Anything Once Part 12

Jim quickened his pace.

"Where is the next house, and what doctor shall I send for?" he asked pleasantly.

"It's just over the ridge there; the Colberts. They know Dr. Blair's number. My husband would go himself but he can't step on his hurt foot and I don't dare leave. Tell the Colberts that it's the baby! He's dying, and I don't know what to do!"

Jim turned, and hurried off over the ridge, but Lou took a step forward.

"Baby! I've been takin' care of babies all my life, seems like. You let me look at it, ma'am."

"Oh, do you think you could do anything, a little thing like you?"

The young woman eyed the forlornly drenched figure before her rather doubtfully, but something she read in Lou's steady, confident gaze seemed to rea.s.sure her, and she threw wide the door. "Come in, please!

He's all blue."

Lou unceremoniously pushed past her down the clean little hallway and paused for a moment upon the threshold of the room at its end. It was a kitchen, small, but as immaculately clean as the hall, and in a rocking-chair near the window sat an anxious-eyed young man with his bandaged foot up on another chair before him, and in his arms a tiny, rigid little form.

Lou went straight to him and unceremoniously possessed herself of the baby.

Its small face was waxen, with a bluish tinge about the mouth, and half-closed, glazing eyes.

"How long's it been like this?" Lou demanded sharply.

"Only just a few minutes. It--it seemed like a sort of fit that he had."

The young woman turned to her husband. "Jack, this little girl stopped by and said she knew all about babies, and the man with her, he's gone for----"

"I want some hot water, quick!" Lou interrupted the explanations brusquely. "Boiling hot, and a tub or a big pan. Have you got the kettle on?"

"Y-yes, but I'm afraid I've let the fire go out," the woman faltered. "I was so worried----"

With an exclamation of impatience Lou rewrapped the baby which she had been examining and thrust it into the man's arms. Then turning to the woman with exasperation in her eyes and voice she demanded:

"I s'pose you can find some dry chips, somewhere, can't you? If I don't get this baby into a hot bath right away it'll be all up with him."

The woman gasped, and ran out of the back door while the young man in the chair groaned:

"It's awful to sit here helpless and watch him suffer! If I could only put my foot to the floor----"

"How old is he, anyway?" Lou, who was busily searching the shelf of groceries, asked over her shoulder. "He looks to be under a year."

"Ten months, miss," he answered. "What do you think is the matter with him?"

"Convulsion," Lou replied succinctly, as the woman rushed in once more with her ap.r.o.n full of chips. "Git some more, it don't matter how you clog the stove with wood ashes; we gotta git boilin' water as quick as we kin."

Meanwhile Jim found the Colbert house, explained his mission, and having accomplished it, hastened back. He pulled the bell, but no one came, and knocking, found that the door yielded to his touch. Entering, he went down the hall and paused at the kitchen door just as the woman stammered:

"I d-don't think there are any dry kindlings left."

"Then chop some! Ain't you got any old boxes? Oh, Jim!" Lou caught sight of him in the doorway. "Find a hatchet and some light, dry wood, will you?"

The fire was roaring in the stove at last, but the water was long in boiling, and the little figure in the man's arms seemed to be undergoing a subtle but inevitable change. His lips were still parted, but no faintest stir of breath emanated from them, and the rigidity had taken on a marble-like cast.

The mother bent over him, moaning once more, but Lou turned upon her in swift scorn.

"For goodness' sake, where's that tub or pan I asked you for? He's got a chance, a _good_ chance if you don't waste any more time! What you been givin' him, anyway?" she added, as the woman flew to do her bidding.

"Nothing but a little green corn. He relishes it, and it's so cute to see him try to chew it----"

"Green corn!" Lou repeated, as she seized the heavy kettle and began pouring its steaming contents into the tub. "Ain't _n.o.body_ in your family ever had any babies before?"

She hastily added to the tub a quant.i.ty of yellowish powder from a can which she had found upon the shelf of groceries, and marched determinedly over to the man who was seated in the chair.

"Give me that baby!" she demanded.

"But, miss, that water's boiling!" he gasped.

"You're not going to put my baby in that?" The woman came quickly from her apathy of dismay and sprang forward, while Jim, too, advanced, his anxiety for another reason.

"Lou! You'll blister yourself horribly----"

"Let me alone, all of you!" Lou turned upon them even as she stripped the wrappings from the child. "Haven't I done this a hundred times? He ain't even goin' to feel the heat of the mustard, he's so far gone! I guess I know what I'm doin'!"

The woman buried her face in her hands with a sob, and even Jim turned away his eyes, but no one thought to interfere further with the a.s.sured little nurse. There was a splash of water, a little gasp from Lou, and then after a period which seemed interminable her matter-of-fact voice remarked:

"He's comin' round."

The tiny body was scarcely tinged with pink, but it had lost its dreadful rigidity, and a faint cry came from it as Lou wrapped it in a shawl and laid it in its mother's arms.

"He'll do now, anyway till that doctor comes."

Amid the rejoicing of the parents Jim advanced to Lou and demanded:

"Let me see your arms."

"They're all right--" She tried to put them behind her as she spoke, but he drew them forward. A network of blisters covered them almost to the shoulders.

"Oh, Lou! Lou!" he murmured brokenly. "What won't you do next?"

She smiled faintly.

"You said I'd do anything once, but I've done this lots of times before----"

"Well, well, good people! What's going on here?" A kindly voice sounded from the doorway, and the woman turned with a little cry.

"Oh, Dr. Blair, she saved the baby! Put him down in that scalding water and held him right there with her hands, and she's burned herself something terrible, but she saved him! I never saw a braver----"

"Let me see."

The doctor examined the baby with professional gravity and then looked up.