ARE YOU AN ANGEL?
What subtle influence wrought the miracle, for it could not have been
the strength of Leola’s slender hands?
But there stood the satanic black animal, its fury abated, its flight
arrested, its huge form trembling, shuddering, while the foamy sweat
dropped in streams to the ground. As for the driver, he had been hurled
violently backward into the road by the impetus of the sudden stop, and
now lay there without sound or motion, like a dead man.
Leola, waiting only a moment to pat the black horse gently on his
heaving neck, slipped from her saddle and ran to the young man,
leaving, oh, wonder of wonders! the excited creature standing stock
still, and rubbing noses with Rex quite as if they had been old friends.
“Oh, heaven, he is dead!” the girl moaned in anguish.
Her heart sank like lead to see him lying there so still, with a little
stream of blood trickling from his temple, where it had struck against
a jagged rock.
“Oh, if I only had some water,” she sighed, and just then the trickle
of a little spring by the side of the road caught her ears. She ran and
filled her riding cap with the clear fluid, and dashed it in his face.
Oh, joy! he gasped once or twice, and opened on her anxious face a pair
of the bonniest dark blue eyes she had ever met--eyes that seemed to go
exactly with the glossy curls of thick brown hair.
When his gaze met hers he smiled, faintly, and sighed:
“I--I--where am I? Oh, I remember now. I was in an accident; my horse
ran away, and I was thrown out of the runabout. Was I killed? Is this
heaven, and are you an angel?”
Leola laughed a happy, rippling laugh, sweet as music to his ears.
“An angel? No, indeed,” she cried; “and this is not heaven, either,
only a rough, rocky road, where you fell when you pitched out of your
trap. Oh! are you hurt very bad? Does your poor head pain you very
much?”
Their faces were very close together, for she had pillowed his head on
her tender arm, and he could feel the quick throbs of her excited heart
as she waited for his answer.
“I--I--do not feel very bad,” he began, then suddenly lapsed into
unconsciousness again, and this time it seemed to her that he was
surely gone forever.
Tears started in her eyes and fell in a burning shower upon his pallid,
handsome face, mingling with the crimson rain that ran down his cheek.
Again he revived, and, looking up, met that tender, tearful glance of
Leola’s lovely eyes, that made the blood leap through his veins with
rapture.
He said faintly:
“Do not say you are not an angel, for I shall always think of you as
one, sweet girl! Ah, I remember all, now! My runaway horse was going
straight over the declivity when you spurred yours between and caught
his neck in your arms. It was a magnificent thing to do, but a perilous
one, too, to risk your life for an utter stranger!”
Leola smiled brightly, and answered:
“It certainly looked like taking a terrible risk, and would scarcely
have succeeded so well but for one fact quite unknown to you.”
“And that?” he queried, eagerly; and she replied:
“You see, I recognized in your satanic steed a favorite of mine--a
spirited creature that I loved dearly when it belonged to my guardian,
who sold it to the livery stable in town only a week ago. Black Hawk,
as we called him, was an elder brother to my pony Rex, and they were
fond of each other; so, you see, it was really our acquaintance with
Black Hawk that made him so easy to subdue. Just turn your head now,
sir, and you will see the pair biting at each other in the most
affectionate manner.”
“It is wonderful,” he murmured; “but, all the same, I owe you my life,
for you ran a terrible risk trusting to Black Hawk’s possible obedience
to you. What if, in his fury of fear and rage--for he had taken
desperate fright at a well-digging machine in a field--he had proved
unmanageable? You and I must have gone down to death together, all in
one tragic moment.”
“It is true, but let us not think of it, since the danger is past,”
said Leola, making light of it, and adding:
“What troubles me now is how to get assistance for you. I don’t like to
leave you alone, but--Ah! I hear wheels. Some one is coming!”
Sure enough, an old top buggy, drawn by an old gray mare, came
clattering around the curve of the road, and in it sat the one person
most welcome of any one in the world just now--the village doctor.
“Oh, Doctor Barnes, how glad I am to see you! You see, there’s been
an accident,” Leola cried, eagerly, as he drew rein and began to jump
nimbly out.
“Yes, my dear girl; I saw the accident from up on the hill, just as I
was coming out from a patient’s house, and I got to you as fast as old
Dolly would travel. Really, it was a splendid deed of daring!” cried
the middle-aged doctor, patting her bright head in a fatherly way as he
stooped over the young man.
“Ah, a stranger!” he continued. “Well, how much is he hurt? Cut on the
temple, eh? Needs some stitches. Any bones broken, do you think? Wait
till I stanch and bind the wound, and then we will see.”
This accomplished, he tendered the use of his arm, and the young
fellow got upon his feet without much difficulty.
“Ah, you’re all right--unless there’s some internal hurt. Come, I will
put you into my buggy. Your arm on the other side. Leola and I must
take you to the nearest house, which happens to be the Widow Gray’s
cottage, below here. There I can sew up your wound and leave you in
safe hands till we can find out if there’s any internal injuries. All
right. Put your head back against the lap-robe. You will come with us,
Leola; I may need your help.”
Stranger as the young man was, they could not have taken him to
a better place, for Widow Gray was the dearest old woman in the
neighborhood. She lived quite alone in a tidy cottage back among a
grove of maples, or a “sugar camp,” as the country people called it;
for here in the early spring was always produced that toothsome dainty,
maple sugar, so dear to the hearts of school children. The widow had
a neat spare room that she often let to a summer boarder, and to this
white-hung chamber she quickly led Doctor Barnes with his patient, her
round face beaming with good-nature as she promised to do all she could
for the unfortunate young stranger.
“He will need your best nursing, I fear,” exclaimed Doctor Barnes; for,
on getting his patient down upon the bed, he immediately fainted again,
and the swoon was so deep that it was difficult to revive him.
“Oh, he is dead!” sobbed Leola; and the thought carried with it such
agony that it changed and darkened the whole world to her young heart,
so dear had the handsome stranger grown already.