University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
IN WHICH TROUBLE COMES TO LAKESIDE.

After Woodbury had left Lakeside for his summer tour,
Mrs. Fortitude Babb resumed her ancient authority. “Now,”
she said to Bute, as they sat down to supper on the day of
his departure, “now we'll have a quiet time of it. A body'll
know what to do without waitin' to be told whether it's jist
to other people's likin's.”

“Why, Mother Forty,” said Bute, “Mr. Max. is as quiet a
man as you'll find anywhere.”

“Much you know about him, Bute. He lets you go on
farmin' in y'r own way, pretty much; but look at my gard'n—
tore all to pieces! The curran' bushes away at t'other end—
half a mile off, if you want to git a few pies—and the kersanthums
stuck into the yard in big bunches, among the grass!
What would she say, if she could see it? And the little
room for bed-clo'es, all cleaned out, and a big bathin' tub in
the corner, and to be filled up every night. Thank the Lord,
he can't find nothin' to say ag'in my cookin'. If he was to
come pokin' his nose into the kitchen every day, I dunno what
I'd do!”

“It's his own garden,” said Bute, sturdily. “He's paid for
it, and he's got a right to do what he pleases with it. I
would, if 't'was mine.”

“Oh yes, you! You're gittin' mighty independent, seems
to me. I 'xpect nothin' else but you'll go off some day with
that reedic'lous thing with the curls.”

“Mother Forty!” said Bute, rising suddenly from the

table, “don't you mention her name ag'in. I don't want to
see her any more, nor I don't want to hear of her!”

He strode out of the house with a fiery face. Mrs. Babb
sat, as if thunderstruck. Little by little, however, a presentiment
of the truth crept through her stiff brain: she drew her
thin lips firmly together and nodded her head. The sense of
relief which she first felt, on Bute's account, was soon lost,
nevertheless, in an angry feeling toward Miss Carrie Dilworth.
Utterly unaware of her own inconsistency, she asked herself
what the little fool meant by turning up her nose at such a
fine young fellow as Arbutus—the very pick of the farmers
about Ptolemy, though she, Fortitude Babb, said it! Where
would she find a man so well-built and sound, so honest and
good-hearted? Everybody liked him; there were plenty of
girls that would jump at the chance of having him for a husband—but
no, he was not good enough for her. Ugh! the
nasty, pert, stuck-up little hussy! That comes o' wearin' your
hair like an Injun! But Arbutus mustn't mind; there's as good
fish in the sea as ever was ketched, and better too. 'Twas
reasonable, after all, that he should marry some time; a man's
a man, though you brought him up yourself; and the best
way is to take hold and help, when you can't hinder it.

Thereupon, she set her wits to work to discover the right
kind of a wife for her step-step-son. It was a perplexing subject:
one girl was slatternly, another was unhealthy, a third
was too old, a fourth had disagreeable relatives, a fifth was as
poor as Job's turkey. Where was the compound of youth,
health, tidiness, thrift, and, most important of all, the proper
respect for Mrs. Babb's faculties? “I'll find her yet!” she said
to herself, as she sat at her knitting, in the drowsy summer afternoons.
Meanwhile, her manner towards Bute grew kinder
and more considerate—a change for which he was not in the
least grateful. He interpreted it as the expression of her
satisfaction with the disappointment under which he still
smarted. He became moody and silent, and before many days
had elapsed Mrs. Babb was forced to confess to herself that

Lakeside was lonely and uncomfortable without the presence
of Mr. Woodbury.

As for Bute, though he felt that he was irritable and heavy,
compared with his usual cheerful mood, there was more the
matter with him than he supposed. The experience through
which he had passed disturbed the quiet course of his blood.
Like a mechanism, the action of which is even and perfectly
balanced at a certain rate of speed, but tends to inevitable confusion
when the speed is increased, his physical balance was
sadly disarranged by the excitement of his emotional nature
and the sudden shock which followed it. Days of feverish
activity, during which he did the work of two men without
finding the comfort of healthy fatigue, were followed by days
of weariness and apathy, when the strength seemed to be gone
from his arm, and the good-will to labor from his heart. His
sleep was either restless and broken, or so unnaturally profound
that he arose from it with a stunned, heavy head.

Among the summer's work which Mr. Woodbury had ordered,
after wheat-harvest, was the draining of a swampy field
which sloped towards Roaring Brook. An Irish ditcher had
been engaged to work upon it, but Bute, finding that much
more must be done than had been estimated, and restless
almost to nervousness, assisted with his own hands. Day
after day, with his legs bare to the thighs, he stood in the oozy
muck, plying pick and shovel under the burning sun. Night
after night, he went to bed with a curiously numb and deadened
feeling, varied only by nervous starts and thrills, as if the
bed were suddenly sinking under him.

One morning, he did not get up at the usual hour. Mrs.
Babb went on with her labors for breakfast, expecting every
moment to see him come down and wash his face at the pump
outside the kitchen-door. The bacon was fried, the coffee was
boiled, and still he did not appear. She opened the door of
the kitchen staircase, and called in her shrillest tones, one,
two, three times, until finally an answer reached her from
the bedroom. Five minutes afterwards, Bute blundered

down the steps, and, seeing the table ready, took his accustomed
seat.

“Well, Arbutus, you have slep', sure enough. I s'pose you
was tired from yisterday, though,” said Mrs. Babb, as she
transferred the bacon from the frying-pan to a queensware
dish. Hearing no answer, she turned around. “Gracious
alive!” she exclaimed, “are you a-goin' to set down to breakfast
without washin' or combin' your hair? I do believe
you're asleep yit.”

Bute said nothing, but looked at her with a silly smile which
seemed to confirm her words.

“Arbutus!” she cried out, “wake up! You don't know
what you're about. Dash some water on your face, child; if
I ever saw the like!” and she took hold of his shoulder with
one of her bony hands.

He twisted it petulantly out of her grasp. “I'm tired,
Mike,” he said: “if the swamp wasn't so wet, I'd like to lay
down and sleep a spell.”

The rigid joints of Mrs. Babb's knees seemed to give way
suddenly. She dropped into the chair beside him, lifted his
face in both her trembling hands, and looked into his eyes.
There was no recognition in them, and their wild, wandering
glance froze her blood. His cheeks burned like fire, and his
head dropped heavily, the next moment, on his shoulder. “This
tussock'll do,” he murmured, and relapsed into unconsciousness.

Mrs. Babb shoved her chair nearer, and allowed his head to
rest on her shoulder, while she recovered her strength. There
was no one else in the house. Patrick, the field-hand, was at
the barn, and was accustomed to be called to his breakfast.
Once she attempted to do this, hoping that her voice might
reach him, but it was such an unnatural, dismal croak, that she
gave up in despair. Bute started and flung one arm around
her neck with a convulsive strength which almost strangled her.
After that, she did not dare to move or speak. The coffee-pot
boiled over, and the scent of the scorched liquid filled the
kitchen; the fat in the frying-pan, which she had thoughtlessly

set on the stove again, on seeing Bute, slowly dried to
a crisp, and she knew that the bottom of the pan would be
ruined. These minor troubles strangely thrust themselves
athwart the one great, overwhelming trouble of her heart, and
confused her thoughts. Bute was deathly sick, and stark,
staring mad, was the only fact which she could realize; and
with her left hand, which was free, she gradually and stealthily
removed his knife, fork, and plate, and pushed back the
table-cloth as far as she could reach. Then she sat rigidly as
before, listening to the heavy, irregular breathing of the invalid,
and scorched by his burning head.

Half an hour passed before Patrick's craving stomach
obliged him to disregard the usual call. Perhaps, he finally
thought, he had not heard it, and he then betook himself at
once to the house. The noise he made in opening the kitchen-door,
startled Bute, who clinched his right fist and brought it
down on the table.

“Holy mother!” exclaimed Patrick, as he saw the singular
group.

Mrs. Babb turned her head with difficulty, and shook it as
a sign of caution, looking at him with wide, suffering eyes,
from which the tears now first flowed, when she saw that help
and sympathy had come to her at last.

“God preserve us! och, an' he isn't dead?” whispered
Patrick, advancing a step nearer, and ready to burst into a
loud wail.

“He's sick! he's crazy!” Mrs. Babb breathed hoarsely, in
reply: “help me to git him to bed!”

The Irishman supported Bute by the shoulders, while Mrs.
Babb gently and cautiously relieved herself from his choking
arm. Without Pat's help it is difficult to say what she would
have done. Tender as a woman, and gifted with all the whimsical
cunning of his race, he humored Bute's delirious fancies to
the utmost, soothing instead of resisting or irritating him, and
with infinite patience and difficulty succeeded in getting him
back into his bedroom. Here Mrs. Babb remade his bed, putting

on fresh sheets and pillows, and the two undressed and laid
him in it. The first thing she then did was to cut off his long
yellow locks close to the head, and apply a wet cloth; beyond
that, which she had heard was always used in such cases, she
did not dare to go.

The next thing was, to procure medical assistance. There
were no other persons about the house, and both of them
together, it seemed probable, would scarcely be able to manage
the patient, if a violent paroxysm should come on. Mrs.
Babb insisted on remaining by him; but Patrick, who had
seen similar attacks of fever, would not consent to this. He
swore by all the saints that she would find Bute safely in bed
on her return. She need not go farther than black Melinda's
cabin, he said; it was not over three-quarters of a mile. She
could send Melinda for the doctor, and for Misther Merryfield
too—that 'ud be better; and then come directly back, herself.

Mrs. Babb gave way to these representations, and hurried
forth on her errand. Her stiff old joints cracked with the
violence of her motion; she was agitated by remorse as well
as anxiety. She had been a little hard on the lad; what if he
should die without forgiving her, and should go straight to
heaven (as of course he would) and tell his own mother and
Jason Babb, who was so fond of him? In that case, Jason
would certainly be angry with her, and perhaps would not
allow her to sit beside him on the steps of the Golden City,
when her time came. Fortunately, she found old Melinda
at home, and despatched her with the injunction to “go down
to Merryfield's as hard as you can scoot, and tell him to ride for
the doctor, and then you come directly back to the house.”
Melinda at once strode away, with her eyes fixed before her,
muttering fragments of camp-meeting hymns.

When Mrs. Babb returned, she found Bute still in bed, panting
from evident exhaustion. The wet cloth was on his head
and the bed-clothes were straight. Patrick turned away his
face from the light, and said: “Sure, an' he's been as quiet as
a lamb”—an assertion which was disproved the next day by

the multitude of indigo blotches, the marks of terrible blows,
which appeared on his own face, breast, and arms. What happened
while they were alone, Patrick always avoided telling,
except to the priest. To his mind, there was a sanctity about
delirium, the secrets of which it would be criminal to betray.

In two or three hours more the physician arrived, accompanied
by Merryfield. The former pronounced Bute to be
laboring under a very dangerous attack of congestive fever, of
a typhoid character. He bled him sufficiently to reduce the
excitement of the brain, prescribed the usual medicines, a little
increased in quantity, and recommended great care and exactness
in administering them. When he descended the stairs,
the housekeeper stole after him, and grasped his arm as he
entered the hall.

“Doctor,” she asked, in her stern manner, “I jist want to
know the truth. Is he goin' to git over it, or isn't he?”

“The chances are about even, Mrs. Babb,” the physician replied.
“I will not disguise from you the fact that it's a very
serious case. If his constitution were not so fine, I should feel
almost like giving him up. I will only say this: if we can
keep him for a week, without growing much worse, we shall
get the upper hand of the fever. It depends on his nurses,
even more than on me.”

“I'll nuss him!” Mrs. Babb exclaimed, defiantly. “A week,
did you say? A week a'n't a life-time, and I can stand it. I
stood more'n that, when Jason was sick. Don't be concerned
about your orders, Sir: I've took 'em to heart, and that's
enough said.”

The housekeeper went back to the kitchen, clinching her
fists and nodding her head—the meaning of which was, that
there was to be a fair stand-up fight between Death and herself,
for the possession of Arbutus Wilson, and that Death was
not going to be the victor, no, not if he took herself instead,
out of spite. Then and there she commenced her plan of defence.
Those precautions which the physician had recommended
were taken with a Draconian severity: what he had forbidden

ceased to have a possibility of existence. Quiet, of course,
was included in his orders, and never was a household conducted
with so little noise. The sable Melinda, having let a
pot-lid fall on the kitchen-floor, found her arm instantly grasped
in a bony vice, while an awful voice whispered in her ear
(Mrs. Babb had ceased to speak otherwise, even when she
went to the garden)—“Don't you dare to do that ag'in!” She
prepared and applied the blisters and poultices with her
own hands; administered the medicines punctually to the
second, whether by day or by night; and the invalid could not
turn in his bed but she seemed to know it, by some sort of
clairvoyance, in whatever part of the house she might be at
the time. At night, although Patrick and Mr. Merryfield volunteered
to watch by turns, and tried to induce her to sleep,
she never undressed, but lay down on her bed in an adjoining
chamber, and made her appearance in the sick-room, tall, dark,
and rigid, every half-hour. She would listen with a fearful
interest to Bute's ravings, whether profane or passionate,
dreading to hear some accusation of herself, which, if he died,
he would bear straight to Jason Babb. Her words, however,
had made but the slightest surface-wounds on Bute's sturdy
nature. No accusation or reproach directed towards her
passed his lips; Miss Dilworth's name, it is true, was sometimes
mentioned, but more in anger than in love; but his mind
ran principally on farming matters, mixed with much incoherent
talk, to which Patrick only appeared to have the clue.
The latter, at least, was generally able to exercise a guidance
over his hallucinations, and to lead them from the more violent
to the gentler phases.

Half the week was gone, and no change could be detected
in the invalid's condition. The powerful assault of disease
had met as powerful a resisting nature, and the struggle continued,
with no marked signs of weariness on either side.
Much sympathy was felt by the neighbors, when the news
became known, and there were kind offers of assistance. The
physician, however, judged that the attendance was already

sufficient, and as the fever was contagious in many cases, he
recommended that there should be as few nurses as possible.
The sympathy then took the form of recipes (every one of
which was infallible), dried herbs, jellies, oranges, and the like.
Mr. Jones, the miller, even sent a pair of trout, which he had
caught in Roaring Brook. The housekeeper received all these
articles with stern thanks, and then locked them up in her
cupboard, saying to herself, “'Ta'n't time for sich messes yet:
I can git all he wants, jist now.”

Slowly the week drew to a close, and Mrs. Babb grew more
anxious and excited. The unusual strain upon her old frame
began to tell; she felt her strength going, and yet the agonizing
suspense in regard to Bute's fate must be quieted before
she could allow it to give way altogether. Her back kept
its straightness from long habit, but her knees tottered under
her every time she mounted the stairs, and the muscles around
her mouth began to twitch and relax, in spite of herself. She
no longer questioned the physician, but silently watched his
face as he came from Bute's room, and waited for him to
speak.

On the seventh day, what little information he voluntarily
gave afforded no relief to her mind, and for the first time the
iron will which had upheld her thus far began to waver. A
weariness which, it seemed to her, no amount of sleep could
ever heal, assailed her during the night. Slowly she struggled
on until morning, and through the eighth day until late in the
afternoon, when the physician came. This time, as he left the
sick-room, she detected a slight change in his expression.
Walking slowly towards him, striving to conceal her weakness
and emotion, she said, brokenly:

“Can you tell me now?”

“I don't like to promise,” he answered, “but there is a
chance now that the fever will exhaust itself, before quite all
the power of rallying afterwards has been spent. He is not
out of danger, but the prospects of his recovery are better
than they were, two to one. If he gets well, your nursing,

Mrs. Babb, will have saved him. I wish all my patients could
have you.”

The housekeeper dropped into the nearest chair, and gave
vent to her feelings in a single hoarse, dry sob. When the
doctor had gone, Melinda put the teapot on the table, arranged
the cups and saucers, and said: “Come, now, Miss Forty,
you take a cup. I sure you needs um; you jiss' killin' you'self,
honey.”

Mrs. Babb attempted to comply: she lifted the saucer to
her lips, and then set it down again. She felt, suddenly, very
faint and sick, and the next moment an icy chill seized her,
and shook her from head to foot: her lips were blue, and her
seven remaining teeth rattled violently together. Melinda,
alarmed, flew to her assistance; but she pushed her back with
her long, thin arm, saying, “I knowed it must come so. One
of us had got to go. He'll git well, now.”

“Oh, Missus!” cried Melinda, and threw her apron over her
head.

“Where's the use, Melindy?” said the housekeeper, sternly.
“I guess she'll be glad of it: she'd kind o' got used to havin'
me with her.”

Even yet, she did not wholly succumb to the attack. Deliberately
forcing herself to drink two cups of hot tea, in order
to break the violence of the chill, she slowly crept up stairs to
Bute's room, where Patrick was in attendance. Him she despatched
at once to Ptolemy, with a message to the Rev. Mr.
Waldo, whom she requested to come at as early an hour as
possible. She sent no word to the physician, but the old Melinda
had shrewdness enough to discover this omission and
supply it.

Wrapped in a blanket, Mrs. Babb took her seat in the old-fashioned
rocking-chair at Bute's bedside, and looked long
and earnestly on his worn face, in the last light of day. What
had become of the warm, red blood which had once painted
his round cheeks, showing itself defiantly through the tan
of all the suns of summer? Blood and tan seemed to have

suddenly vanished together, leaving a waxen paleness and a
sunken, pinched expression, so much like death, that his restless
movements and mutterings comforted her, because they
denoted life. “Yes, there's life in him still!” she whispered
to herself. Presently he opened his eyes, and looked at her.
The fierceness of his delirium had been broken, but his expression
was still strange and troubled.

“I guess we'll begin the oats to-day, Pat,” he said, in a weak
voice.

“Arbutus!” she cried, “look at me! Don't you know
Mother Forty no more?”

“Mother Forty's gittin' breakfast,” said he, staring at her.

“Oh, Arbutus,” she groaned, desperately; “do try to know
me this once't! I'm mortal sick: I'm a-goin' to die. If there's
any thing on y'r mind ag'in me, can't you say you forgive me?”
And the poor old creature began to cry in a noiseless way.

“I forgive you, Miss Carrie,” answered Bute, catching at
the word “forgive.” “'Ta'n't worth mindin'. You're a little
fool, and I'm a big one, that's all.”

Mrs. Babb did not try again. She leaned back in the rocking-chair,
folding the blanket more closely around her, to keep
off the constantly recurring chills, and husbanding her failing
strength to perform the slight occasional offices which the invalid
required. Thus she sat until Patrick's return, when the
negress helped her to bed.

In the morning the physician found her in a pitiable
state of debility, but with a mind as clear and determined as
ever. Her physical energies were completely broken, and the
prospect of supporting them artificially until the fever should
subside, seemed very slight. She understood the grave concern
upon his face. “You needn't tell me, doctor,” she said;
“I know all about it. I'll take the medicines, to make your
mind easy; but it's no use.”

Mr. Waldo arriving about the same time, she begged the
physician to wait until she had had an interview with the
former. He had been summoned for no other purpose than to

draw up her will, the signing of which she wished both gentlemen
to witness. The document was soon prepared. She bequeathed
all she possessed to Arbutus Wilson, her adopted son,
after deducting the expenses of her funeral, and a tombstone
similar to that which she had erected to the memory of Jason
Babb.

Propped up in bed, she carefully went over the various
sums, obliging Mr. Waldo to repeat them after her and read
them aloud as he wrote them, in order that there might be no
mistake. “There's the four hundred dollars Jason left me,”
said she, “out at interest with David Van Horn; then the morgidge
for a thousand dollars on Wilmot's store; then the three
hundred she willed to me, two hundred lent to Backus, and
two hundred and fifty to Dan'el Stevens;—let alone the int'rest
what I've saved. You'll find there'd ought to be twenty-seven
hundred and four dollars and six shillin's, altogether. The notes
is all in my tin box, and the int'rest tied up in my weddin'
stockins in the big trunk. I got it turned into gold: the banks is
breakin' all the time. It's enough to give Arbutus a good start
in the world—a heap better'n either me or Jason had. Put it
into the will that he's to be savin' and keerful, for 'twas got by
hard work. I know he won't spend it for hisself, but he's to
keep it out drawin' int'rest, and if he gits married, he mustn't
let his wife put it onto her back. And you may put down my
blessin', and that I've tried to bring him up in the right way
and hope he won't depart from it.”

The will was finally completed. With a strong effort, she
signed it with a cramped, but steady hand. The physician
and clergyman affixed their signatures as witnesses. “Now
I'm ready,” whispered Mrs. Babb, sinking down on the pillows,
and almost instantly fell asleep.

As the two gentlemen issued from the house, the physician
said: “We must get somebody to take care of her.”

“Of course,” answered Mr. Waldo. “She cannot be intrusted
to old Melinda. Leave it to me: I will see that there
is a good nurse in the house before night.”