Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1898-01-20

some fresh-mown country field.
Five months had passed since Nurse
Ruth had left the hospital. The house
surgeon had become the house ply
stefan, and his term for holding that Of
flee had almost run out. The world be-
hind the hospital walls is one of sick
ness, of sorrow, and of pain, with an
other world of mental activity, labor,
and strength to minister to it. It is
great machine of life that is set to sue
cor life, while those who form it soon
forget those others who have left.
Still, one morning a letter lay on the
house physicians table; one he opened
and read first. It was written with her
usual recklessness:.
ooh, I'm getting like the Irishman who
was all blue-molded for want of batting.
I'm all blue-molded for want Of a firta-
ton! On, write to me-do write to me! I've
been shut up all this time with a smallpox
case. Everybody has been saying should
be dead before now, but I live to be a
| thorn In the flesh of some one yet. I don't
know what possessed me to sacrifice my
self to smallpox. Perhaps merely only to
crafty my own vanity. Now to-day, when
1t Is all over, rush to write to you and to
| make an idiot of myself When I have
posted this shall get into rage and wish
I hadn't. But write to me! Oh, do write;
write folly-anything; you can't think the
charity it would be-"
Life and death went in and out of the
hospital, and the workers came and
went. The house physician left it i n his
turn, and ~ months after he was sta
toned at Alden, where, perhaps, he had
less work than he desired. One after
noon the English mail brought him
letter from Ruth. The writing on the
envelope set him thinking sadly, may
be-of the old busy life in London, and
of the. possibilities in her character for
which,, at this distance of time. and
space, he imagined he must have loved
her. He laughed at himself presently,
and opened the letter:
"You said once was always fond of do
ing something SENSATIONAL; then you ad-
Vlsed me to study Mrs. Beeton.' I have
told me. But don't think 1 shall live long
to dispense the good things I may learn
from that .world-famed cookery book. You
know there is an old proverb: Toujuurs
perdriX?', Well it is this with ME. 'Tou-
jours parson.' He has driven me to take
more of your advice seriously-and I am
going to be married: Sometimes T. thing'I
must be mad to contemplate domestic bliss
with reHgion! I would gladly give any
| thing-three years of my life-to really
enjoy things now while am young and
could be gay. It's awfuly hard to be just
nurse and to have to worry. and wear my
self to death, and get thin and old and
cross and savage, while-I see other women
| with everything they want and alfSthe fun
of life. Dear me! what nonsense: J. am
writing! Tear it UP, but write to me. : Oh,
do write to me once more! / am so ,miser-
able, weary and lonely, and tired, dread
fully tired, of mechanically doing my duty"
'Poor little Ruff. Jolly little Ruth!v
he murmured, as lie settledspn more
comfortably into his. lounging chair:
He rolled up and lit another cigarette,
and pondered for few moments over
his attraction to this woman. There
had been others Well, it is usually
member their firtations; and, OF
course, hold themselves blameless. Per-
haps there may have been a vague re-
gret in the doctors mind. Alden is not
place where old fiirtations or platonic
friendships can be buried without re-
gret. 1t is a place where the memory
of either grows tender, and recollection
glances back through them on England
and home, on green fields and young
leafage quivering in the spring sun
light; while the seeing eye is turned
ever on mass upon mass OF lava and
brown rock. AS he looked out the drear
mountain that rises almost sheer from
the placid sea was glorified by the Grim
son fire Of sunset, and, though its clear
outline was cut grandly against the
rich light, it had become hateful to him.
With this thought on his mind he ended
his reverie, and went on opening his
mail letters. There CHANGED to be some
Christmas cards among them, full of
good wishes and sentiment. One Of
these had pathetic little verse that
suited his humor, so presently he put
it in an envelope and sent it off to Ruth
with the outgoing mail. This was not
fair, for he knew that at the time she
received it she would be married, and
this, SO far as he was concerned, closed
the correspondence.
Once more she wrote, littlemore So
berly perhaps: r..
THANK you so much for that card you
sent!. After all, am only Nurse Ruth in
your thoughts, and you are in mine-well,
1t is hard to say what you are. have made
up my mind never to write again, because
it does me no good to be thinking of you.
This is the beginning of the new year, and
+ am full of resolution to try to do better
in it than I have ever done in any other
year. Not long ago I was more than half
in love with you and was aWfully miser-
able on New Years day because had just
found out what a mistake it was to be in
love with the moon and to cry in vain for
it. really believe I am growing senti-