Amabel was a very nervous child, and she was in such terror from her
really terrific experience that she threatened to go into
convulsions. Andrew went over for his mother, whom he had always
regarded as an incontestable authority about children. She, after
one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went to work
with the resolution of an old soldier.
"Heat some water, quick," said she to Andrew, "and get me a
wash-tub."
Then she told Fanny to brew a mess of sage tea, and began stripping
off Amabel's clothes.
"Let me alone! Mamma, mamma, mamma!" shrieked the child. She fought
and clawed like a little, wild animal, but the old woman, in whose
arms great strength could still arise for emergencies, and in whose
spirit great strength had never died, got the better of her.
When Amabel's clothing was stripped off, and her little, spare body,
which was brown rather than rosy, although she was a blonde, was
revealed, she was as pitiful to see as a wound. Every nerve and
pulse in that tiny frame, about which there was not an ounce of
superfluous flesh, seemed visible. The terrible sensitiveness of the
child appeared on the surface. She shrank, and wailed in a low,
monotonous tone like a spent animal overtaken by pursuers. But Mrs.
Zelotes put her in the tub of warm water, and held her down, though
Amabel's face, emerging from it, had the expression of a wild thing.
"There, you keep still!" said she, and her voice was tender enough,
though the decision of it could have moved an army.
When Amabel had had her hot bath, and had drunk her sage tea by
compulsory gulps, and been tucked into Ellen's bed, her childhood
reasserted itself. Gradually her body and her bodily needs gained
the ascendancy over the unnatural strain of her mind. She fell
asleep, and lay like one dead. Then Ellen crept down-stairs, though
it was almost midnight, where her father and mother and grandmother
were still talking over the matter. Fanny seemed almost as bad as
her sister. It was evident that there was in the undisciplined Loud
family a dangerous strain if too far pressed. She was lying down on
the lounge, with Andrew holding her hand.
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Poor Eva!" she kept repeating.
Then she threw off Andrew's hand, sprang to her feet, and began to
walk the room.
"She'll be as bad as her sister if she keeps on," said Mrs. Zelotes,
quite audibly, but Fanny paid no attention to that.
"What is goin' to be done? Oh, my God, what is goin' to be done?"
she wailed. "There she is locked up with two men watchin' her lest
she do herself a harm, and it's got to cost eighteen dollars a week,
unless she's put in with the State poor, and then nobody knows how
she'll be treated. Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! Albert Riggs told me
there were awful things done with the State poor in the asylums.
He's been an attendant in one. He says we've got to pay eighteen
dollars a week if we want to have her cared for decently, and
where's the money comin' from?" Fanny raised her voice higher still.
"Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded, with an impious
inflection. It was as if she questioned that which is outside of,
and the source of, life. Everything with this woman, whose whole
existence had been bound and tainted by the need of money, resolved
itself into that fundamental question. All her woes hinged upon it;
even her misery was deteriorated by mammon.
"Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded again. "There's Jim
gone, and all his mother's got is that little, mortgaged place, and
she feeble, and there ain't a cent anywhere, unless--" She turned
fiercely to Andrew, clutching him hard by the arm.
"You must take every cent of that money out of the savings-bank,"
she cried, "every cent of it. I'm your wife, and I've been a good
wife to you, you can't say I haven't."
"Yes, of course you have, poor girl! Don't, don't!" said Andrew,
soothingly. He was very pale, and shook from head to foot as he
tried to calm Fanny.
"Yes, I've been a good, faithful wife," Fanny went on, in her high,
hysterical voice. "Even your mother can't say that I haven't; and
Eva is my own sister, and you ought to help her. Every cent of that
money will have to come out of the savings-bank, and the house here
will have to be mortgaged; it's only my due. I would do as much for
you if it was your sister. Eva ain't goin' to suffer."
"I guess if you mortgage this house that you had from your father,
to keep a woman whose husband has gone off and left her," said Mrs.
Zelotes, "I guess if you don't go and get him back, and get the law
to tackle him!"
Then Fanny turned on her. "Don't you say a word," said she. "My
sister ain't goin' to suffer, I don't care where the money comes
from. It's mine as much as Andrew's. I've half supported the family
myself sewin' on wrappers, and I've got a right to have my say. My
sister ain't goin' to suffer! Oh, my God, what's goin' to become of
her? Poor Eva, poor Eva! Eighteen dollars a week; that's as much as
Andrew ever earned. Oh, it was awful, it was awful! There, when I
got in there, she had a--knife, the--carving knife, and she had
Amabel's hair all gathered up in one hand, and her head tipped back,
and poor old mother Tenny was holding her arms, and screamin', and
it was all I could do to get the knife away," and Fanny stripped up
her sleeves, and showed a glancing cut on her arm.
"She did that before I got it away from her," she said. "Think of
it, my own sister! My own sister, who always thought so much of me,
and would have had her own fingers cut to the bone before she would
have let any one touch me or Ellen! Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! What is
goin' to become of her, what is goin' to become of her?"
Mrs. Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry decision,
and presently returned with a bottle half full of whiskey.
"Here," said she to Ellen, "you pour out a quarter of a tumbler of
this, and fill it up with hot water. I ain't goin' to have the whole
family in an asylum because Jim Tenny has run off with another
woman, if I can help it!"
The old woman's steady force of will asserted itself over the
hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. Fanny drank the whiskey
and water and went to bed, half stupefied, and Mrs. Zelotes went
home.
"You ring the bell in the night if she's taken worse, and I'll come
over," said she to her son.
When Ellen and her father were left alone they looked at each other,
each with pity for the other. Andrew laid a tender, trembling hand
on the girl's shoulder. "Somehow it will all come out right," he
whispered. "You go to bed and go to sleep, and if Amabel wakes up
and makes any trouble you speak to father."
"Don't worry about me, father," returned Ellen. "It's you who have
the most to worry over." Then she added--for the canker of need of
money was eating her soul, too--"Father, what is going to be done?
You can't pay all that for poor Aunt Eva. How much money have you
got in the bank?"
"Not much, not much, Ellen," replied Andrew, with a groan.
"It wouldn't last very long at eighteen dollars a week?"
"No, no."
"It doesn't seem as if you ought to mortgage the house when you and
mother are getting older. Father--"
"What, Ellen?"
"Nothing," said Ellen, after a little pause. It had been on her lips
to tell him that she must go to work, then she refrained. There was
something in her father's face which forbade her doing so.
"Go to bed, Ellen, and get rested," said Andrew. Then he rubbed his
head against hers with his curious, dog-like method of caress, and
kissed her forehead.
"You go to sleep and get rested yourself, father," said Ellen.
"I guess I won't undress to-night, but I'll lay on the lounge," said
Andrew.
"Well, you speak to me if mother wakes up and takes on again. Maybe
I can do something."
"All right, dear child," said Andrew, lovingly and wearily. He had a
look as if some mighty wind had passed over him and he were beaten
down under it, except for that one single uprearing of love which no
tempest could fairly down.
Ellen went up-stairs, and lay down beside poor little Amabel without
undressing herself. The child stirred, but not to awake, when she
settled down beside her, and reached over her poor little claw of a
hand to the girl, who clasped it fervently, and slipped a protecting
arm under the tiny shoulders. Then the little thing nestled close to
Ellen, with a movement of desperate seeking for protection. "There,
there, darling, Ellen will take care of you," whispered Ellen. But
Amabel did not hear.