WEAKNESS.
Molly was confirmed in her surmise; for in an hour Sara was in a burning
fever, and there was little sleep in the house that night. To have
_Sara_ ill was unprecedented--almost unbearable--and the whole
household was visibly affected by it. Morton's face settled into a
gravity which nothing could move, and Molly's dimpled visage had never
looked so long and care-full.
Hetty bustled up and down, important and anxious, while Sam stood about
in the hall, and asked everybody who passed along "how she wor a-doin'
now."
The doctor came, looked wise, talked about malaria, exposure to the heat
and over-fatigue, left some pills and powders, and went away again--
after which the house settled down to that alert silence, so different
from the restful quiet of an ordinary night. Sara, tossing to and fro in
the fiery grasp of fever, moaned and talked, Hetty and Molly watching
alternately beside her, while Morton tried to sleep in the next room,
only to start from frightful dreams to the more harrowing reality that
his beloved sister was actually and painfully ill.
It was a sharp illness, but not of long duration. The fever was broken
up on the fourteenth day, but it left a very weak and ghostly Sara to
struggle back to health once more. Still, there were no relapses, thanks
to good care, for Hetty had been faithfulness itself, while Molly had
settled down to her new duties with a steadiness no one would have
expected. As for Morton, he would have brought up half the drugstore, if
he had been permitted, and was made perfectly content whenever allowed
to share the night-watches, which was seldom, as he had to work all day.
In these Hetty was soon relieved by those members of the circle who had
become personal friends of the girls; and as there was little to do,
except give the medicines regularly, they thus managed well without
calling in a regular nurse.
Three weeks from the day of her seizure Sara began to sit up in bed,
looking once more something like the girl of old, though she still
talked (to quote Molly) as if she had hot pebbles in her mouth, and the
veins on her temples were much too clearly defined beneath the white
skin.
Thus sitting, one delightful day, she read a note from Bertha, which had
been awaiting her some time. It was a rapturous expression of thanks for
the good place she had found with Mrs. Searle, and begged that she might
see her as soon as Sara was able. Molly said, as she handed it, "She has
been here two or three times, begging to do anything for you that was
needed, and I promised you should see her just as soon as possible."
So, a day or two later, Bertha came. Sara would hardly have known her,
and indeed the two seemed to have changed places,--Sara was the weakling
now, Bertha the strong and rosy one.
"I have such a good place," she said, in answer to the former's
questions; "Mrs. Searle is very kind to me. Of course she is exacting
and fretful at times, but that is only because of her illness, and I can
get along with it; but she has given me a pretty room, and allows me an
hour or two for air and exercise every day. I am happier there than I
have been since mother died."
"That is good!" said Sara.
"And only think," continued the pleased girl, "she is talking now of
going to the seashore. You don't know how I long for a sight of the
ocean! The only trouble is, she can't find a place quiet enough to suit
her--she hates to go to a great hotel, or where there is a crowd."
Sara looked up with a sudden thought.
"Killamet would be quiet enough--how nice it would be if she'd take my
house there!"
"Your house! Have you a house?"
"Yes, the children and I; it's not much of one--just a cottage, but
perfectly comfortable in summer. If Mrs. Searle would send down some
furniture, I think she could really make it cosey."
"I'll tell her about it" said Bertha, and did, with the result that the
lady decided to take it for the next two months, at a fair rental.
This little excitement over, Sara had only herself and the children to
think of, and in her weak physical condition these thoughts were far
from pleasant.
What was to prevent Bertha's experience from becoming her own, or
possibly Molly's, in case of evil fortune? If she should often be ill,
who would care for them? She seemed to herself, just then, such a frail
plank between them and want! She raised her white, blue-veined hands and
looked at them; they did not seem made for struggling, and a sense of
powerlessness, born of bodily weakness, enwrapped her in its hopeless
gloom.
There is a certain period, after convalescence is well progressed, that
is even more trying to many natures than actual illness--that time when
we are supposed to be well, and yet have not quite resumed our wonted
strength.
How the long-dropped burdens of our lives loom up before us now! Is it
possible we ever bent our backs to such a load? Can we ever do it again?
Yet, even as we hesitate, relentless necessity pushes us on, and bids us
hoist the burden.
Sara felt this often now, and all her former bravery seemed gone with
her strength. She had already decided that, next Monday, she must return
to the museum, and bring up her neglected work; then there was a half-
written article to be finished and copied, whose motive and central
thought she had almost forgotten, while at her side loomed a basketful
of stockings to be darned, and garments to be mended before the Sabbath
dawn.
In this reluctant mood, trying to rally her forces for renewed conflict
with life's hard duties, she could not help thinking how different it
might all be--how she might be cared for, instead of looking out for
others; how she might be the centre of a home, enclosed and guarded,
rather than, as now, trying vainly to encompass one, making a wall of
her feeble self to shelter others--and hot tears of rebellious weakness
filled her eyes, and dropped slowly upon the trembling little hands,
which were painfully weaving the threads to and fro through a
preposterous hole in one of Morton's socks.
A step in the hall made her hasten to dash away the tell-tale drops, as
Hetty knocked, before peeping in to say,--
"There's a gentleman in the parlor asking to see you, Miss Olmstead."
"A gentleman? One of the professors?"
"I don't think it is; I never see him before--it's a young man."
Sara rose, adjusted her dress a little, and descended to the drawing-
room. In its close-shuttered condition she did not at first recognize
the figure which rose to meet her, but a second look wrung from her
almost a cry.
"Jasper?" "Yes, Sairay, it's me. You--you've been sick, I hear."
She bowed her head, unable to speak for the second.
"And you show it too," with an awed look into her lovely face,
spiritualized by illness, as he took her extended hand.
"Yes," recovering herself, "but I'm nearly well now--how are they all in
Killamet?"
"Oh, so-so, I guess; but I haven't been home to stay any since last
month--soon after Cousin Prue was here, it was. I had business in
Norcross yesterday, and I come over from there by train. Mother wrote
about your having the fever."
She had motioned him to a chair, and dropped into another herself,
feeling weak in body, and perplexed in mind. Why had he come? Was
_he_ the answer to her repining thoughts? His voice roused her from
the sort of lethargic state into which she had dropped for a moment.
"Sairay," he said, with a little choke, "I--I couldn't stay away any
longer--when I heard about you--and I've come"--
He stopped again, but she did not help him out--she could not. With her
fingers locked together in her lap, she waited for what was coming, with
the feeling that she was drifting down stream, and had neither the
strength, nor inclination, to arrest her swift descent. He drew a sigh
that was almost a gasp, and plunged on,--
"Sairay, it's too hard for
you--all--all this--and I--Oh! you know how I love you--I've always
loved you, and what is the use in your working so when I'd give my very
eyes to take care of you? Don't speak, Sairay," raising his hand in
protest, "I've got a-going, now, and I want to say it all. I know I'm
not good enough for you--who is?--but if love that never tires, and
kindness, and--and--being as true as steel, and as tender as a mother,
can count for anything, they'll plead for me, Sairay; I'm not much on
fine speech-making, as you know."
He had risen, and stood before her, tall and stalwart, and, for the
moment, such strength and tenderness seemed good to her--why not accept
them, and be at rest? Perhaps he felt her yielding mood; at any rate, he
held out both hands with an assured gesture.
"Say yes, Sairay--tell me you"--
There was a jarring slam and a flood of light; one of the shutters had
blown open. Both started, glanced around, then faced each other again;
but that noisy interruption had thoroughly aroused Sara. She looked at
Jasper in this brighter light, and a quick revulsion of feeling swept
over her. What was she doing? Would she lie to him?
She did not love him; did she dare to tell him that she did? A thought
of another manly figure, bearing a certain refinement and nobility
lacking in this, rose before her mind's eye, and when Jasper finished
his sentence--"tell me you love me!" her answer was ready.
"I can't, Jasper," she said low, but firmly, "It wouldn't be"--
He stopped her again.
"Don't answer me now; take time to think--take till tomorrow. This is
too sudden; nobody can know their minds all in a minute. I'll come again
when you've had time to think."
She shook her head.
"No, Jasper, that is not necessary. You have always been one of my best
friends--be so still! But--that is all. I can't give you what you ask
for, and time will never change me--don't think it. The best way is to
have perfect truth between us. Now, Jasper," trying to speak easily,
"put this aside, and stay with us this evening. I want you to see Morton
and"--
"I can't," said Jasper, in a voice of intense calmness (she could
imagine him giving an order in just that tone, when life or death hung
on the proper execution of it), "I--must go. You--you're sure you know
your mind?"
"Yes, sure."
He picked up his hat,--she noticed it was a silk tile, and thought
vaguely how incongruous it looked upon him, though she was used to
little else among the students,--and jammed it absently down on his
head, as he was accustomed to fasten on his tarpaulin during a storm.
"Good-by" he said hoarsely, turning towards the door.
She stepped towards him.
"Jasper, wait!"
He obeyed--but reluctantly.
"I beg of you, don't let this make you feel hard towards us all. I have
depended on your goodness all my life--don't let it fail me now!"
She held out her hand with that look which few could resist, a look of
winning trustfulness words cannot describe. Jasper hesitated, turned,
looked into her face--and yielded.
"Sairay," he said, grasping her hand closely, "it's no use; you always
did have your way, and you always will! I'll be anything to you that you
want me to be, but--it's bitter hard luck!" and, wringing her hand till
it ached, he left her.