Читать книгу From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound - Ella Higginson - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Demaris opened the gate and walked up the narrow path. There was a low hedge of pink and purple candytuft on each side. Inside the hedges were little beds of homely flowers in the shapes of hearts, diamonds and Maltese crosses.

Mrs. Eaton was stooping over a rosebush, but she arose when she heard the click of the gate. She stood looking at Demaris, with her arms hanging stiffly at her sides.

“Oh,” she said, with a grim smile; “you, is it?”

“Yes,” said the girl, blushing and looking embarrassed. “Ain’t it a nice evenin’?”

“It is that; awful nice. I’m tyin’ up my rosebushes. Won’t you come in an’ set down a while?”

“Oh, my, no!” said Demaris. Her eyes went wistfully to the pink rosebush. “I can’t stay.”

“Come fer kindlin’ wood?”

“No.” She laughed a little at the worn-out joke. “I come to see ’f you had two or three pink roses to spare.”

“Why, to be sure, a dozen if you want. Just come an’ help yourself. My hands ain’t fit to tech ’em after diggin’ so.”

She stood watching the girl while she carefully selected some half-open roses. There was a look of good-natured curiosity on her face.

“Anything goin’ on at the church to-night?”

“No; at least not that I know of.”

“It must be a party then.”

“No—not a party, either.” She laughed merrily. Her face was hidden as she bent over the roses, but her ears were pink under the heavy brown hair that fell, curling, over them.

“Well, then, somebody’s comin’ to see you.”

“No; I’ll have to tell you.” She lifted a glad, shy face. “I’m goin’ on the moonlight excursion.”

“Oh, now! Sure? Well, I’m reel glad.”

“So’m I. I never wanted to go anywheres so much in my life. I’ve been ’most holdin’ my breath for fear ma’d get sick.”

“How is your ma?”

“Well, she ain’t very well; she never is, you know.”

“What ails her?”

“I do’ know,” said Demaris, slowly. “We’ll get home by midnight. So ’f she has a spell come on, pa can set up with her till I get home, and then I can till mornin’.”

“Should think you’d be all wore out a-settin’ up two or three nights a week that way.”

Demaris sighed. The radiance had gone out of her face and a look of care was upon it.

“Well,” she said, after a moment, “I’ll have a good time to-night, anyhow. We’re goin’ to have the band along. They’re gettin’ so’s they play reel well. They play ‘Annie Laurie’ an’ ‘Rocked ’n the Cradle o’ the Deep,’ now.”

The gate clicked. A child came running up the path.

“Oh, sister, sister! Come home quick!”

“What for?” said Demaris. There was a look of dread on her face.

“Ma’s goin’ right into a spell. She wants you quick. She thinks she’s took worse ’n usual.”

There was a second’s hesitation. The girl’s face whitened. Her lips trembled.

“I guess I won’t want the roses after gettin’ ’em,” she said. “I’m just as much obliged, though, Mis’ Eaton.”

She followed the child to the gate.

“Well, if that don’t beat all!” ejaculated Mrs. Eaton, looking after her with genuine sympathy. “It just seems as if she had a spell to order ev’ry time that girl wants to go anywheres. It’s nothin’ but hysterics, anyway. I’d like to doctor her for a while. I’d souze a bucket o’ cold water over her! I reckon that ’u’d fetch her to ’n a hurry.”

She laughed with a kind of stern mirth and resumed her work.

Demaris hurried home. The child ran at her side. Once she took her hand and gave her an upward look of sympathy.

She passed through the kitchen, laying her roses on the table. Then she went into her mother’s room.

Mrs. Ferguson lay on a couch. A white cloth was banded around her head, coming well down over one eye. She was moaning bitterly.

Demaris looked at her without speaking.

“Where on earth you been?” She gave the girl a look of fierce reproach. “A body might die, fer all the help you’d be to ’em. Here I’ve been a-feelin’ a spell a-comin’ on all day, an’ yet you go a-gaddin’ ’round to the neighbors, leavin’ me to get along the best way I know how. I believe this is my last spell. I’ve got that awful pain over my right eye ag’in, till I’m nearly crazy. My liver’s all out o’ order.”

Demaris was silent. When one has heard the cry of “wolf” a hundred times, one is inclined to be incredulous. Her apathetic look angered her mother.

“What makes you stand there a-starin’ like a dunce? Can’t you help a body? Get the camfire bottle an’ the tincture lobelia an’ the box o’ goose grease! You know’s well’s me what I need when I git a spell. I’m so nervous I feel’s if I c’u’d fly. I got a horrible feelin’ that this’ll be my last spell—an’ yet you stand there a-starin’ ’s if you didn’t care a particle!”

Demaris moved about the room stiffly, as if every muscle in her body were in rebellion. She took from a closet filled with drugs the big camphor bottle with its cutglass stopper, the little bottle labeled “tinc. lobelia,” and the box of goose grease.

She placed a chair at the side of the couch to hold the bottle. “Oh, take that old split-bottom cheer away!” exclaimed her mother. “Everything upsets on it so! Get one from the kitchen—the one that’s got cherries painted on the back of it. What makes you ac’ so? You know what cheer I want. You’d tantalize the soul out of a saint!”

The chair was brought. The bottles were placed upon it. Demaris stood waiting.

“Now rub my head with the camfire, or I’ll go ravin’ crazy. I can’t think where ’t comes from!”

The child stood twitching her thin fingers around a chair. She watched her mother in a matter-of-course way. Demaris leaned over the couch in an uncomfortable position and commenced the slow, gentle massage that must continue all night. She did not lift her eyes. They were full of tears.

For a long time there was silence in the room. Mrs. Ferguson lay with closed eyes. Her face wore a look of mingled injury and reproach.

“Nellie,” said Demaris, after a while, “could you make a fire in the kitchen stove? Or would you rather try to do this while I build it?”

“Hunh-unh,” said the child, shaking her head with emphasis. “I’d ruther build fires any time.”

“All right. Put two dippers o’ water ’n the tea-kettle. Be sure you get your dampers right. An’ I guess you might wash some potatoes an’ put ’em in to bake. They’ll be done by time pa comes, an’ he can stay with ma while I warm up the rest o’ the things. Ma, what could you eat?”

“Oh, I do’ know”—in a slightly mollified tone. “A piece o’ toast, mebbe—’f you don’t get it too all-fired hard.”

“Well, I’ll try not.”

Nellie went out, and there was silence in the room. The wind came in through the open window, shaking little ripples of perfume into the room. The sun was setting and a broad band of reddish gold sunk down the wall.

Demaris watched it sinking lower, and thought how slowly the sun was settling behind the straight pines on the crests of the blue mountains.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “what a wretched creature I am! Just a-sufferin’ day an’ night, year in an’ year out, an’ a burden on them that I’ve slaved fer all my life. Many’s the night I’ve walked with you ’n my arms till mornin’, Demaris, an’ never knowed what it was to git sleepy or tired. An’ now you git mad the minute I go into a spell.”

Demaris stood upright with a tortured look.

“Oh, ma,” she exclaimed. Her voice was harsh with pain. “I ain’t mad. Don’t think I’m mad. I can’t cry out o’ pity ev’ry time you have a spell, or I’d be cryin’ all the time. An’ besides, to-night I’m so—disappointed.”

“What you disappointed about?”

“Why, you know.” Her lips trembled. “The excursion.”

Mrs. Ferguson opened her eyes.

“Oh, I’d clean fergot that.”

She looked as if she were thinking she would really have postponed the spell, if she had remembered. “That’s too bad, Demaris. That’s always the way.” She began to cry helplessly. “I’m always in the way. Always mis’rable myself, an’ always makin’ somebody else mis’rable. I don’t see what I was born fer.”

“Never you mind.” Demaris leaned over suddenly and put her arms around her mother. “Don’t you think I’m mad. I’m just disappointed. Now don’t cry. You’ll go and make yourself worse. An’ there comes pa; I hear him cleanin’ his boots on the scraper.”

Mr. Ferguson stumbled as he came up the steps to the kitchen. He was very tired. He was not more than fifty, but his thin frame had a pitiable stoop. The look of one who has struggled long and failed was on his brown and wrinkled face. His hair and beard were prematurely gray. His dim blue eyes had a hopeless expression that was almost hidden by a deeper one of patience. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, moist with perspiration, and faded blue overalls. His boots were wrinkled and hard; the soil of the fields clung to them. “Sick ag’in, ma?” he said.

“Sick ag’in! Mis’rable creature that I am! I’ve got that awful pain over my right eye ag’in. I can’t think where it comes from. I’m nearly crazy with it.”

“Well, I guess you’ll feel a little better after you git some tea. I’ll go an’ wash, an’ then rub your head, while Demaris gits a bite to eat. I’ve plowed ever since sun-up, an’ I’m tired an’ hungry.”

He returned in a few minutes, and took Demaris’s place. He sighed deeply, but silently, as he sat down.

Demaris set the table and spread upon it the simple meal which she had prepared. “I’ll stay with ma while you an’ pa eat,” said Nellie, with a sudden burst of unselfishness.

“Well,” said Demaris, wearily.

Mr. Ferguson sat down at the table and leaned his head on his hand. “I’m too tired to eat,” he said; “hungry’s I am.” He looked at the untempting meal of cold boiled meat, baked potatoes and apple sauce.

Demaris did not lift her eyes as she sat down. She felt that she ought to say something cheerful, but her heart was too full of her own disappointment. She despised her selfishness even while yielding to it.

“It does beat all about your ma,” said her father. “I can’t see where she gits that pain from. It ain’t nothin’ danger’s or it ’u’d a-killed her long ago. It almost seems ’s if she jests gits tired o’ bein’ well, an’ begins to git scared fer fear that pain’s a-comin’ on—an’ then it comes right on. I’ve heard her say lots o’ times that she’d been well a whole week now, but that she w’u’dn’t brag or that pain ’u’d come on—an’ inside of an hour it ’ud up an’ come on. It’s awful discouragin’.”

“I wish I was dead!” said Demaris.

Her father did not speak. His silence reproached her more than any words could have done.

When she went into the bedroom again she found her mother crying childishly.

“Demaris, did I hear you say you wished you was dead?”

“I guess so. I said it.”

“Well, God Almighty knows I wish I was! You don’t stop to think what ’u’d become o’ me ’f it wa’n’t fer you. Your pa c’u’dn’t hire anybody, an’ he’s gittin’ too old to set up o’ nights after workin’ hard all day. You’d like to see ’t all come on your little sister, I reckon.”

Demaris thought of those slim, weak wrists, and shivered. Her mother commenced to sob—and that aggravated the pain.

Demaris stooped and put her arms around her and kissed her.

“I’m sorry I said it,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just tired an’ cross. You know I didn’t mean it.”

Her father came in heavily.

“Demaris,” he said, “Frank Vickers is comin’ ’round to the front door. I’ll take keer o’ your ma while you go in an’ see him.”

It was a radiant-faced young fellow that walked into Demaris’s little parlor. He took her hand with a tenderness that brought the color beating into her cheeks.

“What?” he said. “An’ you ain’t ready? Why, the boat leaves in an hour, an’ it’s a good, long walk to the wharf. You’ll have to hurry up, Demaris.”

“I can’t go.”

“You can’t go? Why can’t you?”

She lifted her eyes bravely. Then tears swelled into them very slowly until they were full. Not one fell. She looked at him through them. He felt her hand trembling against the palm of his own.

“Why can’t you, Demaris?”

“My mother’s sick—just hear her moanin’ clear in here.”

Young Vickers’s face was a study.

“Why, she was sick last time I wanted to take you som’ers—to a dance, wasn’t it?”

“Yes—I know.”

“An’ time before that, when I wanted you to go to a church sociable up’n String Town.”

“Yes.”

“Why, she must be sick near onto all the time, accordin’ to that.”

“She is—pretty near.” She withdrew her hand. There was a stiff-looking lounge in one corner of the room. It was covered with Brussels carpet, and had an uncomfortable back, but it was dear to Demaris’s heart. She had gathered and sold strawberries two whole summers to pay for it. She sat down on it now and laid her hands together on her knees.

The young man followed and sat down beside her.

“Why, my dear,” he said, very quietly, “you can’t stand this sort of thing—it’s wearin’ you out. You never did look light an’ happy like other girls o’ your age; an’ lately you’re gettin’ a real pinched look. I feel as if ’t was time for me to interfere.” He took her hand again.

It was dim twilight in the room now. Demaris turned her head aside. The tears brimmed over and fell fast and silently.

“Interferin’ won’t do no good,” she said, resolutely. “There’s just two things about it. My mother’s sick all the time, an’ I have to wait on her. There’s nobody else to do it.”

“Well, as long ’s you stay at home it’ll all come on you. You ain’t able to carry sech a load.”

“I’ll have to.”

“Demaris, you’ll just have to leave.”

“What!” said the girl. She turned to look at him in a startled way. “Leave home? I couldn’t think of doin’ that.”

He leaned toward her and put his arm around her, trembling strongly. “Not even to come to my home, Demaris? I want you, dear; an’ I won’t let you kill yourself workin’, either. I ain’t rich, but I’m well enough off to give you a comfortable home an’ some one to do your work for you.”

There was a deep silence. Each felt the full beating of the other’s heart. There was a rosebush under the window, an old-fashioned one. Its blooms were not beautiful, but they were very sweet. It had flung a slim, white spray of them into the room. Demaris never smelled their fragrance afterward without a keen, exquisite thrill of passion, as brief as it was delicious.

“I can’t, Frank.” Her tone was low and uncertain. “I can’t leave my mother. She’s sick an’ gettin’ old. I can’t.”

“Oh, Demaris! That’s rank foolishness!”

“Well, I guess it’s the right kind of foolishness.” She drew away and sat looking at him. Her hands were pressed together in her lap.

“Why, it ain’t expected that a girl ’ad ought to stay an’ take care o’ her mother forever, is it? It ain’t expected that she ought to turn herself into a hospital nurse, is it?”

Her face grew stern.

“Don’t talk that way, Frank. That ain’t respectful to my mother. She’s had a hard life an’ so’s my father. You know I want to come, but I can’t. It’s my place to stay an’ take care o’ her. I’m goin’ to do it—hard ’s it is. My leavin’ ’em ’u’d just take the heart out of both of ’em. An’ there’s Nellie, too.”

“Demaris—” he spoke slowly; his face was pale—“I’m goin’ to say somethin’ to you I never thought I’d say to any girl alive. But the fact is, I didn’t know till right now how much I think o’ you. You marry me, an’ we’ll all live together?”

Her face softened. She leaned a little toward him with uncontrollable tenderness. But as he made a quick movement, she drew back.

“No, Frank. I can’t—I can’t! It won’t do. Such things is what breaks women’s hearts!”

“What things, dear?”

“Folks livin’ together that way. There’s no good ever comes of it. I’d have to set up with mother just the same, an’ you’d be worryin’ all the time for fear it ’u’d make me sick, an’ you’d be wantin’ to set up with ’er yourself.”

“Of course,” he said, stoutly. “I’d expect to. That’s what I mean. I’d take some o’ your load off o’ you.”

Demaris smiled mournfully. “You don’t know what it is, Frank. It’s all very well to talk about it, but when it comes to doin’ it you’d be tired out ’n a month. You’d wish you hadn’t married me—an’ that ’u’d kill me!”

“I wouldn’t. Oh, Demaris, just you try me. I’ll be good to all your folks—just as good’s can be, dear. I swear it.”

She leaned toward him again with a sob. He took her in his arms. He felt the delicious warmth of her body. Their lips trembled together.

After a while she drew away slowly and looked at him earnestly in the faint light.

“If I thought you wouldn’t change,” she faltered. “I know you mean it now, but oh—”

“Sister,” called a thin, troubled voice from the hall; “can’t you come here just a minute?”

Demaris went at once, closing the door behind her.

The child threw her slim arms around her sister’s waist, sobbing.

“Oh, sister, I forgot to get the kindlin’ wood, an’ now it’s so dark down cellar. I’m afraid. Can’t you come with me?”

“Wait a few minutes, dear, an’ I will. Frank won’t stay long to-night.”

“Oh, won’t he? I’m so glad.” Her voice sunk to a whisper. “I hate to have him here, sister. He takes you away from us so much, an’ ev’rything goes wrong when you ain’t here. Ma’s offul bad to-night, an’ pa looks so tired! Don’t let him stay long, sister. He don’t need you as bad ’s we do.”

She tiptoed into the kitchen. Demaris stood still in the hall. The moon was coming, large and silver, over the hill. Its soft light brought her slender figure out of the dark, and set a halo above her head bending on its fair neck, like a flower on its stem. Her lips moved, but the prayer remained voiceless in her heart.

A moan came from her mother’s room.

“Oh, paw, you hurt my head! Your hand’s terrable rough! Is that girl goin’ to stay in there forever?”

Demaris lifted her head and walked steadily into the poor little parlor. “I’ll have to ask you to go now, Frank; my mother needs me.”

“Well, dear.” He reached his strong young arms to her. She stood back, moving her head from side to side.

“No, Frank. I can’t marry you, now or ever. My mother comes first.”

“But you ain’t taken time to make up your mind, Demaris. I’ll wait fer ’n answer.”

“It’s no use. I made up my mind out ’n the hall. You might as well go. When I make up my mind it’s no use in tryin’ to get me to change it. I hadn’t made it up before.”

He went to her and took her hands.

“Demaris,” he said, and all his heart-break was in his voice, “do you mean it? Oh, my dear, I’ll go if you send me; but I’ll never come back again; never.”

She hesitated but a second. Then she said very gently, without emotion—“Yes, go. You’ve been good to me; but it’s all over. Good-bye.”

He dropped her hands without a word, and went.

She did not look after him, or listen to his footsteps. She went to the cellar with Nellie, to get the kindling wood, which she arranged in the stove, ready for the match in the morning.

Then she went into her mother’s room. She looked pale in the flickering light of the candle.

“I’ll take care of ma, now, pa,” she said. “You get to bed an’ rest. I know you’re all tired out—plowin’ ever since sun-up! An’ don’t you get up till I call you. I ain’t a bit sleepy. I couldn’t sleep if I went to bed.”

She moistened her fingers with camphor and commenced bathing her mother’s brow.