The Primrose Ring Part 17

This time the entire board smiled back at her; somehow, in some strange way, it had caught a breath of Fancy. And then--the House Surgeon re-entered with Bridget in his arms, looking very scared until she spied "Miss Peggie."

The President did the nicest thing, proving himself the good man he really was. He crossed hands with the House Surgeon, thereby making a swinging chair for Bridget, and together they held her while Margaret MacLean explained:

"It's this way, dear. Some one has offered you--and all the children--a home in the country--a home of your very own. But the trustees of Saint Margaret's hardly want to give you up; they think they can take as good care of you--and make you just as happy here."

"But--sure--they'll have to be givin' us up. Weren't we afther givin'

a penny to the wee one yondther for the home?" and Bridget pointed a commanding finger toward the door.

Everybody looked. There on the threshold stood the widow of the Richest Trustee.

"What do you mean, dear? How could you have given her a penny?"

Margaret MacLean asked it in bewilderment.

"'Twas all the doin's o' the primrose ring." And then Bridget shouted gaily across to the gray wisp of a woman. "Ye tell them. Weren't ye afther givin' us the promise of a home?"

"And haven't I come to keep the promise?" she answered, as gaily. But in an instant she sobered as her eyes fell on the open letter on the President's desk. "I am so sorry I wrote it--that is why I have come; not that I don't think you deserved it, for you do," and the widow of the Richest Trustee looked at them unwaveringly.

If she was conscious of the surprised faces about, she gave no sign for others to reckon by. Instead, she walked the length of the board-room to the President's desk and went on speaking hurriedly, as if she feared to be interrupted before she had said all she had come to say.

"I wish I had written in another way, a more helpful way. Why not add your second surgical ward to Saint Margaret's and do all the good work you can, as you had planned? Only let me have these children to start a home which shall be a future harbor for all the cases you cannot mend with your science and which you ought not to set adrift. You can send me all the convalescing children, too, who need country air and building up. In return for this, and because you deserve to be punished--just a little--for yesterday--I shall try my best to take with me Margaret MacLean and your House Surgeon."

She laid a hand on both, while she added, softly: "Suppose we three go home together and talk things over. Shall we?"

So the "Home for Curables" has come true. It crests a hilltop, and is well worth the penny that Bridget gave for it. As the children specified, there are no "trusters"; and it has all the modern improvements, including Margaret MacLean, who is still "Miss Peggie,"

although she is married to their new Senior Surgeon.

There is one very particular thing about the Home which ought to be mentioned. When the children arrived Toby was on the steps, barking a welcome. No one was surprised; in fact, everybody acted as though he belonged there. Perhaps the surprising thing would have been not having the promise kept. Toby is allowed right of way, everywhere; and rumor has it that he often sneaks in at night and sleeps on Peter's bed. But, of course, that is just rumor.

The children are supremely happy; which means that no one is allowed to cross the threshold who cannot give the pa.s.sword of a friend. And you might like to know that many of the trustees of Saint Margaret's come as often as anybody, and are always welcomed with a shout. The President, in particular, has developed the habit of secreting things in his pockets until he comes looking very bulgy.

Margaret MacLean always puts the children to sleep with Sandy's song; she said it was written by a famous poet who loved children, and the children have never told her the truth about it. And if it happens, as it does once in a great while, that some one is missing in the morning, there is no sorrowing for him, or heavy-heartedness. They miss him, of course; but they picture him running, st.u.r.dy-limbed, up the slope to the leprechaun's tree, with Michael waiting for him not far off.

To the children Tir-na-n'Og is the waiting-place for all child-souls until Saint Anthony is ready to gather them up and carry them away with him to the "Blessed Mother"; and Margaret MacLean, having nothing better to tell them, keeps silent. But she has thought of the nicest custom: A new picture is hung in the Home after a child has gone. It bears his name; and it is always something that he liked--birds or flowers or ships or some one from a story. Peter has his chosen already; it is to be--a dog.

Whenever Saint Margaret's Senior Surgeon finds a hip or a heart or a back that he can do nothing for, he sends it to the Home; and he always writes the same thing:

"Here is another case in a thousand for you, Margaret MacLean. How many are there now?"

He has married the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee, as the Disagreeable Trustee prophesied, and gossip says that they are very happy. This much I know--there are two more words which he now writes with capitals--Son and Sympathy.

Margaret MacLean often says with the Danish faery-man: "My life, too, is a faery-tale written by G.o.d's finger." And the House Surgeon always chuckles at this, and adds:

"Praise Heaven! He wrote me into it."

As for the widow of the Richest Trustee, she has found a greater measure of contentment than she thought the world could hold--with love to brim it; for Margaret MacLean has adopted her along with the children. The children still regard her, however, as a very mysterious person; and she has taken the place of Susan's mythical aunt in the ward conversation. It has never been argued out to the complete satisfaction of every one whether she is really the faery queen or just the "Wee Gray Woman," as Sandy calls her. The arguments wax hot at times, and it is Bridget who generally has to put in the final silencing word:

"Faith, she kept her promise, didn't she? and everything come thrue, hasn't it? Well, what more do ye want?"