The Harvester Part 50

"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 b.u.t.ting 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 smas.h.i.+ng 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, and the nurse laughed again; but her cheeks were pink and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sive. 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 suns.h.i.+ne room, placed a small table beside the bed, and on it a gla.s.s 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----G.o.d 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.