e the name of a young woman who was very good,
he said.

Sudden telephoned straightway for the nurse, and Mary V locked herself
into her room to cry about it.

The nurse came that night, and went briskly in and out of the guest room.
She wore her hair parted and slicked back from her face, and rubber
heels; and she smiled reassuringly whenever she saw Mary V or Mrs. Selmer
or any one else who looked anxious. And she never once failed to close
the door of the guest room gently but firmly behind her. Mary V hated
that nurse with a vindictiveness wholly out of proportion to the cause.

None of these things did Johnny know. Johnny lay quietly on his back with
a neat, white bandage around his head. His eyes were closed, his face was
placid with the inscrutable calm of death or deep unconsciousness. The
next day it was the same, and the day after that--except that his cheeks
began to hollow a little, and his eye sockets to deepen and darken.

And that pesky nurse wouldn't let Mary V stay in the room two minutes!
She just shooed her out with that encouraging smile of hers, that Mary V
wanted to slap. Did she think, for gracious sake, that Mary V was going
to murder Johnny? Mary V was just going to tell the doctor that she had
learned all about nursing, in her "Useful Knowledge" class at school. She
should think she was just exactly as well qualified to moisten that
bandage with whatever it was they put on it, and keep the flies out of
the room, and little things like that, as any old tow-headed nurse that
ever shook down a thermometer.

But when the doctor came he looked so sort of sober that Mary V was
afraid to ask him anything at all. She went out into the hammock on the
porch, where she could see the curtains flapping gently in the open
window of Johnny's room. And after awhile the doctor came out and looked
at her and smiled a little, and said, "Well, have we captured any more
bandits? By George, I'd hate to be one and run across you, young lady. I
had the honor of repairing the damage you did to 'em; and I will say, you
are so-ome bone smasher!"

Which was all very well--but what did Mary V care about the damage done
to those Mexicans? She looked at the open window with the flapping
curtains, and then she looked at the doctor. She did not ask a single
question, and I don't think she dreamed how wistful her eyes were.

"Well, our young aviator seems to be--holding on," the doctor observed
very, very casually, seemi