“Oh! you broken reed!” she exclaimed, with suppressed passion.
Thus apostrophized, Joe became desperate, and that desperation imparted to him an air of unwonted decision and authority.
“I tell you what it is, Sally,” he said, “these rules and regulations are very well for learned folks, and they’re to blame if they don’t keep ‘em. But I don’t believe that the Lord is going to punish us nor our young ones for what we don’t know nothing about. He knows well enough that we’d a had ‘em, every soul of ‘em, baptized, if we’d a thought he wanted us to. I’m sure I don’t begrudge the young ones being baptized. So don’t you believe, Sally, but he’ll sly ‘em in somehow, poor little creters! Why, do you s’pose that, while we were sitting here and crying over our dead babies, and saying, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord,’ that just at that time he’d got ‘em out of sight somewhere, and was pinching on ‘em and hurting on ‘em for his own amusement, with their scared little faces looking up at him? It don’t stand to reason, Sally.”
The first tears she had shed started from the mother’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. “Joe,” she said gratefully, “you’ve got some gumption in you, after all.”
Edith went home that day with a troubled heart. Two or three times on the way she stopped, having half a mind to turn back, but did not. She was too agitated to keep quiet or to eat. One thought filled her mind: a soul just slipping away from earth waited on the threshold till she should open for it the gate of heaven. The thought was overpowering.
In the afternoon, Mrs. Yorke and Melicent went to see the sick child, carrying everything they thought might be needed. Edith had sent for the doctor again, and he came while they were there, and accompanied them home. She listened to their talk, and heard them say that the child could not live more than twenty-four hours longer. They spoke kindly, and they had acted kindly, yet it all jarred terribly on her. Of the highest interest at stake, of the miraculous possibility that she saw, they knew nothing. Dared she wait?
After tea her resolution was taken. She came down-stairs, and found Carl pacing to and fro at the foot of the terrace. He threw the end of his cigar away as she approached him, but did not take any further notice of her till it became evident that she wanted him.
“Carl,” she said, “I want you to go over to the Pattens’ with me.”
“Certainly!”
He did not annoy her with questions, nor exclamations, nor expostulations; he simply and promptly started. They avoided the family in going. When one is in suspense, it is distressing to have to explain to those who cannot help and do not understand the need.