An American Suffragette Part 3

The mother of the child, a comely woman of thirty, followed, wringing her hands. Her excitement verged on hysteria, but at the sight of Dr.

Morris she controlled herself by a mighty effort.

"To the hospital, to the hospital, Dr. Earl," peremptorily exclaimed Dr.

Morris, as Dr. Earl threw aside his coat and, rolling back his sleeves and directing the man to place the child on a table in one of the ante-rooms, began to examine the character of the injuries.

"Oh, don't take my poor child to the hospital. I know she will die if she goes there; bring her home; it is only a few blocks," the mother pleaded with Dr. Morris, whom she seemed to know.

"Don't waste time here. Where is the telephone? I will call an ambulance immediately."

"I don't want her taken to the hospital," said the woman sullenly.

"This is no place to operate on a hysterical child," Morris answered.

"She need not be kept in the hospital, but she should certainly be taken there. I know Dr. Earl will agree with me."

In the meantime, Earl had completed his examination. Silvia Holland was watching him anxiously. As Morris spoke he looked up and caught her eye.

"It is only a simple fracture, and the scalp wounds are slight. I suppose we could get along, if we can get hot water and the necessary appliances," he said dubiously, and then added, turning to the woman, "Dr. Morris is quite right, madame, in advising the hospital, and I a.s.sure you there is no danger."

The woman turned pleading eyes to Silvia. "She's all I have, and I can't let her be taken away from me. Couldn't we go home? It is only a few blocks away, and I know I can make her comfortable. Oh, please, please don't let them take her away!"

Miss Holland looked at Dr. Earl and put her arm around the woman protectingly. "If it isn't any worse than that," she said hesitatingly, "don't you think you could do as she asks? Setting a simple fracture isn't a very complicated operation, is it?"

Earl smiled. "Oh, no," he said, "it can be done in a comparatively few minutes."

"Then why not do it," she said, "and spare the mother all this protracted agony, and get the child home?"

"Because there are no appliances here to administer an anaesthetic or do anything else properly," answered Morris impatiently, "and no one can tell from a cursory examination whether or not there are other injuries, to say nothing of the danger from septicaemia if the work is done in a clumsy, slipshod manner."

Earl colored, and Miss Holland replied with some spirit that even the absence of the usual accessories need not imply clumsiness of method, and again asked Earl if he could not manage where they were. He turned to the mother.

"If you insist upon it, I have no doubt that I can do all that is necessary without bad results. As to the anaesthetic, we can dispense with that."

"I will have nothing to do with the case under these circ.u.mstances,"

Morris said angrily.

The woman hesitated, and then said firmly, "I should prefer the other gentleman to take charge. I won't have her taken to the hospital."

"Very well," said Earl, and taking a notebook from his pocket he wrote out a list of necessary appliances, bandages, alcohol, antiseptic solutions, surgeon's scissors, needles, silk and thread, and giving it to Frank bade him hurry to the drug-store around the corner which carried surgical supplies and procure them, and also to bring a box that would do for splints.

"I must have an a.s.sistant," he said, and without a word, Miss Holland improvised an ap.r.o.n from some of the bunting that was in evidence everywhere, and put herself at his disposal. He sent all the others out of the room, and bent over the child for a few minutes. What did he do?

Miss Holland watched, but could not tell. The moaning ceased, the little limbs relaxed, and the child fell into a quiet sleep.

The mother stood just outside the door, listening with strained attention, and after two or three impatient turns about the foyer, Morris joined her.

"You can do as you please so far as I am concerned," he said in a low tone, "but I warn you that you are taking big risks. Allie is nervous and excitable at any time, and to-night she is close to hysterics, and she won't get over the shock of even a simple operation in a hurry, especially if he is fool enough to attempt it without an anaesthetic."

The woman wavered for a moment, and then turned away without a word, and shrugging his shoulders Morris strode down toward the entrance. A moment later Silvia Holland came out of the ante-room.

"You can go in now," she said, "only don't disturb your child; she is sleeping and you must be very quiet. Did you see Dr. Morris? Oh, there he is."

Mindful of the amenities of life, she hurried to his side. His face was dark with something more than anger, and did not lighten as she laid the tips of her fingers on his arm.

"I know you will excuse me, Orrin," she said gently. "You mustn't be angry with me, but I really feel as if I ought to see this through; the poor woman needs me. You will forgive me?"

He looked at her with sudden pa.s.sion. "Oh, yes, I forgive _you_," he said, with unmistakable emphasis on the p.r.o.noun, and was gone. Silvia Holland looked after him for a moment, conscious that, accustomed as she was to his moods, this was quite a new one, and then joined Dr. Earl, who had come into the foyer to say goodnight to the Ramseys and Frank Earl, who had returned with the surgical appliances and found nothing more that he could do. "By the way, old man," Dr. Earl called to his brother-in-law, "send the machine back if you don't mind," and with a word of thanks he re-entered the ante-room, followed by Miss Holland, and closed the door against further interruption.

There was a sink in the room, with hot and cold water, and he directed Miss Holland to cleanse the basin and implements in the boiling water, and follow this up by dipping them in an antiseptic solution; in the meantime he ripped the box to pieces, and selected two strips, which he whittled into splints, shaping them to the child's leg, and working with great rapidity. The bandages, cotton and other things were laid out upon the table, and then he took the basin and a cloth and washed the wounds on the head, putting back the tousled locks as carefully and tenderly as a woman.

"Ordinarily," he said to his a.s.sistant, "I should have done this first, but my examination showed that this injury is very slight. Of course she has bled profusely, but it has come from the nose, and it looks pretty bad, but there is nothing serious. Half a dozen st.i.tches will be ample for the scalp. Thread that needle with the silk, please. Now let me have it." He took it from her, and in a moment the cuts on the head were sewed, and he was pulling the leg into place, applying the cotton, the splints and bandages, working deftly and silently. "The other needle with the thread, please," he said, not looking up, and Miss Holland handed it to him. Presently he raised his head and threw back his shoulders.

"It is all done," he said simply, and called the mother. "I shall return in a quarter of an hour," he said, "and bring her out of this sleep. Do not try to rouse her, for you cannot. Do you not think, Miss Holland, that it would be well for me to get a nurse to a.s.sist in taking the little one home? I can 'phone when I return these instruments."

"Your machine is coming back, isn't it?" Miss Holland answered. "It seems to me that with what help her mother and I can render that we shall manage."

"Excellently," he said. "Then you will be on guard until my return; see that the child is not disturbed. I shall be gone but a few minutes."

He readjusted his attire, and taking up his hat strode out of the building, unconscious until he reached the door that half a dozen energetic reporters were eagerly asking particulars. Finding him unwilling to tell them anything more than the vaguest generalities, the more resourceful returned to the improvised operating-room, and before Silvia Holland knew it they had the story from her enthusiastic lips, supplemented by a few facts gathered from the woman. For thus are first-page sensations secured and created.

Silvia noticed that the woman spoke with visible reluctance, and she herself pa.s.sed over the controversy between Dr. Morris and Dr. Earl, anxious to spare her friend any unnecessary annoyance.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Bell," she said contritely. "I didn't realize at first that we were being interviewed."

"Oh, there is no harm done," the woman said quietly. "I hope the doctor will not mind; won't he be back pretty soon?"

Almost as she spoke, his tall form was seen making its way through the besieging ranks of the Fourth Estate. He waved them aside good humoredly, but refusing to be interviewed, he took the child in his strong arms and, followed by her mother and Miss Holland, made his way to the auto. While she was in a profound sleep when he returned, she wakened instantly when he commanded her to do so, and the cool night air evidently refreshed her greatly as they drove to Mrs. Bell's home. Dr.

Earl carried the little one upstairs, gave her mother explicit directions, and promising to call early the following day to adjust a cast, left the apartment with Miss Holland.

CHAPTER VI

SOME STRENUOUS ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS

Several of the New York papers carried lurid headlines and more or less sensational accounts of the accident to the child and the treatment administered by Dr. Earl, as well as a tribute to the heroism of the volunteer nurse. All of them contained a report of some character of these occurrences.

When Dr. Earl called at the home of his fiancee, according to appointment, to take her and her mother to luncheon the next day, he found Leonora in a sullen mood, and it did not take him long to discover that he was not in high favor at this particular hour.

He greeted her with a kiss, but hers in return was perfunctory. He was not compelled to wait long for an explanation, for she poured out her feelings without any questioning.

"Oh, Jack, dear, how could you mix up with that suffrage crowd! Don't you know that mamma is vice-president of the Anti-Woman Suffrage League? She is so annoyed! And that horrid Silvia Holland--why, Jack, she is a downright socialist. Don't you know she was arrested in England for trying to break into parliament with a lot of other suffragettes, and she was arrested here only last month for defying the police and taking sides with a lot of girls who refused to work in the factories where they were employed! Even when in school she was horrid. When they wouldn't let her make a suffrage speech on the school grounds one night she took the girls to a neighboring graveyard and spoke from a flat monument! And to think the papers have you mixed up with her, and our wedding soon to be announced! Oh, it's terrible!" and she buried her face in the sofa pillows.

Had this scene occurred with any one else, Jack felt certain he could not have restrained his laughter, for he could see Miss Holland delivering an exhortation to the schoolgirls from a tombstone in a cemetery by night. But he understood the prejudices of a certain element of New York society, and while the past twenty-four hours had led him, somewhat, to believe that this progressive democratic wave sweeping over the world had engulfed all New Yorkers, he now realized how sadly mistaken he had been.

With infinite tact he told her that his sister had taken their party to the ball--pointed out his own duty when the injured child had been brought in from the street, and how he had not even suggested that Miss Holland should a.s.sist him. He saw that the present was no time for a discussion of the merits of the case or a p.r.o.nouncement of his own views, but he distinctly realized, with something of a jolt, it is true, that a wide gulf separated the Bourbon element of America's supposed democracy from the advancing column of her real and inspired democracy, and he wondered whether it were at all possible to tunnel under or bridge over this gulf. He lightly changed the subject.

"I have just discovered that I can get my old offices on East 53rd Street, as the year's lease expires the first of next month, and the agents heeded my letter asking them to wait for me. So I shall feel quite at home in the old quarters," he said.