“Aunt Fan, you must try to rest! Just try lying down and see if you don’t—”
“I suppose I can lie on my face,” said Mrs. Featherstone, staggering weakly to the bed. “I shall faint away and die if I don’t get off my feet; they’ve ulcerated.” She eased herself with sharp groans, to a kneeling posture upon the bed. “I wish you could have heard the way the doctor spoke to me, coming down that ghastly trail, just above camp. The way he——”
“Now, Aunt Fan,” said Ginger, loyally, “the doctor may have been a little impatient, and no doubt he was anxious about you, but——”
“That’s right,” said her aunt, heavily. “Turn against your own! It was a hideously dangerous piece of trail, and I said I was going to get off and walk—I was being shaken right up between the horse’s ears—and I wish you could have heard the tone in which he told me to stay on. I give you my sacred word of honor, no man has ever spoken to me in a tone like that—not even Jim Featherstone at his worst, and as for Henry—Henry would have died before— Well, I’ve made up my mind, all right. Dr. Gurney Mayfield could never make a woman happy; I suppose he might make her healthy, if he got her young enough, but not”—she stopped suddenly—“where are you going?”
“I thought I’d go up to the Lodge for a few minutes, Aunt Fan, after I take this tray back,” said Ginger. “I think you’ll relax and rest if you are quiet.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Featherstone, letting herself down, inch by inch, “go on and leave me! I came here for you, and suffered and endured all of this for you, but never mind that. Go on and dance! Dance!” She writhed at the thought. “But I suppose it would be easier”—the words came muffled from the pillow—“for me to dance a dance than to—sit it out....”
Ginger put the tray down again and ran to draw the covers up over the plump shoulders. “I’ll come back very soon, Aunt Fan, and please try to sleep!”
“Sleep!” said her aunt, sniffing angrily and burrowing into the feathery depths. “I’ll probably smother, but I guess there won’t be much mourning,” and just as Ginger stepped outside she heard her murmuring—“suppose I’ll have to sleep this way for a month ... thank the Lord I didn’t waste a fortune getting my face lifted—a lot of good it’d do now! I should have had my head examined instead!”
Ginger carried the tray to the kitchen and the kind little waitress said she was glad to see the poor lady’d kept her appetite, and then she walked out into the soft dusk and stood looking about the doctor’s beloved camp. It was not quite dark, but the circling hills were closing in, somber in silhouette, and the stars were very remote and cold and bright; the tall redwoods seemed to stand guard over the little cuddling cabins, and the trim little paths showed up whitely against the darker earth surrounding them. It was a night of brisk weather and there was no camp fire; they were all gathered in the Lodge, and there were leaping flames on the hearth and a teasing tune going on the phonograph, and the sound of rhythmic feet. Ginger stood irresolute; she hadn’t thought she wanted the Lodge’s robust gayety to-night, but she didn’t want to go back to the cabin until her poor aunt had fallen asleep. While she was hesitating the doctor came to the door and called her in.
“I’m might sorry about Miss Fanny,” he said remorsefully. “There won’t be any serious consequences, of course, but I see now—as I should have seen before—that she wasn’t equal to it.” He sighed a little. “I expect my enthusiasm carries me away, sometimes.”