_THE STRENGTH OF TEN._
It was the sudden termination of the jingling of sleigh-bells that
caused Nancy McVeigh to look curiously from her window. People seldom
stopped before the old tavern since the transfer of the license to the
summer hotel back on the lake shore. At one time it was an odd thing
for anyone to pass without dropping in, if only for a chat or an excuse
to water his horses at the pump trough. Nancy sighed when she
remembered it, for it had brought much gossip and change into her daily
existence. When a chance visitor did intrude upon her quietude, his
welcome was assured. Also she did much of her knitting by the front
window, so that she could catch glimpses of her old customers, even if
she could not speak to them.
On this wintry day in the early January, it was Dr. Dodona, from town,
who tied his horse to a verandah post and rapped briskly at her door.
"It's a real pleasure to see ye, doctor," Nancy exclaimed, as she gave
him admittance. "Ye must be cold. I'll just give ye me best chair by
the fire, an' ye can smoke a pipe while ye're tellin' yer errand."
"You're very kind, Mistress McVeigh. People like yourself make a
doctor's work less arduous," the doctor answered, heartily.
"It's good of ye to say so, doctor, fer it's little demand fer service
ye get out o' me an' mine."
"I'm on my return from James Piper's, down the road. His two children
are ill with the cold, and I am afraid something more serious may be
expected. Miss Sophia has them well in hand, and I have left a course
of treatment, but I'm not at all satisfied."
"Did ye recommend goose grease and turpentine? The winter Jennie had a
bad throat I used them in plenty, an' it's what saved her," Nancy
remarked, sagaciously.
"Well, not exactly those remedies, but they are very good," the doctor
admitted, laughing. "Miss Sophia bade me tell you about the children,
as you were expecting her to call some day this week," he continued.
Nancy nodded her head understandingly. "An' what d'ye expect will
develop from their colds?"
"You needn't be frightened, Mistress McVeigh, as your children are all
grown up. The boy Willie has a very weak throat, and it was terribly
inflamed to-day. I am quite worried about it."
"It's bad news ye're bringing to-day, doctor, but niver expect trouble.
Maybe they'll change fer the better before mornin'. Ye'll have some
tea?" she asked suddenly.
"It's putting you to a lot of trouble," the doctor said, reluctantly,
but Nancy was gone before he had finished his sentence.
When the doctor was ready to depart, she asked, anxiously, "Ye'll let
me know how they are tomorrow?"
"Most assuredly," the doctor called from the verandah.
Two or three days followed, and each brought Dr. Dodona to Nancy's door
with a brief message as to the condition of his patients. His visits
were very short, however, but he remained longer at the Piper
household, and Nancy missed the smile from his face. She discussed the
trend of affairs with Katie Duncan, who was her only confidant now that
Will Devitt had gone out West because Nancy McVeigh's bar no longer
needed his services, and she was somewhat pessimistic in her remarks.
A week went over, and they only saw Dr. Dodona as his big sorrel mare
drew his cutter over the Monk Road in a whirl of snow. Then one day he
passed, accompanied by James Piper, and Nancy could endure the suspense
no longer.
"We'll just have an early supper, an' I'll go over an' ask at the
house," she said, decisively, to Katie Duncan. But a heavy rap at the
door disturbed them at their meal. Nancy hastened to answer the
summons, for she knew it was the doctor.
"I regret my not keeping to my word, Mistress McVeigh, but I am
travelling fast these days. I have a lot of sick people to attend to,
and the Pipers are in very bad shape."
Nancy's eyes bespoke her sympathy as he continued: "Willie Piper has
diphtheria. Little Annie has it also, and to-day Miss Sophia has
broken down. I'm afraid she is in for it, too."
"Fer land sakes, ye don't say so!" Nancy exclaimed, more to punctuate
his words, so that she could digest their import thoroughly.
"They've got to have a nurse, and at the present moment I don't know
where such a person can be secured," the doctor declared, desperately.
"An' have ye fergotten the blarney ye gave me the night o' the
accident?" Nancy inquired, in a hurt tone.
"You don't mean you will go?" he asked, his face lighting up suddenly.
"An' why not? Faith, an' I'm fair sick meself stayin' about the house
doin' nothin' but keepin' comfortable; an' my experience with Jennie
will help me. Old Mrs. Conors is at the p'int of starvation since her
husband died, an' I've been thinkin' o' takin' her in fer company.
I'll just send Katie over the night to tell her to come in the mornin',
so that the child won't be alone."
"I knew that you would help me out of this difficulty, Mistress
McVeigh. I don't want anything to happen to Miss Sophia, she is such a
great friend of mine."
Nancy was about to speak, then checked herself and looked at him
keenly. "The wonders o' the world are no dead yit," she ejaculated,
under her breath.
"I took the liberty of mentioning your name to James Piper before I
came here to-day, and he will see that you are well paid for your
work," the doctor added, hurriedly, guessing what was passing in the
mind of the old woman.
"Ye can just tell James Piper I'll have none o' his money. The very
impudence o' him to offer it! It's to help the children and Miss
Sophia, an' not fer any consideration o' that sour-faced dragon, that I
go," Nancy flung back her reply in a somewhat scornful manner.
"I'll go now, but will see you there in the morning," Doctor Dodona
called, as he hastened away.
"So that's how the wind blows," Nancy muttered, thoughtfully, as she
watched him depart; then she laughed softly in spite of the bad news.
Mrs. Conors, growing very feeble, was garrulously comfortable before
the fire in Nancy McVeigh's kitchen. She was in a happy frame of mind,
as her worldly anxieties were now very much a dream of the past. Nancy
herself, with her strong, resolute face, her kindly eyes and tall gaunt
frame, enrobed in a plain, home-made black dress, was setting things to
rights in the home of James Piper. Her coming brought order, and a
fearless performance of the doctor's commands. She was a herald of
fresh hope, and carried into the gloomy house her sense of restful
security. Her sixty-five years of life, a portion of which was spent
as proprietress of a tavern, wherein the worst element of a rough
countryside disported itself, had given her nerves of steel, and yet
the chords to her heart were tuned to the finest feelings of sympathy.
Sophia Piper felt the glow of her presence as she lay tossing and
moaning in the first grips of the malady. The children cried less
frequently, and Willie's temperature lowered two points by the doctor's
thermometer after the first day's service of the new nurse. And yet
Nancy only went about doing the doctor's wishes and whispering to each
in her motherly way. Her confidence in herself seemed to exert a
pleasing influence with the sick ones, and then she was so strong. The
hours of night found her wakeful to the slightest noise, yet patient
with their fretful humors, and in the morning she came to them as fresh
as a new flower in spring.
Doctor Dodona noticed the change, and marvelled. He came morning and
evening, and each time sat a long while by Miss Sophia's bedside. He
was wondering why he had never guessed something long before, and he
did not suspect that Nancy read him like an open book. He had known
Sophia for years, had gone to the same school with her, had worked by
her side on committees of the charitable and religious organizations of
the county, and here he was on the verge of confirmed bachelorhood and
only learning the rudiments of love.
"His heart's fair breakin' fer her," was Nancy's muttered comment.
Then came the long night's fight for the life of Annie, the little
daughter of James Piper. A struggle where only two could join, the
doctor and the Widow McVeigh, as the infectious nature of the disease
forbade any assistance from without. Annie's illness had taken a very
serious turn just as the doctor arrived on his evening call. He
studied her case for a long ten minutes, and then he remarked to Nancy,
"It is the crisis." Nancy smiled, not that his words amused her, but
rather as an expression of her confidence in her powers to hold the
spark of life in the little body. From then until early dawn they
watched her, the life flickering like a spent torch in the wind. The
doctor had taken extreme measures to combat the disease, and his
greatest fear was that his efforts to cure might have a contrary effect
by reason of the frailty of the child. Once he despaired, but, looking
up, caught a momentary glint of steel in Nancy's eyes. His very fear
that she might detect his weakness compelled him to continue. For ten
hours she sat with the child on a pillow in her lap, apparently
impassive, yet conscious of the slightest change in the hot, gasping
breathing. Occasionally the doctor arose and passed into the room
where the others lay, to see that they were not suffering through lack
of attention. Returning from one of these silent visits, just as the
sun shot its first shafts of light under the window blind, he noted a
change in the little maid.
"She'll live," he declared.
"I've not been doubtin' the fact at all, at all," Nancy responded,
bravely trying to cover her weariness.
From that night both children began to mend rapidly, and more time was
left for the care of the elder patient. The case of Miss Sophia was
somewhat different. Her age made it a much more difficult problem to
unseat the poison from her system. It had committed sad ravages with
her constitution before she had given in, and though Dr. Dodona felt
reasonably certain that he could check the trouble, yet it seemed
doubtful if her strength would sustain the fight.
As the days passed he could see plainly that she was unimproved. His
professional training told him that, and he threw into the work all the
skill that he possessed. He suddenly became conscious that he had lost
some of the assurance in himself which had been the backbone of his
former successes, but it took him a short while to comprehend fully his
own incapacity. As he drove over the miles of snowy road into town,
after an evening at her bedside, the truth became a conviction in his
mind. His heart was too deeply concerned, and it had shattered his
nerves.
He wired to the city for a specialist before going to his home. Next
morning he told Nancy McVeigh of his action. That good old soul fell
in with the idea on the spot, and her comments caused him to turn away
his face in foolish embarrassment.
"It's what I have been expectin' ye to do all along, but I didn't care
to suggest it to ye before, as yer professional pride might not welcome
my interference. It's her poor, thin face an' her smile that kapes yer
mind from the rale doctorin'. Ye just git a smart man from the city,
an' it'll do ye both a power o' good," she said.
When he was gone Nancy went to the sick-chamber.
"Are ye able to stand good news?" she inquired.
Miss Sophia turned her face towards her, and smiled encouragingly.
"Surely, if it is really bright and hopeful," she replied, weakly.
"Ye may suppose I'm takin' liberties wi' yer privit concerns, but ye
will learn to fergive me whin ye are well an' the spring is here again
wi' its quiet sunshine, its flowers an' the grass growin' by the
roadside wi' patterns worked in dandelions like a foine carpet."
"I love the spring!" Miss Piper exclaimed, with animation.
It had seemed a wonderful thing to the doctor, the power to rouse the
suffering woman contained in the homely phrases of Nancy McVeigh.
"As if that was all to love," Nancy impatiently returned. "Did it ever
come right home to yer heart that ye loved a man an' ye didn't
recognize the feelin' fer a long time afterwards. Fer instance, one
who is makin' piles o' money out o' the ills o' others?" she added,
pausing in her dusting to gaze shrewdly at her friend.
"It's all a riddle to me," Miss Sophia answered, although her words
betrayed a rising interest.
"Aye, a foine riddle, to be sure, an' one that has its answer in the
face of Doctor Dodona."
Sophia Piper's pallid face suddenly changed color, and she frowned
irritably. Nancy sat down on the foot of the bed and took the sick
woman's hand in her own long, hardened fingers.
"Ye must get well soon, dearie; the doctor's fair beside himself
thinkin' he might lose ye, an' he can scarce compose himself long
enough to mix his own medicines. He's a lonely man; can't ye see it,
child?"
"Do you think so?" Miss Sophia whispered, wonderingly.
"It's not a matter o' thinkin', it's the rale truth, so it is. What is
that rhyme I hear the young ones say, 'Somethin' borrowed, somethin'
blue, somethin' old and somethin' new'? May I be somethin' old at yer
weddin'?" Nancy asked, tenderly.
Miss Sophia drew the old woman's hand to her cheek and kissed it
affectionately.
'Twas after the above conversation that Sophia Piper began to evince a
determined desire to recover her health.
"Will the doctor be here this afternoon?" she asked.
"Ye couldn't kape him away. He's bringin' a friend wi' him, too,"
Nancy vouchsafed.
"Then you'll please tidy my hair, and have the curtains drawn back from
the windows so that the sun can shine in the room," she ordered,
sweetly.
"An' I'll put some fresh flowers on yer table," Nancy agreed.
The specialist came in the afternoon. He was a portly man, with
iron-grey hair, clean-shaven face and a habit of emphasizing his
remarks by beating time to them with his spectacles. He examined the
patient thoroughly, whilst Dr. Dodona stood by deferentially, though
impatiently, awaiting his opinion. Then they adjourned to another
apartment, and the great man carefully diagnosed the case to his
_confrère_. "She has been very ill," he admitted, summing up the loose
ends of his notations, "but I see no necessity for a change in your
remedies.
"Do you not see a recent improvement?" he asked, shortly.
Dr. Dodona shrugged his shoulders. "Since last night, yes."
"Continue as you have been doing. I will give you a few written
suggestions as to diet and tonic," the specialist explained, and then
he dropped his professional air and slapped his fellow-practitioner
familiarly on the shoulder.
"You were afraid because you have lost your heart as well as your
nerve. Is that a correct diagnosis?" he asked jovially.
"Evidently you have diagnosed symptoms in the wrong party," Dr. Dodona
answered, drily.
"You had better settle it while I am here," advised the city medical
man, who showed much aptitude for other things than cases of perverse
illness.
"By Jove, I will!" the doctor burst out, and in he went with a rash
disregard of the noise he was making. He did not heed the warning
"Sh-h!" of the widow McVeigh, so engrossed was he in his mission.
Sophia Piper's face lit up with a glad welcome, and she held her hands
towards her lover in perfect understanding.
"Hivin bless them! In all me experience I have niver met with such a
love-sick pair before. They're old enough to be more discreet," Nancy
observed to the specialist, who chatted with her whilst the two were
settling their future happiness.
"And you are a judge of human nature, too?" put in the learned man,
admiringly.
"The older we git the wiser we grow, sometimes," was Nancy's retort.