The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1939-03-25
The Rains
Game

At the end Of the week Aunt
Phoebe and the Smileys gave the
first Of their Saturday lunch
parties since the disaster. Con-
fdentianv Aunt Phoebe said to
Ransome. L don't suppose 1t VIII
be as gay as the old parties were.
but I'm a great believer IN habit
and routine. There's nothing so
good for making you forget things
as carrying on in the same old
rut
So about twelve o'clock there
gathered about the long table in
the Smileys kitchen the old men,
bers of the Saturday Lunch Club.
Poor Mr. Jobnekar was gone for
ever. but in his place there were
two new members and Miss
Hodge For Miss Hodge was one
of them now. She had a whole
committee Of guardians -Ransome
and Aunt Phoebe. the Smileys and
Fern. the major and Raschid Ali
Khan and even Miss MacDaid.
Ransome and Homer Smiley
came directly to lunch from the
orphanage, where the Ministry of
Public Welfare had already set up
temporary office from which
they distributed rice and gram
and millet and set about a survey
of contaminated wells. Miss Mac
Daid 70 rthe sake of exercise came
on a bicycle instead of a tonga,
accompanied by Fern.
On the way out from town. while
they pedaled along side by side,
Miss MacDaid conducted an exam
nation of Fern. shouting at her
whenever the bicycles drew a little
apart. She began by calling out,
You're absolutely sure you want
to be nurse ,"
yes, I'm sure"
what makes you think so ,"
Then for a time Fern pedaled in
silence and at last she said, We'll,
/ do. / could give you a lot of
reasons, but they'd all add up to
the same thing. I want to stay
here and l want to be a nurse
Il always heard that you said
you hated Ranchipur and talked
against it"
Fern blushed. 81 did, I guess,
but it was different then" Her
bicycle ran into a hole in the
road, and to right herself she de-
scribed large arc which took her
far away from Miss MacDaid.
Il want you to be sure in your
own mind she called across to
Fern.
Il am sure"
She felt shy with Miss MacDaid
Miss MscDaid. who could be so
gentle in dressing a wound, could
be rough and agonizing in dealing
with human faults. But even if
Fern had not been shy she could
not have told the reasons why she
was so sure; she could not tell
Miss M a Dai d that she had
changed not because she was in
love with Tom. but because since
that first night when he had taken
her back and deposited her at the
Smileys' she had been discovering
many things, among them some
thing known as common sense.
Beside her, Miss MacDaids stout
legs pedaled faster and faster as
her matter-of-fact brain worked
faster and faster She had now
reached that stage where she was
selling herself to Fern, because
she wanted so much against her
own common sense and experience
to believe in the girl. She wanted
desperately some one to carry on
at the hospital when she herself
became tired and old. some one
who was young and strong as an
OK, as she herself had always been,
and Fern, if her strength and stub
bornness held out, might be Just
the one
For the heart of Miss MacDaid
was happy again, even when she
looked at the gray suffering face
of the major; he would. she knew,
one day recover from his suffer-
ing There waa no time now for
suffering. Work would cure him,
work would cauterize the wounds.
In her flatfooted honesty she did
not pretend to regret the death of
Lady Esketh, but regarded it
rather as an intercession on the
part of the gods; in a way it had
been Lady Esketh's own fault, the
result of her shallow life with its
vanity and luxury and idleness and
folly.
The party recaptured a little Of
that spirit of unity which had kept
the little group together for so
many years. None of them, save
Miss Hodge, was able to shake off
continued on Page s, Column 81