If Fritz had not heard the appeals which the frantic Melville made
to him, they had reached other ears, and summoned the help which the
crippled lad was so impotent to render.
Rosetta Perkins, “mistress of the interior,” as Octave called her when
Aunt Ruth had reported her mother’s decision concerning the household
heads, during the sea-shore sojourn,--Rosetta Perkins had come to
Melville’s quarter of the house for the express purpose of hearing his
capricious desires concerning his supper.
Rosetta was conscientious in the discharge of her duties, and had
already done more cooking than would have sufficed a family twice as
large, in her fear lest these young charges of hers should not get
enough to eat. Eat! How they did eat! All except Melville; and because
he did not, the good Rosetta was worried and full of self-blame.
But, for the first time, his fitful appetite proved a blessing, since
it brought upon the scene, in their extremity of need, a person to
rescue the two boys.
“To the land sakes! What on airth is Melville a-hollerin’ so fer!”
Rosetta quickened her footsteps, but as the cries died for a moment,
loitered for an instant to set straight a misplaced chair, and tidy the
furniture which showed the careless fingers of youth.
The cries, that were almost shrieks in their intensity of terror,
recommenced.
“Why, that ain’t spunk! That’s something worse ’an that! What can have
happened to him!” Mrs. Perkins flew to the door, wondering to find it
closed, and rebounding, as she threw her force against it, from its
unyielding surface. She tried the latch, and found the bolt had been
slipped. The cries ceased again.
“I’m a-comin’, Melville. I’ll run around to the other door.”
Only to meet with fresh disappointment; and, in her wonder and
distress, Mrs. Perkins began to shake the door vigorously. “Ain’t there
nobody in there with ye? How did ye get locked in? Never mind; I’ll
get it open somehow. I warrant it’s some o’ them childern’s pranks,”
she added, under her breath. Then she tried the latch anew.
She began to be seriously alarmed. She ran to the hall window, and
saw Luke mowing the lawn. After repeated efforts, she made her voice
audible above that of the noisy little machine so close to his ear. He
looked up and saw her frantic motions even before he heard her summons.
Luke had a soul above lawn-mowers, and always on the alert for
excitement. He was at the hall window in a trice.
“Come into the house as quick as ye kin, Luke! Melville’s doors is both
locked fast, an’ he’s been a-hollerin’ like all possessed. Now he’s
stopped; but say--don’t you smell nothin’ kinder queer?”
Luke sniffed, and made up such a horrid face in doing so that
Christina, who had appeared behind Mrs. Perkins, laughed. “What is the
matter, Rosetta? Octave made me come and see. She says somebody has
been holloaing this ever so long, but I thought it was somebody out in
the field.”
“Then ain’t you ner Octavy in Melville’s room?”
“Why, no! Abraham carried Octave out to the hammock after dinner, and I
have been with her.”
“Where’s Content? An’ Pauly?”
“Gone to the post-office in the pony-cart.”
“Little Fritzy?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered poor Christina, her gentle face
growing very pale and terrified.
“Then there’s sunthin’ turrible to pay! Smash that door open, Luke!”
“Smash the door? I dassent!”
“Smash it, I tell ye! I’ll bear the blame, if there is any!”
Luke tried an ineffective blow, and Mrs. Perkins grew more excited.
“Luke Tewksbury! Smash it! That there smell’s chloroform! I know it;
I kin almost taste it! I hain’t handled the stuff as many times as
I have, a-rubbin’ Melville’s poor body, ’ithout lamin’ the smell.
Sunthin’s happened to the bottle on it, an’ one, mebbe both, o’ them
boys is shet up behind thet door! _Now_--will ye smash it?”
A terrific blow of his mighty fist was Luke’s effective answer, and the
panel gave way.
With a swiftness and coolness one would scarcely have looked for in
Rosetta Perkins’s case, since Ruth had called her a “good woman without
any head-piece,” the housekeeper thrust her hand through the break
in the wood, and unfastened the bolt. Every movement she made told
in effect, as she almost flew across the apartment, dashed open the
windows, drew the bolt and opened the bedroom door, and caught up a
pitcher of water to throw it upon Melville’s face.
The air was nauseous with fumes of the drug, but it was less that which
had overcome the invalid than horror at his own deed, and its awful
result. With the thought that little Fritz had been the victim of his
would-be scientific experiment, his weak nerves had given way; but his
last conscious thought had been: “Cripple or not, I must save him!”
It seemed that the power of this determination was already bringing him
out of his swoon, for the water had scarcely reached his face before he
opened his eyes. Instantly they filled with terror. “The closet! The
closet! Open the closet!”
“What--which closet?” asked Rosetta, trembling.
“Open it--open it, quick! Maybe he isn’t dead!”
Mrs. Perkins’s sight swam. The reality seemed worse than she had
feared. But Christina had heard and understood the appeal, and flew to
the inner door.
“The other--the other!” directed Melville’s agonized voice.
Luke was beforehand with her, and even his strong physique was for an
instant overcome by the pungency of the odor which filled his nostrils.
He staggered for a step or two, and then, as the little girl was
darting forward, he put her gently aside and stooped down to lift the
small figure, which the light now made visible, from its resting-place
upon the closet floor.
There was one brief word of command: “The doctor”; and Luke had flown
to obey it. Then, forgetting utterly for that terrible moment the
suffering boy upon the lounge, the housekeeper bore her inert burden
straight out of doors, and to the old well in the garden.
She could not have done better; but she was still working and chafing
the rounded little limbs, which had before seemed all too active, and
praying over her task with the devout fervor of her warm, believing
heart, when Luke reappeared with the doctor.
“Oh! how glad I am! I didn’t dream you would get here so quick!”
“I was just driving down the road. And well that I was,” added the
physician gravely.
It was three hours after that when he went away, even then promising
to return again before midnight; but, when he did leave The Snuggery
for a brief time, it was with the hopeful assurance that “if nothing
unforeseen occurred,” the little fellow would be none the worse for his
dangerous experience.
“Such a world of joy or pain hangs on that little ‘if!’” exclaimed
poor Paula, between her sobs.
For once, Content’s ready word of comfort failed her; and she could
not utter that “it is all for the best,” which seemed such a truism in
the presence of this anxiety. She could see no “best” which might be
extracted from that afternoon’s misfortune; and she could only fold her
sympathetic arms about the cousin whom, till now, she had thought so
cold of heart, and let her tears mingle with Paula’s.
It was the wisest and kindest thing she could have done. Paula
had nourished a mistaken notion that her “perfect Cousin Content”
considered herself infinitely superior to the worldly and frivolous
“Miss Pickel,” whose main interests in life appeared to be dress and
the supervision of her neighbors’ manners.
The truth was simply that each girl was to the other a new and
uncomprehended type. Octave had early nicknamed the one “Beauty,” the
other “Duty”; and, unlike as they were, it took just such a sorrow to
break away the outer form of habit and training, and show the warm,
friendly hearts beneath.
The lonely, only child, Content, had become very fond of little Fritz,
and the genuineness of her feeling touched the sister who watched so
anxiously beside him. A half-hour of this common grief did more to make
them know and love each other than had all their previous weeks of
daily intercourse.
But the “best” was still in it all, even if hidden from sight just
then; and it was destined to work a blessed change not only in that
household but in many another, to which its after effects should reach.