"Well, it seems impossible to mistake myself for anybody else, or I should deny being fool enough to come this road twice."
"But you are here. It is very, very kind. You don"t know how much I feel it; besides, I want to say something."
"Never mind, I know what it is; have been talking it over in the next room. Want to be quiet, natural; sick people always do. Hate to have a lot of old women screeching over the baby, and asking questions enough to drive a Christian mother into Bedlam--natural again, why not?
nuisance--women ought to be prohibited as a s.e.x by act of Congress--a few exceptions, no doubt; but patriotic women are ready to be flung overboard for the general good."
Katharine looked a little bewildered, and quite weary. She was thinking about her own troubles, and had not strength enough for any thing else.
"Did any one ask you about us, doctor?"
"About you? no--about where I was going, fifty."
"And you told them?"
"Yes, of course I told "em; why not?"
Katharine turned very white, and gasped for breath.
"You told them about me--about my baby?"
"Bah child, no; but I told "em old Lane had caught the whooping-cough, and that will keep the whole town in gossip at least a week."
Katharine began to laugh--she was but a young thing, and the idea amused her excessively.
"Stop that, or it"ll end in hysterics," he said, frowning upon her with comical affectation; but she smiled yet, and her pale cheek flushed.
Still, the anxieties that pressed upon her were too real, and she became grave again.
"You wont say anything about it, please," she murmured. "The minute he comes, they shall know everything. I"m not very strong; if it wasn"t for that you should read the certificate now; but it"s up-stairs, and so we must wait."
"Never mind, my little Katy-did, I can wait, and so shall the rest of them; never fear."
"You"re very good!" murmured Katharine, faintly; "I shall sleep without dreaming such frightful things after this."
She closed her eyes a moment, and then opened them with a start.
"Where"s the baby?"
"In your mother"s lap--don"t you hear her buzzing over it like a b.u.mble bee?"
"Is it--is that her?" whispered the young mother, and a beautiful smile stole into her eyes. "I don"t remember ever hearing her sing before."
"Oh, she"ll soon break in--no fool like a grandmother."
"How pleasant it sounds," murmured the young mother, listening to the low hum which came from the next room, and ignoring the doctor"s speech entirely. "I didn"t know mother"s voice was so sweet. It makes me sleepy."
"Then shut your eyes and go to dreaming at once; a good sleep will do you more good than I can," said the doctor, wheeling round on his crutches, and stumping off into the next room. Here he gave Mrs. Allen a quaint reprimand for allowing her patient to put herself into a fever, and warned her that the next excitement might go to the brain and raise the mischief. Then he chucked the baby under its mite of a chin, which the little thing returned with an incipient hiccough instead of a smile, which was altogether beyond its powers, after which he mounted his horse and rode off, chuckling over the mystifications which all questioners were sure to get, on his way home.
CHAPTER XXV.
A GRAVE IN THE SNOW.
It chanced, during the week, that another fall of snow blocked up the roads just as they were getting well trodden down. This kept the people in-doors, and Mrs. Allen was left to the entire solitude she so much desired. The doctor only came once after the visit we have mentioned.
That time Mrs. Allen had been compelled to leave the house. Her firewood was out, and she had gone in search of a neighbor who had promised her to haul a load from the forest back of Castle Rock. The distance was considerable, and the walking toilsome, beside the neighbor she sought had gone out after his team and she was compelled to wait.
It was during her absence that the doctor went to the house. He found Katharine improving; still excitable on the subject of her husband"s return, and listening for his step at every movement, but apparently so happy with the growth of her child, that even this craving wish could not materially impede her well-doing.
The doctor had a tedious ride before him, and only remained long enough to be sure that there was really nothing to require his stay, and rode off. He was in the more haste because dull, leaden clouds were gathering in the sky, and fine snow came down at intervals, threatening a heavier fall.
On his way down the hill he met the town carrier, a man who distributed papers, and transported parcels for the whole neighborhood, to and from New Haven, twice each week. Sometimes he brought letters from the post-office. Indeed, from a three cent whistle to a dressed pig in killing time, he refused nothing that came within the capacity of his one-horse wagon, or could be sheltered by its oil-cloth cover. This man nodded to the doctor, and after pa.s.sing him, gave a little blast from his tin horn to notify the next house that he was about to stop there.
This house was Mrs. Allen"s. Katharine was in her room, and was ignorant that her mother had not returned. She started up in bed at the first sound of the horn, and cried out:
"Run, mother, run. It is the carrier, he may bring news. Nelson has come pa.s.senger. I"m sure of it!"
The carrier drew up before the house, and waited a minute for some one to come forth. But no one appeared, and with an impatient growl at the delay he jumped out of his wagon, opened the street door, and flung a letter through, muttering that he would call for the postage some other time, a storm was coming on, and he was late already.
Katharine saw the letter, gave a cry of joy, such as those humble walls never heard again, and sprang to the floor, leaving her child asleep in the bed. She seized the letter and tore it open; three or four bank notes fluttered around her, falling unheeded, about the room. She strove to read, but the paper rattled in her hands--dizzy and weak she could not distinguish a word of the few that danced before her eyes. She went back to the bed, seized one of the posts of the bedstead, and steadied herself desperately.
"Katharine, it cannot be helped, I am going on a whaling voyage; nothing better presented itself, and I must not be idle. The ship will be gone three years at least, perhaps more, but there is a chance for making money. I send you all that has been advanced to me; when that is gone go to my father, as I told you.
"NELSON THRASHER."
She grew blind. A dull, sickening weight fell upon her. She strove to creep into bed, clambered to the edge upon her knees, and fell forward, with her face pressed to the pillow, which settled slowly down, and buried the sleeping child--a struggle--a faint, stifled sound--a scarcely perceptible upheaving of the pillow, and all was still.
There was no change in the mother; white as marble, she had fallen upon her face--lifeless as marble she lay until the great clock in the kitchen tolled the hour.
The struggle of her coming misery was terrible. She turned and sat upon the bed, with her white feet hanging over the edge. The shawl which Mrs.
Allen had folded over her shoulders from fear of cold, hung loosely adown her long night robe. She began to shiver, and drew it around her, hugging it to her bosom, but some idea of its emptiness seized upon her.
She opened the shawl and looked down upon her flowing night dress wonderingly, as if she had lost something. Then her eyes were turned vaguely around the bed. She lifted a corner of the blanket, and finding nothing, impatiently pushed the pillow aside.
There it lay--her little babe, asleep, and yet not asleep. Insane fire flashed to her eyes; fever leaped, and burned in all her veins; angry defiance blazed in her face. She was stunned before, but maddened now.
Somebody had been trying to kill her babe with too much warmth. Her mother had done it. Her stern mother, who never would forgive, and had always hated the Thrasher blood. She would come back and try again. How flushed and hot its little face looked. How menacingly its tiny fist was clenched. Something very cruel must have been done before it came to that. How soundly she had slept to know nothing of this. But her mother should never harm it again. She knew of a nice cool place under the great b.u.t.ternut where it could have a beautiful blanket of snow, with light icicles shimmering over it from the branches. n.o.body could find it there, and that strange look of pain would change to quiet sleep.
Prompted by these insane thoughts, the young mother seized her child, folded it closely to her bosom, under the shawl, and fled from the house. She hurried on, her white feet sinking in the snow at every step.
The crust cut her ankles, but she was unaware of the pain. The wind whistled through her night dress, but she only laughed--its sharpness would drive that terrible red from her baby"s face. She clambered the stone wall twice, into the orchard, and across another lot, until she reached the rock beneath the b.u.t.ternut branches, now without a leaf.
A shelf of the rock shot out from the drift that almost buried it. She took off her shawl, wrapped it tenderly about the child, laid it on this shelf, and began to work. She tore the glittering crust away, fell upon her knees, and commenced hurling the loose snow out with her hands, until a cradle was scooped in the drift. Then she gathered up an armful of the flakes, moulded and patted them into a pillow, and hushing the baby in her arms a moment, laid it down. She covered it with a soft blanket of snow, placed the icy crust carefully over it, and then stopped, and looked about bewildered, as if wondering what she could do next.
By this time the cold had pierced her to the vitals, but the fever met it fiercely and shook that delicate form like a reed. She sat down on the rock, gazing at the little white grave, as if she had just buried her heart there; and was afraid that some one would trample on it. The cold was doing its work; a few moments more and she would never have left the rock again. But some imaginary noise frightened her. She started up, forgot every thing, and flew toward the house--the light hair floating back from under her cap, and her thin garments fluttering through the atmosphere like shadows. The door was partly open--she darted in, crossed the kitchen, and springing to the centre of her bed, covered herself up with the clothes, shuddering and laughing in the same breath.
CHAPTER XXVI.