REX AND SAM
It was three o’clock, and the heat, instead of growing less, seemed to
increase. There were a few thunder-heads in the western sky and some
mutterings in the distance, but the sun poured down in a blaze like
noonday and the heat seemed unbearable to Rex, as he walked slowly
along, his feet dragging heavily, his umbrella seeming fifty pounds
weight and the plantain leaves pressing upon his head.
“I feel badly and no mistake,” he thought, as he came in sight of the
grove which looked so cool and inviting that, although it took him out
of his way, he turned aside and soon came near the well, at which he
glanced with a shudder, while the one eye seen on half of the face began
to dance before him and beckon him on—not to the well, he made quite a
detour to avoid it—and came to the bench under a pine tree, starting as
a figure reclining upon it began to stir and sit upright.
Sam Walker had been across the fields to a distant farmhouse and on
returning had sought the shelter of the grove, where for a moment he had
fallen asleep.
“Hello!” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s you, Mr. Travers. I’m just
resting and trying to keep cool. Isn’t the heat a corker? Sit down, you
seem tuckered out.”
He moved along and Rex sat down, admitting that he was tuckered out and
the day a corker, while Sam continued:
“If there was anything here to draw water with, I’d get some for you to
bathe your face and hands. You look kinder queer.”
It does not make one feel better to be told that he looks queer, and Rex
was not an exception. He felt queer. The hornets were in full play, and
he put up his hand to brush away one which seemed buzzing in his face,
while the eye was staring at him from the stone near the well where it
had first appeared to him.
“I’m tired and warm, that’s all,” he said, while Sam remarked that he
guessed a shower must be coming up, as he felt like thunder and had all
day.
Rex laughed at the odd speech and replied that he believed he, too, felt
like thunder, or something worse.
“I wish I could get some water,” Sam said. “There used to be a bucket
here but it is gone, and the nonsense about played out. I was kinder
glad when I heard the glass go into the well. Was you much scared when
she looked over your shoulder? I thought you was goin’ to tumble in, and
you would if she hadn’t catched you.”
“Who looked over my shoulder? What do you mean?” Rex asked, and Sam
replied:
“Why, she, Miss Burdick, you know, when you looked into the well
yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
“Yesterday,” Rex repeated, with a feeling that yesterday was a great way
off. “Were you here?”
“Why, yes,” Sam answered. “You see, I’d been to Bemis’ about some
hayseed, just as I have to-day, and on my way back I was so hot and dead
tired that I lay down under that tree behind that clump of bushes and
fell asleep. When I waked up you was lookin’ in the well for all you was
worth, and she was goin’ up to you careful-like, just as I went up to
Lottie when I catched her at it and looked over her shoulder before she
knew I was there. My, how she screeched—Lottie, I mean—not you. I didn’t
mean to peek, only I happened to be here and watched Miss Burdick and
see you jump when she bent over you and the glass fell into the well as
if you was scared.”
“But—but—Miss Burdick was sitting where we are,” Rex stammered, and Sam,
who suspected nothing, continued:
“Maybe she was at first, but when I seen her she was tip-toe-in’ up to
you, who couldn’t hear her, the ground is so soft and the pine-needles
so thick, and I s’pose you was thinkin’ of something else.”
“And looked over my shoulder?” Rex asked next, every faculty now on the
alert as he began to see the trick played upon him.
“Why, yes,” Sam said, thinking Mr. Travers rather forgetful. “You saw
her, didn’t you? and that’s what made you drop the glass, while she
jumped back and put on her hat, which she had took off, and, when you
reeled as if you was goin’ to fall she sprang forward again and grabbed
you, don’t you know?”
“Yes, yes,” Rex said. “I know, but I didn’t see you.”
“Of course not,” Sam replied. “I didn’t want you to think I was spyin’
on you, because I wasn’t, and I kep’ still and you and she sat on the
bench awhile, and you seemed kinder upset and faint.”
“Yes, and I—I think I am now, the day is so hot and my head so bad,” Rex
said. “Tell me again just what you saw.”
Sam looked at him in some surprise, wondering if he were a little off,
but he repeated the story again, apologizing profusely because he was
there a spectator of the scene, which he described very fully,
interspersing his remarks with “Don’t you remember?” and “Don’t you
know?” while Rex kept saying, “Yes, yes, go on,” till he had a very
lucid idea of what had taken place in the grove the previous day. It was
not a phantom he saw in the glass, the half face whose one eye had left
the stone by the well and was dancing up and down before him with a
persistency which made him dizzy. It was Irene herself playing a trick
upon him and offering no explanation when she saw how it had affected
him. What was her object? Not a mere joke, or she would have confessed
it, and if it were a joke it certainly was not worthy of her, he
thought, and there began to creep over him a great revulsion of feeling
toward her and he was glad he had not sent the letter. He must wait a
while and think it over. He was very tired and very warm and very sick,
he said to himself at last, as he sat half blinded with the pain in his
head and the nausea at his stomach. He knew Sam was still talking to
him, but he did not comprehend all he was saying. He had not, however,
lost a word where Irene was concerned, and could see her stealing up
behind him, while he was too absorbed to hear her. He could see, too,
the half face in the mirror and the eye looking at him with something
like a mocking smile in its blue depths, but aside from that he did not
pay much attention to Sam’s talk till he spoke of taking Irene to the
station and how badly she felt about her brother.
“I s’posed she lived in New York, but she got a ticket for Claremont,”
he said.
For a moment Rex looked at him inquiringly.
“Claremont? Where is that?” he asked.
“Dunno,” Sam replied. “Maybe her brother lives there and not in New York
with her.”
“Yes, that’s it, thank you,” Rex said, as if Sam had solved a question
which was puzzling him a little.
The brother and Claremont were new to him, and in his hazy state of mind
he could not quite comprehend them. But Sam had made it plain. The
brother lived in Claremont and Irene had gone there.
“Yes, thank you,” he said again, while Sam looked curiously at him a
moment, and then remembering the fever which had broken out in the
village he spoke of it and how rapidly it was spreading.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you was comin’ down with it,” he said, as he
noticed Rex’s flushed face and saw him shiver occasionally as if he were
cold. “Be you real sick?” he asked, at last, and Rex replied:
“No—no; a little shaky, that’s all. I was startled at the well, that’s a
fact, and the weather is so warm. I think, however, I’ll go home. That
is the best place; yes, the best place, and I must lie down.”
He didn’t quite know what he was saying, as he rose slowly, swaying to
one side, and putting out his hand to steady himself. Certainly there
was something the matter, Sam thought, and he walked with him as far as
the gate and offered to go the rest of the way if Rex would like to have
him. But Rex declined his escort, and bidding him good afternoon went on
toward home very slowly, with a feeling that something had happened to
him or was going to happen, he did not know which. One fact, however,
stood out distinctly in his mind. He had not sent the letter and he was
glad. Irene had deceived him, and he must wait till he saw her, and
then—He did not know what then. He was only conscious of a sense of
great relief as if he had escaped a danger, but by the time he reached
home the pain in his head overmastered every other feeling, and Colin
found him sitting in the hall where he had dropped into a chair, very
white and uncertain as to where he was or what was the matter.
“My head is pretty bad and dizzy,” he said. “I think it is the heat. I
shall be better when I get to my room but I guess you will have to go
with me. I don’t quite remember the way and am weak as water. I wish Tom
were here.”
Colin looked at him in some alarm. He knew of the fever in the village,
which was causing dismay among the inhabitants. As yet it had been
confined to the poorer class in the narrow streets where there was filth
with poverty and squalor. None of the better class had it and it hardly
seemed possible to Colin that a guest in his house, where there was
extreme cleanliness and every possible luxury, could fall a victim to
the malarious disease. But there was certainly something wrong with Rex,
whose speech became every moment more incoherent, and Colin went with
him to his room and summoned the housekeeper, Mrs. Frye, and sent for
the doctor, whom Nixon fortunately met near the house on his way from
visiting a patient further up the road.
“He hasn’t the fever, of course?” Colin said, anxiously, as he watched
the doctor examining Rex and taking his temperature. “He couldn’t get it
in this house, where everything is spick and span clean, cellar
whitewashed twice this year, drains clean as a whistle, traps all right,
water filtered, and all that. He can’t have the fever!”
The doctor made no reply for a few moments, while he was dealing out
medicine, with directions how to give it.
“I am very sorry,” he said, at last, “very sorry to tell you that in
spite of your cellar and drain and traps and filtered water, Mr. Travers
has the fever, and I think it has been coming on for some days. It bids
fair to be the crazy kind, as he is already out of his head. Keep him as
quiet as you can; better have a trained nurse at once. Good afternoon.
I’ll look in again to-night. I have a good many more patients to see.
The fever is spreading.”