When he returned the artist was awake. His eyes had a clearer look.
Uncle William surveyed them over the top of his parcels. “Feelin’
better?” he said.
“Yes.”
He carried the parcels into the next room, and the artist heard
him pottering around and humming. He came out presently in his
shirt-sleeves. His spectacles were mounted on the gray tufts. “I’ve got
a chowder going’,” he said. “You take another pill and then you’ll be
about ready to eat some of it, when it’s done.”
“Can I eat chowder?” The tone was dubious, but meek.
“You’ve got all your teeth, hain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I guess you can eat it.”
“I haven’t been eating much.”
“I shouldn’t think you had.” Uncle William spoke dryly. “You needn’t be
a mite afraid o’ one o’ my chowders. A baby could eat ’em, if it had got
its teeth.”
The artist ate the chowder, when it came, and called for more, but Uncle
William refused him sternly. “You jest wait awhile,” he said, bearing
away the empty plate. “There ain’t more’n enough for a comfortable dish
for me. You don’t want to eat it all, do you?”
“No,” said the artist, flushing.
“I thought not.” It took Uncle William a long time to eat his portion,
and the artist fell asleep again, watching the rhythmic motion of the
great jaw as it went slowly back and forth.
When he wakened again it was almost dark in the room. Uncle William sat
by the window, looking down into the street. He came across to the bed
as the artist stirred. “You’ve had a good long sleep.” He laid a hand on
the moist forehead. “That’s good. Fever’s gone.”
“It will come back. It always does.” There was anxious dread in the
tone.
“It won’t this time.” Uncle William sat nodding at him mildly. “I know
how you feel--kind o’ scared to believe anything--anything that’s good.”
The artist smiled. “_You_ never felt that way!”
“Jest that way,” said Uncle William. “I didn’t _want_ to believe I
wa’n’t al’ays goin’ to be sick. I kep’ kind o’ thinkin’ I’d rather be
sick’n not--jest as if the devil had me.”
“Yes”--the young man spoke almost eagerly--“it’s the way I’ve been! Only
I didn’t know it till you said so.”
“The’ ’s a good many things we don’t know--not jest exactly know--till
somebody says ’em.”
They sat quiet, listening to the hum from the street.
“I’ve done some queer things,” said the artist.
“Like enough.” Uncle William did not ask what they were.
“They begin to look foolish.” He turned his head a little.
“Do you good--best thing in the world.”
“I don’t see how I _could_.” The tone was uneasy. “I must have been
beastly to her.”
Uncle William said nothing.
“She didn’t tell you?” The artist was looking at him.
“She? Lord, no! women don’t tell anything you’ve done to ’em--not if
it’s anything bad.”
“I might have known. . . . I fairly turned her out. But she kept coming
back. She wanted me to marry her, so she could stay and take care of
me.” He was not looking at Uncle William.
“And you wouldn’t let her?”
“I couldn’t--There was no money,” he said at last.
Uncle William glanced about him in the clear dusk. “Comf’tabul place,”
he said.
The artist flushed. “She pays the rent, I suppose. They would have
turned me out long since. I haven’t asked, but I know she pays it. There
is no one else.”
“She is rich, probably,” said Uncle William.
“Rich?” The young man smiled bitterly. “She has what she earns. She
works day and night. If she should stop, there would be nothing for
either of us.”
“Not unless suthin’ come in,” said Uncle William. “Suthin’ might come
in. You’d kind o’ like to see her, wouldn’t you?”
The artist held out a hand as if to stop him. “Not till I can pay her
back, every cent!”
“Guess you need another pill, likely,” said Uncle William. He got up in
the dark and groped about for the bottle. His great form loomed large
above the bed as he handed it to the young man. “That’s four,” he said
soothingly. “Jest about one more’ll fix ye.”
The young man swallowed it almost grudgingly. He lay back upon the
pillow. “I can pay her the money sometime.” His gaunt eyes were staring
into the dark. “But I can never make up to her for the way I treated
her.”
“Mebbe she didn’t mind,” said Uncle William, non-committally. “Sometimes
they don’t.”
“Mind? She couldn’t help minding. I was a fiend to her. I did everything
but strike her.”
A smile grew, out of the dark, in Uncle William’s face. “I was thinkin’
about that ol’ chief,” he said slowly--“the one that give me the pills.
I treated him--why, I treated him wuss ’n anything. ’Course, he wa’n’t
like white folks; but I was fightin’ crazy with the fever, not sick
enough to go to bed, but jest sittin’ around and jawin’ at things.
I dunno _how_ he come to take such a likin’ to me. Might ’a’ been on
account o’ my size--we was about the same build. I’d set and jaw at him,
callin’ him names. Don’t s’pose he understood half of ’em, but he
could see plain enough I was spittin’ mad. He’d kind o’ edge up to me,
grinnin’ like and noddin’, and fust thing I knew, one day, he’d fetched
a pill and made me take it. I was mad enough to ’a’ killed him easy, but
’fore I could get up to do it, I fell asleep somehow. And when I woke up
I felt different. _You_ feel different, don’t you?”
The artist smiled through the soft dark. “I would like to get down on my
knees.”
Uncle William smoothed the spread in place. “They’d feel kind o’ sharp,
I guess. I wouldn’t try it--not yet. You wait till Sergia comes.”
“_Will_ she come?”
“She’d come to-night if she knew you wanted her. You go to sleep, and
in the mornin’ you’ll take that other pill.” He lifted the pillow and
turned it over, patting it in place. “Why, that ol’ chief he was so glad
when he see me feelin’ better he acted kind o’ crazy-like. I held out
my hand to him when I woke up; but he didn’t know anything about shakin’
hands. He jest got down and took my feet and hugged ’em. It made me feel
queer,” said Uncle William. “You do feel queer when you hain’t acted
jest right.”