The Island of Faith | Page 2

ever worth while."
"But"--Rose-Marie was inclined to argue the point--"but Dr. Blanchard
talks as if the people down here are scarcely human! And it's not right
to feel so about one's fellow-men. Dr. Blanchard acts as if the people
down here haven't _souls_!"
The Young Doctor helped himself nonchalantly to a second roll.
"There's a certain sort of a little bug that lives in the water," he said,
"and it drifts around aimlessly until it finds another little bug that it
holds on to. And then another little bug takes hold, and another, and
another. And pretty soon there are hundreds of little bugs, and then
there are thousands, and then there are millions, and then billions, and
then--"
The Superintendent interrupted wearily.
"I'd stop at the billions, if I were you," she said, "particularly as they
haven't any special bearing on the subject."
"Oh, but they _have_" said the doctor, "for, after a while, the billions
and trillions of little bugs, clinging together, make an island. They
haven't souls, perhaps," he darted a triumphant glance at Rose-Marie,
"but they make an island just the same!"
He paused for a moment, as if waiting for some sort of comment. When
it did not come, he spoke again.
"The people of the slums," he said, "the people who drift into, and out
of, and around this Settlement House, are not very unlike the little bugs.
And, after all, _they do help to make the city_!"
There was a quaver in Rose-Marie's voice, and a hurt look in her eyes,
as she answered.
"Yes, they are like the little bugs," she said, "in the blind way that they
hold together! But please, Dr. Blanchard, don't say they are soulless.
Don't--"
All at once the Young Doctor's hand was banging upon the table. All at
once his voice was vehemently raised.
"It's the difference in our point of view, Miss Thompson," he told
Rose-Marie, "and I'm afraid that I'm right and that you're--not right.
You've come from a pretty little country town where every one was
fairly comfortable and fairly prosperous. You've always been a part of a
community where people went to church and prayer-meeting and

Sunday-school. Your neighbours loved each other, and played
Pollyanna when things went wrong. And you wore white frocks and
blue sashes whenever there was a lawn party or a sociable." He paused,
perhaps for breath, and then--"I'm different," he said; "I struggled for
my education; it was always the survival of the fittest with me. I
worked my way through medical school. I had my hospital experience
in Bellevue and on the Island--most of my patients were the lowest of
the low. I've tried to cure diseased bodies--but I've left diseased minds
alone. Diseased minds have been out of my line. Perhaps that's why I've
come through with an ideal of life that's slightly different from your
sunshine and apple blossoms theory!"
"Oh," Rose-Marie was half sobbing, "oh, you're so hard!"
The Young Doctor faced her suddenly and squarely. "Why did you
come here," he cried, "to the slums? Why did you come to work in a
Settlement House? What qualifications have you to be a social service
worker, you child? What do you know of the meaning of service, of
life?"
Rose-Marie's voice was earnest, though shaken.
"I came," she answered, "because I love people and want to help them.
I came because I want to teach them to think beautiful thoughts, to have
beautiful ideals. I came because I want to show them the God that I
know--and try to serve--" she faltered.
The Young Doctor laughed--but not pleasantly.
"And I," he said, "came to make their bodies as healthy as possible. I
came because curing sick bodies was my job--not because I loved
people or had any particular faith in them. Prescribing to criminals and
near-criminals isn't a reassuring work; it doesn't give one faith in
human nature or in human souls!"
The Superintendent had been forgotten. But her tired voice rose
suddenly across the barrier of speech that had grown high and icy
between the Young Doctor and Rose-Marie.
"You both came," she said, and she spoke in the tone of a mother of
chickens who has found two young and precocious ducklings in her
brood, "you both came to help people--of that I'm sure!"
Rose-Marie started up, suddenly, from the table.
"I came," she said, as she moved toward the door that led to the hall,
"to make people better."

"And I," said the Young Doctor, moving away from the table toward
the opposite side of the room and another door, "I came to make them
healthier!" With his hand on the knob of the door he spoke to the
Superintendent.
"I'll not be back for supper," he said shortly, "I'll be too