Chapter 8
DURING the famous Pullman strike of last summer, duty bade me cross to Chicago in the interests of the _Echo_. On Saturday afternoon, July the 7th, I was at the pulse of the Anarchist movement, near the corner of Loomis and Forty-ninth Streets. Taking up my stand in the deep entry of a "House to Let," I watched the operations of a body of strikers gathered round a box car close to the Grand Trunk crossing. They had set it afire, and were trying to overturn it upon the railway track, encouraged by the cheers of a mob numbering about two thousand men, women, and children.
The incendiaries were so much engrossed that they did not observe, backing swiftly down upon them, the wrecking train it was their purpose to block. While still in motion, the cars disgorged Captain Kelly and his company, who had been guarding the Pan Handle tracks all day, but had not yet, it seemed, earned their night's repose.
The crowd greeted the soldiers with stones, brickbats, and pieces of old iron, but the car burners proceeded with their little job, paying no attention at all to the approach of the military.
A pistol bullet out of the mob swished in among his men, and then Captain Kelly gave the order to fire. When the smoke of the volley cleared away, I saw the people stand still, shocked and dumb with surprise. A second later, realizing that the worm had had the audacity to turn, they vented a medley of shrieks and roars, and closed round the handful of soldiers, to be met by the points of bayonets.
The yelling mass of humanity scattered, took refuge in lanes and houses, but regaining courage, appeared here and there in sections, to be assailed once more by soldiers and police. The latter had to fight it out by themselves after a while, for the military boarded the wrecking train again, and the engineer, completely "rattled," opened the throttle, and whisked them away to the West, leaving a dozen revolver-armed policemen to meet the assaults of a mob that had now increased to five thousand.
The Press abuses the police on principle, but, seeing that heroic encounter, I wavered in the keeping of my promise to Belle not to run into danger. Even as I hesitated, "hurry-up wagons" arrived with re-enforcements from neighboring police stations, and then the crowd could not disperse quickly enough. It was a desperate sight--men knocking each other down in their haste to get away, and the women who had been spurring them on, now shrieking and groaning like maniacs. One of the poor creatures was hit on the ankle by a bullet, and her falling over into the gutter was too much for my virtuous resolution. Even if she is a dirty, howling Polack, a man does not enjoy seeing a woman knocked down, so I left my doorstep and went to help the lady up. Constitutionally I am not a brave man, but I forgot all about the flying bullets till one took me in the knee, and I toppled over, hitting my head against the curbstone as I did so. I must have been stunned, for when I opened my eyes again the street was empty, except for a thundering vehicle that was bearing straight down upon me.
At first I thought it was a runaway, for the horse was foaming of mouth and bloodshot of eyeball; but no, there was a man, or fiend, with a similar wild gleam in his eye, urging the brute upon me, while he sounded a gong to keep everything out of his way. All this I saw in a flash, and in a flash too went through my mind the advice given by President Cleveland in his proclamation to non-combatants to keep out of harm's way.
I rolled over on my side with the sickening certainty that the next instant the hoofs and the wheels would be upon me, but the horse pulled up on his haunches at my very feet, the rattle and clanging ceased, and a doctor in his shirt sleeves appeared as if by magic.
It was an ambulance, of course.
I fainted when they lifted me, and only came to myself in the hospital--Mary's hospital, and her ward. Every one in Chicago was crowded that week and the next, but--the ruling principle strong in death--I declined to be put away out of eyeshot and earshot into a private room.
"D'ye want me to send word to Mis' Gemmell to come?" asked Mary, and I replied drowsily:
"No, don't. She's better to keep out of harm's way. She would be sure to sympathize with the strikers."
"But she'll wonder where you are."
"She can't get here safely, as things are now, and the mails are all upset. Don't write. Send a telegram in my name. Date it Chicago, and tell her I'm detained, but that I'll go home Monday, sure."
That same night I was off in a high fever. It was days and days before I came to myself, and then I was too weak to ask or to care how everything was going on at home. My whole interest in life was concentrated upon that hospital ward, and with half-closed eyes I lay there and took notes unconsciously.
An ideal life it may seem to outsiders, but there is as much wire-pulling, as much jealousy and scandal within the walls of one of those big institutions, as anywhere else on this planet. It is an epitome of the world battle, and the strugglers meet in hand-to-hand conflict.
Nurse Dean, the head of our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think her unduly severe upon Mary, after I heard her giving that damsel "Hail Columbia" for her carelessness in having administered the wrong medicine one whole forenoon to Number Nine--which was myself.
If I had not made a feeble protest in her favor, "Nurse Gemmell" would have been discharged on the spot.
I do not wish to leave the impression that Mary had not in her the making of a fairly good nurse. She was light of foot, as well as quick of hand, and I liked to have her do things for me; found her _aura_ agreeable, as Belle would have expressed it. Like many half-educated people, she was very observant, but, so far as I could judge, she had one eye on her work and the other on the lookout for flirtations. I became quite interested in some of them.
There was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse Dean was off duty, and she brought out her silver-plated cornet to "toot" a little for him, he declared it was the most ravishing music he had ever heard in his life!
I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace himself up to part from Mary. Then there was a young doctor whose face I dimly recognized, but it tired my poor head too much to try to think who he was. He and Mary had many a talk at my bedside about their own affairs. One evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a banjo, and managed to twist myself round far enough to see that this same doctor was playing an accompaniment to Mary's very fair imitation of a skirt dance out in the passage.
The sight revived me so much that I laughed aloud, and Mary came hastily forward, blushing, with finger on her lip. The pink and white uniform did indeed become her wonderfully well, and I was not surprised to notice hearty admiration in the sleepy blue eyes of the young house surgeon. Where had I seen that "Burne Jones' head" before?
"You don't seem to remember me, Mr. Gemmell," said the owner of it, holding out his hand. "My name's Flaker. I was at Interlaken summer before last."
"You're a full-fledged M. D. now?"
"Oh, yes, but I'm taking a year's practice in here, before I set up for myself."
Shades of the hotel matrons! They would probably say, if they heard this, that Mary had been sent here on purpose to catch him.
Poor Mary! She had her own row to hoe. She came to me in tears one evening because Nurse Dean had been after her that whole day about one thing or another.
"I am never particular 'nough to please her. If it wasn't for Dr. Flaker I wouldn't stay here another day."
"You like him pretty well, eh?"
"Well enough, an' he's all broke up on me; says he was at Interlaken too, on'y he couldn't say anythin', 'cause he wasn't of age. His folks are awful high-toned."
"They'll have their discipline," thought I.
"By the way, Mary, how long is it since I was brought here?"
"Two weeks to-day."
I sprang almost out of bed in my surprise. "Why didn't you tell me? Has no word been sent to Lake City?"
"None since that first telegram. I don't write very often now to your wife, but when I did, I never said nothin' 'tall about your bein' here, 'cause you told me not to."
"And haven't you had an answer?"
"There's a letter lyin' there from Mis' Gemmell to you. I don't know how she could have found out your address. Nurse Dean said I wasn't to give it to you if you was a bit feverish."
"Fetch it this minute, Mary, or I'll get up and walk the floor," and the girl brought me this remarkable document. It had neither beginning nor end, but rushed to the point at once.
"I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what I had promised you not to do--went out in my astral to hunt for you--and I found you! Would to God I had never tried! It is not my health that is ruined, but my heart and my happiness. To make assurance doubly sure, I psychometrized the only letter I have received from Mary in weeks. She was cunning enough not to mention your name, but the unspoken testimony was the same. To think that you of all men--but I do not blame you! I have gone down to the _Echo_ office, my heart bursting with despair, and have told lies to account for your absence, to keep things moving until you see fit to send your own explanation. I have thrown dust too in the eyes of the family, till you tell me your will concerning them. No, I dare not blame you! Did not I myself thrust the girl into your life--and the best of us are but human. It is Karma! I have deserved this blow for some previous sin of my own, and I bow my head to the stroke. Your own harvest will be just as certain, however long delayed. O David, David! I can look back now and see the very beginning of your interest in Mary--but that it should end in this--that you should fly from me to her----'"
Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike, "Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure," but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City.
Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "You stay where you are, and keep an eye on Dr. Flaker, or you'll maybe get left again."
"No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger.
"We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of money."
The stones in her ring caught the evening sunlight as she stood on the wharf waving her handkerchief to me, while the boat moved slowly out, and I lay in a steamer chair on the hurricane deck, prepared to enjoy a smoke and a gossip with my old friend, the captain.
I wished her well with all my heart, but I sincerely hoped that I had seen the last of Mary.
Judging the family to be at Interlaken as usual, I took the first train down there, and toiled in the sun from the depot up to the cottages, by way of the hill, which I had never considered steep before, to find my own house deserted, windows and doors boarded up, veranda unswept, hammocks removed. I would not give any of the neighbors the satisfaction of knowing I was surprised and disappointed, so I kept out of sight till they had all been to the hotel for dinner and dispersed. Then I went in for mine, and after it returned to the beach near the station, lay down on the sand, and waited for the next train.
There was not one back to town until late in the afternoon, and the evening being cloudy, it was quite dark by the time I left the electric car at the corner of our street. Even that little bit of a walk exhausted me, and I had to rest on my stick every few minutes, but what a relief it was to see, gleaming cheerfully as ever, the windows of the House of the Seven Gables.
I leaned against our iron railing for a minute or two to collect myself before making my appearance, and highly necessary was it for me to do so, because the attitude of the two ladies upon the veranda struck me dumb with amazement, and their conversation completely floored me. That sandy-haired little woman in the low rocker must be my mother, but could that regal figure on the edge of the veranda, with her head in my mother's lap, possibly be my wife? The light from the nursery window showed them to me distinctly, but I kept back in the shadow and listened to the voices.
"My puir lamb! Ye've grat eneugh! Gang awa' tae yer bed; ye're sair forfoughten."
As she stroked the wavy gray hair of the head on her knee, her tone changed.
"I canna thole to think 'at son o' mine has brocht a' this trouble upon ye."
"Not a word against him, mother! He's the best man that ever lived, and I didn't appreciate him, that's all. I can never think of him but as my dear, old, solid, yours-to-count-on Dave Gemmell. He was the silent partner, unpopular, getting no praise, paying all bills, backing me up in every fad, whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the square foundation I could lean away out on--could dance jigs on if I wanted to. Now that he is dead--or dead to me--I can only hope that he is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept."
"Let by-ganes be by-ganes--but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the lug."
"Lug along, mother! Here I am!" I managed to shout, and then I hung over that fence and laughed till my specs dropped off in the grass, and my stick fell away from me. I could not move without it, so I had to wait till the two women took pity on me and released me from my impalement.
Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and listened to what I had to say.
"I was share there must be some mistak'," said my mother, her self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not regret the bullet in my knee.
"We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle--a collection of half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far."
"Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you so thin. Your clothes are just hanging on you. Oh! if I had only known the true state of the case and been there to nurse you!"
"Mary has been very good to me, I assure you."
"I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again."
"Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't want to '_pa_pa' and '_mam_ma' us, though she may condescend to patronize us a little."
"I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!"
* * * * *
My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say. Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful attitude toward the approach of old age, her conviction that we are to have another chance--many more chances--to do and to be that which we have failed in doing and being, _this time_.
To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been
THE MAKING OF MARY.
EPILOGUE.
NURSE DEAN walked through the Pest House, adjoining the great hospital, with the independent mien of the woman who is confident that her skirt clears the ground. Her keen, light-colored eyes took in at a glance the condition of every patient, the occupation of every nurse.
There had been a smallpox epidemic in Chicago, and three of the nurses in ---- Hospital had taken the disease, two of them lightly, one very heavily; but all were now convalescent. The two had gone home to their friends to recruit, but the third lay in an invalid chair in a darkened room, looking as if the desire of life had left her. Nurse Dean came in with a cheery smile, put on just outside the door, and proceeded to bathe the girl's eyes with warm water.
"When are you coming out to help me, Mary? I'm sure the light wouldn't hurt you now. I'm having too much night work, those other nurses being gone. I thought you might begin to ease me a little with the smallpox patients through the day."
"I don't know as I care to go on with the business," replied Mary, sometime called Mason.
"Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better, but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again. There's nothing like work of this sort to make a person forget herself."
Nurse Dean's strong but gentle hands began to rub with oil the patient's neck and shoulders.
"I wish I could forget myself and everybody else too. I wish I had died of the smallpox. There aint anybody that cares whether I live or die."
"Hush! Mary, you forget Dr. Flaker."
"Aint it just him I'm thinkin' about? He came in to see me to-day for the first time. He hates smallpox, and he smelt so of iodoform he nearly made me sick. About all he had to say was that it was very foolish of me to meddle with the clothes of them patients, and he could hardly believe I was so crazy's not to be vaccinated when the other nurses were. Just as if it wasn't him that admired my lovely arms. Look at them now!"
"They won't be so bad when all these scales are off. There! Doesn't that feel better?"
"It feels all right enough, but you know I'll be a sight to be seen the rest of my days. I was glad the room was dark, so's Flaker couldn't get a good look at me. He'll know soon enough--and hate the sight of me. He was always so proud of my 'pearance."
"But I'm sure he likes you for something else too, Mary."
"I don't care whether he does or not, he's got to marry me just the same. I aint goin' to be left again," and the girl tried to make a blazing diamond ring keep in place upon her thin finger.
"You love him very much?"
"Don't know as I do--no more than lots of other fellows; but I won't have any more chances now. I didn't ask to be born into this world, and somebody in it owes me a living."
"See here, Mary!" said the nurse, in a suddenly energetic tone that made the girl look up at her with startled eyes. "You know, as well as I do, that you can't make that man marry you. Why not give him back his ring of your own free will?"
"Why should I? You think I aint in love?"
"Love? You don't know what the word means in any but its very lowest sense. Suppose you stop loving men, and take to loving women and children; you'll find them much more grateful, I can tell you."
Mary closed her eyes, but there were no eyelashes to keep the tears from trickling out upon the scarred face.
"My dear child!" said Nurse Dean, in a voice hardly recognizable, it was so sympathetic, "you've been fighting for yourself ever since you can remember, and you haven't made much of it, have you?"
The girl's lips shaped an inaudible "No."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea, then, to try a little fighting for other people?"
"I haven't any folks."
"Your 'folks' are whoever you can help in any way. What have you done yet to deserve a foothold on this earth? Instead of seeing how much you can get out of everybody, turn round and see how much you can do for them."
* * * * *
There was a long silence. When Nurse Dean thought her charge was falling asleep, she placed a shawl carefully over her, but Mary, without opening her eyes, drew something from her left hand to her right.
"You can give him back his ring," she said.
Nurse Dean closed the door softly behind her, and then paused for a moment to wipe an impertinent tear from her cold gray eye.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if the smallpox were just The Making of Mary."
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Transcriber's Note
Two minor changes were made during the transcription of this book:
* "the malone" was changed to "them alone" * two instances of "Gemmel" were changed to "Gemmell"