“And what is to be done with me?” he asked, in a lighter tone. “May I stop here?”
“No, Jack,” she said, and the utter unconsciousness with which she spoke his name smote him with sweetness. “No, you are to go back to your work, too. We have all got our work; nothing can refute that. Tell me about the baby.”
“He cries for you,” said Jack.
“Kiss him for me then, and pray for us. Oh, let me tell you about it all. It will do me good, and I am too heart-sick to talk it over with the others. If I tell Aunt Em about my cases it is a double burden for her, and if she tells me about hers it is double for me. Arthur behaves splendidly. He goes his rounds all day, like a milkman, he says, with cans of disinfectants.”
“Ah, he helps too, does he?” said Jack. “He never mentioned that in his letter.”
“No? That is so like the dear boy. He has found lots of cases which they were trying to keep dark, for they hate going to hospital, and he alone of us all remains perfectly cheerful. But it is terrible at the hospital. I have about a dozen cases almost entirely under me. One died two days ago; another, I am afraid, will die to-day. It is so awful to work and work and work, and with what result? Oh, I am a stupid, ungrateful little fool! Is it not enough to find that little silver line on the thermometer a little lower than it was at the same time yesterday, and perhaps a degree lower than it was the day before? But one feels so helpless. And it is all on account of a little invisible demon which the carelessness of dirty people allowed to get into the water-supply. People talk of the horror of war. The horror of water-companies seems to me the more frightful.”
Jeannie paused a moment.
“But I would not have gone through it, and I would not be now going through it for the kingdoms of the world,” she said. “The mischief has been done, and it is an inestimable privilege to be allowed to help in minimizing the results. It is giving me a new view of life, Jack. Here in this sheltered, peaceful town I was in danger, I think, of becoming a sort of ruminating animal, sleek, and living in the meadows like a sort of cow.”
“I didn’t gather you were in danger of that,” remarked Jack. “You did happen to hold some classes in your meadow, did you not?”
“Yes, classes of other cows. We were all cows together—at least I was. But out of all this suffering there comes, I know not what—certainly despondency; but I do not believe that that is the permanent net result. One learns what a little thing is life, and how great. Also it seems as if I was learning to be egoistic.”