"Where's--my kitty?" she asked hazily.
"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon.
Harshly the little iron leg-braces clanked together.
In an instant the White Linen Nurse was on her knees in the grass. "You
don't hold her right, sir!" she expostulated. Deftly with little soft,
darting touches, interrupted only by rubbing her knuckles into her own
tears, she reached out and eased successively the bruise of a buckle or
the dragging weight on a little cramped hip.
Still drowsily, still hazily, with little smacking gasps and gulping
swallows, the child worried her way back again into consciousness.
"All the birds _were_ there, Father," she droned forth feebly from her
sweltering mink-fur nest.
All the birds _were_ there
With yellow feathers instead of--hair,
And bumble bees--and bumble bees--
And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--?
Frenziedly she began to burrow the back of her head into her Father's
shoulder. "And bumble bees?--And bumble bees--?"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake--'buzzed' in the trees!" interpolated the Senior
Surgeon.
Rigidly from head to foot the little body in his arms stiffened
suddenly. As one who saw the supreme achievement of a life-time swept
away by some one careless joggle of an infinitesimal part, the Little
Girl stared up agonizingly into her father's face. "Oh, I don't
think--'buzzed' was the word!" she began convulsively. "Oh, I don't
think--!"
Startlingly through the twilight the Senior Surgeon felt the White Linen
Nurse's rose-red lips come smack against his ear.
"Darn you! Can't you say 'crocheted' in the trees?" sobbed the White
Linen Nurse.
Grotesquely for an instant the Senior Surgeon's eyes and the White Linen
Nurse's eyes glared at each other in frank antagonism.
Then suddenly the Senior Surgeon burst out laughing. "Oh, very well!" he
surrendered. "'Crocheted in the trees'!"
Precipitously the White Linen Nurse sank back on her heels and began to
clap her hands.
"Oh, now I will! Now I will!" she cried exultantly.
"Will what?" frowned the Senior Surgeon.
Abruptly the White Linen Nurse stopped clapping her hands and began to
wring them nervously in her lap instead. "Why--will--will!" she
confessed demurely.
"Oh!" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "_Oh!"_ Then equally jerkily he began
to pucker his eyebrows. "But for Heaven's sake--what's the 'crocheted
in the trees' got to do with it?" he asked perplexedly.
"Nothing much," mused the White Linen Nurse very softly. With sudden
alertness she turned her curly blonde head towards the road. "There's
somebody coming!" she said. "I hear a team!"
Overcome by a bashfulness that tried to escape in jocosity, the Senior
Surgeon gave an odd little choking chuckle.
"Well, I never thought I should marry a--trained nurse!" he acknowledged
with somewhat hectic blitheness.
Impulsively the White Linen Nurse reached for her watch and lifted it
close to her twilight-blinded eyes. A sense of ineffable peace crept
suddenly over her.
"You won't, sir!" she said amiably.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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