University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
CONVALESCENCE.

AT last Kike is getting better, and Morton can be
spared. There is no longer any reason why the
rowdies on Jenkinsville Circuit should pine for the
muscular young preacher whom they have vowed to
“lick as soon as they lay eyes on to him.” Dolly's
legs are aching for a gallop. Morton and Dr. Morgan
have exhausted their several systems of theology in
discussion. So, at last, the impatient Morton mounts
the impatient Dolly, and gallops away to preach to the
impatient brethren and face the impatient ruffians of
Jenkinsville Circuit. Kike is left yet in his quiet harbor
to recover. The doctor has taken a strange fancy
to the zealous young prophet, and looks forward with
sadness to the time when he will leave.

Ah, happiest experience of life, when the flood tide
sets back through the veins! You have no longer
any pain; you are not well enough to feel any responsibility;
you cannot work; there is no obligation
resting on you but one—that is rest. Such perfect
passivity Kike had never known before. He could
walk but little. He sat the livelong day by the open
window, as listless as the grass that waved before the
wind. All the sense of dire responsibility, all those

feelings of the awfulness of life, and the fearfulness of
his work, and the dreadfulness of his accountability,
were in abeyance. To eat, to drink, to sleep, to
wake and breathe, to suffer as a passive instrument
the play of whatever feeling might chance to come,
was Kike's life.

In this state the severity of his character was
laid aside. He listened to the quick and eager conversation
of Dr. Morgan with a gentle pleasure; he
answered the motherly questions of Mrs. Morgan with
quiet gratitude; he admired the goodness of Miss Jane
Morgan, their eldest and most exemplary daughter, as
a far off spectator. There were but two things that
had a real interest for him. He felt a keen delight
in watching the wayward flight of the barn swallows
as they went chattering out from under the eaves—
their airy vagabondage was so restful. And he liked
to watch the quick, careless tread of Henrietta Morgan,
the youngest of the doctor's daughters, who went on
forever talking and laughing with as little reck as the
swallows themselves. Though she was eighteen, there
was in her full child-like cheeks, in her contagious
laugh—a laugh most unprovoked, coming of itself—in
her playful way of performing even her duties, a
something that so contrasted with and relieved the
habitual austerity of Kike's temper, and that so fell in
with his present lassitude and happy carelessness, that
he allowed his head, resting weakly upon a pillow, to
turn from side to side, that his eyes might follow her.
So diverting were her merry replies, that he soon came
to talk with her for the sake of hearing them. He

was not forgetful of the solemn injunctions Mr.
Wesley had left for the prudent behavior of young
ministers in the presence of women. With Miss Jane
he was very careful lest he should in any way compromise
himself, or awaken her affections. Jane was
the kind of a girl he would want to marry, if he were
to marry. But Nettie was a child—a cheerful butterfly—as
refreshing to his weary mind as a drink of cold
water to a fever-patient. When she was out of the
room, Kike was impatient; when she returned, he was
glad. When she sewed, he drew the large chair in
which he rested in front of her, and talked in his
grave fashion, while she, in turn, amused him with a
hundred fancies. She seemed to shine all about him
like sunlight. Poor Kike could not refuse to enjoy a
fellowship so delightful, and Nettie Morgan's reverence
for young Lumsden's saintliness, and pity for his sickness,
grew apace into a love for him.

Long before Kike discovered or Nettie suspected
this, the doctor had penetrated it. Kike's whole-hearted
devotion to his work had charmed the
ex-minister, who moved about in his alert fashion,
talking with eager rapidity, anticipating Kike's grave
sentences before he was half through — seeing and
hearing everything while he seemed to note nothing.
He was not averse to this attachment between the
two. Provided always, that Kike should give up
traveling. It was all but impossible, indeed, for a
man to be a Methodist preacher in that day and
“lead about a wife.” A very few managed to combine
the ministry with marriage, but in most cases

[ILLUSTRATION]

CONVALESCENCE.

[Description: 554EAF. Page 199. In-line engraving of a woman seated in an arm-chair with a large pillow; another woman is seated near her, sewing, and a standing man looks on in the background.] marriage rendered “location” or secularization imperative.

Kike sat one day talking in the half-listless way
that is characteristic of convalescence, watching Nettie
Morgan as she sewed and laughed, when Dr. Morgan
came in, put his pill-bags upon the high bureau,
glanced quickly at the two, and said:

“Nettie, I think you'd better help your mother.
The double-and-twisting is hard work.”

Nettie laid her sewing down. Kike watched her
until she had disappeared through the door; then he
listened until the more vigorous spinning indicated to
him that younger hands had taken the wheel. His

heart sank a little—it might be hours before Nettie
could return.

Dr. Morgan busied himself, or pretended to busy
himself, with his medicines, but he was observing how
the young preacher's eyes followed his daughter, how
his countenance relapsed into its habitual melancholy
when she was gone. He thought he could not be
mistaken in his diagnosis.

“Mr. Lumsden,” he said, kindly, “I don't know
what we shall do when you get well. I can't bear to
have you go away.”

“You have been too good, doctor. I am afraid
you have spoiled me.” The thought of going to
Pottawottomie Creek was growing more and more
painful to Kike. He had put all thoughts of the sort
out of his mind, because the doctor wished him to
keep his mind quiet. Now, for some reason, Doctor
Morgan seemed to force the disagreeable future upon
him. Why was it unpleasant? Why had he lost his
relish for his work? Had he indeed backslidden?

While the doctor fumbled over his bottles, and for
the fourth time held a large phial, marked Sulph. de
Quin., up to the light, as though he were counting
the grains, the young preacher was instituting an
inquiry into his own religious state. Why did he
shrink from Pottawottomie Creek circuit? He had
braved much harder toil and greater danger. On
Pottawottomie Creek he would have a senior colleague
upon whom all administrative responsibilities would
devolve, and the year promised to be an easy one in
comparison with the preceding. On inquiring of himself

he found that there was no circuit that would be
attractive to him in his present state of mind, except
the one that lay all around Dr. Morgan's house. At
first Kike Lumsden, playing hide-and-seek with his
own motives, as other men do under like circumstances,
gave himself much credit for his grateful attachment
to the family. Surely gratitude is a generous
quality, and had not Dr. Morgan, though of another
denomination, taken him under his roof and given
him professional attention free of charge? And Mrs.
Morgan and Jane and Nettie, had they not cared for
him as though he were a brother? What could be
more commendable than that he should find himself
loth to leave people who were so good?

But Kike had not been in the habit of cheating
himself. He had always dealt hardly with Kike
Lumsden. He could not rest now in this subterfuge;
he would not give himself credit that he did not
deserve. So while the doctor walked to the window
and senselessly examined the contents of one of his
bottles marked “Hydrarg.,” Kike took another and
closer look at his own mind and saw that the one
person whose loss would be painful to him was not
Dr. Morgan, nor his excellent wife, nor the admirable
Jane, but the volatile Nettie, the cadence of whose
spinning wheel he was even then hearkening to. The
consciousness that he was in love came to him suddenly—a
consciousness not without pleasure, but with
a plentiful admixture of pain.

Doctor Morgan's eyes, glancing with characteristic
alertness, caught the expression of a new self-knowledge

and of an anxious pain upon the forehead of Lumsden.
Then the physician seemed all at once satisfied
with his medicines. The bottle labelled “Hydrarg.”
and the “Sulph. de Quin.” were now replaced in the
saddle bags.

At this moment Nettie herself came into the room
on some errand. Kike had heard her wheel stop—
had looked toward the door—had caught her glance
as she came in, and had, in that moment, become
aware that he was not the only person in love. Was
it, then, that the doctor wished to prevent the attachment
going further that he had delicately reminded
his guest of the approach of the time when he must
leave? These thoughts aroused Kike from the lassitude
of his slow convalescence. Nettie went back to
her wheel, and set it humming louder than ever, but
Kike heard now in its tones some note of anxiety
that disturbed him. The doctor came and sat down
by him and felt his pulse, ostensibly to see if he had
fever, really to add yet another link to the chain of
evidence that his surmise was correct.

“Mr. Lumsden,” said he, “a constitution so much
impaired as yours cannot recuperate in a few days.”

“I know that, sir,” said Kike, “and I am anxious
to get to my mother's for a rest there, that I may not
burden you any longer, and—”

“You misunderstand me, my dear fellow, if you
think I want to be rid of you. I wish you would
stay with me always; I do indeed.”

For a moment Kike looked out of the window. To
stay with the doctor always would, it seemed to him,

be a heaven upon earth. But had he not renounced
all thought of a heaven on earth? Had he not said
plainly that here he had no abiding place? Having
put his hand to the plow, should he look back?

“But I ought not to give up my work.”

It was not in this tone that Kike would have
spurned such a temptation awhile before.

“Mr. Lumsden,” said the doctor, “you see that I
am useful here. I cannot preach a great deal, but I
think that I have never done so much good as since
I began to practice medicine. I need somebody to
help me. I cannot take care of the farm and my
practice too. You could look after the farm, and
preach every Sunday in the country twenty miles
round. You might even study medicine after awhile,
and take the practice as I grow older. You will die,
if you go on with your circuit-riding. Come and live
with me, and be my—assistant.” The doctor had
almost said “my son.” It was in his mind, and Kike
divined it.

“Think about it,” said Dr. Morgan, as he rose to
go, “and remember that nobody is obliged to kill
himself.”

And all day long Kike thought and prayed, and
tried to see the right; and all day long Nettie found
occasion to come in on little errands, and as often as
she came in did it seem clear to Kike that he would
be justified in accepting Dr. Morgan's offer; and as
often as she went out did he tremble lest he were
about to betray the trust committed to him.