Anxious Days
FOR the next few weeks the Cottagers led as quiet a life as almost
daily association with Henrietta would permit. Jean grew a trifle
taller, Marjory discovered new ways of doing her hair and Mabel
remained as round and ruddy as ever. But everybody was worried about
Bettie. She seemed listless and indifferent in school, she fell asleep
over her books when she attempted to study at night, she grew averse to
getting up mornings and day by day she grew thinner and paler, until
even heedless Mabel observed that she was all eyes.
"What's the trouble?" asked Jean, when Bettie said that she didn't feel
like going to the Public Library corner to view the Uncle Tom's Cabin
parade. "A walk would do you good, and it's only four blocks."
"I'm tired," returned Bettie. "My head would like to go but my feet
would rather not. And my hands don't want to do anything--or even
my tongue. You can tell me about the parade--that'll be easier than
looking at it."
Now, this was a new Bettie. The old one, while not exactly a noisy
person, had been so active physically that the others had sometimes
found it difficult to follow her dancing footsteps. She had ever been
quick to wait on the other members of her large family; or to do
errands, in the most obliging fashion, for any of her friends. This
new Bettie eyed the Tucker cat sympathetically when it mewed for milk;
but she relegated the task of feeding pussy to one of her much more
unwilling small brothers.
"She needs a tonic," said Mrs. Tucker, giving Bettie dark-brown doses
from a large bottle. "It's the spring, I guess."
Two days after the parade there was great excitement among Bettie's
friends. She had not appeared at school. That in itself was not
an unusual occurrence, for Bettie often stayed at home to help her
overburdened mother through particularly trying days; but when Jean
stopped in to consult her little friend about homemade valentines, Mrs.
Tucker met her with the news that Bettie was sick in bed.
"Can't I see her?" asked Jean.
"I'm afraid not," replied Mrs. Tucker, who looked worried. "She's
asleep just now and she has a temperature."
When Mabel heard this latter fact she at once consulted Dr. Bennett.
"Father," she queried, "do folks ever die of temperature?"
"Why, yes," returned the Doctor. "If the temperature is below zero they
sometimes freeze. Why?"
"Mrs. Tucker says that's what Bettie's got--temperature."
"It isn't a disease, child. It's a condition of heat or cold. But it's
too soon to say anything about Bettie--go play with your dolls."
Henrietta and the remaining Cottagers immediately thought of lovely
things to do for Bettie. So, too, did Mr. Black. Impulsive Henrietta
purchased a large box of most attractive candy, Jean made her a lovely
sponge cake that sat down rather sadly in the middle but rose nobly
at both ends; Mabel begged half a lemon pie from the cook; Marjory
concocted a wonderful bowl of orange jelly with candied cherries on
top, Mrs. Crane made a steaming pitcherful of chicken soup and Mr.
Black sent in a great basket of the finest fruit that the Lakeville
market afforded.
But when all these successive and well-meaning visitors presented
themselves and their unstinted offerings at the Rectory door, Dr.
Tucker received them sadly.
"Bettie is down with a fever," said he. "She can't eat _anything_."
The days that followed were the most dreadful that the Cottagers had
ever known. They lived in suspense. Day after day when they asked
for news of Bettie the response was usually, "Just about the same."
Occasionally, however, Dr. Bennett shook his head dubiously and said,
"Not quite so well to-day."
For weeks--for _years_ it seemed to the disheartened children--these
were the only tidings that reached them from the sick-room. There was a
trained nurse whose white cap sometimes gleamed in an upper window, the
grave-faced, uncommunicative doctor visited the house twice a day, a
boy with parcels from the drug store could frequently be seen entering
the Rectory gate and that was about all that the terribly interested
friends could learn concerning their beloved Bettie. They spent most of
their time hovering quietly and forlornly about Mrs. Mapes's doorstep,
for that particular spot furnished the best view of the afflicted
Rectory. They wanted, poor little souls, to keep as close to Bettie as
possible. If the sun shone during this time, they did not know it; for
all the days seemed dark and miserable.
"If we could only help a little," mourned Jean, who looked pale and
anxious, "it wouldn't be so bad."
"I teased her," sighed Henrietta, repentantly, "only two days before
she was taken sick. I do wish I hadn't."
"I gave her the smaller half of my orange," lamented Mabel, "the very
last time I saw her. If--if I don't ever see--see her again----"
"Oh, well," comforted Marjory, hastily, "she might have been just
that much sicker if she'd eaten the larger piece. But _I_ wish I
hadn't talked so much about boarding school. It always worried her and
sometimes I tried [Marjory blushed guiltily at the remembrance] to make
her just a little envious."
"I'm afraid," confessed Jean, "I sometimes neglected her just a little
for Henrietta; but I mean to make up for it if--if I have a chance."
"That's it," breathed Marjory, softly, "if we only have a chance."
Then, because the March wind wailed forlornly, because the waiting had
been so long and because it seemed to the discouraged children as if
the chance, after all, were extremely slight--as slight and frail a
thing as poor little Bettie herself--the four friends sat very quietly
for many minutes on the rail of the Mapes's broad porch, with big tears
flowing down their cheeks. Presently Mabel fell to sobbing outright.
Mr. Black, on his way home from his office, found them there. He had
meant to salute them in his usual friendly fashion, but at sight of
their disconsolate faces he merely glanced at them inquiringly.
"She's--she's just about the same," sobbed Jean.
Mr. Black, without a word, proceeded on his way; but all the sparkle
had vanished from his dark eyes and his countenance seemed older.
He, too, was unhappy on Bettie's account and he lived in hourly dread
of unfavorable news. The very next morning, however, there was a more
hopeful air about Dr. Bennett when he left the Rectory. Mabel, waiting
at home, questioned him mutely with her eyes.
"A very slight change for the better," said he, "but it is too soon for
us to be sure of anything. We're not out of the woods yet."
Next came the tidings that Bettie was really improving, though not at
all rapidly; yet it was something to know that she was started on the
road to recovery.
Perhaps the tedious days that followed were the most trying days
of all, however, for the impatient children; because the "road to
recovery" in Bettie's case seemed such a tremendously long road that
her little friends began to fear that Bettie would never come into
sight at the end of it, but she did at last. And such a forlorn Bettie
as she was!
She had certainly been very ill. They had shaved her poor little head,
her eyes seemed almost twice their usual size and the girls had not
believed that any living person could become so pitiably thin; but the
wasting fever was gone and what was left of Bettie was still alive.
Long before the invalid was able to sit up, the girls had been admitted
one by one and at different times, to take a look at her. Bettie had
smiled at them. She had even made a feeble little joke about being able
to count every one of her two hundred bones.
After a time, Bettie could sit up in bed. A few days later, rolled in a
gaily flowered quilt presented by the women of the parish; she occupied
a big, pillowed chair near the window; and all four of the girls were
able to throw kisses to her from Jean's porch. And now she could eat a
few spoonfuls of Mrs. Crane's savory broth, a very little of Marjory's
orange jelly and one or two of Mr. Black's imported grapes. But, for a
long, long time, Bettie progressed no further than the chair.
"I don't know what ails that child," confessed puzzled Dr. Bennett.
"She's like a piece of elastic with all the stretch gone from the
rubber. She seems to lack something; not exactly vitality--animation,
perhaps, or ambition. Yes, she certainly lacks ambition. She ought to
be outdoors by now."
"Hurry and get well," urged Jean, who had been instructed to try to
rouse her too-slowly-improving friend. "The weather's warmer every day
and it won't be long before we can open Dandelion Cottage. And we've
sworn a tremendous vow not to show Henrietta--she's crazy to see it--a
single inch of that house until you're able to trot over with us.
Here's the key. You're to keep it until you're ready to unlock that
door yourself."
"Drop it into that vase," directed Bettie. "It seems a hundred miles
to that cottage, and I'll never have legs enough to walk so far."
"Two are enough," encouraged Jean.
"Both of mine," mourned Bettie, displaying a wrinkled stocking,
"wouldn't make a whole one."
"Mrs. Slater wants to take you to drive every day, just as soon as you
are able to wear clothes. She told me to tell you."
"It seems a fearfully long way to the stepping stone," sighed Bettie.
"Go home, please. It's makes me tired to _think_ of driving."
"There's certainly something amiss with Bettie," said Dr. Bennett, when
told of this interview. "Some little spring in her seems broken. We
must find it and mend it or we won't have any Bettie."