Sara, a Princess: The Story of a Noble Girl Part 36

"Fed her," laughed Sara; "and I have been helping her to take my prescriptions, you see. Won't you join us?"

"Well, I'm beat! Thank you--guess I will. Was that all't ailded her-- jest hunger?"

"That's all," answered Bertha for herself, "and quite enough too!"

Then she repeated something of her story, thanking the good woman heartily for her kindness. It was decided she should stay till Monday with Mrs. Pierce, who seemed anxious to befriend the girl, though so poor herself; and Sara finally left them, still planning most amicably, in order to reach home before darkness should necessitate Morton's coming after her.

"How much cooler it seems!" she thought, as she stepped into the street, glancing up at the sky, which was partially overcast with purplish-black clouds; "I wish, now, I had brought a wrap."

She hurried on; but the storm moved more rapidly than she, and just as she turned into the avenue she felt the splash of a large raindrop in her face. She attempted to raise her umbrella, but a sudden squall of wind nearly wrenched it from her grasp, and, becoming convinced it would be impossible to hold it against the now shrieking blast, she made no more effort to raise it, but ran on--the rain falling more heavily every moment.

By the time she sprang up the steps into the shelter of the veranda, she was thoroughly drenched. Morton met her there, just about to go in search of her, with a waterproof and overshoes, and cried,--

"Why, Sara, how wet you are!"

"Yes," she shivered, "I'm drenched," and hurried on and up to her room without more words.

By the time she was disrobed, however, that same sensation, as of utter weariness, came over her, and she concluded to retire for the night, telling Molly--who soon came up--that she was tired and thought she had better get some rest.

"I've been to supper," she added; "and Molly, tell Morton when he goes to the store, to-night, that I'd like him to do an errand at Mrs.

Searle's for me, on the way. Just hand me a sheet of paper and a pen, dear."

"Won't it do in the morning, Sara? You look so tired!"

"No, to-morrow's Sunday, you know, and this is something that must be attended to before anything happens."

She took the writing materials from Molly, and wrote the explanation and request in regard to Bertha, then folding it with a listless gesture, handed it to her sister.

"Don't let him forget--it's important," she said wearily. "Molly, I'm _so_ cold, can't I have another blanket?"

Molly brought it and ran down with the note.

"Don't stay late, Morton," she urged in a worried tone; "if Sara ever was sick, I should say she was going to be now."

CHAPTER XX.

WEAKNESS.

Molly was confirmed in her surmise; for in an hour Sara was in a burning fever, and there was little sleep in the house that night. To have _Sara_ ill was unprecedented--almost unbearable--and the whole household was visibly affected by it. Morton's face settled into a gravity which nothing could move, and Molly's dimpled visage had never looked so long and care-full.

Hetty bustled up and down, important and anxious, while Sam stood about in the hall, and asked everybody who pa.s.sed along "how she wor a-doin'

now."

The doctor came, looked wise, talked about malaria, exposure to the heat and over-fatigue, left some pills and powders, and went away again-- after which the house settled down to that alert silence, so different from the restful quiet of an ordinary night. Sara, tossing to and fro in the fiery grasp of fever, moaned and talked, Hetty and Molly watching alternately beside her, while Morton tried to sleep in the next room, only to start from frightful dreams to the more harrowing reality that his beloved sister was actually and painfully ill.

It was a sharp illness, but not of long duration. The fever was broken up on the fourteenth day, but it left a very weak and ghostly Sara to struggle back to health once more. Still, there were no relapses, thanks to good care, for Hetty had been faithfulness itself, while Molly had settled down to her new duties with a steadiness no one would have expected. As for Morton, he would have brought up half the drugstore, if he had been permitted, and was made perfectly content whenever allowed to share the night-watches, which was seldom, as he had to work all day.

In these Hetty was soon relieved by those members of the circle who had become personal friends of the girls; and as there was little to do, except give the medicines regularly, they thus managed well without calling in a regular nurse.

Three weeks from the day of her seizure Sara began to sit up in bed, looking once more something like the girl of old, though she still talked (to quote Molly) as if she had hot pebbles in her mouth, and the veins on her temples were much too clearly defined beneath the white skin.

Thus sitting, one delightful day, she read a note from Bertha, which had been awaiting her some time. It was a rapturous expression of thanks for the good place she had found with Mrs. Searle, and begged that she might see her as soon as Sara was able. Molly said, as she handed it, "She has been here two or three times, begging to do anything for you that was needed, and I promised you should see her just as soon as possible."

So, a day or two later, Bertha came. Sara would hardly have known her, and indeed the two seemed to have changed places,--Sara was the weakling now, Bertha the strong and rosy one.

"I have such a good place," she said, in answer to the former's questions; "Mrs. Searle is very kind to me. Of course she is exacting and fretful at times, but that is only because of her illness, and I can get along with it; but she has given me a pretty room, and allows me an hour or two for air and exercise every day. I am happier there than I have been since mother died."

"That is good!" said Sara.

"And only think," continued the pleased girl, "she is talking now of going to the seash.o.r.e. You don't know how I long for a sight of the ocean! The only trouble is, she can't find a place quiet enough to suit her--she hates to go to a great hotel, or where there is a crowd."

Sara looked up with a sudden thought.

"Killamet would be quiet enough--how nice it would be if she'd take my house there!"

"Your house! Have you a house?"

"Yes, the children and I; it's not much of one--just a cottage, but perfectly comfortable in summer. If Mrs. Searle would send down some furniture, I think she could really make it cosey."

"I'll tell her about it" said Bertha, and did, with the result that the lady decided to take it for the next two months, at a fair rental.

This little excitement over, Sara had only herself and the children to think of, and in her weak physical condition these thoughts were far from pleasant.

What was to prevent Bertha's experience from becoming her own, or possibly Molly's, in case of evil fortune? If she should often be ill, who would care for them? She seemed to herself, just then, such a frail plank between them and want! She raised her white, blue-veined hands and looked at them; they did not seem made for struggling, and a sense of powerlessness, born of bodily weakness, enwrapped her in its hopeless gloom.

There is a certain period, after convalescence is well progressed, that is even more trying to many natures than actual illness--that time when we are supposed to be well, and yet have not quite resumed our wonted strength.

How the long-dropped burdens of our lives loom up before us now! Is it possible we ever bent our backs to such a load? Can we ever do it again?

Yet, even as we hesitate, relentless necessity pushes us on, and bids us hoist the burden.

Sara felt this often now, and all her former bravery seemed gone with her strength. She had already decided that, next Monday, she must return to the museum, and bring up her neglected work; then there was a half- written article to be finished and copied, whose motive and central thought she had almost forgotten, while at her side loomed a basketful of stockings to be darned, and garments to be mended before the Sabbath dawn.

In this reluctant mood, trying to rally her forces for renewed conflict with life's hard duties, she could not help thinking how different it might all be--how she might be cared for, instead of looking out for others; how she might be the centre of a home, enclosed and guarded, rather than, as now, trying vainly to encompa.s.s one, making a wall of her feeble self to shelter others--and hot tears of rebellious weakness filled her eyes, and dropped slowly upon the trembling little hands, which were painfully weaving the threads to and fro through a preposterous hole in one of Morton's socks.

A step in the hall made her hasten to dash away the tell-tale drops, as Hetty knocked, before peeping in to say,--

"There's a gentleman in the parlor asking to see you, Miss Olmstead."

"A gentleman? One of the professors?"

"I don't think it is; I never see him before--it's a young man."

Sara rose, adjusted her dress a little, and descended to the drawing- room. In its close-shuttered condition she did not at first recognize the figure which rose to meet her, but a second look wrung from her almost a cry.

"Jasper?" "Yes, Sairay, it's me. You--you've been sick, I hear."