Sweethearts at HomeCrockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
General
Sweethearts at Home
Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Girls -- Diaries
Thomasina Morton, however, was not pleased with Mr. Taylor, and left his
church. She joined the Salvation Army, but soon left it, because she
found the costume unbecoming. She did better as a nurse, and had
splendid chances there. Because, you see, the dress was all right, and
her patients could not get up and run when she had them good and safe
within the four walls of an hospital!
I dare say, however, it helped to pass the time for the poor fellows.
For, you see, Thomasina was pretty, and knew it. She would sing sad,
faint, die-away hymns in the twilight, till she made these bad young men
just lie down and cry. They were generally pretty weak, anyway,
especially when Thomasina used to talk to them about their mothers.
(When they were well, you might have talked those mothers' heads off
without reforming their sons the value of a row of pins.) But Thomasina
talked to them in a dreamy voice, till they all were willing to go out
as missionaries to the most cannibal-haunted regions--that is, if only
Thomasina would come along with them.
But when they asked her, as they mostly did, Thomasina said she was very
sorry, but she had never meant it that way. She was "vowed to a
vocation," and mere commonplace marriage would be sinful. Besides
(mostly), the young men had nothing to keep themselves on--much less a
wife.
Oh, Thomasina made the winter very cheerful at Edam, especially after
the Cottage Hospital was opened, and the cutting of the new railway
brought a good many into the accident ward.
To listen to Thomasina (and believe her), all these, though mere
"_navvies_" now, were Oxford or Cambridge men, and either the sons of
purple Indian colonels, very peppery, or (which she preferred) of
white-haired old clergymen, who were never known to smile again after
their only sons had left the family roof-tree.
Surely there was a lack of imagination in that accident ward. Hugh John
would have made cartloads of plans, and as for Sir Toady--well, he could
have evolved something fresh each journey, and never charged a penny
extra. He would have been ashamed of so many colonels and white-haired
clergymen.
But Thomasina was quite content, and read all manner of nice
uninteresting books to the poor storm-stayed ones, who sometimes looked
at the angelic expression on her face, and sometimes had quite a decent
little sleep on the quiet. Her voice was naturally soothing.
Thus time passed none so evilly in the Cottage Hospital accident ward,
and Thomasina came and got nice jellies from Mrs. Donnan, very
sustaining, and "let on," as Sir Toady asserted, that she had made them
all herself! But there is more--oh, ever so much more about Thomasina
Morton. I hope you are not tired hearing about her--I am not of telling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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