CHAPTER IV.
THE WANDERING KINDNESS.
On the morning of the blizzard, at that dark hour which comes just before daylight, Dr. Frank Winthrop left his own house for a visit to the hospital. There were no cars running, and he would not think of rousing his coachman, or even his horses, to breast such a storm; for his errand might be a prolonged one, and was, indeed, a case of life or death. At ten o’clock he had left a patient in a most critical condition, and was now returning to further attend the sufferer. His ulster was fastened tightly about him, his head thrust deeply into his collar, his hands in his pockets, and with teeth grimly set he faced the night.
“Two miles, if it’s a block! Well, it’s useless to try and see one’s way. The street lamps, such as are still burning, make an occasional glimmer in the fog of snowflakes and are almost more misleading than none at all. But I’ve walked the route so often, I’ll just trust to my feet to find their own road, and to Providence that I may reach my man in time!”
Robust and determined as the good physician was, he was almost overcome by the cold and the struggle through the unbroken drifts; while his whole person soon became so covered with the flying flakes that he looked like a great snow-man itself, suddenly made alive and set in motion. But the hope of easing pain gave him courage to persevere; and finally he came within a short distance of the great building whose dimly lighted windows made a dull redness through the storm.
“There she is, the blessed old house of comfort! Her wards are like to be full this night. And that was the very hardest walk I ever took. I hope, I pray, it has not been for nothing.”
Just then his foot stumbled against some half-buried obstruction, and stooping, the doctor touched the object with his hands.
“Oh! as I feared! A human being. A child—a boy. Overcome and maybe frozen. Poor little chap, poor little chap!”