The Primrose Ring | Page 9

before, of course it never would now, and Miss Peggie was safe.
The whole ward smiled again. But in that moment Margaret MacLean remembered what the House Surgeon had said, and wondered. Was she building up for them an ultimate discontent in trying to make life happy and full for them now? Could not minds like theirs be taught to walk alone, after all? And then she laughed to herself for worrying. Why should the children ever have to do without her--unless--unless something came to them far better--like Susan's mythical aunt? The children need never leave Saint Margaret's as long as they lived, and she never should; and she passed on to the next cot, content that all was well.
As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck; a head with a shock of red curls buried itself in the folds of the gray uniform. This was Bridget--daughter of the Irish sod, oldest of the ward, general caretaker and best beloved; although it should be added in justice to both Bridget and Margaret MacLean that the former had no consciousness of it, and the latter took great care to hide it.
[Illustration: As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck.]
It was Bridget who read to the others when no one else could; it was Bridget who remembered some wonderful story to tell on those days when Sandy's back was particularly bad or the Apostles grew over-despondent; and it was Bridget who laughed and sang on the gray days when the sun refused to be cheery. Undoubtedly it was because of all these things that her cot was in the center of Ward C.
Concerning Bridget herself, hers was a case of arsenical poisoning, slowly absorbed while winding daisy-stems for an East Broadway manufacturer of cheap artificial flowers. She had done this for three years--since she was five--thereby helping her mother to support themselves and two younger children. She was ten now and the Senior Surgeon had already reckoned her days.
In the shadow of Bridget's cot was Rosita's crib--Rosita being the youngest, the most sensitive, and the most given to homesickness. This last was undoubtedly due to the fact that she was the only child in the incurable ward blessed in the matter of a home. Her parents were honest-working Italians who adored her, but who were too ignorant and indulgent to keep her alive. They came every Sunday, and sat out the allotted time for visitors beside her crib, while the other children watched in a silent, hungry-eyed fashion.
Margaret MacLean passed her with a kiss and went on to Peter--Peter--seven years old--congenital hip disease--and all boy.
"Hello, you!" he shouted, squirming under the kiss that he would not have missed for anything.
"Hello, you!" answered back the administering nurse, and then she asked, solemnly, "How's Toby?"
"He's--he's fine. That soap the House Surgeon give me cured his fleas all up."
Toby was even more mythical than Susan's aunt; she was based on certain authentic facts, whereas Toby was solely the creation of a dog-adoring little brain. But no one was ever inconsiderate enough to hint at his airy fabrication; and Margaret MacLean always inquired after him every morning with the same interest that she bestowed on the other occupants of Ward C.
Last in the ward came Michael, a diminutive Russian exile with valvular heart trouble and a most atrocious vocabulary. The one seemed as incurable as the other. Margaret MacLean had wrestled with the vocabulary on memorable occasions--to no avail; and although she had long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with him, it troubled her none the less. And because Michael came the nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for him always an unfailing gentleness.
"Good morning, dear," she said, running her fingers through the perpendicular curls that bristled continuously.
"Goot mornun, tear," he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added, with an irresistible smile, "Und Got-tam-you."
"Oh, Michael, don't you remember, the next time you were going to say 'God bless you'?"
"Awright--next time."
Margaret MacLean sighed unconsciously. Michael's "next time" was about as reliable as the South American _ma?ana_; and he seemed as much an alien now as the day he was brought into the ward. And then, because she believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the end, she did the thing Michael loved best.
Ward C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her assistant were turned into keepers. Together they set about the duties for the day with great good-humor. Two seals, a wriggling hippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising activities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby elephant were bathed with