for three days little raby had been so ill that the doctor had not left the house day nor night, except for imperative calls from other patients. each night the paroxysms of croup returned with great severity, and the little fellow's strength seemed fast giving way under them. sally and hetty, his two mothers, were very differently affected by the grief they bore in common. sally was speechless, calm, almost dogged in her silence. when dr. eben trying to comfort her, said:
“don't feel so, mrs. little: i think we shall pull the boy through all right.” she looked up in his face, and shook her head, speaking no word. “i am not saying it merely to comfort you; indeed, i am not, mrs. little,” said the doctor. “i really believe he will get well. these attacks of croup seem much worse than they really are.”
“i don't know that it comforts me,” replied sally, speaking very slowly. “i don't know that i want him to live; but i think perhaps he might be allowed to die easier, if i didn't need so much punishing. it is worse than death to see him suffer so.”
“oh, mrs. little! how can you think thus of god?” exclaimed the doctor. “he never treats us like that, any more than you could raby.”
“the minister at the corners said so,” moaned sally. “he said it was till the third and fourth generations.”
at such moments, dr. eben, in his heart, thought undevoutly of ministers. “a bruised reed, he will not break,” came to his mind, often as he looked at this anguish-stricken woman, watching her only child's suffering, and morbidly believing that it was the direct result of her own sin. but dr. eben found little time to spare for his ministrations to sally, when hetty was in such distress. he had never seen any thing like it. she paced the house like a wounded lioness. she could not bear to stay in the room: all day, all night, she walked, walked, walked; now in the hall outside his door; now in the rooms below. every few moments, she questioned the doctor fiercely: “is he no better?” “will he have another?” “can't you do something more?” “do you think there is a possibility that any other doctor might know something you do not?” “shan't i send cæsar over to springton for dr. wilkes; he might think of something different?” these, and a thousand other such questions, hetty put to the harassed and tortured dr. eben, over and over, till even his loving patience was wellnigh outworn. it was strengthened, however, by his anxiety for her. she did not eat; she did not drink; she looked haggard and feverish. this child had been to her from the day of his birth like her own: she loved him with all the pent-up forces of the great womanhood within her, which thus far had not found the natural outlet of its affections.
“doctor,” she would cry vehemently, “why should raby die? god never means that any children should die. it is all our ignorance and carelessness; all the result of broken law. i've heard you say a hundred times, that it is a thwarting of god's plan whenever a child dies: why don't you cure raby?”
“that is all true, hetty,” dr. eben would reply; “all very true: it is a thwarting of god's plan whenever any human being dies before he is fully ripe of old age. but the accumulated weight of generations of broken law is on our heads. raby's little life has been all well ordered, so far as we can see; but, farther back, was something wrong or he would not be ill today. i have done my best to learn, in my little life, all that is known of methods of cure; but i have only the records of human ignorance to learn from, and i must fail again and again.”
at last, on the fourth night, raby slept: slept for hours, quietly, naturally, and with a gentle dew on his fair forehead. the doctor sat motionless by his bed and watched him. sally, exhausted by the long watch, had fallen asleep on a lounge. the sound of hetty's restless steps, in the hall outside, had ceased for some time. the doctor sat wondering uneasily where she had gone. she had not entered the room for more than an hour; the house grew stiller and stiller; not a sound was to be heard except little raby's heavy breathing, and now and then one of those fine and mysterious noises which the timbers of old houses have a habit of making in the night-time. at last the lover got the better of the physician. doctor eben rose, and, stealing softly to the door, opened it as cautiously as a thief. all was dark.
“hetty,” he whispered. no answer. he looked back at raby. the child was sleeping so soundly it seemed impossible that he could wake for some time. doctor eben groped his way to the head of the great stairway, and listened again. all was still.
“hetty!” he called in a low voice, “hetty!” no answer.
“she must have fallen asleep somewhere. she will surely take cold,” the doctor said to himself; persuading his conscience that it was his duty to go and find her. slowly feeling his way, he crept down the staircase. on the last step but one, he suddenly stumbled, fell, and barely recovered himself by his firm hold of the banisters, in time to hear hetty's voice in a low imperious whisper:
“good heavens, doctor! what do you want?”
“oh hetty! did i hurt you?” he exclaimed; “i never dreamed of your being on the stairs.”
“i sat down a minute to listen. it was all so still in the room, i was frightened; and i must have been asleep a good while, i think, i am so cold,” answered hetty; her teeth beginning to chatter, and her whole body shaking with cold. “why, how dark it is!” she continued; “the hall lamp has gone out: let me get a match.”
but dr. eben had her two cold hands in his. “no, hetty,” he said, “come right back into the room: raby is so sound asleep it will not wake him; and sally is asleep too;” and he led her slowly towards the door. the night-lamp was burning low; its pale flame, and the flickering blaze of the big hickory logs on the hearth, made a glimmering twilight, whose fantastic lights and shadows shot out through the door-way into the gloom of the hall. as the first of these lights fell on hetty's face, dr. eben started to see how white it was. involuntarily he put his arm around her; and exclaimed “how pale you are, my poor hetty! you are all worn out;” and, half supporting her with his arm, he laid his free hand gently on her hair.
hetty was very tired; very cold; half asleep, and half frightened. she dropped her head on his shoulder for a second, and said: “oh, what a comfort you are!”
the words had hardly left her lips when doctor eben threw both his arms around her, and held her tightly to his breast, whispering:
“indeed, i will be a comfort to you, hetty, if you will only let me.”
hetty struggled and began to speak.
“hush! you will wake raby,” he said, and still held her firmly, looking unpityingly down into her face. “you do love me, hetty,” he whispered triumphantly.
the front stick on the fire broke, fell in two blazing upright brands to right and left, and cast a sudden flood of light on the two figures in the door-way. sally and raby slept on. still doctor eben held hetty close, and looked with a keen and exultant gaze into her eyes.
“it isn't fair when i am so cold and sleepy,” whispered hetty, with a half twinkle in her half-open eyes.
“it is fair! it is fair! any thing is fair! every thing is fair,” exclaimed the doctor in a whisper which seemed to ring like a shout, and he kissed hetty again and again. still sally and raby slept on: the hickory fire leaped up as in joy; and a sudden wind shook the windows.
hetty struggled once more to free herself, but the arms were like arms of oak.
“say that you love me, hetty,” pleaded the doctor.
“when you let me go, perhaps i will,” whispered hetty.
instantly the arms fell; and the doctor stood opposite her in the door-way, his head bent forward and his eyes fixed on her face.
hetty cast her eyes down. words did not come. it would have been easier to have said them while she was held close to doctor eben's side. suddenly, before he had a suspicion of what she was about to do, she had darted away, was lost in the darkness, and in a second more he heard her door shut at the farther end of the hall.
dr. eben laughed a low and pleasant laugh. “she might as well have said it,” he thought: “she will say it to-morrow. i have won!” and he sank into the great white dimity-covered chair, at the head of raby's bed, and looked into the fire. the very coals seemed to marshal themselves into shapes befitting his triumph: castles rose and fell; faces grew, smiled, and faded away smiling; roses and lilies and palms glowed ruby red, turned to silver, and paled into spiritual gray. the silence of the night seemed resonant with a very symphony of joy. still sally and raby slept on. the boy's sweet face took each hour a more healthful tint; and, as doctor eben watched the blessed change, he said to himself:
“what a night! what a night! two lives saved! raby's and mine.” as the morning drew near, he threw up the shades of the eastern window, and watched for the dawn. “i will see this day's sun rise,” he said with a thrill of devout emotion; and he watched the horizon while it changed like a great flower calyx from gray to pearly yellow, from yellow to pale green, and at last, when it could hold back the day no longer, to a vast rose red with a golden sun in its centre.
