Part 2

Aunt Jane always went by Suite A with her head a little in the air and her nose a trifle raised. And woe to the man or woman who occupied Suite A. For a week or ten days he was left severely to the care of nurses and doctors. It was only after he had experienced to the full what a desolate place a hospital may be, that Aunt Jane condescended to look in and thaw the atmosphere a little.

It was perhaps her feeling for Suite A that led her to attend to ward patients and occupants of humble rooms before those of Suite A. "They'll be comfortable enough when they get to their suite," she had been known to say.

So it was the back room that she entered first--with the card in her hand.

A little woman at the side of the room got up quickly. "I came alone," she said. She fluttered a little and held out her hand nervously as if uncertain what might happen to her in a hospital.

Aunt Jane took it in her plump one and held it a minute. "Sit down."

The woman sat down and looked at her. "John wanted to come. But I told him to stay home," she said.

"Much better," replied Aunt Jane, nodding.

"I told him he'd better kind of make supper for the children. So if they should miss me!" The look was wistful.

Aunt Jane regarded it comfortably.

"All the happier, when you get back home." She had seated herself in a large chair and she rocked a little.

The woman's face relaxed.

She looked about her more happily. "It seems kind of like home, don't it? I didn't think a hospital would be like this--not just like this. I don't seem to mind being here," she said with a little note of surprise.

"You won't mind it," said Aunt Jane. "You'll like it. Everybody likes it. Maybe you won't want to go away."

The woman smiled faintly. "I guess I shall be ready to go--when the time comes," she added slowly.... "There's one thing I wanted to ask somebody about--it's about paying-- How much it will be, you know? I asked the doctor once--when he said I'd have to come, but he didn't tell me--not really."

"Dr. Carmon doesn't think so much about his pay." There was something almost like pride in Aunt Jane's voice. "You needn't be afraid he'll overcharge for it."

"It isn't that--only maybe we _couldn't_ pay," said the woman. Her forehead held little wrinkled lines and her face smiled. "And it don't seem quite right to be done--if we can't pay for it."

Aunt Jane rocked a minute. Her eyes travelled to the door leading to the front room. The door was ajar and through the crack there was a glimpse of a light overcoat lying carelessly across the chair. It had a silk lining.

Aunt Jane nodded toward it. "There's a man in there----"

"Yes, I know. I saw him. He got here the same time I did--in his motor-car."

"In his motor-car--that's it! Well--" Aunt Jane smiled. "_He's_ going to pay Dr. Carmon--for your operation."

"Why--!" The little woman gasped. "He don't have any reason to pay for _me_!"

"Well--" Aunt Jane rocked, turning it over and making it up as she went along: "Well-- He's rich. He has a plenty-- And he won't be comfortable without." She spoke with conviction.

"But he don't know me," said the woman. "Unless maybe he knows John!" she added thoughtfully.

"That's it," Aunt Jane responded. "Maybe he knows 'John.' Anyway he's going to pay." She touched a bell.

"Well--" The woman looked down at the hands in her lap, the fingers were working in and out. "I'm sure I don't know how to thank him!" she said. She looked up. Her eyes were full of tears. She brushed a quick hand across them. "I don't know how!" she said softly.

"You don't need to thank him," replied Aunt Jane. "He won't expect any thanks, I guess."

A nurse stood in the door. Aunt Jane's hand motioned to the woman. "This is Mrs. Pelton. She's going to be in Room 5. Take good care of her."

The nurse held out her hand with a smile. And the little woman got up. "I've got a bag here somewhere--? That's it--yes. Thank you! I seem all kind of upset, somehow. I didn't know a hospital would be like this!"

Aunt Jane watched her with a smile as she went from the room. There was a gentle look in her eyes. Then she got up, with the card in her hand, and moved toward the front room. She had become serene and austere.

A tall, thin man rose courteously. "I am Dr. Carmon's patient. I understand a room has been reserved for me?" He looked up.

"There's a room, yes," admitted Aunt Jane.

The man's face waited. There was astonishment and a little amusement under its polite gaze.

Aunt Jane rang the bell.

"Won't you sit down," she indicated a chair.

"Thank you. I prefer to keep standing--while I can." He said it smilingly.

If there was an undertone of appeal for sympathy in the words, Aunt Jane's face ignored it. She turned to the nurse who entered.

"Show Mr.--?" She consulted the card in her hand with elaborate care. "Mr.--? Medfield, yes, that's it--show Mr. Medfield to Suite A."

The man bowed and took his coat on his arm. The nurse led the way. And Aunt Jane watched them from the room, holding the little card in her hand.

A little later when she entered the name on the card in the hospital register, she added something after it in tiny hieroglyphics that made her smile as she closed the book and put it away on its shelf.

VII

Herman Medfield sat in the spacious sitting-room of Suite A, his paper spread out before him and his breakfast on the invalid table that had been wheeled up to the window. He had found the table with its tray of coffee and eggs and toast, an easy chair drawn up beside it, and the morning paper by his plate, ready for him when he came from his comfortable bath.

He had opened the paper, but not the eggs.... He read a few lines in the paper and glanced down at the table with a little scowl and pushed it from him.

Dr. Carmon had insisted on his being at the hospital for three or four days before the operation. He wanted to watch him and control conditions, he had said. It would make his decision easier.

The millionaire sitting in the window frowned a little and drummed with his fingers on the arm of the chair.

He took up the paper and glanced at it again and threw it down.

One of the conditions had been that he should have no cigars. He had understood and agreed to it.

But this morning he was impatient with himself and annoyed with Dr. Carmon. These doctors had no end of theories--useless theories--that did more harm than good. He should be in no shape for an operation--if he could not keep his nerve better than this. He really needed a cigar.

He pressed the knob of the electric cord that reached to his chair and took up the paper again.

When the nurse came in, he glanced up and motioned courteously to the table.

"You may take it away, please."

She looked at the untouched food and lifted the tray without comment. At the door she paused, at a word from the window.

The man had turned over his paper, and he glanced down another column as he said carelessly:

"And--ah--would you be kind enough to telephone to my house for a box of cigars. I seem to have forgotten to bring any."

The nurse waited the merest fraction of a second. "I will see if they are on your order," she said quietly, and went out.

He lifted his eyes a trifle and returned to his paper.

The nurse closed the two doors of Suite A noiselessly behind her. She went down the corridor, bearing the rejected tray.

Half-way down the corridor she encountered a plump figure.

Aunt Jane's mild glance rested on the tray. "Anything the matter with it?" she asked.

"He doesn't want it," said the nurse. "He said, 'take it away.'" Her lips smiled, ever so little, as she watched the round face in its cap.

The cap strings did not exactly bristle; but there was a look of firmness in the plump chin.

"Take it back," said Aunt Jane. "Tell him it is what was ordered for him. He is to eat it--eat all of it."

She spoke back over her shoulder, half turned away. "I've got a good many things on my hands this morning. I can't be bothered with fussy folks and notions." She passed on and disappeared in the door of Room 18.

The nurse, with her tray, returned to Suite A. She opened the door softly and went in.

Two minutes later, she emerged, still with her tray--and a high, clear color in her face.

Aunt Jane coming out of Room 18, caught a glimpse of her and stopped.

The nurse shook her head, the color in her cheeks mounting. "He doesn't want it." Her eyes twinkled a little in spite of the color that flooded up.

Aunt Jane reached out her hands for the tray. She gave a half-impatient click. "More bother'n they worth!" she said. "Always are in that room!"

She bore the tray before like a charger, and entered Suite A without parley.

Herman Medfield looked up and saw her, and rose instinctively.

Aunt Jane set the tray on the table and pushed the table gently toward him. "Sit down," she said.

He sat down in his chair by the window, looking up at her inquiringly.

"Everything's there," said Aunt Jane. She glanced over the tray. "You're to eat it all--all there is on the tray."

The man laid down his paper and smiled at her quizzically.

"But, madam, I have no appetite," he said courteously.

Aunt Jane regarded him mildly over her spectacles. "Folks that come here don't generally have appetites," she said. "They come here to get 'em."

Something crossed in the air between them and the millionaire's eyes dropped first. He drew his chair toward the table.

A half smile hovered on Aunt Jane's lips. She took up the coffee-pot and reached to the sugar. "How many lumps?" she asked pleasantly.

"Two, please," responded Herman Medfield.

She placed them in the cup and poured in cream and filled the cup with coffee. "Looks like good coffee, this morning," she said quietly. "You got everything you want?"

"I think so, yes." He looked at the tray with a little more interest and pecked at an egg.

Aunt Jane nodded shrewdly and kindly and went out.

It was only after she had gone that Herman Medfield remembered he had not spoken of the cigars. On the whole, he decided to wait until to-morrow for his cigar.

VIII

In Room 5 Mrs. John Pelton lay staring at the wall, with quiet face. From a clock-tower came the sound of the striking of the hour. She counted the strokes--nine o'clock. She wished it were ten and Dr. Carmon had come.... After he came and things began--the operation was only "things," even in the background of her mind--after Dr. Carmon got there and things began, it would not be so hard, she thought. It was the waiting part that was hard.

She had had a restless night. There had seemed so many hours; and she had thought of things that she ought to have done before she left home.... She had forgotten to tell any one about Tommie's milk. He always got upset so easy! She wondered if Mrs. Colby would know. It had been good in Mrs. Colby to say she would come in and look after the children a little. But Mamie was really old enough to cook for them.... And she did hope John would be all right--and not worry about her.... He would be at work at ten--when "things" were going on. That was good!... Mrs. John Pelton knew that it was work that would carry John over the hard place--work that would take every nerve and thought for itself. John was a puddler and they were to "run" at ten o'clock--or about ten. He would have his hands full--enough to think about and not worry--till things were over.... He would come, after work hours, to see how she had got through.

Then she had fallen asleep and dreamed she was slipping down a steep place--down, down, and couldn't stop--and some one had caught her arm.... And it was the nurse, waking her gently for something. And then she had dozed a little and wakened and wondered about the children again....

And no one had brought her any breakfast--not even a cup of coffee. "Nothing to eat this morning," the nurse had said, smiling, when she had plucked up courage to ask for something. The nurse was a nice girl--a good girl, Mrs. Pelton thought--but hardly older than Mamie, it seemed.

That older woman was so good yesterday! Aunt Jane's look and cap came floating hazily to her; and she slipped a hand under her cheek and fell asleep, thinking of it.

The thin face on the pillow, with the hair drawn tightly back and braided in its two small braids, had somehow a heroic look. There were lines of suffering on the forehead, but the mouth had a touch of something like courage, even in its sleep--as if it would smile, when the next hard thing was over.

Aunt Jane, who had come in silently and stood looking down at it, called it "the woman look."

"They always have it," she sometimes said--"the real ones have it--kind of as if they _knew_ things would come better--if just they could hold on--not give up, or make a fuss or anything--just hold on!"

The woman opened her eyes and smiled faintly. "I didn't know as you came to see us--in the rooms," she said.

Aunt Jane nodded. "Yes, I'm 'most everywhere."

She seated herself comfortably and looked about the room. "You've got a good day for your operation," she said. "It's a good, sunny day."

The woman's startled eyes sought her face. She had been living so alone in the hours of the night, that it seemed strange to her that any one should speak out loud of--"the operation."

Her lips half opened, to speak, and closed again.

Aunt Jane's glance rested on them and she smiled. "Dreading it?" she asked.

The lips moistened themselves and smiled back. "A little," said the woman.

Aunt Jane's face grew kinder and rounder and beamed on her; and the woman's eyes rested on it.

"You never had one, did you?" said Aunt Jane.

The woman shook her head.

"I thought likely not. Folks don't generally dread things that they've had--not so much as they do those they don't know anything about.... You won't dread it next time!" She said the words with a slow, encouraging smile.

The woman's face lighted. "I hope there won't be any next time," she replied softly.

"More than likely not. Dr. Carmon does his work pretty thorough." Aunt Jane made a little gesture of approval. "He does the best he knows how.... You won't mind it a bit, I guess--not half so much as you mind thinking about minding it."

"Do they carry me out?" asked the woman quickly. All the troubled lines of her face relaxed as she asked the question.

It was the look Aunt Jane had been waiting for. The blessedness of talking out was a therapeutic discovery all Aunt Jane's own.

Long before scientists had written of the value of spoken expression as a curative method--long before "mental therapy" was fashionable--Aunt Jane had come to know that "a good talk does folks a lot of good."

"Let them kind of spit it out," she said, "get it off the end of their tongues 'most any way.... It seems to do them a world of good--and it don't ever hurt me-- Seems to kind of slide off me."

She watched the light break in on the tense look, with a little smile, and bent toward the bed.

"No, you don't have to be carried--not unless you want to. I guess you're pretty good and strong; and you've got good courage. I can see that."

"I'd rather walk," said the woman quickly.

"Yes, I know." Aunt Jane nodded. "I'll go with you--when the time comes. We just go down the hall here a little way--to the elevator. The operating-room's on the top floor-- It's a nice, sunny, big room. And you'll have the ether in the room next to it. There's a lounge there for you to lie on and a nice comfortable chair for me."

"Shall you go with me?" It was a quick word.

"Yes, I'm going up with you. I go, a good many times, with folks that want me----"

"Yes, I want you."

The small face had grown relaxed; the eyes were clear and waiting. The unbleached nightgown, with the bit of coarse edging at neck and wrists, seemed a comely garment.

Something had taken place in Room 5, for which scientists have not yet found a name. At ten o'clock Dr. Carmon would perform his difficult operation on the frail body of Mrs. John Pelton. But the spirit that would go under the knife was the spirit of Aunt Jane, smiling and saying placidly:

"There, he's just come. That's his car tooting out here. Now we're ready to go."

IX

The room had a sunny stillness. The sun poured in at the window on the whiteness and on the figure lying on the couch and on the young doctor bending toward it and adjusting the ether cone with light touch, and on Aunt Jane rocking placidly in her chair by the couch.

"You won't mind it a mite," said Aunt Jane. Her hand held the thin one in its warm clasp. "You won't mind.... Dr. Doty'll give it to you, nice. He's about the best one we've got--to give it."

The doctor smiled at the words--a boyish, whimsical smile at flattery. He adjusted the cone a little. "Breathe deep," he said gently.

There was silence in the room--only a little burring sound somewhere, and the soft creak of Aunt Jane's rockers as they moved to and fro.

The door of the operating-room stood open. Through the crack Aunt Jane could see a round, stout figure, enveloped from head to foot in its rubber apron, bending over a tray of instruments. The great arms, bare to the shoulders, the exposed neck, and round head with short bristling hair, a little bald at the top, gave a curious sense of alert power and force.

Aunt Jane had never seen a picture of St. George and the Dragon, or of St. Michael. She had scant material for comparison. But I suspect if she had seen through the open door of the operating-room, either of these saints fastening on his greaves--whatever greaves may be--and getting ready for the dragon, he would have seemed to her a less heroic and noble and beautiful figure than the short, square man, bending over his case of instruments and selecting a particularly sharp and glittering one for use.

The young doctor leaning over the figure on the couch moved a little and lifted his head. "All right," he said quietly. He nodded toward the door of the operating-room.

A nurse appeared in the doorway.

Aunt Jane pushed back her chair; and the nurse and doctor, at either end, lifted the movable top of the couch by its handles and carried the light burden easily between them to the open door.

Aunt Jane watched till the door was shut.... Her work began and ended at the door of the operating-room.

Inside that door, Dr. Carmon was supreme. Elsewhere in the hospital Aunt Jane might treat him as a mere man; she might criticise and advise, and even rebuke the surgeon for whose use the hospital had been built and endowed. But within the operating-room he was supreme. She allowed patients to enter that door without word or comment, and she received them back from his hands with a childlike humility that went a long way--it may be--toward reconciling the surgeon to her rule elsewhere.

"Aunt Jane knows what she knows--and what she doesn't know," Dr. Carmon had been heard to say. And if she regarded him as a mere man, it is only fair to say that he, in turn, looked upon Aunt Jane as a woman; a mere woman, perhaps, but remarkably sensible--for a woman.

When the door of the operating-room closed upon her, Aunt Jane stood a minute in the sunny room, looking tranquilly about. She drew down a shade and returned the rocking-chair to its place and went quietly out.

In the corridor, nurses were coming and going with long, light boxes or tall vases and great handfuls of fragrant blossoms. The florist's wagon had just come; the corridor was filled with light and movement and the fresh scent of flowers. Aunt Jane beamed on it all and passed on.

It was one of the pleasantest hours of the day for Aunt Jane. She knew that scrubbing and sweeping and dusting were done--every inch of the hard floors clean with carbolic and soap, every patient bathed and fed, and the beds freshly made--everything in order for doctor's visits--and inspection. Through an open door, here and there as she went, she caught a glimpse of a black-coated shoulder or arm by the side of some bed. Aunt Jane had no fear of adverse criticism on her hospital or of complaint of her way of doing things.

She moved serenely on.

Then, at a door, she stopped. It was at the far end of the corridor; and through the half-curtained glass of the door she looked into a great sunny room that extended across the width of the house and opened on one side to the sky and all outdoors.

It was filled with small cots and beds and cribs.

X

Aunt Jane stood in the doorway a minute, smiling and looking down the long room. Presently from somewhere there came a piping cry:

"Aunt Jane's come!"

And then another cry--and another: "Aunt Jane's come! Aunt Jane's come!"

No one knew who had started the custom. But some child, some sunny morning, had broken out with it when Aunt Jane appeared. And the others had taken it up, as children will; and now it had become a happy part of the day's routine, as regular as the doctor's visit--or the night nurse's rounds.

"Aunt Jane's come--Aunt Jane's come!"

They broke off from picture-books or blocks, to look up and call out and pass the word along. Then they chanted it together.... And the newcomer in the ward, a boy lying with bandaged face and eyes half closed, turned a first curious, questioning look--to find the white-capped face smiling down at him.

At the top of the house, at either end of the long corridor--in Dr. Carmon's operating-room and here in the Children's Ward--Aunt Jane was not the implacable personage that ruled elsewhere in the hospital.

She beamed down the ward.

A dozen hands reached out to her and she smiled to them and nodded and scolded a little and fussed and drew them all into a happy sense that this was home--and Aunt Jane a kind of new and glorified mother for little children. All the sick ones and lame ones, and the bruised ones and bandaged ones were Aunt Jane's children-- It did not seem like a hospital, as one looked down the sunny room, so much as a place where children were gathered in; pinched faces lighted up--for the first time in life, perhaps--with round, shrewd, loving smiles for Aunt Jane; delicate bandaged faces looked out at her wistfully and happily; and laughing, rosy ones turned to her.

There were no unhappy ones there. "Children suffer and don't know," was Aunt Jane's comment.

Sometimes as she stood among them she marvelled a little at the quiet unconscious force that ignored pain, or adjusted itself to twinges. Some child, with a look almost of impatience, would shift a bandaged leg or foot to an easier position, as it listened to the story she was telling or entered into some game of her contriving.

Sometimes it was a guessing game that was played by the whole ward at once--a kind of twenty questions, shouted at her as she came in, her hands held carefully behind her.... And, curiously, it was always some little one that guessed first; some feeble one, just beginning to take notice, that had a glimpse of Aunt Jane's broad back as she turned casually with a serene unconscious look, or moved a little and revealed the hidden thing behind her.

The whole ward was interested this morning in Jimmie Sullivan's new leg. It was a frame-leg that got in the way when he walked and tripped him up. He was a little proud of it, but more annoyed, as he came hurrying down the ward to meet her.

Aunt Jane adjusted her spectacles and looked.

"Well, well!" she said.

Jimmie glanced down at it, a little proud and abashed. "It can't walk," he admitted.

"Want me to carry you?" asked Aunt Jane.

"No, sir!" He slipped a proud hand into hers and stumbled happily and awkwardly along.

Aunt Jane moved toward a bed where a child lay strapped on his back, hands and feet and head held fast, only his eyes free to turn to her with a smile.

"How's Alec?" said Aunt Jane.

"All right," replied the child. "You going to tell a story?"

"Well--maybe. I don't know as I know any new stories," she said slowly. She considered it.