POOR ERNEST AND POOR MARIAN
Ernest was so tired of being pitied he was in open rebellion.
"For goodness' sake, don't 'poor' me any more! My eyes will be all right
as soon as they get a good rest--the doctor said so. I guess I can stand
it if they don't hurt like sin. Everybody comes in like a funeral
procession asking me how I feel, and hoping it will be a lesson to me to
take better care of my eyes. People needn't rub it in because a fellow's
down--and the last thing he wants to think of is how he feels!"
"I think you must be feeling better, Ernest, or you wouldn't be so
cross," retorted Marian slyly.
Ernest relaxed his gloom enough to grin.
"Well, I don't care--Mother hangs around babying me as if I were six
years old!"
Ernest's catastrophe had come about so gradually no one had suspected
it. He was reading a letter from Alice, who wrote a fine close hand,
when his father noticed that he was holding the paper almost to his
eyes. An examination revealed the fact that the poor eyes were sadly
overstrained and would have to have a complete rest for weeks or his
eyesight would be permanently injured.
This was distressing news to bookworm Ernest who was never so happy as
when lost in a book. The lad was immensely proud of his school standing,
too, and he chafed sadly at the thought of losing it.
"No school for three months, Son," his father said sorrowfully after the
boy's eyes had been thoroughly tested.
"It must be a dark room and a bandage for three weeks at the very least,
Dr. Allerton says."
Ernest groaned and growled rather more than usual to keep from breaking
down and playing the baby, when he heard this verdict.
"It was all that confounded scroll work!"
"I am afraid so--you remember your mother warned you against selecting
all those intricate patterns."
Ernest remembered only too distinctly, but he preferred not to be
reminded of it.
"Is there anything a fellow can do?" he demanded after three horrid
days of close confinement with the blinds down.
"Not much, poor boy, I'm afraid," Mrs. Morton replied pityingly. "I'll
read to you a couple of hours this morning and perhaps Sherm and Carol
will come in for a while after school. I'll send word to them by Chicken
Little. Mrs. Dart sent you over one of her custard pies just now."
The custard pie sounded comforting.
"How long is it till dinner time?"
"Only about three hours--we might let you have a taste now if you are
impatient," Mrs. Morton said.
"Oh, I can wait but the hours seem so plaguey long when you can't see.
Read me Alice's letter again, will you? Gee, I wish she were here--she
always knew how to help a chap out."
"Better than Mother?" Mrs. Morton couldn't help feeling a trifle
nettled.
Ernest felt the tone.
"Oh, Mumsey, you're a brick, but Alice can always think up things--you
know? Of course, she isn't like your mother." Ernest reached for his
mother's dress and pulling her head down gave her a kiss--an unusual
mark of affection.
It wrung Mrs. Morton's heart to see him grope to find her.
It took her a moment to compose herself before she went over to the
window and raised the blind enough to see to read the letter.
Alice had written jubilantly of her progress.
"I am so happy today over a compliment--doesn't that sound vain?--that I
am going to sit right down and share it with you. I should like to get
up on a fence like that little bantam rooster of Darts' and crow it to
all the world. Mrs. Martin, our principal, told me this morning I had
done wonders in three months! And I was so stupid at first--French and
Geometry seemed absolutely impossible. I used to put myself to sleep
saying those awful French verbs. If the French had invented those verbs
on purpose I'd never forgive them. But I suppose your language is like
the color of your hair--you're not responsible. Funny how little of us
is _us_, and how much is somebody else, isn't it? Tell Ernest the first
ten pages of Geometry would have floored me completely if I hadn't
remembered how patiently he used to saw round all those curves and
curlicues in that scroll-work. Every time I flung the old book down and
said 'I can't,' I seemed to see Ernest bent over that old scroll saw
cutting Geometry out of wood. I could not let a fourteen year old boy
beat me. Now the figures are getting as tame as kittens which reminds me
of Jane's kitten.
"We call her Poky Pry because she is always poking her inquisitive nose
into places where she has no business. I was afraid they might not want
her here, but she frisked her way into favor at once. Her usual place
for a morning nap is in Aunt Clara's work basket. We found her once in
Uncle Joseph's silk hat. Another time she got shut in a bureau drawer
and miauwed pitifully to be let out. But her funniest adventure was
going downtown. Uncle Joseph got on the horse car one morning and was
talking to a friend when they heard a soft purring. 'What on earth is
that--it sounds like a cat?' asked the other man. They both looked all
around. As soon as Uncle Joseph moved, the sound ceased. When they
settled down to talk again the purring began again. 'Well, I never!'
said Uncle Joseph. He made another search even getting down to look
under the car seat. The sound ceased the moment he began to hunt.
'Pshaw,' said his friend, 'somebody is playing a trick on us. I've heard
of people who can throw their voices so the sound seems to come from
some other place.' So they settled down once more, and once more the
purring began and grew louder. Uncle Joseph got fidgety. His friend
watched the lips of the other passengers to see who was hoaxing them.
'It sounds,' he remarked finally, 'as if it came from your overcoat
pocket!'--Uncle Joseph plunged his hand down into his pocket and felt
soft warm fur. The whole car shouted when he drew Poky Pry out.
"I wonder if I told Chicken Little how Poky frightened the Pullman
porter. She was sound asleep in her basket and I put it at the lower end
of the berth, carelessly leaving the cover off. The porter was making up
the next berth to mine. Suddenly I heard a wild shriek, and, parting my
curtains, saw the porter dashing down the aisle with Poky Pry clanging
distractedly to his kinky black head. She had crept out of her basket
and made her way to the berth above the one he was making, to watch him.
When he straightened up she evidently thought his wooly hair some new
variety of mouse and she made a spring for it.
"Tell Chicken Little, Kitty has kept me from being lonesome and is a
great comfort. Uncle Joseph keeps asking questions about Chicken Little.
His girls are all boys and grown up. He was so pleased with her note
thanking him for the ring. He chuckled over her skating adventure for
days. 'Starting out pretty young to straighten up the world, isn't she?'
he remarked."
"Chicken Little Jane is a very rash child, I'm afraid," Mrs. Morton said
as she laid down the letter a few moments later. "I only hope she won't
get into trouble some day on account of it."
"Don't worry, Mother, she always comes out all right."
Jane came up at noon to bring Ernest his dinner--a dinner in which a
generous quarter of the custard pie played an important part. Sherm and
Carol would come right from school she told him. Chicken Little had
established herself as head nurse out of school hours. She felt very
important and amused Ernest with her airs.
The boys were good as their word that afternoon and she met them with a
life-like imitation of her mother's manner, admonishing them not to get
Ernest excited. As a result the boys lumbered in self-conscious and
awkward. Never having paid a sick-room visit before, they were rather
overpowered by Ernest's bandaged eyes and the twilight gloom the doctor
prescribed. So much so in fact, that they nearly defeated the object of
their visit, which was to cheer Ernest up. Indeed they were so stiff and
sympathetic that Ernest gruffly requested them to drop that and tell him
about school. Tongues limbered up immediately at this, for each boy had
a grievance.
"You can be jolly glad you ain't there. Old Goggle-eyes gave us two
pages of Algebra--20 problems! I spent a whole hour on the first ten and
I'm shaky about them now. Oh, he's a honey, he is--the dried up old
crank. I'll bet he was old when Methuselah was born."
"Well, I'd rather tackle Goggle-eyes and minus X than write compositions
for Miss Halliday on Spring Flowers--Sper-ing Flow-ers," Carol simpered
gently, and, letting his hands fall limp from the wrists, fluttered
imaginary skirts in a fantastic promenade across the room.
"'You must cultivate the love of the be-utiful--contemplate birds--and
lovely flowers and express what they mean to you,'" he quoted in a high
pitched voice. "Holy smoke, I had a notion to tell her that spring
flowers meant digging dandelions at five cents a thousand, when I wanted
to go fishing! She might at least save 'em till the ground thaws--it's
colder than Greenland out today."
"Yes, Father says we're in for a blizzard tonight."
"You might tell her the blizzard nipped all the flowers in the bud,
Carol."
"Nope, I'll put it on the list of things I'm thankful for next
Thanksgiving, that there aren't any plaguey spring flowers in bloom to
write about."
"Say, Pat's got your seat. But he wouldn't let Old Goggle-eyes take your
things out. He said there was plenty of room for them. He's got them
stacked up in one end of the desk all ship-shape. He's going to be on
our nine next summer."
The boys were performing their mission nobly. Ernest began to feel
actually consoled for missing school.
"I won three agates and a chiny off Fatty Grover--like to froze my
fingers too. We got down behind the coal house out of the wind, but it
didn't help much."
"Thought Fatty darsent play keeps?"
"Well, I guess his dad'd lick him if he found out--s'pose he'd most have
to, being the Minister--but Fatty's game--he won't blab. Aren't they
beauties?"
Ernest gave a little gesture of impatience and Sherm suddenly remembered
the bandaged eyes.
"Oh, say, I didn't go to----" he began penitently.
Mrs. Morton appeared opportunely at this moment with a plate of hot
doughnuts, a little anxious lest the boys should fall to romping.
Poor Marian's trouble began two weeks after Ernest's and proved to be
much more serious. She had sympathized deeply with the bookloving boy in
his irksome confinement, and she had been more than faithful about
coming over to read or talk to him. It was coming through a storm to
keep her promise to him that proved her own undoing.
She had a hard cold already--March had been continuously raw and
blustery. The last day of the month had brought with it the worst
blizzard of the season. A cutting wind swept down from the north and the
snow was icy hard and stinging. Marian watched the storm from her
windows for some time before she could get up courage to venture out.
But Mother Morton's was only three blocks away and she knew Ernest
would be doubly disappointed if she failed to come because of the dreary
day. So she wrapped up warmly and braved the elements. The three blocks
seemed a mile before she covered them. She had to fight every inch in
the teeth of the wind and reached the gabled house thoroughly chilled
and spent. A bad attack of pneumonia followed this exposure, and
Ernest's troubles were almost ignored in the anxiety about lovely
Marian.
The crisis passed safely by dint of loving care and good nursing, but
her convalescence was slow. Ernest's eyes were well and he was back in
school before Marian dared leave the house. It grieved them all to see
her so thin and white.
Poor Ernest heard the story of her struggle with the blizzard for his
sake repeated so many times, as sympathetic friends called upon his
mother, that the boy began to feel a personal responsibility for her
illness. He didn't say anything but he hovered around her as soon as he
was permitted to go out, spending every cent of his slender pin money in
dainties and flowers which he seldom presented to her directly. He would
leave them on her bed or on the dining-room table with never a word.
Frank and Marian were pleased and touched by his devotion. They laughed
together over his bashful ways without suspecting that the lad was
worried.
It was Chicken Little who finally wormed his trouble out of him.
"Gee, I wish I had some decent marbles. Sherm's got a stunner of an onyx
and six flints and----"
"Why Ernest Morton, I thought Father gave you a quarter last night to
get some."
Ernest grinned in embarrassed silence.
Chicken Little regarded him suspiciously.
"What did you do with it?"
Ernest did not deign to reply.
"Bet you spent it for those grapes for Marian."
Ernest drummed on the window.
"She doesn't 'spect you to take your marble money for her, goosie. Say,
Ernest, what's the matter?"
The boy swallowed painfully.
"Tell me, Ernest, I won't tell. Honest to goodness, I won't." Jane
cuddled up close to him laying her face against his shoulder
caressingly.
Ernest was not proof against her sympathy and he blurted out his
remorse.
"'Tisn't your fault a speck--you didn't tease her to come."
Chicken Little patted and argued in vain. Ernest found her comforting,
but did not feel that she was old enough to understand.
Chicken Little took the matter up with Marian the very next day. She
began very diplomatically because she had promised not to tell.
"Do you s'pose you'd got sick if you hadn't come to see Ernest that
day, Marian?"
"Probably not, dear."
This was not reassuring.
"But you might have gone some place else, mightn't you?"
"I suppose so--only I don't think I should have been silly enough to go
out in that storm without a good reason."
"But it wasn't Ernest's fault it stormed," Jane replied plaintively.
"Ernest's fault? Why, what do you mean?" Marian looked at the child in
astonishment.
Jane's face was very sober.
"I just guess he couldn't help if it you got all cold and----"
"Of course not, Jane, what put such an idea into your head! I should
have had more sense than to venture out in such a storm. Does Ernest--is
that why he brings me all those things and hangs round so?--the poor
boy? Dear me, this will never do."
"He wouldn't like it if he knew I told you," said Chicken Little
ruefully.
"You haven't told me, dear. I guessed it, but I'll find a way to stop
his worrying."
April came and went and Marian was still pale and weak. Dr. Morton
looked grave and finally suggested to Frank that they should have the
famous Dr. Brownleigh of Chicago down to examine Marian's lungs. Frank
went white at the suggestion, but quietly acquiesced. Two days later the
great doctor arrived.
Chicken Little knew there was some excitement afoot that morning when
she went to school. Both Dr. and Mrs. Morton looked sad and Mrs. Morton
sighed frequently. Ernest pushed most of his breakfast away untasted.
"What time will he be here, Father?"
"On the nine-thirty."
"Who?" Chicken Little demanded curiously.
"A man you have never seen, little daughter," her father replied
quietly.
So Chicken Little went off to school mystified but curious.
The great physician did his work carefully. It was before the days of
germ cultures, and the apparatus for such tests had not reached the
perfection of today. There was much room for professional judgment.
Dr. Morton and Marian's mother were with Frank beside the bed. Frank
looked miserably anxious in spite of his efforts at self control, and
Marian's big eyes were questioning and wistful.
Dr. Brownleigh smiled cheerfully down at her as he finished.
"Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Morton, you will live to be a nice rosy-cheeked
grandmother. I predict you'll be plumper than your mother."
The tension was broken and Marian sighed with relief.
"There, I told you it was silly to be scared about me, Frank. It always
did take me a long time to recover from an illness--even a cold. I'm
afraid I'm lazy--you didn't know you had married a lazy wife did you?"
Marian gave his hand a little loving pat and Frank silently stooped to
kiss her, but he was not reassured.
He had watched the varying expressions of the great doctor's face and he
was decidedly uneasy. With reason, he found when he accompanied his
father and Dr. Brownleigh back to the old home.
Once inside the little sitting room Dr. Brownleigh turned to him
gravely.
"Mr. Morton, your face tells me that you have read mine. Please don't
make the mistake of imagining your wife is worse than she is. Her right
lung is considerably affected, I am sorry to say. The left one seems to
be perfectly sound there is no reason with proper care and a change of
climate why she should not live for years."
"Change of climate?--that means what--a few months or a permanent move?"
"A year at the least--I should advise a permanent change to Kansas or
Colorado or Arizona. She needs a dryer and more even climate, plenty of
fresh air and an outdoor life."
Frank groaned. His father laid his hand on his shoulder sympathetically.
"It is hard, my boy, when you have such a good position here, too. Brace
up--we'll find a way out--and Marian may be completely cured--remember
that."
Many were the consultations in the Morton and Gates homes during the
next few weeks. It was agreed not to tell Marian her weakness till she
was able to be out again. In the meantime it was arranged that Dr.
Morton should take a trip west to look up a suitable location.
Without telling her the real reason, Frank had talked Marian into the
idea of ranching and the older people found her eager zest and
enthusiasm for the new life, pathetic.
"I know I'll be lots stronger on a farm," she declared. "I shall have
chickens and make butter. You can all come out and spend the
summers--won't that be grand?"
Dr. Morton had offered to buy a ranch for Frank taking over their cozy
Centerville home in part payment. Ernest had been taken into the family
councils and understood all this. He was a reserved serious lad who
could be depended upon not to talk. But Chicken Little was not so
favored. She knew only that Father was going on a long journey out west,
and she did not concern herself as to his errand.