The trained nurse had gone out of the room, leaving Octave in charge of
the patient.
“You are patient and the patient, both, dear Melville,” said the girl,
affectionately laying her warm hand on the lad’s thin one. “You are a
hero! I’ve been wanting to say it ever since--three days ago; but that
ever-watchful nurse hasn’t given me a chance. I’m as proud of you as
proud!”
Melville smiled. “I am not much of a hero, dear; but I ought to be
patient. Indeed, there doesn’t seem to be any need for that virtue
now. Only think, in a very few weeks the surgeon said I could begin to
try my limbs. Think! when I’ve lain here so many years, without the
shadow of a hope that I should ever be any better! A fellow ought to be
willing to bear anything for such a gain.”
Octave’s eyes filled. It had, strangely enough, never seemed half so
pitiful to her that Melville should be a cripple till this possibility
of his cure arose to cheer them on. “Laddie, if it had been me, I
should have been perfectly horrid. I--I think I should have had to be
shut up in a cage.”
“Nonsense! You would have been just the same happy, cheering-up body
that you are now.”
“Pooh! don’t be silly. I never did like flattery.”
“But, it isn’t flattery, Octave. You don’t know how much you have done
for me--”
“I do, beg pardon; I have laughed at you and scolded you and tormented
you into doing things till you hated me and everybody. But, my son, I
did it for your good. That is what the grown-up people remark when they
are especially disagreeable. And isn’t it splendid? That great doctor
says he can cure Paula Pickel of traipsing around as a spook, at all
hours of the night. He says he considers it only a nervous disorder,
and that a prescription he gave me will help her. I told him about
her while he was waiting to have Rosetta make him a cup of coffee,
that other day, after--after he’d fixed you up. I thought I’d make a
clean business of everything, and get everybody patched up who needed
mending. One I forgot, though. That was Luke. He declares that he has
something the matter with his arms which keeps him from doing certain
things he ought to do. He--Lukey Tewky--called me aside and asked me:
‘What did he say about me?’ ‘Say about you! He did not even dream of
your existence,’ said I. ‘Oh! do tell him about my arms, won’t you?’
and just then along came Abry-ham, and he caught hold of his son and
shook him so that if anything ailed him it was shaken out.”
Melville laughed as gaily as his entertainer desired, at this picture
of the farmer and his son. “Keep his spirits up,” the great surgeon
had bidden her; “there is more healing in an unaffected laugh than
in the whole _materia medica_.” Which statement the wise man may not
have intended to be taken as literally as Octave took it. However, it
was certain that the girl who had devoted herself so unselfishly to
her crippled cousin did him more good than any other companion; and
Melville would have had her in his sick-room all the time had he been
allowed.
“Let’s talk about the discovery; that is part mine, you know, if the
surgeon part does belong to Fritzy Nunky. Nobody but just Octave would
ever have dared to go and see such a wonderful creature as my dear
old professor has turned out to be. I don’t think _I_ would dare do
it again, after all Aunt Ruth’s remarks about the boldness of it. I
suppose it was dreadful, but I am awfully glad I did it, all the same.
Aren’t you?”
“Octave, it is almost too splendid to be true. Read this letter.” The
sick boy drew out from under his pillow a brief note from the great
scientist, whose every written word had so genuine a value. If brief,
it was also enthusiastic. The writer had seen the famous specialist,
Dr. Karl Ettmüller, had learned that not only was the operation
eminently successful but that the anæsthetic of Melville’s discovery
had been thoroughly and happily tested first in Melville’s own case. He
wrote to congratulate: “He who has reduced the burden of physical agony
is a philanthropist, and he who discovers one of God’s own cures is a
genius. My lad, I hold you to be both; and when you shall be physically
able, I ask you to come and take a position in my laboratory. It will
give the old man new vigor to feel that such an one as you is beside
him.”
“O Melville! Is it true? Is it really true? I shall have to pinch
myself to make myself believe it.” Octave’s eyes were shining, and her
cheeks glowed with delight.
“It is, it must be, true, Octave; since here it is in black and white.
I have to take it out from under my pillow a dozen times a day to read
it over, since I haven’t your felicitous method of convincing myself.
Octave, I’d rather have that letter, that offer, than all the money in
the world!”
“So would I!” cried the girl, responsively; then paused to purse up her
merry lips in a doubtful fashion. “I don’t know about that, though,
laddie; all the money in all the world would be a ‘purty consid’able of
a pile,’ as Abry-ham would say. One could do a heap of good with all
that money.”
“Well, don’t be disagreeable, Octave. It is splendid, and you can’t
deny it.”
“Who wishes to? See here, my friend, you may be a hero now, as I
remarked a few minutes since, but you are not yet an angel. You are
still quite--Capersy!”
Melville laughed. “I do not pose either as a hero or an angel; it is
yourself who gives me the attributes of such. I only aspire--”
“Bless the lad! Don’t begin to talk too booksy, just because you are a
genius-philanthropist! But we did have a Mystery! Even Aunt Ruth will
have to admit that; and we did keep it all to our two selves, with
a few necessary others like Fritzy Nunky and the specialist and the
scientist and the attendants, and--”
But the mutual-congratulation meeting was speedily broken up. Outside
the house a strange uproar had arisen. Don brayed; Rosetta cried:
“To goodness knows!” Fritzy set up a shout that could have been
heard a long distance; Abraham gave the peculiar whistle that with
him indicated intense and pleased surprise; doors slammed, even the
well-trained doors of The Snuggery, which had missed Aunt Ruth’s
frequent “oily feather”; feet sounded in a rush over the gravel walks.
But none of these unwonted if joyful sounds could drown the cheery
rumble of wheels, nor the “Hoa! halloa!” which only one hearty German
throat could give.
“Fritzy Nunky! Fritzy Nunky!” shouted Octave, and started to run away.
Suddenly something stayed her speeding feet. Three months ago the
something would have had no effect; but now she stopped, and going back
to the bed-side sat down and laid her hand again on that of Melville.
Weak and shaken yet, by the ordeal he had so lately and so manfully
passed through, he could not subdue the tremor which seized him at
sound of the well-known voice. Unspeakable thoughts of pride and
humility, affection and loneliness, stole through the invalid’s
mind. After all his achievements, after all his endurance--he was
still alone. Aunt Ruth had her mother, the Pickels had their beloved
guardian, but he--had only a memory of a love which had never
failed him, but which he had despised till it was lost. “Genius” and
“philanthropist” others might call him; but at that moment of others’
reunion, Melville remembered only that he was a sick and orphaned lad.
Then he felt the touch of sympathy upon his hand, and brought round his
eyes from the wall where he had turned them to Octave’s face.
“Why don’t you go and meet your uncle?” he asked, pettishly.
“Because I would rather stay here,” answered Octave, quietly.
“You needn’t make a martyr of yourself!”
“Nor you a bear of yourself!”
“I would rather you went. I don’t mind being left alone. I’m used to
it.”
“That’s a--a fib; two fibs.”
“You told one, too.”
“I didn’t, I told the truth; I want to stay.”
“Then when he comes in, if he should come in, he--”
“Why should you mind seeing him now, since you have seen him once
since--hush! he is coming in now; so is Aunt Ruth; so is grandmother;
so--”
“Well, my precious lambs! So I have found you together,” said the sweet
voice of Amy Kinsolving. “They have all told me what thee has done for
Melville, little Octave. I knew thee had a good heart, dear!”
“Yes, together; and at our old occupation,--quarrelling,” replied
Octave, so demurely that everybody laughed, and any dangerous flood of
sentiment was happily averted.
Then, how the tongues flew! How gay and how glad was everybody! And,
how the silliest little speeches made everybody smile, only those who
have been parted and happily reunited can fancy.
After grandmother had been put into Melville’s easiest corner on the
old lounge, which he boasted he had vacated forever, the “Mystery” was
taken out of its hiding-place, and all that had been dimly understood
made plain. The project of the surgeon’s visit, and the project of the
anæsthetic being tested by its discoverer in his own proper person,
before he let it be on any other human being--that was what the
“Mystery” resolved itself into, when all was said and done.
But the greatest events of the world’s history may be told in a few
words; why, then, not these? Though the far-reaching effects of those
events neither words which have been nor words which shall be said can
ever half depict. So thought these loving hearts, it may be, under
God’s blessing, with Melville’s discovery; a discovery he had doubtless
never made had he not been laid upon a bed of physical helplessness,
and left to observe and make his world out of the trivial happenings
which went on before his one window. And the wisest know that in the
wonderful economy of nature there is nothing trivial or beneath their
notice.
A peaceful quietude fell on them all for a little while, and no one
cared to speak or mar it. Grandmother Amy’s face took on that look it
always wore when her soul was moved by the Spirit. She was far away,
just then, from her material surroundings, in that higher world which
seemed to those who loved and watched her as her native air.
The silence might have continued much longer had not little Fritz been
suddenly moved to “speak in meeting.” He was opposed to sentiment in
any shape, and he had borne as much of it as he could well endure. So,
from his throne in Fritzy Nunky’s arms, he stooped and whispered with
startling distinctness: “I’m awful hungry!”
With a relief that proved how close, after all, is the bond between
flesh and spirit, every other member of the group promptly remembered
that he or she was hungry, too.