Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-11-18

everything in this place."
She looked toward the gasping. little town
through the RELENTLESS noon. Her merciful'
blue eyes filed. but the mans look followed
with dry, exultant light :. -
There is no porter" he said. abruptly,
glancing at her heavy bag and shawl-strap.
"Wonld YOU permit me to help you"
"Oh, thank you" replied DR.. Dare,
heartily, relinquishing her burden.
Plainly, this poor fellow was not gen.
tleman. The lady could afford to be kind TO
him.
81 know nothing how we shall find it,
she chatted, affably, but l go to work ktt to-
morning. I'll have your address" -
She took from her gray sacaue pocket
PHYSICIANS note book, and stood, pencff1n
hand.
my name," he said, sis Hope-zerviah
Hope.'' ae.
She wrote without comment, walking as
she wrote; he made no other attempt to
converse with her. The two physicians fol-
lowed, exchanging now and then subdued
word. The negro dragged himself YEARLY
over the scorching sand, and thus the little
procession Of pity entered the town of CAL
houn.
My story does not deal with love and Ia
dies. have to relate no tender passages be-
tween the fever-physicians, volunteers from
New York, for the afflicted region of CAT
hOun. DIR. Marian Dare came South to DO
brave work, and have no doubtshe did 1t
pursuit of science, and haYe no doubt she
found it, as a woman will. Our chief inter-
est in her at this time lies i'm the fact that
certain missing fragments in the history OF
the person known as Zerviah Hope we owe
to her. She hovers over the tale with dis
tant and beautiful influence, pervading as
womanly compassion and alert as woman's
eye. @
1 have nothing further to say about: the
story before tell it, except thatit is true
Tho -oofh of tort II wal nf q
Mercy, took terrible mood, and prolonged
drought settled upon Calhoun. The days
dawned lurid and long. The nights fell
devices and deadly. Fatal and beautiful
ing dust, fine and hard, blown by siroccos
across the glare OF noon, like sands on the
shores Of the Lake Of Fire. The pestilence
walked in darkness, and the destruction
wasted at midday. Men died, in that little
town of few thousand souls, at the rate Of
a score day-black and white, poor and
rich, clean and foul, saint and sinner.
Zerviah Hope, volunteer nurse, became
quickly enough a marked man in Calhoun.
He more than verified Doctor Dare prog
nosis. Where the deadliest work was to be
done, this man, it was observed, asked to be
sent. Where no one else would 90, he went.
What no one else would do, he did. He
sought the neglected, and the negroes. He
braved the uncean, and the unburied. with
the readiness of all incisive character acting
ON emergencies, he stamped himself upon
the place and time. He went to his task as
the soldier goes to the front under raklng
fire, with cleaning eyes and iron muscles.
The fever OF the fight was on him. He seemed
to wrestle with disease for his patients, and
to trample death beneath his feet. He gowed
over his cures with positive physical dila-
ton, and writhed over his dead as if he had
killed them. He seemed built of endurance
more than mortal. 1t was not known when
he slept, scarcely if he ate. His WEAKNESS
sat upon him like halo. He grew thin, re-
fined, radiant. In short, he presented an
example of that rare spectacle which never
fails to command spectators-a common man
possessed by an uncommon enthusiasm.
I have been told that, to this day, many
people personally unknown to him, whose
fate it was to be imprisoned in that be-
leaguered town at that time, and who were
familiar with the nervous figure and plain,
intense countenance of the Northern nurse, ,
as he passed, terrible day after terrible day ),
to his post, can not hear of him, even noE,
without that suffusion of look by which we
hold back tears; and that, when his name
took on, as it did, more than local reputa..
ton, they were unable to speak because of
choking voices. / have often wished that
he knew this. Htt4s @fr5 ~
1t was the custom in Calhoun to pay the
nurses at short, stated intervals think
once a week, on Saturday nights. The first
time that Hope was summoned to receive
his wages, he evinced marked emotion, too
genuine not to be one of surprise andrepug-
nance.
81 had not thought" he began, and
stood, coloring violently.
''You earn your five dollars day. if any
body in Calhoun does" urged the official,
with kindly brusqueness.
at is not right; do not wish to take the
money!" said the nurse with agitation.
II do not wish to be paid for-saving-
human life. did not come to the fever dis
trict to make money; l came to save life
| to s0re kte!' he added, in quick whisper.
He had not slept for four night, and
| seemed, they noticed, more than usually
nervous in his manner.
''The money is yours" insisted the Treas
| urer.
sVery WE'LL" said Hope, after a long ST.
lence: and no more was siad about it. lie
| took his wages and walked away up the
| street, absorbed in thought
| One morning, he went to his lodgings to
seek a little rest 1t was about six O'Clock,
and people were already moving in the hot
thirsty streets. The apothecaries' doors
| were open, and their clerks were astir. The
| physicians drove or walked hastily, with the
| haggard look of men whose days and nights
are too short for their work, and whose hope,
| and heart as well, have grown almost too
small. At the telegraph office, knots OF men
and women gathered, duly inspiring the he.
roic young OPERATOR slight girl-who had
| not left her post for now many days and
nights. Her chief had the fever last week
| was taken at the wires-lived to get home.
She was the only person alive in the town
| who knew how to communicate with the
| outer world. She had begun to teach little
brother of hers the Morse alphabet--"That
| somebody may know, Bobby, il I-can't
come some day" She, too, knew Zerviah
Hope, and looked up; but her pretty face
was clouded with the awful shadow OF hel
| own responsibility.
eve all have about as much as we car
| bear" thought Zervish, as he went by. His
| own burden was lightened little that morn
ing, and he was going home to get real
rest. He had just saved his last patient
the doctor gave him up. It was young
man, the father of five very little children,
and tfIe4e mother had died the week before
The nurse had looked at the orphans, and
said: "He's got to live" This man had
blessed him this morning, and called the love
Of heaven on his head and its tendon mercy
on his whole long life. n Z
On this morning that speak Of, standing
with his almost happy face and lifted head
with his foot upon the stairs, he turned, fol
no reason that he could have given, ant
looked over his shoulder. A man behint
him, stepping softly, stopped, changed color