"DISTRICT NURSE"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1939, Page 10

"DISTRICT NURSE"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

FAITH BALDWIN.

CHAPTER VII. —Continued,

“'Sorry,” said Frank Bartlett, but wasn’t, ‘‘Hello, Mike,” said Frank, and the cop grinned. “Sure, I didn’t know it was yon, Mr Bartlett,’’ he said, "On your way, on your way.” They were on their way, laughing. Later that night, while Mrs Adams was receiving, in an unwonted silence, her evening attentions, Ellen asked her with a timidity which astonished and annoyed her. “You liked him, didn’t you, mother?” “Whom?” asked Mrs Adams.

“Mother!” Ellen gave her a small firm spank on the shoulder, “don’t be perverse.” Mrs Adams surrendered. “He seemed a very pleasant young man,” she replied cautiously, with a complete air of if one can believe all he says, an air of mental reservations. She added. “Jim looked in while you were gone.’ That was like her mother, Ellen thought, exasperated. She would wait until now to tell her. Probably she had taken some satisfaction in telling Jim . . .

When Ellen was leaving for the night her mother reached up her thin arms and drew her down to her, holding the girl’s glowing young face close to her own faded cheek; “My good girlj” she murmured.

Ellen went' back to her room, thoughtful, moved. Her mother was not demonstrative. She demanded a good deal, she gave no sign of having received. She must have been disturbed to have offered as much . . disturbed, or worried.

Well, there was nothing to worry about. When she came to know Frank Bartlett, she would like him, she must . . . could she help it? Her prejudice against him was not really personal; it was allied to that fixed idea, that fatal, baseless terror which for over eight years had been an integral part of her. Ellen sighed, from pity, not from fath gue. She had never felt less_weary, more wide awake in all her life. Poor mother.- Poor Coral . . . At breakfast, Nancy was gay. “We saw you,” she mentioned, aside to Ellen, “but you didn’t see us. We were riding on top of the ’bus like the rest of the hoi polloi. You were speeding along, lost to the world.” She laughed into Ellen's startled eyes.

“Why didn’t you yell?” Ellen wanted to know.

“Child,” said Nancy, pi tingly, “you wouldn’t have heard us if we had . . .” Later, she announced for Mrs Adams’ benefit, “I like the new boy friend. He’s a good egg.” Mrs Adams regarded her with resignation.

“Nancy, where on earth you pick up such expressions?” she began, and then switched to an abrupt statement: “And I wish you wouldn't say boy friend. It's vulgar. Besides. Mr Bartlett is only an acquaintance.” “And how!” murmured Nancy. Ellen looked up, her eyes dark. “I expect to see him often, mother,” she stated, without any comprimise, “I like him.”

That was that, again. Mrs Adams reddened, to the tip of her nose. She looked reproved and reproached and ate no breakfast after that. Ellen was, Ellen told herself, sorry. But it couldn’t be helped. She did expect to see Frank. She did like him. And she could somehow harden her heart and cure herself of this feeling of pity and remorse v.’hich troubled her every time she crossed her mother in the least degree.

She saw Frank, with an increasing frequency. Sometimes they had dinner out. Once in a while, on a Sunday, they went off in the car. when Nancy was at home. Once, when Mrs Adam’s cousin Laura Farrell came to spend the day and night with her, Nancy and Chick went picnicking with them out in the country, and as Nancy had, her night off, they stayed late, had supper at a road house and danced until ten o’clock and managed to get home, despite the heavy traffic, before midn'ight. Mrs Farrell was there, yawningly ready to make up her bed on the living room davenport. Mrs Adams had not retired.

“You promised us you'd let Cousin Laura put you to bed.” she said. “I couldn’t have slept," said Mrs Adams shortly. Later, as the two girls lay awake in bed, Ellen asked suddenly. "Why tinder the sun does she dislike him so?” “Frank? Oh. because he has money, and is foot-loose and —oh. you know why. You don't dislike him?" asked Nancy, and a thread of sleepy laughter ran through the question. "No,” said Ellen, “of course not.”

“You —you like him a lot?” asked Nancy, no longer laughing, "Don't you. Ellen?”

Another silence. Then Ellen answered, “You know. I do." She hesitated. She added, finally, "sometimes I think he knows it. too."

"Well, naturally he does. He’s just waiting . . ." Nancy’s voice trailed off Then she asked, "Better than Jim. don't

you?” ‘•Differently.’’ said Ellen, after a pause. “Jim —oh. we've always known Jim. He’s part of the family.” “He’d like to be," Nancy reminded her.

"Nancy for heaven’s sake, go to sleep. I have to go to work in the morning, even if you don't," Ellen reminded her.

But Ellen wasn't as sleepy as she had thought on the long ride home, the warm night, encompassing her. sitting close beside Frank, not talking much, unheeding of Nancy and Chick, in the back seat.

Better than Jim? Of course not —and yet? Differently? Very differently. In what degree? But she refused to pursue that subject to its dangerous conclusions. Turned her mind away. But a moment later told herself without astonishment and without fear . . I'm in love . . .

Even if Frank loved her . . and did lie not? . . didn’t he betray it, without words, without the committing finality of speech and touch? What could she do? Her mother would never dream—never consent —that, she and Frank — But she was free to follow her heart. No, she wasn't free. If her mother had been other than she was, she might be ready, for the sake of her own happiness, to cause her mother unhappiness. But she couldn’t.

What was the use of thinking about that now? Nothing had happened. Nothing would happen, or if so, not for a long time. By then Mrs Adams might be reconciled.

She would be seeing Jim tomorrow night. That caused her to frown a little in the darkness. Jim was becom-ing-difficult. But when she slept it was not of Jim she dreamed. CHAPTER VIII. When Ellen reached the sub station tho following morning, Bill, astonishingly, was there to meet her. Bill was important and elated. There wasn’t any school, not for long weeks. Golly, the summer was swell. Bill had a note for her. It was from Frank; Frank had “boined” down to Bill’s early and delivered it into his own hands to give her. Why, she thought, tearing it open, why couldn’t Frank have told her last night, what he wanted —or telephoned? “Dear Ellen,” wrote Bartlett, “I arrived home safely and found an urgent message waiting me. I have to go to Washington for a few days and will be gone before you get to work. I don’t like to ring up your house and disturb you, so I’ll give this to Bill. Save me the very first evening you can after I get back. I have something to ask you and then there's Bill. Can’t we get him to one of the fresh air camps? Or better, can’t, he be placed in some one’s house in the country somewhere through one of the organisations, and let me pay his board? Think it over and see what you can do, and we’ll fix it up when I get back. Yours, Frank.”

She folded, the letter and smiled at Bill. Bill smiled back.

“Mr Bartlett wants to know if you would like to have a vacation in the country this summer,” she inquired. “Jees!” said Bill, paling till the freckles stood out in a strange brown pattern, “Jees!, can a duck swim? Wotta a guy, wotta guy!” said Bill.

Dot Brown had left her shoes with Joe, the cobbler. Not the first time he had mended her shoes. But these shoes were different. They no longer trod strange streets, crooked streets . . They were sober shoes of a better material. “Can I have them tonight, Joe?” she asked. And then, as he looked at her, she stammered a little. “You remember me, Joe? Sure, you .remember? Dot Mather, that was? I’m Mrs Dan Brown now.”

Yes, sure, he remembered. Si, si! She could have the shoes by evening. He looked after her, as she left, shaking his head. La povera. He wished her luck. He was not young, he had nothing but an impersonal compassion for her and for girls like her, all over the world. The world was hard on women; women were hard toward women; they made things something less than easy for them. Ellen, hurrying to work, felt a little dizzy with the heat. It had turned terrifically hot, and the sunshine, implacable, beat up from the pavements. In the street the asphalt had softened, there were hoof marks in it. Which, she wondered, was harder on the poor, the cold or the heat? The cold, she thought. People couldn’t get warm, although they huddled together, crouched in doorways out of the wind, or stooped over ash cans in which paper and bits of boxes burned with a big ephemeral flame. Summer was bad, too. but. the exodus to the beaches had begun, the subways were filled with peevish half-sick children, with draggled women. The fire-escapes were crowded with bedding, with babies in clothes baskets ... Bill would be taken care of. She’d seen to that. When Frank came home ho would find it all arranged. When Frank came home . . She missed him terribly. A note, on the paper of a Washington hotel, had reached her. He would be delayed for a day or two, but he would be home soon, and would telephone . . “Don’t forget me. Ellem” Nancy would take her vacation during the following month. It did not tally with Ellen's, so she would not go away, except perhaps for a day al. the beach now and then. For some years, neither girl had ever been able to go out of town for more than a day or so on her vacation. It was too much of a task to try to find a place in the country to which they could take their mother, even when their vacations coincided. Perhaps Cousin Laura would ask- Mrs Adams and Nancy down for a weekend: she had a litle place on the waler, a cottage, for the summer. Il' she did so Ellen would be free, for a time.

Meantime life went on. Sometimes Ellon wondered that the mere routine still held such drama, such appeal for her. Some days were woven in so monotonous a pattern. Opening windows, taking temperatures, giving bed baths, mixing mustard plasters, trying to bring something of cleanliness, light, health, into the crowded houses with their smell of food and humanity, sickness and dirt . . .

"I have something to ask you." Frank had written. If it were that? But suppose it were, could she give up her work, could she antagonise her mother, could she cease utterly to carry the little torch of her individual service into the dark, crowded places? A busy day awaited her. Sick babies, for the most part; gastric upsets, prickly heat, teething complaints. The calls had come in. direct, fast and furious . . “my baby sick.” . . “my boy| very sick, send a nurse, hurry . , .’’

The first cases of infantile were being reported. Every summer, cases, of course. But this summer more.

Late in the afternoon she was walking down a long flight of steps, a little sick with the heat, the odour of the place she had just left. She heard just before reaching a landing, voices coming through a half closed door; women's voices, raised in anger. A woman came through the door, slamming it behind her. A woman probably in her early forties, looking sixty. ' She wore something very nondescript over her bare body. Her hair straggled out from under a torn net. On her bare feet, men’s slippers. She was still talking—to herself. ' Beyond the door, silence. (To be Continued.)