'Smiles' by Eliot H. Robinson (ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📕

yes, I know." He regarded her with the old, searching look. Then, to the nurse, "It's only one of the many chances we have got to take. When you put the patient under the anæsthetic you will show Rose exactly how it is administered, for she will have to keep her unconscious without any further aid from you after I begin to operate. We have got to trust her, Miss Merriman," he added shortly, as he caught the expression of grave doubt which the nurse could not keep from appearing on her countenance. "See that she washes and sterilizes her hands thoroughly. That hot water, Rose. I want a basinful."

She supplied it, then departed to do the rest of his bidding, and for some moments was kept so busy that she did not realize what the other two were doing at the bedside, other than to note that Donald had raised the head of the bed by blocking up the legs with firelogs, and covered it with a rubber sheet such as she had never seen before.

When she did, however, return to the side of the little sufferer, whose face was far whiter than the clean, but coarse, sheet which covered the emaciated body, a low cry of protest and grief was wrung from her lips. Already most of the lovely ringlets of spun gold, which had won for the baby Donald's characterization of "Little Buttercup," gleamed on the rough floor, and the ruthless but necessary sacrifice was being continued.

There were tears on her cheeks as she aided the doctor to scrub the shorn scalp, until the child moaned and turned her head from side to side.

"He is my commanding officer. He told me that I must always remember that, and obey," whispered Rose to herself, as Donald, in his abstraction, began to snap forth his orders in a manner and tone which, for a moment, made her shrink and quiver. His words were often unintelligible to her, until Miss Merriman, silent-footed and efficient, translated them into action, as, before the wide eyes of the mountain child, there began to unfold the swift drama of modern surgical science at its pinnacle, amid that fantastic setting.

Strange words, indeed, were those which now fell on her attentive ears, many of them far outside the bounds of her limited vocabulary; yet, stranger still, she soon began to grasp their meaning intuitively, and her quick native perception, keyed high by emergency, led her often to anticipate the physician's wish, and act upon it. More than once she won a look of surprise from the older woman.

Donald's directions to Miss Merriman were curt and incisive; but soon he did not limit his speech to them. Rather he seemed to be uttering his thoughts aloud; the old habit of making a running explanation for the benefit of a clinic or the better understanding of an assistant was subconsciously asserting itself, and it was to Rose as though she were listening to the outpouring of a fountain of knowledge, whose waters engulfed her mind and made it gasp, yet carried her along with them. It was all a dream, a weird, impossible nightmare to her; the familiar room began to assume a strange aspect, and the man's words came to her as do those heard in a sleeping vision—real, yet tinctured with unreality.

"In this case the elastic tourniquet will stop the blood flow as effectively as the Heidenhain backstitch suture method, I think, Miss Merriman, and it will be much simpler. I'm glad I brought it. Have you the saline solution, and the gauze head-covering ready?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Then you may administer the ether—use the drop method, and don't forget to show her just how to regulate it.

"No blood-pressure machine," he muttered. "Oh, well, we've just got to trust to her being able to stand it, and ..."

"And to God," whispered Rose.

He glanced quickly up, as though he had already forgotten her presence, and added, gently, "Of course."

The small pad of gauze, which Miss Merriman laid over the baby's face, grew moist; a strange, pungent odor began to fill the room. As she bent over to watch intently what the nurse was doing, Rose suddenly found herself beginning to get dizzy.

"Stand up, Smiles," came the sharp command. "Here, hold this handkerchief over your mouth and nose. Now, take the bottle yourself ... so ... a drop on the pad ... now. Yes, that's right, just as Miss Merriman has been doing. Little Lou is wholly unconscious, we must keep her so.

"Remember, now your test is beginning, and I expect you not to fail me. A great deal depends on you, Rose. You are a soldier on the firing-line now, and you are going to keep up, whatever happens. It may be for half an hour, but you will keep up, for me, for Lou, whatever happens. Remember! Whatever happens!"

He looked fixedly into the unnaturally big eyes which were turned up to his like two glorious flowers, and she nodded. With a pang of regret he noticed how thin her face was, and how white,—so pale that the color had fled even from the sweet, sensitive lips which smiled ever so faintly at him, and then at the nurse, as the latter made the quiet suggestion that she try to keep her eyes always fixed on the pad of gauze, and not let them be drawn away from it if she could possibly help it.

But at first she could not, and so she saw the pitiful little head, stripped of its golden crown, first covered with a clinging veil of wet cloth, over which, from behind the ears to the top of the forehead, a circular band of rubber tubing was adjusted and drawn tight into the flesh—"to stop the blood, like I did for grandpappy when he cut his arm," she thought. Then the head was gently raised and settled into position on the sand-filled pillow, which cradled it firmly.

Only the gurgling breath of the mercifully unconscious baby, and the crackling of the fire, broke the silence as the surgeon adjusted and posed his patient's head, as an artist would his model's.

A piercing light flashed before the girl's eyes, and she saw that now Miss Merriman held a strange-looking black tube, which shed a circle of concentrated sunshine on the gauze-covered head. It was her first experience with a flashlight, and she marvelled at its power.

Now there came another dart of light, thin and fleeting, and she knew that a knife was poised in mid-air. Involuntarily she closed her eyes tight; a shudder ran through her. Donald's voice spoke impersonally, and steadied her.

"I shall expose the third left frontal convolution of the brain through the fronto-parietal bone, and, in making the osteoplastic flap, I intend to leave a wide working margin above the size of the opening which may actually be necessary in order to reach the growth. It has got to be fully exposed at once. I can't afford to delay, under the circumstances."

The gleam of the scalpel held her unwilling gaze with the fascination of horror; she drew her breath with a sound between a shudder and a sigh as it descended....

"I must keep my eyes on the ether pad," came the command from her whirling brain.

Many nights thereafter, Rose was to start up from troubled sleep with strange sounds and stranger words echoing in her brain—words like "bevelled trephines," "Hudson forceps," "elevators," "Horsley's wax," "rongeurs," "clips" and "sponges,"—but during the actual operation she was scarcely conscious of them, and her principal feeling was one of dumb rebellion which grew until she found herself almost hating this Donald, who could speak with such unconcern and apparent callousness, at such a time. As well as she could, she willed her swimming gaze to remain fixed on the pad which she must keep moist. The difficulty of the task had suddenly become increased, for the pad seemed to become an animate thing. Now it appeared to retreat into the distance, and again it came floating back until it seemed about to smother her. There was a droning note in her ears; the words spoken by the other two sounded mixed and indistinct.

Of only one sentence, repeated monotonously in Miss Merriman's clear voice, was she really conscious. "Rose, a drop of ether ... a drop of ether ... a drop of ether."

She wanted to speak, to ask them if the room were not frightfully hot; but she could not.

Rose had never fainted in her life, but she had once seen a neighbor swoon, and she realized vaguely that, as the minutes passed, her consciousness was slowly slipping from her. The air was close and heavy with strange smells. She felt as though she were swaying like a pendulum. The old, familiar objects grew grotesquely large and hazy; the deep shadows in the corners multiplied, and began to dance a solemn minuet, advancing, retreating; advancing, retreating....

"Another drop of ether."

She took a fresh mental grasp on herself, and held Duty, like a visible thing, before her eyes.

Again that queer, far-away voice.

"Look, Miss Merriman. Can you see that neoplasm under the membrane? Ah ... now the flat dissector ... no, the blunter one ..."

The voice trailed away into nothing, and another recalled her failing senses, with the battle cry:

"Rose, another drop of ether."

Then it began again, "Thank heaven, there is no infiltration, the growth is well localized and encapsulated. Steady, steady.... Ah, very pretty."

The word caught her flickering thoughts, and angered her. How could any one use it about anything so awful?

There was another misty moment. Then, "The operation is, in itself, a success, I think.... Now if the child's vitality ... I never did a better one ... another sponge ... excellent ... Are the sutures ready?... Quick, take the ether bottle, Miss Merriman!"

Suddenly the girl felt a painful grasp on her arm. Some one was shaking her roughly.

"Rose," came the same strange voice, "we need some more wood for the fire. Go out to the woodpile, and get some."