"All right--that"ll be good business." He swung Allison"s bed around so that his right arm rested easily on the window sill, requested the nurse to wheel the drug store within easy reach, and rapidly uncorked bottle after bottle with his own hands.
"Now then, get busy."
He sat by, smiling, while Allison poured the varying contents of the drug store on the ground below and listened for the sound of breaking gla.s.s when the bottle swiftly followed the last gurgling drop. When all had been disposed of, the nurse took out the table, and the young man smiled expansively at Allison.
"Feel better?"
"I--think so."
"Good. Now, look here. How much does your hand mean to you?"
"How much does it mean?" repeated Allison, pitifully. "It means life, career--everything."
"Enough to make a fight for it then, I take it."
Dull colour surged by waves into Allison"s white face. "What do you mean?" he asked, in a broken voice. "Tell me what you mean!"
But the young man was removing his coat. "Hot day," he was saying, "and the young lady won"t mind my negligee as long as the braces don"t show.
Strange--how women hate nice new braces. Say," he said to the nurse as she returned, "get somebody to go up to the station and bring down my trunk, will you?"
"Trunk?" echoed Allison.
"Sure," smiled the young man. "My instructions were to stay if I saw any hope, so I brought along my trunk. I"m always looking for a chance to hope, and I"ve discovered that it"s one of the very best ways to find it."
The nurse had hastened away upon her errand. The new element in the atmosphere of the sick room had subtly affected her, also.
"Don"t fence," Allison was saying, huskily. "I"ve asked so much that I"ve quit asking."
The young man nodded complete understanding. "I know. The moss-backs sit around and look wise, and expect to work miracles on a patient who doesn"t know what they"re doing and finally gets the impression that he isn"t considered fit to know. Far be it from me to disparage the pioneers of our n.o.ble profession, but I"m modest enough to admit that I need help, and the best help, every time, comes from the patient himself."
He drew up his chair beside the bed and sat down. Allison"s eager eyes did not swerve from his face.
"Mind you," he went on, "I don"t promise anything--I can"t, conscientiously. In getting a carriage out of the mud, more depends upon the horse than on the driver. Nature will have to do the work--I can"t.
All I can do is to guide her gently. If she"s pushed, she gets balky.
Maybe there"s something ahead of her that I don"t see, and there"s no use spurring her ahead when she"s got to stop and get her breath before she can go up hill.
"That hand can"t heal itself without good blood to draw upon, and good material to make bone and nerve of, so we"ll begin to stoke up, gradually, and meanwhile, I"ll camp right here and see what"s doing. And if you can bring yourself to sort of--well, sing at your work, you know, it"s going to make the job a lot easier."
Allison drew a long breath of relief. "You give me hope," he said.
"Sure," returned the young man, with an infectious laugh. "A young surgeon never has much else when he starts, nor for some time to come.
Want to sit up?"
"Why," Allison breathed, in astonishment, "I can"t."
"Who said so?"
"Everybody. They all said I must lie perfectly still."
"Of course," mused the young man, aloud, "blood may move around all right of itself, and then again, it may not. Wouldn"t do any harm to stir it up a bit and remind the red corpuscles not to loaf on the job."
The nurse came back, to say that the trunk would be up immediately.
"Good. Can I have a bunk in the next room?" Without waiting for her answer, he requested raw eggs and milk, beaten up with a little cream and sherry.
While Allison was drinking it, he moved a big easy chair up near the window, opened every shutter wide, and let the hot sun stream into the room. He expeditiously made a sling for the injured hand, slipped it painlessly into place, put a strong arm under Allison"s shoulders, and lifted him to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed. "Now then, forward, march! Just lean on me."
Muscles long unused trembled under the strain but finally he made the harbour of the easy chair, gasping for breath. "Good," said the young man. "At this rate, we"ll soon have clothes on us and be outdoors."
"Really?" asked Allison, scarcely daring to believe his ears.
"Sure," replied the marvellous young man, confidently. "What"s the use of keeping a whole body in the house on account of one hand? I"m going to tell you just one thing more, then we"ll quit talking shop and proceed to politics or anything else you like.
"I knew a man once who was a trapeze performer in a circus and he was training his son in the same lofty profession. The boy insisted that he couldn"t do it, and finally the man said to him: "Look here, kid, if you"ll put your heart over the bar, your body will follow all right,"
and sure enough it did. Now you get your heart over the bar, and trust your hand to follow. Get the idea?"
The sound of the piano below chimed in with the answer. A rippling, laughing melody danced up the stairs and into the room. The young man listened a moment, then asked, "Who?"
"A friend of mine--my very dearest friend."
"More good business. I think I"ll go down and talk to her. What"s her name?"
"Rose."
"What"s the rest of it? I can"t start in that way, you know. Bad form."
"Bernard--Rose Bernard."
As quickly and silently as he did everything else, the young man went down-stairs, and the piano stopped, but only for a moment, as he requested her, with an airy wave of the hand, not to mind him. When she finished the old song she was playing, he called her by name, introduced himself, and invited her out into the garden, because, as he said, "walls not only have ears, but telephones."
"Say," he began, by way of graceful preliminary, "you look to me as though you had sense."
"Thank you," she replied, demurely.
"Sense," he resumed, "is lamentably scarce, especially the variety misnamed common--or even horse. I"m no mental healer, nor anything of that sort, you know, but it"s reasonable to suppose that if the mind can control the body, after a fashion, when the body is well, it"s ent.i.tled to some show when the body isn"t well, don"t you think so?"
Rose a.s.sented, though she did not quite grasp what he said. His all pervading breeziness affected her much as it had Allison.
"Now," he continued, "I"m not unprofessional enough to knock anybody, but I gather that there"s been a procession of undertakers down here making that poor chap upstairs think there"s no chance. I"m not saying that there is, but there"s no reason why we shouldn"t trot along until we have to stop. It isn"t necessary to amputate just yet, and until it is necessary, there"s nothing to hinder us from working like the devil to save him from it, is there?"
"Surely not."
"All right. Are you in on it?"
"I"m "in,"" replied Rose, slowly, "on anything and everything that human power can do, day or night, until we come to the last ditch."
"Good for you. I"ll appoint you first lieutenant. I guess that nurse is all right, though she doesn"t seem to be unduly optimistic."
"She"s had nothing to make her so. Everything has been discouraging so far."