any training as training counts nowadays. "He laughed angrily. Other things will be finished first,' said he. 'Her husband's life and every cent they have. I think,' said he, 'I'll have to talk with Mrs. Sterret.' 66 6 "Oh, don't,' I said. 'Don't discourage her. I do think she is going to come out all right.' "But he looked at me as doctors look at a nurse who has said too much, and next minute he was knocking at her studio door. "I was so angry with him, though I could see he thought everything of them both! The baby was fretting and I walked with him to keep him quiet. It was an hour before the doctor came out. He was looking as miserable as if he'd lost a patient. He started to pass me without speaking, then reconsidered. "She needs a woman to be good to her, I guess,' said he. 'But you can't see your friends go over Niagara without a word; at least I can't.' "You don't need to push them further into the current, though,' I snapped. He wasn't offended in the least. 66 duty in the hospital, only worse, because there you can get help, and there you have only sick people to think about. And in sickness there are things you can do; it's tangible-but this-well, it was the Beast that I had felt that first night. I drew the curtains tight, for the Thing was so real that I half expected to see a snake face glaring through the black glass. And about once an hour I went and listened outside Mrs. Sterret's studio door. I could hear her stepping back and forth and her charcoal scratching. Now and then she hummed a little tune. But I was terribly anxious, for I knew what the strain had been, and I had seen nurses collapse and be good for nothing ever afterward. You can't, you know "Finally—when the windows were turning gray I heard her give a little cry as if she were hurt, and then "After all!' said she. After all!' "Then I went in. I thought it was time. "The pictures seemed to have faded and dulled overnight like fire gone to ashes. Some she had rubbed out, some were twisted and distorted. All deformed, ugly, dead, spoiled. I had felt for a week that she was not getting on with them, but she had held her own until the doctor came and talked 'No,' said he. 'That would be a ter- to her, and nowrible pity.' "He gave me some valerian for her and said to try to get her coffee away. Then he took a look at the babies and brightened up a bit. I saw he liked the way I was caring for them. "As soon as the baby was quiet I ran up to Mrs. Sterret, but she answered that she was working and would have her dinner on a tray. "I dare say I shall work late,' she said. 'I really must finish something to-night. Then I can send it off to-morrow and we shall see.' She smiled and looked as bright as a button, but her hand was a lump of ice and her cheeks had two red spots. ""He means well. He's our best friend. And it may be he is right. I'm going to try to prove him wrong to-night. Nobody would be better pleased than he if I proved him wrong.' That was the way she took it. "I couldn't sleep that night. The baby was a little restless. I didn't undress. took off my cap and dozed a little on the couch, but I felt as if I were alone on night I "She had put out her light and was standing by the window looking out. "See the morning,' said she. 'It is like iron-rigid and gray and cold-and over there a little flame of red. I can imagine a great battle beginning on a morning like this. Don't you see the tents over there—' It was a ragged line of clouds. 'Mars and Venus and Juno and Athena camping above the field of Troy.' She stood among her unfinished canvases, in her trailing wrapper, with her hair all wild, both hands against her head. 'And I don't believe any of the great generals fought and thought and suffered more than I—an ignorant and incompetent woman-trying to overcome my ignorance and incompetence so that I can save my babies. . . . I should not have been ignorant and incompetent. No woman has any business to bring children into the world unless she is able to protect them against such a chance as this. . . .' "You go to bed,' said I. "To bed?' said she. Why, Troy is burning-tall Troy town—and you tell me and money that I might have used to succeed at that. Now Will can't go South, and so he will die perhaps I'll die, too, Auntie. Mothers do-I thought I couldn't. I was very vainglorious. I thought I loved them too much to die. But now-it's got inside me as forts are taken. I'll try... but-' "And then I seemed to see the whole thing. 'You haven't failed,' I shouted. 'You're all in, but you've really won. It's all in your head and fingers now, just as my training is. All you need is to sleep and eat and rest for twenty-four hours, and you'll see you'll see! You're not even sick,' I said. "But I thought I was lying. 666 'Auntie,' said she, 'after paying our debts we sha'n't have one penny in the world after the first of the month. I've thrown it all away-all-but I thought I was going to save us all,' said she. 'But we're going over the falls-Niagara-the babies "You sleep,' I said. 'Falls-no such thing. Your sort don't go over Niagara.' "I gave her a hypodermic and left her, for the baby was howling blue murder and little Anne was fretting. She was asleep when I looked in next. She slept for twelve hours. Then I heard her get up and go into the studio. "I knew better than to go near her then. I-well I prayed a little, and vowed I'd drug those babies silly if they dared raise a row before she came out. "I've seen relatives waiting while an operation was going on, and they made me very cross. It seemed so silly, when they couldn't do anything and all modern science was at work for them, to stand around in the reception-room and try to imagine what was going on-perhaps half a block. away. Though as to that I don't know but it makes you still crosser when there aren't any relatives to be anxious, or when those that do exist don't care or are thinking about money-(there's a funny look to the eye that always gives 'em away when they're thinking that, always). "But my business has been on the inside of the closed door, you see, where I didn't have to wonder and where the patient didn't belong to me. Now I felt that Mrs. Sterret did belong to me. People do when they've cried on you-and I was shut out and couldn't help a bit, at least on her side of the door. There she was, with tools as mysterious to me as a surgeon's knives would be to her, concerned in something as important as a major operation, with nothing but a little stick of charcoal and some paper between her and the Beast. Think of working at babies' smiles on paper in such a mood as that! Trying to scare away the snake with a picture of a child laugh! "I suppose I passed her door fifty times that night, if once, and I haven't scorned the relatives since. "At about four o'clock I heard her stirring and smelt coffee. Then a great scratching of charcoal until sunrise. Just as the sun came up I heard the fixatif going on, and that made me hope, for it meant that something was finished. After that came the rattle of paper as though she were pinning more sheets to her board, and this time she sang under breath as she worked. Still, I'd known her to do that when things were going against her most. "By that time I had to give baby his breakfast bottle and I scurried to keep him from talking too loud about it. Then little Anne began her day. I had the second girl take her out as soon as she had had her 'gubbum,' which was the word she had invented for breakfast, and then I devoted myself to guarding the studio door and keeping baby quiet. When he took his morning nap I fell asleep myself on a couch that stood in the hall. It was about noon when I awoke, feeling as one does when it is time for a patient's medicine. She was standing beside me dressed for the street. "I've just had my luncheon,' she announced calmly, ‘and I'm going to take my pictures into town. I dare say I shall be back by four,' and out she went. "That, if you please, after such a night such a series of nights as she-and Ihad spent. She would have had me fooled I should have thought her as calm as she looked but for one thing. She didn't look at the children or speak of them, though the baby woke up just then with a delicious coo. That showed she couldn't trust herself. I looked out of the window to see that she was really gone, and saw her with the big portfolio standing on the corner waiting for the car. She looked as matter of fact and prosperous and well dressed as if she were going out for a matinée. She could dress when she chose. "Then I sneaked into the studio and the first thing I saw was this"-Miss Waite opened the Nancy Dancy book to the figure of a little girl squealing with laughter. "It was a study she had made for this, I mean. The finished one had gone to town with her. It was on the easel, put there for me to see-to tell me what she couldn't trust herself to talk about. It was life-size -just the face. It was all that the unfinished things had promised. Even I could see that it had been done with as little effort as you or I would write a page of a letter. A few flat tones-sunlight behind the head outlining the dear fluffy hair; a few strong lines that were soft and delicate too; everything about it just right-and under it what do you think she had written? 'The Rubber Stamp.' I have it now in my room at the club where I can see it whenever I wake up. It does put the heart in one so. "You have the rest of the story in these little books, and you knew before I began that she succeeded. Hardly a magazine comes out now without a drawing of hers in it, and they have a perfectly lovely house in South Carolina for winters and a New England farm for summers, and Mr. Sterret is as brown and strong as any other farmer, even though one lung has to do the work of two. Little Anne rides a pony like a circus performer, with her daddy around the farm overseeing, and the boy was scolding to be allowed to have a horse too when I was there last, and they were wondering whether his legs were long enough; by this time he has one, no doubt. "And that's all I know about women who have what newspapers call 'careers.' She fought herself nearly dead for her husband and babies-and won. She says that the babies did it because she learned all she knew from them. And that is partly true. "Oh, did I tell you how she acted when she came back with the first big check in her pocket? I saw her coming and I did not meet her for fear I should cry, whatever the news was, and if it should be bad I'd want all the nerve I had, so I went up to the nursery with the children and got the baby to goo-ing and Anne to romping, and let Mrs. Sterret come to find me. I didn't turn around at first when I knew she stood in the door, but Anne rushed and caught her around the knees. 'Oh, Mother, how pretty you are!' said she. "Then I turned. I had expected her to collapse, victory or defeat-after that strain. Collapse! She looked six inches taller and ten years younger. Younger? No-young people don't look like that. It was the expression you see in those big strong men who do things. "Auntie dear,' said she, 'can you get the babies and Daddy ready to go South to-morrow? I shall have to stay here for a fortnight longer to fill an order.' "Then the iron look in her face melted and she threw up her arms laughing. 'Now I'll tell Will,' said she, and rushed upstairs like a child. 'Will! Will!' I heard her calling all the way-then the door shut on them and I was too busy with the babies to think of anything else." "Little Anne rides a pony like a circus performer, with her daddy around the farm overseeing " |