Again he agreed. "But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady in a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense."

"And then--then-- Oh, couldn't the one after her bring beauty? Some one always did in the book stories. I think I wouldn't mind the back and--other things so much if my face could be nice."

Margaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little Margaret MacLean had been.

The Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile. "Have you never looked into a gla.s.s, Thumbkin?"

She shook her head.

Children in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they look, and perhaps it is better that way. Only if it happens--as it does sometimes--that they spend a good share of their life there, it seems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with themselves.

For a moment he patted her hand; after which he said, very solemnly: "Wait for a year and a day--then look. You will find out then just what the next faery brought."

Margaret MacLean had obeyed this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed--something nice to share with the world. And whenever Margaret MacLean thought of her looks at all, which was rare, she thought of them in that way.

She took up the memory again where she had dropped it on the second flight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with the story.

They came to the place where Thumbkin was p.r.i.c.ked by the wicked faery with the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the fashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon suddenly stopped and looked at her sharply.

"Some day, Thumbkin, I may play the wicked faery and put you to sleep.

What would you say to that?"

She did not say--then.

More months pa.s.sed, months which brought an ashen, drawn look to the face of the Old Senior Surgeon, and a tired-out droop to his shoulders and eyes. She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly whenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head ominously. She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came at last to remind her of his threatened promise.

"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep? Would you let an old faery doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you would wake up to find happiness--and health--and love--and all the other gifts the G.o.dmothers brought?"

She tried her best to keep the frightened look out of her eyes. By the way he watched her, however, she knew some of it must have crept in.

"Operation?" she managed to choke out at last.

Operation was a fairly common word in Ward C, and not an over-hopeful one.

"It's this way, Thumbkin; and let's make a bargain of it. I think there's a cure for that back of yours. It hasn't been tried very much; about often enough to make it worth while for us to take a chance.

I'll be honest with you and tell you the house surgeon doesn't think it can be done; but that's where the bargain comes in. He thinks he can mend my trouble, and I don't; and we're both dreadfully greedy to prove we're right. Now if you will give me my way with you I will give him his. But you must come first."

"A hundred years is a long time to be asleep," she objected.

"Bless you, it won't be a hundred minutes."

"And does your back need it, too?"

"Not my back; my stomach. It's about the only chance for either of us, Thumbkin."

"And you won't unless I do?"

The Old Senior Surgeon gave his head a terrific shake; then he caught her small hands in his great, warm, comforting ones. "Think. It means a strong back; a pair of st.u.r.dy little legs to take you anywhere; and the whole world before you!"

"And you'll have them, too?"

He smiled convincingly.

"All right. Let's." She gave his hand a hard, trustful squeeze.

She liked to remember that squeeze. She often wondered if it might not have helped him to do what he had to do.

Her operation was record-making in its success; and after he had seen her well on the mend he gave himself over to the house surgeon and a fellow-colleague, according to the bargain. He proved the house surgeon wrong, for he never rallied. Undoubtedly he knew this would be the way of it; for he stopped in Ward C before he went up to the operating-room and said to her:

"I shall be sleeping longer than you did, Thumbkin; but, never fear, I shall be waking some time, somewhere. And remember this: Never grow so strong and well that you forget how tiresome a hospital crib can be.

Never be so happy that you grow blind to the heartaches of other children; and never wander so far away from Saint Margaret's that you can't come back, sometimes, and make a story for some one else."

She puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but when they told her the next day, she understood. Probably she grieved for him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his own family or profession. For, whereas there are many people in the world who can give life to others, there are but few who can help others to possess it.

What childhood she had had she left behind her soon after this, along with her aching back, her helpless limbs, and the little iron crib in Ward C.

On the first Trustee Day following her complete recovery she appeared, at her own request, before the meeting of the board. In a small, frightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school. She wanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a nurse.

The trustees consented. Having a.s.sumed the responsibility of her well-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it now. Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint Margaret's as a charitable inst.i.tution, and to themselves as trustees, that this child whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should choose this way of showing her grat.i.tude? Verily, the board pruned and plumed itself well that day.

All this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to Ward C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory of this man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the abnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made it possible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her feet upon a joyous mission. For the thousandth time she blessed that memory.

It had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and said nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her fancy-making. She could never get away from the feeling that some of the sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the memory. One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put it into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.

On the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over, between spiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below. It just happened that the House Surgeon was standing there, talking with one of the internes.

Margaret MacLean smiled whimsically. "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon." And then she added, aloud, softly apostrophizing the top of his head, "I think some day you might grow to be very--very like the Old Senior Surgeon; that is, if you would only stop trying to be like the present one."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon."]

III

WARD C

A welcoming shout went up from Ward C as Margaret MacLean entered. It was l.u.s.ty enough to have come from the throats of healthy children, and it would have sounded happily to the most impartial ears; to the nurse in charge it was a very pagan of gladness.

"Wish you good morning, good meals, and good manners," laughed Margaret MacLean; and then she went from crib to crib with a special greeting for each one. Oh, she firmly believed that a great deal depended on how the day began.

In the first crib lay Pancho, of South American parentage, partially paralyzed and wholly captivating. He had been in Saint Margaret's since babyhood--he was six now--and had never worn anything but a little hospital shirt.

"Good morning, Brown Baby," she said, kissing his forehead. "It's just the day for you out on the sun-porch; and you'll hear birds--lots of them."

"Wobins?"

"Yes, and bluebirds, too. I've heard them already."