CHAPTER XVII WAITING
"How is Sylvia?" Katherine's voice was husky with anxiety.
Nyoda looked grave over the tray she was carrying down to the kitchen."No better yet; a little worse this morning, if anything. Her fever hasgone up one degree during the night and she is coughing more than ever."
"Is it going to be pneumonia?" asked Katherine steadily, her eyessearching Nyoda's face.
"Not if I can help it," replied Nyoda, in a tone of grim determination,the light of battle sparkling in her eyes. Nevertheless, there was a noteof worry in her voice that struck cold fear into Katherine's heart,stoutly optimistic as she was. What if Sylvia should die before herfather came back? The other Winnebagos, clustering around Nyoda to hearthe latest news from Sylvia's bedside, stood hushed and solemn. Nyoda setthe tray down on the table and leaned wearily against the door, her eyesheavy from lack of sleep. Instantly Migwan was at her side, allsolicitude.
"Go, lie down and sleep awhile, Nyoda," she urged. "You've been up nearlyall night. I can look after Sylvia for a few hours--I know how. Go to bednow and we'll bring some breakfast up to you, and then you can go tosleep." Putting her arm around Nyoda she led her upstairs and tucked herinto bed, smoothing the covers over her with gentle, motherly hands,while the girls below prepared a dainty breakfast tray.
"Nice--child!" murmured Nyoda, from the depths of her pillow."Nice--old--Migwan! Always--taking--care--of--someone!" Her voice trailedoff in a tired whisper, and by the time the breakfast tray arrived shewas sound asleep.
Sylvia also slept most of the time that Migwan watched beside her, afitful slumber broken by many coughing spells and intervals of difficultbreathing. Never had Sylvia seemed so beautiful and so princesslike toMigwan as when she lay there sleeping in the big four-poster bed, hershining curls spread out on the pillow and her fever-flushed cheeksglowing like roses. Lying there so still, with her delicate little whitehand resting on top of the coverlet, she brought to Migwan's mindGoethe's description of the beautiful, dead Mignon, in whom the vividtints of life had been counterfeited by skillful hands. To Migwan'slively imagination it seemed that Sylvia was another Mignon, this childof lofty birth and breeding also cast by accident among humblesurroundings, and singing her way into the hearts of people. Would it bewith her as it had been with Mignon; would she never be reunited in lifewith her own people? The resemblance between the two lives struck Migwanas a prophecy and her heart chilled with the conviction that Sylvia wasgoing to die. Tears stole down her cheek as she saw, in her mind's eye,the father coming in just too late, and their beautiful, radiant Sylvialying cold and still, her joyful song forever hushed.
Migwan's melancholy mood lasted all morning, even after Nyoda came backand sent her out of the sick-room, and she sat staring into the libraryfire in gloomy silence, quite unlike her busy, cheery self. The day creptby on leaden feet. The hands of the clock seemed to be suffering fromparalysis; they stayed so long in one spot. Ordinarily clock hands atCarver House went whirling around their dials like pinwheels, and thechimes were continually striking the hour. Now each separate minuteseemed to have brought its knitting and come to stay.
"No word from Sherry and Hercules yet!" sighed Sahwah impatiently, as thewhistles blew half past eleven.
"Give them a chance," said Katherine, her voice proceeding in muffledtones from the depths of the music cabinet, which, in order to pass awaythe time, she had undertaken to set to rights.
"They've had plenty of chance by this time to get down on board theboat," returned Sahwah, getting up from her chair and pacing restlesslyup and down the room. Sahwah was not equipped by nature to bear suspensecalmly; under the stress of inaction she threatened to fly to pieces.
Katherine looked up with a faint smile from the heaps of sheet musiclying on the floor around her.
"Come and help me sort this music," she advised mildly, "it'll settleyour mind somewhat, besides giving me a lift. I'm afraid I've bitten offmore than I can chew. This is one grand mess of pieces without covers andcovers without pieces. You might get all the covers in order for me."
Sahwah gazed without enthusiasm upon the littered floor. "Sortmusic--ugh!" she said, with a grimace and a disgusted shrug of hershoulders. She picked her way to the other end of the library and stoodstaring restlessly out of the window.
It was a dreary, dull day. The Christmas snow had vanished in a thaw, anda chilly rain beat against the window panes with a dismal, melancholysound. The three boys fidgeted from one end of the house to the other,but could not get up enough steam to go out for a hike. Slim and theCaptain drummed chopsticks on the piano, and Justice tried to keep upwith them on the harp, until Migwan ordered them to be quiet so Sylviacould sleep, after which they sat in preternatural silence before thelibrary fire, listlessly turning over the pages of magazines which theydid not even pretend to read. The atmosphere of the house got so oneverybody's nerves that the snapping of a log in the fireplace almostcaused a panic.
The clock struck twelve, and Migwan, rousing herself from herpreoccupation, went out into the kitchen to prepare lunch, aided byGladys and Hinpoha, while Sahwah continued to pace the floor andKatherine went on nervously fitting covers to pieces and pieces tocovers, her ear ever on the alert for the sound of the telephone bell.Justice and Slim and the Captain, grown weary of their own company,trooped out into the kitchen after the girls, declaring _they_ were goingto get lunch, and it was not long before the inevitable reaction had setin, and pent-up spirits began to find vent in irrepressible hilarity.
Protests were useless. In vain Migwan flourished her big iron spoon andordered them out. Justice calmly took her apron and cap away from her andannounced that _he_ was going to be Chief Cook. Tying the apron aroundhim wrong side out, and setting the cap backward on his head, he held thespoon aloft like a Roman short-sword, and striking an attitude inimitation of Spartacus addressing the Gladiators, he declaimed feelingly:
"Ye call me _Chef_, and ye do well to call him _Chef_ Who for seven long years has camped in summertime, And made his coffee out of rain when there was no spring water handy, And mixed his biscuits in the wash-basin, Because the baking-pan no longer was.
But I was not always thus, an unhired butcher, A savage _Chef_ of still more savage menus----"
The teakettle suddenly boiled over with a loud hissing and sizzling, andthe impassioned orator jumped as though he had been shot; then,collecting himself, he rushed over and picked the kettle from the stoveand stood holding it in his hand, uncertain what to do with it.
"Set it down on the back of the stove!" commanded Migwan. "A great cookyou are! Even Slim would know enough to do that!"
"Thanks for the implied compliment," said Slim stiffly.
"Slim ought to be Chief Cook," said the Captain. "He's fat. Chief cooksare always fat."
"Right you are!" cried Justice, taking off the apron and tying it aroundSlim as far as it would go.
"But I can't cook!" protested Slim.
"That doesn't make any difference," replied Justice. "You look the part,and that's all that's needed. Looks are everything, these days."
He perched the cap rakishly on top of Slim's head and stood off a littledistance to eye the effect critically.
"Nobody could tell the difference between you and the Chef of theWaldorf," was his verdict.
Indeed, Slim, with his full moon face shining out under the cap, and theapron tied around his extensive waistline, looked just like the picturedcooks in the spaghetti advertisements.
"Isn't he the perfect Chef, though?" continued Justice admiringly. "Hemust have been born with an iron spoon in his hand, instead of a gold onein his mouth." Then, turning to Slim and bowing low before him, hechanted solemnly, "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena, go forth, beloved ofheaven! All the other cooks will drown themselves in their soup kettlesin despair when they see you coming. All hail the Chief Cook!"
"But I can't cook!" repeated Slim helplessly.
&
nbsp; "You don't have to," Justice reassured him. "Chief Cooks don't have tocook; they just direct the others. Behold, we stand ready to obey yourlightest command."
"All right," said Slim, "suppose you pare the potatoes."
"Ask me anything but that!" Justice begged him. "I never get the eyes cutout, and then when they're on my plate they look up at me reproachfully,like this----"
Justice screwed up his face and rolled his eyes into a grimace thatconvulsed the girls.
"No, you pare the potatoes, Slim," he continued. "The Chief Cook alwayspares the potatoes himself. It's too delicate a job to entrust to asubordinate."
Slim had his mouth open to protest, and Sahwah and Katherine, who hadjust wandered out into the kitchen, were in a gale of merriment overSlim's costume, when the doorbell rang and a messengerboy passed in atelegram.
They all pressed around eagerly while Katherine read it. It was fromSherry:
"South America boat sailed yesterday. Dr. Phillips gone. Can get no clue. Coming home to-night."
A long, tragic "Oh-h-h!" from Hinpoha broke the stricken silence whichhad fallen on the group at the reading of the message.
"Tough luck," said the Captain feelingly, and Justice repeated, "Toughluck," like an echo.
The Winnebagos glanced uncertainly toward the stairway and looked at eachother inquiringly.
"Somebody go up and call Nyoda," said Katherine.
Just at that moment the door of Sylvia's room opened and Nyoda camerunning downstairs with light, swift footsteps, her face wreathed insmiles.
"Sylvia's better," she called, before she was halfway down. "The feverleft her while she was sleeping, and her temperature is normal. Thedanger of pneumonia is over. I'm so relieved." She skipped down the lastof the stairs like a young girl.
Then she caught sight of the telegram in Katherine's hand, and sensed theatmosphere of depression that prevailed in the lower hall. She knew thetruth before a word was spoken, and composed herself to meet it.
"They were too late?" she said quietly, as she joined the group, and heldout her hand for the bit of yellow paper.
"Poor Sylvia!" she exclaimed huskily. "She would soon be well enough tohear the news--and now there is nothing to tell her. If we had only foundthat letter a day sooner!"