you, I guess.”

He held his breath a moment. He couldn’t say any more after that.

So it was Burrell who was forced to prepare the maid for what was to be done. He did it as well as he knew how, but he made a bungling job of it. He left her gasping for breath with all the old fear in her eyes. The thing she could not understand was what had become of Santy. She called for him again and again.

The best Burrell could think of to tell her was that the Herr Doctor had gone to save a little girl from death and that he would come back as soon as he could.

Schriftman was depending upon the disguise of his operating robes to prevent Gretzel from recognizing him. But he had forgotten to reckon with the fact that she might wonder at his apparent desertion of her at this the gravest crisis in her life. Burrell’s explanation did not help very much. When they lifted her gently to the stretcher and carried her through the corridors to the high-vaulted amphitheatre, Santy was nowhere to be seen. Pale, dumb, dazed, Gretzel looked everywhere for him in vain.

Burrell in an ante-room assisted Schriftman into his sterilized surplice. He adjusted the mask over the surgeon’s beard and the white cap over his hair, leaving only his eyes exposed. Then he helped him into his rubber gloves. He himself was white and loose in all his joints, but Schriftman, though white, was like a marble statue. He was rigid and inhumanly cold. He moved about with the quick certainty of motion of an automaton. He gave his orders in a voice that clicked like an instrument. Burrell could not help admiring such self-control, but at the same time it made him shudder.

When all was ready Schriftman walked noiselessly in to the amphitheatre. Gretzel was lying face down with an interne stationed at either side of her head. A nurse stood ready near the glittering array of instruments. Schriftman scarcely breathed as he approached, but he had no sooner reached the girl’s side than she forced up her head. For a heartbeat she stared wildly at the sheeted figure. Then she gave a glad, confident cry:

“Santy! Santy!”

Schriftman without replying nodded a signal, and the internes gently forced Gretzel back again. But Burrell slumped to the floor like an empty grain sack and was of no more use to anyone.

For twenty-four hours after the operation Schriftman sat outside Gretzel’s door and received five-minute reports on her condition. Then when he realized that she bade fair to tide over the first terrible shock, he returned to his lonely room and slept. He was exhausted as he had never before been, and when he woke up he was still exhausted. Something seemed to have gone from him. He made his morning hospital visit to everyone except Gretzel, but his mind was loose and vague. So a week passed, and they told him that while the maid was free from pain and was making a good recovery, she shrank from everyone who approached her.

“Und she neffer asks for Santy—hein?” he questioned the nurse.

The nurse lowered her eyes.

“No,” she admitted gently.

He waited another week with the success of his wonderful operation his only consolation. There was no doubt now but that in time Gretzel would really be as gross and rosy as any of the princesses he had pictured to her. For a long time yet he must watch that weak heart, to be sure, but with care and patience much might be done even with that. If only she would let him, he would make that his life work. He wanted to make her his legal daughter; he wanted to buy a little house in the country and take her there; he wanted to make her a real fairyland princess.

“Und she neffer asks yet for Santy—hein?”

“No,” answered the nurse.

“So,” he murmured, turning away his head. He waited a moment. Then he asked:

“You speak somedimes off me?”

“Yes,” answered the nurse.

He did not press her further, and so she was saved from telling him that at the mere mention of his name the maid shrank away in terror.

Schriftman waited until Gretzel’s temperature was normal—until for the first time in her life she slept soundly through the night. He himself had been sleeping less than one hour in the twenty-four. His clothes hung pitifully loose about his once firm body. As Burrell said, he was proving the truth of his own epigram: his love was costing him much—too much.

There came a day when Schriftman could stand it no longer; when he could fight himself no longer. He stole to the door of Gretzel’s room while she was at breakfast. The nurse had seen him coming and was running down the corridor as fast as she could run. She heard the maid’s shriek of terror and forced both hands over her ears.

Schriftman clutched at his heart. He grew ten years older in a minute as he saw the girl shrink away. She did not cry out again, but she kept her head hidden beneath the bedclothes.

“Kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Don’t do dot. See, I vill go! I vill go und neffer again vill I scare you!”

She did not move.

“Goot-pye, kleine mädchen!” He trembled· “Goot-pye, leedle brincess.”

As he backed toward the door there was something in his voice that made Gretzel peek out over the bedclothes. The detail that riveted her attention was his wasted form. He looked to her as though he had been sick. It recalled to her all the misery of her own long sickness—all the ache of those long nights now gone forever. She saw pain written in his eyes, and she who knew so well the horror of pain suddenly forgot in her wider sympathy all her personal fears of the man. Her little mother’s heart grew big with pity. With her own ache gone and the ache in him so manifest, she felt the stronger of the two. There was no longer any reason why she should be afraid of him. It was he who looked afraid.

She sat up in bed and studied him a moment as he cowed away from her. Then she reached for her egg.

“Santy,” she said, “come here.”

Like a blind man, he obeyed.

“Now,” she said firmly, “you mus’ eat an egg. So you will be gross an’ rosy.”

Schriftman does not operate any more; he is too busy obeying his daughter’s orders for one thing. But he does lecture, and last year he concluded his speech to the senior medical class with these words: “It costs much to love, ach, yet, but—not too much.”

LADYBIRD

By Edith Barnard