{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15482/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15482","id":"gutenberg_15482","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15482","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Fairy tales","Medical fiction"],"text":"E-text prepared by Al Haines\n\n\n\nTHE PRIMROSE RING\n\nby\n\nRUTH SAWYER\n\nIllustrated\n\nHarper & Brothers Publishers\nNew York & London\n\n1915\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  To\n\n  The Little Mother\n  this book in memory of the\n  Primrose Ring\n  she wove for me once on a time\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nDEAR PEOPLE,--Whoever you are and wherever you may be when you take up\nthis book--I beg of you not to feel disturbed because I have let Fancy\nand a faery or two slip in between the covers.  You will find them\nquite harmless and friendly--and very eager to become acquainted.\n\nFurthermore, please do not search about for Saint Margaret's; it does\nnot exist.  I shamelessly confess to the building of it myself, using\nmy right of authorship to bring a stone from this place, and a cornice\nfrom that, to cap the foundation I discovered long ago--when I was a\nchild.  In a like manner have I furnished its board of trustees.  Do\nnot misjudge them; remember that when one is so careless as to let\nFancy and faeries into a book she is forced to let the stepmothers be\nunkind and the giants cruel.\n\nI should like to remind those who may be forgetting that Tir-na-n'Og is\nthe land of eternal youth and joyousness--the Celtic \"Land of Heart's\nDesire.\"  It is a country which belongs to us all by right of natural\nheritage; but we turned our backs to it and started journeying from it\nalmost the instant we stepped out of our cradles.\n\nAs for the primrose ring--reach across it to Bridget and let her give\nyou back again the heart of a child which you may have lost somewhere\nalong the road of Growing-Old-and-Wise.\n\n    R. S.\n\nTHE PRIMROSE RING\n\n\nI\n\nCONCERNING FANCY AND SAINT MARGARET'S\n\nWould it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the\n30th of April--which is May Eve, as everybody knows?\n\nThis is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the\nstory-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the\ntale that comes to my ears.  But I can remind you that May Eve is one\nof the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year--reason\nenough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point\nout to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint\nMargaret's, found the flower-seller at the corner of the street that\nmorning with his basket full of primroses.  Now primroses are \"gentle\nflowers,\" as everybody ought to know--which means that the faeries have\nbeen using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret\nMacLean bought the full of her hands that morning.\n\nAnd this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret's--which fell\non the 30th of April--and to the beginning of the story.\n\n\nSaint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children does not belong to the\ncity.  It was built by a rich man as a memorial to his son, a little\ncrippled lad who stayed just long enough to leave behind as a legacy\nfor his father a great crying hunger to minister to all little ailing\nand crippled bodies.  There are golden tales concerning those first\nyears of the hospital--tales passed on by word of mouth alone and so\nold as to have gathered a bit of the misty glow of illusion that hangs\nover all myths and traditions.  They made of Saint Margaret's an\narcadian refuge, where the Founder wandered all day and every day like\na patron saint.  Tradition endowed him with all the attributes of all\nsaints belonging to childhood: the protectiveness of Saint Christopher,\nthe tenderness of Saint Anthony, the loving comradeship of Saint\nValentine, and the joyfulness of Saint Nicholas.\n\nBut that was more than fifty years ago; and institutions can change\nmarvelously in half a century.  Time had buried more than the Founder.\n\nThe rich still support Saint Margaret's.  Society gives bazars and\ncostumed balls for it annually; great artists give benefit concerts;\nbankers, corporation presidents, and heiresses send liberal checks once\na year--and from this last group are chosen the trustees.  They have\nmade of Saint Margaret's the best-appointed hospital in the city.  It\nis supplied with everything money and power can obtain; leading\nsurgeons are listed on its staff; its nurses rank at the head.  It has\noutspanned the greatest dream of the Founder--professionally.  And\ntwelve times a year--at the end of every month--the trustees hold their\nday; which means that all through the late afternoon, until the\nbusiness meeting at five-thirty, they wander over the building.\n\nNow it is the business of institutional directors to be thorough, and\nthe trustees of Saint Margaret's, previous to the 30th of April, never\nforgot their business.  They looked into corners and behind doors to\nsee what had not been done; they followed the work-trails of every\nemployee--from old Cassie, the scrub-woman, to the Superintendent\nherself; and if one was a wise employee one blazed conspicuously and\noften.  They gathered in little groups and discussed methods for\nconservation and greater efficiency, being as up to date in their\ncharities as in everything else.  Also, they brought guests and showed\nthem about; for when one was rich and had put one's money into\ncollections of sick and crippled children instead of old ivories and\nfirst editions, it did not at all mean that one had not retained the\nsame pride of exhibiting.\n\nThere are a few rare natures who make collections for the sheer love of\nthe objects they collect, and if they can be persuaded to show them off\nat all it is always with so much tenderness and sympathy that even the\nfeelings of a delicately wrought Buddha could not be bruised.  But\nthere were none of these natures numbered among the trustees of Saint\nMargaret's.  And because it was purely a matter of charity and pride\nwith them, and because they never had any time left over from being\nthorough and business-like to spend on the children themselves, they\nnever failed to leave a shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day.  The\ncontagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of\nself-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward\nand went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until\nit reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation.  There\nwas a reason for this--as Margaret MacLean put it once in paraphrase:\n\n\"Children come and children go, but we stay on for ever.\"\n\nTrustee Day was an abiding memory only with the incurables; which meant\nthat twelve times a year--at the end of every month--Ward C cried\nitself to sleep.\n\nSpring could not have begun the day better.  She is never the\nspendthrift that summer is, but once in a while she plunges recklessly\ninto her treasure-store and scatters it broadcast.  On this last day of\nApril she was prodigal with her sunshine; out countryward she garnished\nevery field and wood and hollow with her best.  Everywhere were flowers\nand pungent herby things in such abundance that even the city folk\ncould sense them afar off.\n\nLittle cajoling breezes scuttled around corners and down\nthoroughfares, blowing good humor in and bad humor out.  Birds of\npassage--song-sparrows, tanagers, bluebirds, and orioles--even a pair\nof cardinals--stopped wherever they could find a tree or bush from\nwhich to pipe a friendly greeting.  Yes, spring certainly could not\nhave begun the day better; it was as if everything had said to itself,\n\"We know this is a very special occasion and we must do our share in\nmaking it fine.\"\n\nSo well did everything succeed that Margaret MacLean was up and out of\nSaint Margaret's a full half-hour earlier than usual, her heart singing\nantiphonally with the birds outside.  Coatless, but capped and in her\ngray uniform, she jumped the hospital steps, two at a time, and danced\nthe length of the street.\n\nNow Margaret MacLean was small and slender, and there was nothing\ngrotesque in the dancing.  It had become a natural means of expressing\nthe abundant life and joyousness she had felt ever since she had been\nfree of crutches and wheeled chairs; and an impartial stranger, had he\nbeen passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight\nthat he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly\nappeared darting along the pavement.  She reached the corner just in\ntime to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some\nold tabby to settle himself and his basket.\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried in dismay, for the flower-seller was wizened and\nunsteady of foot, and she had sent him spinning about in a dizzy\nfashion.  She put out a steadying hand.  \"Oh . . . !\"  This time it was\nin ecstasy; she had spied the primroses in the basket just as the\nsunshine splashed over the edge of the corner building straight down\nupon them.  Margaret MacLean dropped to one knee and laid her cheek\nagainst them.  \"The happy things--you can hear them laugh!  I want\nall--all I can carry.\"  She looked up quizzically at the flower-seller.\n\"Now how did you ever happen to think of bringing these--to-day?\"\n\nA pair of watery old eyes twinkled, thereby becoming amazingly young in\nan instant, and he wagged his head mysteriously while he raised a\nsignificant finger.  \"Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther\nbringin' anythin' else?  But the rest that passes--or stops--will see\nnaught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'.\"  And the\nflower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.\n\n\"Perhaps not.  There are the children--\"\n\n\"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible\nwise.\"\n\n\"I know--I know--but mine aren't.  I'm going to take my children back\nas many as I can carry.\"  She stretched both hands about a mass of\nstems--all they could compass.  \"See\"--she held up a giant bunch--\"so\nmuch happiness is worth a great deal.  Feel in the pocket of my apron\nand you will find--gold for gold.  It was the only money I had in my\npurse.  Keep it all, please.\"  With a nod and a smile she left him,\ndancing her way back along the still deserted street.\n\n\"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all,\" chuckled the flower-seller as\nhe eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called\nafter the diminishing figure of the nurse: \"Hey, there!  Mind what ye\ndo wi' them blossoms.  They be's powerful strong magic.\"  And he\nchuckled again.\n\nThe hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing\nbrasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door.  She stopped\nfor an interchange of grins and greetings.\n\n\"Mornin', Miss Peggie.\"\n\n\"Morning, Patsy.\"\n\nHe was \"Patrick\" to the rest of Saint Margaret's; no one else seemed to\nrealize that he was only about one-fifth uniform and the other fifths\nwere boy--small boy at that.\n\nShe eyed his work critically.  \"That's right--polish them well, Patsy.\nThey must shine especially bright to-day.\"\n\n\"Why, what's happenin' to-day?\"\n\n\"Oh--everything, and--nothing at all.\"\n\nAnd she passed on through the door with a most mysterious smile,\nthereby causing Patsy to mentally comment:\n\n\"My, don't she beat all!  More'n half the time a feller don't know what\nshe's kiddin' about; but, gee! don't he like it!\"\n\nAs it happened the primroses did not get as far as Ward C then.\nMargaret MacLean found the door of the board-room ajar, and, glancing\nin, looked square into the eyes of the Founder of Saint Margaret's,\nwhere he hung in his great gold frame--silent and questioning.\n\n\"If all the tales they tell about you are true, you must wonder what\nhas happened to Saint Margaret's since you turned it over to a board of\ntrustees.\"\n\nShe went in and stood close to him, smiling wistfully.  \"Perhaps you\nwould like me to leave you the primroses until after the meeting--they\nwould be sure to cheer you up; and they might--they might--\"  Laughing,\nshe went over to the President's desk and put the flowers in the green\nDevonshire bowl.\n\nShe was sitting in the President's chair, coaxing some of the hoydenish\nblossoms into place, when the House Surgeon looked in a moment later.\n\n\"Hello!  What are you doing?  I thought you detested this room.\"  He\nspoke in a teasing, big-brother way, while his eyes dwelt pleasurably\non the small gray figure in the President's chair.  For, be it said\nwithout partiality or prejudice, Margaret MacLean was beautiful, with a\nbeauty altogether free from self-appraisement.\n\n\"I do--I hate it!\"  Then she wagged her head and raised a significant\nfinger in perfect imitation of the flower-seller.  \"I am dabbling\nin--magic.  I am starting here a terrible and insidious campaign\nagainst gloom.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon looked amused.  \"You make me shiver, all right; but I\nhaven't the smallest guess coming.  Would you mind putting it into\nscientific American?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I couldn't.  But I can make a plain statement in\nprose--this is Trustee Day.\"\n\n\"Hell!\"  The House Surgeon walked over to the calendar on the desk to\nverify the fact.  \"Well, what are you going to do about it?\"\n\nMargaret MacLean spread her hands over the primroses, indicatively.  \"I\ntold you--magic.\"  She wrinkled up her forehead into a worrisome frown.\n\"Let me see; I counted them, up last night, and I have had two hundred\nand twenty-eight Trustee Days in my life.  I have tried about\neverything else--philosophy, Christianity, optimism, mental sclerosis,\nand missionary fever; but never magic.  Don't you think it\nsounds--hopeful?\"\n\nThe House Surgeon laughed.  \"You are the funniest little person I ever\nknew.  On duty you're as old as Methuselah and as wise as Hippocrates,\nbut the rest of the time I believe your feet are eternally treading the\nnap off antique wishing-carpets.  I wonder how many you've worn out.\nAs for that head of yours, it bobs like a penny balloon among the\nclouds looking for--\"\n\n\"Faeries?\" suggested Margaret MacLean.\n\n\"That just about hits it.  Will you please tell me how you, of all\npeople, ever evolved these--ideas--out of Saint Margaret's?\"\n\nA grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across\nthe room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's--the portrait\nof the Old Senior Surgeon.  \"I had to,\" she said at last.  \"When a\nperson is born with absolutely nothing--nothing of the human things a\nhuman baby is entitled to--she has to evolve something to live in; a\nsort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all\nover it to keep prodding away life as it really is.  If she didn't the\nthings she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp--just\nskin and feelings.\"\n\n\"And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?\"\n\n\"Oh dear, no!  But I keep believing it's going to be much better.  Did\nyou ever think what it could be like--if the trustees would only make\nit something more than--a matter of business?  Why, it could be as good\nas any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one;\nand think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried.\nThink--think--and, oh, the fun of it!\"\n\nShe broke off with a little shivering ache.  When the picture became so\nalive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop.  But\nthe next moment she was laughing merrily.\n\n\"Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with\nthe pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to\nmyself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say.  It\nbegan to sound so real that one day I answered--just as if some one had\nsaid something pleasant.\"\n\n\"Well?\" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.\n\n\"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those\nlorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was\nspoken to.  I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them\ninto god-parents.\"\n\n\"Look here,\" and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a\nfirm, big-brother grip of her hands, \"faery-tales have to have\nstepmothers as well as godmothers--think of it that way.  And remember\nthat those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches.\"\n\n\"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them.  I want them to\nbe children--plain, happy, laughing children--with as normal a heritage\nas we can scrape together for them.  All it needs is the magic of a\nlittle human understanding.  That's the most potent magic in the whole\nworld.  Why, it can do anything!\"\n\nA little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face.  It always did\nwhen she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something\nvery intensely.  It was the hardest kind of a look to resist.  She had\noften threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it\nwas her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor\nand meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one\ncould of a spiritual heritage and living thereby.\n\n\"And don't you see,\" she had urged, at least a score of times,\n\"if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds\nrun--free-limbed--over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures\nwould never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor\nbodies.  And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is\nlearning to walk alone.\"\n\nUsually the House Surgeon was easily convinced to the Margaret MacLean\nside of any argument; but this time, for reasons of his own, he turned\nan unsympathetic and stubborn ear.  He was coming to believe very\nstrongly that all this fanciful optimism was so much laughing-gas, with\nonly a passing power, and when the effect wore off there would be the\nDickens to pay.  He did not want to see Margaret MacLean turn into a\nbitter-minded woman of the world--stripped of her trust and her dreams.\nHe--all of them--had need of her as she was.  Her belief in the\nultimate good of things and persons, however, was beyond power of human\nachievement; and the surest cure for disappointments was to amputate\nall expectations.  So the House Surgeon hardened his heart and became\nas professionally severe as he knew how to be.\n\n\"It's absolutely impossible to expect a group of incurable children in\nan institution to be made as normal and happy as other children.  It\ncan't be done.  Those kiddies are up against a pretty hard proposition,\nI know; but the kindest thing you can do for them is to toughen them\ninto not feeling--\"\n\nThe nurse in charge of Ward C wrenched away her hands fiercely.\n\"You're just like the Senior Surgeon.  He thinks the whole dependent\nworld--the sick and the poor and the incompetent--have no business with\nideas or feelings of their own.  He's always saying, 'Train it out of\nthem; train it out of them; and it will make it easier for institutions\nto take care of them.'  It's for ever the 'right of the strong' with\nhim.  Unless you are able to take care of yourself you are not entitled\nto the ordinary privileges of a human being.\"\n\n\"I'm not at all like the Senior Surgeon.  I don't mean that, and you\nknow it.  What I am trying to make you understand is that these kiddies\ncan't keep you always; some time they will have to learn to do without\nyou.  When that happens it will come tough on them.  It would come\ntough on anybody; and the square thing for you to do is to stop\nbeing--so all-fired adorable.\"  The House Surgeon flung back his head\nand marched out of the board-room, slamming the door.\n\nBehind the slammed door Margaret MacLean eyed the primroses\nsuspiciously.  \"I wonder--is your magic working all right to-day?\nPlease--please don't weave any charms against him, little faery people.\nHe is the only other grown-up person who has ever understood the least\nbit; and I couldn't bear to lose him, too.\"\n\nFor the second time that morning she nestled her cheek against the\nblossoms.  Then the clock on the hospital tower struck eight.  She\njumped with a start.  \"Time to go on duty.\"  Once again her eyes met\nthe eyes of the Founder and sparkled witchingly.  She raised high the\ngreen Devonshire bowl from the President's desk as for a toast.\n\n\"Here's to Saint Margaret's--as you founded her; and the children--as\nyou meant them to be; and here's to the one who first understood!\" She\nturned from the Founder to the portrait hanging opposite, and bowed\nmost worshipfully to the Old Senior Surgeon.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nIN WHICH MARGARET MACLEAN REVIEWS A MEMORY\n\nAs Margaret MacLean climbed the stairs to Ward C--she rarely took the\nlift, it was too remindful of the time when she could not climb\nstairs--her mind thought back a step for each step she mounted.  When\nshe had reached the top of the first flight she was a child again, back\nin one of the little white iron cribs in her own ward; and it was the\nday when the first stringent consciousness came to her that she hated\nTrustee Day.\n\nThe Old Senior Surgeon--the present one, of whom Saint Margaret's felt\ninordinately proud, was house surgeon then--had come into Ward C for a\npeep at her, and had called out, according to a firmly established\ncustom, \"Hello, Thumbkin!  What's the news?\"\n\nShe had been \"Thumbkin\" to him ever since the night he had carried her\ninto the hospital, a tiny mite of a baby; and he had woven out of her\ncoming a marvelous story--fancy-fashioned.  This he had told her at\nleast twice a week, from the time she was old enough to ask for it,\nbecause it had popped into his head quite suddenly that this morsel of\nhumanity would some day insist on being accounted for.\n\nThe bare facts concerning her were rather shabby ones.  She had been\nunceremoniously dumped into his arms by a delegate from the Foundling\nAsylum, who had found him the most convenient receptacle nearest the\ndoor; and he had been offered the meager information that she belonged\nto no one, was wrong somehow, and a hospital was the place for her.\n\nOne hardly likes to pass on shabby garments, much less shabby facts, to\ncover another's past.  So the Old Senior Surgeon had forestalled her\ninquisitiveness with a tale adorned with all the pretty imaginings that\nhe, \"a clumsy-minded old gruffian,\" could conjure up.\n\nMargaret MacLean remembered the story--word for word--as we remember\n\"The House That Jack Built.\"  It began with the Old Senior Surgeon\nhimself, who heard a pair of birds disputing in one of the two trees\nwhich sentineled the hospital.  They had built a nest therein; it was\nbedtime, and they wished to retire, only something prevented.  Upon\ninvestigation he discovered the cause--\"and there you were, my dear, no\nbigger than my thumb!\"\n\nThis was the nucleus of the story; but the Old Senior Surgeon had\nrolled it about, hither and yon, adding adventure after adventure,\nuntil it had assumed gigantic proportions.  As she grew older she took\na hand in the adventure-making herself, he supplying the bare plot, she\nweaving the threads therefrom into a detailed narrative which she\nretold to him later, with a few imaginings of her own added.  This is\nwhat had established the custom for the Old Senior Surgeon to take a\npeep into Ward C at day's end and call across to her: \"Hello, Thumbkin!\nWhat's the news?\" or, \"What's happened next?\"  And until this day the\nanswer had always been a joyous one.\n\nMargaret MacLean, grown, could look back at tiny Margaret MacLean and\nsee her very clearly as she straightened up in the little iron crib and\nanswered in a shrill, tense voice: \"I'm not Thumbkin.  I'm a foundling.\nI don't belong to anybody.  I never had any father or mother or\nnothing, but just a hurt back; they said so.  They stood right\nthere--two of them; and one told the other all about me.\"\n\nThis was the end of the story, and the beginning of Trustee Days for\nMargaret MacLean.\n\nShe soon made the discovery that she was not the only child in the ward\nwho felt about it that way.  Her discovery was a matter of intuition\nrather than knowledge; for--as if by silent consent--the topic was\ncarefully avoided in the usual ward conversation.  One does not make it\na rule to talk about the hobgoblins that lurk in the halls at night, or\nthe gray, creeping shapes that come out of dark corners and closets\nafter one has gone to bed, if one is so pitifully unfortunate as to\npossess these things in childhood.  Instead one just remembers and\nwaits, shivering.  Only to old Cassie, the scrub-woman, who was young\nCassie then, did she confide her fear.  From her she received a\ncharm--compounded of goose eggshells and vinegar--which Cassie claimed\nto be what they used in Ireland to unbewitch changelings.  She kept the\ncharm hidden for months under her pillow.  It proved comforting,\nalthough absolutely ineffectual.\n\nAnd for months there had been a strained relationship between the Old\nSenior Surgeon and herself, causing them both much embarrassment.  She\nresented the story he had made for her with all her child soul; he had\ncheated her--fooled her.  She felt much as we felt toward our parents\nwhen we made our first discovery concerning Santa Claus.\n\nBut after a time--a long time--the story came to belong to her again;\nshe grew to realize that the Old Senior Surgeon had told it\ntruthfully--only with the unconscious tongue of the poet instead of the\ngrim realist.  She found out as well that it had done a wonderful thing\nfor her: it had turned life into an adventure--a quest upon which one\nwas bound to depart, no matter how poorly one's feet might be shod or\nhow persistently the rain and wind bit at one's marrow through the rags\nof a conventional cloak.  More than this--it had colored the road ahead\nfor her, promising pleasant comradeship and good cheer; it would keep\nher from ever losing heart or turning back.\n\nA day came at last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh--a\nlittle foolishly, perhaps--over the child-story; and then, just because\nthey could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over\nagain.  They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the gifts\nthe good godmothers brought.\n\n\"Let me see,\" said the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head\nthoughtfully, \"there was the business-like little party on a\nbroomstick, carrying grit--plain grit.\"\n\n\"And the next one brought happiness--didn't she?\" asked little Margaret\nMacLean.\n\nHe nodded.  \"Of course.  Then came a little gray-haired faery with a\nnosegay of Thoughts-for-other-folks, all dried and ready to put away\nlike sweet lavender.\"\n\n\"And did the next bring love?\"\n\nAgain he agreed.  \"But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady\nin a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense.\"\n\n\"And then--then--  Oh, couldn't the one after her bring beauty?  Some\none always did in the book stories.  I think I wouldn't mind the back\nand--other things so much if my face could be nice.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little\nMargaret MacLean had been.\n\nThe Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile.  \"Have\nyou never looked into a glass, Thumbkin?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\nChildren in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they\nlook, and perhaps it is better that way.  Only if it happens--as it\ndoes sometimes--that they spend a good share of their life there, it\nseems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with\nthemselves.\n\nFor a moment he patted her hand; after which he said, very solemnly:\n\"Wait for a year and a day--then look.  You will find out then just\nwhat the next faery brought.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean had obeyed this command to the letter.  When the year\nand a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself\nfor the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness\nof that moment.  It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that\nshe should actually possess something of which she need not be\nashamed--something nice to share with the world.  And whenever Margaret\nMacLean thought of her looks at all, which was rare, she thought of\nthem in that way.\n\nShe took up the memory again where she had dropped it on the second\nflight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with\nthe story.\n\nThey came to the place where Thumbkin was pricked by the wicked faery\nwith the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the\nfashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon\nsuddenly stopped and looked at her sharply.\n\n\"Some day, Thumbkin, I may play the wicked faery and put you to sleep.\nWhat would you say to that?\"\n\nShe did not say--then.\n\nMore months passed, months which brought an ashen, drawn look to the\nface of the Old Senior Surgeon, and a tired-out droop to his shoulders\nand eyes.  She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly\nwhenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head\nominously.  She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came\nat last to remind her of his threatened promise.\n\n\"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep?  Would you let an old faery\ndoctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you\nwould wake up to find happiness--and health--and love--and all the\nother gifts the godmothers brought?\"\n\nShe tried her best to keep the frightened look out of her eyes.  By the\nway he watched her, however, she knew some of it must have crept in.\n\"Operation?\" she managed to choke out at last.\n\nOperation was a fairly common word in Ward C, and not an over-hopeful\none.\n\n\"It's this way, Thumbkin; and let's make a bargain of it.  I think\nthere's a cure for that back of yours.  It hasn't been tried very much;\nabout often enough to make it worth while for us to take a chance.\nI'll be honest with you and tell you the house surgeon doesn't think it\ncan be done; but that's where the bargain comes in.  He thinks he can\nmend my trouble, and I don't; and we're both dreadfully greedy to prove\nwe're right.  Now if you will give me my way with you I will give him\nhis.  But you must come first.\"\n\n\"A hundred years is a long time to be asleep,\" she objected.\n\n\"Bless you, it won't be a hundred minutes.\"\n\n\"And does your back need it, too?\"\n\n\"Not my back; my stomach.  It's about the only chance for either of us,\nThumbkin.\"\n\n\"And you won't unless I do?\"\n\nThe Old Senior Surgeon gave his head a terrific shake; then he caught\nher small hands in his great, warm, comforting ones.  \"Think.  It means\na strong back; a pair of sturdy little legs to take you anywhere; and\nthe whole world before you!\"\n\n\"And you'll have them, too?\"\n\nHe smiled convincingly.\n\n\"All right.  Let's.\"  She gave his hand a hard, trustful squeeze.\n\nShe liked to remember that squeeze.  She often wondered if it might not\nhave helped him to do what he had to do.\n\nHer operation was record-making in its success; and after he had seen\nher well on the mend he gave himself over to the house surgeon and a\nfellow-colleague, according to the bargain.  He proved the house\nsurgeon wrong, for he never rallied.  Undoubtedly he knew this would be\nthe way of it; for he stopped in Ward C before he went up to the\noperating-room and said to her:\n\n\"I shall be sleeping longer than you did, Thumbkin; but, never fear, I\nshall be waking some time, somewhere.  And remember this: Never grow so\nstrong and well that you forget how tiresome a hospital crib can be.\nNever be so happy that you grow blind to the heartaches of other\nchildren; and never wander so far away from Saint Margaret's that you\ncan't come back, sometimes, and make a story for some one else.\"\n\nShe puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but\nwhen they told her the next day, she understood.  Probably she grieved\nfor him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his\nown family or profession.  For, whereas there are many people in the\nworld who can give life to others, there are but few who can help\nothers to possess it.\n\nWhat childhood she had had she left behind her soon after this, along\nwith her aching back, her helpless limbs, and the little iron crib in\nWard C.\n\nOn the first Trustee Day following her complete recovery she appeared,\nat her own request, before the meeting of the board.  In a small,\nfrightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school.  She\nwanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a nurse.\n\nThe trustees consented.  Having assumed the responsibility of her\nwell-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it\nnow.  Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint\nMargaret's as a charitable institution, and to themselves as trustees,\nthat this child whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should\nchoose this way of showing her gratitude?  Verily, the board pruned and\nplumed itself well that day.\n\nAll this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to\nWard C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory of\nthis man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the\nabnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made it\npossible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her\nfeet upon a joyous mission.  For the thousandth time she blessed that\nmemory.\n\nIt had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and\nsaid nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her\nfancy-making.  She could never get away from the feeling that some of\nthe sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the\nmemory.  One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put\nit into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.\n\nOn the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over, between\nspiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below.  It just happened that\nthe House Surgeon was standing there, talking with one of the internes.\n\nMargaret MacLean smiled whimsically.  \"If there is a soul in the wide\nworld I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon.\"  And then she\nadded, aloud, softly apostrophizing the top of his head, \"I think some\nday you might grow to be very--very like the Old Senior Surgeon; that\nis, if you would only stop trying to be like the present one.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it\nwith, it is the House Surgeon.\"]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nWARD C\n\nA welcoming shout went up from Ward C as Margaret MacLean entered.  It\nwas lusty enough to have come from the throats of healthy children, and\nit would have sounded happily to the most impartial ears; to the nurse\nin charge it was a very pagan of gladness.\n\n\"Wish you good morning, good meals, and good manners,\" laughed Margaret\nMacLean; and then she went from crib to crib with a special greeting\nfor each one.  Oh, she firmly believed that a great deal depended on\nhow the day began.\n\nIn the first crib lay Pancho, of South American parentage, partially\nparalyzed and wholly captivating.  He had been in Saint Margaret's\nsince babyhood--he was six now--and had never worn anything but a\nlittle hospital shirt.\n\n\"Good morning, Brown Baby,\" she said, kissing his forehead.  \"It's just\nthe day for you out on the sun-porch; and you'll hear birds--lots of\nthem.\"\n\n\"Wobins?\"\n\n\"Yes, and bluebirds, too.  I've heard them already.\"\n\nNext came Sandy--merry of heart--a humpback laddie from Aberdeen.  His\nparents had gone down with the steerage of a great ocean liner, and\nsociety had cared for him until the first horror of the tragedy had\npassed; then some one fortunately had mentioned Saint Margaret's, and\nsociety was relieved of its burden.  In the year he had spent here his\nAberdonian burr had softened somewhat and a number of American\ncolloquialisms had crept into his speech; but for all that he was \"the\nbraw canny Scot\"--as the House Surgeon always termed him--and he\nobjected to kisses.  So the good-morning greeting was a hearty\nhand-shake between the two--comrade fashion.\n\n\"It wad be a bonnie day i' Aberdeen,\" he reminded her, blithely.  \"But\n'tis no the robins there 'at wad be singin'.\"\n\n\"Shall I guess?\"\n\n\"Na, I'll tell ye.  Laverocks!\"\n\n\"Really, Sandy?\"  And then she suddenly remembered something.  \"Now you\nguess what you're going to have for supper to-night.\"\n\n\"Porridge?\"\n\n\"No; scones!\"\n\n\"Bully!\"  And Sandy clapped his hands ecstatically.\n\nBeside Sandy lay Susan--smart, shrewd, and American, with braced legs\nand back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days.  But\nas calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and\nconsequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little\nface.  Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind\nhunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and therefore\ngives sparingly.\n\n\"Guess yer couldn't guess what I dreamt last night, Miss Peggie?\"\n\n\"About the aunt?\"  This was a mythical relation of Susan's who lived\nsomewhere and who was supposed to turn up some day and claim Susan with\nopen arms.  She was the source of many dreams and of much interested\nconversation and heated argument in the ward, and the children had her\npictured down to the smallest detail of person and clothes.\n\n\"No, 'tain't my aunt this time.  I dreamt you was gettin' married, Miss\nPeggie.\"  And Susan giggled delightedly.\n\n\"An' goin' away?\"  This was groaned out in chorus from the two cots\nfollowing Susan's, wherein lay James and John--fellow-Apostles of\npain--bound closely together in that spiritual brotherhood.  They were\nsitting up, holding hands and staring at Margaret with wide,\nanguish-filled eyes.\n\n\"Of course I'm not going away, little brothers; and I'm not going to\nget married.  Does any one ever get married in Saint Margaret's?\"\n\nThe Apostles thought very hard about it for a moment; but as it had\nnever happened before, of course it never would now, and Miss Peggie\nwas safe.\n\nThe whole ward smiled again.  But in that moment Margaret MacLean\nremembered what the House Surgeon had said, and wondered.  Was she\nbuilding up for them an ultimate discontent in trying to make life\nhappy and full for them now?  Could not minds like theirs be taught to\nwalk alone, after all?  And then she laughed to herself for worrying.\nWhy should the children ever have to do without her--unless--unless\nsomething came to them far better--like Susan's mythical aunt?  The\nchildren need never leave Saint Margaret's as long as they lived, and\nshe never should; and she passed on to the next cot, content that all\nwas well.\n\nAs she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and\nclasped themselves tightly about her neck; a head with a shock of red\ncurls buried itself in the folds of the gray uniform.  This was\nBridget--daughter of the Irish sod, oldest of the ward, general\ncaretaker and best beloved; although it should be added in justice to\nboth Bridget and Margaret MacLean that the former had no consciousness\nof it, and the latter took great care to hide it.\n\n[Illustration: As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms\nflew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck.]\n\nIt was Bridget who read to the others when no one else could; it was\nBridget who remembered some wonderful story to tell on those days when\nSandy's back was particularly bad or the Apostles grew over-despondent;\nand it was Bridget who laughed and sang on the gray days when the sun\nrefused to be cheery.  Undoubtedly it was because of all these things\nthat her cot was in the center of Ward C.\n\nConcerning Bridget herself, hers was a case of arsenical poisoning,\nslowly absorbed while winding daisy-stems for an East Broadway\nmanufacturer of cheap artificial flowers.  She had done this for three\nyears--since she was five--thereby helping her mother to support\nthemselves and two younger children.  She was ten now and the Senior\nSurgeon had already reckoned her days.\n\nIn the shadow of Bridget's cot was Rosita's crib--Rosita being the\nyoungest, the most sensitive, and the most given to homesickness.  This\nlast was undoubtedly due to the fact that she was the only child in the\nincurable ward blessed in the matter of a home.  Her parents were\nhonest-working Italians who adored her, but who were too ignorant and\nindulgent to keep her alive.  They came every Sunday, and sat out the\nallotted time for visitors beside her crib, while the other children\nwatched in a silent, hungry-eyed fashion.\n\nMargaret MacLean passed her with a kiss and went on to\nPeter--Peter--seven years old--congenital hip disease--and all boy.\n\n\"Hello, you!\" he shouted, squirming under the kiss that he would not\nhave missed for anything.\n\n\"Hello, you!\" answered back the administering nurse, and then she\nasked, solemnly, \"How's Toby?\"\n\n\"He's--he's fine.  That soap the House Surgeon give me cured his fleas\nall up.\"\n\nToby was even more mythical than Susan's aunt; she was based on certain\nauthentic facts, whereas Toby was solely the creation of a dog-adoring\nlittle brain.  But no one was ever inconsiderate enough to hint at his\nairy fabrication; and Margaret MacLean always inquired after him every\nmorning with the same interest that she bestowed on the other occupants\nof Ward C.\n\nLast in the ward came Michael, a diminutive Russian exile with valvular\nheart trouble and a most atrocious vocabulary.  The one seemed as\nincurable as the other.  Margaret MacLean had wrestled with the\nvocabulary on memorable occasions--to no avail; and although she had\nlong since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with\nhim, it troubled her none the less.  And because Michael came the\nnearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for\nhim always an unfailing gentleness.\n\n\"Good morning, dear,\" she said, running her fingers through the\nperpendicular curls that bristled continuously.\n\n\"Goot mornun, tear,\" he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added,\nwith an irresistible smile, \"Und Got-tam-you.\"\n\n\"Oh, Michael, don't you remember, the next time you were going to say\n'God bless you'?\"\n\n\"Awright--next time.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean sighed unconsciously.  Michael's \"next time\" was about\nas reliable as the South American _manana_; and he seemed as much an\nalien now as the day he was brought into the ward.  And then, because\nshe believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the\nend, she did the thing Michael loved best.\n\nWard C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her\nassistant were turned into keepers.  Together they set about the duties\nfor the day with great good-humor.  Two seals, a wriggling\nhippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising\nactivities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby\nelephant were bathed with considerable difficulty and excitement.  It\nwas Sandy who insisted on being the elephant in spite of a heated\nargument from the other animals that, having a hump, he ought to be a\ncamel.  They forgave him later, however, when he squirted forth his\ntooth-brush water and trumpeted triumphantly, thereby causing the\nentire menagerie to squirm about and bellow in great glee.\n\nAt this point the head keeper had to turn them all back instantly into\nchildren, and she delivered a firm but gentle lecture on the\ninconsiderateness of soaking a freshly changed bed.\n\nSandy broke into penitent tears; and because tears were never allowed\nto dampen the atmosphere of Ward C when they could possibly be dammed,\nMargaret MacLean did the \"best-of-all-things.\"  She pushed the cribs\nand cots all together into a \"special\" with observation-cars; then,\nchanging into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she\nswung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle.  The\nbell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and\npuff, bounding away countryward where spring had come.\n\nThose of you who live where you can always look out on pleasant places,\nor who can travel at will into them, may find it hard to understand how\nwearisome and stupid it grows to be always in one room with an\nencompassing sky-line of roof-tops and chimneys, or may fail to sound\nthe full depths of wonder and delight over the ride that Ward C took\nthat memorable day.\n\nThe engineer pointed out everything--meadows full of flowers, trees\nfull of birds, gardens new planted, and corn-fields guarded by\nscarecrows.  She slowed up at the barnyards that the children might\nhear the crowing cocks and clucking hens with their new-hatched broods,\nand see the neighboring pastures with their flocks of sheep and tiny\nlambs.\n\n\"A ken them weel--hoo the wee creepits bleeted hame i' Aberdeen!\"\nshouted Sandy, bleeting for the whole pastureful.\n\nAnd when they came to the smallest of mountain brooks the engineer\nfollowed it, down, down, until it had grown into a stream with\ncowslipped banks; and on and on until it had grown into a river with\nlittle boats and sandy shore and leaping fish.  Here the engineer\nstopped the train; and every one who wanted to--and there were none who\ndid not--went paddling; and some went splashing about just as if they\ncould swim.\n\nBack in the \"special,\" they climbed a hilltop, slowly, so that the\nengineer could point out each farm and pasture and stream in miniature\nthat they had seen close by.\n\n\"That's the wonder of a hilltop,\" she explained; \"you can see\neverything neighboring each other.\"  And when they reached the crest\nshe clapped her hands.  \"Oh, children dear, wouldn't it be beautiful to\nbuild a house on a hilltop just like this to live in always!\"\n\nAfterward they rode into deep woods, where the sunlight came down\nthrough the trees like splashes of gold; and here the engineer\nsuggested they should have a picnic.\n\nAs Margaret MacLean stepped out into the hall to look up the\ndinner-trays she met the House Surgeon.\n\n\"Dreading it as much as usual?\" he asked, in the teasing, big-brother\ntone; but he looked at her in quite another way.\n\nShe laughed.  \"I'm hoping it isn't going to be as bad as the time\nbefore--and the time before that--and the time before that.\"  She\npushed back some moist curls that had slipped out from under her\ncap--engineering was hard work--and the little-girl look came into her\nface.  She looked up mischievously at the House Surgeon.  \"You couldn't\npossibly guess what I've been doing all morning.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon wrinkled his forehead in his most professional\nmanner.  \"Precautionary disinfecting?\"\n\nMargaret MacLean laughed again.  \"That's an awfully good guess, but\nit's wrong.  I've been administering antitoxin for trusteria.\"\n\nIn spite of her gay assurance before the House Surgeon, however, it was\nrather a sober nurse in charge of Ward C who sat down that afternoon\nwith a book of faery-tales on her knee open to the story of \"The\nSteadfast Tin Soldier.\"  As for Ward C, it was supremely happy; its\nbeloved \"Miss Peggie\" was on duty for the afternoon with the favorite\nbook for company; moreover, no one had discovered as yet that this was\nTrustee Day and that the trustees themselves were already near at hand.\n\nA shadow fell athwart the threshold that very moment.  Margaret MacLean\ncould feel it without taking her eyes from the book, and, purposefully\nunmindful of its presence, she kept reading steadily on:\n\n\"'The paper boat was rocking up and down; sometimes it turned round so\nquickly that the Tin Soldier trembled; but he remained firm, he did not\nmove a muscle, and looked straight forward, shouldering his musket.'\"\n\n\"Ah, Miss MacLean, may I speak with you a moment?\"  It was the voice of\nthe Meanest Trustee.\n\nThe nurse in charge rose quickly and met him half-way, hoping to keep\nhim and whatever he might have to say as far from the children as\npossible.\n\nThe Meanest Trustee continued in a little, short, sharp voice: \"The\ncook tells me that the patients in this ward have been having extra\nfood prepared for them of late, such as fruit and jellies and scones\nand even ice-cream.  I discovered it for myself.  I saw some pineapples\nin the refrigerator when I was inspecting it this afternoon, and the\ncook said it was your orders.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean smiled her most ingratiating smile.  \"You see,\" she\nsaid, eagerly, \"the children in this ward get fearfully tired of the\nsame things to eat; it is not like the other wards where the children\nstay only a short time.  So I thought it would be nice to have\nsomething different--once in a while; and then the old things would\ntaste all the better--don't you see?  I felt sure the trustees would be\nwilling.\"\n\n\"Well, they are not.  It is an entirely unnecessary expense which I\nwill not countenance.  The regular food is good and wholesome, and the\npatients ought to feel grateful for it instead of finding fault.\"\n\nThe nurse looked anxiously toward the cots, then dropped her voice half\nan octave lower.\n\n\"The children have never found fault; it was just my idea to give them\na treat when they were not expecting it.  As for the extra expense,\nthere has been none; I have paid for everything myself.\"\n\nThe Meanest Trustee readjusted his eye-glasses and looked closer at the\nyoung woman before him.  \"Do you mean to say you paid for them out of\nyour own wages?\"\n\nThe nurse nodded.\n\n\"Then all I have to say is that I consider it an extremely idiotic\nperformance which had better be stopped.  Children should not be\nindulged.\"\n\nAnd he went away muttering something about the poor always remaining\npoor with their foolish notions of throwing away money; and Margaret\nMacLean went back to the book of faery-tales.  But as she was looking\nfor the place Sandy grunted forth stubbornly:\n\n\"A'm no wantin' ony scones the nicht, so ye maun na fetch them.\"\n\nAnd Peter piped out, \"Trusterday, ain't it, Miss Peggie?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear.  Now shall we go on with the story?\"\n\nShe had read to where the rat was demanding the passport when she\nrecognized the President's step outside the door.  In another moment he\nwas standing beside her chair, looking at the book on her knee.\n\n\"Humph! faery-tales!  Is that not very foolish?  Don't you think, Miss\nMargaret, it would be more suitable to their condition in life if you\nshould select--hmm--something like _Pilgrim's Progress_ or _Lives of\nthe Saints and Martyrs_?  Something that would be a preparation--so to\nspeak--for the future.\"  He stood facing her now, his back to the\nchildren.\n\n\"Excuse me\"--she was smiling up at him--\"but I thought this was a\nbetter preparation.\"\n\nThe President frowned.  He was a much-tried man--a man of charitable\nparts, who directed or presided over thirty organizations.  It took him\nnearly thirty days each month--with the help of two private secretaries\nand a luxurious office--to properly attend to all the work resulting\ntherefrom; and the matters in hand were often so trying and perplexing\nthat he had to go abroad every other year to avoid a nervous breakdown.\n\n\"I think we took up this matter at one of the business meetings,\" he\nwent on, patiently, \"and some arrangement was made for one of the\ntrustees to come and read the Bible and teach the children their\nrespective creeds and catechisms.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean nodded.  \"There was; Miss N----\"--and she named the\nYoungest and Prettiest Trustee--\"generally comes an hour before the\nmeeting and reads to them; but to-day she was detained by a--tango tea,\nI believe.  That's why I chose this.\"  Her eyes danced unconsciously as\nshe tapped the book.\n\nThe President looked at her sharply.  \"I should think, my dear young\nlady, that you, of all persons, would realize what a very serious thing\nlife is to any one in this condition.  Instead of that I fear at times\nthat you are--shall I say--flippant?\"  He turned about and looked at\nthe children.  \"How do you do?\" he asked, kindly.\n\n\"Thank you, sir, we are very well, sir,\" they chorused in reply.  Saint\nMargaret's was never found wanting in politeness.\n\nThe President left; and the nurse in charge of Ward C went on with the\nreading.\n\n\"'The Tin Soldier stood up to his neck in water; deeper and deeper sank\nthe boat, and the paper became more and more limp; then the water\nclosed over him; but the Tin Soldier remained firm and shouldered his\nmusket.'\"\n\nA group filled the doorway; it was the voice of the Oldest Trustee that\nfloated in.  \"This, my dear, is the incurable ward; we are very much\ninterested in it.\"\n\nThey stood just over the threshold--the Oldest Trustee in advance, her\nfigure commanding and unbent, for all her seventy years, and her\nlorgnette raised.  As she was speaking a little gray wisp of a woman\ndetached herself from the group and moved slowly down the row of cots.\n\n\"Yes,\" continued the Oldest Trustee, \"we have two cases of congenital\nhip disease and three of spinal tuberculosis--that is one of them in\nthe second crib.\"  Her eyes moved on from Sandy to Rosita.  \"And the\nfifth patient has such a dreadful case of rheumatism.  Sad, isn't it,\nin so young a child?  Yes, the Senior Surgeon says it is absolutely\nincurable.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean closed the book with a bang; for five minutes the\nchildren had been looking straight ahead with big, conscious eyes,\nhearing not a word.  Rebellion gripped at her heart and she rose\nquickly and went over to the group.\n\n\"Wouldn't you like to come in and talk to the children?  They are\nrather sober this afternoon; perhaps you could make them laugh.\"\n\n\"Yes, wouldn't you like to go in?\" put in the Oldest Trustee.  \"They\nare very nice children.\"\n\nBut the visitors shrank back an almost infinitesimal distance; and one\nsaid, hesitatingly:\n\n\"I'm afraid we wouldn't know quite what to say to them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you would like to see the new pictures for the nurses' room?\"\nthe nurse in charge suggested, wistfully.\n\nThe Oldest Trustee glanced at her with a hint of annoyance.  \"We have\nalready seen them.  I think you must have forgotten, my dear, that it\nwas I who gave them.\"\n\nWith flashing cheeks Margaret MacLean fled from Ward C.  If she had\nstayed long enough to watch the little gray wisp of a woman move\nquietly from cot to cot, patting each small hand and asking, tenderly,\n\"And what is your name, dearie?\" she might have carried with her a\nhappier feeling.  At the door of the board-room she ran into the House\nSurgeon.\n\n\"Is it as bad as all that?\" he asked after one good look at her.\n\n\"It's worse--a hundred times worse!\"  She tossed her head angrily.  \"Do\nyou know what is going to happen some day?  I shall forget who I\nam--and who they are and what they have done for me--and say things\nthey will never forgive.  My mind-string will just snap, that's all;\nand every little pestering, forbidden thought that has been kicking its\nheels against self-control and sense-of-duty all these years will come\ntumbling out and slip off the edge of my tongue before I even know it\nis there.\"\n\n\"They are some hot little thoughts, I wager,\" laughed the House Surgeon.\n\nAnd then, from the far end of the cross-corridor, came the voice of the\nOldest Trustee, talking to the group:\n\n\". . . such a very sweet girl--never forgets her place or her duty.\nShe was brought here from the Foundling Asylum when she was a baby, in\nalmost a dying condition.  Every one thought it was an incurable case;\nthe doctors still shake their heads over her miraculous recovery.  Of\ncourse it took years; and she grew up in the hospital.\"\n\nWith a look of dumb, battling anger the nurse in charge of Ward C\nturned from the House Surgeon--her hands clenched--while the voice of\nthe Oldest Trustee came back to them, still exhibiting:\n\n\"No, we have never been able to find out anything about her parentage;\nundoubtedly she was abandoned.  We named her 'Margaret MacLean,' after\nthe hospital and the superintendent who was here then.  Yes, indeed--a\nvery, very sad--\"\n\nWhen the Oldest Trustee reached the boardroom it was empty, barring the\nprimroses, which were guilelessly nodding in the green Devonshire bowl\non the President's desk.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nCURABLES AND INCURABLES\n\nNo one who entered the board-room that late afternoon remembered that\nit was May Eve; and even had he remembered, it would have amounted to\nnothing more than the mental process of association.  It would not have\ngiven him the faintest presentiment that at that very moment the Little\nPeople were busy pressing their cloth-o'-dream mantles and reblocking\ntheir wishing-caps; that the instant the sun went down the spell would\nbe off the faery raths, setting them free all over the world, and that\nthe gates of Tir-na-n'Og would be open wide for mortals to wander back\nagain.  No, not one of the board remembered; the trustees sat looking\nstraight at the primroses and saw nothing, felt nothing, guessed\nnothing.\n\nThey were not unusual types of trustees who served on the board of\nSaint Margaret's.  You could find one or more of them duplicated in the\ndirectors' book of nearly any charitable institution, if you hunted for\nthem; the strange part was, perhaps, that they were gathered together\nin a single unit of power.  Besides the Oldest and the Meanest\nTrustees, there were the Executive, the Social, the Disagreeable, the\nBusiest, the Dominating, the Calculating, the Petty, and the Youngest\nand Prettiest.  She came fluttering in a minute late from her tea; and\nright after her came the little gray wisp of a woman, who sat down in a\nchair by the door so unpretentiously as to make it appear as though she\ndid not belong among them.  When the others saw her they nodded\ndistantly: they had just been talking about her.\n\nIt seemed that she was the widow of the Richest Trustee.  The board had\nelected her to fill her husband's place lest the annual check of ten\nthousand--a necessary item on Saint Margaret's books--might not be\nforthcoming; and this was her first meeting.  It was, in fact, her\nfirst visit to the hospital.  She could never bear to come during her\nhusband's trusteeship because, children having been denied her, she had\nwished to avoid them wherever and whenever she could, and spare herself\nthe pain their suggestion always brought her.  She would not have come\nnow, but that her husband's memory seemed to require it of her.\n\nFor years gossip had been busy with the wife of the Richest Trustee--as\nthe widow she did not relax her hold.  What the trustees said that day\nthey only repeated from gossip: the little gray wisp of a woman was a\nnonentity--nothing more--with the spirit of a mouse.  She held no\nposition in society, and what she did with her time or her money no one\nknew.  The trustees smiled inwardly and reckoned silently with\nthemselves; at least they would never need to fear opposition from her\non any matter of importance.\n\nThe last person of all to enter the boardroom was the Senior Surgeon.\nThe President had evidently waited for him, for he nodded to the House\nSurgeon to close the doors the moment he came.\n\nNow the Senior Surgeon was a man who used capitals for Surgery,\nScience, and Self, unconsciously eliminating them elsewhere.  He had\nbegun in Saint Margaret's as house surgeon; and he had grown to be\nconsidered by many of his own profession the leading man of his day.\nThe trustees were as proud of him as they were of the hospital, and it\nhas never been recorded in the traditions of Saint Margaret's that the\nSenior Surgeon had ever asked for anything that went ungranted.  He\nseldom attended a board meeting; consequently when he came in at\nfive-thirty there was an audible rustle of excitement and the raising\nof anticipatory eyebrows.\n\nWhen the President called the meeting to order every trustee was\npresent, as well as the heads of the four wards, the Superintendent,\nand the two surgeons.  The Senior Surgeon sat next to the President;\nthe House Surgeon sat where he could watch equally well the profiles of\nthe Youngest and Prettiest Trustee and Margaret MacLean.  His heart had\nalways been inclined to intermit; or--as he put it to himself--he\nadored them both in quite opposite ways; and which way was the better\nand more endurable he had never been able to decide.\n\n\"In view of the fact,\" said the President, rising, \"that the Senior\nSurgeon can be with us but a short time this afternoon, and that he has\na grave and vital issue to present to you, we will postpone the regular\nreports until the end of the meeting and take up at once the business\nin hand.\"  He paused a moment, feeling the dramatic value of his next\nremark.  \"For some time the Senior Surgeon has seriously questioned\nthe--hmm--advisability of continuing the incurable ward.  He wishes\nvery much to bring the matter before you, and he is prepared to give\nyou his reasons for so doing.  Afterward, I think it would be wise for\nus to discuss the matter very informally.\"  He bowed to the Senior\nSurgeon and sat down.\n\nThe Meanest Trustee snapped his teeth together in an expression of grim\nsatisfaction.  \"That ward is costing a lot of unnecessary expense, I\nthink,\" he barked out, sharply, \"and it's being run with altogether too\nfree a hand.\"  And he looked meaningly toward Margaret MacLean.\n\nNo one paid any particular attention to his remark; they were too\ndeeply engrossed in the Senior Surgeon.  And the House Surgeon,\nwatching, saw the profile of the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee become\neven prettier as it blushed and turned in witching eagerness toward the\nman who was rising to address the meeting.  The other profile had\nturned rigid and white as a piece of marble.\n\nNow the Senior Surgeon could do a critical major operation in twenty\nminutes; and he could operate on critical issues quite as rapidly.\nSpeed was his creed; therefore he characteristically attacked the\nsubject in hand without any prefatory remarks.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen of the board, the incurable ward is doing\nnothing.  I can see no possible reason or opportunity for further\nobservation or experimentation there.  Every case in it at the present\ntime, as well as every Case that is likely to come to us, is as a\nsealed document as far as science is concerned.  They are\nincurable--they will remain incurable for all time.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"  The question came from the set lips of the nurse in\ncharge of Ward C.\n\n\"How do we know anything in science?  We prove it by undeniable,\nirrevocable facts.\"\n\n\"Even then you are not sure of it.  I was proved incurable--but I got\nwell.\"\n\n\"That proves absolutely nothing!\"  And the Senior Surgeon growled as he\nalways did when things went against his liking.  \"You were a case in a\nthousand--in a lifetime.  Because it happened once--here in this\nhospital--is no reason for believing that it will ever happen again.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it is!\" persisted Margaret MacLean.  \"There is just as much\nreason for believing as for not believing.  Every one of those\nchildren, in the ward now might--yes, they might--be a case in a\nthousand; and no one has any right to take that thousandth of a chance\naway from them.\"\n\n\"You are talking nonsense--stupid, irrational nonsense.\"  And the\nSenior Surgeon glared at her.\n\nThe truth was that he had never forgiven her for getting well.  To have\nhad a slip of a girl juggle with the most reliable of scientific data,\nas well as with his own undeniable skill as a diagnostician, and grow\nup normally, healthfully perfect, was insufferable.  He had never quite\nforgiven the Old Senior Surgeon for his share in it.  And to have her\nstand against him and his great desire, now, and actually throw this\nthing in his face, was more than he could endure.  He did not know that\nMargaret MacLean was fighting for what she loved most on earth, the one\nthing that seemed to belong to her, the thing that had been given into\nher keeping by the right of a memory bequeathed to her by the man he\ncould not save.  Truth to tell, Margaret MacLean had never quite\nforgiven the Senior Surgeon for this, blameless as she knew him to be.\n\nAnd so for the space of a quick breath the two faced each other,\naggressive and accusing.\n\nWhen the Senior Surgeon turned again to the President and the trustees\nhis face wore a faint smile suggestive of amused toleration.\n\n\"I hope the time will soon come,\" he said very distinctly, \"when every\ntraining-school for nurses will bar out the so-called sentimental,\nimaginative type; they do a great deal of harm to the profession.  As I\nwas saying, the incurable ward is doing nothing, and we need it for\nsurgical cases.  Look over the reports for the last few months and you\nwill see how many cases we have had to turn away--twenty in March,\nsixteen in February; and this month it is over thirty--one a day.  Now\nwhy waste that room for no purpose?\"\n\n\"Every one of those cases could get into, some of the other hospitals;\nbut who would take the incurables?  What would you do with the children\nin Ward C, now?\" and Margaret MacLean's voice rang out its challenge.\n\nThe Senior Surgeon managed to check an angry explosive and turned to\nthe President for succor.\n\n\"I think,\" said that man of charitable parts, \"that the meeting is\ngetting a trifle too informal for order.  After the Senior Surgeon has\nfinished I will call on those whom I feel have something\nof--hmm--importance to say.  In the mean time, my dear young lady, I\nbeg of you not to interrupt again.  The children, of course, could all\nbe returned to their homes.\"\n\n\"Oh no, they couldn't--\"  There was something hypnotic in the\npersistence of the nurse in charge of Ward C.\n\nUsually keenly sensitive, abnormally alive to impressions and\natmosphere, she shrank from ever intruding herself or her opinions\nwhere they were not welcome; but now all personal consciousness was\ndead.  She was wholly unaware that she had worked the Senior Surgeon\ninto a state where he had almost lost his self-control--a condition\nheretofore unknown in the Senior Surgeon; that she had exasperated the\nPresident and reduced the trustees to open-mouthed amazement.  The\nlorgnette shook unsteadily in the hand of the Oldest; and, unmindful of\nit all, Margaret MacLean went steadily on:\n\n\"Most of them haven't any homes, and the others couldn't live in theirs\na month.  You don't know how terrible they are--five families in one\ngarret, nothing to eat some of the time, father drunk most of the time,\nand filth and foul air all of the time.  That's the kind of homes they\nhave--if they have any.\"\n\nHer outburst was met with a complete silence, ignoring and humiliating.\nAfter a moment the Senior Surgeon went on, as if no one had spoken.\n\n\"Am I not right in supposing that you wish to further, as far as it\nlies within your power, the physical welfare and betterment of the poor\nin this city?  That you wish to do the greatest possible good to the\ngreatest number of children?  Ah!  I thought so.  Well, do you not see\nhow continuing to keep a number of incurable cases for two or three\nyears--or as long as they live--is hindering this?  You are keeping out\nso many more curable cases.  For every case in that ward now we could\nhandle ten or fifteen surgical cases each year.  Is that not worth\nconsidering?\"\n\nThe trustees nodded approval to one another; it was as if they would\nsay, \"The Senior Surgeon is always right.\"\n\nThe surgeon himself looked at his watch; he had three minutes left to\nclinch their convictions.  Clearly and admirably he outlined his\npresent scope of work; then, stepping into the future, he showed into\nwhat it might easily grow, had it the room and beds.  He showed\nindisputably what experimental surgery had done for science--what a\nfertile field it was; and wherein lay Saint Margaret's chance to plow a\nfurrow more and reap its harvest.  At the end he intimated that he had\noutgrown his present limited conditions there, that unless these were\nchanged he should have to betake himself and his operative skill\nelsewhere.\n\nA painfully embarrassing hush closed in on the meeting as the Senior\nSurgeon resumed his seat.  It was broken by an enthusiastic chirp from\nthe Youngest and Prettiest Trustee.  She had never attempted to keep\nher interest for him concealed in the bud, causing much perturbation to\nthe House Surgeon, and leading the Disagreeable Trustee to remark,\nfrequently:\n\n\"Good Lord!  She'll throw herself at his head until he loses\nconsciousness, and then she'll marry him.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said she, beaming in the direction of the Senior Surgeon,\n\"that it would be perfectly wonderful to be the means of discovering\nsome great new thing in surgery.  And as our own great surgeon has just\nsaid, it is really ridiculous to let a few perfectly incurable cases\nstand in the way of science.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon looked from the beaming profile to the tense, drawn\noutline of mouth and chin belonging to the nurse in charge of Ward C,\nand he found himself wondering if art had ever pictured a crucified\nMadonna, and, if so, why it had not taken Margaret MacLean as a model.\nThat moment the President called his name.\n\n[Illustration: The House Surgeon looked from the beaming profile to the\ntense, drawn outline of mouth and chin belonging to the nurse in charge\nof Ward C.]\n\nThe House Surgeon was still young and unspoiled enough to blush\nwhenever he was consulted.  Moreover, he hated to speak in public,\nknowing, as he did, that he lacked the cultured manner and the polished\nspeech of the Senior Surgeon.  He always crawled out of it whenever he\ncould, putting some one else more ready of tongue in his place.  He was\npreparing to crawl this time when another look at the white profile in\nfront of him brought him to his feet.\n\n\"See here,\" he burst out, bluntly, \"we all know the chief is as clever\nas any surgeon in the country, and that he can do anything in the world\nhe sets out to do, even to turning Saint Margaret's into a surgical\nlaboratory.  But you ought to stop him--you've got to stop him--that is\nyour business as trustees of this institution.  We don't need any more\nsurgical laboratories just yet--they are getting along fast enough at\nRockefeller, Johns Hopkins, and the Mayo clinic.  What we scientific\nchaps need to remember--and it ought to be hammered at us three times a\nday, and then some--is that humanity was never put into the world for\nthe sole purpose of benefiting science.  We are apt to forget this and\nget to thinking that a few human beings more or less don't count in the\nface of establishing one scientific fact.\"\n\nHe paused just long enough to snatch a breath, and then went racing\nmadly on.  \"Institutions are apt to forget that they are taking care of\nthe souls and minds of human beings as well as their bodies.  It seems\nto me that the man who founded this hospital intended it for humane\nrather than scientific purposes.  His wishes ought to be considered\nnow; and I wager he would say, if he were here, to let science go hang\nand keep the incurables.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon sat down, breathing heavily and mopping his forehead.\nIt was the longest speech he had ever made, and he was painfully\nconscious of its inadequacy.  The Senior Surgeon excused himself and\nleft the room, not, however, until he had given the House Surgeon a\nlook pregnant with meaning; Saint Margaret's would hardly be large\nenough to hold them both after the 30th of April.\n\nThe trustees moved restlessly in their chairs.  The unexpected had\nhappened; there was an internal rupture at Saint Margaret's; and for\nforty years the trustees had boasted of its harmonious behavior and\nkindly feelings.  In a like manner do those dwellers in the shadow of a\nvolcano continue to boast of their safety and the harmlessness of the\ncrater up to the very hour of its eruption.  And all the while the gray\nwisp of a woman by the door sat silent, her hands still folded on her\nlap.\n\nAt last the President rose; he coughed twice before speaking.  \"I think\nwe will call upon the hospital committee now for their reports.\nAfterward we will take up the question of the incurable ward among the\ntrustees--hmm--alone.\"\n\nEvery one sat quietly, almost listlessly, during the reading until\nMargaret MacLean rose, the report for Ward C in her hand.  Then there\ncame a raising of heads and a stiffening of backs and a setting of\nchins.  She was very calm, the still calm of the China Sea before a\ntyphoon strikes it; when she had finished reading she put the report on\nthe chair back of her and faced the President with clasped hands and--a\nsmile.\n\n\"It's funny,\" she said, irrelevantly, \"for the first time in my life I\nam not afraid here.\"\n\nAnd the House Surgeon muttered, under his breath: \"Great guns!  That\nmind-string has snapped.\"\n\n\"There is more to the report than I had the courage to write down when\nI was making it out; but I can give it very easily now, if you will not\nmind listening a little longer.  You have always thought that I came\nback to Saint Margaret's because I felt grateful for what you had done\nfor me--for the food and the clothes and the care, and later for the\neducation that you paid for.  This isn't true.  I am grateful--very\ngrateful--but it is a dutiful kind of gratitude which wouldn't have\nbrought me back in a thousand years.  I am so sorry to feel this way.\nPerhaps I would not if, in all the years that I was here as a child,\none of you had shown me a single personal kindness, or some one had\nthought to send me a letter or a message while I was away at school.\nNo, you took care of me because you thought it was your duty, and I am\ngrateful for the same reason; but it was quite another thing which\nbrought me back to Saint Margaret's.\"\n\nThe smile had gone; she was very sober now.  And the House Surgeon,\nstill watching the two profiles, suddenly felt his heart settle down to\na single steady beat.  He wanted to get up that very instant and tell\nthe nurse in charge of Ward C what had happened and what he thought of\nher; but instead he dug his hands deep in his pockets.  How in the name\nof the seven continents had he never before realized that she was the\nsweetest, finest, most adorable, and onliest girl in the world, and\nworth a whole board-room full of youngest and prettiest trustees?\n\n\"I came back,\" went on Margaret MacLean, slowly, \"really because of the\nOld Senior Surgeon, to stand, as he stood in the days long ago, between\nyou and the incurable ward; to shut out--if I could--the little,\nthoughtless, hurting things that you are always saying without being in\nthe least bit conscious of them, and to keep the children from wanting\ntoo much the friendship and loving interest that, somehow, they\nexpected from you.  I wanted to try and make them feel that they were\nnot case this and case that, abnormally diseased and therefore objects\nof pity and curiosity to be pointed out to sympathetic visitors, but\nchildren--just children--with a right to be happy and loved.  I wanted\nto fill their minds so full of fun and make-believe that they would\nhave to forget about their poor little bodies.  I tried to make you\nfeel this and help without putting it--cruelly--into words; but you\nwould never understand.  You have never let them forget for a moment\nthat they are 'incurables,' any more than you have let me forget that I\nam a--foundling.\"\n\nShe stopped a moment for breath, and the smile came back--a wistfully\npleading smile.  \"I am afraid that last was not in the report.  What I\nwant to say is--please keep the incurable ward; take the time to really\nknow them--and love them a little.  If you only could you would never\nconsider sending them away for a moment.  And if, in addition to the\nsplendid care you have given their bodies, you would only help to keep\ntheir minds and hearts sound and sweet, and shield them against curious\nvisitors, why--why--some of them might turn out to be 'a case in a\nthousand.'  Don't you see--can't you see--that they have as much right\nto their scraps of life and happiness--as your children have to their\ncomplete lives, and that there is no place for them anywhere if Saint\nMargaret's closes her doors?\"\n\nWith an overwhelming suddenness she became conscious of the attitude of\nthe trustees.  She, who was nothing but a foundling and a charity\npatient herself, had dared to pass judgment on them; it was\ninconceivable--it was impertinent--it was beyond all precedent.  Only\nthe gray wisp of a woman sat silent, seeming to express nothing.\nMargaret MacLean's cheeks flamed; she shrank into herself, her whole\nbeing acutely alive to their thoughts.  The scared little-girl look\ncame into her face.\n\n\"Perhaps--perhaps,\" she stammered, pitifully, \"after what I have said\nyou would rather I did not stay on--in charge of Ward C?\"\n\nThe Dominating Trustee rose abruptly.  \"Mr. President, I suggest that\nwe act upon Miss MacLean's resignation at once.\"\n\n\"I second the motion,\" came in a quick bark from the Meanest Trustee,\nwhile the Oldest Trustee could be heard quoting, \"Sharper than a\nserpent's tooth--\"\n\nThe Executive Trustee rose, looking past Margaret MacLean as he spoke.\n\"In view of the fact that we shall possibly discontinue the incurable\nward, and that Miss MacLean seems wholly unsatisfied with our methods\nand supervision here, I motion that her resignation be accepted now,\nand that she shall be free to leave Saint Margaret's when her month\nshall have expired,\"\n\n\"I second the motion,\" came from the Social Trustee, while she added to\nthe Calculating, who happened to be sitting next: \"So ill-bred.  It\njust shows that a person can never be educated above her station in\nlife.\"\n\nThe President rose.  \"The motion has been made and seconded.  Will you\nplease signify by raising your hands if it is your wish that Miss\nMacLean's resignation be accepted at once?\"\n\nHand after hand went up.  Only the little gray wisp of a woman in the\nchair by the door sat with her hands still folded on her lap.\n\n\"It is, so to speak, a unanimous vote.\"  There was a strong hint of\napproval in the President's voice.  He was a good man; but he belonged\nto that sect which holds as one of the main articles of its faith, \"I\nbelieve in the infallibility of the rich.\"\n\n\"Can any one tell me when Miss MacLean's time expires?\"\n\nThe person under discussion answered for herself.  \"On the last day of\nthe month, Mr. President.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well.\"  He was extremely polite in his manner.  \"We thank you\nfor your very full and--hmm--comprehensive report.  After to-night you\nare excused from your duties at Saint Margaret's.\"\n\nThe President bowed her courteously out of the board-room, while the\nprimroses in the green Devonshire bowl on his desk still nodded\nguilelessly.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nODDS AND ENDS\n\nMargaret MacLean walked the length of the first corridor; once out of\nsight and hearing, she tore up the stairs, her cheeks crimson and her\neyes suspiciously moist.  Before she had reached the second flight the\nHouse Surgeon overtook her.\n\n\"I wish,\" he panted behind her, trying his best to look the big-brother\nway of old--\"I wish you'd wait a moment.  This habit of yours of always\nwalking up is a beastly one.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it.\"  There was a sharp, metallic ring in her voice\nthat made it unnatural.  \"That's one habit that will soon be broken.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon smiled rather helplessly; inside he was making one of\nthe few prayers of his life--a prayer to keep Margaret MacLean free of\nbitterness.  \"There is something I want to say to you,\" he began.\n\nShe broke in feverishly: \"No, there isn't!  And I don't want to hear\nit.  I don't want to hear you're sorry.  I don't want to hear they'll\nbe taken care of--somewhere--somehow.  I think I should scream if you\ntold me it was bound to happen--or will all turn out for the best.\"\n\n\"I had no intention of saying any of those things--in fact, they hadn't\neven entered my mind.  What I was going to--\"\n\n\"Oh, I know.  You were going to remind me of what you said this\nmorning.  Almost prophetic, wasn't it?\"  And there was a strong touch\nof irony in her laugh.  She turned on him crushingly.  \"Perhaps you\nknew it all along.  Perhaps it was your way of letting me down gently.\"\n\n\"See here,\" said the House Surgeon, bluntly, \"that's the second\ndisagreeable thing you've said to-day.  I don't think it's quite\nsquare.  Do you?\"\n\n\"No!\"  Her lips quivered; her hands reached out toward his impulsively.\n\"I don't know why I keep saying things I know are not true.  I'm\nperfectly--unforgivably horrid.\"\n\nAs impulsively he took both hands, turned them palm uppermost, and\nkissed them.\n\n[Illustration: Impulsively he took both hands, turned them palm\nuppermost, and kissed them.]\n\nShe snatched them away; the crimson in her cheeks deepened.  \"Don't,\nplease.  Your pity only makes it harder.  Oh, I don't know what has\nhappened--here--\"  And she struck her breast fiercely.  \"If--if they\nsend the children away I shall never believe in anything again; the\npart of me that has believed and trusted and been glad will stop--it\nwill break all to pieces.\"  With a hard, dry sob she left him, running\nup the remaining stairs to Ward C.  She did not see his arms reach\nhungrily after her or the great longing in his face.\n\nThe House Surgeon turned and went downstairs again.\n\nIn the lower corridor he ran across the President, who was looking for\nhim.  With much courtesy and circumlocution he was told the thing he\nhad been waiting to hear: the board, likewise, had discovered that\nSaint Margaret's had suddenly grown too small to hold both the Senior\nSurgeon and himself.  Strangely enough, this troubled him little; there\nare times in a man's life when even the most momentous of happenings\nshrink into nothing beside the simple process of telling the girl he\nloves that he loves her.\n\nThe President was somewhat startled by the House Surgeon's commonplace\nacceptance of the board's decision; and he returned to the board-room\ndistinctly puzzled.\n\nMeanwhile Margaret MacLean, having waited outside of Ward C for her\ncheeks to cool and her eyes to dry, opened the door and went in.\n\nWard C had been fed by the assistant nurse and put to bed; that is, all\nwho could limp or wheel themselves about the room were back in their\ncribs, and the others were no longer braced or bolstered up.  As she\nhad expected, gloom canopied every crib and cot; beneath, eight small\nfigures, covered to their noses, shook with held-back sobs or wailed\nsoftly.  According to the custom that had unwittingly established\nitself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep.  Not that it knew what it\nwas crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung\nnerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all\nawry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings.\n\nShe stood by the door, unnoticed, looking down the ward.  Pancho lay\nwound up in his blanket like a giant chrysalis, rolling in silent\nmisery.  Sandy was stretched as straight and stiff as if he had been\n\"laid out\"; his eyes were closed, and there was a stolid,\nexpressionless set to his features.  Margaret MacLean knew that it\nbetokened much internal disturbance.  Susan, ex-philosopher, was\nsobbing aloud, pulling with rebellious fingers at the pieces of iron\nthat kept her head where nature had planned it.  The Apostles gripped\nhands and moaned in unison, while Peter hugged his blanket, seeking\nthereby some consolation for the dispelled Toby.  Toby persistently\nrefused to be conjured up on Trustee Days.\n\nOnly Bridget was alert and watchful.  One hand was slipped through the\nbars of Rosita's crib, administering comforting pats to the rhythmic\ncroon of an Irish reel.  Every once in a while her eyes would wander to\nthe neighboring cots with the disquiet of an over-troubled mother; the\nonly moments of real unhappiness or worry Bridget ever knew were those\nwhich brought sorrow to the ward past her power of mending.\n\nTo Margaret MacLean, standing there, it seemed unbearable--as if life\nhad suddenly become too sinister and cruel to strike at souls so little\nand helpless as these.  There were things one could never explain in\nterms of God.  She found herself wondering if that was why the Senior\nSurgeon worshiped science; and she shivered.\n\nThe room had become repellent; it was a sepulchral place entombing all\nshe had lost.  In the midst of the dusk and gloom her mind groped\nabout--after its habit--for something cheerful, something that would\nbreak the colorless monotone of the room and change the atmosphere.  In\na flash she remembered the primroses; and the remembrance brought a\nsmile.\n\n\"They're nothing but charlatans,\" she thought, \"but the children will\nnever find that out, and they'll be something bright for them to wake\nup to in the morning.\"\n\nThis was what sent her down the stairs again, just as the board meeting\nadjourned.\n\nNow the board adjourned with thumbs down--signifying that the incurable\nward was no more, as far as the future of Saint Margaret's was\nconcerned.  The trustees stirred in their chairs with a comfortable\nrelaxing of joint and muscle, as if to say, \"There, that is a piece of\nbusiness well despatched; nothing like methods of conservation and\nefficiency, you know.\"  Only the little gray wisp of a woman by the\ndoor sat rigid, her hands still folded on her lap.\n\nThe Oldest Trustee had just remarked to the Social Trustee that all the\nthings gossip had said of the widow of the Richest Trustee were\nundoubtedly true--she was a nonentity--when the Senior Surgeon dropped\nin.  This was according to the President's previous request.  That\ngentleman of charitable parts had implied that there would undoubtedly\nbe good news and congratulations awaiting him.  This did not mean that\nthe board intended to slight its duty and fail to consider the matter\nof the incurables with due conscientiousness--the board was as strong\nfor conscience as for conservation.  It merely went to show that the\nfate of Ward C had been preordained from the beginning; and that the\nPresident felt wholly justified in requesting the presence of the\nSenior Surgeon at the end of the meeting.\n\nHis appearance called forth such a laudatory buzzing of tongues and\nsuch a cordial shaking of hands that one might have easily mistaken the\nmeeting for a successful political rally or a religious revival.  The\nYoungest and Prettiest Trustee fluttered about him, chirping ecstatic\nexpletives, while the Disagreeable Trustee watched her and growled to\nhimself.\n\n\"So splendid,\" she chirped, \"the unanimous indorsement of the board--at\nleast, practically unanimous.\"  And she eyed the widow of the Richest\nTrustee accusingly.\n\n\"The incurable ward and Margaret MacLean have really been a terrible\nresponsibility, haven't they?  I can't help feeling it will mean quite\na load off our minds.\"  It was the Social Trustee who spoke, and she\nfollowed it with a little sigh of relief.\n\nThe sigh was echoed twice--thrice--about the room.  Then the Meanest\nTrustee barked out:\n\n\"I hope it will mean a load off our purses.  That ward and that nurse\nhave always wanted things, and had them, that they had no business\nwanting.  I hope we can save a substantial sum now for the endowment\nfund.\"\n\nThe Oldest Trustee smiled tolerantly.  \"Of course it isn't as if the\ncases were not hopeless.  I can see no object, however, in making\nconcessions and sacrifices to keep in the hospital cases that cannot be\ncured; and, no doubt, we can place them most satisfactorily in state\ninstitutions for orphans or deficients.\"\n\nAt that moment the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee spied the primroses\non the President's desk--she had been too engrossed in the surgical\nprofession to observe much apart.  \"I believe I'm going to decorate\nyou.\"  And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly.\nSelecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the\nbuttonhole in his lapel.  \"See, I'm decorating you with the Order of\nthe Golden Primrose--for brilliancy.\"  Whereupon she dropped her eyes\nbecomingly.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" muttered the Disagreeable Trustee to the President, his\neye focused on the two.  \"She'll fetch him this time.  And she'll have\nhim so hypnotized with all this chirping and dancing business that\nhe'll be perfectly helpless in a month, or I miss--\"\n\nThe Youngest and Prettiest Trustee looked up just in time to intercept\nthat eye, and she attacked it with a saucy little stare.  \"I believe\nyou are both jealous,\" she flung over her shoulder.  But the very next\nmoment she was dimpling again.  \"I believe I am going to decorate\neverybody--including myself.  I'm sure we all deserve it for our loyal\nsupport of Science.\"  She, likewise, always spelled it with a capital,\nhaving acquired the habit from the Senior Surgeon.\n\nShe snatched a cluster of primroses from the green Devonshire bowl; and\none was fastened securely in the lapel or frill of every trustee, not\neven omitting the gray wisp of a woman by the door.\n\nAnd so it came to pass that every member of the board of Saint\nMargaret's Free Hospital for Children went home on May Eve with one of\nthe faeries' own flowers tucked somewhere about his or her person.\nMoreover, they went home at precisely three minutes and twenty-two\nseconds past seven by the clock on the tower--the astronomical time for\nthe sun to go down on the 30th of April.  Crack went all the\ncombination locks on all the faery raths, spilling the Little People\nover all the world; and creak went the gates of Tir-na-n'Og, swinging\nwide open for wandering mortals to come back.\n\nAs the trustees left the hospital the Senior Surgeon turned into the\ncross-corridor for his case, still gay with his Order of the Golden\nPrimrose; and there, at the foot of the stairs, he ran into Margaret\nMacLean.  They faced each other for the merest fraction of a breath,\nboth conscious and embarrassed; then she glimpsed the flower in his\ncoat and a cry of surprise escaped her.\n\nHe smiled, almost foolishly.  \"I thought they--it--looked rather pretty\nand--spring-like,\" he began, by way of explanation.  His teeth ground\ntogether angrily; he sounded absurd, and he knew it.  Furthermore, it\nwas inexcusable of her to corner him in this fashion.\n\nNow Margaret MacLean knew well enough that he would never have\ndiscovered the prettiness of anything by himself--not in a century of\nspringtimes, and she sensed the truth.\n\n\"Did she decorate you?\" she inquired, with an irritating little curl of\nher lips.  The Senior Surgeon's self-confessed blush lent speed to her\ntongue.  \"I think I might be privileged to ask what it was for.  You\nsee, I presented the flowers to the board meeting.  Was it for\nself-sacrifice?\"  Her eyes challenged his.\n\n\"You are capable of talking more nonsense and being more impertinent\nthan any nurse I have ever known.  May I pass?\"  His eyes returned her\nchallenge, blazing.\n\nBut she never moved; the mind-string once broken, there seemed to be no\nlimit to the thoughts that could come tumbling off the end of her\ntongue.  Her eyes went back to the flower in his coat.\n\n\"Perhaps you would like to know that I bought those this morning\nbecause they seemed the very breath of spring itself--a bit of promise\nand gladness.  I thought they would keep the day going right.\"\n\n\"Well, they have--for me.\"  And the Senior Surgeon could not resist a\nlook of triumph.\n\n\"The trustees\"--she drew in a quick breath and put out a steadying hand\non the banisters--\"you mean--they have given up the incurable ward?\"\n\nHe nodded.  His voice took on a more genial tone.  He felt he could\ngenerously afford to be pleasant and patient toward the one who had not\nsucceeded.  \"It was something that was bound to happen sooner or later.\nCan't you see that yourself?  But I am sorry, very sorry for you.\"\n\nSuddenly, and for the first time in their long sojourn together in\nSaint Margaret's, he became wholly conscious of the girl before him.\nHe realized that Margaret MacLean had grown into a vital and vitalizing\npersonality--a force with which those who came in contact would have to\nreckon.  She stood before him now, frozen into a gray, accusing figure.\n\n\"Are you ill?\" he found himself asking.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe shifted his weight uneasily to the other foot.  \"Is there anything\nyou want?\"\n\nHer face softened into the little-girl look.  Her eyes brimmed with a\nsadness past remedy.  \"What a funny question from you--you, who have\ntaken from me the only thing I ever let myself want--the love and\ndependence of those children.  Success, and having whatever you want,\nare such common things with you, that you must count them very cheap;\nbut you can't judge what they mean to others--or what they may cost\nthem.\"\n\n\"As I said before, I am sorry, very sorry you have lost your position\nhere; but you have no one but yourself to blame for that.  I should\nhave been very glad to have you remain in the new surgical ward; you\nare one of the best operative nurses I ever had.\"  He added this in all\njustice to her; and to mitigate, if he could, his own feeling of\ndiscomfort.\n\nMargaret MacLean smiled grimly.  \"Thank you.  I was not referring to\nthe loss of my position, however; that matters very little.\"\n\n\"It should matter.\"  The voice of the Senior Surgeon became instantly\nprofessional.  \"Every nurse should put her work, satisfactorily and\nscientifically executed, before everything else.  That is where you are\nradically weak.  Let me remind you that it is your sole business to\nlook after the physical betterment of your patients--nothing else; and\nthe sooner you give up all this sentimental, fanciful nonsense the\nsooner you will succeed.\"\n\n\"You are wrong.  I should never succeed that way--never.  Some cases\nmay need only the bodily care--maybe; but you are a very poor doctor,\nafter all, if you think that is all that children need--or half the\ngrown-ups.  There are more people ailing with mind-sickness and\nheart-sickness, as well as body-sickness, than the world would guess,\nand you've just got to nurse the whole of them.  You will succeed,\nwhether you ever find this out or not; but you will miss a great deal\nout of your life.\"\n\nAnger was rekindling in the eyes of the Senior Surgeon; and Margaret\nMacLean, seeing, grew gentle--all in a minute.\n\n\"Oh, I wish I could make you understand.  You have always been so\nstrong and well and sufficient unto yourself, it's hard, I suppose, to\nbe able to think or see life through the iron slats of a hospital crib.\nJust make believe you had been a little crippled boy, with nothing\nbelonging to you, nothing back of you to remember, nothing happy coming\nto you but what the nurses or the doctors or the trustees thought to\nbring.  And then make believe you were cured and grew up.  Wouldn't you\nremember what life had been in that hospital crib, and wouldn't you\nfight to make it happier for the children coming after you?  Why, the\nincurable ward was my whole life--home, family, friends, work;\neverything wrapped up in nine little crippled bodies.  It was all I\nasked or expected of life.  Oh, I can tell you that a foundling, with\nquestionable ancestry, with no birth-record or blood-inheritance to\nboast of, claims very little of the every-day happiness that comes to\nother people.  And yet I was so glad to be alive--and strong and needed\nby those children that I could have been content all my life with just\nthat.\"\n\nThe Senior Surgeon cleared his throat, preparatory to making some\ncomment, but the nurse raised a silencing finger.\n\n\"Wait! there is one thing more.  What you have taken from me is the\nsmallest part.  The children pay double--treble as much.  I pay only\nwith my heart and faith; they pay with their whole lives.  Remember\nthat when you install your new surgical ward--and don't reckon it too\ncheap.\"\n\nShe left him still clearing his throat; and when she came out of the\nboard-room a few seconds later with the green Devonshire bowl in her\narms he had disappeared.\n\nMargaret MacLean found Ward C as she had left it.  As she was putting\ndown the primroses, on the table in the center of the room she caught\nBridget's white face beckoning to her eagerly.  Softly she went over to\nher cot.\n\n\"What is it, dear?\"\n\n\"Miss Peggie darlin', if ye'd only give me leave to talk quiet I'd have\nthe childher cheered up in no time.\"\n\n\"Would you promise not to make any noise?\"\n\n\"Promise on m' heart!  I'll have 'em all asleep quicker 'n nothin'.  Ye\nsee, just.\"\n\n\"Very well.  I'll be back after supper to see if the promise has been\nkept.\"  She stooped, brushed away the curls, and kissed the little\nwhite forehead.  \"Oh, Bridget!  Bridget! no matter what happens, always\nremember to keep happy!\"\n\n\"Sure an' I will,\" agreed Bridget; and she watched the nurse go out,\nmuch puzzled.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE PRIMROSE RING\n\nBridget, oldest of the ward, general caretaker and best beloved,\nhunched herself up on her pillows until she was sitting reasonably\nstraight, and clapped her hands.  \"Whist!\" she called, softly.  \"Whist\nthere, all o' ye!  What's ailin'?\"\n\nEight woebegone pairs of eyes turned in her direction.\n\n\"Ye needn't be afeared o' speakin'.  Miss Peggie give us leave to talk\nquiet.\"\n\n\"It's them trusters,\" wailed Peter.  \"They come a-peekin' round to see\nwe don't get well.\"\n\n\"They alters calls us 'uncurables,'\" moaned Susan.\n\n\"Pig of water-drinking Americans!\" came from the last cot.\n\n\"Ye shut up, Michael!  Who did ye ever hear say that?\"\n\n\"Mine fader.\"  And Michael spat in a perfect imitation thereof.\n\n\"Well, don't ye ever say it ag'in--do ye hear?  Miss Peggie's American,\nand so's the House Surgeon, an' it's the next best thing to bein'\nIrish--which every one can't be, the Lord knows.  Now them trusters is\nheathen, an' they don't know nothin' more'n heathen, an' we ought to be\neasy on 'em for bein' so ignorant.\"\n\n\"They ken us 'll nae mair be gettin' weel,\" said Sandy, mournfully.\n\n\"Aw, ye're talkin' foolish entirely.  What do ye think that C on the\ndoor means?\"\n\nA silence, significant of much brain-racking, followed.\n\n\"C stands for children,\" announced Susan, triumphantly.\n\n\"Aye, it does that, but there be's somethin' more.\"\n\n\"Crutches,\" suggested Pancho, tentatively.\n\n\"Aw, go on wid ye,\" laughed Bridget.  \"Ye're 'way off.\"  She paused a\nmoment impressively.  \"C means 'cured.'  '_Childher Cured_,' that's\nwhat!  Now all we've got to do is to forget trusters an' humps an'\npains an' them disagreeable things, an' think o' somethin' pleasant.\"\n\n\"Ain't nothin' pleasant ter think of in er horspital,\" wailed John, the\npresent disheartenment clouding over all past happiness.\n\n\"Ain't, neither,\" agreed James.\n\n\"Aye, there be,\" contradicted Sandy.  \"Dinna ye ken the wee gray woman\n'at cam creepity round an' smiled?\"\n\n\"She was nice,\" said Susan, with obvious approval.  \"Do ye think, now,\nshe might ha' been me aunt?\"\n\nA chorus of positive negation settled all further speculation, while\nBridget bluntly inquired.  \"Honest to goodness, Susan, do ye think the\nlikes o' ye could belong to the likes o' that?\"\n\nPancho broke the painful silence by reverting to the original topic in\nhand.  \"Mi' Peggie pleasant too,\" he suggested, smiling adorably.\n\n\"But we've not got either of 'em no longer, so they're no good now,\"\nPeter unfortunately reminded every one.\n\n\"Don't ye know there be's always somethin' pleasant to think about if\nye just hunt round a bit, an' things an' feelin's never get that bad ye\ncan't squeeze out some pleasantment.  Don't ye mind the time the\ntrusters had planned to give us all paint-boxes for Christmas, an' half\nof us not able to hold a brush, let alone paint things, an' Miss Peggie\nblarneyed them round into givin' us books?  Don't ye mind?  Now we've\ngot somethin' pleasant here, right now--\"  And Bridget smiled.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"May Eve.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"'Tain't nothin',\" said Susan, sliding back disappointedly on her\npillow.\n\n\"Sure an' it is,\" said Bridget; \"it's somethin' grand.\"\n\n\"'Tain't nothin',\" persisted Susan, \"but a May party in Cen'ral Park.\nEvery one takes somethin' ter eat in a box, an' the boys play ball an'\nthe girls dance round, an' the cops let you run on the grass.  I knows\nall about it, fer my sister Katie was 'queen' onct.\"\n\n\"We couldn't play ball, ner run on the grass, ner anything,\" said\nPeter, regretfully.\n\n\"'Tisn't what Susan says at all,\" said Bridget, by way of consolation.\n\"If ye'll harken to me a minute, just, I'll be afther tellin' ye what\nit is.\"\n\nWard C became instantly silent--hopefully expectant; Bridget had led\nthem into pleasant places too often for them not to believe in her\nimplicitly and do what she said.\n\n\"May Eve,\" began Bridget, slowly, \"is the night o' the year when the\nfaeries come throopin' out o' the ground to fly about on twigs o' thorn\nan' dance to the music o' the faery pipers.  They're all dthressed in\nwee green jackets an' caps, an' 'tis grand luck to any that sees them.\nAnd all the wishes good childher make on May Eve are sure to come\nthrue.\"  She stopped a moment.  \"Let's make believe; let's make\nbelieve--\"  Her eyes fell on the primroses, and for the first time she\nrecognized them.  \"Holy Saint Bridget! them's faery primroses!\"\n\nWard C was properly impressed.  Eight little figures sat up as straight\nas they could; eight pairs of eager eyes followed Bridget's pointing\nfinger and gazed in speechless wonder at the green Devonshire bowl.\n\n\"Do ye think, Sandy, that ye could scrooch out o' bed an' hump yerself\nover to them?  If Pether tries he's sure to tumble over, an' some one\nmight hear.\"\n\nSandy looked at the flowers without enthusiasm.  \"Phat are ye wantin'\nwi' 'em?\"\n\n\"I'll tell ye when ye get there.  Just thry; ye'll be yondther afore ye\nknow it.\"\n\nCautiously Sandy rolled over on his stomach and pushed two shrunken\nlittle legs out from the covers.  Putting them gingerly to the floor,\nhe stood up, holding fast to the bed; then working his way from bed to\nbed, he reached the table at last, spurred on by Bridget's irresistible\nblarney:\n\n\"Sure ye're walkin' grand, Sandy.  I never saw any one puttin' one leg\npast another smarther than what ye are.  Ye'd fetch up to Aberdeen i'\nno time if ye kept on at the pace ye are goin'.\"\n\nPride lies above pain; and Sandy held his head very high as he steadied\nhimself by the table and looked toward Bridget for further orders.\n\n[Illustration: Sandy held his head very high as he steadied himself by\nthe table and looked toward Bridget for further orders.]\n\n\"Phat wull a do the noo?\" he asked.\n\nIn the excitement Bridget had pulled herself to the foot of the cot;\nand there, eyes shining and cheeks growing pinker and pinker, she held\nher breath while the pleasantest thought of all shaped itself somewhere\nunder the shock of red curls.\n\n\"Ye could never guess in a hundthred years what I was thinkin' this\nminute,\" she burst forth, ecstatically.\n\nEight mouths opened wide in anticipated wonder; but no one thought of\nguessing.\n\n\"I'm thinkin'--I'm thinkin' we could make a primrose ring the night.\nIs there any knowledgeable one among ye that knows aught of a primrose\nring?\"\n\nEight heads shook an emphatic negative.\n\n\"Aye, wasn't I sayin' so!  Well, sure, a primrose ring is a faery ring;\nan' any one that makes it an' steps inside, wishin' a wish, is like to\nhave anythin' at all happen them afore they steps out of it ag'in.\"\n\nEight breaths were drawn in and sighed out with the shivering delight\nthat always accompanies that feeling which lies between fear and\ndesire; likewise, eight delicious thrills zigzagged up eight cold\nlittle spines.  Then Bridget shook a commanding finger at Sandy.\n\n\"Ye take them flowers out o' the pot an' dthrop them, one by one, till\nye have the ground covered from the head of Pancho's bed to the tail o'\nMichael's.  'Twon't make the whole of a ring, but if ye crook it out i'\nthe middle to the wall yondther, 'twill be like enough.\"\n\nWith a doubtful eye Sandy spanned the distance.  \"Na--na.  Gien a\nhustled a wud be a dee'd loonie afore a had 'em spilled.\"\n\n\"Aw, go on!\" chorused the watchers.\n\n\"Thry, just,\" urged Bridget, \"an' we'll sing 'Onward, Christian\nSoldier' to hearten ye up.\"\n\nEight shrill voices piped out the tune; and Sandy, caught by its\nmartial spirit, before he knew it was limping a circle about the beds,\nmarking his trail with golden blossoms.  Luckily for Ward C, the nurse\non duty during the dinner-hour was in the medical ward, with the door\nclosed.  And when she came back to her listening post in the corridor\nthe last word had been sung, the last flower dropped, and Sandy was in\nhis cot again, stretching tired little legs under the covers.\n\nPerhaps the geometrician, or the accurate-minded reader, will doubt\nwhether the primrose ring was made at all--seeing that the wall of Ward\nC cut off nearly thirty degrees of it.  But in the world of fancy\ngeometrical accuracy does not hold; and the only important thing is\nbelieving that the ring has been made.  I have known of a few who could\nstep inside the faery circle whenever they willed, and without a\nvisible primrose about; but for most of us the blossoms are needed to\nmake the enchantment.\n\nThis is one of the heritages that come to those who are lucky enough to\ndwell much in the world of fancy.  They can wish for things and possess\nthem, and enjoy them without actually grasping them with their two\nhands and saying, \"These are my personal belongings.\"  Material things\nare rather a nuisance, on the whole, for they have to be dusted and\nkept in order, repatched or repainted; and if one wishes to carry them\nabout there are always the bother of packing and the danger of losing.\nBut these other possessions are different--they are with us wherever we\ngo and whenever we want them--to-day, to-morrow, or for eternity.\n\n\"If we had the wee red wishin'-cap,\" said Bridget, thoughtfully, \"we'd\nnot have to be waitin' for what's likely to happen.  We could just wish\nourselves into Tir-na-n'Og.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" demanded Peter.\n\n\"Tis the place the faeries live in, an' 'tis in Irelan'.  Sure, 'tis\neasy gettin' the cap,\" continued Bridget, with conviction.  \"All ye\nneed do is to say afther me, 'I wish--I wish for the wee red cap,' an'\nye have it.\"\n\nBridget extended her hands, palms upward, and the others followed her\nexample; and together they whispered: \"I wish--I wish for the wee red\ncap.\"\n\nImmediately Bridget's hands closed over a cubic inch of atmosphere, and\nshe cried, exultantly, \"Hold on to it tight an' slip it on your head\nquick--afore it gets from ye!\"\n\nOnly seven pairs of hands obeyed--Michael protested.\n\n\"I have nothinks got,\" he said, disgustedly.\n\n\"Shut up!\"  And Bridget shook a menacing fist at him.  \"He's foolish\nentirely.  He thinks he hasn't anythin' foreby he can't see it.  Now,\nall together, 'We wish--'\"\n\n\"Can we go 'thout any clothes?\" interrupted Susan.  \"We'd feel awful\nqueer in nightshirts.\"\n\n\"Don't ye worry, darlin'.  Like as not when we get there the queen\nherself 'll open a monsthrous big chest where they keeps all the faery\nclothes, an' let us choose anythin' at all we wants to wear.\"\n\n\"Pants?\" queried Peter, eagerly.\n\n\"Sure, an' silk dresses an' straw hats wi' ribbon on them, an--\"\n\n\"Will shoes in the chest be?\"  Pancho was very anxious; he had never\nhad a pair of shoes in all his six years.\n\nBridget beamed.  \"Not i' the chest; but I'll be tellin' ye how ye'll\ncome by them.  When we get there we'll look about for a\nblackthorn-bush--an' there--like as not--in undther it--will be a wee\nman wi' a leather apron across his knee--the leprechaun, big as life!\"\n\n\"What's him?\"\n\n\"Faith I'm tellin' ye--'tis the faery cobbler.  An' the minute he slaps\nthe tail of his eye on us he'll sing out: 'Hello, Pancho an' Sandy an'\nSusan an' all o' yez.  I've your boots finished, just.'  An' wi' that\nhe'll fetch down the nine pairs an' hand them round.\"\n\nA sigh of blissful contentment started from the cot by the door,\nburbled down the length of the ward, and vanished out of the window.\nIs there anything dearer to the pride of a child than boots--new boots?\n\nBridget took up the dropped thread and went on.  \"An' afther that the\nleprechaun reaches for his crock o' gold an' pulls out a penny.  Ye can\nbuy anythin' i' the whole world wi' a faery penny.\"\n\n\"Anythinks!\" said Michael, skeptically.\n\n\"That's what I said.\"\n\n\"Could yer buy a dorg?\" Peter asked, opening one renegade eye.\n\n\"Sure--a million dogs.\"\n\n\"Don't want a million.  Want jus' one real live black dorg--named\nToby--wiv yeller spots an' half-legs--an' long ears--an' a stand-up\ntail--an' legs--an' long--long--long--\"  The renegade eye closed tight\nand Peter was smiling at something afar off.\n\nAn antiphonal chorus of yawns broke the hush that followed, while\nBridget worked herself back under the covers.\n\n\"A ken the penny micht be buyin' a hame,\" came in a drowsy voice from\nSandy's crib.  \"'Twad be a hame in Aberdeen--wi' trees an' flo'ers an'\nmickle wee creepit things--an'--Miss Peggie--an'--us--\"\n\n\"Sure, an' it could be buyin' a grand home in Irelan', the same,\"\nBridget beamed; and then she added, struck forcibly with an\nafterthought: \"But what would be the sense of a home anywheres but\nhere--furninst--within easy reach of a crutch or a wheeled chair?  Tell\nme that!\"\n\nSandy grunted ambiguously; and Bridget took up again the thread of her\nrecounting.\n\n\"Ye could never be guessin' half o' the sthrange adventures we'll be\nhavin'!  Like as not Sandy 'll be gettin' his hump lifted off him.  I\nmind the story--me mother often told it me.  There was a humpy back in\nIrelan', once, who went always about wi' song in his heart an' another\non his lips; an' one day he fetched up inside a faery rath.  The pipers\nwere pipin' an' the Wee People was dancin', an' while they was dancin'\nthey was singin' like this: 'Monday an' Tuesday--an' Monday an'\nTuesday--an' Monday an' Tuesday'--an' it sounded all jerky and bad.\n'That's a terrible poor song,' says the humpy, speakin' out plain.\n'What's that?' says the faeries, stoppin' their dance an' gatherin'\nround him.  ''Tis mortal poor music ye are making' says the humpy\nag'in.  'Can ye improve it any?' asked the faeries.  'I can that,' says\nthe humpy.  'Add Wednesday to it an' ye'll have double as good a song.'\nAn' when the faeries tried it it was so pretty, an' they was so\npleased, they took the hump off him.\"\n\nSandy had curled up like a kitten; his eyes were shut, and he was\nsmiling, too.  Every one was very quiet; only Rosita moved, reaching\nout a frightened hand to Bridget.\n\n\"Fwaid,\" she lisped.  \"All dark--fwaid to do.\"\n\n\"Whist, darlin', ye needn't be afeared.  Bridget 'll hold tight to your\nhand all the way.  An' the stars will be out there makin' it bright--so\nbright--foreby the stars are the faeries' old rush-lights.  When\nthey're all burned out, just, they throw them up i' the sky--far as\never they can--an' God reaches out an' catches them.  Then He sets them\nall a-burnin' ag'in, so's the wee angel babies can see what road to be\ntakin'.  An' Sandy 'll lose his hump--an' Michael 'll get a new\nheart--maybe--that won't bump--an' they'll put all the trusters in\ncages--all but the nice Wee One--cages like they have in the circus--\nAn' they'll never get out to pesther us--never--never--no--more--\"\nBridget's voice trailed off into the distance, carrying with it the\nlast of Rosita's fearing consciousness.\n\nWard C had suddenly become empty--empty except for a row of tumbled\nbeds and nine little tired-out, cast-off bodies.  They had been shed as\neasily as a boy slips out of his dusty, uncomfortable overalls on a\nlate sultry afternoon, and leaves them behind him on a shady bank,\nwhile he plunges, head first, into the cool, dark waters of the\nswimming-pool just below him, which have been calling and calling and\ncalling.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAND BEYOND\n\nWhat happened beyond the primrose ring is, perhaps, rather a\ncrazy-quilt affair, having to be patched out of the squares and\nthree-cornered bits of Fancy which the children remembered to bring\nback with them.  I have tried to piece them together into a fairly\nsubstantial pattern; but, of course, it can be easily ripped out and\nraveled into nothing.  So I beg of you, on the children's account, to\nhandle it gently, for they believe implicitly in the durability of the\nfabric.\n\nSandy remembered the beginning of it--the plunge straight across the\nprimrose ring into the River of Make-Believe; and how they paddled over\nlike puppies--one after another.  It was perfectly safe to swim, even\nif you had never swum before; and the only danger was for those who\nmight stop in the middle of the river and say, or think, \"A dinna\nbelieve i' faeries.\"  Whoever should do this would sink like a stone,\ngoing down, down, down until he struck his bed with a thud and woke,\ncrying.\n\nIt was starlight in Tir-na-n'Og--just as Bridget had said it would\nbe--only the stars were far bigger and brighter.  The children stood on\nthe white, pebbly beach and shook themselves dry; while Bridget showed\nthem how to pull down their nightshirts to keep them from shrinking,\nand how to wring out their faery caps to keep the wishes from growing\nmusty or mildewed.  After that they met the faery ferryman,\nwho--according to Sandy--\"wore a wee kiltie o' reeds, an' a tammie made\nfrae a loch-lily pad wi' a cat-o'-nine-tail tossel, lukin' sae ilk the\nbrae ye wad niver ken he was a mon glen ye dinna see his legs,\nwalkin'.\"  He told them how he ferried over all the \"old bodies\" who\nhad grown feeble-hearted and were too afraid to swim.\n\nIt was Pancho who remembered best about the leprechaun--how they found\nhim sitting cross-legged under the blackthorn-bush with a leather apron\nspread over his knees, and how he had called out--just as Bridget had\nsaid he would:\n\n\"Hello, Pancho and Susan and Sandy and all!\"\n\n\"Have you any shoes got?\" Pancho shouted.\n\nThe faery cobbler nodded and pointed with his awl to the branches above\nhis head; there hung nine pairs of little green shoes, curled at the\ntoes, with silver buckles, all stitched and soled and ready to wear.\n\n\"Will they fit?\" asked Pancho, breathlessly.\n\n\"Faery shoes always fit.  Now reach them down and hand them round.\"\n\nThis Pancho did with despatch.  Nine pairs of little white feet were\nthrust joyously into the green shoes and buckled in tight.  On looking\nback, Pancho was quite sure that this was the happiest moment of his\nlife.  The children squealed and clapped their hands and cried:\n\n\"They fit fine!\"\n\n\"Shoes is grand to wear!\"\n\n\"I feel skippy.\"\n\n\"I feel dancy.\"\n\nWhereupon they all jumped to their feet and with arms wide-spread, hand\nclasping hand, they ringed about the cobbler and the thorn-bush.  They\ndanced until there was not a scrap of breath left in their bodies; then\nthey tumbled over and rolled about like a nest of young puppies, while\nthe cobbler laughed and laughed until he held his sides with the aching.\n\nIt was here that everybody remembered about the faery penny; in fact,\nthat was the one thing remembered by all.  And this is hardly strange;\nif you or I ever possessed a faery penny--even in the confines of a\nprimrose ring--we should never forget it.\n\nIt was Bridget, however, who reminded the leprechaun.  \"Ye haven't by\nany chance forgotten somethin' ye'd like to be rememberin', have ye?\"\nshe asked, diplomatically.\n\n\"I don't know,\" and the cobbler pulled his thinking-lock.  \"What might\nit be?\"\n\n\"Sure, it might be a faery penny,\" and Bridget eyed him anxiously.\n\nThe cobbler slapped his apron and laughed again.  \"To be sure it\nmight--and I came near forgetting it.\"\n\nHe reached, over and pulled up a tuft of sod at his side; for all one\ncould have told, it might have been growing there, neighbor to all the\nother sods.  Underneath was a dark little hole in the ground; and out\nof this he brought a brown earthen crock.\n\n\"The crock o' gold!\" everybody whispered, awesomely.\n\n\"Aye, the crock o' gold,\" agreed the cobbler.  \"But I keep it hidden,\nfor there is naught that can make more throuble--sometimes.\"  He raised\nthe lid and took out a single shining piece.  \"Will one do ye?\"\n\nNine heads nodded eloquently, while nine hands were stretched out\neagerly to take it.\n\n\"Bide a bit.  Ye can't all be carrying it at the one time.  I think ye\nhad best choose a treasurer.\"\n\nBridget was elected unanimously.  She took the penny and deposited it\nin the heel of her faery shoe.\n\n\"Mind,\" said the leprechaun as they were turning to go, \"ye mind a\nfaery penny will buy but the one thing.  See to it that ye are all\nagreed on the same thing.\"\n\nThe children chorused an assent and skipped merrily away.  And here is\nwhere Peter's patch joins Pancho's.\n\nThey had not gone far over the silvery-green meadow--three\nshadow-lengths, perhaps--when they saw something coming toward them.\nIt was coming as fast as half-legs could carry it; and it was wagging a\n_long_, stand-up tail.  Everybody guessed in an instant that it was\nPeter's \"black dorg wiv yeller spots.\"\n\n\"Who der thunk it?  Who der thunk it?\" shouted Peter, jumping up and\ndown; and then he knelt on the grass, his arms flung wide open, while\nhe called: \"Toby, Toby!  Here's me!\"\n\nOf course Toby knew Peter--that goes without saying.  He barked and\nwagged his tail and licked Peter's face; in fact, he did every\ndog-thing Peter had longed for since Peter's mind had first fashioned\nhim.\n\n\"Well,\" and Bridget put both arms akimbo and smiled a smile of complete\nsatisfaction, \"what was I a-tellin' ye, anyways?  Faith, don't it beat\nall how things come thrue--when ye think 'em pleasant an' hard enough?\"\n\nPeter remembered the wonderful way their feet skimmed over the\nground--\"'most like flyin'.\"  Not a blade of grass bent under their\nweight, not a grain of sand was dislodged; and--more marvelous than\nall--there was no tiredness, no aching of joint or muscle.  All of\nwhich was bound to happen when feet were shod with faery shoes.\n\n\"See me walk!\" cried some one.\n\n\"See me run!\" cried some one else.\n\n\"See me hop and jump!\"\n\nAnd Bridget added, \"Faith, 'tis as easy as lyin' in bed.\"\n\nThey were no longer alone; hosts of Little People passed them, going in\nthe same direction.  Peter said most of them rode \"straddle-legs\" on\nnight birds or moths, while some flew along on a funny thing that was\nhorse before and weeds behind.  I judge this must have been the\nbuchailin buidhe or benweed, which the faeries bewitch and ride the\nsame as a witch mounts her broomstick.\n\nAnd everybody who passed always called out in the friendliest way,\n\"Hello, Peter!\" or \"Hello, Bridget!\" or \"The luck rise with ye!\" which\nis the most common of all greetings in Tir-na-n'Og.\n\n\"Gee!\" was Peter's habitual comment after the telling, \"maybe it wasn't\nswell havin' 'em know us--names an' all.  Betcher life we wasn't cases\nto them--no, siree!\"\n\nIt was Susan who remembered best how everything looked--Susan, who had\nnever been to the country in all her starved little life--that is, if\none excepts the times Margaret MacLean had taken her on the Ward C\n\"special.\"  She told so well how all the trees and flowers were\nfashioned that it was an easy matter putting names to them.\n\nIn the center of Tir-na-n'Og towered a great hill; but instead of its\nbeing capped with peak or rocks it was gently hollowed at the top, as\nthough in the beginning, when it was thrown up molten from the depths\nof somewhere, a giant thumb had pressed it down and smoothed it round\nand even.  All about the brim of it grew hawthorns and rowans and\nhazel-trees.  In the grass, everywhere, were thousands and millions of\nprimroses, heart's-ease, and morning-glories; all crowded together, so\nSusan said, like the patterns on the Persian carpet in the board-room.\nIt was all so beautiful and faeryish and heart-desired that \"yer'd have\nsaid it wasn't real if yer hadn't ha' knowed it was.\"\n\nThe children stood on the brink of the giant hollow and clapped their\nhands for the very joy of seeing it all; and there--a little man\nstepped up to them and doffed his cap.  The queen wanted them--she was\nwaiting for them by the throne that very minute; and the little man was\nto bring them to her.\n\nNow that throne--according to Susan--was nothing like the thrones one\nfinds in stories or Journeys through palaces to see.  It was not cold,\nhard, or forbidding; instead, it was as soft and green and pillowy as\nan inflated golf-bunker might be, and just high and comfortable enough\nfor the baby faeries to discover it and go to sleep there whenever they\nfelt tired.  The throne was full of them when the children looked, and\nsome one was tumbling them off like so many kittens.\n\n\"That is the queen,\" said the little man, pointing.\n\nThe children stood on tiptoes and craned their necks the better to see;\nbut it was not until they had come quite close that they saw that her\ndress was gray, and her hair was gray, and she was small, and her face\nwas like--\n\n\"Bless me if it ain't!\" shouted Susan in amazement.  \"It's Sandy's wee\ncreepity woman!\"\n\nThe queen smiled when she saw them.  She reached out her hands and\npatted theirs in turn, asking, \"Now what is your name, dearie?\"\n\n\"Are ye sure ye're the queen?\" gasped Bridget.\n\n\"Maybe I am--and maybe I'm not,\" was the answer.\n\n\"Then ye been't the wee gray woman--back yonder?\" asked Sandy.\n\n\"Maybe I'm not--and maybe I am.\"  And then she laughed.  \"Dear\nchildren, it doesn't matter in the least who I am.  I look a hundred\ndifferent ways to a hundred different people.  Now let me see--I think\nyou wanted some--clothes.\"\n\nA long, rapturous sigh was the only answer.  It lasted while the queen\ngot down on her knees--just like an every-day, ordinary person--and\npulled from under the throne a great carved chest.  She threw open the\nlid wide; and there, heaped to the top and spilling over, were dresses\nand mantles and coats and trousers and caps.  They were all lengths,\nsizes, and fashions--just what you most wanted after you had been in\nbed for years and never worn anything but a hospital shirt; and\neverything was made of cloth o' dreams and embroidered with pearls from\nthe River of Make-Believe.\n\n\"You can choose whatever you like, dearies,\" said the queen.  And\nthat--according to Susan--was the best of all.\n\nNext came the dancing; the Apostles remembered about that\nco-operatively.  They had donned pants of pink and yellow,\nrespectively, with shirts of royal purple and striked stockings, when\nthe pipers began to play.  James said it sounded like soldiers\nmarching; John was certain that it was more like a circus; but I am\ninclined to believe that they played \"The Music of Glad Memories\" and\n\"What-is-Sure-to-Come-True,\" for those are the two popular airs in\nTir-na-n'Og.\n\nAway and away must have danced pairs of little feet that had never\ndanced before, and pairs of old feet that had long ago forgotten how;\nand millions of faery feet, for no one can dance half as joyously as\nwhen faeries dance with them.  And I have heard it said that the pipers\nthere can play sadness into gladness, and tears into laughter, and old\nage young again; and that those who have ever danced to the music of\nfaery pipes never really grow heavy-hearted again.\n\nNeedless to say, the Apostles danced together, and Peter danced with\nToby; and it must have been the maddest, merriest dance, for they never\ntold about it afterward without bursting into peal after peal of\nlaughter.  Truth to tell, the Apostles' patch of fancy ended right\nthere--all raveling out into smiles and squirms of delight.\n\nAnother memory of Sandy's adjoins that of the Apostles'; and he told it\nwith great precision and regard for the truth.\n\nEver since crossing the River of Make-Believe Sandy had been able to\nthink of nothing but the story Bridget had told--the very last thing in\nWard C--and ever since he had left the leprechaun's bush behind he had\nbeen wondering and scheming how he could get rid of his hump.  He was\nthe only person in Tir-na-n'Og that night who did not dance.\nUnnoticed, he climbed into a corner of the throne--among the sleeping\nbaby faeries--and there he thought hard.  As he listened to the pipers'\nmusic he shook his head mournfully.\n\n\"A canna make music mair bonny nor that--a canna,\" he said; and he set\nabout searching through the scraps of his memory for what music he did\nknow.  There were the hymns they sang every Sunday at Saint Margaret's;\nbut he somewhat doubted their appropriateness here.  Then there were\nthe songs his mother had sung to him home in Aberdeen.  Long ago the\nwords had been forgotten; but often and often he had hummed the music\nof them over to himself when he was going to sleep--it was good music\nfor that.  One of the airs popped into his mind that very minute; it\nwas a Jacobite song about \"Charlie,\" and he started to hum it softly.\nClose on the humming came an idea--a braw one; it made him sit up in\nthe corner of the throne and clap his hands, while his toes wriggled\nexultantly inside his faery shoes.\n\n\"A can do't--a can!\"  He shouted it so loud that the baby faeries woke\nup and asked what he was going to do, and gathered about him to listen\nthe better.\n\nThe pipers played until there were no more memories left and everything\nhad come true; and the queen came back to her throne to find Sandy\nwaiting, eager-eyed, for her.\n\n\"A have a bonny song made for ye.  Wull ye tak it frae me noo?\"\n\n\"Take what?\"\n\n\"The hump.  Ye tuk it frae the ither loonie gien he made ye some guid\nmusic; an' a ha' fetched ye mair--here.\"  And he tapped his head to\nsignify that it was not written down.\n\n\"Is the song ready, now?\"\n\nSandy nodded.\n\n\"Then turn about and sing it loud enough for all to hear; they must be\nthe judges if the song is worth the price of a hump.\"  And the queen\nsmiled very tenderly.\n\nSandy did as he was bid; he clasped his hands tightly in front of him.\n\"'Tis no for the faeries,\" he explained.  \"Ye see--they be hardly\nneedin' ony music, wi' muckle o' their ain.  'Tis for the children--the\nchildren i' horspitals--a bonny song for them to sleepit on.\"  He\nmarked the rhythm a moment with his foot, and hummed it through once to\nbe sure he had it.  Then he broke out clearly into the old Jacobite\nair--with words of his own making:\n\n  \"Ye weave a bonny primrose ring;\n    Ye hear the River callin';\n  Ye ken the Land whaur faeries sing--\n    Whaur starlicht beams are fallin'.\n  'Tis there the pipers play things true;\n    'Tis there ye'll gae--my dearie--\n  The bonny Land 'at waits for you,\n    Whaur ye'll be nae mair weary.\n\n  \"A wee man by a blackthorn-tree\n    Maun stitchit shoes for dancin',\n  An' there's a pair for ye an' me--\n    To set our feet a-prancin'.\n  'Tis muckle gladness 'at ye'll find\n    In Tir-na-n'Og, my dearie;\n  The bonny Land 'at's aye sae kind,\n    Whaur ye'll be nae mair weary.\n\n  \"Ye'll ken the birdeen's blithie song,\n    Ye'll hark till flo'ers lauchen;\n  An' see the faeries trippit long\n    By brook an' brae an' bracken.\n  Sae doon your heid--an' shut your een;\n    Gien ye'd be away, my dearie--\n  An' the bonny sauncy faery queen\n    Wull keep ye--nae mair weary.\"\n\nYou may think it uncommonly strange that Sandy could make a song like\nthis, by himself; but, you see, he was not entirely alone--there were\nthe baby faeries.  They helped a lot; as fast as ever he thought out\nthe words they rhymed them for him--this being a part of the A B C of\nfaery education.\n\nWhen the song was finished Sandy turned to the queen again.\n\"Aighe--wull it do?\"\n\n\"If the faeries like it, and think it good enough to send down to the\nchildren, they will have it all learned by heart and will sing it back\nto you in a minute.  Listen!  Can you hear anything?\"\n\nFor a moment only the rustle of the trees could be heard.  Sandy\nstrained his ears until he caught a low, sobbing sound coming through\nthe hazel-leaves.\n\n\"'Tis but the wind--greetin',\" he said, wistfully.\n\n\"Listen again!\"\n\nThe sound grew, breaking into a cadence and a counter-cadence, and\nthence into a harmony.  \"'Tis verra ilk the grand pipe-organ i' the\nkirk, hame in Aberdeen.\"\n\n\"Listen again!\"\n\nMellow and sweet came the notes of the Jacobite air--a bar of it; and\nthen the faeries began to sing, sending the song back to Sandy like a\nbelated echo:\n\n  \"Ye weave a bonny primrose ring;\n    Ye hear the River callin';\n  Ye ken the Land whaur faeries sing--\n    Whaur starlicht beams are fallin'.\"\n\n\"For the love o' Mike!\" laughed Sandy.  \"A'm unco glad--a am.\"  He\ndropped to his knees beside the queen and nestled his cheek in the hand\nthat was resting in her lap.  \"'Tis aricht noo.\"  And he sighed\ncontentedly.\n\nAnd it was.  The queen leaned over and lifted off the hump as easily as\nyou might take the cover from a box.  Sandy stretched himself and\nyawned--after the fashion of any one who has been sleeping a long time\nin a cramped position; and without being in the least conscious of it,\nhe sidled up to the arm of the throne and rubbed his back up and\ndown--to test the perfect straightness of it.\n\n\"'Tis gone--guid!  Wull it nae mair coom back?\"  And he eyed the queen\ngravely.\n\n\"Never to be burdensome, little lad.  Others may think they see it\nthere, but for you the back will be straight and strong.\"\n\nRosita came back--empty-handed; she was so busy holding tight to\nBridget's hand and getting ready to be afraid that she forgot\neverything else.  As for Michael, he gave his patch into Bridget's\nkeeping; which brings us to what Bridget remembered.\n\nFrom the moment that the penny had been given over to her she had been\nweighed down with a mighty responsibility.  The financier of any large\nsyndicate is bound to feel harassed at times over the outcome of his\ninvestments; and Bridget felt personally accountable for the\nforthcoming happiness due the eight other stockholders in her company.\nShe was also mindful of what had happened in the past to other persons\nwho had speculated heedlessly or unwisely with faery gifts.  There was\nthe case of the fisherman and his wife, and the aged couple and their\nsausage, and the old soldier; on the other hand, there was the man from\nLetterkenny who had hoarded his gold and had it turn to dry leaves as a\npunishment.  She must neither keep nor spend foolishly.\n\n\"Sure I'll think all round a thing twict afore I have my mind made to\nanythin'; then I'll keep it made for a good bit afore I give over the\npenny.\"\n\nShe repeated this advice while she considered all possible investments,\nbut she found nothing to her liking.  The children made frequent\nsuggestions, such as bagpipes and clothes-chests, and contrivances for\nfeast-spreading and transportation; and Susan was strongly in favor of\na baby faery to take back to Miss Peggie.  But to all of these Bridget\nshook an emphatic negative.\n\n\"Sure ye'd be tired o' the lot afore ye'd gone half-way back.  Like as\nnot we'll never have another penny to spend as long as we live, an' I'm\ngoin' to see that ye'll all get somethin' that will last.\"\n\nShe was beginning to fear that theirs would be the fate of the man from\nLetterkenny, when she chanced upon Peter and Toby performing for the\nbenefit of the pipers.\n\n\"Them trusters will never be lettin' Pether take that dog back to the\nhorspital,\" she thought, mindful of the sign in Saint Margaret's yard\nthat dogs were not allowed.  \"He'd have to be changin' him back into a\nmake-believe dog to get him in at all; an' Pether'd never be satisfied\nwi' him that way, now--afther havin' him real.\"\n\nHer trouble took her to the queen.  \"Is there any way of buyin' a dog\ninto a horspital?\" she asked, solemnly.\n\n\"I think it would be easier to buy a home to put him in.\"\n\n\"Could ye--could ye get one for the price of a penny?\"  Bridget\nconsidered her own question, and coupled it with something she\nremembered Sandy had been wishing for back in Ward C.  \"Wait a minute;\nI'll ask ye another.  Could ye be buyin' a home for childher an' dogs\nfor the price of a penny?\"\n\nThe queen nodded.\n\n\"Would it be big enough for nine childher--an' one dog; an' would it be\nafther havin' all improvements like Miss Peggie an' the House Surgeon?\"\n\nAgain the queen nodded.\n\nBridget lowered her voice.  \"An' could we put up a sign furninst, 'No\nTrusters Allowed'?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Bridget, with decision, \"I've thought all round it twict\nan' my mind's been made to stay; we'll buy a home.\"\n\nShe made a hollow of her two hands and called, \"Whist--whist there, all\no' yez!  Pether an' Pancho--Michael--Susan--do ye hear!\"  And when she\nhad them rounded up, she counted them twice to make sure they were all\npresent.  \"Now ye listen.\"  Bridget raised a commanding finger to the\ncircle about her while she exhibited the golden penny.  \"Is there any\none objectin' to payin' this down for a home?\"\n\n\"What kind of a home?\" asked Susan, shrewdly.\n\n\"Sure the kind ye live in--same as other folks have that don't live in\nhorspitals or asylums.\"\n\n\"Hurrah!\" chorused everybody, and Bridget sighed with relief.\n\n\"Faith, spendin' money's terrible easy.\"\n\nShe put the penny in the queen's out-stretched hand.  \"Do I get a piece\no' paper sayin' I paid the money on it?\" she demanded, remembering her\nresponsibility.\n\nThis time the queen shook her head.  \"No; I give you only my promise;\nbut a promise made across a primrose ring is never broken.\"\n\n\"And Toby?\" Peter asked it anxiously.\n\n\"You must leave him behind.  You see, if you took him back over the\nRiver of Make-Believe he would have to turn back into a make-believe\ndog again; but--I promise he shall be waiting in the home for you.\"\n\nThe queen led them down the hill to the shore again; and there they\nfound the ferry-man ready, waiting.  It is customary, I believe, for\nevery one to be ferried home.  The river, that way, is treble as wide,\nand the sandman is always wandering up and down the brink, scattering\nhis sand so that one is apt to get too drowsy to swim the whole\ndistance.  The children piled into the boat--all but Michael; he stood\nclinging fast to the queen's gray dress.\n\n\"Don't you want to go back?\" she asked, gently.\n\n\"Nyet; the heart by me no longer to bump--here,\" and Michael pointed to\nthe pit of his stomach.\n\n\"Aw, come on,\" called Peter.\n\nBut Michael only shook his head and clung closer to the gray dress.\n\n\"All right, ferryman; he may stay,\" said the queen.\n\n\"Good-by!\" shouted the children.  \"Don't forget us, Michael.\"\n\n\"Nyet; goo'-by,\" Michael shouted back; and then he laughed.  \"You tell\nMi' Peggie--I say--Go' blees you!\"\n\nAnd this was Michael's patch.\n\nThe ferryman stood in the stem and swung his great oar.  Slowly the\nboat moved, scrunching over the white pebbles, and slipped into the\nwater.  The children saw Michael and the queen waving their hands until\nthey had dwindled to shadow-specks in the distance; they watched the\nwake of starshine lengthen out behind them; they listened to the\nripples lapping at the keel.  To and fro, to and fro, swayed the\nferryman to the swing of his oar.  \"Sleep--sleep--sleep,\" sang the\nriver, running with them.  Bridget stretched her arms about as many\nchildren as she could compass and held them close while eight pairs of\neyes slowly--slowly--shut.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nIN WHICH A PART OF THE BOARD HAS DISTURBING DREAMS\n\nIt is a far cry from a primrose ring to a disbanded board meeting; but\nFancy bridged it in a twinkling and without an effort.  She blew the\ntrustees off the door-step of Saint Margaret's, homeward, with an\ninsistent buzzing of \"ifs\" and \"buts\" in their ears, and the faint\nwoodsy odor of primroses under their noses.\n\nTo each member of the board entering his own home, unsupported by the\npresence of his fellow-members and the scientific zeal of the Senior\nSurgeon, the business of the afternoon began to change its aspect.  For\nsome unaccountable reason--unless we take Fancy into the\nreckoning--this sudden abandoning of Ward C did not seem the simple\nmatter of an hour previous; while in perspective even Margaret\nMacLean's outspokenness became less heinous and more human.\n\nAs they settled themselves for the evening, each quietly and alone\nafter his or her particular fashion of comfort, the \"ifs\" and \"buts\"\nwere still buzzing riotously; while the primroses, although forgotten,\nclung persistently to the frills or coat lapels where the Youngest and\nPrettiest Trustee had put them.  There it was that Fancy slipped\nunnoticed over the threshold of library, den, and boudoir in turn; and\nwith a glint of mischief in her eyes she set the stage in each place to\nher own liking, while she summoned whatever players she chose to do her\nbidding.\n\nNow the trustees were very different from the children in the matter of\ntelling what they remembered of that May Eve.  Of course they were\nhampered with all the self-consciousness and skepticism of grown-ups,\nwhich would make them quite unwilling to own up to anything strange or\nout of the conventional path, not in a hundred years.  Therefore I am\nforced to leave their part of the telling to Fancy, and you may believe\nor discredit as much or as little as you choose; only I am hoping that\nby this time you have acquired at least a sprinkling of fern-seed in\nyour eyes.  You may have forgotten that fern-seed is the most subtle of\neye-openers known to Fancy; and that it enables you to see the things\nthat have existed only in your imagination.  It is very scarce\nnowadays, and hard to find, for the bird-fanciers no longer keep\nit--and the nursery-gardeners have forgotten how to grow it.  In the\nlight of what happened afterward, I think you will agree that Fancy has\nnot been far wrong concerning the trustees; she has a way of putting\nthings a little differently, that is all.\n\nTo be sure, you may argue that it was all chance, conscience, or even\nindigestion; because the trustees dined late they must have dined\nheavily.  But if you do, you know very well that Fancy will answer:\n\"Poof!  Nothing of the kind.  It was a simple matter of primrose magic\nand--faeries; nothing else.\"  And she ought to know, for she was there.\n\nThe President began it.\n\nHe sat in his den, yawning over the annual report of the United\nCharities; he had already yawned a score of times, and the type had\ncommenced running together in a zigzagging line that baffled\ndeciphering.  The President inserted a finger in the report to mark his\nplace, making a mental note to consult his oculist the following day;\nafter which he leaned back and closed his eyes for the space of a\nmoment--to clear his vision.\n\nWhen he opened his eyes again his vision had cleared to such an extent\nthat he was quite positive he was seeing things that were not in the\nroom.  Little shadowy figures haunted the dark places: corners, and\ncurtained recesses, and the unlighted hall beyond.  They peered at him\nshyly, with such witching, happy faces and eyes that laughed coaxingly.\nThe President found himself peering back at them and scrutinizing the\nfaces closely.  Oddly enough he could recognize many, not by name, of\ncourse, but he could place them in the many institutions over which he\npresided.  It was very evident that they were expecting something of\nhim; they were looking at him that way.  For once in his life he was at\nloss for the correct thing to say.  He tried closing his eyes two or\nthree times to see if he could not blink them into vanishing; but when\nhe looked again there they were, more eager-eyed than before.\n\n\"Well,\" he found himself saying at last--\"well, what is it?\"\n\nThat was all; but it brought the children like a Hamlin troop to the\npiper's cry--flocking about him unafraid.  Never in all his charitable\nlife had he ever had children gather about him and look up at him this\nway.  Little groping hands pulled at his cuffs or steadied themselves\non his knee; more venturesome ones slipped into his or hunted their way\ninto his coat pockets.  They were such warm, friendly, trusting little\nhands--and the faces; the President of Saint Margaret's Free Hospital\nfor Children caught himself wondering why in all his charitable\nexperience he had never had a child overstep a respectful distance\nbefore, or look at him save with a strange, alien expression.\n\nHe sat very still for fear of frightening them off; he liked the warmth\nand friendliness of their little bodies pressed close to him; there was\nsomething pleasantly hypnotic in the feeling of small hands tugging at\nhim.  Suddenly he became conscious of a change in the children's faces;\nthe gladness was fading out and in its place was creeping a perplexed,\nquestioning sorrow.\n\n\"Don't.\"  And the President patted assuringly as many little backs as\nhe could reach.  \"What--what was it you expected?\"\n\nHe was answered by a quivering of lips and more insistent tugs at his\npockets.  It flashed upon him--out of some dim memory--that children\nliked surprises discovered unexpectedly in some one's pockets.  Was\nthis why they had searched him out?  He found himself frantically\nwishing that he had something stowed away somewhere for them.  His\nhands followed theirs into all the numerous pockets he possessed;\ntrousers, coat, and vest were searched twice over; they were even\nturned inside out in the last hope of disclosing just one surprise.\n\n\"I should think,\" said the President, addressing himself, \"that a man\nmight keep something pleasant in empty pockets.  What are pockets for,\nanyway?\"\n\nThe children shook their heads sorrowfully.\n\n\"Wouldn't to-morrow do?\" he suggested, hopefully; but there was no\nresponse from the children, and the weight that had been settling down\nupon him, in the region of his chest, noticeably increased.  He tried\nto shake it off, it was so depressing--like the accruing misfortune of\nsome pending event.\n\n\"Don't shake,\" said a voice behind him; \"that isn't your misfortune.\nYou will only shake it off on the children, and it's time enough for\nthem to bear it when they wake up in the morning and find out--\"\n\n\"Find out what?\"  The President asked it fearfully.\n\n\"Find out--find out--\" droned the voice, monotonously.\n\nThe President sat up very straight in his chair.  \"The children--the\nchildren.\"  He remembered now--they were the children from the\nincurable ward at Saint Margaret's.\n\nHe sank back with a feeling of great helplessness, and closed his eyes\nagain.  And there he sat, immovable, his finger still marking his place\nin the report of the United Charities.\n\nThe Oldest Trustee sat alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium\npatients.  Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour\nwas later than that of the younger members of her household,\nundoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps snatched from the evening.\n\nThe Oldest Trustee had a habit of knitting the day's events in with her\nyarn.  What she had done and said and heard were all thought over again\nto the rhythmic click of her needles.  And the results at the end of\nthe evening were usually a finished comforter and a comfortable\nfeeling.  This night, however, the knitting lagged and the thoughts\nwere unaccountably dissatisfying; she could not even settle down to a\ncat-nap with the habitual serenity.\n\n\"I don't know why I should feel disturbed,\" and the Oldest Trustee\nprodded her yarn ball with a disquieting needle, \"but I certainly miss\nthe usual gratification of a day well spent.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes, hoping thereby to lose herself for the space of a\nmoment, but instead--  She was startled to hear voices at her very\nelbow; a number of persons must have entered the room, but how they\ncould have done so without her knowing it she could not understand.  Of\ncourse they thought her asleep; it was just as well to let them think\nso.  She really felt too tired to talk.\n\n\"Mother's undoubtedly growing old.  Have you noticed how much she naps\nin the evening, now?\"  It was the voice of her youngest daughter.\n\n\"I heard her telling some one the other day she was five years younger\nthan she is.  That's a sure sign,\" and her son laughed an amused little\nchuckle.\n\n\"I can tell you a surer one.\"  This time it was her oldest\ndaughter--her first-born.  \"Haven't you noticed how all mother's little\npeculiarities are growing on her?  She is getting so much more\ndictatorial and preachy.  Of course, we know that mother means to be\nkind and helpful, but she has always been so--tactless--and blunt; and\nit's growing worse and worse.\"\n\n\"I have often wondered how all her charity people take her; it must\ncome tough on them, sometimes.  Gee!  Can't you see her raising those\nlorgnettes of hers and saying, 'My good boy, do you read your Bible?'\nor, 'My little girl, I hope you remember to be grateful for all you\nreceive.'  Say, wouldn't you hate to have charity stuffed down your\nthroat that way?\" and the oldest and favorite grandson groaned out his\nfeelings.\n\n\"That isn't what I should mind the most.\"  It was the youngest daughter\nspeaking again.  \"I've been with mother when she has made remarks about\nthe patients in the hospital, loud enough for them to hear, and I was\nso mortified I wanted to sink through the floor, And you simply can't\nshut mother up.  Of course she doesn't realize how it sounds; she\ndoesn't believe they hear her, but I know they do.  I wonder how mother\nwould like to have us stand around her--and we know her and love\nher--and have us say she was getting deaf, or her hair was coming out,\nor her memory was beginning to fail, or--\"\n\nThe Oldest Trustee smiled grimly.  \"Oh, don't stop, my dear.  If there\nis any other failing you can think of--\"  She opened her eyes with a\nstart.  \"Goodness gracious!\" she exclaimed.  \"My grandson is in college\nfive hundred miles away, and my daughter is abroad.  Have I been\ndreaming?\"\n\nThe Meanest Trustee unlocked the drawer of his desk and took out a\ncigar.  He did not intend that his sons or his servants should smoke at\nhis expense; furthermore, it was well not to spread temptation before\nothers.  He took up the evening paper and examined the creases\ncarefully.  He wished to make sure it had not been unfolded before;\nbeing the one to pay for the news in his house, he preferred to be the\nfirst one to read it.  The creases proved perfectly satisfactory; so he\nlighted his cigar, crossed his feet, and settled himself--content in\nhis own comfort.  The smoke spun into spirals about his head; and after\nhe had skimmed the cream of the day's events he read more leisurely,\nstopping to watch the spirals with a certain lazy enjoyment.  They\nseemed to grow increasingly larger.  They spun themselves about into\nall kinds of shapes, wavering and illusive, that defied the somewhat\natrophied imagination of the Meanest Trustee.\n\n\"Hallucinations,\" he barked to himself.  \"I believe I understand now\nwhat is implied when people are said to have them.\"\n\nSuddenly the spirals commenced to lengthen downward instead of upward.\nTo the amazement of the Meanest Trustee he discovered them shifting\ninto human shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a\nlover and his lass, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into\nthe corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of\ndroll pipers--with kilt and brata and cap.  It made him feel as if he\nhad been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with\nthousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into\nform and color, motion and music.  The pipers piped; the figures\ndanced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be\nheard above the pipers' music.\n\n\"Stop!\" barked the Meanest Trustee at last; but they only danced the\nfaster.  \"Stop!\"  And he shook his fist at the pipers, who played\nlouder and merrier.  \"Stop!\"  And he pounded the arms of his chair with\nboth hands.  \"I hate music!  I hate children!  I hate noise and\nconfusion!  Stop! I say.\"\n\nStill the pipers played and the figures danced on; and the Meanest\nTrustee was compelled to hear and see.  To him it seemed an\ninterminable time.  He would have stopped his ears with his fingers and\nshut his eyes, only, strangely enough, he could not.  But at last it\nall came to an end--the figures floated laughing away, and the pipers\ncame and stood about him, their caps in their hands out-stretched\nbefore him.\n\nHe eyed them suspiciously.  \"What's that for?\"\n\n\"It is time to pay the pipers,\" said one.\n\n\"Let those who dance pay; that's according to the adage,\" and he smiled\ncaustically at his own wit.\n\n\"It's a false adage,\" said a second, \"like many another that you follow\nin your world.  It is not the ones who dance that should pay, but the\nones who keep others from dancing--the ones who help to rob the world\nof some of its joy.  And the ones who rob the most must pay the\nheaviest.  Come!\"  And he shook his cap significantly.\n\nA sudden feeling of helplessness overpowered the Meanest Trustee.\nMuttering something about \"pickpockets\" and \"hold-ups,\" he ferreted\naround in his pocket and brought out a single coin, which he dropped\nungraciously into the insistent cap.\n\n\"What's that?\" asked the head piper, curiously.\n\n\"It looks to me like money--good money--and I'm throwing it away on a\nparcel of rascals.\"\n\n\"Come, come, my good man,\" and the piper tapped him gently on the\nshoulder, in the fashion of a professional philanthropist when he\nremonstrates with a professional vagrant; \"don't you see you are not\ngiving your soul any room to grow in?  A great deal of joy might have\nreached the world across your open palm.  Instead, you have crushed it\nin a hard, tight fist.  You must pay now for all the souls you've kept\nfrom dancing.  Come--fill all our caps.\"\n\n\"Fill!\"  There was something akin to actual terror in the voice of the\nMeanest Trustee.  He could feel himself growing pale; his tongue seemed\nto drop back in his throat, choking him.  \"That would take a great deal\nof money,\" he managed to wheeze out at last; and then he braced\nhimself, his hands clutched deep in his pockets.  \"I will never pay;\nnever, never, never!\"\n\n\"Oh yes, you will!\" and the piper's smile was insultingly cheerful.\n\"It was a great deal of joy, you know,\" he reminded him.  \"Come,\nlads\"--to the other pipers--\"hold out your caps, there.\"\n\nThe Meanest Trustee had the strange experience of feeling himself\nworked by a force outside of his own will; it was as if he had been a\nmarionette with a master-hand pulling the wires.  Quite mechanically he\nfound himself taking something out of his pocket and dropping it into\nthe caps thrust under his very nose, and at the same time his pockets\nbegan to fill with money--his money.  In and out, in and out, his hands\nflew like wooden members, until there was not a coin left and the last\npiper turned away satisfied.  He closed his eyes, for he was feeling\nvery weak; then he became conscious of the touch of a warm, friendly\nhand on his wrist and he heard the voice of the old family doctor--the\none who had set his leg when he was a little shaver and had fallen off\nthe banisters, sliding downstairs.\n\n\"You will recover,\" it was saying.  \"A good rest is all you need.\nSometimes there is nothing so beneficial and speedy as the\nold-fashioned treatment of bleeding a patient.\"\n\nSome warm ashes dropped across the wrist of the Meanest Trustee and\nscattered on the floor; his cigar had gone out.\n\nThe Executive Trustee dozed at his study table.  For months he had been\nworking his brain overtime; he had still more to demand of it, and he\nwas deliberately detaching it from immediate executive consciousness\nfor a few minutes that he might set it to work again all the harder.\n\nThe Executive Trustee knew that he was dozing; but for all that it was\nunbearable--this feeling of being bound by coil after coil of rope\nuntil he could not stir a finger.  A terrifying numbness began to creep\nover him--as if his body had died.  The thought came to him like a\nshock that he had an active, commanding intelligence, still alive, and\nnothing for it to command.  What did people do who had to live with\ndead, paralyzed bodies, dependent upon others to execute the dictates\nof their brains?  Did not their brains go in the end, too, and leave\njust a breathing husk behind?  The thought became a horror to him.\n\nAnd yet people did live, just so.  Yes, even children.\nSomewhere--somewhere--he knew of hundreds of them--or were there only a\nfew?  He tried to remember, but he could not.  He did remember,\nhowever, that he had once heard them laughing; and he found himself\nwondering now at the strangeness of it.  He hoped there was some one\nwho would always keep them laughing--they deserved that much out of\nlife, anyway; and some one who could understand and could administer to\nthem lovingly--yes, that was the word--lovingly!  As for himself, there\nwas no one who could supply for him that strength and power for action\nthat he had always worshiped; he must exist for the rest of his life\nsimply as a thinking, ineffective intelligence.  The Executive Trustee\nforgot that he was dozing.  He wrestled with the ropes that bound him\nlike a crazed man; he called for help again and again, until his lips\ncould make no sound.  For the first time in his remembrance he tasted\nthe bitterness of despair.  Then it was that the door opened\nnoiselessly and Margaret MacLean entered, her finger to her lips.  Coil\nafter coil she unwound until he was free once more and could feel the\nmarvelous response of muscle and nerve impulse.  With a cry--half sob,\nhalf thankfulness--he flung his arms across the table and buried his\nface in them.\n\nThe Executive Trustee slept heavily, after the fashion of a man\nexhausted from hard labor.\n\nIn the house left by the Richest Trustee a little gray wisp of a woman\nsat huddled in a great carved chair close to the hearth, thinking and\nthinking and thinking.  The fire was blazing high, trying its best to\nburn away the heart-cold and loneliness that clung about everything\nlike a Dover fog.  For years she had ceased to exist apart from her\nhusband--her thoughts, her wishes, her interests were of his creating;\nshe had drawn her very nourishment of life from his strong, dominant,\ngenial personality.  It was parasitic--oh yes, but it had been\nsomething rarely beautiful to them both--her great need of him.  The\nneed had grown all the greater because no children had come to fill her\nlife; and the need of something to take care of had grown with him.\nTheir love, and her dependence, had become the greatest factors in his\nlife; in hers they were the only ones.  Therefore, it was hardly\nstrange, now that he had died, that she should find it hard to take up\nan individual existence again; to be truthful, she had found it\nimpossible--she had not even existed.\n\nThe habit of individual, separate thinking had grown rusty, and as she\nsat before the hearth ideas came slowly.  The room was dim--lighted\nonly by the firelight; and in that dimness her mind began to stir and\nstretch and yawn itself awake, like a creature that had been\nhibernating through a long, dark winter.  Suddenly the widow of the\nRichest Trustee broke out into a feeble little laugh--a convalescing\nlaugh that acted as if it was just getting about for the first time.\n\n\"I haven't the least idea what is the matter with me,\" she said,\naddressing the fire, \"but I think--I think--I'm becoming alive again.\"\n\nThe fire gave an appreciative chuckle--it even slapped one of the logs\non the back; then it sputtered and blazed the harder, just as if it\nwere ashamed of showing any emotion.\n\n\"It is funny,\" agreed the little gray wisp of a woman, \"but I actually\nfeel as I used to when I was a little girl and Christmas Eve had come,\nor Hallowe'en, and--and--  What other night in the year was it that I\nused to feel creepy and expectant--as if something wonderful was going\nto happen?\"\n\nThe fire coughed twice, as if it would have liked to remind her that it\nwas May Eve, but felt it might be an intrusion.\n\n\"I believe,\" she continued, speculatively--\"I believe I am going to\nbegin to think things and do them again; and what's more, I believe I\nam going to like doing them.\"\n\nThe fire chuckled again, and danced about for a minute in an absurd\nfashion; it was so absurd that one of the logs broke a sap-vessel.\nAfter that the fire settled down to its intended vocation, that of\nmaking dream-pictures out of red and gold flames, and black, charred\nembers.\n\nThe widow of the Richest Trustee watched them happily for a long time,\nuntil they became very definite and actual pictures.  Then she got up,\nwent to her desk, and wrote two letters.\n\nThe first was addressed to \"The Board of Trustees of Saint Margaret's\nFree Hospital for Children\"; the second was addressed to \"Miss Margaret\nMacLean.\"  They were both sealed and mailed that night.\n\nWhat befell the other trustees does not matter, either from the\nstandpoint of Fancy or of what happened afterward; moreover, it was\nnearly midnight, and what occurs after that on May Eve does not count.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE LOVE-TALKER\n\nAll through the evening Saint Margaret's had been frankly miserable.\nNurses gathered in groups in the nurses' annex and talked about the\nclosing of the incurable ward and the going of Margaret MacLean.  The\npassing of the incurables mattered little to them, one way or another,\nbut they knew what it mattered to the nurse in charge, and they were\njust beginning to realize what she had meant to them all.  The\nSuperintendent felt so much concerned that she dropped her official\nmanner when she chanced upon Margaret MacLean on her way from supper.\n\n\"Oh, my dear--my dear\"--and the Superintendent's voice had almost\nbroken--\"what shall we do without you?  You have kept Saint Margaret's\nhuman--and wholesome for the rest of us.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon had been miserable unto the third degree.  It had\nforced him into doing all those things he had left undone for months\npassed; and he bustled through the building--from pharmacy to\nlaboratory and from operating-room to supply-closets--giving the\nimpression of a very scientific man, while he was inwardly praying for\na half-dozen minutes alone with Margaret MacLean.  He had passed her\nmore than once in the corridors, but she had eluded him each time,\nbrushing by him with a tightening of the lips and a little shake of the\nhead, half pleading, half commanding.  At last, in grim despair, he\ngave up appearances and patrolled the second-floor hall until the night\nnurse fixed upon him such a greenly suspicious eye that he fled to his\nquarters--vowing unspeakable things.\n\nEven old Cassie, the scrub-woman, shared in the general misery--Cassie,\nwho had brewed the egg-shell charm against Trustee Days.  She had\nstayed past her hours for a glimpse of \"Miss Peggie,\" with the best\nintention in the world of cheering her up.  When the glimpse came,\nhowever, she stood mute--tears channeling the old wrinkled face--while\nthe nurse patted her hands and made her laugh through the tears.  In\nfact, Margaret MacLean had been kept so busy doling out cheer and\nconsolation to others that she had had no time to remember her own\ntrouble--not until Saint Margaret's had gone to bed.\n\nShe was on her way for a final visit to her ward--the visit she had\ntold Bridget she would make to see if the promise had been kept--when a\nline from Hauptman's faery play flashed through her mind: \"At dawn we\nare kings; at night we are only beggars.\"\n\nHow true it was of her--this day.  How beggared she felt!  The fact\nthat she was very nearly penniless troubled her very little; it was the\nhomelessness--friendlessness--that frightened her.  She had never had\nbut two friends: the one who had gone so long ago was past helping her\nnow; the other--\n\nNo; she had made up her mind some hours before that she should slip\naway in the morning without saying anything to the House Surgeon.  It\nwould make it so much easier for him.  Otherwise--he might--because of\nhis friendship--say or do something he would have to regret all his\nlife.  She had been very much in earnest when she had told the Senior\nSurgeon on the stairs that such as she laid no claim to the every-day\nhappiness that felt to the lot of others.  That was why she had kept\npersistently out of the House Surgeon's way all the evening.\n\nShe pushed back the door of Ward C.  The night light in the hall\noutside was shaded; only a glimmer came through the windows from the\nstreet lamps below; consequently things could not be seen very clearly\nor distinguishably in the room.  Across the threshold her foot slid\nover something soft and slippery; stooping, her hand closed upon a\nflower, while she brushed another.  Puzzled, she felt her way over to\nthe table in the center of the room, where she had put the green\nDevonshire bowl.  It was empty.\n\n\"That's funny,\" she murmured, her mind attempting to ferret out an\nexplanation.  She dropped to her knees and scanned the floor closely.\nThere they were, the primroses, a curving trail of them stretching from\nthe head of Pancho's bed to the foot of Michael's.  She choked back an\nexclamation just as a shadow cut off the light from the hall.  It was a\nman's shadow, and the voice of the House Surgeon came over the\nthreshold in a whisper:\n\n\"What are you doing--burying ghosts?\"\n\n\"Come and see, and let the light in after you.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon came and stood behind her where she knelt.  She\nlooked so little and childlike there that he wanted to pick her up and\ntell her--oh, such a host of things!  But he was a wise House Surgeon,\nand his experience on the stairs had not counted for nothing; moreover,\nhe was a great believer in the psychological moment, so he peered over\nher shoulder and tried to make out what she was looking at.\n\n\"Faded flowers,\" he volunteered at last, somewhat doubtfully.\n\n\"A primrose ring,\" she contradicted.  \"But who ever heard of one in a\nhospital?  Take care--\"  For the surgeon's shoe was carelessly knocking\nsome of the blossoms out of place.  \"Don't you know that no one must\ndisturb a primrose ring?  It's sacred to Fancy; and there is no telling\nwhat is happening inside there to-night.\"\n\n\"What?\"  The House Surgeon asked it as breathlessly as any little boy\nmight have.  Science had goaded him hard along the road of established\nfacts, thereby causing him to miss many pleasant things which he still\nlooked back upon regretfully, and found himself eager for, at times.\nOf course, he had scoffed at them aloud and before Margaret MacLean,\nbut inwardly he adored them.\n\nShe did not answer; she was too busy wondering about something to hear\nthe House Surgeon's question.  Her eyes looked very big and round in\nthe darkness, and her face wore the little-girl scarey look as she\nreached up for his hand and clutched it tight, while her other hand\npointed across the primrose ring to the row of beds.\n\n\"See, they look empty, quite---quite empty.\"\n\n\"Just nerves.\"  And he patted the hand in his reassuringly; he tried\nhis best to pat it in the old, big-brother way.  \"You've had an awfully\ntrying day--most women would be in their rooms having hysteria or\ndoldrums.\"\n\nStill she did not hear.  Her eyes were traveling from cot to crib and\non to cot again, as they had once before that night.  \"Every single bed\nlooks empty,\" she repeated.  \"The clothes tumbled as if the children\nhad slipped quietly out from under them.\"  She shivered ever so\nslightly.  \"Perhaps they have found out they are not wanted any longer\nand have run away.\"\n\n\"Come, come,\" the House Surgeon spoke in a gruff whisper.  \"I believe\nyou're getting feverish.\"  And mechanically his ringers closed over her\npulse.  Then he pulled her to her feet.  \"Go over to those beds this\nminute and see for yourself that every child is there, safe and sound\nasleep.\"\n\nBut she held back, laughing nervously.  \"No, no; we mustn't spoil the\nmagic of the ring.\"  Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful\nmonotone.  \"Who knows--Cinderella's godmother came to her when it was\nonly a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far\ngreater.  Who knows?\"  She caught her breath with a sudden in-drawn\ncry.  \"Why, to-night is May Eve!\"\n\n\"Why, of course it is!\" agreed the House Surgeon, as if he had known it\nfrom the beginning.\n\n\"And who knows but the faeries may have come and stolen them all away?\"\n\nNow the House Surgeon was old in understanding, although he was young\nin years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of\na tired, overwrought brain.  He knew without being told--for Margaret\nMacLean would never have told--how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and\nmind-sick she was to-night.  What he did not know, however, was how\npitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this\nwas the hour for the full conscious reckoning of it.\n\nShe had often said, whimsically, \"Those who are born with wooden\ninstead of golden spoons in their mouths had better learn very young to\nkeep them well scoured, or they'll find them getting so rough and\nsplintered that they can't possibly eat with them.\"  She had followed\nher own advice bravely, and kept happy; but now even the wooden spoon\nhad been taken from her.\n\nThe House Surgeon lifted her up and put her gently into the rocker,\nwhile he sat down on the corner of the table, neighbor to the green\nDevonshire bowl.\n\nPerhaps Margaret MacLean was not to find bitterness, after all; perhaps\nit would be his glad good fortune to keep it from her.  It was\nsurprising the way he felt his misery dwindling, and instantly he\npulled up his courage--another hole.\n\n\"I think you said 'faeries,'\" he suggested, seriously.  \"Why not\nfaeries?\"\n\nShe nodded in equal seriousness.  \"Why not?  They always come May Eve\nto the lonely of heart; and even a hospital might have faeries once in\na generation.  Only--only why couldn't they have taken me with the\nchildren?  It wasn't exactly fair to leave me behind, was it?\"\n\nHer lips managed to keep reasonably steady, but she was wishing all the\ntime that the House Surgeon would go and leave her free to be foolishly\nchildish and weak.  She wanted to drop down beside Bridget's bed and\nsob out her trouble.\n\nBut the House Surgeon had a very permanent look as he went on soberly\ntalking.\n\n\"Well, you see, they took the children first because they were all\nready.  Probably, very probably, they are sending for you\nlater--special messenger.  It's still some minutes before midnight; and\nthat's the time things like that happen.  Isn't it?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"  A little amused smile crept into the corners of her mouth\nwhile she rummaged about in some old memories for something she had\nalmost forgotten.  \"Perhaps\"--she began again--\"they will send the\nLove-Talker.\"\n\n\"The what?\"\n\n\"The Love-Talker.  Old Cassie used to tell us about him, when I was an\n'incurable.'  He's a faery youth who comes on May Eve in the guise of\nsome well-appearing young man and beguiles a maid back with him into\nfaeryland.  He's a very ardent wooer--so Cassie said--and there's no\nmaid living who can resist him.\"\n\n\"Wish I'd had a course with him,\" muttered the House Surgeon under his\nbreath.  Then he gripped the table hard with both hands while the\nspirit of mischief leaped, flagrant, into his eyes.  \"Would you go with\nhim--if he came?\" he asked, intensely.\n\n\"If he came--if he came--\" she repeated, dreamily.  \"How do I know what\nI would do?  It would all depend upon the way he wooed.\"\n\nUnexpectedly the House Surgeon jumped to his feet, making a\nconsiderable clatter.\n\n\"Hush! you'll waken the children.\"\n\n\"But they're not here,\" he reminded her.\n\n\"Yes, I know; but you might waken them, just the same.\"\n\nInstead of answering, the House Surgeon stepped behind the rocker and\nlifted her out of it bodily; then his hands closed over hers and he\nlifted them to her eyes, thereby blind-folding them.  \"Now,\" he\ncommanded, \"take two steps forward.\"\n\nShe did it obediently; and then stood waiting for further orders.\n\n\"You are now inside this magical primrose ring; and you said yourself,\na moment ago, there was no telling what might happen inside.  Keep very\nstill; don't move, don't speak.  Remember you mustn't uncover your\neyes, or the spell will be broken.  Hark!  Can you hear something--some\none coming nearer and nearer and nearer?\"\n\nFor the space of a dozen breaths nothing could be heard in Ward C; that\nis--unless one was tactless enough to mention the sound of two\nthrobbing hearts.  One fluttered, frightened and hesitating; the other\nthumped, steady and determined.  Then out of the darkness came the\nstriking of the hospital clock on the tower--twelve long, mournful\ntolls--and one of the House Surgeon's arms slipped gently about the\nshoulders of Margaret MacLean.\n\n\"Dearest, the Love-Talker has turned so completely human that he has to\nsay at the outset he's not half good enough for you, But he wants\nyou--he wants you, just the same, to carry back with him to his\nfaery-land.  It will be rather a funny little old faery-land, made up\nof work and poverty--and love; but, you see, the last is so big and\nstrong it can shoulder the other two and never know it's carrying a\nthing.  If you'll only come, dearest, you can make it the finest, most\nmagical faeryland a man ever set up home-making in.\"\n\nAnother silence settled over Ward C.\n\n\"Well--\" said the House Surgeon, breaking it at last and sounding a\ntrifle nervous.  \"Well--\"\n\n\"I thought you said I wasn't to move or speak, or the spell would be\nbroken?\"\n\n\"That's right, excellent nurse--followed doctor's orders exactly.\"  He\nwas smiling radiantly now, only no one could see.  Slowly he drew her\nhands away from her eyes and kissed the lids.  \"You can open them if\nyou solemnly promise not to be disappointed when you see the\nLove-Talker has stepped into an ordinary house surgeon's uniform and\nlooks like the--devil.\"  With a laugh the House Surgeon gathered her\nclose in his arms.\n\n\"The devil was only a rebelling angel,\" she murmured, contentedly.\n\n\"But I'm not rebelling.  Bless those trustees!  If they hadn't put us\nboth out of the hospital we might be jogging along for the next ten\nyears on the wholesome, easily digested diet of friendship, and never\ndreamed of the feast we were missing--like this--and this--and--\"\n\nMargaret MacLean buried her face in the uniform with a sob.\n\n\"What is it, dearest?  Don't you like them?\"\n\n\"I--love--them.  Don't you understand?  I never belonged to anybody\nbefore in all my life, so no one ever wanted to--\"\n\nThe rest was unintelligible, but perfectly satisfactory to the House\nSurgeon.  He held her even closer while she sobbed out the tears that\nhad been intended for the edge of Bridget's bed; and when they were\nspent he wiped away all traces with some antiseptic gauze that happened\nto be in his pocket.\n\n\"I will never be foolish again and remember what lies behind to-night,\"\nsaid Margaret MacLean, knowing full well that she would be, and that\noften, because of the joy that would lie in remembering and comparing.\n\"Now tell me, did they make you go, too?\"\n\n\"The President told me, very courteously, that he felt sure I would be\nwishing to find another position elsewhere better suited to my rising\nabilities; and if an opportunity should come--next month, perhaps--they\nwould not wish in any way to interfere with my leaving.\"\n\n\"Ugh!  I--\"\n\n\"No, you don't, dearest.  You couldn't expect them to want us around\nafter the things we magnanimously refrained from saying--but so\nperfectly implied.\"\n\n\"All right, I'll love them instead, if you want me to, only--\"  And she\npuckered her forehead into deep furrows of perplexity.  \"I have kept it\nout of my mind all through the evening, but we might as well face it\nnow as to-morrow morning.  What is going to happen to us?\"\n\nThe House Surgeon turned her about until she was again looking across\nthe line of scattered blossoms--into the indistinguishable darkness\nbeyond.  He laughed joyously, as a man can laugh when everything lies\nbefore him and there are no regrets left behind.  \"Have you forgotten\nso soon?  We are to cross the primrose ring--right here; and follow the\nroad--there--into faeryland after the children.\"\n\n\"The beds really do look empty.\"\n\n\"They certainly do.\"\n\n\"And we'll find the children there?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"And I'll not have to give them up?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"And we'll all be happy together--somewhere?\"\n\n\"Yes, somewhere!\"\n\nShe turned quickly and reached out her arms to him hungrily.  \"I know\nnow why a maid always follows the Love-Talker when he comes a-wooing.\"\n\n\"Why, dearest?\"\n\n\"Because he makes her believe in him and the country where he is taking\nher, and that's all a woman asks.\"\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nWHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD\n\nEverybody woke with a start on the morning following the 30th of April;\nthings began to happen even before the postman had made his first\nrounds.  The operators at the telephone switchboards were rushed at an\nunconscionably early hour, considering that their station compassed the\nAvenue.  The President was trying to get the trustees, Saint\nMargaret's, and the Senior Surgeon; the trustees were trying to get one\nanother; while the Senior Surgeon was rapidly covering the distance\nbetween his home and the hospital--his mind busy with a multitude of\nthings, none of which he had ever written with capitals.\n\nSaint Margaret's was astir before its usual hour; there was a tang of\njoyousness in the air, and everybody's heart and mind, strangely\nenough, seemed to be in festal attire, although nobody was outwardly\nconscious of it.  It was all the more inexplicable because Saint\nMargaret's had gone to bed miserable, and events naturally pointed\ntoward depression: Margaret MacLean's coming departure, the abandoning\nof Ward C, the House Surgeon's resignation, and Michael's empty crib.\n\nWard C had wakened with a laugh.  Margaret MacLean, who had been moving\nnoiselessly about the room for some time, picking up the withered\nremains of the primrose ring, looked up with apprehension.  The tears\nshe had shed over Michael's crib were quite dry, and she had a brave\nlittle speech on the end of her tongue ready for the children's\nawakening.  Eight pairs of sleepy eyes were rubbed open, and then\nunhesitatingly turned in the direction of the empty crib in the corner.\n\n\"Michael has gone away.\" she said, softly, steadying her voice with\ngreat care.  \"He has gone where he will be well--and his heart sound\nand strong.\"\n\nShe was wholly unprepared for the children's response.  It was so\nunexpected, in fact, that for the moment she tottered perilously near\nthe verge of hysterics.  The children actually grinned; while Bridget\nremarked, with a chuckle:\n\n\"Ye are afther meanin' that he didn't come back--that's what!\"  And\nthen she added, as an afterthought, \"He said to tell ye 'God bless ye,'\nMiss Peggie.\"\n\nMargaret MacLean did not know whether to be shocked or glad that the\npassing of a comrade had brought no sign of grief.  Instead of being\neither, she went on picking up the primroses and wondering.  As for the\nchildren, they lay back peacefully in their beds, their eyes laughing\nriotously.  And every once in a while they would look over at one\nanother, giving the funniest little expressive nods, which seemed to\nsay: \"I know what you're thinking about, and you know what I'm thinking\nabout, so what's the need of talking.  But when is it going to happen?\"\n\nThe House Surgeon brought up her mail; it was an excuse to see her\nagain before his official visit.  \"Are the children very much broken up\nover it?\" he asked, anxiously, outside the door.\n\nFor answer Margaret MacLean beckoned him and pointed to the eight\noccupied cots--unquestionably serene and happy.\n\n\"Well, I'll be--\" began the House Surgeon, retiring precipitously back\nto the door again; but the nurse put a silencing finger over his lips.\n\n\"Hush, dear!  The children are probably clearer visioned than we are.\nI have the distinct feeling this morning of being very blind and\nstupid, while they seem--oh, so wise.\"\n\nThe House Surgeon grunted expressively.  \"Well, perhaps they won't take\nyour going away so dreadfully to heart--now; or theirs, for that\nmatter.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" and then she smiled wistfully.  \"But I thought you told\nme last night we were all going together?  At any rate, I am not going\nto tell them anything.  If it must be it must be, and I shall slip off\nquietly, when the children are napping, and leave the trustees to tell.\"\n\nShe looked her mail over casually; there were the usual number of\nadvertisements, a letter from one of the nurses who had gone South, and\nanother in an unfamiliar hand-writing.  She tore off the corner of the\nlast, and, running her finger down the flap, she commented:\n\n\"Looks like quality.  A letter outside the profession is a very rare\nthing for me.\"\n\nShe read the letter through without a sound, and then she read it\nagain, the House Surgeon watching, the old big-brother look gone for\never from his face, and in its place a worshipful proprietorship.  The\neffect of the letter was undeniably Aprilish; she looked up at the\nHouse Surgeon with the most radiant of smiles, while her eyes spilled\nrecklessly over.\n\n\"How did you know it?  How did you know it?\" she repeated.\n\nHe was trying his best to find out what it was all about when one of\nthe nurses came hurrying down the corridor.\n\n\"You are both wanted down in the board-room.  They have called a\nspecial meeting of the trustees for nine o'clock; everybody's here and\nacting decidedly peculiar, I think.  Why, as I passed the door I am\nsure I saw the President slapping the Senior Surgeon on the back.  I\nnever heard of anything like this happening before.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Margaret MacLean to the House Surgeon.  \"If we walk down\nvery slowly we will have time enough to read the letter on the way.\"\n\nAs the nurse had intimated, it was an altogether unprecedented meeting.\nFormality had been gently tossed out of the window; after which the\nPresident sat, not behind his desk, but upon it--an open letter in his\nhand.  His whole attitude suggested a wish to banish, as far as it lay\nwithin his power, the atmosphere of the previous afternoon.\n\n\"Here is a letter to be considered first,\" he said, a bit gravely.  \"It\nmakes rather a good prologue to our reconsideration of the incurable\nward,\" and the ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.\n\"This is from the widow of the Richest Trustee.\"  He read, slowly:\n\n\n\"MESDAMES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD,--I thank you for your courtesy in\nasking me to fill my husband's place as one of the trustees of Saint\nMargaret's.  Until this afternoon I had every intention of so doing;\nbut I cannot think now that my husband would wish me to continue his\nsupport of an institution whose directors have so far forgotten the\nname under which they dispense their charity as to put science and\npride first.  As for myself--I find I am strongly interested in\nincurables--your incurables.\n      Yours very truly\"\n\n\nThe President laid the letter behind him on the desk, while the entire\nboard gasped in amazement.\n\n\"Well, I'll be hanged!\" muttered the Disagreeable Trustee.\n\n\"But just think of _her_--writing it!\" burst forth the Oldest Trustee.\n\nThe Meanest Trustee barked out an exclamation, but nothing followed it;\nundoubtedly that was due to the President's interrupting:\n\n\"I think if we had received this yesterday we should have been\nvery--exceedingly--indignant; we should have censured the writer\nseverely.  As it is--hmm--\"  The President stopped short; it was as if\nhis mind had refused to tabulate his feelings.\n\n\"As it is\"--the Executive Trustee took up the dropped thread and went\non--\"we have decided to reconsider the removal of the incurable ward\nwithout any--preaching--or priming of conscience.\"\n\n\"I am so glad we really had changed our minds first.  I should so hate\nto have that insignificant little woman think that we were influenced\nby anything she might write.  Wouldn't you?\"  And the Youngest and\nPrettiest Trustee dimpled ravishingly at the Senior Surgeon.\n\n\"Wouldn't you two like to go into the consulting-room and talk it over?\nWe could settle the business in hand, this time, without your\nassistance, I think.\"  The voice of the Disagreeable Trustee dripped\nsarcasm.\n\n\"I should suggest,\" said the President, returning to the business of\nthe meeting, \"that the ward might be continued for the present, until\nwe investigate the home condition of the patients and understand\nperhaps a little more thoroughly just what they need, and where they\ncan be made most--comfortable.\"\n\n\"And retain Margaret MacLean in charge?\"  The Meanest Trustee gave it\nthe form of a question, but his manner implied the statement of a\ndisagreeable fact.\n\n\"Why not?  Is there any one more competent to take charge?\"  The\nExecutive Trustee interrogated each individual member of the board with\na quizzical eye.\n\n\"But the new surgical ward--and science?\"  The Youngest and Prettiest\nthrew it, Jason-fashion, and waited expectantly for a clash of steel.\n\nInstead the Senior Surgeon stepped forward, rather pink and\nembarrassed.  \"I should like to withdraw my request for a new surgical\nward.  It can wait--for the present, at least.\"\n\nAnd then it was that Margaret MacLean and the House Surgeon entered the\nboard-room.\n\nThe President nodded to them pleasantly, and motioned to the chairs\nnear him.  \"We are having what you professional people call a reaction.\nI hardly know what started it; but--hmmm--\"  For the second time that\nmorning he came to a dead stop.\n\nEverybody took great pains to avoid looking at everybody else; while\neach face wore a painful expression of sham innocence.  It was as if so\nmany naughty children had been suddenly caught on the wrong side of the\nfence, the stolen fruit in their pockets.  It was gone in less time\nthan it takes for the telling; but it would have left the careful\nobserver, had he been there, with the firm conviction that, for the\nfirst time in their conservative lives, the trustees of Saint\nMargaret's had come perilously near to giving themselves away.\n\nIn a twinkling the board sat at ease once more, and the President's\nhabitual composure returned.  \"Will some one motion that we adopt the\ntwo measures we have suggested?  This is not parliamentary, but we are\nall in a hurry.\"\n\n\"I motion that we keep the incurables for the present, and that Miss\nMacLean be requested to continue in charge.\"  There was a note of\nrelieved repression in the voice of the Executive Trustee as he made\nthe motion; and he stretched his shoulders unconsciously.\n\n\"But you mustn't make any such motion.\"  Margaret MacLean rose,\nreaching forth protesting hands.  \"You would spoil the very best thing\nthat has happened for years and years.  Just wait--wait until you have\nheard.\"\n\nAs she unfolded her letter the President's alert eye promptly compared\nit with the one behind him on the desk.  \"So--you have likewise heard\nfrom the widow of the Richest Trustee?\"\n\nShe looked at him, puzzled.  \"Oh, you know!  She has written you?\"\n\n\"Not what she has written you, I judge.  One could hardly term our\ncommunication 'the best thing that has happened in years.'\"  And again\na smile twitched at the corners of the President's mouth.\n\n\"Then listen to this.\"  Margaret MacLean read the letter eagerly:\n\n\n\"DEAE MARGARET MACLEAN,--There is a home standing on a hilltop--an\nhour's ride from the city.  It belongs to a lonely old woman who finds\nthat it is too large and too lonely for her to live in, and too full of\nhaunting memories to be left empty.  Therefore she wants to fill it\nwith incurable children, and she would like to begin with the discarded\nward of Saint Margaret's.\"\n\n\n\"That's a miserable way to speak of a lot of children,\" muttered the\nDisagreeable Trustee; but no one paid any attention, and Margaret\nMacLean went on:\n\n\n\"There is room now for about twenty beds; and annexes can easily be\nadded as fast as the need grows.  This lonely old woman would consider\nit a great kindness if you will take charge; she would also like to\nhave you persuade the House Surgeon that it is high time for him to\nbecome Senior Surgeon, and the new home is the place for him to begin.\nTogether we should be able to equip it without delay; so that the\nchildren could be moved direct from Saint Margaret's.  It is the whim\nof this old woman to call it a 'Home for Curables'--which, of course,\nis only a whim.  Will you come to see me as soon as you can and let us\ntalk it over?\"\n\n\nMargaret MacLean folded the letter slowly and put it back in its\nenvelope.  \"You see,\" she said, the little-girl look spreading over her\nface--\"you see, you mustn't take us back again.  I could not possibly\nrefuse, even if I wanted to; it is just what the children have longed\nfor--and wished for--and--\"\n\n\"We are not going to give up the ward; she would have to start her home\nwith other children.\"  The Dominant Trustee announced it flatly.\n\nStrangely enough, the faces of his fellow-directors corroborated his\nassertion.  Often the value of a collection drops so persistently in\nthe estimate of its possessor that he begins to contemplate exchanging\nit for something more up to date or interesting.  But let a rival\ncollector march forth with igniting enthusiasm and proclaim a desire\nfor the scorned objects, and that very moment does the possessor\ntighten his grip on them and add a decimal or two to their value.  So\nwas it with the trustees of Saint Margaret's.  For the first time in\ntheir lives they desired the incurable ward and wished to retain it.\n\n\"Not only do we intend to keep the children, but there are many\nimprovements I shall suggest to the board when there is more time.  I\nshould like to insist on a more careful supervision of--curious\nvisitors.\"  And the Oldest Trustee raised her lorgnette and compassed\nthe gathering with a look that challenged dispute.\n\nMargaret MacLean's face became unaccountably old and tired.  The vision\nthat had seemed so close, so tangible, so ready to be made actual, had\nsuddenly retreated beyond her reach, and she was left as empty of heart\nand hand as she had been before.  For a moment her whole figure seemed\nto crumple; and then she shook herself together into a resisting,\nfighting force again.\n\n\"You can't keep the children, after this.  Think, think what it means\nto them--a home in the country, on a hilltop, trees and birds and\nflowers all about.  Many of them could wheel themselves out of doors,\nand the others could have hammocks and cots under the trees.  Forget\nfor this once that you are trustees, and think what it means to the\nchildren.\"\n\n\"But can't you understand?\" urged the President, \"we feel a special\ninterest in these children.  They are beginning to belong to us--as you\ndo, yourself, for that matter.\"\n\nThe little-girl look came rushing into Margaret MacLean's face,\nflooding it with wistfulness.  \"It's a little hard to believe--this\nbelonging to anybody.  Yesterday I seemed to be the only person who\nwanted me at all, and I wasn't dreadfully keen about it myself.\"  Then\nshe clapped her hands with the suddenness of an idea.  \"After all, it's\nthe children who are really most concerned.  Why shouldn't we ask them?\nOf course I know it is very much out of the accustomed order of things,\nbut why not try it?  Couldn't we?\"\n\nAnxiously she scanned the faces about her.  There was surprise,\namusement, but no dissent.  The Disagreeable Trustee smiled secretly\nbehind his hand; it appealed to his latent sense of humor.\n\n\"It would be rather a Balaam and his ass affair, but, as Miss MacLean\nsuggests, why not try it?\" he asked.\n\nMargaret MacLean did not wait an instant longer.  She turned to the\nHouse Surgeon.  \"Bring Bridget down, quickly.\"\n\nAs he disappeared obediently through the door she faced the trustees,\nas she had faced them once before, on the day previous.  \"Bridget will\nknow better than any one else what will make the children happiest.\nNow wouldn't it be fun\"--and she smiled adorably--\"if you should all\nplay you were faery godparents, for once in your lifetime, and give\nBridget her choice, whatever it may be?\"\n\nThis time the entire board smiled back at her; somehow, in some strange\nway, it had caught a breath of Fancy.  And then--the House Surgeon\nre-entered with Bridget in his arms, looking very scared until she\nspied \"Miss Peggie.\"\n\nThe President did the nicest thing, proving himself the good man he\nreally was.  He crossed hands with the House Surgeon, thereby making a\nswinging chair for Bridget, and together they held her while Margaret\nMacLean explained:\n\n\"It's this way, dear.  Some one has offered you--and all the\nchildren--a home in the country--a home of your very own.  But the\ntrustees of Saint Margaret's hardly want to give you up; they think\nthey can take as good care of you--and make you just as happy here.\"\n\n\"But--sure--they'll have to be givin' us up.  Weren't we afther givin'\na penny to the wee one yondther for the home?\" and Bridget pointed a\ncommanding finger toward the door.\n\nEverybody looked.  There on the threshold stood the widow of the\nRichest Trustee.\n\n\"What do you mean, dear?  How could you have given her a penny?\"\nMargaret MacLean asked it in bewilderment.\n\n\"'Twas all the doin's o' the primrose ring.\" And then Bridget shouted\ngaily across to the gray wisp of a woman.  \"Ye tell them.  Weren't ye\nafther givin' us the promise of a home?\"\n\n\"And haven't I come to keep the promise?\" she answered, as gaily.  But\nin an instant she sobered as her eyes fell on the open letter on the\nPresident's desk.  \"I am so sorry I wrote it--that is why I have come;\nnot that I don't think you deserved it, for you do,\" and the widow of\nthe Richest Trustee looked at them unwaveringly.\n\nIf she was conscious of the surprised faces about, she gave no sign for\nothers to reckon by.  Instead, she walked the length of the board-room\nto the President's desk and went on speaking hurriedly, as if she\nfeared to be interrupted before she had said all she had come to say.\n\"I wish I had written in another way, a more helpful way.  Why not add\nyour second surgical ward to Saint Margaret's and do all the good work\nyou can, as you had planned?  Only let me have these children to start\na home which shall be a future harbor for all the cases you cannot mend\nwith your science and which you ought not to set adrift.  You can send\nme all the convalescing children, too, who need country air and\nbuilding up.  In return for this, and because you deserve to be\npunished--just a little--for yesterday--I shall try my best to take\nwith me Margaret MacLean and your House Surgeon.\"\n\nShe laid a hand on both, while she added, softly: \"Suppose we three go\nhome together and talk things over.  Shall we?\"\n\n\nSo the \"Home for Curables\" has come true.  It crests a hilltop, and is\nwell worth the penny that Bridget gave for it.  As the children\nspecified, there are no \"trusters\"; and it has all the modern\nimprovements, including Margaret MacLean, who is still \"Miss Peggie,\"\nalthough she is married to their new Senior Surgeon.\n\nThere is one very particular thing about the Home which ought to be\nmentioned.  When the children arrived Toby was on the steps, barking a\nwelcome.  No one was surprised; in fact, everybody acted as though he\nbelonged there.  Perhaps the surprising thing would have been not\nhaving the promise kept.  Toby is allowed right of way, everywhere; and\nrumor has it that he often sneaks in at night and sleeps on Peter's\nbed.  But, of course, that is just rumor.\n\nThe children are supremely happy; which means that no one is allowed to\ncross the threshold who cannot give the password of a friend.  And you\nmight like to know that many of the trustees of Saint Margaret's come\nas often as anybody, and are always welcomed with a shout.  The\nPresident, in particular, has developed the habit of secreting things\nin his pockets until he comes looking very bulgy.\n\nMargaret MacLean always puts the children to sleep with Sandy's song;\nshe said it was written by a famous poet who loved children, and the\nchildren have never told her the truth about it.  And if it happens, as\nit does once in a great while, that some one is missing in the morning,\nthere is no sorrowing for him, or heavy-heartedness.  They miss him, of\ncourse; but they picture him running, sturdy-limbed, up the slope to\nthe leprechaun's tree, with Michael waiting for him not far off.\n\nTo the children Tir-na-n'Og is the waiting-place for all child-souls\nuntil Saint Anthony is ready to gather them up and carry them away with\nhim to the \"Blessed Mother\"; and Margaret MacLean, having nothing\nbetter to tell them, keeps silent.  But she has thought of the nicest\ncustom: A new picture is hung in the Home after a child has gone.  It\nbears his name; and it is always something that he liked--birds or\nflowers or ships or some one from a story.  Peter has his chosen\nalready; it is to be--a dog.\n\nWhenever Saint Margaret's Senior Surgeon finds a hip or a heart or a\nback that he can do nothing for, he sends it to the Home; and he always\nwrites the same thing:\n\n\"Here is another case in a thousand for you, Margaret MacLean.  How\nmany are there now?\"\n\nHe has married the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee, as the Disagreeable\nTrustee prophesied, and gossip says that they are very happy.  This\nmuch I know--there are two more words which he now writes with\ncapitals--Son and Sympathy.\n\nMargaret MacLean often says with the Danish faery-man: \"My life, too,\nis a faery-tale written by God's finger.\"  And the House Surgeon always\nchuckles at this, and adds:\n\n\"Praise Heaven!  He wrote me into it.\"\n\nAs for the widow of the Richest Trustee, she has found a greater\nmeasure of contentment than she thought the world could hold--with love\nto brim it; for Margaret MacLean has adopted her along with the\nchildren.  The children still regard her, however, as a very mysterious\nperson; and she has taken the place of Susan's mythical aunt in the\nward conversation.  It has never been argued out to the complete\nsatisfaction of every one whether she is really the faery queen or just\nthe \"Wee Gray Woman,\" as Sandy calls her.  The arguments wax hot at\ntimes, and it is Bridget who generally has to put in the final\nsilencing word:\n\n\"Faith, she kept her promise, didn't she?  and everything come thrue,\nhasn't it?  Well, what more do ye want?\"","title":"The Primrose Ring","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":33368}