“That would make all the difference in the world. I thought seriously of writing her. I wanted to, but I concluded I’d better work as hard as I could for some practice first, and see if I could make a living for two, before I tried to start anything. I had no idea she would not be comfortably cared for at her uncle’s.”
“I see,” said the Harvester. “If I had kept out, life would have come right for her.”
“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “it appears very probable that she would not be living.”
“It is understood between us, then, that you will court and marry her so soon as she is strong enough?”
“It is understood,” agreed the doctor.
“Will you honour me by taking my hand?” asked the Harvester. “I scarcely had hoped to find so much of a man. Now come to your room and get ready for the stiffest piece of work you ever attempted.”
The Harvester led the way to the guest chamber over looking the lake, and installed its first occupant. Then he hurried to the Girl. The doctor was holding her head and one hand, his wife the other, and the nurse her feet. It took the Harvester ten strenuous minutes to make his touch and presence known and to work quiet. All over he began crooning his story of rest, joy, and love. He broke off with a few words to introduce Doctor Harmon to the Careys and the nurse, and then calmly continued while the other men stood and watched him.
“Seems rather cut out for it,” commented Doctor Harmon.
“I never yet have seen him attempt anything that he didn’t appear cut out for,” answered Doctor Carey.
“Will she know me?” inquired the young man, approaching the bed.
When the Girl’s eyes fell on him she grew rigid and lay staring at him. Suddenly with a wild cry she struggled to rise.
“You have come!” she cried. “Oh I knew you would come! I felt you would come! I cannot pay you now! Oh why didn’t you come sooner?”
The young doctor leaned over and took one of the white hands from the Harvester, stroking it gently.
“Why you did pay, Ruth! How did you come to forget? Don’t you remember the draft you sent me? I didn’t come for money; I came to visit you, to nurse you, to do all I can to make you well. I am going to take care of you now so finely you’ll be out on the lake and among the flowers soon. I’ve got some medicine that makes every one well. It’s going to make you strong, and there’s something else that’s going to make you happy; and me, I’m going to be the proudest man alive.”
He reached over and took possession of the other hand, stroking them softly, and the Girl lay tensely staring at him and gradually yielding to his touch and voice. The Harvester arose, and passing around the bed, he placed a chair for Doctor Harmon and motioning for Doctor Carey left the room. He went to the shore to his swimming pool, wearily dropped on the bench, and stared across the water.
“Well thank God it worked, anyway!” he muttered.
“What’s that popinjay doing here?” thundered Doctor Carey. “Got some medicine that cures everybody. Going to make her well, is he? Make the cows, and the ducks, and the chickens, and the shitepokes well, and happy—no name for it! After this we are all going to be well and happy! You look it right now, David! What under Heaven have you done?”
“Left my wife with the man she loves, and to whom I release her, my dear friend,” said the Harvester. “And it’s so easy for me that you needn’t give making it a little harder, any thought.”
“David, forgive me!” cried Doctor Carey. “I don’t understand this. I’m almost insane. Will you tell me what it means?”
“Means that I took advantage of the Girl’s illness, utter loneliness, and fear, and forced her into marrying me for shelter and care, when she loved and wanted another man, who was preparing to come to her. He is her Chicago doctor, and fine in every fibre, as you can see. There is only one thing on earth for me to do, and that is to get out of their way, and I’ll do it as soon as she is well; but I vow I won’t leave her poor, tired body until she is, not even for him. I thought sure I could teach her to love me! Oh but this is bitter, Doc!”
“You are a consummate fool to bring him here!” cried Doctor Carey. “If she is too sick to realize the situation now, she will be different when she is normal again. Any sane girl that wouldn’t love you, David, ain’t fit for anything!”
“Yes, I’m a whale of a lover!” said the Harvester grimly. “Nice mess I’ve made of it. But there is no real harm done. Thank God, Harmon was not the only white man.”
“David, what do you mean?”
“Is it between us, Doc?”
“Yes.”
“For all time?”
“It is.”
The Harvester told him. He ended, “Give the fellow his dues, Doc. He had her at his mercy, utterly alone and unprotected, in a big city. There was not a living soul to hold him to account. He added to his burdens, borrowed more money, and sent her here. He thought she was coming to the country where she would be safe and well cared for until he could support her. I did the remainder. Now I must undo it, that’s all! But you have got to go in there and practise with him. You’ve got to show him every courtesy of the profession. You must go a little over the rules, and teach him all you can. You will have to stifle your feelings, and be as much of a man as it is in you to be, at your level best.”
“I’m no good at stifling my feelings!”
“Then you’ll have to learn,” said the Harvester. “If you’d lived through my years of repression in the woods you’d do the fellow credit. As I see it, his side of this is nearly as fine as you make it. I tell you she was utterly stricken, alone, and beautiful. She sought his assistance. When the end came he thought only of her. Won’t you give a young fellow in a place like Chicago some credit for that? Can’t you get through you what it means?”
Doctor Carey stood frowning in deep thought, but the lines of his face gradually changed.
“I suppose I’ve got to stomach him,” he said.
The nurse came down the gravel path.
“Mr. Langston, Doctor Harmon asked me to call you,” she said.
The Harvester arose and went to the sunshine room.
“What does he want, Molly?” asked the doctor.
“Wants to turn over his job,” chuckled the nurse. “He held it about seven minutes in peace, and then she began to fret and call for the Harvester. He just sweat blood to pacify her, but he couldn’t make it. He tried to hold her, to make love to her, and goodness knows what, but she struggled and cried, ‘David,’ until he had to give it up and send me.”
“Molly,” said Doctor Carey, “we’ve known the Harvester a long time, and he is our friend, isn’t he?”
“Of course!” said the nurse.
“We know this is the first woman he ever loved, probably ever will, as he is made. Now we don’t like this stranger butting in here; we resent it, Molly. We are on the side of our friend, and we want him to win. I’ll grant that this fellow is fine, and that he has done well, but what’s the use in tearing up arrangements already made? And so suitable! Now Molly, you are my best nurse, and a good reliable aid in times like this. I gave you instructions an hour ago. I’ll add this to them. YOU ARE ON THE HARVESTER’S SIDE. Do you understand? In this, and the days to come, you’ll have a thousand chances to put in a lick with a sick woman. Put them in as I tell you.”
“Yes, Doctor Carey.”
“And Molly! You are something besides my best nurse. You’re a smashing pretty girl, and your occupation should make you especially attractive to a young doctor. I’m sure this fellow is all right, so while you are doing your best with your patient for the Harvester, why not have a try for yourself with the doctor? It couldn’t do any harm, and it might straighten out matters. Anyway, you think it over.”
The nurse studied his face silently for a time, and then she began to laugh softly.
“He is up there doing his best with her,” she said.
The doctor threw out his hands in a gesture of disdain, a
nd the nurse laughed again; but her cheeks were pink and her eyes flashing as she returned to duty.
“Random shot, but it might hit something, you never can tell,” commented the doctor.
The Harvester entered the Girl’s room and stood still. She was fretting and raising her temperature rapidly. Before he reached the door his heart gave one great leap at the sound of her voice calling his name. He knew what to do, but he hesitated.
“She seems to have become accustomed to you, and at times does not remember me,” said Doctor Harmon. “I think you had better take her again until she grows quiet.”
The Harvester stepped to the bed and looked the doctor in the eye.
“I am afraid I left out one important feature in our little talk on the bridge,” he said. “I neglected to tell you that in your fight for this woman’s life and love you have a rival. I am he. She is my wife, and with the last fibre of my being I adore her. If you win, and she wants you to take her away, I will help you; but my heart goes with her forever. If by any chance it should occur that I have been mistaken or misinterpreted her delirium or that she has been deceived and finds she prefers me and Medicine Woods, to you and Chicago, when she has had opportunity to measure us man against man, you must understand that I claim her. So I say to you frankly, take her if you can, but don’t imagine that I am passive. I’ll help you if I know she wants you, but I fight you every inch of the way. Only it has got to be square and open. Do you understand?”
“You are certainly sufficiently clear.”
“No man who is half a man sees the last chance of happiness go out of his life without putting up the stiffest battle he knows,” said the Harvester grimly. “Ruth-girl, you are raising the fever again. You must be quiet.”
With infinite tenderness he possessed himself of her hands and began stroking her hair, and in a low and soothing voice the story of the birds, flowers, lake, and woods went on. To keep it from growing monotonous the Harvester branched out and put in everything he knew. In the days that followed he held a position none could take from him. While the doctors fought the fever, he worked for rest and quiet, and soothed the tortured body as best he could, that the medicines might act.
But the fever was stubborn, and the remedies were slow; and long before the dreaded coming day the doctors and nurse were quietly saying to each other that when the crisis came the heart would fail. There was no vitality to sustain life. But they did not dare tell the Harvester. Day and night he sat beside the maple bed or stretched sleeping a few minutes on the couch while the Girl slept; and with faith never faltering and courage unequalled, he warned them to have their remedies and appliances ready.
“I don’t say it’s going to be easy,” he said. “I just merely state that it must be done. And I’ll also mention that, when the hour comes, the man who discovers that he could do something if he had digitalis, or a remedy he should have had ready and has forgotten, that man had better keep out of my sight. Make your preparations now. Talk the case over. Fill your hypodermics. Clean your air pumps. Get your hot-water bottles ready. Have system. Label your stuff large and set it conveniently. You see what is coming, be prepared!”
One day, while the Girl lay in a half-drugged, feverish sleep, the Harvester went for a swim. He dressed a little sooner than was expected and in crossing the living-room he heard Doctor Harmon say to Doctor Carey on the veranda, “What are we going to do with him when the end comes?”
The Harvester stepped to the door. “That won’t be the question,” he said grimly. “It will be what will he do with us?”
Then, with an almost imperceptible movement, he caught Doctor Harmon at the waist line, and lifted and dangled him as a baby, and then stood him on the floor. “Didn’t hardly expect that much muscle, did you?” he inquired lightly. “And I’m not in what you could call condition, either. Instead of wasting any time on fool questions like that, you two go over your stuff and ask each other, have we got every last appliance known to physics and surgery? Have we got duplicates on hand in case we break delicate instruments like hypodermic syringes and that sort of thing? Engage yourselves with questions pertaining to life; that is your business. Instead of planning what you’ll do in failure, bolster your souls against it. Granny Moreland beats you two put together in grip and courage.”
The Harvester returned to his task, and the fight went on. At last the hour came when the temperature fell lower and lower. The feeble pulses flickered and grew indiscernible; a gray pallor hovered over the Girl, and a cold sweat stood on her temples.
“Now!” said the Harvester. “Exercise your calling! Fight like men or devils, but win you must.”
They did work. They administered stimulants; applied heat to the chilled body; fans swept the room with vitalized air; hypodermics were used; and every last resort known to science was given a full test, and the weak heart throbbed slower and slower, and life ran out with each breath. The Harvester stood waiting with set jaws. He could detect no change for the better. At last he picked up a chilled hand and could discover no pulse, and the gray nails and the dark tips told a story of arrested circulation. He laid down the hand and faced the men.
“This is what you’d call the crisis, Doc?” he asked gently.
“Yes.”
“Are you stemming it? Are you stemming it? Are you sure she is holding her own?”
Doctor Carey looked at him silently.
“Have you done all you can do?” asked the Harvester.
“Yes.”
“You believe her going out?”
“Yes.”
The Harvester turned to Doctor Harmon. “Do you concur in that?”
“Yes.”
Then to the nurse, “And you?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said the Harvester, “all of you are useless. Get out of here. I don’t want your atmosphere. If you can believe only in death, leave us! She is my wife, and if this is the end she belongs to me, and I will do as I choose with her. All of you go!”
The Harvester stepped to the bathroom door and called Granny Moreland. “Granny,” he said, “science has turned tail, and left me in extremity. Fill your hot-water bottles and come in here with your heart big with hope and help me save my Dream Girl. She is breathing Granny; we’ve got to make her keep it up, that’s all—just keep her breathing.”
He returned to the sunshine room, placed a small table beside the bed, and on it a glass of water, spoon, and a hypodermic syringe. When Granny Moreland came he said: “Now you begin on her feet and rub with long, sweeping, upward strokes to drive the blood to her heart.”
Around the Girl he piled hot-water bottles and breathlessly hung over her, rubbing her hands. He wiped the perspiration from her forehead, and then dropped by her bed and for a second laid his face on her cold palm.
“If I am wrong, Heaven forgive me,” he prayed. “And you, oh, my darling Dream Girl, forgive me, but I am forced to try—God helping me! Amen.”
He arose, took a small bottle from his pocket, filled the spoon with water, and measured into it three drops of liquid as yellow as gold. Then he held the spoon to the blue lips, and with his fingers worked apart the set teeth, and poured the medicine down her throat. Then they rubbed and muttered snatches of prayer for fifteen minutes when the Harvester administered another three drops. It might have been fancy, but it seemed to him her jaws were not so stiff. Faster flew his hands and he sent Granny Moreland to refill the hot bottles. When he gave the Girl the third dose he injected some of the liquid over her heart and of the glycerine the doctors had left, in the extremities. He released more air and began rubbing again.
The second hour started in the same way, and ended with slowly relaxing muscles and faint tinges of colour in the white cheeks. The feet were not so cold, and when the Harvester held the spoon he knew that the Girl made an effort to swallow, and he could see her eyelids tremble. Thereupon he pointed these signs to Granny, and implored her to rub and pray, and pray and rub, while he worked until the p
erspiration rolled down his gray face. At the end of the second hour he began decreasing the doses and shortening the time, and again he commenced in a low rumble his song of life and health, to encourage the Girl as consciousness returned.
Occasionally Doctor Carey opened the door slightly and peeped in to see if he were wanted, but he received no invitation to enter. The last time he left with the impression that the Harvester was raving, while he worked over a lifeless body. He had the Girl warmly covered and bent over her face and hands. At her feet crouched Granny Moreland, rubbing, still rubbing, beneath the covers, while in a steady stream the Harvester was pouring out his song. If he had listened an instant longer he would have recognized that the tone and the words had changed. Now it was, “Gently, breathe gently, Girl! Slowly, steadily, easily! Deeper, a little deeper, Ruth! Brave Girl, never another so wonderful! That’s my Dream Girl coming from the shadows, coming to life’s sunshine, coming to hope, coming to love! Deeper, just a little deeper! Smoothly and evenly! You are making it, Girl! You are making it! By all that is holy and glorious! Stick to it, Ruth, hold tight to me! I’ll help you, dear! You are coming, coming back to life and love. Don’t worry yourself trying too hard, if only you can send every breath as deeply as the last one, you can make it. You brave girl! You wonderful Dream Girl! Ah, Ruth, the name of this is victory!”
An hour before Doctor Carey had said to Doctor Harmon and the nurse, as he softly closed the door: “It is over and the Harvester is raving. We’ll give him a little more time and see if he won’t realize it himself. That will be easier for him than for us to try to tell him.”
Now he opened the door, stared a second, and coming to the opposite side of the bed, he leaned over the Girl. Then he felt her feet. They were warm and slightly damp. A surprised look crept over his face. He gently reached for a hand that the Harvester yielded to him. It was warm, the blue tips becoming rosy, the wrist pulse discernible. Then he bent closer, touched her face, and saw the tremulous eyelids. He turned back the cover, and held his ear over her heart. When he straightened, “As God lives, she’s got a chance, David!” he exulted in an awed whisper.
The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter Page 91
