CHAPTER XIII
THE SHADED SIDE
I was having a happy girl's life with friends and pleasures. Nanette Piaget had a lover, a young French Canadian, who became enamored of prairies, and saw boundless possibilities in wheat. He had some money and would settle in Chicago.
One day father was brought home from a bad fall, unconscious; they feared at first that he was dead. I was stunned. Mrs. Piaget came over and one of our neighbors, Mrs. Lewis.
They found his hip was badly broken. Three physicians worked over him, and after some hours he was bandaged. One doctor remained all night, and Mrs. Lewis stayed. She did a good deal of nursing, and made her home with a married daughter.
Fever set in, and there followed six weeks of danger. I don't know what would have happened, but Dan Hayne took charge of the outside matters. The wheat had been cut and was to be brought in, a splendid crop it was.
"Everything grows its best for your father," he said. "This is the first setback he has had."
Everybody was very kind. But I had never known sorrow or anxiety, and the saddest of all was not to do anything that would help. He had to lie still and suffer. In the height of the fever he was strapped to the cot, to keep him from doing any worse injury to his hip. Mrs. Hayne coaxed me to come down and stay a few days, but I had an awful fear that father would die. Or he might come to consciousness and ask for me. Now and then he talked of our journey from the old Bay State, and murmured, "Little girl, little girl," but he did not realize that the little girl was at his side whenever she was allowed to be.
There were a few days when he hovered between life and death and dozed most of the time. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me and said in a tremulous tone, "Ruth."
"Father!" I caught his thin white hand and covered it with kisses and tears.
He drew a long breath. "I've been pretty sick, haven't I? How long has it been—a fortnight?"