Angel Agnes Part 5

Hour after hour Agnes battled with the demon fever which was gnawing at the vitals of her beloved George. At intervals her care seemed to get the better of the disorder, and to cause it to loosen its grip. But, alas! after twenty-four hours of unceasing toil and anxiety, poor devoted Agnes was forced to endure the mental agony of seeing Harkness die. The last thing he did was to smile up in her yearning face, and try to thank her for all she had done for him. His voice was gone; but she knew what the slowly moving parched lips were saying for all that. Slipping her arms under his shoulders, Agnes bent down, and raising him up ever so gently, she pressed him to her bosom and kissed him. Even as she did so Harkness breathed his last. With a deep sigh, Agnes allowed the corpse to sink gradually down again upon the bed, composed the limbs, closed the eyes, and bound up the fallen jaw. These sad offices finished, her next care was to see that the body was properly interred in a separate grave by itself--a matter which was quite difficult of accomplishment. But she succeeded in having the burial so effected.

The death of Mr. Harkness under such circ.u.mstances was, of course, quite distressing to Agnes Arnold, and somehow or other she could not banish from her mind a presentiment of an additional calamity that was about to befall her. Yet her mind was perfectly at ease, so far as she herself was concerned.

Never at any moment could death surprise her; for, from early years, she had lived up to the admonition of our Saviour, "Be ye also ready."

Yet this gloom, that wrapped itself around her like an ominous pall, she could not penetrate, nor cast from her, no matter how strenuously she tried to do so. More devoted even than before, did she now become in her ministrations to the sick and suffering people of Shreveport.

AGNES SAVES A CHILD, BUT DIES HERSELF.

The last family which Agnes nursed lived in the northern portion of the city, and consisted of a mother and three children; the youngest a baby twelve months old.

Ordinarily they had been in middling circ.u.mstances, but having lost her husband by a railroad accident six months previously, the widow was reduced to quite a straightened condition. And when the fever seized her, she was in utter despair at the thought of being taken away from her dear ones.

But when they brought Agnes to nurse her, and told her of the wonderful good fortune that always attended the heroic girl, she seemed to take fresh spirit and gain strength.

As yet the baby was unscathed by the dreadful plague, And it would have been sent away, could they have got any person to take it. That, however, was impossible.

"Never mind, Mrs. Green, do not let that subject worry you any more. I will take good care of the baby. They shall not take it away from you," said Agnes, hugging the infant to her.

"O, G.o.d bless you! G.o.d bless you, always," exclaimed the poor mother, thrilled with the deepest grat.i.tude. "My darling! my baby! my baby!"

True to her word, Agnes never neglected the little thing, though sometimes, between it and her patients, she was nearly beside herself.

Reader, if you are a woman, and have ever had even an ordinary sickness in your household, you can easily comprehend the position in which Agnes was placed with her three patients to nurse, and an infant to care for at the same time. Yet she never murmured, never became impatient.

But, in the mysterious workings of Providence, it was destined that the good, the beautiful, the angelic girl should not be long of this world.

"De good Lord ob hebben has tuk her away to her reward!" wept an old negress, who had been saved by the kind and tender care of Agnes, a short time before, and who had waited on her in her dying moments, and closed her eyes when all was over.

This poor old creature was only too happy when they gave her permission to prepare the inanimate form of her late benefactress for the grave. When she had done all, she did not know what to do for some ornament, till at last a brilliant thought came across her mind, and she adopted it.

Wherever Agnes used to go she always carried a small basket containing little useful articles, together with a pocket Bible, out of which she was ever reading some portion of G.o.d's holy word, appropriate to the mental condition of the patients she might be nursing. Out of this basket old Rachel took the pocket Bible, and, with the tears coursing down her wrinkled features, she placed the sacred book in the clasped hand of the quiet sleeper, and laid both gently back on the still pure bosom.

"O, honey," she groaned, "ef ye could on'y open dem hebbenly eyes ob yourn, an' see dat book dar, wot you used to lub so well, how you would bress dis poor ole n.i.g.g.ah fur puttin' it in dat pooty white hand ob yourn."

The manner in which Agnes lost her life was as follows:

During the day the three who were ill with the fever were exceeding troublesome, fairly overtasking the strength of Agnes in attending to them. Shortly after noon, also, the baby began to exhibit symptoms of being ill. It steadily grew worse, and became exceedingly fractious.

The only way in which Agnes could pacify it, was to keep walking with it in her arms constantly. The moment she would attempt to sit down to rest herself or lay it in its crib, so that she might do something for the others, it would scream dreadfully till she began to walk it again.

In this way Agnes worried along for the greater portion of the night, never closing her eyes nor sitting down. Just before daylight, however she became so utterly wearied out with fatigue, that she actually got asleep several times while walking.

During one of these overpowering moments she stepped too near the top of the stairway, lost her balance, toppled over, and fell heavily all the way down to the bottom. There she struck the small of her back upon the edge of a water-pail that happened to be standing on the floor.

Had she not been enc.u.mbered with the baby she might have saved herself. But the instant she awoke, and found that she was falling, her first and only thought was how to keep the infant from going down underneath herself and being surely killed. To prevent this, she endeavored to hold it up, which effort caused her to twist or turn round in her descent, and so fall as to inflict on herself the dreadful and fatal injury.

She must have screamed as she went down, because two men who were pa.s.sing by, ran in immediately, and carried her into the next room.

The pain she suffered was most excruciating, yet the first words she uttered were:

"Is the baby safe? poor little darling!"

"Yes, ma'm. I hope you aint hurted any worse than the baby," replied one of the men, with genuine, though unpolished sympathy.

"Thank G.o.d, the baby's safe," said Agnes. "I am hurt; but after awhile I think I will be able to get up. I would be deeply obliged to you though, gentlemen, if you would stay till daylight--that is, if you are not afraid of the fever. There are three sick with it up stairs."

"No, ma'm, we're not afeard of it. I'll stay with you, and, John"--the speaker turned to his companion--"you go up to the house, and ask one of the Sisters to come right along with you, for it'll be more nicer for this lady to have a female with her than men. It'll make her feel more natural and easy, won't it ma'm?"

"O, thank you a thousand times, sir," replied Agnes, most deeply affected by the considerate gallantry of the kind-hearted, manly fellow, who was hugging the baby up to him just like a father, and keeping it quiet by all sorts of baby talk.

In about half an hour the other man returned with a Sister of Mercy, who at once recognized Agnes. She was one of those with whom Agnes had come on the cars into Shreveport.

The injured girl whispered in her ear how she was hurt, and Sister Mary dispatched the man who had brought her hither, for additional help, which in a short time arrived.

As soon as the doctor came and examined the injury Agnes had sustained, he found that, independent of the fracture of the spine, she was much hurt internally. He had no hopes of her recovery, and he commenced, in a roundabout way to break the opinion to her; but she saw it already in his face, and interrupted him:

"Ah, Doctor, I know all. Do not hesitate to tell me exactly how long I have to live. I have no fear of death, I am prepared for it."

The physician thereupon informed her that she might possibly survive forty-eight hours.

"Forty-eight hours!" she rejoined, "that is much longer than will be needed for what I wish to do."

Then, in the most composed manner, she dictated to Sister Mary a letter to her mother, narrating all which had occurred since her previous letter, including an account of the accident.

This done, the heroic girl prepared to pa.s.s whatever of life remained to her in pious conversation with Sister Mary, and advice and comfort to poor old Rachel, the negro woman, who hung over her, constantly weeping.

As it became apparent that dissolution was close at hand, Sister Mary asked Miss Arnold:

"Agnes, is there any matter relating to your worldly affairs that you have not already thought of, or that you wish attended to."

"No, Sister, I believe not. Ah, yes, there is," she quickly added; "I would ask, that when I am gone, you will put my poor body in a grave immediately beside that of Mr. Harkness. He was my intended husband, and died only a short time ago with the fever. Also, will you add a postscript to mother's letter, and say to her that it was my dying wish, that if she lives, she will at some future time have us both taken up and brought home, and bury us in one grave there?"

"Indeed, I will do so. Is there nothing else, Agnes?"

There was a great sadness in her voice as Sister Mary asked this, just as though, years agone, when her own face was young and pretty, and her own heart happy and free, she had been loved and had lost her love in the grave.

"No, Sister, nothing more of this world. Come, Death, O come," said Agnes, as she was seized with a paroxysm of pain.

"In G.o.d's good time, Agnes, dear," suggested the Sister.

"Yes, yes, in His good time, Agnes!" repeated the dying girl, as though chiding herself for her impatience to be gone; "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

"Pray, sweet Agnes, pray to Him for strength to keep you, all unfearful, while pa.s.sing through the Dark Valley."

"Give me, O, my Heavenly Father, give me strength in this mine hour of tribulation and suffering? Not my will, but Thine be done!"