“I don’t know where it is,” spoken very wearily, as though it was an effort to speak at all. “In Heaven, maybe; the word sounds like it. Monteagle! it must be high, and cool, and still. I wonder what it feels like to be cool and still? Oh! how hot it is! O dear me!”
There was such a world of longing and weariness in the sentence, that Mrs. Hammond turned and looked curiously at the girl; then uttered a little exclamation of surprise, and perhaps dismay.
“Who is that girl, and what is the matter with her?”
The man who was busy with a troublesome strap which had to do with Mrs. Hammond’s phaeton, glanced up for a moment, then said:
“That is my girl, ma’am, if you mean the pale one. There ain’t anything the matter with her now, only weakness, the doctor says. She’s had the fever—been dreadful sick. There was a spell when I thought she wouldn’t pull through, nohow, but she did, up to a certain p’int, there she stopped, and there she hangs—jest crawls about all day; doesn’t eat nothing, and doesn’t sleep nights, only off and on, you know. I dunno what to do with her.”
Mrs. Hammond looked again at the girl who had dropped into a listless attitude, a very photograph of discouraged weakness. The rosy-cheeked younger one in a much soiled dress had slipped away. Mrs. Hammond looked from the girl to the low, small, tumble-down building on the steps of which she sat, imagined the room in which she must spend her nights, imagined the table at which she must sit down to eat her “nothing,” and murmured, “Poor thing!” with another long-drawn sigh.
How could one be expected to gain strength in such a home as that must be?
“Who takes care of you and your daughter?”
She had turned again to the man at the carriage. He gave a short half-laugh as he answered slowly: “Well, as to that, what care we get we have to give to ourselves. Her and me live alone; since the boy went to work for his board, at the meat market, I’ve took care of her the best I could, since she got on her feet again; and when she was sick, the neighbors was kind. The doctor was, too—uncommon kind; stayed the most of two nights himself, and brought his woman once or twice to see her; but she’s gone now, up to Monteagle, along with the rest of the world. I suppose it is cool up there, ma’am?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hammond, with another sigh. “It is cool there; poor thing! I don’t see how she is ever to get well in such a place.”