“Oh, Virginia—Mrs. Aydelot—helped me,” Asher assured him. “She’s a nurse by instinct.”
“What did you call your wife?” the doctor inquired.
“Virginia—from her own state. Pretty sick man here.” Asher said this as Dr. Carey suddenly bent over Shirley with stern eyes and tightening lips. But the eyes grew tender when Jim looked up into his face.
“You’re all right, Shirley. You must go to sleep now.”
And Shirley, who in his delirium had fought his neighbor all day, became as obedient as a child, as a very sick child, that night under Horace Carey’s hand.
The next morning Virginia Aydelot was not able to rise from her bed, and for many days she could do nothing more than to sit in the rocking chair by the windows and absorb sunshine.
On the fourth day after Carey had reached Shirley’s 72 Asher went down the river in the early afternoon to find how Jim’s case was progressing, leaving his wife comfortably tucked up in the rocking chair by the west window. The snow was gone and the early December day was as crisp and beautiful as an Indian summer day in a colder climate. Virginia sat watching the shadows of the clouds flow along the ground and the prairie hues changing with the angle of the afternoon sunlight. Suddenly a sound of ponies’ feet outside was followed by a loud rap on the door.
“Come in!” Virginia called. “Lie down, Pilot!”
Pilot did not obey, but sat up alert before his mistress as Darley Champers’ bulk filled the doorway.
“Excuse me, Madam,” the real estate dealer said, lifting his hat, “Me and my friend, Mr. Smith out there, are looking up a claim for a friend of ours somewhere out in the Grass River settlement. Can you tell me who owns the last claim taken up down the river, and how far it is from here?”