The Making of Mary Part 15

"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 gra.s.s, 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 a.s.sure 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 att.i.tude 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."

THE END.

THE "UNKNOWN" LIBRARY OF CHOICE ORIGINAL FICTION.