"Then she hurried away, the crowd watching her and remarking that her usual stately step seemed greatly quickened.
"Long afterward, the Mother Superior related that, when Sister Celeste reached the hospital on that day, she fell sobbing into the Mother's arms, and when she could command her voice, said: 'Those shaggy men that I thought were all tigers are all angels disguised. O, Mother, I have seen them as Moses and Elias were, transfigured.'
"The eight men held a brief consultation in the street, then going to a store they bought a pair of heavy white blankets, an umbrella and four pick handles. Borrowing a packer's needle and some twine they began to sew the pick handles into the sides of the blanket, first rolling the handles around once or twice in the edges of the blanket. They then proceeded to the sick woman's house; one went in first and told the sick woman, gently, what they had come to do, and bade her have no fears, that she was to be moved so gently that if she would close her eyes she would not know anything about it. The others were called in; the blanket was laid upon the floor; the bed was lifted with its burden from the bedstead and laid on the blanket; the covers were neatly tucked under the mattress; four men seized the pickhandles at the sides, lifted the bed, woman and all from the floor, a fifth man stepped outside, raised the umbrella and held it above the woman's face, and so, as gently as ever mother rocked her babe to sleep, the sick woman was carried the whole length of the street to the hospital, where Sister Celeste and the Mother Superior received her.
"Then all hands went up town and talked the matter over, and I am afraid that some of them drank a little, but the burden of all the talk and all the toasts, was Sister Celeste.
"After that the nun was often seen, going on her errands of mercy, and it is true that some men who had been rough and who had drank hard for months previous to the coming of the Sister, grew quiet in their lives and ceased to go to the saloons.
"One day a most laughable event transpired. Two men got quarrelling in the street which in a moment culminated in a fight. The friends of the respective men joined and soon there was a general fight in which perhaps thirty men were engaged. When it was at its height (and such a fight meant something) Sister Celeste suddenly turned the sharp bend of the street and came into full view not sixty yards from where the melee was raging in full fury.
"One of the fighters saw her and made a sound between a hiss and a low whistle, a peculiar sound of alarm and warning, so significant that all looked up.
"In an instant the men clapped their hands into their side pockets, and commenced moving away, some of them whistling low and dancing as they went, as though the whole thing was but a jovial lark. When Sister Celeste reached the spot a moment afterward, the street was entirely clear. The men washed their faces, some wag began to describe the comical scene which they made when they concluded that the street under certain circumstances was no good place for a fight; good humor was restored, the chief combatants shook hands with perfect cordiality, a drink of reconciliation was ordered all around, and when the glasses were emptied, a man cried out: 'Fill up once more, boys. I want you to drink with me the health of the only capable peace officer that we have ever had in town—Sister Celeste.' The health was drank with enthusiasm.
"The winter came on at length and there was much sickness. Sister Celeste redoubled her exertions; she was seen at all hours of the day, and was met, sometimes, as late as midnight, returning from her watch beside a sick bed.
"The town was full of rough men; some of them would cut or shoot at a word, but Sister Celeste never felt afraid. Indeed, since that Sabbath when the subscription was taken up in the street she had felt that nothing sinister could ever happen to her in that place.