“Oh, Baltie, Baltie, my dear old horse, can’t you go a little further? Can’t you, dear? Please, please try just once more. It’s only a very little way now; only such a little way! I can see the light in front of Dr. Black’s door. I’d get off your back and walk, or try to, if I didn’t know that I couldn’t go five steps. Come, Baltie, please try just once more.”
Perhaps it was Jean’s pleading, perhaps Baltie’s wind had returned; at all events, he raised his head, gave a wild snort, a mad plunge, and, after a desperate struggle, floundered up to Dr. Black’s gate. The house was barely twenty feet from it, but the snow was up to Jean’s waist.
She never knew how she forced her way through it, or reached the electric button. She only knew she must do it somehow. When, in response to its prolonged jingling by his bedside, Dr. Black came back to this world of real things from the world of dreams, into which a long, hard day of work and exposure had carried him, and making a hurried toilet hastened down to the door, he found a huddled heap upon the doormat, and saw in the drifts beyond a quivering, panting horse.
In two minutes the whole household was astir, kind Mrs. Black had Jean up in her bedroom, the doctor administering restoratives, the doctor’s man had led Baltie around to the stable and was caring for him with all possible despatch.
“Look after her, Polly, and don’t let her leave that bed until I say she may. I must be off to Mrs. Carruth’s. I don’t believe she even knows this child is here. It’s all the result of this confounded storm and the wires being down. Such a blizzard as this hasn’t struck Riveredge in thirty years.”
It did not take Dr. Black as long to reach Mrs. Carruth’s home as it had taken Jean to reach his, and when he arrived he found a distracted household. Hadyn had rushed over to the Bee-hive to find Jean vanished, Mrs. Carruth entirely absorbed with Charles, who was in a very critical condition, and Mammy nearly beside herself. As Hadyn, in spite of Mrs. Carruth’s protests, insisted upon going after Dr. Black, he was confronted by that gentleman at the very door.
[CHAPTER XIII—Aftermath.]
That storm of March, 19—, claimed many a victim. More than one was frozen to death, many died from the exposure, and many more were invalids for months as the result of it. All that terrible night Dr. Black worked over old Charles, with Mammy and Hadyn to aid him, and Constance to vibrate between the house and the cottage, for with the first peep of dawn Mr. Henry’s man came over to dig out the snow-bound family and make a path from house to cottage. Mrs. Carruth, upon learning of Jean’s desperate rush for Dr. Black and her collapse at his doorstep, started instantly for his home. Charles could claim a great deal from her, but the claim of her own was far greater, and Dr. Black’s sleigh and powerful horse carried her to Jean as quickly as the great snowdrifts permitted.
But Jean was really none the worse for her mad ride once she was warmed and had partaken of Mrs. Black’s cup of steaming hot chocolate. She was as strong and pliable as a hickory sapling, which, the storm having passed over it, springs erect and is as vigorous as ever. Mrs. Black soon reassured Mrs. Carruth, and at length had the satisfaction of seeing them both fast asleep in her guest room, Mrs. Carruth’s arm, even in her sleep, laid caressingly and protectingly across Jean’s shoulder. Both were worn out, and noon had struck before they wakened to reproach themselves for their long rest and to make inquiry for Charles. Dr. Black had just returned, and reported a decided improvement in the old man.
“And Baltie—dear old Baltie?” demanded Jean.