RECOVERY
"Feelin' real smart, be ye?" asked Mr. Ithuriel Butters. "Wal, I'm
pleased to hear it."
Mr. Butters sat in the young doctor's second armchair, and looked at
him with friendly eyes. His broad back was turned to the window, but
Geoffrey faced it, and the light showed his face pale, indeed, but full
of returning health and life; his arm was still in a sling, but his
movements otherwise were free and unrestrained.
"You're lookin' fust-rate," said Mr. Butters. "Some different from the
last time I see ye."
"I wonder what would have become of me if you had not happened along
just then, Mr. Butters," said Geoffrey. "I think I owe you a great deal
more than you are willing to acknowledge."
"Nothin' at all; nothin' at all!" said the old man, briskly. "I h'isted
ye up out the ro'd, that was all; I sh'd have had to h'ist jest the
same if ye'd be'n a critter or a lawg, takin' up the hull ro'd the way
ye did."
"And how about bringing me home, three miles out of your way, and
carrying me up-stairs, and all that? I suppose you would have done all
that for a critter, eh?"
"Wal--depends upon the value of the critter!" said Mr. Butters, with a
twinkle. "I never kep' none of mine up-stairs, but there's no knowin'
these days of fancy stock. No, young man! if there's anybody for you to
thank, it's that young woman. Now there's a gal--what's her name? I
didn't gather it that day."
"Vesta--Miss Vesta Blyth."
"I want to know! my fust wife's name was Vesty; Vesty Barlow she was;
yes, sir. I do'no' but I liked her best of any of 'em. Not but what
I've had good ones since, but 'twas different then, seems' though. She
was the ch'ice of my youth, ye see. Yes, sir; Vesty is a good name, and
that's a good gal, if I know anything about gals. She's no kin to you,
she said."
"No; none whatever."
"Nor yet you ain't keepin' company with her?"
"No-o!" cried Geoffrey, wincing.
"Ain't you asked her?"
"No! please don't--"
"Why not?" demanded Mr. Butters, with ample severity.
Geoffrey tried to laugh, and failed. "I--I can't talk about these
things, Mr. Butters."
"Don't you want her?" the old man went on, pitilessly. Geoffrey looked
up angrily; looked up, and met a look so kind and true and simple, that
his anger died, still-born.
"Yes!" he said. "God knows I do. But you are wholly mistaken in
thinking--that is--she wouldn't have me."
"I expect she would!" said Ithuriel Butters. "I expect that is jest
what she would have. I see her when you was layin' there, all stove up;
you might have be'n barrel-staves, the way you looked. I see her face,
and I don't need to see no more."
Geoffrey tried to say something about kindness and womanly pity, but
the strong old voice bore him down.
"I know what pity looks like, and I know the other thing. She's no
soft-heart to squinch at the sight of blood, and that sort of foolery.
Tell ye, she was jest as quiet and cool as if 'twas a church sociable,
and she set that bone as easy and chirk as my woman would take a pie
out the oven; but when she had you all piecened up, and stood and
looked at you--wal, there!"
"Don't! I cannot let you!" cried Geoffrey. His voice was full of
distress; but was it the western sun that made his face so bright?
"Wal, there's all kinds of fools," said Mr. Butters. "Got the
teethache?"
"Toothache? no! why?"
"Thought you hollered as if ye had. How would you go to work to cure
the teethache now, s'posin' you had it?"
"I should go to a dentist, and let him cure it for me."
"S'posin' you lived ten mile from a dentist, young feller? you're too
used to settin' in the middle of creation and jerkin' the reins for the
hoss to go. Jonas E. Homer had the teethache once, bad."
He paused.
"Well," said the young doctor, "who was Jonas E. Homer, and how did he
cure his toothache?"
"Jonas Elimelech was his full name," said Mr. Butters, settling himself
comfortably in his chair. "He's neighbour to me, about five miles out
on the Buffy Landin' ro'd. Yes, he had the teethache bad. Wife wanted
him to go and have 'em hauled, but he said he wouldn't have no feller
goin' fishin' in _his_ mouth. No, sir! he went and he bored a hole in
the northeast side of a beech-tree, and put in a hair of a yaller dawg,
and then plugged up the hole with a pine plug. That was ten years ago,
and he's never had the teethache sence. He told me that himself."
"It's a good story," said the young doctor. "Do you believe it, Mr.
Butters?"
"Wal, I do'no' as I exactly believe it; I was sort of illustratin' the
different kinds of fools there was in the world, that's all."
They were silent. The sun went down, but the light stayed in the young
doctor's face.
* * * * *
There was a commotion in the room below. Voices were raised, feminine
voices, shrill with excitement. Then came a bustle on the stairs, and
the sound of feet; then one voice, breathless but decided.
"I tell ye, I know the way. There's no need to show me, and I won't
have it. I haven't been up these stairs for near seventy years, Phoebe,
since the day of your caudle-party, but I know the way as well as you
do, and I'll thank you to stay where you are."
The next moment the door opened, and Mrs. Tree stood on the threshold,
panting and triumphant. Her black eyes twinkled with affection and
malice. "Well, young sir!" she said, as Geoffrey ran to give her his
sound arm, and led her in, and placed her in the seat of honour. "Fine
doings since I last saw you! Humph! you look pretty well, considering
all. Who's this? Ithuriel Butters! How do you do, Ithuriel? I haven't
seen you for forty years, but I should know you in the Fiji Islands."
"I should know you, too, anywhere, Mis' Tree!" responded Mr. Butters,
heartily. "I'm rejoicin' glad to see ye."
"You wear well, Ithuriel," said Mrs. Tree, kindly. "If you would cut
all that mess of hair and beard, you would be a good-looking man still;
but I didn't come here to talk to you."
She turned to Geoffrey in some excitement. "I'll speak right out," she
said. "Now's now, and next time's never. I've let the cat out of the
bag. Phoebe has found out about little Vesta's setting your arm and
all, and she's proper mad. Says she'll send the child home to-morrow
for good and all. She's getting on her shoes this minute; I never could
abide those morocco shoes. She'll be up here in no time. I thought I'd
come up first and tell you."
She looked eagerly at the young doctor; but his eyes were fixed on the
window, and he scarcely seemed to hear her. Following his gaze, she saw
a white dress glimmering against the soft dusk of the garden shrubs.
The young doctor rose abruptly; took one step; paused, and turned to
his guest of ninety years with a little passionate gesture of appeal
"I--cannot leave you," he said; "unless--just one moment--"
"My goodness gracious _me_!" cried Mrs. Tree. "Go this minute, child;
_run_, do you hear? I'll take care of Ithuriel Butters. He was in my
Sunday-school class, though he's only five years younger than me. Take
care and don't fall!"
The last words were uttered in a small shriek, for apparently there had
been but one step to the staircase.
Breathless, the old woman turned and faced the old man. "Have you got
any bumblebees in your pocket this time, Ithuriel?" she asked.
"No,'m," said Ithuriel, soberly. Then they both stared out of the
window with eyes that strove to be as young as they were eager.
[Illustration: "Then he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters.]
"There he comes, full chisel!" cried Ithuriel Butters. "She don't see
him. He's hollerin' to her. She's turned round. I tell ye--he's grabbed
holt of her hand! he's grabbed holt of both her hands! he's--"
Who says that heroism dies with youth? Marcia Tree raised her little
mitted hand, and pulled down the blind.
"It's no business of yours or mine what he's doing, Ithuriel Butters!"
she said, with dignity.
Then she began to tremble. "Seventy years ago," she said, "Ira Tree
proposed to me in that very garden, under that very syringa-tree. I've
been a widow fifty years, Ithuriel, and it seems like yesterday." And a
dry sob clicked in her throat.
"I've buried two good wives," said Mr. Butters, "and my present one
seems to be failin' up some. I hope she'll live now, I reelly do."
* * * * *
"Vesta!" Miss Phoebe's voice rang sharp and shrill through the house.
Miss Vesta started. She was at her evening post in the upper hall. The
lamp was lighted, the prayer had been said.
"Dear Lord, I beseech thee, protect all souls at sea this night; for
Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!"
But Miss Vesta was not watching the sea this time. Her eyes, too, were
bent down upon the twilight garden. The lamplight fell softly there,
and threw into relief the two figures pacing up and down, hand in hand,
heart in heart. Miss Vesta could not hear, and would not if she could
have heard, the words her children were saying; her heart was lifted as
high as heaven, in peace and joy and thankfulness, and the words that
sounded in her ear were spoken by a voice long silent in death.
"Vesta!"
Miss Phoebe's voice rang sharp and shrill through the silent house.
Instinct and habit answered the call at once. "Yes, Sister Phoebe!"
"Stay where you are! I am coming to you. I have discovered--"
The figures below paused full in the lamplight. Two faces shone out,
one all on fire with joy and wonder, the other sweet and white as the
white flower at her breast.
Miss Phoebe's morocco shoes creaked around the corner of the passage.
"Good Lord, forgive me, and save all souls at sea just the same!" said
Miss Vesta; and she blew out the lamp.