CHAPTER VIII
IN THE TIME OF THE SICKNESS
TO be sure, Miles did not die, but for some days he lay in thesick-house, too ill to give much heed to what went on about him, ortake thought for anything save his own misery. From a mass of hazyrecollections one or two moments of that time afterward came backclearly.
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 thewindows, he heard a latch creak somewhere and men tread cautiously.Turning weakly on his pillow, Miles looked to the door that led tothe inner room, where the sick women lay, and he saw Goodman Cookeand Edward Dotey come forth, stepping carefully, and carrying on astretcher between them something that was muffled up and motionless. Heturned his face again to the wall, and neither thought nor reasoned ofwhat it meant,--just listened to the lulling patter of the rain.
The other time of which he kept remembrance was a crisp night, when thewhiff of wind that blew in at the outer door, as it was opened, smeltfresh and good, and Cooke, who came to tend the fire, piled the logshigh. Dozing and waking, Miles watched through half-closed eyelids thecrowded pallets about him, and the shadows that flickered up and downthe rough walls. He must have slept a moment, but he roused up suddenlyto see in the waning firelight Elder Brewster, who bent over him witha cup of drink. Leaning against the arm that supported him, Milesswallowed the draught obediently, and then the Elder, with more carethan he usually had time to bestow on a single patient, laid him downand drew the coverings round him. "Poor little lad!" Miles heard himsay, 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 dayor two later he felt enough like himself to swallow with some relish adish of broth. Ned Lister, packed out from the sick-house while stillconvalescent, to make room for others, fetched him the broth, andhelped him eat, with a choking great spoon that made the process slow.Miles wondered whether Ned had grown thin or his clothes had grownbaggy; 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 hispallet again: "Tell me, Ned, why has not my mother been here to nurseme, 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 wellinginto his eyes, "and I want my mother."
"I heard she had a touch of the fever herself," answered Ned, stillbusy with his shoes. "We're all helpless with it, Miles. There's onlyseven of us now that can crawl about to do aught. And the Captain andthe Elder are working each like three. By the Lord, those be two goodfellows!" This earnestly, for Ned; and then, gathering up his bowl andspoon, he walked away to minister to the next sick man.
Every one ill, and the care of the whole colony on the shoulders ofseven men, some half sick themselves! Miles realized vaguely that heought to be patient and not fret at anything, but still the next twodays 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. "Thelittle wench begged to come to you, Miles," he said, as he seated heron 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, Dollybent and dabbed a kiss upon her brother's chin. "Though you make meshy, near as if you were a stranger, Miles," she explained, in asubdued whisper, "you are grown so peaked, and your eyes are so veryround."
Miles smiled weakly, but happily, it was so good to see the face of oneof his own people. "I'm glad you came, Dolly," he said, drawing herhand 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. Theysaid I must not speak of her to you. Oh, Miles, Miles, she has beendead these four days!"
They carried Dolly away, the mischief done, and Miles, hiding hishead beneath the bedclothes, cried so long as strength was in him.Then he lay watching the red and orange streaks that flashed beforehis tight-closed eyes, and, thinking how stuffy it was beneath thecoverlets, wondered if perhaps he would not smother. He hoped he would,so he had a first sensation of fretful disappointment, when some oneuncovered his head; and then, as he caught the clearer air on his faceand 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 asever; but he was a healthy lad, so inevitably strength came back tohim, and with it, little by little, as he mastered it in silence, hisgrief abated. Those about him were kind, too, and did what they couldto comfort him. Captain Standish himself cared for him; Ned Lister andGiles visited him often; and once they even let poor, guilty Dollycome to see him. She fetched in her arms fat Solomon, who yowled sopiteously that, just inside the door, Doctor Fuller, who was up andable to tend his sick again, made her put him down, whereupon the catfled home, fast as four legs could bear him.
"'Twas such a pity when I fetched him so far to see you," Dollylamented to Miles, as she exhibited the scratches on her hands, "but hewill go home safe to Mistress Brewster's house. He likes it there, andso do I. I am going to live there always with Love and Wrestling andPriscilla 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 itat Mistress Brewster's. If only mammy and daddy were there too!" sheadded, 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 blessedplace, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he mightjoin her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for theElder'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 hispallet, whispered him of his mother, and how, before she died, she hadleft her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a goodbrother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without mybidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good littleson to me."
Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when MistressBrewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast andturned away his head.
Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slowstages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly acrossthe room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which woulddoubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to giveclose heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, andthe Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning whenLister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into hisown hands by slipping out at the door.
It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring thatcame from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; thefew bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were burstingw
ith brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight.Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshnessof the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to thebluff yonder where were the levelled graves.
"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"]
Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off thedoorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, wherethe sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for thechips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stackedagainst the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of waterrested 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 Captainlook 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 wrappedthe garment about Miles.
Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched theCaptain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal ofsober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them sovigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest andbusy 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 asheet 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 mustneeds 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 aquick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man'sshare of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavythoughts."
Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called tomind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress RoseStandish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on thebluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying oncemore to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he beganstoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have totake care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."
Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes intohis 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, Milesrested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, andsouthward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. Abrave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his motherhad looked for him to do.
A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins cameleisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had beentouched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles hadever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you thinkyou could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"
"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkinswas building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street fromthe Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to thelatter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeingagain the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and oftalking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he gotup 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 thisnoontime."
"Thank you, sir," Miles answered, not overjoyed, but civilly.
"I'll take you to the house with me when I go back thither," the otherpursued. "You understand, you are to dwell with me hereafter."
When Captain Standish returned from his drying ground, Stephen Hopkinshad gone on down to the landing, and against the logs huddled apiteous-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 thewater 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 GoodwifeBillington. Must I go to him, Captain Standish?" Forgetting his usualrespectful demeanor, Miles rose, and, stumbling the few steps to theCaptain, leaned against his knee. "I thought--maybe I should go withDolly 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'shalf a bed; you can sleep with Giles. In any case, Master Hopkins wasyour father's kinsman."
"I could go to Goodman Cooke," pleaded Miles. "Or--or--I wish I couldlive 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 thoughtthey 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 blueharbor, yet he seemed to see nothing of it. When he spoke again, histone was quick and altered: "But as things have fallen out, John Aldenand I are sleeping in an unfinished cabin and eating where we can finda bite. And a little young fellow like you would be better off in ahousehold where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they havearranged it all for your best good."
Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of whatthe 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," hebegan 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 cameto fetch him to his new home. To him it was all so much a matter ofcourse that he offered no explanations or commonplace cheering words toMiles; just bade him come, and soberly led the way up the hill. Miles,with his feet like lead and his brave resolution flagging, loiteredhalf-heartedly behind him, till Master Hopkins turned. "You're not yetas strong as you thought, Miles Rigdale?" he said gravely, but kindlyenough, and, lifting the boy in his arms, carried him up the hill.
Miles rested passive, one arm thrown perfunctorily about MasterHopkins's neck, and wished he were anywhere else.