“Sick,” murmured a woman’s voice. “So sick!”
At the sound of utter weariness and pain, Betty’s fear left her and all the tenderness and passionate desire for service that had made her such a wonderful little “hand” with ill and fretful babies in her old home at Pineville came to take its place.
“I’ll have to put the shades up,” she explained, stepping lightly to the windows and pulling up the green shades. “Then I can see to make you more comfortable.”
She spoke clearly and yet not loudly, knowing that a sick person hates whispering.
The afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, revealing a clean though most sparsely furnished bedroom. A rag rug on the floor, two chairs, a washstand and mirror and the bed were the only articles of furniture.
Betty, after one swift glance, turned toward the occupant of the bed. She saw a woman apparently about sixty years old, with mild blue eyes, now glazed by fever, and tangled gray hair. As Betty watched her a terrible fit of coughing shook her.
“You must have a doctor!” said Betty decidedly, wondering what there was about the woman that seemed familiar. “How long have you been like this? Have you been alone? How hard it must have been for you!”
She put out her hand to smooth the bedclothes, and the sick woman grasped it, her own hot with fever, till Betty almost cried out.
“The stock!” she gasped. “I took ’em water till I couldn’t get out of bed. How long ago was that? They will die tied up!”
“I fed and watered them,” Betty soothed her. “They’re all right. Don’t worry another minute. I’ll make you tidy and get you something to eat and then I’m going for a doctor.”