or a black Zulu woman’s hut. But this flight was poor Frank’s initiation to that awful hour of blank panic, during which a young husband is boiling hot or icy cold in turn. God!! How still a hospital corridor is!! How doctors and assistants do float past without as much sound as falling snow! Oh! How long Frank and His Honor sat, stood, or trod up and down, watching that room door!! What was going on? Was Nancy all right? Oh!! Why this prolonging of agonizing inactivity? Can’t anybody say anything? Isn’t anybody around, at all? But hospital doctors and nursing staffs, though pitying a young chap, must pass him up for that tiny lady, who now was but a tool in God’s hands; in God’s magic laboratory. And so
Ah!! Doctor Wilkins is coming—and smiling!!“A baby girl—and with a ripping good pair of lungs!” but has to jump quick to catch Frank, who has sunk in a swoon. And Mayor Gadsby’s collar is as limp as a dish-rag!
Ah! Man, man, man! and woman, woman, woman! Just you two! God’s only parts in His mighty plan for living actuality. Not only with Man and animals, but also down,—way, way down amongst plants. Just two parts. Only two!! And Baby, you tiny bunch of wriggling, gurgling humanity, by that slowly ticking clock is your turn
[ 122 ]