WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD

Everybody woke with a start on the morning following the 30th of April; things began to happen even before the postman had made his first rounds.  The operators at the telephone switchboards were rushed at an unconscionably early hour, considering that their station compassed the Avenue.  The President was trying to get the trustees, Saint Margaret’s, and the Senior Surgeon; the trustees were trying to get one another; while the Senior Surgeon was rapidly covering the distance between his home and the hospital his mind busy with a multitude of things, none of which he had ever written with capitals.

Saint Margaret’s was astir before its usual hour; there was a tang of joyousness in the air, and everybody’s heart and mind, strangely enough, seemed to be in festal attire, although nobody was outwardly conscious of it.  It was all the more inexplicable because Saint Margaret’s had gone to bed miserable, and events naturally pointed toward depression:  Margaret MacLean’s coming departure, the abandoning of Ward C, the House Surgeon’s resignation, and Michael’s empty crib.

Ward C had wakened with a laugh.  Margaret MacLean, who had been moving noiselessly about the room for some time, picking up the withered remains of the primrose ring, looked up with apprehension.  The tears she had shed over Michael’s crib were quite dry, and she had a brave little speech on the end of her tongue ready for the children’s awakening.  Eight pairs of sleepy eyes were rubbed open, and then unhesitatingly turned in the direction of the empty crib in the corner.

“Michael has gone away.” she said, softly, steadying her voice with great care.  “He has gone where he will be well and his heart sound and strong.”

She was wholly unprepared for the children’s response.  It was so unexpected, in fact, that for the moment she tottered perilously near the verge of hysterics.  The children actually grinned; while Bridget remarked, with a chuckle: 

“Ye are afther meanin’ that he didn’t come back that’s what!” And then she added, as an afterthought, “He said to tell ye ‘God bless ye,’ Miss Peggie.”

Margaret MacLean did not know whether to be shocked or glad that the passing of a comrade had brought no sign of grief.  Instead of being either, she went on picking up the primroses and wondering.  As for the children, they lay back peacefully in their beds, their eyes laughing riotously.  And every once in a while they would look over at one another, giving the funniest little expressive nods, which seemed to say:  “I know what you’re thinking about, and you know what I’m thinking about, so what’s the need of talking.  But when is it going to happen?”

The House Surgeon brought up her mail; it was an excuse to see her again before his official visit.  “Are the children very much broken up over it?” he asked, anxiously, outside the door.

For answer Margaret MacLean beckoned him and pointed to the eight occupied cots unquestionably serene and happy.

“Well, I’ll be ” began the House Surgeon, retiring precipitously back to the door again; but the nurse put a silencing finger over his lips.

“Hush, dear!  The children are probably clearer visioned than we are.  I have the distinct feeling this morning of being very blind and stupid, while they seem oh, so wise.”

The House Surgeon grunted expressively.  “Well, perhaps they won’t take your going away so dreadfully to heart now; or theirs, for that matter.”

“I hope not,” and then she smiled wistfully.  “But I thought you told me last night we were all going together?  At any rate, I am not going to tell them anything.  If it must be it must be, and I shall slip off quietly, when the children are napping, and leave the trustees to tell.”

She looked her mail over casually; there were the usual number of advertisements, a letter from one of the nurses who had gone South, and another in an unfamiliar hand-writing.  She tore off the corner of the last, and, running her finger down the flap, she commented: 

“Looks like quality.  A letter outside the profession is a very rare thing for me.”

She read the letter through without a sound, and then she read it again, the House Surgeon watching, the old big-brother look gone for ever from his face, and in its place a worshipful proprietorship.  The effect of the letter was undeniably Aprilish; she looked up at the House Surgeon with the most radiant of smiles, while her eyes spilled recklessly over.

“How did you know it?  How did you know it?” she repeated.

He was trying his best to find out what it was all about when one of the nurses came hurrying down the corridor.

“You are both wanted down in the board-room.  They have called a special meeting of the trustees for nine o’clock; everybody’s here and acting decidedly peculiar, I think.  Why, as I passed the door I am sure I saw the President slapping the Senior Surgeon on the back.  I never heard of anything like this happening before.”

“Come,” said Margaret MacLean to the House Surgeon.  “If we walk down very slowly we will have time enough to read the letter on the way.”

As the nurse had intimated, it was an altogether unprecedented meeting.  Formality had been gently tossed out of the window; after which the President sat, not behind his desk, but upon it an open letter in his hand.  His whole attitude suggested a wish to banish, as far as it lay within his power, the atmosphere of the previous afternoon.

“Here is a letter to be considered first,” he said, a bit gravely.  “It makes rather a good prologue to our reconsideration of the incurable ward,” and the ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.  “This is from the widow of the Richest Trustee.”  He read, slowly: 

“Mesdames and gentlemen of the board, I thank you for your courtesy in asking me to fill my husband’s place as one of the trustees of Saint Margaret’s.  Until this afternoon I had every intention of so doing; but I cannot think now that my husband would wish me to continue his support of an institution whose directors have so far forgotten the name under which they dispense their charity as to put science and pride first.  As for myself I find I am strongly interested in incurables your incurables. 
      Yours very truly”

The President laid the letter behind him on the desk, while the entire board gasped in amazement.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” muttered the Disagreeable Trustee.

“But just think of her writing it!” burst forth the Oldest Trustee.

The Meanest Trustee barked out an exclamation, but nothing followed it; undoubtedly that was due to the President’s interrupting: 

“I think if we had received this yesterday we should have been very exceedingly indignant; we should have censured the writer severely.  As it is hmm ” The President stopped short; it was as if his mind had refused to tabulate his feelings.

“As it is” the Executive Trustee took up the dropped thread and went on “we have decided to reconsider the removal of the incurable ward without any preaching or priming of conscience.”

“I am so glad we really had changed our minds first.  I should so hate to have that insignificant little woman think that we were influenced by anything she might write.  Wouldn’t you?” And the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee dimpled ravishingly at the Senior Surgeon.

“Wouldn’t you two like to go into the consulting-room and talk it over?  We could settle the business in hand, this time, without your assistance, I think.”  The voice of the Disagreeable Trustee dripped sarcasm.

“I should suggest,” said the President, returning to the business of the meeting, “that the ward might be continued for the present, until we investigate the home condition of the patients and understand perhaps a little more thoroughly just what they need, and where they can be made most comfortable.”

“And retain Margaret MacLean in charge?” The Meanest Trustee gave it the form of a question, but his manner implied the statement of a disagreeable fact.

“Why not?  Is there any one more competent to take charge?” The Executive Trustee interrogated each individual member of the board with a quizzical eye.

“But the new surgical ward and science?” The Youngest and Prettiest threw it, Jason-fashion, and waited expectantly for a clash of steel.

Instead the Senior Surgeon stepped forward, rather pink and embarrassed.  “I should like to withdraw my request for a new surgical ward.  It can wait for the present, at least.”

And then it was that Margaret MacLean and the House Surgeon entered the board-room.

The President nodded to them pleasantly, and motioned to the chairs near him.  “We are having what you professional people call a reaction.  I hardly know what started it; but hmmm ” For the second time that morning he came to a dead stop.

Everybody took great pains to avoid looking at everybody else; while each face wore a painful expression of sham innocence.  It was as if so many naughty children had been suddenly caught on the wrong side of the fence, the stolen fruit in their pockets.  It was gone in less time than it takes for the telling; but it would have left the careful observer, had he been there, with the firm conviction that, for the first time in their conservative lives, the trustees of Saint Margaret’s had come perilously near to giving themselves away.

In a twinkling the board sat at ease once more, and the President’s habitual composure returned.  “Will some one motion that we adopt the two measures we have suggested?  This is not parliamentary, but we are all in a hurry.”

“I motion that we keep the incurables for the present, and that Miss MacLean be requested to continue in charge.”  There was a note of relieved repression in the voice of the Executive Trustee as he made the motion; and he stretched his shoulders unconsciously.

“But you mustn’t make any such motion.”  Margaret MacLean rose, reaching forth protesting hands.  “You would spoil the very best thing that has happened for years and years.  Just wait wait until you have heard.”

As she unfolded her letter the President’s alert eye promptly compared it with the one behind him on the desk.  “So you have likewise heard from the widow of the Richest Trustee?”

She looked at him, puzzled.  “Oh, you know!  She has written you?”

“Not what she has written you, I judge.  One could hardly term our communication ‘the best thing that has happened in years.’” And again a smile twitched at the corners of the President’s mouth.

“Then listen to this.”  Margaret MacLean read the letter eagerly: 

“Deae Margaret MACLEAN, There is a home standing on a hilltop an hour’s ride from the city.  It belongs to a lonely old woman who finds that it is too large and too lonely for her to live in, and too full of haunting memories to be left empty.  Therefore she wants to fill it with incurable children, and she would like to begin with the discarded ward of Saint Margaret’s.”

“That’s a miserable way to speak of a lot of children,” muttered the Disagreeable Trustee; but no one paid any attention, and Margaret MacLean went on: 

“There is room now for about twenty beds; and annexes can easily be added as fast as the need grows.  This lonely old woman would consider it a great kindness if you will take charge; she would also like to have you persuade the House Surgeon that it is high time for him to become Senior Surgeon, and the new home is the place for him to begin.  Together we should be able to equip it without delay; so that the children could be moved direct from Saint Margaret’s.  It is the whim of this old woman to call it a ’Home for Curables’ which, of course, is only a whim.  Will you come to see me as soon as you can and let us talk it over?”

Margaret MacLean folded the letter slowly and put it back in its envelope.  “You see,” she said, the little-girl look spreading over her face “you see, you mustn’t take us back again.  I could not possibly refuse, even if I wanted to; it is just what the children have longed for and wished for and

“We are not going to give up the ward; she would have to start her home with other children.”  The Dominant Trustee announced it flatly.

Strangely enough, the faces of his fellow-directors corroborated his assertion.  Often the value of a collection drops so persistently in the estimate of its possessor that he begins to contemplate exchanging it for something more up to date or interesting.  But let a rival collector march forth with igniting enthusiasm and proclaim a desire for the scorned objects, and that very moment does the possessor tighten his grip on them and add a decimal or two to their value.  So was it with the trustees of Saint Margaret’s.  For the first time in their lives they desired the incurable ward and wished to retain it.

“Not only do we intend to keep the children, but there are many improvements I shall suggest to the board when there is more time.  I should like to insist on a more careful supervision of curious visitors.”  And the Oldest Trustee raised her lorgnette and compassed the gathering with a look that challenged dispute.

Margaret MacLean’s face became unaccountably old and tired.  The vision that had seemed so close, so tangible, so ready to be made actual, had suddenly retreated beyond her reach, and she was left as empty of heart and hand as she had been before.  For a moment her whole figure seemed to crumple; and then she shook herself together into a resisting, fighting force again.

“You can’t keep the children, after this.  Think, think what it means to them a home in the country, on a hilltop, trees and birds and flowers all about.  Many of them could wheel themselves out of doors, and the others could have hammocks and cots under the trees.  Forget for this once that you are trustees, and think what it means to the children.”

“But can’t you understand?” urged the President, “we feel a special interest in these children.  They are beginning to belong to us as you do, yourself, for that matter.”

The little-girl look came rushing into Margaret MacLean’s face, flooding it with wistfulness.  “It’s a little hard to believe this belonging to anybody.  Yesterday I seemed to be the only person who wanted me at all, and I wasn’t dreadfully keen about it myself.”  Then she clapped her hands with the suddenness of an idea.  “After all, it’s the children who are really most concerned.  Why shouldn’t we ask them?  Of course I know it is very much out of the accustomed order of things, but why not try it?  Couldn’t we?”

Anxiously she scanned the faces about her.  There was surprise, amusement, but no dissent.  The Disagreeable Trustee smiled secretly behind his hand; it appealed to his latent sense of humor.

“It would be rather a Balaam and his ass affair, but, as Miss MacLean suggests, why not try it?” he asked.

Margaret MacLean did not wait an instant longer.  She turned to the House Surgeon.  “Bring Bridget down, quickly.”

As he disappeared obediently through the door she faced the trustees, as she had faced them once before, on the day previous.  “Bridget will know better than any one else what will make the children happiest.  Now wouldn’t it be fun” and she smiled adorably “if you should all play you were faery godparents, for once in your lifetime, and give Bridget her choice, whatever it may be?”

This time the entire board smiled back at her; somehow, in some strange way, it had caught a breath of Fancy.  And then the House Surgeon re-entered with Bridget in his arms, looking very scared until she spied “Miss Peggie.”

The President did the nicest thing, proving himself the good man he really was.  He crossed hands with the House Surgeon, thereby making a swinging chair for Bridget, and together they held her while Margaret MacLean explained: 

“It’s this way, dear.  Some one has offered you and all the children a home in the country a home of your very own.  But the trustees of Saint Margaret’s hardly want to give you up; they think they can take as good care of you and make you just as happy here.”

“But sure they’ll have to be givin’ us up.  Weren’t we afther givin’ a penny to the wee one yondther for the home?” and Bridget pointed a commanding finger toward the door.

Everybody looked.  There on the threshold stood the widow of the Richest Trustee.

“What do you mean, dear?  How could you have given her a penny?” Margaret MacLean asked it in bewilderment.

“‘Twas all the doin’s o’ the primrose ring.”  And then Bridget shouted gaily across to the gray wisp of a woman.  “Ye tell them.  Weren’t ye afther givin’ us the promise of a home?”

“And haven’t I come to keep the promise?” she answered, as gaily.  But in an instant she sobered as her eyes fell on the open letter on the President’s desk.  “I am so sorry I wrote it that is why I have come; not that I don’t think you deserved it, for you do,” and the widow of the Richest Trustee looked at them unwaveringly.

If she was conscious of the surprised faces about, she gave no sign for others to reckon by.  Instead, she walked the length of the board-room to the President’s desk and went on speaking hurriedly, as if she feared to be interrupted before she had said all she had come to say.  “I wish I had written in another way, a more helpful way.  Why not add your second surgical ward to Saint Margaret’s and do all the good work you can, as you had planned?  Only let me have these children to start a home which shall be a future harbor for all the cases you cannot mend with your science and which you ought not to set adrift.  You can send me all the convalescing children, too, who need country air and building up.  In return for this, and because you deserve to be punished just a little for yesterday I shall try my best to take with me Margaret MacLean and your House Surgeon.”

She laid a hand on both, while she added, softly:  “Suppose we three go home together and talk things over.  Shall we?”

So the “Home for Curables” has come true.  It crests a hilltop, and is well worth the penny that Bridget gave for it.  As the children specified, there are no “trusters”; and it has all the modern improvements, including Margaret MacLean, who is still “Miss Peggie,” although she is married to their new Senior Surgeon.

There is one very particular thing about the Home which ought to be mentioned.  When the children arrived Toby was on the steps, barking a welcome.  No one was surprised; in fact, everybody acted as though he belonged there.  Perhaps the surprising thing would have been not having the promise kept.  Toby is allowed right of way, everywhere; and rumor has it that he often sneaks in at night and sleeps on Peter’s bed.  But, of course, that is just rumor.

The children are supremely happy; which means that no one is allowed to cross the threshold who cannot give the password of a friend.  And you might like to know that many of the trustees of Saint Margaret’s come as often as anybody, and are always welcomed with a shout.  The President, in particular, has developed the habit of secreting things in his pockets until he comes looking very bulgy.

Margaret MacLean always puts the children to sleep with Sandy’s song; she said it was written by a famous poet who loved children, and the children have never told her the truth about it.  And if it happens, as it does once in a great while, that some one is missing in the morning, there is no sorrowing for him, or heavy-heartedness.  They miss him, of course; but they picture him running, sturdy-limbed, up the slope to the leprechaun’s tree, with Michael waiting for him not far off.

To the children Tir-na-n’Og is the waiting-place for all child-souls until Saint Anthony is ready to gather them up and carry them away with him to the “Blessed Mother”; and Margaret MacLean, having nothing better to tell them, keeps silent.  But she has thought of the nicest custom:  A new picture is hung in the Home after a child has gone.  It bears his name; and it is always something that he liked birds or flowers or ships or some one from a story.  Peter has his chosen already; it is to be a dog.

Whenever Saint Margaret’s Senior Surgeon finds a hip or a heart or a back that he can do nothing for, he sends it to the Home; and he always writes the same thing: 

“Here is another case in a thousand for you, Margaret MacLean.  How many are there now?”

He has married the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee, as the Disagreeable Trustee prophesied, and gossip says that they are very happy.  This much I know there are two more words which he now writes with capitals Son and Sympathy.

Margaret MacLean often says with the Danish faery-man:  “My life, too, is a faery-tale written by God’s finger.”  And the House Surgeon always chuckles at this, and adds: 

“Praise Heaven!  He wrote me into it.”

As for the widow of the Richest Trustee, she has found a greater measure of contentment than she thought the world could hold with love to brim it; for Margaret MacLean has adopted her along with the children.  The children still regard her, however, as a very mysterious person; and she has taken the place of Susan’s mythical aunt in the ward conversation.  It has never been argued out to the complete satisfaction of every one whether she is really the faery queen or just the “Wee Gray Woman,” as Sandy calls her.  The arguments wax hot at times, and it is Bridget who generally has to put in the final silencing word: 

“Faith, she kept her promise, didn’t she? and everything come thrue, hasn’t it?  Well, what more do ye want?”