The Argosy, August 1914 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NOBODY LOVES A LOSER. boards. Brilliant sunshine flooded it from a window near the head of the bed. While he lay with half-opened eyes, drowsily curious about his surround- ings, a door swung to an exact three inches, and Jessica Hooper peeped through the crack. She remained thus, inspecting the figure on the bed, until Jack. said : “* Come in.” Responsive to the invitation, she stepped to the bedside and looked him over. He awaited her verdict. “ You're better,” it came presently. “T will have your breakfast right away. You are to stay in bed to-day. Yes, you must. How is your arm?” “Tt aches a little still,’ he admitted. “Of course it does. Grandfather will rub it again. It’s a wonder the bones weren’t crushed.” “ But there’s no reason why [ should quarter myself on you like this,” he said. “Isn’t there a hospital, or any- way a hotel or—” “No, there isn’t,” she broke in. “ And if there was, what of it? After you are able to get around you can do as you please, but we are going to make you well first. Now don’t talk any more until I say you may. First you must have your face and_ hands washed.” He was minded to object to that, but found his opposition vain. She performed her task with the imper- sonal thoroughness of a trained nurse, and Jack was compelled to confess to himself that the result was refreshing. He could not summon to his part of patient quite the same indifference to the operation with which she evidently viewed it, however, try as he might. After she had finished and gone to prepare his breakfast he still felt the touch of her strong, brown little hands, and felt stronger himself for the near- ness of her abundant health. : On the second morning thereafter he rebelled effectively against long continuance-in bed. ‘The simple, care- fully chosen diet she selected, com- bined with the rest, had fought back 27 the poisons of exposure and fatigue. She admitted grudgingly that he might be well enough to get out of bed, and brought his clothes, cleaned and pressed but showing the stains of ill usage. While his strength was less than he had expected to find it, the process of dressing and making his way to the combination kitchen, dining, and living room from which his bedroom and two others opened, leaving him quite spent, he underwent rapid restoration from then on. The enforced leisure provi- ded him with opportunity to grasp his surroundings. Barratry Island he knew of as a seaman knows landfalls in his cruising ground. It was a rugged uplifting of cliffs and sand beaches about one hun- dred and fifty miles from New York as the crow flies. ‘The fact that it was easily.accessible by train and boat had developed it into a popular summer resort—a wilderness of hotels and boarding-houses clustered around a bathing beach. Aside from the three summer months, and along its irregular coast- line apart from the much frequented beach, life on Barratry was much the same as it had been for nearly three hundred years. There are many Bar- ratry Islands along the Atlantic, where, out of touch with modern influences, men and women develop feudal indi- vidualities, in the course of generations erecting their own system of laws and coming to believe themselves superior to the political bodies from which a few miles of water separate them. The very name of this bit of land on which fate had thrown Jack Gar- rett was significant of the character of its inhabitants. If in the present day they refrained from flashing false lights on their headlands to lure passing vessels to destruction, the same spirit of lawlessness was alive, manifesting itself in other ways. “In the summer,” Jessica explained, “the natives prey on summer board- ers; in winter they prey on one COMMICLOOOKS (C@