"Yes, I am quite partial to Mr. Gobbler, too," smiled Miss Wayne reminiscently, "but we nurses don't always get a taste of it on Thanksgiving Day, either."
"Can't the hospital afford turkeys once a year?" asked Peace in shocked surprise.
"But a nurse doesn't live at the hospital always, you know. After she graduates, most of her cases are in private homes, and it all depends upon where she is on the holidays as to what she gets to eat or how she amuses herself. Now, Christmas Day this year I spent with my married brother on his farm near St. Cloud, but it is the first time I have been with any of my own people for a holiday during the last four years. On Thanksgiving I was taking care of a little girl who had diphtheria, and we were shut off upstairs all by ourselves, seeing no one but the doctor from one day's end to the next. Poor Zella was too sick to know what day it was, and I was too anxious about her to care, so neither of us got any turkey.
"One year I was miles out in the country, nursing a worn-out mother, who had seven children, all younger than you. She was a farmer's wife, and they were huddled in the dirtiest bit of a hovel that I ever saw. The hogs and chickens used to come into the kitchen whenever the door was opened, and no one ever thought of driving them out. They didn't know what it meant to be clean, and were shocked almost to death when I tried to give the latest baby a bath. There wasn't a broom in the house and no one knew what I wanted when I asked for a mop. We had literally to shovel the dirt off those floors.
"The children had never been taught to pray, they knew absolutely nothing about the Bible, had never even heard the name of Jesus except in swearing. Christmas Day was unheard of, and Thanksgiving a riddle; and when I asked the father if we might not have a hen for dinner on that occasion, he said there were none to spare for such nonsensical purposes."
"But you got one anyway, didn't you?" Peace eagerly asked, for she had learned to love Miss Wayne dearly, and seemed to think that the earnest, whole-hearted, sympathizing woman was capable of anything.
"No, not from him," the nurse replied, knitting her brows as if the thought still made her angry. "But his answer got my dander up, and the children were so disappointed, for I had told them all about our Thanksgiving Day, that I determined to cook them a sure-enough Thanksgiving dinner if I could manage it. There was one girl in the family,—little five-year-old Essie,—and I gave her a half dollar and sent her over to their nearest neighbor to see if he would sell us a small turkey. He had already disposed of his turkeys, however, and had no hens for sale either; but he gave Essie a big duck and a handful of silver in exchange for the money she had given him, and she came back as proud as a peacock to display her wares. I saw at once when she passed me the change that he had not charged her a cent for the duck, so I put the money back into her little hand and told her that she was to keep it. At first she was reluctant, though her big, eager eyes showed how much she really wanted it; and after a while I made her understand that I actually meant to give it to her for her very own. But when she took it to her mother, the little woman called me to the bed and explained that it would do the child no good in that form, because the lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing father would take it to buy tobacco. 'The children can't save a penny,' she said sadly. 'When once he gets his hands on it, they never see it again. But if you really want Essie to have the money, won't you take it and buy her a doll? She has never had one of her own, and it would please her more than anything you could do.'
"So I put the money back into my purse and promised Essie a doll instead, which should open and shut its eyes and have real hair. Christmas was near at hand, and I made up my mind that I would dress the doll as daintily as possible and send it to her in time for Christmas Eve, so the mother could put it in her little stocking, for all the children had expressed a determination to hang up their stockings that year like the children in the stories I had told them. So, when about a week before Christmas, I was able to leave the dirty little hovel, I searched the stores through for the kind of a doll Essie wanted, and made it a beautiful set of lace-trimmed clothes which really buttoned up. My mother and sisters were greatly interested in the story of this neglected family, and they decided that we must pack a box for all the children, so none of the little stockings would be empty on Christmas morn. Accordingly, we picked up some old clothing, whole and serviceable—"
"Just like the ladies do each year for the missionaries on the frontier," Peace interrupted with breathless interest.