“Well, it’s high time we got to work. There’s plenty of hot water; and you go up to the bathroom, and take a hot bath. I’ll put a hot-water bag in the bed, and get it good and warm; and I’ve got a long, warm flannel nightgown I guess you can get on. It was made for grandmother, and she was a big woman. Come, we’ll go right up-stairs. I can come down and shut up the house while you’re taking your bath.”
The soldier protested, but Miss Marilla swept all before her. She locked the front door resolutely, and put the chain on. She turned out the parlor light, and shoved the young man before her to the stairs.
“But I oughtn’t to,” he protested again with one foot on the first step. “I’m an utter stranger.”
“Well, what’s that?” said Miss Marilla crisply. “‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ When it comes to that, we’re all strangers. Come, hurry up; you ought to be in bed. You’ll feel like a new man when I get you tucked up.”
“You’re awfully good,” he murmured, stumbling up the stairs, with a sick realization that he was giving way to the little imps of chills and thrills that were dancing over him, that he was all in, and in a few minutes more he would be a contemptible coward, letting a lone, old woman fuss over him this way.
Miss Marilla turned up the light, and threw back the covers of the spare bed, sending a whiff of lavender through the room. The Franklin heater glowed cheerfully, and the place was warm as toast. There was something sweet and homelike in the old-fashioned room with its queer, ancient framed photographs of people long gone, and its plain but fine old mahogany. The soldier raised his bloodshot eyes, and looked about with a thankful wish that he felt well enough to appreciate it all.
Miss Marilla had pulled open a drawer, and produced a long, fine flannel garment of nondescript fashion; and from a closet she drew forth a long pink bathrobe and a pair of felt slippers.
“There! I guess you can get those on.”
She bustled into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and heaped big white bath-towels and sweet-scented soap upon him. In a kind of daze of thankfulness he stumbled into the bathroom, and began his bath. He hadn’t had a bath like that in—was it two years? Somehow the hot water held down the nasty little sick thrills, and cut out the chills for the time. It was wonderful to feel clean and warm, and smell the freshness of the towels and soap. He climbed into the big nightgown which also smelled of lavender, and came forth presently with the felt slippers on the front of his feet, and the pink bathrobe trailing around his shoulders. There was a meek, conquered expression on his face; and he crept gratefully into the warm bed according to directions, and snuggled down with that sick, sore thrill of thankfulness that everybody who has ever had grippe knows.
Miss Marilla bustled up from down-stairs with a second hot-water bag in one hand and a thermometer in the other.