In Wild Rose Time Part 20

She put away the kindly hands, not ungently, but as if she could not quite bear them-as if she was too sore for any human touch.

"How did I come to sleep so long?" she asked, in a strained, weary tone.

"You were so tired, poor dear. The doctor was in, and he said it was the best thing for you. Mrs. Murphy has been in and out, and Mrs. Carr."

"You took care of the babies?" Her lips quivered, and a few big tears rolled down her cheeks. She could suffer, if the time to sorrow had not yet come.

"Yes, dear. I don't see how you get along so with them. And do you feel better?"

The kind eyes studied her with concern.

"I'm well. I never do get sick."

"Do you know where your mother is?"

"Not the street. No, ma'am. The people have a queer long name. An'

she'll be late th' night."

Mrs. Murphy looked in the door.

"Ah, yer up, an' ye do look better. Hev ye had anything to ate? Do ye mind if I have Mrs. Minch come up-stairs just a bit?"

"Oh, no." Dil did not notice the strain in the eyes, the awesomeness of facing death.

"I cudden't be alone. She's roused, but she's almost gone; fightin' fer life, one may say, at the very end," she whispered as they went up the stairs.

The babies were amusing themselves. Dil uncovered the face of her dead, and looked long and earnestly, as if she knew there was a great mystery she ought to solve. Ah, how sweet she was! Dil's heart swelled with a sense of triumph. She had always been so proud of Bess's beauty.

But what was _dead?_ It happened any time, and to anybody, to babies mostly, and made you cold and still, useless. Then you were taken away and buried. It was altogether different from going to heaven. What strange power had taken Bess, and kept her from that blessed journey?

Why did the Lord Jesus let any one do it? John Travis couldn't have been so mistaken, and Christiana, and the children.

She was so glad they had put on her best dress, bought with John Travis's money. Ah, if they only had started that day and risked all!

Here was her blue sash and the blue bows for her sleeves. She hardly had the courage to touch the beloved form.

How strangely cold the little hands were. She kissed them, and then she no longer felt afraid. She raised the frail figure, and pa.s.sed the ribbon round the waist. Almost it seemed as if Bess breathed.

She brought the brush and comb, and curled the hair in her own flowing fas.h.i.+on, picking out the pretty bang in rings, kissing the cold cheeks, the sh.e.l.l-like eyelids. Why, surely Bess was only asleep. She must, she would waken, to-morrow morning perhaps. A sudden buoyant hope electrified her. She had her again, and the horrible thought of separation vanished. Dil was too ignorant to formulate any theories, but every pulse stirred within her own body.

Two of the mothers came for babies, but she uttered no word of what had happened. Then she fed the others, and fixed the fire, and Dan peered in fearfully. She gave him a slice of bread, and he was glad to be off.

Up-stairs they had watched the breath go out of the poor body.

"Pore thing! G.o.d rist her sowl wheriver it is," and Mrs. Murphy crossed herself.

"Has she no friends?"

"Not a wan, I belayve. She used to talk of some nevys whin she first come, that's nigh two years ago. But she'd lost track of them. I'm sure I've taken good care of the pore ould craythur, an' I hope some wan will do the same to me at the last."

"You're a kindly woman, Mrs. Murphy, and G.o.d grant it. We don't know where nor when the end will come."

Mrs. Minch stopped as she went down-stairs.

"Poor old Mrs. Bolan has gone to the better land. She and Bess will have a Christmas with the angels. They will not want to come back here."

Dil had no courage to argue. But she knew to the very farthest fibre of her being, that nothing could so change Bess that she would desire to stay anywhere without her.

Mrs. Garrick had heard the tidings before she came in for her baby, and was profuse in her sympathies.

"But it's the Lord's mercy, for she were a poor sufferer, and was jist waitin'. How did it happen? Was it in the night, whilst ye were all asleep? An' to think yer poor mother whint away knowin' nothin'."

"I can't talk about it. I-I don't know."

"An' old Mis' Bolan. Well, I'll run up-stairs a bit, an' see Mrs.

Murphy."

She was rewarded for her trouble here; the strange curiosity of some, as if the dead face could answer the mystery.

"She's a moighty quare girl, that Dilsey Quinn. Niver to be askin' one to look at the corpse; an' if Bess hadn't been so peaked, she would have been a pritty child. She had such iligant hair."

The neighbors began to make calls of condolence. Two deaths in a house was an event rather out of the common order of things.

Dil awed them by her quiet demeanor, and answered apathetically, busying herself with the supper.

"What hev ye done wid her?" asked one. "Shure, she's not bin tuk away?"

"No; she's in ther', in my room. An'-an' she's mine."

For to Dil there seemed something sacred about Bess, and she kept guard rigorously. It was not simply a dead body to gloat over. They could go up-stairs and look at Mrs. Bolan.

It was nine o'clock when her mother came home laden with budgets, and Dan following in a vaguely frightened manner. He had been hanging about Mrs. MacBride's, waiting for her. She had gone in and taken her "sup o'

gin," and heard the news, also the complaints.

"Whiniver did it happen, Dil?" throwing down her budgets. "She's been no good to hersilf nor no wan else this long while. An' she cudden't iver git well, an' was a sight o' trouble. But I'm clear beat. Week after week I thought she'd be sure to go, but when you're lookin', the thing niver comes. An' it's took me so suddent like, that I had no breath left at all. Was it true-did ye find her dead, an' faint clear away?"

She looked rather admiringly at Dil.

"Yes-she were cold," said Dil briefly. "An' then I don't know what happened."

"Ye pore colleen! Ye'll be better widout her, an' ye'll be gittin well an' strong agin. It's bin a hard thing, an' yer divil of a father shud a had his own back broke. But he's fast enough, and I hope they'll kape him there. Any word of Owny?"

"No." Oh, what would Owny say-an' Patsey.

"Who kem an' streeked her? Let's see."

She took the lamp and went in. It seemed to Dil as if she would even now shake her fist at Bess, and the child stood with bated breath.

"She were a purty little thing, Dil," the mother said with a softened inflection. "Me sister Morna had yellow hair an' purplish eyes, and was that fair an' sweet, but timid like. I believe me mother had some such hair, but the rest of us had black. She looks raile purty, an' makes a better corpse than I iver thought. Why didn't ye lit thim see her, Dil?

Ye's needn't a been shamed of her."