aunt jane stood in the doorway a minute, smiling and looking down the long room. presently from somewhere there came a piping cry:

"aunt jane's come!"

and then another cry—and another: "aunt jane's come! aunt jane's come!"

no one knew who had started the custom. but some child, some sunny morning, had broken out with it when aunt jane appeared. and the others had taken it up, as children will; and now it had become a happy part of the day's routine, as regular as the doctor's visit—or the night nurse's rounds.

"aunt jane's come—aunt jane's come!"

they broke off from picture-books or blocks, to look up and call out and pass the word along. then they chanted it together.... and the newcomer in the ward, a boy lying with bandaged face and eyes half[pg 53] closed, turned a first curious, questioning look—to find the white-capped face smiling down at him.

at the top of the house, at either end of the long corridor—in dr. carmon's operating-room and here in the children's ward—aunt jane was not the implacable personage that ruled elsewhere in the hospital.

she beamed down the ward.

a dozen hands reached out to her and she smiled to them and nodded and scolded a little and fussed and drew them all into a happy sense that this was home—and aunt jane a kind of new and glorified mother for little children. all the sick ones and lame ones, and the bruised ones and bandaged ones were aunt jane's children— it did not seem like a hospital, as one looked down the sunny room, so much as a place where children were gathered in; pinched faces lighted up—for the first time in life, perhaps—with round, shrewd, loving smiles for aunt jane; delicate bandaged faces looked out at her wistfully and happily; and laughing, rosy ones turned to her.

there were no unhappy ones there. "children[pg 54] suffer and don't know," was aunt jane's comment.

sometimes as she stood among them she marvelled a little at the quiet unconscious force that ignored pain, or adjusted itself to twinges. some child, with a look almost of impatience, would shift a bandaged leg or foot to an easier position, as it listened to the story she was telling or entered into some game of her contriving.

sometimes it was a guessing game that was played by the whole ward at once—a kind of twenty questions, shouted at her as she came in, her hands held carefully behind her.... and, curiously, it was always some little one that guessed first; some feeble one, just beginning to take notice, that had a glimpse of aunt jane's broad back as she turned casually with a serene unconscious look, or moved a little and revealed the hidden thing behind her.

the whole ward was interested this morning in jimmie sullivan's new leg. it was a frame-leg that got in the way when he walked and tripped him up. he was a little proud of it, but more annoyed, as he came hurrying down the ward to meet her.

[pg 55]

aunt jane adjusted her spectacles and looked.

"well, well!" she said.

jimmie glanced down at it, a little proud and abashed. "it can't walk," he admitted.

"want me to carry you?" asked aunt jane.

"no, sir!" he slipped a proud hand into hers and stumbled happily and awkwardly along.

aunt jane moved toward a bed where a child lay strapped on his back, hands and feet and head held fast, only his eyes free to turn to her with a smile.

"how's alec?" said aunt jane.

"all right," replied the child. "you going to tell a story?"

"well—maybe. i don't know as i know any new stories," she said slowly. she considered it.

"tell an old one," said the boy. "any old story," he added with a grim smile under the crisscross bandages of the stiff face.

"tell about the little red hen," piped a voice from the next bed.

"no—about billy-goat," from across the room.

[pg 56]

"tell about the old lady that runned away," came shrilling close at hand.

aunt jane put her hands over her ears. "i can't hear anything," she announced.

their faces grew still and alert till she should move her hands a tiny crack and they could shout again: "billy-goat!" "the little red hen!" "the lady that runned away!"

jimmie sullivan, half leaning against her, looked at them reproachfully. "she can't tell nuthin' while you make such a racket!" he said.

"she likes it!—she likes it!—she don't care!" they returned.

aunt jane looked at them and smiled. she took down her hands.

"let me see—" she glanced from one bed to the other. "i am going to let edna choose.... she can whisper it to me." she went to a bed across the room, jimmie sullivan's frame-leg clanking happily beside her, and bent to the pillow.

the girl lifted a thin arm and threw it about aunt jane's neck to draw her close.

aunt jane listened and lifted her head and smiled. "all right," she announced.

[pg 57]

the room was so still you could hear a pin drop. a nurse passing the lower end of the ward, with a dish in her hand, paused and looked down the quiet room. every eye was fastened expectantly on the motherly figure moving serenely about.... it crossed to the side of the room and adjusted the skylight shade and brought a big rocker and placed it in the middle of the room under the skylight and put a low chair for jimmie sullivan, and another beside it for the child that was limping slowly across to her.... a girl in a wheeled chair propelled herself swiftly down the ward and came to a stop as close to the big rocker as she could get.

aunt jane glanced slowly about the ward—at the expectant faces looking at her from every bed.

"now, the rest of you stay where you are!" she said severely.

they laughed and adjusted themselves, and then they were quiet again, watching her intently.

she sat down in the big chair and rocked a little.

"let me see—" she sat smiling thoughtfully;[pg 58] the smile ran along the pillows—waiting.

"once when i was a little girl——"

the pillows nestled a little and sighed happily and settled down; and aunt jane's voice went on with the tale and the nurse at the end of the ward passed out with her dish. the door swung to behind her.

the great sunny room was left to happiness and to aunt jane and to the children and: "once when i was a little girl."