News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1921-11-30

I make room for him beside her. The
dog would bound into the tonneau.
Alix would hand her husband his
mall, the car would start with a great
plunge toward the mOuntaln-toward
the cool garden high up on the ridge
Cherry looked small and pathetic in
her fresh black and her face was
marked by secret incessant weeping.
But the nurses and doctors could not
say enough for her self-controI she
was always composed, always quietly
helpful and calm when they saw her,
and she was always busy. From early
morning, when she slipped into the
sick-room, to stand looking at the I'M
conscious Martin with troubled, in
tent expression that the nurses came
to know well, until night, she moved
untirngly about the quiet, shaded
house. She supervised the Chinese
boy, saw that the nurses had their
hours for rest and exercise, telephoned,
busted and arranged the rooms, saw
callers sweetly and patiently, filed
vases with flowers.
Every day she had several vigils In
the sick-room, and every day at least
one long talk with the doctors. Every
afternoon and evening had its callers;
she and Peter were rarely alone.
Martin was utterly unconscious of
the life that flowed on about him 4;
sometimes he seemed to recognize
Cherry, and would stare with painful
intentness into her face, but after d
few seconds his gaze would wander
to the strange nurses, and the room
that he had never known, and with
a puzzled sigh he would close his eyes
again, and drift back into his own
strange world of pain, fever and I'M
consciousness.
Almost every day there was the
sudden summons and panic in the old
house, Peter going toward the sick
room with a thick beating at his heart,
Cherry entering white-faced and with
terrified eyes, doctors and nurses gath
ering nOiSeleSsly near for the last
scene in the drama Of Martins suffer-
ing, But the release did not come.
There would be murmuring among
the doctors and nurses; the pulse was
gaining, not losing. the apparently
fatal, final symptoms were proving
neither fatal nor final The tension
would relax; a doctor would go,
nurse slip from the room; Cherry,
looking anxiously from one face to
another, would breathe more easily.
1t was inevitable, she knew that now
but it was not to be this minute; 1t
was not to be this hourl
NY dear-my dear" Peter said to
her one day, when spent and shaken
she came stumbling from Martins bed
side and stood dazedly looking from
the window into the soaking October
forest, like a person stunned from
blow. "My poor little Cherry! If
could spare you this!"
Nobody can spare me now!" she
And very simply ard
luietly she added: "If have been
fool-if l have bean selfish, wicked
girl all my life, l. am punished
Cherry! he protested, heartsick to
see her so.
"Was it wrong for us to love each
other, Peter?" she asked in low tone.
Il suppose 1t was! l suppose it wasl
But it never seemed as if" she shut
Ter eyes and shivered-"as if-this-
would come vi it" she whispered.
"This" he echoed aghast.
"Oh | think this is punishment"
Cherry continued, in the same lifeless,
weary tone.
There was silence. The rain
lripped and dripped from the red
woods, the room in which they stood
vas in twilight, even at noon. Peter
'ould think Of nothing to say.
About two weeks after the accident
here was a change in the tone of the
physicians who had been giving al
most all their time to Martins case.
There was no visible change in Mar
in, but that fact In itself was so sur
rising that it was construed into a
efinte hope that he would live.
Not as he had lived, they warned
is wife. 1t would be but restricted
fe; tied to his couch, or permitted,
t best, to move aboEt within q small
oundary on crutches.
Martin !" his wife exclaimed pite-
usly, when this was first discussed.
He has always been so strong-so
He would rather-he
'ouId infinitely rather be dead!" But
er mind was busy grasping the pos
Utilities, too. "He won't suffer too
luch?" she asked .fearfully.
They FASTENED to assure her that
he chance of his even partial recov-
~ was still slight but that In case
his convalescence Martin need not
ecessdrily suffer.
Another day or two went by in the
lent, rain-wrapped house under the
'ees; days of quiet footsteps and
hispering, and the lisping of wood
res. Then Martin suddenly was con-
,ious, knew his life, languidly smiled
her, thanked the doctors for oc-