The Red Acorn Part 22

Lying still became unendurable, she rose, in hopes that action might bring some sort of relief. Such plain toilet was made as the very limited means at her command permitted. The scant privacy afforded by her room was another torture. Maiden modesty suggested a Peeping Tom at every yawning crack in the planking.

At least, neatly attired in a serviceable gray frock, with a dainty white collar at her throat, and her satiny hair brushed smoothly over her forehead, she opened her door and stepped out into the main ward room.

A murmur of appreciation arose from those who looked upon her, and the sick ceased groaning, to feast their eyes upon the fair, fresh apparition of sweet young womanhood. There was such unmistakable pleasure written on every face that for a moment even she herself became a little conscious that her presence was like a grateful shower upon a parched and weary land. But before she could buoy her spirits up with this knowledge they sank again as she perceived Dr. Moxon stalking down the long aisle, with ill-humor expressed in every motion of his bulky figure. He was frowning deeply; his great feet fell flatly upon the creaking planks, as if he were crus.h.i.+ng something at every step, and he rated the occupants of the cots on either side as he pa.s.sed along.

"No. 4," he said sharply to a gaunt boy, whose cheeks were burning with rising fever, "you've got a relapse. Serves you right for leaving your bed yesterday. Now don't deny it, for I saw you outside myself. I'll send the Wardmaster to the guard-house for that."

"But, Doctor, it wasn't his fault," gasped the sick man, painfully. "I begged so hard to go out that he couldn't refuse me. It was so hot in here and smelled so badly, that I felt I should die unless I got a breath of fresh air."

"Silence!" thundered the Surgeon; "I'll have no talking back to me.

Steward, send that Wardmaster to the guard-house for disobedience of orders. No. 7, you refused to take your medicine yesterday. Steward, double his prescription, and if he shows the least resistance to taking it, have the nurses hold him and force it down his throat. Do you hear?

There, why don't you hold still?" (This to a man who was having a large blister applied to his back.)

"It hurts so," answered the sufferer.

"Hurts, eh? Well, I'll show you what hurts some of these days, when I cut your leg off. Well, what do you want, youngster?"

A slender, white-faced boy was standing at the foot of his cot, at "attention," and saluting respectfully.

"If you please," said he, "I'd like to be discharged, and go back to my company. I'm well enough now to do duty, and I'll be entirely well in a short time, if I can get out of doors into the fresh air."

"Indeed," answered Dr. Moxon, with a sneer, "may I inquire when you began to diagnose cases, and offer advice to your superior officers? Why don't you set up in the practice of medicine at once, and apply for a commission as Surgeon in the Army? Step back, an don't ever speak to me again in this manner, or it'll be the worse for you, I can tell you.

I know when you are fit to go back to duty, and I won't have patients annoying me with their whims and fancies. Step back, sir."

Thus he pa.s.sed along, leaving anger and humiliation behind him, as a steamer leaves a wake of waves beaten into a froth.

"Old Sawbones made a mistake with his morning c.o.c.ktail, and mixed a lot of wormwood with it," said one of the "convalescents," in an undertone to those about him.

"This awful hot weather's spilin' most everything," said another, "and the old man's temper never was any too sweet."

Dr. Moxon came up to Rachel, and regarded her for an instant very unpleasantly. "Young woman," he said in a harsh tone and with a still harsher manner, "the rules of this inst.i.tution require every attendant to be present at morning roll-call, under pain of punishment. You were not present this morning, but be careful that you are in the future."

Rachel's grief over her own situation had been swallowed up by indignation at the Surgeon's brutality to others. All her higher instincts were on fire at the gratuitous insults to boys, toward whom her womanly sympathies streamed out. The pugnacious element, large in hers as in all strong natures, a.s.serted itself and invited to the fray.

If there was no one else to resist this petty tyrant she would, and mayhap in this she might find such exercise of her heroic qualities that she felt were within her, as would justify herself in her own esteem.

She met with a resolute glance his peevish eyes, and said;

"When the rules are communicated to me in a proper manner, I shall take care to obey them, if they are just and proper; but I will not be spoken to in that way by any man."

His eyes fell from the encounter with hers, and the dull mottle in his cheek became crimson with a blush at this a.s.sertion of outraged womanly dignity. He turned away, saying gruffly:

"Just as I expected. The moment a woman comes into the hospital, all discipline is at an end."

He moved off angrily. All the inmates saw and overheard. If Rachel's refres.h.i.+ng beauty had captivated them before, her dauntless spirit completed the conquest.

A cheery voice behind her said, "Good morning." There was something so winning in its tones that the set lines in her indignant face relaxed, and she turned softened eyes to meet the frankly genial ones of Dr. Paul Denslow.

"Good morning, Miss----," he repeated, as she hesitated, a little dazed.

"Bond--Rachel Bond's my name. Good morning, sir," she answered, putting out her hand.

As he took it, he said: "I want to make an abject apology. We are ill-prepared to entertain a lady here, and no one knew of your coming.

But we certainly intend to mitigate in some degree the desolation of the room to which you were conducted. I left you for the purpose of seeing what the store-room contained that would contribute a trifle toward transforming it into a maiden's bower--"

"Cinderella's fairy G.o.dmother couldn't have made the transformation with that room," she said with a little shrug of despair.

"Probably not--probably not--and I lay no claim to even the least of the powers exercised by the old lady with the wand. But I allow no man to surpa.s.s me in the matter of good intentions. That is a luxury of which the poorest of us can afford an abundance, and I will not deny myself anything that is so cheap."

Rachel was beguiled into smiling at his merry cynicism.

"Allusions to the pavement in the unmentionable place are barred in this connection," he continued gayly. "On my way to carry out these good intentions--at some one else's expense, remember, all the time--I was called to the bedside of a dying man, and detained there some time. When I at last returned to your room, I judged that you were fast asleep, and I decided not to disturb you."

"I think you would have found it a difficult matter to have roused me. I had sunk on the cot, and was sleeping the sleep of--"

"The just," interposed Dr. Denslow, gallantly.

"No, of the fatigued."

"Well, scientific truth compels me to say that fatigue is a surer and stronger sedative than a clear conscience even. I know, for I have occasionally tried a clear conscience--only by way of experiment, you know," he added, apologetically.

"Well, whatever the case, I was sleeping as though on downy beds of ease."

"Then my mind is lightened of a mountain-load of responsibility for having made you pa.s.s a miserable night. But let's go in to breakfast.

I am opposed to doing anything on an empty stomach--even to holding a pleasant conversation. It invites malaria, and malaria brings a number of disagreeable sensations which people mistake for repentance, remorse, religious awakening, and so on, according to their mental idiosyncrasies, and the state of their digestion."

The breakfast did not help remove the unpleasant impressions already made upon her mind. The cloth that covered the coa.r.s.e planks of the table was unmistakably a well-worn sheet. Tin cups and platters made humble subst.i.tution for china, and were appropriately accompanied by cast-iron knives and two tined forks.

Two Hospital Stewards--denoted by the green bands, embroidered with CADUCEI, around their arms--and the same number of Wardmasters, formed the mess which sat down with Dr. Denslow and Rachel, on benches around the table.

What bouyant cheerfulness could do to raise Rachel's spirits and give an appetizing flavor to the coa.r.s.e viands, Dr. Denslow did.

"I apprehend," said he, "that you will suspect that in obtaining this steak the indefatigable cook made a mistake, and sliced a piece from a side of sole leather hanging near. This was not the case. It was selected with a deep physiological design. Meat of this character consists almost wholly of fibrine, the least heat-producing const.i.tuent of flesh. By excluding all fats and other tender portions, and confining ourselves to fibrine, we are the better able to stand this torrid weather."

One of the Hospital Stewards groaned deeply.

"What is the matter, 'Squills'?" said the Doctor, kindly.

"I was thinking of the monstrous fibber-in here," said "Squills,"

lugubriously.

"'Squills,' I don't know how I can properly punish the disrespect shown our young lady guest and your superior officer, by that vile pun and the viler implication contained in it."

"This sugar," continued the Doctor, lifting some out of an old tomato can with a large iron spoon, and tendering it to Rachel for her coffee, "has a rich golden color, which is totally absent from the paler varieties to which you are accustomed. Its deeper hue comes from having caught more of the Cuban yellow sun's rays."

"Yes," interjected "Squills," "all the Cuban's yellow sons raise. Their daughters, too, are sometimes almost brown."

Dr. Denslow frowned.

"What a queer odor it has," said Rachel, sniffing it, and staying the spool just over her cup.