ON STORMY SEAS
Billy did not lift his face from the pillow; he was striving to steady
throat and voice.
“Billy,” she called.
“Don’t, mother! Mother, don’t come in here! Don’t come in the same room
with me,--I’m not fit for-- O mother, I’ve hurt Jimmy for life!”
Mrs. Bennett caught the despair in his words, and knew this could be no
ordinary trouble to be petted away with a few caresses. Some crisis had
come that must be wisely met. She entered, knelt by the bed, and put
her arms around him. The spring starlight dimly outlined his head on
the pillow but gave no hint of its bruises. “Billy, dear, nothing you
can ever do will be bad enough to keep your mother away from you. What
is it, my son?”
The gentle words, the tender touch, the comfort and hope in her words,
unlocked his lips and he told what he had thought to keep forever
untold.
He kept his hands from hers, and begged her not to touch the
handkerchief he had bound around his head; but before his story was
finished, a growing stain on the pillow had oozed into sight.
“Billy! You said you weren’t hurt, but you are!” Alarmed, she rose and
switched on the light, pulled off the bandage, and turned faint at the
wreck of the bright, clean boy who had left her that afternoon. “My
boy! You’re dreadfully hurt! I must send for Doctor Carter, and--”
“No, no! Don’t, mother! I’ll run away! I’ll--” He groaned and left his
sentence unfinished.
“But you may have broken bones--be seriously injured.”
She took a step, but he caught her hand. “I don’t care if I am, he
mustn’t see--no one must,--I didn’t mean you should. Besides, I walked
home and brought my wheel; I’ll live, I guess,--I’m too mean to kill.”
He put his stiff, swollen hand over his face. “It’s Jimmy that’s in
danger.” A new note of terror came into his voice as he remembered
the pale face and limp arm; he had never seen a fighting boy look so
before. “I’m afraid Jimmy’s hurt inside, mother. What if he should die?”
Mrs. Bennett knew better than Billy how much thumping a boy could live
through; and reassured him while she took off his soiled garments, and
started below for hot water and remedies.
“Don’t tell--must Edith and May Nell know?” he called after her. “Oh,
all the town will--mother!” The anguish in his words halted her.
“Mother, this wasn’t a boys’ scrap at all. I didn’t think of you or--or
anything; an’ something must have squelched Betsey, she never peeped.
Mother, I felt--I felt mad enough to kill him!” He whispered the
awesome words.
“But you don’t feel so now, my son. Jimmy will soon be well; you, too.
Then you can talk with him about it. Rest, now; that is your first
duty,” she comforted, and left him.
Hot water, lotions, a mother’s tender hands, best of all, a mother’s
comprehending heart,--it is wonderful what cures these can make. In an
hour Billy was comparatively at ease. His sore body still ached, and
his eyes “felt like red fire on the Fourth,” he said; but the world
seemed less dark, and he was glad his mother had not taken him at his
word and left him to bear his trouble alone.
Yet he could not long keep his mind from the struggle. “Mother, won’t
you find out soon about Jimmy, how bad he’s hurt? An’ I wish I knew if
Vilette ’n Evelyn ’re all right; it looked awful to see ’em hit with a
horsewhip.”
“I’ll get word from them in the morning. Don’t worry any more, but
rest; sleep if you can. You can’t help them till you have helped
yourself.”
Still, since Billy had broken his resolution of silence, he was
feverishly eager to talk. His thoughts were erratic, now in the
present, again flying back to the past. “O mother, you should be
lickin’ me ’nstead of petting me!” he broke out passionately.
“Why, Billy? I don’t believe in whipping unless all else fails.”
“Well, papa did. If he was alive he’d be giving it to me about now,
good and plenty.”
“Why do you think he would have whipped you?”
“Don’t you remember the first day I went to school, he took me between
his knees,--I was a little kid then,--and said, ‘Billy, if I know
that you ever jump on a boy first to fight him, I’ll lick you. And if
another boy jumps on you first, and you don’t fight back, no matter how
big he is, I’ll lick you then.’”
“I guess he didn’t say ‘lick,’ Billy.”
“Yes, he did. And he said, awfully solemn, ‘Remember, Billy, no one
but a coward strikes his foe in the back. A boy of mine who could do
that,--I don’t think I should wish him to wear this.’ And he pointed to
his Loyal Legion button. O mother, I hit Jimmy first, I hit him in the
back, and I--I kicked him in the stomach! I’ve disgraced papa’s button
forever!” His last words were a groan, and he hid his face.
Mrs. Bennett leaned over him without speaking for a minute, but stroked
his hair softly. “Remember, with One there is no ‘forever.’ As long as
we live we have a chance to retrieve. Rest on that, my child. Now you
must sleep.” She kissed him and was silent, for a drop glistened on
his cheek she knew he would not wish her to notice.
She thought he should be in a warmer room, but he begged so hard to
stay that she yielded. She put a bell near, that he might call her,
and went to him several times before she slept, finding him somewhat
restless, yet too profoundly asleep to be wakened by her light touch.
Outraged nature was in charge now.
It must have been hours past midnight when Billy’s chattering voice
startled his mother. She had heard no bell; the boy himself stood by
her bedside; she could see him dimly against the window.
“I don’t know what’s the matter,--I’m drowned, I guess.” His teeth
rattled, and the hand he put out to her was icy cold.
“Billy! You’re freezing!” She sprang up and turned on the light.
He was a queer figure with his bandaged head, one eye peering out,
and a long, dripping red quilt trailing behind him. “I found the bed
flooded, and put the comfort round me; but someway that’s wet, too.” He
could hardly speak for shivering.
She clapped him into her own warm bed, and incredibly soon things were
sizzling over the alcohol lamp.
“The tank must have run over, Billy. You forgot to shut it off.”
“No, I didn’t forget; the water was low, and I left it running on
purpose. But it’s that west wind; she’s a hummer. She can pump faster
’n the old waste pipe can discharge.”
Friction and mustard, hot water bags without and hot tea within soon
set Billy’s teeth at rest.
“How in the world did you ever sleep through it, Billy?” his mother
asked, coming in from the tank-room where she had been to investigate.
“There is a small flood there. I should think the first drop would have
wakened you.”
“It came to me feet foremost, I guess, and soaked the quilt in
instalments. I had a tough dream, too; couldn’t wake up in the middle.
I dreamed I was on a ship in a bang-up storm, and the vessel lunged
like a bucking horse.”
“Yes, I can see that the wind, the shaking tower, the creaking mill,
would bring such dreams,” his mother said. “Hear the wind howl now!”
“And I thought all the crew were washed overboard like chips,” he went
on; “and I was left alone. And she shipped water in mountains. And I
was cold as the North Pole. And at last she foundered, and I went down
with her. And when I couldn’t choke any more I woke up.”
“Poor little Billy! You’ve had a hard night of it.”
“Kinder rocky.”
He smiled wanly, and her heart ached for him; but she knew sympathy was
unsafe just then. “If you could see that comical, crooked eye of yours
blinking at me, like a chicken asking your intentions, you’d laugh,
Billy.”
He did laugh, yet was sober again. She was tucking the clothes close
about him, preparing to lie down by his side. But he reached his arms
out suddenly and flung them around her neck. “O mamma, the awfullest
thing in the world next to doing a crime, must be not to have a mother.
I must jolly May Nell more. And, mamma--mother, I don’t know why,--”
his voice was very low and shy, “why God’s looked out for me so good;
but anyway, you’re--you’re the whole bunch!”
She pressed him closer and kissed him. And soon he slept.
But his mother watched out the night.