'Smiles', Eliot H. Robinson [books suggested by elon musk TXT] 📗

sudden terror over the mad plan, the older woman began to protest; but Rose shook off her detaining hand, and put an end to the sentence by leading the way hastily into the cabin.

"Thar's a leetle child what needs my help, an' I've got ter take keer of her fer er while, grandpap," Smiles said at once. "Mis' Andrews hes come over fer ter stay with ye and Lou, now haint thet kind uv her? I'll git back es soon es ever I kin, but don't yo' fret ef hit haint erfore yo' goes ter bed ... or even till mornin' time."

She furtively obtained a few bills from her precious store, kissed the old man's haggard, wrinkled cheek, and the white forehead of the baby who lay on the bed, almost inert save for the restless moving of her head from side to side, and the low moans which came with almost every breath, and hurried out into the storm.

In later years Rose could be induced to speak only with the greatest reluctance of that journey down the snow-swept mountain path—for the blizzard was as fierce as it was rare—and even the recollection of it brought a look of terror into her eyes.

There was flying horror abroad that night, and the demented trees quivered and tossed their great arms so wildly that they cracked and broke, to fall crashing in the path. Yet, accomplish the five mile long, perilous descent, in the midst of lashing sleet and snow, over a slippery, tortuous path, she did. With her clothing torn by flaying branches and clutching wind, and drenched by icy water as the snow melted; with her hands and lips blue, and her feet numb; with her wavy hair pulled loose from its braids and plastered wetly against her colorless cheeks; she eventually stumbled into the rude building which contained the railroad and telegraph office at the terminus of the branch line at Fayville. Then she fell, half unconscious, into the arms of the astonished agent, who came to the door when he heard her stumble weakly against it.

"Good God, child, where did you come from?" he cried.

Smiles' lips moved faintly, and he caught an echo of the words which she had been repeating mechanically, over and over, "She haint ergoin' ter die!"

"I reckon she ain't, if human will can save her ... whoever she is," muttered the man, as he laid the exhausted girl on a rude waiting bench, poured between her bruised lips a few drops of smuggled whiskey from a pocket flask, and then unceremoniously cut her shoe lacings and removed her sodden, icy boots.

After a moment, she sat weakly up, and—punctuated by gasps drawn by exquisite pain—managed to pant out, "I've got to send a telegram ... to-night ... now. Oh, please, Mister, don't wait for anything."

"There, there. We'll take care of your message all right. Don't worry, little woman," he answered, reassuringly. "But I ain't a-goin' ter send a tick till you're thawed out. My missus lives upstairs, an' she'll fix you up."

He half-carried, half-helped the weary girl up the narrow stairs, and, having surrendered her into the charge of a kindly and solicitous woman, hastened to rekindle the wood fire in the stove. As its iron top began to regain the ruddy glow which had scarcely faded from it, Rose crept near, holding out her bent, stiffened hands.

"Now, take it easy, little girl," cautioned the agent. "Not too close at first."

"And take off your dress and stockings, dear," said his wife. "Don't give no thought to him,—we've got three daughters of our own, most growed up."

The agent departed, with a heavy clamping of feet on the stairs, and gratefully—but with hands which were so numb that she had to give up in favor of the woman—Rose obeyed; and soon her teeth stopped their chattering, and the red blood of youth began once more to course through her veins, while her drenched, simple undergarments sent up vaporous white flags which indicated that the watery legions of the storm king were fast surrendering to their ancient enemy—Fire.

The older woman wrapped a blanket about the girl, as her husband came upstairs again with a pad of telegram blanks, and said, "Now, I'll write out the message you've got to send for you, if you want me to."

"Thank you, sir. I'm obliged to you and your missus. I reckon you can put the words better than I can, for I haint ... I have never sent one before. It's for Dr. Donald MacDonald, who lives on Commonwealth Avenue, up north in Boston city. And I want to tell him that little Lou Amos is most dying from a brain tumor. And tell him that she is nearly blind and 'comatose'...."

"That word's a new one to me, how do you spell it?" interrupted the agent, with pencil plowing through his rumpled hair.

"I ... I guess I've forgotten. Spell it like it sounds, and he'll know. And tell him that I will pay him all the money I've got, if he'll only come quick."

"How shall I sign it? It has to have your name, you know."

"Say it's from his foster-sister, Rose."

Laboriously the man wrote out the message, and the floor was littered with discarded attempts before he was satisfied; but in time the distant, slow clicking of the telegraph key below was sending not only the child's eager appeal to its destination many hundred miles north, but a message of renewed hope into the heart of Smiles.

"It will cost you more'n a dollar," said the man, as he appeared again. "But if you haven't got that much, why ..."

"I've got it right here," responded the girl, turning on him for an instant a glowing smile of gratitude for his halting offer. "I'm truly more'n obliged to you, sir ... and your wife. I reckon God meant that you should be here to-night to help save the life of a dear little child," she added simply.

"Now I'll just put on my things and be startin' back home."

"Startin' home? Well, I reckon not. You're a-goin' to stay right here to-night, and let my woman put you straight to bed. That's what you're a-goin' to do."

Smiles' protests were all in vain, and soon the weary body and mind were relaxed in the sleep which follows hard on the heels of exhaustion.

It was close on to midnight when Dr. Donald MacDonald reached his apartment after a rare theatre party with his fiancée. His day's work had been exacting, and he was doubly tired. The thought of bed held an almost irresistible appeal.

As he inserted his latch key in the lock, he heard the telephone bell in his office ringing insistently; his heart sank, and cried a rebellious answer.

Combined force of habit and the call of duty caused him to hasten to the instrument, however, without stopping to remove hat or coat, and to his ear came a small, distant voice saying, "A telegram for Dr. Donald MacDonald. Is he ready to receive it?"

"Yes ... Hold on a minute until I get a pencil.... All right, go ahead."

"It is dated from Fayville, Virginia, January 1, 1914. 8:30 P.M. Are you getting it?"

"Yes, yes. Go on," cried the man, with increasing heart pulsations.

"'Dr. Donald MacDonald, Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass. Lou Amos dying of brain tumor almost blind and 'k-o-m-o-t-o-s-e'"—she spelt it out—"'Come at once if possible I will pay.' It is signed, 'Your foster-sister Rose.' Did you get it? Yes? Wait a moment, please, there is another one dated and addressed the same. The message reads, 'Girl came alone down mountain in howling blizzard. Case urgent. Signed, Thomas Timmins, Station Agent.' That is all."

"Thank you. Good-night," said Donald mechanically, as he replaced the receiver.

Through the partly open folding door he could dimly see that enticing bed, with his pajamas and bath robe laid across it. It seemed to him as though it were calling to his weary body with a siren's voice, or had suddenly acquired the properties of the cup of Tantalus. He hesitated, and moved a step toward it. Then the vision of Rose as he had last seen her, with the ethereal smile trembling on lips that struggled bravely to laugh, and in deep misty eyes, came between it and him.

Still clad in hat and overcoat, he seated himself at the desk and called up first the information bureau of the South Terminal Station, then his young associate, Dr. Philip Bentley, in whose charge he was accustomed to leave his regular patients when called away from the city for any length of time; and finally a house used as a semi-club by trained nurses.

When his last call was answered he asked, "Is Miss Merriman registered with you now? This is Dr. MacDonald speaking."

After a wait of several minutes, during which he felt himself nod repeatedly, a sleepy voice spoke over the wire, "This is Miss Merriman, Dr. MacDonald. I'm just off a case."

"Good. I'm lucky ... that is if you're game to take another one immediately."

"Yes, doctor. Do you want me to-night?"

"No, to-morrow ... this morning, that is, will do. I shall want you to meet me at the South Station, New York train, at seven o'clock."

"Yes, doctor. What sort of a case is it?"

"Same as the last you assisted me in—brain tumor. But we're going further this trip ... the jumping-off place in Virginia. It's up in the mountains, so take plenty of warm clothes."

"Very well, doctor." Then there came a little laugh, for these two were excellent friends now, and the query, "Another record-breaking fee?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow," he replied. "Don't forget, seven o'clock train for New York. Good-night."

"Good-night, doctor."

Donald turned away from the desk, and for a moment stood motionless.

"God bless her brave, trusting, little heart," he said half aloud.

And he was not thinking of Miss Merriman.