As Elizabeth and Gusta entered the hospital they shuddered, and drew close to each other like sisters. Koerner was in the marine ward, and Gusta dreaded the place. On her previous visits there, the nurses had been sharp and severe with her, but this morning, when the nurses saw Elizabeth bearing her basket of fruit and her flowers--which she would not let Gusta carry, feeling that would rob her offering of the personal quality she wished it to assume--they ran forward, their starched, striped blue skirts rustling, and greeted her with smiles.
"Why, Miss Ward!" they cried.
"Good morning," said Elizabeth, "we've come to see Mr. Koerner."
"Oh, yes," said Koerner's nurse, a tall, spare young woman with a large nose, eye-glasses, and a flat chest. "He's so much better this morning."
She said this with a patronizing glance aside at Gusta, who tried to smile; the nurse had not spoken so pleasantly to her before.
The nurse led the girls into the ward, and they passed down between the rows of white cots. Some of the cots were empty, their white sheets folded severely, back, awaiting the return of their occupants from the rooms up-stairs. In the others men sprawled, with pallid, haggard faces, and watched the young women as they passed along, following them with large, brilliant, sick eyes. But Elizabeth and Gusta did not look at them; they kept their eyes before them. One bed had a white screen about it; candles glowed through the screen, silhouetting the bending forms of a priest, a doctor and a nurse.
Koerner was at the end of the ward. His great, gaunt, heavy figure was supine on the bed; the bandaged stump of his leg made a heavy bulk under the counterpane; his broad shoulders mashed down the pillow; his enormous hands, still showing in their cracks and crevices and around the cuticle of his broken nails the grime that all the antiseptic scrubbings of a hospital could not remove, lay outside the coverlid, idle for the first time in half a century. His white hair was combed, its ragged edges showing more obviously, and his gaunt cheeks were covered by a stubble of frosty beard. His blue eyes were unnaturally bright.
Elizabeth fell back a little that Gusta might greet him first, and the strong, lusty, healthy girl bent over her father and laid one hand on his.
"Well, pa, how're you feeling to-day?"
"Hullo, Gustie," said the old man, "you gom' again, huh? Vell, der oldt man's pretty bad, I tel' you."
"Why, the nurse said you were better."
"Why, yes," said the nurse, stepping forward with a professional smile, "he's lots better this morning; he just won't admit it, that's all. But we know him here, we do!"
She said this playfully, with a lateral addition to her smile, and she bent over and passed her hand under the bed-clothes and touched his bandages here and there. Elizabeth and Gusta stood looking on.
"Isn't the pain any better?" asked the nurse, still smilingly, coaxingly.
"Naw," growled the old German, stubbornly refusing to smile. "I toldt you it was no besser, don't I?"
The nurse drew out her hand. The smile left her face and she stood looking down on him with a helpless expression that spread to the faces of Elizabeth and Gusta. Koerner turned his head uneasily on the pillow and groaned.
"What is it, pa?" asked Gusta.
"Der rheumatiz'."
"Where?"
"In my leg. In der same oldt blace. Ach!"
An expression of puzzled pain came to Gusta's face.
"Why," she said half-fearfully, "how can it--now?" She looked at the nurse. The nurse smiled again, this time with an air of superior knowledge.
"They often have those sensations," she said, laughing. "It's quite natural." Then she bent over Koerner and said cheerily: "I'm going now, and leave you with your daughter and Miss Ward."
"Yes, pa," said Gusta, "Miss Elizabeth's here to see you."
She put into her tone all the appreciation of the honor she wished her father to feel. Elizabeth came forward, her gloved hands folded before her, and stood carefully away from the bed so that even her skirts should not touch it.
"How do you do, Mr. Koerner?" she said in her soft voice--so different from the voices of the nurse and Gusta.
Koerner turned and looked at her an instant, his mouth open, his tongue playing over his discolored teeth.
"Hullo," he said, "you gom' to see der oldt man, huh?"
Elizabeth smiled.
"Yes, I came to see how you were, and to know if there is anything I could do for you."
"_Ach_," he said, "I'm all right. Dot leg he hurts yust der same efery day. Kesterday der's somet'ing between der toes; dis time he's got der damned oldt rheumatiz', yust der same he used to ven he's on dere all right."
The old man then entered into a long description of his symptoms, and Elizabeth tried hard to smile and to sympathize. She succeeded in turning him from his subject presently, and then she said:
"Is there anything you want, Mr. Koerner? I'd be so glad to get you anything, you know."
"Vell, I like a schmoke alreadty, but she won't let me. You know my oldt pipe, Gusta? Vell, I lose him by der accident dot night. He's on der railroadt, I bet you."
"Oh, we'll get you another pipe, Mr. Koerner," said Elizabeth, laughing.
"Isn't there anything else?"
"Naw," he said, "der railroadt gets me eferyt'ing. I work on dot roadt t'irty-seven year now a'readty. Dot man, dot--vat you call him?--dot glaim agent, he kum here kesterday, undt he say he get me eferyt'ing.
He's a fine man, dot glaim agent. He laugh undt choke mit me; he saidt der roadt gif me chob flaggin' der grossing. All I yust do is to sign der baper--"
"Oh, Mr. Koerner," cried Elizabeth in alarm, and Gusta, at her expression, started forward, and Koerner himself became all attention, "you did not sign any paper, did you?"
The old man looked at her an instant, and then a soft shadowy smile touched his lips.
"Don't you vorry," he said; "der oldt man only got von leg, but he don't sign no damned oldt baper." He shook his head on the pillow sagely, and then added: "You bet!"
"That's splendid!" said Elizabeth. "You're very wise, Mr. Koerner."
She paused and thought a moment, her brows knit. Then her expression cleared and she said:
"You must let me send a lawyer."
"Oh, der been blenty of lawyers," said Koerner.
"Yes," laughed Elizabeth, "there are plenty of lawyers, to be sure, but I mean--"
"Der been more as a dozen here alreadty," he went on, "but dey don't let 'em see me."
"I don't think a lawyer who would come to see you would be the kind you want, Mr. Koerner."
"Dot's all right. Der been blenty of time for der lawyers."
"Oh, pa," Gusta put in, "you must take Miss Elizabeth's advice. She knows best. She'll send you a good lawyer."
"Vell, ve see about dot," said Koerner.
"I presume, Mr. Koerner," said Elizabeth, "they wouldn't let a lawyer see you, but I'll bring one with me the next time I come--a very good one, one that I know well, and he'll advise you what to do; shall I?"