LIFE OR DEATH?
"With God the Lord belong the issues from death."--Ps. 68; 18.
The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her
mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed upstairs, and the
apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had
been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry,
so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them.
Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery,
the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's
chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch.
"How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor
say?"
"Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't
pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He
ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had
made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him.
He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for
life or death."
"But he can't help _thinking_," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I
knew. What do _you_--?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all,
to finish the question, and to hear it answered.
"I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too
much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is."
Faith was finding out--a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of
herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she
not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier
than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to
happen!" Was God punishing her for that?
"You just keep still, and patient--and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting
the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's
the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she
to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the _very_
toughest jobs, to be sure."
"I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if
there _should_ be anything that I could do--to sit up, or
anything--you'll let me, won't you?"
"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish
about asking when there's anything I really want done."
Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was
ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I,
nurse, just for a good-night look?"
The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words.
"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of
consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live."
Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and
silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's
fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and
flushed--and thought within herself--it was a prayer and vow
unspoken--"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will _find_ something
that I can do for him!"
And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and
dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it
gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own
room.
Three nights--three days--more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night
after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the
doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the
resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a
mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the
critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would
flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life
or death.
Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while
the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the
other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the
cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl--her heart full, and
every nerve strained with emotion and suspense.
She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can
remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then
half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy,
feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern
of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect
nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter,
she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over
the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse that warned her down
again, for her life.
And then, other hours, or minutes, she knows not which, went by.
And then, a stir--a feeble word--a whisper from Nurse Sampson--a low
"Thank God!" from her mother.
The crisis was passed. Henderson Gartney lived.