Part 73 (2/2)

The Doctor made a glad gesture. ”I know how hard it must be for you to do without her,” he said, ”but if you can get along somehow for three or four days, why--you know she's away yonder the best nurse in the three counties--it'll make a world of difference to my patient.”

”I hope he'll like her ways,” replied the young mistress. ”There's so much in that.”

”Don't fear!” laughed the Doctor. ”He hasn't looked so pleased since he first took sick as he did when I told him I was going to fetch her. By the bye, how do you sleep since I changed yo' medicine this last time; no better? Ain't yo' appet.i.te improved any? I still think the secret of all yo' trouble is malaria; I haven't a doubt you brought it with you from the North! I wish I could find as good an explanation of yo'

father's condition.--I just declare it's an outrage on the rights of a plain old family chills-and-fever doctor, for a lot of you folks to be havin' these here sneakin' nerve and brain things that calomel an'

quinine can't--O! here's Johanna.”

On his way through town again, with the black maid beside him in his battered top buggy, he paused at the Tombses' gate, hailed by the fond old Parson. ”You haven't got her? Why, so you have!--'Howdy, Johanna, you're a bless'n' here to-night,' as the hymn says. Doctor, I hope an'

trust an' pray Sister Proudfit's attack won't turn out serious----?”

The Doctor was surprised. ”_I_ ain't been called to her; didn't know she was sick.”

”Well, I say!” exclaimed the Parson. ”Why, it's all over town that you _wuz_, and that you found her so prostrated with relaxation of the nerves that her husband couldn't hold her still! You've heard, of co'se, that he's got back at last? Isn't it pathetic? I've been talkin' about it to Brother Garnet--you pa.s.sed him just now, didn't you?--and as he says, her husband goes off, a walkin' ruin, to be gone three months, stays twelve, and arrives back totally unexpected on this mawnin's six-o'clock train, a-callin' himself _cu'ud_! Brother Coffin, _you_ don't believe that, _do_ you? Why, as Brother Garnet says, the drinkin'

habit is as much a moral as a physical sickness, and the man that can make common talk of it in his own case to ev'y Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, evm down to the niggehs, ain't so much as tetched the deepest root uv his trouble, much less cu'ud! Why, Doctor, Brother Garnet see him, himself!--a-tellin' that C'nelius Leggett!--and pulled him away! Po'

Brother Garnet! Johanna, I wish, betwixt the Doctor an' you, you could make him look betteh. His load of usefulness is too great. I declare, Brother Coffin, he was that tiud this evenin' that evm here, where you'd expect him to seem fresh and happy in his new joy, he looked as if, if it wa'n't faw the wrong of the thing, he'd almost be willin' to call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall on him and hide him.--But I mustn't detain you!”

The physician drove on, and by and by was leaving directions with Johanna and her protectors, Tom Hersey and his wife. ”And, Tom, mind you, _no visitors_. It's his own wish. Good-night.--O!--that young Mr.

Fair. March tells me he's expecting him any time within the next few days, to help lay the corner-stone of this new building up at the colored college; Fair Hall, yes. Whenever he comes take him right up to see March. I promised John you would!”

LXXVII.

”LINES OF LIGHT ON A SULLEN SEA”

From the first hour of Johanna's attendance March began to mend. Whence she came, whither she went, as she moved in and out so pleasantly, he never thought to ask, and never found out that her bed was a pallet laid on the stair-landing just at his door.

The young bloods down in the street were keenly amused. ”Doctor, if he was anybody but John March aw she anybody but Johanna”--the rest was too funny for words. ”How is he to-day, anyhow? Improving rap'--well! good fo' that! Come, gentlemen, let's--Come, Shot. Doctor, won't you--” And as they went they all agreed that the dark maiden's invincible modesty was like some ”subtle emana-ation,” as Shotwell expressed it, which charmed all evil out of the grossest eye.

True it was in the convalescent's case, that while Johanna's mere doings had their curative value, her simple presence had more. Yet her greatest healing was in her words; in what she told him. She only answered questions; but these he lightly plied on any and every trivial matter that promised to lead up--or around--to one subject which seemed to allure him without cessation. Yet always at her first pause after entering upon any phase of this topic, he would say, ”But that's not what--hem!--I was speaking of,” and starting once more, at any distance away, would begin to steal yet another approach toward the same enticing theme.

So the brief time of her appointed service came to its end, neither the Doctor, nor the convalescent, nor even her young mistress, for one moment imagining what dear delight, yet withal what saintly martyrdom to Johanna, this three days' task had been.

In its last hour, when she, to end all well, prepared and brought up the captive's evening meal, she found him sitting up in bed talking to Henry Fair.

”Doctor thinks I can go down to my office Monday. Yes, I knew what ailed me better than he did. I began to recover the moment I quit trying to convince the Lord that He ought to run this world in my private interest. Ah! Johanna, so this is the last, is it? I'm pow'ful sorry!

Mr. Fair, you remember Johanna, don't you?”

Mr. Fair remembered, the maid courtesied, and March, a trifle unduly animated, ran on--”Johanna's the salt of the earth, Mr. Fair. Don't often see best salt that color, do you?” Then dropping his tone--”O! you know, if my chief concern were still, as it was at first, to recover my fortunes, or even to vindicate my abilities, I reckon I could make out to accept defeat--almost. For, really, I'm just about the only sufferer--outwardly, at least. Of course, there's an awful shrinkage here, but all our home people have made net gains--unless it is Proudfit; I--eh--Johanna, you needn't stay in here; only don't go beyond call.”

The maid closed the door after her, took her accustomed rocking-chair and needle on the stair-landing, and being quite as human as if she had been white, listened. Fair's words were very indistinct, but March's came through the thin door-panels as clean as rifle-b.a.l.l.s. ”O! yes,” was one of his replies, ”I know that with even nothing left but the experiences, I'm a whole world richer, in things that make a real manhood and life, than when I was land-poor with my hundred thousand acres. As far as _I_ am concerned, I can afford to deny myself all the reprisals, and revenges too, that litigations could ever give me. I've got sixty acres of Widewood to begin over with--By Jo'! Garnet, himself, began with less!” He let go a feverish laugh.

”If I come to that,” he added, ”I've got, besides, a love of study and a talent for teaching, two things he never had.” Fair asked a question and he laughed again. ”O! no, it was only a pa.s.sing thought. If anybody 'busts Rosemont wide open' it'll have to be Leggett. O! no, I----” He played with his spoon.

Fair's response must have been complimentary. ”Thank you,” said March; ”why, thank you!” Then the visitor spoke again and the convalescent replied:

<script>