From the Housetops

by George Barr McCutcheon

He studied the nurses' charts with an avid interest. He knew all there was to know about temperature, respiration and nourishment; and developing a sudden sort of lordly understanding therefrom, he harangued the engineer about the steam heat, he cautioned the superintendent about noises, and he held many futile arguments with God about the weather. Something told him a dozen times a day, however, that he was in the way, that he was "a regular Marceline," and that if Brady Thorpe had any sense at all he would order him out of the house!

He began to resent the speed with which George's convalescence was marked. He was enjoying himself so immensely in his new environment that he hated to think of going back to the old and hitherto perfect order of existence. When Braden Thorpe and Dr. Bates declared one day that George would be able to go home in a week or ten days, he experienced a surprising and absolutely inexplicable sinking of the heart. He tried to persuade them that it would be a mistake to send the poor fellow out inside of a month or six weeks. That was the trouble with doctors, he said: they haven't any sense. Suppose, he argued, that George were to catch a cold—why, the damp, spring weather would raise the dickens—Anne's house was a drafty old barn of a place, improperly heated,—and any fool could see that if George did have a relapse it would go mighty hard with him. Subsequently he sounded the nurses, severally, on the advisability of abandoning the poor, weak young fellow before he was safely out of the woods, and the nurses, who were tired of the case, informed him that the way George was eating he soon would be as robust as a dock hand. An appeal to Mrs. Tresslyn brought a certain degree of hope. That lady declared, quite bitterly, that inasmuch as her son did not seem inclined to return to her home he might do a great deal worse than to remain where he was, and it was some time before Simmy grasped the full significance of the remark.

He remembered hearing Lutie say that she was going to take George home with her as soon as he was able to be moved!

What was he to do with himself after all these people were gone? For the first time in his life he really knew what it meant to have a home, and now it was to be broken up. He saw more of his home in the five or six weeks that George was there than he had seen of it all told in years. He stayed at home instead of going to the club or the theatre or to stupid dinner parties. He hadn't the faintest idea that a place where a fellow did nothing but sleep and eat bacon and eggs could be looked upon as a "home." He had thought of it only as an apartment, or "diggings." Now he loved his home and everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scent of roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance of them, and the sweet chatter of them—Oh my, oh me-oh-my! If George would only get well in a more leisurely fashion!

Certain interesting events, each having considerable bearing upon the lives of the various persons presented in this narrative, are to be chronicled, but as briefly as possible so that we may get on to the results.

Naturally one turns first to the patient himself. He was the magnet that drew the various opposing forces together and, in a way, united them in a common enterprise, and therefore is of first importance. For days his life hung in the balance. Most of the time he was completely out of his head. It has been remarked that he thought himself to be dreaming when he first beheld Lutie at his bedside, and it now becomes necessary to report an entirely different sensation when he came to realise that he was being attended by Dr. Thorpe. The instant he discovered Lutie he manifested an immense desire to live, and it was this desire that sustained a fearful shock when his fever-free eyes looked up into the face of his doctor. Terror filled his soul. Almost his first rational words were in the form of a half-whispered question: "For God's sake, can't I get well? Is—is it hopeless?"

Braden was never to forget the anguish in the sick man's eyes, nor the sagging of his limp body as if all of his remaining strength had given way before the ghastly fear that assailed him. Thorpe understood. He knew what it was that flashed through George's brain in that first moment of intelligence. His heart sank. Was it always to be like this? Were people to live in dread of him? His voice was husky as he leaned over and laid his hand gently upon the damp brow of the invalid.

"You are going to get well, George. You will be as sound as a rock in no time at all. Trust me, old fellow,—and don't worry."

"But that's what they always say," whispered George, peering straight into the other's eyes. "Doctors always say that. What are you doing here, Brady? Why have you been called in to—"

"Hush! You're all right. Don't get excited. I have been with you from the start. Ask Lutie—or Anne. They will tell you that you are all right."