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Title: 'Smiles'
       A Rose of the Cumberlands

Author: Eliot H. Robinson

Illustrator: H. Weston Taylor

Release Date: August 9, 2007 [EBook #22287]

Language: English


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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







β€œSMILES”
A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDS

By ELIOT H. ROBINSON
"SMILES": A Rose of the Cumberlands $1.90 SMILING PASS: Being a Further Account
of the Career of "Smiles": A Rose of the
Cumberlands $1.90 MARK GRAY'S HERITAGE $1.90 THE MAID OF MIRABELLE: A Romance
of Lorraine $1.90 MAN PROPOSES; or, The Romance of
John Alden Shaw $1.90 GO GET 'EM! The True Adventures of an
American Aviator of the Lafayette Flying
Corps $1.50 By Eliot H. Robinson and Lieutenant
William A. Wellman. WITH OLD GLORY IN BERLIN; or, The
Story of an American Girl's Life and
Trials in Germany and Her Escape from
the Huns $2.00 By Eliot H. Robinson and Josephine Therese. THE PAGE COMPANY
53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
"A MAN AND A WOMANβ€”AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING" (See Page 374)
"A MAN AND A WOMANβ€”AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING" (See Page 374)

β€œSMILES”

A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDS

BY

ELIOT H. ROBINSON

Author of "Man Proposes"

ILLUSTRATED BY

H. WESTON TAYLOR

THE PAGE COMPANY

BOSTON  PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1919, by
The Page Company

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

All rights reserved

First Impression, May, 1919
Second Impression, June, 1919
Third Impression, July, 1919
Fourth Impression, August, 1919
Fifth Impression, September, 1919
Sixth Impression, October, 1919
Seventh Impression, December, 1919
Eighth Impression, February, 1920
Ninth Impression, September, 1920
Tenth Impression, August, 1921

TO MY BOYS
THIS STORY OF A GIRL
WHO LOVED CHILDREN
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

The Keynote of Life is Loveβ€”
Lacking it, naught is worth whileβ€”
The Symbol of Service, the Cross
And the Sign of Courage, A Smile.

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to acknowledge, most gratefully, the valuable assistance rendered to me, in the preparation of the chapters dealing with the medical and hospital incidents, by Robert W. Guiler, M.D.; by Alonzo J. Shadman, M.D., to whom I am indebted for my description of the unusual operation in Chapter XXI; and by Miss Elizabeth E. Sullivan, Superintendent of Nurses at the Boston Children's Hospital. And, above all, I desire to make acknowledgment of the debt of gratitude that I owe to Mr. Henry Wightman Packer for his helpful criticism throughout the writing of this story.

Eliot Harlow Robinson.

Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. Donald MacDonald, M.D. 1 II. Enter Big Jerry 12 III. An Innocent Serpent in Eden 25 IV. "Smiles" 34 V. Giving and Receiving 46 VI. An Unaccepted Challenge 57 VII. "Smiles'" Gift: and the "Writing" 66 VIII. Some of Several Epistles 77 IX. The High Hills, and "God's Man" 91 X. "Smiles'" Consecration 101 XI. Adoption by Blood 113 XII. The Three of Hearts 121 XIII. Gathering Clouds 129 XIV. Sowing the Wind 142 XV. Reaping the Whirlwind 153 XVI. The Aftermath 164 XVII. The Parting Pledge and Passing Days 171 XVIII. The Added Burden 179 XIX. "Smiles'" Appeal 190 XX. The Answer 200 XXI. A Modern Miracle 216 XXII. Vicarious Atonement 225 XXIII. Two Letters 235 XXIV. New Scenes, New Friends 241 XXV. The First Milestone 256 XXVI. The Call of the Red Cross 264 XXVII. The Goal 277 XXVIII. "But a Rose Has Thorns" 294 XXIX. An Interlude 309 XXX. Donald's Homecoming 316 XXXI. The Valley of Indecision 329 XXXII. The Storm and the Sacrifice 341 XXXIII. What the Cricket Heard 350 XXXIV. A Lost Brother 361 XXXV. The Hallowed Moon 370 Illustrations PAGE "A man and a woman--as it was in the beginning"
(See Page 374) Frontispiece "One dusty, but dainty, foot was held between her hands" 6 "She was kneeling beside a low, rounded mound" 48 "Read the brief article twice, mechanically, and almost without understanding" 298 "Holding the girl in clinging white close to him" 346

β€œSMILES”

CHAPTER I DONALD MACDONALD, M.D.

The man came to a stop, a look of humiliation and deep self-disgust on his bronzed face. With methodical care he leaned his rifle against the seamed trunk of a forest patriarch and drew the sleeve of his hunting shirt across his forehead, now glistening with beads of sweat; then, and not until then, did he relieve his injured feelings by giving voice to a short but soul-satisfying expletive.

At the sound of his deep voice the dog, which had, panting, dropped at his feet after a wild, purposeless dash through the underbrush, looked up with bright eyes whose expression conveyed both worship and a question, and, as the man bent and stroked his wiry coat, rustled the pine needles with his stubby tail.

The picture held no other animate creatures, and no other sound disturbed the silence of the woods.

By the hunter's serviceable nickeled timepiece the afternoon was not spent; but the sun was already swinging low over the western mountaintop, and its slanting rays, as they filtered through the leafy network overhead, had begun to take on the richer gold of early evening, and the thick forest foliage of oddly intermingled oak and pine, beech and poplar, was assuming deeper, more velvety tones. There was solemn beauty in the scene; but, for the moment, the man was out of tune with the vibrant color harmonies, and he frankly stated the reason in his next words, which were addressed to his unlovely canine companion, whose sagacity more than compensated for his appealing homeliness.

"Mike, we're lost!"

City born and bred though he was, the man took a not unjustifiable pride in the woodcraft which he had acquired during many vacations spent in the wilds; hence it was humiliating to have to admit that factβ€”even to his dog. To be sure, the fastnesses of the border Cumberlands were new to him; but his vanity was hurt by the realization that he had tramped for nearly an hour through serried ranks of ancient trees and crowding thickets of laurel and rhododendronβ€”which seemed to take a personal delight in impeding the progress of a "furriner"β€”and over craggy rocks, only to find, at the end of that time, that he was entering one end of a short ravine from the other end of which he had started with the vague purpose of seeking the path by which he had climbed from the valley village.

Moreover, a subtle change was taking place in the air. Faint breezes, the sighing heralds of advancing evening, were now beginning to steal slowly out from the picturesque, seamed rocks of the ravine and from behind each gnarled or stately tree, with an unmistakable warning.

There was clearly but one logical course for him to pursueβ€”head straight up the mountainside until he should arrive at some commanding clearing whence he could recover his lost bearings and establish some landmarks for a fresh start downward. With his square jaw set in a decisive manner, the man picked up his gun, threw back his heavy shoulders, and began to climb, driving his muscular body forcibly through the underbrush.

The decision and the action were both characteristic of Donald MacDonald, in whose Yankee veins ran the blood of a dour and purposeful Scottish clan. Aggressive determination showed in every lineament of his face, of which his nearest friend, Philip Bentley, had once said, "The Great Sculptor started to carve a masterpiece, choosing granite rather than marble as his medium, and was content to leave it rough hewn." Every feature was strong and rugged, which gave his countenance an expression masterful to the point of being almost surly when it was in repose; but it was a face which caused most menβ€”and women over thirtyβ€”to turn for a second glance.

To-day, the effect of strength was further enhanced by a week's growth of blue-black beard. But his eyes, agate gray and flecked with the green of the "moss" variety, were the real touchstones of his character, and they belied the stern lines of his mouth and chin and spoke eloquently of a warm, kindly heart within the powerful body, a body which, to the city dweller, suggested the fullback on a football team. Indeed, such he had been in those days when great power counted more heavily than speed and agility. Not but that he possessed these attributes as well, in a degree unusual in one who tipped the scales at one hundred and ninety.

To some it seemed an inexplicable anomaly that a man of his type should have selected, as the work to which he had dedicated his life, the profession of medicine, and still more strange that he had become a specialist in the diseases of children. Yet such was the case, and many a mother, whose heartstrings were plucked by the lean fingers of Despair, had cause to bless the almost uncanny surgical skill which his highly-trained brain exercised through the medium of his big, spatulate, gentle fingers.

As "Mac" had, in the old days, smashed his way through the opposing line of blue-jerseyed giants on the football field, and as he now plowed through the laurel and rhododendron, so had he won his way to the forefront of the younger generation of his profession until, at the age of thirty-five, he had become recognized as one of the most able children's specialists in America. A "man's man," blunt of speech to the point of often offending at first the cultured women with whom his labors brought him into contact, he was worshipped in hundreds of homes as an angel of mercy in strange guise, and was the idol of hundreds of little folk to whom he had brought new health and happiness.

The toilsome upward climb brought its reward at length, and Donald's eye caught sight of a clearing, and unmistakable signs of near-by civilization, if a scattering mountain settlement of primitive dwellers in that feudal country which lies half in West Virginia, half in Kentucky, may be so designated.

No sooner had he stepped into the partially cleared land, and caught sight of a small, isolated cabin beyond, so toned by wind and weather that it seemed almost an integral part of its natural surroundings, than his own presence was detected, as the sharp and surly barking of an unseen dog evidenced. Mike made answer to the challenge, and instantly other, more distant, canine voices joined in the growing clamor.

As man and dog advanced across the clearing, not one, but half a dozen gaunt curs, summoned to the spot by a warning which meant the approach of a stranger, much as their clannish masters might have been in other years, mysteriously appeared from all sides and rushed forward, their lips drawn back from threatening teeth, their bristling throats

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