The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1945, Blaðsíða 42

40
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
June 1945
Stiilf, o[ JbleamJ
By HELEN SIGURDSON
There are those who contend that
there is no such thing as the human
mind or soul. That all its manifestations
are simply chemical reactions and that
when science finally has answered every
question that can be asked about chemi-
stry and physics, all this talk about
the mind as a thing apart from the body
will be proved as false as the claims
of the old time alchemists. Perhaps
they’re right and yet there are still
things that chemistry can’t explain, and
I doubt if it ever can.
Take what happened to Bob and Ruth
Eliason for instance. They were the
most every day ordinary sort of couple;
neither of them had the slightest in-
terest in telepathy or other psychic
manifestations and yet the following
story is true, every word of it.
Probably it would be hard to find
two people more in love than they
were. They married the year after she
graduated as a nurse from St. Marga-
ret’s hospital. Bob still had two years
to go before he could qualify as a
doctor. He was the senior interne over
at the County Hospital the winter their
first child was born.
It began with the visit from Bob’s
sister Caroline. She was a medical mis-
sionary, just returned from seven years
at a remote station in the jungles of
Burma. She was on her way east but
had stopped off between trains to meet
Ruth and her new niece. She had only
a couple of hours and so Bob met her
train and brought her right up to the
hospital. Caroline was one of those
eager, enthusiastic people and it was
easy for her to sweep all her family
and friends along with her in her en-
thusiasm and her enthusiasm was the
Burma mission field.
By the time “visiting hours” had come
to an end she had practically convinced
Bob that his main interest in life was
tropical medicine and that Burma offered
a wonderful field for research as well
as a great opportunity to serve human-
ity. Ruth wasn’t quite so sure. The
climate of Burma didn’t sound very
healthy for babies. Still if Bob went,
of course she was going too.
The two left early as Caroline had
to catch her train. Bob was on call
that night over at County so he couldn’t
get back until the following evening.
After they had gone the nurse brought
the baby. And again Ruth wondered
how such an absurdly helpless bit
of pink flesh could ever grow to be a
self sufficient woman—like Caroline
for instance. And yet Caroline must
have looked like this too at the begining.
Her thoughts strayed to the things Caro-
line had told them about Burma: the
great sluggish river in front of the mis-
sion, the miles of jungle behind it.
They had shot a tiger within a mile
of the mission and one morning Caroline
had found a cobra in her bathroom.
Ruth held the baby closer. No! mos!
decidedly Burma was not a good place
to bring up a family.
After the baby had been taken back
to the nursery she tried to read, but
a detective story seemed tame after
the real life adventure she had been
hearing. Suddenly she felt very tired.
So she turned off the light and tried to
sleep. For a long time, however the
new turn Caroline’s visit had made in
Bob’s plans kept her awake. Of course
Bob might look at things differently
once he had time to think things over
and talk with her. And what should
she say? Of course if it was really what
he wanted to do, she must say yes.
★ ★ ★
Burma was very much as Caroline
had described it except for the heat.
Ruth had never known anything like
the heat. She was enveloped in it, smo-
thered by it. It lay around her, under her,