by Helen Wells
“I want to make a—a rose. Oh! Say!”
“Hurt you, Ralph? The doctor prescribed this for you, you know.”
“’S all right. Give me a minute, will you please?—Now let’s try again.”
Cherry’s hand over his gently massaged and pushed. The clay took crude form.
“I get it,” Ralph said with satisfaction. “This is going to be a masterpiece. Maybe I could do a portrait head later on, though.”
Cherry again worked his hand on the clay for several minutes. Then he painfully, slowly, tried it himself. Beads of sweat stood out on Ralph’s forehead from pain. But he clenched his teeth, and a cabbage, if not a rose, began to emerge.
She went on to Bailey Matthews. The ex-cowboy had a small standing loom rigged up, resting on his chest.
“Gosh darn threads! Won’t go—” He yanked at the wooden needle. Cherry pitied the helpless fellow, but she knew better than to proffer too much help or sympathy.
Glancing up from his work, Matty shouted at her, “Never mind! It’ll look real nice when it’s finished!”
Hy and Jim, alongside, were managing nicely between them. They had paints and cardboard, and were designing several posters announcing next week’s amateur show, with GI stars. Neither man could yet exercise his injured leg with Occupational Therapy but at least this job kept them busy and interested.
“No acrobats in this show,” Hy complained. He scratched his baldish head with his paintbrush. “Just wait till I get better. I’ll make their eyes bug out with my tricks!” He wheeled away, saying he needed more supplies.
Jim looked up at Cherry with a smile. “Do you like this color combination?” he asked. “I always did like to mess around with paints.”
Jim’s poster showed a good deal of taste. Cherry said so, and asked:
“What kind of work do you do, Jim?”
“Used to do,” he corrected her. “I was a woodworker and lumber machinist. Worked a machine with a foot treadle. Guess that’s out now.” He changed the subject and went on to talk about the great forests of Oregon, his state, and the lumber industry there.
Suddenly he was talking about home. It was the first time this reserved young man had confided much to anyone here in the rehabilitation hospital. “It’s just a frame house in a little bit of a town. But there are forests and a cold, fast-running river all around my town. The house—well, it’s the house my parents always lived in. It’s the house I was born in, and my father died in. I’d like to go back to that house and park my feet on the old familiar sofa. My foot, I guess I mean,” he said, and managed a chuckle. “I had my own workshop there, and a tool shed. No matter what window in our house you look out of, you see forests, thousands of years old.” He stopped and seemed to daydream. “You know, Miss Cherry, trees are alive. And working in wood is—”
“Yes? What?” For Jim’s sensitive face had a look on it Cherry had never seen before. It was a look of absorbed and loving interest. This was how Jim must have been before he got hurt—happy, spunky, independent.
“A piece of wood in your hand,” he said, his eyes glowing, “is a live thing, crying out to you to make it into something to use. You rub your hands over it to learn its texture, you let your tools follow the natural grain, you sort of dream out a design. You work and work, and pretty soon you have something—something almost beautiful.”
Cherry smiled at him. She had respect for an honest, creative, hard-working craftsman. And Jim clearly descended from the tradition of sturdy American craftsmen who hewed the trees of the wilderness into the first American stockades, houses, furniture—those builders and artisans who settled the rough country, armed with little else than imagination and skill and labor.
“It’s good and satisfying to work, to make things,” said Jim. “I can’t say it in words, but I can say it by building a stout fence or a fine chest of drawers or a swing for the neighbors’ kids. Miss Cherry, do you think,” he asked her anxiously, “and please be honest with me—do you think I’ll be dependent the rest of my days?”
“No, no, no! You still have both those skilled hands of yours, haven’t you? And it’s quite possible you may be able to pump a treadle machine again.”
“Hope you’re right.” Jim sat back against his pillow and looked squarely at her. “I’d rather be dead than be dependent on my mother. You see, my mother is pretty old and frail. She gave up teaching that little country school years ago. But when I enlisted—even though I sent her my pay, which wasn’t much—Well, Mother had to go back to teaching. She’s perfectly good-humored about her hardships, says she likes to keep busy, as game a little old lady as you ever saw. The kids love her. I sent her a hundred dollars for a vacation but she bought me a War Bond instead. She’s all alone out there, too. I want to get back and support her and let her take it easy.”
“You will, Jim,” Cherry promised. “Honestly, you will be self-supporting again.”
Jim sighed in relief. His smile had real sweetness.
“And I was thinking of myself as a cripple! Shucks, I have my health, I have my two hands. Why, sure, I’m all right!” He said it defiantly, as if daring anyone to deny it. He grinned at Cherry. “Heard our joke? We didn’t know they took one-legged men like me in the Army.” He chuckled quietly.
Cherry drew a long breath. It was the soldiers’ typical grim joke. But the very fact that Jim could joke, that Jim could assert “I’m all right,” proved he was struggling toward a sound outlook. He still had a long way to go to recovery. Cherry hoped nothing would crack his courage on the way.
Since Cherry was still a floater, odds and ends of assignments came her way. She was pleased when an order came through, later in the week, to escort the patients who had earned “birdies” to an evening party at the Demarest home. Cherry was curious to see for herself the evening parties the other fellows enthusiastically described as going on there.
“You don’t have to go to the Demarests’,” Cherry said to the men as they got ready, about seven o’clock. “You are free to go anywhere in the village you like.”
“Oh, so you want to get rid of us!” George teased, as Hy Leader tied his khaki tie for him. “Sorry. We aren’t missing out on one of those Demarest parties.”
“I wish I could go,” muttered redheaded Matty from his cast. Cherry wished so, too. “I’m all dressed in this coffin. Just give me my hat.”
Jim was hopping around the aisle on crutches. “Soon as I get the hang of these, I’ll be going along too.”
“Say, fellows.” Matty banged the bed to get attention. “Bring me back a Coke!”
Pernatelli came over to Bailey Matthews with a grin on his face. “You know what happens to guys in body casts?”
“What?”
“They’re limited to three Cokes, so they won’t swell up and crack the cast,” said Ralph delightedly.
Even the Orphan looked happy at the prospect of being invited out. Cherry set out with six soldiers, bandaged, stumbling, on crutches, but in high spirits. In back of them, along the twilight paths, came other nurses with more wounded soldiers. They met and hailed guys going to the Red Cross recreation hall or the Service Club for enlisted men, the bowling alley, PX, or the hospital movies. The patients had the freedom of the hospital grounds, and Cherry was still not used to the sight of men in maroon bathrobes, trench caps, and heavy GI shoes wandering around outdoors. It was a wonder they did not catch colds, but Sal had assured her they never did.
At the guarded hospital gate, the Military Police checked out Cherry and her charges. The men were excited but they seemed strained. It was their first venture into the world outside the hospital—their first test of whether people would look upon them as cripples, or treat them as the normal men they really were. In their anxiety, in their hurt pride and shaken self-confidence, Cherry realized, some of them wore chips on their shoulders.
“Calm down, fellows,” she said. “Take it easy, you’ll last longer.”
“We’re not jittery,” Ralph almost
snapped at her.
“Not jittery, you understand,” the ex-acrobat said. “Just a little irritable maybe.”
They rode buses, then walked two blocks into the Demarest grounds, all feeling rather tense.
Mrs. Demarest put the men at ease. She herself opened the door and led them through the circular hall into the beautiful sitting room.
“I’m awfully glad you came over,” Mrs. Demarest said to the soldiers. Cherry saw a fleeting sadness in her face, but their hostess smiled at them and asked each man his name.
“Sit down, won’t you? We’re just getting a mock horse race organized, if you want to back one of these little wooden nags. Cards, over there in the corner. Music, if I can get the accordion away from my husband!”
The men were too shy to do anything but sit stiffly. A maid came in with a big tray of cakes and fancy sandwiches. That helped, even though everyone had just tucked away enormous suppers. Mrs. Demarest turned on the phonograph, and Ralph and the Orphan got up to dance with girls invited from the neighborhood. Mr. Demarest came over dangling the accordion.
“Hello! I’m Bill Demarest. Mighty nice to have you fellows here. Hello, Miss Cherry. Can any of you play this thing?”
“I can,” Hy Leader said and reached for the accordion eagerly.
“There’s a guitar, too.” Their host went to the archway of an adjoining room. “And a piano in here. Who wants to play, and sing? Say, we have a real musician here tonight—Arthur—”
Several of the men rose and hobbled into the music room. They competed loudly with the phonograph and the dancers. Out in the circular hallway, men in wheel chairs placed excited bets—for scoring only—on the wooden toy horses. Mr. Demarest wandered around introducing people, and seeing that no one was left out of the fun. He seemed to be enjoying himself at his own party. He, too, Cherry noticed, wore a half-hidden air of sadness.
Mrs. Demarest was talking with quiet George Blumenthal. Cherry listened. She noticed that the hostess neither asked painful questions nor pretended to ignore the fact that George was a returned soldier with an empty sleeve. She admired her tact when Mrs. Demarest said:
“Oh, you have the Purple Heart. May I see it?” She leaned over and admired it on George’s khaki blouse. “I hope you have a son who’ll want to ‘borrow’ that.”
“I have a daughter,” the teacher said proudly.
“I have a son,” Mrs. Demarest said. A shadow crossed her face. “Toby is upstairs asleep—or at least I hope he’s asleep!”
She turned to Cherry and drew her into the conversation. She kept that conversation lively and light.
The party took a decided turn for the better when Mr. Demarest gathered everyone together and announced:
“We’re going to have a treasure hunt! There’s treasure to be found somewhere in this house or garden. But first you’ll have to discover the dozens of hidden directions about where to find it. They’re hidden all over, but I’ll give you a hint—try looking behind sofa cushions and under rugs.”
All the soldiers were about to dash off when Mr. Demarest called out, “Work in teams! The fellows you came with, and your nurses, make up your team. All right, go to it! And there are some booby prizes hidden, too!”
Cherry had to restrain her six patients from scampering off in all directions at once. They agreed to keep together, at least for the start. Ralph was already burrowing like a mole in the sofa cushions. Other teams were rapidly turning the Demarests’ house upside down, but Cherry saw that valuable knickknacks and breakables were put away for this evening, so they could go ahead and hunt freely.
“I’ve got it!” Ralph shouted, and came over to their team, waving a slip of paper. “Here, I’ll read it! ’Go to the kitchen and look in the oven.’”
Off they went to the kitchen, Hy rolling his wheel chair, the Orphan limping on his cane. In the oven they found, to their disappointment, only a lone muffin.
“Break it open,” Cherry suggested. “See, it’s half sliced already.” She handed it to the Orphan.
The Orphan broke open the muffin and found a note. “If roses are red and violets are blue, follow the path where this clue leads you.”
“The garden!” they chorused, and started out the back door.
“There’s a rose garden,” Cherry told them, “but I forget just where it is.”
They passed another group shinnying up an oak tree, and came to the rose garden. But another team had got there before them. Fisticuffs nearly broke out among the men. Cherry and the other nurse insisted:
“There’s more than one clue here, you’ll see! There’s plenty for all the teams!”
Sure enough, the other team found a note tied to a rosebush, and Hy Leader saw a bit of paper fluttering on the leg of a wrought-iron chair.
“’Try the garage,’” he read.
But the garage was a big one, and where would a note be hidden among all these tools and gadgets? Finally Cherry’s bright eyes spied a big red paper package propped invitingly on the window sill.
“That’s for us!” and they pounced on it and tore off the red wrappings. Inside were boxes of crackerjack—which could not be counted as treasure—but no clues.
Ralph grumbled. “I’m not going to settle for a booby prize. There must be a clue here somewhere.” He whistled. “There’re prizes in crackerjack! Let’s open ’em and see.”
They all opened the boxes, crammed their mouths full of crackerjack, and discovered prizes of tin whistles, wooden beads, a toy watch—and another folded slip of paper, in Cherry’s package.
From the garage to the piano bench, from piano bench to the side porch, the notes led them. On the side porch, by the light of the moon, they read:
“Look under the yellow sofa, my friends—
That is where your treasure hunt ends.”
They raced back to the living room and the yellow sofa. George got down on his knees and pulled out a ten-pound box of chocolates.
“We win! We win!” Cherry and her teammates shouted.
“No, we win!” the other teams were shouting. Sooner or later, everybody had won. Laden with assorted treasures, the soldiers and their nurses thanked the Demarests and said good night.
Cherry shepherded her group home. They walked slowly out of the Demarest grounds, in the cool night air, laughing and in high spirits. In the village, they headed for the hospital bus stop. On the way a brightly lighted ice-cream parlor attracted Ralph’s attention.
“Coke for Matty,” he remembered, “and a jumbo double-sweet chocolate frosted for Mrs. Pernatelli’s boy.”
He went into the ice-cream parlor like a shot, and held the door for the others.
The shabby confectionery was jammed with soldiers from the hospital, and with civilians too. Apparently it was the town meeting place. Cherry did not like the atmosphere in here. It was cheap, ordinary, gossipy. After the fun they had had at the Demarests’, this was a distinct letdown.
Cherry was about to suggest not staying, when a man sprang forward and pulled out a chair for George.
“Let me help you, soldier.”
“Thank you,” said George doubtfully. He looked shamed. He rearranged the chair with his one hand to show that he was not helpless, and only then did he sit down. There was not much for them all to do then, except sit down with George. The teacher and Hy said something to each other under their breaths which Cherry could not hear.
Cherry did not enjoy her sundae very much. She was watching her six men—or rather, she was watching the civilians around them. Most of them were paying no attention but— She wished some of them would not stare, nor look so pitying. She wanted to cry out, “Yes, George lost his right arm! Yes, the Orphan is limping! What of it? They don’t want your pity! You’re hurting them!” But she merely sat there, miserably unable to think up any conversation to help her six soldiers through their ordeal.
Several young women were chattering away at the next table. Among them Cherry recognized Margaret Heller and typists from the
hospital office. Their voices rose so shrilly that Cherry and her patients gave up their desultory efforts to talk, and listened. The office girls were discussing the Demarest child.
“It’s incurable.”
“Oh, it is not! They could cure it if they could get that new medicine—you know—what’s-its-name—”
“But they can’t, and the Demarest boy is dying.”
Cherry and her charges exchanged glances. There was tragedy upstairs in the Demarest house while they danced and played games downstairs.
“I bet we have that medicine at the hospital. I heard a rumor that—”
“That’s supposed to be a secret!”
“Dr. Orchard said—”
“Girls! You’re talking too much. And too loudly.” This was Margaret Heller. The other girls, subdued, dropped their voices and changed the subject. Cherry glanced at them impatiently. Margaret Heller was right to reprimand the girls for being so careless in their talk. Cherry did respect her for that, at least. Miss Heller seemed to be a responsible person.
Hy Leader reached over and picked up a newspaper left on an adjoining chair. He handed it silently to Cherry. She and the patients leaned around the table together and read:
HOPE FADES FOR BOY
WITH RARE DISEASE
Form of Extreme Malnutrition
Slowly Wasting Child Away
Trumble, Ill., Apr. 12—The hope of Mr. and Mrs. William Demarest of finding a cure for their four-year-old son, Toby, stricken with a rare disease, ebbed today after a medical consultation. Because his system cannot absorb his food, the boy is literally starving to death …
“Horrible,” Cherry murmured.
George pushed his milk shake away from him.
Ralph stood up. “Let’s blow. I’ll get the Cokes for Matty and Jim. Let’s get out of this dump.” He insisted on paying for their refreshments and hurried them out. Cherry knew just how Ralph felt. They returned to the hospital ward considerably less cheerful than when they had started out.