“Have you got your answer?” asked Elizabeth.
“No,” he said, “I ain’t had time yet to go, but I kind of wish somebody would think to bring the mail. Not many people pass here, only when the open season takes hunters to the mountains. When you people come back will you stop and ask for the mail for me?”
We promised.
In the purple and amber light of a new day we were about, and soon were on the road. By nightfall we had bidden the desert a glad farewell, and had camped on a large stream among trees. How glad we were to see so much water and such big cottonwoods! Mr. and Mrs. Burney were within a day’s drive of home, so they left us. This camp is at Newfork, and our party has four new members: a doctor, a moving-picture man, and two geological fellows. They have gone on, but we will join them soon.
Just across the creek from us is the cabin of a new settler. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I slept together last night,—only we couldn’t sleep for the continual, whining cry of a sick baby at the cabin. So after a while we rose and dressed and crossed over to see if we could be of any help. We found a woefully distressed young couple. Their first child, about a year old, was very sick. They didn’t know what to do for it; and she was afraid to stay alone while he went for help.
They were powerfully glad to see us, and the young father left at once to get Grandma Mortimer, a neighborhood godsend such as most Western communities have one of. We busied ourselves relieving the young mother as much as we could. She wouldn’t leave the baby and lie down. The child is teething and had convulsions. We put it into a hot bath and held the convulsions in check until Mrs. Mortimer came. She bustled in and took hold in a way to insure confidence. She had not been there long before she had both parents in bed, “saving themselves for to-morrow,” and was gently rubbing the hot little body of the baby. She kept giving it warm tea she had made of herbs, until soon the threatening jerks were over, the peevish whining ceased, and the child slept peacefully on Grandma’s lap. I watched her, fascinated. There was never a bit of faltering, no indecision; everything she did seemed exactly what she ought to do.
“How did you learn it all?” I asked her. “How can you know just what to do, and then have the courage to do it? I should be afraid of doing the wrong thing.”
“Why,” she said, “that is easy. Just do the very best you can and trust God for the rest. After all, it is God who saves the baby, not us and not our efforts; but we can help. He lets us do that. Lots of times the good we do goes beyond any medicine. Never be afraid to help your best. I have been doing that for forty years and I am going to keep it up till I die.”
Then she told us story after story—told us how her different ambitions had “boosted” her along, had made her swim when she just wanted to float. “I was married when I was sixteen, and of course, my first ambition was to own a home for Dave. My man was poor. He had a horse, and his folks gave him another. My father gave me a heifer, and mother fitted me out with a bed. That was counted a pretty good start then, but we would have married even if we hadn’t had one thing. Being young we were over-hopeful. We both took to work like a duck to water. Some years it looked as if we were going to see every dream come true. Another time and we would be poorer than at first. One year the hail destroyed everything; another time the flood carried away all we had.
“When little Dave was eleven years old, he had learned to plough. Every one of us was working to our limit that year. I ploughed and hoed, both, and big Dave really hardly took time to sleep. You see, his idea was that we must do better by our children than we had been done by, and Fanny, our eldest, was thirteen. Big Dave thought all girls married at sixteen because his mother did, and so did I; so that spring he said, ‘In just three years Fanny will be leaving us and we must do right by her. I wanted powerfully bad that you should have a blue silk wedding dress, mother, but of course it couldn’t be had, and you looked as pretty as a rose in your pink lawn. But I’ve always wanted you to have a blue silk. As you can’t have it, let us get it for Fanny; and of course we must have everything else according.’ And so we worked mighty hard.