She could hear Miss Zillah slapping the cold hands of the boy there on the couch; could hear her speaking to him and getting no answer. She wondered why Carin didn’t come to her to say something—to tell her how he was faring. Did they expect her to think of nothing but coffee, coffee, coffee—particularly when it seemed never to boil, never to get where it would be of any use?
When she carried the coffee into the living room, he was breathing heavily. His eyes were partly opened, and Miss Zillah had loosened his shirt at the neck, and had poured water over his face and hair. It made him look so strange—so different from the way he usually looked. And yet, though he looked so different, he seemed familiar, too, in a new way.
“It’s not of himself that he reminds me,” thought Azalea, “but of some one else.” The resemblance was pleasant to her, as if the person he made her think of was some one she liked, though she could not think who it was.
Miss Zillah lifted him up and held him steady while Azalea fed him from the spoon with the strong black coffee.
“Don’t let your hand tremble,” said Miss Zillah rather sharply. “Don’t think about your fears, Azalea. He’s got to have the coffee. His heart needs stimulating. Give it to him and stop trembling.”
Azalea wouldn’t have supposed it possible that by the mere exercise of will she could stop the shaking of her hand, but when Miss Zillah spoke to her that way, she steadied herself.
Did the moments go fast or slow? She could not tell. She gave him the full cup of coffee and went for more. Carin had heated some hot water and had put it in rubber bags at his hands and feet. He had been wrapped warm, and now, little by little, the horrid purple of his lips began to turn into something more like their usual color. His lids opened with a flutter and he saw those about him. He smiled piteously, like a little boy, and closed his eyes again.
“Perfect rest is what he needs now,” said Miss Zillah. “He may have to be quiet for days. It takes much longer to rest a heart than it does to tire it. Go to bed now, girls. What a day you’ve had! Mercy, what would your people think, Carin, if they knew all you have been through? Don’t think of getting up in the morning, or of going to school. The very thought of your falling ill distresses me.”
It seemed outrageous to leave the gentle Miss Zillah there, her face all drawn with anxiety, alone with that almost unconscious boy, but she insisted upon having her way.
“I’ll call you,” she assured the girls, “if there’s anything you can do.”