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William March (1894—1954) depicts common hard-working people in his works of art. The life is too hard on his characters. It takes everything from them what they have got with their hard labour and that is why they highly appreciate it. The writer's stories are filled with dramatism.
BILL'S EYES
The nurse came into the room where Bill sat and glanced around to assure herself that everything was in readiness for the doctor. They weren't used to such famous men in hospitals of this sort, and she was afraid each time he came to see Bill that he would ask some question which she could not answer, some technical thing which she had learned in her probationary days and had promptly forgotten, such as, "Define lymph, Miss Connors, and state briefly the purpose it serves in the economy of the body."
She dragged her forefinger over the table, examined it critically for smudges, and looked briskly about her for a dustcloth. Since there was none, she lifted her uniform above her knees and held it away from her body while she wiped the table clean with her underskirt. She was conscious of the exposure of her thighs, and she turned her head slowly and looked at Bill. He was a strong, thickset man with a muscular neck and a chest so solid that it seemed molded from the metals with which he had once worked. He was, she judged, about twenty-five. The fact that such a young, full-blooded man could neither see the charms that she exhibited, nor react to them, because of his blindness, as a man should, excited her, and she began to talk nervously:
"Well, I guess you'll be glad to get this over with. I guess you'll be glad to know for certain, one way or the other."
"I know now" said Bill. "I'm not worrying. There's no doubt in my mind now, and there never was."
"I must say you've been a good patient. You haven't been upset like most of them are."
"Why should I worry?" asked Bill. "I got the breaks this time, if ever a man did. If there ever was a lucky man it's me, if you know what I mean. I was lucky to have that big-time doctor 80
operate on me for nothing just because my wife wrote and asked him to." He laughed contentedly. "Christ! Christ, but I got the breaks! ... From the way he's treated me, you'd think I was a millionaire or the President of the United States or something."
"That's a fact," said Miss Connors thoughtfully. "He's a fine man." She noticed that she still held her uniform above her knees, and she dropped it suddenly, smoothing her skirt with her palms.
"What's he like?" asked Bill.
"Wait!" she said. "You've waited a long time now, and if you wait a little longer maybe you'll be able to see what he looks like for yourself.'
"I'll be able to see all right, when he takes these bandages off," said Bill. "There's no question of maybe. I'll be able to see all right.'
"You're optimistic," said the nurste. "You're not downhearted. I'll say that for you."
Bill said: "What have I got to worry about? This sort of operation made him famous, didn't it? If he can't make me see again, who can?'
"That's right," said the nurse. "What you say is true."
Bill laughed tolerantly at her doubts; "They bring people to him from all over the world, don't they? You told me that yourself, Sister!.. Well, what do you think they do it for? For the sea voyage?'
"That's right," said the nurse. "You got me there. I don't want to be a wet blanket. I just said maybe.'
"You didn't have to tell me what a fine man he is," said Bill after a long silence. He chuckled, reached out and tried to catch hold of Miss Connors' hand, but she laughed and stepped aside. "Don't you think I knew that myself?" he continued. "I knew he was a fine man the minute he came into the hospital and spoke to me. I knew." Then he stopped, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed the back of one hand with the fingers of the other < He had stopped speaking, he felt, just in time to prevent his sounding ridiculous. There was no point in explaining to Miss Connors, or anybody else, just how he felt in his heart about the doctor, or of his gratitude to him. There was no sense in talking about those things.
Miss Connors went to the table and rearranged the bouquet of asters which Bill's wife had brought for him the day before, narrowing her eyes and holding her face away from the flowers critically. She stopped all at once and straightened up.
"Listen!" she said. "That's him now."
"Yes," said Bill.