Winning the Wilderness Part 18

So Asher left her.

Pryor Gaines was waterbound across Gra.s.s River. Of the three women living east of the stream one was sick abed, one was kept at home with a sick husband, and the third had gone with her husband to Wykerton for supplies and was stormstaid somewhere along the Sunflower Trail.

"I must go for Jim. Any neighborhood is blessed that has a few good-hearted unmarried folks in it," Asher thought as he braced himself against the driving rain and hurried away.

When he reached home again the fire was low, the house was very quiet, and Virginia's face was white against her pillow.

"Our little daughter is asleep," she said, and turning away she seemed not to hear her husband's voice a.s.suring her that Jim would bring the doctor as soon as possible.

The blizzard was just beginning in the early evening when Jim Shirley fairly blew down the trail from the north. He slipped into the kitchen and pa.s.sed quietly to the next room. Asher was bending over his wife, who lay in a delirium.

Jim Shirley had one of those sympathetic natures that read the joys and sorrows of their friends without words. One look at Asher told him what had been.

"The doctor was away up Wolf Creek, but I left word with his colored man for him to come at once, and he'll do it," Jim a.s.sured Asher as he stood for a moment beside the bed. "I didn't wait because you need me."

Asher lifted his head and looked at Jim. As man to man they knew as never before the strength of their lifetime friendship.

"I need you. She needs the doctor. The baby--"

"Doesn't need any of us," Jim said softly. "I'll do what I can."

It is no strange, unreal story of the wilderness day, this fluttering in and out of a little life, where no rosewood grew for coffins nor florists made broken columns of white lilies and immortelles.

But no mother's hands could have been more gentle than the gentle hands of Jim Shirley as he prepared the little form for burial.

Meantime the wind was at its wildest, and the plains blizzard swirled in blinding bitterness along the prairie. The hours of the night dragged by slowly to the two men hoping for the doctor's coming, yet fearing that hope was impossible in the face of such a night.

"Carey has the keenest sense of direction I ever knew in a human being,"

Jim a.s.sured Asher. "I know he will not fail us."

Yet the morning came and the doctor came not. The day differed from the night only in the visible fierceness of the storm. The wind swept howling in long angry shrieks from the northwest. The snow seemed one dizzy, maddening whirlpool of white flakes hanging forever above the earth.

Inside the cabin Virginia's delirium was turning to a frenzy. And Asher and Jim forgot that somewhere in the world that day there was warmth and sunlight, health and happiness, flowers, and the song of birds, and babies cooing on their mothers' knees. And the hours of the day dragged on to evening.

Meanwhile, Dr. Carey had come into Wykerton belated by the rains.

"The wind is changing. There'll be a snowstorm before morning, Bo Peep,"

he said wearily as the young colored man a.s.sisted him into warm, dry clothes. "It's glorious to sit by a fire on a night like this. I didn't know how tired I was till now."

"Yes, suh, I'se glad you all is home for the night, suh. I sho' is. I got mighty little use for this yuh country. I'se sorry now I eveh done taken my leave of ol' Virginny." Bo Peep's white teeth glistened as he laughed.

"Any calls while I was gone?" Dr. Carey asked.

Bo Peep pretended not to hear as he busied himself over his employer's wraps, until Carey repeated the question.

"No, suh! no, suh! none that kaint wait till mawhnin', suh," Bo Peep a.s.sured him, adding to himself, "Tiahd as he is, he's not gwine way out to Gra.s.s Riveh this blessed night, not if I loses my job of bein' custodian of this huh 'stablishment. Not long's my name's Bone-ah-gees Peepehville, no, suh!"

Dr. Carey settled down for the evening with some inexplicable misgiving he could not overcome.

"I didn't sleep well last night, Bo Peep," he said when he rose late the next morning. "I reckon we doctors get so used to being called out on especially bad nights we can't rest decently in our beds."

"I didn't sleep well, nutheh," Bo Peep replied. "I kep thinkin' bout that man come heah foh you yestedy. I jes wa'n't gwine to le' yuh go out again las' night."

"What did he want?" the doctor asked, secretly appreciative of Bo Peep's goodness of heart as he saw the street full of whirling snow.

"He done said hit wah a maturity case."

Bo Peep tried to speak carelessly. In truth, his conscience had not left him in peace a moment.

"What do you mean? Who was it?" Horace Carey demanded.

"Don't be mad, Doctah, please don't. Hit wah cuz you all wah done woah out las' night. Hit wah Misteh Shulley from Gra.s.s Riveh, suh. He said hit wah Misteh Asheh Aydelot's wife--"

"For the love of G.o.d!" Horace Carey cried hoa.r.s.ely, springing up. "Do you know who Mrs. Aydelot is, Bo Peep?"

"No, suh; neveh see huh."

"She was Virginia Thaine of the old Thaine family back at home."

Bo Peep did not sit down. He fell in a heap at Dr. Carey's feet, moaning grievously.

"Fo' Gawd, I neveh thought o' harm. I jus' thought o' you all, deed I did.

Oh! Oh!"

"Help to get me off then," Carey commanded, and Bo Peep flew to his tasks.

When the doctor was ready to start he found two horses waiting outside in the storm and Bo Peep, wrapped to the eyes, beside them.

"Why two?" he asked kindly, for Bo Peep's face was so full of sorrow he could not help pitying the boy.

"Please, kaint I go with you all? I can cook betteh'n Miss Virginia eveh could, an' I can be lots of help an' you all'll need help."

"But it's a stinger of a storm, Bo Peep," the doctor insisted, anxious to be off.

"Neveh mind! Neveh mind! Lemme go. I won't complain of no stom." And the doctor let him go.

It was already dark at the Sunflower Ranch when the two, after hours of battling with wind and snow and bitter cold, reached the cabin door. Bo Peep, instead of giving up early or hanging a dead weight on Dr. Carey's hands, as he had feared the boy might do, had been the more hopeful of the two in all the journey. The hardship was Bo Peep's penance, and right merrily, after the nature of a merry-hearted race, he took his punishment.

Jim Shirley, putting wood on the kitchen fire, bent low as he heard the piteous moanings from the sick room.

"Oh, Lord, if you can work miracles work one now," he pleaded below his breath. "Bring help out of this storm or give us sense to do the best for her. We need her so, dear Lord. We need her so."

He lifted his eyes to see Horace Carey between himself and the bedroom door, slipping out of his snowy coat. And beside him stood Bo Peep, helping him to get ready for the sick room.

"I know Miss Virginia back in the Souf, suh. I done come to take keer of this kitchen depahtment. I know jus' what she lak mos' suh," Bo Peep said to Jim, who had not moved nor spoken. "I'se Misteh Bone-ah-gees Peepehville, an' I done live with Doctah Carey's family all mah life, suh, 'cept a short time I spent in the Jacobs House at Carey's Crossing. I'se his custodian now, suh, and I know a few things about the cookin'

depahtment, suh."