PEACE, THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Down the sloping hillside browned with the summer sun strolled Peace one
afternoon late in August, gathering the purple foxgloves which waved
invitingly in the breeze. It was one of those rare days of waning
summer, clear, beautiful and cool, with just a hint of autumn haze in
the air; and it cast its magic spell over the bare-headed, flower-laden
maid, wandering dreamily through the crisp, crackling grass, with no
particular destination in view, no particular thought in mind. She had
set out an hour before with Cherry and Allee as her companions, but had
wandered away from them without being aware of it, and was now some
distance from home, still busy pulling the gorgeous stems of bloom,
still unconscious of her loneness, still lost in her own realms of
fancy.
This Peace was one few people knew. Allee was most familiar with the
brown-eyed dream-child, the little family at the parsonage were quite
well acquainted with her, and occasionally Gail caught a fleeting
glimpse of that hidden spirit, but to the rest of the little world in
which she lived she was a bright-eyed, gay-hearted little romp, whose
efforts to lend assistance to others were always leading her into
mischief, oftentimes with unhappy results.
So it is no wonder that busy Dr. Bainbridge was surprised when he
discovered her in this strange mood as he came puffing and panting up
the hill toward town, for she was so completely lost amid her dreams
that she did not see him nor hear his brusque greeting until he stepped
directly in her path and clutched her arm. Then she started as if
suddenly awakened from a sleep, and exclaimed, "Why, Dr. Bainbridge,
what do you mean by making me jump so? I nearly lost my skin! I never
saw you at all. Where did you come from--the clouds?"
"No, miss. If I had been there you would have seen me before this, for
if ever anyone was walking in the clouds, it was you just this minute.
Come along, I want you, dreamer. Can you do me a favor, a big one?"
"'Pends upon what it is," answered Peace, thoroughly awake now.
He laughed at the judicious tone of voice and the familiar cant of the
curly brown head, and answered promptly, "I want you to play Good
Samaritan for a little while, be nurse for one of my patients--"
"Nurse?" She looked at him with wide-open eyes, secretly wondering
whether he knew what he was talking about.
"Yes, ma'am, nurse!" he thundered. "Annette Fisher is sick, very sick,
and I have told her mother time after time that she must not be left
alone, yet in spite of all my cautions, that red-headed ignoramus has
taken the rest of the caboodle and gone off to town, leaving Annette all
alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever
has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I
had it in control and could pull her through when that old
termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or
child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a
chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and
dress goods compared with the life of a child? Won't she get a piece of
my mind the next time I lay eyes on her?" So angry and indignant was the
old doctor that he had wholly forgotten himself, and spoke as he would
never have thought of doing under different circumstances.
Peace brought him to the earth by agreeing heartily, "Well, I would 'f I
was you, and I'd give her a good big piece, too. I'll nurse Annette if
you want me to. Shall I give her a bath and dose her with medicine every
few minutes, like we did mother? Does she need to be wrapped up in wet
rags or painted with _irondye_? Or do you want me to feed her _grool_
and broth?"
"You don't have to do a single thing but stay with her and keep her
from fretting until I can get someone from the village to go down there.
I gave her a bath just now myself, and she has taken her medicine--all I
want her to have for the present. She isn't to eat a thing, but she can
drink all the milk she wants, and occasionally have a little water if
she asks for it. Now remember, Peace. She is too sick to pay attention
to much of anything, but sometimes she is fretful and talks a good deal.
Try to be as quiet as possible yourself,--don't say things to excite
her--don't speak at all unless she wants you to. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"I'll send someone down to relieve you the minute I can get anyone.
Hurry along now, and don't forget what I have said."
"All right," was the cheery response; and Peace, with a curious thrill
of awe in her heart, sped down the hill as fast as her nimble feet could
carry her.
The door of the Fisher house stood open, so, without knocking to make
her presence known, she stepped softly inside the hall, and crept up the
stairs to the little, hot chamber, where thin-faced Annette lay burning
with fever. The invalid was awake, tossing fretfully among her pillows,
but the instant she saw Peace in the doorway her eyes brightened, and
she called in a shrill, weak voice, "Is it really you, Peace, or has my
head turned 'round again?"
"It's really me. Dr. Bainbridge sent me up."
"That's funny. He wouldn't let you or any of the other girls come when I
asked for you before. Did you bring all those flowers for me?"
"Yes," Peace answered readily, glancing down at the huge bouquet in her
arms, which she had entirely forgotten. "Where shall I put them? No,
don't try to tell me; I'll find a dish myself."
"Would you please bring me a drink, too?" Annette asked hesitatingly.
"Sure!"
"Fresh from the well?"
"Yes."
Peace disappeared down the creaking stairs again, returning quickly with
a dripping dipper full of sparkling, ice-cold water from the well, and
the sick child drank feverishly, sighing as she relinquished the cup,
"That's awful good. If only it would stay cold all the time! But the
next time I want a drink it is warm and horrid, and ma says she can't be
always chasing to the well just to get me some water. Harry won't,
either. Pa ain't here but a little while night and morning, and Isabel
is too little to fetch it. Set the flowers here on the chair where I can
see them good. When ma comes home she'll likely throw them out. She says
she can't see the good of cluttering up the house with dishes of weeds
like that."
"Your mother is an old _turnacrank_,--Doctor says so," muttered Peace
indignantly, as she tugged at the heavy jar of foxgloves she had
arranged with artistic care.
"What did you say?" asked Annette, querulously.
Peace suddenly remembered the doctor's instructions. "I say I know how
to keep water cold. Gail used to do it for mother on hot days. I'll wet
a rag and wrap the dipper in that and set it in the window where the
wind will blow on it."
"Will that make it keep cool?"
"Yes, as long as the rag is wet. There is quite a little wind today,
too, and that helps."
"Is it cool out-doors?"
"Yes."
"Oh, dear! I wish I could go out under the trees. It is so hot in here
cooped up like I am."
Peace bit her tongue. How easy it was to forget the doctor's directions!
Twice already she had said things which excited the poor, sick prisoner,
whom she had been told to keep quiet. A happy inspiration leaped into
her thought, and moving the jar of delicate blossoms closer to the bed,
she slipped a spray into Annette's hand, saying, "S'pose we _minagine_
these flowers are trees. They would make a lovely forest, wouldn't they?
I often wish the trees had pretty flowers."
"Apple trees have," said Annette thoughtfully.
"That's so!" was the surprised ejaculation. "I forgot all about the
fruit trees. All of them have flowers, but I like the apple-blossoms
best, don't you?"
"Yes, they are so cool looking and so sweet and smelly."
"That's what I like about them most. When I go to the moon I wear a
dress made of apple-blossoms and--"
"When you go to the moon?" repeated Annette, looking bewildered and
wondering if the queer thoughts which the doctor called delirium were
coming back to haunt her again.
"Oh, of course, I really don't go, but I like to s'pose what it would be
like if I could go there. After Allee and me go to bed at night,
sometimes the moon comes and shines in at our window and we talk to it.
I don't care about the man-in-the-moon very much, though Allee likes
him. She says he must be so lonely up there by himself all the time that
she doesn't see how he can keep on smiling so. But I love the lady in
the moon."
"The lady in the moon?"
"Well, we call her the moon lady. We like to think she is a beautiful,
beau-ti-ful lady, with long, pale yellow hair that pretty nearly drags
when she walks. It would drag if she didn't wear such big tails on her
skirts. That's the kind of hair I wish I had instead of kinky, woolly
curls. Hers isn't a bit curly, but just falls back from her face like
Jennie Munn's after she has had it braided for a long time. And it
trails out behind her like a--a cloud. Her dress is white stuff, and
she never has it starched; it's just soft and shiny and swishy, and
seems to b'long just to her. Oh, she is the prettiest lady, Annette!"
"What color are her eyes?" asked the invalid, much interested in the
picture Peace was drawing.
"Blue, just like Hope's, only you don't think of them being blue when
you look at the moon lady--they 'mind you of stars. I think they are
stars, and she wears a star in her hair."
"Does she have a house to live in?"
"Not a house, but a palace, made of soft-looking, sparkly stones that
flash like diamond dust, and inside it is white and still,--the kind of
a still that makes you feel dreamy and nice. And there are fountains
everywhere, with cool water splashing out of the top of them. They are
made of white marble--the fountains are, I mean--and so are the
_pillows_ of the palace on the outside, where the moon lady walks in her
garden."
"Is there a garden in the moon?"
"In my moon there is, and--"
"Ma says the moon is made of green cheese, and is full of maggots."
"I heard that story, too, and I look for them first thing every time I
go there, but I haven't found any yet. Big, white Easter lilies grow
along the paths, and lilies-of-the-valley blossom the whole year round,
and water lilies make the lake almost white sometimes."
"Oh, a lake, too! How nice!"
"The moon lady's lake is the prettiest I ever saw. The water is always
silv'ry, just like our lakes look when the moon shines down on them. You
know, Annette, don't you?"
"Yes, the moon was shining one time when I went to Lake Marion with pa
to hear the band, and we rowed around in a little boat and listened to
the music."
"That's just what the moon lady does when we go to see her, only her
boats are green-pea pods, and the sails are apple-blossom petals. We
don't have to row; the boats just float of themselves, and we pick water
lilies or listen to the music--"
"What kind of music?"
"Oh, sometimes the moon lady sings by-low songs, and sometimes it's just
the frogs singing in the bottom of the lake."
"Oh, do you like frogs' croaking?"
"If I have been good I like it awfully well, but if I've made Gail or
anyone sorry, I don't want to listen to the frogs, for they keep saying,
'Don't do it again, don't do it again,' till it makes me mis'rable. The
frogs in the moon never say such things, though, and I like to listen to
them. Sometimes we call across the water to hear the echoes answer; and
sometimes we let the moonbeams light on our hands and hair and dresses,
and talk to them."
"Talk to the moonbeams? How funny!"
"Why, our moonbeams are lovely little fairies, with wings like
dragon-flies, and shiny, silv'ry gowns; and whenever they get tired of
flying about they settle down and glow like fireflies. They b'long to
the moon lady and are nice fairies. They make sugar stars and moon-ice
for us to eat."
Peace clapped her hand abruptly over her mouth. Suppose Annette should
ask for something to eat! But the sick child merely held the spray of
foxgloves nearer her face and inquired, "What is that? Ice-cream?"
"No; it's shaped like icicles and has kind of a sourish taste, either
lemon or strawberry, and it doesn't melt until you get tired of it. Then
it's all gone. And it's the same way with moonbeamade. Allee made up
that name from lemonade. It is just a heap of foam that tastes like the
north-west wind and is cool and nice."
"S'posing things is a queer game, ain't it?" murmured Annette, drowsily.
"It's lots of fun, and sometimes when we go to sleep we dream about
them,--the places we visit in the moon and the--"
"The water and lilies and fountains and cool things?"
"Yes, or the mountains, where the fairies and goblins live, or the
forests, which belong to the brownies and elves, or the valleys, where
the sunbeams play, or the caves, where the wind-voices hide, or--I do
b'lieve she's asleep. Yes, sir! Both eyes are tight shut, and she has
dropped the foxglove she was holding so hard."
Softly Peace dropped back into her former position upon the floor,
hardly daring to breathe for fear of waking the little slumberer, for
had not the doctor said she was a very sick child, and that she must be
kept as quiet as possible?
At thought of the doctor she began to wonder why he had not sent the
woman from the village as he had promised to do. Already the sun was
sinking low in the west, and no one had come to watch over the invalid.
Perhaps he had forgotten, perhaps someone was dreadfully sick and he had
been called away before he could find a nurse for Annette. Perhaps--the
brown head nodded gently, the long, dark lashes fluttered slowly over
the somber brown eyes, and Peace, too, was fast asleep, curled up
against the narrow bed, where the sick child lay in a dreamless,
refreshing slumber. The sunset faded from the sky, twilight deepened
into dusk, and the stars came out in their pale glory, but both the Good
Samaritan and her patient were unconscious of it all.
In the little brown house among the maple trees great anxiety brooded.
Peace had not come home with her sisters from their flower-gathering
expedition, and no one in town had seen her. The whole neighborhood was
aroused, and a search party was just being organized when the doctor's
carriage drove up to the gate, and the physician, angry, dismayed and
alarmed, hurried up the path as fast as his avoirdupois would permit,
flung open the screen and called imperiously, "Miss Gail, girls, any of
you! It's all my fault! Peace is down at the Fisher house watching over
Annette. I sent her there this afternoon while I went after a woman to
stay with the child, and have just this minute heard that Grandma Cole
sprained her ankle on the way there and had to crawl back home again.
Mrs. Fisher, the big idiot, is moseying up the road now, well satisfied
with her bargains. I passed her and her tribe a piece back and stopped
long enough to tell her what I thought of her. Now pile in and I'll take
you back with me for that little sister of yours."
He had caught up a little shawl from the hat-rack as he talked, and
throwing this over Gail's shoulders, he bundled her out of the house and
into his buggy before she had recovered from her astonishment at his
outburst; and after a moment of furious riding behind the lively bay
horse, she found herself stumbling up the dark stairs in the unlighted
Fisher house, at the heels of the panting, puffing, wrathy doctor. From
somewhere he produced a lamp, and soon the dim rays of light dispelled
the gloom of the place, and she stood beside him, looking down into the
pale face of Annette asleep among her pillows, and the rosy one of
smiling Peace, huddled in an uncomfortable bunch on the floor.
"What a picture!" murmured the doctor huskily, leaning over to touch the
damp forehead and feel the pulse of his little patient. "This is the
first natural sleep she has had for days. Bully for Peace! I confess I
was worried about leaving her here in the first place. I was afraid she
would fret Annette into a worse fever than she already had. I'd have
gone crazy if I'd had any notion that the child must stay here all the
afternoon, with only Peace to look after her. Excuse me if I seem more
concerned about Annette's welfare than over Peace's long absence and
your fright, Gail. I've had a big battle to pull her through, and I was
wild when I found that fool mother had gone off and left her alone.
Didn't expect to be gone long, and here it is _hours_! There, I won't
storm any more, but we'll wake Peace up and take her home."
He shook the child gently by the shoulder, and as the sleepy eyes
fluttered open they saw only Gail bending over her. "It's all right,
Gail," the child said softly, still remembering her charge. "Dr.
Bainbridge asked me to be a good _sanatarium_ over Annette while that
_negrogrampus_ of a mother was hunting bargains of embroid'ries and he
was hunting a sure-enough nurse. Oh, there is the doctor himself! Is
Annette all right? She talked a lot at first, but I told her about my
moon lady, and pretty soon she went fast asleep."
"Annette is doing splendidly, Dr. Peace, and I am tickled to death at
the good work you've done. Run along with Gail now. I'll be down in a
minute to drive you home."