AN UNEXPECTED PATIENT.
The good and beautiful girl, upon arriving at the stricken home, at once set herself to the heavy task she was called on to perform, with cheerful alacrity; but it was the worst case she had yet had. Indeed, it would have been utterly impossible for her to get through, but for the fact that there was an old negress employed by the family, and who, having had the fever last year, was not afraid of it.
Silver, odd as it may seem, was the name of this negress, and she proved herself to be quite as sterling as her name implied. She was also quite intelligent, and carried out all of Miss Arnold's directions to the letter.
Yet, for all this, one of the patients, a little girl of six years, died. Agnes was exceedingly pained to lose the little darling; but the wonder was that it lived and stood the attack of the fever as long as it did, for it had been already suffering several days before with an acute summer complaint.
The rest of the family all recovered, and Miss Arnold received their most grateful thanks. Truly they hardly knew what method to take to show her how grateful they really were. They were pretty well off in worldly matters, but their kind Angel Agnes was twice as wealthy as they, so that neither money nor anything which money could buy was of any use to her.
"I will tell you what you may do to express your gratitude for what little good I have, under the blessing of God, been able to render you. Help your poorer neighbors immediately around you here. There are scores and scores of families who are actually starving, as well as sick. Give them all the assistance you can. Rich people can take care of themselves, but the poor cannot."
This was faithfully promised, and, we may add, just as faithfully performed.
During the next ten days Agnes was kept continually busy, night and day, in her arduous and dangerous duties. But by strict adherence to her original design and method, she kept herself in perfect health and spirits, and in the midst of her labors and anxieties she found time to send daily messages to her mother.
On the succeeding Monday, while nursing a poor woman in the northern part of the city, a note was brought to her by the dead-wagon man—the same genius with whom Agnes had had the encounter.
"Missus Agonyess," said he, trying to pronounce her name correctly, as he remembered the correction—an effort which betrayed him into a double error—"I wuz asked to fetch this here letter to you. It wuz giv to me by a black feller who's a nussin' in the little hospital. A young man guv it to him last night, and promised to give him his gold watch ef he'd find you out and git it to yer."
"Hospital—young man—gold watch!" ejaculated Agnes in a disjointed way, as she took the letter.
A glance at the handwriting was sufficient, and her face grew deadly white as she opened and read:
"Agnes—Angel Agnes, I hear they call you—and they may well call you that—darling, I found out the trick by which we were estranged. I was foolish, I was wrong to treat you so. And when I learned you had come here into this pest-hole, I was crazy with anxiety for fear you would take the fever and die. I did not know how I did love you till then. God forgive me, guilty wretch that I am, for driving you to such a desperate piece of romance. I came here to tell you how sorry I was, and to ask you to take me bask to my old place in your heart. But now I am afraid it is too late. I have been hanging around the town a week or longer, trying to get in on some train. Not succeeding in my object this way, I have been obliged to walk in by night, concealing myself in the daytime, and walking forward again in the darkness. Thus I have eluded them, and got in. But so far I have been unable to find you, and now I fear it too late, for I am sick with the fever in the hospital.
"I have given myself up to die, for they are not especially kind or attentive to me, as they think I ought to have stayed away, and not come in and added to their labors, as they have more of their own sick than they can attend to.
"O Agnes, what I would give just to see you before I die, just to hear your voice! But this is a judgment upon me for the way I have treated you. Perhaps you are dead too. If so, then I shall meet you very soon in the other world. If you are not dead, and you get this letter, then, for the sake of the olden times, don't hold any malice toward me, but forgive me in my grave. I have given my watch and some money to the nurse here, to get him to give you this letter. I would like you, to buy it from him and send it, if possible, to mother, for it belonged to my father. Good by, Agnes, good-by. Meet me in heaven.
George."
The tears were running down the pale face of Miss Arnold, and the dead-wagon man was in a perfect fever of excitement, but he did not speak till she raised her eyes from the letter, when he spluttered out:
"Lor' bless you, Missus Agonyness, I hope there ain't no Yaller Jeck in that there letter. But you looks orful sick."
"I want to go to where you got this letter at once."
"All right, Missus Agonyness, I'll drive slower nor usual, and go back on my route, an' you ken foller the wagon. I'd let yer ride, but there aint room."
Next door there was a Sister of Mercy nursing, and Agnes asked her to look in at her patient till she could return herself, and then she set out for the hospital where George was lying sick.
Soon arriving there, she went immediately to the nurse and ordered him to give her the gold watch George had given him, which he did very quickly. Then she ordered the nurse to take her instantly to the bedside of the young man. This he did with reluctance, evidently because he was ashamed of the way in which the patient was being treated. Leading Agnes to the darkest end of a small room in which were a number of sick, he showed her George Harkness.
Poor fellow! in a sort of stupor, there he lay doubled up like a ball on the bare floor in a hot, close corner.
Agnes was enraged, but there was no time to waste in quarrelling or scolding.
"Bring that man this moment into the best room you have; put him into bed, and fetch the following things. I will stay and nurse him."
There was an imperiousness and determination about her tones that caused Agnes to be obeyed instantly, and in a few minutes Harkness was laid upon the bed. There was no prudish finicking about Agnes. Taking pen-knife from her pocket, she ripped the boots off George's feet, pulled off his socks, and in less than three minutes more was laving his feet and legs to the knees in hot mustard water.
Fully half an hour did she continue her exertions with the sick man before he recovered his senses sufficiently to recognize her. As he did so, he started up, and gazed a long time at her—like one in a dream.
"George, do you know me? I am Agnes," said she, in a very soft, but trembling voice.
He reached his hands along the bed-clothes to take hers, apparently to ascertain if she and he were still in the flesh, or were spirits of the other world. There was magic in the warm eager pressure of her hand, for instantly Harkness appeared to gain his full senses.
"Agnes! Agnes! have you found me? Thank God for this. I am so glad to see you before I die. It takes the thorn out of my pillow, and puts felicity into my heart to see you again. I know by this you have forgiven me."
"Hush, George, there's nothing to forgive. Do not talk, you are too sick. I have come to nurse you. And, with God's help, you shall soon be well again. With God's help—there, dear, you are all the world to me!"
There was an intensity of love in the whispered words that thrilled George's heart. Agnes's lips touched his ear as the last accents were breathed, so low that he alone could hear them.
"Thank you, O, my darling, my Angel. Twenty fevers shall not kill me now," said George, but in a very weak voice.
Brave heart, George! Loving heart, Agnes! But fate willed otherwise. You were to be united, but not then, not then; not until you both had crossed the mysterious river which has but one tide, and that ever flowing in at Eternity's gates, but never returning.
Hour after hour Agnes battled with the demon fever which was gnawing at the vitals of her beloved George. At intervals her care seemed to get the better of the disorder, and to cause it to loosen its grip. But, alas! after twenty-four hours of unceasing toil and anxiety, poor devoted Agnes was forced to endure the mental agony of seeing Harkness die. The last thing he did was to smile up in her yearning face, and try to thank her for all she had done for him. His voice was gone; but she knew what the slowly moving parched lips were saying for all that. Slipping her arms under his shoulders, Agnes bent down, and raising him up ever so gently, she pressed him to her bosom and kissed him. Even as she did so Harkness breathed his last. With a deep sigh, Agnes allowed the corpse to sink gradually down again upon the bed, composed the limbs, closed the eyes, and bound up the fallen jaw. These sad offices finished, her next care was to see that the body was properly interred in a separate grave by itself—a matter which was quite difficult of accomplishment. But she succeeded in having the burial so effected.
The death of Mr. Harkness under such circumstances was, of course, quite distressing to Agnes Arnold, and somehow or other she could not banish from her mind a presentiment of an additional calamity that was about to befall her. Yet her mind was perfectly at ease, so far as she herself was concerned.
Never at any moment could death surprise her; for, from early years, she had lived up to the admonition of our Saviour, "Be ye also ready."
Yet this gloom, that wrapped itself around her like an ominous pall, she could not penetrate, nor cast from her, no matter how strenuously she tried to do so. More devoted even than before, did she now become in her ministrations to the sick and suffering people of Shreveport.