“Hum! told you so,” soliloquized he; “there she goes—straight down the hill! There never was such a woman! Deliberately disobeying her husband. Bless her good heart! I knew she’d go. Never could stand that—never! It’s wrong. Obedience is a wife’s first duty. Won’t she make things fly over there! Poor Delia! She shan’t want for physic as long as I live; and those young ones—well, well, boys will be boys, and girls will be—tomboys, sometimes, I suppose. There she goes, up the hill, now. Disobedience,—rank disobedience! I can’t endure the sight of it, and I won’t! I’ll just saddle Uncle Ned, and go and see the doctor. She must have constant attendance; and my wife,—no, I won’t forgive her disobedience—never!”
The captain now went to the window, and watched until his wife turned into the gate; then, heaving a sigh (more closely resembling satisfaction than regret), went in pursuit of Phil and Uncle Ned.
Lightning, that swift agent of destruction, has been known, in the midst of its vagaries, to smite gigantic rocks, and lay open veins of wealth never before discovered. When the bolt of misfortune struck the Sleeper house, it brought to light a much-needed treasure in the person of the forlorn, complaining Aunt Hulda. She seemed electrified by the stroke that paralyzed the languid mother, and all the powers of her being sprang into active life. All the theoretical knowledge she had acquired by her long, useless “helping” of other people, burst into fruitful bloom. From the moment Mrs. Sleeper was laid upon her bed, she was the careful, watchful nurse, quietly but hurriedly arranging everything for the comfort of the invalid, laying her plans for a long fit of sickness with all the skill of an old campaigner. Nor did her usefulness end here. From the chamber to the kitchen she flew, washed and put away the dishes, replenished the fire, swept and tidied up the kitchen, re-filled the kettle, made up a batch of bread and set it “rising,” and back again to the bed-side of her patient, without one thought of her own magazine of combustible troubles ready to explode at a spark of complaint. All this with a feverish uneasiness, as though she feared the coming of somebody to take the power to do out of her hands. A gentle knock at the door of the sick chamber, and the entrance of Mrs. Thompson, told her the somebody she feared had come.
Mrs. Thompson gave her hand to Aunt Hulda with a quiet smile, and went to the bed. What there was left of life in the body of Delia Sleeper seemed concentrated in her face. She could not move foot or hand; but the same watchful glance was in her eyes, and the shadow of a smile played about her mouth, as her old friend bent over her and kissed her.
“So kind! so good! I knew you’d come.”
Faint and tremulous was the voice of the invalid.
“Yes, dear heart; I’ve come to nurse you, to make you strong and well again.”
Aunt Hulda groaned. Her power was slipping from her.