The Red Acorn Part 28

"I half believe the b.o.o.by will have hysterics," thought Rachel, with curling lip. "Is this the man they praised so for his heroism? Does all his manhood depend upon his health? Now he hasn't the spirit of a sick kitten." Dreading a scene, however, she took her seat at the head of the cot, and gave some directions for its arrangement.

Jake's symptoms grew worse rapidly, for he bent all his crafty energies to that end. Refuge in the hospital from the unpleasant contingencies attending duty in the field was a good thing, and it became superexcellent when his condition made him the object of the care and sympathy of so fine a young lady as Miss Rachel Bond. This he felt was something like compensation for all that he had endured for the country, and he would get as much of it as possible. His mind busied itself in recalling and imitating the signs of suffering he had seen in others.

He breathed stretorously, groaned and sighed immoderately, and even had little fits of well-feigned delirium, in which he babbled of home and friends and the war, and such other things as had come within the limited scope of his mental horizon.

"Don't leave me, Miss Rachel--don't leave me," he said, in one of these simulated paroxysms, clutching at the same time, with a movement singularly well directed for a delirious man, one of her delicate hands in his great, coa.r.s.e, and not-over-clean fingers. Had it been the hand of a dying man, or of one in a raging fever, that imprisoned hers, Rachel would not have felt the repulsion that she did at a touch which betrayed to her only too well that the toucher's illness was counterfeited. She could hardly restrain the impulse to dash away the loathsome hand, as she would a toad that had fallen upon her, but she swiftly remembered, as she had in hundreds of other instances since she had been in the hospital, that she was no longer in her own parlor, but in a public place, with scores of eyes noting every movement, and that such an act of just disdain would probably be misunderstood, and possibly be ruinous to a belief in her genuine sympathy with the misfortunes of the sick which she had labored so heroically to build up.

She strove to release her fingers quietly, but at this Alspaugh's paroxysm became intense. He clung the tighter to her, and kneaded her fingers in a way that was almost maddening. Never in all her life had a man presumed to take such a familiarity with her. But her woman's wit did not desert her. With her disengaged hand she felt for and took out a large pin that fastened a bit of lace to her throat, with the desperate intent to give her tormentor a sly stab that would change the current of his thoughts.

But at the moment of carrying this into effect something caused her to look up, and she saw Dr. Denslow standing before her, with an amused look in his kindly, hazel eyes.

She desisted from her purpose and restored the pin to its place in obedience to a sign from him, which told her that he thoroughly understood the case, and had a more effective way of dealing with it than the thrust of a pin point.

"I'm very much afraid that this is a dangerous case we have here, Miss Bond," he said in a stage whisper, as if very anxious that the patient should not overhear. "Yes, a very dangerous case."

Jake grew pale, released Rachel's hand, turned over on his side and groaned.

"Do you really think so, Doctor?" said Rachel in the same tone.

"Yes, really. It's as clear a case of de gustibus non disputandum as I ever saw in my life."

"O, Lordie, hev I got all of that?" asked Jake, as he sat bolt upright, with eyes starting.

"It is my unpleasant duty to tell you that you certainly have," said the Doctor, gravely. "As plainly indicated as I ever saw it. Furthermore, it is seriously complicated with fiat just.i.tia ruat caelum, with strong hints of the presence of in media tutissimus ibis."

"Great Scott! can I ever get well?" groaned poor Jake. Rachel's strain was on her risibles, and to make her face express only sympathy and concern.

"And," continued the remorseless Surgeon, in a tone of the kindliest commiseration, "in the absence of the least espirt de corps, and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori feeling in you it is apparent that none of your mental processes are going on properly, which deranges everything."

"Can't I be sent home to die?" whimpered the wretched Jake.

"Not in your present condition. I notice, in addition to what I have told you, that your heart is not right--its action is depraved, so to speak." This with a glance at Rachel, which brought the crimson to that damsel's cheek.

"O, Doctor, please try to do something for me right off, before I get any worse," pleaded Jake, with the tears starting in his eyes.

Rachel took this opportunity to slip away to where she could laugh un.o.bserved. The Surgeon's facial muscles were too well trained to feel any strain. He continued in the same tone of gentle consideration:

"I have already ordered the preparation of some remedies. The Steward will be here in a few minutes with the barber, who will shave your head, that we may apply a couple of fly-bisters behind your ears. They are also spreading a big mustard-plaster in the dispensary for you, which will cover your whole breast and stomach. These, with a strong dose of castor-oil, may bring you around so that you will be able to go back to duty in a short time."

Jake did not notice the unsheathed sarcasm in the Surgeon's allusion to returning to duty. He was too delighted with the chance of escaping all the horrors enumerated to think of aught else, and he even forgot to beg for Rachel to come and sit beside his bedside, as he had intended doing, until the blisters began to remind him that they stuck closer than a brother. After that he devoted his entire attention to them, as a man is apt to.

A good-sized blister, made according to the United States Pharmacopoeia, has few equals as a means of concentrating the attention. When it takes a fair hold of its work it leaves the gentleman whom it patronizes little opportunity to think of anything else than it and what it is doing. Everything else is forgotten, that it may receive full consideration. Then comes in an opportunity for a vigorous imagination.

No one ever underestimates the work done by an active blister, if it is upon himself. No one ever grumbles that he is not getting his money's worth. It is the one monumental exception, where men are willing to accept and be satisfied with a fractional part of that which they have bought and paid for.

So when the layer of fresh mustard that covered the whole anterior surface of Mr. Alspaugh's torso began to take a fair hold of its appointed work that gentlemen's thoughts became strangely focused upon it, and they succeeded each other as the minutes went by something in this fas.h.i.+on:

FIRST TEN MINUTES.--"I 'spect that this may become rather unpleasant and bothersome, but it will not be for long, and it'll really do me much good."

SECOND TEN MINUTES.--"I had no idea that blisters felt just this way, but they never really hurt anybody but women and children--MEN laugh at them."

THIRD TEN MINUTES.--"The thing seems to be hunting 'round for my tender spots, and pokin' pins into 'em. I begin to wish that it was all over with."

FOURTH TEN MINUTES.--"It begins to hurt real bad. I wonder if it ain't a'most time to take it off?"

FIFTH TEN MINUTES.--"The very devil seems to be in that thing. It burns like as if a sheet of red-hot iron was layin' there."

SIXTH TEN MINUTES.--"I surely believe that they've made a terrible mistake about that blister, and put in some awful thing that'll kill me if it ain't stopped. I'll swear it's not only eat all the skin off, but it's gone through my ribs, an' is gnawin' at my insides. Why don't the Doctor come 'round an' see to it? Here, nurse, call the Doctor, an' have this think taken off."

NURSE.--"No, it's all right. The Doctor left orders that it was not to be disturbed for some time yet. I'll see to it when the proper time comes. I'm watching the clock."

SEVENTH TEN MINUTES.--"Great Jehosefat! this's jest awful. That blasted stuff's cooked my innards to rags, an' I kin feel my backbone a-sizzlin'. Say, Steward, do, for the Lord's sake, come here, an' take this thing off, while there's a little life left in me."

STEWARD.--"Can't do anything yet. You must grin and bear it a little while longer."

EIGHTH TEN MINUTES.--"Holy smoke! I couldn't suffer more if I was in the lake of burnin' brimstone. Every ounce of me's jest fryin'. Say, Steward! Steward!"

STEWARD (ANGRILY).--"I have told you several times that I couldn't do anything for you yet awhile. Now keep quiet."

"But Steward, can't you at least bring me a fork?"

"Why, what do you want a fork for?"

"Jest to see for myself if I ain't cooked done--that's all."

A roar of laughter went up in which even Dr. Denslow, who had just entered the ward, joined. He orderEd the blister to be taken off, and the inflamed surfaces properly dressed, which was done to the accompaniment of Jake's agonizing groans.

"I think Lieutenant Alspaugh will be content to go back to the field in a few days, if we continue this vigorous treatment," Dr. Denslow said, a little later, as he came into the reading-room of the hospital where he found Rachel sitting alone.

"O, Doctor, how could you be so cruel?" she asked in tones which were meant to be reproachful, but only poorly disguised her mirthful appreciation of the whole matter.

"I wasn't cruel; I only did my duty. The fellow's a palpable malingerer, and his being here makes it ever so much worse. He's trying to s.h.i.+rk duty and have a good time here in the hospital. It's my place to make the hospital so unpleasant for him that he will think the field preferable, and I'm going to do it, especially if I find him squeezing your hand again."

There was that in the tone of the last sentence which sobered her instantly. Womanly prescience told her that the Surgeon had discovered what seemed to him a fitting opportunity to say that which he had long desired. Ever since she had been in the hospital he had exerted himself to smooth her path for her, and make her stay there endurable. There was not a day in which she was not indebted to him for some un.o.btrusive kindness, delicately and thoughtfully rendered.

While she knew quite well that these courtesies would have been as conscientiously extended to any other woman--young or old--in her position, yet her instincts did not allow her any doubt that there was about them a flavor personal to herself and redolent of something much warmer than mere kindliness. A knowledge of this had at times tainted the pleasure she felt in accepting welcome little attentions from him.

She dreaded what she knew was coming. He took her hand and started to speak with tremulous lips. But almost at the same instant the door was flung open, and a nurse entered in breathless haste.

"O, Doctor," he gasped, "I've been looking for you everywhere. That Lieutenant in the First Ward thinks he's a-dyin'. He's groanin' an'

cryin', and a-takin' on at a terrible rate, an' n.o.body can't do nothin'

with him. The Steward wants you to come there right off."

"It's only the castor oil," muttered the Doctor savagely, as he rose to follow the nurse.

This was the letter that the Orderly handed Rachel some days later:

Dear Ratie: Your letter came at last, for which I was SO thankful, because I had waited SO long for it that I was SO tired and SO anxious that I was almost at my wits' end. I am SO glad that you are well, that you have got your room at last fixed up real nice and comfortable, as a young lady should have, and that you find your duties more agreeable.

It is SO nice in that Dr. Denslow to help you along as he does. But then that is what every real gentleman should do for a young lady--or old one for that matter. Still, I would like to thank him SO much.