CHAPTER X
IN WHICH CASSANDRA AND DAVID VISIT THE HOME OF DECATUR IRWIN
Soon the way became steep and difficult and the path so narrow they were forced to go single file. Then Cassandra led and David followed. They passed no dwellings, and even the little home to which they were going was lost to view. He wondered if she were not weary, remembering that she had been over the distance twice before that day, and begged her, as he had done when they set out, to allow him to carry the basket, but still she would not.
"I never think of it. I often carry things this way.—We have to here in the mountains." She glanced back at him and smiled. "I reckon you find it hard because you are not used to living like we do; we're soon there now, see yonder?"
A turn in the path brought them in sight of the cabin, set in its bare, desolate patch of red soil. About the door swarmed unkempt children of all sizes, as bees hang out of an over-filled hive, the largest not more than twelve years old, and the youngest carried on the mother's arm. It was David's first visit to one of the poorest of the mountain homes, and he surveyed the scene before him with dismay.
Below the house was a spring, and there, suspended from the long-reaching branch of a huge beech tree, now leafless and bare, a great, black iron pot swung by a chain over a fire built on the ground among a heap of stones. On a board at one side lay wet, gray garments, twisted in knots as they had been wrung out of the soapy water. The woman had been washing, and the vapor was rising from the black pot of boiling suds, but, seeing their approach, she had gone to her door, her babe on her arm and the other children trooping at her heels and clinging to her skirts. They peered up from under frowzy, overhanging locks of hair like a group of ragged, bedraggled Scotch terriers.
The mother herself seemed scarcely older than the oldest, and Thryng regarded her with amazement when he noticed her infantile, undeveloped face and learned that she had brought into the world all those who clustered about her. His amazement grew as he entered the dark little cabin and saw that they must all eat and sleep in its one small room, which they seemed to fill to overflowing as they crowded in after him, accompanied by three lean hounds, who sniffed suspiciously at his leggings.
Far in the darkest corner lay the father on a pallet of corn-husks covered with soiled bedclothing. The windows were mere holes in the walls, unglazed, unframed, and closed at night or in bad weather by wooden shutters, when the room was lighted only by the flames from the now black and empty fireplace. Here, while mother and children were out by "the branch" washing, the injured man lay alone, stoically patient, declaring that his "laig" was some better, that he did not feel "so much misery in hit as yesterday."
Thryng had seen much squalor and wretchedness, but never before in a home in the country where women and children were to be found. For a moment he looked helplessly at the silent, staring group, and at the man, who feebly tried to indicate to his wife the extending of some courtesy to the stranger.
"Set a cheer, Polly," he said weakly, offering his great hand. "You are right welcome, suh. Are you visitin' these parts?"
"This is the doctor I was telling you about, Cate,—Doctor Thryng. I begged him to come up and see could he do anything for you," said Cassandra. Then she urged the woman to go back to her work and take the children with her. "Doctor and I will look after your old man awhile." She succeeded in clearing the place of all but one lean hound, who continued to stand by his master and lick his hand, whining presciently, and one or two of the children, who lingered around the door to peer in curiously at the doctor.
A shutter near the bed was tightly closed and, in struggling to open it, Cassandra discovered it was broken at the hinges and had been nailed in place. David flew to her assistance and, wrenching out the nails, tore it free, letting in a flood of light upon the wretchedness around them. Then he turned his attention to the patient, a man of powerful frame, but lean almost to emaciation, who watched the young physician's face silently with widely opened blue eyes, their pale color intensified by the surrounding shock of matted, curling, vividly red hair and beard.
It required but a few moments to ascertain that the man's condition was indeed critical. Cassandra had gone out and now returned with her hands full of dry pine sticks. Bending on one knee before the empty fireplace, she arranged them and hung a kettle over them full of fresh water. David turned and watched her light the fire.
"Good. We shall need hot water immediately. How long since you have eaten?" he asked the man.
"He hain't eat nothing all day," said the wife, who had returned and again stood in the door with all her flock, gazing at him. Then the woman grew plaintively garrulous about the trouble she had had "doin' fer him," and begged David to tell her "could he he'p 'im." At last Thryng put a hurried end to her talk by saying he could do nothing—nothing at all for her old man, unless she took herself and the children all away. She looked terror-stricken, and her mouth drew together in a stubborn, resentful line as if in some way he had precipitated ill luck upon them by his coming. Cassandra at once took her basket and walked out toward the stream, and they all followed, leaving David and the father in sole possession of the place.
Then he turned to the bed and began a kindly explanation. He found the man more intelligent and much more tractable than the woman, but it was hard to make him believe that he must inevitably lose either his life or his foot, and that they had not an hour—not a half hour—to spare, but must decide at once. David's manner, gentle, but firmly urgent, at last succeeded. The big man broke down and wept weakly, but yielded; only he stipulated that his wife must not be told.
"No, no! She and the children must be kept away; but I need help. Is there no one—no man whom we can get to come here quickly?"
"They is nobody—naw—I reckon not."
David was distressed, but he searched about until he found an old battered pail in which to prepare his antiseptic, and busied himself in replenishing the fire and boiling the water; all the time his every move was watched by the hound and the pathetic blue eyes of his master.
Soon Cassandra returned, to David's great relief, alone. She smiled as she looked in his face, and spoke quietly: "I told her to take the children and gather dock and mullein leaves and such like to make tea for her old man, and if she'd stay awhile, I'd look after him and have supper for them when they got back. Is there anything I can do now?"
David was troubled indeed, but what could he do? He explained his need of her quickly, in low tones, outside the door. "I believe you are strong and brave and can do it as well as a man, but I hate to ask it of you. There is not time to wait. It must be done to-day, now."
"I'll help you," she said simply, and walked into the hut. She had become deadly pale, and he followed her and placed his fingers on her pulse, holding her hand and looking down in her eyes.
"You trust me?" he asked.
"Oh, yes. I must."
"Yes—you must—dear child. You are all right. Don't be troubled, but just think we are trying to save his life. Look at me now, and take in all I say."
Then he placed her with her back to his work, taught her how to count the man's pulse and to give the ether; but the patient demurred. He would not take it.
"Naw, I kin stand hit. Go ahead, Doctor."
"See here, Cate Irwin. You are bound to do as Doctor Thryng says or die," she said, bending over him. "Take this, and I'll sit by you every minute and never take my hand off yours. Stop tossing. There!" He obeyed her, and she sat rigidly still and waited.
The moments passed in absolute silence. Her heart pounded in her breast and she grew cold, but never took her eyes from the still, deathlike face before her. In her heart she was praying—praying to be strong enough to endure the horror of it—not to faint nor fall—until at last it seemed to her that she had turned to stone in her place; but all the time she could feel the faintly beating pulse beneath her fingers, and kept repeating David's words: "We are trying to save his life—we are trying to save his life."
David finished. Moving rapidly about, he washed, covered, and carried away, and set all in order so that nothing betrayed his grewsome task. Then he came to her and took both her cold hands in his warm ones and led her to the door. She swayed and walked weakly. He supported her with his arm and, once out in the sweet air, she quickly recovered. He praised her warmly, eagerly, taking her hands in his, and for the first time, as the faint rose crept into her cheeks, he felt her to be moved by his words; but she only smiled as she drew her hands away and turned toward the house.
"They'll be back directly, and I promised to have something for them to eat."
"Then I'll help you, for our man is coming out all right now, and I feel—if he can have any kind of care—he will live."
The sky had become overcast with heavy clouds and the wind had risen, blowing cold from the north. David replaced the shutter he had torn off and mended the fire with fuel he found scattered about the yard; while Cassandra swept and set the place in order and the resuscitated patient looked about a room neater and more homelike than he had ever slept in before. Cassandra searched out a few articles with which to prepare a meal—the usual food of the mountain poor—salt pork, and corn-meal mixed with water and salt and baked in the ashes. David watched her as she moved about the dark cabin, lighted only by the fitful flames of the fireplace, to perform those gracious, homely tasks, and would have helped her, but he could not.
At last the woman and her brood came streaming in, and Cassandra and the doctor were glad to escape into the outer air. He tried to make the mother understand his directions as to the care of her husband, but her passive "Yas, suh" did not reassure him that his wishes would be carried out, and his hopes for the man's recovery grew less as he realized the conditions of the home. After riding a short distance, he turned to Cassandra.
"Won't you go back and make her understand that he is to be left absolutely alone? Scare her into making the children keep away from his bed, and not climb into it. You made him do as I wished, with only a word, and maybe you can do something with her. I can't."
She turned back, and David watched her at the door talking with the woman, who came out to her and handed her a bundle of something tied in a meal sack. He wondered what it might be, and Cassandra explained.
"These are the yarbs I sent her and the children aftah. I didn't know how to rid the cabin of them without I sent for something, and now I don't know what to do with these. We—we're obliged to use them some way." She hesitated—"I reckon I didn't do right telling her that—do you guess? I had to make out like you needed them and had sent back for them; it—it wouldn't do to mad her—not one of her sort." Her head drooped with shame and she added pleadingly, "Mother has used these plants for making tea for sick folks—but—"
He rode to her side and lifted the unwieldy load to his own horse, "Be ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove," he said, laughing.
"How do you mean?"
"You were wise. You did right where I would only have done harm and been brutal. Can't you see these have already served their purpose?"
"I don't understand."
"You told her to get them because you wished to make her think she was doing something for her husband, didn't you? And you couldn't say to her that she would help most by taking herself out of the way, could you? She could not understand, and so they have served their purpose as a means of getting her quietly and harmlessly away so we could properly do our work."
"But I didn't say so—not rightly; I made her think—"
"Never mind what you said or made her think. You did right, God knows. We are all made to work out good—often when we think erroneously, just as you made her uncomprehendingly do what she ought. If ever she grows wise enough to understand, well and good; if not, no harm is done."
Cassandra listened, but doubtingly. At last she stopped her horse. "If you can't use them, I feel like I ought to go back and explain," she said. Her face gleamed whitely out of the gathering dusk, and he saw her shiver in the cold and bitter wind. He was more warmly dressed than she, and still he felt it cut through him icily.
"No. You shall not go back one step. It would be a useless waste of your time and strength. Later, if you still feel that you must, you can explain. Come."
She yielded, touched her horse lightly with her whip, and they hurried on. The night was rapidly closing in, the thick, dark shadows creeping up from the gorges below as they climbed the rugged steep they had descended three hours earlier. They picked their way in silence, she ahead, and he following closely. He wondered what might be her thoughts, and if she had inherited, along with much else that he could perceive, the Puritan conscience which had possibly driven some ancestor here to live undisturbed of his precious scruples.
When they emerged at last on the level ridge where she had so joyously laughed out, Thryng hurried forward and again rode at her side. She sat wearily now, holding the reins with chilled hands. Had she forgotten the happy moment? He had not. The wind blew more shrewdly past them, and a few drops of rain, large and icy cold, struck their faces.
"Put these on your hands, please," he begged, pulling off his thick gloves; but she would not.
He reached for the bridle of her horse and drew him nearer, then caught her cold hands and began chafing them, first one and then the other. Then he slipped the warm gloves over them. "Wear them a little while to please me," he urged. "You have no coat, and mine is thick and warm."
Suddenly he became aware that she was and had been silently weeping, and he was filled with anxiety for her, so brave she had been, so tired she must be—worn out—poor little heart!
"Are you so tired?" he asked.
"Oh, no, no."
"Won't you tell me what troubles you? Let me put this over your shoulders to keep off the rain."
"Oh, no, no!" she cried, as he began to remove his coat. "You need it a heap more than I. You have been sick, and I am well."
"Please wear it. I will walk a little to keep warm."
"Oh! I can't. I'm not cold, Doctor Thryng. It isn't that."
He became imperative through anxiety. "Then tell me what it is," he said.
"I can't stop thinking of Decatur Irwin. I can feel you working there yet, and seems like I never will forget. I keep going over it and over it and can't stop. Doctor, are you sure—sure—it was right for us to do what we did?"
"Poor child! It was terrible for you, and you were fine, you know—fine; you are a heroine—you are—"
"I don't care for me. It isn't me. Was it right, Doctor? Was there no other way?" she wailed.
"As far as human knowledge goes, there was no other way. Listen, Miss Cassandra, I have been where such accidents were frequent. Many a man's leg have I taken off. Surgery is my work in life—don't be horrified. I chose it because I wished to be a saver of life and a helper of my fellows." She was shivering more from the nervous reaction than from the cold, and to David it seemed as if she were trying to draw farther away from him.
"Don't shrink from me. There are so many in the world to kill and wound, some there must be to mend where it is possible. I saw in a moment that your intuition had led you rightly, and soon I knew what must be done; I only hope we were not too late. Don't cry, Miss Cassandra. It makes me feel such a brute to have put you through it."
"No, no. You were right kind and good. I'm only crying now because I can't stop."
"There, there, child! We'll ride a little faster. I must get you home and do something for you." He spoke out of the tenderness of his heart toward her.
But soon they were again descending, and the horses, careful for their own safety if not for their riders', continued slowly and stumblingly to pick their footing in the darkness. Now the rain began to beat more fiercely, and before they reached the Fall Place they were wet to the skin.
David feared neither the wetting nor the cold for himself; only for her in her utter weariness was he anxious. She would help him stable the horses and led away one while he led the other, but once in the house he took matters in his own hands peremptorily. He rebuilt the fire and himself removed her wet garments and her shoes. She was too exhausted to resist. Following the old mother's directions, he found woollen blankets and, wrapping her about, he took her up like a baby and laid her on her bed. Then he brewed her a hot milk punch and made her take it.
"You need this more than I, Doctah. If you'll just take some yourself, as soon as I can I'll make your bed in the loom shed again, and—"
"Drink it; drink it and go to sleep. Yes, yes. I'll have some, too."
"Cass, you lie still and do as doctah says. You nigh about dade, child. If only I could get off'n this bed an' walk a leetle, I'd 'a' had your place all ready fer ye, Doctah. The' is a featheh bade up garret, if ye could tote hit down an' drap on the floor here fer—"
David laughed cheerily. "Why, this is nothing for me." He stood turning himself about to dry his clothing on all sides before the blaze. "As soon as Miss Cassandra closes her eyes and sleeps, I will look after myself. It's a shame to bring all these wet things in here, I say!"
"You are a-steamin' like you are a steam engine," piped little Hoyle, peering at him over his mother's shoulder from the far corner of her bed.
"You lie down and go to sleep again, youngster," said David.
And gradually they all fell asleep, while Thryng sat long before the fire and pondered until Cassandra slept. Once and again a deep quivering sigh trembled through her parted lips, as he watched beside her. A warm rose hue played over her still features, cast by the dancing red flames, and her hair in a dishevelled mass swept across the pillow and down to the floor. At last the rain ceased; warmed and dried, Thryng stole away from the silent house and rode back to his own cabin.