death; but she found her on duty in the surgical ward. For the second time in four months, the two girls were working side by side.
Sidney’s recollection of her previous service under Carlotta made her nervous. But the older girl greeted her pleasantly.
“We were all sorry to hear of your trouble,” she said. “I hope we shall get on nicely.”
Sidney surveyed the ward, full to overflowing. At the far end two cots had been placed.
“The ward is heavy, isn’t it?”
“Very. I’ve been almost mad at dressing hour. There are three of us—you, myself, and a probationer.”
The first light of the Christmas morning was coming through the windows. Carlotta put out the lights and turned in a businesslike way to her records.
“The probationer’s name is Wardwell,” she said. “Perhaps you’d better help her with the breakfasts. If there’s any way to make a mistake, she makes it.”
It was after eight when Sidney found Johnny Rosenfeld.
“You here in the ward, Johnny!” she said.
Suffering had refined the boy’s features. His dark, heavily fringed eyes looked at her from a pale face. But he smiled up at her cheerfully.
“I was in a private room; but it cost thirty plunks a week, so I moved. Why pay rent?”
Sidney had not seen him since his accident. She had wished to go, but K. had urged against it. She was not strong, and she had already suffered much. And now the work of the ward pressed hard. She had only a moment. She stood beside him and stroked his hand.
“I’m sorry, Johnny.”
He pretended to think that her sympathy was for his fall from the estate of a private patient to the free ward.
“Oh, I’m all right, Miss Sidney,” he said. “Mr. Howe is paying six dollars a week for me. The difference between me and the other fellows around here is that I get a napkin on my tray and they don’t.”
Before his determined cheerfulness Sidney choked.
“Six dollars a week for a napkin is going some. I wish you’d tell Mr. Howe to give ma the six dollars. She’ll be needing it. I’m no bloated aristocrat; I don’t have to have a napkin.”
“Have they told you what the trouble is?”
“Back’s broke. But don’t let that worry you. Dr. Max Wilson is going to operate on me. I’ll be doing the tango yet.”
Sidney’s eyes shone. Of course, Max could do it. What a thing it was to be able to take this life-in-death of Johnny Rosenfeld’s and make it life again!
All sorts of men made up Sidney’s world: the derelicts who wandered through the ward in flapping slippers, listlessly carrying trays; the unshaven men in the beds, looking forward to another day of boredom, if not of pain; Palmer Howe with his broken arm; K., tender and strong, but filling no especial place in the world. Towering over them all was the younger Wilson. He meant for her, that Christmas morning, all that the other men were not—to their weakness strength, courage, daring, power.
Johnny Rosenfeld lay back on the pillows and watched her face.
“When I was a kid,” he said, “and ran along the Street, calling Dr. Max a dude, I never thought I’d lie here watching that door to see him come in. You have had trouble, too. Ain’t it the hell of a world, anyhow? It ain’t much of a Christmas to you, either.”
Sidney fed him his morning beef tea, and, because her eyes filled up with tears now and then at his helplessness, she was not so skillful as she might have been. When one spoonful had gone down his neck, he smiled up at her whimsically.
“Run for your life. The dam’s burst!” he said.
As much as was possible, the hospital rested on that Christmas Day. The internes went about in fresh white ducks with sprays of mistletoe in their buttonholes, doing few dressings. Over the upper floors, where the kitchens were located, spread toward noon the insidious odor of roasting turkeys. Every ward had its vase of holly. In the afternoon, services were held in the chapel downstairs.
Wheel-chairs made their slow progress along corridors and down elevators. Convalescents who were able to walk flapped along in carpet slippers.
Gradually the chapel filled up. Outside the wide doors of the corridor the wheel-chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Behind them, dressed for the occasion, were the elevator-men, the orderlies, and Big John, who drove the ambulance.
On one side of the aisle, near the front, sat the nurses in rows, in crisp caps and fresh uniforms. On the other side had been reserved a place for the staff. The internes stood back against the wall, ready to run out between rejoicings, as it were—for a cigarette or an ambulance call, as the case might be.
Over everything brooded the after-dinner peace of Christmas afternoon.
The nurses sang, and Sidney sang with them, her fresh young voice rising above the rest. Yellow winter sunlight came through the stained-glass windows and shone on her lovely flushed face, her smooth kerchief, her cap, always just a little awry.
Dr. Max, lounging against the wall, across the chapel, found his eyes straying toward her constantly. How she stood out from the others! What a zest for living and for happiness she had!
The Episcopal clergyman read the Epistle:
