Little by little the water went down. The pressure, already considerably
relieved by the channel into Stearn's Bayou, slackened every hour. Orde,
still half dazed with his long-delayed sleep, drove back along the marsh
road to town.
His faculties were still in the torpor that follows rest after
exhaustion. The warm July sun, the breeze from the Lake, the flash of
light from the roadside water, these were all he had room for among his
perceptions. He was content to enjoy them, and to anticipate drowsily
the keen pleasure of seeing Carroll again. In the rush of the jam he had
heard nothing from her. For all he knew she and Bobby might have been
among the spectators on the bank; he had hardly once left the river. It
did not seem to him strange that Carroll should not have been there to
welcome him after the struggle was over. Rarely did she get to the booms
in ordinary circumstances. This episode of the big jam was, after all,
nothing but part of the day's work to Orde; a crisis, exaggerated it is
true, but like many other crises a man must meet and cope with on the
river. There was no reason why Carroll should drive the twelve miles
between Monrovia and the booms, unless curiosity should take her.
As the team left the marsh road for the county turnpike past the mills
and lumberyards, Orde shook himself fully awake. He began to review
the situation. As Newmark had accurately foreseen, he came almost
immediately to a realisation that the firm would not be able to meet
the notes given to Heinzman. Orde had depended on the profits from the
season's drive to enable him to make up the necessary amount. Those
profits would be greatly diminished, if not wiped out entirely, by the
expenses, both regular and irregular, incurred in holding the jam; by
the damage suits surely to be brought by the owners of the piles, trees,
pile-drivers and other supplies and materials requisitioned in the heat
of the campaign; and by the extra labour necessary to break out the jam
and to sort the logs according to their various destinations.
“I'll have to get an extension of time,” said Orde to himself. “Of
course Joe will let me have more time on my own personal note to the
firm. And Heinzman surely ought to--I saved a lot of his logs in that
jam. And if he doesn't want to, I guess an offer of a little higher
interest will fetch him.”
Ordinarily the state of affairs would have worried him, for it was
exactly the situation he had fought against so hard. But now he was too
wearied in soul and body. He dismissed the subject from his mind. The
horses, left almost to themselves, lapsed into a sleepy jog. After a
little they passed the bridge and entered the town. Warm spicy odours of
pine disengaged themselves from the broken shingles and sawdust of the
roadway, and floated upward through the hot sunshine. The beautiful
maples with their dense shadows threw the sidewalks into coolness.
Up one street and down another the horses took their accustomed way.
Finally they pulled up opposite the Orde house. Orde hitched the horses,
and, his step quickening in anticipation, sprang up the walk and into
the front door.
“Hullo, sweetheart!” he called cheerily.
The echoes alone answered him. He cried again, and yet again, with a
growing feeling of disappointment that Carroll should happen to be from
home. Finally a door opened and shut in the back part of the house. A
moment later Mary, the Irish servant girl, came through the dining-room,
caught sight of Orde, threw her apron over her head, and burst into
one of those extravagant demonstrations of grief peculiar to the
warm-hearted of her class.
Orde stopped short, a sinking at his heart.
“What is it, Mary?” he asked very quietly.
But the girl only wept the louder, rocking back and forth in a fresh
paroxysm of grief. Beside himself with anxiety Orde sprang forward
to shake her by the arm, to shower her with questions. These elicited
nothing but broken and incoherent fragments concerning “the missus,”
“oh, the sad day!” “and me lift all alone with Bobby, me heart
that heavy,” and the like, which served merely to increase Orde's
bewilderment and anxiety. At this moment Bobby himself appeared from the
direction of the kitchen. Orde, frantic with alarm, fell upon his son.
Bobby, much bewildered by all this pother, could only mumble something
about “smallpox,” and “took mamma away with doctor.”
“Where? where, Bobby?” cried Orde, fairly shaking the small boy by the
shoulder. He felt like a man in a bad dream, trying to reach a goal that
constantly eluded him.
At this moment a calm, dry voice broke through the turmoil of questions
and exclamations. Orde looked up to see the tall, angular form of Doctor
McMullen standing in the doorway.
“It's all right,” said the doctor in answer to Orde's agonised
expression. “Your wife was exposed to smallpox and is at my house to
avoid the danger of spreading contagion. She is not ill.”
Having thus in one swift decisive sentence covered the ground of Orde's
anxiety, he turned to the sniffling servant.
“Mary,” said he sternly, “I'm ashamed of you! What kind of an exhibition
is this? Go out to the kitchen and cook us some lunch!” He watched her
depart with a humourous quirk to his thin lips. “Fool Irish!” he said
with a Scotchman's contempt. “I meant to head you off before you got
home, but I missed you. Come in and sit down, and I'll tell you about
it.”
“You're quite sure Mrs. Orde is well?” insisted Orde.
“Absolutely. Never better. As well as you are.”
“Where was she exposed?”
“Down at Heinzman's. You know--or perhaps you don't--that old Heinzman
is the worst sort of anti-vaccination crank. Well, he's reaped the
reward.”
“Has he smallpox?” asked Orde. “Why, I thought I remembered seeing him
up river only the other day.”
“No; his daughter.”
“Mina?”
“Yes. Lord knows where she got it. But get it she did. Mrs. Orde
happened to be with her when she was taken with the fever and
distressing symptoms that begin the disease. As a neighbourly deed she
remained with the girl. Of course no one could tell it was smallpox at
that time. Next day, however, the characteristic rash appeared on the
thighs and armpits, and I diagnosed the case.” Dr. McMullen laughed
a little bitterly. “Lord, you ought to have seen them run! Servants,
neighbours, friends--they all skedaddled, and you couldn't have driven
them back with a steam-roller! I telegraphed to Redding for a nurse.
Until she came Mrs. Orde stayed by, like a brick. Don't know what I
should have done without her. There was nobody to do anything at all.
As soon as the nurse came Mrs. Orde gave up her post. I tell you,”
cried Doctor McMullen with as near an approach to enthusiasm as he ever
permitted himself, “there's a sensible woman! None of your story-book
twaddle about nursing through the illness, and all that. When her
usefulness was ended, she knew enough to step aside gracefully. There
was not much danger as far as she was concerned. I had vaccinated her
myself, you know, last year. But she MIGHT take the contagion and she
wanted to spare the youngster. Quite right. So I offered her quarters
with us for a couple of weeks.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Orde, who had listened with a warm glow
of pride to the doctor's succinct statement.
“Seven days.”
“How is Mina getting on?”
“She'll get well. It was a mild case. Fever never serious after the
eruption appeared. I suppose I'll have old Heinzman on my hands,
though.”
“Why; has he taken it?”
“No; but he will. Emotional old German fool. Rushed right in when he
heard his daughter was sick. Couldn't keep him out. And he's been with
her or near her ever since.”
“Then you think he's in for it?”
“Sure to be,” replied Dr. McMullen. “Unless a man has been vaccinated,
continuous exposure means infection in the great majority of cases.”
“Hard luck,” said Orde thoughtfully. “I'm going to step up to your house
and see Mrs. Orde.”
“You can telephone her,” said the doctor. “And you can see her if you
want to. Only in that case I should advise your remaining away from
Bobby until we see how things turn out.”
“I see,” said Orde. “Well,” he concluded with a sigh, after a moment's
thought, “I suppose I'd better stay by the ship.”
He called up Dr. McMullen's house on the telephone.
“Oh, it's good to hear your voice again,” cried Carroll, “even if I
can't see you! You must promise me right after lunch to walk up past the
house so I can see you. I'll wave at you from the window.”
“You're a dear, brave girl, and I'm proud of you,” said Orde.
“Nonsense! There was no danger at all. I'd been vaccinated recently. And
somebody had to take care of poor Mina until we could get help. How's
Bobby?”