“Don’t Bonbright know folks? Cain’t a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen his head?” demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.
“He knew some of us a while ago,” admitted Judith, “but mostly he doesn’t notice nothing—jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we mustn’t let him be talked to nor werried.”
The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.
Judith followed her out.
“What’s the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed Bonbright—what you cryin’ about?” she asked.
“Hit’s—Huldy,” choked the sister. “I reckon you thort I talked mighty big about the business the last time you an’ me had speech consarnin’ hit; but the facts air that I don’t know a thing about whar she’s at, nor how she’s doin’. Judy, ef yo’ a-goin’ to take keer o’ the man, cain’t ye please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an’—an’ is they wedded?”
Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question as soon as she dared.
The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well, whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed, and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep, only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.
“Ain’t no use wearin’ yourself out thataway,” her uncle used to say kindly. “That won’t do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord I had Nancy here to he’p me!”
For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy’s value in sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine—Would she be at the draw-bars ’long about sundown? He had something to tell her.