Chapter 13

OLD HOPES AND NEW

Along toward the middle of the summer Carol began eating her meals on the porch with David, and they fixed up a small table with doilies and flowers, and said they were keeping house all over again. Sometimes, when David was sleeping, Carol slipped noiselessly into the room to turn over with loving fingers the soft woolen petticoats, and bandages, and bonnets, and daintily embroidered dresses,--gifts of the women of their church back in the Heights in St. Louis.

About David the doctors had been frank with Carol.

"He may live a long time and be comfortable, and enjoy himself. But he will never be able to do a man's work again."

"Are you sure?" Carol had taken the blow without flinching.

"Oh, yes. There is no doubt about that."

"What shall I do?"

"Just be happy that he is here, and not suffering. Love him, and amuse him, and enjoy him as much as you can. That is all you can do."

"Let's not tell him," she suggested. "It would make him so sorry."

"That is a good idea. Keep him in the dark. It is lots easier to be happy when hope goes with it."

But long before this, David had looked his future in the face. "I have been set aside for good," he thought. "I know it, I feel it. But Carol is so sure I will be well again! She shall never know the truth from me."

When Carol intensely told him he was stronger, he agreed promptly, and said he thought so, himself.

"Oh, blessed old David, I'm so glad you don't know about it," thought Carol.

"My sweet little Carol, I hope you never find out until it is over," thought David.

Sometimes Carol stood at the window when David was sleeping, and looked out over the long mesa to the mountains. Her gaze rested on the dark heavy shadows of the canyons. To her, those dark valleys in the mountains represented a buried vision,--the vision of David strong and sturdy again, springing lightly across a tennis court, walking briskly through mud and snow to conduct a little mission in the Hollow, standing tall and straight and sunburned in the pulpit swaying the people with his fervor. It was a buried hope, a shadowy canyon. Then she looked up to the sunny slopes, stretching bright and golden above the shadows up to the snowy crest of the mountain peaks. Sunny slopes,--a new hope rising out of the old and towering above it. And then she always went back to the chest in the corner of the room and fingered the tiny garments, waiting there for service, with tender fingers.

And once in a while, not very often, David would say, smiling, "Who knows, Carol, but you two may some day do the things we two had hoped to do?"

A few weeks later Aunt Grace came out from Mount Mark, and in her usual soft, gentle way drifted into the life of the chasers in the sanatorium. She told of the home, of William's work and tireless zeal, of Lark and Jim, of Fairy and Babbie, of Prudence and Jerry. She talked most of all of Connie.

"That Connie! She is a whole family all by herself. She is entirely different from the rest of you. She is unique. She doesn't really live at all, she just looks on. She watches life with the cool critical eyes of a philosopher and a stoic and an epicure all rolled into one. She comes, she sees, she draws conclusions. William and I hold our breath. She may set the world on fire with her talent, or she may become a demure little old maid crocheting jabots and feeding kittens. No one can foretell Connie."

And Carol, in a beautiful, heavenly relief at having this blessed outlet for her pent-up feelings, reclined in a big rocker on the porch, and smiled at Aunt Grace, and glowed at David, and declared the sunny slopes were so brilliant they dazzled her eyes.

There came a day when she packed a suitcase, and petted David a little and gave him very strict instructions as to how he was to conduct himself in her absence, and went away over to the other building, and settled down in a pleasant up-stairs room with Aunt Grace in charge. For several days she lounged there quietly content, gazing for hours out upon the marvelous mesa land, answering with a cheery wave the gay greetings shouted up to her from chasers loitering beneath her windows.

But one morning, she watched with weary throbbing eyes as Aunt Grace and a nurse and a chamber maid carefully wrapped up a tiny pink flannel roll for a visit to Room Number Six in the McCormick Building.

"Tell him I am just fine, and it is a lucky thing that he likes girls better than boys, and we think she is going to look like me. And be particularly sure to tell him she is very, very pretty, the doctor and the nurse both say she is,--David might overlook it if his attention were not especially called to it."

Three weeks later, the suit-case was packed once more, and Carol was moved back across the grounds to Number Six and David, where already little Julia was in full control.

"Aren't you glad she is pretty, David?" demanded Carol promptly. "I was so relieved. Most of them are so red and frowsy, you know. I've seen lots of new ones in my day, but this is my first experience with a pretty one."

The doctor and the nurse had the temerity to laugh at that, even with Julia, pink and dimply, right before them. "Oh, that old, old story," said the doctor. "I'm looking for a woman who can class her baby with the others. I intend to use my fortune erecting a monument to her if I find her,--but the fortune is safe. Every woman's baby is the only pretty one she ever saw in her life."

Carol and David were a little indignant at first, but finally they decided to make allowances for the doctor,--he was old, and of course he must be tired of babies, he had ushered in so many. They would try and apply their Christian charity to him, though it was a great strain on their religion.

But what should be done with Julia? David was so ill, Carol so weak, the baby so tender. Was it safe to keep her there? But could they let that little rosebud go?

"Why, I will just take her home with me," said Aunt Grace gently. "And we'll keep her until you are ready. Oh, it won't be a bit of trouble. We want her."

That settled it. The baby was to go.

"For once in my life I have made a sacrifice," said Carol grimly. "I think I must be improving. I have allowed myself to be hurt, and crushed, and torn to shreds, for the good of some one else. I certainly must be improving."

Later she thought, "She will know all her aunties before she knows me. She will love them better. When I go home, she will not know me, and will cry for Aunt Grace. She will be afraid of me. Really, some things are very hard." But to David she said that of course the doctors were right, and she and David were so old and sensible that it would be quite easy to do as they were bid. And they were so used to having just themselves that things would go on as they always had.

But more nights than one she cried herself to sleep, craving the touch of the little rosebud baby learning of motherhood from some one else.