The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

28 The Health Bulletin December, 1927
a telephone company or something like
that. He wasn't a doctor at all. He
was just interested in little children
who were crippled. Jane thought he
must be something like Santa Claus.
He knew her name every time he came,
and that surprised her.
AVeeks moved along. Part of the day
they were in school. They lay there in
their cots and had classes, or hobbled
around their teacher. Some of the boys
were big and could read anything. Some
of them were just little babies, and
couldn't read at all. There was one
little fellow that Jane wished was her
brother. He had brown eyes, and he
had never walked a step when he came
there. He had casts on, but he was
learning to walk. He would come over
to Jane's cot and smile at her. He was
three years old. He never cried, and
was always ready to play.
Jane had never seen so beautiful a
place as the valley below the yard
where they played when it was weather
to be out of doors. She liked to lie there
and just look at the mountain that was
away off there. Still further away
there would be a smudge of smoke and
two little things sticking up through
it that the nurses said was a place
called Charlotte. You could see it plain
enough when the sun was shining.
Almost every day somebody went
home. Jane always watched for the
signs. New shoes. The cast would come
off, and then the patient would come
wandering out, walking uncertainly,
with a nurse to hold her hands. And
almost every day a car would come up
to the door and a new child would
come in, with bent feet, or withered
arms, or twisted legs, or crooked back.
They would disappear for a day or two
into the building, and then a new figure,
with a cast on it, would be wheeled in
among them.
And then finally the day when they
took the cast off her feet, and they
told Jane to look. She looked. Surely
rate they were not knotty and ugly.
"Can I ... Can I have some
shoes, now" she asked, finally. The
nurse smiled and said wait a minute.
She went into the house and came back.
Her mother was standing there, and
beside her, her father, and behind them
the lady with the Ford. Her mother
had a bundle in her hands, but Jane
didn't notice it. Her mother looked so
strange. Her face was soft and gentle,
like the lady's. Jane didn't understand
it. She looked at her father. He had
on a new suit of clothes, and he was
smiling, grinning almost.
Jane held up her hands. She laughed.
Her mother had never heard her laugh
these were not her twisted, ugly, useless
feet. She wiggled her toes experimentally.
They moved, even though
the muscles were stiff and weak. They
were like the feet of any of the other
children she had seen at church, though
white and slender and fragile. At any
before. She came forward and bent
down over her. Over her shoulder Jane
saw her father reach for his handkerchief
and wipe his eyes. Beyond him
the lady was standing, silent and Jane
could see, very happy. The bundle had
dropped down and the wrapping had
burst. Jane could see the new shoes,
which she could understand, even
though the light that had come into
her mother's eyes was still too deep
for her years.
Two Years Old and Nothing Much to
Worry About