Ozark Nurse by Fern Shepard Page B

if Ethel gets a job. And
you
can't be expected to support his family. Oh, Nora, I worry so. I get so frightened. I feel so guilty about raising two children who can't cope with life the way grown people should. I know it's my fault. If I'd been a good mother, I would have disciplined them, helped them to grow up to have a sense of responsibility."
    Nora felt sick with pity. Her mother looked suddenly so frail, so lost, as if, in a matter of moments, she had become a frightened little old lady.
    "And now I feel twice as guilty, because I see what we've been doing to you."
    "Now you stop that sort of talk!" Impulsively Nora's arms reached out to draw her mother to her. "If I'm the strong one, let me be strong. If I'm a natural-born burden carrier, let me do what comes naturally."
    She held Caroline close, petting and comforting her as if she were the mother, Caroline her child.
    It had been a long time since they had been this close in love and understanding. It gave Nora a good feeling. She wept a little, and thought about Paul and his new habit of breaking a date every time Rita Lansing wagged a finger.
    Somehow that didn't seem to matter as much as it had an hour before.
    "You need your sleep," Caroline said, and left the room.
     

Chapter 11
    The Lansing house on the hill, completely modernized five years before by an architect imported from New York, was too elegant for Paul's taste. He felt ill at ease in all that grandeur: deep-piled carpets which muffled footsteps; luxurious, down-cushioned white divans; a white lace cloth on the beautifully appointed table in the dining area of the enormous living room.
    Suppose he were to spill something, or topple over one of those fragile crystal glasses which the Negro maid in a tiny starched apron and cap kept refilling with wine?
    "You aren't eating your frogs' legs, honey," chirped Rita, who had changed into a dinner dress after they reached the house. It was white lace, lined with yellow silk. A yellow ribbon was fastened in the fabulous hair, which now spilled loose to her shoulders. "Don't you like them?"
    "Very much," said Paul, adding with a grin: "Only I didn't know what they were." Back in Minnesota on the farm where he had grown up, he said, plain eating and high thinking were the rule. Hospitals didn't go in for such delicacies, either.
    Nelson Lansing threw back his head, laughing heartily. "You and I belong to the same league, son. I was raised on pork, corn pone and chitlins. This fancy grub is all Rita's idea. Don't know what I'm eating half the time."
    He was a small man, a quite ordinary-looking man except for his eyes, which were dark and brilliant and never seemed to miss a trick. Why he should remind Paul of his father, a tall, gaunt, bald man, he did not know. There was no similarity in appearance.
    It must be, Paul thought, an inner quality of forcefulness.
    During the dinner, Paul tried to hold up his end of the conversation. But it was difficult for him to make small talk at any time, and he had never been more inarticulate than tonight.
    His mind was clouded with personal worries, and it was impossible to put them out of his mind. Not the least of his worries was Nora. She was the one girl in the world for him. If they broke up, what would be left for him to hold to?
    After they had finished desert, Rita jumped up and asked to be excused. There was a little something she had to attend to upstairs, she said gaily, and vanished.
    Lansing asked the maid to bring more coffee, lit a cigar, and said without preamble: "Let's get down to brass tacks, son. How soon can you start to work for me?"
    "But I haven't said that I would," Paul began. "For one thing, I'm still on the hospital staff."
    "But you won't be for long." Lansing waved him to silence. "The way I understand it, you haven't been much good there recently. And when the story is published about that backwoods idiot running loose over there today—"
    He interrupted himself to ask: "I suppose you realize