第72章 THE LAST STAGE(1)

A small boy crept into the darkened hut.The unglazed windows were roughly curtained with skins, but there was sufficient light from the open doorway to show him what he wanted.He tiptoed to a corner where an old travelling trunk lay under a pile of dirty clothes.He opened it very carefully, and after a little searching found the thing he sought.Then he gently closed it, and, with a look towards the bed in the other corner, he slipped out again into the warm October afternoon.

The woman on the bed stirred uneasily and suddenly became fully awake, after the way of those who are fluttering very near death.She was still young, and the little face among the coarse homespun blankets looked almost childish.Heavy masses of black hair lay on the pillow, and the depth of its darkness increased the pallor of her brow.But the cheeks were flushed, and the deep hazel eyes were burning with a slow fire....For a week the milk-sick fever had raged furiously, and in the few hours free from delirium she had been racked with omnipresent pain and deadly sickness.Now those had gone, and she was drifting out to sea on a tide of utter weakness.Her husband, Tom Linkhorn, thought she mending, and was even now whistling--the first time for weeks--by the woodpile.But the woman knew that she was close to the great change, and so deep was her weariness that the knowledge remained an instinct rather than a thought.She was as passive as a dying animal.The cabin was built of logs, mortised into each other--triangular in shape, with a fireplace in one corner.Beside the fire stood a table made of a hewn log, on which lay some pewter dishes containing the remains of he last family meal.One or two three-legged stools made up the rest of the furniture, except for the trunk in the corner and the bed.This bed was Tom Linkhorn's pride, which he used to boast about to his friends, for he was a tolerable carpenter.It was made of plank stuck between the logs of the wall, and supported at the other end by crotched sticks.By way of a curtain top a hickory post had been sunk in the floor and bent over the bed, the end being fixed in the log wall.Tom meant to have a fine skin curtain fastened to it when winter came.The floor was of beaten earth, but there was a rough ceiling of smaller logs, with a trap in it which could be reached by pegs stuck the centre post.In that garret the children slept.Tom's building zeal had come to an end with the bed.Some day he meant to fit in a door and windows, but these luxuries could wait till he got his clearing in better order.

On a stool by the bed stood a wooden bowl containing gruel.The woman had not eaten for days, and the stuff had a thick scum on it.The place was very stuffy, for it was a hot and sickly autumn day and skins which darkened the window holes kept out the little freshness that was in the air.Beside the gruel was a tin pannikin of cold water which the boy ,Abe fetched every hour from the spring.She saw the water, but was too weak to reach it.

The shining doorway was blocked by a man's entrance.Tom Linkhorn was a little over middle height, with long muscular arms, and the corded neck sinews which tell of great strength.He had a shock of coarse black hair, grey eyes and a tired sallow face, as of one habitually overworked and underfed.His jaw was heavy, but loosely put together, so that he presented an air of weakness and irresolution.His lips were thick and pursed in a kind of weary good humour.He wore an old skin shirt and a pair of towlinen pants, which flapped about his bare brown ankles.A fine sawdust coated his hair and shoulders, for he had been working in the shed where he eked out his farming by making spinning wheels for his neighbours.

He came softly to the bedside and looked down at his wife.His face was gentle and puzzled.

"Reckon you're better, dearie," he said in a curious harsh toneless voice.

The sick woman moved her head feebly in the direction of the stool and he lifted the pannikin of water to her lips.

"Cold enough?" he asked, and his wife nodded."Abe fetches it as reg'lar as a clock.""Where's Abe?" she asked, and her voice for all its feebleness had a youthful music in it.

"I heerd him sayin' he was goin' down to the crick to cotch a fish.He reckoned you'd fancy a fish when you could eat a piece.He's a mighty thoughtful boy, our Abe.Then he was comin' to read to you.You'd like that, dearie?"The sick woman made no sign.Her eyes were vacantly regarding the doorway.

"I've got to leave you now.I reckon I'll borrow the Dawneys' sorrel horse and ride into Gentryville.I've got the young hogs to sell, and I'll fetch back the corn-meal from Hickson's.Sally Hickson was just like you last fall, and I want to find out from Jim how she got her strength up."He put a hand on her brow, and felt it cool.

"Glory! You're mendin' fast, Nancy gal.You'll be well in time to can the berries that the childern's picked.He fished from below the bed a pair of skin brogues and slipped them on his feet."I'll be back before night.""I want Abe," she moaned.

"I'll send him to you," he said as he went out Left alone the woman lay still for a little in a stupor of weariness.Waves of that terrible lassitude, which is a positive anguish and not a mere absence of strength, flowed over her.The square of the doorway, which was directly before her eyes, began to take strange forms.It was filled with yellow sunlight, and a red glow beyond told of the sugar-maples at the edge of the clearing.Now it seemed to her unquiet sight to be a furnace.

Outside the world was burning; she could feel the heat of it in the close cabin.For a second acute fear startled her weakness.It passed, her eyes cleared, and she saw the homely doorway as it was, and heard the gobble of a turkey in the forest.