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Transcriber’s Note

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                             WHAT LUCK!

[Illustration: Kids with nurses]




                             WHAT LUCK!

                        A STUDY IN OPPOSITES

                                 BY
                         ABBIE FARWELL BROWN


                  MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE EYE AND
                            EAR INFIRMARY
                               BOSTON


              ISSUED _for private distribution only by
                  the_ MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE EYE
                 AND EAR INFIRMARY _and presented to
                their friends with their compliments_

                              1827-1920




                             WHAT LUCK!


Side by side on the crowded waiting bench of the Infirmary sat two
women, each with a child at her elbow, who had been eyeing one
another furtively. They were silently criticizing in different
languages.

“Her mourning must have cost much money!” thought Mrs. Rogazrovitch,
enviously, looking down at her own painful saffron coat.

“Cielo! What a terrible hat!” mused the other woman, considering the
purple velvet creation that crowned the frowzy locks of her neighbor.
“She can have no care to hold the love of her husband!” And she wiped
a tear with her black-bordered handkerchief.

The eyes of little Stephanie, who stood at the knee of Mrs.
Rogazrovitch, were red and swollen; but not with weeping. Even the
subdued light of the waiting-room made her squint horribly, and she
kept her eyes turned from the window. This brought in direct line
her neighbor, the pale, emaciated little boy at the other woman’s
side. Stephanie was five; the boy seemed older. He hung his head and
never looked up. Stephanie was ready to make friends, for she had
grown tired of the long wait, but Paolo’s mother was in the way. She
was continually bending over the boy, smoothing his hair or kissing
his forehead, in what seemed to Stephanie a very silly fashion.
Stephanie’s mother never kissed her at all.

Gradually Stephanie edged nearer. “Hello!” she said in a stage
whisper suited to the solemn occasion. “Is your eyes sick, too?”

The boy stared, gave a blinking glance from big, brown eyes, and
nodded.

“They look red, like mine,—only worse,” commented Stephanie, after
this revealing look. “But they will fix them all right, if we’re
lucky. The lady said so.” Again the boy glanced at her pitifully, but
said nothing.

“Do you go to Kindergarten?” asked Stephanie. The boy shook his head.
“I don’t go nowhere,” he said.

“I guess you are too big for Kindergarten. Oh, it’s the grandest
place!” went on Stephanie ecstatically. “But I had to stop when my
eyes got sick.—What makes your mother wear those black clothes? I
hate black clothes.”

“My father died,” said Paolo solemnly.

“My father ran off,” volunteered Stephanie. “I think he went to be a
soldier. Mrs. Raftery says it was because—”

“Stephanie! You shut up!” Mrs. Rogazrovitch jerked her by the arm.
The attendant was saying something.

“Eighty-six!” he repeated. It was the number on the red ticket that
Mrs. Rogazrovitch clutched in not over-clean fingers.

“Come on, you Stephanie!” snapped the mother. And the slatternly
woman with the curly-haired child stepped forward to the table.

Yes; there was no doubt about it. Stephanie was a case of that
tubercular eye trouble which affects so many children of the poor;
a trouble caused by constitutional weakness, lack of care and of
wholesome food. Unless properly treated Stephanie would become
partially or wholly blind some day. And the pretty blue eyes would
never play their part in a world where all the eyes are needed. But
Stephanie was in one respect luckier than Paolo, who still waited,
encircled by his affectionate mother’s arm. Strange negative “luck”
that consisted in not being _too-much_ loved by any one!

“You’d better leave her here,” said the Doctor, after he had examined
the poor little eyes.

The woman blinked. “How long must she to stay?” she asked cautiously.

“Well, maybe three weeks; it’s an average case, I should say. We’ll
take the best care of her,” he added kindly. But Mrs. Rogazrovitch
was not worrying as he surmised.

“I don’ care. But will she grow well forever?” she asked. “She not be
blind, eh?”

“She can be cured if you keep up the treatment as we tell you, after
she goes home. You must bring her back for examination; give her milk
and wholesome food, well cooked,—no doughnuts and candy; and,”—the
doctor referred to Stephanie’s card,—“clean up your house and keep it
in better condition. We shall keep an eye on Stephanie. And if you
can’t do all this, we must find a better home for her.”

The woman looked sulky. “How much it costs to keep in the Hospital?”
she asked. She was told that the usual charge was seventeen dollars
and a half for a week, but that if she could not afford so much, the
Superintendent would probably arrange to let her pay what she could.

“I can’t to pay anything for sick child!” exclaimed the woman. “I can
just to pay rent and get some food. Two years ago my man goes off. I
don’ know. Maybe he’s fighting; but I don’ get nothing.”

“That’s all right,” said the Doctor. “You go see the Superintendent.
We’ll look after Stephanie anyway.—By the way, will you sign this
paper giving us permission to fix her adenoids and tonsils while she
is here? I daresay you don’t care?”

“No; _I_ don’ care,” said the woman casually, with the air of one
conferring a favor.

Of course she did not realize how great a privilege Stephanie was
getting. Few citizens know that the Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Infirmary is the only Hospital in the city where a child with a
trouble like Stephanie’s would be so taken in and cared for. All such
cases are referred to the Infirmary. How should Mrs. Rogazrovitch
guess that the kind hands which were to care for the child and the
kind faces surrounding her belonged to the best specialists and the
best nurses anywhere to be found? She only knew that for the time
being a burden was lifted. And this was Stephanie’s advantage over
Paolo, whose mother loved him too fatuously to give him his only
chance.

“Eighty-seven!” called the attendant, after Stephanie and her mother
had passed on. It was Paolo’s turn.

“She says,—she could not spare me; she loves me too much. And
besides, my father would not let her,” the boy answered a question in
a hollow voice. “He was very sick, and last week he died. He would
not let me be in a Hospital.” Helplessly he raised to the doctor eyes
which should have been very beautiful; the eyes of a poet or painter.

“But why then did not your mother bring you back for treatment, as I
told her?” asked the doctor again. The woman began to weep. “She says
she could not leave my father,” interpreted the boy. “She loved him
very much. Once she did try to come here with me, after the Visitor
called. But she could not find the way. She says her head is sick.
And she lost her ring. That made her very sad indeed.”

“Did she give you the medicine regularly?”

The boy hesitated. “Sometimes,” he said; “when the Visitor came. I
think my mother forgot; she was so sad about my father. She sat in a
chair and rocked all day. She is very kind and loving. She held me on
her lap and cried, and cried.”

The Doctor frowned. “Is there any one here who can speak Italian?”
he called out to the waiting crowd. A man stepped forward, while the
Doctor sent Paolo aside. “Tell her, please, that unless she brings
Paolo here regularly, and gives him the medicine every day, I will
not answer for the consequences.—Do you see that boy over there?” The
Doctor indicated a tiny fellow with fine Greek features, whose mother
was crying over him in the corner. “Well; that woman would not leave
him in our care, because she was too obstinate. And although she
lives close by, she would not take the time and trouble to bring him
in for treatment. So now he will lose the sight of one eye at least.
Tell Mrs. Valentino that Paolo’s eyes are very bad, and he will fare
worse than that boy, unless she does as I say.”

The woman burst into hysterical grief, and clasped Paolo
passionately, mumbling endearing syllables in her musical tongue. The
boy’s brown eyes filled too, and he tried to comfort her. Pitying
herself for her many troubles, the mother led Paolo away.

“She will not come back,” thought the Doctor. “I see it in her face.
The Social Service Department will have to get busy.”

The Social Service Department of the Infirmary did get busy, as in
all such cases. When Paolo did not reappear, they went to look him
up. The Visitor coaxed and re-urged the dazed, inefficient mother.
But it was hopeless. Finally the case was reported to the proper
authorities. But already Paolo’s mother had loved him to death.
Stephanie was not to see her little neighbor again.

Meanwhile, for Stephanie herself there had begun what was—apart from
a little discomfort at the beginning—the happiest three weeks she
had ever known. To begin with, her poor ragged clothes were taken
away, and she had a lovely warm bath in a tub; in itself a novel
experience. With her yellow curls nicely brushed, sweet and clean
from top to toe, she was then tucked away in a little white cot all
by herself,—this also was an unheard-of luxury!—in a sunny, airy room
where other clean children were playing about like a happy family.
At first poor little Stephanie was too miserable to do more than
snuggle into the soft, sweet pillow, and allow herself sulkily to
be fed with easily swallowed things. A kind Voice, associated with
strong and gentle hands, attended to her wants. But Stephanie slept
most of the time; dreaming of happy faces, merry laughter, and feet
running about a Kindergarten.

After two days of existing as a mere little mollusc, one morning
Stephanie sat up and began to take notice. A beautiful white-clad
Being put her into a neat cotton frock and pinafore. Only Stephanie’s
scarred shoes were left to remind her of the home that seemed
mercifully far away. They tied a shade over her eyes, to help the
squint, and for the first time she looked around with interest at the
nursery.

What a pleasant place it was! Stephanie had never seen anything
nearly so beautiful; except the Kindergarten. Poor little Stephanie!
It had been hard luck to give up the Kindergarten, just when she was
growing so happy there. The school nurse had seen that she must stop.
But—there was a rose on the table here, too! A red rose! And children
playing games, just like a real kindergarten! But these children were
not all of Stephanie’s age. Some were bigger; some much littler. Why,
in the very next cot to her lay a wee baby, sucking a bottle. Nurse
said its mother was sick in another room. Stephanie thought this baby
would be nicer than a doll to play with. And oh, _oh_! Over there
was a little black live doll, with eyes that rolled and blinked, and
real hair standing up all over her head; and a big red bow! Stephanie
grinned at the doll; and oh, _oh_! The doll grinned back! Stephanie
waved her arms up and down. And the funny doll stretched her mouth
in white-toothed glee, and did just what Stephanie did. This was
better even than Kindergarten!

What else was there in the lovely room? Stephanie looked around.
There were nine little beds against the walls, and as many more in
the next ward, as she soon learned when she began to investigate.
Most of the beds were empty in the daytime. Across the room from
Stephanie a big boy sat up among pillows, reading. He laughed when
Nurse told him a funny story, but could only whisper in reply,
holding on to his throat. Stephanie understood perfectly, and was
very sorry for poor Tom. She was sorrier still when dinner-time came;
when she and the other dressed children gathered about little low
tables, with bibs on. Soup was all that poor Tom could swallow. But
Stephanie could eat fish, and potato; and there was a nice pudding,
too! Poor Tom! Stephanie ate ravenously, after her two days’ fast.
No puddings ever happened in the home she had left.

The twenty little children were too busy eating to talk. “More bread
and butter? More milk? Yes, indeed. All you want.” Just think;
Stephanie could have all the milk she wanted! That had never happened
before in her life. She thought she must be in Heaven. The children
were of all shades and manners,—perhaps that was like Heaven, too;
who knows? Most of them wore curious foreign names, but they all
spoke English, after a fashion. Some of them were just learning the
ways of good Americans at the table and elsewhere. Frank, who sat
next Stephanie, was a little pig. He made faces, spilled his milk
and scattered his crumbs, so that She,—the Angel in white,—scolded
him, and made him sit by himself at another table, till he should be
more careful.

But Stephanie liked John, with the big grey eyes, who was a little
gentleman; though he wore such a funny thing like a bonnet on his
head,—and he a big boy of eight! Stephanie loved at first sight
Dottie Dimple with the pink cheeks and one lovely blue eye. She cried
when John explained that one day Dottie had poked a pair of scissors
into the other eye, so that it would never see any more.

Then there was Sammy, with the funny face and big nose, who looked
like a little old man in a baby’s dress. Sammy could not hear when
you spoke to him.—But mostly the children forgot all about eyes and
ears between dressing-times, they had so much to make them happy.

After dinner the children put back their chairs nicely, and then the
victrola played lovely music. It was pleasant to see all the little
children stand at salute when they heard the Star-Spangled Banner.
Even the deaf ones did as they saw the others do.

On sunny days they played out on the balcony of the ward below. It
was a pity that they had no balcony of their own, leading from the
nursery. Greatly it is needed. But it will come, no doubt, with a
great many other needed things, when more people know about the
Infirmary on Charles Street, and the good luck it brings to little
children and big; when more parents, reading the story of Paolo,
Stephanie, and these others, will understand that what helps such
children protects the health of the whole community, including their
own little ones.

The ounce of prevention has gone up in the scale of modern values. It
is worth not pounds but _tons_ of possible cure. Every child kept out
of an asylum is a civic asset. Every penny spent in the prevention
of blindness or deafness is an investment placed on interest a
thousandfold.

Those were wonderful days for babies like Stephanie who had seen too
little luck in their lives. Breakfast at half past six; a luncheon of
fruit and milk at nine; dinner at eleven, and supper at four. All the
bread and butter a child could eat; all the milk she wished to drink.
And most of the children drank a quart of milk every day. No wonder
Stephanie began to be less pale and thin before the nurse’s eyes.
No wonder her eyes began to be better almost directly. Soon she was
running and racing about the nursery among the liveliest of them all.

One day a visitor came to talk for a minute with the nurse. She had
been to the clinic, and after that they had given her this extra
privilege. To Stephanie this Person seemed a beautiful grown-up
lady. But Mamie was really only a nice girl of sixteen, with happy,
sunburned face and shining brown eyes. Stephanie squirmed with
delight when Mamie took her up on her lap while she talked with Nurse.

“She has eyes like mine were,” said Mamie in an aside to the nurse.
But Stephanie heard, and hoped. Would her grey-blue eyes ever get big
and brown like this nice Person’s, she wondered?

“Oh, sure! I’m all right now,” said the visitor, in answer to a
question. “They pronounced me O. K. Just look how fat and brown I
am. Say, it don’t seem possible. Why, I was sicker than Stephanie
here when I came, wasn’t I?” The nurse assented. “I’ll never forget
how I felt, working in the store: my eyes all swollen and weepy. I
was down and out, all right. For, of course, I haven’t a relation on
God’s earth. And with my salary,—how could I go to a specialist?
Then a lady gave me a hunch about this Infirmary. So here I came; and
everybody was mighty good to me. You know, don’t you, Dearie?” She
caught Stephanie up close.

“Yes!” affirmed Stephanie, snuggling.

“I came here all in,” Mamie went on. “But what a difference when I
left! Just to think of going to the country for a rest, instead of
right back to the store. And nothing to pay for it all, either. Some
dream!”

“Did you have a good time in the country?” asked the nurse
sympathetically.

“I’ll say so!” cried Mamie. “I just lived out doors four solid weeks,
sitting on the piazza or walking in the garden, like a lady. They
made me lie down to rest after dinner. Rest! Well; the chief thing
I had to do to tire me was _eat_! And such eats! Um! Eggs and milk
between meals, too. Say, the girls at the store will sure think I’m
kidding when I tell them about it.”

“You’ll be sure to come back here, as the Doctor said?” charged the
nurse. “You know, you will have to be careful still.”

“You bet I’ll be careful!” said Mamie earnestly. “I am not going to
take any chances. The Doctor made it plain enough what I’ve got to
do. I’ll keep my eyes, thanks, now I’ve got ’em back.”

The trouble that Stephanie and Paolo and Mamie had cannot certainly
be cured, once for all. It is likely to recur, if care is relaxed;
and each time it makes a worse scar on the eye, with increased
handicaps. The hardest part of the follow-up work of the Infirmary is
to make the parents understand this, and to watch patiently.

Three weeks in a country home, at a cost of five dollars a week,
following three weeks’ treatment at the Eye and Ear Infirmary, had
stood between Mamie and blindness. The Infirmary has an emergency
fund, all too inadequate, for such cases.

“What is the Country?” asked Stephanie, when Mamie had gone. “Is it
My Country-Tiz?” She had an idea that it might have something to
do with a relative of the Star Spangled Banner. “Shall I have to
_salute_ it?”

“Bless you!” cried the nurse. “I guess you will want to salute it,
when you see it for the first time!”

On the last Sunday of her stay Stephanie had a surprise. The Doctor
had pronounced her eyes so much better that she could leave the
following week. Plump, and rosy, and bright-eyed, Stephanie was as
pretty a little girl as one could wish to see. To be sure there was a
fly in her ointment. The Doctor had not succeeded in turning her eyes
into big brown ones like Mamie’s, as Stephanie had suggested. But
nurse assured her that blue eyes would probably wear better in the
long run.

Stephanie was playing peacefully by herself, while the other children
visited with their parents, during the one hour allowed for this
every Sunday.

“Here’s a visitor to see you, Stephanie,” said the nurse. And in
walked Mrs. Rogazrovitch, saffron coat, purple hat, and all. She was
a little cleaner than usual; there was more black upon her boots than
upon her hands. But she was still a striking contrast to Hospital
standards. Stephanie greeted her without enthusiasm. Indeed, when she
spied the familiar face, she shrank back to the skirts of Nurse, with
a little gasp that told more than words. The mother flushed. Other
mothers were watching.

“Well, Stephanie!” she cried in astonishment mingled with pride. “You
do look good! Ain’t ye glad to see me, eh?” Still Stephanie held
back. “Your eyes get well, Stephanie? You’ll be coming home soon,
yes?” But Stephanie pouted and kicked the floor with her toe. Mrs.
Rogazrovitch turned to the nurse. The latter shook her head dubiously.

“Have you fixed up your house as the Doctor said? You know she will
have to be kept clean, and sleep in an airy room. And you’ll have to
feed her right and bring her here often for examination.”

The mother twisted uneasily. “I’ll fix the house up yet,” she
promised. “I ain’t had time, but I will.” Two weeks alone in the
childless tenement had put a new value on Stephanie. And the pretty,
bright-eyed child seemed no longer a mere burden. “I’ll come back for
you next week,” she finished, touching Stephanie’s curls with the
first real tenderness she had ever shown. “Good bye, Stephanie.”

But at the end of her three weeks Stephanie did not go home, though
her eyes no longer needed Hospital care. When Mrs. Rogazrovitch
appeared, ready to reclaim her child, she was staggered with the
counter-suggestion that Stephanie should go to the sea-shore for a
month.

“Stephanie needs a vacation,” was the report. “You must not deprive
her of the chance. It may keep her from having a relapse. Every
relapse is dangerous. And the month will give you time to fix up your
house and get it ready for such a nice little girl to live in.”

The desired result came not without argument. For now Mrs.
Rogazrovitch was set upon having her pretty child back again. But
luckily she was not deaf to reason, as Mrs. Valentino had been. And
the assurance that Stephanie would receive four weeks’ board in
the country free had some weight in the matter. Reluctantly she
consented that Stephanie should go. So the very week that ushered
poor little Paolo into a still further country, from which there
is no return, saw Stephanie saluting the wonders of green fields,
flowers, and ocean shore.

Her mother returned with a slow step to the empty tenement. Mrs.
Raftery, next door, was consumed with curiosity, when with her head
out of window she spied the saffron coat and purple hat entering
dejectedly the door below, unaccompanied.

“Why, where’s Stephanie?” she cried. “I thought you was afther goin’
to fetch home the child.”

The purple hat rose to the occasion with a jerk. “Stephanie is going
for a vacation to the sea-shore,” said Mrs. Rogazrovitch with dignity.

“Glory be!” ejaculated Mrs. Raftery, pulling in her head and sinking
into a chair. The news, swiftly imparted, raised considerably the
standing of Mrs. Rogazrovitch in that neighborhood.

Presently Stephanie’s luck began to take another turn for the better;
for as soon as she was well out of reach on the Island, Stephanie’s
mother began to repent that she had let her go so easily. Others
might covet the now precious possession. She began to suspect a
conspiracy to keep Stephanie permanently exiled. There had been
conditions set upon her return. For the first time Mrs. Rogazrovitch
began to consider seriously the instructions she had received about
hygiene and sanitation.

One morning the neighbors were surprised by an unwonted activity in
the fourth floor back. Clouds of dust, followed by the smell of soap,
issued from the long unopened windows. Dingy articles were banged
viciously and hung out to imbibe the unaccustomed sun. That week was
a perpetual wash-day. Mrs. Raftery had her theory. At last she could
stand the suspense no longer, but put her theory squarely to the
test, with a question.

“I’m making ready for Stephanie’s home-coming,” answered Mrs.
Rogazrovitch tartly. “What do you suppose, anyhow?”

“Blessed Saints!” ejaculated Mrs. Raftery. “I thought you was goin’
to take one lodger at least, the way you’re makin’ everything so
grand an’ tidy. La sakes! An’ it’s only for Stephanie!”

But it was her neighbor’s next remark that smote Mrs. Raftery nearly
dumb. It was made with some hesitation. “Will you—tell me—about
making—soup?—I want to learn to cook.”

When she could recover Mrs. Raftery gasped, “Cookin’, is it? Hivenly
powers! Why, I’ll show ye meself. I’ve been a cook all my life, till
this lameness took me. And sure, there’s a diet kitchen around the
corner, I’m told, where they’ll give ye points.”

It was this repeated conversation that made the neighborhood
hysterical. Mrs. Rogazrovitch cleaning house! Mrs. Rogazrovitch
learning to cook!

“It’s a changed craytur she is entirely!” exclaimed Mrs. Raftery,
to her gossip. “An’ it’s a changed home into which Stephanie will
be comin’ from her vacation at the sea-shore. It’s small blame to
her man that he ran away from that home two years ago, I’m thinkin’.
But the woman will have no trouble at all gettin’ a lodger these
days, the way her rooms be lookin’ so nice and dacint. Say, she’s
been afther tellin’ me that my childher ought to have more fresh
air o’ nights! And doughnuts, she says, is not healthy for infants.
The knowingness of her! Sure, they’ll soon be afther makin’ Mrs.
Rogazrovitch the Prisidint of the Improvemint Society, the way she’s
gettin’ intelligint an’ forthcomin’. An’ she with a child visitin’ at
the sea-shore!”

So when Corporal Rogazrovitch, newly discharged, returned to take a
secret reconnaissance of the home which he had deserted for the sake
of his Country,—and for his own peace of mind,—he heard and saw such
changes as made him decide not to re-enlist. This was another bit of
luck for Stephanie; if you look at it from the right angle.

And then,—there was the Kindergarten, too, for to-morrow!

There was to be no anti-climax after all in Stephanie’s home-coming.




  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 20 Added hyphen to: heard the Star Spangled

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69532 ***