After the first alarm, Aunt Sue became calm enough to tell the questioners that all were safe, that Miss Randall and Yetta were in New York. But the man who was urging White Rosy up the long road from the valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to the little band of watchers, who heard Grace Tobet calling a beloved name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation. He looked among them for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing house.
There were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him. It was not long before Mother Cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big husband, to take command of everything.
So short and simple a story of a ruin so great! Rosamund sat dumbly in the kitchen of the little house where Ogilvie lay, while Mother Cary told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of courage and hope.
"Pap's done telegraphed for Doctor Blake," she said, "him that's his friend, him that sent Yetta up here. He's an eye doctor, but he'll know everything to do for everything else as well. We reckoned he'd come on this train. That's how come Pap was there to meet it. Howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll say jest what I'm sayin'—John ain't goin' to die. He's a goin' to get well."
Rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood. "I wouldn't, ef I was you, darlin', honey! No, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way; it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't. Hair grows quick, an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite. I reckon all ails him is thet he breathed in the smoke."
Half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better jest come to the door and peek in at him. I guess when all's said an' done you got more right than anybody else."
"Ah, no," Rosamund cried, "no, I have not!"
But Mother Cary touched her cheek. "Honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved best in the world was there. A body don't go into flames for nothin'! An' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head—now was it? You come right along in here with yo' Ma Cary."
As long as she lived Rosamund could recall that room—the dingy white walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the feather-bed—and Ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his heavy breathing, his restless hands.