"I don't know just how to do it," Hilda whispered. "But really, Annie,
if he couldn't use it, it would be----"
"A waste," Anne finished.
But it was another week before the doctor found time to include this
useless visit in his busy round. He came in mid-afternoon, as James
Mitchell waked from his after-luncheon nap. He stayed chatting for a
quarter of an hour and wrote a new prescription to make the sick man
feel that everything possible was being done. As he left, Hilda drew
him into the kitchen.
"He seems brighter, doctor, don't you think so?"
"Yes. You're good nurses. His general health is wonderfully good."
Hilda looked at Anne, the unasked question in her eyes, but Anne
refused to put it. Not until the doctor was drawing on his gloves, did
Hilda face it.
"How long, doctor--is there--always a second stroke--how----?"
"My dear Mrs. Mitchell," he said with his professional smile, "please
ask me something I can tell you. After all, you know, we doctors
are not prophets. I have known the strokes to follow each other
within a very short time and sometimes they are years apart. In
fact, sometimes the patient never has another and dies of some quite
other--complication. The only thing to do is rest, quiet and diversion."
After he had gone, Hilda said thoughtfully:
"I wonder, if I went straight down town now, whether they could get a
chair here to-night."
"You might try."
"I believe I will."
Just at dusk, they brought it, a comfortable chair on wheels, with a
little rack for books, a tiny adjustable side tray, and a footrest.
Hilda lit both gas jets in the bedroom and Anne wheeled herself gayly
in. This unusual game covered over the presentation long enough to get
James settled, and then the added comfort and independence hid, for the
moment, his terrible need.
No one knew that James Mitchell cried that night when the excitement
was over.