第86章 CHAPTER XVI(1)

GRANNY MORELAND'S VISIT

The following morning the Girl was awakened by wheels on the gravel outside her window, and lifted her head to see Betsy passing with a load of lumber. Shortly afterward the sound of hammer and saw came to her, and she knew that Singing Water bridge was being roofed to provide shade for her. She dressed and went to the kitchen to find a dainty breakfast waiting, so she ate what she could, and then washed the dishes and swept. By that time she was so tired she dropped on a dining-room window seat, and lay looking toward the bridge. She could catch glimpses of the Harvester as he worked. She watched his deft ease in handling heavy timbers, and the assurance with which he builded. Sometimes he stood and with tilted head studied his work a minute, then swiftly proceeded. He placed three tree trunks on each side for pillars, laid joists across, formed his angle, and nailed boards as a foundation for shingling. Occasionally he glanced toward the cabin, and finally came swinging up the drive. He entered the kitchen softly, but when he saw the Girl in the window he sat at her feet.

"Oh but this is a morning, Ruth!" he said.

She looked at him closely. He radiated health and good cheer. His tanned cheeks were flushed red with exercise, and the hair on his temples was damp.

"You have been breaking the rules," he said. "It is the law that I am to do the work until you are well and strong again. Why did you tire yourself?"

"I am so perfectly useless! I see so many things that I would enjoy doing. Oh you can do everything else, make me well! Make me strong!"

"How can I, when you won't do as I tell you?"

"I will! Indeed I will!"

"Then no more attempts to stand over dishes and clean big floors. You mustn't overwork yourself at anything. The instant you feel in the least tired you must lie down and rest."

"But Man! I'm tired every minute, with a dead, dull ache, and I don't feel as if I ever would be rested again in all the world."

The Harvester took one of her hands, felt its fevered palm, fluttering wrist pulse, and noticed that the brilliant red of her lips had extended to spots on her cheeks. He formed his resolution.

"Can't work on that bridge any more until I drive in for some big nails," he said. "Do you mind being left alone for an hour?"

"Not at all, if Bel will stay with me. I'll lie in the swing."

"All right!" answered the Harvester. "I'll help you out and to get settled. Is there anything you want from town?"

"No, not a thing!"

"Oh but you are modest!" cried the Harvester. "Ican sit here and name fifty things I want for you."

"Oh but you are extravagant!" imitated the Girl.

"Please, please, Man, don't! Can't you see I have so much now I don't know what to do with it? Sometimes I almost forget the ache, just lying and looking at all the wonderful riches that have come to me so suddenly.

I can't believe they won't vanish as they came. By the hour in the night I look at my lovely room, and Ijust fight my eyes to keep them from closing for fear they'll open in that stifling garret to the heat of day and work I have not strength to do. I know yet all this will prove to be a dream and a wilder one than yours."

The face of the Harvester was very anxious.

"Please to remember my dream came true," he said, "and much sooner than I had the least hope that it would.

I'm wide awake or I couldn't be building bridges; and you are real, if I know flesh and blood when I touch it."

"If I were well, strong, and attractive, I could understand," she said. "Then I could work in the house, at the drawings, help with the herbs, and I'd feel as if Ihad some right to be here."

"All that is coming," said the Harvester. "Take a little more time. You can't expect to sin steadily against the laws of health for years, and recover in a day. You will be all right much sooner than you think possible."

"Oh I hope so!" said the Girl. "But sometimes Idoubt it. How I could come here and put such a burden on a stranger, I can't see. I scarcely can remember what awful stress drove me. I had no courage. I should have finished in my garret as my mother did. I must have some of my father's coward blood in me. She never would have come. I never should!"

"If it didn't make any real difference to you, and meant all the world to me, I don't see why you shouldn't humour me. I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have you here. I could shout and sing all day."

"It requires very little to make some people happy."

"You are not much, but you are going to be more soon," laughed the Harvester, as he gently picked up the Girl and carried her to the swing, where he covered her, kissed her hot hand, and whistled for Belshazzar.

He pulled the table close and set a pitcher of iced fruit juice on it. Then he left her and she could hear the rattle of wheels as he crossed the bridge and drove away.

"Betsy, this is mighty serious business," said the Harvester. "The Girl is scorching or I don't know fever.

I wonder----well, one thing is sure----she is bound to be better off in pure, cool air and with everything I can do to be kind, than in Henry Jameson's attic with everything he could do to be mean. Pleasant men those Jamesons! Wonder if the Girl's father was much like her Uncle Henry? I think not or her refined and lovely mother never would have married him. Come to think of it, that's no law, Betsy. I've seen beautiful and delicate women fall under some mysterious spell, and yoke their lives with rank degenerates. Whatever he was, they have paid the price. Maybe the wife deserved it, and bore it in silence because she knew she did, but it's bitter hard on Ruth. Girls should be taught to think at least one generation ahead when they marry. Iwonder what Doc will say, Betsy? He will have to come and see for himself. I don't know how she will feel about that. I had hoped I could pull her through with care, food, and tonics, but I don't dare go any farther alone.

Betsy, that's a thin, hot, little hand to hold a man's only chance for happiness."