Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/58

44 But at last she heard a hail. “Harriet, where are ye?”

She sprang to her feet. “Here!” she called. “Here, Nate!”

There came in sight a tall and wiry man, looking, in spite of the fact that he was her father’s best dyer, like a woodsman, which, indeed, he preferred to be. He came up the hillside with long strides, nodded to her briefly, and, gaunt and weather-beaten, stood over the unconscious boy.

“Fainted, hez he?” he asked. He dropped on his knee, tested the tightness of the bandage, nodded once more at Harriet, and then rose again.

“All the better,” he remarked. “He won’t mind the travel.” Stooping, he picked up the boy as if he were a child, and, cradling him in his arms, started downhill as swiftly as if he bore no burden.

“The girls?” asked Harriet, keeping pace with him.

“One I sent for the doctor,” explained Nate. “She ’ll telephone from the Upper Cross-Roads. The other—she ’s gittin’ the fire an’ heatin’ water, since I let the stove out arter gittin’ breakfust.”

He still strode swiftly onward, not pausing in the whole of the journey. “Jes’ as easy on the legs,” he explained, “an’ a great sight better for the arms an’ back if the trip is short.” Harriet, carrying the jacket, had to hurry to keep up with him, and was glad when they came in sight of the little low farm-house in which Nate lived. She was equally glad to see, laboring up the road that approached from below, the doctor’s carriage. Nate reached the house, strode through the open door, and laid his burden on a couch.

“Thar!” he said.

The lad lay so white and still that fear clutched swiftly at Harriet’'s heart. “He is n't—dead?” she faltered.

“Lord love ye, no!” answered Nate. “Now the best thing you can do is to see if that Joanna friend of yours has got the fire goin’ rightly. Somehow I mistrust her. I ’m goin’ to put this young gentleman to bed while it can’t hurt him.”

In the kitchen, Harrict found Joanna, flushed and vexed. “Oh, I ’ve fussed so over this old stove!” she cried. “And it just smolders!”

“Let me try,” said Harriet.

She took off the lid and rearranged the wood; she studied the drafts, opened one, closed another, and then stood listening. The roar of the fire answered to the change, and she smiled. Harriet was “capable.”

“Well, I never!” sighed Joanna.

“There 's rather too much water in the kettle,” decided Harriet. "It heats too slowly. I ’ll put some of it in this pan, and bring on both the faster.”

Then the third friend, Elinor, joined them, full of the importance of her achievement. She had got the doctor by telephone, and had made him come at once. “You know how slow old Doctor Fitch is.” She had returned with him, making him urge his horse. Now he was with Nate. They were n't in the next room any longer, but were in Nate’s own bedroom, just beyond. The three girls waited now, listening for sounds from the farther room. At a groan, the two girls turned pale, and Harriet, biting her lips, covered the water in the open pan, that it might heat more quickly. It was some minutes before Nate reappeared.

“Now, Harriet, if you 've got some warm wa-ter—” He went back.

She felt helpless, but thought rapidly. If the water was to be but warm, then perhaps it ought to be a little warmer than the hand. She had noticed a little pile of coarse, clean towels; perhaps a couple would be useful. With the water and the towels she went into the bedroom, expecting Nate to take them from her. Both he and the doctor were busy beside the bed.

The doctor looked up and nodded. “Right here beside me,” he directed. “So. Now stand there till I want them.”

Harriet felt herself turn pale. The motionless body lay beneath a sheet, but clear in view was the dreadful red wrist, with the jagged rent. The doctor was too horribly businesslike. Harriet wanted to run away. At the sound of a moan, she shuddered.

Nate, with understanding, looked up into the girl's pale face. “He ain’t rightly conscious,” he explained. “But he ’s kinder sensitive, and when the doctor tries to sew, why, he tries to pull away. So I 've got to hold the arm, Harriet, and you—why, you ’ve got to stand by. We need you. Don’t mind it if he groans; he don't really feel it.”

Harriet tried to steady herself. If only these things were n’t so terrible! Never had she realized it before.

Nate looked at her a moment longer. “Don’t look at us,” he directed. ‘“And, Harriet, remember your mother.”

The last words helped. Her mother would not flinch at such a time. She would be like her mother. While the doctor worked, while every nerve in her shrank at each groan from the boy, Harriet clenched her teeth upon her lip, forced herself to stand still, and silently obeyed each order. The strain seemed endless. The doctor’s