CHAPTER VIII

IN THE TIME OF THE SICKNESS

TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in the sick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, or take thought for anything save his own misery. From a mass of hazy recollections one or two moments of that time afterward came back clearly.

One such memory was of a dim morning within the cheerless room, when, through the familiar patter, patter of rain on the oiled paper at the windows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and men tread cautiously. Turning weakly on his pillow, Miles looked to the door that led to the inner room, where the sick women lay, and he saw Goodman Cooke and Edward Dotey come forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on a stretcher between them something that was muffled up and motionless. He turned his face again to the wall, and neither thought nor reasoned of what it meant,--just listened to the lulling patter of the rain.

The other time of which he kept remembrance was a crisp night, when the whiff of wind that blew in at the outer door, as it was opened, smelt fresh and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire, piled the logs high. Dozing and waking, Miles watched through half-closed eyelids the crowded pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered up and down the rough walls. He must have slept a moment, but he roused up suddenly to see in the waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him with a cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that supported him, Miles swallowed the draught obediently, and then the Elder, with more care than he usually had time to bestow on a single patient, laid him down and drew the coverings round him. "Poor little lad!" Miles heard him say, under his breath. "God comfort you!"

Miles wondered a little, but, too stupid greatly to heed what was said, soon dropped to sleep once more.

The crisis of his sickness must have passed on that night, for a day or two later he felt enough like himself to swallow with some relish a dish of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house while still convalescent, to make room for others, fetched him the broth, and helped him eat, with a choking great spoon that made the process slow. Miles wondered whether Ned had grown thin or his clothes had grown baggy; perhaps 'twas a little of both.

Then, on the idle wonderment, followed more serious thought, and, speaking slowly and weakly, he asked, as Lister settled him in his pallet again: "Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here to nurse me, as she did you and the others?"

"Haven't you been well enough looked to, Miley?" questioned Ned, bending down to tie his shoestrings.

"'Tis just the men have cared for me."

"Well, you're a man yourself, and want only men to look to you, eh?"

"No, I'm not a man," said Miles, the ready tears of sickness welling into his eyes, "and I want my mother."

"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself," answered Ned, still busy with his shoes. "We're all helpless with it, Miles. There's only seven of us now that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain and the Elder are working each like three. By the Lord, those be two good fellows!" This earnestly, for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl and spoon, he walked away to minister to the next sick man.

Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony on the shoulders of seven men, some half sick themselves! Miles realized vaguely that he ought to be patient and not fret at anything, but still the next two days of his slow convalescence were long and hard to bear.

He was glad enough, one dim morning that seemed like all the others, when the Elder came into the sick-room with Dolly at his side. "The little wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said, as he seated her on the edge of the boy's pallet. "But she is to talk only few words, and softly, because there are others lying here very ill."

So soon as he had turned and left the children to themselves, Dolly bent and dabbed a kiss upon her brother's chin. "Though you make me shy, near as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in a subdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and your eyes are so very round."

Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good to see the face of one of his own people. "I'm glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing her hand tremulously into his. "Mother will soon come too, will she not? Why did she not come with you?"

A choke made Dolly's whisper broken: "She--could not."

"Is she ill?"

Dolly nodded, with a piteous face.

Miles's thin fingers gripped her hand fast. "Dolly, she isn't--dead?" His voice rose high and frightened.

"Oh, you mustn't, Miles," Dolly gasped. "And I can't tell you. They said I must not speak of her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has been dead these four days!"

They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding his head beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him. Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed before his tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath the coverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would, so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some one uncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his face and looked up at Captain Standish, felt vaguely comforted.

"Drink you this, lad," spoke the Captain, gruffly, yet, Miles realized, with vast pity in his tone. "Then sleep."

"I'll--try," swallowed Miles.

"That's well. Bear it soldierly, as we all must."

"Like a soldier," Miles repeated over and over to himself, and, shutting his lips, pressed his head into the bolster, till, worn-out, he slept.

When he awoke, the realization of his loss returned, keen almost as ever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back to him, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, his grief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they could to comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister and Giles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dolly come to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled so piteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up and able to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the cat fled home, fast as four legs could bear him.

"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dolly lamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but he will go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, and so do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling and Priscilla Mullins. She made me a poppet of a piece of scarlet cloth, and I called it after her. I shall bring it to show you next time, though you'll laugh at it, because you are a boy. Indeed, I do like it at Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" she added, in a lower tone.

Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first, paused by Miles's bed, and spoken gravely to him of how his mother was now in a more blessed place, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he might join her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for the Elder's admonitions as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's words. Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to him, and, sitting by his pallet, whispered him of his mother, and how, before she died, she had left her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a good brother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without my bidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good little son to me."

Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when Mistress Brewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast and turned away his head.

Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slow stages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly across the room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which would doubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to give close heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, and the Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning when Lister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into his own hands by slipping out at the door.

It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring that came from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; the few bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were bursting with brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight. Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshness of the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to the bluff yonder where were the levelled graves.

Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off the doorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, where the sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for the chips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stacked against the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of water rested on a great block, and, most marvellous of all, over the tub, busily washing a mass of bed-linen, bent Captain Standish.

Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that made the Captain look up. "So you're well recovered, Miles?" he asked cheerily.

The boy nodded, and set himself down on the woodpile.

"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you will be sitting here," said Standish, and, shaking the water off his hands, came and wrapped the garment about Miles.

Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched the Captain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal of sober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them so vigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest and busy did he seem about the undignified task that, before he thought, Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?"

"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully, as he twisted a sheet so hard that a jet of water spurted over the front of his shirt, "not in the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it, and it must needs be done."

Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's how it is with living; somebody has to," he said at length.

"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish answered, with a quick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man's share of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavy thoughts."

Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called to mind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress Rose Standish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on the bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying once more to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began stoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have to take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."

Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes into his arms. "You're a true man already, Miles," he said. "At least, you're a man in the way you group your women-folk with your cattle."

After the Captain had gone behind the house to hang out his wash, Miles rested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and southward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. A brave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his mother had looked for him to do.

A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins came leisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had been touched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles had ever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think you could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"

"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkins was building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street from the Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to the latter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeing again the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and of talking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he got up to the house they would keep him there to supper, perhaps all night. So he answered Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily: "Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the hill."

"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall eat dinner with us this noontime."

"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed, but civilly.

"I'll take you to the house with me when I go back thither," the other pursued. "You understand, you are to dwell with me hereafter."

When Captain Standish returned from his drying ground, Stephen Hopkins had gone on down to the landing, and against the logs huddled a piteous-faced small boy, who at sight of him cried: "Captain Standish, Master Hopkins says I must live with him."

"Do you not wish to?" asked Standish, nonchalantly, and, tipping the water out of his tub, set himself down on the block where it had rested.

"I'd rather go anywhere else in Plymouth, unless 'twas to Goodwife Billington. Must I go to him, Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usual respectful demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps to the Captain, leaned against his knee. "I thought--maybe I should go with Dolly to Mistress Brewster," he said in a low voice.

Standish suddenly put one arm about him. "A pity it couldn't be so, Miles! But the Elder's house is full, and at Master Hopkins's there's half a bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case, Master Hopkins was your father's kinsman."

"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles. "Or--or--I wish I could live with you."

Standish laughed outright, though when he spoke his voice was gentle: "I would take you, laddie, and be glad to, if things were--as I thought they would be. Rose had a liking for you." He stopped short, and Miles, looking up in some awe, noted that his eyes were fixed on the blue harbor, yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke again, his tone was quick and altered: "But as things have fallen out, John Alden and I are sleeping in an unfinished cabin and eating where we can find a bite. And a little young fellow like you would be better off in a household where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they have arranged it all for your best good."

Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of what the Captain had said about being a man and things that had to be done, and he meant to make a good showing before him. "I like Giles," he began slowly, "and I like Constance, and Ned Lister will be there too; I'll try to like Master Hopkins--if he'll let me bring Trug."

So he had put on quite a brave face by the time Master Hopkins came to fetch him to his new home. To him it was all so much a matter of course that he offered no explanations or commonplace cheering words to Miles; just bade him come, and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles, with his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging, loitered half-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins turned. "You're not yet as strong as you thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but kindly enough, and, lifting the boy in his arms, carried him up the hill.

Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily about Master Hopkins's neck, and wished he were anywhere else.