Anson saw it all now. In her fear and pain she had turned to him—poor, motherless little bird—forgetting her boy-husband or feeling the need of a broader breast and stronger hand. It was a beautiful trust, and as the great, shaggy man went out into the morning he was exalted by the thought. "My little babe—my Flaxen!" he said with unutterable love and pity.
Again his mind ran over the line of his life—the cabin, the dead woman, the baby face nestling at his throat, the girl coming to him with her trials and triumphs. His heart swelled so that he could not have spoken, but deep in his throat he muttered a dumb prayer. And how he suffered that day, hearing her babble mixed with moanings every time the door opened. Once the doctor said:
"It's no use for you to stand here, Wood. It only makes you suffer and don't help her a particle."
"It seems 's if it helped her, an' so—I guess I'll stay. She may call for me, an' if she does," he said resolutely, "I'm goin' in, doctor. How is she now?"
"She's slightly delirious now, but still she knows you're here. She now and then speaks of you, but doesn't call for you."
But she did call for him, and he went in, and kneeling by her side he talked to her and held her hands, stroked her hair and soothed her as he used to when a little child unable to speak save in her pretty Norseland tongue, and at last when opiates were given, and he rose and staggered from the room, it seemed as though he had lived years.
So weary was he that, when the doctor came out and said, "You may go to sleep now," he dropped heavily on a lounge and fell asleep almost with the motion. Even the preparations for breakfast made by the hoarse-voiced servant-girl did not wake him, but the drawling, nasal tone of Kendall did. He sat up and looked at the oily little clerk. It was after seven o'clock.
"Hello!" said Kendall, "when d' you get in?"
"Shortly after you went out," said Anson in reply.
Kendall felt the rebuke, and as he twisted his cuffs into place said, "Well, y' see I couldn't do no good—a man ain't any good in such cases, anyway—so I just thought I'd run down to St. Paul an' do a little buying."