“Plenty of fight in the little beggar or he wouldn’t be outlasting—” The doctor swallowed the remainder of the sentence, cut short by a startled look on Sheila’s face.
The screams had stopped a minute before, and Sheila believed the atom had dropped asleep. But instead of feeling the tiny body relax as a sleeping baby’s will, it was growing slowly rigid. With this realization she strode to the bed and put the atom down. Before their eyes the body stiffened, while the head rolled slowly from side to side and under the half-closed lids the eyeballs rolled with it.
“Convulsions!” announced the corridor nurse, with an anxious look toward the door. Then, as a bell tinkled, she voiced her relief in a quick breath. “That’s sixty-one. I’m hiking—”
“No, you don’t!” The doctor jerked her back; he wanted to shake her. “You’ll hustle some hot water for us, and then you’ll stand by to hustle some more. See?” He was shedding all unnecessary clothing as he spoke, and Sheila was peeling the atom free of shirt and roundabout as fast as skilled fingers could move.
It is a wonderful thing to watch the fight between human skill and death for the life of a baby. So little it takes to swing the victory either way, so close does it border on the miraculous, that few can stand and see without feeling the silent, invisible presence of the Nazarene. A life thus saved seems to gather unto itself a special significance and value for those who have fought for it and those who receive it again. It creates new feelings and a clearer vision in blind, unthinking motherhood; it awakens to a vital response hitherto dormant fatherhood. And even the callous outsider becomes exalted with the wonder and closeness of that unseen presence.
As the brown atom writhed from one convulsion into another, Sheila and the old doctor worked with compressed lips and almost suspended breath; they worked like a single mind supplied with twice the usual amount of auxiliaries. They saw, without acknowledging it, the gorgeous, tropical figure that came and stood half-way between the door and the bed; lips carmined, throat and cheeks heavy with powder, jewels covering ears, neck, fingers, and wrists, she looked absurdly unreal beside the nurse in her uniform and the doctor in his shirt-sleeves. Occasionally Sheila glanced at her. If they won, would the mother care? The question came back to her consciousness again and again. In her own experience she knew how often the thing one called motherhood would come into actual existence after a struggle like this when birth itself had failed to accomplish anything but a physical obligation. Believing this, Sheila fought the harder.
After an hour the convulsions subsided. A few more drops of brandy were poured down the tiny throat, and slowly the heart took up its regulation work. Sheila wrapped the atom in a blanket, put it back on the bed, and beckoned to the mother.
Curiosity seemed to be the one governing emotion of the señora. She looked without any trace of grief, and, having looked, she spoke impassively: “I theenk eet dead. Yes?”
Doctor Fuller, with perspiration pouring from him, transfixed her with a stare. “No! That baby’s going to get well now, and you’re going to let Miss O’Leary teach you how to take proper care of it. Understand?” Then clapping his fellow-fighter on the back, he beamed down upon her. “Leerie, you’re one grand soldier!”
The monotone of the gorgeous señora broke up any response Sheila might have given. “I theenk eet die, all the same,” came the impassive voice. “The padre on the ship make it all ready for die—I theenk yes pret’ soon.”