The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

740 THE smiling nurse; “is it all over? If it is, how do I feel?” “fT hope you feel well,” returned the nurse. “You will be all right in a few days. But you must remain perfectly quiet.” “T got you,” said Teronne faintly. “This is the first time in six years that any one told me to keep quiet.” The girls from Sinclair’s sent flowers in white tissue paper, and rosy red apples, which the nurses divided with complete im- partiality among themselves, and which would have killed Teronne right speedily. Mr. Sinclair broke the store rule long enough to send a check covering the hos- pital bill, and the floor-walker conveyed to the patient a copy of “Omar Khayyam” in limp leather. And for many days Teronne lay bliss- fully, dreamily, in a soft white bed and pre- tended that she was a neutral princess in a castle by the sea. “Pretty soft for little me,” she confided to the nurse, referring not to her bed, which ’ was soft enough, but to her state of restful- ness and freedom from daily toil. “If I had enough appendixes I might have a va- cation or so every six months. Next time I think I'll have typhoid. What can you have that will keep you here longest?”’ The nurse laughed. “Vou will be glad enough to go to work before this is over,” she said. ‘You will long for work.’” “Tf I do, it’ll be the first time I longed for work. Did you ever try clerking in a department store? Or stoking an ocean liner in summer? They’re exactly alike. Anyhow, I might as well know now as any time. How long before I have to go back to the job?” “Six weeks,” returned the nurse, “or two months; perhaps three months. It depends largely upon how you progress.” “Three months!” Teronne laughed. “Somebody must have told you it was easy to kid me. How d’ye suppose I’m going to keep on eating if I don’t work for three months? I know you’re not expected to have appendicitis unless you own money in the bank, but in my-case they made a mis- take. I’m going back to the store as soon as I leave this blessed bed. I’m one of those poor but honest working girls, nursie, dear.”’ “You want to go on living, don’t you?” asked the white-clad one. “Sometimes,” smiled Teronne. ARGOSY. “Then you will have to follow the doc- tor’s orders. You will have to remain quiet, because walking is extremely bad for the place where removed appendixes used to be. And if you insist upon walking be- fore the doctor says you may, you are liable to walk right off this earth into the land of Kingdom Come.”’ “All right,” Teronne agreed. “But I don’t see how I am going to do it. Why, right this minute my room rent is due and I’m not even occupying the place.” Subsequent events proved that the nurse knew whereof she spake. Some persons, upon recovering from an operation on the appendix, are able to walk about very soon, carry handbags into town and open railway car windows. Others must remain totally quiescent. They must not walk any farther than you can throw a bull by the tail. And the doctor informed Teronne that she must sit in a chair for many days. She must not return to Sinclair’s. She must.go somewhere into the country and recuperate. “A pretty girl like you ought to have plenty of relations who would be glad to care for her,” remarked the doctor, who was rather young and still able to note the difference between women. ‘‘Haven’t you somebody out in the country, where you can get some fresh air?”’ “T have an aunt in Connecticut,” Teronne admitted ruefully. ‘“‘She’s as tight as the hoops on a barrel. Still, she couldn’t mind my taking some of her fresh air and using it, could she? And she will probably think that if I had appendicitis I must have got it by going around in bad company. Any- how, she’s the only aunt I have. Suppose I write her?” “Tll write her,” replied the doctor. Next morning he appeared before Ter- onne, with a telegram in his hand, an- nouncing that Teronne’s Aunt Martha was coming to New York instantly. The tele- gram was full of short words demanding to know why somebody had not informed her of her beloved niece’s serious illness. In the afternoon Aunt Martha burst in upon them and threatened to embrace the pa- tient, in spite of the doctor’s protest. So it came about that Teronne Metcalf took a motor ride, in a machine furnished kindly by the Sinclair store—Mr. Sinclair’s own limousine—and accompanied by Aunt Martha. In due time they arrived at the old-fashioned home on the side of a Con- necticut hill, a mile or two west of the CORMICLOOOKS (E@)