Part 23 (1/2)

”No, Miss Page! Just let me talk to you. You see I feel so bad about Ellen because she ain't been back to see her folks. I didn't know she wanted to go, but it seems she did and didn't like to say so. I ought to have known about it. If I hadn't have been a numskull I would a-known.

I've been so happy just to be with her that I never thought she wasn't just as happy to be with me.”

”Why, Mr. Miller, I am sure she was. Everybody is always saying how happy Mrs. Miller is. Only the other day I heard Sally Winn declare she never saw such a contented young married woman. Sally says lots of young married women are not happy; that it takes a long time for them to get used to husbands instead of sweethearts; but that your wife didn't have to do that because you seemed just like a sweetheart all the time.”

”Did she say that,--did she truly? I wonder what made her think it.”

”Something your wife told her, I reckon!”

”Oh, thank you! Thank you for that! She could have gone to her mother if I had known she wanted to.”

”Of course she could, but maybe she did want to go to her mother and didn't want to leave you. I bet that was the reason she didn't tell you she wanted to see her mother. She knew you would insist upon her going, and then she would have had to leave you.”

Now the poor anxious young man was smiling. He wiped his eyes and grasped my hand.

”You are powerful like Doc Allison, Miss Page. He knows how to cure a sick spirit just as well as a sick body, and you sure can comfort a fellow, too.”

There was the creak of a screen door being hastily opened on the side porch of the farmhouse and an old colored woman came running out. Henry Miller jumped to his feet but could not go to meet her. Fear seemed to grip him. What news was she bringing?

”Ma.r.s.e Hinry, it's a boy! It's a boy!”

”A boy?”

”Ya.s.sir, a boy, an' jes' as peart as kin be, an' Miss Ellen----”

”Is she dead?”

”Daid! Law, chile, she is the livinges' thing you ever seed an' what's mo' she is a-axin' fer you jes' lak she can't stan' it a minute longer 'thout she see you. Baby cryin' fer you, too!” and sure enough we did hear a faint squeaky cry issuing from an upstairs room.

The newly-made parent sprinted to the house as though he were in a Marathon race, and the old colored woman and I looked at each other and wiped the tears off that would roll down our cheeks.

”Young paws allus is kinder pitable,” she remarked, and then hastened back to her labors.

Father came out soon, his lean face beaming with smiles, his arm thrown around the shoulders of the ecstatic Henry. We were to stay to dinner at the farmhouse, much to the delight of the old colored cook. It was deemed a great privilege in the county to have Doc Allison stop for dinner.

”I done made a dumplin' fer Ma.r.s.e Hinry,” she said, as we were sitting down to the hospitable board. ”In stressful times men-folks mus' eat or they gits ter broodin' on they troubles, an' whin men-folks gits ter broodin' if'n they ain't full er victuals fo' yer know it they is full er liquor.”

As Henry Miller was a most respectable, church-going young man this amused Father very much.

”That's so, Aunt Min, so you feed him up. He had better look out, anyhow, because before you know it that young man upstairs will be whipping him.”

This delighted the negress, who chuckled with glee as she pa.s.sed the dumplings.

”I is glad it's a boy 'cep'n' they is been so many boys born here lately that this ol' n.i.g.g.e.r is beginning ter s'picion that these here battles I hear 'bout is goin' ter spread this-a-way. In war time all the gal babies is born boys.”

”Oh, I hope not, Aunt Min,” said Father gravely.

”Ya.s.sir! An' the snakes! I never seed the like of snakes this summer gone by. That means the debble is busy an' the debble is the father of war.”

”True, true!” sighed the doctor. ”Well, I hope it won't come to us until the youngster upstairs is able to help defend us.”