The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1914-12-11
Ick 4. Stokes Company

| Never mind" she said. II know.
She looked at the faces of those foui
strangers Sympathy-real, human
sympathy-was uppermost In each
She smiled faint and friendly little
smile at the group. And at that the
housekeeper began tucking in the GOV
ers at the foot of the bed, and the lanl
waitress walked to the window ant
pulled down the shade, and the bell
boy muttered something about ice wa
ter. The doctor patted her wrist light
ly and reassuringly.
You're all awfully good" said EN-
ma McChesney, her eyes glowing with
something other than fever. I've
something to say. It's just this. Il
I'm going to be sick I'd prefer to be
sick right here, unless it's something
catching. No hospital. Don't ask me
why. / don't know. We people on
the road are all alike. Wire T. A
Buck, Jr., of the Featherloom Petticoat
company, New York You'll find plenty
of clean nightgowns in the left-hand
tray of my trunk, covered with white
tissue paper. Get nurse that doesn't
sniffle, or talk about the palace she
nursed in last, where they treated her
like queen and waited on her hand
and foot. For goodness sake, put my
switch where nothing will happen to
it, and if 1 die and they run my pic
thre in the Dry Goods Review under
the caption, Veteran Travelling Sales
woman Succumbs at Glen Rock I'll
haunt the editor" She paused mo-
ment
Everything will be all right" said
the housekeeper, soothingly. You'll
think you're right at home, it'll be SO
comfortable. Was there anything else,
now?"
YES" said Emma McChesney.
1.-THE most important of all. My son,
Jock McChesney, is fishing up in the
Canadian woods. A telegram may not
reach him for three weeks. They're
shifting about from camp to camp. Try
to get him, but don't scare him too
much. You'll find the address under
]. in my address book in my handbag.
Poor kid. Perhaps it's just as well he
doesn't know"
Perhaps it was. At any rate it was
true that had the tribe of McChesney
been as the leaves of the trees, and
had it held family reunion in Emma
McChesney's little hotel bedroom, it
would have mattered not at all to her.
hn cfa hra limo
bottles by-the-bed-
side sick, her head, with its bright hair
and dry with the fever, toss
ing from side to side on the lumpy
hotel pillow, or lying terribly silent
and inert against the gray-white of the
bed linen. She never quite knew how
narrowly she escaped that picture in
the Dry Goods Review.
Then one day the fever began to re-
cede, slowly, whence fevers come, and
the indefinable air of suspense and re-
preston that fingers about a sick
room at such a crisis began to lift i'm
There came time when |
Emma McChesney asked in a weak
but sane voice:
did Jock come? Did they cut off |
my hair?"
mot yet, DEAR" the nurse had an
swered to the first, but we'll hear in
/ day or SO, Pm sure" And, Your
oyely hair! Well, not if / know it,"
70 the second.
The spirit of small-town kindness |
.ook Emma McChesney in its arms.
The dingy little hotel room glowed |
with flowers. The story of the sick
fighting there alone in the ter
'ors of delirium had gone up and down
lbout the town. Housewives with a
inc contempt for hotel soup sent
,roths Of chicken and beef. The local
members of the u. c. T. sent roses
enough to tax every vase and wash
pitcher that the hotel could muster,
md asked their wives to call at the
lotel and see what they could do. The
wives came, obediently, but with sus-
'icion and distrust in their eyes, and
emained to pat Emma McChesney's
rm, ask to read aloud to her, and to
nduge generally in that process
nown as cheering her up" Every
raveling man who stopped at the lit
le hotel on his way to Minneapolis
dded to the heaped-up offerings at
,mma McChesney's shrine. Books
nd magazines assumed the proper
ons of a library. One could see the
and Of T. A. Buck, Jr., in the cases
mineral water, quarts Of wine, cum
Ing cordials and tiny bottles of
queur that stood in convivial rows on /,
ie closet shelf and floor. There came &
tiers, too, and kilograms with such {
hrases as "let nothing be left undone"
nd spare no expense" under T. A.
uck, Jr's., signature. 1t
So Emma McChesney climbed the
ng, weary hill Of illness and pain, +
,ached the top. painting and almost c
vent, rested there, and began the c
,sy descent on the other side that a
d to recovery and strength. But
,mething was lacking. That sunny s
,timism that had been Emma Nc y
nesney's most valuable asset was abb +
mt. The blue eyes had lost their t
ave laughter. A Respondent droop U