Everybody in the whole hospital knew the Daisy Cot and its story: and the nurses had to tell it half a dozen times a day, sometimes; for every fresh visitor who came into the girls' ward was sure to say: "What a pretty little bed! What makes it so different from the others?" And then the Sister (they called the nurses "Sisters" there) would tell how the cot and the picture had once belonged to a dear little girl named Daisy, and how, when the angels came and took her away from this world, her heart-broken mother could not bear to look at the empty bed, but sent it here, that some poor sick child might always use it, and stay in it until she was quite well again. More than once, before Sister Theresa's simple tale was done, a bright round drop fell quietly down among the daisies, for some of the visitors were mothers themselves, and couldn't help thinking of the precious babies at home.
One day there was a small excitement all down the ward. Heads popped up from one bed after another, and black eyes and blue exchanged signals, while half a dozen shrill voices at once called across to each other: "Oh, I say, just look here! There's a new Daisy in the cot."
So there was; and such a queer little flower this time! A tiny, tiny girl, with a white still face—as white as any of the daisies on the quilt—and such a wonderful head of tight red-gold curls as none of them had ever seen in all their lives.
"Daisies oughtn't ter have red hair," said one small damsel, with a great idea of the eternal fitness of things.
"Oughtn't they?" laughed the Doctor, who was busy tying a card to the brass rail at the foot of the cot, with the new Daisy's name, and her illness, and the food she was to have, written on it. "But I've seen daisies with red tips in Scotland, I can tell you. All the same, I like the big white ones better. There, nurse," he went on, as Sister Theresa's noiseless step drew near, "there's your new patient; Mercy Trafford is her name, and I shouldn't wonder if a story went with it. What did the people say who brought her in?"
"Yes, there is a story, and a sad one too," said the sweet-voiced Sister. "It seems her mother died last winter, and her father, a poor artist, was killed in a street accident a few weeks ago. Since that, the people in the house where she was have taken some sort of care of her, until last night, when the place caught on fire, and she was just saved from death, poor baby! But there must have been a fall, you know, to account for that broken leg, and the other injuries."
"Humph!" said the Doctor. It was rather a favorite exclamation of his, and had earned him, with some of his lady patients, the character of being a regular bear; but the bear had a warm and tender heart under his great rough coat, and the smallest baby in the hospital would look up in his face with a laugh, and try to snatch at his shaggy locks, as he bent over its crib.
Many, many long days went by before the new Daisy could do anything but lie with closed eyes and a drawn white face. Ah! those were weary, sorrowful days; and sometimes they began to fear the poor wee mite would never run about again, and that made them very sad, for her sweet, patient little ways had taught them all to love her. But at last there came a day when the Doctor looked less grave, and the Sisters nodded to each other over the cot, and said, "I really think she'll do now, do you know?" And then, at last, two big blue eyes opened wide, and a sweet high voice was heard to say, "Oh, please, I is so hungry!"
I don't know why they should all have accepted her from that very moment as the pet of the ward, but so they did; and never did Queen reign with more gracious dignity than did Miss Mercy.
Not that she went by that name, however; for the very first time any one ventured to call her by it, she answered, with stately emphasis, "I not Mercy now; I Daisy." So Daisy it became with everybody from that time forth—except the Doctor, that is.