"If ye'd ast me, I'd say Annie'd otta have a doctor," said Abigail. "But of course folks allus knows their own business best. I don't never advise people, so's they won't have a chanct to turn back on me an' say, 'I told ye so!'"
Still Bill hesitated, looking from one woman to the other.
"No, Abigail, I really ain't so bad as that," placated her sister. "'Tain't nothin' but a hard cold. An' I think mebbe if Bill would chop the head off that rooster—the little un that don't seem to be good fer nothin'—I could take a little chicken broth."
So Bill went to slaughter the inadequate white rooster and Aunt Abigail hastened to see to it that there was hot water to scald him.
But when the chicken broth was made Mrs. Pippinger could eat none of it. The next day she was no better; but still she made alarmed resistance whenever Bill suggested going for a doctor. Aunt Abigail sent home for some more dresses and aprons and prepared to make a stay of it.
Two days later she was so much worse that Bill did not stop to argue with her but hitched up and drove to Clayton for Dr. MacTaggert. Aunt Abigail busied herself mightily putting a clean gown on Mrs. Pippinger, clean sheets and pillow slips on the bed, clean towels on the washstand, in preparation for the august visit.
The doctor came, a bald, dust-colored little man with spectacles and an air of patient resignation to his lot. He took her pulse and temperature, asked about her bowels, listened at her chest, and said that she had congestion of the lungs. From a black leather satchel he took out two bottles of medicine, some pills in a little brown box, and some pills in a small envelope. On the labels of these he wrote directions for giving them and left them with Aunt Abigail, saying that he would call again day after to-morrow. When he was gone they all experienced a sense of great relief, as though the necessary thing had now been done and the sick woman would at once begin to get well.
But Mrs. Pippinger did not get well; and when Dr. MacTaggert paid his second visit she was half delirious. He looked serious and concerned and left several more medicines with more complicated directions for administering them. Aunt Abigail, who always prided herself on her devotion to duty, carried out his instructions with scrupulous exactness. She was also very particular about excluding draughts and in fact all outside air. With great care she pasted up the cracks about the two small windows.
There followed a long period when Mrs. Pippinger alternated between being very sick and not quite so sick. The house was kept unnaturally tidy. The children moved about on tiptoe and spoke in whispers. Judith and the boys stayed outside or in the barn as much as they could. The rooms were full of the smell of strong medicines and ointments. Neighbors and relatives came bringing presents of soups and jellies and pickles and such bedside delicacies, which the children ate with subdued relish after their mother had refused them. The air was full of anxiety, of restlessness, of a sense of waiting, as though the regular flow of life hung for a time suspended and everybody was waiting with half-taken breath for the signal to breathe and live again.
When Bill came in from the barn after the evening chores were done, he pulled off his shoes very quietly and went about in sock feet. Sometimes he went to his wife's bedside and sat silently watching her flushed, restless tossing, or talked with her for a while in low tones if the fever was gone and she was lying pale and quiet. Then he would go back into the kitchen and sit by the stove with his quid of tobacco in his cheek, now and then lifting the lid nearest him to spit into the wood fire. He was a man of clean habits and hardly ever spat in the woodbox. Often he would sit like this till long after his usual bedtime, to be roused at last by Aunt Abigail's strident tones.