Angel Agnes Part 2

"Mind, I'll be round in the mornin', and I don't want no gum games!

I've got too much to do on my hands now."

Agnes paid no heed to him at all, but hastening back to her patients, she recommenced her nursing care of them.

There was no fire, and in fact none was needed, except for cooking and preparing the one or two simple remedies which Agnes used in connection with the treatment of the sick victims, and which she felt a.s.sured would not interfere with the medicine they were taking.

In truth, during the whole epidemic, it seemed as though mere medicine was of no avail whatever, and that really the methods and means used by the natives, independent of the doctors, did all the good that was done.

First, she got out of the store some mackerel and bound them, just as they came out of the barrel, brine and all, to the soles of the feet of both the mother and children.

This simple remedy acted like a charm, for in about three hours the fever began to break. Agnes put on fresh mackerel as before, removing the first ones, which, startling as it may seem, were perfectly putrid, though reeking with the strong salt brine when she applied them.

By nine o'clock that night the n.o.ble young woman had the inexpressible delight of seeing her poor patients so far changed for the better as to be completely out of danger.

On the next morning, true to his promise, the dead-wagon man came around. He was one of those in-bred wicked spirits which take delight in hating everything and everybody good and beautiful; just as the Greek peasant hated Aristides, and voted for his banishment, because he was surnamed the "good." This fellow already hated Agnes, and his ugly face was contorted with a hideous grin, as he thrust himself in at the store door and exclaimed:

"Hallo! where's them dead 'uns? fetch 'em out!"

Agnes had not expected him to put his threat of coming the next morning into execution. She was therefore somewhat taken aback on beholding him.

But she was a girl of steady, powerful nerves, and cool temper, and the instant she saw that the fellow had made up his mind to behave the way he did merely to vex and hara.s.s her, she made up her mind to "settle him off."

Paying no heed therefore to what he said, Agnes quietly put on her hat and shawl took her umbrella in her hand, and stepping directly up to the brutal wretch said, in a determined tone of voice:

"Come along with me; I intend to give you such a lesson that you will not forget in a hurry. You have given me impudence enough for the rest of your life. You have got to go back now with me to the office of the Superintendent, where I will have you discharged and then punished as you deserve."

Perhaps thoughts of dark and cruel acts he had already been guilty of, flashed across his mind, and made him tremble for the consequences to himself. He evidently believed that Agnes knew more about him than he thought. Or perhaps it was that mysterious influence which a positive mind in motion--like Miss Arnold's--wields over a vacillating temperament like the dead-wagon driver's.

Whichever of these causes it was, could of course never be positively known, but, like a flash of lightning, the fellow changed his insolent, braggart manner to one of the most contemptible, cringing cowardice.

"Don't, Missus, don't! Ef I've 'sulted yer, 'pon my dirty soul I'll beg yer double-barrelled pardon. Please don't yer go to complainin' on me. For ef I'd lose my place, my wife and young 'uns 'ud starve to death in no time. I oughter knowed better then to sa.s.s you anyhow, when I seed how good and purty ye wuz!"

"Please don't leave us! don't leave us, Miss Agnes, for you've been our Good Angel. You have saved our lives!" piteously exclaimed Mrs. Burton and her children in chorus at this moment, fearful that their nurse was really going away, and dreading if she did, that they would all be carried off either to the cemetery or some other dreadful place.

"Now, please go back, and don't go a tellin' on me fur a sa.s.sin yer. I oughter to be ashamed; and I am double-barrelled ashamed. An' ef you'll jest say you'll furgiv' me, I'll go down on my knees. There now, Miss Agony, ain't that 'nuff? Ef it ain't, why I'll do whatever you say fur me to do."

The fellow pulled off his hat, and set himself in such a ludicrously woebegone att.i.tude, that Miss Arnold had great difficulty in restraining herself from laughing outright. She managed, however, to keep a straight face, and replied:

"Well, this time I will allow it to pa.s.s; but never let me hear of such conduct again, or I will not be so lenient."

"Thank you, missus; and may I ask you a queshun?"

"Yes."

"I want ter ask you, how yer kep' them there fel's from a dyin'?

'Cause when they're bin tuk like they wuz tuk yer could jest bet every muel in the kerral that they'd peg out in twenty-seven hours at furthest."

"G.o.d did it, not I," replied Agnes.

"Don't call me sa.s.sin' yer, agin, Miss Agony, but that ain't so; 'cause thar's nuthin' 'll fetch 'em, when they're tuk the way they wuz tuk. It's magic done it, nuthin' else!"

"Well, in case you should feel the headache, sick stomach, and chill coming on at any time, or fall in with any person suffering that way, remember the following recipe. Take out your book again and put it down."

"Yes, Miss Agony, willin'."

The fellow produced his book and pencil, and holding the former flat up against the door, wrote at Miss Arnold's dictation:

"Put the feet immediately into hot and very strong mustard water--put in plenty of mustard. Quickly take a strong emetic of ipecac or mustard water. Go to bed immediately, and send for the doctor. While waiting for the doctor, get salt mackerel, directly out of the brine, and bind them to the soles of the feet. And the moment the patient craves any particular article of food or drink, do not hesitate to give it _moderately_. If mackerel cannot be obtained, use strong raw onions or garlic. In a few hours the mackerel will most likely become putrid; if so, remove them, and apply others."

"Golly! Golly! I knowed it was magic--somethin' like that, and not medicine at all!" exclaimed the fellow, nodding his head to himself.

"Let me look at your book, to see if you have it correctly written,"

said Agnes, stepping partially behind the driver.

"Lor' bless you, Miss Agony!" he exclaimed, "you'd never be able to read my writin'. Hold on, an' I'll read fur you myself, an' then yer ken tell me ef I'm wrong."

As Agnes still manifested a desire to look at the book, however, he held it for her inspection. But with the exception of here and there a small word, like _a_ or _the_, she could not decipher any of the scrawl. So she expressed her desire to hear it read.

The fellow promptly read it all off without a single mistake, much to the astonishment of Miss Arnold.

"Is that all straight, hey, Miss Agony?" asked he, with a comical expression of mingled pride and curiosity running over his countenance.

"Yes," replied Agnes; "and," added she, "my name is not what you call it, but Agnes Arnold."

"Well, now, don't think I wuz callin' yer that fur sa.s.s, Missus Arnold, for I wuz not. I'll hurry along now, for I've got a heap to do this mornin'. Things is a gittin' wuss an' wuss every day."

"I hope they will soon mend," said Agnes, fervently; "good day."

"Good-by, Missus Arnold, an' I hope G.o.d'll take best care uv you, anyhow," answered the driver.

"I trust in Him always, and you should also put your faith in Him. He is strong to save."

With this admonition to her rough companion, Agnes turned back into the rear room, and removing her hat and shawl, set herself about kindling a fire to prepare some little nourishment for her sick charges.

As the Burtons happened to keep a grocery store, she had no difficulty in selecting material fitted for her object.

They all continued on the mend until the succeeding day, when the physician having that district in charge made them a visit. He was completely astonished upon finding how favorably the surviving cases had turned out, and he held quite a long conversation with Agnes in regard to what she had done, after which he remarked:

"Indeed, Miss Arnold, I must confess to you that I feel disposed to credit these recoveries entirely to your faithful and intelligent nursing. For to tell you the truth, the modes of treatment which we physicians have hitherto used in cases showing the symptoms that these did, has failed in nearly eighty per cent. of every hundred. But it is true enough sometimes, that many of these 'grandmother remedies' as we call them, are more efficacious than any others."

"This is not a grandmother's remedy, Doctor," smilingly replied Agnus. "It was told to me some years ago in New Orleans."

She here concisely narrated to him the history of her experience when she helped to nurse her father in the latter city.

"Who was it told you, Miss Arnold? was it Dr. Robinson? He was noted about that period for his success in treating bad cases of the fever.

"No, sir, it was a Spanish gentleman, who had lived many years in Havana. Once in Vera Cruz he took the vomito, and was saved by this treatment.

"Most astonis.h.i.+ng!" mused the doctor. "I shall not fail to try it."