A low indistinct sound, half groan, half sobbing, came from the open windows of the little tent. And as they drew near, their feet rattling the dry sand, there came a warning call.
"A light, a light, a light," begged Miss Tucker. The nurses hesitated, half frightened, and as they paused they heard a low drip, drip, inside the tent, each drop emphasized by Miss Tucker"s sobs.
The porter flashed a pocket-light, and they opened the door. Miss Tucker lay in a huddled heap on her bed, her hands over her face, her shoulders rising and falling. The nurses shook her sternly.
"What is the matter with you?" they demanded.
Finally, she was persuaded to lift her face and mumble an explanation.
"I was asleep, and I heard my name called, and I looked up. There was a white shadow on the door. I seized my pillow and threw it with all my might, and there was a loud crash and a roar, and then began that drip, drip, drip,--oh-h-h!"
"You silly thing," said Miss Alien. "Of course there was a crash. You knocked the chimney off your lamp,--that made a crash all right. And the lamp upset, and it is the kerosene drip, dripping from the table to the floor. Girls who must have kerosene lamps to heat their curlers must look for trouble."
"The white shadow--" protested the girl.
"Moonshine, of course. Look." Miss Alien pulled the girl to her feet.
"The whole mesa is in white shadow. Run around to the tents, girls,"
she said to her a.s.sistants, "and tell them Miss Tucker had a bad dream,--nothing wrong. We will have a dozen bed patients from this night"s foolishness."
Miss Tucker refused to be left alone and a nurse was detailed to spend the night with her.
When the nurses on their rounds reached Miss Landbury"s room in the McCormick Building, they had another fright. The room was empty. The bed was cold,--had not been occupied for hours, likely. They rushed to the head nurse, and a wild search was inst.i.tuted.
The Dukes" room, Number Six, McCormick, was wrapped in darkness.
"Don"t go near them," Miss Alien said. "Perhaps they did not hear the noise, and Mr. Duke should not be disturbed."
So the wild search went on.
But after a time, a Mexican porter, with a lantern, seeking every nook and corner, plodded stealthily around a corner of the McCormick.
He heard a gasp beside him, and turning his lantern he looked directly into the window, where four white, tense faces peered at him with staring eyes. He returned their stare, speechlessly. Then he saw Miss Landbury.
"Ain"t you lost?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
Miss Landbury, frightened out of her senses, and not recognizing the porter in the darkness, shot into her bed on the floor, and David answered the man"s questions. A moment later an outraged matron, flanked by two nurses, marched in upon them.
"What is the meaning of this?" they demanded.
"Search me," said David pleasantly. "Our friends and neighbors got lonesome in the night and refused to sleep alone and let us rest in contentment. So they moved in, and here we are."
Both Gooding and Miss Landbury positively declined to go home alone, and other nurses were appointed to guard them during the brief remaining hours of the night. At four o"clock came sleep and silence and serenity, with Carol on the floor, clutching David"s hand, which even in sleep she did not resign.
The next morning a huge notice was posted on the bulletin board.
"Any one who tells a ghost story, or discusses departed spirits, in this inst.i.tution or on the grounds thereof, shall have all privileges suspended for a period of six weeks.
"By order of the Superintendent."
CHAPTER XVII
RUBBING ELBOWS
"Chicago, Illinois.
"Dearly Beloveds:
"Nearly I am converted to matrimony as a life career. Almost I feel it is worth the sacrifice of independence, the death of originality, the banishment of special friendship, and the monotonous bondage of rigid routine.
"I have just come back from Mount Mark, where I had my second visit with little Julia. She is worth the giving up of anything, and the enduring of everything. She is marvelous.
"When I first saw her, just after Aunt Grace brought her home,--I think I told you that I went without a new pair of lovely gray shoes at ten dollars a pair in order to go to Mount Mark to meet her,--she was very sweet, and all that, but when they are so rosily new they are more like scientific curiosities than literary inspirations. But I have met her again, and I am everlastingly converted to the domestic enslavement of women. One little Julia is worth it. So as soon as I find the husband, I am going to cultivate my eleven children. You remember that was the career I picked out in the days of my tender youth.
"Her face is big and round and white, and her eyes are bluer than any summer sky the poets could rave about. Her lips are the original Cupid"s bow,--in fact, Julia"s lips have about convinced me that Cupid must have been a woman, certainly he could ask no more deadly weapon for shattering the hearts of men. Her hair is comical. It is yellow gold, but it sticks straight out in every direction. It is the most aggravatingly, irresistibly defiant hair you ever saw in your life. It makes you kiss it, and brush it, and soak it in water, and shake Julia for having it, and then fall in love with her all over again.
"She is just beginning to talk. When I arrived the whole family was a.s.sembled to do me honor, Prudence and Fairy, Lark and all the babies.
Julia seemed to resent her temporary eclipse in the limelight. She crowed in a compelling way, and when I advanced to bow reverently before her, she pointed a fat, accusing finger at me, and said, "Who is "at?" Her very first word,--and no presidential message ever provoked half the storm of approval her little phrase called forth. We laughed, and kissed each other, and begged her to say it again, and Prudence said "Oh, if Carol could have heard that," and then we all rushed off and cried and scolded each other for being so silly, and Julia screamed. Oh, it was a formal afternoon reception all right.
"And I am putting a little three-line ad in the morning _Tribune_.
"Young, accomplished, attractive lady without means, of strong domestic tendencies, desires a husband, eugenic, rich, good looking. Object matrimony."
"Of course I know that I repeat myself. But if you don"t say "Object matrimony," some men wouldn"t catch the point.
"And so you are out of the San and keeping house again. A brand-new honeymoon, of course, and cooing doves, and chiming bells, and all the rest of it. When the rest of us back here write to each other, we say at the end, "Carol is well and David is better." It conveys the idea of a Thanksgiving service and a hallelujah chorus. It means Good night, G.o.d bless you, and Merry Christmas, all in one.
"By the way, do you remember William Canfield Brewer, the original advertiser who got moved out when I moved in? Well, between you and me, almost for a while I did begin to see some charms in matrimony. He came again, and was properly introduced. And took me for a drive,--it seems he had just collected his salary,--and he came again, and we went to the park, and he came again. And that was when I began to see the halo around the wedding bells. One night he was telling me his experiences in saving money,--uproariously funny, my dear, for he never could save more than five dollars a month, and ran in debt fifteen dollars to encompa.s.s it. He said:
""My wife used to say it was harder work for me to carry my salary home from the office than to earn it right at the start."
"I laughed,--I thought of course it was a joke. I guess the laugh was revealing, for he turned around suddenly and said:
""You knew I was married, didn"t you, Connie?" First time he ever called me Connie.
"Well, the halo vanished like a flash and hasn"t got back yet.
"I said, "No, I didn"t know it."
""Why, everybody knows it," he expostulated.
""I did not."
""We are devoted to each other," he said, laughing lightly, "but we find our devotion wears better at long distance. So she lives wherever I do not, and we get along like birdies in their little nest. I haven"t seen her for two years."
"Then he went on with his financial experiences, evidently calling the subject closed.
"When he started home, he said, "Well, what shall we do Sunday?"