Old Lady Number 31 Part 8

The patient shook his head and sank back, closing his eyes, more exhausted than ever. And he himself had heard Angy warn this man in a whisper not to "rile him up!" Remorselessly went on the rejuvenated Darby:

"Hain't a-goin' ter git up, heh? Yew old mollycoddle! Yew baby! Old Lady 31! Kiffy calf! But I hain't a-blamin' yew; ef I had lived in this here place a year an' a half, I'd be stark, starin' mad! Leetle tootsie-wootsie! _Git up_!"

Abe had opened his eyes and was once more staring at the other, his mind slowly coming to the light of the realization that Samuel might be more sane than himself.

"That's what I told Angy all along," he ventured. "I told her, I says, says I, 'Humbug! Foolishness! Ye 're a-makin' a reg'lar baby of me.

Why,' I says, 'what's the difference between me an' these here women-folks except that I wear a beard an' smoke a pipe?'"

"Then why don't yew git up?" demanded the inexorable Samuel. "Git up an'

fool 'em; or, gosh-all-hemlock! they'll be measurin' yew fer yer coffin next week. When I come inter the hall, what dew yew think these here sisters o' yourn was a-discussin'? They was a-arguin' the p'int as to whether they'd bury yew in a shroud or yer Sunday suit."

Abraham put one foot out of bed. Samuel took hold of his arm and with this a.s.sistance the old man managed to get up entirely and stand, though shaking as if with the palsy, upon the floor.

"Feel pooty good, don't yew?" demanded Samuel, but with less severity.

"A leetle soft, a leetle soft," muttered the other. "Gimme my cane.

Thar, ef one o' them women comes in the door I'll--I'll--" Abraham raised his stick and shook it at the innocent air. "Whar's my pipe? Mis'

Homan, she went an' hid it last week."

After some searching, Samuel found the pipe in Abe's hat-box underneath the old man's beaver, and produced from his own pocket a package of tobacco, whereupon the two sat down for a quiet smoke, Samuel chuckling to himself every now and again, Abe modestly seeking from time to time to cover his bare legs with the skirt of his pink-striped night-robe, not daring to reach for a blanket lest Samuel should call him names again. With the very first puff of his pipe, the light had come back into the invalid's eyes; with the second, the ashen hue completely left his cheek; and when he had pulled the tenth time on the pipe, Abe was ready to laugh at the sisters, the whole world, and even himself.

"Hy-guy, but it's splendid to feel like a man ag'in!"

The witch of Hawthorne's story never gazed more fondly at her "Feathertop" than Samuel now gazed at Abraham puffing away on his pipe; but he determined that Abraham's fate should not be as poor "Feathertop's." Abe must remain a man.

"Naow look a-here, Abe," he began after a while, laying his hand on the other's knee, "dew yew know that yew come put' nigh gittin' swamped in the big breakers? Ef I hadn't come along an' throwed out the life-line, yew--"

"Sam'l," interrupted the new Abraham, not without a touch of asperity, "whar yew been these six months? A-leavin' me ter die of ap.r.o.n-strings an' doctors! Of course I didn't 'spect nuthin' o' yew when yew was jist a bachelor, an' we'd sort o' lost sight er each other fer many a year, but arter yew got connected with the Hum by marriage sorter--"

"Connected with the Hum by marriage!" broke in Samuel with a snort of indignant protest. "Me!" Words failed him. He stared at Abe with burning eyes, but Abe only insisted sullenly:

"Whar yew an' Blossy been all this time?"

"Dew yew mean ter tell me, Abe Rose, that yew didn't know that Aunt Nancy forbid Blossy the house 'cause she didn't go an' ask her permission ter git spliced? Oh, I fergot," he added. "Yew'd gone up-stairs ter take a nap that day we come back from the minister's."

Abraham flushed. He did not care to recall Samuel's wedding-day. He hastened to ask the other what had decided him and Blossy to come to-day, and was informed that Miss Abigail had written to tell Blossy that if she ever expected to see her "Brother Abe" alive again, she must come over to Sh.o.r.eville at the earliest possible moment.

"Then I says ter Blossy," concluded Captain Darby, "I says, says I, 'Jest lemme see that air pore old hen-pecked Abe Rose. I'll kill him er cure him!' I says. Here, yer pipe 's out. Light up ag'in!"

Abe struck the match with a trembling hand, unnerved once more by the speculation as to what might have happened had Samuel's treatment worked the other way.

"I left Blossy an' Aunt Nancy a-huggin' an' a-kissin' down-stairs."

Abe sighed: "Aunt Nancy allers was more bark than bite."

"Humph! Barkin' cats must be tryin' ter live with. Abe," he tapped the old man's knee again, "dew yew know what yew need? A leetle vacation, a change of air. Yew want ter cut loose from this all-fired old ladies'

shebang an' go sky-larkin'." Abe hung on Samuel's words, his eyes a-twinkle with antic.i.p.ation. "Yes--yes, go sky-larkin'! Won't we make things hum?"

"Thar's hummin' an' hummin'," objected Abe, with a sudden show of caution. "Miss Abigail thinks more o' wash-day than some folks does o'

heaven. Wharabouts dew yew cak'late on a-goin'?"

"Tew Bleak Hill!"

Abraham's face lost its cautious look, his eyes sparkled once more. Go back to the Life-saving Station where he had worked in his l.u.s.ty youth--back to the sound of the surf upon the sh.o.r.e, back to the pines and cedars of the Beach, out of the bondage of dry old lavender to the goodly fragrance of balsam and sea-salt! Back to active life among men!

"Men, men, nawthin' but men!" Samuel exploded as if he had read the other's thought. "Nawthin' but men fer a hull week, that's my perscription fer yew! Haow dew yew feel naow, mate?"

For answer Abe made a quick spring out of his chair, and in his bare feet commenced to dance a gentle, rheumatic-toe-considering breakdown, crying, "Hy-guy, Cap'n Sam'l, you've saved my life!" While Darby clapped his hands together, proud beyond measure at his success as the emanc.i.p.ator of his woman-ridden friend.

Neither heard the door open nor saw Angy standing on the threshold, half paralyzed with fear and amazement, thinking that she was witnessing the mad delirium of a dying man, until she called out her husband's name.

At the sound of her frightened voice, Abe stopped short and reached for the blanket with which to cover himself.

"Naow don't git skeered, Mother, don't git skeered," he abjured her.

"I'm all right in my head. Cap'n Sam'l here, he brung me some wonderful medicine. He--"

"Blossy said you did!" interrupted Angy, a light of intense grat.i.tude flas.h.i.+ng across her face as she turned eagerly to Darby. "Lemme see the bottle."

"I chucked it out o' the winder," affirmed Samuel without winking, and Abe hastened to draw Angy's attention back to himself.

"See, Mother, I kin stand as good as anybody; hain't got no fever; I kin walk alone. Yew seen me dancin' jest naow, tew. An' ef I had that pesky leetle banty rooster of a doctor here, I'd kick him all the way deown-stairs. Cap'n Sam'l's wuth twenty-five o' him."

"Yew kept the perscription, didn't yer, cap'n?" demanded Angy. "Naow ef he should be took ag'in an'--"

Samuel turned away and coughed.

"Mother, Mother," cried Abe, "shet the door an' come set deown er all the sisters'll come a-pilin' in. I've had a invite, I have!"

Angy closed the door and came forward, her wary suspicious eye trailing from the visitor to her husband.

"Hy-guy, ain't it splendid!" Abe burst forth. "Me an' Cap'n Sam'l here is a-goin' over ter Bleak Hill fer a week."

"Bleak Hill in December!" Angy cried, aghast. "Naow, see here, Father,"

resolutely, "medicine er no medicine--"

"He's got ter git hardened up," firmly interposed Dr. Darby; "it'll be the makin' o' him."

Angy turned on Samuel with ruffled feathers.

"He'll freeze ter death. Yew shan't--"

Here Abe's stubborn will, so rarely set against Angy's gentle persistence, rose up in defiance:

"We're a-gwine on a reg'lar A No. 1 spree with the boys, an' no women-folks is a-goin' ter stop us neither."

"When?" asked Angy faintly, feeling Abe's brow, but to her surprise finding it cool and healthy.

"Ter-morrer!" proclaimed Samuel; whereupon Abe looked a little dubious and lifted up his two feet, wrapped as they were in the blanket, to determine the present strength of his legs.