The Red Acorn Part 23

"Has it?" said the Doctor, sniffing too. "O, that's nothing. That's only chloroform. The ants were very bad, and we put some in to kill them off."

"I don't believe I'll take any in my coffee, thank you," said Rachel, calmly. "There are times when I don't like it sweetened."

"But you'll certainly take cream, then," he said, breaking off the cover of a can of condensed milk. "Here is some put in the reverse of the homeopathic plan. Instead of being the 30th dilution, it is about the 30th concentration. With this little can, and his pump in good order, a milkman could supply a good big route with 'pure gra.s.s-fed milk.' Within these narrow walls are compressed the nutritive juices of an acre of fragrant white clover."

"The Doctor was formerly a lecturer in a medical college," said "Squills" "sotto voce" to Rachel.

Rachel's appet.i.te had seemed sufficient for almost any food, but she confined her breakfast to two or three crackers of hard bread, and a few sups of coffee. The pleasantry had failed of its desired effect. It was like vinegar upon niter, or the singing of songs to an heavy heart.

As they rose from the table the Doctor informed her that he and the Stewards were about to make their morning round of the wards, and that she had better accompany them. She went along without a word.

They walked slowly up and down the long aisles behind the Doctor, who stopped before each cot, and closely examined its occupant's tongue, pulse, and other indicators of his condition, and gave prescriptions, which the Steward wrote down, as to medicine and food. What was better still were his words of sympathy for the very ill and of cheery encouragement for the convalescent, which he bestowed upon every one.

"A visit from Dr. Denslow does a sick man more good," whispered "Squills" to Rachel, as he saw her eyes light up with admiration at the Doctor's tactful kindliness, "than all the drugs in the dispensary. I sometimes believe he's one of them that can cure by a simple laying-on of hands. He's just the opposite of old Moxon, who'd counteract the effect of the best medicine in the world."

"No. 19, Quin. Sulph., grains 16; make four powders, one every three hours," continued "Squills," repeating the directions as he received them, "Spiritus Frumenti, 1 oz., at evening. No. 2 diet. No. 20, Dover's powder 10 grains, at bedtime. No 1 diet. You," addressing himself to Rachel again, "will do even better than Dr. Denslow, soon. Can't you see how the mere sight of you brightens up everybody around here?"

Rachel had no reply ready for so broad a compliment, but its a.s.sertion of her high usefulness went far to reconcile her to her position.

She wondered silently if her mission was to be confined to posing as a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

This differed much from her expectations, for she dreaded at each step lest the next bring her fact to face with some horrible task, which she would be expected to undertake. But the Doctor, with his usual tact, was almost imperceptibly inducting her into her duties.

"Would Miss Bond kindly shake this powder into that cup of water and give it to that boy?"

She did so, and was rewarded by the recipient's grateful look, as he said:

"It don't seem at all nasty when YOU give it to me."

"Would she hand that one this bit of magnesia for his heartburn?"

It was a young Irishman, who received the magnesia with a gallant speech:

"Faith, your white fingers have made it swater than loaf-sugar."

Rachel colored deeply, and those within hearing laughed.

At the next cot a feverish boy tossed wearily. Rachel noticed the uncomfortable arrangement of the folded blanket which did duty as a pillow. She stepped quickly to the head of the cot, took the blanket out, refolded it with a few deft, womanly motions, and replaced it with a cool surface uppermost.

"O, that is SO good," murmured the boy, half-unclosing his eyes. "It's just as mother would've done."

Dr. Denslow looked earnest approval.

Rachel began to feel an interest kindling in her work. It was not in a womanly nature to resist this cordial appreciation of all she did.

A few cots farther on a boy wanted a letter written home. She was provided with stationary, and taking her place by the side of the cot, received his instructions, and wrote to his anxious parents the first news they had from their only son since they had been informed, two weeks before, that he had been sent to the hospital. When she had finished she rejoined the Doctor, who had by this time nearly completed his round of the ward. As soon as he was through he dismissed Stewards and Wardmasters to their duties, and returned with her to her room. It was so changed that she thought she had made a mistake when she opened the door. The time of her absence had been well employed by a detail of men, whom the Doctor had previously instructed. The floor was as white and clean as strong arms with an abundance of soap and hot water could scrupt it, the walls and ceiling were neatly papered with "Harper's Weeklies," and "Frank Leslies," other papers concealed the roughness of the table and shelves, white sheet and pillow-cases had given the cot an air of inviting neatness, and before it lay a square of rag carpet. The window was shaded with calico curtains, the tin basin and dipper had been scoured to brightness, and beside them stood a cedar water-pail with s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s hoops.

"Ah," she said, with brightening face, "this is something like living."

"Yes," answered Dr. Denslow, "I imagine it IS some improvement upon the sandy desert in which you spent the night. I hope we will soon be able to make it still more comfortable. We have just started this hospital, and we are sadly dest.i.tute of many of the commonest necessaries of such an inst.i.tution. But everything will get better in a week or so, and while I can not exactly promise you the comforts of a home, I can a.s.sure you that life will be made more endurable than it seems to be possible now."

"I do hope none of this has been taken away from any sick man who needs it more than I?" said Rachel, with a remembrance of how much the boys in the ward needed.

"Do not disturb yourself with any such thought. Your comfort has not been bought at the expense of any one else's. I would not give, even to you, anything that would help restore a sick soldier to his regiment or his home. My first duty, as that of yours and all of us, is to him. He is the man of the occasion. All the rest of us are mere adjuncts to him.

We have no reason for being, except to increase his effectiveness."

The earnestness with which he spoke, so different from his light bantering at the breakfast table, made her regard him more attentively.

"I begin to get a glimmering," she said at length, "of the inspiration in this kind of work. Before it has all seemed unutterably repulsive to me. But it has its rewards."

"Yes," said he, lapsing still deeper into a mood which she soon came to recognize in him as a frequent one of spiritual exaltation, "we who toil here, labor amidst the wreck and ruin of war without the benefit of that stirring impulse which fills the souls of those who actually go into battle. The terrors of human suffering which they see but for an instant, as when the lightning in the night shows the ravages of the storm, encompa.s.s us about and abide with us continually. We are called upon for another kind of fort.i.tude, and we must look for our reward otherwise than in the victor's laurels. We can only have to animate us our own consciousness of a high duty well done. To one cla.s.s of minds this is an infinitely rich meed. The old Jewish legend says that Abrahams princ.i.p.al jewel was one worn upon his breast, 'whose light raised those who were bowed down, and healed the sick,' and when he pa.s.sed from earth it was placed in heaven, where it shown as one of the great stars. Of such kind must be our jewel."

He stopped, and blus.h.i.+ng through his beard, as if ashamed of his heroics, said with a light laugh:

"But if there is anything I fear it is self-righteousness which cankereth the soul. Come; I will show you a sight which will repress any tendency you may ever feel to exalt your services to the pinnacle of human merit."

While leading her to a remote part of the hospital he continued: "Of course greater love hath no man than this, that he gave his life for that which he loves. Considered relatively to the person the peasant who falls in the defense of his country gives just as much as the Emperor who may die by his side. In either case the measure of devotion is brim-full. Nothing more can be added to it. But there are accessories and surroundings which apparently make one life of much greater value than another, and make it a vastly richer sacrifice when laid on the altar of patriotism."

"There are certainly degrees of merit, even in yielding up one's life,"

said Rachel, not altogther unmindful of the sacrifice she herself had made in coming to the front.

"Judged by this standard," the Doctor continued, "the young man whom we are about to see has made a richer offering to his country than it is possible for most men to make. It is almost shames me as to the meagerness of the gift I bring."

"If you be ashamed how must others who give much less feel?"

"He was in the first dawn of manhood," the Doctor went on, without noticing the interruption, "handsome as a heathen G.o.d, educated and wealthy, and with high aspirations for a distinguished scientific career fermenting in his young blood like new wine. Yet he turned his back upon all this--upon the opening of a happy married life--to carry a private soldier's musket in the ranks, and to die ingloriously by the shot of a skulking bushwhacker. He would not even take a commission, because he wanted that used to encourage some other man, who might need the inducement."

"But why call his death inglorious? If a man braves death why is any one time or place worse than another?"

"Because for a man of his temperament he is dying the cruelest death possible. He had expected, if called upon to yield his life, to purchase with it some great good for his country. But to perish uselessly as he is doing, as if bitten by a snake, is terrible. Here we are. I will tell you before we go in that he has a bullet wound through the body, just grazing an artery and it is only a question of a short time, and the slightest shock, when a fatal hemorrhage will ensue. Be very quiet and careful."

He untied a rope stretched across the entrance to a little wing of the building to keep unnecessary footsteps at a distance.

"How is he this morning?" he asked of a gray-haired nurse seated in front of a door curtained with a blanket.

"Quiet and cheeful as ever," answered the nurse, rising and pulling the blanket aside that they might enter.

The face upon which Rachel's eyes fell when she entered the room impressed her as an unusual combination of refinement and strength.

Beyond this she noted little as to the details of the patient's countenance, except that he had hazel eyes, and a clear complexion a.s.serting itself under the deep sun-burning.

When they entered he was languidly fanning himself with a fan which had been ingeniously constructed for him by some inmate, out of a twig of willow bent into a hoop, and covered by pasting paper over it. He gave a faint smile of welcome to the Doctor, but his face lighted up with pleasure when he saw Rachel.

"Good morning, Sanderson," said Dr. Denslow, in a repressed voice. "How do you feel?"

"As usual," whispered Sanderson.

"This is Miss Rachel Bond, who is a.s.signed to our hospital as nurse."