Part 24 (1/2)
”I guess I'll go make you some coffee, mother,” said Emmy; ”you need it.”
The girl's self-control was like tinder to the woman's fire. Mrs. Darter flared out: ”You needn't make any coffee. I won't drink it. What's more, I won't eat one bite until you promise me to break with Bert Glenn--not if I starve to death! If you're willing to let those Glenns insult me and triumph over me, I ain't willing to live to see it.” Her feeble accents shrilled to a scream, as she flung out her arms with a reminiscence of the behavior of her favorite heroines in novels. ”Go, Emmeline Darter, marry him if you dare; but you will pa.s.s to the altar over your only mother's grave!” She had a confused sense that her syntax had played her false and that she had not gotten the words precisely right; but she covered any embarra.s.sment by sinking back and moaning.
Emmy looked at her with a mounting terror in her heart. She told herself that it was impossible that her mother could carry out such a hideous threat; but she knew that mucilaginous obstinacy which had not a place firm enough for a reason to get a hold. ”And she won't want to eat, either,” mused Emmy, wretchedly, ”for that nasty medicine has made her awful sick. She's got a fever now; that will burn away her strength. And if it comes to a choice between letting my mother starve and giving up Bert, I shall have to give him up!”
Emmy sprang out of her chair. The thought was like a lash on a raw wound.
She ran to the window; it seemed to her that she couldn't breathe; and her mother's whimpering irritated her past patience. She knew if she spoke that she would let the bars down for her anger, and if she were angry her mother would be upset physically, and grow so much worse that she would feel like a murderer. She felt the goading of that furious petulance which torments a woman often into sacrificing herself out of very anger. It was on her tongue to say, ”I'd rather die myself than give up Bert, and you know it; and I'll never forgive you as long as I live, but rather than see you die before my eyes I _will_ give him up.”
Neither to Emmy nor to her mother was there a doubt that any word pa.s.sed would be kept. Mrs. Darter, in the lost days of peace, before her vagaries had corroded her affection, had said once, ”Emmy never told me a lie in her life, nor she never broke a promise she made me!”
Emmy shut her lips tight and looked out of the window. Her troubled gaze did not note the dewy freshness of the morning on turf and tree. The houses were brown cottages for the most part, built in the lean period of western rural architecture when a stunted cruciform effect and a bescrolled piazza was the model for every village. But the ugly lines of wood were veiled by a kindly wealth of wistarias and clematis royally flaunting, by Virginia-creeper and trumpet-vines splashed with vermilion and yellow; the gra.s.s was velvet, there was a gay company of geraniums prospering in every garden; and below the hills and the tree-tops lay the lovely, dimpled hill-sides, golden with wheat or shorn to a varnished silver like nothing so much as the hue of s.h.i.+ning flax, and the waving fields of corn--all under a vault of burning blue, delicate, tender, innocent, with no sumptuous and threatening richness of cloud betokening storm, only high in the heavens the milky white c.u.muli, the ”harvest clouds.”
There were a thousand witcheries of light and shade, there was a radiant lavishness of color; it was a landscape like a mult.i.tude all over the Middle West, nevertheless a sight to make the heart beat the quicker for sheer delight. But it might have been a stone wall for anything poor Emmy, who loved each growing thing, saw in it this moment. To live without Bert, perhaps to learn that Susy Baker had the love which she would seem to have flung away--Emmy would have groaned if she had not heard Mrs. Darter's piteous din, and thought grimly that her mother did enough groaning for their small family!
Yet at this very instant of despair a minister of grace was lifting the latch of the Darter gate, and Emmy was unconsciously eying her. The minister of grace was short of stature and very plump. She had a round, fair, freckled face, which looked the rounder for its glittering spectacles. Her hair was a yellowish gray, but she covered it with a small white sailor hat. She wore a neat brown and white calico frock. To escape the dew she held her skirts high; one could see that her preference was for black alpaca slippers and white cotton stockings. The minister's name was Miss Ann Bigelow.
”Now _she_ comes to stir mother up worse!” thought Emmy. So blind are we to the future. But she opened the door for Miss Ann Bigelow, and bade her welcome, and proffered her the best rocking-chair in the parlor and a palm-leaf fan.
Miss Bigelow's countenance was beaming like an electric light.
”I really _had_ to come!” she exclaimed so soon as she could take breath. ”Have you heard about Mrs. Conner spraining her ankle?”
”Emmy, open the door!” moaned Mrs. Darter from within--her bed-room adjoined the parlor. Emmy opened the door, while she said: ”I'm so sorry. When? How is she?”
”Oh, she's all right now!” said Miss Bigelow. ”It's wonderful--a real miracle, I told sister. That's what I came to tell you. She sent over for us, and there she lay, flat on the kitchen floor. I begun to treat her in my mind the minute I saw her, for I saw she was in error. All her word was: 'Send for a doctor; it's sprained, if it ain't broke!' I didn't know what _to_ do. I didn't want to encourage her in error, and yet you know we are _not_ advanced so far as sprains and broken bones, and it is usual to summon a doctor; and I don't feel I'm advanced enough myself to undertake serious cases; I'm too weak and timid, and I haven't the spiritual vision. Emmy, does your mother _always_ groan that loud way? Is she in pain? I mean, does she _think_ she is in pain?”
”Yes'm,” said Emmy; ”but please go on; mother is listening.”
”Well, I stood there dazed, you may say; and just then in came Miss Keith. She's a little slim thing, but _such_ eyes! They seem to look you through and through! I'd have known she was a healer even if Mrs. Conner hadn't told me the night before when she was over in our house. She stood there, just simply looking at Mrs. Conner, not saying a word for a minnit. Then she says in the _kindest_ voice--I can't tell you how soft and kind her voice was!--she says, 'Have you the impression of great pain, Mrs. Conner?' And Mrs. Conner--you know how--well abruptly--she speaks, she said: '_Impression_ of pain? I only wish you had something jabbing you like a hot iron, I guess you'd be _impressed_. Ain't anybody going to take off my stocking? It's swelling every minnit!' Miss Keith only looked at her, and lifted her hand for me and the girl to keep still. I expect she was giving her silent treatment, for in a moment or two she said: 'Well?' in such an inspiring, cheerful tone; and Mrs. Conner said, 'Why, it's better!' surprised as could be; and I had to clap my hands for joy. But Miss Keith told us both to go out for a while and so we did. We waited half an hour by the clock, and that girl was the most restless being you ever saw. I had all I could to keep her quiet. Then the door opened--” Miss Bigelow made a wave of her plump hands, indicating the opening of a door, and paused with hands and voice. Mrs. Darter had ceased to groan.
”What happened?” said Emmy.
Miss Bigelow's hands met in a clap. ”_Mrs. Conner came walking out with Miss Keith, that's what happened!_” said she, in a low, solemn voice.
”On her sprained ankle?” cried Mrs. Darter.
”On her sprained ankle, her that couldn't move it without nearly fainting for the pain. She said it hardly pained her at all; and she's going right on with her preserving this minute. I said to sister it was simply mirac'lus. I can't find a better word.”
”Maybe her ankle was not sprained so badly as she thought,” Emmy suggested.
”Her face was white as a sheet,” said Miss Bigelow; ”and we all know Mrs. Conner isn't one to cry before she's hurt, or make a fuss; and we all know her prejudices about mental healing. She says she don't believe a _bit_ more in it than she did, 'but,' says she, 'that girl's a wonder!
I wish,' says she, 'Mrs. Darter could have her.' I never lisped, but I made up my mind to go and tell you right straight.”
”She couldn't do mother any good,” said Emmy, wearily. At which Mrs.
Darter spoke for herself in a good, round voice of contradiction. ”_Why_ couldn't she? How much does she charge, Miss Ann?”
”_Not one cent!_” replied Ann, with a thrill of triumph; ”_if_ she'll come, she'll come free; but I don't know whether she will come.”
”Emmy, you go and ask Mrs. Conner to ask her to come; ask Mrs. Conner to come too,” said Mrs. Darter, resuming her feeble voice. ”I want to see if that ankle _is_ cured. You'll stay with me, Miss Ann?”
So, almost too quickly for her to realize the position, Emmy found herself on her way to the Conners'. A fragrant odor wafted Mrs. Conner's occupation through the open kitchen door before Emmy crossed the threshold to behold her skimming a great kettle of plum jam. ”Landy, land! it's Emmy Darter already!” she cried, with a jolly laugh. ”I thought I could git that plum jam ready to take off before you'd come. I knew it wouldn't be long when I saw Miss Ann Bigelow trotting across lots. Your ma's sent for Miss Keith, I guess. Well, it's lucky Conner has the hosses. .h.i.tched in the wagon, and he can take us right over. I'll call Hedwig to take off the jam, and Miss Keith--”