By Catalogue

THE Doctor lifted the old lady out of his buggy, and carried her carefully into the hospital hall.

The transit would have been more dignified and less dangerous if she had not insisted on clinging to an uncommonly large bandbox, which, being of a lighthearted and irresponsible character, blew about in the fresh breeze, now banging the Doctor on the knee, now threatening to knock off his hat, now caroming lightly against the gate-post, and, finally, narrowly escaping its own destruction by getting underneath the old lady herself just as the Doctor put her down in the big chair.

“ Now we ’ve got you where we can take care of you, Mrs. Parrish,” he said cheerfully, as he wiped his brow with an expansive and immaculate handkerchief, and inwardly gave devout thanks that the goal was reached; for the hospital was directly opposite a house where lived a certain young woman with a sense of humor, and the Doctor, being similarly endowed, realized fully that it would not have been possible to view his tortuous course from the buggy to the hospital door without an outburst of mirth.

Mrs. Parrish looked about her in judicial criticism and qualified disapproval.

Her dingy gown refused to yield to the friendly advances of the chair, and had the appearance of holding itself gingerly aloof; a still dingier bonnet of mixed architecture sat upon her sparsely haired head with a questioning air ; and her careworn face, seamed with the long war between inherent energy and discouraged resignation, turned restlessly as the sharp black eyes scrutinized that spotless hall in search of a vantage-point for unfavorable criticism.

“Well, I ’m here, right enough,” she said rather grimly. “ I hope you did n’t hurt that bunnit-box any, comin’ in. You acted kind of keerless. Sounded to me ’s if it hit that fence-post pritty hard.

“ Won’t you ketch cold in that calico dress ? ” she inquired sharply of the nurse who came toward her. “ This’s as drafty a hall’s I ever see.”

“ Then you’d like to go to your room at once, I’m sure,” responded the nurse pleasantly. “ I hope you ’ll like the view from the window as well as I do. You can see every one who goes down town. It’s like having callers all the time without the trouble of entertaining them.”

Katherine Gray, Nurse, was one of those people whom you like instinctively at first sight.

Even Mrs. Parrish’s time - battered face relaxed before the pleasant, sympathetic smile, which seemed to comprehend, in some occult way, the exact mental attitude of the person to whom it was given.

The Doctor sometimes wondered if Nurse Gray was as understandingly sympathetic as she looked, and, if so, why she was still alive.

One of the first signs of her conquest in the present instance was Mrs. Parrish’s graciously accorded permission to carry the bandbox upstairs to the little room overlooking the main thoroughfare.

“ I don’t know what she has in it,” said the Doctor to Nurse Gray later, in the corridor, “but from the way she guarded it coming down, I should suspect that it held the crown jewels, at least. You have n’t heard that any of the crowned heads have been advertising that they’ve lost theirs ? — No ? — Have her ready for the operation at eight to-morrow morning. Yes. Major operation, — pretty serious. McShane’s coming to help me. She has a fair chance if the heart behaves all right. Goodmorning, Miss Gray.”

It was a bright, cheery little room : the white-painted furniture, the white iron bed, the crisp white muslin curtain at the window, and the cool, fresh feeling of the bed linen gave Mrs. Parrish an unaccustomed sense of well-being; and her tired muscles, tense with the struggle of coping with the exigencies of life, permitted themselves the pleasure of a gentle relaxation.

Nevertheless, when Nurse Gray came into the room, Mrs. Parrish’s eyes closed in apparent slumber ; while beneath those deceptive lids the keen old eyes watched the nurse’s every movement.

By accident, or design, the nurse kept her back to the bed as she deftly lowered the window shade just enough to shut out a sunbeam that was growing a trifle intrusive, and not enough to shut out the sight of the passers-by.

But when she turned and placed on the bedside table a perfect pink, hothouse rose, in a slender, clear, glass vase, Mrs. Parrish, suddenly wide-eyed, gave a gasp of surprise.

“ ’T ain’t fur me,” she said incredulously.

“ Certainly it is,” smiled the nurse ; “ the lady across the hall sent it to you with her kind regards. She is just sitting up after an operation much like yours, and she was interested in you at once. She is coming in to see you when she can.”

A tear coursed its uncertain way down the furrowed cheek.

“ It’s proper kind of her,” said Mrs. Parrish, her mouth working at the corners.

Nurse Gray went quietly out of the room.

It was evening, and Mrs. Parrish sat up in bed, with a dull red spot on each cheek.

“ You ’re a good girl,” she said to the nurse, “ ’n’ I ’m goin’ to tell you about it. It’s an even chance I don’t git through that operation to-morrow, ’n’ I want it off my mind anyway. Hand me my bunnit-box. I hed to bring it with me. I wa’n’t goin’ to have folks a-peekin’ an’ pryin’ round while I wuz gone, ’n’ spec’latin’ on it. You see,” she went on, working at the knot with trembling fingers, “ I ain’t got any too much money. I guess you could see that. But I’ve tried awful hard to keep up ’pearanees, ’n’ to do the best I could. ’N’ I ’ve paid my debts, ’n’ hed a new bunnit once a year, ’n’ kep’ my mouth shet about half starvin’ myself to git it. ’N’ I expect I talked bigger ’n I spent, to the neighbors ; but you know how ’t is : you’ve got to keep up some in talk when you can’t keep up much in spendinY’

“ I know,” said Nurse Gray gently.

“ ’N’ I allus sent fur Morton ’n’ Hurd’s catalogue, — you kin buy anything on airth there, — ’n’ picked out my bunnit from the pictures, ’n’ ordered it by number ; ’n’ I mus’ say they was allus jus’ like it, ’n’ give me good satisfaction.

“ Well, this spring I saved ’n’ scrimped, ’n’ I picked out a proper bunnit. It hed a feather ’n’ a velvet bow ; ’n’ ’t was three seventy-five. The catalogue man hed printed under it, ‘ Really worth five dollars.’ I s’pose probably ’t was. I wrote ’em jus’ as I allus hed, ’n’ ordered by number, ’n’ sent the money. ’N’ this,” said Mrs. Parrish solemnly, “ this is what come.”

With the air of a priestess placing a sacrificial offering upon the altar, she took from her box, and presented to Nurse Gray’s astonished eyes, a child’s hat.

And such a hat! Coarse leghorn, decked out with ribbon whose blue parodied the Mediterranean, and a wreath of roses whose garish color and patent artificiality constituted a grotesque caricature which would have caused the Queen of Flowers to win in a libel suit.

“ Well ? ” gasped Katherine Gray, for once nonplused.

“ I’d ordered from an old fall catalogue,” answered Mrs. Parrish wearily. “ This was the number in the new spring one.”

“ But would n’t they exchange it ? ” The nurse was catching at straws now.

“ I wrote ’em,” said Mrs. Parrish, giving the touch of finality to the tragedy, “ ’n’ they wrote back that they regretted that they could n’t break their invariable rule not to exchange trimmed hats, ’n’ they was sincerely mine. So was this hat,” she added grimly.

“ That’s all,” she said, lying back on the pillows again, “ except that I ain’t got any money to git another ; ’n’ I don’t much keer how that operation comes out to-morrow. I’d ’bout as soon die’s wear my ol’ bunnit all summer. It’s easy enough to talk about not keerin’ fur the things of this world, but the folks that does is mostly the folks that has ’em, I’ve noticed.”

From disaster to its remedy, Nurse Gray’s mind took its usual logical course, — surmounted several obstacles to find itself in a blind alley, and came back, finally, to take, not at all to her surprise, the way which led to a personal sacrifice on her part.

For there were reasons why even three seventy-five looked a sizable sum to Nurse Gray just then.

“ We must find some child whose mother will buy it,” she said cheerfully. “ Of course, if you paid three seventyfive for it, it is worth that. And I think if yon will trust me with it, I can sell it for you.”

“ I guess I kin trust you, right enough,” said Mrs. Parrish, with a grim smile. “I ain’t a mite afraid you’ll wear it yourself; ’n’ if you could sell it ” — The light of hope came back into her eyes.

Up in her own room, Nurse Gray extracted the sum in question from a pocket-book whose extreme emaciation suggested long lack of proper nourishment, and she laughed a little unsteadily as she did so.

The Things of This World are also desirable when one is twenty-four.

Then she fell upon the offending bandbox with superfluous energy, and jammed it, with its contents, on her brightly burning grate fire.

“ You shall disfigure no human head,” she said gayly, shaking her finger at the last rose as it burned to a crisp on its supposedly parent stem, “and you deserved death anyway.”

Mrs. Parrish’s eyes questioned her.

“Yes, it’s sold,” she said.

“Was the party responsible ? ” quavered Mrs. Parrish.

“ Entirely,” laughed the nurse. “ I ’ll have the money for you when you wake up. Now you must take the ether nicely.”

“ Breathe slowly and deeply, Mrs. Parrish,” said the Doctor, “ slowly and deeply — slowly — deeply — slowly — deep— ”

It sounded like the ticking of a clock to her as she slipped away down — down — down — into a black stillness.

The little room was bright with the glory of the noonday sun ; the Doctor stood beside her, smiling like a schoolboy, Nurse Gray was adjusting the pillow comfortably under her head, and on the dresser she saw a little pile of silver coins.

“ You ’re a prize patient, Mrs. Parrish,” said the Doctor exultantly, “and you are going to be a well woman. Now while you ’re lying here perfectly still, you must think of the thing you ’d like most to have, first of all.”

Mrs. Parrish looked at the nurse.

“ If you ’d send fur Morton ’n’ Hurd’s spring catalogue?” she said hesitatingly.

“ The very latest one,” said Nurse Gray gayly.

“ Oh, you women ! ” said the Doctor; but he smiled as he said it.

Mrs. Parrish closed her eyes contentedly.

Beatrice Hanscom.