Well, in a few days he said she needed lake air. And when I begun to plan how to git her to it he said it happened jest so that he had got to go down on the lake shore a few milds off, and he could take her jest as well as not, and she seemed glad to go—glad enough; and every single day she seemed to feel better and look better. Early hours to bed and to rise, fresh, pure air, wholesome, nutritious food, and easy, loose clothin’ had all done their healin’ work on her. Why, I had let out her pretty muslin dresses most half a finger under the arms, and she dast as well die as to girt herself in agin, my eye wuz that keen on her and yet lovin’. And I went to Jonesville myself and picked her out a pair of common sense shoes, but pretty ones, russet color; why, good land! she didn’t wear but number three, anyway—they wuz plenty big enough, and I admitted it. And I spoze her freedom from foot sufferin’ helped her a great sight, and her winder wuz always open nights. She had got to likin’ me too well to not do as I said, and when she see me calmly carryin’ the pickle jar down suller and put a stun on it, she knew that ended pickles; and when she asked Josiah to git her some candy and I calmly took it and eat it up myself, makin’ me dead sick, but doin’ it cheerful in a martyr way, she didn’t ask him agin to git her anything sarahuptishously, and it wuzn’t long before her well stomach didn’t crave such trash—rich cake and pickles and pies and such. And she begun to git so plump that she laughed and said I would have to let out her dresses agin.
And I did before she went home—more than a inch on both sides—and her cheeks got pinker and her eyes got brighter and brighter, and I didn’t wonder a mite that the kinds of air she had to ride out to take wuz so various and lay in such different directions, and young Dr. Phillip wuz so willin’ to take her to ’em.
Well, Dora had wanted to surprise her mother when she come to see her so much better, so we hadn’t said nothin’ in our letters about the great improvement and change in her, and the very day that Dr. Phillip and she went out on a two milds walk, two out and two in, I got a letter from Albina Ann sayin’ she had seen a new kind of invalid chair and askin’ me to ask the doctor if he thought it would be a benefit to Dora, and sez she:
“Your evasive remarks about my poor dear invalid makes me fear that I shall never see her agin, and,” sez she, “I drempt last night of attendin’ a funeral, and I lay for more than an hour planning the funeral when she is took from me, I picked out the text ‘Strange are the mysterious ways of Providence,’ and,” sez she, “I wet two handkerchiefs wet as sop with my tears right there in the middle of the night.”
Oh, Albina Ann thought enough of her, I could see that, and kep’ her in her mind day and night. And the day I let her dress out for the second time, that wuz the time she went out with her Uncle Josiah to help rake the meadow and come in laughin’ and rosy on top of the load jest as Dr. Phillip drove into the yard, makin’ her face look rosier than ever.
Well, that day Albina Ann writ to me agin, and sez she, “I write to you, for I know that Dora is too feeble to write to me, and I want you to tell me, and tell me plain, if you think she is going to live until fall, for I must, if she is in immediate danger, I must leave Henry and his wife and the twins, sick as they be, for I must, I must see my darling, my idol! once more.”
Well, I writ her a sort of a comfortin’ letter, that would settle her mind some and stiddy it; all the while I wuz writin’ I wuz hearin’ Dora’s ringin’ laugh out in the front yard, where Dr. Phillip and she stood a-talkin’ and laughin’ with my companion.
Well, Dr. Phillip wuz here about every day, and it wuz plain enough to see what wuz in his mind; he had never paid any attention to a girl before in his life as I ever hearn on, and if I wuz any judge of girls (and I fancy I am a splendid judge) Dora wuz jest as fond of him as he wuz of her. Le Flam, that poor dissipated chap, I felt had only stood in the vestibule of her fancy, but Dr. Phillip I believed had opened the door to her heart and walked in there to stay.
Well, I felt that all I had to do wuz to set down and trust the Lord; that’s all we can do after we’ve done all we can do ourselves. Let mothers take this great truth into consideration and consider on it; surround your young girls with good society, and when I say good I don’t mean necessarily rich, but good, honest, and reliable, then you can set down in your chair and rest, knowin’ that whatever is the Lord’s will to happen won’t bring grief and shame to your heart. If it is His will to have your girl a bachelor maid, thank God and take courage, if it is His will to have her unite her fate to a companion, why accept it as His will and make the best on’t, but ’tennyrate and anyway, don’t, don’t let her marry a shack, and to insure that don’t let a shack come hangin’ round.
Well, everything seemed to be goin’ as I wanted it to go. Considerin’ the Le Flam eppisode, I couldn’t act exactly as I would if I had took her fresh from the cradle. In them latter circumstances I would impress agin and agin on a girl’s mind how many avenoos there wuz to walk in besides the matrimonial one—broad, glorious avenoos full of helpful and grand possibilities. But the Le Flam eppisode had hampered me, and so, as I say, everything seemed to be goin’ as I wanted it to. And yet anon or oftener I had a feelin’ that if Dora couldn’t be broke for good of her foolish ways—foolishness nurtured and fostered by Albina Ann—I didn’t want Dr. Phillip’s life spilte. And then agin a good deal of the time I noticed her sweet disposition and put a long white mark on that; her readiness to fall into better ways, when she found ’em out—another long white mark.