“He’s all beat out, he hain’t no more pertness than a draggled rooster,” said Loveday, who was already rustling cheerfully around in a brand new calico dress and bringing to light Viola’s hidden misdeeds. “I don’t see but what I shall have to make spring bitters before I set my soft soap b’ilin’, though it always did ’pear to me shif’less not to get soft soap out of the way before bitters come on.”
Loveday’s spirits had risen; she was thoroughly happy to be at home. “If there’s anything that folks had ought to be thankful for it’s to be under their own vine and fig-tree, especially after they have resked the perils and temptations of the city. I never slep’ hardly a wink whilst I was there, Miss Bathsheba, not hardly a wink, a-thinkin’ of Sodom and Gomorrah. ’N’ then I couldn’t help thinkin’ that if everything was blowed up there wa’n’t no way for folks to know me. I had forgot my nightcap and Aunt Lois had lent me one that belonged to her niece that moved out west, and was marked Nancy Turner. I kep’ a-picturin’ that I was buried in one of them crowded graveyards, with a stone a-top of me marked Nancy Turner! Of course I knew, Miss Bathsheba, that it wouldn’t make a mite of difference”—Loveday’s voice grew suddenly grave and sweet—“I knew the Lord’s resurrection angel would find me anywheres, but, you see, if you’ve always lived respectable and with folks knowin’ who you be, why you do want to die so!”
I went over to see Rob, before Dave had wakened. I had never seen him look so ill. There were deep hollows around his eyes and one could trace the blue veins in his high forehead. He extended a painfully thin arm from the loose sleeve of his dressing-gown—a boy’s arm is always so pathetic when it is wasted. He gave me his hand in a half-reluctant way and scowled at me, resenting, as I afterwards found, the fact that I was the wrong one.
“Where is Dave? I thought it was Dave when I heard some one at the door. Dave stays away so long!” he said, peevishly. “And I worry so that it makes me ill. And then, when he comes, he is not satisfactory—not nowadays.”
“Dave works hard and is very tired,” I said, in a reproving tone. “You ought to depend more upon your nurse.”
“Nurse! What good does she do me?” he exclaimed, fretfully. “I wish you would go away! Won’t you, please?” he added, plaintively to the nurse—Sally Tibbetts, from the back road, whom Dr. Yorke had tried to teach some of the duties of a trained nurse. And Sally Tibbetts, after glancing at me with a warning finger on her lip, left the room.
“Well, if she’s gone, it’s a wonder!” said Rob, in a tone of petulant satisfaction. “She hangs round here so I can’t get a chance to speak to Dave. He doesn’t want me to speak to him, either. He behaves very queerly. There is some mystery.”
“That’s just what I’ve been thinking for a good while, Rob,” I said, and I looked steadfastly at him.
He started up from his pillows and looked at me and his wistful eyes dilated.
“I don’t know what you mean, if it’s anything about me,” he said quickly. “I meant something that—that’s happened lately; something that Dave and I know about, and I don’t think he tells me all about it.”