V. V.'s Eyes

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

Mrs. Garland slept alone in a new room containing the sway-backed double bed, and (to tell the truth) not one earthly thing besides. Kern slept in a brand-new single bed of white iron, new-mattressed and sheeted, and not far away stood another bed exactly like it. Beside Kern's bed stood a table holding glasses and bottled milk and thermometer and cracked ice and charts and liquid diet. In one of the windows stood three potted geraniums, growing nicely and bright red. Another window, where the noonday sun shone in too warmly, was fitted with a red-striped awning; and in a third--for the pleasant old room, at the extreme back of the house, had no less than four of them--a baby electric fan, operated from a storage battery, ran musically hour by hour. And through all these marvels moved the biggest and most incredible marvel of all: a lady in a blue-and-white dress and long apron, with spectacles and a gentle voice, who was paid twenty-five dollars a week to wait upon and give sponge baths to her, Kern Garland.

Yes, you could do something with one thousand dollars put into a checking account, and fourteen thousand more waiting behind that on a certificate of deposit. But was it not the irony of life, was it not life itself, that the little buncher, who only the other day would have thrilled to her marrow at the mere thought of all these things, should have won her lady's glories only when she was too strangely listless to care for them?...

Mrs. Garland feebly protested against the doctor's staggering expenditures, as in duty bound, but was silenced when he told her that, by a lucky chance, he had a fund given him by a benevolent relative for just such cases. The doctor took advantage of the interview to announce a stiff raise in board-charges, saying, in quite a censorious way, that he had been expecting for some time to hear a demand from her for such an increase. As it was, through her failure to protect her own interests, she and Kern had been doing the full duties of an office-boy for him, doing them, he might say, faithfully and well, without compensation of any sort whatsoever. This imposition must cease at once.

"Again," said he, "I am growing--somewhat heartier. I am quite aware that I eat more. I say that thirty-five dollars a month, and probably more, is the proper amount for me to pay."

And he said it so sternly, with such a superior gempman's way to him, that Mrs. Garland, feeling convicted of guilt,--and, to tell the truth, missing Kern's earnings sorely,--could only reply: "Just as you say, sir, well, now, and thank you kindly, I'm sure."

The first excitement gradually subsided, and the Dabney House settled to the long pull. Days slipped by, all just alike.

Kern's malady discouraged reading aloud. It discouraged conversation. Visitors were not allowed. But twice, without the nurse's knowledge,--Miss Masters took her rest-time every afternoon from three to seven,--rules were suspended to admit Miss Sadie Whirtle, of Baird & Himmel's,--an enormous, snapping, red-cheeked girl she proved to be, whose ample Semitic countenance gave a copious background for violet talcum, but who said nothing wittier in Vivian's hearing than "Very pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure"--and once to admit Miss Henrietta Cooney, of Saltman's bookstore. Hen came by from the store late one August afternoon, having heard something of the case which seemed to worry V.V. more than all his others put together. She was allowed to spend twenty minutes in the sick-room, provided she did not permit Kern to talk. Having faithfully obeyed these instructions, Henrietta returned to the office, where the doctor sat in his shirt-sleeves, humped over Miss Masters's chart.

"She's an odd little thing," said Hen, "very cute and dear with her staring eyes and her yes-ma'ams. I was telling her about the Thursday Germans, first explaining that a German had nothing to do with Germany--or has it? You know you told me she was wild about parties. She was so, so interested.... V.V., she's quite a sick girl, isn't she?"

"Quite sick," replied V.V. He glanced out of his weather-worn window, and said: "But she's going to be better to-morrow."

"Oh! That's the crisis, or whatever you call it?"