The Copy-Cat and Other Stories Part 12

"If she faints away before you get there, you bring her right home,"

said Sarah. She was almost ferocious. "Just because YOU don't feel the heat, to take out that little pindlin' girl such a day!" she exclaimed.

"Dr. Trumbull said to," persisted Daniel, although he looked a little troubled. Sarah Dean did not dream that, for himself, Daniel Wise would have preferred facing an army with banners to going out under that terrible fusillade of sun-rays. She did not dream of the actual heroism which actuated him when he set out with little Dan'l, holding his big umbrella over her little sunbonneted head and waving in his other hand a palm-leaf fan.

Little Dan'l danced with glee as she went out of the yard. The small, anemic creature did not feel the heat except as a stimulant. Daniel had to keep charging her to walk slowly. "Don't go so fast, little Dan'l, or you'll get overhet, and then what will Mis' Dean say?" he continually repeated.

Little Dan'l's thin, pretty face peeped up at him from between the sides of her green sunbonnet. She pointed one dainty finger at a cloud of pale yellow b.u.t.terflies in the field beside which they were walking. "Want to chase flutterbies," she chirped. Little Dan'l had a fascinating way of misplacing her consonants in long words.

"No; you'll get overhet. You just walk along slow with Uncle Dan'l, and pretty soon we'll come to the pretty brook," said Daniel.

"Where the lagon-dries live?" asked little Dan'l, meaning dragon-flies.

"Yes," said Daniel. He was conscious, as he spoke, of increasing waves of thready black floating before his eyes. They had floated since dawn, but now they were increasing. Some of the time he could hardly see the narrow sidewalk path between the dusty meadowsweet and hardhack bushes, since those floating black threads wove together into a veritable veil before him. At such times he walked unsteadily, and little Dan'l eyed him curiously.

"Why don't you walk the way you always do?" she queried.

"Uncle Dan'l can't see jest straight, somehow," replied the old man; "guess it's because it's rather warm."

It was in truth a day of terror because of the heat. It was one of those days which break records, which live in men's memories as great catastrophes, which furnish head-lines for newspapers, and are alluded to with shudders at past sufferings. It was one of those days which seem to forecast the Dreadful Day of Revelation wherein no shelter may be found from the judgment of the fiery firmament. On that day men fell in their tracks and died, or were rushed to hospitals to be succored as by a miracle. And on that day the poor old man who had all his life feared and dreaded the heat as the most loathly happening of earth, walked afield for love of the little child. As Daniel went on the heat seemed to become palpable--something which could actually be seen. There was now a thin, gaseous horror over the blazing sky, which did not temper the heat, but increased it, giving it the added torment of steam. The clogging moisture seemed to brood over the accursed earth, like some foul bird with deadly menace in wings and beak.

Daniel walked more and more unsteadily. Once he might have fallen had not the child thrown one little arm around a bending knee. "You 'most tumbled down. Uncle Dan'l," said she. Her little voice had a surprised and frightened note in it.

"Don't you be scared," gasped Daniel; "we have got 'most to the brook; then we'll be all right. Don't you be scared, and--you walk real slow and not get overhet."

The brook was near, and it was time. Daniel staggered under the trees beside which the little stream trickled over its bed of stones. It was not much of a brook at best, and the drought had caused it to lose much of its life. However, it was still there, and there were delicious little hollows of coolness between the stones over which it flowed, and large trees stood about with their feet rooted in the blessed damp. Then Daniel sank down. He tried to reach a hand to the water, but could not.

The black veil had woven a compact ma.s.s before his eyes. There was a terrible throbbing in his head, but his arms were numb.

Little Dan'l stood looking at him, and her lip quivered. With a mighty effort Daniel cleared away the veil and saw the piteous baby face.

"Take--Uncle Dan'l's hat and--fetch him--some water," he gasped. "Don't go too--close and--tumble in."

The child obeyed. Daniel tried to take the dripping hat, but failed.

Little Dan'l was wise enough to pour the water over the old man's head, but she commenced to weep, the pitiful, despairing wail of a child who sees failing that upon which she has leaned for support.

Daniel rallied again. The water on his head gave him momentary relief, but more than anything else his love for the child nerved him to effort.

"Listen, little Dan'l," he said, and his voice sounded in his own ears like a small voice of a soul thousands of miles away. "You take the--umbrella, and--you take the fan, and you go real slow, so you don't get overhet, and you tell Mis' Dean, and--"

Then old Daniel's tremendous nerve, that he had summoned for the sake of love, failed him, and he sank back. He was quite unconscious--his face, staring blindly up at the terrible sky between the trees, was to little Dan'l like the face of a stranger. She gave one cry, more like the yelp of a trodden animal than a child's voice. Then she took the open umbrella and sped away. The umbrella bobbed wildly--nothing could be seen of poor little Dan'l but her small, speeding feet. She wailed loudly all the way.

She was half-way home when, plodding along in a cloud of brown dust, a horse appeared in the road. The horse wore a straw bonnet and advanced very slowly. He drew a buggy, and in the buggy were Dr. Trumbull and Johnny, his son. He had called at Daniel's to see the little girl, and, on being told that they had gone to walk, had said something under his breath and turned his horse's head down the road.

"When we meet them, you must get out, Johnny," he said, "and I will take in that poor old man and that baby. I wish I could put common sense in every bottle of medicine. A day like this!"

Dr. Trumbull exclaimed when he saw the great bobbing black umbrella and heard the wails. The straw-bonneted horse stopped abruptly. Dr. Trumbull leaned out of the buggy. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Uncle Dan'l is gone," shrieked the child.

"Gone where? What do you mean?"

"He--tumbled right down, and then he was-somebody else. He ain't there."

"Where is 'there'? Speak up quick!"

"The brook--Uncle Dan'l went away at the brook."

Dr. Trumbull acted swiftly. He gave Johnny a push. "Get out," he said.

"Take that baby into Jim Mann's house there, and tell Mrs. Mann to keep her in the shade and look out for her, and you tell Jim, if he hasn't got his horse in his farm-wagon, to look lively and harness her in and put all the ice they've got in the house in the wagon. Hurry!"

Johnny was over the wheel before his father had finished speaking, and Jim Mann just then drew up alongside in his farm-wagon.

"What's to pay?" he inquired, breathless. He was a thin, sinewy man, scantily clad in cotton trousers and a s.h.i.+rt wide open at the breast.

Green leaves protruded from under the brim of his tilted straw hat.

"Old Daniel Wise is overcome by the heat," answered Dr. Trumbull. "Put all the ice you have in the house in your wagon, and come along. I'll leave my horse and buggy here. Your horse is faster."

Presently the farm-wagon clattered down the road, dust-hidden behind a galloping horse. Mrs. Jim Mann, who was a loving mother of children, was soothing little Dan'l. Johnny Trumbull watched at the gate. When the wagon returned he ran out and hung on behind, while the strong, ungainly farm-horse galloped to the house set high on the sun-baked terraces.

When old Daniel revived he found himself in the best parlor, with ice all about him. Thunder was rolling overhead and hail clattered on the windows. A sudden storm, the heat-breaker, had come up and the dreadful day was vanquished. Daniel looked up and smiled a vague smile of astonishment at Dr. Trumbull and Sarah Dean; then his eyes wandered anxiously about.

"The child is all right," said Dr. Trumbull; "don't you worry, Daniel.

Mrs. Jim Mann is taking care of her. Don't you try to talk. You didn't exactly have a sunstroke, but the heat was too much for you."

But Daniel spoke, in spite of the doctor's mandate. "The heat," said he, in a curiously clear voice, "ain't never goin' to be too much for me again."

"Don't you talk, Daniel," repeated Dr. Trumbull. "You've always been nervous about the heat. Maybe you won't be again, but keep still. When I told you to take that child out every day I didn't mean when the world was like Sodom and Gomorrah. Thank G.o.d, it will be cooler now."

Sarah Dean stood beside the doctor. She looked pale and severe, but adequate. She did not even state that she had urged old Daniel not to go out. There was true character in Sarah Dean.

The weather that summer was an unexpected quant.i.ty. Instead of the day after the storm being cool, it was hot. However, old Daniel, after his recovery, insisted on going out of doors with little Dan'l after breakfast. The only concession which he would make to Sarah Dean, who was fairly frantic with anxiety, was that he would merely go down the road as far as the big elm-tree, that he would sit down there, and let the child play about within sight.

"You'll be brought home agin, sure as preachin'," said Sarah Dean, "and if you're brought home ag'in, you won't get up ag'in."

Old Daniel laughed. "Now don't you worry, Sarah," said he. "I'll set down under that big ellum and keep cool."

Old Daniel, at Sarah's earnest entreaties, took a palm-leaf fan. But he did not use it. He sat peacefully under the cool trail of the great elm all the forenoon, while little Dan'l played with her doll. The child was rather languid after her shock of the day before, and not disposed to run about. Also, she had a great sense of responsibility about the old man. Sarah Dean had privately charged her not to let Uncle Daniel get "overhet." She continually glanced up at him with loving, anxious, baby eyes.

"Be you overhet. Uncle Dan'l?" she would ask.

"No, little Dan'l, uncle ain't a mite overhet," the old man would a.s.sure her. Now and then little Dan'l left her doll, climbed into the old man's lap, and waved the palm-leaf fan before his face.

Old Daniel Wise loved her so that he seemed, to himself, fairly alight with happiness. He made up his mind that he would find some little girl in the village to come now and then and play with little Dan'l. In the cool of that evening he stole out of the back door, covertly, lest Sarah Dean discover him, and walked slowly to the rector's house in the village. The rector's wife was sitting on her cool, vine-shaded veranda.

She was alone, and Daniel was glad. He asked her if the little girl who had come to live with her, Content Adams, could not come the next afternoon and see little Dan'l. "Little Dan'l had ought to see other children once in a while, and Sarah Dean makes real nice cookies," he stated, pleadingly.

Sally Patterson laughed good-naturedly. "Of course she can, Mr. Wise,"

she said.

The next afternoon Sally herself drove the rector's horse, and brought Content to pay a call on little Dan'l. Sally and Sarah Dean visited in the sitting-room, and left the little girls alone in the parlor with a plate of cookies, to get acquainted. They sat in solemn silence and stared at each other. Neither spoke. Neither ate a cooky. When Sally took her leave, she asked little Dan'l if she had had a nice time with Content, and little Dan'l said, "Yes, ma'am."