Explanations followed on both sides, Norah telling how she happened to be there and Katy corroborating the story of Fanny’s marriage with Col. Errington. For a moment Norah’s shoes creaked threateningly as she tramped across the floor, kicking a gourd out of her way and dropping into the vernacular, as she always did when excited.
“Drat the villain,” she said. “An’ sure the Lord will reward him, and her, too; and what’s his sister afther down here?”
Katy told why she was there, adding that no one could be more indignant than Miss Errington at her brother’s conduct. Thus mollified Norah stepped more lightly, and at Katy’s suggestion kindled a fire in Annie’s room so noiselessly that the girl did not awaken until just before Norah came with her breakfast. Like Katy, Annie felt the burden of anxiety with regard to the domestic arrangements slipping from her at sight of Norah. With her at the helm there could be no jars except as they came through Phyllis. But she was glad to abdicate in favor of a younger and stronger person, and received in silence Norah’s rasping remarks which had to come with regard to the filth which had accumulated in the kitchen and which nothing would eradicate but strong lye and paint. This would fail to obliterate the marks of pot black and grease upon the cooking-table. Nothing but a carpenter’s plane could do that.
For a few days Phyllis submitted to the inconvenience of wading a good share of the time through the soap suds with which Norah was inundating the floor, and then, one morning, before anyone was astir, she quietly removed her special belongings to the cabin she had quitted so regretfully, and where in the wide fireplace she again kindled her fire upon the hearth, hung her kettles on the crane, and roasted her potatoes in the ashes. At her next class-meeting when she told her experience she recounted among her other massies that “De Lord had fotched her as he did de chillun of Israel through de sea and landed her in a dry place whar no water was!”
Chapter III.—Author’s Story Continued.
JACK.
The doctor could not tell at first how ill Jack really was. He had taken a severe cold and his temperature was very high, but his paroxysms of delirium were the worst features in the case, as they made him at times almost uncontrollable. Apparently he was always trying to recall something in the past which baffled his memory. Again, he would declare his intention to go to The Plateau. It was no place for him at The Elms, he said, and he was going away. At such times it required all the tact and sometimes all the strength of the neighbor who was with him to keep him in bed. This man who had only come for a day or two, finally signified his intention to leave, and another must be found to take his place. In great perplexity of mind as to where to find the proper person, the doctor was riding slowly past Sam Slayton’s grocery, near the door of which a knot of idlers was as usual assembled. Reining in his horse he asked if they knew of any able-bodied man willing to undertake the task of nursing Mr. Fullerton, or rather of keeping him in bed.
“He is not dangerously sick,” he said, “but the trouble has upset his brain and by spells he is crazy as a loon and bound to get up. Some day he will scare the women folks to death rushing into their midst, quite au naturel you know.”
The doctor knew a little French and was fond of airing it occasionally. His hearers understood him, however, but no one spoke until Sam, who had been revolving the question, said, “I have had some experience in nussin’. After I got that bullet in me at Gettysburg I was sent to the con-val-escent hospital. When I got better I was detailed to wait on some of the sick soldiers, who said I done tip-top; most as well, in fact, as the young gals who used to come in every day and insist on doing something, if it was only to wash our faces. I’ll bet some of us had ’em washed a dozen times a day by as many different gals, God bless ’em. Wall, as I was sayin’, I’ll go and see what I can do with the Cap’n, just to spite that cuss of a Colonel.”
“Can you leave your business?” the doctor asked, feeling that this strong man, who had something mesmeric and masterful about him, was just the one he wanted.
“Wall, you see,” Sam replied with a laugh, “my business ain’t no great, though it picked up a little yesterday and to-day. I can leave it for a spell, I guess. Or mabby these chaps’ll run it for me; I can trust ’em.”