gentleness.

"Good morning, dear," she said, running her fingers through the
perpendicular curls that bristled continuously.

"Goot mornun, tear," he mimicked, mischievously; and then he added,
with an irresistible smile, "Und Got-tam-you."

"Oh, Michael, don't you remember, the next time you were going to say
'God bless you'?"

"Awright--next time."

Margaret MacLean sighed unconsciously. Michael's "next time" was about
as reliable as the South American _manana_; and he seemed as much an
alien now as the day he was brought into the ward. And then, because
she believed that kindness was the strongest weapon for victory in the
end, she did the thing Michael loved best.

Ward C was turned into a circus menagerie, and Margaret MacLean and her
assistant were turned into keepers. Together they set about the duties
for the day with great good-humor. Two seals, a wriggling
hippopotamus, a roaring polar bear, a sea-serpent of surprising
activities, two teeth-grinding alligators, a walrus, and a baby
elephant were bathed with considerable difficulty and excitement. It
was Sandy who insisted on being the elephant in spite of a heated
argument from the other animals that, having a hump, he ought to be a
camel. They forgave him later, however, when he squirted forth his
tooth-brush water and trumpeted triumphantly, thereby causing the
entire menagerie to squirm about and bellow in great glee.

At this point the head keeper had to turn them all back instantly into
children, and she delivered a firm but gentle lecture on the
inconsiderateness of soaking a freshly changed bed.

Sandy broke into penitent tears; and because tears were never allowed
to dampen the atmosphere of Ward C when they could possibly be dammed,
Margaret MacLean did the "best-of-all-things." She pushed the cribs
and cots all together into a "special" with observation-cars; then,
changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she
swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle. The
bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and
puff, bounding away countryward where spring had come.

Those of you who live where you can always look out on pleasant places,
or who can travel at will into them, may find it hard to understand how
wearisome and stupid it grows to be always in one room with an
encompassing sky-line of roof-tops and chimneys, or may fail to sound
the full depths of wonder and deligh