"Oh, I tell you, Carol, Experience may teach in a very expensive school, but she makes the lessons so interesting, it is really worth the price.

"Lots of love to you both,

"From

"CONNIE."

CHAPTER XII

THE LAND O' LUNGERS

"Is Mrs. Duke in?"

David looked up quickly as the door opened. He saw a fair petulant face, with pouting lips, with discontent in the dark eyes. He did not know that face. Yet this girl had not the studied cheerfulness of manner that marks church callers at sanatoriums. She did not look sick, only cross. Oh, it was the new girl, of course. Carol had said she was coming. And she was not really sick, just threatened.

"Mrs. Duke is over at the Main Building, but will be back very soon.

Will you come in and wait?"

She came in without speaking, pulled a chair from the corner of the porch, and flounced down among the cushions. David could not restrain a smile. She looked so babyishly young, and so furiously cross. To David, youth and crossness were incongruous.

"I am Nancy Tucker," said the girl at last.

"And I am Mr. Duke, as you probably surmise from seeing me on Mrs.

Duke's porch. She will be back directly. I hope you are not in a hurry."

"Hurry! What's the use of hurrying? I am twenty years old. I've got a whole lifetime to do nothing in, haven't I?"

"You've got a lifetime ahead of you all right, but whether you are going to do nothing or not depends largely on you."

"It doesn't depend on me at all. It depends on G.o.d, and He said, 'Nothing doing. Just get out and rust the rest of your life. We don't need you.'"

"That does not sound like G.o.d," said David quietly.

"Well, He gave me the bugs, didn't He?"

"Oh, the bugs,--you've got them, have you? You don't look like it. I didn't know it was your health. I thought maybe it was just your disposition."

David smiled winningly as he spoke, and the smile took the sting from the words.

"The bugs are worse on the disposition than they are on the lungs, aren't they?"

"Well, it depends. Carol says they haven't hit mine yet." He lifted his head with boyish pride. "She ought to know. So I don't argue with her. I am willing to take her word for it."

Nancy smiled a little, a transforming smile that swept the discontent from her face and made her nearly beautiful. But it only lasted a moment.

"Oh, go on and smile. It did me good. You can't imagine how much better I felt directly."

"There's nothing to make me smile," cried Nancy hotly.

"You may smile at me," cried Carol gaily, as she ran in. "How do you do? You are Miss Tucker, aren't you? They were telling me about you at the office."

"Yes, I am Miss Tucker. Are you Mrs. Duke? You look too young for a minister's wife."

"Yes, I am Mrs. Duke, and I am not a bit too young."

"I asked them if I should call a doctor, and they said that could wait a while. First of all, they said, I must come to Room Six and meet the Dukes."

Carol looked puzzled. "They didn't tell me that. What did they want us to do to you?"

"I don't know. I just said, 'Well, I guess I'd better get a doctor to come and kill me off,' and they said, 'You go over to Number Six and meet the Dukes.'"

"They said lovely things about you," Carol told her, smiling. "And they say you will be well in a few months,--that you haven't T. B.'s at all yet, just premonitions."

The good news brought no answering light to the girl's face.

"They are nurses. You can't believe a word they say. It is their business to build up false hopes."

"When any one tells me David is worse, I think, 'That is a wicked story'; but when any one says, 'He is better,' I am ready to fall on my knees and salute them as messengers from Heaven," said Carol.

One of the sudden dark clouds pa.s.sed quickly overhead, obscuring the glare of the sunshine, darkening the yellow sand.

"I hate this country," said Nancy Tucker. "I hate that yellow hot sand, and the yellow hot sun, and the lights and shadows on the mountains. I hate the mountains most of all. They look so abominably c.o.c.k-sure, so crowy, standing off there and glaring down on us as if they were laughing at our silly little fight for health."

Carol was speechless, but David spoke up quickly.

"That is strange; Carol and I think it is a beautiful country,--the broad stretch of the mesa, the blue cloud on the mountains, the shadow in the canyons, and most of all, the sunshine on the slopes. We think the fight against T. B.'s is like walking through the dark shade in the canyons, and then suddenly stepping out on to the sunny slopes."

"I know you are a preacher. I suppose it is your business to talk like that." Then when Carol and David only smiled excusingly, she said, "Excuse me, I didn't mean to be rude. But it is hideous, and--I love to be happy, and laugh,--"

"Go on and do it," urged David. "We've just been waiting to hear you laugh."

"You should have been at the office with me," said Carol. "We laughed until we were nearly helpless. It is that silly Mr. Gooding again, David. He isn't very sick, Miss Tucker,--he just has red rales. I don't know what red rales are, but when the nurses say that, it means you aren't very sick and will soon be well. But Gooding is what he calls 'hipped on himself.' He is always scared to death. He admits it. Well, last night they had lobster salad, a silly thing to have in a sanatorium. And Gooding ordered two extra helpings. The waiter didn't want to give it to him, but Gooding is allowed anything he wants so the waiter gave in. In the night he had a pain and got scared. He rang for the nurses, and was sure he was going to die. They had to sit up with him all night and rub him, and he groaned, and told them what to tell his mother and said he knew all along he could never pull through. But the nurse gave him some castor oil, and made him take it, and finally he went to sleep. And every one is having a grand time with him this morning."

Nancy joined, rather grudgingly, in their laughter.

"Oh, I suppose funny things happen. I know that. But what's the use of laughing when we are all half dead?"

"I'm not. Not within a mile of it. You brag about yourself if you like, but count me out."

"h.e.l.lo, Preacher! How are you making it to-day?"

They all turned to the window, greeting warmly the man who stood outside, leaning heavily on two canes.

"Miss Tucker, won't you meet Mr. Nevius?"

In response to the repeated inquiry, David said, "Just fine this morning. How are you?"