The next day Salome was seized with a severe headache. She did not leave
the house, and of course I did not see her, as she stayed in her room
upstairs. We felt no especial concern, although she was not accustomed
to such attacks, and with the coming of night her head grew easier. I
went out after supper to pace up and down the avenue, to smoke my pipe,
and to watch the windows of her room. I remained in the yard till nearly
eleven, and the light was still burning when I went in. The next morning
Mrs. Grundy told me that Salome had some fever, and that a doctor had
been sent for. I heard the news in silent fear, and my heart sank. I
longed to tell this good old woman what her daughter was to me; but
Salome had said nothing about it, and I could not speak without her
consent.
The doctor came, an important-looking young fellow whom I felt inclined
to kick off the porch the moment he set foot on it. When he descended
from the sick room he pompously announced that it was only an ordinary
cold, which would quickly disappear before the remedies which he had
left. But the days went by, and she grew no better, and I never saw her.
How my heart hungered for a glance of her sweet face; how my eyes longed
to look into the clear, brown depths of hers. One morning I was told
that a leading physician from Louisville had been summoned. Dr. Yandel
came--and stayed. Typhoid fever is a grim foe which requires vigilance
as well as medical skill.
I went about like one distraught with a cold hand gripping my heart. It
was then she asked to see me. I went to her room for a few moments, and
came out with my face gray, and a pitiful, broken prayer to God. Two
weeks--and one night they came for me. Like a broken, shattered lily she
lay, but her lips smiled with their last breath, and whispered--"Abner."
Blinded and weak, I groped my way out into the night, and sat down. My
yellow dog found me, and crept, whining, between my knees. When I lifted
my stricken face to the sky, I thought I saw a misty shallop touch the
strand of heaven, and a slender white figure with brown hair step onto
the plains of Paradise.
* * * * *