Robert Strong and Dorothy wuz dretful interested in Waitstill, I could see, and they asked a great many questions about her work in the hospital. And I see that Robert wuz only grounded in his convictions when Waitstill told him of the sickness the doctors and nurses had to contend with, and how largely it wuz caused by liquor drinking. Hundreds of American saloons in Manila, so she said, and sez she, "How can the hospitals hope to undo the evils that these do to men's souls and bodies?" Sez she, "You know what a fearful disease and crime breeder it is in a temperate climate, but it is tenfold worse here in this tropical land."
She wuz anxious to hear all the news from Jonesville, and I willin'ly told her what Phila Ann had told me about Elder White, and the noble work he was doin' in East Loontown, and I sez, "Missionary work is jest as necessary and jest as important and pleasin' to God if done in Loontown as in the Antipithies."
And she said she knew it. And I sez: "Elder White is working himself to death, and don't have the comforts of life, to say nothin' of the happiness he ort to."
Waitstill didn't say nothin', but I fancied a faint pink flush stole up into her white cheeks, some like the color that flashes up onto a snowbank at sunset. Life wuz all snow and sunset to her, I could see, but I knowed that she wuz the one woman in the world for Ernest White, the ideal woman his soul had always worshipped, and found realized in Waitstill--poor little creeter!
I didn't know whether the warm sun of his love could melt the snow and frozen hail or not--the sun duz melt such things--and I knew love wuz the greatest thing in the world. Well, I had to leave the event to Providence, and wuz willin' to; but yet, after a woman duz leave things to the Most High to do, she loves to put in her oar and help things along; mebby that is the way of Providence--who knows? But 'tennyrate I gin another blind hint to her before we left the conversation.
Sez I, "Ernest White is doin' the Lord's work if ever a man did, and I can't think it is the Lord's will that whilst he's doin' it he ort to eat such bread as he has to--milk emtin's and sour at that, to say nothin' of fried stuff that a anaconda couldn't digest. He deserves a sweet, love-guarded home, and to be tended to by a woman that he loves--one who could inspire him and help him on in the heavenly way he's treading alone and lonesome." Her cheeks did turn pink then, and her eyes looked like deep blue pools in which stars wuz shinin', but she didn't say anything, and Robert Strong resoomed his talk with her about her hospital work. And before she left he gin her a big check to use for her patients; I don't know exactly how big it wuz, but it went up into the hundreds, anyway; and Dorothy gin her one, too, for I see her write it; Miss Meechim gin her her blessin' and more'n a dozen tracts, which mebby will set well on the patients, if administered cautious. I myself gin her the receipt for the best mustard poultice that ever drawed, and two pairs of clouded blue-and-white wool socks I had knit on the way, and though it wuz a warm country she said they would come handy when her patients had chills.