The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-12-18

Leaving the Hospital.


THE nurse came in at seven o'clock
and found hat Mrs. johnson had
already risen and dressed herself. Her
only incompleteness of toilet was the
tangle of her hair. If you are a wom-
an with a great mass of brown hair it
Is a sweet pleasure to wait for some
other woman to come and comb it out
for you of a morning. Mrs. johnson
had always tended" her own hair be-
fore coming into the hospital, and the
treat of feeling that the deft fingers
of a white-capped nurse had grasped
that responsibility was very comfort
ing. 1t even stole away some of the
soreness of the stitching to lie there
quietly in the high-legged bed while the
young woman talked in a soothing voice
and brushed out the long strands and
told her how pretty it all was. and men
toned the woman who had had ty-
phoid fever and whose every lock and
curl had fallen a sacrifice 10 the shears
of the hospital barber. Yes. yes; there
Is a luxury in having somebody else
@tend" your hair if you are one unused
TO that kind OF thing.
So Mrs. johnson, realizing that now
she must 20 back to the seven chill
dren and to the busy life at home.
waited for the nurse to come and for
the last time administer this delight.
Tomorrow she would have TO snatch
time. between the dressing of Hide and
the sending to school of Ernest to per-
form this function with her own hands.
as. she had done in the years before she
was admitted tothe hospital It.was a
long time back. that day of admission:
It seemed TO her sometimes that she
had always been an occupant of that
little three-bedded room, whereas she
had been a dweller therein but a space
of eight weeks. Rut that is eight CEN
turtles in a hospital. She looked across
the room and calculated that Miss Fin
shaw, who was in for the straighten-
ing of an instep so that she might walk
on her sole like other mortals instead
of on tiptoe, was the fourth person
who had rested for a time in the bed
with the brass knobs; while the other
bed, now without a tenant. had felt
the pressure of a woman with a goitre,
a girl who had died on the second day
after her arrival. and an old lady with
a gloomy sort of ailment which defied
the doctors and which caused her to
weep freely and ring her bell for the
nurse necessarily. The doctors at last
told the old lady's son that his mother
was lonesome. which was the most of
her complaint. Her husband: had been
killed by a cable car two yeaEs.before.
and she had grieved for him with whom
she had been yoked for so years, and
this-this alone-was the malady from
which she was suffering.
Mrs. johnson, dressing that morning
in anticipation of the coming of her
husband, thought pensively of her for
mer associates. On that day when the
girl had been pushed out of the room
on the ghostly white vehicle which the
hardened patients called the banana
cart" Mrs. johnson had tried to fol-
low mentally the course of events. But
she could not. Her thoughts were
tractable enough until theyreached the
door of the cemeut-foored room where
the white-clad doctors with their steril-
lied clothes and bandages and towels
waited, but once across the, threshold
the whole thing became a matter of
for up to that time Mrs.
johnson had not Of herself passed the
portal. She could only wait and guess
and wonder. After a long time the
cart was again pushed into the room.
and the white and gasping girl was
unconscious, on the bed from
which she was not to go again in this
life.
But try as she could Mrs. Johnson
could not now remember her name.
The other patients all knew that Mrs.
Johnson was going to be discharged
this morning. and they congratulated
her feebly or cheerfully. as strength
and spirit dictated. She went upstairs
into the wards where most of the in
teresting cases were and paid her re-
spects for the last time to those whose
acquaintance she had made in these two
weeks of her convalescing. They were
all glad to hear of what they called her
luck. and asked her about her children,
and wanted her to bring her husband
upstairs so that they might see what
manner of man this was who was 60
ing to take her away.
LET me guess" said little Miss
Hough. who thrice in her life had been
upon the table, until now she was a
veritable patchwork of suffering pa
thence. "He is a tall man with a red
beard and light mustache."
"And he can sing. Can't he, now?"
inquired Mrs. Marshall, with a little
Then, before Mrs. Johnson could
merrilv. deuv the accusation of vocal