COVILLE CONVALESCES.
SINCE the unfortunate accident to Mr. Coville while on the roof counting
the shingles, he has been obliged to keep pretty close to the house. Last
Wednesday, he went out in the yard for the first time; and on Friday Mrs.
Coville got him an easy-chair, which proved a great comfort to him. It is
one of those chairs that can be moved by the occupant to form almost any
position by means
of ratchets. Mr. Coville was very much pleased with this
new contrivance, and, the first afternoon, did nothing but sit in it, and
work it all ways. He said such a chair as that did more good in this world
than a hundred sermons. He had it in his room,—the front bed-room up stairs;
and there he would sit and look out of the window, and enjoy himself as much
as a man can whose legs have been ventilated with shot. Monday afternoon
he got in the chair as usual. Mrs. Coville was out in the back-yard, hanging
up clothes; and the son was across the street, drawing a lath along a
picket-fence. Sitting down, he grasped the sides of the chair with both hands
to settle it back, when the whole thing gave way, and Mr. Coville came violently
to the floor. For an instant, the unfortunate gentleman was benumbed by the
suddenness of the shock; but the next, he was aroused by an acute pain in
each arm; and the great drops of sweat oozed from his forehead when he found
that the little finger of each hand had caught in the ratchets, and was as
firmly held as if in a vice. There he lay on his back, with the end of a
round sticking in his side, and both hands perfectly powerless. The least
move of his body aggravated the pain, which was chasing up his arms. He screamed
for help: but Mrs. Coville was in the back-yard, telling Mrs. Coney, next
door, that she didn't know what
Coville would do without that chair; and
so she didn't hear him. He pounded the floor with his stockinged feet: but
the younger Coville was still drawing emotion from that fence across the
way; and all other sounds were rapidly sinking into insignificance. Besides,
Mr. Coville's legs were not sufficiently recovered from the late accident
to permit their being profitably used as mallets. How he did despise that
offspring! and how fervently he did wish the owner of that fence would light
on that boy, and reduce him to powder! Then he screamed again, and howled,
and shouted "Maria!" But there was no response. What if he should die there
alone, and in that awful shape? The perspiration started afresh, and the
pain in his arms assumed an awful magnitude. Again he shrieked "Maria!" but
the matinee across the way only grew in volume; and the unconscious wife
had gone into Mrs. Coney's, and was trying on that lady's redingote. Then
he prayed, and howled, and coughed, and swore, and then apologized for it,
and prayed and howled again, and screamed at the top of his voice the awfullest
things he would do to that boy, if Heaven would only spare him, and show
him an axe. Then he operated his mouth for one final shriek; when the door
opened, and Mrs. Coville appeared with a smile on her face, and Mrs. Coney's
redingote on her back. In one glance, she saw that something
awful had happened
to Joseph; and, with wonderful presence of mind, she screamed for help, and
then fainted away, and ploughed headlong into his stomach. Fortunately, the
blow deprived him of speech, else he might have said something that he would
ever have regretted; and, before he could regain his senses, Mrs. Coney dashed
in, and removed the grief-stricken wife. But it required a blacksmith to
cut Coville loose. He is again back in bed, with his mutilated fingers resting
on pillows; and there he lies all day, concocting new forms of death for
the inventor of that chair, and hoping nothing will happen to his son until
he can get well enough to administer it himself.
