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Read Ebook: From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound by Higginson Ella
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Ebook has 1399 lines and 56036 words, and 28 pages
Mrs. Ferguson lay on a couch. A white cloth was banded around her head, coming well down over one eye. She was moaning bitterly.
Demaris looked at her without speaking.
"Where on earth you been?" She gave the girl a look of fierce reproach. "A body might die, fer all the help you'd be to 'em. Here I've been a-feelin' a spell a-comin' on all day, an' yet you go a-gaddin' 'round to the neighbors, leavin' me to get along the best way I know how. I believe this is my last spell. I've got that awful pain over my right eye ag'in, till I'm nearly crazy. My liver's all out o' order."
Demaris was silent. When one has heard the cry of "wolf" a hundred times, one is inclined to be incredulous. Her apathetic look angered her mother.
"What makes you stand there a-starin' like a dunce? Can't you help a body? Get the camfire bottle an' the tincture lobelia an' the box o' goose grease! You know's well's me what I need when I git a spell. I'm so nervous I feel's if I c'u'd fly. I got a horrible feelin' that this'll be my last spell--an' yet you stand there a-starin' 's if you didn't care a particle!"
Demaris moved about the room stiffly, as if every muscle in her body were in rebellion. She took from a closet filled with drugs the big camphor bottle with its cutglass stopper, the little bottle labeled "tinc. lobelia," and the box of goose grease.
She placed a chair at the side of the couch to hold the bottle. "Oh, take that old split-bottom cheer away!" exclaimed her mother. "Everything upsets on it so! Get one from the kitchen--the one that's got cherries painted on the back of it. What makes you ac' so? You know what cheer I want. You'd tantalize the soul out of a saint!"
The chair was brought. The bottles were placed upon it. Demaris stood waiting.
"Now rub my head with the camfire, or I'll go ravin' crazy. I can't think where 't comes from!"
The child stood twitching her thin fingers around a chair. She watched her mother in a matter-of-course way. Demaris leaned over the couch in an uncomfortable position and commenced the slow, gentle massage that must continue all night. She did not lift her eyes. They were full of tears.
For a long time there was silence in the room. Mrs. Ferguson lay with closed eyes. Her face wore a look of mingled injury and reproach.
"Nellie," said Demaris, after a while, "could you make a fire in the kitchen stove? Or would you rather try to do this while I build it?"
"Hunh-unh," said the child, shaking her head with emphasis. "I'd ruther build fires any time."
"All right. Put two dippers o' water 'n the tea-kettle. Be sure you get your dampers right. An' I guess you might wash some potatoes an' put 'em in to bake. They'll be done by time pa comes, an' he can stay with ma while I warm up the rest o' the things. Ma, what could you eat?"
"Oh, I do' know"--in a slightly mollified tone. "A piece o' toast, mebbe--'f you don't get it too all-fired hard."
"Well, I'll try not."
Nellie went out, and there was silence in the room. The wind came in through the open window, shaking little ripples of perfume into the room. The sun was setting and a broad band of reddish gold sunk down the wall.
Demaris watched it sinking lower, and thought how slowly the sun was settling behind the straight pines on the crests of the blue mountains.
"Oh," said Mrs. Ferguson, "what a wretched creature I am! Just a-sufferin' day an' night, year in an' year out, an' a burden on them that I've slaved fer all my life. Many's the night I've walked with you 'n my arms till mornin', Demaris, an' never knowed what it was to git sleepy or tired. An' now you git mad the minute I go into a spell."
Demaris stood upright with a tortured look.
"Oh, ma," she exclaimed. Her voice was harsh with pain. "I ain't mad. Don't think I'm mad. I can't cry out o' pity ev'ry time you have a spell, or I'd be cryin' all the time. An' besides, to-night I'm so--disappointed."
"What you disappointed about?"
"Why, you know." Her lips trembled. "The excursion."
Mrs. Ferguson opened her eyes.
"Oh, I'd clean fergot that."
She looked as if she were thinking she would really have postponed the spell, if she had remembered. "That's too bad, Demaris. That's always the way." She began to cry helplessly. "I'm always in the way. Always mis'rable myself, an' always makin' somebody else mis'rable. I don't see what I was born fer."
"Never you mind." Demaris leaned over suddenly and put her arms around her mother. "Don't you think I'm mad. I'm just disappointed. Now don't cry. You'll go and make yourself worse. An' there comes pa; I hear him cleanin' his boots on the scraper."
Mr. Ferguson stumbled as he came up the steps to the kitchen. He was very tired. He was not more than fifty, but his thin frame had a pitiable stoop. The look of one who has struggled long and failed was on his brown and wrinkled face. His hair and beard were prematurely gray. His dim blue eyes had a hopeless expression that was almost hidden by a deeper one of patience. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, moist with perspiration, and faded blue overalls. His boots were wrinkled and hard; the soil of the fields clung to them. "Sick ag'in, ma?" he said.
"Sick ag'in! Mis'rable creature that I am! I've got that awful pain over my right eye ag'in. I can't think where it comes from. I'm nearly crazy with it."
"Well, I guess you'll feel a little better after you git some tea. I'll go an' wash, an' then rub your head, while Demaris gits a bite to eat. I've plowed ever since sun-up, an' I'm tired an' hungry."
He returned in a few minutes, and took Demaris's place. He sighed deeply, but silently, as he sat down.
Demaris set the table and spread upon it the simple meal which she had prepared. "I'll stay with ma while you an' pa eat," said Nellie, with a sudden burst of unselfishness.
"Well," said Demaris, wearily.
Mr. Ferguson sat down at the table and leaned his head on his hand. "I'm too tired to eat," he said; "hungry's I am." He looked at the untempting meal of cold boiled meat, baked potatoes and apple sauce.
Demaris did not lift her eyes as she sat down. She felt that she ought to say something cheerful, but her heart was too full of her own disappointment. She despised her selfishness even while yielding to it.
"It does beat all about your ma," said her father. "I can't see where she gits that pain from. It ain't nothin' danger's or it 'u'd a-killed her long ago. It almost seems 's if she jests gits tired o' bein' well, an' begins to git scared fer fear that pain's a-comin' on--an' then it comes right on. I've heard her say lots o' times that she'd been well a whole week now, but that she w'u'dn't brag or that pain 'u'd come on--an' inside of an hour it 'ud up an' come on. It's awful discouragin'."
"I wish I was dead!" said Demaris.
Her father did not speak. His silence reproached her more than any words could have done.
When she went into the bedroom again she found her mother crying childishly.
"Demaris, did I hear you say you wished you was dead?"
"I guess so. I said it."
"Well, God Almighty knows I wish I was! You don't stop to think what 'u'd become o' me 'f it wa'n't fer you. Your pa c'u'dn't hire anybody, an' he's gittin' too old to set up o' nights after workin' hard all day. You'd like to see 't all come on your little sister, I reckon."
Demaris thought of those slim, weak wrists, and shivered. Her mother commenced to sob--and that aggravated the pain.
Demaris stooped and put her arms around her and kissed her.
"I'm sorry I said it," she whispered. "I didn't mean it. I'm just tired an' cross. You know I didn't mean it."
Her father came in heavily.
"Demaris," he said, "Frank Vickers is comin' 'round to the front door. I'll take keer o' your ma while you go in an' see him."
It was a radiant-faced young fellow that walked into Demaris's little parlor. He took her hand with a tenderness that brought the color beating into her cheeks.
"What?" he said. "An' you ain't ready? Why, the boat leaves in an hour, an' it's a good, long walk to the wharf. You'll have to hurry up, Demaris."
"I can't go."
"You can't go? Why can't you?"
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