A Case of Walking Typhoid
“Uh—huh!” said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. “I thort so. He’s got a case o’ walkin’ typhoid, an’ looks like he’s been on his feet with it till hit’s plumb wore him out.”
He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the chest.
“Walkin’ typhoid,” he repeated. “I’ve met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur’ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he’s been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit’s ended up in this here spell of fever.”
“Will he die, Uncle Jep?” whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle’s countenance. “What must we do for him?”
“N-no—I reckon he has a chance,” hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable face, “an’ ef he has, hit’s to git him away from here an’ into bed right. Lord, I wish ’t the boys had been home to he’p us out. Well, we’ll have to do the best we can.”
As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man’s eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble came.
Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith’s lap, for the journey home.
“You mind now, Judy,” he admonished, almost sternly, “ef he comes to hisse’f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don’t you set to cryin’—don’t you make no fuss. ’Tain’t every gal I’d trust thisaway. Nothin’ worse for a sick man than to get him excited.” He took the lines and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.
But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front room that was given to any guest of honour.
Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.
“Yo’ uncle sont fer me,” the old woman said. “He ’lowed he needed yo’ he’p takin’ keer o’ Bonbright.”
Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with a bursting heart.
Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked her longing with a semblance of her lover’s return!
There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while they all stood looking, Creed’s eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put out a hand swiftly.
“I’m mighty sorry for—for all that chanced,” he said huskily.
“So ’m I,” Jeff instantly seconded him.
Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows; then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs.
“It’s all right,” he said, scarcely above a whisper—the first words he had uttered. “I told—Aunt Nancy—you were good—boys—” he faltered to a hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle standing back of the two.
“You’re all—mighty—good—to me,” said Creed Bonbright. And again he sank into that lethargic sleep.
As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that they should see the sick man.
“Uh—huh,” agreed Jephthah, understandingly, “I reckon yo’ about right, Jude. Creed’s obliged to lay there like a baby an’ sleep ef he’s to have any chance for his life. I don’t want to fall out with the neighbours, but we’ll see if we cain’t make out with less visitin’.”
But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a member of the family. About eight o’clock that morning, having then for the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.
“You cain’t go in unless’n you’ll promise to be plumb quiet—not to open yo’ mouth,” Judith told her sharply. “Uncle Jep ain’t here right now—but that’s what he said.”
“Don’t Bonbright know folks? Cain’t a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen his head?” demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.
“He knew some of us a while ago,” admitted Judith, “but mostly he doesn’t notice nothing—jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we mustn’t let him be talked to nor werried.”
The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.
Judith followed her out.
“What’s the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed Bonbright—what you cryin’ about?” she asked.
“Hit’s—Huldy,” choked the sister. “I reckon you thort I talked mighty big about the business the last time you an’ me had speech consarnin’ hit; but the facts air that I don’t know a thing about whar she’s at, nor how she’s doin’. Judy, ef yo’ a-goin’ to take keer o’ the man, cain’t ye please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an’—an’ is they wedded?”
Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question as soon as she dared.
The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well, whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed, and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep, only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.
“Ain’t no use wearin’ yourself out thataway,” her uncle used to say kindly. “That won’t do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord I had Nancy here to he’p me!”
For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy’s value in sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine—Would she be at the draw-bars ’long about sundown? He had something to tell her.
She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do finally what she had long contemplated—write to her cousin Wade. It was but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house, and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah, and write to his affectionate cousin.
Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her mysteriously to one side and say:
“Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I’m plumb wo’ out and heart-broke’ about it, Jude.”
Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from a desire on Iley’s part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.
Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring—murmuring—murmuring to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his distress was:
“I must get to her. Where is she? It’s a long ways. Oh, I’ve got to get to her—there’s nobody else.”
Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips, Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, “I’m going home.” But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.
And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded? Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must—must—must ask him.
The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone, on a Wednesday night—he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing the watch with her. About eleven o’clock Creed opened his eyes and asked in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly.
“I’m glad I came back to the mountains,” he said in a weak, whispering voice. “I promised you I’d come, and I did come, Judith.”
“Yes,” answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with intent, questioning eyes. “You know where you are now, don’t you, Creed?”
He smiled at her.
“I’m in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the play-party,” he said. “I loved you that night, Judith—only I hadn’t quite found out about it.”
The statement was made with the simplicity of a child—or of a sick man. It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing,
“Creed, whar’s Huldy?”
“I don’t know,” returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion which had been in them from the first.
“You’re married to her—ain’t you?” choked Judith, horrified at what she had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.
“Yes,” whispered Creed miserably. “Sit down by me again, Judith. Don’t be mad. What are you mad about? I forget—there was awful trouble, and somebody was shot—oh, how they all hate me!”
The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled, confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers.
Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her from the room.
“Thar now!” he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones should disturb the sick man. “You’ve raised up a pretty interruption with my patient. I ’lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you fussin’ with Creed about? For God’s sake, did you see him? You’ve nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn’t I tell you not to name anything to him to werry him?”
“He says he’s married Huldy,” said Judith in a strangled voice.
“Say! He’d say anything—like he is now,” retorted her uncle, exasperated. “An’ he’d shore say anything on earth that was put in his mouth. I don’t care if he’s married forty Huldy’s; what I want is for him to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool young gals with their courtin’ business and their gettin’ jealous and having to have a rippit with a sick man that don’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” he went on savagely.
But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment.
“Do you think that’s true—oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn’t mean it?” was all she said.
“I don’t see as it makes any differ,” retorted her uncle, testily. “Marryin’ Huldy Spiller ain’t no hangin’ matter—but hit’ll cost that boy his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up.”
Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty to him she loved.
The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.
As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him, and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.
“I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I might have written to you—but I thought the best I could do was to let you alone—I’d made you trouble enough,” he ended with a wistful, half-hopeful glance at her face.
Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle, reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn’t talk too much. He was here now. They didn’t need any letter. But strive as she might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah; the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.
Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have been expected in the three days that followed—days in which Creed seemed to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.
On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified smile.
“Did you meet her goin’ out?” he asked.
“Did I meet who, Creed?” inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and preparing for his breakfast. “Has there been somebody in here to see you a’ready?”
“It was only Huldah,” deprecated Creed. “You said—you asked—and she just slipped in a minute after you went out.”
Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.
“Which way did she go?” came the sharp challenge.
“Out that door,” indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way which led directly into the yard.
Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way over toward Jim Cal’s cabin.
“I don’t see her,” she called across her shoulder. “Mebbe she’s in the house yet.”
She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.
“No,” said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused head, “she ain’t here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon she’ll keep out of sight.”
“But she had to come to see you—her wedded husband,” accused Judith sternly.
He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the chair.
“Is she stayin’ down at Jim Cal’s?” came Judith’s next question.
“She never named it to me where she was stayin’,” returned Creed wearily. As before, Judith’s ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. “She just come—and now she’s gone.” He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith’s heart misgave her.
“Won’t you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?” she said stiffly.
“I don’t want any breakfast, thank you. I can’t eat,” returned Creed very low.
Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that he slept.
The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith’s strained nerves to the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her downstairs once more, and complained of Creed’s progress.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Look like somethin’ has went wrong here right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo’ head that Creed and Huldy was man and wife, he’s been goin’ down in his mind about as fast as his stren’th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out of yo’ head.”
“Well, they air wedded,” returned Judith passionately. “They ain’t no use to fergit it, ’caze she’s done been here—she’s down at Jim Cal’s right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to visit him.”
The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.
“Good Lord—is that what’s ailin’ ye?” he burst out. “You might at least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy here. You know in reason it shows that Creed’s out of his head—when he tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there’s no fool in the world like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?—or run him crazy?”
Judith struggled with her tears.
“Uncle Jep,” she finally choked out without actually sobbing. “I won’t say another word—now that I know. I ain’t got nothin’ agin’ Creed Bonbright, nor his wife—why should I have?”
Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on her.
“You’re a good gal, Jude,” Jephthah said softly, “ef ye air somethin’ unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy out o’ yo’ hands someway. I’m obliged to leave Creed with ye for one short while—an’ agin’ my grain it goes to do it—an’ go fetch him a nurse that won’t take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it’s Creed’s reason I’m leavin’ with you; mebbe his life—but sartain shore his reason. I won’t be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain’t ye?”
“I’ll do the best I can, Uncle Jep,” said Judith with unexpected mildness. “An’ ef Huldy ’s here——”
“My Lord!” broke in Jephthah. “Why don’t ye go to Iley an’ set yo’ mind at rest about Huldy?”
“Hit is at rest,” returned Judith darkly. “When Creed come here, Iley was at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence that day he named Huldy visitin’ him Iley ain’t been a-nigh the place.”
The old man heaved a heavy sigh.
“Well, ye say ye’ll do yo’ best? Hit’s apt to be a good best, Jude. In two days, ef I live, I’ll be back here, an’ I’ll bring he’p.”