“Thank you, yes; and I will rest too, for I also am tired,” he answered, submitting to be put into the chair as if he were a child, and then he sat leaning back with his eyes closed, and looking so frail that Bertha became suddenly anxious on his account; for this was just how he had looked that day when he was taken ill on the train.
“Oh, Bertha, what a comfort it is to have you back again!” cried Grace; and then she said anxiously, “But poor Eunice is in there with the children. I asked her to take them out of the way when Uncle Joe first began to speak, and I do not think that she heard anything about it. But she must be told. Can you tell her, dear?”
Bertha nodded, and, crossing the room, opened the bedroom door, where Eunice was doing her best to keep the children from making a forcible rush out upon the visitor who was talking to their mother.
“Dicky, there is a gentleman out in the barn trying to unhitch that black horse which Bill Humphries drives over here sometimes. I wish that you would go and help him. Take Molly with you, and ask the gentleman if he will unhitch the pair as well,” said Bertha, and, nothing loath, the two eldest dashed straight through the kitchen and out-of-doors without staying to bestow a single glance upon their mother or the frail old man who sat in the chair on the far side of the stove. They were followed by the twins and sturdy little Noll, so Bertha and Eunice were left alone.
“Bertha, what has that old man come to tell Mrs. Ellis? Is it anything about the Expedition?” asked Eunice, her face sharpened into anxious lines.
“Yes, there is news, and bad news, but Inspector Grant is sending reliable men to investigate, and it will be seven weeks, or perhaps two months, before we can know for certain,” said Bertha, coming to the point without any delay, because she realized that it was the kindest thing to do.
Eunice shivered and turned white, but she did not faint or give way to hysterical ravings. Those women of the west had to face grave issues too often to be strangers to death or disaster, so she was silent for a little time, and then she said: “I am so thankful that you have come home, because now I can go back to Pentland Broads to—to be ready for anything that may come.”
“Yes, you will be able to go back now, that is, to-morrow morning; but, unless I am much mistaken, you and I shall have our hands full to-night with that poor old man out yonder. He is an old uncle of Tom’s. He is nearly frantic about this bad news, and I have seen him like this before, for he is the old man who was so ill on the train when we were snowed up on my journey out west.”
Bertha had struck a right note when she spoke of the need there might be for the help of Eunice in taking care of Uncle Joe; for it seemed to quiet her directly and to take away the eager desire to be gone which had come to her on hearing the evil tidings.
“I was just beginning to get supper ready when he came, and oh, Bertha, he behaved like a man distraught,” said Eunice, in a whisper, and then she followed Bertha back to the outer room, where the two of them laid Grace back on her couch, and then began active preparations for supper, for with extra people to feed it was necessary to set about preparing the meal for them.