The Primrose Ring

Would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the 30th of April-which is May Eve, as everybody knows?

This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year-reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint Margaret's, found the flower-seller at the corner of the street that morning with his basket full of primroses. Now primroses are "gentle flowers," as everybody ought to know-which means that the faeries have been using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret MacLean bought the full of her hands that morning.

And this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret's-which fell on the 30th of April-and to the beginning of the story.

Saint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children does not belong to the city. It was built by a rich man as a memorial to his son, a little crippled lad who stayed just long enough to leave behind as a legacy for his father a great crying hunger to minister to all little ailing and crippled bodies. There are golden tales concerning those first years of the hospital-tales passed on by word of mouth alone and so old as to have gathered a bit of the misty glow of illusion that hangs over all myths and traditions. They made of Saint Margaret's an arcadian refuge, where the Founder wandered all day and every day like a patron saint. Tradition endowed him with all the attributes of all saints belonging to childhood: the protectiveness of Saint Christopher, the tenderness of Saint Anthony, the loving comradeship of Saint Valentine, and the joyfulness of Saint Nicholas.

But that was more than fifty years ago; and institutions can change marvelously in half a century. Time had buried more than the Founder.

The rich still support Saint Margaret's. Society gives bazars and costumed balls for it annually; great artists give benefit concerts; bankers, corporation presidents, and heiresses send liberal checks once a year-and from this last group are chosen the trustees. They have made of Saint Margaret's the best-appointed hospital in the city. It is supplied with everything money and power can obtain; leading surgeons are listed on its staff; its nurses rank at the head. It has outspanned the greatest dream of the Founder-professionally. And twelve times a year-at the end of every month-the trustees hold their day; which means that all through the late afternoon, until the business meeting at five-thirty, they wander over the building.

Now it is the business of institutional directors to be thorough, and the trustees of Saint Margaret's, previous to the 30th of April, never forgot their business. They looked into corners and behind doors to see what had not been done; they followed the work-trails of every employee-from old Cassie, the scrub-woman, to the Superintendent herself; and if one was a wise employee one blazed conspicuously and often. They gathered in little groups and discussed methods for conservation and greater efficiency, being as up to date in their charities as in everything else. Also, they brought guests and showed them about; for when one was rich and had put one's money into collections of sick and crippled children instead of old ivories and first editions, it did not at all mean that one had not retained the same pride of exhibiting.

There are a few rare natures who make collections for the sheer love of the objects they collect, and if they can be persuaded to show them off at all it is always with so much tenderness and sympathy that even the feelings of a delicately wrought Buddha could not be bruised. But there were none of these natures numbered among the trustees of Saint Margaret's. And because it was purely a matter of charity and pride with them, and because they never had any time left over from being thorough and business-like to spend on the children themselves, they never failed to leave a shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day. The contagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of self-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward and went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until it reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation. There was a reason for this-as Margaret MacLean put it once in paraphrase:

"Children come and children go, but we stay on for ever."

Trustee Day was an abiding memory only with the incurables; which meant that twelve times a year-at the end of every month-Ward C cried itself to sleep.

Spring could not have begun the day better. She is never the spendthrift that summer is, but once in a while she plunges recklessly into her treasure-store and scatters it broadcast. On this last day of April she was prodigal with her sunshine; out countryward she garnished every field and wood and hollow with her best. Everywhere were flowers and pungent herby things in such abundance that even the city folk could sense them afar off.

Little cajoling breezes scuttled around corners and down thoroughfares, blowing good humor in and bad humor out. Birds of passage-song-sparrows, tanagers, bluebirds, and orioles-even a pair of cardinals-stopped wherever they could find a tree or bush from which to pipe a friendly greeting. Yes, spring certainly could not have begun the day better; it was as if everything had said to itself, "We know this is a very special occasion and we must do our share in making it fine."

So well did everything succeed that Margaret MacLean was up and out of Saint Margaret's a full half-hour earlier than usual, her heart singing antiphonally with the birds outside. Coatless, but capped and in her gray uniform, she jumped the hospital steps, two at a time, and danced the length of the street.

Now Margaret MacLean was small and slender, and there was nothing grotesque in the dancing. It had become a natural means of expressing the abundant life and joyousness she had felt ever since she had been free of crutches and wheeled chairs; and an impartial stranger, had he been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement. She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself and his basket.

"Oh!" she cried in dismay, for the flower-seller was wizened and unsteady of foot, and she had sent him spinning about in a dizzy fashion. She put out a steadying hand. "Oh . . . !" This time it was in ecstasy; she had spied the primroses in the basket just as the sunshine splashed over the edge of the corner building straight down upon them. Margaret MacLean dropped to one knee and laid her cheek against them. "The happy things-you can hear them laugh! I want all-all I can carry." She looked up quizzically at the flower-seller. "Now how did you ever happen to think of bringing these-to-day?"

A pair of watery old eyes twinkled, thereby becoming amazingly young in an instant, and he wagged his head mysteriously while he raised a significant finger. "Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther bringin' anythin' else? But the rest that passes-or stops-will see naught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'." And the flower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.

"Perhaps not. There are the children-"

"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible wise."

"I know-I know-but mine aren't. I'm going to take my children back as many as I can carry." She stretched both hands about a mass of stems-all they could compass. "See"-she held up a giant bunch-"so much happiness is worth a great deal. Feel in the pocket of my apron and you will find-gold for gold. It was the only money I had in my purse. Keep it all, please." With a nod and a smile she left him, dancing her way back along the still deserted street.

"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all," chuckled the flower-seller as he eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called after the diminishing figure of the nurse: "Hey, there! Mind what ye do wi' them blossoms. They be's powerful strong magic." And he chuckled again.

The hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped for an interchange of grins and greetings.

"Mornin', Miss Peggie."

"Morning, Patsy."

He was "Patrick" to the rest of Saint Margaret's; no one else seemed to realize that he was only about one-fifth uniform and the other fifths were boy-small boy at that.

She eyed his work critically. "That's right-polish them well, Patsy.

They must shine especially bright to-day."

"Why, what's happenin' to-day?"

"Oh-everything, and-nothing at all."

And she passed on through the door with a most mysterious smile, thereby causing Patsy to mentally comment:

"My, don't she beat all! More'n half the time a feller don't know what she's kiddin' about; but, gee! don't he like it!"

As it happened the primroses did not get as far as Ward C then. Margaret MacLean found the door of the board-room ajar, and, glancing in, looked square into the eyes of the Founder of Saint Margaret's, where he hung in his great gold frame-silent and questioning.

"If all the tales they tell about you are true, you must wonder what has happened to Saint Margaret's since you turned it over to a board of trustees."

She went in and stood close to him, smiling wistfully. "Perhaps you would like me to leave you the primroses until after the meeting-they would be sure to cheer you up; and they might-they might-" Laughing, she went over to the President's desk and put the flowers in the green Devonshire bowl.

She was sitting in the President's chair, coaxing some of the hoydenish blossoms into place, when the House Surgeon looked in a moment later.

"Hello! What are you doing? I thought you detested this room." He spoke in a teasing, big-brother way, while his eyes dwelt pleasurably on the small gray figure in the President's chair. For, be it said without partiality or prejudice, Margaret MacLean was beautiful, with a beauty altogether free from self-appraisement.

"I do-I hate it!" Then she wagged her head and raised a significant finger in perfect imitation of the flower-seller. "I am dabbling in-magic. I am starting here a terrible and insidious campaign against gloom."

The House Surgeon looked amused. "You make me shiver, all right; but I haven't the smallest guess coming. Would you mind putting it into scientific American?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't. But I can make a plain statement in prose-this is Trustee Day."

"Hell!" The House Surgeon walked over to the calendar on the desk to verify the fact. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Margaret MacLean spread her hands over the primroses, indicatively. "I told you-magic." She wrinkled up her forehead into a worrisome frown. "Let me see; I counted them, up last night, and I have had two hundred and twenty-eight Trustee Days in my life. I have tried about everything else-philosophy, Christianity, optimism, mental sclerosis, and missionary fever; but never magic. Don't you think it sounds-hopeful?"

The House Surgeon laughed. "You are the funniest little person I ever knew. On duty you're as old as Methuselah and as wise as Hippocrates, but the rest of the time I believe your feet are eternally treading the nap off antique wishing-carpets. I wonder how many you've worn out. As for that head of yours, it bobs like a penny balloon among the clouds looking for-"

"Faeries?" suggested Margaret MacLean.

"That just about hits it. Will you please tell me how you, of all people, ever evolved these-ideas-out of Saint Margaret's?"

A grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across the room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's-the portrait of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a person is born with absolutely nothing-nothing of the human things a human baby is entitled to-she has to evolve something to live in; a sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp-just skin and feelings."

"And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?"

"Oh dear, no! But I keep believing it's going to be much better. Did you ever think what it could be like-if the trustees would only make it something more than-a matter of business? Why, it could be as good as any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one; and think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried. Think-think-and, oh, the fun of it!"

She broke off with a little shivering ache. When the picture became so alive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop. But the next moment she was laughing merrily.

"Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered-just as if some one had said something pleasant."

"Well?" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.

"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those lorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was spoken to. I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them into god-parents."

"Look here," and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a firm, big-brother grip of her hands, "faery-tales have to have stepmothers as well as godmothers-think of it that way. And remember that those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches."

"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them. I want them to be children-plain, happy, laughing children-with as normal a heritage as we can scrape together for them. All it needs is the magic of a little human understanding. That's the most potent magic in the whole world. Why, it can do anything!"

A little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face. It always did when she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something very intensely. It was the hardest kind of a look to resist. She had often threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it was her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor and meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one could of a spiritual heritage and living thereby.

"And don't you see," she had urged, at least a score of times, "if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds run-free-limbed-over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor bodies. And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is learning to walk alone."

Usually the House Surgeon was easily convinced to the Margaret MacLean side of any argument; but this time, for reasons of his own, he turned an unsympathetic and stubborn ear. He was coming to believe very strongly that all this fanciful optimism was so much laughing-gas, with only a passing power, and when the effect wore off there would be the Dickens to pay. He did not want to see Margaret MacLean turn into a bitter-minded woman of the world-stripped of her trust and her dreams. He-all of them-had need of her as she was. Her belief in the ultimate good of things and persons, however, was beyond power of human achievement; and the surest cure for disappointments was to amputate all expectations. So the House Surgeon hardened his heart and became as professionally severe as he knew how to be.

"It's absolutely impossible to expect a group of incurable children in an institution to be made as normal and happy as other children. It can't be done. Those kiddies are up against a pretty hard proposition, I know; but the kindest thing you can do for them is to toughen them into not feeling-"

The nurse in charge of Ward C wrenched away her hands fiercely. "You're just like the Senior Surgeon. He thinks the whole dependent world-the sick and the poor and the incompetent-have no business with ideas or feelings of their own. He's always saying, 'Train it out of them; train it out of them; and it will make it easier for institutions to take care of them.' It's for ever the 'right of the strong' with him. Unless you are able to take care of yourself you are not entitled to the ordinary privileges of a human being."

"I'm not at all like the Senior Surgeon. I don't mean that, and you know it. What I am trying to make you understand is that these kiddies can't keep you always; some time they will have to learn to do without you. When that happens it will come tough on them. It would come tough on anybody; and the square thing for you to do is to stop being-so all-fired adorable." The House Surgeon flung back his head and marched out of the board-room, slamming the door.

Behind the slammed door Margaret MacLean eyed the primroses suspiciously. "I wonder-is your magic working all right to-day? Please-please don't weave any charms against him, little faery people. He is the only other grown-up person who has ever understood the least bit; and I couldn't bear to lose him, too."

For the second time that morning she nestled her cheek against the blossoms. Then the clock on the hospital tower struck eight. She jumped with a start. "Time to go on duty." Once again her eyes met the eyes of the Founder and sparkled witchingly. She raised high the green Devonshire bowl from the President's desk as for a toast.

"Here's to Saint Margaret's-as you founded her; and the children-as you meant them to be; and here's to the one who first understood!" She turned from the Founder to the portrait hanging opposite, and bowed most worshipfully to the Old Senior Surgeon.