Part 12 (1/2)
WHERE HEALTH BEGINS
In a little white cottage tent, at the end of a long row of minutely similar, little white cottage tents, sat David and Carol in the early evening of a day in May, looking wistfully out at the wide sweep of gray mesa land, reaching miles away to the mountains, blue and solemn in the distance.
”Do--do you feel better yet, David?” Carol asked at last, desperately determined to break the menacing silence.
David drew his breath. ”I can't seem to notice any difference yet,” he replied honestly. ”It doesn't look much like Missouri, does it?”
”It is pretty,--very pretty,” she said resolutely.
”Carol, be a good Presbyterian and tell the truth. Do you wish you had gone home, to green and gra.s.sy Iowa?”
”David Duke, I am at home, and here is where I want to be and no place else in the world. It is big and bleak and bare, but-- You are going to get well, aren't you, David?”
”Of course I am, but give me time. Even Miracle Land can't transform weakness to health in two hours.”
”I must go over to the office. Mrs. Hartley said she wanted to give me some instructions.”
Carol rose quickly and stepped outside the cottage.
Crossing the mesa she met three men who stopped her with a gesture.
They were of sadly similar appearance, tall, thin, shoulders stooped, hair dull and l.u.s.terless, eyes dry and bright. Carol thought at first they were brothers, and so they were,--brothers in the grip of the great white plague.
”Are you a lunger?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed one of them in astonishment, noting the light in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks.
”A--lunger?”
”Yes,--have you got the bugs?”
”The bugs!”
”Say, are you chasing the cure?”
”Of course not,” interrupted the oldest of the three impatiently.
”There's nothing the matter with her, except that she's a lunger's wife. Your husband is the minister from St. Louis, isn't he?”
”Yes,--I am Mrs. Duke.”
”I am Thompson. I used to be a medical missionary in the Ozarks. How is your husband?”
”Oh, he is doing nicely,” she said brightly,--the brightness a.s.sumed to hide the fear in her heart that some day David might look like that.
Thompson laughed disagreeably. ”Sure, they always do nicely at first.
But when the bugs get 'em, they're gone. They think they're better, they say they are getting well,--G.o.d!”
Carol looked at him with questioning reproach in the shadowed eyes.
”It does not hurt us to hope, at least,” she said gently. ”It does no harm, and it makes us happier.”
”Oh, yes,” came the bitter answer. ”Sure it does. But wait a few years. Bugs eat hope and happiness as well as lungs.”
Carol quivered. ”You make me afraid,” she said.
”Thompson is an old croak,” interrupted one of the younger men, smiling encouragement. ”Don't waste your time on him,--talk to me. He is such a grouch that he gives the bugs a regular bed to sleep in. He'd have been well years ago if he hadn't been such a chronic kicker. Cheer up, Mrs. Duke. Of course your husband will get along. Got it right at the start, didn't you?”