Mrs. Morris lay on her unmade bed, still in the soiled wrapper. Her
expansive face was drawn in agony and she looked white and sick. She
seemed surprised to see Celia, and supposed she had come to prefer a
request for another towel, perhaps, or to make some complaint.
“You’ll have to ask Maggie,” she said without waiting to hear what the
girl had to say. “I can’t talk now, I’m suffering so. It’s just
terrible. I never was so sick in me life.”
“But I’ve come to see if I can’t help you,” explained Celia. “Maggie
told me you were sick. Tell me what is the matter. Perhaps I can do
something for you. I know about sickness and nursing.”
“Oh, such awful pain!” said the woman, writhing in agony, “I suppose
it’s something I’ve et. Though I never et a thing, all day long, but a
little piece of pie at dinner to-night and me tea. Me nerves is all used
up with worrying anyway, and me stomach won’t stand anything any more.”
Celia asked a few practical questions, and then told her she would
return in a minute. She found her way in haste to the kitchen, though
she had never before penetrated to that realm of darkness—and dirt. She
ordered Maggie peremptorily to bring her a large quantity of very hot
water as soon as she could, and send somebody for a doctor. Then she
went up to her own room and hastily gathered a bottle or two from her
small store of medicines and a piece of an old blanket she had brought
from home. She hesitated a moment. She ought to have another flannel.
The woman was too sick to find anything, and she had said she did not
know where there were any old flannels. It was necessary. She must take
up this cross to save that poor woman from her suffering and perhaps
save her life, for she was evidently very sick indeed. She waited no
longer, but quickly took out her own clean flannel petticoat. It was
nothing very fine, and was somewhat old, but it was a sacrifice to think
of using any of her personal clothing down there in that dirty room, and
for that woman who did not seem to be scrupulously clean herself.
However, there was no help for it, and she hurried back as fast as she
could. She gave the poor woman a little medicine which she thought might
help her, and she knew could do no harm till the doctor could get there,
and then plunging the cherished blanket into the hot water, she wrung it
as dry as she could and quickly applied it to the seat of pain, covering
it with the flannel skirt. She knew there was nothing like hot
applications to relieve severe pain. She saw by the look of relief that
passed over the sick woman’s face that the pain had relaxed to some
extent. After a moment, Mrs. Morris said:
“I don’t know as you’d a needed to send for a doctor, this might have
helped me without him. I can’t bear to think of his bill. Bills’ll be
the death of me yet, I’m afraid.”
But a spasm of pain stopped her speech, and Celia hastened to repeat the
applications.
It was some time before the doctor arrived. The girl had to work fast
and hard. It was evident when he came that he thought the patient a very
sick woman. Mrs. Morris realized this, too. After the doctor was gone
and Celia was left alone with her, she asked her if she supposed the
doctor thought she was going to die.
“Though I ain’t got much to live for, the land knows—nor to die for
either for the matter of that.”
“Oh you forget!” said Celia, reverently, aghast that one should speak in
that tone of dying, “There is Jesus! Don’t you know him?”
The woman looked at her as if she had spoken the name of some heathen
deity, and then turned her head wearily.
“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose I am a Christian. I never had any time.
When I was a girl there was always plenty of fun, and I never thought
about it, and after I got married there wasn’t time. I did tell the
minister I would think about joining church the time of my daughter’s
funeral, but I never did. I kind of wish I had now. One never is ready
to die, I s’pose. But then living isn’t easy either, the land knows.”
A grey ashen look overspread her face. Celia wondered if perhaps she
might not be dying even now. She shuddered. It seemed so terrible for
any one to die in that way. She had never been with a very sick person
near to death, and she did not know the signs well enough to judge how
much danger there might be of it. She felt however that she must say
something. The woman must have some thread of hope, if she should be
really dying. She came close to her and took her hand tenderly.
“Dear Mrs. Morris! Don’t talk that way. Dying isn’t hard, I’m sure, if
you have Jesus, and he’s always near and ready, if you will only take
him now. I know he helps one to die, for I can remember my own dear
mother, though I was but a little girl. She had a beautiful look on her
face, when she bade me good-bye, and told me she was going to be with
Jesus, and that I must always be a good girl and get ready to come to
her. She looked very happy about it.”
Mrs. Morris opened her eyes and gave her a searching look. Then she said
in a voice half-way between a groan and a frightened shout:
“Why do you talk like that? You don’t think I am dying, do you? Tell me,
quick! Did the doctor say I was going to die? Why did he go away if that
was so? Send for him quick!”
Then the inexperienced young girl realized that she had made a mistake
and been too much in earnest. There was danger that the woman might make
herself much worse by such excitement. She must calm her. To talk to her
thus would do no good. She must wait until a suitable season.
“No, Mrs. Morris,” she said, rising and speaking calmly, “he did not say
so, and I do not believe you are going to die. You must not get so
excited, or you will make yourself worse. Here, take your medicine now,
for it is time. I did not mean you to think I thought you were dying,
and I’m sorry I spoke about my mother’s death, it was very foolish of
me. Please forget it now. I only wanted to tell you how Jesus was
standing near ready to be a comfort to you always, whether you lived or
died. But now you ought to go to sleep. Would you like me to sing to
you? Is the pain a little easier? The doctor said you must lie very
quiet. Can I get you anything?”
By degrees she calmed the woman again, and then sat down to watch and
give her the medicine. There seemed to be no one whose business it was
to relieve Celia. Maggie put her head in the door about midnight to say
she was going to bed now and had left a fire, if any more hot water was
needed. Celia sat there gradually taking in the fact that she was left
to sit up all night with this sick woman, an utter stranger to her. It
was scarcely what she would choose as a pleasant task. But she
recognized it as the cross the Master had laid upon her with his own
hand, and there was a sense of sweetness in performing this duty which
she would not have had otherwise. It occurred to her that it was well
this was Saturday night instead of some other, for she could ill afford
to sit up and lose all her sleep when she had to stand at the counter
all the next day. She smiled to herself in the dim light and thought
this must be part of the Master’s plan, to fix it so that she could do
this duty and her others also. This was all he asked her to do, just
what she had strength for. He gave her the daily allowance of that. But
what if she should have to sit up to-morrow night? “Daily, only, he says
to thee,” and “Thou mayest leave that to thy gracious Lord,” came the
answering words, for now she knew the little poem by heart. She went
upstairs, hastily changed her dress for a loose wrapper, and secured her
Bible and one or two articles which she thought might be useful in
caring for the sick woman. When she came down again Mrs. Morris seemed
to be asleep, and Celia settled herself by the dim light with her Bible.
She felt that she needed some help and strength. She had not read long
when Mrs. Morris said in a low voice, “Is that the Bible you’ve got?
Read a little piece to me.”
Celia hardly knew where to turn for the right words just now, but her
Bible opened easily of itself to the twenty-third psalm and she read the
words in a low, musical voice, praying the while that they might be sent
of the Spirit to reach the sick woman’s heart. When she stopped reading
Mrs. Morris seemed to be asleep again, and Celia settled herself in the
least uncomfortable chair in the room, and began to think.
But she had not long for this occupation, for this was to be a night of
action. The terrible pain which for a time had been held by some
powerful opiate the doctor had given when he first came in, returned in
full force, and the patient soon was writhing in mortal agony once more.
Celia was roused from her thoughts. She called Maggie and sent for hot
water and the doctor again, and it was not until morning was beginning
to stain the sky with crimson that she sat down to breathe and realize
that Mrs. Morris was still alive. It seemed almost a miracle that she
was, for the doctor had said when he arrived that there was doubt
whether he could save her.
Early in the morning Miss Burns came in to relieve her watch, and Celia
snatched a little sleep, but she found on awaking that she was needed
again. Mrs. Morris had asked for her. She went down to the breakfast
table and found, what she had not supposed possible, that the breakfast
was so much worse than former breakfasts, since the mistress was sick,
that it was hardly possible to eat at all. It seemed that Mrs. Morris
had made some difference in things, though Celia had thought the night
before that they could not very well be much worse. She had yet to find
that there were many grades below even this in boarding-houses.
The Sabbath was not spent in studying Jehoiachin. It was full, but not
with attending church services. She did not stay in her cold little
room. She would have been glad to have been allowed to flee to that
refuge. Instead, she made her headquarters in Mrs. Morris’ room and from
there she began by degrees to order things about her, for Mrs. Morris
seemed to have placed all her dependence upon her. It was she who
answered the questions of Maggie about this thing and that, and who kept
the entire list of boarders from coming in to talk to Mrs. Morris and
commiserate her. She also cleared up the room and gave a touch of
something like decent care to the sick woman and her surroundings. Once
or twice the patient opened her eyes, looked around, seemed to see the
subtle difference, and then closed them again. Celia could not tell
whether it pleased her or whether she was indifferent. But it was not in
Celia’s nature to stay in a room and not make those little changes of
picking up a shoe and straightening a quilt and hanging clothing out of
sight. She did it as a matter of course.
Occasionally, when she had time to do so, she wondered what aunt Hannah
would think if she could see her now, and she smiled to think that this
was just what she seemed to have had to do all her life,—give up to
help other people. Then she thought perhaps it was the most blessed
thing that could happen to her.
Occasionally there would come to her a remembrance of that letter from
the lawyers, and she would wonder what it meant, and how she could
possibly go to work to find out.
Sunday evening she sat with her landlady for a couple of hours. The pain
seemed to be a little easier, though she had spent an intensely trying
day. She seemed worried and inclined to talk. Celia tried to soothe her
and persuade her to get calm for sleeping, but it was of no use.
“How can I sleep,” answered the woman impatiently, “with so many things
to fret about? Here am I on me back for the land knows how long, and the
doctor wanting me to go to the hospital. How can I go to the hospital?
What will become of me house, and me business if I up and off that way?
And then when I get well, if I ever do, what’s to become of me? Me house
would be empty, or me goods sold for grocery debts and other things, and
I should starve. I might as well take the chances of dying outright now
as that. I know I’d die in the hospital anyway, fretting about things.
That Maggie never could carry on things, even if I was only to be gone
two days. She never remembers to salt anything. Those two girls from
that three-cent store have been complaining about the soup to-day
already. They say it was just like dish water. And that German fellow
came and told me to-night, with me lying sick here, that he’d have to
leave if things didn’t improve. He said I ought to get better help!
Think of it! How am I going about to get help and me on me back not able
to stir? I don’t much care if he does leave, he always ate more than all
the rest of them put together. But land, if I should get well right away
and keep on, I don’t see where I’m coming to. There’s bills everywhere,
milk and meat and groceries and dry goods. I don’t know how I’m ever to
pay ’em. It’ll be just go on and pay a little, and get deeper into debt,
and pay a little of that and make more debt, till I come to the end
sometime, and I s’pose it might as well be now as any time.”
Poor Celia! She had no words ready for such trouble as this. Debt had
always been to her an awful thing, a great sin, never to be committed.
She never realized that there were people to whom to be in debt seemed
the normal way of living from day to day. She tried to think of
something comforting to say, for how could a woman get well with such a
weight as this on her mind? It would do no good to quote verses of
Scripture about taking no thought for the morrow, nor to quote that
sweet poem of hers about not bearing next week’s crosses. The poor woman
would not understand. She had not so lived in the past as to know how to
claim the promise of being cared for. She would scarcely understand if
Celia tried to tell her that if she would but cast her care now on Jesus
he would help her in some way at once. This was what she longed to say,
but her experience of the night before led her to fear saying anything
which might excite the poor nervous woman.
“How much money do you need to pay all your debts and set you straight
again?” she asked, thinking a little opportunity to go over her troubles
might quiet her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” wailed the poor woman. “If I just had a thousand
dollars, I’d sell out me business and go somewhere and get out of it.
Things seem to be getting worse and worse.” She began to cry feebly, and
Celia was at her wit’s end. Everything she said seemed to make matters
worse. Suddenly she began to sing in a low soft voice,
“Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,
Over life’s tempestuous sea.”
Her voice was sweet and pure, and the woman paused to listen while Celia
sang on until she fell asleep.