The Primrose Ring

Would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the 30th of April-which is May Eve, as everybody knows?

This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year-reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint Margaret's, found the flower-seller at the corner of the street that morning with his basket full of primroses. Now primroses are "gentle flowers," as everybody ought to know-which means that the faeries have been using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret MacLean bought the full of her hands that morning.

And this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret's-which fell on the 30th of April-and to the beginning of the story.

Saint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children does not belong to the city. It was built by a rich man as a memorial to his son, a little crippled lad who stayed just long enough to leave behind as a legacy for his father a great crying hunger to minister to all little ailing and crippled bodies. There are golden tales concerning those first years of the hospital-tales passed on by word of mouth alone and so old as to have gathered a bit of the misty glow of illusion that hangs over all myths and traditions. They made of Saint Margaret's an arcadian refuge, where the Founder wandered all day and every day like a patron saint. Tradition endowed him with all the attributes of all saints belonging to childhood: the protectiveness of Saint Christopher, the tenderness of Saint Anthony, the loving comradeship of Saint Valentine, and the joyfulness of Saint Nicholas.

But that was more than fifty years ago; and institutions can change marvelously in half a century. Time had buried more than the Founder.

The rich still support Saint Margaret's. Society gives bazars and costumed balls for it annually; great artists give benefit concerts; bankers, corporation presidents, and heiresses send liberal checks once a year-and from this last group are chosen the trustees. They have made of Saint Margaret's the best-appointed hospital in the city. It is supplied with everything money and power can obtain; leading surgeons are listed on its staff; its nurses rank at the head. It has outspanned the greatest dream of the Founder-professionally. And twelve times a year-at the end of every month-the trustees hold their day; which means that all through the late afternoon, until the business meeting at five-thirty, they wander over the building.

Now it is the business of institutional directors to be thorough, and the trustees of Saint Margaret's, previous to the 30th of April, never forgot their business. They looked into corners and behind doors to see what had not been done; they followed the work-trails of every employee-from old Cassie, the scrub-woman, to the Superintendent herself; and if one was a wise employee one blazed conspicuously and often. They gathered in little groups and discussed methods for conservation and greater efficiency, being as up to date in their charities as in everything else. Also, they brought guests and showed them about; for when one was rich and had put one's money into collections of sick and crippled children instead of old ivories and first editions, it did not at all mean that one had not retained the same pride of exhibiting.

There are a few rare natures who make collections for the sheer love of the objects they collect, and if they can be persuaded to show them off at all it is always with so much tenderness and sympathy that even the feelings of a delicately wrought Buddha could not be bruised. But there were none of these natures numbered among the trustees of Saint Margaret's. And because it was purely a matter of charity and pride with them, and because they never had any time left over from being thorough and business-like to spend on the children themselves, they never failed to leave a shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day. The contagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of self-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward and went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until it reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation. There was a reason for this-as Margaret MacLean put it once in paraphrase:

"Children come and children go, but we stay on for ever."

Trustee Day was an abiding memory only with the incurables; which meant that twelve times a year-at the end of every month-Ward C cried itself to sleep.

Spring could not have begun the day better. She is never the spendthrift that summer is, but once in a while she plunges recklessly into her treasure-store and scatters it broadcast. On this last day of April she was prodigal with her sunshine; out countryward she garnished every field and wood and hollow with her best. Everywhere were flowers and pungent herby things in such abundance that even the city folk could sense them afar off.

Little cajoling breezes scuttled around corners and down thoroughfares, blowing good humor in and bad humor out. Birds of passage-song-sparrows, tanagers, bluebirds, and orioles-even a pair of cardinals-stopped wherever they could find a tree or bush from which to pipe a friendly greeting. Yes, spring certainly could not have begun the day better; it was as if everything had said to itself, "We know this is a very special occasion and we must do our share in making it fine."

So well did everything succeed that Margaret MacLean was up and out of Saint Margaret's a full half-hour earlier than usual, her heart singing antiphonally with the birds outside. Coatless, but capped and in her gray uniform, she jumped the hospital steps, two at a time, and danced the length of the street.

Now Margaret MacLean was small and slender, and there was nothing grotesque in the dancing. It had become a natural means of expressing the abundant life and joyousness she had felt ever since she had been free of crutches and wheeled chairs; and an impartial stranger, had he been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself and his basket.

"Oh!" she cried in dismay, for the flower-seller was wizened and unsteady of foot, and she had sent him spinning about in a dizzy fashion. She put out a steadying hand. "Oh . . . !" This time it was in ecstasy; she had spied the primroses in the basket just as the sunshine splashed over the edge of the corner building straight down upon them. Margaret MacLean dropped to one knee and laid her cheek against them. "The happy things-you can hear them laugh! I want all-all I can carry." She looked up quizzically at the flower-seller. "Now how did you ever happen to think of bringing these-to-day?"

A pair of watery old eyes twinkled, thereby becoming amazingly young in an instant, and he wagged his head mysteriously while he raised a significant finger. "Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther bringin' anythin' else? But the rest that passes-or stops-will see naught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'." And the flower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.

"Perhaps not. There are the children-"

"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible wise."

"I know-I know-but mine aren't. I'm going to take my children back as many as I can carry." She stretched both hands about a mass of stems-all they could compass. "See"-she held up a giant bunch-"so much happiness is worth a great deal. Feel in the pocket of my apron and you will find-gold for gold. It was the only money I had in my purse. Keep it all, please." With a nod and a smile she left him, dancing her way back along the still deserted street.

"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all," chuckled the flower-seller as he eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called after the diminishing figure of the nurse: "Hey, there! Mind what ye do wi' them blossoms. They be's powerful strong magic." And he chuckled again.

The hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped for an interchange of grins and greetings.

"Mornin', Miss Peggie."

"Morning, Patsy."

He was "Patrick" to the rest of Saint Margaret's; no one else seemed to realize that he was only about one-fifth uniform and the other fifths were boy-small boy at that.

She eyed his work critically. "That's right-polish them well, Patsy.

They must shine especially bright to-day."

"Why, what's happenin' to-day?"

"Oh-everything, and-nothing at all."

And she passed on through the door with a most mysterious smile, thereby causing Patsy to mentally comment:

"My, don't she beat all! More'n half the time a feller don't know what she's kiddin' about; but, gee! don't he like it!"

As it happened the primroses did not get as far as Ward C then. Margaret MacLean found the door of the board-room ajar, and, glancing in, looked square into the eyes of the Founder of Saint Margaret's, where he hung in his great gold frame-silent and questioning.

"If all the tales they tell about you are true, you must wonder what has happened to Saint Margaret's since you turned it over to a board of trustees."

She went in and stood close to him, smiling wistfully. "Perhaps you would like me to leave you the primroses until after the meeting-they would be sure to cheer you up; and they might-they might-" Laughing, she went over to the President's desk and put the flowers in the green Devonshire bowl.

She was sitting in the President's chair, coaxing some of the hoydenish blossoms into place, when the House Surgeon looked in a moment later.

"Hello! What are you doing? I thought you detested this room." He spoke in a teasing, big-brother way, while his eyes dwelt pleasurably on the small gray figure in the President's chair. For, be it said without partiality or prejudice, Margaret MacLean was beautiful, with a beauty altogether free from self-appraisement.

"I do-I hate it!" Then she wagged her head and raised a significant finger in perfect imitation of the flower-seller. "I am dabbling in-magic. I am starting here a terrible and insidious campaign against gloom."

The House Surgeon looked amused. "You make me shiver, all right; but I haven't the smallest guess coming. Would you mind putting it into scientific American?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't. But I can make a plain statement in prose-this is Trustee Day."

"Hell!" The House Surgeon walked over to the calendar on the desk to verify the fact. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Margaret MacLean spread her hands over the primroses, indicatively. "I told you-magic." She wrinkled up her forehead into a worrisome frown. "Let me see; I counted them, up last night, and I have had two hundred and twenty-eight Trustee Days in my life. I have tried about everything else-philosophy, Christianity, optimism, mental sclerosis, and missionary fever; but never magic. Don't you think it sounds-hopeful?"

The House Surgeon laughed. "You are the funniest little person I ever knew. On duty you're as old as Methuselah and as wise as Hippocrates, but the rest of the time I believe your feet are eternally treading the nap off antique wishing-carpets. I wonder how many you've worn out. As for that head of yours, it bobs like a penny balloon among the clouds looking for-"

"Faeries?" suggested Margaret MacLean.

"That just about hits it. Will you please tell me how you, of all people, ever evolved these-ideas-out of Saint Margaret's?"

A grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across the room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's-the portrait of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a person is born with absolutely nothing-nothing of the human things a human baby is entitled to-she has to evolve something to live in; a sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp-just skin and feelings."

"And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?"

"Oh dear, no! But I keep believing it's going to be much better. Did you ever think what it could be like-if the trustees would only make it something more than-a matter of business? Why, it could be as good as any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one; and think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried. Think-think-and, oh, the fun of it!"

She broke off with a little shivering ache. When the picture became so alive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop. But the next moment she was laughing merrily.

"Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered-just as if some one had said something pleasant."

"Well?" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.

"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those lorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was spoken to. I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them into god-parents."

"Look here," and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a firm, big-brother grip of her hands, "faery-tales have to have stepmothers as well as godmothers-think of it that way. And remember that those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches."

"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them. I want them to be children-plain, happy, laughing children-with as normal a heritage as we can scrape together for them. All it needs is the magic of a little human understanding. That's the most potent magic in the whole world. Why, it can do anything!"

A little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face. It always did when she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something very intensely. It was the hardest kind of a look to resist. She had often threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it was her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor and meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one could of a spiritual heritage and living thereby.

"And don't you see," she had urged, at least a score of times, "if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds run-free-limbed-over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor bodies. And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is learning to walk alone."

Usually the House Surgeon was easily convinced to the Margaret MacLean side of any argument; but this time, for reasons of his own, he turned an unsympathetic and stubborn ear. He was coming to believe very strongly that all this fanciful optimism was so much laughing-gas, with only a passing power, and when the effect wore off there would be the Dickens to pay. He did not want to see Margaret MacLean turn into a bitter-minded woman of the world-stripped of her trust and her dreams. He-all of them-had need of her as she was. Her belief in the ultimate good of things and persons, however, was beyond power of human achievement; and the surest cure for disappointments was to amputate all expectations. So the House Surgeon hardened his heart and became as professionally severe as he knew how to be.

"It's absolutely impossible to expect a group of incurable children in an institution to be made as normal and happy as other children. It can't be done. Those kiddies are up against a pretty hard proposition, I know; but the kindest thing you can do for them is to toughen them into not feeling-"

The nurse in charge of Ward C wrenched away her hands fiercely. "You're just like the Senior Surgeon. He thinks the whole dependent world-the sick and the poor and the incompetent-have no business with ideas or feelings of their own. He's always saying, 'Train it out of them; train it out of them; and it will make it easier for institutions to take care of them.' It's for ever the 'right of the strong' with him. Unless you are able to take care of yourself you are not entitled to the ordinary privileges of a human being."

"I'm not at all like the Senior Surgeon. I don't mean that, and you know it. What I am trying to make you understand is that these kiddies can't keep you always; some time they will have to learn to do without you. When that happens it will come tough on them. It would come tough on anybody; and the square thing for you to do is to stop being-so all-fired adorable." The House Surgeon flung back his head and marched out of the board-room, slamming the door.

Behind the slammed door Margaret MacLean eyed the primroses suspiciously. "I wonder-is your magic working all right to-day? Please-please don't weave any charms against him, little faery people. He is the only other grown-up person who has ever understood the least bit; and I couldn't bear to lose him, too."

For the second time that morning she nestled her cheek against the blossoms. Then the clock on the hospital tower struck eight. She jumped with a start. "Time to go on duty." Once again her eyes met the eyes of the Founder and sparkled witchingly. She raised high the green Devonshire bowl from the President's desk as for a toast.

"Here's to Saint Margaret's-as you founded her; and the children-as you meant them to be; and here's to the one who first understood!" She turned from the Founder to the portrait hanging opposite, and bowed most worshipfully to the Old Senior Surgeon.

As Margaret MacLean climbed the stairs to Ward C-she rarely took the lift, it was too remindful of the time when she could not climb stairs-her mind thought back a step for each step she mounted. When she had reached the top of the first flight she was a child again, back in one of the little white iron cribs in her own ward; and it was the day when the first stringent consciousness came to her that she hated Trustee Day.

The Old Senior Surgeon-the present one, of whom Saint Margaret's felt inordinately proud, was house surgeon then-had come into Ward C for a peep at her, and had called out, according to a firmly established custom, "Hello, Thumbkin! What's the news?"

She had been "Thumbkin" to him ever since the night he had carried her into the hospital, a tiny mite of a baby; and he had woven out of her coming a marvelous story-fancy-fashioned. This he had told her at least twice a week, from the time she was old enough to ask for it, because it had popped into his head quite suddenly that this morsel of humanity would some day insist on being accounted for.

The bare facts concerning her were rather shabby ones. She had been unceremoniously dumped into his arms by a delegate from the Foundling Asylum, who had found him the most convenient receptacle nearest the door; and he had been offered the meager information that she belonged to no one, was wrong somehow, and a hospital was the place for her.

One hardly likes to pass on shabby garments, much less shabby facts, to cover another's past. So the Old Senior Surgeon had forestalled her inquisitiveness with a tale adorned with all the pretty imaginings that he, "a clumsy-minded old gruffian," could conjure up.

Margaret MacLean remembered the story-word for word-as we remember "The House That Jack Built." It began with the Old Senior Surgeon himself, who heard a pair of birds disputing in one of the two trees which sentineled the hospital. They had built a nest therein; it was bedtime, and they wished to retire, only something prevented. Upon investigation he discovered the cause-"and there you were, my dear, no bigger than my thumb!"

This was the nucleus of the story; but the Old Senior Surgeon had rolled it about, hither and yon, adding adventure after adventure, until it had assumed gigantic proportions. As she grew older she took a hand in the adventure-making herself, he supplying the bare plot, she weaving the threads therefrom into a detailed narrative which she retold to him later, with a few imaginings of her own added. This is what had established the custom for the Old Senior Surgeon to take a peep into Ward C at day's end and call across to her: "Hello, Thumbkin! What's the news?" or, "What's happened next?" And until this day the answer had always been a joyous one.

Margaret MacLean, grown, could look back at tiny Margaret MacLean and see her very clearly as she straightened up in the little iron crib and answered in a shrill, tense voice: "I'm not Thumbkin. I'm a foundling. I don't belong to anybody. I never had any father or mother or nothing, but just a hurt back; they said so. They stood right there-two of them; and one told the other all about me."

This was the end of the story, and the beginning of Trustee Days for

Margaret MacLean.

She soon made the discovery that she was not the only child in the ward who felt about it that way. Her discovery was a matter of intuition rather than knowledge; for-as if by silent consent-the topic was carefully avoided in the usual ward conversation. One does not make it a rule to talk about the hobgoblins that lurk in the halls at night, or the gray, creeping shapes that come out of dark corners and closets after one has gone to bed, if one is so pitifully unfortunate as to possess these things in childhood. Instead one just remembers and waits, shivering. Only to old Cassie, the scrub-woman, who was young Cassie then, did she confide her fear. From her she received a charm-compounded of goose eggshells and vinegar-which Cassie claimed to be what they used in Ireland to unbewitch changelings. She kept the charm hidden for months under her pillow. It proved comforting, although absolutely ineffectual.

And for months there had been a strained relationship between the Old Senior Surgeon and herself, causing them both much embarrassment. She resented the story he had made for her with all her child soul; he had cheated her-fooled her. She felt much as we felt toward our parents when we made our first discovery concerning Santa Claus.

But after a time-a long time-the story came to belong to her again; she grew to realize that the Old Senior Surgeon had told it truthfully-only with the unconscious tongue of the poet instead of the grim realist. She found out as well that it had done a wonderful thing for her: it had turned life into an adventure-a quest upon which one was bound to depart, no matter how poorly one's feet might be shod or how persistently the rain and wind bit at one's marrow through the rags of a conventional cloak. More than this-it had colored the road ahead for her, promising pleasant comradeship and good cheer; it would keep her from ever losing heart or turning back.

A day came at last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh-a little foolishly, perhaps-over the child-story; and then, just because they could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over again. They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the gifts the good godmothers brought.

"Let me see," said the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a broomstick, carrying grit-plain grit."

"And the next one brought happiness-didn't she?" asked little Margaret

MacLean.

He nodded. "Of course. Then came a little gray-haired faery with a nosegay of Thoughts-for-other-folks, all dried and ready to put away like sweet lavender."

"And did the next bring love?"

Again he agreed. "But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady in a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense."

"And then-then- Oh, couldn't the one after her bring beauty? Some one always did in the book stories. I think I wouldn't mind the back and-other things so much if my face could be nice."

Margaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little

Margaret MacLean had been.

The Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile. "Have you never looked into a glass, Thumbkin?"

She shook her head.

Children in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they look, and perhaps it is better that way. Only if it happens-as it does sometimes-that they spend a good share of their life there, it seems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with themselves.

For a moment he patted her hand; after which he said, very solemnly: "Wait for a year and a day-then look. You will find out then just what the next faery brought."

Margaret MacLean had obeyed this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed-something nice to share with the world. And whenever Margaret MacLean thought of her looks at all, which was rare, she thought of them in that way.

She took up the memory again where she had dropped it on the second flight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with the story.

They came to the place where Thumbkin was pricked by the wicked faery with the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the fashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon suddenly stopped and looked at her sharply.

"Some day, Thumbkin, I may play the wicked faery and put you to sleep.

What would you say to that?"

She did not say-then.

More months passed, months which brought an ashen, drawn look to the face of the Old Senior Surgeon, and a tired-out droop to his shoulders and eyes. She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly whenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head ominously. She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came at last to remind her of his threatened promise.

"You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep? Would you let an old faery doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you would wake up to find happiness-and health-and love-and all the other gifts the godmothers brought?"

She tried her best to keep the frightened look out of her eyes. By the way he watched her, however, she knew some of it must have crept in. "Operation?" she managed to choke out at last.

Operation was a fairly common word in Ward C, and not an over-hopeful one.

"It's this way, Thumbkin; and let's make a bargain of it. I think there's a cure for that back of yours. It hasn't been tried very much; about often enough to make it worth while for us to take a chance. I'll be honest with you and tell you the house surgeon doesn't think it can be done; but that's where the bargain comes in. He thinks he can mend my trouble, and I don't; and we're both dreadfully greedy to prove we're right. Now if you will give me my way with you I will give him his. But you must come first."

"A hundred years is a long time to be asleep," she objected.

"Bless you, it won't be a hundred minutes."

"And does your back need it, too?"

"Not my back; my stomach. It's about the only chance for either of us,

Thumbkin."

"And you won't unless I do?"

The Old Senior Surgeon gave his head a terrific shake; then he caught her small hands in his great, warm, comforting ones. "Think. It means a strong back; a pair of sturdy little legs to take you anywhere; and the whole world before you!"

"And you'll have them, too?"

He smiled convincingly.

"All right. Let's." She gave his hand a hard, trustful squeeze.

She liked to remember that squeeze. She often wondered if it might not have helped him to do what he had to do.

Her operation was record-making in its success; and after he had seen her well on the mend he gave himself over to the house surgeon and a fellow-colleague, according to the bargain. He proved the house surgeon wrong, for he never rallied. Undoubtedly he knew this would be the way of it; for he stopped in Ward C before he went up to the operating-room and said to her:

"I shall be sleeping longer than you did, Thumbkin; but, never fear, I shall be waking some time, somewhere. And remember this: Never grow so strong and well that you forget how tiresome a hospital crib can be. Never be so happy that you grow blind to the heartaches of other children; and never wander so far away from Saint Margaret's that you can't come back, sometimes, and make a story for some one else."

She puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but when they told her the next day, she understood. Probably she grieved for him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his own family or profession. For, whereas there are many people in the world who can give life to others, there are but few who can help others to possess it.

What childhood she had had she left behind her soon after this, along with her aching back, her helpless limbs, and the little iron crib in Ward C.

On the first Trustee Day following her complete recovery she appeared, at her own request, before the meeting of the board. In a small, frightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school. She wanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a nurse.

The trustees consented. Having assumed the responsibility of her well-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it now. Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint Margaret's as a charitable institution, and to themselves as trustees, that this child whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should choose this way of showing her gratitude? Verily, the board pruned and plumed itself well that day.

All this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to Ward C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory of this man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the abnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made it possible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her feet upon a joyous mission. For the thousandth time she blessed that memory.

It had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and said nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her fancy-making. She could never get away from the feeling that some of the sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the memory. One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put it into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.

On the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over, between spiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below. It just happened that the House Surgeon was standing there, talking with one of the internes.

Margaret MacLean smiled whimsically. "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon." And then she added, aloud, softly apostrophizing the top of his head, "I think some day you might grow to be very-very like the Old Senior Surgeon; that is, if you would only stop trying to be like the present one."

[Illustration: "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon."]

A welcoming shout went up from Ward C as Margaret MacLean entered. It was lusty enough to have come from the throats of healthy children, and it would have sounded happily to the most impartial ears; to the nurse in charge it was a very pagan of gladness.

"Wish you good morning, good meals, and good manners," laughed Margaret MacLean; and then she went from crib to crib with a special greeting for each one. Oh, she firmly believed that a great deal depended on how the day began.

In the first crib lay Pancho, of South American parentage, partially paralyzed and wholly captivating. He had been in Saint Margaret's since babyhood-he was six now-and had never worn anything but a little hospital shirt.

"Good morning, Brown Baby," she said, kissing his forehead. "It's just the day for you out on the sun-porch; and you'll hear birds-lots of them."

"Wobins?"

"Yes, and bluebirds, too. I've heard them already."

Next came Sandy-merry of heart-a humpback laddie from Aberdeen. His parents had gone down with the steerage of a great ocean liner, and society had cared for him until the first horror of the tragedy had passed; then some one fortunately had mentioned Saint Margaret's, and society was relieved of its burden. In the year he had spent here his Aberdonian burr had softened somewhat and a number of American colloquialisms had crept into his speech; but for all that he was "the braw canny Scot"-as the House Surgeon always termed him-and he objected to kisses. So the good-morning greeting was a hearty hand-shake between the two-comrade fashion.

"It wad be a bonnie day i' Aberdeen," he reminded her, blithely. "But 'tis no the robins there 'at wad be singin'."

"Shall I guess?"

"Na, I'll tell ye. Laverocks!"

"Really, Sandy?" And then she suddenly remembered something. "Now you guess what you're going to have for supper to-night."

"Porridge?"

"No; scones!"

"Bully!" And Sandy clapped his hands ecstatically.

Beside Sandy lay Susan-smart, shrewd, and American, with braced legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days. But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and therefore gives sparingly.

"Guess yer couldn't guess what I dreamt last night, Miss Peggie?"

"About the aunt?" This was a mythical relation of Susan's who lived somewhere and who was supposed to turn up some day and claim Susan with open arms. She was the source of many dreams and of much interested conversation and heated argument in the ward, and the children had her pictured down to the smallest detail of person and clothes.

"No, 'tain't my aunt this time. I dreamt you was gettin' married, Miss

Peggie." And Susan giggled delightedly.

"An' goin' away?" This was groaned out in chorus from the two cots following Susan's, wherein lay James and John-fellow-Apostles of pain-bound closely together in that spiritual brotherhood. They were sitting up, holding hands and staring at Margaret with wide, anguish-filled eyes.

"Of course I'm not going away, little brothers; and I'm not going to get married. Does any one ever get married in Saint Margaret's?"

The Apostles thought very hard about it for a moment; but as it had never happened before, of course it never would now, and Miss Peggie was safe.

The whole ward smiled again. But in that moment Margaret MacLean remembered what the House Surgeon had said, and wondered. Was she building up for them an ultimate discontent in trying to make life happy and full for them now? Could not minds like theirs be taught to walk alone, after all? And then she laughed to herself for worrying. Why should the children ever have to do without her-unless-unless something came to them far better-like Susan's mythical aunt? The children need never leave Saint Margaret's as long as they lived, and she never should; and she passed on to the next cot, content that all was well.

As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck; a head with a shock of red curls buried itself in the folds of the gray uniform. This was Bridget-daughter of the Irish sod, oldest of the ward, general caretaker and best beloved; although it should be added in justice to both Bridget and Margaret MacLean that the former had no consciousness of it, and the latter took great care to hide it.

[Illustration: As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck.]

It was Bridget who read to the others when no one else could; it was Bridget who remembered some wonderful story to tell on those days when Sandy's back was particularly bad or the Apostles grew over-despondent; and it was Bridget who laughed and sang on the gray days when the sun refused to be cheery. Undoubtedly it was because of all these things that her cot was in the center of Ward C.

Concerning Bridget herself, hers was a case of arsenical poisoning, slowly absorbed while winding daisy-stems for an East Broadway manufacturer of cheap artificial flowers. She had done this for three years-since she was five-thereby helping her mother to support themselves and two younger children. She was ten now and the Senior Surgeon had already reckoned her days.

In the shadow of Bridget's cot was Rosita's crib-Rosita being the youngest, the most sensitive, and the most given to homesickness. This last was undoubtedly due to the fact that she was the only child in the incurable ward blessed in the matter of a home. Her parents were honest-working Italians who adored her, but who were too ignorant and indulgent to keep her alive. They came every Sunday, and sat out the allotted time for visitors beside her crib, while the other children watched in a silent, hungry-eyed fashion.

Margaret MacLean passed her with a kiss and went on to

Peter-Peter-seven years old-congenital hip disease-and all boy.

"Hello, you!" he shouted, squirming under the kiss that he would not have missed for anything.

"Hello, you!" answered back the administering nurse, and then she asked, solemnly, "How's Toby?"

"He's-he's fine. That soap the House Surgeon give me cured his fleas all up."

Toby was even more mythical than Susan's aunt; she was based on certain authentic facts, whereas Toby was solely the creation of a dog-adoring little brain. But no one was ever inconsiderate enough to hint at his airy fabrication; and Margaret MacLean always inquired after him every morning with the same interest that she bestowed on the other occupants of Ward C.

Last in the ward came Michael, a diminutive Russian exile with valvular heart trouble and a most atrocious vocabulary. The one seemed as incurable as the other. Margaret MacLean had wrestled with the vocabulary on memorable occasions-to no avail; and although she had long since discovered it was a matter of words and not meanings with him, it troubled her none the less. And because Michael came the nearest to being the black sheep of this sanitary fold she showed for him always an unfailing gentleness.

"Good morning, dear," she said, running her fingers through the perpendicular curls that bristled continuously.

"Goot mornun, tear," he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added, with an irresistible smile, "Und Got-tam-you."

"Oh, Michael, don't you remember, the next time you were going to say

'God bless you'?"

"Awright-next time."

Margaret MacLean sighed unconsciously. Michael's "next time" was about as reliable as the South American ma?ana; and he seemed as much an alien now as the day he was brought into the ward. And then, because she believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the end, she did the thing Michael loved best.

Ward C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her assistant were turned into keepers. Together they set about the duties for the day with great good-humor. Two seals, a wriggling hippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising activities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby elephant were bathed with considerable difficulty and excitement. It was Sandy who insisted on being the elephant in spite of a heated argument from the other animals that, having a hump, he ought to be a camel. They forgave him later, however, when he squirted forth his tooth-brush water and trumpeted triumphantly, thereby causing the entire menagerie to squirm about and bellow in great glee.

At this point the head keeper had to turn them all back instantly into children, and she delivered a firm but gentle lecture on the inconsiderateness of soaking a freshly changed bed.

Sandy broke into penitent tears; and because tears were never allowed to dampen the atmosphere of Ward C when they could possibly be dammed, Margaret MacLean did the "best-of-all-things." She pushed the cribs and cots all together into a "special" with observation-cars; then, changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle. The bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and puff, bounding away countryward where spring had come.

Those of you who live where you can always look out on pleasant places, or who can travel at will into them, may find it hard to understand how wearisome and stupid it grows to be always in one room with an encompassing sky-line of roof-tops and chimneys, or may fail to sound the full depths of wonder and delight over the ride that Ward C took that memorable day.

The engineer pointed out everything-meadows full of flowers, trees full of birds, gardens new planted, and corn-fields guarded by scarecrows. She slowed up at the barnyards that the children might hear the crowing cocks and clucking hens with their new-hatched broods, and see the neighboring pastures with their flocks of sheep and tiny lambs.

"A ken them weel-hoo the wee creepits bleeted hame i' Aberdeen!" shouted Sandy, bleeting for the whole pastureful.

And when they came to the smallest of mountain brooks the engineer followed it, down, down, until it had grown into a stream with cowslipped banks; and on and on until it had grown into a river with little boats and sandy shore and leaping fish. Here the engineer stopped the train; and every one who wanted to-and there were none who did not-went paddling; and some went splashing about just as if they could swim.

Back in the "special," they climbed a hilltop, slowly, so that the engineer could point out each farm and pasture and stream in miniature that they had seen close by.

"That's the wonder of a hilltop," she explained; "you can see everything neighboring each other." And when they reached the crest she clapped her hands. "Oh, children dear, wouldn't it be beautiful to build a house on a hilltop just like this to live in always!"

Afterward they rode into deep woods, where the sunlight came down through the trees like splashes of gold; and here the engineer suggested they should have a picnic.

As Margaret MacLean stepped out into the hall to look up the dinner-trays she met the House Surgeon.

"Dreading it as much as usual?" he asked, in the teasing, big-brother tone; but he looked at her in quite another way.

She laughed. "I'm hoping it isn't going to be as bad as the time before-and the time before that-and the time before that." She pushed back some moist curls that had slipped out from under her cap-engineering was hard work-and the little-girl look came into her face. She looked up mischievously at the House Surgeon. "You couldn't possibly guess what I've been doing all morning."

The House Surgeon wrinkled his forehead in his most professional manner. "Precautionary disinfecting?"

Margaret MacLean laughed again. "That's an awfully good guess, but it's wrong. I've been administering antitoxin for trusteria."

In spite of her gay assurance before the House Surgeon, however, it was rather a sober nurse in charge of Ward C who sat down that afternoon with a book of faery-tales on her knee open to the story of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." As for Ward C, it was supremely happy; its beloved "Miss Peggie" was on duty for the afternoon with the favorite book for company; moreover, no one had discovered as yet that this was Trustee Day and that the trustees themselves were already near at hand.

A shadow fell athwart the threshold that very moment. Margaret MacLean could feel it without taking her eyes from the book, and, purposefully unmindful of its presence, she kept reading steadily on:

"'The paper boat was rocking up and down; sometimes it turned round so quickly that the Tin Soldier trembled; but he remained firm, he did not move a muscle, and looked straight forward, shouldering his musket.'"

"Ah, Miss MacLean, may I speak with you a moment?" It was the voice of the Meanest Trustee.

The nurse in charge rose quickly and met him half-way, hoping to keep him and whatever he might have to say as far from the children as possible.

The Meanest Trustee continued in a little, short, sharp voice: "The cook tells me that the patients in this ward have been having extra food prepared for them of late, such as fruit and jellies and scones and even ice-cream. I discovered it for myself. I saw some pineapples in the refrigerator when I was inspecting it this afternoon, and the cook said it was your orders."

Margaret MacLean smiled her most ingratiating smile. "You see," she said, eagerly, "the children in this ward get fearfully tired of the same things to eat; it is not like the other wards where the children stay only a short time. So I thought it would be nice to have something different-once in a while; and then the old things would taste all the better-don't you see? I felt sure the trustees would be willing."

"Well, they are not. It is an entirely unnecessary expense which I will not countenance. The regular food is good and wholesome, and the patients ought to feel grateful for it instead of finding fault."

The nurse looked anxiously toward the cots, then dropped her voice half an octave lower.

"The children have never found fault; it was just my idea to give them a treat when they were not expecting it. As for the extra expense, there has been none; I have paid for everything myself."

The Meanest Trustee readjusted his eye-glasses and looked closer at the young woman before him. "Do you mean to say you paid for them out of your own wages?"

The nurse nodded.

"Then all I have to say is that I consider it an extremely idiotic performance which had better be stopped. Children should not be indulged."

And he went away muttering something about the poor always remaining poor with their foolish notions of throwing away money; and Margaret MacLean went back to the book of faery-tales. But as she was looking for the place Sandy grunted forth stubbornly:

"A'm no wantin' ony scones the nicht, so ye maun na fetch them."

And Peter piped out, "Trusterday, ain't it, Miss Peggie?"

"Yes, dear. Now shall we go on with the story?"

She had read to where the rat was demanding the passport when she recognized the President's step outside the door. In another moment he was standing beside her chair, looking at the book on her knee.

"Humph! faery-tales! Is that not very foolish? Don't you think, Miss Margaret, it would be more suitable to their condition in life if you should select-hmm-something like Pilgrim's Progress or Lives of the Saints and Martyrs? Something that would be a preparation-so to speak-for the future." He stood facing her now, his back to the children.

"Excuse me"-she was smiling up at him-"but I thought this was a better preparation."

The President frowned. He was a much-tried man-a man of charitable parts, who directed or presided over thirty organizations. It took him nearly thirty days each month-with the help of two private secretaries and a luxurious office-to properly attend to all the work resulting therefrom; and the matters in hand were often so trying and perplexing that he had to go abroad every other year to avoid a nervous breakdown.

"I think we took up this matter at one of the business meetings," he went on, patiently, "and some arrangement was made for one of the trustees to come and read the Bible and teach the children their respective creeds and catechisms."

Margaret MacLean nodded. "There was; Miss N--"-and she named the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee-"generally comes an hour before the meeting and reads to them; but to-day she was detained by a-tango tea, I believe. That's why I chose this." Her eyes danced unconsciously as she tapped the book.

The President looked at her sharply. "I should think, my dear young lady, that you, of all persons, would realize what a very serious thing life is to any one in this condition. Instead of that I fear at times that you are-shall I say-flippant?" He turned about and looked at the children. "How do you do?" he asked, kindly.

"Thank you, sir, we are very well, sir," they chorused in reply. Saint

Margaret's was never found wanting in politeness.

The President left; and the nurse in charge of Ward C went on with the reading.

"'The Tin Soldier stood up to his neck in water; deeper and deeper sank the boat, and the paper became more and more limp; then the water closed over him; but the Tin Soldier remained firm and shouldered his musket.'"

A group filled the doorway; it was the voice of the Oldest Trustee that floated in. "This, my dear, is the incurable ward; we are very much interested in it."

They stood just over the threshold-the Oldest Trustee in advance, her figure commanding and unbent, for all her seventy years, and her lorgnette raised. As she was speaking a little gray wisp of a woman detached herself from the group and moved slowly down the row of cots.

"Yes," continued the Oldest Trustee, "we have two cases of congenital hip disease and three of spinal tuberculosis-that is one of them in the second crib." Her eyes moved on from Sandy to Rosita. "And the fifth patient has such a dreadful case of rheumatism. Sad, isn't it, in so young a child? Yes, the Senior Surgeon says it is absolutely incurable."

Margaret MacLean closed the book with a bang; for five minutes the children had been looking straight ahead with big, conscious eyes, hearing not a word. Rebellion gripped at her heart and she rose quickly and went over to the group.

"Wouldn't you like to come in and talk to the children? They are rather sober this afternoon; perhaps you could make them laugh."

"Yes, wouldn't you like to go in?" put in the Oldest Trustee. "They are very nice children."

But the visitors shrank back an almost infinitesimal distance; and one said, hesitatingly:

"I'm afraid we wouldn't know quite what to say to them."

"Perhaps you would like to see the new pictures for the nurses' room?" the nurse in charge suggested, wistfully.

The Oldest Trustee glanced at her with a hint of annoyance. "We have already seen them. I think you must have forgotten, my dear, that it was I who gave them."

With flashing cheeks Margaret MacLean fled from Ward C. If she had stayed long enough to watch the little gray wisp of a woman move quietly from cot to cot, patting each small hand and asking, tenderly, "And what is your name, dearie?" she might have carried with her a happier feeling. At the door of the board-room she ran into the House Surgeon.

"Is it as bad as all that?" he asked after one good look at her.

"It's worse-a hundred times worse!" She tossed her head angrily. "Do you know what is going to happen some day? I shall forget who I am-and who they are and what they have done for me-and say things they will never forgive. My mind-string will just snap, that's all; and every little pestering, forbidden thought that has been kicking its heels against self-control and sense-of-duty all these years will come tumbling out and slip off the edge of my tongue before I even know it is there."

"They are some hot little thoughts, I wager," laughed the House Surgeon.

And then, from the far end of the cross-corridor, came the voice of the

Oldest Trustee, talking to the group:

". . . such a very sweet girl-never forgets her place or her duty. She was brought here from the Foundling Asylum when she was a baby, in almost a dying condition. Every one thought it was an incurable case; the doctors still shake their heads over her miraculous recovery. Of course it took years; and she grew up in the hospital."

With a look of dumb, battling anger the nurse in charge of Ward C turned from the House Surgeon-her hands clenched-while the voice of the Oldest Trustee came back to them, still exhibiting:

"No, we have never been able to find out anything about her parentage; undoubtedly she was abandoned. We named her 'Margaret MacLean,' after the hospital and the superintendent who was here then. Yes, indeed-a very, very sad-"

When the Oldest Trustee reached the boardroom it was empty, barring the primroses, which were guilelessly nodding in the green Devonshire bowl on the President's desk.