D During the famous Pullman strike of last summer, duty bade me cross to Chicago in the interests of the Echo. On Saturday afternoon, July the 7th, I was at the pulse of the Anarchist movement, near the corner of Loomis and Forty-ninth Streets. Taking up my stand in the deep entry of a "House to Let," I watched the operations of a body of strikers gathered round a box car close to the Grand Trunk crossing. They had set it afire, and were trying to overturn it upon the railway track, encouraged by the cheers of a mob numbering about two thousand men, women, and children. The incendiaries were so much engrossed that they did not observe, backing swiftly down upon them, the wrecking train it was their purpose to block. While still in motion, the cars disgorged Captain Kelly and his company, who had been guarding the Pan Handle tracks all day, but had not yet, it seemed, earned their night's repose. The crowd greeted the soldiers with stones, brickbats, and pieces of old iron, but the car burners proceeded with their little job, paying no attention at all to the approach of the military. A pistol bullet out of the mob swished in among his men, and then Captain Kelly gave the order to fire. When the smoke of the volley cleared away, I saw the people stand still, shocked and dumb with surprise. A second later, realizing that the worm had had the audacity to turn, they vented a medley of shrieks and The yelling mass of humanity scattered, took refuge in lanes and houses, but regaining courage, appeared here and there in sections, to be assailed once more by soldiers and police. The latter had to fight it out by themselves after a while, for the military boarded the wrecking train again, and the engineer, completely "rattled," opened the throttle, and whisked them away to the West, leaving a dozen revolver-armed policemen to meet the assaults of a mob that had now increased to five thousand. The Press abuses the police on principle, but, seeing that heroic encounter, I wavered in the keeping of my promise to Belle not to run into danger. Even as I hesitated, "hurry-up wagons" arrived with re-enforcements from neighboring police stations, and then the At first I thought it was a runaway, for the horse was foaming of mouth and bloodshot of eyeball; but no, there was a man, or fiend, with a similar wild gleam in his eye, urging the brute upon me, while he sounded a gong to keep everything out of his way. All this I saw in a flash, and in a flash too went through my mind the advice given by President Cleveland in his proclamation to non-combatants to keep out of harm's way. I rolled over on my side with the sickening certainty that the next instant the hoofs and the wheels would be upon me, but the horse pulled up on his haunches at my very feet, the rattle and clanging ceased, and a doctor in his shirt sleeves appeared as if by magic. It was an ambulance, of course. I fainted when they lifted me, and only came to myself in the hospital—Mary's hospital, and her "D'ye want me to send word to Mis' Gemmell to come?" asked Mary, and I replied drowsily: "No, don't. She's better to keep out of harm's way. She would be sure to sympathize with the strikers." "But she'll wonder where you are." "She can't get here safely, as things are now, and the mails are all upset. Don't write. Send a telegram in my name. Date it Chicago, and tell her I'm detained, but that I'll go home Monday, sure." That same night I was off in a high fever. It was days and days before I came to myself, and then I was too weak to ask or to care how everything was going on at An ideal life it may seem to outsiders, but there is as much wire-pulling, as much jealousy and scandal within the walls of one of those big institutions, as anywhere else on this planet. It is an epitome of the world battle, and the strugglers meet in hand-to-hand conflict. Nurse Dean, the head of our ward, tall and angular in form, stern and cold in feature, was the dragon Belle had told me about, but she knew her business, and I, for one, preferred that she should regard me simply as a machine laid up for repairs. I did not even think her unduly severe upon Mary, after I heard her giving that damsel "Hail Columbia" for her carelessness in having administered the wrong medicine one If I had not made a feeble protest in her favor, "Nurse Gemmell" would have been discharged on the spot. I do not wish to leave the impression that Mary had not in her the making of a fairly good nurse. She was light of foot, as well as quick of hand, and I liked to have her do things for me; found her aura agreeable, as Belle would have expressed it. Like many half-educated people, she was very observant, but, so far as I could judge, she had one eye on her work and the other on the lookout for flirtations. I became quite interested in some of them. There was the German fiddler in the next bed to mine, who could not keep his eyes off Mary whenever she came into the ward, and once when Nurse Dean was off duty, and she brought out I strongly suspected that the limp young artisan on the other side of me was perfectly well enough to be discharged, but he could not brace himself up to part from Mary. Then there was a young doctor whose face I dimly recognized, but it tired my poor head too much to try to think who he was. He and Mary had many a talk at my bedside about their own affairs. One evening I heard the unmistakable sound of a banjo, and managed to twist myself round far enough to see that this same doctor was playing an accompaniment to Mary's very fair imitation of a skirt dance out in the passage. The sight revived me so much that I laughed aloud, and Mary came hastily forward, blushing, with finger on her lip. The pink "You don't seem to remember me, Mr. Gemmell," said the owner of it, holding out his hand. "My name's Flaker. I was at Interlaken summer before last." "You're a full-fledged M. D. now?" "Oh, yes, but I'm taking a year's practice in here, before I set up for myself." Shades of the hotel matrons! They would probably say, if they heard this, that Mary had been sent here on purpose to catch him. Poor Mary! She had her own row to hoe. She came to me in tears one evening because Nurse Dean had been after her that whole day about one thing or another. "I am never particular 'nough to please her. If it wasn't for Dr. Flaker I wouldn't stay here another day." "You like him pretty well, eh?" "Well enough, an' he's all broke up on me; says he was at Interlaken too, on'y he couldn't say anythin', 'cause he wasn't of age. His folks are awful high-toned." "They'll have their discipline," thought I. "By the way, Mary, how long is it since I was brought here?" "Two weeks to-day." I sprang almost out of bed in my surprise. "Why didn't you tell me? Has no word been sent to Lake City?" "None since that first telegram. I don't write very often now to your wife, but when I did, I never said nothin' 'tall about your bein' here, 'cause you told me not to." "And haven't you had an answer?" "There's a letter lyin' there from Mis' Gemmell to you. I don't know how she could have found out your address. Nurse Dean said I wasn't to give it to you if you was a bit feverish." "Fetch it this minute, Mary, or I'll get up and walk the floor," and the girl brought me this remarkable document. It had neither beginning nor end, but rushed to the point at once. "I know all! You have laughed at my occult tendencies, sneered at my Theosophy, but I can now, alas! give you convincing proof of the penetrative power of the one, the sustaining power of the other. I became so nervous at your continued silence and absence that I did what I had promised you not to do—went out in my astral to hunt for you—and I found you! Would to God I had never tried! It is not my Having read so far, I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Mary and her lover and Nurse Dean, and how many more I know not, to hold me in bed. Of course I had a relapse, and my life was despaired of, but I would not, in my sensible moments, allow Mary to write to, or send for Isabel. I pictured the streets still full of rioting strikers, and the mails and trains still disorganized. In waking and in delirium alike, "Keep her out of harm's way!" I cried, "I'll go home to-morrow, sure," but it was a long to-morrow that saw me on the boat bound for Lake City. Mary wanted to accompany me, for I was still very weak, and had to walk with a stick on account of my knee, but I said brusquely, "No fear of that!" she said, holding up her left hand to show me a broad gold band with five diamonds in it, adorning her third finger. "We'll be married as soon as his year is out, for he has plenty of money." The stones in her ring caught the evening sunlight as she stood on the wharf waving her handkerchief to me, while the boat moved slowly out, and I lay in a steamer chair on the hurricane deck, prepared to enjoy a smoke and a gossip with my old friend, the captain. I wished her well with all my heart, but I sincerely hoped that I had seen the last of Mary. Judging the family to be at Interlaken as usual, I took the first train down there, and toiled There was not one back to town until late in the afternoon, and the evening being cloudy, it was quite dark by the time I left the electric car at the corner of our street. Even that little bit of a walk exhausted me, and I had to rest on my stick every few minutes, but what a relief it was to see, gleaming cheerfully as ever, I leaned against our iron railing for a minute or two to collect myself before making my appearance, and highly necessary was it for me to do so, because the attitude of the two ladies upon the veranda struck me dumb with amazement, and their conversation completely floored me. That sandy-haired little woman in the low rocker must be my mother, but could that regal figure on the edge of the veranda, with her head in my mother's lap, possibly be my wife? The light from the nursery window showed them to me distinctly, but I kept back in the shadow and listened to the voices. "My puir lamb! Ye've grat eneugh! Gang awa' tae yer bed; ye're sair forfoughten." As she stroked the wavy gray hair of the head on her knee, her tone changed. "I canna thole to think 'at son o' mine has brocht a' this trouble upon ye." "Not a word against him, mother! He's the best man that ever lived, and I didn't appreciate him, that's all. I can never think of him but as my dear, old, solid, yours-to-count-on Dave Gemmell. He was the silent partner, unpopular, getting no praise, paying all bills, backing me up in every fad, whether his judgment approved or not. He was just the square foundation I could lean away out on—could dance jigs on if I wanted to. Now that he is dead—or dead to me—I can only hope that he is happy. Oh! if I had but listened to you, mother, had never brought that girl into the house. My own vineyard have I not kept." "Let by-ganes be by-ganes—but I wad jest like to hae Davvit by the lug." "Lug along, mother! Here I Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and listened to what I had to say. "I was share there must be some mistak'," said my mother, her self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not regret the bullet in my knee. "We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle—a collection of half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far." "Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you so thin. Your clothes "Mary has been very good to me, I assure you." "I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again." "Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't want to 'papa' and 'mamma' us, though she may condescend to patronize us a little." "I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!" My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say. Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful attitude toward the approach of old age, her conviction that we To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been The Making of Mary.181.png
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