FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>   >|  
hich the doctor looked wise and sagely winked. When that able practitioner returned to the cottage two young women with Red Cross badges were seated on the veranda, just in from a drive, apparently, and a dark-eyed little chap in the uniform of a subaltern of the cavalry was with them. They had drawn their chairs into the shade and close to the Venetian blinds, behind which in his darkened room reclined the languid patient. "That will drive him simply rabid," said the doctor to himself, and prepared a professional smile with which to tell the glad tidings that he should be borne forthwith to higher regions. He had left Stuyvesant peevish, fretful, but otherwise inert, asking only to be spared from intrusion. He found him alert, attent, eager, his eyes kindling, his cheeks almost flushing. The instant the doctor began to speak the patient checked him and bent his ear to the sound of soft voices and laughter from without. "I've fixed it all," whispered the medical man reassuringly. "We'll move you in a minute--just as soon as I can call in another man or two," and he started for the door, whereat his erratic patient again uplifted a hand and beckoned, and the doctor tip-toed to his side and bent his ear and looked puzzled, perturbed, but finally pleased. Stuyvesant said that, thinking it all over, he "guessed" he would rather stay where he was. And then, when the doctor was gone, what did he do but take a brace in his chair and bid the attendant go out and say to the officer on the veranda, Lieutenant Ray, that Mr. Stuyvesant would be very glad to speak with him if he'd be so kind as to come in, whereat the soft laughter suddenly ceased. There was a sound of light footsteps going in one direction and a springy, soldierly step coming in the other. Then entered Mr. Sanford Ray, with outstretched hands, and the attendant, following and peering over his shoulder, marvelled at the sudden change that had come over his master. Three days later, when the City of Sacramento was pronounced ready to proceed, and the officers and Red Cross nurses _en route_ to Manila were warned to rejoin the ship, Lieutenant Stuyvesant "shook," so to speak, his civil physician, persuaded the army surgeons with the fleet that a sea-voyage was all he needed to make a new man of him, and was carried aboard the Sacramento and given an airy stateroom on the upper deck, vacated in his favor by one of the ship's officers,--consideration not
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

doctor

 

Stuyvesant

 

patient

 
officers
 
Sacramento
 

Lieutenant

 
attendant
 

whereat

 

laughter

 

looked


veranda
 

stateroom

 

vacated

 

officer

 

suddenly

 
ceased
 

aboard

 

consideration

 

guessed

 
finally

pleased

 
thinking
 

surgeons

 

perturbed

 

sudden

 

change

 

master

 
pronounced
 

persuaded

 

Manila


warned

 

proceed

 

physician

 

nurses

 

coming

 

soldierly

 

springy

 

footsteps

 

carried

 

direction


entered

 

peering

 

shoulder

 

voyage

 

marvelled

 

Sanford

 
outstretched
 

needed

 

rejoin

 

darkened