DOLLY’S LAST NIGHT.
BY EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER.
THE clock in the warm, bright kitchen was striking nine; not nine in the morning, but nine in the evening, which is a very different thing, as the old clock seemed to know, for it counted off the chime with a soft, sleepy roll, as if bent upon making the least possible disturbance.
Dolly put the cookies into the deep tin box that had held thousands of such dainties in its day, set the lid a-tilt upon the edge, gave a glance of satisfaction at the great loaves peeping out from the white cloth that covered them, the row of pies on the shelf below, and the plump chickens trussed up sociably on the platter, and then came out from the pantry, and shut the door upon the savory smells. Dolly was not a beauty, but she had a clear, fresh face, and was full of health and vigor and content. She was a model housekeeper, too, as the old clock could have testified, and this was the first time it had been called upon to countenance such irregular doings as the turning of night into day. But this was the night before Thanksgiving, and when one is cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, and mistress of the manse, she certainly has a right to regulate her own days in spite of the almanac-man.
Yes, and nurse besides; for on the lounge lay Dolly’s mother, not exactly sick, but weak from a long fever that had left her ankles so swollen and painful that she could not walk a step without assistance. Bess and Johnny had been away through it all, but now their father had gone for them, and early in the morning they would reach home,—the pleasant prairie home, with its broad, boundless fields, from which they expected some day to reap a fortune.
The lounge was in the kitchen, for the Marshalls cared a great deal more for comfort than ceremony, and Dolly’s kitchen, with its clean yellow floor, bright rugs, white table, and window full of growing plants, was a famous place for comfort.
“I hope you are through at last,” said Mrs. Marshall, looking up sleepily at Dolly.
“All but the candy, and that’ll not take long,” said Dolly cheerily.
“For pity’s sake, do let the candy go; the children are just as well off without it.”
“Oh, but I promised Johnny I’d have some for him, and it wouldn’t seem like Thanksgiving without it. The nuts are all cracked, and I’ll sit here and pick out the goodies while the molasses boils,” and Dolly whisked out the clean iron skillet, and poured the molasses in so quickly her mother could only say: “You’ll kill yourself working so hard, and what good do you think that will do the children?”
“Choog! choog!” said the molasses in its hurry to get out of the jug, and Dolly smiled as she coaxed it to make less haste and more speed.
“I’m tough as a pine knot,” she said, merrily; “but if I were really going to die I should like to have the children say, ‘She always tried to help us have good times, and the very last night she was here she made us some candy.’”
There was a foolish little moisture in Dolly’s eyes as she dropped into the low-cushioned chair, the same old creaky chair in which her mother had rocked her when she was a baby, and in which she herself had rocked Bess and Johnny scores of times. She was very tired, now that she came to sit down and think about it, and her little speech wakened a sort of pathetic pity for herself. She even began to fancy what they would all do without her, but just at that point the molasses made a sudden rush for the top of the skillet, and put an end to her musing.
Mrs. Marshall roused up a little also.
“It seems so strange to have Thanksgiving come without a flake of snow! Joel says it is as dry as midsummer, too. I never feel easy about the stacks until there’s a good fall of snow.”
“Joel is very careful,” suggested Dolly, “and father plowed a good strip around the stacks before he went away.”
“Yes, I know. But what good would a few furrows do against a prairie fire such a time as this?”
“Then we’ll hope the Lord’ll not let a fire start in such a time as this,” and Dolly seized her boiling syrup at the precise moment of crispiness, poured it over the plump white kernels spread thickly in the shallow pans, and set the whole to cool in the back kitchen.
When everything was tidy, and Dolly was ready to help her mother to bed, the old clock ventured to remark, in the same soft purr as before, that it only lacked two hours to midnight; to which Dolly smilingly answered that Thanksgiving only came once a year.
“How the colts stamp,” said Dolly. “I wonder if Joel could have forgotten to water them before he went home.”
“Joel ought not to have gone home,” said her mother. “It isn’t right for two lone women to be left with no neighbors within a mile. Are you sure the fire is all right, Dolly? seems to me there’s a smoky smell in here.”
“It’s the molasses, I dropped a little on the stove; but I’ll go out and see that all is right after you are in bed, and then we shall both feel better.”
Dolly went without her lamp, and as she passed the hall window she caught sight of a dull red glow, down against the dark horizon. In another instant she stood outside, her rosy color all blanched at sight of the fire sweeping down the prairie on those swift, terrible wings of the west wind. For an instant she was dizzy and confused with terror at the thought of her utter helplessness, then, as if a voice had repeated it to her, she recalled the verse she had read that morning, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee,” and, with a silent prayer for help, she went back to her mother.
“The prairie is on fire,” she said, trying to speak quietly.
Her mother sprang from the bed, and sank down, almost fainting, from pain.
“O Dolly!” she gasped, “we shall die here all alone.”
“I’ll make a good fight, first,” said Dolly, bravely. “I must go and do what I can, and you must wait here and pray. Only perhaps you had better get your clothes on again, in case of the worst.”
Dolly threw some heavy shawls upon the bed, placed her mother’s clothes within reach, hugged her once, and rushed away. In two minutes more she had put on Joel’s boots, tied up her curly head in an old comforter, and buttoned herself into her father’s coat. She was ready to fight fire, and she knew just how to do it. But first the colts must be taken from the low thatched stable that would be sure to blaze at the first spark. Already they were growing restless with the strong smell of smoke, and that strange intuition of danger which horses seem to possess. Dolly had some difficulty in leading them out, and then she hardly knew what to do with them, for she knew well enough they would go scouring off when the fire came near. She was a quick-witted little woman, however, and she soon had the colts in the back kitchen, tied fast to the old carpet loom. Then she filled the tubs and pails with water, and set them along the line of the buildings, cut some heavy branches of hemlock, and brought out the horse-blankets and dipped them in water.
The house, behind its clump of evergreens, might possibly escape, but there seemed little chance for the low barn, the granary, and the immense stacks of hay, yet in them lay their hopes for a year, and Dolly determined not to give them up without a desperate struggle. She scarcely dared look at the fire, but she saw once how a brighter light leaped up as the flames caught a barn or a stack of hay in the distance. As rapidly as possible she broadened the circle about the line of buildings, lighting the thick grass with one hand, and dashing out the flame with the other, when it threatened to go beyond her control. She felt almost guilty as she saw the blaze she had kindled go sweeping away towards the east, carrying the same terror to others which was rapidly coming down upon her, but it was her only chance of escape, and there was not another house between them and the river. She worked on in desperation as the air grew thick with smoke, and at last she could hear the roar and crackle when the flames swept the great corn-field, fairly leaping along the rows of dry stalks. It was almost upon her, and she ran back within her burned circle, and waited for doom.
Her hands were blistered, her eye-lashes were burned off, but she did not know it. She only watched, with every nerve tense and throbbing, to see if the fire would leap the line. It died down a little in spots, crept sullenly along the edge, as if loth to go by, flamed up here and there at a bunch of tall weeds, then, with a sudden puff, the wind lodged a whirling handful of cinders at the foot of the great straw stack!
Dolly sprang at it like a tiger, tearing away the burning straw, and striking right and left with the wet blanket. Then a little blaze crept under the fence, and she beat the life out of it in a breath. Another whirl of cinders upon the roof of the stable, but they fell black and harmless. Then another blaze running along the edge of the shed, but the water was ready for it; and Dolly, with eyes everywhere, ran, and beat, and trampled, until at last the fire veered away to the south, and left the little homestead safe in the midst of a blackened waste.
Dolly walked back and forth, around the stacks and the buildings, whipping out the smallest sparks, and then turned towards the house in a stupor of exhaustion. She wanted to lie right down on the warm ground by the side of the straw pile, and go to sleep, but she had enough sense left to reach the house, and make her way to her mother’s room.
“We’re all right, mother,” she said in a husky voice, “the fire has gone by;” and dropping upon the bed, smoke, dirt, boots, and all, she sank into a heavy sleep. Her mother tried in vain to rouse her, so she dragged the shawls over her, and watched anxiously for morning. But as the gray light began to reveal Dolly’s face, she was terrified at its ghastly whiteness, intensified by the soot and smoke which begrimed it. She tried again to rouse her, but Dolly lay in a stupor, and she could only clasp her hands and pray for help. She crept painfully from the bed, and was trying to drag herself to the door, when Joel rode up on horseback, with his wife behind him. She was a stout, red-cheeked young woman, and, springing off without waiting for help, ran to the back kitchen, where there were sounds of some one stirring.
“Miss Dolly splittin’ kindlin’s, I’ll be bound! Joel’s jest that shiftless not to think on’t. My gracious Peter!” she exclaimed, as she suddenly opened the door, and found herself confronted by one of the colts.
She left Joel to settle matters with the colts, and made her way to Mrs. Marshall and Dolly, carrying the poor lady back to bed in her strong arms, as if she had been a baby.
“Don’t you worry about Dolly, ma’am,” she said, confidently, “she’ll sleep it off, and come out all right, and I’ll just take off my things and do for you. I can stop as well as not; our house was burned up, and we just managed to save ourselves, so you see I ain’t got a smitch o’ work to do for myself.”
“Your house burned! Oh, Sarah, how hard that is for you and Joel,” said Mrs. Marshall.
“Yes’m, it’s a kind of a pity, and I’d got the nicest kind of a chicken pie ready for Thanksgivin’. We never see the fire till it was jest ketchin’ holt of us, and then we got on the colt and raced it down the gully to Dickerman’s pond ahead of the fire. We just made a go of it, and set there till mornin’. Says I, ‘Joel, it’s Thanksgivin’ day; be ye right down thankful?’ And Joel he looked at me and says, kind o’ solemn like, ‘Yes, I be!’ And so be I, ’cause we might ’a been burned in our bed, leastways I might, if Dolly hadn’t been so considerin’ as to let Joel come home.”
Sarah had been all the time tugging at Dolly, pulling off boots and coat, and undoing her scorched hair. She bathed her face and hands, and lifted her upon the pillow, but Mrs. Marshall’s terror only increased at seeing Dolly remain perfectly passive, never opening her eyes, and allowing Sarah to lift her as if she were dead. Hour after hour she slept on, only when Sarah raised her on her vigorous arm, and fed her with chicken broth, forcing it patiently into the closed mouth, until at last a little color crept into the pallid face, and the sleep was not so death-like. But even at nine o’clock, when the travelers arrived, Dolly gave them a doubtful recognition. She smiled faintly at the children’s kisses, stared for an instant at her father’s anxious face, and then went on dozing and muttering. Bess stole in and out on tiptoe, the tears dropping down on her pet kitten, and Johnny blundered about with his mouth full of delicious candy his very heart dissolving with grief and gratitude.
Dolly talked about the candy, and Johnny was impressed with the idea that she wanted some, and actually made an attempt to administer a small chunk, but he was not very successful, and Dolly kept on muttering: “The very last night she was here she made them some candy; the very last night; the very last night; but they couldn’t find it; they never could find it; the fire came and burnt them all up; the very last night; the—very—last—night.”
If there had been a doctor at hand, Sarah would have given up her patient to a course of brain fever, with proper deference; but as there was none within twenty miles she was compelled to persevere with her sensible applications of water, friction, and chicken broth, and in a couple of days she had the satisfaction of seeing Dolly laugh in quite a natural fashion at Joel’s story of the gray colt, which was taken from the kitchen with one foot firmly bedded in a pan of molasses candy.
“’Twasn’t all stepped on,” said Johnny, “and I saved you a chunk. I’m awful glad you made it, ’cause nobody ’tended to Thanksgiving very much.”
“I’m glad I made it,” said Dolly, “for I should not have seen the fire in time if I had gone to bed earlier. I remember something foolish about its being my last night,” and Dolly smiled doubtfully at her mother, not feeling quite sure what she had said, and what she had only thought.
“It was not foolish at all, dear,” said her mother, kissing the scorched fingers. “Nothing better could be said of any life, than that it was a sacrifice for others.”
“Shet yer eyes, Dolly, and never mind about yer last days,” said Sarah, decidedly; “you won’t see ’em this fifty year, if things is managed anyway reasonable.”
