CHAPTER IX

A Friend in Need

DR. SHAW put Nell down at the gate of the house at Lorimer’s Clearing, but he did not stay to take her in and introduce her, because a man had stopped him five minutes before, begging him to go to an urgent case two miles in another direction.

“That is what comes of being a doctor; a man is the servant of every one, and has not a moment to call his own,” he grumbled, as he urged his horse to a better pace.

“But it must be lovely to help people, and to know how to do things,” Nell said, with a sigh of envy.

“Oh, ignorance is bliss sometimes, I can assure you,” he answered, with a laugh. Then, having arrived at the gate, he got down and helped her to dismount with more courtesy than he was in the habit of showing towards the people who shared his rides.

A bad fit of shyness seized upon Nell as she passed through the gate and walked up to the house.

It was years since she had approached so grand a residence. There were white curtains to the windows, and plants growing in bright red pots, while the door was painted green and the door-frame white.

She stood hesitating a moment, wondering if there were not some humbler entrance at which she could apply for admission, when from the open window came the sound of a child’s wailing cry, and then a pain-wrung voice in fretful complaint.

“Oh, Flossie, do take baby up and keep him quiet, my head is so bad!”

“I will as soon as I can, but I’ve got to take Patsey some broth, and it is such hard work to carry baby about with me,” a tired little voice answered meekly.

Nell drew a quick breath and straightway forgot her shyness. She even forgot to knock at the door, but, pushing it open, marched into the house, dumped her bundle on the nearest chair, and whisking off the black silk cape, said cheerfully—

“I will take the broth to Patsey if you show me which room, then you can look after baby until I come back again.”

The small lame girl, who was warming broth in a saucepan at the stove, faced round in amazement, while a girl lying on the settle by the window, covered up in a rug, lifted her head from the cushion with a start of surprise, and even the baby in the cradle in the corner left off wailing, attracted by the nodding pink roses in the new-comer’s old-fashioned bonnet.

But Nell had no idea of the attention she had attracted. Elbowing the lame girl gently aside, she got possession of the saucepan, and having decided that the broth was warm enough, poured it into the basin which stood on the table, then said brightly—

“Now show me where Patsey is, or can I find him myself?”

“He is in there,” answered Flossie, pointing a small, rather grimy finger in the direction of an open door at the end of the room; then she added with a gasp, “But he doesn’t like strangers.”

“Oh, he will like me,” replied Nell, in a confident tone, making the pink roses nod up and down as she nodded her head; then, carrying the broth, she walked across the kitchen and into the room where Patsey, a freckled-faced boy of twelve years old, was lying in bed.

“Who are you?” he asked in great surprise, attracted as the baby had been by the pink roses which adorned the stranger’s bonnet.

“Oh, just now I’m the broth-woman, and you’ve got to sit up in bed and drink it every drop. Then I may change into the bed-making woman—that is, if any one wants to have a bed made, and after that—well, you just see about drinking this broth, while I think about what I will be next,” she said coaxingly, reading signs of rebellion in Patsey’s eye.

“I don’t like broth,” he whined.

“Call it soup, then, and you know every one likes soup,” she said, with a low merry laugh.

He sat up in bed without further demur, and commenced on the broth, taking it with slow reluctance as if he had no appetite. Then his eyes suddenly brightened, and he exclaimed—

“I know who you are; you are Mrs. Munson’s fairy that Dr. Shaw talked about, and he said he was going to borrow you to come and help us until we all get better.”

Nell coloured high with pleasure, because of the good reputation which had preceded her; then she said laughingly—

“Well, if I’m a fairy, you will have to make haste and get better before I have to go. There are not many flowers left, you know, and the leaves are falling fast, so when they are all gone the fairies have to go too.”

“Where do they go?” demanded Patsey, wrinkling his freckled face into a grin of amusement.

“I don’t know; that is one of the things I shall have to find out. Lie down now, laddie, and I will come back presently to make your bed, only first of all I want to see what I can do for your sister.”

Carrying the empty basin back to the other room, Nell found the girl who had been lying down was sitting up, and holding by one hand to the table.

“Don’t you think that you would feel better if you were in bed?” she asked, in a pitiful tone.

“I dare say I should, but I daren’t give up, because there’s no one else to do anything, except poor little Flossie, and she is lame,” the girl said, lifting her pale face and heavy eyes to look at Nell with wistful entreaty.

“I can do the work now I’ve come. Flossie will show me where to find things, or I can ask Patsey to tell me. He is getting better, by the look of him, and he took all his broth,” Nell said, as she untied and laid aside her bonnet. Then she pulled an apron from her bundle of clothes, and, having tied it on, proceeded to roll up her sleeves in readiness for work.

“It would be lovely to lie down and have no care. I think it is the worry of everything that has made me bad,” said the poor white-faced girl.

“Worry always makes people sick, if they have too much of it,” rejoined Nell. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “You are the other girl, ain’t you?”

“What do you mean?” inquired Gertrude, in surprise.

“I mean, you are the girl who was to have gone and stayed with Mrs. Munson, and didn’t,” explained Nell.

Gertrude frowned, then said, in a petulant tone, “Oh, why am I to be reminded of that miserable business at every turn? Surely other people forget sometimes; and just think what our troubles have been of late!”

“Please forgive me, I did not mean to make you cross. I only wanted to say ‘thank you,’ because you did forget, and so left room for me,” said Nell, in a contrite tone.

“I’m cross all the time now,” admitted Gertrude. “But I can’t help it, and oh, I am so glad you have come; only I’m afraid you won’t be comfortable, and I don’t know where you can sleep.”

“Don’t trouble about me, and it isn’t bedtime yet. Just let me make you comfortable, and then I’ll go and see what I can do for your mother; she is sick, too, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Poor mother! she is just broken-hearted about losing Percy and Arthur, and it makes her seem as if she doesn’t care about anything else,” Gertrude said, with quivering lips.

Nell helped her to get to bed, waiting upon her with so much understanding and skill that Gertrude exclaimed presently, in amazed wonder—

“How kind you are! Where did you learn it all?”

“I don’t know. But I am so sorry for you,” replied Nell, looking rather abashed, but speaking with such evident sincerity, that Gertrude began to think there was some good left in life after all, and a ray of hope stole into her heart.

“Go to mother now, will you, please? I think father is lying down in there too; but you won’t mind, will you? It will be such a comfort to them to know that some one has come to help us.”

Nell went off then to the darkened room at the end of the house, where the mother lay sick with misery and broken hopes. It was such a grand chamber, too, with a flowery paper on the walls, a flowery carpet on the floor, and curtains to the bed, as well as the window. The new-comer stood still on the threshold, quite amazed at so much magnificence, and scarcely liking to walk across the carpet to the bed, through fear of spoiling it with her worn old boots.

Abe Lorimer was not in bed, but sitting in a rocking-chair, looking very ill and wretched.

“Come in,” he said, in his slow, quiet tones, looking at Nell with vague curiosity, as if he wondered who she was, yet did not care very much about the matter at all.

“Who’s that?” demanded a querulous voice from the bed.

Whereupon Nell ventured across the carpet on tiptoe, and stood where Mrs. Lorimer could see her.

“If you please I’ve come to help,” she said, finding it difficult to repress a shiver, for the woman on the bed reminded her in a roundabout fashion of Mrs. Gunnage, and it was a reminder which brought no pleasure with it.

“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Lorimer, surveying Nell with measuring eyes, which took in every detail of her appearance, from the masses of dark, rather untidy hair crowning her head, down to the worn boots, which were her private mortification just then.

“Dr. Shaw brought me over from Mrs. Munson’s place, on the American side,” explained Nell, who was so secretly elated with having realized her ambition in having crossed the frontier, that some of it had to come out in her speech.

“You can stay and help a bit, if Gertrude likes to have you. Have you seen her?” asked Mrs. Lorimer.

“Yes; I’ve just put her to bed. She is ill. I’m afraid she has got the fever, the same as Mrs. Munson had,” Nell said gravely, deciding, with quick intuition, that Mrs. Lorimer needed rousing more than medicine.

“Gertrude bad! Whatever shall we do? Abe, do you hear, or can’t you rouse yourself?” she said, lifting herself on her pillow to look at the man, who sat leaning back in the rocking-chair.

“Hush! don’t bother him, he looks so bad,” Nell whispered. “Do you think, if I made the other room comfortable, you could get up for an hour or two and sit by the fire? I could manage the others so much better if you were up. There would be nothing for you to do, only to lean back in a rocking-chair and be comfortable.”

“I don’t know if I could sit up. I’ll try. Oh dear! there never seems any chance for me to be ill in peace,” sighed the poor harassed woman, then shed a rain of self-pitying tears.

Nell did not stay to condole with her, but hurried back to the family sitting-room, where Flossie was doing her best with the baby, a lusty young gentleman of sixteen or seventeen months, while another boy, of perhaps four or five years, had just come in from somewhere with some hens’ eggs in a basket, which he held up in triumph for his sister to see.

“Oh, Teddy, what a nice lot! Where did you find them?” cried Flossie, excitedly.

But Teddy, overawed by the sight of a stranger, merely put his finger in his mouth, drooped his head shyly to one side, and said nothing.

The sun was shining so brightly that Nell had a sudden inspiration.

“Have you a little cart to draw the baby about in? Wouldn’t you like to go out in the sunshine for awhile, dear?” she asked. Then, struck by the paleness of Flossie’s face, she added hastily, “Or are you too tired?”

“I’m not too tired to go out; I’d love to go, but won’t you want me to help?” Flossie asked wistfully.

So much help had been required from her lately that life had become a rather wearisome business.

“I think I can manage. Don’t go out of sight of the door, then I can call you if I want to know anything,” Nell said, as she wrapped Master Baby in the first shawl which came handy, while Teddy ran to bring the little cart, which had served all the young Lorimers in turn.

For the next hour Nell was as busy as she could be. She swept and tidied the sitting-room, and put the fire into cheerful burning order; then, wrapping Mrs. Lorimer in a few loose easy garments, she helped her out to the sitting-room, and put her into the most comfortable chair by the fire. That done, she went back to the bedroom, made the bed, and tried to persuade Abe to lie down upon it.

But he only shook his head, saying that he would rather be left alone, so she had to go away hoping that he would change his mind later.

There was much to be done with such a houseful of invalids, and the day wore to evening without Nell realizing how time had flown. Then the hired man, who had been helping Abe Lorimer since the deaths of the two boys, came in for the pail before going to milk the cows, and she at once applied to him for help.

“Mr. Lorimer is ill. I can’t persuade him to go to bed, and every hour he is staying up now will make a day’s difference in his getting better, only of course he’s too sick to know that, or he’d get into bed as quickly as he could. Can’t you go and persuade him? You might even help him to undress.”

The hired man, who was fresh out from England, and had been an assistant in a chemist’s shop before coming West as a farm labourer, promised to do what he could, and disappeared into the bedroom. Nell shuddered to think of his heavy, dirty boots on that flowery carpet, but there was no help for it, for she had not liked to ask him to remove them, and he probably had not thought anything about the matter.

He was a long time gone, and when he came back, he announced that he had succeeded in getting Mr. Lorimer into bed, but believed him to be very ill indeed.

“Some one ought to sit up with him to-night,” said the young man, as he took the pail and went out to milk the cows.

“I wonder what we shall do?” said Nell to Flossie, when later the little girl came in with the baby, while Teddy dragged the baby-cart away to the wood-shed. “Does the hired man sleep in the house? What is his name? And is he any good?”

“What a lot of questions! I can’t answer them all at a gulp,” Flossie said, with a quavering laugh. “His name is George Miller, he sleeps in the loft, and he is so kind that I just love him,” she cried with enthusiasm, but added, with a grave shake of her head, “I’m afraid he does not know much about farm work.”

“What he doesn’t know he will have to find out then, somehow,” Nell said rather grimly, for she did not know much of farm work herself; and she could have wept because of her own ignorance, as she looked about the house and the dairy, and thought of all the work which wanted doing, but must, for the present, be neglected, because of her want of knowledge.

“But I can tell George lots of things, and mother can tell him too,” Flossie said confidently. Then she showed Nell how to get the separator ready for the evening milk to be passed through, told her where the cream would have to go, and generally instructed her in the first principles of dairy management.

Mrs. Lorimer was much better that evening, and declared herself quite equal to looking after her husband through the night, which was a great comfort to them all.

George Miller went off early to his night’s rest in the loft, after volunteering to sit up if he were needed, and when he was gone, Nell was able to make her arrangements for the night.

There were only two downstairs bedrooms at Lorimer’s; but there was a small, very smart best parlour, and in this a bed had been placed, on which Gertrude was lying.

Nell fairly held her breath when she had leisure to examine the splendours of this apartment, which, however, had a close fusty smell that half choked her, accustomed as she was to fresh air in unlimited quantities. There was a looking-glass over the mantel-shelf which was festooned with green tissue paper. Stiffly starched antimacassars hung over every chair-back, one table had a bright red cloth, and another had a green one, while the vases on the mantelpiece were blue. It was very grand, of course; but, on the whole, she felt more at home in the family sitting-room, which was also dining-room, kitchen, and scullery rolled into one.

Gertrude’s bed stood against the wall on the side farthest from the window, and by pushing the table with the green cloth farther into the corner, Nell decided that she could get a very good night’s rest lying on the rug in the middle of the room, and could look after Gertrude at the same time.

Flossie and the baby slept for that night in a bed standing in Patsey’s room, while Teddy curled down in Patsey’s bed, sleeping all night rolled up in a tight little ball like a kitten. Nell went in to look at them once or twice, and was so charmed with their peaceful sleeping faces that she could have lingered looking, forgetful of her own need of rest. But Gertrude’s moaning drew her back each time she went away, and kept her awake a great part of the night as well.

“So many children, I can’t take care of them all; so much work, mother, I can’t get it done!” muttered the sick girl, over and over, as the weary hours went by, until at last, despairing of sleep, Nell rose from her hard bed on the floor, and sat down on one of the smart chairs to wait for daylight, when active work must begin again.

“Dear, dear, poor girl; how it all must have worried her!” said Nell to herself, as she listened to Gertrude’s distressful plaint. “Now, I should just love to have a lot of people of my own like this. If only the four in the other room were my brothers and sister, I should be so happy, that there would seem nothing in life left to wish for. What a puzzle life is! Here is the other girl, broken down and sick, because she has got too many helpless folks to look after, while I am just about breaking my heart because I’ve no one to love or care for. I hope they’ll be obliged to keep me here for ever so long, then I can make-believe they are all my own people, especially Flossie and the baby.”

Nell’s thoughts merged into dreams at this point, so slipping and swaying, drooping forward and recovering herself, she dozed and waked, then dozed again in fitful unrestful slumber, until the cocks began to crow shrilly, and she heard George Miller, the hired man, come creeping with slow, cautious steps down from the loft chamber overhead.

“Time to get up now,” she said to herself, with a little laugh of amusement, as she rose from the chair and stretched her weary limbs; then going out to the kitchen, she plunged her face into a bowl of cold water, and so prepared for a day of toil.