CHAPTER XVII
Jap threw his pencil impatiently on the desk.
"I can't get my thoughts running clear this morning," he said abruptly. "Every time I try to write, the pale face of little J. W. comes between me and the page."
"They're back from the city," Bill said uneasily. "I saw them coming from the train. I fully meant to tell you, Jap."
"I hope the specialist has quieted Flossy's fears." Jap ran his fingers through his loose red locks. "The boy is growing too fast. Why, look at the way he has shot up in the last year. Ellis told me that he ran up like a bean pole, the way I did, and just as thin. J. W. is exactly like him."
"And Ellis died at forty——"
"Don't, Bill," Jap choked. "I can't bear it." He walked to the door and gazed out into the hazy silver autumn air.
"This weather is like wine," he declared. "It will set the boy up, fine as a fiddle. You must remember, Bill, that Ellis impoverished his system by the life of hardship he was forced to endure while the town was growing. The things he used to tell were humorous enough, the droll way he had of telling them. But they break our hearts when we think of them now, and know that it was that privation that killed him. It was bad enough here when I was a youngster, and that was luxury to what he had had. J. W. has not had such a handicap. Of course he was a delicate baby, but he certainly outgrew all that."
Bill was discreetly silent. He knew that Jap was only arguing with his fears. In the early summer, J. W. had been acutely ill, and as the heat progressed, he languished with headache and fever. In the end, Dr. Hall had counselled taking him to a noted specialist in the city.
"Better take a run up to Flossy's," Bill suggested. "You'll be better satisfied."
Jap took a copy of the Herald from the table and went out. All the way along Spring street he strove with his anxiety. Flossy met him on the porch. One glance was enough for Jap. He sat down, helpless, on the lower step.
"J. W. is tired out and asleep," said Flossy softly. "Come with me, Jap, down to the arbor. You remember the day that Ellis told you the truth about himself?"
Jap followed her beneath the grape trellis, stumbling clumsily. When they reached the arbor, with its bench and rustic table, she faced him, slender to attenuation.
"Jap," she said brokenly, "J. W. has tuberculosis in the worst form. His entire body is filled with it. He contracted it while we were with Ellis—and we never knew, never suspected——" Her voice broke. "Not even a miracle can prolong his life longer than spring. The doctors insisted on examining me, too. They say I have it, in incipiency, and my only chance of escape is to leave my boy to the care of others. Under the right conditions they say I have a fighting chance."
"You are sure that you have every advice?" Jap's voice was so hoarse that she looked up at him in alarm.
"Yes, Jap, but I knew it before. Months ago, even before he was so sick in the summer, I had a dream, and this was my dream: Ellis, with that beautiful smile that every one loved, was waiting out there at the gate, and I was hurrying to get the boy ready to go with him. I knew, when I awoke, that he was ready to wait our boy's coming. Oh, Jap, do you think that smile was for me, too?"
The look of agony in Jap's sensitive face was more than she could bear. She clutched his arm.
"Oh, Jap, pray—help me to pray that he was waiting for me, too. The time has been so long. I want to be with my boy to the last. You understand, Jap. I don't believe that words are needed."
He put his arms around her. He could not speak, but his head bent above hers and the hot tears dropped upon her brown hair, now streaked with gray.
"I have done the work he wanted me to do," she sobbed. "He wanted me to be a mother until you were on the plane he had planned. Like the butterfly whose day is done, Jap, I would go. I am so tired, and—boy, I have never ceased to long for Ellis. The world could not supply another soul like his."
"Flossy," Jap said in smothered tones, "I know. I have walked the floor for hours, missing him until I was almost frantic. But, little Mother, what is left to me if you go? Without you, I am drifting again."
"I would fear that, if I had never seen into the deeps of Isabel's nature. And to think that I once decried—but I didn't understand, Jap. When your mother came, there was a revelation. I don't fear for your future now. And when I knew this, I suddenly felt tired and old. I pray not to survive my boy."
The following morning brought the first fall rain. And then, for endless weeks, the leaden sky drooped over the world. Dreary depression and the penetrating chill of approaching winter filled the air. Only the unwonted pressure of work kept the boys from brooding over the inevitable that would come with the spring-time. To relieve Flossy of all unnecessary burdens, Jap and Bill went to the hotel for their meals, but every evening one or the other went to sit with her. At length there came a time, late in November, when the office work was more than both of them could handle, and for several days the visits were interrupted.
"Flossy is sick," announced Bill, hanging his dripping raincoat behind the door. "I saw Pap just now, and he told me. He and his wife were there all night. He says that J. W. has been so bad off for a week, has had such bad spells at night, that Flossy has hardly slept, and yesterday she broke down and sent for Pap. He took Doc Hall along, and they are afraid she has pneumonia."
Jap threw his paper aside.
"Why didn't we know that J. W. was worse?" he demanded. "I sent some one to inquire every morning while we had the big rush on, and Flossy said that they were all right. I thought that she was going to take him to the mountains."
"I guess that she didn't know how sick he was," commented Bill. "Pap was to haul the trunks to-morrow, as Flossy told us. She wanted to start on Sunday so that you and I could go as far as Cliffton with her. She knew we were working overtime to get things cleaned up."
Jap put on his raincoat, for it was pouring a deluge.
"I will not be back if Flossy needs me," he said.
For three days and nights he hovered over the two sick-beds, while the wind soughed mournfully around the cottage, and the rain dripped, dripped, dripped, like tears against the wall outside. Neighbors and friends volunteered their services. Bill and Isabel came as often as was possible; but when all the others had gone, Jap kept his solemn vigil alone. On the afternoon of the fourth day, there was a sudden turn for the worse. Dr. Hall was hastily summoned. And then, all at once, without any seeming warning, it happened.
The last gasping breath faded from the body of Ellis's child, and as Jap leaned over to close the wide, staring eyes, he could hear the rasping breaths that rent Flossy's bosom, as she lay unconscious in the next room.
"With God's help we may pull her through," whispered Isabel, twining her arms around his neck. He turned stony eyes of grief upon her.
"If God helps, He will let her go with J. W. to meet Ellis," he said in a voice strained to breaking.
He drew the girl from the chamber of death, and sat down beside Flossy's bed. He caught one fluttering, fever-burned hand in his, and the restless muttering ceased. Then the eyes opened. They seemed to be looking not at Jap but above him.
"Ellis!" she cried, and slept.
"When she awakes, she will be better or——" Dr. Hall broke off, and went over to the window. "It's the crisis," he finished huskily.
Flossy, in her quiet, optimistic bravery, had made her place in the hearts of her townspeople. Isabel knelt beside her, watching Jap's face, with its unnatural calm, fearfully. She dared not speak. Bill stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, his cap twirling uncertainly in his hand. His eyes shifted uneasily from the thin, white face on the pillow to the frozen features of Jap. A clock ticked loudly.
The thick gloom broke. A tiny linnet that Jap had given Flossy fluttered to the swing in its cage and burst, all at once, into song, and a vagrant sunbeam darted through the western clouds. Flossy opened her eyes.
"Jap," she gasped painfully, "is this the thing called Death, this uplift of joy?"
The doctor raised her in his arms and gave her a few sips of medicine. She was easier. She motioned Jap to bend closer.
"Is he gone?" she asked clearly. "Is my boy with his father?"
Jap kissed her forehead gently.
"He is with Ellis," he whispered.
"Then I thank You, great Giver of all Good," she cried happily, "for I can go now." She summoned Bill with her eyes.
"I want you to make the boy very proud of the men he was named for," she smiled. It was a smile of heavenly beauty, as the pure soul of Ellis Hinton's wife flew to join her loved ones.