Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1928-03-16

left side of her Flemish nose. and a
burning desire to p~erpetuate her name,
since spinsterhood. had denied her per
petuation of personality.
The architecture of the hospital is a
combination of mansard and the early
renaissance. and the material used Is
said to be red brick. Indeed, there lives
an aged bricklayer in W~eehawken, New
Jersey, who claims to have laid bricks
there during its construction, but the
SCOT of half q million soft coal furnaces
has given it ar inch thick coat of black,
as If it had gone into mourning for the
sins of its patients.
Within, it is highly sanitary. White
woodwork, white uniformed nurses,
white cots and white faces against the
white pillowslips. Serious white-garbed
~internes and an inaccessible, highly
starched individual known officially as
Miss Crabtree, the matron, and unoffi-
cially as Crabby.
Miss Crabtree was an institution with
In an institution. She had seen inferno
after inferno abandon medicine for the
light n lucrative occupation Of remov-
ing appendices at from five hundred TO
five thousand per removal while she her
self stuck to the ship and superintendent
the bringing into the world Of future
material. She had seen the board of
trustees change from patriarchal whis-
kered gentlemen with van in front OF
their names to smooth faced business
men with vitz at the end. She had been
with the hospital in the capacity Of
nurse. assistant matron and chief ma
iron beyond the memory of the Oldest
employe. Still she was hardly ancient,
forty-odd, perhaps, certainly no more.
She was extremely thin and angular. Her
shoulders, between which her head with
its great mass of yellowish hair seemed
IN rest Internationally I1nOn the thin
scrawny neck, were sharp and square.
Her complexion was sallow except at the
point OF her somewhat prominent cheek
bones, where there were two family pink
spots the size of a silver quarter, as II
the bones had become highly incensed
by their futile efforts at breaking
through the tightly drawn skin. Her
eyes. which were of a clear, penetrating
gray. might, in any other face. have been
considered handsome. In Miss Crab
trees they were merely clear and pene-
trating.
She was a silent, efficient woman, as
devoid of sentiment as a cafeteria CASH
Ter and as disillusioned as a Manhattan
taxicab driver. She despised her own
sex for the weaklings they were, and
hated men with q hatred that was abys-
NAL, terrible. She was a martinez. The
board of trustees called her a fine disci-
plinarian; the nurses, a thirty minute
5 egg.
She had a flat in the Bronx with q
taupe rug, o%verstuffed set, stand lamp,
Dawn" by Maxfield Parrish, built-in re-
frigerator. and DR.. Cheviot's six foot shelf
Of tabloid brain exhilarator. Between
E this fiat n her small, spotless office al
the hospital she morning and
. summer vacation spent on the north of
r night. With the exception Of her short
Long Island, she never went anywhere,
She had no friends. She was a cold,
: austere woman who seemed to have dis
titled from the suffering of the abandoned
and betrayed a cup bitterer a thousand
. fold than theirs.
: 1t happened that there was brought TIC
this hospital a small, terrified bit OF
youth from the east side tenements neal
the Delaney street bridge, a golden
q haired slip of a girl with cornflower blue
eyes and the bloom of the Hungarian
uplands in her cheeks.
1t was the same old story of youth
seeking escape from the leaden sordid-
$ ness Of the East river via cheap dance
a halls, with the same inevitable result
d The boyle was hardly a mana youth
with more time than was good for him
e had fed in fear of the consequences.
Miss Crabtree coming into the ward
: the day after the baby, a boy, was born
looked at the newcomer and in that brief
, moment conceived a deep and terrible
ilulitQ III Jlll6 ldICSL ddQliiO1 w tljE lldll-
: er members Of her frail sex. AS the ma
iron looked down at the girl, her minc
went back over the decades, and there
d was mirrored upon her brain d picture
: Of herself lying thus, in this very ward
\ twenty-five years ago. She had been ik
! this girl. young and desirable, and hel
: baby had been a boy, too. They had adj.
vised her to give 1t up. She had agreed
:. too dazed to protest. A home had beer
found for it, a good home they told her
The people h had adopted him anc
Whose name she must never know II
fairness to them n to the child, were
q middle-aged, childless couple in COM
Portable circumstances. They were going
to call the boy James, after his adopted
father, she was told.
Upon the advice of the hospital au
. thorities she had taken up training
there. For weeks and months she hac
gone about her-regeneration, they called
: it-dazedly, like a sleep walker. with thu
& names James-Jim-ringing in her carr
out of a great emptiness. Then she haC
pulled herself up with q start and hac
set her face, resolutely and ~doggedly, TO.
the immolation.
She had gone on YEARLY at first, ther
sternly and with answering purpose
until today she held in the hollow o
her thin hand the power of an emperor
and now, as she looked down upon TN
lace Oh bIlS girl 50 ike WlldJ size lltlacl
had been. that power seemed q pitifull.
i futile thing beside youth and mother
! hood. She knew herself at that homer
to be thrice abandoned, and she hatet
the girl for the memories she had evoked
= She noted from the card hanging Of
the foot OF the bed that the girls frs
: name was Ann. Her last name was un
\ pronounceable. Miss Crabtree noted, also
the frightened look In the cornflowe
blue eyes when the nurse took the bah.
from the girl and returned it to tn
nursery. The mothers eyes followed tn
nurse hungrily until she passed out o
sight through the door at the end 0
the ward.
!. Miss Crabtree walked back to her Of
u fee and looked up the patients histor
= and antecedents. 1t was typical-almos
sJereotyped. The daughter Of immigran
parents, the mother a 1anitress worKin
early n late and the father q nigh
Waterman on the docks. The girl, q de
partment store worker with one OF tn
cheaper retail firms that infest old Four
teenth street west of Union Square.
Miss Crabtree returned the card to tn
file with o stealthy, catlike movemen
of her bony hand. 1t lay within he
power to make this girl suffer as sh
herself had suffered. Arising, she wake
down to the nursery and looked at tn
child. She asked the nurse in charge
few sharp questions. after which sh
called a telephone number In Brooklyn
This is Miss Crabtree speaking" sh
said In reply to the voice that answere
the operators ring. Il hin we have
child that'n suit you, Mrs. Amberly. Ca
YOU and your usban come down TO