All Middleburgh knew next day how Nancy Pansy had saved Harry Hunter,
and it was still talking about it, when it was one morning astonished
by the news that old Dr. Hunter had been arrested in the night by the
soldiers, who had come down from Washington, and had been carried off
somewhere. There had not been such excitement since the Middleburgh
Artillery had marched away to the war. The old doctor was sacred. Why,
to carry him off, and stop his old buggy rattling about the streets,
was, in Middleburgh’s eyes, like stopping the chariot of the sun, or
turning the stars out of their courses. Why did they not arrest Nancy
Pansy too? asked Middleburgh. Nancy Pansy cried all day, and many times
after, whenever she thought about it. She went to Tom Adams’s camp and
begged him to bring her old doctor back, and Tom Adams said as he had
not had him arrested he could not tell what he could do, but he would
do all he could. Then she wrote the old doctor a letter. However, all
Middleburgh would not accept Tom Adams’s statement as Nancy Pansy
did, and instead of holding him as a favorite, it used to speak of
him as “That Tom Adams.” Every old woman in Middleburgh declared she
was worse than she had been in ten years, and old Mrs. Hippin took to
her crutch, which she had not used in twelve months, and told Nancy
Pansy’s sister she would die in a week unless she could hear the old
doctor’s buggy rattle again. But when the fever broke out in the little
low houses down on the river, things began to look very serious. The
surgeon from the camp went to see the patients, but they died, and
more were taken ill. When a number of other cases occurred in the town
itself, all of the most malignant type, the surgeon admitted that it
was a form of fever with which he was not familiar. There had never
been such an epidemic in Middleburgh before, and Middleburgh said that
it was all due to the old doctor’s absence.
One day Nancy Pansy went to the camp, to ask about the old doctor,
and saw a man sitting astride of a fence rail which was laid on two
posts high up from the ground. He had a stone tied to each foot, and
he was groaning. She looked up at him, and saw that it was the man who
had broken her doll. She was about to run away, but he groaned so she
thought he must be in great pain, and that always hurt her; so she went
closer, and asked him what was the matter. She did not understand just
what he said, but it was something about the weight on his feet; so
she first tried to untie the strings which held the stones, and then,
as there was a barrel standing by, she pushed at it until she got it
up close under him, and told him to rest his feet on that, whilst she
ran home and asked her mamma to lend her her scissors. In pushing the
barrel she broke Harry’s head in pieces; but she was so busy she did
not mind it then. Just as she got the barrel in place some one called
her, and turning around she saw a sentinel; he told her to go away, and
he kicked the barrel from under the man and let the stones drop down
and jerk his ankles again. Nancy Pansy began to cry, and ran off up to
Tom Adams’s tent and told him all about it, and how the poor man was
groaning. Tom Adams tried to explain that this man had got drunk, and
that he was a bad man, and was the same one who had broken her doll.
It had no effect. “Oh, but it hurts him so bad!” said Nancy Pansy, and
she cried until Tom Adams called a man and told him he might go and let
O’Meara down, and tell him that the little girl had begged him off this
time. Nancy Pansy, however, ran herself, and called to him that Tom
Adams said he might get down. When he was on the ground, he walked up
to her and said:
“May the Holy Virgin kape you! Griff O’Meara’ll never forgit you.”
A few days after that, Nancy Pansy complained of headache, and her
mother kept her in the house. That evening her face was flushed, and
she had a fever; so her mother put her to bed and sat by her. She went
to sleep, but waked in the night, talking very fast. She had a burning
fever, and was quite out of her head. Mrs. Seddon sent for the surgeon
next morning, and he came and stayed some time. When he returned to
camp he went to Tom Adams’s tent. He looked so grave as he came in that
Adams asked quickly:
“Any fresh cases?”
“Not in camp.” He sat down.
“Where?”
“That little girl--Nancy Pansy.”
Tom Adams’s face turned whiter than it had ever turned in battle.
“Is she ill?”
“Desperately.”
Tom Adams sprang to his feet.
“How long--how long can she hold out?” he asked, in a broken voice.
“Twenty-four hours, perhaps,” said the surgeon.
Tom Adams put on his cap and left the tent. Five minutes later he was
in the hall at the Judge’s. Just as he entered, Nancy Pansy’s sister
came quickly out of a door. She had been crying.
“How is she? I have just this instant heard of it,” said Tom, with real
grief in his voice.
She put her handkerchief to her eyes.
“So ill,” she sobbed.
“Can I see her?” asked Tom, gently.
“Yes; it won’t hurt her.”
When Tom Adams entered the room he was so shocked that he stopped
still. Mrs. Seddon bent over the bed with her face pale and worn, and
in the bed lay Nancy Pansy, so changed that Tom Adams never would have
known her. She had fallen off so in that short time that he would not
have recognized her. Her face was perfectly white, except two bright
red spots on her cheeks. She was drawing short, quick breaths, and was
talking all the time very fast. No one could understand just what she
was saying, but a good deal of it was about Harry and the old doctor.
Tom bent over her, but she did not know him; she just went on talking
faster than ever.
“Nancy Pansy, don’t you know Tom Adams?” her mother asked her, in a
soothing voice. She had never called the young man so before, and he
felt that it gave him a place with Nancy Pansy; but the child did not
know him; she said something about not having any Harry.
“She is growing weaker,” said her mother.
Tom Adams leaned over and kissed the child, and left the room.
As he came down the steps he met Griff O’Meara, who asked how the
“little gurl” was, “bless her sowl!” When he told him, Griff turned
away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Tom Adams told him
to stay there and act as guard, which Griff vowed he’d do if the “howl
ribel army kem.”
Ten minutes later Tom galloped out of camp with a paper in his pocket
signed by the surgeon. In an hour he had covered the twelve miles of
mud which lay between Middleburgh and the nearest telegraph station,
and was sending a message to General ----, his commander. At last an
answer came. Tom Adams read it.
“Tell him it is a matter of life and death,” he said to the operator.
“Tell him there is no one else who understands it and can check it, and
tell him it must be done before the afternoon train leaves, or it will
be too late. Here, I’ll write it out.” And he did so, putting all his
eloquence into the despatch.
Late that night two men galloped through the mud and slush in the
direction of Middleburgh. The younger one had a large box before him
on his horse; the other was quite an old man. Picket after picket was
passed with a word spoken by the younger man, and they galloped on. At
last they stopped at the Judge’s gate, and sprang from their splashed
and smoking horses.
As they hurried up the walk, the guard at the steps challenged them in
a rich Irish brogue.
“It’s I, O’Meara. You here still? How is she?”
“’Most in the Holy Virgin’s arms,” said the Irishman.
“Is she alive?” asked both men.
“It’s a docther can tell that,” said the sentinel. “They thought her
gone an hour ago. There’s several in there,” he said to his captain.
“I didn’t let ’em in at firrst, but the young leddy said they wuz the
frien’s of the little gurl, an’ I let ’em by a bit.”
A minute later the old man entered the sick-room, whilst Tom Adams
stopped at the door outside. There was a general cry as he entered of,
“Oh, doctor!”
And Mrs. Seddon called him: “Quick, quick, doctor! she’s dying!”
“She’s dead,” said one of the ladies who stood by.
The old doctor bent over the little still white form, and his
countenance fell. She was not breathing. With one hand he picked up her
little white arm and felt for the pulse; with the other he took a small
case from his pocket. “Brandy,” he said. It was quickly handed him. He
poured some into a little syringe, and stuck it into Nancy Pansy’s arm,
by turns holding her wrist and feeling over her heart.
Presently he said, quietly, “She’s living,” and both Mrs. Seddon and
Nancy Pansy’s sister said, “Thank God!”
All night long the old doctor worked over Nancy Pansy. Just before dawn
he said to Mrs. Seddon: “What day is this?”
“Christmas morning,” said Mrs. Seddon.
“Well, madam, I hope God has answered your prayers, and given your
babe back to you; I hope the crisis is passed. Have you hung up her
stocking?”
“No,” said Nancy Pansy’s mother. “She was so--” She could not say
anything more. Presently she added: “She was all the time talking about
you and Harry.”
The old doctor rose and went out of the room. It was about dawn. He
left the house, and went over to his own home. There, after some
difficulty, he got in, and went to his office. His old secretary had
been opened and papers taken out, but the old man did not seem to
mind it. Pulling the secretary out from the wall, he touched a secret
spring. It did not work at first, but after a while it moved, and he
put his hand under it, and pulled out a secret drawer. In it were a
number of small parcels carefully tied up with pieces of ribbon, which
were now quite faded, and from one peeped a curl of soft brown hair,
like that of a little girl. The old doctor laid his fingers softly on
it, and his old face wore a gentle look. The largest bundle was wrapped
in oil-silk. This he took out and carefully unwrapped. Inside was yet
another wrapping of tissue paper. He put the bundle, with a sigh, into
his overcoat pocket, and went slowly back to the Judge’s. Nancy Pansy
was still sleeping quietly.
The old doctor asked for a stocking, and it was brought him. He took
the bundle from his pocket, and, unwrapping it, held it up. It was a
beautiful doll, with yellow hair done up with little tucking combs such
as ladies used to wear, and with a lovely little old tiny-flowered silk
dress.
“She is thirty years old, madam,” he said gently to Mrs. Seddon, as
he slipped the doll into the stocking, and hung it on the bed-post.
“I have kept her for thirty years, thinking I could never give it to
any one; but last night I knew I loved Nancy Pansy enough to give it
to her.” He leaned over and felt her pulse. “She is sleeping well,” he
said.
Just then the door opened, and in tipped Tom Adams, followed by Griff
O’Meara in his stocking feet, bearing a large baby-house fitted up
like a perfect palace, with every room carpeted and furnished, and with
a splendid doll sitting on a balcony.
“A Christmas gift to that blessed angel from the Baby Veterans, mem,”
he said, as he set it down; and then taking from his bulging pocket
a large red-cheeked doll in a green frock, he placed it in the door
of the house, saying, with great pride: “An’ this from Griff O’Meara.
Heaven bless her swate soul!”
Just then Nancy Pansy stirred and opened her eyes. Her mother bent over
her, and she smiled faintly. Mrs. Seddon slipped down on her knees.
“Where’s my old doctor and my dolly?” she said; and then, presently,
“Where’s Harry and Tom Adams?”
“JACK AND JAKE.”