IN THE LOG HOUSE BY THE RIVER.
Those two women managed, somehow, to get the almost helpless stranger
into the house, where Auntie Sue, after providing him with nightclothes,
left by one of her guests, by tactful entreaty and judicial commands,
persuaded him to go to bed.
Then followed several days and nights of weary watching. There were
times when the man lay with closed eyes, so weak and exhausted that he
seemed to be drifting out from these earthly shores on the deep waters
of that wide and unknown sea into which all the streams of life finally
flow. But, always, Auntie Sue miraculously held him back. There were
other times when, by all the rules of the game, he should have worn a
strait-jacket;--when his delirium filled the room with all manner
of horrid creatures from the pit; when leering devils and loathsome
serpents and gibbering apes tormented him until his unnatural strength
was the strength of a fiend, and his tortured nerves shrieked in agony.
But Auntie Sue perversely ignored the rules of the game. And never did
the man, even in his most terrible moments, fail to recognize in the
midst of the hellish crew of his diseased imagination the silvery-haired
old teacher as the angel of his salvation. Her gentle voice had always
power to soothe and calm him. He obeyed her implicitly, and, like a
frightened child, holding fast to her hand would beg piteously for her
to protect and save him.
But no word of the man's low-muttered, broken sentences, nor of his
wildest ravings, ever gave Auntie Sue a clue to his identity. She
searched his clothes, but there was not a thing to give her even his
name.
And, yet, that first day, when Judy would have gone to neighbor Tom's
for help, Auntie Sue said “No.” She even positively forbade the girl to
mention the stranger's presence in the house, should she chance to talk
with passing neighbors. “The river brought him to us, Judy, dear,” she
said. “We must save him. No one shall know his shame, to humiliate and
wound his pride and drag him down after he is himself again. Until he
has recovered and is once more the man I believe him to be, no one must
see him or know that he is here; and no one must ever know how he came
to us.”
And late, one evening, when Judy was fast asleep, and the man was lying
very still after a period of feverish tossing and muttering, the dear
old gentlewoman crept quietly out of the house into the night. She was
gone some time, and when she returned again to the stranger's bedside
she was breathless and trembling as from some unusual exertion. And the
following afternoon, when Judy came to her with the announcement that
the boat which had brought the man to them was no longer in the eddy
below the garden, Auntie Sue said, simply, that she was glad it was
gone, and cautioned the girl, again, that the stranger's presence in the
house must not be made known to any one.
When the mountain girl protested, saying, “You-all ain't got no call ter
be a-wearin' yourself ter the bone a-takin' care of such as him,” Auntie
Sue answered, “Hush, Judy! How do you know what the poor boy really is?”
To which Judy retorted: “He's just triflin' an' ornery an' no 'count,
that's what he is, or he sure wouldn't been a-floatin' 'round in that
there old John-boat 'thout ary gun, or fishin' lines, or hat even, ter
say nothin' of that there whisky bottle bein' plumb empty.”
Auntie Sue made no reply to the mountain girl's harsh summing-up of the
damning evidence against the stranger, but left her and went softly to
the bedside of their guest.
It was perhaps an hour later that Judy, quietly entering the room,
happened upon a scene that caused her to stand as if rooted to the spot
in open-mouthed amazement.
The man was sleeping, and the silvery-haired old maiden-lady, seated
on the side of the bed, was bending over the unconscious stranger and
gently stroking his tumbled, red-brown hair, even as a mother might
lovingly caress her sleeping child. And then, as Judy watched,
breathless with wonder, the proud old gentlewoman, bending closer over
that still form on the bed, touched her lips--soft as a rose-petal--to
the stranger's brow.
When she arose and saw Judy standing there, Auntie Sue's delicate old
cheeks flushed with color, and her eyes were shining. With a gesture,
she commanded the girl to silence, and the two tiptoed from the room.
When they were outside, and Auntie Sue had cautiously closed the door,
she faced the speechless Judy with a deliciously defiant air that could
not wholly hide her lovely confusion.
“I--I--was thinking, Judy, how he--how he--might have been--my son.”
“Your 'son'!” ejaculated the girl. “Why, ma'm, you-all ain't never even
been married, as I've ever hearn tell, have you?”
Auntie Sue drew her thin shoulders proudly erect, and, lifting her fine
old face, answered the challenging question with splendid spirit: “No, I
have never been married; but I might have been; and if I had, I suppose
I could have had a son, couldn't I?”
The vanquished Judy retreated to the kitchen, where, in safety, she sank
into a chair, convulsed with laughter, which she instinctively muffled
in her apron.
Then came the day when the man, weak and worn with his struggle, looked
up at his gentle old nurse with the light of sanity in his deep
blue eyes. Very tired eyes they were, and filled with painful
memories,--filled, too, with worshipping gratitude and wonder.
She smiled down at him with delighted triumph, and drawing a chair close
beside the bed, seated herself and placed her soft hand on his where it
lay on the coverlid.
“You are much better, this morning,” she said cheerily. “You will soon
be all right, now.” And as she looked into the eyes that regarded hers
so questioningly, there was in her face and manner no hint of doubt, or
pretense, or reproach;--only confidence and love.
He spoke slowly, as if feeling for words: “I have been in Hell; and
you--you have brought me out. Why did you do it?”
“Because you are mine,” she answered, with her low chuckling laugh. It
was so good to have him able to talk to her rationally after those long
hours of fighting.
“Because I am yours?” he repeated, puzzling over her words.
“Yes,” she returned, with a hint of determined proprietorship in her
voice; “because you belong to me. You see, that eddy where your boat
landed is my property, and so anything that drifts down the river and
lodges there belongs to me. Whatever the river brings to me, is mine.
The river brought you, and so--” She finished with another laugh,--a
laugh that was filled with tender mother-yearning.
The blue eyes smiled back at her for a moment; then she saw them darken
with painful memories.
“Oh, yes; the river,” he said. “I wanted the river to do something for
me, and--and it did something quite different from what I wanted.”
“Of course,” she returned, eagerly, “the river is always like that. It
always does the thing you don't expect it to do. Just like life itself.
Don't you see? It begins somewhere away off at some little spring, and
just keeps going and going and going; and thousands and thousands of
other springs, scattered all over the country, start streams and creeks
and branches that run into it, and make it bigger and bigger, as it
winds and curves and twists along, until it finally reaches the great
sea, where its waters are united with all the waters from all the rivers
in all the world. And in all of its many, many miles, from that first
tiny spring to the sea, there are not two feet of it exactly alike.
In all the centuries of its being, there are never two hours alike. An
infinite variety of days and nights--an infinite variety of skies and
light and clouds and daybreaks and sunsets--an infinite number and
variety of currents and shoals and deep places and quiet spots and
dangerous rapids and eddies--and, along its banks, an endless change
of hills and mountains and flats and forests and meadows and farms and
cities--and--” She paused, breathless. And then, when he did not speak,
but only watched her, she continued: “Don't you see? Of course, the
river never could be what you expect, any more than life could be
exactly what you want and dream it will be.”
“Who in the world are you?” he asked, wonderingly. “And what in the
world are you doing here in the backwoods?”
Smiling at his puzzled expression, she answered: “I am Auntie Sue. I am
LIVING here in the backwoods.”
“But, your real name? Won't you tell me your name? I must know how to
address you.”
“Oh, my name is Susan E. Wakefield--MISS Wakefield, if you please. I
shall be seventy-one years old the eighteenth day of next November. And
you must call me 'Auntie Sue,'--just as every one else does.”
“Wakefield--Wakefield--where have I seen that name?” He wrinkled his
brow in an effort to remember. “Wakefield--I feel sure that I have heard
it, somewhere.”
“It is not unlikely,” she returned, lightly. “It is not at all an
uncommon name. And now that I am properly introduced, don't you
think--?”
He hesitated a moment, then said, deliberately, “My name is Brian Kent.”
“That is an Irish name,” she said quickly; “and that is why your hair is
so nearly red and your eyes so blue.”
“Yes,” he returned, “from my mother. And please don't ask me more now,
for I can't lie to you, and I won't tell you the truth.” And she saw,
again, the dark shadows of painful memories come into the blue eyes.
Bending over the bed, she laid her soft hand on his brow, and pushed
back his heavy hair; and her sweet old voice was very low and gentle as
she said: “My dear boy, I shall never ask you more. The river brought
you to me, and you are mine. You must not even think of anything else,
just now. When you are stronger, and are ready, we will talk of your
future; but of your past, you--”
A loud knock sounded at the door of the living room.
“There is someone at the door,” she said hastily. “I must go. Lie still,
and go to sleep like a good boy; won't you?”
Swiftly, she leaned over, and, before he realized, he felt her lips
touch his forehead. Then she was gone, and Brian Kent's Irish eyes were
filled with tears. Turning to the wall, he hid his face in the pillow.