A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
Lady added, “Please, Myrtella, don't be so frightened. Those cries come
from the floor below.”
Myrtella shook off her hand impatiently. “How long have they been gone?
Why didn't you tell me they was going to keep him hours and hours?”
“It's only been twenty minutes. I know how anxious you are, but you must
try to be calm. If you aren't they won't let you go in the room when
they bring him down.”
“Won't let me in the room!” Myrtella's face blazed with anger. “I'd like
to see 'em stop me! Who's got a better right? The doctor? The nurse?
You? There ain't none of you got the right to him I have. Ain't I his
mother?”
Miss Lady looked at her with amazement, and shrank instinctively from
the desperate, defiant woman.
“That's right!” cried Myrtella, almost beside herself. “Snatch your hand
off my arm, shrink away from me like I was a leper! Tell everybody, tell
the police that I throwed my baby in the ash barrel and abandoned it! It
don't make no difference now, nothin' makes no difference but Chick. Oh,
my God! How long have they been?”
“They will be down very soon now, Myrtella. Don't tear your handkerchief
like that. Here, take mine.”
But Myrtella's eyes were too full of terror for tears; she sat with her
hands locked about her knees swaying to and fro.
“I've never told nobody,” she went on wildly; “all these years I've kept
it bottled up in my soul 'til it's eat it plumb out. I never done it to
Chick! He wasn't Chick then. He was just somethin' that belonged to a
devil. Then he growed to be Chick, and all my hate turned to love, and
now God's gittin' even, I knowed He would! He wouldn't let him live now,
just to spite me!”
“Myrtella!” Miss Lady's voice commanded indignantly. “Don't you dare say
such things! Who knows but this very minute God's giving Chick back to
you? Perhaps He is taking this way of showing you He forgives you. Pray
to Him, Myrtella! Ask Him to do what's best for Chick, whatever it may
be.”
Myrtella's head had sunken on her knees, and her coarse, work-hardened
hands were clinging to Miss Lady's slender ones.
Suddenly they both started. The elevator descended creakingly and halted
beside them. There was a shuffling of feet and the stretcher was wheeled
past with a small, white-sheeted form lying motionless upon it.
“It's all over,” said Dr. Wyeth, following briskly. “He put up a pretty
stiff fight while taking the anesthetic, but we downed him at last.
The conditions were less serious than I anticipated. With care and
good nursing he ought to get well right away now. Hello! Here's another
patient!”
For Myrtella, glaring at him through her steel-rimmed spectacles, had
dropped like a log straight across the corridor and lay unconscious with
her fly-away hat crushed under one ear.
“Loosen her collar,” directed Dr. Wyeth, “and bring me some ice water.
There! She'll come around in a minute.”
He knelt beside her with his hand on her pulse, looking at her
curiously. Then he turned to Miss Lady:
“Queer how faces come back to you. I attended this woman twelve years
ago, when I was interne in the maternity ward at the City Hospital.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
As the sixth of November approached, Donald Morley's friends for the
first time became seriously apprehensive over the result of his final
trial. The fact that he had engaged an unknown, inexperienced lawyer to
cope with the redoubtable Kinner, was looked upon as his crowning
folly. The case, which had always excited considerable local interest on
account of the prominence of the families involved, now became a matter
of much graver significance, concerning, as it did, the author of
“Khalil Samad,” the most talked-about book of the hour.
Miss Lady, alone at Thornwood now, except for Bertie and Myrtella,
fought through the days as best she could. Since Connie's confession she
had seen little of her, for after a round of visits in the Blue Grass
region, that restless young person had been with friends in town, and
was still there when the date set for the trial arrived.
Up to this time Miss Lady had conquered in the hourly struggle she was
making with her own heart. Again and again Donald had tried to see
her, but on one pretext or another she had evaded him. She was puzzled,
bewildered, and hopelessly wretched, and she asked herself repeatedly
why her happiness should be sacrificed for that of a shallow,
irresponsible butterfly. For Donald, she had no blame, he had drifted
into this affair with Connie when his need was greatest, and now that
his honor was involved as well as hers, there must be no turning back.
But when the second day of the trial dawned, and she came down after a
sleepless night to read discouraging news reports of the previous day's
proceedings, she found that something stronger than herself was taking
possession of her. In vain did she try to fulfil her accustomed tasks.
Every atom of her was there in the courthouse beside Donald Morley,
standing trial with him. Twice she flung on her coat and hat, only to
take them off again, and stand at the window impatiently watching the
storm.
For the long summer had finally come to an end. After days of radiant
October sunshine, when winter seemed, like the hereafter, vague and
far off, a wind came rushing out of the north, stripping the trees in a
single night, and leaving them surprised at their sudden nakedness. Then
the sleet came, and, not content with attacking trees and shrubs, must
storm the house itself, invading windows and doors, besieging every
nook and corner, only to waste away at last into icy streams that went
rattling noisily down the gutters.
As the morning wore on Miss Lady grew more and more restless. Suppose
the preposterous should happen, and for the second time twelve honest
men should pronounce an innocent man guilty? Could Connie face the
ignominy of the verdict? Would her fickle, inconstant heart steady to
such a test? Suppose that once again the person on whom Donald Morley
depended, should fail him in a supreme hour?
For the third time Miss Lady threw on her wraps. She could no longer
stand the suspense, she must go to him, in case he needed her.
“'Fore de Lawd!” exclaimed Uncle Jimpson when her intention was made
known to him. “I dunno what ole John'll think of us, takin' him to de
station a day lak dis! 'Sides de noon train's done went.”
“Then we'll have to drive to town. Hitch up as quickly as you can!”
“But, Miss Lady, Honey, you fergit de sleet! Ole John 'ud slide 'round
de road lak a fly on a bald spot.”
“No matter! I'm going. Hurry!”
Myrtella, who was fashioning a dough man, under the personal supervision
of Bert, looked up indignantly:
“You don't think you are going out in this storm without no lunch, do
you?”
“I can't eat anything, I'm not hungry.”
“That's what you said at breakfast. I ain't got a bit of patience with
people that get theirselves sick in bed and be a nuisance to everybody,
just for the pleasure of slopping around in the slush on a day like
this. I'm going to fix you some toast and a egg, while he's hitchin'
up.”
“Go on with the story, 'Telia,” demanded Bertie, carefully bestowing a
nose on the dough man.
“Well,” resumed Myrtella, from the stove, casting an anxious glance
at Miss Lady who stood at the window impatiently tapping the pane,
“everbody was a wonderin' what would be his very first words, an' Dr.
Wyeth he sez, 'Don't pester him to talk, jes' let it come natural.'
One day me an' the nurse, the stuck-up one I was tellin' you 'bout, was
fixin' to spray out his throat, an' he look so curious at all the little
rubber tubes, an' fixin's, that she sez, 'You'll know a lot when you
leave here, Chick.' And what do you think he up an' answered? Just as
smart an' plain as if he'd a been talkin' all his life?”
“What?” demanded Bertie as breathlessly as if he hadn't heard the story
a dozen times.
“'Shucks', sez Chick, 'I knowed a lot when I come!'” Myrtella's pride in
this first articulation of her offspring was so great that it rendered
her oblivious to the fact that the toast was scorching.
“When will you be able to bring Chick home?” asked Miss Lady, gulping
down the hot tea with a watchful eye on the stable door.
“Jes' as soon as the doctor quits foolin' with his throat every day.
He's been gittin' on fine ever' since I took him back to Phineas'.
Maria's gittin' right stuck on him, now she's got to give him up. Says
she always knowed he was smart, but she never dreamed of the things he
had bottled up in his head.”
“I haven't forgotten about your house,” said Miss Lady absently. “Dr.
Wyeth knows a nice place down on Chestnut Street, and says you can make
a good living letting the rooms to shop girls. It isn't right for me to
keep you out here any longer.”
“Well, I ain't goin' 'til spring.” Myrtella rattled the pans with
unnecessary vehemence. “Me an' Chick's goin' to stay right here 'til we
git you settled. Now that Mr. Gooch has got a spell of spendin', an' is
sendin' Miss Hattie to college, I guess she's settled fer a spell. Like
as not Miss Connie'll be marryin' some smart-alecky, good-fer-nothin'
fellow, then she'll be settled. But what's goin' to become of you and
Bertie?”
Miss Lady leaned impulsively over the child's back as he knelt in a
chair beside the table, and kissed the bit of neck that showed between
the collar and the curls: “Bert and I?” she repeated with a little catch
in her voice; “why, we'll have to take care of each other, won't we,
Bert?”
CHAPTER XXIX
The Flathers' family was indulging in a birthday party. The table, set
in the bedroom so that Chick might participate, was decorated at one end
by a gorgeous pink cake, bearing a single candle, and at the other
by Loreny herself, blue of eye, and chubby of cheek, who crawled
triumphantly about among the dishes, bestowing equal attention on the
sugar bowl and the molasses jug, only pausing to emit ecstatic screams
when a rough, red head appeared above the table rim.
In the bed, propped on pillows and with throat bandaged, Chick executed
a lively tune with knife and fork on his plate, while Maria Flathers
dedicated herself to the task of preventing Loreny May from putting her
blue-slippered foot in the butter.
Without, the sleet pelted the windows, and the red top of Mr. Iseling's
wagon waiting at the gate. It whistled and rattled down Bean Alley
and converted the telegraph wires into cables of ice. But the Flathers
family, luxuriating in the unusual extravagance of an open fire, and
cheered by the hilarity of the occasion, was happily oblivious to the
storm until a sharp rap at the door brought the redheaded bear from
under the table to answer the summons.
“Well, if it ain't Mis' Squeerington!” cried Phineas Flathers
effusively. “Out in all this storm! But I ain't surprised. Didn't I tell
you, Maria, that I knowed she'd bring the baby a birthday present? Come
up to the fire, mam. Maria git her a rocker.”
“No, no!” cried Miss Lady breathlessly. “I can't stay. I must get
to town. My horse broke down in the bridge, and I'm on my way to the
Junction to see if I can't get on the next train when it stops for
water. I want you to go over and help me on.”
“Next train don't stop. It's a express. The local ain't due fer a hour
an' a half. You ain't fit to go on yit, mam, nohow. I never seen you
all in like this before! Maria, can't you fix her up a cup of coffee or
somethin'?”
Miss Lady shook her head, and leaned wearily against the mantel.
“I'll be all right. Are you sure about the trains?”
“Sure az the taxes. You're in fer a wait, an' we'll git a nice little
visit out of you. Guess you are 'sprised to see me home this time of
day?”
“I hadn't thought about it.”
“Well, you see it's her birthday, an' tor_m_adoes couldn't 'a' kept me