“Is that you, Fayette?”
“Yes, aunt. I thought I’d come.”
There are women who, in Mrs. Ford’s place, would have been angry with the girl for doing what one dearer had left undone; but Mrs. Ford, if she had such a feeling, was too just to visit it upon Fayette.
“You are a good child,” she said, with uncommon softness, but with a sigh. “Don’t be troubled. I shall get over it by and by.”
But Mrs. Ford did not get over it. The trouble was furious and intense neuralgia; not such as young ladies have when they suffer “awfully” in the morning, and go to a party at night, but blinding, burning pain, reducing the life power every minute, and threatening the heart.
Sue and Fayette tried in vain every remedy in their power. Even Mrs. Ford’s favorite panacea of seven different herbs, steeped in spirits with pepper and spice, utterly failed.
The patient grew worse and worse, and at midnight it was evident that, unless help came speedily, her hours were numbered.
The farm was not on the high road, and their nearest neighbors were two old maiden ladies, a mile away, neither of whom could have been of the least use.
Scrub Hollow lay three miles to the south. A nurse might have been found there, but no physician. Springville, where Dr. Ward lived, was a little further off in the opposite direction.
The road to Springville was rough and lonely, and lay over wind-swept hill and through dark valley, by woods and swamps; for this portion of the southern frontier is even now but thinly settled.