Out of the Burning

By Ivy Williams Stone

(Previous chapter)

Chapter Eight

After three years in finishing school, Portia Harrison came home with an elaborate diploma. She had handiwork of hammered brass and tooled leather, painted pictures and fancy china. She spoke a little polite French, but to her father’s disgust, knew nothing of A Tale of Two Cities. She had a loving cup for the best score in golf; she had ridden the horse that made the best hurdle jump. She had a book full of recipes for midnight lunches. Her hair had a brittle, lack-lustre appearance, showing the effect of many permanents and several attempts at tinting. Like the Curly who came down from Crow’s Nest, the hair at the scalp was valiantly trying to assert its own heritage. But in spite of her gay appearance and elaborate wardrobe, Portia seemed bored, as if weary with life as she found it.

After three years in training, Pamela Harrison attended a simple but impressive ceremony and emerged a graduate nurse. White uniform and black striped cap; what an enormous outlay of energy they signified! Weeks of wearying routine ; unquestioning obedience ; nights devoted to study when her body cried for rest. Suspense, crowned with pride; defeat, tinged with regret. In the none-too-large audience were her parents, Aunt Eunice and Doctor Locke, all reflecting pride and satisfaction. Doctor Dick, The Shadow, had obtained leave of absence for the occasion. Even Portia, who was herself just returned, came with Spike Reeves and tried not to appear bored.

A fortnight later, Pamela was called back to the hospital for her first special case. In comparison to her previous wages, the sum of seven dollars a day seemed munificent. She felt keenly independent, almost rich, as she reported for duty.

“Miss Harrison,” the supervisor spoke crisply and impersonally, “you are fortunate to have such a simple case to begin with. There will be no operation ; it is simply recuperation after verucca pedis.” She handed Pamela one of the familiar charts. “The patient needs mostly to be amused,” she added. “The longer he can be kept from using his feet, the better the recovery.” The overtaxed supervisor turned to more serious matters, leaving Pamela to scan the chart and start her duties.

Verucca pedis! How nice to know what the term meant. Thanks to her thorough course in Latin, she had found the medical terms no stumbling block. Verucca pedis, the simple, but possibly painful, affliction known as foot wart. It was pleasant to know the patient would be neither ether sick nor racked with pain.

B. H. Reeves. Pamela glanced at the name on the chart, but was conscious of no special significance about it. Probably some old gentleman who had been unaware of a nail in his shoe. He would want her to play endless checkers and read Pickwick Papers. Seven dollars a day! Elated and confident, Pamela pushed open the door and came face to face with Spike Reeves, her sister Portia’s constant companion.

“Morning nurse,” grinned that young man, keenly enjoying her surprise, “I asked Dr. Locke to get you. I have already discharged two nurses. Do you know what is the matter with me?” He made a grimace of assumed pain.

“Verucca pedis,” answered Pamela, swiftly assuming the impersonal attitude of the professional nurse. “You will have to let your feet rest for some time. Do you want your breakfast served at the right or the left of your bed?”

“I’ve been wearing rubber-soled golf shoes too much,” grumbled young Mr. Reeves. “Didn’t know what was the matter with me at first; felt like a thousand needles sticking in my feet every time I stepped. And in the mornings, when I first got up, WHOOPEE! Now for my breakfast,” he continued. “See if you can get me some hot biscuits with plenty of butter and marmalade. Also, grape fruit and fried liver with scrambled eggs. I’ve had oatmeal and bran up here sufficient for a lifetime. Later, you can read me the sport page. To think I missed that prize fight!”

Before the end of the week, Pamela knew she was earning every penny of her seven dollar fee. Spike Reeves was exacting, arrogant and irritable. Pamela thought of her surmise about checker games and classics and smiled ironically. For hours she read from gorgeous-hued magazines, filled with wild, impossible tales of Western daring and romance. Spike demanded special foods, special privileges, and told his friends to disregard the hospital calling hours. Wasn’t his father a director? Hadn’t the old man endowed the X-ray laboratory? Surely the son of such a generous father was entitled to specific consideration.

“Do you know, Pamela,” he announced one evening, interrupting the achievements of a “dead-shot lady,” “I don’t think I will marry Portia, after all.”

“My name is Miss Harrison.” Pamela felt so fed up on this impossible patient that she disregarded her training in etiquette. “And I might add that perhaps my sister Portia will not marry you.” Secretly she was not so sure of Portia’s decision, but she could not let this arrogant rich man’s son feel that the decision lay entirely with him.

“Oh, I believe she would all right,” drawled Spike with exasperating assurance. “But we are too much alike. We do nothing but play; neither one of us ever took anything seriously.

“I never earned one single penny; Portia never earned a penny. Just where would we be at when there were no pennies to spend?”

“There is no law against self-support,” replied Pamela. “And verucca pedis is not a permanent disablement.”

“I hardily think Portia and I would make a go of it,” persisted Spike. “Still, I rather like the family. I really think the Governor would be pleased if I switched my affections to you.”

“Let’s hurry through this story,” Pamela hastened to make conversation, “and finish it before visiting hours. Perhaps Portia will come. Dr. Locke will be here soon, too?”

“Oh, I say, Pamela,” Spike Reeves half rose from his bed and reached out suddenly to embrace his fair-haired nurse, “do you know what to do until the doctor comes?” He laughed at his own quibble, but Pamela was not in her chair to receive the embrace. Instead, she stood at the foot of the bed and addressed her patient in a manner not outlined in any text on sick room etiquette.

“You should not have been permitted in this hospital!” she cried. “You are occupying a room which is needed by some deserving patient. You are not ill; many a person has verucca and continues with his daily tasks. A special nurse on this job is just marking time. I don’t want it. I’m going to wait on people who are really sick. I don’t want your old seven dollars a day! I won’t stay in a room that’s blue with smoke and read absurd stories to a lazy man with normal sight! I hope my sister Portia never marries you!”

This outburst was followed by a burst of tears and Pamela dashed from the room, leaving a surprised young man to meditate upon the ways of women. As Pamela had sought refuge from Bud Harrison on the sleeping porch, so she now hurried out to the roof garden, which she knew would be practically deserted at this hour.

***

From his comfortable bench beside the cellar Abe Walters felt need for action. The dogs had treed a raccoon and their excited yelps demanded that he finish the job. Sighing over the need for effort in the heat of the afternoon, Abe picked up his gun and leisurely sauntered over the hill toward the commotion. His small, barefoot son tagged, unnoticed, at his heels. A dark object near the top of a naked, dead tree was the coveted prize. Abe shouldered his gun and fired, but the raccoon did not fall.

“Wal, I just natur’lly forgot youns ca’tidges,” he spoke to the gun in a mild, regretful tone. A return being too hot and weary, Abe proceeded to set fire to the tree, and sought refuge from the heat under a tree. He fully intended to watch developments; but the pleasant shade and slight breeze lulled him to sleep. He was roused from a pleasant dream by frantic screams of a child, and found little Stephen afire! The bare feet were pitifully burned, the little shirt and faded overalls a mass of flames, while the child ran screaming about, fanning the hungry flames. Obeying almost a blind instinct, Abe hurried as he had never done before and dipped the boy in the creek. But while this method effectively quenched fire, it had no healing effect upon the burned body. The little boy writhed in pain and the simple home remedies which the family had, gave no relief. Looking at his small namesake, whom he was unable to help, Steve Turner gave quick orders.

“Weuns air agoin’ ter tote him down yonder ter thet thar doctor man what come up hyar ter see Granny. Curly air a workin’ with him in thet thar hospetel too. Curly knows curin’ ways.”

So it happened that while Pamela sought to regain her self-possession on the roof garden, her attention was attracted to a queer procession filing up the hospital walk. Steve Turner stalking ahead, carrying the prostrate boy; Abe Walters following, subdued and chastened. Cassie and Millie bringing up the rear, their faces swollen and reddened with tears.

Pamela forgot her own troubles and looked again to make doubly sure of the identity. There was no mistaking Steve Turner’s bold, defiant stride, nor the dejected women. Pamela hurried to the elevator and met the little procession.

“Curly,” Steve Turner accepted her appearance as perfectly natural, “our little boy air burned bad. Et is a powerful misery he’s got, Curly. Youns an’ thet thar doctor must keer fur him, Curly.”

“He’s got misery aplenty,” sobbed Cassie.

“He won’t talk no more; he’s thet pinin’,” Millie struggled for self-control and failed miserably.

“I war awatchin’ ter see thet thar coon come down,” began Abe Walters, “but I nary seed the boy a follerin’. He allus wanted fire; thought et war so purty. I nary — ”

“Never mind how it happened, Mr. Walters,” interrupted Curly, who was again the self-possessed, efficient nurse. “Stop your crying, Millie. Doctor Locke will cure little Steve.”

“There would be no doctor’s fee,” added Doctor Dick.

“And there would be no nurse’s fee,” put in Pamela. “I have just left my last and first case.” Doctor Locke shot her a quick, understanding grin. “Hope he has to walk home,” he muttered under his breath, which was an honest, if unprofessional, wish.

‘There will be drugs and medicines and a private room.”

“I shall ask my father,” Pamela had a happy thought.

But Doctor Locke was not so optimistic. Up in the consulting room he looked exceedingly grave and shook his head as the assembled doctors gazed upon the appalling sight of the naked burns. “Mighty bad, mighty bad,” he muttered, inwardly raving at the man who had dipped the child in the creek. “Hardly know what to do.”

“Shall we try ambarine?” suggested one surgeon.

“Burns are too deep,” replied Doctor Locke. “Wouldn’t do any good.”

“O Dad, let me take the case,” urged the shadow. “I feel sure I could do it with the saline spray, you know.”

“Too severe,” cautioned another physician.

“I’d keep him under morphine,” urged Doctor Dick. “Let me take the case, Dad. There’s only one chance in a thousand that the boy will live, but there’s that chance.”

“It will be a long, expensive battle,” cautioned Dr. Locke.

Under the skeptical eyes of the hospital staff, Doctor Dick and Nurse Harrison took charge of the mountain boy case. They knew he would die. If he chanced to live, he could never walk; he would be a burden for that poor family, and eventually the state. His knee ligaments would shorten, the arms would wither.

Just as Judge Harrison was about to retire that night, he had an unexpected visit from his daughter Pamela. Excitedly she explained her urgent need for money; described the pitiful condition of the child until Echo sobbed openly and offered her small savings. Portia, though none too happy that Pamela was caring for Spike Reeves, (as she supposed) , appeared interested and less bored.

“I need money. You will help, won’t you Father?”

“Such an act of utter stupidity is what one might expect from an ignorant mountaineer,” muttered Judge Harrison. “I suppose he went to sleep and the child fell into the burning tree. And then to submerge him in water!”

“But Dad, the cause of the burns is immaterial; it’s the cure I want. I’ve got to have help. If you won’t, I’ll — ”

“Who said I wouldn’t help?” snapped Judge Harrison. “Go and tend the child, Pamela, if that’s what it takes to make you happy. Tell the hospital superintendent that Judge Harrison will pay all bills you approve. I was going to buy you a little car, but if this is your choice — ”

“A thousand times!” cried Pamela joyously, and with a hasty kiss for each of them, she was gone.

“If any two people can save that child, it will be my boy and that nurse,” boasted old Doctor Locke the next day, when the saline treatment was under way. “They’ll make one wonderful team.”

Pamela immediately found all the opportunity she had craved for real service. Every two hours for seven weeks the body of little Stephen Walters was subjected to the saline treatment, a spray of salt water at a moderate temperature. The bed coverings were suspended from a center rod, the bed warmed with numerous light globes. The child lay under the soothing influence of a sedative, regaining consciousness only occasionally to eat, and then again sank into stupor. The pinch graft, consisting of small disks of flesh composed of seven layers of skin, was a source of much conjecture and skepticism; this young doctor certainly had faith in his new ideas! Finally, as if in answer to Pamela’s prayer, Doctor Dick announced one morning in an off-hand manner, as if he were speaking of the weather, “Glad to say, Miss Harrison, that the grafts took. Ninety-six per cent of them are good. The child will live.”

Ninety-six per cent successful! The news spread, and those who had been so skeptical came hurrying to see the marvelous cure. The news crept out, making a name for a young surgeon almost over night.

“Told you they were a good team,” beamed Doctor Locke, as if the results were exactly what he had expected.

When he regained normal consciousness, the nervous condition of the mountain child was augmented by fear of new surroundings. He screamed for Granny until Pamela discarded her uniform for a dull gray dress, similar to those to which he was accustomed, and she now spoke only in the mountain dialect.

Her soothing tones of “Youns sure has got a misery, son,” produced more results than medicine. As fear of shortened ligaments necessitated the stretching of the injured leg with weights, Pamela found her ability taxed to the utmost. She invented tales which would appeal to his knowledge of life. She slept on a cot in his room, taking her meals with him.

For days no substitute could relieve her from the exacting strain. Millie and Cassie came to the door, saw his emaciated form and left sobbing. The affections of the child were transferred entirely to the ever-present nurse. Pamela invented a game called “graft daisies,” weaving delightful tales about the red fields they left, and the white blossoms they became in their new lodging places on the red, inflamed limbs.

After ten weeks, Doctor Dick announced again, ‘The child will walk. You should be relieved soon now, Miss Harrison. The important work is over.”

“Say, Dad,” Doctor Dick declared to his father as they drove homeward that night, “that boy put up some fight.”

“Some nurse,” came the laconic answer. “Wonder it didn’t wear her out.”

“She ought to have a rest, Dad.”

“Well, son, give it to her.”

“It takes money to marry these days, Dad.”

“Money be hanged!” cried Doctor Locke impatiently. “From the day I knew she was the lost Harrison twin, I wanted her for you. She’s got good blood and better training. She won’t ever use money as her measuring rod. Walking away from an easy job on good pay to this mountain boy, with no wages at all, proved that. Besides I’ve never had a chance to spend my earnings, excepting in educating one boy and forgetting to send bills. If I could find a nice young man, a promising M.D. who has started to make a name for himself, and who was about to be married, I don’t know but what I would send him on a honeymoon to Vienna, so he could study a bit more.”

“But there’s that young Reeves, Dad. I know he likes her.”

“Yeh, maybe so — maybe. But I happen to know she returned the check for a week’s wages which his father sent her.”

Young Doctor Dick grinned at his father, understanding^. Then as man to man they gripped each other’s hands. “I’ll see if I can fill your specifications about that ocean trip,” added Doctor Dick.

That evening Doctor Dick made his rounds, leaving the mountain boy to the last. Then taking a night nurse with him, he went into the small square that had housed Pamela so closely for ten weeks.

“Miss Harrison, here is a substitute for the night. Tomorrow your little charge will be moved out to Harrison Home, to gain strength before returning home. Miss Eunice has agreed to keep him as long as necessary.”

“I ain’t never goin’ ter leave Curly,” volunteered little Steve. “Look, Doctor, how I can pull my leg up.”

‘Those sentiments are contagious, young fellow. Come up on the roof garden, Miss Harrison, for a breath of fresh air.”

From the vantage point of the elevated porch the twinkling lights of the city looked enticing. Pamela breathed deeply and stretched her arms out to the darkness. “I have stayed in too closely,” she admitted, “but that poor child needed me so!”

“I need you, too, Pamela,” whispered Doctor Dick. “I need you for more than ten weeks, or ten months, or ten years. I need you forever!”

“Oh!” breathed Pamela quickly.

“Tell me,” demanded Doctor
Dick growing suddenly stern, “why did you run away from Spike Reeves and come up here to cry?

“Because he wanted to marry me,” admitted Pamela. For the third time the tears were again imminent. “I don’t want to marry the son of a mountaineer, nor the son of an over-rich man!”

“If you cry every time you receive a proposal, you’d better open the flood gates again,” came the prompt rejoinder, “because I’m asking you to marry me, a penniless young doctor with only a career started. I love you, Pamela, because you have stood the fires of privation, poverty, self-education, and have been unspoiled by later affluence. I love you because you work for the love of the work. We made a successful team with that little shaver. Won’t you team with me forever?”

Somehow Pamela felt no need for flight as she had done with Bud Turner. She felt no need to lecture Doctor Dick as she had chastened young Benjamin Harold Reeves. She now stood still, possessed of a great flooding peace and contentment. For moments she made no response, and the time seemed like eternity to the impatient lover.

“We made a good team, Pamela,” he prompted.

“I’ll try to nurse for you always, Dick,” whispered Pamela, “without wages.” Doctor Dick stooped and kissed the golden curls that had never known an iron. “How marvelously you came out of the burning of life,” he muttered. “Dad will send us to Vienna on a honeymoon, Pamela. I shall study and you can poke around and learn more history.”

The next morning Pamela moved her small charge from the hospital to Harrison Home. It was pleasant to loiter, pushing the invalid chair along the shady walks. Presently Spike Reeves drove past, saw her and immediately returned.

“In spite of my nurse’s neglect my feet got well,” he smiled.

Pamela flushed, but remembering her new estate she took courage and replied,

“Had you been really ill, your nurse would never have left you.”

“That little lecture did me a world of good, Miss Harrison. And I want to tell you about it. I thought your running away was a stall — girls do that often, you know. I felt sure you would come back. So I didn’t ring. I just waited; and waited and waited! When I finally rang, nobody came, so I had to get up and walk. Now I’m going to work. Honest. Dad thinks it’s just a big bluff, but I mean business. I like it, really. I’m beginning at the bottom. Oh, and by the way, someday, may I call you other than Miss Harrison?”

“Someday, yes.” Pamela wondered how news traveled so rapidly.

“Well, if Portia continues stubborn, it won’t ever be sister Pamela.”

“Oh,” breathed Pamela with double relief, “do you mean that my sister Portia has refused to marry you?”

Spike smiled his assent. “She has done just that very thing,” he replied. “She is tired of her idle life. Says it is empty and meaningless. We’re both going to work for a year, and then, if we’re still interested in each other, it may be different. You know, you gave me a jar. I had never before heard of a girl leaving a room while a man was asking her to marry him. I learned I wasn’t so much. I learned that all girls are not mercenary. Good-bye, Pamela.”

Pamela did not resent his familiar tone. She was glad to learn of his better nature, but still more happy over Portia’s decision to work. If she could only learn to appreciate the happiness which a sense of ‘independence would bring!

At Harrison Home a real surprise awaited the arrival of nurse and patient. Doctor Locke and Dick, Steve and Abe were gathered around a fifth person whose dark blue blouse could not conceal the mountaineer’s build. He was telling an interesting story and the five heads nearly touched. Even Judge Harrison leaned over to hear. Why it was Bud. A changed Bud. No halting speech, no confusion, but straight-forward and smiling, with a friendly grip to his hand shake.

“I’m proud to see youns again, Curly,” he spoke with no trace of embarrassment, no hint of their last meeting. “I must thank you for being so good to little Steve.”

From within came the women — Mother Echo all smiles over the new clothes she had procured for Millie and the store teeth which subtracted years from Cassie’s appearance. Aunt Eunice and Portia, both smiling and mysterious. Portia looked so much more satisfied and contented, now the decision was made, it would really be easy.

“Oh, my boy!” cried Millie, unable to keep her face entirely free from tears, “Curly shore did drive away thet thar misery!”

“He says he ain’t goin’ ter go home ter Crow’s Nest no more. He says he nary wants ter live with weuns no more.” Abe knew tears were feminine, but the memory of that terrible afternoon had made an indelible mark upon him.

“Come over here, Pamela,” beckoned Portia. “I’ve decided to go into business. I am not going to marry Spike Reeves until he can at least support himself. Dad has agreed to loan me the money, and I am going to open an art and antique shop. So the folks won’t lose us both at once,” she concluded. “You seem to be the only one who didn’t know he was crazy about you, Pamela. How nice that must be!”

“Curly,” Steve Turner came forward and spoke in his heavy punctuated manner, “This hyar young doctor says thet thar boy would adied ef et hadn’t a bin fur youns. Weuns can’t pay youns no money, Curly, but weuns kin gev you another deed ter thet thar land o’ ourns. We’ve kept them thar taxes took keer of.” Pamela choked and cast a hopeless glance at Young Doctor Locke. Everyone seemed to want to find something to do; even Judge Harrison looked off at the sky. The needed diversion came from Doctor Dick, who produced a pair of crutches and cried gaily, “Come on, Steve, show the folks how you can walk, and go tell the nurse lady not to take Grandpa’s farm.”

All eyes turned upon the child, making his first effort to walk. Unsteadily, falteringly, he stood up and awkwardly put a foot to the floor. He grasped the crutches, felt their friendly support and became braver. Pamela and Millie both jumped toward him as he hesitated and seemed to lose his balance. One uncertain step, then another, and still another with a purpose and decision, straight toward Millie.

“I’m a comin’ back ter youns, Mammy,” he mumbled, white from the exhaustive effort, “but Curly’s acomin’ some day ter bring me books. She’s got larnin’ ways, an’ Doctor Dick likes her same as me.”

Millie cried unrestrainedly as her first-born reached the protection of her shoulder, and Doctor Dick hastened to add, “Yours was the first and greatest love, Millie, we all knew that. Pamela, you have to take second place with that young man; but I’m going to fill the void!”

(The End)