Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1915 — SHE GIVE HIM LIFE [ARTICLE]

SHE GIVE HIM LIFE

And in Return He Saved Her From Grave and Imminent Danger. By DOROTHY DOUGLAS. John Cranborn was one of the idle poor. He had spent the greater part of his life in condemnation of those people who had chanced either by their own endeavor or by that of their forefathers to have acquired wealth. Cranborn was one of those men who believed that the world and the idle rich owed him a living. On Cranborn’s side, however, and a circumstance that somewhat lessened the conclusive evidence against him, was the fact that he had been orphaned at an early day in hit life. Being of a retiring nature, he had nevpr inveigled himself into a circle other than one of indifference to his own welfare. Those within his circle had no ambition of their own and, therefore, none to instill into anyone else. Cranborn drifted into manhood without an influence for good or evil having left Its mark on him. If his mind was unnouriahed from lack of energy, so also was his body, and Cranborn found himself at twen-ty-five lying in a hospital without the necessary strength to undergo an operation. Perhaps for the first time in his life Cranborn desired to go on livhig. He wished that he had spent less money on cigarettes and more on bread, so that his body would not be in the humiliating position of abject weakness. A spark of anger flamed in his eyes. All the strength of his mind concehtrated itself in condemnation of the rich and idle, who had not only food in abundance but all the luxuries that he lacked. The soft purring of a limousine at the hospital door only augmented Cranborn’s grievance and he turned his ffcce to the wall. He would not have believed had he been told at the moment that the young lady stepping out of the limousine had come that her l-’-od might be transfused into his, Cranbom’s veins. When he turned his face from the wall at the command of the surgeon, Cranborn shrank within himself. Beautiful and glowing with wonderful vitality and health was the girl who stood beside the surgeon. ' “This young lady is going to give you a new life,” Doctor Lyman said. “1 am going to transfuse some of her blood into your body." “I won’t have her do it,” Cranborn mut'tered weakly and turned his shamed face away from the radiant girl in whose eyes shone a great pity.

“But you will not deprive me of the pleasure it will afford me,” she Baid quickly in a voice so musical that Cranborn vibrated with the rhythm of it “You see I have been on Doctor Lyman’s list for a long time and never before have I been allowed to give my blood to any of his patients. Now he has called me here because my blood agrees in certain pathological particulars with yours, and 1 do so want to do this little good in the world.” She was looking with actual pleading now into the eyes she had compelled to meet her own. “1 have everything in the world save the knowledge that I have saved a human life. Surely you will not rob me of this opportunity?” A weak sob shook Cranborn’s body and he closed his eyes. Doctor Lyman motioned the girl to remove her wraps. The surgeon then prepared his large caliber needle, by which the vein to vein sewing and consequent scarring is avoided, but Cranborn must have been unconscious during the proceeding, for he knew no more until a warm, contented. sense of wdll being permeated his body The room had grown dsrk and he was alone except for his nurse, whb sat quietly beside him, Cranborn would have spoken save that a complete sense of shame held him silent. A woman, or rather, a mere girl and one of the Idle rich he had so systematically condemned, had given her life blood to save him. His useless, good-for-notliing body had been purified, strengthened and made whole by the act of charity that not one out of a thousand persons could ofTer. Pure blood did not run in every set ot veins. Had the girl been a needy person who was making the blood sacrifice for the twenty-five dollar fee she could earn, Cranborn might -have remained the Cranborn of his early manhood. But the fact that a girl, beautiful, wealthy and refined, had offered practically her life that his might be saved flung Cranborn once and for all time into a where no shadows of past failures were to darken the way. After the successful operation he lay regaining bis strength and planning some kind ot a future for himself. - The girl, Edith McVicker. came a few days afterward to.-see how Cranborn was progressing and to assure ftim that she bad in no way-suffered by the transfusion. Doctor Lyman had advised the call, since Cranborn was torn by doubts as to ber welfare. “But why do you feel called upon to risk your life in this way for one that tbay be worthless? Doctor' Lyman tells me that your name is down on the lists of four surgeons, and that you might be called upon at any time to make this sacrifice?" Cranborn

Asked her, while his eyes looked steadily into her dear, sparkling ones. “Principally because the dearest brother in the world was saved to me by the generous transmission which mas offered him by a man who was down and out. I have always vowed to seek and seek until I could give a life for a life and in some way repay the great debt of gratitude. The man who saved my brother has climbed up the ladder of fame now and —” % “And you have given your life to me,” C ran born said softly, “and I, too, God willing, will build up this physical body of mine so that my name will one day appear on the surgeon’s list that is honored by yours. I, too, will plan to give a life for a life.” When she had left him C ran born realized that from the moment of her coming >into his life ne had seemed to be a different man. Was it her influence or merely the awakening of the latent ambition within him? He chose to attribute the change to Edith McVicker and her wonderful fund of sympathy. That was happier for having saved his life was more than evident in the calm joy that radiated through her being. She had not so definitely expressed that feeling at the first meeting, and Cranborri knew that If' doing good makes one so completely happy, then good it was that he intended to do. He smiled softly in silent condemnation of the idle poor —the circle from which he had flown. Perhaps, then, a year or two later, the happiest day of his life occurred when he saved a life and felt the same radiance flooding his being that Edith McVicker had felt when she had given life blood to a dying man. Cranborn had been riding his mare in the early morning when a second mare, frightened by the din of a motorcycle, dashed toward him. Cranborn had only time to grasp the situation, see the rocky precipice over which the frightened mare would hurl her rider and to swing himself like a flash from the saddle. He opened his eyes after being dragged and looked straight into Edith McVicker’s own. He felt her sigh of relief. “I thought I was never going to find you,” was all Cranborn said in the first dazed moment. He was dazed principally because the girl’s soft fingers were trailing over the bruise on his forehead just as they had often trailed in the dreams he had of her. “We seem destined to keep each other in the land of the living,” the girl said a trifle unsteadily, for aside from the Bhock of that frightened horse Cranborn’s eyes were gazing wonderingly at her. A deep color sprang into her cheeks. “We can make them lives that are well worth saving if —if ydu could love me. I have been most successful since you came into my life and I have wanted to tell you that and else so at least for two years!” Edith laughed softly and remembered the many hours she had sat trying to think of someone except the man in the hospital who had tried to refuse to permit her blood to be transfused into his veins. “Two years is a frightfully long time,” she said with eyes that encouraged an immediate making up for lost time. (Copyright, 1915, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.!