Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but still the public purse must be regarded.
"You can"t bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he"s on the town, he"ll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest."
Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on."
But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the door in vain.
"My land!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "if she ain"t bolted it!" So the nurse and her patient were left to themselves.
As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton.
At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do not know; tradition was quite voluble.
It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted no appeal.
"I"ve got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway confronting them. "He"s too weak to see anybody. I guess I won"t ask you in."
But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on the step.
"Won"t you set down here?" she asked. "I"ve got sickness, an" I can"t have talkin" any nearer. I"m glad it"s a warm day."
The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his dignity had been mildly a.s.saulted, and he preferred to stand.
"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had hoped to see him."
Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers.
"I don"t let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to pray by ourselves."
The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair.
"I suppose you know," said he, "that you"re taking a very peculiar stand."
Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient breathing, and her mind was with him.
"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be respected,--though only in a measure."
Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him.
"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!"
"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married."
Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess you better go now. Good-day."
She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn"t much chance to talk with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better.
But as Mary sat down by her patient"s bed, her face settled into sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung her way, she marveled at it.
The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all beat out,"
for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to have an early supper at five.
"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I"d do it, an" I have. There ain"t a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an" folks that want you to go nussin" have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very afternoon, "I"ll be whipped if I don"t git in an" see what"s goin" on!"
There"s some will have it Johnnie"s got well, an" drove away without saying good-by to his own folks, an" some say he ain"t likely to live, an" there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the childern, they"ve got an idea suthin" "s been done to uncle Johnnie, an"
you can"t mention him but they cry."
Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn"t mention him, then," said she.
A m.u.f.fled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming.
"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don"t know what it was,--but _I can move_!"
He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes.
"I"ll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want to see her?"
"For G.o.d"s sake, no! not till I"m on my feet." He was still laughing. "I guess I can get up to-morrow."
Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her.
"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in to-morrer. I shouldn"t wonder if he"d be up then."
"I told Adam"--began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little arm, and held it there.
"I"d rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don"t you come in before "leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your brother"ll be gettin" away before long." She opened the outer door, and Mattie had no volition but to go. "It"s a nice night, ain"t it?" called Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many stars."
Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and exact.i.tude prepared her patient"s supper. He was sitting upright, bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize.
"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can"t get up to-morrow? Why, I could walk!"
They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what he meant to do when he got into the world again.
"How"d I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again."
"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for more"n two years. It"s my business."
Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak.
"What you goin" to ask?"
Mary started. Then she answered steadily,--
"That"s all right. I don"t ask much, anyway; but when folks don"t have ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn"t talk no more, even if you are well. I"ve got to wash these dishes."
She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he was flat among his pillows, listening for her.
"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn"t unless you want to; but if ever I earn another cent of money, you"ll see. And I ain"t the only friend you"ve got. There"s a girl down in Southport would do anything in the world for you, if she only knew."
Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse"s cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of grat.i.tude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and perhaps he remembered the message too coldly.