Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-24

II VII Z nurse gently withdrew the Their
nometer from a saggng mouth
md carried it to the window. Her
back to the patient; but his heavy
eye1ds lifted and he watched her with the
furtive vigilance of the very sick.
The santing glory of a late March
bathed her white capped head and her
white clad shoulders. 1t silhOuetted in
violet the hand holding the tiny glass
tube. AS she caught the reading there
was slight, sudden vibration of this
hand. DR.. Roger HarniltOn'S nearsighted
eyes, unaided by the big, black trimmed 81
glasses without which his world would
hardly recognize the great surgeon), found
only blurred impression of action; yet 4
he guessed And when she stole past .
him to the hall, closing the door with -
warlest care, he caught its ininitesimal
creak and knew that she shut it lest he
hear her at the telephone. f. =
moment later it did not surprise him
to find his sister at his side Her fingers ~
crept to his wrist, trembling and cold. M
But a deadler chill was in his heart Sol NJ.
He had lost! Fighting would be useless!
Indeed he had no fight left in him: he
was spent. Poor Sis just really recovering from her
husbands death. Sis and he had been through a lot,
together And the boy,-only child mighty fine plucky,
enthusiastic chap but needing a mans hand. Still,
Amy was a wise woman: they would get on somehow.
1t wasn't because of Amy and the boy that the worst
pain racked him. 1t having to die before
peting his big discovery Six months would be enough
and for the lack of that pitiful little dole of time
He knew. He had watched his mother perish in tor
ture by the hdeous Thing. A thousand times his
heart had been wrung Oh, God how patient she was,
how brave-pannng for other people, trying to spare
him by pretending she didn't know making little jokes!
How he used to go off and sob in sheer helpessness!
Then, afterward, how many years he had CROPPED!
What toll, what disappointment! At last to
near Kidding the world Of the pest-and fool boy and
his crazy old automobile to spoil it ALL Well he had to
take the chance: he couldn't crunch the kids to
Junk. He wasn't flashing himself for that: it
tor his ldotc etcence Suppose Jim Forbes had eered?
There wasn't ceverer operator in the country but he
didn't know it ALL with his pig headed Scotch caution.
Why hadnt he spoken out! Tentative descriptions
in clinics rubbish. He afraid afraid risk his
reputation, that was why. I'm cursed, rotten
ard" he ragged. "And I've got the ook'-while Amv's
cold fingers felt for his thread of pulse.
Suddenly she change. The ashen features
hghtened with the half humorous half whimsical smile
that his famiars knew. He thinking "Ive bust
60 off mad this way It's unprofessional to die
in temper. I've got to think up something pleasant
for Sis to remember. And tell Jim"
But somehow his mind would not work-a mind that
had been so doclle and swift Now the willing servant
baked; pushed him off into vast spaces and strange
VISIONS Some OF these vivid, ittering and
formess, like clouds skurrying through mist.
He tried to speak, at least press the hand claspng
his but his lax fingers would tighten his stiff
lips wouldn't move He felt the prick of hypodermc
needle amid the pinch of fold of esh he heard voices
thin as If from far distance the visions and the
spaces conquered.
MEMORY did not summon anything out of his later
~ years of fame; nor that quiet and fruitful time
after his wtes death And of all his dscordant married
life more returned than wrath of Dea's beautiful
petulan face; and the echo of her voice upbradnp
him, "Why avW take poor patients who cannot nav
proper prices?"
But for the most part he only trivial and ncon-
sequent images of his childhood. Rogers father had
died at the wrong moment of large schemes Therefore,
Roger (ony ten; but eldest of the three chdren) and
his mother fought with poverty in strange land
Partner she used to call him. He could hear her now
and the word sweet in his ear