Half a Dozen Girls Part 35

"Next week?" said Mrs. Adams. "What is that for? Her year isn't over."

"No, but she has gained faster than we thought she could, and she is now almost as well as ever. If she hadn't been taken in time, it would have been much harder to cure her; but now we think that, if she is careful, she can go home to her family again. We told her so to-night, and she was half wild for a moment; but then she began to cry, because she must leave her 'dear young ladies,' as she called you."

"Oh, dear, what shall we ever do without her?" sighed Polly. "I was really getting quite fond of her. Now I'll have to devote myself to d.i.c.ky and the other babies."

"Bridget has improved in your hands," said the doctor. "You girls, without knowing it, have been doing the best kind of mission work, and the Bridget who goes home will be a much more attractive Bridget than the one who came here, for she has learned that there is something a little beyond her old life of drudgery that she can hope for and, in the end, gain."

"Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams abruptly.

There was a sudden commotion in the parlor, the sound of excited voices, mingled with inarticulate cries; then Aunt Jane called, in a tone of agony,--

"Isabel! Polly! John! Quick, quick!"

Springing up, the doctor and his wife, followed by Polly and Alan, ran to the parlor door where they looked in upon a strange scene, for a full understanding of which it is necessary to go back a little, to see what had been pa.s.sing inside the room, while the others had been talking on the piazza.

For the past two or three months, it had been Mr. Baxter's regular habit to spend every Wednesday evening with the woman of his choice, when he either talked of his children and their peculiarities, or his servants and their vices, or, on the other hand, Miss Roberts attempted to form his mind, as she called it, by improving and instructive conversation. Their interviews, it must be confessed, were never of the nature of a duet. Either Mr.

Baxter prattled about trifles, and Aunt Jane was politely indifferent; or else Miss Roberts conversed learnedly, and Mr.

Baxter dozed off into little "cat-naps," waked again with an apologetic start, and immediately a.s.sumed a look of owlish wisdom, as if to convey the idea that he listened to the best advantage with his eyes shut. Such a beginning, when they spent but one evening a week together, did not hold out very brilliant prospects of enlivening domestic intercourse; but the parties most nearly concerned appeared to be satisfied, so no one else needed to complain.

On this particular Wednesday evening, Mr. Baxter was unusually drowsy. His youngest child, he fretfully explained, had been ill all the night before, and his own rest had been badly broken. But in spite of this warning. Miss Roberts had taken up from the table a pamphlet on prison reform, and announced her intention of reading it aloud. In vain Mr. Baxter looked about for some way of escape. Seeing none, he seated himself in the darkest corner of the room, with a lingering hope that his lapses into dreamland might pa.s.s unnoticed. He was not disappointed. In a few moments, Aunt Jane had become so absorbed in her subject that she read on and on, quite unconscious of the fact that her guest, from yawning behind his hand, and nodding now forward, now backward, and now sideways, had pa.s.sed on into a quiet slumber, unbroken by dreams of restless children and hardened criminals.

But Polly's sudden entrance had roused him, and he propped himself up anew, with a manful resolve to hold his eyes open, or die.

Unfortunately it was by no means so easy for Mr. Baxter to hold his mouth shut, and yawn followed yawn, wider and still more wide, until his hand could no longer cover the opening. And yet Miss Roberts read on endlessly, remorselessly. Suddenly she was interrupted by Mr. Baxter who sprang up wildly and, with his body bent forward, his eyes distended and his mouth wide open, began plunging distractedly about the room, with both hands to his face, as if in mortal anguish.

"Oh, Solomon! What is it?" And Miss Roberts sprang up, in her turn.

But Mr. Solomon Baxter only paused to clasp his face more closely and groan, and then resumed his former antics. Miss Roberts was seriously alarmed. Had the man suddenly gone mad? Was he dying?

"Solomon! Solomon!" she implored him. "Tell me, only speak to me and tell me what is the matter!"

"'Y 'ou'," replied Mr. Baxter vehemently, but not very intelligibly.

"What?" Miss Roberts hurried to his side and, bending, gazed up into his face which was still turned floorward.

"'Y 'ou'; I 'aw' 'uh' 'y 'ou'," answered Mr. Baxter again, this time pointing down his throat.

Miss Roberts saw that there was some trouble with his mouth. It was a relief to find that her lover was of sound mind. From his broken speech, she was beginning to fear some new, strange form of paralysis, but his wild lunges about the room relieved those apprehensions. It was only his mouth, then. She smiled sympathetically.

"I understand," she said; "it is the toothache. It is very painful, while it lasts, but I have something that will stop it.

Just shut your mouth and make yourself as comfortable as you can, and I will get it."

But Mr. Baxter shook his head sadly.

"I 'aw' 'uh' 'ih," he answered.

Then Aunt Jane's courage began to fail.

"Can't shut it! Oh, Solomon, Solomon! What is it?"

"I 'o '_oo_'," he replied testily. Then, clasping his jaw in both hands, he began to walk the floor again, groaning dismally.

Miss Roberts's tears were flowing. She felt sure that Mr. Baxter's hours were' numbered, and that she would soon be forced to look on at his funeral. Could she be a mother to his little ones, thus doubly bereaved? These thoughts pa.s.sed in rapid succession through her brain; then, raising her voice to the utmost, she called for aid. That done, for the first and only time in the course of her life, Aunt Jane Roberts, the strong-minded, the firm, sank down on the sofa and quietly fainted away. This was the state of affairs which met the doctor's gaze, as he entered the room.

To his practised eye there was no ground for doubt. He recognized the disease and the remedy. It only needed one pull with his strong hands, one roar of anguish from Mr. Baxter, and the dislocated jaw was slipped back into place once more. Then the doctor turned to help his wife who was trying to restore Aunt Jane to consciousness. At length she gasped, opened one eye, gasped again, opened both and faintly whispered,--

"Is he dead? Tell me gently. Was it lock-jaw?"

Then the doctor's professional dignity gave way. Dropping into the nearest chair, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed again, while Mr. Baxter grew more and more shamefaced, and Miss Roberts more and more exasperated at his unseemly merriment. When he could speak again, he answered,--

"Lockjaw; no. This was all your fault, Jane. You read till the poor man was so sleepy that he fairly yawned his jaw out of joint."

And this time the doctor's shout was echoed by his wife and the two children.

CHAPTER XIX.

KATHARINE'S CALL.

The next afternoon Katharine and Florence sat on the side piazza of the Hapgood house, Florence in the hammock, Katharine curled up among the cus.h.i.+ons of a bamboo lounge, idly stroking the back of Scott, Molly's plump tiger kitten.

"Well, Scotty," she was saying caressingly, as she held up the little creature and gazed straight into its yellow eyes, "are you feeling happy in your mind to-day? Well, so am I."

"What a queer name I" said Florence. "Where did Molly ever get it?"

Katharine laughed.

"I should think you might know," she answered. "Alan was responsible for it, of course. Don't you know how he is always saying '_Great Scott'_?"

"That is it, is it?" said Florence. Then she returned to the subject of which they had just been speaking. "When do you think you will go, Katharine?"

"In about two weeks, I think," Katharine replied, as she rolled the cat over on its back and tickled it under its furry chin.

"Papa wrote, some time ago, that he wanted us to be at home before July, for then he is going to start on a trip to Alaska, and we are both to go with. him. He hasn't mentioned it for a month, now, but I suppose of course he means to go. I hope so, I am sure, for I love to travel, and Jessie has never taken a real long journey, except to come here."

"To Alaska? How I envy you!" said Florence longingly.

"I wish you could go with us," answered Katharine. "It will be a lovely journey, I know, for it is so different from anything else we have seen. I'll tell you, Florence, you must come out to see us, some day, and then we'll go again. If it were not for this Alaska plan, I should hate to go home, for I have had such a pleasant year, here in New England. Sometimes I feel as if I had never known what it was to really live, till I came here; and Jessie dreads going worse than I do."

"You'll probably forget us, before you've been away a month," said Florenge lightly.

Katharine moved among her cus.h.i.+ons until she was facing her friend.

"Do you think I am so fickle as that, Florence?" she asked, and her tone was a little hurt. "If that is all my friends.h.i.+p amounts to, it isn't worth the having."

"I didn't mean that," said Florence; "but it wouldn't be strange if you did forget us, Kit, when you are back again among your other friends."

"What an absurd idea, Florence! Do you think I shall ever forget Bridget and Job and the cooking club, and all the rest of our good times? I shan't be nearly as likely to, just because we don't have anything like it in Omaha. And if I do come out next winter, I know that, right in the middle of all the parties and things, I shall have little homesick twinges for our frolics in the attic, and the cosy talks around Mrs. Adams's open fire."