CHAPTER XXI
WHAT HESTER DID
Dr. Agnew was very much troubled over his little patient down in thetenements, and he told Nellie about it one evening after supper.
"I have had to insist that the child be taken to the hospital," saidthe good doctor. "That almost broke his mother's heart; but theirrooms were not sufficiently airy. And then, the child is sufferingfrom pernicious anaemia, and unless he mends he will die, anyway."
"That is an awful hard name to call little Johnny, Daddy Doctor," saidNellie.
"It is awfully hard for little Johnny, that's a fact," said thedoctor, thoughtfully. "It is awfully hard for his mother, who, likethe plucky widow she is, has struggled so hard to bring those childrento where they are. Bill, of course, has helped her; but Bill isn'tmuch smarter in some ways than silly Rufe. The widow's done it all;and she's just wrapped up in Johnny."
"How cruel for anything to happen to him!" sighed Nellie.
"It looks so. We can't see things in their true light very often, Isuppose. It takes a Divine Eye to see straight," and the doctor waggedhis head. "Here's this poor woman would give her heart's blood--that'sthe expression she uses--to save the little fellow. But her blood won'tdo. She is not in a healthy condition herself. And Johnny needsperfectly healthy, normal blood----"
"My goodness, Daddy Doctor!" exclaimed Nellie, with a shiver. "How youdo talk!"
"Eh?"
"As though anybody's blood could help poor Johnny."
"Ah! but that's just it, Nellie. Somebody's blood _would_ help poorlittle Johnny. A pint or so of somebody's healthy, red blood----"
"How horrid!" cried the girl, trying to jump off the chair; but herfather's big hand held her.
"Wait. Don't be a ridiculous Miss Nancy!" he said, with a chuckle."You are as much a surgeon's daughter as a doctor's daughter, I hope."
"I'm proud that you heal folk of diseases, Daddy Doctor," she said,laughing faintly. "But you talk now just like a butcher."
"No. The transfusion of blood is one of the most wonderful and blesseddiscoveries of recent years. Perhaps not a discovery; but the properway to do it is a recent discovery. And that is what we want to try onlittle Johnny at the hospital."
"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Nellie, at last seeing that he was in earnest.
"Johnny's condition is such that he needs good, red corpuscles pumpingthrough his veins, and without a proper amount or a proper quality ofblood, he cannot live. The nourishment he can take is insufficient tomake this blood. What he must have is now in the possession of someother person. We must find that person very quickly--or not at all."
"Oh, Daddy Doctor!" she whispered. "_I_ could never do a thing likethat!"
"I should say not," responded her father, quickly. "Don't make this apersonal matter, Kitten. You need every ounce of blood you've got foryourself. You have been perilously near the anaemic state yourself intimes past. This athletic business and the resultant hearty appetiteyou maintain has been the salvation of you, Nellie girl.
"Ah! we need a robust, healthy young person who would be willing togive a quantity of blood and not miss it. And I venture to say it'shealthy blood that gives her that color, despite the fact that youMiss Namby-pambies consider it 'coarse' and 'horrid' to have a redface."
"Hester!" exclaimed Nellie.
The doctor nodded, then fell into silence again.
It was the next afternoon that they proposed taking little JohnnyDoyle to the hospital. The good doctor was at the widow's waiting forthe ambulance when Hester Grimes came in. The widow was wailing asthough her heart were broken; for with people of this degree ofintelligence, to take a patient to the hospital is equal to signinghis death warrant.
"Ochone! Ochone! I'll never see me little Johnny runnin' around theflure again," she said to Hester. "He's goin' jest like his poorfeyther."
"What nonsense you're talking, Mrs. Doyle!" cried Hester, cheerfully."He'll come back to you as chipper as a sparrow. Won't he, Dr. Agnew?"
"So I tell her--if God wills," added the physician in a lower tone.
Hester glanced at him sharply and then walked to the front room windowwhere Dr. Agnew sat.
"What is it he needs, Doctor?" she asked, in a low voice. "Hismother's always talking so wild I cannot make head nor tail of it. Shesays you want to put new blood in him."
"That is it exactly," said Dr. Agnew, his eyes twinkling. "A pint ofblood such as your veins carry in such abundance might save Johnny'slife."
"Do you mean that, Doctor?"
"Yes, Miss Hester."
"Then he can have it," returned the girl, quietly. "You can take itnow, for all I care."
The doctor jumped up and walked back and forth across the room. Thenhe saw Hester stripping up her sleeve.
"No, no," he said. "It isn't as easy as all that. And I'm not sure I'dbe doing right to let you do it----"
"I guess you're not _my_ conscience, Dr. Agnew," said Hester, in herusual brusque way.
"No; but I have a conscience of my own," said the doctor, grimly."This isn't a thing to be done in a minute, or in a corner, younglady. It includes one of the very nicest of surgical operations. Itwill keep you out of school for some time. It will keep you at thehospital. It will, indeed, keep you in bed longer than you care tostay, perhaps."
"Is it dangerous?"
"To you? No. Not in any appreciable degree. You are a full-bloodedgirl. You can spare much more than Johnny needs----"
"Then let it be done," said Hester, firmly.
"We'll have to see what your mother and father say."
"You leave that to me," said Hester. "I know how to manage them."
Dr. Agnew looked at her for a moment with his brow wrinkled and hislips pursed up. "I'm not sure whether, if you were my daughter, Ishould be most proud of you, or afraid for you," he said.
She only looked puzzled by his speech. "What do you want me to do?"she asked, finally.
"Come here to the light," the doctor said, rummaging in his kit for atiny instrument. He held her thumb firmly. "It will only be a needleprick."
"Go ahead," said Hester.
He shot the needle into the ball of her thumb and drew out a drop ortwo of blood in the glass bulb of the syringe.
"We'll just find out what _this_ tells about you in the laboratory,"said the doctor. "I'm much mistaken if it doesn't tell a good story,Hester Grimes. Then I'll come and see your father and mother thisevening."
"You needn't bother if you're going to be busy," observed Hester,coolly. "They will give their permission. When will you want me at thehospital?"
"You will sleep there to-night under the care of one of our verynicest nurses--Miss Parraday," said the doctor, smiling again. "And ourlittle boy here--God willing--shall have a chance for life."
The Girls of Central High at Basketball; Or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery Page 21