In the kitchen she found her mother bending over the dish-pan with her arms plunged in soapsuds.
"Come to bed, Ma. I'll finish the dishes."
To her surprise, Mrs. Oakley did not resist. The spirit of opposition was crushed out of her, and she tottered as she turned away to wipe her hands on a cup towel.
"I reckon I'd better," she answered meekly. "I don't feel as if I could stand on my feet another minute."
Putting her strong young arm about her, Dorinda led her across the hall into her bedroom. While the girl struck a match and lighted the lamp on the table, she saw that her mother was shaking as if she had been stricken with palsy.
"I'll help you undress, Ma."
"I can manage everything but my shoes, daughter. My fingers are too swollen to unbutton them."
"Don't you worry. I'll put you to bed." As she turned down the bed and smoothed out the coarse sheets and the patchwork quilt, it seemed to Dorinda that the inanimate objects in the room had borrowed pathos from their human companions. All the stitches that had gone into this quilt, happy stitches, sad stitches, stitches that had ended in nothing! Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked quickly away. What was it in houses and furniture that made them come to life in hours of suspense and tear at the heartstrings?
Mrs. Oakley was undressing slowly, folding each worn, carefully mended garment before she placed it on a chair near the foot of the bed.
"Do you reckon they will do anything to Rufus?" she asked presently in a quavering voice.