SICK FANCIES
Betty turned to stare at Bob. He looked at her helplessly.
"My mother!" he whispered. "She's calling my mother!"
Betty was the first to recover. She went quietly over to the bed.
"There, dear, lie down," she said soothingly. "Everything is all
right. It's the fever," she explained in an aside to Bob. "The doctor
said she used to be out of her head when she had even a slight cold."
"Faith!" cried Miss Hope again, resisting Betty's attempts to press
her back against the pillow. "I wrote and wrote," the hoarse voice
babbled on. "You and David are so cruel--you will never send us word.
David!" she sat up straighter and pointed an accusing finger at Bob
standing in the doorway. "David! Faith and David----"
"You're making her worse," said Betty. "Go away, please, Bob. See,
she'll lie down now."
Exhausted, Miss Hope sank back on her pillow, and suddenly the
delirium left her.
"You're very good to me, my dear," she whispered weakly. "I think
I'll go to sleep."
Betty watched her for a few minutes till her even breathing told that
she really was asleep. Then she went in to see if Miss Charity had
been disturbed. She was awake and beckoned for Betty to come nearer
the bed.
"Was Faith here?" she whispered painfully. Betty had to put her ear
down to her mouth to hear. "Has she come at last?"
Betty shook her head sorrowfully. She had hoped the sick woman's
voice had not reached her sister.
"Miss Hope had more fever," she said compassionately. "She has gone
to sleep now. If I bring you a little nice beef tea, don't you think
you might take a nap, too?"
The old lady was childishly pleased with the idea of something to eat
again, and Betty fixed her tray daintily and toasted a cracker to go
with the cup of really delicious home-made beef tea. Miss Charity
drank every drop, and fifteen minutes later Betty had the
satisfaction of seeing her go to sleep.
Bob was out on the back porch, whittling furiously, a sure sign that
he was disturbed.
"They're my aunts, all right," he began, as soon as Betty appeared.
"I couldn't be quite sure, in spite of the name and the coincidences,
but now I know it. Do you think I look like them, Betty?"
"You look an awful lot like Miss Hope," said Betty. "You look like
Miss Charity, too, but not nearly as much. Miss Hope has blue eyes,
you see. You haven't seen Miss Charity yet, but her eyes are black.
I'm sure they are your aunts, Bob."
"Well, if they ever needed a husky nephew they need him now,"
declared Bob whimsically. "I don't know how long they've been sick,
but this place looks as though no one had cleaned it up in a year.
The animals need currying, too."
"They haven't been able to hire any help, I suppose," said Betty.
"And I don't believe you can get a hired man around here. The men are
all working in the oil fields. Ki is mad at the oil investors, and
that's the only reason Will Watterby can keep him."
"Are they both asleep?" asked Bob, whose mind skipped topics with
amazing rapidity. "All right then, let's go out to the barn.
Something tells me if you look around you'll get a basket of eggs."
They had great fun doing the work together, and both agreed that if
they never thanked the Peabodys for another thing, they could say
truthfully that they were thankful for the knowledge of farm work
learned on Bramble Farm. Bob knew what to feed the animals, how to
take care of them, and even what to do for a severe nail cut one of
the cows had suffered. Betty gathered a basket of eggs with little
hunting and also found several rat holes which Bob promptly attended
to by nailing tin over them.
"We can't start in and repair the whole place," he said cheerfully.
"But we'll do little jobs as fast as we come to them."
Both sisters were soundly sleeping when, the chores finished, Betty
and Bob came back to the house. They had their lunch, and then Bob
brought the dilapidated old lawn mower around to the back porch to
see if he could put it in running order. Betty sat down near him,
with the doors open so that she could hear the slightest movement
within the house, and worked fitfully at her tatting. She was
learning to make a pretty edge, under Grandma Watterby's instruction,
but it did not progress very quickly, mainly because Betty was always
going off for long rides, or playing somewhere outdoors.
"Look at that cloud of dust!" said Bob suddenly, glancing up from his
tinkering. "Some one is going somewhere in a hurry. He's stopping.
Why, Betty, it's Ed Manners!"
Manners was a Flame City youth, a lad of about eighteen, and the son
of the postmaster. Bob and Betty ran down to the road to see him as
he stopped his motorcycle with skillful abruptness.
"Will Watterby told me you were out here," he called as soon as he
saw Bob. "Say, two more wells caught last night, and they say it's
absolutely the biggest fire we've ever had. The close drilling has
made the trouble. Remember how Mr. Gordon used to rave over so many
derricks on an acre? Don't you want to come with me, Bob? I'd take
you, too, Betty, but it is no place for a girl."
Ed Manners waved an inviting hand towards the side-car. Bob was eager
to go--what boy would not be?--and he knew that not to go would mean
that he was missing something which in all probability he would never
see again.
"Go ahead, Bob," urged Betty bravely. "I'll be all right. Honestly I
will. If you don't get back to-night, why, Doctor Morrison will be
out in the morning."
But Bob had made up his mind. He heard clearly again the final
commands of Mr. Gordon, his Uncle Dick, for whom he would do far more
than this.
"Can't go, Ed," he said briefly and finally. "Sorry, but it isn't to
be thought of. Betty and I have a job cut out for us right here."
The lad on the motorcycle had no time to waste in arguing. He was
eager to get to the scene of excitement, and if Bob chose to throw up
a chance to see a spectacular fire, why, that was his business. With
a loud snort and a series of back-fires, the machine shot up the road
and in less than a minute was out of sight.
"I hope, oh, I hope that Uncle Dick is all right," worried Betty,
walking back to the house. "You needn't have stayed with me, Bob.
Still, of course, I'm glad you did. I might be a little nervous at
night."
Bob thought it more than likely but all he said was that he wouldn't
think of leaving her alone with two sick women and no telephone in
the house.
"As soon as my aunts are well enough to hear the sad news that I'm
their long-lost nephew," he said half in fun and half in earnest, "I
intend to have a 'phone put in for them. It's outrageous to think of
two women living isolated like this."
The afternoon passed rapidly, Bob getting his machine in running
order and clipping a little square of lawn before supper time. Betty
fed her patients again, and again they went to sleep. After an early
supper Betty and Bob were glad to go to bed, too, and it seemed to
the former that she had been asleep only a few moments when
something wakened her, and she sat up, startled.
The moonlight was streaming in at her windows, silvering the stiff,
haircloth furniture and bathing the red and blue roses of the
Brussels carpet in a radiance that softened the glaring colors and
made them even beautiful. Betty was about to lie down and try to go
to sleep again when a cry came from Miss Hope.
"Faith!" she moaned. "Faith, my dear little sister!"
Betty was out of bed in a second and pattering toward the sufferer's
room. Bob, half-dressed, appeared at the door leading into the
kitchen simultaneously.
"Don't let her see you," warned Betty. "I think that makes her worse.
I wish I knew what to do when she gets these spells."
For some time Miss Hope rambled on about "Faith," and would not be
persuaded to lie down. At last, after crying pitifully, she sank back
on the pillow and the phantoms seemed to leave her poor brain. Like a
child she dropped off into a deep sleep, and Bob and Betty were free
to creep back to their rooms and try to compose their nerves. Miss
Charity had slept peacefully through it all.
The doctor, told of Miss Hope's ravings, listened thoughtfully, but
did not seem to attach much importance to the recital. He had driven
up early the following morning and brought the hopeful news that the
fire was said to be under control.
"She's always had a tendency to be flighty in any illness," he said,
speaking of Miss Hope's disorders. "Faith was a sister to whom she
was greatly attached. A pretty girl who married and went away before
I came here to practise. Miss Saunders told me once that from the
time of her marriage to this, not a word of her ever reached them.
She completely disappeared. Of course this has preyed on the minds of
both sisters, and it's a wonder they haven't broken down before
this."
Doctor Morrison stayed an hour or so, and praised Betty's nursing
unstintedly. He said she seemed to know what to do instinctively and
had that rare tact of the born nurse which teaches her how to avoid
irritating her patients.
Both Betty and Bob felt that they had no right to explore the house,
though they were interested to know what might be upstairs. Betty,
especially, was anxious to see the attic. She pictured trunks filled
with papers that might be of help and interest to Bob, and in her
experience an attic never failed to reveal a history of the family.
She did find, in the parlor where she slept, an old album, and that
afternoon brought it out on the porch to show it to Bob. She hoped
he might be able to recognize his mother among the tintypes and
photographs. But as soon as she stepped outdoors she saw something
which made her almost drop the precious old album and clutch Bob's
arm wildly.
"Look who's coming in here!" she cried excitedly.
"Well, what do you know about that!" ejaculated the astonished Bob.