Chapter 2

There was no possibility of quieting Jason after that, and the days that followed were hard for all concerned. If he had an ache he was terrified; if he did not have one, he was more so. He began, also, to distrust his own powers of diagnosis, and to study all the patent medicine advertisements he could lay his hands on. He was half comforted, half appalled, to read them. Far from being able to pick out his own particular malady from among the lot, he was forced to admit that as near as he could make out he had one or more symptoms of each and every disease that was mentioned.

"Now, Hitty, I'll leave it to you," he submitted plaintively. "Here's 'Dread of impending evil.' Now I've got that, sure; ye know I'm always thinkin' somethin' dreadful's goin' ter happen. 'Sparks before the eyes.' There! I had them only jest ter-day. I was sweepin' out the barn, an' I see 'em hoppin' up an' down in a streak of sunshine that come through a crack. 'Variable appetite.' Now, Hitty, don't ye remember? Yesterday I wanted pie awful, an' I ate a whole one; well, this mornin' seems as if I never wanted ter see an apple pie again. Now, if that ain't 'variable,' I don't know what is. 'Inquietude.'"

"Humph! You've got that all right," cut in Mehitable.

"'Weakness.' I hain't got a mite o' strength, Hitty," he complained. "An' thar 's dizziness, too,--I can't chase the calf three times round the barnyard but what my head is jest swimmin'! An' Hitty,"--his voice grew impressive,--"Hitty, I've got ev'ry one of them six symptoms, ev'ry blamed one of 'em, an' I picked 'em out of six diff'rent advertisements--six! Now, Hitty, which disease is it I've got? That's what I want ter know--which?"

His wife could not tell him; in fact, no one could tell him, and in sheer desperation Jason answered all six of the advertisements, determined to find out for a certainty what ailed him.

In due course the answers came. Jason read one, then another, then another, until the contents of the entire six had been mastered. Then he raised his head and gazed straight into his wife's eyes.

"Hitty," he gasped. "I've got 'em all! An' I've got ter take the whole six medicines ter cure me!"

Even Mehitable was stirred then. For one long minute she was silent, then she squared her shoulders, and placed her hands on her hips.

"Jason Hartsorn," she began determinedly, "this thing has gone jest as fur as I'm goin' to stand it. Do you bundle yourself off ter Boston an' hunt up the biggest doctor you can find. If he says somethin' ails ye, I 'll believe him, an' nuss ye ter the best of my ability; but as fur nussin' ye through six things--an' them all ter once--I won't! So there."

Twenty-four hours later Jason faced a square-jawed, smooth-shaven man who looked sharply into his eyes with a curt, "Well, sir?"

Jason cleared his throat.

"Well, ye see, doctor," he began, "somethin' ails me, an' I ain't quite sure what 't is. I 've been poorly since last spring, but it's been kind of puzzlin'. Now, fur instance: I had a pain in my knee, so I felt sure 'twas hip-disease, but it jumped ter my shoulder, so 'course then I knew 't was my liver."

The doctor made a sudden movement. He swung squarely around in his office chair and faced Jason.

Jason was pleased--his learning had already made an impression! He raised his chin and went on with renewed confidence.

"Ye see I was afraid my liver, or mebbe one o' my kidneys, was hardenin' or floatin' round loose, or doin' somethin' else they had n't orter. Lately, thar's been days, lots of 'em, when I hain't had no pain--not a mite, an' 'course that's the worst symptom of all. Then sometimes thar's been such shootin' pains that I kind o' worried fur fear 'twas locomotive ataxia; but mebbe the very next day it would change so's I did n't know but 'twas appendicitis, an' that my vermi-er-vermicelli appendix was the trouble."

The doctor coughed--he not only coughed, but he choked, so that Jason had to pause for a moment; but it was only for a moment.

"I 'most had diphtheria, an' pneumonia, an' smallpox this fall," he resumed complacently; "an' thar's six other diseases that I got symptoms of--that is, partly, you know:--'Variable appetite,' an' 'Inquietude,' an' all that."

"Hm-m," said the doctor, slowly, his eyes averted. "Well, we'll--make an examination. Come in here, please," he added, leading the way to an inner room.

"Gorry!" ejaculated Jason some minutes later, when he was once more back in his chair, "I should think you might know what ails me now--after all that thumpin' an' poundin' an' listenin'!"

"I do," said the doctor.

"Well, 't ain't six of 'em; is it?" There was mingled hope and fear in Jason's voice. If it were six--he could see Hitty's face!

"Any physicians in your family?" asked the doctor, ignoring Jason's question.

Jason shook his head.

"Hm-m," commented the doctor. "Ever been any?"

"Why, not as I know of, sir," murmured Jason wonderingly.

"No? Where did you get them, then,--those medical books?"

Jason stared.

"Why, how in thunder did you know--" he began.

But the doctor interrupted him.

"Never mind that. You have them, have n't you?"

"Why, yes; I bought 'em at an auction. I bought 'em last--"

"Spring--eh?" supplied the doctor.

Jason's mouth fell open.

"Never mind," laughed the doctor again, his hand upraised. "Now to business!" And his face grew suddenly grave. "You're in a bad way, my friend."

"B-bad way?" stammered Jason. "It--it is n't six that ails me?"

It was all fear this time in Jason's voice; some way the doctor's face had carried conviction.

"No; you are threatened with more than six."

"Wha-at?" Jason almost sprang from his seat. "But, doctor, they ain't--dangerous!"

"But they are, very!"

"All of them? Why, doctor, how--how many are thar?"

The doctor shook his head.

"I could not count them," he replied, not meeting Jason's eyes.

"Oh-h!" gasped Jason, and shook in his shoes. There was a long silence. "An' will I--die?" he almost whispered.

"We all must--sometime," returned the doctor, slowly, as if weighing his words; "but you will die long before your time--unless you do one thing."

"I'll do it, doctor, I'll do it--if I have ter mortgage the farm," chattered Jason frenziedly. "I'll do anythin'--anythin'; only tell me what it is."

"I will tell you," declared the doctor briskly, with a sudden change of manner, whisking about in his chair. "Go home and burn those medical books--every single one of them."

"Burn them! Why, doctor, them's the very things that made me know I was sick. I should n't 'a' come ter you at all if it had n't been fur them."

"Exactly!" agreed the doctor, rubbing his hands together. "That's just what I thought. You were well before, were n't you?"

"Why, yes,--that is, I did n't know I was sick," corrected Jason.

"Hm-m; well, you won't know it now if you'll go home and burn those books. If you don't burn them you'll have every disease there is in them, and some one of them will be the death of you. As it is now, you're a well man, but I would n't trust one organ of your anatomy within a rod of those books an hour longer!"

He said more--much more; and that his words were not without effect was shown no later than that same evening when Jason burst into the kitchen at home.

"Hitty, Hitty, thar ain't six, thar ain't one, thar ain't nothin' that ails me," he cried jubilantly, still under the sway of the joy that had been his when the great doctor had told him there was yet one chance for his life. "Thar ain't a single thing!"

"Well, now, ain't that nice?" murmured Hitty, as she drew up the chairs. "Come, Jason, supper's ready."

"An' Hitty, I'm goin' ter burn 'em up--them books of Hemenway's," continued Jason confidentially. "They ain't very good readin', after all, an' like enough they're kind of out of date, bein' so old. I guess I'll go fetch 'em now," he added as he left the room. "Why, Hitty, they're--gone!" he cried a minute later from the doorway.

"Gone? Books?" repeated Mehitable innocently. "Oh, yes, I remember now. I must 'a' burned 'em this mornin'. Ye see, they cluttered up so. Come, Jason, set down."

And Jason sat down. But all the evening he wondered. "Was it possible, after all, that Hitty--knew?"

Crumbs

The Story of a Discontented Woman

The floor was untidy, the sink full of dirty dishes, and the stove a variegated thing of gray and dull red. At the table, head bowed on outstretched arms, was Kate Merton, twenty-one, discouraged, and sole mistress of the kitchen in which she sat. The pleasant-faced, slender little woman in the doorway paused irresolutely on the threshold, then walked with a brisk step into the room. "Is the water hot?" she asked cheerily. The girl at the table came instantly to her feet.

"Aunt Ellen!" she cried, aghast.

"Oh, yes, it's lovely," murmured the lady, peering into the copper boiler on the stove.

"But, auntie, you--I"--the girl paused helplessly.

"Let's see, are these the wipers?" pursued Mrs. Howland, her hand on one of the towels hanging behind the stove.

Kate's face hardened.

"Thank you, Aunt Ellen. You are very kind, but I can do quite well by myself. You will please go into the living-room. I don't allow company to do kitchen work."

"Of course not!" acquiesced Mrs. Howland imperturbably. "But your father's sister is n't company, you know. Let's see, you put your clean dishes here?"

"But, Aunt Ellen, you must n't," protested Kate. "At home you do nothing--nothing all day." A curious expression came into Mrs. Howland's face, but Kate Merton did not seem to notice. "You have servants to do everything, even to dressing you. No, you can't wipe my dishes."

For a long minute there was silence in the kitchen. Mrs. Howland, wiper in hand, stood looking out the window. Her lips parted, then closed again. When she finally turned and spoke, the old smile had come back to her face.

"Then if that is the case, it will be all the more change for me to do something," she said pleasantly. "I want to do them, Kate. It will be a pleasure to me."

"Pleasure!"

Mrs. Rowland's clear laugh rang through the kitchen at the scorn expressed in the one word.

"And is it so bad as that?" she demanded merrily.

"Worse!" snapped Kate. "I simply loathe dishes!" But a shamed smile came to her lips, and she got the pans and water, making no further objection.

"I like pretty dishes," observed Mrs. Howland, after a time, breaking a long silence. "There's a certain satisfaction in restoring them to their shelves in all their dainty, polished beauty."

"I should like them just as well if they always stayed there, and did n't come down to get all crumbs and grease in the sink," returned the other tartly.

"Oh, of course," agreed Mrs. Howland, with a smile; "but, as long as they don't, why, we might as well take what satisfaction there is in putting them in shape again."

"Don't see it--the satisfaction," retorted Kate, and her aunt dropped the subject where it was.

The dishes finished and the kitchen put to rights, the two women started for the chambers and the bed-making. Kate's protests were airily waved aside by the energetic little woman who promptly went to pillow-beating and mattress-turning.

"How fresh and sweet the air smells!" cried Mrs. Howland, sniffing at the open window.

"Lilacs," explained Kate concisely.

"Hm-m--lovely!"

"Think so? I don't care for the odor myself," rejoined Kate.

The other shot a quick look from under lowered lids. Kate's face expressed mere indifference. The girl evidently had not meant to be rude.

"You don't like them?" cried Mrs. Howland. "Oh, I do! My dear, you don't half appreciate what it is to have such air to breathe. Only think, if you were shut up in a brick house on a narrow street as I am!"

"Think!" retorted Kate, with sudden heat. "I 'd like to do something besides 'think'! I 'd like to try it!"

"You mean you'd like to leave here?--to go to the city?"

"I do, certainly. Aunt Ellen, I'm simply sick of chicken-feeding and meal-getting. Why, if it was n't for keeping house for father I 'd have been off to New York or Boston years ago!"

"But your home--your friends!"

"Commonplace--uninteresting!" declared Kate, disposing of both with a wave of her two hands. "The one means endless sweeping and baking; the other means sewing societies, and silly gossip over clothes, beaux, and crops."

Mrs. Howland laughed, though she sobered instantly.

"But there must be something, some one that you enjoy," she suggested.

Kate shook her head wearily.

"Not a thing, not a person," she replied; adding with a whimsical twinkle, "they're all like the dishes, Aunt Ellen,--bound to accumulate crumbs and scraps, and do nothing but clutter up."

"Oh, Kate, Kate," remonstrated Mrs. Howland, "what an incorrigible girl you are!" As she spoke her lips smiled, but her eyes did not--there was a wistful light in their blue depths that persistently stayed there all through the day as she watched her niece.

At ten, and again at half-past, some neighbors dropped in. After they had gone Kate complained because the forenoon was so broken up. The next few hours were free from callers, and at the supper table Kate grumbled because the afternoon was so stupid and lonesome. When Mr. Merton came in bringing no mail, Kate exclaimed that nobody ever answered her letters, and that she might just as well not write; yet when the next day brought three, she sighed over the time "wasted in reading such long letters."

The week sped swiftly and Sunday night came. Mrs. Howland's visit was all but finished. She was going early the next morning.

Sunday had not been an unalloyed joy. Mrs. Howland and her niece had attended church, but to Kate the sermon was too long, and the singing too loud. The girl mentioned both in a listless way, at the same time saying that it was always like that except when the sermon was interesting, then it was too short and the choir took up all the time there was with their tiresome singing.

Dinner had been long in preparation, and, in spite of Mrs. Rowland's gladly given assistance, the dish-washing and the kitchen-tidying had been longer still. All day Kate's step had been more than lagging, and her face more than discontented. In the twilight, as the two women sat together, Mrs. Rowland laid hold of her courage with both hands and spoke.

"Kate, dear, is n't there something, anything, worth while to you?"

"Nothing, auntie. I feel simply buried alive."

"But can't you think of anything--"

"Think of anything!" interrupted the girl swiftly. "Of course I can! If I had money--or lived somewhere else--or could go somewhere, or see something once in a while, it would be different; but here--!"

Mrs. Howland shook her head.

"But it would n't be different, my dear," she demurred.

"Why, of course it would!" laughed Kate bitterly. "It could n't help it."

Again Mrs. Howland shook her head. Then a whimsical smile crossed her face.

"Kate," she said, "there are crumbs on the plates out in the world just the same as there are here; and if here you teach yourself to see nothing but crumbs, you will see nothing but crumbs out there. In short, dissatisfaction with everyday living is the same joy-killer whether in town or city, farmhouse or palace. Oh, I 'm preaching, I know, dear," went on Mrs. Howland hurriedly, as she saw the angry light in the other's eyes, "but--I had to speak--you don't know how it's growing on you. Come, let's kiss and make up; then think it over."

Kate frowned, then laughed constrainedly.

"Don't worry, aunt," she replied, rising, and just touching her aunt's lips with her own. "I still think it would be different out there; but--I suppose you 'll always remain unconvinced, for I shall never have the chance to prove it. My plates won't belong anywhere but in Hopkinsville cupboards! Come, will you play to me?"

When Mrs. Rowland returned from England, one of the first letters she received after reaching home was a cordial invitation from her dead brother's daughter, Kate, to visit her.

In the last five years Mrs. Howland had seen her niece but once. That was during the sad, hurried days just following Mr. Merton's sudden death four years before. Since then Mrs. Howland had been abroad and there had been many changes at the little farmhouse in Hopkinsville. The farm had been sold, and Kate had married and had gone to Boston to live. Beyond the facts that Kate's husband was older than she, and was a man of considerable means, Mrs. Howland knew little of her niece's present circumstances. It was with curiosity, as well as pleasure, that she accepted Kate's invitation, and took the train specified.

At the South Station Mrs. Howland found a stylishly gowned, smiling young woman with a cordial welcome. An imposing carriage with a liveried coachman waited to take her to Kate's home.

"Oh, what handsome horses!" cried Mrs. Howland appreciatively, as she stepped into the carriage.

"Yes, are n't they," agreed Kate. "If only they matched better, they'd be perfect. I wish both had stars on their foreheads!"

"Let me see, you are on Beacon Street, I believe," remarked Mrs. Howland, as the carriage left the more congested quarter of the city.

Kate frowned. "Yes," she answered. "I wanted Commonwealth Avenue, but Mr. Blake preferred Beacon. All his people live on Beacon, and have for years."

"Oh, but Beacon is lovely, I think."

"Do you? Well, perhaps; but Commonwealth is so much wider and more roomy. I could breathe on Commonwealth Avenue, I think!"

"And don't you, where you are?" laughed Mrs. Howland.

Her niece made a playfully wry face.

"Just pant--upon my word I do! Not one full breath do I draw," she asserted.

"Hm-m; I've always understood that deep breathing was necessary for health," commented Mrs. Howland, with a critical, comprehensive glance; "but--you seem to thrive all right! You are looking well, Kate."

"I don't feel so. I have the most shocking headaches," the other retorted. "Ah, here we are!"

Mrs. Howland followed her hostess up a short flight of stone steps into a handsome hall. A well-trained maid was at once in attendance, and another, a little later, helped her unpack.

"My dear," Mrs. Howland said to her niece when she came downstairs, "what a lucky woman you are to have two such maids! They are treasures!"

Kate's hands flew to her head with a gesture of despair.

"Maids!--Aunt Ellen, don't ever say the word to me, I beg! I never keep one more than a month, and I'm shaking in my shoes this very minute. There's a new cook in the kitchen, and I have n't the least idea what your dinner will be."

"I 'm not a bit worried," rejoined Mrs. Howland. "What a pretty home you have, Kate," she added, tactfully changing the subject.

"Think so? I'm glad you like it. I sometimes wish I could get hold of the man who built this house, though, and give him a piece of my mind. The rooms on this floor are so high studded they give me the shivers, while all the chambers are so low they are absurd. Did n't you notice it in your room?"

"Why--no; I don't think I did."

"Well, you will now."

"Perhaps so, since you have told me to," returned Mrs. Howland, a curious smile on her lips.

The dinner was well planned, well cooked, and well served, in Mrs. Howland's opinion, though to her niece it was none of the three. Kate's husband, the Honorable Eben Blake, proved to be a genial, distinguished-looking man who welcomed Mrs. Howland with the cordiality that he displayed toward anybody or anything connected in the most remote degree with his wife. It was evidently with sincere regrets that he made his apologies after dinner, and left the house with a plea of business.

"It's always that way when I want him!" exclaimed Kate petulantly. "Then night after night when I don't want him he'll stay at home and read and smoke."

"But you have friends--you go out," hazarded Mrs. Howland.

Mrs. Blake raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, of course! But, after all, what do calls and receptions amount to? You always meet the same people who say the same things, whether you go to see them or they come to see you."

Mrs. Howland laughed; then she said, softly,

"The old, old story, Kate,--the crumbs on the plates."

"What?" demanded the younger woman in frank amazement. There was a moment's pause during which she gazed blankly into her aunt's eyes. "Oh!--that?" she added, coloring painfully; then she uptilted her chin. "You are very much mistaken, auntie," she resumed with some dignity. "It is nothing of the sort. I am very happy--very happy, indeed!"--positively. "I have a good husband, a pretty home, more money than is good for me, and--well, everything," she finished a little breathlessly.

Again Mrs. Howland laughed, but her face grew almost instantly grave.

"And yet, my dear," she said gently, "scarcely one thing has been mentioned since I came that was quite right."

"Oh, Aunt Ellen, how can you say such a dreadful thing!"

"Listen," replied Mrs. Howland; "it's little bits of things that you don't think of. It has grown on you without your realizing it: the horses did n't both have stars; the house was n't on Commonwealth Avenue; the rooms are too high or too low studded; the roast was over-done; your husband could n't"--

"Oh, auntie, auntie, I beg of you!"--interrupted Kate hysterically.

"Are you convinced, then?"

Kate shook her head. "I can't, auntie--I can't believe it!" she cried. "It--it can't be like that always. There must have been special things to-day that plagued me. Auntie, I'm not such a--monster!"

"Hm-m; well--will you consent to an experiment to--er--find out?"

"Indeed I will!" returned Kate promptly.

"Very good! Every time I hear those little dissatisfied fault-findings, I am going to mention crumbs or plates or china. I think you'll understand. Is it a bargain?"

"It's a bargain," agreed Kate, and she smiled confidently.

The rest of the evening Mrs. Blake kept close guard over her tongue. Twice a "but" and once an "only" slipped out; but she bit her lips and completed her sentence in another way in each case, and if Mrs. Howland noticed, she made no sign.

It rained the next morning. Kate came into the dining-room with a frown.

"I'm so sorry, auntie," she sighed. "I'd planned a drive this morning. It always rains when I want to do something, but when I don't, it just shines and shines, week in and week out."

"Won't the rain wash the--plates?" asked Mrs. Howland in a low voice, as she passed her niece's chair.

"Wha-at?" demanded Mrs. Blake; then she flushed scarlet. "Weather doesn't count," she finished flippantly.

"No? Oh!" smiled Mrs. Howland.

"Fine muffins, these!" spoke up Mr. Blake, a little later. "New cook--eh?"

"Yes," replied his wife. "But they're graham. I 'd much rather have had corn-cake."

"There are not so many--crumbs to graham," observed Mrs. Howland musingly.

There was no reply. The man of the house looked slightly dazed. His wife bit her lip, and choked a little over her coffee. Through the rest of the meal Mrs. Blake confined herself almost exclusively to monosyllables, leaving the conversation to her husband and guest.

At ten the sky cleared, and Mrs. Blake ordered the horses.

"We can't drive far," she began discontentedly, "for I ordered an early luncheon as we have tickets for a concert this afternoon. I wanted to go away out beyond the Newtons, but now we'll have to take a little snippy one."

"Oh, I don't mind," rejoined her guest pleasantly. "Where one can't have the whole cake one must be satisfied with--crumbs."

"Why, I don't see"--began Kate aggressively; then she stopped, and nervously tapped her foot.

"Oh, how pretty that vine is!" cried Mrs. Howland suddenly. The silence was growing oppressive.