"No!" said the nurse; "it is a little queer, isn't it? People have
spent money on pigs and cattle and horses, and have bonused railways
and elevator companies, or anything that seemed to help the country,
while the people who were doing the most for the country, the
settlers' wives, were left to live or die as seemed best to them.
Woman's most sacred function is to bring children into the world, and
if all goes well, why, God bless her!--but when things go wrong--God
help her! No one else was concerned at all. But, as I told you, women
vote now in Alberta, and what they say goes. Men are always ready to
help women in any good cause, but, naturally enough, they don't see
the tragedy of the lonely woman, as women see it. They are just as
sympathetic, but they do not know what to do. Some time ago, before
the war, there was an agitation to build a monument to the pioneer
women, a great affair of marble and stone. The women did not warm up
to it at all. They pointed out that it was poor policy to build
monuments to brave women who had died, while other equally brave women
in similar circumstances were being let die! So they sort of frowned
down the marble monument idea, and began to talk of nurses instead.

"So here I am," concluded Mrs. Sanderson, as she hung up her coat and
cap. "I am a monument to those who are gone, and the free gift of the
people of Alberta to you and your wife, in slight appreciation of the
work you are doing in settling the country and making all the land in
this district more valuable. They are a little late in acknowledging
what they owe the settler, but it took the women a few years to get
the vote, and then a little while longer to get the woman's point of
view before the public."

Mary Wood stood at her father's side while the nurse spoke, drinking