Miss Theodosia's HeartstringsDonnell, Annie Hamilton
General
Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings
Donnell, Annie Hamilton
Fiction
"That's it--that's why I got to hurry back. He's keepin' Elly Precious
for me, an' he don't know what to do with babies. He says all his are
paper ones--paper babies! He gave Elly Precious his knife, an' opened
the blades to amuse him! He said he guessed Elly Precious wouldn't hurt
'em!" Evangeline's face registered great scorn. "If you'll give it to
me, I'll carry it to him," she concluded, holding out her hand for the
shirt. But Miss Theodosia sewed calmly on. She had found a second tear
larger than the first. It would be better to strengthen it with a little
piece underneath. She would find a white scrap in her bag of pieces.
"It is not ready yet. He can wait. But you must not wait, Evangeline.
Elly Precious may be playing with his pistol, if he carries one."
"He don't. He ain't a pistol-man, but, mercy gracious, how you scare me!
You comin' too, Stefana?"
"Yes, Stefana can go now. She is all through," which was Miss
Theodosia's kind inclusion of Stefana. That, again, was curiously new to
Miss Theodosia. Psychological changes were taking place--or were they
just plain tugs on Miss Theodosia's heartstrings?
She sat and sewed.
"Patching--I'm patching!" she laughed to herself. "And here I've been
hiring my own mending done! Theodosia Baxter, see what you are doing;
you are patching a shirt for a man! No, I'm not, either! I'm doing it
for Stefana--what are you talking about?"
Some one came up her steps and knocked on her open door. But she was too
engrossed to hear. The patch underneath had slipped a little askew. She
ripped out some of the stitches and began again. She caught herself
humming as she worked.
"Please may I have my shirt?" a voice asked meekly. "That story is
promised for next month. It's the twenty-eighth, now."
Evangeline's Tract Man stood in the doorway, soft felt hat in hand,
twinkles in his eyes. Evangeline's Tract Man was the Reformed Doctor! If
Miss Theodosia had been eighteen instead of thirty-six she would not
have blushed more beautifully, but she continued to patch. She was
caught in the act; no help for it now. But she would finish--that--patch.
"So it's you! So that's the work Reformed Doctors do!"
"Madam, yes. When stories appeal to them more than pills and tonics,
they reform and write stories. They have to!" he cried, suddenly in
earnest, "When one is life, and the other death--"
"Oh, if it was death to them--your patients," she murmured. Then,
ashamed of her own flippancy: "Of course, I didn't mean anything as
silly as that! I meant--I meant, please sit down while I finish this
patch. There, in that easy-chair. There are magazines on the table."
There was one magazine with his own name in the list of contents. He
opened it at that page and gazed down upon it quite soberly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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