Chapter 12

POOR ERNEST AND POOR MARIAN

Ernest was so tired of being pitied he was in open rebellion.

"For goodness' sake, don't 'poor' me any more! My eyes will be all right as soon as they get a good rest--the doctor said so. I guess I can stand it if they don't hurt like sin. Everybody comes in like a funeral procession asking me how I feel, and hoping it will be a lesson to me to take better care of my eyes. People needn't rub it in because a fellow's down--and the last thing he wants to think of is how he feels!"

"I think you must be feeling better, Ernest, or you wouldn't be so cross," retorted Marian slyly.

Ernest relaxed his gloom enough to grin.

"Well, I don't care--Mother hangs around babying me as if I were six years old!"

Ernest's catastrophe had come about so gradually no one had suspected it. He was reading a letter from Alice, who wrote a fine close hand, when his father noticed that he was holding the paper almost to his eyes. An examination revealed the fact that the poor eyes were sadly overstrained and would have to have a complete rest for weeks or his eyesight would be permanently injured.

This was distressing news to bookworm Ernest who was never so happy as when lost in a book. The lad was immensely proud of his school standing, too, and he chafed sadly at the thought of losing it.

"No school for three months, Son," his father said sorrowfully after the boy's eyes had been thoroughly tested.

"It must be a dark room and a bandage for three weeks at the very least, Dr. Allerton says."

Ernest groaned and growled rather more than usual to keep from breaking down and playing the baby, when he heard this verdict.

"It was all that confounded scroll work!"

"I am afraid so--you remember your mother warned you against selecting all those intricate patterns."

Ernest remembered only too distinctly, but he preferred not to be reminded of it.

"Is there anything a fellow can do?" he demanded after three horrid days of close confinement with the blinds down.

"Not much, poor boy, I'm afraid," Mrs. Morton replied pityingly. "I'll read to you a couple of hours this morning and perhaps Sherm and Carol will come in for a while after school. I'll send word to them by Chicken Little. Mrs. Dart sent you over one of her custard pies just now."

The custard pie sounded comforting.

"How long is it till dinner time?"

"Only about three hours--we might let you have a taste now if you are impatient," Mrs. Morton said.

"Oh, I can wait but the hours seem so plaguey long when you can't see. Read me Alice's letter again, will you? Gee, I wish she were here--she always knew how to help a chap out."

"Better than Mother?" Mrs. Morton couldn't help feeling a trifle nettled.

Ernest felt the tone.

"Oh, Mumsey, you're a brick, but Alice can always think up things--you know? Of course, she isn't like your mother." Ernest reached for his mother's dress and pulling her head down gave her a kiss--an unusual mark of affection.

It wrung Mrs. Morton's heart to see him grope to find her.

It took her a moment to compose herself before she went over to the window and raised the blind enough to see to read the letter.

Alice had written jubilantly of her progress.

"I am so happy today over a compliment--doesn't that sound vain?--that I am going to sit right down and share it with you. I should like to get up on a fence like that little bantam rooster of Darts' and crow it to all the world. Mrs. Martin, our principal, told me this morning I had done wonders in three months! And I was so stupid at first--French and Geometry seemed absolutely impossible. I used to put myself to sleep saying those awful French verbs. If the French had invented those verbs on purpose I'd never forgive them. But I suppose your language is like the color of your hair--you're not responsible. Funny how little of us is _us_, and how much is somebody else, isn't it? Tell Ernest the first ten pages of Geometry would have floored me completely if I hadn't remembered how patiently he used to saw round all those curves and curlicues in that scroll-work. Every time I flung the old book down and said 'I can't,' I seemed to see Ernest bent over that old scroll saw cutting Geometry out of wood. I could not let a fourteen year old boy beat me. Now the figures are getting as tame as kittens which reminds me of Jane's kitten.

"We call her Poky Pry because she is always poking her inquisitive nose into places where she has no business. I was afraid they might not want her here, but she frisked her way into favor at once. Her usual place for a morning nap is in Aunt Clara's work basket. We found her once in Uncle Joseph's silk hat. Another time she got shut in a bureau drawer and miauwed pitifully to be let out. But her funniest adventure was going downtown. Uncle Joseph got on the horse car one morning and was talking to a friend when they heard a soft purring. 'What on earth is that--it sounds like a cat?' asked the other man. They both looked all around. As soon as Uncle Joseph moved, the sound ceased. When they settled down to talk again the purring began again. 'Well, I never!' said Uncle Joseph. He made another search even getting down to look under the car seat. The sound ceased the moment he began to hunt. 'Pshaw,' said his friend, 'somebody is playing a trick on us. I've heard of people who can throw their voices so the sound seems to come from some other place.' So they settled down once more, and once more the purring began and grew louder. Uncle Joseph got fidgety. His friend watched the lips of the other passengers to see who was hoaxing them. 'It sounds,' he remarked finally, 'as if it came from your overcoat pocket!'--Uncle Joseph plunged his hand down into his pocket and felt soft warm fur. The whole car shouted when he drew Poky Pry out.

"I wonder if I told Chicken Little how Poky frightened the Pullman porter. She was sound asleep in her basket and I put it at the lower end of the berth, carelessly leaving the cover off. The porter was making up the next berth to mine. Suddenly I heard a wild shriek, and, parting my curtains, saw the porter dashing down the aisle with Poky Pry clanging distractedly to his kinky black head. She had crept out of her basket and made her way to the berth above the one he was making, to watch him. When he straightened up she evidently thought his wooly hair some new variety of mouse and she made a spring for it.

"Tell Chicken Little, Kitty has kept me from being lonesome and is a great comfort. Uncle Joseph keeps asking questions about Chicken Little. His girls are all boys and grown up. He was so pleased with her note thanking him for the ring. He chuckled over her skating adventure for days. 'Starting out pretty young to straighten up the world, isn't she?' he remarked."

"Chicken Little Jane is a very rash child, I'm afraid," Mrs. Morton said as she laid down the letter a few moments later. "I only hope she won't get into trouble some day on account of it."

"Don't worry, Mother, she always comes out all right."

Jane came up at noon to bring Ernest his dinner--a dinner in which a generous quarter of the custard pie played an important part. Sherm and Carol would come right from school she told him. Chicken Little had established herself as head nurse out of school hours. She felt very important and amused Ernest with her airs.

The boys were good as their word that afternoon and she met them with a life-like imitation of her mother's manner, admonishing them not to get Ernest excited. As a result the boys lumbered in self-conscious and awkward. Never having paid a sick-room visit before, they were rather overpowered by Ernest's bandaged eyes and the twilight gloom the doctor prescribed. So much so in fact, that they nearly defeated the object of their visit, which was to cheer Ernest up. Indeed they were so stiff and sympathetic that Ernest gruffly requested them to drop that and tell him about school. Tongues limbered up immediately at this, for each boy had a grievance.

"You can be jolly glad you ain't there. Old Goggle-eyes gave us two pages of Algebra--20 problems! I spent a whole hour on the first ten and I'm shaky about them now. Oh, he's a honey, he is--the dried up old crank. I'll bet he was old when Methuselah was born."

"Well, I'd rather tackle Goggle-eyes and minus X than write compositions for Miss Halliday on Spring Flowers--Sper-ing Flow-ers," Carol simpered gently, and, letting his hands fall limp from the wrists, fluttered imaginary skirts in a fantastic promenade across the room.

"'You must cultivate the love of the be-utiful--contemplate birds--and lovely flowers and express what they mean to you,'" he quoted in a high pitched voice. "Holy smoke, I had a notion to tell her that spring flowers meant digging dandelions at five cents a thousand, when I wanted to go fishing! She might at least save 'em till the ground thaws--it's colder than Greenland out today."

"Yes, Father says we're in for a blizzard tonight."

"You might tell her the blizzard nipped all the flowers in the bud, Carol."

"Nope, I'll put it on the list of things I'm thankful for next Thanksgiving, that there aren't any plaguey spring flowers in bloom to write about."

"Say, Pat's got your seat. But he wouldn't let Old Goggle-eyes take your things out. He said there was plenty of room for them. He's got them stacked up in one end of the desk all ship-shape. He's going to be on our nine next summer."

The boys were performing their mission nobly. Ernest began to feel actually consoled for missing school.

"I won three agates and a chiny off Fatty Grover--like to froze my fingers too. We got down behind the coal house out of the wind, but it didn't help much."

"Thought Fatty darsent play keeps?"

"Well, I guess his dad'd lick him if he found out--s'pose he'd most have to, being the Minister--but Fatty's game--he won't blab. Aren't they beauties?"

Ernest gave a little gesture of impatience and Sherm suddenly remembered the bandaged eyes.

"Oh, say, I didn't go to----" he began penitently.

Mrs. Morton appeared opportunely at this moment with a plate of hot doughnuts, a little anxious lest the boys should fall to romping.

Poor Marian's trouble began two weeks after Ernest's and proved to be much more serious. She had sympathized deeply with the bookloving boy in his irksome confinement, and she had been more than faithful about coming over to read or talk to him. It was coming through a storm to keep her promise to him that proved her own undoing.

She had a hard cold already--March had been continuously raw and blustery. The last day of the month had brought with it the worst blizzard of the season. A cutting wind swept down from the north and the snow was icy hard and stinging. Marian watched the storm from her windows for some time before she could get up courage to venture out. But Mother Morton's was only three blocks away and she knew Ernest would be doubly disappointed if she failed to come because of the dreary day. So she wrapped up warmly and braved the elements. The three blocks seemed a mile before she covered them. She had to fight every inch in the teeth of the wind and reached the gabled house thoroughly chilled and spent. A bad attack of pneumonia followed this exposure, and Ernest's troubles were almost ignored in the anxiety about lovely Marian.

The crisis passed safely by dint of loving care and good nursing, but her convalescence was slow. Ernest's eyes were well and he was back in school before Marian dared leave the house. It grieved them all to see her so thin and white.

Poor Ernest heard the story of her struggle with the blizzard for his sake repeated so many times, as sympathetic friends called upon his mother, that the boy began to feel a personal responsibility for her illness. He didn't say anything but he hovered around her as soon as he was permitted to go out, spending every cent of his slender pin money in dainties and flowers which he seldom presented to her directly. He would leave them on her bed or on the dining-room table with never a word. Frank and Marian were pleased and touched by his devotion. They laughed together over his bashful ways without suspecting that the lad was worried.

It was Chicken Little who finally wormed his trouble out of him.

"Gee, I wish I had some decent marbles. Sherm's got a stunner of an onyx and six flints and----"

"Why Ernest Morton, I thought Father gave you a quarter last night to get some."

Ernest grinned in embarrassed silence.

Chicken Little regarded him suspiciously.

"What did you do with it?"

Ernest did not deign to reply.

"Bet you spent it for those grapes for Marian."

Ernest drummed on the window.

"She doesn't 'spect you to take your marble money for her, goosie. Say, Ernest, what's the matter?"

The boy swallowed painfully.

"Tell me, Ernest, I won't tell. Honest to goodness, I won't." Jane cuddled up close to him laying her face against his shoulder caressingly.

Ernest was not proof against her sympathy and he blurted out his remorse.

"'Tisn't your fault a speck--you didn't tease her to come."

Chicken Little patted and argued in vain. Ernest found her comforting, but did not feel that she was old enough to understand.

Chicken Little took the matter up with Marian the very next day. She began very diplomatically because she had promised not to tell.

"Do you s'pose you'd got sick if you hadn't come to see Ernest that day, Marian?"

"Probably not, dear."

This was not reassuring.

"But you might have gone some place else, mightn't you?"

"I suppose so--only I don't think I should have been silly enough to go out in that storm without a good reason."

"But it wasn't Ernest's fault it stormed," Jane replied plaintively.

"Ernest's fault? Why, what do you mean?" Marian looked at the child in astonishment.

Jane's face was very sober.

"I just guess he couldn't help if it you got all cold and----"

"Of course not, Jane, what put such an idea into your head! I should have had more sense than to venture out in such a storm. Does Ernest--is that why he brings me all those things and hangs round so?--the poor boy? Dear me, this will never do."

"He wouldn't like it if he knew I told you," said Chicken Little ruefully.

"You haven't told me, dear. I guessed it, but I'll find a way to stop his worrying."

April came and went and Marian was still pale and weak. Dr. Morton looked grave and finally suggested to Frank that they should have the famous Dr. Brownleigh of Chicago down to examine Marian's lungs. Frank went white at the suggestion, but quietly acquiesced. Two days later the great doctor arrived.

Chicken Little knew there was some excitement afoot that morning when she went to school. Both Dr. and Mrs. Morton looked sad and Mrs. Morton sighed frequently. Ernest pushed most of his breakfast away untasted.

"What time will he be here, Father?"

"On the nine-thirty."

"Who?" Chicken Little demanded curiously.

"A man you have never seen, little daughter," her father replied quietly.

So Chicken Little went off to school mystified but curious.

The great physician did his work carefully. It was before the days of germ cultures, and the apparatus for such tests had not reached the perfection of today. There was much room for professional judgment.

Dr. Morton and Marian's mother were with Frank beside the bed. Frank looked miserably anxious in spite of his efforts at self control, and Marian's big eyes were questioning and wistful.

Dr. Brownleigh smiled cheerfully down at her as he finished.

"Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Morton, you will live to be a nice rosy-cheeked grandmother. I predict you'll be plumper than your mother."

The tension was broken and Marian sighed with relief.

"There, I told you it was silly to be scared about me, Frank. It always did take me a long time to recover from an illness--even a cold. I'm afraid I'm lazy--you didn't know you had married a lazy wife did you?" Marian gave his hand a little loving pat and Frank silently stooped to kiss her, but he was not reassured.

He had watched the varying expressions of the great doctor's face and he was decidedly uneasy. With reason, he found when he accompanied his father and Dr. Brownleigh back to the old home.

Once inside the little sitting room Dr. Brownleigh turned to him gravely.

"Mr. Morton, your face tells me that you have read mine. Please don't make the mistake of imagining your wife is worse than she is. Her right lung is considerably affected, I am sorry to say. The left one seems to be perfectly sound there is no reason with proper care and a change of climate why she should not live for years."

"Change of climate?--that means what--a few months or a permanent move?"

"A year at the least--I should advise a permanent change to Kansas or Colorado or Arizona. She needs a dryer and more even climate, plenty of fresh air and an outdoor life."

Frank groaned. His father laid his hand on his shoulder sympathetically.

"It is hard, my boy, when you have such a good position here, too. Brace up--we'll find a way out--and Marian may be completely cured--remember that."

Many were the consultations in the Morton and Gates homes during the next few weeks. It was agreed not to tell Marian her weakness till she was able to be out again. In the meantime it was arranged that Dr. Morton should take a trip west to look up a suitable location.

Without telling her the real reason, Frank had talked Marian into the idea of ranching and the older people found her eager zest and enthusiasm for the new life, pathetic.

"I know I'll be lots stronger on a farm," she declared. "I shall have chickens and make butter. You can all come out and spend the summers--won't that be grand?"

Dr. Morton had offered to buy a ranch for Frank taking over their cozy Centerville home in part payment. Ernest had been taken into the family councils and understood all this. He was a reserved serious lad who could be depended upon not to talk. But Chicken Little was not so favored. She knew only that Father was going on a long journey out west, and she did not concern herself as to his errand.