"'I FEEL SO QUEER EVERY LITTLE SPELL, AN' I MUST GET HOME'"
His increasing pallor frightened Katharine till pity overcame repugnance, and with a strength unknown before she clasped her arms about his neck and struggled to lift him to his feet, all the while protesting: "You mustn't be broken! You can't be. Just a little crooked root like that and a big man like you. Not quite so hard, please! Not quite so tight! 'Cause you're pulling me down instead of me you up. There, that's better!"
Susanna had often declared that Moses was "just like ary other man, scared to death if even his little toe ached," and it was true that he was so unused to illness that his few attacks of it had always frightened him. Yet now he realized that something far worse than ordinary had befallen, and that he must rally his grit and his strength together. With an heroic effort he got upon his feet—or foot, for one was useless, and braced himself against the tree-trunk beside them.
"Now, sissy, go find an' fetch my axe that got flung off my shoulder when I stumbled. I didn't think when I brought it to chop with 'twould prove a crutch for broken bones. Oh, I wish we wasn't so far from home. I wish you'd kep' in the right road an' not come flarrickin' clear off here out the beaten track."
"Why—isn't this the right, the shortest way back?" asked Katharine, surprised.
"No, 'tain't. I s'pose all trees look alike to city gals, but don't stop to gabble. Find the axe. Pick up your basket. I feel so queer every little spell, an' I must get home. That shin-bone's broke, true as preachin', an' six seven my ribs, by the feel of 'em, for my foot wobbles 'round as if it was hung on a string, an' my side! The axe, Keehoty, the axe!"
She found and brought it, weeping bitterly. She had never felt so sorry for anybody as for this brave old fellow who was now forcing himself to overcome his own misery for the sake of others. For when she begged him to stay still where he was and let her run to the village and bring somebody to help he vigorously refused.
"Scare the hull community just 'cause I was fool enough to tumble down and crack my leg? Me, an old woodman, that'd ought to have some sense. An' Eunice! Why, 'twould scare Eunice out of a year's growth to see me fetched home 'stead of walkin' there on my own pins. Half a loaf's better'n no loaf, an' one leg's better'n none. As for my plaguey old ribs—they can take care themselves. But once we get there you just clip it to the doctor's an' have him come 'round an' patch me up. He'll have to do it so's I can be workin' reg'lar, 'cause I'm the only man there is. Besides, town meetin's comin' on, an'—My sake! I'm beat!"
Beaten he was into the silence which he had dreaded, wherein he realized his own agony. He had kept talking to prevent thinking, but had now passed beyond that. By nods and glances he directed Kate along the shortest way, but it seemed to the sufferer as if the familiar big stone house grew steadily more distant rather than nearer.