Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories

								

a bunch of faded wild flowers that he had tramped two miles in the
country to get for his girl.
May dragged into June, and still they were kept at the hospital. The old
man became as restless as a caged animal; he paced the corridors for
hours at a time and his eyes grew furtive and defiant. He, who had lived
out of sight of the smoke from his nearest neighbor's chimneys, who had
spent his life in the vast, still solitudes of the hills, was incredibly
lonely here among his fellow men.
"If Pop has to stay here much longer, I'm afraid he'll smash the
furniture," said the night nurse who, like everybody else in the ward,
had grown interested in the old man. "He packs his things every morning
before the doctor comes, only to unpack them after he leaves."
"The confinement is telling on him," said Miss Fletcher. "I wish for his
sake they could start home to-day. But I do hate to see Sally go! The
girl is getting her first taste of civilization, and I've never seen
anyone so eager to learn. We have to take the books away from her every
day, and when she can't study she begs to be allowed to roll bandages.
The third day she sat up she wanted to help nurse the other patients.
"I am afraid we have spoiled her for hoeing tobacco, and planting corn,"
said the night nurse.
"I hope so," Miss Fletcher answered fervently.
It was nearly the last of June when the doctor dismissed his patient.
"This doesn't mean that she is well," he warned Pop. "You will have to
be careful of her for a long time. She has worked too hard for a growing
girl, and she's not as strong now as she was."
"She will be!" Pop responded confidently. "That thar gal is made outen
iron! Her maw was afore her. Liza wuz my third wife, an' she'd borned
six or seven children, when she died at thirty-five, an', by Joshuy,
she'd never once hed a doctor in all her life!"
Pop's joy over their dismissal was slightly dimmed by Sally's reception
of the news. He saw her draw a long breath and bite her lips; then he
saw what he had never seen since she was a baby, two large tears gather
slowly in her eyes and roll down on the pillow. He watched them in
amazement.
"Sal, whut ails ye?" he asked anxiously, after the doctor was gone.
"I want to git a larnin'!" she broke out. "I don't want to go back to
the hills."
Instantly the old man's face, which had been tender, hardened to a mask
of fury.
"That passel of fool women's been workin' on ye," he cried hoarsely,
"larnin', larnin', thet's all they know. Ain't the Fork good enough fer
ye? Ain't the cabin whar yer paw, an' yer grandpaw, an' yer
great-grandpaw was borned good enough for ye?"
"Yes, Pop, yes!" she gasped, terrified at the storm she had raised. "I'm
a-goin' back with you. Don't tek on so, Pop, I'm a-goin'!"
But the tempest was raging, and the old man got up and strode angrily up
and down the small room, filling the air with his indignation.
"I should say you wuz goin' back! I'd like to see any of 'em try to