By the Light of the Soul Part 3

Her father set the coffee-pot on the stove, where it immediately began to boil. Then he carried back the canister into the pantry, and returned with a panful of eggs. "You can set the table, I suppose, anyhow?" said he. "You know enough to do as much as that?"

"Yes, I can do that," replied Maria, with alacrity, and indeed she could. Her mother had exacted some small household tasks from her, and setting the table was one of them. She hurried into the dining-room and began setting the table with the pretty blue-flowered ware that her mother had been so proud of. She seemed to feel tears in her heart when she laid the plates, but none sprang to her eyes.

Somehow, handling these familiar inanimate things was the acutest torture. Presently she smelled eggs burning. She realized that her father was burning up the eggs, in his utter ignorance of cookery.

She thought privately that she didn't believe but she could cook the eggs, but she dared not go out in the kitchen. Her father, in his anxiety, had actually reached ferocity. He had always petted her, in his easy-going fas.h.i.+on, now he terrified her. She dared not go out there.

All at once, as she was getting the clean napkins from the sideboard, she heard the front door open, and one of the neighbors, Mrs. Jonas White, entered without knocking. She was a large woman and carelessly dressed, but her great face was beaming with kindness and pity.

"I just heard how bad your ma was," she said, in a loud whisper, "an'

I run right over. I thought mebbe--How is she?"

"She is very sick," replied Maria. She felt at first an impulse to burst into tears before this broadside of sympathy, then she felt stiff.

"You are as white as a sheet," said Mrs. White. "Who is burnin' eggs out there?" She pointed to the kitchen.

"Father."

"Lord! Who's up-stairs?"

"Miss Bell and the doctors. They've sent for Aunt Maria, but she can't come before afternoon."

Mrs. White fastened a b.u.t.ton on her waist. "Well, I'll stay till then," said she. "Lillian can get along all right." Lillian was Mrs.

White's eighteen-year-old daughter.

Mrs. White opened the kitchen door. "How is she?" she said in a hushed voice to Harry Edgham, frantically stirring the burned eggs, which sent up a monstrous smoke and smell. As she spoke, she went over to him, took the frying-pan out of his hands, and carried it over to the sink.

"She is a very sick woman," replied Harry Edgham, looking at Mrs.

White with a measure of grat.i.tude.

"You've got Dr. Williams and Miss Bell, Maria says?"

"Yes."

"Maria says her aunt is coming?"

"Yes, I sent a telegram."

"Well, I'll stay till she gets here," said Mrs. White, and again that expression of almost childish grat.i.tude came over the man's face.

Mrs. White began sc.r.a.ping the burned eggs off the pan.

"They haven't had any breakfast," said Harry, looking upward.

"And they don't dare leave her?"

"No."

"Well, you just go and do anything you want to, Maria and I will get the breakfast." Mrs. White spoke with a kindly, almost humorous inflection. Maria felt that she could go down on her knees to her.

"You are very kind," said Harry Edgham, and he went out of the kitchen as one who beats a retreat before superior forces.

"Maria, you just bring me the eggs, and a clean cup," said Mrs.

White. "Poor man, trying to cook eggs!" said she of Maria's father, after he had gone. She was one of the women who always treat men with a sort of loving pity, as if they were children. "Here is some nice bacon," said she, rummaging in the pantry. "The eggs will be real nice with bacon. Now, Maria, you look in the ice-chest and see if there are any cold potatoes that can be warmed up. There's plenty of bread in the jar, and we'll toast that. We'll have breakfast in a jiffy. Doctors do have a hard life, and Miss Bell, she ought to have her nourishment too, if she's goin' to take care of your mother."

When Maria returned from the ice-box, which stood out in the woodshed, with a plate of cold potatoes, Mrs. White was sniffing at the coffee-pot.

"For goodness sake, who made this?" said she.

"Father."

"How much did he put in?"

"He put in a little pinch."

"It looks like water bewitched," said Mrs. White. "Bring me the coffee canister. You know where that is, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Maria watched Mrs. White pour out the coffee which her father had made, and start afresh in the proper manner.

"Men are awful helpless, poor things," said Mrs. White. "This sink is in an awful condition. Did your father empty all this truck in it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, I must clean it out, as soon as I get the other things goin', or the dreen will be stopped up." Mrs. White's English was not irreproachable, but she was masterful.

Maria continued to stand numbly in the middle of the kitchen, watching Mrs. White, who looked at her uneasily.

"You must be a good girl, and trust in the Lord," said she, and she tried to make her voice sharp. "Now, don't stand there lookin' on; just fly round and do somethin'. I don't believe but the dinin'-room needs dustin'. You find somethin' and dust the dinin'-room real nice, while I get the breakfast."

Maria obeyed, but she did that numbly, without any realization of the task.

The morning wore on. The doctors, one at a time came down, and the nurse came down, and they ate a hearty breakfast. Maria watched them, and hated them because they could eat while her mother was so ill.

Miss Bell also ate heartily, and she felt that she hated her. She was glad that her father refused anything except a cup of coffee. As for herself, Mrs. White made her drink an egg beaten up with milk. "If you won't eat your breakfast, you've got to take this," said she.

Mrs. White took her own breakfast in stray bites, while she was clearing away the table. She stayed, and put the house in order, until Maria's aunt Maria arrived. One of the physicians went away.

For a short time Maria's mother's groans and wailings recommenced, then the smell of chloroform was strong throughout the house.

"I wonder why they don't give her morphine instead of chloroform?"

said Mrs. White, while Maria was wiping the dishes. "It is dreadful dangerous to give that, especially if the heart is weak. Well, don't you be scart. I've seen folks enough worse than your mother git well."

In the last few hours Maria's face had gotten a hard look. She no longer seemed like a little girl. After a while the doctors went away.

"I don't suppose there is much they can do for a while, perhaps,"

remarked Mrs. White; "and Miss Bell, she is as good as any doctor."

Both physicians returned a little after noon, and previously Mrs.

Edgham had made her voice of lamentation heard again. Then it ceased abruptly, but there was no odor of chloroform.

"They are giving her morphine now, I bet a cooky," Mrs. White said.