“Mrs. Olds has sent me in search of you. The canteen you soldered for her patient’s use has come unsoldered, the tin lining of the fireless cooker has sprung a leak, the big man has to be lifted while his bed is being changed, and she wants to know if you forgot to purchase the malted milk this afternoon—she can’t find it anywhere. She said, too, that you had signified your intention of rubbing soap on the doors to prevent their squeaking. She also said something about procrastination, but it sounded hackneyed—quite as if I had heard it somewhere before—so I left rather precipitately.”
All the while I was soldering the canteen for the big man’s feet, I could hear Wanza chattering blithely with the patient in the front room. She came out to me after awhile, and stood at my elbow as I examined the cooker. I frowned at her, and received a moue in return.
“I’ve been telling the big man about my peddler’s cart,” she ventured finally. “He’s so set on seeing it, soon as he’s well enough! Seems he never saw one. He can’t talk much, he’s that weak yet—like a baby! But I can talk to him.”
“I shall not ask you not to talk with him, again, Wanza,” I announced.
“It’s just as well, seeing as I know what I’m about. Land! the poor man! He needs some one to talk to him. I don’t notice you hurting yourself seeing after him, Mr. David Dale!”
I felt very weary and intolerably disgusted with everything, and I answered sharply, “That’s my own affair.” The next minute I saw the blood spurt from my palm, and realized even as Wanza cried out that I had cut myself rather badly on the tin lining of the cooker. I turned faint and dizzy, and opening the door I plunged out into the night air followed closely by Wanza.
“It’s nothing,” I kept saying, keeping my hand behind me as she would have examined it.
“Please—please, Mr. Dale, let me look at it.”
She pressed forward to my side and reached around behind me for my hand. I could feel her quivering in every limb.
“It’s nothing,” I maintained, though the pain was intense, and the rapid flow of blood was weakening me.