Rilla of Ingleside
to be brave and cheerful, and I just gave up for a few days and spent
most of the time lying on my face on my bed, crying. I neglected
Jims--that is the hateful truth--I was cowardly and false to what I
promised Walter--and if Jims had died I could never have forgiven
myself.
"Then, the third night after father and mother went away, Jims suddenly
got worse--oh, so much worse--all at once. Susan and I were all alone.
Gertrude had been at Lowbridge when the storm began and had never got
back. At first we were not much alarmed. Jims has had several bouts of
croup and Susan and Morgan and I have always brought him through
without much trouble. But it wasn't very long before we were dreadfully
alarmed.
"'I never saw croup like this before,' said Susan.
"As for me, I knew, when it was too late, what kind of croup it was. I
knew it was not the ordinary croup--'false croup' as doctors call
it--but the 'true croup'--and I knew that it was a deadly and dangerous
thing. And father was away and there was no doctor nearer than
Lowbridge--and we could not 'phone and neither horse nor man could get
through the drifts that night.
"Gallant little Jims put up a good fight for his life,--Susan and I
tried every remedy we could think of or find in father's books, but he
continued to grow worse. It was heart-rending to see and hear him. He
gasped so horribly for breath--the poor little soul--and his face
turned a dreadful bluish colour and had such an agonized expression,
and he kept struggling with his little hands, as if he were appealing
to us to help him somehow. I found myself thinking that the boys who
had been gassed at the front must have looked like that, and the
thought haunted me amid all my dread and misery over Jims. And all the
time the fatal membrane in his wee throat grew and thickened and he
couldn't get it up.
"Oh, I was just wild! I never realized how dear Jims was to me until
that moment. And I felt so utterly helpless."
"And then Susan gave up. 'We cannot save him! Oh, if your father was
here--look at him, the poor little fellow! I know not what to do.'
"I looked at Jims and I thought he was dying. Susan was holding him up
in his crib to give him a better chance for breath, but it didn't seem
as if he could breathe at all. My little war-baby, with his dear ways
and sweet roguish face, was choking to death before my very eyes, and I
couldn't help him. I threw down the hot poultice I had ready in
despair. Of what use was it? Jims was dying, and it was my fault--I
hadn't been careful enough!
"Just then--at eleven o'clock at night--the door bell rang. Such a
ring--it pealed all over the house above the roar of the storm. Susan
couldn't go--she dared not lay Jims down--so I rushed downstairs. In
the hall I paused just a minute--I was suddenly overcome by an absurd
dread. I thought of a weird story Gertrude had told me once. An aunt of
hers was alone in a house one night with her sick husband. She heard a
knock at the door. And when she went and opened it there was nothing
there--nothing that could be seen, at least. But when she opened the
door a deadly cold wind blew in and seemed to sweep past her right up
the stairs, although it was a calm, warm summer night outside.
Immediately she heard a cry. She ran upstairs--and her husband was
dead. And she always believed, so Gertrude said, that when she opened
that door she let Death in.
"It was so ridiculous of me to feel so frightened. But I was distracted
and worn out, and I simply felt for a moment that I dared not open the
door--that death was waiting outside. Then I remembered that I had no
time to waste--must not be so foolish--I sprang forward and opened the
door.
"Certainly a cold wind did blow in and filled the hall with a whirl of
snow. But there on the threshold stood a form of flesh and blood--Mary
Vance, coated from head to foot with snow--and she brought Life, not
Death, with her, though I didn't know that then. I just stared at her.
"'I haven't been turned out,' grinned Mary, as she stepped in and shut
the door. 'I came up to Carter Flagg's two days ago and I've been
stormed-stayed there ever since. But old Abbie Flagg got on my nerves
at last, and tonight I just made up my mind to come up here. I thought
I could wade this far, but I can tell you it was as much as a bargain.
Once I thought I was stuck for keeps. Ain't it an awful night?'
"I came to myself and knew I must hurry upstairs. I explained as
quickly as I could to Mary, and left her trying to brush the snow off.
Upstairs I found that Jims was over that paroxysm, but almost as soon
as I got back to the room he was in the grip of another. I couldn't do
anything but moan and cry--oh, how ashamed I am when I think of it; and
yet what could I do--we had tried everything we knew--and then all at
once I heard Mary Vance saying loudly behind me, 'Why, that child is
dying!'
"I whirled around. Didn't I know he was dying--my little Jims! I could
have thrown Mary Vance out of the door or the window--anywhere--at that
moment. There she stood, cool and composed, looking down at my baby,
with those, weird white eyes of hers, as she might look at a choking
kitten. I had always disliked Mary Vance--and just then I hated her.
"'We have tried everything,' said poor Susan dully. 'It is not ordinary
croup.'
"'No, it's the dipthery croup,' said Mary briskly, snatching up an
apron. 'And there's mighty little time to lose--but I know what to do.
When I lived over-harbour with Mrs. Wiley, years ago, Will Crawford's
kid died of dipthery croup, in spite of two doctors. And when old Aunt
Christina MacAllister heard of it--she was the one brought me round
when I nearly died of pneumonia you know--she was a wonder--no doctor
was a patch on her--they don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let me
tell you--she said she could have saved him with her grandmother's
remedy if she'd been there. She told Mrs. Wiley what it was and I've
never forgot it. I've the greatest memory ever--a thing just lies in
the back of my head till the time comes to use it. Got any sulphur in
the house, Susan?'
"Yes, we had sulphur. Susan went down with Mary to get it, and I held
Jims. I hadn't any hope--not the least. Mary Vance might brag as she
liked--she was always bragging--but I didn't believe any grandmother's
remedy could save Jims now. Presently Mary came back. She had tied a
piece of thick flannel over her mouth and nose, and she carried Susan's
old tin chip pan, half full of burning coals.
"'You watch me,' she said boastfully. 'I've never done this, but it's
kill or cure that child is dying anyway.'
"She sprinkled a spoonful of sulphur over the coals; and then she
picked up Jims, turned him over, and held him face downward, right over
those choking, blinding fumes. I don't know why I didn't spring forward
and snatch him away. Susan says it was because it was fore-ordained
that I shouldn't, and I think she is right, because it did really seem
that I was powerless to move. Susan herself seemed transfixed, watching
Mary from the doorway. Jims writhed in those big, firm, capable hands
of Mary--oh yes, she is capable all right--and choked and wheezed--and
choked and wheezed--and I felt that he was being tortured to death--and
then all at once, after what seemed to me an hour, though it really
wasn't long, he coughed up the membrane that was killing him. Mary
turned him over and laid him back on his bed. He was white as marble
and the tears were pouring out of his brown eyes--but that awful livid
look was gone from his face and he could breathe quite easily.
"'Wasn't that some trick?' said Mary gaily. 'I hadn't any idea how it
would work, but I just took a chance. I'll smoke his throat out again
once or twice before morning, just to kill all the germs, but you'll
see he'll be all right now.'
"Jims went right to sleep--real sleep, not coma, as I feared at first.
Mary 'smoked him,' as she called it, twice through the night, and at
daylight his throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost
normal. When I made sure of that I turned and looked at Mary Vance. She
was sitting on the lounge laying down the law to Susan on some subject
about which Susan must have known forty times as much as she did. But I
didn't mind how much law she laid down or how much she bragged. She had
a right to brag--she had dared to do what I would never have dared, and
had saved Jims from a horrible death. It didn't matter any more that
she had once chased me through the Glen with a codfish; it didn't
matter that she had smeared goose-grease all over my dream of romance
the night of the lighthouse dance; it didn't matter that she thought
she knew more than anybody else and always rubbed it in--I would never
dislike Mary Vance again. I went over to her and kissed her.
"'What's up now?' she said.
"'Nothing--only I'm so grateful to you, Mary.'
"'Well, I think you ought to be, that's a fact. You two would have let
that baby die on your hands if I hadn't happened along,' said Mary,
just beaming with complacency. She got Susan and me a tip-top breakfast
and made us eat it, and 'bossed the life out of us,' as Susan says, for
two days, until the roads were opened so that she could get home. Jims
was almost well by that time, and father turned up. He heard our tale
without saying much. Father is rather scornful generally about what he
calls 'old wives' remedies.' He laughed a little and said, 'After this,
Mary Vance will expect me to call her in for consultation in all my
serious cases.'
"So Christmas was not so hard as I expected it to be; and now the New
Year is coming--and we are still hoping for the 'Big Push' that will
end the war--and Little Dog Monday is getting stiff and rheumatic from
his cold vigils, but still he 'carries on,' and Shirley continues to
read the exploits of the aces. Oh, nineteen-seventeen, what will you
bring?"
CHAPTER XXV
SHIRLEY GOES
"No, Woodrow, there will be no peace without victory," said Susan,
sticking her knitting needle viciously through President Wilson's name
in the newspaper column. "We Canadians mean to have peace and victory,
too. You, if it pleases you, Woodrow, can have the peace without the
victory"--and Susan stalked off to bed with the comfortable
consciousness of having got the better of the argument with the
President. But a few days later she rushed to Mrs. Blythe in red-hot
excitement.
"Mrs. Dr. dear, what do you think? A 'phone message has just come
through from Charlottetown that Woodrow Wilson has sent that German
ambassador man to the right about at last. They tell me that means war.
So I begin to think that Woodrow's heart is in the right place after
all, wherever his head may be, and I am going to commandeer a little
sugar and celebrate the occasion with some fudge, despite the howls of
the Food Board. I thought that submarine business would bring things to
a crisis. I told Cousin Sophia so when she said it was the beginning of
the end for the Allies."
"Don't let the doctor hear of the fudge, Susan," said Anne, with a
smile. "You know he has laid down very strict rules for us along the
lines of economy the government has asked for."
"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, and a man should be master in his own household,
and his women folk should bow to his decrees. I flatter myself that I
am becoming quite efficient in economizing"--Susan had taken to using
certain German terms with killing effect--"but one can exercise a
little gumption on the quiet now and then. Shirley was wishing for some
of my fudge the other day--the Susan brand, as he called it--and I said
'The first victory there is to celebrate I shall make you some.' I
consider this news quite equal to a victory, and what the doctor does