“If I hadn’t of fooled so much away for tobacker and things, I shouldn’t be so plaguy poor now,” thought he, forgetting the many hearts which his hard-earned gains had made glad, for no one ever appealed in vain for help from Jerry Langley, who represented one class of Yankees, while Timothy Aldergrass represented another.
The next morning just as daylight was beginning to be visible, Jerry knocked softly at Aunt Betsey’s door, telling her that for more than an hour he’d heard the young lady takin’ on, and he guessed she was worse. Hastily throwing on her loose gown Aunt Betsey repaired to ’Lena’s room, where she found her sitting up in the bed, moaning, talking, and whispering, while the wild expression of her eyes betokened a disordered brain.
“The Lord help us! she’s crazy as a loon. Run for the doctor, quick!” exclaimed Mrs. Aldergrass, and without boot or shoe, Jerry ran off in his stocking-feet, alarming the physician, who immediately hastened to the inn, pronouncing ’Lena’s disease to be brain fever, as he had at first feared.
Rapidly she grew worse, talking of her home, which was sometimes in Kentucky and sometimes in Massachusetts, where she said they had buried her mother. At other times she would ask Aunt Betsey to send for Durward when she was dead, and tell him how innocent she was.
“Didn’t I tell you there was something wrong?” Uncle Timothy would squeak. “Nobody knows who we are harborin’ nor how much ’twill damage the house.”
But as day after day went by, and ’Lena’s fever raged more fiercely, even Uncle Tim relented, and when she would beg of them to take her home and bury her by the side of Mabel, where Durward could see her grave, he would sigh, “Poor critter, I wish you was to home,” but whether this wish was prompted by a sincere desire to please ’Lena, or from a more selfish motive, we are unable to state. One morning, the fifth of ’Lena’s illness, she seemed much worse, talking incessantly and tossing from side to side, her long hair floating in wild disorder over her pillow, or streaming down her shoulders. Hitherto Aunt Betsey had restrained her barberic desire, each day arranging the heavy locks, and tucking them under the muslin cap, where they refused to stay. Once the doctor himself had suggested the propriety of cutting them away, adding, though, that they would wait awhile, as it was a pity to lose them.
“Better be cut off than yanked off,” said Aunt Betsey, on the morning when ’Lena in her frenzy would occasionally tear out handfulls of her shining hair and scatter it over the floor.
Satisfied that she was doing right, she carefully approached the bedside, and taking one of the curls in her hand, was about to sever it, when ’Lena, divining her intentions, sprang up, and gathering up her hair, exclaimed, “No, no, not these; take everything else, but leave me my curls. Durward thought they were beautiful, and I cannot lose them.”
At the side door below, the noonday stage was unloading its passengers, and as the tones of their voices came in at the open window, ’Lena suddenly grew calmer, and assuming a listening attitude, whispered, “Hark! He’s come. Don’t you hear him?”
But Aunt Betsey heard nothing, except her husband calling her to come down, and leaving ’Lena, who had almost instantly become quiet, to the care of a neighbor, she started for the kitchen, meeting in the lower hall with Hetty, who was showing one of the passengers to a room where he could wash and refresh himself after his dusty ride. As they passed each other, Hetty asked, “Have you clipped her curls?”