A cuckoo clock called the hour, and the girls reluctantly agreed that it was time to go. But first Laura, her arms around as many as she could gather into them, with a few gentle tender words brought their thoughts back to the deep meaning of the thing they were planning to do—trying to make them realize their opportunity for service, and the far-reaching results that must follow if a little life should come under their care and influence.
For once Louise was silent and thoughtful as she went away, and even Lena Barton was more subdued than usual until, at last, with a shrug of her shoulders, she flung out the vague remark,
“After all, what’s the use?” and thereupon rebounded to her usual gay slangy self.
But Elizabeth went home with Miss Laura’s words echoing in her heart. “I don’t suppose I can do much for our Camp Fire baby,” she told herself, “but there’s Molly. Maybe I can do more for her and—and for Sadie and the boys—perhaps.”
IX
JIM
In the first ward of the Children’s Hospital the next afternoon, No. 20 lay very still—strangely still for a nine-year-old boy—watching the door. He had watched it all day, although he knew that visitors’ hours were from two to four, and none would be admitted earlier. No. 18 in the next cot asked him a question once, but No. 20 only shook his head wearily. Some of the children had books and games, but they soon tired of them, and lay idly staring about the long, sunny room, or looking out at the sky and the trees, or watching the door. Sometimes mothers or fathers came through that door, and if you hadn’t any of your own, at any rate you could look at those that came to see other fellows, and sometimes these mothers had a word or a smile for others as well as their own boys. No. 20, however, didn’t want any other fellow’s mother to smile down at him—no indeed, that was the last thing in the world he wanted—yet. He wished sometimes, just for a moment, that there weren’t any mothers to come, since the one could never come to him again. But they did come and smile at him, and pat his head—these mothers of the other boys—came drawn by the hungry longing in his eyes—and he set his teeth and clinched his hands under the bedclothes, and when they went away gulped down the great lump that always jumped into his throat, all in a minute—but he never cried. One day when a kind-hearted nurse asked him about his mother, he bore her questioning as long as he could, and then he struck at her fiercely and slipped right down under the bedclothes where nobody could see him; but he didn’t cry, though he shook and shook for a long time after she went away.
But—Miss Laura—she was different. She didn’t kiss him, nor pat him, nor ask fool questions. She just talked to him—well, the right way. And she’d promised to come again to-day. Maybe she’d forget though; people did forget things they’d promised—only somehow, she didn’t look like the forgetting kind. And she was awful pretty—most the prettiest lady he had ever seen. But hospital hours were so dreadfully long! Seemed like a hundred hours since breakfast. Ah! He lifted his head and looked eagerly towards the door—somebody was coming in. O, only some other fellow’s mother. He dropped down again, choking back an impatient groan that had almost slipped out. When the next mother came in he turned his back on the door, but soon he was watching it again. A half-hour dragged wearily by; then a crowd of girls fluttered through the doorway. No. 20 gazed at them listlessly until one behind slipped past the others; then his eyes widened and his lips twitched as if they had almost a mind to smile, for here was the pretty lady coming straight to him.